The more he cross-referenced, the more discrepancies he noticed between the handwriting in this journal and the other material on the writing desk. Not only was it noticeably different, much of what was on the table seemed to have been written by someone entirely different who had also worked to translate the journal, in many cases doubting the veracity of the claims.

Makhus sat for a moment, contemplating whether he should dive deeper or try asking the jar-homunculus. "It couldn’t hurt,” he supposed. He took a large piece of paper, and wrote his question on it in large letters that he thought the creature could read even through the mire of its jar.

DID THIS JOURNAL

BELONG TO THE

OWNER OF THIS LAB

He held it up to the glass alongside the old journal, hoping and praying that the homunculus would respond. Its vacant gaze remained affixed to his face, but after a few seconds the spark of sentience returned to its form for long enough to shake its head and write a response on the inside of the jar.

NO

A breathing motion to erase the word, and it continued writing.

NOT

SURE

WHO

Another breath. Another message.

USE IT

OR

BURN IT

This time, it faded out without even erasing its writing. The creature was a marvel of alchemy, a cross-section of the consciousness of whoever it was based on, preserved in synthetic meat that would outlast any natural-born human. A living time capsule, but with a clear flaw.

Even a homunculus as immaculately crafted as this could only maintain consciousness for short periods, after which it would lapse back into its state of mindless slumber. Makhus knew it would be a bad idea to ask it more questions than was absolutely necessary, as every period of activity was said to reduce such a creature’s lifespan significantly, for it could neither feed nor heal. It could only be sustained by the preservative solution it was sealed in.

He sat back down at the desk, and this time decided to look through the other notes, the other journals. These were written in everything from plain text, to the very same substitution cipher as the old journal, to unencoded old Ikesian, with seemingly no correlation between the importance of the writing and how heavily obfuscated its meaning was.

Some of the notes were simple scraps of paper with reminders on them, while others were entire self-contained theories that covered both sides of the paper they were written on. He even found a substantial wad of loose notes that had been bound together with twine into a makeshift, vaguely book-shaped collection.

This… Was a deeper rabbithole than he had the mental energy to delve into right now.

One note that stuck out to him was located right next to the resting spot of the worn journal, written in hasty cursive.

Likely lab location:

-------

Expedition risky

Must take risks

Where the location would have been, the note had clearly been ripped apart and stapled back together, but the edges didn’t align. Clearly the piece that the location had been written on was at some point removed.

Makhus sighed in frustration and turned away from the desk, but not before placing the old journal into one of the drawers. His gaze fell upon the alchemic still in the corner, and he decided he may as well clean it out, grumbling, “Swear to the Sage, she better not be a fuckin’ homunculus. Too goddamn convenient...”

“When all beauty is tarnished, when all thought is profaned, they'll cry out for men to invoke the iron rods again…” Sigmund sang along as he mopped the store, even though he couldn’t actually hear half of what the street performer was singing. He knew the song by heart, every word and every beat. It was one of the many, many old folk songs that had been revived in the wake of the war, a word changed here and there to fit the new political landscape and produce yet greater offense from those they were meant to target.

The historian side of him found it boundlessly intriguing, whilst the patriotic side screamed out to be heard and demanded him to let go of the ironclad shackles he had placed around his own emotions. “Now this our secret flame will illuminate the night, and its sparks fly on the wind and set the world alight,” he continued singing to himself, allowing himself just a twinge of heartfelt pride for the resilience of his nation. The smaller seizures weren’t that much of an annoyance anyway, just a few seconds of locked-up joints and the occasional jitter.

As expected, he felt the heat rising in his chest and his movements stiffening, and he fought it not with hard resistance, but by letting go. The historian flipped a switch in his head and smoothed out his breathing, his movements going from the step-by-step dance natural to humans to a snakelike flow that even a locked-up joint or two couldn’t stop.

He was fully aware of how silly it would look, were anyone watching, but he didn’t particularly care. Sig didn’t want to force his friend to bear the effects of purging Rubedo from his system unless it was a seizure too severe for him to power through on his own. Soon enough the seizure passed, and after a few minutes more, he had fully mopped the ground floor and was ready to move onto the upper one. Before he went as far as to walk up the stairs, however, he stood at their bottom and listened, as well as his ears would hear, to make sure he wouldn’t disturb anything - not because he was particularly polite, but because he frankly didn’t want to deal with the inevitable seizure that such an awkward situation would send him into.

No strange sounds. There was the occasional splashing of water and muffled speech, but nothing more. Surely, they wouldn’t mind if he went up there to sweep the floor.