The Three Sisters
Deep in the heart of the Complex beneath City Center, past the tunnels and the rusted rail tracks, down a declining passage that took nearly a full day to walk, there was a corridor guarded every hour of every day by one of three Full Dead women. They were not biological siblings. They had been around one another for such a long period of time that they simply adopted one another as relations, and the name stuck. The Three Sisters guarded the entrance to the Vault of the Pre-Fall Burden, and they did so with the quiet permanence that only the undying can sustain.
Each Sister maintained a distinct philosophical approach to her duty. The Burned Sister, blind and covered in burns that refused to heal, asked the least of those who sought entry. She believed that anyone who could not handle the truth would weed themselves out after observing the reality contained within the vault. Natural selection through exposure. The Quizzical Sister, the most inquisitive of the three, used each interview as an opportunity to understand what drove individuals to reach for the unknown. She wanted to study the compulsion itself. The Enigmatic Sister, the most cryptic, held that the knowledge within the vault neither was nor was not influential; only one's perception of the information mattered. Meaning, she insisted, existed in the observer, not the text.
Visitors seeking access were required to answer moral and philosophical questions posed by whichever Sister was on watch. "If life is meaningless, how do you see yourself moving forward?" "Is it better to be ignorant and happy or to be aware and miserable?" The Sisters also verified that visitors were educated enough to comprehend the vault's contents, turning away those who lacked the capacity to process what they would find. Each Sister was accompanied at all times by an honor guard of six members of the Standing Army, sworn to protect both the guardians and the knowledge they safeguarded.
Beyond the corridor lay the Vault itself, containing three subchambers: "History of Salt," "New Origin of Species," and "Athenium Mortis Amaranthine." A reading and recovery room sat at the center. The Three Sisters kept this room stocked with a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of gin. The provision was not a courtesy. Some readers, upon learning what the vault held, had been known to take their own lives. The alcohol was there for those who found the truth overwhelming but not yet fatal, a small mercy offered by three women who had spent so long in the dark that they understood exactly what knowledge could do to the unprepared.
Each Sister maintained a distinct philosophical approach to her duty. The Burned Sister, blind and covered in burns that refused to heal, asked the least of those who sought entry. She believed that anyone who could not handle the truth would weed themselves out after observing the reality contained within the vault. Natural selection through exposure. The Quizzical Sister, the most inquisitive of the three, used each interview as an opportunity to understand what drove individuals to reach for the unknown. She wanted to study the compulsion itself. The Enigmatic Sister, the most cryptic, held that the knowledge within the vault neither was nor was not influential; only one's perception of the information mattered. Meaning, she insisted, existed in the observer, not the text.
Visitors seeking access were required to answer moral and philosophical questions posed by whichever Sister was on watch. "If life is meaningless, how do you see yourself moving forward?" "Is it better to be ignorant and happy or to be aware and miserable?" The Sisters also verified that visitors were educated enough to comprehend the vault's contents, turning away those who lacked the capacity to process what they would find. Each Sister was accompanied at all times by an honor guard of six members of the Standing Army, sworn to protect both the guardians and the knowledge they safeguarded.
Beyond the corridor lay the Vault itself, containing three subchambers: "History of Salt," "New Origin of Species," and "Athenium Mortis Amaranthine." A reading and recovery room sat at the center. The Three Sisters kept this room stocked with a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of gin. The provision was not a courtesy. Some readers, upon learning what the vault held, had been known to take their own lives. The alcohol was there for those who found the truth overwhelming but not yet fatal, a small mercy offered by three women who had spent so long in the dark that they understood exactly what knowledge could do to the unprepared.
Structure
Three Full Dead women rotated the watch between themselves, perpetually and exclusively. Each was accompanied by an honor guard of six members of the Standing Army sworn to protect both the Sisters and the knowledge they safeguarded. The total strength of the operation was twenty-one: three principals and eighteen guards. The Three Sisters did not recruit. Their guardianship was self-contained and did not expand. They were not biological siblings; they had been around one another for so long that the three Full Dead adopted one another as relations, and the bond held.
Public Agenda
The Three Sisters guarded the Vault of the Pre-Fall Burden: three subchambers named "History of Salt," "New Origin of Species," and "Athenium Mortis Amaranthine," with a reading and recovery room at the center. Visitors seeking access had to answer moral and philosophical questions posed by whichever Sister was on watch. "If life is meaningless, how do you see yourself moving forward?" "Is it better to be ignorant and happy or to be aware and miserable?" The Sisters also verified that visitors were educated enough to comprehend what the vault contained. The knowledge was not hidden out of cruelty; it was guarded because its weight had broken people before.
History
When the Three Sisters first took up their vigil over the Vault of the Pre-Fall Burden is not recorded. What is known is that by the functional era of Dominus Columbia they had been guarding the corridor deep within the Complex beneath City Center for long enough to have adopted one another as family. The descent to the Vault took nearly a full day's walk along a declining tunnel with rusted rail tracks, and at the bottom of that walk, one of the three was always waiting. They kept the reading room stocked with whiskey and gin for those who found the vault's truths overwhelming. Some readers, it is said, took their own lives after learning too much. The Sisters had seen that before. They kept the bottles full anyway.
Three Full Dead guardians of forbidden knowledge beneath City Center.
Type
Guardianship order
Composition
3 Full Dead women
Honor Guard
18 Standing Army soldiers
Location
The Complex, beneath City Center
Guards
Vault of the Pre-Fall Burden
