entranceway | video } i found something interesting and we should discover it together

[The door Dipper and Mabel are standing in front of might be familiar to people who have been here for a long time, or who are fond of walking around on the fourth floor and looking at doors. It reads Angel's Investigations. It's closed, and has been for a while. But the twins look excited.]

Hey, everyone! Dipper and Mabel, the last staff standing of Angel's Investigations here. As you may know by now, Angel and Faith are gone, leaving us in charge. We've been working on the best way to use the space for a little while now, and we're finally ready to open the doors of the new Angel's Investigations to the public!

[Mabel pulls a handful of confetti out of her pockets and throws it up in the air.] Boom! [And it falls back down, giving them both a nice smattering of confetti on their heads and shoulders. Yaaay.] We thought about changing the name, but we figured it would be disrespectful to Angel’s legacy and also Cordelia’s logo, which totally does look like a little old man with whiskers.

[SORRY CORDELIA, BUT WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN CAN NEVER BE UNSEEN.

Dipper brushes confetti from his hair, then pushes open the door, revealing the office.

It looks a lot like it used to, the old hotel lobby feeling is still there, but there are several bookcases shoved up against walls, as well as several large conspiracy boards, white boards, and a projector.

Dipper beams as he walks in, panning the camera over all the additions.]

We're still investigating, but what we're specifically investigating is the Mysteries of Wonderland. I know, I know, who isn't doing that, right? But what we're specifically doing is consolidating research. I've made copies of all the notes in the library and started to try and organize it. It's… a process. But I think we might really be able to make some headway if we all work together!

[Mabel walks over to the desk chair and flops down on it, giving it a good spin.] So when stuff doesn’t add up or if you find some weird new clue about Wonderland, you can bring it to us, and Dipper’ll put it up on his mystery board, so we can all stare at it. [She stands up in the chair, which seems very dangerous, and gesticulates wildly.] Ooooh. So mysterious. So. Many. Questions~

Mabel! [Take this seriously Mabel, oh my god. Dipper shoots her a glare.] So. Uh. Yeah! Come on down. We're here to clue in the clueless!

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[She can't help but smile a bit at their oh-so-professional display. But hey, someone has to be investigating things, and they did pretty well on the Citadel, so...]

I might have something for you two, actually. How much information do you have about the Queen of Hearts?

A lot, but we can definitely use more. [Dipper hops up and goes over to one of the shelves, poking through the books.] What've you got?

Other than she's just a big eye-stealing creep. That's, like, her entire page in my scrapbook.

That still sounds accurate, honestly.

[Seriously, the woman's a nightmare.]

It actually has more to do with what happens after you die five times. But she's involved with it. All my personal leads ran dry, so I might as well put what I gathered out there.

[OH. INTERESTING. You have Dipper's attention.]

What do you know about what happens when you die five times?

Long story short, a long time ago, a friend of mine got information from the Queen of Hearts that she had a mole among the Reals spying for her. I picked up the investigation months ago and coded a network filter to display only resident posts so I could narrow down on past events. Took a long time to narrow it down from there. Eventually I stumbled across a cluster of locked entries from what seemed to be a rather harrowing event, almost 10 years ago. Lots of people from the same world. Apparently, the details of the event were that a number of Wonderland residents were replaced with versions of them from years in the future, after many of them had already gone past their fifth death.

[She sends the post in question, along with it's decryption key.]

Magic number's 5 for dying. Or, really, "She'll take you if you die". You come back from your fifth death loyal to the Queen of Hearts.

Wait. Waitwaitwait... So who here has actually died five times?

There were rumors of a mole recently. I don't know if we ever figured out if it was an actual thing or not.

[He reads the post, frowning. He's always known about the five deaths thing, but not why. He thought you just didn't come back. Apparently, it's not that at all.]

That's... kind of terrifying. You're saying she takes something every time you die? Even when it's one of the first times?

My suspicions was that it was Phillip, if you knew him, because he was the only person who had. But he left Wonderland months ago... supposedly. Before he left he said some fairly cryptic things to me about people being able to disappear and seem gone, so consider it still on the table. There was one other person who died five times, but he never came back after the fifth death, which implies there's an option. I'm still not certain if it's compulsory, though. Phillip wasn't exactly willing to admit to being a traitor.

[And he disappeared just as she was getting close, which is like, double-triple-mega suspicious, you know.]

But yeah, it seems like it. Every death comes with some sort of price. As far as I can figure, maybe if you die enough times, you just figure the Queen fancies you or something. Humanizes her. Maybe she just takes the memory of you thinking she's a nutjob.

[whispers] The bee guy...

[but that's nothing compared to the other stuff she's saying and Mabel covers her mouth and looks over at her brother with wide, shocked eyes. sure she has one death under her belt, but Dipper has two. and what about the rest of their friends...]

Philip had died five times? [He looks over at Mabel, reaching over to grab her arm. It's not like they wanted to die again, but... wow.] So... what's the price? Like...if you've only died once or twice, you don't notice there being a price. Like, how would you know?

I don't know. I haven't died here yet. I'm not even sure how you'd measure something like that.

[Brainwaves or something? She genuinely doesn't know.]

I didn't mean to scare you two. I just don't feel right sitting on this anymore, and now that he's gone, there's no danger of getting other people involved. I didn't want to blast this in case he proved to be dangerous.

Yeah, I'm glad you told us. [she hesitates and squeezes Dipper's arm with her free hand, clinging to him like her life depends on it.] I've died once, and Dipper's died twice. We never noticed anything was off.

We're not planning on dying any more times, though. [Like the first two were planned. Right.] And it's been over a year since the last time! We've been careful.

We don't know if it's something physical lost for each death. I doubt it's a memory, or someone would've picked up on it by now. Maybe one of the more science or health inclined types could do brain scans, but I don't know even where to begin with this kind of research.

[She doesn't plan on dying here either, though she's scraped close a number of times. It's what happens when you put yourself directly in the line of hellfire for others over and over again.]

I just want to make sure this goes down on record. I also don't know if there's anyone around who's died 4 times, but I feel like creating some sort of registry would be invasive.

Yeah, even if people usually say something when it happens, there's always the people who wanna keep it a secret. Like bee guy did.

[they literally said his name like five minutes ago, Mabel.]

Which is dumb. We're not gonna figure this out if people don't share data, and how many times you've died is really important data! [He scowls.] More information gets us closer to real answers.

I agree with you, kid. But you gotta make sure not to make it into a witch hunt, or no one'll want to. If it becomes a mob, nothing gets done but violence.

... Also, I gotta ask, why was he the bee guy?

He kept bees.

[it's really that simple.]

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