Author: Lurina

238: Love and Inventing Hell (𒐇) - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

The question put me on the spot. Did I have to watch what I said here? There had to have been millions of mystery novels written in Dilmun I was completely unaware of. Would giving an answer from the Mimikos effectively out me as someone new to this reality, drawing from a tiny pool instead of a vast ocean? I could try citing something from the old world, but I'd only read a handful of translated classics.

Lucy was waiting. Kam, to my left, raised her eyebrows expectantly.

It's probably fine. People are sentimental; half of everyone I've ever met have cited kiddy schlock they happened to experience around the same time as their first major emotional experience as their favourite books, dramas, and echo games.

I raised a hand to the side of my lip, acting as though I were thinking about it deeply. "Uh, it's probably Solitary Animal," I said.

Isaac continued to smile even as he furrowed his brow. "Doesn't ring a bell to me, I'm afraid."

"Oh, I know that one!" Lucy said brightly. "That's from the 1500s, no? By Balthazar of Karherye?"

I nodded. "That's right." (Before you get any funny ideas, this was an unrelated Balthazar, which I'm absolutely sure of because I met him at a convention. It's an extremely common name anyway.)

Solitary Animal is a horror mystery that I'd read, not when I was young or going through anything in particular, but during an uneventful part of my life during my early years as a researcher. It's a difficult work to describe, not because it's complicated (although it is complicated) but because it's one of those ones where if you lay it all out matter-of-factly, the plot sounds extremely banal, even though the actual text itself is deliberately abstruse.

The basic version is this: A wealthy heiress commissions a golem that can create any work of art entirely by itself within exactly an hour. A painting, a novel, an elaborate sculpture or architectural model; whatever you wanted, it can do it. The only cost is the mechanism-- You have to step inside an opaque black booth with just enough space for a single adult to sit down while it works. (You know, typical locked room bullshit.) She invites 9 people, including 3 members of her family, to an exclusive showing at a private mansion in the middle of the most desolate expanse of the Asharomi Desert, which they agree to despite the fact that the entire thing is phenomenally suspicious.

Now, hearing this description, you probably think the story is about artificial intelligence or something, right? But that's actually not the case at all. Instead, it's about the concept of celebrity. About how the interconnectivity of modern society allows certain individuals to be elevated to such levels of social power that they become both effectively superhuman yet also a sort of public property, how that meshes with a set of instincts which evolved with the expectation no one would ever interact with more than a few dozen other individuals, and whether or not this is ultimately a good thing. About art, and what both artists and consumers owe to one another unspokenly. And finally, how things would change if humans ceased to have anything they could socially provide for one another at all.

A lot of the reasons it affected me so much was because of my own issues with envy and the factors that determine the 'worth' of a person. The protagonist is a journalist named Risata Rakku, who I found incredibly relatable and also completely insane. Her ideology was comically bitter, predicated on the idea that humans were incapable of having relationships that weren't inherently toxic, and the arc of evolution was one where the species would only be liberated when each individual could not only fulfill all their needs alone, but was incapable of communicating with others, likening it to satellites in space, or more romantically how the seeds of a dandelion disperse on the wind, never to reunite; hence, the title. Just open contempt for what most people would see as the foundational element of human life, and it wasn't even portrayed unsympathetically!

The howdunnit was pretty good too, which as I've already explained, is a miracle for anything that even has characters.

(The reluctant runner up was an echo game I'd played when I was nineteen called Swan Song Serenade, which was an emotionally manipulative story about a ghost solving her own murder as she tries to cope with the fact that her dreams will go forever unfulfilled. Never forget: There is not a person in this world who cannot be controlled if you know how to push their buttons. Cynicism and self-awareness will not protect you.)

"Oh, that's quite an interesting choice!" Lucy said. "Very complex, very adult. Do you think of yourself that way, Sue?"

"Uh, I don't think it's that deep or anything. My tastes are all over the place." I quickly tried to move the conversation along. "What's your favorite?"

She put a finger to her mouth theatrically. (A lot of her mannerisms were theatrical - presumably to account for the fact that she, well, didn't have an actual face.) "Dear me. It's quite unfair me to say this, since I just asked you, but it's so hard for me to choose just one! There's the The Case at Vurant Cove, The Summer Spider, The Decagon House Murders, The Tower Iluna Dreamed of..."

She continued to rattle off half a dozen more titles. I recognized less than half, but I was still able to recognize a pattern: She seemed to prefer what I guess I would loosely define as 'civilized massacre' stories. Narratives about a bunch of smart, sophisticated people (or, well, what the author conceptualized as smart people) gathering in one location and being systemically butchered in shocking and sometimes almost lurid ways, yet somehow remaining calm and having lots of rational discussions about the situation. Howdunnit-led stories with stock characters but with a little horror mixed in.

In a way this made sense given the circumstances - on purely a setup basis, if you had to categorize what happened at the conclave as if it were a story, this was probably... close. Though the comparison kind of fell apart in the details. The total bedlam the second half of my loop descended into would never happen in one of those.

I realized that the doll woman had stopped talking, and also that I hadn't absorbed her last two sentences. "You have, uh, seem to have pretty adult tastes yourself."

Lucy laughed, which was even weirder than when we talked. "Oh no, hardly! I'm quite a simple creature. The things I enjoy the most are just an enigmatic atmosphere and a good twist. I love the feeling that there's something I don't know, and being taken by surprise. What do you like best about the genre?"

"J-Just the sense of solving a puzzle, really. I like horror, too, but I guess I prefer it when they don't mix."

"But drama doesn't bother you?"

"Well... I guess not."

She gave an elongated, melodic humn, then turned towards Isaac, who demurred.

"Oh, come on, Lucy. Don't put me on the spot." He laughed with self-deprecation, looking towards me. "I'm not much of a mystery officiando compared to most here, truth be told. I'm not sure I even have a favorite."

"Is... that so out of the ordinary?" I asked curiously. "I mean. I would have thought there'd only be circumstantial overlap with the real common interest."

His laugh grew a little more knowing. "You would, wouldn't you?" He stroked his mustache. "There was something of a shift that took place over time, in truth. In the beginning, the focus of the Domain was singularly on the Manse, but we finished collating all the low-hanging fruit and time began to pass without much in the way of progress - well, obvious progress - some began to dabble with superficially similar puzzles as a hobby. Until this place became a hub not just for study on this world's founding mystery, but mysteries in general."

You do things because they stir something in your heart. Then you forget that feeling, but you keep doing them anyway.

"I'm not sure many of our regulars are even interested in the Manse at this point," he went on, folding his arms. "It does sometimes make me wonder if one day I'll wake up and realize the entire theme has changed."

Lucy giggled. "Aww, it's so obvious when you're frustrated over something, Isaac."

"Ah, I can't hide anything from you, Lucy," he said with a slightly stiff smile, then turned back in my direction. "Forgive me-- I hope I'm not putting you off, Sue. I'm not one for judging people for enjoying what they like. It's just a personal bugbear."

"No, I understand," I said. "It's annoying when you're interested in something for a particular reason, but then spaces and discussions about it keep being coopted by people who like it for a completely different reason."

His face brightened. "I have a feeling we're going to get along swimmingly, Sue."

I laughed nervously. Kam, who had been silently observing the exchange, smiled with chemical precision.

"Lovely, lovely. Well then, I'm glad we ran into you two, but we should get along. I'm trying to give Sue an idea of the place, before everyone else crawls out of bed and makes it a more complicated affair."

"Aww, Kamrusepa, you're cutting off our fun so soon?" She hummed sadly. "And it's been so very slow a night, too."

"Maybe it'd be best to just get some rest, then," she replied. "I'm sure you'll have a chance to chat properly later, but we really must be going."

"Fair enough," Isaac said with a nod. "Well, then, I wish you well, Sue. As Kam says, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to speak at length later on."

"Right. Yes." I nodded. "Um. Good morning, then."

"Bye!" Lucy intoned, saccharine.

We left, heading past the orrery and through the door on the left, which led towards the main entrance, the printing room, and the hallway where I smashed one of those awful dog golems against the wall. I caught the individual at the bookcases glancing at me, but didn't have time to take note of anything about them save that they had a tan complexion, which of course in Dilmun terms meant absolutely nothing anyway.

Kam breathed a sigh of relief as we left. "Thank goodness. That could have gone much worse."

"You think they could have caught on to me being a fresh instance?" I asked. "Or who I am?"

"In the former case I think it's very possible they did, and in the latter if was certainly a danger, yes. But my greater worry was that they might have kept us there for the entire morning, possibly even rounded up their underlings." She shook her head. "Such an outcome may well ultimately prove unavoidable, unfortunately, but we can at least delay it until we get some important work done."

"They really didn't seem that strange," I said. "Well. I mean, the girl did. But just having a weird persona is normal for Dilmun, isn't it? And Isaac seemed fine."

"Su, that man is one of the most downright psychotic individuals I have ever met," she warned me, her voice dropping low. "Don't be deceived by his mild-mannered affect."

I frowned in confusion. "Psychotic in what sense?"

"He's obsessed with the Manse. And I don't mean in the sense of solving it, I mean he has a pathological fixation on it that borders on it that borders on fetishism."

"He didn't seem to treat you that differently. And you're not even hiding who you are."

"He's another of the sort that doesn't ascribe much special importance to our class. No-- It might be better to say he's the sort." She shook her head as we stepped through the door that divided the inner hallways from those that skirted the edge of the building. "As best as I'm able to understand, his feelings are oriented around the place as a - how should I put this - existentially significant object. I'm not sure he even cares about finding the answer, as such, or at least not for any functional reason. He seems to view it more as a sort of focus for personal enlightenment akin to a religious site."

I frowned. "I mean, that's not really... that weird, is it? I mean, at least in this world, the Manse obviously is special."

"Perhaps I shouldn't have established a theological association," Kam mused. "The better word for his feelings might be fetishistic."

I blinked. "I-- You mean, he wants to..."

"Not that sort of fetishism," she corrected, although at the same time seemed concerningly unconfident about this correction. "I meant in the classical sense. "That it's just inherently important in a way that defies direct understanding, and that we all ought to reorient our lives around it." She clicked her tongue. "Even this isn't getting to the heart of the matter, not truly. Let me give you some anecdotes instead: On one occasion, he created a book, nigh-on 900 pages in length that describes absolutely every detail of the chicken - the chicken - found in the Manse's kitchen. And I'm not talking about some sort of cookbook. I mean that he drew diagrams of the fibers of flesh and wrote commentary on their patterns."

"Patterns."

"You know," she clarified. "The way the little strips of muscle are arranged, that sort of thing. He even brought in a microscope." She continued as she opened the door to the stairway chamber. "Or how about this: Once he entered the Manse, and when he returned he'd visibly aged. And I don't mean a little sallowness around the eyes, I mean grey hairs on his bloody head. Did you know you can't use the Power or leave your body in there? So the only way - the only way - it could have happened is if he spent actual decades inside. And I bet that's not even the only time's happened. I swear every other week I catch him looking at people as though he'd not seen them in years."

Maybe it said something about me that I still didn't really find this that outrageous. "You said he has followers?" I took the first step up the stairs. "So he's sort of a cult leader here, or something?"

She snorted. "Oh, I'm certain he would be, if he had more than a passing interest in other people." She didn't bother climbing, just slowly levitating through the air, which struck me as a little gauche even though it was probably normal here. "No; he commands influence for less dramatic reasons. His record-keeping doesn't merely extend to the anatomy of roast dinners. He's the individual primarily responsible for our external library of the books."

"An external library? Why would you need that?"

She glanced back and down at me, raising an eyebrow. "Do you not know? The ones you see inside the Manse aren't the full collection, but only a fraction. The true number is about 50 times that."

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I furrowed my brow. "50 times? There can't possibly have been that many loops."

Kam looked puzzled. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, it looked as though there were about 500 books per shelf inside, and I think 144 shelves. That's 72,000. And there were only 1,213,649 loops in total."

She stopped dead, dropping down to the stair in front of me. "How do you know that?"

Oh, right. I hadn't told Kamrusepa about the other me. Or the fact that I remembered the loops in the real world.

"...can I explain when we're going over our accounts?" I asked. "That feels like it'll be simpler."

She stared at me for a few moments, then sighed , floating back into the air. "I really hope you're not trying to keep secrets, Su. As I told you, that'll defeat the point of this entire exercise."

"I'm not trying to keep secrets." In my defense, this wasn't a lie about this in particular. "So he just clout because he's done a lot of work? That doesn't seem that subversive or anything."

"Spoken like someone who's never worked with a fanatic," Kam replied flatly. "Since he turned up, he's had a way of slowly twisting things to his liking. He's not especially charismatic, but he's easy to talk to and, more importantly than that, is simply always around. And if you actually get him on his favored topic..." She shook her head. "I think I mentioned him in passing earlier, now that I think about it. He was the one who was expelled from the Crossroads. I wouldn't be surprised if he's bearing some manner of 'bugbear' about that as well; he's always going on about how the world has deviated from its purpose, and we're going be transformed as the chosen few when the secret is finally discovered. It reeks of someone spoiling for some sort of fight, even though I can't say exactly what form that fight will take at present. He's been trying to influence my recruitment tactics as well, even if he think he's being subtle about it."

I bit my lip. "What about the other one? Lucy?"

Kam flicked her hand dismissively. "Oh, she's a much more mundane type of lunatic. Deluded and emotionally unstable. Outside of the affect she puts on, she's barely able to function as a human being. She seems to fancy herself as some sort of social climber - always being cloyingly friendly and a dreadful gossip - but gets swallowed up by some bizarre aspiration or personal crisis every other month. And while she does care about solving the Manse, what she wants is categorically deranged."

"What does she want," I asked obligatorily.

"It's difficult to sum up. She has a whole manifesto. Are you familiar with the term 'wireheading'?"

"I won't get into the weeds of it, but the short version is that it means the removal of the ability to experience suffering, even consensually. She just infinite, perpetual, thoughtless bliss." Kam shook her head. "I swear to high heaven-- It's frustrating to be an advocate for improving the human condition when so many of your peers are absolute crackpots."

We finished our ascension and arrived at the top floor. Kam led me down the hallway, past the soundproofed chambers, to the westmost terminus.

I suddenly realized where we were going. "She's staying in Samium's room?"

"Mm-hm." She raised an eyebrow. "I didn't expect you to know that, actually. It's not a location commonly visited in the loops."

I pursed my lips, saying nothing. It wasn't difficult to form a theory as to why this might be the case.

We soon arrived at the double doors and passed through the little walkway to the chamber in the tower. Kamrusepa looked to me, wiggled a finger and held it to her lips to indicate that I should stay back and be silent for now, then rapped her knuckles against the wood.

"Who is it?" The voice within was very soft, but recognizably belonged to Ophelia.

"It's me," Kam replied.

"Oh, I..." Someone else inside the room spoke in a hushed voice, which was followed by a pause. "Just a moment," she finally added.

There was the sound of shuffling and people moving around, and then finally the door opened. A man, tall and razor-faced with auburn hair, passed by with an awkward expression on his face, looking an odd combination of annoyed and apologetic.

I... guess he's Ophelia's boyfriend? I suppose that shouldn't be surprising.

Another minute or so passed after he left. Finally, she spoke up again. "Alright. You can come in, Kamrusepa."

"It's not just me," she replied. "I have a guest."

"What? Who?"

I hesitated. She can't guess?

Wait, had Kam even told her I might be coming? She must have, surely.

"Someone new. I'll explain in a moment," she answered.

Oh god. She hasn't told her.

"Alright..." Ophelia said hesitantly. "Come in, then."

Before I had a chance to protest this development, Kam was already opening the door. The inside of the chamber was more or less as I remembered; there seemed to be some kind of rule against permanently removing or changing anything from how it was at the conclave, so even Samium's medical equipment remained, albeit shuffled off towards the side. The room did have some new things - a modestly-sized trunk by the side of the bed, an assembler, and a mirror that'd been set on the right wall.

Still, the sight of it was familar enough to made me feel a little ill. This was, after all, the place where all my hopes had died spectacularly.

I wondered where Samium could be within Dilmun. I'd heard about most of the conclave at this point, Yantho, and even Mehit and Balthazar in passing-- But not a single word about him. I wondered what I'd say if we actually met again. Actually, it felt very possible it would involve more screaming than talking.

Anyway, Ophelia was of course in the room as well, sitting on the side of the bed. She looked different.

It wasn't like Bardiya-- There was no change in her facial structure as such that I could discern. She still had the same beautiful, somewhat regal face, pronounced nose and high cheekbones, and she was even dressed in the relatively conservative way I associated with her, a stola covering everything below the neck.

Two things were strikingly different, though. The first was her color palette. Ophelia's eyes and hair had always had a pale, washed-out look to them, but now both were vividly, inhumanly bright. Her eyes were lilac crossed with sea blue, and her hair, now loose, was gold and streaked with pink and green. Her outfit, which looked half-assembled and was probably thrown on hastily, was deep violet.

The greater change, though, was in the character of her expression. Her eyes felt colder, more tired and aloof. Her lips were curled into a frown.

Kamrusepa subtly gestured again for me to stay back for now. "Pardon me for the intrusion," she said cordially. "I didn't expect you to have someone over."

"It's fine," Ophelia said, not making eye contact. "We were both awake."

Kam smiled stiffly, then advanced a little further into the room. She touched the resonator, which instantaneously produced a cup of hot tea. "You've been well, I hope?"

"As... well as always, yes." Her eyes darted towards me. "Kam, what's this about?" She frowned. "You know I don't like to be treated as an attraction to excite newcomers."

Her tone was different, too. The sense of frailty was still present, but instead of shy reservedness, now there was a noticeably sour, apathetic quality. (Unrelatedly, I felt so awkward at this stage that I wanted to punch Kam in the face for not warning me this was going to happen. And it was about to get even worse!)

"I suppose there's no dancing around it," Kam said, she gestured towards me. "I've brought Su."

Ophelia's eyes went through several emotions extremely quickly, beginning with shock and ending with something adjacent to both fear and anger. "No," she said.

"Now, Phi--"

"No," she repeated. "You can't just spring this on me without any warning. Get out."

Kamrusepa didn't move, calmly bringing her tea to her lips. 10 unpleasant seconds of silence followed, Ophelia's eyes increasingly hardening, now avoiding me altogether.

"Get out," she repeated.

"Let's discuss this rationally," Kamrusepa spoke neutrally.

"There's nothing to discuss." A moment later, she added. "I already told you no. You don't don't have a right to just overrule my choices because you think you think they don't make sense."

"But they don't make sense," she said. She gestured towards me. "Look, at least take a moment to talk to her. Or you could just observe us talk, if you like. We were going to start properly from the fundamentals today, go over both of our accounts of what happened--"

"If you won't leave, than I will," Ophelia said stiffly, her fingers digging into the sheets.

"Don't be ridiculous--"

But she'd already vanished, the bed springing up at the sudden absence of her weight.

Kam clicked her tongue. "Well, that's less than ideal."

"Kam, what the fuck was that?" I was feeling more than a little annoyed by the situation. "Why didn't you tell me she didn't want to see me?"

She looked at me, her lips flat. "Su, don't act like you understand what that was about."

"It's obvious what it was about," I replied, frowning uncomfortably. "I did something to her in her loop, and she told you she didn't want to see me."

"There's more to it than that."

"Is there?"

Kamrusepa pursed her lips, glancing to the side.

"Why didn't you warn me?"

"You asked to see her," Kam asked, demonstrating a little of the childish pedantry more endemic to her original self. "I don't recall any qualifiers on that request."

"I could have said something!"

"But would you have?" She raised an eyebrow. "I'd well wager that you'd simply have decided to avoid her altogether."

Okay, that was probably true, but it wasn't the point. "And you're saying that'd be a bad thing, after what just happened?"

"It wasn't a foregone conclusion." She cut me off before I could protest further. "I know Ophelia, Su, better than you ever could have from back in the class. She's surprisingly temperamental. How she feels about things, her priorities, changes frequently depending on the present circumstances of her life. In fact, she's explicitly entertained this precise scenario in the past."

I leveled my gaze. "Her attitude seemed pretty definitive there. And even if that's true-- How did you think it'd make it better to not warn her?"

"Because she often acts in better accord with her actual desires, as opposed to her anxieties, when put on the spot. Much like someone else I know."

It was such a conceited way of treating other people, I kind of wanted to actually yell at her, but forcibly restrained myself, my hands balling into fists as I tried to moderate my breathing. I couldn't get into a fight for her in the middle of a completely foreign social environment while she was supposed to be showing me the ropes.

"Just you wait," she added, after I failed to continue. "I bet before your visit is even over - goodness, perhaps even within the hour - she'll be back. She cares too much about all this to just let it pass her by." She smirked to herself. "Plus, I'm sure there's a little part of her that's terrified you might somehow put everything together on the spot, and then I'll get there first."

I squinted. "Wouldn't I get there first, if that happened?"

Kam chuckled in a somewhat condescending tone. "With all due respect, Su, I'm not sure you'd even know what you had yet. Plus, you're missing centuries of theory on how best to structure your explanations for when filling out the form. I wouldn't be surprised if you wasted your chance even if you could get in the door first."

I shook my head, rolling my eyes. "Why does Ophelia want to solve it so much, anyway? I was meaning to ask you that."

Her gaze turned flat. "Take one earnest guess. It's exactly what you think."

I considered it for a few seconds.

"...is she one of the people who wants to bring back de--"

"Got it in one!" she cut me off, shaking her head. "Absolutely dire, let me tell you. Though at least she's not one of the types who wants to shut this entire reality down or turn it into some esoteric form of torture."

"She's still religious, then?" I asked hesitantly. "Even after all this time?"

Kamrusepa opened her mouth as if about to explain, but then hesitated suddenly. "It's, mm. It would be discourteous of me to speak for her, I should think. I'm sure you'll have a chance to ask her yourself."

"Because you're proving such a reliable judge of her character," I replied dryly.

"Don't get cheeky with me, Su." She sipped from her tea, glancing towards the door. "Well. Despite her absence, did you still want to go ahead with sharing accounts?"

"I thought you were going to give me the grand tour before everyone woke up?"

"Don't be silly. That was just an excuse. The only thing you haven't seen here already is people's private property."

"I... suppose that's true." I scratched the side of my head. "Well, then yes. I guess there's not a lot else to do is none of the others will be awake yet."

"Good, good. Well-- We shouldn't linger in here, but I don't want to go too far in case she returns. We should find another spot on the third floor."

I frowned. "I hope you're not going to suggest the theater."

Kam scoffed. "If you think you've had your fill of , then just you wait." She put a finger to her lips. "We could try one of the soundproofed rooms. Some of them are occupied, but mostly people don't care to sleep in them. The silence is a little unsettling."

"That doesn't exactly sound appealing either."

At this rate, she's going to suggest talking in the armory, I thought. That would probably the creepiest place of all for me to tell her the story.

Fortunately, Kam defied my expectations. "You're so fussy." She sighed, looking towards the window. "I suppose we could go up to the roof, if you're willing to chance the possibility that more people might try and talk to us."

"People do that? Just hang out on the roof?"

"Well, no one's particularly precious about maintaining a sense of mundanity here, considering the constraints of the space. Nor property damage, of course."

I thought about it. "I guess it could be interesting to see everyone start coming-and-going from a bird's eye view."

"Fantastic," she replied tiredly. "Let's not muck about, then."

She opened the window (again, eerily familiar imagery) and flew up and outwards, and I followed behind, ascending up the strange curves of the Order's headquarters. I couldn't recall when I'd found out - it might have been during the original weekend, or just some post-facto realization years down the line - but I recognized now that it was a product of lower planes architecture, resembling the great underwater halls constructed by the Wyrm.

Having heard the timeline for the Sanctuary's construction from the Lady a few weeks ago, a thought had occurred to me. Actually, this was a good time to ask about it.

"Kam," I asked as we touched down on the curved surface, "if you've been committed to this for so long, you must know just about everything about the Order at this point."

"One never knows everything," she spoke. "but if it's not intimate knowledge kept in the highest confidence, then I should say so."

"Where was all this built originally?"

She furrowed her brow. "Since I know you're well aware of Apsu's origins, I assume you're talking about the original it was based upon."

"Why do you ask?" She had an oddly wary tone for what I felt was a very innocuous question, all things considered.

"Well, I was thinking about the disparity between the different grass in the sanctuary-- The shadowgrass here and around the guest house, and the more normal grass in the arboretum and the hidden bioenclosure," I told her. "I heard that this place, or at least the version of it in the Nekrokos or whatever, existed well before the headquarters was built. "

"That's correct," Kam said. "So far as I'm aware, the Apega was constructed initially, then the 'hidden bioenclosure', then the headquarters, then the guest area and research tower, and then finally the arboretum - mostly to obfuscate the nature of the Nittaimalaru, though apparently there'd been demand for a naturalistic space more reminiscent of normality as well - at around the same time, not too long before everything was destroyed."

"The hidden bioenclosure came second?"

She nodded. "Mm-hmm. How much of it did you see?"

"The entire thing. Well, what was left of it, at least." I frowned as I thought back to the last few hours of the weekend. "We sent a golem to scout inside. We saw the first two floors, which had been cleaned out, and the archive at the top. Though we didn't have the chance to investigate the entire exterior."

"You saw the library, then."

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Then I expect you've already guessed that the building was, at least until only a few years before our visit, the real headquarters of the organization, for those elevated to its highest ranks. Though not at the time of its construction," she clarified. "But after the original headquarters was destroyed, even when the enclosure we presently stand in was built - the most important meetings took place over in that structure."

This wasn't a surprise. I was pretty sure I'd speculated as much before, even.

"So this place and the abbey were built at the same time," I said. "And both have the skia, while none of the rest do."

"And those two, specifically, were made to imitate the original headquarters. And none of the rest do. So that made me think--"

"You're wondering if it was also in the Lower Planes."

"Well... yes. There's-- There was no grass like this in the Mimikos, after all. I can't think of a reason to use it instead of normal grass unless it's part of the overall fidelity. And this building looks like something you'd see in the Diakos."

We'd come to a stop at the center of the roof at this point, so I glanced down at the fields below. It was a good view, even better than the from the bell tower. You could see everything in the entire bioenclosure.

Kamrusepa paused for a moment before answering. "You're on the right track, but it's a little more complicated than you're thinking."

"Well, you might have speculated that this building," she gestured towards the church-shaped front, and then traced the larger, bulbous rear with her finger (the whole thing had kind of a queen insect shape to it, seeing it from this angle), making an inverted U-shape, "was originally just the church part, with the rest added after the fact, since the styles are obviously incompatible."

I nodded. "I had that thought the first time I saw it."

"As a matter of fact, I found out it was actually the other way around. In the early days of humanity's history in the Remaining World, the Wyrm built the structure partially beneath the water on the Atelikos, but some great quake in the earth caused the land to rise to the surface, rendering it inhospitable to their kind." She looked down at the structure. "Some years after that came to pass, a sect of Asharomi in some self-imposed exile occupied it and built the rest of the structure out of it. And then they abandoned it some years after that, at which point it fell into the hands of the Order, who had been seeking a remote base of operations for their work."

She waved dismissively. "Some quirk of inheritance through Ubar of Kane's... son? Grandson? Whoever Hamilcar's grandfather was." She shrugged. "It's not relevant."

"This doesn't sound that complicated to me," I said skeptically.

"Well, think about the version of the 'abbey' you witnessed in the other bioenclosure. What color was the grass there?"

Ah, right.

I narrowed my eyes. "Green."

She nodded.

"...it's not actually from the same original location?"

"That's correct," she confirmed. Her eyes wandered towards the murky waters beyond the lake. "Part of this is from Linos - so, well, despite everything, take it with a grain of salt - after the incident that destroyed the Umbilcian Bioenclosure, the Order rebuilt the structure in new location, but attempted to disguise its original nature."

"Why?" I frowned in confusion. "Wouldn't the experiment have already ended by then?"

Kamrusepa almost said something, but then paused, pursing her lips. "There's a theory I have about that," she said slowly, "but we're getting ahead of ourselves. There are a few other things you'll need to hear about first."

She waved a hand and conjured two small wooden chairs, one of which she sat down on. She gestured towards the other, which I hesitantly lowered myself on to.

"Well then," she said. "Let's get started."