System Agnostic/Episode Two: Shattered Memories

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The chapter opens on the group touring Paraska Manor. A man named Brendan Lee Mulligan asks the exasperated tour guide about the history of indoor plumbing.

The camera centers on a mirror that’s much older than the manor itself, where we see a long-dead Kyuri waiting for his mother in her study. She eventually arrives—also deceased—and declares “someone” negotiated with the devils for her soul’s freedom.

Marcella says she didn’t expect Kyuri to wait for her before moving into the afterlife, but Kyuri replies it was the least he could do after causing such trouble earlier. She admits it was easier to let him hate her than explain what happened, and finally tells him the truth of how he died as an newborn from complications. She made a deal to save him, for which Kyuri now thanks her.  

Marcella tells him the Esslers were doomed from the start, but some good may come of it: she brings the fireplace of her study to light. and it shows images of the tour group now traversing the manor. She explains how Karavox lies within the manor and may yet play a part in current events. Kyuri is presented with the choice of staying with her in the study and watching, or trying to meddle. He chooses to stay, saying, “I’ve been here a while…what’s a little longer?”

Back in 466 PR, Touse and Artok are standing in front of the newly formed hole in the wall in the study where a voice is entreating the chef to “come home.” Touse decides to follow the voice and encourages Artok to come, pushing the other man into the hole first.

Artok falls prone and, presumably, is curled up in the fetal position on the floor. Touse (gently) kicks him, finding a pile of laundry in Artok’s absence. He continues to follow the voice down a boarded-up hallway.

Meanwhile, Disenna follows the music, the composition unknown yet still vaguely familiar to her. She and Arlow return to the grand foyer where the statue on the staircase has now changed; the figure is no longer holding a gilded rose, but a bow in one hand while the other is outstretched. Arlow inspects it further, and realizes it’s looking directly at him—however, Disenna notices it’s looking directly at her.

The right eye in the statue shatters, and the music Disenna is hearing suddenly alters into a more cacophonic sound. Arlow heads up one staircase while Disenna heads up the other one to follow the music.

Lady Nuria is looks down to see herself impaled by a metal spike, and passes out. She awakens to hear screaming. She feels numb and chilled, but finds herself in the kitchen and finds Lady Myra Duskar is the source of the screaming. Nuria picks up a knife to help fight whatever’s attacking Myra, but discovers the other woman seemingly fighting the air.

Myra eventually calms down and Nuria asks where everyone else is, but Myra doesn’t know. Nuria finds a second knife and gives it to Myra, then takes the other woman’s hand so they can leave. Myra remarks how cold Nuria’s hand feels. Myra tries to warm Nuria up by the kitchen fire, but Nuria discovers she feels no warmth from it. Myra decides to take her to the study to try that fire.

Touse continues down the hall into a small dining  room with a table set for three people. He belatedly realizes the doorway behind him has closed off. A woman emerges from the wall, but he can’t make out the features—as though she’s made from shadow. She puts some type of meat on the table along with rolls whose composition he can’t determine. The woman serves the food as two smaller childlike shadows emerge from the wall and all three figures sit down.

The chef points out the woman “invited” him to come to dinner but didn’t set a place at the table for him. He hears something like glass shattering, and the scene itself seems to fold in on itself before returning—but now with only two people instead of three. The meal itself has also changed, and no rolls are present. Touse hears the woman’s raspy whispered saying “The place is set.” He dawdles without sitting down, at which point the lights in the chandelier begin popping one by one.

Touse tries to push through the wall to escape. The voice continues, telling him the place is always set, and all he has to do is come back home. As the fifth light goes out, he tumbles through the wall and lands on Artok. They briefly argue about who went where, until Artok’s vision suddenly snaps to some far-off distant point and says “That’s so weird.” Touse pushes him for clarification, but Artok doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They leave the “hallway”, which is actually just a crawlspace.

DIsenna follows the music, but notices the hallway seems to be flat set pieces that are twisting and pulling at the seams. Eventually she comes to a bedroom where she sees shattered remains of plastic, metal, and wire on the floor where the music is originating from. Only now, the music stops and only static, white noise is heard. It sounds like there’s a voice in the static; she tries to focus on it, but can only make out two things: “Monsters everywhere” and “Artic Autumn.”

Arlow continues down his own hallway and hears pounding. He approaches the sound and sees Sir Syva—sans armor—trying to brace a door as something large and heavy is slamming against it. The hunter calls out to him, but the other man refuses to budge from the door and Arlow sees fear in his eyes. Arlow asks him to come back downstairs so they can find something to brace the door with. Syva seems to return to himself; the lights in the area flicker at the same time, and the knight’s armor returns. Syva agrees to follow the hunter back downstairs.

Everyone reconvenes in the study and discusses what they’ve all witnessed. Touse accidentally calls Artok “Artagan” but doesn’t know why, to which Artok goes almost catatonic contemplating the name. Nuria can’t feel any warmth coming from the fire.

Touse asks if Artok ever found his coat, to which Artok answers with a bizarre non-sequitor: “Did you ever hear of a beholder?” Disenna asks if he’s feeling all right, and he responds he isn’t; when she clinically examines him, she discovers he’s ice cold. And, on further inspection, she realizes the fire itself isn’t as warm as she was expecting it to be.

She concludes the fact everyone’s bodies are slowly beginning to chill is a sign they need to escape the manor. Touse recommends finding an oven, as it may be magical fire. A sparkly yet ragged black cat that’s missing part of its tail sits on a bookshelf, watching all of them. Arlow attempts to pet the cat, but it hisses and tries to scratch him. Touse tries to guess its name, to which the cat purposely claws the wall while glaring at him.

Frustrated by the entire situation, Touse leaves the study to find wine. Nuria comes to realize the fire looks fake—even pixelated, although she doesn’t understand what that word means.

Arlow asks if Artok has had any communication with the owners of the manor. Artok responds he remembers leaving his place of work when he received the invitation, and the next thing he knew he was getting the door for the rest of the party members.

Nuria examines ore of the room and realizes it’s not just the fire; the rest of the study and even its occupants appear to be glitching…all except the cat.

Touse goes in search of a wine cellar. He winds up in the kitchen…but not the one he’d been in before. It resembles the small room he’d found himself in earlier. He comes across a large metal box, and opens it to find a freezing cold space filled with various meats wrapped in thinner packaging than he’s used to. He also discovers something resembling an oven, but it has no vents for a fire and bears five strange knobs on the front. Turning the knobs he sees the entire top of it light up.

A woman’s voice makes him turn around, and the same figure he met earlier asks him what he’s doing. He reaches into the metal box and throws a piece of meat at her, to which she demands the chef go to his room. The oven begins to glow even brighter, and the room around him warps back into the kitchen he remembers from before, the woman replaced by the earlier chef—only now the man is a gigantic, misshapen monster with a bone meat cleaver for an arm and faces for feet. Touse decides running would be prudent.

Arlow asks Sir Syva what he was barricading himself against earlier. Syva said it wasn’t a snake, but similar to one, and was eating everything in its path that it didn’t destroy outright. Disenna adds her experience with the music and the phrases about monsters and Arctic Autumn, wondering aloud if that’s what Sir Syva experienced. Syva starts rambling about monsters attacking a booth and “not being able to protect them all”.

Nuria decides to test a theory, and reaches out to touch one of the logs in the fire. Her hand goes straight through it. She stands up and makes her way to the cat, asking what it knows about this situation; it remains silent. Nuria runs her hand along the books on the shelf to discover her hand passes through most of them. She reaches out to the cat, who takes a swipe at her—and the pain, this time, is very real.

Nuria looks down to see her own body is glitching wildly, but the wound isn’t. It dawns on her that she’s cold because her body—her real body—is being kept somewhere..and if everyone else is glitching too, it’s possible nothing here is actually real.

In that moment, she’s struck by two facts: one, something bad has happened to her. Two, she’s not Lady Nuria…nor has she ever been Chapter 2’s Chonnnk, or the Eloise Merhermbler from Quelmar’s prehistory.

Back in CR, the tour group passes by Karavox, and the man with the holy symbol stares at it. Flowers sit nearby, within which Aranwe watches the group walk by. He wonders how the chaos bloom flowers came to be inside the manor. He feels the dryad Vilya’s touch as she responds, “It’s always been her.”

Vilma thanks him for staying with her, to which Aranwe says he wouldn’t have done it any differently. He asks if she knew what would happen, and she responds that the woman who gave her life underground told her the end would be part of something greater.

Aranwe comments that the people in CR seem unprepared for what’s to come. Vilya responds that the destruction came and went in the form of the world getting flattened, but the entire erasure of the world may be caused by the group traveling through the manor now. She tells Aranwe he’s the reason she chose to stay and witness the end rather than “slip into the oblivion of the flowers,” for which Aranwe thanks her. Together, they wait to see how the story ends.