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Inner Sanctum Underground | 12:47 AM | Third Day
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probably Hamilcar''s location, since any potential counter-arcana couldn''t be detected. The only living person underground was deep, deep below, either in the chambers within Nittaimalaru''s underbelly which Ran had described us visiting, or somewhere adjacent. Either way, there was only one path to and from that area: The elevator which lay at roughly the center of the underground.
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rich inner life.
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"You''re coming up to where the eris tanks should be now, in the next room on your left," Ran told us as we made our way down another of the dark hallways, using the Sound-Echoing Arcana, which conveyed noise from the user to a pre-defined point - in this case, our ears.
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useful, but I''ve worked in this fucking reverse-fishtank on and off for nigh half of my life. I could probably walk through the place blindfolded."
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Anomaly-Divining Arcana."
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She''s not above suspicion. I had to remember that, and be prepared for anything.
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your judgement, and more about your opinion of my personality, hm?" She crossed her arms. "Weren''t you just whining about the girl and I bickering a few moments ago?"
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any of the life choices and imagined commitments that led her to this position."
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literal serial killing, and because she wanted to come and support her daughter at what was supposed to be a totally normal event. And because she listened to what probably every asshole expert was telling her when Lilith started grading like a 30 year old when she was 10."
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worth that eris you spent to save her life, or the peril you placed your own in for the opportunity to do so." She made a dismissive gesture. "And all of that is just excuses - ''she was upset'', ''she felt obligated'', ''people told her to do it''. Trying to brush away the truth that ultimately, she made those decisions as an independent, sapient being by infantilizing her to the degree that you might as well regard her as a household pet."
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irrational, when it was probably nothing but fucking bad luck."
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bad luck, little boy. Any ''gambling'' in life is merely a result of having failed to properly comprehend the world, or having comprehended it but not acted on that comprehension for some ultimately vapid, sentimental reason. It''s art students all the way down-- People putting self-indulgence over maneuvering within reality to their logical advantage, then acting like they''ve somehow been fucked over when it ends suboptimally."
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completely outside of anyone''s control. What happens if you''re struck by lightning, huh?"
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better circumstances," she retorted again. "This shit is easy if you pay attention. Educate yourself and follow the news in the economy, the sciences, and the social landscape, and plot out a reasonable path to a solution with as many fail-safes as you can. Do a little social climbing and work and solving almost any mundane problem is possible, thrice so if you have the foresight to act in advance." She crossed her arms. "I have no sympathy for existences without the cognitive capacity or will to thrive in this world. ''Ohh, I wanted to study economics, but then I met him and we just had to have a baby!" She shook her head, sticking out her tongue with a ''blech'' expression. "Human beings are a species in dire need of improvement."
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gone places so fast that I didn''t feel capable of adequately responding.
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there. Your reality."
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everything, is all happening in just one, splendid place." She lowered the rod just slightly. "Understand that, insist on the grandeur of yourself, and you can see the universe for what it is: A vast sandbox in which you stand as a man. Primed to be shaped into whatever you please; to be transformed into something beautiful to you."
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"Hey, Su," she said, as we started heading in the other direction, down one of the longer tunnels.
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"I thought of something I need to check with you, about Zeno," she said. It sounded as though she was keeping her voice down herself. "You said that he controls his bodies remotely using the Power, right?"
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"But that''s the correct information, right," she replied flatly.
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"Right. So, I was thinking about that, and I realized it doesn''t make any sense," she said. "Like, at all. He was walking around upstairs for hours even though the Power wasn''t supposed to be working. I thought that maybe it was just that the suppression field didn''t block incantations with an exterior source - as in, somebody casting an effect inside from outside - but while we were talking about Yantho''s murder, Anna told me that it blocks everything, like, period. So that''s completely impossible."
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How the hell did I overlook something so obvious?
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"I guess it''s not impossible," she replied. "But I checked the security console. It''s registered ''Zeno'' as having gone underground, but the registry of human lifeforms in the bioenclosures hasn''t changed at all. That means that body probably isn''t anything close to a person on the inside, including the nervous system."
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This also knocks one ambiguous candidate off the list of people in the bioenclosures, I absorbed only half-consciously. And that the system apparently isn''t tracking his ''real'' body at all. That''s weird.
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"I don''t know," she said. "I mean, taking a shot in the dark, it could be some kind of logic bridge based system. A portable one can barely transmit any information, but they must be able to manage a little, otherwise they wouldn''t be banned under the Covenant. It might be enough to carry the data produced by the brain stem, though you''d probably have to make one bigger than the handheld ones people normally use. I don''t know how you''d fit that inside someone''s skull. Maybe if you had some elaborate custom one connected with an artificial nerve, and managed to hide it somehow."-
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"It''s possible. But maybe they just managed to integrate their brain into something really alien... Transplants like that are supposed to be dangerous as hell at the best of times, but if anyone could do it, it''d be them."
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"Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up," she said. "When we do the next round of divination, I''m going to see if I can find out anything else. I might also just straight-up ask Anna about it. I''ll let you know."
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If I run now, everything will probably just go to shit. Better to push on, and trust that we weren''t walking straight into a trap.
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Did they hear something?
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I guess not. Though this coming up out of nowhere wasn''t exactly what I was hoping for, either. "Oh... Mm, that''s right," I said, with a nod.
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Mhmmm. Yeah... I figured it might be something like that."
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Wait, what?
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Kinda."
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purpose. I''ve just got good ears, and it''s hard for me not to pay attention to stuff, y''know?"
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road, if it turns out all this time stuff is barking up the wrong tree."
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glaring questions that were coming to mind, "what you''re talking about isn''t possible. Kam used the Time-Inferring Arcana a few hours ago. It''s passing normally." I narrowed my eyes. "Balthazar mentioned the pantry, too, but that - and the whole idea of us being cut off from the outside world - would only suggest that conclusion if what''s happening is local."
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What the fuck does that even mean? You can''t just dismiss something being impossible with ''out of the box thinking''!
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Wait, what''s with this topic shift? "Uh, yeah," I said.
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enjoying themselves, casually making all these deductions on some higher level to the rest of us, only giving us snippets when they felt like it, and taking charge when it was convenient. Like this was all some story in which they were the protagonist.
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