Athalia wrote down her answers, then went back inside the room to talk to the man in the gray uniform.
"What can you tell me about the magnet Instrument?"
The man looked at her with interest. "Oh, you didn't use it at all on the Mountain?"
"No, I didn't get the chance."
"Well, the 8-Ball assigned it a name, first of all. It's called the 'Nutrient Puller'. Staff members have tested it a few times. It's been classified as Danger Level Three; someone died in the process of testing it. Would you like the details?"
"Someone died? Who was it?"
The man told her a name she didn't remember. Although there weren't a lot of Institute staff overall, it wasn't strange for Athalia to not know every person in the Research Division. It often operated separately from the Exploration Division.
Athalia still hung her head for a moment in understanding, but didn't get too caught up on it.
Dying is ultimately part of the job.
While Explorers faced immense risks on the Mountain, Researchers had their own risks to face back in Alavieska. Accepting the possibility of death was part of the Institute's culture. Of course, this is harder to accept when something bad happens to someone close to you, like how Athalia was currently acting in regard to Sariel.
Her mind turned to a detail the man in the gray uniform had mentioned.
Danger Level Three? Athalia was surprised. This was the second-highest level of danger classification.
"What about the fishing rod? What's its danger level?"
"It could pose Level Three risk in the right hands, but it seems rather benign on its own. It's Level Two. That Instrument didn't receive a name from the 8-Ball, at least not yet."
The Nutrient Puller is that much more dangerous? It didn't look all that threatening.
This is a big problem for me. If it's level three, it's stored in the deepest part of the Instrument Vault, which is surrounded by the Minotaur's Maze. Kismet—no, it'll be Aleksi guarding the place now; he took his job. Even so, it won't be easy. Aleksi is not weak.
Her mind flashed back to the deformed glass statues she had seen at the hangar.
How am I supposed to break in?
No, I don't have to think about that just yet… there's still a chance the bureaucratic process can get me what I want.
"Give me the specifics on the Nutrient Puller."
"It appears to be able to extract various minerals and ore from rocks, as well as from a human's body. It is activated when the starter cord is pulled. There's a cap on the bottom which indicates it requires some kind of fuel, although we haven't been able to figure out what that is. It hasn't required re-fueling yet. It only affects what it's pointed at, but it remains effective at long range and through solid walls, hence the high danger rating."
He paused before continuing. "The Researcher died because the Instrument pulled all the minerals from their body."
Athalia's eyes opened wide.
Just like with Sariel…
When the progression of Sariel's condition had led to the death of multiple Researchers, the primary cause of their deaths was identified as a mineral deficiency.
With this new information about the Nutrient Puller, Athalia spent a few more minutes changing the answers on her sheet of paper before she handed it in.
The man in the gray uniform read it over:
"I wish to borrow the Nutrient Puller for twelve hours. I would like to experiment with extracting nutrients from Blood River. Since the Instrument can be used from range, it would be a good way to study the composition of the blood without having to risk getting close to the river. I can do it entirely from the safe access point. I'll be careful not to pull the starter cord until I'm up close."
The man looked at Athalia quizzically. He was instantly suspicious of her.
She had walked in here seemingly already knowing what she was looking for, having grabbed the form right away. She then changed her answers to reflect the information he gave her, indicating that she had some other reason to use the Instrument besides the one she wrote down. Having a reason also indicated that she knew its function, which went against her earlier claim that she didn't test it out at all on the Mountain.
Athalia did not realize this point at all, and thought she was playing it off well.
However, her request actually happened to align with what the Researchers wanted to do. Even though the Instrument was highly dangerous, as long as it could be controlled to an extent and used from a distance, tests could be performed.
"Maybe if there were more free hands, I could put you on a team to go try that. But look around you right now; unless you can find a reason that the Nutrient Puller is relevant to the problem with the trash chute door, nobody can be spared for low-consequence research."
"I could do it alone. Even though I haven't used it before, I'm sure I could pull it off safely."
The man laughed out loud. "Come on, just go home, Athalia. Or better yet, get to work with everyone else. You want to stretch your legs after being locked up, don't you?"
Athalia left the room in frustration, although she wasn't surprised. She knew it would be a long shot trying to get it through the normal process.
Now, she had to form a complex plan, which wasn't exactly in her nature. She sighed and left on a walk through town to clear her head. If she were too rash now, she would ruin her chances.
***
Enza was finally home. She stood in front of a small house made of red rock, decorated with touches of white bone. There were writings all over the outer walls.
She looked at her garden. There were a few flowers and some other plants she had taken back from the Forest of Life. These weren't from her recent expedition with Athalia, but from her first one ever.
There wasn't that much space, as the houses in Alavieska were quite close together. It made Enza's plan of expanding her garden difficult.
She recalled the dream sequence in the Confessional Booth where she had obtained seeds from deep under Alavieska; down in the root layer.
Maybe someday…
The houses adjacent to her happened to be empty. They used to be occupied, though. Every house in Alavieska was originally built with residents in mind.
Now, half those houses went completely unused. Some wanted to demolish them in order to make space for other things; space on the plateau was rather limited. But there were too many people who saw sentimental value in those houses.
The last thing she looked at before going inside was the hourglass up in the sky. It had 12 months left, according to the latest calculations. When Athalia and Enza were on their expedition, there were also 12 months, then added a month's worth of time at the Amusement Emporium to make it 13. A month had passed, and it was back to 12.
The inside of her house was cramped and extremely messy, with papers and books strewn everywhere. She wanted to rest, but got to work rifling through papers instead.
She picked up a large book and flopped it onto the table.
'Earth: A Synthesized History, Volume 4'
She flipped through it like a flip-book, not reading much of anything. All of the pages were handwritten. The handwriting wasn't all that legible, but Enza had gotten used to reading it.
She closed the book, threw it on the bed, and sighed.
For the last month since she and Athalia returned from the expedition, she had been thinking about history.
She had been thinking about what it meant to be a 'true historian'.
She had re-read all the volumes at least twice over, trying to find anything she didn't already know, or anything she could interpret as a secret.
But the problem was, re-reading these books was already what she did in her spare time. She wasn't learning anything new.
I have to be looking at it from the wrong angle.
Azarias said that history involves the marks it leaves on the land, but how is that useful to me?
I can look at the world around me and guess at its history based on clues in what I see, but without the assistance of the words of someone informed or a time machine, I'm helpless. This world is too vague; there's no way to put its history together from visual traces.
And yet, Azarias believes this is something only I can do. He knows something I don't that allows him to be confident.
What makes me different from anyone else in Alavieska? I'm not the only Explorer, so that doesn't give me any special qualification. Among the Explorers, I'm not the strongest, nor am I the weakest.
…I suppose I'm the one who is most familiar with the content of the various volumes of Earth: A Synthesized History.
But then it's the problem from before; there's nothing in the books that I don't know already.
Maybe my familiarity with the volumes is one key, but it's not the whole key ring.
What does a historian do? They preserve knowledge, and also synthesize it. To poke at the gaps in their knowledge, they actively theorize about what might have happened.
So, what about the knowledge I already have?
My knowledge isn't just comprised of the hard facts I can recite, but the things I've seen and experienced.
I know about Earth, I know about Pohjola, I know about the Chasm, I know about the Mountain, I know about Hymyla, and I know about the people I've spent these years with in Alavieska.
Somehow, through a synthesis of this knowledge, I'll reach a new truth.
I need to review my entire life…
I need to parse my memories.
And from that combination of memories and facts, I can put together my own 'history of everything.'
She sighed. This was going to take a long time, but time was what she had.
It's not like someone wouldn't give her a job to do if she went to the Institute, but rather, she didn't feel like adding an extra person would do any help. Although they were all 'hard at work', they were really just running in circles. She considered her current work to be more important, even if that work was going to involve a lot of lying in bed and thinking.
Actually, it won't be just that. There's no way I'll be able to keep it all organized in my head. I need to be writing this down… Oh, hold on.
She had a sudden idea and started looking through a bookshelf. She pulled out an old hardcover.
As she flipped through the hundreds of pages, they were all empty.
This will work perfectly.
She took out a pen of exaggerated size and a big jar of ink. She dipped the pen and set it to the first page-
"Enza's History of Everything: Chapter 1."