Author: Lurina

203: Shadow of a Shadow (𒌋𒐀) - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on here. On the contrary-- It practically deduced itself.

What I was looking at was, or at least was supposed to be taken as, evidence pertaining to the death of Kasua's mother. Her body had been found out in the countryside, and here were photographs of her in the countryside, being approached by a mysterious figure. The name 'catharsis' obviously referred to Kasua's desire for the truth about her mother's death. Obviously, the implication was that the envelope would contain further photographs, revealing the identity of the killer.

From this understanding, it was easy to guess what sort of items the others had taken, and why they'd chosen them instead of claiming the Last Winter. The greed of the fallen prince. The shame of the prodigy. Both of these sounded like they referred specifically to Tuthal and Summiri respectively, and were probably items of embarrassing or incriminating content. (I wasn't sure about the amulet, but presumably it was part of the pattern too.)

In other words, the entire setup was an implicit threat, a cruel twist that negated the entire event's ostensible purpose. Given the knowledge that anything within the carriage which remained unchosen would be donated to the government, what was previously a gift was instead re-contextualized as blackmail. 'You had better choose this one thing in particular, or your secret will get out.'

I looked around the room a little more, and sure enough - adjacent to the bed at the rear - was another item that clearly did not belong. Titled The Lover's Regret, it was a framed sheet of parchment alongside another envelope. The parchment, which from what I could tell concerned Rastag's business finances (despite being good at math, I've never been skilled at reading financial paperwork; the legal references throw me off), seemed to show a large amount of money being embezzled into a series of private accounts. As I suspected: Hildris had been Rastag's accountant, so this had to be the blackmail intended for her.

Which meant...

I quickly checked the remaining pieces, but that was the last of the strange ones - all the rest seemed to be real pieces of art with listed creators. That fucking clinched it. There was no blackmail intended for Phaidime. She had to be the culprit!

I laughed a little to myself, actually getting kind of excited. This was a clever turn. Not only did it use the conceit of the drawing and the locked carriage in a way that dynamically raised the emotional stakes in potentially unpredictable ways - since each person who entered would be able to see the incriminating evidence belonging to the people after them, even if they wouldn't be able to prove it existed without claiming it for themselves - but it also made sense diegetically without feeling like a contrivance. After all, if this was Rastag's revenge on them all, then this was the perfect way to assert power from beyond the grave. With the message at dinner he'd called them his dearest friends, but here in the dark, the truth was unveiled. He knew all their dirty secrets, all the ways they'd betrayed him, how little they deserved any sort of reward in her eyes. It was such a classical-whodunnit sort of idea!

More importantly, if Phaidime's 'theory' was the truth, it brought everything about his plan together. With this conceit, the only way someone would be able to actually claim anything of value would be to go in twice. Having claimed the evidence of his misdeeds, Tuthal now had no choice but to return to the carriage at the predetermined point if he wanted to escape financial ruin. Seeing the place physically, I could even imagine how the trick would be performed: Once he entered, Phaidime would climb up to the roof of the train from the ladder in the midsection. She'd climb to the front carriage, drop down at the front (it would turn out there was a window or door in the bathroom; why else would you lock it?), unlock the door to the gallery, kill him, the leave the way she came, throwing the key off the train on the way back, thus removing any evidence of how she'd accessed the room.

Whodunnit, howdunnit, whydunnit. Maybe it really was that simple after all.

Kasua, of course, was the odd one out in all this. She had no history with Rastag, so she couldn't be controlled by blackmail - a reversal on her disadvantageous position in terms of information. Instead, he'd given her an incentive.

Frankly, it was sketchy-- There was nothing to prove the photographs actually showed the murder. It wouldn't have been easy to fake a photorealistic image in this time period, but Rastag and Mariya had known one another for most of their lives, and he could easily be taking something old out of context. Still, though, ultimately there was little choice in the matter. Kasua's character description in the guide made it clear that she valued finding the truth about her mother's fate fanatically, to the point money barely even mattered, and that was even represented mechanically through her personal goal. Both in character and out, despite this knowledge, it only made sense to take the thing.

I reached out to grasp the frame--

Stop, my sense of logic said. You're being stupid.

I blinked. What do you mean?

Think out of the box for just one second, it insisted. What does it mean that Rastag has these photographs in the first place?

Gods, it was obvious, wasn't it? In fact, it was an old trick itself.

The photographs depicted two figures. Mariya, and the man who presumably murdered her. But photographs weren't spat out of Anue's all-seeing asshole. There was an implicit third party involved here - the one that had actually taken the photograph.

And this wasn't the 1600s or even the 1400s, where cameras were relatively portable and had sophisticated features like timed or remote operation. No, they were cumbersome things based off truly ancient technology that needed to be operated directly and set up in advance. If these photographs did depict the murder, then implicitly the murder was premeditated. And not just premeditated to meet an immediate goal, but with the express intent of putting Kasua in this exact position. There was no other explanation to create a record of the crime.

And... these photos were the property of Rastag. Everything in this room had been arranged to be here by him, explicitly.

What I was looking at wasn't an answer, wasn't catharsis. It was a confession! Rastag was the killer, or at the very least party to her murder!

But then wasn't this making that obvious? Why would he implicate himself by putting it here? --Because Kasua is supposed to think he's dead at this point, obviously. In a world where Rastag is definitively no longer of this earth, Kasua's knowledge that he was involved in her mother's death would be definitionally non-actionable. Instead, she'd care about the details, and who else might have been involved. And that would of course drive her to pick up the file.

...but if she has reason to suspect he is alive, that calculation changes entirely. He becomes not only a known culprit, but him trying to entice her with details of his own crime as part of a wider scheme becomes insulting, infuriating. The conceit! Does he think she's a fool? A puppet dancing on his strings?

But that disparity forced me to confront the question I'd been putting off. Did Kasua, in fact, know? Or did only I know? It was so hard to disentangle my meta reasoning from my in-universe reasoning at this point!

Almost like they told you not to do that for a reason, my self-awareness intoned.

I took a breath. No, she had to know! There was nothing that could per-se be called evidence, but there were so many hints. Phaidime's ambiguous origin and all the clues related to that, Noah's stupid account of Rastag's backstory. The suspicious circumstances of his death and Bahram's obviously sketchy behavior in regard to the entire setup! I'd figured it out right at the start. By now, she had to get it.

And in fact, that was already textual, whether I wanted it to be or not! Because right before coming in here, she'd almost asked Bahram whether Rastag was even really dead. So there was no getting around it. Within the witnessed logic of the story's universe, that had to be the 'truth'.

So, Rastag was Phaidime. If Kasua knew that, how would she react?

That was in the guide too. "If you discovered the identity of her killer, (you) may be driven to take revenge." 'May' was a weasel word. She either wanted revenge or she didn't, and the conclusions I'd drawn thus far didn't lend themselves to much in the way of sympathy for the mastermind. The picture that circumstance had painted of Phaidime was of a selfish fraud who was superstitious at best, manipulative at worst.

Did that mean I had to become the culprit? That the only authentic way to play my character was to commit murder? No, that didn't feel like it fit either, at least not as a first resort. Kasua was supposed to respect the law. She'd want to expose Phaidime if possible, and probably in a way that was very direct.

What would be the best way to go about it? Obviously, a one-on-one confrontation would be asking to get killed. Phaidime was probably armed. I'd need backup, and in order to get backup, I'd need to convince people my theory was true, which would be extremely difficult--

No, you don't need to convince them your theory is true, my lower cunning corrected me. All you need is leverage.

I looked across the room. The Last Winter. That was it. If I took it now, not only would this instantly disrupt whatever her plan was, it would also give me control of the most desired object in the narrative. With that, I could probably entice Tuthal into doing my bidding! A meathead like that was exactly what the situation called for. The other three claimants might be amenable too-- The more the better.

There was a risk this could go very wrong if Phaidime's player had been misleading me, and all of the former Fellows really were involved in something going completely over my head, but that felt far less likely than it had a little while ago. Yes, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that this was the correct path.

I walked back to the Last Winter and - with approximately 10% of the delicacy I'd use were I handling a real piece of priceless historic art - pulled it down from the wall. I'd sort of lost track of the time thinking, so I wasn't sure how close I was to the limit. I hurried to the exit, quickly passing through the liminal chamber and back into the dining car. I was eager to get out; I hadn't noticed it at first, but the lack of proper ventilation gave the place an odd, musty smell that crept up on me the longer I spent inside.

Gaizarik was, of course, waiting. He looked at my expression, at the object in my arms, and for the briefest of moments seemed to double-take. However, his back quickly straightened, his idealized butler persona showing only the thinnest of cracks.

"May I... wrap that for you, miss?" he asked.

On the surface, there didn't seem any harm in it. I was ultimately going to need to show it in order to make my case, but still, it would probably be wise to otherwise be as discreet as possible about the fact I had the painting. Phaidime and Bahram could be hanging around with the others; I might need to be tactical to even broach the subject.

But... something the hesitation in Gaizarik's voice made me hesitate as well. If I'd messed up Phaidime's plan by taking the Last Winter... well, maybe he was prepared to respond to that eventuality.

"...no thank you," I told him, pulling the frame away defensively. "I want to examine it first in private, so I'll do it in my room."

"As you wish," the man replied, lowering his head.

I headed back around the corner. Other than Gaizarik, the dining car seemed to have emptied since my departure-- The kitchen door was shut, and there was no sign of Bahram, the glass he'd been drinking from sitting empty on the table. Even so, I held the painting awkwardly at my side and hugged the left wall, angling the face in the same direction such that, even if a person were to spontaneously manifest in the middle of the room, they still wouldn't be able to see what I was carrying.

I passed through to the middle carriage. At about the halfway point along the gangway, I spotted Bahram turn the corner at the opposite end, coming to a momentary spot at the spot where the ladder and the little gap in the overhang was.

I gulped. Him ambushing me here, at the narrowest spot in the entire train, was not ideal. I continued to hold myself against the left wall, the painting tucked firmly under my arm.

"Hello again, Kassie," he said (or I think he said, the rushing winds once again made it hard to hear him at first). "Everything go well?"

"Yes, mister Hasallsun," I replied cautiously. "Everything went well."

"That's good." He gave a small smile, and glanced at the painting. "I won't ask what you chose, but I hope it was to your satisfaction."

"...very much so," I said with a darkening expression.

Bahram as a person was also heavily recontextualized by the conclusions I'd drawn. He went from an almost tragic figure - a selfless peacemaker, an old man loyal to a friend everyone else had abandoned - to a sniveling toady lying through his teeth for the sake of fanatical loyalty to one man at the expense of everyone else. There really was a Linos-esque quality to him after all. Though-- Could I be sure he knew everything? Perhaps he was just her useful idiot, and wasn't even aware of the contents of the carriage or her ultimate plan. Maybe he was completely in the dark and had only been following instructions blindly.

Or... was I even 100% sure he was an accomplice? The only damning evidence was him helping to rig the drawing, and there were still other ways that might have happened--

No. I couldn't start doubting everything again. No solution was ever certain in a mystery, but if everything lined up perfectly in one direction, then chances were that was the truth. I had to believe in my theory.

You mean the theory that someone else told you?

Shut up. Like 80% was still my reasoning.

Anyway, the point was, Kasua would probably assume he knew. She'd think that he'd think that she'd be carrying the evidence, not the painting. Which would make that last remark almost an insult. But she'd also want him to think he'd taken it, so she wouldn't act like it. Or something. Ugh! Fuck roleplaying!

Bahram's eyes wandered to my side curiously. "You didn't have it wrapped...?"

"N-No," I told him. "I'm going to take it back to my room to... inspect."

"Ah." His brow furrowed, but he nodded in understanding. "Fair enough. You're a discerning woman, just like your mother."

Oh, this asshole. Kasua flinched slightly.

"You're heading back to the dining car," I observed, changing the subject.

"That's right. There's no reason for me to be there, of course, but I feel as though I have a duty to... keep watch until the end, as it were. To be there in case anything happens."

He craned his neck subtly towards the wall. I shifted the painting's angle accordingly.

"That's very dutiful," I told him.

"Ah, you flatter me." He laughed humbly. "I'm just a neurotic old fool, that's all."

"What were you doing back in the rest car, then?" I interrogated

He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Er, well, I drank rather a lot at dinner. So, if you must know, I needed to use the lavatory."

I nodded slowly. "...it's odd, that the only toilets in this place are in our personal rooms."

"Well, there's actually one for the staff in their quarters as well," he corrected me. "That one connects directly to the septic tank, just in case there's an emergency."

"Mm," Kasua hummed tensely. "It would not do to go without toilets."

"That's... very true," he said, seeming somewhat bemused. "We can't live without them. I mean. Physically, even."

There was a moment of awkward silence. The turning wheels rattled loudly.

"Though, I saw that there's also one in the front carriage," I remarked.

He raised his eyebrows. "Did you? I must confess I've not been inside."

"It's a funny choice, for the absolute front of the train to be a toilet."

"Do you think so...?"

"Well, I heard Rastag built this train to try and echo a human body."

"Who told you that?" He furrowed his brow.

"Oh." A pause. "Well, are you certain it is a toilet?"

"Why wouldn't I be."

"I-- Well. I don't know. I thought you might not have checked."

"I don't know why you'd assume that."

"I.. I mean, I wouldn't say I assumed. It was just a thought."

There was another awkward silence.

"Kassie, you're acting a little peculiar," Bahram observed.

"I apologize, mister Hasallsun," Kasua told him cooly. "I'm just tired."

"Well, I'll let you get on, then." He smiled once again, a little more strained this time. "Some of the others are drinking in the observation car if you want to relax for a little bit. But as for me, I'm planning to retire for the night once Tuth has had his second go."

"I see," Kasua said. "Have a good night, then."

"Good night, Kassie."

He began to shimmy past me, and I awkwardly edged 90 degrees to the right, shifting the painting in the opposite direction to make absolutely certain he couldn't get a single look at it. In the process, my head ended up facing in the direction of the dining car--

And I saw something. The flow of fabric, the outline of the edge of arms; a figure, clad in something dark. It was there for only an instant, pulling back behind the corner towards the door.

"Did you see that?!" I yelled instinctively.

Bahram looked back at me, confused. "See what?"

"There was someone over there!" I declared. "They were watching us!"

"Are you sure...? I didn't see anything, Kassie." He frowned in concern. "Could it not have been a trick of the light? Even with the lamps, it's a very dark night."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

This was useless. I pushed past him, lifting the painting up to the only position where I could move quickly while also being sure he wouldn't be able to see it: Over my head, facing the ceiling. Then, I quickly dashed down the gangway, turning the corner myself.

But there was no one there. There was no ladder on this side, so other than the doorway, the gangway terminated in a dead end. Just metal walls and the wooden overhang above. The only place they could have gone was through the door. But the doors were heavy-- Doors for train carriages always were, to keep the air out. Opening or closing them made a distinctive thunk, and if they'd done that in a hurry, I ought to have heard it, even over the noise out there.

But I didn't hear it! They were just gone! Was there a secret passage? Had it really just been my imagination?

"Kasua...?" Bahram spoke up, approaching from behind. "Is everything alright?"

"I--" I couldn't do this. I couldn't talk to him, keep him from seeing the painting, and process this all at the same time. "I'm sorry. You were right. I think I was just seeing things."

"Oh." He frowned uneasily. "Uh, fair enough, then."

"I should go," I told him quickly. "Sorry. Take care."

"H-Have a good night, Kassie," he said awkwardly. "Again."

I took advantage of the wider area around the door to quickly scurry past him this time, practically dashing back down the gangway. Feeling considerably less confident and more thrown-off than I'd been a moment ago, I opened the doorway to the next liminal chamber.

It had to have been Gaizarik, I concluded. After he saw I took the painting, he must have started following me. He opened the inter-carriage doors very slowly so they wouldn't make a noise, then left them open a crack in case he needed to retreat quickly. Between my delay trying to explain the situation to Bahram and handling the stupid painting, he'd have just enough time to have turned back the way he came, slipped through, and closed it delicately.

Yes, that was probably it. And if it wasn't it, it didn't even matter. The trick he used wasn't even important!

I passed through to the rest carriage. It was empty-- Or, well, almost empty. About half way down, I noticed that a spotted white cat was sitting by one of the oddly-intermittent windows, grooming its lower body. For a moment I was baffled, but then I remembered Summiri having brought it on board at the start of the day.

I generally liked cats - you probably remember that I had one as a pet - but something about this one was kind of making me uneasy. As I walked down the hall, it kept looking up from its work to give me strangely hostile looks. Of course cats often just did that, but it was not helping with the already uneasy mood.

I was getting overstimulated; getting back to my room wasn't just about the painting anymore, I needed a moment to gather my thoughts and consider exactly what I was going to say to Tuthal. Ideally, he'd be one of the people Bahram had mentioned hanging out in the observation carriage. If not, or if Phaidime was around too, well-- Either way, the best strategy was probably to leave the Last Winter in my room, then lure him there for a conversation.

No, wait, I can't do that. I knew how much Tuthal wanted the Last Winter. If I had to bet, getting it was probably even his character's personal goal in terms of the game. If I isolated myself with him and it, and - despite already making an agreement to surrender it to him, albeit in somewhat different circumstances - tried to hold it over his head to make him cooperate with me, I could end up getting killed. He'd already shown his propensity for flying into a rage at the slight provocation.

No, I'd have to just... get Phaidime to leave, somehow? Maybe I could tell her someone was looking for her?

This already felt a lot more complex than it had been in my head.

Finally, I entered my room, retrieving the key from my stola pocket and locking the door behind me. Unsure what to do with the painting, I dumped it on the desk, then sat down on the armchair near the entrance to the lavatory. I let out a deep sigh, trying to think.

Okay. By now, Hildris will probably be heading up to take her turn. Tuthal pulled her aside already after his visit, and it's a fair guess that was the blackmail.

So she'll already know what to expect, and won't be delayed like I was. Ergo, I probably only have a few minutes before Tuthal leaves to his presumed death.

How should I play this...

It'll be best if I flatter his ego. I can't frame it like 'you need to do this for me if you want me to give you the Last Winter'. It needs to be framed like 'I am keeping my word and giving you the Last Winter, but in return I need you to listen to me.'

I already got through to him a little bit with some of my suspicions about Rastag being alive. He shouldn't be beyond convincing.

I don't need to invite him all the way to my room. I'll just check his room and the lounge, and ask him to speak to me out in the hall. Then I'll--

At this point, my thoughts were very sharply interrupted by the fact that there was suddenly a length of rope about around my neck.

Have you ever been unexpectedly strangled? I actually didn't even understand what was happening for a few seconds. I thought, absurd as it might sound, that maybe my throat was just hitching up, and then that I'd somehow caught it around my clothes or on some part of the chair. It's funny-- Even though I'm so paranoid and prone to overthinking on a more conscious level, in the moment I always find myself feeling strangely optimistic whenever anything viscerally awful happens.

Do you remember way back when I saw Bardiya's body, and said that my first thought was that it was a sculpture, or maybe a painting? It's that sort of thing. It's rather common, I expect. In the modern world, false positives happen far more often than actual threats, so the brain is only doing what's rational to protect us on balance.

But yes: In this case, it was a murder attempt. I realized this as the force sharply intensified, forcing me to my feet, or rather forcing my feet to the ground as my entire body was pulled violently upwards and backwards by my lower jaw. I grabbed instinctively at the rope, trying to pull it away, but the grip was far tighter than even Kasua's slightly more athletic body could overcome.

What the fuck is going on?! I thought, my conscious mind finally getting with the program. Oh god! Oh gods, someone's trying to kill me! I'm being fucking murdered! I'm being fucking murdered!!

How was this happening? --The bathroom, I managed to realize. Since I didn't have any belongings I actually thought of as valuable, I'd forgotten to lock the door to my room while I was away. They'd gone inside, and waited for me in the bathroom. When I'd returned, I'd sat in the adjacent chair, and now here we were. Rookie mistake! Oh well.

Rookie mistake? Rookie mistake?! Every instinct in my body cried out in distress at the gravity of the situation. I'm gonna die! I'm gonna fucking die! Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Relax, the rational part of my mind tried to reassure it. Remember, it's all just a game. If you die, it's no big deal.

But this reality did little to reassure me, because though the existentialist danger of death was negated by the nature of Dilmun, it turned out that just the experience of dying was enough to render the affair really, really bad. I had to admit, oing in - since I'd been 'killed' in Dilmun already and had witnessed so many people treat the idea with flippancy - I'd kind of dismissed the 'murder' part of the conceit of this murder mystery game as not really something to stress too much about.

But the thing about my octosection death in the Magilum was that it had been, while spectacularly violent, very quick. This, in contrast, was not. It was horribly painful multiple different ways at the same time - the sense of my entire neck area being crushed, the rope tearing into my skin, the growing throbbing agony in both my chest and head from oxygen deprivation. It sucked! It really, really really sucked!

Had they really not set these bodies up to dull the sense of pain at all? No, of course they wouldn't. The people in this realm were all psychopathic, bored to the point of lunacy! How could I have forgotten that?!

If I were thinking rationally, I'd have realized I could stop it immediately and 'forfeit' by simply stepping out to the Stage. But in the moment, the logical part of me vanished. All I could think about was the pain. The pain. Oh, gods! It hurt so much! I wanted to cry!

Instead, I finally found the strength to struggle. I flailed my arms, elbowing my assailant in the chest.

"Don't struggle," he said softly. Of course, I recognized his voice. "It'll be over soon."

My whole face contorted, fear suddenly turning to fury. There was only one person here who would say such a cliche line. It's the DETECTIVE? Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME??

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I tried to warn you, tried to get you to stay away... I'm sorry."

Oh no. No no no no no no. I was not getting murdered by this asshole, this loser. Not today, motherfucker! No way! Absofuckinglutely no chance was this going to be the end of my murder mystery debut!

Something activated in my mind that was previously dormant, and suddenly, I began moving like a feral animal. Even though it drastically increased the pressure on my neck, I found myself pulling both of my legs upward and slamming them violently into his chest, throwing my whole body in multiple directions with all the weight I could muster. His back slammed into the wall, then into the frame of the bathroom door. Meanwhile, my hands flew to his face, clawing rabidly at his eyes; he let out a pained grunt.

Another thrust and he stumbled back into the tiny room proper. Seeing a chance, I kicked my legs as one against the wall, forcing him towards the tiny bathtub. He stumbled, collapsing into it with a satisfying thunk.

His grip loosened enough for me to take a gasping breath, but quickly reintensified-- But not before I had a chance to roll my body around to half face him, the two of us now sprawled against one another at a bizarre angle. I lurched my head forward and bit into the side of his stupid face, right where cheek became eyelid, and he let out a whine that could only be a suppressed scream. Then, as he kneed me in the gut to try and kick me off, I thrust my head into his, which clunked against the hard edge of the tub. And then I did it again, and again, while at the same time pummeling him in the gut with the one free fist I had that wasn't crushed by the angle of our fall.

My vision was getting blotty, but he broke first. He made a choking, gagging sound, a little puke and blood sputtering out of his nose, and his grip on my neck finally failed enough for the noose to meaningfully loosen. I pulled my head backwards, escaping, and clambered desperately to my feet.

But as soon as I did, a sense of vertigo hit me. I stumbled into the door frame, then towards the desk; I collided with Kasua's trunk and knocked it over, sending the contents sprawling to the floor in all directions. I half-fell against the desk, and I could hear the detective coming close behind--

Before he had a chance to get the noose around my neck again, I grabbed the inkwell and threw it behind me, causing him to recoil. I threw myself to my feet, going for the door, but he kicked at my left leg even as he wiped his eyes and I crashed to the ground, landing straight on the pile of junk. I screamed with all the force Kasua's lungs could muster - hoping that the risk of discovery would force him into retreat - but he kicked me in the side, reached down and grabbed me by the hair--

And then I realized there was a sheathed rapier lying in front of me.

She'd brought a sword.

How had I never got around to checking all her belongings? How was I this bad at this?!

The detective didn't seem to have noticed. I lurched forward, pulling him with me - and causing a significant chunk of my hair to be torn right out in an agonizing, almost burning sensation, but was a problem for future me - and grabbed the hilt. I swung it once - the sheath went flying off - he grabbed at the side of my arm - I dropped it again - he pulled me back - I kicked at his balls - he cried out in pain - I grabbed it with the other - he punched me in the back - I tumbled around - I raised the sword--

And I stabbed him right through the chest.

I knew my anatomy; I'd pierced his liver, a lethal wound if untreated. Blood instantly swelled around the spot, and his complexion paled so suddenly that it was like he was a bottle draining of wine. He fell backwards.

I could have stopped there. But that anger that was at once feral and cold was still raging inside me, killing all logical thought. I wasn't sure I'd felt anything this strongly since my youth. The feeling was almost indignant: How dare he try to kill me? Didn't he know how much I'd suffered? How I'd had to live all this time?! It wasn't fair!

I felt weak, bitter, vengeful. Everything was taken from me. (What was 'everything'? My brain did not fret over such specifics.) The world was wrong. So in return, I had a right to do whatever I wanted. I had a right to feel better.

I slashed him across the throat.

There was what I can only think to describe as a cinematic amount of blood. It shot out in a beautiful streak that I'd never imagined I'd witness outside of a drama. The detective clutched at his throat for just a moment, gave me one last ominous look, then lulled his eyes, clasping his hands into fists over his chest as he fell.

Even his death was pulp.

I stood there in silence for a few moments, breathing heavily, feeling surprisingly at peace. I could have even smiled.

But then, slowly, the strange fervor that had gripped me faded, my higher cognitive functions began to come back online. Suffice it to say, they were not as pleased with the situation.

I looked at myself. I was holding the rapier, which was soaked in blood, in my right hand. There was also a small amount of blood splatter on my dress. I was also visibly wounded - blood from trickling down my forehead, my leg, and I could see in my reflection in the mirror that my neck was raw and red where the rope had tied around it. Just on a purely physical basis, there was no hiding what had happened.

Then I looked around the room. It was a wreck. The corpse of the detective (why had he attacked me? Had he been the murderer? Was I wrong about everything?) laid in front of me, a deluge of blood still pouring into the carpet. There was blood on the bed. Blood on the desk. And of course, blood on The Last Winter on Mene. The careful calculus of color, supposedly contrived over the course of years by Hero of Eukaryos as he swung between his infamous manic and depressive episodes, irrevocably upset by several large crimson splotches.

In my oxygen deprived state of altered consciousness, I almost wanted to laugh. With this, we were no longer in the realm of historical fiction, but fantasy. Anything could happen now. Could we avert the Tricenturial War, the genocides at Lac Uyen and Vir? Was anything possible?

Someone was banging at the door, and a voice called out. "Kasua, what's going on in there? Are you alright?"

It was Tuthal. Right, yes, I screamed a minute ago. I'd... forgotten about that.

"Do you need us to break down the door, darling?" Hildris asked more firmly.

"We should do it now," Tuthal spoke with masculine heroism. "If she's not responding, she might be in danger."

"No, I--" The words hitched in my throat, my voice unexpectedly weak as a result of what had happened. "I'm... I'm alright."

"Oh, thank god," Hildris intoned in a lower tone, seeming genuinely relieved. I heard Summiri whisper something in her little voice, too quiet for me to make out-- There must have been at least three of them out there.

"What happened, Kasua?" Tuthal asked.

I reflected, for a moment, on the rules of the game. It said that if you murdered someone, your role changed to 'culprit'. But 'murder' wasn't actually defined.

"I," I stammered. "Give me... just a moment."

I reached into my stola, searching for the pocket watch that had been there since the beginning of the game. I flicked it open. The time was 8:39 PM - earlier than I'd felt it was, somehow - and, displayed plainly on the inside of the lid, was the word CULPRIT.

Oh, come on, that's bullshit! That was self-defense.

"Are you injured?" He went on. "You sounded like you were in horrible pain."

"She might be in shock," Hildris speculated, speaking at a hushed volume she probably thought I wouldn't be able to hear, but I could. "You heard. It sounded like she was being attacked."

Tuthal exhaled hesitantly. "You don't think she..."

Welp. I was screwed. I could already tell: No matter what I said right now, I wouldn't be able to prevent them from eventually breaking the door and catching me literally red handed. Even if I managed to pull myself together enough to sound fully lucid and pulled a rational explanation for why they couldn't come inside out of my ass, the players behind the characters had probably figured out what was going on already. There's no one who won't metagame a little bit when you dangle fresh meat that close to their nose.

Furthermore, I couldn't lie without breaking Kasua's established character anyway. Regardless of what the game system said, she wouldn't consider herself to have done anything wrong in this moment. To play the part of the culprit and have any chance of keeping the point, I'd need to lose the point for proper roleplay.

So that was it. Checkmate. Nothing for it but to ride the game out as a bystander, assuming Tuthal didn't toss me out the window the second he saw what had happened to the painting.

I sighed. "I'm not in shock," I stated calmly. "I.. someone has--"

But suddenly my words were swallowed. There was an extremely bright light from outside the window, followed immediately by a loud roaring, rushing noise.

I heard Summiri yelp. "What the fuck was that?!" Tuthal cried out.

Then came an even more ominous sound. From the front of the train, there was a violent bang as something hit a carriage. This was followed by a second, closer bang, and then another. Then one more, this one so close that it sounded like it was coming from directly above. I felt it in my feet. A crack formed in the ceiling of the room.

"oh god," Summiri said. "oh god oh god oh god--"

"I think we hit something," Hildris said urgently.

"More like something hit us," Tuthal corrected her. "I can see the bloody dent in the ceiling--"

"What's going on?" A new voice, this one I recognized as belonging to the cook, Irene.

"Something's hit the train!" Tuthal explained. "Look! It landed up there!"

"We've got to get to the driver's carriage," Hildris spoke. "They need to stop us. If it's damaged, we could--"

"I know! I've listened to Rastag lecture me about these things for half my life, you don't have to tell me." Still, he sounded torn, and when he spoke again, there was unease in his voice. "Kasua, just-- Hold on for a couple of minutes. Something's happened."

"Let's go," Hildris insisted.

And then... they left. I heard all four sets of footsteps rush down the hall.

It was nothing less than a miracle that this had happened - almost too perfect an abrupt stay of my execution - but I didn't appreciate it, because all I could think about was how curious I was about what was happening. Something had hit the carriage? That was the last turn I'd expected.

Without even really thinking about it, I headed for the door, hastily picking up a cardigan that had fallen out of Kasua's trunk on the way out, covering up the bloodstains. I stepped out the door and locked it behind me; even Kasua, in this situation, would want to delay dealing with what had happened with the detective in order to understand what was happening, especially if there was danger.

I left just as the last person - Summiri - was stepping through the door to the central carriage, the door shutting behind her. Glancing around, I instantly understood what they were talking about. There were now two structurally minor but extremely noticeable dents in the ceiling. One was at the front end of the carriage, while the other was much closer; practically directly overhead.

The cat, who had finished grooming itself, was still here. It stared at me in silent judgement of my sin.

Ignoring it, I dashed down the hall. I thought I saw a shadow in the corner of the last window as I passed it by, but dismissed it as a product of possible brain damage. By the time I reached the liminal space, I noticed that the train had already begun to slow down.

Upon arriving in the engine car, I saw why. As had been the case during the encounter with the steppe tribe, more or less everyone was gathered here. Hildris and Irene were standing in front of the door to the driving area alongside the junior driver, Wiliya, Tuthal was by the ladder looking antsy, Gaizarik and Bahram were dashing down along the gangway, and Summiri was off the side, looking like she was having a panic attack.

"...been shut off, so it should only take a few moments," Wiliya was in the process of explaining as I arrived.

"What hit us?" Hildris demanded.

"I don't know, ma'am, I swear that I don't," the boy stated nervously. "I was keeping a good eye on the mirrors, and there was nothin' out on the tracks. Then suddenly it's just-- Fwoosh. All fire. And then I hear it hittin' us, same as you lot."

"There can't have been nothing!" Tuthal scorned him. "I fought in the Dorthedon War, and let me tell you, explosions like that don't just manifest from the ether."

"I'm just sayin' what I saw, sir. No more than that."

"What's happening?!" Bahram demanded as he arrived.

"We were rather hoping you'd know," Hildris said in reply. "The blast was closer to you, after all." She looked over her shoulder in response to Bahram's gaze, which I realized belatedly was pointed in my direction. "Kasua! When did you get here? You're alright!"

"...yes," I said, although I was realizing that even that little sprint had left my whole body aching like I'd run a marathon. Whether it was my injuries or whatever I'd sacrificed to get that burst of energy, I was barely in a state to be ambulatory. My neck and head throbbed, and my chest felt painfully cold. "I... said so. I'm alright."

"What happened?" Hildris asked. "There's blood all over your face. You've got to--"

"Kasua, you should go back to your room," Tuthal urged. "We've got things handled here." He gazed up the ladder. "I'm going up. We've slowed down enough."

"Tuthal!" Bahram and Hildris said in unison. "Don't be hasty!" The latter added. Their words were in vain: He was already climbing.

Hildris, abandoning Wiliya, turned instead to Gaizarik. "Whatever caused that blast landed dead on top of our carriage, conductor. Is it safe for him to go up there?"

"...I do not know the cause of this, so I do not feel confident enough to say," the man told her. "However, I believe we have decreased beneath 10 miles per hour. He is correct there should be no cause for concern on that level."

"I'm going up, then," Bahram said, stepping forward. "If it's dangerous, I've got to stop him from getting himself killed as usual."

Hildris continued to speak to Gaizarik. "Did you see anything from the front? You were right by the front car."

"I believe I felt a strong pulse of heat from the doorway when it occurred, and there was a heavy impact above the dining area shortly afterwards which has damaged the train." He shook his head. "Otherwise, I cannot say."

Hildris clicked her tongue. "Dying gods." She hesitated, then took a sharp breath. "I--I'm going to go up too. I need to see what's going on." She turned sharply in my direction. "Kasua, do not follow after us. Whatever happened, and whether it's connected to this or not, you've in no state to be moving around. We can-- We'll sort all this out later."

And then she sprung over to the ladder, following after the two of them.

I had no intention of listening to her request. The cook, for whatever reason, followed after her, and I followed after her in turn. leaving Summiri with the two drivers. Though by this point the train had come to almost a complete stop, climbing the ladder - even though it was only three meters tall - was an excruciating experience that left me feeling faint. Still, I managed it, and stumbled after the rest of the group.

In the dead darkness of the night, there was no real light on the roof of the train other than an ambient glow from the windows of the carriage below. My sole point of reference was from a lamp that Bahram was holding. With my head spinning already, closing the gap on that single point almost felt like falling into the void.

The entire group had stopped at a single point, all fixated on one thing that their bodies stopped me from making out until I was very close. A grave silence had fallen among them, but as I approached, I heard Bahram whisper one thing:

I stepped to his side, looking at what they were all seeing. What had come to rest at the impact site at the center of the rest car.

And then I looked again. Because what I was seeing wasn't just grotesque, but so ridiculous that at first my mind refused to accept it.

It was a horse.

A dead horse, or very close to one, lay sprawled on the carriage roof. It's legs were visibly broken - shattered - and from what I could tell, It appeared to have just recently been on fire. Its flesh was freshly charred, smoke still rising from the skin and the scent of cooked hair and meat still heavy in the air. On a few sections, such as the main, embers still flickered with life.

As I processed this, my eyes drifted downwards. And then I realized this was not the remarkable part.

Because the horse's belly appeared to have burst. Split, crudely, down the middle its underside.

And in that belly, crushed tightly in a dark imitation of a fetus... was Phaidime. She was still fully dressed, just as I'd seen her a little earlier, but now her body was broken and contorted grotesquely, and her eyes stared vacantly into space.

If this were a real death, I would at this point have probably broken down, overwhelmed by my memories of the conclave and the unspeakable violence of those murders to which this surreal setup felt so alike. And I did still feel a twinge of that. But because I knew it was all fake - that Phaidime's player was probably watching us from the sidelines in amusement right now - there was space in my head for other things.

And in that space, remembering all the shit I'd heard over the course of the past 8 hours, I had a really, really stupid thought.

I turned around, and used my vantage point to look over the whole train. I could see the series of three impacts on the roof - on the dining car, the engine car, and the penultimate one at the front of the rest car. I could also - for the first time - see the entire track directly, stretching out into the horizon.

But more importantly, I could see that I'd been exactly right.

The front carriage had completely vanished off the face of the earth.

And, somehow, in my state of pseudo-derangement, I understood.

Oh. Of course.

It's default form is a horse, but it can replace and take the shape of anything alive. And the train is supposed to be a human being, isn't it?

So it's obvious.

"It's the mimic of Zythia."