Meanwhile, the stars were all out in Heaven- and some of the dead famous people had come to visit the Soul Takers group too. Since Wendy was a fairly famous person on Earth, her becoming a soul taker was fairly big news and reason enough for many people to come to her initation party- just as Grandpa Marsh wanted. Some of the younger girls in Heaven would likely be interested in killing the living more if Wendy was doing it, at least that was the group's plan. But of course, none of them knew that they were being manipulated and tricked by Wendy herself, and it was gonna stay that way or else the plan was sure to fail.
Most of the guests and the other soul takers were already inside the ballroom ready to start the party. But just then they heard some commotion outside, which either meant Miss Ellen or one of her hobo friends were trying to get in uninvited, or that the guest of honor had shown up. Grandpa Marsh used his still limited depth perception to look out and see that indeed, Wendy was coming into the ballroom with her victim right next to her.
"Here she is, the girl of the hour and our newest member! Arriving with her first and definatly not last kill, Wendy Testaburger!" Marvin raised his hand and clapped to get his fellow members to cheer and whoop it up as well as Wendy and Butters came in. Wendy greeted Grandpa and the rest of them, knowing that she had to put up with them until she was officially sworn in, then she could sneak away and look for the Purgatory spells.
Before that ceremony was to start, the group and their guests were served a light dinner, with violins playing in the background to make things look fancy. Even people who kill the living for a living can show some culture once in a while apperantly. Butters and Wendy sat with Grandpa Marsh and his group of first class workers as they ate to pass the time. Since Wendy had told them not to make any jokes or snide remarks about Butters and his "death", the group didn't really have a lot to talk about and Butters was actually starting to get bored. So he figured that maybe he could bring up a conversation, one that would give him some clues on what to expect later.
"So, um, Wendy tells me there's a real scary guy running Purgatory, how about that, huh?" Wendy felt a little uneasy about taking credit for that since, in her research of Purgatory, she knew how uneasy people were when the subject was brought up. But Butters thought that if he brought it up, he might learn something about this dictator and how scary it would be to face him during their upcoming rescue mission. Yet all Grandpa would say is, "What a dumb thing to bring up! This is a night to be happy and to look forward to killing people! If we started talking about some unknown prick who has God and Satan's balls in a blender, who can do anything he wants without anyone stopping him, and who must obviously be the most dangerous being who ever lived to have God and Satan scared of facing him, then it'd bring down the whole mood! Do you really want that to be your revenge for dying here, little foo foo boy?" Since Grandpa already said enough scary things to answer his questions, Butters said "No, that's okay, sir." and then promptly shut up.
"Wait a minute, sir, isn't your nephew in Purgatory right now?" asked one of Grandpa's other workers. "Yeah, that Stan Marsh guy, he killed himself because of our new member's death and he's probably being tortured by Mr unknown right now! No wonder you don't wanna think about that, um, sir."
"Who, Billy? That little so and so didn't give a shit about me when I wanted to die, why should I care what happens to him now? He's a frigging hypocrite if you ask me, he refused to assist me in suicide for over a decade, and how does he die? A frigging suicide! Billy deserves whatever he gets from the dictator for letting me suffer and then killing himself anyway!" Grandpa would have gone one with his anti- Billy rant until Wendy said with a lot of self control, "You're right, the moods really a downer right now. Why don't we just finish our dinner and then we can get to the happy stuff quicker?" This seemed to silence the bitter old man, so he stayed quick just in the nick of time before Wendy thought of forcibly shutting him up about Stan.
Finally the uncomfortable silence of dinner ended and the actual initation ceremony was about to begin. To save time, Grandpa Marsh was carryed over to the podium despite his objections, and after he swore to demote their job standing tomorrow morning, he began the show. "Ladies and gentlemen, we've made a hell of a club to take the future residents of Heaven away from their loved ones for the next 50 years. And tonight, we welcome a promising new member to our delightful club. Now I would like to invite Wendy Testaburger to come up here and recite the club oath!" Wendy got up and walked to the podium as everyone cheered her. She stood in front of her boyfriend's grandfather and was actually relaxed for the last time tonight, since she just had to repeat what she heard from the old man.
"Repeat after me. I swear to carry out any assignments Mr Marsh gives me, not ask questions about how right or wrong it is to take possibly innocent souls away, prepare to be as harsh as possible in the roughest cases, and did I mention we don't want any moral or ethical dillemas about the kiling part?" Wendy repeated the slogan word for word, even the snide question at the end. With that, Grandpa Marsh took out a key from his pocket. "With this key, you now have access to every room in this place, as well as your group membership number to identify you. Congratulations Wendy, a.k.a number 714!" The crowd clapped again as the 1 minute long ceremony that they were having a 3 hour long party for was finished, and the new member bowed to Grandpa with a smile- mostly since now she had the key that would give her access to all their spells, but the foolish old man still did not know that part.
Wendy planned for her and Butters to mingle some more after the ceremony, then after enough time had gone by, they would sneak away from the crowd and go up to the fourth floor unnoticed. Then they would use her new key to open the door to their room full of spells, and hopefully it wouldn't take long to find the old Purgatory spells there. Well, after about 20 minutes, Wendy figured it was safe to find out.
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"I don't get it. If these Purgatory spells were banned, why would this group still keep them in their spell room?" asked Butters a minute after he and Wendy left the ballroom and started going up the stairs to the fourth floor.
"Well, Grandpa made such an effort to collect all the transportation spells when he started the group. I guess by the time he got the place up and running and God told him he couldn't use Purgatory spells, he was too busy to put them away. Or too old or something else, I don't really care right now as long as they're there."
Once they got to the fourth floor, they made sure no one was in the hallways before they headed on- but since the party was downstairs and they just started to serve beer, why would they come up here? Feeling safe, Wendy and Butters walked down the hall until they came to the big door in the middle. Since the Spell Room had a lot of spells in them for the purpose of transporting souls and making sure they were put into submission for their trip to Heaven, they had a lot of searching to do to find what they wanted. So Wendy wasted no time using her new key to get inside and close the door quietly behind her and Butters.
The room was basically one big library with nothing but shelves of books against the round walls. "Wow. Look at all these books. I can't believe you need so many spells just to get souls to Heaven, you only needed to use one to get me here! Why do they need so many anyway, it doesn't make that much sense when you think about it. All it's doing is making our mission harder." Wendy merely nodded and then went towards the shelves without any comments, since this was too important a task to waste time pointing out errors in logic. All the books had labels on them pointing out which types of spells they had, so Wendy just had to look at the labels to see that the Purgatory spells weren't right in front of her. So she walked around to find the label she was looking for, and Butters joined in the search right then. It took about 10 minutes for them to realize that the book of Purgatory spells was not on any of the shelves at all.
"Aw geez, there's nothing here! You told me there were spells to take us to Stan, that's how you got me to die for you! I can't have died just so I could be made a fool out of just like you!" Butters was a bit too worried to control himself from making statements like that, since after all, he did die to find Stan and now there weren't any spells here to find him after all. However, Wendy wasn't saying anything and she had the most to lose and the most reasons to freak out now, so Butters got himself to take a deep breath and wait to see what she had planned.
"There must be some kind of safe or somewhere they put them it. Mr Marsh told me that those spells existed and they kept them here, he couldn't have lied about that just to get me to join and give his club popularity!" Before Wendy started to think how much sense that idea made, she noticed a note on a desk nearby the shelves. Finding it curious and looking for any possible solution that might be out there, she walked over to read the note- or rather, a memo from God.
"To Marvin Marsh. Tomorrow the dictator of Purgatory is paying a visit to Heaven, and one of the things he wants is to take your Purgatory spells. He wants to use them to take souls from Heaven into Purgatory to be his new slaves, and there's really nothing I can do to get in his way. So please leave them in the special safe so I can transport them to Purgatory tomorrow. Signed, God." Now Wendy had some new hope, because if a note like that was there, then the safe it was talking about couldn't be far behind, although it seemed to be pretty well hidden from sight. She looked around until she saw something she really should have noticed before, as there was a keyhole on the left side of one of the book shelves. She ran over to put the key inside, and it was a perfect fit. Perfect enough for a small opening to appear on the side of the shelf with a book inside of it.
"Hey, you think that might be our book?" Butters asked with some trepidation, since it might only look obvious that it was the Purgatory book. However, when Wendy took out the book and showed him that the label said "Purgatory Spells" his fears slipped away. "All right, now I guess we can go to get Stan right now! I'll be back on Earth just a little bit after my bedtime!"
"I wish that were true. But we can't disappear now and risk someone barging in to see us using these things. We'll just leave now so no one's suspicious of us, and then work these things out when we get home." Wendy closed the secret door and locked it again, then made sure to leave the note exactly where she found it. "Now we'll just take this and be on our way with no one being the wiser." However, since there was no place to hide the book under a skin tight dress, there was no way Wendy could take this home with no one being the wiser. So there was really one other solution she could think of right now.
"Butters, stuff this book halfway down your pants."
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After getting Butters to calm down, Wendy was able to explain her plan clearly. Butters would put the bottom half of the book down his pants, then tuck his shirt inside his pants and over the book. It would make him walk a little less gracefully, but it would keep the book out of sight and let them get away with the theft. So after Wendy made sure to turn around just in case there was a wardrobe mistake, Butters followed through with the plan and in a second, the book was concealed from view- and behind Butters's shirt and inside his pants. He took a minute to test his walking skills and decided to walk out after his walking got less awkward.
When they headed back to the ballroom, several of the guests were already gone and others were already drinking, since there were no hangovers in Heaven if you got drunk- which was why God had alcohol distribution limited to special occasions, something that worked well since the major alcoholics from Earth were mostly in Hell or Purgatory. So since no one was really noticing them, Wendy and Butters just casually walked out of the room without any attention paid to them. The press was gone and Grandpa Marsh had his headlines, so he really had no need to watch over them now. Therefore, they were able to get out of the building faster than they expected, but they still couldn't feel safe enough to take out the book until they got back home. But just as they were about to start walking home, they heard an old voice calling to them.
"Hey Wendy, foo foo boy!" The two turned back to see Grandpa Marsh standing outside the front door with a glass of wine in his hand. "Where are you going, we're having the best time here and the party's just getting started!" It looked pretty clear that he had a bit too much to drink already, but Wendy kinda figured he'd do that. He wanted to die for so long because he could no longer do the things he liked to do and live it up thanks to his old body, but now that age didn't matter here, he could do whatever he wanted with no consequences. So drinking a lot of wine was now one of those things he was getting used to again, and now it seemed he wanted Wendy and Butters to help out, though they really had no time to. "Sorry Grandpa, we're a little tired. We'd like to go home now."
"Huh?! Wait a minute, I'm officially your boss so you can't refuse anything from me! So if I order you to party with me, you gotta do it!" Grandpa Marsh would have tipped over by now if he didn't lean on a cane with his other hand, but he kept going anyway. "You get back here and boogy with me!"
"No, we seriously have to leave!" Now that Wendy had the book, she really didn't need to suck up to him or his followers anymore, so she didn't have to be that polite in telling him to back off either. But he wasn't going back inside, so Wendy sighed and walked over to get him out of the way. Butters stayed behind to see her try and aid him in walking away, but Grandpa Marsh wasn't going anywhere that easily. In fact, now he was starting to swing his cane at her to get her to back off. This pretty much signaled to Butters that he had to get in the middle of this thing before someone got hurt- though at this point he wasn't that concerned that Mr Marsh might get hurt at this point.
"Hey, stop trying to hit your new worker!" Butters ran over to get between Wendy and Mr Marsh, but the old man was a bit too crabby to put up with him plesently. "Back off, pansy boy!" Though he still wasn't as active as a younger man was, Grandpa was still more active than he was when he was alive- for one thing, when he was alive he couldn't have taking his cane, used the front of it to hit Butters knee, and then kick his knee so it bent backwards, that was for sure. But he had done it now.
Once Butters fell because his leg was now broken, Wendy immediatly forgot to be gentle with Grandpa because he was still old, and she literally pushed him back inside so he couldn't do any more damage. He was now on his back inside the building, and before he could call his partying workers to come over and pick him up, Wendy had already picked Butters up and dragged him along with her since he obviously couldn't walk right now.
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Since businesses were now closed in the area, pretty much no one was outside and so no one helped Wendy on her now very long walk home. It would have taken about 15-20 minutes to walk back normally, but now since she had to drag along Butters, it was almost 3 times as long. Plus she still had to stop a few times to make sure Butters's shirt was still tucked in and the book was still out of sight. Though no one seemed to be out right now, she couldn't afford to be take chances at a time like this- especially since the noises Butters was making because of his pain might wake up a few unwanted people.
Finally at about midnight Earth time, the two were finally near Wendy's Heaven house. Butters was still making noises and sounding very much in pain, so there was still a risk he would wake up some people. Wendy put him down on the ground in front of the house and quickly opened the door, then dragged him back inside as fast as she could before more people turned on the lights in their houses to see what was going on. The people here were kind or else they wouldn't be here, but they tended to be very nosy, and Wendy sure as hell didn't need evesdroppers discovering her plans.
At last the two were inside and Wendy lay Butters down on the couch to try and recover. His leg was still bent and the bottom of his leg was sticking out more than the top of his leg. It gave him just as much pain here as it would have on Earth, but the difference was that everytime someone got hurt like this in Heaven, their injuries would instantly heal on the next sunrise. But until then, a person would have to deal with the pain for the rest of the day, which was why no one wanted to get hurt very early in the morning or the whole day and night would be quite a bitch to get through.
These were thoughts very prominant in Wendy's brain right now. Her original plan was to come home, work out the spells and find out which one would take her instantly to Purgatory. There were all kinds of spells in the book that related to Purgatory, but only one would get her there on the spot, and she had figured it would take a few hours to decode the spells to begin with. But now Butters injury may have messed up the plan even more. She still needed his help to find Stan when they got to Purgatory, since even though she was strong and motivated enough, it didn't seem like she could take on whoever this dictator fellow was by herself, she needed backup. But then again, Butters was never a good fighter or a fighter at all to begin with, he was beaten up by bullies who were obviously pansies compared to this dictator. Besides, his injuries would heal when the sun rose, so he would be okay in about 6 hours anyway. The main thing she needed Butters for was to kill him to get in the group, and that job was done. She could just leave him there, take the spells, go to Purgatory and bring Stan back without him, then come back to send him away to Earth again. It really wouldn't take that long, so it seemed like a plan.
With a flourish, Wendy went over to Butters and lifted up his shirt a bit, then gently pulled the book out from his pants. Butters groaned in pain despite her best efforts, but groaning in pain was really all he could do or say right now. Wendy tried to ignore those thoughts and concentrate on looking through the spells. She went through the book and saw that there were about 500-1000 spells relating to Purgatory, but none were labeled. They were all in codes and only trained, licensed soul takers knew how to decode them and use them. She was relatively new at decoding spells and figuring out which ones did what, so this indeed would take a few hours to do.....and then her heart sank.
Since this would take so long, she probably wouldn't be able to get to Purgatory till about 3 in the morning. And now that she was thinking clearly, it probably wasn't that realistic that she could get Stan out that fast, she knew nothing about what kind of traps or obstacles were there so anything could slow her down. Plus she would inevitably have to face this dictator, so that would eat up a lot of time. By the time she got back it would probably be well past sunrise, and by then a lot of people would have woken up.....and probably dropped by to visit Butters and see why he was moaning last night. Also, Marsh probably told his workers and the press about the fight, so that might attract some media attention to the house in the morning. Therefore, now it was logical that by the time she decoded the spells and by the time she got back with Stan, there might be people outside her house waiting to talk to her and Butters because of that stupid fight- then they would see Stan and figure out she had stolen the book! God would certainly frown on that when He heard the news and He'd probably keep Stan in Purgatory forever for it, and eliminate any chance she had of going back for him!
So thanks to the risk and attention that Butters injury would bring, and thanks to them getting here so late because she had to drag Butters home....it was way too risky to do this tonight. She would decode the spells, but it would be too risky to actually use them. All she could do now was study the spells and find a private time to use them tomorrow afternoon, after she satisfied the people who might be interested in finding out what happened tonight. But a trip to Purgatory tonight was out of the question for safety, health, and security reasons.
"Well Wendy, aren't you gonna go get Stan now?" Butters asked now that he could bring himself to talk again. But since he didn't have access to all those thoughts Wendy had, he didn't know that Wendy had to postpone the trip thanks in large part to his injury, but he would now. "I can't go tonight. We got home so late and people will probably come to find out what happened to you tomorrow. It's too risky to go now, so I'll just decode the spells and find out which one will take me to Purgatory. But I can't go tonight and obviously, you can't either."
With a heavy sigh, Wendy put down the book and headed to the kitchen to find something to calm Butters injury, but on the way she wound up kicking the wall in frustration. And now that Butters was able to understand why her trip to reuniting with Stan was delayed, he felt like sighing heavily to go along with his leg pain as well.
Most of the guests and the other soul takers were already inside the ballroom ready to start the party. But just then they heard some commotion outside, which either meant Miss Ellen or one of her hobo friends were trying to get in uninvited, or that the guest of honor had shown up. Grandpa Marsh used his still limited depth perception to look out and see that indeed, Wendy was coming into the ballroom with her victim right next to her.
"Here she is, the girl of the hour and our newest member! Arriving with her first and definatly not last kill, Wendy Testaburger!" Marvin raised his hand and clapped to get his fellow members to cheer and whoop it up as well as Wendy and Butters came in. Wendy greeted Grandpa and the rest of them, knowing that she had to put up with them until she was officially sworn in, then she could sneak away and look for the Purgatory spells.
Before that ceremony was to start, the group and their guests were served a light dinner, with violins playing in the background to make things look fancy. Even people who kill the living for a living can show some culture once in a while apperantly. Butters and Wendy sat with Grandpa Marsh and his group of first class workers as they ate to pass the time. Since Wendy had told them not to make any jokes or snide remarks about Butters and his "death", the group didn't really have a lot to talk about and Butters was actually starting to get bored. So he figured that maybe he could bring up a conversation, one that would give him some clues on what to expect later.
"So, um, Wendy tells me there's a real scary guy running Purgatory, how about that, huh?" Wendy felt a little uneasy about taking credit for that since, in her research of Purgatory, she knew how uneasy people were when the subject was brought up. But Butters thought that if he brought it up, he might learn something about this dictator and how scary it would be to face him during their upcoming rescue mission. Yet all Grandpa would say is, "What a dumb thing to bring up! This is a night to be happy and to look forward to killing people! If we started talking about some unknown prick who has God and Satan's balls in a blender, who can do anything he wants without anyone stopping him, and who must obviously be the most dangerous being who ever lived to have God and Satan scared of facing him, then it'd bring down the whole mood! Do you really want that to be your revenge for dying here, little foo foo boy?" Since Grandpa already said enough scary things to answer his questions, Butters said "No, that's okay, sir." and then promptly shut up.
"Wait a minute, sir, isn't your nephew in Purgatory right now?" asked one of Grandpa's other workers. "Yeah, that Stan Marsh guy, he killed himself because of our new member's death and he's probably being tortured by Mr unknown right now! No wonder you don't wanna think about that, um, sir."
"Who, Billy? That little so and so didn't give a shit about me when I wanted to die, why should I care what happens to him now? He's a frigging hypocrite if you ask me, he refused to assist me in suicide for over a decade, and how does he die? A frigging suicide! Billy deserves whatever he gets from the dictator for letting me suffer and then killing himself anyway!" Grandpa would have gone one with his anti- Billy rant until Wendy said with a lot of self control, "You're right, the moods really a downer right now. Why don't we just finish our dinner and then we can get to the happy stuff quicker?" This seemed to silence the bitter old man, so he stayed quick just in the nick of time before Wendy thought of forcibly shutting him up about Stan.
Finally the uncomfortable silence of dinner ended and the actual initation ceremony was about to begin. To save time, Grandpa Marsh was carryed over to the podium despite his objections, and after he swore to demote their job standing tomorrow morning, he began the show. "Ladies and gentlemen, we've made a hell of a club to take the future residents of Heaven away from their loved ones for the next 50 years. And tonight, we welcome a promising new member to our delightful club. Now I would like to invite Wendy Testaburger to come up here and recite the club oath!" Wendy got up and walked to the podium as everyone cheered her. She stood in front of her boyfriend's grandfather and was actually relaxed for the last time tonight, since she just had to repeat what she heard from the old man.
"Repeat after me. I swear to carry out any assignments Mr Marsh gives me, not ask questions about how right or wrong it is to take possibly innocent souls away, prepare to be as harsh as possible in the roughest cases, and did I mention we don't want any moral or ethical dillemas about the kiling part?" Wendy repeated the slogan word for word, even the snide question at the end. With that, Grandpa Marsh took out a key from his pocket. "With this key, you now have access to every room in this place, as well as your group membership number to identify you. Congratulations Wendy, a.k.a number 714!" The crowd clapped again as the 1 minute long ceremony that they were having a 3 hour long party for was finished, and the new member bowed to Grandpa with a smile- mostly since now she had the key that would give her access to all their spells, but the foolish old man still did not know that part.
Wendy planned for her and Butters to mingle some more after the ceremony, then after enough time had gone by, they would sneak away from the crowd and go up to the fourth floor unnoticed. Then they would use her new key to open the door to their room full of spells, and hopefully it wouldn't take long to find the old Purgatory spells there. Well, after about 20 minutes, Wendy figured it was safe to find out.
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"I don't get it. If these Purgatory spells were banned, why would this group still keep them in their spell room?" asked Butters a minute after he and Wendy left the ballroom and started going up the stairs to the fourth floor.
"Well, Grandpa made such an effort to collect all the transportation spells when he started the group. I guess by the time he got the place up and running and God told him he couldn't use Purgatory spells, he was too busy to put them away. Or too old or something else, I don't really care right now as long as they're there."
Once they got to the fourth floor, they made sure no one was in the hallways before they headed on- but since the party was downstairs and they just started to serve beer, why would they come up here? Feeling safe, Wendy and Butters walked down the hall until they came to the big door in the middle. Since the Spell Room had a lot of spells in them for the purpose of transporting souls and making sure they were put into submission for their trip to Heaven, they had a lot of searching to do to find what they wanted. So Wendy wasted no time using her new key to get inside and close the door quietly behind her and Butters.
The room was basically one big library with nothing but shelves of books against the round walls. "Wow. Look at all these books. I can't believe you need so many spells just to get souls to Heaven, you only needed to use one to get me here! Why do they need so many anyway, it doesn't make that much sense when you think about it. All it's doing is making our mission harder." Wendy merely nodded and then went towards the shelves without any comments, since this was too important a task to waste time pointing out errors in logic. All the books had labels on them pointing out which types of spells they had, so Wendy just had to look at the labels to see that the Purgatory spells weren't right in front of her. So she walked around to find the label she was looking for, and Butters joined in the search right then. It took about 10 minutes for them to realize that the book of Purgatory spells was not on any of the shelves at all.
"Aw geez, there's nothing here! You told me there were spells to take us to Stan, that's how you got me to die for you! I can't have died just so I could be made a fool out of just like you!" Butters was a bit too worried to control himself from making statements like that, since after all, he did die to find Stan and now there weren't any spells here to find him after all. However, Wendy wasn't saying anything and she had the most to lose and the most reasons to freak out now, so Butters got himself to take a deep breath and wait to see what she had planned.
"There must be some kind of safe or somewhere they put them it. Mr Marsh told me that those spells existed and they kept them here, he couldn't have lied about that just to get me to join and give his club popularity!" Before Wendy started to think how much sense that idea made, she noticed a note on a desk nearby the shelves. Finding it curious and looking for any possible solution that might be out there, she walked over to read the note- or rather, a memo from God.
"To Marvin Marsh. Tomorrow the dictator of Purgatory is paying a visit to Heaven, and one of the things he wants is to take your Purgatory spells. He wants to use them to take souls from Heaven into Purgatory to be his new slaves, and there's really nothing I can do to get in his way. So please leave them in the special safe so I can transport them to Purgatory tomorrow. Signed, God." Now Wendy had some new hope, because if a note like that was there, then the safe it was talking about couldn't be far behind, although it seemed to be pretty well hidden from sight. She looked around until she saw something she really should have noticed before, as there was a keyhole on the left side of one of the book shelves. She ran over to put the key inside, and it was a perfect fit. Perfect enough for a small opening to appear on the side of the shelf with a book inside of it.
"Hey, you think that might be our book?" Butters asked with some trepidation, since it might only look obvious that it was the Purgatory book. However, when Wendy took out the book and showed him that the label said "Purgatory Spells" his fears slipped away. "All right, now I guess we can go to get Stan right now! I'll be back on Earth just a little bit after my bedtime!"
"I wish that were true. But we can't disappear now and risk someone barging in to see us using these things. We'll just leave now so no one's suspicious of us, and then work these things out when we get home." Wendy closed the secret door and locked it again, then made sure to leave the note exactly where she found it. "Now we'll just take this and be on our way with no one being the wiser." However, since there was no place to hide the book under a skin tight dress, there was no way Wendy could take this home with no one being the wiser. So there was really one other solution she could think of right now.
"Butters, stuff this book halfway down your pants."
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After getting Butters to calm down, Wendy was able to explain her plan clearly. Butters would put the bottom half of the book down his pants, then tuck his shirt inside his pants and over the book. It would make him walk a little less gracefully, but it would keep the book out of sight and let them get away with the theft. So after Wendy made sure to turn around just in case there was a wardrobe mistake, Butters followed through with the plan and in a second, the book was concealed from view- and behind Butters's shirt and inside his pants. He took a minute to test his walking skills and decided to walk out after his walking got less awkward.
When they headed back to the ballroom, several of the guests were already gone and others were already drinking, since there were no hangovers in Heaven if you got drunk- which was why God had alcohol distribution limited to special occasions, something that worked well since the major alcoholics from Earth were mostly in Hell or Purgatory. So since no one was really noticing them, Wendy and Butters just casually walked out of the room without any attention paid to them. The press was gone and Grandpa Marsh had his headlines, so he really had no need to watch over them now. Therefore, they were able to get out of the building faster than they expected, but they still couldn't feel safe enough to take out the book until they got back home. But just as they were about to start walking home, they heard an old voice calling to them.
"Hey Wendy, foo foo boy!" The two turned back to see Grandpa Marsh standing outside the front door with a glass of wine in his hand. "Where are you going, we're having the best time here and the party's just getting started!" It looked pretty clear that he had a bit too much to drink already, but Wendy kinda figured he'd do that. He wanted to die for so long because he could no longer do the things he liked to do and live it up thanks to his old body, but now that age didn't matter here, he could do whatever he wanted with no consequences. So drinking a lot of wine was now one of those things he was getting used to again, and now it seemed he wanted Wendy and Butters to help out, though they really had no time to. "Sorry Grandpa, we're a little tired. We'd like to go home now."
"Huh?! Wait a minute, I'm officially your boss so you can't refuse anything from me! So if I order you to party with me, you gotta do it!" Grandpa Marsh would have tipped over by now if he didn't lean on a cane with his other hand, but he kept going anyway. "You get back here and boogy with me!"
"No, we seriously have to leave!" Now that Wendy had the book, she really didn't need to suck up to him or his followers anymore, so she didn't have to be that polite in telling him to back off either. But he wasn't going back inside, so Wendy sighed and walked over to get him out of the way. Butters stayed behind to see her try and aid him in walking away, but Grandpa Marsh wasn't going anywhere that easily. In fact, now he was starting to swing his cane at her to get her to back off. This pretty much signaled to Butters that he had to get in the middle of this thing before someone got hurt- though at this point he wasn't that concerned that Mr Marsh might get hurt at this point.
"Hey, stop trying to hit your new worker!" Butters ran over to get between Wendy and Mr Marsh, but the old man was a bit too crabby to put up with him plesently. "Back off, pansy boy!" Though he still wasn't as active as a younger man was, Grandpa was still more active than he was when he was alive- for one thing, when he was alive he couldn't have taking his cane, used the front of it to hit Butters knee, and then kick his knee so it bent backwards, that was for sure. But he had done it now.
Once Butters fell because his leg was now broken, Wendy immediatly forgot to be gentle with Grandpa because he was still old, and she literally pushed him back inside so he couldn't do any more damage. He was now on his back inside the building, and before he could call his partying workers to come over and pick him up, Wendy had already picked Butters up and dragged him along with her since he obviously couldn't walk right now.
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Since businesses were now closed in the area, pretty much no one was outside and so no one helped Wendy on her now very long walk home. It would have taken about 15-20 minutes to walk back normally, but now since she had to drag along Butters, it was almost 3 times as long. Plus she still had to stop a few times to make sure Butters's shirt was still tucked in and the book was still out of sight. Though no one seemed to be out right now, she couldn't afford to be take chances at a time like this- especially since the noises Butters was making because of his pain might wake up a few unwanted people.
Finally at about midnight Earth time, the two were finally near Wendy's Heaven house. Butters was still making noises and sounding very much in pain, so there was still a risk he would wake up some people. Wendy put him down on the ground in front of the house and quickly opened the door, then dragged him back inside as fast as she could before more people turned on the lights in their houses to see what was going on. The people here were kind or else they wouldn't be here, but they tended to be very nosy, and Wendy sure as hell didn't need evesdroppers discovering her plans.
At last the two were inside and Wendy lay Butters down on the couch to try and recover. His leg was still bent and the bottom of his leg was sticking out more than the top of his leg. It gave him just as much pain here as it would have on Earth, but the difference was that everytime someone got hurt like this in Heaven, their injuries would instantly heal on the next sunrise. But until then, a person would have to deal with the pain for the rest of the day, which was why no one wanted to get hurt very early in the morning or the whole day and night would be quite a bitch to get through.
These were thoughts very prominant in Wendy's brain right now. Her original plan was to come home, work out the spells and find out which one would take her instantly to Purgatory. There were all kinds of spells in the book that related to Purgatory, but only one would get her there on the spot, and she had figured it would take a few hours to decode the spells to begin with. But now Butters injury may have messed up the plan even more. She still needed his help to find Stan when they got to Purgatory, since even though she was strong and motivated enough, it didn't seem like she could take on whoever this dictator fellow was by herself, she needed backup. But then again, Butters was never a good fighter or a fighter at all to begin with, he was beaten up by bullies who were obviously pansies compared to this dictator. Besides, his injuries would heal when the sun rose, so he would be okay in about 6 hours anyway. The main thing she needed Butters for was to kill him to get in the group, and that job was done. She could just leave him there, take the spells, go to Purgatory and bring Stan back without him, then come back to send him away to Earth again. It really wouldn't take that long, so it seemed like a plan.
With a flourish, Wendy went over to Butters and lifted up his shirt a bit, then gently pulled the book out from his pants. Butters groaned in pain despite her best efforts, but groaning in pain was really all he could do or say right now. Wendy tried to ignore those thoughts and concentrate on looking through the spells. She went through the book and saw that there were about 500-1000 spells relating to Purgatory, but none were labeled. They were all in codes and only trained, licensed soul takers knew how to decode them and use them. She was relatively new at decoding spells and figuring out which ones did what, so this indeed would take a few hours to do.....and then her heart sank.
Since this would take so long, she probably wouldn't be able to get to Purgatory till about 3 in the morning. And now that she was thinking clearly, it probably wasn't that realistic that she could get Stan out that fast, she knew nothing about what kind of traps or obstacles were there so anything could slow her down. Plus she would inevitably have to face this dictator, so that would eat up a lot of time. By the time she got back it would probably be well past sunrise, and by then a lot of people would have woken up.....and probably dropped by to visit Butters and see why he was moaning last night. Also, Marsh probably told his workers and the press about the fight, so that might attract some media attention to the house in the morning. Therefore, now it was logical that by the time she decoded the spells and by the time she got back with Stan, there might be people outside her house waiting to talk to her and Butters because of that stupid fight- then they would see Stan and figure out she had stolen the book! God would certainly frown on that when He heard the news and He'd probably keep Stan in Purgatory forever for it, and eliminate any chance she had of going back for him!
So thanks to the risk and attention that Butters injury would bring, and thanks to them getting here so late because she had to drag Butters home....it was way too risky to do this tonight. She would decode the spells, but it would be too risky to actually use them. All she could do now was study the spells and find a private time to use them tomorrow afternoon, after she satisfied the people who might be interested in finding out what happened tonight. But a trip to Purgatory tonight was out of the question for safety, health, and security reasons.
"Well Wendy, aren't you gonna go get Stan now?" Butters asked now that he could bring himself to talk again. But since he didn't have access to all those thoughts Wendy had, he didn't know that Wendy had to postpone the trip thanks in large part to his injury, but he would now. "I can't go tonight. We got home so late and people will probably come to find out what happened to you tomorrow. It's too risky to go now, so I'll just decode the spells and find out which one will take me to Purgatory. But I can't go tonight and obviously, you can't either."
With a heavy sigh, Wendy put down the book and headed to the kitchen to find something to calm Butters injury, but on the way she wound up kicking the wall in frustration. And now that Butters was able to understand why her trip to reuniting with Stan was delayed, he felt like sighing heavily to go along with his leg pain as well.