Characters/Seaya

She said you're a substitute

She said can't you see we're through

One more silent victory

-- The Living End, "Silent Victory"

A pale green light filters in through the branches that cover the mouth of this cave, illuminating the rounded rock walls. The walls are curving and burrow-like, blending into floor and ceiling and merging with the pale, rippled columns of stalactites and stalagmites. Here and there stand shallow pools of water inhabited by pale, slithering creatures. Waxy insects creep about on the damp walls.

The cave goes in a long way, twisting slightly as it does, and rising up toward a natural stone shelf, almost like a dais. Upon this rests a glittering statue of a woman, humanoid with mantis-like features. Her long robes are simple but fine, sweeping out behind her on the rock dais. Her legs are drawn up in a lotus position, her barbed arms clasped before her face.

This is the resting place of Neke-Seaya, daughter of the House of Neke, one of the most respected families of Top, and promising sculptress and programmatrix prior to her self-suspension. Seaya objected to her arranged marriage to Celeth amn-Culn, and vanished on her recombination day along with all of her existing backups. After days of frantic searching, her body - this statue - was discovered here, petrified and encrypted.

Even during the Neke's long absence, the family's processors still remained engaged in breaking the encryption and restoring her, though it is estimated that it will take several more centuries.

---

Seaya is a mask.

Seaya's grotto might be considered an attraction.

I wonder how well the secret of Seaya's existence is kept? Even if it's just a rumor, I could see Seaya's encryption becoming something of a legend among the geeks and bit-heads of the Mess, sort of a local equivalent to the Beale ciphers or the Voynich manuscript. I could almost see a line of crackpots queueing up to various Neke, offering their services, insisting that one scruffy neo-Boreal tripping on dissociatives is all it would take to crack the code... -- OR

As a remarkable coincidence, literally every other time I go by that mountain as Echo, her niche is mentioned in the desc. It's like she wants my company or something, y'know? -- Echo