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Draft Update 22/05/25
🕑 Added 2025-05-22 17:26:01 +0000 UTC(Things did not go super well this week. This needed to be a long chapter to begin with, and I realized I'd created a bit of plotting error in this segment, throwing off the rhythm of my usual schedule. Then I had a bit of a dental emergency and had to do something stressful right in the middle of when I'd normally be crunching.
It hasn't come together. This is only the first half the chapter I wanted to make, and honestly it feels much flatter than I intended. It's just one long dialogue scene, and the punch and tension I wanted just isn't there... It definitely stand well alone. I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow - I might just skip the week after all and focus on making this part better and the second as good as I can for next time, but here's the result anyway.
I'm about to collapse and don't have the energy to explain the changes I've made to the previous draft, but basically I made Su's final revelation more ambiguous, and added a conceit where she'd notice a 'tell' for the jar game that would otherwise be ambiguous. I'll try to stitch it up tomorrow, but if you want to read it tonight, hopefully you can piece it together. My apologies, and thanks for your support.)
Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day
For all my flaws, let it never be said that I'm the type of person to abandon something I've committed to without hesitation. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb. It's obviously you. They've given you the most low-effort role, and even then it's clear that you're pretty new at this." She looked me up and down, as if scanning my whole body. "Your mannerisms of your speech keep slipping, and you're too slow to improv. There's no shame in it, but it's not subtle."
I squinted. "Miss Mithraiosduttar--"
"Hey, come on! Like I said, they won't hear us right now." She smirked. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna derail the whole game. Just think of this as a quick break, nothing that'll seriously mess with the story."
I frowned, feeling genuinely unsure what to do. Was there a protocol to flag someone breaking the rules? What would even happen if somebody was-- Would they shitcan the whole thing? This should have been in the guide.
"Here," she went on, her expression fading. "If it'll help, I'll drop this quirky wine mom persona they assigned to this character too. So we can talk more directly for a little while. Please, indulge me."
The transition was creepy. Her accent and affect had vanished in an instant, becoming as close to totally neutral as one could get.
"I don't--" I hesitated. It was awkward to overcome the Kasua filter, so I decided to just not bother. "I don't want to break the rules. Please stop this."
She smiled in a way very distinct from Phaidime the character, her whole lip pushing upwards instead of just the corners. It was annoying.
"...who are you?" I asked, relenting. "Are you someone I know?"
"Have you been told to expect that?" she asked.
I said nothing. The train rattled loudly against the tracks, and the sound alongside the darkness swallowed any unspoken subtleties that could exist in the conversation.
"If you were, I'm likely not what they were thinking of," she went on. "You might have guessed already, but this whole thing is actually being run by someone who attended the conclave. The scenarios they create for these games specifically echo their own perspective on what happened, though this one in particular has likely also been adapted to have some meaning to you." Her face was unmoving. "That's the other reason you don't need to worry about this conversation, incidentally. They will probably approach you after the fact no matter what. Whoever suggested you come here probably knew that as well."
So I was right, then. Well, that explained a lot.
"You didn't answer my question," I stated.
"I will in a moment," they promised. "But I want you to answer the one I asked first. What's your working theory for what's going on in the game? What conclusion have you come to?"
I stared at them, not knowing if I really cared to go along with this. If they hadn't said the word 'conclave', I wouldn't even be sure they weren't completely full of shit. And the warning I'd got from Cyrene was still kicking around in my head. Even if most people in Dilmun didn't know or care, there was obviously a faction that were interested in the origin of this world who could probably find out who we were with some effort. Using my full real name here, and not taking a leaf out of local culture's book and sticking with just 'Utsu' or 'Su', had probably been a little naive.
Ultimately, though, my curiosity got the better of me. "I noticed that there was a way for someone to have cheated at the drawing."
"Oh?"
"The jar passed to Tuthal first for his inspection, then after all the slips were pulled, to the rest of us-- But Hildris first," I explained, summarizing my thoughts from a few minutes ago. "If we assume the three of them were working together, it would be possible for Tuthal to have planted a particular slip on the inside of the jar - one that would been altered in advance somehow in a way that'd make it discernible from the others at a touch - Bahram to have ignored it until a particular point in the drawing, and then Hildris to have removed the spare left behind when she did her inspection."
"Interesting," they said. "Why would the three of them be working together? Hasn't Tuthal been at odds with the both of them through much of the night?"
"On the surface, yes, but that could just be a distraction to minimize suspicion. If you look at the actual facts, they both have a history with him. Bahram is Tuthal's oldest friend in the group, and Hildris and him dated. And though it's more of a vibe than hard evidence, it's felt a few times like they might have more of a liking for one another than they've been pretending - what happened a minute ago, where he rushed out and took her hand, is the strongest evidence so far." I squinted. "More specifically, they could have easily just made some kind of deal."
"To secure the Last Winter and split the profits, you mean?" The same neutral smile held.
"That's what I thought at first," I continued. "Like, it's been obvious that Tuthal is willing to do just about anything to get it. And even if cheating this way would make his paying Summiri and I off to increase the chance he won redundant, that could just be another suspicion-diverting tactic in the likely event that his name was pulled twice. But then I got to thinking about Tuthal's handwriting. It was his #1 slip that was verifiably in his style, while the #6 one was ambiguous."
"And at first that made sense to me. Because, like, Tuthal would want the winning slip to seem more legitimate, so that he could frame the situation in the way he ended up doing: Where his normal entry won, while the other entry with his name could be dismissed as someone else acting strangely. But then I thought about it more deeply, and like: Wouldn't doing it that way be way more risky? We all filled out the slips in plain sight on the table. Anyone could glance at him and just go, 'wait, why are you writing that weird?' And that provokes another question-- If he was going to do that anyway, why wouldn't he just write someone else's name on the slip instead? Then the whole situation would seem like it was nothing to do with him."
"That led me back to the question of how the planted slip would be marked for Bahram. It didn't look any different from any of the others: It was the same type of papyrus, the same shape, the same type of fold in the paper. Nothing that you could point to and say 'look, they're cheating'. But then I realized: The ink. Every time Bahram pulled a slip out, his fingers were more and more stained with ink. We'd just written those names a moment ago, so the pigment wouldn't have fully dried yet. But if one had been written in advance, that would be different. Right up until the end, Bahram was testing them with different parts of his hand to make sure he was pulling the ones with wet ink. With all that said, the only conclusion I can draw is that the plant wasn't slip #1 at all. It was slip #6."
They raised their brow slightly. "You think Tuthal wanted to lose?"
I took a breath, considering how to phrase this. "Not exactly, no. Maybe he was indifferent, or maybe he really did still want to win and claim the painting too-- I'm not sure yet. But assuming this is all true, his primary goal was definitely to go last in addition to whatever else happened."
"Why?"
"That's the big question," I said. "Obviously it makes no sense if you accept the situation as it appears. At best, he could go back on his word to you... or, well, your character... and take an extra item of not much value. But that hardly seems worth the fuss." I clasped my hands together. "So you have to work backwards, and ask what advantage could exist."
"In the conclave, the primary purpose for the whole event wasn't what it appeared to be at first. A similar thing could be going on here: On the surface it's about the distribution of Rastag's inheritance, but there's actually something else, with some people 'in the know' and others not. It's pretty circumstantial, but I've had this theory in the background that your character might secretly be Rastag somehow. He died without leaving a corpse, his identity is questionable, there's a suggestion he might have some kind of dark secret. But one issue that makes that idea contrived is that, like... most of the people here are supposed to have known him for more than a century. If this were realistic - though, I guess I don't really know whether it is - they'd definitely recognize him, even if he was dressed as the opposite sex. They'd have to know, to conspire collectively to 'legitimize' Phaidime as a person for some reason. That alone would be evidence of a deeper plot behind the scenes."
"The rest kind of veers more into meta reasoning, so I don't have as solid a basis to really speculate, but... the obvious place for the murder to happen is the front carriage, right? It's a closed space with the access circumstantially controlled, while also being ostensibly filled with valuable stuff. Your standard 'locked room' setting. One idea I had was that maybe Tuthal knows when a murder, or some other incident, is going to occur there, and is trying to play it to his advantage. Like, maybe he knows the whole carriage will be lost in the process, and so he can steal everything in there right before it happens. Another possibility is that maybe he's planning to commit murder himself, and needs to go into the car twice to make it work." My eyes wandered as my train of thought started to fizzle out. "Or... maybe there's something even bigger going on. Tuthal's obviously upset now, based on how he was just acting. With how you were just acting in the dining car, maybe there's some kind of game going on between the two of you. Like you actually expected him to pull that trick." I hesitated. "Or something."
I found myself breathing heavily, sweat flowing down my brow. I wasn't sure I'd talked that much consecutively in months.
'Phaidime', for her part, continued to observe me in impassive silence for several moments afterwards. Eventually, she answered with just a hint of a critical tone. "That got a little vague towards the end there."
"Yes--Yeah, well." My face flushed slightly. "We're only half way through the mystery. It's not like I'd have figured everything out."
"Aren't you worried you're overcomplicating things?" She inclined her head, just slightly. "Say that your theory is correct, and I am Rastag. That would mean that I'm in control of most everything on this train - the arrangement of the carriages and their contents, the three workers. Wouldn't the much simpler explanation be that I just conspired with Bahram, a man self-professedly loyal to me to the point that I had him run the entire event, to force Tuthal into the last spot?" She gestured towards the dining car. "If you remember, it was Gaizarik who shut down the idea of him simply relinquishing it to me under the assumption I wrote his name, despite that being what Tuthal originally suggested. And Bahram could have simply inserted the slip and removed the spare with trivial sleights of hand between the two inspections."
I blinked, then considered. "...yeah, but... then there wouldn't have been any point to them having both done those inspections at all."
"Maybe they genuinely wanted to confirm the it was fair. Not everything has to mean something."
I frowned, put-off. I said nothing.
"I am Rastag," she monologued introspectively, as if entertaining the idea. "I have decided to discard my old identity and adopt a new one. But Tuthal, one of my old friends, knows too much and is a threat to me. I decide to kill him under the pretext of giving away my inheritance. I arrange for him to be the last person in a secure location no one other than myself and my loyalists will be able to enter, and that can easily be disposed of by, say, diverting it from my track." She looked at me curiously. "Isn't that a fine ending? Enough twists and turns?"
"Well, I don't think that would be a bad story, but it wouldn't account for a lot of what's been revealed so far," I told her. "There are too many plot elements that wouldn't go anywhere. Something weird happening with the front carriage would explain why the train is driven from the middle, but not other things like the liminal spaces between them, or the missing room in the rest car."
"Maybe I plan to kill multiple people," she suggested. "There could be different methods for each of them."
"I suppose," I conceded. "But still. There's so much going on with the backstory. The stuff with the Fellows of Hinshelwood and the people who have been going missing around Rastag his entire life, his numerology obsession and his relationship with Summiri, the strange protocol for entering the train, Kasua's mother's death..."
"Those could all either tie back into the same things, or just be flavor. Meaningless eccentricities." A hint of a mannerism - a slight curl to the lip - appeared for just a moment, and then vanished. "For example, maybe Rastag has just been hyper-vigilant in protecting his real identity, and everyone who's died has been a threat to that some way or another-- Rhunbard in this era is a patriarchal society, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that the success he attained would have been snatched from his hands if he were revealed to be physically a woman. He could have staged the death of Nikkala in such a way as to make everyone in the Fellows his accomplices in crime, unable to reveal one another's secrets. Mariya could have broken this agreement and needed to be killed. And, now that his career is basically over - between Tuthal's withdrawal of funds and the loss of control of his company - have decided to cut his losses, tie up loose ends, and disappear."
"And the numerology? The boarding rules?
"Maybe I genuinely believe in numerology," they claimed. "Maybe I happen to be a stickler for procedure."
"And the fact they're acknowledging Phaidime?"
"Maybe I just got a little cosmetic surgery. It's not like basic Biomancy doesn't exist, even in this time period." They paused. "That would be fine, wouldn't it?"
I wasn't sure what to say, or even what sort of expression to make. It wasn't perfect, but it was true that this would more or less account for everything that had come up so far. Even if Rastag would have to have been coldly logical in some senses to pull off this plan, there was nothing to preclude him having genuinely kooky beliefs in other regards. Tuthal and Hildris being closer than they appeared could just be a subplot, or something I was reading too much into. And the detective (assuming the dark arts stuff was actually part of his character and not some weird ad lib) could just be a buffoon who happened to know something dangerous and need to be dealt with too.
It felt... like an anticlimax, for it to be that easy. Or, no. It wasn't even easy. That would be a perfectly decent plot. If it were in a book, I'd probably accept it.
So why wasn't I accepting it here? Was it just because we were doing this in flesh and blood, and the real world always felt far more ambiguous than any story?
"I'm not saying any of this is correct, of course," they said, turning to face the plain beyond the railing. "I'm just trying to point out a habit in your thinking. Your reasoning could have easily carried you to a perfectly functional solution, but instead of resting on that, you tied yourself in knots until you arrived at a place where everything was ambiguous."
"...because I only have a limited amount of information," I reminded them. "It would be presumptive to try and draw some kind of ironclad conclusion now."
"You're a scientist, aren't you?" she asked, though the question was clearly rhetorical. Seriously, who was this person? "You should know that the correct way to make deductions is to form a working theory, then test it. Not to just keep gathering information mindlessly, hoping that it will all suddenly click together."
I frowned. "Academic research isn't the same as a mystery novel."
"Clearly not. You're a lot better at academic research."
My frown became a much more Kasua-esque glare.
"I'm just joking," they said, without much as a twitch to suggest this was actually the case. "You've always been someone who tries to connect everything into a grand narrative. But that's just not how people generally behave. We're crude. Everything we do is a confession. When we tell stories, it's a confession. When we take action, it's a confession. People are secretive but uncomplicated. We all want the same basic things, and say them over and over in everything we do. This game is the same. It's just a soup of the creator's obsessions and the actor's indulgences. Studying it will only teach you about them. You won't find God in the works of man; it's just more human all the way down."
The 'grand narrative' comment caused me to raise my eyebrows. It wasn't like I'd ever been particularly circumspect about the way I tended to conceptualize reality, but that meant they at least had a second-hand account of me personally.
"Who are you?" I demanded. "You said you'd tell me. Are you someone else from the conclave?"
"I am," they said. "Though the mistress of this game doesn't know that I'm here right now. "
Mistress. "Who are you?"
"I won't tell you."
"You said you'd answer my question."
"And I did, to a limited extent," she justified. "But you wouldn't have a reason to trust any answer I'd give you, and I don't want to show you anything I'd need to in order to prove it."
I shook my head. This is a waste of time. This could just be some weirdo who's heard about me being here and is trying to trick me into some kind of intimate discussion. The anxiety from the revelation of how flippant identity was treated in Dilmun was still at the forefront of my mind; I wouldn't be deceived easily.
On the other hand, maybe it really was Neferuaten again. I wouldn't put it past her.
"I heard that you've been looking at solving the Manse."
"Mm," I said noncommittally.
"May I ask why you're doing it? I know you've been gone for a very long time indeed. I assume you've lost your memory, or at least your connection to the culture here."
"I don't really want to talk about it," I told them. Just leave me alone, already.
"You realize that countless eons have passed without it ever being solved," she continued. "Why do you think you'll be the exception?"
"I don't."
"But you're doing it anyway?"
I didn't reply, folding my arms as I stared into the darkness. I was getting sick of having versions of this conversation with everyone I spoke to about it.
"I don't intend to discourage you," they assured me. "As I'm sure you've heard, it's still commonly pursued. You're definitely in the right place if you want to be part of that. But let me give you a little advice." She gestured outwardly. "Consider what I just said in regard to this game. What do you think it tells you about the creator?"
I mentally humored the question. Obviously she couldn't mean that they attended the conclave or that whoever she was knew me, since we'd already talked about that. She was probably fishing for something deeper, like what it said about their complexes. The gender stuff was the obvious call, but there was also class politics, being an imposter (I would have created a better story about being an imposter), and having to conceal some dark misdeed. (God, what if it was Ran? I really hoped it was Ran, even if her making up roleplay scenarios that echoed my life would be incredibly weird.) Or maybe - if they thought of Rastag as a sympathetic character - it was about being betrayed by your friends, stabbed in the back.
Maybe Zeno...? He could potentially be someone people called a 'mistress', and I vaguely remembered that he'd come from a relatively modest background. He'd been sympathetic to the way the Order had treated my grandfather. And obviously he'd been involved in whatever their death-faking plot was. It... sort of worked.
"I don't know," I eventually said. I hoped Kasua's bluntness would rub off on me a bit. I liked being able to be this openly cold to a stranger. "That they have identity issues, maybe. That they've been close to betrayal."
"Again, you're overthinking it," they told me. "As I just said. People are simple. They can't help but tell you about themselves and their desires in everything they say or do. You don't even need to read between the lines." They paused, as if to emphasize this last phrase. "Think about it on the most basic, superficial level, which is ultimately what comprises the majority of human thought. Whoever created this scenario likes trains. They think a lot about Rhunbardic history and art history. They think about money as a motivator. The most informative choices to note a person making are the ones they don't even realize they've made."
I stared. Who would even fit those criteria? Bardiya was closest - he was the only native Rhunbardi at the conclave who knew anything about art - but he'd been born upper-middle class.
"Think about every time someone has just told you what they desire. And every idea they've repeated over and over again. Though maybe even saying that much is condescending." She looked towards the dining car door again. "We're almost out of time, but we'll speak again. So you'll know it's me, I'll bring up 'favored piglet'."
She - they - smiled fully at this point for the first time since dropping the act, albeit somewhat stiffly. Then, without ceremony, they left.
I should have been surprised by them bringing up such an obscure thing from the conclave. Instead, though, my mind was fixated on a phrase she'd said incidentally a minute or two earlier in the conversation.
Everything we do is a confession.
There was something to it.
𒀭
After Summiri left carrying some oval shaped item - also headed for the bedrooms - I went back into the dining car. Noah had seemingly gone inside to take his turn already, meaning almost no one was left. Bahram sat at the table, looking strangely lonely, while Gaizarik was half-visible at the corner past the kitchen leading to the final carriage. There was the faint sound of clanking plates and running water; presumably the chef was doing the washing up.
I took a seat at the table across from Bahram, who said nothing at first, sipping from his wine glass. Eventually, though, he let out a sigh.
"What a mess, eh, Kassie?"
I looked up at him. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, just all of it." He shook his head. "It's not as if I can expect you to care since you were never one of us to begin with, but... I don't know. I just hoped for better."
Frankly, the combination of having taken several speculative steps to arrive at my current theory and being forced to break character had left it even more difficult to imagine what Kasua would be thinking at this point. Did she think Bahram had rigged the drawing? Probably? She didn't like lying, so would she wear that realization on her sleeve, or would she be capable of some level of discretion?
I decided to say something ambiguous that he'd interpret as agreement. "Money always brings out the worst in people."
"That it certainly does," he said gravely. "He warned me it would be like this, you know. He said it plain. 'Before the end, they will all betray me.' And, well, here we are."
I nodded along to this for a moment, then paused and raised my eyebrow. "...are you talking about his life, or this event?"
Bahram blinked. "What?"
"I mean, his death was an accident, so presumably you didn't plan on this beforehand," I pointed out.
"O-Oh, I see what you mean." He paused. "Yes, I meant the end of his life. He always knew the others would survive him one way or another, I think. He always lived recklessly-- His one great flaw."
"In that case, it wasn't 'before' the end. It was after it. So he wasn't quite right."
"I... well, yes, if you want to be particular." He hesitated. "I-- Yes, I suppose that's a small mercy, isn't it?"
I peered at him skeptically.
At that moment, before I'd even really settled in my seat, I heard the door to the front carriage abruptly open. Gaizarik stepped to the side, I heard a shuffling noise, and a moment later he spoke.
"May I wrap that for you, sir?"
"No need," the detective replied. "I brought my own bag."
There was something odd in his tone. He sounded exasperated in a way I hadn't heard from him yet. But when he turned the corner, he looked as ambiguously brooding and mysterious as ever. There was no sign of whatever artifact he'd claimed from the carriage on his person - likely it was small enough to fit under his massive cloak - as he moved directly to leave, stopping only for a brief moment to give me a knowing look.
What was THAT supposed to mean?
"Kassie," Bahram spoke up again, "before you go on ahead, ah... there was something I did want to tell you."
I narrowed my eyes. "What's that?"
"I... omitted a detail, earlier, when I was describing Rastag's death. I didn't lie to you as such, but..." He swallowed the air. "The train he died working on... it was this train."
Honestly, for narrative economy reasons, I'd suspected this already. It also provided a possible reason for the detective to have been fussing around the engine room so early on. I kind of regretted not going in there myself, just in case there were any really obvious clues.
"I know this might sound absurd to an educated young woman like yourself," he continued, "and perhaps I ought to find it absurd as well, but... I believe that Rastag's spirit still lingers in this place, particularly in that front carriage." He glanced downward. "It was practically his second home for many years, after all. So... please try to show respect, and conduct yourself as he would wish. Consider it a favor to me, if you would."
I looked at him for a few moments, my lip twitching downward. "Bahram, did Rastag..."
He stared back up at me, his expression superficially confused, but with a deeper impenetrability.
"Never mind," I said. I won't play that card just yet. "And don't worry, I'll follow the rules."
A stiff smile appeared on his old face. "Very good."
It wasn't taking me very long to conclude that, if nothing else, the simplified theory offered by Phaidime (well, less theory and more possibly-rhetorical confession) was probably correct. Bahram was barely even hiding the idea that Rastag was still alive at this point. The question, however, was if there was anything to actually be done about it.
Well, obviously the answer was yes: Assuming Tuthal was the intended victim, all I needed to do was prevent him from going into the back carriage a second time. I could probably find some excuse to make that happen. But did I want to? At this point, it felt like it would be a terrible wet fart to just, well, not have a murder.
Though, having heard that my success or failure didn't even really matter, I really did just want this over with. I almost hoped that I was going to be the one killed in the closed room.
I probably should have investigated whether this body could feel pain at some point, actually.
As I passed by, I spared a glance through the kitchen door, since it was wide open. There wasn't much to see-- The space was, as you'd expect, extremely cramped, with counters and appliances arranged around a walking space barely wide enough for two people to stand back-to-back. Even then, everything seemed smaller than you'd expect from an ordinary kitchen, with a squished-looking oven and grill you probably couldn't fit a leg of lamb on from length-to-length. The only exception was a rather large vertical cold locker, probably as a matter of necessity. In this era, keeping things cool without the Power was extremely space-intensive, and even like this, it wouldn't keep anything frozen outright.
The chef glanced over her shoulder after I lingered for a few moments, so I looked away awkwardly.
I headed for the door. Gaizarik of course barred my way, so I came to a stop in front of him.
"Forgive me, Lady Inarsduttar," he said. "But I must inspect you before allowing you to pass."
"That's fine," I told him. "You don't need to call me 'Lady."
"Of course," he said. "Please excuse me."
He reached out his hands and, with about the maximum level of grace a man can do such a thing to a woman, searched my stola for any untoward objects. When he was satisfied, he nodded, but didn't yet step aside.
"You may take one item from the master's chamber of your choosing," he told me. "You may not damage nor even touch anything you choose not to take, nor may you leave anything behind. You may also spend no more than fifteen minutes within the chamber. If any of these tenets are violated, you shall be considered to have forfeited your claim. You may choose to take nothing, but know that you will not have a second chance should you choose to do so."
Suspiciously strict rules. Why would leaving something behind even matter? "Okay," I said.
He stepped aside, opening the door. "Please, go ahead."
I nodded, and stepped forward. He shut it behind me.
Once again, I was in one of those liminal chambers, but oddly, this one was subtly different from the others. It almost looked unfinished, the rigid wood that normally framed all surfaces absent save for the floor, leaving bare what looked like cloth or leather crumpled together tightly in all of the remaining connective areas. I poked it with my finger - it was very thick, to the point I couldn't reach the mechanical skeleton beneath no matter how hard I pushed.
Unsure what to make of this, I opened the next door, proceeding ahead.
Part of me had still been wondering if this carriage was even real, but here it was, roughly as described. A well-lit, tastefully decorated room with a fancy bed and office area - a little desk, some cabinets - that had been converted into an impromptu gallery. Heavy wooden stands stood all around the chamber, either acting as pedestals for items or bearing gilded descriptions for ones on the adjacent walls. There were quite a lot; close to 30, I reckoned at a glance. At the far right corner was a door - probably leading to a much fancier bathroom than the rest of us got.
Two things struck me as odd about the carriage. The first was that there were no windows, which seemed at odds with its purpose as a rest space. The second, though, went some way to explaining the first. Compared to the rest of the train, the sound of the engine and the rattling of the wheels seemed very distant, and as I took my first steps forward, I felt the floorboards push against something firmer than the structure of the rest of the train. It had to be armored. For security, since this was where Rastag would be most often?
No, that was letting the logical tail wag the dog. I had to remember: I was standing in a closed room. This entire setup had been engineered for that purpose. All of this was in service of that, with everything else about the decor just a pretense. No sound. No witnesses.
I exhaled hesitantly. It really was quiet. Even though I knew it was all fake, being here was making me nervous.
Just pick something and get out. What you take doesn't even matter. That was the impulse running through my mind, but I did feel obligated to take a little time to look for basic clues, if nothing else.
I tried the door to the bathroom, which was locked, then took a cursory look at a few of the respective relics. I think I've mentioned before that I'm more of an enthusiast for popular art than the higher culture stuff, so to be blunt, I couldn't tell if most of the items on display were historical or an invention of the scenario. There was a vase that looked Inner Saoic and suitably fancy, a painting that I vaguely recognized as being of a style from the heyday of Sacred Vir that seemed to depict a beautiful woman streaking in front of an ambiguously-angry-ambiguously-confused bear. Others were missing, presumably claimed already.
It was only the fifth I looked at that keyed me into the fact that something might be wrong. The object in question, suspended upright on a series of little metal bars, was a porcelain and jade mask covered in subtle illustrations and with a few little pointy flourishes. It looked Mekhian in make, and seemed intended to evoke the death masks they'd put over people's faces in antiquity - neutral, peaceful, idealized but unearthly. I appreciated Mekhian-style stuff aesthetically probably more than any other Party (although it felt too culturally appropriative to ever dress accordingly, even when I was living there) but it wasn't the art itself that struck me. No: It was what was on the plate below.
Yesterday's Ghost
by Bakare of Naharet
'Bakare'. That was the name Tuthal had mentioned in passing when talking about the other piece of exceptionally valuable art in the collection aside from the Last Winter. If it was worth more than all the other objects, why hadn't it been claimed by Summiri or the detective? Did they not know?
I developed a hunch. I turned around, scanning the paintings on the other side of the room, and--
There it was. On the far side, unclaimed, was the Last Winter on Mene in all of its famously obtuse and macabre glory. Unclaimed.
What the...
This was an unexpected turn. Why hadn't Tuthal claimed it? Why had no one claimed it?
Suspicious, I immediately inspected the plates for the objects that had been taken. I quickly noticed that there was a pattern among them. Although they had names, none of them were credited. There was one called Greed of the Fallen Prince. Another called The Amulet of Sathar. The third was named Shame of the Prodigy.
At first, I didn't understand. But then my eyes wandered to the painting next to the final item--
...and saw that it was no painting at all.
It was a series of framed, black-and-white photographs. A woman was walking alone on a path in the hills, dressed in a cloak. She was growing closer and closer with each one, and in the final few, a cloaked figure was approaching her. In the last, her face was just visible, and I recognized it from the guide.
It was Kasua's mother.
Next to the photos, also within the frame, was a brown envelope. The title, displayed below as all the others, was simply Catharsis.
