Author: Lurina

200: Shadow of a Shadow (𒐇) - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

It's embarrassing to admit, but at this point my investigation just kinda stalled out for the next few hours. It wasn't like I didn't try, but after Phaidime came back, we reached that inevitable outcome whenst a critical mass of people, boredom, and isolation intersect: Bahram suggested we try playing a board game. Tuthal's passions had been exhausted sufficiently that he no longer had the will to resist, so there was no escaping it. Even the detective ended up being roped in.

We ended up playing a 'modern' Rhunbardic game as opposed to something classic, so what followed was 2-3 hours of rolling dice according to an overly-complex rule set, trading paper money and colorfully-marked wooden chips, and almost a dozen extensive arguments about the definition of the words 'action' and 'immediately'. During this process, the conversation was held in a vice grip. It would have been easier to get information from a bear.

I had to wonder - knowing that all (or, well, at least most) of the people here explicitly had signed up to play a murder mystery game - why this was happening. Like, sure, it was a fidelous (great, now he's got me using made-up words) event for our situation: If we really were a small group of mostly middle-aged people stuck in a box in the middle of nowhere before the invention of modern logic engines, then yes, board games were likely in the cards. But like, did we really need the situation to be that immersive? Couldn't a few contrivances be arranged to keep this fun?

Yes, yes, I know we've been over this multiple times: What I found fun as a mortal person in this purgatorial was not going to be the same as someone who'd potentially been around for a geological epoch. But still, it was kind of false advertising, wasn't it? Was this kind of shit how they hazed new people?

Sitting around for hours with nothing to really focus on beyond how many trade depots I controlled on the game board, I started to feel really physically uneasy in this body. The weird automatic movements were giving me an increasing sense of being bound and unable to move properly, and I dreaded the possibility of needing to take a piss. I started to regret having rushed into this-- Maybe I ought to have focused on Kamrusepa's weird riddle instead.

I did manage to learn one new piece of useful information. After Phaidime returned, Summiri briefly showed up too, though despite Bahram's pleas she quickly fled back to her room after offering only a single awkward sentence ('hello, sorry'), apparently only having emerged to gather food and drinking water from the bar. However, on her way back, she was in such a hurry that she left both the doors to the rest car wide open, and after this no one bothered to close them again.

Therefore. By carefully choosing my seating once the board game phase started in earnest, I was able to observe the hallway leading to all of the private rooms, and then - over the course of several hours and bathroom breaks - work out which belonged to who. In descending order, from the ones closest to the engine to those directly adjacent to the observation car, they belonged to: Summiri, me, Tuthal, the mysterious gap, Phaidime, the detective, Hildris, an unoccupied room (though it wasn't out of the question one of the staff was using it, I suppose), and finally Bahram.

In other words, I'd seemingly nailed it again. Phaidime was right next to the gap. And Tuthal was on the other side. She was primed to be the killer, and he was primed to be the first victim.

No, no. It was all too cute. Skepticism had taken root in me: There just had to be more to this. I was certain of it.

Dinner was served quite early: Gaizarik arrived to announce that we ought to start making our way to the dining car before it was even six. I wasn't sure if this was abnormal during this time period - how common was gas lighting? Were people still oriented largely around daylight? - and had no way of learning, so I accepted it uncritically. Half an hour later, we were all seated at the long table in the dining car. On the right was Tuthal, Bahram, and Summiri, while on the left was Phaidime, Hildris, me, and finally the detective.

...who, incidentally, had transparently waited for me to take my seat before sitting down himself. Not a good sign.

The meal itself was served over five small courses: Ground walnut and cheese balls, clam and lobster soup with rye bread, something the chef called 'tortured goose', salad with sliced pickle and tomato, and finally a cardamom souffle. I low-key hated the whole thing, which was presented beautifully but was kinda mixed in terms of actual flavor, presumably for reasons of historical accuracy.

For whatever reason, the table was quite large and the seats rather far apart, making it difficult to carry out a conversation with the people who weren't directly next to you-- Unless you were Tuthal and Phaidime and willing to just shout at the top of your lungs, that is. But other than intermittent demands from the former that the Bahram 'get on with' the distribution of the inheritance (he insisted we wait until the meal was over) and intermittent speculation as to the nature of the process, most people were focused on eating.

It was during the third course, which according to the chef - standing somewhat uncomfortably off to the left between servings - was in fact goose that had been posthumously drowned in wine and beaten to soften the meat (history truly is magical), that the detective finally made his move, lowering his head and craning his neck towards me about half way through, his comically-gruff voice low.

"You need to be careful, girl," he told me. "You've been asking dangerous questions."

I glanced at him, then looked back to my plate, taking another bite of dark red meat. I didn't engage with stock phrases.

He cleared his throat, then raised his voice slightly, like he thought I hadn't heard him. "You're dealing with something darker than you think."

"Please speak directly if you're trying to tell me something, detective," I told him softly, not looking up a second time.

He grunted. "You asked me what the case I took for Rastag was."

"I thought you said telling me about it would be bad for business."

"It is," he explained, his tone grave. "But things have changed. The situation has advanced."

I almost snorted a chunk of goose through my nose. What the fuck did he mean, 'the situation has advanced'? He'd spent the last four hours sitting in the same room as me losing at kid's games! And before that, he'd been on the opposite side of the train to anyone in the plot who actually mattered! What could possibly have advanced?! He was transparently just saying shit to justify trying to drive the plot forward without any basis in anything! I mean, I was doing that too, but at least I had plausible deniability!

It's okay. It's okay. Him being incompetent just makes you look good, remember. I took a sharp breath. "Go on, then."

"You assumed that I solved a case for him earlier, but what I actually said was that I 'helped him with something'," he explained in a vaguely smug tone, as if pulling back the veil on some genius foreshadowing. "I wasn't always a private investigator. Back in the late 500s when I was still finding my feet in the world, I did dirtier work. Was more of what you might call an information fixer. I didn't just dig things up, I buried them too. Whatever paid."

"Okay," I said.

"I did some things back then I'm pretty ashamed of," he said without sounding particularly ashamed. "Worst of it was covering up crimes, but what I did for Rastag was different, unusual. He wanted me to help build something for him."

"Like a train?" I inquired. "Is that where this is going?"

"No." He shook his head. "An identity."

"'Rastag' doesn't exist," he informed me, his voice quieter still now, to the point I could barely make it out. "At least, not outside of paperwork. I made him up. Hometown, education up to tertiary school, whole fucking family tree." He took a sip from a glass of red wine. "I met him not too far from here back then, out in the boonies near Karat, back when it was barely a proper town at all. Guy came from out of these parts, best I could tell-- Wild hair, dressed in rags, still picking up the common tongue. He'd tracked down my apartment listening to some drunk from the local underworld, and practically begged me to get him papers for cheap. That's no joke; the kid literally fell on his knees, telling me he'd do anything, that he'd owe me his life."

I narrowed my eyes. This was sort of an interesting turn, even if I felt like I'd already predicted the broad strokes. "These parts-- You mean he was from the steppe."

"Well, I guess that ain't quite right," he corrected himself. "He was from Gaea specifically, or I'd least I figured so from the accent."

If it's slipped your mind, the Gaen Steppe was the region of the Rhunbardic frontier that had been closest to the kingdom's original borders once it began to expand. It had generally always had a reputation of being more 'civilized' (read: richer) than the rest, and in modern times it was the only of the three Exarchates that was considered to have a strong economy and meaningful political influence. Since it bordered central Viraak, it was also a bit of a melting pot, being considered the only place in continental Rhunbard where the food wasn't completely bland.

More importantly--

"That region would have already been annexed by then," I pointed out. "Why would he need your help to become a citizen of the Kingdom? I know he was from the middle of nowhere even on paper, so it couldn't have been about status."

"Always wondered that myself, to tell you the truth," the detective mused. "Maybe he just wanted to fake his education, or needed to cut ties with something. The process of registering a citizen can unearth some things people might prefer to keep buried. They have an arcanist do a seed check, talk to some people who know you, do a physical..."

I nodded slowly. gender twist gender twist gender twist gender twist gender twi--

"But maybe it was just about building his personal mythology. Wouldn't make much difference for most, but if you're trying to sell yourself at court, it's probably a little better to be some salt-of-the-earth type from the heartland than one step away from a foreigner." He dropped his brow. "I don't know why I helped him. He didn't even give me a good sob story, and could only pay a fraction of my normal fee, which was already bottom-rung when it came to this sort of work. I want to say I saw something in his eyes that day, something that just told me this was a guy who knew how to bend the world over his knee - somebody you'd want to owe you a favor - but that might just be me trying to make sense of it all in hindsight."

"If what you're saying is true," I began, "then who is the woman sitting two seats away from me?"

"That's a fucking million arda question," he mumbled flatly. "Maybe she really is his sister by blood, but I'd sure as hell never heard of her before today."

Okay, so he hasn't jumped to the obvious conclusion himself yet, I thought. Is there a reason for that, or is he just incompetent?

"Anyway, if I had thought that, then I was fucking on to something. Because within a couple years of us meeting, he'd already scrambled way over my head on the social hierarchy. He'd got a scholarship into a fancy school and was making a name for himself at a clip." He stabbed his goose with a fork, once, and placed a chunk in his mouth while keeping his eyes facing dead ahead. "Since then I've benefited from something of a pension. A modest sum every few years, delivered discreetly to my address. Regardless of where that address might be at any given time."

"He was keeping track of you, you mean."

"I've always been the type who feels bad if I don't reciprocate when somebody starts sending me birthday cards," he said. Gods, these lines. "So I decided to return the favor, and kept an eye on him over the years myself. What I noticed was, to put it lightly, an interesting pattern. You know that there used to be two other members of their little club?"

"...yes," I said. "I heard about that. "Leo and Nikkala."

"The girl is the one who's interesting. You know what happened to her?"

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"She went missing towards the end of the time they were all at university," he explained. "I've had to piece the story together from bits and pieces of second hand information over the years, but to the best of my understanding it goes like this: During winter recess, they go on a little trip to a lodge Tuthal's family owns down by the Ysaran border, chasing the good weather. While they're there, Tuthal and Hildris get into a fight one night, and he and Leo end up going out drinking. Your mother tags along for a bit, but goes home early once Tuthal wants to hit up another tavern past closing hour." He glanced at me for just a moment as he mentioned Kasua's mother. "That next morning, Nikkala's gone missing."

So far, so predictable. "Missing."

"Yep. The story they give is that she takes a walk in the middle of the night and never comes back. There one day, gone the next." His eyes darted melodramatically between the other individuals at the table - save for Summiri, who was currently attempting to scrape all the sauce off a chunk of meat while wearing a meticulous expression - before returning to their resting position. "Obviously the watch investigates, but they don't find a thing. The case goes cold, and life goes on."

Despite what I said earlier about thinking about this sort of explicitly artificial roleplay as different from the other stuff people did in Dilmun, I had to admit that there'd been a little fear in the back of my mind that it would all end up coming more naturally to me than I'd expected, that I'd enjoy too much and too completely and be revealed as a hypocrite; someone who liked the vibes of concrete identity but was actually just playing a more complicated form of dress up, like the Lady had suggested.

The longer the day went on, though, the more I actually just felt like I was sincerely quite bad at roleplay, or maybe even empathy. Like, in this moment, I was trying really hard to put myself in Kasua's shoes, but I just couldn't do it. How would I feel, learning that my mother had potentially been involved in a murder and kept it hidden from me for my entire life? I didn't have a clue! It was completely outside of my frame of reference.

I'd thought I was good at lying but was actually bad at it. I'd thought I was (relatively) good at understanding people but was actually bad at it. What was I good at, aside from math and puzzle-solving?

In lieu of a faux-sincere reaction, I continued to say what would move the plot along. "You think they killed her."

"I think they did something, I'll say that for damn sure," he said for damn sure. "But that's not even the only time 'something' happened. Like I said, I've been keeping score, and since then people have been disappearing around Rastag his entire life. Low-ranking workers, mostly, but also kids from his little philanthropy operation, couple people displaced by his railway work... Anyone who won't be missed."

I frowned. "...there's no pattern between any of those things."

"Not on the face of it."

Now this was a bit of an unexpected turn. Like I'd already suspected, Nikkala and Kasua's mothers deaths were probably related to Rastag's hidden identity. But why would random people be dying?

Unfortunately, what I had just heard would be the last useful piece of background information I got. Because things were about to go completely off the fucking rails.

"So what are you suggesting, detective?" I asked. "That he was some kind of serial killer?"

"Truth be told, I'm not sure he's even human."

I blinked. Did he say that? No, he definitely said that.

"What?" I eventually asked.

"You heard what Bahram was talking about earlier. My working theory is that he's some kind of skinchanger," he said, as if this were a perfectly reasonable jump to make. "Again, the whole thing is unnatural, how he went from no one to one of the most respected industrialists in the country in the space of a single century. And everyone knows about his knowledge of the spirit world. It's undeniable that there's something unnatural about him." He swirled his wine, the dark fluid reflecting the fading sunlight through the windows. "I think he feeds on them. Maybe not literally, but in some capacity. Drains their essence."

The air between us was silent.

"Detective," I stated slowly, "there's no such thing as skinchangers."

"If not that, then some kind of shaman," he said gravely. "Though to be honest, whether he was once a normal man or not doesn't mean much to me. All I care about is what he became."

"That's not-- I--" I took a sharp breath, forcing myself to settle down before Kasua's character voice completely dissolved. "I mean that you're describing supernatural concepts, mister Tell-Rayf. Superstition. Fantasy. I thought you said you were a private investigator?"

"You're fucking right I am," he replied, his tone was so hard-boiled I'd have sent it back at the restaurant. "And I specialize in the dark arts."

My pupils dilated as my soul left my body.

"I don't expect you to believe me, of course. An innocent girl like you wouldn't know about these things. But over the course of my years, I've dealt with countless cases of hauntings, curses, and even possessions. And there's one universal truth through it all: That kind of power doesn't come without sacrifice. Terrible sacrifice." He shook his head. "I don't believe a damn word about him being dead. A being like him can probably shift forms like we change our clothes. He could be anyone sitting at this table-- Even you."

"Unngh," I said, my mouth open slightly.

"I won't lie to you - though I'm sure you have a hunch yourself - there's a chance he's behind whatever happened to your mother. Though since they found her body, he might not have done the deed himself." He glanced to me. "I'd be willing to bet that, at bare minimum, everyone who was there that night knows his true nature, and is likely an accomplice. So even though it's too late to walk off this train now, I'll say it again: Lay low and leave this to me. I created this monster, so it's my responsibility to put it down."

I was at a loss for how to even process this development. Like, this was definitely supposed to be a normal murder mystery, wasn't it? An orthodox murder mystery. The guy I'd spoken to over the resonator had said that explicitly, and the guide had outright said that 'transmundane abilities of all kinds are forbidden'. That didn't just mean the Power was ruled out, but anything that went against conventional physics. (I was 90% sure it meant that. 80% sure.)

So how-- How was I supposed to take this? Had I misunderstood Noah's character, and he was actually being played as intentionally buffoonish? Or was the player just outright rebelling against the logic of the story to do his own weird thing? Or maybe the rules only applied to the tricks within the story, not the background.

This was the biggest problem with mysteries as a genre. It's a common observation - I might have even made it myself earlier - that being able to engage with a text not just as a story but as a solvable puzzle is predicated on a sort of implicit contract between the reader and the author. The reader needs to extend their faith that the story's answers will be coherent and satisfying, while the author needs to make those answers coherent and satisfying. If either side fails to do this, then the story is ruined. Either the reader doesn't even try, or they're left disappointed at the end.

Now, if you accept that idea on its face, then it almost comes across as a little romantic; taking a leap of faith into someone else's arms. But if we're being honest here, like really fucking brutally honest, then we have to address the elephant in the room: 95% of mysteries are completely unsolvable.

It's not even anyone's fault. Humans are just too different from one another. Half the time we can't even get on the same page in conversation; what hope do we have when it comes to a 3-400 page or 1.5-2.5 hour narrative? Values, emotional truths, personal and cultural context - all of these gulfs divide us. You can show two people the same exact description of a room and get wildly different interpretations, never mind vaguer matters like behavior and physical feasibility. Once you get to things like symbolism and subtext, you might as well not even bother. It was the same reason that allegory and satire didn't work, and those genres weren't even trying to trick you.

Do you remember a while earlier, when I was first showed those rules that supposedly governed what happened in the conclave, and I thought it was a joke? The reason for that was the mystery genre has tried so many conceits like that to fix this problem, to try to force both the story and the reader's interpretation of it into a set of ironclad logic. But the thing is, it never actually works! Language is just too vague. What does 'transmundane' mean? What does 'alive' mean? What does 'murdered' mean? It was like how the Grand Alliance changed how the Covenant was interpreted every few generations. The law didn't change, but people saw it differently. There could never be an absolute meaning.

The only thing that did work, that did make mysteries solvable (occasionally), was what I was talking about when I said this felt like it was being written for me: Tropes. Cultural signposting. That was why Shiko and I had always laughed together whenever they brought up ideas like the Ship of Theseus, or quantum indeterminacy, or more elementary elements like twins or gender twists or missing corpses. The very thing that made mysteries fun was the sense of having no idea what the truth was, but the only thing that could make them work at all was narrowing the possibility space until it felt like you knew the story already. It was a paradox.

So why did I like them?

Despite feeling so discombobulated, I managed to force out one extremely awkward question in followup to Noah's manifesto. "Rastag, did he-- When you met him, the first time. What did he look like?"

The detective seemed confused. "I told you. He was dressed in rags. Looked like he wandered straight in from the wilderness."

"...not like that," I said. Derision was slipping into my tone, which was good because Kasua would also think this was all really stupid. "What did he look like physically? How old was he?"

He frowned. "Why does that matter?"

"Just answer the question. If you can't remember, that's fine."

He considered for a moment, then shrugged. "Dunno. He was a kid, basically. Scrawny, thin-faced." He gave a furtive pause, his eyes again gazing ahead as if facing some imperceivable foe. "Of course, for a creature like him, assuming a fair form to make his case would be nothing out of the ordinary."

"Did he look--" I hesitated. "...masculine?"

His noir reverie broke briefly, and for the first time he looked genuinely baffled, maybe even annoyed that I was ruining the moment for him by asking something so weird. "What?"

"Did he have facial hair, that sort of thing."

"...no," Noah eventually responded. "He didn't."

Well, I thought, that's probably the best I'm going to get.

I ended up too distracted to pay attention to anything else that happened at the dinner, and ate the final two courses in relative silence. Finally, halfway through dessert, Gaizarik arrived and stood aside the table as well, and Bahram - who had already finished - seemed to take this as a sign that it was time. He cleared his throat, then tapped his wine glass with the side of a teaspoon.

"Everyone, if I may have your attention please!" he called out.

"Fucking finally," Tuthal mumbled, only audible because, for the first time in the near-hour since we'd started, the table had fallen effectively silent.

"Now, you've all been very patient," he began, with a sarcastically knowing look towards Tuthal that led Hildris to snicker to herself for several moments, "and as much as I've been enjoying this reunion for its own sake, the time has come to discuss the distribution of Rastag's inheritance."

"Alright, old man, spill the beans," Phaidime said, her voice somewhat slurred from how much wine she'd been drinking. "What's it gonna be, eh? Trial by combat? Revolver with one bullet? Sports quiz?"

Bahram chuckled. "Nothing so thrilling, I'm afraid." He looked across the room, "Gaizarik, er, if you would?"

The servant gave an obedient bow, then approached the table - I noticed he was carrying a small metal jar and a writ of parchment. He placed both in front of Bahram, who nodded at him gratefully.

"Rastag left a message for you all where he put the terms of the distribution in his own words, so I'll let that speak for itself." He unrolled the parchment, clearing his throat. "My friends, allies, and trusted successors. Thank you for all your years of steadfast companionship and loyalty, and for humoring me with this final request. I will be brief. You know that I am a man who has always felt a great obligation to serve my country its needful above all else--"

Tuthal and Phaidime laughed. Even Hildris snickered.

"--and so the majority of my estate will be passed on to the greatest passion of my life, to which you have all contributed in your own ways, the Lifeblood Foundation."

"I haven't contributed to shit," Phaidime muttered, resting her head against a hand.

"Maybe he forgot about you, darling."

Bahram, unlike how he'd taken much of the disrespect thus far, seemed genuinely a little frustrated by these interjections as he acted as a proxy for his departed friend, raising his voice somewhat and frowning. "However, I would be a poor friend indeed if I left nothing to you all in gratitude for your many years of love and companionship. Thus, I would like to bequeath each of you a gift. I am sure you all know that I have long been an enthusiast of material art, both from our homeland and from abroad, and have amassed a large collection. Thus, I offer you each the chance to take one item of your choosing. The remainder shall be passed on to the Royal Cultural Museum in Tuon, to be displayed as part of a unified exhibit."

Tuthal mumbled something like 'cheap bastard' under his breath.

"I have great love for all of you, and so I am loath to play favorites, even in death. As a result, I have decided that the only appropriate means to determine the order in which you may make your selections is chance. Thus, I have instructed Bahram to have you draw lots. Thank you for everything, and may we all meet again in the next world." He lowered the letter. "That's it."

"Drawing lots, eh?" Tuthal snorted. "I figured it might be something like that, but it's still a bit of an anticlimax. Not sure why you kept it such a secret."

"Rastag didn't specify that it needed to be so," Bahram told him, his tone still somewhat chilly. "It was my own decision. I didn't want this day to be marked only by dealings and thoughts of wealth."

"A noble thought, but I rather fear Tuth's been at it with Kasua already," Hildris chimed in sardonically.

Tuthal grimaced. "How do you even know about that? Were you snooping in on our conversation."

She smirked. "You're not as subtle as you like to think you are, darling. I could see what you were up to just from your posture and that silly little contract you were pulling out." She clicked her tongue. "You really ought to be ashamed of yourself, you know. Predating on a poor little girl."

"I was doing no such thing. My offer was perfectly reasonable, and if it weren't for me bringing it up, she wouldn't even know the stakes of this little game." He glanced towards me. "Speaking of which, Kasua, I never got an answer from you. Now that we know the terms, I'll raise the sum: 40,000 arda. You can still take anything else you want, so long as you defer the Last Winter to me. Final offer."

I had to admit I'd sort of lost track of this plot point. "...let me think about it for another minute."

A smirk. "Fine." He turned towards Bahram. "Let's cut to the chase. How are we going to do this?"

"Nothing complicated," the other man replied. "You'll each fill out your names on slips of papyrus, and I'll pluck them out one at a time from this." He rattled the jar. "First come first serve."

Tuthal squinted, gesturing at the object. "Let me see that thing."

"You don't trust me?" Bahram asked with a frown.

"Of course I trust you, you old bastard," he replied with a roll of his eyes. "If there's anyone I don't trust, it's Rastag. I assume you didn't bring that jar yourself."

Bahram frowned deeply, but passed it to him. Methodically, over the course of almost a minute, Tuthal examined it from every imaginable angle inside and out, even picking at the edges of the metal in various spots with an unused table knife to see if there were any hidden compartments. Even that didn't seem to fully satisfy him, but he nevertheless relented, rolling it back.

"Alright," he said. "Let's do it."

Bahram nodded to Gaizerick, who withdrew another sheet of parchment, folded it, and tore it cleanly into six pieces. He placed one in front of each of us.