Day 1

‘Oh, fuck me.’

Once again, Sham sat sprawled across a filthy table in his apartment, the morning sun beaming in through the cracks in his broken window shutters. In his right hand, he gripped a dirty pipe, its content spilling out onto the table top. And under his left, again, was that daguerrotype. The one of him and Her, a recent cigarette hole where her face should have been.

As Sham heaved his hangover-laden body upright, an empty bottle of whisky toppled to the ground, shattering with an almighty crash. Sham winced, but not because he’d need to clean it up—only because the noise was hell on his throbbing skull.

He pulled at the shirt on his back, felt it suck at his skin, so drenched in sweat as it was. Sham grunted, ripped the shirt from his torso and threw it into the corner of the room, revealing the gaunt, scarred, overly hairy chest underneath.

MEMORY UNLOCKED (RECOLLECTION)

Your head lays heavy on the cold wooden tabletop, the first of the thundering hangover already beginning to kick in. You stir from your deep stupor to the thudding of feet against door. If it’s you that they’ve come for, so be it.

‘Yes, yes,’ Sham muttered, his voice quiet because any loud noise was doing a right number on his head. ‘I remember remembering this the first time around.’

‘Well, then…’ Recollection murmured, but trailed off when Sham staggered over to the sink, drenching his face in warm-ish water.

‘Gah,’ he involuntarily muttered as the water made its way up his nostrils, flushing out the toxins that laid inside. But still he splashed, as though if he received enough water to the face it might oust his hangover and resuscitate his failing mind.

[VIGOUR] THE BAPTISM: FAIL

No, that’s not how this works.

Sham sighed, straightening himself up as much as he could while still grasping the sides of the sink for support, and stared into the filthy, damaged mirror that hung on the wall above. There he was; a broken man. A man who shouldn’t be charged with bathing himself, much less stopping the destruction of his city’s seat of government. And yet here he was, in that precise situation, with little chance of actually succeeding.

At least, it seemed, he had multiple shots at this.

That was what the explosion… what his being here again meant, wasn’t it? That it didn’t matter if he failed. That he could just try again on the next loop. And that he’d remember everything he’d learned on the previous loops, too.

It gave Sham some hope. It didn’t matter if he didn’t understand how all the moving parts played together—Asa, Gresley, Kryl, the Target, the Church of the Loopkeepers and the Citizen’s Police—because he could learn on the next loop, and the one after. The incomprehensibility of this situation was temporary. He’d learn more, he’d grasp it better.

But just how many loops—and just how many painful deaths—would that take? And how many could his fragile mind put up with?

Sham gulped again, stared at himself in the mirror. ‘You can do this,’ he told himself.

[HEART OF JANUS] LIE TO YOURSELF: FAIL

You’re an effective liar, but doubly effective at seeing through them. You won’t convince yourself of this.

‘Hmm,’ he replied to himself, then pulled himself away from the sink.

At least, in addition to the little he’d learned, he was now equipped with new skills. At least he had the Perspicacity vial still on hand. At least—

His heart dropped.

He wasn’t wearing his jacket.

Sham’s head spun as he spotted it, draped over the back of the chair, untouched by the events of the past nine days.

Which meant…

His heart dropped again as he touched at the inside pocket. It was empty. The skill vial—the legendary grade skill vial which might just have made the difference between breaking the loop and dying yet another very painful death—was gone. Lost to time, to the future. Had never been put in this jacket pocket, or at least wouldn’t do for another five days. Sham’s memories had returned with him, sure, but everything… everything else was reset.

He should’ve downed that vial when he had the chance.

‘...And put another voice in your head?’ Recollection purred.

‘If that’s what it takes to get out of this loop, yes,’ Sham replied.

Recollection didn’t respond. Not that Sham had expected him to. He knew by now that there was no use arguing with the voice that only he could hear.

‘OK, so…’ Sham said, wondering aloud. ‘I don’t have that. What do I have?’ There had to be an advantage here. Something that he could achieve with nine days still to go that he hadn’t been able to on the previous loop.

The Church of the Loopkeepers. They were still, to him, an untouched resource. They knew more than their cryptic leader had revealed to him—the very name of their church was probably biggest giveaway there—and with another nine days to go, Sham might just be able to get them to tell him more.

‘Kryl…’

‘Ah,’ Sham responded. ‘Yes.’

Recollection was right. The greencloths were hardly the biggest gain from Sham’s latest time travel. Right now, there was a good chance that Kryl—the man who seemed to be at the centre of it all—was still alive. Not yet having sought out the skill vials, not yet having been murdered by Asa and his shadowy associates. He had to be the priority; if Sham could track him down while he was still alive, he might just be able to learn more about the Target, and he might just be able to stop Riot from losing this man she so clearly loved.

He grabbed his—notably vial-less—jacket from the back of the chair, and hurried to the door.

The tattoo artist had no idea what Sham was talking about.

He’d travelled back to the same parlour, spoken to the same inker, and yet… nothing. This woman’s confusion was sincere; she clearly had never met someone with Kryl’s description.

And yet… she should have done. If Sham had his timelines correct, then Kryl should’ve been here by now in order to visit the pocketwatch store later in the day. Which meant…

‘Something’s changed,’ Recollection muttered as he and his host wandered the streets of Haven.

‘Yes. But why? What could have—’

‘We know he remembers the loops. Just like you. What, did you think you were… special?’

‘I thought I was…’ Sham started, then caught himself. He’d sworn to stop bickering with this sentient skill. ‘Never mind. Fine. He remembers things. So what?’

‘So he’s trying something different. Just like you are. Which means—for him, at least—you can’t hope to locate him using the events of the last loop.’

‘No.’

Sham passed an attractive younger woman in the street. She shot him a peculiar expression in response to him talking to himself.

‘...No?’

‘No. Well… yes. But also no. There’s some things we know that are constant. Things like where he lives.’

Recollection went quiet once more, and Sham took this as his seal of approval. Not that he needed it.

And so Sham took the tram across town to the Sunrise District. He sat in a strangely empty carriage, staring out the window at a day that was uncharacteristically sunny for the season. For a moment, with the sun pouring in through the dusty panes, Sham’s environment made him feel an ounce of hope. As though the world weren’t all bad.

It was, of course—but that just spoke to the power of the sun in the rainy season.

The tram was wrenched to a stop as the driver caught sight of someone running to catch it. Rare a sight it was to see a tram driver go out of their way to allow someone on board, but Sham supposed he was in the Sunrise District now. Different rules applied for the class of person who could afford to live here.

Next to the window was a fading poster advertisement. One that would, over the next few days, be replaced by a recruitment poster for the Citizen’s Police disguised as a skill advert. But for now, in this pre-CP world, all there was to advertise here was a sturdier pair of tights, one which they’d have you believe lasted double the length of time for only a slightly higher price. Of course, only those in the Sunrise District would be able to afford that slightly higher price, but Sham supposed that this was exactly why this advert was placed on the tramline that passed through Haven’s richest neighbourhood.

The tram stop nearest to Kryl’s apartment was only a couple of minutes away by foot, and Sham knew that meant Kryl was paying out of the nose in terms of rent. This was a man with plenty of money—something that Sham had only just consciously begun to truly comprehend—so how had he become involved with someone like the Target, whose rough accent so clearly betrayed her poverty-ridden roots?

Sham avoided the hustle and bustle of people, automobiles and horse-drawn carts as turned the corner to head east along Kryl’s street. He found himself blinded slightly by the low winter sun, still only barely above the rooftops at this point, so late in the morning. Up ahead, his destination, the apartment, was just as he remembered it. Posh, clean, yet indistinct amongst the buildings around it. Those adjectives would have served any residence on this street just as well as they did Kryl’s.

Glass shattered.

Three stories up, a shape tumbled out of a residence’s window.

‘No,’ Recollection said, ‘Not just any residence. You remember this one.’

In the moments that it took Sham to register that it was Kryl’s apartment that he was looking at, the blurry shape tumbled towards the ground.

But just as the person was about to hit the cold, hard street, a horse-drawn cart passed underneath. One carrying… stacks of hay.

The body landed with a muffled thump right in the centre of the hay pile, then bounced up to his feet and hopped out of the vehicle to the floor.

‘Oi!’ a voice bellowed from above. A woman snarled down from Kryl’s broken window, an intensity in her eyes that could only stem from wrath.

The fleeing man wasted no time in running from his apparent pursuers, beginning to sprint down the street back towards the centre of town. He dropped from his right hand a familiar shape. A glass vial bounced off the ground once, and then, not sharing the same luck as the escapee possessed, shattered on its next month.

‘Luck,’ Recollection repeated.

Sham’s mind caught up.

Yes, luck indeed. Luck of an extreme and near-ridiculous level, just like he’d possessed in the previous loop. A level of luck that he’d received from a small glass boono vial, just like the fleeing man had dropped. A vial just like he’d plundered from the apartment above.

‘Kryl!’ Sham shouted after the oh-so lucky escapee.

The fleeing man paused for a moment, cast a glance over his shoulder, and narrowed his eyes in Sham’s direction. But there wasn’t time to stop and chat. Just as quickly as he’d entered Sham’s reality, he left again, fleeing down the street without another look back.

There. Kryl. He was alive. Out of reach, but alive. If Sham could track him down before his pursuers reached him, then he might be able to get some answers. Might be able to wrap up some of the mysteries of the last few—

A heavy body knocked Sham aside as it sprinted after Kryl. In his ever-weakened state, Sham couldn’t help but fall to the ground, managing to put his hands out to catch himself at the very last second. From his position lying on the—admittedly very clean—pavement, he watched the heavy-set man in black continue his chase. And then another woman, wearing matching uniform, hopped over the toppled Sham, following soon after the first.

Of course, Sham knew exactly what faction of the city of Haven wore such a uniform. Everybody did, whether or not they’d met them face to face. Word… stories travelled. And there was no shortage of stories about the Prime Minister’s private police force. There was no shortage of horror spoken about the Legion.

He considered pulling himself upright. Considered chasing after them. But his body, disease-ridden as it was, wouldn’t have been up to sprinting after the slowest of people. His chase of a walking Riot a few days ago proved that.

Pursuing the Legion would have been another matter. This elite force, made up of only a handful of so-called soldiers, were the very best that Haven had to offer. These people had epic-grade skills that they’d developed the organic way. These were not people to mess with. Not people to chase.

As Sham laid upon the pavement of the Sunrise District, he considered his next move. He was out of places to try for Kryl—his apartment being the only location he knew the man to frequent—but there were still other avenues of investigation he could pursue. Other people who most certainly knew more about the man he was hunting.

It was time for Plan B. He would pay another visit to the Church of the Loopkeepers.