The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

Inner Sanctum | 4:40 PM | Third Day

Eventually, Ezekiel chided us for talking when we should have been on our guard, and the group fell mostly silent for the last few minutes it took for our scepters to finish charging. The only person who didn't bother was Theodoros, since he said he hadn't really used his much anyway.

With that done, all that was left was to head to our penultimate destination at the other side of the facility. Once we were there and had our surveillance set up, the plan was to finally compare accounts about what had happened over the course of the half hour of chaos we'd experienced. Frankly, I wondered if Linos was right, and we might've been better off just dropping the matter and focusing on being hyper-vigilant, even if it was still possible someone within our group was a traitor.

Of course, it would be wonderful if we could, through comparing accounts and applying logic, come to a somewhat satisfying conclusion - like what had happened after Sacnicte and Yantho's deaths, but more definitive - but I strongly suspected things would not go so simply. Solving the whodunnit in a mystery always comes down to identifying a contradiction; someone saying something which either clashes with the hard, observed facts, or an overwhelming number of other people's accounts. In a story, this works fine, because the way information is conveyed follows certain unspoken rules. Not all characters are logical people, but all characters behave at a certain logical standard; no one will say complete nonsense unless they are deliberately trying to mislead the detective/reader.

Whereas in the real world, someone can visit a room with green wallpaper, get a mental wire crossed on the way out for absolutely no decipherable reason, and subsequently swear to God and the gods unto their dying breath that the wallpaper was blue.

There were certainly reasonable grounds to suspect we'd been deceived; even on the face of it, Linos, Theo, and everyone we discovered in that room - not to mention Fang and Anna, despite being deceased - all seemed somewhat suspicious. But the situation had grown so complex and intense that a false positive, where someone seemed guilty but wasn't, seemed all too possible.

And if that happened... In a situation where people had already started to distrust each other and withdrawn into their own little groups, with so few of us left to begin with...

Well, it wouldn't be productive, I'll say that much.

We headed towards the front door, while Ptolema idly spoke to Kam, who had put up her barrier as well now that we had some spare eris. I'd abstained on the basis that my focus was starting to fall apart, though I think the truth was that part of me wanted to preserve every advantage I had when it came to defending myself left.

My hand kept wandering back to my bag. Every few moments, I ran my hands over the shape.

"Kam, you, uh-- You took Ophelia's project with you, right?" Ptolema asked.

"Were you not paying attention?" Kam waved her off. "I thought I wrapped it up in plain sight."

"I was just making sure," she said, glancing briefly at Kam's bag. "Could I like, take a look at it?"

Kam eyed her critically. "Certainly not until we get there," she said. We turned the corner towards the final hallway en-route, to the area where we'd fought the serpopards for the first time and found the lamp - was still waiting for an explanation for that, especially since Theo seemed to have one of the same type on him. "Wouldn't exactly be hygienic to just slop it out now. And why?"

"Well, I was thinking about... What probably happened to her, and I realized something. Like, Ophelia was from the Diakos, right? So she had a bunch of organ replacements to help her body work right on the Mimikos. And like, you probably know this already, but when you artifice things like that nowadays - fully biological implants, I mean - you make 'em with this fluid called protohaima, which has false iron that turns to real iron once it's in the body. That way you don't have to worry about having tissue and blood from different seeds, since it kinda adapts straight away to the person you put it in--"

"Get to the point, Ptolema," Kam said, sighing slightly.

"Uh, sorry," she said, scratching her head. "What I mean is, when an artificial organ gets connected to the rest of the body, it becomes human tissue. Which means a contact paradox makes it turn to gunk with everything else."

Kam looked to her suddenly and blinked, apparently surprised that Ptolema was saying something she hadn't thought of already. "...which would mean that her project wasn't connected to her when she died."

"Yeah, exactly," Ptolema said. "So like, what was she doing with it? Why would she be hiding it? I figured we could maybe examine it and see if there's anything weird going on."

"You've certainly convinced me it's worth the time," Kam admitted. "But again. Not until we get there."

"Isn't there another explanation for why it might've not died with her?" Ezekiel cut in. "After all, she's from the lower planes. For all we know, the thing could have been made with their old technology."

Kam scoffed. "Don't be a conspiracy theorist. The reservations on the Diakos have a population of barely a few million, and the Wyrm are all dead. The Grand Alliance burned their libraries-- They're not capable of making technology."

"So they say," he replied darkly, we stepped through the door and into the exterior. There was something unnerving about the soothingly mundane artificed evening light, after everything that had happened. Gentle gold reflected off the pale blue grass.

I peered in the direction of the Nittaimalaru, but even with the added light, there wasn't much I could make out of the remains of the bioenclosure. Just the shattered remains of a few of the smaller trees, and a void beyond, presumably where the structure itself had collapsed into the vacuum.

"Not 'so they say', it's a fact," she responded, holding up a finger. "If there's one thing the Alliance isn't lax about, it's that. You think you know better than a small army of Diviners? You think the Censors probably aren't watching Ophelia precisely for that sort of thing, no matter how well behaved she was?"

"Weren't," Seth reminded her gravely. "She's gone, remember?"

Kam hesitated, then made an agitated expression, biting her lip. "Yes, well. My point is still clear."

"You can't divine out a single clump of cells, much less knowledge in someone's head." Ezekiel insisted stubbornly. "And everyone knows the few hundred people they have managing the occupation barely give a damn anymore, and that they probably still have an oral tradition. The fact that they didn't even see a red flag with her being an Alienist Biomancer goes to show just how little anyone gives a shit--"

"Shut your goddamn mouth, Ezekiel," Seth said, annoyed. "Aten, let her fucking body cool before you start accusing her of oath breaking."

"I don't believe there was a body," Ezekiel said flatly.

Tasteful.

"What reason would she even have to do such a thing?" Kam asked rhetorically. "To employ outlawed technology on a damn school project--"

"Uh, sorry to interrupt..." Theo interjected, stopping pushing his father's wheelchair all of a sudden. Linos looked up curiously. "But does anyone else see something in the field, over there?"

He pointed, and my eyes followed his finger. He was right. A little off the side of the southern path, I recognized - despite it being overwhelmed by the overhead arcane lighting - a gas lamp laid down on the grass. It looked like it was holding a sheet of parchment in place.

Kam narrowed her eyes. "What the hell...?"

"That wasn't there when we were out here earlier," Ran observed. "There's no way we would have missed in the dark."

"Who would've even had a chance to put it there, then?" Seth mused, then realized something, gritting his teeth. "Shit. Could it be a message from the culprit?"

"It might be a trick-- Ran, do something to scan the area," Kam instructed. "The Matter-Sensing Arcana, or something."

Ran rolled her eyes, but reached for her scepter and began incanting a modified version of her diagnostic arcana. (It was a good thing Ran wasn't the culprit, because she probably could've killed us all five times over by now with how casually people were willing to rely on her, myself obviously included.)

"I'm not sure we should be getting derailed with something like this," Linos said, glancing around. "Especially now. We're more vulnerable to coming under attack while we're out here."

"Are we...?" Ptolema asked, confused. "I mean, if anything, wouldn't it be harder to surprise us?"

"W-Well, I mean, that we don't have a defensive position," Linos said, trying to defend his reasoning.

"Not sure how much that matters when it's arcanist vs. arcanist," Seth said.

"There's nothing strange about it," Ran said, as she finished. "No sign of anyone else in the area, either."

"We can't just fucking well leave it, even if it is just more idiotic taunting," Ezekiel said. "If the theory you were insisting on earlier is right, and the shot came from outside, then it's probably from that Rhunbardi. We might learn something if you read it."

"You're just trying to sound high-minded about being curious," Ptolema said.

"For once, I agree with him," Kam said. "We'll just grab it and keep moving."

Linos sighed. "I really do think this is a bad idea... But as long as I'm keeping watch, that should be enough, I suppose."

She raised her scepter, and levitated the parchment herself, causing the gas lamp to fall on its side and extinguish. For a moment I had this irrational fear that Ran had been wrong, and this would trigger some mechanism to set off more explosives or start a fire, but nothing happened. As the object floated over, I noticed that the words "READ ME" had been written in excessively large handwriting, in contrast to the remainder of the test, which seemed to have been rendered mechanically.

Wait, I thought. Does that handwriting belong to who I think it does?

Kam must have made the same realization, because by the time it got close, she all but snatched it from the air.

"Is that Fang's handwriting?" Seth said, realizing himself.

Kam held it close. "That shouldn't be possible, but--"

"Lemme see," Ptolema said, as everyone started to crowd around it-- With the exception of Ran, who was keeping an eye on Linos in turn, but was still visibly curious, glancing over her shoulder with wide eyes.

I squinted at it. The text was dense, and while indeed printed, it peculiarly looked more like it had been done by a typewriter fed into a logic engine and done in a modern fashion. There were paragraphs and paragraphs in a tiny font, running all the way to the very bottom of the sheet.

READ ME

HEY GUYS

if you're reading this (assuming i'm not showing it to you as a joke) that means i'm probably dead. my guess is that it happened in the middle of me trying to give some kinda dumb speech. if it wasn't that and i just fell down and broke my ass or something, you can throw this letter out. don't even worry about it. sucks to be me!!!

okay but seriously: if that is what happened, then there's a few things you need to know. (well i guess you don't NEED to know? honestly (for reasons you'll get in a minute) it doesn't really matter either way, but it feels shitty to leave you in the dark, so.) the truth is that i kind of expected that things would go this way.

that probably sounds pretty crazy, right? i 'expected' to die but let it happen anyway? i guess i probably have got a little carried away. honestly i think i'd need to basically write a novel to explain all the stuff going through my head right now. there's SO MUCH to this (scientific implications, existential implications, the details of the process and how and why it's being employed r/e the murders etc etc, not even touching on the other minutia i've picked up on from this context) that even trying to figure how to explain it feels like trying to spell out quantum mechanics in a schoolbook. an experiment! yeah, that's probably the best way to describe it. i've been doing an experiment.

okay. yes. gotta get to the point. before i can get into anything specific i've gotta try to explain what's happening on a big picture level, but a lot of this is probably going to sound impossible/stupid and you might not believe me or think i'm nuts. regardless, here, goes.

to start with, full disclosure. i lied (or at least didn't correct you when you got the wrong idea, semantics) about having arrived just before the conclave. i know, not a good start. it's a long story that's not worth going into here but i got roped into this really elaborate plan by neferuaten to flex on the rest of the order and actually had to show up in secret before the rest of you even got here, on the crack of dawn of the first day. that's why anna never noticed me arrive on the system - neferuaten went in with zeno+somebody else and wiped the records from the admin. i spent the first day basically hiding out on my own in neffies room and only snuck out a couple times.

"why would you go along with something like that when you're such a respectable and honest person, fang" two reasons. the first i told to kam and su already, which is that she gave me a big bribe. like a REALLY big bribe. the second is something it took me a little bit to realize.

ok so. here's the thing. we're not exactly in conventional time and space right now.

i know some of you know a bit about this already. let's start with the basics though: the pantry behind the main building kitchen. it's a blind spot. my main theory is that it used to be part of this but something broke relatively recently (we'll come back to that), but it could also be a kind of cornerstone, like the spoke of the wheel. the big logic engines are it's not really important though.

normally i find the pantry on the first night when i get hungry and go looking for a snack, but yantho passing out there this time fucked that up cause it meant the door got locked. when i finally went there after the conference i got a hunch but was still skeptical. so i said to myself "hey, if it IS like that, what would i have done?" so i went looking around the room for a good spot to hide something. i found a loose tile, and eureka! notes! it's not every day you get to be impressed at yourself.

ohhh god there's so much. there's so much you guys. okay so here's the gist: time is looping. okay that's not true. time isn't ACTUALLY looping because that would violate the principle of relativity. it's more like a property is being exploited to make it seem like time is looping. it's like a snake eating its own tail. temporality only exists as a byproduct of entropy, which is opposed by gravity, so by moving like how if how if you put a mouse on a wheel. from the mouse's perspective, it's always going forward. but because of the terrain, it's not moving. we're the mouse. except the mouse has forgotten it's on the wheel because the mouse is an idiot.

i don't understand the exact cause, but it's something to do with the apega. (not like. the apega exists now (they even made me swap out the thing nef gave me for some prop, so it must have been working already??? NO idea what's going on there) but that it's what kicked this off.) the key thing is that it's not limited to the sanctuary. that was my theory at first with the whole spatial bubble in another plane thing, but nope!!! again maybe that was how it originally worked but things have got WEIRD. it's funny that the fake audience tipped me off when that's not even related that's just because of the whole pantomime the order's doing egfugjijtoikogfjd

the loop starts at 9:33.34 (3.33.33 agricultural time? i guess) on friday and ends later today, and it seems to effect the whole world or at least our perception of it. past(alternative?) me ran a test on when some of my notes were written, and there are loops where some or all of us don't even make it to the sanctuary. now obviously your first thought would be "maybe this isn't anything to do with us and that one room just happens to be immune for some reason or w/e" BUT here's the thing. once we're all in the sanctuary, the outside world kinda disappears. even before the lines get cut, you can't make bridge summons. and while crap changes in here, everything towercast is ALWAYS the same. there's always an attack on the military parade. there's always the same guys from the news giving the same speech afterwards. so my best guess is that it starts off big and then kind of contracts

"W-What does it say?" Theo muttered. "I can't find my glasses."

No one responded. Not even his father. We collectively stared at the paper like it was a bomb that was about to go off. It felt like the remaining accomplice could have probably ambushed and killed us without much difficulty.

"What the fuck," Seth said, with a weak laugh. "This is insane. Isn't it? I-- I mean..."

He trailed off, scoffing and shaking his head. Ptolema looked at him anxiously.

"Oh," Theo said awkwardly, as he fumbled with his pockets. "H-Here they are." He placed them on his nose.

Theo was a fast reader. From the glance I took, it was like watching a balloon deflate. His face paled.

"...I think there's more on the other side," Ran said.

Kamrusepa silently flipped over the paper. There was, indeed, another side full of densely-packed text.

around us.

i don't know the precise number, but this has happened a LOT of times. my notes go back about 40 loops, but there's stuff in the pantry that's waaaaay older (someone else has been leaving marks on the wall and there's like four thousand, but the power doesn't work right in there so you can't verify if they're authentic, unlike the stuff you can actually take out) and like i said my bet would be that it broke pretty recently. it seems like there have been more and more things going funky with this whole thing in recent loops.

i don't know how worth it it is to go into this but the key element is time. say we have normal space (ns) and time loop space (tls). in ns time is just a dimensional property. we experience it subjectively but it doesn't 'exist'. time in ns is one side of an object. and there are lots of different points on the object. just liek there are lots of different points on any object. but it's still just one thing just expressed different at different points. you guys know this already so i don't know why i'm explaining this

anyway time in tls is FUCKED UP. it's not even really time at all. it's like if you asked a dumbass how they think time works and then made it that way instead. like ok. imagine you're some asshole god. and you can see that object. the whole 10d universe, everything that has happened+will ever happened etc. and you want something different to happen, but can't make it happen because everything already exists. so instead you grab a 1d point and pull it loose. a single "frame" of reality or something idk. now on its own that's not gonna do much right? but then you break it and make it rebuild itself. so then you have a new frame. bam. tls.

it's like ice a slideshow. to us it seems totally normal because the same processing happens in our brains. but in terms of planar physics or w/e every moment in tls is basically its own thing. object. whatever. totally disconnected.

now why does this matter? well. there are two reasons i know whatever is doing isn't ACTUALLY a god. the first is that there isn't a new slide per planck moment, not even close. each slide encompasses a decent chunk of time. and whatever is doing this seems to be slowing down/breaking, because the amount of time per slide has been getting higher and higher faster and faster. as it is there's an average of about 1 per 4 seconds.

use kam. test it for yourself.

the higher this ratio gets, the less "absolute" time actually exists. and so something else has to fill the gaps (and this leads to weird anomalies). using this makes it possible to determine when the loops will no longer be viable. (the pneumaic nexus stops functioning without feedback per 6.1 seconds, resulting in a hard break in consciousness)

so guess what? this loop is probably the last one.

At this point, there were several paragraphs that had been scratched out. Not the strikethroughs that Fang had been doing throughout, but actively rendered unreadable, scribbled all over relentlessly - though the color of the ink remained the same.

so like i said, it doesn't really matter.

anyway!!! like i said: i've been conducting an experiment. which i guess brings this to the thing you're probably wondering about: the MURDERS. look. i was just playing chicken back with what i said in the room. i'm not here to stir the pot.

but even though i get most of it, i still can't figure it out! i can't figure out the real culprit and why they'd do this. and it's driving me nuts!!! i wanna tear my hair out!!!!

apparently there's only two absolute constants in all the loops. one. they never last later than nine on sunday (or at least i never do). two. no matter what, there are always murders. for everything else there are only trends. the murders usually start early in the morning on sunday but it's not 100%. the culprit usually shrouds it in the same mystical language but it's not 100%. neferuaten usually pulls the shit she does with me but it's not 100%.

so when you break it down it's all about just one question. do they know? does the culprit know about the past loops??? and what's their relationship to the looping itself??? what's the purpose of all of this?????

i couldn't find any evidence of them using the pantry in the same way i did but that doesn't mean anything i guess. so i laid a trap. if i can't ever know the truth then at least someone can. when this all ends i don't know what will happen of if the pantry thing will even work. but if it does maybe you can pass it down.

ahh shit. i'm out of time. assuming i was killed and i'm not showing you this as a joke:

if i was shot from the garden, that means that the culprit doesn't remember the previous loops.

if i was shot from inside the room, that means they do.

there's some more proof in the fifth bioenclosure if you wanna see. like i said, this doesn't really matter. i don't think we ever survive the loop (if it's even possible for that to happen) but the note from myself from the last time said not to worry because some kind of accord was reached i guess. so next time should go better. until then, just go nuts!

and if you can, try and discover the truth.

i mean if you want. i guess it doesn't really matter one way or the other.

I stared at the last words of the letter, a deep disquiet slowly growing deep in the bottom of my gut.

For several moments no one moved, but then Kam scoffed, despite an obvious insecurity and uneasiness in the gesture. "T-This is is ridiculous," she said.

"Kam, test for that thing they mentioned real quick," Seth spoke with an uneasy, forced calm.

Kam had started to crumple up the parchment. "Probably just some insane attempt to distract us. If the culprit fired from out here earlier, they probably placed this and are still nearby. Everyone get your scepters ready--"

"You should probably run the test," Ran also reiterated.

"I-- I'm not testing this insane idea!" she snapped. "It's ridiculous! And I can't use Divination with Chronomancy without buggering up my barrier! We can do it when we're at the abbey!"

"W-Wait, slow down. I don't get this," Ptolema said, sounding completely thrown off. "What is Fang trying to say? That we've time traveled or something?" She scratched her head, clearly distressed. "Where would that idea even come from? I mean, wouldn't we remember? I don't get this at all."

"No kidding," Seth said. "This is pretty fucking out of left field."

Except it wasn't remotely. I'd just never shared because the prospect was so insan

"Old man," Ezekiel, who seemed to be taking this seriously, said. "At this point, I'm not sure I'd trust you to tell me the color of your own ass, but do you have any idea what this letter is talking about?"

"I genuinely have no clue," Linos said, with what was at least much more confidence than he normally spoke with. "I-I'm as baffled as the rest of you."

"Dad, " Theo said anxiously.

"It's true! I know I haven't been as honest as I should've been, but I swear on God's own name!" Linos said, thrusting his hands in the air. "There's things I haven't said about the Apega project, but nothing like this. Frankly, it's an insane claim!"

"B-But there was that stuff Neferuaten said back in the elevator," Ptolema said. "Right? About the Apega being able to, uh--"

"What about that part about you having swapped out the thing the Saoite had brought for a fake?" Ezekiel inquired with narrowed eyes, pushing Linos. "Was that true? And what was that about a 'fake audience'?"

Linos hesitated. "Well, uh..."

"A-And was Fang seriously saying that they died just to figure something out?" Ptolema continued. "I know they're a weirdo, but that's crazy! Why would you die over something that stupid?!"

Seth reached out a hand towards her. "Ptolema--"

"And what did they even mean about how it would show whether or not the culprit knew about the time-thing or whatever?" she went on, "That doesn't even show anything! And even if it did, they'd never get to know about it!" Her eyes went wide. "They must have really believed it. Like 100% believed it. And if that's true, does that mean... That the rest of the world really is..."

"No," Theo said, gripping his arms together, looking harrowed. "N-No, that's not possible... Seth, you told me you'd been in contact--"

"Fang probably didn't even write it!" Kam, who evidently wasn't taking this turn well, exclaimed. "Why are we stopping to entertain this obscene nonsense?"

There was so much I should have been thinking about in that moment. This was, I suppose, the conclusion of the thought I'd been having before this final trial had begun, out in the garden; where I'd first begun to accept this insane idea as maybe, maybe having some merit. I should have been thinking about my conversation with Balthazar in this new light. My recollection of the pantry. I should have been trying to conclude if this new information really added up, or this whole concept was just being used to toy with my - with our - expectations.

Not to mention the note itself. I should have been asking questions about that, too, like "when would they have had a chance to plant this, let alone make it"?

But I wasn't doing any of that. Don't get me wrong, I was thinking; fireworks were going off in my head at a preternatural rate. Just, well, not ones about that.

Specifically, it'd latched on to one phrase. Two words Fang, or whoever had typed the note, had delivered so casually.

Fifth bioenclosure.