Designation: Bloom Tender
Date Encountered: Saturday, May 3rd, 2025
Location: Interior, Ground Floor, Abandoned Library, Old Canal Quarter, Stillwater Creek.
Threat Assessment (Preliminary): HIGH. While its initial actions were focused (tending the Bloom), its immediate detection of observation, unnatural appearance, size, sharp claws, and direct, threatening advance suggest extreme danger. Avoid direct confrontation. Unclear if hostile by nature or purely defensive of its 'work'. Its presence implies the Still-Blooms are not passive phenomena.
Notes:
- What the absolute FUCK was that thing? Tall, skinny, pale like old paper or bone. Moved like a badly made puppet but fast when it wanted to. Definitely not human, not animal. Arms and legs bent wrong. And no face. Just... smooth. Empty. Made this constant clicking sound with its claws until it noticed me.
- It was tending one of the white growths – the Still-Blooms. Like a gardener. Scraping dirt away, focused. This is huge. It means the Blooms aren't just appearing, they're being cultivated. By these things. Why? What are they growing?
- It reacted the instant I looked at it through the gap. How? No eyes. Could it sense thought? Fear? Was it the sound of my breathing? Or is it tied to the Bloom somehow, sensing disturbances near it?
- The old man didn't mention these... clickers. Just the Blooms, the weird words, the 'Thoughtless Garden' end stage. Are these creatures the intermediate step? The workers?
- Connection to Arthur / the key? Found the drawing of the key right before hearing/seeing this thing inside the library. Is it guarding something related to Arthur inside? Or was finding the key the trigger for it to reveal itself? Did the old man know it was in there? Was he warning me or setting me up?
- That screech it made before I heard the clicking... felt like it scrambled my brain. Some kind of sonic attack? Or just... the sound reality makes when something like that pushes through?
- Need a name for it. 'Clicker'? 'Library Thing'? 'Pale Gardener'? None feel right. Feels ancient, alien. Giving it a name feels like making it too real, but need something to label the horror.
- Is it unique? Or are there more? If they're tending the Blooms... and I've seen Blooms in District 7 and the Canal Quarter... does each Bloom have a tender? Fuck, I hope not.
- Avoid the library. Avoid the Blooms if possible. Need to figure out this key. Fast. Before it finds me outside the library. The text message proves something is watching. Maybe this creature is just the groundskeeper for the real threat.