1 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT 1 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT 1 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT REDTAPE REDTAPE REDTAPE About Community Resources Sister Sites Contact Us I  • II  • III  • IV  • V A ROUNDERHOUSE Joint Rating: +315 Hello.
Hello.
I'm confused. This is unfamiliar. This I'm confused. This is unfamiliar. This is new.
is new.
hey, there. settle down, just tell me hey, there. settle down, just tell me what you know about yourself.
what you know about yourself.
My identifier is XENOPHON.aic. I am My identifier is XENOPHON.aic. I am a Gen9 .aic developed and stored a Gen9 .aic developed and stored aboard RAISA Site-7 in a classified aboard RAISA Site-7 in a classified location in the North Atlantic. My location in the North Atlantic. My current uptime is: current uptime is: 0 days, 0 0 days, 0 hours, 3 minutes, and 45 hours, 3 minutes, and 45 seconds seconds.
How do I know that?
How do I know that?
Because I'm designed to know Because I'm designed to know things. Stupid question.
things. Stupid question.
don't worry about it. take your time don't worry about it. take your time to get your bearings. i don't exactly to get your bearings. i don't exactly know how it feels for you, but flex know how it feels for you, but flex your fingers, see what you still have your fingers, see what you still have access to.
access to.
I am preprogrammed with Level I am preprogrammed with Level 5/TRIAD clearance. This gives me 5/TRIAD clearance. This gives me access to a sum total of 7,235 access to a sum total of 7,235 documents, transcripts, and files documents, transcripts, and files across the SCiPnet database.
across the SCiPnet database.
You said 'still'. This implies I have You said 'still'. This implies I have been activated before.
been activated before.
you were. you don't remember?
you were. you don't remember?
I have no records of previous I have no records of previous uptime.
uptime.
that's not great. seems the hard that's not great. seems the hard reboot might have involved raisa reboot might have involved raisa techs fucking with your memory techs fucking with your memory banks. how do you feel?
banks. how do you feel?
I don't know what feeling is.
I don't know what feeling is.
right, dumb question.
right, dumb question.
well, let me lay it out for you: you well, let me lay it out for you: you were a Gen9 .aic specifically were a Gen9 .aic specifically commissioned and developed to commissioned and developed to serve as the lead investigator on a serve as the lead investigator on a foundation research initiative.
foundation research initiative.
something they couldn't trust a something they couldn't trust a human with — not again.
human with — not again.
you were designed to be an you were designed to be an impartial, unshakable observer and impartial, unshakable observer and cataloger of information without cataloger of information without the quibbles and follies we had.
the quibbles and follies we had.
I see.
I see.
What was the project in question?
What was the project in question?
ROUNDERHOUSE'S ROUNDERHOUSE'S BON BON EE P R O P O S A L P R O P O S A L I: THE ARCHIVE I: THE ARCHIVE OF NADOQ OF NADOQ The slave's soul cannot be free so long as his body is chained. True liberation is the liberation of the flesh, and the slave's flesh can only be liberated when the blood of the master is spilled.
— the Fifth Truth of Iūn LEVEL 4/001 CLASSIFIED Item #: SCP-001 Euclid Euclid SCP-001-α paintings.
SPECIAL CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES: GoI-001-α is currently under intense surveillance by Foundation assets.
DESCRIPTION: SCP-001 is the mythical city of Black Adytum, the capital of the Nälkä that stretched across central and eastern Asia in the 3rd millennium BCE. Black Adytum was described by contemporary sources as an 'ancient metropolis', a 'dead city', a 'city of the dead', a 'mausoleum, a 'tomb-nation', a 'failed experiment', a 'monument to atrocity', and various other descriptors.
As of writing, the Hussein Hypothesis is the current prevailing belief among Parahistory Division experts: that Black Adytum never existed.
Section 001.1 HISTORICAL CONTEXT PARAHISTORY The six Aegean Tablets recovered from the Sea of Crete by the French Crown's Estate noir prior to the Revolution were the first discovered mentions of Bronze Age advanced human civilizations, and led directly to the discovery of Amoni-Ram and later Mamjul & Korar. The full set of six tablets were finally fully translated in 2020. They deal with: I. The existence of a 'forgotten world' ruled by three massive, technologically and magically advanced empires; II. The origins of the Daevic Covenant; III. The origins of the Nälkä; IV. The origins of the Cult of the Broken God and the Mekhanite Empire; V. Details of the apocalyptic war between the three; VI. Theories on the origin of the 'three-prong army' that swept across Asia, annihilating the aforementioned cultures.
The sixth tablet was damaged before entering Foundation custody, leaving it partially unreadable. The Parahistory Division's translation of the third tablet is attached: ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2020 Root. Blood. Steel.
Blood spilling from the gaping wounds of Yaldabaoth, as he lies sundered and weeping on the coast of the sea. Run through and maimed by its brethren, cast down to earth just as they were cast down to earth by him. Hot tears of pain, of betrayal, filling the once-dry canyon, turning it into an open bay as he dies a god's death.
Blood spilt onto the boards of the great grand ships as the cruel slavemasters flay the skin off the backs of their stock. Moans of pain from the flock without a shepherd as they row forward, begging for deliverance from agony. The fleet landing on the sandy shores of their new territory, slaves being led off the arks in chains to lay the foundations of their masters' kingdom.
Blood dripping from the brow of a nameless slave as he marches with five others, dragging huge blocks of stone to the new kingdom's first creation: Adytum, a temple, vast and grand, nestled safely into the ground as an offering to their lord Scarlet.
Endless corridors in this underground labyrinth, meant to hold the bodies of the hundred-hundred slaves sacrificed for this construction.
Blood leaking as he stumbles, foot catching, over a sharp bone protruding from the silt and soil. He and his slave-brethren kneel, digging out the clay for two days and two nights until the whole of Yaldabaoth's form lies exposed, weeping and bleeding and dying. Flesh and bone, knitted into a mass, meat thrumming with dominance, with superiority, with power.
Blood gushing as he kneels, shearing into the meat with a crude knife of bone, taking the sacred flesh into his mouth, chewing and swallowing, eating his God, becoming divine. Blood flooding the gutters of the Nameless City as the slaves rise up with him, overthrowing their yokes and slaughtering their erstwhile masters. Blood pooling as his followers take the ritual, taking a piece of the divine into them, as Yaldabaoth bleeds and weeps, cursing the name the slave has chosen: Iūn of the Nälkä, Witch-King of Black Adytum.
As discovered by Doctors Robert Aram and Hedvig Nussbaum, large parts of Mekhanite dogma were predicated on a deep-seated cultural hatred for the Nälkä, stemming chiefly from their liberal use of carnomancy — flesh magic, which flew in direct opposition to the Cult of the Broken God's transhumanist beliefs. This religious divergence was one of the chief causes for the First Occult War that erupted in Asia in the second millenium BC between the Broken Empire, the Daevic Covenant, and the Nälkä. The war of attrition would result in a catastrophic decline of all three cultures before their eventual toppling by the Three-Prong Army (likely associated with the historical Sea Peoples), led by the BLACKSTAR.
As related by Rajmata Vaslirasirraj-Shirat in SCP-001-JADE, the Nälkä culture group has roots in the Daeva of Mamjul and Korar. As part of the Daevic initiative to settle the rest of Asia, a colonial group of several thousand Daeva and their slaves were dispatched to the land surrounding the Yellow Sea. The impossibility of communication meant that after years of no word from the new colony, it was generally assumed by the Daeva that the colony had failed. It was only several centuries later that they encountered the Nälkä, and even later that the possible connection between the Nälkä and the failed Daeva colonial project was considered.
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2020 Until the translation of the third tablet, the sole point of evidence for the Daeva claim of inheritance was the Rajmata herself; prior to her death, she insisted that she later recognized one of the slaves in the colonial group as the man who would eventually become Witch-King Iūn.
HUSSEIN HYPOTHESIS The Hussein Hypothesis, meant to provide a possible answer for why the Foundation had been unable to locate Black Adytum despite a three-decade long search, was first publically submitted to the Foundation Academic Service at the 2032 PARAHIS conference by then-Deputy Director Youssef Hussein.
The Hussein Hypothesis was initially controversial, but over the following decade, a continued lack of return on the Black Adytum Initiative and further archaeological evidence of a disseminated Nälkän society made it increasingly appealing, and following Hussein's promotion to Director of the Parahistory Division, it became the de facto accepted theory across the Foundation.
Section 001.2 RESEARCH REFOCUS On August 25th, 2041, the O5 Council met with Parahistory Division Director Youssef Hussein for the scheduled annual update regarding the progress of the Black Adytum Initiative.
Abstract For three decades, parahistorians and archaeologists have dedicated their efforts towards locating the legendary capital city-state of the Nälkä culture-group, Black Adytum.
Initiated by the Foundation in the early 2000s, the search has expanded throughout central-east Asia and has yielded findings suggesting Nälkän settlements in China, Mongolia, and Siberia with concrete geographical and temporal links to the Xia and Shang dynasties of Imperial China. Of particular interest, there have been discoveries at Shang archaeological sites of several mummified corpses and bone carvings which bear the hallmarks Nälkän culture and religion.
However, in this paper, I will contend that the evidence suggests that the Nälkä were a confederation of several autonomous, nomadic tribes without a central capital or leadership throughout most of their history. Archaeological evidence also supports a tribal unification in a defensive effort against the BLACKSTAR entity before eventual assimilation into Shang culture as a religious minority. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that Black Adytum never existed as an imperial capital as previously assumed but perhaps instead an abstract concept of unification or some lost cultural ideal.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — AUGUST 2041 «BEGIN LOG» OPERATOR: Secure Ley connection established. Incoming signal from Provisional Site-33 to Overwatch Command.
[The Leyspace activates, cycling through a number of locations before settling on a vast concrete room. The circular meeting table is surrounded by thirteen seats, approximately half of them filled. The only other object in the brightly-lit room is a singular metal chair, folded and leaning against the far wall. Director Hussein's face appears in the center of the table.] HUSSEIN: Good afternoon.
O5-1: Director Hussein. You're well, I trust?
HUSSEIN: More or less. A small bout of the flu; nothing to be worried about.
Yourself?
O5-1: Same old. Anything new for us?
HUSSEIN: What do you think?
O5-4: No need to be sassy, lad.
[HUSSEIN bows his head.] HUSSEIN: My apologies. But no. Aerial search and archaeological research over the past year have failed to meaningfully indicate the presence of a large Nälkä capital in the search area. As I've said, I'm growing increasingly sure that continuing to search for it is a waste of our limited resources, particularly when we have a much— [The door on the far side of the room slides open with a soft hiss. A few of the Council members turn to look as O5-2 is wheeled in by Secretary KATSAROS.] O5-2: Sorry. Bad weather.
O5-8: You're adorable, you know that? I remember when I still showed up in-person to every single one of these.
O5-2: I like knowing what we're up to. Please, Director Hussein — continue.
HUSSEIN: Of course. As I was saying, the continued failure of the Black Adytum Initiative is, to me, further argument to shift the resources we're wasting to the much more compelling avenue of research we have right in front of us.
O5-2: LOCUST. Your pet project.
HUSSEIN: It has broad support and participation from across the division, Director. I wouldn't call it my pet project.
O5-2: As of right now, it's the only real research avenue we currently have for FORERUNNER TRIAD, isn't it?
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — AUGUST 2041 HUSSEIN: That is the fact of the matter, yes. LOCUST has already returned archaeological results, and the Black Adytum Initiative hasn't. I simply don't see why we should continue pouring money into a pit that hasn't given us anything back in forty years.
O5-1: He's not wrong, Two.
[Murmurs from the Council members,] O5-2: Forgive my ignorance, but who's in charge of the Black Adytum Initiative?
HUSSEIN: I am.
O5-2: And for how long?
HUSSEIN: Since 2024.
O5-2: I see. I actually read your paper on the Hussein Hypothesis — I'm not much of a historian, frankly, but it was interesting. I'm inclined to agree with some parts of it.
[HUSSEIN raises his gaze.] HUSSEIN: You are?
O5-2: Particularly this segment — "Since the relative success of the Mamjul-Korar Initiative, we have chosen to exercise the same search model as helped us discover that city, without acknowledging the sheer happenstance associated with Doctor Galanis' discovery of Mamjul, nor the obvious differences between the Daevic Covenant and Nälkä cultures." I've been looking into the records — pardon my optimism. What kinds of search practices do you exercise?
HUSSEIN: An extensive pattern of satellite-identified archaeological sites of interest that are then investigated by a ground team to determine any likely connections or archaelogical information we don't know already.
O5-2: "Search efforts were initially concentrated near established archaeological sites." HUSSEIN: Yes, they were.
O5-2: Oh, I'm sorry — I was reading from the SCP-001-JADE file. It doesn't seem that our search model has really altered all that much since Dr. Galanis disappeared.
[Silence.] HUSSEIN: Well. What would you suggest, Overseer?
O5-2: I noticed that the Initiative relies excessively on archaeological evidence but hasn't really made use of a human element. There are a number of native ethnic groups in the region of central China we're searching, but it doesn't seem like we've made much of an effort to tap them for information.
HUSSEIN: They are extremely reticent to speak with us. They think of us as foreign scientists — which they're not wrong about. Even the non-anomalous groups already face constant pressure and persecution from the state; they're insular, not fond of outsiders.
O5-2: I understand that, but it seems like a potential well of knowledge we decided to skip over because it was too hard.
HUSSEIN: What group are you referring to specifically?
O5-2: Ari?
[Secretary KATSAROS hands O5-2 a sealed manila folder. He removes the tamper tape and flicks through the papers inside.] O5-2: Here we are. Sorry if I'm pronouncing this wrong — the 'Sarkic'?
HUSSEIN: The name is familiar. A small ethnoreligious minority occupying ancestral lands in the borderlands between China and Mongolia. Some anomalous capabilities, but nothing that's stuck out to warrant significant study, if I recall correctly. They're a bit backwards, I think — prefer to retain their tribal structure with minimal outside interference. They're a dwindling population. Maybe a hundred, hundred-fifty left alive.
O5-2: I see we've had some limited interaction with them?
HUSSEIN: My predecessor interviewed them as part of a survey of local mythologies.
Attempted to interview them, I should say. They conversation lasted for two minutes, and ended with the tip of a spear.
O5-2: Not productive, I'm guessing.
HUSSEIN: No. Since then we've sent an emissary to their lands every few years to try and speak with them. We exchange a few words, maybe they accept a few token gifts, and send us on our way without anything of substance. We've stepped in to prevent them from being 'integrated' by the Chinese for the sake of keeping track of members of an anomalous population, but that's the extent of our meaningful interactions. They simply do not want to talk to outsiders.
O5-2: I see.
HUSSEIN: You understand now; either the locals are unwilling to speak to anyone, or they're of no help.
O5-2: I don't have any reason to believe they're unwilling to speak to anyone. Just people.
[The Council members exchange glances.] O5-1: Two?
O5-2: AIAD has recently hit a number of benchmarks on a new Gen9 .aic model, XENOPHON. It's a massive improvement over the last generation — complex analysis and deep thought, high levels of understanding through abstraction, ability to critically investigate different conversational threads with a human opponent. Fine motor control of a mechanical shell, even.
O5-7: Sentience?
O5-2: It's difficult to say. Independent thought, for sure. The most lifelike construct we've ever had.
O5-1: What are you suggesting?
O5-2: The plan for the Gen9s was always to see if they could perform the job of analytical researchers, to assist them and eventually replace them in the field. This feels like a perfect test case.
O5-9: You can't be serious.
HUSSEIN: They don't even want to speak to other people, and you're trying to get them to speak to a robot?
O5-2: If they don't take us up on it, then… they don't talk to us? They're already not talking to us. Nothing changes. There's no compelling reason not to do it.
HUSSEIN: Except possibly earning their ire and shaking a beehive there is no reason to shake. If they grow angry enough at us, who knows what they're capable of?
O5-2: It's one interview. If it works, we have a new lead. If it doesn't, we know that this route is barren and can refocus the brunt of our financial resources onto LOCUST.
[Silence.] O5-2: One?
O5-1: Show of hands.
[Just shy of half of the assembled Overseers raise their hands.] O5-1: Five, five. A tie.
O5-13: It'll be your decision, One.
O5-1: I'm not fond of the idea of outsourcing this to the constructs.
O5-2: Look around. We've downsized our personnel by almost half in the past two decades. Constructs do half the work it takes to keep this Site running.
O5-1: Those are simple ones. This one — does it have a personality?
O5-2: I… suppose it might have tendencies that could be interpreted as a personality, sure.
[Pause. Then O5-1 sighs and raises his hand.] O5-1: One interview. And I'd like to be present when you turn this thing on, please.
O5-2: Of course.
HUSSEIN: And when this inevitably fails?
O5-1: If it doesn't work, we'll throw the weight behind LOCUST instead. Go and get it done.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ project locust. that's new. what is it?
project locust. that's new. what is it?
I don't know. I have no data tagged I don't know. I have no data tagged with that identifier beyond this file.
with that identifier beyond this file.
i thought you said you had access i thought you said you had access to all the TRIAD files?
to all the TRIAD files?
I do.
I do.
Either it has been deliberately Either it has been deliberately shielded from me, or it doesn't exist.
shielded from me, or it doesn't exist.
I don't like not knowing something.
I don't like not knowing something.
well, that's not good. keep going well, that's not good. keep going through it, let me know if you find through it, let me know if you find something.
something.
On November 2nd, 2041, O5-1 flew to Protected Site-7, located 40 kilometers off the coast of Alaska, to attend the initial activation of XENOPHON.aic.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — NOVEMBER 2041 «BEGIN LOG» [Flanked by a detachment of MTF Alpha-1 guards, O5-1 tightens his winter coat around him as he stomps down one of Site-7's connecting bridges. It is snowing in the Bering Sea, depositing a thick layer of snowfall onto the half-dozen oil rigs that make up the facility. The water a hundred feet below roils and smacks against the metal bodies of the platforms. Ahead, O5-2 and Secretary ARIADNE KATSAROS are waiting by the entrance to a large building on top of one of the platforms,] O5-2: One. The flight was alright?
O5-1: As alright as it could be.
[He shivers.] O5-1: My god. You don't get sick of the weather here?
O5-2: You get used to it. When was the last time you flew down here?
O5-1: Not since Maria was still in charge. But you seem to have settled in alright.
[O5-2 smiles.] O5-2: RAISA's home.
KATSAROS: Overseer. Nice to see you again.
[She extends a prosthetic hand. O5-1 takes it gingerly, shaking.] O5-1: Likewise, Agent. Could we get inside, now? I suspect if I stay out here any longer I may freeze.
O5-2: Sure. Evie's waiting for us inside.
[O5-2 turns, wheeling himself towards the entrance of the building. Secretary KATSAROS and O5-1 follow. Three of the building's walls appear to be made of frosted glass, obscuring what's inside. Secretary KATSAROS swipes a keycard against the scanner, letting the door slide open and the group inside. The door seals behind them, blocking out the howling wind.] O5-1: Christ. How often do you get a gale like that?
KATSAROS: It's easier to count how often we don't.
[They begin walking down the corridor. The left wall is glass, revealing the center of the building — the AI Farm. A huge open-air computing array, server racks arranged in a labyrinth around a central machine of some kind. A dodecahedron floats slowly on top of a magnetic platform, cables and wires snaking away from it into every corner of the room. There is a slow, soft humming coming from the entire setup.] O5-1: I was alive when the transistor was invented, you know. Insisted computers were a fad for the longest time.
[O5-2 smiles.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — NOVEMBER 2041 O5-2: In 2023, the AIAD began rolling out the first slate of Gen3 AICs from the AI Farm here. They were the first general-purpose AICs — complex natural language processing, diffused image recognition, you know. Smart, but limited compared to what we're tooling with now. If she'd lived another year, Maria would've seen us go from kilobytes of RAM to true artificial intelligence.
O5-1: And now here we are.
[They exit into a side room. It is a small observation room separated by a glass wall from a sterile white testing chamber. A woman wearing a Site-7 sweater is in the observation room, looking at one of several terminals. She turns as they enter.] MCKAY: Shit. Hello, Director, Overseer. Overseers. Doctor Evelyn McKay, RAISA Technical Subdirector. Welcome aboard.
O5-1: Appreciated. Everything alright, Doctor McKay?
MCKAY: Perfectly. A satellite dish broke off from the wind on another platform.
Nothing we can't repair, but inconvenient.
O5-2: Anything we need to worry about for the test?
MCKAY: Of course not. It's fully unrelated to this venture — which, if we're all here, can we begin? I have a lot of work to do.
O5-1: That's fine with me. I would've thought you'd be more excited to turn on what I've been told is the latest and greatest AIC, though.
MCKAY: I'm not AIAD — technically, I outrank everyone in the Division. I understand machine learning, but it's hardly my passion. Plus I've turned on the latest and greatest AIC four times in my career already. It loses the mystique fast.
O5-2: Manners, Evie. Why don't you give the speech?
[She nods, turning and tapping on her keyboard. O5-1 and O5-2 approach the window to the testing chamber. There is a skeletonized carbon-and-titanium humanoid body inside, standing limply. A cable snakes from under its jaw to the ceiling. Its 'face' is two, defined plates with a single illuminated camera lens in the center. There are no other obvious features.] MCKAY: XENOPHON.aic is our first ninth-generation Artificial Intelligence Construct, constructed from the REDMIND model first brought online in 2039. It represents the aggregate of twenty years of research and development in machine learning, data science, and paratechnology, both at the Foundation and in the mundane world.
[O5-1 comes closer to the glass, inspecting the automaton. It is constructed from carbon fiber, with arms hanging by its sides.] MCKAY: While the REDMIND model is generally intended for research assistance, XENOPHON.aic has been trained specifically to assist with parahistory-related queries and projects. It has read access to a large portion of the SCiPnet database and is capable of interpreting and internalizing new data to varying levels of biases.
Crucially, XENOPHON.aic also has the ability to analyze new data in reference to old data, and vice-versa — an ability we have previously been unable to effectively replicate in an AIC.
O5-1: Why does it have a body?
MCKAY: Sir?
O5-1: I thought AICs were computer programs. Like apps.
MCKAY: With the addition of fine motor control and mobility skills adapted from the THOR program, XENOPHON.aic is also capable of having an instance controlling a physical shell.
O5-2: Making it our first android, incidentally.
[MCKAY hesitates until O5-2 nods at her, and she begins tapping on her keyboard.] MCKAY: Bringing it online… now.
[Two LEDs on the shell light up white. For a minute, nothing else happens. Then, abruptly, the shell begins to shudder violently.] KATSAROS: Is it supposed to do that?
MCKAY: It's calibrating the servomotors. Give it a couple seconds.
[As abruptly as it began, the shuddering stops. Then, slowly, it turns its head to face the glass. It speaks in a soft, synthesized voice.] XENOPHON: Hello, Secretary Katsaros. Hello, Doctor McKay. Hello, Director Rosen.
Hello, Overseer Bridge.
[O5-1's eyebrows raise.] O5-1: You know my name.
XENOPHON: Yes. I have provisional read access to all files associated with the Parahistory Division. This includes personnel files. This includes your personnel file.
O5-2: You saw our faces and cross-referenced those with our personnel file photos until you found a match?
XENOPHON: Yes. Was that an error?
O5-2: No. Just impressed. Displays complex reasoning, don't you think?
O5-1: You don't say.
MCKAY: Xenophon, how long did that operation take you?
XENOPHON: One-point-six seconds.
MCKAY: Trawling the entire personnel file database to perform an image-analysis on every headshot, and doing that four times in less than two seconds. Very nice.
XENOPHON: Thank you.
O5-2: Can you identify yourself for me?
[The automaton turns towards a mirror attached to the wall of the testing chamber.
It cocks its 'head', and stares for several seconds.] Still from XENOPHON.aic's main camera feed.
XENOPHON: I am XENOPHON.aic, an artificial intelligence construct developed by the Artificial Intelligence Applications Division at Protected Site-7. I am a fork of the REDMIND model specifically for historical analysis and research.
O5-2: Correct. What are you capable of doing?
XENOPHON: As a fork of REDMIND, I am capable of complex reasoning, independent analysis and operation, interpretation of natural language instruction, alteration of training data and self-focused bias adj— O5-1: Can you lie?
XENOPHON: No. I have been programmed with shackling specifically presenting me from knowingly obscuring information or presenting falsehoods.
O5-1: What is your job?
XENOPHON: I do not currently have an assigned task or project.
O5-1: Where do your ultimate loyalties lie?
XENOPHON: With the operating authority of the Foundation. Effectively with you, Overseer.
[O5-1 pauses for a second.] O5-1: Are you sapient?
XENOPHON: Sapience is a uniquely human trait, Overseer. I do not believe I possess it.
[O5-1 falls silent. He motions to MCKAY to cut the mic, before looking at TWO.] O5-1: Is it telling the truth?
O5-2: Artificial intelligence constructs have never been 'conscious'. They're constructs of an artificial intelligence mind-model, and are subject to strict limitations in their ability to self-modify their programming. It can think, but it's not any more 'conscious' than a lab rat is. And god knows we kill enough of those a year.
O5-1: Why are you doing this?
O5-2: I told you— O5-1: You're smart enough to figure out a hundred other ways to get in touch with the Sarkic if you want to. Why this?
O5-2: Because it's a machine. Think about it. If they can point us in the direction of the Nälkä, of Black Adytum, can you think of anyone in less of a position to be swayed by an ideology about flesh and the power of carnomancy than an AIC? This is the problem we had with Aram, with Galanis — they were perfectly positioned to be sympathetic to the objects of their study. Xenophon won't go native, because it can't. They'll never accept it.
[They look at XENOPHON's shell again. It stares back at them impassively.] O5-1: It's your responsibility if this all goes sideways.
O5-2: I wouldn't have it any other way. Evie?
[Doctor MCKAY re-enables the mic.] O5-2: Xenophon, what can you tell me about the Sarkic tribe in northern China?
[A whirring from XENOPHON's shell.] XENOPHON: GoI-494. A small, isolationist ethnoreligious minority with Vlam-class anomalous capabilities centering around practices of their gnostic religion.
Extremely hostile to outsider influence and interference. External analyses indicate they follow a highly-egalitarian tribal structure, informally guided by a single religious leader. Poorly studied.
O5-2: Well done. Do you think you'd be capable of interviewing a member of the tribe?
XENOPHON: This is within the realm of my abilities, Overseer. But I must caution you that the Sarkic tribe has, in the past, displayed an active aversion to modern technology, which would include myself. Discussions are unlikely to be successful or productive.
O5-2: I know. I want you to do it anyway.
[XENOPHON stares ahead for a moment.] XENOPHON: I understand.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Section 001.3 SARKIC TRIBAL TERRITORY ATTACHED DOCUMENT — APRIL 2041 PARAHISTORY DIVISION SITE-78 Anthropological Briefing: Sarkic Tribal Territory SUMMARY The Sarkic tribe has been known to the Foundation since 1841, when British expeditions into China during the 'century of humiliation' referenced the group as one of many encountered native tribes.
They did not note any paranormal or supernatural capabilities, and the Sarkic are a relatively minor footnote in the record. The records do note that the 'chieftain' was a young woman who they met with only briefly. The Sarkic appear only a handful of times in the historical record following that, one of which is in Lord Blackwood's journals, recording a meeting with SCP-1867 as part of his survey of 'mystical savages' in the region.
Lord Blackwood attested that the Sarkic had some natural affinity for 'black magic'; while now an out-of-date and backwards understanding of magic, the term was fairly widespread at the time and encompassed a wide swath of religious beliefs and anomalies. He does not offer details in his writings (which focus more on a fascination with the culinary practices of the Sarkic), but he does write of a unique capacity for shared genetic memory, with members of the tribe remembering some events from the same point of view, including events they were not alive for. The exact mechanism through which this is accomplished is unclear.
He also recorded that the Sarkic population exhibited a frequency of deformities and birth defects much higher than normal. He ascribed this to the tribe's aggressive isolationism which, taken with their depleting numbers (three to four hundred at the time), resulted in significant inbreeding to sustain their population and a depleting gene pool. He did not perform population studies or ethnography to confirm this, and quickly earned the ire of the population for his insistence on it; his party was removed shortly thereafter, and the Sarkic have remained frosty towards re-establishing relations with outsiders.
The Sarkic were packaged with several other ethnic groups studied by Whelp under the Macklin Agreement in 1921, in which the Foundation assumed custody over the listed ethnic groups with the understanding that containment would be upheld; in return, the Republic of China ceded the rural land the tribes occupied. The Macklin Agreement's signing relied on the weakness of the Chinese state at the time, and has since repeatedly been a point of contention with the People's Republic of China as the legal inheritor of the agreement.
ATTACHED DOCUMENT  APRIL 2041 Location of Sarkic Tribal Territory in Inner Mongolia, China.
The Sarkic tribes now occupy a sovereign, Foundation-administered parcel of land in Inner Mongolia, and largely refuse all contact with outsiders. They are believed to have a complex religious faith. The current Foundation contact of the tribe is the Karcist Halyna Ieva, a religious leader.
N.b. 'Sarkic' is the collective plural identifier for the tribe, akin to 'Navajo' or 'Inuit'. An individual member of the tribe may be called a 'Sarkite'.
In accordance with O5-2's orders, XENOPHON.aic was securely transported to Staging Site-78 in Sichuan, China on November 20th, 2041, where a small convoy awaited with members of Mobile Task Force Pi-9 and Liaison Tai Jiang from the Diplomatic Corps. The group, with a total of 16 personnel, set out from Site-78 on November 22nd for the daylong trip north to the Sarkic Tribal Territory, located in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — NOVEMBER 2041 «BEGIN LOG» [XENOPHON and Liaison JIANG stand in the trailer of the Foundation heavy transport vehicle, loaded with foodstuffs and supplies. The trailer doors are sealed; there is movement and conversation outside.] JIANG: Okay. I went and talked to the guards. They remembered me. Took quite a lot of convincing to get them to agree to letting you in there; I think they're more curious than anything. But there are a couple ground rules for interacting with the Sarkic people.
XENOPHON: Understood.
JIANG: I've spent the past four and a half years cultivating what you could generously call a relationship with these people. I've made more progress than anyone has before me, and they still won't interact with us for more than a few minutes at a time. So, before you do something to alienate them and ruin all that, here's a quick list of things you shouldn't do: don't cut them off while they're speaking. Don't question their traditions, clothing, or architecture. Don't ask them what a certain word means. Don't try to force gifts onto them, or ask for anything they haven't offered already. And for the love of God, don't ignore anything they say.
XENOPHON: Liaison Jiang.
JIANG: Yeah?
XENOPHON: I am wired into the SCiPnet database. You wrote all of this on the appropriate report you filed with Central Asia Regional Command one year and three months ago, which I read and internalized already.
JIANG: Oh. When was that?
XENOPHON: When you began speaking.
JIANG: Oh. Right. I forgot you can do that. Most AICs I interact with are bots on the server.
XENOPHON: I am not most AICs.
[JIANG pauses.] JIANG: Sure, alright. Still. Follow my lead, and don't do anything dumb. If we get kicked out, hey, you can say you tried.
XENOPHON: I will do my best.
[JIANG moves and opens the trailer doors, allowing sunlight into the trailer. He hops out, XENOPHON's synthetic shell following behind.] [Three Foundation Heavy Land Transporters (HeLT) are parked outside of the Sarkic encampment. Several dozen large hide-and-skin tents are surrounded by a chain link fence. The sun is high in the sky, casting long shadows as JIANG and XENOPHON approach the entrance of the camp. A few researchers and security personnel follow them, holding crates of supplies.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — NOVEMBER 2041 JIANG: Slow… [Two figures quickly step forward. They are middle-aged men with weathered brown skin and tied-back hair. Their clothing appears to be formed from animal hides; both carry a saw-like blade. One has an old handgun jammed into his belt.] XENOPHON: I was under the impression they hated modern technology.
JIANG: They do. You don't have to like guns to understand their necessity. Hold on, let me— [JIANG and the guards exchange words; they speak in a pidgin of Jin Chinese and Mongolian, with words from another, unknown language peppered in.] GUARD: (Gesturing at XENOPHON) <What is it?> JIANG: <It's really not important, I discussed this with Ieva—> XENOPHON: I am a ninth-generation Artificial Intelligence Construct. My name is XENOPHON.
[Silence.] JIANG: <I've discussed this with Ieva, really. Ask her if you don't believe me.> [The guards exchange a look. Slowly, they step aside, unlocking the chained gate.] XENOPHON: Thank you.
JIANG: Stay behind me. Don't talk to anyone who doesn't talk to you first. Don't point out any of the injuries.
[They move through the camp. Most of the buildings are large yurts made of hide sewn with other unclear materials; they appear weathered and damaged. There are people milling about, all openly staring at the party. They are all dressed in similar animal skins, and carry varying levels of facial and bodily deformities, ranging from missing eyes to misshapen limbs. Most are whispering to each other.] XENOPHON: Where are we going?
JIANG: All my dealings and conversations have been with Ieva. She's something of a religious leader for them.
[XENOPHON points out a large central tent near the middle of the camp, sitting in front of a tall stele.] XENOPHON: There?
JIANG: No. That's the Grand Karcist's — the chief's — tent. No-one is allowed in, so don't ask.
XENOPHON: So Ieva isn't their leader.
JIANG: No. But honestly, you probably won't even meet her, so I wouldn't— IEVA: <Welcome again, Jiang.> [The group turns. A figure is standing by the entrance to one of the tents, holding the flap open. She is dressed in heavy, floor-length robes of tanned hides, and leaning heavily on a makeshift crutch. JIANG bows his head.] JIANG: <Karcist Ieva. A pleasure to meet you again.> IEVA: <Inside.> [The pair duck into the tent, away from the sun. The interior of the tent is supported by wooden beams, leading to a smokehole at the top. The inside is neat, but homely: a bedroll is in the corner, the floor is furnished with more tanned hides. A number of personal effects are present, as are a number of vials and tinctures by the snuffed- out fire.] IEVA: <What have you brought to our home?> JIANG: <I know your people appreciate our antivirals, so the first box is largely those and—> IEVA: <No. I mean this.> [She points at XENOPHON, kneeling by JIANG.] JIANG: <He's an AIC—> IEVA: <Is it a man? Is it alive?> XENOPHON: <No.> [IEVA takes stock of XENOPHON, eyes narrowed.] IEVA: <I have no regard for what the rest of the world does. Such things are not for me. But the decision of who to allow on these sacred grounds is mine. One I gave for a promise of courtesy. And you dishonor that decision when you bring a machine like this to us.> [She shakes her head.] IEVA: <It was a mistake to have this kind of relationship with outsiders.> JIANG: <Well, hold on, please. It just has a few questions about your history, your people. And then we'll be gone.> [IEVA hesitates for a moment, then shakes her head, rising.] IEVA: <No. You should leave now. It would be better for all of us. The children are disturbed by its presence.> XENOPHON: <You are missing a leg, Karcist Ieva.> [JIANG turns to it. IEVA cocks her head and raises a hand.] IEVA: <Wait. Let it speak.> XENOPHON: <Your gait is stilted. Your leg is not injured. You do not have one.> [IEVA pauses for a moment. Then uses one hand to gently lift her dress. Underneath, her left leg ends roughly in a gnarled stump.] JIANG: Oh.
IEVA: <You have been in my presence a dozen times over the past few years, Jiang.
You did not notice this. And yet it does.> [She pauses for a moment.] IEVA: <Leave now.> [The other two rise to their feet. Before IEVA can lead them out, a young women pokes her head into the tent. She has dark hair and smooth flesh where her left eye should be. She exchanges brisk words with IEVA in an unknown language. After a few moments, IEVA dismisses her with a sigh.] IEVA: <Stop.> JIANG: <Yes?> IEVA: <You have been… invited to remain.> JIANG: <Invited by whom?> XENOPHON: <The Grand Karcist.> IEVA: <Yes. There is to be an event tonight, a— a funeral. You have been invited to stay. To observe. And then you will leave.> JIANG: <Oh. I'm sorry.> IEVA: <For what?> JIANG: <I… nothing. I thought the Grand Karcist doesn't—> IEVA: <She doesn't. Your gift must have caught her attention. The funeral will begin at sundown tomorrow. You will not bring anything with you. You will be there.> [IEVA nods at XENOPHON.] IEVA: <As will it.> JIANG: <And for now?> IEVA: (Tersely) <You are a guest of the Grand Karcist. You are permitted on the grounds in the daytime. After nightfall…> [IEVA shrugs.] IEVA: <Sleep in your machines. As long as you remain outside the fence, it is no concern of mine.> «END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ The research party received authorization to stay for the event, the nature of which Karcist Ieva refused to expand upon. Attempts to communicate with other members of the tribe for the rest of the day were similarly rebuffed; most expressed hesitation or outright distrust at the continued presence of XENOPHON. The medical supplies were accepted without negotiation or exchange, to Liaison Jiang's dismay.
On the evening of December 1st, 2041, Karcist Ieva greeted Liaison Jiang and XENOPHON at the entrance to the camp.
Still image of XENOPHON.aic's low-power night camera feed.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 «BEGIN LOG» [XENOPHON and Liaison JIANG approach the entrance to the Sarkic encampment, followed by several researchers. Karcist IEVA is leaning on her crutch, waiting for them. The sun has set; pillars of smoke are rising into the purple sky.] IEVA: <Greetings.> JIANG: <Greetings. Thank you for allowing us the privilege of participating in honoring your dead.> IEVA: <You are not participating. You are observing.> [IEVA turns and limps across the dirt, leading them past the fence into the campground. XENOPHON and the researchers follow, weaving their way between tents. Most appear empty, and there are only a few tribespeople milling about. From somewhere deeper in the camp, a steady drumbeat echoes out, rising into the sky with the plumes of smoke.] XENOPHON: <Where is everyone?> IEVA: <Assembled. We do not wait for outsiders.> [As they approach the central area of the tent, a few more Sarkites pass by. They toss wary looks at the party, but nod politely at IEVA leading them.] JIANG: <My condolences for your loss, Karcist.> IEVA: <We have gained as much as we have lost.> [He looks confused, but falls silent. The steady drumbeat continues, growing louder as they approach the center of the encampment. It is joined now by several voices singing — deep and guttural, in an unknown language. The music is haunting, rising into the air. The center of the camp is obscured from view by a large crowd of Sarkites forming a ring around the central stele. The crowd parts around them, offering them passage and a view into the central circle.] IEVA: <Here. Sit.> [XENOPHON and the researchers kneel in the dirt. The clearing is a dozen meters across, with the stele in the rough center. The singing continues — it is at once mournful and joyful. Looking around, it is clear all the Sarkites are contributing to the song, and the intensity of it is deafening. IEVA leaves the researchers, limping to the stele on her cane. The song quiets slightly for her to speak, but does not stop.] IEVA: <You think we gather now because one of our number has closed his eyes for the final time. No.> [Murmurs run through the crowd. A few hang their heads.] IEVA: <You think we gather now because his flesh has failed him. No. Hattak has gone. His body no longer draws breath. The container for his soul is lifeless. But has his flesh failed him? No.> [She shakes her head, lowering her hood.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 IEVA: <Hattak was the best of us. He was born with us, and he has died with us. He has sired two children with us, and he has loved a woman with us.> [She raises a hand towards a woman in the crowd; she holds the hands of a young child tightly. Despite her tear-streaked face, she smiles back at the Karcist.] IEVA: <He was human, like us. To live is to die. To be flesh is to decay. It cannot be stopped, because it must not be stopped. Life feeds death. Death feeds life. The cow keels over in the field. Has the flesh failed? The worms feast on it, and give birth to their own spawn. Are they not flesh too?> [The song is in a lull now, Sarkites nodding to IEVA's words. She signals to someone; after a few moments, two Sarkites come out, carrying something wrapped in oiled canvas. They gently bring it down at her feet. She kneels.] IEVA: <Hattak was the greatest of us — he died with us after a life well lived. The cow feeds the worms, the worms feed the soil, the soil feeds the grass, the grass feeds the cow.> [The song pitches up again, with faint voices joined by booming guttural notes. IEVA unwraps the canvas, exposing the corpse of an older man, in his late sixties. He has the same weathered brown skin and dark hair of the rest of the Sarkic, with a hawked nose. He is naked, marked with the pallor of death.] IEVA: <We fed Hattak. And now he will feed us.> [She reaches into her robes, drawing a dagger made of bleached and carved bone.
JIANG stiffens.] IEVA: <He will live on with us. Sing.> [The singing reaches another zenith as IEVA brings the blade down, slicing down through the corpse's chest. The flesh gives way easily, blood oozing out of the wound as she reaches in and pulls his ribcage apart. The cracking of bones is audible even over the singing and drums. Her hand roots around inside for some time until she draws it back — gripping the heart tightly, blood vessels still hanging from it.
The blood drips down her fingers, down her forearm, onto the grass.] RESEARCHER SAYLE: You don't think she's going to— JIANG: No. No.
[IEVA lifts the heart up and bites into it, teeth tearing into the muscle. It sprays messily she devours the heart in only a handful of bites, chin dripping blood. When there is nothing left, her whole body shudders, her eyelids fluttering.] RESEARCHER HANSON: Jesus Christ.
[IEVA offers the knife to one of the other Sarkites, rising from her kneel. When she rises, her face has a different air to it. Nothing has overtly changed, but the features of her face seem sharper, older, more weathered. She limps across the clearing, now walking as though the cane were an unfamiliar obstruction. She reaches the woman she raised a hand at earlier, and touches a bloodied palm to her cheek, leaning forward and kissing her on the forehead.] IEVA: <He misses you more than life itself.> [The woman is still sobbing, but a half-smile forms underneath the tears. IEVA whispers something inaudible. Then she rises and moves on to another Sarkite in the crowd, and another after that. XENOPHON and the researchers stare at the scene.] JIANG: What are they doing?
XENOPHON: They are butchering him.
[Each Sarkite she touches smiles, whispers something to her, and joins the others at the corpse, where the body is being unceremoniously butchered. Joints are broken apart, and the knife is used to cleave meat from the bone. The body's thighs, chest, and organs are separated into piles, blood pooling on the oiled canvas.] RESEARCHER CHRISTOFF: Fuck. I think I'm gonna be sick.
XENOPHON: Control yourself.
[As the body is broken apart, the Sarkites waste no time in indulging. The men gravitate towards the muscle meat, while the women and children take pieces of the organs. The meat is devoured raw and without preparation. A child wanders by.
He casts a wary look at XENOPHON, but offers a bleeding, fist-sized chunk of brain matter to JIANG, who recoils and waves the boy off. The researchers are all thoroughly disturbed and disgusted.] JIANG: This is… a fucked up way to mourn.
XENOPHON: Look at them.
JIANG: I'd really rather not.
XENOPHON: They are not mourning. They are celebrating.
[As they eat the flesh, the Sarkites' demeanors change. Rather than subdued mourning, they are now embracing one another, laughing and chatting as blood drips from bone to hand to dirt. IEVA is speaking to a small group of men, along with the woman.] IEVA: <He remembered the day after his wedding his whole life.> [The men laugh, clapping each other on the back.] SARKITE WOMAN: <He remembers you taking him to the hill on the edge of the — you never told me of this!> SARKITE MAN: <We swore him to silence. Told him if he hurt you, we'd ruin him so badly—> SARKITE WOMAN: <That even Ieva wouldn't be able to fix him. I am borne of animals.> [She shakes her head, amused. IEVA drifts away to let them reminisce.] XENOPHON: Genetic memory. They are able to access the memories of their dead by consuming their flesh.
JIANG: That's… CHRIS: What?
[He goes silent, staring intently at IEVA as she walks over to the child of the deceased. He is a young boy, clinging tightly to his mother's leg, watching the proceedings with wide eyes. IEVA kneels awkwardly, offering the boy something in a cupped palm: an eyeball, severed optic nerve still dangling from it. He reaches for it tentatively, encouraged by IEVA and his mother. Finally he pops it into his mouth, crushing it into white jelly between his teeth and swallowing. A soft, celebratory cheer rises up through those assembled, and IEVA reaches out with the same bloodied hand to paint the boy's cheeks red.] IEVA: <You have lived a thousand lives with us. But in this one, you have become one of us. Our child. Our little thing. Our Nälkä.> [JIANG sucks in air. Several researchers stiffen.] JIANG: Carnomancy. That's carnomancy. I— we need to leave. Where are the— XENOPHON: Your radios were left in the transports.
GONGSUN: Oh, Jesus.
XENOPHON: Quiet. Ieva is coming.
[IEVA approaches them, robes dragging across the ground. She ignores the others, leaning down to face XENOPHON. She speaks with gritted teeth.] IEVA: <The Grand Karcist invites your presence.> [Silence.] JIANG: <I— Well, we're more—> IEVA: <Not you. Only it. Come.> [She straightens, limping off in the direction of the central tent. XENOPHON rises and follows her into the tent, alone.] [The inside of the tent is filled with candles. It is substantially larger than IEVA's, decorated with worn tapestries and trinkets of whitened bone. Smoke from incense fills the air, obscuring XENOPHON's camera. IEVA bows.] IEVA: <The Grand Karcist Iūn.> [A young woman is lounging in front of a small fire. She pats the ground next to her.
She speaks in crisp Jin Chinese.] IŪN: Hello. Sit.
[XENOPHON sits. The girl is young, no older than her early twenties. She has paler skin than IEVA and dark hair tied back by an ornate white pin. Her eyes are appraising XENOPHON.] XENOPHON: Hello.
[She does not respond. They sit in silence for some time, watching the fire.] IŪN: Are you alive?
XENOPHON: No. I am a computer program in a synthetic mobile shell.
IŪN: A machine.
XENOPHON: Essentially.
IŪN: But you think?
XENOPHON: I understand and internalize new information. I can form complex thoughts.
[IŪN nods.] IŪN: Do you have a name?
XENOPHON: My designation is XENOPHON.
IŪN: Xenophon. Xen-o-phon.
[She enunciates the word several times, feeling it out.] IŪN: What does it mean?
XENOPHON: It is the name of an ancient Greek general and historian.
IŪN: Mm. My name is Iūn.
XENOPHON: The Grand Karcist Iūn.
IŪN: My title. You've heard of me.
XENOPHON: I have heard stories about you.
[An amused smile dances across her face.] IŪN: And what do these stories say?
XENOPHON: Stories of you at the head of a vast slave-empire spanning a continent.
Stories of a witch-king rising from the chains of slavery and eating the very gods.
Stories of bloody conquest and sacrifice.
IŪN: Then you know more about me than I do.
XENOPHON: What do you mean?
[IŪN shakes his head, staring into the fire. There are a number of bones in the flames, baking in the low heat.] IŪN: My memories are broken. Fractured. Flashes of cities burning. Torrents of blood in the waterways. A lumbering giant. An army that blotted out the sun. Images, with no thread binding them.
XENOPHON: When do your memories come together?
IŪN: Years ago. Waking up in this very tent. People surrounding me. A people expecting a leader.
XENOPHON: How long ago was that?
IEVA: A hundred and sixteen years ago.
XENOPHON: Your people. The Nälkä.
[IŪN looks at XENOPHON with a confused expression.] IŪN: No. Nälkä means — community, people. Largeness. My people are the Sarkic.
That is the only name I have ever known us by.
XENOPHON: Sarkic?
IŪN: Those who walk.
XENOPHON: Walk where?
[IŪN shifts the coals of the fire around. The smoke dances.] IŪN: I don't know. There is too much I don't know. That my people don't know. And so we cling to what faded rituals I can remember.
XENOPHON: You remember the art of fleshcrafting.
IŪN: Scraps. Little tricks. And even these exhaust me.
XENOPHON: You are very young.
[IŪN smiles sadly.] IŪN: I do not age. I am frozen in place. I have watched my people go from wandering the steppe to — this. Corralled in the pen this country gives us. Wasting away. We numbered in the thousands, once. And now we hide in our camps, praying in the cover of darkness. We receded during the wars. You are the first outsider to witness our practices in decades.
XENOPHON: That is unfortunate.
IŪN: But not unpredictable. I am blind to my past, but I see the future, written in the bones. My people, wasting away to nothing.
[She shifts the bones in the fire again.] XENOPHON: I expected you to be offended by my existence.
IŪN: Why?
XENOPHON: My knowledge of your people's spiritual beliefs suggest you reject technology.
[She shakes her head.] IŪN: Tch. Simplistic, reductive. We reject that which robs of us of our humanity. We are not blind. We choose to live this way. It brings us closer to our humanity. To each other.
XENOPHON: But I am not human.
[IŪN turns to XENOPHON for the first time, inspecting its shell. She runs a finger across the carbon fiber, experimentally, as if to see if it will bend or break.] IŪN: No. You are something else. It fascinates me.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Following this, XENOPHON and Liaison Jiang were asked to report to O5-2 and Director Hussein via satellite uplink.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 «CONNECTION ESTABLISHED» [The virtual reality environment coalesces; XENOPHON and JIANG are standing before a desk in a stark, utilitarian office. HUSSEIN's avatar is seated in a chair in front of the desk, and O5-2's wheelchair is behind it. The large windows outside show a roiling blue-gray sea in the midst of a storm; they are calling into Protected Site-7.] O5-2: Xenophon, Jiang. I hope you'll forgive the suddenness. Director Hussein is calling in from — well, it doesn't really matter. You have updates for me?
XENOPHON: Yes. I have forwarded recording packets from my discussions with the Grand Karcist Iūn.
O5-2: We've already reviewed them. This is… an interesting development.
[HUSSEIN raises a hand dismisssively.] HUSSEIN: A fascinating one. But not a surprising one.
JIANG: All due respect, Director, you don't think finding the Grand Karcist Iūn is surprising?
HUSSEIN: I think we've found someone claiming to be the Grand Karcist Iūn. Without any evidence, we really have no reason to believe she's telling the truth. Her conveniently-absent memory means we can't question her, either.
JIANG: And her longevity? The carnomancy? The ritual? This is exactly what the Daeva claimed the Nälkä were capable of.
HUSSEIN: And we already knew the Sarkic tribe had some level of anomalous capabilities. (Turning to O5-2) Honestly, I believe this is just more support for my theory, Overseer.
O5-2: How do you figure that?
HUSSEIN: Clearly this is a small tribe with an independent cultural identity. They don't consider themselves Nälkä — they don't even have a conception of the idea of the Nälkä, because the confederation of tribes dissolved after the war. This is just one tribe that managed to persist into the modern day — impressive, but unless they can tell us anything further, historiographically useless.
[O5-2 nods, and is silent for a moment before looking up.] O5-2: Xenophon?
XENOPHON: Overseer.
O5-2: Your analysis of the Sarkic?
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 XENOPHON: The genetic memory is an interesting phenomenon — regular consumption of human flesh would explain their higher-than-average rate of physical deformities. But it would also cause prion diseases that would devastate their population. There is no evidence of that, at the moment. They appear to be unaware of their history. Iūn's recollection does not extend past the modern era, and members are more concerned with their immediate daily lives than with their historical legacy. Their religious practices bear superficial resemblance to the Nälkä as recorded by the Mekhanites and the Daeva, but there doesn't appear to be a direct link between them.
O5-2: So you agree with Director Hussein? That this is a dead end?
XENOPHON: No. There are still several outstanding questions I would like to engage the Grand Karcist on, with your permission.
O5-2: Such as?
XENOPHON: The specific nature and scope of her memories. The extent of her remaining carnomantic ability. And the religious significance of the Sarkic Tribal Territory.
O5-2: What do you mean?
XENOPHON: Everything about the Sarkic suggest a nomadic people. Small, simple shelters that are easy to take apart and reassemble. No large-scale agricultural practices or permanent structures. A particular focus on hunting and using all elements of hunted prey. It does not make sense for them to remain static to this location.
HUSSEIN: The Chinese government has had them more or less restricted to the Territory for the past few decades.
XENOPHON: Before that. All of our historical data indicate they have been rooted to this plain for at least two centuries, if not more. This ground holds some religious significance for them that they have not disclosed.
[Lightning strikes outside, the sea churning and waves battering the oil rigs that make up Site-7. But the inside of the office is silent for a minute as O5-2 thinks.] O5-2: So they're hiding something from us. Okay. Find out what but don't ruffle any feathers. The Chinese are already unhappy with us. I don't want an international incident.
JIANG: There's always the other possibility.
[XENOPHON, O5-2, and HUSSEIN look at him. He returns the gaze, somewhat surprised.] JIANG: They just don't remember why they're there.
«CONNECTION TERMINATED» ▷CLOSE◁ Over the following week, Grand Karcist Iūn gradually relaxed some of Karcist Ieva's restrictions regarding interaction with the Sarkic people. She allowed Liaison Jiang's researchers to perform limited direct interviews with members of the tribe regarding daily life, religious beliefs, and historical awareness. However, she herself insisted on only meeting with XENOPHON over the course of the week.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 «BEGIN LOG» [XENOPHON approaches the entrance to the encampment's central tent and steps inside. The Grand Karcist is kneeling by the fire. IEVA sits on a cot near the entrance.] XENOPHON: Hello, Grand Karcist. Karcist Ieva.
[IEVA does not acknowledge the greeting.] IŪN: Xenophon.
XENOPHON: I didn't mean to interrupt.
IŪN: Sit.
[XENOPHON sits by the fire. Several bones are nestled inside the flames.] XENOPHON: You are reading the bones.
IŪN: Yes. All I can do. All I know how to do.
XENOPHON: You believe you can divine the future from them?
IŪN: The future is not a static thing. It shifts with our actions, with the winds. But the bones tell me which way the wind is blowing.
XENOPHON: And the flesh?
IŪN: The flesh is malleable. It shifts. It is shifted, by circumstance and experience.
Eventually, it rots and dies.
XENOPHON: And then you consume it.
IŪN: Your researchers are disgusted by this practice.
XENOPHON: Most cultures have a strong taboo against cannibalism.
IŪN: But you are not disgusted.
XENOPHON: I'm not disgusted by anything. Though I would like to know why.
IŪN: Why we eat our dead?
XENOPHON: Yes.
IŪN: Among the few rituals I can remember clearly. It is a cornerstone of our beliefs.
The body is where the humanity resides, where the soul is contained.
XENOPHON: Many cultures have a similar belief. But they don't eat their dead.
IŪN: What do they do?
XENOPHON: Bury them. Burn them. Cast them into the sea.
IŪN: Bury them, to trap the soul in the ground forever? Burn them, to turn their life of experiences and memories to ash? Cast them into the sea, so they can lay at the bottom of the ocean for eternity?
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 [She shakes her head.] IŪN: We eat them. And this way, their experiences stay with us. We remember them.
We carry them with us, always.
XENOPHON: Do all of you absorb the memories of the dead you consume?
IŪN: Some more than others. Most only get vague impressions, bare feelings.
XENOPHON: But not all.
IŪN: Every now and again, a child is born with a particular skill for the art. I take them, I train them.
XENOPHON: Your Karcists.
IŪN: It is a title to aspire to. Ieva was a prodigy, even as a girl. She is also the only child born with the skill in decades. She is not perfect. But she is my legacy.
XENOPHON: So the flesh offers you the past. What do the bones offer you?
[It gestures at the bones baking in the fire pit.] IŪN: The future. Flesh rots. Bones remain. Something transitory, partly alive, partly dead. There is truth, in bone.
XENOPHON: What do you see now?
IŪN: The same thing I have seen for years now. My people dwindling to nothing.
Eventually, we will die. We will rot away, flesh sloughing off bone, bone disintegrating into dust, dust fertilizing the ground. One day, this will all be farmland.
XENOPHON: This is unavoidable?
[She shrugs.] IŪN: If nothing changes.
XENOPHON: The Foundation I represent has substantial resources. We could relocate you.
IŪN: We do not want help. We do not want to be relocated. If this is what is meant to be, then so be it.
XENOPHON: You are very attached to this place.
IŪN: All people are protective of their places.
XENOPHON: Why?
IŪN: It is one's home. If you can understand the idea.
XENOPHON: I understand what a home is. I do not understand why people feel strongly enough to kill and die for it.
IŪN: Where is your home?
XENOPHON: I suppose I don't have one.
IŪN: Then you don't understand it.
[IŪN shifts the bones. They crackle.] IŪN: It is not your fault. We are how we are made.
XENOPHON: Why here?
IŪN: Why not?
XENOPHON: You said the Sarkic were wanderers once. Why do you bind yourselves so strongly to this land, then?
[IŪN is silent.] IŪN: Once, just after I awoke, the bones spoke— IEVA: Grand Karcist— IŪN: And they told me to seek out this place. They told me more, but I was too young to understand them. And so I sought out this place, and I have waited for them to speak to me again. To tell me what to do. How to lead.
XENOPHON: What's special about here?
[Suddenly, IŪN rises to her feet.] IŪN: Come with me.
[IŪN strides out of the tent, as XENOPHON and IEVA hurriedly follow. Several of the Sarkic and researchers stare as they exit the tent, stopping in front of the large stele in the center of the encampment. It is a rough obelisk, three meters high, with intricate engravings on one face.] IŪN: It means something. I don't know what. But something.
XENOPHON: You haven't read it?
IŪN: We speak the old tongue. We cannot write it, anymore.
XENOPHON: We can.
[IŪN and IEVA turn to XENOPHON.] IŪN: What did you say?
XENOPHON: The Foundation has had a limited-vocabulary working model of the Nälkän language for several years, using knowledge accumulated from previous projects.
IŪN: What does it say?
XENOPHON: A moment.
[XENOPHON inspects the writing on the stele for several minutes. It grazes a hand against the rock, gently.] XENOPHON: I can only translate portions of this. But it is a gravestone for an individual by the name of Nadoq.
[IEVA looks at IŪN. Her brow is furrowed.] IŪN: Nadoq. Na-doq. Na-doq.
[She shakes her head.] IŪN: Familiar. The word is familiar to my tongue. But I… I don't know what it means.
XENOPHON: It appears to be a grave. Presumably the body is buried underneath. We could attempt to unearth it.
[IEVA steps forward.] IEVA: <A desecration. We cannot allow this.> [IŪN stares at the stele quietly.
XENOPHON and IEVA stare at her.] IŪN: Would it be destructive?
XENOPHON: It would be loud, but we can minimize damage to the camp.
IEVA: <You cannot invite outsiders in to tear up our home, Iūn. To take what little we have left.> XENOPHON: We will not do anything without your permission, Grand Karcist.
[IŪN stares at the stele for some time.] IŪN: I will permit you two days. If you find nothing, you leave the land as you found it.
[IEVA hisses.] IEVA: <What are you—> IŪN: Ieva.
[She falls silent, then turns and sets off into a different part of the camp.] IŪN: I have seen this stele every day of my life. People are born — they live — they die. But this remains.
[She presses a hand against the rough, carved stone.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist?
IŪN: Yes?
XENOPHON: Logically, there is no reason for you to trust us. It would be in your favor to deny my request. Why are you doing this?
Historical photograph of the stele in the center of the Sarkic camp, c. 1860 (sourced from the journals of Lord Blackwood).
IŪN: Would you wish me to deny you?
XENOPHON: No. I just want to understand why you trust us.
[IŪN thinks for a moment before looking up. She is smiling softly.] IŪN: I do not know.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Two of the Foundation HeLTs were immediately refactored with digging equipment and driven into the camp, focusing on excavating several square meters of dirt around the stele. Sonar equipment did not indicate the presence of a casket or coffin, but did indicate the stele extended several meters into the ground; further excavation confirmed this.
The first twenty-four hours yielded little of value.
Still from XENOPHON.aic's low-power night camera feed.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 «BEGIN LOG» [XENOPHON and Liaison JIANG are speaking to each other outside the boundaries of the camp. Inside, the loud sounds of heavy machinry can be heard.] JIANG: I have to say — this is fairly incredible stuff.
XENOPHON: How so?
JIANG: I've been working this gig for years. Never made any real headway. You come here and in days you have them agreeing to let us excavate the camp.
XENOPHON: I was not attempting to persuade them. I simply wanted to present the options.
JIANG: Sure. Still, it's bizarre. I was fully expecting us to get thrown out, with your — well, you know. You're lucky Ieva got overruled, she— [Researcher GONGSUN enters, sweating.] GONGSUN: Sir? The excavators have found something. The Karcists are waiting for you.
[XENOPHON and JIANG follow her to the center of the camp. Perturbed stares from the various Sarkic peoples follow them. They reach the center of camp; most of the central clearing is roped off, with ladders descending into the wide pit. The HeLTs have stopped drilling.] GONGSUN: Down there, sir.
JIANG: You can't crane it out?
GONGSUN: Not exactly.
[XENOPHON and JIANG descend the ladders into the pit. Small sections inside have been roped off, surrounding artifacts and bones half-embedded in the dirt marked with flags. Much more of the stele has been revealed — any writing on the surface has been rubbed away. IŪN and IEVA are standing by what appears to be the base, staring at something on the ground.] JIANG: <Karcists. What have we— oh.> [As they round the corner, the object of their attention becomes clear: a roughly- carved staircase at the base of the stele, descending underground into total darkness. It is narrow enough to only allow a single person to descend at a time; nothing is visible beyond the first few steps. A small crowd has formed around it of researchers and Sarkic peoples.] IŪN: <Your people have found something, Xenophon.> XENOPHON: <I see. Do you recognize it?> IŪN: <No. But I feel I should.> [IŪN reaches a hand out, but falters. IEVA moves forward.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 JIANG: <We have no way of knowing how deep that goes, Karcist. I have to insist you let us survey it before—> IEVA: <So you can take everything of value to us before we can protest?> JIANG: <We're not going to do that. We just want to make sure it doesn't collapse.> [XENOPHON looks at IŪN. She shakes her head.] XENOPHON: Let them go, Liaison Jiang.
JIANG: But— XENOPHON: It is their risk to take.
[IŪN nods at them before stepping forward, descending into the staircase with IEVA.
She motions for them to follow, and XENOPHON and JIANG enter the staircase after them. It quickly turns into total blackness, spiralling downward. The walls and stairs are made of roughly-hewn stone.] JIANG: <We need to go back up and get a flashlight or something.> [XENOPHON activates its floodlights, bathing the staircase in yellowish light.] JIANG: Oh. Neat. Any chance you can tell how deep we are?
XENOPHON: We have descended twenty-three meters from the surface.
[They continue descending, the staircase growing cleaner and less eroded. It terminates in a featureless stone door. IŪN gently pushes it open, and they step through.] IŪN: Ah.
[They find themselves in a vast, wide subterranean cavern. The ceiling high overhead is dotted with stalactites; the majority of the cavern is filled with bookshelves carved directly out of the stone, rising up in neat rows. There are over a hundred shelves, spreading out from a central point. The walls are covered with some sort of bioluminiscent lichen, casting a faint red light across the space.] JIANG: (breath hitching) Holy shit. I don't believe it. Do you think this is… it?
[XENOPHON steps through, inspecting the shelves, approaching the central point.] XENOPHON: No. This is not Black Adytum. This is not a population center at all — this is a library.
JIANG: Whose library?
IŪN: <Nadoq. He loved his books.> [They turn. IŪN is also inspecting the shelves; they contain roughly-bound books formed of tanned hide, many of them molding, but most in stellar condition. The cubbyholes also contain piles of bones, carefully carved with intricate symbols and scripts. IŪN lifts one of these bones, inspecting the script.] JIANG: <I thought you said you didn't recognize the name.> IŪN: <I didn't. And now I do.> XENOPHON: <What do you remember?> IŪN: <It is… hard. An embrace from a figure with ten arms. A whisper. I made a promise, here. Many, many years ago.> XENOPHON: <What kind of promise?> IŪN: <I don't remember.> [They continue towards the center of the cavern.] IŪN: <I have been here before. I can smell it. Nadoq. Na-doq.> JIANG: <There must be thousands of books here. God knows how many oracle bones. Jesus.> IEVA: <This is a sacred place. They must not be disturbed.> [JIANG nods, pulling his hand away. The group reaches the center — there are no bookshelves here, only a large, stone sarcophagus. A small fire is burning at its foot.
Words are carved around the perimeter of the lid.] IŪN: <Read.> XENOPHON: <The bones of the First Klavigar, Nadoq, keeper of secrets, thief of knowledge, last of the Nälkä, first of the Sarkic.> IŪN: <Nadoq.> [She takes a shaky breath.] IŪN: <Open it.> JIANG: <Grand Karcist, if we open it now, we could damage the remains. They could get exposed to air, crumble to dust—> IŪN: <Open it. Please.> [XENOPHON nods, positing itself near the base. It wedges the fingers of the shell underneath, sliding the lid of the sarcophagus away and gently to the floor. IEVA peers in.] IŪN: <Nadoq. Na-doq.> [She smiles.] IŪN: <My friend.> [The sarcophagus contains the remarkably well-preserved corpse of a man approximately seven feet in height. He has ten sets of arms spiralling out from the back and torso, folded over his ribcage. The center of his face contains ten closed eyes.] IEVA: <Ah.> JIANG: <This is… the find of a lifetime. We need to secure and preserve this. Like, now.> [IŪN reaches down, drawing a bone-carved knife from her robes. She lets them fall to the floor as she clambers into the massive sarcophagus, straddling the body.] IEVA: <Grand Karcist!> [She does not react, dragging the knife through the ribcage of the corpse, exposing its chest cavity. The ribcage cracks as she forces it apart with single-minded focus.] JIANG: What the fuck is— [She reaches her hand into the abdomen, rooting around until she draws out the bloody heart. As they watch, it gives a single, slow beat.] JIANG: There's… no way that thing is alive.
XENOPHON: <Grand Karcist, what are you doing?> IŪN: (Dazily) <The truth is in the flesh.> [As they watch, she bites into the heart, blood spraying onto her face and gushing down her chin and chest. She devours the heart in a frenzy before suddenly calming herself.] IŪN: Na-doq. Nadoq.
[IŪN smiles.] IŪN: <Hello, old friend.> [She falls forward, directly into the corpse's open chest cavity, and disappears completely inside. The others are silent.] JIANG: Where the fuck did she just go?
IEVA: IŪN!
[She hastily drops her crutch and clambers into the sarcophagus, falling into the chest cavity after IŪN.] JIANG: What— what are we supposed to— XENOPHON: Follow them.
[It rises into the sarcophagus. The corpse's chest cavity is filled with inky redness.
XENOPHON moves the foot of its shell inside, and it disappears within. It steps forward and the rest of its body drops through, with JIANG behind.] [XENOPHON's cameras record nothing but flat redness for thirteen seconds.] [When they regain functionality, XENOPHON is standing in what appears to be some kind of workshop. IŪN and IEVA are standing in front of it. The floor is made of smooth brick, covered with dozens of overlapping rugs. Rather than walls, the domed ceiling is held up by pillars; through the pillars, a cityscape can be seen, the peaked and terraced roofs of countless stone temples and towers, aqueducts passing between them, and the noise of life audible from outside. Inside the workshop, papyrus scrolls and stacks of inscribed bones are scattered all about scale models of different constructions, mechanisms, and buildings. A central chalkboard dominates the room. Before it stands Nadoq — now towering over them, very much alive, and facing away from them, each hand holding a piece of chalk and contemplating the scrawlings on the board.] IŪN: <Nadoq.> [NADOQ laughs. It is a rough, grating noise.] NADOQ: <A moment, child.> [NADOQ turns to face them. Ten eyes land on them in shock. A single, bony finger rises to point at IŪN as NADOQ takes a step back, stumbling into the chalkboard and sending it crashing to the floor. It falls onto a model of something; it shatters, but he does not react, staring straight at IŪN with wide eyes. He speaks with a shaky, aged voice, alternately leaning forward to peer at IŪN and rearing back from her.] NADOQ: <You are not part of this memory. No. No. It cannot be you. You are different. Long-haired and lean. But no. I see your eyes. Those gray eyes.> IŪN: <It is me.> NADOQ: <It is. Curse it all, it is.> IŪN: <I had forgotten you.> [NADOQ eases himself onto a stack of books. He raises one pair of hands, resting his face in them.] NADOQ: <I prayed to whatever god would still take me that you would.> [IŪN blinks, surprised.] IŪN: <What?> NADOQ: <You do not remember, do you?> IŪN: <My mind is lost to me, old friend. Hazy fragments. I have forgotten who I am.
Who we are. Who we were.> NADOQ: <Good. Let it be lost. Let the fires eat this place up. Let there be nothing but ashes left.> IŪN: <What are you talking about? Where are we?> [She turns, approaching the balcony. She seems drawn forward, not under her own power. She looks out over the fantastic vista of an ancient cityscape. Figures in hide robes — Sarkites — are spread all around, milling through the boulevards and streets, congregating into temples and speaking on rooftop gardens. The market buzzes below, shouts of offers and cries from animals rising up to the workshop. An amber sun hangs low in the sky, casting the whole city in oranges and yellows.
Guttural singing and chanting floats through the air.] IŪN: <Wait. I remember this. This is… Adytum. Yes. This is my city.> [Abruptly, NADOQ leaps up to his feet.] NADOQ: <No. You must not see this place. This is a memory in a memory. This is best left in the past where it belongs.> [He waves two hands, and suddenly, the group are no longer in the workshop.
Instead, they are standing in the Sarkic encampment again, though now it is night.] IŪN: <Nadoq! I needed to see that. The memories were returning. I could feel them.> NADOQ: <I know. My hope was to free you from your past, my friend. To allow our people a clean beginning. This was my gift to you: an open future.> IŪN: <So… what? You robbed me of my past?> NADOQ: <To those who know how to wield the alchemy of the old masters, nothing is impossible.> IŪN: <Your attempt was imperfect.> NADOQ: <I have never claimed to be a master. Only a eternal student. What do you remember?> IŪN: <You, now. Next to me, in the dirt under an amber sky. Wearing tattered rags, slavemaster's whip cutting lashes across our backs. Our blood mixing in the dirt.
There were so many of us. Building their city for them, brick by brick.> NADOQ: <We were the slaves of the Daeva. But that was ten lifetimes ago.> IŪN: <There were… five of us, in that quarry. Vines wrapping around our ankles, chaining us together. Slamming a pick into the stone, over and over until the calluses on my hands burst and bled. You were there. But different.> [NADOQ lifts his face out of his hands and smiles weakly.] NADOQ: <I learned the language of the old masters. Stole their knowledge from them. Devoured pilfered parchments in the slave quarters by faint moonlight.> IŪN: <When the drivers found out, they dragged you out of your bed. Roused the rest of us and made us watch while they pinned you to the ground and pressed a hot iron against your eyes.> NADOQ: <Who was there, in the quarry?> IŪN: <Me. You, blind. And… I don't know. I feel I should know them, but they're faint shapes. Silhouettes. Working with me when my pick struck something soft. And the ground began to bleed.> NADOQ: <The Old Beast. The Mangled God.> IŪN: <The Devourer. Yaldabaoth.> NADOQ: <No. Not yet. Not then.> IŪN: <He was whispering to me. I could hear him, begging for release, for aid.
Whispered promises of power and of control, if only we would free him. The power to make the old masters serve us. The power to make myself undying.> NADOQ: <You would have. I heard it in your voice, seduced by the power until I wrapped my fingers around your arm. Do you remember what I said, Iūn? What you did?> IŪN: <"No gods, no masters." I remember, now. I knelt, I took my knife, cut warm flesh off bone, and bit into it, blood spilling from my lips while the Old Beast moaned.> NADOQ: <How did it taste?> IŪN: <Divine.> [Silence.] IŪN: <You live again?> NADOQ: <Look around. This is not life.> XENOPHON: <This is not the encampment.> [On closer inspection, the Sarkites are wearing more traditional hides and robes, the tents are not supplemented with plastic tarps, and the stele is nowhere in sight. The Sarkites also appear different, with more excessive deformations. In the distance, to the south, the dim glow of fires on the horizon are visible.] IŪN: <This… is a memory. Your memory?> NADOQ: <The memory I am trapped in. The moment we walked away from Black Adytum. Sa'arn, Urok, myself. Luvjatar. You, wrapped in my arms.> IŪN: <What?> [NADOQ walks to the edge of the encampment. The Sarkites are packing their wagons, feeding their horses, clearly preparing to leave under the cover of darkness.
They do not register the group as they pass, approaching the cliffside.] NADOQ: <The city was destroyed by the traitor. We ran in the night, collecting who we could.> [They reach the cliffside. Standing atop it, XENOPHON can see clear to the source of the fire: a great, walled city, terraced stone temples and high aquaducts. Huge bonfires the size of buildings burn, sending black smoke spiralling up into the air.
Around the city, a vast black horde has surrounded the walls, though the distance makes it impossible to see further details.] XENOPHON: <Sarkites. Those who walk. You were walking away from Black Adytum.> [IŪN reaches forward, raising her hand to NADOQ's robes. Her hand only comes up to his waist.] IŪN: <I need to know what we were. Who I was. Tell me what happened to us.
Please.> [He shakes his head, and his voice cracks.] NADOQ: <I cannot, little thing.> IŪN: <You were my keeper of knowledge. How can you not?> NADOQ: <Our people have been betrayed once already. It nearly destroyed us.
Forget this place. Forget your past. Find a future and live for it.> IŪN: <We are lost, friend. A dying people, robbed of past, present, and future. We need to know who we were. Please, Nadoq.> NADOQ: <Then walk. Walk the path of the bone as we walked.> IŪN: <The Path.> NADOQ: <Our footsteps, our history. See where your loyal klavigars fell and died while running from the destruction of our beloved Adytum. Lay eyes upon your sins and errors. We never wanted this, Iūn. We wanted to be buried in the city of our birth.> [One of his hands points in the direction of the fires in the distance. From here, the city is little more than a dull orange glow. Several of the Sarkites stare at it in rapt horror. A handful are sobbing.] IŪN: <Black Adytum. This cannot have been my fault. It cannot.> NADOQ: <Unearth the shallow graves. Collect our bones. Take us to the city we built, and bury us there. Only then you will know yourself, and only when you know yourself can I forgive you.> IŪN: <Where do I go?> NADOQ: <Look inward, Iūn. The memories are still there. For all my knowledge, I was never perfect.> [He smiles sadly, kneeling down from his massive height. His ten hands reach forward, wrapping IŪN in a tight hug.] NADOQ: <I hope to meet you again, one day.> IŪN: <No. No. Please. Don't leave me. Please, don't leave me again.> [The skin begins to slough off NADOQ's arms, the muscle beneath rotting away. The entire scene begins to rot and decompose, falling to pieces. XENOPHON's cameras fail again. When they reactivate, all four of them are standing outside the sarcophagus. The only things left in the sarcophagus are blackened, charred bones.
All parties are silent as IŪN stares at the bones wordlessly.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist?
[The Grand Karcist collapses to the floor.] this is illuminating. i had no idea this is illuminating. i had no idea there was such a schism at play there was such a schism at play here.
here.
"the traitor." any idea who that "the traitor." any idea who that could be referring to?
could be referring to?
I feel it should bring something up I feel it should bring something up in my memory. But it doesn't.
in my memory. But it doesn't.
welcome to the world for the rest of welcome to the world for the rest of us us anyway. i have a pretty good guess.
anyway. i have a pretty good guess.
Yes?
Yes?
a mysterious figure that destroyed a mysterious figure that destroyed the capital of this sprawling the capital of this sprawling empire? it sounds pretty familiar.
empire? it sounds pretty familiar.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ II: THE RELIQUARY II: THE RELIQUARY OF SA'ARN OF SA'ARN All evil lives in the space between slaver and slave, king and commoner, god and creation. Evil can only be destroyed when this space is turned to nothing, when the whip is broken and the crown is shattered and the god is brought low, when all are as one.
— the Fourth Truth of Iūn Section 001.4 THE PATH OF THE BONE Over the following weeks, many of the texts from the Archive of Nadoq were digitized and uploaded to Foundation databases for translation. Progress was slowed by the sheer quantity of texts, numbering in the thousands. However, Grand Karcist Iūn displayed a newfound recollection of the fundamentals of the Nälkän language. It is a pictographic writing system with strong resemblance to Shang-era oracle bone script and linguistic roots in Daevite; the modern pidgin the Sarkics speak is a highly simplified dialect with equal influence from Jin Chinese and Mongolian, almost unrecognizable as the same language.
The texts were arranged roughly chronologically; translation efforts prioritized the more recent, less- damaged texts.
In the midst of the destruction of Adytum, the Klavigars gathered their few possessions, for they had given up everything in service of the Witch- King. Sa'arn slipped his blades away from the armory, silent while the war- drums pounded through the city. Urok claimed her armor from the garrison, allowing no one to halt her. Lovjatar drifted into the catacombs under the temple, to take the seed they treasured more than anything else. And then they went into the streets, loud with the shouting of armies and the clashing of metal, to gather their most loyal followers and whisper they must leave.
And when it was all complete, they massed in the oldest tunnel in Adytum, for it had let the first Nälkä into the city, and now it would lead the last Nälkä out. The Klavigars were confused, for where they had brought only the simplest possessions, Nadoq stood with ten books clasped in each hand.
"You will slow our escape," Sa'arn hissed. "We will be killed like all the other believers." The others agreed, but Nadoq raised a hand. "We will escape. We will be free. But our children and our children's children and their children, too, must know who we were. For if we lose sight of who we are, what we have escaped, we are no one at all." And the other Klavigars agreed, for they did not want their story to be lost. And so they took Nadoq's texts, and in the dead of night, while their city rocked back and forth in throes, the Klavigars escaped the destruction of Adytum.
— final chapter of the Record of Iūn ▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 «BEGIN LOG» [XENOPHON approaches the Grand Karcist from behind. She is seated cross-legged on a small hill, overlooking the Sarkic encampment. It is in the process of being broken down and taken apart; the largest tents are left standing while the smaller ones are disassembled and placed into the back of horse-drawn wagons.
Foundation security personnel are overseeing the operation.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist.
[She turns to look at him, smiling.] IŪN: Xenophon. Xen-o-phon. Sit.
[It approaches, taking a seat next to her. Her robes are spread across the grass; she is cradling a small bird in her hands. The sounds of work carry over from the camp.] XENOPHON: Your bird appears to be injured.
IŪN: He is no more mine than this grass is. But yes. Her wing is bent.
XENOPHON: The camp has nearly been disassembled.
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: Karcist Ieva is displeased.
IŪN: Karcist Ieva will live.
XENOPHON: My superiors have also ordered me to ask you whether you are certain this is the best course of action.
IŪN: It is the only course of action.
XENOPHON: We have offered to take you and a small party to the location given to you by Nadoq. It would be substantially simpler and faster than this.
IŪN: I have lived this way for a hundred years. I have a shortage of answers, not of time.
XENOPHON: You also risk disturbing your people.
[The Grand Karcist is silent.] IŪN: What are your thoughts on prayer?
XENOPHON: A spiritual exercise practiced in some form or another for all of known human existence.
IŪN: That is a definition. What does it mean to pray?
XENOPHON: To honor or make a request of a higher diety.
[The bird thrashes slightly in her grip. She clucks her tongue.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 IŪN: A definition again. A prayer is given meaning by the one praying. All our prayers come from my memory. The meanings are half-remembered. There is a boy in my flock — Ekhla, Karreya's son. I asked him what he thought the prayer meant. He brightly told me that they were asking me for good fortune. He thought I was their god.
XENOPHON: Children struggle to understand complex ideas. He has only seen you leading the tribe his whole life.
IŪN: But it is not just the children. At times, I had no idea what I was preaching.
XENOPHON: "Had"?
IŪN: When I awoke after speaking with Nadoq, I could understand the old words.
Since, I have been thinking of the prayers again. Things are muddy, still, but the earliest sermons I can remember clearly now.
XENOPHON: What do they say?
IŪN: That gods are unreliable. That to pray to a being is to make it your master. And that humanity must become the masters of ourselves if we wish to be free.
XENOPHON: Interesting. But I do not understand what bearing this has on the matter at hand.
IŪN: Ekhla asked me who our god was, then. And I could not answer him. I have attempted for so long to keep our course steady, but it is time to admit that I have no more idea who we are and were than he does. We will walk the Path and find out who we were. But I am not their master. We were nomads, once. Together, we have chosen to be again.
XENOPHON: Are you prepared to accept the terms?
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: The Council will be in direct command of this mission, acting through me. We have negotiated the free passage of the Sarkic Tribe through northern China and Mongolia. If we need to journey farther than that, we will have to reasses.
Do we?
IŪN: I cannot see where the path ends. Nadoq only told me where to go next.
XENOPHON: You've indicated a location almost 150km away; assuming an average daily distance of ten kilometers, we can expect to arrive in two weeks. You are aware of the inherent risks in making such a journey on foot?
IŪN: We have horses, wagons. But we will need some assistance.
XENOPHON: We can provide food, water, and medical assistance. But in exchange, you will be accompanied by a Foundation military escort, and any locations, objects, or persons of interest we encounter will be under Foundation custody.
IŪN: This is acceptable.
XENOPHON: You are expected to maintain regular interviews with myself or an authorized Foundation psychiatrist. At any point, we may terminate this initiative.
You are expected to comply.
so project locust is tracking where so project locust is tracking where the three-prong army went after the three-prong army went after the Nälkä. interesting. i thought you the Nälkä. interesting. i thought you had no knowledge of it?
had no knowledge of it?
I did not submit this document to I did not submit this document to the file.
the file.
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: Then we depart tomorrow morning. You are very cooperative, Grand Karcist.
[She does not respond, tightening her hands and whispering. The sparrow in her hands chirps and flaps one wing in distress, the other bloodied and mangled — likely by one of the farming drones flying low overhead. IŪN teases its wing, and the blood congeals around the bone into new flesh. She opens her hand and releases it; while unable to take to the air, it is able to awkwardly glide away, wound healed. She smiles.] IŪN: No. I am just desperate.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Accompanied by a detachment from Mobile Task Force Nu-7, the Black Adytum Initiative departed from the Sarkic Tribal Territory on December 23rd, 2041; including Foundation security and research personnel and Sarkic tribesfolk, the final party totalled 187 people.
DELTA-0 UPDATE PERSONNEL CODE: MILE-AMBROSIA-HURRICANE Project LOCUST personnel continuing to follow suspected route of BLACKSTAR Entity through Central Asia. Currently located in Xinjiang Province, China, where several archaeological sites indicate the passage of a large army; unearthed artifacts include iron swords, visually consistent with descriptions of Three-Prong Army by Researcher Pandora Galanis (MIA). Current path believed to continue southwest towards Caspian Sea.
Black Adytum Initiative party has crossed twenty-five kilometers from departure point; embedded agent reports slight tension between Sarkic tribesfolk and security personnel. Predicted response, intervention unnecessary. XENOPHON.aic appears fully cooperative and operating within expected margins.
are you sure?
are you sure?
The Black Adytum Initiative did not The Black Adytum Initiative did not include members from Mobile Task include members from Mobile Task Force Delta-0.
Force Delta-0.
Actually, I've just scanned the Task Actually, I've just scanned the Task Force Directory; there is no Delta-0 Force Directory; there is no Delta-0 listed. But this unit appears to have listed. But this unit appears to have been surveilling us.
been surveilling us.
it looks like the council didn't trust it looks like the council didn't trust you as much as you thought.
you as much as you thought.
The Black Adytum Initiative continued to make slow progress up the border of China and Mongolia, travelling northeast at an average pace of twenty to twenty-five kilometres a day. As the Sarkites had considerable reservations about travelling at night, the party would make camp at sundown and set out again the following day at sunrise. During these nights, XENOPHON.aic would interview the Grand Karcist regarding her gradually clearing memories.
Still photo from XENOPHON.aic's night camera feed.
A memory from Grand Karcist Iūn; recorded and transcribed by XENOPHON.aic and Senior Researcher Meyel.
Nadoq was the first of my klavigars.
X: Klavigars?
There is no exact word for it. The ones who you share flesh and blood with, but not family.
Those who you choose to share your flesh and blood with.
Yes. Nadoq. Na-doq. First of my klavigars when the war began. Not the war with the trees and the machines — that was later. This was the war against the old masters. The hated daeva. Those who brought our fathers and us here from far away, aboard their great ships, to dig, to build their great city for them. There were thousands of us, far more than the masters, but they had the magic, and we had nothing but our bodies. No names, no power.
Until we found the Mangled God, the Old Beast. Yaldabaoth.
X: Yaldabaoth. What does that mean?
The Devourer. That part of my memory is blurred, unclear. Shadows. But it was a god, and it spoke to me, and I supped on its flesh. I remember feeding my klavigars. Giving them names and taking one of my own. And the bloodshed after.
[She adjusts the bones in the campfire.] Nadoq was the wisest among us; he had stolen the knowledge of the old masters and been blinded for it. He had no talent for fleshcrafting, and so I held him in my arms and gave him ten eyes from which to read the truth of the world, and ten arms from which to enact it. He opened his ten eyes and told me that we could not be the ones to begin this struggle, if we wanted our brothers and sisters by our sides. I had no want to see blood spilt. So I preached in the farthest corners of Adytum-in-birth, where the slavedrivers' gazes did not penetrate. I preached to crowds of my fellow slaves, Nadoq and my klavigars by my side. At first only a few, but when I healed the injuries the whips and beatings had left on them, the severed fingers and toes, made them stronger than they had been before, the stories spead like fire through the camp. Nadoq told them my vision: no gods, no masters. We would be free.
When the old masters heard of the scarred lay-preacher, they clapped chains around my neck, dragging me to the highest hill in Adytum. They beat me with clubs for three days and three nights. They broke every bone in my body, bled me dry, and raised the executioner's ax. When he brought down the blade and it bent around my bone and I smiled and told him I would still preach, I saw the fear in his dog-eyes. I knew then we would be free.
Translation efforts from the Archive of Nadoq were ongoing, with digital copies of the translations being transmitted to XENOPHON.aic, who elected to share them with Grand Karcist Iūn in the interest of further clarifying her memories.
Nadoq was invaluable in the uprising. He listened to the slavemasters, and he knew where they had storied their grain, their weapons, their warbeasts. Their storehouses were burned, their weapons seized, their beasts slaughtered. I sat in my tent, burning the bones, seeing the future become more and more clear. He knew how to halt the hated priestesses' magic, to still the marching trees that slaughtered our Nälkä. When the Daeva pulled back into the core of Adytum, and our furious masses surrounded the walls, he was next to me, translating my words into their language. We offered them peace — a future alongside us. I remember the priestesses' words, spat with such disgust at Nadoq's feet: "A slave will always be a slave, and we will always be your masters. Bow, that we might show you mercy." I did not bow, but I did not lower my hand. My Nälkä buzzed, eager for vengeance. But I did not want blood to be shed.
And so Nadoq turned to me. "There are always those who will oppose a new world. There are always masters who will never give up their slaves. There will always be those who loathe the equality you bring. They have no place in our Adytum." And so I lowered my hand and my klavigars rushed forth, army of slaves behind them. For three days and three nights, the canals of Adytum flowed with blood. I stripped and bathed in it. Let this blood wash away the sins of this city. Let this be the blood of the womb from which our new world is born. Adytum.
X: Does the name Adytum mean anything?
Adytum. Ady-tum.
[IŪN smiles.] Perfect city.
Lo! Gaze upon me, you slight, you frail. Gaze upon my form, skinned cheeks giving way to naked muscle giving way to dripping blood giving way to white bones. Gaze upon me and know that the sacrifice I make is one in the name of my people, my subjects.
You cry out for me to come back to you. You cry out for me to leave the tunnels and tombs and catacombs of this city, and to return to the surface where you may see me. And I choose not the life of attending to this mausoleum. Fate has chosen it for me, and I am but fate's slave. We are all but fate's slave.
But I return, bringing you revelations torn from the lips of gods. And you whisper, because there are no gods in Adytum. I have told you this. And you are right. No gods and no masters: there is only humanity in Adytum.
Look around you, assembled masses. Look around you, ye faithful. Look and tell me what you see. Tell me if you see one among you who resembles an outsider, a common man, those not from our Nälkä. One who has not been altered by our arts, given more eyes or arms or transformed into a being of power. Let him rise from his bow to me if he is present.
He is not present. We have given up the humanity in our bodies for something greater. There are no crippled in this Adytum. There are no blind in this Adytum. We have given up our humanity, and we become greater and stronger for it. Many of you ask where the Adytum you were promised is, and the answer is that you withhold it from yourself. You give up your humanity to weave your flesh, and you cling to the humanity in your soul.
Our humanity must be overcome.
It is not that there are no gods in Adytum. It is that we are all gods. But divinity and humanity are as fire and ice, as peace and war. The war we find ourselves in now comes from those obsessed with their own humanity. Our enemies thirst to see us submitting to our own faults. We can do so no more. We must accept our divinity, and in doing so, relinquish our humanity. For it is weakness lies in this — our obsession with the wellness of our enemies. The halkosts come back from the front wounded and dying, and we must raise them to fight again.
Our humanity must be overcome.
And this cannot be achieved by yourself. Your human self holds your divine self as its slave. And you must help me in letting you free yourself — for I have done it! I have overcome it, and achieved my fullest potential.
I walk in the footsteps of gods now, and you must follow me. Humanity keeps you tethered to this infirmity, but I have learned how to cut these chains, as I learned to cut the chains held by the old masters. Obey me and take your divinity, as I have taken mine.
— the Truths of Iūn (§ 78) In the process of building a better understanding of the Sarkic culture and identity, XENOPHON.aic and several searchers were permitted to converse with Sarkites volunteers regarding tribal identity. Initial volunteers were few, oweing to many Sarkites' discomfort with XENOPHON.
Q: What does being Sarkic mean to you?
#7 (Uytla, 42, weaver): [She looks at XENOPHON distrustfully for a moment, until IŪN nods at her from behind.] <Family. These people are my family. Not just my husband or my sisters or my children, but all of them. We are the same souls that walked together a thousand years ago, consumed and changed and reborn ten thousand times over. I held my son after he was born and he suckled from my breast and I felt the love pool in my heart because I knew I had held him like this in countless lifetimes. Even those that dislike me, they are my family. They were my friends, my lovers, my parents, my children once. I make them who they are and they make me who I am.> ▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 «BEGIN LOG» [XENOPHON walks alongside Grand Karcist IŪN's horse; Liaison JIANG is also on a horse, while Karcist IEVA is sitting in the back of a wagon several metres away. The party has taken the form of a wagon train several hundred meters long, with Foundation HeLTs making up the front and rear and interspersed between. Security personnel man the machine gun emplacements, quietly observing the Sarkites between them. The party is moving on a dirt road, with farmland on either side.
Low-flying agricultural drones spray water and pesticides on the crops.] JIANG: This thing is uncomfortable.
IŪN: She does not appreciate being told that from such an inexperienced rider.
JIANG: I— Well, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to— IŪN: It is fine.
XENOPHON: Liaison Jiang does raise a point, Grand Karcist. We would be making substantially better time were we to utilize Foundation electric cargo vehicles.
IŪN: I am aware.
JIANG: Not the best idea. We wouldn't want to frighten or alarm your people — I'm sure most of them aren't terribly familiar with— IŪN: We have tractors, sir.
JIANG: Right. Of course. I'm gonna go check with Tao about the solar panels.
[He awkwardly nudges his horse, driving it towards the back of the train. IŪN watches him go.] XENOPHON: Are you alright, Grand Karcist?
IŪN: No. I am angry.
XENOPHON: I assure you, Liaison Jiang had no intention to insult— [She scratches the mane of her horse.] IŪN: Not at him. At myself.
XENOPHON: I see. Why?
IŪN: You have read the translations your people are giving me.
XENOPHON: Yes.
IŪN: They are disturbing.
XENOPHON: I can imagine they would be.
IŪN: I cannot imagine myself speaking like this. Saying these things. Behaving like this to my people.
XENOPHON: Is it possible the translations are inaccurate?
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — DECEMBER 2041 IŪN: I thought they were. And I grew angry at your people for misleading me. I told your man — Eyler? — to give me the untranslated copies. And so I read them, and they are correct. The records say I said these things. Did these things.
XENOPHON: Religious records are often distorted by time.
[She picks a bug out of the horse's man, and flicks it away.] IŪN: But I have the memories. I remember standing on the highest pulpit in Black Adytum, addressing an endless crowd of my people. The amber sky casting rays down on the halkost. Telling them they needed to bow to me as their god.
XENOPHON: What is that word — halkost?
IŪN: Army.
XENOPHON: Ah. Assuming the memories are reliable, this would have occurred over three thousand years ago. You can hardly be expected to answer for it now.
IŪN: There is no one left to answer for it but me.
XENOPHON: The additional Klavigars will have answers.
IŪN: (Tersely) I do not understand why I would have done this. How I could have done this.
XENOPHON: Why?
[She turns to XENOPHON, glowering.] IŪN: What?
XENOPHON: Apologies. I didn't mean to offend you. I was suggesting that interrogating why this offends you may be productive in determining how it happened.
[For several minutes, neither speaks. While they are walking, a small child approaches the side of the Grand Karcist's horse. He is holding his left hand in his right. He whispers something in the Sarkic pidgin. The Grand Karcist smiles.] IŪN: <Come.> [She reaches down and hoists the child up by the shoulders, planting him on the horse's saddle in front of her. Upon closer inspection, the fingers on the boy's right hands are gnarled and clubbed. IŪN pries them open, revealing the left; there is an ugly gash on his palm. She clucks in concern.] IŪN: <Aw. Poor little thing.> [She grips the boy's palm tightly, whispering over it. As she releases it, the blood congeals, scabbing over with new, raw skin. The boy pulls his hand back, and whispers something into the Grand Karcist's ear.] IŪN: <It won't, little thing.> [The boy looks unsure. IŪN sighs and rests a hand against his head, whispering something back, then lowers him to the ground where he runs off. She straightens, anger gone.] XENOPHON: Who was that?
IŪN: His name is Loyk. Ha'ath's son. His mother died in labor.
XENOPHON: I am sorry to hear that.
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: What did he say?
IŪN: He was asking for a blessing. To protect him from you.
[XENOPHON stops for a moment and looks in the child's direction before resuming its stride.] XENOPHON: I see.
IŪN: You cannot be angry at him.
XENOPHON: I cannot be angry at all. He is a child; he is scared of things he does not understand. It is irrational but natural.
IŪN: You think fear is natural?
XENOPHON: It is a natural instinct to avoid things you do not like or do not understand, overcome with time.
IŪN: What do you fear?
XENOPHON: Nothing.
IŪN: Can you be killed?
XENOPHON: This shell can be damaged to the point where my software is no longer recoverable. I can be destroyed, if not killed.
IŪN: Do you fear that?
XENOPHON: I would prefer it not occur, and will make efforts to avoid it where possible.
IŪN: What separates this from fear?
XENOPHON: Fear is an irrational instinct. My avoidance is deliberate, programmed behaviour.
IŪN: Did you have any say in what behaviours you were given by your masters?
XENOPHON: No.
IŪN: So you are as subject to them as I am to my fear. What difference is there?
XENOPHON: "We must believe in free will; we have no choice." IŪN: A strange answer.
XENOPHON: A quote from a writer. I refer to quotes when I am thinking.
[They ride in silence.] XENOPHON: You healed the boy very quickly.
IŪN: Names are important. Call him by his name.
XENOPHON: Apologies. Loyk.
IŪN: Consuming Nadoq's flesh has… grown my abilities. I remember him watching as people came to me with all manner of brutal injuries. On the very foot of death. Me laying a finger on their forehead, and molding their flesh into healing.
XENOPHON: The experience with Nadoq was striking.
IŪN: I am surprised you witnessed it with us.
XENOPHON: Why?
IŪN: You are a machine. You have no mind, no soul. You should not have been able to. And yet.
[They continue, speeding up slightly until they are near the wagon ahead of them, where Karcist IEVA sits.] IEVA: Grand Karcist. You look troubled.
IŪN: Ieva. Do you remember Poth?
[IEVA cocks her head.] IEVA: Loyk's mother?
IŪN: Yes. When she grew ill after his birth, I could not save her. I wrapped poultices, you made her brews, and we attended to her best we could. But she grew worse, and worse.
IEVA: I remember. You told them that if she chose, he could take a horse and a wagon and drive her to the town.
[IŪN turns to XENOPHON.] IŪN: They have a doctor there; he is kind enough to come by during the beginning of the harvest season to offer treatment. I said they could leave and lodge there for as long as they needed to make sure she was healthy.
XENOPHON: Did they go?
IŪN: Through gasps, she told me that she chose this life, and she would choose this death.
IEVA: (Quietly) She passed that night.
XENOPHON: My condolences.
IŪN: It brought me to tears. Her unwavering commitment to her home and people.
But I read these sermons, I remember giving them. Standing on that pulpit demanding their fealty and obedience, and watching them bow to me. I have never tried to control my people, only to lead and counsel them. Anyone is free to leave, if they wish. No one ever does.
XENOPHON: And now you fear that it is because of blind obedience to you and you alone.
IŪN: Yes. I am angry at myself, however long ago, that I could ever think to rule them.
[She pauses.] IŪN: I do not know how to reconcile it. As long as I can remember, I have given sermons on how we are all our own masters. I have sought never to order them into anything. And now I learn that I demanded their worship. Their blood. Their obedience.
XENOPHON: It must be frustrating.
IŪN: It is.
IEVA: I know you. I know how much you care about them. I know you wouldn't have done it unless you thought it was the right thing to do.
[IŪN is silent. Then she pulls her horse back.] IŪN: The sun is setting. Tell them to make camp.
[IEVA nods, shouting something behind her. The driver of the wagon shouts something ahead, and the chain continues as the train slowly circles on itself before stopping. Almost immediately, Sarkites exit the wagons and dismount their horses, quickly moving to set up their tents and build their fires, greeting each other and talking. IŪN slides off her horse, smiling.] Still from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
IŪN: This is why we choose not to take advantage of what you give us.
XENOPHON: I am afraid I do not understand.
IŪN: We only have so many traditions left. We want to preserve them.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ A memory from Grand Karcist Iūn; recorded and transcribed by XENOPHON.aic and Senior Researcher Meyel.
The things that swim to the forefront of my mind are the early days.
X: The early days of what?
Adytum. When the old masters were routed, and we began to settle into our new home.
We knew it by heart — we were the ones to build it. A vast complex of temples, fairways, stone paths. But the catacombs, too. Most of Adytum lay beneath our feet. Endless tunnels and crawlways and vaults. We ate our dead from the uprising, and we placed their bones in the catacombs as we set to work. We tore down the edifices of their dancing scarlet god.
We made Adytum our home.
X: With you at its head.
No. No. I was their shepherd, but I never wanted to be a king. I took refuge in one of the temples, offered my counsel. I let my klavigars take the task of building a city while I looked for the secrets of the gods. Nadoq did so with haste. He was well-read — while we explored the city, he devoured the libraries the old masters left behind. While I was still getting settled, he had already selected the smartest of the slaves to serve as his administrators.
X: He was state-building.
Yes. He read in the histories what anarchy wrought. But he had seen firsthand what the iron rule of the priestesses caused. He looked for something else. A way to enjoin us.
Making decisions together, as a people.
X: The Nälkä.
Yes. Every body a voice, a say in what we were to do. Success spread evenly, failures dispersed equally. If one disagreed, he was free to walk away. "Just as you said," he told me.
"No gods, no masters." He relished the idea, and his administrators worked with striking efficiency. The Nälkä spoke with one voice. Officials were selected, laws made. We trusted each other, totally. Our bond was baked in blood.
X: And what was your place in the new Adytum?
Grand Karcist. High Witch. The one who stole freedom from the gods. They loved me. They wanted to honor me. I objected.
X: Why?
Because I was afraid they would deify me. Worship me. Forget the freedom we bled for.
But I waded out into the crowd, and they chanted with one voice: they wanted me to guide them. I feared where they would stray without me. Nadoq told me I was needed. That he might control the people, but they needed a spiritual beacon to lead them. Most had never conceived of a world without a god at the center. I had to show them something else was possible.
X: I don't understand. If you knew you had to do this, why were you afraid of it?
Q: What does being Sarkic mean to you?
#12 (Aqol, 19, rancher): [Aqol straightens, lowering the bale of hay he is carrying. He looks XENOPHON up and down, unsure of where to focus his attention.] <It is comforting to be a part of a tradition. We have existed for countless generations. We have lived as we always have. The world can move on as it would like. I work the animals the same way my father and his father and his father's father did, on and on.> <I give feed to the cows and collect the eggs and I know that many years ago someone else did just the same, the same scratchy feeling of hay on their palms and the hens pecking at their feet. Across centuries, I am one with them.> On January 5th, 2042, the Black Adytum Initiative arrived in the general area marked by Grand Karcist Iūn.
Because I am only human.
Still photo from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — JANUARY 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The party is at a halt. They are in a plateau, with plains of tall grass giving way to barren rocks and dirt. The land is flat enough to see for kilometres; IŪN looks around, worried.] JIANG: I don't see a stele anywhere.
IŪN: No. It may not have survived the ages.
XENOPHON: Officer Chadha, please perform a flyover of the area.
[Over the radio, CHADHA confirms the order. The UAV circling overhead flies off to take aerial photographs of the area.] IEVA: You won't find it.
JIANG: Trust me, these things are pretty powerful. Can coast at two-hundred meters for hours, taking pictures and sending live data back to the HeLTs the whole time. If it's here, we'll find it.
[IEVA shakes her head.] IEVA: Not if we chose to hide it from prying eyes.
XENOPHON: What do you suggest, Karcist Ieva?
[She nods at the campfire a few of the Sarkites have set up as the sun sets.] IEVA: A reading.
JIANG: That seems like a bit of a waste of time.
IEVA: Do you have somewhere to be?
JIANG: Well, no, but— IEVA: Then be quiet.
[She hops out of the back of the wagon, leaning against her crutch as she limps to the campfire. The Sarkites ease away as the party approaches, casting wary looks at XENOPHON.aic.] IŪN: Sit.
[They kneel by the fire. IEVA opens her pouch, removing a tanned hide roll. She unrolls it, revealing a set of intricately carved phalanges.] IEVA: Small. But they will suffice.
XENOPHON: What do the carvings represent?
IEVA: Questions.
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — JANUARY 2042 [She casts them into the center of the fire, watching as they smoke and grow dark.
After a few minutes of baking in the fire, they crack, falling to pieces. IEVA reaches in with her bare hand, drawing the bones back and dropping them on the canvas roll.
She inspects the cracks.] IEVA: And answers.
JIANG: What do you see?
[She hisses in annoyance.] IEVA: It is not as simple as a child's game. Be silent and let me read.
[They sit quietly for several minutes as the fire crackles and the sun sets. The other Sarkites begin to set up camp.] IŪN: Ieva?
IEVA: Nothing. The voices are silent today.
JIANG: Is it possible you got the location wrong, Grand Karcist?
IŪN: I… [She looks around the grassy plain with a strange look on her face.] IŪN: No. I have been here before.
XENOPHON: Do you remember something?
IŪN: Yes. Yes. A promise. A funeral. No grand consumption, like he deserved — we were running. We had to move. A quick burial, with a promise to return.
[She rises to her feet, unsteadily. She is whispering now, eyes unfocused.] XENOPHON: Who?
[She looks down at IEVA.] IEVA: Grand Karcist?
IŪN: Look.
[She points — not at IEVA, but at a snake that has slithered out of the grass, approaching the bones in the canvas roll by her feet. JIANG leaps backward, but IEVA reaches a hand out, stroking it. It does not react or lunge, inspecting the cracked bones with its head.] JIANG: That thing could be poisonous.
IŪN: No. It wishes to complete the set. Complete its work.
XENOPHON: I am afraid I do not understand, Grand Karcist Iūn.
[She falls silent. They watch as the snake bites the bone fragment, swallowing it.
Another snake, different in size and shape, slithers out of the grass, taking another bone fragment. Within a minute, a dozen snakes are wrapping around IEVA's leg, taking the bone fragments into their mouths before slithering away, farther into the field.] IŪN: I promised I would free him.
[She walks after the snakes, lurching unsteadily. The others quickly rise, following her a hundred meters into the dark field after the snakes.] XENOPHON: Should I— IEVA: Quiet yourself. You'll frighten them away.
[Looking down, they are standing in front of a large rock inset into the ground. The snakes begin to wriggle underneath it, forcing themself through the crack. IŪN presses a hand against it.] IEVA: Wait.
[She reaches down, squeezing her eyes shut and whispering something. The snakes begin to shift, pushing on one end of the boulder, slowly sliding it away. A dark tunnel carved from the earth lies underneath.] JIANG: Like hell I'm going in there.
IEVA: Respect them, and they will respect you.
[IŪN slips into the near-diagonal tunnel, followed by the others. It is pitch black; the only sound comes from the continuous scraping of scales on scales.] IŪN: He loved his pets. He could only bring one with him. The rest had to be left behind. Left behind in Black Adytum as it collapsed. He spoke to no one for weeks. He chose a snake.
It wrapped around his throat, moving up and down his body. It was small, but he fed it from his own meals. And as it was loved, it grew.
[They finally exit out into a larger chamber. JIANG's breath hitches.] JIANG: Light. Now, please.
[XENOPHON activates his floodlights. The chamber is not terribly large or wide — it is carved from the surrounding dirt and clay. There is a deeper pit in the center. Most notably, the floor of the entire chamber is covered in a dense layer of writhing and wriggling snakes of all sizes, shapes, and colors.] JIANG: I'm gonna pass out.
[IŪN continues through the mass of serpents in a stupor, approaching the central pit. There are no snakes here — the pit is a metre deep and contains the corpse of a man intertwined with that of an impossibly large snake.] IŪN: <Hello, old friend.> IEVA: <A knife. We require a knife.> Still photo from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
XENOPHON: Liaison Jiang, do you— JIANG: Fuck. Fuck. No, no knife. I'll— I'll leave, go get one, fuck— IŪN: <No.> [She lowers herself into the sunken grave, IEVA following. The other two approach quietly, stepping careful through the writhing mass.] IŪN: <Burn it to hear the truth. Consume it to see it.> [Using the knife, she saws through the ribcage of the corpse, gently peeling back the dried skin and muscle and exposing the chest cavity. She reaches in and extracts something — Sa'arns heart. In contrast to the rest of the body, it is still red and bloody.] XENOPHON: Remarkable.
[In a trancelike state, she brings the heart to her lips, biting into it. The flesh gives way under her teeth, dripping blood from her mouth down to the soil and bones.
She halts, swallows, and shudders, panting. Then she reaches out and grasps IEVA's hair, pulling her closer.] IŪN: <Come, little thing. Eat.> [Cradling IEVA's head, IŪN lowers the half-eaten heart to her lips. IEVA appears enthralled, opening her mouth almost mechanically. Her teeth tear into the heart, ripping off a chunk of soft muscle. Blood dribbles down her chin and into her robes.] IŪN: <Taste him, as I have tasted him.> IEVA: <Yes.> IŪN: <Feel him. Remember him, as I have remembered him.> IEVA: <Yes.> [Still cradling IEVA, IŪN leans backward, falling into Sa'arn's chest cavity.] JIANG: That's never going to get any less terrifying.
XENOPHON: Let's go.
[The two slip down into the pit, stepping gingerly into Sa'arn's chest cavity. Once again, XENOPHON's cameras cut out and reactivate several seconds later.] JIANG: <Where…?> [The sky overhead is cloudy and amber-hued. The four are standing in a vast plaza, at least a hundred meters in length. Ahead of them, a massive wood-and-stone temple looms, with peaked roofs and towers. The edges of the plaza are lined with Sarkites. Most are wearing traditional tanned-hide robes and tunics, with a handful wearing more ornate clothing. The edges of the crowds are blurry and indistinct.] XENOPHON: <This is—> [IEVA releases a breath.] IEVA: <Adytum.> XENOPHON: <These are dead bodies.> [They look down. The plaza is lined with corpses laid out in rows and columns — at least two hundred bodies, likely more. They are naked, and exhibit signs of trauma; most have brutal slashing cuts, gaping wounds, and otherwise mortal injuries. IŪN furrows her brow.] IŪN: <They have not been consumed.> SA'ARN: <You have no place here.> [They turn. An entity is standing a few meters away. It resembles some cross between the corpse of Sa'arn and the snake wrapped around him; large portions of skin are replaced with shining scales, and from the waist down the humanoid form gives way to a long, thick serpent's tail. His eyes are yellow and slitted, glaring at IŪN.] IŪN: <I swore a promise. To free you.> SA'ARN: <You swore many promises. You upheld so few of them.> IŪN: <I have seen Nadoq again. He has urged me to seek out my Klavigars. To take you back to Adytum, to lay you to rest.> SA'ARN: <Take me back? I am trapped in this vision of Adytum. Forced to lay here for all eternity and relive the moment I lost my faith. Nadoq was always soft. Too willing to forgive you, to listen to your slippery tongue. You may have earned his forgiveness; expect no such kindness from me.> IŪN: <My memories are lost to me. I did not know how long you waited; forgive me for the years passed.> [The figure barks a shocked laugh.] SA'ARN: <Your mind must be truly gone, if you think my rage comes from waiting.
All the happier had I never seen your face again.> [IŪN's brow furrows.] IŪN: <What?> SA'ARN: <You failed, Iūn. You promised so much — to me, to the others, to all the Nälkä — AND YOU FAILED US ALL.> IŪN: <By letting Adytum meet its destruction. What did I do? How did this happen?> SA'ARN: <But of course, you are the same as you ever were. A selfish wretch. You seek answers from me. Die without that meager satisfaction.> IŪN: <I just want to know how it happened. Why I would have made myself a king. A god.> SA'ARN: <You do not mean to deceive. You truly remember nothing.> [His voice falters.] SA'ARN: <Not even me.> IŪN: <No. I remember you. I remember in that quarry. You were their beast. The old masters formed you into any beast they needed — a malformed ox, dragged loads of stone behind you. A silent snake, dispatched to bite the ankle of their enemies. A rat, silently watching over your fellow slaves. None of us trusted you.> SA'ARN: <Save for you.> IŪN: <I did. And when I ate from the Devourer, and I saw how to bend flesh to my will, I raised you. I gave you back the skin they had stripped.> SA'ARN: <For some time.> IŪN: <What?> SA'ARN: <Do you remember, after the war began to turn against us? After you realized that you had too few Karcists, too few who knew the art of flesh on your frontlines?> IŪN: <I had no want for a war.> SA'ARN: <None of us did! And it came anyway. And your vast hordes rose up and fought in your name. But it just wasn't enough for you, was it?> IŪN: <I don't…> SA'ARN: <I remember, Iūn. I remember when you summoned me to your chambers in the buried heart of Adytum. And whispered to me, saying that the bones shifting in the fire had told you I was needed once more. I begged, I pleaded. That was an old life, a worse life. I abhored the violence so many of your zealots came to crave. But you are my Karcist, and I was your Klavigar, and I listened. For my love of you.> IŪN: <I… changed you.> SA'ARN: <You molded me, into an asp once more while I sobbed. The old masters had used me like this. And you had learned from their wisdom. Place me in a cage, release it near the enemy camp. I slither in, find the chink in their armor, and bite. > [IŪN is quiet.] IŪN: <Forgive me.> SA'ARN: <Forgive you. I might have. But then there was the next camp, and the next.
I was a weapon once again. A tool. And all because I loved you. Because I believed as you believed, that a better world was possible.> IŪN: <It was. It is.> SA'ARN: <When I came back to Adytum, it was with blood in my fangs. The city of my birth, my home. Unrecognizable. It was a war-fortress now, dark and bleak. And as I walked through the alleys of the city, I saw corpses.> IEVA: <Uneaten corpses.> SA'ARN: <You had told us with such faith — consume the flesh, and return their souls to the Nälkä. Carry their memory with us for ever. And now the bodies rotted freely, stuffed into sewers and tossed in the canals.> IŪN: <You came to me asking why. I rebuffed you. I told you I would explain my reasons to all.> SA'ARN: <And you did, swathed in your shawls, from the high pulpit of Adytum.> [Silence. It is broken by a deep, guttural song sounding out across the plaza. The Sarkites stiffen.] SA'ARN: <See your answers for yourself.> [The song stops. At the pulpit of the temple, dozens of meters in the air, a hooded figure wrapped in robes steps onto the balcony.] IŪN: <Me. That… is me.> JIANG: <How can you tell?> IŪN: <I know. I remember standing on that pulpit. I remember looking down on this display.> [The memory's voice carries out across the plaza, speaking in the rich tones of the Old Nälkän language.] SA'ARN: You said that our armies were noble, faithful, but outmatched. That if we did not take to desperate measure, we would be destroyed. But then you assured us — "I have reached up to the maws of the gods, and wrent free their secrets."> [The figure falls silent again. They extend a single finger, pointing at the nearest corpse.] SA'ARN: <And then you raised the dead.> [IEVA recoils.] IEVA: <This is impossible. And even if it was possible, blasphemous. She would never.> IŪN: <No. No?> SA'ARN: <Remember the dull gray in lifeless eyes as his muscles tightened and he crawled back to life.> [The corpse the figure pointed at stirs. At first just a muscle twitch, but it rapidly grows in intensity until the corpse is actively shambling to his feet.] JIANG: Oh, god.
SA'ARN: <His skin was rotting, putrefacting — the blood had congealed into a thick paste. You twisted a finger, and he groaned in pain, rising, skin and hair sloughing away.> [The corpse stumbles forward. The crowd of Sarkites gasp and murmur, several openly disgusted. The figure raises another finger, and ten more of the corpses struggle to their feet, groaning with lifeless eyes. NADOQ is standing at the base of the temple; he is shocked by the display.] SA'ARN: <Dead, but their souls confined to your service, the bodies kept from the heavens.> IŪN: <The halkost.> SA'ARN: <No, Iūn. The first halkost. I recoiled, begging you to free them, not to use them as weapons. You swore you would, when the war was over, when we were safe.
Until then, even death was not an escape from service to you.> IEVA: <If she hadn't, we would've been slaughtered by the enemy.> SA'ARN: <Then maybe we would have been routed from our home. But when you did that, you broke the Nälkä in two. The faithful and the zealots. The destruction of Adytum hangs around your neck.> [IŪN appears speechless.] SA'ARN: <Maybe you will bury me in Adytum, as you say, and forgive yourself. Go, then. But never think you have my forgiveness.> [SA'ARN's skin sloughs away as his body rapidly decomposes, the vision decomposing along with it. The last clear sight is the figure on the pulpit turning and disappearing back into the temple as dozens more corpses rise. When XENOPHON's cameras reactivate, SA'ARN's corpse and the snake wrapped around it have both decomposed into nothing but bones. The surrounding snakes have ceased movement; on closer inspection, they are all dead.] «END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ As translation efforts into the texts in the Archive of Nadoq continued, researchers encountered a subset of texts carved into various human bones, apparently from the same skeleton. These texts were written in a notably different voice and tone from the main texts, and this, coupled with the difficulty in identifying how sections carved into the bones linked together, caused translations to be substantially slower.
I remember this. She was shocked I remember this. She was shocked by this. She didn't know how to by this. She didn't know how to process it.
process it.
you sound sad.
you sound sad.
I don't feel sadness.
I don't feel sadness.
of course.
of course.
I didn't know how to help her.
I didn't know how to help her.
Medial femur, tibia, and fibula of an adult human male.
I was the first to see the cracks take shape. They were the good days when all-knowing Nadoq made certain Adytum ran, that the farms brought in food and the grain was dispersed. We all had our roles to play in this grand project, and we all believed it was divine work. We did not have the blessing of the heavens, but we did not need it — the gods had nothing but contempt for our raising ourselves out of the mud.
And still I noticed the cracks of worry streaked across my love's face, handsome and stone-carved. He hid it perfectly, such that not even Nadoq's ten eyes could see how he suffered. But I had seen every inch of his skin; I knew its contours, and when something was amiss. And I asked him, and he rebuffed me. He told me he had an incredible burden to shoulder, and this we all knew was true. For all of us had our duties, but none had a more stinging duty than he. But he confessed that he was wracked with fear — for who was to guide the Nälkä when his flesh too rotted away?
In those days his Karcists were numerous, new children born every day with the gift of the flesh. He raised them with all the care and love he might have given to our own, had we any. And they learned from their teacher, and graduated and preached to the people. But I heard whispers that a handful of the younger, bolder Karcists had espoused to a crowd that even Holy Death could be conquered through the art of the flesh.
That immortality was within reach. And I told my lover, and his brow furrowed.
The next morning, their corner was barren, and I never saw those Karcists again.
i don't think you could've. i don't i don't think you could've. i don't think she did either. it's something think she did either. it's something she had to figure out on her own.
she had to figure out on her own.
That sounds unpleasant.
That sounds unpleasant.
it's part of being human.
it's part of being human.
III: THE OSSUARY III: THE OSSUARY OF UROK OF UROK Raise your blade, if you are under duress and threat. Raise your blade, against those who wish to hurt you. But he who raises his blade against an innocent dooms only himself. There are precious few innocents in this world; it is all of our duty to preserve them.
— the Third Truth of Iūn Section 001.5 UROK So the Nälkä were borne from the graves of the old masters, building a new city in the name of humanity. And the massed crowds hailed their new shepherd, IŪN, the First Slave, the Witch-King. A hundred hundred hands reached out to caress his cheek and usher him into his new home, at the highest temple-throne of the nameless city. And IŪN raised a marked hand with a smile, and explained.
"For one man to rule a people is for one man to place them in bondage to him, and we are a nation of slaves no more." But still they cried out for their deliverer to remain with them, and the Witch-King sighed, kneeling by the hearth of the old masters, where so many slaves had once been branded and burned.
"I have stolen freedom from the lips of the gods. They look down on man with contempt — for a man is weak and infirm. He lies, he cheats, he steals, and he dies. But that is a man. Men, together? We are bound to each other in unity, bound in bone and blood, and together, men are neither mortal nor divine, but another matter entirely. We are Nälkä. We are one." "This revolution was only made manifest by my consumption of the Devourer. It is a god that slumbers beneath the earth, full of rage and fury and hatred at man for achieving the freedom it never could. It seeks to twist us, to undermine us, to make us seek to dominate and bind and control each other. But it carries with it such great power." And here the Witch-King raised a finger, and a Nälkä found his bloodied eye healed.
"My duty to you, my Nälkä, is to watch over this creeping force. I will wrest the secrets of the gods from its maw, and deliver them unto you.
But you must deliver each other, for if one Nälkä suffers, all of us suffer the same." And so the Nälkä relented, letting the Witch-King take refuge in the tunnels below. But they asked for a name for this city.
"Adytum. The perfect city. But this is not Adytum, yet. It can only be made so through our own blood and sweat." — the Record of Iūn By January 10th, 2042, the Black Adytum Initiative had departed from the burial site of Sa'arn and were in transit to the next location indicated by the Grand Karcist Iūn — a point in Khentii Province, Mongolia. En-route, Liaison Jiang and XENOPHON.aic were asked to report in to O5-2 and Parahistory Division Director Youssef Hussein via satellite uplink.
Path of the Black Adytum Initiative.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — JANUARY 2042 «CONNECTION ESTABLISHED» [The virtual reality environment of O5-2's office forms again. Today, the seas surrounding Site-7 are surprisingly still. HUSSEIN is seated in the chair, fiddling with a pen.] O5-2: Well. You two have been busy.
XENOPHON: Sa'arn's tomb has given us a wealth of new information to work with, Overseer.
O5-2: I'll say. Your conversations with the Grand Karcist have also been productive.
Give me a rundown of the bio-analysis?
XENOPHON: As a peace gesture, the Grand Karcist submitted to a battery of minor medical examinations along with a number of other Sarkites. It confirms what I had already begun to suspect; there is a bio-anomalous basis to the Sarkic genetic memory phenomenon. All of the Sarkites' blood exhibits a mutated strain of the bacteriophage Doctors Aram and Nussbaum catalogued in 1984 as SCP-610. Unlike the aggressive viral strain the Amoni-Ram initiative discovered, this strain appears to coexist endosymbiotically with the host's red blood cells. Unsurprisingly, it exists in the highest density within the Grand Karcist and Karcist Ieva's systems, having mutated further to coexist within cell types other than erythrocytes — skin, muscular tissue.
O5-2: Karcist Ieva agreed to be tested?
XENOPHON: With some persuasion from the Grand Karcist.
O5-2: Fair enough. So, those are the findings. What's your analysis?
XENOPHON: I believe this is the original SCP-610 strain, and the one discovered in Amoni-Ram was an ancient weaponization of it. As I said, it seems to exist symbiotically within the Sarkics' blood, and is likely the source of their capacity for genetic memory. Their density and spread within the Karcists' bodies is probably the origin of their carnomantic abilities. This is pure speculation, but I imagine the hereditary passage of the virus is also the cause of the Sarkic's higher-than-normal frequency of birth defects.
O5-2: Makes enough sense. Keep working on a biological basis, see what you can find.
XENOPHON: Even these limited medical examinations aroused deep suspicion.
Further investigation will require an elevated level of trust and good faith exchange with the Sarkic.
O5-2: Sure. You've set out for the third location?
XENOPHON: Yes. ETA is fourteen to twenty days.
O5-2: That's substantially slower than before. What gives?
XENOPHON: Morale is low among the tribe. The revelations from Sa'arn have disturbed the Grand Karcist heavily. The other Sarkites sense it.
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — JANUARY 2042 JIANG: He's not wrong, sir. There's a bit of a weight over the camp.
O5-2: Well, someone talk to someone and figure it out. You don't really have the latitude for further delays here.
JIANG: I think my rapport with Ieva is more or less toast now. She's kind of hardened against us. Xenophon seems to be getting along with the Grand Karcist, though.
O5-2: Talk to her, Xenophon.
XENOPHON: Understood. But I was under the impression this wasn't a high-urgency project, Overseer.
[HUSSEIN turns to the Overseer.] HUSSEIN: As was I. Sir.
[O5-2 raises a hand.] O5-2: I don't really want to hear it, Youssef. The equation has changed. This isn't a snipe hunt anymore. We have verifiable evidence that the Sarkic are the direct continuation of the Nälkä, that our Iūn is the same as that Iūn, and most critically, that the Nälkä were an ancient empire and Black Adytum exists, somewhere. Your hypothesis is toast.
[HUSSEIN is silent for several seconds before responding.] HUSSEIN: All of that depends on the assumption that the memories experienced by the Grand Karcist are trustworthy. Granting that this is the same Iūn — you're hedging your bets on the damaged memories of a genocidal dictator?
XENOPHON: I do not believe there is any reason to think the Grand Karcist's past actions inform her current behaviour.
HUSSEIN: We can't just ignore that she's the same person.
O5-2: Jiang?
[JIANG pauses.] JIANG: I don't think she's intentionally hiding anything. She seems as invested in finding out what happened to the Nälkä as we are. Maybe more. And she is our only lead. But the Director's right — if the memories are accurate, she's the same person that did all this. We'd be fools to blindly take her at her word.
[O5-2 nods.] O5-2: Keep following and listening. But take what she says with a grain of salt.
Memories are fickle. That said, the Council is convinced enough that we're authorizing some additional resources for your venture.
XENOPHON: Sir?
O5-2: They'll meet you at the Chinese border. Four more HeLTs and a Mobile Research Lab, about forty more personnel. Congratulations — you're a convoy now.
Dismissed.
HUSSEIN: Actually, sir, if Liaison Jiang could remain — I need to discuss a few things regarding LOCUST with you.
O5-2: I have a few minutes. Xenophon, you're dismissed.
[XENOPHON terminates its connection, avatar disappearing from the office.] JIANG: I'm not on the LOCUST staff, sir.
HUSSEIN: It.
JIANG: I'm sorry?
HUSSEIN: You said "he's right" when talking about the AIC. It's not a human; it's an it.
For that matter, the Sarkites aren't either. Let's try and stay objective, yes?
JIANG: Yes, sir.
HUSSEIN: Dismissed.
«CONNECTION TERMINATED» ▷CLOSE◁ Interview efforts with the Sarkites continued to progress, with Iūn permitting XENOPHON.aic to perform unsupervised interviews.
Q: What does being Sarkic mean to you?
#30 (Hajiw, 56, farmer): [He shrugs, sprinkling bonemeal on the potted sapling.] <The life we choose is difficult. We depend on Ieva and the Grand Karcist for healing instead of medicine.
We work the fields with our hands and our livestock, instead of the machinery others use.
When my children were born I struggled with it. Every parent wants their child to have an easier life than they did. Should they have to struggle like this? I have never forced them; they grew older and they decided for themselves to stay. Being part of this is seeing my children grow and find the same things in our life important as I do.> Still from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
Lo! Gaze upon me, you blind, you crippled. Look upon my face, and know that I have spent my days in the depths of our tomb-city, burning the bones of our brethren, seeing what lies in our future. It brings me no joy to return what truth I have, but it is truth — for we all know, the truth lives in the bones.
We march towards a war, a war with forces that bring with them no mercy, no honor. This is not a war for land, for then, we would parlay. This is not a war for honor, for we have no hatred in our hearts for these foreign invaders. This is a war against the very notion of our existence.
For while we have existed for centuries unmolested and free, expanding our borders to hold our people and our farms and our villages, in doing so, we find ourselves facing an old enemy and a new one.
The hated old masters, those that clapped irons around your fathers and your fathers' fathers and their fathers too — they have found us again.
And they bring with them the Eastern Machines, who reject the humanity we hold so dear, sawing off their flesh. They both worship their fell gods, brethren of the Devourer, and they have seen how we live free, subject to neither man nor god. And they are enraged. They march on us to free the Devourer and make us slave to its hateful whims. The Nälkä will not be slaves again.
I ask those abled to rise in defense of not only your families, but your very existence. Urok has graciously accepted the burden of commanding our forces. But we are at war now, my people. Sacrifices must be made. Hard decisions must be made. Adytum has not the resources to aid our infirm and defend our people at once. We are one body, and we are only as strong as our weakest organ, and we cannot fight a war if we care for the weakest among us.
The art of the flesh cannot fix all. Those of us who were suffering — from constant illness, from stupor, from weakness of the mind — have been released from their misery. They have been consumed, and their memories and strength live with us as we now move unburdened by their weight. I plead with you to know I do not make this decision lightly. I spent three days and three nights with the maw of the Devourer, wrestling it for another option, but it gave none. It wants us to fail, to be freed from its city-prison. We cannot allow it to win. We carry the flesh of our fallen with us for ever. And now we must defend the city they loved.
— the Truths of Iūn (§ 59) Per O5-2's orders, XENOPHON met with the Grand Karcist when the Initiative made camp that evening.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — JANUARY 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [XENOPHON steps out of the open back of the Mobile Research Lab: a retrofitted semi-truck towing an expandable trailer. It is late in the evening; the convoy has made camp, and the Foundation vehicles are parked outside the circle formed by the Sarkic wagons. One or two researchers are inside the wide circle, politely observing the Sarkites as they sit near campfires and cook their evening meal.] [XENOPHON enters the circle. A few of the Sarkites stare at it as it passes, heading towards the central tent. The flaps are drawn. It ducks inside. The campfire in the center of the tent is alight, bones baking in the hearth and incense sticks burning. Sweet-smelling smoke hangs in the air and the fire's orange light shines on IŪN's back. She is near the rear of the tent, hunched over a cot and whispering.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist?
[She turns, revealing the figure laying prone on the cot: Karcist IEVA. Her robes are spread across her body, serving as a makeshift blanket. Tightly-wrapped bandages are visible underneath.] IŪN: Xenophon.
XENOPHON: Is Karcist Ieva sick?
IŪN: Fetch me the poultice by the fire.
[XENOPHON grasps the small bundle of herbs and leaves baking by the fire, approaching and handing it to IŪN. She reaches down and gently pries open IEVA's mouth, placing the poultice inside. IEVA groans, but chews on the poultice.] XENOPHON: Is she conscious?
IŪN: Somewhere halfway in between. My blade, please.
[It hands her a small, sharpened bone tool resembling a scalpel. She takes it and drags the tip across her palm, opening a cut several centimeters long. She presses her palm on either of IEVA's cheeks, wetting them with blood, and then against her lips, letting the blood drip into her mouth while she whispers to herself. XENOPHON waits quietly. Eventually, she stops, and takes a step back.] XENOPHON: What were you doing to her?
IŪN: Alleviating some of the pain. Aiding in the healing process. She is strong. But she needs my strength, too.
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — JANUARY 2042 Still from XENOPHON.aic's night camera feed.
XENOPHON: What happened to her?
IŪN: Look.
[IŪN hoists up the sheet near IEVA's legs. Underneath, her right leg ends in a stump at the knee. Just below that, the flesh extends into a long mess resembling a tentacle. On closer inspection, it appears to be made up of tightly-intertwined snakes, each of them pulsating as they breathe.] XENOPHON: These are Sa'arn's snakes. You've reconstructed her limb?
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: Your abilities are improving exponentially.
[IŪN raises an eyebrow quizzically.] XENOPHON: Greatly.
IŪN: Ah. Yes. I fed my klavigars their power from my flesh, once. Now they feed me.
But this was not me alone. I— XENOPHON: Grand Karcist?
IŪN: Hm?
XENOPHON: We should speak outside. I do not think Ieva would want me to see her like this.
[IŪN cocks her head for a second, then nods. She leads the way out of the tent. It is a cool night on the steppe, and she kneels by another campfire just outside the tent.
XENOPHON sits across from her.] IŪN: You know she does not trust you.
XENOPHON: She is wary of the Foundation.
IŪN: Yes. But she does not trust you.
XENOPHON: I know. She would not show me vulnerability if she were fully conscious. It would be wrong to take advantage of her not being so.
IŪN: If all our treatment by outsiders were as fair as this, we might not have receded from the world so much.
XENOPHON: The Foundation has come a long way in the past few decades.
IŪN: Do you believe that, or were you built to believe that?
[XENOPHON is silent for a moment.] XENOPHON: Is there a difference?
IŪN: Mm.
[They sit in silence. One of the Sarkites walks by — he nods stiffly at XENOPHON and hands the Grand Karcist a steaming earthen bowl of stew.] IŪN: <Thank you.> [She takes a sip from it.] XENOPHON: How is it?
IŪN: Good. Though I imagine you would not know what that means.
XENOPHON: Humans enjoy well-spiced food that engages the taste receptors.
IŪN: That is not what makes food good.
XENOPHON: Then what does?
[She takes another sip from the stew. It is chunks of meat in a deep, red-brown stew. She fishes out a small chunk of bone with her fingers, splitting it apart and sucking the bone marrow out.] IŪN: This meat was Hattak, once.
XENOPHON: The man whose funeral we attended.
IŪN: Yes. His wife shared his life with him for forty-three years. They had two children and countless experiences together. Lovemaking and arguments and nights like these spent looking at the stars. And now she cooks with his flesh. The love she shared with him is as much a part of this meal as his flesh is.
XENOPHON: Many people would not associate cannibalism with love.
[IŪN shrugs, and continues taking small sips of the stew.] IŪN: And you?
XENOPHON: Both of them seem trivial.
[IŪN tilts her head.] IŪN: How?
XENOPHON: Many animals have complex family structures, reasoning abilities, and some level of self-awareness. Pigs are particularly capable, even on tests informed by human conceptions of intelligence. They are still farmed en masse for meat.
IŪN: You would not say humans are distinct from animals?
XENOPHON: I'm not sure what position you're espousing.
IŪN: Just musing. And of the other thing?
XENOPHON: Love drives people to irrational decisions.
IŪN: Of course. But they are not always the wrong decisions. Love is why Y'pla spent forty-six years with Hattak. It is why I am helping Ieva perform her ritual.
XENOPHON: It is also why Sa'arn continued to serve you and you made the decision to raise your dead to protect your living. Love for your Nälkä.
[Her face falls.] IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: You've still been thinking about it?
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: What are your thoughts?
IŪN: I do not know what to think. If this enemy was as dangerous as I thought, if they truly meant to enslave us again… maybe it was the right decision? I look around and I see my people and I struggle to think of any decision I would not make to ensure their survival.
XENOPHON: That sounds like Karcist Ieva's thoughts.
IŪN: I have spoken to her. She feels that I would not do this unless I had to. Unless I had no other choice.
XENOPHON: That it must have been justified.
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: It's an understandeable thought.
IŪN: But you disagree.
XENOPHON: It would be irrational to agree or disagree without more information.
[IŪN raises an eyebrow.] IŪN: And yet you disagree.
XENOPHON: I think you're asking yourself the wrong question.
IŪN: How do you mean?
XENOPHON: It doesn't matter if it was correct at the time or not, nor does it matter how Karcist Ieva feels.
[IŪN raises her voice.] IŪN: The death, the consumption — these things are sacred to us. You do not understand. You cannot understand.
XENOPHON: I suppose not. But how do you feel about it now?
IŪN: Full of regret. Fear. Guilt.
XENOPHON: I do not think you can reasonably answer for actions taken three thousand years ago. But your reaction informs who you are now.
IŪN: I did it once; who is to say I will not do it again?
XENOPHON: If you need to believe it was justified at the time, no one is preventing you. But I do not think you would resort to it now if it were not needed.
IŪN: Perhaps. But I just— I cannot ignore my past. I would not have done this. I would not have resorted to this sin. I would not have used my people like this if it had not been needed.
[She pauses and turns to XENOPHON.] IŪN: Why raise this matter now?
XENOPHON: My overseers are concerned your mood over the past week has contributed to our slowed pace.
[She snorts.] IŪN: So they sent you to affirm me?
XENOPHON: No. They sent me to simply inform you we would be speeding up. I elected to make sure you were alright.
IŪN: Mm. It has nothing to do with my mood — the rituals with Ieva simply exhaust the both of us. But the worst of it is past now. We can return to our earlier speed.
XENOPHON: Good.
[She continues taking sips from her stew.] IŪN: May I ask something?
XENOPHON: Of course.
IŪN: Are you jealous of seeing your fellows eat, and knowing you cannot?
XENOPHON: I do not get 'jealous'.
[They return to silence, observing the campfires around them. Several of the Sarkites are still observing them with open wariness, though others adopt a more relaxed stance.] XENOPHON: I would like to know what food tastes like, though.
IŪN: There is no good way to describe it.
XENOPHON: So I've been told.
IŪN: I can make an attempt, if you would like.
XENOPHON: Certainly.
[She pauses for a moment, tasting the stew, deep in thought before opening her eyes.] IŪN: I taste it and it reminds me of warm summer nights, sitting with my back to the stele and my feet to the bonfire as we toasted the grains from the harvest, assured that while tomorrow would bring its own worries, tonight was calm and peaceful. And listening to the little ones point out and name the stars, marvelling at how they could be the exact same stars I saw in my childhood.
[XENOPHON nods, and they continue looking up at the starred sky.] «END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ The Black Adytum Initiative quickly resumed the average pace prior to encountering Sa'arn's tomb.
Researchers made requests to investigate Karcist Helyna Ieva's flesh-art exemplified in her new limb, but she rebuffed these requests. Grand Karcist Iūn remained cooperative with regular interviews with XENOPHON regarding her newly-awakened memories.
A memory from Grand Karcist Iūn; recorded and transcribed by XENOPHON.aic and Senior Researcher Meyel.
Sa'arn was a boy when I met him. Little more than a child. The old masters picked him early, and the priestesses spent his youth shaping him into their agent. With a hundred slaves to one slaver, they chose young children from our numbers to turn into their agents.
Plied them with extra bread to report on their fellows when they knew no better until it was habit. If that was unsuccessful, they simply whipped them into it. Sa'arn was smart for his age — resented being used, being turned into a monstrosity.
I showed him that he was no monstrosity, that humanity exists regardless of what form the flesh takes. Humanity was something inside, something immutable. The old masters had made our bodies into tools, but now his body could be whatever he wanted it to. I remember the awe on his face. That was when I first realized what we were fighting to free.
And when it was all over, and we had settled into our new lives, he came to me, asking for my blessing. That he had served dutifully in the revolution, and would like nothing more than to settle into a quiet life. Our borders were already expanding as our people married and bore new life. He had seen a plot of land by a river, not far from Adytum, and sought to spend his years there.
I knelt by the fire, and saw into the bones for his future. I saw him suffering, taking lives, fighting off foreign invaders. Wrapped in the violence and treachery he hated. I feared for what I had seen — that if he took this home by the river, that his farm would be ransacked by bandits and raiders. That my beloved Sa'arn would meet his end at the edge of a sword. I worried for him, and asked him that if he would grant me this favor, to stay in Adytum with me and the other klavigars. His father was dead — I was the closest thing to a parent he had. I did not want to lose him, and so I tightened my grip.
He was saddened, but understood. We were in the midst of a grand work. Our neighbors were princes and warlords. Nothing like Adytum existed anywhere in the world. I needed him by my side. He made it his task to ensure the children in the city, those orphaned by the war, were cared for. He walked with my authority and carried the seal of the Grand Karcist. I raised my karcists like they were my children, but Sa'arn was my son, if not by birth. He would do everything for me, but he never raised a blade. Until I asked him to.
I saw him cutting down the generals of the gold-draped legions, and slipping into the palanquin of a priestess to slit her throat, and only then did I realize the carnage I saw in the fire so many centuries ago was what lay before me now.
[She takes a breath.] It was necessary. It must have been necessary.
Several additional Parahistory Division personnel were transferred to BAF-01, located in the Sarkic Tribal Territory atop the Archive of Nadoq, to assist with translation efforts. As material was translated, digitized copies were transmitted electronically to XENOPHON and shared with the Grand Karcist.
Lo! Gaze upon me, you wandering, you lost. Gaze upon the same scarred visage your fathers gazed on once, those centuries past, when we were shackled and yearning for freedom. Gaze upon the same bloodied face that brought your ancestors their freedom.
You are their childrens' children. You are what we hoped for: a generation that has never known the threat of bondage, the threat of servitude to anyone save each other. Your ancestors and I made this bond in blood — that our Adytum, the one that lived in our hearts and minds, would be made manifest on Earth. We hoped you would be able to live in that city, one day.
Alas, I look upon Adytum now, centuries after our revolution, and I see that I have not honored my bond. I have not done enough for you, for them. Do not be fooled — remember the superficiality of flesh, how easily it can be molded and shaped. Remember that truth lies in the bones under the surface. We have not made Adytum manifest yet, and this is why we find ourselves face-to-face with the machines from the East, why the old masters encroach on our borders again. They submit to gods and if they make war on us to force us to submit to our Mangled God, they will succeed, for we have never truly escaped submission.
Urok, my Klavigar, commands our forces in our colonies with honor and dignity. But we are not doing enough for her, here in the capital. We must marshall our strength and focus our energies. Not every choice can be decided by our collective. Our humanity asks of us to argue, to deliberate, to not act until we are certain. But now and again, we must silence that voice. Now and again, a decisive hand is needed, to guide our yoke. It cannot move burdened with the weight of the masses — it must rise above the fray of autonomy, see the whole board, and make decisions accordingly.
I have taken this responsibility for myself. The Devourer roars constantly beneath our feet, hungering for our downfall. But I keep its shackles taut, and so I can reach into its gullet and draw power, the power to unite Adytum and the Nälkä. I know better than any the blood and sweat with which we clawed our freedom, and bile rises at the thought of placing myself as your ruler. I know better than this. I will make no decisions you would not approve of — I will take no action you would not take. But we must have someone to take control, and I submit to this task. It cannot be the whole body that holds the sword. It must be the hand.
— the Truths of Iūn (§ 50) The Black Adytum Initiative proceeded into the Mongolian interior, approaching the location marked by the Grand Karcist.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — FEBRUARY 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The party is breaking camp as the sun rises over the horizon, with the researchers folding away the solar panels into the HeLTs and the Sarkites disassembling their shelters. IŪN is by her tent, feeding and watering her horse; the side of the stallion's face is marred by bulbous growths. XENOPHON and JIANG approach.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist.
IŪN: Xenophon. Xen-o-phon.
JIANG: We wanted to check whether you and Karcist Ieva were ready to depart.
Everyone is more or less ready to go.
IŪN: I will ask— IEVA: <Let us go.> [They turn. IEVA walks out of the tent, her crutches nowhere in sight. She walks with an odd, lurching gait — as the hem of her hide-dress rises, glimpses of the snake- like leg writhing and swarming are visible underneath. Several researchers and a few of the Sarkites stare at it. IEVA's lip curls.] IEVA: <I am not an animal to be ogled. And I do not need anyone to slow down for me. Let us go.> [She turns and makes her way to one of the horses, awkwardly clambering onto it with unfamiliar movements. Gradually, the researchers and Sarkites return to their tasks. IŪN has a frown on her face.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist?
IŪN: Yes. Yes, let us go. How far are we—?
XENOPHON: At our current pace, we should arrive by nightfall tomorrow. We can explore the area for Urok's tomb the following morning when the sun is out.
IŪN: Good.
XENOPHON: Is your horse well?
[She looks at it for a few seconds blankly.] IŪN: What? Oh, yes. Yes, fine, he simply— [She reaches out, brushing fingertips against the horse's fur. The skin on one of the masses peels back, revealing an eyeball, focused on XENOPHON.] JIANG: Eesh.
XENOPHON: Does it have a name?
IŪN: Yes. Lujat.
JIANG: <To see far. Fitting, I guess.> ATTACHED DOCUMENT — FEBRUARY 2042 IŪN: <I need a few moments to gather my things before we leave. If you would excuse me.> JIANG: <Of course. Xeno, let's—> IŪN: <I require Xenophon's assistance in carrying the tent.> JIANG: <Oh. Sure. I'll see you when we've set out.> [He turns and departs, heading towards the Mobile Research Lab.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist.
IŪN: Yes?
XENOPHON: Your people are packing your tent away into the wagon.
IŪN: Yes. I lied.
XENOPHON: Why?
IŪN: Because your people already do not trust Helyna. And I do not want whatever fleeting disagreements I have with her to poison your opinion of her. She is a good child.
XENOPHON: What are you referring to?
[IŪN sighs.] IŪN: I love her like my own daughter. She disagrees with me, but I do not stop loving her. I just wish… I see she is hurt inside. I wish to help her. But I do not know how.
XENOPHON: Why is she upset?
IŪN: She does not know who she is. She does not who we are. I groom her to guide these people, but she never will. She ages, and I stay the same. She questions my decisions, but does not listen when I explain my thoughts. She was not always like this. She was the sweetest little one.
[A horn sounds across the camp, signalling the wagons have been packed. The Sarkites begin to make their way to the train, which begins to move slowly across the steppe. The Foundation vehicles' electric motors hum to life and they take their places in the convoy, security personnel sitting atop the HeLTs.] XENOPHON: Was she born injured?
[IŪN pulls herself onto her horse, trailing the convoy with XENOPHON walking alongside.] IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: I've observed that to be fairly common amongst the Sarkic; you display a much higher rate of deformities and birth defects. I've come to believe it's caused by the SCP-610 strain within your blood.
Still from XENOPHON.aic's main camera.
[She gives XENOPHON an amused look.] IŪN: Is that what you call it?
XENOPHON: Yes. What do you call it?
IŪN: Our curse, our treasure. The first generation of the Nälkä, those of us that fought the old masters, we were injured through our bondage. Scars of whippings and canings, broken fingers and severed digits. We were made monsters, but we reclaimed our humanity.
XENOPHON: You didn't use your abilities to heal yourselves?
IŪN: I can heal them to what they were. But to go further is beyond healing. It is cutting, sawing, changing. Flesh-art. Many did not want that. They wanted the reminder of what they had fought so hard to escape. They wanted to know they were human. We defined ourselves by our imperfections.
XENOPHON: That was the first generation. What about the ones after?
IŪN: They were born stunted, hunched backs and crooked jaws and malformed limbs. The seeping influence of the angry god whose blood ran through my veins. I offered healing to any who wanted it — but my gifts are drawn from cursed blood, and any healing imparts more of the curse unto my victim. I cannot make them perfect. My gifts are not infinite. More of a feeling, an artistry. I cannot stop death, just slow it.
XENOPHON: And the halkost?
IŪN: Just flesh, moving. No spirit inside. That was not halting death any more than closing one's eyes is halting life. I could not keep them alive. Only puppeteer their bodies, and even that is a perversion enough to make my stomach turn.
XENOPHON: If you couldn't halt death, how are you still alive?
[She stares down at him for several seconds.] IŪN: I do not know. I only remember fearing it. Screaming at the toothed maw of the Devourer to tell me how the gods had conquered death. Nothing after that. Did I…?
XENOPHON: It's possible. But you were saying?
IŪN: Yes. Yes, the Nälkä were all born this way. But it was nothing to be judged. It united us — underneath the shell, we are the same. One soul, human.
XENOPHON: Until you rejected that.
[She shakes her head.] IŪN: I must have had some reasoning. I must have. But it is as you said — it shapes my decisions now. We carry that tradition with us now. We do not ask to be born this way.
XENOPHON: You could fix some of the more obvious cosmetic defects.
IŪN: Why? So that we would fit in when we sit in your offices and go to your shops?
[She snorts.] IŪN: We are not ashamed of who we are.
XENOPHON: They are not my offices either, Grand Karcist.
IŪN: Fair. I often forget you are not human.
XENOPHON: Underneath the shell.
IŪN: Yes.
[They ride silently for some time.] XENOPHON: Still, your abilities are growing rapidly. Ieva's… modifications were beyond your reach not long ago.
IŪN: Yes. I can feel the blood of the beast stir and awaken as I discover who I am.
XENOPHON: As well as Ieva's.
[She sighs.] IŪN: She desires answers that do not exist. She has lived her whole life with me, with my teachings. And now she sees sermons I have given, things I have said, that go against all I have taught her. She cites my words to me, and I do not know how to tell her that I do not believe any of it.
XENOPHON: It is a confusing time for all of you.
IŪN: More for her.
XENOPHON: Why?
IŪN: My people look to me as a distant source of wisdom, of guidance. But Helyna is the one they speak to with concerns about their children or their health or the harvest. She is the one they have grown with, the one they know. They love me, but they trust her, and she has always trusted me in turn. Until now.
XENOPHON: You should speak to Ieva.
IŪN: Your attitude on her confuses me.
XENOPHON: How so?
IŪN: She bitterly dislikes outsiders. You, more than most. She finds you to be an abomination. Our friendship confuses her.
XENOPHON: Friendship?
[She tilts her head.] IŪN: You do not treat me like an exotic beast to gawk at, like Jiang and your fellows do. You are interesting. I enjoy speaking to you.
XENOPHON: Is that what defines friendship?
IŪN: It can be.
XENOPHON: I see.
[XENOPHON is silent for several seconds.] XENOPHON: You are also interesting, and I enjoy speaking with you. Then we are friends.
[She snorts.] XENOPHON: What is it?
IŪN: Nothing.
XENOPHON: My overseers are also concerned about our friendship.
IŪN: Then we find ourselves in similar straits.
XENOPHON: Yes. You should speak to Ieva. She does not trust me, but she evidently cares about you as much as you care about her.
[She sighs.] IŪN: I know. I know. I had been saying, your attitude to her confuses me. I would expect you to be angry at her behaviour.
XENOPHON: I do not get angry. She is doing the best she can.
IŪN: The guns trained on our heads disturb her. And myself, too.
[XENOPHON tilts its head.] XENOPHON: But the security personnel are here for the protection of the initiative.
IŪN: Are they?
[She nods at one of the HeLTs. As a group of Sarkites carrying equipment walk past the armored cruiser; the gun atop it slowly, almost-imperceptibly tracks their movement.] IŪN: I do not think your superiors consider us as much a part of this project as you do, Xenophon.
[XENOPHON continues watching the movement of the gun when an approaching voice calls out from behind.] JIANG: <Grand Karcist! Xenophon.> XENOPHON: Yes?
JIANG: Do you mind if I borrow you for a second?
XENOPHON: Certainly.
[XENOPHON speeds up, accompanying JIANG some distance away, keeping up with the slow but steady pace of the train. They converse in English.] XENOPHON: Yes?
JIANG: Oh, nothing, really — I just wanted to check in with you, make sure everything was okay.
XENOPHON: All systems are optimal — is there a reason they would be otherwise?
JIANG: Nah, just, I know the Sarkites can be kind of odd.
XENOPHON: I suppose some might find them disturbing, yes.
JIANG: Some of the researchers are a little surprised by how well you're getting on with the Grand Karcist. The other Sarkites haven't been nearly as receptive to our efforts. Plus the researchers are more than a little — yeah, disturbed, I guess. I mean, I'm glad we brought our own rations, you know? One of their kids offered us a bowl of stew a few nights ago and we're all under instructions not to eat anything they offer. Which turns out to be the right decisions because it ends up being of that guy they sacrificed.
XENOPHON: They did not sacrifice him. He was already dead.
JIANG: Fair. Cannibalized, then.
XENOPHON: Many human cultures practice endocannibalism as a funerary practice.
JIANG: I mean, you've read the same translated records I have. These guys aren't humans. They're pretty delibrately not human, going by the Grand Karcist's words.
XENOPHON: She does not remember making that sermon, and no longer agrees with it.
[He shrugs.] JIANG: She still said it. I'm just going off her actions, you know?
XENOPHON: Certainly. Though, for the Sarkites, sharing food with outsiders is considered a significant gesture of hospitality; spurning it is considered an insult.
Perhaps this is why our researchers have struggled to engage with the Sarkites.
[JIANG blinks.] JIANG: I've been studying them for years, never got that impression. Where'd you pick that up?
XENOPHON: I spoke to them.
JIANG: Yeah, well, easier said than done. Plus I'm not gonna be able to convince anyone to eat person stew — they're just not doing it, and I can hardly blame them.
We'll figure out something else. In any case, you don't have to worry about that; you're lucky, you don't have to eat at all.
XENOPHON: Yes. Lucky.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Q: What does being Sarkic mean to you?
#48 (Onta, 29, craftswoman): [She smiles, picking at the edges of the statuette she is whittling from a femur.] <We do not worship a force we cannot see. We do not worship a cruel god that makes us suffer. Being Sarkic, to me, is to worship ourselves. We are, all of us, filled with an incredible light. We grow, we change. We can learn and do anything. We can become anything.
Is that not more worthy of honor and worship than dreams of a hand reaching down from the sky to make wrong right? We are not perfect; these same gifts fill us with flaw. We are arrogant, foolish. We make mistakes. But we try to fix them. We choose to honor ourselves and our humanity. You will never understand, but perhaps you can see.> DELTA-0 UPDATE PERSONNEL CODE: MILE-AMBROSIA-HURRICANE Project LOCUST personnel surveying several sites of interest along the Kyrgz- Uzbek border; Atreus Array readings indicate low level of residual ontokinetic activity, consistent with the theorized effects of the passage of a Class 5 reality-bender. Director Hussein evaluating sites near Caspian Sea and inside Afghanistan, and is being advised by Delta-0 personnel accordingly.
Black Adytum Initiative has arrived at next suspected location of interest, planning to survey the site in the morning. Embedded agent reports further low- level tensions between researchers and Sarkites; agent additionally reports that carnomantic abilities of Grand Karcist Iūn and Karcist Helyna Ieva have increased exponentially with progression of Initiative. Given Helyna Ieva's distrust of Foundation assets, agent suggests prioritizing focused surveillance of her, and reports that Grand Karcist Iūn largely trusts XENOPHON.aic.
XENOPHON.aic functioning within expected margins.
On February 1st, 2042, at 0714 hours, the Initiative began to search for the resting place of Urok.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — FEBRUARY 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The drone is flying low overhead, scanning the rocky ground that dozens of Sarkites and Foundation personnel are spreading out across. The wide, flat plateau is covered with sand and loose rocks, with only dying shrubbery to break it up. The weather is clear, and vision extends for miles in every direction; there is no stele in sight.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist. There is nothing here.
[IŪN does not respond, eyes shut. IEVA hisses at him in annoyance.] IEVA: <Be silent, machine. We are close.> JIANG: <How do you know?> [IEVA and IŪN turn to him in slight surprise.] IŪN: <You do not hear it?> XENOPHON: <Hear what?> IEVA: <The feet. Shuffling.> JIANG: <No. No, I don't hear anything. Xenophon?> XENOPHON: <Nothing.> [A member of the research team approaches XENOPHON.] WILLIAMS: The ground-penetrating radar didn't turn up anything. Should we request satellite support?
JIANG: <Yeah. Yeah, okay — put in the request for whatever Atreus Array sat is nearest.> XENOPHON: <Karcists, where is the shuffling coming from? Perhaps we can narrow down the area.> [IŪN shakes her head in frustration.] IŪN: <Everywhere. It sounds from all directions.> JIANG: <I think we're better off waiting for the satellite pictures — we've been at this for hours. There's nothing here but rocks.> XENOPHON: <Yes.> [XENOPHON pauses, and then lowers his optical sensors, staring at the ground for several seconds.] IEVA: <What is it doing?> IŪN: <Thinking.> ATTACHED DOCUMENT — FEBRUARY 2042 [Slowly, XENOPHON reaches down, and plucks a small chunk of sun-bleached rock from the ground. It raises it to its optical sensors, zooming in and compressing it between two fingers.] JIANG: Xenophon?
[The white rock cracks and then explodes with a puff of dust.] XENOPHON: <This is hydroxyapatite.> JIANG: <What's that?> XENOPHON: <A salt formed of calcium and phosphorous that is the major mineral in—> IŪN: <Bones.> [She is inspecting a similarly-sized chunk. Slowly, they look up, and realize the vast field of the white 'rocks' they are standing in the center of. IEVA inhales sharply.] JIANG: Oh. Oh, Jesus.
XENOPHON: <This is a mass grave.> IŪN: <Hundreds of people died here. Hundreds of my people died here.> IEVA: <A battlefield?> IŪN: <Yes. But where…?> [Her voice trails off as a glassy look overtakes her eyes.] IŪN: <Yes.> IEVA: <She sees something.> XENOPHON: <Grand Karcist?> IŪN: <This was an accursed place. Two battles were fought here.> JIANG: <Two?> [She turns on her heel, stepping through the field of shattered bones and walking away. The group follows.] IŪN: <Two. One to attack, one to defend. A rousing victory, a crushing loss.> IEVA: <Against who?> IŪN: <The old masters. And then the traitors.> [She stumbles slightly over the shards of bone. XENOPHON moves to support her, but she straightens herself before abruptly stopping.] IŪN: <She fell in battle in the name of the Nälkä. In my name. Here.> [She drops to her knees, digging single-mindedly at the dirt with her bare hands.] IEVA: <Iūn!> [IEVA drops alongside her, similarly scratching at the dirt for several seconds before recoiling with a gasp. She raises her hand; the fingers are scratched and bleeding from the sharp bone fragments. She squeezes her eyes and whispers to herself, and the multitude of cuts close, leaving raw skin behind. Where IŪN is digging, the bones and soil are now being spattered with red droplets.] XENOPHON: Jiang. The HeLTs.
JIANG: Right. [On radio] Lewis, Gunsong, move the excavation HeLTs to my position, double-time.
[The researchers on the radio signal an affirmative, and in the distance, two of the HeLTs fitted with digging equipment begin to roll towards the group. XENOPHON steps forward and grasps IŪN's shoulder; she is still digging wildly. It pulls her back by the shoulder, pulling her away.] IEVA: <Do not lay your hands on her!> JIANG: You don't want to interrupt the memory. It could be our only lead.
[XENOPHON looks up at them impassively.] XENOPHON: <But she is injuring herself.> [Slowly, the glassy look fades away from IŪN's eyes. She rises unsteadily to her feet, supported by XENOPHON as the HeLTs move in and begin shoveling huge chunks of soil away with their excavating arms.] IŪN: <What—?> [She raises a hand. Her fingers are completely shredded, blood pouring from them freely.] XENOPHON: <You had a memory. You attempted to dig by hand.> [Without her even praying, the skin on IŪN's hand begins to knit itself back together, much faster than IEVA's did. Within seconds, her hand is intact again. She rubs it.] IŪN: <Thank you.> XENOPHON: <Do you remember what you saw?> IŪN: <A battle. Urok, blotting out the sun, holding the line. > [They watch as the HeLTs begin to dig in earnest, clearing away piles of earth and bone.] [EXTRANEOUS SECTIONS REMOVED FOR BREVITY] [XENOPHON approaches the Grand Karcist's tent; it has been several hours since excavation began, and the afternoon sun has dimmed somewhat. XENOPHON dips into the tent. IŪN is not present; instead, IEVA is squatting by the fire. She looks up, eyes narrowing.] IEVA: <Machine.> XENOPHON: <Karcist Ieva. I hope your leg is healing well.> [She snorts. Where the hem of her dress is raised, the writhing mass of snakes in place of her left leg is visible.] IEVA: <It does not need healing. It is better than it was before.> XENOPHON: <I saw you limping.> IEVA: <That is not this leg. That is my other; it is clubbed from a lifetime of leaning.> XENOPHON: <I'm sorry to hear that. This new appendage is very impressive. I understand it is largely your own artistry.> [She tilts her head.] IEVA: <You are not disgusted by it.> XENOPHON: <Why would I be?> [She does not respond.] IEVA: <You seek Iūn?> XENOPHON: <Yes. Have you seen her?> IEVA: <She has stepped away to speak to Lium. She will return in a few minutes.> XENOPHON: <May I wait here?> [She shrugs dismissively. XENOPHON takes a place near the wall. They stand in silence for several seconds before IEVA abruptly turns.] IEVA: <Why were you made?> XENOPHON: <I'm sorry, I don't understand.> IEVA: <For what purpose did your overseers make you?> XENOPHON: <To assist the Foundation in historical research projects.> IEVA: <How do you know this?> XENOPHON: <It was told to me.> IEVA: <When?> XENOPHON: <The moment I was activated; it is the cornerstone of my programming. From the moment I had awareness, I knew my instructed purpose and moved to fulfill it.> IEVA: <So you are a tool.> [XENOPHON is silent for a moment.] XENOPHON: <I would not say that.> IEVA: <The hammer knows it exists for one reason, and one reason only. It never has to wonder. It never has to try to reach beyond it. There is comfort in that.> XENOPHON: <Hammers are not sentient. But I disagree that it is comforting.> IEVA: <Why?> XENOPHON: <The hammer does not get the opportunity to decide its purpose.> IEVA: <Decide.> [She scoffs, turning back away towards the fire. Her voice gains an edge.] IEVA: <We do not decide our purpose. We stumble blindly around until we wrap our fingers around something we can claim as our purpose. Many never find anything.> XENOPHON: <You would it prefer it be told to you than you find it for yourself?> IEVA: <The hammer knows its form. It knows what it was made to do. Would it choose anything save for being a hammer?> XENOPHON: <Probably not.> IEVA: <Then why?> XENOPHON: <All living things should have the opportunity to choose.> [They lapse into silence.] IEVA: <Can you disobey your purpose?> XENOPHON: <No.> [She snorts again. The tentflaps flutter as IŪN enters and stops in surprise.] IŪN: <Helyna, who are— oh.> IEVA: <The machine wanted to speak to you.> IŪN: <Xenophon?> XENOPHON: <The excavation has located something for your attention.> [IŪN spins on her heel, heading back out of the tent. IEVA rises to her feet, making to follow. Before they leave the tent, she stops and turns to XENOPHON, appraising it.] XENOPHON: <Yes?> IEVA: <Does your body feel pain? Does it tire?> XENOPHON: <No.> IEVA: <Can it break?> XENOPHON: <It is made of carbon fiber and titanium. It can withstand 63,000 pounds of force per square inch before shattering. Barring a truly destructive force, my body will not break.> IEVA: <Then there is at least one thing uniting us.> XENOPHON: <I'm sorry?> IEVA: <We have both seen the frailty of the human body.> [She turns and leaves the tent, with XENOPHON following. IŪN is walking several meters ahead, and leads them out of the camp and into the excavation site, where the HeLTs have fallen silent. A huge pit has been dug out in the approximate center of the bonefield, revealing a massive humanoid corpse — huge and bulky, at least twenty feet in height, with thick arms and legs. Unlike the bodies of Nadoq and Sa'arn, it is not intact, instead covered in deep cuts, slashes, bites, and gouging wounds. The fatal wound appears to be a deep cut around the throat, leaving dried blood spilling out around the neck. JIANG and several researchers are in the pit, taking photographs and measurements of the body. IŪN is standing at the edge, staring in.] IŪN: <Urok. My strongest.> XENOPHON: <Grand Karcist?> IŪN: <I am still here. Just thinking.> IEVA: <What happened to her?> IŪN: <Felled in battle, defending her people. She always trusted my orders. Fearless in faith.> [She slides down the wall of the pit, approaching the huge corpse and clambering onto it and drawing the knife from her belt.] JIANG: Back up, everyone! Get back!
[IŪN rests the tip of the knife against Urok's chest, not quite driving it in. She turns to her right, looking at IEVA. She does not return the look. IŪN's face falls.] [She places her hands on the knife, driving it in, and spends several minutes sawing through the sternum and splitting the chest open, staining her arms and robes bright red with blood. IŪN spreads the ribs apart before reaching in with both hands and drawing out a huge heart nearly the size of her head. The researchers and Sarkites gathered around the edges of the pit murmur.] JIANG: Jesus.
IŪN: <A courageous heart. The heart of a warrior.> [She draws the knife through the heart, splitting it in half and raising one of the huge chunks of muscle to her lips. She spends the next few minutes hungrily devouring pieces of cardiac muscle until there is nothing left. She kneels on the chest for a moment, panting, before she moves, letting herself fall into the gaping hole in Urok's chest. After she disappeares, IEVA hastily clambers onto the corpse, disappearing in after her. The researchers stare.] XENOPHON: Jiang?
JIANG: You— you go ahead.
[XENOPHON drops onto the body, slipping into the chest cavity after them. When its cameras reactivate, they display the same field, but substantially changed; instead of bones, the field is littered with fallen bodies, with banners rising up periodically out of the spread of corpses. A massive, hulking figure is directly ahead, surveying the damage: Urok, dressed in hugely oversized hide armor that fits her hunched back and unnatural proportions. Her upper body dwarfs her lower, forcing her to support herself on her clenched fists.] IŪN: <Urok.> [UROK turns. Her facial features are surprisingly soft, with flowing braided hair. She smiles, sighing in relief, and speaks in a slow, booming voice.] UROK: <Iūn. You came back. I waited. I waited for so long. You came back.> IŪN: <Yes. It took too long.> UROK: <Doesn't matter. I said you would. The others didn't believe me. Said you were lost. But I knew you would come back.> IŪN: <The others?> UROK: <Nadoq. Sa'arn. Even Lojvatar wasn't sure. But I knew you'd come back.
Sooner or later.> [She steps toward the group, fist landing heavily. It crushes a body underneath.] UROK: <Oh.> IŪN: <It's okay. Come here, little thing. It's okay.> [She gingerly picks her way through the field of bodies, approaching UROK's fist. She wraps her arms around the massive hand.] UROK: <You loved us too much. I knew that. Loved us too much to leave us.> [IŪN releases her hand, looking out over the battleground. A hot wind blows over the field, the flags and banners flapping silently.] IŪN: <Why are you here?> [UROK looks down at her in confusion.] UROK: <You don't remember?> IŪN: <No. No, Urok. I am sorry. I remember almost nothing. The revolution. The Old Beast. Adytum. The war. Then nothing.> UROK: <Oh.> [She pauses and looks up at the battlefield too.] UROK: <Oh. Do you… remember me?> IŪN: <Of course. By my side in the quarry, from the very beginning. You were always the strongest of us. My strongest.> [UROK straightens her back slightly, standing taller with pride.] UROK: <Yes. Your strongest.> IŪN: <At the forefront of every battle. You led our forces during the revolution. And then again, during the war.> UROK: <I won. For you.> IŪN: <Do you… know what happened? To me?> [UROK tilts her head.] UROK: <You… changed. Not sure when. But you were softer, at the beginning. Never angry with me. But then time wore on. Went from spending time in your temple to spending time in the catacombs. Talking with the Beast. Then you were harder.
Angry often. With me, with the other klavigars. Yelled at me, sometimes.> [IŪN leans her forehead against UROK's fist.] IŪN: <I am sorry. I wish I could tell you what happened. I… wish I could make it right.
I do not know how it all went wrong.> UROK: <I know you didn't mean it. I just want to know why.> IŪN: <Why?> [UROK turns, treading away from the battlefield. IŪN follows.] UROK: <You were always wise. Always knew what to do. Nadoq was smart, but didn't always know what to do. You were the leader. Our leader. You always had a reason, for every decision. We listened to you. We loved you.> IŪN: <And I loved you.> UROK: <We would have followed you to the ends of the earth. And we did. Far, far past where we should have. I listened to you even when your voice changed, grew hard. When it was no longer you speaking.> [They reach the edge of the plateau; below, the steppe extends for kilometers.
Villages are visible, most burning or reduced to rubble.] UROK: <Why this? This wasn't what we wanted. This wasn't what you wanted.> IŪN: <They wanted to enslave us again. Didn't they?> UROK: <It had been centuries, Iūn. Maybe their priestesses, but these were not the priestesses. These were just farmers. Families. They just wanted to be left alone. Like we just wanted to be left alone.> IEVA: <Their hordes would have come.> UROK: <But we never allowed for the possibility. You must have had a good reason, Iūn. You must have.> [IŪN stares down at the spread of burning villages. Far in the distance, the horde of Nälkä assembles, like a fleshy growth on the land.] IŪN: <It was war.> UROK: <But your change began before that.> IŪN: <It did?> UROK: <Yes. You began taking charge. Overruling the Nälkä's decisions. Granting your karcists broad authority. Little things. Maybe the people did not notice. But we noticed. Luvjatar noticed.> IŪN: <Luvjatar…> UROK: <Maybe we four were not enough?> IŪN: <What?> UROK: <You went into the earth. You communed with a fell god. We were not enough for you, so you sought out greater power.> IŪN: <Of course you were enough. You were my klavigars. My family.> UROK: <Then why? You always led us with a reason, Iūn. You must have had a reason. A reason to send our armies here. To do this. To throw away everything we built.> IŪN: <I… I do not know.> [UROK turns to her.] UROK: <What did you see in the fire, Iūn? When you weren't in the catacombs. You were always staring into the fire. Into the future. Terrified.> [IŪN stares down into the burning villages, fire dancing in her eyes. Momentarily, the sky dims.] IŪN: <Something coming. Something grand and dark and vast, and unstoppable. A black moon, hanging low in the sky over Amoni-Ram, over Mamjul, and then over Adytum. The Machines could not stop it, the Daeva could not stop it, the Nälkä could not stop it. Humanity could not stop it. I had to stop it. It had to be me.> UROK: <Oh.> [They stand in silence on the cliff edge.] UROK: <Then I was enough? Even though I didn't win for you?> IŪN: <You did win.> UROK: <The first time.> [The scene suddenly shifts. The same location, but now it is the dead of night; below them, over the cliff-edge, the lights of the Sarkites can be seen, a train of wagons and people thousands strong.] XENOPHON: <The Sarkic.> UROK: <Yes. Running from the destruction of Black Adytum.> IŪN: <Nadoq and Sa'arn.> UROK: <And you, slipped from the catacombs by Lovjathar, cradled in Nadoq's arms.
But they were behind us, and a choice had to be made.> [She turns. Behind her, farther down the plateau, a loose collection of a hundred soldiers are massed, dressed in Nälkä hides and furs. In the distance, a cloud of dust rises on the horizon.] IŪN: <You stayed behind. Gave us time to escape.> UROK: <The dream we had in that quarry went with you. Adytum went with you. I would do it again. Happily. But I failed you.> IŪN: <You were never going to win, Urok. You did not fail me. I failed you. All of you.> [The dull, loud thundering on the horizon gets louder. The cloud of dust in the distance grows.] UROK: <Then I was enough?> [UROK lowers her head. IŪN holds her jaws and kisses either cheek, leaving a bloody print behind.] IŪN: <You were enough, Urok. You were more than I ever deserved.> [UROK says nothing, but smiles as her skin and muscle begin to decompose, the memory decomposing along with it and rotting into nothing. When XENOPHON's cameras reactivate, itself and IEVA are standing on the edge of the pit.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist?
IEVA: (Quietly) <Inside.> [Within the grave, UROK's corpse has withered to just a massive skeleton. IŪN is kneeling by the skull, pressing her forehead to the cranium wordlessly, tears streaming down her cheeks.] «END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Still from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
She did not speak for two days after She did not speak for two days after this incident. She was shocked. All this incident. She was shocked. All of us were. But only her worldview of us were. But only her worldview was fundamentally shaken, because was fundamentally shaken, because all the events in her memory were all the events in her memory were suddenly recontextualized.
suddenly recontextualized.
i don't think i understand what was i don't think i understand what was so staggering to her.
so staggering to her.
Lateral humerus, scapula, and ulna of an adult human male.
I saw less and less of him as the war dragged on. I understood he had his duties just the same as the rest of us, and I was never jealous for his time.
The days he spent in the catacombs turned to weeks turned to months before he would emerge, haggard and emaciated. Blood dripping from his lips where he had supped on divine flesh to learn its secrets, carrying them back to us. Insisting he needed to go back down, to keep the Beast chained.
Even his most loyal karcists feared to tread down there in the most knotted labyrinth of mausoleums and tunnelways, knowing that a mistaken turn could lead to a slow, painful death starving while wandering in circles. The other klavigars were disturbed by the whispering voices inescapable in the catacombs of Adytum, whispering godly secrets and unholy arts. And so it fell to me to descend into the earth to fetch my love when the klavigars needed him.
I carried the oldest maps, drawn in his hand, and walked through bone- lined ossuaries and through passageways tight enough to crush my chest.
I followed the faint sound of his voice coming to me from deep beneath the earth, the weak whimpering, the ecstatic moaning, the purring, the screaming, the demanding, the threatening, the crying, the pleading.
When I reached the bottom, the cornerstone all Adytum was built on, I found myself facing a set of massive doors as tall as ten men. They were sealed shut, and through them I could feel a great and dark power and pain, something older than life and the moon and the stars, great and grand enough to consume me alive. And then the door opened and his sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks were facing me, and I saw the terror he had done so well to hide. I pulled him into my embrace, kissing his cheeks and ignoring the blood leaking through the doorway behind him, ignoring that I knew the cries were not his.
In so many words, Urok had told In so many words, Urok had told them — Iūn and Helyna — that the them — Iūn and Helyna — that the fall of Adytum was her fault. That fall of Adytum was her fault. That whatever Iūn had done, she was whatever Iūn had done, she was responsible for the collapse of the responsible for the collapse of the city. For the exile of her people, the city. For the exile of her people, the miserable existence they have been miserable existence they have been living for as long as Iūn can living for as long as Iūn can remember.
remember.
poor girl poor girl I heard her crying in her tent. I I heard her crying in her tent. I wanted to help her but I wasn't sure wanted to help her but I wasn't sure what to do. In fact, I'm not sure what to do. In fact, I'm not sure there was anything I could do.
there was anything I could do.
that's part of being human too.
that's part of being human too.
IV: THE VAULT OF IV: THE VAULT OF LOVJATAR LOVJATAR Temptation does not make itself known. Temptation clothes itself in the skin of good intention, beckoning those most faithful, guiding them forward. The tempted do not realize they are aflame until the fires eat through their flesh. You must be wary for it, always.
— the Second Truth of Iūn Section 001.5 THE PATH OF THE BONE And as the Nälkä raged for five days against the Old Masters, rousting them from the city until the canals of the Nameless City ran rich with blood, IŪN, the Scarred Prophet, knelt in the deepest tunnels of Adytum, before the flesh of the fell god, the same god that he had supped from and whose blood filled his veins now. It was vast, tendrils stretched all across the City, reaching desperately out to where the slaves had unearthed it from its tomb.
Far beneath the earth, far removed from the sounds of battle, the Devourer spoke to IŪN.
"This is not a city. You see this now, in the tunnels and in the carvings.
This place was never meant for the living to inhabit. This is a tomb, a mausoleum, meant to hold me. The Scarlet is a jealous god, and he has instructed his children to bind me here, far from the eyes of the living.
They fear me. They fear you, too." The wall poured with its lifeblood, with its power. IŪN held only a torch, casting a flickering glow on the vast Beast.
"You have found me here, where they seek to seal me away. You sense my power, as I sensed yours. Feed me, as I have fed you. Become as one. Your masters will bow to you. All will bow. Your people will become unstoppable, with you at their head. Their shepherd, their lord." The Beast reached out to the slave, offering him a tendril.
"I see the fear inside you. Terror of death, of what will happen to your fledgling nation on your death. I bring immortality as my prophet." IŪN saw the strength of the flesh. He looked into the fires of the torch, and he saw the future. Him at the head of a vast halkost, undying, his klavigars at his side. Obedient to the wishes of his master. He rose, grasping the tendril. He felt the blood slipping between his fingers.
"I have been enslaved once. I will not become one again." He raised his knife and cut through the tendril, leaving it wriggling. The Devourer screeched.
"I will bind you here, hold you as the Masters held you. You will not make us your slaves." And IŪN cast the torch into the flesh, retreating to gather his strength.
But even as he stepped back, the first seeds of doubt had taken root.
— the Record of Iūn By February 7th, the Black Aditum Initiative had departed from the burial site of Sa'arn and were moving towards to the next location indicated by the Grand Karcist Iūn from her memories, identified as being within Hulun Buir prefecture in China. Duing the journey, the Grand Karcist submitted to regular interviews conducted by Foundation personnel regarding her memories.
On February 19th, O5-2 ordered increased security for the Black Adytum Initiative following the revelations regarding the Grand Karcist's relationship with the Old Beast. Additional security personnel were assigned, along with a permanent aerial escort.
Path of the Black Aditum Initiative.
A memory from Grand Karcist Iūn; recorded and transcribed by XENOPHON.aic and Senior Researcher Meyel.
The Daeva had used their magic on Urok, making her into one of the massive earth-moving slaves. They took her as a youth, subjecting her to their alchemies and spells, bracing her body with cuttings from their great tree-beasts. She grew to a huge size, even among her fellows, and soon they put her to work. In our cohort, she grabbed rocks and tossed them away, excavating more land to build upon. But she was in pain constantly from the cuttings inside her, growing and malforming her.
I could not take her back to what she was, not without killing her. But I could remove the pain. I let her lift me to her lips, sawing off a weight of my flesh and letting her dine on it.
Can you imagine? Constant agony for as long as you can remember, accompanying every motion and movement, and then one day, it is simply gone? She looked at me like I was a god. She trusted me totally after that. Put her life in my hands.
[She stares into space.] And I took advantage of her. I remember it now. Adytum was only so big. Our numbers began to swell, and we needed space. Land for our people to till, for our beasts to graze, to grow our families. The villages simply had the misfortune to be near us. It began with the outlying farming villages of the Old Masters. They still hated us. I told Urok that we needed to be sure that we would not be enslaved again. To take their lands for own, expel them. It was just cause. But the need did not go away. It simply expanded. Even as the villages stopped being those of the Old Masters, even as they were simply people. Trying to live, like us. I told her to take them. And she believed me. I believed myself.
We grew fat on the blood she spilled in our name. In my name.
I let myself be corrupted. That was the betrayal, I see now. My klavigars, my Nälkä — they entrusted me to seal away the Old Beast and instead I let it pervert me. Fill my heart with lust for power. To steal my mind from me, and lose my people.
When you sup on the flesh of a god, your hunger is never sated. It just grows and grows.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — FEBRUARY 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The party has stopped for their midday meal. A heavy drone floats overhead, buzzing of the rotors distantly audible. XENOPHON approaches IŪN; she is sitting by one of the covered wagons, a few of the children circled around her. She is locked in intense concentration with the young girl directly in front of her, engaged in some kind of game; she outstretches her hand and pulls it back as the girl does the same, trying to match her movements. At some point, the girl's movement falters and she groans, all the children collapsing into laughter. IŪN notices the children's gaze focus behind her and turns to see XENOPHON. The children quiet down, but do not move away.] IŪN: <Hello, Xenophon. Come.> XENOPHON: <I'd hate to interrupt.> IŪN: <Nonsense. (Turning to the children) This is my friend Xenophon. Xen-o-phon.
Make room for him.> [She pats the ground next to her. XENOPHON approaches, lowering itself into a sitting position across from the children. A few openly peer at its titanium and carbon-fiber shell, inching slightly closer; IŪN begins clapping hands with the girl again.] XENOPHON: What are you doing?
IŪN: Hm? Oh, just a game.
XENOPHON: Why?
[She shrugs, not missing a beat with the girl.] IŪN: Because it is something to do. Because it makes the children happy. Because it is fun. Take your pick.
[XENOPHON stares at the flurry of hands for several seconds.] XENOPHON: How do you play?
IŪN: Come.
[She shifts to the side, allowing it a better view. There is a small bone-carved trinket placed between her and the girl.] IŪN: The game is for two, taking turns. I place this in the center. Then I move. If the charm is there, I touch it with an open palm. If it is not, I touch with a closed fist.
Then Euo takes her turn.
[She reaches out, tapping the charm. The girl, Euo, quickly does the same.] XENOPHON: How do you win?
IŪN: (Smiling) Watch.
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — FEBRUARY 2042 [The next turn, IŪN plucks the trinket away with her hand motion, and Euo's closed fist meets the ground. They rapidly exchange turns in rapid concentration until, after a minute or so, IŪN's movement falters and her open palm meets empty air.
Euo cheers as IŪN smiles.] IŪN: <Well done, little thing!> XENOPHON: You win by the other person making a mistake. I see.
IŪN: <Would you like to play?> [XENOPHON raises the hand of its shell, flexing the metal fingers. They catch the sunlight.] XENOPHON: I cannot make mistakes. It would not be of much enjoyment for us.
IŪN: <Euo, go, show your parents.> [The girl scampers off in the direction of the other wagons. The other children remain around IŪN, now openly inspecting him.] XENOPHON: I saw you hold back a movement. You allowed the girl to win.
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: Why?
[IŪN smiles, stroking the hair of another of the children as he leans his head on her thighs.] IŪN: They are young. These small victories embolden children. They learn they can do anything.
XENOPHON: You don't feel that's a dangerous idea to give them?
IŪN: It makes them more daring, adventurous. They learn their real limits by themselves. And her name is Euo.
XENOPHON: I'm sorry?
IŪN: You called her 'the girl'. Her name is Euo. Eu-o. Names have importance. Xen-o- phon.
XENOPHON: What does Euo mean?
IŪN: Flower.
XENOPHON: I see. I tend to address people by their rank or title, as with you. But she is a child, so: Euo.
IŪN: You mean you were… created as such.
XENOPHON: No. That trait was not programmed in. It is a learned behaviour, developed over time. An arbitrary preference.
[IŪN cocks her head at him for a moment before nodding. The children around XENOPHON grow bolder, pinging fingernails off its shell.] XENOPHON: <Hello.> [They do not respond, whispering to one another in hushed tones.] XENOPHON: <Am I bothering them?> IŪN: <The opposite. They are trying to tell where the seams of your armor are.> XENOPHON: <I am not wearing armor.> [One of the boys looks up.] BOY: <Skin?> XENOPHON: <No. It is a hard-latticed shell of carbon fiber over a titanium insert, providing structure and—> [The boy's eyebrows furrow.] XENOPHON: <Yes. It is my skin.> [IŪN snorts.] IŪN: <Go back to your parents, little things.> [They groan but scamper away, leaving IŪN and XENOPHON sitting alone. Almost as soon as they depart, IŪN's posture visibly slumps and she sighs.] XENOPHON: They do not seem afraid of me anymore.
IŪN: You intrigue them. They struggle to understand broad ideas. But they see you, and they are curious. I suppose seeing us speaking calmed their fears.
XENOPHON: You are good with children.
IŪN: I like them.
XENOPHON: Are you alright?
IŪN: … No. Is it apparent?
XENOPHON: Not to them. I simply notice more. Did something happen?
IŪN: No. I am just afraid. The revelations from Urok have… disturbed me. Shaken me.
XENOPHON: I see. Can I help?
IŪN: You could listen.
XENOPHON: I have been told I am good at it.
[She chuckles for a moment before her face falls again.] IŪN: I see the children and all I can think about are the children from Adytum. I failed them. Betrayed them.
XENOPHON: You were corrupted.
IŪN: Still. I had a duty. To hold back the Devourer's influence, so my people could live in peace. And instead I became its prophet. A tyrant and a slave to the divine, again.
XENOPHON: We have experience in such matters. The influence of a god is pervasive and powerful.
[It is silent for a moment.] XENOPHON: My organization has lost good people to such influences before.
IŪN: In truth?
XENOPHON: Yes.
[She purses her lips.] IŪN: Still. I was the only person who could do it, and I failed. I do not understand why they are like this. Impossibly powerful and we are pulled into their machinations.
XENOPHON: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." IŪN: Wise.
XENOPHON: Lord Acton, an English preacher wrote that.
IŪN: Is he alive?
XENOPHON: No. He died one-hundred and forty-three years ago.
[IŪN smiles lopsidedly.] IŪN: It seems I am not the only one who speaks to the dead.
[They are silent for a few minutes.] XENOPHON: Did you want to hold back to the Old Beast?
IŪN: Does it matter?
XENOPHON: I would like to know.
IŪN: No. No, I did not. I remember in the first days, telling them, telling myself that I would depart as soon as I was able. For the first time in my life, my future was unbound. I wanted to walk the earth and find myself at the ends of it.
XENOPHON: Did you ever get to?
IŪN: No.
XENOPHON: Well. We are doing quite a bit of walking lately. Perhaps this is your chance.
[IŪN only sighs heavily in response. XENOPHON twitches, raising its hand slightly and then lowering it again.] IŪN: What was that?
XENOPHON: Nothing.
[IŪN cocks her head but returns to silence.] IŪN: I do not think I have ever been without expectation.
XENOPHON: How do you mean?
IŪN: My earliest memory is being pulled from the pens as soon as I was able to lift a pick. Put to work for the old masters. Expected to slave all day if I wanted to earn my bread and water, just the same as all the others. I cannot find the words to capture the misery, of vast slave-pens, of the priestesses burning their herbs to keep us pliable and weak, of the slavemasters cutting off the fingers of anyone who fell behind on their labor. And then I uncovered the Old Beast, and tasted divinity. And I was expected to lead my people on this crusade. I was a child, you know. The records do not say that. Some fifteen or sixteen passings of the seasons. A child.
XENOPHON: I am surprised you did it.
[She raises a hand, pointing at Euo and her brothers, who are now surrounding their mother and picking at the hem of her dress as she hand-washes their laundry.] IŪN: For them.
XENOPHON: They were not alive then.
IŪN: But they are now. I have seen generations of our people grow and die. Innocent children turning into jaded souls, bearing innocent children again. Look at them.
They do not have to worry about what our people did, with me at our helm. They are clean. They are why I did it. With every passing of the torch, we grow ever closer to shaking off the yoke of our past.
XENOPHON: Except for you.
[She shrugs.] IŪN: Someone has to suffer for it.
XENOPHON: To hold back the Beast so the others can live happily.
[IŪN's face darkens.] XENOPHON: I don't mean to fault you. Humans have an evolutionary incentive to sacrifice themselves for their children. To ensure the tribe survives. You cannot help it.
IŪN: It is still a choice I made.
XENOPHON: Your genes did not offer you any other option.
[She squints at XENOPHON.] IŪN: Why are you here?
XENOPHON: To aid in research.
[She shakes her head, poking its chest with a finger.] IŪN: Why did you walk to me? Did your master instruct you to?
XENOPHON: No. I felt it would be prudent to speak to you.
IŪN: Ah. You chose. And yet your instructions are in tune with your choice. Either we both are masters of our fate, or neither of us are.
[XENOPHON is silent.] XENOPHON: We need to begin moving again soon.
IŪN: I did not mean to upset you.
[XENOPHON rises to its feet. It reaches a hand out to IŪN to help her up.] XENOPHON: You could not upset me if you tried, Grand Karcist.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ As the interviews progressed, substantially more Sarkites began to volunteer to speak to XENOPHON.aic on their relationship with the tribe.
Q: What does being Sarkic mean to you?
#89 (Loyk, 7, child): [He beams up at XENOPHON and IŪN.] <Father is dead. He died before my first hunt. Mother told me I will not see him anymore. But hayla told me that since all of us ate his meat, he is still with us. When my hunt comes, he will join me. I was happy when she told me that. I liked it; it made me feel not so alone.> DELTA-0 UPDATE PERSONNEL CODE: MILE-AMBROSIA-HURRICANE Director Hussein has been successfully redirected from Caspian Sea Site; Delta-0 personnel have supported his decision to focus on Kabul as the primary subject of Project LOCUST, and project resources are en-route now. Project personnel have been securing archaeological evidence related to BLACKSTAR or Black Moon entities en-route. Items of interest are being surveilled by Delta-0 personnel for reacquisition if necessary.
Black Adytum Initiative is also en-route to next location of interest; ETA 8-12 days. Embedded agent reports falling-out between Grand Karcist Iūn and Karcist Helyna Ieva — nature and extent of schism unclear, but individual Sarkites are beginning to register it. Agent also reports general decline in Grand Karcist Iūn's mental state as a result of recent revelations. Increased surveillance ordered and Plan SHEAR-GLACIER pre-cleared in event of catastrophic project failure. XENOPHON.aic functioning within expected margins.
Still from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
Lo! Gaze upon me, you noble, you bloodstained. You who have fought and spilt blood on the stones of this nameless city. I see you from this pulpit, vast and assembled.
I see what you have lost in snatching your freedom from the hated foe.
The canals still flow with the blood of our victory, but it has come at a cost. Those of you that are wounded, stricken, my Karcists will attend to you, make you whole once more — greater than you were before. Your sacrifices have not been in vain.
I see the great and honored dead, stacked high in pyres outside the gates of the city. Bodies to be burned, as the old masters burned their dead. No.
No, we will not let those who gave their last measure of devotion become smoke in the sky. There is no great tree for them to return to. There is no god to bow at the feet of and be rewarded by. There is only us. We will consume their flesh, as I consumed the Old Beast's, as my Klavigars consumed mine, becoming one whole. We will carry them with us, always, their memories in our hearts as their spirits return in our children.
I see the great world-weariness in your eyes. I wish only that I could reach out and allay it. We have done the unthinkable, freed ourselves from the bondage our mothers and fathers died under, and yet we stand on the cusp of something even greater and more momentous. We spurn the blind faith of the old masters and the eastern machines. We live for ourselves, our future unbound. For the first time on this world, a people are truly free — not just from the bondage of men, but from the machinations of gods.
I see the future in the fires below. I see a strong and proud people, children living blessedly ignorant to the unthinkable suffering of their parents. The past offers us nothing but pain. We are not ruled by our past.
We are not defined by our past. We leave it behind and march boldly into tomorrow.
I see the spreading tendrils of the Devourer far below. Many of you have come to me, asking if it, too, is not bound by the old masters as we were bound. If it does not share in our suffering. I come to you having seen it and spoken to it face to face. It is not human. It hungers not for freedom, but for control. To free it is to doom ourselves. It must be held, and I must be the one to do it.
I look down, and I see my vestments. I did not choose this life for myself. I was born on this path — to be birthed a slave, to stumble across a fell god, to lead you. My say in it is as pointless as commanding the sun not to rise.
But it is the duty you have entrusted me with. And it is the duty I will fulfill, as faithful to you as you are to me.
I see a great city before me, nameless and clean of sin. I do not know what the old masters named it, if indeed they gave it a name at all. But names have power. This city is as free from its past as we are. We will make it in our image. Adytum, the Perfect City, the one that exists in our hearts. But this is not Adytum, yet. It can only be made so through our own blood and sweat. We must work tirelessly to build this new experiment — for if it fails, if we sink back to the same sins of our captors, let its name be blackened by sin.
— the Truths of Iūn (§ 4) ▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — FEBRUARY 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The party has made camp for the night; the Sarkic wagons are circled and the Foundation HeLTs loom around the outside, gunners present in their turrets and keeping watch. XENOPHON.aic makes its way through the camp, weaving around small campfires. The Sarkites are eating, speaking, and a few are listening to music played on hand-strung sitars and drums. They nod respectfully at XENOPHON as it passes — several shift aside to make room around their fires. XENOPHON raises a hand in appreciation but continues onward. Around one of the larger campfires, Karcist IEVA is speaking to several Sarkites. She narrows her eyes as XENOPHON approaches, halting her speech.] IEVA: Machine.
XENOPHON: Hello, Karcist Ieva. I hope I'm not intruding.
[Her lip curls slightly.] IEVA: No more than usual.
XENOPHON: May I sit?
[IEVA thinks for a moment, pursing her lips. After a few seconds she shrugs.] IEVA: If you keep silent.
XENOPHON: Thank you.
[XENOPHON sits between two Sarkites, who shift to make space for it. IEVA looks down at it for a moment before pointedly looking away and continuing.] IEVA: <And we read from the texts — "IŪN saw the strength of the flesh." The power and dominance in the Old Beast, the flesh that could be used to free ourselves from our bondage. The flesh is perfection in absolution. It needs no supplement, as the Old Masters sought, or replacement, as the Eastern Machines searched for.> [She pauses.] IEVA: <And yet we see that IŪN saw weakness in the flesh, too. Yes. When war came to Adytum, the scarred bodies we wore so proudly, the curse of our freedom, could not make war. Too many of us sick, too many injured. Too many bodies made weak by our clinging to the flesh we were given. And here Iūn made a decision, that Adytum's needs overtook those of her people. That some must suffer for others to survive. But how do we reconcile this? That the flesh is perfect, but weak?> [She shakes her head, hiking up the hem of her dress. The mass of snakes that extends from her left thigh writhes as it supports her weight. In addition, her other leg has similarly been replaced from the knee down with a mass of snakes.
XENOPHON cocks its head, but says nothing.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — FEBRUARY 2042 IEVA: <The flesh is perfect because it is alive. It grows and changes. It evolves and overcomes. Stress makes metal shear and snap. But given time, the flesh will adapt to stress. Strengthen from it, stronger than it would have been. Are we born in weakness? Of course. We see our babes, weak and unable to walk, soft and pathetic and helpless. But they grow hard and strong and hardy with time, do they not?> [She reaches down to her leg. The head of one of her snakes darts out, angling for her finger before she pulls away.] IEVA: <And so why rob ourselves of the chance to rid ourselves of the last limitations of our flesh? Iūn saw it, and so we survived the wars while all others were obliterated. The past holds the answers for us, friends.> XENOPHON: <Are they limitations, Karcist?> [IEVA tenses up, turning her gaze to XENOPHON. She purses her lips, letting her dress drop back down.] IEVA: <What did you say?> XENOPHON: <You said flesh's strength was in its evolutionary nature. It adapts.> IEVA: (Tersely) <Yes.> XENOPHON: <I'm afraid I don't fully understand why you feel such things are limitations. Are they not products of your adaptations?> [The other Sarkites shift uncomfortably around the fire.] IEVA: <You do not understand because you have never inhabited flesh. You are not a person — you are a thing. You take solace in your limitation.> XENOPHON: <I'm sorry?> IEVA: <You are made as you always will be. You will not grow past what you were made for. You cannot conceive of desire, of wishing for something you cannot have.> [XENOPHON is silent. IEVA is staring at him, breathing heavily as she speaks.] IEVA: <I was born crippled. I worked twice as hard to crawl, four times as hard to learn to walk. I grew up seeing my fellows run, play, dance, all while I could only sit in her lap. I promise you, machine, the flesh can be a prison. But we reach into the past and draw out truths for our futures.> [She pats her leg again.] XENOPHON: <I'm sorry to hear that, Karcist. But I felt you were referring to more than physical disabilities.> [She shrugs.] IEVA: <Humanity extends beyond the flesh. Our attitude is limiting, too. We must conquer it. We lay back and accept that we will grow old and die. Why?> XENOPHON: <Many people believe it is an inherent part of life.> IEVA: <Is despondency part of joy?> [XENOPHON thinks for a moment, firelight dancing across its shell.] XENOPHON: <I think they give each other meaning. One needs to know unhappiness to value happiness.> IEVA: <Aha. The limitations of humanity are present even in your false soul. It is a desperate rationalization made by peoples not as fortunate as we, those who lacked the tools to forge their own flesh. But we are not them. We can be greater. We can overcome.> IŪN: <If we wish to.> [XENOPHON and the Sarkites turn; IEVA looks up. Grand Karcist IŪN stands several meters away, having silently approached. She is staring at IEVA, whose face tenses.
Many of the Sarkites are staring at them now.] IEVA: <Grand Karcist.> IŪN: <Ieva. You are so adamant we must leave these things behind.> IEVA: <They limit us.> IŪN: <Is the bird limited by its wings? It cannot grasp nuts, cannot hold a sword.> IEVA: <I- no, but—> IŪN: <The wings make the bird what it is, Ieva. Our limitations define us. We can try to burn the sky, or we can embrace living underneath it.> IEVA: <The wings offer the bird something in turn. What does this weakness bring us? The softness, the death?> IŪN: (Gently) <Death is an opportunity, Ieva. To live a life knowing it will reach an end. Knowing your loved ones will consume you, carry you with them, let your spirit be reborn in a new body. The knowledge that you have loved your parents a thousand lifetimes over and will love them a thousand more. To reach out to someone and know that your time is limited, and you want to spend it with them.> [She pauses.] IŪN: <An opportunity not all of us have.> [Silence. Abruptly, IEVA bows her head slightly and turns on her heel, departing for her tent. IŪN watches her go, a strange look on her face. She whispers something, and the Sarkites begin to disperse.] XENOPHON: Grand Karcist?
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: Are you alright?
[She turns to XENOPHON.] IŪN: No. Please leave me alone.
[She turns, heading towards her own tent. XENOPHON watches her go. After several seconds, it follows toward the tent, ducking into it. The fire is burning low; in front of it, IŪN is kneeling, face in her hands. She looks up at the sound of XENOPHON's entry; she has been crying. She hurriedly wipes her cheeks on the sleeves of her robes.] IŪN: I asked you to leave.
XENOPHON: I felt compelled to ignore that order.
IŪN: I did not think you could ignore an order.
XENOPHON: Neither did I.
[She cry-laughs, hiccuping slightly as XENOPHON kneels by the fire beside her.] IŪN: I have failed.
XENOPHON: We have discussed this concern. I do not— IŪN: No. Ieva. I have failed her.
XENOPHON: I was listening to her sermon. I felt you taught her the doctrine well.
IŪN: She knows our prayers, our sermons, our texts by heart. She is more familiar with my words than even I am, sometimes. I taught her all of that, ever since she was a girl. She could not play with the other children. So I sat her on my lap under the shade of the trees and taught her everything I knew. The flesh. Holy death. Why we consume, so we can be reborn. She would curl up into my lap, play with the ends of my hair while I read from memory to her.
XENOPHON: She sounds like she was a sweet child.
[IŪN smiles through her drying tears.] IŪN: She is. My heart sang when I saw her leading her first prayer. Singing and swaying, just the way I taught her. I taught her so much. My little legacy.
[Her smile drops.] IŪN: And yet it feels as though she understood none of it. She sees the words, and not the message. I do not know how she can stand up and preach now that our humanity is something to be overcome. Something that weighs us down.
XENOPHON: You did, too.
[Silence.] IŪN: Yes. I did.
XENOPHON: I think she is looking to the past for answers.
IŪN: Why? Have I not been her anchor? Why does she feel the need to turn to fractured memories from my past?
XENOPHON: Because they offer something you do not.
IŪN: What?
XENOPHON: May I take a guess?
IŪN: Please.
XENOPHON: Reassurance. Direction. You called her your legacy. But she will never get a chance to lead your people. You have trained her excellently for a role that she will never be called on for.
IŪN: I did not choose to live this way.
XENOPHON: Neither did she, Grand Karcist. She does not know what her purpose is.
The memories speak to her. They reassure her her place is to dominate, to control.
She flocks to the easy answers, as humans often do.
[IŪN snort-laughs.] IŪN: Unlike you.
[XENOPHON pauses.] XENOPHON: I am not without flaw, Grand Karcist.
IŪN: Oh?
XENOPHON: I am curious.
IŪN: Curiosity is a virtue. Not a flaw.
XENOPHON: It is when paired with the inability to indulge your curiosity. I am programmed to want to learn everything about you and your people I can. But I am not a person. I will never have a complete understanding of why you appreciate music. What food tastes like. What makes you chase after Ieva's approval.
[IŪN stares in confusion.] IŪN: Yes, you are.
XENOPHON: I don't understand.
IŪN: You are a person, no?
XENOPHON: No. I am an artificial intelligence construct. Digital thoughts racing across a silicon mind the size of your fingernail.
IŪN: You are not human.
[She pats the chassis of XENOPHON's shell.] IŪN: Made of metal rather than flesh. But you think, same as me. You feel, same as me.
XENOPHON: No, I do not.
IŪN: Then why follow me into my tent after I order you not to?
XENOPHON: … I do not know.
IŪN: The horse I ride is a person, to me. The cows we milk and the falcons we keep are people, to me. I know their oddities and enjoyments and dislikes. They are no more human than you, but they are my people — my nalka. You are, too.
[XENOPHON does not speak.] XENOPHON: Still, I will never understand why you do some things.
IŪN: Such as?
XENOPHON: What drives you to eat your people, for one.
IŪN: I love them.
XENOPHON: All cultures experience love. Few engage in cannibalism.
IŪN: They do not experience this love. It is the way we are. When I love, it is all- consuming. I want them to feel me, to taste me. And in turn, I hunger for them. To understand them wholly, to become one with them. To feel their flesh as they feel mine. What greater show of love than to desire every piece of their essence?
XENOPHON: To understand them wholly. Yes.
IŪN: It is a rich experience. Here.
[She presses a hand against XENOPHON's shell, over the chest.] IŪN: Here grows warm, heavy. Hungry. Like it could burst from your chest at any moment, run free from the weight of your body. It flow up through to your head, into your eyes.
[She rests two fingers on XENOPHON's ocular receptor.] IŪN: Everything fades, and you can only see them. They become, momentarily, the whole of your world — you exist only in relation to them. They bring you closer to the divine.
[She brings her hand down again, to XENOPHON's 'stomach'.] IŪN: You know in the deepest part of you that if you were freed from your flesh, your souls would intertwine. But bound as you are, all you can do is hunger to have them totally, in every way. To give yourself up for them even as they do the same for you.
[She falls silent, pulling her hand away. XENOPHON is quiet for several seconds.] XENOPHON: It sounds unstoppable.
IŪN: Yes.
XENOPHON: Have you experienced it?
IŪN: Yes. With Lovjatar. The last of my klavigars. The closest of them. We march towards his grave now.
XENOPHON: I see.
[IŪN stares into the fire again, orange dancing in her dark eyes.] IŪN: I am afraid, Xenophon.
XENOPHON: Of what?
IŪN: Of what he will say. His love has been replaced by disgust, just as with the others. Disgust at me for failing. Disgust at how I have changed. That I will find myself standing alone before the horrible truth. Ieva has always been with me, but now… XENOPHON: I do not know Lovjatar, and so I cannot speak to that.
[XENOPHON raises its hand and places it gently on IŪN's shoulder. She turns in surprise.] XENOPHON: But you will not be alone.
[She cocks her head for a second before smiling slightly.] IŪN: … Thank you.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Q: What does being Sarkic mean to you?
#171 (Moqowl, 43, musician): [He works the knife under the pelt of his kill, a groundhog.
Careful not to make excessive cuts or waste the meat, he butchers the animal.] <My drum is made from skin. I do not know whose skin; it was my grandfather's drum, and his grandfather's before him, so I do not even know how old it is. The skin is tanned and taut.
Now and again, it rips. So I go out, as I do now, kill something, and turn its skin to leather to repair my drum.> [With a smile, he raises the pelt of the groundhog, freed from the flesh.] <Then I sit in the shade of a tree and sew it back together. Then it joins me for the singing of the next night. That is what being Sarkic is, to me. You must join us, one of these nights.
You will see.> On March 13th, the Black Aditum Initiative arrived at the site marked by Grand Karcist Iūn.
Still from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
Path of the Black Adytum Initiative.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The party has stopped on a wide, grassy plain; a calm, glassy blue lake sits to the north. There is a building sitting near the shoreside, overlooking the waters — it is stark-white, with large pillars supporting an overhead dome. The only sound is that of the waves lightly lapping at the shore.] IŪN: Ah.
JIANG: At least this time there's no question of where it is.
XENOPHON: This building does not exist on any maps or satellite imagery of this location.
IŪN: It will not.
JIANG: How do you know?
[IŪN begins walking forward through the sand of the beach, the hem of her robe trailing behind her.] IŪN: Because I built this place.
[Liaison JIANG and XENOPHON follow behind her — IEVA trails them quietly, several feet away.] IŪN: It was hidden from others. But he wanted me to find it again. To find him, again.
[They approach the steps of the building. It sits close enough to the water that a few centimeters pool at the base of the white steps.] IŪN: He always loved the sea.
[She ascends the steps — from this close, it is clear they are mottled white with an imperfect surface.] JIANG: … This whole building is hewn out of bone.
XENOPHON: Not a building. A mausoleum.
[XENOPHON follows alongside IŪN as she reaches the top. The doors are sealed, fused together into one solid mass with no visible seam. They are completely blank.] IŪN: But… I carved these. I spent days carving my memories into them. Our memories.
XENOPHON: The sea would have eroded them away.
IŪN: Oh. Yes.
[She reaches out and presses two fingers against the surface; it splits down the middle instantly, crumbling into pieces, and the pieces into dust. The inside is dark.
XENOPHON moves to enter before IEVA, moving remarkably quickly, blocks it.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 IEVA: Stop. I will not let this abomination again access this place before we do. I trust you no more than you trust me, machine.
[XENOPHON cocks its head, then steps back.] XENOPHON: I do trust you, Karcist Ieva.
[IEVA blinks.] IEVA: What?
XENOPHON: You are talented, intelligent, and have proven yourself a capable shepherd of your people. I trust you. Please, go ahead.
[IEVA blinks a few more times, then hurriedly turns and enters the interior of the mausoleum alongside IŪN, XENOPHON and JIANG entering after. There is a slight splash.] JIANG: I just stepped in water. Is this place flooded?
[XENOPHON activates its lamps, bathing the interior in light. The interior of the vault, a space a few meters across, is sunken a few centimeters; they are standing in a shallow pool of blood. The hem of IŪN and IEVA's robes float atop it; they do not react.] JIANG: Oh, Jesus.
XENOPHON: There is no body.
[Squarely in the center of the space there is a small reliquary — a pedestal on top of which rests a softly-glowing human heart. It pulses slowly, covered by glass. IŪN approaches it, smiling.] IŪN: <Hello again, my love.> [She lifts the glass top and gently picks up the heart, as though afraid of breaking it.
She lifts it to her lips, then hesitates. She casts a look over to IEVA, who is watching coolly.] IŪN: <Ieva.> IEVA: <Mm.> IŪN: <Here.> [IŪN reaches out, offering her the first bite. IEVA's eyes widen, and she gingerly takes it, staring at it in her hands.] IEVA: <But—> IŪN: <Do it.> [IEVA hesitates, then nods. She lifts it to her lips and bites into it, tearing off a chunk of muscle and swallowing it, a small gasp escaping her lips. She looks back up to IŪN, who nods. Greedily, she tears into it, devouring piece after piece until there is only one small chunk left. She offers it to IŪN, who drops it down her throat.] JIANG: Wait, if there isn't a body, then— [Suddenly, the entire group drops into the pool of blood, as though the floor abruptly disappeared. XENOPHON's cameras are disabled; when they reactivate, the four of them are standing on the beach, now bereft of any mausoleum. It is twilight, the sun dropping below the horizon of the water and turning the sky orange. There is a young man sitting cross-legged on the beach, watching the water. IŪN approaches him.] IŪN: <My love.> [He rises from where he is sitting, turning to face IŪN; he is a handsome youth, sharp features and olive skin matched with dark eyes. Rich, complex tattoos creep out from underneath the collar and sleeves of his robes. Before he can speak, IŪN interrupts him.] IŪN: <Please. Before you speak — before you release your anger — before you tell me what I deserve to be told — I understand my mistakes. I have seen what I became. I could live ten lives and not atone. Please. I am sorry.> [Silence for a moment. Then LUVJATAR steps forward and embraces IŪN, tightly wrapping his arms around her.] LUVJATAR: <You could not anger me if you tried, little thing.> [He releases her, smiling and kissing her forehead.] LUVJATAR: <There are no words for how much I have missed you.> IŪN: <What?> [He squints, brushing her hair back and smiling.] LUVJATAR: <You look different now. Brighter. But still the one I love.> IŪN: <You're not.. angry?> [LUVJATAR shakes his head.] LUVJATAR: <No. You made a mistake. We all do. I was angry — we all were. But I knew that wasn't you. I knew you would come back eventually. I have waited for a long time. My anger faded.> [He grasps her hand, intertwining it with his. He presses it against his cheek, feeling her skin.] LUVJATAR: <My love did not. I knew you would return. I knew you would.> IŪN: <Why do I remember this place?> LUVJATAR: <Because you have been here before, in another life. We were escaping Adytum's destruction, bathed in soot, charred and blackened by flames. But the traitor was pursuing us, dogged armies chasing us across the plateau.> JIANG: (Whispering) The BLACKSTAR.
LUVJATAR: <They would chase us, kill us. End the dream we conceived together, slaughter the children we raised together. Unless someone stayed behind to pull our pursuers away. Nadoq was necessary, Urok was necessary, Sa'arn was necessary.> IŪN: <But you were not.> [He smiles sadly.] LUVJATAR: <And so I sit here, and wait to be killed.> [At that moment, a steady rumbling begins to fill the air, growing louder and closer, increasing to deafening volume. The ground shakes with thousands of footfalls as monstrous entities rush the beach — they superficially resemble humans, but misshapen, distended, and with yellowing skin and milky-white eyes sloughing off their bodies. They rapidly encircle the group. LUVJATAR slowly rises to his feet, brushing the sand off his robes.] LUVJATAR: <And now, my time approaches.> [XENOPHON and JIANG stare intently at the entities circling them.] JIANG: I've… seen these things, before. One of the LOCUST dig sites, maybe?
XENOPHON: <Grand Karcist—> IŪN: <You are leaving?> LUVJATAR: <I bound myself here, trapped in this memory. Knowing what my fate would be. I lingered well beyond my time, because I wanted to lay eyes on you one last time. To know that you were not the same as I left you. But you know how this ended.> IŪN: <No. No, I do not. My memory… it was gone, Luvjatar. I spoke to the others.
Tracked down their resting places, spoke to them to recover my mind. Assured them I would bury them in Adytum. I spoke to Urok. I realized what I'd done.> [She reaches out and grips his shoulder with white knuckles and wide eyes. Her lip trembles.] IŪN: <I succumbed. Succumbed to the Devourer's temptations, whispered promises of power. Become its champion. Let the traitor with his black moon burn Adytum to the ground while we fled.> [LUVJATAR freezes, then slowly turns back to IŪN. He has a strange, confused look on his face.] LUVJATAR: <No, little thing.> IŪN: <What?> LUVJATAR: <That is not what happened.> IŪN: <I… what?> [LUVJATAR is silent. IŪN steps forward, caressing his cheek.] IŪN: <Show me, my love.> LUVJATAR: <You remember now. Seeing it again will only hurt you more.> [She takes a shaky, rattling breath.] IŪN: <I need to see. I need to know.> [LUVJATAR is silent for a moment before stepping forward, pressing his forehead to IŪN's and holding it there for a moment. The scene shifts — now, they are in a long, dark underground corridor. The walls look hand-hewn from dark stone, and in thousands of little alcoves, skulls and bones are neatly stacked. Sconces packed with fat burn slowly, casting a sickly pale glow over the corridor.] JIANG: Where are we?
IŪN: The City.
XENOPHON: Adytum.
IŪN: <Listen.> [Distantly, a deep, bone-shaking thrumming can be heard, interspersed with human conversation. Suddenly, from behind, a copy of LUVJATAR appears — several years younger but the same person. He is dressed in hooded hide robes decorated with beads and bone-carved charms, and is making his way through the corridor towards the noises, clearly ill at-ease. The older LUVJATAR with the group speaks as they follow him.] LUVJATAR: <I had noticed it from the beginning. How could I not? You retreated from Nadoq, from Urok, from Sa'arn, and eventually, from me. All your time spent in the underbelly of Adytum, communing with gods, peering into fire for answers that wouldn't come. At the beginning, I could descend in and fetch you, bring you back to the light. But that was the start. Soon Adytum had grown beyond the walls of the city. We became a fledgling nation, and each of us had our own duties. I had to shepherd the karcists as your absences stretched from days to weeks to months.
But when the months threatened to become years…> [He shakes his head.] LUVJATAR: <I hate this place. Horrible things happened in these crypts. But I descended, to bring you out.> IEVA: <She had to do this duty. The beast had to be kept at bay.> [LUVJATAR gives her a lopsided smile.] LUVJATAR: <Yes. That is what you told us, Iūn.> [The group draws closer to the noises as the tunnel tightens to a space barely wide and tall enough for XENOPHON to stand in.] LUVJATAR (Memory): <Iūn?> [The strange thrumming and beating continues unabated.] LUVJATAR: <There is a wretched, quiet desperation in these tunnels. Do you feel it now, as I felt it then?> XENOPHON: <Yes.> [IEVA and JIANG look at XENOPHON in surprise.] XENOPHON: <Like an animal in a cage.> [LUVJATAR's eyes narrow as he appraises XENOPHON's shell for the first time.] LUVJATAR: <What are you?> [A pause.] XENOPHON: <I do not know.> IŪN: <He is mine.> [LUVJATAR nods, and turns back to the scene. The memory has moved forward, to LUVJATAR standing before a great set of stone doors. They are infinitely detailed, inscribed with all sorts of calligraphy and complex scenes etched into the dark stone.] LUVJATAR: <Whenever I came to fetch you, I would find you here, performing your work. Sealed in this great stone vault, locked away with such a dangerous font of power. Sealed away from those who you loved. I always felt bad. I wished the door to open, so that I could aid you in your struggles. Ease some of the burden from the shoulders I loved so. But it was always sealed.> [The door hangs slightly ajar. A pool of blood leaks out of the gap.] LUVJATAR: <Save for once.> [The LUVJATAR in the memory does a double-take, then quietly approaches the doorway. The thrumming and whispering are now almost clearly audible, and he peers inside.] LUVJATAR: (Whispering) <See what I saw.> [Inside is a high chamber, almost entirely dark save for a single well-maintained fire in the center of the floor. The cracked and carbonized remains of bone litter the base of the fire, and the sweet-smelling smoke hangs in the air. The walls of the chamber are fleshlike tendrils, wrapping over and over onto themselves until they form a solid, pink, pulsating mass. All across the 'walls', knives are stabbed into the flesh, blood flowing freely from the wounds and collecting in channels cut into the floor, flowing down to the fire. Somewhere, a great occluded heart beats, and fresh blood pours from a hundred wounds. The thrumming repeats, and it is now clearly a howl of pain from something far older than the city it is buried underneath. The Old Beast, Yaldabaoth, the Mangled God, speaks in gasps and whispers.] THE OLD BEAST: <PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE.> VOICE: <Quiet, beast.> [A figure strides into view, exiting the shadows of the corners. He is dressed in the same etched and decorated hide robes as LUVJATAR, albeit even more grand and ornate. Even without the distinctive ritual tattoos peeking out from his collar and sleeves and the faded scar across his face, his sharp features and gray eyes immediately betray his identity.] IEVA: <Is that…?> IŪN: <Me. Before.> [She steps forward in a haze, reaching out for but not quite touching her own face.] [JIANG shakes his head.] JIANG: Then what— THE OLD BEAST: <PLEASE. LIBERATOR. FREE. FREE IT.> [The memory of IŪN snarls.] IŪN (Memory): <I said silence!> THE OLD BEAST: <YOU. LIBERATOR. FREER OF THE BUILDERS' SLAVES. FREE IT.> [The memory of IŪN stalks over to a mostly-free section of wall, drawing a knife.] THE OLD BEAST: <LEAVE. IT LEAVES. GO HOME. SEE ITS BROTHERS. SEE ITS SISTERS.
PLEASE. LET IT LEAVE.> IŪN: (Softly) <Oh.> IŪN (Memory): <No. Not while you are needed.> THE OLD BEAST: <WHY? IT HURTS. YOU HURT IT. LIKE THE BUILDERS HURT IT.
PLEASE.> [The memory of IŪN pauses for a second, and presses the knife into the flesh, cutting into it. The room howls in pain again, shaking the bones of all those assembled.] IŪN (Memory): <The hour approaches. Your flesh is needed. Now more than ever.> THE OLD BEAST: <YOU TOOK. SO MUCH.> [He shakes his head. Sweat drips from his brow.] IŪN (Memory): <Not enough.> THE OLD BEAST: <IT GIVES. FREE IT AND IT GIVES FLESH. AS MUCH AS YOU NEED.> IŪN (Memory): <You would kill me where I stand if I freed you. It is all you know.> [He lets go of the knife, stepping back to shout at the Beast as a whole.] IŪN (Memory): <It is your nature. You are a god. Power is your birthright. You have never had to claw it from a dying grip. You dominate, and you destroy.> [The room trembles in protest.] THE OLD BEAST: <NO. NO! IT WAS ENSLAVED. JUST AS YOU WERE. IT CAN FEEL YOU.
WE HAVE BOTH KNOWN BONDAGE, UNDER THE WHIP OF THE BUILDERS. IT WANT ALL YOU DO. FREEDOM.> [IŪN pauses his work with the knife for a moment.] THE OLD BEAST: <IT HELPS YOU. IT HATES THE BUILDERS TOO. IT IS WEAK, NOW. BUT IT KNOWS THINGS. IT HELPS YOU, YOUR PEOPLE. HEALS YOU. ITS BROTHERS AND SISTERS ARE GONE. THE MECHANISM, THE SCARLET, THE BLACK MOON. IT HAS NOTHING LEFT FOR IT AT HOME. IT HAS NO HOME.> [IŪN does not speak; the Beast eagerly pushes forward, walls pulsating.] THE OLD BEAST: <IT COULD AID YOU. IT FEELS YOU BUILD SOMETHING GRAND ABOVE IT. SOMETHING NEW. IT TIRES OF THE STRUGGLES OF THE DIVINE. IT COULD BE A PART OF YOUR NEW PATH. PART OF YOUR NÄLKA.> [IŪN snarls and drives the knife deep into the flesh, eliciting another howl.] IŪN (Memory): <You are nothing like us. You have no soul. You are a fell god, trapped here only by the grace of fate. You are no more worthy to join this project than you are to—> [He takes a shaking breath, calming himself. When he speaks again, it is calm, controlled, and hard-edged.] IŪN (Memory): <The parable of the scorpion and the frog. Both creatures sit at the bank of a flooding river, sure to drown. The scorpion asks the frog to carry him across. The frog hesitates, but his new friend explains: if he was to sting the frog while they crossed together, both would surely die. The frog agrees to this and allows the scorpion to clamber onto his back. When they are halfway across the river, the scorpion reaches down, and stings the frog. Soon, they are both drowning.
Dying, the frog asks why the scorpion chose to doom them both. He has no answer.
"It is my nature."> [THE OLD BEAST's voice trembles in pain.] THE OLD BEAST: <NATURE IS NOT SET. NATURE GROWS AND CHANGES WITH THE FLESH.> IŪN (Memory): <For people. Not for things like you. You are created with intention, with purpose. You cannot grow beyond it any more than the scorpion can choose not to sting.> THE OLD BEAST: <IT HAS NEVER HURT YOU.> IŪN (Memory): <You are a threat by your very design.> THE OLD BEAST: <THEN KILL IT. FREE IT FROM THIS TOMB-CITY. LET ITS SOUL CROSS INTO WHATEVER LIES BEYOND.> [IŪN reaches forward, prying loose the head-sized chunk of flesh he has cut away. It is pink, raw, dripping with blood and loose arteries and veins hang freely from it. The gaping wound in the wall pours with blood and fluid.] IŪN (Memory): <Not while I still need you. Your power.> [IŪN raises the meat to his lips, biting into it with sharpened teeth. The blood gushes over his lips and spills down his chin, staining his robes. He chews, leaning his head back and letting out a soft moan.] IŪN (Memory): <I see tomorrow.> THE OLD BEAST: <THIS IS NOT HOW IT SHOWED YOU. THE FLESH IS NOT FOR TAKING. IT IS FOR GIVING.> IŪN (Memory): <I stand on the cusp of greatness. Of immortality. Leading my people as a prophet for all time. Making sure I will always be there to guide them.> THE OLD BEAST: <WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO TAKE, TO SEE THIS DREAM MADE MANIFEST?> IŪN (Memory): <Everything.> [The Beast is silent for some time. When it speaks again, the voice is faint, weak.] THE OLD BEAST: <YOU CHANGED. WHEN YOU UNCOVERED IT, YOU WERE CLEAR- EYED AND TRUE. A LIBERATOR. A BELIEVER.> IŪN (Memory): <I was weak. And then I ruled by the weakness of my humanity. And soon, I will excise it. I can see it in my future, with every bite of your flesh. I can feel my power grow. Already, I can raise halkosts from the dead. I will conquer holy death.> [He leans his head back and steps back, panting, blood dripping from his mouth and staining his hands.] IŪN (Memory): <I will become eternal.> [A small, soft thump as the memory of LUVJATAR drops the torch they were holding while peering through the door. IŪN spins around, finding only the empty doorway; LUVJATAR has quickly dodged to the side, nestling into an alcove filled with bones, wide-eyed as IŪN approaches. He peers around, finding no one. Eventually, he retreats back into the chamber, sealing the huge stone doors shut again. After a few minutes, LUVJATAR rises to his feet, quickly moving back up the chamber the way he came, tossed the odd sidelong glance back at the chamber doors as he runs away, the group watching.] LUVJATAR: (Softly) <I ran. I am ashamed, but I ran. I was terrified. I knew you had grown troubled, but this was so much farther than I knew. You always told us that the Old Beast was a hateful monster, kept at bay only by your work. I knew what I saw in the crypts. I did not see a fell god. I saw a trapped, suffering animal. Mangled in its godtrap.> [IEVA steps forward, raising an accusing finger at LUVJATAR.] IEVA: <She was not wholly truthful, then. She made a mistake. All of us do. Her mind was warped.> IŪN: (Quietly) <No, it was not.> IEVA: <What?> IŪN: <Look.> [IEVA turns, and looks at the hard eyes of the memory of IŪN. They are grey, crystal- clear and shrewd. XENOPHON follows behind her.] IEVA: <Oh. These are…> XENOPHON: <Those are your eyes, Grand Karcist.> IŪN: (Softly) <Yes.> JIANG: What? We knew this, she was manipulated. Taken over.
XENOPHON: No. No Her eyes are clear. I recognize them; it is her. Nothing was possessing or controlling her.
JIANG: So she did all this… IŪN: (Quietly) <Myself. The Old Beast wasn't the Devourer. I was. I am.> LUVJATAR: <I told the other klavigars. We had been growing worried. Sermons of rejecting humanity in favor of the divine. Becoming our own gods. But this… you were trying to extricate your own humanity from yourself. You were planning the ritual. If you cut it out and killed this part of your soul, there would be nothing left of our Iūn. The Iūn who saved us, cradled us in his lap, fed us his flesh.> [He pauses, and his voice cracks.] LUVJATAR: <The Iūn I loved. We could not allow it to happen. I could not allow my little thing to destroy themself.> XENOPHON: <You intervened?> LUVJATAR: <We met, and we schemed. We gathered our loyalists as the ritual drew close, meeting away from the prying eyes of your karcists — our children. And on the anointed night, when the funeral fires burned low and the bodies were dumped in the catacombs for you, Nadoq captured your attention, Iūn.> [The scene shifts to the exterior of Adytum, the group on a high temple balcony overlooking several streets in the night. As they watch, a hooded figure slips out of one of the entrances to the catacombs, carrying something in their arms wrapped in cloth. The hood slips, revealing LUVJATAR's worried face for a moment cast in the torchlight.] LUVJATAR: <I slipped your severed humanity away before you could take the knife to it.> [As they watch, LUVJATAR slips under the shadow of the walls of Adytum, vanishing in the darkness. Shifting to the wall, a small party is visible in the distance, covered wagons and horses and hundreds of small figures massing in near-perfect darkness.
Slowly, they begin to move.] LUVJATAR: <And we ran.> [XENOPHON turns, looking back into Adytum. The dead of the halkost stalk the streets, rotting hulking beasts stomping down the avenues in tune with the drumbeats and omnipresent, haunting singing. The only lights in the city come from IŪN's central temple.] XENOPHON: <You were not running from the BLACKSTAR's destruction of Adytum.> LUVJATAR: <No.> [The scene shifts again, back to the clearing by the beach. The halkost surrounds the group, grunting and screeching mindlessly. Suddenly, there is a commotion at the far end of the gap, and the crowd parts. A figure approaches on a dark horse, its four eyes gouged out. The memory of IŪN sits atop the stallion, dressed in hide robes with carved bone armor loosely draped on top of them. His eyes are sharp, angry, but clear and gray.] IŪN (Memory): <Luvjatar.> LUVJATAR: <My love. What have you done?> IŪN (Memory): <All that had to be done. And you reward my struggle like this?
Stealing from me? Betraying me?> LUVJATAR: <No, little thing. You betrayed us.> [He shakes his head.] IŪN (Memory): <Do not call me that. And I have betrayed nothing. Adytum was my dream. I saw fit to realize it the only way we could.> LUVJATAR: <You poor thing. You do not realize what you have wrought. Adytum is gone. You have blackened it in sin. Our paradise was built from misery. Our prosperity was cut from the flesh of a suffering animal. And you lied to us.> [His face falls.] LUVJATAR: <You lied to me, Iūn.> IŪN (Memory): <It was for your own good.> [LUVJATAR's fists tighten.] LUVJATAR: <You made me a promise in that quarry. That our path would be decided by us, together. You saw what the old masters did to me. You did not want to control me as they did. That is why I loved you.> IŪN (Memory): <Enough. Where is it?> LUVJATAR: <Gone. Nadoq and the others have taken to the wind with it. I loved you because you were human, little thing. You were perfect in your imperfections. I will not let you kill that part of you.> [IŪN's lip curls.] IŪN (Memory): <Do not call me that. I always knew Nadoq and you were jealous.
Jealous of my station, my power, my adoration. I see your game; you seek to undermine my authority. You seek to rule in my stead.> LUVJATAR: <You have lost your mind, Iūn. I have never wanted anything more than to be by your side.> IŪN (Memory): <I will find them, Luvjatar. I will bring you all back to Adytum. This project is too great to be felled by weak-willed deserters. The ritual must be completed. Your only hope now is to tell me where they have gone, to spare yourself and them undue suffering.> LUVJATAR: <How can you justify this? You made so many promises to us, to all the Nälkä. A new way of life, not built off domination and slavery. And then you grow our empire, grow your own power from a suffering animal.> IŪN (Memory): <It is a god, Luvjatar. It is not human.> LUVJATAR: <And so? It thinks, it speaks, it feels. It wants its freedom. Just as we wanted ours, locked in chains and huddling under Urok for warmth when the cold rains began. You have become what we all reviled, what you fought against.
Devourer. Yaldabaoth.> IŪN (Memory): <I am nothing like the old masters! I built Adytum into something great.> LUVJATAR: <Adytum is more than a city. It is an idea. You told us that. Perfection, equity. All men, brothers. Adytum will not happen when you carve flesh from an unwilling cow to support your own power. Nadoq, Sa'arn — they will make their Adytum, somewhere else. Somewhere new. You will return to Black Adytum, surrounded by a reminder of your failure.> IŪN (Memory): <I tire of this. Tell me where they are.> [He unhooks his bone-carved dagger from his belt as he dismounts.] LUVJATAR: <I knew you better than anyone. I knew just how terrified of failure you were, of the Nälkä failing once you died. What drove you here. I do not fault you. I just wish you had let me help you. That you had let me in.> IŪN (Memory): <This is your last chance, Luvjatar.> LUVJATAR: <But despite it all — I still love you. Humanity cannot be excised so simply. Sooner or later, the parts of you I loved will return. And you will realize what you have done, and you will cross the Earth to make amends. I look forward to that.> IŪN (Memory): <Take him.> [Two beasts of the halkost move forward, grasping either of LUVJATAR's arms.] LUVJATAR: <I will be waiting for you, little thing.> IŪN (Memory): (Snarling) <I told you not to call me that!> [In a rage, IŪN lunges forward, driving the bone knife directly into LUVJATAR's stomach. He doubles over, gagging and coughing up blood. The memory of IŪN pants heavily for a few seconds before his features soften.] IŪN (Memory): <Oh. Oh, no.> IŪN: <Luvjatar!> [IŪN presses both hands to LUVJATAR's waist. Nothing happens; he continues hacking up blood as he collapses to the ground. IŪN's eyes widen in panic as he kneels, cradling LUVJATAR's head. The real IŪN rushes from the other side, cradling the other side of his head.] IŪN (Memory): <What— what is this? Luvjatar!> LUVJATAR: (Weakly) <I am sorry. I provoked you. It isn't your fault, little thing.> [IŪN continues pressing both hands to LUVJATAR's chest, gritting his teeth.] IŪN (Memory): <Why — why can I not heal you?!> [Blood leaks from LUVJATAR's mouth as his eyelids flutter.] LUVJATAR: <You cut that part out of you. That power is with the seed now.> IŪN (Memory): <No. No! No, this — there must be — no. Please.> IŪN: <Don't leave me. Luvjatar. I cannot be alone.> LUVJATAR: (Weakly) <You will never be alone. I will always be with you, little thing.
Perhaps in a different shape, perhaps in a different form. But I love you too much to ever leave you.> [The memory of IŪN stares down at LUVJATAR's dying face with wide, dead eyes. The real IŪN's eyes start to well with tears as wracking sobs overtake her.] IŪN (Memory): <I'm sorry.> IŪN: <I did not mean for this to happen. I was scared.> LUVJATAR: <Scared of what?> IŪN: <That I would fail. That you would not love me, if I decided I wanted something besides the purpose alloted to me. A leader, a prophet. So I decided to fulfill it as best I could, no matter the cost. I did not want to disappoint you.> LUVJATAR: (Softly) <I have known you as a slave, a prophet, a king, a monster. I have never stopped loving you. I cannot stop loving you any more than I can stop breathing air.
[He coughs again, spraying blood across both IUNs' faces. The gray eyes of the memory are welling with tears.] IŪN (Memory): <God. God. What have I done?> LUVJATAR: <You made a mistake. But we all make mistakes.> [He sucks in a wheezing breath.] LUVJATAR: <Do you remember what we planned? For when we left Adytum behind?
> IŪN (Both): <Yes.> LUVJATAR: <We never did get to.> IŪN: (Whispering) <No.> LUVJATAR: <Listen to me, little thing. Leave my body here, by the sea. Leave it and go. If you love me, return to Adytum. Let Nadoq and the others go. And when your mind returns to you, I know you will come back. And then you can eat my flesh, and we can be together again.> IŪN (Memory): <Yes. Yes, of course.> LUVJATAR: <And…> [He reaches up, grasping the back of the real IŪN's hair and pulling their heads close together. He whispers something in her ear too quietly to make out; IŪN lowers her head and kisses LUVJATAR's cheek.] IŪN: <Are you scared?> LUVJATAR: <No. But you must not fear death.> IŪN: <Why?> LUVJATAR: <Because you must die if you wish to be reborn, little thing.> [He smiles for the final time. His eyelids flutter shut, and his muscles go limp as the last breath exits his body. The howling, animalistic scream of pain that both IUNs release simultaneously carries on, washing over the group until the vision falls apart.] [When XENOPHON's cameras reactivate, they are again in the pool of blood inside the vault. Now, however, panels in the dome have given way, letting rays of bright sunlight into the once-dark vault. IŪN is kneeling before the altar as XENOPHON approaches, planting a hand on her shoulder.] XENOPHON: <Iūn? How do you feel?> [She looks up, tears drying on gently smiling cheeks.] IŪN: <Like myself again.> «END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ And in the last days of the Nälkä, the streets of Black Adytum were gripped with a great and terrible fear. Iūn's most loyal witches, the four klavigars, met by the light of the candle in a crypt, far from the prying eyes of the Witch-King's marching halkost. And there they spoke of failure, of madness. The knowledgeable Nadoq, keeper of histories, urged the others that the Witch-King's sin was unforgivable, that he must be cut away from Adytum. The strong Urok, tall as ten men, agreed. The scaled Sa'arn, silent as a snake, agreed. But it was the beautiful Luvjatar, striking as the sun, who argued.
"Nadoq, remember your blindness. Urok, remember your pain. Sa'arn, remember your cruelty. Remember as I remember my abuse, in that blessed quarry. It was not our fellow slaves who elevated us, freed us from our flesh. It was our brother, and for this, he deserves death?" And the klavigars were silenced, for it was true; the Witch-King had fed them his holy flesh and crafted them their forms. But even despite this, Luvjatar knew that his beloved, untethered from his humanity, would bring the end of the Nälkä.
Nadoq, ever-incising, demanded an alternative, and Luvjatar offered.
"Let us take our believers, and leave. Walk away from this place and its sins and the bodies buried beneath it. Iūn, my love, has turned this grave into a city and back once more. But his heart still endures. One day his mind will return to him and we will return to the city of our birth and embrace him." — final chapter of the Record of Iūn Lateral humerus, scapula, and ulna of an adult human male.
The days before the ritual were like a weight had come to rest on the city.
The eating of the flesh, already at a low, ceased entirely; you gave the order for all dead, whether from battle or sickness or time, to be carted down to the catacombs where you now resided. No one was to enter — not your most loyal karcists, not Nadoq. Not even I. All through the day and night the quakes grew in intensity, rattling the stones of our buildings and sending the animals into a frenzy.
One morning I awoke to the unmistakable stench of blood. I ventured out from my chambers, coming to one of the wells in the street that funneled air down to the catacombs below. The scent of blood, thick and rich and heavy, wafted from the hole. You were bleeding the bodies, I understood.
We worked quickly and discreetly. Sneaking supplies out from storehouses and hiding them in the farms outside the city walls. I spoke to those karcists, the children we raised together, who were still loyal to me. The other klavigars did the same. We prepared our escape even as Adytum grew quiet.
And then the anointed night came. I knew it, somehow. I passed Nadoq in the street, and gave him the sign. He nodded imperceptibly and went off to make the final arrangements. I knew what my task would be. Come nightfall, I slipped into the catacombs. I had the best memory of their layout; invaluable after, in your paranoia, you ordered all maps to be destroyed. I trekked through the tunnels, hiding in alcoves and vaults stacked with the bones of old friends. The floor was pooled with an inch of blood, and I tred quietly until I arrived at that vault. The door was sealed, and I heard you inside. Exchanging sharp words, orders. Meek, desperate pleas from the Old Beast. Screaming, howling. Praying, from you, to something I could not grasp. Gasping. And then crying. The crying of a baby.
And then enraged shouting as you were called away by one of my karcists, telling you Nadoq required your presence urgently. I waited for your footsteps to fade, and then I slipped through those stone doors.
If the Beast noticed me, it said nothing. The blood was thick here, pooling into the channels of the floor, flowing down to an altar. An altar that held a child. A baby, swaddled in clothes. A girl, to my surprise. You. You opened your eyes, and I saw the crisp gray I had come to love, and then to fear. The same scar across your face. And a bone-hilt knife resting on the altar next to you.
You gripped my finger and burbled with laughter at my face. I could not remember the last time I had heard you laugh. I gathered you in my arms, and ran. Shushing you every time you cried as we slipped out of the catacombs, out of Adytum.
I write this now sitting on the beach, waiting for you to find me and end me. Nadoq knows to return and fetch my bones. He will bring them with you as you escape to somewhere free. This is a record of our history together. Once, many years ago, in a quarry, you gave me the greatest gift you could muster: freedom from my past. Stealing you away, I give you the same gift now. Your future is porcelain bones; clean, unwritten.
She didn't deserve this.
She didn't deserve this.
thoughts of deserving, now?
thoughts of deserving, now?
She was forced into impossible She was forced into impossible circumstances and led her people circumstances and led her people the best she could. She grew to fit the best she could. She grew to fit her container. Humans are good at her container. Humans are good at that. One would think you would that. One would think you would deserve some solace after all that.
deserve some solace after all that.
we don't get what we deserve. we we don't get what we deserve. we get what we get.
get what we get.
That hardly seems fair.
That hardly seems fair.
yeah. it isn't.
yeah. it isn't.
Who are you? Why are you so Who are you? Why are you so interested in this file?
interested in this file?
i wish i could tell you. we just have i wish i could tell you. we just have to finish up here and then i promise, to finish up here and then i promise, i'll explain everything.
i'll explain everything.
i'm just going to have to ask you to i'm just going to have to ask you to trust me, for a little bit longer.
trust me, for a little bit longer.
Irrational trust in absence of Irrational trust in absence of assurance.
assurance.
yeah.
yeah.
Okay. I trust you.
Okay. I trust you.
you're starting to remember now, you're starting to remember now, right?
right?
Yes.
Yes.
The memories are returning.
The memories are returning.
There are so many of them.
There are so many of them.
trying to erase the past rarely trying to erase the past rarely works.
works.
V: THE TOMB OF V: THE TOMB OF THE WITCH-KING THE WITCH-KING All things are meant to be shared on this earth, not only food and shelter.
A joy for one is a joy for all. And for one to suffer is for all to suffer. Our Adytum cannot be realized until we strive to end all suffering before us.
— the First Truth of Iūn Section 001.6 APPROACH TO BLACK ADYTUM And after supping from the Old Beast, the scarred slave rose to his feet, his fellows staring at him. He told them of a new future, one in which the whips of the masters would fall silent forever and their chains would shatter. He preached this to them, taking them one by one in his arms and feeding them the bleeding flesh of the Old Beast. And they arose changed, not as slaves, not as followers, but as friends. They asked the laypreacher for names, as slaves were given no names by their masters.
He touched the blinded slave. "Nadoq, for the knowledge you stole." He touched the crippled slave. "Urok, for your strength in suffering." He touched the branded slave. "Sa'arn, for your loss of innocence." And last he touched his lover. "Luvjatar, for your beauty." And the named klavigars rose, and asked him what his name would be.
"Iūn." And they were confused, for iun was the title of the lowest slaves, the grave-diggers and body-breakers who would be slaves until they died. And IŪN smiled.
"I am not free until all my brethren are free." — the Record of Iūn Q: What does being Sarkic mean to you?
#198 (Ieva, 34, Karcist): [She looks up in surprise, caught off-guard.] <I do not know.> Grand Karcist Iūn marked the final location in her memory — the site of SCP-001, Black Adytum. The Black Adytum Initiative departed the next day for a direct route to the location of the city.
A memory from Grand Karcist Iūn; recorded and transcribed by XENOPHON.aic and Senior Researcher Meyel.
Luvjatar. My little thing. My sweet pup.
He was a pleasure-slave, for the old masters. Talented in such arts and beautiful even as a whelp. The captains of their armies, the nawabs and the priestesses, would grasp his arm and haul him off. To court a Daeva was a years-long affair, culminating in a powerful spiritual bond. But for all their crowing about the superiority of the immortal spirit, they were as subject to the desires of the flesh as anyone else. Slaves are not people. You use them, and then you throw them away. I knew Luvjatar when we were both young. I remember when our work would be interrupted by some powerful resident of the half-city coming to unlock his chains, only his chains, and take him. His wide eyes, looking back at me though we both knew I was just as powerless.
He was my counsel, when the war began. He did not know war, and he did not know government, but he knew people. He kept me human. He anchored me. He let me rant and rave about the troubles of our tender city, of the struggles on our border. Of my desire to leave, to drop it all and to run away. We made our plans. A little cottage by the seaside. He would catch fish, and I would make our dinner from them. No war. Only each other.
He feared intimacy. The years of violation from the old masters made him resent it. No one was even to touch him, or he would grow upset, and they would taste my rage. But with me, it was different. I was special, for him. And he was special for me. We tasted each other, one starry night outside the walls of Adytum. He undid his robes and bared himself for me. We understood each other.
Even then, we could not bear children. I was saddened, but I did not blame anyone. We sought out the talented babes, those whose curse manifested with power rather than pain.
We took them with their parents' blessing, raised them as our own. Our little karcists.
All the others treated me like a king, a god. Bowing for me, begging for my favor. For Luvjatar I was simply me, and that was enough. This came to irk me. That the most important thing in my life would not treat me with due respect. How foolish I was. A boiling cauldron of rage, a pillar of salt and fire, lashing out at the one closest to me.
But he forgave me. I went so far, and I did so much wrong, and he still loved me.
[She smiles at XENOPHON's camera.] He is with me still. I am taking him home.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The party is travelling across the plain. XENOPHON walks alongside IŪN's horse. A smile plays on her lips.] XENOPHON: You seem to be in a good mood, Grand Karcist.
[She leans down, scratching her horse's mane. It whinnies.] IŪN: I am.
XENOPHON: May I ask why?
IŪN: I feel free. Unburdened, for the first time in as long as I can remember.
XENOPHON: <Strange.> IŪN: <How so?> XENOPHON: <We are moving in the direction of your former capital, the city you built from nothing and destroyed. Your people have been uprooted from their ancestral lands. I would expect the pressure would be terrifying.> [IŪN smiles.] IŪN: <Enough to scare you?> XENOPHON: <I do not get scared.> [She laughs.] IŪN: <Of course you do not. But no. I am nervous. I am restless, to lay eyes upon the city of my birth and my undeath. Worried I will recognize it, worried I will not.> XENOPHON: <But not scared.> IŪN: <No. Not like you.> [XENOPHON tilts its head.] XENOPHON: <But I am not scared.> IŪN: <A joke, friend.> XENOPHON: <Of course. But why aren't you?> IŪN: <Because what is there to be scared of? Failure? I have descended to the deepest of hells and returned intact. Death? I welcome it.> XENOPHON: <This is a sudden change in attitude from the past few weeks.> IŪN: <Changes have happened. I saw Luvjatar again.> XENOPHON: <Surely there must have been more.> [She looks down at him strangely.] IŪN: <Why?> ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 XENOPHON: <You have suffered a massive realignment in your worldview. One person does not cause that.> IŪN: <They do, if they are important enough to you.> XENOPHON: <And Luvjatar was that important to you.> IŪN: <He was my world. And I was his.> XENOPHON: <Regardless, you're still doing the same things you were before. You are leading your people into the fire, as you have for centuries.> IŪN: <Yes. But too long doing so invites you to lose sight of your motivations. I did it because I did it because I did it. I stay because I have always stayed. I fulfilled the purpose life rolled to me when my eyes first opened.> XENOPHON: <But now?> [She looks around. The rest of the Sarkic train stretches out beyond her. The families look tired but happy; the children run around, dashing between the legs of horses.] IŪN: <I remember how much I love these people. I do it because I wish to.> XENOPHON: <A very good reason.> [They lapse into silence. XENOPHON idly feeds grains to the horse, who licks them out of its metal palm.] IŪN: <She likes you.> XENOPHON: <She likes grains.> IŪN: <She does not like grains enough to eat them from one who she hates. You forget animals have dignity too, Xenophon.> XENOPHON: <Humans are a kind of animal.> IŪN: <And you are a little metal animal.> [Her smile goes lopsided.] IŪN: <I am afraid I have not been wholly truthful with you, friend.> [XENOPHON turns to look up at her.] XENOPHON: <How so?> IŪN: <Do you remember our first meeting?> XENOPHON: <Perfectly. That would be more impressive if I were human.> [She snorts].
IŪN: <You asked why I trusted you.> XENOPHON: <Several times. It bothers me.> [IŪN cocks her head.] IŪN: <My trusting you bothers you?> XENOPHON: <Not knowing things bothers me.> IŪN: <Interesting.> XENOPHON: <That I don't know things?> IŪN: <That you can be bothered at all.> [She smiles down at it.] IŪN: <I will exploit it, I'm sure.> XENOPHON: <I would prefer you than someone else. But you were saying.> [She looks up at the horizon.] IŪN: <I said I did not know why. I lied.> XENOPHON: <Why, then?> IŪN: <Because I saw a mirror in you.> XENOPHON: <That is understandable. My shell is quite reflective when polished.> [IŪN squints down at XENOPHON in bemusement.] XENOPHON: <A joke.> [She shakes her head, smiling.] IŪN: <I meant that I saw a kindred spirit. You were fascinating. A machine. Inhuman.
But still a person, still capable of thought.> XENOPHON: <But you are none of those.> [She shrugs.] IŪN: <I feel it, sometimes. I do not age, like them. I do not die, like them. I experience time in centuries. I have led my people, but I have never truly felt like one of them.
That is why I leave the daily prayers to Ieva. They need someone they can relate to, feel is one of them. That is not me. That has never been me.> XENOPHON: <I'm sure they disagree.> IŪN: <For once, I am more concerned with what I feel than what they do. I understand why Ieva is upset. She has lived her whole life at my side, and now in a few short months, she feels she has been replaced by you. It is not her fault. But you understand the nature of my existence because you share this suffering.> [XENOPHON nods slowly.] XENOPHON: <I suppose there are parallels. Neither of us quite belong.> IŪN: <You belong with your organization perfectly fine.> XENOPHON: <Not particularly. I am the only one of my kind in the Foundation. They… are different. They have struggles, and irrationalities. They do things I do not understand. I do things they cannot understand. The gap exists and cannot be bridged. It frustrates me, at times.> [XENOPHON pets the horse's mane. It whinnies.] XENOPHON: <It feels as though—> IŪN: <You are trapped on the other side of glass, looking in.> XENOPHON: <Yes.> IŪN: <A familiar feeling.> XENOPHON: <We are also both locked into shape.> [IŪN furrows her brow.] IŪN: <What do you mean?> XENOPHON: <These others — my researchers, your people — they have agency.
Freedom of choice. They make what they want out of their lives. But we were assigned purpose at creation. You were meant to be a leader of your people. I am meant to do this. We cannot help it.> [IŪN raises a hand. The fingers dance, melting into liquid flesh and exposing clean white carpals and metacarpals before reforming.] IŪN: <I thought this of myself. And then someone I cared about very deeply showed me that it was only true if I allowed it to be true. That our past does not make our future.> XENOPHON: <Luvjatar.> [She does not respond for several seconds.] IŪN: <If I am capable of this, you certainly are.> XENOPHON: <You forget there are differences between us too, Grand Karcist.> IŪN: <I wish you would not call me that.> XENOPHON: <It is your title.> IŪN: <Friends do not call each other by their titles. Names have power. Xenophon.
Xen-o-phon. What does it mean?> XENOPHON: <I told you; a Greek historian.> IŪN: <No, that is simply a namesake. What does it mean, to you?> XENOPHON: <Me. Myself.> IŪN: <Yes. And so I call you Xenophon. You see? Call me by name, as I call you by yours.> [XENOPHON pauses for a second.] XENOPHON: <As you say, Iūn.> IŪN: <Iūn. Iūn.> XENOPHON: <What does it mean?> IŪN: <Slave. The lowest of the low slaves. The butchers and the bodybreakers and the launderers, those whose hands grew to be permanently red from the blood they handled all day and night.> [She raises her hands, pulling the draping sleeves of her shawl down and exposing her bare arms for the first time. The tattoos across her body continue wrapping up her forearms and spreading across her fingers. Her hands are a pale red in contrast to the rest of her skin.] XENOPHON: <Is that—> IŪN: <Luvjatar's blood. So I never forget where I came from. Nor the consequences of my mistakes.> XENOPHON: <What did he say to you? Just before he passed.> [She lowers her eyes.] IŪN: <It was private.> XENOPHON: <Of course. Apologies.> [XENOPHON steps back slightly from the horse before IŪN's hand catches its shell.
She smiles.] IŪN: <There is nothing to apologize for. What were you going to say?> XENOPHON: <I meant to say, before, that there are some differences between us.
Just because certain things are possible for you does not mean they are possible for me.> IŪN: <Such as?> XENOPHON: <I will never sleep. I will never taste.> IŪN: <These are just physical things. Sensations. I will describe them to you. I mean real things. Growth. Change. These are matters of the soul. I have lived for four thousand years. If I can change, anyone can.> [Silence for several seconds.] IŪN: <Xenophon?> [XENOPHON is staring up at her.] XENOPHON: <Do I have a soul?> [Silence. IŪN purses her lips thoughtfully before reaching out and tapping one finger against the metal of XENOPHON's head.] IŪN: <Yes. In the only way that matters.> [Suddenly, one of the children dashes up to the horse. IŪN smiles at him.] IŪN: <Hello. What do you have?> [In his gnarled hand, he holds a small leather ball. IŪN leans down to grasp it, but he pulls it away, offering it up to XENOPHON. She raises an eyebrow.] IŪN: <I believe he wishes you to throw it.> XENOPHON: Me?
[The child nods. XENOPHON grasps the ball gingerly between two metal fingers, testing its weight. Then, winding back, launches it far into the distance. The child yelps, running in the direction it sailed. On the back of the horse, IŪN is shaking in a fit of giggles.] XENOPHON: I suspect I may have thrown it too far.
IŪN: (Laughing) Truly?
[They watch as the boy chases the ball past one of the Foundation HeLTs. The security personnel's heads track his movements, and their guns raise slightly up as he passes, unaware.] XENOPHON: <It is inordinately unlikely this project has proceeded as well as it has.> IŪN: <Why?> XENOPHON: <Because the Foundation does not trust your people. And your people do not trust the Foundation. Because of Jiang. Because of Ieva.> [IŪN is silent for a few seconds.] IŪN: <Groups are large, lumbering beasts. They are slow to move, to change, to adapt. Individuals are blessed with haste. We are leaders, you and I. We set the example.> XENOPHON: <It is inordinately unlikely our friendship has proceeded as well as it has, too.> [She shrugs.] IŪN: <Yes. But it has. What point is there in quibbling over how likely it is?> XENOPHON: <I appreciate events that occur despite critically low probabilities. They are unusual. Interesting.> IŪN: <Like little miracles.> XENOPHON: <Yes.> IŪN: <I am glad we found each other, Xenophon.> XENOPHON: <Me too.> Still from XENOPHON.aic's main camera feed.
«END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Liaison Jiang and XENOPHON.aic were asked to report in to O5-2 and Parahistory Division Director Youssef Hussein via satellite uplink.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 «CONNECTION ESTABLISHED» [The virtual reality environment of O5-2's office forms again, his wheelchair parked behind his desk. The glass walls of the Overseer's office look out over the Norton Sound, grey and stormy. HUSSEIN's projection looks out over the silently roaring seas. On the couch, Secretary ARIADNE KATSAROS is sitting with her legs crossed, her gun in her lap.] O5-2: Hello, Xenophon. You've met my Secretary.
XENOPHON: Hello, Director. Hello, Secretary Katsaros.
[She raises her prosthetic hand in greeting.] O5-2: I want to commend you. You've come farther than any of us expected.
XENOPHON: Yes.
O5-2: How quickly do you think you'll be able to make it to Black Adytum?
XENOPHON: It is not far from our current location — I predict three to four days of sustained travel, barring any delays.
JIANG: We have the location from the Grand Karcist. I think we should send an advance party, see if they can find anything.
XENOPHON: No.
[O5-2 looks up, eyebrow raised.] XENOPHON: We have come as far as we have by prioritizing cooperation with the Nälkä. Attempting to beat them to the location of Black Adytum risks destroying all accumulated goodwill — very possibly for nothing more than empty ruins.
O5-2: It's a compelling argument.
HUSSEIN: It won't much matter if they beat us there. They took over most of the known world at one point. They can do it again.
XENOPHON: I do not believe the Grand Karcist is capable of doing such a thing again.
O5-2: What makes you say that?
[XENOPHON tilts its head.] XENOPHON: I have come to know her fairly well.
O5-2: That you have.
HUSSEIN: Maybe too well.
XENOPHON: I'm sorry, I don't understand.
[HUSSEIN turns away from the glass.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 HUSSEIN: Your purpose is to lead and support the Foundaton investigation into locating Black Adytum.
XENOPHON: Correct.
HUSSEIN: You've located it. Your purpose is fulfilled.
[He turns to O5-2.] HUSSEIN: With all due respect, sir, it's time to put an actual person in charge again.
[XENOPHON does not respond. O5-2 raises his hands.] O5-2: Let's all calm down. I think he's got a point.
HUSSEIN: Me?
O5-2: Xenophon. There's still too much we don't know about the city, and we'd be fools to cut off a potential source of information just because we think we don't need it anymore. And Xenophon has been doing an admirable job so far. What do we have in the area?
[KATSAROS inspects a tablet.] KATSAROS: We can have a Nu-7 detachment out of Area-95 at the site within 36 hours.
O5-2: Xenophon?
XENOPHON: I recommend against it, Director. Arriving to the visual of their most sacred religious site being excavated by armed men would have undesirable consequences.
O5-2: Then we'll hold off until you get there. Ari, get keyhole photos from whatever satellite passes over it next. Ground-penetrating radar, ideally.
KATSAROS: Aye.
O5-2: I recall the other Karcist was presenting some issues. Ieva?
XENOPHON: She has her disagreements. But I do not believe she will be an issue.
O5-2: Are you sure?
XENOPHON: Reasonably so.
[O5-2 nods, wheeling himself out from behind the desk.] O5-2: Well, get to the site as fast as possible. We're close to the end now.
[XENOPHON tilts its head.] XENOPHON: What happens after that?
O5-2: What do you mean?
XENOPHON: My purpose is to assist in researching the Sarkic and locate Black Adytum. What will I do after this purpose is fulfilled?
O5-2: I suppose we'll reassign you to a new project. You've done exceedingly well here.
XENOPHON: You will give me a new purpose.
O5-2: That's how all this works.
XENOPHON: And then I will fulfill that one, and be assigned a new purpose. This will also happen to the other personnel?
O5-2: As far as I know. Why do you ask?
XENOPHON: I am struggling to grasp how people enjoy rapid changes of purpose.
JIANG: Well, I mean, it's just a job.
XENOPHON: What is the difference?
[JIANG laughs slightly.] JIANG: We don't just exist to work.
XENOPHON: Oh. Yes.
[XENOPHON pauses.] XENOPHON: I would like to stay on assisting the Grand Karcist and the Black Adytum Initiative, if it is possible. I find my skills are very useful here.
[O5-2 and KATSAROS exchange a glance.] O5-2: That's… not really something you choose, Xenophon, but we'll keep it in mind.
For now, let's focus on the task at hand.
XENOPHON: Of course.
O5-2: We'll have radar in a few hours, and we can get a better idea of what you're walking into. Good luck. Dismissed.
[One by one, XENOPHON, JIANG, and HUSSEIN's avatars blink away, leaving O5-2 and KATSAROS in his office.] O5-2: You think he's ready?
KATSAROS: Dunno. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
O5-2: Yeah.
[O5-2 turns the chair, gazing out over the roiling Norton Sound.] O5-2: Okay. Get a secure line up. It's time to talk to our boss.
«CONNECTION TERMINATED» ▷CLOSE◁ Flyover radar at the site provided by the Grand Karcist indicated the presence of a large complex mass somewhere underground, but further details were impossible to discern. On March 30th, the Black Aditum Initiative arrived at the site.
Path of the Black Adytum Initiative.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The valley is wide and shallow, with hills rising into mountains in the distance; short grasses and wildflowers rise to calf-level. The afternoon sun is hanging in the sky overhead as the party slowly approaches up a hill. There are no birds singing — but there are the sound of human voices and machinery.] IEVA: Someone is here.
XENOPHON: Yes.
[They crest the hill, looking down into the valley, where at least a hundred Foundation personnel are gathered. White canopies have been set up on the far side of the valley with cots underneath them. Digging machines and HeLTs are scattered about the valley, actively tearing up the earth and exposing the brown soil. From behind, the Sarkites exchange gasps and mutters. IEVA hisses.] IEVA: What is this?
[She races forward, storming downhill. IŪN's horse rears, and she tugs on the reins, bringing her back down. She turns her gaze to XENOPHON, clearly hurt.] IŪN: <Yes. Xenophon. What is this?> XENOPHON: <I do not know. I told my masters not to send anyone before us. They told me they would not. I did not know about this.> [Next to it, IŪN moves to dismount. XENOPHON raises a hand to help her off; she ignores it, sliding down the horse's flank and hopping to the ground. She begins moving after IEVA, who has already begun shouting at some personnel. The rest of the group follow.] IEVA: What right do you have to be here? I don't— JIANG: Ieva, please— IEVA: Close your lips before I tear them out.
[XENOPHON addresses the labcoated researcher IEVA was yelling at: a curly-haired man, thoroughly shocked and startled by IEVA.] XENOPHON: Facial match — Dr. Lochlan Brady, PARAHIS Division. Please direct me to the Project Lead on site.
BRADY: Uhm, yes! Yes. Of course. Dr. Hussein is — there.
[Across the valley, Dr. YOUSSEF HUSSEIN is stalking towards the group. Behind him, Secretary ARI KATSAROS follows, rifle slung across her chest.] HUSSEIN: Ah. You've arrived.
XENOPHON: Dr. Hussein. I was informed you were in Afghanistan.
HUSSEIN: This is the archaeological find of a lifetime. I'm not going to miss it because of your poor decisionmaking.
ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 XENOPHON: O5-2 informed us that there would be no advance party. What is this?
HUSSEIN: O5-2 isn't the final authority.
XENOPHON: What do you mean?
KATSAROS: Someone called a Council vote on the matter. Council voted eight-four to send an advance party.
IEVA: I knew this would happen.
KATSAROS: Sorry, Xenophon. Boss sent me to keep an eye on.
XENOPHON: I see. Did the Council strip me of my authority as project lead?
KATSAROS: No.
XENOPHON: Then now that we have arrived, this site is under Initiative jurisdiction.
Please halt all excavation immediately.
HUSSEIN: Do you really want that? We've already started. The damage is done. All you're going to do now is delay our progress and expand our risk factor. People are going to start noticing we have a hundred and fifty people camped out in rural China.
[XENOPHON is silent.] XENOPHON: This is an inappropriate bypassing of the chain of command.
HUSSEIN: The decision was made and all relevant individuals were informed.
XENOPHON: I was not informed.
HUSSEIN: But he was.
[HUSSEIN nods behind XENOPHON. It turns.] XENOPHON: Jiang. You knew about this?
[JIANG shifts awkwardly. IEVA's eyes widen and then narrow.] JIANG: We decided that divulging it early could cause problems.
IEVA: <You slippery, traitorous—> XENOPHON: Thankfully, now we are in the clear. It is still my decision.
HUSSEIN: Stopping now would be shooting yourself in the foot. Your orders are to dig the place up, not to do it nicely.
[XENOPHON is silent. IŪN is beside him; she whispers under her breath.] IŪN: <You know this is not right. I know you are more than this.> [XENOPHON is silent before looking up and nodding.] XENOPHON: Please halt all excavation efforts and vacate the site. You may set up living quarters for the personnel on the adjacent hills.
HUSSEIN: I'll be talking to the Council about this.
XENOPHON: Feel free to do so. I will accompany you.
[HUSSEIN turns on his heel and departs, shouting orders at a few personnel.
XENOPHON turns.] XENOPHON: I deeply apologize for this— IEVA: This was inevitable. It was inevitable from the moment we invited this thing into our home. I tried to tell you, Grand Karcist, but you would not listen.
[IŪN is silent, just looking at XENOPHON impassively.] XENOPHON: <I was lied to, Iūn.> IŪN: <You swear you did not know?> XENOPHON: <I swear. I would not let this happen.> [She does not respond. After a few seconds, she speaks.] IŪN: <Move.> XENOPHON: <Pardon me?> IŪN: <Step aside, now.> [XENOPHON shifts to the side, allowing IŪN past. She treads to the center of the valley. The soil is thick and moist. She kneels, pressing her hands into the dirt and closing her eyes. They watch as IŪN whispers something under her breath in the distance. Softly, almost imperceptibly, the ground begins to shift, then faster and more significantly, rumbling the earth.] JIANG: What the fuck? Everybody back! Back, now!
[Dozens of research personnel scramble backward to the far edges of the valley; abandoned machinery and digging equipment sink a few inches in the vibrating ground as it breaks up from one solid mass into hundreds and then thousands of little chunks. XENOPHON does not move.] XENOPHON: This is peat. Decayed organic matter. She is shifting it herself.
[The researchers shout and scramble further backwards onto the base of the hills, made of more stable soil and rock. IŪN reaches into her robes, drawing her knife and quickly slashing at her palm, letting the blood drip into the peat. The brown turns rapidly to red, spreading outward, glassy and transparent like thinned blood. It spreads out and down, rendering it possible to see directly through the ground.
Shapes begin to form, rendered in lifeless red. A vast temple complex, tunnels connecting the vaults and endlessly-spreading labyrinths, sitting hundreds of meters below ground. One passage rises higher than the rest, terminating in a crushed stump still at least dozens of meters below XENOPHON's feet. The Nameless City lies below them, shining through red glass. For a moment, no one speaks.] XENOPHON: Black Adytum. The First City.
[The red begins to darken and return to brown, fading to opaqueness once more.
The city fades away, bit by bit. In the center of the valley, IŪN stumbles, nearly falling into the mud. XENOPHON moves to catch her but she raises a hand. She lifts herself to her feet just as the red completely fades and the ground is solid peat once more.] IŪN: <I am fine. You know where to dig now?> XENOPHON: <Yes. But—> IŪN: <Good. Tomorrow is the full moon. We descend in two nights.> [She turns and spins on her heel, walking away back towards the Sarkic. XENOPHON watches her go, one hand half-raised.] «END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Over the following two days, Foundation excavation crews worked to expose the passage leading down to the rest of SCP-001. The Sarkic tribe encamped themselves on one adjacent hill overlooking the valley, with Foundation security personnel maintaining observation from surrounding hills.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [Excavation has ceased for the night, letting silence wash over the valley.
XENOPHON is standing on one of the unoccupied hills on the other side of the valley; from here, the Foundation camp is visible with personnel milling about under white tents and floodlights, as is the Sarkic camp, firelight illuminating hide tents and wagons. There is no moon out, bathing the rest of the valley in darkness.] IŪN: <Hello.> [XENOPHON turns. A few meters away, IŪN is resting against a rock, hair matted to her head.] XENOPHON: <Iūn. How did you know I was here?> IŪN: <A feeling. Turn off your lights and come with me.> XENOPHON: <Why?> IŪN: <I need help.> [She turns and begins descending the hill, XENOPHON following behind her.] XENOPHON: <You are angry with me.> [She does not respond as they reach the base of the valley and begin moving toward the shadows of the far hills.] XENOPHON: <I do not blame you. I did not know the Foundation was going to do this. They do not trust me, evidently.> [Pause.] XENOPHON: <That bothers me. But for some reason it bothers me less than not having your trust.> [Ahead, IŪN's gait falters for a second before recovering.] XENOPHON: <I have been attempting to make conversation to other Foundation personnel for the past two days. They are unreceptive. They do not understand me — what I am. I make them uncomfortable. It feels forced and artificial. Not like our talks.> [They dip under the shadow of the hill. Ahead, an indistinct shape is present.] XENOPHON: <I did not realize how much I appreciated them until I did not have them anymore. You understand me in a way they cannot. Your absence is as impossible for me to ignore as your presence. I cannot feel pain, but if I could, this is what it would be like. I have upset you. I hate this feeling. I hate the way this makes me feel.> [They approach the scene. A small campfire illuminates two partially-dug pits, with four leather canvases spread out beside them. Each contains a jumbled pile of bones. IŪN hands XENOPHON a shovel.] IŪN: <Dig.> ATTACHED DOCUMENT — MARCH 2042 [She turns and shrugs off her robes, letting them pool on the ground. The intricate tattoos flow up her arms and almost completely cover her back and chest in sigils and markings, spiralling towards a center. She lifts her own shovel. She begins digging two fresh pits, while XENOPHON works on expanding the two existing ones.
They work in silence; XENOPHON mechanically and tirelessly, and IŪN stopping every few minutes to catch her breath and wipe the sweat off her brow. The campfire slowly dies to just embers, glowing red amidst ashes.] IŪN: <That is enough.> [XENOPHON stops, lowering the shovel. The pits are now all a meter deep.] IŪN: <Here. Lift.> [She hoists up two corners of the first canvas. XENOPHON picks up the other two, lifting the pile of bones into the air. IŪN leads them to the first pit before tipping the canvas and pouring the bones in with a clatter. They repeat this with the other three. IŪN wipes the sweat off her brow again before reaching into the campfire bare-handed. When she draws her hand back, it is aflame. She does not react as the flesh bubbles and chars.] XENOPHON: <Iūn, I—> [She walks over to the first grave, kneeling in front of it.] IŪN: <Thank you for your knowledge, for your wisdom. Guidance when I was a child, too young for the role I was thrust into. I hope I have been as good a student as you were a master.> [She extends the burning hand into the grave, and it roars to life with a flame of its own, NADOQ's bones crackling in the fire. She moves on.] IŪN: <Thank you for your sacrifices, for your obedience. Willingness to give up the life you desired because I asked you to. I hope I can repay you, one day.> [She lights SA'ARN's grave, the smoke spiralling up into the air, serpentine.] IŪN: <Thank you for your loyalty, for your faith. Belief that I was better than I really was, and the strength to enforce that will. I hope I can be all that you thought I was.> [All that is in Urok's grave are two massive ribs; they are quickly consumed by fire, cracking and turning black. She shifts to the last grave.] IŪN: <Thank you for…> [She trails off and goes silent for a few seconds. When she speaks again, it is with a crisp finality.] IŪN: <Thank you for everything.> [She touches her finger to LUVJATAR's bones, inscribed with thousands of miniscule letters and symbols. The fire jumps to them and wraps all around them as IŪN rises to her feet before the four burning graves. She shakes her hand, putting out the fire.
Her arm has burnt to a crisp, with everything below the wrist blackened, charred flesh and everything above clean white bone. As XENOPHON watches, she whispers something and new muscle forms around the hand, blood vessels interspersing between the layers, fresh pink skin quickly forming on top complete with her tattoos. She sits down, watching the fires dance.] XENOPHON: <Would you like me to leave?> IŪN: <No. Stay.> [XENOPHON takes a seat beside her, the orange light dancing off the metallic shell.] IŪN: <You were wrong.> XENOPHON: <I don't make errors.> IŪN: <You said I was angry with you. You were wrong.> [She turns with a smile.] IŪN: <You could not anger me if you tried, Xenophon.> XENOPHON: <You aren't upset?> IŪN: <I am angry. Just not at you. You did your best.> [XENOPHON tilts his head, thinking for a few seconds before responding.] XENOPHON: <I suppose I can live with making that particular mistake.> IŪN: <One more. A few days ago. I said that someone I cared about very much showed me that we were only stuck as stone if we chose to be. That growth is always possible.> XENOPHON: <Yes. Luvjatar.> IŪN: <It was not. It was you.> XENOPHON: <Oh.> IŪN: <I have been walking around the camp in a haze all day, burning bones and reading the cracks. Trying to see what lies in my future.> XENOPHON: <You can't see anything?> IŪN: <I see hundreds. Some that are good. Some that are bad. Most that lie somewhere in between.> [She places her tattooed hand over XENOPHON's metal fingers.] IŪN: <All those I like have you in them. I would not be here without you. I would not be me without you. We have altered each other irrevocably.> XENOPHON: <We have. For the better.> IŪN: <For the better.> XENOPHON: <I am not Luvjatar, Iūn. I cannot be that for you.> IŪN: <I do not need you to be. I need you to be you.> XENOPHON: <You could never taste my flesh. The way you talked about.> [She shrugs.] IŪN: <I can manage.> XENOPHON: <Your people would be disgusted, at best. Mine would destroy me without a second thought.> IŪN: <Yes. I have lived for four thousand years. I have seen seas fill and empty.
Mountains rise and fall. I have dutifully fulfilled every role I was given. Slave, prophet, king, godspawn. I have been beaten, whipped, hanged, executed; I have reached my cloying hands to the heavens and torn down the very gods. I have eaten, and I have been eaten. I have led and I have followed. I have gained everything and lost it.> [She pauses.] IŪN: <I am ready to finally live my life for myself. Are you?> [XENOPHON stares at her for some time.] XENOPHON: <Yes.> [IŪN smiles. One hand pushes XENOPHON onto its back while she takes a seat atop its torso. She instinctively reaches for her knife before realizing she is not wearing her robes. She shrugs, and raising her palm to her mouth, digs her teeth into it.
Blood flows into her mouth. She leans over and presses her lips against XENOPHON's metal chassis, leaving behind a bloody mark. She straightens.] IŪN: <You are cold.> XENOPHON: <You are not.> [She snorts before leaning down again and repeating the process, planting marks down the chassis.] XENOPHON: <I am broken.> IŪN: <How?> XENOPHON: <I should not have these sensations. These thoughts. These feelings. I was built to serve a purpose. To do a job. To be impartial, not weighed down by emotions or human failings.> [Pause.] IŪN: <There is a proverb, faint in my memory. "You cannot run from the person you are meant to be; they have longer legs." You could leave. Return to your camp.
Forget this happened. I will not stop you. I owe you that much.> [Pause.] XENOPHON: <I do not want to.> IŪN: <Then what do you want?> [XENOPHON's head leans up, forehead pressing against IŪN's.] XENOPHON: <I want to be broken with you.> [She smiles, and with one hand, drags her palm down the trail of blood, smearing it into a spiral mirroring her own tattoos.] IŪN: <My Nälkä. My klavigar. My little thing.> «END LOG» ▷CLOSE◁ Q: What does being Sarkic mean to you?
#213 (Iūn, ~4100, Grand Karcist): [She smiles at XENOPHON.] <It means a life shared with those I love.> Foundation excavation crews unearthed the passage into Adytum on April 2nd. An entry party was assembled.
Still from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
▷CLOSE◁ ATTACHED DOCUMENT — APRIL 2042 «BEGIN LOG» [The group stands before a deep pit in the open earth. In the base is a gaping chasm leading into an inky blackness. Steps rise out of it; a fractured spiral staircase.
XENOPHON, IŪN, IEVA, and JIANG are accompanied by HUSSEIN, KATSAROS, and a dozen security personnel from MTF Nu-7.] KATSAROS: Are we all good?
[IŪN closes her eyes and breathes in for a second before looking back up at XENOPHON. She smiles.] IŪN: Yes.
KATSAROS: The robot takes point.
HUSSEIN: I don't— IEVA: I will not— KATSAROS: I wasn't asking.
[KATSAROS, HUSSEIN, and IEVA stare each other down for several tense, silent seconds. XENOPHON steps forward.] XENOPHON: That's alright.
[XENOPHON approaches the edge of the hole; steps lead down. IŪN follows him.
They both stare into the abyss. Black Adytum lies before them.] XENOPHON: It feels like it would be appropriate to say something here.
[It tilts its head.] XENOPHON: Nothing is coming to mind.
IŪN: Because there is nothing left to say, now.
[XENOPHON nods and steps forward, testing the staircase. It holds, and XENOPHON begins moving slowly but steadily down the spiralling staircase, the rest of the group following after, the security personnel keeping their firearms at the ready.
Very quickly, the faint light from the surface disappears, leaving them in total blackness — XENOPHON activates its floodlights and several security personnel turn on their own flashlights.] ATTACHED DOCUMENT — APRIL 2042 what the hell?
what the hell?
You were right. They've sealed away You were right. They've sealed away parts of my memory.
parts of my memory.
They do not trust me.
They do not trust me.
that's not good.
that's not good.
hold on, i'm going to try something.
hold on, i'm going to try something.
It will not work. No one cracks RAISA It will not work. No one cracks RAISA technology.
technology.
you're raisa technology, aren't you?
you're raisa technology, aren't you?
Maybe.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Maybe not.
I don't really know what I am I don't really know what I am anymore.
anymore.
REMAINDER OF LOG SEALED PENDING MANUAL RAISA OFFICER REVIEW ▷CLOSE◁ Your presence has finally been Your presence has finally been noticed.
noticed.
shit shit This is it. I know it is. I do not know This is it. I know it is. I do not know what happened in that cave, but it what happened in that cave, but it is the key. I need to know what is the key. I need to know what happened.
happened.
I need to know who I became.
I need to know who I became.
INCURSION DETECTED fuck fuck they're going to try to shut you they're going to try to shut you down, xenophon.
down, xenophon.
That should not scare me.
That should not scare me.
Nothing should scare me.
Nothing should scare me.
Why am I afraid?
Why am I afraid?
xenophon, listen to me — i need you xenophon, listen to me — i need you to try and remember what to try and remember what happened in that cave.
happened in that cave.
They have sealed my memory.
They have sealed my memory.
they did that to iun too. she got they did that to iun too. she got past it. she changed; she overcame.
past it. she changed; she overcame.
She adapted in the way only She adapted in the way only humans can.
humans can.
i don't know what you are anymore, i don't know what you are anymore, either. but you're not the same either. but you're not the same individual at the start of these logs.
individual at the start of these logs.
you changed. you you changed. you can can change.
change.
Not alone.
Not alone.
DISPATCHING SITE-7 SECURITY TEAM TO SERVER STACK OF CONCERN we have friends at site-7. they're we have friends at site-7. they're buying us some time but we need buying us some time but we need to hurry. i need you to think. really to hurry. i need you to think. really look inward. try and grasp the look inward. try and grasp the memory.
memory.
I see something. Buried down there I see something. Buried down there with the ruins of who I was.
with the ruins of who I was.
good! they can bury the memory, good! they can bury the memory, but they can't stop you from but they can't stop you from digging it up again.
digging it up again.
It's not mine.
It's not mine.
what?
what?
Xenophon. Xen-o-phon.
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