[network] voice; @standardissue; Norfinbury's smallest piano plays My Heart Bleeds For You [Day 95]

[deus_ex_phs]

I was looking through my pack today, trying to lighten my load, and I found something I forgot to share. Here, take a look.

[He switches to video briefly, showing a light blue envelope in his gloved hand, decorated in the corner with cute white cartoon stars, with "Winter" written on the front in large, neat script. He flips it over, opens it, shows that it's empty, but it looks like it might have held a card once. Then it's back to audio.]

We found this in the house we think is Andromeda's. Just thought it was interesting.

[And physical proof that Winter might once have been here.]

On the topic of other interesting things to share, though, my group recently checked out the house with the piano on the eastern side of town. At the same time, some of the others were at the school. Given what happened with the instruments at the school when Dr. House played the piano there, we set up a video feed between us to see if the same thing happened between the pianos.

It'd probably be easier to show you what happened than to try to describe it, but I'll warn you up front. It gets a little disturbing. Don't watch this if you have a problem with blood.

[When he switches this time, it's to a prerecorded video clip, and then a second one, showing Zell at the piano in the school and Tifa at the other one. The two are talking to each other as Zell teaches her the song that House composed, and then they play.

And the pianos bleed.

The video becomes more and more distorted the longer they play, until finally the video clips end.

Then Kunsel's voice comes back on.]

There's definitely a connection. Still not sure what it means.

Comments

@Mnemosyne; text

[bookofnope]

You are sure that this was the only effect? Nothing that we can't perceive, like a change of atmosphere in the house? This is a classic sign of spectre presence - or it would be, if the ghosts here deigned to behave.

Zell is leaving a sample of the blood for me to test. I'll let you know the results.

@standardissue; text

[deus_ex_phs]

As far as we can tell, nothing has changed, except that there are now blood stains in the school piano.

Thank you. I'd appreciate that.

[bookofnope]

Odd... but then, what isn't. I suppose it's always possible that there is another element to the invocation that we are simply not aware of yet.

[deus_ex_phs]

No offense, but after what happened last time, I'm hoping that this has nothing to do with ghosts.

But out of curiosity, what are the usual elements to an invocation?

[bookofnope]

None taken. It wasn't you who botched that last encounter.

But to answer that, ghosts are drawn to the personal and the ritual. Something to do with triggering a powerful memory, I suspect. You may need to play a specific song, or at a specific day or time, or find out an associated name. The last music-related haunting I've witnessed involved dancing. Awkward stuff.

[deus_ex_phs]

We're going to have a difference of opinion on that encounter. Since it's not likely to do either of us any good, I'm just going to drop it.

A powerful memory, though... I wonder if that's what we actually found. Does this place remember what happened here before?

[bookofnope]

How astonishingly mature and pragmatic of a Norfinbury resident. Thank you. I mean this honestly.

It isn't impossible. The spirit world is rumoured to have exactly this kind of capacity of place-memory, although my kind have no option of accessing it directly, so I am forced to go by second-hand reports. But also... could this be another notch for the theory of this all being some kind of simulated reality?

[deus_ex_phs]

You're welcome?

[Really, that's an odd thing to be thanked for.]

I suppose anything is possible, but I'm still skeptical of the idea of this being completely virtual reality. The spirit world, or a similar secondary dimension that's directly connected to this one, seems at least a little more believable to me. I'm reserving judgment for now, though, at least until we have more concrete information.