Author: Lurina

063: Cut-Out Face (𒐆) - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

Research Tower Underground | 7:59 AM | Third Day

I want to say that the sight was harrowing or bone-chilling, or something along those lines... But honestly, after Bardiya's body, it was sort of an anti-climax. It almost looked cheap, like it was set up as a prop for some tertiary school play, and the whole visual of the magic circle felt a little silly and awkward.

Obviously, what we were meant to believe was that Durvasa had been dragged here, and then teleported or otherwise spirited away by... Whatever this was. But it felt a little hard to buy. The entire premise felt awkward - if we were supposed to be being hunted by 'divine beasts', then what did that have to do with summoning circles? Or sorcery in general?

Still, some of our classmates seemed to be more unsettled - Ophelia held a hand up to her mouth, and Seth was wearing the same dire expression I'd seen on his face over and over since Bardiya's death - but many of the others looked equally skeptical. Zeno, in particular, seemed somewhere between amused and offended by the patent absurdity of the situation.

"Oh, well isn't this so cute," she said, sneering. "Whoever is doing this is certainly has a flair for the dramatic, but they must think us a real pack of morons, expecting us to buy something this slapped-together."

"But this is where the trail led..." Linos said, twisting his lower lip under his thumb.

"Where it looked to lead, you mean," Zeno went on, rolling her eyes. "I've seen Wag Festival decor more realistic then than all this. Anyone can smear some blood on a wall."

By this point, Anna was already casting what I recognized from Ran's usage of it as the Anomaly-Divining Arcana. She pinched Ptolema with her free hand, presumably to have someone independently verify the result - though I couldn't think of any reason why she'd have picked her of all people except for the fact that she happened to be standing close by in the right moment.

"I'm not sensing any incantations within the past several days," Anna said, "so there is nothing trans-mundane at work here. It must have been set up on purpose."

Linos frowned. "I'm not sure what we're expected to conclude, then. If we know the blood belongs to Durvasa, then the culprit has to have passed this way before taking him further... Especially if they haven't used the power." He looked to Ran. "Miss Hoa-Trinh, I think you're the only divination specialist here. Is there anything you could try?"

"I don't think so," she said. "Not for this situation."

"Um... I'll try the Life-Sensing Arcana, again..." Ophelia said, taking out her scepter. "Even if the culprit has tried to hide it, there might be residue from a further trail."

"Good thinking," Linos said, nodding.

Ptolema bit her lip. She kept staring at the circle with a furrowed brow and opening her mouth like she wanted to say something, but then hesitating.

Nobody was saying it out loud, but I was sure that on everyone's mind (and some more than others) was the absurd notion that maybe, just maybe - even if it looked gaudy and a little silly - maybe something was going on that couldn't be explained by something so simple as the Power. Anna saying that no incantations had been cast recently raised more questions than just where exactly Durvasa had been taken from this dead end. After all, his disappearance had been less than an hour ago. But carving something like this by hand, cheap-looking or not, would surely have taken a lot of time. So how could it have been done so quickly?

When considering that, the sight became a little more unsettling, and that feeling only intensified when Ophelia reported back that she couldn't pick up another trail... And despite making an effort of their own, the other council members also failed to do so.

So what was the logical explanation?

There wasn't much time to think. After this, Linos suggested we search the surrounding area, but Zeno pointed out that we were starting to get close to the 3-hour time limit of disabling the lockdown, so the notion was quickly put on hold. The plan became to head to the security center after opening it up and attempt to locate Durvasa that way, along with everyone else who was presently missing... But it felt like there was a tacit acceptance in the air that it was probably too late for him specifically. If so much of his blood was scattered around the place (assuming it was all his blood), then he was probably gravely injured.

We headed down another long hall towards the administrative center. Here, the straight tunnels gave way to a looping hallway that was less claustrophobic both vertically and horizontally, and had some actual furniture scattered about, if only consisting of logic engines, desks and cabinets. Lots of pipes could be seen along the walls, too - this had to be where a lot of the water and oxygen supply was centralized. Thinking about it, I thought I recalled Neferuaten talking about at some point.

In the center of said loop, behind a sealed metal door which Zeno moved to unlock, a level hum emanated that grew louder as we approached. She grabbed the heavy metal handles and wrenched it open, and there, finally, it was: The administrative core.

With everything we'd seen in the sanctuary up until this point, I'd been expecting something pretty dramatic, but it ended being both utilitarian and fairly boring. Four rectangular pillars of metal, each about two meters wide, were assembled in a square around a cylinder of thick concrete. Lines of bronze on the ceiling connected said cylinder to each of the pillars, pipes flowed in at the base, and at its midsection was a metal segment that looked like it could split open to reveal the interior - though I sensed that would be a very bad idea. On it was a sign reading:

DANGER - UNFOLDING NUCLEAR CONVENTION PROCESS WITHIN - RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS PRESENT

Along with a little visualization of a humanoid figure melting. (I'd always found those things cute, for some reason.)

Self-evidently, that was the convention furnace, and metal pillars were probably the arcane logic engines which governed the systems of the sanctuary, and where Aruru's 'mind' was hosted. There were no logic bridges - for something this critical, it was probably a security concern - and instead, a mundane terminal had been built into the side of one of the machines, consisting of a projector, a sheet of pale metal, and an awkward-looking mechanical keyboard.

"Anna, you'll deal with it, won't you?" Zeno asked. "You're better with this sort of old trash than I am."

She gave the other woman an irritated expression, then moved over to the keyboard, setting to work. The projector quickly sputtered to life and displayed a crude interface depicting a grid of boxes filled with various types of data, which I assumed corresponded to all of the components of the machines. I'd never actually used this sort of technology myself.

"...forgive me if this is a foolish question," Kamrusepa said. "But right now, aren't two of you not exactly in your normal physical states? Is the machine going to register you properly?"

"Try to give us a sliver of benefit of the doubt, little girl," Zeno said, rolling her eyes. "We're not drooling idiots. I have all of my bodies registered with the system, so there's no chance of an issue. As for Anna, I the system operates based on facial structural data, and it won't be confused by anything so trivial as skin elasticity."

But doesn't the skull change with age, too...? I thought, but didn't bother saying out loud. It felt like the best outcome you could hope for in an argument with Zeno was a pyrrhic victory.

"The two of you should come over here," Anna said, as she typed. "It's almost prepared."

Zeno shrugged and strolled over, with Linos following shortly after. They gathered in front of the terminal, fishing out their seals.

"...what happens if this doesn't work?" Seth asked.

"Hey, let's try to stay positive for the time being, eh?" Fang said, a hesitant smile on their face as they peered at the projector from a distance. "We've made it this far. One way or the other, we'll work something out."

Seth didn't look particularly encouraged, and it was hard to blame him. Fang had been quieter than normal since we'd arrived in the tower-- Since the resolution of things with Theo, even. I wondered what was going through their head.

"Ah... That's a relief," Linos said, letting out a sigh, and turning to the rest of us with an attempt at a positive expression. "It looks like it's working. We've been accepted by the system, so it should be straight-sailing from here."

"See?" Fang said. "Nothing to worry abo--"

"Something's wrong," Anna said, her tone suddenly more severe.

Zeno grunted in irritation, and Linos leaned over to look at the screen, speaking up with a worried expression. "What is it?"

"The system is saying we're not in a lockdown," she said, her eyes wide.

Zeno scoffed. "What?" She looked over at the projected image herself, nudging Anna a little out of the way. "How is that possible?"

We were all silent, watching the three of them intensely as events unfolded. If it wasn't for the noise of the machines, you could have heard a pin drop.

"Everything that's happening right now isn't part of the lockdown protocol, but something that's been scripted to occur in advance," she explained. "The shutdown of communications, of power, the suppression of arcana. All of it."

"What do you mean, 'scripted in advance'?" Linos asked, a slight tremble coming into his voice. He was obviously attempting to keept quiet so as to not let the rest of us realize what was happening, but it was futile. The room was too cramped.

"I mean that when we started redesigning the system for those two artificed intelligences 20 years ago--"

"You can't be serious," Zeno said, shaking her head.

20 years ago?

"I am gravely serious, boy," Anna said, flashing Zeno a dark expression. "Or whatever it is you're supposed to be, right now. The process which initiated all this isn't attached to a circumstance or even a trigger, it's set to occur at a certain time. Today."

"W...What are they saying...?" Ptolema said, her face contorted.

"What she's saying is that this hasn't happened because someone seized the security center," Ran said in a low tone, putting a hand over her eyes. "Or even because the culprit somehow initiated it down here. It's happening, right now, because it was built into the architecture of their system it at the time it was programmed."

"What the fuck..." Ezekiel said, shaking his head. "So this whole thing was a fucking trap? For us?"

"Let's not jump to any conclusions," Ran said, glaring at him. "...but at least, it sounds like whoever's responsible has been planning this for a really, really long time."

In that moment, for the first time, I started to seriously consider the idea that we were doomed. That the speech given over the logic bridge had been, if not literally true, then at least prophetic. And that I was going to die here, afraid, with everything I had tried to make right over the past decade having led to nothing ruin.

I felt a shudder run through me that almost painful, and an anxiety so manic it was painful crystalize in my chest. Suddenly I hated being here, trapped in this awful place. I longed to be back in the city and wrapped up in bed, thinking about anything else. For the first time, I might've even abandoned the reason I came here in the first place just to run.

"What can be done?" Zeno asked impatiently, back at the terminal. "Can you not fix it?"

"No, that's impossible," she said, blunt. "The commands are at the base of the system-- Fundamental. They're physically as much a part of the logic engine as the life support system."

"Can't we take it apart?!" Zeno demanded. "This isn't a biological logic engine, it's all just runework! Physical, as you just said! There's nothing stopping us from evaporating some of this stone and cutting out the middleman--"

"Don't be a fool!" Anna snapped back at her, raising her voice for the first time. "The eris has already been committed to the executive incantation! All we'd do is cause a backlash great enough to blow this entire damnable place to dust!"

Zeno scowled, but seemed to concede the point, pulling her lips inward and looking towards the ground with a frustrated, bitter expression.

Anna turned back to the projected image, her gaze growing grimmer still. "That's not all. According to this, more security measures are to be activated over the course of the day. In two hours, the defensive golems are to be deployed all over the sanctuary and set to attack all intruders. Two hours after that, the bioenclosures are to isolated from one another, the doors sealed. And then..."

"And then what...?" Linos asked. I could see the sweat rolling down his brow.

Next to me, I heard Ophelia start to cry, her face turning downward and pained sobs coming from her contorted lips. A couple of people glanced to her, but no one seemed to know what to do. Seth, who was normally the type to step in and comfort people at times like this, looked like an emotional wreck himself, taking deep breaths as he held his arms tightly together. Kam's expression was bitter and distant.

Theo walked away from the group entirely, his eyes averted as he crouched over one of the nearby desks. The only people who seemed to be keeping their cool in relative terms were Fang, who only looked intensely thoughtful, and Ptolema, who seemed somewhere between perplexed and angry. Ran's face was composed, but she was gripping her book so tightly that her knuckles were white.

Anna shook her head, peering at the display. "I don't know. The data for the rest is too complex to be read literally - whatever will happen is concealed amongst a jumble of minor functions and secondary triggers. Whoever did this didn't want anything after that point to be clear from merely examining this console."

"Gods-dammit!" Zeno said, gritting her teeth and banging a delicate fist against the side of the pillar. "How did no one notice this in the scripting?! This is a fucking farce! This organization is rife with imbeciles!" A realization entered her eyes, and she glanced around, her eyes suddenly becoming sharp. "Who did do this, then? It had to have been one of us. Who oversaw the system, the last time it was re-designed?"

Anna and Linos looked to one another. And then the latter, for just a moment, glanced in my direction.

And just by virtue of that look, I knew the answer. But what it meant, and what bode for me, my role, and my future, I had no way of yet understanding.

After that, when it became clear there was nothing to be done, Linos had no choice but to tell the rest of us his plan had failed, and now there was no clear means of escape in sight. Even though we'd all realized as much already, it still chilled the mood even further, and a couple of people - Ezekiel and Ptolema - even became angry. Still, Linos declared that there was nothing to be done but rally and come up with a new plan-- Saying that even if this was bad news, we at least now understood fully how this had happened, and steps could be taken from there.

But it was decided that such steps would be better taken outside of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the tunnels. So we headed back up to the surface, which ended up taking us to familiar territory. I recognized the halls as being the ones beneath the conference room, and soon - our barriers failing as we returned to the area where the Power had been restricted - we arrived back through the hatch under the bell tower once more, spreading out into the conference hall.

The bell tower. Meaning that right over our heads... Hanging there, was...

I closed my eyes, trying not to think about it.

"Back here again..." Seth said, his eyes wandering with a distant look. "Feels like it's been weeks."

"The three of us need to confer and decide on what we're going to do next," Linos said, forcing a smile and a fatherly tone. "If the rest of you could sit tight for a few minutes, that'd be much appreciated. And call out if you hear anything suspicious-- Even without the Power, Zeno and Anna are still armed, so we should be safe."

"...geez," Ptolema said, as they stepped away towards the rear of the room. "Should we even trust that they know what they're doing, at this point?"

Kamrusepa frowned. "Some amount of skepticism is perhaps reasonable at this point, but Lady Anna, at least, is an arcanist of international repute who shown no indication of incompetent behavior. And all of them have hundreds of years of experience compared to us."

Seth snorted. "Yeah, experience screwing around in labs. All the honors in the world didn't do shit to help Neferuaten or Durvasa." He glanced towards Theo. "No offense, Theo, I'm sure your dad is doing his best, but..."

"No, it's alright," Theo said, sounding very, very tired.

Kamrusepa clicked her tongue, crossing her arms and tapping her forefinger against her elbow. "Regardless, it is not as if we have a wealth of other options at our disposal. We're completely dependent upon their knowledge of how this place functions. Even the exit is part of the system they've set up."

"The system that's trying to fucking kill us," Seth replied.

Kamrusepa took a deep breath, offering no retort.

"Ugh, this sucks!" Ptolema said, clenching her fist. "This is so messed up! How is one person managing to run rings around everyone in the order? They're supposed to be some of the smartest arcanists in the world!"

"There's no point in getting worked up, Ptolema..." I said.

"I know! I know!" She grit her teeth. "But I just think of the smug face of whoever's doing this, and what happened to Bardiya, and the fact we can't get outta here, and-- Ughh! I hate this! It's sick!"

Maybe I'd spoke to soon in saying that she was handling it well.

Ran, on the other hand, was eerily quiet. She'd sat down with her book, but wasn't even looking at it, her gaze leveled at the wall. She was probably thinking about the same stuff that I was.

During the tour with Neferuaten, I'd been able to infer that the logic engines had to have been installed and started up for the first time roughly 12 years ago. Back then, the number had bounced off me, but in retrospect it was obviously around the time of my grandfather's death. Even if he could technically use the Power, I'd learned later in life that he had never been trained as an arcanist at all; he had no talent for the conceptualization aspect of casting, and couldn't even so much as activate an enchantment. His reputation had been built entirely upon a concealment of this fact, combined with extensive knowledge of theory.

What he was, really, was an engineer. He designed machines, logic engines and otherwise. At the time of his death, he'd only left the order recently, and Anna had said that the last time system had started its redesign had been 20 years ago, and it had been prompted by the installation of Sekhmet and Eshmun. So the early parts of the process must have taken place around then, and the one who'd been charged with it... As his last act in the organization...

Well, it was a guess, in the end. But with the way Linos had looked at me back then, it felt beyond dispute in my mind.

I shook my head. But why? And how? There's no way he could possibly have known about this event so far in advance, down to the specific date. And even if he did, what reason would he have had to terrorize the order like this? Bad blood was one thing, but this...

I hated my grandfather for what he'd done. Or rather, what he'd wanted, and what that had led to happen. But I'd never in a thousand years imagined he was hateful evil - just swallowed by cognitive dissonance and mindless yearning for the past, like I was. He wasn't the type of person who'd conspire to commit murder, even with dementia turning his brain into soup.

It just didn't make any sense.

The others were talking around me, continuing to vent their anxieties and frustrations with the situation, but I didn't take anything in. This all felt harrowingly personal now. What if it cast suspicion on me? If this was somehow the culmination of a decade-long conspiracy, then he'd have to have a living accomplice doing the actual killing. Wasn't I the most logical answer to that question?

Stay calm, my rational voice told me. There's still no proof he's responsible for anything, but vague inference. And everyone in the class knows you weren't even close. And besides, your alibi for Bardiya's murder is airtight.

But those words didn't make me feel better, because it relied on people being rational. But Linos had to have sense, right? He knew a little bit about our relationship. He'd realize how absurd an idea it was, and wouldn't let the information spread.

Gods. Now I was counting on Linos, of all people.

"Alright, everyone!" the man himself called out, from the other side of the room. "We've reached a decision on what to do next. If you'd all gather round?"

The group pulled back inward, and moved towards the round table where the council members had been sitting the previous day. I noticed that there was an expression of discontent on Zeno's small features, giving eyes to both her peers.

"Anna," Linos said. "Would you mind explaining? In this case, you're better suited than me."

"...very well," she said, and then looked to class with a grave expression that, like so many others, seemed completely out of place with her current appearance. "I shall not repeat myself, so listen closely. The plan is simple. We cannot alter the scripting of the administrative core. However... It should be possible to bypass it outright in regard to the gateways of the sanctuary, and make our escape."

A gentle sigh of relief passed through the group. In a time like this, just hearing someone say there was any hope at all felt like an anvil was being lifted from ones chest.

"How?" Seth asked, his gaze fixed.

"Give me your map, boy," she said, looking to Linos. "The copy you made of the one illustrating the sanctuary."

He handed it over - pausing for only a millisecond in response to her rudeness - and she spread it out in front of us over the table.

"While the administrative center is the core of operations in the sanctuary, as you have already come to understand, many lesser functions are delegated to the security office." She pointed its position out with her finger; a few rooms away from where we presently stood. "A request is simply sent from the administrative core when one of said functions needs to be performed, and the logic engines there carry it out. This includes the opening and closing of the entrances, as was illustrated by the... Sudden arrival of the last of your number, yesterday."

She gestured towards Fang, who made an impish grin.

"These requests are transmitted via a simple relay system - sent to a smaller arcane logic engine via an engraved incantation, which then uses another to translate the data into a format suitable for the more common oscillatory logic engines used in the security center," she explained. "Unlike the engravings in the administrative core, they are not active at all times, but only on command. Thus, alterations are possible, and thereby we can fool those systems into thinking they are receiving requests from the administrative core which they are not."

"So what then?" Ezekiel asked. "We just re-carve the runework, then get out of here?"

"It is not such a simple matter," she said bluntly, tugging her hood down a little as she leaned further over the map. "It is not enough to merely make them susceptible to false signals. We also require something to redirect them to." She traces her finger downward, towards the part of the map which depicts the underground. "To that effect, I would suggest we connect them to the artificed intelligences in the sublevel. They are designed to follow our directives, and are capable of the most fluid functionality in the sanctuary."

"...is that really wise?" Ran said. "Trusting our lives to machines that can think for themselves?"

Anna looked irritated at this interruption, but Linos spoke up before she could snap at Ran. "They've never disobeyed an order before, miss Hoa-Trinh. I trust Neferuaten and Hamilcar's artificing. And besides, the most we'll be giving them access to are the basic protocols in the security office - and they can't do much worse with that then what we're already putting up with."

She hummed with skepticism, but didn't protest further.

"If things move on schedule, we should be able to get the gateway to the sanctuary open before any of the surprises scripted in the core can be sprung on us. ...But there is one concern."

"The golems, right?" Fang said, eyebrows raised. "We might be able to dodge whatever comes afterward, but those things'll be getting up in our business real soon."

Anna nodded. "For us of the council, it should not be a concern. I saw no attempt made to subvert our defenses recognition of us-- We will not be registered as intruders." She narrowed her eyes. "However, for the rest of you, things will be more difficult. Because you are the first guests from outside of the order to visit this sanctuary, you have not been registered as normal... And so, the golems will view you as enemies of our order."

"You can't make them stand down in person?" Seth asked. "Just give them direct orders?"

"No," Anna said, shaking her head. "They are set up to only respond to orders from the administrative core to prevent subversion. However..." Her finger once again moved, this time to the third story of the building. "There is something of a loophole."

The walk to the third floor was uneventful, save for the rest of the class reacting with obvious unease to the cold, lightless silence I'd already experienced earlier. The only things worth noting were that the alarm going off when I'd woken up seemed to have stopped, and that the the theater in particular had taken on an atmosphere that could only be described as threatening. For some reason, it seemed to the be the only room with gas lamps installed as peripheral lighting, but they were barely functional and the glass ruby-tinted, creating pockets of blood red illumination at the corners of the room.

The smell, which was impossible to ignore, keyed us in to what we'd find in the mask chamber before we actually entered, so we were able to mentally prepare to some extent - Anna, who seemed indifferent to whatever we might find, went first, and called out in a distasteful tone that it was 'nothing worth remarking upon if you've ever been to a dissection', which seemed spectacularly ominous.

In the end, however, her description wasn't too far from the truth. It wasn't as the sight wasn't disgusting, but the body was so mutilated that there was no humanity left in it. It looked like, or had been made to look like, an absolutely savage attack from a wild animal. The limbs were strewn about the area in pieces, the skin seemingly gone outright, and the torso had been caved open, the guts running in a streak long the floor. The head seemed to have been crushed-- No, obliterated is the better word. Were it not for brain matter and pieces of skull strewn about the area, I would have called it decapitation.

Though this wasn't immediately clear, as a mask adorned the neck-stump of the cadaver. I recognized it from when Neferuaten had been pointing them out to us. It was the traditional, bird-esque one that had belonged to Durvasa.

There was also a circle of blood drawn crudely around what remained of the body. The connection to be made here was obvious.

"Well," Linos said, with a grave expression. "I... suppose we know what happened to Durvasa, now."

"Do we, though?" Fang said skeptically. "I mean, that could be anybody."

"I'm forced to agree," Zeno said, taking a step towards the remains. "If whoever's setting all this up is trying to pull the wool over our eyes, they're doing a remarkably shitty job of it."

Again, since we were now back in the inner sanctum where the Power was suppressed, it would be impossible to tell authoritatively one way or the other whether the corpse actually belonged to Durvasa - at least for the time being. All that could be done was to examine the body-- A task which Anna took upon herself, kneeling down in the blood to look for any kind of distinguishing marks on the remains.

She really seemed to be embracing her role as medical examiner, despite not being any sort of physician that I was aware of. But as I mentioned before, runecarving in her day had routinely involved surgery.

"This is really gross," Ptolema said, staring at the corpse with discontent. "Can't we like, go outside, or something?"

"Don't be stupid, Viraaki," Ezekiel said. "We're asking to die if we split up again. We're not even armed."

"I mean, we could leave the door open or something..." She said, frowning.

"Better to just face the wall if it's too much, Ptolema," Kamrusepa said. "We can't be afraid of some gore at a time like this."

Ptolema frowned, looking at the ground.

Eventually, Anna seemed to come to some sort of satisfactory conclusion. rising back up to her feet. I hadn't noticed it before, but her robes seemed to be made primarily of leather. The gore rolled off of them instead of sticking.

"...it is difficult to say for sure," she stated, "but based on the proportions and the dermal tissue which I was able to salvage, it does appear that this cadaver belonged to Durvasa."

Zeno snorted. "Appears. Now that's a weasel word if I've heard one." She tossed her scepter around idly, despite it presently being useless. "There are numerous ways to fabricate a corpse, or to come into possession of one with certain attributes-- Voila, illusion complete."

Linos tilted his head to the side. "It really does look rather like his build, though, now that I really look at it--"

"This is foolishness," Zeno interrupted him, swinging her scepter up and bopping the tip against his forehead. "Regardless of the nature of our opponent or the scale of the conspiracy behind them, I shall not be led by the nose like some snivelling teenager in a cheap horror drama. This scenario is beyond contrived-- He's attacked by a monster, dragged to a summoning circle, and magicked over here, with identifiable features absent?" She shook her head. "If Durvasa were truly dead, the culprit would have no reason to go to such lengths to put on a show for us."

"Yeah. Yeah, hard to disagree," Fang said, tilting their head. "It's all a bit too weird."

Linos frowned, while Anna produced a pouch from somewhere in her robes and took a scraping from the body. "We can verify this later, once we're outside of this building or have taken control of the security console. For the time being, we should proceed with the plan."

"Well said," Kamrusepa said, with a nod. Her eyes turned upward. "So, then. ...which ones are we to choose from?"