There was a note.
> Of these 961 gargoyles, between 43% and 58% always lie. At least seven always tell the truth. Some of them answer randomly using unspecified (and not necessarily identical) Bernoulli distributions over boolean truth values. If you ask a question that cannot be answered consistently (e.g., “is your answer a lie?”) you will be immediately incinerated. If you ask a question that can only be answered consistently (e.g., “is your answer the truth?”) some number between 40 and 605 of them are configured to respond with “yes” while the rest respond with “no.” The behavior of the gargoyles can be modified when they wear colored hats…
The explanation went on for several pages. Myra’s eyes glazed over most of it.
> … and do not assume the axiom of choice. Finally, note that all gargoyles answer at the same time, and the room has a lot of echo, so it is difficult to tell which gargoyle gives which response. You may only ask three questions.
“What the hell is this!?” Myra nearly crumpled the instruction booklet in frustration.
“It seems we need to solve the logic puzzle,” said Roc. “One of these gargoyles hides the door to the next room. We need to learn which.”
“Yeah, but—why? My dad told me these logic puzzles haven’t been good security practice in decades. They’re awful—”
“Good,” Roc said. “Then you should be able to get through it in no time.”
“That’s—that’s not what I meant.”
Slowly resigning herself to her fate, she tried to process the instructions again, though the details continued to slide off her like oil over water. My brain is absolutely fried for this loop.
“What do you think would happen if we just forced our way through? I mean, I assume there’s a reason we didn’t do that for the last room—”
“Any significant damage or alteration to the tree’s architecture triggers the space to be immediately reattached. Then we’d be caught and arrested immediately.”
“Could we prevent that? You already blocked some of the minor alarms, right?”
“You’re welcome to try. If you think you can disable all the safeties on the space-shearing engine without killing us all, that is.”
“Right… maybe I’ll take a look later,” she said, although she knew full well that wouldn’t be happening this loop.
◆
Myra, truthfully, thought they had done pretty well. Unfortunately, Geel’s unsympathetic eyes told her that he thought otherwise.
“We got through that Klein bottle thing! That’s what you wanted us to do, right?”
“You were supposed to get to the vault.”
“Is this not enough to prove ourselves?”
“Sorry, ladies, but a deal’s a deal. Can’t go backing out on those. I said you could go on the mission if you could break into the vault. And you didn’t.”
“But surely you could make an exception?”
“What would the rest of the team think if they knew we could just go back on our commitments like this? The fabric of our organization would crumble!”
“But… what commitment?” Myra asked with a touch of confusion. “You said we could go if we made it into the vault. But you never committed to not letting us go if we didn’t make it. So you can just agree to let us go on the missions, and you don’t have to… break your word or whatever.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Don’t know what what means?”
“These logical knots you’re tying, they’re all too complicated for me. We try to keep things simple around here. We either remember our commitments, or we don’t. Nothing else to it.”
◆
Day 27
The next morning, Shera was strangely absent. Myra started to get worried, but the girl showed up close to lunchtime.
“Where’ve you been?”
“I took a quick trip back to Ralkenon. There was something I wanted to check, b-but it…”
“Yeah?”
“You remember the story about the village that burned down? I know I’ve heard that story before, but it was bothering me because I couldn’t th-think of where—but then I had a thought!” She snapped her fingers. “I used to get this astronomy magazine. It was probably th-the only news I ever read regularly. And the people here had obviously been very serious about the subject, so I think the magazine must have printed a eulogy or something like that… and I’m sure it had the name of the village in it! If we could just find the name, we could use your cool library search spell and dig up more on it…”
“Oh.” Myra crossed her arms. “You think we can find a copy of this magazine?”
“I thought so! I have a box stuffed full of issues back at my dorm. I went back just to dig through it. That’s why I was gone all night.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t find it, though. I double-checked and triple-checked every copy.”
“Maybe we could check the library for an archive.”
“I did—that’s why I was late getting back. I went to check the library, but I didn’t have any luck there either.” She looked off into the distance. “But I’m certain I w-wouldn’t have thrown any out, anyway. I g-guess I was just wrong.”
“Well, it was a good thought,” Myra said. She clasped the other girl on the shoulder.
◆
At this point, it was no longer possible to find a chaperone and go back to the vault—everybody at the base was too busy with the looming Ralkenon mission. Officially, the girls were only supposed to go to the vault in groups of three or more, though Myra suspected nobody would actually care if the two of them went on their own…
It didn’t really matter. Myra had already decided there was no progress to be made in the remaining time, and it was better to focus on what they could salvage of the end of the loop.
Even if they couldn’t go on the mission, they could still learn a lot about it. As literally everybody else in the entire organization was going to be involved, they weren’t exactly tight-lipped about their plans. Supposedly, the murk bogs were purely there to serve as backup security for the Unkmirean king during the summit. That mostly made sense, and it was consistent with the clients being the two generals who were present at the summit meeting.
There was only logical inconsistency, specifically the objective fact that it was completely false. Myra knew from her own eyes and from Iz’s report that the murk bogs would be doing no such thing on the last night of the loop.
As for themselves, their only responsibility for the second-to-last day was to double-check any runic equipment that the group was packing, which wasn’t a massive burden since they had spent nearly a month getting things in order. Myra debated with herself on fixing the broken runic wheel that she knew Geel’s team was going to be struggling with. It really wouldn’t have mattered at all, since the group would barely get a chance to use it before the end of the loop, but as a matter of principle, Myra objected to fixing something that would be used to loot her own city. So in the end, she just left it as it was.
◆
Day 27 - Night
The girls plopped down on the edge of the platform for the last full calm night of the loop.
“A-are you sure you don’t wanna get some sleep?” Shera sounded a little concerned.
“Nah, it’s fine, I mean… every loop we spend the last night trying to figure out what’s up with the sky, so now stargazing with you has become a bit of a loop tradition, and… well, tomorrow night might be hectic. So. Here we are.”
Myra had reluctantly decided she would probably return to Ralkenon for the final night, with or without the murk bogs’ permission. (What were they going to do, fire her?) It was hard to say how the night was going to go, and most worryingly, it wasn’t clear if they would be able to complete one of their sky tests.
And yeah, that was frustrating. They only got to do those once a month. But on the other hand, they could do that pretty much any loop they wanted to, while chasing down the murk bogs was probably best done this month.
At any rate, she could at least try to have the usual send-off bonding time. Maybe with a little less pressure.
“Shera, I’m sorry about what I said earlier.”
“What’d you say earlier?”
“About your… voice.”
“Oh. It’s okay.”
Great! Looks like we’re all patched up.
The ‘lightning rod’ plan had fallen kind of flat, in part because the end of the loop approached, everybody got too busy, and their training had to wind down. So in the end, mostly to her relief, she never had a chance to test it out.
“Myra.” She took a deep breath like she were really nervous about whatever she wanted to ask. “D-do you wanna look at constellations with me?”
“Sure! I don’t know anything about constellations.”
“Well, I was thinking about how Unkmire probably has its own constellations, but I don’t know what they are, but they’re probably different. I th-thought we could maybe look for our own, though.”
“Okay, hm.”
It was easy to look at the sky with fresh eyes, if only because Myra already didn’t really know many constellations other than the major ones. She scanned the sky for shapes and lines, waiting for patterns to jump out from the random visual stimuli.
“That kinda looks like…” She held her finger up and traced something. “A rune. Mahya.”
“Oh, yeah, I see it.” Shera nodded.
Typical me.
“What about you? Do you see anything?”
“Umm…” Shera looked around for a bit. “There’s kinda a crescent there… like a crescent moon… maybe it’s kind of silly to make a moon out of stars, though—”
“Wait, you know what we should do?” Myra sat up suddenly. “I think we have a constellation that, like, goes all the way around the sky.” She made a sweeping motion with her arm. “360 degrees. Just a long strip that goes all the way around. So you can’t even see the whole thing at once!”
“What would it represent?”
“I dunno. A ribbon or something.”
“It seems hard to find a place where the stars would form a consistent, delineable pattern for such a long stretch.”
“Aw, man. You’re probably right.” She laid back down and huffed.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to come up with something big, y’know?” She stretched out her hand again. “Something that’d impress you.”
“Impress me?”
“Yeah!”
The other girl looked away, but Myra could see she was holding back a smile, and a soft warmth spread in Myra’s chest.
We had our ups and downs, but I did manage it after all… the Good Shera Loop.
“Hey, M-myrabelle.”
Shera leaned over, looking at her. She looked like she had another question.
“Yeah?”
She took a deep and audible breath. “Would you be my girlfriend?”
Oh.
Myra wasn’t sure what kind of face she was making, but Shera’s eyes were slowly widening in a kind of realization of what she’d said.
“Eh, well,” Myra said weakly.
“Uh-uh-uhmmm…” Shera hit some kind of breaking point and her face gave way to an all-out panic. “I-I j-j-j-just thought—”
“Shera,” Myra said sternly. Maybe too sternly. You were supposed to be stern, about this kind of thing? But she regretted the tone immediately. No, why did she think she needed to be stern? “Shera,” she tried again. “Time’s going to reset in twenty-four hours.”
“I guess, I th-thought, next loop, you could… explain…”
“Explain that we’re dating, but that you don’t remember? Do you think you’d buy that?”
“W-well—”
The girl looked away. Myra sat up. “Do you think I want to have to explain that every month?”
“It was stupid. I got c-caught up.” She flinched as if a sudden realization had occurred to her. “Oh no. I-I-I must be so awkward. I must do this every loop, don’t I?”
“… No. You’ve never asked this before.”
“But I probably will. In future loops, I’ll keep—causing problems and making everything awkward between us—If I was stupid once, I’ll keep b-being stupid—”
“Shera, it’s—there’s no problem,” she said on damage-control autopilot. “I won’t let it be awkward—I mean, we’re adults.” Oh god, I absolutely just said this in a way that implies we’re not adults.
“Yeah, you’re right. Although, now you’re g-gonna know about my crush every loop and I’ll have no idea—” She buried her face in her hands, the unfortunate girl on the wrong side of the undo button.
“Do you… want me to tell you about it?” Myra tried.
“Uh-uh, no.”
“Are you sure? ’Cause I’ll tell you if you want me to. If you’re worried about the information imbalance or whatever.”
“No, no, no! I don’t wanna know!” She waved her hands frantically. “We should just forget all about this. I’ll—I’ll send psychic waves into the future loops telling myself not to ask you out!”
Myra laughed, but she was sure it came out hollow.
She laid back on the floor, probably because it made it easier to avoid looking at her, and Shera likewise returned to her telescope. Myra sighed, but she tried to do it silently so she wouldn’t be heard.
Then they were like that for a while.
Where did this come from? Myra wondered. Is it because we talked about romance the other night? But I ended up making an ass of myself.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Still am.
And once again, she found the end of the loop beckoning. Except, this time, there was a whole twenty-four hours left.
In the distance, some soldiers were still awake, talking. It sounded like they were moving something. She thought of going to check it out, using it as an excuse to get some space. It would be so transparent, though.
God damn, I really have to do something about this tonight.
She sat up again. In her head, she repeated the words one last time. Good Shera Loop.
Okay.
“Shera.” The girl turned back to her. “I wanna make this promise to you. Every happy memory we make over these loops, I’m going to recreate them with you, once this time loop is over. That way you’ll be able to remember them, too.”
“Okay…”
“And that includes this conversation right here.” She jabbed at the girl’s forehead. “That’s right. I’m gonna get you to confess, just like you did just now. And then we’ll go on a date. And if I can’t get you to confess, I’ll ask you on a date. I dunno what’ll happen after that! But it’s one date, guaranteed.”
“Oh. O-oh, okay.”
“And that means,” she tried to keep the momentum going, “You don’t have to expect anything to be awkward, okay? Because it’s not even like I’m saying no! Mark your calendar, evening of December 4, we’re gonna have a date! And if you ever ask me out in any future loops, I’ll just be like, we already got this covered!”
“Um. About your promise…”
“Yeah?”
“Does that also mean we can sit and name constellations together? Will you tell me about your huge ribbon constellation?”
“Of course!”
“And does it mean you’ll…” Her face turned bright red.
“I’ll what?”
“Never mind.” She turned away, face still bright red.
“C’monnn, what is it you want me to do? If you don’t tell me, I won’t know to repeat it!”
◆
Day 28
Bright and early, the entire organization was on the move. They were coordinated by Geel, who stood near the entrance, waving a clipboard around and speaking at the top of his lungs. At his direction, they emptied out the pantries, the medicine cabinets, and the weapons closets. With the full material resources of the base organized and packed into crate upon crate, the soldiers carried them seven kilometers down the bridge to the train station. It might have been Myra’s imagination, but she could have sworn even her extra-senses felt a little lighter. There was just less stuff around to sense.
Most soldiers would be traveling by train. (Myra had no idea how the hell they’d be getting across the border, but they presumably had a way.) By mid-morning, they were gone. Geel was the last person to leave, whistling to himself as he strolled over the bridge.
Then they had the entire platform to themselves.
They swept the platform from the end-to-end, scouring what little had been left, leaving no stone unturned. They dumped out every personal bag in the barracks from one end to another, knowing well there was no need to put anything back where they left it, and taking full advantage of that fact.
The mercenaries had taken all essentials with them, and thus they had mostly left personal items. There was too much junk to give the lion’s share more than a cursory glance, so they had to hope anything incriminating or informative would stand out.
Geel’s area (far at the end) was the one they checked the most carefully. He seemed to have an affection for what Myra called “hand fidget” toys—yo-yos, rubber bands, puzzle cubes (all scrambled and unsolved), that kind of thing—but nothing that really interested them. They turned his pillows and mattress inside out, they tore up the floorboards, but they found nothing.
Chrisji’s bed was even less interesting, lacking entirely in personal touches. Nesr Wald had a pistol under his pillow.
“Hey, d-didn’t you say they moved a bed or something?”
“Oh, yeah, I dunno if it was really that important… Look, see, there’s these scrape marks on the floor, all the way to the end—”
“They end at Roc’s bed.”
“Huh. So they do.” Myra decided to take another look.
“I don’t g-get why the scrape marks go under the beds.” Shera lay down on the floor so she could get an unobstructed view of the entire floor, and Myra cast a simple lighting spell to illuminate the marks for her. “Right? Like, the beds are in the way of whatever you’re dragging. If you were moving something, you’d obviously just go around them. Unless they moved every bed over by one spot?”
“You wanna check Roc’s stuff again?”
Roc was yet another member with basically nothing of personal significance among his belongings, though (Myra supposed) it was possible that he had simply taken anything important with him. The only thing he had were a pair of empty picture frames, which in a way were worse than nothing, hollow placeholders to put emptiness on display.
“Hang on, there’s something down here…” Still on the ground, Shera maneuvered to reach under the bed, towards the back. “It’s caught between the floorboard and the wall.”
It was a pair of glasses. One of the lenses was cracked, and it was covered in a layer of dirt and dust.
“Roc doesn’t wear glasses, does he?”
Shera shook her head. “Th-these are too small for him anyway. Not many people wear glasses here.” She checked the nameplates on the adjacent beds. “I don’t think either of these guys do…”
“Well, it looks like these have been here a while.”
“Yeah. It’s p-probably not very important.” She dropped the glasses on the bed.
“Y’know, I think Roc might make glasses, though,” Myra said.
“Really?” Shera blinked. “What gives you that idea?”
“He has a load of glassworking equipment stuffed in the back of this workshop,” Myra said. “And one of those, whatdya call it, eye chart test things.”
“Huh. G-guess he really is a master of many crafts.”
They did a once-through of most of the buildings, Roc’s workshop included, but there didn’t seem to be much out of place. The platform didn’t actually have very many off-limits places to begin with, so it wasn’t as if the murk bogs’ absence opened up that much ground.
Shera thought to check one place that Myra had almost forgotten about, a mysterious but nonetheless inconspicuous building. They had seen it on their first tour, and nobody had mentioned it since: the building that was referred to as ‘The Well.’
“Oh, what the—didn’t there used to be a bucket here?” Myra scratched her head.
“There was definitely a bucket here.”
There had been a bucket, and there had been a rope pulley. All of that was gone, save for a bit of the scaffolding that it had been screwed into. “They… took the whole pulley system? Did they pack it for Ralkenon? The fuck?”
“When’s the last time you checked the well?”
“I don’t think I’ve been here since the first day,” Myra said.
“So we don’t know when they moved it. But—” She pointed to the ground. “These footprints look pretty fresh.”
Indeed, the mud had a cluster of boot indentations, thick and crisply defined. There was also a much larger, circular indentation. “What is this, some kind of container or barrel?”
The Well was mysterious enough. But what was important about the fucking pulley system that they’d need to pack it up?
“Strange.”
◆
One last place.
They broke down the door to Geel’s office and turned the place inside out. They dumped out his drawers, full of writing instruments, carbon copy paper, and yet more hand-fidget toys. They rolled up his rugs, moved his furniture, and checked all the floorboards.
There was a binder full of personnel documentation. There were about 300 pages total, including both present and past employees. Employees had left for all kinds of reasons—age, ideological differences, death. There were just 118 active employees, including Myra and Shera.
There was a note clipped on, a reminder from Geel to himself that both girls were due for a significant raise.
Shera scratched her head. “I… guess we’re doing well?”
“I mean we’re getting fucking scammed right now, look at our salaries compared to anyone else—”
They flipped through every contract in his filing cabinet and learned a bit more about the organization’s usual mode of operation. Jobs like the current one, which involved everybody in the organization, seemed to be relatively rare. Most were small security jobs that took a dozen soldiers each. Most of them even seemed legal.
They found the contract with the small Briktonese company, the one that Geel said was a front for the government. They had already seen most of the contract from Chrisji, though, so Myra set it aside.
“Wait, there’s no contract for the Ralkenon job,” Myra said. She flipped through everything, looking to see if she missed anything.
“These are all filed in order. The contract should be at the top.”
“Well, it’s not here.”
Shera bit her lip. “Remember when Chrisji showed us this other contract a week ago? I’m certain there was another f-file on top of it.”
“Wow, uh, I definitely don’t have a memory for that kinda thing,” Myra said. “I guess Geel must have brought it with him to Ralkenon? That doesn’t seem that weird.”
“Hey,” Shera suggested. “Look at this other contract again.”
“The vault one?”
She nodded. “It’s got a phone number for the Briktonese clients. Do you want to call them?”
That was undoubtedly a good idea. They used the phone from Geel’s office. She received an answer on the second ring, and a man greeted them with a word in an unfamiliar language. “Hello,” Myra tried (in Unkmirean).
“This is Lenda Zii. Who am I speaking with?” Also Unkmirean now. Myra was still learning to interpret tone, but she thought it had a touch of caution.
“Hi, this is Elize Simone. I work for the murk bogs.”
There was a pause. “I see. Pardon my confusion, but we usually expect Dr. Geel Hattuck to call.”
“Yes, we work for Geel Hattuck,” Myra said quickly. “We were recently assigned to work on the infiltration for the vault in Krinph. We broke through the, uh, Klein Bottle and got to the gargoyle liar puzzle.”
“Dr. Hattuck has already informed us.”
“Oh! He has?”
“Yes. He informed us two days ago. Our security consultants are already working on the liar’s puzzle, but as we already informed Dr. Hattuck, we believe the puzzle text to be a red herring. Even if the puzzle has a unique solution, there is no guarantee that it identifies the correct door. We don’t have any additional analysis at this time.”
“Ah.”
“Unless you had more to report?”
“Oh, no, no! We actually wanted to ask you, er, if you could tell us more about the vault contents.”
“It’s your job to report the contents of the vault.”
“Right, I know, it’s just—” She racked her brains for an excuse. She hadn’t quite expected such a straightforward chat, and she was unprepared. “We’re considering more forceful methods for entering the vault. But we’re worried the contents are volatile…”
There was another long pause. “I believe we’ve already informed you that we believe the contents of the vault are not volatile at this time.”
“‘At this time’? What’s that mean?”
“Again, as we’ve informed you, the primary aim of your mission is to confirm or deny our suspicions. By definition, this means we can’t describe the contents of the vault with certainty. Is this a risk you’re unable to take?”
“No, no! The risk, that’s what we do. We’re mercenaries, y’know.”
“Quite right.”
“I was just wondering what ‘at this time’ meant.”
“Just a moment.” There was another very long pause, and Myra could only guess that he was consulting with someone else. Finally, he returned to the phone. “Sorry about the wait. We appreciate your concerns. I’ll say again, all the information we have suggests the contents are not volatile at this time. Furthermore, should the ‘status’ on this question change, we give our word that we will contact you.”
Ugh, that’s not helpful at all. “Okay, thanks…”
“One more thing. Can you ask Dr. Hattuck to speak to us as soon as possible?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. Of course. They’re currently out, but he can call you tomorrow.”
“Thank you. Good day.”
Myra almost put the phone down, but then—
“Wait,” the man on the other end said.
“Yes?”
Another pause. There was what might have been a sucking in of a breath.
“The time window is short,” he said.
“What’s that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. That’s all I’ll say. If you’re truly worried about the volatility of what you’ll find in that vault, I would suggest you make haste. Good day.”
Then he hung up.
“H-how’d it go?”
“I dunno. He was pretty evasive, but he was also… more professional?”
“Is that by normal standards or by Geel’s standards?”
“Uh… Let’s just say he was mostly polite. Anyway, he seemed a little doubtful of me, but he also answered my questions.”
I would suggest you make haste. The last sentence hung in Myra’s mind. How much haste? For Myra, there was only one cutoff that mattered, and it was less than nine hours from now.
◆
The problem with going to Ralkenon was that the smoke from the volcano covered the sky, making astronomical experiments impossible. The plan, then, was that Myra would chase down the murk bogs and wring whatever she could out of them, while Shera would radio her the results of the experiment from a distance away. The murk bogs had high-quality radios, so they were mostly optimistic this would work.
However… Myra had a plan to squeeze out one more data point.
The astronomy room in the platform underground had a telescope that was meant to be able to see through the planet, intended for full spherical astronomy. It was broken, unfortunately, and Myra had taken a look at it, but she had determined it was unsalvageable.
However, there was one component that looked operational. It was a component meant to negate the impact of atmospheric interference. It was probably meant for clouds and smog, but if it was powerful enough, it was perfect for what she needed. Most importantly, this particular component was modular, so she could attach it to almost any functional scope.
So that’s why she entered Ralkenon with a full tripod setup in her bag, and a reference book in the side pocket, bookmarked to the relevant page.
That was all for later, though. First, she had to deal with the murk bogs.
And where the hell are they?
From listening in on all their planning meetings, Myra knew where they were supposed to be. They were supposed to station themselves in a secluded spot between the event hall and the volcano. From there, they would be ‘on standby’ in case anything threatened the Unkmirean officials.
By the time Myra reached the spot, around 8 P.M., they were gone.
There were obvious traces of them. The thick grass had been scrunched, and a modest amount of debris had sloppily been left behind.
She would have liked to investigate the area in depth, but she was uneasy being so close to campus. There was a particularly strong reason for that, this time. Specifically, she had called Cynthia earlier as part of her now-usual routine, urging her to get to safety, and her friend had mentioned offhand that some ‘odd people’ were around campus. Upon further questioning, she had learned that they were dressed like northerners, all in warm wooly coats.
So she gave the abandoned campsite a once-over, then set off quickly for the other location, the forest at the other side of the city, which she knew of only because of her previous loops.
Myra would have liked to say that with a bit more teleportation skill under her belt, getting around was a bit easier than before. The truth was, she still wasn’t that good at the low-mid-range tricks she’d been doing, and she didn’t want to risk hurting herself again. Between that and the fact that they still weren’t exactly easy to find, it was hours before she finally reached them.
It was exactly as Iz had described. There was singing and music, very upbeat and accompanied by an in-house woodwind band. There was dancing and shouting and, yes, throwing coins into the air. There was food roasting over campfires, and there was drinking, and there was smoking—a lot of smoking—and there was a grotesque smell that wafted through the air.
Myra caught up to the camp just as a small team was leaving. Led by Geel, with Nesr Wald and Chrisji and a few other prominent members she recognized. It was the team that intended to loot the city.
She expected anger, maybe confusion or at least irritation. She certainly didn’t expect the mercenaries’ leader to break out in a grin.
“If it isn’t our new runecrafter!” Geel called out, reaching his arms wide as if to welcome her. “So you’ve joined us after all!” He laughed.
“I—you’re not mad to see me?”
“Mad? Why should I be mad?”
“You told us we couldn’t come on the mission,” Myra said, thrown off enough that she could do nothing but state the obvious.
“The mission? You want to rob a bank with us? That might be a little—”
“What? No! The—the big mission! The one for the Unkmirean government! You were supposed to be camped over by the volcano!”
“What mission are you talking about, Myra?”
“The—big fucking mission! The one that’s gonna propel the murk bogs to new heights, that I’ve been begging to go on! The one that paid out all this money you’re throwing sky high!”
Geel approached her and clasped her on the shoulder. “I don’t know what in the dark floor you’re talking about, Myrabelle. Get some rest, enjoy the party. It’s a new day for the murk bogs!”
And he carried past her without another word, the team following his lead, leaving her to stand stupefied.
“You fucking—”
She caught up with herself and turned around, but they had already disappeared into the woods. She almost went after them, but she knew it would be futile. Instead, she stormed into the campsite, weaving fluidly through the crowd as it danced to and fro.
“Obyl! Obyl!” She shouted over the music to get his attention.
“Myrabelle! Welcome!” Grinning wide, he held out a pipe for her, which Myra absentmindedly pushed aside. “Obyl, what the fuck happened to the mission?”
“What mission?”
She grabbed his shoulders in frustration. “Why are you here?”
“We’re here for the celebration, of course.” The grin never slid off his face. “Join us. Where’s your partner?” He held out the pipe again.
Myra turned away without a response. She continued making her way through the crowd, scanning for anyone else she could get answers from.
There was at least one person who wasn’t letting loose. Roc was on the edge of the festivities, sitting cross-legged on the ground, hunched over and face down with a pipe in his hand, recognizable only by the long white hair flowing over the top of his head.
“Roc! What the hell happened to the mission?”
“What mission?” He didn’t look up.
What the fuck?
Myra hissed in frustration and stormed away. Some distance from the festivities, she set down her bags and pulled out her two-way radio. “Shera, can you hear me?”
Shera responded in the affirmative, though through a lot of static.
“I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. They all claim there’s no mission with the Unkmirean government, but they’re fucking swimming in the payout—”
“What are they doing?”
“Nothing! They just—they just keep inviting me to party with them!”
Shera didn’t respond, equally clueless.
She made her way through the crowd again, looking for anyone or anything that might tell her what was going on. However, the soldiers responded only like Obyl or Roc, pretending they had no idea what she was talking about. Slowly, as she tried to interrogate the crowd, she got swept into it—she caught on to the overall motion of the dance, comprising a variety of rotating cliques that turned into each other like interlocking gears. She tuned into the repetitive rhythm of the music, and she figured out how to move with the group, and she moved through the crowd with ease, crossing from one circle to the next, each one welcoming her, thrusting food and drink into her arms, then sending her off to the next one.
She was shaken out of the hypnotic stupor when the volcano blew.
She wasn’t the only one. There were some oohs and ahs like you’d see at a fireworks show. But the music and dancing didn’t stop, not for more than a moment. She forced her way out of the crowd, back to where she’d placed her bags.
“Shit!” She hurried to set up her telescope. Neutron star, neutron star, where are you—
She knew she’d gotten distracted. She had to hurry.
She had to find out if the star would move.
She was looking for ZK-1034: Shera’s favorite neutron star, a citizen of the swampbear constellation. She had gone through the logic again and again. No matter how she sliced it, the neutron star and its non-chronological supernova couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the time loop.
And yet, when Shera had cried that the stars had moved, this was probably what she had been looking at. Myra couldn’t be sure—Shera had looked at a lot of things that night, moving the scope around constantly. But she had definitely looked at it at one point, that much she knew.
And anyway, what else was there to try?
The one star known to be discrepant.
Smoke and ash covered the sky, blotting out the stars. C’mon, I hope this works…
“I’m looking at Philisifor-9,” Shera said over the radio, confirming the star they’d agreed upon earlier.
“Great, let me know if it moves.”
To Myra’s relief, the plan worked, and she was able to see the neutron star, even through the ash. They were all set up to collect two fresh new data points.
Diagram from Chapter 19, with one addendum: the new star Philisifor-9. This star is approximately 30 degrees to the west of the star Jyo-Yilla, and 60 degrees east of the neutron star, ZK-1034. This new star is ever-so-slightly to the west of the center of the sky, from the perspective of someone standing in Halnya or Casire. [https://i.imgur.com/PMpsS1X.png]
The clock ticked down.
She watched with despair in her heart as the murk bogs continued to laugh and be merry as lava splashed through her city not too far away. Every one of them, Obyl and the others, not a care on their faces—
There was one who stood out. Roc was even stranger than before. Still separate from the crowd, he had inverted himself, now standing up but with back arched back, face towards the sky, basking in the nightmare. Myra looked back to check the star was still there. She checked her watch. Thirty seconds to go. She looked up again. She almost leaped back. Roc was looking straight at her now, his neck at an angle, his mouth wide open. His eyes, normally soft and distant, now pierced intensely.
Twenty seconds. The star was still there.
Fifteen seconds. Myra tried to ignore the old man and put her head back down.
Ten seconds.
“You!” Roc was lurching towards her, movements stiff and disjointed. “Rune girl!”
Five seconds. Star’s still there.
“What are you looking at?” the blacksmith roared.
Three seconds. The neutron star disappeared in a blink.
But through the radio, Shera only said, “Nothing’s changed—”
“It’s all gone!” Roc’s massive hands ripped the telescope out of her own, throwing her off balance and bludgeoning her eye. “Extinguished and buried!” The loop ended.