As they neared the distant city which Argrave was content calling Sandelabara, the looping effect beca all the clearer. The whole world around them seed to be a malfunctioning tape, lasting for no more than the five seconds it had been allotted. They were constantly frightening people with their sudden appearance, yet it never really mattered enough for anything to happen.
Argrave heard the beginning to the sa sentence half a thousand tis, or the distant call of a bird greeting another rising in the sky. He saw windmills grinding the sa bit of grain countless tis. He saw a man drawing from a well again and again, pulling up the rope to retrieve water. He saw a child carrying a burlap sack of various items trip and slam his face against the paved street again and again. Argrave passed through with a deep sense of unease—unease that seed to be shared by most of his company—as they followed the Alchemist, who used his vial of Gerechtigkeit’s power as a compass.
“Mastery over ti itself… I can scarcely think of a power more alarming.” Master Castro travelled along with them, his eyes wandering the area.
“I took interest in magic that affects ti,” Onychinusa comnted, tone tense. “But I reached a dead end. Erlebnis’ archives had no knowledge of such a thing. Divinity, however, can have so effect on the flow of ti. Law has demonstrated so small mastery over the sphere… and in the distant past, an ancient god governed ti. He was powerful enough that several gods cooperated to end him, consu him. In the end, all of his powers rely prolonged his death to seventy years of agony.”
Argrave nodded. “But that’s slowing or speeding ti up, right? Nothing can truly suspend ti, nor… loop it like this.” He spotted a sign above a store, and felt a chill as he read the words, ‘Sandelabara General.’ The location, then, was confird.
“It’s clear there’s one exception.” lanie looked around.
Orion’s steely gray eyes wandered the cityscape from on high. “I’ve been searching for any deviation, any exception… but all I see are trapped. Blissfully trapped, looping into themselves totally ignorant of their condition.”
“I caution us against making assumptions,” Anneliese cut in. “We cannot know if this place is constantly recreating itself anew, if ti is rewinding, or if we face an illusion on such a grand scale that even our significant protection cannot ward from it. After all, we are currently excepted from this bizarre happening.”
“As far as we’re aware,” Castro agreed.
The Alchemist stopped his advance and looked back. “It would be best if you ceased speculation altogether.” A hand erged atop his head, and pointed firmly toward a distant castle. “That is our destination, just beyond this city. We might find answers there.”
Argrave felt a strange sense of nervousness when their destination was highlighted amidst this impossible scenario. It felt like, at any mont, Argrave would find himself looped in a task for all eternity, brought under the thrall of whatever malignance had ensnared this city. Were these people aware of what was happening? Would he be, if he kept going? Death was one thing, but this fate seed so insidious and devastating. These people, trapped here, unable to act beyond their five seconds of allotted existence…
But they had co far too deep into this eternal city to turn back now. The Alchemist led their now-silent charge, heading for the castle. It was a steep gray structure, blocky and crudely effective as a fortification. It was shaped as a square and had another square-shaped keep inside it. The outer wall possessed four towers on its corners, but the guards within were not free of the influence of this trap in ti and their group passed easily. It had no windows, queerly.
Once within they followed the steady advance of the Alchemist, drifting through the castle keep like ghosts as he pursued the source of Gerechtigkeit’s resonance. They passed through the reception hall decorated with decadent velvet, then passed through the kitchen, finally entering the banquet hall.
“King Norman! King Norman! King Norman! King Norman! King Norman!” ca a man’s voice again and again, trapped in this loop. He declared this as he pushed open the double doors to the banquet hall and entered, panic in his voice, posture, and deanor all.
There was a long rectangular table laid out in the banquet hall, yet only two places were occupied. At the head of the table, there was a black-haired man with deep red eyes wearing black velvet. Considering he lifted his head every ti his na was called, Argrave presud him to be King Norman. And just beside him, kicking her legs daintily as she sat on her hands, was a young girl in a red dress. Considering she shared King Norman’s black hair and red eyes, Argrave placed her as his daughter. Neither were exceptions in this loop of ti, despite Argrave’s expectations.
“There. Gerechtigkeit’s resonance,” the Alchemist declared, holding the vial. Then the glass began to tremble, and it exploded outward. The Alchemist looked genuinely shocked, and grasped at the energy as it escaped. It was a futile thing, though—Gerechtigkeit’s energy soared through the air, heading for the royal pair.
Argrave watched King Norman with expectation and alarm, yet the energy veered away from him and entered the little girl.
“That glass shouldn’t have broken,” the Alchemist shook his head, watching the scene with so alarm. “It was made to withstand many tons of pressure.”
“Hold on,” Argrave entered deeper into the banquet hall, watching the scene. “The girl is the resonance?”
“Yes,” answered Anneliese, to Argrave’s surprise. When he looked over at her, he could see the tension of her face. “I… I’m starting to make sense of what I see. This isn’t a trap. This is… this is sothing to preserve her, to contain her. And all of what we see, all of what’s happening around us… they’re rely the bars of the cage.”
Realizing Anneliese must’ve seen sothing with her [Truesight], Argrave focused closer on the girl. Her skin was strangely pale and immaculate, almost like porcelain. She caught sight of Argrave in one of her loops and looked up at him. He expected sothing monstrous within those eyes, but all he saw was exactly as was: a young girl. Six, perhaps seven at best.
Argrave looked back at Anneliese. “But what is she? Why would she be locked away like this?”
“She…” Anneliese grasped at words for a few seconds, and everyone, even the Alchemist, awaited her answer. “She is one half of an unfathomable whole.”
#####
Far away from the portal chasm leading to the city of Sandelabara, magma slowly encroached back upon the place that had been drained utterly by the dwarven pumps. It was moving slowly, letting out vast amounts of heat and warping the air itself as it travelled. And yet in portions, it seed especially active.
On the right side, the magma began to move faster, spread out thicker, almost as if sothing was pushing it from the other side. And when a glowing hand erged out from the magma, pushing it aside like nothing more than thick sludge, the driving force behind the magma was made clear. Slowly, a golem glowing red hot freed itself of the magma, pushing away thick globs of the stuff that clung to its tal fra. To walk through magma was quite literally to walk through rock, and its state as a liquid did not change the difficulty of such a feat.
Yet the passage of ti slowly proved that it was not alone in this trendously impossible challenge. The tide of magma shifted and turned as yet more of these golems erged, one by one, and began to fill the cavern. They glowed brightly from the intense heat that they endured, yet their tal bodies did not seem hampered at all by the trendous burden.
Miles above, in a dark cavern, Dario laid on a dank, hot floor and stared at a rocky ceiling. Compared to his sickly form before, he was now broken. Death looked liable to claim him any second. His breath was a low rattle, drawing what little air found its way into this place far beneath the earth. Yet he kept his bloodshot eyes open, retained his lucidity and focus, and persisted. After all, he was the only thing linking these golems to this realm. If he was too far away, they would falter. And if they faltered, Argrave might unlock the secrets within Sandelabara.
Dario heard a voice. He couldn’t be sure he was hallucinating, yet he understood the intentions behind it all the sa.
“We will do our best to stop the parasite, and to stop us from falling into the chaos that curiosity brings. Rest, savior, and let your body be host. You will be rembered by those who matter as a great preserver.”
“I don’t…” Dario breathed. “I don’t wanna die. Why does it have to…?”
The voice, or hallucination, never answered him. But Dario could feel the march of the golems far beneath, entangling and strangling him. He felt a hundred puppets nailed into his soul, tearing him apart. But he wasn’t the puppeteer—he was the tool the puppet master used, and nothing more. Was he right to co here, to co so far? And if he wasn’t… what could be done?
Traugott knew what might happen should Sophia be freed. Yet even still, torn apart like this, he thought as much of Argrave’s hopeful struggle as he did his own duty of preserving the current world. Despite knowing his fate was death, he hoped for sothing else.
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