'Place of Refuge'

In Singapore’s Chinatown, near some of the best restaurants of a dining-crazy town, a hotel called the Hotel New Majestic rose from the ashes of a hotel that had fallen on hard times. And as you walk in front of behind its columns but outside its doors, you will see a plaque entitled Place of Refuge, a marker from Kcymaerxthaere.

Kcymaerxthaere is an art project created by Eames Demetrios. A series of plaques and other markers around the world honor events that have taken place in a parallel universe that, according to Demetrios, “co-exists to some degree with ours.” Most of these installations are bronze or stone plaques inscribed with stories but some are larger, even entire buildings. As of 2021, there are more than 140 sites spread across six continents and 30 countries.

And even the title of the marker should be a tip off that this place was likely part of the story of Eliala Mei-Ning. Indeed it was and even more besides. This site was, of course, crucial to the fate of the worlds. That may sound a bit melodramatic to the uninitiated, but it was here that Nobunaga-Ventreven met Eliala Mei-Ning, she of the voice whose beauty could not be concealed, and brought her to the Faltese, to play her key role in the Battle of Some Times. At the time, Ventreven had to come via the Umbrasphaere, the connection between all the shadows and darkness on the planet–where darkest of one shadow is connected to the darkest part of the next. The reason he had to do this is because in Kcymaerxthaereal times this place was known as pSegolene, a gwome famous for being impossible to get to, but once you were there, it was only half a day to anywhere else.