Manly Dan's office was a small, square room laden with Sev'ral Timez posters and filing cabinets, with a comically small computer desk that was lumbered with a comically large relic of a computer.

Right enough, there was very little space for the two of them - but Dan strode in confidently and perched himself in the fatigued chair regardless, it groaning in agony as the burly man's weight hit the polyester padding.

"SO WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?!"

Dipper scratched his head awkwardly. "Your family built almost every home in Gravity Falls, right?"

"SURE DID, KID. I WOULDN'T LET ANYONE ELSE TOUCH THIS DAMNED TOWN. IT'S OURS!"

"Y-yeah, so... Northwest Manor's included. Right?"

Dan Corduroy's brow lowered into an even more furrowed position than usually carried on that monolithic face. He suddenly broke into a hushed, quiet town, his signature bellow suddenly fading into something that - somehow - felt ten times more sinister. "Northwest Manor?"

Dipper almost instinctively stepped back. "Y-yeah, we uh-"

"We call it the murder mansion." Dan replied, solemnly.

Kevin soon ran up the stairs and popped his head in, his fists ready for a major physical confrontation and his gappy teeth gritted. "Dad? You've gone quiet! Are you okay?!"

"GO BACK TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND, KEVIN!"

"Girlfriend-?"

"I KNOW WHAT I SAID! GET DOWNSTAIRS AND HAVE A SLICE OF THE CAKE FROM THE FRIDGE, OR SOMETHING!"

"Are you sure? That's yours! You bought it for-"

"NOTHING IN THIS HOUSE IS OFF LIMITS! YOU KNOW THAT! YOU'RE MY FAMILY AND ARE WORTH MORE THAN ANY CAKE! I LOVE YOU SON!"

"I love you too, Dad!" Kevin beamed, running back down the stairs. "Hey Mabel, do you want some cake with your coffee?"

" Do I?! Gosh, you sure know how to impress a lady!"

Dipper blinked, trying to take in the sheer absurdity of the very compassionate - though very aggressive - bond between lumberjack and son, and tried to give a non-judgemental smile. "S-so… the murder mansion, huh?"

Manly Dan sighed. "You really gotta look further, huh?"

He stood, his head brushing against the rafters as he lumbered the two Dan-steps to one of many solid wooden filing cabinets, scraping the heavy drawer open. Inside, there were piles of papers that seemed to expand the moment they left the constructions of the cabinet's frame.

Dipper glanced over as much as he could, taking in some of the scribbled building names that he almost immediately recognised. Gravity Falls City Hall, the Church, 'Stanford House and Laboratories'...

His eyes widened as a particularly large folder was heaved out from the rear of the crate, marked, very clearly, 'Northwest Manor'. It was rolled and held with a thick length of jute rope, yellowed with age and what looked like a hundred years of dust.

Dan blew on it, shoved his heavy old PC off the desk, and began unrolling it in its place. He took another deep breath, his hands briefly squeezing the sides of the desk - which erupted in protest with the sound of splintering.

"Come take a look, Kid. You can ask anything you like. I'm an open book."

Dipper squeezed around the man's prominent form and looked upon the enormous blueprints, maps and plans for the town's most renowned residence. Everything was mapped out intricately - roof tiles, brickwork, rafters and location each mapped out in minute detail, all signed with the name of Archibald Corduroy.

"I knew it." the investigative teenager mumbled.

"The ghost? Yeah. The Northwest Manor was the death knell for hundreds of lumberfolk; many of them Corduroys. Archibald was the chief architect, chief builder, foreman, you name it. He may not have looked it, but he was an incredible mind."

Dipper nodded, solemnly, gazing at the intricate plans and artwork for the opulent manor. His encounter with the ghost - as terrifying as it might be - ultimately remained a surprisingly compassionate one. It was difficult for him to really think so harshly of the vengeful spirit considering his gruesome, unpleasant 'reward' for his hard work.

"But… wait. Dan, is this really all there is?"

Dan shook his head and pulled two inconspicuous paper tabs that protruded ever-so-slightly from the blueprint's edges; as if by magic, the crude papercraft mechanism unfolded the manor down through the hilltop that it sat upon.

Chamber after chamber opened up below, revealing an intricate labyrinth of dungeons and dramatic stonework. Every room underneath was blackened in thick layers of Indian Ink, all perpetually painted over - by Order of Nathaniel Northwest.

Dipper audibly gasped. "Wh-what-"

Dan sat back in his chair and began to recount what he knew. Dipper almost felt himself being plunged into the past, layers of sepia seemingly laying ahead of him as he gazed into one of those antique pictures of the hillside, pre-manor, pre-flood, and - crucially - pre-Northwest.

Nathaniel Northwest was many things - supposed town founder, wealthy industrialist, investor - but he was, above all else, demented. He believed himself to be a wizard. He believed himself to be in control of Oregon, and the fates that declared the town's future.

Sadly, a demented man and money was a dangerous combination. According to Archibald Corduroy, the man was enormously erratic, incredibly arrogant, and obsessed with his bizarre beliefs.

He demanded that Archibald Corduroy not only make an enormous mansion house with nearly a hundred rooms - he demanded taxidermied animals so he could be closer to the afterlife. He demanded gardens and enormous walls, towering ballrooms that evoked fear and respect in equal measure, decorated with elaborate carvings of everything from wars to ship sinkings.

And, most strange of all, he demanded shafts that led to underground chambers. Cellars, made of thick, heavy lumps of granite, carved into the hills, deep below the mansion house, with a cage lift to take him down there, and access roads and wagon ways, hidden into the other sides of the hill.

Northwest Manor was less of a typical mansion house - it was a lair. A subterranean nightmare, like depths of hell had burst upwards into the mountain. A volcano of obsession, with spurs and chambers dedicated to the magma of insanity that bubbled inside Nathaniel's mind - composed of tunnels and tracks leading across the town, for reasons the construction teams didn't really understand. Crews would regularly be rotated, miners brought in to help digging into the hillside, every structural engineer, every geologist and every ecologist's warnings completely ignored. What used to be ground that was meant to take in the water, meant to lead into the underground springs, streams and rivers of Oregon, meant to go into the water table and harmlessly form part of the town's lifeblood, fabric and ecosystem, was suddenly blocked by granite walls and reinforced chambers, layered with everything from solid steel to obsidian. Throttled out onto the hillside.

And then, of course, the predictable happened. The Great Flood - and, with it, the great landslide - took place, and took every man who built that mansion house with it.

And Nathaniel Northwest didn't do a thing . The man who claimed to be building a monument for the hard working townspeople was content to watch a fifth of them drown in mud and rainwater as he drank punch and cheated on his wife with a group of lesser-spotted woodpeckers.

The man was a psychopath. An unflinching, wrenching, grasping fiend filled with hatred and lacking in compassion. A man who insisted on squeezing everything he could out of his fellow man, in a desperate hope to gain and profit - in a desperate hope to appease those he, madly, felt were in control of the world around him.

The Manor was testament to his furious delusions - his furious convictions in his insane worldview. His furious hatred for his fellow human being.

Dipper stared at the elaborate drawings as Dan finished his - admittedly much less verbose - explanation of the mansion's construction and Archibald's own impressions of Nathaniel Northwest.

"But these are like… this is really heavy stuff." Dipper replied. "I mean, I knew the Northwests were-"

Dan stood back up and shrugged. He seemed increasingly morose as he recounted the tale, and still spoke with a surprisingly hushed tone that Dipper never thought he'd hear from the testosterone-addled giant.

"I don't know all of the story, kid. I just know that our family had a code to never trust a Northwest."

"You helped Pacifica, though?"

"She's different. You changed all of that at the Northwest Fest last year. She isn't a bad person, she's just a work in progress."

Things fell quiet as Dipper momentarily ran out of things to say. He was still kind of shaken up by the entire discussion - and incredibly shaken up by the fact Northwest Manor was three, maybe four times the size he thought it was.

That was… That-

That was a damned big house.

"Look." Dan piped back up. "You can take any of this stuff if it helps you. But my advice would be to stay away, kid. I dunno what's in there. McGucket probably doesn't even know. Nobody's sure what Nathaniel actually did underground. I'm not even sure if anyone knows those Chambers existed, apart from us."

Dipper rubbed the back of his neck."I'm uh… I'm sorry. I didn't realise."

Dan chuckled. "Who would? We're just the crazy lumberjack family. Good luck solving your mystery, kid."

Dipper smiled and started walking out of the room.

"Oh, and kid?"

"Huh?"

"I'm glad you got over the Wendy thing. That stuff was creepy."

"...Yeah. M-me too." the teenager replied nervously. "thanks, Dan."

Dipper wordlessly walked down the staircase, his mind racing with questions and theories about what he had just learned, what he had just discussed - and the disturbing fact that Manly Dan wasn't stuck in a constant series of ridiculously loud shouts and hormone-soaked bellows.

He momentarily glanced at the pictures of Wendy on the wall and took a deep breath, wondering if - somehow - his life would have been more simple if he'd have just been two years older and had hooked up with the girl of his teenage fantasies.

As much as he adored Pacifica with every fibre of his being, he couldn't deny he was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with how dark that family's past really was; or how uncertain it really made him feel about everything.

Like, in the end, if he wasn't in love with Pacifica, all of this… stuff wouldn't have happened this Summer.

He didn't blame her, but… it felt weird, y'know?

And… for that matter, what if Pacifica did know about this crazy junk? What if he'd been tricked? He thought he could trust her to the ends of the Earth, but this stuff - this stuff made him feel nervous. It felt pretty big. As in, secret US President big.

He kind of wondered how innocent she could possibly be when she had lived on top of the damned place.

He tapped his lip thoughtfully as he stepped into the living room, only to be met by a low-flying coffee can - after all, no corduroy would use a cup - that flew against the raw pine walls and clattered to the floor with a hollow clang, spilling a small amount of ground beans onto the floorboards.

"I am the Goddess of destruction! Bring me six more espressos and another slice of cake!"

Mabel sat atop Kevin, wearing a frying pan as a helmet and speaking at a rate four times faster than her usual hyperactive tones - with a visible shake in her voice and a rattle to both of her hands.

"Dipper! Have you tried coffee!? It tastes like dirt but feels like magic!"

"Y-yeah, uh… are you both doing okay?" her perturbed brother replied. "Hell, is Kevin okay…?"

"I'm feeling fabulous! And he is absolutely the most okay person I have ever seen!" She proclaimed loudly, jabbing her hand into the air confidently.

Kevin laughed out loud as he carried Mabel on his prominent shoulders. "Your sister is the best. She's just like us!"

"How much coffee did you give her…?" Dipper asked, backing away slightly from the chaotic scene.

"Half a cup." Kevin smiled nervously. "I figured that uh… one full cup would be a bit much-"

"Wait, that was only half a cup?! Your fancy hair doesn't mean you can hold out on me, Kevin!"

"You think my hair's fancy?"

"I think your hair is a masterpiece ." she gushed in response, still flying back and forth between a drunken stupor and a hyperactive machine-gun rattle of vowels and consonants..

Kevin blinked, a gentle red beginning to colour his cheeks. "I mean, I- look, I think you've maybe had enough coffee."

"Wrong!" Mabel replied. "Besides, you know what I've got?"

"What?"

"A grappling hook. You wanna go swing around like Tarzan and beat up some gnomes?"

Kevin blinked, as if he had just been presented with an epiphany towards his life's true meaning.

"YEAH!" He shouted enthusiastically as they stormed out of the cabin, Mabel still clinging onto his shoulders.

Dipper figured that meant he was going to be walking back to the shack alone, and resigned to doing exactly that with a little bit of a smile on his face. It was pretty hard not to find a little bit of happiness in the fact that Mabel was back to her old tricks - this time with somebody he at least knew wasn't entirely crazy. A family he was sure would at least take care of her.

If nothing else, the boisterous behaviour of the Corduroy family kind of felt like a natural fit for his sister and her natural spirit.

What he envied was her joyful confidence - her ability to just dive into her own happiness with barely a single thought for the consequences. He couldn't help but find it a bit… disquieting to know that they had grown somewhat more separable than they once had been. The more he thought about it, the less he felt like he needed - or even, sometimes, wanted - her by his side all of the time.

He was feeling himself more and more confused by his place in the world, this summer. Now his family and his loved ones were becoming more and more ingrained as weirdness researchers, his girlfriend's family was apparently some insane criminal group of masterminds, and - perhaps most worrying of all - the circumstances of 'Summer's End' were feeling bigger and more difficult than ever with every passing adventure.

He arrived back at the Shack to Soos, fueling up the (finally repaired) Awesome Express.

"Hey dude."

"Hi, Soos."

"What's poppin'? I'm fitting the train with a stereo sound system, dawg. I drew up the blueprints on a napkin."

"D-don't mention blueprints."

"Oh. Sorry bro."

Soos shrugged and went back to his business. The new Mr. Mystery had developed a pretty fine set of skills when it came to not getting himself involved without being prompted. It meant he could concentrate on his business and not get endlessly distracted by the Pines.

Dipper sat down and watched the rotund man tinkering with the little engine with a sigh. "Soos, you ever wonder if Melody and you aren't a perfect fit?"

Soos nearly split one of the fuel hoses with his screwdriver and whipped his head around. "Huh? Dude, Melody and I, we're like ketchup and mustard. We're, like, different, sure - but we make a taste sensation when mixed together. We're about as good as it gets, dawg. Not even the store brand, I'm talking like… Artisan Deli Condiments."

Dipper rested his chin on his hand and watched the man in the Fez tinker with the motor that sat inside the miniature engine. It looked irresistibly like it came from a ride-on lawnmower or something."But… doesn't it feel a bit… Y'know. Difficult? Having everything change so suddenly?"

Soos shrugged and sat back, wiping his hands. "I mean, it's always difficult to deal with change, dude. Melody's the biggest thing that's ever happened to me, even with the Shack, all of the crazy stuff we did together, beavers with chainsaws - y'know?"

"Well, doesn't that feel weird? Having someone come in and feel more important than your old life? Like, disrupting everything?"

"Dude, I don't wanna be derogatory or nothing, but you're only young. Pacifica's only, like, the first big change you're gonna go through. Puberty is gonna hit you like a brick, dawg!"

"Heh. I'm already feeling-"

"Awkward and sweaty?"

"Yeah. Awkward and sweaty."

"Been there, dude. Just wait until you start noticing girls in that way, dawg. I'm talking like, drooling city, bro-"

"Soos. Soos, enough."

"Sorry dude. Pass the hackwrench?"

"...This is a spanner with a picture of a computer taped onto it."

Soos immediately broke into hysterics, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. "Funny, right bro?"