It's Just A Scratch is a story about Luke, a human who's starting his first day at the Department of Standards & Practices - an organization that investigates magical crimes involving wizards, vampires, and werewolves. Though his first case starts simple, things take a turn quickly, and the case's escalating nature challenges the minds of himself and his colleagues. Confronted with the truth that the Department and the world around him are not quite what they seem, the case rapidly becomes a horrifying struggle for survival and sanity as the past catches up to him.
It's Just A Scratch contains examples of:
- Deconstructor Fleet: Takes this and runs with it. The ace wizard? She suffers severe psychological trauma from the pressure of needing to stay at the top. The wizard who uses magic as a crutch? Well, his use of magic has rendered him completely unable to cope when he loses use of it and his mental state goes south fast. The human investigator? He ultimately isn’t able to change much and most of his actions do nothing to change the outcome. Even the secondary characters are hit with this. That vaguely racist old woman who’s a veteran of the Department? Yeah, the little hints she drops are hints towards her true nature.
- Downer Ending: The story is insistent on it. It's a bit up to interpretation at the end for Luke at least, though the... ending... to Carmine's story is firmly in this direction.
- Eldritch Abomination: The angel
- Genre Shift: From urban fantasy to cosmic horror
- Our Werewolves Are Different: All werewolves have two personalities - and one of those comes from the parts of their original personality they reject or dislike.
