The Simulacrum - Chapter 110 - Part 2 (Patreon)

"Are the coordinates locked in yet?"

Hearing Jaakobah's question, the Celestial operative controlling a magitech tool that looked like an unholy crossbreed between a cello, a harp, and a vuvuzela, shuddered in apprehension.

"We're almost done, sir. Just give me a minute."

"Every second we spend out in the open increases the likelihood that the Magi would detect our incursion. Work faster."

The unnamed grunt nodded with a groan that said he hated his job, and then started simultaneously plucking and blowing his instrument. The sound caused the swirling blue portal at the back of the warehouse to vibrate and distort, kind of like the image on an old CRT television during a rainstorm.

We were already back in realspace, which meant that the damage caused by the short yet intense battle between the two Celestial factions was nowhere to be seen anymore. Jaakobah's group was standing guard over the disarmed losers, including the still-unconscious bald guy lying on a makeshift stretcher. By the looks of it, the no-nonsense Celestial agent was in charge of running the show, and… well, I wasn't sure it was right to call him that after the stunt he tried to pull.

Incidentally, he had a fairly deep wound on his neck just a few minutes ago, but while I was writing to Judy and Elly, he healed the injury with just some humming and snapping his fingers twice. Maybe the reason why he was so eager to use that idiotic 'I'll cut myself to prove that I'm serious' trope was because he knew he could fix himself up in a matter of seconds? Despite his apparent recovery, my eyes were unconsciously drawn to his neck, which he must've misunderstood for scrutinizing his orders, as he faced me with a stoic expression.

"Creating a gateway directly leading to Elysium is a complex procedure. Please be patient."

"And why's that?" I asked, without much meaning behind it, yet Jaakobah considered my question with the utmost seriousness.

"Elysium is protected by a barrier to prevent any unauthorized entry. The only way to gain entrance is by connecting a pair of gateways, one from each side. Regrettably, the Magi have developed a method for detecting the opening of any such passageways, so we must be careful about when and how we use them."

Oh. So far, that sounded eerily similar to how the portals between realspace and the Abyss worked, just without the need for Mana Wells and Purple Zones. Though again, considering the Celestials had access to the former as well, maybe I was jumping the gun on that detail. It was only a question of time before I found out though, so I didn't stress over it, and focused on another discrepancy instead.

"You already portaled in, didn't you? Isn't it a bit too late to be worried about the Magi at this stage?"

"No, we made a lightning strike from Argentina, not from Elysium," Jaakobah patiently explained, though if I didn't already spy on them to learn the context, I probably wouldn't have understood what he meant.

"What about these guys, then?"

I used my thumb to point at the gaggle of Celestials in custody, and after a glance, the apathetic agent let out a disinterested huff.

"They were most likely air-dropped. It's standard procedure. That's how I arrived as well when I visited the island the last time."

"Huh. I learn something new every day," I muttered a standard thought-terminating cliché and turned back to the portal in construction.

Now that I knew it was operating on the same principles as an Abyssal one, I could finally put a finger on the peculiar feeling it gave me. I recognized it as the same sensation that told me how long it was until the connection would be established during the incident with Crowey on the school grounds, and my gut said that in just a few short seconds, we could get going.

I wasn't going to lie though; I was still in two minds about this whole idea. Since the Elysium was a kind of parallel-pocket-space-thing, just like the Abyss, it greatly limited my options for deception. For a start, I couldn't exactly pull off an 'I was never here'move and return to Critias that way, as there was no chance anyone would accept that I somehow projected an illusion of myself into a separate mini-dimension. Of course, I already had a slightly more convincing emergency exit plan in mind, involving Bel of the Abyss and lots of bullshittery. Doing so would've probably led to another giant kerfuffle, possibly making the entirety of the Celestials and their various intelligence networks and alphabet-soup agencies pinpoint focus all their attention on me, so it was still my Plan B.

As for the most ideal sequence of events, it went something like this: go to Elysium, have Jaakobah introduce me to as many higher-ups and important people as humanly possible, then I'd pretend to regain my memories or whatever, and convince them to send me back to Critias on their own volition. Of course, since this was an optimistic pipe dream at best, it was practically guaranteed that things wouldn't go that smoothly, but it was still something to aim for, and then improvise as the situation would demand it.

Anyhow, just as I reached the end of that thought, the portal reached its countdown timer, or whatever it was called, so I adjusted my parka, checked to see if either of the girls responded to my text message (they didn't), and stepped up to the grunt busy with his weird magical instrument.

"I'm sorry, sir. The gateway will open in a moment. Please be patient."

I uttered an absent "I know," without much meaning behind it, more concerned by the way he responded to me than what he said.

I couldn't take a good look at his expression because of his helmet, but the man by the portal sounded both nervous and deferential at the same time. The same could be said about the rest of the Celestials in the warehouse, and even Jaakobah was less terse and more polite than he used to be the last time I met him.

It made me wonder; just how important did I use to be in the Celestial hierarchy? Was pre-amnesia Leonard Dunning a secret bigwig? And if so, what did that make my alleged 'mentor'? The bald guy referred to him as an 'agent', which wasn't exactly illustrious, so if anything, I should've been the same as well. Potentially even lower in the ranks, really.

Yet, they went through all of this trouble to get me and return my memories. Just what did I use to know to force to them go to such lengths? Ideally, I hoped there was some kind of rational motive behind all this, though again, the possibility of the Narrative forcefully course-correcting things because Josh picked Angie and I was getting swept up in the scenario because they needed a climactic plot for their 'route' to end with a bang was still on the table. I really wished it wasn't, but as much as I argued about these things with Judy, outright denying the possibility would've been foolish.

Momentarily lost in my thoughts, I was only brought back to reality when the portal in front of me reached the end of its metaphorical countdown and began to swirl faster and widen even further.

"I recommend we go through right away," Jaakobah stepped up to me and stated stoically, but after just the briefest moment of hesitation, I shook my head.

"No. Let's send the injured through first."

For the record, I didn't say that because I suddenly got cold feet. Not at all. It was all because of my big heart and what have you. Scout's honor.

Meanwhile, the Celestial agent considered my suggestion and waved at the captives and their guards to get moving. It caused a bit of a stir, but a few pointed glares were enough to get them moving.

Good. Herding all of those guys across, including the man on the stretcher, bought me at least a minute to think things through one last time. Did I really want to do this? Once I stepped through that portal, it was guaranteed to set a lot of things into motion, and I couldn't predict how much control I'd have over the events to follow. Was I ready to take responsibility for all that?

But, then again, things were already off the rails at this point, and even if I pulled out from this situation at the last second, I was sure the Celestials wouldn't leave me alone. With the Assembly coming to the island, the last thing I needed was an unpredictable variable like that.

"Leonard?"

I was once again jolted out of my thoughts, this time by Jaakobah. He put his helmet back on and beckoned for me to follow after him, and I only just realized that the only three people left on the premises were him, me, and the nameless agent still playing his eclectic instrument like his life depended on it.

"… Oh, screw it. In for a penny, in for a pound," I whispered under my breath and stepped up to the stern Celestial healer, took a deep breath, kept my phantom limbs close to me, lest I accidentally dispel this gateway thing, and we both stepped through the portal at the same time.

The sensation was rather peculiar. It didn't quite feel like Phasing, but rather as if I just walked through a curtain separating two rooms. There was a sense of tingling on my skin, kind of like static electricity, but it was soon overtaken by other sensations as my eyes adjusted to the bright ambient light of our destination.

The first thing that registered with me was the thick, sweet scent of flowers, followed by the slight breeze I felt on my skin. At first, I thought we were outdoors, but a quick glance around told me that we were standing on a rather a huge balcony. It was semi-circular, with fancy classical Greek columns holding up its high roof and its a milky white floor covered with lush red carpets and even redder rose petals. The finely carved alabaster railings were barely visible under the countless bouquets of flowers and garlands on top of them, while the walls on the sides, as well as several spots on the ceiling, were bearing bright blue banners adorned with the same golden crest. It was depicting a vertical spear with a wide head, surrounded by laurels and stylized wings in a circle around it, and all of that enclosed in an even bigger circle made of straight lines representing rays of light.

That would've been already enough to give me a pause, but then my attention was drawn to the Celestials standing by the railings in front of me. All of them were wrapped in togas; vivid blue, red, and purple colored cloths draped over spotless white tunics, their hems covered in elaborate needlework and adorned with small gems. There were about twenty of them, men and women of various ages and hair colors, but all of them wore laurel crowns made of gold and silver.

Then, as if to make things even crazier, about ten Celestials dressed in the simpler ancient Greek armours, the kind I'd seen on the guards, stepped up from the sides and blew their trumpets, followed by a pair of young Celestial girls flying overhead and raining more rose petals on me. It was only at this point that I realized that Jaakobah and the placeholder with the weird instrument sneakily retreated to the back, where the rest of the agents and captives were currently being herded out of sight.

My first instinct was to call out to him, as I would've preferred to have at least one familiar face around, but before I could do so, the trumpeters blew their instruments again. This time, all the toga-wearing Celestials followed it up with a melodic chant of some sort, and revealed their wings without changing their outfits in the process.

"Welcome! We have been eager to meet you!"

Blinking in surprise, I faced the middle-aged man who called out to me with an unexpectedly deep and resonant voice. He was fairly short, almost a head shorter than I was, with straight, shoulder-length sandy-blonde hair farming a clean-shaved face with a straight nose, small chin, and wide jaws. He stood a step ahead of the rest; his toga was a deep shade of purple and his headdress was made of pure gold, signifying that he was one of the more important people present. However, the most striking thing about him was, undoubtedly, the fact that he had three pairs of bright, translucent wings behind his back, the rest only sporting four, with the occasional twos among the ones in the back.

Feeling a little overwhelmed and more than a bit dizzy by this entire scene, it took Refuge in Audacity a while to take its usual seat in the command chair inside my head, but once it did, I let out a pent-up breath and loosened my shoulders at once.

"I presume you're the representative of this… group," I said with a level voice, and the man's face was nearly split in half by a wide and altogether artificial smile as he walked over to my side, just as the portal closed behind me.

"Indeed. I have already sent you a letter, but this is the first time we have met in person. I'm Acacius Tsephanyah, Elysium's Director of Internal Affairs."

"Pleased to meet you," I said on autopilot while the gears in my head started to spin up, and it didn't take me long to realize why he sounded familiar; he was, without a shadow of a doubt, the leader of the shady council-people I saw through Far Sight during the one and only time I managed to catch Jaakobah during a meeting.

Honestly, I based on his resounding bass, I expected someone taller and bulkier, but I wasn't going to say that out loud. Looking at him didn't give me any 'strangle him right now' vibes though, which was a good start if nothing else. More importantly, if he was also the person who sent me the letter warning against making contact with other Celestials (which, in retrospect, I did), it meant that he was definitely a plot-crucial person in or near the center of whatever the Narrative was cooking at the moment. A such, I immediately offered a hand to him.

"You probably already know this, but I'm Leonard Dunning. Let's not get bogged down with the titles, you probably know all of them already."

"Yes, we most certainly do," he told me as he nervously eyed my outstretched hand.

He hesitated for a while, but ultimately still reached out, yet instead of reciprocating the gesture, he limply pinched my fingers in his own and bowed. For a moment I was afraid he wanted to kiss my hand, but he left it at that and straightened his back. Was this some kind of weird Celestial greeting I didn't know about? In any case, a mark was a mark, so I didn't really care all that much.

With this, my job was technically done. I came here to mark one of the head honchos for Far Sight, and I accomplished it just a few seconds after arrival. That was efficient, even by my standards… and it was the reason why I figured I could probably stretch my luck a little further.

"You put an awful lot of effort into this," I spoke as I pointedly glanced around on the balcony and then picked a rose petal off the fur rim of my parka. "Is this how you greet all your guests?"

"Oh no, not at all," the Celestial director reassured me with a disarming smile and gestured for me to follow after him. I did so, and as we walked down the red carpet leading to the railings, the group of richly dressed people parted to the sides like the Red Sea. "We generally do not allow 'guests', but you have no idea for how long we have been waiting for your arrival."

"Still seems a bit overblown," I commented as we reached the edge of the balcony, allowing me to look outside. We weren't particularly high, maybe a couple of storeys at most, and I got a great view of the azure skies stretching over the seemingly endless golden fields and the snow-white spires dotting the landscape, all of it illuminated by the bright morning sun. It was definitely scenic, but nothing special.

"No, not at all," the Celestial representative emphasized. "Due to the rather abrupt nature of the circumstances, we only had a short time to prepare this reception, but we wished to show you our realm in its best light. Once again, let me welcome you… to Elysium!"

As if rehearsed ahead of time (oh, who am I kidding; of course it was), the trumpeters blew their instruments again, the girls with the baskets full of rose petals made another sweet-scented bombing run on my head, and just outside the balcony, I could see—

"… Did you get a Hong Kong action movie director for this?"

The question slipped through my teeth as I pointed at the flock of white doves flying by the picturesque background, and while the Celestial big shots around me looked rather startled by my comment, they couldn't have been half as confused as I felt at the moment.

"Hong Kong?" the director by my side repeated after me, with the first cracks finally showing on his harmless smile, so I shook my head with a dismissive wave of the hand.

"Don't mind me, it was just an observation. So, now that I took a look outside, can we get down to business?"

"Certainly, but… Don't you have any questions about our realm?" he prodded me, so I shook my head a second time.

"Nope, I've seen enough of it already."

"If… you say so," he muttered a tad uncertainly, but when he saw that the others were also getting fidgety, he quickly reasserted himself with a loud harrumph. "In that case, please follow after me. Maybe once you recovered your forgotten memories, we could take a second look."

For some reason or another, this man really wanted me to be in awe of their little pocket dimension, or at the very least comment on something, but unfortunately for him, I wanted to get the most out of this situation ASAP. After all, I still had to get home, grab our beloved Uncle Percy, and then bring him to the closest high-rise building and dangle him off an edge, upside-down, until he gave me all the answers I wanted. Kind of like a nocturnal echolocating mammal man, just without the funny voice.

Anyhow, he waved for me to follow him, and as we walked down the red carpet again, this time in the opposite direction and towards the only visible exit, the rest of the Celestials in togas put away their wings and awkwardly shuffled behind us. Last, but not least, our processions was closed by the trumpeters, who put away their instruments and picked up circular shields and long spears before they followed us. Were they some kind of honour guard, I wondered?

Guesses aside, I could catch a few grumbling about how this wasn't in whatever script they rehearsed ahead of time, but such complaints quickly died down as we got inside and I was met with familiar, minimalist corridors currently being swept by some rather adorable flying roombas. Without a doubt, we were inside one of the towers, and a quick Far Glance, revealing a smattering of red dots in the surrounding area, told me that we were almost certainly in the same one I'd visited a while ago during my initial marking trip in the Elysium.

Filing this trivia in my mental cabinets, I followed after the man leading the procession, and before long, we reached some equally familiar sliding doors.

"Just a moment," the faux-friendly director stopped me in my tracks and let out a series of hums that sent waves of magical un-light towards the panel on the side. The melody caused the surface to light up with a circle that reminded me of one of those old-school wave-form visualizers, and it responded with a mellow chime and a low whirr.

Before long, the doors opened, revealing an elevator cabin I was also familiar with, and so I stepped in without any hesitation, an act that seemed to startle the rest of our group.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked just a touch impatiently, and so the rest soon followed, though it was obvious we couldn't all fit in at the same time. That said, the cramped conditions were ideal for me, and it netted me a couple of marks, so I wasn't complaining.

It took about five minutes for everyone to reach our destination, time that was more than enough for me to overcome my initial surprise and start wondering about what was going on. Since I had no idea what these people's plan was, or how they would try to cure my amnesia, I tried to keep an open mind while also being on guard, yet I had to admit I wasn't prepared to see the service corridors leading to the restricted area in the basement at the end of a long ride down. It was the place they were housing a Mana Well, like the ones in the Abyss, and the fact they were bringing me to one of them filled my head with an endless number of question marks.

Completely unaware of my inner turmoil, the representative of the group led me through the underground passageways with steady steps, so for the time being, I just honed my senses, and made a few more marks whenever the opportunity presented itself. At this point, I had a mark on about half of the toga-wearing Celestials, plus two of the spear-carrying guards accompanying us, so I considered this trip well worth it already.

At last, we reached the heavy-duty doors at the end of the hallways, and I could already feel the hairs on my arms standing on ends from all the mana in the air. Without hesitation, three of the Celestials stepped forth and started singing in canon, to which the locking mechanism responded with short chirping sounds. After three whole exchanges, the whole corridor shook and the thick metal gates slowly retracted into the walls, revealing a truly curious sight.

The circular hall on the other side of the entrance had a surprisingly high ceiling. The place was lit by a series of lights embedded into the fresco-covered dome, though I could hardly see any of that due to my vision being dominated by the eerie, colorless light of the mystical cube floating over a pedestal in the middle of the room. The density of mana in the chamber weighed on my chest and made it harder to breathe, but this wasn't my first rodeo with a Mana Well, so it only took me a few seconds to get used to it.

In the end, only the head Celestial and I entered the room, while the rest of them remained outside and only stared after us from the entrance. There were lots of whispers and gasps of awe, but I couldn't exactly tell if it was at the room, at the Mana Well, or something else entirely. Maybe it was because of me, considering the six-winged director looked rather surprised when I followed after him without a word, and there was something strahge in his gaze that made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. This wasn't the time or place to address that, especially when he gestured for me to stay back and, contrary to my expectations, didn't head to the pedestal in the middle.

Ignoring my scrutinizing gaze, he walked over to the altar in the back of the room, surrounded by more frescoes and tall candelabras holding multiple magical lights that were barely visible due to the ambience produced by the cube. Come to think of it, this place did strike me as a small shrine the first time I came here, and now that I had a chance to take a closer look, I had to agree with my first impression. While the paintings on the walls were rather violent, depicting scenes right out of a gory fantasy war movie, the style and trappings were definitely religious, and now that I could take a better look at the altar at the back, this definitely did feel like a place of worship.

While I pondered over how exactly that meshed with this being a restricted zone housing a Mana Well, the man in the purple toga opened up the side of the altar and retrieved an item from within. I couldn't say he carried it per se, as it floated above his hands, and even so, it looked as if it took considerable effort to bring it over to me. On closer look, the object was some kind of weapon, enchased in a transparent bubble of lazily swirling mana.

In retrospect, this was probably supposed to be a very solemn occasion, further punctuated by the Celestials we left behind in the doorway breaking into a Gregorian hymn the moment they laid their eyes on the object in question, yet I couldn't help but feel baffled by the sight in front of me.

The best way to describe the 'weapon' in quesion was to say that it was a forty centimeters long angular hilt made of a matte green material, segmented by a golden inlay in the middle of it, and topped by a leaf-shaped double-edged blade, about twenty centimeters long. It was a strange thing; too short to be a spear, but too small and unbalanced to be a sword. Maybe some kind of ceremonial dagger, I pondered? But then what was the point of the long handle?

I'd gotten only that far with my observations when the blonde man in front of me let out a hiss and unfurled his wings again, startling me into nearly Phasing away by reflex and causing the singing in the background to miss a note.

I waited for a long beat, but when he didn't move, I let my guard down a little and asked, "Is everything all right?"

"Yes. Only… the Relic of Polemos is reacting to something. It could be your presence, or—" Before he could finish his sentence, he let out a startled gasp, exactly as the bubble surrounding the weapon popped with a loud pinging sound. "Ah! Watch out!"

By the time he said that, the object hovering above his hands began to spin, and, without any further warning, it came flying straight at me.

Startled by this development, time slowed to a crawl as I instinctively lashed out with my phantom limb, only for it to bounce off. Or rather, I was the one who yanked it back even before it made contact in response to a small yet very loud part of my mind screeching at me about it being a plot device. Then, my second instinct was to Phase out of the way, only to belatedly realize that after the previous fakeout, I forgot to set my target again.

Normally this was the part where I reflexively dodged out of the way of harm… except my danger sense was apparently asleep, as it wasn't sending even the slightest of warnings, even as a decidedly dangerous-looking knife thing was hurtling towards me.

Then, from the very bottom of my mental priority list, another reflex rose to the rescue. My well-trained yet rarely used weapon-catching reflex, that is.

Without much conscious thought being put into the process, my right hand automatically lashed out, and to my surprise, the weapon flying right at my head suddenly stopped spinning and changed its trajectory. It felt as if it was waiting for me to move from the very beginning, and its hilt lightly smacked against my palm. Then, the moment my fingers closed into a firm grip, there was an uncomfortable, borderline painful sensation running through my arm, like a mild electric shock, forcing me to blink in surprise.

And then, when I opened my eyes again, I was suddenly inside an empty not-dark not-room.

"Well… crap."