2021-03-27 - Who Gives a Fig About Book Burning?
Diana and Conner have questions, and a phone number for one of the people who might have answers. That's a match!
IC Date: 2021-03-27
OOC Date: 2020-07-02
Location: In the Ether
Related Scenes: 2021-03-07 - Endosymbiosis 2021-03-27 - Calling the Conifers...Corners...Whatever. 2021-03-27 - The Hunger for Knowledge
Plot: None
Scene Number: 5813
(TXT to Aidan) Diana: Long time no see. Guy named Conner (and myself as well) would love to ask you about weirdness. His number's 555-555-5555 and you've already got mine.
(TXT to Diana) Aidan: oh hey! yeah, long time. how's it going? and what kind of weirdness is going on? i'm good to tell you what i know about stuff, anyway.
(TXT to Aidan) Diana: Something about Aspect books and fire tree people. And some being that was immolated by you, Devlin, Everett, and Kailey? Being may be the book? Or may have attacked you guys earlier? Don't actually know. Also, do you know how to contact Devlin?
(TXT to Diana) Aidan: the hymns of blood and ashes. i dunno about fire tree people exactly but that was the book in the tree that we immolated. i mean we immolated them both, they were kind of the same thing. lyric was there too. about a year ago i think? not that great at time but i know boardwalk season was ramping up. do you want to make this like a three way text thing for questions or something?
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: Conner, meet Aidan. Aidan, meet Conner. Conner & I met Dreamside. We met a fire tree guy. He seemed upset to see Devlin. We charades'd for peace. What are the hymns of blood & ashes?
(TXT to Aidan Diana) Conner: Hi there, nice to meet you. Wait, so it was books you burned? Why did you burn them?
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: hey, nice meeting you. if the dude was upset to see devlin he'd prolly be even less happy seeing me...
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: so, okay, first off i swear burning books is not a thing i usually do
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: what happened was, we woke up early one morning in this canyon. and really the only thing there besides us was a door. with a knocker. and the door had a picture of a heart on it, only the heart was like a tree, with veins and arteries going up and down and making branches and roots.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: and it opened and we went in because what else are you gonna do when these things happen, right?
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: oh yeah, the roots went down into some kind of skeleton? like a big beast, dragon or i dunno sphynx or something? in the carving, i mean, there wasn't a real one. uh, this might take a few texts to get through explaining. do you want basically everyting i remember or just the real short version?
(TXT to Diana Aidan) Conner: That sounds like the dream that Diana and I shared. The same tree.
(TXT to Aidan Diana) Conner: I mean. I like everything but don't want your fingers to necessarily fall off either.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: Same tree and same door both. We went beyond the door after mean dinos attacked.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: I second what Conner said. Please tell us what you can, without ruining your poor fingers.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: well, i haven't actually got to the actual tree yet, that was just the door... we didn't get attacked by dinos, it just sounded thundery and when i wondered if we should knock it knocked itself and opened. made a really nice bell sound when it knocked, i remember that. i'm gonna try to get detail in 'cause i want to know kinda how close to the same it was.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: closing didn't sound so good, though. and you could feel it in your chest, kinda? it felt wrong. anyway inside it was all run-down, the floor was a mosaic that looked like it used to be really good, i think it was a volcano. might've been a fountain or something like that? vines, everything was kinda overgrown and moldy and broken.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: sounded like a river outside but when we went there it was waterfalls and lavafalls and basically ruins, buildings on pillars of rock and stone bridges between them that were also falling apart and brambled and stuff. made the one near us a little less rickety and we went across it and found a kid fighting ROUSes in the building there.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: so he told us it was, i dunno, i think a thousand years? might've just been a hundred but i mean, a long time anyway, since people who could do the magic had been there. things were kind of shaking like little quakes. he said, maybe we were there to help. which, i mean, kinda feels like half these things we are, so yeah maybe.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: he said the problem was the book. that it pulled the temple, i think, underground, and was trying to shake the world apart. that it was called the hymns and people like us used to learn from it. but somehow it got corrupted. and now it was trying to destroy everything. so he called these giant bats and we rode them down to where it was.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: it was a big sheet of obsidian down there and in the middle was, yeah, a tree. kinda. like... tree-shaped. but made of stone and bone and wood and the sap looked a lot like maybe blood. that kinda thing. and it had a hollow and in the hollow was the book. it was copper, i think. metal. same symbol as the door had. and it said it was the hymns of blood and ashes.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: well i mean that was the title on it
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: what it said was something about life coming from death and death from life. like, it said it in our... i wanna say minds but it kinda felt more like blood? only i know that doesn't really make sense.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: and then how death was necessary, and it was shaking everyhing and breaking up the obsidian and kinda, you know, reaching for us with the roots and branches. and everett had said he was in one like that before, with a book, and they had to destroy it. and i could tell this one needed to be destroyed with fire. i mean, that if we were going to destroy it that was how.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: so we did. which i mean didn't exactly make it stop trying to kill us? but it was talking about how we should bleed for it and that kinda makes me feel less like we shoulda done something else. kinda. i kinda try not to go right to setting stuff on fire these days? but yeah. anyway. so. we immolated it and it exploded, and all of it went everywhere and the obsidian shattered and we fell and fell
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: and then we were floating and there was a tiny light and what kinda looked like a peach pit only made of amber. and someone's blood dropped on it, i dunno whose except one of us i guess? not its own. it said, we all come together in the end. and the beginning. because we're one blood and live in between.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: and then i was in bed again and i figure everyone else was back in theirs or wherever too
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: so. what happened with your door tree thing?
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: Oh wow. That's... very different from what we saw. Our door was in a rainforest, and had the same symbol as yours. A dino showed up, and it called for more, and we heard all these echoing whistles. Way too many.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: The roots on our door were reaching for some kind of animal corpse, but I can't remember what kind. They weren't quite reaching it yet, though. Anyway, Conner and I heard something coming. Trying to sneak up, but just barely audible.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: It turned out to be some kind of hella camouflaged raptor that like I said, called for more. So many more. A gal tried to use her Shine against the door, but then she screamed, with her nose trickling blood.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: Conner & Devlin tried to open the door, and it worked-- but it seared their hands. It didn't make any noise, no bell. Just a beckoning from beyond it.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: Inside, was a dark place. Ground was silt, and there was a river. There was no horizon, just a distant gleam. And a shaft of light coming from above.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: We saw a young tree like on the door. It had fruits-- sort of figgy??-- and at its base was a ring of skeletons picked clean. Animals, people-- some with bits of clothes still stuck to them.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: There was this large round shape about halfway down the tree, weird looking, and a person, their arms wrapped over their head, knees tucked under their chin, was curled up there.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: We called to it, and it uncurled, and was human, seemingly. A man, naked. Had an amber fluid clinging to him. Coppery skin. Black eyes. Long nose. He seemed terrified to be touching a deer skeleton with his feet, and he cowered, until he saw Devlin.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: like a hollow or like a sticking out round shape?
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: It was a hollow, and the man had been resting in it.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: When he saw Devlin, he seemed shocked, and then just... burning with rage. He stood up, staring at Devlin, fists at his side, like, you sonofabitch, but said nothing. And things got HOT around us. Like the silt under our feet.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: Conner and I tried talking to him. He flicked lava at one of the skeletons, warningly or threateningly, not sure which. He seemed as though maybe he half-understood us, but never spoke, like maybe he couldn't?
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: He waved his arms in this angry sweeping gesture, and it caused a bit of an earthquake for a moment. It seemed to surprise him. We spoke and charades'd peace, and Devlin offered to help him.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: He made eating & hunger stomach motions, then looked at us like, 'you're gonna take care of that, right?' I asked him what he ate, and Devlin offered him an MRE, but he seemed disgusted by it.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: He seemed frustrated we didn't understand, and grabbed some fruits from the tree, and antlers from the bones. Offered them to all of us, a fruit each, and pointed to his eyes, the items, and then our eyes. Maybe like, 'keep an eye out for this stuff' maybe? I wasn't sure.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: I thought maybe we should go hunting for him, and the tree guy looked like, 'no, no, you don't get it' and he looked kinda tired and wobbly. He curled back into the tree's hollow.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: The shaft of light from above started to darken, like an eclipse. There was this ring of fire-y kind of thing, and a flash of bright light. I saw we were in some kind of huge cindercone. I somehow knew that all around us this whole time had been a magma chamber.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: Then everything went black, until I felt (rather than saw) a small mote of darkness bending specks of light around itself. I heard Devlin's dog whine, and then... I was back at home. But with the fruit and antler tip.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: so i guess we know that seeds and volcanos are kinda themes sorta?
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: Yeah, I'd say so. And trees, of course. And I guess bones?
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: and earthquakes
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: And the door. What did the door look like for you, carving aside? Ours was very... cobbled-together, and gleaming, but with a plain bronze handle. I don't remember a knocker at all, though.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: it was amber and gold and mosaicish but not cobbled-together. the frame was all detailed with bones and brambles, kinda interleaved? with leaves and flowers and stuff. the knocker was hanging from the heart.
(TXT to Aidan Diana) Conner: Oh shit, that's it. Hunger motions. You're going to take care of it. And Diana what you told me you got off the fig. About the woman. And her hunger.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: ok i'm very confused by that sentence. sentences. thing. i mean i got he wants you guys to take care of the hunger but what are you getting off figs?
(TXT to Aidan Diana ) Conner: Diana did a psychometric reading off the fig, and she got a girl, who was hungry. And Tree Man asked us to feed someone who was hungry. It's a clear connection. Also...I have an idea, but it might be dangerous. That bit of elk's horn we got from our dream could lead us to the elk and the girl if we try to track it in the forest. Would either of you come with?
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: oh so you're thinking the one he wants fed isn't himself? that could make sense. i wonder why he can't feed her then though? and do you mean the elk the bones came from or another thing? because i saw a weird elk thing. but i think its horns looked fine? anyway. yes. i would go with. i mean it might kinda be my fault, maybe.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: You may well be right, Conner! And yes, the fig I was given-- I saw her being immolated by you and the others, Aidan. Wanted to fight back & stop you, but got immolated, & then for a long time, everything was dark, still, & warm. She was becoming something. She could feel herself coming together.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: well
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: i hope she's becoming something good
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: I'm thinking not. <_< Cuz then she was in awful pain, with an unbelievable hunger-- and I heard a scream seemingly coming from her, and it was... just horrible. She was on a stretch of black, rocky ground, covered in thick, sticky sap that was the color of blood, surrounded by the bones of things she ate while she regrew. And her mind was empty, and the hunger never stopped...
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: I was knocked out for awhile after that. Not entirely sure how long. Intense, though.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: i mean... that doesn't mean she's becoming something bad necesarily. just that becoming it kind of sucks.
(TXT to Aidan Conner) Diana: That's an interesting point. I hadn't thought of it that way... I suppose as long as we find a way to feed her soon, maybe we can head off danger at the pass.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: anyway whether it was the right thing or not it seems like kinda my fault that's happening, sorta? so. i should prolly try to help.
(TXT to Aidan Diana ) Conner: Yeah I saw a weird elk-fish thing down at the sawmill. It has to be connected but I don't know how. But yeah in the dream with Tree Man when we both woke up we both had a weird fruit that is related to figs but which August Roen says definitely isn't, and a piece of elk horn. And awesome. I think she might just need help, you know? That if we figure out how to feed her before her hunger gets too out of control then we might prevent things from getting really bad. But we won't know either unless we try to find out. So thank you!
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: wait when did you see elk-fish thing there? were you there when those girls were doing that summoning thing?
(TXT to Aidan Diana ) Conner: Marcy and her crew? Yeah. Seems like we've met already then.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: yeah! i'm the dude with the curly hair, hi. kinda hoping this doesn't lead us to that guy but. anyway yeah, i'll def help. it'd be good if we could help her so she isn't corrupted this time.
(TXT to Aidan Diana) Conner: I'm the old guy. 😀 Alright, let me text a few other people for a little more back-up and then I'll get back to you with a date.
(TXT to Diana Conner) Aidan: fig, date, apricot, just let me know! 😆 i'll be here.
Tags: