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Special Agent Field Reports, June 2020
🕑 Added 2020-07-29 15:26:44 +0000 UTCSorry for the wait on this, been a heck of a month and I had to focus on the first draft for the next issue! Reposting this to adjust the image.
Secret Agent Avia Jiutai uncovered an ancient board game almost lost to antiquity. In observing the excavation of a tomb discovered in Morocco (under the assumption that it might have been haunted [it wasn't]), a long, curved game board was discovered. This board matched a depiction seen in only one historical fresco from the region, and was assumed to have been a variant of mancala. However, the real board, and the carvings on it, prove the existence of a completely new, unknown game. Most strikingly, analysis of stains found on the clay board proved to be blood. Nearby metal tools were found to slot perfectly into the holes in the board and, based on this and re-interpretation of the fresco, Agent Jiutai reasons that this game was based around the severing of body parts (most likely fingers). As the tomb was that of a low-ranking government official who left no written record, and is the only example of the “game” ever found, it may be impossible to determine if this game was widespread, or if it is a unique example of an extremely gruesome variation on a gambling game.
Due to his experience with the (still unexplained) invisible creature in Brazil, Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin was summoned to a British nature reserve where park rangers had made a bizarre discovery. The agent arrived to what appeared to be an empty dirt clearing but, when invited to explore it, he felt himself strike an unseen barrier. After careful exploration, and thermal images of the site, Agent Rakkin found a “door” on the invisible object, and entered what appeared to be an entirely invisible house. To the best of the agent's reasoning, the house appears to be a two-story building and seems to be full of invisible objects and furniture, some of which could be felt and heard to hit the floor when knocked over. After a few hours of (essentially) blind investigation, Agent Rakkin seemed to have found a fully furnished sitting room and kitchenette on the ground floor, and reports having discovered a banister and set of stairs going upwards. With no occupant apparently in the area, visible or not, Rakkin and local authorities will continue to investigate this seemingly impossible find.
Secret Agent Erik Fischer was sent to the American Midwest to investigate the discovery of several strange wooden figures that had appeared around a small town seemingly over night. The structures are crude but roughly anthropoid in stance, and seem to be a mixture of freshly split wood and branches and older lumber: close inspection of small bite marks indicated that a colony of feral beavers may have been responsible. Interviews with the local population lead to the discovery of a 90-year-old woodsman who confessed to the constructions, in a matter of speaking. According to the resident, he spent most of his life learning to communicate and train the feral beavers who lived in the nearby creek, and had trained the animals to build for him. Agent Fischer was shown to the old man's small cabin, which bore construction methods similar to the wooden figures. The woodsman treated the agent to a display of his command over the animals, which seemed eager and willing to work with him. He has declined offers of further study or interview.
Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw traveled to Scotland when a faulty broadcast seemed to have awoken an 80-year-old Russian sleeper agent. The broadcast was brief, but heard on all radio frequencies within the vicinity of a small town near Glasgow. The signal consisted of a five-tone melody and the word "dynamite" spoken by an unidentified woman with a neutral, but potentially northern European accent. The old sleeper agent, whose name is redacted for privacy reasons, rose from his wheelchair in his family home upon hearing the message and recovered a case of weaponry he had somehow kept hidden for 55 years and attempted to track down his target, a specific military officer. Although his target had been dead for 22 years at that point, it did not deter his efforts to fulfill the directive that had been awoken in his mind. After going off the grid for 28 hours, Agent Blackpaw was able to apprehend the sleeper agent during his walk towards the officer's last known residence and talk him out of anything violent. Counselors and social workers have spent time with the old man to calm him down, but he was insistent that he would not be at peace until he at least shot the grave. When it was explained that the military officer was cremated and that his ashes had been spread into a river in Ireland, he gave up. An investigation in conjunction with Russian police is underway to uncover any further forgotten sleeper agents.
The Australian medical community summoned Special Agent Cat Zirka to help with a disturbing find. Erratic behavior and unexplained illness had been tracked through a growing number of the population over the past ten years, with no apparent cause until now. Scientists showed Agent Zirka their findings from a series of autopsies, wherein several long, pale worms were discovered buried in the frontal lobe of the deceased's brains. This unknown species of parasite seems to influence behavior through the secretion of chemical hormones specifically tailored for the anthropoid brain and, furthermore, seem to either breed or communicate between bodies through the swapping of chemical signals. The transmission vector is still unknown, though scientists theorize that manipulation of a body's scent or pheromones could be related to the spread or communication between hosts. Agent Zirka, working from rough estimates of infection numbers, reasons that the effected population may number into the thousands. The extent of the worms' effect on their host, and on the host's behavior and culture, as well as what information is communicated between hosts, is still yet to be discovered. Agent Zirka herself was found to have no traces of infection from her time on the continent, though she will remain in quarantine for a short period as a precaution.
Special Agent Chaz Gates, not yet tired of ocean travel, volunteered to aid research into strange readings detected from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Though international efforts have managed to reduce ocean waste plastic and entirely clean some smaller 'islands' of garbage that collect in the world's oceans, this patch still remains a large and hazardous pollutant. Now, ocean researchers have detected strange chemical signals from the area, when researching the effects of the waste on local wildlife. With the help of Agent Gates, a significant number of small beetles were discovered camouflaged with the plastic of the island. Back on the ship, a quick analysis of some of the bugs revealed that the beetles were, in fact, made of plastic: the species's exoskeleton and some of its internal organs were composed entirely of plastic. Researchers suggest a rapid adaptation and evolution of bugs living on the floating island of garbage and are looking into whether the beetles represent a new hazard to world health, or perhaps a solution to the plastic pollution.
Special Agent Kouroth was sent to a small town in Western Sudan where a mysterious illness has rapidly spread within the past year. The illness was identified as a type of prion disease, classically only transmitted by acts of cannibalism. A long series of interviews and investigation into meat transport lead to the discovery of a small, independently owned butcher. After an unsuccessful attempt to interview the residents, the agent was given permission to sneak into the business at night while the residents were out. Agent Kouroth was able to search inside and found the remains of several anthropoid figures. Local authorities were contacted for a full investigation of the area; although the owner of the still-active slaughterhouse has not been caught, evidence suggests that his victim count may well be in the hundreds of people, done in secret over the course of several years and mixed into other meat sent to local markets for sale. While the prion disease was undoubtedly caused by consuming the anthropoid meat from the slaughterhouse, the fact remains that the number of missing persons cases is almost nil in the local area and certainly nowhere near enough to cover a few victims a month, as evidenced by the remains and reports seized at the slaughterhouse.
Special Agent Neo uncovered a lost book after a deep dive in an old German library. Mentioned only briefly in obscure codices, the rather thin tome was written in faint, nearly indecipherable script by hand, apparently purposefully written to be fairly illegible judging by the nature of the pen strokes. The book is a dream journal, or collection of dream journals, which detail seemingly ordinary dreams for a person living in the 1600s time period in which it was written. Extended reading of the journal caused severe headaches in Agent Neo and all other agents who attempted to read it, first theorized as a result of squinting at the fine pen marks in the old bound book. The following nights after studying the journal were marred by unusually severe nightmares for all readers. Agent Neo spent time studying the book's contents and found that it may use hidden, symbolic hexes or prayers woven in as repeating literary devices and subtle runes hidden within the handwriting. Further decoding has been put on hold, as the reported nightmares only became more severe with further study.
