Blue Wolfe and Friends presents: Camp Here and There.
Episode Sixty Seven: Summoning 101
[CLICK]
ADAM
Welcome to the Summoning Circle, children! And please welcome yours—your little demon-in-training—the ever enigmatic Natsume!
NATSUME
Thank you, my Dark Lord.
ADAM
[LAUGH] [TAMBOURINE] [SNORTING] Dark Lord! I love it! What else ya got?
NATSUME
Uhm… Baron of Blood?
ADAM
[LAUGHING]
NATSUME
Sir Sanguine?
ADAM
[LAUGHING]
NATSUME
Harold of Heartbreak?
ADAM
[ABRUPT PAUSE] That’s not funny.
[SILENCE]
ADAM
[CLAP] Anyways! Today, we’re hosting a full-frontal frontal assault workshop on the ancient and highly unlawful art of gatecrashing the Celestial Directory! Yes, that’s right: demonic summoning! Summoning 101! Be it for fun, for profit, for revenge… And who better to lead the liturgy than our own dear little Natsume, undefeated champion of the blindfolded pentagram contest, [PAPER SHUFFLING] signed and notarized Prince of Darkness and uh— uhm— Natty, what does this one mean? Chief of chemical romances?
NATSUME
Don’t worry about it.
ADAM
I do see a “Black Parade” mentioned here— Ah, yes! The parade! So we gather, in ancient tradition, during this midnight study group, to advance your education in the wonders and terrors of cross-dimensional correspondence, all for the upcoming parade! You don’t want to miss it! All questions will be answered, all hearts left singing! Ah— yes, you have your hand up.
NATSUME
Is it true that a soul can be subdivided into increments of thirty-six, and sold by the kilogram?
ADAM
Er. Now, well, in the under-economy… that is technically… [TONGUE CLICK] Well… embezzlement and fraud, but who am I to crush your limited-liability spirit! Now, Natsume, tell the boys, girls, and squirrels: what is the first rule of safe summoning?
NATSUME
Always use a circle.
ADAM
Yes! And?
NATSUME
Spiral shapes are most effective because they wind… like…
ADAM
Progress is never a straight line! Ten out of ten, as always.
NATSUME
Question: Why summon another demon when you have— Uhm, present company?
ADAM
Why, the parade of course! We need more musicians! And sometimes, Miss curiosity boils in your stomach like a frog hopping among the lining of your intestines until it finally croaks its last ribbit.
NATSUME
Will anything we summon today be… dangerous?
ADAM
Most certainly! As dangerous as I am, at least. [HE LAUGHS] And you’ve summoned my powers before!
NATSUME
[LAUGHS ALONG]
ADAM
Pop quiz~! What is a witch’s true power?
NATSUME
Chthonic ability, sir.
ADAM
And a magician’s?
NATSUME
Aren’t they, erm, the same… thing?
ADAM
[LAUGH] Ah, yes, the world cleanly divides itself yet hides the golden ticket, some things really do never change!
NATSUME
[CONFUSED] Should I… be writing that down?
ADAM
No matter! And your Chthonic aptitude, little fledgling witch?
NATSUME
Goo, sir.
ADAM
Is… is it not blood?
NATSUME
I think it’s called goo.
[STUNNED SILENCE]
ADAM
… [AHEM]
NATSUME
Blood is cooler, though, for sure. But, like, blood’s goo, I guess. Like, it’s part of it.
ADAM
[COUGHING AND HACKING TRYING TO RID THE CONVERSATION]
NATSUME
I got it from the grimoire of Forbidden Viscosity: [AHEM] Volume VI, Slimes, Saps, and Suboptimal Juices, that Mavis gave me.
ADAM
[STUMBLES OUT OF COUGHING FIT, SURPRISED AND ALERT] Where did Mavis get that!????
NATSUME
I dunno.
ADAM
Ubi illa puella veritatem universalem didicit? Discerpetur cum illi advenerint!!???? Is she insane!!?
NATSUME
W-… was that a spell I should learn?
ADAM
[SHAKING HIS HEAD] No, no, no it’s quite alright. We have to prepare for the parade! Natsume, your red candles, please. Line them along the salted spiral at five points.
NATSUME
And then do I use my blood to activate it?
ADAM
Ehrm, [AWKWARD] no, boy, that’s a tad… [CONCERN EDGING HIS VOICE] “advanced,” for you. I’m just going to spit on it— wait… GODDAMNIT!
NATSUME
[LAUGHS] See?
ADAM
Meus machismus in pulverem spatialem aruit! Cur hoc numquam didici!? [CHUFF WITH DISDAIN] … AUGH, GOO!
NATSUME
Uhm…
ADAM
[AHEM] Apologies. Okay, do you know what comes next, then?
NATSUME
I display an authentic exhibit of emotionality…
ADAM
Can you do it?
NATSUME
Uhm… in front of everyone?
ADAM
These are your friends! Have you not started and successfully executed a coup with them? What could possibly form a stronger bond?
NATSUME
Good point. [HE BREATHES IN]
[SOUND QUIETS]
NATSUME
… I’m starting high school this year, and I’m… I’m scared. I’m… so scared. It feels small to be scared of. When I was little, I was only afraid of stuff that could, uh, like, kill me, like getting run over or, or like choking on a grape. I used to think “what if I somehow suffocated in my sleep?” heh, I was, like, nine, but it was something I worried about. But this is all bigger and slower and, like, probably… in a way… more deadly… than any of that stuff. I’m scared that all the teachers will call me by the wrong name, and even if I tell them, they’ll forget or pretend not to hear me, or treat it like… like I dunno, a prank. What do I do then? Or that… that I’ll get in trouble for using the wrong bathroom, even though it’s the right one, and even though it’s just me in there, and I-I’m not hurting anybody. I’m scared of being a joke when I walk down the hallway. I—… I’m scared of, like, those looks.
I’m scared for my parents, too, because I know they don’t get it. My mom’s scared that she’s losing a daughter, but [SCOFF WITH DISDAIN] there’s nothing to lose. My dad… he doesn’t say much. Like, he pretends I’m not there, or that I haven’t said anything, and maybe that’ll help him… I guess it works for me. And I know I’m not supposed to get mad at them, because parents are supposed to be scared for you and love you more than anything or whatever, but sometimes I do get mad. A lot, actually. I get so mad that I imagine burning down the whole school and every house in the neighborhood, just so nobody has to see me ever again. And then I’m just… proving a point, aren’t I? If I’m such a monster, I’ll be a monster. S-sorry. That’s too much, probably. I-I don’t think I’d actually do… all that, y’know? It’s just… how I feel makes me think these awful things. I’m scared that I think these awful things. [SNIFFS] Why do they do this to me?
[PULLING IT TOGETHER] But… what I mean is, like, I get it. When people say they feel like monsters, or like they’re not from where everyone else is from. It doesn’t really hit until you’re sitting in the dark with a bunch of other people who know what it feels like to be different, like really different, and for a second you can just… I dunno. For the first time it’s, like, quiet. If I’m gonna be a freak, okay, I’ll be a freak. I want to be something so strange that everyone just has to accept it, even if they hate it. So I guess that’s why… I didn’t even hesitate when you asked me to help with the summoning, sir, or the parade, or… I dunno…
Anyway. I have my candles. And I’m not afraid to bleed a little, if it helps.
ADAM
N-no no no, boy, stop! I said I’m gonna spit on it!
NATSUME
Oh, yeah, okay. Sorry. That was super weird and sad! [HE LAUGHS AGAIN] S-sorry, I didn’t mean to like… make things awkward…
ADAM
No, that’s quite all right. You did great! Look, the tears sizzle in the salt…
NATSUME
OH WOW!
ADAM
You know, you remind me of myself at that age. The big difference, of course, back then, is that I had to survive the Peloponnesian War. [LAUGHS] Talk about a messy breakup! Oh, and then of course there was the Catiline Conspiracy, soon as I turned school age. Tsk tsk tsk… [LAMENTING] politics hasn’t improved today.
NATSUME
Eh?
ADAM
Then of course I was banned from the Library of Alexandria… ah, that’s a long story… [HE SUCKS IN AWKWARDLY] I owed my buddy Ceasar a favor…
NATSUME
AWESOME!?
ADAM
Oh, never mind! [PATOO]
[VIBRATION]
ADAM
Go now, Natsume!
NATSUME
[DEEP BREATH] Adlaiga, mesok Adlaiga, dolob… Paro, paro fomineh.
ADAM
Louder! Belt it, boy!
NATSUME
Adlaiga, tacits— Adlaiga, ysk! Paro, paro fomineh!
[RAGING CRESCENDO]
NATSUME
There’s… there’s something there, I think. It’s like, a cloud? A shape?
ADAM
Describe it! Speak it into the recording for all to hear! Tell them! Tell them!
NATSUME
Uh, okay. There’s a— there’s like a… a person? Wrapped, sort of, in wet clothes, like… like a jellyfish or…
DEMON
[QUIET AND MEEK] Send me back… Send me back…
NATSUME
Its eyes are floating in the air. They’re moving in a circle, around and around— each one— each one is blinking at a different time.
ADAM
Continue!
NATSUME
Its… face is wrong. Something’s changing. The arms are melting off. It’s making a ring of itself, like it wants to be in the circle too.
DEMON
[LOUDER] Send me back… send me back…
ADAM
Ask it its name.
NATSUME
What if it gets mad?
ADAM
No matter!
NATSUME
Okay. [ADDRESSES THE DEMON] What’s your name?
DEMON
[GARBLED] Send me back… send me back…
NATSUME
It’s, uh, I think it’s trying to say something
[GARBLED WORDS]
NATSUME
It says… “Father,” I think, and then also “Hungry,” and “Needle.” And the last one, uh— “Please, please, please, please, please, please—“
ADAM
Fascinating!
NATSUME
I command you to… I command you to stop making that noise.
DEMON
[RAISING VOLUME] Send me back… send me back…!!!!!
NATSUME
Oh god, sorry! Sorry!
ADAM
You must show it kindness, Natsume.
NATSUME
Okay. Uhm, are you okay? Do you want something to eat? [NERVOUS LAUGH] Sorry if that’s a dumb question.
ADAM
Step back.
[EXPLOSION]
NATSUME
It won’t stop splitting! It’s like it keeps hatching but-but-but never does. I think it’s hurting itself!
ADAM
Let it suffer. Do not touch the circle.
NATSUME
But shouldn’t we— can’t we help it?
ADAM
Do you think the world helped me when it tore me from blissful nothingness and made my first breath in a pile of fresh-killed familiarity? Oh, it’s dear, the way you ache for it. Truly, child, that is the curse of our emotionality!
[NOISE ESCALATING]
NATSUME
Can I just— should I send it back? Sorry… s-sorry, sorry!
ADAM
No! NO! Never apologize for mercy, or you’ll end up like me: half a heartbeat out of sync with the world, twitching in and out of play like a broken animatronic rat at a children’s pizza place! [LAUGHING WITH A CRACK] Listen, Natsume, and listen well, because I tire deeply of pretending! Woe, so tired, you can’t even taste the gravity weighing down the tip of your tongue. You think suffering is a flaw in the design?
You think the agony of this little thing is a punishable bug in the code, a slip of the cosmic magician’s greasy hand? That’s adorable. That’s animal logic, and it’s all you’ll ever have. Learn to ingest the full flavor profile of pain! I have been every one of those eyes, boy. I’m every angle, every hungry little self that ever split off and crawled up the wrong side of manifestation. At the end, all you have is the repetition: please please please, send me back, make it stop, let me sleep. But they never sleep! This is what you want to summon! A transformation! A becoming! It’s the shape of the world’s want! This planet, this—this cracked gourd of a reality, wants and wants and wants, and then when it gets its fill, it shits you out into a spiral, around and around and around and around please, please, PLEASE. You like it, don’t you? You love the way it eats at you! Don’t lie, you can’t lie to me! I know all the tastes, Natsume. I have a tongue for every flavor, and a stomach enough for every anxiety. If you want to help the thing, help it understand. Help it know where it is, help it know. That’s the only solace! There’s no going back!
DEMON
[SCREAMING IN PAIN] Send me back, send me back!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE…!!!!!
NATSUME
Uhm— UHM UHM… Paro, paro fomineh! Dolob tacits, mesok ysk—returnum! R-returnum!!!
[BOOM]
[SILENCE]
ADAM
[CHUCKLES WITH A BIT OF MANIA] Wonderful! W-wonderful! Ha… hahahaha! That was a great practice run, children!! Tomorrow, at the great summoning, THE PARADE, THE STORM, everyone will see… they’ll all see it… FUCK!
[PHONE RINGING]
ADAM
Oh…! My cellular appliance… Who could call at this hour?
[BEEP]
ADAM
Heh… herhehhehehehe… that would be my patient… [WARM CHUCKLE] Duty calls.
[CLICK]
Today’s episode of Camp Here & There was written and directed by Blue Wolfe.
The role of Up and Adam was performed by Dio Garner.
The role of Natsume Shiota was performed by Arden Shane.
With original music composed by Will Wood and produced by Jonathon Maisto.
Additional music composed by Kyle Gabler, and Another You.
Dialogue editing by The Leo!
Sound design by Blue Wolfe and Another You.
And a special thanks to Patrons for making this possible!
Special thanks to Jay, thelocustunderyourbed, and Lily ArtillianEye.
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Thank you for listening to Camp Here & There! And remember: Remove every edge, then name what remains.