It was perhaps natural that a creature of such experience as Pascoe would be well-versed in storytelling. Though his tone was always bizarrely casual - y'know, considering he was a clammy, grey, wispy haired gremlin… thing - he was capable of painting an impressive anecdotal portrait.

He explained the nature of Gravity Falls during those heady days of 1863, when the railroad was operating and brought tourists eager to see the beauty and innate weirdness of the town's location. The town's heyday was a stunning one - one of paddle steamers, of bustling lumber camps, of bizarre tourist traps before the idea of the tourist was particularly set in stone - a time when you'd need to stay over by virtue of the train taking two days to get to the next state.

As he wove his delicate tapestry of history, the Pines almost felt as if they could smell the fresh cut pine, the smoke from the paddle steamer and railroad locomotives, the overjoyed laughter of tourists watching the gnomes cavort about…

Of course, it wasn't all so sweet.

At the head of it all were the Northwest and Fundhauser families, working in grotesque collaboration. The Crawlspace was built by them, the paddle steamer was built by them - and supposedly named Lucinda, after Nathaniel's wife (which, in retrospect, made the purposeful disaster all the more grotesque) - and the entire operation was being run with safety as a seventeenth, maybe eighteenth priority.

Stan couldn't help but find it a little bit vindicating that the Northwests weren't particularly far from his own profession back then. Cafes selling 'English Jam' made out of suspicious berries they found in an alleyway. Clotted cream that was not clotted nor cream - it was a beautiful work of sheer scammery, all carried out by the family that once claimed that they were above him.

Pacifica found it more tragic. For all of the glamour and glitz of The Northwest Family, they had apparently made a substantial sum of it just… grifting idiots travelling by train?

The monopoly was unreal.

A train journey on the Northwest-run Railroad, to the Northwest-owned station, to the Northwest-owned tourist traps, eating at Northwest-owned restaurants, travelling on Northwest-owned boats on the Northwest-owned lake - all in a Northwest-owned town.

The money was as much stupid hick money as it was Government money and business money.

Just… gross. They were hypocrites. The entire Northwest family was a bunch of stupid, over the top, irrefutably unscrupulous hypocrites going about their entire lives scamming and crushing people.

She used to be proud to be a Northwest. Now that very concept brought a pit of nausea to her stomach. A sort of empty, emotionless feeling that she couldn't quite turn off. She seemed to feel more and more betrayed with every single thing that she learnt, and it only seemed to get worse and worse.

Perhaps it was only natural that there was still a voice in the back of her mind bleating MY family?! MY family were worn out, grifting tourist trap nobodies?!

It made her cringe. Old Pacifica was meant to be dead and buried, long gone, into the ether, but… she was a Northwest.

"So the town was super busy, right?" Dipper asked, scribbling in his journal.

"Packed, it was."

"The sinkings must have been awful." the teenager gulped, looking up from the little blue book. "Like… how many people must have drowned? Hundreds?"

Pascoe looked down at the toffee in his hands and shook his head in sincere, grim dismay. "At least eight."

"...Huh." Dipper was kind of strapped in for a true, town-shaking, state-wide tragedy. He was pretty sure more had died in the 1911 Maple Syrup Flood. It was a grim number, of course - but had far less impact than they were expecting.

He almost immediately felt guilty. Is this what he craved? Carnage and destruction to inflate his own feelings of worth? To try and escape the small-town sensibilities that seemed to constantly stalk his mystery hunts?

It was difficult to explain - but he was beginning to get somewhat frustrated that what happened in Gravity Falls seemed so desperate to stay in Gravity Falls. Except for the Northwest franchises, obviously. Everyone would have preferred for them to stay there.

But just once - wider ramifications would be sort of impressive. Y'know, Dipper Pines foiled six hundred vengeful spirits and put them all to rest, that sort of jazz.

"Wait, wait, wait- " Stan said. "You said eight. There's way more than eight beavers, pal."

"Prolly jus' copying 'em, ain't they? Beavers are bloody weird from the off, they ain't going far by becoming Beaver-revenants. Of course, we tend to call 'em beavernants."

"Yes!" Mabel said under her breath, punching the air.

"That boat was like a sailing show they'd totter around on for the tourists. They'd dress as pirates, have mock sword fights - that kind of schlock. I guess the Northwests figured that kind of made it fair game. If they're pirates, then they'll scuttle 'em. Their kind of sick joke."

Ford was, by now, heavily invested, furiously taking notes. "So it's a haunting ."

"Sort of. They were all plenty vengeful but took the rum drinking thing too seriously. Their bodies weren't exactly revenant material, y'know? Stumbling about all over the place. So they took on the bodies of the others who suffered most at Scuttlebutt - the beavers that lost their home."

"A collaborative haunting - possession. Curious."

"Sort of a double-edged sword of revenge. Guess that's kind of fitting too, with the whole cutlasses and all that." Pascoe nodded, chewing his toffees with gusto, as if talking about ghostly beavers was part of his day to day.

It probably was part of his day to day.

Ford looked up from his notes and paused. "And their revenge is what ?"

"I mean, I don't think there's much more in their minds than getting their wood back and having their boat. 'Course, they're going to be pretty savage about it. Not very good at findin' this stuff, so they just tear through town trying to get 'old of it. Once they realise Northwest manor exists, they'll rip it to bits. Probably anyone in their way, too."

Ford's face - already one of steely-eyed determination - dropped into one slightly more fearful. The manor was many things; a testament to corruption and an unpleasant reminder of the town's innate upperclass rule - but it was also McGucket's refuge from a world that still seemed to scare, intimidate and confuse him. He wouldn't want Tate and Fiddleford to come against these things at the best of times, but to risk his old friend's retreat against the world?

No. He couldn't allow it. They needed that home. Fiddleford needed that peace. After all, it was the town's innate weirdness (and Ford's obsession with it) that had led to his madness in the first place.

"We can't let those spirits get to Northwest Manor." He said, gravely. "Do you know anyone who can help?"

"Only one bloke I know with a speciality in these things, mate."

"Can you contact him?"

"Aye. Anyone got a goose call?"