Ghosts of Philadelphia

Eleven

Blues was quick to excuse himself from the conference room the group was using as their headquarters so he could go start gathering the necessary materials. That was no doubt gonna take him a bit, 'cuz most of what was on hand pertained strictly to both the City and County of Philadelphia. He was prolly gonna have to visit the local library for better finds on State-wide records, which'd prolly turn up more on any Cave systems they might need to know about.

        Surprisingly enough, though, he Returned a lot quicker than any of the others were expecting–and with far more information than they'd have thought. In the box he set on the table there were records on every Cave system in the State–even one that was about fifty miles Southeast of Pittsburgh across the State. No doubt anything that'd confirm Rob's newest theory was gonna be in this box, and if it wasn't, then they were right back at square one. At least they'd somewhere to start, which was better than just aimlessly chasing cases from one side of the City to the other like they'd been doing.

        Just a few minutes into their search, a couple different Cave systems caught said oldest brunette's eye almost immediately. The first was the Lost River Caverns on the Eastern side of Hellertown, which was a lil over an hour North of where they were in Northampton County. It caught his eye pretty quick, 'cuz it was said to be a Limestone Cave, and along with Quartz, Limestone was a big player in a lotta paranormal activity.

        The next that caught his attention pretty quickly was one called Crystal Cave, which was a couple miles or so West of Kutztown. Given the route that one'd have to take, that one was about an hour and a-half away from Philadelphia in Berks County. Like the Cave system in Northampton County, this one was yet another Limestone Cave, judging by the history of it. After all, it'd been discovered by two men in November of 1871 when they were mining Limestone for neighboring farmersta improve their Field quality. It was almost a guarantee that the Limestone–both before and after its extraction–played a role in any paranormal activity in the area. That was also true for any areas where the Limestone was taken for things like buildings, in addition to the first reason why it was mined.

        Considering that he'd been gifted with the ability of Claircognizence, no one tried to argue with Rob when he swore that he got the feeling that whatever they were dealing with stemmed from Crystal Cave. It was entirely possible that there were underground tunnels that connected it to the Lost River Caverns that nobody knew about, though. On the other hand, it was just as much a possibility that those two Cave systems might not actually be connected at all. The thing that he was more concerned with was how the hell they could possibly be connected to the Philadelphia area, even if they weren't connected to each other. He couldn't quite make sense of that, if he thought about it from a completely Natural perspective as Pagans were apt to do.

        "What about underground Streams?" Rikki suggested, his brow furrowed.

        "Yeah, 'cuz don't a lotta Caves have those kinda things running through them?" Bret asked by way of agreement.

        "I mean, it's entirely possible, but I'm not sure that they'd flow in this Direction," the oldest brunette admitted as he scratched his head.

        "That's definitely true," Blues agreed. "Sure, a lotta underground Streams'll feed Surface Creeks, Rivers, and the like, but not all do."

        As they were hashing that out, they didn't notice the thoughtful look on the next-to-youngest brunette's face.

        "Till we figure that part out, I doubt we're gonna know how on Earth a negative Entity of any kind could be using a Cave system to get here," he sighed.

        "Sewage," Richie finally said, taking them by surprise.

        "Wait, whaddaya mean, kid?" the taller blonde asked, not quite sure he was following.