‘Alone again…’

‘Not true, Recollection. He has us.’

‘I’m not sure he considers us enough to constitute company.’

‘His loss. We got plenty to say, ain’t we? Can be plenty company if he just gives us a chance…’

Sham could do little to quieten the voices in his mind as he ambled along the streets back into the centre of town. With Riot’s turn on him weighing on his mind, his soul was weak, his efforts diminished. And the skills were running rampant as a result.

He found his feet moving beneath him, found himself headed in a direction that his subconscious had only just seen fit to express. Sham travelled with a cloud hanging over his head as he made for Crater—and the church of the Loopkeepers.

Ariel was sitting by the church’s typical raging fire as Sham arrived, and looked up to meet his gaze with a kindness in her eyes. She beckoned him closer, and as Sham reached her side, another member of the woman’s flock hurried over to whisper in her ear.

‘It matters not,’ the woman said. ‘The Loop will turn on.’ With that, the green-robed member of the church seemed satisfied, gave his leader a nod, and then hurried off into one of the ground’s makeshift huts.

‘Sham,’ Ariel said. ‘I did wonder why you might join us.’

‘Yeah, I…’ Sham started, but then trailed off. If he knew the end of that sentence, he didn’t want to express it.

Ariel leant in towards him. ‘What is it, Sham? This is a safe place, here, to be vulnerable. We are all vulnerable to the whims of the Loop, after all.’

Sham shook his head. How could he say that he’d come here because he had nobody else? There was nobody else who knew the Loop like he did. Like Riot did, or Kryl did. Nobody else that he could turn to and present with his…

‘...loneliness,’ Recollection finished for him.

‘Ha!’ Vigour barked.

‘It is OK if you do not answer. We have time. We have nothing if not…’ Ariel trailed off when the Loopkeeper from moments earlier returned to Ariel’s side, his eyes wide with alarm just as they had been before.

‘Ariel,’ he said. ‘It’s…’

But the church leader had already stood up. ‘I will see to it. Keep our new friend company, here, will you?’ She gestured to Sham, who was taking the opportunity to sit on one of the large logs positioned around the fire. Despite the flames, the log was damp, cool.

‘Yes, Ariel,’ the Loopkeeper responded.

The two men watched as Ariel hurried off, and then the stranger sat at Sham’s side by the fire.

‘I remember your face,’ the man said. ‘You have visited with us before, yes?’

Sham nodded. ‘Yeah. Kind of. I don’t know that—’

‘But you are not a believer?’

Sham shook his head. ‘I… No. No, I don’t think so. I don’t know quite what I believe, but I ain’t ever turned to religion for answers before.’

‘We’re not just a…’ the man started, but then he sighed; he sensed that this would be a futile line of argument.

The two men stared into the fire for a few moments longer, with Sham finding that a part of him was drawn to it. The flickering flames made his heart beat faster, his vision grow tinged with red.

‘Doomed to fail, I do believe,’ the man at his side suddenly said.

‘I’m sorry?’ Sham asked. ‘What d’you mean it’s—’

‘You seek to break the Loop, yes?’

Sham nodded. ‘Well, yeah. Not like I wanna be stuck in here forever, is it?’

The Loopkeeper grimaced, but let the rhetorical question slide. ‘And just how far has it got you? Have you done anything but cause pain? Onto yourself? Onto others?’

A vision of Riot’s tear-stained cheek echoed through Sham’s mind’s eye. And reversed, flowing upwards back into her tear duct. And then down again. And again. And again. Sham could feel Recollection’s amusement. ‘Doesn’t mean it’s not breakable,’ he said, and then added, quietly, ‘Does it?’

The church member put his hand on Sham’s shoulder, looked into his eyes with apparent pity. ‘It is not as the Architects will it, Sham,’ he said.

‘As I say… I’ve never been much of a worshipper.’

‘Give it a try,’ the Loopkeeper said. ‘Join us. Maybe Hera will bless you, if you give Her the chance.’

Sham gulped, and found that he had nothing. Nothing to say, nothing with which to argue this point. Maybe it really was hopeless. Maybe everything he’d done had been pointless. Maybe—’

‘“Doomed to fail” was the phrasing, I do believe,’ Recollection interjected.

‘Yeah, thank you,’ Sham replied, and then upon seeing an amused expression on the Loopkeeper’s face, began to add, ‘Just Reco—’

‘I know, Sham,’ the church member said. ‘We all hear them.’ He waved Sham towards the largest building in the church compound. ‘Come. The service is about to begin.’

Without another word spared, Sham followed the Loopkeeper into the makeshift church.

The service had been hosted again by Ariel, and Sham was beginning to believe she took the time to lead her church every day, without fail. She spoke from the podium, providing familiar thoughts about the blessings of the Loop, of the family and kinship that existed amongst the Loopkeepers. And she spoke, this time, of the miracle of birth; and how, in the infinite Loop, this gift had been withdrawn from humanity by the gods. Those who were not pregnant would never be, and those who carried child during the Loop would never see it born. This—and by extension the Loop itself—was a price they paid, Ariel suggested, for some unknown sin.

At the end of the service, Ariel welcomed a new member of the flock, and Sham was surprised to discover that the church leader was referring to him. She summoned him to the front of the church, at her side, where she handed over a set of neatly folded green robes. He’d expected more ceremony than he received, with the church leader saying only, ‘Welcome, my brother. You will always have a home with your family of fate.’

With that, the service had apparently ended, and the flock rose from their seats almost in unison, ambling on out of the makeshift church and into the courtyard around their typical blazing fire.

Sham, still dazed, followed the crowd outside, and found himself alongside a woman about his age who looked him up and down with a lingering gaze. Feeling suddenly nervous, Sham looked down at the pile of fabrics in his hands.

‘The robes,’ he asked his new “sister”, ‘Where do they come from? They’re not by design, surely. Nobody saw the Loop… nobody saw it coming?’

The church member smiled, shook her head. ‘No, brother. Just a fortunate twist of fate. These are old ceremonial wear, back from the times of the monarchy. Left to rot here, in Crater. Perhaps even left here by the will of the Gods.’

‘Right,’ Sham started.

But before he could ask a follow up question, the woman mumbled, ‘Nobody called them the greencloths,’ shot Sham one last sincere smile, and then glided away.

Sham felt suddenly ridiculous, standing amongst a crowd of strangers who called him brother, the only one holding the green robe that the others wore. And with no idea what to do next. He approached a church member at random—an older woman with one eye faded to white—and asked, ‘What… What should I do?’

The woman studied him curiously, an eyebrow arching over her blinded eye. ‘Well, whatever you wish to, my dear. We are a flock, not a prison. There’s only one rule: do not try to break the Loop.’

‘What,’ Sham heard himself begin, the sarcasm already thick in his tone. ‘Is Ariel gonna stop me?’

‘Of course not, my dear,’ the Loopkeeper replied. ‘It is the Legion that will do that.’

‘Right,’ Sham said. ‘I see.’

[SEASONED] CHURCH AND STATE: SUCCESS

No. Hold on. Something doesn’t add up here. Something really doesn’t add up here.

Just as the woman was turning away, Sham grabbed her. ‘Wait,’ he said, and then paused as the thought took time to fully form. The woman continued to study him curiously, seeming somewhat entertained by the antics of her new “brother”.

‘What do you mean?’ Sham said.

‘I mean,’ the Loopkeeper replied, ‘If you break our sacred law, then the Legion will come after you. And you don’t want that, believe me. You don’t want—’

‘But… why? Why does your one rule align with what the Legion want? Did Ariel make the rule because the Legion made her? Or are the Legion arresting people who break Ariel’s—’

‘I don’t know that such talk is reasonable for so new a Keeper,’ the woman snapped, her voice suddenly shrill. ‘It is the former, of course. Of course it is the former. Ariel doesn’t want her flock getting—’

‘But she alluded, just then, in that sermon, to the Loop being a matter of divine will! So which is it? Both?’

The Loopkeeper shrugged. ‘Such coincidences are typical of the Loop.’

‘No, that’s not… That’s not good enough an answer. That’s—’

‘What are you saying, brother? That Ariel is complicit?’

Sham pressed his eyes closed, rubbed his hands over his face. ‘I’m… No, not that. She’s not… I don’t know! I can’t put all the pieces together. I can’t. But this just doesn’t add up, does it?’

Once again, the Loopkeeper shrugged, and then turned away.

QUEST: ARIEL’S FLOCK

Discover the truth of the Loopkeeper's sacred oath.

Sham was struggling with all the moving pieces in the Loop. He could see connections between them: Ariel and the Legion both wanting the Loop to preserve, the PM’s involvement with the missing bodies, Asa providing the vials to the Target on behalf of mysterious benefactors. But how did they fit together? His mind couldn’t handle it, couldn’t make the pieces fit.

QUEST LIST

THE PARADOX

Investigate those involved with the Night That Never Was.

SAVE THE TOWER

Prevent the Target from unleashing devastation.

LIFE IN THE REVOLUTION

Pick a side in the coming storm.

INVESTIGATE THE BODIES

Your own folk targeted. The best of them, slain. It must be stopped.

ARIEL’S FLOCK

Discover the truth of the Loopkeeper's sacred oath.

Sham sighed, opened his eyes once more and blinked the world back into existence. He’d get there. Maybe when the last of the hangover disappeared, he’d get there. He’d complete these quests and he’d get the experience points, and he’d level up.

‘What good is doing it that way when you can just go get a vial?’ Vigour asked. ‘Proper skills. Legendary grade. True, raging strength.’

Sham tried to ignore the voice, shaking his head to cast it out of his mind, but it had a point. The temptation was there: take the easy way. Get strong quickly. Put an end to the Loop sooner rather than later. Even if it did mean more voices echoing around his brain. Even if it meant—

The sound of a familiar voice wrenched Sham from his current snowballing and destructive line of reasoning. His head spun to the source of the noise, and he saw its source—Kryl—arguing at the edge of the compound with none other than the church’s leader.

Sham couldn’t quite make out the words, not at this distance, instead only catching fragments. ‘...break it, or… …never shall it… …you know my feelings…’

Before he knew it, Sham was creeping closer. He stuck to the shadows cast by the low winter sun, remaining in the crevices of the tents and the huts, being sure to keep still during the rare moments that Ariel or Riot’s brother cast a glance in his direction. He could hear more and more the further he travelled, catching shouted whispers of, ‘...Can’t stop me. You do know you can’t stop me,’ from Kryl, and, ‘It won’t be me who does, brother. You know it won’t be me that does,’ from Ariel. The pair stared—or perhaps glowered was a more appropriate descriptor—for a few moments before Ariel finally broke that silence. ‘That is it, then?’ she asked. ‘We cannot…’

Kryl shook his head. ‘No. Not while you cling to this tenet.’

Ariel stepped closer, touched Kryl gently by the wrist. ‘We could have…’

Riot’s brother pulled away. ‘Don’t,’ he said, and then added, ‘Please.’ He turned away with that, and began to stride purposefully away.

Sham watched as Ariel choked back her feelings, taking care to keep her face held firm, her emotions hidden from the rest of her flock. She turned back to the compound… and her eyes fixed firmly on Sham, watching from the shadows. Her face turned glum.

Sham stepped out into the light, there being no reason left for him to remain hidden, with Ariel having spotted him and Kryl having long since disappeared from sight. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t meant to eavesdrop.’

Ariel held up her palm to him, as if in blessing. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘It is our natural function to be curious. I do not hold umbrage, as a rule.’

Sham nodded, not quite sure how to respond to such a forgiving temperament. He shook it off, instead turning to the question that had been recently plaguing him; the matter of Ariel and her golden rule. ‘I wanted to ask you—’ he started, but was cut off by an irritated scoff from the church leader.

‘I cannot even stand by my own values,’ she griped. ‘Not when that man is around.’

‘Kryl?’

Ariel’s gaze hardened. ‘So you did find him, in the end.’

‘Unfortunately,’ he replied, hoping such a response would be received in the good nature he’d intended it. ‘Yeah.’

The church leader smiled sadly. ‘That is a man who has no trouble keeping to his own beliefs, be he around me or not. He does what he does, does what he believes he needs to do, no matter how mad such actions may seem.’

‘Breaking the Loop, you mean?’ Sham asked. ‘You gotta know by now that I’m trying to do the same thing. I know you don’t like that, but…’

Ariel waved her hand in the air. ‘Yes and no. His breaking of his once-church’s core tenet is perhaps forgivable—though do not repeat that to my siblings, I beg you. It is the price he is willing to pay to achieve such a thing.’

Though Sham suspected Ariel was speaking of a very different price, he couldn’t help but replay in his mind the events of the end of the last Loop.

MEMORY UNLOCKED (RECOLLECTION)

‘No! Kryl, no!’ you cry. ‘She’s dead. Riot’s dead.’ But her brother pays no notice. Locking in his own sister’s death is a price he’ll happily pay to end this recurring madness. He pulls the trigger.

‘Yes,’ Sham mumbled. ‘I suppose he…’

But instead of finishing that sentence, he turned on his heel and began to run—in the direction that Kryl had disappeared through the church’s huts.