NOVEL FROG 047: The Chosen Children (๐)
Inner Sanctum Bedrooms | ??? | ???
The first thing I remember, from before I even realized I was awake at all, was the sound of the bells; slow and even-paced, more like something you'd hear at the end of a church service than a wedding. But off, somehow. Muted, the resonance not quite right.
It was a bad omen, if ever there was one.
You probably got an impression of this already back during the conversation in the lounge prior to Ophelia's prosognostic event, but I've never considered myself much of a superstitious person. When I was younger, I was actually pretty obnoxious about this fact, holding it up as some point of pride - I felt the fact I dismissed the existence of the gods, an afterlife, and all manner of phantoms and unlikely phenomena produced by any given culture, was proof of my intellectual superiority to the average human being.
But at some point in my twenties, I realized that, rather than being free of irrational beliefs, I had simply cultivated more abstract ones in the place of their supernatural counterparts. Ones which, when boiled down, were no less fantastical. For example, even though a lot of things had happened to in my life which were - at the risk of putting too fine a point on it - both quite unpleasant and extremely strange, I still maintained a strange belief in my own fundamental invulnerability. For all my self-deprecation, deep down I was quite proud; the sort of person who would read a newspaper article about a group of people dying to a gas leak, and then smugly muse somewhere in the back of my mind, 'That would never happen to me! I would totally notice!'
Yeah, I suppose I've always been sort of an idiot.
In any case, this is why I reacted quite badly when I realized something had just happened to me, once I broke out of the in-between state and became fully lucid.
Wait... What?
How did I get here? Wasn't I just outside?
I jumped, shot upright in swift moment, gasping for breath.
I was sitting, clothesless, in bed - well, a bed, wide and comfortable - surrounded by a room I didn't recognize, though even that much took me a moment to discern. It was so dark that I could barely see anything. I could see the outlines of windows off to my side, but no light emanated from them, not even the dim glow the sanctuary's lamps had given off back during the first night. The only thing that stopped it from being pitch black was a small gas lamp on the bedside table, and even its output seemed to be at the lowest level possible.
As I started going into a state of panic, my heart rate shooting up like a firework, my consciousness instinctively fired nerves all over my body, checking to see if something had happened. Were all my limbs intact? Did I have any wounds-- A head wound? My hands flew up to feel all over my scalp to establish this, and bumped into something, knocking it off the bed.
My scepter, I realized, a moment later.
There weren't any wounds to be found, neither there nor anywhere else, but that didn't do much to calm me down. I broke into a cold sweat, trying to understand what could have happened. Oh god. Had I been drugged? Had there been an incantation cast on me? Was I even still in the sanctuary?
I scrambled for the object that had just fallen for the floor, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. Don't panic. Don't panic! It won't help!
I didn't have it engraved like she did, but I'd learned the Anomaly-Divining Arcana from Ran about a year earlier, when we'd just joined the Exemplary Acolyte's Class, since it was such a useful incantation, and surprisingly simple for its broad purpose. I wasn't particularly good with it, but I'd managed to memorize the words and could cast it inefficiently most of the time. I lifted my scepter aloft to do just that. If something trans-mundane had happened to me, I needed to know, immediately.
"....๐ฃ๐๐๐ญ๐. (๐๐ฃ๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐ผ). ๐ญ๐๐๐๐, ๐น." I said.
...but nothing happened.
I bit my lip and checked the eris gauge, thinking I might've been somehow out. But no; it was almost full, just as it had been in preparation for my presentation when last I'd looked.
That shouldn't have been possible-- Unless I'd spoke the word of initiation wrong, even botching the incantation should have led to some sort of feedback. I tried again from the beginning.
"...๐ฃ๐๐๐ญ๐. (๐๐ฃ๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐ผ). ๐ญ๐๐๐๐, ๐น"
Once again, nothing happened. My eyes were wide.
What the hell is going on?
No, I was being stupid. There was one other possibility. Like had been the case in the hallway leading into the security center, use of the Power could be stopped through an enchantment that interfered with contact with the Higher Planes. That was the most logical explanation - the only explanation, in fact - for what was going on here.
...not that it was much of a reassurance. That was something you'd only really saw used in sensitive locations, with a high risk of robbery or attack, and prisons specifically for arcanists. And I doubted I'd suddenly woke up in a bank vault or been arrested.
Now that my eyes were adjusting to the light, though, I was starting to get an impression of where I could be. It looked like one of the larger guest rooms that Neferuaten had shown us in the main building during the tour, on the second floor - though this one didn't seem to belong to anyone in particular, since there was barely any furniture. The shape and style looked familar, though, as well as the dark color scheme
So... I'd been brought up there, for some reason. Maybe I'd passed out...?
My body was starting to shiver, but I steeled myself. Think back. What was the last thing I remembered?
I rubbed my eyes in a sharp, stiff motion. Right, right. I'd been lying against the glass, and had seen something... Or thought I'd seen something... Out in the water, as impossible as that obviously was in retrospect. It'd been starting to turn, and I was just about to get a good look at its face
And then... Nothing.
Could it have been a prosognostic event, somehow? No, that made no sense; putting aside I couldn't have really seen something like that--
๐น
PLAYWRIGHT:
PLAYWRIGHT: Now, if you recall, Rule 1 dictates that the perspective of the protagonist is always reliable, but they can misinterpret what they see. We went over that second point a bit, too-- However, in past productions, we've heard people say that's a little bit too lenient.
PLAYWRIGHT:
PLAYWRIGHT: For that reason, a small clarification must be made to the rule!
1.A) The protagonist may misperceive reality without this undermining their truthfulness, but only under circumstances where a device to justify this has been established in advance, or is universal in nature.
PLAYWRIGHT: There we go! Much better. Magnifique changement!
PLAYWRIGHT:
PLAYWRIGHT: For the former, say that there exists a drug that causes the characters to hallucinate seeing frogs everywhere. While nothing would prevent another character from showing the symptoms of this drug prior to its full explanation - shouting about frogs crawling all over them, their bodies twisting in peril! - it is guaranteed that it wouldn't be able to afflict the protagonist until that explanation had taken place. Think of it as a holy shield which protects her absolutely, so long as she remains ignorant!
PLAYWRIGHT: But keep in mind this only applies to devices which alter her perceptions. It is not a universal rule! That would be too powerful a shield, I should think.
PLAYWRIGHT: As for the second point, that's in reference to situations of misunderstanding which require no special information to understand at all. For example, if one character were disguised as another and only seen from behind, it's self-evident how that could confuse someone, is it not?
PLAYWRIGHT:
PLAYWRIGHT: But we know better, now, don't we? Because no device has been established which could justify either hallucinations or complex illusions, it means that no such thing occurred. Even if those devices exist somewhere, it hasn't been properly established!
PLAYWRIGHT:
๐น
--what memory of the face I'd seen hadn't even seemed human, let alone like my own. And despite not having been able to check, the power couldn't affect the mind, so the only way it could knock me out without leaving a mark would be something like oxygen deprivation or using Neuromancy to pump me full of sedatives, and I felt like I'd have some recollection of either of those.
When I thought about it like that, the only possibility that seemed to remain was that I'd had some kind of stroke. Maybe it'd caused me to hallucinate--
๐น
PLAYWRIGHT:
PLAYWRIGHT: Really now, good grief...
PLAYWRIGHT:
PLAYWRIGHT: What? Oh.
๐น
--and eventually fall unconscious, and then when Ran had come back, she'd brought me up here, because it was closer then the guesthouse...
But surely, if that were the case, I should have been feeling worse than this. People didn't just bounce back from strokes. And with modern medicine, we knew enough about biology to see circulatory dysfunction coming almost 100% of the time, and I'd had a general checkup not two months earlier.
Not that even that idea would come close to explaining everything. For example: Why was it so dark? Had the lighting system failed? Had I been out for the entire rest of the day, and I'd somehow missed yesterday that it was set up to turn itself off at the absolute dead of night?
Trying to suppress the rising unease in my gut, I sharply rose to my feet. Physically, I felt fine except for being a little groggy - the bells were still blaring nosily overhead, not painfully loud but impossible to tune out, and some part of me was angry that my rest had been interrupted.
That's another question. Why are the bells tolling?
I vaguely remembered Neferuaten had given some explanation about what they were for when we'd visited the previous afternoon, but my mind was still in too fragmented a state to recall it.
My hands still shaking, I twisted the knob of the gas lamp to a higher intensity before scanning the room, and immediately noticed something odd. My luggage had been brought up here too, the trunk resting at the foot of my bed. With some urgency, stepped over and I popped it open, then rooted through the contents. There were a few things inside I was worried might've been left behind or exposed, like my acclimation log, but everything seemed to be in its proper place... In fact, everything seemed to be there, period.
This was less reassuring then it sounds, because when I say everything, I really mean everything. Someone had taken all the stuff I'd unpacked in my guest room, carefully packed it back up, and brought the whole thing here.
...No. It would be wrong to say 'someone'. There was a logic to how to how it had all been placed that was extremely familiar to me... And unless you're married to them or some kind of servant, you don't exactly become familiar with how other people pack their bags. It looked as though I'd packed it up.
Which started to raise distinctly uncomfortable possibilities about what could be going on.
I decided to get dressed, since whatever this situation was would surely not be improved by being naked. I put on my more casual black dress robe and some sandals, but didn't bother to mess with my hair. After that, I observed that there was a clock at my bedside I hadn't spotted earlier.
It was stopped, which was so unhelpful that it felt like it couldn't be called a coincidence. The hands read 1:02.
Had it stopped in the afternoon? Or maybe it was deep into the night, after all.
But before I had much time to think about it, a banging suddenly rang out from the doorway, making me jump so hard I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. Considering the circumstances, my mind shot straight to the worst case scenario, and I grabbed a nearby chair as the banging persisted, holding it overhead as I slowly approached the entryway from the side.
"Yes?!" I cried out, far louder and tenser than I'd meant to. "W-Who's there?!"
A few seconds passed, then the banging continued, this time more aggressively. It seemed to be coming from a lower point on the door.
"Answer me!" I demanded.
Again, for a few seconds, no response came. But then, a quiet and firm voice resonated from the other side.
"...stop shouting, gloomy girl. It's bad enough having to tolerate the bell," Lilith said.
I blink. "Lilith?" I said, going from fear to confusion. "What are you doing here?"
"Open the door," she said, and started banging again.
I grunted in exasperation, but honestly felt so relieved just to encounter another person that I didn't even hesitate. I set the chair down and flicked the door lock upward, opening it. Sure enough, she was standing there, dressed in a childish-looking frilly pink nightgown which seemed immensely contrary to my perceptions of her, staring up impatiently. Her hair, not bound like it usually was, puffed out in all directions messily, and she was carrying her own gas lamp.
"I need you," she said, bluntly. "Come."
"H-Hold on," I said, hesitating. "What's going on? Do you know why I was in here?"
She looked annoyed at the first part of what I said, but that appeared to give way to confusion in the second, leaving her simply staring.
On second thought, I considered, of all the people this could have been, this is probably the worst, huh.
"Something is wrong with the sanctuary," she eventually said - slowly, like she was addressing a child. She reached out her free hand and grabbed my wrist. "I need you. Come."
"Wait--"
She paid me no further attention, pulling me with what small strength she could muster out of the room and down the hallway.
There were no lights out here, either, not even within the ridiculous fish tanks, the creatures stirring and swimming around as we passed by with our lights, their forms casting strange and tall shadows within their glassed-off homes. Another thing I was starting to notice was that it was strangely cold. Not freezing, but considerably lower than the mild temperature the sanctuary had been kept at up until this point.
In tandem, these changed the atmosphere of the place completely. While before, it had felt like a partly-convincing simulacrum of a building in an outdoor location, it now felt more like we were walking through a giant cave. The darkness was oppressive, pushing in from all directions, and our footsteps echoed through the empty halls, the only sound aside from the relentless tolling of the bell.
I won't lie: It frightened me almost immediately. At one point I suddenly noticed a squid staring at us with wide, black eyes, and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from crying out in fear.
"Uh, s-seriously," I said, after a few moments. "I kind of need to know what's happening."
She stopped suddenly, then pulled me to the side, towards one of the logic bridges intermittently embedded in the walls. She pressed my hand against it.
Please understand that a state of defensive lockdown is currently in effect within the Amniakic Bioenclosure, it informed me. Please understand that some functions have been disabled. Please understand that you should remain calm and seek further guidance. Please understand that a state of defensive lockdown is currently in effect...
I blinked. 'Amniakic'?
She quickly pulled me away again, down the hallway, until the connection was severed.
Well, that at least explained a few things. Sacnicte had mentioned that a lockdown could be initiated from the security center... And this was evidently what it looked like in action. But that left a bigger, far more glaring mystery.
Which was why it had been activated to begin with.
We turned the corner, and came to the metal stairwell, which began leading us down. From the nearby window, I could just about see - if I held my lamp aloft - the spot where it'd felt like I was sitting just a few moments earlier.
This is all so insane I don't even know what to think about to think about it. Just stay calm until you find someone who can tell you what's really happening. Just stay calm...
"Lilith," I said, rubbing my eyes. I had to speak up a little more than was natural for me now that we were getting closer to the bell tower. "Where are you taking us?"
"Outside," she stated. "Saw from my window that the lights are still on at the other place. The abbey." She muttered the words she just said for a second time quietly, as if analyzing them to see if she'd made some mistakes. "Want to get there, since something is going wrong here.
"Oh, I guess that's a relief," I said, though it wasn't much of one. "...but, uh, why did you need me for that?"
She didn't say anything, continuing the march down the stairs in silence. I noticed, now that I thought about it, that her hand seemed to be shaking a little, and obviously sweating.
Duh, I thought, biting my lip. She's a kid. She's just scared.
"Rather," I corrected myself, "wouldn't you rather have gone to find your mother, instead of me?"
At this she did react, turning and staring again. "...you are acting very strange, gloomy girl," she said, slowly and carefully. "You usually do not say directly stupid things, like skull-cavity, so maybe I am not understanding you. But mother is not here. The crack wasn't in her room."
I made a puzzled expression. "Crack? What are you talking about?"
She analyzed me for another long moment, then faced forward once again. "You are being very unhelpful right now. It is extremely bad. But we will stay together until I make it back to the other building."
That seemed to be that. I tried to ask for clarification, but she offered nothing more.
We headed into the main hall, the metallic edifices of the orrery glinting strangely in the light from our lanterns. It smelled like there had been people here very recently, the scent of smoke and alcohol lingering in the air, in spite of a lack of lingering physical evidence. We passed the corridor that lead into the security center, and I thought about pulling away to check it out before I remembered all of the defensive systems I'd seen and that Sacnicte had explained to me. I didn't want to chance a single step in there until I'd been reassured of exactly what to expect.
We then proceeded through the antechamber into the conference hall - the discordant ringing of the bells starting to become cacophonous. - and if there were any lingering doubts that some amount of time had passed, they were banished by the sight. All the special decor was gone-- Even the stands had been taken down. The only indication the conference had happened at all was the little demonstration table that had been brought in for the presentations, not yet stored away.
But the sight contained carried some good news as well, because to my considerable relief, Linos could be seen at the entrance to the bell tower, seated in his wheelchair. As we pushed open the door, he turned to us with a relieved expression.
"Utsu, Lilith!" he said, moving to meet us near the table as we approached. "Thank goodness. I was starting to think I was the only person left in the building."
"Y-You took the words out of my mouth," I said, practically having to shout at this point. "I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you, sir."
He smiled, though I could see he was anxious about whatever was going on as well. "Glad to see you're feeling better. I take it you came from the second floor? Did you see any of the others?"
Feeling better? I shook my head, breaking eye contact. I didn't want him to notice how confused I really felt. "I haven't seen anyone else other than Lilith, who came to my-- My room." I looked to her expectantly. "Did you...?"
"No," she said bluntly. "No one else answered the door, and I tried yours last."
Wow. Ruthless.
He sighed. "I was afraid of that. The others must have wandered off somewhere after I dozed off." He yawned, as if saying that had reminded him of how tired he felt. "They've all undergone the Allagiypnou Process. I'm the only holdout at this point-- For much the same reason I have this thing." He tapped the side of his wheelchair.
Earlier, I used the necessity of sleep as a point of comparison for the human discomfort with immortality, but this was a little misleading, because there actually was a way to, if not remove, then at least diminish the need for it somewhat - it just happened to be far more intrusive than an elixir, and a lot more potentially dangerous. The Allagiypnou Process was a medical procedure that had been developed around eighty years ago. Through a series of injections and surgeries, it cultivated a microbiome of organisms in the brain that reduced the sleep a person required to remain healthy down to less than half of the norm. But it was controversial for a number of reasons.
For example, there was tentative evidence that it could lead to personality changes. A study seemed to find that people who had undertaken it developed anger and anxiety related psychological disorders at a far higher rate than the general population, and there'd been a few anecdotal stories in the press about people's disposition or preferences shifting in more subtle ways, like suddenly no longer finding certain types of comedy funny. In medicine, these were the sort of side-effects which left public interest in a treatment deader than monarchism. You wouldn't be able to sell people functioning wings if you told them they might mess with their head.
And that was only the start of it; an increase in muscular dysfunction had also been established, and the long-term effects had yet to be studied at all, with some people speculating it could lead to increased early-onset dementia.
However, the sheer increase in productivity was hard to resist for people with a exceptionally strong - well, you might also call it unhealthy - work ethic. So considering their inherent radicalism, it was only a mild surprise to hear that the rest of the council had undergone it. I'd suspected as much in Neferuaten's case already, just from the hours I'd seen her keep in Mekhi.
There were a lot of question that I felt I needed to ask, but one beat out all the others. "Do you know what's happening?"
Linos's expression grew more serious. "No, I'm not sure," he said, worried. "It seems that one of our defensive systems has somehow been tripped, or possibly malfunctioned. It might have something to do with wherever the rest of the council went, or what happened earlier tonight."
"Are we in danger?" I asked.
He furrowed his brow. "I doubt it. At least, not directly," he stated. "It's a little frightening having to stumble around in the dark like this without being able to use the Power, but anything vital can't even be disabled without physically destroying the entire system, and there are numerous fail safes." He held his hands together. "But the fact that this has happened means it's possible that there's someone inside acting with malicious intent. I hate to say it, but it would probably have to be someone from your class."
"What about Balthazar?" I asked.
"That's true, it could be him," Linos corrected himself. "An outsider, one way or the other. Though I wouldn't suspect either of you, since you both have connections."
"Lilith says that she saw the lights were still on over in the other bioenclosure," I said.
He nodded. "That makes sense. Most of the lighting on that side is gas, so it's not part of the system. I assume you were headed that way?"
I scratched my head. "Well, uh, Lilith wanted to."
"I can think of a lot of worse ideas right now then trying to get everyone in one place, for certain," he said, glancing at the door.
As the conversation was getting more complicated, it was getting harder and harder to make out everything he was saying with the droning of the bell. There'd been a brief reprieve - for whatever reason, it seemed to be going in clusters of 11 gongs, followed by a pause of a few seconds, after which it would start over - but at this point, I felt as though I couldn't even think straight about what he was telling me.
"What's wrong with the bell tower?" I asked, unable to think of anything else.
He suddenly looked exasperated. "Beats the hell out of me, frankly. There's an old system to make it ring automatically connected to the lower levels, but it doesn't have anything to with the lockdown process. No clue why it sounds broken, either. There should be a lever next to the thing to disable it manually, but..." He smiled sadly. "Well, that was the reason I was over here to begin with, but was just realizing what a damn fool I am before you arrived. Can't get up stairs too easily without the Power."
"You can't walk," Lilith said bluntly. It wasn't clear if this was question, statement, or merely realization.
Linos smiled patiently. "That's right, miss Eskhalon," he said warmly. "Got a little problem with my muscles, I'm afraid."
I interjected, half way out of fear that she'd say something awful. "Don't you have those mechanical braces, you used to use?"
He chuckled. "Not with me. Probably left them at the laboratory again. Never liked them anyway-- Always felt like cheating the gods."
I nodded. Linos and Theodoros were both part of an old religious order known as the Postsideron Stoics, which famously prohibited treating failures of the body which one was born with, considering it a failure of the moral test the heavens had set humanity on after the collapse of the old world. Personally, even if one were raised in it, I struggled to imagine how a man of science - especially one in medicine - could tolerate such a creed or reconcile it with their good sense. But I'd never been a religious person, and knew better than to try and stir the pot about that sort of thing.
My eyes were drawn upward. I realized I was suppressing my unease largely through adrenaline, and now that it was fading in the wake of normal conversation, it was starting to wash over me in waves.
"...sorry, Linos," I said, hesitant. "This might sound very strange, but, um. Did something happen to me, earlier today? During the conference?" I bit my lip. "Uh, I mean-- Rather, did I get injured somehow, and end up here instead of the guesthouse? I feel a little strange..."
I still wasn't really thinking straight. Lilith stared at me again, this time seeming outright irritated.
He looked puzzled, though his manner remained gentle. "Well, I heard you were here because of the accident over at the guest house. But happen to you?" He rubbed his chin, looking downward. "I don't believe so. You seemed like you might've been out of place at dinner, but that was all."
I stared into space for a few moments. My mouth felt dry.
"I, uh--" I cleared my throat, and tried to smile. "Let me go shut down the bell myself. I f-feel like this noise is making me lose my mind."
He frowned with concern. "Are you alright, Utsu? You're looking sort of pale."
"Yeah, I'm just..." I trailed off. It felt like my mind kept running into walls, going blank sharply over and over again. "I'll be right back."
I stepped through the door before either of them could stop me.
I climbed the stairs in silence, an awful sense of dread filling me. There was no denying what was going on now; something had happened to my memory. I'd lost the whole rest of the day. Whatever had happened out behind the building, with the the remainder of the conference, with dinner. I'd been there, but it was all just... Gone. Short of some kind of mass hallucination or sick attempt at gaslighting, there wasn't any other explanation.
And, and... Whatever had happened with... If I'd...
No, don't think about that now, I said to myself, and bit my tongue hard enough that the pain spiked into my mind and severed the train of thought completely. Stay focused. You can figure this out once you're at the guesthouse with the others. Stay focused...
I passed the paintings, the wall of the faces of the dead lining the ascent, their eyes drilling into me with what felt like peculiar intensity in the darkness. First the then the stylized ones by Neferuaten, with their bright colors and expressions, followed by the more photo-realistic ones, drawn by whomever had been the original artist...
Soon, I arrived at the top. Here, the sound was completely unbearable; the too-high-pitched, warped clanks of the bell feeling like they were damaging my eardrums with every strike. As I looked around desperately for the lever, I saw that Lilith had spoken the truth. Some distance away, there was the distinct shape of the guesthouse, a warm glow emanating from most of the windows. There were even flickers - people were moving about.
Later, I'd realize I shouldn't have been seeing it too clearly. But for the time being, it was reassuring.
After almost getting hit by the fucking thing, I eventually found the lever around the back of the bell, attached to the mechanism responsible for powering the wheel. I pulled it down, which dropped a lock in place, stopping it dead. After a few final, increasingly impotent swings, the mass of wrought bronze fell silent.
I sighed with relief. Even though it wasn't much in the face of everything, it felt wonderful just to be able to hear myself think again.
But soon, I found myself furrowing my brow in confusion. Nothing looks wrong with the mechanism, I thought to myself. So why did it sound so strange?
Idly, I looked upwards into the interior of the bell.
...
And then... Immediately, as I stared vacantly at the sight before me...
...I understood.
I understood the terrible reason why the tone had been off, muffled.
You see, the part of the bell that's meant to strike against the metal is called the clapper. It looks sort of like a metal rod with a thick bit at the end. It swings from side to side at a different pace to the rest, striking it and creating the sound.
But here... There wasn't just one clapper. One object attached to the roof of the bell. There were two, the second bound up by a steel chain.
...no, it would be wrong to put it that way. There weren't two clappers.
Because the second object was something else altogether.
Hanging from the rope next to the clapper, otherwise uninjured but visibly damaged along one side, now covered in blood, where it had struck the metal over and over again - smearing the entire metallic interior in the grotesque ichor, the stench of which struck me all at once - was a body. Fully clothed in white robes, long black hair hanging downward, limbs shattered and fallen limp.
The face was mercifully difficult to make out in the darkness, but I knew at once that it was unmistakably the body of Neferuaten.