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Inner Sanctum First Floor | 10:38 AM | Third Day
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one.
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A Materialist Perspective On Women In The Society Of New Kingdoms-Era Asia, and so forth. "That''s right."
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didn''t?"
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see."
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wrong with Fang''s account. In our very first conversation with Linos, he''d established that there were multiple entrances to the sanctuary, and that we''d only taken the one we had due to a combination of time and wanting to keep the easier-to-access ones a secret. At the time, his explanation for that had been that the relative position of the Mimikos and the Atelikos was ever-shifting, and it was only when things lined up correctly that the transportation process had happened...
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Pardon?" Kam asked, an eyebrow raised. "You were working with her how, exactly?"
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total dumbass," Fang said, with what was, by their standards, a serious look in their eyes. "I can read the vibe of a situation. I knew I was probably being roped into some sorta cliquey infighting in the order."
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seemed interesting," Kam echoed, her eyes narrowed.
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Six hundred thousand?!" Kamrusepa exclaimed, probably loud enough for the people downstairs to hear.
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did trigger it.
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better than me in a manner that felt unattainable, and unwilling to ever lower themselves to my level under any circumstance. I hated feeling small and inconsequential, like a fleeting side character in someone else''s story, more than anything. Of something spectacular being thrust in my face, only to be told it wasn''t for me.
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me, and there weren''t a lot of peers for me to look up to. Fang, though, was an exception. Something about the combination of their extreme success and attitude got to me a little. In that sense, some of what I said about Kam was probably projecting.
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defined.
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Ah, so it''s like I thought. "I didn''t think anyone other than me had noticed."
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also have brains, and might even think about things."
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debt by some other means... Though it could also be connected to something far more serious."
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Really, Su?"
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is relevant. Tell me: If it''s the latter, just how likely do you think they are to tell the truth?"
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not among the culprits, they''re more likely to try and obfuscate things if they feel anything could draw more attention to him."
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obviously." she said plainly. "Or rather, misrepresent yourself. Try to talk around it and trip them up into revealing something. Even a half-wit can deny their guilt until their blue in the face if you push it head on, but I''ve seen certifiable geniuses spill their guts to decent journalists with a more delicate touch."
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weapon card, but I do remember that happening, for certain," Linos said, holding a hand to his chin thoughtfully.
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Don''t get sidetracked. This was about establishing more than Theodoros''s guilt. First thing: Anna''s passing-of-the-buck.
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what, now?" Seth asked, eyes suddenly wide. Theo seemed a little alarmed, too. (Ptolema, who''d heard this before, just looked concerned.)
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What?"
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much too far," Linos proclaimed, subtly raising his voice as he attempted to assert dominance over the conversation. "It would be better to say that it shows variations in behavior and interplanar structure that could be likened to a living being. Anything more is conjecture."
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physics."
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bigger deal."
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urgent, y''know?" She bit her lip. "I was kinda expecting it to get brought up anyway when we went to see that freaky thing underground, but it didn''t happen."
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Commonality, yes. But there are types of fungus that show grow in patterns reminiscent of the cerebral cortex superficially, and they''re certainly not sentient. It''s suggestive, not indicative." He crossed his arms. "Without meaning any disrespect for her, it sounds like she overstated the case. In fact, you''ve heard proof enough already of how inconclusive our research in that area was."
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ouldn''t remember. "Your grandfather''s project, in the end, was only able to use our understanding of the inter-planar structure of entropy, and its atemporal nature, to gain information about the past and aid in Chronomancy... And even that didn''t work until today, as you all witnessed. It''s thoughts, or lack thereof, were a dead end in our research. Everything else-- Well, it came afterwards."
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Gunpowder. One failure leading to another possibility. The changing purposes of the sanctuary...
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1. In the early days of the organization, under Ubar of Kane, Saahdia creates the theory about the consciousness of entropy.
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2. Much later, before becoming its headquarters, the Order follows up on this theory by taking control of the the Ironworkers observation facility in the ''Land of the Dead'' which Anna described.
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3. After their previous headquarters is destroyed, they decide to build their new one, the sanctuary, on top of the facility for the sake of my ''grandfather''s project''. (Based on her comments, it sounded like most of the features intended to make it as comfortable as possible manifested around this point.)
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4. However, investigating the sentience of entropy doesn''t prove fruitful, so they scale down the project to what now existed beneath us.
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5. But that doesn''t work, either. So eventually it''s abandoned, changing course to research on the human mind...
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already knew in a way that cleanly flowed from one thing to another. If the sanctuary''s fundamental design, right down to its name, was about ''caring'' for something... Yet that project was ultimately abandoned or reworked... Then that was probably the transition point between three and four; when it''s original purpose first shifted to a new one. Or, in other words...
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centuries ago," he looked at me sternly. "I''m sure this place''s history has a lot of mystique for you all, and that''s where your mind is likely to go when something so terrifying as this is happening... But truly, I do think you''re chasing shadows more than you''re capable of realizing."
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That''s kinda condescending. "Even so," I said, trying to sound resolute. "If we can be this fixated on the past, the culprit could be with their motive, too. We need to know."
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opposite of what will lead you to figuring anything the actual culprit, if that''s your goal."
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approach was decided upon. That led to the construction of the sanctuary as it exists now, a little over 300 years ago." He paused for a moment, closing his eyes. "Do you know much about extra-terrestrial life, Utsu?"
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possibilities, for a moment. There are so many cruelties fundamental to the world that we more or less accept as a given - governed by forces that just are, beyond even the capacity of iron to change at their root. But what if it were all just some strange misunderstanding?" He gestured outwardly. "If death was not a reaper, but a gardener unaware of what was beneath their feet? If energy or information, rather than continually trending towards dispersal and simplicity, could just as easily behave in a way that, well, suited us?"
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life."
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theories about how they might communicate with these beings they discovered, despite the vast gulf between how they experienced the universe. And though logistical challenges... And eventually the collapse... Smothered those ideas in the crib, there was one which caught our interest." He sat back in his chair a little. "Though it was also arguably applied at the end of the Great Interplanar War, in retrospect, our application of the concept was-- Well, patently absurd. We were still drunk on the high of the discovery at that point."
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