Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The feeling of an Aeon’s power in your veins is not something that ever leaves you. 

Any Fool can tell you that, but Sampo was more qualified than most. For the others, the boys and girls of the tavern who were probably mostly new faces by now, the Laughter was a perpetual buzz in their veins, like Soulglad fizzing through your arteries. The effects varied, from just making your wits that tiny bit sharper to full-on Aeonic embodiment, but it was always there. With a Mask, especially so. Aha’s power reached across the galaxies, and the Laughter was a secure, if unpredictable, backup to fall on when things went pear-shaped. 

Nobody had told Sampo that Jarilo-VI was an exception. 

Of course, it made sense in hindsight. Qlipoth’s muting, rock-solid shield lay over the planet like a thick blanket, and the Stellaron underneath sparked with malicious power. Between Destruction and Preservation, there was little space left for mischief. Thankfully, the wind still listened to him nowadays, cushioning his steps and warming him with no regard for the snow, but the Elation’s fizz was almost nonexistent. Outside of his mission, Sampo made his own joy on this planet, and he'd come to peace with that. 

This peace had taken its sweet time, if he remembered correctly. 

-

It was a dark, stormy night, right out of a clichéd horror, and Sampo had not been given the gift of a soft landing. His hair was damp with snow in various stages of melting, and his palms and knees were  throbbing from a hard impact  with the ground. He was…shivering. He knew he wasn't meant to. He knew he was meant to see lights in the distance, see life, see a way to start his life, see something other than snow and more snow. But all of that was as numb as his fingers were rapidly  becoming, which was also wrong, but that didn't matter. 

Sampo couldn't feel THEM. 

His body was quiet, and his thoughts were as lonely as the endless snow, and the wind that usually held him so dearly was biting his sides, and he was scared, and he couldn't feel THEM. 

Sampo Ilmarinen Koski, first of his family to ever travel beyond the Kalevalan skies, was suddenly quite worried this planet would be his last. 

-

Some time later, there was a stone wall against his back. 

Sampo heaved in a freezing breath, trying not to make a sound at the cold air stinging his throat. He didn't dare to peer around the wall. An ice sculpture (fragmentum, fragmentum, the static crackling in his mind screeched) had come to life and ran out swinging, its polearm glittering like diamonds in the moonlight. Sampo, who was used to solving his problems with a will and a laugh, had barely reacted fast enough. Simple monsters were meant to be an easy problem, something he could slice in his sleep, but the fear that set in his bones had been stronger than any he'd felt in years. 

And so, he had ran. Screeched like a little girl, and bolted away until he saw an abandoned cottage to hide behind. He'd hoped for a split second that he'd reached civilisation, but the smashed, dark windows said otherwise. 

He was fucked. He was utterly, truly fucked. Taking a long-haul of a script without even a Mask had been a stupid decision, past Sampo was an idiot, and he was so, so fucked. He wasn't sure if the air was genuinely getting harder to breathe, or if this was something that panic did. It could…attack, right? He couldn't remember, brain still swirling like a snowstorm, but his breath was catching in his throat and-

Ice scraped against rocks. Sharp, malicious, approaching. 

Shit. 

Sampo flexed his hand, waiting for a sharp, familiar blade to fill it. Nothing happened. 

Once again, shit. 

Sighing out a frustrated exhale that sounded closer to a sob (and the scraping stopped, it had definitely heard), he realised his only option was to keep running. 

And finally, fuck. 

-

He'd lost track of time. It all blended into five seconds and five hours in these situations. He was quietly and quickly making his way through the flat expanse, flinching at every single movement through the freezing fog. The fragmentum seemed to be fairly short-sighted, and he was using that to his advantage. 

He didn't know where he was going. Forward. Onwards. Away from the rocky alcove he was thrown in. For all Sampo knew, this could lead to nothing, but thinking of that made him shake more than he already was. So, he flipped his mind back to the pure, simple caution of a prey animal, and squinted ahead. 

A narrow pass, with cliffs on either side, awaited him. It looked almost unnatural, which was promising for the concept of civilisation, but there was a problem. One of those ice-birds, that looked like it was held in the air by sheer stubbornness, was flapping inside it. The pass was too small to stay out of its range, so Sampo would have to engage somehow. Fighting was out of the question, since his daggers were refusing to come out and play, so he'd have to get creative. Lure it. Bring it out of the pass, then bolt past it and carry on.

It was just another step in a potentially pointless plan, but he thought he could do it. 

He had not, in fact, done it. 

The thought flitted through his mind like a dry narrator as he ran through the pass, fragmentum creature hot on his heels. The bird was fast. He had not accounted for how fast the bird was, because of course he hadn't, this was a whole new planet, he didn't know shit, and he was going to die here! 

His legs were burning and freezing at the same time, exertion making it harder to keep up the pace while the cold aura of the fragmentum stung at his back. Maybe this would be a pretty way to go. Maybe he'd become an unmoving, perfect statue, face frozen in fear, right next to the figure he could see in the distant-

The figure moved. And not in the clunky, jagged way of the fragmentum. The figure was a person. 

Sampo wasn't usually unfaithful, but in that moment, he thanked Qlipoth with such fervour that he'd give any devotee a run for their money. 

“Help! Vittuperkele, shit, fucking HELP!”

The person's reply was unclear, but it was a reply. They turned, shouted back to somewhere (other people? Oh, he was the luckiest fool alive) and started running towards him. Sampo laughed, finally starting to believe he would survive this, and promptly felt his foot ram into something short and rock-hard, sending him flying. 

He slammed hard into the ground, not fast enough to catch himself with his hands this time, ears ringing at the impact. The pain spread through the back of his head like a pulse of throbbing warmth, but he couldn't afford to stop. He scrambled back, eyes glued to the fragmentum bird with terror. It was right there. Its wings stopped flapping as it rose up, curling in on itself, getting ready to blast a sorry Fool into oblivion, and there was truly no way out, and he closed his eyes-

And nothing hit him.

He opened them, and a knight in shining armour was hiding them both behind some sort of shield. 

What kind of fairytale had he fallen into? 

The knight got up as quickly as he had arrived, and swung his strange shield like a weapon. It hid the bird with a resounding crash, and another blow crushed the thing into icy fragments. The knight took a deep breath, tiny pieces of fragmentum glinting in his blond hair, and turned back to Sampo. 

“Are you alright?”

“ Perkele. ” was the only response he received, before Sampo’s vision blurred and the ground rose to meet him. 

-

He opened his eyes slowly, painfully, and to a blond man watching him with great concern. 

“Whuh?” was his first, eloquent question, immediately followed by a hiss of pain as his own voice echoed loudly in his head. 

“Thank Qlipoth, you're awake! You took quite the hit before, we were worried that we were going to have to brave the storm to get you some medical attention-”

“We?”

Sampo tried to lift his head up and look around, but hot pain lanced through the back of his head like a dagger. He instinctively whipped his hand back to the spot, and felt coarse fabric and something wet and sticky in his hair before a hand grabbed his arm. 

“No, don't, that's…you hit your head, don't peel off the dressing, please.” 

His hand was gently moved back to where it was, and Sampo saw bloodstains in his fingers. Ah. 

“Ah.”

“Yes, quite. As for your previous question, you ran into a Silvermane guard outpost. That's the we. You passed out shortly after I saw you, so I was relieved from my duties to keep an eye on you until the weather clears enough to return to the city. What were you doing so far from Belobog?”

“Runnin’.” Sampo replied without thinking. 

The knight (or guard?) stared at him, confusion furrowing his brow. “I…gathered that. But why were you out there?”

“...didn' mean to be. Landed.”

The guard’s face got even more confused, if that was possible. “I'm not sure I understand…but. We can clear that up later. Yes. Introductions might help. My name is Gepard. What's yours?”

“Mari? No, Sampo. Or…I don't…when are we?” He knew there was a guard, and the same guard had helped him escape something, but it was like the details were hidden behind a curtain of fog. Past, present, future, all rolled up into a spiral that tossed him jumbled memories and told him to work with it. 

That concerned look was back on Gepard’s face. He wasn't sure why. It was foggy, surely he'd understand that. 

“We're…in a Silvermane outpost, about ten miles from the city. Are you feeling alright?”

Sampo shook his head, immediately feeling pain swish around his brain like burning-hot whiskey. “Ah- vittu fuckshit-no. Wrong answer. When? ”

“Oh! It's…the morning of Tuesday.”

A blank stare from Sampo. 

“12th of September.”

A single blink. 

“647 After Freeze…”

It was Sampo’s turn to look confused. Those were not  normal people years. The fog in his mind was definitely trying to tell him something, but every time he tried to wade into it, another ice pick of pain struck his head. Still, it seemed polite to give a response. 

“Huh. Alright.”

By the look that could only be compared to a kitten watching their owner in the shower on Gepard’s face, this had not been the right answer. 

“Oh, that's not…you still haven't answered my question. How are you feeling?”

How was he feeling? The proper answer to that, like many things, seemed to be In the Fog. He was going to have to find out what was in there at some point, but not now. He couldn't. He didn't know why he couldn't. He needed to find out why, but he couldn't do that either, and the amount of Things was suddenly making his head feel even fuller than before-

There was a hand on his face. 

Warm. Slightly sticky. Connected to…Gepard, right? Gepard. 

“...Mari?” (and that was Gepard, but was he Mari anymore? He couldn't, couldn't think ) “Are you with me again?”

“..yes.” That was something he knew. He was here. It felt good to know something, an island in a tempest, a warm hand on skin like static.

“Good.” Gepard sounded nervous, but his hand felt steady. “You…I think you hit your head hard enough to get a concussion. When we get back to the city, there will be people who are able to help with that, and you'll feel…less like this. Does that make sense?”

He thought about the amount of pain in the back of his head, blooming into some  fucked up flower of agony, and decided that the vague concept of a concussion checked out. 

“Yeah.”

“Alright.” Finally, he could hear something other than nerves. Relief? That was probably good. “Do you remember what happened before you woke up here?”

“Not…yet.”

“That's…it's alright, it will probably come back to you in time, but I can tell you what I saw. You came running at the  Silvermane outpost from the Outer Plains, being chased by a Fragmentum creature. You managed to…get my attention, to say the least, so I ran over to kill the creature, but  not before you tripped, hit your head on a rock hidden by the snow, and passed out a few seconds after. I alerted the other guards, and they gave me the task of supervising you until we could return to the  city. I brought you inside, you woke up, and that brings us up to now. I…hope that clears some things up.”

He turned over the events in his head, carving out a little corner away from the pain and fog to store them. They sounded right. His legs still ached in a way that could be from running, and everything else seemed to line up just as well. 

“It.. Yes. Does.” He went to nod an assent, but the hand on his face stopped him. 

“I didn't want you to-”

“- move. Head hole. Right.” 

More things were falling into place, even as his words continued to sound wrong. He could feel the fog, and feel the pain behind the fog pulsing like a strobe light, but Gepard seemed to get it now. The worry on his face had dissipated into something less urgent, almost a smile, and some part of his mind liked that he was in something light-hearted again. 

“It's not a hole, more a gash, but…whatever works. Now, somewhat related to that, I have another question. Hopefully more clear, this time. Are you still in pain?”

“Yep.” He didn't need to think about that one. His body had been slowly coming online since he woke up, and points of pain had been popping up with it. 

“That was fast- can you tell me where?”

Mercifully, his mind and mouth didn't combine to steal the answer from him. “Legs, knees more, wrists, hands. Head. It's all…outside-inside spiky. A lot. And foggy.”

“That all checks out. The confusion is probably the concussion, again, as is the pain. I wish I could get you something for that, but I was told that the stuff we have is too strong to give someone who shouldn't get knocked out for a long time. Like you.”

“Oh.” The back of his head continued to throb, almost as if if was mocking him for not being able to stop it. Gepard must have seen the disappointment on his face, because the hand there moved to rest on his shoulder for a moment. 

“I'm sorry that I can't do more. I know this all must be… very confusing, and painful, but it will get better, I think. The storm sounds like it settled down, and we'll be able to get you somewhere better than a military shelter, and it will all work out from there, okay?”

Gepard’s certainty in what was going to happen felt like another, warmer blanket over him. “Okay. And…thank you.”

“It's alright, it's nothing, really. I'm just keeping my oath to protect the people of-”

A knock sounded on the door. Gepard perked up as it opened, standing up to face it. He couldn't see who was there, vision obstructed by the other, but the wind outside sounded much more tame than before. 

“Landau, the force is preparing to return to Belobog. A word?”

Gepard turned to him, looking simultaneously happy and apologetic. “Sorry, I'll be back in a moment.” He left and closed the door gently behind him, leaving him alone. 

It was only much, much later, when Sampo was fully Sampo again, that he realised another detail. The single military file on his existence, detailing a strange man who was entirely undocumented running into an outpost from an area with no population, no resources, and no way in other than through the pass, had been confusing. The original files detailed some speculation from the overseer of the squadron, that implied he would follow up on questioning the stranger once he was lucid. However, the file was stamped as closed and concluded, signed by one Gepard Landau.

Sampo had not hidden his tracks. Sampo had come in screaming Kalevalan, mumbled about landing somewhere, and given away that he didn't even know what year it was. He'd been confused, asking about things that any citizen would know, and Gepard had heard it all. 

And, for some reason he wasn't sure he'd ever know, the Shield of Belobog had decided to shield Sampo from scrutiny. 

As he slipped out of the high window, manila file stuffed under his jacket, Sampo took a moment to mourn the fact he'd never get to thank him. 

Chapter Text

Sometimes, a play doesn't start in its main setting. 

The Overworld had its troubles. A smattering of corruption under the surface, a military stretched thin, Fragmentum nipping at the edges of the city like frostbite on a cold night. But the more Sampo heard, the more he realised the real problems lay underneath his feet. 

When he'd first heard the city called the overworld, he'd wondered if it was a turn of phrase, or maybe a religious belief. He hadn't asked what it meant. The concussed amnesiac act had gotten him plenty of helpful information at the start of all this (it helped that the concussion had very much been real), but he'd had to start pretending he knew more than he did to avoid too many eyes on him. Sampo wanted people to think he was harmless, but not that harmless. So he'd watched, and waited, and made casual conversation behind the bar until the puzzle pieces clicked. 

“So you say your friend went down to the Underworld? How many years ago was that now?” Casually cleaning a glass, Sampo looked  over to the nurse he'd been chatting to for the last while. Ilya had been the one to give him a tip on which bars didn't do major background checks when hiring, and the one who'd agreed to discharge a man who, despite his full functionality in other areas, had a shocking amount of long-term memory gaps and, technically, no legal identity before a few months ago. Despite all of this trust that Ilya had put in him, Sampo was still trying out his new “guy who knew what was going on, actually” act on him. It was important to work out the kinks before using it on the city at large, after all. 

“I'd say…five, or so? Only a few months before it got shut down. He was moving down to be closer to family, you see, ‘cause it was getting more difficult around there, y’know?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Sampo nodded along, pouring a beer and popping a straw in, ignoring the confused glance from Ilya. 

“He used to visit us every once in a while, seemed more worried every time. The Fragmentum was closing in, down there, and since he didn't have the money to move everyone up here, he wouldn't budge.”

“That's rough, bud. D’you know what happened to him after…the lockdown?” He repeated Ilya’s wording, hoping to get some more context. 

“No. He never said anything about moving up before it happened, and…nobody knows, Sampo. The Supreme Guardian cut off all travel, all trade, all communication like that-” Ilya snapped his fingers, “-overnight. They could all be dead down there.”

“...what the fuck?”

“Yeah…we all definitely had questions, but she said it was “for the good of the people of Belobog”, like half of them aren't down there. But who am I to weigh in on it, I'm just…” Ilya trailed off, focusing on Sampo’s shocked expression. “You alright?”

“Half?”

“Give or take, but that's not the…oh.” His voice quietened, softened, moved much closer to the one he knew Ilya by first. “Sampo, did you not remember?”

Half the people of this planet had been imprisoned with the Fragmentum when times got tough. Half the entire population, within recent memory, and people talked about it so little that it had taken Sampo a month to find out. He'd known something seemed wrong about this place, not enough of anything for him to latch onto and find his role, and suddenly it all made sense. 

The character of Sampo Koski wasn't made for the Overworld. He needed to be where the trouble was, he needed to find out more, and he needed to get down into the Underworld. 

“Sampo?”

Shit. Ilya was still here. 

“I…no. I didn't.” He put down his beer, running a hand roughly through his hair. “Vi- no, shit, nobody talks about it.”

“I suppose you're right…” Ilya pondered, glancing up like he was trying to flip back over the past few months in his mind. “It's a sensitive subject for a lot of people. We don't talk about it, because we don't know what to do, really. The people who want to do anything aren't the richest, and the people who could do anything, don't care. It's…yeah. I can see how that'd be a lot to drop on someone, especially when…” he trailed off with a look of sympathy. 

Sampo considered objecting, keeping up his usual insistence of being treated normally, but elected to take a large swig of his drink instead. Aha’s tits, this place was dystopian. But, alongside the shock, he could feel a sense of purpose awakening deep inside. It felt like laughter heard from a high-up balcony, like the muffled sound of a film starting before you get into the screening, like gentle fizzing in his bones. 

The prologue was over. The first chapter had begun. And Ilya was still here, Aeons-damn it, he needed to reign in his monologues. Sampo schooled his face into something more subdued, and tentatively took the next step. 

“D’you know where more info about this whole mess could be? More than just people telling me scraps, I mean. This is crazy, Ilya, I've gotta get the full picture.”

“The museum, the library, and the Fort public archives.” was the prompt reply, each listed off on a finger. “The museum is a bit dusty, but keeps records of the newspapers for posterity. The library has more history and opinion pieces, and is probably your best bet. The archives are getting less and less useful by the day, what with the Supreme Guardian limiting access, but they've still got good works on policy.”

Sampo looked skeptically at Ilya, raising a single (ineffective, it was the one behind the fringe) eyebrow. “Do people ask you where to research Belobog current affairs a lot, or are you makin’ that up?”

“First one.” Ilya bluntly replied, with a hint of pride. “I'm a trained nurse, Sampo. I do have a degree, you know?”

“Jeez, no need to rub it in…”

“Wait, no, I didn't mean it like-” Ilya backtracked, before seeing the sly grin on his face and sighing. “Don't do that!”

Sampo laughed, clear as a bell. “Works every time!”

A few days later, he started taking Ilya’s advice. Darting through Belobog’s streets with his coat buttoned tight (he swore that even Kalevala hadn't been this cold), he checked the archives one by one. The museum was a painfully dusty building, with most of its exhibits roped off or empty, but the newspaper archive was, indeed, comprehensive. Sampo spent a morning combing through old papers while trying his best to appease Uldan, the doddering exhibit supervisor who kept peering over his shoulder. Luckily, by the time he'd reached his limit of passive-aggressive remarks about not getting greasy fingerprints on the paper, he'd read enough for the day. He made sure he wasn't in view of any of the museum windows before leaning against a pillar and opening his messages. 

-Udlan is a botch 

-Uldan*

-Bithc*

-BITCH*

He squinted at the keyboard, trying to make the letters focus. They did not collaborate. 

Uldan? - 

Ohh yeah I should have warned you - 

He's very particular - 

Passionate, though. Knows a lot - 

-he thingks my fingers are greasy, Ilya. Me. An unpsyanding citizen. Why woudl he do thay to me. This is disxrimination

Sampo, what would he even be discriminating against you for? - 

-beign cooler than him

-and maybe stealing his pen to take ntoes

Did you give the pen back? - 

Sampo checked his pockets and pulled a shiny, black ballpoint from the depths. It glinted in the sunlight, almost mockingly. 

-aeons damn it

-brb

A few days later, Sampo double checked his pockets for pens before heading to the library. He was not repeating that fiasco again. To be fair, Uldan had given him a cheaper pen for free, muttering something about how seeing the youth of today take an interest in research was always a good thing, but the embarrassment had been enough.

The library was a surprisingly well-kept building, with sunlight shining in the entrance and seating all around. If he was going to spend his time off researching like some Intelligentsia Guild nerd instead of actually having fun, this was probably the best place for it. 

A table in a secluded corner was now covered in papers, schematics, maps and notes. The source of the mess was sat cross legged in the chair he'd pulled over, staring over his drink (could you believe this place had hot chocolate? How were they getting chocolate??) at his chaotic notes. Usually, research wasn't a thing that Fools had to engage in. The script covered most of it, and the power of the Laughter covered the rest. However, since Belobog had been cut off from the galaxy for years by Aeonic powers, the information available had been…jack-shit. Squat. Nothing at all. So, Sampo was forced to grimace his way through endless paragraphs, headaches, and blurry words to find out what to do next. 

He knew he had to go to the Underworld. That much was clear. The weak pull of Elation, of driving the plot forwards, was dragging him downwards. The difficult part was how. The division between Over and Under had been thorough, and nobody had been documented as breaking through in any news he'd seen. The Underworld expanded under and behind the city, like a…the first image that popped into his mind was an uneven cake, where someone had been forced to add a second tier at short notice. The awkward second tier of the Overworld was surrounded by solid, guarded walls, while the Underworld had more open access to the Plains. He had considered trekking out there as his route, but quickly rejected that when he remembered his last encounter with the Fragmentum. 

The second option, and the one he was considering the most, was staying within city limits. The Overworld’s floor was the Underworld’s ceiling, and he was sure there must be at least one missed maintenance route somewhere. The maps of heating pipes and water works laid out somewhere on the table had, so far, proven out-of-date or inconclusive. 

Annoyed at the brick wall he was hitting, Sampo had taken a tangent into learning the why of the lockdown. This had led him down a rabbit hole of research on Fragmentum, full of theories and guesswork, scrambling to solve an ever-increasing issue before it was too late. One name kept coming up in papers, a Landau, S who seemed to have a core theory on the Fragmentum coming from some sort of primary, massive source. The Landau name rang a bell, so Sampo filed that information away for future use. 

He took a long sip of his hot chocolate and stared into space, sighing. What use? It felt like a dead end had once again been hit, by his notes and his skull. This wasn't what he signed up for…

“Okay. Final attempt. Everything will be in here, and I'll come out a happy man with all the answers. Yeah. Definitely.”

A guard looked over at Sampo's muttering as he hiked up the steps of Qlipoth Fort, but made no remarks. Citizens were allowed up here to access the archives, after all. When he made it to the archival rooms, scribbling something that could have been his name on the sign-in book, there were a few other people looking through the shelves. Not enough to make it any harder to embark on his incredibly boring quest, though. He picked a random desk, slapped down his notebook (a girl with glasses far too big for her face startled at the sound, and he grimaced with a mouthed “sorry”), and got to work.

This was productive. He was getting further than before, and had gathered enough information to feel confident that if he managed to get to the Underworld, he would live. But in the name of Aha’s stupid fucking jingly socks, Sampo was not made for this. His copies of the maps looked like chicken-scratch, one of his pens had ran out of ink, and it felt like the room was becoming more statically charged by the second. He rubbed his hands along his arms, trying to get the tingling static to leave his skin, before hearing a disturbance in the hall outside. 

“Madam Supreme Guardian!”

“Captain.”

The distant voice and clicking heels, strong and commanding, seemed to draw the attention of everyone in the room. Nobody immediately rushed outside, but there was a collective turning towards the door. Sampo, who had only heard rumours about this woman, subtly moved closer to the exit to catch a glimpse. And as she walked past, he almost did a double take. 

Madam Cocolia Rand was, to most eyes, an elegant but ordinary woman. Her blonde hair was immaculately styled, her outfit equally so, and her sharp gaze absorbed everything around her. She was the picture of a strong leader, dependable yet human. 

To Sampo, she was uncanny. 

All her other features still shone clear. The eyes, the hair, the steadfast expression. But as she passed, the static peaked, to the point where it felt like lightning would strike him down where he stood. Ozone filled the air, and a jagged shadow gripped onto her shoulder. Dark and unnerving. Obsidian and gold. Brittle yet hard, unbreaking yet broken. 

Destructive. Destruction. 

The leader of this world was touched by a Stellaron.

Shit.

Chapter Text

Some scripts were simple. They led from point A to point B with ruthless precision, providing a very specific role for the discerning Fool. Some had a few threads, allowing for a more creative approach, but still gave a strong framework to stay within. 

Sampo was starting to think of the Belobog script as less of a thread, and more of an entire fucking tapestry. Knights in shining armour, hidden identities, Destruction fizzing like an especially foul Xianzhou soda in the background, and he hadn't even entered the second act yet. 

Hopefully, the recurrent S. Landau that he was currently on the way to would provide some forward momentum. 

Sampo had seen their name over and over throughout his research. Papers on Fragmentum, Geomarrow pipe designs, and even a past connection to the government. All of those things were relevant to him, especially the knowledge of the pipework, so he was hoping that he'd be able to come up with some enthusiastic lie on the fly to upgrade his plan from hare-brained to solid. 

Conveniently, Landau (and why did that name ring a bell?) ran a workshop in the Administrative District. It was a fairly new establishment, and didn't seem to attract an abundance of customers, but it was a lead. And so, squinting up at the sign to make sure he was in the right place, Sampo opened the door and stepped inside. 

The first thing he noticed was the warmth. It was a perfect, welcoming heat, missing the dry crackle of the industrial-grade geomarrow he'd become used to seeing around. The second was the clear ringing of a bell above the door, cutting through the muffled sounds of machinery. And the third was a blonde woman popping out from behind a corner, taking off her goggles to reveal ice-blue eyes so familiar that it almost made him miss her words. 

“Can I help you?”

“I, uhh…yes.” Quickly shaking the distraction out of his head, Sampo pulled some of his mess of notes out of his pocket. “Are you the Landau, S on every single paper on geomarrow tech and fragmentum I've read?”

“That's me! Serval Landau, at your service.” She almost bounded out from behind the counter, sticking out a hand dark with grease. Sampo shook it automatically, grimacing at the slippery texture. 

“It's refreshing to hear someone is here for something more than a basic fix! Don't get me wrong, I love a basic fix, but…oh, I got grease on your hand. If you come round the back, I have a sink, and soap-” The mechanic continued her ramble as she led him to the workshop proper, weaving around projects in progress (Sampo slammed his legs into at least two) to reach a small sink with a “World's Best Sister” mug soaking in it. 

“I'll just…” Serval moved the mug, gesturing to the sink with the now oily handle. “Guests first.”

After that had been sorted, Serval managed to create a clear enough area for Sampo to put his coat and small bag stuffed with even more random papers. “So.” she started, sitting on one of the mismatched seats, “What led you to my work?”

“Well…” Sampo stalled for a second, “I've been doing a lot of research on the Overworld-Underworld divide, and why that happened, and the whole fragmentum thing as a whole. They're all…stuck together, the pipes inbetween and the fragmentum outside and the politics of it all, y’know?” Serval’s eyes darted towards the door before she nodded. 

“I looked in the library, and in the archives, and even in the Fort’s public records, but some stuff was missing. I don't know what, but I know something is. And…I need to know. So I looked at the most common name that came up, and here I am!” 

Serval’s expression had changed from a casual smile to rapt, suspicious attention. 

“...did I say something wrong?”

She shook her head, but her gaze continued to bore into his soul. “Who are you?”

In an automatic attempt to break the ice, Sampo stuck out his now clean hand. “Sampo Koski?”

Serval began to reach out, brow still furrowed, until her face lit up with shock and the palm sharpened to a point. “Wait wait wait…Sampo like Mari Sampo?! ”

“How do…no, you wait.” The cool blonde hair and icy eyes suddenly solidified in his mind, into a storybook-perfect face, twisted in concern. Sampo clicked his fingers, pulling the name to the front of his mind with nothing short of a fight. “Landau like Gepard Landau.”

“I'll take that as a yes!” Serval laughed, her previous suspicion replaced by a perplexed smile. “Geppie’s my brother. And you're…the person he found in the Plains a few months back and told me about. Small world, isn't it?”

“...very.” Sampo leant back, hands behind his head in a show of nonchalance. His memory of his first few days on Belobog was foggy at best, and trying to drag details out of it had been a pain, both figuratively and literally. He remembered Gepard, glittering like a magical knight in the snow. He remembered his voice, articulated like someone with hours of etiquette lessons under their belt, softened with worry. 

He did not remember much of what he, himself, had said. But if he focused, pulling out the moment like a splinter, he could hear that voice saying Mari. 

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. 

“So, you're just Sampo? Where did the Mari come from?”

Another voice. Sampo couldn't hide the shift in expression, the scrunched face of discomfort at what felt like the mask of his own skin and blood being picked at the edges. 

“You okay there?”

“Huh? Yeah. I'm…just Sampo now, yeah. It's an…it doesn't matter.” His silver tongue felt closer to lead, and he internally prayed to Aha that Serval would change the subject. 

“Fair enough.” Serval shrugged. “Anyway. Why do you need to know about the lockdown?”

Once again, Sampo answered a question with a question. “How much did your brother tell you about me?”

“Oh, plenty. ” she grinned. “Not much interesting happens on guard duty, so when he got to stop the Fragmentum from killing a guy who came out of nowhere, it was all I heard about for days. If I remember correctly, you…came through the Pass, right? Got knocked out by a rock, Geppie still feels kinda sorry that he didn't manage to stop that one. Woke up not knowing much, gave yourself a few names, the guards came back to the city, and his knowledge ended there.”

Sampo slotted the pieces into his memories, pausing at the fact that apparently, Gepard still felt like he could've done more. Damn, that guy was a real bleeding heart. Serval had angled the conversation in the right direction, though, so it was time to keep steering the scene. 

“So…about the not knowing much part.” He scratched the back of his head, subconsciously ghosting over the scar and smiling at the irony. “I still don't. I don't have any memory of where I lived in Belobog before that little rendezvous. And, obviously, I didn't know about the whole Underworld until a good friend of mine mentioned it.”

He took a pause, letting the reveal hang in the air. Serval’s face had changed from a casual smile to quiet shock. Gauging her reactions- the glance at the door earlier, her willingness to indulge his questions- Sampo decided to bring some emotion into the story. 

“It's fucking insane. Half of the people here are trapped underground, and people talk about it so little that it took me a month to learn about it. And nobody would say anything else! So, I started doing my research. Fragmentum beasts, how Geomarrow is mostly an Underworld resource, the politics that led to this, the whole lot. And the more I learn, the more I'm convinced I gotta do something with all of this.”

He made his words pointed, letting the genuine anger from that night with Ilya colour them. The other person in the room still didn't speak, but her face said it all. Shared frustration, a long-worn pain under a chipper mask, a flicker of confusion between them. Sampo got the feeling that not many things made her speechless, but he was managing. What was that expression? Hook…

“I know I'm not from up here, that's for sure. There's no Sampo Koski on the records. But I've got this feeling that, if I figure out a way to get down there, something will be waiting for me. I have almost all the pieces I need to try, but you, Serval, may have the last ones. And that is why I came here today.”

Line…

“So. Can you help a guy out?”

“...records are shared between the Overworld and Underworld up to three years ago.”

…no sinker? 

“And, Mari Sampo, why would you be just Sampo now if that's all you remember being?”

No sinker. 

“I- It's, ah-”

Serval got up from her chair, and it took all of Sampo's willpower to not scramble up to match her. “I know you're not telling the whole truth. But you're not lying, either. And, this may sound a bit weird…”, her previous awkwardness seeped in for a second, like she'd been questioned for this before, “...but if you can swear you have good intentions, I don't think you have to tell me the whole truth.”

“I swear on my M- my life. Swear on my life.”

His reply was so prompt that he surprised himself. Something about Serval made him slip up more than he would like. Her Landau blues may have been identical to those he'd seen before, but where Geppie’s gaze had felt like a gentle, solid pressure, Serval’s felt like a pointed beam. Like she could see through him, like the phantom hum of calculations in the air-

Ah. 

Sampo looked at her, really Looked, and saw the lonely flame of Erudition staring back. Even on this shielded planet, even without knowledge of the Aeons, Nous would find THEIR savants. 

“Alright.” Serval assented, and Sampo let out a quiet breath of relief. “Come upstairs, I'm not sharing all this in view of the windows.”

The rolled-up schematics that Serval pinned down on a table with hex-nuts were almost familiar to him. Hours of combing the library’s archives had him feeling comfortable with wafer-thin paper at his fingertips, and Sampo absent-mindedly wondered if the Genius Society was taking applications. With all this damn research he'd gotten involved in, surely he deserved a second or third Gaze. 

“Okay, so as far as I know, the best Geomarrow supply tunnel to take would be Citrine.” Serval tapped the relevant line with a pencil. “Amber is the biggest, but that also means it's monitored. Heliodor is too small, and Tiger Eye has this huge drop that makes it less viable. Oh, and don't even think about Sulphur.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Do you have a gas mask?”

“...I'll take that as a no.”

“Got it in one! Anyway, you see where Citrine goes from?”

Sampo squinted at the schematic, trying to make sense of all the criss-crossing lines. “Is that an old tram station? And to…Rivet Town. Just Rivet Town? Do they not have streets down there?”

Serval snorted with derision. “Oh, they do. The planners just didn't concern themselves with details below them. ” The last words were said with such obvious disdain that Sampo almost shrunk back out of second-hand nervousness. 

“Ah. Well. I guess I'll find out!”

“Guess you will…are you sure you can do this? What makes you so different from everyone else that's tried, Mari Sampo?”

Sampo pulled a face, and not just at the name. Serval had tried to tease this bit of information out of him a few times, now. Apparently, people had tried to get to the Underworld through many means since the two had been separated. On ramshackle mine carts, through and around the eternal freeze, or via Geomarrow lines, like he planned to. All of them had been captured, perished, or lost, presumed dead. Any route that was left accessible was open because it was assumed to not be compatible with human life. This included the Citrine route. The residual heat and pressure of Geomarrow tunnels, even years after service had been reduced, was so hot that only a fool would attempt to travel through them. 

Luckily for Sampo, he was exactly that. And he was hoping, praying, that the Laughter would carry him safely to his next act. 

“I…can't tell you that right now, Miss Serval. But I am. The same way that you can fix things others can't even wrap their heads around, I can do this. Trust me.”

Those ice-blue eyes were staring into his soul again. Not with hostility. No, this time it felt more like…concern.

“I believe you.” Serval furrowed her brow, like she confused herself with her own words. “Qlipoth knows why, but I do. Look…take this one with you, I can get another copy.” She pulled another rolled-up plan out of the shelf, handing it to him. “And if you find a way to make this route a two-way street…come visit, okay? It is insane that half of Belobog is cut off. You were right. And if you can make it between those halves…so many people would be helped. I know that's not what this is all about, but you'd change lives. ”

He took the offered scroll in one hand. Neither of them let go. Instead, Sampo chose to look Serval directly in the eyes, for once, meeting hers with the unnatural green that so many people glossed over. 

“I read this saying in a book somewhere. It said something like…true joy will always entail the manifestation of the dignity of mankind. Anything I do will always be about that, Miss Serval.” He broke the eye contact, slipping back on a semblance of a mask with a chuckle. “Otherwise, this whole thing wouldn't be fun for anyone!”

After a long, skeptical stare, Serval loosened her grip, letting him put the schematic in his bag. Sampo knew when a conversation was over, and packed up all of his messy notes (he wouldn't need most of them, but he couldn't leave them here, either) before being led down the stairs and back to the entrance. The weather had held outside, a constant, close fog. 

Before he bid his farewells and made his way out, Serval’s hand landed in a single, shockingly strong pat on his back. 

“You're a strange man, Just-Sampo.” He felt his face quirk a smile at the name. “Don't forget to visit.”

“I would never, Miss Serval.” He let that smile turn into a full grin, Elation sparking in his chest. “See you around!”