Sanctuary Nadir | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

It was a strikingly cursed idea, so much so that the sense of fatigue wrapping me seemed to have dissipated on the spot. I felt compelled to rip the bandage off before I even fully engaged with it.

I floated upwards, away from my little half-built stone hut into the space overhead.

"Uh... help," I said.

Sure enough, the woman that the Lady had called her 'playwright' popped into existence about five feet in front of me, her appearance just as it had been before: Sharp blonde hair, bright gold dress, and frightful inhuman eyes, this time close enough and in good enough lighting to make me jump all over again. I was never, under any circumstances, going to get used to that.

PLAYWRIGHT: <in flat tone, deflated> Oh, great. You're doing this already. That bodes well.

"I had a question about how something in this world works," I told her.

PLAYWRIGHT: Didn't you hear Her when you were instructed to calm down and spend some time contemplating your situation? <crossing arms> You've been out here for barely three hours.

I frowned. Had it really only been that long...? So much for the idea of having got any sleep.

"T-This'll just take a minute," I said, avoiding her spooky gaze. "I had a question about the rules when it comes to bringing people here-- Making Tertiaries, I mean."

PLAYWRIGHT: <irritated> Her Ladyship gave you permission to ask me questions concerning the weekend of April the 28th, not random errata you could learn from talking to anyone on the street. <fixing her gaze> I hope you didn't call me here just to waste my time.

Wow, I thought. This one is kind of an asshole, huh.

"Aren't you supposed to help anyone who asks with general questions about how things work here, too? That's what I heard," I persisted. "If you won't do that, bring another one of the Advisors who will." I hesitated. "Assuming that is what you are, and you're not just hijacking this feature on behalf of your mistress."

The woman (golem? eldritch abomination? whatever) stared at me with abject annoyance for a moment, then huffed, throwing up her hands.

PLAYWRIGHT: Fine, fine. What's the question?

"Okay, so..." I bit my lip as I tried to come up with a tactical way to phrase this. "No one's laid this all out for me explicitly, but I'm assuming Tertiaries are made by finding someone in the outside world and then just, well, replicating them in the standard way, right? That is, using Divination to find the composition of their matter, then using that to build a Transmutation incantation."

PLAYWRIGHT: You have to copy their Pneuma as well, but yes.

I blinked. "We can do that?"

PLAYWRIGHT: <impatiently> Of course you can. This plane exists above all others, remember? <gesturing outwardly> This 3D space you see around you is merely a single facet of the reality we presently inhabit, built to accommodate human perception. But matter exists across all dimensions, and as a 10-dimensional being, there's nothing to stop you from manipulating the stuff in the rest. And that of course includes the ones containing the paraphysical components of the human mind.

"I... see." I processed this for a moment. At this point, I shouldn't have even been surprised by what I'd known as the fundamental restrictions of the Power being completely overturned here. "But you can't replicate people who already exist as Primaries or Secondaries, right? Because the privacy shield means you wouldn't be able to learn their composition."

PLAYWRIGHT: Obviously.

"But the privacy shield isn't on yourself, otherwise autospective dreaming wouldn't work."

PLAYWRIGHT: Obviously.

"And, to be clear, what exactly counts as 'yourself'?" I broke eye contact. "Since all - or, uh, at least most - of the Primaries are arcanists, there's, well, obviously there's--"

PLAYWRIGHT: <interjecting, in the monotone of reading from a script> As best can be understood, spectation anonymity privilege for Primaries was determined by the same method as the nature of their bodies; a combination of physical traits, memory, and personal preference. Ergo, if you possess any amount of memories from more than one discrete identity, both sources are considered mirrors of yourself. This is also how privacy surrounding your friends and family is determined.

"Friends and family?" I asked, surprised again.

PLAYWRIGHT: Yes. All Primaries are alloted five individuals determined to be closest to their mirrors who are also encompassed by their anonymity privilege. And no, these can't be anyone who is also a Primary, nor do I know how 'closeness' is determined in the first place, and yes, these can overlap between Primaries, in which case both individuals can observe the person in question while otherwise the privilege functions as normal. And no, you can't change who is selected and I can't do it for you. <flatly> That's got to be every followup question you could possibly have, right? Can I go?

"Uh, no," I said quickly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent."

PLAYWRIGHT: Ugh.

I clenched my fists, feeling sweat in my palm. It felt like I was having to override my own instincts to even touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, despite being a million miles removed from any possible consequences.

"So... can you make a Tertiary of yourself?" I finally asked. "At some point in your past, I mean?"

PLAYWRIGHT: <squinting skeptically> That's where you're going with this? No, you can't. <sighing with exasperation> Really, anyone could have told you this.

My heart skipped, and I let out a heavy breath.

Well... that's that, then, I suppose.

In all honesty, I wasn't sure I would have done it even if I could have. As I'd mused just prior to the hourglass incident with Ptolema, even after all these years, it still felt - albeit in an abstracted, distant way that had become impossible separate from my other regrets and generalized escapism - an obligation to restore the original Utsushikome if that were in any way possible, so in a sense such a straightforward solution would have been miraculous. No complex existential questions about to what extent 'I'd' have to be gone for it to count, or worries about thrusting her into a now very worn-in, middle-aged life. A completely fresh start. I could even have brought her family and friends from the right period of her life, too, creating a little bottle-world where my sin had simply never happened.

But... it wouldn't really be her, would it? Just a copy. We'd exist at the same time. What would that make me?

Samium had been half-right, I suppose, in what he'd told me during that final meeting. Time had changed the way I viewed my own identity. The guilt and the sense of disassociation had never completely gone away, but my memories of my childhood - from both perspectives - now felt so distant that I could barely place myself in them. Even if the person I was now was still fundamentally the product of that event more than anything else, saying phrases like 'the original Utsushikome' felt complicated. Trying to trace a line that had been eroded to only a vague smear.

I couldn't remember what it was like to be my old self. Before I'd come to Dilmun and my mind had gained the clarity of recollection that was supposedly universal here, I wasn't sure I could have even recalled my own face, let alone what it had been like to inhabit that body and mind. The idea brought forth a lot of uncomfortable feelings about my own identity... but since it was impossible, the question at the core of it was irrelevant.

It was sort of a relief, even if I felt shitty for being relieved.

Still, the answer itself did raise an obvious question.

"Why not, exactly?" I inquired.

PLAYWRIGHT: Because it violates rule 10. 'No one's identity shall be transmundanely compromised within the sanctuary unless indicated and explained explicitly within 3 scenes.' Having another version of someone pop into existence would constitute a compromise of identity, and because there are no longer 'scenes', the condition can never be fulfilled. Ergo, no duplicates of the same person.

I stared at her.

"Uh," I said. "What?"

PLAYWRIGHT: What?

"I mean, I can't parse what just said to me," I elaborated. "What are you talking about? What rule? What do you mean by 'scenes'?"

PLAYWRIGHT: Oh, good grief. <rubbing her eyes in frustration> Her Ladyship just spoke to you about all this! It's one of the rules. Those which governed the production, and this world by extension. And when I say 'scenes', I mean within the production. Obviously.

Oh, obviously.

I exhaled through my nose. I really was way too spent to be dealing with any more of this crap, right now.

"I... look. Can you-- Can you talk to me normally?"

PLAYWRIGHT: <raising an eyebrow> Eh? What do you mean, 'normally'?

"I mean normally. With your mouth." I frowned at her. "Instead of... whatever you're doing right now, where it's all beamed directly in my head. It's making it hard to parse what you're saying."

PLAYWRIGHT: You are being so particular right now. <sighing melodramatically> Fine.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She cleared her throat. "Is this more to your liking?" Her voice was high pitched, with the same affected upper class veneer as Kamrusepa, though more awkward and silly, with her stressing the consonant sounds to excess. More bratty and petulant than aristocratic.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks," I replied. "So... you're talking about what she said about 'restrictions on conduct', right?"

"Mm-hmm," she hummed, tapping a finger impatiently against the side of her arm.

"And before, you mentioned the thing about Kamrusepa's account being reliable also being a rule," I went on.

"Yes," she said with a nod, holding up a finger. "Rule 5. 'Perspectives other than the protagonist, both first and third person, can only be considered reliable if specifically defined as such beforehand'." She sighed to herself. "I suppose I ought to be pleased you've pivoted to a more relevant line of questioning."

"And these are all the same concept?" I asked.

"Yes."

I furrowed my brow, trying to bring to mind the context of what the Lady had been saying.

She'd said that I hadn't known how right I was when I'd said that those three tenets she'd been bound by were tantamount to creating a murder mystery, and that this world was a 'stage in nature'. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the latter part of that statement metaphysically, but in murder mysteries - at least traditional ones - having a reliable narrator, or at least a narrator that could be understood as reliable within certain frameworks, was considered one of the most important aspects of the storytelling.

After all, murder mysteries often weren't just narratives you were intended to consume as a passive agent, but games you were meant to engage in as an active participant. You took the information on the page and tried to think ahead of the narrative. That was the fun in it. If the story had a chance of turning around at the last minute and saying 'hey, all the information we were giving you was fake the whole time!' then it gave a middle finger to the entire exercise. If you suspected that was going to happen, you wouldn't even bother trying to work anything out in the first place.

So a lot of them had rules like that, albeit often unspokenly. The other two also made sense in the same context. If you had multiple perspective characters, you would want to know which were reliable and which weren't. And having things that messed with one's ability to assess the suspects - like twins, clones, or supernatural conceits like, uh, being possessed by ghosts - could also be considered cheap.

...but that was fiction. What did it even mean for that framework to be applied to a real series of events? And why would that have happened?

The three tenets, at least, made sense as part of the explanation for the phenomenon of the loop, even if I couldn't fathom why someone would deliberately create such a twisted circumstance on purpose. But this was completely inscrutable.

"I... let me see if I'm understanding this properly," I started. "These rules governed how things were allowed to happen in the loop... but are still in effect, even now?"

"Kind of," the Playwright answered. "Most of them don't do much, now, because the terms no longer fit. Take rule 9, 'there are no more than 23 people within the sanctuary over the entire scenario, counting both the living and identified corpses'. Because the rule specifically defines itself as only in effect during a 'scenario', and there aren't any, it's totally defunct. Flops over like a door without any hinges." She mimed a collapsing motion with her palm. "And thank goodness for that! If there were only 23 people here for all eternity, I'd go fucking bonkers."

"What are the rest of the rules?"

She quirked her brow. "You want the full list?"

"I suppose," I said.

She clapped her hands twice, and a large stone tablet - about half my height - appeared in the air between us. For a second I expected it to go crashing down and destroy the building I'd been working on, but we must have been out of range of the gravity on a vertical axis, as it simply floated in front of me.

Sure enough, it melodramatically depicted 10 rules, laid out as if they were religious tenets.

. THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PROTAGONIST IS ALWAYS TRUTHFUL

. ALL EVENTS FOLLOW THE RULES OF CONVENTIONAL REALITY, UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE

. ALL SYSTEMS INTRODUCED CANNOT BREAK THEIR OWN RULES AS DEFINED WITHIN THE NARRATIVE, UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE

. ALL SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL PRESENTED OUT-OF-NARRATIVE IS GUARANTEED TO BOTH EXIST IN-UNIVERSE AS SHOWN AND TO BE FROM THE STATED SOURCE, BUT OTHERWISE MAY BE UNRELIABLE

. PERSPECTIVES OTHER THAN THE PROTAGONIST, BOTH FIRST AND THIRD PERSON, CAN ONLY BE CONSIDERED RELIABLE IF SPECIFICALLY DEFINED AS SUCH BEFOREHAND

. ONCE IDENTIFIED BY THE PROTAGONIST, ALL CORPSES SHOWN ARE GUARANTEED TO BE BOTH HUMAN REMAINS, AND DEAD

. THE PROTAGONIST CAN BE TRUSTED TO IDENTIFY ANY CONCEALED EXITS FROM A CLOSED SPACE WHERE A BODY IS DISCOVERED, OR WHERE A MURDER IS OTHERWISE UNDERSTOOD TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE

. ANY SCENE NOT REPRESENTED CONVENTIONALLY WILL NOT OMIT ANY PIVOTAL CLUES

: THERE ARE NO MORE THAN 23 PEOPLE WITHIN THE SANCTUARY OVER THE ENTIRE SCENARIO, COUNTING BOTH THE LIVING AND IDENTIFIED CORPSES

: NO ONE'S IDENTITY SHALL BE TRANSMUNDANELY COMPROMISED WITHIN THE SANCTUARY UNLESS INDICATED AND EXPLAINED EXPLICITLY WITHIN 3 SCENES

"There's sub-rules and such for when there's ambiguity in the definitions that emerged over time, but those are the meat-and-potatoes ones," she explained unenthusiastically. "Her Ladyship asked me not to bombard you with too much of the minutia at once, lest it be too overwhelming. She's certainly considerate of you, for whatever reason-- You ought to be grateful."

"I don't..." I stared at the tablet, not even processing the passive-aggression being directed towards me. "I don't understand this at all. What does it mean by a 'protagonist'? What's the point of reference?" I squinted in bafflement. "Saying that Kam's account was 'reliable' made sense in the context of something I was being shown, but otherwise who are these rules even for? Who is seeing things from different 'perspectives' and material that's 'out of narrative'? 'Represented conventionally to' who? It's talking like there's someone experiencing the events of the loop beyond the loop itself."

"Well, duh," the Playwright said. "It was a performance. Obviously there was an audience."

I frowned. "What do you mean, an audience? Do you mean the Lady?"

The Playwright opened her mouth as if to answer, but then looked confused, then irritated. "Oh. It seems Her Ladyship doesn't consider that part pertinent for me to discuss." She waved a dismissive hand. "Well, that's not important, anyway. All those rules are just as relevant to you, you just have to look at them from a slightly different perspective. Protagonist means you. The heroine."

"Me?"

"At least for the stuff you remember," she elaborated. "The roles were flipped around a little for every scenario we constructed. That was part of what kept it fun."

"That 'we' constructed?" I emphasized we, here, but the whole statement raised so many questions that I wanted to pick it apart piece by piece."

"Oop, slip of a tongue," she said, smirking to herself and raising her fingers to her lips. "But yes, there's a reason Her Ladyship calls me her 'Playwright'. You happen to be speaking with the auteur behind the production's events." She glanced to the side. "Or at least the final run of them, once we were brought in."

"I... what?" I asked, bewildered. "What do you mean behind the events? You masterminded what happened?"

"What? No, obviously not. I--" She cut herself off, clicking her tongue. "Goodness, Her Ladyship was right. You really haven't retained enough to even have a basic dialogue about all this with. You might as well be any other schmuck in the plane." She rubbed her lip with the side of her forefinger, then leaned towards me. "Look. I don't want to be fussy, but I have some other places to be right now. So why don't you just let me give you the cliff notes version on all this metaphysical business, and then you can focus on what's actually important."

"I..." I didn't know how to respond. "Okay?"

"Great." She clapped her hands together sharply. "You've read Plato, right?"

"Uh, yeah," I affirmed. It was basically impossible not to have read Plato, insofar as the Platonic Reforms at the start of the New Kingdoms Era had basically been the defining event of the New Kingdoms era in terms of religion.

"Let's try to put it in those terms, then," she said, the pace of her voice picking up. "In this universe, there exists physical things, and then there exists universals. Ideal forms; things that are not unto themselves, but must be by virtue of the fact that they are inevitable conclusions. The universal of 'chair' exists because it is the logical result of the parameters of the universe. Things are what they do, and the better they do it, the more they become what they are. Following so far?"

"No?" I said honestly.

"Right, so, for a long time, you and your friends' self-imposed imprisonment basically continued without purpose, right? You were spinning your wheels without meaning, dying over and over again in a way that was a waste of time for everyone." She leveled her neutron star gaze at me. Something about them looked perpetually manic. "But things in the universe are what they do. Something that looks like a duck and quacks like a duck definitionally takes on the other aspects of the duck nature. And the more isolated something is from other factors that might interfere, the more that becomes true, because it means it goes around and around and around confirming its own nature, like a sort of existential inbreeding. Oh! That's good, actually-- Let me jot that down real quick."

My eyes followed her hands as she pulled a notepad from her pocket, and wrote 'CLOSED UNIVERSE=EXISTENCILLY INBRED' in capital letters.

"As I was saying," she continued as she stashed it away, "as you were going round and around, and slowly reaching the point where you couldn't go around any more, the nature of our situation changed. Call it a case of transubstantiation. The Order built an infinite murder mystery machine, and so, once a threshold was crossed, it became a murder mystery-- Or at least, there was a window for it to do so. A window that was seized! And bam. Suddenly you have more control, because the situation isn't just about random circular murder any more, it's about narrative. And that means direction! Intent!" She patted her chest proudly. "That's where we came in. Bringing novelty, new possibility to the situation. The rules followed from that naturally." She grinned with self-assured superiority.

"...so, you're saying that we were trapped in a murder mystery-like situation for so long," I surmised, "that it, what, magically became an actual murder mystery, down to operating on whodunnit principles?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "That about sums it up."

"That's really stupid," I told her. "Does the universe actually work that way?"

"I mean, it could work that way," she replied. "I think it's got a good vibe. You know. Conceptually."

My brow dropped. This... might be a waste of time.

"Anyway, maybe there was more to it than that, but that's good enough for government work and wrinkly human brains." she said, pointing at my skull. "But to go back to your original question, I'd think of my role as less mastermind and more event manager. No, that's too flat-- Event steward? Drama conductor?" She wrinkled her lip with a dissatisfied look, like she was sucking on a sour piece of fruit. "The point is, I didn't do anything directly. I just set you all into place with different ideas of how things could go, and played with the variables to make it happen."

"So you... controlled how we killed each other."

"Yes! But it was entirely consensual." A beat. "I mean. More or less." She put her hands on her hips. "You wouldn't remember it now - and, uh, to be honest, I also have a difficulty recalling the details - but Her Ladyship says we discussed this all between the different scenarios. So really, you should be thanking me."

"Why would you-- Why would we even do that? Why would we want someone controlling what happened to us?"

"Ugh, I just explained this all you." She rolled her eyes. "Because it brings possibility. More extreme outcomes reveal more information. Read more of that account Her Ladyship gave you-- You'll see for yourself. It's only because of me that you were able to s..." She abruptly stopped herself, her lips tightening.

I frowned at her. "What was that?"

"Oh, nothing. Just, you know, able to survive. Because otherwise we would have all gone to ultra hell, or whatever would have happened when your grandfather's contraption gave up the ghost."

I looked at her with an expression somewhere between suspicion and perplexedness. It felt like this wasn't what she had been going to say at all, but at this point she'd said so much insane shit in the space of the past two minutes that my mind's proverbial drain was clogged even worse than it had been talking to the Lady.

"Anyway, that's all just history," she quickly digressed, returning to her disaffected, distant demeanor. "Water under the bridge. None of it's important to your goal in the present tense." She flicked her fingers in a little sideways-pointing gesture. "I've got to jet. Let me know if you need any clarification regarding these rules."

As she said this, she tapped the head of the stone block, which due to the lack of gravity caused it to shoot rapidly off in an inconvenient direction. She stared at it as this happened, made eye contact with me awkwardly for a moment, then vanished without further notice.

My mouth hung open, the thousand half-formed questions on my tongue left to rot.

After a moment, I managed to snap out of it, and went to retrieve the tablet, using the Object-Manipulating Arcana to levitate it back down to ground level. I dumped it by the basin, sat on a crude stone bench I'd created, and tried to comprehend what the hell I'd just heard.