Chains of a Time Loop

Lukai had at least attempted to cover his tracks. According to him, he had shot out a bunch of energy beams, one of which should have destroyed most of the office, and one which incinerated a giant hole in the wall that ought to disguise the fact that they had taken the vine.

Nonetheless, they had created a bit of a scene, and Lukai was adamant that they not bring the vine onto a public train. He instead insisted they take a private train, something Myra had never done, not even with her father.

It was a lot less convenient than a public train, having to board from a small, private station on the outskirts of the city instead of the big one near the center. It was, however, the swankiest station Myra had ever been in, with marble staircases, murals on the walls, and a fancy restaurant taking up half the building. The tiled floor had a diagram spanning the entire platform that was apparently a schematic for the aura composition of the train element, one of the largest and most well-known feats of aura-engineering to date.

Lukai took care of getting all the tickets. Apparently, the murk bogs would be paying for it. The train itself was very comfy, with pillowy seats that could lean all the way back, and a lobster dinner fresh from the Halnyan market.

"Not that I'm complaining," Myra said. "But like… what's the deal with this? Like, who runs this train, exactly?"

Lukai tilted his head. "I thought Geel would've given you all the info on this."

"Er, Geel didn't really tell us shit. I know there was some kinda shady deal with a train company to get into the empire, but that's about it."

He rubbed his eye. "Well, this train is run by an imperial company called Velocity in Comfort, we usually just call 'em Velcomf. They're not very big, but they have a handful of international clients, and they make a big deal about traveling in privacy, if you get what I mean." Myra got it. "So specifically, they actually have ties to an Unkmirean travel company, which the murk bogs are then a client of. The murk bogs use an alias themselves, so all the paper trails are clean. But most of the people in the Unkmirean company know who we are, and they can help grease wheels with Achu Quar."

He said the last name like Myra should have known what it was. "Achu Quar?"

Even Iz kinda frowned. Okay, I guess it's something I should know…

"It's the big train company that put down all the supercanopy tracks in Unkmire. So they have the rule of the land, there."

"Oh."

"It's, like, the most important engineering conglomerate in the southern part of the continent," Iz added. "It's not just Unkmire, their networks span Briktone, Fallazu, all the way out to the Bachi Archipelago."

"It's like the southern counterpart to Long Garden Industries," Lukai said, referring to the imperial counterpart of Achu Quar. Myra did at least know of Long Garden; it was the industrial giant that dominated imperial train lines, operating mostly at the direction of the imperial sages. It was them who had invented the train element, for example.

"Achu Quar is dominant in the south because they're the only ones who know how to deal with such complicated terrain," Iz said. "Not just in Unkmire, but the canyons in Fallazu, the vertical steppes in Briktone…"

"Wait, where are they based?"

"Currently, it's based in Briktone, but they've moved before," Lukai said. "Their board has members from everywhere."

Oh, boy. Myra couldn't even imagine how complicated that got.

The train started, and shortly after, their lobster was served, and then Myra was stuffed and considered leaning her seat back to go to sleep. She thought about snuggling with Shera. Shera was still wide awake, though (oh, right) and feeling rather talkative, too.

"Lukai, you took a pretty big risk, d-didn't you?"

"Well, sure. I've taken bigger risks with murk bogs missions."

"Is that why you gave it your all getting the vine out of there? Do you see it as your mission as a mercenary?"

Lukai thought for a moment, looking thoughtful. Finally, he said, "Mostly, I was thinking of how important it was to get the red vine so we can investigate Mirkas-Ballam."

"You weren't thinking about our deal at all?"

"What deal?"

Shera looked confused. "Th-the deal to help you find the c-culprit…"

"Oh, right, I forgot about—" He froze, then closed his eyes. He put his hand to his forehead, wincing.

"L-lukai?!"

"I'm fine. I just mean, no, I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. I was just thinking about the time loop problems."

There was silence for a bit. Lukai looked out the window at the rolling scenery.

"Should we spend some more t-time digging into it?" Shera asked gently.

"We don't have any leads," Myra said.

"What are you talking about?" Iz asked. "You all were going on about the Blank Cloaks the other day… The least you could do is talk to Aurora." She looked to Lukai. "If you're up for it, anyway."

◆◆◆◆◆

Officer Shoshana Cantor had been awake for over thirty-six hours. First, it had been a long shift of standing camouflaged next to a wall, and then someone nearly blew up the entire manor, and then there had been hours of multilayered debriefs.

Then her superiors had been chewed out by their superiors, who had been chewed out by their superiors, and so on. The bloodbath stopped just shy of reaching her as the biggest mid-level superior of all, a guy behind a desk on a floor nobody had ever heard of, stepped in and rearranged things with Shoshana now leading the post-mortem and investigation.

The investigation was quickly interrupted by the arrival of Hazel Ornobis, the dead guy's understudy and eventual replacement among the imperial sages. When she arrived, she talked their ears off about the intruders being after a watch in the basement, even though the culprits had arrived on the upper floor. After getting her to calm down and explain what the hell she was talking about, Shoshana eventually learned that the watch had been taken to safety days ago. Without elucidating much of anything, the imperial sage left.

Then a man and a woman showed up with a bunch of credentials. The credentials were obviously fake, but they were fake in a way that meant they should let him in and forget he was there, rather than fake in a way that meant they should kick them out. The man looked around aimlessly for a bit while the woman looked distraught, and then they left.

Shoshan's underling, Rikard, claimed the man was the imperial prince. His evidence for this was the fact that the woman was Cornelia Mayfly, a handmaid often seen hovering around Prince Humperton, the source of a number of saucy rumors. Shoshan didn't know if she should believe him.

Finally, she kicked everyone out to have some peace and quiet so she could be alone with the evidence.

Two important clues became apparent to Shoshana Cantor as she sat with them.

First, there was an inconsistency. The intruder had shot out six beams, four of which went through the walls. These beams had destroyed most of the walls, from the drywall to the stonework, but for some reason, they had left intact the strange vinework that ran through the inner walls. Shoshana quickly confirmed the vine seemed to be immune to most magic, so that checked out. However, in the hole closest to the intrusion point, the vine was missing along with the wall. Initially, Shoshana chalked this up to it being closer to the origin of the beams.

However, this explanation increasingly seemed kind of dubious, and she noticed a second thing. On inspection, some of the broken drywall pieces in the bathroom had straight edges, as if they had been cut out of the wall rather than exploded. She even found two pieces that might have been corners. Ergo, the vine had probably been cut out of the wall and taken by the culprit.

And anyway… why was there a vine in the guy's walls to begin with?

She phoned the main office to let them know what she'd found out. Five minutes later, she got a call back. By order of some superior she'd never heard of, Shoshana and her associates were all off the case.

◆◆◆◆◆

The group had to stop by Aurora's dorm room in any event. Sky Mishram usually did not arrive in Ralkenon until much later in the month, but Myra had made a brief stop at the Halnya Times office while they were in Jewel City, and there she had learned that Sky had already taken off, a deviation that she could only chalk up to the shitstorm with Mirkas-Ballam. So now, she needed to track him down in Ralkenon, and for that, her best bet would obviously be talking to Aurora.

Sure enough, they were able to find the both of them, not quite in her dorm room, but in the dorm lounge area down the hall from it. Aurora was lying on a sofa, balancing a knife by the handle on the tip of her finger, while Sky stood nearby. It sounded like they were chatting about a rock-dodging game they were planning to attend the next day.

"Skyyy, my favorite guyyy," Myra sang as she held out a friendly hand.

Sky looked puzzled. "Have we met?"

"We've met in spirit."

He thought on this for a moment, then laughed, the sound booming from his chest. "Good enough for me." He met her hand for a firm handshake. "You must be Myrabelle, then. I recognize your voice." He turned to his friend on the sofa. "Aurora, this classmate you sent my way has been a huge help to me. Everyone at the paper thinks I'm a star."

"Oh, yeah," she said absentmindedly.

Shera, Lukai, and Iz all introduced themselves, and then Sky got right down to business. "You're here for your end of the deal, I assume."

"Yeah. Uh, I know you haven't had a lot of time, with everything going on—I assume you're here about Mirkas-Ballam?"

"Exactly right. And no, before you ask," which Myra had been about to do, "I don't have a clue what's going on there. I've been stonewalled at every stone wall."

"But Hachirou Iwasaki…?"

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"Have no fear, Myrabelle. I'm a man of integrity." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "When I make a deal, I come through. Just let me fetch it."

He dashed off towards Aurora's room and returned with a stack of short folders.

"Though, it's a bit of a rush job," he said.

Aurora's curiosity finally got the better of her. "What the fuck are you all up to?"

"Digging up skeletons," Myra said.

"Not as such," Sky said. "Hachirou Iwasaki is squeaky clean. Distinguished in the navy for his anti-piracy campaigns—"

"Yeah, I've heard all this before."

"I like Iwasaki," Aurora cut in again. "Last year, a couple of drunk shitheads wandered onto campus and started harassing me and a couple first-year girls. I knifed one of 'em, and Kate punched another's face in. Iwasaki was cool with everything, said it was valid self-defense."

"Yeah, it's hard to find a bad word against him," Sky said. "I did go through the court records, and I think I found the case you were wondering about, Myrabelle—Don't get your hopes up. The case was tossed before anything went to trial."

"What was it?"

"Can't say. Everything's sealed—that's normal for a case dismissed so early. The judge didn't consider the case against Iwasaki—whatever it was—to have enough merit that it should be in any public record. Here's a record of the order, but that's all you're going to get."

The order was dated June of '12, signed by a Judge Silvertree of the Casire First Court. Not too long after the village massacre, a small part of Myra noted, only because the massacre had been on her mind so much recently.

"What would we need to unseal the records?"

Sky grimaced.

"That bad?"

"Usually, you would petition Justice Silvertree, who dismissed the case originally. That's already an uphill battle. Justice Silvertree is dead, though. So the process is obscenely more complicated. You'd need a really, really good reason. Frankly, there's just not much precedent here."

Myra sighed. "Okay. Thanks for looking."

"Well, that's not all I tried," Sky said, though he looked a little glum, so Myra guessed it couldn't be much. "I also tried to contact the one agency you highlighted. The Agency for Fair Access and Protection of Underground Resources."

"And?"

"Well, they're shut down. They were a remarkably unsuccessful group, doomed from the very start. They existed to challenge various rulings relating to mine ownership and trade deals. They—well, to make a long story short, everything they stood for went directly against the Penrillas' interests."

Myra perked up. "The Penrillas?"

"Well, sure. The duchy covers, like, 90% of the valuable sources up there. So just about any dispute anyone has, it's going to be with the Penrillas."

"Huh."

"What happened to Justice Silvertree?" Iz asked suddenly.

"He died around 4 years ago," Sky said. "Accident. Slipped on his front porch in a very icy winter, cracked his head open. Why, do you suspect foul play or something?" His eyes flickered to Aurora, which Myra almost missed.

"I'm just keeping an eye out for anything odd," Iz said.

◆

Sky had to go to the bathroom, which left them alone with Aurora. It wasn't the greatest opportunity in the world, but Myra took it anyway.

"Aurora, do you know anything about beavers?"

"Wha?" She opened her mouth and flattened her brow to a ruler's edge. "Like… the animal?"

"Yeah? What other beaver is there?"

"Uh… I don't know. Never mind. Why are you asking about beavers, exactly?"

"Sixty years ago, Kurtwell Raine led an expedition to a massive beaver dam in Miirun. Emmett Massiel wrote a journal on it, and for some reason, the empire's putting a huge amount of effort into finding it. That's what the test thing with the blue light was for."

"What blue light?"

"Uh—it was kind of hard to miss? A bright blue light that blanketed the entire city?"

"When?"

"Two nights ago? At like midnight?"

"I sleep with my blinds closed."

"Uh… right. Okay, basically, they were casting a spell to look for a book based on its contents."

"Ah. That sounds like a spell from elemental composition class."

"Yeah, it's—probably the same thing."

"Yeah." She yawned. "Why are you asking me about this, again?"

"Anyway, your—your parents are also looking for it. I thought maybe you'd know something."

"Oh," she said coldly. "Well, I don't know much about their work with that kind of thing."

"They don't talk about it at all?"

"What's there to talk about? They manage logistics. It's all probably really important, but it sounds boring as hell."

Myra tilted her head.

"What?"

"I mean… Look, can we not beat around the bush?"

Aurora narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?" she asked, despite clearly knowing what.

"I mean, your parents don't sit behind a desk in Jewel City all day."

"Sure. Sometimes they go on trips and sit behind desks in other cities."

Lukai ripped the bandage off. "Your parents are assassins," he said. "Are you going to deny that?"

She didn't answer immediately. She was still focused on her knife, which she'd had perfectly balanced her finger for the entirety of the conversation. Suddenly, she dropped it into her hand, sat up, and pointed it right at Lukai's nose.

"What do you think?" she snarled. "You think I'm gonna be like, yeah, they're assassins!"

"I spent my formative years in the murk bogs," Lukai said. "I don't deny it."

"Ah—" Aurora was entirely floored by this, her mouth hanging open. "Okay, well," she finally said. "That has nothing to do with me. I'm completely serious. I don't know shit about what my parents do. They don't talk about it. I don't know if you'll believe me, but I don't have a goddamn clue if they're the Blank Cloaks."

"Not a clue at all?" Lukai said.

"None," she said.

"I mean," Myra started. "You're always kind of playing up the rumors, right? Like when you—" Joke about how icicles make the perfect weapons because they always melt. But that hadn't actually happened this loop. "—You know, talk about murders and stuff."

"Not five minutes ago, you admitted to stabbing a guy," Lukai added.

"That's true," she said. Slowly, she lowered her arm from Lukai's nose down to his chest. "Yep. It was right here, just below the heart."

"Hey," Sky said as he returned. "What'd I miss?"

"Nothin'," Aurora said.

She put her arm down and sighed. Then she hopped to her feet. "Look. Whatever my parents do off the books, they don't tell me shit, okay? They don't even deny anything, so I just have to wonder. Did you think they were raising me to inherit the business?"

"I—maybe."

"Well, they ain't. So yeah. Maybe I 'play it up' a bit for the mystique. What do you expect me to do? I could try to ignore it all, but my parents don't have any interest in doing anything one way or the other about the rumors."

She turned her back as she walked towards the staircase.

"I need to get something to eat. Finish your business with Sky while I'm gone."

◆

"Right, so. Maybe we should go soon." Though Aurora hadn't asked them to leave, they were plainly unwelcome, and none of them lived in the building or had any other excuse to be here. It felt like they had kicked her out of her own space.

"I'll talk to her later," Sky said. "Don't worry too much about offending her. She's been dealing with her parents' shit her whole life, and I guarantee you, she's angrier at them than she is at you."

"Ah, I hope she's okay," Myra said. "Let's make it quick?"

Sky nodded.

"Well, ah—you have one more thing for us, right?"

"Right. You wanted the police file on that cratered guy." He pulled the file in question out of his bag. "Here you are."

"Thanks." Myra, of course, had already seen this file way back in Loop 4, but it couldn't hurt to have another look and maybe get Iz or someone to give their take.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me what your interest is?"

Myra did her best to look reticent. "Well… Actually, I was kind of wondering if you could dig a bit more into the Halnyan mine legal issues?" She smiled sheepishly.

"I am rather busy, but if you have something good…"

"This crater guy, they never managed to identify him. But I'm pretty sure that he's a retired logician named Carmack Sermanol. He lives up in Ealichburgh, and for reasons we don't understand yet, he suddenly caught a train to Ralkenon right before he was killed."

"Hm." Sky raised his eyebrow. "And?"

"That's about all we know about him."

"… Is it really?"

"Really! We haven't figured out why he came here or any of the truth behind his death. It seemed like he was on the way to find the princess at the Hotel Caldera, but that's genuinely as far as we know."

"Well, all right, then," Sky agreed. "If it checks out, I'll do a bit more digging for you. Do you need anything else?"

"I guess that's it."

"All right. Well, I'm gonna wait here for Aurora to get back."

"Thanks again for everything," she said awkwardly.

She took the police report, and the group left. As always, it didn't feel like they'd learned very much. Even the little they did learn was of questionable relevance. And she had pissed off Aurora, and hopefully not Sky too much by extension.

The report, which she browsed on the way out, was just about like she remembered it, even down to the bizarre detail that the victim had somehow obscured his DNA by turning it entirely into stop codons, a fact that she had nearly forgotten about. The crater was entirely inscrutable, et cetera, et cetera, and there was a theoretical sketch of the guy's face, reconstructed from his remains by who-knew-what method. Of course, she could get a better portrait from the military center. To be honest, she wasn't even sure what she'd learn from the report; they'd be better off going and studying the crater.

Although…

The DNA thing did get her thinking.

"Lukai—or, Iz—maybe this is a stupid question, but is it possible that someone could just, like… not have fingerprints? Or even palm prints?"

Lukai scratched his head. "Are you saying that's why he didn't leave prints on the wall or the rune cabinet handle?"

"I'm just wondering. Like, why couldn't someone, like, have a hand without any prints?"

"I mean, it's not just the shape of the ridges or whatever…" Iz said. "Your hand would still leave body oils and whatnot… I think."

"What if your hand didn't leave any residue at all?"

Iz scratched her head. "I guess I don't see any reason this is theoretically impossible."

"I mean, if the magic exists to obscure your own DNA, I feel like you could stop yourself from leaving fingerprints."

"… What do you mean, 'magic to obscure your own DNA'?"

"I mean—sorry, I never explained this earlier. Carmack Sermanol doesn't have DNA." She showed Iz the police report.

Iz squinted at the report. "What the fuck…?" she said. "Why didn't you mention this earlier?" She quickly flipped through the whole thing.

"I kinda forgot about it…"

"That's way more bizarre than magic to hide your own fingerprints," Iz said. "I don't—what the hell? What did you say this guy did?" She passed the report to Lukai.

"He was a logician who worked under Emmett Massiel. He also taught at a university…"

"That's it?"

"No, he was in the military too. We actually found his portrait in a military center…" Myra racked her brains to remember everything they'd learned of him. "He was a crackmage. He specialized in…" Myra trailed off.

"In what?" Iz asked.

Myra was about to answer when they suddenly bumped into Aurora again, appearing from around a corner. She had a distant, slightly puzzled look on her face. "Hey," she said.

"Uh, sorry about earlier—"

"'s fine. Sorry, I overheard you a bit."

"Oh."

"Don't worry." She waved aimlessly. "I don't really care about whatever yinz are up to. I was just wondering. Were yinz talking about Carmack Sermanol?"

◆◆◆◆◆

Shoshana's more well-rested colleagues weren't quite as relieved as she was. Maybe she'd feel the same after a good night's sleep. Her friends and associates had been injured here—one had died, though it wasn't someone she knew well. That wasn't true for the others. They wanted the truth, and they didn't like being told that it was none of their business.

But there really was nothing for it. So with not insignificant grumbling, they packed up their things and left.

It was as they were out the front door that they ran into a man coming the other way. Thin and wiry, with curly hair going every direction, he was bundled in a military jacket, and he walked with a limp, leaning on a cane.

"Good day."

"Excuse me, we're closing down the scene. You can't be here."

"Ah… I think otherwise." He held out a gloved hand. "Major Haladard Ferara, at your service."

"Major—ah?" She froze in her steps, and her blood ran cold.

"Come on, don't be shy," he said, though his smirk didn't set her at ease in the slightest.

"W-we were given leave," she explained. "So—we were leaving—"

"Mm, that's a shame. I think there's a bit more to learn here." He kept talking, kept smirking. "You see, I have an old acquaintance who used to work with Emmett Massiel on a few things. And he once let slip to me something interesting about this house. Said it's the one single worst place on the planet to ever try to break into. The late sage did something very interesting with this house, you see. Tell me: what state is the office in?"

"It's been nearly destroyed, sir."

"And what of the vine?"

"It's intact, sir."

"Well, then." He patted her on the shoulder as he entered the estate, quickly putting his back to her. "I'm sure we'll recover something."

◆◆◆◆◆

"Uh—You know who Carmack Sermanol is?"

"Eh…" Aurora waved her hand in a so-so gesture. "I met him at some formal military event my parents dragged me to. I guess it doesn't really matter, just a little perturbed someone I kinda met kicked it."

"No, I… understand. Do you know much about him? What was he like?"

"Honestly, he was a real weirdo. He kept muttering to himself and wouldn't make eye contact with anyone." She scratched the back of her neck. "He was a mathematician, I guess."

"Hey," Iz muttered. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, nothing," Aurora said quickly. "Sorry."

"So the guy was, what, a friend of your parents?" Myra asked.

"Honestly, no? I don't think my parents liked him very much. Every time he was around, they'd look like they wanted to be anywhere else."

She started to walk away, but turned back. "Oh, to answer the question I overheard… there's absolutely magic to obscure your fingerprints. I meant what I said earlier, but my parents do let things about the business slip sometimes, usually when they're drunk. They're both ridiculous lightweights… Ugh."

"Do you know how it works?"

"Not really—well. A bit. It's some elemental composition bullshit, super state-of-the-art. So it's more abstract than just physically blocking your prints or whatever. That's why it came up in the first place, 'cause they mentioned it when I told 'em I was taking the class."

"What's it mean that Carmack Sermonol has it on his DNA?"

Aurora shrugged. "Draw your own conclusions on that."

"I think I have," Iz said. She looked at Myra, eyes narrowed. "And I think it's about time we go to Ealichburgh."