Discordant Dream Team Chat 2: Freddy's Revenge

Participants:

cooper6_icon.gif elliot_icon.gif megan_icon.gif odessa3_icon.gif seren_icon.gif wright_icon.gif

Scene Title Discordant Dream Team Chat 2: Freddy's Revenge
Synopsis Someone is coming back to River City!
Date April 9, 2021

Ma’am, This is a Nightmare


321contact: Today at 9:14 AM
Had another dream last night (sort of). The thing that most stood out from the previous one is that Angel appeared as a young girl in a frilly dress with stone gray eyes. She served tea and made us all quote the poem with her, with no say in the matter

The poem was Bluebeard, the only named sonnet in Renascense and Other Poems. The replaced words were: O! (and), unveiling (mirroring), find (see), and all (now). Which gives us Oufa, yet another Russian river city

When asked if she was in Greenwich Village (where Millay lived/partied in the early 1920s), the girl pivoted the dream to a secondary location, the inside of 75½ Bedford Street, the coffin apartment formerly inhabited by Edna St. Vincent Millay herself. She responded that she was not there, as it isn’t safe, and also that ”he” was not there. She said a bunch of ominous words: snake, horse, man, ghost. She said that “he” is a ghost, that “he” was the devourer of the world and that she would have destroyed the world with him if she could have

Things I have learned since looking to Millay’s life (via Wolfhound resources): The most recent owner of that house was a man named Artyom Miloslavsky, a Russian real estate mogul who owned properties in Greenwich Village, Seattle, and LA. He died in Russia in 2016 of a heart attack, no foul play suspected. Buried in Vsehsvyatskoe Cemetery, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Oblast, Russia. He had three children, Mikhail, Rafail, and Gavriila, none living in the Safe Zone. His wife Ekaterina died in 2008

He had no criminal record, but there were rumors he was involved in Russian anti-Expressive extremist circles. This obviously isn’t a lot to go on, but the Russian connection is the only clue I’ve unearthed. If he was Russian Humanis First his properties could have been used as safe houses for terrorists, but that’s just a wild theory at this point

Sorry for the huge fucking text wall. Also I feel like I’m forgetting something, it’ll come back to me

321contact: Today at 9:17 AM
Edna St. Vincent Millay was named after St. Vincent Hospital, which was also located in Greenwich. Possibly nothing, but that was the thing I forgot

DonutKing69 Today at 9:25 AM
That is a lot to take in. Wow. I’ll run these names through our databases to see if we get any hits here. I’ll have to get back to you on that one though. But, this Humanis thing makes sense. Angel said he wanted to destroy the world and she would have helped him. Could this be one of his kids? A… a mistress?

Oh!… Yeah! So, I should mention I also had a dream, which is where that came from. It was Angel as she usually is. A cemetery angel. The world was crumbling away. Have you ever noticed that it’s always a clearing surrounded by trees? Never really paid attention to that. And there is a big tree in the middle. It’s like an Ash or an Elm. And it’s surrounded by pine trees or something. A big mother of a tree too. I’ve been looking at trees and leaves since that night.

I’m worried she or whoever ‘he’ might be a tree. We had an investigation with people being turned into trees, I’ve been trying to see if maybe we missed one. That clearing might be important.

I’m also worried that we’re running out of time. I believe she wants to die, but also… a part of her doesn’t. She crumbled away in my dream this time.

sbevans Today at 10:01 am
Thomas and I ended up in the same dream. Her situation seems really difficult. I'm struggling to know if she just can't give us information because she can't remember or she just isn't sure she's worth it. Maybe a little of both.

There's something she brought up though that stood out to me. O talked to her in Russian, and she responded Trouble in River cities and that starts with T and that rhymes with D and that stands for…

But that's not how that line goes. It's from a musical. It's supposed to be T rhymes with P and that stands for Pool.

I'm still not sure if Pool is supposed to be the clue there or if perhaps something that starts with D is supposed to be an answer for us.

sbevans Today at 10:10 am
Also, I don't know why I didn't think to look at it this angle before, but "world devourer" and "snake" together reminded me about Jormungandr, or Midgardsormr, who's from Norse mythology. The world serpent. But otherwise there's also Nidhoggr who eats at the tree of the world from underneath and is a bringer of chaos and also a destroyer. (I know you were talking about Humanis First earlier, but if maybe it had something to do with names that aren't names and words changing skin like snakes, is it possible maybe she could have been tied to the Vanguard of all things? They gave people titles using Norse mythology names from what I'd read.)

The other thing about words changing skin like snakes… there was this rivalry between Nidhogg at the roots of the world-tree and an eagle (not really named) who lives in its branches which was fueled by a squirrel named Ratatoskr who ferried insults between the two and caused them both to more or less take their anger out on the tree, Yggdrasil. I don't know if maybe Ratatoskr changed the nature of the words said and just made the rivalry worse, maybe… like a bad game of telephone where the person ferrying things deliberately made things worse.

It might be nothing, but it just felt like it hit similar enough notes. It really probably isn't related, because everything's been very Russian-oriented after all, but I remember talking before about the horses in the sky, which brought up the whole end of thr world thought… like the four horsemen or something…

Maybe I need another cup of coffee to make better sense of this.

321contact: Today at 10:23 AM
No trees in this dream, but the house and then Angel did disintegrate. The nightmare from my first Angel abduction started in a forest but I don’t think it’s connected. Though maybe there’s more there I didn’t think about on my first pass, it was definitely an aberrant version of a recurring dream I have.

@sbevans I did some mild poking at the Ragnarok angle too, though I didn’t get a lot of that info. I definitely wouldn’t rule it out. Also I got nothing that seemed thematic on the Christian horsemen of the apocalypse. If you need good coffee and want to brainstorm these areas I know a guy.

Another Millay Fact™: she lived most of her adult life up in Austerlitz NY at a house called Steepletop. I’m tempted to go on a road trip to check it out. It’s on the Green River, and named after the Battle of Austerlitz (Napoleon doing French Emperor shit). It’s now called Slavkov u Brna and is in the Czech Republic, which isn’t Russia and isn’t on a river, but the Russian emperor was one of the three factions in that battle (Aleksander I). Probably also a coincidence.

RadMaenad: Today at 10:26 AM
it was me, hello, wright, not @321contact, who had the dream due to weirdness and my being generally more awesome, but I like your ideas @sbevans, would ramble at length brainstorming if you wanted to try to narrow any of that down, not that I ramble ever (I do (it is a problem)) and especially not when elliot breaks out the *good stuff* coffee, which i may or may not be enjoying right now

RadMaenad: Today at 10:28 AM
one thing he didn’t mention is that the girl version of angel thinks elliot is *dreamy* and his reaction was priceless…. also she was kind of rude but said i was rude? which lets be honest she’s the problem child here, she made me sing things without my permission which is a general violation of my agency, wtf

RadMaenad: Today at 10:31 AM
tried taking apart the creepy photographs this time to look for clues but it disintegrated like the tea party stuff/townhouse/angel eventually did…. and let me tell you the physical dimensions of millay’s townhouse was fucking bananas

RadMaenad: Today at 10:34 AM
angel said that it was hard for her to give literal answers to people’s questions because, “parts of me aren’t here, parts are missing, it’s like playing rachmaninoff with only white keys” and when i asked where the rest of her was she said “a void, I have no anchor” also she believed that he was not her anchor…. also probably just a coincidence that rachmaninoff was russian.

RadMaenad: Today at 10:37 AM
the tea was fucking magical mary poppins flavored though, that was rad, i tasted strawberry tea but i was expecting some lady grey and the flavor changed as i drank it

DonutKing69 Today at 10:45 AM
Uh.

Yeah. You’ve lost me. Carry on you crazy kids.

MYoung Today at 10:49 AM
Yup. I'm with the donut guy in the corner. Share the chocolate iced ones, we're out of popcorn.

OREOSpeedwagon: Today at 10:52 AM
Sorry I’m late. I was in the dream with the others. I studied the tree, hoping that maybe I would see initials carved into it. Something to go on. But I saw runes, I think.

I’m fairly certain it wasn’t Russian, but they were changing so fast that it was hard to get any one thing to stick. I feel certain if it’d been a language I could read, I’d have been able to recognize some portion of it, even without context.

All this to say, I think you may be correct about the Norse angle. If they’re runes, if that tree is to represent Yggdrasil, that would make sense. There was a snake in the ground, at its roots.

Our dream led to another river town. The poem was “A Hundred Places Where I Fear” and the replaced words spelled out Kurgan, which would bridge the space between Tara and Oufa. We’re moving ever further west.

Baley sits on the Unda River, which is a basin for the Amur River. That river is also known as the Black Dragon. I don’t know if that’s even remotely related, but it’s something that came up in my research, if we’re looking for further references to snakes.

Fuck

OREOSpeedwagon: Today at 10:59 AM
I just circled back around to the misquote from The Music Man, our Trouble in River City:

Trouble starts with T and that rhymes with D and that stands for…

I have two possibilities for that. The codename of Nidhogg within the Vanguard was held by a man named Daiyu. But I don’t feel like that’s right. I can’t imagine anyone standing by his side to want to kill the world out of some sense of kinship. There’s another. Hold on. I’m doing some research, but I think I might have a lead.

OREOSpeedwagon: Today at 11:12 AM
Shit. I think I may have figured it out.

Further west from Oufa, there is a city called Ryazan on the Oka River. There was a confrontation with the Vanguard there. I know of a man called Dreyfus who used to be a professor there. His codename was Fenris, though. But he had a son. A wife. They’re all dead.

I don’t want to be right. I want there to be something I’m missing. But maybe Ange was one of the Vanguard once, or related to someone who was, given what she said about risking her pride, prison, and death for this snake of hers.

I don’t know what else to suggest at this point, but the path westward could lead there. I was admittedly afraid it’d wind up in Ukraine. Maybe it will yet.

321contact: Today at 11:29 AM
That's all very insightful, I hadn't considered that angle. I'll see if I can send up anything from our servers in that regard. Going to run a search for the Russian real estate tycoon in the cities revealed thus far, and also in your predicted target town, just in case.

Also Wright says to say that Devon just said that he found a creature of interest with some SQL queries. There's a demon, called an ala or ale, of Eastern European mythology. Considered the cause of destructive storms. She's heralded by snakes, devours everything in her way with a giant wooden spoon, brings about the end of the world by trying to eat the sun or moon, which causes an eclipse. Thematic relationship to Baba Yaga. Monogendered female but can possess men.

DonutKing69 Today at 11:40 AM
Good gawd. If she is all the way in Russia and alive, that’s one hell of a powerful dreamwalker. Not saying that it’s not possible, but W O W.

That’s why I’ve been trying to look closer to home.

Though sitting here wading through the SESA database, not getting any hits on that guy and his kids. Doesn’t mean they didn’t end up over here under aliases. There are far too many ways to fly under the radar after the war - well and before too - and Angel met them that way.

If this involved Vanguard… That’s kinda scary. I’ll throw some feelers at other departments and see what they get, but probably won’t have that today.

DonutKing69 Today at 11:51 AM
Weird thought. Looking at my missing leg here. I’m going to look at the wounded from the bombing. She mentioned not knowing if she was all there and she showed up after… I think it’s a dead end, but I'm going to take a look anyhow to satisfy my nagging curiosity.

OREOSpeedwagon: Today at 11:57 AM
"Causes an eclipse." JFC. I’ll have to make a note of that one and see what I can come up with.

I have to bow out for now. It’s my birthday lunch and my partner has been very patient with me checking my phone while we look over this menu, but he’s starting to give me The Look. I hope what I’ve said helps.

Please let me know what turns up. I’ll check in later. Feel free to reach out directly.

DonutKing69 Today at 12:06 PM
What?! It’s your birthday!?! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
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DonutKing69 Today at 12:11 PM
Man if I knew you in real life, I’d bring you a birthday donut… or even better.
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A birthday OREO!
8D

Meanwhile, in physical space…


Odessa can’t resist the urge to check one more alert on her phone. Waking the screen, she peers down into the illuminated face of it and stares with her mouth slightly slackened at the… birthday meme. She blinks several times before one side of her mouth finally tugs upward in a bemused smirk.

Lifting her blonde head to look back across the table to Ace, she lets out a breath of laughter. “You’re right,” she agrees belatedly, darkening the screen and dropping the mobile into the handbag hanging from her chair. “That’s enough phone for a while.”


Back on the Discordant Dreams Server…


sbevans Today at 12:17 pm
oh my gosh, yes, happy birthday!! 💪 🎉 🎉

I'm just now catching up on all this… a lot to consider. If there's an angle to follow this from, I'm haunted a little to think Angel might actually be related to the Vanguard… but little else fits so closely like that does.
The thought that she would have "destroyed the world" with him… something of that scale definitely matches with what their goals would have been.

If there's any research that needs done in person, I'm more than happy to accompany anyone. This doesn't feel like something anyone should look into alone, if we find a lead on a physical place to investigate… maybe Ange's snake is still out there.

321contact: Today at 6:07 PM
Thinking back to the first dream, I did see the exterior of the cabin. It was in a forest clearing. One thing I didn’t see from the outside was the lake which was visible through every window in the cabin. Haven’t come across any other lake themes yet. Maybe next time I’ll dive out a window.

Miloslavsky owned properties in Baley, Novorossiysk, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Minsk, and Kiev. Also Madrid, Vienna, Paris, and London. I can’t find any records of these properties having changed hands, but access is very limited. I’d be curious why none of his kids wanted to cash in on these properties. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. I’m going to mull it all over for a while.

Just thinking of it now, @DonutKing69, could you get permission for someone to send a drone into the Exclusion Zone to check out 75½ Bedford Street just to see if there’s any sign of recent habitation?

DonutKing69 Today at 6:18 PM
I can see what I can do. Options and all.

sbevans Today at 6:30 PM
Fingers crossed. I'll keep an eye out on this channel for updates! Everybody please stay safe

321contact: Today at 6:30 PM
Take care


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