The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

You're probably picturing it as sentimental - or, god forbid with Kamrusepa, romantic - when actually, it was incredibly weird and awkward, the polar opposite of the hug Ptolema had given me when I'd first arrived in the Crossroads. I held her, stiffly, for about 3 seconds in a fashion that was closer to clutching at a pole than embracing a person, then instantly regretted it and withdrew sharply, sitting back down. She hadn't reciprocated, and when I saw her face looked completely bemused by what had just happened.

"I," I paused. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she said cordially.

"I don't know what that was."

"I'm happy that you're pleased to see me, of course--"

"I've just, you know, for the past couple of weeks, I haven't seen anyone who I'm," I paused again, then inhaled sharply, "I haven't seen anyone who I was at all close to. Back in the class, I mean."

She raised an eyebrow. "Since you arrived at the Crossroads, you mean to say?"

"Since I arrived in this world at all," I clarified. "Or, well, not technically speaking. I was--"

"Dreaming with a capital 'D'?" She pursed her lips. "That doesn't surprise me."

I frowned. "You knew?"

"I suspected," she said. "It's abnormal for someone to go missing for so long they seem to pass from memory altogether, especially if it's an individual of some interest. People have been looking for you, you know."

"What sort of people?" I asked, even if I could probably have thought of several answers myself.

"Well, me, for one thing." She chuckled at her own joke. "You said you haven't seen anyone who you were close to-- Is that to suggest you have met some of the others?"

"Uh, yeah," I said. "I've talked to Ptolema, Bardiya, and Neferuaten. I thought you'd know-- Neferuaten was the one who told me I should sign up for this."

"No, this is the first I'm hearing of it." She smiled widely. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you! Again, this meeting almost feels too good to be true. I feel rather at a loss for words, truth be told."

I was feeling at a bit of a loss for words myself. Unlike Ptolema, I hadn't kept in touch with Kam after the Exemplary Acolyte's Program was disbanded, and when I looked into her she seemed to have disappeared off the face of the Earth. It felt eerie, in a way, to be talking to her at all. With how little her mannerisms had changed (though, who knew how sincere that was, with everything I'd learned) it felt more than any interaction I'd had thus far like I'd traveled back in time.

Memory is a funny thing. The mind has no inherent way to tell how old a memory is-- It relies on cross-referencing and the present-day context in which it's being viewed. When something throws that off, it can leave one feeling out of time.

I phased out for a second, then blinked as I came back to earth. "What's, uh, in the bowl?" I asked, feeling like I needed to make some small talk."

"Oh, this?" She glanced at the object, which was still floating in the air. The lid removed itself, revealing a red liquid. "It's mulled wine. I always make a little for the post-mortems of these games."

"Are we expecting anybody else?"

"No, the other characters were all contractors. I just did it out of force of habit." She whirled her finger, manifesting two glasses on the table. "Do you want any?"

"I-I'll pass," I said. "I don't like alcohol served hot."

"Suit yourself." She took one and scooped up a drink for herself anyway, taking a heavy sip.

"Uh, so," I said. "How have you been?"

Kamrusepa looked at me for a moment with a blank expression as she swallowed the liquid, then abruptly snorted, bursting out laughing.

"W-What's so funny?"

"Su, that's a psychotic question!" She exclaimed. "How could I possibly describe what I've been doing, when-- Well, I assume you don't remember anything beyond the years leading up until the conclave?"

"No," I corrected her, trying to sound more mature for a moment. "I remember the 200 years afterwards, as well."

She blinked, momentarily confused. "Why?"

"Ptolema called it 'autospective dreaming', where I was seeing my life up until the end of the world through my own eyes." I frowned. "You... don't know about it?"

"No, I know about it," she clarified. "I just didn't expect-- Well, it's ephemeral." She made a dismissive gesture. "In that case, even for you, it's been almost the better part of a lifetime. And though time passes somewhat differently here... Su, do you have any conception of how long it's been since I last interacted with you in the mortal world? How many untold eons--"

"I get it," I interrupted her. "I've heard a variant of this at least twice already. I'm sure you've done a billion things, lived whole different lives I can't even imagine, whatever. I'm sorry; I was just making smalltalk."

"No, no, you misunderstand me," she said with a shake of her head. "I'm not saying 'psychotic' because it's impossible to even get into, I'm saying it because I don't know where to even--" She suddenly glanced to the side for a moment, twisting her lip, then turned back and leaned in towards me. "Su, there are things we should discuss. Many things. Why don't you come back with me to my Domain? It'll be easier to get into there; more besides, this one is littered with busybodies and spies. Even here I'm not completely sure we won't be overheard."

She rose to her feet, and I opened my mouth, then stopped. I'd almost started telling her about how I'd been effectively banned from leaving by the governor, but then remembered there was a more pressing reason why I didn't want to leave.

"...no," I said. "Not yet."

A frown formed on her face. "Why ever not? Have you not got the knack for moving around the Stage yet?"

"No, that's not it." I gave her a serious look."I want to know if my theory on your mystery is correct."

"Your... theory."

"Yes.

"I-- Su, that doesn't matter." She scoffed. "It was just a silly game. I churn one of those out almost once a month. Since you were sent here deliberately, am I to assume you know its true purpose?"

It felt odd that she jumped instantly to that conclusion. "It's for recruitment, isn't it?" I used a suggestive tone in saying it, since apparently she was a lot more concerned about the Waywatch than Bardiya or Neferuaten had been.

"Precisely. The entire thing is just an exercise to judge the intellect of the participants-- Or, more accurately, to gauge specifically their enthusiasm and aptitude for certain matters. And since you are, contrary to all my expectations, the real you, I've struck greater gold in that respect than I could have hoped for. There's no need for any followup questioning, especially since Eri proved a complete waste of time interested only in vacuous escapism." She rolled her eyes.

"Kam, I just spent the whole day in that fucking thing. You can't expect me to walk away without giving me proper closure."

"Oh, for goodness sake." She rubbed her eyes. "There are so many things I need to discuss with you! In a situation like this, we need to establish shared fundamentals before anything."

"Shared fundamentals?"

"You know-- How you conceptualize our situation, how I conceptualize our situation, goals, information, correcting for our perceptions of one another. We might as well be on different planes right now, speaking different languages."

I raised a brow. "Does that matter, just to talk about the mystery?"

"Yes! It matters for everything." She sighed. "Anyway, it was just some stock plot. I didn't even write all of it. My assistant churns the outlines out for me, and half of her work is conjured up by a logic engine."

"You can't call that stock," I objected. "It was esoteric as hell, especially the stuff with Summiri. More than that, it was clearly about the conclave."

"Well obviously.! That's part of what this is--" She clicked her tongue. "We really can't talk about this here. Can't I just give you a summary, or something? She has the notes right now, but I could get her to cough them up later. She never throws anything out; it's terribly neurotic. Rather like I remember you being, honestly."

"No," I said, irritated. "I just died at the end of that shit without even knowing why. I want a real ending!" I crossed my arms. "Why do we need to rush, anyway? Don't we have all the time in the world?"

"Not yet," she mumbled.

I squinted. "...not yet?"

She didn't elaborate, slowly biting the rim of her lip and glancing to the side. A moment passed.

"...fine," she said melodramatically, seeming like she wanted to change the subject all of a sudden. "If you're going to be fussy, and everything I want to say is going to make me paranoid because of the ridiculous political meltdown this Domain is having, then I suppose it's better to just get this out of the way." She looked back at the door, which slid along the wall to move to the opposite wall. "Come on, then."

She rose to her feet and stepped through. I followed.

I'd been expecting her to take us into some kind of backstage planning room or something, but instead we were just back in the world of the game. It was still night, though now the fires on the train had burnt themselves out and left the scene extremely dark, with only the external lights of the engine car and a faint glow from the dining car making me able to tell where we were at all.

"I am pleased to see you too, incidentally," Kamrusepa said, shutting the door we'd passed through behind us. It vanished, leaving only empty field behind. "Just in case you were wondering."

"Kam, I can't see anything," I complained.

"You can't?" She sounded baffled. "Your eyesight should have been made supernaturally acute... well, a very long time ago, but you should have noticed it as such when you awoke from Dreaming. Hasn't it been? You're not wearing your glasses."

"No, I've just been fixing that with the Power with old-fashioned Thanatomancy," I half-lied. "My eyesight hadn't really changed when I first woke up here."

"Wait, you're saying your default body still has bad eyesight?"

"I mean, it's a little better, I think," I told her. "I can see a little further than before, even if my vision up close is about the same."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"That's insane, Su. Do you know how attached you had to be to a defect in your body for the Stage not to have eliminated it when determining your default form? Is being hyperopic seriously fundamental to your identity?"

"I don't know. I guess." I frowned at her. "Calling it a 'defect' seems a little prescriptive. It's not like it impacts my quality of life in some serious way."

"Gods above, you haven't changed at all, it's terrible." She shook her head. "I can't talk about this with you right now. I'll have a stroke. NAHMI! CHANGE IT BACK TO DAYLIGHT!"

We stood there for a moment. Nothing happened.

"Fucking useless," Kam said, rubbing her eyes. "Probably hasn't even looked in this direction for the past half hour."

"Can't you do it yourself?" I asked. "Aren't you like, God here?"

"No, that's not how it works. Most of this is just technology, smoke and mirrors. Ugh, I'll just--"

She focused for a minute, and in lieu of the environmental light shifting, glowing pale orbs simply began to appear all around the train, like it really was being assailed by spirits.

"Alright, Su," she said, turning to me. She sipped from her mulled wine, which she'd brought with us. "What are you hoping to get out of this. How is this going to go." She poked a finger at me. "Since we're doing this, I do have to say that you were absolutely terrible from an acting perspective. Again, it doesn't matter, but you barely spoke, and half your actions were completely inscrutable. Why did you take the Last Winter?"

"I already explained in the game. I thought I could use it to bring people to my side against Rastag."

"Who you believed was Phaidime."

"Yes."

"Why would you do that, instead of just confirming the truth yourself and murdering her?"

"I thought it would make more sense for Kasua's character. The description said she wouldn't want to break the law."

"No it didn't," Kam said. "It said that she 'believed in the world's order' and 'trusts authority figures'."

"I-- That's what that means! What would 'world's order' mean if not the law?"

"Social strata. Classes." She squinted. "I specifically put down that you might be driven to take revenge."

"Revenge doesn't have to mean killing someone! You can't expect me to divine your intent like this. I'm not a fucking mind reader."

"Su, it's a murder mystery game. The idea is to create excuses for people to commit murders."

I grumbled, then tried to turn the dynamic around. "Why were you posing as a cat, anyway? It was creepy, staring at me like that."

"It's more fun to be in the midst of the action than just mucking about behind the scenes," she justified. "I wasn't there the whole time. I only took control when I was curious about what was going on. Speaking of which, why were arguing with Summiri about the nature of objectivity? Was that another interpretation of the 'world's order'?"

"Look," I said, getting flustered. "Just-- Just ignore everything I did in the game. I got into a weird state of mind. Over-thought things." I cleared my throat. "But I figured out most of it after it was over."

"Most of it?"

"I know how the tricks were done," I explained. "I know how Tuthal's name appeared twice in the drawing, and I know how the front carriage disappeared. I know how Phaidime's body ended up inside that horse on top of the train, and how the detective's body disappeared from the room. And I know what killed me at the very end."

"You just said a minute ago that you didn't know why you died."

"Well, I don't know know. It can only be a theory until you offer confirmation."

She exhaled skeptically. "If you're hoping for some grand denouement here, I do feel I'm going to disappoint you. Again, I barely wrote any of it. I don't even particularly like mystery novels."

My gaze jerked in her direction. "You don't?"

"Not really," she said. "I mean, I certainly learned a lot about them when I started doing this."

"Why don't you like them?" I asked defensively."

"Well, it's fun, but it's all rather routine at the heart of it, don't you think? Not very literary."

I couldn't have this argument right now. "...it doesn't matter," I said. "You know the truth. That's good enough. All a good parlor scene needs is a confession at the end."

"What's a parlor scene?" She asked, smiling

I dropped my brow. "You're fucking with me."

"Maybe."

I shook my head, rolling my eyes. "Anyway, the part I don't know, or feel like I only half know, are the actual culprits, and why they did it. I have some rough ideas, but nothing fully cohesive."

"Culprits, plural? You assume it to have been a group?"

"Yes," I said bluntly. "In fact, that's the one thing I'm certain of. Because of a particular detail in how she behaved during our final conversation, I know that Hildris and whoever shot me were working together."

"You presume a third party killed you? She could have used a concealed bomb to have killed you both instantly."

I met Kam's eyes for a moment. It was a relief that still seemed completely incapable of concealing obvious bullshit.

"We'll get to that in a minute," I said, turning to regard the train. "We'll start with the smaller mysteries. The drawing jar is the simplest, though also the one that's the hardest to derive any deeper insights from alone. There are two ways it could have been done, both of which would have involved hiding an extra slip inside..."

Since you've heard it before, I'll spare you the complete back-and-forth I had about this one with Kam. In case you need a quick reminder: Either Bahram did it by himself, or Tuthal and Hildris conspired with him to make it happen.

"...but I'm pretty certain it's one or the other," I finished.

Kamrusepa looked at me impassively; she might have been considering my words, or she might have just been bored. "Do you want me to tell you if you're correct or not?"

"Not yet," I said. "This all ties together, and if you told me I'm wrong about anything now, I'd end up changing the whole theory around that information. I want to be properly right or wrong about the things I say, not for it to feel ambiguous if I even worked anything out myself."

"It's really not going to change my opinion of you either way, but suit yourself."

"Okay." I stopped for a moment, thinking about how best to structure the rest of this, before settling on a course. "Next I'll talk about the mystery of what happened to the detective's body, although most of my conclusions are already things that came up during the game. To explain this one, we have to go right back to the start of the day, when we were boarding the train. The very first thing - like, the very first thing - I noticed was strange was the way that Gaizarik and Wiliya brought us on board, forcing us to go one at a time with a considerable delay in between. Why would they do that, especially since they weren't stopping us from lingering around in the rest carriage hall? If they were trying to disguise something, couldn't we have just noticed anyway?"

"The key is to imagine the reverse playing out," I continued. "Say, unlike what actually happened, everyone turns up to the station at the same time. So they're all ready to board at the same time. What happens if everyone is let on right away?"

"...do you actually want me to answer this?" Kam asked.

"Yes, please pretend to be compelled," I asked flatly.

"Well," she said, "I suppose everyone would break off and go directly to their rooms. They would be right in front of them and all be carrying heavy luggage to put away, after all."

"Exactly," I confirmed. "But what if someone couldn't go to their room, for some reason? They'd be left standing awkwardly in the hallway with their bags. Extremely conspicuous."

Kamrusepa inclined her head slightly, skeptical.

"...that was my initial conclusion, but there are problems with that logic," I continued. "Like, if you think about it for a second, there are other ways you could get around this. For example, you could avoid the scenario of everyone boarding at the same time simply by hiding somewhere in the train station, then deliberately showing up after everyone else had already boarded. Or, to flip things around a little more, if the train's staff are setting this up for you to begin with, why 'board' at all? You could be inside an hour in advance, and simply pretend to have done so when no one was paying attention after the train had already set off." I adjusted my glasses; the light was now actually now a little too bright, at least at ground level. "So then the question becomes 'why does it have to be done this way, specifically?'"

"And there's an obvious answer to that. None of these other tactics would work if someone was already suspicious of you. If someone knew in advance that you, or rather 'some other passenger', wouldn't be able to get into their room, and was looking for that person specifically."

"Interesting," Kamrusepa said, in a tone more like she was entertaining some fancy than taking my words seriously. "But why wouldn't those tactics work, exactly? How would they counter them?"

"Easily," I said. "All they would have to do would be to get there before the train began boarding, and then either refuse to do so themselves until the last minute, or else squat continuously in the rest car's main hallway. If you tried to board late, they'd still see you, and if you already there, they'd realize that once the train set off. By controlling the only entrance and exit, the entire train becomes a closed room."

She hummed thoughtfully. (It felt like she was leaning into the bit a little now. I appreciated the effort, if nothing else.)

"But if you force people to board one at a time, at intervals at your discretion, that tactic no longer functions," I went on. "So long as you board before the person suspicious of you, or maybe right at the very start, no one will be able to know if you actually went into your room or not. You could dump your luggage somewhere - it'd be easier if it were just a loose bag rather than a trunk, I suppose - and then no one would be the wiser."

"Seems like a lot of effort to set up," Kam mused. "Why wouldn't they be able to just go into their room?"

"Well," I said, "because it wouldn't exist."

She clicked her tongue. "Ah."

"During the climax, when everyone was outside the door to my - uh, Kasua's - room, it was taken as a given that only one room could be missing, one empty space that could shift to either the left or right between the doorless area. That was what limited where Noah's body could have conceivably moved to: To have either shifted to the left, where Summiri's room was supposed to be, or the right, where Tuthal's room was supposed to be. But the purpose of the missing door was to mislead, to say 'oh, here's the missing room, you can stop thinking now' and there was more space to move... then there are way more ways the murder scene could have disappeared." I chose my words carefully. "For example, the room the detective died in could have moved behind Summiri's door, Tuthal's room could have moved behind Kasua's door, and Tuthal's room could have itself been replaced by one further along still."

"Phaidime's, presumably," Kam suggested. "Since that would be the next in order after the gap."

"...it would depend on which was missing," I spoke slowly. "Anyway, Summiri told me the sword I found belonged to her, but..."

"But?"

"Well, let's put all this aside for now," I said. "Now that I've established a way to render that trick possible instead of impossible, we can talk about how the room-moving would actually work for a second." I took a breath. "The train is designed so no one can ever get a clear view of the side opposite the entrance. The pathway around the engine bends to the left as you enter from the rest car, and the windows don't open. So it's probably able to be controlled externally at that side of the train. Someone would physically drag the rooms along the track with a chain, or something. Or it could be controlled from the engine room, with the mechanism just clearly visible externally."

"That's somewhat loosey-goosey, isn't it?" Kam picked. "Saying 'oh, it's one of these two things'?"

"Well, it wouldn't actually make that much difference," I said. "Everyone was together except Wiliya and Gaizarik between the time when Phaidime's body hit the roof and when we all returned, giving them free access to both locations. That makes them the only possible suspects... though we'll come back to that too." I gestured towards the ruins of the rest carriage. "This also explains why Summiri was so eager to set the carriage on fire. Even now, when investigators arrive - or, uh, when they would arrive, if this really happened - they'll probably able to tell that rooms are missing and that's weird. But enough will be destroyed to cast everything into doubt, including what exactly happened with the bodies still inside."

"You're really beating around the bush here," she criticized.

"Up until now, yeah, kinda." I turned towards the front of the train. "But now, I'm going to resolve all the other howdunnit questions at once."

"All of them?"

"All of them," I affirmed. "How the carriage disappeared, how Phaidime's body was left in such a state, how I died, and even how Hildris reappeared in that costume in the first place all have basically the same solution."

She quirked a brow expectantly.

"Before that, though, I want to check just one thing in the game world," I said. "Just a little detail."

"What happened to being right or wrong on your own terms?"

"This is one exception," I said. "It's kind of like the room-moving thing. It doesn't really matter in the broad strokes, but it's impossible to know which it is definitively without checking, and if I'm wrong it will make me look stupid. Plus I'm just curious." I looked to her. "May I?"

"Be my guest," she said with a sigh.

I walked towards the dining car, Kam following close behind. Getting close enough to make out the details I recalled from Tuthal and I walking along the roof, an eerie feeling of unreality began to strike me. Being here in my own body felt somehow violatory; like the world Hildris and Tuthal and Bahram had been a real place I'd infiltrated, and was now picking apart, some bored omnipotent being who had treated their little lives like entertainment.

I tried not to let it show, because Kam would assuredly make fun of me. I navigated to the limp area where the front carriage had disappeared, where the leathery material of the liminal space had been hanging limp. I lifted up a section, looking at it carefully in a way I should have when I'd slid down it earlier.

I peered. The exterior facing side was covered in paint.

"...okay," I said. "That's more narratively economical, I'll admit, but it is contrived. It's contrived that they'd do all that. The overly-convenient bad weather I'll accept-- That's a genre staple. But this is just, well, pulp."

Kam looked annoyed. "Su, what are you even talking about."

"This," I thrust my hand at her, still clutching the fabric, causing the whole thing to waft.

"That's not what I mean. You can't seriously be criticizing my writing when you don't even fully understand the scenario you're looking at."

"I thought you said it wasn't yours? That the story is 'churned out'?"

"It's spiritually mine," she said. "I head the team. It's only natural to have some pride, even if the ends are utilitarian."

I shook my head. "Well, regardless, this resolves the last question I had about the trick. It's all clear, now."

"Don't keep me in suspense."

"There have been a lot of hints. I'm actually kind of annoyed I didn't come to a conclusion sooner." I held my fingers up as I listed them off. "The fact that we couldn't see the sky from almost anywhere on the train was a big one right at the start, not to mention the fact the front carriage wasn't visible in the station. Arguably the setting, far away from any kind of civilization, is itself a hint. Then you have the shadows I saw flying past the windows. The eerie quiet when I went inside. The room at the absolute front hidden behind a locked door. The idea was even seeded in a conversation; it's practically thematic."

"What exactly is 'thematic'?"

"There's been a motif of progress and the changing of the age through the story. You had Rastag's backstory setting up the railways in his youth, the rise of the Rhunbardic Empire, old figures like Tuthal being eclipsed by things more virile and dynamic. It only makes sense that the crux of the story would be another type of revolution." I looked up. "It's simple. The front carriage flies."