VIDEO BEGINS TRANSCRIBING — — —

  This video is wholly different from what has come before. There is no professional quality camera framing an interesting background with Judy front and center to open the recording. Instead, the footage is recorded at a much lower quality, and from an awkward angle, high in the corner of the room.

  It is a new room as well, a kitchen, just off of the great room where Judy had been recording before. The kitchen is well past worn and would be better described as dangerously old. The newest appliance is a faucet, a brass fixture put in place over a yellowed porcelain sink, just beneath a window. Around the sink, the cabinets are worn and wooden with old peeling laminate countertops. The doors of the cabinets are twisted and warped, many unable to fully close. Through those gaps, we can see that they are filled with old cans and dusty mason jars, fully unlabeled and filled with substances impossible to distinguish without taking the risk to open them. Older than even the rest of the kitchen is a charcoal stove and flue, ancient and blackened with use, standing in one corner across from the cabinets.

  Through the window, nothing can be seen beyond the absolute black of the night out in the isolated forest. So the only thing that lights up the old kitchen is a dingy one bulb glass chandelier, over the round kitchen table. The table itself is a mess, interesting items from the lodge are sprawled in random piles across its surface.

  Judy is standing, hunched over the table, looking at the golden cube that supposedly contained her grandma’s journals. She’s been messing with it for a while, as the camera silently watches, when editor Tim strolls into the kitchen from a doorway behind her. There is no way to see anything else about him, as he is still completely covered in the long hooded robe he was wearing in Judy’s earlier video.

  Judy glances up and notices him walking in towards the old cabinets,“ Aren't you hot? You should take that ridiculous thing off.”

  Opening a cabinet and rummaging through some much more modern snacks, he replies, “No can do love, I like my anonymity.”

  “Dude, both me and Fumu have seen your face. What do you mean, anonymity?” Judy looks frustrated and has started picking up random objects from the table to tap against the cube.

  “We’re recording.” He responds.

  “What?” Judy's head snaps away from the cube to look at him

  “We’re recording.” He repeats, a gloved hand pointing to the camera in the corner of the room.

  “Hold up, you put up little security spy cameras in the house?” Judy looks uncomfortable and a little angry at the idea.

  “Yeah.” Tim's voice is muffled as he sticks a granola bar deep into his cowl.

  “Why?” Judy asks.

  “Don’t want to miss any footage. If we find something good, I can edit the moment into the next video.” Tim has never stopped moving, and as he says this, he strolls back out the doorway to the great room.

  Judy just sighs as she watches him leave, then gets back to messing with the cube

  >>> FAST FORWARD 2X <<<

  A few more moments pass by, Judy's arms moving around in a blur.

  >>> NORMAL SPEED <<<

  Another person comes in the doorway, we can't see their face either. Unlike Tim, however, this is likely just how they dress. Because all of their features aren't hidden, a bit of their head and their hands can be seen, it's possible to note their skin is a light caramel brown.

  The girl is wearing a baggy pastel sky blue hoodie with a large purple pocket on the front and some gray, equally baggy, sweatpants. Both items of clothing are a bit paint stained and worn, but clearly have been treated with love. On her head is a soft pastel pink bucket hat with a big floppy brim and bunny ears stitched into the top, clearly homemade. And a white face mask with two big buck teeth and whiskers printed on it covers their face. Underneath the hat, her hair is dyed a glossy white or a dull silver, it's hard to tell with the camera quality.

  In her hands is a large sheet of pink see-through crystal, with a shiny silver border. That boarder extends down, under the crystal, to an elegant loop, which serves as a stand so it can balance on a flat surface, like a mirror or a lamp would.

  “Hey.” Her voice doesn't quite fit her short frame and cute appearance, it's surprisingly rough and deep. “A little help?”

  Judy jumps before whirling around to help the girl with the crystal tablet. “Fumu! Jeez, what's with this? I thought we agreed we would keep the heavy and breakable stuff where we found it.”

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  The two set the crystal on the table, Judy keeping a hand on it to make sure it wouldn’t fall over.

  Fumushu takes a step back, waving off Judy’s concern for her and says, “I had a thought, I didn't want to bother you.”

  Judy is still concerned but interested, “No, it's ok if you need to grab me then do, we’re a team.” She lets go of the crystal after testing to make sure it was stable, “This is heavy! How the heck did you get it all the way here? And why? What's your idea?”

  “Well, the box is supposed to have information on it, right? Maybe it's like a CD or a computer, like, it's just storage but with no way to show what's in there on its own. So… I was thinking about how magic would work with that. I remembered finding this.” Fumu says.

  “You might be onto something. How would we connect the two, though? We haven't found any loose cables or wires; and the things have no obvious ports to use as connections, even if we had. There isn’t even an obvious slot to put something in on the cube. It's all smooth flat surfaces.” Judy looks at the pink crystal then to the golden box, “It couldn’t be that simple, right?”

  She gestures at Fumu, “Help me lift this on to the top of the box, maybe if the stand touches the box it’ll do something?”

  The two carefully lift the crystal screen onto the top of the golden box then step back, staring, waiting for something to happen. A second passes, then two, then three. Nothing.

  Fumu hunches over, burying their hands into the front pocket of their hoodie, “Oh… I really thought that would work. It was a kinda dumb idea.” She sounds embarrassed, her voice crackling a bit more than normal.

  “No, it is a good idea, Fumu. It feels right. Maybe, … maybe we are missing something else.” Judy is still focused on the two devices, thinking hard. “ If the box is like a computer, and the crystal is a monitor, we just need a way to turn it on, to give it power.”

  “What if…” Judy grabs a small two small corkscrew pieces off the table and taps them on opposite sides of the cube. They sink into the solid exterior of the cube as if it was made of jello, till only a small handle pokes out and Judy can push no farther. With a flash the crystal lights up displaying a picture.

  “Holy shi-”

  END TRANSCRIPTION — — —