Chapter Thirty - Sneaky Scary Tentacles Send Shivers Down Your Mind

When Charlotte told Dreamer what she meant by ‘be sneaky’ she tried to keep it simple. Dreamer, the... somewhat innocent girl that she was, had a better time understanding simple things.

Charlotte laid out a plan to approach the North hill from the north, as opposed to from the town itself. There were likely to be fewer eyes that way, and if they were caught, they could always pretend that they were just heading to the town from the north, on foot.

It wasn’t the best excuse, but Charlotte was ready to give it a go.

So she instructed Dreamer to make sure she stayed silent.

Dreamer’s response was to ‘eat’ all the sound around them, rendering them entirely, impossibly, silent.

Charlotte felt that maybe no matter how much she planned or tried to think ahead, Dreamer would always just... be Dreamer.

“Okay,” Charlotte whispered as they hid behind a large bush at the base of the hill. Dreamer kindly refrained from eating Charlotte’s voice, which was nice. There was a switch-back path cut into the hillside, and a palisade halfway up it. Likely to keep out any wandering animals. She pointed up the hill, where the setting sun turned the yellowing grass to orange-gold. “There’s a little gate there, that’s the only way in, which means...”

Dreamer rubbed at her chin. “It means that that’s where normal people go in?”

“That’s right. And the Inquisition doesn't want people inside. Which in turn means,” Charlotte said. She paused again, to let Dreamer think. The girl wasn’t dumb. Unusual, certainly... very certainly, but not dumb.

“Oh, we can’t go there because they’re looking for people to pass by there.”

Charlotte gave Dreamer’s head a rub. “That’s right, little genius. Let’s go that way instead, see where there’s a bunch of rocks and the big bush. It’ll keep us covered. Then we can figure out another way in. Either under, over, or through.”

Dreamer nodded, and together they scurried up the slope. It was strange to not have her footsteps make any noise, or the bushes they rustled past or loose rocks that clattered behind them.

When they reached the hillside right under the palisade, Dreamer summoned a few tentacles to act as steps and they climbed right up to the edge of the wall.

Charlotte leaned against it. The wall was fairly thick, wooden beams, cut in half lengthwise and staked into the earth, with stacked stones along the base cemented in place. Some small effort had gone into making it look nice, a wooden beam crosswise to the rest had simple carvings in it, but otherwise the wall was simple and tough.

“Okay, Web, it’s your turn,” Charlotte said. She reached down the front of her shirt and pulled out her little arachnid summon. She rubbed Web’s abdomen, the way the spider liked it. “Up and over the wall, tell me if anyone’s there,” Charlotte instructed before she brought Web close to the wall.

The spider climbed up the wall, both Dreamer and Charlotte watching her go.

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“I could have looked,” Dreamer said. “I have eyetacles.”

“But then poor Web wouldn’t have any part to play,” Charlotte said. She wasn’t going to admit that she trusted Web’s judgement a bit better than Dreamer’s.

The spider disappeared for a minute, then reappeared at the top of the wall. It wiggled its forelegs around, then made a cross with them while shifting from side to side.

“Coast is clear.”

“What coast, this is a hill,” Dreamer said.

Charlotte patted her on the head again. “Come on, I’ll boost you up and over, then you help me.” A moment later, the two of them were on the other side, properly sneaky-like.

The town was, expectedly, entirely empty. The North hill had a few large factory-like places, though they were nothing like the factories back in Five Peaks. There were also a few shops, all of them built around a neat square in the middle of the hill.

That was about all that Charlotte could tell from peeking around alleyways.

There was one other thing she couldn’t fail to notice.

“Where’s all the Inquisition people?” Dreamer asked.

There were ropes across some road, blocking them off, and placards had been left around, with large letter-number combinations on them, but there weren’t any signs of life that Charlotte could see.

“Dreamer, can you get one of your eyetacles to, uh, spawn really high up? Tell me if you see any Inquisitors anywhere on the hill?”

“Okay,” Dreamer said. She blinked. “Nope, there’s none.”

“Not a single one?” Charlotte asked.

“Not on the hills. There’s lots near the hill, and some are walking in big circles around it. Also, there’s lots of blood over that way, and one of their nice hats on the ground.” Dreamer pointed.

“Huh,” Charlotte said. “Let’s stay sneaky anyway, alright?”

They moved out and stuck to the edges of buildings, with Dreamer keeping an eye out on all the Inquisition around the hill.

They found the spot Dreamer had mentioned in short order. The girl was right, there was a lot of blood, a whole puddle of it, with bootprints and marks as if someone had been dragged through it. “Looks dry,” Charlotte said.

She knelt next to the old puddle, then looked around, at all the workshops with darkened windows where shadows lurked deep and undisturbed.

“What happened here?” Charlotte asked.

“Feels like the Inquisition place in Five Peaks,” Dreamer said.

“How so?”

Dreamer shrugged. “Someone poked holes from here to elsewhere, and they didn’t close them up good. That’s a silly thing to do, some monsters can come through those, you know? Tasty, tasty monsters.”

“Maybe that’s what happened here,” Charlotte muttered.

“Maybe,” Dreamer said. “Or maybe it’s something here trying to get to the elsewhere. Hard to tell. I’d need to poke at the holes to see.”

“Where are they?” Charlotte asked.

Dreamer pointed back towards the square at the very top of the hill. “That way.”

“Well, maybe we can go poke ourselves. It feels like there’s a lot of things missing here.”

“Does that mean the plushie shop’s closed?”