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 methods understood by which a human being could be safely transported a significant distance by arcane means: Transpositioning, utilizing the World-Bending Arcana, or teleportation, using the Planar-Cutting Arcana.

The former functioned more or less as described in the name, "bending" reality so that one area of space connected with another, usually far away, but was limited in that it needed more or less a clear, open space between the starting point and the destination to operate properly. Obviously, if you pulled one area of space towards another and something substantial happened to be in the space in the middle subject to radical compression, bad (and more often than not, explosive) things would happen to everyone involved.

The latter didn't have this problem, instead pulling the target briefly through a higher plane with more than 3 dimensions, thus allowing them to move a lot relatively despite, from a human perspective, not really moving at all. However, the process of moving between planes 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 rarely employed.

The reason I bring this is up is because I'd been transpositioned innumerable times in my life, and teleported once, too (from one end of a room to another, as part of a university experiment back in Oreskios) but what I experienced in that moment was different.

First, there was a sense of upward movement, but not upward momentum. It was more like everything around me was falling gently downwards; the people, the room. But this lasted only a moment before it began in earnest.

It was sort of akin to the experience of going under for surgery, except it stopped short just at the last moment. I didn't fall unconscious, but my thoughts became, for want of a better word, simpler. Like right before one enters a dream. 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 movement of my breath through my body. The lingering sense that I was forgetting something, but couldn't quite place what that thing was.

I'm not sure how much time passed during that moment. 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 swiftly, the world returned. I was still sitting on the same bench, alongside the same people. I could still see the mural lining the sides of the walls. But now the view of the Mimikros below was gone, replaced with only hard stone beneath my feet.

I looked up, glancing around. Everyone else seemed 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 seemed to have bounced back with complete swiftness, already looking at her logic engine as she had been prior.

"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 transpositioning," I said. "That's for certain."

"Yes," Kam said. "It would seem I was off-base on this occasion, unless they did something 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 clothes.

"Oh, gods," Kamrusepa explained.

"Um! 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 me to cast somethin'?" 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 me off guard, that's all. Oh, God." Her face flushed up. "This is so embarrassing. Right when we got here..."

"I'm sure it's alright, dear," Mehit 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 something about, uh, the mess..."

"They'll have no trouble sending someone to clean it up, I'm certain," Mehit said, ironically sounding more motherly than she normally did when speaking with her daughter. "I'm sure this happens all the time-- 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 result, it would have had to impose some effect on the chemistry of our bodies. Either deliberately and directly, as Kam had suggested, or by doing something that would strain them so that it would happen incidentally.

The first seemed 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 time, 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 something was rapidly closing.

She looked at me for a moment. "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 eight years old. "It's just... A thought. Please, it'll put my mind at ease."

She raised an eyebrow. "Why, are you suspecting some manner of foul play? That it's actually been hours since we were moved, and the purpose of that peculiar phenomena just now was to disguise the passage of time, for some 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, something like that," I said.

She narrowed her eyes. "Come 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 moment, won't it?"

She contemplated this for a moment, then clicked her tongue. "Well, I suppose it's not entirely unfathomable. Perhaps if it was part of some kind of precautionary measure, or a side-effect of whatever means 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 time.

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 me at ease, but for some reason, I still felt unsatisfied. Like there was a shoe that hadn't quite dropped yet in the situation. Had I been expecting something different...?

Hey, I asked the voice from earlier. What was up with that?

Beats me, it said, or rather conveyed to me through the abstract pulses of shapeless ideas by which the mind communicates with itself. I'm just the messenger.

The messenger? For whom?

There was that feeling for a third time. Like I'd been here before, at some point. Having this conversation with myself...

"If it's all the same to everyone else, I would prefer to leave this place now," Mehit 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 me the creeps a bit."

"I'm glad someone 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 same? 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 moment.

"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 me 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?"

"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 they put us up in 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.

Finally, we headed up the stairway towards the light. At first, for just a moment, 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 somewhere on the surface could have been correct.

But then I looked, and saw it.

As it turned out, we were inside some large, dome-like structure, built out of a slightly tinted, segmented 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 Mimikros, but rather a murky darkness, in which I couldn't make anything out.

What surrounded us more immediately, 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, framed 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 mean, I was expecting something 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 seemed close to wild, and instead of green, it was coloured a shade of deep, rich blue, bringing to mind coral rather than something 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 Mimikros. 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 Mimikros that would produce the colour by other mechanisms, 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 memorial sites. It was strange...

There was something else awaiting us at the top of the steps. A welcoming party, consisting of two of the four men in our class, as well as a woman who I hadn't seen before, accomplanied by a few floating platforms of similar nature to the one following Kamrusepa. One of them was Seth, who looked much the same as he had in the morning... Except that some of his clothes were scuffed up, for some reason. He was grinning widely.

The other was someone who I haven't mentioned 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 Mimikros was settled, taking up their custom of home-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 matro-nymics. Eshti Whomeversdaughter, Uhrut Eshtison; you get the idea.

That being said, they still often took home names when they left for the outside world. But because they often didn't ascribe as much significance to place of birth, and sometimes didn't even keep records, they tended to use the names of entire 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 someone so young. His complexion was pretty similar to Ophelia, except with darker, more golden blonde hair, and brown eyes. He was clad in a black, woolen chlamys cloak over conservative white chiton, and held himself with something of a slump, like someone 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 met with their group, Seth waved, calling out to us.

"Hey!" He said, with a smirk. "You girls sure took your time, huh?"

"Go to hell, asshole," Ptolema said, her demeanor 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 one rarely heard from Kamrusepa. Like I mentioned earlier, she and Seth did not get along. But she was never the type to express her dislike of someone 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 me how aware he was of Kamrusepa's low opinion of him, though it was probably at least a little. They clashed openly every time the class needed leadership. "Technically it was his idea, though." He pointed in Bardiya's direction.

The other man smiled slightly, though a hesitance in his tone betrayed his awareness of the situation's awkwardness. "Yes, well, it didn't seem quite right to leave no one to welcome them, since Theodoros had his father waiting," he said in reply. Bardiya had a deeper, more resonant voice than you'd expect for someone 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 me," 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. I can wait."

"Um, actually, if you don't mind, I would appreciate it if you would help me with my bags." Mehit 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 Mehit 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 guys came in through a different entrance?"

"Yup, that's right." He nodded, then looked behind him. "There's another stairway like this one just over on the other side, built underneath some trees." He smirked. "I was planning to wait over in those bushes and jump out and surprise you when you came up, but he vetoed it."

That's peculiar, I thought. Splitting our group made some sense, but going that far...

"Because it was a perverse suggestion," Bardiya said, firmly.

"Seriously," Ptolema said. "You should take some 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 it feels like I'm the only person in this class with a sense of humor, sometimes."

"Mm, perhaps the only one with your particular brand of it, at least," Kamrusepa said, and then glanced towards me, 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-disappointment. "I assure you I was going to be quite charitable, though."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Ran said, crossing her arms.

"Heh, you're lucky to have someone like Ran in our class to keep Kam's bullying at bay, Su," Seth said. I detected a hint of passive-aggresssion in there.

"Oh, come on, I'm just teasing, Seth," Kam said, also with passive-aggression. "You needn't make me out to be such a nasty character."

"She's a good friend," I said, in a tone that I meant to be dry, but instead came out as surprisingly earnest. Ran gave me 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 me. Good heavens." She rolled her eyes, then paused, and regarded Ran and I with a peculiar searching look for just a moment. It looked as though she was thinking of saying something. But she must have thought better of it, because instead she let the moment pass and turned to face the boys, clapping her hands together. "But regardless! How was your trip? Better than ours, I hope."

Seth seemed to find even the notion of this amusing, letting out a lengthy laugh and a whistle, while Bardiya regarded this reaction for a moment, 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 mess, huh?"

Of everyone in the class, Bardiya had the most measured, adult persona, which led to a conception of him being as sensible one in the room to an even greater degree than myself, sometimes... Though there was another side to his character, that only came 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 argument with Ezekiel--"

Our group collectively groaned in various fashions. This was not an uncommon occurrence.

"--and then, after the ascension, we had a series of disagreements on the directions we had been given to the meeting 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 is constructed in a very deliberate fashion, so it's almost one giant building. 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 remember that, no," Kam said, quickly and dismissively.

"Yeah, you did," Ptolema said. "I remember 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 meeting 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 informed us were built into the walls of the bastion, then down into some lower chamber which she told us she could not enter, before hurrying us inside. After that, we took a seat, and were teleported here."

Alright, there were things about that which needed clarification, when contrasted with our own experiences.

"Uh, hold on," I said. "You were teleported?"

"Ehh, not exactly...?" Seth said, speaking up again. "We're not quite sure what happened, actually."

"Indeed," Bardiya said, with a small nod. "It was unclear what exactly happened to us - we experienced something of an altered state of consciousness for a few moments."

Oh. Well, I guess I jumped to at least one incorrect conclusion.

I'd also meant 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 same location and by the same means, when one would have sufficed perfectly well.

But the momentum of the conversation got away from me while I was composing my thoughts, and I let it slip my mind for the time being.

"Ah, that happened to us, too..." Ophelia said, speaking up for the first time. "It was very strange. Did you not have a chance to ask Theodoros's father about it?"

"Eheh, well, I kinda meant to," Seth said. "I guess we kinda got caught up in introductions, though-- You know how it goes." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Uh, you okay, Ophelia? You kinda look... I mean, not that you look bad or whatever, but you're kinda pale?"

"She's a little sick," Ptolema said.

"I'm... alright," she said.

"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 somewhat, giving the impression of a contemporary temple or government building, except that the exterior was painted in much more lively colours.

Above the front doorway, just about in eyeshot, was a symbol. A winged staff encircled by a serpent, which bit into its own tail. I recognized it from the letters we'd received, and from my paperwork I'd stumbled onto from time to time, growing up.

The seal of the Order of the Universal Panacea.

I steeled myself quietly, my free hand curling into a weak fist. This was it.

The beginning of the end.