Inside of a giant plant with several buildings torn down, roads mostly ruined and with the surrounding areas blocked off, a group of agents from the Division were busy collecting everything they could from the site. Not too far from here was an area with some civilian houses and a collapsed apartment complex, and there was another group of agents there, collecting some other information and evidence.
“Is this what you expected when you joined us?” Agent Jill walked to the side of Agent Manzene, formerly known as Lady Mazene, a semi-famous medium in California high end circles: “How you’re holding up?”
“I’m okay.” Agent Manzene smiled and let out a slightly distressed sigh: “Feeling a little too old to be a newbie and doing grunt work. But I’ll manage.”
“Trust me, scrubbing vampire and lycan blood and brains from the walls gets old really quick.” Agent Hall walked over and chuckled: “Let me know if you need to sit for a moment there, Gloria, there’s still a lot to go around.”
“Thank you! I’ll do it when I need to.” Agent Manzene wiped off some sweat from her forehead and said: “Yeah, a few months ago I was still a medium who bullshits for money, who knew one day I could be scrubbing vampire and lycan blood off a deserted plant’s floor?”
“Welp, according to my parents, it’s one of the best ways to introduce you to how cruel and unforgiving this world can be.” Agent Jill chuckled and shook her head: “And then I ended up scrubbing decade old blood and dried slime from haunted houses and sites for two weeks.”
“Really? Have you learned anything?” Agent Hall almost laughed out loud as he put a small sample of the blood from the ground on a cart, and proceeded to another place to continue scrubbing.
“Well, I got to know first hand some of the most gruesome killings done by vengeful spirits and even returned ghouls.” Agent Jill knelt on the floor and started scrubbing a small spot of particularly dark blood.
“And what happened here could even top that.” just this minute, Pei came into the room with a thermal jar in her hands: “Agents, I just sealed the contaminated spots and machines in the other room and cleansed the entire area, can you go in and log them when you’re done here?”
“Machines?” Agent Manzene looked up: “There’s machines here?”
“It’s a plant is it not?” Pei sat down on a small wooden chair and took a sip from her thermal jar: “I didn’t let you into the other room because it’s not safe for any of you to go in directly - there was a lot of residual energy beyond your pay grade.”
“Lycans and vampires did that?” Agent Hall and Agent Manzene asked at the same time.
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“They can perform magic, just like the rest of us.” Pei answered: “Though typically they have different affinities than us.”
Agent Manzene went into the other room with the other agents after they had collected samples from all of the individual spots of blood and other bodily fluids spread around in this room.
Pei seemed to be relatively well rested when they were done, and went along with them.
The other room seemed to be some kind of bizarre and unholy combination of technology and occult ritualistic decorations and artifacts: there was some heavy machinery for sanding, smoothening and even forging metallic tools and weapons, and there were several altars of different sizes with different relief sculptures and symbols carved on them, some of which were damaged or even completely broken, and some of them were mostly intact. At the corner of the room were four giant metal boxes, three of which were completely empty and the last one still had some dark blocks with a metallic shine left in it.
Agent Manzene looked up at the tall ceiling and the walls, and aside from the cracks, dark burn marks and splashes of dried liquid, she could see complex symbols made of metal inserted into them, forming into several arrays of different sizes and complexities. It seemed to be the case that there were things hanging from the ceiling, but were removed when the lycans and vampires that occupied this place went away.
There were countless broken pieces of machines and even altars on the floor, and more spots of blood and bodily fluids. One the two carts inside the room, they could see some plastic bags with severed fingers, tails, tones and pieces of bones inside.
“So… this Lady Vyn did indeed do quite a lot of damage to the operations of the lycans and vampires.” Agent Manzene looked around and said: “I… I felt the presence of intense grudge, hatred and despair, what was used in this fight?”
“This was an arms manufacturing plant, run by the lycans, vampires and some others.” Pei said: “From what I could tell, this is probably a joint operation by Soren Lupei and Carol Summers, two High Brokers of the Exalted Bondsmen. It’s actually quite simple - the enchanted rituals here required a lot of blood and livestocks for sacrifices, literally blood sacrifices, and who else has better access to blood and livestocks than vampires and lycans? And the methods of enchantment - they’re vile, dark and cruel, which totally fits the M.O of Carol Summers.”
“And what kind of weapons were being forged here?” Agent Hall asked as he examined the blocks with a metallic shine still in the metal box: “What is this? Looks like some kind of metal...”
“Just iron, iron with a specific composition, preserved in wax made by the oil from Dark Amber Trees and Ointment of Mother and Child.” Pei shook her head and said.
“What is Ointment of Mother and Child ...” seeing that Agent Hall and Agent Jill both showed a disgusted and horrified look and got away from the metal boxes, Agent Manzene asked and stepped away with them.