[ AGGREGATE INFOSHARE ] AUDIO | UN: 354.204-S

[bijective]

Pardon the interruption, but perhaps now is a good time as any to parse through our current intelligence. I’ve offered a simple template of questions to get the ball rolling, so to speak—

- What/Where/Who have you investigated?
- What do we know from said investigation?

I believe these should be clear-cut to answer. Now, I may lack the proper rigorous experience like the lot of you. But it would be to our benefit to double-check the unmarked areas within this town.

[ ooc: assume this is around the second week into the mission. before all hallow's day and all that jazz. the goal is to see if there are any opportunities for potential search request baton passes and piecing what we know so far! so go forth! thread hop. be merry. ]

Comments

text | un: claytonator

[dr_unconscious]

I think I've found some interesting stuff - y'all tell me what you think.

General town area: There's some kind of energy being gathered up into a few locations from all over town. I can confidently place some nodes in the cemetery and the elementary school, and a few others around the neighborhoods, but those are fuzzier.

Residential: Something really powerful here. I don't know what or where exactly it is, but anyone that goes to check it out should be really careful.

Cooper Family: Sam Cooper had an imaginary friend named "Freddie" that I have reason to believe wasn't just an imaginary friend. Sam also felt like he had to leave town to protect people, I guess from himself or something related to him, which might be why his family moved away.

[Is Clayton going to say how he found out any of this information? Not right away.]

{ text } un: joric

[drawsblood]

I spoke with a woman named Gemma who knew Sam. She said one day he was staring off at nothing and when she tried to speak with him, he jumped in the air in alarm. If this Freddie is real, than perhaps they were there speaking to Sam and that is why he was caught off guard.

She said he and his family left when he was accepted to a university and one of the few things left in the house was a piece of paper with the university name on it, so that appears to be true.

[ By "piece of paper" he means envelope but he honestly doesn't know that's what they're called. Letters are folded and sealed with wax or rolled up and tied shut where he's from. ]

text | un: Lan er-gongzi

[gusurules]

[It has taken him some time to calm down, but now that he has, he knows that what he and Yennifer experienced needs to be said. Not all of it. But the matter of the Orb's desire.]

An attempt to contact the Orb was made. It was successful. The Orb expects to be found and it does not wish to be taken from this place. The contact was made at the school.

text | un: silent

[callada]

Templates aside,

Has anyone else here so far experienced waking up somewhere far from where you last remember being, and finding most of a day has passed without you knowing?

If so, do you remember any of the time in between?

text un:Aleksander

[cruelyethuman]

I found eternity.

Yet observations of my surroundings suggest that I was unconscious for less than five minutes.

[callada]

Nearly the opposite of what I experienced, then.

Were you all right when you woke up?

[cruelyethuman]

Were you?

[dr_unconscious]

That makes sense.
For the first case, I mean. Sam and Freddie probably kept in touch telepathically, if Freddie was some kind of disassociated spirit.
I'm not sure about the university thing. I wonder if it was a cover to get them out of town?
Do you know if anything else was written on the paper? Like, was it an acceptance letter or just a brochure or what?

[dr_unconscious]

Woah, really?
Did you do that? Are you ok?

[gusurules]

[physically, yes.]

Yes. I am unharmed.

[His guqin, however...]

It was brief. The orb was not happy to be contacted.

[drawsblood]

I'm not sure what you mean.

[ He's trying, but they don't have universities in his land. Being here in town has been a crash course in modernity. ]

It was a rectangle of paper that had been sealed shut and so it was ripped open. Nothing was left inside. The outside said University of Uppermount in one corner. The paper was yellow with age and crumpled up.

[callada]

Uninjured.

[cruelyethuman]

A minor cut to my forehead.

The experience left me physically unharmed.

[callada]

At least we have that small mercy.

Most orbs seek chaos, as we know. This one seems to have found a particular theme to exploit, hasn't it?

text | un: castiel

[foolintherain]

I spoke with one of the gravekeepers by the name of Harry. He told me the "hauntings" began four years ago, exactly when the Cooper family moved away.

He also told me that additional families had bought and resided in the home over those years but had all moved out quickly, claiming that it was haunted. When I investigated the house, I found nothing that would suggest a haunting.

The only thing out of the ordinary I noticed was a concentration of chaotic energy around the video tape player, almost like a residue of where the orb had been. I have no idea where it may be now.

[dr_unconscious]

That's a relief.

Weird that the orb doesn't want to be removed, though. Aren't they broken pieces of something bigger? I would assume they'd want to be put back together again.

[A few moments of pause and reflection later: ]

Although, I guess if each of the pieces developed their own self-awareness, they might not want to be reformed. Maybe they'll lose their identities or something.

[dr_unconscious]

[What an oddly detailed description of an envelope. Maybe he's not familiar with the concept? Seems weird, but Clayton has had to remind himself multiple times since arriving on the station that not everyone thinks the same things are commonplace that he does, so he's willing to accept that this is just another one to add to the list.]

That sounds like an opened envelope. Envelopes are used to send things to people in a convenient way, while keeping the contents private until it arrives.
The University's name on it just means that's where it came from; it could've been an acceptance letter, or a denial letter, or something else related to the school. Kind of hard to say from just the shell.

text. un: barnes.

[starer]

you know how long sam knew freddie for?
does it tie up with when this town went to hell?

[drawsblood]

You do not think that what the family told the town was true? That Sam was going to go to the university and the family was leaving town because of that?

[gusurules]

[he wouldn't know.]

It was also upset at being 'interrupted'.

[cruelyethuman]

I would not call it mercy.

That depends on what you saw. What did this place show you, Rosinante?

[callada]

I saw enough to know this thing can get deep into a person's head and invent new nightmares worse than the ones I'd thought of myself.

I count myself fortunate that they were only nightmares.

[dr_unconscious]

Weird.
It kind of sounds to me like Freddie was left behind. If he's an actual spirit, I could see why he'd be upset by Sam moving away.

No idea what to make of the tape player, though. I don't know enough about how these orbs work to even begin to guess about that stuff.

[dr_unconscious]

No clue. Sounds like it was a long time, though - at least since his grandmother passed away.
It seems like the town went to hell when Sam moved away, not necessarily when Freddie showed up. Much more recent thing. But if Freddie's been around for longer, I wonder if he's been doing more subtle stuff that the other townspeople know about?

[dr_unconscious]

I'm not going to accuse anyone of lying. But I do think that what they told the rest of the town and what I heard don't quite match up.
Sam definitely wanted to leave because he felt like he was protecting people from himself - I don't doubt that.
Maybe the university acceptance was just a convenient reason for them to pack up and go?