Patterns in Chaos [Solo]

[Seven Xu]

DisclaimerFallacy has given me full permission to use the following NPCs and situations in a self-moderation thread. We will remain in contact as I develop the story.

31st day of Spring, 512 AV
Three bells before noon.

“As you all know, Alvadas’ outer walls never change.” Seven rose from his seat to cross an age-old hardwood floor. His burned leg caught his step every so often; today, with the sky over the City of Illusions swathed in dreary grey and moisture hanging thick in the air, the young halfblood had lost the thoughtless grace with which he so often moved. He winced, moved his paltry weight from his ankle. “I used that shape as an outline for my grid.”

Vellum as wide as an arm’s length was stretched and pinned on the nearest wall. Several smaller papers were rolled and clutched safely in Seven’s fist. On the vellum, was a map: a rectangle with rounded edges, quartered and further divided with twenty-five sections per quadrant. Each had a designation, two letters and two numbers. “One-hundred sections; countless possibilities for sequences, and me,” the halfblood laughed, “It took a long time—over half a year—going out nearly every day, spending my life getting lost trying to find a way.

“And I found one.”

Doddel’s brows rose and fell within a heartbeat. Seven caught it, on one of a dozen glances towards the ‘Abode’s unsmiling master. He nearly grinned, when the old man spoke. “How?”

“Time,” Seven reiterated, sucking his lower lip beneath a line of white teeth before releasing it, glistening with venom and spittle. “I started with one building; one building that would be easy to reference—”

“The Sanity Center?” A smooth voice chimed in, and a young woman leaned forward, her chin nestled in her palm. The quip got a chorus of snorts and half-hearted chuckles and drove a tide of pink up the thin column of the slight man’s neck.

Her name was Lori, Seven recalled, though her last name escaped him. She had been a frequent visitor of the Abode far before he even entertained thoughts of crossing the Suvan to Alvadas.

“—Kitrean Crafts,” Seven continued, turning his back to the small semicircle of chairs that made up the smattering of Alvads who held status as members of the Scholarly Abode of Intellectual Pursuits. “It rarely moves; at least, it moves much less often than most of our city. The Sanity Center doesn’t move at all, but the area around it is also subject to the whims of every pair of feet that step through the ‘Maw, if you believe your folk tales.

“Kitrean Crafts is more secluded.” A thin white finger traced a green dot on the map, nestled in the corner of a square labeled NE14. “I sat outside the blacksmith for two moons, recording every shift no matter how brief. I got nothing. I got impatient.

“So I moved on.”

With the flick of a black nail, the green dot flew from the map. “I began to follow the Cubacious Inn.”

“You followed it—as in, you chased it about the city?”

“Yes.”

The woman sat up in her seat, a smirk growing across her sardonic countenance. “Let me get this straight, Seven, was it? You dedicated your life to chasing an inn around Alvadas for nearly two seasons?”

“Yes.” White brows furrowed, color returned. “You make it sound absurd; it paid off.”

Seven’s hand swept over the map. “The Cubacious Inn travels on a twenty-four day cycle. For four hours every six days, four times over, it sits across the road from the Sanity Center. Then, the pattern changes; it spends those same four hours of the day—noon until four bells past, for those that care—closer to the city’s center, here,” He motioned toward a square labeled SW06, “One sector southwest of the city center. Then, it goes back to the Sanity Center again. It repeats this, every twenty-four days.” Seven took a breath, shoulders sagging, “I’ve documented it six times over.”

Eight heads were on swivels, then; the Scholarly Abode broke into a hum of murmurs and whispers. It was a man well beyond his forties that spoke, then. His hair line had receded and short grey sat far back on an enlarged forehead; he was as thin as Seven, with eyes of pitch well-sunk, and a thin, wide mouth.

“You’re sure of this?”

Seven exhaled the knot in his stomach, and grinned, “As sure as I’ve ever been.”

“It’s a small behavioral pattern,” Doddel admitted, grunting as he lifted a time-worn body from the comforts of his padded chair. “But it’s more than most find, and in less time.”

Pride tugged at the corners of Seven’s mouth, swelled in his stomach, coursed through his limbs and forced him to throw a hand back through a mess of alabaster bangs to quell the urge to clap. It had been sacrifice in its purest form; it could have been luck, or the Trickster’s machination, but for the halfblood youth brimming with self-satisfaction it was sweet triumph over a vexing city.

[Seven Xu]

32nd day of Spring, 512 AV
Nineteen bells.

Alvadas had decided, earlier in the day, that the sun would not rise until well past noon. Now, long into the evening, it burned through damaged windows and on a mosaic ceiling, fighting through impossible fog and the threat of rain. Victor had lingered long enough to unlock the Sun and Stars with his fool before slipping away to find the Crooked Playhouse. Ned hardly carried enough charisma to be considered a suitable replacement for the Ravokian, but he was there, and Seven had spent the following bell engrossed in a one-sided conversation, lauding his recent accomplishments.

The door opened with the tinkle of a bell and a heavy scrape across blackened hardwood. Seven stopped pacing and quieted, wrist-deep in a wet wooden mug. A smile teased his lips as a face teased his memory.

“Ned.” Beads of pitch fell on the vagrant, presumed to be sleeping in a collection of ale and his own spittle, and for once, in the time that Seven had known him—Ned responded. He flinched, as if he’d been bitten, his head lifted, and he turned his dull brown gaze on the bald. Something flashed in his eyes, but was gone as soon as it had appeared, and he grunted and nodded curt acknowledgement. The balding man turned to Seven, face as hard as stone.

“I’m here for your maps.”

“My what? Maps? Why?”

“And your notes.”

His maps? It was then that Seven placed the tired face among the academics the day before. A deep frown carved Seven’s features. “They aren’t for sale,” he wrung the rag between his hands, and wary reds skirted the door at the back of the narrow tavern, left ajar by his own carelessness and comfort in an establishment that was also a home, “it’s research; you can understand that.”

“It’s not up for discussion.” Seven’s telling gaze was caught; the balding man passed through him without another word, nearly taking the halfblood off of his feet.

“Hey,” the wooden mug’s bottom slapped against a tired and stained tabletop, and his threadbare rag was cast to the floor, both forgotten. Hard warmth squeezed his wrist when he attempted pursuit; when he turned, Ned’s hard, unblinking mien was staring back at him. Seven’s angry leer depreciated into a series of vapid blinks. His jaw went slack. Above his head, he could hear the footfalls of searching. Something slammed against the ceiling, and a fragmented tile-sky painted a sun trying desperately to burn its way through a wet cover of blinding grey.

He tried to wrench himself from Ned’s vice-grip.

“I’m sorry,” the vagrant muttered, fingers closing tighter around Seven’s skinny forearm. He squirmed again, growled, and bared his stunted fangs that had already begun to leak their hot pepper sting on a tongue that had grown dry and clumsy, but still managed to weave a virulent string of obscenities between grunts of exertion.

“Fuck you, Ned!”

The door swung open again, and the smug face of a man with an ever-growing forehead reappeared. Seven’s leather notebook was tucked beneath one arm, a collection of rolled up maps were scattered between his fingers and the bend of his elbow. Seven surged at the man again, and Ned held him back. Pain shot up his burned and broken foot. He winced, exhaled, and writhed again. When he tried to dig and claw at the offending hand that kept him in place with a free set of fingers and short nails, it too was trapped.

Ned could still his advances, but not his mouth. “If you’re going to steal a man’s research, at least have the courtesy to tell him why. Gods, fuck, Ned, let go of me—you,” he spat, blood irises growing thin around hungry pupils, “answer me!”

A balled fist struck Seven beneath the cheek, and he yelped.

“Insolent whelp. Ned, with me.”

“What of Seven?”

Seven tried to curse the talking forehead again, but it emerged in an angry gurgle. He spat blood and venom.

“Tie him up. Knock him out. Fucking take him with you, for all I care, maybe he knows more. Forty-five—”

The words and the world ended abruptly with an unceremonious blow to the back of the head and crushing blackness.

[Seven Xu]

“It’s just a mosaic,” Ned admitted gruffly. “I thought for a while that one of them must’ve been an Illusionist, but then I found out that the tiles had been there mimicking the sky before any of them even thought of buying the place. Now I don’t know.”

He grunted and heaved the dead weight of a halfblood back over his shoulder. “Starting to get heavy,” he remarked. There was a pause, while his companion said nothing, and Seven was sloughed off of Ned’s shoulder in favor of his arms. His head lolled back and his mouth opened. Ned cleared his throat and peered into a chasm of bastard teeth. How venomous could he be? “I’m not sure he’ll take well to this.”

“Aye, and what was your first clue?”

Their heavy footfalls stopped in front of a narrow alley. Just beyond the street, pinned to a stone wall, was a decrepit wooden door. When it was pried open, stubborn sun danced across glasslike stairs, and three men slipped into the baffling entrance that would warp and disappear between the hulks of two stone edifices as soon as it thumped shut.

A red moon took the place of the sun, above streets beneath streets. A black sky stretched on forever and winding, tangled streets gave birth to wet and yellowed stone. It was Alvadas, or some perversion of it; everything was cast from the same mold, carved in the Trickster’s name, but the air was stale and wet and silent.

“Always gives me gooseprickles, when I come back here,” Ned commented, weaving his burden between narrow stone walls.

The balding agent had opened a map, holding it between his fingers, glancing between it and the street. “It’s half-written in another language,” he complained, “The kid’s smart.”

“Just practicing Symenos,” Ned replied with a snort of laughter, “he spoke to himself a lot, repeating the same phrases over and over—I doubt he was trying to encrypt his research.”

They turned a corner. As if on cue, the oppressive figure of the Department of Illusion loomed into view. There were no signs marking its exterior, nor did lantern light penetrate the many windows that lined several stories. For all any passerby knew, the place had been long abandoned, in favor of sunlight and fresh air. Ned shouldered the door open.

Inside, the department teemed with life—that is, as much as a department that did not exist could possibly teem with life. The first level, as every one above it, was an open room. There were desks and people at them, and lanterns and candles cast their orange glow throughout. The back wall boasted a bookcase from floor to ceiling, filled with more almanacs than books. Years of illusions were catalogued and categorized, from the mundane to the marvelous. A staircase split the back wall in two, and for that the pair headed, receiving more than one sidelong stare from anyone astute enough to look up from their work.

They passed two more identical floors. On the fourth and final floor, they stopped. The room was more cramped, here, but lined with dirt-murky windows that looked out on shadowed rooftops and an unwavering crimson moon. Two dishevelled desks met them, and two locked doors brought an abrupt end to the tour.

“Straight to Flint?” Ned cast an incredulous stare at the back of the agent’s head. “You’re not going to—”

“He already has.”

The door on the right opened and clicked shut, and the slight form of the department’s supervisor parted the men. Eyes of molten gold darted between the agent and Ned and the heap in his arms. “I send you for maps, you bring me a Dra,” Vena Swivle’s smooth cadence was graced with the song of Symenos, “And a drunk.”

Ned shed himself of the halfblood, leaving Seven in a bony heap supported by a chair and a desk. The agent offered his supervisor a roll of parchment with a poison smile. “Ma’am,” that thin, wide mouth curled at the edges, “This is the boy whose findings I spoke of,” he wasn’t keen on me taking them, he thought, “He could be valuable to us,” he said.

“He’s bleeding and unconscious.” Vena stooped beside the white-haired man, lifted a waxy eyelid. Unseeing crimson stared into gold. “Wake him up, and I’ll decide how valuable he is, myself.”

[Seven Xu]

Seven’s eye flinched. He stirred, groaned, and balked from the claw as soon as the intruding digit registered in his mind. Color swarmed his bleary vision: murky oranges and yellows, the blackness where lamplight did not reach, and a familiar, eerie red glow. He sat up, scrambled to make sense of where he was. His eyes darted from face to face to face, two of them familiar, another belonging to a raven-haired stranger, whose obsidian fingertips were receding from his aching cheek. Ned, the talking forehead, a widow: in his vexation, he hated them all.

“Never mind,” The widow spoke, her golden eyes never leaving his heavy-lidded glare. “Get out, both of you.”

The forehead and the vagrant left without discourse. Seven noted his maps, and his notebook, on the desk where he was seated. The widow bent to unravel vellum, its edges ragged from age. “You know a pattern,” perfect Common was traded for Symenos, “I apologize for your means of getting here—or for being here, in the first place. We lost many in the storm and more in the aftermath, some of our agents are desperate to rebuild our numbers.”

Seven reached to wipe a dried trail of venomous saliva and blood from his chin, sour eyes never leaving the widow. “My Symenos is shit,” he admitted, his voice hoarse. And, as an afterthought, added, “I think I bit my tongue.”

It was hard to tell whether the halfblood was feigning nonchalance, insolence, or if he was simply delirious; as he assembled his wits and throbbing pain returned to his face, his heart began to thump against its tiny cage and questions gathered on the tip of his bleeding tongue.

“These are very good,” the widow continued, wrapping her distinct accent back around Common-tongue, “They must have taken you a very long time.”

Seven’s head pivoted towards a window. The red moon hung in a low crescent, just above jagged black edifices. Leather scuffed against wooden desk, and when he turned back, she was fingering through his note book. “Forgive me,” he propped himself up on an elbow, “I’m Seven Xu: tavern owner, map maker, person. And you are? And this place is …?”

“Dra-Seven,” she repeated, as if to correct, “My name is Vena Swivle. I work for the Alvadas government. The Department of Illusion is not known for abduction and taking another’s personal effects, and for my associate’s blunder I apologize.” Gold struck rubies; a smile split her face. “Actually, now that I think of it, we aren’t known at all. You shouldn’t worry so much, Dra-Seven. Once we’re done with you, you’ll be placed back in your tavern, and it will be like none of this ever happened.”

“The Department of Illusion? Is that even a thing—listen, Vena, miss Swivle,” Seven stood. He wobbled in place, and nearly fell into his chair again, but managed to save grace with hands splayed on a wooden desk top. Mentally, he called upon the stone-faced Victor Lark, whose countenance could fall into comfortable nothing when he wasn’t selling deceit. Seven, on the other hand, needed it, needed to wash himself of discomfort and choose his words carefully. “Whoever you are, whoever Ned is, just, please, I don’t care. Take them. They’re useless, anyway. I’ve done my research. I’ve solved one side of the puzzle. Now that I know the how, all I need is a keen eye and time. I’ll make new maps, and I’ll find new patterns.”

Give them back, you cock-eyed wench. Seven sucked on his bottom lip.

“You know the how,” she repeated, “These are useless.”

“That’s what I said. It’s a problem without an answer or an equation. It’s a map, and a series of numbers, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. Only I do.”

Vena straightened. Her hands left the notebook to weave across her chest. “Then they’re useless to me.”

Relief flickered like lightning across Seven’s broken mien. His hands balled into fists. “So I can go, then?”

“What makes you think that?”

Seven could feel his stomach sink like a hot, heavy stone. He broke character, lunged for his work, and was met with a quill and yellowed vellum that nearly hit him on the nose: a wall of scrawling text. “Sign this.”

[Seven Xu]

“What is it?”

A clawed hand pushed the parchment against a white nose. Seven scowled, grabbed it from her. “Department of Illusion … oath of secrecy?”

“Your name goes on the first line, there,” she pointed.

“And if I refuse to sign it?”

“I call someone in here to wipe any memory of this place from you, and you’re returned to your tavern, as I said. You will not remember anything, as hard as you try. On the other hand, if you comply, you can return to your tavern of your own free will and continue your research—but it all comes back to us.” There was a pause, and she laughed. “Whatever we have here will stay, but it would be an awful pain in the ass to have to put a green agent in the field you already know so much about.”

Idle flattery always went a long way. It caught Seven at the corners of his pale lips. “It’s also a lot of man power to knock you out every few months to brush up on your research. Compliance is the easiest option, for everyone.”

“Not your typical branch of government, are you?”

“Alvadas is not your typical city, Dra-Seven.”

Seven exhaled, and scribbled his name into the blank.

I, Seven Xu, solemnly affirm and declare that I will faithfully and honestly fulfill the duties that devolve upon me by reason of my employment in the Department of Illusion of the City of Alvadas and that I will not disclose or make known any matter that comes to my knowledge by reason of such employment.

Seven’s eyes skirted the document, before rolling upward again. His face twisted into something between excitement, relief, and confusion. “Employment?”

“This is all very easily undone,” Vena reaffirmed, “But if the head approves of you, yes. You will be compensated for your work, and you will have a desk here. You will no longer do your research in your tavern, where anyone can get their hands on it. With me, now.”

Seven’s hip caught the desk and sputtered against the floor when he turned too sharply in his pursuit. He cursed under his breath; his leg was still lame, stupid, and aching. Vena waited for him to reach her side before a slender hand met a door and she knocked once, twice.

“It’s Vena,” she called, and for that, she received a muffled, “Door’s unlocked.”

The office was cramped, not by walls, but tomes and notes that had spilled from their shelves and made piles shoulder-high on the floor. In the midst of the chaos sat a pristine desk, without more than a quill and ink taking up space. Cornelius Flint was behind the desk. Seven met his gaze and immediately looked away; searching violet seemed to grip and tug at his very essence. It was uncomfortable. The voice that emerged from the man, however, required undivided attention to hear, and Seven found his crimson stare darting between an unsmiling mouth and those soul-boring eyes.

“He signed the oath?” It was clear that walls were thin, here.

Vena’s hand snaked up Seven’s shoulder, an oddly endearing gesture, for their short history. “He’s promising.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” with lack of a better segue and to shrug away a clawed hand, Seven extended his own toward who he could only assume was the department’s head. He loosed an awkward laugh. “Seven Xu. I must say, now that my head’s stopped hurting, it’s an honor to be here.”

The halfblood was met with a flat stare. Flint’s hands receded below his desk. Seven deflated.

“You want 202E?” He looked past Seven, and Vena nodded. When violet fell on the Lhavitian again, his voice grew warm, though still, no smile broke across his face. He could have been carved of marble. “Then it is done. I extend to you an invite to join our ranks, Seven Xu. If you accept, you will start immediately, and further research not done in the field will be kept here. If you decline, you will be returned to your place of residence and all events of the evening will be removed from your memory. Do you accept?”

It all sounded tediously familiar, by now. Seven couldn’t help but smile—and abruptly wince, when his tender jaw rebuked him. “I accept.”

Vena’s hand found his shoulder again, and gave him a light tug. “Come, azo. Your memory is safe for the time being, let’s get your desk set up.”

End

[Fallacy]

XP Award! Name:Seven Xu XP Award: Investigation- 2 Rhetoric- 1 Lore: Vena Swivle Patterns in Alvadas Department of Illusion Department of Illusion oath of secrecy Notes: SS Thread Updated! Be prepared to see wages change. Im still working on wages to try to make it more accommodating. Any questions or concerns about the rewards gained please send a PM