[ti]closed[/ti]The Vanta Flower

"Yes! Flowers for my garden," Torino said happily. She had been collecting flower samples from all around UNOVR and replanting them in Mom's house back in Briarbane. Well, that had been the plan, anyway. "It is Mama's garden, but I only completed the girasoli before it was attacked! Lots of ice, and bandits."

"Kyukon and I will go back and fix the house and save Mama," Torino promised, her jaw set in determination. For now the samples would have to languish in Torino's inventory, waiting for the day that Mama's house was once again a safe haven.

As the black trees thinned, the moss and stone walls of the maze stretched onward, deeper into the heart of the shifting construction. Torino let Alicia take the lead, relying on her friend's obvious strength to keep them safe.

During their walk through the dark forest, Torino's tome had dulled to barely a mumble. But now that they were leaving the trees behind the voices were returning, singing in harmony and full force. She caught snatches of words, little phrases and whispered trills that made her want to plug her ears.

"They are louder now!" Torino said, grimacing as her Redacted Ledger sang in tune and time with Alicia's. The two were synchronizing. "Do you think they are singing to each other?"

As they wandered down the changing halls, Torino noticed Alicia Westfield's status. She read it a few times, not recognizing the first phrase. "Alicia, are you hungry?" Torino asked. She let the question hang for a moment.

"The sign above you says you are hungry. And waiting. Are you okay? I have food!" She was ready to open her inventory at a moment's notice and serve up all manner of pre-cooked and piping hot dishes. Torino had recently discovered the in-game cooking minigames, and had gone on an absolute tear making all manner of experimental and regional delicacies. She secretly hoped that Alicia was hungry, so that she could share some of her Thundering Pasta.

"It is very noisy!" Torino agreed. The book muttering had droned into the background, but as Giyun brought it back up she felt a frown crease her face. How could she have ignored the annoying noises! "Maybe we can make them quiet," Torino suggested. She wrapped her book in a thick coat, but the singing was the same as ever. She tried to return it to her inventory, but that option didn't exist anymore. "I cannot put it away!" she told Alicia, a little worried. "What else can we do?"

Torino leaned against a wall and took out her own ledger.

As soon as her hands touched the supple spine, its shrill singing quietened to a dull hum. Her hands moved along its front edge, and the hum dulled, warmed by anticipation and connection.

"It is quieter now," Torino said, smiling at Alicia. She opened her own ledger, revealing a random central page full of redacted text. Corruption crawled along the pages in ragged bars, blacking out corporate secrets and ingredients for unknown rituals. She frowned. "Alicia I cannot read this. The words are all hiding."

Torino flipped back to an earlier page. It was all the same. A solid block of business information lacking context, clarity, and most of its words. "How do we read this?" Torino asked. She turned the book upside down, half hoping that the crawling ink would slide right off the page.

It didn't.

"Hit it!" said Ciambella. "Hit it hard!" Torino looked reluctant, so the little elephant backed up. "I'll do it. Just put it on the ground."

"I do not like that idea mio cara. My grandmother would not like me hurting books. She says that every book has some heart in it." Torino looked down at the imposing ledger. "But maybe this one is hiding its heart."

"Alicia! Can you read?"

Torino took a big step back, eyes wide. "Ah! Are you okay?" she asked, voice strained. "You did not have to do that!" She held no judgement on whether it was reckless or unwise, only that she hated seeing her friends in pain.

Her eyes traced the new black lines that tangled up Alicia's arms like rotten roots. The singing had dulled even further now, as if the song had slipped into Alicia's veins. Torino's book had quieted too, though whether it was sated or simply anticipating a similar offering from Torino was impossible to say.

She carefully opened her book to the same page as Alicia's. The redaction pattern was identical. Were the contents of the book linked?

On this particular page the black bars of corruption had been pulled away, leaving sections almost legible. It looked like a shopping list of items for a particularly gross recipe.

Memo█y from █eath

11 petals from Midn███ Sunfl█ers (grown in ████ Maze)
2.3 liters of Bleach, undiluted
0.8 kg of Millen█ium Rust
1x well-loved Child█od Treasure
5x sacs of ████ Acid (still warm)
1x bucket of Deep Si█t from the Harbor
1x Ra█um Watch Dial (running backwards)
5 ██ of Lost Time Sand
3x pieces of Wrist-twist Ir█n

The page ended there, with the process for combining the items likely detailed on the following page, which was still fully-redacted.

Torino studied the recipe, the words hard to make out with their still-missing letters. Certain words were clear enough, like acid, rust, sand, and bucket. She honed in on a word she knew well: petals. "Ah! It says something here!" she pointed, not touching the book.

"Petals! And it says something about them being in a maze! Do you think that's here?"

"I hope this is the right maze," Torino said, putting away her tome. Torino looked up at the slivers of sky visible at the top of the high, stone walls. It was hard to track time and location within the maze, but at least every turn was 90 degrees. "You have been doing math?" Torino asked, as they pushed on again, deeper into the tangled construction.

Alicia's words were prophetic. Within minutes they spotted another one of the roaming black plant creatures through a gap between sections of stone wall. Torino clapped her hands over her mouth as the thing shot past them, clearly not noticing their presence as it made its way...somewhere.

"Are they looking for us?" Torino asked, unsure. At first she had thought that the black plants were chasing her through the maze. Had they just forgotten about the intruders? Or were they never after her in the first place.

Another flash of black on the other side of the wall. Then another. Were they all headed in the same direction? "I see many," Torino noted.

And then the cracked in the wall began to open.

Torino ducked out of sight as huge pieces of stone moved to the side, revealing the gathering in the area beyond.