Shirley exited the room, her eyes glancing nervously at Dog that accompanied her. Vanna and Morris trailed behind her, and as the door closed, an enveloping silence filled the captain’s room. Left in the room were Duncan, Alice, and a dove that appeared to be taking a peaceful nap.
Alice was thoroughly engrossed in her domestic chores. She moved around the room, wiping down surfaces, dusting off the ornate furniture, and meticulously cleaning the windows. Duncan, meanwhile, was seated behind a wooden table that seemed to carry an air of antiquity. His gaze was fixed on some distant point, his thoughts deep and ponderous.
The goat head, carved with intricate detail, sat on the table. As he slowly rotated its head to face Duncan, he emitted a faint creaking sound. “Still contemplating about Lahem, the God of Wisdom?” it inquired, its voice imbued with a mystical timbre.
Duncan reclined in his chair, the muscles of his face pulling into a contemplative expression. “Not just about Lahem—about all the gods,” he began. “I’ve been thinking about their real role, their true connection with our world.”
The goat head seemed to consider this. “Various schools of thought portray them in their scriptures as being the architects and custodians of our world’s order. Conversely, some heretics view them as distorters of reality, claiming they usurped credit for the world’s creation. Morris came across an intriguing perspective in that ‘Book of Blasphemy.’ It suggested that our current gods may actually be the ‘Forgotten Kings’ mentioned in ancient texts. Maybe all these theories are flawed, but they could each contain a fragment of the truth.”
After a moment of musing, the goat head figure added, “But personally, I find the gods to be somewhat inconsequential. They neither appear to have made significant improvements to our world nor have they unleashed catastrophic events.”
Duncan listened but casually rebutted, “For the vast majority of people living in our world, however, the divine protection is palpable. That providence allows them to survive, to keep going.”
“Survival—yes, it’s a preservation of the current state of affairs,” the goat head responded slowly. “It’s like the Frost situation that has persisted for the past fifty years. Before the equilibrium shattered, no one was aware of the looming calamities hidden beneath the surface. But at least people were alive.”
Duncan absorbed the words but did not immediately react. After some thought, he finally spoke, “When Dog ponders something, he comes into the field of vision of Lahem. Throughout history, there have been instances where individuals suddenly found themselves ‘blessed by gods,’ and their lives changed dramatically, making them conduits for the Four Gods. Could it be that these gods have set up some kind of ‘monitoring’ or ‘scanning’ system over humans? Through certain focal points or nodes, they gauge the operational status of our world. This would imply that their involvement in, and understanding of, our world are actually quite indirect and limited.”
The goat head pondered this before responding, “The orthodox religious authorities would not be pleased by such a mechanistic portrayal. You speak as if you’re examining a machine, showing no reverence towards the divine.”
“Reverence hinders ‘understanding.’ I have no desire to revere them; I aim to comprehend them,” Duncan declared calmly. “Especially since we’ve already had to clean up their messes on two separate occasions.”
…
As the conversation drew to a close, footsteps resounded in the long, stone corridor of a grand cathedral. The echoes rhythmically reverberated against the ancient walls as if each step was striking against layers of historical sediment, summoning secrets from the past.
Agatha, garbed in a flowing black dress, made her way through the labyrinthine corridors of the grand cathedral. Her footsteps echoed softly on the stone floor, and no attendants accompanied her—only her own shadow kept her company. Despite the absence of life in her physical form, she moved with purpose. Gas lamps flickered sporadically along the walls, and candlesticks sat in small niches, their trembling flames casting a wavering dance of shadows on the ground.
Only when she reached her room and securely closed the door behind her did Agatha’s composure finally give way. She leaned back against the wooden surface of the door, releasing a long, expressive sigh. Technically, she didn’t need to breathe, but the act of sighing was a relic of her once-human nature. She clung to this gesture as a symbolic way to show that she was lowering her guard, a small effort to distance herself from becoming wholly corpse-like.
Recent events had lent themselves to a certain easing of her burdens. Order within the cathedral had been restored, and the smaller churches scattered throughout the city-state were slowly resuming normal operations. Following the intervention of the Mist Fleet, the city’s law and order were stabilizing at a brisk pace. While there remained a chaotic distribution of resources and the messy aftermath of victims to deal with, the situation was improving. The Mist Fleet had managed to bring in an influx of professionals skilled in administrative management and local governance. Placed in strategic roles within City Hall, these individuals were quickly adapting and beginning to alleviate the severe manpower shortages that had plagued various departments.
Additionally, efforts to introduce Admiral Tyrian Abnomar, the man slated to be the new governor, were underway. Plans for the amalgamation of the city-state’s remaining naval force and the Mist Fleet were also in the initial stages. Although the new governor had not officially assumed his duties, his influence was rapidly spreading throughout the city.
In a past life, such rapid transformations would have been Frost’s worst nightmare, but in its present state, these were positive developments. Agatha felt she could finally afford a slight moment of respite. A corpse might not suffer from physical fatigue, but her spirit still craved a break.
Remaining against the door for a few more minutes, she finally shook her head as if to dispel her musings. She then walked toward her dressing table and settled into the chair. As she glanced into the mirror, her reflection stared back at her.
Suddenly, an unsettling feeling washed over her—the unmistakable sensation of being watched. Her eyes darted around the room, but no other presence was there, nor did she sense any unfamiliar energies.
But that eerie feeling was not imagined.
The blind priestess raised her head, her eyes veiled behind a cover, attuned to every minute sound and shift in the air that filled the room. Her “gaze” seemed to scan every corner, eventually resting on the mirror before her. She knew something was amiss, but what it was remained tantalizingly elusive.
The room’s inanimate furnishings loomed like shadowy figures in her limited vision, each one exuding an atmosphere of coldness as if tombstones surrounded her in a graveyard.
Then, in an instant, the uneasy sensation of being watched evaporated.
In the mirror, the figure’s eyes seemed to have diverted their gaze. Agatha, who was perched in front of the dressing table, hesitated. Sensing something unusual, she cautiously extended her arm towards the mirror. As her fingers made contact, she was met with the cold, unyielding surface of the glass.
The figure in the mirror mimicked her actions after a moment that felt like an eternity, cautiously raising its arm and extending its fingers towards Agatha’s.
As their fingertips seemingly met, an unexpected touch of warmth flitted through the cold sensation. In that brief moment, Agatha’s disordered, dark field of vision was penetrated by new patterns of light and shadow—a delicate, glowing outline suddenly materialized within the otherwise inert mirror.
Both versions of Agatha remained silent, facing each other through the looking glass. A palpable quietude enveloped the room.
Finally, the Agatha in the room broke the stillness. “Are you there?” Her voice was tinged with a cautious curiosity.
“Yes,” came a voice that seemed to bypass the air, transmitting directly into her thoughts. “I’m here.”
“When… when did you appear?”
“From the moment you received that key,” the voice in her head calmly responded, “I was there.”
Agatha took a moment to process this. The sensation was uncanny. While she knew that the voice in her mind was unmistakably her own, laden with the subtle emotions she would expect from her own speech, she also sensed that she was engaging in dialogue with a separate entity. This was neither a figment of her imagination nor a manifestation of dissociative identity disorder; it was something else entirely.
“Incredible,” the reflection in the mirror echoed her thoughts, “One might think this resembles symptoms of dissociative identity disorder, but we both know that’s not the case.”
“Even the city-state’s most skilled psychiatrists would be baffled by this situation,” Agatha mused.
“Let’s not add to the city-state’s psychiatrists’ woes. They have enough challenges as it is.”
Agatha raised a hand to massage her temples. The experience of speaking to what appeared to be an ‘other self’ was disorienting. Throughout their exchange, she battled an unsettling illusion: a growing inability to distinguish which version of herself was the “real” one. Although she was not experiencing actual cognitive dissonance, she felt compelled to pause and collect her thoughts.
After a moment, she raised her head to meet her reflection’s gaze through the mirror. “That key…did it serve as a vessel for your soul? And then use that connection to transfer you into my—” She hesitated, grappling for the right words to articulate her current state.
The entity that mirrored her so closely—was it a figment of her imagination, a projection of her own thoughts, or perhaps something even more tangible?
Both were left pondering this enigma, each equally unsure of the boundaries of their mysterious, interconnected existence.
“I’m not sure,” the voice inside Agatha’s head admitted. “I have no idea if I possess a soul or any understanding of how this process works. I’m equally unclear on how that key was instrumental in making all of this happen. For a long time, my consciousness was shrouded in turmoil; it’s only in the last couple of days that I’ve regained some semblance of clarity.”
The voice paused briefly, as if sorting through incomplete fragments of understanding, before adding, “As far as I can ascertain, the key appears to have the unique capacity to store and transfer memories. But as for the intricacies and the full scope of its abilities, only the Frost Queen herself might be privy to such knowledge.”
“The Frost Queen,” Agatha echoed softly, almost as though she were speaking to the air. “It seems I must bring this to the captain’s attention.”
“But shouldn’t our first course of action be to report this to the Supreme Death Cathedral?” the mirrored Agatha gently reminded her.
The Agatha seated at the dressing table appeared momentarily surprised, her facial expression undergoing a subtle shift. She hesitated for a beat before responding, “You have a point. However, the Death Cathedral is currently situated at the farthest reaches of civilization, navigating uncharted waters. They might not be in a position to concern themselves with what they could consider ‘personal matters.'”
Pausing to collect her thoughts, she lifted her head and stared intently at her reflection. “What’s your take on this?”
The mirrored Agatha took a moment to think, both sides seemingly connected by a stream of shared thought, their mental and emotional states resonating in the reflective surface that separated them.
A flicker of green light, akin to a tiny flame, ignited in the eyes of the Agatha within the mirror.
“I concur with your sentiment; we should inform the captain. Based on what I can perceive, he has considerable experience dealing with mirrors and might offer valuable insights into this enigma,” she finally said, concluding their shared deliberation.
