The Nine Planes of Parsnip: The Realms that See Light: The Attempted Escape of Way Back When

There names were Elanzo, Arturo, Alke, Gordo and Gripe, and their daring in the Dome has lingered long in our memory due to the amazing amount of soot that has accumulated above the Fireside since they squirreled up it's chimney years ago. Elanzo was their leader, with slick-backed hair and spectacles made of rhino horn. His skin was pasty, like an over-ripe cheese of the Danish persuasion, and his breath reeked of hops. His cunning was great, however, and the others respected him for his ability to cut a deck of cards with a single, fierce stroke.

Arturo knew pastry better than anyone, and his desire for fresh gooseberries had nearly driven him mad since his entry into the Forbidden Parsnip. Hour upon hour of reading by the Fireside with the siren-song of the Blazing Beet ringing in his ear had not quelled the rumbling in his stomach or the lust in his mouth. His teeth had begun to ITCH with desire, and there seemed little hope of salvation in the Realms that See Light. He readily befriended Elanzo when the erstwhile leader approached him with a cheese streudel and suggested an escape to the Outer World (where berries be bountiful, he claimed).

Alke simply had no heart, though he was brilliant with knives.

Gordo and Gripe were businessmen, cloaked in steel and vice. Their necks were bound by collars of silk and their hair was perfect, though sticky. I can not claim to understand their motivation for escape, though their souls were black as pitch and they undoubtedly feared the majesty of the Beet. Gordo carried their arms, and Gripe their gold (which they had somehow managed to "take with them" into the Parsnip...a measure of their cunning), though both were never without their smiles. Oh how they terrified the masses when they smiled; so cold, so cruel, so quick to kill, they could slash their faces with a light brighter than that which ends many a tunnel! Their Grand Grimace was so achingly beautiful, so distressingly fake that all who saw it WISHED IT WAS REAL with ALL their hearts, and so they were lost. Destitute, devastated and drawn, they stumbled off, drained, never to know a smile again. How grand a day it was when Gordo and Gripe fled the Nine Planes and were seen no more...directly, that is.

Anyway, the Escapee Five, as they later became known, subscribed to the idea that all vents must lead OUT, a belief that lead them to a strange and potentially painful end, though none but they know what it felt like. Plotting in the Ravines of Oblivion, near the Northern Pines of the lands beneath the Dome, the Escapee Five felt that it would be best to develop a taste for Homer so as to explain the great amounts of time they would need to spend by the Fireside contemplating their escape. I have never learned why they felt that they must do this, seeing as there is no one and nothing to watch them whilst in the Dome, but they must have spent the greater portion of their lives fearing capture by SOMEONE. Perhaps their conscience.

After many months of Homeric indulgence (and they understood not a word, truth be told), the Escapee Five appear to have suddenly lost all patience with preparation, rocketed out of their chairs, and charged into the lit fireplace scrambling over one another in an attempt to crawl up into the shadows. Amidst great bouts of coughing and vicious hacking, the Five disappeared up the chimney, never to be seen again.

This does not mark the end of their story, however. Many months after their Escape, a sudden distant explosive rumble was heard, emanating from the eastern heavens. None could find its point of origin, though many looked. Soon thereafter, the Great Astronomer Paulinus of Tar noticed a new constellation in the Eastern sky, apparently newly emerged from a great black nebula previously known as the Searing Soot. It was a cross of five stars: three tall and two across, pointing upwards...