<<continue "...">>You turn, expecting to see Sylvine at the door, but that wasn't her voice.\n\n<<continue "...">>Something darts up the road into the arboretum--a hare perhaps--it was a dark shadow of a thing gliding across the snow.\n\nBut hares don't talk. To you at least.\n\nYou keep [[walking|Walking with Buer2]].

You turn to Dane. He's buried in covers now, you swear he's keeping his eyes open just enough to see you. Every so often he emits a noise from his throat, like he's choking.\n\nAfter several minutes of this vocal catastrophe, Dane rolls on his side and gurgles before letting out a stuttering sigh.\n\nYou sit down on the bed next to him, barely making an indent in the mattress. You let out your own [[sigh|Staying with Dane2]].

Behind a wall too tall for prying eyes is the graveyard. You've been told that it was built to keep folks out, to respect the dead's peace. Your mother says you can respect the dead at //any// distance, wall or no.\n\nYou just want to see the graveyard, and perhaps you will some other [[time|North Side2]].

<<timedinsert 4s>>Slivers of dense plates move around inside your stomach like snakes leaving their nest.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 9s>>Or roots seeping into your belly button and taking hold of your spine.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 14s>>The sensation continues as two figures loom over you. They appear to be repeatedly tensing up and relaxing, wavering in and out of focus.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 19s>>Ice [[burns|Recovery2]] against your forehead.<<endtimedinsert>>

Why anyone would want to live in the woods is beyond you, but there are three families in Punnapoint willing to brave the twisting forest.\n\n<<continue "...">>The Hephen family, who runs the lumber industry here in town, with their mansion at the base of Eck's Point.\n\nThe Colcoma, a farming family, who live up on the southern hillside.\n\nAnd the Tharen-Petica's, who own just about everything in Punnapoint, and live up in their northern cliffside estate.\n\n<<continue "...">>You barely see any of them down here in the middle of the valley. There are many you've never even met.\n\n[[...|The Streets]]

<<once>>You finally get a long draw of the air outside. It's like peppermint dancing on the roof of your mouth. <<if $ob is $in>>You catch the sun just as it's on its way up into the layer of grey sky. You stare and wait as color fades from the town and from the horizon. The clouds bleed as if the sun slipped them one in between their ribs as it rose.<<endif>><<if $ob > $in>>The silver glow of the overcast sky burns in your eyes. Anxiety builds in your chest as you send a sullen glance to the east. There's a bright spot in the clouds just over the mountain. You know there's always tomorrow.<<endif>><<if $ob < $in>>Sun rays shower you from the eastern mountains. The eye that blinds hovers over the ridge, just underneath its midday blanket. This golden time paints the snow and the mist and the woods around you, it's all a waxen shade. You imagine every second of your day like this. Then Aster's barking brings your attention back to your task.<<endif>> You turn your back to the east and walk up your street and onto the avenue.<<endonce>><<later>>The overcast clouds hang loosely knit into the sky like the iced surface of the marsh outside town.<<endlater>>\n\nThe main road that cuts through Punnapoint is aptly named Punnapoint Avenue. Of course, without the great König Punnapoint this town wouldn't have a name for most of its buildings.\n\nThe avenue is a well-kept dirt road that stretches at least ten bodies wide. It's up to the townsfolk on this side of the [[Broken Oat Bridge]] to keep it clean, lest the Colcoma's complain when they come down into town from their farm carting meat and produce.\n\n<<if visited("School Playground")>>You're not going back to the [[school|No School]].<<else>>The [[school|Konig Punnapoint School]] is the largest building on this side of town. Class was probably canceled for the meeting. Doesn't stop some of the kids from going anyway, some of them //want// to go. You can understand that.<<endif>>\n\nAster is running through puddles in the street, sniffing snowbanks, and barking excitedly. He usually ignores you as he goes about his own dog business.\n\nYou think you've still got time before the meeting to [[wander|The Streets]] about.\n\n<<if visited("School Playground")>>Although it might be time to go. Only one way to [[find|Crossing to North Side]] out.<<else>>Or you could just [[head|You hear a noise]] over.<<endif>>

With a sigh you drag yourself up the steps. Your bed sits in its corner where it has all your life, not counting that time you removed the bedding and flipped the frame upside down to build a tent.\n\nYou tidy up the sheets, first tucking in the undersheet, and then draping the comforter. When both are lined up, you peel them down so that they're parallel with the pillow.\n\n<<continue "...">>//"That wasn't so difficult,"// you can hear your mother say.\n\nBut with each moment you spend at the bed, you can sense the sun rising. You head back [[downstairs|Home]].

You hadn't noticed before you approached the tree, but there seems to be someone singing off in the woods. You can't quite tell, but you can make out two timbres, a man and a woman's voice.\n\n<<continue "...">>As you step closer the voices draw nearer.\n\nYou pause and rub your ears, looking about for the source of the voices. You can hear Buer chuckling.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Right here," they sing.\n\nYour eyes dart to the branch. You start to hear less and less.\n\nBuer watches you with a stern gaze.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Keep coming" they sing.\n\nAster's ears are pinned back. His eyes shine up at yours, such gray and blue like you love to see.\n\n<<continue "...">>And [[silver|The Silver Branch2]]

You would rather [[avoid|Konig Punnapoint School]] the playground for now.

You bend down and claw your fingers into the frozen soil. The ground gives and you clasp the ring, removing it from...\n\n<<continue "...">>... but it's [[stuck|Touch the ring2]].

You had almost forgot Sylvine sent you off with Buer to handle the seals.\n\nYou'd better [[avoid|Punnapoint Free Roam]] going near the arboretum in that case.

The good doctor's abode is actually just a single-room. You've visited with your mother before, years ago, back before she required outpatient assistance.\n\nYou remember it was dimly lit by a single candle perched on the pane of the empty fireplace. Three medical beds sat in a row, the last one in the corner looking a tad homelier than the rest. Implements lay in their leather pouches, and hung hooked against the walls. You thought it all looked so clean.\n\n<<continue "...">>But it was the single candle that caught your eye.\n\n<<continue "...">>You don't think Hollander trusts his fireplace. During one of your visits you brought it up with your mother, but she shushed you.\n\nWhen you're done reminiscing, you pull yourself away from the house and [[slog|North Side2]] back to the avenue.

Cedarrant Street is the most occupied street in South Side, and it's still only five houses.\n\nOn the [[left|Left]], in a row, there's three houses.\n\nAnd on the [[right|Right]], there's two.\n\nYou check inside their windows, but they're mostly shuttered up. Everyone must have gone to the meeting already.\n\n<<later>>As you're perusing Cedarrant, you glance at Buer's roof. You can see a tuft of hair and flower crown just over its arc. Right then Aster barks, but Buer doesn't turn around or even flinch.<<becomes>>You check Buer's roof again, but that flower crown is nowhere in sight.<<endlater>> You have a mind to [[continue|The Streets]] on your way.\n

Aster stares at you as well, his fur flares with aurora. Behind him floats an ethereal hound, a single eye peers at you within a forest of mane.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You deserve to know." Says the hound.\n\n<<continue "...">>"That your father is always with you."\n\nSylvine and Shadow stand side by side in the same spot they always have. Buer looks from the hound to you and back.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster lets out a whimper of a howl. He pads his way over to you.\n\nHis body is the very warmth of the Wanebough fireside.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Although he can never speak to you."\n\nYou take Aster's head in your hands, and his forehead [[meets|Meeting your Father2]] yours.

<<if not visited("You hear a noise")>>Can't say you didn't expect it to be empty. Usually there are little ones running around, just like you used to, but they must all be with their caretakers.<<else>>Can't say you expected it to be empty. You thought one of the children had hurt themselves, but there's no one to be seen.<<endif>> The pen is a toneless yard of stomped earth, not even a bird to chirp through the silence. Trees line the wooden fence on the far side.\n\nThere are scultpures lying around, probably children's toys. Some resemble crude weapons, but most are just basic shapes. \n\nOne in particular, a [[ring|The Ring]], juts out of the ground. It looks fresh, like it hasn't seen sunlight in seasons.

Herbalist, spicemaster, witch, Sylvine has many titles, most of which are true, many of which are unflattering. She lives in her greenhouse shop and tends the Arboretum on the western shoulder of Punnapoint.\n\nSylvine hardly ever keeps to herself, and one can often find her socializing with her neighbors, or visiting the market to trade in her wares for other produce. She doesn't eat meat, says it's unnecessary, which is ironic, because she's the one who grows everyone's seasonings.\n\nYou have no idea how long she's been in Punnapoint. But her house has a tree growing out of it, so probably fairly long.\n\nYou tend to avoid the woman because interactions with her can last days.\n\nIn fact, you'd rather not have an encounter with her right now, so you [[continue|Right]] along with your walk.

And uncork it.\n\n<<continue "...">>A brackish wave rushes out in response.\n\n<<continue "...">>The unsaintly glow of eyes surrounds the smokey prison in which you stand. Only a shroud of glass separates you and the roots stretched across your transparent barrier.\n\n<<continue "...">>Cracks form where the roots continue to press. Cloudy, olive-hued water seeps in and quickly starts to engulf you.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now you are in the marsh, surrounded by glass, surrounded by smoke and feral wooden [[hands|The Bottle of Smoke2]].

<<if visited("School Playground")>>You rush back to [[Punnapoint Avenue|Punnapoint Ave]]. The [[playground|I don't think so]] gate swings in the chill behind you.<<else>>Of course the school is named after your town's founder. Pretty much every important building is.\n\n[[Alto Cyrus]] is the mentor at the school. He oversees the kids, and makes sure their activities are productive. He likes to keep a quiet environment, which is a difficult concept to grasp for some of the kids.\n\nThe school itself is for all the children and adolescents of Punnapoint, no matter the family. That was König's intention when he founded it.\n\nThere's a meager playground fenced in behind the school, the gate is always [[open|School Playground]].\n\nAlthough you're not certain you have the time to stray. You can always return when you're [[finished|Punnapoint Ave]] with everything else.<<endif>>

"Take a break. You deserve it, honey." Your mother [[coos|Resting2]].

You graze through the entrance, worming your shoulders through, and then each leg one at a time. During this endeavor, you can't help but notice a table with a bottle on it against the wall. Inside your chest, one organ soars above the rest.\n\n<<continue "...">>The innards of the watermill boast a criminal quality of cleanliness. There's barely a speck of dust on the walls, the floor, and the many shelves.\n\nEven the millstone and its well are spotless, and those are supposed to be slicked with powdered traces.\n\n<<continue "...">>Perhaps Gaime //does// come here often. Too bad he's not here right now.\n\nEverything in the mill appears a slightly darker shade of blue-grey compared to the light that shines through the northern window.\n\nOn the table by the eastern wall sits the bottle. You can see now that what fills its contents is wispy, not like dust, but more like [[smoke|The Bottle: Alone]].

Your whole body is cold and numb and your eyes are ice. For a long while you just stare into darkness. You could be dead, or blind, but you know for certain that you are alone.\n\n<<continue "...">>That's until the grey light of the world slowly seeps back into your irises.\n\nAster barks outside. You lift your knob of a fist and realize the bottle is trapped inside your white knuckle.\n\nKneeling against the ground, you push away from the dampness of the floorboards.\n\n<<continue "...">>You shed a glance at the bottle, clamped less tightly now. You set it back on the table to rest beside its cork.\n\nAs you turn to leave, you notice a piece of parchment [[nailed|Branch Sketch]] to the door.

The pallbearers and the troubadour are standing in front of Vidlich's home. Buer has taken Vidlich's place, the double doors are agape.\n\n<<continue "...">>Vidlich's home is tall--two stories, but taller than your two-story house. It's the stilts that give it its extra several feet. Whoever built the house must have known the marsh would close in eventually. You can imagine a solitary house amidst a flooded Punnapoint, with a single path leading to and from those thin double doors. Sunken buildings jut out from underneath the surface of the bog like old friends and geometric reminders.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer is [[looking|Vidlich's House2]] at you.

The watermill is barely twice as tall as you are, which isn't saying much, but over its roof you can see the arching of a radial sitting stiff in ice water.\n\nAster is still looking into the woods when you open the door to the watermill.\n\n<<continue "...">>The door only opens so far.\n\n<<continue "...">>From what you can see, a support plank has fallen in front of the entryway. You might be thin enough to [[slither|The Watermill: Alone4]] inside, though.

The devil's eye bridge connecting South Side and North Side over the River Subtle. It's profile arcs around, reflecting a perfect circle in the river. Every time you cross it you have a habit of spitting over the side, more of an urge really.\n\nThe bridge possesses some undesireable background for a local landmark. At certain times during the year, if you happen to stray under the bridge you'll notice the howling echoes from the river suddenly dissapear, as if no such source ever existed. Just a cavity under an old stone bridge, and yet, there's the River Subtle just in front of you.\n\nThere's one other location like this though, and a worrysome number of other coincidences in and around Punnapoint. The Library for instance....\n\nYou would rather not [[think|Punnapoint Ave]] about that right now.

You can feel the veins tangling in your eyes, tendrils tugging for blood to better your focus.\n\nThe cinch grows in your maw, a vacuum in between your cheeks.\n\nYour entire body itches.\n\n<<continue "...">>//"This will help"//\n\nEdel's words carry over in your mind, deliberately halting before your eyes as you imagine them in midair, blurred by coal bubbles.\n\nYou stare down into the water, a deep jet of ink, and in the dulled reflection you can make out a squirming, choking face that resembles your own.\n\n<<continue "...">>A face without features.\n\nYou can feel your arms lashing under the water. Manacles wring their way around your wrists and ankles, and the surface bubbles. Ink grows in a pool around the tub.\n\nRoots grow from the liquid shadow and rattle like shackles, bark crumbling and crackling, shedding from the branch binds.\n\nYou let out a howl, but you [[gurgle|The Serpent Head Stone: Alone2]] wth the noise of the serpent-head stone.

Aster sits down outside Dane's house as you open the door.\n\nYou step inside the ramshackle lens shop. To your suprise Dane isn't tinkering at his desk.\n\n<<continue "...">>As you begin your way down an aisle lined with wicker baskets, you hear stomping upstairs.\n\nStomping which proceeds to the staircase, followed by shouting.\n\n<<continue "...">>There's a crash.\n\nDane plummets to the bottom of the stairs.\n\n<<continue "...">><<if $glasses is "fixing">>You go back to perusing the wicker baskets.\n\nBut it would be truly rude of you not to [[help|Stare at Dane]] him up.<<endif>><<if $glasses is "acquired">>You stare straightforward, rigid as a frozen corpse.\n\nPerhaps you should [[help|Stare at Dane]] him?<<endif>>

The puzzle box cracks open in several places, and roots string their way around your fingers, grasping at them like flags wrapped around their flagpoles.\n\n<<continue "...">>Roots emerge from underneath the floorboards, clinging to the legs of the many tables and surfaces.\n\nLemond seizes where she stands, the roots are crawling up //her// legs as well.\n\n<<continue "...">>They continue up your arms, locking off your movements as you struggle to to free your grip from the cube.\n\nYou can the feel the roots around your ankles now.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Do you know how your father died?" Lemond asks.\n\nYour eyes shudder as vines crawl their way over your face.\n\n<<continue "...">>Just after you lose your vision, the rest of your senses [[fade|Homecoming Prelude]].

Your body springs to life, your eyes are open but you can't see. You fling your arms around, colliding with warm things that give way. You hear, but it's not enough.\n\n<<continue "...">>Talons grasp at your ankles and wrists. Tears flicker down your eyelids as you cry out.\n\n<<continue "...">>A material hits your face. It's wet. It slops, then slides up to your forehead. Your fingers find the jagged splinters of a table as you claw your way through the wood.\n\n<<continue "...">>A legion of sensation rubs itself against your chest. Your cheeks flush. You try to kick but the talons hold firm.\n\n<<continue "...">>You can see shadows through the veil, flitting to and fro all around you. They're not whispering, they're shouting. There's one [[face|Awake2]] among them. A long-ridged nose stands over voluminous lips, eyes like dusk sit upon bags of flesh, and a thousand black spears adorn their head.\n\n

You move to pick it up. As you draw near you can see etchings running along the entirety of its circumference. You //want// to [[touch|Touch the ring]] the ring. It feels right.

<<set alert("What it must feel like to have flesh that burns")>><center>You want to scream as you enter the inferno, but the roots around your neck prevent anything but a gurgle from escaping.\n\n<<timedinsert 4s>>There is not an inch of skin on your body that can avoid the thousands of pricks of blistering pain. You clamp your eyes shut, and still they burn. You would close your mouth to spare your tongue if you could control the spasms of your muscles.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 14s>>Within seconds your fingers cannot feel themselves breaking as you clench them against your palms. With several seconds more the knuckles are completely exposed. The same occurs all over your body, your nose and ears shrivel up, your hair falls away, and in your lungs you can feel the scorching lack of breath.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 24s>>When your eyelids burn to ash, your eyes can longer hide. Your sight crumbles as your sockets dry out. You can barely feel anything but the muscles in your torso squirming in a frantic dance of extending and retracting.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 34s>>You feel something punch its way through your left shoulder. Faintly you can hear blood boiling before your inner eardrums rupture.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 40s>>Now you feel [[nothing|The End]].<<endtimedinsert>></center>\n<<timedinsert 6s>><<set alert("It must be such a grand liberating feeling")>><<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 9s>><<set alert("Or perhaps we mean 'immolating'")>><<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 16s>><<set alert("We love the irony")>><<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 18s>><<set alert("Sealed by the Father")>><<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 20s>><<set alert("Released by the Child")>><<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 28s>><<set alert("Now we may play excruciator again")>><<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 34s>><<set alert("I need something you still have")>><<endtimedinsert>>

The Town of Punnapoint

<<once>>You have plenty of chores to do this morning, but it should be okay if you take a quick stroll first. Doing chores just after waking up leaves you groggy, and--if you don't go out soon enough--gives the sun ample time to rise above the cloud line. It's almost always overcast, so you desperately need some sunlight in your day.<<endonce>> <<later>><<if $ob is $in>>You should quicken your pace if you want to avoid the gloom.<<endif>><<if $ob < $in>>If you keep up your pace and you'll be out in the sun in no time.<<endif>><<if $ob > $in>>You're feeling accomplished, but at this rate you know you'll miss your favorite time of day.<<endif>>\n\n<<endlater>>Around your house you see the usual suspects.\n\n<<if not visited("Dog")>>A blue-white [[husky|Dog]] wags its tail in its sleep as it enjoys the warmth of the fire.<<endif>><<if $dog is "awake">>The husky sits at your side, licking his paw.<<endif>><<if $dog is "asleep">>Aster sleeps by the fire, flicking an ear and jerking a leg every so often.<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Kettle")>>A [[kettle|Kettle]] sits idly on the irons next to the fire pit. Your mother would appreciate it if you set it to start.<<endif>><<if $kettle is "cold">>You don't even glance over at the kettle. Enough time has been wasted already, and the sun is on its way up.<<endif>><<if $kettle is "boiling">>The kettle will be whistling before long.<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Crowd")>>Through the kitchen window, you can see a mix of rain and snow, and a [[gathering|Crowd]] of people out on the street. Punnapoint is all and well this morning it seems.<<else>>There are footprints in the snow outside.<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Bed")>>You remember your unkempt [[bed|Bed]] upstairs.<<endif>><<if $bed is "clean">>You took the time to make your bed, so you'd better hurry with everything else and make it outside before at least midday.<<endif>><<if $bed is "messy">>You don't bother anymore with the bed, it's out of sight and out of mind.<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited ("Mother")>>Next door you can hear a [[shuffling|Mother]].<<else>>You had better [[get dressed|Get dressed]] to leave before your mother sees you standing idly by.<<endif>>

It's a common term around town. It means you don't care for the status of family name, you treat everyone with respect, no matter if they're a Tharen-Petica or a single-name.\n\nRecent generations have pushed for changes, claiming that they don't want their kids to grow up with classist ideology being crammed down their throats. But that's not the real problem. \n\nBut you don't like to kick up dusty topics. Rather, you'd like to [[continue|Knoprune St.]] your walk.

The counterpart of the watermill, the sawmill is the powerhouse that enables your town to sit back on its haunches once they've wrested the wood from the soil.\n\nYour father once worked here. After your neighbor went missing. Your mother says they were pretty close because they worked together.\n\n<<continue "...">>You never had the chance to meet Beniamino Barbère.\n\n<<continue "...">>Korb up at the library told you that when they finally found Beniamino, his lower half wasn't his own.\n\nWith a shiver, you spread the [[distance|North Side2]] between yourself and the sawmill.

As you near the edge, you realize just how far along the marsh runs. You don't know where the forestline ends and the marsh begins.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer stands next to you and whistles, then shakes his head and starts to skirt its edges, staying a safe distance from the grey water.\n\nYou trust your pathfinder not to [[lead|The Marsh2]] you even more astray than he already has.

Following the sound of creaking wood and the drift of leaves in the air, a wind picks up with the thrust of a gale. The bonfire swirls in a limitless column, you feel it pulling you as the sudden elements knock you to the ground.\n\nGaime's sketches are sucked into the vortex, combusting instantly. \n\nIn the distance all around you, columns of fire blaze into being. Screams erupt from parts of town, but you can't discern where.\n\n<<continue "...">>Roots emerge from their place in the ground, seizing you by your ankles and wrists. They wring your neck, choking you, bringing you closer to the abomination.\n\nFinus slowly leans into the flames, and every lick causes it to jitter, whether in wonder or pain you cannot tell. The heat from the bonfire is close to overwhelming, and cinders fly all around, whipping across your face and scorching the tendrils keeping you captive.\n\n<<continue "...">>You are brought into Finus' grip now. It [[clutches|Finus: Alone6]] you like a doll.

Your eyes burst open and you gasp for air through a dry pipe. Muscle memories of strangling roots wrack you, but a stiff, clamping grip tightens around your shoulders and tilts you up.\n\n<<continue "...">>You loll your head back to see Buer calmly checking you up and down. You look down to see a puzzle box at his feet.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Would you like some tea? Either of you?" Lemond hollars from the kitchen.\n\nBuer places the puzzle box on a nearby table and hoists you to your feet. He looks you in the eyes.\n\n<<continue "...">>His lips barely move, but they're [[sharp|Leaving Barbere's]] as always.

Punnapoint receives supplies from a railcar that visits every two weeks. The driver just glides in, never speaking to the railworkers--who respect that--then they're out just as quick.\n\nYou've only witnessed the delivery a number of times. It's always a different driver, and they always look frightened out of their wits.\n\n<<continue "...">>There has not been a delivery for a solid week and a half. You think that's normal.\n\nYou decide to carry the thought with you [[back|North Side2]] to the street.

You nearly trip down the stairs on your way out of Dane's, the hanging baskets swing as you run by.\n\nThe door smacks against the outside of the house as you throw it open. Aster's ears are already pricked up and he jumps to a forward stance.\n\nYou barely look his way before darting down Knoprune towards the [[avenue|Urgent Care3]].

The slush starts to slip underneath your feet as you streak across the bridge.\n\nFor a moment the sun peeks through the clouds and you can see a formless shadow at the end of the bridge.\n\n<<continue "...">>That's the last thing you remember seeing before you [[smack|Recovery]] the backside of your head against the bridge's wooden surface.

You approach the pile of Dane.\n\nThe stairs are littered with photographs. Photographs of mountains.\n\n<<continue "...">>Dane's legs come down, and his head shoots up.\n\n"How was the meeting?" He asks.\n\nYou shrug. His eyebrows level.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I'll go get the glasses, then."\n\nHe immediately trips, planting his face along several steps.\n\n<<continue "...">>He scampers up the rest on his hands and knees.\n\nYou [[wonder|Dane Trouble]] what he's like on a bad day.

Blood pounds through your skull as you cross the avenue. There's a wind coming from the south that bites your wrists and ankles. You're wracked with a shiver as you shamble through the courtyard.\n\nAster peers up at you as you walk along.\n\nYou're greeted with another set of double doors. You [[open|Revisit Town Hall2]] one and slip inside.

<big><big><big><big><big><big><big><big><big><big><<timedinsert 2s>>[[NOTHING|Finus7]]<<endtimedinsert>></big></big></big></big></big></big></big></big></big></big>

Doctor Hollander lives at the end of North Side next to the storehouse. He checks up on everyone in Punnapoint over the course of the day, but your mother's condition deserves a bit more of his attention. More and more of his attention as the days carry on.\n\nYou're rather glad your mother prefers Hollander, it means you don't have to associate with Qierke at all. You chuckle to yourself and [[return|Knoprune St.]] to the avenue.

Vidlich emerges from the black doorway, a phantom of a man. He looks up at the sky and his smile cannot be contained within the corners of his mouth.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then his cheeks puff out and his wrinkles pull at his face.\n\n<<continue "...">>You walk over to Buer and he nods at you. You can hear the sapping sounds even as Buer places the flute back in the coffin, even as you make your way over to Gerrand street, even as you [[approach|The Watermill]] the watermill.

You sigh and slowly nod your understanding. Dane looks as if he might hug you, so you wave goodbye and leave before he can get a word in edgewise.\n\n<<continue "...">>You let the door slam behind you.\n\nThe brisk air welcomes you with a tickle on your spine, as does Aster's paw on your leg. You know Dane will have your order ready by the end of the day, so that's when you'll return.\n\n<<continue "...">>But now you can do whatever you want, and the town is pristine with snowfall. It is [[time|Knoprune St.]] for the daily rounds.

The watermill would never be allowed to fall into disrepair, but there's a lot less woodcutting in the cold months. Consequently, the watermill has become a tad dusty on the outside. If you took on the responsibility then you would have some cleaning up to do.\n\n<<continue "...">>You think.\n\n<<continue "...">>You haven't stepped inside the mill in years. You see Buer heading over there every so often. Perhaps he's been looking after it.\n\nAfter a couple more wishful thoughts you [[pace|Gerrand St.]] back to the street.

In the adjacent room, you meet the gaze of your mother. On the floor next to the bed sits a broken pair of glasses. The lens are completely fractured. Your mother gives you a loose smile, and pulls the covers off her legs, dull white stripes line their length.\n\n<<continue "...">>As she swerves out of bed and leans down to pick up the glasses, she sighs. You continue to watch as she places them on the bedside counter, she suddenly looks back at you, chuckling.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Would you mind visiting Dane, today?"\n\nYou shake your head //yes// when you would really rather take your morning stroll uninterrupted.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Doctor Hollander visited last night before you got home. He was going around informing everyone of an impromptu meeting. I am required to attend this morning." She pauses while she slides on a pair of moccasins.\n\n<<continue "...">>"There's no need for you to go as well, but if you would like, then meet me there //after// you visit Dane. He wasn't called to the meeting so he'll be at home."\n\nYou peer down at what you're wearing. You realize you did not change into your loose garments last night.\n\n<<continue "...">>Unfortunately, your mother also [[notices|Mom2]].

This piece is not a quick sketch like the others. Someone spent their time--time they possessed in abundance--on this one.\n\n<<continue "...">>The bear peers around its bulk with hollow white eyes, directly back into yours. Its muscle-broadened backside shimmers with snow patches, like some boulder underneath ice-cover.\n\nIt holds the weight of a tiny tree upon its back. The juvenile springs from the base of the bear's spine, arching up into a lopsided evergreen, spreading its branches like crystals.\n\n<<continue "...">>One branch catches your eye against the smudged shadows and jagged lines. It hangs stiff outside its siblings, curiously unshaded.\n\nYou stare at the drawing a little while longer before folding it up with the others and [[departing|Punnapoint Free Roam]] from the watermill.

You would like to [[remain|North Side2]] and admire the industrial side of Punnapoint. It's not every day you stray over the bridge.\n\nBut you can always return tomorrow, perhaps it's time to [[leave|Crossing to South Side2]].

There's a long drag, a feeling of water running down your back. Under your skin some electric file shaves against the bones of your arms and legs.\n\nYou would open your eyes, if only the buffeting wind would cease.\n\n<<continue "...">>Pressure shifts against your chests as you breathe. A humid mist rolls across your sternum every couple seconds.\n\nWhen the sprawling of the wind pauses, you crack an eyelid.\n\n<<continue "...">>You're greeted by a long snout and two peregrine eyes.\n\nFor a moment, nothing moves. You [[stare|The Den2]] at the König wolf.

You shake your head.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Eaugh, I hope the Sintlebear ate him...."\n\nYou give her your best curious glance.\n\n<<continue "...">>"What are you looking at? Is staring all you can do?"\n\n<<continue "...">>She doesn't know you too well.\n\n<<continue "...">>"If you have time to stand around blinking then you ought to be able to help me search for the young tramp. He's //your// [[friend|Search for Buer]], he is."

Dane gasps. His sobbing stops.\n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>He was hyperventilating just before.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 5s>>Papers shift toward you.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 8s>>Now you can't hear anything.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 11s>>You turn.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 14s>>The window catches your eye before you completely face him. Outside you see Eck's Point to the south.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 18s>>Eck's Point is the western peak.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 22s>>You look at Dane.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 24s>>He lays collapsed on the floor.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 26s>>The photos extend your way. One sits at your feet. It creeps over to your toes. You [[jerk|Dane Trouble3]] back.<<endtimedinsert>>

The ship slides into view on a vast body of water, like a rabbit skidding on ice.\n\nIt's far off in the distance when it turns towards the shore. A noisome wind blows through your hair, and you gag as you cover your nose. Almost heaving, you back away from the shore.\n\nWaves crash upon the jagged rim of the bay like rocks and solid dust. Clouds of spirit sprinkle you with sand, and the sky shifts with their passing.\n\n<<continue "...">>Phantoms dangle in the molten sunset, long streaks of darkness stretching lengthwise from the horizon. \n\nThey chase the ship, now.\n\nAt the helm, the captain screams to his crew. You watch his mouth moving as he barks each order. Every word leaves the crew looking less and less certain of their leader.\n\nThen the ship [[lurches|Staying with Dane3]] in the water.

As you skirt the bonfire, something in front of it catches your eye.\n\nSitting before Gaime is a clay pot, and in this pot is a plant you've never seen before. It resembles a fern in its earlier stages of life, yet uncoiled, but its color feels unhealthy.\n\nYou wonder if it is shriveled, or if, perhaps, it really is the color of bone.\n\n<<continue "...">>Gaime offers the sketch to you.\n\nYou [[accept|The Potted Bonefern: Alone]] it.

You can't feel your legs, and Buer stumbles before the door. He bends down and takes you up in his arms. Your knees knock. He eases you across the threshold and down Lemond's steps.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster is sitting across the street, he turns his head and barks. Your mother must have left him something to eat.\n\n<<continue "...">>You're not sure where you expect Buer to head next, but he walks west onto Punnapoint Ave. then stops.\n\nYou want to ask him why the both of you are doing this, why he [[cares|Southern Pathway]].

The three normal people that live on this street live on the left side. At least, they haven't proven otherwise to you.\n\nRespectively they're [[Vidlich]], Punnapoint's lone undertaker, who //used// to be the only person allowed in the graveyard.\n\n[[Yvette]], the single chattiest individual you've ever met.\n\nAnd lastly, there's [[Edel]], who is perhaps the oldest in town.\n\nYou [[leave|Cedarrant St.]] when you're done checking everyone's houses.

The two on the right side of the street are very unlike their counterparts on the left.\n\nTheir inhabitants are [[Sylvine]], resident medicine woman here in town. She scares you, to be frank. Not because of her frightening personage, no--her accoutrement is a lovely display of forest colors--it's because Aster is afraid of her.\n\nAnd [[Buer]], who you are certain has it in for you. That's enough reason to steer clear of him.

The bonfire is the only light in the town. The wind apparently blew out all of the lanterns lining the avenue.\n\nYou start to hear the whipping of the fire as you approach. Without even a subtle breeze, the fire plumes well over your head. It sits in a great iron brazier the size of a sow.\n\nWhen you get close enough, you stop. The skin on your back tightens, and your gut catches your breath.\n\n<<continue "...">>Gaime is smiling, looking at the fire. He holds a sketch in one hand and a stick of charcoal in the other.\n\nHe looks at you, and then back at his drawing. Then he waves you over.\n\nSo you [[go|The Arboretum: Alone3]].

From out of the stalk grows the untouched plaster of a faceless head. A dead stag's antlers sprout from its temples. You notice stains of blood scoring the skull's surface.\n\n<<continue "...">>The head aches and stutters as it turns to look at you. Ivory rusted roots spread from the base of the pot, and two shoulders join the head.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then a pair of slender arms rip their way free from the bonds of the fern, leaving a husk to hang limp behind the figure.\n\n<<continue "...">>They reach out, and your cranium bends under the pressure of their grip, though they have not yet touched you.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your body hangs limp, your eyes sting, and a wet hot feeling drips from your nose. You [[succumb|Homecoming Prelude]] to unconsciousness.

<<once>>You remember the [[drawings|The Drawings]] in your pocket. They're your only clue as to where Gaime went.<<endonce>><<later>>You get the feeling that these [[drawings|The Drawings]] lead somewhere.<<endlater>>\n\n<<if not visited("The Watermill: Alone2")>>You rarely see Gaime hovering anywhere in particular, but these pictures suggest somewhere indoors.\n\nImmediately your mind jumps to the [[watermill|The Watermill: Alone]], but it's sitting still as it often does during Wanebough, so there's little indication that anyone is inside.<<else>>Over the wall of the school you can see the top of the watermill. It nudges back and forth in every sudden shift of the wind.<<endif>>\n\nSouth of Punnapoint are the Hephen and Colcoma [[residencies|Southern Pathway: Alone]], but you doubt Gaime would head all the way there before dark.\n\nEdel's [[place|Edel's House]] is out. Edel would never consort with "such a crass individual," which is kind of saying a lot--and not about Gaime.\n\nIf Gaime were so bold you might find him at Sylvine's in the [[arboretum|The Arboretum: Alone]].\n\n<<if not visited("Barbere's House: Alone2")>>Sometimes you spot Gaime entering the [[house|Barbere's House: Alone]] of Lemond Barbère. You wonder what his intentions might be? They always smile at each other before he bows and enters. <<else>>Tea at Barbère's was not a pleasure. You didn't even get any tea.<<endif>>

You catch a wiff of your scent. Last night was anything but kind. There's a musk hanging over your garments.\n\nYou might want to consider changing into something [[fresh|Change clothes][$ob += 1; $clothes = "clean"]].\n\nThen again, it wouldn't be the first time you [[double-downed|Change clothes][$in += 1; $clothes = "dirty"]].

The luminous ring howls up above, searing the edges of the clouds around it like the sun of night.\n\n<<continue "...">>The visage of the hound, with teeth bared against its foe, appears in the drifting sky.\n\n<<continue "...">>From the paraselene rushes a pulsing sensation. Like fur brushing against your skin.\n\n<<continue "...">>This sensation falls where Aster sits patiently on his log.\n\n<<continue "...">>He looks at Finus the way a gardner would an unkempt shrub.\n\n<<continue "...">>The abomination shrinks back at the arcing glow resounding from Aster's coat.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then Aster [[smiles|Banishing Finus4]] your way.

Aster whines and you kneel down, reaching your arm around his abdomen.\n\nYou found Sylvine grabbing his face one day. Just holding his face in a single hand, like a mother might scold their child. She was whispering sharply, her glare holding his eyes firmly still.\n\nAster never forgot that stare. Probably. You know //you// didn't.\n\n<<continue "...">>Better keep moving. You've just been sitting here, rubbing Aster's chest.\n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>"You don't want to keep Sylvine waiting."<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 6s>>The voice catches you unawares and you turn--<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedgoto "Shadow" 9s>>

You walk over to the table to get a better look. With every step, the smoke in the bottle seems to pulse, even though your footfalls are not heavy.\n\nThe bottle is stoppered by a long skinny cork. You extend your hand and the smoke reacts to the touch of your fingers against the glass, focusing on each fingertip.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your eyes glaze over. You want to open the bottle. The wisps of smoke remind you of the leeches they found wriggling on the flank of a cow that strayed into the marsh.\n\nAs you stare at the smoke and the cork and the leeches, you feel your other hand moving upwards from your side.\n\n<<continue "...">>[[//Pop//|The Bottle: Alone2]]

Right now you're on [[Punnapoint Avenue|Punnapoint Ave]].\n\nOff the main road there's [[Partipal|Partipal St.]] and [[Gerrand|Gerrand St.]] on the east side of the Avenue.\n\nOn the west side of the avenue there's [[Cedarrant|Cedarrant St.]] and [[Knoprune|Knoprune St.]].\n\nLastly there's your street, [[Cispill|Cispill St.]].\n\nAny further north and you'd be crossing the bridge. Any further south and you'd be walking the [[marsh path|Forest Pathway]] through the woods.

As you straighten your back, Edel leans away, her brows narrowed and her face slightly downturned, like she's about to ask you something.\n\n<<continue "...">>But the question falls to the back of her throat.\n\nYou stand barely taller than Edel in her seat. The tub sits just behind the armchair. A pair of moccasins hide tucked underneath the armchair.\n\nEagerness for cover creeps over your neck and cascades up your scalp like a hood.\n\n<<continue "...">>You waste little time donning the clothes, layering a fur jacket over a soft leather vest. The garb fits your mood, a size too large and stretched at the seams.\n\nYou turn to Edel as you wrap a coarse hide belt around your waist, the motion reminds you of a fishermen hauling their net from the water.\n\nHer glare sends you back a step, but it dissipates when she notices you staring back. You hold the knife for a moment before you tuck it into the belt.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I hope you find what you're looking for."\n\nShe almost spits the phrase. You don't think you've ever heard her this upset.\n\nNow that you've regained your senses, you get the feeling it's time to [[leave|Leaving Edel's]].

She brings a wooden haft up to your chin and shears through the layers of binding wrung around you.\n\nThen she rests the knife on your chest.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You'll need this later, honey. And don't move everything at once, your shoulder might be infected--unlikely as it might seem."\n\nYou finally feel your hands as you stare at them, the bones of your knuckles peeking just underneath your parched fingers. They begin to release puss and pink blood as you wag them around.\n\nAs you reach for the knife, your biceps and forearms react in kind, the shriveled spindles crusted with scar tissue crystal patches peel back and shed mulled wine.\n\n<<continue "...">>As you inhale, the knife drifts to rest below your breast, you imagine it slipping neatly into your ribs, all the way to the hilt.\n\nYou stop breathing and [[snatch|Edel's House: Alone7]] the haft off your chest.

Jumping up, you mean to follow them, but instead you fall from your bed and onto the ground. Your arms and legs drag in a fatigue that rolls from limb to limb.\n\nYou notice you've been dressed in loose garments, and blush at the thought.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now you've got some feeling in your legs and you push off from the ground and rise to your feet.\n\nYou balance your way over to the stairs and ease yourself down a step at a time.\n\n<<continue "...">>The blood pumping in your brain jabs foreward and backward, but when you reach the bottom of the staircase, you are greeted by the orange glow of Buer's lantern.\n\nRight away, he sets off, without even [[looking|Spiriting away3]] at you. Aster is on his heels, tail wagging all the way.

On one is the scrawled image of a bottle. It sits on a table, somewhere indoors probably. What looks like dust swirls around inside it.\n\nA charcoal drawing of a hyper-realistic cube. Three sides face you, although the top-side is barely visible, and shadows cup the bottom edges. You wonder how dark the place with the cube is.\n<<if visited("Branch Sketch")>>\nA third, the one you found in the watermill, depicts a collosal bear with a pine tree growing out of its back. A single branch of the lonely pine shimmers like a silver tassle. Surely only a master charcoal artist could perform such a feat of illustration. You never would have pegged Gaime to have a hobby like that. Or at all.<<endif>><<if visited("Serpent-Head Sketch")>>\nThe fourth is drawn in a form similar to the cube: simple and properly shaded. It's the depiction of a serpent's head, with little indication of whether or not it's real. Perhaps the shading implies you'll find this one indoors.\n\nBarbère didn't drop any hints on its location. All she mentioned was that Gaime was playing with you, but you're having anything //but// a good time.\n<<endif>>\nYou can muse over these drawings all you want, but you have to keep [[searching|Punnapoint Free Roam]] for Gaime.

The gust is clamped tightly behind you as you shut the door. Yvette stands at the ready, she smiles at you. You smile back. Aster scratches at the door.\n\n"Didn't think you'd be back."\n\n<<continue "...">>The look you give her makes her chuckle, but she covers her mouth and looks over her shoulder. You notice modest tones brewing about in every room of the house.\n\n"Gaime just finished his inaugural address. Session will be over soon."\n\n<<continue "...">>Gaime is apparently one of the elders now.\n\nGood on him, you suppose.\n\n<<continue "...">>"He startled me when he walked in--didn't make a sound, then just suddenly shouts that he'd like to take Crovak's seat. And... well... no one saw any reason to turn him down. Although he gave me a good scare."\n\n<<continue "...">>You wish she would just tell you what he said, but if he's not here anymore, there's no point in sticking around.\n\nYvette glances you down and frowns. You're [[out|Finding Gaime5]] the door before you can find out why.\n\n\n\n

Snow falls over the marsh. Dead trees jut out here and there, covered in snow. Powder drifts down at a slant as the mist from your breath cascades into the sky. The cloud cover leans down over the rim of the treeline, passing between you and Buer.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster raises his head.\n\n<<continue "...">>A prick of dread ripples along your arms and neck as you see something shuffling in the treeline across the ice on your west side.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster's breath clouds your vision, and for a brief moment you think you see the likeness of a bear crawling towards you. When the air clears, you can see there's no such bear.\n\n<<continue "...">>You notice the moon peeking out behind several cloud forms. The sun peeks out from below the layer, casting everything in a punishing gold.\n\n<<continue "...">>But you can't focus on that, because now you've [[spotted|The Sintlebear4]] the bear.

<<set alert("To all that trouble")>><center>"Just to help little old Finus."</center><<timedgoto "Finus: Alone5" 5s>>

A soft whine whistles through the air as the door slams shut behind you. Tiny claws scratch at the door.\n\n<<continue "...">>The windows in the mill have dusted over. A little light from the afternoon sun seeps in, but not enough to lift the crud from every surface.\n\n<<continue "...">>The long barrel of the watermill can be seen outside the window, connecting to the sawmill across the river.\n\n<<continue "...">>Inside, the pallor paints the dull blue of the wood a tinge of grey. The grain mill is attached to the far wall, but it's empty and has not budged since the last Bright month.\n\n<<continue "...">>A table sits off to the right, and behind it a bookshelf full of leatherbound documents, probably records--of what, you don't know, they just remind you of last night.\n\n<<continue "...">>Perched on the table is a long-necked bottle with a rounded, bulbous base. It is capped with a cork, although what's cooped up lies [[hidden|The Watermill3]] behind foggier contents.

You don't have teachers, so much as mentors, and Alto is one of them. He takes on apprentices of all kinds and teaches them crafts, like woodworking, whittling, carving, fletching--mostly fun stuff. It is important that the folks in Punnapoint know how to work with wood, because there will always be lumber in surplus.\n\nBack when you were in school, Alto originally taught you how to whittle small charms, but you don't remember that lasting long. After that Alto would only teach you basic carpentry.\n\nYou had never wondered why up until now, and you're not about to find him and ask. Your focus [[snaps|Konig Punnapoint School]] back to the school.

You jerk awake, but you can't sit up. Your arms and legs cling to the surface at your back.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Easy... //hush//... it's okay."\n\n<<continue "...">>Breath eats away at your lungs. You examine your surroundings.\n\nA vague burden of a memory lingers about Edel's house.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I want you to know I barely had a choice."\n\nThe elderly woman chokes on her words.\n\n<<continue "...">>"This is a bitter pill for the both of us."\n\nYou stare at her. She can't keep her eyes still, she looks to you and then closes them, and then glances to her door.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You have to finish what you start. Just like I was forced to help you."\n\nShe struggles on the word //help//.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I wrapped your chest and shoulder and laid some clothes out on the hassock.\n\nYou can see cotton folds [[pressed|Edel's House: Alone6]] against the tweed footrest just behind her.

It's not a long walk, but the grey of the sky is only getting darker as you stroll along.\n\nThe wind picks up as you're halfway there. You feel your legs and your sides burn--nevermind freezing, you're afraid you might dry out. \n\nAster lets out a shy rumble towards the woods as you [[approach|The Watermill: Alone3]] the watermill.

You nudge your way up the stairs, Barbère leans as you block her view. It hadn't occurred to you that she might be inviting someone else. \n\nGlancing over your shoulder you spy Aster. He's sitting in the middle of the street, blinking every couple of seconds. No one else around.\n\n<<continue "...">>"His attitude lately. Such a shame."\n\nYou turn back to her. Barbère looks up at you now.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Oh, didn't see you there! You must be the one Gaime was referring to. Here for tea and biscuits then?"\n\nYou can imagine you're giving her a defeated look. She moves aside so that you may [[enter|The Puzzlebox: Alone]] unimpeded.

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<center>The Town of Punnapoint is a digital interactive narrative optimally designed for Google Chrome. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure novel, essentially.\n\nFor new readers, there's nothing to it.\n\nwhen you see text written in blue, it means clicking that text will take you to another passage, like turning a page.\n\nSome links--like the ones in the credits--will even open up in a new window, allowing you to keep your place in the story.\n\nWhile clicking blue ellipses...\n\n<<continue "...">>...will reveal even more text.\n\n<<continue "...">>And rarely, you will come across a passage without any indicator of what you need to do. That's fine, just...\n\n<<timedinsert 6s>>...wait it out\n\n<<display "Instructions2">><<endtimedinsert>></center>

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You pick up the pace and start striding past the lanterns that mark the start of the bridge.\n\n<<continue "...">>You reach the first quarter of the bridge.\n\n<<continue "...">>You're almost halfway there.\n\n<<continue "...">>As you near halfway you peer over the side of the bridge.\n\n<<continue "...">>You spit.\n\n<<continue "...">>It dips into the water. You watch it glide along east until you can't see the speck of froth among the shadows cast by the pine wood forest.\n\n<<timedinsert 7s>>"Don't fall behind."<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 9s>>You spin around, ready to catch whoever spoke--<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedgoto "Crossing to South Side3" 11s>>

<<continue "...">>No one is there.\n\n<<continue "...">>You shiver as a harsh wind nips at your ears and neck.\n\n<<continue "...">>A lampost flickers into obscurity and for a second you see a long silhouette leaning against it.\n\n<<continue "...">>You're heavily considering [[catching|South Side]] up to the group.

You listen closely in the dark.\n\n<<continue "...">>You open your eyes and are surprised you can see.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your mother's face hovers over yours. She's worried--but now she's smiling. Harsh laughter lingers in your ears.\n\n<<continue "...">>Under your calves you feel something warm. A glance reveals Aster propping up your legs with the curve of his back.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer peeks at you from above your mother. He turns and walks back up to the coffin.\n\n<<continue "...">>Slowly, a lick of soft woodwind floats through the air. The sound [[swirls|Procession]] up into the high ceiling and over the heads of the townsfolk.

You brace yourself like Buer did and send an echo of wind through the crystal flute.\n\n<<continue "...">>It does not sound like when Buer played. \n\n<<continue "...">>Your ears are pricked by the chiding of howling laughter. The voices of your townsfolk drown out your playing, they've all turned their heads to shriek in unison. It's the weathered wailing of the crew of a ghostship on an ocean you've never seen.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now that ocean is a black abyss. But the round [[continues|Homecoming Prelude]].

A gentle hiss resounds beside you, followed by a familiar glow.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer holds a tindermatch to the end of his pipe. You watch as he quickly and carefully puffs the flames into submission, emitting small clouds of smoke and tendrils of fume.\n\n<<continue "...">>Without moving he glances up at you. He pauses, then throws his head around, letting his arms fall to his side before quickly throwing a single finger up. It points toward the bottle on the table. Smoke snakes out of his nostrils.\n\n<<continue "...">>You jump a little and rush over to the table where the bottle waits.\n\nThis time you hesitate, although you've figured out what to do with it.\n\n<<continue "...">>You turn to Buer but he's just watching you, arms crossed, pipe at his lips.\n\nYou [[pick up|The Bottle of Smoke]] the bottle.

<<timedinsert 2s>>I think you're mistaken, little sap.<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 3s>>Child of misery,<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 4s>>child of mine.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 5s>>I think you've stretched the boundary a bit.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 10s>>I don't believe you understand just what a self-tailored purgatory your world is.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 14s>>All you do is wait for the next <<hoverlink "Finus5" "baby" "meat">> to be born.<<endtimedinsert>>

Out on the water you see gravemarkers just above the surface, like stark, moldy serpents dipping in and out wherever they please.\n\n<<continue "...">>A normal gravemarker would look something like a hoop, with one half in the ground and the other above the soil. In death you return to earth and air, and your marker is your gateway. Only records remain as evidence that any single soul in Punnapoint ever existed.\n\n<<continue "...">>In some places the marsh has frozen over, and up ahead you can see a natural pitfall of broken ice, most likely a thin air pocket that rose with the dropping temperature.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer stops for a moment in front of the pitfall. From the side, his brows furrow into hard lines of dead grass. His lips purse and grow redder.\n\nThen he shuffles and keeps [[moving|The Marsh3]] all the same.

Buer begins to step on the ice, moving deliberately, but without dipping his pace. The ice cracks, but the sheets of ice sit over a hair's breadth of water, which travels along the submerged system of cracks as you press your shoes against the surface.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster follows on your heels as the three of you make your way around the pitfall. Now you see that bubbles couldn't have caused this. Bare frozen earth has been exposed underneath a round crater where a large object used to be.\n\nBuer is [[scratching|The Sintlebear]] his head now.

You step away from the door, only to see Aster walking alongside Buer, hopping excitedly around his bundled form.\n\nYou wonder why Aster is so fond of him.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer waves a stick around as he walks, feinting this way and that. The snow flurries every which way he swings.\n\n<<timedinsert 6s>>"Don't straggle, you're lacking time to waste."<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 9s>>It's the same voice from earlier--<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedgoto "Shadow2" 12s>>\n

Buer looks at you.\n\nHis eyes whisper murder in a simpering dulcet tone.\n\n<<continue "...">>You're probably imagining that.\n\nHe's staring blankly at you now.\n\n<<continue "...">>He pantomimes a flute player.\n\nYou [[understand|Playing the Flute3]].

Dane lives on [[Knoprune Street|Knoprune St.]], in a ragged apartment he adopted off someone's grandmother or somesuch. Dane likes it that way. Says it adds character.\n\nThe shutters are neatly stacked next to the door. Dane says if anyone needs replacement shutters they can take them. He's usually hanging out one of his windows shooting pictures of the horizon whenever you walk by. Then he either falls out or drops the camera.\n\nThe house is old, but so is every house in Punnapoint, and vermin are vermin. Dane often asks for assistance from Aster. He actually //asks// Aster too. The dog doesn't seem to mind--or understand--but he wags his tail so that counts for something. Aster hunts the smaller rats, but he'll head home soon as they get larger than his mouth can fit.\n\nDane's actually lives on the second floor, the first floor is the lens shop, and the sign says "open" so you can [[barge|Lenscrafter]] right in. Aster plops himself down by the door.

<<if not visited("The Puzzlebox: Alone")>><<once>>You neither have reason nor want to go down that pathway. Not even if Gaime did in fact go in that direction.\n\nYou [[think|Punnapoint Free Roam]] about where he might have //really// gone.<<endonce>><<later>>Honestly, you couldn't start to understand why anyone would need to go out into the woods when the sun is on the set.\n\nYou grew up with tales from the elders who survived their excursions in the woods. Edel likes to tell you stories of her unlucky, thrice-removed relatives, and she always ends her stories with "they would be telling you if they //could//."\n\nSo no woods, not today. You are not in the mood to get eaten by wolves and also bears. You [[turn|Punnapoint Free Roam]] your back to the southern path and try to assess where Gaime might be.<<endlater>><<endif>><<if visited("The Puzzlebox: Alone")>>There's a sensation welling in your abdomen, a pain you remember from your dreams. Gaime is leading you into the woods.\n\nAfter all, there's not many places one will find a bear with a tree on its back. You've no idea how much Gaime is embellishing in this sketch. You just hope he is at all.\n\nBarbère said to find the branch before the serpent-head. Better [[find|Southern Pathway: Alone2]] it soon.<<endif>>

"Good to see you're still here. Did his coughing stop?"\n\nYou're plucked from your daydream by the collar of your shirt.\n\n<<continue "...">>"And are you feeling better yourself?"\n\nYou blink. Dane is resting on his side. You turn to see Hollander lifting a solid, leather case onto his desk.\n\nDane coughs then, almost as if in response.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Ah, well, with a tad more rest he'll see that cough out the door."\n\nAs Hollander speaks those last words, a hand wraps around the edge of the doorway. A familiar face [[reveals|Staying with Dane4]] itself as the owner of the hand.

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A shiver crawls up your spine as you remember the Library. If you stray down Partipal Street and then keep going, you'll find yourself walking a up clean-cut path to the König Punnapoint Library. It's just sitting there on the hill in a small clearing. It's black double doors looming, always open.\n\nThe street is empty otherwise. There's nothing to see there, so you [[amble|The Streets]] back to the avenue.

You look between her, the stone, and Buer. You edge backwards on the table.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Come, come, I took enough of a risk bringing it across the boundary. The sooner you get it over with the better, I promise."\n\nTears start in your eyes again, but you bite your lip.\n\n<<continue "...">>You lay the cup and saucer on the table, the tea sloshes over and dribbles down the side into the saucer. Buer snatches them almost immediately.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Now, dear, for this one you must place it in your mouth."\n\nYou nod.\n\n<<continue "...">>You can't see Hollander behind you, but you watch your mother wave him off.\n\nEdel grabs your hand and [[clasps|The Serpent Head Stone2]] the stone inside.

You pat the door before pushing through, and close it behind you with barely a peep. A breeze sweeps through the shop, nudging the hanging lanterns around, but there are no flames to dance to the swaying.\n\n<<continue "...">>The shop is one of the few things Dane keeps in working order. There are aisles of shelves filled with baskets of glass and metal frames of different alloys, the most common of which are brass. In the back you see the staircase to Dane's apartment. Connected to the right side wall is a desk filled with different lenses, and tools for plying, screwing, and hammering.\n\n<<continue "...">>Dane sits at the desk, musing over several pieces of a broken frame for a window. He looks up for a moment before returning to his work.\n\n<<continue "...">>"She drop her glasses again?" Dane asks. You wish he wouldn't, but you [[nod|Lenscrafter2]] in reply.

Buer holds it out to you.\n\nApprehensive, you reach out.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer pulls it back, looks at it, then [[hands|Play the flute]]\n it to you.

The old woman holds fast to the cup. Your brow shoots up. You feel the four edges of the cube in your hand, and a pulse wanders up your arm. As it hits your head, your vision quivers.\n\nYou peer down through a wave of nausea, expecting to see a cube. Instead you see an fractured puzzlebox, a light like the full moon glowing faintly between its cracks.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then roots creep out from in between those cracks.\n\nBefore you can let go, vines entwine themselves with your fingers. You whip your hand around, but the puzzlebox refuses to [[budge|The Puzzlebox: Alone3]].

"What fun you must be having today."\n\nYou look back at Barbère. A chill runs over your skin and you start to jump back, but you're stuck in place.\n\nThere are roots wringing your ankles, emerging like cicadas from the floorboards. You fall to your back, but quickly raise yourself on your forearms.\n\n<<continue "...">>Barbère stares down at you underneath a wreath of antlers and bramble. Her grey wirey hair chokes what little vision she might have left. You can see eyes reflecting pinpricks of light within the mass of tendrils. Roots clasp at the hem of her dress, riding up its length and reaching for her hands.\n\nThey reach out at you too. There are roots all over the place, coming out of the walls and ceiling, bending boards and crushing tables. They pour their way over every surface in your direction.\n\n<<continue "...">>You recall what happened last night. It was no dream. Neither is this.\n\n<<continue "...">>As you are engulfed in the mass of roots, you feel the many edges of a cube pricking your hand. You black [[out|Homecoming Prelude]].

You nudge the fur on his hind leg. A single blue eye opens up. Outside, several birds break into song. The overcast clouds shift, allowing some light in through the open window opposite the bed. It is as if the world wakes with him.\n\n<<continue "...">>He lets out a couple huffs and circles around you, searching for your caring hands.\n\nYou grab for his front paws and he places one on your shoulder while the other slips into the crook of your arm.\n\nHe stares at you and in those eyes you can see the father you never [[knew|Home]].

Right off your street are the Twinlots, two shacks reserved for the midwives. The two live in their identical homes with the personal herb garden they share smack dab in the center.\n\nIt isn't exactly every season that Punnapoint requires a midwife, that's why there are only two. A master from the previous generation, and an apprentice from the next.\n\nMr. Claus Sittlemaver is the current master, and his apprentice is Carrow, daughter of the Dutë's, one of your close friends.\n\n<<continue "...">>...close in proximity.\n\nShe's outside, [[tending|Carrow Dute]] her garden.\n\n

You ermerge from your house on Cispill Street. The light of the moon shines all around, and a runaway wind breezes up your legs. Lanterns hang on poles along Punnapoint Avenue in the distance, granting some color to the otherwise bleak atmosphere.\n\n<<continue "...">>In the west you see clouds climb over the mountains to streak across the sky. You walk with Buer and Aster, but neither of the two seem to mind the errant aerials, not even as they blot out the moon, blocking its light and slowing your pace to a crawl.\n\n<<continue "...">>You shiver in the dark.\n\nBut Aster and Buer continue on.\n\n<<continue "...">>The three of you [[cross|Spirited away4]] the avenue. You can see a candle lit across the way in Carrow's window. The sheer fabric hung inside prevents you from seeing any more than light.

Aster shears at each part of Finus's blood-parched body in a cadence like the Wanebough wind brings its final frost to leftover leaves.\n\n<<continue "...">>You watch as pieces of the abomination are draggged into the air and ground to dust. Small scraps of marrow touch the ground, but are immediately swallowed up by the forms of wolves in the snow.\n\n<<continue "...">>The frenzy continues until Finus' withered torso is all that hangs in Finus's mouth.\n\n<<continue "...">>It crumbles into a sprout pod.\n\n<<continue "...">>Next to you, Buer pulls himself to his feet and grabs the dagger.\n\n<<continue "...">>He pulls the blade through his clenched fist, and snatches the sprout from Aster's mouth. With one hand he takes the pot, and with the other, crams what's left of Finus into the bottom.\n\n<<continue "...">>You notice the ice-crusted phantoms of wolves [[peering|Meeting your Father]] at you from in between the surrounding trees.

A disquieting warmth fills a cavity in your stomach as you watch your friend skitter across the solid surface of the marsh.\n\nConviction has touched you in less comfortable ways.\n\n<<continue "...">>You dodge between the two trees and wobble before the beginning of the ice. Powder blocks what little you can see of the water below, but the setting sun reveals in the clearer spots that much of the golden-blue murk is frozen through--all the way to the bottom perhaps, if that's possible.\n\nNow you walk with confidence, striding across Aster's paw prints.\n\n<<continue "...">>Up ahead you can see he's leading you to an island, a boulder really. The veritable mass is coated in the same stuff everything else is.\n\nThen Aster [[stops|The Silver Branch: Alone]].

"Hey, you two!"\n\nYou both [[turn|Gaime calls2]].

<<continue "...">>Someone is calling from the sawmill, but you can't quite put your finger on it. Aster barks and runs toward the voice.\n\n<<continue "...">>You glance at Buer, he's nodding in someone's direction. You follow his eyes to see Gaime waving from the doorframe of the sawmill.\n\nBuer strides over and you [[follow|Gaime]].

In his eyes you see the father you've always [[known|The End]].

"Good show, Buer." Says Sylvine.\n\nBuer nods, looking from Sylvine to the shadow. He strolls forward, stopping just outside the ring. He sits down on a log of his own and looks back to you, gesturing at the log next to him.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You know, Buer had to place the serpent head in his mouth as well. Only way to reconstruct the seal."\n\nThinking about the stone displeases your stomach. You notice Buer grinning at you.\n\n<<continue "...">>You start to walk over, but Aster runs ahead of you, taking your place on the log.\n\nBuer shoots him a stern gaze. Sylvine breaks out into a chuckle.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Come, you've someone to [[meet|Shadow's Reveal2]]." She says.

Then you notice the image. Faces in the mountain.\n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>You feel a gust of wind.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 5s>>You twist, looking out the open window.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 8s>>That window was not open.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 11s>>They see you before you duck underneath the pane.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 14s>>In your chest you can feel a hand at your heart.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 17s>>The shutter strings hang from their holes.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 20s>>You pull them both and the shutters slam shut.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 22s>>You jump up and slide the wooden frame of the window down.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 25s>>Dane [[stirs|Dane Trouble4]] on the ground.<<endtimedinsert>>

Tripping over your feet, you approach him.\n\nHe's breathing, but it's not constant.\n\n<<continue "...">>You flip him over, he's clutching at his chest.\n\nYou feel a pang, and your hand moves to your heart.\n\nDane needs help you can't give him.\n\n<<continue "...">>You have to go [[get|Urgent Care]] Hollander. There's no other option.

At your back you can feel the press of dirt and rock.\n\nThe walls of the cave close in around you.\n\n<<continue "...">>Pairs of eyes glow at you from the shade-drawn recesses of what you percieve to be a very wide space around you.\n\nThe only noticeable exit is an incline behind the wolf standing over you. Moonlight claws its way through the opening, peeking just underneath the upper lip of the cave's mouth.\n\nSeveral wolves pace forward.\n\n<<continue "...">>The edges of their furry bodies angle harshly in the light, like the down of an infant duckling.\n\nTheir slender forms are thin at the hips, then expand at the torso, but unlike Aster their hackles are jagged and tufted.\n\nYou can't so much as detect a single tooth, however. The wolves are content to stare at you with questions rimming their hazy pearlescent spectres.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then they all stiffen. Their ears stab the air like daggers, and their eyes shift to something just behind you.\n\nThey follow the figure as it pads its way toward your skull.\n\nBreath touces your forehead. A nose scans over your face, you close your eyes as it ruffles your hair and pokes at your eyelashes.\n\n<<continue "...">>When the nose is finished fumbling around your face you look up. A lapping tongue streaks across your nose and mouth. You cringe, clamping your eyes shut, waiting through the worst of it.\n\nAfter more than several uncomfortable seconds, you throw up your arms and swat away the invasive snout.\n\nYou sit up and turn to [[see|The Den3]] exactly who you expected.

You barely know Buer, but he's usually smoking on his roof. If he's not there you would figure he'd be with Sylvine, as her apprentice and all.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Keep up, rascal!" Sylvine shouts from the middle of the avenue. "When I said 'we're looking for him' I really just meant "you. Now, come with me."\n\nShe darts around the corner in the direction of her house.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your respect for your mother is [[trumped|Follow Sylvine]] only by your fear for Sylvine.

You peer down at Aster, only to find the snow at your feet riddled with bloody paw prints. You turn around and Buer isn't there.\n\n<<continue "...">>You take a sharp breath. The trees are closer. There are more trees.\n\n<<continue "...">>You turn back and the colossus is gone, just a single standing sapling.\n\n<<continue "...">>The branches of silver seem to reach for you.\n\n<<continue "...">>Silver spindles rise from the snow, like creeping hoarfrost over vines. The air crystalizes around you, and snow blots out the treeline. You look at your frostbitten hands, covered in crusts of ice, purple and bruised.\n\n<<continue "...">>The vines crawl up your legs and you feel a sting bouncing from joint to joint as they reach each one.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your eyes begin to freeze in their sockets.\n\n<<continue "...">>All the [[white|Homecoming Prelude]] in the world meets you.

You glance around the room. Your mother's glasses lay waiting.\n\nThey slide nicely into your pocket.\n\nReturning to Dane, you clutch his torso and attempt to lift him over your shoulder. He's too large to carry, or perhaps you're too tiny to support him.

<center><<timedinsert 2s>>You pass into a dead dream.<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 5.5s>>Here you can float.<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 4s>>You can be safe.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 5s>>A scratch tingles on your shoulder like the tapping reminder of a woodpecker.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 7s>>A woodpecker on a day like this one.<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 9s>>Where the town is overcast.<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 11s>>No one is [[out|Edel's House2]].<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 1s>>There's just no one to listen to your gentle screaming.<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 2.5s>>As you drag your feet through the town.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 3.5s>>The wolf howls.<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 4.5s>>He rends the air with a chorus of lupine voice.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 1.5s>>You raise the fever on your brow, laughing to the moon.<<endtimedinsert>> \n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>You raise the hymn of your fever, laughing at the moon.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 6s>>You hum the feverous chorus as the moon howls with laughter.<<endtimedinsert>></center>

You don't know too much about Buer, but you do know you've never talked to him, or heard him speak. Striking similarity.\n\nHe's Sylvine's apprentice, and he'll often trod along the Arboretum before jogging off into the woods. Whenever he spots an animal, he just waits. It's stunning. The little creatures pace right up to him and stare into his eyes. Then he looks sad. Odd fellow. He gets along well with Aster, though, so you like him.\n\nYou can spot the guy from anywhere, wearing one of his flower crowns, the scent of the [[serpiam|Serpiam]] he smokes clinging to his heavy wool clothing.

You stare at the mess of a human with his feet hunched backward over his head.\n\n<<continue "...">>You think he's dead.\n\n<<continue "...">>He does not stir.\n\n<<if $glasses is "acquired">><<display "Dane Delivery">><<endif>><<if $glasses is "fixing">><<display "Dane Meeting">><<endif>>

In Punnapoint, we suffer several living legends. There's one such story about a pack of wolves with dens outside Tharen-petica house by the cliffside cave, and down on the far side of the mire, in-between the Hephen house and the [[Sunken Section]] behind the southwest wall.\n\nThese wolves, the "König Wolves," are known as hunters of hunters, the maw of the wilderness in the old legends. But we also have a legend about a great bear that invites you to his home in the middle of the woods by means of written invitation. Has anyone met a hospitable bear? Who is to say? But plenty of hunters, including Edel's late husband, have met the König Wolves.\n\nAlthough even that tale is ages old, according to her. She always sheds a false tear at the start, but when the tale comes to a close she's too busy cracking a pin-length smile to mind the gloom of the memory. Edel's husband was a hunter, but she was a weaver--still //is// a weaver, even at her advanced age. She enjoys having all of Cedarrant Street over for tea in the afternoon, but makes an exception whenever you ask to join. When you go to Sylvine's to pick up your mother's herbal remedy, sometimes Edel is there, sitting at Sylvine's table, her face less than a foot away from Sylvine's. They just hold each other's hands and gossip.\n\nOcassionaly, returning back from your walk, you catch her knocking on Lemond's door. Been knocking for several years.

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You decide to follow the feeling that was planted in your gut. Gaime can't have gotten far.\n\nHe probably just went back to leaning in the doorway of the sawmill. What is it with him and the //leaning//.\n\n<<continue "...">>As you cross the threshold you look back at Dane. The picture of peace.\n\nAster is laying on the ground outside the door, his tail starts to wag the moment he sees you. You greet him with a glancing tickle down his back.\n\nYou smile. Then [[start|Finding Gaime2]] on your way next door.

A brackish wave rushes out in response.\n\n<<continue "...">>The unsaintly glow of eyes surrounds the smokey prison in which you stand. Only a shroud of glass separates you and the roots stretched across your transparent barrier.\n\n<<continue "...">>Cracks form where the roots continue to press. Cloudy, olive-hued water seeps in and quickly starts to engulf you.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now you are in the marsh, surrounded by glass, surrounded by smoke and feral wooden hands, [[grasping|The Bottle: Alone3]] at you with their teeth.

Pretty soon you can see the marsh opening up, although there's nothing to look at but ice glazed over a soiled tundra.\n\nArches of petrified wood jut from the surface of the frozen mire, imitating the dead trees that sparsely grid the biome. \n\nThose are graves.\n\n<<continue "...">>Graves washed away in the invasive marsh--or so you presume.\n\nYou don't come out here often, but there's a morbid thought that crosses your mind every time you see them.\n\n<<continue "...">>There always appear to be more than last time.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now Aster darts to the side of the path, side-stepping a low brush in favor of a split between two thick-trunked trees. He's moving out onto the ice.\n\nYour heart [[beats|Southern Pathway: Alone7]] in your chest.

Aster looks over his shoulder as you rush to kneel in front of him. His eyes are set like two complacent aquamarines inside his skull. You remove the packet of sketches from your pocket, holding their drawings face-down to avoid smudging them in the snowfall.\n\nAster extends his snout ever so slightly. It twitches against the surface of the papers.\n\nHe looks in your eyes one more time. You stand.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now his nose waves through the air, inspecting every sense that comes of it. He checks behind him and on the ground all around. When he comes to alert you signal him off, and off is exactly where he darts.\n\nYou chase after his trail. He's not outrunning you, but his curiosity is getting the better of him.\n\n<<continue "...">>The further from town you travel, the more snow there is to slug through on the path. Aster has no problem hopping and pushing, but you need to avoid falling in the frost piles.\n\nSnowflakes stream around your face as you [[carve|Southern Pathway: Alone6]] through Aster's intermittent hop marks. One falls fatefully into your open mouth and you savor the moisture in your parched throat.

You must have left your coat at Hollander's. You can return to pick it up later, and probably get chewed out for leaving Dane alone.\n\nAt this point, you've had a troubling day, enough that a little cold won't be the last nail in your coffin. You've got a friendly score to settle with Gaime for tricking you at so many turns.\n\n<<continue "...">>You've walked a bit too far without checking your surroundings, though, so you stop and examine the elements.\n\nThen you remember something that truly causes your heart to race.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster is a dog.\n\n<<continue "...">>Perhaps you'd thought of it before and just forgotten, but Aster could probably find Gaime from his leftover scent on each sketch. In fact, Gaime probably planned on you doing that all along.\n\nThe thought makes you [[sink|Southern Pathway: Alone5]] in the saddle of your previously high horse.

It feels like you can see quite far into your surroundings. The marsh to your right is no more open at this point than the rest of the woods, though if you ventured over into it you'd never come out.\n\nThe sun shines off the surface of the ice-crusted water. But if you stare too long it blinds you, so you just glide your eyes forward a bit, reaching for where the marsh might open up.\n\nThe drawing did not include details such as trees. The background was that of ice, and mounds of snow.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster growls. You skid to a halt over a patch of ice on the dirt.\n\nStock-still doesn't begin to describe anything while you can feel your heart struggling against the muscles keeping it inside your chest.\n\n<<continue "...">>You taste remnants of bile in your throat, from when, you don't know.\n\nA breeze blows around you, fettering your arms to your waist. You realize you're not wearing your coat.\n\nThe cold sets in then. Running its teeth along your skin as you stare at hairs beginning to rise.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster does not bark again, and the both of you keep moving, but he positions himself in front of you for the remainder of your [[stroll|Southern Pathway: Alone4]].

You take your first steps south down the center of Punnapoint Avenue, towards the southern pathway. Aster follows close behind you, his panting distracts you in the moment as the treeline begins to congest the sides of the path.\n\nYou stop at the southern entrance of Punnapoint. The only entrance, really. This is where the gate stands, so shrouded with bramble you sometimes forget it says "Punnapoint" up there in rusted wrought iron. Patina accents the spots of orange and brown that mar the cauldron-black letters.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then just like that, you continue through, stepping into a new set of boundaries. Now you follow the law of the woods, and its denizens follow you.\n\nThe sun is setting, gilding the icy flecks that have been falling all day. Through the empty trees around you, a light speckles as it's torn to shreds by hooked branches and knotted canopies. Each shadow on the ground, a [[scar|Southern Pathway: Alone3]].

You've yet to give Edel a visit today, but you arrive to find her shutters are still locked tight across her windows.\n\nHer rocking chair isn't even out on the porch.\n\nYou thought she might aid you in [[locating|Punnapoint Free Roam]] Gaime, but it would be foolish to seek her out first.

You jolt upright, missing Buer's head by inches. His mouth is agape.\n\n<<continue "...">>He doubles back, eyes wide, with a serious inquiry resting on his lips and eyebrows. He's holding a lantern in one hand.\n\nYou can't tell what's going on behind his dimly lit face, until he throws a thumb over his shoulder and leaves the room.\n\n<<continue "...">>With the lantern gone you sit in the pale light of the waxing moon. You can hear Aster rise as he shakes his fur. He follows the lantern light glowing in the doorframe.\n\nThe two attempt to quietly descend the stairs, but the creaking floorboards sabotage them.\n\n<<continue "...">>You are left to yourself. Then you [[realize|Spiriting away2]] what he meant.

Buer stands, removing a leather casing from his pocket. A sinew wraps around the casing, keeping it closed.\n\nHe looks to you, beckoning you toward the fern with the wave of a hand.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster watches you from //his// log.\n\nShadow floats back to settle beside Sylvine, the glow from the candles barely touching its pure black mass.\n\n<<continue "...">>You draw closer to the symbols on the ground and the red-wax candles. The snow has melted around the circle. You can see a ring of dead grass around the dirt just before the ring of snow begins.\n\n<<continue "...">>Wax drips from the candles and puddles around them, like a puddle pooling around the hewn neck of a slaughtered lamb. The bonefern stretches out to you on your approach. It [[shivers|The Potted Bonefern2]] in the light.

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Her house is quite a bit better furnished than yours. There are tables in every shape and for every purpose littered about the room, and on top of each of them are bobbles and toys, books and doilies, everything and nothing catches your eye.\n\nBarbère has wandered deeper into the house. You can hear her mulling over a kettle, and the subtle pouring of tea into a cup.\n\nWhen she reappears she's holding a cup in one hand and a cube in her other, palm up, as if to avoid completely wrapping her fingers around it.\n\n<<continue "...">>"He said you'd be looking for this object. Now you can't have it, but you //may// hold and inspect it."\n\nShe says so, making eye contact with you. As you wind your way around the edges of tables you struggle to hold her gaze.\n\n<<continue "...">>She extends both hands, the tea swirls in its cup, but the cube just sits.\n\nLikewise, you [[take|The Puzzlebox: Alone2]] both.

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The monster on the far side rises over the roof and then dips back down in a constant rotation.\n\n<<continue "...">>At least it would if it weren't Wanebough--the Canter months couldn't ever come fast enough.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer mumbles under his breath and starts towards the door. Aster follows him, but Buer turns and waves him away, then looks at you.\n\n<<continue "...">>You [[think|The Watermill2]] he would prefer your companionship rather than the dog's right now.

The bathing chill of the moonbeams cry upon your naked form.\n\nYou stand within view of the town of Punnapoint. Street lamps peek through the empty trees.\n\nAster starts off toward the town. The wolves linger at the mouth of the cave. You watch them in their hesitation.\n\n<<continue "...">>The single husky walks alone in a fresh layer of snow, leaving tracks for you to [[follow|The Night Walk2]].

"Why didn't you stop when I asked you?"\n\n<<continue "...">>She stops an inch from your face. Aster's tail darts in between his legs.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Never mind it. Look here, have you seen the one named Buer by any chance?"\n\n<<continue "...">><<if visited("Cedarrant St.")>>[[Yes.|Seen Buer]]<<else>>[[No.|Not Seen Buer]]<<endif>>

Connected to the Tharen-Petica estate by a bridge on the second story, the bell tower is the only building in Punnapoint made from stone. The stack of slabs rise over the immense size of the manor by at least half its height, making it the tallest building in Punnapoint geographically. At the top of the structure are four ledges, with crudely carved creatures perched upon them, each one taking different animal characteristics, but all bearing wings. You suspect Punnapoint must have had some impressive stonemasons in the past. There aren't any now, impressive or not.\n\n<<continue "...">>And you've never heard its bell ring, come to think of it.\n\nA feeling nags at the nape of your neck, much like the cold lick of wind coursing over you now. You [[turn|North Side2]] your attention back to where you're going.

The cold metal tickles your fingertips as it draws close. You feel the urge to split each one open at its end.\n\n<<continue "...">>A searing welt forms on your hand, but you cannot see it. You turn the blade on edge.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then...\n\n<<continue "...">>You rend into your flesh.\n\n<<continue "...">>Beads of blood fill the narrow gutter left by the dagger.\n\n<<continue "...">>You hover one hand over the bonefern and it twitches, reaching its fronds out at last, like a human dying of thirst stretches their arms out to the sky, mouth wide open.\n\n<<continue "...">>And you pour.\n\n<<continue "...">>The fiendish plant bathes and soaks in the tint of your blood. Its marrow is slowly [[filled|The Potted Bonefern4]] and it sifts through maroon and crimson hues.

<<if visited("Gaime")>>Gaime stands by himself in the doorway to the sawmill. He looks like he could be humming, but you don't hear anything.<<else>>The empty marketplace is characteristic of a meeting day. No sounds from the sawmill either. This used to unsettle you, but it's an opportunity to see the town in a different way. You wonder if Buer thinks that as well.<<endif>>\n\nIt's remarkably silent on North Side today. Although you can hear an uproar of laughter coming from [[town hall|Konig Plaza]].

There are two livable houses down Gerrand Street. One is the water mill connected to the [[River Subtle]] and the other is empty. Been empty since The Dutë's passed. Carrow moved out afterwards and became a midwife.\n\nYou've been thinking about moving there, taking up responsibility at the [[watermill|Watermill]]. Maybe move your mother there as well, free up your place for the Jec's.\n\nThe rest of the street is flooded. Two families were forced to abandon their homes long before you were even born. Their houses still stand, though.\n\nThat's all to see on Gerrand Street. You make your way back onto [[Punnapoint Avenue|The Streets]].

Buer glances at you and then quickly away, tossing his head. If he's upset that's your only indicator. Your cheeks buzz and you wonder why.\n\nA gasping cough escapes from underneath the sheets. You jump to your feet and generate some distance between yourself and the bed. Buer shifts from one foot to the other and then struts out the door.\n\nHollander waves as you walk by. You return the gesture with a smile as you [[leave|Going with Buer]] the good doctor's home.

"That was the puzzlebox. Next is the branch. You already have that sketch, I think."\n\nShe looks at you now. You're aware Barbère isn't too old, but right now the wrinkles around her eyes crease as an ounce of suspicion seeps into her gaze. She tilts her chin up just the slightest bit, then turns away with her forehead, as you've seen Aster do when he wants you to leave him be.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Take the sketch on the table behind you if you'd like, but find the branch first. Why Gaime would want to spent so much time //playing// with you is beyond me."\n\nYou waste no time rising from the couch. On the end table, behind where your head was, sits a tall portly pot. A rolled parchment, between thumb and forefinger's length, sits inside.\n\nWithout pause, you [[raise|Serpent-Head Sketch]] the sketch from its temporary home.

Your veins hang in your arms and legs, alternating between tensing and then relaxing. The heart in your chest stings through your torso as you gasp for breath.\n\nBile clings to the sides of your throat, the film tastes of pickle, only not as sweet. You imagine the bile in your veins as well and you shudder.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Open your eyes, now."\n\nThe old woman's voice coos at you from far away.\n\n<<continue "...">>Something grazes your chin. A splash clears your lips and enters your mouth. You hold it there as warmth bolsters your tongue against the roof of your mouth.\n\n"Did you hear me? Open your eyes."\n\n<<continue "...">>At once, you blink and hold your eyelids steady against your brow.\n\nYou lay nearly upright, angled against a roughly woven fabric. Barbère rocks to and fro in a chair, just in front of your propped feet. She stares ahead. There is no liquid in your mouth. There never [[was|Barbere's House: Alone3]].

You perch on the second stair of Lemond's front porch, slowly backing down to the first.\n\nLemond's smile turns savage and menacing. She passes through her door and squints her eyes.\n\n<<continue "...">>"So it's gonna be like that then?"\n\nYou notice then that she's not looking your way. She's looking past you, to Aster in the middle of the street. He yawns with all the passion a dog could possibly have.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Gaime was here earlier. Said you'd be coming."\n\nYou say nothing.\n\n<<continue "...">>"That's just as well. Chip off the old block. Come, I'll fetch you a cup for yourself."\n\nYou reluctantly [[follow|The Puzzlebox: Alone]] her as she fades through the doorframe.

Your feet soak as they melt the layer of ice beneath them. You start to walk, minding your steps in care. A blanket of dead cold closes around you. Each step causes tremors throughout your body, and your eyes begin to leak as their tear ducts desperately fight against the freeze.\n\nAster turns and inspects you for a moment before doubling back and rushing to your side.\n\nHe thrusts your arm over his neck. The skin underneath his fur sends a shock through your hand and a burning sensation flies up your arm, leaving a numbness after the shiver ends.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your head spins.\n\n<<timedinsert 2s>>You can<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 4s>>feel...<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 6s>>...wait...<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 9s>>...you can...<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 11s>>you <<hoverlink "The Nightmare" "can" "can't">> go on.<<endtimedinsert>>

Canter: The three months of passage between cold and warm, when the clear air of the east comes down the the eastern mountain.\n\nSerpicanter: The fourth month of the shortest days of the year, when the cold recedes and the showers start pouring\n\nMidicanter: The fifth month of the shortest days of the year, and the month of transition between the beginning and end of Canter\n\nSalticanter: The last month of the shortest days of the year, when the flora and fauna start to bud and reproduce and the air becomes thicker.\n\nBright: The three months of musky heat, when the forest blows with sultry winds coming down the southern mountain.\n\nDaybright: The first month of the longest days of the year, jumping between phases of punishing heat and sudden downpours.\n\nMidbright: The second month of the longest days of the year, and the month of transition between the beginning and end of Bright.\n\nNightbright: The third month of the longest days of the year, slowly the nights become a tad colder.\n\nCinder: The three months of passage between warm and cold, when the misty winds of the west sweep down over the western mountains.\n\nGlowcinder: The fourth month of the longest days of the year, when the thick air cedes to brisk winds.\n\nMidcinder: The fifth month of the longest days of the year, and the month of transition between the beginning and end of Cinder.\n\nDarkcinder: The last month of the longest days of the year, when the trees lose their leaves and snow starts to fall.\n\nBough: The three cold months of chill and frost, when the forest blows with frigid air coming down the northern mountain.\n\nWaxbough: The first month of the shortest days of the year, with harsh snowstorms and ice covering just about everything.\n\nMidbough: The second month of the shortest days of the year, and the month of transition between the beginning and end of Bough\n\nWanebough: The third month of the shortest days of the year, least crusted in ice, but he air is still thin and the snow still falls.\n

The shields around the shadows flicker. Bright irises shine in the doorway at the end of the room. You can suddenly see everyone as the figure in the doorway steals away the veil.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your senses return. The face and the figure are nowhere to be seen. Instead you're greeted back to consciousness by Hollander, your mother, and Buer. Your mother holds a dripping rag.\n\n<<continue "...">>Hollander brushes the sweat from his brow and folds his head over the table beside you. Buer stares hard-faced into your eyes then shuts his own, exhaling sharply.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your mother smiles<<if $glasses is "fixing">>, her eyes glint behind a pair of lenses<<endif>>. You look to see the kettle full of the tea you're eager for, it fumes silently over the fire. A single wooden cup and saucer sit above it on fireplace.\n\n<<continue "...">>In your periphery you can see Aster wagging his tail, he's rushed over to the [[table|Awake3]], barking and yipping.

Buer extends a hand, along with the casing.\n\nYou take it from him...\n\n<<continue "...">>... And draw the sinew away from it.\n\nNow the casing rolls open, revealing a slender, curved dagger that tapers before its end.\n\n<<continue "...">>The single-edged blade is attached to the hilt by roots, or bones, that snake their way from the base of the blade to the end of the hilt in a manic twist.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your heart rushes to the surface of your blood, ripples jerking throughout your body. Sweat crosses your brow and drips off your nose.\n\nAnd you [[place|The Potted Bonefern3]] the flat of the blade against your palm.

"The last artifact rests in my possession, and I keep it here in the arboretum at Sylvine's behest." The shadow bends out of the way so that you may look behind it.\n\n<<continue "...">>You examine the fern. The ridges in its stalk and its sallow, bone-like complexion give off an unnatural feeling. Its fronds fan out like bat wings lacking membrane. The shadow straightens itself and your eyes reunite.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Do you understand what I need from you?"\n\nYou shake your head.\n\n<<continue "...">>"All things must drink."\n\nA wave of panic makes its way down your back.\n\n<<continue "...">>"My name is Shadow. That should be easy to remember."\n\n<<continue "...">>"Sylvine, Buer, I leave this task to you."\n\nSylvine nods.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Right. Buer, you've handled the situation up until now, might as well [[finish|The Potted Bonefern]] the job."

<<if $glasses is "acquired">>You'd best [[deliver|Spying Gaime]] your mother's glasses.<<endif>><<if $glasses is "fixing">>You decide to [[conclude|Spying Gaime]] your interactions with Dane for the day.<<endif>>

<<continue "...">>The door opens.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I see the one who would be late became the two!"\n\nIn the doorway, arms on her hips, stands Yvette.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You should come in before the cold does."\n\nBuer looks at you and nods, his eyes like glass in dark water.\n\nYou step inside a well-lit [[place|The Hall of Konig Punnapoint]].

The stone expands in your mouth, extending, slithering down your throat. \n\nYour body itches and a sour sense of indulgence creeps out of your genitals. The warmth of your own piss mingles with the dying heart at the base of the tub. The heart beats and sends ripples outwards to bounce against the edges.\n\nYour reflection draws near.\n\n<<continue "...">>It stretches against the surface tension of the liquid. Two hands held together tear at the loose, black curtain drawn between body and host.\n\nSlowly, fingers drip through the ink, pulling little rings along with them, melding into one at the wrist.\n\n<<continue "...">>The hand reaches for your face, and shifts its four fingers and thumb as if to pluck grapes from a vine.\n\nThe stone vibrates in your throat, squirming further down your esophagus, meeting bile clenched without clear passage. It forces the amalgam of acids back toward the entrance of your stomach.\n\n<<continue "...">>The hand closes around your jaw as you [[lose|Homecoming Prelude]] all sensation.

The profile of a serpent's head immediately greets you. Its pupil-less eyes stare at the corner of the page, as if it lost them somewhere outside the sketch.\n\nGaime certainly didn't outdo himself, but you sense he did so on purpose. You can tell that his skill rises to challenge the detail of each piece, and not the other way around.\n\nYou look a little longer at the profile, nothing is jumping out at you. It has no scale pattern, no coloration, just shadowing. Gaime drew the image of a snake, not an actual snake. Or perhaps he just recreated what he was looking at.\n\nIn any case, you've got to [[find|Punnapoint Free Roam]] that branch.

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Sylvine is nowhere to be seen, but you can hear metal clanging against bare wooden floorboards and a muffled string of silly words you've never heard.\n\n<<continue "...">>You step away from the door and into her living quarters. There are creepers all over, the vines tangle on the walls and hang from the ceiling, holding lanterns. Her assortment of furniture is carved from the stumps of trees. None of the pieces look very comfortable.\n\n<<continue "...">>Sylvine hollers from the other room just as you were noticing the tree trunk in the middle of the northern wall.\n\nYou [[start|Sylvine's Quest]] towards her voice.

The trees that hang over the fence of the schoolyard menace, like fiends on all fours.\n\n<<continue "...">>They crawl further down and into the schoolyard, as if invited.\n\n<<continue "...">>The masses of root and bramble surround you. The creaking of their barken hide sets your hairs on end.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your vision [[crumbles|Homecoming Prelude]] to dust.

And for a brief moment you look closely at the etchings. They glow a faint green.\n\n<<continue "...">>You notice roots around the other end of the ring and you jolt in surprise.\n\n<<continue "...">>You let the ring slip from your fingers and it drops against the ground with a metallic [[//clang//|Touch the ring3]].

If moxie came in small packages, they would call those packages Yvette. She's a spritely girl who aspires to be Sylvine's apprentice, so much that she moved closer to her.\n\nYvette is only twenty, but she's already living on her own, and although she doesn't have a job, she's trying to convince Sylvine that she's worth the time.\n\nShe moved in around the same time as Buer, several months back, and she //still// resents that he got the house next to Sylvine.\n\nEvery time she sees you, she waves and you wave back. You never talk, but you're close friends, the both of you.\n\nYou smile and [[stroll|Left]] back along the street.

<center>"We cannot express"</center><<timedgoto "Finus: Alone3"2s>>

And then the sensations kick in. It starts like a itch at the ends of your fingers and toes, which spreads to your elbows and knees. All of your joints eventually harmonize on a frequency you think you can hear.\n\nSplashes of water drop against your face. Your jaw slackens and your eyes hum as the water cleaves through your petrified eyelids. As you open them, you think about the fog dreams of the past several hours--about the thrumming of your brow as it begins to itch. Inside their sockets your eyes begin to itch as well.\n\n<<continue "...">>"As soon as you can move again... um... just don't scratch, okay? You're probably a tad tingly."\n\nYou can tell it's Edel now, her voice comes in clearly as if there was a potato sack over your head just before.\n\nThe [[urge|Edel's House4]] to bring your skin relief never settles in.

Mitchel Pini

The three of you stroll down Gerrand Street, past the empty Dutë house, and up to the watermill.\n\n<<display "The Watermill">>

"Hello."\n\nGood job, you spoke today. Carrow smiles and fixes her eyes down the road where the group of people who passed by earlier are passing over the bridge.\n\nAster runs up to her and she pats his head. He barks once and spins in a circle, rolling over on his back.\n\nCarrow smiles but doesn't have anything to say, just goes back to her pruning. Always been one to prune rather than preen.\n\nAnyway, [[moving|The Streets]] on....

There's a scratching at the door, then a thin white snout pokes its way in between the crack.\n\nThe tip of the nose wriggles, then puffs in a sneeze before slipping back out.\n\nYou remember how to smile as the shape curves its way up your cheeks.\n\n<<continue "...">>And then your eyes fall on the sketch of a bear.\n\nYour fingers brace the skin of the door, sliding their way up its chest and towards the neck. The drawing is less melancholy than you [[expected|Branch Sketch2]].

Dane hands you several pieces of photopaper, surprisingly pristine, each depicting a different angle of Eck's Point.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I wanted to get the same shot from different times of day, but ended up doing three shots from the exact same time of day. In hindsight, my first idea would have taken less time, and I'm not even considering the hassle of developing them..."\n\nWhile he rails off, you inspect each of the photos, carefully noting the different shades at play and the nature Dane attempted to capture.\n\n<<continue "...">>"...but you know all about processing, splish-splash and whatnot--hey, kid?"\n\nYou were just starting to notice something in the pictures.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You could see it couldn't you?"\n\nYou glance back at the photo and then back up, grimacing.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Sorry, I didn't mean to break your concentration."\n\nYou meet his gaze. Two little bags sit underneath his almost vacant eyes. You can't decide which pair to [[glare|Lenscrafter4]] at.\n\n

You don't like it when he prompts you to speak. It's not necessary. Dane knows who in town wears glasses and why, their specifications, and that the only reason anyone would come into his tattered shop is to get those glasses replaced.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Sorry, I did it, didn't I?"\n\nYou blush and nod. Eyebrows furrowed, you walk up to the counter, avoiding eye contact.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Got them right there then? I'll fix them up and you can come grab them later." He places the pieces of the frame on the counter and takes your mother's broken glasses.<<set $glasses to "fixing">>\n\n<<continue "...">>"Now, you can just nod to confirm. I took some new pictures of the mountains this morning, wanna see?"\n\n<<continue "...">>Dane can tell by the way your face lights up. He strides off up the stairs at the back of the shop. You can hear him shuffling above, setting pictures to develop and removing pinned photos from his line.\n\nHe comes back downstairs slightly out of breath.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Take a gander--no, take two ganders.\n\nYour [[eagerness|Lenscrafter3]] gets the better of you.

You step outside into the deep of night, an almost fatal reminder of the night's events.\n\nThe moon is missing from the sky, and someone else is missing too. You expected Aster to be right outside, but he's nowhere to be seen. There are prints on the ground, partially covered by fresh snow, but the air hangs still now.\n\nOff the street to your left is a billowing fire, which leaps like a frantic deer hoping to escape into the trees from whatever predator's jaws await.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your eyes have seen better days, but you believe there's a figure standing near the fire.\n\nYou start to walk toward the [[arboretum|The Arboretum: Alone2]].

You turn to see Buer standing in the doorway, you feel like you can move again.\n\nBuer is looking at you. The flower crown on his head loses a stray leaf. You take a step forward.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Say hello to the Sintlebear for me, Buer."\n\nHe flashes a sour grimace and ducks out through the door.\n\n<<continue "...">>You follow him. Outside, the sun is nearing half past, it sears through the overcast pattern like a firefly in the fog. You didn't think you were in there for that long.\n\nBest you [[move|Walking with Buer]] quickly.

Named for its quiet washing of the valley. The river has been running thicker for the last decade, evidence of that is all along the rocky shore to the east. if you keep following Gerrand Street you'll come across the sunken pathway, completely erroded by the river. Pretty soon it'll claim that house too. Those folks moved long ago, back when the disaster was predicted, and the rest of us can't wait to see how it will affect the ecology.\n\nThe muddy waters distract you for a moment before you [[continue|Gerrand St.]] along.

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You're not sure what you expected, the fire or the fern, but you glance at Gaime just to check. He nods in front of him.\n\nYou peer back at the fern, which you swear stands taller than it had moments ago. From this distance the fire sails in the sky, and never seems to end. Looking up that high sends a jolt through your neck and you return your gaze to the sketch.\n\nIt resembles a tangled furnace of burning roots, foliage under the duress of charcoal flames. In a spherical alcove, upon a bed of ash, sits the potted plant.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You have the rest of my drawings."\n\nBefore you realize what he's doing, Gaime grabs ahold of your jacket. He thrusts his hand in between stitching you never noticed and pulls out all of the sketches you had collected.\n\n<<continue "...">>"My thanks..."\n\nHe cradles the sketches as he approaches the fern.\n\n<<continue "...">>"... But we're not finished yet."\n\n<<continue "...">>You don't understand. The fern sways in the wind, and yet there is no wind. It moves as if it is already aflame--as if it already burned right down to the bone.\n\nThe flats of your hands and feet tingle. The heat of the fire brushes past your body, cutting an outline in the air. It's the warmest touch you've felt all day.\n\n<<continue "...">>"It's fueled by your efforts."\n\nAn odor rides down your throat through your nostrils, it's of roasted steak lined with popping fat. A metal tang lifts the roof of your mouth and a slither of charcoal fills the void. Saliva slicks your tongue as sweat greases the back of your neck.\n\nAnd now you [[slip|The Potted Bonefern: Alone2]] toward the fern.

Then again, your mother usually lays awake in bed for a while, she might even still be asleep. The whistling of the kettle will get her up and moving either way, but perhaps it would be better not to rush her morning process.\n\n<<continue "...">>It's one thing to wait for the water to boil, it's an entirely different beast to enjoy a cup of tea. Mom likes it though, says it enriches your spirit. But she also lets Aster have some, so her credibility is uncertain. Your not much for it, but a little honey-laced serpiam tea keeps your limbs warm.\n\n<<continue "...">>... Perhaps you will [[set|Home][$ob +=1; $kettle = "boiling"]] the tea.\n\nOr perhaps you're thinking about this too much. [[Leave|Home][$in +=1; $kettle = "cold"]] the kettle be.

<<if $clothes is "clean">>You stroll over to the other side of the room and open up the wardrobe. Inside are the linens and your everyday outdoor wear. You select heavier clothes to ward off the chilling air and drop your dirty clothes in the hamper.<<endif>><<if $clothes is "dirty">>The prospect of a new day excites you too much to be dragged down by chores.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $dog is "awake">>Aster still needs to [[eat|Feed Dog]], you can't ignore that.<<else>>An unexpected [[bark|Angry Dog]] fills your ears, followed by a whine that hangs on loosely at the end.<<endif>>

"You're coming with me, we're looking for him."\n\n<<continue "...">>You open your mouth to speak but Sylvine snaps a long finger against your lips.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Not even a //peep// out of //you//."\n\n<<continue "...">>You [[nod|Search for Buer]] in reply.

<center><big>The Town of Punnapoint</big>\n\nA Digital Interactive Story by Mitchel Pini\n\n[[Start|Wake Up]]\n[[How To|Instructions]]\n[[Credits]]\n</center>

You feel the roots grasping at your body, attempting to bend and break you at every corner.\n\n<<continue "...">>Finus stares at you with eyes that are not there.\n\n<<continue "...">>He dangles Buer next to you, ever higher, threatening to make your nightmares a reality.\n\n<<continue "...">>The moon above shakes its cloak of sky.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then you [[see|Banishing Finus3]] it.

You lay in the tub, unsure of what to do.\n\nWhen you tell your arms and legs to move, they waver under the water. They're weighed down, soggy from drinking too much.\n\nYou imagine the tips of your fingers opening their myriad mouths and gulping down flecks of wet coal.\n\n<<continue "...">>Through the marble haze Edel returns to your vision. She holds something closed in her palm.\n\n"Can you open your mouth? This will help."\n\nHer elderly knees knock against each other as she leans on the tub.\n\nYour jaw cocks down, a stiff lolling tongue falls out like an appraiser over a perfectly cut gem.\n\n<<continue "...">>Edel reaches out and places the [[serpent-head stone|The Serpent Head Stone: Alone]] in your mouth. She circles around behind you, catching your neck in a hold, keeping your jaw shut tight.

You stand at Buer's side as he pulls at the handle of the door.\n\n<<continue "...">>It sticks fast.\n\n<<continue "...">>That's not right.\n\n<<continue "...">>There's an escaping sense of safety all around you.\n\n<<continue "...">>The hall is quiet.\n\n<<continue "...">>Roots make their way from underneath the door.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer doesn't notice. Instead, he [[knocks|Konig Hall]].

You turn the corner onto Cispill street and you're back home.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster takes the lead, probably thinking you're heading home, but he whines when he discovers the two of you have stopped in front of Lemond Barbere's house.\n\nBuer sighs when Aster growls and runs into your house.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Me too, Aster." You can hear him mutter under his breath.\n\nHe looks at you with resignation in his eyes, then lifts a single arm to pave the way.\n\n<<continue "...">>You nod and tap up the steps, you haven't [[seen|Barbere's House]] Barbere in a while.

Now live it [[again|Finus7]].

<<timedinsert 3s>>You gasp<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5s>>arms flung out<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 7s>>voice stolen<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 9s>>no time<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 10s>>no<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 12s>>breath<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedgoto "Homecoming Prelude" 17s>>

The pulsing in your hand gives way to the pleasure of the potted bonefern.\n\n<<continue "...">>The moon cries out from behind its cloud cover. You hear a thin whine just before roots surge from the ground all around the runic writing. It sounds like Aster. They converge around your body, pinning you up in the air.\n\n<<continue "...">>You search around for an answer, Shadow and Sylvine gaze up at you. The witch's face holds a grim expression, and Shadow's twin lights remind you of gleams you've seen in your mother's eyes.\n\n<<continue "...">>To your right, Buer joins you in the air as roots twirl him around, flipping him upside down. His belongings fling themselves from his pockets in a mad ballet.\n\n<<continue "...">>His eyes meet yours in a single moment. A glimpse of his face is enough to well you up.\n\n<<continue "...">>But then the bonefern [[catches|The Potted Bonefern5]] your attention.

<<if $dog is "awake">><<display "Dog:awake">><<endif>><<if $dog is "asleep">><<display "Dog:asleep">><<endif>>

<<continue "...">>You take in the quiet.\n\n<<timedinsert 7s>>Aster breathes and a little cloud leaves through his nostrils.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 11s>>Snow crunches as Buer continues strolling to the hall, his hands in his pockets.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 16s>>There's grumbling and sometimes subtle laughter coming from the hall.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 21s>>You notice how cold you feel.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 24s>>Through your snow-blurred vision you can see Buer waving you over.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 27s>>[[Follow him|Entrance to the hall]].<<endtimedinsert>>

You follow his footsteps as Aster runs around you. The snow has fallen in uneven clumps around the forest. There are spots where the trees have blocked the falling snow, and spots where the breeze, with all its cunning, could not penetrate.\n\n<<continue "...">>The path is waylaid with slush, and the wide marks left by each morning exchange are barely visible underneath the snow and ice layers.\n\n<<continue "...">>Up in the sky the sun is dipping lower, as overcast sac clouds osbcure its fading light. Mist droops down periodically, obscuring the road ahead like a sheer cotton blanket.\n\n<<continue "...">>Soon the sun will [[pass|Southern Pathway3]] and become eclipsed by the mountains. During that time it will start to seem like the nighttime you're used to. You'll have spare little time to return after that.

You approach the pile of Dane.\n\nThe stairs are littered with photographs. Photographs of mountains.\n\n<<continue "...">>Dane's legs come down, and his head shoots up.\n\n"How may I help you?" He asks.\n\nYou notice he's looking toward the top of the staircase.\n\n<<continue "...">>His attention shifts to you after several seconds of silence. The glasses sit in your outstretched hand. He furrows his brow, but then they shoot up.\n\n"Your mother's are they? I can fix those, yep. Her replacements are easy, just wish she wouldn't break them so often."\n\n<<continue "...">>"I, uh... need to get some supplies from upstairs."\n\nHe immediately trips, planting his face along several steps.\n\n<<continue "...">>He scampers up the rest on his hands and knees.\n\nYou [[wonder|Dane Trouble]] what he's like on a bad day.

The feeling in your fingers and toes is returning.\n\nYou have a mind to figure out what's going on, but you can't form the question.\n\n<<continue "...">>You make a noise like a question.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You can speak? One-upped you, Buer."\n\nFootsteps beat against the boards behind you, stomping out the door. Aster barks outside.\n\nYou lift the hawkbeak necklace and [[point|Sylvine's Quest7]] at it.

<<if not visited("Gaime")>><<goto "Gaime calls1">><<endif>>The both of you enter the plaza. The shops you're so used to line the fronts of apartments and the center of the plaza. Each stall is devoid of goods, everyone is either at home or in the meeting hall.\n\n<<continue "...">>The buildings in the plaza are among the tallest in all of Punnapoint. Every single one is a two-story apartment, it's where all the single-named families live. They run the shops in exchange for living quarters.\n\n<<continue "...">>Ordinarily folks would be bustling and weaving throughout the plaza, gathering their groceries for the day. Everyone gets their share here in Punnapoint, so long as you show your work stamp.\n\nYou [[stop|Quiet in the plaza]] for a moment.

"Buer, that's enough, they're still sensitive."\n\nSylvine hovers in front of your face. She's leaning in close, eyeing you. There are hands on your shoulders.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Buer let go, they're fine."\n\nBuer breathes out sharply through his nostrils.\n\nThe pressure on your shoulders immediately [[disappears|Sylvine's Quest5]].

"Millow's kid indeed," Sylvine says, "I felt the knocker while I was tending the greenhouse. That Cyrus lad must have left it unattended. I'll speak to him later."\n\n<<continue "...">>"Would you take this one around and [[reseal|Sylvine's Quest6]] the rest, Buer?"

No. You [[refuse|Punnapoint Ave]] to go back.

Sylvine looks from you to the necklace and back, blank expressioned.\n\n<<continue "...">>"And wouldn't you like to know?"\n\nYou nod.\n\n<<continue "...">>"It's a seal, like I implied before." she explains as she tilts her head. "Come, don't look at me like that, must I explain myself further?"\n\nYou nod again. Her eyes roll in their sockets.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You went to the library last night, correct?"\n\nYou stop yourself from nodding.\n\n<<continue "...">>"That Colcoma brat, Korb, still work there?"\n\nShe smiles when she sees your expression.\n\n<<continue "...">>"How about Finus, did you meet him?"\n\nYou [[make|Sylvine's Quest8]] no noticeable response--at least you think you don't.

The most flammable building in all of Punnapoint... is the joke everyone makes about the storehouse.\n\nIt's all wood in there. Carpentry surplus storage that isn't immediately used during the [[Bright|Months]] months.\n\nThe storehouse has only ever burned down once. Not like the loss was all that huge, wood isn't exactly sparse around Punnapoint.\n\nGaime doesn't keep a lit lantern in there anymore.\n\nYou pace [[back|North Side2]] to the avenue.

There are two places in Punnapoint you visit everyday, the König Punnapoint Library up on the hill, and Sylvine's Arboretum.\n\nThe Arboretum is a marvelous little garden of rundown houses meeting at a crux with Sylvine's greenhouse. A lot of the tangle you've seen in the Arboretum you've never found anywhere else. All the pines in the enclosure sport barks of red and blue, and the birches rest in between pastel hues of purple and orange, Sylvine probably tampered with them.\n\nYou stroll up and down the short walk, carefully skirting the edges of the thicker woods. After winding your way through the colors of the sunset, you [[leave|Knoprune St.]] the Arboretum.

"I knew it"\n\n<<continue "...">>Chirping tones linger in your ears.\n\nYou feel the floor of Sylvine's kitchen against your back.\n\n<<continue "...">>A grunt erupts from a place you can't see, and a firm grip lifts you by the shoulders and drags you into a seat.\n\n<<continue "...">>The necklace hangs loosely around your neck. Although you sense that it's [[clutching|Sylvine's Quest4]] onto you.

As it draws near it looks from you, to Aster, to Buer, and nods.\n\nBuer smiles your way, waving from his hip.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then he approaches it.\n\nThe bear stops, at last, at the edge of the pit, which it proceeds to climb into. After nestling into a sphere it sags a bit, then ceases to move.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer looks at you and points toward the tree. He then strolls over to it.\n\nYou walk over to the sleeping bear and the tree on its side.\n\n<<continue "...">>You notice the tree has many branches, but one [[branch|The Silver Branch]] in particular has the look of pure silver.

You glance toward Buer, he sees it too. It's lumbering its way over across the ice like you thought you saw.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your heart is leaping out of your chest, but Buer isn't moving.\n\n<<continue "...">>He's looking at you.\n\n<<continue "...">>The bear is no more than twenty yards away.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster is on all fours now, but his stance is not opposed to the approaching giant.\n\n<<continue "...">>It resembles a black bear, except for the layers of frost clinging to its fur. You can see moss as well, underneath. Little stones entangled in vines hang across its underbelly, and there's a small tree too, sprouting out of its back and arching over its bulk.\n\n<<continue "...">>It huffs as it carries itself, growling low like a man might [[hum|The Sintlebear5]].

The Hephen brat. Brother of the twins, Emmauld and Ennard, Sartère is a bully who goes around entering people's homes and touching their stuff. He claims he's looking for goods. People in town aren't sure if he's all there, but at his most lucid he's just a generally mean individual.

"Y'know, it's the quiet types that are usually good at crafting seals. Odd trait."\n\nSylvine reads your confusion.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Finus is someone you don't want to meet again, and that's why Buer is going to take you around town right now and fix up the mess you've made."\n\nYou don't think you're going to make it to the [[meeting|Sylvine's Quest9]].

"Right, you'll start off with the meeting hall then."\n\n<<continue "...">>Or you suppose you will after all.\n\n<<continue "...">>"From there Buer knows the order. Make your way around the circuit and come on back. Then we can feed the bonefern! Oh, yes!"\n\n<<continue "...">>"Buer! Buer come over here, I've got the list for you in case you forget." she pauses. "Perhaps you two should... um, no, just [[go|Leaving Sylvine's]]."

Buer glances ahead, then down into your eyes.\n\n<<continue "...">>He's facing the southern pathway, which at this point in the day is a white blanket, such that even a cart would have a tough time lumbering through.\n\nBuer sets you down, legs first, as if he might an infant.\n\n<<continue "...">>You hunch over, but you're fine. Aster comes over and pokes your nose with his. You clamp close your eyes at the sudden thrashing of his tongue. Gradually you're able to straighten back up, only to find that Buer is many yards [[down|Southern Pathway2]] the pathway.

<center>Homecoming</center><<if not visited("Homecoming 1")>><<timedgoto "Homecoming 1" 5s>><<else>><<if not visited("Homecoming 2")>><<timedgoto "Homecoming 2" 5s>><<else>><<if not visited("Homecoming 3")>><<timedgoto "Homecoming 3" 5s>><<else>><<if not visited("Homecoming 4")>><<timedgoto "Homecoming 4" 5s>><<else>><<if not visited("Homecoming 5")>><<timedgoto "Homecoming 5" 5s>><<else>><<if not visited("Homecoming 6")>><<timedgoto "Homecoming 6" 5s>><<else>><<if not visited("Homecoming 7")>><<timedgoto "Homecoming 7" 5s>><<else>><<if not visited("Homecoming 8")>><<timedgoto "Homecoming 8" 5s>><<endif>><<endif>><<endif>><<endif>><<endif>><<endif>><<endif>><<endif>>

Your whole body is cold and numb and your eyes are ice. There is a warm dampness against your stomach, like that of blood.\n\nYou jerk away from the sensation. Buer pulls away his outstretched fingers. The dampness fades.\n\n<<continue "...">>You right yourself, easing away from the shock. You're sitting on the edge of the table.\n\nThe sky has since become darker than when you entered the shack. But you remain motionless.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer points down, toward the bottle inside your pale white knuckle.\n\nYou pass it off, eager to be rid of the infernal device.\n\nHe draws from his pipe and brings the bottle to his lips. It slowly [[refills|The Bottle of Smoke4]] with smoke.

<<timedinsert 3s>>You gasp<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5s>>arms flung out<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 7s>>voice stolen<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 9s>>no time<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 10s>>no<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 12s>>breath<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedgoto "Homecoming Prelude" 17s>>

"Youngling! You, by the bridge!"\n\n<<continue "...">>It's Sylvine. You keep walking.\n\nNow she's approaching you. Her eyes have you [[pinned|Sylvine's Talk2]] against the first board of the bridge.

A screech lifts from the object around your neck.\n\n<<continue "...">>The details of your surroundings vibrate as they shift. You notice the pile of pots and pans around Sylvine are marred with miniscule scratches--the netting splayed above the kitchen looks like hemp--the countertop's wooden grain streaks diagonally instead of straight. And then you notice Sylvine possesses no facial features. It's not Sylvine at all.\n\n<<continue "...">>You [[black out|Homecoming Prelude]].

When he's finished, Buer lays the bottle next to you against the parched wooden surface of the table.\n\nThen he strides over to the door.\n\n<<continue "...">>Much to the surprise of both of you, the door breezes open. Aster's snout darts up.\n\n<<if visited("Gerrand St.")>><<continue "...">>You've begun to rethink your idea of relocating your mother to the Dutë house.\n\nThe air [[outside|Back Outside]] glances over your skull, sifting through your hair.<<else>>The air [[outside|Back Outside]] glances over your skull, sifting through your hair.<<endif>>

The subtle sting on your hands and face welcomes you back outside, as the doors close behind your motley crew.\n\n<<continue "...">>The flute plays softly in the snowfall, piercing the bleached veil and the distant mist.\n\nVidlich starts to hum along with the tune. The boys chime in.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster runs in front of everyone else. You can barely see his silver-blue coat amidst the snow. He streaks across the cobble in a flash, flurries flittering behind him.\n\nThe plaza [[opens|North Side2]] up before you.

Every so often, Punnapoint exchanges weather with the mountains on all directions. Here we call this a change in month.\n\n<<continue "...">>Each of four seasons has its three months, totaling twelve all together. Right now you're reaching the end of Bough, three months of fell frost and icy rain.\n\n<<continue "...">>Soon it will be Canter, which means clearer skies and the sweet taste in the air will return with the blooms.\n\n<<continue "...">>After that comes Bright, that's when we cut the most wood. The heat and musk is dense, but it beats being cold all the time. Aster loves its brisk wind and torrential downpours.\n\n<<continue "...">>And then there's Cinder, the time of passing. The miracle of the changing leaves occurs inside this small window. Punnapoint celebrates the harvest with a festival and then battens down for the coming Bough during the softer Cinder months.\n\n<<continue "...">>In order we have Serpicanter, Midicanter, Salticanter, Daybright, Midbright, Nightbright, Glowcinder, Midcinder, Darkcinder, Waxbough, Midbough, and Wanebough.\n\nYou notice you've [[strayed|North Side2]] back to the avenue in your idle thoughts.

Vidlich, the undertaker, signals to three boys, and the four of them take up post at each corner of the coffin. They lift and turn.\n\n<<continue "...">>The procession starts down the hallway.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer plays at the brain of the musical organism.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your body starts to feel warm, and you can move again.\n\n<<continue "...">>Yvette takes your hand and lifts you to your feet.\n\n<<continue "...">>With a push, she waves you [[off|Procession3]].

You turn. Your mother is encouraging you along.\n\n<<continue "...">>Again you turn. Buer and the coffin are leaving down the hallway. Faces follow as they drift by.\n\n<<continue "...">>You start to drift as well, catching up to the coffin.\n\n<<continue "...">>A man and a woman open the door up ahead. The man, Gaime, smiles at you when he sees you coming.\n\nThe cold [[kicks|Procession4]] in.

You rush upstairs to find the sheets curled up on a horizontal angle across the length of the bed.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your mother hasn't stepped foot in your room for years, not since her legs went. So you're not worried about her finding it in such a state. Habit gnaws at your ankles with every lingering thought.\n\n<<continue "...">>You consider [[making|clean bed][$ob += 1; $bed = "clean"]] it--you came all the way up here after all.\n\nBut why waste any more time you could be spending in the [[sun|messy bed][$in += 1; $bed = "messy"]]?

Your eyes shoot over to Dane. He rests in a bed next to the northern window. Right now he's well illuminated by a tainted grey glow.\n\nThe papers [[catch|Two Papers3]] your eye now.

You think there's more to it, though. Families don't abandon their names unless they don't want to be associated with them anymore, and everyone in town knows the fairy tale about Thome, the skin thief, but it's a fairy tale nonetheless. Although most folks and their families weren't [[name-blind]] three generations back.\n\nThese aren't thoughts worth dwelling on, you think. You send them to the back of your mind before [[turning|Knoprune St.]] on your heel.

You walk into what you assume is a kitchen, because Sylvine is sprawled on the ground in a pile of pots and pans, maybe looking for something.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You showed up at a good time, you did."\n\nYou stare at her.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Well, help me up, now."\n\nYou reach down for her hand--\n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>--She throws something over your neck. It [[glides|Sylvine's Quest2]] gently onto your shoulders.<<endtimedinsert>>

Then again, Gaime might have [[gone|The Watermill: Alone2]] in to work maintanence. He'd be the first in months, but the sawmill only works because the watermill does, so it makes sense.\n\nHe could be somewhere [[else|Punnapoint Free Roam]] though.

You don't think you understand. On one is a drawing of a bottle, perhaps filled with water, or cobwebs? The lonely bottle sits on a wooden table.\n\nOn the other paper is a drawing of an ordinary cube, covered in hard-edged boxy lines.\n\n<<continue "...">>The two shapes are simple, as if the sketches were rushed.\n\nA feeling wells inside you, something akin to the heat of excitement crossed with curiosity.\n\n<<continue "...">>Someone is leaving you [[clues|Two Papers5]].

Of course, Gaime might have just left these here by accident. But when did Gaime ever do anything by accident.\n\nNo, Gaime has answers to your questions.\n\n<<continue "...">>A stifled sigh comes from the corner of the room.\n\nYou look toward Dane, he's rolled onto his side, and his brow has eased into a tranquil, even line.\n\n<<continue "...">>If he's in a stable condition, then there's no reason for you to remain here. You could probably [[leave|Finding Gaime]] him alone.\n\nThough, you would hate to disappoint Hollander, however small his tasks. If Dane found some way to injure himself in his sleep then it would fall on your sorry shoulders for leaving him on his own. [[Staying|Staying with Dane]] by Dane's side seems the more prudent choice.

<<if $glasses is "acquiring">><<display "Leave Immediately">><<endif>><<if $glasses is "fixing">><<display "Get Glasses">><<endif>>\n\n<<continue "...">>Thinking back to Hollander's house, you remember where you last saw him. He might still be at the [[town hall|Urgent Care2]].

You waver into a straight line sitting on the edge of the table. Dane lays in a bed, far in the corner.\n\nOn your head is wrapped a bandage, you only notice it because you feel the skin of your head peeled back. You reach to your neck and along the coarse paper, which slowly becomes damp and hot as your fingers travel upwards.\n\n<<continue "...">>You sigh and hang your head. But you imagine that Dane has it worse.\n\nHollander walks over to his desk and marks something, probably in his record keeper.\n\n"If you're feeling better, then I'll take my leave." Gaime states.\n\n<<continue "...">>The overseer of the sawmill turns and nods toward Hollander before strolling out the door, his shadow following moments behind.\n\nOn the window sill [[sit|Two Papers]] two scraps of paper.

Up on the bluff sits the Tharen-Petica manor, and their servant's quarters. You've never been there yourself, but Edel has told you about its immense insides, the long halls, and small vertical rooms. She's only ever rambled on about how strange the house //feels// when you're inside it, though that doesn't give you a lick of information about those who inhabit the estate.\n\nAll the rest of the houses around Punnapoint are salt boxes, or sheer vertical apartments. The Tharen-Petica mansion is just really large and long, no real name for its design, just the usual charred wooden slats lining its exterior. The only extradordinary thing about it is the glass window overlooking all of Punnapoint. The window reminds you of the greenhouse's paned-glass shell.\n\nThe [[bell tower|Bell Tower]] is the real temptation. There are few places in town that block the constant view of the tower. You imagine there are few places in all of Punnapoint woods from which you //can't// see the tower.\n\nYou imagine their eyes on you now, peering down from the great window. A spike of anxiety rolls down your spine as you [[return|North Side2]] to the road.\n

Your eyelids peel back against your brow as you grip the sides of the table you're laying on. Your head shifts and a patch of ice slides across the side of your face.\n\nHollander stands next to your legs. His eyes are slanted, and his cheeks flushed.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You're awake. Good. Now just relax. Gaime brought you in here after he saw you take a nasty fall on the bridge." Hollander gestures across the room. You follow his hand to see Gaime leaning on the window sill.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Also, your dog arrived shortly after you did. He's impressive, I'll tell you that. Carried Dane all the way here."\n\nYou're still [[looking|Recovery3]] at Gaime, he hasn't budged.

Dane mumbles somewhere behind you.\n\n"He's remained unconscious, running a fever, but otherwise stable."\n\n<<continue "...">>"Can I... ask you what happened?"\n\nYou turn your eyes up to meet Hollander's. He opens his mouth to speak, then looks down.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Gaime, do you know anything about this?" Hollander asks.\n\n"My answer to that question has not changed, Doctor." comes his answer.\n\nKicking your feet over the side of the table, your head feels like a bowl of soup, boiled and [[spilling|Recovery4]] everywhere.

<<replace "Nothing Happens">><<display "Playing the Flute2">><<endreplace>>

The husky jumps at the quailing fiend, who claws at the ground, but cannot remove himself from the bonefern.\n\n<<continue "...">>Snow streams behind Aster as he lands on Finus' neck, tearing the head of the monstrosity from its body with a //crack//.\n\n<<continue "...">>The roots around you squirm and convulse. Pin pricks of murder fill your ears until their very last before they shrivel up and break off in bits.\n\n<<continue "...">>You land on your chest, but quickly [[glance|Banishing Finus5]] up.

Buer stifles laughter as he backs down the steps. He strolls into the middle of the street, serpiam smoke trailing away from him in a characteristic slither.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I invite him, but that old fellow always refuses to come inside." She turns and fades from the doorway of her house.\n\n<<continue "...">>You are not sure how to respond. You catch yourself nodding along, but she's already gone. You [[head in|Barbere's House4]] under the pretense that you think she wants you to.\n\n

You rap your knuckles on the door\n\n<<timedreplace 5s>><<timedinsert 2s>>.<<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 3s>>.<<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 4s>>.<<endtimedinsert>><<becomes>>Buer chuckles.<<endtimedreplace>>\n\n<<timedreplace 10s>><<timedinsert 7s>>.<<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 8s>>.<<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 9s>>.<<endtimedinsert>><<becomes>>[[...|Barbere's House2]]<<endtimedreplace>>

<<once>>Through the wet-slopped plaza you tread, and onto Punnapoint Avenue. You are somewhat relieved to be outside.\n\n<<endonce>>Slightly covered footprints walk from every building in Punnapoint. You pause to follow their trails.\n\nMany strings of prints travel to and from Doctor Hollander's [[house|Doctor Hollander's House]], which sits in a mess of snow and slush next to the Hephen [[storehouse|Hephen Storehouse]]. The former much smaller than the latter. One reminds you of your own house on Cispill, while the other is long, and its roof high, like the library.\n\nThrough the space in between the two, you can see the [[rails|The Railyard]] stretching out to tunnel under the Tharen-Petica [[estate|Tharen-Petica Estate]]. A single line of footprints meets the rail at a ninety degree angle.\n\nThen in the northwest corner of Punnapoint there's the [[wall|The Old Graveyard]] you've never been behind. Prints shuffle past the lone door guarding the graveyard.\n\nAnd as you stand around staring at everything, Buer and the rest of the group have [[continued|Crossing to South Side]] their way south across the bridge. They've made so much distance without you realizing, but you could swear the chortling of the flute was ringing softly by your side all the while.

It's dark outside. Buer steps into the doorway to smoke, letting his fingers play with the pipe.\n\n<<continue "...">>"There's nothing wrong with you if you'll believe me." Hollander says suddenly.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I checked your pulse, it's not irregular. You don't even have a fever." He looks at you with pupils like pinpricks.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I suspected you would wake sooner rather than later, so I made you some tea." Your mother explains. <<if $glasses is "fixing">>"Buer was kind enough to retrieve my glasses in your stead."<<endif>>\n\n<<continue "...">>You shift on the table, kicking your legs over the edge.\n\nYour mother sets the rag on the table and drifts to the kettle. She lifts the cup and saucer from the ledge of the fireplace and pours you a tiny cup. Her hands shake. After clinking it onto the saucer in her lap, she then wheels over as quickly as her chair will allow.\n\n<<continue "...">>You reach for it as she offers it to you. Dried serpiam leaves [[swirl|Edel's Visit]] around inside.

<<if not visited("Mother")>>It's the Jec family, your neighbors from across the way. They turn right onto the Avenue and head North. Probably off to town hall. There was no meeting scheduled for today, though. Maybe your mother knows what's happening.<<else>>It's the Jec family, probably heading off to that meeting your mother was talking about. They make their way up Cispill and turn right onto the avenue toward town hall.<<endif>>\n\nAs you push away from the window, you see spears of light from the east landing on the street. You whirl about, [[moving|Home]] to the next task.\n\n

Your eyes [[snap|Finus6b]] open.

<center><big><big><<timedinsert 2s>>The Town of Punnapoint<<endtimedinsert>></big></big>\n\n<<timedinsert 4s>>[[Mitchel Pini|http://hellaquence.tumblr.com/]]<<endtimedinsert>></center>\n\n<<timedinsert 6s>><<display "Credits">><<endtimedinsert>>\n<center><<if visited("Finus: Alone6")>><<timedinsert 25s>>Unsatisfied? Press rewind and choose wiser this time.<<endtimedinsert>><<endif>></center>

She is watching you intently as you approach. It is still sleeting, but that girl could probably hear the gossip across the bridge with ears like hers.\n\nAnd that's all she's doing is standing and watching you with her dress folded in between her thighs. You've gone and broken her focus. Now, [[say|try to say something]] something, lest you make a fool of yourself.

<<if not visited ("Finus9")>><<set alert("For instance, you have no control over this:")>><<else>><<set alert("You have no control over this:")>><<endif>>Buer's body is invaded by the roots. They work in between his ribs and force their way into his chest cavity through the button of his belly. Into his hips they delve, tiny surgeons, just nicking the bones, worming through muscles, coiling them tight until the tension is too much and ligaments are torn from their bones.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer screams like a feline with acid poured down it hackles. His terror mixes with his pain, and the harmony of snapping and squelching corrodes your ears. \n\n<<continue "...">>Do you [[feel|Finus8]] it now?\n

After the sun has almost completely set over Eck's Point something inside you begins a descent of its own.\n\nYou think about Dane, tucked underneath one of Hollander's blankets. About your mother staining her skirt with tears.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then your focus snaps back. You've since moved closer to the bear.\n\nClouds as large as your body waft up off the gargantuan, rising from an unseen set of nostrils.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now you are so close you can feel the warmth of its fur, like a vibrant pulse against your canvas surroundings.\n\nYour lips curl as you extend one arm and tuck the other behind you for balance. The flats of your heels rise up, and you can almost feel the water forming underneath the balls of your feet as they press into the ice.\n\n<<continue "...">>The gap between yourself and the branch stretches before you like summit to peak. Yet it shifts around, just above you, shimmering in the fading light.\n\nThe shadows of the world are closing around the shore of the marsh, clambering over fallen trees and looping through the needleheads of the gravestones, which undulate above and below the ice like the flying serpents from the stories you've read in the library.\n\n<<continue "...">>You notice, then, a shelf of ice stuck to the hide of the bear, its surface almost glows in the omnipresent gloom.\n\nSometimes there's little to do but [[follow|The Silver Branch: Alone3]] the path presented.

Why don't you [[eat|Finus6]] your newborns?

A curious weed here in Punnapoint, folks in town have been smoking it for recreation nigh on a dozen generations. Everyone claims it has a different effect on them, but you've never tried it so how would you know?\n\nYou realize you're standing in the middle of the street staring at someone's house, so you keep [[moving|Cedarrant St.]] along.

Strolling down Knoprune Street you look back over the bridge. You notice Gaime standing at the center of the arch just before Qierke's house obscures your [[view|Dane Falls]].

Your shivering carcass hums on the ice.\n\n<<continue "...">>You can hear another body humming--through a jar of jam, maybe. Their rhythm floats like a light spread over river water.\n\n<<continue "...">>The taste of oats tingles underneath the skin of your tongue. A peppering of flour litters the floor as your mother stands over a batch of baked crumble.\n\n<<continue "...">>Years pass, she's larger, the onset of pregnancy, a blot of white snow stands behind her. She slowly sits down.\n\n<<continue "...">>She watches you now from her chair, playing with a baby husky you have not yet named. The [[smile|Awake]] pokes at her face as she fails to hold a frown.

His tail sticks straight up. You watch it as it slowly begins its descent in between his legs. Sweat beads along the sides of your head.\n\nA prick folds into the rhythm of your breathing. Your eyes dry in their sockets as your eyebrows tip up and peel back over their bones.\n\nYou bend your knees, hunching slightly. Every instinct tells you to call Aster away, but that would be the end of you both.\n\n<<continue "...">>The boulder shifts, and snow plummets from a tree you hadn't noticed on top of it.\n\nSlowly, you can make out the rising and falling of deep, elder lungs.\n\n<<continue "...">>You can also see a single glistening branch among the nest of blanched wood.\n\nThe last rays of gold drop over the marsh. The only creatures brave enough to move right now are the shadows.\n\nYou [[hold|The Silver Branch: Alone2]] yourself, imagining Aster just a little closer to you.

You reach out and your fingers grasp the tip of the branch.\n\nIt burns like frozen stone, and shifts underneath the weight of your fingertips.\n\n<<continue "...">>The voices keep singing. There's nothing else you can hear. Snow drizzles down, in between rain and hail. And wind seizes at your clothes, but you can't hear any of it.\n\n<<continue "...">>And the voices keep singing, drifting through a ballad in an alto and tenor harmony that reminds you of Carrow, and the watermill, and listless Cinder months before the chill sets in. You can see your mother standing in the doorway before tears clot your eyes.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then their song stops, and you can't hear a thing.\n\nNot even the [[wind|The Silver Branch3]].

You rush around the corner onto Punnapoint Avenue. You spy Buer halfway across the bridge.\n\n<<continue "...">>He's staring back at you, waiting with Aster at his side. Aster, in a playful mood, runs back over to lead you up to Buer.\n\n<<continue "...">>The three of you cross over to [[North Side]].<<if $glasses is "acquired">> You stare back over the bridge towards Dane's house, remembering the broken glasses in your pocket.<<endif>>

Hollander is seated at his desk now. He suddenly stands up and walks over to Dane. He grabs Dane's wrist and waits there for a time.\n\nYou watch him from the edge of the table, peering over at the scraps every so often. You remember all the pieces of paper you found at the library last night.\n\n<<continue "...">>Hollander crosses to his coat rack. He removes a long coat and a cap, slinging one around his shoulders and tugging the other onto his head.\n\n"I'll be back, I've just a got a schedule to keep is all. <<if $glasses is "fixing">>Your mother will probably want her glasses sooner rather than later." he says holding up the pair of glasses that caused so much trouble.<<endif>>\n\nThen he's gone.\n\n<<continue "...">>After several seconds he peeks around the doorframe. "--And don't leave Dane unattended, please--unless he wakes up and remembers who he is."\n\nThen, as the Doctor leaves, you are truly [[left|Two Papers2]] to your own devices.

Farthing was a writer who used to live in Punnapoint, but eventually left the town in favor of adventure. Not originally from Punnapoint, Farthing is the only known person to traverse the dense forests unharmed. No one knew much about them, but while they were in Punnapoint they learned a great deal and recorded a great deal of information in their chronicles, which were given as a gift to the Konig Punnapoint Library. They are assumed dead, as it has been half a century since they were last recognized in Punnapoint, although the remaining people that would recognize Farthing are slowly leaving this world.\n\nA detailed list of Farthings works:\nNaming Customs In Punnapoint\nA Family History: Lineage in Punnapoint\nThe Social Paradigm\nStrange Occurances\n\n\nAssumed written by Farthing:\nHomecoming\nThome the Skin Thief\nThe Konig Wolves\n\nAnd their Magnum Opus:\nSpirits All Around

He bobs to and fro from the joints of his knees, his hands crossed behind his back. Every so often he lifts one to take a drag.\n\n<<continue "...">>You begin to feel the bite of waiting still.\n\n<<continue "...">>The scenery melts away your patience, like an icicle in Serpicanter.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your bones grow sore with the repeated blasts of wind out on the icy banks of the marsh.\n\n<<continue "...">>You shove your arms around Aster, and feel the beating warmth just underneath his fur and skin.\n\n<<continue "...">>You [[think|The Sintlebear3]] about the kettle back at home. Your mother has probably started the fire for afternoon tea by now.

Aster barks and you can tell Buer is grinning when he kneels down to ruffle the fur behind Aster's ears.\n\nBuer looks over his shoulder. He beckons for you to follow him.\n\n<<continue "...">>The three of you depart from the watermill.\n\nIt's not a long [[walk|Outside Lemond's]].

The shadow smooths its edges and approaches you outside the ring of logs. It glides over the ground, stretching ribbons of tenuous shade across the iced earth. It speaks. \n\n<<continue "...">>"I was rude to you earlier. I apologize." Its voice is like the passing of an hour, or being alone in a room.\n\nYou stare into the pair of white holes at the top of its form.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then you remember the snowfall on the bridge, and the lurker in the doorway.\n\n<<continue "...">>"But I saved you a great deal of //time//. No?"\n\nYou [[nod|Shadow's Reveal3]].

<<timedinsert 1s>>You've murdered everyone in your town.<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 3s>>Because you foolishly listened.<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5s>>You<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5.2s>>thought<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5.4s>>you<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5.6s>>were<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5.8s>>[[helping|Finus3]]?<<endtimedinsert>>

Folks steer their heads around the corners of doors, and peer from the railings of a staircase. Some stare ahead while other stare into their hands, as if the rhythms of their wavelength fingerprints might show them their stars.\n\n<<continue "...">>The watchers focus on the elders at the intersection of the hall.\n\n<<continue "...">>The body of Elder Crovak lays in a bright beige birch wood coffin.\n\n<<continue "...">>Some people notice you and smile. You see your mother in her wheelchair, pushed by Doctor Hollander. Both of their heads hang on their shoulders.\n<<set $glasses to "fixing">>\n<<continue "...">>You watch the two of them. Hollander glances up at your shoes. He doesn't look quite all there. Gently, he caresses your mother's shoulder.<<if $glasses is "acquired">> She looks up at you, but she probably can't recognize you from this distance. Your cheeks [[burn|Buer Stop]].<<endif>><<if $glasses is "fixing">> You shuffle over and place both hands on your mother's lap like you always do. She grabs them and looks up at you with a smile stretched below her vacant eyes. Tears have recently ridden the length of her face. You can see the salt strands they left behind. Kneeling down, you take her face in your hands and [[wipe|Buer Stop]] her cheeks.<<endif>>

You begin to hold the flute up to your lips. You glance at Buer.\n\n<<continue "...">>He's shaking his head and looking at Aster. He stretches out an open palm. You place the flute in his hand.\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer lifts it up to his lips and takes a stance. With a lilt and a flick he plays a glimmer of a tune. The next second the [[flute|Playing the Flute4]] is back in your hands.

The sickening image fades into the first beams of sun-shower.\n\n<<continue "...">>Through your eyelids the world is red, but mostly black. You open them to the ceiling of your room overhead.\n\n<<continue "...">>At your back is your bed. Woolen blankets lay over your torso, keeping you warm.\n\n<<continue "...">>You ache as you sit up, but the less you move around the more you want to leave.\n\n<<continue "...">>You soak in a little more shine beating through the shutters before kicking off your covers and [[strolling|Home]] down the stairs.

You start to stand and Aster leaps out into the sloppy snow, eager for a walk. He's looking your way. You sigh and [[follow|Punnapoint Ave]] him out.

You do not bother standing around in Barbère's home. You can feel her eyes leaning against your upper back as you make your way to the door.\n\n"You can walk away at any time..."\n\nYou turn, she's standing now.\n\n<<continue "...">>"... But once you commit to anything, you had better see it through to the end. Don't be like my late husband."\n\nYou nod and palm the handle behind your back.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Oh, and say hello to Millow for me, will you?"\n\nYou continue nodding as you back out into falling snow. As soon her door shuts, you [[unravel|Serpent-Head Sketch2]] the sketch.

You're well into the woods, and you notice how long the marsh goes on to your right. The Konig wolves have never shown themselves on this pathway, so you should be safe so long as you stick to it.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then you see him. Buer strolling off west over to the side of the marsh.\n\n<<continue "...">>You draw a long breath and look at Aster.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then you [[follow|The Marsh]].

You might be able to carry Dane there. You clutch his torso and attempt to lift him over your shoulder. He's too large to carry, or perhaps you're too tiny to support him.

The mask of winter noon peels off your skin as if it were boiled to bubble in the sun. Candle fires and bodies sway inside the hushed hall room.\n\nA faint scent of burning leaves chars the coat-tails of sweat that was never washed away.\n\n<<continue "...">>Yvette ushers you down the narrow corridor. Lines of others bow their heads, holding to any surface, wall, or candle-filled table, in eager refuge.\n\nYou pass by people whose faces you know but you've never met. Their winter clothing brushes yours as you push onwards.\n\n<<continue "...">>You had [[thought|Elder Circle]] this meeting was meant to be an election.

Aster is curled up just outside the door, he jumps to his feet and approaches you. The snow has stopped for the moment, but his fur glitters with tiny crystals.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then you notice the sky.\n\nIt hadn't caught your eye before, but its shade is different than what you're used to.\n\nWind howls in your ear, and you imagine your skull as one of those glass bowls you see holding wet goods in the market.\n\n<<continue "...">>But that sky is really something. You can't even find the topaz amidst all the cotton tufts. Your lips dissolve into a grin.\n\nThat's something your mother might say.\n\n<<continue "...">>It's not getting any warmer though, you'd better [[pick|Punnapoint Free Roam]] a destination and make tracks.

You hear Dane's characteristic rummaging from amongst his shelves upstairs.\n\n<<continue "...">>He's taking a tad longer than he should.\n\n<<continue "...">>You start up the stairs, peering through the door at the top of the landing.\n\n<<continue "...">>The floor is strewn with stray papers, photography that used to line the walls. A clear fluid stains the wood a deep yellow.\n\n<<continue "...">>Dane shivers on the ground next to his wardrobe. It's wide open, full of basins of almost-water. Crumpled layers of photographs fill his hands, he holds them up to his face.\n\n<<continue "...">>His sobbing continues even as you [[walk|Dane Trouble2]] around him. <<if $glasses is "fixing">>You can see your mother's glasses on his bedside table.<<endif>>

<<if $glasses is "fixing">>On a snowy day like this one, you prefer to take your walk earlier, and with your task taking barely any time, you get to do just that. It's usually just you in the morning, you and Aster, without any noise except the wind blowing through the woods. Of course, your neighbors tend to interrupt your walks.\n\n<<endif>>Your neighbors aren't the subtlest people in the world, unlike you and your mother. The Jec's are one of the oldest families in Punnapoint, and arguably the largest, yet somehow they all manage to cram themselves into one house. They're probably the sole reason Carrow has a birth every couple of seasons.\n\nAnd next to you is the Barbère house. Although their family has dispersed throughout Punnapoint in the last decade, the lonely matriarch, Lemond, still lives there. You only see her when she's on the porch, or you visit to share a friendly meal. She was never a lively person especially not since they found her husband in the Hephen sawmill.\n\nAnd that's Cispell Street in a nutshell. You're here all the time, so you [[move|The Streets]] along.

You're drawn to the glowing of the box.\n\n<<continue "...">>Lemond flinches as your hand hovers closer and closer.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your first finger comes into contact with the softly sanded wood, one of its corners. It's not an even cube, its oddly warped. Or maybe it wasn't warped before?\n\n<<continue "...">>Your knuckles ride over the ridges between pieces, a methodical bumping, waving motion. And as your fist clamps around the box, the glow [[burns|Barbere's House7]] blue-green against your eyes.

A little wooden box on a nearby table catches your eyes. They linger, and each time they peel away they're drawn back to the curvature of the stroking runes carved into the surface.\n\nYou reach, and the runes glow.\n\n<<continue "...">>"That's yours you know."\n\nYour eyes snap to Lemond, she's made her way across the room, and now stands with her back in the doorway to what might be her kitchen.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Caught a big fish inside it." She shudders. "With such a crudely fashioned bait."\n\nYou look back to the box. You realize that the runes inscribed on the surface are actual divets, thin lines that separate the [[puzzle|Barbere's House6]] pieces.

You glance over at Buer.\n\n<<continue "...">>He's reaching into the coffin.\n\n<<continue "...">>He's...\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer is arm-deep in coffin.\n\n<<continue "...">>He looks at you and pauses. Glancing up for a second he removes his arm from the coffin, lifting a flute as long your arm. The instrument is crafted from a translucent--almost spectral--material.\n\n<<continue "...">>Folks are starting to give the both of you inquisitve looks. It's not unusual to place objects inside a coffin, but [[taking|The Crystal Flute]] objects out isn't exactly looked down upon either.

The door slides open without a sound. Lemond's blurry white hair slinks into view. A thin streak hangs across the bridge of her nose. It hangs like a tattered noose, stretching all the way down to grace her neck.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Oh!"\n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>"Well, where is Aster?"<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 5s>>You can't help but [[raise|Barbere"s House3]] an eyebrow.<<endtimedinsert>>

Vidlich, the undertaker, lives in the funeral parlor, and up until recently he managed the grounds of the graveyard. At the end of North Side is the town's graveyard, and Vidlich's house is on the opposite end. It's tradition to carry our deceased down the whole avenue, to the graveyard and goodbye.\n\nNowadays, the graveyard is overgrown. Vidlich has enlisted the assistance of the woodcutters, but they just keep cutting those trees down as if there's no end.\n\nThe man practically looks like a tree himself with his face full of wrinkles, his back arching like a bough hanging over a river, and his beard wrapping around his neck like a shawl of moss. Punnapoint is probably going to see a new undertaker in the next decade.\n\nYou realize the morbid irony, and chuckle as you [[turn|Left]] back to the street.

You decide to let him sleep a little while longer. That fur looks so inviting, though.\n\nHe'll likely wake up sooner or later anyway. You [[continue|Home]] around the house.

You think it's about time you [[crossed|To the North Side]] the bridge at least.\n\nOr you can [[stick|Punnapoint Ave]] around for a little while longer. You haven't seen your mother cross the bridge, so you still have time.

<center>And now they fell through the kaleidoscope. The colors of sword memories, sharp in their mouths, itching to sink each other's throats like ships. Waves of bursting sacs hurtled around the dimension, colliding off the shattered vessel, the corpses strung from mast to stern glistened with oil and sizzled as their bones melted before their skin.\n\nSurvivors scattered across the ship, realizing the atrophy of the mast signaled ship inability, no rudder, no flying. No wheel. The captain at the helm, standing where his ego once spun gold from his grey hairs. His eyes turned inside. His shell covered him, and as he gurgled a phrase the members of the crew felt their hackles rising with the sun. But it was not a sun. It seared with a glow, the angel had a single remaining option of torment. The chakram hung over the mast, a halo of bristling fur, it showered needles of rusted metal upon the captain and his crew. A roar interrupted the angel taskmaster, the cries of animals filled the air, indignant butchermeat before their slaughter, and the dimension crumpled.\n\n[[Wake up|Sylvine's Quest3]]</center>

<center>Its sudden escape of the dimension warped the ship, pinching and twisting its figurehead, the woman, clutching her heart of seastone, into wings and claws. Her voice hovered across the ears of the deck. Remember the waste you wrought upon innocents. They tasted mildew in the backs of their throats. Their tongues dried in their mouths. The harpy descended to claim the thirsty men. Her song had made them long and she would deliver the sludge of life into their gullets.\n\nOut of the murk of this new world. The sky was the sea, and it was ferrous and reflective, like the eye of a shield. Felspar glowed on its surface, tiny eyes of imps, hiding amidst the terrors of unknowing depths. They sprang from the surface, hitting the deck in force. The survivors hustled for their thankless murder tools, brandishing them like swaddled children.\n\n[[Wake up|Playing the Flute5]]</center>

<center>The demon rose then. She felt the light of an angel, and dismissed them, taking into her arms a crewman cannibal at the rear. It was his wife and child he thought of in every bite. The demon whispered a deal into his ears. As the imps descended on the remainders--shrieking brooks of red--the demon stood and pulled the harpy into her claw. The body folded at the back with a squelch like a newborn leaving their mother.\n\nLimp and indignified, the harpy left the demon's hand and fell into the clutches of the imps. The man now looked to the demon, an iridescent body of bone and glass and onyx. The man understood his deal and leaped over the deck, taking into his arms his crewmembers. He stretched his maw, opening the gaping wound of his body, the one his mother gave him. Into his hole he crunched and chewed, snapping sinuous tissues underneath his toothrot.\n\nHe felt a warmth in his chest. A claw held his heart at its tips.\n\n<<if visited("The Bottle of Smoke2")>>[[Wake up|The Bottle of Smoke3]]<<endif>><<if visited("The Bottle: Alone3")>>[[Wake up|The Watermill: Alone5]]<<endif>></center>

<center>The cannibal drifted from his body, and his eyes sparkled with dimensions, gaseous, like the wisps of fire on a candle are attached only at a seam. As he floated away, the demon cast his heart through him, capturing an essence, leaving him missing. The heart tore through a veil and the force of the suction pulled at his edges. The demon stood motionless behind him as the imps struggled to remain astride their victims. Into the oblivion of endless stretching and breath, the cannibal without a hunger left his temporary home.\n\n<<if visited("Barbere's House7")>>[[Wake up|Barbere's House8]]<<endif>><<if visited("The Puzzlebox: Alone2")>>[[Wake up|Barbere's House: Alone2]]<<endif>></center>

<center>A charcoal sizzled at the center of the swirling globe, a molten core of the giant. The man swerved in and out of the vacuum, catching pockets of momentary rest. He chased his heart in the maelstrom of blood and furnace. Steam rose from the flowers rooted in the coals, as the vapors scattered like birds from a stone's throw.\n\nThe oasis of embers stoked itself on the hope in the cannibal's heart. To his child and his wife, he had meant to return. As he reached halfway around he discovered an inlet, and a riverbed of runaway. He drifted through the slag, it stoppered the stream behind him, allowing him a pressurized passage directly to the mind of the hive. His heart circled concentric with pulses from lightning that glazed its exterior. On the island at the center of the nexus, he fingered for a hold in the layers of licking flames and magmatic ripples.\n\n<<if visited("The Silver Branch3")>>[[Wake up|The Silver Branch4]]<<endif>><<if visited("The Silver Branch: Alone6")>>[[Wake up|The Den]]<<endif>></center>

<center>Before his heart could be retrieved, a star grew like a vesper inside the center, incinerating the charcoal, and the furnaces, and the breath. The heart was engulfed. The cannibal felt the eruption before it flashed. Visions of multi-dimensional prophecies grazed the insides of his eyes. There was no reason for a heart. It seeped into the gaze of the seer. Inferno charges blasted through the pocket, sending plasma fuming from the womb of the world.\n\nThe cannibal phantom diffused into the fire and left the temperer. His material was completely disposed as his filmy wings sailed from the ocean of slag. The spherical sky opened up, like the hull of a vessel, pierced by cannonfire or divine judgment. As the cannibal left the domain, he remembered his past, all breath left him, mellowed, and his soul weighed against the redundancy.\n\n<<if visited("The Serpent Head Stone4")>>[[Wake up|The Serpent Head Stone5]]<<endif>><<if visited("The Serpent Head Stone: Alone2")>>[[Wake up|Edel's House: Alone5]]<<endif>></center>

<center><<timedinsert 1s>><big><big>Testers:</big></big><<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>[[Tasha Wilhelmsen|https://tnwilhelmsen.com/]] ... [[Noah Waltzer|https://noahwaltzer.wordpress.com/]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 4s>>[[Megan Hoins|https://medium.com/@meganhoins/neo-dadaism-absurdist-humor-and-the-millennial-generation-f27a39bcf321#.kzhiops08]] ... [[Sara Gonia|https://twitter.com/catbot158]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 5s>>[[Maina Chen|https://mainachen.wordpress.com/]] ... [[Bradley Jones|http://bradjdesign.weebly.com/]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 6s>>Aidan Fly ... Jonathan Vogt<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n\n<<timedinsert 9s>><big><big>The Morale Squad:</big></big><<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 11s>>[[Aubrie Gillam|http://aubriegillam.tumblr.com/]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 12s>>[[Tyler Hulsizer|https://hulsizeus.wordpress.com/]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 13s>>Piper Rischel<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 14s>>And once again ... [[Tasha Wilhelmsen|https://tnwilhelmsen.com/]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 16s>>I love every second I spend with all of you. Here's to many more bafflingly huge projects.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 18s>>[[Return|Start]]<<endtimedinsert>></center>

Aster's ears prick up. He's looking toward the door. You hear a subtle //crunch-crunch// making its way down Punnapoint Avenue.\n\n<<continue "...">>In the doorway you can hear her.\n\n<<continue "...">>"How has Hollander been treating you?"\n\nYou turn to see surprise painted on Buer's face as Edel approaches you from the door.\n\n<<continue "...">>"You don't have to answer, dear." She walks over to you.\n\nIt's an odd thing, to see someone walking who, in your waking memories, you've only ever seen sitting.\n\n<<continue "...">>You sip at your cup as Edel removes something from her pocket. The tea is still too hot to drink and it stings your lips and tongue.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I thought I'd do you the favor of bringing this." Buer looks at her and bolts over. In her hand sits a [[stone|The Serpent Head Stone]] in the shape of a serpents head.

<<set alert("How grateful we are")>><center>"That you would go"</center><<timedgoto "Finus: Alone4" 2s>>

He's an odd duck, you're not afraid to be honest. The guy has performed miraculous revivals of patients, but there's none in Punnapoint who can discern his methods. [[Hollander]], the doctor across the bridge, has said before on multiple occassions that Qierke's practice is not natural, and he should not be the first person one goes to for medical aid. And Hollander isn't the type to spread propoganda.\n\nYou don't stick around too long, otherwise he might see you looking through his windows. You [[continue|Knoprune St.]] down the street.

Buer is already standing on the snow-silted avenue. He's lit his pipe and looks across the bridge toward watermill.\n\nAs you appear in the doorway his eyes lock onto you. He starts off south.\n\nA bark stings your ears and steals your attention. Aster's front paws jab into your hips and you kneel down and close your arms around his shoulders.\n\nAster pants as he stares in your eyes. He jumps back as you stand, slapping your arms against your thighs. You jog off in the direction that Buer disappeared, and Aster forges ahead. \n\n<<continue "...">>The both of you make it as far as the bridge before you see Buer at the other end. His back is facing you.\n\nYou let fly a spat of saliva without bothering to watch it fall into the water.\n\nA puff of smoke plumes over Buer's head as he pockets his pipe. He turns around and points toward the [[watermill|Going with Buer2]].

Both of you are still just standing. Looking at each other. Waiting for the other to [[say|Saying something]] anything.

It only takes fifteen seconds to walk from Hollander's to the sawmill going down the avenue, but you realize three things in this span of time:\n\n<<continue "...">>When Gaime left Hollander's, he walked straight across the avenue.\n\n<<continue "...">>There are no footprints in the silver gilt snow.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster carried Dane all the way to Hollander's when you couldn't even lift him onto your shoulder. Dogs don't even have thumbs. You feel shame.\n\nWhen you're done reprimanding your own foolishness, you arrive at the Hephen sawmill to [[find|Finding Gaime3]] the doorway very empty.

As you're standing outside the sawmill it dawns on you that you've never been inside. It is a dangerous place, you're aware, but not when the saws aren't running.\n\nYou draw [[closer|Examine Sawmill]] to the doorless frame.\n\nThe black double doors of the library hang at the back of your mind. You [[pause|Finding Gaime4]].

<<continue "...">>Snow shadows dance below the streetlamps. \n\n<<continue "...">>There's no one else on the bridge.\n\nYou had better [[follow|Follow Sylvine2]] Sylvine.

The roots scramble inside Buer's mouth, eager to silence his shrieking. His lungs are filled with bramble as they continue to snake down into his stomach. And he bloats, like a Bright month berry, until finally he bursts. Buer gasps, then groans one final time before slumping on the branches of his very own tree, the image of a warped trunk.\n\n<<continue "...">>Yes, you [[feel|Finus9]] it now.\n\n<<later>>//No.//\n\n<<timedinsert 2s>>No. You [[don't|Banishing Finus]].<<endtimedinsert>><<endlater>>

"Why do you howl in your sleep?"\n\n<<continue "...">>Your ears click, and a distant pressure fizzles into your headspace.\n\nYou try to open your eyes but they're crusted shut. The fever dreams cauterized your eyelids with sleep.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I'm warming a coal for your bathwater. I'll have you sit up in a moment and we'll move you into the tub."\n\nWhere every other sense fails, you can hear flames licking their way around a stock of tinder.\n\nYou feel like your body is trying to tell you something.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Okay, here we go."\n\nYou hear a garbled //plop// and a sharp sear as bubbling begins.\n\nBefore you can open your eyes, two splinters of arms cradle your shoulders and legs.\n\nThey swing you around and start to lower you onto the surface of a springing pool. Your skin sizzles, but you [[feel|Edel's House3]] nothing.

Below the Broken Oat Bridge you can hear the gentle rush of the River Subtle. Aster joins your side again. He nudges your palm until you scratch the sides of his face.\n\nYou stop and look out east towards the flooded half of Gerrand Street, where the abandoned houses teeter over the river's edge. You've always wanted to see what's inside.\n\nThere's a voice [[calling|Sylvine's Talk]] on you now.

You have it in mind to keep searching for Gaime.\n\n<<continue "...">>Who, at this point, is most likely in the [[town hall|Revisit Town Hall]].

Your vision returns. The ground at your back is hard. You wonder when it got there.\n\n<<continue "...">>You attempt to stand and find your body to be in working condition. Then you notice the sweat under your armpits and on your cheeks. You spy the ring on the ground. \n\nQuickly, you jump to your feet and are [[through|Konig Punnapoint School]] the gate before you can convince yourself to touch it again.

Now, in your waking dreams, you understand the man before you.\n\nThe fern continues to snap and twist, fanning out, and springing new growths from its barren stalk.\n\nJoints form at the ends of these sprouts, cracking into place as the limbs are born. Two arms and the bones of a neck tower over Gaime. \n\n<<continue "...">>The bones are now saturated with your blood, and ivory skin moulds itself over the bones. A face without features stares down at the both of you as antlers coil out of its newly developed head.\n\nIts massive hands snatch Gaime from where he stands. Its arms embrace him as rows of ribs jab out of its stalk, closing around the old man's body. The sketches fall from his hands. His jagged smile is the last you ever [[see|Finus: Alone2]] of him.

<center>Novel cherishes of hydrus constellations filled his two cups. The blue of a night sky brimmed around the horizon, threatening daylight. Village stood beneath the clouds, untouched by tomorrow, and the cannibal flew down, inviting himself to yesterday. He found his home, and his eyes shone upon it, reminding him of demon-pacts. His teeth shivered as he entered the home of his wife and child.\n\n<<if visited("The Potted Bonefern5")>>[[Drown|Finus]]<<endif>><<if visited("The Potted Bonefern: Alone2")>>[[Drown|Finus: Alone]]<<endif>></center>

Aster nips at the hem of your clothes, you pat in between his ears and walk over to the kitchenette.\n\n<<continue "...">>In the pantry sits yesterday's bread loaf and a cheese wheel.\n\n<<continue "...">>You toss the loaf to Aster and bring the cheese down onto the cutting board.\n\n<<continue "...">>With a wooden knife in hand, you separate a slice from the wax-coated wheel. Your taste buds tingle as you raise the cheese to your mouth. The scent of smoked coals fills your nostrils as you chew away the slice from the wax. The cheese is cold, and tastes cold, but as you turn toward the door you can feel it hitting the base of your stomach.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster huffs. You glance down to see he's left a bit of bread for you.\n\n<<continue "...">>You pick it up, and his ears stand on end. Kneeling down, you nudge his snout with the bread, but he doesn't budge. You tear at the little nugget with your fingers and eat half the stony scrap, offering him the other, which he nabs right out of your hand.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now that the two of you have eaten, you're free to [[leave|Time to go]].

The building suddenly feels tall. Much taller than you. The lack of any door reminds you of a gaping mouth. The smell of oak and pine wood mixes as it enters your nose. a whiff of blood tucked just between the two.\n\nYou glance down at Aster. His tail juts between his legs.\n\n<<continue "...">>Whatever is inside will forever [[remain|Finding Gaime4]] a mystery.

You're in and out as they all lead you to the door.\n\nYou notice the sun outside the western window. It hovers like a flower on water, dipping inward as its petals become saturated.\n\n<<continue "...">>Eck's Point slopes in the west, like a bed for the sky's iris. You feel your body sloshing around as Hollander and Buer carry you upstairs.\n\n<<continue "...">>Halfway there, a clarion bell hits the side of your head, and you [[crumple|Dream]].

You hover under the scrutiny of black bowels. A dream cast across the glint of pearls in the lacerating torsion of night.\n\nMusk forces its way through the space between, filling you with the odor of burnt leaves.\n\n<<continue "...">>And the branch dangles, slicing through your united line of sight.\n\nYou want to reach for it, but you remain silent, unmoving.\n\nThe beast's eyes break the darkness like a stone thrown through a glass frame.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster makes a noise, then. \n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>His yelp sounds to you like the plea of a decrepit elderly man.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 8s>>You wish you could reach out and snatch the sound away, or knock the vibrations out of the air.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 14s>>The great beast's head swivels, and its eyes leave a traceable trail of obsidian. Still the branch lingers in front of you. With an ounce of doubt in your legs, you take a [[lunge|The Silver Branch: Alone5]] meant for a much taller stature.<<endtimedinsert>>

You start heading toward the bridge, but a shriek catches your attention.\n\n<<continue "...">>It's coming from the [[school playground|School Playground]].\n\nYou're not certain you should ignore this.

Aster is out cold. He likes to sleep in more than you do.\n\nYou have it in mind to [[wake|Dog2][$ob += 1; $dog = "awake"]] him up, but then again, it appears he's dreaming about the wild hunt. He'll be hungry when he wakes up.\n\nMaybe you [[shouldn't|Dog2][$in += 1; $dog = "asleep"]] disturb his dream.

When you were much younger you played in trees. But no matter how you wrack your brain, you can't remember who you played with.\n\nYou recall they were kind.\n\nThat's of no matter now.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your legs swing violently on your waist, hunting for rest in a bottomless darkness.\n\nYou wrap your fingers tight around the branch as the strain in your forearms grows to a constant tether of discomfort.\n\n<<continue "...">>The silver chroma paints your surroundings like speckled moth wings. Dust drifts into an abyss below.\n\nAster and the bear hang suspended in the dark, or rather, stitched into its seams, far away from you.\n\nYou can [[hear|The Silver Branch: Alone6]] them snarling and bellowing, but less so with each second.

It stretches its fronds out on your approach, burgeoning into your touch.\n\nYour fingers graze its leaves, and you jerk your hand back. They were sharp, serrated, but their most concerning quality was how arid they felt.\n\n<<continue "...">><<set alert("Do it")>>Your hand jumps to the knife at the small of your back.\n\n<<timedinsert 2s>><<set alert("Quench my thirst")>>The nerves of your fingers burn as you squeeze the haft.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 4s>><<set alert("Let me drink")>>You slide the dagger from your belt and hold it in front of your eyes. Its silhouette burns against the flames.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 8s>><<set alert("DO")>><<set alert("IT")>><<set alert("LET")>><<set alert("ME")>><<set alert("OUT")>><<set alert("FILL")>><<set alert("ME")>>As the knife carves a molten line across your hand you hear yourself--as if from far away--screaming.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 13s>>Gaime's laughter joins your voice in a harmony like a snarling wolf shredding a doe as she squeels in her stranglehold.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 20s>>The blood runs down your fingers, gravitating toward the fern. You can hear it quivering.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 25s>>As the first drops hits its leaves, the fern crackles, sudden spasms wrack its length.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 30s>>"Really, thank you."<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 31s>><<set alert("THANK YOU")>>Blood continues draining from your hand, gushing toward the fern and spattering into the fire only to boil.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 36s>>"You will be remembered."<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 37s>><<set alert("BY NO ONE")>>You waver, bringing your bleeding hand to your head. A cloud of pressure forms in your scalp. Then it suddenly falls away, and you [[pass|Homecoming Prelude]] into darkness.<<endtimedinsert>>

Shadows fall over the rusty orange wood of the library's sullen interior.\n\n<<continue "...">>A mote of ink patters onto the ground. It falls from thin air, just below the dusky rafters.\n\nThe drips keep that cadence as the puddle's edges reach wider.\n\n<<continue "...">>A hand rises to the surface of the puddle.\n\nStartled, you step back, your foot catching on a hook of some sort.\n\n<<continue "...">>Looking at your feet, you realize a root has latched around your ankle.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now a head slithers into view, shivering out of the inkwell.\n\nIts ivory face is devoid of [[features|Wake Up2]].

There are surfaces everywhere: tables and shelves lined with books and bobbles, trinkets and toys. Each piece catches your eye for mere seconds, but the seconds continue to add up.\n\n<<continue "...">>"That dog is ages older than you, dear...."\n\nYou toss around the idea, and realize that Aster practically raised you from infancy. Your senile neighbor certainly catches the little things.\n\n<<continue "...">>"...When your mother was too sick to do anything but lay in bed, I would bring her tea and look after you. I saw you roll over and stand for the first time--so precious. I'll bet you don't remember that far back."\n\nYou blink. [[//Do you?//|Barbere's House5]]

You hop to your feet and hustle over to Sylvine's house. Aster trails after you, but only as far as Sylvine's door.\n\nHe remains silent as you [[enter|Sylvine's House]].

He was home. Finus was home.\n\nYour father has returned to his wife and child.\n\n<<continue "...">>His town, the town of woods and perpetual overcast clouds, all four mountains bearing down like predators on so many people with domestic animal syndrome.\n\n<<continue "...">>Finus, the graveyard.\n\n<<continue "...">>The marsh.\n\n<<continue "...">>The library.\n\n<<continue "...">>And you're the one who brought him [[back...|Finus2]].

The iridescent outline of a husky stands before you, brimming with moonlight, casting a subtle pallor all around him.\n\nAster's icy eyes meet yours.\n\n<<continue "...">>The wolves behind you shift. Aster cuts his way past you and through the den. You watch as each wolf bows before him.\n\nThey look to you after his passing. You stand as tall as the ceiling will allow, your bare back grazing against dirt and tickling roots. Your feet echo with the day's walk as the bones in your legs creak. In between your toes you feel the earth humming.\n\n<<continue "...">>A wind pulls at your hips, springing you into a stunted crawl up the throat of the cave. As you shuffle, you drag each leg like cedar beam. Prickles of gust ride along your belly and up your ribs. Hairs stand on the ends of your arms. Your nipples prune and harden.\n\nYou scrape the edge of your shoulder on a jutting rock, and a warm pain oozes out. Your hand flies to your shoulder, brushing sensitive hewn flesh away from the tiny patch of bloodied nerves.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster stands at the cave's mouth, crystal horns outline his vaulted shoulders. You duck as you reach the icicles, and [[step|The Night Walk]] out into the faceless night.

"So, do you know anything about the meeting?"\n\nYou're not certain he deserves an answer to that question.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Figures. It's always tooth and nail with those elders. Who knows why //certain individuals// aren't invited to those meetings they hold."\n\nYou look at Dane. Pathetically.\n\n<<continue "...">>"I know, okay." He snaps. "I'm aware of the irony. I get lumped into the same group as that prick, Sartère."\n\nThere's a rusty gleam in his eyes.\n\n<<continue "...">>"But... if you're heading over to the meeting...." Dane looks at you with a familiar concerned expression.\n\nYou [[know|Concede]] where he's going with this.

He's looking around, perhaps searching, perhaps waiting. You stand and wait as well, kneeling down to console Aster.\n\nA familiar clicking attracts your attention.\n\n<<continue "...">>It's Buer lighting his pipe.\n\nBlowing rings.\n\n<<continue "...">>Which line up in a concentric pattern, each one scurrying to convene with the group.\n\n<<continue "...">>The rings are slowly becoming a sphere of smoke.\n\n<<continue "...">>But a yawning flow of wind tears the sphere apart. Buer just [[continues|The Sintlebear2]].

You lift a leg, dropping your full weight on one ankle. Blood pumps in your head, your vision strobes black.\n\nYou ease down.\n\n<<continue "...">>You try again.\n\n<<continue "...">>With one knee braced against the shelf you angle your hips onto the edge.\n\n//"We sit before we stand."// Your mother's voice pops into your head.\n\n<<continue "...">>You shift your full weight to the shelf.\n\nA rumble shakes your entire body. Your breath pushes against the inside of your throat.\n\nThen the [[face|The Silver Branch: Alone4]] of the beast rises up and around its bulk.

Same as ever on south side, just more snow than this morning. You peer up at the sky and notice the sun is climbing down from its zenith.\n\n<<if $glasses is not "fixing">>But you also have to [[deliver|Revisit Dane]] the glasses.<<else>>Dane will want to [[hear|Revisit Dane]] about the meeting.<<endif>>\n\nBut Buer and the others are already nearing Vidlich's [[home|Vidlich's House]]. Soon they'll be turning around and heading back down to the cemetary. Buer's tune slowly calms to a low held note.

<center>The moon is rising over Punnapoint\nIt is midnight.\n\n<<continue "...">>You can see the clouds in the night sky.\n\n<<continue "...">>The moon gleams in paraselene.\n\n<<continue "...">>A tempest graces the western mountain. \n\n<<continue "...">>The storm leaps down into the forest... \n\n<<continue "...">>... razing trees left and right.\n\n<<continue "...">>A single [[tree|Dream2]] stands against the Wanebough gale.\n</center>

<<set alert("I'm sorry, are you trying to dictate your way out?")>>Your eyes...\n<<timedinsert 2s>><<set alert("You have nothing, little egg.")>><<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedgoto "Nothing" 4s>>

Your eyes [[snap|Banishing Finus2]] open.

<<timedinsert 2s>>Who have //you// ever helped? You can't even speak. And you think you can just make nice with everyone else?<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 6s>>You think everyone [[appreciates|Finus4]] you?<<endtimedinsert>>

The southwestern edge of Punnapoint is a bog of considerable infamy, having claimed the lives of several children in the past. It's only //called// the "Sunken Section," though. The bog didn't just suddenly appear and engulf a whole street. It's been in Punnapoint for as long as anyone can remember, and that's including Sylvine.\n\nThe wolves of the forest live on the southwestern edge, behind the bog, just outside the Hephen house. They've adapted to the bog over several generations, chasing prey directly into its clutches, making their prey choose between an incredibly slow and painful death, or a slow and incredibly painful death.\n\nThe poor kids chose the bog.\n\nYour thoughts return to the [[street|Left]].

You tread the longest hallway.\n\nEvery face that turns your way, you recognize them, whether they grimace, smile, or bare their teeth and pinch their brows.\n\nAnd though you think you've never met them, one such face stands out.\n\n<<continue "...">>A stout, rounded nose holding together a thin pair of lips and eyes sunken further than a gibbous moon.\n\nYou think it's a man, but there's an uncertainty in their own form. They waver, like you're spying them through the surface of a lake, their expression continually worsening.\n\nNow it's all they can do not to burst into tears.\n\n<<continue "...">>You turn around, leaving the familiar figure behind, only to settle inches from your mother's face.\n\nShe's staring at you in a way that sends a tickling anxiety down the length of your back. Her glasses hang from her face, the lens shattered and the frame bent.\n\n<<continue "...">>You turn back, jolting away from your mother. A thin rod, like the branch of a tree, repels you onto your back. The familiar figure looms over your shrinking form. The gate of Punnapoint stands between you, but fails to separate you.\n\n<<continue "...">>The gate shrinks as the figure starts to grow, its flesh peeling away, the fury-torn expression feeding into a face-less, feature-less surface. Sacs of writhing bone-colored tendrils quiver as the figure struggles to be free of its prison.\n\n<<continue "...">>The mass of pale roots throws itself at the gate, wrapping its fingers around the gateposts. The face peeks underneath the words "Punnapoint", as its antlers mingle with the wrought iron letters.\n\n<<continue "...">>With a single hand it reaches down for you as you [[plummet|Homecoming Prelude]].

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<center><<continue "...">>And if you think the game just isn't working properly, feel free to [[contact|http://hellaquence.tumblr.com/ask]] me.\n\n<<continue "...">>Now, I think you're ready to [[wake up|Wake Up]]. Don't you?\n\n<<continue "...">>Maybe [[not|Start]].</center>

You rise onto your feet, prickles riddling your legs, bouncing from the tips of your toes to your calves and up to your thighs as blood rushes to refill each tiny capillary.\n\nSliding your feet across the floor, you make your way over to the scraps, gradually feeling less and less like a strung hare.\n\n<<continue "...">>You finally reach the papers, only to discover they're two scrawled charcoal sketches.\n\nYou [[pick|Two Papers4]] them up nonetheless.

"You're wearing what you had on yesterday. Why don't you go change and hurry out. The meeting is soon, so drop those off quickly if you want to make it."\n\n<<continue "...">>Dane has several bad habits that get on your nerves, but his photography is worth making a visit.\n\n<<continue "...">>"--And don't forget." She picks up the glasses and hands them to you. "Would have been a sure spoil to walk all the way to Dane's only to find your pockets empty."\n\nYou [[leave|Home][$ob += 1; $glasses = "acquired"]] the room before she can see your face.

The townsfolk look toward the young man playing the crystalline flute. Smiles grafted from the music itself sprout from face to face.\n\n<<continue "...">>Aster lifts his head, and his tail begins to wag.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your mother looks from you to Buer.\n\n<<continue "...">>You [[look|Procession2]] at Buer.

Your leaders take you down Cedarrant Street, and past all the houses.\n\nYou're approaching the arboretum, which is remarkeably bright for this time, and weather.\n\n<<continue "...">>The fettered ruins of overgrown houses sit in an oval behind Knoprune and Cedarrant Street. You walk along the wall on the left side between the first and second houses. And then you stop.\n\nYou can see them sitting on a pair of logs in the clearing between two houses on the other side.\n\n<<continue "...">>It's Sylvine and a long silhouette of cotton-edged darkness perched behind a circle of runic writing illuminated by red-wax candles. At the center of the candles rests a clay pot planted with a fern the color of deer antlers.\n\nSylvine and the shadow [[turn|Shadow's Reveal]] to you suddenly.

You're on Knoprune Street, the Dane's lens shop just in front of you. Across from the shop is the glass greenhouse of the [[Arboretum]]. Sylvine and Dane have an arrangement, she provides him with herbs, spices, and other plant-matter in exchange for insurance on the glass. It's mostly a one-sided deal, though, Dane provides his service to everyone for free, but Sylvine insists.\n\nThe house on Dane's right belongs to [[Qierke]], one of the the Sittlemaver brothers, the widowed doctor. //Sittlemaver// is actually a relatively new family name in Punnapoint, "relatively" being three generations in sixty years. You've seen the records in the library, though. The family used to be named Skein, until their patriarch suddenly [[passed|Sittlemaver]] away.\n\n<<if $glasses is "fixing">>The sun isn't even at quarter-past, the meeting probably hasn't started. In fact, you might arrive before your mother. You have plenty of time to [[continue your walk|The Streets]], or you could just <<if visited("School Playground")>>[[head|Crossing to North Side]]<<else>>[[head|You hear a noise]]<<endif>> on over.<<else>>You've yet to drop the glasses off at [[Dane's|Dane's House]].<<endif>>

You bob your head up and down.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Oh, splendid! Where?" she asks.\n\n<<continue "...">>You point up to Buer's empty roof. You wince.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Aren't you a funny one...." Sylvine says.\n\nYou close your eyes and [[exhale|Seen Buer2]].

Names are unspoken social standing in Punnapoint. If a family has more than three members at a time then they are allowed to have a surname. Although it isn't easy to generate that many people and provide for them all.\n\nFood is alloted through the market each day, but one must trade for anymore. The Colcoma's who own the largest farm in Punnapoint, provide jobs for larger families.\n\nAmong those in the village:\n\nAdelaide\nAlto Cyrus~School Mentor\nBarlow\nBeniamino\nBuer~Sylvine's Apprentice\nCarrow Dute~Midwife's apprentice\nChiaro\nClaus Sittlemaver~Midwife, Sittlemaver brother\nDane Hephen~Lenscrafter\nDemarche\nEdel~\nEmmauld Hephen~Snooty Twin A\nEnnard Hephen~Snooty Twin B\nFaisal\nFarthing~Chronicler\nGaime\nHollander~Respectable Doctor\nJabre~Spirit of Voice, guards Silver Branch\nJaple\nJellep\nJibre~Spirit of Voice, guards Silver Branch\nKoller\nLangor\nMarian\nMarmalade\nManolin\nMillow\nNonce\nPapain\nQierke Sittlemaver~Estranged Doctor, Sittlemaver Brother\nRidley\nRoussley\nRustin\nSaulbar\nSimon\nSintlebear\nSylvine~Punnapoint's Witch\nVidlich~Undertaker\nWestrom\nYvette~The would-be apprentice of Sylvine\n\n\nFamily names: Some families in Punnapoint do not have a surname. This is never the case for the three main families, who usually have two names, and sometimes a third if the family is convoluted enough.\n\nHephen\nColcoma\nTharen-Petica\nJec\nSittlemaver\nDutë\n\nPolygamy and Polyandry are common practice in Punnapoint. Family names are taken from the patriarch and matriarch. Brothers and sisters of the family head help raise the children, but can each start their own family and choose to join their original family, their spouses family, or create a new family without a last name.

"And what are the both of you up to?"\n\n<<continue "...">>Buer exchanges a glance with you.\n\n<<continue "...">>"We were about to head to the meeting, Gaime, why aren't you there?" Buer responds.\n\nYou can't help but smile. His voice is light in tone. \n\n<<continue "...">>"Didn't feel like it." Gaime looks at you.\n\nYour father used to work at the Hephen Sawmill. Gaime was his supervisor. That was before he quit. Your mom never told you much more than that.\n\n<<continue "...">>"C'mon, we don't have time for this." Buer [[pulls|North Side]] you away.\n

<center>Tugging on the mast, a wavering sliver like a shade of cellulose, the timbers splintered. Like a thimble on the finger of a corpse and all the rats in a single wave crashing down on the carcass, the finger snapped underneath their hundredfold jaws. Tugging on meat and men.\n\nIn the sky, a soaring angel crept over the nimbus. Spears of lightning hefted on their shoulder and bands of galvanic shards. A chakram of rusty ionized crater. Each surface connected with the wooden beams and the light of a batch of flies erupted from within the hull of the ship.\n\nMen onboard riddled up the falling mast, scraped the lines for every inch of space they could muster between them and their mealy, corrosive end. The grind of the surging tide rustled underneath the floundering cloud with the angel above. The wave, like tooth fragments, from the rats, came soaring overhead. It picked up crust from remains of luminous bulbs, and the cracks in the veil tore the ship into its plummet.\n\n[[Wake up|Touch the ring4]]</center>

You start to choke as the voice reverberates through your skull.\n\n<<continue "...">>//LET ME OUT//\n\n<<continue "...">>You stay the writhing mass inside you, but you can see black motes forming out of the corners of your eyes.\n\n<<continue "...">>You hold your mouth closed and you brace your jaw in your hands.\n\nThe pressure in your eyes is almost bursting. You can feel your blood searing in your brow and all along the rim of your head.\n\n<<continue "...">>Then something pops, and you taste thick, warm iron and salt as blood streams around in your mouth. You close your eyes involuntarily, and beyond your eyelids there's a howl in the dark, of your own voice.\n\n<<continue "...">>[[//LIKE FATHER, LIKE...//|Homecoming Prelude]]

You smell bile inside your mouth. Under your garments you feel a roiling, welling feeling seep out of you. Moist stool rests just below your legs. The sensations feel warm and wonderful.\n\n<<continue "...">>You shudder as you lurch between your legs. The serpent head stone hits the ground with a //crack// inside a spew of vomitus.\n\n<<continue "...">>You feel an open palm battering your backside. It strikes repeatedly and methodically.\n\n<<continue "...">>You cough as the last dregs fall from your lips. You stare at your stained and sodden crotch.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Is it finished?" Your mother asks.\n\nYou nod as you start to [[sob|Resting]].

<<if not visited("The Watermill: Alone2")>><<once>>You wait outside Lemond Barbère's. You keep knocking but there's no answer.\n\nAster waits patiently in the street. After a while you decide to check [[elsewhere|Punnapoint Free Roam]].<<endonce>><<later>>Again you find yourself at the door of Lemond Barbère, knocking.\n\nYou place your ear on the door, and you swear you can make out ceramic grating against ceramic from far away, and drawn out breaths from up close.\n\nShe's not going to let you in anytime soon. Might as well keep [[looking|Punnapoint Free Roam]] around.<<endlater>><<endif>><<if visited("The Watermill: Alone2")>>As you approach Lemond Barbère's steepled house, a feeling springs into your steps.\n\nThat feeling ends when her door creaks open.\n\nLemond stands there with a cup of tea in her hands. Your neighbor stares at you like a stranger might smile at another stranger.\n\n"Are you coming in or not?"\n\nYour options are slim, and an opportunity has [[presented|Barbere Approval]] itself. It would be unwise to [[dismiss|Barbere Scold]] her invitation.<<endif>>

<center>The moon is rising over Punnapoint\nIt is <<cyclinglink "midnight" "the witching hour">>.\n\nYou can see the <<cyclinglink "clouds" "hound">> in the night sky.\n\n<<cyclinglink "The moon" "Its eye">> gleams in paraselene.\n\nA <<cyclinglink "tempest" "gallop">> graces the western mountain. \n\nThe <<cyclinglink "storm" "specter">> leaps down into the <<cyclinglink "forest" "graveyard">>... \n\n... razing <<cyclinglink "trees" "fiends">> left and right.\n\nA single <<cyclinglink "tree" "abomination">> stands against the Wanebough <<cyclinglink "gale" "spirit">>.\n\n<<timedinsert 30s>>[["Wake up"|Spiriting away]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n</center>

You turn to see Aster looking up at you, yawning. He's pawing at your leg.\n\n<<continue "...">>He probably thinks you were going to leave without him, which is fair, you might've if he hadn't just woken up.\n\n<<continue "...">>You grab for his front paws and he places one on your shoulder while the other slips into the crook of your arm.\n\n<<continue "...">>He stares at you and in those eyes you see the father you never knew.\n\n<<continue "...">>It's about time you headed [[out|Time to go]].

You're jolted into a sweat by thoughts of the sun drifting up and over the clouds while you're distracted by endless bedspread roundup.\n\n<<continue "...">>Time is [[wasting|Home]].

The stone is warm to touch, almost as warm as your cup of tea. It vibrates in the palm of your hand. The eyes are carved exquisitely into the brow of the serpent. Its snout slopes down then slightly up at the end, a forked tongue probably hiding shut within its maw.\n\n<<continue "...">>You toss the thought around in your head. You have to put this in your mouth, but it seems to be growing larger every second.\n\n<<continue "...">>Without a futher thought, you place it on your tongue.\n\nInside, you can feel something slithering. It coils and braces itself against the walls of your mouth. Your saliva mixes with its venom into a cruel, tart taste.\n\n<<continue "...">>Your eyes bug out as you spread your panicked look around the room. Your mother reaches for your hand, candlelight shifting across her eyes as she watches. Buer stands the same he always has. Edel [[looms|The Serpent Head Stone3]] over you at the foot of the table.

Something tickles the roof of your mouth, and you feel the urge to vomit as a tendril hits the back of your throat.\n\nYou imagine a root boring into the ground as the growth surges down your throat, grazing your uvula.\n\n<<continue "...">>You withstand the ordeal, willing yourself to contain the furious serpent.\n\n<<continue "...">>"That's right, keep it trapped." Edel murmurs.\n\nNow the creature fills your mouth and throat with venom and muscle. You realize you can't breathe.\n\n<<continue "...">>"Keep it trapped." She repeats.\n\n<<continue "...">>[[//Let me out//|The Serpent Head Stone4]]