Draft Update 17/07/24 (Patreon)

(Sorry for the missing week. If you didn't hear my whining on the discord, I ended up kinda running in circles with trying to do some revisions to the recent chapters. I thought it might help to 'fix' the awkward cut some people complained about where Su's conversation before returning to the Lady wasn't shown, but after writing about 2.5k words it just felt redundant and I kind of hated it.

I'll continue thinking about how I want to amend that part of the story. I think I've tied myself in so many knots about the health of this project since the post-timeskip stuff that it's doing more harm than good. Recent chapters have seen a bit of an uptick again, at least.)

Old Yru King's Harbor District | 12:37 PM | First Day

The list was, as I suppose I'd assumed from the woman's accounting, surprising and yet unhelpful. Even skimming it I recognized some names; like any person of ambition, I liked to maintain an awareness of who was who in the Grand Alliance, whether the sphere be political or arcane. And there were quite a number of prolific names, some of whom I even had acquaintance of-- like Magadates of Vestel, Minister of Arcanists in the Rhunbardic Parliament, and Hvakhshathra of Gruthart, one of the higher circle members of the Order of Chronomancers. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. It wasn't just the sheer variety, there were people here I wouldn't have expected to be tied to the Order in a billion bloody years. Arcanists who had opposed the changes in interpreting the Biological Continuity Oath violently! Assuming the information was reliable, that was a revelation unto itself. What sort of skullduggery was afoot, that would lead beneficiaries of the Order to play the part of its enemies?

But alas, it was useless for drawing any conclusions in the short term, because there was simply no pattern to speak of; people from all walks of life, with nothing in common save for the fact that a significant majority were arcanists.

No, that's idiotic, I scolded myself. Surely there is a pattern here, just one too complicated to discern at a glance, or whatever half-baked investigatory efforts that woman made. If I had time myself...

I cursed her for waiting until this point to have finally come through on our arrangement. Truly, if you wanted a job done well, you could only depend on yourself.

Still, it was hardly a wash. After all, my suspicions - well, primarily my suspicions - had been effectively confirmed.

After concluding our brief conversation and settling the bill, I swiftly departed the pub and headed back through the rainy streets to the tram station. It is here that I must confess to a little obfuscation, or rather omission, for I had in fact noticed a figure who I suspected to be in pursuit of me on the way in. They were somewhat taller than me, though significantly shy of six feet, and wore a heavy brown cloak with a hood that was about the clumsiest attempt at an inconspicuous disguise I had ever seen. They'd slipped in quietly a minute or so after I had, taking a seat by the bar and seeming to order nothing but a vegetable wrap with water.

I hadn't got a good look at them, so at that stage, I was still considering the idea that I'd misunderstood the situation, but the moments after I'd left the building confirmed it beyond a shadow of a doubt, because they followed soon after, clearly heading in the same direction as me but trying to awkwardly obfuscate it, criss-crossing the street and keeping their face pointed firmly towards the ground. Once I arrived at the station - an all but desolate platform at this time of day, largely wrought of the same unpainted cement that characterized this entire part of the city - they too came to rest, sitting at the bench of furthest remove from myself, facing conspicuously away.

It could almost be called quaint. I found it amusing, to see people doing things so contrary to their own natures.

I cornered them easily once we'd both boarded the tram, ducking behind the wall in one of the carriage links and making a swift approach once they'd let their guard down to gaze out the window for a moment. By the time they'd processed what was going on, I'd already taken a seat at their side.

"Well, someone's certainly paranoid," I spoke mirthfully.

They jumped, then turned to me sharply, finally letting me get a good view of their face.

As I suspected, it was Ophelia. Her blonde hair was tied back tightly, but underneath the cloak, she hadn't even bothered to change out of her garb from this morning. It was only through pure luck that the game hadn't been given away some time ago.

"K-Kamrusepa..." she started, her cheeks going crimson. "I..."

"I suppose I can little blame you," I told her, steepling my fingertips as I sat back. "Considering the circumstances, I wouldn't wholly trust me either. But you might have at least asked if you could simply come with me, and spared yourself the bother of dressing in that ridiculous getup."

Her delicate features wrinkled into an awkward frown. "I've been trying to talk with you..."

"What, with the message you left with Theodoros?" I asked, eyebrow arched. "About 'looking over your presentation'? You might have just caught me after the press conference was over. I shouldn't have thought pulling me to the side for a moment would have raised too many suspicions."

"I had an appointment with the embassy to get my paperwork sorted out for the trip," she spoke defensively. "I was already late by the time we were done... and by the time I got back, there was no one left in the auditorium."

"And so the next port of call was stalking?"

"It wasn't stalking!" she exclaimed, then hesitated a little, glancing around the carriage and lowering her voice. "You told me you'd be meeting them here, so I just thought I'd... catch up to you. ...b-but then I arrived first, and I thought if I just approached you, you'd be frustrated at me for interfering with the meeting, and so I... well..."

"Thought you could just do a little bit of stalking," I finished.

She looked at me in frustration, her lips pushed tightly together.

I sighed, rolling my eyes. "Well, whatever your reasons, I suppose it's ephemeral." I squinted at her. "In any event, please try to be more subtle going forward. I'm versed in keeping abreast of pursuers, but what if you were followed?"

She blinked. "You think they'd go that far?"

"It's bloody well looking that way, at least." I withdrew the book of names back from my pocket, slapping it against my palm. "How much did you manage to overhear?"

"Er... just about all of it, I think?"

I blinked in astonishment. "You heard all of it? From the other side of the building?"

"Um, yes, I did..." she admitted, seeming a little embarrassed by the fact. "I suppose I have quite good hearing."

I peered at her. "Is this some sort of power your people have leftover from the wyrm, or...?"

She looked at me with a countenance torn between confoundment and discomfort. "What? ...no. It's just something I'm good at."

I looked at her flatly, sighing through my nose. "Well, then I suppose that saves us a little time. You know, then, that something strange is definitely afoot."

It had come about in a strange series of events. A little under three weeks prior - just after our class had reconvened after our spring recess - I'd been in the midst of preparing for our trip to the Order when I'd stumbled on the seeds of something peculiar. To cut to the heart of the matter, I'd intercepted a suspicious document intended for Ezekiel. Though autoscribed rather than handwritten, it spoke of a plan to take place at the conclave, reading:

'I agree. The others don't understand the danger, and won't abort our plan at the risk of undermining their own delusional fantasy. We'll need to take matters into our own hands to make sure that nothing happens to the research.

I'll be waiting in the academy gardens at the row of benches under the fig tree this afternoon at lunch. You'll know it's me. We'll discuss what's to be done on the 28th.'

To be clear, when I say 'intercepted', I mean that I retrieved it after it'd been, well, disposed of. Here's a life lesson for you: one should never consider oneself above rooting around other people's garbage in pursuit of advantage. If cupbearers and fools were the positions of subtle power in the ancient world, then in the modern age, the bin man is ascendant. People will stuff the keys to their entire lives in the trash and think nothing of it, presuming it will simply disappear.

I know what you're thinking. 'Dearest Kamrusepa, you are obviously an eminently rational person, and I know that, as advantageous as it may potentially be, you realize that confessing to randomly searching through a waste bin in the hopes of potentially finding something incriminating makes you sound like a lunatic.' And dear reader, you're eminently correct. I was searching through Ezekiel's trash for a reason, and already had a certain understanding of the situation. But I'm going to leave you in suspense as to that for now. You of all people should know that a good story is in the telling, and if I revealed the critical twist this soon, you'd end up bored out of your wits.

But I digress. After that, I began investigating in earnest, but unfortunately made a misstep. In trying to subtly shadow Ezekiel - especially whenever he traveled to the meeting point described in the letter, even though I'd presumably missed the original date - I managed to arouse his suspicions. It had come to a head when I'd engaged him in a conversation about the Order's work and their ongoing major projects. He'd confronted me in an attempt to enforce my silence, and I'd capitulated. Outwardly.

Yet at around the same time, I'd found an ally. I wasn't the only one who'd picked up on something strange taking place. Ophelia had been given a warning herself, though in her case it was an anonymous letter slid under the doorway to her dorm in the dead of light, both far blunter and more mysterious in content. It had read:

'Ophelia of the Glass Fields,

You may not believe me, but what happens at the conclave will bring about a great change. You will be in no physical danger, but if you have built a life for yourself that you are completely content with, do not attend.

- A friend'

Naturally, she'd felt quite confounded and perturbed on the morning after she'd received this, and by stroke of fortune I'd been the one she'd spoken to first. So we'd made some further inquiries together, and had soon been cause to suspect (for as I'd experienced this morning, they weren't exactly being subtle about it) that the academy staff, possibly-but-not-certainly including the coordinator, were planning something more around this event. Among other things, I noticed that the headmaster had recently put his house on the market. Why? He'd given no intention to resign. What was going on?

And thus we'd been given cause to believe, though we did not yet fully understand the shape of things, that this event was not as it seemed.

"Why would the Order working on some sort of secret project have anything to do with our class...?" Ophelia mused, frowning to herself. "I just don't understand."

"I can think of a couple potential reasons. This book--" I flipped it open, "--has names from all over the world with not much of a pattern, but the one pattern that does exist is that a overwhelmingly disproportionate percentage are either arcanists, or people with some kind of familial connection to an arcanist." I snapped it back shut. "The first explanation that comes to mind for this - and what I'd dare say Occam's Razor points towards - is that whatever they've discovered is something that can only benefit arcanists. Something that requires an ongoing incantation, perhaps. Now, how would the public react to something like that in our current political climate, do you think?"

She stared at me. "I... don't know...?"

I blinked. Oh, right, this is Ophelia. She knows next to bloody nothing about politics.

I sighed imperceptibly. I was spoiled by my conversations with Su and Ran. "Arcanists having disproportionate power is viewed as threatening and unsavory," I explained slowly. "It's been that way since the Tricenturial War, and those sentiments have only grown since the revolution and the transition to replication as the dominant mode of production. Meaning, if a way was discovered for arcanists, and only arcanists, to possess far elongated lifespans..."

"People... wouldn't like it?" she tried.

"People wouldn't like it," I affirmed. "Even if it were only a temporary limitation, just the prospect - filtered down through the drain of misunderstanding that is popular culture - would be enough to devastate their reputation. And so it would make relative sense to break precedent and keep that information from the hoi polloi."

"That sounds like it would be a significant betrayal of their ideals," Ophelia objected. "I can't imagine them going that far, or wanting to even focus on such a... well, selfish treatment."

"Ideas are aspirational, not literal," I told her. "Everyone betrays them a little for the sake of a greater goal from time to time. Think of what works could be accomplished if the great minds of our age didn't need to fear death. All would benefit, even if not directly." I eyed her. "And no advance in scholarship is selfish. Only its use."

Her blue eyes flickered with unease. I could tell she wasn't convinced.

Well, it's of no matter.

"Anyway, the problem with this theory is that proliferation among arcanists is still obviously targeted, but not in a way that's obvious. Is it the allies of the Order? No. Is it the Great Arcanists and their families? No. So why are these people getting singled out? Is there some quality to them that only the Order is aware of?"

In truth, there was another theory brewing within me - another manner in which one could draw connections between seemingly unrelated groups of arcanists. I'm sure you've an inclination of what I mean, but it felt too soon to raise the idea unless Ophelia was the one to say it first, because it felt so much like a conspiracy theory that I couldn't help but find it ridiculous. No; there would have to be some suggestion as to why the Order would even give a damn about something of that nature.

The tram went through a transposition tunnel, the world outside the window blurring for a moment. Then began to slow down as it approached the next station. The longer we were doing this, the more vigilant I'd have to be about the possibility of someone listening too closely. The carriage wouldn't stay empty for long.

"...perhaps the Order simply has more patrons than anyone ever believed," Ophelia suggested, a far more grounded idea. "Or they could even be distributing the research completely randomly among people in a position to use it. That wouldn't be too far from their old system, would it...?"

I frowned skeptically. "I suppose it wouldn't."

"And your informant seemed to only have a rough idea of what's happening, so... maybe that's not even the final list. Just prospective candidates for something."

"For something?"

"Um, I don't know," she said, giving a small shrug. "It was just a little thought."

I nodded slowly. "Well, I suppose it's not out of the question." I pocketed the book. "Either way, If I can find the time, I'm going to try to get the contents of this scanned into my logic engine. Oh-- Speaking of which, you're not using yours for your presentation, are you?"

She shook her head. "Not really. It's very hands-on."

"I'm sure," I said flatly. "Would you mind if I borrowed it for a little bit, then? Mine gave up the ghost earlier, and I must have already packed my spare, so I need somewhere to put the data for mine until we're there and I can unpack. You can have it back once we meet up at the Aetherbridge."

"Um..."

"You can consider it your repentance for this morning's unseemliness," I said jovially. I considered myself quite accomplished at the serious-yet-not-serious tone of voice, which was an essential skill in all aspects of life.

"Well, alright," she said, and handed it over. It was a pearl-colored model I didn't recognize off-hand; probably a gift. "Just be careful with it, alright?"

"Of course," I said with a firm nod. "But yes: To get to the point, if the Order has mastered some sort of arcanist-exclusive technology that they're making ready to proliferate, the most obvious reason I can see for inviting is to bring us into that conspiracy, or perhaps evaluate us to see if we're ready for them to do so." I clasped my hands together, linking my pointer fingers and pressing them against my lips. "We are like to become people of influence in the future, and several of our class have indirect connections to the Order. You mentioned that you studied under Durvasa of Wayal in the past, did you not?"

She looked hesitant for a moment, breaking eye contact. "Yes."

"Just so, then. We could even be thrust into some sort of special position with the whole affair. When I was looking through Professor Inadu's documents, I even saw reference to the Order planning some sort of elevation ceremony."

"I see..." she said, taking this all in for a moment. "...I don't know. That doesn't... seem right, to me."

I looked at her inquisitively, glancing over my shoulder for a moment as some more people boarded the carriage. "Why not?"

"It just doesn't seem to align with what we saw in those notes," she stated. "That is, perhaps there's something I'm not considering or, well, taking foolishly, but... if we were just going there to be told a secret, why would the letter to Ezekiel talk about a danger? And mine a great change?" She raised a hand to her mouth in thought, her eyes fluttering. "I suppose in your case there could simply be some subterfuge at work... perhaps whatever part of our class is already involved in the Order's plans are concerned about what the rest of us might do, with the danger being purely to whatever their project is, but... in the case of mine, I really couldn't understand."

"Perhaps whomsoever sent it believed being let in on the conspiracy might cause great disruption to your life by nature? Or the treatment they've discovered itself is some kind of double-edged sword?"

She blinked. "Like Gyfnaartzhu?"

I blinked. "What?"

"Oh, it's a ritual for the days of the Great Accord," she explained. "The type of Wyrm called a Tâenfyr binds itself to your spine and to part of the lower digestive system. It increased longevity on account of its cellular regeneration ability, but because of how it punctured the lower bowel, Xetaeiwyr often lost the ability to--"

"I was thinking that it does something to alter one's sense of self, considering the disciplines involved," I said, wishing to cut short one of her vivid explanations of extinct xenomorphic biology. "But no, I can't help but feel it exactly fits either. What would they have meant by 'delusional fantasy'? Considering the apparent scale of all this already, it can't refer to something as banal as our invitation. And the fact it was sent to Ezekiel by someone at the academy..." I shook my head. "There's a layer here we're not perceiving."

"You said you could think of two possible reasons," Ophelia spoke uneasily.

"Mm, I did," I said, my expression growing more grim. "The other idea that springs to mind is a little more fantastical, but also in a sense very straightforward."

"What do you mean?"

"Consider what we know in the most basic terms possible," I began, as the tram began to accelerate once again. "Something suspicious is being planned between the Order, the academy, and likely - unless we have the situation profoundly backwards - our class. The signs indicate it is something potentially personally dangerous to us, even if not 'physically'. Meanwhile, we've learned that the Order is on the brink of some kind of incredible discovery, but one of an obviously controversial or sensitive nature." I closed my eyes for a moment. "If you give yourself over to an alarmist impulse, the answer that obviously comes to mind is that we're going to be, in some fashion or another, test subjects."

Her eyes widened with alarm. "Test subjects?"

"It's an extremely unlikely possibility in my eyes, but yes."

"B-But that's absurd!" she chirped, her pitch going up a little more than I was comfortable with considering the fact there were now a few passengers sharing the carriage. "Why us of all people? If they did anything to us..."

"Let me clarify, " I doubled-back. "When I say 'test subjects', I don't mean in the sense that they're going to, I don't know-- Whisk us into a laboratory and pump us full of artificed chemicals like we're chimpanzees. I suspect whoever left that letter for you was being truthful when they said no harm is going to come to us." I narrowed my eyes. "But we are obviously perched on the precipice of something awesome. I overheard the headmaster in an argument with our outreach head this morning, and from what I could tell he was openly discussing abandoning his entire career for the sake of this venture. He wouldn't be doing that for something flippant."

"Headmaster Ishkibal said that?" she asked nervously. "You're sure?"

"Well, I believe his exact wording was 'fuck the academy', but yes. Though of course it's possible I caught the moment out of context."

Her face flushed, and she looked frustrated. "...what are you getting at?"

"I'm saying that whatever the Order has discovered, it is something that they have a legitimate belief will transform our way of life, and people who are in the know seem to be backing that up with their actions," I explained. "Something that monumental sounds to me like a veritable black swan event. It might be a sort of test to simply have us interface with it."

"What does that even mean?"

"We can't know. That's my point." I shook my head fervently.

"Um, no, that's not what I meant... Rather, what's a 'black swan event'?"

"Oh." I flattened my brow. "It's from the old phrase 'as rare as a black swan', I think. it means an event so out-of-context one has no lens through which to conceive of it. Like a--"

Don't say alien invasion. Don't say alien invasion.

"--like if you were to give a caveman a logic engine," I corrected gracefully. "Maybe what they've discovered is something that - I don't know - changes the very nature of reality itself. And we're going to be spirited away as the first in a new race of transcendent beings." I patted my hair, which had puffed outwards in the process of said head-shaking, down firmly. "Or -more likely - maybe we have completely the wrong idea with all of this, and our lack of information is leading us to jump to hysterical conclusions. Part of me hopes that's the case, even."

She exhaled with visible stress, looking out the window. We were into the climb back up to the central city at this point, the whole world seeming to sit at a 20 degree angle. "M-Maybe we shouldn't go... Even if it's an outside chance, if something serious happened... and even though I know anyone could have put it there, whenever I think back to that note, I feel frightened. Why would they tell me to avoid it if I was happy?"

"We already went over this, Ophelia," I reminded her.

"I know. But it's-- It's disturbing. And now we don't have any more time to investigate." She looked chilled, her eyes falling behind her hood. "I don't know who we can trust. With how many people are on that list, I wouldn't even feel safe going to the Censors."

"We can trust one another," I said, even though I wasn't sure I wholly trusted that Ophelia hadn't faked her entire story just to keep track of me. "And we can take heart in the fact that, as you alluded to, this is a high-profile event. There are limits to what they could reasonably think to do to us."

Oh, how little I knew.

Ophelia, once again, looked doubtful, but made an obvious effort to smile. "Thank you for trying to help me feel safe, Kamrusepa," she said with exhausting sincerity. "I wouldn't have known how to have learned this much without you."

"It's... ephemeral," I said hesitantly.

"Really, you've been so considerate," she went on, her lip twitching slightly. "It's meant a lot to me."

I looked at her. As a consequence of our strange alliance, I'd been getting to know Ophelia a little better these past few weeks-- At least, in relative terms. On the surface, she'd remained as she'd always seemed, even in private. Gentle, innocent, virtually selfless. Someone who, frankly, didn't seem like a real person.

But on occasion, I thought I saw glimpses of it, though they may have been mirages. A hint of something familiar. Cold and bitter.

"...I'm glad," I spoke tactically. "And in any case, you don't have to go if you don't want to. But I'm going," I spoke with resolve. "Whatever secrets they might have, I've spent half my youth idolizing these people. I'm not going to pass up my chance now. I want to see with my own eyes whatever it is they're planning on unleashing on the world."

Was that technically an honest statement? Yes.

𒊹

We had to cut our serious conversation short as the tram arrived at its next stop and filled with commuters on the way back from their lunch hour, but promised we'd find a moment to speak again at some point between then and whenever we arrived at the Order's sanctuary. Frankly, I wasn't sure this would actually happen even at the time - a lot of it would depend on how much time we ended up having on the journey ahead, and if enough people felt like stopping for a break once we'd reached the Empyrean Bastion. But it soothed her, at least.

Once the tram arrived back at the city center - delayed by the work for the imminent parade - it was already almost two, and I felt compelled to sprint back to my dorms in the interests of taking no chances on the way up to the Aetherbridge. Fortunately, there wasn't a lot I had to do. I got my luggage stacked up on the little artifice I used for traveling (with considerable assistance from the Object-Manipulating Arcana), then hooked Ophelia's logic engine up to my own.

I didn't own a spare logic engine-- The damn things were expensive, and my luxury debt was already too deep to expend on redundant frivolity. I wasn't wholly sure why I'd lied about it to Utsushikome and the others, and then Ophelia later. Sometimes these sorts of words escaped my mouth without even thinking about it.

I slid the book into the scanning chamber at the base and let it start uploading the data, along with that of my presentation. Meanwhile, I decided to take a quick look at the headmaster's 'gift'.

I carefully read the Eme engraved into its surface and as I'd suspected on top of the scant, it was also warded. Not comprehensively, but to a degree that it would be a little bit of a challenge for a non-specialist like myself to ascertain the contents with true Divination.

Fortunately, there was more than one way to skin a cat. I didn't recognize any runes granting protection of for the transmission of information, and I doubted the Order would pay much heed to whether the object was in a simple lockbox or a fancy one. And if by chance something were to happen, well, things got damaged or lost going up and down the Aetherbridge all the time. It was a bumpy ride, with lots of fuss from customs.

I got a knife from my little kitchen area, they knocked it about a bit until I could jimmy it open. Sure enough, it did not contain books.

Instead, it was a queer device. It was long, slender, and bronze, resembling a key with multiple heads... though far too large for any door I'd ever beheld. I'd never seen anything quite like it - I saw no runes, so unless they were all on the inside (generally inadvisable in how it renders activation more troublesome) it wasn't even an artifice. Just a... chunk of metal.

If anything this raised more questions than answers, but I took a quick scan of it too for posterity.

Finally, I went to the lavatory to make myself definitively presentable, headed for the front door--

When suddenly, the bell on my logic engine rang.

My stomach fell, and my expression grew tired. I knew at once who it would be. For a moment I considered simply leaving - it probably wouldn't have mattered if I had, since they could easily have legitimately missed me - but that felt like an absolutely pointless risk, however minute. So I stepped back over, pressing my hand against the False Iron.

They appeared, as they always did, as a figure in shadow. Their features and voice both masked as if viewed from above deep, dark water. Was this effect on purpose? Probably not. As an anonymizing filter went, it was pretty generic.

Still, with everything else, it wouldn't have surprised me if they were fucking with me.

"Kamrusepa," the voice said.

"I don't have time for this right now," I told them tersely. "I was just about to leave for the Aetherbridge. I'm already running late, so unless you want me to miss the entire thing, I'll contact you once I'm inside the sanctuary, as we agreed."

A low, distorted chuckle. "Do you really think you're in a position to be so impertinent with me? Surely you can sprint a little bit."

I narrowed my eyes. "Sprinting won't make the tram go any faster. What do you want? Be quick."

"Nothing in particular," it said. "I just wanted to make sure everything is in place for the big day."

"It is," I spoke. "Is that all?"

"Did you remember to bring your gun? You're going into a dangerous place, my sweet. One can never be too careful."

"Don't be stupid," I said coldly. "I have my scepter, and I'm going up the Aetherbridge. They won't let you through with anything else bigger than a sewing needle since the civil dispute."

"I really can't believe you call it the 'civil dispute'. You're like a parody of yourself." More laughter. "Anyway, I was just joking around. You're right, I wouldn't want to keep you. Anything you'd like to update me on while we have this moment, though? New hints?"

"Nothing you don't already know," I said, glancing towards the box I'd stored the key-shaped object within. "I spoke with the informant, and have a bit of a better idea what we're looking for."

"That's my girl. I'll hear about it all later, I'm sure." It gave a smug, self-satisfied hum that made me wish I could punch the owner in the throat. "Alright, then. Go ahead and run along."

I didn't bother properly breaking the connection. I just turned and left for the door, letting distance do the work.

"I'd tell you to be safe," it spoke just before that point. "But you're all grown up now. Strong. Like I always wanted you to be."

"You don't need to hear that from the man you killed."