"I’ve found out that by running, I can reach Rainguard in a few hours. Fortunately, the mansion I live under is a hub between the other Dawngrove-holdings, which means well-build roads in every direction. They make running easier, though if I wanted to go truly fast, I need to move with large leaping bounds—supernatural jumps, basically. The only problem is that this tends to destroy the roads, as well as my shoes . . . so I really wouldn’t recommend doing it. It’s difficult to get shoes in my size."
— excerpt from Bezel’s diary, Loop #294
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The Krinhanced engine roared as the automobile sped down the slope. Miranda swerved the steering wheel to the right, taking the upcoming bend in the road at a break-neck speed. The rear wheels skidded a little due to the abrupt maneuver, but Miranda managed to keep her vehicle on the muddy road. She channelled more of her power into her seat, the built-in contraption inside transferring it to the engine and allowing them to accelerate even further.
"For God’s sake woman, you’re going to kill us!" Bezel cried from the back seat. He was squeezed into cushion and held on as if his life was at risk, his face pale as a sheet. Though she did her best to hide it, Miranda felt a vicious sort of pleasure to see him like that. She knew she was being petty and childish, but knowing didn’t make her feelings any less true.
No matter how much she wished otherwise.
Recent events had forced Miranda to take a good look at herself. In the last few years, she had been living with the knowledge that she was the strongest. Head of one of the most ancient Houses, blessed with exceptional reflexes and a Krinil gem of incredible power. She had taken pride in it. She had revelled in it. There was no one above her in status—no one except the King, but his power was mostly symbolic. There was no one who could defeat her in combat either . . . no one, except that muscle-head groaning on her backseat.
"I’m going to puke," Bezel mumbled.
"Don’t you dare," Miranda growled. "Mashek, if he soils my automobile you are to climb back there and kick him out."
Mashek shifted on the passenger's seat, shooting an anxious glance back at Bezel.
"Understood, mah lady."
He was clearly was perplexed by the current situation, particularly by the dynamic between Miranda and Bezel. Through his fifteen years spent in House Dawngrove’s service, likely he had never seen anyone treating the Head of the House with so much disrespect. And while the dark-skinned Athorian man’s face was as impassive as ever, the uncertainty in his yellow eyes was unmistakable.
Truth be told, Miranda felt just as uncertain.
She wasn’t entirely sure why—there wasn’t any logical reason for it. So what if she wasn’t the strongest in hand-to-hand combat? It didn’t mean the end of the world. Mother had always said that the only power that truly mattered was the political one. Well, she had said that before being blasted multiple times through her chest by a Krinfused weapon—her opinion might be a bit different now, were she still alive.
But even if political influence was more important in today’s world, even if individual power didn’t matter as much, Miranda couldn’t really think that way. She was a warrior at heart; that was how she had been raised and that was what she was genuinely good at. She had never been able to truly leave behind this part of herself, no matter how much her responsibilities had changed. It was, of course, no excuse for her behavior. A true Lady—the Head of her House—shouldn’t be upset about not being able to beat up everyone on her own.
Especially when she had bigger concerns, like the whole world being stuck in a time loop.
Mashek leaned back in his seat, producing a handkerchief to dab the sweat off his forehead. It made Miranda realize that she had neglected to keep her emotions in check; the direction her thoughts usually wandered didn’t help in this regard.
On the other hand, even stilling her emotions wouldn’t do that much while driving. If she didn’t want to empty the automobile’s battery entirely, she needed to pour her power into the vehicle from time to time, which meant diving into an emotion of her choice. Her aura would be on full effect during this process; quite taxing on a mid-tier Krinfused like Mashek. Automobiles clearly weren’t designed with ordinary people in mind. The best Miranda could do was to arrive to their destination quickly, so that Mashek could get a breather sooner.
With that thought, Miranda swerved abruptly to the left to overtake an old-fashioned wagon. The pair of burdenbeasts pulling it whined madly—alongside with Bezel—as her vehicle passed them. Miranda completed the maneuver by pulling back to their side of the road, just in time to avoid collision with the wagon coming from the opposite direction. Rainguard was getting close now, which meant more vehicles on the road and slower progress, unfortunately.
Already, the biggest Free City of Ylvasil was visible in the distance; a jungle of tall, moss-covered buildings with an intricate network of metallic pipes weaving between—and sometimes through—them. As they approached the city perimeters, Miranda could see even the steam that escaped the pipes, soft white puffs billowing towards the dark rainclouds. Rainguard had one of the most advanced powerline systems in Ylvasil; the river that flowed through the city provided plenty of water to fill the pipes, cooling down the overheating conductors within. That in itself wouldn’t have been enough however, if not for Rainguard’s other method to collect water; the enormous, semi-transparent funnels erected all above the buildings, looking like gigantic reverse-umbrellas. They gathered the constant rain that poured down on the city, redirecting the water into the powerlines and saving a considerable amount of energy by not having to pump the water from the river.
But for each of Rainguard’s wonders, the city had its annoying qualities as well.
Miranda drummed her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, the line of wagons in front of them forcing them to slow down to practically walking speed. They entered the city without trouble—no walls or gates here—but the traffic became even worse from there on. Rainguard was full of looming buildings and narrow streets, the city’s explosive growth of populace having proved to be too much to keep up with proper architecture.
"We could leave the car here and walk," Bezel commented from the backseat. "You’d get it back next week anyways."
"We’ll do no such thing," Miranda snapped. "We need the automobile to get back home, you idiot."
"We could run, you know. It’s not that far."
Miranda scoffed, not deigning to entertain his weak joke with a reply. Although—if she was honest with herself—it wasn’t exactly the lack of transportation that she feared. She could easily get a wagon to drive them back home, after all. What truly concerned her was something else; part of her hadn’t accepted the presence of the time loop yet. She had seen some evidence, yes, but she hadn’t actually seen time itself being rewound. Somewhere deep in her mind, she still expected these last few days to turn out to be some kind of elaborate prank.
That being the case, there was no way she would simply abandon her vehicle here. She could buy an entire block of buildings here from her automobile’s price.
So in the end, Miranda continued rolling down the main avenue, watching the pedestrians at the roadside walk past her vehicle. Street vendors tried to out-cry each other and the general noise of the crowd, their shrill voices accentuated by the loud hisses of steam coming from the rusty pipes over the street—and all the while, the rain kept prattling on the funnels high above. Miranda had never understood how people could willingly chose to live in this noise, but to each of their own, she supposed.
Ah, but there were even more incomprehensible ways people chose to live. Just ahead of them at the corner of a crossing street, Miranda spotted a group of people lining up haphazardly in front of a building with a grand entrance. The Exchange, as people often called these kinds of establishments, even though they were in the hands of hundreds of different investors, forming dozens of different companies. Their core purpose was the same, though; offering money in exchange of power, turning Krinil power into yet another form of currency.
The Exchange was a major reason why more and more commoners chose to become Krinfused. Spending all their fortune on their Krinil gem, they then hoped to earn it back via these establishments. Hoped was the key word there. Low-tiered Krinil gems—those that people could normally afford—weren’t able to generate much power. They needed several human lifetimes of constant use to absorb enough emotions—and be able to provide sufficient power—to make the investment worthwhile. As it currently stood, the new Krinfused citizens were forced to attend the Exchange regularly, turning it practically into their job. Go out, experience new highs and lows to acquire fresh memories, then pour it all out at the Exchange. The more vivid the emotion, the better. It was no wonder that drug addiction was on the rise these days.
"Hey Mira," the brute said from behind her. "You see that?"
It was easy enough to guess what he was looking at; a large procession of people in grey robes were walking by the roadside, each of them carrying a single white-petaled flower. People from the Church, there was no doubt of that, though what they were doing was very much unclear.
"What about them?"
"The Church’s new movement," Bezel said, leaning forward between the front seats. "Or should I say sect? Tomorrow it will be all over the newspapers. Apparently they have some kind of special Krinil gem, which they intend to fill only with positive emotions. Stone of Purity, they call it."
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
"So what of it?" Miranda asked. "Let them chase all the ridiculous ideas they want. Next month they’ll make up something else."
"Yeah, but this time they are also making some very bold statements," Bezel said. "That Krinil gems are God’s gift, and we shouldn’t use them for ill—"
"That’s already what the Church is about," Miranda snapped. "You aren’t saying anything new, slave."
"Heh, well, I didn’t know that before this week," Bezel said. "Anyways, I was just about to get to the good part. Or bad part. Yeah, probably pretty bad, from your point of view."
Miranda sighed. "Just spit it out already."
"They say that since Krinil gems are a gift from God, it’s a sin to monetize them. They should be free for the common folk, or more specifically, for the most devout believers. Consequently, every House and trading company who sells the gems for money is doing so against God’s wishes—thus making them heretics. Say, Mira, do you know any Houses that depend heavily on producing Krinil gems?"
"You’re joking," Miranda said, her fingers tightening around the steering wheel.
"Nah. Told you already, I’m not that much of a funny guy."
"This is ridiculous," Miranda ground her teeth. "Can’t be more than mere rumors. How would the Church expect us to remain functioning if we turn our business into charity? They can’t just— Mashek! You know anything about this?"
Mashek cleared his throat awkwardly, flinching under Miranda’s gaze.
"I’m afraid I don’t, mah lady," he said. "But if I may ask, how would your—ahem, slave, know what the Church does? Also—forgive me, mah lady, but—how does he claim to know what the newspapers will write about tomorrow?"
"First off," Bezel spoke before Miranda could have replied, "I’m not a slave anymore, spymaster. Call me Bezel, if you need to."
"Ah," Mashek said, frowning. He leaned sideways a bit, away from Bezel’s meaty arm that rested on the back of his seat. "On being proper, I must tell you, Bezel, that I’m no spymaster—I am Head of Intelligence."
"Sure thing, spymaster," Bezel said, grinning.
Mashek gasped in indignation. "That—"
"Enough," Miranda barked. "Both of you, shut your yap if you have nothing constructive to say."
Much to Miranda’s surprise Bezel didn’t defy her this time; he just patted Mashek’s shoulder and leaned back without a word. Mashek immediately followed it up by producing yet another handkerchief, wiping off the shoulder that Bezel had touched. Athorians were very conscious about cleanliness, a trait that Mashek retained even after years of living in the dirty northern lands. Either that, or he was just using this gesture to state his opinion about Bezel—Miranda wasn’t entirely sure which. She had never been too good at reading subtle social signals; another of her failings as a Lady.
She couldn’t be bothered by that now, however. As she drove on, she noticed more and more groups of grey-robed figures walking in the same direction—towards Ruby District, where the wealthier citizens lived. The robed men and women carried nothing more than a single white flower each, and they were relatively silent—talking among each other, sure, but neither yelling their demands nor preaching their beliefs. Even her mansion’s street was full of these people, though fortunately none of them converged specifically around her property.
Considering all the terrible events that befell on Miranda—and all that would happen in the future, according to Bezel—she wouldn’t have been surprised if her mansion in Rainguard was under siege as well. But, as luck would have it, they arrived without any incident.
The guards at the entrance saluted when they saw she was in the vehicle, then hurried to open the gate wide. Instead of taking the route towards the garage and the stables, Miranda rolled down on the paved road that led directly to the mansion; driving across the front yard, rounding the large fountain and stopping the vehicle right in front of the flight of stairs that led up to the mansion’s large entrance doors. She hopped out of her automobile, waved away the servant that came forward to greet her, and scaled the stairs two at a time, not waiting for Mashek and Bezel to catch up.
There was no time to waste, after all; Bezel insisted to be back at the Static Chamber by nightfall to wake Lynn up—and truth be told, Miranda didn’t want to waste too much time in Rainguard either. This wasn’t a pleasure trip; it was a trip to gather intel and gather it personally, since she couldn’t decide who to trust. She wasn’t sure whether she was just being too paranoid, but if only half of what Bezel had told her was true, then the truth was that she hadn’t been paranoid enough. That ended now, however.
Miranda pushed the door’s open and entered the front hall. A pair of servants were kneeling at the side, but she ignored them; her gaze was drawn to the ramp at the other end of the room, from where her cousin was already approaching. It was quite impressive that Raphael was able to come and greet her in person on such a short notice. His wheelchair was pushed by his butler, and he looked—well, he looked like he had seen better times. Bags under his green eyes, thinning, grey-black hair and shaggy mustache, and thin, almost gaunt face—he looked older than Miranda remembered, and way older than he actually was. Miranda felt a pang of guilt as she realized how long it had been since she had last seen her cousin.
When Raphael was halfway across the hall, he raised a hand for his butler to stop. He then brought forth his powerfield, a warm orange shroud enclosing the right side of his body. With the powerfield’s help, he stood up from his wheelchair and walked the remaining distance,
"Miranda!" Raphael slurred, his mouth set in a lopsided smile. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"
"Looking for answers," Miranda replied, forcing herself to smile back. "Good to see you, Raphael."
"Answers, huh?" Raphael said, the right half of his face slightly slack-jawed. "Why don’t you come in and—may I ask what your servant is doing?"
Miranda glanced back, taking note of Mashek standing respectfully next to the entrance—and Bezel showing his wide back to them, having pried a display cabinet open and busily rooting through its contents. He lifted out some larger object—a gramophone, Miranda realized—and looked back at Raphael sheepishly.
"Hello, Raph," Bezel said, waving one hand awkwardly while clutching the gramophone with the other. "Sorry about this one. I’ve always wanted a music box in my chamber, but I keep forgetting to get one. So, when I saw yours—"
"Do we know each other?" Raphael interrupted him on a mild tone. "You don’t seem to be familiar."
"Name is Bezel," the brute said, equally unruffled. "I’ve been here once or twice, but no, I don’t think you know me. Umm—Mira, I’ll be right back. Just tucking this thing away in your car, alright?"
Miranda closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself to remain calm while Bezel opened the door and slipped outside with the gramophone. Not important. Not at all. The idiot’s antics were not why she was here.
"That was a hundred-year-old gramophone," Raphael remarked. "Custom-made by the finest Athorian craftsmen in Azinroq."
"Just ignore it for now," Miranda snapped angrily. "Raphael, I’ll be heading out with Mashek to meet his informants. I’m afraid I don’t have time to sit down for a chat."
Raphael nodded. "Is it about the rumors?"
"Rumors?"
"The ones about Krinfused people losing their power," Raphael said.
"No, that’s—excuse me?"
Miranda looked back at Mashek, but the dark-skinned man was already shaking his head. For someone who called himself the Head of Intelligence, he was remarkably clueless.
"Are you sure you can’t spare some time to talk?" Raphael asked her, gesturing vaguely with a powerfield-covered hand. "The library is right there, if you want some privacy."
Miranda sighed, but nodded reluctantly. She didn’t really know what privacy mattered at this point, but she had quite a few questions—and she suspected that her cousin would rather sit down and relinquish his hold on his powerfield. Although Raphael wouldn’t want anyone to treat him differently because of his hemiplegia, Miranda knew that he’d prefer not to waste his memories like this. Not that he would ever admit it, of course. The infamous Dawngrove-stubbornness had its drawbacks.
"Forgive me for asking," Raphael spoke as they entered the library, "But . . . Miranda, isn’t there an important meeting in Peridale that you were supposed to attend?"
"Yes, well," Miranda said, wincing inwardly. "As it happens, more important issues have come to fore."
"More important than the yearly meeting of the most influential Houses?"
"Yes," Miranda replied. "I can’t go into the details now, but—I have a couple of favors to ask from you, Raphael."
Raphael sat down by the reading table, gesturing for Miranda to do the same. He dismissed his powerfield and his posture slumped immediately, but his eyes remained fixed on Miranda as she took in their surroundings. The library—this library, as there were probably more of them within the mansion—wasn’t overly large by any means, but it was beautifully designed while being full of tomes, giving the room a cozy feel. Although this mansion was Miranda’s by right, she couldn’t remember ever seeing this room. The longer she looked, the more she recognized Raphael’s hand in this. There was something to this place that reminded Miranda of him.
"Favors?" Raphael prompted her, reminding her that she was actually supposed to be in a hurry.
"Yes, favors," Miranda said. "First, I’d like to know who sold us our newest warbeasts, and who exactly conducted the deal on our side."
"That won’t be difficult," Raphael said after a bit of thinking. "The records are here. Is there anything else?"
Miranda hesitated for a moment. The next part was a bit . . . difficult to justify.
"I also need you to look up who bought the first two of our Krinil Sculptures," she said. "You know, those small back sculptures that were originally in the Chamber of Ancestors."
"The Krinil Sculptures?" Raphael slurred, raising an eyebrow questioningly.
"Yes. I need anything you can find out about them, really. I’m not sure you can, not within the records of this mansion, but it’s worth a try."
"Alright . . . though I don’t see how this is important," Raphael said, frowning. "Do you intend to buy them back?"
"Something like that," Miranda said. "I’ll tell you more once we know more about them. Oh, and Raphael? I’ve one more condition; I need the report by the end of the week—preferably tomorrow."
"That’s . . . not too much time, but I’ll see what I can do."
"Thank you," Miranda said, relaxing back in her chair. At least one thing today seemed to be going smoothly. "So . . . you mentioned a rumour earlier."
"It started to happen earlier this week," Raphael elaborated. "A few people have lost any and all of their Krinil powers, seemingly at random. You haven’t heard about it?"
"No, I haven’t," Miranda admitted bitterly. "Does the Church’s newfound agenda have anything to do with this?"
"Ah, you mean the Purists?" Raphael asked. "To tell the truth, I’m not sure. If you ask them, they will probably explain this sudden loss of power as God’s punishment of the unworthy."
Miranda drummed her fingers on the armrest, thinking. As far as she knew, a Krinfused losing their power was virtually unheard of. Could this rumour have something to do with the time loop? It seemed more than likely, given how coincidentally it was happening now, of all times.
"It might be worth looking into," Miranda murmured. "Raphael, I hate to ask, but—"
"—I should investigate it?" Raphael asked with his lopsided smile. "Forgive me, Miranda, but isn’t this exactly what your spy-network is for? You’ve even brought your Head of Intelligence along."
"That's the point," Miranda said. "Considering how little he knows, I have my doubts about the spy-network’s effectiveness—which is precisely why I need your help."
It was left unsaid, naturally, that perhaps it wasn’t the network that skirted its duty; it could just as well have been the man at its head who withheld the information. But Mashek had been in House Dawngrove’s service for a long time now, so Miranda gave him the benefit of the doubt. She tried her best not to see shadows in every corner . . . though it was quite the task, in light of what Bezel had told her about her future.
Well, one thing at a time; meeting the informants came first. She could decide who to trust after she heard their reports and cross-checked the facts with other sources. Time loop or not, it was something she should have done long ago. She had been so focused on becoming a proper Lady—and a worthy Head—for her House, that she hadn’t realized her House was in dire need of a change too.
By the end of this day, Miranda would be one step closer to restoring her House.
One step—the first amongst many.