Answers

We got home yesterday. Feels weird. I’d never left my house for that long before.

The drive was a bit tense. 330’s been in an angry mood ever since Jacob’s death. Barely said anything. A few miles into the drive, I saw that Slender Man thing standing on some trees by the road. My heart leaped into my throat… and 330 just flipped it the bird and kept driving.

Not long after we got back, she pulled me aside and said, “I know you’ve got a lot of questions now. I’ll answer them tomorrow.”

Wait, really? Seriously? I-330, actually answering my questions about what’s going on? Did I just fall into some strange bizarro world?

Wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass, surprising as it was. Stayed up for hours trying to think of everything I could ask her. The list I made was several pages long, so I then had to spend the next few hours editing it down to the really important ones, as I’d rather not spend the next few weeks questioning her.

Next morning, she actually came through with the promise, and this is what I got out from her:


-So… you’re really a time traveler?

“Yes, I’m really a time traveler. No, I do not have a time machine. I am capable of moving myself through spacetime without need of external support. No, I cannot explain how I do it to you, as that would first require explaining relativistic and quantum physics, and we don’t have the several months needed for me to teach that.”

-If you can travel through time, couldn’t you have saved Peter and Jacob-

She turned away, and I heard a low snarl coming from her. Okay, definitely the wrong question for me to ask. For a moment, I thought she was going to call off the entire thing.
“No. I couldn’t. Next question.”

Tried to think of something that wouldn’t be as volatile a question.

-Who’s Grendel?

Bad choice. Could see her tense up even more.
“Next question.”


Had to be something I could ask her without causing such a reaction….

-What was that door you went through last month? You went in, and came out with the book that you used to figure out what we needed to do next.

“It was a door to the Library. Past Me wrote a post about it earlier on your blog. It’s a semi-sentient dimension consisting of a gigantic library complex. The Library contains everything that has, will be, or could be written. If you enter it, it will direct you to the knowledge which you are looking for. However, it doesn’t take kindly to anyone stealing from it, and tends to kill most who try to do so. Which is why I try not to use it very often; that’s only the third time I’ve ever taken a book from it. Still haven’t figured out if it’s an extension of the Empty City, or its own dimension.”

-Wait, what’s the Empty City?

“A sentient, highly malevolent eldritch dimension which takes the form of a vast, ever-changing city.”

-Alright…. Then, these monster things…. How many are there?

“Too many. There’s the regular, bump in the dark alleyway type. Tons of those; entire species, spread across the globe. Like ghouls. Most living in industrialized areas tend to lay low; easier to survive that way. It’s when you get outside civilization that they become a real problem. Then there’s the monstrous, planet eating variety that are laying dormant everywhere. Like Dagon, before Innsmouth was razed in the 50s. Way too many of those type for my comfort. A lot of resources go into making sure they stay asleep. Then there’s the eldritch god variety: deity like beings, often from other dimensions, which could wipe out the entire planet just by passing through in the general vicinity of it. After that, we’ve got the Fears, like the Black Dog. Not all of them are up to the eldritch gods in strength, but they make up for it by being annoyingly immortal, pan-dimensional, and having a strongly malevolent interest in humanity. Then there’s the Slender Man.

-Why does Slender Man get his own category?

“Its, not his. Having “Man” in its name doesn’t make it one. And next question.”

-Why did the ghouls owe Jacob a favor?

“He made a deal with them to let them continue living in Washington D.C. Ghouls tend to eat dead bodies, but occasionally they’ll attack living humans. That, combined with their bad habit of kidnapping infants, means that most people try to drive them out or kill them all when they discover a ghoul colony under their homes. Jacob got them to agree to behave themselves, and in exchange, he would turn a blind eye to their existence.”

-What exactly is Lupine Wonse’s plan that we’re supposed to be stopping?

“Too long to explain, and it involves dimensional nonsense. Basically it’s a summoning ritual. You’ll probably pick up more as we go.”

-How are we going to stop it?

Uncomfortably long pause. “I’ll think of something. That’s all the questions for today.”


That’s all I got out of her. Still, it’s way more than I ever have before. At least I feel kinda like I know some stuff now, even if she did skip almost half of the things I asked her.

-Lisa