Sacramento Book Festival 2026

[Aurora]

Eyes light up, she knew a bit about cryptids. It was a Mysterium thing, part of some of her personal studies. “That’s the one referred to as Nessie, made famous with the picture of its head. Fascinating one from what I’ve read about it. And the whole lake itself is a stunning area.” She had never been, but was going based off pictures she had seen. “I can get behind Bigfoot, and even Skinwalkers, Rakes, but the whole Fresno Nightcrawlers are a bit farfetched from the videos I’ve seen. They look like people wearing those parachute pants from the 80’s up around their heads.” Chuckling.

“Huh, interesting.” Nodding, “Yeah, a point of reference would be a good idea for a starting point. But they must be some hell of a code if they’re still going.” But why hadn’t it been cracked?

Laughing, “Oh for sure. Sometimes it’s just about background noise and entertainment while doing something else.” But yeah, it was the good ones that made you pause.

“You got it. Flea markets are the best, especially if you’re good at making deals.” And while she wasn’t the best, she had made a few good ones.

“Kind of something similar. They pay the bill; you sign a contract to work for them. If you leave before it’s paid off, the bill becomes yours. Haven’t decided if I want to go that route or not, gonna depend on the pay. And if I like the company.” Then a pause, “Uh, depends on what is considered impressive. But Egyptian took me the longest because it was difficult to find books in the language. So maybe that? But what’s impressive to one isn’t to another.” Everyone had different standards. “Well, rotten doesn’t really clean up well, you’re better off buying something new with the money you’d need to invest in new wood. Unless you’re established enough to have access to other pieces you can salvage from. Plus mold is no joke. And busted up isn’t necessarily a waste, it depends what’s busted on it. A lot can be repaired if you know what you’re doing. But if beyond repair, then you should just salvage good wood and parts off it like hinges and mechanisms off it for something else.” It’s what she did. While she didn’t have a lot, she had a nice little selection going.

A nod of agreement, “That’s a good place to start with a ghost, can’t go wrong with that. Bet, if they exist, they don’t get asked that often. I think I would want to ask how long it had been there and if it was stuck. Like, couldn’t move on type stuck. Because that has to be horrible.” Just not fair. An eager nod, “Yes! Exactly! When you hear stories about a place being haunted, you going in with expectations, and every sound and shadow becomes a ghost, when most of the time, it wasn’t. Plus, it can also be explained with pareidolia.” The human minds tendency to perceive familiar patterns, mostly faces, in random and inanimate objects.

“Hope we’ll get to play again soon then.” It had been fun.

As the jabs were tossed back and forth, the blonde was content to just let the two duke it out. It seemed to be in good fun.

[Thirteen]

"Aye, the lake monster is fairly common. I'm sure most are just copycats trying to drum up some tourism. Nessie is the O.G., the real deal." She nodded with Scottish pride.

Red eyebrows rose as Aurora reveals some cryptid knowledge as well. "Oh, I agree. The Nightcrawlers are a wee bit silly. But they're popular enough to have cute merchandising." Did she have a Fresno Nightcrawler plushie at home? Maybe.

Violet nodded vaguely as her eyes scanned around some more, "I'll have to see if I can find a book on cryptids before I go." That would be a good subject for a sanctum library.

Why hadn't numbers stations codes ever been cracked? "Very good codes, aye. From what I've read, they use a technique called a one-time pad. I dunno how it works, but if you use it correctly, it's theoretically unbreakable." Thirteen hadn't really studied how the system worked too closely. It was complicated.

Ariel? Like the mermaid? Was there something about her that said fish princess, or was it just the red hair? "Not after Disney's last attempt bombed so hard." They really needed to stop with those live action remakes. "You might be in luck, though, if they do a live action Jack and the Beanstalk."

[Kray]

Apparently he was in good company if he wanted to know more about monster myths. That might be concerning. Best to keep it focused over seas maybe. "Hm. I remember something about the beast of Bodmin Moor." That had been a big thing in the news way back when. "Uh. Can't say I know much about these rakes or nightcrawlers though." That just sounded like people who visited to many clubs in one night. "Oh. Shadow people to, I've heard of those." Okay that might be a bit more universal then country specific.

Now lake monsters. Was it tourism? Or was it something else? "Uh. could also be same as we are saying on the ghosts. Fakes, or people seeing what they want to see. maybe something they didn't understand?" Then let time and fear do it's thing and before you know it, you got yourself a lake monster, or a story of one.

Given that most scholarships came with strings attacked, it sounded like a scholarship to him. "Ah. Working for a company can be risky enough, not to many good ones out there these days." He blinks a few times as his question was answered and then seems to be thinking rather hard about something. "Uh. Stupid question, is Egyptian still spoken today? I know Egypt is still a country but I've only ever heard the language spoken of as ancient before." And in truth he had no idea if they still spoke the same or a variant of that language.

The blonde really did have a scavengers mindset. "Ha. Well now you do continue to surprise me. Not many would think to or bother to harvest the bits and pieces." It was a commitment of time and effort that most wouldn't see the value in. "Ha. I do approve of that. Don't see it much any more." It also often spoke of poverty, the need to find every scrap of value you could.

Would he care if a ghost was stuck, no probably not. "Uh. Well it would probably be there for a reason I guess." Most things happened for a reason. Even if that reason was unknown or unfathomable. "Uh. Sorry with what?" That was a new word for him. "Oh. I'm at the store most Fridays so yeah probably see you around, if the bracket throws us agasint each other well play for sure." Or a casual game before things got underway but that was not something to commit to.

Squinting down at the snarky red head his face sets in a mean look for a few heartbeats to long before breaking into an equally unsettling grin. "Bah. You win I don't know enough movies to keep this going." He might need to get some ammunition from a certain gun lover in case of a next time.

[Aurora]

“Have to say, I think Nessie is the OG as well. It’s the first lake monster I remember hearing about, and the first that comes to mind when someone mentions lake monsters. So the crown goes to them.” Nodding.

Chuckling, “I just couldn’t take it seriously. Don’t get me wrong, I had some hopes for something cool, but then saw the videos and was like, seriously?! Come on. But, I won’t knock people who believe there is something to them, everyone needs something. Though I didn’t know they had their own merch.” Seems like everything had merch these days.

The Shaman already had a few books in her collection on cryptids, and ghosts, and haunted places. It all went towards her studies for the Mysterium. Private collection. But she was always on the hunt for more. Esotology was a fascinating study.

“The codes sound like a very fascinating and in-depth study.” Unfortunately, she already had too much on her plate, and it wouldn’t further her Order studies.

Shrugging, “You’re not missing anything with the whole rake thing. They’re actually urban legends, believe they started online. People still try and claim that they’ve seen one, when in reality, it might be a skinwalker if anything.” Then a nod, “Shadow people are a more separate class of paranormal beings. Even heard them referred to as djinn depending on who you’re talking to about them.” Yeah, she had her own collection of books, and learning new languages had opened up some folklore.

A sad nod, “There in lies the problem, finding a decent company to work with.” She had a few in mind though. Smiling, “Egypt’s official language is Arabic, which I speak, and colloquial Arabic. The language I know is an ancient one, used mainly for translation services for ancient inscriptions and modern understanding. Think hieroglyphics and their alphabetic elements.” So her way of speaking it was translating it.

Looking a bit surprised, “I do?” why would she surprise him? “Well that’s just the smart thing to do. Why throw away the good parts of something when you just reuse them with a bit of polishing? Seems like a waste to me! The wood might go bad, but the usually the hardware just needs some rust taken off and it’s good as new!” and sometimes looks better on a whole new piece anyways.

“Pareidolia, the human minds tendency to see faces, or patterns in ambiguous images. Think like the people that saw jesus’ face in that piece of toast, or the man in the moon. An evolutionary need to quickly identify threats and social cues, causing the brain to create false positives if you will. So sometimes people see ghosts or faces in the dark, where there truly isn’t anything. It’s really interesting to read about.” She’d been victim of it before.

[Thirteen]

The Highlander smiled and nodded approvingly of Aurora's Nessie support. "Oh, every cryptid's got merch now. Bigfoot, the Yeti, Mothman, Jersey Devil, Chupacabra, the Kraken, you name it." She shrugged, not really minding. They made for neat things to collect. "The Beast of Bodmin Moor? Hm, ah right! The phantom cat, aye?"

"Cryptology is definitely a fascinatin' field. One I'd like to get into... but I got a lot of projects, already." Most of which she can't talk about in mixed company. Restoring the radio station, improving her Space magic, making a birdbath for Jinx, the list goes on.

The redhead finally weighed in on the language discussion when she had something to say. "Could swear I heard somethin' about ancient Egyptian can't be spoken because nobody remembers what it sounds like? Are the hieroglyphs pronounciation guides, now?" Linguistics was not her field. She only spoke English... and a few Scots phrases.

"True, our brains do tend to fill in the gaps when we're scared or confused."

Her only celebration of her 'victory' over John was to make a V-sign with her fingers.

[Kray]

Well if mortals weren't impressed by them then yeah these rake things couldn't be all that impressive. "Bah. People claim to have seen all sorts. If that's grounds for elimination. What urban myths are even left?" That would eliminate just about all of them surely. "Uh. Djinn? You mean like Genies?" The giant most certainly lacked the religious knowledge to grasp that area of the mythos so is left with what he had heard around the game store.

But Aurora gets his attention, as much of it as he can focus on a person as she talks about Egypt, and languages. He seems genuinely interested. he thumbs at Violet however. "Uh. Yeah what she said. How do we have any idea what those glyphs even mean?" With no one left alive to well teach them surely it was at best some mildly educated guesswork. "Uh. Wouldn't to it be like the dinosaurs? You know scaly for a while, but now they have feathers because we had it wrong or something?" That had been a surprise to come back to.

scrounging and scavenging was a rarer thing to see so yeah he had been surprised. "Hm. It's like a more refined form the old scrap metal merchants." But they just took the metal and sold it off raw for some cash. He liked the idea of restoration and reuse more. "Uh. So how often do you find stuff to pick up?" How many people threw stuff away at the ide of the road anyway?

But this was rather interesting and more then a bit concerning. The ogre is not so entirely sure those events are just what as being described. "Huh. Not the first time I have heard that we like to make things seem or see them as more human then they are." How many lost had oddities that got brushed aside as just that because humans never imagined that what they spoke with was not itself human any longer.

Violet it seemed was into cryptology but after all Bodmin was not so terribly far from her own home, not in the grand scheme of things. "Uh. Yeah the big black cat. A couple of stories of things like it up and down the uk. But It's the most famous that I know of." And did have several very reasonable possible explanations, but those were less fun.

[Aurora]

Sighing with a nod, “That’s always the problem, isn’t it? So much to study, so little time. I find myself in the same boat, I have other things I want to take on, but I simply don’t have the time.” It sucked, but she couldn’t do anything else.

“Ancient Egyptian is, in fact, a dead language. But some linguists can speak reconstructed forms of the language for academic purposes through pronunciation. Which is particularly vowel sounds. Also, Coptic, a descendant of the later forms of the Egyptian language, is still spoken today. When I say I speak Egyptian, I mean it in the sense that I can translate hieroglyphs and give them a voice.” She didn’t know Coptic yet, it was on her list though.

“Oh there are a lot of urban legends still out there! Some are still pretty creepy and hard to disprove as well. I suppose it depends on what you believe and what you don’t.” it came down to the person at the end of the day. “Uh, I believe they are the same. But don’t go based off what I say, I’m not too educated on djinn. I’ve heard of them, but I haven’t really studied them too much.” That was a different part of the world and a different paranormal culture.

“Because I’ve studied them and I’m educated in being able to translate them. Translating hieroglyphs had been done for many years and is actively taught to this day. How does any ancient language get translated when it gets discovered? Through study, analysis, and comparing it to other languages. It’s a process, a lengthy one at that. Not one I’ve partaken in, but one I’ve read numerous books about.” Now about the dinos, “We could have it wrong about the dinosaur’s, we could have a lot of things wrong. Until more studies are done, and we have evidence to the contrary, we have what we have.” Shrugging.

Nodding, “Ah. Yeah, I never learned to work with scrap metal, that’s a skill I just couldn’t grasp.” Plus, hot tools and burns. “Every couple days if I have the time. But with the weather warming up, the flea markets will be more frequent, so I expect to have more items. But I do prefer the broken pieces, gives me more creative control. Though knowing when trash days are for the different neighborhoods is great info to have.” She adds with a grin. “That’s when people put the broken stuff out and I can nab some good stuff.” It was true.

[Thirteen]

"Aye, that's the one," Violet nodded to the so-very-tall man, speaking of the Best of Bodmin. "Didn't some eejit once claim to have found the beast's skull, but it turned out they cut it out of a leopard skin rug?"

More nodding, this time to Madison, "Time's a limited resource for us all." Well, for Sleepers, anyway. Time was a somewhat less limited for an Acanthus.

The redhead watched the blonde talk about languages, and it was clear how much of a passion it was for the Thyrsus. "Language is funny, how it spreads and evolves, and they bleed into each other. I wonder if there's any pure languages left, or if they've all adapted words from each other by now. Maybe they were never pure."

"The internet seems to be the spawnin' point for new urban legends, these days. Slender Man, the Backrooms, Kisaragi Station. All it takes is the right story on the right forum. It's fascinatin' how creepypastas grow into legends so quickly." She may have spent a late night or two reading such stuff.

[Kray]

Either the big man didn't understand or it hadn't answered the question in a way he found satisfactory. "Uh. Right reconstructed but how do you and these academics know you got it right?" Words did matter, they had importance and getting things like that wrong could have consequences. "Hm. Same for Hieroglyphs right, how do you know the cat or the eye mean cat or eye instead of something more representative? Could they have more then one meaning even?" The use of a word as verb, noun, adverb and so on changed how it was used, what it meant implied. So what if a hieroglyph changed meaning in different contexts?

Well that still lead to an interesting question. "Huh. Alright then, what's one you believe?" This talk of cryptids and creatures had it's dangerous, absolutely but it was equally fascinating. They might be stories of lost seen and distorted by telling and time, or they could well be creatures all in there own right. Or they could be made up. Not being big on the internet some of the terminology the kids used did slip past him. "Uh. What's a creepypasta? People aren't scared of an ingredient now are they?" Sure he was hearty supported of fear, but fear things that made sense.

Buying from a flea market and it not being broken however that was an easy fix. In a strange sense. "Uh. Then just break what you buy right? You see something and want to work on it. All you need to do is bust it up in a way that does what you need." Nothing said you had to keep what you brought in one piece.

Not only did Violet know of the beast but knew something he didn't. "Uh. I never heard that before, but if so that guy was dumb. Surely he had to figure any research would have shown his claim as fake." Also where did you get a leopard skin rug, that sounded neat.

[Aurora]

“I have to admit, I’m not too up to date on cryptids, so I’ll have to look that one up.” She had only recently gotten into them since finding her place in the Mysterium.

Nodding in agreement, “Every language has something in common with others. And unfortunately, I don’t believe there has been such a thing as a pure language. At least, not that I’ve come across in my research. It’s just difficult for languages to not borrow from other languages over time.
Though one could argue that one of the uncontacted tribes in the Amazon could, maybe, have a language we have never heard. But, without contacting them, hearing it, seeing it written, we don’t know.” Shrugging.

“The creepypastas have really taken off with the urban legends. And some of those writers are truly talented. At least from the ones I’ve read. But, all good urban legends come from a story, often passed down, and the internet is just our modern way of doing it. But I’m not gonna lie, I miss telling stories late at night, in the dark with a flashlight or a campfire.” It had a certain creep factor.

Chuckling, “I don’t think you want the whole history on how everything came to be translated, and we don’t have the time currently. Though if you want to sit down at a later date, and I can bring my studies and books, I can walk you through it. The long and short of it is, it dates back to something called the Rosetta Stone being found, some Greek words being inscribed on it, some hieroglyphics and the language directly decedent from the Egyptian civilization. But that stone was key in translation. It took researchers and scientists years to do it, and could there be some wrong meanings?” shrugging, “I guess, I haven’t studied it in detail, I also haven’t devoted all my studies to it. But when you look at a slab, and the translation, there are only so many words that make sense.” So take from it what you will. “Plus, the stone only had two languages on it.” Kind of hard to make a mistake.

“Me? Skinwalkers, hands down. With all the traveling I’ve done, and all the people I’ve spoken with, I’ve heard some pretty crazy stories. And the ones about Skinwalkers, from Native Americans are hands down, the most terrifying. The details of the stories always remain the same from person to person, and that always sends shivers down my spine.” Not something she would ever want to meet. Laughing, “Nah. They’re horror themed urban legends, stories or images shared on the internet designed to disturb and scare people. There’s a website you can read them. Some are very well written, and some of the pictures are pretty creepy. Like the Russian sleep experiment, creepy picture and story.” Credit there.

Another laugh, “Yeah, I suppose I could. But then it just doesn’t feel natural. I sort of like giving things that people think a trash a second chance I guess. But I’ll keep that in mind if I see a piece I really like and see how it goes.” Maybe it would work.