Seti's Backstory

It is important when you are investigating a mystery, tracking down information, or performing academic research that you remain as objective as possible. Having an opinion is unprofessional. Having an opinion means you will fit the evidence to suit your theory and will ignore the path it is guiding you down. It is simple logic.

While not a perfect metaphor, a puzzlebox is a good example of why you should leave emotion out of your work. You get a simple puzzlebox with two offset (and boarded) windows on each side. You know there are 30 moves to open the box. You jiggle each offset window to see if any move. Two jiggle slightly so you fixate on them. Your frustration grows. You keep jiggling and fidgeting and poking at them and complaining to others, until finally you hand this off to a friend, who very easily finds that if they press a different window - one you had been ignoring for hours in your effort to get these other two to move - a latch is undone and suddenly things start opening. You got so subjectively invested in those two windows that you neglected to notice the answer.

It is important to remain objective.

Having an opinion is unprofessional.

These are things I have to regularly remind myself. 

--

My home is a short walk from where I work. It is not large, but there is only me, so it is big enough. I have a large, comfortable bed. My bathing chamber allows me to stretch out. My kitchen is well-stocked. All things to be pleased with. These things, technically, I worked for. Ra'mey, the Sovereign Timekeeper, a hero of our people, my boss, provides them for me.  But they are not my favorite rooms in my home. The best room in my house is my study. It is there that I have used every gold I have scrimped and saved from my pay. The walls are lined with bookshelves. Fictional mystery narratives fill some. Scrolls of interesting mathematical puzzles for the reader to solve fill another. One of my shelves is for display purposes only and holds puzzle boxes that when solved play quiet songs or reveal beautiful pictures or hidden secrets.

Abasi gave me one of those puzzle boxes before he was gone. As I took the box from him, he shifted his hands forward, and clasped my fingers with his. I can remember how his hands felt with incredible accuracy; how cool his fingers were; the way he smiled; how he called me my full name - Sutekh. My heart hammered. I cannot remember his eyes, his hair, his voice. I cannot remember what he wore. I cannot remember what else he said. Just my full name and how it sounded like a caress when he said it.

When I get home from work, a melancholy occasionally overtakes me. When this happens, I take the puzzle box Abasi gave me, and I turn it over in my hands, and I solve it. I think that, perhaps, this time I will solve it a different way. Forty-two moves and his puzzle box opens. It plays a quiet song. The melancholy lifts. I wonder if there is a hidden chamber beyond this - many puzzle boxes have second, more deeply hidden chambers after all. But if there is, I have not found it.

Some day I will learn why he left. I do not know if he left of his own volition, or if he was sent on an errand and will be back, or if he is never coming back. I do not know when he left. I do not know why I have forgotten so much about him. All of it is a mystery I need to solve, but the idea of looking into it fills me with a terror, sadness, and dread that renders me unable to push forward to it, no matter how much I would like to.

I miss Abasi. This is a fact that lingers always in the back of my head.

This is why I have to remind myself so regularly. It is okay to miss him at home. At work, I must remain objective.

--

I was gifted my first puzzlebox when I was young. I remember little about it. The golden light was blinding. The sand was roaring far below. A man's voice said, "Here, Seti, you'll like this."

I still have this box. It is a simple thing. Four moves and it opens. There is a false panel at the bottom, and when you pull it up, it is art done of Prism in golden filigree. The floating pyramid over the sands. You can almost see the wind catching and carrying the sand.

It sits right next to the box Abasi gave me on the shelf. Both remind me of times that felt more simple, even if I objectively know they were not. Holding it in my hands is bittersweet.

This is another reason I have to remind myself so regularly.

--

I am Sutekh, called Seti. I am an Archivist. I serve Ra'mey, the Sovereign Timekeeper. I gather information for him - from our archives, buried deep in catalogues and cross-referencing; from venturing out and interviewing recalcitrant others; from untranslated paperwork that must be sorted through and properly localized for understanding. I make sure to take notes. I make sure to document every thing I do, so that if something were to happen, my footsteps could be easily followed.

I deliver all of this to him, neatly, lined up straight. I include truncated notes on the topic so he does not have to go through everything I find if he does not have the time.

I do not ask him his opinion. If I do exceptional work, he will tell me. Otherwise, I should do good work. That is why he allows me my magic, after all. That is why I work for him, and not elsewhere on the Erudition layer.

And through all my work, I remain objective.

It is important to remain objective.