Sourced from NBC News
You can't tell me about a drunk trash panda and not expect me to use that material.
Besides, it's December, which is basically silly season.
Tricky Taxonomy
Written as Bookhounds but could easily be transposed to a different setting.
Your Hounds open the shop one day to find the place an absolute mess. Liquor's all over the floor; someone got into someone's booze supply. The devastation does at least make it easy to trace the culprit, passed out in one of the offices (or lavatory): a small, hairy creature unlike anything anyone's ever seen. Possibly some rare breed of fox? Or an animal escaped from someone's private collection of exotics?
Physically the thing is about the size of a smallish housecat, with very prominent and evocative eyes. Its brown hairy body is somewhat ratlike, and its mouth is full of razor-sharp teeth. It could be mistaken for a raccoon by someone who has never seen a raccoon in real life which, if this is Bookhounds, is entirely possible; Londoners don't have much opportunity to see North American wildlife. Even zoos don't keep anything as common as a raccoon, not when there are penguins and tigers to entertain the public.
The liquor, if (for plot or character reasons) it doesn't belong to the Hounds, belongs to one of the staff. They've been hiding it and drinking on the sly during working hours. This staff member is very determined to ensure the Hounds don't figure out whose booze it is.
The creature, when it wakens, has a hideous hangover and will not want to move anywhere for a while. However, it is wild and will lash out if provoked. If forced off the premises, it hangs round, because it has nowhere else to go. This may mean it takes up residence on the roof, probably somewhere near the chimney or in the attic since it's cold outside. If encouraged to stay it is relatively tame, has tidy toilet habits and eats meat with the voracious enthusiasm of a starving weasel. It will bite if given the opportunity, or cause.
Identifying the creature is a problem. Consulting texts in the shop (Biology, History, Outdoorsman) identifies several possibilities, none of which are native to the UK. Maybe it escaped from someone's collection?
Consulting Mythos texts will find descriptions of a similar creature: the Zoog, an inhabitant of the Dreamlands. A relatively intelligent inhabitant ...
Option One: Dreams Made Real Someone connected with the shop - either a Hound or someone who's there regularly, like a customer or a staff member - is a Dreamer. They may not know it. Their dream life may be entirely separate from their waking existence. However, their dreams are beginning to break through into the waking world and this Zoog is merely the first sign of a weakening membrane. The focal point is that comfortable armchair tucked away in a corner of the shop, where they stop to slumber for a minute or two now and again. That chair, and its immediate environs, is becoming a little too close to the Enchanted Wood where the Zoogs live. The Hounds can find this out if they notice the fresh shoots and plants springing up on and around the chair.
Option Two: Moving Right Along The Zoog is from a collection of exotics. This is the star attraction of Professor Phlogiston's Palace of Delights. The Professor, aka Morton Polk, is a Boston native who's brought his collection across the water and, as luck would have it, he's taken up residence not that far from the Hound's shop. His landlady is at her wit's end trying to keep her house in some semblance of order, with all these creatures roaming the place. Polk wants his star attraction back at almost any cost, but he's allergic to spending money. Breaking and entering is more his cup of tea.
Option Three: The Perils of Publication The Zoog escaped from the Dreamlands via a text that the Hounds recently acquired. This text is sitting in the back room while the Hounds work out how much it's worth, and the Zoog is actually one of the illustrations. The Hounds can work out which illustration because now there's just a blank space where it used to be. However, the Zoog isn't the only illustration in that book; there's all sorts of peculiar creatures described, and the Zoog is bright enough to know how to get the others off the page and into reality - if given half a chance ...
That's it for this week. Enjoy!
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