“Affairs of the Arcane: Love, Lies & Interdimensional Entanglements at the Retreat”

Filed by Raine Solara, love-drunk and scribbling under the glow of a flickering tiki torch.

They say the Retreat is a place for healing.
But it’s also a place for beautifully doomed romance.
Where the wine is strong, the base emotion louder than your regrets, and the hearts?

Always freshly bruised.

Raine Solara, crouched behind a gravestone, notebook in one hand, lizard in the other (briefly).

The cemetery at the Retreat is meant to be solemn — a garden of shadows, roses, and memory.

But lately, it's crawling with lizards. They’re the Exes. Yes, those exes.

A page in the altar book suggests a failed spell may have transformed unworthy lovers into silent, reptilian sentinels.
“He said he wanted to be near me forever. I obliged.” — Entry, p. 91

Here are two of the Retreat’s most whispered romances — strange, wild, and too real to be made up (but also maybe made up anyway):

G, THE SOUTHERN BOY
("Too Charming, Too Polite, Too Good to Stay")

First seen outside the Hollow Tree, feeding breadcrumbs to a cat that may have been a hallucination.

Anjelikka has a collection of postcards with exes

Wore cowboy boots, a wide smile, and the kind of voice that made you forget your own birthday.
“Ma’am, I reckon you’ve been running from yourself so long, you forgot you had legs.”
He taught Anjelikka how to two-step and how to leave before you’re left.

They had a thing. A soft, summer-night thing.
Then he vanished after a thunderstorm. Some say he left. Others say he dissolved into the sky like fog.

🪦 There’s a note near his grave:
“I didn’t want forever. Just one more porch swing goodbye.”

THE ALIEN ELF
("Shayth’rien of the Fifth Veil” — or just “Shay”)

Tall, glowing, with lilac-colored eyes and earrings that changed with his mood.
Claimed he was here on a diplomatic mission… but somehow spent most nights shirtless in the Basement Club, sipping stolen gin and quoting old Earth poetry.

Anjelikka was reportedly seen stargazing with him from the roof of the chapel.
Their love was ethereal, dramatic, and linguistically confusing.

“He kissed in geometry. I responded in metaphors. We were never on the same planet — but we kept orbiting anyway.”

He left her a gift: a fountain pen so she could write postcards from the Retreat.

Casey admitted she tried to flirt with Shay but got flustered when he spoke in harmonic tones and levitated her drink.

Dandy insists he knew it wouldn’t last. He told them so. Over lentils.

“Some loves are like postcards — beautiful, brief, never meant to be returned.

G was a sigh.

Shay was a storm.

Both still show up in her dreams, barefoot and glowing.

Maybe that’s all some people are meant to be.”

Was it you, dear reader, pulled into the Retreat’s web without realizing you checked in?

“The Book That Shouldn’t Be Read (So Raine Read It Anyway)”

Atop the altar in the Chapel of the Retreat lies The Book, bound in stitched canvas, its cover blank but warm to the touch. It never gathers dust, though no one admits to opening it. The air around it smells of lavender, iron, and regret.

Naturally, Raine opened it.

The book is part diary, part confession, part portal.
Entries are written by dozens of different hands — yet somehow all in the same voice. Anjelikka’s voice. Or a version of it. Maybe the voice of someone remembering her.

(Pg. 2 — Burned edges, faint thumbprint)

“I made up a man once. Beautiful, full of poetry and useless plans. He painted me in silver and called me his muse. Was he an artist or just an alien elf?
Then he walked out of my painting and blamed me for his unfinished soul.”

Who is that G guy?

(Pg. 15 — Written in violet ink)
“G said I made him a better liar. I think he meant it as a compliment. I miss how he used to stand too close and pretend not to. Buried him in the west yard. Still sends dreams sometimes.”

(Pg. 17 — Water-damaged)
“The chapel rewrote my prayers. I asked for peace. It gave me music. I asked for silence. It gave me Casey and Rachel drunk on joy and basement gin.”
“I didn’t ask for love. It gave me cats.”

FINAL ENTRY (Back Page, appears only at dusk)

“If you find this, you’re not supposed to. But if you’re reading, you probably loved someone you shouldn’t have, or let someone love you wrong, or danced alone, hoping someone would watch.

“This book doesn’t forgive. It remembers.
The grave is never where the body is. It’s where the story ends.”

The altar book didn’t just remember Anjelikka.
It remembered everyone who stepped into the Retreat carrying that unforgivable ache.
The kind that only comes from loving the wrong person… beautifully.

Raine’s Found Fragment – Tucked Into Page 63

It wasn’t written. It was stitched into the binding, like a wound that refused to close:

“I knew he wasn’t real. But he remembered things I never told him.
He made me tea the way I liked it, but he was just copying a dream.
I said ‘I love you’ — and he said it back like a line in a play.”
“He was perfect.
Because he was pretending to be.”

One of the alien-cats (possibly named Navi) curled up on the book after Raine finished reading.

It purred once, turned its glowing eyes toward her, and said (yes, it spoke):

“It’s not wrong to love badly.
It’s just dangerous when you pretend it didn’t hurt.”

WTTQ NIGHTFALL REPORT: “The Chapel and Cemetery — Soft Dirt, Hard Secrets”

Tucked behind the weeping boughs and half-forgotten benches near the Hollow Tree lies the Retreat’s oldest zone — a patch of land that doesn’t change quite as quickly as the rest. Maybe because it’s anchored by memory. Maybe because something is buried there that doesn’t want to move.

The Chapel
Small. Crooked. There are too many windows for how few walls remain.
The door opens only if you hum — and only if your hum is key to the Retreat’s mood that day. Inside:

The Chapel is where memories are laid to rest.

A pew holds a stack of postcards no one remembers writing.
The stained glass sometimes shows your face… aged. Or altered.
The choir loft is empty — except on certain nights, when Raine swears she hears Casey and Rachel's laughter echoing in harmony with something not human.

On the altar is a book with no title, full of unfinished prayers and apology notes.
Raine found one signed:
“— G. (Tell her the cats forgave me)”

The Cemetery
Behind the gravestones is a bench where Dandy often sits in disguise, claiming he’s “just waiting for lentils to sprout.”
Sometimes the grass parts to reveal:
A cracked mirror facing downward in the soil
A cat collar with no cat attached, still purring faintly
And once, a matchbook from the Basement Club, scorched and damp, with the phrase “I was never really here.”

The Cemetery is where memories wait to come back.

Raine: “At night, the headstones glow faintly. Not white. Not blue.

More like... unfinished sentences.”

“There’s something under the chapel. I heard a thump. Or a beat. Or breathing. Not sure which yet.”

They say you shouldn't dig in the Retreat.
Not because it's cursed (it is).
Not because something might crawl out (it might).
But because the ground tells the truth, most visitors would rather not hear it.
But Raine? She brought a flashlight, a flask, and the shovel called “Whisper’s Edge.”

Grave Four: “ctrl+z”
Everyone thought this was a joke.
Until Raine dug down and found… herself. Not dead. Not alive.
Just paused.

Grave Five: Unlisted, Behind the Chapel

Eyes open. Lips are almost moving. A second Raine — or a version that stayed behind in case she regretted the first move.
Raine whispered: “I remember being her.”
And covered the grave again. With both hands shaking.

No marker. No grass. Just soft earth.
Dandy claimed he once saw Dr. Parallax visiting it in silence.
When Raine dug it up, she found a sealed envelope: To Grumbachr: “If you find this, stop painting me. I don’t want you to come back.”

Final Thoughts:

The Retreat is a magnet for all kinds of beings: poets, partiers, phantom cats.
But behind the Chapel, past the flickering lantern tree, sits a row of peculiar headstones — newer than the others, but unnervingly aged.
Locals call them “The Mausoleum of Misconnection.”

According to whispers from Rachel (half-sober) and Dr. Parallax (never sober in time), these are not graves in the traditional sense, but rather, emotional anchor points.

They mark where Anjelikka let go — or tried to.

Raine's Summary: “Yes, Anjelikka’s exes are buried here — not in flesh, but in form.
Some loved her. Some haunted her. Some only existed because she did.
And all of them still whisper, late at night, when the Retreat forgets to forget.”

“Bootlegged Bliss — Who Spiked the Night?”

 Live from the Basement Club with Raine Solara

Every Thursday, the Basement Club hosts the Happy Dance, a wild ritual of glitter, groove, and gallons of strangely labeled liquor with names like:

• "Comet Kahlúa"

• "Moai Mojito"

• "Quantum Rye"

• And the infamous “Catnip Cognac” (marked “Not For Non-Felines”)

The stash is kept behind a Moai-faced fridge in the back room — enchanted, theoretically secure.

Last Thursday, the entire stock vanished.
Not a drop left. Not even the backup bag of party punch concentrate hidden inside the taxidermied otter.

How did they get the news van in here?

Casey and Rachel were the first to notice, then the first to sound the alarm... and then, very quickly, the first to point paws:
“It was the cats. The alien ones. We saw them. Slurping the Comet Kahlúa through their headsets.” — Casey
“Yeah. And one of them tried to trade me a glowing beetle in exchange for the Moai Mojito.” — Rachel

1. Security footage mysteriously looped for a 33-minute window.
(Dr. Parallax says this was caused by “a soft temporal bend,” which is suspiciously vague.)
2. Casey’s glitter boots had sticky residue that matches the Moai Mojito spill pattern.
(She claims it was just “star syrup from the dance floor.”)
3. Rachel’s earrings were filled with an unknown amber liquid, later tested and confirmed to be Catnip Cognac.
(She insists they were “just decorative.”)

The Basement Club, 3:33 a.m.

The Cat Aliens' Response:

Through their translator orb (glowing, humming, levitating):

🛸 “We do not consume terrestrial liquor. We uploaded its flavor. The theft is beneath us — and beside us — and also a little behind us. Please move.”

One of them purred in binary: 0111-SUS-1011

Raine: “Someone’s lying. Someone’s drunk. Someone’s dancing too hard. But in the Retreat, sometimes those are the same thing. Back to you, ghosts.”

Should we give Casey and Rachel a chance to plead their case? Maybe in an improvised dance trial judged by the Moai?

The Happy Dance? It’s not just a celebration — it’s a trigger. A rhythmic signal.

Casey (whispering):
"Time to grease the quantum furballs."
Rachel (laughing):
"Make it purr, baby."

They pour the shots for the cats.

There might be hidden secrets at the cemetery. It is said Anjelikka has buried her ex-lovers there.

Quantum Affection and the Sentient Moai

Dr. Elvis H Christ: AKA Dr. Parallax
Title: Doctor of Ambiguous Realities, Keeper of Stone Desires

Dr. Parallax was once a real scientist before the Retreat rewrote his credentials.

Obsession: The Moai Statues — yes, like the ones on Easter Island, but… not quite.

There are two Moai heads hidden deep beneath the Retreat, accessed only by descending an elevator that doesn’t appear unless you hum the right Elvis song backwards.

Claims he fell in love with one of the Moai statues ("Moai #2", specifically).

Believes the statues are sentient anchors of forgotten dreams — and one of them smiled at him once.
Talks to them regularly, referring to them as “The Twins of Still Thought.”

Claims he’s not actually Elvis, but merely the version of Elvis someone once dreamed up and then forgot about. He says he is from Rapa Nui, somewhere inworld you must check out.

"I’m just a loose thread, baby. And I’m fraying fabulous." He once slow-danced with a broomstick named “Moai-ssa,” claiming it was her "projected form."

Dandy insists Dr. Parallax knows more than he admits — especially about the Key of Echoes, which he once described as:

“A song trapped in silver, baby. And it only plays for the truly out-of-tune.”

Dr. Parallax lowers his glasses.

"It’s opening. Finally. They’ve loosened the hinge."

He once told Raine Solara cryptically:

“Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t like statues. They’re the only ones still listening.”

Dr. Parallax watches from a floating booth above the club, reclining in a Moai-shaped lounge chair, sipping from a coconut carved into the shape of a black hole.

He mutters into his lapel mic:

"We’re in the core now, baby. The cats are loose. The dancers are lit. The house is listening through its seams, or blame the aliens"

A nearby Moai fragment blinks once, as if to agree.

The Moai may remember Anjelikka's first design—or a warning. Either way, they may be collected with those cats and postcards we have been reporting on. It is time for Trenton Glass to come to the Retreat and report on this.

The Moai are waiting. And Dr. Parallax already made soup. 

WTTQ CHANNEL 10 NEWSFLASH

 “Tonight on The Evening Drift: Cats, Aliens, and the Queen of Postcards?”

Name: Trenton Glass (Reporting the bizarre as if it's completely ordinary)
Occupation: Anchor, WTTQ Channel 10
Style: Mid-century mod suits, holographic tie clips, always backlit like it’s prime time in 1962
Voice: Velvet-smooth, low-pitched with perfect enunciation — even when the world is ending
Catchphrase: “Where fashion meets fear.”

What do you mean the cats are not cats?

TRENTON GLASS (smiling, deadpan):
"Good evening, Second Life Sector 7 and all adjacent layers. Our top story tonight: Are your cats watching you, or watching for someone else?"

"Fashion queen and digital folklore figure Anjelikka made headlines again today after claiming — quote — the cats are not cats. They are mirrors in meat suits."

"This claim, dismissed by most sane entities, gained traction after a postcard was found at the WTTQ mailbox addressed to ‘Our Future Feline Overlords.’"

DANDY (holding lentil soup, exasperated):
“Look, I’m all for weird. I once DJ’d a sock auction during a memory collapse. But if cats are aliens? Then the soup is a firewall. And I’ve been eating it raw.”

This is not a cat

Trenton: "When asked for further comments, Anjelikka simply said: 'They purr in encryption.'"

ANJELIKKA (to no one in particular):
“They’re not cats, you know. Not really. They just wear that shape because it’s comfortable. Efficient. Soft fur conducts memory residue better than silicon.”

“When they purr, they’re broadcasting. Tiny signals. Whispers from the mirror-side of the wardrobe.”

DANDY: “She’s feeding alien frequencies to post-felines and calling it Tuesday. And people say I went too hard on the cumin.”

Frequency exchange?

We will be back between 2AM and 4AM Second Life time for another special report on how the liquor disappears in the Basement Club.

Suspects may be Casey and Rachel, but there is no solid proof at the moment, however, one of the aliens started to talk.

Dr. Parallax has also been a witness to this. We will report on him next...do not trust cats or aliens who hang around here.

“Dandy’s Denial”

Filed by: Raine Solara (sub-channel intercept)

Location: Sidewalk Archive Node 3-B / Former Basement Employee Registry

Status: Redacted (Reinstated by viewer request)

Known Affiliation: Basement Club fixture, guest of the Retreat (though never seen in a room), rumored confidant of Bun G Chord.

Lentil soup is grounding. You can’t drift into an identity spiral with cumin in your veins

Preaches softly but persistently about vegan suppers, especially lentils cooked over candlelight in ceramic pots.

DANDY: “They say no one leaves the Basement Club. That’s a lie. I left. I was the Basement DJ. Janitor. Code wrangler. Cat wrangler. Once fed Anjelikka a playlist so deep, she forgot what century it was.

Do you want to know why the jukebox glitches at 3:33 a.m.? That’s when the club plays back memories instead of songs. And guess who used to calibrate that loop? Yours truly. Right after my lentil soup break. Never trusted a timeline without legumes.

They called me mad. Said I ‘over-stitched the ambiance.’ Devon fired me in six timelines. Anjelikka rehired me in seven. But I remember things. Too well. I remember who the Basement used to be before she started wearing it.”

This could be Dandy after lentil soup
infusion.

Some say Dandy’s lying. Others say he’s remembering in reverse. Either way, the door he left through? It hasn’t reopened since. What do you think? Who is Dandy really? Nobody knows, but a few older guests claim they recognize the voice, though each swears it belonged to someone different.

DANDY: “They say lentil soup doesn’t belong in the Basement. That it’s too... mundane. But that’s exactly why it works. Ground pulses in every bowl. Cumin, turmeric, and memory root. It stabilizes synapse drift. Anchors the avatar. Keeps the mirror loops from folding in on themselves. 

Anjelikka used to call it ‘soupcode.’ Said it kept the ego from overwriting the host.”

Soupcode was a code for being a hippie, but Dandy confused it all.