Chapter 21 - Hunters in the Night

After the various phone calls, the Hunters rush out of Al's house, so not to cross paths with her parents and trigger a barrage of questions.

Gathered up in the Monster Hunter HQ, Al spreads the picture created during the ritual in the middle of their circle again. "So, rescuing Ripper will be dangerous, but at least we know what to do. But before we can start, we need to figure out what this means. What are those symbols?"

Logan brings up bread and jam to make sandwiches, as well as a big carton of OJ.

Chewing on something (he obviously couldn't resist), he says "Weally no idea...(gulp)... and the Library is closed... But that... geometry shape... is definitely the same as the gazebo..."

"It's a sixagon," Al corrects him. "And that part is fine. I'm sure we can find something in that shape. But I don't get those symbols. They're like... compass needles. And then there's a full moon here and a crescent moon here?" She lets out a breath. "If we can't figure out how to destroy the fulcrum, then the whole plan can go in the bin!"

She looks at the drawing, shrugs. "Hmm... Don't look at me... You need some nerdy egghead..."

She focuses her attention on the jam instead.

Al looks at Bev. She doesn't really seem like an egghead, but considering she can build weird gadgets, she's the closest they got.

Bev chews, swallows, then wipes jam from her mouth to her coat sleeve. She catches Al's look.

"Wait, wha', me?" She shrugs at Al, but addresses the group. "I'm more hands on; working with mechanical stuff..."

She studies the drawings again. "I don't know. To me it looks like an explosion or something. Or, I don't, an engine."

She points at the top-left. "This is like the compression phase," and then points to the bottom-right, "and this is like the exhaust phase, or something."

She frowns. "Not much help, I know."

"Maybe we need Eddard... what do you say?" he thinks out loud, "he’s wacky enough to maybe know this kind of thing..."

"You're right!" Al replies. "If anyone knows what this means, it's him! You should call him and tell him to come over."

"Er... I only have his shop number... and it’s way after closing time..." he says. "I know where he lives, though..."

Al frowns. "We're wasting soooo much time," she complains. "They could be doing who-knows-what to Ripper! Maybe he's in the phonebook. What's his last name?"

"Lehman? Letterman? something like that..." he tries to remember. "It’s just... Eddard, you know? I don’t call him by surname!"

I dunno what these things mean either... Johnny admitted as he made his own sandwich from the supplies Logan had brought up. Could be tattoos, like Bennie said, but they could be symbols like a moon and sun too. This one has like crescent moons and this one fully round ones. Could be full moon and new moon too. He thought as he chewed and swallowed, We couid put the Fulcrum on the paper and see what happens, right? We might understand this better if I hadn't destroyed the gazebo and we could've checked it out more thoroughly.

"If we can't phone him, I'd say we go see Eddard at his place... He probably stays up all night anyway..."

"What's with this... Gazebo? Why is it important, you think? Just because it's the same shape as the drawing?"

Logan catches Alice up on how they found the Fulcrum there.

"But just putting the fulcrum in the gazebo can't be the solution," Al points out. "Because that's where Ramon put it. And it didn't destroy the fulcrum, just put it on pause!" She then nods at Logan. "I guess let's go visit Eddard."

She makes sure to remind Logan's family that they're all staying the night, so that if her parents call to confirm, that won't ruin their cover story, then she tells Benny to stay and play with Shadow while the rest of them go meet Eddard. She makes sure to pack the piece of paper.

Logan, maybe we might bring that bat you had the other day and a few baseballs when we head over to rescue Ripper. Johnny said, gathering up his stuff as they prepared to go to Eddard's store. That might help even the odds some. He stopped stuffing his bag in a moment of inspiration, Hey, I'll bet your mom has a copy of the police report from when Chet crashed the store and fought with us. It'll have Eddard's full name in the report!

"Johnny... you're a genius!!" Logan says, ruffling his hair, then rushing out of the HQ and downstairs. You hear him rummaging for a while at the floors below.
Then he gets upstairs once again, climbing the steps three at a time. "Linderman!!! Edd's name is Linderman!" he drops a phone directory on the floor, and a few minutes later they have Edd's number.

Logan dials from their new cordless family handset.

"Eddard! It's Logan, and the Monster Hunters! Yes... big news... the spell worked... we know how to destroy the thing... yes, yes, Mount Doom. But we need you here... at mine, that is... it's just that... we cannot understand the symbols the spell showed us... Yes, magic symbols... Okay... come quick!"

He hangs up, grins at the others. "He's on his way."