It’s been a couple weeks here, just my Mom and me. Dad was here before but had to go back up to St. Louis. When I landed, they wanted me to stay the night. I wasn’t in the mood to sleep in my old room.
They filled me in, and we got on the road for the farmhouse that night.
The house is fine, normal, most of the time. It’s way over a hundred years old, so it creaks, and the wind rattles the windows and all that.
Most of the time, that’s it.
But then they put it on the market to sell for next-to-nothing because it’s in the middle of nowhere and barely has any land. Everyone said it would be a teardown, and that’s when things started getting weird.
Doors slamming, voices calling from upstairs or the basement. Music, crying, laughing… and sometimes the whole place vibrating like it’s was about to fall off its foundation.
But when it’s just the family, it’s fine, unless they start talking about selling it. Or grandma.
I tried to explain that magical is not the same as supernatural, at least as far as I know, and I don’t know anything about ghosts unless they come from Neithernor.
They didn’t get reference.
So, with the house not doing what they said it was doing, Mom and Dad started asking about me, my life, what I was doing, where I was living, etc.
I was praying for my grandma’s ghost to shake the shit out of the house and save me.
An inspector came that my Dad had scheduled a while back and forgot about. The inspector thought maybe it was the plumbing or bad wiring. She walked in the door, and the whole place came apart.
I finally saw it first hand, and it was scary as hell. A real haunted house. Worse. The sounds. Like screaming, like a chainsaw. It was madness, but as soon as the inspector left, it stopped.
I feel terrible. I left her here alone when I was supposed to look out for her. We had a bond, and I broke it. Now we’re trying to give away the only thing left of her, of the family. It doesn’t mean that much to me, but to her, it was everything.
I’m itching for internet. I’m gonna take her truck into “town” tomorrow to let Endri and Aether know what’s up. With everything going on, I didn’t think to reach out. Not great at reaching out, and it’s not like I’m necessary in this new organization.
Between the two of them and everything they can do, I’m redundant.
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Oh Bash…
You are absolutely not redundant, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, including you.
I hope there’s some way we can try to help with this haunting, that’s a lot for one person to tackle.
I’m so sorry Bash, this is so much to deal with. We are here with you, to help however we possibly can, even if that’s just sending good vibes your way.
And they make a good point, the only ghost we really know of was Woolie, and he came from Neithernor. We have no real reference point for a ghost that seems completely disconnected from NN, so I’m not sure how much we can rely on Woolie as a model. That being said it seems unlikely that Bash’s grandmother’s ghost is a completely different phenomenon/entity, and while taxonomy is largely made up, I’d say we could probably look at them as somewhat related, like the same “genus” of ghost? Is there something that helped Woolie that we can hold in our pocket to help Bash if they seem to need it?
Bash, you have no idea what you’re talking about, you’re definitely not redundant!
How can we remind them of Woolie? Like @Wyvern said, with Woolie being our only model, its got to be at least worth exploring that connection (hopefully minus the actual connection Sabes experienced…)
Looking back at communications with Woolie, if grandma (I’m guessing Beryl from the W.E.L.L. labels?) is anything like him, the go-to techie tools for ghost hunters might not work. All of Saberlane’s conversations had to be written out to catch the ghostie side.
How can we mail Bash a notebook with instructions on it?
EDIT: Strike that! Can we get a message to Endri & Aether to relay?
Well, the WELL didn’t deign to give us an address, or a mark on the map other than a flag by a dirt road. I’m guessing Bash’s middle of nowwhere comment is pretty literal.
We do have two names Beryl and Brighton now. I’ve done a bit of cyberstalking in the last 20 minutes of a few Beryl Brightons now and other than some lovely pictures of dogs, 4 grandkids and 3 gravestones, most of them in England, I haven’t found a reference to anyone in Missouri.
I think Ashburn (and Eternalhearts and Wyvern) have the right idea in regards to getting the pegasus mane to Bash. I suppose it might have to be some sort of bizarre game of plant telephone where SpiritSeer find it (hopefully something is there) sends it to Endri who sends it to Bash.
This assumes a lot of things . Like the plant actually grew, and Bash reaches out to Endri and so on.
Although I suppose if I were to randomly brainstorm stuff. We have the Consolaratory Teatime for Misplaced Memory spell. I wonder what would happen if we made a tea of the pegasus mane? Would it work on ghosts? Or maybe it would give Bash recall of everything his grandmother told him that they forgot.
If you can see this, Briars, @Bash called the brownstone and we just heard the message. We try not to use cell phones unless absolutely necessary. I personally feel this was one of those necessary times but I’m not as chill as Bash.
They’re okay. They’re not thrilled about the Well posting selections from their inner thoughts, and I agree, it’s not ideal, but we all have to make concessions as magimystics.
I told them we have their back because I know you’d all feel the same. I also told them that they better be careful calling my best brief a redundancy.
The Well’s been leading us somewhere, but so far all we have is a plant club, a campsite, a disjointed community, and a possibly magimystic flower to show for it all.
Now Bash’s family farmhouse?
I bet you all already have the answer and boy, I wish I could hear it.
Regardless, we’re here, and we’re ready to help in any way we can, if we can.
Sounds almost like the Well wants all of you to make a magiq farm.
Well, let’s look at what we do have: a Hortimystic Fellowship dedicated to cultivating magical plants, a seed vault, a campsite where some members of the fellowship ended up, a planting site for a key seed, and now a farmhouse. (Plus the AGP pin, but the WELL seems to be distinguishing that one with a different color.)
Honestly, “magiq farm” sounds right about on track. If the sixth pin is related to agriculture, seeds, etc., we should probably consider the possibility that we’re supposed to be repopulating the Fellowship’s greenhouses. Perhaps from the seed vault. On @Bash’s family farm. With a candlestick. In the Conservatory.
Gosh darn it. I thought it was Endri with the lead pipe in the bathroom.
On a more serious note, you’re correct. It does look like the Well is wanting the Mountiees to repopulate magiq plants. I’m excited for this out come.
Oh @Endri , you think we’re really much further along than you? You’ve been away a bit too long sweetie.
Spurred on by @Endri’s belief that we somehow already have the answer (I appreciate the optimism!), I did some really unnecessarily thorough midnight-mania-induced google earth investigation based on the locations we have from the W.E.L.L. just in case we were missing something there, but it’s very much just a mess of spaghetti lines with no clearly noticeable pattern (although the lines do kind of intersect at a cool migratory bird sanctuary in Canada).
We also only have 5 real locations now, I’m excluding the Pegasus Mane because I don’t think it’s really a “place” if that makes any sense at all? It barely does in my head but I said it anyway (and it’s very very close to the Oregon Campsite so I group it in with that location on larger map activities). If there’s anything we know about magic, it’s that 6 is the preferred number, so I think it’s possible that we’re going to see another location pop up on the W.E.L.L. map at some point.
And now the impatient refreshing (more than I have been) begins!!
Oh oh everyone!!! The newest journal entry!
It’s her, isn’t it? How do we get this to Bash? I think they need to talk to the bees…they seemed important.
Edit OOOOH “telling the bees” is an actual thing, a real ritual. I can’t remember everything about it at the moment, but when someone in the family passed, the bees had to be told about it.
Well ill be…no pun intended. Thats a really interesting ritual. Apparently fairly widespread too.
‘Telling the bees’ is an old folklore/superstition where you had to tell all the good and bad news to the bees! If you didn’t, something bad would happen (usually bees dying/no more honey/swarming and a hive loss). Google also tells me that some people would actually put the bees in mourning or even invite bees to the funeral or wedding, which is kind of amazing to me.
I’m avoiding paying work and went back to the WELL. The Farmhouse pin is the same teal as AG Publishing. The other 4 (3 if we are counting the campsite and Pegasus Mane as a mega-pin) are purple.
Might the colouration differences be a past/present indicator since @Bash is actually in the Farmhouse, AG Publishing currently exists, and the others are connected to the WELL’s Ephemera items (the Pegasus Mane seed is a leftover from the original Oregon Campers, so I’m “counting” it as a past entity).
If my tinfoil is pointing me right (though I’m sure it’s not), that would lead me to believe that we’re waiting for another teal pin, ideally from the place related to connecting the dots so to speak; where we can find the way to get the rest of the Briars back onto this side of the veil.
That’s a good idea.; Showing present spots on the map witha different color then past. Is it possible for you to make a guess from where you would think the next pin would appear.
Based on my google earth expedition the other day, I had thought maybe the next location could be in Alaska or somewhere near-ish there? But thats complete conjecture and only stems from my trying to make a vague hexagonal shape. And I wouldn’t have any idea what kind of entry would initiate it.
The only thing that comes to mind is an air base/air port or an Artic research post. But neither of those feels like it keeps with the theme that’s happening, atleast to me.
There are a few plants in the ledger that only grow in sub-zero temperatures so I could imagine something like an outpost there studying those? But I generally agree, I don’t think it quite fits the progression of points we’ve seen so far.
Okay, maybe I’m going nuts…the Farmhouse pin is purple again. Maybe teal was a temporary fluke?
Could it be marking where members currently are or where something is and the person/thing (was) moved?
Now that you mention it, it was purple when you said it, but for me it’s teal again for me now.
Still not sure it’s not just a technical hiccup…but it’s very strange. Maybe it turns teal for a short while after an update from that location? Maybe like a ‘1 new message’ indicator.
A little tinfoiling here but do you think it might be a time problem like the well there doesn’t know what time it’s suppose to be in so the W.E.L.L. designates it as purple if it’s in the past but then it shoots back into the present recognizes that a Briar member is there and so turns teal like AGP.
This is my gut feeling on it.
It’s showing purple for me now.
I wonder if the the others have noticed(assuming it’s not a glitch, can we let them know?)
I wonder if it coincides with the farm house making noises and being generally spooky…
Oooh, just like Bash’s grandmother’s memory. She mentioned sometimes remembering “wrong” things, things we can probably assume are Book of the Wild memories. She mostly has “teal” memories, but sometimes “purple” memories overlap.
If you’re right that purple is BotW memories/entries, then it’s interesting that the Pegasus Mane pin is purple. Maybe that’s related to its “revelatory properties”?
Pegasus Mane is a leftover from the Book of the Wild, yeah? So of course it’s purple. Purple is BoW stuff, and teal is BoK/BoB stuff.
Oph. Should have realized that…
That makes a lot of sense. As much as anything around here does anyway.