Day Five-Eighty-Two: Poisonback'd

Today consisted largely of walking. Slow, painful, poison-in-vial-addled walking. So I won't bother discussing the events, as they'd be terribly boring, I suspect. Instead, I'll discuss what I promised yesterday: a description of where I am.

When I first awoke yesterday, I suspected I was in the remains of a castle. Perhaps the smaller of two, given the king's reference to a 'palace'. Surely my walk to find whomever is causing trouble for these ghosts would not take that long.

I was wrong. So wrong.

This place is a city. An enormous, underground city, built for human-sized creatures. It has buildings, single-storey and otherwise; it has cracked but serviceable roads; it has aquaducts that still drain water into fountains and wells; it even has walls, which makes me suspect that this was all aboveground at some point. Much of the architecture and the remaining signage hints at a worship of snakes, but I don't think these ghosts are snake people.

How did the city get down here? My memory fails me, for the most part, but I suspect it was part of the Shelving at the end of the war. I do not recall that going entirely according to plan. Changing the layout of the world is bound to create some unfortunate glitches, after all.

I'd like to say that I walked alone, aside from this diary, but I would also be wrong about that. For the last mile I've had near-constant companions watching over me. The ghosts won't allow a regulator to walk in their territory unattended, and though I can see no ghosts in the ruins ahead there are many behind. They hide in great hordes, quickly sweeping out of view if I ever dare to turn around. Their comments travel to me on the wind constantly, whispering of hate.

For a while it was creepy. Now it's just annoying. Sigh.

I can understand fully why ghosts dislike regulators. Why they dislike me. Powerless or not, I represent the top authority in this world. No race has more power than the regulators at their peak, not even the Non, and we're especially equipped to manipulate ghosts. A person's code is linked intimately with Codespace after death. For one of my kind, wrenching control away is rather easy.

How do you do it? I don't know. Can't remember. It was easy, at one point. But it's not anymore, not until I meet more regulators and rejoin the collective. Gods, but it has been so long.

Yet I'm not even sure if I want to do that anymore.

Because, after all the things I've seen... even all the things I've forgotten I've seen, forgotten I've done... I can't help but wonder if our actions are incorrect. At what point does the pursuit of balance tip the scale in the opposite direction? Some of the things I kind of vaguely sort of recall doing... now they feel wrong.

Though they can't be any more wrong than conspiring to murder several people.

Morality is a bitch.

I struggle onward. I've caught sight of the tip of a broken spire which the king told me is the top of his palace. I will make my way to it or die trying.

Sincerely,

V the Rat