#And he's also (despite his prickliness and sometimes poor socialisation) kind

[dont-offend-the-bees]

Awwww thank you my love!! And sorry for the delay in getting to it, brain's been all over the place, yikes-ness all round!!

This is such a fun little window into the world and I LOVE the way you can just take characters from anything and pop them neatly into whatever world you like! And honestly your voices are GREAT considering you got them from a compilation �� you're always so quick to pick them up, it's so impressive!

Thank you so much for this, I didn't have the spoons to properly respond to it til just now but it did put a smile on my face on a very dismal christmas, so thank you 💛💛💛

Merry Christmas Newt!

@dont-offend-the-bees You simply said that, if I was inclined to write something, it could involve ghosts or ghost detectives -- so I threw Edwin and Charles of Dead Boys Detective Agency into the Valicer In The Dark verse. ^^; Hope you enjoy your favorite ghostly duo getting very confused and worried by Duskwall!

--

“Mate, I think that last mirror hop went a lot more wrong than we first thought.”

“Really?” Edwin murmured, looking around the misty street where he and Charles currently found themselves. “What tipped you off? The lack of familiar landmarks to navigate by? The frankly Dickensian architecture around us? Or the fact that the moment we tumbled through the glass, we were met by a woman who promptly started screaming ‘SPECTERS! FETCH THE SPIRIT WARDENS!’”

“Definitely the latter,” Charles replied, one hand deep in his backpack as he squinted into the gloam. “What do you think a ‘spirit warden’ is, anyway? Something like the Night Nurse?”

“Perhaps – I don’t recall ever hearing the term before, and unfortunately, as of right now, our library is off-limits to us.” Edwin glanced at Charles. “Perhaps, should we encounter one, I could encourage you not to immediately go in swinging with your cricket bat? The Night Nurse proved able to be reasoned with – perhaps they could too.”

“Yeah, well, I think taking a few to the face and getting swallowed by a sea monster for a bit is what softened her up enough to be reasoned with,” Charles argued, frowning back at him. “And I’m not letting anyone separate us. Not after what we’ve already been through.”

“On that point, we are thoroughly in agreement.” Edwin looked around again – or, at least, tried to. “Even if, right now, I think anyone could sneak up on us and have the advantage. How is anyone supposed to find their way around in this?”

“Guess the locals are used to it.” Charles rummaged around a little. “Know I’ve got your little alchemy set in here somewhere...you think you could brew up something to–”

“...this way, you said?”

“Yes, there’s definitely some ghosts around here.”

Edwin and Charles both froze as three hazy figures appeared at the end of the street, coming toward them fast. “Shit,” Charles hissed.

“Calm, calm,” Edwin said, as much to himself as to his friend. “Again, we might be able to talk to them. Maybe.”

Charles opened his mouth to snap something back – but before he could, the trio were upon them, features resolving themselves into something more definite than mere foggy shapes. They were a bit of a bizarre bunch – a young woman in a black-and-white dress and black cloak, holding a knife that glowed with a peculiar gray light; what looked to be a young man about the same age in a bright yellow vest and black pants, peering at them curiously with what appeared to be yellow eyes (another cat king?); and a second taller, paler man in a black suit and long dark blue coat, wearing a mask that appeared to be made out of twitching moth wings and carrying a pole with a loop at the end in one hand. They stared at Edwin and Charles for a long, quite worrying moment...

Then the fellow in the mask sighed, the tension leaving his shoulders. “Oh – it’s all right,” he told his companions, collapsing the pole and stowing it away in a pocket. “They’re Reconciled.”

“Oh good – I really didn’t feel like getting into an electroplasmic scrap tonight,” the woman said, holstering her blade. She tilted her head as she looked Edwin and Charles up and down. “Though – that doesn’t explain why they’re in full color. I’ve never seen a ghost who wasn’t all blue or gray before.”

“Me either – maybe they’re a new type of ghost?” the other fellow said, before giving them a bright smile and a wave. “Hi! I’m Smiler, and this is Victor and Alice! Just a quick question – you’re definitely not interested in sucking our life essence, right?”

Edwin blinked a few times. “Ah – no,” he finally said. “I’m – certainly not currently inclined to do that.”

“We’re not local,” Charles added, not taking his hand out of his backpack – Edwin was deeply suspicious that it was clutching a certain cricket bat. “Don’t suppose you lot could tell us where we’ve ended up?”

“Duskwall, in Akoros!” Smiler provided, grin not budging. “Are you ghosts from another part of the Isles then? Oooh, maybe from Tycheros?”

“They don’t seem to have any of the usual tells, though,” the woman – Alice – said, squinting thoughtfully. “Victor?”

“I...” The masked man – Victor – stared hard at them, his eyes glowing with that strange gray light Edwin had seen on Alice’s knife. “They’re definitely not regular ghosts, but I’m not sure h-how precisely they’re different. Not hostile, just not – right?”

“Ah – lovely. A mystery for us to solve in the middle of the blind hour on our way back from a heist,” Alice grumbled, folding her arms. “But if they’re sane, then at least we can talk to them. Where do you two hail from, then?”

Edwin exchanged a baffled look with Charles. “We’re...we’re from England,” he said slowly, starting to get quite the bad feeling in his lack of stomach. “And I believe we’ve gone terribly astray.”