The Monarch Papers

4. Artifacts-2

I’d found myself drawn closer and closer to the Mountaineers. Maybe it was that I’d finally dropped the pretense of not being part of the story (that delusion ended the night of the Translation) or maybe it was just that I was allowing myself to seek the warmth of their community, their camaraderie in all this. Regardless, I wanted to share my thoughts with them on the forum.

I wrote:For me, the outstanding questions are—

The big one . . . Who is the “her” we’re supposed find that can help us and “Aether?” I know some of you figure Lauren Ellsworth for the “her” but things like this rarely end up so circular. My money is on somebody we haven’t met yet.

How do we find her? Is there information still buried in the altered video we haven’t found yet?

Why isn’t there, according to Aether, much time left? Makes me think if we don’t figure this out bad things are gonna happen to him or “them” since the message said “Help us.”

Who is the “us” in “Help us”?

How is Aether reaching out? I don’t mean what kind of magic is he using, I mean how is he managing to do this under KS’s nose? And why only now and then, the tweaked forum posts, the photos, the video . . . What if I hadn’t taken those photos? Was Aether looking for us specifically, or anybody who could help?

Where is all this coming from?

We know The Book of Briars is at least aware of Aether and KS because it sent the frag 10 email after you all found information in the glitches. But the Book couldn’t have planned on Aether being taken by this company, right? Is this an unintended detour it’s sending us on? What would have happened if we’d never found Aether, if we’d never looked into KS? (This might just be navel-gazing . . . I can save this for my next sleepless night. The questions I have about the Book, what it is, and who’s behind it could fill a whole other book.)

I don’t know if I’m adding to the discussion or distracting you but figured I’d go back to journalistic research techniques 101 and see what we can make of this whole thing.

There was so much we didn’t know and so much we needed to sift through. Everyone was asking the same questions, but I was compelled to get them out there for everyone to see. It was like I could smell the bones buried in the backyard, tickling the back of my throat like smoke, and the only way I could make it stop was to dig them up. But with a backyard the size of a county, a pack of dogs is better than just a lone wolf.

Brendon found something interesting in the video.

Brendon:So I’m going through the video and making note of all the phrases that appear, and I noticed something interesting. At the 1:21 mark, the phrase “There Are No Constants” shows up. And then at the 1:22 mark, a different phrase pops up, which reads, “There Are No Constance.” More or less the same phrase, just altered slightly. I just think that is a little peculiar. I am going to keep investigating and will post if I find anything more.

If there was anything we had learned from our experiences so far, it was that such a little thing wasn’t to be ignored. Kelsey found a couple of Tumblr pages, one titled There Are No Constants and another for There Are No Constance. The former was password protected, while the latter was not.

Robert reached out to the unprotected site, trying to establish contact, but the reply he received wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for: “Who is this?” He then told the person who the Mountaineers were and a bit about our mission and was answered with, “Is this some kind of joke?”

Though in fairness, I could relate. I put on my curmudgeon pants every time a stranger tries to get friendly with me online, too.

Robert was concerned he might end up with a restraining order against him if he continued pestering the person behind the Tumblr site, so Revenir took a more direct approach and simply asked if they knew someone named Aether. It was a ballsy move considering how little we knew about everything. But Revenir’s gamble paid off. “Constance” responded by telling us we needed to protect our site before they told us anything.

I always assumed that Bash was a competent IT tech and saw no glitches or obvious weaknesses in any of the Mountaineers’ websites. But now that we were looking into a company touting “Freedom, Safety, Evolution” through unnamed technology, a little more protection seemed like a good idea. If Aether was able to get in and edit posts and possibly access user information, who was to say others couldn’t, others with darker motives?

But there was a problem. Revenir asked Constance what sort of protection we needed to apply to the site, to which they replied, “The Safeguard at least, whatever the latest version is.”

Bash had no idea what they were talking about.

It turned out that the Safeguard was magiq and other sites in the Low were already running it. Apparently, whoever was at the other end of the Tumblr account had access to an online library with an area devoted to magiq. The library’s systems were protected by the Safeguard, and our contact was going to help us get set up, too.

The Mountaineers all seemed excited for the chance to do more actual magic, but I was nervous. The preternatural cold that coiled around my bones was a constant reminder of how magic could go wrong. We were tapping into a world we didn’t fully understand, and we needed to be careful.

Revenir’s contact sent him instructions for something called a “Joradian Non-Material Safeguard v. 42.06.” I know that for old folks like me, the Internet is still a newfangled gadget bordering on witchcraft. But I’m also aware that many in the Low don’t even remember a time before computers dominated every aspect of our daily lives. That there seemed to be at least 41 previous versions of the Safeguard meant that the merging of magic and technology had been going on since at least the days of dial-up. Somehow, that realization hit me hard. When you’re in your forties, you can still pretend that you have just as many years in front of you as you do behind, but that fiction disappears in your fifties. Maybe the cold I was feeling wasn’t a lingering effect from the night Lauren turned to snow in my arms. Maybe I was just feeling old.

Thankfully, younger and more elastic minds set to work on readying the Safeguard spell.

The Joradian Non-Material Safeguard v.42.06:The following enchantment is based in large part on the Jorad’s Nordic Hearth and Home Protectory (originally published alt. 1741) but has been updated and tested extensively to ensure safe digital (non-material) spaces as well.

Its protection is based solely on visitor intent (only those with pure will/intentions may enter your home/site). The most recent version of the enchantment blocks all known methods of bypass.

Steps for Safeguard:

The likeness of the Joradian Wheel must be placed somewhere on the site. It must spend at least one day in a place that is less than two links from the front page/door. Any deeper and it has been found to weaken the Safeguard (the Wheel’s Eye must first learn what primary entry it must watch to reflect negative intention back on its source). You may teach the Wheel’s Eye simply by visiting the site as you normally would. No formal instruction is required.

—Create six keeping vessels (request instructions), with each vessel containing one of the six elements.

—Before building the vessels, inscribe a pale (positive) memory of the place you intend to protect on the soon-to-be vessel’s outer surface.

—Visual representations of the chosen pale memories must be added to the Wheel likeness in a protective hexagon before posting.

—Each vessel must have the corresponding elemental pledge (request instructions) spoken aloud to it. If performing the Safeguard with others, it is preferred to speak the pledges in the literal or virtual presence of the other vessel creators.

—A Fray Summoning Fraction (2 for every 20-25 who call the site “home”) must witness this pledging as it happens, either literally or virtually. (Unlike the original Hearth and Home Protectory, the Safeguard may need to be reapplied periodically as your visitor count grows in number.)

—The Safeguard will remain in place as long as The Wheel is on the site and the keeping vessels remain intact.

Elemental Pledges

Ore- You are the rock all life is built upon. You provide the mount on which we build our homes and the tools we use to build them. You lift us up to reach our true potential and receive us when our purpose wanes.

The Tides- You are the never-ending call of time. You cast your gifts upon the shore then draw them to the cold and twinkling deep. You witness all life rise and fall and rise again.

The Wild- You are the source of all things savage and beautiful. You summon our primal urges and soothe us with the cradle song of life. You are the howl of our destructive instincts and the whisper that responds when we need mending.

Light- You are the dawning rays of sun and hearth at all days’ end. You call us all to rise and seek, then lead us safely home by firelight. All life begins and ends in your embrace.

Aether- You are the breath

Thought-

Revenir’s source addressed the seemingly incomplete instructions.

Turns out you need the elemental pledges, but there is no complete set. Thought and Aether have never been foundemembered. So the workaround is you have to create your own to commit the Safeguard.

(Learning all this as I go.)

Do this ASAP so we can discuss Aether.

In addition to these instructions, Revenir’s source included an image of a strange symbol comprised of three intersecting lines that created six branches, with each branch ending in a unique collection of additional lines, circles, and crescent. According to the Mountaineers, it resembled a Norse protection rune. There was also a schematic with instructions on how to fold paper into a cube receptacle.

Though we needed to come up with some pledges of our own, the spell didn’t seem too terribly difficult, which is something I never thought I’d write. A little origami and some appropriately timed recitations and it should work.

As for the missing elements, OracleSage and Hannah came up with lovely pledges for Aether and Thought, respectively:

You are the breath that fills others’ lungs, you dance through life in a song that is sung by the voice of many.

You are our internal wishes and desires. You challenge us to grow mentally and emotionally. You help us to protect ourselves.

Now it was just a matter of finding Mountaineers to perform the spell. OracleSage stepped up to represent Gossmere, Hannah for Ebenguard, Revenir for Flinterforge, Leigha for Balimora, Furia for Weatherwatch, and Ricardo for Thornmouth. While the six Mountaineers set about making their origami boxes and deciding what to put in them, Endri created an online video Hangout where they could all interact during the spell.

I had to brew myself a fresh pot of coffee. Just watching them prepare for the spell sent Lauren’s chill deeper, tighter around my bones. But as I sat with my coffee, watching them on the Hangout, I felt a sense of relief flooding over me. This spell didn’t have the unnerving pall of doom hanging over it like the Cagliostro’s tragic ritual. Magic could go very dark, but it was a joy to see it in the light.

An hour later, it was done, though we had no idea for sure if it was working. I tried reaching out to several of my contacts in the Low, hoping they could shed some light on the Safeguard, but again, no one responded. The Low was changing, people were going to ground, and it was making me nervous. I’ve always had pretty good instincts when it comes to finding a story, and every instinct I had told me that something big was coming.

In light of the quiet that fell over the Low, it was a relief to find Constance. At least someone with some answers was still willing to help us. But Revenir believed that Constance had taken a great risk in getting that spell to us. And as RootNotes mentioned, Aether’s strange video message seemed to indicate that someone had been kidnapped. It was no wonder if people in the Low were scared and going to ground.