The mindful librarian succeeds at her first challenge against the Tophat. Now, she gazes from the roofs of Wailstone with a thought of low for the town. As delightful as it was lied to her, even a lantern could not save the darkness it had been swept upon.
The walls of this town are not friendly enough to hide her, and people inside know no trust for outsiders. Whatever the barrister had said to the Wailstone citizens had snuffed every hope for another light, as it seems that everyone is to turn a blind eye to every death and disappearance. For all the librarian knew, she was an enemy of the residents here. The three wanderers finally ended up on a roof. How lucky they were to still stand a ghost despite the fuss they made.
"Terrible town. What a terrible place..." Eve steps through the wall with her hand on a Charger's tool.
"As your fellow guidance here, let me tell you more about this town first. Wailstone is a terrible place to be, and you wouldn't even be here for more than a second to realize it..."
"Because of the boredom?" Charger asked.
"Because you're going to die by the red-coated man first."
"Aww..." The Tin Man draws pity.
Out of nowhere, The Tin Man appeared from thin air. All his pebbles faded into existence and were unharmed by the town. Yet the sight of his appearance shook the librarian with illogical presentation. But the two notice a watch in his left hand that they never see, designed ludicrously.
"How did you...did you do that yourself?"
"No. The miracle of cloaking with your wrist."
"Help me camouflage with surroundings even better," He replied with an innocent smile.
"Mechanical madness. This is why my followers are devoted to the sun first! Spark, I do not understand them..."
But for the librarian to slip over the eyes of the Tophats, finding her boat in their cruel, decrepit confinement seems out of the odds. She was not an assassin nor a thief, after all. Of all the things she had honed since childhood, one was to keep her away from this event, from treachery.
The three sat on the balcony of an abandoned building, "So, what now? Do we have anything?" Eve mumbled.
"I don't think so. Down there is not perfect for a leap of faith." Cyrus commented.
"As long as they don't look up, then we'll be fine."
"Hey, what is this thing, Charger why does it called 'tether'?" Eve held onto the skein of metal thread in her possession.
"Yes, that's it! Give it to me. I'll show!"
So, the first one to think was the Tin Man. With his brilliance, he shaped a tool to help them traverse the darkness. A piece of tin he shreds into a line, like a reel to a fishing rod. The hook lunges from the gun's barrel, crashes into a wall, and silently stretches through an immense distance.
"Aw, yeah! Now we could go for a trip. Let's go, everyone!" Charger holds onto the line.
"Uhm, Charger? I don't think this will work..." Eve stops him.
"What? It does right now!"
"Well, I don't think it works for two humans at once, does it...?"
"Oh..." Charger pauses.
But the line was too thin and weak. And the shot was poorly aimed for a size of a dwarf. Yet the librarian and the cleric quickly follow, with more assertions to fix what the Tin Man couldn't place before. With hook swing tight and its line thickened and stretched, the three swiftly traverse through the sky like a bird gliding down. The Tophats couldn't bother to look at the shimmering stars for hope or curiosity like them.
"Aagh! The sand! It's all over my mouth!" Cyrus gagged.
"Aargh! Blergh! How can someone make me do this!?"
"That's the taste of tension to me! I mean, look at us! Can you imagine how tall it would be down there if the sand didn't cover our eyes?" Eve teases from behind.
"What? Ah!!" Cyrus yelled as he looked down.
"Don't look down, boy!" She yelled.
They climb like monkeys on the line, watching the sky gloomy and the ground far. Tophats linger and leave, and then a man flees through the alley. The Tin Man took the mantle for the nimble one while the cleric rolled the second and the librarian wandered the last. Yet despite her defeat, the trembling heartbeat is what she focuses more on.
"Citizens of Wailstone, with recent news from the Great Stone, we informed you to stay indoors and avoid any interaction outside the curfew."
"Wailstone port has been put under lockdown during the event of unexpected disaster. Anyone who was found trying to pass unregulated will be heavily redressed under Waylon's law."
"In addition, anyone who was found lingering from their home will be penalized into the prison for trespassing. A supply of water will be provided into your homes with the help of Tophats' members for 15 silver per person."
"I repeat, anyone found not in their home will be imprisoned under the Duke's law. An Overseer has been set into the town to keep an eye out."
Through the voice of a greedy man, their travel was set through a struggling track. He who gave himself the false power bore the wisdom to rule those who easily cower. His gold owes many days from the living, but his home belongs to no king.
"Waylon Hoyles..." Eve muttered.
The man sits proudly in his chair, mumbling pride in a desecrated world of apathy like Wailstone. But his eyes are standing tonight, for the sandy clouds bring so much suspicion into his sight. As bright as the sun, the Overseer's eye was a call for the three to run.
"Shit. The Overseer." Eve mumbled with horror.
"What?" Charger stops.
"The district's watch. If it sees us, we're doomed. Quick!" Cyrus glares at it.
"Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick!" Eve urged faintly.
The wanderers are in haste, for they have no time to waste. The terrible eye seeks through the sand with a blurry view, but the light keeps shining through the dust due. The light is shining like a dawn-calling demise as they prayed so hard for their lives.
"They're coming over here! We have no time."
[Sun] "Try not to look down and hold onto the line tight!" Eve motivates.
[Moon] "Then push it! You don't see we have no option left?" Eve urges.
[Storm] "Keep your eyes on the front and maybe we can see something else," Eve berates.
Hearts beat faster, fingers started to red, and arms grew tired. But their wail makes a move worth crying to salvation. The three make it to the other side, nearly a few grips away, thanks to a window left open by the house to evade the shining catch.
"Quick! Duck!" Eve pushes Cyrus and Charger's head down to the floor.
The light shimmers at their heads, but all they found was a null between two buildings. The red-coated man would've suspected the line being too far stretched, but such a question never came to their heads. And so it goes away without a second thought.
"Phew..."
"Alright! Let me just..." Charger mumbled.
Laid in another house, unowned and rugged like an old boot, the wanderers were for a big surprise. A treasure awaits even in the dark, held by walls that keep a truth forbidden. But the librarian pauses with an enamoured glaze at the ceiling, thinking about the thoughtless dust scattering and the spark brewing in her eyes from beating too much from her heart.
"Another abandoned house, eh? I'm getting bored..." Cyrus straps his loose boots.
"Hm. This house looks...furnished." Charger commented.
"Nothing about this place looks furnished to me, Charger." He mumbled.
"Oh, but this place looks cosy and enough for me to live. I mean, look at that wardrobe and table! Who couldn't resist that window, too?"
All the wall felt like a hole, empty of joy and seemingly a waste of time. Darkness slowly seeps into her eyes, drowning her in the void of weariness as her heart slows. It seems everyone else was following her towards the lonesome drowsy.
"Crap. They locked the port tight. Now we can't go in!" Cyrus worried.
"Well, I can open it!" Charger raises his lockpick.
"No, it's locked and guarded! Tophats are securing the port with maximum defence and we will be killed on sight. It's not just locked—it's protected."
"Aww..." He frowns with his lockpick down.
"Damn," Eve mumbled. She pauses for a moment as she enjoys it.
"Looks like we're having fun today. But I don't think we could stay any further waiting for one star here. Can we?" Cyrus rushes.
"Woah, Cyrus! No need to rush it over. Don't you see that Overseer hanging outside? We'll be dead in a ditch if we tried walking by now." Cyrus grabbed her by the shoulder.
"What? Don't you see that staying here each second would only bring more misery? I've never beat my heart this fast since I had to carry out a fire on my back during a ceremony." Cyrus scowled.
The cleric seems hopeful, but hopeful he is that his hands are guiding him astray to the fire. Never had they treason and escaped such acts in their lives from the people, but it was somewhat worth what they must sacrifice for at the end of the day.
"Relax for a moment, Cyrus. Let's rest a bit of ourselves and then we go again. Deal?" Eve mumbled.
"Or...we make this haste and leave this town immediately so we can get a better place to rest? What about that?"
"Rest. We're getting that boat when we're ready, Cyrus..."
"Ugh, but what about the people outside? Can't we just go out and make this haste!"
"Well, we could always pick another option." Charger suggests.
"What option?"
"Uhm...I don't know...maybe learning to swim? It seems easy to me..." He pauses awkwardly, looking at his pebbles afterwards.
"We're not going anywhere, Cyrus. Not until we're rested."
"Then don't stop me..."
The cleric pushes the librarian away from his sight before making a run towards the stairs before he can recover. A shocked librarian had to catch him immediately before she could take a step down.
"Cyrus, no!"
"I'm leaving getting that boat whether you like it or not." Cyrus rushes.
"Then you're not!" Eve yelled in a twist.
A fight began between the two wanderers, but not a violent and beating one. The cleric held his ground to let the librarian stay further from the stairway with her body while he tried his best to push through the immovable librarian. She was desperate to keep him behind.
"Eve! Mind over! Are you trying to kill them?" He persists, but all her running feet take no steps from where she stands.
"No, you're putting yourself in danger more than I do to them." She held him by the back of his robe.
"I have a task, Eve. And when I have a task, I don't stop until it's done. So let me go or else I'll have you fall on those steps!" Eve stands menacing at Cyrus.
"She's right, Cyrus. Don't you think we should've readied ourselves in this rest?"
"Only if you are as heartless as a monster!"
"Come on, Cyrus. There is no wrong in preservation! Just rest assured and be comfortable with what we have because we're not losing anything yet! I'm sure Charger thinks the same." She begs desperately.
"Uhm...well, she's not wrong, but she's also not right..." Charger replies.
"Hrgh...Fine..."
"Please. Just rest for a moment..." Eve mutters.
The cleric was left aimless without a choice, and he had none but words repeating in his head. All the fight he had put at her had also tired himself. The ambition of reason brings so much exhaustion, especially since the librarian had saved him from the terrible fate of being red-coated man's meat on the hook. So, without a choice, he had to endure the silence.
"Ugh..." He walked off with a low head.
"We'll get over that place. I promise you, Cyrus!" Eve comforts.
The librarian laid on remnants of a bed, with a space preserved enough for her head so as not to drench herself in its dust. With the time saved, the librarian could only sleep and wander in her dream. But slumbering was challenging with a thoughtful head like the cleric.
"Just wake me up when you're done. And if we ended up past six, then you two would be the one rowing the boat!"
"I'll go look around this place. Let's hope the Tophats won't have a route here...I promise I won't go out! Just looking for supplies..." Cyrus walks downstairs to the lower floor, not to be heard after. The floor is left with Eve and Charger afterwards.
"I'm a man of promise, you know?"
"Alright. Charger, we'll look around this house and see if we can find something else..."
"Aye aye!"
She was curious as alive, and the silence from the abandoned house grew uneasy to look at. To ease herself, she opened her book, writing to distract herself from the spreading sand and terrible interior. Somehow, it was comforting to be here than to be outside.
"Ugh..." Eve left the bed and headed to the table with her book.
But clumsy and tired she was, her pen slipped like her focus to the floor, rolling and fading into the dark. Such an accident lures her away, following the pen to a place she had never seen.
"Wow, I'm such a clumsy woman, am I?"
"There you are, huh?"
Something held onto the house that stunned her eyes. Despite the dead-like appearance, there's still a light fleeting at the dark corner of this house through a blueish-lavender hue. But it was dim behind cold woods and stones that had fallen from the rubbles, leaving a mystery must digging.
"What's that?" Eve wondered as she perched her eyes closer into the light. And so she was set on her curiosity again.
"Charger, come here!"
"Huh? What is it, Eve?" Charger arrives with his tether being reeled.
"Come, help me remove these rocks. I see something good out here..."
"Oh, treasure hunting! You just know me well, Eve!"
The librarian continues, yanking stones from the rummage with the Tin Man to follow for what seems to be a call for her. But the serenity is nothing like a charm, for all she hears is a buzz behind the rocks. Doubts thinned for her when she thought merely but a leftover light from its sounds, hence the fingers slowly toil with pebbles around her.
"Ha! What a stress. Who wasted a rock here. This ain't worth a look for all these rubbles." She pulled the last rock away. And in a second, it took to change her mind.
"Whoa..." She thought.
When she finished digging, she found herself speechless at the shining blue. Something holds on to the wreckage of that tiny space in the house, protecting what is seemingly a memoir at the centre, following the buzzing lanterns beside. Flowers and unlit candles seem to be more of a story than just a decoration, and another question comes from the blur of a writer's identity.
"What a place! Who could've been here?" Charger strolls around.
"No name on the cover? How ridiculous..." She picked the book from the shrine-like table. A cold pause brushes off her skin.
"This place looks somewhat unchanged despite the rust outside. Strange..." Charger mumbled.
"I was a lucky girl, then. But who would've left their book empty? Are they not aware of a thief?"
"Let's see what you have, sir or ma'am."
Opening that book was easy, only to discover a scribble whose writer seemed to have fallen into the devil's temptation. Only a few words are still evident, indicating a proper introduction from the writer. She leaves the critic behind, for boredom seems to sharpen her curiosity more.
"Hey, did the sand outside rub my eyes? I can't see clear of this!" Charger rubs.
"No, Charger. It's the book itself that did this. It looks like we're dealing with a special kinds of writer. One that's definitely not a good person."
"How can you tell?" He wonders.
[Note]
The Tophats had done too much, and even I can't deny how much I have suffered from them. My brothers lost all his fingers, and even now, they haven't felt tempted by his late debt payment. Lives here were worse than we thought, and I could barely feed myself for another day.
I built this shrine following his death. This was the only grave I could afford for him because Tophats desecrated his body like a pie when they caught him leaving the town. I may have died or left this town afterwards, but if somehow this thing survived and I returned to this town, I may have to burn it.
"What's with Tophats and finger-cutting behaviour? It seems like they didn't even care about the people they taxed." Eve criticizes.
"Do all of these people always like this, Eve?" Charger crosses his arms as he sits beside her shoulder.
"Well, I'm not a Wailstonian, but as someone who lives next to Tophats, I could say yes."
"If only this book could tell us how to evade those Tophat's blade. He does seem to survive well for being able to leave this town."
"Hey, there's another one." Charged poked.
[Note]
Brother, I apologize if the flower I bought from you is from Kornilem. I know you hated that flower type, but I was desperate because I couldn't get to shop in time.
However, I had already dug the rest of the tunnel we've made for years to the south after your demise. Know that it now lies safe and occupied in an empty yellow house with an initial B4. Maybe it could help some of us here.
"*Sobs* Wow, not even he could afford a flower. Such a tragic life..." Charger pity.
"Right, Eve?"
"Eve?"
"And I learn something new, too..." Eve stares with a delighted eye.