December 15th, 2017
Weird things in stories are a great way to find cases. It also doesn’t hurt that this case is taking me to the Sunshine State of Florida during a period of time most of the country is locked in snow and ice.
Hey, one of the perks of this job is getting to go where I want when I want. Work is everywhere, after all, and the denizens of the dark don’t precisely take time off.
And this one, while ripped from a tabloid, definitely reeks of something up my alley. Let’s, between you and me (or me and me), just ignore that it happens to get me out of the cold for a while.
Next stop: Bakery, Florida.
December 16th, 2017
Muggier than I expected. Okay, I’m willing to admit now that the case here was a stretch. I’ve had a sit down with Kenneth under the guise of a reporter doing a deeper dive into his story.
He showed me some nasty scratches down one arm and a black mark on the opposite arm. The scratches looked real but the mark looked kind of fake to me, with blackened flesh in the shape of a handprint coiling around his forearm. He said the ER doc he saw sent him home with a prescription for an antibiotic and to monitor the injuries. He was to return if either got worse.
He reported to me that the scratches have healed slightly, but the handprint just continues to ache “bone deep.”
I left him with every intent of visiting the hospital to check what the doctor actually wrote. Hoping my suit and tie let me pass as an insurance investigator. I don’t have the time, or the desire, to get a full fake ID made.
Might be this really was a waste of my gas and time. That being written, if Ken’s injuries are legit, that means this is definitely a case for me.
December 17th, 2017
No way. They’re real.
Okay, so backing up: the insurance investigator shtick totally worked. I walked in with a clipboard, my suit and tie freshly pressed, and announced I was there to look into Mister Reedsen’s injuries for his insurance and they didn’t even bat an eye at it. Under 10 minutes later and I had a private room to review his medical charts.
Might just be the small hospital, but geez, the power of attitude and a clipboard might never cease to surprise me.
I’m distracted: Kenneth’s injuries are real. They treated the scratches as you would any laceration. The mark on his arm stumped the attending physician since it didn’t seem to be anything more than a surface mark. He took samples, both swab and blood draw, just in case and ran cultures. Everything came back negative and, since it didn’t seem to be life threatening, he called in a script for generalized antibiotics and a suggestion to come back if it got worse.
His notes suggest a deep bruise, even though the color is wrong.
Sounds like I should give Kenneth another visit and see if he can give me a better description of what assailed him.
December 17th, 2017
Double entry, I know. Alright, verified that his injuries are definitely still there and asked him about the creature. He described it as a shriveled old woman with skin so stuck to her bones she looked almost alien. Both eyes were sunken pits and her lips were retracted into her skull. He also said that her skin was a deep, dark green, almost an off black and shiny like leather.
He reassured me he wasn’t on anything and I assured him I’ve seen weirder and believe him.
Time to plug in the details I’ve got and figure out what this is.
December 18th, 2017
Alright. So the forums are a little more helpful than Jake. I mean, he gave me the right direction to look, but really, what ultimately helped was asking a broader base of people I can trust to give me accurate information.
I don’t think anyone had a confirmed method for dealing with a mummy (the last one people could readily come up with was from 1920’s Egypt and that was a different type, if type matters) was fire. Lots of things that are living dead like this are vulnerable to fire. As such, I’m packing Molotov’s and a homemade flamethrower in the form of hairspray and a lighter.
Alright. Things to be wary of:
A mummy might look frail, but its super strong.
That black mark on Kenneth’s arm? Mummy rot. He doesn’t know it yet, but the curse of the mummy is real and only vanquishing the mummy or amputation prevents it from being fatal.
It can’t be reasoned with.
Fortunately, it doesn’t sound like extreme measures need to be taken for disposal. Burn and salt similar to a ghost.
As always, bring a backup weapon.
December 19th, 2017
I spent all day wandering through the bog land near Bakery. I’m not sure my feet will ever dry out and hiking in a glorified swamp is definitely not something I found fun. As the day wore into night and a little bit after the sun set, I realized I’d made a mistake starting my hunt in the morning.
See, Kenneth was attacked at night, after having had a significant amount to drink, so the new thing I’ve learned about mummies that I’m sharing with everyone on the forum, and whomever is reading this, is that they’re nocturnal.
Don’t waste your time hunting during the day.
Other lessons: don’t let it anywhere near you. The digits at the end of its hands may look frail, but really, they cut like razors. Bring Dragonbreath shotgun rounds and gas if you don’t have a proper flamethrower. Fire was surprisingly effective given how damp it looked.
I salted the corpse just to be thorough.
Oh, and the theory that you need to end the mummy to stop the mummy rot? Completely confirmed. Kenneth will have a wicked, dark scar, but is making a full recovery.
I did recommend he lay down the sauce if he’s going to be out by the bog lands though.
Time to go somewhere cool and dry.
Used in this post is a newspaper template from TheGoodocs.com
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