Natsuko gave a heaving sigh and explained. “Koyon is the one who bought the Eye of the Cursed Demon from us, and I am 95% certain he was leaving with a black leather book in hand at the time.”
Daisy ran through what the retrieval process might look like. Finding Koyon would be hard. So would getting him to hand over the Tome. For the time being, Daisy was more powerful than he was, but he and his teammates would all get their Desperation Arts before Daisy would, which would turn the fight into an ugly mess. Three Top 30s might be more than she could handle if they were coordinated enough.
After Natsuko shot down Daisy’s suggestion of threatening them with forced dimension-jumping, they were back to square one.
Shuixing cleared her throat. “Hasty moves of any kind threaten to tip off both the other Heroes and Hemiola as to our intent. Discretion behooves us here.”
“I believe I may have a solution,” Pechorin said, pausing for dramatic effect. “We can skip the book and go directly to its author.”
Natsuko stared at Pechorin for a second, analyzing the look in his eyes. “You prepared to dramatically reveal your plan B from the get-go, didn’t you?”
Pechorin bit his lip. “I can neither confirm nor deny that fact, but what I can confirm is the location and identity of the author. The Tome of the Unnatural and Cursed was compiled by a Non-Hero hermit named Nuwas who made it his life’s mission to find and collect the stories of Heroes who stumbled upon these Unnatural and Cursed phenomena.”
“Great. Where is he?” Sofiane asked.
Pechorin held up his hand. “There is a problem. He is not like other Non-Heroes. He roams. And he does things in defiance of what he was summoned to do, which has slowly turned him insane.”
The other four glanced at each other as they tried to figure out which facts were real and which were Pechorisms.
“Insane how?” Natsuko asked, knowing full well he liked to use that adjective for spice.
“He babbles in riddles and poems, refuses to acknowledge the presence of other people and insists they are “shadows and illusions,” and eats sand, which he claims, “nourishes him as well as any meal,” Pechorin said.
Shuixing gasped. “Wait, I think Nuwas knows he’s living in the Yishang’s playground!”
“I doubt that will serve us any better when we go to speak with him,” Pechorin said.
“Why’s that?” Sofiane asked.
“Because, I have met him in my travels. And unlike we, who have benefitted from companionship in softening the blow to our sense of reality and self, Nuwas pierced the veil alone. The damage done to him is likely irreparable. I can assure you, it is not my flair for the dramatic which informs my diagnosis.”
“Screw it,” Natsuko said, a mad glint in her eye. “No sense standing around and chatting, let’s go find the guy and shake the crazy out of him!”
As they filed out of the Tanzimat Hotel and hopped on Peng, Sofiane couldn’t help but think Natsuko felt different. It wasn’t until they were in the air, soaring over the vast al-Nuwban desert that he could put his finger on what it was: She seemed hungry. Sofiane had witnessed Natsuko when she was excited, like when Hemiola’s paper theft had given her an excuse to stop sulking and leave the boondocks. But that wasn’t hunger. Now, she seemed like she wanted something, and she would do anything to get it.
It reminded Sofiane of himself before his obsolescence. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but he decided to ask their resident Natsuko-Whisperer about it later. Currently, the aforementioned Natsuko-Whisperer was busy giving Daisy directions.
“Nuwas is hard to find, but if anyone knows where he is, it’ll be the Shaerimites,” Pechorin said.
“The who-da what-now?” Daisy asked, taking Peng over a trio of skyscraping pyramids.
It was easy to forget the specifics of a region when you blazed through it. Pechorin only remembered the Shaerimites because he’d spent a good amount of time roaming al-Nuwba. Mostly because it wasn’t as saturated with bittersweet memories as Vermögenburgh, Tianzhou, or Shikijima.
“They’re one of the Eighteen Tribes under the Padishah’s rule,” Pechorin said. “Follow the Western train tracks ‘til you reach the sea. They will be camped south of the City Jann”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
By noon, a band of blue water marking the western end of Po-Lin came into view over some barrier hills. How far the ocean extended, no one knew. A few Heroes with flying abilities had made an attempt to find out, but a mile or so offshore, the Mist began. Entering it caused one to black out and be resummoned the following morning on dry land.
They touched down on the hills overlooking the city of Jann. The “city” was entirely built of white limestone, with color provided by yellow sand, blue sea, and green palm and fig trees. It was only large enough to contain an ingredients shop and a handful of Quest-related Non-Heroes, but functionally extended southward from the train station where a circle of parked camels and wagons belched smoke into the sky.
Daisy dumped everyone on their butts as she abruptly turned Peng into sand. She hopped boot-heel down onto the sand and tramped through it.
“Oh! I remember this place now!” she said. “This is where uh… um… what’s her face…”
“Princess Asma,” Pechorin said.
“This was where she ran away on that quest where uh… Anyway, I remember this place. The Sha— Sham— Shamblamites or whatever—”
“Shaerimites.”
“They make glass or something.”
Pechorin nodded. All the tribes in the Empire of al-Nuwba filled some economic niche, and their nomadic territories were connected to the core by railways. The Shaerimites trade was glassblowing.
However, upon entering their camp, Shuixing noted that the glassblowing process did not actually involve much glassblowing. The furnaces were going, the Shaerimites were rushing around in their cotton robes, but the total amount of glass produced remained zero. Even more incredibly, the farce was invisible to all but them, and only due to recent developments.
Shuixing lowered her voice. “Do you think we should tell them?”
“That they’re not really doing work?” Pechorin asked. “I think not. Ignorance is bliss in this instance.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. With time to sleep on it, the truth Shuixing had stumbled on was less overwhelming, but still just as unnerving and creepy as it was the night before.
“I wonder what the Mist really is,” Pechorin said.
Natsuko put a hand on his shoulder. “Not right now, buddy. Mission first.”
Pechorin led them to the chief’s tent where a large, bearded man with bronze skin sat and judged pieces of glass work that were likely the exact same pieces he’d appraised for three straight years. Nonetheless, there was life in his eyes when he glanced up at the arrivals.
“Heroes, eh? I have a quest for y—”
Sofiane waved his hand. “No quests, sorry. Just questions.”
“Oh-ho? And what questions could you have for a lowly Non-Hero like Khalid?” Khalid asked.
At first glance he seemed in good spirits, but there was a wariness that came from having a non-standard interaction with Heroes. Anything that wasn’t giving them a quest and telling them to screw off came with potential danger. Pechorin decided to try and soothe the man’s concerns.
“I have been through here a few times in my wanderings,” Pechorin said. “We bear no violent intent, you have my word. I keep my dark urges bound up in my heart.”
Natsuko snorted. Dark urges, huh?
Khalid and the other Shaerimites seemed to relax somewhat.
“Desert winds blow in strangers,
To them we offer the wine from our cups.
In outstretched, trembling hands
Hoping ‘tis enough,” Khalid said.
Pechorin opened his mouth to provide a response to the poem, but Daisy preempted him, putting her hand in front of him to indicate her seriousness. She took a deep breath and began her own poem:
“We want to be your friends
And for past violence— umm, make amends?”
Daisy realized she screwed up the meter but kept rolling.
“We only want info.
And I’m realizing now there aren’t a lot of rhymes for info…
Anyway, let’s not make this poem extend.”
Daisy concluded her recitation with an awkward, hopeful smile and a small curtsy. The Shaerimites looked at her in astonishment for a second before breaking out in raucous laughter. Daisy looked apologetically at Pechorin who just shrugged. Khalid had to set the glass decanter in his hands aside so he could rub tears from his eyes.
“Oh gods… That was… an attempt. An earnest one, though. You have won my respect, and as we are now friends, let me recommend to you that you ask for teachings from your dark and inadvisably-dressed friend over there,” Khalid said, gesturing at Pechorin in his trench coat. “We know him. He has been through here before and his poetry is rough and terse, but powerful. Perhaps the blend of your whimsy with his expertise could lead you to approximate the profundity and complexity of al-Nuwban poetry.”
Daisy glanced at Pechorin sheepishly. Technically he’d already given her some pointers, they just hadn’t stuck. Unlike Pechorin who had spent thousands of hours on the road workshopping poetry to himself, Daisy had never made time outside of a few halting attempts. And even those had been marred by the guilt of knowing she was “wasting time” as Boulanger put it. Time for poetry practice was the one luxury her Ying couldn’t buy.
“Now,” Khalid clapped his hands. “You have questions for me?”
Pechorin nodded. “Yes. We are seeking Nuwas and we thought you might know where to find him.”
Khalid stroked his chin. “Ah-ha… the mad hermit, no? I’m afraid you may be out of luck. We suspect he is gone. For good.”
“For good?” Pechorin asked, anxiousness creeping into his voice. “What do you mean for good?”
Khalid raised an eyebrow. “He was staying in the hills of Jann two weeks hence before he was visited by a man dressed in black. Blacker than our dark poet here. Blacker than a moonless night, save a mask of fake mirth. Since this visit, Nuwas has disappeared."