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Arboretum | 1:33 PM | Second Day
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something about. As came up earlier, being the creator of not just a school of the Power, but an entire discipline, he was one of the most famous scholars in the Remaining World.
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thousands of incantations could be traced back to his work on using arcana to manipulate the human nervous system, and subverting the restriction on employing it on the human mind by establishing a chemical interface through the bloodstream instead of targeting the brain or the pneumaic nexus. Combine that with his work for the order in combating associative-collapse dementia, and he''d arguably done more to raise lifespans and improve the quality of life of the elderly than anyone else still living. If you measured the weight of his soul against the good he''d done in a purely utilitarian sense, he was objectively a saint.
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insufferable person. Self-assured, entitled, judgemental but relentlessly hypocritical - the sort of individual who''d steal food from your pantry without asking, leave the wrappings on the floor, and then throw a fit when they found out you''d borrowed their logic engine while they were in the kitchen. Selfish in a petty, childish way.
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as a building, it was easily larger than both the abbey and the order''s headquarters put together. It was only about half as wide as the latter if you were to round it out, but was much, much taller, coming to ten stories at minimum... And that was assuming it also had the strangely tall ceilings I''d seen elsewhere. It was massive; the size of an office complex.
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weren''t were so clear that it didn''t look like anything was there at all. This included the bottom floor, giving the impression I was stepping right out onto the sea bed.
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futuristic. As for the interior, the central chamber, perfectly round, had an illuminated floor that was a purer white than even marble, without a visible blemish to to be seen. My eyes turning upwards, I could see all the way to the top of the building. Each floor seemed to be identical, with an open middle, and a loop around the periphery connected to four doorways, each akin to the one I''d just passed through. But there was one thing that struck me. Though the effect hadn''t been visible from the exterior at all, the lighting on each floor had a subtly different hue, going from warmer tones at the nadir to cooler ones at the apex, but with a difference so slight you couldn''t even notice it between two connected floors.
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Understand that you must select a floor, it communicated.
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Four, I thought.
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more uncomfortable than just ascending a normal elevator. Like my brain didn''t quite understand what was happening from the mismatch of sensory data.
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Aletheia, was Balthazar.
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exactly the same as it had been this morning. Calm, casual, constant of expression. Smiling just a little as he looked up at my arrival.
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told me to look for him, but despite that, I couldn''t help but wish that he''d been somewhere else.
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New Historia, a history journal designed to be accessible to laymen. "Hey there."
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That''s kind of annoying, I thought to myself. He''s going to make me wait, even though he was the one who asked me to come in the first place?
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outer door not too long ago, even though my back was aching from the stretcher."
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Right, right. I''d been the one to treat him after the prosognostic event had happened. Gods, the fact that something like that had whole scene had managed to slip out of my head certainly illustrated what a morning it had been.
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actually thanking me at all, but instead making a little joke to himself at my expense.
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have to be?"
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anything exciting now, whether I wished to or not," he said, showing no visible reaction to my confrontational tone. "You look a little tense. Had a rough morning?"
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hostile to this guy? It was strange. As much as I came across as kind of a delicate person and was good at spiraling into personal crises if left to my own devices, I was usually pretty good at handling unpleasant people and not getting worked up; a product of when I''d been bullied as a child. I usually stayed among the calmest whenever Kamrusepa got into one of her obnoxious moods, and even Ezekiel had trouble getting a rise out of me.
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clawing at the corners of my mind, like I''d left the stove on and some tiny part of my brain was screaming to grab a bucket of water and run back down the street. But before, it''d felt ominous, filled with dread. This feeling just made me want to punch someone.
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Clunk, clunk.
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Bitter end?
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cruel. There''s no other word for it."
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anywhere else.
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No, you idiot, you''re just panicking over nothing. Calm down. But them, him saying it like that, didn''t that mean--
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You have some water with you, remember? You brought the bigger bag with you for your presentation. I leaned against the side of the wall and reached downward into it, grasping around for something oblong and heavy, until eventually my fingers found purchase on a flask, which had sunk to the bottom. Then, I reached to withdraw my bottle of medication from its usual pouch, my free hand scratching harshly at my scalp in a gesture of neurotic hysteria.
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No, not here! Something in me yelled. Have you seen how clean they keep this place? They''ll hang you from the fucking rafters!
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abyssmal, and could barely stand. But slowly, it seemed pass, my gut calming, if only a little bit.
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Does he know something? Oh god, oh fuck.
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Relax, a part of me said. What happened doesn''t mean anything. He''s probably just tied up in some drama involving Zeno and your grandfather that you''re not aware of, and is holding a grudge against you for something to do with it. He admitted himself that the only reason he said that was context clues. He probably just saw you react badly to the name this morning, and then decided to use it to cut off your line of questioning.
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You don''t have the stamina to worry about this right now, I told myself. That, at least, was certain. I''d known even before I came here that there would be things going on regarding the politics of the order and my relation to it that I''d have to suffer through being ignorant of - my meeting with the class coordinator had made that much clear. It wasn''t any of my business.
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less was the convention furnaces, great oval-shaped things of titanium and stone, and the tall bronze pylons attached to them all around the room. Intermittently, charges of bright light would silently blast between them overhead. It looked, to say the least, spectacularly dangerous.
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interfacing with it. Whenever one arrived at the connected pylon, the tissue folds would shudder, then... Shift, subtly, the lines and creases on their surface flowing as if becoming liquid. Then they''d sharply stop, a few moments would pass, and the process would repeat.
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very confused.