Kakania: I'm looking for Isolde von Dittarsdorf.
Two vigilant eyes appear from within the vent.
The watcher silently looks over Kakania, then opens the underground passage.
Kakania: I'm looking for Isolde von Dittarsdorf.
A small window opens high along the stone wall.
A different watcher now looks at Kakania again, more indifferently this time, unlocking the iron door with a key.
Kakania: I'm looking for Isolde von Dittarsdorf.
The ragged peddler, a stranger to Kakania, nods with strange recognition.
He drapes a colorful feathered cloak over Kakania and hurries through the corridor.
Kakania: You sure this will work?
Vendor II: No time to complain, doctor. You should be very grateful that I'm helping you.
Vendor II: This is an invisibility cloak from Bohemia. It took the hair of two witches to make one. No one will see you, even if you were right under their noses.
Kakania: ... Okay.
The stiff feathers cover her entirely, making Kakania feel like an odd, flightless, if colorful bird.
Enduring the discomfort of the smell, she quickens her pace.
Kakania: ...
The sound of her own footfalls accelerates her heartbeat, though she tries to remember they are only audible to her. She turns a corner, then passes through to another corridor.
Things might well have gone smoothly—if not for some unexpected occurrences.
Vienna Guard: ...?!
Vienna Guard: Where did the feathers come from?
Kakania: Holy—it's losing feathers! I should have known these arcane devices were unreliable!
Kakania: I'm so close!
Kakania breaks into a run, her billowing skirt escaping the cloak's cover, and so appearing in the air behind her.
Vienna Guard: Hey, wait.
Vienna Guard: Isn't that the wanted criminal, Kakania?! That traitor!
Vienna Guard: Disturbing the peace, inciting treason, and bewitching citizens with arcane skills! How dare she infiltrate the government!
Vienna Guard: Halt, you're under arrest!
COMBAT
Kakania: panting
Kakania slams the door shut, barricading her pursuers behind her.
The room she finds herself in is oddly spacious.
A graceful figure emerges out from behind the bookshelves.
Isolde: ... Doctor! You've finally come.
Isolde: I've been waiting for you.
Isolde drifts toward Kakania like a wisp, as if not fully real.
Isolde: For so long! Was your journey here safe? How have you been?
Kakania can't help but step back cautiously.
Kakania: Isolde, what is going on? What have you and Heinrich done?
Kakania: Why did you say that at the exhibition? Who were those people helping me on my way here?
Kakania: What's with the golems, the secret tunnels, and that turmoil?
Kakania: You vanished from the exhibition, and now "The Circle" is considered a treasonous organization and our members are now wanted!
Kakania: Newspapers are criticizing us! The New Free Press called us "treasonous and naive, like a teenage runaway."
Kakania: And now "The Circle" has become subversives, and I'm wanted! They even thought the chaos and subsequent turmoil were planned by me!
Kakania: This-this is not why I founded it!
Kakania: And now you invite me here, claiming to have found "the way to realize my dream" ...
Kakania: You're confusing me! Are you still the Isolde I know? You ...
Isolde: Please listen to me, doctor! I've been meaning to tell you, from the beginning.
Isolde: But Heinrich stopped me and told me the exhibition was a better time.
Isolde: He said your dream is a dream for everyone, and that's why we should announce it in front of everyone.
Isolde: I should apologize. I did not see this coming. I have discredited you, and you have every reason to hate me.
She poorly hides the disappointment from her face, wilting as the light in her eyes dims momentarily.
Isolde: But worry not, doctor, I give you my word, soon you won't have to worry about anything.
Isolde: These people don't understand your dream, and they won't become your allies.
Isolde: But we—we are different!
Kakania: We?
She furrows her brow, mulling over the word with full weight and prudence.
Kakania: The mister who sent me your message, the people showing me the way, all were unfamiliar faces, I've never met any of them before.
Kakania: Who are they? No, who are you?
Kakania: What is "your" purpose?
Isolde: Heh heh, doctor, it doesn't matter, doctor!
Isolde: What matters is that, "we" share the same dream with you, "we" long for the same paradise as you do.
Isolde: That glorious kingdom of freedom!
She steps toward the void again with staged emotion, her smile as beautiful as it had been in any performance.
Kakania: Isolde ... Are you seeing illusions again?
Isolde: No, doctor, I'm completely cured. You healed me!
Isolde: And now, it's my turn to treat the world with you. Let's scrape the paint off the top, reveal its true colors, and reshape it.
Isolde: Until it is transformed into a perfect world, a perfect society!
Isolde: Because we are the chosen ones!
Kakania: You ...
Kakania: You planned the riots in Leopoldstadt, right? And the march demanding the transformation of society.
Isolde smiles half-mischievously.
Kakania: Isolde, I don't know what they said to threaten you, but you can't stay with them!
Kakania: They're not treating you—you're committing a crime!
The actress stands bewildered, as if she had never considered it at all.
Isolde: But I did exactly what you told me to do, doctor.
Kakania: Me?
Isolde takes light steps, retreating but not turning.
Isolde: It was you who told me to stop repressing myself, to release my inner desires, and to be sincere, to be free.
The graceful woman takes her place. Soon, she will pay homage to that splendid one-act play with her art—the curtain of her stage is about to rise.
Isolde nods, turning in a move at first bashful.
But then her face returns, now hidden behind a black mask.
Isolde: It was you who told me that our society needs a surgery, and that we arcanists need a new life that belongs to us.
Isolde: Is this not your dream?
Isolde: I just ... want to give you the truth of the world.
Isolde: I just want to give you back your dream.