#continuumcanon

[helafontrecs]

Journal of Sivart Samoth the Immortal Hammer Colony Assessment Tour Day 038 We are 2 days out from the Alpha Sierra colony & i am still haunted by the smell of Ifri. I pleaded w/ her to join us back in continuum city ( i even offered her a good position in the immortal army ), but she was far too engrossed in her royal guard training to even give the prospect any real consideration. The king is his normal oblivious self today ( literally whistling while walking ) while i am torn inside. It is getting late & we are unsure where to make camp. I suggest that we ascend into the olympian mountain range, but the king ( always the overachiever ) said he heard news of a small rogue colony in a nearby bayou named boogi & wanted to go break bread w/ the inhabitants. It is a slightly longer trek & considerably more unpredictable, but i acquiesce to my liege. As the sun set we came upon the edge of the forest line where we found a surprisingly well maintained trail penetrating the thick vegetation. As we traveled down the path the surrounding flora gained an eerie quality that made me increasingly more uneasy as we proceeded, the king seemed unaffected. At the end of the path we found a town that was quite a bit larger than what we had been expecting ( there were probably at least 20+ structures radiating from a central water source ). Just as i began stating that I had a bad feeling about this place we were greeted by a man who gruffly introduced himself as CHIEF! He explained that him & a couple of the other founders of the town had been somewhat ostracized back in olympia & felt a pull to explore further lands, in time they set out on their own & were eventually all drawn to boogi. When CHIEF learned of the kings stature, he was eager to have him survey their land. Being an outlaw, I felt he might have reason to fear us, but he seemed quite interested in becoming part of the continuum kingdom. After the 2 finished talking CHIEF rustled us up a place to stay for the night & we parted ways. Colony Assessment Tour Day 039 A lot has transpired since yesterday. It all started last night after we turned in. The king easily slipped into slumber once inside our temporary lodgings, but i stirred. The bayou was terribly hot & i could not shake thoughts of ifri from my mindspace, so i decided to go out for a walk around the bayou. The scene appeared serene, but an odd presence hung in the thick air. I walked the perimeter of the water taking in the ramshackle houses cast in the shadows of the night. The little moonlight that escaped through the branches that covered almost the entirety of the towns ceiling crept across the ground in unusual ways that seemed impossible within the rules of our world.

After i had almost completed my loop around the jagged circlet of water i saw a faint glow coming from a nearby dock. I slowed my pace & crept quietly to obtain a closer look. I ducked behind a nearby brush patch & peeped a bizarre scene through the reeds. It was CHIEF struggling w/ a peculiar large headed young man. The glow appeared to be emanating from the young man ( most notably his eyes ) which seemed to project light like miniature spotlights. The young man was bound & gagged, he was struggling & noticeably petrified. His fear intensified as CHIEF began dragging him towards the water. Believing that this poor boys life was in danger i rushed out to intercede, but when i attempted to tackle CHIEF i passed through him like he was a specter, leaving me to watch helplessly as he flung the boy into the water, the glowing body sinking helplessly to the bottom until there was only a faint glow deep in the water. Horrified i turned to run & alert the town, but when i did, the glowing eyed young man was now standing face to face w/ me. His eyes were mesmerizing... The next thing i knew i was back in my bed. The kings bed was already made, but his pack was now sitting on top of it. I quickly dressed & began searching for him. I followed the smell of cooking food to a building w/ a small dining hall in it, I spotted the king breaking his fast w/ CHIEF & some of the other founders. I rushed up to him & murmured something about classified kingdom business & whisked him away. Once outside I blurted out all the things I had witnessed last night. A lot of people would have been skeptical of my tale, but the king & I had a trust that I’ve never experienced w/ any other being on this planet. He instantly recognized the strange predicament we were in, we knew no one in this town except our potential murderer & something very sinister was transpiring. Being honorable men of the highest order we could not turn a blind eye.

The king went back inside in an attempt to not arouse suspicion ( & to finish his food ), I began doing recon around town. I silently watched the townsfolk for the remainder of the day. Most of them seemed normal as could be, but eventually one girl stood out to me, she did not seem to be talking to the rest of the group, she also seemed to be the only person in the village that did not appear content. In one of her isolated moments I snuck up & pulled her aside. As soon as I looked into her eyes I knew this was the person I was looking for. Her eyes were mesmerizing... I reconvened w/ the king later that day & explained that the girl was the sister of the young drowning man & his name was lantern. A couple months ago he began confiding in her that the founders were not who they appeared to be. He became more & more paranoid until one day he just vanished. Everyone just assumed he ran away because he never fit in, but his sister knew he would never just leave her like that. Later that night after everyone had gone to bed the king & I crept through the town to CHIEFs abode. We peeked through his window to behold a strange scene, CHIEF was standing behind a small podium leading a chant w/ the other founders sitting in a circle surrounding a fire. The flame leapt around like it was being manipulated by great winds even though it was inside an enclosed space. I was mesmerized by the shadows dancing across the walls until I saw a pair of ominous eyes open on the opposite wall from the group. The shadow slowly started to take physical shape as a creature pulled itself from some distant realm. An overwhelming terror came over me but the king turned to me & said Ive seen enough then walked to the front door & opened it before I had any chance to dissuade him.

The shadows spilled out of the small cabin like someone released a flood gate. Once outside the shadow creature was 2x times its original size, but the king stood steadfast. I ran towards it & swung my war-hammer at the creatures head, but just like w/ the apparitions on the dock it was completely unfazed. The creature immediately spawned a multitude of dark tendrils that wrapped around me & I felt all willpower instantly drain out of me as I slumped to the ground. The creature turned back towards the king who silently unsheathed his weapon & released the blade. The silky smooth form of the creature bristled at the light emanating from the quantum sword. More tendrils appeared from the innards of the creature & they went straight for the king. He effortlessly swung his sword severing all the tips of the tentacles as he moved towards the demon. Once close enough he sunk his blade into the living shadow & it let forth a sound like air screaming, then dissipated into smoke. As soon as the creature was gone I was released & fell into a deep slumber. Colony Assessment Tour Day 041 I awoke in my bed to see my kings bed made w/ his pack on top again. Still exhausted I dragged myself to the dining hall & found him there once again eating w/ the founders, I sat down to join them. As we ate the king explained that a shadow spirit had taken over CHIEFs body back in olympia & that it had used its power to lure all these people to boogi. It turned out that lantern had a sort of spectral vision that allowed him to see the shadow spirit inside the townsfolk & when the spirit realized this, it killed lantern to keep him quiet. As he concluded his tale, laterns sister walked in & asked if we could go for a walk. She thanked me for all that we had done, I explained that the king had actually done most of the heavy lifting, but she was adamant that her brother had chosen me to help & if I hadnt found her they would have never cracked the case. She told me there was nothing left for her in boogi & asked if she could join us on our trip back to continuum city, I regretfully informed her that we weren’t going home yet, the king had more colonies to see & I must accompany him. She seemed disappointed, but she took my directions & said she would go anyways & that hopefully one day we would meet again. I told her I would hope for the same thing.

I Can Feel It ( bb ) contains samples from In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins from the album Face Value & Bayou Boogie by David Wise from The Donkey Kong Country soundtrack which also samples In the Air Tonight.

This is part of the 7 dmnsns mixtape available on:

BANDCAMP

DATPIFF

SPINRILLA

[helafontrecs]

rejoyced

She was 1 of the un/ucky ones. She was also getting tired of playing her wavatar on the side of the street & decided she might as well leave because nobody was leaving her any dits anyways. So she packed her instrument, zipped up her plastic coat & headed across town. She was sad as per usual, yesterday had been her birthday & she had spent it alone ( birthdays were never great for her growing up so she didnt expect anything really, but somehow she still felt it more ( the loneliness that is ), but nowadays she was always alone, also now with regular frequency she would jolt awake at night after having dreams/nightmares of that day 3 months ago when a sortie from the dark palace ransacked her humble hideaway nestled in the mountains. A couple of her friends got out like she did, but most were either detained or killed. That mountain hideaway had been her sanctuary & it was also the first time she had been clean in as long as she could remember. It took her 2 weeks to find the seedy little town she was currently laying low in & on the second day she was already so stressed out from keeping an ever vigilant eye out for the palace patrol that she had to score some flooid capsules just to settle down her screaming nerves. She had managed a year & a half clean in hideaway ( the shakes were an absolute bitch in the the beginning, but she persisted ), it was the most lucid & content she had felt in her entire life, which wasnt saying much because her life had been fairly abysmal up until that point. She was what was commonly called a flooid baby, due to the fact that her mother was severely hooked on pure flooid all throughout her pregnancy. When she was born she had to be fitted with an injector in her arm because at 6 weeks old she was already going through intense withdrawals & the med-bots were afraid she would succumb to the pain unless they could ween the toxic stuff out of her system with anti-floo. She was 13 when she first tried flooid on her own, just after her mother ODd when mom finally graduated from flooid & started injecting straight hypr ( her father had never been in her life ). As she walked across town she kept flashing back to that deadly day at hideaway. The scene that had been seared into her mind was when she watched ( hidden in a toilet ) a patroller wrestling with her chum chez on a high bridge. Chez was struggling against his opponent & was even able to wrestle the patrollers stun gun into his hands & turn it on him, but before he could pull the trigger another patroller snuck up & clubbed chez from behind, the two took a moment to collect themselves then causally kicked his lifeless body off the side of the mountain. As she walked silently through the grey streets smoking a stim stick she cursed that fucking phaser who brought that dimensional drifter into her town. She knew that lil punk was trouble from the get go. She ducked into a subtube to save time on her cross town hike. The tube was mostly empty expect for a couple floozies slowly shuffling to keep themselves from full body lock. She knew that would be her eventual fate, but she just could not seem to muster up any sympathy for them.

The tube let her out just 3 blocks from the spot downtown where her hook-up posted up. The pusher ironically set up shop in a dark alley behind a church of the Infine. Her mother had been a disciple of the infinite when she was a child (& by default so was she ) but seeing the church fail them over & over again while her mother was trying to kick her 4x a day injection habit really left a sour taste in her mouth. Deep in the back or her mind there lived a belief that the Infine were real, but the actual organization around it seemed to be complete bullshit in her estimation. Without even looking its way she casually elevated her middle finger as she walked by the enormous crisscross haloed in green that was erected at the front of the building, then snuck around the rainbow tinted ornamental architecture elements that encompassed the church cloister to the back where she found her hook-up.

The flooid dispenser was a dark wiry man with a cool looking heavy jacket & long black hair that covered ½ of his notably pale face. She had scored off him before. He was expensive, but his stuff was quality ( she hadnt had a rejection even once using his junk ). He sported a small green drop pin on his left breast pocket ( a signifier to anyone in the know that he was a “licensed” flooid dealer ). The dispenser had already sold her enough that he recognized her face so he skipped any pleasantries & she put up 3 fingers ( for 3 vials ), he pulled them out so fast it seemed like a magic trick. She rummaged through her pockets & pulled out all the dits she had on her, but her attention was instantly taken by a noise coming from her left. She turned her head to see a women dressed in priestess robes shouting at them. Realizing the jig was up the dude instinctively grabbed all of the dits out of her hands & took off. Before she could even grasp what happened the priestess was by her side. She instantly began lying about what they had been doing, but the priestess silenced her & explained she was not mad at her, only the filthy dispenser & that she had a disease, the dispenser was only trying to exploit it & that their church had been working on a cure for the blight that is flooid. She was confused, but she followed.

Inside the cloister was beautiful, the priestess droned on for a bit about the many benefits of Infine life ( the same empty garbage she heard when she was young ), but after a while the priestess pulled something out of her pocket. It was a blue vial that contained a substance called joy.ce & it was a new form of anti-floo that had some interesting side effects. She was skeptical, but she could feel the flooid shakes starting to creep through her body & the dispenser had taken off with all of her credits so this seemed to be the only solution presenting itself. She poured the new floo into her injector & sat back. The room fell away & suddenly she was in the sky surrounded by beings made of clouds, most were around her height, but there were a couple that were much larger & off in the distance she could see a massive being that towered over everything which she guessed was one of the Trifine. A wave of euphoria splashed over her & all her troubles & pain washed away. The cloud beings were beginning to notice her now. They began moving towards her & embracing her. At first she was weary of their touch, but it was clear they meant her no harm. The group was quickly enveloping her, but she felt no claustrophobia, she wanted more, more connection, more love. She peered up & saw the visage of the Trifine looking down on her & then she awoke. She felt a newness that she hadnt experienced since she was 13.

rejoyced is a Rearrangement of Julien Baker's song Rejoice by Continuum Kingdom for the mixtape 7 dmnsns which you can listen to & download on BANDCAMP

[helafontrecs]

Finn & Francis ( thnk u )

Finn was a complexly simple young man & for as long as he could remember he had been in love with Frances, the twin sister of his best friend Francis, but right now all Finn was thinking about was how a group of dimensional marauders were currently invading his ( up until this moment ) relatively peaceful home. Trying hard to stay calm, Finn silently repeated the serenity statements Frances & him had come up with when they were young to help them deal with their anxiety attacks. Finn stared in horror as a gigantic dark triangular shaped craft slowly descended from space pointed directly at the peak of the beloved mountain that overlooked their modest municipality. Finn began worrying about his family & friends, but then his mind slipped back to the familiar Frances, he was petrified that he might never see her again & thus he might not be able to share the feelings that he had been keeping secret for so long. Suddenly, some civilian off in the distance called out & it shook him from his stupor. Finn sprang into action & began sprinting back towards home.

Frances lived an unexpected life. She was born just minutes after her brother Francis to the surprise of her parents who up till that moment believed they were only having a single child. The doctors told her parents that she was unlikely to live due to malnutrition in the womb, but she was a fighter from the very beginning & pulled through. Frances grew. She grew more than anyone else. Frances stood at least half a meter taller than everyone else in her classes. She was notably clever & quick in just about every aspect of life. All the boys were obviously in love with her, but were all far too intimidated by her stature to ever approach her. This would be disheartening to most, but Frances did not care one bit, she had loved one person her whole life, her brothers best friend Finn. She had always hoped/believed that he felt the same way about her, but her guilt towards taking another thing from her brother was more than she could bear.

A prophecy had been made when her mother became pregnant that their child would wield the spectral sword that had been passed down through their family since they established the kingdom several generations ago. Everyone always assumed it would be Francis because in their history, the males were always the one that psychically fought the battles, but Francis was average at best & Frances was spectacular at seemingly everything. When the elders voted on the swords bestowment, the vote was unanimously in favor of Frances.

Frances stood on the front lines still feeling like a child but ready to do her duty. She held the spectral sword as tightly as she could muster, despite the fact that she was quaking like a leaf. She stared on in horror as the invaders vessel pierced the peak of their beloved mountain & began to crumble. The ship drilled itself deep into the mountain & lodged itself firmly in the devastated crag. Combatants began spilling out of the craft & instantly began besieging the burg. A bulky pale skinned alien attacker bared down on Francis and swung an oversized axe in her direction, she instinctively parried & stuck the sword in his exposed ribcage. The brut turned to a blinding blue color and then shattered into tiny pieces.

Francis had lived in his sisters shadow his entire life ( both literally & metaphorically ). He tried to not hold a grudge, but seeing her receive every blessing he perceived to be his birthright really developed into quite a thorn in his side, so when he saw an alien sneak up behind her in the battle, he considered for a moment just letting the events unfold unaltered, but he quickly came to his senses & lept onto the stealthy aliens back & swiftly slit its throat. Frances turned to see her brother drop her would be assassin to the ground, he looked up & gave her an honest smile. Frances saw a look of bewilderment then horror on his sisters face as a spear tip exploded through his chest. She leapt forward in retaliation & inserted her blade into the face of her brother's killer. The murderer drifted off to the spectral winds as the twins crumpled to the ground together. As Francis laid dying he could see Finn careening down a hillside, rushing to join the fray. He turned to his sister & told her that he knew how they felt about each other & that he hoped they could be together. He told his sister he was sorry for being so distant and thankful for how kind she was despite him not reciprocating the gesture.He knew this was the end of his life, but he also felt it was the start of something much larger.

Finn & Francis ( thnk u ) is a mashup/remix of Francis and the Lights Thank You with Everything is Falling Into Place from Adventure Time for the mixtape 7 dmnsns.

[helafontrecs]

Ice Palace Grand Imperial Ice Lord: I've been told you have amassed a selection of secrets from the dark palace & news of the missing prince. Seller of Secrets: Yes, your lordship. In fact the 2 items are actually 1 in the same. Apparently the prince appeared on the palaces doorstep in horrible disarray. Not knowing at the time what they had in their possession, the palace guards threw what they believed to be a lowly outkast into their underground prison to rot, but he was almost immediately jailbroken by a phaser who had been secretly hiding out inside the depths of the prison. GIIL: Hmmm.... and what of the dark prince? SOS: My original reports proved correct as usual. He was left to guard the vortex to the dark dimension by his mother, the black queen, but when the spectrum prince... GIIL: DO NOT UTTER THAT TITLE IN MY PRESENCE! SOS: 1000 apologies your lordship... When the prince of skull entered the subterranean pyramid they fought ( with the aid of the Immortal Hammer ) & in the end, the pair hobbled the dark prince while simultaneously destroying the gateway inside the pyramid. The hammer escaped, but both princes were sucked into the never ending & fought another battle where the young prince emerged victorious again. 2 more times they met inside the palace & in both instances the prince of skull emerged the victor. GIIL: His power grows even greater than we anticipated. SOS: Yes, & on top that, he vanquished the palaces stone guardian & he did so with the quantum blade! GIIL: The situation grows more perilous with each morsel of info. Do you have news of the princes current location? SOS: A sortie was dispatched to a small town of outsiders in the mountains where he was believed to be hiding. They sacked the town, but they found no trace of the prince. They did however find an old destroyed prism portal in the basement. GIIL: Why would that be of import? SOS: Well see heres the rub. The unit actually appeared to be fine on the outside, but when a tech checked it out, all the electronics had been fried. GIIL: Again, why? SOS: All the parts on the inside looked pristine, but they were all non-functioning. After eliminating every other possibility, the tech determined the console had been phase wiped. GIIL: Intriguing... SOS: For sure. My current working theory is the phaser dumped him into a distant dimension & since phasers cannot dimensionally shift, she fried the console so no one would be able to trace the princes whereabouts or follow him. GIIL: Clever girl. Is there any possibility he would be coming here? We have his fathers snowflake, he could be coming to reclaim it. SOS: Impossible. Those old prism portals dont have the range to reach to our dimension. Most likely the prince is lost in some chaotic fledgling dimension. As for the idea that the prince would make advances towards the dimension of death. I highly doubt it. In the 300 years youve governed the ice palace, none has breached our walls. GIIL: What does the black queen make of all this? SOS: She is an absolute state of fury right now, but she was the impetus for this whole chain of events, so she really only has herself to blame. GIIL: Elaborate. SOS: When she inherited the crown after her mothers passing, the new queen went to an oracle for insight & prophecy on her impending reign. The oracle predicted the dark kingdoms downfall at the hands of the spect... kingdom of continuum. Believing the skull king to be the source of this new kingdoms power, she sent her prince to assassinate the young king, this would later become the event that put the skull prince on his fantastic quest for revenge. Now the 2 kingdoms stand on the brink of all out war! Normally the dark palace would be able to topple any adversary with ease, but the wrinkle that makes this conflict so problematic is the 2 dimensions have wildly different time flow. Continuum Kingdom has possibly the fastest time stream I've ever come across & the dark empire is on the slow side. The ratio is something along the lines of 1 month in dark time is equivalent to a year in Continuum. So basically whenever they try & invade they are almost literally fighting the clock. GIIL: That Kingdom is truly blessed by the Infine. Thank you for sharing your secrets. Your information was worrisome & informative as per usual. SOS: And as always, it is my pleasure & duty to serve you my lord. GIIL: Dismissed.

This song samples A Bell is Tolling ( Ice Palace ) from the soundtrack to Secret of Mana.

[helafontrecs]

Dark  Crimes

There were sounds of creaking floorboards & knobs being switched. These were the first noises that permeated the princes head as he slowly regained consciousness. A voice wafted through the ether with notes of surprise & a splash of relief, then more floorboard shuffling. His whole body felt pummeled & his mind kept having the sensation that he was tumbling over & over. The prince hadnt done much drinking in his life, but he imagined this is what a hangover felt like. His unease was immediately relieved as the thief phased into the room.

The prince had never been so elated to see a familiar face ( even if half of it was covered by a mask ). She sat down on the bed he was lying on. Due to the small size of the bed, the thiefs posterior was forced to nestle gently against the princes thigh ( even with the slightest amount of contact he could feel his pain being relieved by that familiar tingle ). She spoke softly & explained that he had stumbled out of the palace half dead & that she dragged him back here to safety.

Here turned out to be a small mountain hideout, mostly inhabited by ne'er-do-wells & charlatans about 8 klicks from the palace ( the thief had apparently dragged him for 3 before help arrived & rescued them both ). The prince vomited up gallons of thanks & appreciation, but no amounts of words could convey how grateful he really was.

It took another 6 days before he could get out of bed, but once he did the thief gave him the grand tour. The inhabitants of the hideout were an interesting lot, none of them were mean or rude, but they all seemed standoffish to say the least. They all appeared to be especially skeptical of outsiders & regarded him with extreme caution, but after about a week, a couple of the younger denizens started to warm to him. It started with an occasional meal, but quickly turned into late night parties & debauchery. The thief rarely imbibed or intoxicated herself ( mostly she just puffed on a flower pipe ), but she hung out most nights anyways. The prince was slowly starting to see her real personality creep out from behind her mask ( which she still rarely took off ).

A month in & the prince was having the time of his life. No one back home was like these people, they were flawed & free. In his little world back home he was someone special, but out here in the greater world he was nobody. It was amazingly freeing not having a past.

One night after an evening of gyrating & merriment at the local dance hall the prince & thief stealthily parted ways from the rest of their group & went for a stroll. They wordlessly walked back to her place ( the prince had been crashing at an embarrassingly run down hostel for the past couple weeks ). The thief phased through her door & the prince was left standing alone outside for a moment until he heard a small click & the door creaked open. The prince walked in to find the thief waiting for him. She stood in darkness for a moment, just staring at him, then slowly moved towards him. She grabbed his hand while simultaneously pulling her mask off. Her smile was like an obtuse triangle that was wider than seemed physically possible & was quite possibly the most mesmerizing thing he had ever laid eyes upon. The prince couldnt even imagine what it was like to smile like that, it felt like he hadnt really smiled in years. She was getting close to him, but his body was frozen, suddenly the prince now felt more intoxicated than at any point previously in this current bender. He wanted to move, to talk, do anything, but the incoming stimuli was far too overwhelming & all he could do was try to take it all in & hope that he could process it later. They were together for 3 minutes. 3 brief infinite minutes. Then the sirens started.

The thief bolted out of the room & the prince stumbled after her. For a moment everything seemed normal, but then he saw it. The tip of a zeppelin pierced the cloud bank off to their left. It was a sortie from the dark palace.

Below the inhabitants of the town were amassing into uncontrolled hysteria. Some people were shouting & crying, some were struggling desperately to get what little belongings they had together. A second zeppelin appeared to their right & feared gripped the prince like a bear trap. The thief grabbed his hand & they both took off running.

They zigged & zagged down dark tunnels & hallways. The thief yanking the princes arm left & right ( it felt like they were back in the palace for a moment), the prince had no idea where they were going, but he trusted her. After 3 minutes of desperate course correction they entered a room with a strange machine. It glew with a hint of blue ( the second instance of color in this dark dimension ). The exposed core of the machine was smooth one minute & then would spike up a second later. The thief explained that they needed to leave & this portal was their way out. They stood still for a second as she punched some data into the console. The thief turned & nudged closer to the prince. He lunged forward & wrapped himself around her. For a moment they stood still with the princes arms enveloping her body, then she silently phased out of his arms and pushed him towards the prism portal. The prince hadnt even noticed she pulled away because that familiar sensation had crept over his whole body the moment he embraced her. The prince contacted with the portal & was diced into a million pieces. Dark Crimes borrows & steals from the song “Crimes” by The Blood Brothers from their album of the same name Main Vocal by Devin Askounis Dark Chorus: Nicole Liebenow, Chris Morrish, Robert Musallam, Erin Salazar & Tim Walker additional production & engineering by Devin A & Chris Mu