(TEXT)

[hexrot]

FILE: RUNIC SCRIPT
FILE: TENANTS, 1-6

FILE: THAUMATURGIC REACTIONS & GLYPH COMBINATIONS – EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATIONS PERFORMED BY JAYCE TALIS, OVERSEEN BY VIKTOR

OBJECTIVE OF TEST: To investigate the possible magical interactions between different runes, identify their combined effects, and assess their stability, potency, and potential applications.

[ there's more technical text such as an outline, hypothesis, methodology, a mention of using the combinations as a way to trigger a reverse transport and return people to their own world and time, etc, but that's mostly unimportant here. skip right to the personal entries: ]

ENTRY 1: COMBINATION 1A (MOTION + SPIRIT)
— Runic Script: Transcribed.
— These runes don't work with a channeling source. (Not needed? Or not the right one?)
— A burst of light, buzzing white noise and what felt like a psychical shock inside my head sprang after both runes were drawn together.
— Viktor did not experience anything of the sort. Sole user of the runes affected.
— Disorienting.
— 30 minutes post combination and I'm feeling restless. Can't keep still. I'll go for a walk.
— Result: unsatisfactory.
— Started feeling hungry again. It's different this time. Just what I needed.

ENTRY 2: COMBINATION 1A
— I had a dream last night.
— "Dream" feels fantastical. Felt more like a vision.
— They come in flashes: the moon breaks apart. Moon shards rain down on a cityscape and destroy it. A woman wails right before I wake up.
— Observation: Day 5 post combination and the same dream persists. Every night.

[ attached are sketches of the scenes, both on paper and a crumbling wall. ]

ENTRY 3: COMBINATION 2B (MOTION + TIME)
— Day 6. Dream persists, for the record.
— Immediate burst to the head similar to 1A. Difference is that I bled from every orifice (not as severely as 1° COD) and grew a rack of antlers.
— Health deteriorated near instantaneously, senses heightened and hunger escalated.
— Fed on blood. Health restored just as instantaneously. Never felt better (a scary thought, but one for another entry).

ENTRY 4: COMBINATION 2B
— The dream changed.
— I keep seeing someone tied to an altar. Can't make out if it's a man or a woman. They change into a monster before being sacrificed where they were tied. Also indistinct what monster. I can only remember an awful shape and sound.
— Day 8: Same dream.
— Day 10: It doesn't stop. I sleep but there's no rest.
— Day 13: I was tied to the altar this time. My body tore and broke itself apart to grow into something horrific. Six limbs, too many bones and rot. Couldn't stop screaming. Even the scream was ghastly. I was sacrificed.
— Day 14: Again.
— Day 16: Again.
— Day 18: We should terminate the experiment. I want to, but at the same time I feel like we're close to something we wouldn't have learned about this world otherwise. What if it's the key to returning?
— Got my hands dirty, might as well see it through. The safest option is a dead man doing it.
— "If you're going through hell, keep going."
— Remember your promise.
— All that remained were fields of dreamless solitude.
— I won't fail. I swore.

[ attached are more drawings of the dream. with each passing sketch, the imagery becomes more manic, messy and eerie. ]

ENTRY 3: COMBINATION 3C (MIND + LIFE)
— It hurts
— suspecting that there is no correlation to effects and glyph combinations i theorize that no matter the combo the effects will only get worse

ENTRY 5: COMBINATION 3C
It's all I hear all I hear is i need you i see you i need you i see you i need you i see you i NEED YOU I SEE YOU I NEEDYOUISEEYOUINEEDYOUISEEYOUINEEDYOUISEEYOUINEEDYOUISEEYOUINEEDYOUISEEYOU

[ it goes on for about 6 pages before becoming illegible. ]

CONCLUSION: FAILURE. GLYPH COMBINATION EXPERIMENT TERMINATED.
HAZARDS ENCOUNTERED: The following symptoms and events were experienced after Combination 3: explosive mental discomfort, incessant auditory hallucinations (SEE: NOTES, ENTRY 5, 3C), paranoia, disorientation, and insistent & focused monster attacks until sunrise. At dawn I heard the words: NEXT TIME YOU ARE MINE.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE SAFETY MEASURES: Immediate suspension of activity. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, ATTEMPT TO REPLICATE THIS EXPERIMENT!!

No more tests will be performed until further notice. If you still attempt to use glyphs in any way after reading this, the consequences are on you alone. Don't be a shithead.

The glyph for MOTION was found mostly by the gas stations and appeared with more frequency when the storms neared. Something to keep in mind.

If you have any inquiries, I'll do my best to answer them.

I'm sorry.

Comments

text;

[faceguy]

[What the heck is this? Talk about TLDR.

Leo almost would have ignored it, but he does scroll idly through it without reading anything until he sees the creepy dream pics… And maybe more disturbingly, six pages of the same bizarre message, over and over…

Finally…]

dude
what the heck is this

this reads like you should have left it scattered in pages around an abandoned science lab

or on a cassette tape you find in a pool of blood

text;

[hexrot]

File three, line one.

[ his irritability would add something about actually reading before asking, but. he's tired. and he can't see who's on the other side. could be a damn kid. ]

Yeah, well. None of you need less than the truth of what happens when you manipulate the Arcane.

[faceguy]

so what you just did it to yourself to prove a point?

wait does this say you started bleeding out of everything?

[Terrifying and also gross.]

text

[bufudine]

[Serph had read some of Jayce's early notes when he had been in possession of them. It's pleasing to see more has been added to them, despite Jayce apparently having been put through the wringer to get this information. It had been a long night trying to keep Jayce alive through the sustained monster attack, but it seems to have been worth it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there is a whisper that sacrifices must be made to advance science.

He sets aside the twinge of guilt as he reads the report in its entirety, including the outline, hypothesis, methodology, and theory of using the runes to trigger a reversal of what brought them all here.

He mentally notes Jayce's renewed hunger being slaked by blood.]

All seems to point towards avoidance of Stasis, no matter the cost. Your dreams sound connected to the sacrifices of the fifth tenant.

[Becoming a monster... perhaps that is the blessing from the moon often mentioned. Perhaps they are being ushered to Nirvana to be sacrificed so that whatever protection from Stasis their monstrous forms grant them can be somehow transferred to others. A grim thought, especially knowing that his own origin was functionally exactly that.

But maybe it's a different group that awaits in Nirvana; the radio message had wanted them to stay as human as possible...]

Why would they send monsters after you? If I hadn't found you, you wouldn't have survived. What purpose would your death serve if you're needed? I wonder that something unusual happens to us if we die in this land, as a result of our 'blessing'.

[Not that he would encourage anyone to find out.]

[hexrot]

That's science for you.

[ he's being ironic. ]

Look, if you're not going to read the test objective at the very least, you shouldn't be asking questions.

text

[airskate]

[ This is all genuinely very interesting and useful to know. However... ]

Did you have anyone helping you while you researched this?

[faceguy]

oh great
your one of THOSE

I can barely read this science crap
like methodology and hypotenuse
whenever my brother starts talking like this I tune him out

cant you make a tldr version? with less demon-possession?

[hexrot]

[ good for his brother.... ]

You mean a summary.

That's Objective of Test (first few lines) and Conclusion (last few lines). It's what you look for in research papers if you're not interested in the details.

[faceguy]

fiiine

don’t use the glyph things
got it

text

[solitarysoul]

[Well that's...a lot of big words that Levi starts to skim over almost immediately. But it looks like there was trouble? Maybe?? He thinks???]

are you okay?

[hexrot]

I'm alright now, kid.

[hexrot]

Good job.
Stay safe out there.

[solitarysoul]

[Now. That means he wasn't before.]

do you need anything?

[hexrot]

Of course. My partner, Viktor.

[undyingcrow]

You have nothing to apologize for.

Your experiments have yielded fascinating results, however unpleasant.

One thing that sticks out to me is the stasis rune and the tenants related to them. I have to wonder if perhaps the Husks we've seen are victims of stasis.

I had already speculated that they were once like us. When I carried the music from the Convoy out to the dormant Husks, their spirits rose into the sky. It was a harrowing sight, but illuminating all the same.

I've also been gathering notes from the second garage. They're less relevant to the runes, but still contain fascinating clues.

Most notably, confirmation that we're replacements to carry out a failed ritual. If you'd like, I can transcribe what I've found, though many passages were incomplete.

[hexrot]

I can't thank you enough, Serph.

[ he'd be roadkill if serph hadn't brought him back— then everything they've done, this heart in his chest— it would've been for nothing. and he would've left viktor behind, uncertain if his corpse could be reanimated a second time. that felt beyond cruel and he's just waiting for a claw to tug at his ear with no mercy. ]

The question is what exactly is Stasis and who are "They". [ there are two options, but they could discuss one thing at a time. ] Where Stasis is concerned, by definition alone I could suspect it has to do with the Husks. They're as inactive as it gets.

I've seen things like them, before.

[text]

[serialmurderbot]

[SecUnit is just not in the habit of signing its name on any messages, it seems - it's saved the entirety of the report, while it's at it, going with screen captures of the runes and linking them to the datafiles of them it took for Jayce before. It's good work - scientifically speaking, it's not the worst paper it's ever had in its databanks.

The methods, though...]

That was stupid.

[At least Jayce seems to have come to the same conclusion.]

[bufudine]

The situation also bears similarities to the world I came from.

[The coincidences are surprising.]

Tell me about your world's Husks.

[Then he'll share his.]

[hexrot]

A bottle of wine and sixteen hours of sleep.

[ he'll only manage one of those. anyway it's a joke. ]

[hexrot]

[ jayce would be hard on himself about a failure anyway; he is no stranger to it, of course, more research ends in failure than not. it just meant he would have to look harder. especially after reading that. the connection of his visions tied to that possibility has jayce's gut sink.

alright. one thing at a time. ]

That's the suspicion I had of Husks.

All of that would be enlightening. What leads you to believe it'd been their spirits that ascended?

[ forgive his scepticism; spirits aren't the first thing a scientist thinks about. it could be— an energy source, what remained of the body prior, expelled by a trigger. unless he saw far more than that. he did say harrowing . . . ]

[hexrot]

It was dangerous, not stupid.

[undyingcrow]

The shape of them, primarily. The ghostly forms ascended toward the moon. We already know the moon carries great significance here. It's still merely hypothesis, but I had wondered if the music 'freed' the souls within the Husks, and if so, if they were prisoners within their own twisted bodies.

[Stuck in stasis, unable to move on, only able to hunt and kill with little remorse.]

As for the notes in the garage, they read:

"Broken in two […] Nothing to lose-"

"Moon mourns, call her down, ease her pain-"

"Need […] Better vessels from afar. Stronger souls-"

"Imbue with moon sigils, Give blessings of moon, share her pain. Put the ritual right."

We're still missing significant details, but I believe the picture behind our appearances here is growing clearer by the day.

[hexrot]

[ they freak him out in glitching visions, sometimes. it only ever briefly happened the day he found himself in the garage, and the result of that was unfortunate (jayce tweak. jayce smash. jayce smash john). the reason for jayce's hesitation is the very reason why those things existed in the future is the source of his very promise to make sure it doesn't come to pass, and if it does— that it could be stopped.

he remembers looking at his in the eye. he remembers taking the hammer from its stiff fingers, so much that it broke off. on the mercury hammer hilt remained two white digits decorated with gold. ]

They were people, once. The corruption of the Arcane changed them into metal shells of what they used to be. No emotion, no thought. Puppets for a higher being. But I looked one in the eye and saw, they're still trapped in there.

[solitarysoul]

there's probably wine in the hubcap. the bar in the second car

[hexrot]

If that works for all Husks, I'd want to see it.

[ what kind of music needs to be playing? any kind? is it anything that triggers a fond memory? reminds the essence of their humanity and free them of their containment? now, jayce feels guilt, firing at one of them at one point when there had been a way out other than their destruction.

there is always a choice.

jayce takes a moment to review the notes snd attach them to his own, where they make the most sense. ]

Thank you.
I think we have enough evidence to start calling them by name.