The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

8:26 PM | The Ninsirsir, Deck 3 | December 31st | 1608 COVENANT

It probably did not bear well for the remainder of the event that the bar seemed already as busy as the ballroom. Compared to it, the decor was much more modern: Sleek black furniture, hardwood tables varnished to the point they looked like plastic. (Lamu was, of course, one of the relatively few people in the Remaining World who actually knew what plastic was.) And of course, behind the softly lit threshold of the counter, a glass display of enough hard liquor to immolate a small city.

There was a time in Lamu's life, before she'd married, when she'd developed a bit of a drinking problem, but fortunately it'd been more a product of existential emptiness than stress, otherwise the sight might have made it difficult to focus. There was already a modest queue - they only seemed to have a couple of people on staff at this point in the night - which gave them several minutes to talk.

Not that it was helping much.

"That's ridiculous," Theodoros said, his tone hushed.

"It's what happened," Lamu stated bluntly.

"If you're even telling the truth, there's not a chance it was actually her. I-- It's, er, not like we're close, but I still see her from time to time. Or, well, at the very least we exchange letters. The most recent was barely over a year ago." He frowned in consternation. "There's not a chance she'd want to kill anyone, let alone have some grudge against us, let alone monologue to you like a drama villain about it."

"It was her."

"You don't even know her! How would you know?"

Lamu, admittedly, didn't have an amazing answer to this question. "I can't think of any reason why someone would pretend to be her and say something so insane unless it was true."

"That's ridiculous reasoning. I can think of all sorts of reasons. Maybe it was a prank."

Lamu did not dignify this suggestion with a response.

"O-Or maybe it was the organization you're here to blow the whistle on," he offered instead. "You already said you're concerned they might be giving her resources. Is it much of a stretch to imagine they arranged the entire thing?"

Lamu bit the rim of her tongue. Partially because their roles had been reversed from what she'd expected and partially because he just found it harder to spin a story in practice than in theory, she'd ended up telling Theodoros more of the truth than she'd originally intended. Not only had she given a honest - if rough - summary of what Utsushikome had said in full, she'd even been upfront with her motives for being here and why she was working under a false name; that she'd sold military intelligence to the Triumvirate on the instructions of a group blackmailing her, that she'd gone into hiding, that Nhi had brought her here with the promise of a clean slate if she ratted them out.

But there was one topic she'd still avoided, and that was the Brotherhood of the Scorned, or maybe it would be better to say anything to do with assimilation failure. Lamu was almost sure Theo knew something; Linos was his father, he'd grown up in the Order from birth even if (if) he wasn't actively a part of their plan in the way she had been. And though the way they'd exchanged messages back then was deliberately ambiguous, she knew that at least some of her peers in the class had suspected him of harboring suspicions.

But how much did he know? It was a delicate situation. Spilling too much would not only complicate this conversation exponentially (gods, practically bottomlessly) but could actively make his life more difficult.

Well, at least assuming that Nhi wasn't correct about the world ending.

"They wouldn't do that," Lamu said, stepping forward as the queue advanced a space. "If they wanted to fabricate a threat to me, it would make more sense to use something more personal that I'd definitely take seriously. Up until an hour ago, I hadn't thought about Utsushikome of Fusai in decades."

"Then maybe you are making it up."

"I'm not making it up," Lamu insisted. "And it was her. I recognized her voice. And she knew things only someone from our class would know."

"Things like what?"

"About... our class. About the conclave."

"The what?"

He was making this agonizing. "The one held by the Order. With your father, my uncle."

Theo's face flushed slightly, like he'd taken offense. "Why would she even bring that up?"

"Because she thinks it's connected to whatever wrong we've done to her, obviously."

"Why? Nothing even happened." His eyes wandered, his expression growing darker. "Not on that day, at least."

Lamu took a deep breath through her nose, leveling her gaze at him with as much severity as she could get away with without potentially drawing attention from the person behind them in the line (an elderly Rhunbardic man with an inscrutable nose piercing). "Theodoros," she hissed. "Do you really not know anything about our class back then? About why someone involved might harbor suspicions of something nefarious?"

"What are you getting at? Are you talking about something to do with what happened to... you know." His expression had darkened superficially, but Lamu noted that he wasn't looking her in the eye.

"Theodoros," she said insistently.

His gaze moved to meet hers, but at least to her, its contents were ambiguous.

She weighed her options. Despite what she'd been thinking just a moment ago, there was also a legitimate argument for forcing the issue, especially if she was being completely self-interested. As things stood, it was starting to look like Theodoros was going to be completely useless, which meant there was not much to lose if he really did know nothing and responded to her claims with disbelief or some kind of existential meltdown. But if he was putting up an act, then puncturing this bubble he was raising would make her arguments for what Utsushikome of Fusai was thinking - how a girl like that could genuinely develop a homicidal grudge - much more compelling.

Just how Nhi had known about it was a mystery to her, but it really was insane, the way they'd gone about this, so that literally no one had a complete idea of what was going on. If she hadn't been 12 at the time, she could have written a hundred pages on the opsec concerns.

Before Lamu could make a decision, Theodoros finally said something, though broke eye contact again as she did it. "I don't know what you're getting at, and frankly it's, er, a little unnerving. But even if Utsushikome did think something horrible happened between our class and the Order of the Universal Panacea, she wouldn't do this. It's not in her. She's always been a gentle person, even since we were children."

"Nn."

Theodoros scrunched his brow. "W-What's that noise supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Lamu said, expressionless.

"And regardless," he digressed. "There would be no reason for her to even want to. The only person she cared about in our class, really, was Ran. And the two of them were an island together. There's no way anything that happened with the rest of us would even matter to her."

Intentionally or otherwise, Theodoros was getting so close to the heart of the matter that Lamu again considered speaking openly, but was distracted by a different observation. "What do you mean, the only person she cared about? Weren't the two of you friends when you were children?"

"I... we were, but..." For a moment, a strange look overtook his eyes. "She never said so, but I could tell she didn't think very much of it. Of me, rather." He cleared his throat. "I can't blame her, obviously. We only knew one another when we were very young, and it's not like friendships from those years are liable to stick. And then when we reunited at the academy, I never knew how to talk to her, so... I don't know, maybe saying she didn't 'care' was wrong, it's not as if she wasn't there for me if anything was ever wrong, and again, we've-- We've stayed in touch, as I said. But she wouldn't take a bullet for me, is all I mean. For any of us."

Lamu peered at him. There was obviously a lot to unpack here, but somehow this digression gave her a hunch that, regardless of whether he was telling the truth, he was going to be fundamentally useless on the topic of Utsushikome no matter what.

She decided to put off making the decision for now.

"...it doesn't matter, ultimately, if it was really her or an imposter," she said. "The point is that there is a credible threat that's been made on both our lives, and reason to believe that our entire group from back then has been gathered here somehow." She narrowed her eyes. "We need to assume there's a connection and treat it seriously."

Theodoros seemed to relax a little at this shift. His complex expression faded in favor of a more generalized exasperation. "Saying that's all well and good, but what would you suggest we actually do? Go back to our bedrooms and stand guard at the door until they're boarding the shuttle tomorrow?"

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

This actually wasn't the worst idea in the world, but it wasn't what Lamu had in mind. "There's strength in numbers in a situation like this, even if only as a precautionary measure. We should try and establish contact with the others. See if they've also heard anything similar."

Theodoros at first looked surprised - objectionable - but then hesitant. "I... suppose that makes sense," he said reluctantly.

"You have some problem," she discerned.

"It's just embarrassing, that's all. The idea of, er, just randomly pulling people I haven't spoken to in decades away from their friends to ask something that might make me seem like a lunatic." He frowned. "What would be the plan? I'd go up to Bardiya, you'd go up to Ptolema? Just in front of everyone?"

Lamu glanced to the side. This, too, did sound admittedly more difficult in practice than execution. "Ptolema was close to the front, and Bardiya was a speaker, so he'd be right near the stage, unless he's dining privately," she said, thinking out loud. "If we just walked straight up at them in the middle of the event, it would cause a scene."

"That's what I'm saying."

Before Lamu could reply, she realized that the last person in front of them had left, and they were now faced with actually ordering drinks. Theo mostly handled this, recounting Malko and Gudrun's elaborate cocktail orders (Lamu shouldn't have been surprised, she supposed, that this was another area where she was asymmetrically cultured) as well as a bottle of expensive whiskey for later in the night. The Inotian man behind the bar stood dead in front of them as he assembled the order, leading to an awkward silence that lasted until they were left carrying them, Theodoros taking the whiskey in his free hand.

Fearing the possibility that he might simply beeline back to their table and try to pretend this exchange had never happened, Lamu semi-forcefully ushered him towards one of the far sides of the chamber on their way out, to a seating area that would probably be crammed with partygoers after the new year was rung in but was presently empty. "Maybe we should focus on trying to identify the others, first. Do you have any idea where they might be? On this ship?"

Theo licked his lips thoughtfully. "Er, well, as far as I know, Seth still does ground-level work for the Censors, even if he's in a command position nowadays," he speculated. "If he were here, it would certainly be as part of the security staff."

Lamu nodded to herself a few times. "There's only supposed to be a dozen military arcanists on board this ship, and one of them is being sent to keep an eye on me. They'd definitely know if he was part of their team."

"Would it... really be alright, to just approach them? If they're shadowing you?"

"I don't see why it wouldn't," she replied bluntly.

Theodoros bit his lip.

Since he'd managed to offer a decent lead, Lamu tried to think of the others. "Ezekiel, if he were here, would probably be someone's plus one, likely not one of the more prestigious guests. That means he could be sitting somewhere not too far from us-- So it would be a good idea to keep an eye out for him."

"I barely remember what he looks like," Theo said, wearing a distasteful expression.

"I saw him only a few years ago. He wears his hair up now, in a ponytail." Lamu glanced downward, thinking. "Since there are guests from the Trimumvirate here, it's possible Fang could be with them, but whatever Tar-Isgansar promised, I wouldn't board a Grand Alliance vessel openly if I were a defector, so it feels more likely they're in a similar position to me. Still, it's worth looking into."

"What about the others?" Theodoros asked. "Ophelia, Kamrusepa?"

"I can't think of any reason for Ophelia to be here. There don't seem to be any guests from the Diakos. I suppose she could also be a guest. And I haven't heard anything about Kamrusepa in more than a hundred years."

"I heard she became a secret agent."

Lamu squinted. "Where did you hear that?"

"I don't know," he said with an embarrassed shrug. "It's what a lot of Chronomancers do, isn't it? I mean, at least in dramas."

Lamu did not know how to reply to this, but this seemed like the effective conclusion of their speculation on their classmates anyway, at least until they had more information. "Here is what I believe we should do. We'll go back to the table and settle in for the last course, then after it's over I will claim I recognize the agent and have a word with him. Assuming he finds out where Seth is, then I will send you the information over the logic bridge, and you can find some excuse to go speak with him."

Theo's face flushed again. "What? Why would I have to do it?"

"Because, as has already been illustrated by our interaction, his mental image of me will still be of an annoying child. You are much closer to him, and he will respond more seriously to this information if it comes from you."

"I... I don't know." He opened his mouth as if to say something, paused, and then Lamu got the impression what he said next was completely different. "Anyway, do we really have to go through all this subterfuge? At this point, since your bodyguard already knows, I'd rather tell Mal what's going on."

Lamu's face hardened. "I don't think it's wise for anyone to know about this who doesn't need to."

"He's my partner. You're putting me in a very uncomfortable position."

"Theodoros, I've been trusting you in saying this much. If my identity, the fact that I'm here, is leaked, my life could be on the line. Do you understand that?"

She worried that he did not, in fact, particularly care about this, and that in the back of his mind he probably felt that she was simply a criminal trying to drag him down with her, and was at best indifferent to the idea of her suffering the according consequences. But there were other reasons, if she provoked him to stop and think, why he might not want Malko pulled into whatever extension of the events of 200 years past were going to happen tonight.

Whatever his reasons, he partially relented. "I'll think about it," he said. "You can try speaking to this agent first. See if there's even anything to even be done."

"Fine," Lamu said.

𒀭

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

Looking back, the figure that lurched forth was kind of off-theme, honestly. They looked like-- Well, like you'd depict a generic evil spirit. Their body was made up of folds of black, dusty material that appeared torn in places, and their face was a bony stark white, albeit obviously also dusty; stained with soot, I eventually realized, from the interior of the engine. This wasn't something I processed at the time, because as soon as they appeared they ran at Summiri, screeching like a bird of prey.

Summiri turned, shot her gun once, missed, and then it was on top of her, having launched its attack from the one place she hadn't accounted for. It seemed to have some kind of claw, or maybe crude weapon - somewhat long and with a jagged edge - and it used that to pull her close, drawing back towards the engine, as if whatever fate had met Rastag there had taken form and arrived to claim a piece of him it had missed. Or maybe it was Rastag himself, taking vengeance for the appropriation of his identity. Or maybe it was the shapeshifter, taking a distorted form.

"Run, Kasua," Summiri as she wrestled with the thing, not so much a yell so much as a firm demand.

I didn't run. Lying on the floor nearby was the other pistol; the one she'd idly dropped. I went straight for it, dropping to my knees. I want to claim that I was merely being rational here, and that I instantly knew this couldn't possibly be a ghost because ghosts simply were not permitted by the rules, but the actual truth of the matter was that my thoughts more or less came to 'something bad appeared!=shoot it' without much further introspection.

Without even rising fully back to my feet, I took aim and shot, aiming to hit the thing square in the face. I missed and hit the rear wall, behind the controls.

Fuck.

I shot again. I missed and hit Summiri in the back of the shoulder.

Fuck!

Despite my incompetence, I managed to get the thing's attention. It let out another screech, then tossed her to the side, running back towards the engine. Obviously, this was a dead end. (Yes, I know.) But still, something in me didn't want it to simply retreat from where it had come. This was my chance to unravel all of this, I could sense it.

"STOP!" I yelled, with as much threatening authority as I could muster. "STOP OR I'LL SHOOT!"

And, in what was a very un-ghostly action, the thing did stop. It slowly turned to face me, the shadows at the far side of the room concealing its strange and lumpy form.

There was a moment of silence where all I could hear was Summiri and I's heavy breaths. There was no actual plan in my mind as I'd made my wish, but in that brief respite, one formed, utterly obvious in retrospect.

"Take off your face. No," I corrected myself. "Your mask."

The thing was motionless. For a moment I wondered if it had been some kind of puppet, animated only by an external will that I had now banished, or maybe even something more literal, like a golem. They weren't banned by the rules of the scenario, after all. Sure, that didn't make any sense for the time period, but maybe the twist was that it was actually set hundreds of years later in the future that the pamphlet had informed me! And that everyone here had been frozen through Chronomancy before arriving. Oh, blending a traditional whodunnit with a horror-style premise twist; that would be so modern, so base. A twist that could only be contrived by a mind that secretly loathed the very concept of mystery, who came up with rules for sports they didn't like to 'spice them up', that could not find the ridiculous concept of grown adults using what amounted to stage magic to commit crimes entertaining entirely on its own merits.

But then I realized it was moving, if only subtly, its chest drawing in and out.

"Take it off," I repeated. "Or I will shoot."

"Kasua," Summiri said, forcing calm despite her wound. "...Kasua."

"What?"

But she didn't seem to know exactly what she was doing either, another silence following for several seconds. "Leave me here," she eventually tried. "The creature wants me. You can escape."

"Bullshit!" I hissed. "You think I'm stupid?! This is some kind of setup!"

She paused again. "Let it go, then, at least," she continued. "I still have a copy of the evidence of what happened to your mother. I'll show it to you. I'll explain everything. Give you the whole truth this time. Or money. Or anything you wish for."

"You're lying!" I yelled. "Take off the mask! This is your last warning!"

The monster still did not move. Summiri looked at me, then at it, then back towards me.

And then, in a sharp motion, she raised her arm. And I realized, in spite of her brawl, she was still holding her gun.

Somehow, this was the one time in the whole roleplay where my lizard brain pulled completely through. Before I even began processing what was happening, my arm jerked the pistol towards her and pulled the trigger. The bullet went right through her left eye. Brain splattered copiously against the floor.

I immediately felt a spike of guilt that had not struck me after I'd killed the detective. This was probably because she was a pretty girl. I am, in some regards, an extremely shallow person.

The monster rushed me the instant I did it, and I attempted to pull the trigger, but to my distress nothing happened. I mentioned before that the gun Eirene had was a revolver, and this was also the gun that I'd picked up when I'd found her body, and that Summiri had stolen and then idly discarded earlier in the conversation, and subsequently which I was now holding once more. It was also not the one which she used to shoot Foah/Noah/Leo's corpse.

Over the course of the night, this gun had now been fired either six or seven times. The first time, when she fired a warning shot to get our attention on the roof of the train, could be discarded as irrelevant; there had been plenty of time for her to reload. After that, Eirene had definitely fired it when she shot the detective in the butt, and then again to open the door in pursuit of him. And in the last few seconds, I'd fired it three times.

This left one point of ambiguity, when the gun had seemingly been fired but we hadn't seen it: When Eirene, Foah, and Tuthal had seemingly killed one another in the closed room. We'd heard three shots and found three pistols. However, anybody with even a passing knowledge of antique guns knew that you never loaded a revolver with six bullets; as it could easily be discharged by accident, you always wanted to leave it at rest at five. Assuming that held true, it meant that Eirene hadn't shot anyone in that room.

But could that conclusion be trusted? Would Eirene's player have known enough about revolvers to know that? Would her character have known that? In practice, was there--

My introspection was cut off as I realized the ghost - no, the person - no, the culprit was right in front of me. I threw the now-useless pistol at their face.

And then I ran.