Fighting a many-headed beast in the style of Albrecht Dürer, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Chapter 18: Come together

  Special Circumstances headquarters, Mikla metropolitan area, Confluence dimension

  Year 42 of the Confluence Republic (local time)

  Olz Hap: Welcome. We have invited you here to the headquarters of the Special Circumstances section in order to deal with circumstances that are indeed beyond the ordinary. Let me sum up the situation for you. Charlotte, Watson, and their assistant Sherlock –

  Sherlock: (exudes pride and happiness).

  Olz Hap: … investigated a disappearance and discovered that the Protector Elder known as Soth had stolen the person’s body. This was excellent work. We have subsequently learnt that Soth is hiding out in Thesaurus, using a special form of dimensional magic that transports the caster’s body to the target dimension and creates a safe environment for it. Yes, Sophie?

  Sophie Strange: Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. Is it ok to take questions along the way?

  Olz Hap: Go ahead.

  Sophie Strange: Ok. Um, how well do we understand Soth’s magic? Dimensional shifts that include the body seem to open up some new possibilities.

  Olz Hap: We have dimensional specialists working on it. If you wish, we will organize a briefing for you after this talk.

  Sophie Strange: I’d love that.

  Olz Hap: Meanwhile, Sophie was exploring a nameless dimension that is usually referred to as the shadow dimension with her group, which was known to be one of the most experienced dimensional explorer teams in the Confluence. Unlike every other dimension we have explored, this shadow dimension contains signs of a civilization. No life has been detected, but this dimension appears to be haunted by magical constructs taking the form of shadows which, as far as we can ascertain, are sucking magical energy out of this dimension. Tragically, the shadows attacked the explorer team and only Sophie was able to escape with her life

  Sophie Strange: (experiences a complex range of emotions that the Transmission field shares only in a highly abstract and generalized form). The others helped me. I still wonder if I might have been able to save everybody, but I panicked.

  Olz Hap: We can understand that you have these thoughts and emotions, Sophie, but nobody would ever blame you for this.

  Sophie Strange: (complex emotions).

  Olz Hap: But it’s normal to blame oneself for things that go wrong. Especially when it has horrible consequences.

  Yutten Turse: We don’t want to interfere with your grief, Sophie. But we understood that you wanted to be here. If you wish, when you are ready, maybe you could say something about what your friends did to help you escape with what you had learnt.

  Sophie Strange: (long pause). It was Bilk. He’s our – I mean, he was – STEM specialist. He used all his energy to make a great flash of light.

  Yutten Turse: Attacking shadows with light. It may seem obvious in retrospect, but your team was not briefed on this. Bilk did not know that he would be facing shadows. He just realized there and then that this might be a way to fight those things.

  Olz Hap: And now, thanks to his insight and his sacrifice, we know. If we ever go back there, we will come prepared.

  Sophie Strange: Yes. Another thing is that our obfuscation seemed to work well as long as Crage, our specialist, was running it. But when I started my dimensional magic with just a basic obfuscation cover, the shadows were on us in an instant. The people at the headquarters measured the time it took based on my Recalled memory, and it seemed that less than a tenth of a second passed from when I started my dimensional flow to the point when the shadows were all over us.

  Olz Hap: Strong obfuscation and strong conjuration seem to be the order of the day.

  Yutten Turse: And strong dimensional magic, of course. Anyway, the latest development with regard to this dimension was pure genius on your part, Sophie.

  Sophie Strange: More like a lucky shot. I had been trying to locate places I’d seen in, well, the Chamber of Memories actually. Anyway, it came to me that I might do the same thing with the district I had seen in the shadow dimension. Turns out it resembles a city in Erd.

  Bob Rife: What?! Oh, um, sorry. Go on.

  Sophie Strange: A place called Kuala Lumpur, apparently. And recent, something like the last few Erd years, possibly at the very tip of the simulation wave.

  Bob Rife: That’s incredible. What does it mean?

  Olz Hap: We think it probably means that the shadow dimension is a reflection of Erd. The simulation being reflected in the Real. It may be Erd emerging as a magical dimension.

  Salome Einstein: Except it’s being held back. Sucked dry.

  Bob Rife: That’s, uh, I’ve never heard of such a thing before. How is that possible?

  Olz Hap: It’s new to all of us, Bob. And maybe it’s wrong. We don’t know, actually, but this is what came to us.

  Bob Rife: So, assuming you are right, if this Erd reflection is being attacked, maybe that explains why the Erd simulation is going through such a difficult time. Something very strange is happening to it.

  Salome Einstein: Several very strange things, actually.

  Bob Rife: Yes. Maybe it’s best you explain it.

  Salome Einstein: One thing is that there is a political shift, a surge in authoritarianism. A second thing is – well, this may come as a shock to some of you. Actually, if we tell you this, you probably no longer have a way out. If you would like to return to your ordinary lives, this may be your last chance. So, what say you?

  Charlotte Ritter: I’m in.

  Watson Doyle: Me too.

  Sherlock: (exudes enthusiasm).

  Sophie Strange: Yeah.

  Bob Rife: Yes.

  Salome Einstein: Ok, happy to have you on the team. Maybe you have been wondering why we are talking to you about these, well, very special circumstances, instead of some elite special forces people or whatever. There’s a reason for that – well, there are several reasons, but one of them is the kind of thing that seems to leave us with no choice. The Erd author has started writing a new Confluence book, and you’re all in it. Main characters, it would appear.

  Watson Doyle: (exudes confusion). What do you mean?

  Olz Hap: You know how the last book was about the three of us, and the High Renegade and lots of other stuff, but anyway, the three of us in the days leading up to the Revolution? This book is about you. Or seems to be, anyway, we just have the first few chapters for now.

  Charlotte Ritter: He is writing the book as we speak?

  Olz Hap: Yes. It’s a whole new situation.

  Charlotte Ritter: But how does he know about us?

  Olz Hap: We don’t know, but our understanding is that the author is probably being guided by the High Renegade. Like with his previous book.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Yutten Turse: To be honest, we suspect that he is watching us at this very moment. Despite all our protections and precautions. We suspect this conversation will be in the book.

  Salome Einstein: We realize this must be hard to swallow for you. For now, we are keeping the book confidential, but it’s not going to stay like that, obviously.

  Olz Hap: Everybody will read your story. You will be superstars.

  Sophie Strange: (laughs unrestrainedly). Sorry. This feels, I dunno. I always wanted that, you know. Secretly I wanted to be famous, be a hero. But now I’m not so sure.

  Olz Hap: It has its ups and downs. I wish you had a choice in the matter, but I’m not sure that you do.

  Yutten Turse: You could try to run from it, hide and hope it goes away, but maybe then the story will be about someone trying to run and hide from their destiny.

  Sophie Strange: I won’t run. I said I would do this and I will. Anyway, I owe it to my friends.

  Watson Doyle: I’m not running either. But let me see if I understand this. Because we are in the Erd book, you are inviting us to be your Special Circumstances team? You are letting the book guide you?

  Salome Einstein: Basically, yes. We decided this is the best way to move forward, the situation being so unusual and unprecedented. The fact that you are in the opening chapters of the book arguably implies that you are the protagonists of this story, so we decided to go with that. Do you think that was a weird decision?

  Charlotte Ritter: I’m happy I don’t have to take responsibility for the decision, but if you think this is our destiny I’m just going to go with it. Can we read the book?

  Salome Einstein: Yes. Just remember you can’t share anything with anyone outside of this room. As you will discover, the last chapter is about Soth, and everything we know about his whereabouts is from this chapter. It would be great if he didn’t know that we know.

  ---

  They all read the chapters that the Erd author had written so far, marveling at how this sim person had gained access to thoughts and feelings they had believed to be private. None of them found anything inaccurate or untrue in the text. Afterwards they talked for some time about what this was all about, where it might be going, what the interludes seemed to say, and about Soth.

  After a while, Olz invited them over to Expedition headquarters to get a briefing on what was understood about Soth’s full-body dimensional magic. Dimensional magic was restricted, but Olz told them they would get full access to everything they wanted to learn. Of course, only Sophie had the background to understand how Soth’s magic might work.

  The dimensional specialists at the Expedition headquarters had gotten surprisingly far in the task of unraveling Soth’s magic. The description in the Erd book did not specify any of its dynamics, but they had studied the residues from Soth’s entry to and exit from Twin Peaks, and they had identified the anchor to the Soth pocket in Thesaurus and – so far only indirectly – observed some of its inner workings. They were not at the point where they could replicate what Soth was doing, but they imagined they would get there within a few weeks.

  Understanding little of Soth’s advanced dimensional magics, Charlotte, Watson, and Bob instead spent their time trying to grasp the basics of dimensional magic as people in the Confluence practiced it. Even the basics were quite complex, and none of them imagined they would ever understand enough of it to be able to use it – being highly dangerous, dimensional magic is the sort of magic one normally does not put into practice until one’s grasp of it is on a fairly high level.

  ---

  Later they reconvened at the SC headquarters.

  Olz Hap: Well, you now know as much as we do about what is going on. We declare you agents of the SC section – but please don’t tell anyone – and we have given you access codes to everything you might want. This includes dimensional magics, the Erd sim, any restricted magics you might find useful. Your task is basically to figure out what to do next.

  Salome Einstein: To us, it seems that Soth is probably the weakest link, but it’s up to you to decide how you want to proceed. We are here to advise you when needed, but we don’t want to tell you what to do. Actually, we are hoping you will surprise us by doing something we would never have thought of.

  Yutten Turse: One thing that seems useful is that you all know about each other’s capabilities. So, let me just walk you through this. All of you have mastered the basics of each field of magic, so that’s great, but you also have various specializations. To get anywhere, you probably need to draw upon one another’s specialized capabilities. As you know, Charlotte and Watson are investigators with strong Divination capabilities. Watson has also worked with Transmission magics and is a specialist in communicating with animals – specifically his investigator companion Sherlock.

  Sherlock: (exudes pride and happiness).

  Yutten Turse: Furthermore, Watson has specialized in loop magic, which is a metamagic tool that came in very handy in the Soth investigation. You already read about this, of course. Our impression is that Soth is unfamiliar with loop magic, so by having Watson on your team you have a clear advantage in this regard. Loop magic consumes a lot of energy, so we have given you access to the SC energy hoard.

  Olz Hap: Feel free to use what you need, but there’s not enough energy there for large-scale projects like, you know, the cancellation spear in the Great Battle. Use it for your looping projects and other stuff you need to do, but maybe consult with us before depleting the hoard.

  Yutten Turse: Charlotte for her part has several specializations including obfuscation and obfuscation detection, trace magic, cancellation, and the metamagic tool called altering. Not all of you may be familiar with altering, so maybe you could explain how it works, Charlotte.

  Charlotte Ritter: Sure. I’m not that good at it actually, although I’ve been playing around with it for a few years. Altering is a sort of offshoot from cancellation, but it limits the cancellation to certain specific strands of the target magic. Furthermore, it replaces those strands with a flow specified by the caster. I’ve always thought of it as a neat little tool, but to tell the truth I’ve never found it very useful.

  Salome Einstein: Maybe you will. We find ourselves in some very special circumstances.

  Yutten Turse: Yes. We need to keep our options open. Now Bob, as you know, is the Erd simulation supervisor.

  Bob Rife: Currently off duty; I’ve appointed a deputy.

  Yutten Turse: That’s probably wise. Anyway, according to our file on you, before the Revolution you were actually a Conjurer.

  Bob Rife: Correct. I developed an interest in Divination and specifically simulation magics when the fields opened up after the Revolution. I guess creating a simulation is a bit like conjuring up energy and matter from nothing.

  Yutten Turse: Huh. I never thought of it like that, but I suppose it makes sense. Anyway, your background as a Conjurer might come in handy if you decide to visit the shadow dimension – or should we call it the Erd dimension – since light creation seems instrumental to keeping the shadows at bay.

  Olz Hap: You should probably leave the obfuscation to Charlotte, though. And the dimensional magic to Sophie. Maybe Watson could take responsibility for the Transmission field. You’re a good explorer team, actually.

  Salome Einstein: Interesting coincidence, isn’t it?

  Yutten Turse: We’ll see where it goes. So, Sophie, you are the group’s dimensional specialist, but you can also do some other things. You used to be the Transmission person in your old explorer group, didn’t you?

  Sophie Strange: Yes. But instead of focusing on that, I should have just kept the dimension flow raised, so that all I had to do was to activate it. We never thought that would be an issue, because I can usually complete a dimension flow in less than a second. But the shadows were faster than that.

  Olz Hap: I suppose it makes sense that shadows move at the speed of light. I’m sorry we had to learn about this at such a high cost, but at least we have learned. Should the group visit the Erd dimension, your primary task is to keep the retreat open at all times.

  Sophie Strange: Hope I don’t panic or lose focus. Actually, if some of you learn dimensional magic – it probably won’t be enough to get you out, but if I raise the flow in collaboration with you, maybe you could maintain and trigger it even if I collapse.

  Yutten Turse: That sounds like a good way of doing it. Gives you redundancy. If all of you know how to trigger it, the last person standing can bring you all back home. But, Sophie, you have also developed a capability in life force magic.

  Sophie Strange: Yes. I just use it to visit the Citadel.

  Yutten Turse: Dimensional magic and life force magic is an interesting combination, since they are widely believed to be incompatible.

  Sophie Strange: That’s true. You cannot life force project while you are dimensionally shifted, and you cannot do a dimensional shift while you are projecting your life force. Back in the early days of the Republic, some people tried it and got themselves killed.

  Salome Einstein: Is a combination of projection and conveyance magic dangerous too?

  Sophie Strange: No, you can project and then use conveyance to move your body to a different location, if you want to.

  Salome Einstein: I’m just thinking out loud here, and please don’t experiment until you know it is safe, but Soth’s dimensional magic incorporates a lot of conveyance, as far as I understand. So maybe the compatibility issues are different.

  Sophie Strange: That’s an interesting perspective. I will do my best to master Soth’s magic and then keep my options open. But I don’t see any reason here and now why it might be useful to combine the two.

  Salome Einstein: Me neither. Just keep thinking outside the box.

  Olz Hap: Ok, great. I suppose that sums up the briefing. Any questions before we send you off on your mission?

  Watson Doyle: Should we keep up appearances at work and so forth? Otherwise, people will know that something unusual is going on.

  Olz Hap: Don’t worry about that. We’ve told your boss that you have been summoned to assist with the Soth investigation. He doesn’t know or need to know that you are SC operatives actively working the case. Also, we sent him a few replacements fresh out of investigator school.

  Charlotte Ritter: Nothing ever happens in Twin Peaks, anyway.

  Salome Einstein: And stay in touch with your global groups, but please don’t share too much about your new work assignment.

  Watson Doyle: Right.

  Olz Hap: Ok, great. Any other questions? (Pause). You are free to approach this mission from any direction you want to. If you plan on doing something drastic, though, like making an advance on Soth, visiting the Erd dimension or stuff like that, please consider talking with us first. And get in touch any time you want to.

  Salome Einstein: For security purposes, it may be best if you use this room for meetings and discussions. At least be careful about what you talk about when you are not in a government facility. It would be a shame if Soth were able to spy on you.

  Bob Rife: We sleep in our own homes?

  Olz Hap: There is no reason to believe that anyone suspects anything at this point in time, but you might be safer taking up residence here in the headquarters. Facilities are limited, though. I think we’ll leave it up to you.

  Yutten Turse: This reception hall is yours for the duration of the mission. I think us three board members should now withdraw to our meeting room and leave you to discuss things among yourselves.

  Olz Hap: Right. We’ll be just next door if you need us. You have our blessings.

  Salome Einstein: And at other times we are just a message away, day or night. Good luck!

  Fighting a many-headed beast in the style of Lucas Cranach the Elder, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.