Episode 16: Night at The Ardent

*Click, soft music playing in the background*

Voncid:  Hello there… Hello again.

 I’ll admit, I was debating the value of this little project, even considered putting an end to the recording of my work.  After all, it adds a step to an already intricate process.

Not to mention the ethical concerns.

Is it right to capture forever all this… suffering and death?  Am I freezing all of this horror in time when it would be better left faded and forgotten?  I still believe troubles lies ahead, that the plague of nightmares stirs once more, and these logs could provide vital insight when reviewed, should the worst occur…

But you and I know the real reason I asked Luca to make this recording device… I started it for you.  For reasons we are both well aware of.

But I am feeling stronger lately.  The issues these recordings are intended to solve have been significantly less pronounced, so… another reason to stop.

This is of course the apothecary’s classic dilemma.  You prescribe a remedy, the remedy is taken, the remedy takes effect, the patient feels relieved… so why should they continue to swallow these bitter pills?

So, despite my misgivings, I continued recording, and after this evening's review, I am very glad I did.

Not only has it been an asset to me and perhaps helped to alleviate some symptoms, but the anomalies.  What they propose is very interesting, very interesting indeed.

As I relistened for the first time, I was shocked to hear the first of these audio anomalies.  The memories of the dead seeping into the wax itself. Potent memories, a mothers voice, the snap of a bone, recalled strongly enough that they push themselves from mind to reality and imprint on the turning wax cylinder.  

Other sounds, however, I believe have a more sinister origin. The blip of a delivery app luring a young man to his doom, the voice of a creature of the otherworld filled with its strangeness and malice, these sorts of sounds intrude into the recording as well.  Their presence is simply and totally caustic. They are literally unforgettable, not memories but holes burned in the remembering.

We patch the leaks in our vessel as it plows on through the endless, dark sea…

I believe that these recordings may themselves become vaguely dangerous in some cases, the more virulent entities might in fact be harmful to a listener even third hand… well, luckily these are only for my personal use and…

*The recording crackles slightly for a moment.  

Jinx: *a soft meow*

Voncid: Hmm? Cold?  I don’t really notice the chill anymore.

Jinx: *Mrrows and a purr as he rubs against Cid.*

Voncid: very well, we will build the fire before I continue.

*Click. Then the recording returns Jinx is purring loudly, the music has been replaced with the sound of a fire*

Voncid: more to your liking?

Jinx: *purring*

Voncid:  Very good.  What was I going to cover first.

Jinx: *meow*

Voncid: right.  Let’s start with an update on last week's case as it’s quite fresh in my mind.

We were alerted to a presence stalking a young woman named Adelaide Parks thanks to Mayberry’s sleuthing via technomancy.

We arrived too late to save her life, but found that she had dispatched her killer quite handily despite his complete invisiblity.  The presence turned out to be nothing more than a disturbed young man named Gregory Greenwood.  A year younger than Adelaide, it appears he long held a deranged torch for her.

No massaging of the narrative in the press was necessary.

The story emerged after only gentle prodding.  A very angry young man obsessed with a young woman killed her when she returned home for winter break.  Horrific, but of the sort we’ve all come to expect with the pleasant bonus that the villain was killed himself in the proceedings.

The… poetics of his use of invisibility to stalk a girl he hated for her “passing him over” and never noticing him  were not necessary for the attack to become major news. A true life slasher story, they say.

The public narrative handled, we turned to investigate where a young man would obtain access to otherworldly arts necessary to carry out his heinous plot.  When the Greenwood family was approached for questioning we found their home completely abandoned, bleached from head to toe.  A small excavation had been carried out in their cellar, destroying the cement floor.

We are attempting to contact Mikhail Chander, the Order’s leading expert in hunting unscrupulous practitioners, but apparently he’s in the bush on the tail of someone who’s been doing some very unsavory things with blood magic, some fear they are trying to conduct a danse macabre but that’s nothing but panic.

Once Mikhail is back on the grid I have a feeling he will be interested in the Greenwood case.  I venture we have encountered a branch of the Calohney family tree once again.

*shuffling papers*

Hmm, an interesting possibility.  Residue taken from Gregory’s body positively matches traces taken from the girl who vanished in the mall, the, uh, Jennifer Slaughter case.  Though what possible connection there could be I can’t quite fathom yet.  Further study is needed, I have Nijal working on it, but he’s not well known for quick turn around.

Still no sign of any clothier named Scrambles on record and no other predatory mannequins that seem a match have been uncovered in the remembrance files, I continue to believe it is an unrelated anomaly.

Ah, I should discuss my side project.

Adelaide has consented and has been placed on ice while preparations are made.  I have not attempted what I am planning in a long time, and not at all since my recent disability.

Perhaps I was emboldened by the ease with which I repaired and revived Philippa, Adelaide was far longer gone, systems cold, anima fled… but her instincts, her tenacity… you don’t come across a candidate very often.

That fire.  It is so strong.  I know she can be rekindled… though, again, rises the question of ethics.  No matter how well I feel I have explained what it would mean, what she would become… can she truly understand?

She has fallen off a precipice and stands in air, suspended, about to fall… and I extend a life line.  But of course she would take it, no matter how well you advise that the lifeline is on fire, who wouldn’t grab onto it?  

oh it was Wile E Coyote, that’s the other one that doesn’t fall until he looks down.

As of this recording preparations for the rekindling proceed apace, my moral misgivings not withstanding.

Jinx: *mrrps*

Voncid: Hmm?  Lo Mein again?  I suppose so.

*Click. When the recording resumes the fire is gone and the music has returned*

Voncid: We may as well discuss how Jinx is adapting to his new situation.  Certainly overly bold in my opinion, but he more than makes up for it in skills and a very affable demeanor. He’s adapting well to life in The Ardent, his getting into trouble has kept well in balance with his charming of the other Order members. 

He’s still cagey as to why he and his summoner parted ways and I don’t intend to pry.  I assume his previous owner passed suddenly, as I can’t imagine anyone willingly parting with him, not if they knew what they had.

But people’s cruelty does never fail to surprise.

*shuffling of papers*

*Clearing his throat* Ah yes, file reference marked Peeking.

Luca and I were able to reach the home of Charles Baybridge before the giggling, peeking creatures had harmed him, though they were indeed following him.  The creatures are shockingly elusive and several attempts to capture or kill one for study have failed.  My suggested tactic of using Charles as bait has been shot down so far.  Housing him here at The Ardent will certainly keep him safe, but I sometimes wonder if the Venerim are so eager to house the cursed or stalked within our warded walls as much for the help such individuals are with staffing as for the individual’s own benefits.

Charles is a welcome addition as a research assistant and extra set of hands… but there are nearly two dozen such Charles hiding in The Ardent from some impending doom or stalking nightmare.

Those things are still out there looking for him, for whatever inscrutable purpose I can’t say, but perhaps I could say if we capture one, and I see no way to do so without bait… at any rate…

*shuffles papers*

Blights… yes, Dottie Jean Barlowe, well it seems that she’s killed again, I would imagine more than once.  The case files I am currently observing, stomach churning as they are, detail a woman who is… was, under observation by a federal task force for exotic animal trading.  She was found… gods, skinned and hung up in her closet alongside her rare fur coats.

I’m now looking again at the image of her captured on a home security camera… hmm… something seems a bit off about her right arm… her fingers are splayed out very unnaturally…

Well, there was basically no forensic evidence, save for hair fibers from an unknown animal, which leads me to believe that Dottie is still in the company of Mr. Greenstripe, a creature we’ve yet to identify.

We’ve yet to see the last of Dottie Jean I’m afraid.  While no one would weep too long for her victims so far, the killing is coming too easy, it’s only a matter of time before it escalates, before everyone starts to look like a target.

I’ve listened back to Mr. Greenstripes’ voice on the recording, or rather my recording of a recording. Interestingly in the original recording, Mr. Greenstripes’ voice had no… strange qualities to it. However on the ghost wax I think it’s true nature’s shown through. I can’t quite shake the feeling that I recognize it from somewhere, but I can’t place it yet. 

Hmm, midnight again.  I should check the apiary.  Hmm, seems fitting i should record the bees themselves.  These recordings of the supernatural are only possible thanks to the wax they produce after all.

*Click. When the recording resumes there’s a faint buzz of bees*

These are the sounds of the Expiravit Apis.  the Ghost Bee.  They are even more tame than the more traditional varieties.  Unmistakable by the face-like marking on the thorax and the white-grey coloration.

Before me is an enormous tree, the oldest on the North American continent.  No two leaves alike, evolution in the branches, the roots covering the courtyard are like a mass of brown serpents, no crack in the masonry is unexplored.  The canopy fills every inch of the available space in the courtyard sky, more or less forming a ceiling of branches; several lanterns hang from the boughs left by my predecessors long gone.  The space is serene and strange.  

In a hollow in the tree the bees have made their nest for generations.

The hollow goes further in than it looks, farther than would seem possible… it goes all the way through in fact… the hive is in between… half here, half there…

*There’s a long pause as he drifts off, listening to the bees*

Luca: Master Voncid

Voncid: hmm, what? Where did I go off to there?

Luca: Sorry to interrupt your… meditation?  But, there’s a case.  A very weird one.

Voncid: Yes, I was just rambling at this point I suppose, reviewing some case files.  What's the situation?

Luca: Well, a few days ago, one of the observers just stopped moving in Colorado.  Just stopped and stared at the ground.  It was flagged as anomalous and the observer was brought in for evaluation but another one went to the same spot and another, and well, now there’s five of them all in the same spot, staring down at the stone.

Voncid: something underground.

Luca: they thought of that, and there are caves nearby, but a sounding showed solid rock.  Or it did at first, but they looked closer and, well here.

Voncid: well… if that doesn’t appear to be a human person encased in solid stone.

Luca: yeah.  They are excavating to them now.  Our flight leaves in a few hours.

Voncid: well… nose back to the grindstone.

Luca: such a weird expression, why would you put your nose to the grindstone, seems painful.  Is that the point, that work is pain?

Voncid: I think it comes from the habit of blacksmiths to put their head close to the wheel to more closely observe their work and hone the sharpest edge.

Luca: huh, interesting.  Did they have blacksmiths where you are from or…?

Voncid: I heard it on a podcast.

Luca: ah.

*Click*