I arrived in Carcosa.
But not in the way I had intended.
Not on my Landship. Not in the familiar corridors brimming with the hum of technology and the quiet murmur of my people.
Instead—
I arrived here.
A space that defied sense, where matter collapsed and reconstructed itself endlessly, where entire segnts of existence corroded into nothingness only to reassemble as if ti itself was indecisive about their destruction.
This place pulsed with contradictions.
Space bent and convulsed as if it had a beating heart of its own, folding and unfolding in sickening rhythms, shifting between tangible and theoretical. Every step I took felt both solid and epheral, like walking on a surface that was never ant to be stable.
The world around did not hold still. It buckled, twisted, reset.
I exhaled, feeling the tug of this place trying to pull at my form, trying to make sense of —an intruder in its domain. It failed.
With a glance at the warped landscape, I already knew what had happened.
Sohow, so way, instead of reappearing on my Landship, I had transported myself into the abyssal depths of the Theotech Site beneath the spire.
A place no ordinary being should wander into by accident.
A place that had no business existing in the first place.
I barely had a mont to process before a familiar voice slithered into my mind.
"You know, if you wanted to join the Theotech expedition, you could have just asked."
A smirk tugged at my lips.
Kuzunoha was on the telepathic call.
I raised a brow, crossing my arms as I glanced up at the convulsing sky of who knows what I'm actually seeing. "Oh? Are we playing ignorant now? You know exactly what happened."
A soft, amused hum. "Who, ? I would never."
I rolled my eyes, chuckling. "If you're going to pretend not to know, at least try harder."
Another hum, this ti laced with mirth. "Fine. Fine. I may have sensed a 'disturbance.' But really, I was just concerned for you."
"How generous."
"I'm trying~"
I exhaled through my nose, shifting my stance as I took in the chaotic surroundings. "Well, since I'm here, how's the expedition going? I imagine it's as ridiculous as I expected."
A pause. Then—Kuzunoha's voice carried a tone of rare, genuine intrigue.
"You could say that. This is shaping up to be one of the most… fruitful expeditions I've taken part in."
That caught my attention.
Kuzunoha was not an easy woman to impress.
I tapped a finger against my arm. "Oh? And what exactly makes it so interesting?"
Her voice took on a theatrical lilt, as if savoring the reveal.
"There is an intrinsic cosmic nature to this subterranean realm—an underlying design that predates even the earliest records of Carcosa."
I frowned slightly. "How early are we talking?"
A deliberate response. "Before the Maddening Fold."
My expression stilled.
"The Maddening Fold?"
"Ah. I see. You haven't heard of it, haven't you, my love."
"No, but sothing tells you're about to educate ."
A chuckle. "Of course. It is, after all, a fascinating theory."
"A theory, huh."
"The Maddening Fold is a hypothetical term."
Kuzunoha's voice carried a weight to it, a tone that suggested this was no casual piece of trivia. "A theory about the very birth of Carcosa itself—one that gained quite the following in past eras. Over ti, it solidified itself as one of the more compelling explanations for the anomalies we've encountered in anything remotely Theotech-related."
I tapped a finger against my arm, interest piqued. "So it's not just so obscure intellectual exercise. This theory actually has practical applications?"
"It does, to an extent. So of the more sophisticated Theotech chanisms rely on principles that seem to trace back to the Maddening Fold's influence. But whether that ans the theory is correct, or simply a convenient frawork for understanding the unknowable, is still up for debate."
That was a valuable piece of information.
"Alright. Go on, then. What exactly is this theory about?"
"To simplify it—" Kuzunoha's voice took on a rhythm, smooth and deliberate, "—imagine this. An interdinsional entity—no, a carcass of one. A being so vast, so incomprehensible, that when it died, it did not simply decay. Instead, it folded."
I frowned slightly. "Folded?"
"Yes. Unlike an ordinary corpse, which withers and fades, this entity was so massive in concept, so deeply woven into the very fabric of existence, that its death did not remove it—it only made it unstable. Instead of vanishing, it collapsed inward. Its entire being imploded upon itself, creating a singularity where nature and law unraveled, twisted, and rewove themselves into sothing entirely new. The very act of its death bent reality into an unresolved paradox."
The way she spoke carried a strange reverence, as if she were describing sothing almost divine—or profane.
It reminded of sothing akin to the Big Bang, if the Big Bang had started from sothing that had once been alive.
"And what happened after that?"
Kuzunoha's voice remained steady, but there was an edge to it now, an almost theatrical weight.
"At that mont—the mont of the Maddening Fold—nothing was decided."
The air around felt heavier, the words sinking deep.
"Matter, concepts, even the very notion of existence itself wavered, teetering on the edge of choice. Everything that had once been part of this entity—the laws it had embodied, the fundantal truths that made up its structure—were suddenly without an anchor. The world as we know it did not exist yet, because nothing had settled into place."
I let that thought linger for a mont.
A world that had no rules. A reality that had yet to make up its mind.
"But," Kuzunoha continued, "Eventually, things began to take form. Most fragnts of that collapse found their place, settling into what would beco Carcosa. Laws erged. Rules solidified. The sky, the land, the very nature of physics—the fabric of this world ford as remnants of the Fold settled into sothing stable."
"And what about the ones that didn't?" I asked, already suspecting the answer.
A small hum of approval. "Ah. That is where things beco truly fascinating."
She paused, then spoke again, voice softer, asured.
"So remnants of that initial collapse never found a place. They remained in flux—untouched by ti, by decay, by logic. These are the anomalies. The places where Carcosa remains unsettled, where things still fold and unfold, unable to choose between being and not being. They exist in a state of perpetual 'folding,' trapped in the mont of transition, neither fully present nor fully absent."
I glanced around at my surroundings—the shifting, unstable terrain, the constant bending and warping of reality itself.
The way this entire abyssal space felt unresolved.
"And you think this place is one of those remnants?" Experience more tales on My Virtual Library Empire
Kuzunoha let the silence stretch for a mont before answering.
"A strong possibility. These pockets of unstable existence are rare, but they exist, buried deep beneath Carcosa. Sotis, they appear for fleeting monts before vanishing again, as if struggling to fully manifest. Other tis, they linger, hidden beneath layers of reality, waiting for soone—or sothing—to stumble upon them.
"This subterranean plane beneath the Theotech Site… it bears all the signs of such a remnant."
I took a slow breath, absorbing the implications.
A place that had never fully settled. A place that was still—after all this ti—folding and unfolding.
If that was true, then this wasn't just a fragnt of the past. This was a piece of Carcosa's birth, still raw, still shifting.
An unhealed wound in the very fabric of the world.
And Theotech had built a site on top of it.
"All of this is just a theory," Kuzunoha reminded , though there was sothing in her tone that suggested she found the theory far more compelling than she let on. "A theory by a certain individual known as the Tinkerer."
I exhaled through my nose, a dry chuckle escaping. "That na again. The Tinkerer seems to have had her hands in quite a lot of things, doesn't she?"
"Naturally. She's important. Even by Carcosa's standards."
I narrowed my eyes slightly. "Are you saying you've t her?"
Kuzunoha's voice held amusent. "Would you like to?"
I clicked my tongue. "I'll think about it."
For now, though, my priority was getting out of this place.
I reached forward, fingers grazing the air. The fabric of space trembled at my touch, resisting for only a mont before I pulled—ripping open a rift to my true destination.
Ho of my choosing.
The Landship.
The space beyond the tear was stable, whole—exactly where I needed to be.
Just as I prepared to step through, another voice chid into the telepathic channel.
"Father."
I imdiately recognized it. Charis, my dear sunshine everlasting, chiming into my telepathic channel with her sweet and adorable voice.
Her tone was calm but direct.
"There has been a situation aboard the Landship, while you were caught in the unknown phenonon. Carlotta is quite worried about that, you know?"
"Ah, I owe both of you so real sweet treats from the oven then."
"I can't wait for that," I could see from my perceptive extension that Charis was drooling while trying to get her act together. "Ehem, to sum up the recent event. An unknown wanderer has entered the bastion."
That was… unexpected.
"Intruder?"
"No. Just… misplaced. She has not shown any aggression. However, she has identified an actual intruding and dangerous entity aboard the Landship that had just been suppressed by the available bastioneers and Landship's defensive system."
I frowned. "What entity?"
"There are no remains, unfortunately. It was reported to dissolve into nothing." A pause. "The newcor called it a 'Pallid rmaid.'"
My breath stilled for a fraction of a second.
A Pallid rmaid.
A thing that should not exist on my Landship.
I clenched my fingers, the rift before widening as I stepped forward.
"Understood. Thank you for your great work, Charis."
"Ehehe."
Kuzunoha humd in amusent. "Looks like you have your hands full. Shall I be expecting more delightful chaos upon your return?"
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