Somewhere Someplace

Almost two weeks—exactly twelve days—had passed since her arrival. She was keeping strict track, for keeping track of things was part of her duties… Amongst many other varying tasks and obligations. Indeed, Captain Albert's standing orders were to assist in all permissible ways.

Although the Company's withdrawal had made this spacious headquarters quiet and barren, it was not a total closure. The 'embassy' and related staff of its so-called 'diplomatic mission' still remained, as well as some managerial and command elements of the Company's campaign against the Fallen—who were deemed safer here than over there. Nevertheless, the effective abandonment had left behind many vacant roles and administrative holes for Nilia, a civilian volunteer of the Company, to fill.

In particular, as part of their withdrawal, the retreating personnel were supposed to gather all documents, letters, contracts, ledgers, and…practically everything that had ever been written in order to either carry to Strawberry or…dispose of. Yet because of how sudden the withdrawal announcement had arrived and how hasty the departure ended up being, this was ultimately left incomplete.

One of the first tasks, consequently, so handed to her by the remaining administrative personnel was to venture office to office and collect, assemble, and organize through whatever had been left behind for 'processing'—their procedural way of saying 'burning'. Of course, it was not her discretion to determine what was and was not 'sensitive', and she was explicitly told not to read anything, only collect… However, she had snuck a few…many glimpses.

Although she had done nothing to 'prove herself' to the captain holding her behind the line, her work so far had at least demonstrated her competencies enough that the embassy—or 'emissariate'—was already providing her with more responsibilities, such as the sorting and filing of inflowing 'non-essential' correspondences between the embassy and other parties… in addition to being offloaded the work of staff who themselves were overworked—particularly anything pertaining to translation.

Indeed… Despite her silence, it had not taken the administrative personnel here that long at all to realize that she was, in fact, multilingual; that she spoke both local tongue and languages that were…seemingly similar—if not related—enough to their own. None had seemed to openly question the alienness of her dialects, only rejoice that they actually had another translator… Not everyone here was as fluent as Hathway or Faulkner, she had come to realize. Regardless, translation and rescription had quickly become her most predominant job.

Truth be told, the first week of this 'administrative assisting' had been absolutely…

Well, she did not like it… This type of 'work'.

It was utterly monotonous… Ironic a complaint, indeed, but it was not what she had been told, thus led to believe, she was going to be doing. Although she could understand logically the value and necessity of these tasks and functions, they lacked the same…somethingness…that she desired deep down within, even if such a desire remained obfuscated.

Yet, even so, after nearly two weeks of repetitive monotony, she was beginning to adjust to the rhythm. It was the plain reality that she was likely to be stuck here for…who knew however long; she had to accept it and adapt accordingly.

Indeed, Captain Albert had already made clear that the Thirteenth's options were limited; whatever was to happen forth, it would require time—military politicking, string pulling, and the like by Faulkner involving those well above. It was highly unlikely that there was going to be a fast or decisive resolution to her…predicament.

Thus, she motioned with not sword in hand but a simple feathered pen; held between fingers strained, the tip did not strike but scribed. Her mask-obscured eyes focused on a small document of letters and words to her left whilst she wrote away upon another to her right. As if her brain had severed its corpus callosum, she was dual focusing at once.

Nilia sighed, leaning back against the chair on which she was seated, needing a moment to ponder…

She was in an office chamber of sorts on the upper floor. A strange space, indeed; the floor was carpeted and decoratives still dotted around, from the hanging paintings and portraits to the potted plants in the corner… Whoever had previously occupied this space did not seem to have packed anything; this could imply an assumption of eventual return, but nobody had returned.

She had discovered this so-called 'office' during her initial task of document-rummaging and had opted to…commandeer it for her own usage. Nobody seemed to have minded, and many already knew where to find her.

The windows located in this room provided an optimal vantage point for monitoring the immediate periphery of this facility's entrance area. As such, whenever in here—which was most of the time—she could keep track of those entering and those leaving. Albeit she could only wonder how many had escaped her sight due to her constant preoccupation…

Indeed, letters, ledgers, words, and endless scribing… Truly, she had read and had written more than she had ever written and had ever read in her entire time of being stranded in this place. On the bright side, at least, her proficiency in reading and writing had increased considerably in these two-ish weeks alone, albeit more so with…Far Western languages.

« Hehm… » Nilia, having had her moment of reflection, returned her gaze to her two papers. « 'Ðür fryondes'… Their friends… Rectë, no. Your friends, 'your' de lù singulare, ita çeù ‹tuos› nec ‹vostros›… Vos e tu, you and you…» Reading aloud, she wrote down her translation.

Nilia had discovered this…random letter of sorts…in the drawer of the very desk she had so commandeered. Having no other tasks needing to be done, she had decided to do an…'exercise' of sorts, translating the letter's Elklander into…not local tongue…but rather her secondary language, Polymathic.

Elklander or more precisely 'Company Elklander' was the standard administrative language of the United Central Trade Company—or at least one of them. Fascinatingly, Elklander was a language similar to Polymathic; it had only taken her a week of continuous reading to become sufficiently proficient. Although it was noticeably weirder and…visibly stranger—especially in both spelling and usage—, the root vocabulary, once parsed, was familiar enough—well, kind of…

It was still a work in progress, truly…

And none of this was to even mention the myriad of so-called 'Neo-Trinitarian' languages that were derivatives of that so-called 'Trinitarian' language. These languages were evidently familial to General Standard—her primary language—and consequently required remarkably little time or effort to grasp—at least chiefly in their written forms.

Frankly, the main issue for her seemed to be the abundance of these so-called 'romantic' tongues… It was as if with every new document, she encountered a new dialect or sub-variety.

Albeit, truth be told, she was already quite accustomed to handling such dialectal variation… Even well before the Remnant became, well, a so-called 'remnant', General Standard itself—ironic to its name—had long been rendered obsolete as the unifying communication language due to natural fragmentation…even in their own records.

« 'Ðür fryondes ðouslygh fiyleþ mey anyme wyþ ðeyr'… Ehm… What? 'Krémi d'æmouri'? Quid significat? » Persisting onwards, she bumped into yet another nonsensical idiom. One feature she had noticed with Elklander writing was the prevalence of loan words and borrowed phrases. « Quidquid síet… Itaque, your friends thus…fill? Fills. Mey… My. And quid est 'anyme'? Any-me… Enemy? No… An-y-me. De ‹animo› derivatù fortasșe? Ita 'psych', 'soul', vel…essence? Sensibiles'st. » She wrote that down. « Fills my essence with the… Ehm… Créma de amore…síc? Seríamente quid nefas significare supposatùr? »

This continued for some time. Another reason she had selected this most certainly private letter to translate was because it was an example of colloquial Elklander, not the professional standard of the Company. Her calculus was that by doing this she would improve her comprehension—by seeing how the colloquial and professional forms contrasted with Polymathic.

Her ultimate determination of this correspondence was that it was some kind of antagonistic response from the sender to a previous antagonistic reply by the receiver; they seemed to have had been some kind of pair bond—mates or reproductive compact or…something like that. There was an abundance of actor nouns referring to 'acts of loving' and…what she assumed were euphemisms for various 'acts of procreating'.

The date of this letter was '15/2/86', which from her understanding…meant the fifteenth day of the second month of year eighty-six—eighty-six referring to the year within the present century of the current millennium, that being seventeen hundred—on the Far Western calendar. The current year, as she now knew, in the Far Western calendar was 'Æ. 1792'. So, whoever to whom this letter belonged had kept it with them for six years.

Nilia was in no position to question motivation, for it was unequivocally denizen; however, they could one day return to retrieve it. Thus, having finished her translation exercise, she returned the letter to its original location of discovery; she ripped up the paper on which she had written her translation, discarding the pieces into a 'disposal box' of sorts.

With nothing more to do, she simply sat there and tapped her fingers on that desk, bored and understimulated… Yet, for whatever reason, her mind lingered on that letter, reflecting…

Hm… She had not heard anything from Novea, she suddenly realized. Such was a good indication, of course, since that meant nothing had happened. However, perhaps a check-in was warranted, although… No, she herself had explicitly stated that communication was to be reserved exclusively for…emergencies. She could predict contacting Novea via her communicator would only encourage Novea to do the same, and she did not want to establish a casual precedent.

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Thus, Nilia continued to sit there, stationary and ummoving in that chair of hers, still bored and still understimulated… Ugh. She could not even do systemic checks on what Bee was up to; she could ask, of course, but she liked the visuals and…highlights and…maps and…diagnostics—all of the additional contexts and information.

Her finger continued tapping the desk; her seated legs began to shake albeit only vaguely… Hm. Her fingernails, she abruptly inspected… They were starting to grow a little; they were not normally supposed to, their growth usually being suppressed by her adaptive augmentations… Though, right, 'adaptive'—and she was adapting.

Hm… Nilia stared at her fingernail, feeling it. Hm…

She sighed.

Check-ins were standard operation procedure, and she had issued Novea that communicator device; an occasional check-in, thus, was the expectation if anything. That Raven could also have potential information, updates, or news that could be relevant.

Thus, without further procrastination or deliberation, she pressed her communicator device, its cyanic light flipping on.

« Bí, connectá me ad Novéam… Vel communicatriçem two. Collaborator check-in. »

Bee beep-booped in acknowledgement, only to then dutifully inform her…

« …underground? »

Well, that complicated things… Not only underground, but under enough that Bee was seemingly unable to immediately bump a buzz to the communicator. Now she had to rethink whether this was worth pursuing any further… Hm…

She sighed again.

« Hard bump, ultra-low frequency. »

And decided to commit.

Bee acknowledged; the cyanic light of her communicator began to blink as if 'ringing', her finger held in place even though she could let go…

She waited.

Usually, a response would be almost immediate—if this were a trooper, at least. No doubt, the sudden 'buzzing' had startled Novea, who was now most likely…searching for it, finicking around with it, and perhaps stumblingly in her attempt to put it on, make it stop, or…maybe find the right button.

Just a little longer now…

Any moment now…

"Dah! Hello? What… Huh??"

There she was.

« Salvé, Novée. Quid status tébi'st? »

"Woah… I am not used to… This's so uncomfortable—But what is it? Are you alright? Why… I am so confused!"

Novea seemed to be aggressively whispering.

« 'Oc modo check-in est. »

"Centralish, please! Anni—Nil—Antica, what the fuck is this? Do you have any idea how you could've made a scene around the others here with that fucking vibration? Scared the shit out of my ass and never mind it could've been so seeable! I am busy!"

…she was with others? Huh… Nilia did not account for that obvious possibility before…buzzing her. No wonder Novea's voice had clear indications of frustration and circumstantial hostility.

"I give…the sorry. I was just curious of…how you are doing? If that is the correct way to phrase. We have not spoken, and thus I wanted to…know."

"…oh…"

The other end went momentarily silent.

"…I mean, uhm… I am…busy, but… I mean, I am alone, or kind of—but, I mean… I had to run off but I couldn't leave her, uhm, but… She won't, she doesn't… *ahem* And, but, I mean…if you wanna talk, we can…*ahem* But, uh… I thought, you know… Uhm… Wasn't this only supposed to be for emergencies?"

Well, Novea seemed in spirit at least. That was quite the verbal fumble.

"…yes. That is so. But this is a…check…on you—what has been happening and what is your…standing."

"Oh… Rightly. Well… I've been fine, just really…busy and occupied. I can't tell you the details; it is a sensitive matter, and we are keeping it, uhm, sensitive…"

"You are underground…"

"Huh?! Wait, how…? How do you know… Wait, oh, of course! This very stupid thing! And here I thought we were good… You aren't spying on me, rightly??"

"No, I have not been. It is obvious from the…connection."

Indeed, Bee's own informing aside, the quality of the communication certainly seemed as though it was coming from a transmission that was brute tunneling through too many layers of earth. Although, Remnant ultra-low frequency were deeply penetrative, and almost all of their communication instruments were capable of receiving and sending such 'bumps' cleanly. The quality of this reception, however, was…perhaps too weird for what it ought to be.

"Huh… Wait, so, this thing… Is that how this works? There is…an actual physical connection that…can be interfered with by… Hm…"

Novea, meanwhile, seemed to be realizing. Right… These primitives were ignorant to the existence of electromagnetic waves.

There was an abrupt ahem.

"Anyway, fine, yeah… I've been underground, I guess. There are ancient ruins under this city that we've been investigating. Things are a little…very complicated and messy, and, again, I don't have permissions to tell anyone about it."

"Well, your standing seems to be fine; that is what I wanted to confirm. Thus, I will not distract any furth—"

"W-w-wait, wait… Hold on… Uhm… Now that…we are talking, you know, uhm… I guess, actually, there… There is something I feel I should mention, since… Uhm… But, oh goodness, I am not… Uhm…"

Novea proceeded to go through several sets of 'uhms'.

"You were interested in the…missing receptionists, rightly? Because of what you discovered in Coastfield…"

"I suppose that is so… Why? Do you know something?"

Nilia's voice heightened in a way.

"Did you discover something?"

"Yep… Still interested."

There was a breath, followed by a pause.

"Alrightly, fine… I'll tell."

Novea's voice was noticeably lower.

"We found thirty bodies down here. They were…collected and their amulets were confirmed to be of the Huckleberry branch. They were the missing receptionists the Security Office was investigating."

Nilia took a moment.

"Thus… They were found—or, you said…bodies. Thus, dead…"

"Yeah. And… I… I won't…describe…what exactly…the condition of the bodies were, because…I honestly might just…puke. It was disgusting, and the current consensus is…kidnapping, violation, and murder by a fetishist."

"…a fetishist?"

"Someone who really *loves* receptionists, to define it mildly. And we don't think it was someone ordinary—at all…"

"I see…"

Nilia took another moment.

"And so, to ask, does it seem that there is a connection—"

"No. It's been deemed unlikely that…this was connected to anything coordinated. Just an isolated serial fetishist murder, and nothing more… Sorry to say."

Ah… Thus, the cases here—the missing receptionists of Huckleberry—would not reveal anything regarding what happened to those receptionists in Coastfield and purportedly other Guild branches. Such made her feel…strange, frankly… Displeasured, as if.

"Thus, I may take it also then that you do not know who…is responsible?"

"Not…exactly, but we know he's down here somewhere… He's been leaving hints and signs, but he keeps evading us… Ugh, this whole place is just so big; we're essentially investigating two things at once, and the Grandberriens are being such…"

Novea stopped herself.

"Again, it's complicated and messy, and Guild policy means I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"Then, I suppose that you are talking too much?"

Not that Nilia could complain, of course.

"Yeah… I guess. But…"

There was a momentary pause as if a drift in thoughts.

"I don't know; there's just something really…really weird about this place; I can't define it… But our, uhm… Informant? Yeah, I suppose that's what she is, but she keeps speaking of a confusing rot smell, and…I think I'm starting to feel it."

"A…'rot smell'?"

"Yeah, a rotten smell—or, it's not a real 'smell'… In her tongue, smell and scents are used as…a metaphor or analogy for magical, spiritual, or mana-related senses. And she has…a special sense, so we can trust her insights."

"Thus, a…'magical' or 'spiritual' sense of a 'rot'?"

Nilia…did not like the sound of that.

"I need to see the bodies."

She did not mean to blurt that.

"Uhm… Absolutely not? Nil, we are… This is not your… Look, it's—I only told you this because you were interested. Don't…start asking too many questions or…try to get too involved, alrightly?"

There was a long pause.

"Look, I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but… Please, don't make me feel it was a mistake to tell you these things. I understand you are really…curious, but—and I've said this plenty already, rightly—but—"

Nilia exhaled an accepting breath.

"You do not need to. I understand. I will not…push more than permissible. There is limit to what you can say."

"Yeah, and I'm really pushing that limit… And don't use your talky-thing either to…you know…get around this. I have been keeping it on me, but I still don't know what you are able to do with this thing, and I'm still not really used to talking like this; it's really weird…and feels way too easy to speak since you aren't…actually here."

"As I said, my intentions are not to spy, but to stay informed…"

Nilia went quiet for a moment, contemplating…

"Well, I give thanks for telling me what you could when you were not…obligated, Nine."

"Oh, rightly… Yeah, I did do that… But sounds like you're…framing a goodbye…"

Novea's voice seemed a little saddened.

"Not precisely. I know that I said that this…type of talking is supposed to be for the emergencies only, however it is fine to do these…occasional talks—so that we know each other are fine."

"Oh, really? Uhm… Sure, that sounds…nice, but… Uhm… Actually, it's maybe better if you don't surprise me like this…again… There are too many moments where…these sudden vibrations could be…very bad—for your secrecy."

"It is noted. I will not initiate again, then."

"N-no, no, wait, wait! You…can, I mean, if you want to, you can…talk with me… I like it—I really do, you know, so…"

"…I do not understand what it is that you request."

"I like the idea, it's just… Hm…"

Novea took a moment.

"Can I…do the…initiating? Only I would know when…the situation is appropriate for me, after all, so…"

Nilia sighed… She was intending to avoid that, frankly; she did not want Novea to start slowly abusing this allowance. However… She did want to do periodic check-ins with her; it was protocol.

"Fine. I allow it. But do not make a habit, otherwise it will become difficult for me to know if you are initiating because of an emergency or…simple boredom."

"…yeah, that… That makes sense! I… I won't…do it regularly, don't worry! It'll be…infrequent, then.."

There was an audible ahem.

"Anyway, well… I should probably return now, so… Uhm…"

There were touchy noises of struggle.

"How do I…"

"Press the—"

The audio terminated. Novea had refigured it out.

Sitting in this sudden silence with no voice to be heard in her ear, Nilia exhaled; her finger dropped down from her device as it began to once more tap the desk, her mind lingering…

"The 'rot smell' from a 'magical' sense…" She…really did not like the sound of that; the things such could imply… There was an almost ugh. « Damnațion nobés, jo de deviçe terminalid abbisonjo… » Truly, out of all the times to be without her terminal device…

Hm… She could, via Bee, remotely tap into Novea's communicator to do an environment assessment-scan… Although, the abrupt modulations in the device would certainly be noticed by Novea, and… Indeed, it would likely be seen as a breach of trust. She did not want Novea to become uncomfortable with or distrusting of the allocated communicator such that she refrained from using it, or worse: stopped keeping it on her at all times.

Nilia sighed… « Quidquid oi significet, éd potsont gérere…likely. » Whatever it was, Novea and her whoever others could handle it; she was perhaps…over-analyzing things. For now, « I should prioritize my immediate priorities. » She abruptly paused… « Mané, quid? I must prioritize my priorities…? » She nearly tsked. Why did that sound so weirdly phrased? The verbal form of the same abstract noun being used together…

Truly, all of the translation work had contaminated her.