Montage a Trois 1

“Oh, so that’s what it was,” said Maki through a yawn. I’d expected more of a reaction to learning about the rest of the party. “Just friends? No family or lovers?”

We were standing around in the kitchen waiting on the eggs for the Korean street toast Annie requested to finish baking. Maki had arrived just as dawn was breaking with two heavy bags full of everything she’d need for the rest of the week and our trip to Missouri.

“Er, yeah. You…knew?”

“It was one of my handful of theories. You were harboring too much guilt and shame for it to only have been about the source of your power. Others had to have been affected by whatever pact you made, and your vague but urgent insistence on getting to Missouri had to be related – you only show shame when family is involved, or, in this case, I guess, friends old enough to be considered family. The reincarnation is surprising, I’ll admit, but there had to be some reason you couldn’t just reach out, and I knew it would either be baffling or deeply stupid.”  God, it was like dating Sherlock Holmes sometimes. Why had I even bothered to play coy? “Not even former lovers, though? That seems unusual for you.”

“What? No, it’s not. I have plenty of friends I’m not fucking, Maki,” I said, slightly offended – only slightly, though. I’d gotten off easy; if she knew the reason I couldn’t find anyone was because I’d forgotten their names minutes after hearing them, heaven knows I’d never hear the end of it. We’d discussed our characters for hours prior to that first fateful session zero, too. It was a quintessential Alan flub; faces and names had existed in a sort of ethereal state for me prior to gaining James’ himbo social chops.

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I was only asking.”

Annie gave me a pitying expression. “I didn’t know you were feeling so guilty, James. You should have told us much sooner!”

“His pride won’t let him express weakness,” explained my girlfriend. “Unless it’s a strategy in battle – confirming that he could, but chooses not to.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point.” Annie’s demeanor switched from sympathetic to affronted. “How come you can act vulnerable in a fight but not with us, James?”

I chuckled. “Ladies, you’ve got it mixed up. I’m only pretending during fights. The reason I don’t express emotional vulnerabilities with you is because I have none.” They crossed their arms and glared as one. “Anyway, that’s basically the only thing Annie and I got up to other than training.”

Maki narrowed her eyes and turned to my student. “I find that hard to believe.”

I looked to Annie as well, equally curious. I didn’t think I’d forgotten anything important. They may have been hell for her, but days of training were fairly low-key and relaxing on my end. No one had tried to kill me in what felt like ages.

The redhead turned pink. "Um, we also intentionally leaked a sex tape, filmed a softcore erotic fight scene to start a RedDoor account, and went viral for turning a streamer's pelvis to goo. Then we rescued his girlfriend and went viral again when James was teaching me how to conjure my killing intent. Did you know his dad stuffed his clothes with food and tied him to a pier until he could scare the seagulls away? Isn't that messed up? Oh! I also got to meet James' mom – she was super sweet! Have you met her yet?"

“Oh, right, that.” I waved off Annie’s reply. “Just some slice-of-life shenanigans. How was the library?”

Maki pursed her lips and gave me a look that told me she was only shelving this for later before setting her bag on the counter. She instead ran us through her Monday afternoon and Tuesday. Most of Monday was lost to recovery – she described the hangover from her first Petitioning as akin to a full-body flu ache – but the school library was open twenty-four hours a day, and she’d been itching to hit the books.

Properly looking into the Cranes' leader had quickly been deemed too dangerous to do on her own and without preparations. Black Harbor University's Rare Texts Library always required students to sign their name and which books/scrolls they were examining ahead of time. She said it was normally fairly lax and that the librarians knew her well enough to mostly leave her alone, but the moment she'd started looking into ancient Changsha, the 'atmosphere shifted.' I affirmed that she'd made the right call in pulling out. No one comment or change in behavior stood out for her to point to, but if Maki’s intuition was ever sounding alarm bells, then it was time to stop.

She’d instead researched more about our coming destination, hoping that she could find some leads on Annie’s metamorphosis. Once we hit that part of the recap, though, I had some trouble following. Maki grew increasingly more animated as she went on, jumping around in time as she recounted the various clues she’d found. There was something about murders and a lunatic connected to Crucifixion? I’d zoned out somewhat when I’d noticed that Annie was fully enraptured by the story; if she was playing the earnest listener, then that left me with the well-meaning skeptic role. Every Great Detective needed both a John Watson and an Inspector Lestrade, after all.

I read the first few lines of a poem she'd handed me, then looked at Maki with my best put-upon, annoyed expression. It was written on a folded-up piece of legal pad paper and was apparently a major clue into a man's madness.

“You missed a day of training for this? Maki, if someone is genuinely losing their mind, they aren’t going to take the time to do it in meter.”

She clicked her tongue and crossed her arms. “Yes, that was precisely his idea as well. Fletcher had read that schizophrenics struggle with meter and resort to ‘clang’ associations, so he did his best to translate his experiences into the medium. It’s supposed to serve as proof that they weren’t mere delusions. Now read the poem, James.”

“And soil my lips with this dogshit verse?” I shook my head ruefully. “I don’t know; you’re asking a lot. I am a union actor now…a stunt actor, but, still.”

Maki’s jaw clenched. She was too cute when she got like this. “He was a mathematician, not a poet. The quality of the composition is not the matter at hand,” she said through gritted teeth. “I am trying to brief the two of you on a serious investigation I undertook, one indirectly related to the effects of the wildly dangerous improvised Qi ritual we will be traveling to Missouri to investigate. The wildly dangerous improvised Qi ritual that you—”

I smiled and put my hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. I was just teasing anyway. Jeez, this is pretty serious, huh?”

“Yes,” she said, lips thin and angry.

My brow raised at her tone. “You’re unusually grumpy this morning. Wait…” I examined her closer; I could tell she was tired, but she looked fine enough considering how early it was in the day and the temperature in the apartment. Between the oven, me and Annie’s Qi, and the ancient steam radiators, it had to be close to 90 degrees (32C) in the kitchen. Maki was already down to a sports bra and sweatpants and beginning to show signs of fatigue. But taking into account the physical effects of my cum, and translating what ‘a little tired’ should look like on her, something wasn’t adding up.

I clicked my tongue and frowned. “Maki, seriously? You didn’t get any sleep? You knew how hard we were going to train today.”

A bit of a blush reached her cheeks. She could tell when I was genuinely annoyed or just joking around. “I took naps.”

"Falling asleep at your desk is not 'taking a nap.'"

“A semantic difference.”

“Uhuh,” I said dryly. “I’m going to remember this the next time you tell me to take it easy.”

“Hmph! Don’t even pretend. Overwork only puts one of us at risk of vaporizing his surroundings in a pillar of Divine fire.”

I rolled my eyes but let the topic drop. There were plenty of valid rebuttals to that argument, but Maki would be willfully stubborn about her own wellbeing – just as I would be if the situation were reversed. It was our mutual responsibility and privilege as boyfriend and girlfriend to be more concerned for each other than ourselves. “If I have to heal you from exhaustion today, I’m not going to be nice about it,” I grumbled.

“Fine,” she said, wearing a proud smirk. “I’ll simply borrow your power and do it myself.”

“Is—" I quirked my head, “is that even a flex?”

“It’s a statement of fact, is what it is. I’ve brought everything I need for several weeks of channeling with me.”

“Yeah? I’ll remind you the crash from last time left you bedridden for most of a day. What if I don’t let you Petition me?”

Maki crossed her arms under her chest, pushing up her breasts. "What if, indeed." Her eyes were sultry, and her expression smug, fully aware that I couldn't deny her, no matter how irresponsible it may be. It was a damn shame how sexy she was when she was being insanely unreasonable.

Annie giggled. “You two are cute. I ship this.” She pointed an index finger at both of us and touched them together. “Can I read the poem? That was always my favorite part of English class.”

“Woooow,” I said. “That is deranged theater kid behavior. My favorite part of English class was when they took us to see a play twice a year.”

“City privilege, James. We didn’t even have projectors in my school, let alone enough theater companies for a twice-yearly trip. They’re probably still rolling out a TV and a VHS player in Crucifixion.”

I could feel Maki start simmering as I deliberately prolonged her debriefing for a few more moments. Her impatience was a direct result of missed sleep, and we both knew it. “But just to be clear, you still enjoyed reading out loud more than the odd movie day?”

“It’s about breaking up the monotony of the day. And, you know,” she added with a grin, “no one’s looking at me when there’s a movie on. But enough of that, you.” Annie jabbed two fingers between my ribs hard.

“Oi!”

“I won’t be complicit in you trolling your girlfriend.” Annie clapped her hands together and gave Maki a quick bow. “Sorry about my master. Our Art is designed to annoy and bait our opponents, and sometimes that bleeds into his behavior outside of combat. He’s a real stinker when he’s bored,” she said, earning a loud laugh from Maki. “Now, quit flirting and give me the poem, James.”

The priestess hummed contentedly. She leaned back on the counter, more relaxed than she’d been since arriving. “Thank you. That’s very validating to hear. He can be quite annoying, can’t he? Do you really attribute that tendency to his Kung Fu?” she asked, genuine in her curiosity.

Annie nodded and tapped her temple. “It’s about your enemy’s mental stack; they’re easier to read when they’re angry or their pride is evoked. A less frustrating man could not have created Black City Kung Fu, unfortunately.”

“Goddamn outnumbered,” I muttered, rubbing my ribs. “Read the damn poem, Annie.”

Maki sucked in a breath, and her arm twitched as if to stop me as I moved to pass the aged legal pad paper to Annie. Catching the micromovement out of the corner of my eye, I stopped midway. "Something wrong?" I asked.

“No. It,” she hesitated, “should be fine.”

Annie and I shared a worried look.

“Um, that’s not super reassuring,” said Annie. “Is there a difference if I read it instead of James?”

Maki made a face, anger directed inward at herself for inadvertently interrupting proceedings. “There may be, but it’s no fault of yours. James is simply uniquely suited to handle a Research Artifact – and before you ask, I’m in the process of explaining what they are. Some who find Research Artifacts become so enraptured by their curiosity that they develop a total physical inability to sleep. They will be consumed by their investigations until they go irrevocably mad or die of fatigue. James is immune to that reaction. His first response to a mystery is to punch it, his second is to scheme, and his third is either to find someone better equipped to handle the problem or to forget about it entirely.”

I nodded sagely. I took a little offense with the characterization, but it was more fun to agree. “It’s true. I don’t even look up basic shit. I’ve baked cakes off instructions I only half remember.”

Annie started to chuckle but stopped and looked appalled as she realized I wasn’t joking. “Oh my God, you’re serious. You’ll wing a recipe for baked goods? That’s insane. Why?”

I idly scratched my chest. “I don’t know; personality flaw, I guess.” I shrugged. “Everyone loves surprises. I just love ‘em unconditionally.”

Maki cut in with a tired sigh before Annie could respond. “Don’t engage with that; it’s what he wants. As I was saying, you’ll be fine. I’m here to mitigate anything that might happen to you, and if you do get possessed, we might gain valuable insight into your condition before we exorcise the spirit. You have nothing to fear.”

That was more than enough to assuage any of my fears. I passed the redhead the poem. “Maki’s the expert. Go ahead.”

“Okay!” said Annie cheerily, accustomed to the bizarre and arcane by now. “Ahem,” she said, holding the page in front of her. “Oh, wait, is there a title? And what was the author’s name again? Fletcher?”

“Yes, Dr. Augustus Fletcher,” said Maki. “No title, or perhaps, Correspondence to psychologist, May 6th, 2006.”

“Right.” Annie nodded. Clearing her throat again, she began,

“I saw a man outside my window scratching at the glass.

He sang to me in lullabies, lilting from my past.

‘Lay your head and close your eyes

and when you wake the dawn will rise

to take you from me

bundled loving

to a future warm and sunny’

I saw a man outside the glass

scratching

scratching at my sill. Pale and lean, he looked

to me

an omen clearly – my shadow gaunt and still.

I saw a man outside my window scratching at the glass.

But when I woke I could not say

had I dreamt that haunted ghast.

And when I turned my head to sleep I heard a knocking at the door

Two shadows slipped beneath the crack

stomping

stomping cross my floor.

Bending down, they heard my breathing, and stood the night

waiting,

seething.

They crooned to me with lies unceasing, my father’s dread, my mother’s keening.

But when I woke, they were not there.

The room was empty save my fear.

Now stands a man beside my window, day and night the same

I see his feet beneath the curtains, hear him scratching at the pane

I feel his touch along my face, tracing every scar

I wrote a man upon the page and found him where you are

He is scratching, can you hear, he is scratching

scratching out my name.”

There was a silence when she finished, all three of us pausing instinctively to tune our ears to the doors and the scant few narrow basement windows in the apartment. Nothing happened, hopefully.

“Spooky,” said Annie after a moment. She craned her neck to look at the ceiling, her face scrunching up in thought. “Huh, I’ve got that tip-of-the-tongue feeling like I’m forgetting something important…”

“Godawful fucking poem,” I muttered. “Wait. ‘Correspondence to psychologist?’ I thought you found this in a locker at the library with a bunch of gruesome articles or something?”

Maki flushed, breaking eye contact to start rifling through her bag. “No, I said I found Fletcher’s name when I was looking up microfiche of the Roundabout Herald. You can’t check out microfiche, but you can have the librarians put them aside for you. Many of the editions were still being held under his name.”

I studied her and her rare display of shame, my mouth slowly forming into a wide, astonished smile. “Maki, you didn’t – you stole a man’s psych records?” I threw my head back and burst into laughter. “Because he checked out some newspapers? That’s unhinged! Hahahaha!”

The priestess glared at me. "You, of all people, have no right to judge. If you saw the contents of the papers, I'm sure you'd do something much worse."

“You’re right! It is something I would do! Hahahahaha!”

“Shut up!” She put her hands on her hips. “I was building to something. Let me have my fun!”

“Fair enough,” I said, shifting my body language to interested and compliant. It was as good as a verbal apology to the preternaturally insightful woman. “Maybe start from the beginning, though. I’m a bit confused. What is a Research Artifact, and why did it kick off an all-nighter? This just looks and feels like an ordinary piece of paper.”

The thin beauty perked up, momentarily shrugging off the effects of the heat and exhaustion. "It's not magical in itself; that's why we prepend 'Research' onto the term, to differentiate it from what most people think of when they hear the word Artifact. There are also more dramatic terms used, like 'Red Herrings,' 'Inherent Contradictions,' or 'False Truths,' but I believe assigning so much weight to them opens you up to fatal obsession. I use Research Artifact because it's a descriptive explanation for what they are."

Descriptive to her, maybe; that was meaningless to me. Annie, though, with her engineering degree, was quicker on the take. Her brow furrowed with concern. “I don’t understand. Do you mean you only found this poem because you were looking into Crucifixion? As in, it wouldn’t exist if you hadn’t?”

“Exactly! The only evidence that poem was ever written is that it apparently exists before us.”

I squinted, confused. “So…a lot?”

She ignored me, speaking to Annie. “Every other fact about Dr. Augustus Fletcher actually contradicts its existence.” Maki reached into her bag and held up a file folder. “What’s more, is that Fletcher’s files – where I found the poem – document psychological treatment that could not have occurred. He was not in New Jersey on the dates listed, and his doctor was never employed in the university’s counseling center.” She smacked the counter with the folder for emphasis. “They look real, they feel real, and they follow their own internal logic, but they cannot be explained. Believe me, I tried. There are no feasible explanations for how these forms and notes came to be, let alone for why they were sitting untouched in a locked, dusty file cabinet.”

Annie put the poem face down on the counter and pushed it away from her slowly. She stared at it, pale-faced. “How do you know it’s not a hoax?”

Maki’s grin was one of pride. She shot me a quick, approving expression for my selection of senior student before answering. “Besides the simple question of why someone would go through the trouble of putting a flawlessly rendered hoax file about a real person in the old archives for the counseling center? Everything in this file is identical to others of its time period.”

“‘Others of its—'” I quoted. “How many psych records did you get into, exactly?”

She went on talking to Annie, “And worse, remember the context for the poem. Fletcher had been involuntarily committed by May. He composed what you read to prove to himself and his doctor that he could write a recognizable poem about his experiences, and thus, that they were real. I’m no psychologist, but delusional people come to the Shrine regularly; it’s part of our task to sort between what is a psychotic episode and what is genuine. If Fletcher told me what he told his doctor, I would believe him. What he recounts matches a description of a haunting by a broad category of parasitic spirits almost exactly. Examining only the file found, it’s an authentic story of a man ignorant to magic being afflicted with a metaphysical malady. But more to the point,” said Maki, leaning forward, “it’s unpleasant thinking about this, isn’t it?”

Annie gave a short nod, still staring at the face-down poem.

"Yes, and I'd bet that feeling is building the more we discuss this. Most who are confronted with a Research Artifact they didn't find themselves, reflexively reject them once they hear their contexts. The cognitive dissonance is so viscerally unpleasant to the mortal mind that people will refuse to engage with the topic. They would rather believe a close family member has gone completely mad than seriously consider the Artifact. You, however, as would be expected of James's senior student, are capable of powering through that initial revulsion. Unfortunately, that leaves you only with the perverse need to understand the ineffable. That sensation is worse, for some reason, for those who find the Artifact. Even now, these irk me, and I have a lifetime of training to resist mental influence."

I interrupted again, this time more forcefully. “Time out. Can one of you nerds actually explain what’s happening? I didn’t get anything from that other than Maki brought some Lovecraftian nonsense into my apartment, past the wards. What the fuck is a Research Artifact, Maki, and why should I not be upset that there’s some King in Yellow type bullshit sitting on my kitchen counter?”

The priestess had the decency to look chagrined. “An artifact in science, James, is purely the product of an error, whether in the method or in the instruments used – think of a spot showing up in medical imaging that appears like a tumor but is actually the cause of shoddy equipment. The tumor is not real; the result was only found because of a mistake.”

"Okay. So, you, what, asked the wrong kami to help you break into the counseling center's archives, and they created some bunk files?"

She shook her head. “No, though that could be considered a mundane artifact, and might be plausible if not for what else I found.”

Maki continued, “It’s an exceedingly rare but known phenomenon: if enough people seriously pursue research for enough time, one of them is going to find something that is objectively impossible. We have in the Shrine, for safekeeping and training purposes, two photos. The first is of a bleak, arctic wasteland taken while reporting on a coup in the Congo, and the other is a color rendition of Black Harbor in the 1890s from an instant print camera. The phenomena don't need to be physical, either. Zelda tells me her mother was once asked to exorcise a lengthy voicemail a grad student received from his mentor about a proof for a formula that didn't exist. The man had gone to the nearest psychic in a manic fugue and been lucky enough to find one who could actually help."

"Those instances and these papers," she said, tapping the psych folder, "are what are referred to as Research Artifacts. The only traits they share are that they appear to you while you're engaged in research or investigation of some kind, and that they are impossible. They are contradictions to accepted reality."

I pinched my brow – just when I thought this place couldn’t surprise me with its degenerate horror, it found a way to plumb the depths. “Jesus Christ,” I muttered. Was there nothing safe in this entire universe? Could everything kill you here?

No…not kill, I realized. She was clearly describing an in-setting example of what the system called Corruption. Everything the Producers had included in their game did seem to be represented in the world in some form or another. To me, these sounded like late-game traps to throw at even a character who’d specced into research and Willpower. “Reading books or looking into shit too hard can give you an existential crisis. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Certainly,” said Maki, “but that’s unrelated to Research Artifacts. They can appear regardless of someone’s mental fatigue. Artifacts often have a stark and inexplicable horror to them that implies an element of malice, but no one has any firm explanations for their origin – some are completely unremarkable. My personal belief is that they’re an occasional by-product of black magic. The coup in Congo was spectacularly bloody, the picture from Black Harbor was supposed to be of a brownstone where a cannibalistic murder occurred, and Academia is rife with toxic competition and people who are just smart enough to think they can get the better of a dark pact. In our case, the poem and the notes from Fletcher’s sessions too perfectly describe a haunting for me to ignore them.”

“Oh, well that’s fine then,” I said.

“Really?” asked Annie, surprised. The poor newcomer to all this was forced to live in a world in which anything I said could feasibly be true.

“No! Of course not! Why is this shit in my kitchen?!”

Maki looked embarrassed for a moment – her own reciprocation of my earlier nonverbal apology – but was then right back to proud defiance. “Your apartment is arguably the best place to keep these. Be honest, James, I was right, wasn’t I? You feel nothing when you look at or discuss the Artifacts—" I started to respond, but she beat me to it with the exact words I’d been about to say, “other than the desire to burn them out of principle.”

Now that she mentioned it, that had been bothering me. Annie looked almost physically ill, but I'd felt neither the revulsion nor curiosity Maki had mentioned; mostly, I wanted to get to training already. We were burning daylight. I shrugged and picked up the folder, idly flipping through it. "Eh. Not really. It would be cool if we figured out how to selectively use them against people looking into me, but that's too high-risk low-reward for me to be serious about it. Although…" I shook my head. No, even for me, that was too much – also, driving your enemies crazy with cognitohazards was only fun if you could see the results. "Never mind. Honestly, I'm not even that bothered – like, if you vetoed me burning them, I'd whine, but I'd go along with it. I gave you my word I'd respect your call on this arcane horror business if you respected my call on martial arts stuff, and I'm no hypocrite. About that, at least."

Annie blinked at me and turned to Maki. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. He literally did all three in the exact order you said.”

It took me a moment for me to be offended, having already forgotten Maki’s throwaway comment. “Hey, I didn’t try to punch the mystery!”

“You only wanted to light it on fire?” asked an amused Maki.

“The reasonable thing to do in this situation.”

“Maybe,” she shrugged. “And their fate is your call, but I think you might want to hold onto the Artifacts—”

Annie interjected, voice disbelieving. “Sorry, you really don’t feel anything weird at all, James? My body is, like, screaming at me to get out of here.”

I studied the folder in my hands and really tried to let it conjure something within me. The piece of paper I'd stopped on was a request from Fletcher's family asking for his psych records. The next was a subpoena for them from a wrongful death lawsuit, dated July 2006, only two months after the poem. Fletcher hadn't lasted long – suicide or, at least, an apparent suicide, I assumed. Why else subpoena his psychologist? Personally, I'd have put my money on whatever had been haranguing the man at night.

Though, I guess, none of that had actually occurred. Maki had said he hadn’t even been in the state at the time. That was definitely intriguing, and I wanted to know more, but I couldn’t say it was a supernatural urge. Neither my James nor Alan half, in fact, was fretting over the mystery. This was just some more bullshit, specifically one up to the wizards to figure out. A good adventuring party delegated responsibilities to the appropriate class specialists.

Perhaps I’d passed an invisible Willpower roll, though I’d have expected at least a minor reaction. Or, while I wasn’t in the Happy Idiot Stance, this was a narrative system – maybe the man who’d invented the Empty-Headed God simply couldn’t be swayed by what was objectively some nerd shit.

I shook my head. “Nothing. Though, Maki—” I met the priestess’ gaze and flicked my eyes to Annie meaningfully.

She nodded. “Yes, I’ll be quick.”

Annie bristled. “I’m fine, guys. Keep going. The whole point of this week is to get me to where I can contribute on the team, remember?”

Maki took Annie’s hand in a surprisingly familiar gesture, rubbing the back of it with her thumb, and gave her a slight nod. They’d settled into this friendship with a speed I could only attribute to my Perks.

“I hypothesized you wouldn’t show a reaction, James. Much like a Kami, you already have your capital-O Obsessions; anything outside of them is fundamentally uninteresting to you. It takes extreme effort to get you to care about anything that you could consider ‘boring,’ and I usually have to pair it with something you enjoy, like sex or the promise of a future adventure.”

“Hey!…no comment,” I grumbled sourly. It stung because it was true.

“You know,” said Annie, “I’ve been trying to get James to do the bare minimum social media marketing.”

“I’ll help you brainstorm later.”

“Would you finish your goddamn story.”

“Right, I’ll skip to the end.” Maki took the folder from me and put it down on the poem. From her bag, she pulled out two seemingly identical magazines, one in a plastic protective library cover and the other somewhat beat-up. They were both the October 2004 edition of the Starboard Lampoon. She set them down next to Fletcher’s psych files. “I was going to have you examine the magazines for differences, but I’ll just tell you—”

“Aw,” said Annie, pouting, “I don’t want to be the reason you don’t get to do your big dramatic reveal. We looooove drama in this gym.”

“Yeah, Maki.” As much as I was yearning to get to training, I did want Maki to have fun. “Do your thing.”

The black-haired woman shook her head and gave us a smirk. "It's okay; there's still a dramatic reveal or two left." She put her hand on the psych folder. "In the reality presented by these records, Augustus Fletcher started experiencing regular disturbing visions at night that led to insomnia in March 2006. By May, they progressed to the point that Fletcher was involuntarily committed to an in-patient care facility. That was when he wrote the poem you read and mailed it to his doctor. He died by what is implied to be suicide sometime between May and July of that year."

“Now these,” she moved her hands to the magazines, “are editions of the Starboard Lampoon, a BHU student-run news and humor magazine, from 2004. The first, in the plastic cover, I checked out from the library. The second, I found unceremoniously stuck underneath a mass of other magazines in the same section.”

"Oh, no," mumbled Annie. Her face had once more paled, and she was staring at the weathered copy of the Lampoon with horror. I followed her gaze to one of the stories listed on the cover, 'Axe Me Again During Office Hours.' Underneath the name of the article, read: 'Welp. We've got to cover it, don't we, folks?' It wasn’t present on the cover for the library’s edition.

"There is one glaring difference between editions. Both in the physical copy and the scanned, archived version of the Lampoon for that month, the article on page 21 is about a reporter trying to find swingers at the New Jersey State Fair."

“Awesome.” I laughed, pulling the non-library Lampoon toward me and flipping it open to 21. "And in this one—" I whistled. "Ho-ly shit, they printed the crime scene photos."

“Yes, they…struggled to lampoon the story.” Maki sighed. “In that version of the magazine, on September 26th, 2004, mathematics professor Augustus Fletcher went mad and killed his TA and then himself with a fire axe."

Annie’s voice trembled slightly. She looked wobbly on her feet. “But that means…”

Maki, on the other hand, was revitalized and energetic. “Another Research Artifact – completely and utterly unheard of, and one about the same topic, no less. The Shrine is in a furor over it. No one knows what to think. In the version of reality presented in this one, Augustus Fletcher appears to have reacted to his divorce by going into a berserk fit, killing his TA, who he was rumored to be dating, and then himself.”

He'd managed to chop off two of his limbs before bleeding to death on the floor of his lecture hall, according to the article and accompanying pictures. In front of the door, too, trapping fifty-odd undergrads in the room and forcing them to watch it all play out.

I shook my head; what was there even to say? Somehow, the sheer over-the-top tabloid grotesquery contained in the Lampoon was working on me. I was smiling. We were past the point of absurdity. “God, it’s like I’m stuck in a fucked-up Borges story. I leave you alone for two days, Maki, I swear. Continua, profesora.”

I realized my slip-up immediately. James had certainly never read a Borges short story - I'd first encountered the magical realist in Alan's Spanish class in college. But luckily, both girls were too preoccupied to call me on it. I'd been intentionally very vague about Alan's world, and I wanted it to stay that way, at least until I'd reconvened with the rest of the Party and knew what they were telling their own confidants.

“Imagine how I felt. Disregarding the mental effect of two Research Artifacts, the discovery of them so close together in time and place alone had me tempted to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the library.” She paused dramatically. “Then I remembered the third.”

Annie and I nodded approvingly. That had been a solid line delivery.

“The initial reason I was looking into Fletcher at all was because he’d apparently checked out quite a bit of microfiche for the Roundabout Herald, the primary newspaper for Crucifixion and Roundabout, Missouri. There had been a mix of different editions over the years, but the front pages all had stories of abductions, disappearances, and killings of children. They were disturbing enough that I'd stopped partway through to look more into Fletcher. But the discovery of the Lampoon edition made me recall something: I was fairly certain I’d seen editions of the Herald from 2007 in the locker – which should have been impossible.”

I hammed it up a bit for her. "No fucking way, don't tell me—"

"Because Augustus Fletcher left Black Harbor University in 2002 and has worked at St. Christophers College ever since."

There was a pregnant pause. My grin faded, and Annie, though no longer pale, looked visibly alarmed.

I asked, mouth dry, “Has worked?”

“He’s in his early sixties but still teaching classes. He’s listed on the college’s website, and I spoke to him briefly over the phone. I asked his name and how long he’d worked for St. Christophers, and he confirmed that he’d been there since September 2002.”

“Maki,” I groaned, “what do you mean you just called and asked? Tell me you didn’t introduce yourself.”

She waved her hand dismissively. "Of course not; I'm not that foolish. I'll admit, I should have asked you to do it, but in my defense, I was under the effects of two, potentially three, Artifacts and impatient. I cross-verified the editions of the Roundabout Herald I found in that locker, and they were legitimate, but it does appear that there was no conceivable way for Fletcher to have checked out editions from 2007. I'm not quite sure how to classify it, but undoubtedly, that microfiche could not have been in that locker under Fletcher's name. I believe that the Artifact, in this case, is an event rather than an item: Fletcher checking out those microfiche. It would also explain why I was so swept up in the need to look into him that I missed an obvious clue like the dates on the newspapers."

“Three Artifacts, James, all about the same man currently employed at our destination,” Maki said pointedly. It was a question and a demand. She wanted an action plan, something proactive, and would not leave the topic alone until she had one.

That was fair; I’d promised her I’d take a more hands-on approach to my problems, and she’d sacrificed a day and a half getting this information. Maki deserved a meaningful response. Annie started to say something, but I silenced her with a gesture and closed my eyes, entering a reverie. Like a pebble in my boots, something about the narrative Maki presented was bothering me.

Alan's psyche grumbled constantly in my head. More-or-less any time anything at all happened, I could reliably hear my saner half pointing out how irritating and/or absurd it was. It was just how that aspect of me coped with the situation, venting about the insanity of this world, and I/we treated his complaints as such. Both my halves understood it wasn't healthy or particularly useful to take the complaints as suggestions – we'd never get anything done that way – but if I gave in and looked at this only through Alan's outsider perspective, then there was one glaring conclusion.

“No, the Fletcher from the locker-timeline is the real one,” I said, eyes still closed. As soon as the words were spoken, I knew I was right. I didn’t like to treat this world like a game, but in this single instance, the DM in me had recognized the truth.

Maki huffed. "If you didn't understand what an Artifact was after my explanation, you should have said something. James—" She went quiet as she met my eyes and leaned fractionally away, almost nervously. Maki had yet to be introduced to this half of me.

Alan had intuitively compared listening to Maki’s busy day of research to being stuck in a Borges story – the narrators in those were often clinically accounting fantastic yet completely mundane circumstances to the reader, presenting the image of a world where fiction and reality bled seamlessly together. I was choosing to listen to his intuition here.

“We begin with four,” I held up my fingers, “possibilities for Fletcher’s past, but two of them involve his death,” I said, lowering the respective digits. “So, really, we only have two.”

“James, that’s not how Research Artifacts work. I spoke to Fletcher. He is a documented professor at St. Christophers. He has lectures online. He exis—"

I cut her off, Alan’s bitterness making the words come out more heated than I wanted. “There is no objective reality in a world with Gods and magic. Nothing is certain in this universe. We can only discuss probabilities. Listen to me. In the four versions of Fletcher’s timeline, there is one that is outrageously improbable. I can believe in an innocent and ignorant Fletcher losing his life after becoming haunted by forces he couldn't understand. I can believe in a lunatic, misogynistic version of Fletcher blaming his mistress instead of himself after his divorce and doing an axe murder-suicide. And I can believe in a traumatized Fletcher, still living in Black Harbor some time in the late Aughts and developing a strange fixation on missing and murdered children around Crucifixion, Missouri."

“But what I can’t believe, Maki,” I lowered the third finger, “is that the subject of all three of those tragic stories has actually lived a long, peaceful, successful life after he moved from Black Harbor to Crucifixion.” I paused and centered myself, returning to neutral. “Meaning the version of Fletcher who checked out that microfiche is probably the closest to the ‘truth,’ for what that’s worth.”

Annie blew out a long breath. “Jeez, when you put it like that. He probably lives in Roundabout, though – not that it’s super relevant. It’s the college town around St. Christophers. There’s plenty of weirdness there, too.”

Maki looked conflicted. "I…" She paused, arranging her words carefully. "There's almost certainly more to the story, yes. Twice is not a coincidence in this case; it's shocking and unprecedented. Thrice is…extremely concerning, I agree. But what do you plan on doing about it, James? You've barely informed us of your goals at St. Christophers, and I can respect that, but it does mean you need to take the lead."

As a martial artist and youxia, I was leaning towards finding and stalking Fletcher until I could determine if he was human. I had a strong suspicion that plan would end in me assassinating whatever creature was masquerading as the man. That was a risky but sensible approach from a monster hunter's perspective, but I'd already let Alan's 'DM stuck in a game' point-of-view carry me this far, and it felt foolish to abandon it right before the decision-making step.

I looked at Annie. The redhead was holding it together, but she was a ball of nerves and had been since learning Fletcher was alive and living in her hometown. My senior student had good instincts. "Good news, we might not have to talk to your mother about your conception after all. Though, I still think we should," I added. "Probably be healthy for your relationship."

Annie cringed. "Ugh. I mean, technically, she's brought it up a bunch. There's a…chance she’s not lying.”

Maki and I had no idea what was happening to Annie's body other than that I'd kicked off some bizarre cascade of effects by awakening her Qi in the uniquely sexy manner that I had. Our best bet was that she wasn't entirely human, which was the only reason I'd heard of Crucifixion. My senior student didn't often talk about her childhood or family, but while discussing the theory, Annie had recalled that she knew the exact nature of her conception, and then promptly realized how strange that was. Her mother was normally prudish and reserved, a good Christian resident of Crucifixion, yet she frequently brought up the busy night she and her husband had before a work trip nine months prior to Annie's birth. If she'd done the same with Annie's siblings or discussed her sex life with her husband in general, it wouldn't have meant anything – sex for procreation in a marriage wasn't inherently shameful in Christianity – but she never did. It was a meager lead to go off, but the act was out of character for Mrs. Shine, and we had nothing else.

“Sure. Maybe your dad just laid the pipe so good that one time that your mom can’t help but bring it up.”

“You’re joking, but that has been the implication.” She crossed her arms. “God, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. She’s definitely been hiding something.”

“A flattering lie is more likely to be believed,” said Maki. “But I don’t think Fletcher is related to the Shines, James. Do you?”

“Shit, I hope not. What a freak.” Annie winced. I cleared my throat. “Sorry. The timing of that doesn’t work out, anyway. No, it’s that we’ve got two mysteries happening in or around Crucifixion, and I think Fletcher’s is the most likely to lead us to the dark heart of what’s going on there in general. Annie’s changes so far have been,” I gave her a questioning look, “broadly positive? Is that fair to say?”

“For sure.”

“Right. Whereas Fletcher’s shits is all sorts of fucked; you know what I’m saying?” I grinned; Maki had practically shivered in distaste at that line. “We have much more to go off with Fletcher, too.”

Despite the seriousness of the moment, I couldn’t help but enjoy Maki’s long-suffering expression. Too cute. “We have nothing to go off with Fletcher. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. The Artifacts are not real. If you use them in an investigation, you will go insane.”

She may have been right, but that was beside the point. Narratively speaking, the Producers would not have presented me with the Artifacts so close to our trip if they weren’t relevant to what we would find there. One red herring was perfectly acceptable, necessary even, for a good mystery. Three was absurd. I was sure that looking into Augustus Fletcher would not only lead to clues about Annie's origins but whatever Victor had gotten himself mixed up with as well. It was like finding a box of health potions right before a boss fight.

I could hardly say that, though, so I decided to take advantage of her preconceived notions about me being a nascent Kami of Sex and Adventure. "Nothing's real, Maki. All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. But I'm telling you, this Fletcher business reeks. I can taste it like a snake on the wind!" I stuck my tongue out of my mouth and comically vibrated it in the air with my superior muscle control while wagging my brows at them. I was rewarded with a blush from Annie and a minuscule quirk of the lips from my girlfriend. "There's a foul darkness at the heart of this, mark my words. I don't know how focusing on Annie's changes will go, but I would bet my life that looking into Fletcher will lead us directly into the muck. I can feel it in my bones, Maki. There's going to be some psycho shit at St. Christophers. Hell, I’m probably going to have to throw down with an eldritch horror.”

“I don’t know where to start with that, but fine,” said Maki with a sigh. “I can tell it would be easier to move a mountain than dissuade you from this. So, we’re focusing on Fletcher. How do you plan on doing this?”

I didn’t miss a beat. “With utmost caution.” If this was to be a Call of Cthulhu style investigation, then both sides of me were more than happy to let Alan take the reins. “The original plan was to use the excuse of filming some parkour stunts to be on campus, but I want something lower profile.” I turned to Annie. “I know you’ve been out of school for a while, but do you have any social connections at St. Christophers?”

"A lot. Small-town living, James, a confusing amount of people choose to stick around. There's a few of the younger girls from my gymnastics days wasting their talent there, some cousins getting agriculture degrees, and I think an old friend from bible camp doing her master's, too."

“Good. Reach out to a few of them now so it won’t be weird when you visit them on campus. I’m guessing word will get around of Maki and I’s visit?”

She laughed. “Oh, yeah. We’re planning on launching the RedDoor in two days, remember?”

I raised my eyebrow. “We’re dropping this Friday? I sort of figured you’d want to wait until after the visit to your family.”

“No way. A week might as well be a year for the internet. We need to seize on the momentum of going viral. Take advantage of those Friday paychecks and give us some plausible deniability about the intentional leak. I think it’ll work better for our brands in the long run. I’m not letting my parents’ disapproval hamstring my ambitions, especially not now that I know you get power from debauchery. They’re never going to understand the Martial World, anyway – it’s a fool’s errand.” She paused, remembering something, and blushed. To Maki, she added, “As long as that’s okay with you, of course. I should have checked before I arranged the leak, but well—”

 “It’s fine. I’m glad he’s being proactive about the sex cult.” Maki dismissed the concerns without even bothering to look at Annie, instead fully focused on me. “You’re serious about this? You can sense the coming danger?”

I nodded. "In my bones, Maki. There's not a sliver of doubt in my mind. You and I survived the Hungry Ghost by luck alone, and you'd had a year to prepare for that fight. I promised you I could learn from my mistakes, and I intend to prove it here. Now," I bobbed my head side to side, "unfortunately, we are going to have to play our approach at St. Christophers by ear. We don't know what sort of defenses and wards the school has, but there's other ways to prepare. Speaking of," I clapped my hands loudly. Finally, we were done with the boring bit, enough of this goddamn foreshadowing. "If you thought I was working you hard before, just wait. Go get Maki warmed up outside, Annie. I'm going to take the Artifacts a few blocks away and burn them – whatever benefit they could provide can't possibly outweigh the risks of keeping them. Honestly, Maki, it's like you've never seen a movie before." I shook my head ruefully. "We're watching Event Horizon tonight for sure."

I started gathering up the papers as Annie led the two of them out, stuffing the magazine into the folder and doing my damnedest not to pay too much attention to the things. I didn't want something leaping out about the Artifacts at the last minute to convince me not to destroy them – standard cursed item protocol, you know?

Maki put a light hand on my waist as she was leaving and leaned up to give me a kiss on the cheek. “I like this side of you,” she whispered. “I think I might have to incentivize you to bring it out more. Maybe tonight with a pretty redhead between us?”

I chuckled. “We’ll see how you feel about me after a few hours of training.”

AN: First, I'd like to thank everyone for the kind words. They meant a lot, thank you. I've been writing/editing everyday for a bit now and excited to get back into the swing of things.