World under construction! It will eventually be a kind of creative adventure guidebook!
- Created By Sarasface
Contact
Isla's notebook:
I've been noting the continued existence of the strange energy causing odd occurrences around my home. It seems a mysterious entity is, in fact, trying to contact me. Which is very inconvenient, as it means I'll eventually have to acknowledge it just to make it stop bothering me. Oddly, I'm not dreading this as much as I usually would and am in fact oddly intrigued by its presence...I haven't felt this level of intrigue for anything but fairies and forests before.
I can't make contact just yet, because I have further research to do, and I have an obligation to fulfill as I do it. The demon that lends me all my extra strength is choosing right now to cash in on our deal. Shumei is okay, really, not half as bad as most of the demons out there. It's just that I never know when she'll show up and demand to watch anime with me. At least I can do it while I stir cauldrons and sort samples.
She's very distracting, though, because she gets really into her anime, bouncing on my couch and becoming very shrill at the intense parts. She'll yell the lines along with the characters and whack me to make sure I'm paying attention. I think she's fond of me, and she's not bad company if you ignore the whacking and the occasional shrieking of favorite lines. Being in a demon deal is never really a good thing, but since I had to pick one, I'm glad it was her.
Just going to take a break so that I can re-fortify with enchanted water.
All right, I'm back, here to record the contact that just took place between myself and the unknown entity that has been so insistently trying to get my attention. She said she wanted to do it in a much slower, more subtle way - I remarked that her definition of subtlety seems quite different from mine - but some Magical Girl named 'Platinum' had throw everything off track and so she felt the urge to reach out to me directly. She felt I might be in danger and she thinks she might be able to save me. I have no idea why she feels such a protective urge toward me or why she wants to save me, but let me start at the beginning.
It all began when I passed a mirror and was quite startled at what was staring back in at me - a shimmering, misty, tentacled entity with multiple eyes blinking arrhythmically from within various points in the fog. The eyes were what got to me the most - they were all shapes and colors, some bulging out from the fog and others peering at me, glowing from within the fog's murky depths. I thought of all the eyes I could not see and shuddered.
The being identfied herself as Wanderer. She didn't explain what she was or where she'd come from, and I'd never seen any entity like her before. Every so often one of the eyes would extend from her being, trailed by a thick tentacle of mist, and vanish far past the borders of the mirror, and then her top part would seem to nod. She didn't tell me what she was seeing, only resumed conversation as normal. I couldn't tell where she was speaking from, but she had quite a lovely voice, which is what put me at ease even if the face of her horrifying, though in a way hauntingly beautiful, outward appearance.
She explained that she's been keeping an eye on the general state of the universe and that she approves of my goal to preserve the more beautiful and complex places where nature works its most underappreciated systems. She wants the fairies saved, but saving them directly would be too big an interference. Too big for what, she didn't say, but she did tell me that helping indirectly was within the parameters of what she could allow herself to do, especially given that I'd already begun 'the change' undertaken by this Platinum.
I said I'd like to meet Platinum and she said that to do so, I'd have to make a very difficult and possibly dangerous choice that might change who I am at my core. Who I am? I have never thought of myself in terms other than that of a Magical Girl and a crusader for the fairies...although I suppose that's not true. I identify as a nature-lover, delight in my own cleverness, and mourn leaves that have died because I learned that the trees would miss them. I wonder if Wanderer is right and there is something the matter with me? But if it's wrong, then why do I have the urge to keep exploring these feelings?
Enough! Feelings will come second to fulfilling my goal, I told Wanderer, and she said sadly - (well, she sounded sad, though it's hard to read the expression of a swaying, swirling fog entity made of countless mismatched eyes that blink independently of one another. (I'm getting creeped out again just writing this, to be perfectly honest. Which feels kind of mean, but that creature is truly haunting and uncanny.) Anyway, she said sadly that my presence would likely not linger long in this world once I had filled my concept.
What does that mean? I'd never thought about what would come after fulfilling my concept...my entire life has always revolved around that one thing. After is a concept I can't quite wrap my mind around, and I'm not sure I should try, though somehow I feel too intrigued to stop. But it interferes too much with my focus on my mission in life, and it makes me have feelings I'm really not accustomed to. When I mentioned that, Wanderer said she had an assignment for me. I had to go and get back to Shumei, who had become very impatient and was yelling that I was missing the best parts of the anime. I could just hear the pressure building up inside her, and when she gets agitated she'll often literally bounce off the walls. She's so excitable; it would be cute if it didn't threaten to destroy my research.
Wanderer asked me to identify when I first started feeling different, how I acted on it, and how that affected my actions and feelings after that. She wants to know if there might be anything I came into contact with that could have done it. She sounded troubled, revealing that, though she had thought she was all-seeing, there might be things that even her eyes had missed. I chose to refrain from commenting on her eyes, and after planning to meet again soon, I returned to Shumei.
The most important takeaway from all this is that Wanderer said she wants to help me save the forests and ensure a safe return of the fairy population! She could even lend me some strength so that I wouldn't depend on Shumei anymore...I don't know about that, though, trying to get out of a demon deal can be kind of dangerous, but Wanderer says that just by being a bit of an anomaly, I'm already in a lot of danger.
I wonder if I should let her help me? But I guess I already know I will. Anything to save the fairies.
Magical Energy
Author's Note: sorry this update came late, I've been a bit burned-out lately and have been writing less than I'd like.
I, Isla, have been noticing strange signs in and around my home. I don't wish to let anything distract me from my quest, and as forest conditions become still more dire and industrial development spreads like a plague, I had hoped to devote my time recuperating to planning and preparing for my next journey.
However, when I arrived home things began going strangely. It's such an annoyance. So distracting!
I showered, as usual, to erase all traces of my journey from my body, combing fallen leaves from my hair and mourning their deaths. They will be missed by the trees and by me, and alas, will now reside in my shower drain. Such is life.
Showering greatly rejuvenated me, as I have charmed my water supply in a moment of greater strength. This has proved necessary and very fortifying; compared to most magical girls I am very weak and sickly, and my stamina drains at an alarming rate. Though I have worked to strengthen myself, I cannot let training exercises become a distraction from my goal.
Charming the water was a brilliant move, if I do say so myself. I used a rare forest magic that can sustain itself for years without external influences, and it was well worth the time I took to learn. I bathe in fortified water. I drink it, cook with it, and often bring a bottle or two with me on my journeys.
I tend to appreciate this water very greatly, though today I did not have the chance to do so, as I noticed that runes were writing themselves in the fog of my mirror. I cannot believe I bothered to take the time to give them a cursory translation, as none of them pertained to the forests or the fairies often born there. A few runes said my name "Isla" and "Pay Attention" which held some temporary intrigue, since most instances of mirrors self-writing turns out to be nonsense, the result of scattered energy from a charm gone wrong. However, I know for a fact that none have my recent charms have gone amiss. I balanced the equations for my potions perfectly - I always do. I have to, since I take them with me on journeys to aid in research and self-fortification. No, these runes didn't come from me, and I don't think I live near anyone with casting magic so strong that they could cause this much writing.
Whatever it was, I quickly determined that the message was probably boring and went about my business as usual. This involved quickly throwing together a meal while preparing research samples and using restorative potions on my charm bracelet. Each charm will receive its own incantations, but perhaps it's time to forge some new ones if I can find the time to do it. My incantations are becoming too complex for my simple charms to sustain. Perhaps some more elegant designs, or a few runes?
Not to self: it does not do to be absentminded while cooking dinner, using potions, and sorting research samples at the same time. Fortunately, those leaves I ate don't seem to be poisonous and I'm wondering if this preserved dinner sample will come in handy at any point down the line.
After eating, I pulled my charm bracelet, steaming and shining like new, from the cauldron full of restorative potion and set about re-charming it with herbs and incantations. It seemed to me that the links and charms were positively humming with an energy that was surely not my own, for although I pride myself on my well-developed energy. It wouldn't do to kid myself; I know I'm not that strong, and the air around the bracelet was positively shimmering. I could have sworn I saw some rune-carved charms trying to rearrange themselves as though trying to spell something, though I've had limited time for rune-carving or the translations to various ancient languages. I'm not fluent in all of them; most predict the end of the world at some point, but I'm rather certain that's all folklore and I need to stay in the present. At any rate, the charms were unable to arrange themselves into anything coherent, and began rattling in a very frustrated manner. I couldn't really tell from their limited letters, but I'm pretty sure that, had my rune collection been completed, they would have spelled out some rather nasty swear words, and the charms that were not currently attached to the chain did fly at my head in a very bothersome manner, like so many attacking flies. One even lodged itself in my ear, requiring a twenty-minute pause in my research to extract the blasted thing. I'm going to re-forge them so that they cannot be moved by stray magic or outside forces.
Oh, but that's no good. Some of them were experimental charms, as I was attempting to develop a form of interdimensional communication, should the Sanctum ever gain respect for me. I've got so little time for it now and the Sanctum seemed so unlikely to listen, so I'd temporarily set aside the project in favor of more important things, but I'd like to take it up again someday. It would be so useful.
You know, it could be that I'm imagining things, or making a big deal out of stray magical energy that found it's way into my house. Surely those banging and tapping sounds around the walls were just my neighbors fooling around with their musical system again. (One of them is following the wish to create a form of magic through different kinds of music, which is lovely at times and horrifying at others. There was that incident with the improperly soundproofed room and the attack music....but, well, I survived, and I'm sure they learned their lesson after what that did to their ears. Ah, well, but the problem did correct itself in the end. It was just an experiment that worked a little too well - it happens to everyone, right?)
You know, I have been known to hallucinate from exhaustion and fever, but I'm sure I feel mostly all right this evening, and only a little worn-out. To be sure, I need sleep, and I have imagined these things before. There were times I was sure of an important impending occurrence which could really have been attributed to some magic gone astray. But, you know, perhaps an outside party is trying to reach me.
If so, they've been quite a nuisance this evening. I've hardly managed to get any work done.
Wanderer
(Lore Creator POV)
I've had my eye on Isla for a while now.
Well, one of my eyes. I have many. I see all.
Strange. I wonder what I looked like to those I reached out to. I've always thought of myself as vaguely humanoid. But humans don't have so very many eyes, eyes that can see the whole world all at once, do they? They can't stand in the middle of the forest and still see through the depths of the sea. But I can.
I can see all that, but I can't see myself. What do I look like to them?
Isla looks ordinary. Small, and for a magical girl, she seems weak. But she has a defiance that she's slowly becoming aware of. Her recent forest discovery seems to be leading her along a train of thought that could lead her to understand the nature of this universe, and I wonder if I should let her?
Would it interest her? If I led her to believe it wouldn't help her save the fairies, it might put her off the trail. As with all magical girls, she is driven only by her goals.
I can see her now, recovering from her latest expedition. It cost her a great deal of energy. She's out of breath. Her skin is dirty from the forest, her hair filled with tangles and twigs. She may not even have the strength to comb it out. She's very determined. If she had free will, I'd call it bravery; she's been quite resourceful, following a lead that distant for so long with her own unimpressive stamina.
I'm hesitant to meddle directly with this world, but perhaps it's time to reach out to Isla? Now, how would I reach her?
I think I'll make her work for it. If I can figure out how to call out to her, but make her use her skill, cleverness, and resourcefulness to find me, perhaps I can guide her toward a set of wiser choices. She's beginning to take a lot of risks.
I will devise a way of contacting her in her home. She's skilled at enchantment; perhaps she will sense when a presence is close to her, trying to speak.
If not, I'll have to devise another way.
Forest Thoughts...
I, Isla, am recording my notes both on my own thoughts of this forest, and on this forest's thoughts. This is because it does seem to have thoughts. My investigations conclude that, each tree has its own manner of thinking or being, a sort of sentience even if it does not experience sentience in the exact same manner as I had expected. Further complications prove that every leaf on a tree, though contributing to the sentience of the tree as a collective, does have its own conscience and perspective, seemingly independent of the tree from which it grows. For every leaf fallen in the season of drying, the tree experiences mourning as if it has lost a dear friend. During the time when multiple leaves are falling at once, the tree experiences a depth of sorrow inaudible to ears but apparent upon further investigation.
Everything in this forest makes up a collective presence, "The Sweetleaf Forest." The Sweetleaf Forest somehow has its own mind made up of a collective of other minds, each 'type' of plant with its own predispositions and so its independence would seem to be something of an illusion, as it's 'type' only serves to contribute to the life cycle of the forest and the fauna it sustains.
This is not the forest I had wanted to research, but they share a certain...for lack of a better term, I'll call it an 'aura.' I shall note here that this is something I must investigate further.
Are all plants sentient? Are all forests 'beings'? Is it significant that the individual plant pieces in a forest system, feel their independence and yet are still very much confined to the system of the Sweetleaf Forest as a whole? Maybe I'm onto something...
Though I didn't intend to be directed to the Sweetleaf Forest, with any luck I can still use it to save the Auric Forest, on the brink of destruction from too much modern development too fast. The Sweetleaf Forest is a relatively healthy forest, seemingly independent of modern forces, although it does not lie near any valuable resources and so has not been plumbed.
The resources of this forest, invaluable? This place seems to be very valuable to those who take the time to come out here and look below surface appearances. But that's yet to be determined.
The Sweetleaf Forest, for some reason, has never produced fairies, although it shares a similar auric energies to forests that are famous for having produced fairies, such as the Auric forests.
I shall research this further after a brief rest in the Magical Girl World. Only hoping the Sanctum approves my research and does not direct me elsewhere.
----
Isla's private thoughts, not added to the official recording: even if permission is not granted, I will still find a way to get there and continue my research as side work without the Sanctum's knowledge. I have learned a great deal about concealment magic on this particular journey, and will learn how to put it into practice. I've already begun forging a concealment charm to wear, though I don't have the energy to enchant it right now. This forest could be key to my goal, and I will not abandon it because its resources are deemed unimportant.
Unimportant. I have high disdain for humans' dismissal of every unfamiliar type of being as 'unimportant'. This is why humans understand so little. Resources notwithstanding, the Sweetleaf Forest self-sustains as a sanctuary of great peace, which is more than most of the world can seem to do, and it deserves respect.
Meanwhile, in the dimension behind the fourth wall...
(Found this on Tumblr, though it'd make a good story. Sage advice for those condemned to difficult fates.)
"Also, Dad told me to stop that narrating crap." Lol.
(The original post can be found here.)
