The Simulacrum

There was something magical about a warm cup of tea in the middle of a snowy winter night, with the only sound in the room coming from the spoon slowly stirring my drink as I gazed out the window. Three in the morning was always my customary 'thinking time', when I could submerse myself into my own thoughts for a while. There wasn't much else to do, and since everyone was fast asleep, I didn't feel the pressure to use Far Sight either, meaning I could focus on the here and now without any disruptions.

Taking a sip, I leaned back in my chair and silently exhaled. I hoped that getting Roland directly involved with my more clandestine operations would help clear things up, but it had the opposite effect instead, and I was feeling more lost than before we began. I mean, I knew that Bel was a big deal. While the character started out as a single-use stop-gap disguise, I was the one who built up his reputation over time, and since my goal was to create a fake villain for the Simulacrum to latch onto, I did my best to make him the most powerful, most mysterious, most flamboyant eminence in the shadows archetype possible.

The problem was, I might've gone too far.

As much as I loathed admitting it, Roland was right. Bel already took on a life of his own, and worse yet, if anyone ever suspected that I was anything more than a begrudging trade partner to him, it could crack not only my own reputation but the foundation of the entire Draconic Federation as well. Not that I cared much about the former, but the latter had many people's work poured into it already (plus the peace it enforced was a pre-requisite for Elly's dream to come true), so the last thing I wanted was to undermine it.

But how do you get rid of an implacable, teleporting, potentially time-traveling super Abyssal not-demon-king? And more importantly, when? After all, Bel was a useful tool, so it would be foolish to discard him too soon.

Even so, let's say the identity outlived its usefulness, and we fully established that I'm not Bel for the onlookers. Now what? How do I take this chess piece off the board?

The simplest and most straightforward way was to have Leonard Dunning kill Bel in a big, stupidly dramatic climactic battle. With pyrotechnics and trailer music and the whole nine yards.

Two issues with that: for a start, I needed to play Bel, because I was the only one who could pull off all the Phasing shenanigans (for obvious reasons), so who was going to play me? Secondly, it had to be a battle in front of witnesses, as me defeating Bel 'off screen' would just raise a whole bunch of flags. Also, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to add 'Bel Annihilator' to my list of unwanted titles.

Another option was to have Josh do the deed. He was the protagonist, and with him being on the Celestial route (if Judy's insistence was to be believed) due to settling on Angie, a classic not-angel vs. not-demon final confrontation was pretty much writing itself. There was only one issue: even after all that training and the many combat encounters he got himself into, Josh still wasn't exactly at a high enough power level to take on Bel. Now, there was always a chance for a literal Deus Ex Machina to show up and give him an eleventh-hour power-up, but considering I would be the one who'll have to orchestrate the final climactic battle, unpredictable elements like that were the last thing I wanted.

That left one last option: get a suitably powerful third party to deal with Bel. That sounded nice on paper, but the number of such individuals became alarmingly low, considering my tussle with Xiao raising Bel's stock well above 'average dragon' territory, which was bloody damn high. My first idea was to get Sebastian involved, but considering how adamantly Roland was against involving any more conspirators, I had to refrain from proposing it. That, unfortunately, left me with the question of where I could find an OP supernatural opponent for Bel short of making one myself.

I kid, of course. That would've just put us back into square one unless I somehow prepared a whole scripted encounter ending in mutual annihilation, but after how big of a pain in the neck the tournament arc ended up being, I really, really wasn't in the mood to set up yet another big scene like that. Maybe if the opportunity presented itself on a silver platter, I'd think about it.

I coincidentally reached that conclusion just around the same time my cup ran dry, so I shelved both for the time being. I figured we would discuss this with the girls during our stay at the resort again, so there was no reason to wrack my head over it on my lonesome. It was a research trip after all (at least on paper), and many things concerning Bel fell under the 'Narrative counter-manipulation' umbrella, so what better time to discuss it than while soaking in a hot bath?

That said, it was still late (or early, depending on perspective), and I had little else to do. I'd already finished setting up my temporary substitutes on the Hub after Roland left, I already packed all the essential and non-essential things for tomorrow, and while looking at funny cat videos or studying was always an option, I was in a rare introspective mood at the moment. It was best to capitalize on those on the spot, so after putting my 'I

Actually, we might as well start with the mug, I figured. Or rather, its current state.

So far I only managed to do it once, and the experience left me reeling for days, but by this point, we could say for certain that I had, by means even I didn't fully understand, permanently retconned the text on my mug. Not only that, but it wasn't the only time I did something outrageous, and more importantly, couldn't exactly recall how I did it. There were even two different flavors of it, just to make things more annoying!

First, the whole retconning business. I still wasn't entirely clear on how exactly it worked, though I was partial towards the 'made it so that it always said 'I explanation. Whether or not that was the case, it still left two serious questions in the air: how exactly did I do it, and why was I unaffected? I mean, I could remember the actual event and what I did, but if someone asked me what I did, all I could say was that I wiggled my phantom limbs around and snapped a thing together with a thing, and then it just worked. Actually, now that I thought about it, most of my abilities worked like that, didn't they?

Nonetheless, it was still more reasonable than the second occasion. Well, technically the first, at least chronologically, but let's not split hairs. As for the event itself, it was during the process of moving Saahira's soul to her new body, and it was arguably the more disturbing situation. At the time of the operation, I had a perfect understanding of what I was doing and how to do it, yet right now I had no bloody idea about any of that.

This actually tied into another issue I've tried to ignore to the best of my ability: during enchanting, there was a small but loud corner of my mind that seemed to understand everything much clearer than I ever did, and it tended to warn me whenever I was about to break something plot-significant. This, by extension, meant it must've had insider information about what does or doesn't constitute a 'plot device', which in turn meant a part of me knew the plot. Yet, I didn't.

Okay, let's take a step back, and sum everything up. I was an amnesiac, with nary a hint of memories before the first of September. I had abilities that routinely broke the magical laws of manadynamics or what have you, I had intangible phantom limbs that could casually interact with the magical stratum of reality to break spells or tweak enchantments, the same appendages could be used to directly rewrite the fabric and history of the world, even if on an insignificantly small scale, I could push myself out of the Simulacrum and occasionally eavesdrop on a bunch of weird star-people who are apparently looking for a missing star-person, and I had a kind of inner voice that seemed to know way more about this world than I did.

The first blinding obvious observation was that I was some kind of anomaly in the system. Unlike everyone else, who was working by the rules, I could directly interact with the deeper layers of the Simulacrum. The astral weirdoes were looking for a missing outside context entity, and I had a part of my mind that seemed to be operating on a higher level than the rest of me. The obvious conclusion was that somehow this external star-being ended up attached to me, which knocked me out of my role as Leonard Dunning, certified idiot friend, and through the process, I gained all kinds of similarly outside-context abilities.

It was a simple, neat, and dare I say, obvious theory that explained practically all of the strange things about me. And I hated it, precisely because it was too simple, neat, and obvious. If there was one thing I've learned during my tenure as a professional plot-aggravator, is that if something was obvious and self-explanatory, there was a good ninety-nine percent chance that it was wrong and the truth was a hundred times more complicated and annoying to deal with.

Of course, I didn't base that just on my professional gut feeling. In fact, there were at least two other things that made me question this hypothesis: the suspiciously knowledgeable (and yet obnoxiously secretive, the git) part of my mind was just that; a part of me. More of a stray bundle of thoughts and feelings than a separate entity, and it instinctively felt like me. As in, when I operated on Saahira's soul, at the end of the day, it was still me who did it. I wasn't controlled, nor did a different consciousness take over. It was just me, super-focused, and while I was doing my thing, everything made perfect sense, yet the moment I... well, saying 'woke up' feels weird, but I had no better words for it, so waking up it is. Anyhow, when I did that, it's what happened. I was me before, I was me during it, and I was me after it, just…

Okay, so this was apparently harder to explain than I thought, so let's leave it for later. The important part was that I knew in my heart of hearts that I didn't have some kind of cheeky outer god personality locked up somewhere in my head next to all the mental notes I keep forgetting about.

Then there's the second issue: I had ventured into the not-dark not-room a couple of times, both consciously and unconsciously, and one thing I'd learned for sure was that those stellar bozos were actively looking for this missing astronomical gentleman, yet they never noticed that I was right in front of their noses on at least a couple of occasions. Not only that, but they were also monitoring what was going on inside the Simulacrum and were aware of my plot-progression-breaking exploits, yet they never suspected me. That told me they were either extremely sloppy, or they had already done the equivalent of a background check on me, and yet didn't find anything suspicious.

So, where did that leave us?

Pretty much back at square one, I'm afraid. One thing was for sure though: whatever the source of my extraordinary powers was, it definitely wasn't as simple as 'Oh, you're just a great old one dreaming that you're a human. Like when the philosopher dreams that he's a butterfly that dreams that it's a philosopher, but with more tentacles. You know, F'tang and stuff.'

Though, to be perfectly honest, I would've almost preferred that answer. At least it was an answer, however weird, and it would've saved me a lot of time spent on existential ponderings, but my inner perfectionist didn't let me settle on that so easily. Oh, but speaking of which, I glanced at the clock again, and my brows descended upon my eyes on their own.

"Is time slowing down?"

It was a rhetorical question, of course, but the fact that it was still only five minutes past four in the morning was borderline aggravating. We agreed to meet up at the Dracis mansion at nine, where the coach that mom-in-law ordered would pick us up and ferry the whole group over to the hot springs resort in one go. In other words, I still had nearly five hours to burn through.

Should I just give up and sacrifice my free time on the altar of the almighty funny cat video marathon, I pondered? While that was one way to go about it, there was another thing I'd been putting off for a while, and now that I remembered it, the idea kept worming its way back into my thoughts, and no matter how hard I tried to convince myself it was a bad idea, it still dragged me out of my chair and up the stairs.

Here's the thing: I had close to a dozen marks for both Far Sight and Phasing in the Abyss. It was the result of all the diligent effort I put into sneaking up on guards, servants, and people sleeping in their rooms during my regular trips to hinder, sabotage, or just annoy Crowey. It was so that even in the case he left the Abyss, I would still have a way to get in, plus it helped with my intelligence-gathering efforts as well, and it wasn't dangerous at all. That's why there was no reason to tell Judy about it.

Here's the issue: In the Elysium, the Celestials' similarly situated parallel space province, I had exactly one mark, and it was on Jaakobah. That meant that, if he were to leave Elysium for any reason, I had no means to go there until he returned. If he returned.

While there wasn't much to see around the place so far, the possibility of losing access to it still didn't sit well with me, and planting copies of Pudding-kun was regrettably also out of the question, as they had some range limitations. As in, the copy I took into the Abyss turned into a pile of limp flesh the moment I arrived and only recovered after I returned to the base. Considering how the Elysium was pretty much the same thing, but with better PR, I had a feeling that the same would happen all over again if I tried to bring Pudding-kun along, which meant the only means I had was to go in and manually mark a couple of Celestials for future use.

Of course, that sounded simpler than it was in practice, and I'd been putting it off because I had no idea how to go about it. Going as Bel was one option, but I was afraid that if someone saw me in the costume, it might cause a second round of political turmoil that could hasten whatever inevitable Celestial-related plot that predictably dastardly Narrative was going to throw our way. That meant I had to go without my trusty disguise, which carried its own sloth of bugbears, but I was pretty sure that the girls wouldn't let me out of their sight long enough for me to do this during the next couple of days, and if Jaakobah was sent out on a mission during that time, I would probably grow to regret not acting now.

After I successfully convinced myself with that, I glanced at the clock again and opened my closet. First goal: find some clothes fitting for sneaking, snooping, and occasionally creeping around. If there was one thing I was sure of in this regard, it was that I absolutely couldn't wear anything black, especially not a black coat. Considering that Celestials appeared to be really partial towards white, gold, and light pastel blue, I searched my entire wardrobe for those colors, yet the best match I could find were a loose white hoodie and a pair of gray trousers.

"Eh, close enough."

The hood would help hide my hair, but it was still far from a decent disguise, so after changing, I rummaged through my drawers until I found a light white scarf with a penguin logo on one end. It was one of the souvenirs I won at the stall in the amusement park during our first group date with the girls, and it looked perfect for the job. It took a few tries, but I managed to successfully wrap it around my face, kind of like a thick bandana, and after pulling the hood over it, only my eyes could be seen.

After getting used to all the sophisticated features of the Bel disguise, I still felt practically naked, but it was the best I could do on my own on a short notice, so it had to do. Not to mention, I put even less effort into my disguise when I was infiltrating Crowey's place, and I never got caught, so this much might've been even a bit of an overkill. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.

With that, I changed into one of my backup sneakers I kept in my room for situations like this, muted my phone and placed it onto the nightstand, and after one last glance at the clock, I limbered up by arms and whispered, "I have plenty of time. I'll just go in, look around a bit, mark a few people, and then be back before sunrise. Easy-peasy."

And just like that, I disappeared from the room, not even suspecting that this made me Elysium's first uninvited guest in over a millennium.

The Abyss had its own aesthetics, at least as far as I could be bothered to observe it during my short visits. It was a combination of gothic architecture, with an overabundance of pointed arches, even pointier towers, flying buttresses, and stained glass crammed everywhere they could fit them, with a bit of somber Victorian style sprinkled on top. The town buildings around the big castle were also following the same design principles, though obviously with less extravagance and flair than the home of the local lord.

Compared to that, the aesthetics of the Elysium seemed to be much simpler, bordering on the austere. Or so I deduced, though admittedly the only reference I had was the interior of one of the white spires dotting the landscape, specifically the one where Jaakobah was cooped up. That said, things were very consistent so far. White walls, utilitarian furniture, unassuming and efficient designs as far as the eye could see.

If there was one major difference between the two pocket spaces, it had to be the presence of electricity. Oddly enough, the Abyss had incandescent lights, proper plumbing, and various, if somewhat outdated, electronic appliances. I'd seen CRT TVs, microwave ovens, and even a stray Walkman, used by Crowey of all people to listen to music while working. Despite being a micro-civilization ostensibly built on and maintained by magitech mana-wells controlled by feudal ruling families, the place was surprisingly modern, which was extra strange considering it was supposedly a prison for the entire Abyssal race.

In comparison, the home of the Celestials, a supernatural power actively entwined with human society, was way more outwardly magical. For example, instead of faucets, the sink in the bathroom had a glowing blue orb that conjured water out of thin air when the user activated it with their magical humming thing. The same went for the toilet, lights, and even the doors had to be unlocked by aggressively humming at them. This, logically, meant that only Celestials could use any of them.

Of course, that didn't exactly pose an obstacle to me, as every locked door could be Phased through, and I didn't come here to use their washrooms in the first place. Even if the way they flatly said 'Thank you' in a mechanical voice when someone flushed them was hilarious.

Anyhow, after I finished inspecting the enchantment powering the water-orb in front of me, I slowly exhaled and resumed my skulking activities. I arrived only a few minutes ago, and while my main goal was to make a couple of backup marks, I'd been curious about how these things worked since the first time I saw Jaakobah use them, and I couldn't help myself. For example, it turned out the toilets were using an array arrangement that was suspiciously similar to the one in Fred used in our base's generator to break waste down into fuel. That was quite interesting, but as much as I wanted to bring one home to directly compare the two, I imagined carrying a ceramic bowl around during an infiltration mission was just asking for trouble.

So, back to the present. The bathroom attached to Jaakobah's apartment was fairly spacious and smelled faintly of lilac, but otherwise, it was just that. A very simple and utilitarian restroom with a magical shower, a magical sink, and a magical toilet. Not much else to see here.

I chose this as my point of entry since it shared a wall with Jaakobah's bedroom, making it comfortably within Phasing range, but now that I quenched my initial curiosity, it was time to move on and see the rest of what this pocket-dimension had to offer. First things first, I extended my senses, forming a sphere around me where I could freely shift my point of view. While it never experienced another big expansion like when I gained my second phantom limb, steady use of my powers still gradually increased the effective radius of this power, and at this point, it was wide enough that it not only covered the entire bathroom and most of the neighboring rooms, I could even peek at the floors above and below me.

Of course, I still had to 'manually' shift my vision to look around, which was time-consuming, but during a clandestine operation like this, it was still as good as a cheat code. In the beginning, I hoped that with enough practice, I would develop some kind of spatial awareness, or maybe even unlock one of those fancy mini-maps that outlined walls and automatically marked enemies. Those were on all the rage in certain animated shows I may or may not have binged in my free time during the nights, but I never managed to develop a skill like that. The closest I got to that was my ability to roughly tell the position of my marks, but it wasn't exactly the same, or nearly as elaborate as an actual heads-up display.

Still, it at least told me that Jaakobah was in the next room, and by shifting my PoV over to him, I could extend my effective range a bit in that direction. Of course, I didn't Phase over; I didn't want to wake him up and accidentally reveal myself. This was a stealth mission, so I wanted to stay completely hidden, ideally without anyone realizing there was an uninvited guest at all. Of course, that was setting the bar a bit high, but as they say, aim for the moon, and even if you miss, you'll still end up among the stars, right until you run out of oxygen and die a slow, lonely death in the vacuum of space. Why was that supposed to be an inspirational quote again?

Not important, let's move on. In this case, literally, as while the beautifully austere interior of the bathroom was definitely an extremely important and, dare I say, vital part of my infiltration, it kind of outlived its novelty, and I was ready to see the lesser sights. As such, after deciding on my next target, I left and reappeared in an equally riveting utility closet on the other side of the hallway. Or, at least I figured it was one, since it had a bunch of shelves with unmistakable cleaning supplies, but no mops or washcloths in sight. Instead, there were a series of blocky, knee-high stations housing small magical roombas. Yes, I just said that. The Celestials had magical roombas. What a world we lived in, eh?

As if on cue, one of the round little things came to life and left its station before it came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the closet. I wasn't joking; it looked just like one of those round autonomous vacuum cleaners that just recently hit the shelves in the more mundane parts of the Simulacrum, except it was floating a few centimeters above the ground and it had tiny little foldable brush hands. Combined with the transparent green magical gem at its front, which kind of looked like a huge, unblinking puppy-dog-eye, it was borderline cute.

After stopping, it made a couple of odd musical notes as it turned around in place, only to freeze up when its 'eye' found me. I held my breath for a moment, wondering if it could see me, and my question was immediately answered when the little magic roomba skittered over to my side in the company of a few more melodic notes and began brushing my shoes. Once it was satisfied, it let out a jaunty tune, folded up its tiny-weeny brush hands, and left the utility closet through a conveniently sized flap at the bottom of the door.

During all this, all I could muster was a slightly confounded yet intrigued "Huh," and I had to work hard to restrain my urges to grab one of the little mini-saucers and stuff it under my hoodie. I just wanted to take one home to study its internals, of course, not because they were kind of cute or anything, but decided against the idea. This was a sneaky operation, so no thieving. I could leave that till next time.

After another round of observations, I picked my next Phasing target, and reappeared in an empty room a floor below. It was yet another simple, no-frills chamber, this time in the bedroom variety. Holding my breath, I quietly searched the room from top to bottom, but couldn't find any articles of clothing or personal items. That told me this place didn't have an owner. That was both good, as it meant I could freely move around, and bad, since there was nobody to mark here. In any case, I breathed a bit more freely while I explored the rest of the place, but there were no new discoveries.

The bedding was simple and clean, the shelf on the wall by the entrance was empty save for something that looked like a prayer book, there was no TV or any other source of entertainment, and even the potted plant in the corner was plastic, or whatever magical equivalent the people here used. Honestly, the more I investigated this place, the more it felt like I was exploring the sets of a sci-fi show where all the props were designed by a company with a fruit logo. Sleek, minimalist, kind of stale, and boring.

By this point I had quite enough of the scenery, so instead of inspecting every nook and cranny, I focused my attention on covering more ground in search of a target for marking. After Phasing around a couple of times, I had to conclude that this floor consisted mostly of these kinds of simple rooms, with communal bathrooms at every corner. Were these spires just fancy apartment buildings, I wondered? Seemed like a bit of a waste, especially considering nobody lived here.

On second thought though, what if the floor was emptied because Jaakobah was holed up on the floor above? He was ostensibly under protective custody, and considering the Celestials leaned very heavily into espionage tropes, reserving a couple of floors just to make sure nobody could get close to the 'VIP' wasn't completely unthinkable. But then again, he didn't have any guards around, at least not at the moment, which was mighty annoying, considering it would've made my marking-efforts infinitely simpler.

Phasing became considerably less mentally straining than it used to be, but no completely free-to-use yet, and since I didn't run into a single living thing or any magical security cameras so far, I decided to save my mental resources and appeared inside a corridor this time. It was just as riveting as the rooms, so I didn't waste more time gawking and headed down the hallway. After roughly ten minutes of wandering, I've roughly figured out the floor plan of the area. The only new discovery during this time was a fancy door that, after some phantom limb finagling, turned out to be an elevator.

At first, I almost questioned why Celestials needed elevators when they had literal wings, but on second thought, we had legs and stairs, and yet we still used elevators, so maybe it was a moot question. Anyhow, since the opportunity presented itself, I called the lift and stepped inside. Of course, the bloody thing didn't have convenient buttons, so I had to use my phantom limbs again to interact with the humming-interface and figure out where to go. In the end, I picked the bottom floor and…

"Ugh… Did they seriously have to use elevator music too? Really?"

There was nobody to answer my grumblings, so I just leaned back and patiently waited. That didn't mean I wasn't doing anything at all though, as I also extended my senses and positioned my point of view outside, so that if I noticed any actual Celestials ripe for marking on the way, I could Phase over at a moment's notice. Weirdly enough, even after close to seventy floors, I didn't see a single soul. No movement, no signs of life, no nothing.

At last, the elevator reached the ground floor, and while I couldn't see anybody right away, I definitely picked up a few stray words in the distance, so I prepared myself to head out. Then, the elevator doors… didn't open, and I continued even further down instead. In retrospect, I did pick the bottom option when choosing my destination, and should've figured this place had a basement too, but in my defense, the enchanted innards of the control panel weren't exactly user-friendly.

Not long after, the sliding doors opened to a well-lit corridor filled with the kind of distinctly stale underground air I was very familiar with already. Unlike the upper floors, this place felt more lived in, with a well-trodden stone-pawed floor and walls marked with various warnings in Celestial script. I could read them, but as usual, it was fairly annoying to do so thanks to all the shifting words and layers of meaning. The messages could be divided into three categories. The first, most straightforward messages, were warnings about this being a restricted area. The second type was doing the same, but in much more flowery terms, explaining how ignoring the warnings would bring the wrath of Deus upon me and all my descendants and whatnot in gratuitous, old-testamental detail. The third type, written in a much smaller font, was slightly more helpful, as it designated the area in front of me, depending on the reading, either as a 'Font of Power', a 'Sacred Source', or, most intriguingly, a 'Well of Mana'.

All the warnings had already piqued my interest, but this last bit pretty much cemented my desire to explore this basement first. Using my disembodied point of view, I glanced around the corners, but still couldn't find any sort of security, so after a beat, I simply walked out of the elevator and down the corridor. On my way, I ran into a couple more signs, some pointing at administrative offices, while others were just reminders of all the brimstone and fury I would experience if I came here without permission. I naturally ignored all of those and headed deeper into the facility, towards the center of the basement floor, and the closer I got, I could feel a sort of static charge in the air that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on ends.

It was a familiar feeling, and once I reached my destination, a pair of huge metal doors barely holding back the magical glow permeating from the other side, I glanced behind them with my external point of view, and couldn't help but click my tongue.

"The plot thickens…"

While my whispers were swallowed up by the empty hallways, my mind already racing to figure out how things fit together. For the record, on the other side of the doors, there was a large, lavishly decorated hall, kind of like a small cathedral, with a brightly shining blue cube floating over a round pedestal in the middle of it all. It was, without a doubt, a Mana Well, the exact same thing I nearly snatched as Bel back at the Inanna's castle in the Abyss.

This was a tad perplexing, as I'd never heard of anything like this, either on the Hub or from any of our sources. Granted, I'd never heard anything about vacant crystal spires with flying roombas or medieval farmers either. In fact, our knowledge about the Elysium, in general, was spotty at best. All the more reason for me to explore some more, I concluded.

While I would've loved to Phase into this room and see this Mana Well from up close, my goals lied elsewhere, so after one last look, I returned to my body and turned on my heels.

After returning to the lift, I called it again, and this time I made sure to spend a bit more time reverse-engineering the enchantment that served as its control panel, just to figure out how to reach the ground floor. Another uneventful ride later, I finally arrived at my destination, and the automatic sliding doors opened to a fairly unassuming main hall. Both the walls and the floors were dominated by white marble and light blue tapestry, but since there were no decorations to speak of, or even any particularly fancy architectural flourishes in the design, the whole place reminded me more of a hospital than a mansion or a hotel's entrance.

More importantly, unlike the rest of this blasted building, this place actually showed some signs of life beyond the flying roombas idling here or there, so I switched to a much more cautious approach and moved around the hall one short Phase at a time. Since the spires were somewhat conical in design, it meant the ground floor was much larger than any of the higher floors I'd explored before, but there were still more than enough nooks, utility closets, and other out-of-sight crannies I could use to move around unseen. Not that there was anyone who could see me so far, but the S. in my middle name stood far 'Safety', so I did my best sly thief impression, checking around every corner and being very sneaky-like.

This time, I had to use my ears to locate my targets, and after less than a minute, I found myself near the enormous entrance of the building. Adjoining the approximately ten meters tall frosted glass doors, decorated with more ornamental details than all of the upper floors combined, there was a small enclosure separated from the rest of the foyer by a waist-high counter. No doubt some kind of security or information-kiosk, I concluded, behind which I could see two people huddled around a small, round table.

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised after seeing Angie's 'battle garments', but the fact that the duo were wearing the equivalent of togas with shiny brass breastplates over them still gave me a pause. Were these some kind of ceremonial uniforms, or were celestial security guards seriously cosplaying as fantasy hoplites sans the helmets on a regular basis? Either way, I finally found my targets, so now I just had to successfully mark them and I could call this a day. The only question was, how?

The two of them were sitting while facing each other, so I was guaranteed to get noticed if I tried to Phase in. Since I was still trying to adhere to my sneaky plan, that option was relegated to 'last resort'. First, I'd try something more subtle. Last time there was a similar situation, I used my phone as a distraction while marking Fred for the first time, but considering I left it at home this time, I couldn't repeat the tactic. That, of course, didn't mean I couldn't use something more analog to do the same.

Once I found a nice spot with a convenient column to hide behind near the kiosk, I took a deep breath and whistled as hard as I could. The sharp sound echoed for a while in the empty hall, and I waited for some kind of reaction from the pair with bated breath… but there was nothing. The two simply kept focusing on the table while loudly discussing something. I figured they probably didn't hear me, so after a beat, I let out another whistle. Long beat, held breath, still no reaction. What the actual hell?

Curious, I carefully sneaked closer to the counter to take a better look, and once I was near enough to cast my point of view over the duo, I realized they were playing some kind of game using eight-sided dice and elaborate cards with realistically moving monsters and people on the illustrations.

"I put my Inner Sanctum Knight into defense position. Since I have the Inner Sanctuary in play, it gives him four extra shields and a taunt. Your turn."

"That's such a cheap combo…"

"Hey, I didn't make the rules. I also wouldn't talk about cheap, mister 'my Bloodwrack Chimera is immune to all spells and card effects'."

"I didn't make the rules either. Also, I use three mana points to summon a Lesser Balefiend and activate its ability, forcing all of your units into attack position for two rounds, and end my turn."

"Argh! I hate those things! Why do you even have one in your deck?"

"Because you hate it, obviously."

…

Were these two seriously playing a TCG? A magical TCG with animated cards?

What the actual, literal, non-philosophical hell was up with this Elysium place? The more I learned about it, the less sense it made.

More importantly, the cards were also making all kinds of fancy visual and sound effects, which explained why they didn't react to my whistling right away. If I wanted to gain these guys' attention, I needed something more drastic. Such as…

"Hey there, little buddy."

Phasing right on top of it, I grabbed hold of one of the flying roombas, and it let out a series of high-pitched noises in return. It tried to fly out of my grasp, but I held onto it tight, even as it nearly dragged me around, and the longer we struggled, the more noises it made.

"Easy there. Easy."

My original plan was to throw it behind the counter to cause a commotion, but to my surprise, this noise had an immediate effect on the guards, and one of them stood up right away.

"One of the servitors probably got stuck under the furniture again. I'll go check it out."

Since that more or less achieved my goal, I hastily put the roomba back onto the ground and whispered, "Sorry, buddy. You can go now."

Despite the fact I already let it go, it remained motionless and only faced me with its big not-eye. I gently patted it on its back as a form of apology, at which point it let out another series of high-pitched noises and whistles and scurried away like a startled cat. Did I mention that this place was weird yet?

Anyways, I quickly Phased back behind my previous hidey-spot by the column, and could barely catch one of the guards warning the other not to peek at their cards while they were away. I observed the situation through my external point of view, making sure my body was out of sight, and once the two were separated far enough, I held my breather and rapidly Phased close to ten times in a row, jumping from one blind spot to the next in a roundabout path until I arrived behind the counter.

Now, let us be clear on one thing: the remaining guard, currently busy trying to sneakily glance at the cards at the top of his own deck, had lots of exposed skin, and I only needed to make a small contact to mark him. However, I had a tradition to uphold here, so after one last teleport, I raised my hand and delivered a sharp karate chop at the back of the man's unguarded neck. He all but jumped off his stool, scattering his playing cards all over the place, but by the time he could turn around, I was already on the other side of the wall, looking at the building from the outside.

Before anything else, I checked to see if my mark stuck, and merrily noted that I had a brand new red dot on my Far Sight radar. While the process took way more time and sidetracks than originally planned, with this, I had successfully completed my mission and was ready to head home. Or at least, that's what I would've done if something else didn't catch my attention.

The spire I just exited was situated on a hill, surrounded by a beautifully maintained garden. There wasn't much in terms of flowers, but the arrangements of the trees, hedges, and occasional sculptures were still fairly impressive. However, the thing that made me stop in my tracks wasn't any of those, nor the other imposing white towers glowing with magical light even in the middle of the night, but a smattering of small, unlit buildings barely visible past the boundaries of the gardens.

I didn't know how much time had passed since I had arrived in the Elysium, but I figured it couldn't have been more than an hour. An hour and a half at most. That meant that I still had some time to burn, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still extremely curious about this place. I vacillated, but only for a second or two.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," I whispered, and ignoring the muffled shouting coming from the wall behind me, I disappeared into the night, exploring this strange place one Phase at a time.

In my humble opinion, winter was the prettiest season, with the caveat of 'so long as it's viewed from the other side of a pane of glass'. In this case, said window was on the side of the coach carrying us to our destination, and I had to say, the wintertime countryside of Critias was about as scenic as it could get. On the road, we passed by forests slumbering under a thick blanket of snow, a bridge crossing a frozen river, quaint villages with the holiday decorations and lights still lingering on the lampposts, and I even saw a deer. It was cute.

All in all, while traveling like this was certainly slower than just Phasing from point A to point B, sometimes it was really worth sacrificing some time for the journey.

The weather was nice as well, with only a few stray clouds getting in the way of the late morning sun shining through the windows and off the snow at the side of the road, and it all just made me feel all kinds of relaxed. So relaxed, I even allowed myself a small, innocent yawn.

"I knew it."

The comfy little atmosphere was popped like a bubble by my dear assistant's comment, and by the time I glanced over, Elly beat me to the punch and asked the question on my mind.

"You knew what?" she said, from the seat behind us, and in response, Judy pointed at my face with her free hand.

Since the coach mom-in-law arranged for us had four seats per row, with the aisle in the middle, it meant only one of the girls could sit next to me. This, naturally, led to an impromptu game of rock-paper-scissors between the two, and it was decided that Judy would sit with me on the way there, while Elly would have my side on the way home.

Staying on the topic of our method of transport, while Emese listened to me and didn't order some kind of fancy deluxe party coach for us, the huge vehicle showing up at the Dracis mansion was still a bit of an overkill, considering it had nearly fifty luxurious leather seats. In retrospect, a slightly larger-than-average minibus would've been more than enough for our needs, but on the flip side, it did have a few advantages.

For one, we had more than enough space for our luggage, even after we stopped by a mall near the city center and my sisters, along with the Knights and Galatea, bought waaay more clothes and 'necessities' than planned. To be fair, it was partially my fault, as I was the one who gave them their allowance, so there was no point crying over spilled milk.

The other advantage was that we had lots and lots of free seats. I was sitting just behind the driver's cabin near the front of the coach, while our Knights reserved the tail end of the vehicle. As for the rest, Josh, Angie, Snowy, and the mad science duo were seated in a bundle near the middle. Because of this, we could talk comfortably, without having to worry about bothering the others or, more importantly, what they could potentially overhear.

Anyhow, back to the moment: Judy, still pointing a finger at me (her other hand was firmly clasped around mine), let out a soft harrumph.

"The Chief's been acting really absent-minded since early in the morning, and he's been occasionally massaging his temple. Combined with the sporadic sighs and this most recent yawn, I've deduced that he must've done something strenuous last night, and he's trying to keep it a secret from us."

"Really?" Elly stood up and leaned over the backrest of my seat to take a better look at me. "He doesn't look that bad to me."

"You have to learn to how to read between his lines." My dear assistant made that sound like some kind of profound wisdom, but when the princess remained visibly unconvinced, she further elucidated. "Look at him closely. He's out of it, but not too much. He's not hissing either, meaning his head doesn't hurt. That rules out enchanting fatigue, meaning he must have been Phasing instead. He also didn't tell us about it on his own, so he must've done something that would make us mad at him. Q.E.D., he must have secretly gone somewhere last night, and caused trouble."

"That… actually makes a lot of sense," the princess agreed, prompting Judy to point a finger at me again.

"So, now that we have established your guilt beyond any reasonable doubt, do you want to make a confession?"

"Oh, fine. You've got me." The girls obviously weren't going to leave me alone about this, and I planned to tell them later anyway, so I decided to just get it over with by curtly stating, "I explored the Elysium last night."

My words resulted in a long beat, followed by a melodramatic sigh and Judy asking, "Did you Phase in there?"

"Obviously."

"Did anyone see you?"

"Of course not."

"How many Celestial girls did you accidentally seduce this time?"

"Three." That earned me a scathing scowl (by Judy's standards, as usual), so I hastily backpedaled. "Kidding, I'm just kidding. How would I even do that when I just told you nobody saw me?"

"With your track record? I'm sure you'd find a way."

"Judy!" The princess reached over the headrests and poked my other girlfriend's cheek with a stern, "We agreed on this! No more teasing Leo about harem things! It's not helping."

My dear assistant grumbled something under her breath, and then concluded the sidetrack with a sulky, "Fine. I'll drop the issue, and as a gratis, I'll also ignore the fact that you did something dangerous again without discussing it with anyone beforehand. Consider it a belated Christmas present."

"How very gracious of you."

Judy softly clicker her tongue, while the princess couldn't hold her giggles, and it took her several seconds to ask the pivotal question.

"So? Don't keep us in suspense! What was it like? Do the Celestials really have flying cars?"

"... Where did you even hear something like that?"

"Angie told me." My draconic girlfriend responded, visibly deflated. "So there aren't flying cars?"

"I told you she was pulling your leg," Judy interjected with the tiniest of eye-rolls. "You should've realized it when she started talking about card games."

"Hold it. That one's actually true."

My comment made her stop in her tracks and send a skeptical glance my way.

"Do they play them with holograms on motorcycles?"

Needless to say, it took me a good few seconds to realize Judy's question was entirely serious.

"It was kind of 3D, but there were no vehicles involved, no. They played it at a table, and it had enchanted cards and dice. "

"That sounds considerably less impressive than what Angeline told us about," Judy noted flatly, and Elly wholeheartedly agreed. "In that case, since you didn't see any card games on motorcycles, what did you find?"

"A whole lot of magitechnological discrepancy combined with extreme class division, potentially bordering on a caste system, and some of the most impressive restrooms I've ever seen. Also, they have at least one Mana Well."

"Since you're using the present tense, I presume you didn't steal, break, or otherwise displace it," Judy noted in the kind of voice that told me she wouldn't be surprised by anything anymore, and I clasped my free hand over my chest.

"Ouch, Dormouse. That hurt. Do you really take me for the kind of guy who would do something like that on my first visit to a new place?" I didn't get a response, so a long best later, I added, "On second thought, don't answer that."

"Then I won't."

After agreeing so, Judy gave me an expectant look, and so did the princess, so once I collected my thoughts, I launched into a detailed explanation.

First, I described the spire and its sci-fi aesthetics, then moved on to the basement with its unexpected Mana Well, and concluded this part of my explanation with a curt description of how I marked one of the TCG playing guards. Of course, I didn't go into details on exactly how I tagged him, but instead focused on the second half of my ad-hoc adventure, where I explored the settlement surrounding the main tower.

This took considerably longer to do, and hence, to describe, as I had a much greater area to cover and I mostly did so on foot. All in all, I spent nearly two hours wandering around the place, and I only returned home when the sunrise reminded me that I still had things to do.

Luckily, while the time of day was synchronized with Critias's clocks, the Elysium, like the Abyss, had a completely isolated weather system. Due to that, even though we were still in the middle of winter over here, my expedition felt more like I was taking an evening stroll in the early autumn. In other words, while I had a lot of ground to cover, at least I wasn't freezing while doing so, and oh boy, did I cover a lot of ground.

So, let's summarize what I found: the average Celestial lived in a cozy brick house with simple tiled roof. No electricity, no TVs, no kitchen appliances, and everything was very simple and rustic... save for the bathrooms, where they had proper bathtubs and toilets, even if considerably more mundane ones that the examples found in the spires. These were heated by large hearths in the middle of the buildings, and since these were relatively small single-floor houses, it was enough to raise the temperature inside to 'quite balmy', even without proper insulation or, bafflingly enough, glass windows.

Overall, while these homes and the people living in them didn't look poor, and a quick visit at their pantries told me they had quite a varied diet, the whole place felt really anachronistic, especially when compared to the insides of the empty spire in the middle of the settlement.

They also raised various barn animals, and I could find chickens, cows, sheep, and even a few ponies during my exploration of the outbuildings, and they looked pretty fat and healthy too. I really wanted to take a closer look at the endless fields past the settlement's perimeters as well, but sadly I didn't have enough time to reach there before sunrise.

On the bright side, I carefully poked a few sleeping Celestials, so now I had a couple more backup marks I could use to take a closer look at these people's daily lives, but as of now, the more I tried to look at the big picture of the Elysium, the less sense it all made.

The girls patiently listened to the rambling description of my adventure, only hurrying me along whenever I got too bogged down by small details, such as how I befriended a cute doggy while infiltrating a house, or that one time when I tried to explain how their plumbing system worked. I had no idea why Judy was so impatient; it wasn't like we had anything better to do until we arrived at the resort anyway.

"Wow. So, the Celestials have these cool magic towers, and they still live in peasant houses?" Elly mused after I finished,

"Not all of them," I replied a touch uncertainly. "While I didn't see any of them while skulking in the spire, I'm pretty sure the intelligence agency people and all the head honchos lived there. Maybe not in that particular tower, or perhaps on the top floors where I didn't venture, but either way, I'm pretty sure they weren't doing farm work in their off-time."

"This tower sounded, at least in broad terms, similar to how Angie described the Elysium," Judy noted on the side, with her fingers dancing on the screen of her phone. She'd been taking notes since my description began, and she was as great at multitasking, as usual, her tapping never stopping even when she turned to me and asked, "Your description of the outskirts sounds peculiar. Do you reckon the majority of the Celestial population lives there?"

"I can't say for sure, considering I only visited one part of one settlement, but so far I'd be inclined to say yes."

Judy hummed softly, and a few more seconds of screen-tapping later she glanced back at me and uttered, "Enforced medieval stasis?"

"That's a trope!" Elly followed her up with an excited grin, but as for me, I could barely hold myself back from groaning.

"For the almighty spaghetti monster's sake, Dormouse... Could we at least try to approach this from a Watsonian perspective first before jumping to Doylist conclusions right away?"

"A fair objection, though it doesn't make me wrong," she responded, but then both of us paused when we noticed Elly's raised hand.

"Hey, so... I know that it's one of those trope things, but can you please explain what it actually means?"

Sharing a glance, Judy let her phone down and took a deep breath. I had no idea why; it wasn't that complicated.

"It's something most commonly seen in western fantasy settings. I believe Asian fiction has its own version of this in the wuxia genre, but that's not entirely relevant to this topic." She paused to see if Elly was paying attention, and then she continued with, "In short, it is a genre convention where a setting remains politically, culturally, and technologically static over extended periods. It got its name because there are many, many fantasy works set in worlds roughly patterned after medieval European aesthetics, with castles, swords, knights, and feudal systems, and despite having access to magic and comparatively modern ways of thinking, they remain technologically and culturally inert. In more egregious examples, the stasis might be so strong the setting remains unchanging for thousands of years, and might apply to both sequels and prequels."

"Oh... I think I get it now," the princess nodded, eyes sparkling, but then her expression quickly shifted into a contemplative one when she added, "But based on what Leo said, the Elysium wasn't particularly medieval. At least, I don't think they had flying vacuum cleaners back then."

"I was mainly referring to the farming community, to the spire," Judy clarified.

"Okay, for the record," I cut in, "While I see where you're coming from, I don't think it's the trope being enforced on Elysium, but the other way around."

My dear assistant raised a curious brow, followed by the readying of her phone with a soft, "Do go on."

"Approaching this from a Watsonian perspective, I think it would be better to describe the situation as the Celestials are artificially enforcing it on the majority of the population."

"Does that mean they are aware of the tropes?"

I considered Elly's sudden question and shook my head.

"No, I sincerely doubt it. I'd rather think that there's either an aspect of Celestial culture or a conscious effort by their high command that imposes and maintains their agrarian lifestyle." The girls looked expectant, so I decided to bounce some of my ideas off them. "For a start, what are the defining characteristics of Celestial culture we know so far?"

"They venerate Deus," Elly answered right away. "They also do a lot of sneaky spying."

"To be more accurate, they're conducting clandestine operations in order to maintain the masquerade and to keep humanity away from the supernatural and pure in anticipation of the revival of their deified leader," Judy added, all the while the princess was giving her a disapproving look pretty much screaming 'That's what I said, just with more words!'

Ignoring the non-verbal communication, I contributed to the verbal one by saying, "We also know that they send out Celestial kids for adoption, only to later turn them into sleeper agents, and that these assets only receive a rudimentary understanding of what the Elysium is like."

"That applies to Angeline, but Michael is in contact with his blood-related father," Judy pointed out, eliciting a shrug from me.

"Maybe Angie was an orphan, to begin with? Or maybe there are different rules depending on who the biological parents are?"

"Possible," Judy granted me, then tapped at her phone. "So, based on that, what is your Watsonian hypothesis?"

"Oh, can I have a try first?" Elly interjected, and I figured I might as well give her the opportunity to contribute. "Sooo... The Celestials are trying to make sure to keep humanity separated from the world of mystics. For example, they keep the Magi from spreading enchantments and magic around. Could it be that they apply the same thing to themselves?"

"Are you saying that, just like how they try to avoid human population getting access to magical technology, they are also trying to avoid the Celestial population gaining access to human technology?" Judy mused before sending a questioning glance my way.

"That was more or less my idea as well," I admitted. "It would certainly fit their ideological framework, trying to keep things from mixing."

"Then what about their high-tech spire?"

"I don't really know. Maybe it's a cover for when they bring agents from the outside over?" I guessed, but since Judy looked intrigued, I decided to stretch the idea a little further. "I mean, let's say you're an average Celestial asset who grew up on Critias. You're accustomed to certain comforts, so if you came to the Elysium and found that the place was pretty much just one giant medieval farming community, you would want to recreate some of those amenities. So, to avoid contamination, you'd have to stay in this futuristic magitech skyscraper, and so you'd believe that the Elysium is this magical wonderland, and you'd have no reason to try to introduce the modern world to the Celestials living there."

Judy let out yet another soft hum, and after a few taps on her phone, she said, "It's a workable hypothesis. We'll see how well it will stand up to scrutiny later."

"Are you going to tell us your Doylist theory now?" the princess inquired, but she shook her head and pointed outside.

"We're almost at the resort. I'll share my view after we settled into our rooms."

I followed where her finger was pointing, and true enough, a large building complex just outside the border of the nearest village came into view, and soon our coach rolled into its spacious parking lot. The driver had a lot of space to maneuver, as there wasn't a single other parked car in sight. That was mildly odd, so I turned to the girl still leaning over my headrest.

"Say, princess? Just for the record, when mom-in-law said she would take help with the reservations, she didn't actually book the whole resort just for us, right?"

"... Why wouldn't she have done that?" came the answer in the form of a puzzled question, and I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. Well, fine. Maybe I didn't overreact that much, but I certainly stifled a groan in response.

"Go figure."

In the meantime, the coach came to a halt, and after a long beat, the automatic doors opened and the driver wordlessly gestured for us to get moving. We did, and as the organizer of this trip (at least on paper, and said title was getting more questionable by the minute), I was the first one to step outside, only to be welcomed by a pair of familiar faces.

"Welcome, ue-sama!"

Ichiko, wearing so many layers she looked like a large ball, waddled over to us, closely followed by a certain highly visible ninja. Unlike the tiny miko, she was wearing her usual pantsuit ensemble, just with a pair of fluffy purple earmuffs added into the mix. Once they got closer, she gave me a customary salute.

"Allow me to report, Leonard-dono. We finished screening the area for any hostiles. Afterward, we set up a perimeter around the buildings using a combination of onmyodo wards and regular patrols. No assassin shall escape our sight!"

"That's great, but you're aware that this is supposed to be a vacation, right? You can relax a little."

"Nonsense," my self-ascribed retainer huffed and crossed her arms. "Situations like this are exactly the time when we cannot lower our guards. The price of safety is eternal vigintillion."

"Rinne-san wanted to say 'vigilance'," Ichiko chimed in, but before I could tell her I got it, she pointed a mitten at the coach. "It's cold outside. Let's hurry up and help everyone carry their bags inside!"

Before I could point out that we didn't really need help, considering we had all the Knights, Josh, and Galatea to carry stuff, she had already waddled over to the storage compartment at the side of the coach, and Rinne followed right after her. Since I had nothing more to add, I just shook my head and stared at the resort in front of me.

The main building was a wooden construction, no doubt trying to capture a rustic, down-to-earth atmosphere, which was further emphasized by the thatched roof on the top of it. Combined with the blanket of snow, the strategically placed icicles, and the white holiday lights still strewn over the main entrance, the whole place gave off an unassuming yet welcoming impression. Even from where I was standing, I could see copious amounts of steam rising from the back and to the right, no doubt the location of one or more open-air baths.

It was only now that it finally sunk in what we were about to do. While I just told Mountain Girl that this was a vacation, in reality, it was an experiment with benefits, and one that required my full attention. As such, for the time being, I shoved my concerns about the Celestials and their weird little realm to the back of my mind and prepared myself to wrestle the hot springs episode in its den...