The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

"Is that really you?" she asked, her tone one of happy disbelief.

"Uh, yeah," I told her. I spread my arms out a little and inclined my hand inwards, as if to say 'see for yourself'. "It's me."

Ptolema, however, seemed to misinterpret this gesture. She stood up from her position in the mud, trod over, and embraced my open arms in an enthusiastic hug. I tensed in surprise before hugging her back hesitantly, worried how much dirt was getting on my clothes.

"It's so good to see you!" she said, squeezing me tightly. "I thought we'd... gods, I can't even remember how long it's been! This is crazy!"

"I-It's good to see you too, Ptolema," I said, halfheartedly returning the hug and blushing slightly at the unexpected physical contact. "But... you're kinda hurting my chest..."

"Oh! Sorry, my bad." She swiftly let go, backing up a step. She was beaming, and she looked up and down at me again, a wistful look in her eyes. "Wow. There you are, huh. Man."

I scratched my head awkwardly. "It's not that big a deal," I said, only realizing after the fact that I had so little context that I couldn't possibly assess how big a deal it, in fact, was.

Her gaze shifted slightly, a note of confusion in her eyes, before her smile brightened once again. "So, where the heck have you--" She cut herself off suddenly, clicking her tongue. "Geez, I'm so excited I'm gettin' ahead of myself! Why don't you come inside? Lemme make you some coffee or tea or whatever!" She gestured towards the back door as she started striding that way herself, a skip in her step. "Or booze, even! I've got some pretty good stuff lying around somewhere."

"Don't you need to finish taking care of your pigs...?" I asked, glancing around. "I feel like I showed up in the middle of something."

"Nah, I was basically done." She made a dismissive gesture. "I already fed 'em and cleaned the pens up, and I was just playin' around with Ash for a bit after I fixed up a cut on his leg. They'll be fine until tonight."

I glanced at the pig she'd been tending to. It was brown, with some white spots. "Are you... raising them for slaughter, or just as a hobby?"

"Just a hobby!" she said, then hesitated slightly. "Well, I guess not even my hobby, technically. They're not actually mine-- Just been taking care of 'em for a couple years while their real mom's busy with something."

"Must be pretty time-consuming," I said, briefly forgetting that this was a reality where people could apparently use the Power as easily as breathing and conjure anything they wanted with a snap of their fingers. "I usually hear people do chickens for that sorta thing, since at least you get some eggs out of it, too."

"I like pigs," she said casually, as she opened the door. "They're really smart, you know? Even smarter than dogs. You really get a sense that they're picking up on what you're thinking, sometimes."

"I'll, uh, have to take your word for it," I said, stepping inside.

The interior of the cabin was... well, suffice it to say, it wasn't quite up to the standard of artistry I'd come to expect during my brief time in this world. It wasn't that it was ugly or dirty - the construction of the building itself was elegant and closer to what you'd expect from an old aristocratic lodge than a dinky little structure like this, and most of the furniture was quite nice - but rather that it was just overflowing with such a sheer abundance of stuff that it would have looked like a mess no matter what. Every room was filled from corner to corner with packed shelves, cabinets, and boxes, filled with countless different sorts of junk. There were antiques, books, clothes, artwork, machines and devices, crystals like the ones I'd seen people using earlier, disassembled furniture...

It was kinda the opposite of what came to mind when I imagined where Ptolema would live. I'd never been to her apartment when we'd been in school together, but since she was such a straightforward person and not particularly girly, I'd always pictured it being spartan. Maybe there'd be some exercise equipment, tunics left lying around the floor, a fancy setup for watching dramas... Maybe a desk she never used...

Wow, I thought to myself. I really am a judgemental asshole.

She showed me into the kitchen, which was the least cluttered of the rooms, and gestured to a little round table with three chairs. "Have a seat!"

"Sure," I said. "Thanks."

"What do you wanna drink?" she asked, stepping over to the sink. "I could fix a snack for you too, if you're hungry. I don't have anything good in, but I could conjure something."

"It's okay, I just ate earlier," I told her. Even though my stomach still ached a little from stuffing myself near to bursting earlier, thinking back to the laganon already made me crave more of it. "I'll have a mocha, I suppose. If it's not too much trouble."

She nodded. "Sounds good! And I'll have some lemon tea." She glanced back over at me. "You want milk or sugar?"

"No," I replied, sitting down. "I'm good."

Ptolema nodded, then set to work while I waited quietly in my seat for a couple of minutes, awkwardly fidgeting my fingers together. She didn't use the Power during the preparation process save for conjuring some water, boiling a kettle and even retrieving the beans from a set of jars and grinding them down with a small press, humming to herself a little as she worked. Finally, she poured the powder into a white mug along with the water, stirred, then repeated the process for her own drink, going so far as to slice a lemon and squeeze in some fresh juice.

"Sorry about that," she said, as she approached. "I like doing this stuff the old fashioned way. Makes the flavor better, y'know?"

"Y-Yeah," I said mutely.

She passed me the cup, still looking cheerful, and sat down herself. I sipped from the drink. It had a pretty good bittersweet flavor - the beans were clearly high quality, at least - but was nothing special. However, I barely processed it either way. My mind was overflowing with even more questions.

What was Ptolema, of all people, doing in an impossible place like this?

Mirrors. The panther spoke of that, didn't he? People who existed both here, and in the 'Reflection'. But then...

"So, how have you been?" she asked expectantly.

It was such a banal, ordinary question, yet made almost unanswered by its juxtaposition with the bizarre nature of the situation. Still, all I could think to do was to reply as if things were normal.

"I've been... okay, relatively speaking." I looked down at my coffee. "It's been scary how things have been going in the Mimikos lately - what with the war and everything - so I moved to Deshur to job as a researcher there. But it kind of fell apart, so I've just been giving university lectures every so often while I try and figure things out." I snorted. "Well, mostly avoiding giving university lectures, to be honest."

"Ohh." Ptolema sucked her lip in a bit, nodding. "The war? With the Triumvirate, you mean?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding. If she had any real connection to the outside world, she wouldn't need to ask. But at the same time, she does know about it.

"I remember seeing the Uana ships coming down on Irenca when the barrier ruptured," she spoke pensively, looking down into the steam emanating from her lemon tea. "The way their gravity beams smashed the buildings together like a kid knockin' over a sandcastle." She shook her head. "My grandma always said we were better than anybody else at picking the winner whenever there was a stupid slap fight on the mainland, but I guess times changed."

"You were there?" I asked. "In the breach of 1605?"

"Uh-- Well, no," she replied awkwardly. "Not exactly."

I bit my lip.

"So," she digressed. "Deshur, huh?"

"Yep."

"How is it out there?" she asked.

"It's... not too bad," I told her. "There's not a lot to do to keep yourself busy, but it's peaceful, at least. Really empty."

"I still can't really believe they built a whole other planet. It's so wild," she said, sipping from her cup. "I know we and Mekhi always had our stuff together better than the dopes running things from the Mmenomic, but even pulling it off feels like it's gotta have been a big waste of resources. They could have just built some artificial islands out in the Circle Sea, or something."

"I mean, that would have messed with the water level," I pointed out. "And only really solved the overpopulation issue in the short term."

"I dunno," she said. "Maybe I'm not really being rational or whatever, but I just remember thinkin' it was all really over the top." Her eyes brightened slightly. "Still, it's gotta be kinda cool! Living out on the wild frontier."

"I suppose."

"I never would've figured you for the type, though. You always liked your creature comforts too much." She giggled a little. "I remember that time we were out in... what was it, the Zythic Exarchate, to visit that one research lab? And you spent the whole night after our trip moaning because you couldn't find a place that would deliver you food."

I laughed, then bit my lip. "Well, some stuff happened... I had to get over some of my old hangups." I looked up at her. "What about you? You've been living out here in the, uh, countryside?"

"Oh, yeah!" she replied, seeming to shift gears. "I've just been taking it easy for a while. I was actually working in the Keep doing research a few years back, but the friends I'd been staying with for a while had a big falling out, and everything got really complicated. I kinda wanted to just clear my head and live the simple life for a while, y'know? Mill around, take walks in the woods, get to know some new neighbors. That sorta stuff." She snorted. "'course, once I got here, I ended up gettin' wrapped up in new stuff anyway."

Once again, the answer felt almost absurdly banal. Were it not for the wider context, I would have thought she was having some kind of mid-life crisis. "Y-Yeah," I said. "I get you."

"People keep thinkin' I'm depressed when they come over and see how much of a dump this place is, but it's not like that or anything," she told me cheerfully. "I've just been feeling sentimental lately, so I've wanted to keep stuff around instead of just dumping it all in my Domain."

"No, I understand," I said, giving a small smile back. "My place is even worse these days, so it's not like I can judge."

She nodded, and the two of us fell into a strange silence for what must have been almost a minute as I searched for my resolve to forcefully drop the other shoe. Finally, I took a second, deeper sip from the mug, then regarded her with a more serious expression.

"Ptolema..." I said uneasily, "you don't live here."

I expected her to say something like 'what are you talking about?' or at least to look a little confused, but instead she just stared at me, her brow slowly furrowing.

"We haven't talked in a really long time... I think the last time was when we were both at that organ repair fundraiser in Nad-Ilad, back when the redesign project was ending." My face grew furtive. "But I've still looked into how you're doing every so often, out of curiosity. Last I'd heard, you'd retired from working in surgery to become one of the directors of your family's company in Irenca. And that you were married to some politician and had two kids."

"Ohh," she said. She frowned strangely. "Yeah, I guess that rings a bell."

"Your personality changed a lot, too, over the years," I went on. "I don't know what happened, but you got a lot more serious and professional than you used to be. That last time we met, you didn't come across like you do right now at all." I squinted a little. "So... even though we're talking like this, it feels like you're not the Ptolema I know at all."

In fact, I added to myself, you're more like if the Ptolema I'd known from the Exemplary Acolyte's Class had never changed.

She was quiet for a few moments. She took a slurp from her teacup, the lemon odor wafting across the table. "...how did you find me out here, Su?"

"Uh, well." I scratched the back of my neck. "I was at the guardhouse at a town called Raurica a few miles away after some misunderstanding, and a guy who was supposed to be their captain led me out here," I told her. "He wouldn't even talk to me, though. And he was wearing a bag on his head."

She looked genuinely confused by this. "A bag."

"Yeah, like kind of a gunny sack," I confirmed, nodding. "My best guess would be that he realized we had a connection from something I'd said, but didn't want to reveal his own identity for some reason. ...I don't know why he'd hide it in such a silly way, though."

"Huh." She scratched the side of her head. "I only know a few people from Raurica, and they're not with the Waywatch, so I dunno. Weird." She peered at me. "But, uh, I kinda meant that more broadly. Like, how did you get here? Do you know where you are?"

I looked at my cup. "Not really, honestly. I mean, a couple people back at the guardhouse tried to explain, but I... So, yesterday I was at the Empyrean Bastion, and I retraced the steps we took to get to the sanctuary when we were visiting the Order of the Universal Panacea all those years ago, and I... well, I was following this note that Neferuaten had given me on the day they all died, and I..."

My words faltered. I looked up at Ptolema's face, at the puzzlement in her eyes as I tried to wrangle my situation into a coherent explanation for a second time. As I did, I felt a sting of doubt. I didn't have any reason to feel trust towards this person, who based on all evidence had to be some sort of imposter, whether through some metaphysical explanation or in a much more straightforward way. Judging by the way she was talking, she was clearly a resident of this obscene reality, and clearly not a bystander who'd been somehow swept in as I was.

But... she hadn't given me any reason to distrust her, either. And sitting here, in this house that was even more ordinary than the room I'd been left over the night, with a person who at least on the surface looked like someone I knew - who just a moment ago I'd been having an ordinary conversation about life and current events with - I felt strangely relaxed.

...no, that's not quite true. It wasn't just the circumstances. Somehow, the longer I spent in whatever this realm was... the more I felt somehow at ease. It was weird that I wasn't still freaking out, but somehow, it felt like a pressure on me had lifted. Something in my gut told me that, aside from that ominous hourglass, it was okay to let my guard down.

So, perhaps it would be better to just not beat around the bush.

"Ptolema," I said, after a moment. "Would you mind if I just explained, well, everything?" I hesitated. "It might take a while, and everything seems so deranged right now I honestly have no idea how you'll respond to it. But if there's even a chance you can make sense of what's happening to me right now, then I'd sort of like to give it a shot."

Her expression remained more neutral than I'd expected, like my attitude made perfect sense to her. "Sure!" she agreed. "I don't really have any plans for today, anyway. Take as much time as you need."

I sighed. "Okay, then." I thrummed my fingers against my mug, then lifted it up and took another sip.

And then... Well, as I'd said, I told her everything.

Well, not everything everything, obviously, but everything that felt even remotely pertinent to the current situation. First, omitting only matters personal to me, I gave her a complete account of my recollection of the weekend of the 28th of April, 1409-- Or rather, both of my recollections. First, the peaceful one where, other than a few strange and foreboding occurrences, nothing of note had happened. Where I'd spent the second half sitting around in a daze.

And then the other weekend, the one which had been implanted in my mind during my second night at the sanctuary. Where everything had gone to madness.

Once I started talking about it - for the first time ever, I realized - I found myself going into far more detail than I'd meant to, covering essentially everything I could recall. I talked about the strange deja vu I'd been experiencing intermittently over the course of the first two days, the boy's suspicious behavior, the discovery of the corpse under the armory, and my period of lost time after I saw the monster behind the glass. Then I spoke of the murders, and all the strange twists and turns as they'd played out, of Lilith and Hamilcar and the various ambiguous explanations I'd been given about the Order's project to dominate entropy. And then the ultimate truths: The secret bioenclosure, the true purpose of the conclave as a means to falsify the Inner Circle's murder, Theo's ultimate betrayal... and, even though I hesitated to say it, what Balthazar had ultimately confessed before my own death.

The one thing I thought would be difficult to explain would be my knowledge of Samium's book, so I fudged over it by claiming I'd simply found it in his room, having had the details explained to me by Neferuaten the day previous. Through it all, Ptolema listened quietly and attentively, only occasionally interjecting when I'd phrased something confusingly. She didn't seem surprised by any of it.

Then I spoke of what had happened afterwards, and how my perspective had been influenced by the experience. I recounted as much of the conversation with my other self that I could remember, my speculation that the Apega had been involved in causing the experience... and of course, the Inner Circle's subsequent visit and deaths, even though she presumably knew that part already.

Finally, I talked a little more about my own life. I didn't go into any detail, but I explained that I'd been in kind of a slump. I told her about my diagnosis, and how together with that, I'd fallen into a desperate mindset, and been driven to irrationally follow the superficial instructions on Neferuaten's letter. After that, I basically stopped bothering formatting what I was saying as a story, and it devolved into a mess of questions about the events of the past few hours.

I want to say that I talked for nearly an hour myself. By this point, my mug had long been emptied.

"...and the panther said I wasn't even from the real world, and was just some kinda duplicate convinced I was sharing memories. But I know that can't be true, because I saw the Abbey out there!" I ranted. "And the weird space I crossed to get here - the Stage, or whatever its called - was just like back then! I mean-- It doesn't make any sense, right?"

Ptolema didn't reply for a little while, her expression having long grown conflicted, even as she still made a visible effort to smile. "...yeah," she eventually said, with a stiff laugh. "It doesn't, really."

"Thank you!" I practically shouted, relieved. "So, could you tell me what's really going on? Who are you? Is any of this real? And is it possible to leave?"

Once again, she was silent for a period. Even though her mug must have been empty too, she stared down into it, seeming to be avoiding eye contact. Her face reminded me of the one my father used to make when struggling with a really difficult crossword puzzle, like he was thinking so hard he was trying to tune out the entire world. It seemed somehow unfitting on her face.

"...Ptolema?"

"Sorry," she said. "Just... tryin' to work out what I wanna say."

I gave her a disconcerted look, then glanced to the side myself. "If you put it like that, it sounds like whatever the truth is must be really bad."

She twisted her lip in a complicated expression, then looked up at me.

"Hey," she said, "why don't we take a walk for a bit?"

𒀭

The countryside of the Valley was just as pleasant on foot as it was from the air above, and as I spent more time in it, I realized the extent to which it, too, was subtly more idyllic than reality. It was even more difficult to put into words than things had been in the town, but there seemed to be a certain grace to the way that different features of the landscape were arranged. Hills always had vistas that were in some way remarkable. Fields of flowers always had colors that contrasted with their environment. And though it didn't feel over-the-top, there was more of a variety of flora than you'd normally see in one place, giving the sense that one was always seeing something new, or transitioning between subtle biomes.

To be honest, though, I probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't already been on the lookout. Even living out in the middle of nowhere myself, I'm still a city person at my core. I don't really get the appeal of hiking or being immersed in nature.

We walked for about 10 minutes, over the field to the right of Ptolema's cabin and up a small hill with a single birch tree at the top, where down below I could see what looked like a village center clustered around a slightly more defined dirt road. Ptolema made intermittent small talk about how the stretch of land we'd just traveled was technically hers, but she didn't have any good ideas about what to do with it. I suggested, somewhat lazily, that she could open a proper animal shelter or ranch if she was enjoying taking care of the pigs so much, but she just laughed this off.

"God, it really is good to see you again, Su," she said. "After all this time, I'd kinda thought that you weren't... well, it doesn't matter."

Next, she started telling me about the village up ahead - apparently named 'Aimos' - but after a couple more vague remarks along the same lines, I lost patience.

"Ptolema, I don't want to be difficult, but... are you actually going to explain what's going on?" I asked, frowning. "You're kind of dragging this out."

"No, I'm gonna explain!" she insisted quickly, though an uncertainty returned to her face as soon as I broached the subject. "I just thought I might go get some breakfast first, since I haven't eaten yet. It's, uh, tough to talk about big stuff on an empty stomach, you know?"

I paused for a moment, then nodded cautiously. Come to think of it, since the normal state of society orienting around the night and day obviously prevailed here in spite of everything, I'd probably shown up not long after she'd got out of bed. When I thought about it that way, I suddenly felt a little selfish for blathering at her for so long.

"Where are we going, then?" I asked.

"Just a little bakery up ahead," she explained. "I know the guy who runs it, so I go there most mornings." She smiled cheerfully. "It's really good! You should try a little bit even if you're full up!"

We headed down the slope, and soon arrived at the village, which was made up of mostly Inotian architecture - stark white, flat-roofed buildings with colorful doors. The bakery was the only exception, having a partially open-faced design where you could walk right up to the ovens. There was a small crowd gathered around it, probably larger than could have actually lived in the village-- And no wonder, because the smell of the fresh bread was absolutely incredible, hitting my nose like a savory hammer as soon as we reached the bottom of the hill. I started salivating, and ended up following Ptolema inside.

She chatted with the owner, who was a blonde-haired Rhunbardic man who, I noticed, also looked quite handsome. ...In fact, everyone I'd encountered since I'd left the Magilum thus far seemed strangely good-looking. Even Ptolema's face seemed somehow fresher and maybe more symmetrical.

Was that a property of this place, too? It seemed kind of strange, but I guess it wasn't impossible.

Ptolema ordered a large beef and tomato baguette sandwich, while I picked up a much smaller sausage roll. It was easily equal to the dish I'd consumed earlier in quality, though was somewhat less to my taste. The pork had a sublime flavor and texture, nutty and spicy and juicy and soft, and the bread had a perfectly balanced creamy interior and crunchy exterior. Ptolema didn't seem to pay any money or go into any luxury debt for it, and after wolfing it down quickly, I almost wished I'd asked for something larger despite the fervent protests from my gut.

After we left, she walked us down the road and into the nearby woods that seemed to encompass much of the landscape approaching the mountains. The trees, though tall, weren't too tightly packed, so overall it wasn't much more difficult than just roaming around the field. I looked idly up at the canopy as we strolled. Though it was early summer in the real world, here it seemed closer to autumn, and I could see some of the leaves starting to brown. The sun was still rising, breaking through the slowly-dispersing clouds in the east.

"Did you like it?" Ptolema asked me, a minute or two after I'd finished eating.

"Yeah," I said. "You were right. It was really good."

"Heheh, I thought you would. Kyril is really gifted at this sort of stuff. Has a secret recipe for the dough, too, unless he's just messing with me." She took a large bite of her sandwich, licking her lips happily. "Sorry for dragging you along. I'm not tryin' to mess you around, just... it's good to appreciate the small stuff, you know?"

"Mm," I hummed. "Hey, is it a social convention to have a really short name here, or something? I feel like everyone I've run into so far has been like that. And I got a funny reaction from the sergeant at the guardhouse when I told him my full one."

"It's kinda like that," she said, chewing as she spoke. "I mean-- It's not like it's some hardline rule or whatever, but there's not much point in family names here, so people just stopped using 'em. And since there's not that many folk around, it's rare that you'll run into somebody with the same first name, even if it's short. So a lot of people with longer ones ended up just going by nicknames."

"Do you have one?" I asked her curiously.

"Nah." She shook her head. "Ptolema's too short. Well, I guess some people still call me Ema, but only sometimes."

I nodded. "And how do you mean, there aren't that many..." I trailed off, biting my lip. "Sorry, I shouldn't ask you any big questions before you're ready to just talk."

"Pfft, are you sure you weren't hungry?" Ptolema asked teasingly. "You seem more patient about all this now that you've eaten something."

I gave her a flat look for a moment, then relented, sighing as I stepped over a small root. "Whatever this place is, I'll at least admit the food seems good enough to almost make me not care."

She laughed goofily. "It grows on you pretty fast, huh? Like you suddenly realized you've been eating dog food your whole life."

"That's one way to put it," I said, thinking back to some of the fantasies about meals I used to have as a kid.

"Anyway," she said, turning to face forward as she swallowed. "There's no need to say sorry. I should quit beatin' around the bush."

We walked for another minute or so, Ptolema taking a couple more bites of her sandwich as her expression grew thoughtful again. The wind blew softly against the side of my head, and I heard birds chirping from what must have been a nearby nest.

"...you started your story back on the day we first went to the conclave," she finally began, "so that's where I'll start too." She gave a smaller, more bittersweet smile this time. "Sound good?"

"Sure," I said. So there is a connection, then."If that's what you think is best."

"Okay, then." She wrinkled her brow, then took another small bite of just the bread, seeming to be savoring the last bit of the sandwich left. "The first part of how I remember that weekend is basically the same as you. I remember us all meetin' up for that dumb assembly the headmaster did, the trip to the Aetherbridge and the weird mural, the argument over dinner... and then on the second day, that mess with Ophelia, us all giving out presentations, and then going underground with Fang. All that junk."

"So, you are Ptolema, then?" I asked her, frowning inquisitively. "Or at least, you have the same memories?"

"Well, uh, lemme finish," she said. "That goes as far as the second night. I remember hanging out with Seth in the lounge, going upstairs to my room, climbing into bed while thinkin' about the nasty stuff Professor Zeno said about my project..." She looked down at her feet. "Then I guess it's kinda like what you said."

"How do you mean...?"

"I mean that I remember another version of the weekend that kinda overlaps with the first," she clarified. "Though mine was, uh, a lot shorter than yours. In mine, Fang didn't show up at all, and instead of getting a scary message on Kam's logic engine, we all found letters at the start of the second day outside our doors sayin' that the Inner Circle was already dead. And that they were gonna call us out of the abbey in pairs to be 'tested', and that if we screwed up we'd all be killed too." She looked over at me. "They were signed as coming from, uh, your grandpa, Su."

"Is... that right..." I said, my brow inclined. I was surprised enough that Ptolema apparently remembered a completely different version of the weekend turning to tragedy, but even more confused by the fact that it sounded like the entire scenario of the murders had been completely different, even down to the framing device. How would that have helped the Order to fake their deaths...?

"Yeah," she said. "A, uh, lot of people suspected you, actually. Kam managed to convince everybody to lock you and Ran in your rooms until you were called up."

My mouth hung open for a moment before I remembered to close it. "I... guess I shouldn't find that surprising." I tipped my glasses down, rubbing my eyes. "So what happened, in the end?"

"Well, I got called out with Seth to the main hall, and I'm pretty sure somebody shot a fireball at the back of my head and it exploded." She delivered this like it was an amusing anecdote. "So I died."

I looked at her with a deadpan face.

"But yeah," she digressed. "Best guess was that that was another of the 'loops' you mentioned. After that, things get fuzzy, and then..." She scratched her cheek. "I remember standing on the Stage with everybody else who was at the conclave, at the very end of something that felt really, really tiring. I remember somebody asking me to bow, and then a big booming voice coming down from up above." She looked upwards. "It said--"

THIS IS A DISAPPOINTING ENDING. YET, EVEN SO, YOU HAVE DONE WELL.

AS A REWARD, I SHALL SUSPEND THIS EXPERIMENT AND FULFILL YOUR REQUESTED DESIRE. AT LEAST, FOR THE TIME BEING. YET, DO NOT PRESUME THIS MEANS OUR BUSINESS IS FINISHED.

SO LONG AS THE PROMISED CRITERIA REMAINS UNREACHED, THE CIRCLE MAY NOT BE FULLY CLOSED. I SHALL LEAVE BEHIND TWO PATHS TO A RESOLUTION. FOR ALL THOSE MARKED, A LOW PATH, CARVED THROUGH MY HEART. AND FOR YOU WHO HAVE WITNESSED THIS, A HIGH PATH, CARVED THROUGH MY REGRETS.

I WILL AWAIT YOUR ANSWER. UNTIL THEN, MAY YOU ENJOY YOUR IMMORTALITY.

"--and then everything goes fuzzy again," she continued. "There's also some stuff I know without really knowing how I know it. I remember that we repeated that weekend a lot of times, and that we were stuck in it tryin' to do... something. Again, like you said you found out from talking to, um, yourself, with all that junk about a 'victory condition' or whatever." Her eyes flickered slightly. "And I remember that it was all Neferuaten's fault."

I blinked. "The grandmaster's fault?"

"Oh yeah," she affirmed, nodding vigorously. "I dunno exactly what she did, but I definitely remember it was her screwup that caused the whole thing. 100%."

I scratched the side of my head nervously. When you considered how I'd got here in the first place, that felt pretty ominous.

"Anyway, after that, it's kinda hard to say," she went on. "But, well... from that point on, I've been here."

I looked at her with curious anxiety. "What do you mean, it's 'hard to say'? Don't you remember what happened?"

She made a face that evoked suffering from indigestion, which then slowly softened as she continued to peer up at the canopy.

"I'm gonna try and explain what this place's deal is," she declared. "If I skip over anythin' by accident or say something that sounds dumb or hard to understand, tell me, okay?"

"Okay," I said eagerly.

"So, earlier you said that you were thinking that this was some kinda simulation or whatever, right? But that the cat guy you were talking to said that was wrong, and it was actually even more real than the Refl... Uh, I mean, the real world."

"Yeah," I said, narrowing my eyes slightly. We passed over a small stream, Ptolema hopping a specific little path like she'd been this way a million times before.

"Well, in a way, both are kind of true," she explained. "See, right now, we - as in, our actual selves, our consciousness or whatever - are actually in the Timeless Realm."

I blinked. That was... well, it was just completely impossible. Setting aside that humans barely knew how to interface with the Higher Planes to begin with outside of the Power, the whole idea of the Timeless Realm - the highest plane of all - was that it was the place of dimensional convergence. Beyond time and space. The totality of absolute reality converged into a single state.

You certainly couldn't go to it. You couldn't even interact with it. The idea was equivalent to a shadow smothering the light that cast it, or a reflection of the moon jumping out of a pond and crashing into the real one. All other matter, across all planes, was just an echo.

"How is that possible?" I asked, my disbelief obvious.

"I dunno!" she said, with a casual shrug.

"You dunno? How can you not know?!"

"I mean, I've got some theories," she admitted, "but lemme finish this part first." She took another small bite from her sandwich, this time swallowing it quickly. "So, the Timeless Realm is an 11-dimensional space, right? The 10 ordinary dimensions, plus the facet that would normally be experienced as time passage. That's where we are in an absolute sense, but obviously, you can't really, well, exist in a place where time doesn't exist, you're just there.So there's also a sort of 10-dimensional membrane where the same matter is instead expressed linearly, but in a way where it's forced to into certain patterns. Rules."

My eyes boggled a bit. Hearing Ptolema of all people launch into this explanation of physics bordering on fantasy was surreal.

"That place, that 10-dimensional membrane, is what people around here call the Stage. You said for you it looked like a beach, right? But if you tried, you could make it look like something different?"

"Y-Yeah," I said hesitantly. "That's right."

"Well, that's because the human mind doesn't really get what it's looking at," she continued. "There's some kinda background system to make it easier, I think, but even then, we're 3-dimensional animals. You remember flight training, right? It's tough enough to even get our heads around that, so you can just forget about figuring how to move blorkways or shivelward or whatever. And even if we could, well, our bodies are inherently 3-dimensional too, so the best we can get is an interface that kinda simulates having a body." She wrapped the remainder of her sandwich up in its wrapping and stuffed it in one of her pockets, apparently deciding to save it for later. "That's why being there is so, well, funky."

I meant to say something like 'I see', but instead I just stared, forgetting my surroundings so much I almost tripped over a small bush.

"Anyway, obviously that's still not good enough for humans to live in, so there's a third layer to the whole thing, too," she went on. "By taking just the ordinary three dimensions of the matter that makes us up - and the other matter that's just, well, around in our little pocket of the Timeless Realm - we can create little bits of ordinary reality for us to walk around in." She smiled at me hopefully. "So that's what's going on right now, at least as best as I can get it myself. We're 11-dimensional 'existences', projected as 10-dimensional minds, controlling 3-dimensional bodies. That's also why the Power doesn't cost any eris to use here."

"Because what we perceive as energy is just the mass of particles shifting between dimensions," I said vacantly. "So if we could access all 10 natively, they could just be manipulated directly. Counter any transfer with an equal and opposite one."

"Yeah!" Ptolema nodded enthusiastically, not seeming to pick up on my abject disbelief. "Or, uh, something like that. I dunno if I totally get the physics stuff, to be honest." She suddenly led me in a different direction, ducking under a long-fallen tree to our right and heading east. "But yeah, all of that's not super important on its own-- Just kinda technical trivia, y'know? But there are two big ways that it makes life here different from the outside world. And I guess the first, which sort of follows from that speech we heard, is that death doesn't exist."

I stopped in my tracks. Ptolema kept going for a moment, not having realized, then looked back, curling her lip.

"Oh," she said. "I guess that's kinda a big deal, huh."

"What do you mean," I said very slowly, "that death doesn't exist?"

"Well," she said, slowing down the pace of her own words to match mine, "I mean that people can't die."

I stared at her for a moment. Off in the distance, a squirrel stopped for a moment to look at us curiously, then scurried up a tree.

"I don't..." My sentence ran aground, my brain seeming to forget how to operate my mouth for a moment. "...like, what do you mean 'can't die'? Do you mean ever?"

"Yeah," she affirmed, and chuckled nervously. "It's, uh, actually sorta scary if you think about it."

"Don't people get old?" I asked. "Or get sick, like with associative collapse dementia?" I thought back to the assembler. "Is medicine here hyper-advanced, too?"

"I mean, people have invented some pretty crazy medical stuff, but no, you can still get older and die if you want," she explained. "But, you saw what happened when they cut you up in the Magilum Domain, right? If anything happens to your body, your mind on the Stage can just put it back together. And if anything happens to your mind, it gets repaired using the 'you' in the Timeless Realm that can never be damaged." An idea seemed to occur to her, her eyes flickering for a moment. "Here, I'll show you so you know what it looks like from the outside."

"What do y--"

But before I could finish my sentence, Ptolema raised her hand in the air and pointed to her own head, which abruptly half-exploded as if someone had shot her in the face with a rifle. Blood and brain splattered everywhere as her remaining eye went vacant, and I lurched back in instinctive horror. I almost screamed.

However, less than a second later, it was suddenly like it... hadn't happened. The space around Ptolema flickered, and all the gore disappeared, her face returned to the sunny yet thoughtful look it had held the moment earlier.

"See?" she said.

"P-Ptolema," I sputtered, my eyes still wide. "Don't just do something like that without saying anything!"

"Oh! I'm sorry," she said earnestly. "I didn't mean to freak you out." She looked embarrassed, her face flushing. "I--I just thought it wouldn't bother you, since you were always good with corpses and other macabre stuff back in the day."

"You can't compare that to seeing someone blow their own brains out like it was no big deal!" I yelled, still alarmed. "That was deranged!"

"S-Sorry," she repeated, casting her eyes downward and drawing her arms in guiltily. "But, you do see what I mean, right? That sort of thing-- It's just no big deal here."

"I..."

I felt speechless. I stopped looking at her altogether, staring into the middle distance.

Ptolema looked at me uncomfortably for a moment, then managed to rally a bit, though her attitude remained a bit sheepish. "It's, uh... well, one of the rules of this world is that it generates a kind of 'default' body for everyone, I guess. I dunno quite how it works it out, but if you're a Primary, it takes a mix of your self-image and your physical body in the Remaining World, then optimizes it according to some weird standards." She gestured at her face. "And that's, uh, immutable. So no matter what, it's easy to go back to whenever you feel like it. That's probably why you felt so refreshed when you first woke up."

I kept staring, trying to process the implications of all this. To decide whether I felt joyous or horrified. Did this mean I wasn't going to die of dementia any more? Did it even apply to me? How the fuck could any of this be impossible?! No, just don't think about it. Just let her explain.

Yet, even in saying that to myself, part of me couldn't help but think about it. In fact, parts of me were kicking itself for not having come to this realization sooner. The excessive time and effort which had clearly been spent on anything. The way everyone looked. The fiction back in the guardhouse, and the way the panther had said 'always been a part of the world'.

I was very still for a few more moments. Ptolema watched me nervously, slowly lowering her arms and frowning with disquiet.

"...let's keep walking," I eventually said, my tone strangely muted.

Ptolema sucked her lip in. "Are you okay, Su? I'm sorry for screwing that up-- It felt like things were going well, so I sorta forgot how wild this must all feel." She glanced southwards. "Maybe we should go back. Take this all a bit slower."

"I'm okay," I said, not sounding okay. "I've just decided that I'm going to accept everything you say for now, then only think about it later."

"O...kay," Ptolema replied cautiously. "If you say so."

We started walking again. We seemed to have crossed one of the aforementioned biome lines, and now most of the trees were willows, which shed relatively early and were thus already autumn brown and red. The leaves beneath our feet crunched loudly and moistly.

"You said there were two big ways that life here is different from the outside world," I stated as stoically as possible. "What was the second?"

"Oh," she said. She scratched her cheek again. "Uh, well, I guess it sorta follows the first. Like, you asked me why I can't remember how I got here after what happened at the sanctuary, and..." She averted her eyes. "Well, I'll put it like this. You're probably thinking right now that even though this is some whole different reality, that this is still somethin' that exists concurrent with the Remaining World. What did you say you the date was for you?"

"...the 14th of June, 1608," I said hesitantly. "Well, I suppose it would be the 15th, by now."

"Right, right. So, roundabout 200 years since that stuff happened." She nodded to herself. "Well. The thing is, this place doesn't actually really have a connection to the passage of time in the Remaining World at all. Or, well, anywhere. Like you said that cat told you, you can observe the rest of the world here... but even though it's the word everybody uses, I'm not sure 'observe' is really the right one. After all, the Timeless Realm is, well, outside time. So it's more like viewing a recording than looking out a window." She looked even further away from me. "It's all already out there, you know?"

"I... see," I said, my conviction to accept everything I was hearing already being tested.

"So, uh," she continued, "with that said, from my point of view, it's. Kinda been a lot longer than 200 years."

I felt something stir in my chest as I realized where she seemed to be going with this. "How long has it been?"

She furrowed her brow, her eyes wandering. "I mean, that's sorta the thing. I don't remember that either." She pursed her lips. "Like, my memory here is actually a lot better than it used to be in the normal world-- It's that way for most people, so I figure it's part of that optimization process I mentioned a minute ago. I can remember the last 1000 years pretty much photographically, and could probably say roughly what happened every day for the last 10,000. But after that, it gets fuzzier and fuzzier, just 'cause there's no space."

"Ten... thousand..." I repeated, my eyes wide, trailing off into an inaudible mumble.

"Y-Yeah," she said, sounding like she was aware of how what she was saying was coming across, but seeing no alternative but to forge ahead. "I think my oldest memory - other than the ones I told you about, and the others from being a Primary - was probably... I wanna say somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, as a rough-ish guess. But I have records a lot older than that." She stuck her hands in her pockets, still avoiding eye contact. "There's another big Domain full of scholarly-types called the Keep, and one of the things they do is try to keep track of the history of this world, or whatever you'd call it. And, well. If I remember right, the oldest artifact they've got is about 250 million years old."

My brain felt numb as I continued to walk forward. At this point, I'm pretty sure I was in a state of shock. Not per-se negative shock this time around, but still. Shock.

"There are some scholars who think this world didn't even have a beginning, though that seems like kinda a stretch. But... it's at least been a really, really long time." She frowned nervously. "Honestly, I'm probably putting this all in a way that sounds super spooky, but it's really not so bad!"

Ptolema managed to look at me again, visibly concerned. "Su... I'm gonna be honest, I don't really know how to say this in the right way... and I feel like dragging this out is just freaking you out more than kinda cutting to the heart of it." She inhaled a bit. "So I'm just gonna rip the bandage off and hope it ends up okay, okay?"

I didn't object, but found myself slowing down almost to a stop again. Ptolema matched her pace with mine wordlessly.

"A lot of what that person at the guardhouse told you was framed in a really dumb way, either because he doesn't know the stuff we do, or because of the culture here, which is a whole other weird thing I guess I'll have to get into later, but..." She frowned in discomfort, rubbing her nose. "Honestly, a lot of it is basically true."

"What I mean is... even if it feels that way to you right now... I don't think you're the Su who was living on Deshur in the year 1608 until a little while ago."

"I think the second Su, the one who you said answered all those questions for you, and who got left behind after everything was over like I did..." She looked me in the eye. "I, uh, think that's you."