Slipping into the hard-to-define space between spaces, I spent so ti to get my bearings. Not in a literal sense; since there were no directions in this place, reorienting myself was, quite frankly, impossible. I ant it more in a 'figure out my exact goal' kind of sense, but as usual, I was quick to get sidetracked in the process.
As embarrassing as it was to admit it, I never really put much thought into this void. I just casually accepted it as 'sothing weird' and 'there's no point trying to figure out what it is', because it was just a ans to an end; to get to the not-dark not-room and its enigmatic inhabitants. However, when I paused for a second and looked at it objectively, it felt wholly alien.
I thought that coming here in person would maybe nudge so mory or information to the surface from the pile that other- dumped on , but no cigar. If anything, now that I had a slightly better understanding of my role and… dare I say 'nature'? Whatever. The point is that, sohow, this place beca all the more egregiously incomprehensible. Was it because it was 'outside' of the Simulacrum, I wondered. Maybe because I now had a firr grasp on my existence 'inside', the 'outside' now felt more uncomfortable.
But then that raised another question; how did I access this space between spaces? Once again, I didn't an that in the literal sense, as the process of 'stab the stubby phantom limb into the head' thod was pretty straightforward (if a bit disconcerting when spoken without adequate context), but on the taphysical level. When I did the sa to people inside the Simulacrum, I got to see their souls, or records, or whatever one wanted to call it. The bedrock of their existence, essentially.
Yet, when I did it to myself, I always ended up here, and I couldn't quite understand why, with other-'s mories proving completely useless once again.
Anyhow, just thinking while floating in the void of tiless space (or spaceless ti? One or the other) was rather pointless, so I mustered up my courage and started looking for the not-dark not-room. Before long, I found an anomaly, similar to the one from the last ti I ca here. This ti, I tried to be more careful as I slowly squeezed myself through the… well, it wasn't really a barrier, but more of a weird labyrinth kind of construct. It took so trial and error, but soon, the lack of space around roiled and changed into the shape of a not-particularly-not-well-lit not-exactly-chamber.
Because I was trying to be sneaky, as much as that applied to this situation, it took a while for the people in the not-room to coalesce into existence, and even longer for to understand their words.
"… find him anywhere," the level voice of The Woman stated, distorted and staticky like an old TV broadcast.
"I was ejected by him," the vague shape near her, his outlines vague and shimring, answered in a flat yet distasteful tone. "Are you questioning my words?"
"Not at all, *****************."
When she said that, her voice warped even further, the sounds replaced by a series of sensory stimuli, mostly images, but there were even slls and tastes, as if instead of using a label to refer to soone or sothing, she was trying to convey everything about the concept at once. I was familiar with this kind of thing, and better understood it thanks to rging with other-, but it was still a bit nauseating.
Untangling the ball of sensations and anings, I soon realized it was a different ans of referring to what I labelled Venerated Ergents. Or was it 'Venerable'? It didn't quite an sothing like 'honoured', but more like 'soone who deserves respect because of their age', and… honestly, I was no longer sure about the 'Ergent' part either.
I called the stellar-people her 'Ergents' as well, but it was more nuanced at that. In their case, it ant sothing like 'a combination of many root causes that erge from the state of non-erging', while the sa word in 'Venerated Ergents' ant more like 'a rging of many sources into one that erged from the state of non-erging'. There was a subtle difference there that I had a hard ti putting into words, but it felt really important.
"It doesn't change the fact that we can't find him," The Man's voice jolted out of my thoughts, and as his form gained a more defined outline, so did the others.
In particular, the aforentioned Venerated Ergent, the Predator Moon, seed to gain more substance as his attention shifted from the oceans of ruby on his right to the barren moon illuminated by endless lighting strikes on his left. He looked… softer? That was the best word I could use. His angular features were more rounded, and his alien visage beca a bit less unnerving. Was it because of what happened? Did the Red Sun, the Crowned Coalescence, do sothing to him? Or… was it that my impression changed because of what happened back then? Did the way I view them change how they appeared to my eyes?
I an, that made sense. These eldritch star-beings weren't humans, so their humanoid shapes were kind of… projected, I guess? Probably the sa way as so of their words, like 'Ergent' or 'Subrged One', were communicated through a bundle of sensory information at once. I had to actively decipher those, so their appearances might've been also influenced by how I interpreted them. That could've ant that, since I saw him getting unceremoniously thrown out of the Simulacrum, my apprehension towards the Predator Moon lessened, so he now appeared less threatening.
I couldn't help but wonder how far that effect could go, but this really wasn't the ti to experint with sothing like this. And not only because I was afraid that the trope of 'scary supernatural entity turns into a gothic lolita' trope would rear its ugly head.
"I… I have double… no, triple-checked everything, but there was no external access to the Simulacrum at the ti," The Boy spoke up as his form ca into view. For once, his skies weren't raining molten silicon, and the orbital rings in his sky looked rather pale. He was probably pretty out of it.
"Which ans that, by definition, he has to be inside," The Man stated emphatically, but The Woman shook her head in denial.
"No, that can't be right. We've checked the Simulacrum's internals at least a hundred tis, ever since he first disappeared. There's no way we couldn't have noticed if he was inside." She paused for a mont, her crimson waters turning turbulent as a new thought occurred to her. "Furthermore, it would be impossible for him to remain inside for this long. The Simulacrum would've collapsed a long ti ago if that was the case, and there's no way he would've endangered the entire system for just a prank."
"I-If the Simulacrum collapsed, it would be… catastrophic…" The Boy noted with a trembling voice, and the Predator Moon voiced his agreent in a soft voice.
"Indeed. Normally I would shut down the entire Simulacrum until we got to the bottom of this mystery, but if he were to resist, we could destroy it instead. We're lacking information, and moving hastily could prove to be detrintal to us."
"So, we're back to square one," The Man scoffed. "We don't know where he is, we don't know what he's doing, and we can't carelessly do anything about it but watch and try to figure out what he's trying to accomplish."
"B-B-But at least we know that he's still alive, right?" The Boy interjected, sounding almost desperate. "That ans the Venerated *************** One has no reason to suspect us anymore, right?"
Oh, that was another new term. Or torrent of sensation, rather. It felt like… maybe an especially polite way to refer to the Predator Moon? Sothing like 'Venerated Whose-nature/essence-is-of-predation/consumption/stalking-across-the-stellar-realm/space One'. Damn, that was a mouthful.
"True," the being of bones noted with a thoughtful hum, and while he didn't have any eyes, I could totally see him narrow them as he pondered. Then he suddenly had eyes. But when I rembered that he didn't, they disappeared. But before I could get more confused by that, I recalled that he was a celestial object, in the first place, and he was montarily replaced by a planetoid covered in teeth and maws. It was only for a split second though, before he let out another hum, and added, "I'm more concerned with the other one."
"You an, the second Free Actor?" The Woman blurted out, and when the Predator Moon nodded, her eyes shook and she tentatively asked, "Are you certain he was the one who spied on us back then?"
"The very sa entity," the bone-man nodded again, causing The Woman's waters to grow still, like the surface of a mirror.
"Leonard Dunning was always part of the scenario," The Man pointed out, and since they were talking about in the open like that, I felt like this was as good an opportunity as I would get to reveal myself and ask one of the bazillion questions I had.
But… this wasn't the Simulacrum. I didn't have any kind of out-of-context power advantage over these people. If anything, it was already shown the Predator Moon could injure , and the rest… while they weren't so overtly scary as that guy, I was a fish out of water here, to the point I couldn't even fathom any of them. However, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. As such, I made sure to secure my way out, ntally prepared myself, and then… my vision was suddenly filled with an endless desert of glowing blue sand whipped by stormy winds.
"What the—?"
Before I could react, the image, abruptly warped, as if folding in on itself, and took the form of a young girl in a frilly dress, with a finger on her lips.
"Psst!" she hissed with an impish smile, and after a beat, the colour drained from the not-dark-not-room and she let her hand down, accompanied by an echoing giggle that sounded like an especially enthusiastic bluebird was trying to sing underwater. "Hihihi! I can't believe you really showed up!"
"… Pardon?" I whispered, a bit worried about the other occupants of the room, but they seed to be frozen at the mont. In sharp contrast, The Girl suddenly grabbed hold of my hand and… wait, slow down! Since when did I have a hand here!?
"He told you wouldn't be able to hold back your curiosity, but I didn't think you would really co here again! You're so silly!" The Girl exclaid between giggles as she shook my hand, without any indication that she would let go.
"He? Are you talking about the ****************?"
I tried to say 'Crowned Coalescence', yet sohow I ended up expelling a tangled ball of impressions and ideas instead, and upon hearing it, The Girl's lips parted into an even wider grin.
"Yeah, that's him! Wow, you're already fluent! He's impressive, isn't he?"
"Erm, sure, but… Can we slow down? I don't quite understand this situation."
"Ah, right!" She finally let go and put her hands on her hips. "That's the point. He told to tell you that you should focus on stabilizing the Simulacrum on the inside, and just leave the rest to him. Got that?"
"Yes, but… I have so many questions."
Fidgeting, The Girl's glowing sandstorms quieted into a gentle breeze as she glanced between , and the still-frozen group behind her, and she ultimately shook her head.
"Not now. Let's talk later, okay? Can you leave on your own? Do you need help with the separator?"
"The what? Do you an that labyrinth thing? No, I can leave whenever I want, I just—"
"Really? Wow! When I was your age, I couldn't even touch sothing like that! So cool! You really are his ************, huh?"
"Wait, hold on. Let untangle that."
Tried as I might to stall her, we both noticed that the colour started to return to the not-dark-not-room, and so she hurriedly pushed on my chest (which, by the way, I also had now).
"I'll distract them! Hurry!" Caught up in the mont, I automatically retreated, and seeing that I was leaving, The Girl flashed another toothy smile and yelled, "See you later, *********************!", and she proceeded to energetically wave at until she completely disappeared from my vision.
A long mont later, I suddenly found myself in my body again, and I let out a startled gasp. Blinking, I stared at the ceiling in a daze following the sudden developnt… only to get startled again when Rinne's head suddenly popped up from the shadow my legs cast on the surface of the bed.
"Lewnard-donyo? Ish dere ahn erzsenshi?" she mumbled as she glanced around with a pair of sleepy eyes, and her woozy appearance drained whatever tension was still left in my body.
"Were you sleeping?" the question slipped through my lips, and she defiantly shook her head.
"N-No. Rinne never sleeps while on duty!"
"… You're not on duty right now."
"L-Leonard-dono knows what Rinne ant!"
Suppressing the urge to smirk and roll my eyes, I told her, "Whatever. There's no problem, so you can go back."
"Okay."
And with that, she disappeared back into my shadow, probably to continue her nap. As for , this random intermission caused my head to feel a little lighter. All in all, I absolutely wasn't expecting a developnt like this, but things could've gone way worse, so I had no reason to complain.
"So, The Girl and the Crowned Coalescence were working together, huh?" I whispered under my breath as I sat up on my bed, and rubbed my face.
There were still lots of things I didn't understand. In fact, my contact with The Girl arguably raised more questions than it answered, but it was still sothing. I was finally beginning to lift the curtain hiding the backstage of the play, and it seed like I had at least one friendly face on the other side. That was what we, in the business, call 'progress'. Not a lot of it, but enough for the day.
"Baby steps, Leo. Baby steps," I whispered under my breath, and after a glance at the clock on the wall, I got up turned on my PC. Not to contact anyone, or to take notes, but to write 'funny cat videos' into my search bar, and waste the ti away with that. Because after this day, I deserved at least this much.
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