Episode 19: Alive Underground

[Intro Music]

*Click, whirring*

Luca: *speaking quietly* I’ve turned on the recorder, because we are nearly there, but I thought you might want to listen back to this.  

Voncid: [soft whispers]  I’m sorry… Sorry.  We knew, we knew it might be like this.

Luca:  You’re talking in your sleep.

Voncid: *sleep talking* [soft whispers] I didn’t want it to end this way.  I didn’t want it…

There’s never enough.  Never enough time.

I, had to kill him… I had to.

*There is the ringing of a phone, followed by the sounds of rustling as Voncid wakes and fishes it out of his coat.*

Luca: Voncid.  We’re almost there. Your phone is ringing.

Voncid: [clears throat] *groggily*  Yes, hello?  Phillipa yes hello, wait just a moment…  Umm… Oh, the recorder is already on… was I snoring?

Luca: Sleep talk.

Voncid:  Ah… Hope it was nothing too disturbing.  Let me put you on speaker.  Go ahead Philippa.

Pip:  [frantically] Yeah, hi. What the fuck is happening?!

*fire extinguisher goes off*

Pip: Fuck!  Stay out!

Luca: what the hell is that?

Voncid:  Phillipa are you quite alright?

Pip: No! I’m not “alright”! Shit!(aside) Yes, Granny Doris, I’m aware it’s back!

*fire extinguisher continues to goes off*

Voncid: for heaven’s sake call the fire brigade not us.

Pip: Oh no! This is a “you” problem! Whatever you guys are up to is seriously unsafe!

Voncid: how  would you possibly know that? 

Pip: Well, I was doing a reading…

Voncid: We discussed this, Phillipa James.

Pip:  Le Fey, respect the stagecraft.

Voncid: You were not to read my cards.

Pip: I wasn’t! …I was reading Luca’s.

Voncid: *heavy sigh*

Pip: Ok, but I heard you were traveling for a weird case, and something about it felt…wrong. And I needed to know, and I promised not to read your cards, but since you never go anywhere without Luca, I figured-

Voncid: Enough. Tell me what you saw.

Pip: I don’t even know, but it’s bad, Owen. I couldn’t even get a good vision of how events would play out. It was just darkness. I got through the Ten of Wands, then The Tower and then… 

*silence*

Voncid:  then what?

Pip: And then my kitchen table started on fire.

Voncid:  I see. Were you hurt?

Pip:  No, but on instinct I grabbed the cards up trying to save them. I didn’t see what the last card was.

Voncid: The meaning seems clear enough.

Pip:  *confused* You are being awfully calm about this whole thing! 

Luca: *deadpan* we’re here.

Voncid: Phillipa thank you for the warning.  We will be extra vigilant.  

Pip:  I-, just… please keep me posted. You guys are…well, I find you to be the most tolerable members of the Order, and I really don’t want to have to make new friends.

Voncid:  I will speak with you soon.  

Pip: Yeah, ok.  

*Call Ends* 

*Engine cuts off*

Luca: Are you worried about what she said?

Voncid: Yes and no.

Luca: Why no?  

Voncid: Luca… Something bad is always coming.

*Recorder clicks off*

*Recorder clicks on*

*Construction truck idling in background*

Rugen: Ha ha ha! Welcome! Welcome!  So glad you could finally join us here in the bluster.

Voncid: Mikhail Rugen.  I am shocked to see you.  Weren’t you in the Australian outback?

Rugen: Slow slow old man.  That was two hunts ago now.

Voncid: This is a hunt?

Rugen: Not yet.  Recovery operation, but all the omens are coming up bad.

Voncid:  We’ve been informed.  Oh, Luca remind me to transfer extra money for Philippa, I'm sure she’ll blame us for her table… oh yes, pardon my rudeness, Mikhal Rugen, this is Luca Fitz, my new assistant.  

Rugen: Hm. Hopefully you last longer than the last one.

Luca: So do I.

Rugen: Don’t worry, we found… most of him.

Voncid: Apologies for our tardiness.

Rugen: *chuckles* I thought a wizard was never late, eh?  Comes and goes precisely when he means to?

Voncid: We needed to conduct an emergency Valentine’s Day exorcism.

Rugen: What is it with Valentine’s Day and ghosts?

Voncid: Emotions run high.

Rugen: Well, a fine reason to be late.  Doing the many lords work.  [Under his breath] Fucking hate ghosts.

Luca: Is that Nash Faraday waving at us?

Voncid: Yes, he and Nijal should be here already.  Let's join them.

*footsteps in dirt, chatter from people in background*

Luca: Bigger operation than I realized.

Rugen:  Yeah, we’ve been getting a huge bloom from the area since yesterday, been moved up to top priority.  Oliva Biers-Weather is flying in now.

Voncid: You’re kidding?

Rugen: I am not.

Voncid: She hasn’t left the Ardent in years.

Rugen: Not a great sign.  

Voncid: Not indeed.

*Background murmuring*

Luca: *quietly to Voncid* Is this Mikhail Rugen? The Lord Iron Witch Hunter?

Voncid:  *quietly*  A lifetime or two ago.  He’s really a lovely man these days.

Luca: *quietly* I’ll just stay terrified if it’s all the same to you.

Voncid: *Quietly* Totally understandable.

*Truck idling*

Nash: Gentleman, welcome to our patch of dirt. 

Voncid:  Luca, you know Mr. Faraday, and this is Nijal Delang.  

Nijal: Hello.  We’ve passed in the halls of The Ardent.

Luca: Nice to meet you.

Voncid: *coughing* You’ve been digging.

Rugen: Hopefully we’ve gotten suitable core samples for Nijal.  Would you show us to the command tent there? I’ll be picking this dust out of my beard for weeks.

*Recorder clicks off*

*Recorder clicks on*

*The audio cuts and returns in a quieter space.  They are around a table looking at blueprints, readouts, scans and surveys*

Rugen:  We passed a lot of digging equipment, are we planning on a traditional excavation?

Nijal:  That isn’t feasible. It’s very hard rock all the way down.  Digging would take months, and the equipment required would not go unnoticed.  

Nash: We would be answering lots of questions pretty quickly.

*Beat*

Rugen:  So… geomancy?  Just have the rocks pull them up for us.  

Nash: Do we still have a geomancer?

Nijal: I’m proficient.  I’ve never called from that depth. But, I think I can do it.

Voncid: The more power we apply directly to the body, the more it will alter the perception of the dead.  If we want to find out what happened to the poor soul with any accuracy, we will have to be deft.  The amount of exposure to dredge a body through that much stone… I’m not sure I’ll be able to get us anything useful.

Rugen: So we go in through the side?  Any cave systems we could use to cut down on the distance?

Nash: No, none we could find.  Painted Cathedral is near here, but we’d be better going straight down.

Rugen: Then how the blue hell did this corpse get so far into solid rock?  I’ve seen a wall dweller pull someone a hundred feet in, but this is absurd.  Have we ever seen a case like this before?

Nijal:  It’s new.  We haven’t found anything like this in records or remembrances. 

Voncid:  I’ve never seen anything like this… on this side that is.

Nash: well that’s fucking ominous.

Luca: I have an idea.

*silence*

Luca: Sorry.

Voncid: No please go ahead Luca.

Luca: this might be dumb, but you said that using… uh

Nijal: *curt*  Geomancy.  It’s exactly what it sounds like.

Luca: Right, geomancy, to bring the body up will tamper with it?  Well could you just bring up the rock all around it?  If you’re pulling on a big chunk of rock, maybe that would insulate the body from the power?

Nash: Then we can use the gear outside and crack it like an egg.

Nijal:  I am very proficient with a lot of arts, but I don’t know of anyone who could do that.

*Static*

Rugen:  Oh wow, did you feel that chill Cid?

Voncid:  I did. 

Nash:  What chill?

Rugen: You know what that means.

Luca: What does it mean?

Voncid:  She’s here.

*Recorder clicks off*

*Recorder clicks*

*We hear the recording cut.  When it returns we hear the sound of the recorder blowing out as it is unable to transmit Olivia Biers-Weather.  A full, healthy  Hamsa is too much for it in its current state.  Luca recalibrates and gets it working again as they are nearly about to raise the stone.  As the recording resumes it needs to reset and tune back in.  When it does we hear the sound of the rain on the tent roof*

*Static and buzzing*

*Recorder clicks on*

*Static*

Luca: Come on, come on…  Yes!

Nash: You got it working again?

Luca: Yes.  I didn’t think it was going to work ever again.

Nash: What happened?

Luca: I tried to record the Venerim when she arrived and it blew out the whole system.

Nash: Ugh gives me the willies.  

*The tent flap pushes open and the sound of rain increases*  

Nijal: They are ready.  You won’t want to miss this.

Nash: She’s going to do it in the rain?

Nijal: Yeah.

Nash: *Handing and umbrella to Luca* Here, umbrella.  Don’t want to break your little gizmo again.

*We hear them head out to the site in the rain.*

Olivia: *At extreme distance through the rain.  Her voice is deeply inhuman.* 

*Echos*

I call!  Rock and stone, cup and throne, world below.  I call!

Heed. My. Call.

*The ground rumbles and shakes immediately.  Cracking and vibrations roll out in waves.*

Nash: Holy fuck.

Nijal: Unreal.

*The rumbling increases, then the sound of liquid as stone that has turned to liquid expels the massive boulder with the body entombed within it.  We hear groaning of massive pressure.*

Luca: I can’t believe it.

Rugen: *He’s walked off into the distance and is calling to the dig team.* Ok, let’s get after it.  Time to crack this egg.

*Recorder clicks off*

*Recorder clicks on*

*The audio cuts and returns within the tent.  The rain has faded except for the occasional drizzle.*

Voncid:  The recorder is working again?

Luca: Yeah, wish I would have thought to bring the spare.

Voncid: I should have as well.  If the devices have that much trouble with me, I should have known that one of us at the height of their power… well now we know.

Luca: Yeah.

Voncid:  To the task at hand at last.  I must say I was not expecting modern attire for the victim.  I suppose it is likely nostalgia for my times in Calcutta and Egypt, digging for lost things. But I expected something ancient.  Not a young woman with three punches in her Quiznos card.

Luca: Yeah me too uhh.  She’s well preserved enough we could have made an ID even without her driver's license conveniently sealed in there with her.

Nash: Name’s Tina Price. She went missing in Painted Cathedral Caverns three years ago.

Voncid:  The body is exceptionally well preserved.  Modern clothing, a cut to the palm of one hand, minor cuts and bruises, but has sustained no major visible injuries. Cause of death appears to be asphyxiation, though, judging by the look on the face… perhaps acute heart failure.  Considering how long she’s been here I am shocked to find her with so little deterioration.

Luca: Well she was sealed in stone…

Voncid: Yes but even without external forces the body is filled with bacteria and acid and all manner of microscopic organisms.  We should see more decomposition.  Whatever otherworldly force did this seems to have killed her internal biome along with her.  Well, lets wake her and ask her what that was exactly.

Nijal: *entering through the tent flap*  Did I miss the waking?

Nash: No they’re just getting after it and I am leaving.  This is all way too much juju for one day. 

Nijal:  Suit yourself.  He’s the only person left in the whole world that can do this you know. You can’t see this show anywhere else.

Nash: *calling back*  I’ve seen it. 

Nijal:  Can I help?

Voncid:  No need.  I can feel her.  She’s right on the other side.  I think she wants to talk.

Nijal:  Rugen isn’t gonna storm in here and burn us at the stake right?  Black magic and all. *whispers* Facists

Voncid:  No no, we are fully sanctioned.

Nijal:  *Half playfully*  Fascists.  

Voncid: *We hear magic and the whispers of the otherworld enter Voncid’s voice.* Wake.  Wake back to the world and tell us… tell us how you came to leave it.

Tina Price:  *takes a deep breath in… holds it, savors it, then takes a deep breath out.  Oh, that’s nice.  Much better.

I was having the strangest dream.  I dreamed I was buried, but I was flying.  How can you be buried and flying?

Voncid:  I only know of one way.

Tina: I was buried once before.  It was, different.  I never really found out what happened.  My dad was driving… I don’t think he’d really been drinking much, my mom said he hadn’t been.  They think he might have fallen asleep, or had a stroke or a heart attack or something like that, drifted over the middle lane…

Everything broke at once.  My dream shattered around me, its glittering little fragments got all mixed up in the glass of all those windows.  My dad broke, if he had fallen asleep, he never woke up.  You know that feeling when you wake up with a jump?  It was like that but it kept going, folding over and over as we rolled over and over.

I wound up all twisted up in the metal of the car, pinched in like a mad giant had me clenched in its fist.  Oil and blood trickled down on me.  I’m lucky a fire didn’t start.

I’d never been trapped.  Not totally trapped… I couldn’t move at all, even breathing deeply was impossible.  They told me I was actually inverted, but I couldn’t tell at the time.  The things I saw… I blamed them later on head trauma and shock, but now I’m not so sure.

*Beautiful orchestral music plays*

Through the cracks in the twisted up car, I could see bright colors.  Through the creak of the metal around me I could hear music… really beautiful music, the kind you’d hear at the beginning of an old hollywood movie.

Across the mangled car, through a gap I could see a field of blue green grass.  It swayed along to the music and everywhere it parted I could see these little jeweled insects… no, not insects, little people with vivid jewel tone skin and iridescent wings like little glass scissors fluttering on their backs… and in the field I could see a tree and it cupped its branches around a knothold in its side and let loose a bellow like a trumpet.

Kindly Tree: “Heeelp!  This child is hurt!  Elzilbell!  Sallywettle!  Someone come help!”

Tina: The tree was calling for help…

Kindly Tree: Just hang tight little sprout, help is coming.

Tina: The tree was so kind… The two women, or whatever they were that hurried into the jeweled field weren't like anything I'd ever seen.  They were made of wind and sunshine… They shined…

I wonder what would have happened if they had gotten to me first?  Would they have pulled the door open, lifted me out of the wreckage and then I could have lived the rest of my life there, with them?

That’s not what happened.

The firemen twisted me out with that thing they call the jaws of life.  A big horrible pinch shocked me as they peeled me out of the car like a sardine.

My mom had gotten loose of the car on her own, her phone screen was shattered but it still worked… I spent a year in and out of the hospital, couple surgeries… but my body healed a lot faster than my mind.

I would wake up kicking and screeching at my blankets, feeling like I was trapped inside them.  I couldn’t use this walk in box type shower at an Air BnB we were at once.  Felt like a coffin.

Cars were tough for a little while but with enough therapy I could ride in one, as long as my seat was all the way back.  

My therapist suggested immersion therapy, and I actually found it really helpful.  Little by little we put me in situations that were way too tight, but were comfortable in another way.  A tanning booth was nice and warm even if it was way too small.  I kept opening the door but, eventually I worked through it.  I did a few minutes in a sensory deprivation tank as a sort of culmination.  Little bit at a time.

Seven years a bit at a time, rolling over into a new act of your life.  By then I mostly had friends who didn’t even know the full extent of what I’d been through.

When they asked if I wanted to go to the Painted Cathedral caverns I’ll admit my heart skipped a beat or two, but I said yes, congratulated myself on how far I’d come… all that.

They were as beautiful as the name implied.  I didn’t even have a problem walking in, getting our hard hats, walking underground past all the crystals in the gift shop…

*We hear the beginnings of cavern sounds.  Water drops and echoes.  Light voices echoing through the caves around her*

They had these lights shining up all over, really showing off the colors and the scale, but it would have been impressive without them.  

*Water dripping*

It was this level of detail and intricacy you can only get from something it took nature hundreds of thousands of years to make.

Carly and Brett and a few of their friends were “oooing and ahhing” around me, pointing up at this or that.  The tour guide was doing a good job, but I admit I don’t recall anything he was saying past the opening about how it was made bit by bit over time by water.

*The voices start to fade out and soon she’s alone in the audio with just the cavern sounds around her.*

It made me think about how I’d put myself back together, bit by bit… after…

Anyways there was this really beautiful stripe that ran a glittering trail up the wall and I got totally entranced in looking at it… I leaned way back, following it up along the cavern ceiling with my flashlight until I was almost bending over backwards and my hard hat fell off.

I spun around to get it, picked it up, kinda laughing sheepishly looking to my friends to share in a giggle and point out this crystal stripe I found… but…

*pause*

*there is only the sounds of the cave, it becomes very startling clear she is alone.*

They weren’t where I expected them to be.  I scanned around with my light but all I saw were stalagmites… or stalactites?  No that’s the one on the ceiling.  Stalactite, has a c, for ceiling…

I must have gotten more absorbed in the looking at the crystal formation than I thought and they must have walked on without me… 

Though as I looked around, I wasn’t sure how that was possible.  It was still pretty open, it was a dozen people with flashlights.  I hurried off in the direction I thought we’d been heading… No I was sure of it.  I waved my light around looking for them, listening for the tour guides voice.

*We hear echoing footfalls as she picks up her pace*

My feet were echoing so loudly on the stone, the path seemed clear enough, how was it I couldn’t hear anyone else?  Anyone but me?

I pulled at the collar of my shirt… it suddenly seemed kinda tight… I was clammy…

I took a few deep breaths and kept going though I almost immediately thought I’d just go back. We were barely into the cavern, I could just go back…

But I turned around to look back the way I came and my breath caught in my throat.

The cave was so much smaller.

Wasn’t it?

That can’t be the way I’d come… it was Painted Cathedral caverns, this was… this was not a cathedral… it was… I could have touched the ceiling with a step ladder…

I could feel beads of sweat running down my back.

How was this happening?

I’d gotten turned around was all.

I’d lost my bearings.

That wasn’t the way I’d come, but there was no reason to panic.  Still, I should call out, see if they can hear me.

*We hear her calls echo as she raises her voice the next lines.*

“Hello!” I said, not shouting but loud.  “Hello, I’m turned around?  Where is everyone?”

I heard a voice call back to me… but then I realized it was just my own echo and my heart sank again.  

I picked up my pace again, I could practically feel them somewhere out ahead of me, leaving me behind… as I started to hurry I miscalculated how close I was to a stalagmite… G, G because they come out of the ground…

I caught my hand on one and it sliced my palm open.  It stung for a few seconds and then I went numb.  I wrapped it up in the sleeve of my sweatshirt and just kept going.

Every step I took it seemed like there were more and more sharp protrusions all around me… it was like the stalagmites were moving in, pinning me in…

*We hear a fuzz and distortion in the audio as Voncid applies more power to his attempts to keep Tina relatively calm in the recounting of the story, but he is losing.  Her panic is rising more and more.*

Voncid: I am struggling to keep her calm…

Tina: At this point I was shouting, yelling for them to hear me, for someone to find me.

“Hello!!  Please!  Is anyone there?” I shouted it… my own voice coming back at me. Only… there was something else…

*We hear the old Hollywood music*

I could hear music.  Familiar music.

My flashlight went out then.  It didn’t make any sense, it hadn’t been on that long. I was swallowed up in darkness… darkness so thick it had weight, but the music… it drifted to me like a lifeline…

I followed it, trying not to impale myself on all the sharp jagged rocks all around me… I held my hands out protectively and felt them brush against the cavern wall… I kept one hand on it, using it to guide me along… but… it was warm and… it was sticky and warm and it gave a little when I pushed on it…

I started to cry and just followed the music. 

I walked and walked and then… I couldn’t understand how, but I could feel the cavern wall on the otherside too… the cavern had narrowed so much… I could touch both sides if I stretched my arms out.

I kept pushing forward but every step I took it got narrower, and tighter and… I couldn’t, I couldn’t keep going… I stopped… and waited…

I was standing still just waiting, trying to breathe… I took a deep breath in.  In. *inhale* And out.  *exhale*

As I breathed… so did the cavern walls.

Tightening in.  Tightening on their own, even as I stood still.

A few more breaths and it was sealed all around.

Water and blood rained down on me from above.  Bits of glass from all the broken windows grated against my skin.

Fairy: She’s here!  I found her!  I can see her.

Kindly Tree: Oh get her out of there!  Poor little sprout.

Tina: I heard them calling, I could feel them prying at me, trying to get to me.  A shine came out of the dark.  One of the women made of sunshine and wind pried through the gloom and reached for me.

Fairy:  There you are love, we’ve been looking for you.  Come with us love.

Tina:  I knew somewhere that when they asked me to come with them… they didn’t mean my body… that was stuck, trapped and being devoured by something that lived in the stone or was the stone… I was going to die, but they were going to take me away too, part of me.  I was going to die a horrible choking squeezing death, but I also wasn’t.  I was going to finally make it to that field of sunshine and music where even the trees cared about what happened to you.

Voncid: Thank you.  I won’t keep you any longer from that place.

*pause*

Voncid:  Oh no.

Luca: Oh no?

Voncid: I believe whatever entity of phenomenon swallowed up this poor girl it is drawn to people with connections to the otherside.  She used that connection as a lifeline for her mind when in crisis, somewhere to escape to… you know what connects us to the otherside?  Use of the power.

Luca: Oh no.

Voncid:  which Olivia Biers-Weather did on a huge scale last night and I have just done again to wake the dead… We may have been ringing the dinner bell!

*we hear Voncid burst out of the tent.*

Everyone!  Listen to me.  We need a head-count, now!

Luca: Where are the Observers?

Voncid:  No.  Get off the ground!  Everyone!  Get up high! Do not touch the ground!!

*We hear crashing of heavy equipment pulled through stone and the hideous metallic roar*

*Recorder clicks off*

Narrator: Thank you for listening to Ghost Wax, a production of Far and Tall Tales. Find us at farandtalltales.squarespace.com. Ghost Wax is an independent podcast so if you liked this show, please rate and review, and consider joining us on Patreon at Patreon.com/farandtalltales

Also give a listen to our fantasy role play show Couldve Been Heroes for something completely different. 

Ghost Wax is written and directed by Robert Knutson 

Production and editing by Aaron Schoenrock

Our theme song is by Beau Hoover.

This episode features Robert Knutson as Voncid, the Kindly Tree and Elzilbell

Aaron Schoenrock as Luca

Mark Garkusha As Rugen

Stephanie Olsen as Pip

Tony Patton as Nash

Josh Esmay as Nijal

Gale Estelle as Sallywettle

HJ Raider as Olivia

And Victoria Tribble as Tina Price.