cancry | sixth loop

So do you suppose it's because we're awake, or because we're special? Regular Eidolons are in short supply to test, of course, given that we recruit them all.

[She looks over at Medic's rummaging, but doesn't say anything.]

Good question! I should ask the next one we find if they want to volunteer for some tests before they become an Executor.

[Ah-ha, there it is. ...They were keeping it on the highest shelf so the younger students couldn't get to it, and she was having trouble finding it because it's too far above her normal line of sight.]

[She's just gonna pull a chair over to stand on and keep talking.]

I guess I could try asking Alice, too, the next time we're back in Invidia- she seemed perfectly lucid, last time we spoke. [Hopefully this will go a lot better than the last time the Invidia Authority worked with Alice on something.]

Which, of course, would require being able to get out of this place. ...You do still have that Authority, right? I'd suspect she'd have taken it from you, given how it's determined in Invidia, but none of you mentioned feeling any differently.

As far as I can tell! And hopefully we'll be able to get back out soon- which is good, because I had some time-sensitive experiments running in my lab when we left, and I should really check on those as soon as possible.

[Muttered quietly to herself:] ...hope they aren't getting hungry in there...

You've got lab animals now? I'm surprised, with how hard it is to track down any here.

[Carefully shaping some wire and adding on bits of Sword's hair.]

Oh, I know! It's absurd, I can't even find insects anywhere- I've had to resort to buying raw meat in bulk just to have something biological to work with for my cell cultures.

[It's fine. She's probably not growing an undead mutant cow out of a slab of beef in there. ...It's fine.]

At least we're still finding a reasonable amount of plants! And fungi, the mold in Avaritia was everywhere. It's actually the bulk of what I've got on hand at this point... [Squinting into the cabinet.] Do you want any more wire? It looks like they have some extra in here.

Oh, thank you. It could use more structure just in case, though I can't waste too much as I'm going to end up burning it. I do wonder what it is you'll come back to with all that research you were doing. Though I must say it sounds interesting, concerning or not.

[Medic dutifully hands over the package of spare wire.] Hmm, you might want to be careful about which paints you use, then- or wear a face mask when you do. Some of these can give off some pretty nasty fumes when exposed to heat!

[Just not even questioning why she'd be burning one of their teammates in effigy. It's her art project, she's allowed to do what she wants with it.]

Thanks! Hopefully the containment procedures should kick in if something goes wrong with it, so it shouldn't be too bad. And if it turns out well, I'll be able to show you all when we get back!

[It'll be a fun surprise. ...Or a terrifying one. Either/or.]

It wouldn't do to poison the layer, you're right. [She frowns and takes the wire, measuring some out.] I do suspect your findings will be interesting, even if it'll sound worrying. Though by now, you likely know what you're doing. You've never let me down before.

Doing it somewhere outdoors might help! Well-ventilated areas are a chemist's best friend.

[That last part is... surprisingly nice to hear. Medic smiles happily.]

Well, I do my best! ...And I've had a lot of practice with these sorts of things, by now. [Worrying-sounding science is definitely her area of expertise.] I guess a lot of it will depend on exactly how long we've been gone- whether it's only been one week for everyone outside this layer or if they're all experiencing time normally, I mean.

I did leave that project to sit so it would have time to grow properly, it's just an issue of whether it's gotten a little too much.

How much room did you give it, exactly...?

Well, I duct-taped two fish tanks together to make a single, larger tank, so... eight hundred gallons?

[A pause.]

It should probably be okay.

Let's hope. There'd better be a way back once we're out of here. I didn't even see a station for the train in the school.

You'd think a school would at least have a bus stop or something...

[Please help her, she grew up in a carefully-planned shiny post-post-apocalyptic future city. She's not used to places with terrible public transportation. She thinks bus schedules are supposed to be convenient and make sense.]

Then again, maybe they don't want to even imply the possibility of leaving to the students? The Authority seemed to want everything to stay exactly the way it was, after all!

Perhaps the Authority demolished it, then, if that's what you're saying. She did seem the type. Just stealing everything for herself, or cutting off others.

Mm... [She looks thoughtful.] Maybe it's just the time loop, but she seems almost afraid of change, to me?

Nobody ever graduates, nobody ever leaves. Everything is exactly how she likes it, so it has to stay exactly the same.

Sort of like those people who peak in high school and never get over it, I guess! You know, like the kind of guy who was Prom King and captain of the sports teams and still talks about it all the time, even though he's grown up now?

["Sports teams" listen she's a nerd okay. She knows about exactly two sports: fencing and women's volleyball, and the second one is only because someone that it makes her brain feel like a swarm of bees to try and remember loved it and patiently explained it repeatedly to her fellow gay disaster girl.]

I suppose. People who can't get past how things have changed.

[And her face screws up at that; she stares at the incomplete Sword before turning her attention to mashing up more paper-mâché.]

It... was it that way for us? With GRANBELM. The only way for mages to restore magic to the world -- if they even wished to do that with the power of the Princeps Mage. The seven sages sealed the power away, and the only way to get at it was to go in and win.

[This... seems important. Even if it's not something she understands, exactly, she'll do her best to take it seriously.]

I can't really know, since I've never experienced your world for myself. But... why was it sealed away in the first place?

And what were you going to do with magic, when it wasn't?

They said it was too dangerous, after wars and such were waged with it. But holdout mage families have competed in GRANBELM for a thousand years, hoping to produce a winner Magiaconatus will recognize. One who can become the Princeps Mage -- the one and only true mage, holder of all the power that was kept back from the world.

I don't remember what I was going to do when I won, or if I even had a plan aside from winning because my family wanted to win. But I had to, right? With that much power, you could do whatever you wanted. Maybe give magic back to the world. Or keep it to yourself. Maybe even reshape the world entirely to what you wanted.

That's kind of a weird place to draw the line in a world with nukes... wait, did you have nuclear weaponry in your world? Was that a thing?

[Honestly, the mere existence of Medic probably means that biowarfare is much scarier than anything else on her planet.]

[She shakes her head sharply, reminding herself to stay focused.]

How did GRANBELM actually work? Why did unsealing magic even need to be a competition in the first place?

Not 1,000 years ago, we didn't. [But then Medic asks some more questions, and:] To prove who was the most worthy, I presume. in truth, for some reason, no winner has ever become the Princeps Mage. So they say that whoever wins must also be loved by Magiaconatus, favoured by the gods. However that works.

Mother -- no, my entire family thought Ernesta must be the one. They decided she was some great talent and wanted to adopt her. To replace me.

So... it didn't work, for a thousand years, and people kept trying the same thing that didn't work last time? [She blinks, looking confused.] Didn't anyone ever try anything else?

[If at first you don't succeed, test a different hypothesis.]

Replace you? Well that's... [She spends a brief second trying to think of a polite way to say this, and then gives up.] ...really stupid.

You can't replace a person with another person. Even with cloning! People are all unique- that's kind of the point of people.

Besides, shouldn't they have wanted to enter as many members of their family into this contest as possible? They could have doubled their chances of winning!

It doesn't work that way, there's only one heir at a time. We both ended up in the competition, but that's because I confronted Ernesta about the whole thing and she ran away. I don't remember it all, but I don't think I saw her for years until GRANBELM began.

Mother wanted me to give up and do something else with my life. I doubt I would have. I wanted to show her, Ernesta, Magiaconatus itself that I was worth it.

Worth what?

The power, the attention, I don't know, being what I was supposed to be!

[She sweeps a hand out and, in doing so, knocks off a half-drying piece of Sword. Muttering curses in German, she starts to replace the paper-mâché.]

sixth loop

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