Brawls and Scrawls (ft. Piper)

"Your 'friend' passed by the other day." Silver had used air quotations at the mention of the word 'friend', but he wasn't sure what the relationship between Kamui and the bun in front of him was. 

Said bun showed a toothy grin, lightly scratching his cheek with one of his hooves. "He did sound rather intrigued. Always been a 'do now, ask later' kind of guy." his expression then returned to a more neutral one, still smiling, but just a friendly, polite look. "But that's not why you called me, right?"

Piper was a strange bun, truth to be told. A kind of guy that you didn't want to let your guard down too low; otherwise he might take something from you - not in a tangible sense, but usually something you didn't want to admit, or a favor dangled over like a feather toy for imps. If saying it straight, he was a broker. Not too high where he needed to be put in a glass prison for his protection, but not too low where his trade was only worth a few pieces of carats.

Virtually every bun in Burrowgatory knew about the recent murders in the midst of festivities. Revelry couldn't completely mask the worry and fear in the air, with some buns heading back home earlier than usual, and the streets getting a little bit quieter in certain parts of the evening before the crystals began to glow brighter, and 'daytime' would officially resume. 

Silver nodded once. "Nothing that requires payment, I believe. Just a request for additional hands."

Piper raised a brow. "Did you find something?"

"Ah, no. Not yet. I wanted to scour through some of the books from the Church of Sulfur to see if there is information here that I missed."

"And you got those books from..?"

"Someone I know."

If this were anywhere else, such a vague response would be suspicious, but since this was Burrowgatory, it meant the same thing but it also meant that its citizens did not care as much.

"So long as you return them." Piper said, spotting the telltale signs that these were from the library, thus it was likely that they were lent out under another name. He knew that Silver was not all that keen to mingle with the Church - not unless they were a vital lead.

That immediately shot up into the utmost priority when Father Oleander was announced dead. The cases of other Succubuns slowly increasing in number was already big news, but the Head of the Church? How could someone so prominent be..?

"I will." Silver said.

The vampire hunter gestured Piper into his study. Newspaper clippings hung on the wall with pins. Most were text, some had pictures, and alongside them were small handwritten notes plastered on top. String ran through some of them to indicate connections, but from afar it was hard to tell who was being tied to what.

In front of them was a long table with a small pile of paper and a stack of five or so books of different widths. There was a bookshelf further in and other piles of paper on the ground, along with file organizers and other things.

There was at least space to walk around without tripping.

Once Piper got settled into an old floral couch chair (likely came with the house Silver was given), the other bun handed one of the books to peruse. It felt old; the texture of the paper was a tad brittle, and in the well-lit room, it was clear that the pages were yellowish and stained on the sides.

The title read: Past Traces: Pre-Burrowgatory History.

"Usually books like these are fabulous enough to be considered fiction." Piper commented. He prided himself on having a vague approximation of many things, and while he knew next to nothing about history, he remembered that there was a boom in historical speculative fiction some years before, in which many books were produced and flooded the market. They touted themselves as truth backed by research, but it didn't take long for actual experts to debunk these claims, or at the very least, argue that there was no definitive evidence.

This must've made Silver's search for information particularly difficult, as while material did exist, he would need to compare information to see if it was even true.

"I specifically asked for these books. I made sure to do background checks on the authors."

"I suppose I will be the judge of that."

While Piper was no stranger to reading, academic books were not something he'd consider something that he enjoyed. He did his best to think of it as work so that he would not fall asleep, but since he was feeling generous today, he was going to make today's payment just some food for having him over.

There was little preserved history in the earliest years of Burrowgatory's development, based on the introduction of the book. However, this was not to say that Burrowgatory spawned in a vacuum, either - it was wholly possible that demons passed by much more often back then than they did presently, as assistance was required in establishing the first structures, many of which had been torn down and rebuilt for larger and better buildings to make space for increasing, exponential populations.

Practices regarding demon worship were thus more varied before - the Church of Sulfur had monopoly now, but it appeared that the exact date when domination occurred was uncertain. One of these obscure rituals was that a group of buns would congregate to a specific building that was made solely for sleeping. They would ensure that everyone laid and closed their eyes at a specific time, on the dot; otherwise, the ritual could not be invoked. If successful, the buns would report being able to commune with a particular demon that would grant a sliver of its power. It seemed that drinking a strange liquid was also involved to improve the chances of success.

"This book feels more like a writing exercise than something credible." Piper commented aloud, unwilling to admit that he was engrossed in its pages for longer than he expected. When he got no response though, he looked up again to find that Silver had his eyes closed and his cheek resting on his hand.

"...hey." Piper called, "HEY."

Silver flinched, snapping his eyes open. "Huh–oh," he cursed under his breath before closing the book and turning to the other bun. "Sorry, this author's writing is so dry, guess I dozed off for a short moment."

"Uh huh." he decided to be nice and not hold it over him. "We could always take a snack break. I can summarize what I read so far, though I doubt it'll be of much help. Nothing jumped out to me that described vampires or Zagan."

"It doesn't have to be. They are not the only threats to Burrowgatory. More could be hiding in the shadows."

If there were, Piper would think he would know, but then again, vampires were such a well-kept secret that even he wasn't privy to it until Silver approached him. He thought of it to be myth, and then the murders happened.

"Well, they're not on our throats right this second, so I vote break. You have something sweet, right?"

Silver sighed. "I have cookies."