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Inner Sanctum First Floor | 10:04 AM | Third Day
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very different sorts - and there were no longer any immediate plans to travel anywhere, the power dynamic of our group had shifted. Even though Linos had insisted it was an overreaction and there must''ve been another explanation we were overlooking, he could no longer completely shield his son from the reality that he was the only plausible suspect we had for Bardiya''s murder.
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"I don''t get it," Ptolema had said. "What''s the point if the arcane part can''t even work?"
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"As well as the sensor, the artifices also contain a mundane alarm that can be triggered, or activates automatically in the event of a ceased or highly irregular pulse. That is why I designed them as wristbands," she''d explained. "More besides, we do not know what the day has in store for us, or if the Power may become usable here again, so there is no point in not employing them. Just make sure you activate them properly if that does come to pass."
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like the original epic, with short and simple declarations of events and a vaguely poetic structure, but the content was all over the place. It added extensions to many of Gilgamesh''s and Enkidu''s adventures, or invented new narratives about their day-to-day lives, many of which were utterly banal. Gilgamesh holds a dinner for the leaders of the city. Gilgamesh and Enkidu investigate missing livestock. Enkidu gets involved in a petty dispute between two gods, forcing him to go through a series of comedic trials. It was episodic, and went on and on and on with no clear point in sight.
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kind of spooky and weird," I said. "Just... Not quite like that."
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did work, there''s never been any rumors about the manuscripts for something as specific as... Your problem."
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Anything you want. Like what you''d tell an athlete who''d just learned they''d never walk again when they asked what they could do next. Like the life-advice you''d hear from a friend after losing the love of their life. Like what the last survivor of a dead world would hear from the open sky, when they asked it what they should do now.
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Anything you want. Words that made a gift of a wasteland.
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several refractor rifles, as well as what I suspected to be gas and pressure cannons. Fortunately, these were lowered. For now.
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This area is unsafe. Please seek shelter in the lower levels."
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much freakier looking biomancy-produced golems. Their bodies were the shape of medium-sized, leggy cats - servals, maybe - but instead of heads, eyeless, upright serpents protruded from their necks, and their whole bodies were covered in chrome like scales. The only reason I could tell for certain that they were machines were that they moved in perfect concert, with the stiffness of automata in place of animal mannerisms.
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those things?!" Ptolema asked, leaning over and accidentally knocking over some of the pieces on the gameboard in front of her. In the background, a hilarious misunderstanding was taking place in the drama where the protagonist had mistaken her boyfriend''s sister''s socks as evidence of infidelity.
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were, but this addition to our defenses had been in the works for decades." She looked at her nails idly. "The modern military-industrial complex moves at the speed of a constipated tortoise when it comes to developing new technology. A budget enough to fund a thousand universities, yet all the intellectual stamina of your average pub on quiz night. It''s enough to make you wish the Empire had won." She yawned. "Well, at least until you remember how obsessed they were with what people did with their genitals."
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Eighteen. Not an army, but enough to wipe us out if we screwed up somewhere where we couldn''t use the Power. Our best bet would probably be to dive for the underground if it came to that. Since they''d be spread over the whole sanctuary, dealing with them one at a time would be... Manageable.
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tired. I ended up staring at the high ceiling, where the shadows gathered, too distant for our lamps to fully reach.
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incredibly famous actor and novelist. So no matter where she goes, she can''t escape his face being plastered all over the place, or people talking about how amazing he is without even knowing she exists-- Let alone caring about her side of the story." She turned a page. "So after a while, she goes crazy and creates an intricate plan to murder him."
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lot of people spend broad periods, or even the majority of their lives, deep in depression. So it didn''t feel like the logic quite held up.
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actual father, had taught me in the few years I''d known him.
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What do I know? What am I sure that I know?
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probably true, but that I couldn''t, or hadn''t, confirmed. In rough chronological order:
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-here.
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strange. Where the truth I had observed and the information I thought I had seemed to clash.
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Neferuaten had told me. Ran''s observation about it being a perfect doomsday shelter.
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the signature. That''s what had been itching in the back of my mind earlier. The letter had been signed V.A, but the name Linos had given us was Vijana of Yamune. Shouldn''t that have been ''V.Y.''?
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Focus. I couldn''t get too hung up on a single detail. When facing a complicated problem, you had to be constantly attacking it from all angles. Probing, searching for a weak point in the tapestry where it''ll all start to unravel...
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Seth first appears in the sanctuary with dirty clothes. Later, he talks about a fight with Ezekiel and how that led to him being extorted, and that originated in a broken promise to help with his work. But later, Seth fights with Bardiya, and it seems like they''re working together. Theo asks to speak to me when he leaves early during dinner, but won''t the next day, where he seems incredibly anxious. Ezekiel isn''t seen at all until right before the conclave. Bardiya''s room is strangely dirty. Bardiya is the second victim.
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Time-Inferring Arcana," I began asking, "does it give a result based on the plane you''re currently in, or always on time passage relative to the Mimikos?"
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massive amount of tinned and dried food. I could probably live off just the cans of beans I spotted at a glance for an entire year; it was obscene.
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How did this turn into you awkwardly making conversation? I knew you''d find some way to screw this up. "I just-- Well, I thought you''d be partly pleased to have so much longer to live. Or to have your body in a better condition."
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open in his creepy passive-aggressiveness.
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honestly. Taking everyone for fools." She snorted. "Your grandfather was never one to let things go when he ought to-- Everything happening right now is proof enough of that. Durvasa was right. We should have expelled him years sooner, instead of letting this turn into such a farce."
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Actually, I''ve changed my mind," she said, cutting herself off in mid-sentence strangely. This was the longest I''d ever heard her speak ''casually'' before, and her speech patterns were different than I would have thought. "Are you familar with the concept of a ''mirror''? In the context of logic engines."
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one. It is only when that synchronicity is broken that problems begin to arise." She dusted off her work. "As part of our defense mechanism, this functionality can be employed. Detachment."
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