[Recollection Log No. 4: “A Dialogue Between the Wolf and the Crow” Date: xx/xx/15CA 341st Sept. Cycle of the Void Sun
Archive Class: Zaleri Research and Preservation Institute - Falzchen Internal Records – Audio and Visual Reconstruction of Board Meeting (Memory Recording)] Meeting
Location: Falzchen, Library Wing
The KASHOPEIA SECRETARY SYSTEM recorded these minutes.
The minutes were transcribed from Director Sho’s memory shard.
//MEMORY LOG START The meditation sequence was commenced.
The library shelves automatically began rising from the polished obsidian floor, bearing an endless array of black books without titles or distinguishable markings.
The shelves formed a circle around the central conference table, like an impenetrable fortress. Chairman Father Zaleri and Director Sister Sho sat across each other. The projector flashed a hologram of the ZRPI emblem, revealing a golden compass with 8 needles spreading outward circumscribing a smaller, inner circle. As the emblem floated in the air for a few moments, Zaleri and Sho saluted, and proclaimed in unison: “We honor the Falzchen.
The sons and daughters bear witness to the Thousand Manifold Truths.” The emblem’s hologram dissipated, and Zaleri stayed silent, tapping his fingers unto the obsidian-colored table. In the silence that followed, Sho observed Zaleri.
He was like any other silver automata: with featureless limbs and parts that mimicked human anatomy. Zaleri’s silver head bore a black visor that extended from his forehead down to where a human’s chin would have been. A face with no eyes, mouth, ears, or nose.
Zaleri was wearing what resembled a monk’s robe, in the color of crimson, and adorned with golden accents. The robe obscured most of Zaleri’s silver body, but his sleeves were wide open allowing his mechanical hands to protrude in front of him on the table.
“Chairman, I regret to inform you that Sister Reine will not be attending this meeting. Her secretary advised me that she will be conducting another ceremony at the Hall of Recollection.” Sho said.
“Her absence—” Zaleri said, his tone, solemn and grave. “—is also a form of speech, I suppose. We can skip over a few formalities then.” As Zaleri spoke, a faint, blue circular light appeared and emanated within his black visor, which fluctuated in intensity.
“Let the record state that Chairman Zaleri is making a formal motion to nominate Sister Reine Fang as a Director of the Zaleri Research and Preservation Institute, to act in that capacity until a successor is chosen to replace her. Any objections?” Zaleri looked toward Sho, the blue light from his visor intensifying at the center, as if glaring at her.
“Chairman! an outsider like her cannot---” Sho stammered, as she stood up and pounded her fist on the table. “I know you’ve had a history with the Fang Group, Director Sho.” Zaleri interrupted, raising his palm upward. “But I suppose you already know that Sister Reine is President Viktor Fang’s daughter?”.
Sho looked to her side, refusing to meet Zaleri’s gaze. “Fang Omnicosmic Holdings Corporation has already made a proxy nomination in her favor. It came with a generous sponsorship, of course. This is just a formality.” Zaleri continued.
Sho sighed, withdrawing her hand from the table, and sitting back down.
“Forgive me, Chairman. I just thought that we were once a research organization.” Sho mustered venomously. “I have no objection then, Chairman.” “Thank you, Director Sho. Then this meeting is hereby adjourned.” Zaleri concluded.
Zaleri stood up and approached Sho.
He extended his right hand outward, palms upward: “Sister Sho, Shall you walk with me?” Zaleri walked with Sho side-by-side as they traversed the isles of the black library shelves, bearing countless featureless books. Sho thought to herself that the shelves were foreboding pillars that extended into an endless night sky of the Librarium’s infinite ceiling.
“All Falzchen dolls have an augmentation that allows them to access the virtual librarium archive at any time, but do you know why we still maintain a physical Librarium aboard the Falzchen?” Zaleri asked, his voice now gentle.
“The ZRPI needs to maintain its pretense of being a prestigous academic institute to sycophant investors, Father.” Sho sharply replied. She thoughtlessly picked a book at random and leafed through the pages. “When knowledge does not have any boundary, the mind shatters. It hallucinates.” Zaleri explained, the light behind his visor pulsing softly.
Zaleri gestured toward the book Sho was holding, prompting Sho to give him the same. “Our emblem is a multi-pointed compass, leading to a myriad of a thousand truths.
What happens when everything is true? I wonder. ” Zaleri flipped through the book’s pages. Passages of glowing text began to manifest in the book’s pages that were previously blank, seemingly written by an unseen hand.
“The truth has many directions. It may be carried at once, but when all directions exist simultaneously, nothing remains. This is the Entropy, the end of all things.” The blue light of Zaleri’s visor intensified into a crimson red glow.
Zaleri handed the book back to Sho. Sho retrived the book, and her eyes scoured through the page Zaleri chose. “The Battle of the Thornless Roses.” Sho muttered, reading the title.
“What about it, Father?” Sho looked to Zaleri for affirmation, but he simply nodded, prodding her to read further. Sho was, of course, already familiar with the Battle of the Thornless Roses.
The Holy Maiden of Albireo, Inaris, was locked up in the Albirean Fortress by her once trusted Grand Knight Sartoria. The kingdoms of Albireo rallied to challenge Sartoria, ten thousand strong, meeting Sartoria in the Grand Expanse. By some twisted power, Sartoria managed to almost entirely decimate the Albirean army, before finally succumbing. But the story’s final twist lay not in Sartoria’s death, but in what awaited the Albirean army when they finally reached the fortress. There they found the lifeless body of Inaris, The Silver Witch, her once all-seeing silver eyes torn from her sockets.
Sho’s mind wandered. She always had thought that something about the story didn’t add up.
Sho turned to the next page, but found it blank. Puzzled, she looked back to Zaleri, her eyes darting between the book and Zaleri.
“What is missing, Sister Sho?” Zaleri asked rhetorically. Sho’s eyes narrowed. She flipped back through the pages of the book – it was missing something that she had always known from anecdotal accounts. “Peacebringer, the sword of Sartoria. It’s not mentioned in the story?” Sho recalled the famous legend involving Sartoria pulling out the Peacebringer from an impenetrable Voidstone.
Her predecessors who attempted to do the same had perished, as the sword seemed to choose its master on a whim, destroying any false knights that dare believe they are worthy of its power. The sword itself have conflicting descriptions from various oral accounts. Some say it has a black hilt, with an ominous crimson red gem adorned on its crossguard, said to be a void beast’s eye watching its users every move.
“Officially, no.” Zaleri mused. The blue light of Zaleri’s eye suddenly disappeared from his visor. “A small discrepancy, but it does raise questions that a sacred relic would not be mentioned in the official record, no?” Zaleri’s worlds trailed. Sho’s eyes lit up. She knew what Zaleri was about to say.
“By my authority as the Chief Recollection Officer of the Zaleri Research and Preservation Institute, and with the conformity of its majority shareholder, the Fang Omnicosmic Holdings Corporation, I am hereby issuing this official recollection mandate to Sister Sho, Interim Director and Ranger-Recollector General of the Falzchen, to retrieve the Peacebringer.”
Zaleri declared, placing his metallic arm unto Sho’s shoulder. Sho found herself smiling – a rare occurance at the thought of being excused from the dull board meetings. This is what she was good at, not petty politicking, Sho thought to herself. “Gods and men lie, but the sword does not.” Zaleri continued. “May you bear witness to the thousand truths, Sister Sho. The Falzchen will await your revelation.”
—END LOG—
