This is continuing the story from Woynich's Bookthing. I thought I didn't want to continue it, but I might.

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So, we were all at Steph's place last night, Kent, Timone, even Leann was there.
Also this guy I didn't know, I don't remember his name… It was a name that was really hard to tell from just people saying it. I needed it written down.
We came up with a plan. It all went so fast, I didn't get to write it all down.
Is that what a party is like? Or supposed to be like?
I have school today but I can't stop trying to wrap my mind around what we're doing.
Timone brought that guy, I didn't get his name; it was like Carl Brown or Braungh or Braham or something… Graham?
Anyway, this Carl or Cal guy, he worked at the Priceclub from the Crom Rampage and saw the Shubilife stand get set up. Apparently, this higher up guy from the Priceclub, a Gharial, set it up but he brought the equipment in his own truck, and I've seen that truck! The bus passes it on the way to EC every day. It's this blue-alligator-print Stardew Pickup truck with a cracked rearview mirror on the right side that someone tried to spray-paint black but didn't have enough paint to do the whole thing.
We can go confront that guy, we know where he lives! we…
They. They can go do that. I shouldn't get involved. This could get dangerous.
~Woynich's Manuscript Entry for Moonday, Pentuary 7th, 1974.



The forecast did not call for rain. The wood and concrete of the South Bank docks reflected the dark overcast night sky. The ocean was still; the air, calm; and fine water droplets fell through the mists and fog. Across the river sat Etaon City, obscured by the cloudy darkness into a haze of gray and pale yellow light. The upright lupine woman in the coat and gatsby cap, a thin silhouette among thick rectangular silhouettes, had come from the city with a burning question in her mind. She had on what she believed to be good authority, that the answer ought to reveal itself tonight. That authority was reluctantly watching over her now, speaking through a smart phone pressed to her ear.
"You know Steph," the voice through the phone whined, "I didn't think it'd be this bad but maybe we should really consider putting this off until Kent or-"
The wolf shushed her companion, "we're here now," she said, "we're making the most of it." She turned the smartphone away from herself, using the screen's light as a flashlight as many are prone to do nowadays. The beam ran down the side of a steel shipping container labeled "FORAGO PRODUCE."
She was about to move along when she heard a metallic clang over the splashing of the rain and sea. The whiny voice continued on with cautionary remarks, "where could they be? Should we call Leann again?." The wolf took in a sharp inhale and her ears and eyes darted to the right of the container. She drew the phone to her breast to blot out the light. A metallic creaking. Someone was opening a container.
"What was that?" the phone spoke. The volume was already low. Steph turned it down lower, to the minimum setting, and carefully whispered, "there's someone else here," into the receiver.
"I'm coming over," the phone said back and a shadow began to leap from the container tops at the edge of the yard. The shadow dropped out of sight. A louder crash sounding of wood hitting metal sounded from where the shadow disappeared. "Owww~~" Steph's phone whined. The forecast did not call for rain.

Steph tried to sneak towards the container of interest when from its mouth the unknown attendant stepped through the fog. Steph silently mouthed "Oh" and hurriedly backed up behind the Forago container, out of sight. "Who's there!?" the figure called out in Steph's direction in a tone Steph assumed had to be male. It definitely sounded more baritone than the nasally whine of her companion. He stepped further. There was another crash in the distance. He considered what it could've been briefly, but then turned back to the mouth of the large metal box and crept back inside. Without having checked, Steph knew what was written on the side of that container: "Giga-Gush Soda".

Steph held the phone up to her ear and lips and worriedly whispered, "he's in the Giga-Gush crate. This guy's our saboteur."
"What?" the phone whispered back, "can you get footage? Should we call the police? I mean- we don't know what this guy is capable of, what if he shrinks us?"
"I didn't follow that truck you found to just get more questions!" she said quietly and forcefully, "I want answers! I'm gonna see if I can get some footage. You just-" she thought for a moment, "-can you make another distraction? In case I've gotta get back to the car?"
"Distract-?"
"What you just did with the noise. That again?"
"Can do."
"Good. Hush up now and wait for my signal." Steph switched her phone to video mode and kept the call running. She started recording and moved slowly and silently from her hiding spot. She crept along the flat side of the soda bottle shipping crate, her front pressed against the cool wet siding, her coat was dampened a bit further and she did not mind. Steph slunk to the gap created by the hinges at the edge of the crate. Luckily the perpetrator of the evening's crime was using a flashlight to guide his actions, making them show up onscreen. Unfortunately, this meant his face was just an unfocused silhouette to the camera. From where Steph stood he looked like a tall creature, a head above her with a rain slicker on and a briefcase in one slack hand. he could be a Gator, though she was't completely sure. She was afraid to move though as she was capturing exactly what the guy was doing. Before the presumed gator were the rows of pellets of soda. He was shining the light down over the pellet closest to him. He glanced back out the container. Steph quickly retreaded into hiding. "forecast didn't call for rain," the presumed gator groaned to himself before turning back to his task. A few moment passed before Steph slid her camera phone back out again, filming what was happening though she could not see it. She hoped the lizard-man didn't notice her paw sticking out, and for a good few minutes he didn't. Then he did.

"Hey!" the suspect foolishly exclaimed and started towards the crate door. That's it. Steph thought. Cover's blown. She drew the phone back in and whispered, a bit more loudly than she meant to, "Woynich! Now! Distraction!" Steph hung up the phone and immediately a banging started off by the edge of the yard. The Gator ran out of the container and off towards the decoy, leaving the lamp behind. Steph was about to book it away when curiosity seized her.
The shady saboteur had rushed out towards the spot where Woynich was beating his collapsed umbrella against the metal ridges of a container designated as belonging to "Rica Apparel" as fast as he could to roughly the beat of It Ain't Gonna Rain No More. The slicker-clad silhouette emerged from the fog to see a greenish ball of fuzz scramble to its legs and dash off back towards the gate, still bashing the metal around it with what looked to be a stick or cane. After a few paces of chase, Woynich looked over his shoulder and saw his pursuer. He had successfully distracted the guy: now how was he going to lose him? Woynich made a sharp turn left and the maze game began.
The glow of the lamp still shone from within the Giga-Gush container. The suspect left his lamp: did he leave his briefcase? Woynich's words echoed in Steph's mind, "we don't know what this guy is capable of." Surely just a peek couldn't hurt. Steph glanced down at her phone. Woynich would expect her by the car soon to make their getaway. He couldn't drive. This was not what she thought when she looked at the phone, but it was true. Steph started recording again and cautiously entered the crate, focused on the lamp atop the soda bottles suspended on plastic wrap and the still open briefcase next to it. Between them was a small object, that looked to be an empty coffee cup. Without thinking, she snatched it up and looked over the rest of the briefcase, quickly shoving a bunch of the paper contents before the phone. Surely the frames ought to be legible, she thought. As she was going through the papers she looked over the object in her right paw. She meant to leave it there, leave everything exactly as it was so that the suspect wouldn't be after her. Then she skimmed over a few of the pages and instantly changed her mind.
The maze game was still going on, but Woynich had amused himself by finding a way to cheat. There was a forklift down in the metal labyrinth and in fear, Woynich propelled himself up its slippery chassis and ascended to the top of a container. Now with the high ground, Woynich was banging in strategic locations to confuse and lure his pursuer away. The figure became frustrated and started heading back to the Giga-Gush crate. Not good. Woynich panicked a bit, and yelled "Don't-" without realizing it. That regained the attention of the man, but only briefly before he started running back in the direction he came from. Woynich started chasing after the guy from across the wet crate tops, more cautious about leaping now, until he saw Steph's shape through the fog creeping back towards the gate out of sight of their suspect.
The suspect himself reentered the crate. The duo moved to retreat back to their car. A roar of, "Where are you! Come out!" sounded over the yard as Steph and Woynich, soaked by the fog and downpour, entered the dry seats of Steph's truck before the wolf hit the ignition and left the South Bank behind them.

Woynich looked out the back of the truck, expecting something to come out of the fog after them. A monster likely. Some creature or minion of their suspect augmented a hundredfold in weight and volume with teeth or talons large enough to crush the truck itself. Nothing came. The docks faded out of sight. Woynich turned his gray feline face towards Steph, whose eyes were glued to the road before them. After some silence Woynich shakily asked, "What did you get?" and Steph took the small cup out of her coat pocket and thrust it before Woynich, her other paw on the wheel. Her eyes flew over the cup and Woynich's confused expression and she sighed, put the cup away and passed Woynich her phone.
Woynich unlocked the phone and opened up the video gallery, checking the footage as Steph focused on getting them back to Etaon. Steph's curiosity about the situation still shone through and she asked Woynich what was going on in the footage.

"Well," Woynich narrated, "there's our guy. I can't really get a good look at him, but I can tell that his jacket is blue from here. Or, maybe that's just the lighting. Sorry." Woynich cleared his throat and continued, "he's opening his briefcase. He's taking something out of it and he's-- he's pressing it down on all the bottle caps."
"What?" Steph asked, not quite able to make sense of what Woynich just described. "Sorry, um, y'know how the necks of the bottles of Giga-Gush sorta stick out through the plastic wrap on the pellets?" Woynich explained rubbing his hurt wing with his forepaw, and Steph nodded in assent. "He's sort of sticking this thing down on the necks and twisting it. That might be how he contaminated the bottles, but I don't see how, he's not cutting into them or-- and now he's coming towards the camera. He's got a snout: he's a crocodile-or alligator- person. I can't tell… hey, is a gharial a kind of crocodile?" Steph's chest filled the screen, covered by her sweater.

"This is where you gave the signal," Woynich swiped the screen to the next video. Steph had by this point had crossed the bridge and entered Etaon's traffic. It was fine for her, this late at night getting into the city was easier than getting out. "Okay," Woynich cued up the next video, "Oh, there's the thing you just pulled out," Woynich turned to face Steph with wide eyes and a scared expression, "You stole from him!?" Woynich shouted. Steph breathed deeply and nodded. "What- Why--" Woynich stuttered flabbergasted before finally managing to articulate, "Do you even know what you did!?"

"Here, take a look," Steph extracted the object from her coat again and Woynich took it. He turned it over in his paws with fear and intense fascination. "What is it?" Steph asked. "I-" Woynich intensely peered over the object, examining its shape. The best word to describe the object was that it was a cup. Its shape was that of an oversized plastic cup that Steph would often turn down from getting at a coffee shop in favor of paper cups. The cup seemed to be carved from stone and had geometric rectangular etchings all around and inside it, like some sort of coded writing. On the cup's base was a slit that made it look like the head of a philips-head screw. Woynich was at a complete loss about whether the cup was an ancient grail or some modern gadget set it stone. Around the cup's middle was a red band shaped like an upward arrow that was free to twist around the cup, but Woynich found it could not be removed. As he twisted it, the band changed color from red to green and the writing on the inside of the cup began to glow. Woynich hastily returned the band to its original configuration. "I don't know," Woynich finally admitted, "A cup? I think?"

Steph sighed and said, "Well, according to the documents I found, it's the only one he's got. If we have it then this really is over."
"Over?" Woynich asked, the worry showing through again.
"Yeah," Steph cheered, "This has gotta be the thing that made those people grow. If we have it, then that's it. It's all over."
Steph turned off of the main road onto the avenue where she lived, and where Woynich was temporarily, "No more macros. No more danger," She faced Woynich briefly, grinning and exclaimed happily, "We've saved the city!"
Woynich was still cautious. "What if he comes looking for this?" he asked.
"Then we-"
"Then we've got the Police on our side with Timone, plus the footage of him tampering with the Giga-Gush," Woynich realized, "We've totally got the upper paw here."
"Exactly!" Steph pulled the truck into the garage and the two of them got out of the car. Woynich walked on his hind legs up to the little nest he had set up in the garage and set the cup and his umbrella down on a pillow next to it. He pulled his coat over his head and slung it over the side of the nest before hunkering down in it himself and massaged his right wing.
"Uh, you okay?" Steph asked Woynich, concerned.
"I slipped off the top of one of those boxes," Woynich explained, "Landed on my wing, it's fine." He stretched the wing out to his ear to show how there were no cuts or bruisings. "Should we put a file together?" Woynich asked, moving towards his backpack, extracting from it a large dark blue notebook bound with a thick green elastic band, "take this stuff to the police?"
"Probably for the best," Steph answered, though her tone made it clear she was not interested in doing bookwork right then.
"I'll get started," Woynich said, "start writing up an explanation." and he got up from his nest and took the cup with him into the house, specifically to a desktop computer. He plugged in Steph's phone and started importing the footage from it.
Steph followed but headed into the living room. She removed her coat, hat and shoes and sprawled onto the sofa. It was very late, and her job was done. She felt like basking in her victory, being the secret hero of Etaon. But something seemed off for her. Her muscles tensed up as she realized what she had overlooked that night. She gave another silent curse to herself and headed towards Woynich.
"The bottles!" She said, walking towards him, "We left those bottles there! The ones he already contaminated!" Woynich stopped typing, then he started again.
"All the more reason to get this done as soon as possible," Woynich said, "When the police know, they'll seize the Gush." The computer gave an error message. "Import failed!?" Woynich read, "How?" He fidgeted with the cable, restarted the import of the footage, then said relieved, "it's a good thing I didn't check the box to delete the pics from the phone, huh?"
Steph sighed and apologized, "I'm sorry my computer's not as good as your's was."
"Hey, something's better than nothing," Wonich said, trying to lighten the mood, before falling back into a silence that became more and more morose.

Steph retired for the night, Woynich stayed up late compiling the pictures until eventually returning to his nest. He paid particular attention to the brief flashes Steph took of the documents in the briefcase before the phone screen. The resolution on most were pretty poor, but those the camera did pick up were extremely helpful. Now they had names, now they had this guy's instructions. The saboteur that night was named Jon Carasagi, and he was working for a Mr. Madden. Mr. Madden gave him very specific instructions on how to use this artifact, referred to as "the Kreskas". Unfortunately, there was no explanation as to what a "Kreskas" was, only how Carasagi was to use it and to not use it, at least, no information that could be made out from the footage. Woynich felt a bit sorry for Carasagi. Clearly, Mr. Madden must have had some power over the guy to force him to make the Macros. Did Carasagi even know that's what he was doing? He must have, Woynich thought.

Before going to sleep, Woynich texted Kent and Timone. He knew they needed to meet up that morning. Woynich hid the cup in his backpack. Clearly, this was the thing, the artifact of power, that had been causing the damage. Woynich wasn't sure what it was but he did have his suspicions. His suspicions frightened him, as most things did. This was far from irrational though.
If true, his suspicions told him there was a good chance that a foretold instrument of doom, a tool of the end times, was sharing a resting place with him tonight.