Inner Sanctum Exterior | 3:12 PM | Third Day

Seth and Ptolema started applauding over the logic bridge, and Theo and Fang followed in kind, the latter even letting out a small cheer. There was a strange delay between the two pairs' reactions - maybe only the first two were actually attuned? Come to think of it, the fact that it was set up as a direct feed rather than an artificial environment was a little unusual. Maybe it was important for coordinating maintenance work.

"Thank goodness..." Ophelia said, smiling with sad relief as she finally lowered her clasped hands.

"Geez," Ptolema said. "After everything, I really thought that wasn't gonna work."

"Crazy how getting one decent break after hours of shit going tits-up feels like good luck," Seth added, running a hand over his face. "Nice work, guys."

"Yeah," Ran said, slowly clambering back to her feet. In spite of the victory, Kam's lip was curled into a cautious expression.

"It's done?" Mehit said, turning around for the first time in a while.

I nodded. "Yeah. The gateway is set to transposition us at 3:53."

"Damn close shave that near to the hour, but I'll take it," Linos said, rubbing his hands together in anxious anticipation. "Is Anna ready to move?"

"Grandmaster Melanthos is asking if you're ready to set off, your ladyship," Kamrusepa relayed.

"Yes, we had best not delay," she replied bluntly. "As planned, await us in your present position. We shall proceed there directly, then make for the gateway."

"You better not leave without us!" Ptolema demanded.

"I, uh, don't think that's how it works, Ema," Seth told her.

It's a shame we couldn't talk more, but good luck on your trip home! Sekhmet conveyed as Anna cut the transmission.

I wondered to myself if they'd told her - uh, it - anything about what was going on. I only had a rudimentary understanding of how biological logic engines actually worked, but a freezing, airless and gravity-less environment surely couldn't be good for it. And that was without even mentioning the presumed explosion at midnight.

Then again, was she even capable of caring? I'd assume as much with her emotions and strange fixations, but you could never truly guess how a non-human mind would respond to things.

"They're setting off now," Kam told Linos, turning her head.

"Excellent. Very good." He said, nodding. "Let's all be on our guard as best as we can until they get here. If the conspirator makes a move, they're going to do it now."

"Agreed," Ran said, hopping out of the hole.

We collectively stepped away from it, forming a tighter, closer formation, with those of us armed almost back-to-back, and huddling awkwardly in the middle. Mehit hoisted her daughter's unconscious form up onto her back, locking her legs in place with one arm, while keeping her pistol pointed squarely ahead with the other.

"You're surprisingly handy with that thing, Ms. Eshkalon," Linos told her. "I've got to say it feels better to be on this side of the barrel."

"Mm." She responded .

"You know," he added, with a simultaneously snarky and anxious quality, "you never exactly apologized for stealing my gun and threatening us with it earlier. Even though we saved your life."

"Is this really the best time for this?" Ran asked.

Mehit inhaled and exhaled loudly. "...I will not apologize for acting in my daughter's best interest, but I do admit I overreacted, and ended up placing us in greater danger. I am sorry."

Not much of an apology, I thought.

"And I do appreciate your group having gone out of your way to save me in spite of that business," she added. "I hope you can understand, given the circumstances."

"We're all pushed to our limit, Ms. Eshkalon," Linos said.

"Yes, well." She tightened her lips. "I will account for myself in full once we are out of here and Lilith is safe."

"You know, Mehit, I've been meaning to ask," Kamrusepa cut in. "What exactly was your relationship with Hamilcar? It's obvious you don't have a lot of respect for the Order."

"Definitely not the best time for this," Ran reiterated.

I couldn't see it much between the angle and her mask, but it looked like Mehit scrunched up her face. Enough moments passed that it felt like she wasn't going to reply, but it eventually happened. "Ham-- Hamilcar always treated me well. I'd known him since Mahar and I met in secondary school. That he was doing what he did to Lili, to the point she'd be willing to hurt me, is as much of a shock to me as it is to you."

I blinked, a little taken off guard. That was the opposite of what my guess had been about the nature of their relationship.

"Hm," Kamrusepa said, seeming to share my confusion. "Is that so."

"Yes," Mehit said, with a stiff nod.

"...it must be very painful," Ophelia said sympathetically. "Having someone you trust enough to entrust your own child to them, only to be betrayed like that... I can't imagine."

"Indeed," Kam said, her brow furrowed. "So, you didn't suspect anything amiss during the time he spent with your daughter?"

"You both have the wrong impression," Mehit replied bluntly. "They hardly spent any time together at all. Since she became an arcanist, Hamilcar has been overwhelmed by his work in the Temple State. I'm only seen him a dozen times in the past few years, and I spend almost all my time taking care of Lili when she isn't in school, so I know he couldn't have been meeting with her in secret to any great degree." She frowned. "If it weren't for the fact he apparently confessed, I would suspect this was all some strange attempt to frame him. ...frankly, I still haven't fully dismissed that possibility."

Kam looked puzzled. "Goodness," she said. "But didn't she go on some lengthy academic tour with Hamilcar? One should think that would have been a prime opportunity, at least."

"You mean the one around Inotia, five years ago," Mehit said. "That was before her induction. So if that was the basis of her indoctrination, it couldn't have happened. Since then, I'd be hard-pressed to recall more than a few hours they've spent completely alone."

What.

"But," I spoke up. "You've been so unhappy about coming here. And I've seen you flinch whenever Hamilcar has come up."

Her eyes snapped in my direction, her muscles tensing with threatening sharpness . "You've been watching me?"

"Um." I gulped, suddenly wishing for quite a bit more distance from her than the 3-odd feet we had currently. "O-Only in passing! Not on purpose!"

She stared at me for a moment, then flicked her gaze back with equal sharpness. "You thought that just because hearing Hamil's name makes me uneasy, I must have hated him? Feared him?"

"I... I mean, I guess?"

"You have quite a shallow sense of empathy," she criticized me. "Thinking the only reason someone might be uneasy around someone is because they think of them as a villain."

"I just assumed!" I defended myself, sounding like a complete idiot. Ran gave me a worried glance.

"You know the saying," Mehit said tersely. "Assume makes an ass out of you and me."

"My dad used to say that one about every five minutes," Kamrusepa commented idly.

"As for why I was uneasy about this trip," Mehit went on, "I assure you it was not on account of Hamilcar's presence, but just about everyone else in this snake-pit of an organization."

I frowned. "Why? What are you talking about?"

"Your grandfather was in the inner circle, weren't they? You at least must know what I'm talking about." She exhaled through her nose, her eyes scanning between us suddenly as if looking for a threat. "Though knowing these people, it wouldn't surprise me if you were all in on it."

"No," I said, my eyes widening a bit. "I seriously don't."

This time, it was Linos that I noticed tensing slightly. I saw his thighs clench, and his grip around his pistol tighten slightly as he took a deep breath.

She glanced at me again, this time in confusion. "You're telling me you don't know what happened? Two centuries ago, at their old headquarters, 200 years ago?"

"I wasn't close with my grandfather at all," I told her. "We only met a handful of times. He barely told me anything about his work here. What do you mean, at the old headquarters?"

Both Kam and Linos were both getting a bit lax in their watch now, tilting their heads to look at Mehit. Though in Kam's case her manner was one of anxious anticipation, while for Linos, it was more like dread.

Mehit closed her eyes for a moment, silent, then snapped them open again. "...I suppose there's no harm in just saying it. Now that he's dead and this place is finished, there's nothing left to hold over me in keeping the secret. Even if I have no proof."

Linos spoke frantically. "M-Ms Eshkalon, let's not--"

"Please go on, Mehit," Kam spoke insistently, taking advantage of her innate talent for speaking over people.

"You know that Lili's family, Hamilcar's family, is descended from the founder of the Order, yes?" Mehit asked. "Ubar of Kane. A Necromancer from the First Resurrection."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "We heard about that."

Actually, I didn't think I'd heard he was a Thanatomancer before, but that wasn't exactly important.

"Mehit," Linos spoke insistently.

"After he founded the Order, his family and their allies more or less ran the organization for the whole millennium," she recounted. "It was set up democratically, but they had enough respect and resources that more or less no one had a serious issue with it. When it comes to something that needs to be kept secret, stability and control is more important than dynamism." She kept staring dead ahead as she continued. "But after the Tricenturial war, a group emerged within the organization that wanted to change its focus. Away from strict life extension on a biological basis, and towards something different."

I remembered the words of my grandfather all those years ago... And of Zeno and Neferuaten. The sentiment that had predicated the entropy communication project, and apparently the construction of the Apega.

"Though the group had a fair amount of support, some even in the upper ranks, it wasn't enough to influence the direction of the organization," Mehit went on. "Under normal circumstances, that would of course lead to a schism. The dissenters going their own way." She narrowed her eyes. "But the Order had accumulated a vast amount of wealth and power. They weren't willing to simply start over."

This isn't the way Mehit normally talks, part of me recognized. It sounds like she's just repeating something she heard elsewhere.

"So," she - as Linos looked on desperately - proceeded, "they decided to take control of the organization by another means. They arranged things so there would be a meeting of the inner circle and their close supporters, while carefully finding excuses for their own members not to be there. And then--"

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Linos spoke with insistent swiftness, starting to pivot his wheelchair. "Mehit, you're going to give them the wrong idea--"

"--they leaked the meeting, and a huge amount of carefully-redacted information about the Order's membership, to the oathguard and the censors. "

Linos stopped dead, his eyes going wide, while Kam ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek, raising a finger to her slightly-agape mouth. Even Ran and Ophelia were obviously paying close attention at this point.

"The result was a massacre," Mehit explained. "They tried to resist and repel the initial assault so they could evacuate their research, but the enemy had come prepared for that and flanked them at their point of escape." She took a deep, long breath. "They killed them all. Almost eighty people, including my husband's aunt, who sat at the head of the inner circle... And both of his parents. Those who survived burned what was left of the place to the ground to destroy the records - to save the very people who had engineered their deaths."

I remembered my conversation with Anna.

"There was a massacre," she said bluntly, though in a stiffer tone than she'd used up until this point in the conversation."Though unlike the one we are facing here. There was no subterfuge involved, merely a slaughter."

"Who was responsible?"

"It was a raid by the oathguard of the time, still fresh from their unification after the Tricenturial war," she said, but something in her tone was reserved, doubtful. "Though it was... More complicated than that. "

If this true, 'more complicated' was the understatement of the fucking century.

"After it was done, the aforementioned faction used the power vacuum to seize control of the Order, taking its wealth, connections, and remaining members for themselves." She snapped her head sharply back in my direction. "Who do you suppose were the leaders of that group, hm?"

I looked to Linos again. He was visibly sweating, his brow moist.

"But Hamilcar is-- Was on the council," Kamrusepa said, her brow contorted. "He was the first among equals."

"In pretense, perhaps," Mehit said. "In reality, he had no real power. He was a puppet, a figurehead kept around with blackmail and even uglier methods so the lower ranks wouldn't learn the truth. I saw his letters when I lived at the Kane estate. People giving him instructions like he was little more than a dog."

"Madam, you really don't know what you're talking about," Linos spoke harshly, holding up a hand in a way that was almost threatening.

"I know exactly what I'm talking about," she snapped back at him. "It ruined him, and Mahar almost as much. It was barbarity, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves."

Ophelia was pale now, a hand held to her mouth.

"W-Wait," I said. "This can't be right. Most of the members of the current inner circle only joined the Order after the old headquarters was destroyed-- And--" I looked to Linos. "And you said this place was made the main headquarters 300 years ago, not 200."

"I see," Mehit said, looking down at Linos. "How convenient."

...actually hadn't Neferuaten said that when we'd first been touring this area? That the tragedy happened at the end of the Great Interplanar War?

Why hadn't I noticed that contradiction earlier? Stupid, stupid.

"Is this true, sir?" Ran asked coldly.

Linos stammered. "It's-- I-- I'm---"

"Oh gods, it's absolutely true," Kam said, eyes filled with grave realization as she looked down on him. "He can't even deny it properly."

"I'm not saying it's true!" Linos spoke aggressively, holding up both hands, though still holding his pistol. "Not exactly! It's-- It's a very complicated situation, and you've completely misrepresented it, Ms. Eshkalon! This is horrendously unhelpful!"

"Mass murder is rather a difficult thing to 'misrepresent', I dare to say!" Kamrusepa half-shouted. "We're not exactly talking about a fucking academic paper!"

"Did you... Did you really murder almost a hundred of your own comrades, sir...?" Ophelia asked, fear in her tone.

"We-- I didn't murder anyone!" Linos spoke aggressively, thumping a hand into one of the arm rests of his chairs. "It was the oathguard!"

"Oh, an appeal to technicality," Kamrusepa said. "How bloody encouraging."

"That's not what I mean!" Linos retorted, exasperated. "You're jumping to conclusions after only hearing a fragment of the story. Please be rational!"

Ran rubbed her eyes, sighing deeply.

"I will say one thing," Mehit spoke, emotion - anger, bitterness, sorrow - now seeping into her tone as her voice cracked. "And that is that Hamilcar wasn't the man I knew any more, and did do something unspeakable to Lili, I know it would have to have been because he was consumed with a desire for vengeance against all of you." She spoke the last word with utter contempt. "You are all culpable for this tragedy."

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" I asked Linos, getting worked up.

What, you think people just confess to conspiracy to commit mass murder like it's no big deal? My inner cynic pointed out. It's obvious why he wouldn't tell you. He probably hasn't even told his son.

"Yes, why didn't you, mister Melanthos?" Kamrusepa said, with poorly-concealed anger. "Suffice it to say, this might have been very helpful to know when we were discussing Hamilcar's potential motive. Or better yet, before anyone had died at all, when we were still trying to discern who could possibly be behind this?" She laughed, covering her brow and walking in a circle for a moment. "Gods, here I am, skipping right past the confessed murderous conspiracy to the damn tactical repercussions. To think I idolized this trainwreck of an organization just two days ago."

"I don't know how to explain all this right now, but I am very confident the event that Ms. Eshkalon was talking about had nothing to do with Hamilcar's motive whatsoever," Linos spoke firmly but anxiously. "I absolutely would have brought this up if I did, just like I brought up the entropy project when that became potentially relevant. Please trust me."

"Fuck me," Ran said quietly.

"TRUST you?" Kamrusepa scoffed. "How can you even say that with a straight face?"

"I haven't lied to you, miss Tuon," Linos replied, lowering his head but keeping his gaze firm.

"Bullshit!" she shouted, slamming the side of his wheelchair with her foot. It rattled a little, Linos's knuckles tightening as he breathed sharply. "You were caught lying literally a minute ago! Our very first conversation was predicated on a lie!"

"It's kind of true," I said sourly.

I was taken aback by all this, though was almost as surprised by just how openly angry Kam had got.

"I understand why you're upset," Linos said, visibly trying to keep calm. "But you need to understand that Ms. Eshkalon has brought up something that is effectively ancient history. It has absolutely no bearing on the current situation."

"I'll be the judge of that," Kam said, her fingers steepling around her pistol.

"I'm not going to fight you, Kam," he told her, trying desperately to sound like the adult in the room. "If you want to talk about this, we can talk about it. I'll tell you the full story. But for the time being, I really think we should focus on just getting out of here."

"The others should be here by now," Ran pointed out.

Linos nodded, looking like a starving man coming across a roasted whole chicken at the opportunity to change the subject. "Yes, I was thinking that myself. They might've had to take a longer route to avoid the Tui She. Still, if we're just a little more patient--"

Then, suddenly, we all lurched.

It wasn't an absolutely blinding light like what had destroyed the Everblossom, but it was still a shock. From the east, past the graveyard and the tree where Bardiya and Seth had dueled, shone a bright white glow through the darkness beyond the bioenclosure. Everything suddenly had a stark, long shadow, those of the closest graves reaching out to us like the claws of some giant beast, and blue grass glimmered almost bright enough that you could take it for the hue of an afternoon sky.

Everyone jumped, though Kam and Mehit kept themselves composed enough to turn and point their weapons squarely at whatever the source was. Meanwhile, being a much more useless person, I covered my eyes with my hand by instinct, and kept it there until Ran said what she did next.

"Oh, shit," she spoke quietly, her eyes going wide.

My heart skipped. Blinking, I lowered my hand. I couldn't see any indication where the sudden radiance was coming from - it seemed to pierce from the darkness itself, like we were suddenly next to a star.

But looking straight at it, I didn't care. Because the light wasn't the shocking part of the sight.

Standing beyond the glass in the void beyond was - if only in silhouette - a towering figure, easily as tall as the Order's headquarters or even larger. It looked... Vaguely feminine, with flowing long hair and what seemed to be a dress, the bottom flowing wider than you'd see on a robe.

But it wasn't completely human. Its arms were skeletal, and it was clutching what looked like a long, thin weapon. A staff?

...no, a scythe. The blade was in the air, difficult to distinguish at the angle it was held, but jutting towards us menacingly.

No. No, that couldn't...

"What the HELL is that?!" Kamrusepa shouted, taking a step backward.

"It looks like a giant!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, Su, I can see that!" she replied, her hands shaking.

"Oh God," Ophelia said, in a fearful whisper. "Protect us. Protect us--"

I jumped again from the crack of a gunshot as Mehit fired next to my ear, a beam of gold matching the white and searing towards the figure. Unfortunately, it didn't get far, slamming straight into the glass shielding of the bioenclosure and barely even making a mark. Not that it was a surprise; the glass was probably thicker than the length of my arm, and reinforced to hell and back.

It was just as well, though, because a moment later, the light - and the silhouette with it - suddenly vanished, instantly plunging us back into the near-complete darkness.

We all stood there for a moment, breathing heavily while staring at the spot where it had been. Then, I turned my head sharply towards Linos. "Sir--"

"I have no idea," he said, throwing his hands in the air. "I don't know."

Kamrusepa stared for another moment, exhaling, then began to shake her head. "No. There's no way that was a real giant. That's impossible." She bit her lip. "It must've been an incantation. Someone went out there and generated an illusion with the Power to frighten us."

"Can you go out there?" Ran asked skeptically.

Kam turned to Linos, who shrugged overdramatically. "I don't know that either. I don't know how it works-- I don't know anything."

She sneered at him. "Well, aren't you just an invaluable help."

"Why would they be trying to frighten us?"

At this moment, with timing that I could only describe as borderline comedic - at least, if it weren't so frightening - we suddenly heard a scream from inside the building. It sounded like it came from multiple people, and though it was hard to make out who, I was fairly certain that at least one of them was Ptolema.

"The others," I said anxiously.

"Right," Mehit spoke firmly, hoisting her daughter more firmly up and craning her back slightly. "We're leaving."

"W-Wait," Linos said, holding a hand. "My son is with them. We can't--"

"You misunderstand," Mehit spoke. "My daughter and I are leaving. The rest of you can do as you please."

Linos frowned harshly. "Ms. Eshkalon, we just talked about this. You know we need to stay together if we're going to be safe."

"This is different," she stated firmly. "We have a way out in a defensible position. And my daughter is unconscious. As her mother, I cannot put her life in peril for a group of strangers, or take her away from what might be our only window of escape."

Linos spoke up. "If we separate now--"

"That is final." Mehit stated. At least she wasn't threatening us with a pistol this time around. "Do whatever you feel appropriate. But I'm going!"

And then, without further hesitance, she turned and practically bounded down the field towards the bioenclosure exit, going at what seemed like near-athletic speed despite still being quite seriously wounded. Within a few seconds, she'd almost disappeared into the darkness.

"We should go too," Kamrusepa stated grimly. "She's right. It's the rational option."

"K-Kam, the others are still in there!" Ophelia protested. "If we leave them behind, they might--"

"I know, I know!" she snapped back at the other woman, her tone pained. "But we don't have any idea what's going on in there, and we can't use the Power! You heard that scream. It could already be too late, and the culprit could already be getting ready to ambush us!"

"That's-- That's jumping to conclusions," I said. "They could have just been taken by surprise."

I said that, but even as I did, my brain was starting to properly process the situation and realizing it wasn't sure it disagreed with her. It was one thing to talk big about playing the hero, but she was right. We had no idea what was going on there. This almost certainly meant that the remaining accomplice had decided to play their hand at the last chance they still could. We could be killed. I could be killed.

I don't want to die! Something in me shouted. Not like this!

"Then they can make a break for it and meet up with us themselves!" Kamrusepa declared urgently. "This isn't an action drama, Su! There's not going to be a bloody firefight we can pitch in on!"

"I should have known this would happen," Ran hissed quietly, looking frustrated. Her eyes were scanning the area.

"Miss Tuon, I can't leave Theo behind," Linos said, his tone pained and expression distraught in a way I'd never seen before. "Please. We have to help them."

It was always harrowing, the first time you saw an adult you'd known as a child in a state like this. Like something stable in the world had broken.

She jerked her head towards him, her expression rapidly oscillating between anger and shameful, pained sympathy. "You're in no position to make demands, sir," she said, her voice cracking. "Not after what we just learned."

"It's not about me, it's about him!" He clasped his hands together, his face desperate. "Please. I can't help on my own like this. We can go in through the back--"

Suddenly, there was a sharp flash of light from overhead, along with a quiet pop. I became aware that a new reality had formed.

In this new reality, Kamrusepa and I's clothes were suddenly covered in a thin spray of chunky fluid, and to the side of my left foot, there was a small, smoking hole. I stared at it for a moment, taking it in, like it was an alien artifact.

Then I looked up, and noticed the third change, which was that there was a hole in Linos's shoulder. His eyes boggled as he turned his head towards it.

In this strange, almost-timeless moment, I looked up.

There was a figure at the top of the bell tower.

And they were holding--

"GET DOWN!" Ran shouted, and threw herself at me.

We both tumbled onto the ground, barely avoiding the second shot as Kamrusepa, too, dived to the side. Ophelia and Linos both screamed. The refractor blast, with nothing to dull its force, sliced into the earth, sending hot soil spraying in all directions.

"OH, GODS!" I shouted, scrambling back to my feet.

Another shot. This one just barely missed Kamrusepa's prone form as she rolled desperately to the side. "Shitshitshit! Cunt! FUCK!" she shouted uncharacteristically.

This was it. In this moment, I was 100% certain that I was about to die. The next blast - or the one after that - would go straight through my head. Refractor gunbeams moved at the speed of light; I wouldn't even hear the shot before I was dead. No warning, no time for my life to flash before my eyes, just one second where I existed as a conscious being, and the next when I didn't. Just like that.

It was absolute terror. I felt like a wild animal.

Ran fired her own pistol wildly at the roof, then grabbed me again along with Linos's chair, before pulling violently, throwing herself towards the wall of the building. Kam, moving more like a dying insect than a human herself, jerked wildly until her feet managed to connect to the ground by pure luck, then leaped like a wildcat after us, all but screaming.

Ophelia, ironically, just sprinted after us gracefully despite her obvious fear. I guess even a situation like this couldn't compromise her perpetual princess-aura.

We slammed against the wall, Linos's wheelchair clanking violently as it crashed into it wheel first. He half-shoved himself off it, leaning every part of his body against the wall that he could.

Yet another shot, this one a little behind where we were standing, but still harrowingly close.

"Oh, Anue above," Linos said, holding a shaking fist to his chest as blood rolled down his shoulder in abundance.

"WHO THE HELL IS UP THERE?!" Kam screamed.

"I DUNNO!" I shouted "I-IT'S TOO DARK--"

"SHUT UP! SHUT THE HELL UP!" Ran shouted creakily. (She sounded like an old lady when she raised her voice beyond a certain threshold.) "We need to get INSIDE!"

"Inside?!" I asked, confused in the heat of the moment.

"We need cover, or we're dead!" She yelled. "We have to go now! NOW!"