DIRECTOR: Oh, god.

THEODOROS: Ahh!

EZEKIEL: How do you jump from something like that twice in a row?

SETH: Don't be an asshole, Ezekiel.

PLAYWRIGHT: It's fine! It's just a little presentational interruption. Scenario continuity is intact! It just needs a moment to stabilize!

DIRECTOR: I warned you this would happen. Did I not say that, in exact words? That we couldn't interfere without collapsing the entire production?

PLAYWRIGHT: Don't be melodramatic! It's still good, it just--- It just needs a moment!

KAMRUSEPA: I don't understand. That's never happened to me twice in a row before. Something must be actively interfering with my ability to cast properly. Ran, can you cast the Anomaly-Divining Arcana again?

RAN: Sure, I guess.

EZEKIEL: Maybe you're just getting sloppy, Rhunbardi.

KAMRUSEPA: Oh, breaking your silence? Someone is getting sloppy, alright. But I'm not sure it's me.

PLAYWRIGHT: We haven't broken any of the rules! The noise from Kamrusepa's Index is an outside-context random factor! It occurring with enough severity to make the data unusable twice in a row is a completely possible event that falls within the realm of scenario diversification!

DIRECTOR: It's a one in twenty-six billion, five hundred and ninety-seven million, seven hundred and thirty-one thousand, nine hundred and two chance. It was more likely she would spontaneously combust.

PLAYWRIGHT: We did that, didn't we?! On that one scenario where they spent half of it in the greenhouse and Ezekiel found out what happened to his family and killed everyone--

PTOLEMA: Hey, do you guys feel something weird?

UTSUSHIKOME: Weird in what sense...?

PTOLEMA: Dunno. Like someone walked over my grave, I guess.

PLAYWRIGHT: Oh fuck. Shit shitshitshitshit---

DIRECTOR: Just so we are completely clear! If it breaks, I'm reporting this as your doing!

PLAYWRIGHT: MY doing?! It's your fault this happened in the first place! I'm just doing damage control! Triage! Please don't dwell on it, please don't dwell on it--

PTOLEMA: Did you feel it too, Su?

UTSUSHIKOME: Uh, I don't know. I mean, I feel a little peculiar, but I think that's just the atmosphere of this place getting to me.

RAN: I can't see any incantations that would be making it harder for you to cast, but it's hard to tell. This place is overloaded with transmundane anomalies I don't even recognize. If I'd added a bit more range to my Divination earlier, this place would have looked like a gas fire on a dark night from the other bioenclosures.

KAMRUSEPA: What sort of anomalies?

RAN: Not something from straightforward use of the Power, that's for sure. The math is hard to even understand, but practically everything in here is made up of some kind of abnormal matter that's breaking all the normal rules of energy conservation. And in the building up ahead, there's this... I don't even know how to describe it. It's like the sort of incantations you see used to create demi-planes, but fluctuating like crazy. The whole thing is fucked.

KAMRUSEPA: So could that be interfering with my casting, even if it's not deliberate?

RAN: I don't know. Maybe.

UTSUSHIKOME: It wasn't something that came up very often, but there were things that caused abnormal physical phenomena other than the Power, if only by technicality. Alongside unanticipated indirect effects from incantations - often the result of backlash - you also saw them crop up from anything related to the Tower of Asphodel and the tools of the Ironworkers, as well as in areas where the planes were bridged frequently. They could still be detected, of course, but their implications were harder to make sense of. In this instance, though, I was starting to expect an entirely different explanation. It's like when I've frozen things with the Entropy-Denying Arcana. Like there's some buffer holding everything absolutely together.

PLAYWRIGHT: Okay. Okay. I think they're moving on from the subject. Thank god. Thank god. Shit. Fuck.

DIRECTOR: We should not count our chickens before they hatch, I should think.

PLAYWRIGHT: You're right. What if she tries to do it again? Just two might not be enough to have her write it off as a lost cause.

DIRECTOR: I'm not doing it again. Not even if you order me. It would be better for them to just confirm it and botch the scenario parameters, I don't care.

PLAYWRIGHT: Are you off your fucking head?! This is the last one!

DIRECTOR: So you keep reminding me. But better to have a house flooded than burned to the ground. Besides, let's not pretend this hasn't been compromised to a degree from the start. We knew we wouldn't be able to reset Balthazar, or fix the problem with the resistant zone. We could only create a rough simulacrum of the circumstances of the early attempts.

PLAYWRIGHT: We weren't supposed to make it perfect! Just representative and cathartic! All this is going to be representative of is our own failures!

LINOS: I keep telling you, it's dangerous here. The experiments that were conducted warped the surrounding environment in ways that we still don't completely understand. There's no telling what could happen if we linger.

THEODOROS: Er, sorry, dad... But you told us that your experiments with the child happened and were abandoned a hundred years ago, didn't you? But a minute ago you said that this place was only abandoned quite recently. That doesn't, er, quite make sense...

PTOLEMA: Ooh, good catch.

LINOS: T-Theo, that's-- Look, we'd mostly phased it out long before then other than for a few specialized purposes, and more importantly, back then we were still actively monitoring the area for any changes. There's no telling what's happened in the last twenty years.

KAMRUSEPA: I'd say that it's obvious you're not telling us something, sir, but that would be rather like diving headfirst into a convention furnace while saying I'm worried I might get a little warm.

SETH: I dunno. Like, I'm not saying Theo's dad isn't being kinda full of shit, but we can't really afford any risks at this point. We're pretty damn thin on the ground here. But on the other hand, if the culprit's been here, we might be able to find hints about the asshole's real identity.

LINOS: If anything, the lesson we ought to have learned by this point is to play it safe and stick to the strategy! Again, if we can just ride this out--

SETH: Crap, someone's coming out!

KAMRUSEPA: Get your guns! Guns are faster than a bloody scepter.

PLAYWRIGHT: Oh, hell! Is she supposed to be here?!

DIRECTOR: Yes. She's supposed to be here. That's part of the scenario. That you can't remember basic details, even at a time like this...

PLAYWRIGHT: Wh-- Don't look at me, you glorified kitchen stove! Play your part! We're not here!

DIRECTOR: Hold on. I think it's starting to stabilize.

I'd recognize the shape of that body anywhere. There, stepping out from the door to the 'abbey', was Aruru, dressed in the same black gown it had been wearing at the conclave proper. It began to approach us - neutrally, at a slow pace - then suddenly stopped for a moment, looking off to the right.

My eyes followed her gaze, but I couldn't see anything; just more flowers. More to the point, why was it here?

Seth hesitated slightly, lowering his gun with a bemused expression, before echoing my sentiment exactly. "What the hell is that thing doing here?"

"Don't let your guard down!" Kam hissed, still holding her rifle tightly. "That thing has been playing messenger for the conspiracy, remember?" She hesitated slightly, as if remembering something, then shook her head.

I didn't want to be pedantic about it, but we didn't actually know that. All of the threatening messages we'd received over the logic bridge had used the golem's image, but that didn't per-se mean it had actually been involved; anyone could make a logic bridge feed look like anything if they had the right design skills, and we knew at least one of them had been sent directly by Lilith without it having been involved. Hell, the fact it was a golem - and so, lacking iron, couldn't attune to a bridge itself - meant the choice to incorporate it into the threats had to have been a deliberate one, not one done in the name of convenience.

...but on the other hand, Hamilcar had built it. And we knew one of the culprits had been in here recently. So...

"It's coming pretty slow," Ptolema said. "And I don't see any weapons."

"It's a golem," Ezekiel stated, like she was an idiot. "It could probably tear us apart with its bare hands if we let it. Shit, it could be rigged to explode."

"That wouldn't get through my barrier," I said, mostly confident of this assertion.

"Let's not push our luck," Kam said. "I'm going to make sure mine is stable too-- Linos, put up your own for a moment as well."

"Uh, very well," he replied, staring at the thing in puzzlement.

"Hold on," Ran said. "I think it's stopping?"

PLAYWRIGHT: It's not cohering properly! Fidelity is failing in anything that hasn't been properly reset!

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

DIRECTOR: That's not good. If it gets stabilized in this state...

CHORUS: Good afternoon, Companion-Legionary Melanthos. I see that our guests are currently present in a restricted area. As this is not part of the event plan, would you like me to escort them out, or notify the security center?

Linos made a flat expression, sighing sharply. "Uh, no, Aruru, I don't think that will be necessary."

"Sir," Ran spoke, eying the golem warily but not having drawn a weapon. "Whether it's hostile or not, this thing is connected to the administrative core, right? Which means it could be acting under instruction from the hidden scripting."

He hesitated. "Uh, yes, miss Hoa-Trinh. That's correct..."

"It seems like it doesn't know what's going on, though," Ptolema said.

Kam still wasn't taking her eyes off it. "That could very easily be a trick."

"We don't have to let it in, but maybe we can get something useful out of it," Seth said. "You have any idea why it's here, old man?"

"No," Linos said, shaking his head. "But theoretically, I suppose it shouldn't be difficult to find out." He looked towards the golem. "Aruru, what are you doing here? Your rest station is in the inner sanctum."

CHORUS: Master Hamilcar placed me here and instructed me to stand by and await further instructions or the arrival of another party.

"He did?" Linos said, looking almost a little stunned, but quickly raised another question, stammering slightly. "W-When was this?"

CHORUS: 11:05 PM, yesterday evening. Is there a problem?

"Uh, not exactly..." Linos spoke, biting his lip.

"It, er, sounds as though Hamilcar must have brought them here just before everything started to happen," Theo observed.

"Why bother with something like that?" I asked, frowning to myself. "I mean, I suppose for the conceit of it being the messenger, having the actual thing hanging around would sorta compromise it, but..."

"Maybe that's all there is to it?" Seth mused.

"Aruru, are you aware of what's been happening in the facility?" Linos inquired further. "Have you been connected to the monitoring system?"

CHORUS: No, I have not. Master Hamilcar disabled all auxiliary functions before stationing me here. Has something occurred? Do you require assistance?

"Wait, hold on a sec," Ptolema interjected. "Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how would Hamilcar have even got it here in the first place? I mean, if he'd used the Power to go through the pond, you would have seen that when you used the Anomaly-Divining Arcana,right, Ran?"

Ran frowned. "Yeah. I guess I would've." She furrowed her brow, looking towards the ground. "And somehow, I kinda doubt he just took a swim."

"Yeah!" Ptolema agreed, nodding. "I mean, he'd totally sink!"

"Rather feels like the least of the problems with the idea," Kam said. "But you know, this does raise some broader questions about this bioenclosure. For example, Linos, if the story about it being largely decommissioned and then eventually abandoned is true, why is there such a ridiculous secret entrance to it in the first place?"

"I can answer that!" he asserted confidently, almost like he'd scored some manner of victory. "After the project was retired, we decided that future additions to the Order would not be informed about its existence outside of the highest ranks in order to better cover our tracks. However, there was still a need to access some of the equipment and the experiment results for secondary research. So we closed off the original entrance, but created a set of obfuscated alternatives for occasional use." He lowered his gaze, making an attempt at an authoritative expression. "See? A wholly boring explanation."

"A set of alternatives," Kamrusepa zoned in on.

"Y-es," Linos replied, nodding. "There's also one concealed in the underground."

She rubbed her brow. "After the secret room we already found down there, I suppose it shouldn't be much of a surprise..."

"Is that how you got here, Aruru?" Ptolema asked. "Through the underground route?"

CHORUS: I do not know. My ability to observe my surroundings was disabled at the time.

I frowned slightly. Something felt strange about the way the golem was speaking, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It wasn't the uncanny tone of voice - I was used to that by this point - but instead something in the way my brain seemed to chew on it after it was finished speaking. It somehow reminded me of the way that Sekhmet talked via logic bridge, even though that obviously made no sense whatsoever.

PLAYWRIGHT: Aaaaaahhhhh!! AHHHHHH!!!!

DIRECTOR: We'll have to switch to a simplified presentational format and use the archives to fill in the gaps. That's the only chance we have to prevent a logical collapse.

PLAYWRIGHT: Are you insane?! We might as well set fire to the stage! If anything we use ends up inconsistent with the scenario, we're toast!

DIRECTOR: It's the only chance we have! Give me permission!

PLAYWRIGHT: Ugh, fine--

---

I opened the heavy wooden doors leading into the second abbey, the serpent of the Order of the Universal Panacea high over my head.

Though it looked like the same building on the outside, I could tell immediately that this was as far as the commonality went. About the only thing which was familiar was the basic structure; the entrance led into the same sort of square chamber as the lounge was in the guest house, with the two halls leading to the left and right... But the atmosphere couldn't have been more different.

This was not a homely place. Bare, unadorned stone walls surrounded what came across as an oppressively utilitarian office space, almost reminiscent of the rooms constructed around the Apega. Tall filing cabinets of dingy bronze stood at all sides in symmetry, their little boxes all shut tight. Eight vertical, twenty-seven across, for a total of 228.

Like outside, everything was covered in dust, but otherwise the area was perfectly ordered. Save for a single, empty waste bin, nothing was set on the ground - or indeed, any surface at all - in isolation, though one object did adorn the walls dead ahead from the entrance, where the fireplace ought to have been. It was a clock of unclear mechanism, the time frozen at 5:09.

At the center of it all was a small desk, like you'd see at the front of an office. There was a little paperwork neatly left at the side. Notably, this was the only item which was not covered in dust.

I first inspected the file cabinets closely, but quickly found that nothing remained inside any of them. The only hint to be found were the labels. Each entry began with one of two letters - A or G - followed by a number that seemed to range from 12 to 30. Finally, they ended with a dash and a second number, this time going only from 1 to 6.

After this, I moved to take a look at the aforementioned paperwork.

SCENE NOTES: In the face of insistence from the majority of the group that the strange building resembling the abbey house be investigated for clues as to the identity of the remaining culprit, Linos has managed to talk them into at least probing it only remotely using the Power, lest they put themselves at greater physical danger. Thus, the responsibility has fallen to Ran to lead the effort with her skills in Divination. Meanwhile, Aruru continues to wait attentively for further instruction, watching.

"Linos, what are those cabinets supposed to contain?" Kamrusepa asked.

"I'm not going to answer that," he said in a quiet voice, crossing his arms and staring at the ground. "It's not remotely relevant to the situation."

"Still afraid of incriminating yourself?" She snorted. "I think the ship has rather sailed on that front."

"I don't know what you're trying to accomplish here, Kam," he replied, still not looking at her.

The paperwork was held in a small brown binder. It only took me a few moments after withdrawing the first sheet to understand its purpose, as I found a record that seemed to pertain to Seth. Alongside his name, an abbreviated academic record and photograph, I recognized the listed details as among the basic ones we'd been asked to fill out in our paperwork before coming to the sanctuary; our resistances, blood type, food requirements, that sort of thing.

I flipped over to the next sheet of parchment, which concerned Bardiya, and then to one concerning Ran, and so on and so forth. There were no surprise as to the actual content, only that it was here in the first place. Deeper in, it also contained profiles for the other guests, and the remainder of the people currently in the sanctuary.

"I have no idea why that's here," Linos said pre-emptively, a hand held to his mouth. "It should be in the security center. I can only assume Hamilcar moved it for-- I don't know. I can't understand anything about his actions at this point."

"Kinda creepy to have it just lying there," Ptolema said. "Like somebody left it out for us."

Ezekiel looked uneasy, pushing his lips together tightly.

There were two surprises which awaited me at the bottom of the pile. The first was relatively mundane; a record for Vijana of Yamune. It didn't contain any particularly insightful information - like the other members of the staff, her qualifications were unlisted, and it only provided mundane personal details. Viraaki. 5'2. A-. Gluten allergy.

And a photograph. It was hard to reconcile it with the destroyed face I'd seen briefly; she looked like a normal, pretty Viraaki woman, with her hair in a bun and a tired, impatient expression. Still, something about it felt odd, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It certainly resembled what little remained of the face I had seen earlier in the night, so that wasn't the issue...

I didn't have much time to consider this, though, because the next record was the truly puzzling one. At first I didn't understand it at all.

It wasn't a record, or at least not one like the others - there was no photograph, it was clearly handwritten rather than printed, and even the parchment it was scrawled on had a different texture. But nevertheless it followed the same rough format, albeit with some additions. It read:

Jothi of Somrang

Age 35

Scholars Medical Accolade, Vir University & Master of Medical Divination, Efarit Institute for Medicine

Viraaki

AMN

Private distinction treatment, Grand Alliance standard anima script modernization, myopia correction, height cultivation

I didn't recognize the handwriting, although perhaps it would be better to say that it was unrecognizable. It looked like someone had made a deliberate attempt to write in an awkward, inorganic fashion, with lots of out-of-place hard lines. Or maybe the golem had written it?

More to the point, the name was familar.

"Huh," Seth said, his eyes narrow.

"I, er, feel as though I sort of remember that name," Theo muttered, "but I can't place it."

"I know what you mean, though neither can I." Kamrusepa said, slowly biting the rim of her forefinger. She looked to me. "Do you recall, Su?"

I slowly frowned. Now that I was thinking about it, it felt like I'd seen it out of context somewhere. In casual conversation? On another piece of paperwork? My mind went to the very first days of our class for some reason.

"I remember it," Ran said, somewhat to my surprise. "I saw it on some of the co-ordinators' paperwork when I was working at his office. It was on the original registry for our class, but apparently whoever it was dropped out between the entrance exams and our initiation."

"Oh, that guy," Seth said, rubbing his chin.

Kamrusepa raised an eyebrow. "'That' guy?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "I remember seeing him around when I was moving into the dorms. I think he was gonna be in our class, but got cold feet when he saw how high-profile the whole thing was and ended up pulling out. We only talked once, though."

Even if Seth wasn't exactly someone to trust right now, that did seem like it added up. I vaguely remembered talk of the class originally having more members then actually ended up being the case, and faces I recalled from the final interviews that I never saw again. That sort of thing was pretty common at high levels of education anyway - in some regards, it was a small miracle that no one in our class had dropped out over the past two years.

"Why would there be a record for them in a place like this?" Ptolema mused.

"Indeed, it is curious," Kam said, her eyes once again going to Linos.

"I have no idea why that would be here," Linos spoke defensively. "That doesn't even look like the type of parchment we replicate for the sanctuary. Someone else must have brought it in."

"Hm," she hummed, eying him.

Hesitating anxiously, I set the files down and headed in the direction of what would have been the bedrooms. However, looking down the hall, it was much shorter than it was in the guesthouse - terminating abruptly at a wooden door rather than looping all the way around the building. I investigated what would have been Bardiya's old room first, yet found it was empty; all that remained were shadows where it looked like furniture had once been kept. A sofa, maybe a bed...

I investigated a few more, but it was all the same. Empty rooms, scoured down to the base of the floors. The door at the end of the hallway led into a much larger, square hall that seemed to have replaced two or three bedrooms, but there was no indication as to what it was for. Off in the other direction, the dining area had also been opened up, with the rooms encompassing it, the kitchen, and the eris pool chamber all now one spacious chamber.

All of it seemed incredibly mundane compared to the exterior, and yet, I couldn't escape the feeling that something was very off. That this was a somehow haunted place in a way that was just escaping my attention.

I climbed the stairs, and there she was at last, standing at the rear wall

PLAYWRIGHT: Ack, no! That doesn't work for this scenario! Switch it over to the alternative!

DIRECTOR: Very well...

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, which was even more radically different. This one wasn't divided into rooms at all - it was just one massive, open space that looked more like the interior of a workshop than anything. It looked as though it had been the site of some manner of complicated engineering project. Boxes full of the type of equipment and parts you'd need to build a logic engine were everywhere, along with more exotic stuff I didn't recognize. Cables, strange glass instruments, half-finished contraptions I couldn't make heads or tails of.

Notably absent were, once again, any sort of notes or paperwork. There were a few cabinets that looked like they were meant to contain documents, but were once again completely empty.

But what struck and sent a peculiar chill through me as soon as I arrived was what lay in the center of the room. It was an induction bed that appeared to have either been built from scratch, or cut open and modified. I could see the guts of the strange machine in a way I never had before; the spire of False Iron surrounded by a small and peculiar logic engine and strange metal coils.

I felt nervous to even approach the thing.

Despite everything, I only had a rough idea of how they actually worked. I understood the principle - the false iron connected the subject to the Tower of Asphodel, while the complex engravings combined with an electromagnetic stimulation process bypassed the conventional brain entirely to access the pneumaic nexus, whereupon the logic engine connected to the formless mausoleum from which the souls of the long dead were plucked. And I knew the final stage, where the pneuma was actually affixed, used Egomancy to exploit a quirk in the healing process.

But that was all just vagaries. If you asked me what part any individual piece of the machine played in this process, or the process by which those stages took place, I wouldn't have a clue. So I had no idea if this was how the mechanical guts were supposed to look, or something completely different.

I crept forward...

"What's that doing there?" Kamrusepa asked.

"That's, uh, from the experiment I told you all about," Linos said, scratching the back of his head. "This is where it was originally performed."

I slowly frowned.

Getting close, it continued to look very much like every other induction bed I'd beheld in my life; a slab of featureless black material, with an upward incline for the head made out of false iron. Nothing seemed out of place.

So, I ducked underneath, and tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Everything was - as I suppose one would expect - oriented around the headrest, the various coils, wires, and a pillar of engravings all convening and rising to meet it. But there was something missing right at the center, where the mechanism reached to meet the stone. An entire section seemed to have been dismantled...

And in the center, there was a six-pronged, strangely-shaped indent.

"And why has it been left here?" Kamrusepa asked.

Linos seemed to be growing increasingly agitated, shaking his head. "We only cleaned out the first floor. The rest was just abandoned."

"Why?" Kam persisted.

"I don't know," he replied stiffly.

A six pronged, strangely-shaped indent.

Sometimes, the monkey part of the brain is smarter than the human part. Without even really processing what I was doing, my hand wandered to the object I'd received from Zeno, way back on the afternoon of our second day; the strange bronze instrument that I'd thought was a key.

I turned the thought over in my mind a few times, like a delicate object.