The alley between Blackstone Hall and the old Philosophy building offers little shelter from the biting December wind. Mercy, Jasper, and Teagan have been called here by Professor Hendricks, who left an urgent voicemail about “an artifact that needs immediate attention” before his voice cut off abruptly.

They find him slumped against the limestone wall near the service entrance, his breath coming in short gasps. His right hand clutches an old brass compass, knuckles white with the force of his grip. Sweat beads on his forehead despite the freezing temperature.

“Can’t… let go,” he manages, his eyes wild. “Tried to bring it to the museum. Got this far and…” He gestures weakly with his free hand toward the ground.

The brick pavement around his feet is covered in chalk marks, dozens of them, all drawn in the same shaky hand. They form incomplete circles, half-finished symbols, and what might be coordinates or measurements. The professor’s fingers are white with chalk dust.

“It keeps showing me… the river. The crossing.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Someone drowned. Someone lied.” The compass needle spins lazily in his grip, pointing not north but directly at the darkest part of the alley where the trash bins cast long shadows.

From somewhere deeper in the darkness comes a faint sound, like scratching on metal, or perhaps like a pen writing on paper that no longer exists.

Mercy perks up at the sight of the man of the house slumped here and looking even worse than she does, kind of hurrying over to him but not too fast- never know what might pop out.

“Welp, my weapons are in my bike, but we’ll survive,” Jasper says when the mist starts to rise. Looking at the professor, he squints his eyes and walks towards him

“Oh fuck,” Teagan says upon seeing Professor Hendricks. She stops cold, torn in multiple directions. She gnaws at her lower lip for a moment before skidding over to the chalk marks, pulling out her personal grimoire as she does so. And some of the hagomoro chalk in a pouch at her belt. She crouches down to start examining the marks while talking to the man.

Clearly not as wary as Mercy “It’s okay, we’re here.” She does glance to the compass. “Is this a ritual? Tell me what comes next-” the chalk hovers in her hand, ready to get to work. She starts looking him over for injuries, but is mostly focused on figuring out what ritual he was doing!

Professor Hendricks’ eyes fix on Teagan as she crouches beside the chalk marks, his pupils dilating with something between recognition and terror. “Not a ritual,” he gasps. “Couldn’t stop drawing. The compass… it wanted me to map something.“

The chalk marks become clearer under Teagan’s examination. They’re not occult symbols at all, but survey notations. Coordinates. Property lines. Some of the numbers are dated 1701, written in a cramped, archaic hand that doesn’t match the professor’s usual neat script. Others are more recent, overlapping the old measurements in a palimpsest of guilt and geography.

As Mercy and Jasper approach, the compass needle swings toward them, then back to the shadows. The scratching sound intensifies, now clearly coming from inside the brass case itself. The professor’s grip loosens slightly, enough that they can see his palm. The skin is wrinkled and waterlogged, as if he’s been submerged for hours, though the rest of him is dry.

“The survey was wrong,” Hendricks whispers, his voice taking on a strange cadence, as if he’s reading from something. “Drew the lines to favor the college. Excluded the grove. They had papers. They had promises.” His free hand scrabbles at the chalk marks. “But the river knows. The river remembers.“

The temperature drops further. From the grate where steam was rising, water begins to seep instead, spreading across the brick in a dark stain that smells of river mud and old paper. The water moves against the natural slope of the alley, creeping toward the chalk marks as if drawn to them.

The compass case clicks open slightly in the professor’s grip, revealing the needle floating in liquid that is definitely not oil. It’s river water, murky and cold.

Mercy always finds herself in these strange scenarios involving kooky magic beyond her understanding, but nonetheless she stands by Teagan and the professor keeping vigil- and smelling the water before she sees it. “Uh.. Tea.. somethin’ weird goin’ on..”

“Do we even have rivers here?” Jasper murmurs aside to Mercy. Holding onto his coat, he glances at the compass and then the briefcase. “It’s a demon, definitely.”

“Something definitely weird,” Teagan agrees, looking to the compass with a sharp intake of breath. “Don’t touch the compass,” she warns (hopefully needlessly) the other two. But she digs a keyring filled with thumbdrives out of her pack and thumbs through them. She lands on one labeled ‘Maps’ and holds onto it, a charm of an all-seeing-eye on the keyring flaring up briefly. “Hold on lemme see if I can find the survey records to compare,” she mumbles. It might take a while. Even with the charm, a terrabyte of data is a lot to browse through. “Grove he said,” she mumbles to Jasper. “Druids not demons.”

a leather journal, pages swollen with river water, sinking into dark mud.

“He kept notes,” Hendricks gasps. “The real survey. The truth. But it drowned with him, and the lie became history.” His eyes meet theirs, desperate. “It wants to be found. It wants the truth recorded. But I can’t… I can’t reach the river from here.“

“Are druids.. better? Worse? Ain’ even know.” Mercy admits when Jasper is corrected on the culprit or culprits, leaving Teagan to puzzle out the magic smart-people stuff and crouching down to offer her hand to the professor in order to help him up and, if need be, half-carry him to safety.

“Hmm,” Jasper watches the professor. “So this must be different. And druids are probably nature-based, Mercy.”

a partial map from 1702, drawn by someone named Samuel Blackstone, who noted “Winthrop’s measurements questioned by Indigenous representatives. Matter unresolved at time of his death.“

The river water spreading across the brick pavement begins to form patterns, mirroring the chalk marks but extending them, completing what Hendricks started. The liquid traces out coordinates, property lines, and at the center, a small grove of trees that doesn’t appear on any official university map.

The compass needle spins faster now, and the scratching inside the case becomes more frantic. Something is trying to write itself into existence.

“Not druids,” Hendricks manages, his voice clearer for a moment. “Just people. People who were promised. People who were erased.” His waterlogged palm opens slightly, revealing that the brass case has left an imprint on his skin, the initials T.W. pressed into his flesh like a brand.

From the darkness near the trash bins, a shape begins to form in the mist. Not solid, but present. A figure in colonial dress, bent over something, writing. The scratching sound is coming from there now, not from the compass.

The temperature plummets further. Their breath comes out in thick clouds.

Teagan chews at her lip and reaches out to take Hendricks’ hand. “Tell us where to go,” she informs him. “I’m sure-” a glance to Jasper and Mercy with a smol shrug, “we can get to it.” Another look to the compass and a deep sigh. “Fuckin’… you two like, take it from me if shit goes super weird, yeah?” And with her own chalk in her right hand, she reaches out to grab the compass in her left. “Druids aren’t necessarily good or evil. They are big on nature.” She looks toward the trash bins, wary, but she is intent on her Bad Decision at the moment!

Mercy practically bristles from the presence of magic, her body language unable to decide between anxious and aggressive and so it fluctuates between both while she watches the water scrawl across the concrete. “You mean it ain’ super weird already?” She asks of Teagan just before grasping for Hendrick’s forearm to heave him up and sling his arm over her shoulders whether he likes it or not.

“Interesting,” Jasper replies towards Teagan, readying himself.

Thomas Winthrop, kneeling by the river’s edge, frantically writing in a leather journal while water laps at his boots.

The compass pulls at Teagan’s hand, not physically, but directionally. It wants to go northeast, toward where the Blackstone River cuts through campus. The needle points insistently, and she can feel the weight of three centuries of guilt pressing against her palm.

Hendricks sags against Mercy with relief as the compass leaves his grip. His hand is pruned and pale, but already beginning to return to normal. “The grove,” he gasps. “Where the old oak stands behind the library. That’s where the journal went in. Spring floods, 1702. They dredged for it but…” He shudders. “The compass knows. It’s been trying to show people for three hundred years.“

The ghostly figure of Winthrop turns toward them. His face is gaunt, desperate. He holds up the journal, showing them pages covered in measurements, then gestures toward the river. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out. Then he points at Teagan, at the compass, and makes a writing motion.

The river water on the ground begins to flow faster, all of it moving toward the northeast, toward the Blackstone River. It’s showing them the path.

From the compass in Teagan’s hand comes a whisper, barely audible: “The truth. Record the truth.“

Mercy makes a bit of a face as the man’s weight readily slumps into her but she did sign up for this, and while not the most gentle in her hauling of Hendricks he’s likely better off than if she’d chosen to leave him there. “This journal worth anythin’? You know, like.. if there were say some rare book collectors..” A benign question, surely, with no ulterior motive.

There’s a grunt from Teagan as she’s pulled and she shoves her chalk away, holding up the compass instead. “Yes, yes, dude,” Teagan calls to the ghostly figure. “I get it. Look, we solve this, I’ve got a place for you to haunt.” Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. But the river water is cold and she’s got a compass literally leading the way. “Uh, let’s go y’all.” She glances over to Mercy and grimaces. “I think both Professor Hale and ALejandro would murder me if I found a book related to the school and then sold it. We’re gonna have to give it to the Endless Library.”

“On it,” Jasper tells Teagan. “To the restricted section.”

The ghostly figure of Winthrop nods once, urgently, then begins to fade. But before he disappears entirely, he points at the compass again, then at his own chest, over his heart. A warning, or perhaps an instruction.

Hendricks manages a weak laugh at Mercy’s question. “If we find it… if it even still exists… it would rewrite three centuries of property law. The university’s entire eastern boundary is based on Winthrop’s false survey.” He winces as they move. “That’s why it matters. That’s why he can’t rest.“

The compass pulls harder now, and Teagan can feel something else. A heartbeat, faint and waterlogged, pulsing through the brass. Not her heartbeat. Someone else’s, still beating after three hundred years in the river mud.

The alley opens onto a narrow path that leads toward the back of the library. The mist is thicker here, and through it they can see the ancient oak Hendricks mentioned. Its roots have broken through the paving stones, creating a small grove that the university has fenced off with wrought iron, ostensibly for safety reasons.

But the compass is pointing lower. Not at the tree, but at the ground beneath it. At the roots that reach down into earth that was once riverbank, before the Blackstone was redirected in the 1800s.

The scratching sound returns, louder now. Something is down there, preserved in the anaerobic mud, still trying to tell its story.

A security light flickers on near the library’s back entrance, and they can hear footsteps approaching. Campus security, doing their rounds.

Mercy leans in to whisper to Teagan. “Maybe we can get him to haunt my IHOP when it ready..” but otherwise avoids distracting the other woman who’s probably the only one among them who knows what the hell she’s doing. Following after her, Hendricks toted along, she grunts at the wise counsel regarding their mutual teachers. “.. Righ’, righ’. Good point.” CLICK! The lights flicker on, footsteps incoming, and Mercy unceremoniously drops Hendricks to free up her hands. “Aw hell we got company.”

“Oh god not into the restricted section. Hale is… yeah, he’s pretty protective of that.” Teagan gives a little shudder, but she rattles the compass a little, bobbing her head in a nod to Mercy. “That’s what I figured we’d try yeah.” She looks over her shoulder toward the light coming on. “Uhm. Just tell them that Professor Matias Alejandro has his research assistant out here. I’m on records officially as his assistant for a project. They should believe that.” And occult-y professors are always doing weird shit.

She looks down at the tree and the ground with a frown. She looks to the compass and… while considering the very NOT RIVER where it used to be river, sets the compass against her heart.

It can’t hurt, right?

“Good idea,” Jasper nods towards Teagan, his gaze shifting to see the lights.

The moment the compass touches Teagan’s chest, the world shifts.

She’s standing in the alley still, but it’s different. The buildings are younger, rougher. The oak tree is smaller, part of a grove that extends much further. And she’s not alone. She can see them now, the people who lived here. A small community, maybe twenty souls, tending gardens between the trees. Children playing. An elder woman grinding corn.

And there’s Winthrop, younger, alive, standing at the edge of the grove with his surveying equipment. She can feel his thoughts bleeding through the compass. The pressure from the college benefactors. The promise of advancement. The rationalization that these people “don’t have proper deeds anyway.“

She watches him draw the false line. Watches him write the truth in his journal. Watches him hide it in his coat.

Then she’s at the river. Winter. The ice is thin. Winthrop is crossing, the journal clutched tight, planning to use it for blackmail. The ice cracks. He falls. The compass drags him down, heavy with guilt, heavier than brass should be.

And she can feel where the journal is. Not lost. Preserved. Waiting in the mud beneath the oak’s roots, in the old riverbed that was redirected but never truly left.

The vision releases her, and she’s back in the present. The security guard is closer now, flashlight beam cutting through the mist. But she knows exactly where to dig.

Hendricks, from where Mercy dropped him, gasps. “You saw it. I can tell. You saw what I saw.“

Mercy was totally about to pull a weapon or two out but Teagan’s idea is much better so with innocently empty hands she jogs a few paces out to meet the security guards halfway, palms up and calling out to them. “Evenin’! Please keep yer distance, Professor Alejandro’s star assistant is conductin’ a real important.. uh.. research project on the grounds here! Ain’ wanna disturb her or you could affect the outcome!”

“Yeah,” Jasper says towards the guards as he walks to join Mercy. “Research is vital so it’s important to not cause any disturbance. You wouldn’t want to be responsible if something bad happens.”

And Teagan freezes on the spot while the other two deal with the security guard. Her eyes unfocus and she is latched there with the compass against her chest. She watches as history unfolds. Watches as Winthrop encounters possibly the fastest instance of karma biting someone in the ass to ever exist. Even if his actions benefitted Windermere for quite some time. Centuries. When the vision releases her, she gasps suddenly and lowers the compass, looking at it and looking to Hendricks with a slow nod. She carefully tucks the compass into her belt (IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM) and paces toward where she knows she has to dig.

There’s a look toward Jasper and Mercy and trusting them to deal with the security guard, she ducks down and starts digging with her hands. Hopefully the ground isn’t too hard. It’s not like she just carries a shovel around (maybe she should).

The security guard, a middle-aged man with a thermos of coffee, stops at Mercy and Jasper’s interception. He squints past them at Teagan, who’s now on her knees digging at the base of the oak tree.

“Professor Alejandro, huh?” He sounds skeptical but not hostile. “That man’s always got something weird going on. Last month he had students taking soil samples at midnight.” He takes a sip of coffee. “You got paperwork? Campus requires permits for ground disturbance.“

But his attention shifts to Hendricks, still slumped on the ground. “Hey, is that Professor Hendricks? Is he okay? Should I call medical?“

Meanwhile, Teagan’s fingers break through the cold earth more easily than they should. The ground here is soft, waterlogged despite being far from the current river. The oak’s roots have created channels, and she can feel water seeping up from below. Old water. River water that’s been waiting.

Her hands close around something solid. Leather, preserved by the anaerobic mud. The journal.

The moment she touches it, the compass at her belt grows warm. The scratching sound stops. The temperature begins to rise, just slightly. The oppressive weight in the air lifts.

From somewhere in the mist, barely audible, comes a sound like a long-held breath finally being released.

The journal is real, solid, and in her hands. Three hundred years of hidden truth, ready to be brought into the light.