Order of the Universal Panacea Sanctuary of Apsu, Gynaikeian Gateway | 5:09 PM | First Day
(From this point forward in this scenario, all further scenes with context provided will take place in the Sanctuary. As a result, it shall not be included as part of the location.)
In the present day, there were two thods understood by which a human being could be safely transported a significant distance by arcane ans: Transpositioning, utilizing the World-Bending Arcana, or teleportation, using the Planar-Cutting Arcana.
The forr functioned more or less as described in the na, 'bending' reality so that one area of space connected with another, but was limited in that it needed more or less a clear, uninterrupted area between the starting point and the destination, like the Aetherbridge had. It goes without saying, but if you pulled one section of space towards another and anything substantial happened to be compressed in the middle, bad (and more often than not, explosive) things would happen to all involved parties.
The latter didn't have this problem, instead slicing the target through a higher plane with greater than 3 dinsions, thus allowing them to move a lot relatively despite, from a human perspective, not really moving much at all. However, this process expended an absolutely ridiculous amount of eris unless it was mathematically refined to a degree that could take hours, even for a short distance. As a result, it was almost never employed for use on human beings, with the occasional exception of extrely high-ranking politicians.
The reason I bring this is up is because I'd been transpositioned innurable tis in my life, and teleported once, too (from one end of a room to another, as part of a university experint back in Oreskios) but what I experienced in that mont was different.
First, there was a brief sense of upward movent, but not upward montum. It was more like everything around was falling gently downwards; the people, the room. But this lasted only a mont before the greater part began in earnest.
It was sort of akin to the experience of going under for surgery, except it stopped short just at the last mont. I didn't fall unconscious, but my thoughts beca, for want of a better word, simpler. Like right before one falls asleep. I was in a place that was utterly dark, but I didn't feel afraid-- Rather, I could only think of the fabric of my clothes on my skin, the movent of my breath through my body. The lingering sense that I was forgetting sothing, but couldn't quite place what that thing was.
I'm not sure how much ti passed during that mont. It felt like both quite a while, and not very much at all, as though every second was stretched out to last a minute.
Then, quite suddenly, the world returned. I was still sitting on the sa bench, alongside the sa people. I could still see the mural lining the sides of the walls. But now the view of the Mimikos below was gone, replaced with only hard stone beneath my feet.
I looked up, glancing around. Everyone else seed to be in similar states of confusion and recovery. Kamrusepa was blinking and rubbing her eyes, Ran's head was lowered and she was taking deep breaths. Only Lilith seed to have bounced back instantaneously, already looking at her logic engine as she had been a mont ago.
"Ugh." I recognized the sound as coming from Ptolema, who was looking around, squinting. "What happened...?"
"Our transportation happened," Kamrusepa said, trying to sit upright. "Evidently. Not quite what I expected..."
"No kidding," Ptolema said. "What was that?"
"Not normal transpositioning," I said. "That's for certain."
"Yes," Kam said. "It would seem I was off-base on this occasion, unless they did sothing to cloud our minds deliberately." She shook her head sharply. "Though that couldn't have been possible, not without us feeling our resistances break--"
To my left, Ophelia's aura of prototypical feminine beauty was abruptly shattered as she made a high-pitched retching noise, craned her head forward, and then promptly vomited all over the floor, causing everyone to let out various words of exclamation. Lilith, the closest in proximity, instinctively leaned away and guarded her logic engine with the fabric of her mother's clothes.
"Oh, gods," Kamrusepa exclaid.
"Uh, are you alright, Ophelia?" I asked.
"Y-Yes," she said, taking a few deep breaths. "I'm sorry, I just, um--"
"It's okay! You're good!" Ptolema said, looking concerned. "Are you feeling vertigo, other symptoms? Do you need to cast sothin'?" She had a habit of slurring her speech a little bit whenever she was worried.
"N... No, I'm alright," Ophelia said, shaking her head. "That just... Caught off guard, that's all. Oh, goodness." Her face flushed up. "This is so embarrassing. Right when we got here..."
"I'm sure it's alright, dear," hit said, now having recovered herself. Despite the strange experience, she appeared suddenly at ease now that our trip was over. "Don't get yourself too worked up."
"I-I need to change my clothes and take a bath right away," she continued, shifting away from where she was sitting. "And do sothing about, uh, the ss..."
"They'll have no trouble sending soone to clean it up, I'm certain," hit said, ironically sounding more motherly than she normally did when speaking with her daughter. "I'm sure this happens all the ti-- Frankly, I felt a little ill myself."
"I'm not sure how I feel about not knowing what just happened to to us," Ran said, her tone grave.
I wasn't sure how I felt about it, either. Another basic fact about arcana was that it couldn't affect the mind directly - its creators in the Imperial Era had deliberately made that impossible because of how it could be be misused. So in order to create a change in our cognition, it would have had to impose so effect on the chemistry of our bodies. Either deliberately and directly, as Kam had suggested, or by doing sothing that would strain them so that it would happen incidentally.
The first seed outright nefarious, while the latter simply confusing. Either way, I wasn't happy about it.
"Well, I shouldn't think we'll have to wait much longer for an explanation, one way or another," Kam said dismissively. "Now, then--"
"Wait," I said.
She turned, looking in my direction. "Mm?"
"Can you verify the ti, again?" I asked, still not really certain why the words were leaving my mouth. I had only a jumble of vague thoughts, and an unexplainable sense of urgency. Like the window for sothing was rapidly closing.
She looked at for a mont. "You're acting a little odd, Su. Are you feeling entirely well, yourself?
"I'm fine," I said. This was a lie, though largely in a technical sense, since I was pretty sure I hadn't felt strictly fine since I was about fourteen years old. "It's just... A thought. Please, it'll put my mind at ease."
She raised an eyebrow. "Why, are you suspecting so manner of foul play? That it's actually been hours since we were moved, and the purpose of that peculiar phenona just now was to disguise the passage of ti, for so equally dark affair?"
I blinked. That was actually - relatively speaking - a pretty logical explanation for my actions... But in truth, the idea hadn't crossed my mind consciously whatsoever. I'd been going completely off gut instinct.
"...uh, sothing like that," I said.
She narrowed her eyes. "Co on. You're not normally one for this kind of conspiratorial thinking."
"It's not conspiratorial, just... Speculative," I said. "Go on, you must be a little curious. It'll only take a mont, won't it?"
She contemplated this for a mont, then clicked her tongue. "Well, I suppose it's not entirely unfathomable. Perhaps if it was part of so kind of precautionary asure, or a side-effect of whatever ans they used to transport us. After all, they've already been quite excessive in their caution..." She sighed, then lifted her scepter and spoke the incantation for a second ti.
T i m e - I n f e r r i n g
"...𒇲𒉎𒅇, 𒍥𒀭, 𒀀𒀀, 𒊹."
"There," she said. "And, as it turns out, it is the 28th of April 1409, at 5:10, and 27 seconds."
"Three and a half minutes," I muttered to myself.
"Quite. Not exactly the most challenging feat of mathematics I've seen you perform, I confess." She twirled the scepter once in her hand, then reattached it to her belt. "Hopefully that suffices to put your mind at ease. I'm afraid if you keep asking, I'm going to have to start inflicting you with luxury debt for it." She smirked.
By all rights it should have put at ease, but for so reason, I still felt unsatisfied. Like there was a shoe that hadn't quite dropped yet in the situation. Had I been expecting sothing different?
Hey, I asked the voice from earlier. What was up with that?
Beats , it said, or rather conveyed to through the abstract pulses of shapeless ideas by which the mind communicates with itself. I'm just the ssenger.
The ssenger? For whom?
There was that feeling for a third ti. Like I'd been here before, at so point. Having this conversation with myself...
"If it's all the sa to everyone else, I would prefer to leave this place now," hit said, her eyes briefly glancing to the slowly-expanding pool of vomit on the floor. "Whatever you're talking about over there, I think it would be better discussed in the accommodation has been set up for us."
"Uh, yeah," Ptolema said. "To be honest, this room is starting to give the creeps a bit."
"I'm glad soone said it," Ran said.
"Yeah," Ptolema nodded. "Geez, why's the mural even still with us? Did the walls move too, or is this room just painted to look the sa? Whatever."
We began gathering our things. In the equivalent position to what had been the terminus of the floating platform in the chamber we were in previously, this one had a set of stairs leading upward, from which a rich, warm light radiated. I noticed that Kamrusepa was smiling widely as we got ready, with more sincerity than one usually saw on her childish face. It made her look very young, for a mont.
"What'cha so happy about, Kam?" Ptolema asked, apparently having seen, too.
"I would've thought that was obvious," she replied cheerfully. "It's hitting that we're about to finally see the order's sanctuary. A secret that the public at large have been wondering of for hundreds of years, that only a handful have ever learned - and in just a few seconds, we'll be let in on it." She giggled to herself. "It's thrilling, don't you think?"
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"Heheh, I guess it is pretty neat," Ptolema said, grinning.
I tried to smile, too, but it was forced. At this point, it was better to try and be optimistic than let myself languish in worry and doubt-- But that was always easier said then done.
"I hope whatever room and board they give us is nice," Ptolema said. "Think I could use a bath, too!"
"Well, you were running around all morning," I said.
"That's you guys' fault," Ptolema said, which I suppose was correct, since it was because we'd wandered off soplace weird for lunch that she'd had to deliver the coordinator's ssage in the first place.
Finally, we headed up the stairway towards the light. At first, for just a mont, I was surprised to see that we appeared to be outdoors, with the stone floor giving way to dirt. I briefly considered if Kam's theory about us having been transported to sowhere on the surface could have been correct.
But then I looked, and saw it.
As it turned out, we were inside so large, do-like structure, built out of a slightly tinted, segnted glass, reminiscent of a greenhouse. Overhead, several arcane lamps emanated false sunlight to the ground below. Beyond that glass was not a view of the Empyrean or even of the skies of the Mimikos, but rather a murky darkness, in which I couldn't make anything out.
What surrounded us more imdiately, however, was a garden. It was beautiful and well-kept, strikingly so; flower bushes of all breeds, even those that were seasonally incompatible - roses, dahlias, lilies, tulips and hyacinth, many more I didn't recognize - lined a path that cut a cross-shape through the area, frad by several tall willow trees. The scent of pollen in the air was thick and rich, more than you'd ever find in the city.
"Oh, wow," I heard Ptolema mutter. "This place is, uh... I an, I was expecting sothing indoors..."
"It's beautiful," Kamrusepa said, her eyes alight. "But what is it? Where are we?"
But funnily, it wasn't the flowers or trees that drew my attention. Rather, it was the grass, of all things. It had been allowed to grow just a little so that it seed close to wild, and instead of green, it was colored a shade of deep, rich blue, bringing to mind coral rather than sothing you'd see on land. It gave the area a surreal, unearthly atmosphere.
This was Skia, or Shadow Grass, that grew on the lower planes of the Remaining World. You almost never saw it on the Mimikos. Before the collapse of the old world, plant life was made green by the presence of chlorophyll, but chlorophyll required iron to be synthesized. Because it could no longer be found in any life save for human beings, in their labours to mimic the old world, the Ironworkers engineered plants for the Mimikos that would produce the colour by other chanisms, but in their earlier trials, they hadn't bothered - hence them taking on shade typical to copper-based life.
It was funny to see it here, of all places. Most people associated it with the Great Interplanar War from three centuries ago. You often saw it growing at morial sites. It was strange...
There was sothing else awaiting us at the top of the steps. A welcoming party, consisting of two of the four n in our class, as well as a woman who I hadn't seen before, accompanied by a few floating platforms of similar nature to the one following Kamrusepa. One of them was Seth, who looked much the sa as he had in the morning... Except that so of his clothes were scuffed up, for so reason. He was grinning widely.
The other was soone who I haven't ntioned yet: Bardiya of Tuon.
No relation to Kamrusepa, despite what you might think. Though most of the world had slowly lost their unique naming conventions to Inotianization over the centuries since the Mimikos was settled, taking up their custom of birthplace-naming, the Rhunbardic cities - probably because of when they'd made enemies of the entire world during the Tricenturial War - had bucked the trend and held onto theirs, still using patro- (and more rarely, matro-) nymics. Eshti Whoversduttar, Uhrut Eshtisunus; you get the idea.
That being said, they still often took ho nas when they interacted with the outside world so not as to upset any bureaucratic systems. But because they often didn't ascribe as much significance to place of birth, and sotis didn't even keep records of it, they tended to use the nas of entire towns or cities rather than neighborhoods or family estates. As a result, overlap was very common, and Tuon was the second largest city in the entire kingdom.
Bardiya was a bit over average height, with broad shoulders, and had a face that was a little too severe to be called conventionally attractive for a man - strong nose and brow, sharp jaw, and a long face for soone so young. His complexion was pretty similar to Ophelia, except with darker, more golden blonde hair that curled slightly at its terminus around his ears, and brown eyes. He was clad in a black, woolen chlamys cloak over a conservative white himation, and held himself with sothing of a slump, like soone who spent too long doing desk work.
The fact that they were here dispelled any remaining uncertainty as to if there were further steps in our journey. This was it: The sanctuary itself.
As soon as our gazes t with their group, Seth waved, calling out to us.
"Hey hey!" He said, with a smirk. "You girls sure took your ti, eh?"
"Go to hell, asshole," Ptolema said, her deanor instantly changing upon him speaking. "I know you guys left fifteen minutes earlier than us."
"Hey, I'm out here waiting out here for you, aren't I?" he asked, holding his hands out to the sides. "And after I treated you to lunch earlier and everything, too."
"Yeah, for one luxury debt at a street stand," Ptolema said. She stuck her tongue out in faux-disgust.
"It's very considerate for you to wait out here for us, Seth," Kam said, smiling widely. "Very gentlemanly."
Though her words were much kinder than Ptolema's on the surface, they were laced with a subtle underlying hostility that you didn't normally hear from Kamrusepa. Like I ntioned earlier, she and Seth did not get along. But she was never the type to express her dislike of soone in an upfront fashion - in fact, the people she was most polite to were those she would complain the most about behind their back.
"Hey, thanks!" Seth replied. It wasn't clear to how aware he was of Kamrusepa's low opinion of him, though it was probably at least a little. They clashed openly every ti the class needed leadership. "Technically it was his idea, though." He stuck his thumb in Bardiya's direction.
The other man smiled slightly, though a hesitance in his tone betrayed an understanding of the situation's awkwardness. "Yes, well, it didn't seem quite right to leave no one to welco them, since Theodoros had his father waiting," he said in reply. Along with his face, Bardiya had a deeper, more resonant voice than you'd expect for soone of his age and build. It was authoritative and intellectual, though with a hint of conscientiousness that betrayed the immaturity of the speaker. "Of course, that was before the servant arrived..." He gestured towards the woman.
"Hey, don't worry about ," she said. I hadn't turned to focus on her yet, but her voice was relatively low for a woman, and sounded very relaxed. "Catch up. Gives a sec to smoke."
"Um, actually, if you don't mind, I would appreciate it if you would help with my bags." hit stepped forward towards the servant. "I'm not part of their class, and I'd like to just get to my room. There are rooms ready, I hope?"
"Yeah," the woman said, nodding. "Just load them up here..."
"How long have you been out here?" I asked Seth, while hit pulled Lilith forward and began loading her luggage on to one of the floating platforms.
"Not too long," Seth said. "'bout ten minutes, maybe fifteen? Theo's dad sent us over here when we said we wanted to wait for you to show up."
I blinked. "You ca in through a different entrance...?"
"Yup, that's right." He nodded, then looked behind him. "There's another stairway like this one over on the other side, built underneath so trees." He smirked. "I was planning to wait over in those bushes and jump out and surprise you when you ca up, but he vetoed it."
That's peculiar, I thought. Splitting our group made so sense, but going that far...
"Because it was a perverse suggestion," Bardiya said, firmly.
"Seriously," Ptolema said. "You should take so lessons from Bardiya on how to be less of a creep, Seth."
"Ah, c'mon, it would've been fun!" he said, and shook his head. "I swear, I know you're all supposed to be a bunch of super-geniuses, but sotis it feels like I'm the only person in this class with a sense of humor."
"Mm, perhaps the only one with your particular brand of it, at least," Kamrusepa said, and then glanced towards , with a coy expression. "As a matter of fact, Su was actually showing off one of her jokes earlier--"
"Give her a break, Kam," Ran said, my face starting to flush up in anticipation of a retelling of the story. "We're all tired out from the tip."
"Oh, very well," Kam said, with mock-disappointnt. "Really, I assure you I was going to be quite charitable."
"Yeah, I'll bet," Ran said, crossing her arms.
"Heh, you're lucky to have soone like Ran in our class to keep Kam's bullying at bay, Su," Seth said. I detected a hint of passive-aggresssion in there.
"Co now, I'm just teasing, Seth," Kam said, also with passive-aggression. "You needn't make out to be such a nasty character."
"She's a good friend," I said, in a tone that I ant to be dry, but instead ca out as surprisingly earnest. Ran gave a peculiar glance, the looked a little embarrassed herself, turning to face the ground. "But I'm used to handling Kam at this point, I think."
"Handling . Good heavens." She sighed, then paused, and regarded Ran and I with a peculiar searching look for just a mont. It looked as though she was thinking of saying sothing. But she must have thought better of it, because instead she let the mont pass and turned to face the boys, clapping her hands together. "But regardless! How was your trip? Better than ours, I hope."
Seth seed to find even the notion of this amusing, letting out a lengthy laugh and a whistle, while Bardiya regarded this reaction for a mont, then spoke to us in his usual, straight-laced tone. "It was... A little troubled, perhaps."
"Wow," Ptolema said. "If Bardiya's saying it was troubled, it must have been a real ss, huh?"
Of everyone in the class, Bardiya had the most asured, adult persona, which led to a conception of him being as sensible one in the room to an even greater degree than myself, sotis... Though there was another side to his character, that only ca out under certain circumstances.
He allowed himself a small chuckle himself, pushing a stand of blonde hair behind his ear before speaking. "To briefly summarize, we almost missed our Aetherbridge ascension due to Theodoros being delayed on account of a problem with his luggage, which incited an argunt with Ezekiel--"
Our group collectively groaned. Incidents involving him were not an uncommon occurrence.
"--and then, after the ascension, we had a series of disagreents on the directions we had been given to the eting with the orders envoy in the Empyrean Bastion."
"I still think it was really weird that they were counting alleyways as proper streets," Seth said. "Who does that?"
"It's only sensible," Kamrusepa said, her tone authoritative. "Unlike in conventional cities, where alleyways are largely a product of urban planning, the bastion was constructed in a very deliberate fashion, so it can all but be considered one giant building. Thus, why would a passageway not be counted, regardless of whether or not we perceive it as alley-esque?"
"Uh... didn't you need Ran to point out that the directions were counting them, Kam?" Ptolema asked.
"I'm not sure I rember that, no," Kam said, quickly and dismissively.
"Yeah, you did," Ptolema said. "I rember Ran said that we needed to make a left, and you said, 'are you sure'--"
"In any case," Kam said, loudly. "What happened after that, Bardiya?"
"We were about fifteen minutes late to our scheduled eting as a result," he continued. "Their agent, a masked woman, rushed us quickly through a carriage journey to a series of stone hallways, which she inford us were built into the walls of the bastion, then down into so lower chamber which she told us she could not enter, before hurrying us inside. After that, we took a seat, and were teleported here."
Wait, does he an it was more normal for them...?
"Hold on," I said. "You were teleported, specifically?"
"Ehh, not exactly...?" Seth said, speaking up again. "We're not quite sure what happened, to be honest."
"...indeed," Bardiya said, with a small nod. "It was unclear what exactly took place - we experienced sothing of an altered state of consciousness for a few monts, and then we were."
Oh. Well, perhaps I'd been jumping to conclusions.
I'd also ant to ask them about the room they'd been led into, and to maybe speculate a little bit about why exactly there were apparently two ways in to the place from the sa location and by the sa ans, when one would have sufficed perfectly well. But the montum of the conversation got away from while I was composing my thoughts, and I let it slip my mind.
"Ah, that happened to us, too..." Ophelia said, speaking up for the first ti. "It was very strange. Did you not have a chance to ask Theodoros's father about it?"
"Eheh, well, I kinda ant to," Seth said. "I guess we kinda got caught up in introductions, though-- You know how it goes." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Uh, by the way, are you... Okay, Ophelia? You kinda look... I an, not that you look bad or whatever, but you're kinda pale?"
"She's a little sick," Ptolema said.
"I'm... fine, thank you," she said, doing her best effort at a smile.
"Putting that aside, did you ask what this place even is?" Kamrusepa asked, looking around. "I've never seen anything quite like it."
"Yes, it is quite remarkable," Bardiya said, looking upward. "It's a closed ecological system, of course, but advanced even within that context. Theodoros drew a comparison to a snow globe when we arrived."
"Do you know what's outside?" I asked.
"Not yet," he said.
"Well then, why are we standing around here!" Kamrusepa said, enthusiasm picking up once again. "We're here, we've greeted one another. Let's get moving! You said Theodoros went on ahead with his father?"
"Yes," Bardiya said, nodding. "To the guesthouse. It's just over there."
He pointed, and I followed his finger. There, down the path and shaded by a number of trees, was a moderately-sized, two story building, encircled by more brightly-blooming flowers. Built of pale marble, it had an antiquated appearance, though only sowhat, giving the impression of a contemporary temple or governnt building, except that the exterior was painted in much more lively colours.
Above the front doorway, just about in visible distance, was a symbol. At first glance, it was the most typical of dical symbology, the rod of Asclepius - a winged staff encircled by a serpent. But in this case, it crossed over an the ouroboros, with the serpent biting into its own tail. I recognized it from the letters we'd received, and from paperwork I'd stumbled onto from ti to ti, growing up.
The seal of the Order of the Universal Panacea.
I steeled myself quietly, my free hand curling into a fist. This was it.
The beginning of the end.
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