"I'm so, so sorry, Blanc. I've found no results, even after reading through all the data transfers, and..."
"It's alright, Histoire. Do you have anything else you wish to tell me?"
"Just some theories about this complete lack of information. Even alternate versions of myself that have been decommissioned or destroyed...would at least leave some records behind. And, going by the available history of Ultradimension and some anecdotes about a PC Continent city state with the same name, the existence of an alternate Tari would likely precede the founding of Planeptune."
"...And what does that mean?"
"It means the first CPU of Planeptune, who created me—all of us, would have programmed the knowledge of a Tari nation into our initial setting. For there to be a complete absence of information? Whichever dimension your resurrected CPUs hails from, it is very likely that no Histoires has ever existed in their world."
Rei felt like she was twelve again when she stuttered out that question. Or ten. Or fifteen. The memories all blended together because of how similar they were; Rei tried to do a brave or cool thing, but because she was a nice girl, she asked people for permission first, and only after saying it out loud did she realize that no one else thought it was brave or cool.
It was stupid.
But C-Sha just nodded, and said "Sure", and she nearly fell over in shock.
C-Sha gave her one of those reassuring smiles when she was on the verge of breaking into a rant about why C-Sha should totally reconsider her decision, because when she could get lost fifteen times on her way to deliver some pizzas, the idea of joining their search in the wilderness was the very definition of terrible.
And, after seeing that, she didn't feel like talking anymore.
C-Sha disappeared into the cluster of tents, right after telling Rei that they happened to have the perfect partner for her. She was half-expecting C-Sha to come back with a friendly giant Dogoo, which was exactly the kind of pathetic, soft and useless guide she deserved.
No. A Dogoo could wipe the floor with her in an one-on-one duel, so it would still be of more use than her—
A surge of relief hit her when C-Sha came back, with one of the geared soldiers at her side. It was gone when Rei saw the soldier's face.
If 'Red Storm' sensed just how nervous she was, she didn't acknowledge it. She merely told C-Sha yes, she would be happy to escort this volunteer to the outpost where she could keep a track on her radio and report her finding to the base camp, with a detached professional politeness that just screamed "I'm a competent person doing my job, with no feelings attached".
Maybe it would rub off on you, too. Maybe you would learn to do things right and be worthy of the respect that Lowee's retired Goddess gave to you, then you could take up her offer and...
Rei let out a small chuckle, as she continued packing up her stuff, under the special agent's watchful gaze.
She didn't immediately apologize for laughing like a weirdo this time.
She hadn't seen Ryll anywhere, since she stepped out into the corridor. Whichever room the girl had chosen to have a mental breakdown in, it didn't seem to be on this floor. At least that was what she thought Ryll would be doing. Memories of Elizabeth A. tended to have that kind of effect on people.
Speaking of which, the tiles and walls outside were wrecked. With the amount of holes and fallen debris all over the place, she was really starting to worry about the possibility of the entire level collapsing on itself.
And, when she reached the right end of the corridor, it became apparent that a sector had already collapsed. Huge chunks of stone lay below the decorated spiral staircase, now crushed to a pile of pitiful fragments. She sighed when she glanced around, and saw no alternate branching paths. Of course she wouldn't be able to just walk out of this place.
Well, there was still another direction plus a lot of doors. Maybe there would be ladders or trapdoors in one of these rooms. Turning back, she moved towards the closest door, and gave the rotten wooden plank a small shove—
"The elevator is gone, too."
"What?" She turned back, and saw the ghost woman's floating form.
"You are standing in front of one of the two original exits to this level." The ghost sighed. "And I'm saving you the trouble of looking for the other one, because Lynka had blown up the entire elevator shaft with her exploding phantoms. No respect for the marvelous craftsmanship of the ancients. No respect at all."
That was...an odd point to focus on. But fair enough. "Thanks. I mean it. For everything."
"Oh, I haven't done much, and, considering the worst possible consequence my decision can bring—" The ghost shook her head, "—Wouldn't be able to do much in the near future."
"What is the worst possible consequence?"
"I have no idea either. That is why I need to show you the general direction you should escape towards, if there are any warning signs in the first place. Follow me."
She nodded, before remembering something. "Wait, didn't you say they'd blocked off all the exits?"
"The original exits. How did you think they'd brought back the supplies from outside?" The ghost gave her a look of honest amazement, as they took a turn and emerged into an open hall. In the far corner, there was a hole on the floor, and the way the tiles had crumbled apart made it quite likely to be the result of the latest abnormal seismic activities.
"However, because I'm bonded to an amulet, and said amulet had been thrown into that well—" Displeasure flashed across the ghost's face, as she pointed towards the well at the center of the hall. "It limits my range of movement, and I can't follow her all the way there. But you can hear it, can't you?"
Frowning, she closed her eyes, and started listening. Soon enough, a weak, hollow howl made its way into her ears, even without the sensory enhancement of her power.
"Is that...wind?"
"Correct. Right down that passage, there is an opening to the outside world." The ghost pointed to one of the corridors, then added, "Don't get your hopes up. I don't think it is accessible to you, while you are in this state."
"It will be. Eventually." Once she pushed through the freakish mental phantom pain with sheer willpower, perhaps, and regained the full use of her left arm. "Now that I think about it, I don't even know your name. Even though we've run into each other under the weirdest circumstances. Is it still too personal to ask how you died, if I was under the very real risk of joining you?"
"The last part. That's not funny." The ghost stated flatly. "But no, I'm Verdna, a humble exchange student from the Silver Republic who'd perished in a dungeon decades ago, because some people had not learned the importance of approaching all unopened chests and crypts with the utmost caution."
"You are an explorer?"
"A dungeon cartographer, with some rudimentary knowledge in runic magic and ancient languages," Verdna said. "Never thought there would be a day when I regretted not taking more Basica courses in the Academy. No, actually, that is a good thing and I have no regrets."
"Wait, if you are a witch, you gotta' know..." She squeezed out a smile, "How to turn someone into a newt or the likes of it, right?"
Verdna gave her a look upon hearing that. A deeply unimpressed one. "Ah, so you are a young lady of culture. Despite my pleasure at our shared taste in comedy, don't you think I'd have done it to our captors long ago, if I still possessed any magic after death?"
"Well, I was thinking maybe I could sneak through cracks as a newt or something, but—" She sighed. "Never mind. That is a really dumb idea. What's a Basica, by the way?"
"A dead ancient language that should, by all means, stay dead, because its grammar is a cesspool of aesthetic travesties," Verdna said. "I think making a fluent Paskalian speaker translate it is the linguist equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment. Which, unfortunately, is what I've agreed to."
"It can't be that bad?" She asked. "I don't think they can fit that many words onto...a rock. That's what they stole, isn't it?"
"Exactly. The text is so short, and has been badly translated into two more languages beforehand, it makes fishing for context all but impossible. As much as I hope my translation errors would result in the total failure of their ritual, I cannot control the way it may go wrong."
"Hmmm. Do you think that rock may have something to do with the...monster civilizations?" After a brief struggle, she finally spoke the question that had been on her mind for awhile now.
"Really?" Verdna tilted her head. "That's an interesting possibility. One of the linguistic leftovers in the inscription is strongly reminiscent of the Fortran pictographs, used both before and after the First Resonance by the Ibim cultural group, which coexisted with the monster civilizations. But not a likely one."
"How so?"
"The monsters that did form civilizations, their inborn magic is different from ours. If they wished to revive someone, they wouldn't need to rely on human runic workings. Especially something this complex," Vernda said. "Disclaimers, I'm no historian, and not even a professional at this field, but the real professionals' educated guess is...that rock harbors an Anti-Clockwork Time Rune."
"It doesn't create an identical life out of dead matter. It just reverses the flow of time to a point where the dead being is still alive." A pause. "But that reversal has to be powered by something else. Someone, perhaps. They'll have to sacrifice their time, and start moving in the opposite direction on the axis of time. And going against the current takes a lot more power than going with the flow."
"So if they are trying to restore a mummified corpse to a healthy, living..."
"Another person will turn into a dusty skeleton in their stead. Or just dust, depending on how long they've been dead." Verdna looked really grim all of a sudden. "Now I know why the inscription kept talking about 'one who loves most fiercely' and deep desperation. It may not be a metaphor, and is merely a wordier way of saying blood kin and loved ones."
She thought that they were, at most, two or three levels underground.
And that no one bothered to lock her up, because there were no working locks on these doors.
The moment she emerged from the hole, after a long, uneventful crawl through the narrow cavern behind the collapsed dungeon wall, she knew that both assumptions were wrong. Hundreds of feet above her, a tiny dot of light was visible, illuminating the jagged, icy walls of the giant canyon. As she glanced down from the mossy rock platform she was currently standing on, there was only an inky blackness in her view.
The wind was sweeping through the canyon, once again, and the chill made her feel really dizzy all of a sudden.
She knelt down on the ground, fingers tracing the edge of the small holes, drilled into the rocky surface in two parallel lines. Whichever location the ancient drawbridge was leading to, the bridge itself was long gone, together with her hope of getting out of this place through some creative applications of her power.
Her power. Darn it. All the other crystal holders could summon some cool gadgets or psionic wings or flat-out negate the forces of gravity if they put a little more thought into it, and then there was her. Stuck in a giant hole in the ground, considering if she should risk falling to her death in the next few minutes, just so she could say she died trying to test the limits of wall-jumping.
Think, think, you never think things through. This exit was out of the question, but what do you still have back there? Something that could help you escape—
"Greetings."
A familiar demure voice came from behind her. She twitched when she turned back, and saw Lynka's white hair, its red streaks gaining a rusty luster under the dim light.
"I'm sorry," Lynka said, after she crawled out of the narrow passage. She thought more words were coming, but after a long silence, it became clear that there were no follow-ups at all.
"Okay?"
That came out a little more accusing than she intended. Not that these two weren't at faults here, but she was suddenly very aware of the fact that she was standing on the edge of a cliff. Maybe Lynka, for all her appearance of emotional stability and politeness, also had a hidden berserk button that she might just accidentally push with her careless word choices.
"I understand that it won't make you any less angry at us." Lynka lowered her head. "But rest assured, I have no intention to hurt you, while you are here."
"Uh. Thanks, I guess. Just follow the ghost lady's advice, and try not to bury all of us in here, next time you start your ritual thing?"
The way Lynka flinched made her wince. No opening up old wounds, no salt on open wounds, remember?
Gosh darn it. She was terrible at this hostage-negotiation-as-a-hostage thing.
"I'm afraid that is not within my control. Though I suppose we can move to the lowest level next time. Speaking of which," Lynka looked up, "I would like to ask you a question. About someone you saw."
Oh heck no. Even idiots like her could start connecting dots together now, and telling Lynka about the horrific experience that likely drove her murderer to claim vengeance later on...was the worst conversation topic they could have at the moment.
"It's not a good idea to, well, dwell on past traumas, if you know what I'm talking about?"
"Back in the archive," Lynka looked into her eyes, "You may not remember anything, but you were fighting like my sister."
"Flare?" She blurted the name out, and regretted it immediately upon seeing the painful hope in Lynka's eyes.
"Yes. That is her name. What did you see?"
She was tempted to spill everything out in one go. If only she didn't have the nagging feeling that whatever transpired in the Living Books Dimension was dangerously connected to the real world, or had lost the last bit of common sense in her. Lynka was still keeping her in this place against her will, no matter how genuinely nice and sad she was.
"Oh, uh, not much? Look, my power is more broken than a potato server, and instead of randomly crashing, it shoved bits and pieces of memories into my head whenever I used it for too long. Make me...act like a different person while reliving them," She said. "It's all from a bunch of strangers, and I wasn't communicating with your sister's ghost or something like that. Sorry."
"That's alright." Lynka nodded and turned away, with a barely concealed disappointment in her voice. "I suppose I should leave you to your own devices. It's really cold out here, and you are still injured, so don't linger for too long, please?"
"Wait," She called out, just as the girl was about to bend down and enter the passage again. "I..."
"What is it?"
"I know it's not my place to comment on your personal relationships, but, from what I've seen, don't you think her feelings about you may be, well, a little complicated? And not in an entirely positive way? And she may not appreciate being brought back?"
"I know." A sad smile flashed across Lynka's face. "Anyone can see how badly I've failed as a sister, can't they? That's why I have to make up for it, at all costs."