Upon activation, Koln's program burst into a frenzy of activity. He had a moment or two of panic there, as it nearly brought his computer to a standstill as it worked, but things eventually worked themselves out. Maybe the mouse seemed a touch less sluggish, but he didn't see much immediate change.

He went through checks. Some programs seemed to run a little faster than they usually did, and he seemed to connect to the forum more quickly. And from there… well, he realized what the Enigma program's real purpose was. Whole portions of the website once hidden were now revealed.

(Some little piece of historical trivia he picked up came to him. German encryption machine, WW2. From a person named Koln. Hmm…)

He figured this was probably what Elisabeth wanted: a means of communication encrypted by this Enigma program and therefore safe from outside observers. Government? Shadowy agencies? He couldn't say.

With all this on his mind, he went to post and get some answers.

TheGreatProcrastinator: So what was up with claw girl?

(ADMIN) BethOnIt: She's one of several… supernatural entities who lurk around these islands. We have write ups about individuals but a certain someone hasn't finished the intro doc

BirdFan: I was busy applying burn cream on your arm, thank you.

(ADMIN) BethOnIt: and before that?

BirdFan: I'm a busy man.

(ADMIN) BethOnIt: To start with, can you tell us what happened with Long Claws? The one you saw?

TheGreatProcrastinator: Her name is Spee. Graf Spee.

BlueNarew: She's Admiral Graf Spee?

TheGreatProcrastinator: How'd you know she was an admiral?

BlueNarew: I know the boat.

TheGreatProcrastinator: The boat?

BlueNarew: They're all boats.

TheGreatProcrastinator: Pretty sure she was a girl.

BirdFan: All of those girls spring from old WW2 era boats. Why? I can't say.

TheGreatProcrastinator: WW2 ships like… what?

(ADMIN) BethOnIt: At the very least, German cruiser Koln and French battleship Richelieu. We've got hypothesises about the others but nothing hard

BlueNarew: the dream would be like Enterprise or something, but it's all weird. Mostly sunken or scrapped ships. Nothing at all happened during our Patriot's Point field trip

(ADMIN) BethOnIt: anyways, back to Spee.

TheGreatProcrastinator: She just needed help. I fed her and gave her something to drink and she was really sweet, actually.

BirdFan: lucky us

(ADMIN) BethOnIt: Edit her article with whatever you've learned and if you want you can join us with handling the Fox Wife. It's dangerous. You don't have to; you saw my arm.

LONG CLAWS/ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE

Ship tends to lurk on the eastern coast of the island in a largely uninhabited area about half a mile in either direction from Blood Creek.

(Blood Creek was a few hundred yards away from his house.)

Not actively aggressive, but her claws and the strong pity instinct she provokes mean she's a bit risky. Has shredded a lot of unfortunate fish and, on one occasion, a small boat.

Claws are made of some unknown material, that is practically immune to damage and that never seem to grow dull. Probably organic- early reports describe an instance of her cutting an arm off. Regrowth took approx. ten months, claws even longer at twelve, but claws did grow back. Powerful regeneration which helps when the ship cuts itself.

Lost claws were recovered and tested before they dissolved. Immune to acids and bases used in testing (vinegar and lye). Claws are heavy, but her body seems built around them. Very fast when using them, but otherwise slow to move.

Likes pilsner. A lot of her problems seem to spring from not having working hands. Food and water did her some real good.

They marched through the woods, and Elisabeth gave him the run down on this mysterious 'Fox Wife' character. A brief intro to her powers: pyrokinesis, monstrous physical strength, and an ability to escape pursuit so incredible it seemed unnatural. Thankfully, there were a few caveats that meant she hadn't set the whole island on fire.

"The thing with her… she's passionate."

"So?"

"A bit… too passionate. She means well, but she can absolutely kill you." Elisabeth looked him dead in the eyes, "You cannot let her get too close."

"So, what, it's some sort of game of keep away?"

She nodded. "Something like that. We try to keep her away from other people, and we try to keep her calm. Priorities in that order."

He gulped. "This is serious, isn't it?"

"It's not an easy job. If you want, you can go back to birdwatching..."

Maybe he could. It would absolutely be the easy thing to do, but for some reason staying in his house never really seemed to be an option for him. There was something so much bigger than him, like the plot of one of his stories... and he couldn't help but want to learn a little more. Spee had been... nice. He knew this Fox Wife character wouldn't be as nice, but some mixture of curiosity and wanting to help the Society brought him out.

"So, is this like a full-time thing?"

"She's usually not this bad until winter, but she's getting antsy, for some reason."

"Maybe we should try bringing one of those miniature figure extinguishers?" He suggested.

"We tried it, and it even worked once, but she cottoned on immediately. Next time we tried-" she shook her head, "-it was hot enough to burn skin the moment she laid eyes on it."

He wasn't quite sure what he expected as they marched towards the Fox Wife's part of the island. This mysterious entity- and her magical control of fire- would be their foe tonight. The image that formed in his mind… Well, he had already seen Spee, with her razor teeth and her sharkskin. He figured the Fox Wife would be similar. Maybe covered in fur, or something.

It didn't take much work to get onto her trail, not with the clear trail of burnt underbrush they could follow. They did not split up to check both ways- splitting up was a very bad idea- but crept down the path slowly, trying to follow the trail. There would probably be a smokey smell in his clothes tomorrow….

Even as slowly as they were going, they eventually caught up. From a distance and from the rear, she looked like an animal, although one much bigger than a fox. The tails were massive and thick- but they didn't seem to block her hearing, the way she snapped around to look at them.

She was beautiful in a way that was just a little disturbing. Partially, it was the dangerous beauty of a well-made sword or a wild predator, but with an uncanny edge to it. There was just something about her… the way flawless skin and a slender neck and a prodigious bosom didn't quite seem to fit together properly. He couldn't point out where the problem was, but her skin seemed to sit strangely on her body.

The tails and the fox ears only added to the strangeness of her look. Her long hair covered hid the sides of her head, but he assumed she didn't have normal ears. And the eyes… they glowed like Spee's did, but this time the eyes were red- he'd almost say darkroom red, but they were too bright to compare to such a dim place. If their alien light wasn't bad enough, her expression was enough to make his blood chill.

She tilted her head, creeping towards the three of them- Justin, Elisabeth, Rishab- for a few moments. An ear twitched, the tails swayed. Rishab's flashlight shook in his hand and Elisabeth angled herself to protect her burnt arm. Justin's hand drifted towards his waistband…

"I see you brought friends," she breathed, voice low and sultry. She was staring at Rishab, transfixed. Both Justin and Elisabeth scooted away as she leaned in, little lines of fire racing up her tails.

"I missed you."

"And yet you waste time with these…" she shook her head dismissively, and the temperature soared, a wave of heart hitting them. They backed away, but she continued to approach, her tails setting off little fires every time they touched the ground.

Justin and Elisabeth both tried to circle behind her, who was keeping her attention centered on Rishab for now. If she got too nutty, they'd distract her, but they certainly didn't want to catch her attention otherwise.

To his credit, Rishab was actually a very smooth talker. Even as the Fox Wife literally smoldered in front of him, he didn't let it impact his voice. He just kept on talking.

"Your hands are shaking, my dear. Are you cold?"

"No! Not at all."

She frowned, and walked towards him, Rishab thought to move back, but his with gaze fixed on her, he tripped on a root- only to get caught as she darted forward, so fast as to be a blur. She only needed a single hand to catch him, while the other came to rest on his forehead. He was shaking like a leaf.

"You're positively freezing!" She gasped. "Let me just…"

Immediately, one of the nearby trees went up in flames, like someone had doused it in gasoline beforehand and thrown a match. Justin practically threw himself away from the thing.

"Is that better?"

"A little warm, really," Rishab laughed awkwardly.

She laughed too, but it was the sort of laugh that sent a chill down your spine despite the heat. "You need to be taking better care of yourself! You might just freeze without me looking after you."

Rishab had regained his footing and managed to remove himself from her grip, and her expression went from caring to furious in a single moment. Rishab wouldn't manage to scramble away in time- and Justin had already pulled out his gun.

She turned to look at him, and his gun grew hot in his hands, searing his skin and forcing him to drop it before he could fire. It fell to the ground, and he stumbled back- which turned out to be a good thing. After a bit more staring from the fox, there was a cascade of pops and a spray of shrapnel. He collapsed to his knees and pain lanced up his legs.

F turned from Rishab for a moment, walking towards Justin. She loomed over him- and wow, that skirt could probably be a lot longer- but lowered her head to… sniff? She inhaled deeply, and her brow furrowed. "The bottomfeeder…" she muttered, a look of disdain on her face like she had caught the scent of someone's sick.

He gulped. Then there was a sort of snapping, clicking noise. Her mouth hadn't moved, yet there was a strange series of clicks and snaps as… as her skin began to move, pushed around by shifting bones underneath. The nose lengthened, the eyes angled, the body shrank in on itself. She didn't so much as flinch, even as her face warped into the severe lines of a fox's.

More sniffing at the air, and a strange look on the fox's face. He realized, vaguely, that foxes were not supposed to be this big. She picked up his pistol in her maw, visibly bending it, before she darted away, nine tails vanishing into the underbrush.

"Where are we going?" He groaned.

"We've got something to heal you." She said.

"Why didn't you…?" Justin looked towards her arm, wrapped in gauze.

"Because it wasn't the right day."

"What?"

"Sundays or Catholic solemnities only."

"What?"

"I said the same thing," she grumbled. "But that's how it goes. Richelieu gave us year-round healing if we just time things right."

He looked at her arm again, and wondered about timing… "But you've been seen with the bandages, haven't you?"

She sighed. "I'll just have to deal with them, then."

They eventually limped into the town's church, which seemed to gain a whole new dimension at night, only lit by the moon. It seemed like a good setting for supernatural, and apparently, there was something remarkable there… behind a locked door.

Elisabeth groaned and fished a set of keys out of her pocket and opened the door, letting Rishab help Justin inside. "Are we allowed to do this?"

Rishab nodded. "We've struck a deal. Now up the step, 3, 2…"

If the outside of the church was strange enough, there was something incredibly alien about the interior of the church at night. Their flashlights cast little halos of light that occasionally illuminated a baby Jesus or a Station of the Cross. Elisabeth led them towards the front of the church, towards the… business end? Not the front, but the end furthest from where you entered.

What they found up there… well, compared to the humble little church it was contained in, the chalice certainly was something. Gold and silver, patterns, a chi-rho in dark red enamel that seemed to suck up what little light the flashlight cast.

Delicate detail work spun and whirled across the sides, contrasted by the plain cloth laid over top. Elisabeth removed it, and peeking over the rim, he could see a mix of wine and disintegrated wafers.

"Is that…?"

She handed him a sort of gilded spoon. "Eat up."

It was hot. Why was it hot?

RICHELIEU'S CHALICE

A chalice made of gold, silver, and vitreous enamel, left to the Society by French Battleship Richelieu around the time of her disappearance. There is a depiction of Christ being baptized in the Jordan in an art style most similar to medieval French religious artwork. Age is unknown, although there is no reason to think conventional scientific dating would not work. Chalice was not seen before Richelieu's disappearance.

Imbues healing properties onto bread and wine after certain conditions are met:

-Must be a Sunday, Catholic solemnity, Octave, or Easter Triduum day. Starts and stops at midnight, only works for solemnities actually celebrated on the island: cannot be 'gamed' into celebrating other country's solemnities, for example.

-Does not work off of the island of Cavalry. Bread and wine lose their healing properties, the silver tarnishes at an exceptional rate, chalice becomes exceptionally cold.

-Must contain validly consolidated bread and wine.

-Must be consumed after intinction (dipping the bread in the wine).

Attempts at founding a Church of the Barrier Islands to utilize chalice without outside assistance failed, so the Catholic priest of Calvary is in on the secret. The chalice's lack of ability outside of Calvary has kept it from being stolen away, but keeping the chalice's powers from being publicized is an urgent priority. So far, both priests have proven very willing to keep it secret, with the caveat that they can use it as a normal Communion chalice.

Healing is not anything more than what the body can do naturally. No regrowing limbs, etc. Healing does seem to exhaust the person- they seem to provide the nutrients themselves- so caution has to be exercised. Of all wounds treated, burns seem to heal the most quickly. The reason for this are unknown.

The current hypothesis is some sort of time dilation effect intensely localized on the person who consumed the bread, but this does not seem to fit in with Richelieu's typical powers. (See RICHELIEU & the HOLY FIRE incident, which nearly led to widespread discovery of the society.) Other hypotheses include some sort of chemical that increases the rate of cell division.

The chalice has proven useful many times in investigating other entities around the islands, especially FOX WIFE, but the chalice should not be taken as a given. Changes to mood after consumption are likely, with a tendency towards guilt and sometimes a powerful sense of disgust.

Other oddities include weight. The chalice is unusually heavy, even for a piece made of gold and silver. (Calculations indicate the inside of the chalice must be denser than platinum.) The chalice also seems to always stay warm, regardless of external conditions. The highest recorded temperature was 99 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sure enough, he was healed, and they limped off to get some grub after Elisabeth locked the door behind her. The healing had made him super hungry, but he was also hungry for something else: answers.

"Why here?" He asked. "Why this little town? Some of these girls sunk thousands of miles away, right?"

"Yeah. These islands have… an attraction. As far as I know, we're the only ones."

"But why?"

"Well if I knew I'd damn well try to stop it. We don't have anything substantial." She sighed, "A couple of theories, really."

"Like?"

"One is that there's some sort of… uh, focal point. Ley line, axis mundi, navel of the world, whatever. There's some unknown element here."

"You buy it?"

"I mean, there's all sorts of stuff we don't know about them, but I can't imagine why Calvary is so special. Not a dockyard, not a lab, not a factory."

"What else?"

"My thought is that they interact with emotion. Spee does pity, Koln made you real curious… Maybe there's something here that attracts them that way. Not much more to go off of than the ley line crap, but maybe… some tremendous outpouring of emotion."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. The problem has been around for a while, so it has to be old…" her expression was grim. "Calvary is a mostly normal rural town, barring the Catholics. I can't imagine it was too different from the rest of the south."

(ADMIN) BethOnIt: Okay, this is going to be a weird question but I need you to answer honestly.

TheGreatProcrastinator: Shoot

(ADMIN) BethOnIt: Have you ever considered committing suicide?

Akagi! And next time, we see a girl with insidious mental effects… or maybe several.