|
The Chelsea outbreak was a sudden outbreak of a large concentration of ghosts and supernatural phenomena within the Chelsea area of southwest London, England.
History[]
The massive outbreak, which seemed to result in increasing amounts of ghostly activity day-by-day, was investigated by seemingly the combined forces of every agency within England, with the sole exception of Lockwood & Co.. However, following Lockwood & Co.'s favourable showing at handling a disruption to a party held to calm the public tensions, Lockwood & Co. was invited to investigate as well.[citation needed]
They, along with the help of Quill Kipps and his team from the Fittes Agency, traced the problem to the Aickmere Brothers department store, where they encountered a powerful poltergeist and the remains of a strange experiment underground.[2]
Revelations[]
The "strange experiment" was the doing of the Rotwell Agency headed by the chairman himself Steve Rotwell. It was an experiment on creating a gate to the Other Side. The experiment under Aickmere Brothers Department Store, in Chelsea, stirred the surrounding ghosts. The emissions, from the lavender factories and iron factories, aided by wind; and the wide waters of the river Thames formed a box-like barrier that prevented the ghosts from leaving the Chelsea area of London. (Note: ghosts couldn't cross the rivers. The emissions from the lavender factories and iron factories contained enough fine lavender and iron to block the ghosts). Thus, the outbreak was contained within Chelsea. The presence of these elements and the activity of the gate pushed ghosts further away from the source, causing them to cluster further and further away from Aickmere, and making it difficult to location the origin of the sudden burst of active hauntings.
Aickmere Brothers investigation[]
Some time after Lockwood and Co. were given files of the outbreak, they soon were able to pinpoint the location of the origin, in Aickmere Brothers Department Store. They, along with Quill Kipps and his team, along with relic-woman, Flo Bones, went to investigate the location. During the night, they encountered a number of different Visitors, and one team member, Bobby Vernon, was injured as he was lured into an empty elevator shaft by a Fetch who took the form of departed Fitts member, Ned Shaw. As Lucy Carlyle and Holly Monro assisted in carrying him to safety, the two soon found themselves arguing over issues they held back for weeks, unknowingly feeding their emotions to a Poltergeist. Upon realizing their error, the three tried getting away from the Visitor, but it soon attacked them, and eventually the entire investigative team in the department store. Powered by such emotion, the Poltergeist was able to rip a huge hole in the ground, causing Lucy to fall into it.
Discovering the King's Prison[]
Lucy survived the fall, and woke up beneath the ancient ruins of the King's Prison, which Aickmere's Brothers was eventually built over. It was there she discovered a chamber where the bones of the prisoners and patients of that time were moved and placed in an pattern, along with clues that someone had been in the chamber recently. Though she encountered a few ghosts, including the Fetch, Lockwood was able to find her and help her escape the place. After reuniting with the team, George and Flo went back to the chamber to sketch the layout of the materials set in chamber, before Rotwell agents forced them out. According to the papers, the agents used some new salt-blast guns on the bones, destroying/sealing the sources, ending the Chelsea outbreak.
Afterwards[]
Resolving the Chelsea outbreak brought more positive attention to Lockwood and Co. The experiment under Aickmere Brothers was quickly abandoned because of Lockwood and Co.'s investigations. Steve Rotwell transferred his experiment in his company's own centre in the village of Aldbury Castle, Hampshire. The Aldbury Castle outbreak followed soon after.