Imagiserum: Episode 2 (raw)

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Imagiserum: Episode 2 (raw)
Source: collected/020-imagiserum-episode-2-raw.mp3
SHA-256: a939dd098c6dc35c77b95983bed3f8da7748d50eeb99454fe73be5f9949e4840
Model: scribe_v2 | Transcribed: 2026-10-10T18:12:39.725914+00:00
Machine transcript — uncorrected. Speaker labels are local to this recording and do not identify people.

[00:00:00.000] Speaker 1: Imagicum.

[00:00:46.400] Speaker 1: Chapter Three: Liquid Reality. Shale slid along the outside of the cabin, using the wall to brace himself. He was losing his balance, shaking uncontrollably. It didn't matter what was inside. What was outside was already killing him. He couldn't be killed twice. However, given the power at play here, perhaps that was not a safe assumption. Still, he slid toward the front door. Despite his bravado, the first thing he saw did little to

[00:01:21.220] Speaker 1: encourage another step. Another body on the wood floor of the cabin. A woman from the look of it, dressed in mage's robes as well. Had the other party beaten him here after all? Were those their bodies outside? No, the other expedition didn't have children. Whatever that was, it was a separate, much older crime. This body was fresh. A stream of blood ran from her stump of an arm. He couldn't see the severed hand from where he leaned against the outside of

[00:01:56.260] Speaker 1: the doorway. A case had been turned over next to her. Yarn and sewing implements were spilled out onto the ground. The case was painted with a symbol he recognized, the Guild of Enchanting, more specifically, the Craft of Weaving. A weaver. A weaver had beaten him here? Arts and crafts magic? No, that wasn't possible. Shale was a third brand, a suppressor. He could not have

[00:02:31.100] Speaker 1: been beaten by, by this seamstress. He crept closer to the door, trying and likely failing to remain concealed for as long as possible. Perhaps the weaver had gotten here first, but it hadn't done her a lot of good. Well, that was what happened when you sent a seamstress to do a suppressor's job. He poked his head around the corner. It was a one-room cabin. The fireplace crackled with fresh logs on the fire. Whoever had killed her hadn't been in a hurry to

[00:03:05.920] Speaker 1: drag her out to the pile with the others. Shale took a deep breath. He stepped through the threshold and nothing happened. It was just a cabin. Someone coughed nearby. He spun around to face the sound, heart pounding, eyes darting. Shale's eyes fell on the most unlikely sight. He'd expected to find a living god, and instead he found a scrawny, dazed-looking man twenty years his senior.

[00:03:41.480] Speaker 1: The man watched Shale through half-lidded eyes, a dull, pacified smile on his face. The look of a drunkard, with not many drinks between him and the grave at that. Visitors. More visitors. Shale looked around, prepared for an ambush, but there was simply nowhere for anyone to hide. This really was just a simple cabin with a stupefied man inside. The man was sitting up in his bed, cradling something

[00:04:16.240] Speaker 1: small to his chest. Shale walked cautiously to stand over him. Upon closer inspection, he could easily kill this person. He didn't even need to use magic. Even the weaver probably could have managed that task, which gave him some pause. Who are you? The man returned a wild, toothy smile. I have been a thousand people. Most recently, I was a king, a tyrant. My armies ruled with an iron

[00:04:51.300] Speaker 1: fist, until the stick men toppled my empire. He smiled again and shook his head slowly. This smile was much warmer, as if the toppling of his make-believe empire were all part of some game, and though he'd lost the round, he was a good sport about it. Shale looked at the crazed man's nightstand. Ants covered a half-eaten biscuit there. Some of them had been scattered and crushed beneath a twig. Nothing about this made any sense. Had he come all this

[00:05:26.020] Speaker 1: way to chat with a lunatic? Were they deceived somehow? Shale had been so quick to expend the lives of his guild members. Even the unguilded were still people. Their lives were worth something after all. But it wasn't just him. In the two weeks that Shale and his party had traveled to the Source Anomaly, the vessels had four years to deliberate. Such was the power of their magic. Even their vast wisdom had been foiled by this, this... Who are you?

[00:06:02.252] Speaker 1: Then the man revealed what he'd been clutching, a vial of shimmering white liquid, almost like the color of a soul as seen from the Aether. No, exactly like the color of a soul. Shale stared into the vial and felt as if he were falling. It was like looking through a hole in reality. When he moved his head, the colors seemed to shift along with him. It was impossible. If impossible could be made liquid, this was it.

[00:06:37.332] Speaker 1: The man started to uncork the vial, and Shale knew if that happened, he was a dead man, just another body on the floor, just another body for the pile. On instinct, he stepped into his second self. It was a huge mistake. The anomaly was so bright, so close, it nearly tore his soul apart. Still, he lashed out with one arm like a child swinging in a tantrum. Then he cast his mind back into his first self before he could be destroyed. Shale gasped. The pain of frostbite had been nothing compared to this.

[00:07:12.452] Speaker 1: This was soul burn unlike anything he'd felt before. It was the pain he caused when he used his magic. It was the very method by which his magic worked. He fought to stay conscious, to stay standing. Ow, you hurt me. Shale fell to his knees. Everything burned, and yet there was no source of the pain. Through watering eyes, he saw the man sit up in bed, the look of stupor gone from his face. Apparently, his blow had only succeeded in angering the man.

[00:07:48.132] Speaker 1: Another mage. Then he calmed a little and cast the bed covers off him, still holding that vial of liquid impossible in his other hand. Good, good. That's good. You're worth a hundred of those other worthless people. Shale began to rise. He wished he'd had a weapon, a physical weapon. He'd grown so used to always being armed that he hadn't needed one. It had become a mark of pride to walk unarmed, a show of force even. The mage so powerful

[00:08:23.192] Speaker 1: he did not need to be armed. Conceit beyond reason, and now it was going to kill him. May the vessels forgive his foolishness. Hopefully when River saw those bodies, she would do the wise thing and run. Perhaps he could close the distance, though. Shale managed to get a foot under him. The soul burn wracked his nerves, and either combat was completely out of the question. The man held up a single finger for him to pause. Hold on a

[00:08:57.832] Speaker 1: second. Was he, was he asking for a timeout from a fight to the death? How do you do this again? He scratched his chin with the other hand and actually turned away from Shale for a moment to think. Shale surged forward with everything he had. It was now or never. It was now or... Oh, yes. The man spun his pointed finger around in a little circle. The firelight dimmed noticeably for a moment, then sputtered back to life.

[00:09:33.092] Speaker 1: Shale's feet stopped moving at the ankle, but the rest of his body did not. Instead of colliding with the scrawny man, his body above the ankle swung like a hinge at the floor. He had just enough time to let out a pitiful scream before his head bounced violently off the floor. The wind was completely knocked out of him. It seemed impossible that he should still be conscious. One of his eyes swirled to look down at his ankles. Two hoops of bright white hard light held his ankles in place. That's a light binding. This

[00:10:07.952] Speaker 1: man was a light mage. Well, obviously. His brain was definitely coming apart. He was a binder, the only martial discipline of the Guild of Light. Normally, a fight like this wasn't even a fight at all. The binder would wrap him in some hard light, maybe get in a good laugh or two. Then Shale would step into his second self and beat the snot out of the other mage's soul. But with the anomaly so close, that was not an option. So instead, he lay on the floor,

[00:10:42.652] Speaker 1: wondering when he would finally lose consciousness. Don't go dying on me yet. You'll miss the fun. Shale turned his head to look up at the lunatic. The man pulled the cork from his vial and, and something very strange happened. A crack shot out of the vial and through reality, a tear in the world. Through that crack, Shale could see another place, a bizarre, colorful world floating in the middle of deep darkness.

[00:11:17.972] Speaker 1: The crazed man picked a few things up off the floor, sewing implements from the dead woman's kit and he held up her severed hand and laughed, then casually tossed it into the tear in the world. There was a fizzing sound, then a little pop as it disappeared. Then Shale started to move, dragged by the hard light bindings around his ankles. No, no, no, no, no, no. He knew where he was going, but he couldn't fathom it, wanted anything except this. He'd rather

[00:11:52.752] Speaker 1: die. He'd rather... See you soon. And as soon as Shale got close to the tear, he could feel the crackle of its raw power even on this side of the Aether. This was the source of everything. He was sure of it. It was the power of a god, but it was being used like a toy. He felt it tearing his second self out of his body, felt the fraying of the tether that bound his soul to his body. Then there was a fizzing sound followed by a

[00:12:27.640] Speaker 1: little pop as the person who used to be Shale disappeared. Chapter Four: The Threaded. Threadmother looked down at the newcomer with a mix of pity and excitement. She knew she shouldn't be excited that someone else joined them, but it was very nice to have a fresh face. You could only spend so many lifetimes with the same people, no matter how often they were mixed up and erased. With a newcomer

[00:13:02.520] Speaker 1: here, there was also the potential for something else. No. No, she didn't dare think it. This was her lot. Even imagining escape was too painful. Living in the moment had served her well. Living in false hope, that was a pain she could no longer bear. She still wasn't certain whether the relative stubbornness of her own memory across each lifetime was a blessing or a curse. The newcomer didn't have any eyes yet, so she slid

[00:13:37.220] Speaker 1: across the room and began rifling through pockets sewn into that side of her home. The Blues were kind enough to donate every odd and end they found. Threadmother wasn't a Blue. She made a point of that by sewing every color of yarn into her body. But she did favor the Blues, though she'd never say that publicly. She found what she was looking for and then slid her amorphous body back to the newcomer. Just a sad little lump of red core yarn with no arms, no legs,

[00:14:12.380] Speaker 1: no eyes, and no mouth. She was very careful with his core yarn. Fortunately, the children who'd found the newcomer had not touched him. They'd run home to their parents, and those threaded had come straight to her. Apparently, he had fallen from the sky. He was luckier still that he'd fallen into the Blue neighborhood of Chandelier. Though Threadmother did work for any threaded, she hated to think what might have happened to this poor soul if he'd fallen somewhere else. Or worse, missed the Chandelier

[00:14:46.780] Speaker 1: entirely. Threadmother used a metal crochet hook nearly half her height to wrap the newcomer's core yarn in something more sturdy. A simple blue body with no arms or legs, scaffolding for whatever he wanted next. That was not something she should decide for him. But eyes and a mouth, that she could do. She affixed two black buttons to the front of the yarn bundle. One was a little smaller than the other, but hopefully he wouldn't mind. It was better than not being able to see, after all.

[00:15:22.140] Speaker 1: Finally, she carefully threaded some of his blue body yarn through a small, colorful dried noodle. The newcomer used his new mouth immediately. He screamed, and screamed, and screamed. Threadmother waited quite a while for him to stop screaming. When he didn't, she pulled a pair of scissors out of her amorphous yarn body and snipped the blue yarn running through his noodle mouth. The sound stopped immediately. "Now, if

[00:15:57.120] Speaker 1: you can stop screaming, I will give you your mouth back." The black button eyes glinted up at her. "Do you think you can manage that?" The little log of yarn wiggled up and down slightly. If he couldn't handle a mouth, she certainly wasn't giving him arms and legs. Imagine having to chase this person around her house with a pair of scissors. Threadmother slid the noodle back on his face and tied a knot where she'd cut the yarn. A scar to remind him. Scars were useful things like that.

[00:16:31.040] Speaker 1: "Who? Where? Who?" "Hello. Threadmother, the Chandelier, and Threadmother." "What?" "Now, that's a much more complicated question to answer." "Are you making fun of me?" "Yes, but to be fair, you're making it rather easy." "Your name is Threadmother?" "Yes, as I said. Now, what's

[00:17:06.100] Speaker 1: your name?" "I'm... My name is Shale. I'm a mage of the Guild of Self." He seemed very uncertain about that. Threadmother wanted desperately to ask him a thousand questions before his memories started to fade. She wanted to follow those threads back to the outside world, perhaps piece together what it was like, who she was, who she used to be anyway. She might not be able to escape the Imagicerum,

[00:17:41.400] Speaker 1: but perhaps she could remember. Remember what it was like to be real. That would be enough. "Shale, can I ask you a few questions?" "Okay." Before she could ask, though, there was a fizzing sound, then a deep, resounding boom. Threadmother parted the yarn of her wall to look outside. Something was falling from a shimmering crack in the sky. An enormous severed hand.

[00:18:16.520] Speaker 1: With pallid gray flesh and serrated yellowing fingernails, it leveled a home as it landed. It lay there for a moment, then rose into the air on gigantic fingertips, towering above the surrounding homes. Threaded ran screaming from the wreckage. A moment after that, it began pulling homes and people apart. Oh no. Shale rolled around on the floor, trying in vain to see. What? What's happening?

[00:18:51.660] Speaker 1: Another ending. I don't understand. Then she let the parted wall close and turned around to face the newcomer, suddenly filled with a feeling of deep, sinking sadness. She hated this part. This person's memories were so fresh. And now that opportunity was wasted. You've come at the worst possible time. The Master is ready to

[00:19:26.280] Speaker 1: play. What does that mean? But Shale asked no more questions, because the screams provided an answer.