Endless Epitaph

Who: Ryan Dallion or Ryan the Lion
Where: Curious Goods; Chicago, IL
When: January 29th 2009
What: Ryan reflects on the incident the day before…and finds a new mystery to solve.
Rating: PG-13 for now. Could go to R
Notes: Ryan’s card is uh…oh, The Tower. Fires springing up will be linked to the card. Only he doesn’t know it yet.

Ryan heads downstairs after a long night sleep sipping his coffee. It was his fuel for what would most likely be a long and exhausting day. Those were always the kinds of days they had around here.

He noticed an envelope on the floor. Someone must have been tossed in the mail slot last night because there was nothing there before he went to sleep the night before.

He picked it up and opened it. Inside, was a tarot card.

The Strength Card.

The guy that came with Alli the other day must have found the guy and gotten the card back. Guessing it didn’t end well. After placing the card in the vault, Ryan went out to get a newspaper.

His suspicion was soon confirned when he picked up and read the newspaper’s headline. A man had died of an apparent suicide. While there was nothing overly suspicious there was a mention of high testosterone in his system.

He made a note to try and find the guy later and thank him for getting the card back to the shop. Most people who know what that card could do, would use it to their advantage, but this guy did the right thing.

Also on the front page, there was a front page story about another fire in the downtown area. There had been several fires in that area over the last month. Strangely only a handful of the fires had no explanation.

He had checked the manifest, but there were few items that would fit the mysterious fires. Ryan thought for a moment, and a thought occurred to him. Maybe there was another tarot card out there that was causing this. He picked up a reference book off the shelf and found pictures of tarot cards.

One of which was a church on fire with figures falling to the ground. It would fit. But finding that card in the city would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

He’d have to figure out who would have motive to set these fires, how they were using the card, and most importantly…who was doing it.

Ryan placed a map on a tack board after calling the fire department and asking some questions about the fires he placed blue tacks and red tacks on the board. Blue tacks, fires that had easily determined causes. Red tacks being the buildings that burned down under mysterious circumstances and undetermined causes.

Fires happen, that was a thing you get use to in the city. But fires that seemingly are caused on their own were a different story. Looking at the map it looked like the red tacks were concentrated to one particular area.

Ryan picked up his camera to take outside photos of the mysterious fires…four in total thus far.

After a few hours, his pictures were taken and ready to be loaded onto his computer. But before heading back to the Curious Goods shop, Ryan made a pit stop.

He had been busy with Micki on acquiring some new antiques to sell for the store so he hadn’t been able to make it to the comic book shop for his new comics of the week.

So, he made a quick stop to his local comic book store to get his latest issues and say hello to Alli, his favorite worker at the comic book store. He’d have to remember to thank her and her friend for getting the card.

Who: Ryan Dallion or Ryan the Lion
Where: Curious Goods; Chicago, IL
When: January 27th 2009
What: Ryan reflects on the incident the day before…and finds a new mystery to solve.
Rating: PG-13 for now. Could go to R
Notes: Ryan’s card is uh…oh, The Tower. Fires springing up will be linked to the card. Only he doesn’t know it yet.

It was a typical Tuesday in the Curious Goods shop.

Miki was in the vault trying to make some more room for another returned object. If they didn’t find some extra space soon, they were going to need a bigger boat.

Ryan was doing some cleaning of his own. They had accumulated a large amount of newspapers over the last couple months and he was trying to organize them.

He had a long talk with Miki about what had happened the day before. Alli had stopped by with some guy. He seemed to know about the paranormal. Ryan had to tell the man a little bit about what he did, because it seemed he knew about a cursed object that was out there.

Ryan explained to Miki that the guy mentioned a tarot card and there was a tarot card deck out there somewhere. It seemed that many of their problems may have gotten more complicated with this fact that the cards are split up. Each card could carry one of a thousand curses and that makes tracking them down that much harder.

But they were going to try and do it.

After making a couple piles, Ryan found himself looking back at past articles. Having one last look before sending the papers to the recycling center. It wasn’t until later when he noticed something.

“Huh…lot of fires in the last few months.”

Ryan went through every single article that mentioned a fire. That netted a large amount of articles, but three of them really caught his eye.

Every single one, the fire inspector said the same thing. That the fire started from mysterious circumstances…that it seemed to have no official point of origin. One even seemingly had lightning strike the side of the building.

“Miki…I think I found something…,” he said as he headed to the basement.

Across town…

A man sits in his office chair looking out at the city. He puffs a cigar as he talks to another man.
“They’re not willing to sell Jameson. I know you have your eye on the property. But you’d still have to have that church to leave along with the other three properties to be able to get that neighbor hood.”

He turns around in his chair slowly.

“I’ve already made deals. I plan to own that neighborhood before March. A few buildings not wanting to clear out won’t stop me,” Jameson said.

“Jameson, our bank is fully happy to back you up in this endeavour, but its going to cost you a lot more than you seem to think. Yes, there have been some fires in the area, but that hasn’t devalued the land all that much.”

He reached into his desk and pulled out a tarot card.

A tower has just been hit by lightning and is aflame. The top of the tower is crumbling and falling to the ground beneath. Two figures are falling from the top of the tower.

“Oh, I’m well aware,” he replied spinning the card around with his fingers. “And I will get everything I want for the cost I want it. Believe that. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have another meeting to get to. Tell your boss the next time he wants to pussyfoot around money issues, come to me himself.”

Jameson left the lackey in his office and headed out, with his card in hand. Outside the alley near his office a homeless man held out his cup.

“You got change,” He asked.

Jameson smiled and put his arm around the homeless man and led him back into the alley.

“So, you’ll give me 200 dollars and all I have to do is one favor for you,” he asked.

“Small price to pay wouldn’t you say?”

“What do I have to do?”

Jameson pulled out his knife and stabbed the guy in the heart. He fell to the ground blood starting to slowly ooze out. Jameson used the blood on his knife and put it on the card. The card absorbed the blood and glowed a faint red. Putting the card back into his jacket, he took the homeless man and threw him in the nearby dumpster, covering it up so no one would see it.