Case File 452: Elkhorn, Wisconsin

[Serpens Walker]

So, feeling my welcome a bit frayed in Colorado, I've decided to head on back to New York to say hi to my friends and contacts, and I figured while I was on the way there, I'd stop by Elkhorn, Wisconsin. There have been many werewolf sightings there over the years, though not so much since Y2K. I have a personal interest in werewolves, so since I was driving across the nation, I figured I'd check out Bray Road for myself, and the woods in the area.

Just a quick FYI, I stopped by Winchester Mansion in Wyoming to see if I could get a read on the ghosts there, and... y'know what? They can stay. But I digress.

Now, I'm still a few hours out I imagine, and it'll be a bit late to START in on my personal investigation when I arrive, but I plan to use the usual tactics. Check the town library for microfiche that might be less well known, scope out historical records, talk to people who live off the road, maybe put a flyer up in the local bar for tips.

Expectations for this one are pretty low. Jefferson and Elkhorn counties both have had sightings, but the trails been cold for a long time now. Still, I want to check it out.

Hazards that are on my radar out here are the beast itself if it exists, angry mid-westerners who don't like us city folk, and disturbed spirits of several native American tribes, such as the Sauk, Black Hawk, and Meskwaki tribes, according to my historical contact.

Oh. And Cheese Heads. I'll need to remember to keep the jokes about 'a team called the Greenbay Packers' to myself.

Anyhow, we'll call this the first entry. It's... 9:25 pm. I'm chilling at a truck stop to get something to eat, probably going to hit an inn and start fresh tomorrow. Bonus points if I'm out there into evening and it gets eerily foggy out.

Oh, one more thing. If anyone happens to be out in the tristate area here and would be interested in joining me on my poking around, PM me and we'll work it out. This one is purely an investigation, there's no money, but there may be bites from animals, epic battles with undead native American guardians, buck shot fired from front porches... or possibly just several really boring nights and a bunch of wasted time.

[Gotham Witch]

The Beast of Bray Road, hm?

I once had a summer writing program in Madison back in '06. Back then we went out towards Elkhorn to try and find the thing. No luck, of course, though we did find some neat Christmas cards - I'm a sucker for souvenirs.

[Serpens Walker]

I imagine I'll have a bit more freedom to look around for it than you did, plus there's that whole poking ghosts and tombs things that I seem to have a knack for. I'm just as concerned I'll find nothing as I will a Skinwalker, so we'll see.

Today is the boring research day. Talking to strangers, poking around at the library (like right now), digging up charts, making photocopies, printing out maps, yada yada. The magitek GPS is picking up a few pings, though. I'm guessing they're ancestral burial grounds, which considering the stories, I'll have to be looking into a bit. Hopefully not digging up, but we'll see when I get there.

...ah hell. I almost forgot, I have to check if there's any big pharma out here...

[Grace]

Big Pharma?

[Gotham Witch]

His way of saying shady biomedical companies that might do less than ethical experiments, Red. You know, making chupacabra in a petrie dish.

[Serpens Walker]

Fortunately, there's no big pharma out there. Found an interesting article on microfiche, going to focus the first part of my search between mile marker 12 and 14. Also found out that while there haven't been any new specific sightings since 1998, there have been 'strange goings on' out in the woods according to the locals.

Oh. And tonight I saw spirit spheres moving through the woods, though I honestly expected that. I'm just hoping I don't get a full on spirit world overlay as I step into the places where the veil has been weakened... though I'm sure that's what I can expect.

[Serpens Walker]

Interviewed a bunch of townsfolk and learned about several burial mounds. I'll be checking them out as time allows. The people in town mostly have little to say about the beast of Bray Road, except that from time to time some fool like me shows up to try to find it. A few smaller pieces of cattle have disappeared in the area-goats, sheep, pigs, that sort've stuff. The farmers are mostly blamed broken fences and other generally more mundane concerns.

I'm headed into the woods tonight... well, right now really. I prefer to check things out at night on account of things being more active. A little double edged, but whatcha' gonna do. I don't know if I'm looking for a physical entity or a spirit, or even just an apparition.

I have confirmed the presence of native american spirits in and around the woods, though. Well, confirmed for me, not in the producible evidence sort of manner. The spirits are always watching the road, so I'm going to assume they're probably hostile when bothered.

I hate having to fight guardian spirits, but then, when humans leave behind guardian spirits, the wording of those orders is so vague there's often no choice for either of us. ...course, they probably consecrated the burial sites against white folk, considering the regions history.

Whatever, I'll handle it.

[Serpens Walker]

Interesting night last night. Nothing to show for it other than a few scrapes, but interesting all the same.

One of the big things I'd wanted to look into was that I'd heard someone had witnessed the beast digging up the burial mounds, so whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to deal with the guardians. They made it quite clear that no one was welcome in the woods, let alone near the mounds, but I wasn't about to let a little ghostly wrath stop me.

Ever been shot with spirit arrows? I'd imagine not, most people don't have a large enough spiritual presence to hit. It's loosely related to that concept of potential psychic energy that Dr. Lazlo talks about (if it even exists), but it's more complicated than JUST that since I know plenty of practitioners who still pass right through ghosts and ghostly attacks. Anyways, took a couple of shots, returned some fire, but I didn't see anything in the local paper today about freak weather or ball lightnings, so I think I'm good there.

The guardians are quite old, the fire of their spirits is dim. This is going down as ANOTHER situation I'd have liked to have talked to the monsters instead of dispatching them. I feel some places in the world should be sacred, but sometimes those of us that are living do need to look in those places. The guardians didn't understand... they never understand. At this point, I'm unsure what's become of them-sometimes you exorcise a ghost and they come back the next day. Other times you blast them, and they stay gone. Both methods have so far proven to have the same reliability as far as all that goes. We could get into this at some point, but I digress.

What was interesting when I arrived at the burial grounds is that something has definitely been disturbing them. My first thought was grave diggers, but the more I poked around, the less coherent the digging was. A grave digger is going to dig the mound up, search for artifacts, and leave. The mound was obviously dug up as if by a dog, with large swathes of dirt kicked out in a line behind the digger. It was, so far as I could tell without disturbing the site more, randomly dug as well. All on the mound itself, but without order or sense. Artifacts had been dug up, and at some point had been destroyed, though whether that was before or after they'd been dug up was hard to say.

A thorough search of the area and trees around the mound revealed someone... or squirrels... have been stashing bits of artifacts from the mounds in one of the trees nearby. I logged the coordinate of the tree with the artifacts and the burial ground so I could try to start finding a pattern if one exists.

[Rowan]

Is there a chance that these artifacts could be identified? Are they worth anything—any reason they would be set aside?

[Gotham Witch]

NAGPRA and other laws related to digging Native American graves limit the research somewhat, but there has been enough (a lot of) looting to get a general idea what mound builders buried in those mound sites. Most mounds are well over 1 to 2 thousand years old, so the spirits and artifacts are quite old. That also means that on the antiques market, those artifacts are worth alot. More relevant to us, they may hold power.

They should also be put back where they belong.

[Serpens Walker]

I prefer not to mess with artifacts like this, particularly because of NAGPRA. The last thing I need is to be putting things back and have some patrol come along and arrest me for looting artifacts I was putting back.

No... no good deed goes unpunished is something the world saw fit to teach me a while ago.

As for the investigation, it's on going at the moment, but... how do I put this. It's like two submarines that know the other one is there. We both know the other is around. We're both actively looking for the other, and really, it'd be a LOT easier to just fire up the active sonar and ping the other guy... but if we do that, we give away our position.

I've found prints, and more over, I've found prints at locations I was at just the other day. I'm not sure how this game is going to play out, so I've loaded the red clips.

[Gotham Witch]

A bit more information for the curious.

Many of those early mounds are considered Hopewell (200 BCE-500 CD), many of which were precursors to later Mississippian mound building traditions. Hopewell is not a political monicker, but more a reference to the vast trade network that a series of organized chiefdoms engaged in. That included obsidian from the northwest, raw copper from the Great Lakes, mica from the southeast, and shells from the Gulf Coast. Consider they did all of this travel on foot, and you'll have some idea how impressive it was.

Mounds are not always burial places. Some are ceremonial spaces where people put structures or other sacred ground atop. Others delineated places of power or the changing of seasons - Hopewell groups favored those that helped mark astronomical significance. Some were built deliberately near substantial lithic formations such as chert or siltstone - things used to make tools or ceremonial objects. Others still honored creatures of significance - The Effigy Mounds from Minnesota to Wisconsin and Iowa fit this. These are very often burial mounds.

All of that leaves me to the question of what artifacts might be contained - this varies heavily. One Cahokia-affiliated mound contained a man buried in a shell cloak, four headless retainers with pots placed where there heads were, the remains of eight maidens, and most of his substantial wealth. However, things like a ceremonial pipe, copper objects, some ceramics, weapons, and musical instruments are more common.

You might check to see what's around the sites that were invaded and see if there's a connection.

Watch yourself Joe.

[Serpens Walker]

I havn't found anything of interest so far on this one other than shards of pottery and probably bits of rope. Remember, I'm not here to do an excavation. The shards I've been finding aren't even very big or well marked-they're more like the sorts of shards that routinely get mistaken for rocks.

There's been a glass bead or two, though that hardly constitutes digging up a mound or disturbing sacred ground.

I dunno, this investigation is very slow, and the woods are... sleepy? It's more like the veil is thin here. I'm not sure there's anything to fear other than what you bring with you. I don't think I'm dealing with a beast in the way we commonly understand the term.

[Serpens Walker]

Well, after considering my findings and realizing how much time I've spent out here, I'm calling this one a bust, though maybe not the overt reasons. I've found everything but the beast, and I think I know why.

During my time here, I've noticed the veil in the area is really thin. Now, I imagine anyone would pick up on that after a while, but it's in the realm of things I can sense-hi power sigs, twisted elements, general impressions on something that is frequently used or is attached to an event of 'signifigance' (murders tend to leave a pyschic 'shout' on an item, for example), and crossing the veil.

Yes, crossing the veil. As far I'm concerned, I'm one step in all the time. And the problem in this forest is that I've crossed the veil no less than six times since I've been here poking around.

Further more, I notice that it's the 5th of April here, and I could swear I've only been here for five days. Time dilation across the veil isn't unheard of however, and it would explain how the beast goes for so long without sightings.

For whatever reason, I live here and now instead of thousands of years ago, or thousands into the future. I don't like this world I woke up in, and I often think of letting go of it and seeing where I end up next, but for now, there's people who care about me, so I'm not going to do that to them. And if that means letting go of an investigation before I get stranded on the other side, then I need to move on.

Oh. Also, the locals decided to have my truck towed and were about to auction it off as an 'abandoned' vehicle. And it's the weirdest thing, like I just suddenly remembered I'm due to practice my magic at a nearby, large body of water. Funny how mundanes being ASSHATS make us remember the little things...

[Nemesis]

Maybe someday you'll get to go back and crossover for as long as you want. Would you like that, Mr. Walker?

[Serpens Walker]

Maybe someday you'll get to go back and crossover for as long as you want. Would you like that, Mr. Walker?

It'll happen one day to all of us. Do I want to rush it along? I have mixed feelings about it.

[Gotham Witch]

Funny how mundanes being ASSHATS make us remember the little things...

Much like the moon and the stars moving through the sky, we all need a reference point. My landlady tried to get on my case for wanting to end my lease, until the 19 bits around the flat she had agreed to do maintenance on but never did shut her up. The break in in February didn't help her case either.

Funny how unsafe these times we live in are.

Back east then, Joe?

[Serpens Walker]

Yeah, after I stir the clouds a bit.

[Nemesis]

Don't be in a rush, Mr. Walker.

There's lots of time to stop and chat with the bunnies and mice.

-Cynthia