EPISODE XXIII

The Society of Pointed Hats

Kirishima and Iwakiri slinked down an alleyway in the middle of the night. This was normal behavior for them, even before they were “hired” by ORHI. However, they usually did this in alleyways in the dregs; tonight they were on the other side of Nuk, in a human-dominated poor region. The buildings were of low quality, there were rats everywhere, and many houses had multiple families crammed into them like sardines. But at least the citizens here generally didn’t have to fear for their lives from random people walking on the street. Though this meant nothing to the more unusual dangers that everyone pretended didn’t exist….

Kirishima looked down at her hand. Within, wrapped up in plastic, was a decidedly red crystal. One of the street urchins in the dregs had been trying to pawn it off secretly, but Iwakiri had intercepted him. Kirishima later forced him to talk. He had found it inside an abandoned warehouse.

A warehouse that the two nekos could now see at the end of the alleyway.

Kirishima held out a hand, telling Iwakiri to stop moving. “...You good for this?”

Iwakiri was silent. Just as Kirishima was beginning to wonder what was going on, he spoke. “Oh, right… Yeah. I’m… fine.”

Kirishima looked back at him. Neko eyes could see just fine in moonlight, and the scars around her brother’s lips and eyes were evident, as was the fact that he was distracted. “Iwakiri…”

“I’m fine,” he reiterated.

“You don’t look it.”

“I’m fine.”

“Repeating yourself doesn’t make me believe you any more.”

Iwakiri crossed his arms. “Do you want to call this off because I might not be fine?”

Kirishima scowled. Yes. “No. We’re here, this is the only lead we’ve gotten in weeks on these crystals, we need to follow through. For Grandpa.”

“Pretty sure they won’t hurt Grandpa even if we fail.”

“Oh in that case let’s just stroll on back and accept failure right now.”

“Kirishima…”

Don’t push it. “Let’s just get moving.” She cautiously moved forward, making as little noise as possible. The warehouse was completely ordinary from the outside—it was made of warped metal siding, had one large entrance, a few small ones, and no windows. Seeing the interior was not an option from their vantage point.

Kirishima gestured for Iwakiri to listen in while she kept watch. He pressed his ear to one of the smaller entrances, closing his eyes so he could listen closely.

Kirishima waited, eyes darting left and right, just waiting for something to come out of nowhere and attack them.

Nothing came. There wasn’t even a cricket. Their only companion was the crescent moon overhead.

“There are people in there,” Iwakiri whispered.

Kirishima’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yes. They were trying to be quiet, not speaking. But I heard their footsteps. There are less than a dozen of them. They opened a trapdoor and descended into some kind of basement where I can’t hear them anymore.”

“...Is anyone still on the main floor?”

“No, all of them went down.”

Dangit, that means we can go further in. “Will the door alert them?”

Iwakiri firmly placed one of his hands under the door and the other on the doorknob. It was awkward, but this way he could apply force to ease the tension on the hinges, reducing the metallic creaking that would have occurred significantly. “No.”

With a soft sigh, Kirishima entered the warehouse. Even though Iwakiri had said all of them had gone down below, she continued sneaking. The interior of the warehouse was filled to the brim with dust and old boxes interspersed occasionally with the bones of a rat. Clearly, this warehouse had not been used for its intended purpose in many years. In fact, there was little sign of people at all—the primary indication was a section near the center without any dust on the ground. No footprints, notably, but there was a broom set up on a nearby box which had clearly had dust knocked off of it. The people, whoever they were, had been making some effort to cover their tracks, only someone skilled in tracking would likely have noticed that there were signs of foot traffic.

Kirishima wasn’t falling for it, though. She did have to admit, it was a good thing to do, because had they not swept up the dust their shoe prints could be picked out by any kid off the street. As it was, it took a bit of looking around to actually find the trapdoor. It was naturally within an area cleared of dust, but it was so flush with the concrete floor that it almost couldn’t be seen. Kirishima had to step on it and feel its decidedly non-concrete makeup under her shoe to realize where it was. Fortunately, she had a light step, so no noise came from the step.

Kirishima stared at the trapdoor. They could be right under it. Opening it would be very dangerous…

Iwakiri pressed his ear to the ground, listening. He quickly stood up and then proceeded to open the trapdoor carefully and slowly. It was clearly very light and made less noise than the warehouse door itself. Underneath was a very narrow and steep staircase.

Iwakiri turned to Kirishima and nodded. He paused, an unspoken offer to let her go first.

She shook her head and waved him on. I’m keeping an eye on you.

Iwakiri shrugged and started slowly descending the stairs. Kirishima followed afterward. She purposefully left the trapdoor open, making a faster escape route.

The stairway was dark, but it reached the basement floor rather quickly. They could see faint light up ahead, leaking from around a corner. As they approached it, they noted the complete lack of objects down here—it was just a bare dirt floor with stone walls.

Kirishima could hear them now, the people. They were muttering very softly—no, not muttering. Chanting. They were chanting very softly, using words Kirishima did not know. At the edge of the corner, Iwakiri crouched low and poked his head around the edge, just enough to get his eyes past the obstruction. Kirishima leaned over top of him, doing the same with her eyes.

There were eleven people in the room. There were humans, nekos, and cats all present, unified only by a single piece of attire: all of them wore brightly colored pointy hats with wide brims. There were a handful of colors, but red and green were the most common. They were standing in a semicircle facing the opposite wall, from which light was emanating. A simple square shape had been carved into the wall, and it was this square that seemed to be the target of the group’s murmuring.

In unison, all the members of the group lifted a hand or a paw into the air. The glint of a colorful crystal could be seen held between fingers or strapped to a paw for every member, the colors of which matched their hats.

That’s enough.

Kirishima grabbed Iwakiri’s collar and dragged him back to the stairs. He did not resist, because doing so would have made a noise. They snuck out of the basement, closed the trapdoor, and left the warehouse.

However, the moment they were outside, Iwakiri spoke. “Why’d we leave? They had no idea we were there.”

“We got enough information.”

“We could have gotten more.”

“We don’t need to take an unnecessary risk.”

“That wasn’t that big of a risk!”

“And Orville can do it with no risk at all. Come on, time to go.”

Iwakiri glared at his sister. “You need to stop trying to protect me.”

You just can’t see what you need. “I’m being perfectly reasonable and you know it.”

“No. No I don’t.”

“Then maybe there is something up with you and you do need protection. Or not to be out here.”

“I’m not going to sit around all day feeling sorry about myself.”

At least you wouldn’t be in danger then. Kirishima didn’t say anything and simply started walking away.

Iwakiri shoved his hands in his pockets and followed after her, muttering all the while.

~~~

It was a quiet, beautiful morning outside ORHI headquarters. Coleus was gingerly trimming a few of the exterior bushes to prompt more flowers to grow, several nesting birds filled the air with their song upon waking, and there were just enough clouds in the sky to never cover the sun but still make it interesting to look up. Coleus hummed a tune to herself as she worked, only adding to the idyllic sense.

Inside ORHI, however, it was a different story.

Snarling. Growling. Gnashing of teeth. Metallic clanks. Rustling. Electronic noises.

All coming from a dozen multicolored puffball creatures in a metal cage. They appeared to be nothing more than fuzz and mouth, and that mouth had hundreds of razor-sharp teeth. Each puffball’s teeth were made out of a different kind of metal: gold, copper, iron, and some that were not readily identifiable. The type of metal used in the teeth appeared unrelated to the bright color of the fur.

They were currently trying to gnaw their way out of the cage. If they were given an hour, they might succeed, but that was not going to happen.

Amaris and Jenny were standing proud in front of the cage, smug grins on their faces. Jenny’s clothes looked like they had gone through a meat grinder which, to be fair, they had, it’s just that the meat underneath hadn’t ground properly.

Irene kept her distance behind the reception desk. “Yeah. Those. Are certainly things.” Irene tilted her head to the side. “Are they really magic, though?”

“They glitch when you poke them,” Amaris said. “Watch.” She pulled an arrow out of her backpack and poked one of the puffballs with it. Immediately it dissociated into a bunch of multicolored squares with a bunch of beeping noises akin to a dying video game console. It reformed a moment later on top of another puffball, which tried to bite it, but the teeth slid right off the fur somehow. “They also seem incapable of biting each other.”

“Uh… huh.”

At this point, Nina came in from one of the other rooms. “Amaris! You’re back! And…”

“Mission success!” Amaris gestured at the cage.

“Did any of them bite you?”

“No, Auntie, we were careful.”

“Did they do anything to your head?”

“Um… no?”

“Did they eat someone in front of you?”

Amaris pointed at Jenny.

“Hey! I wasn’t completely eaten!” Jenny crossed her arms and huffed.

“I think they got enough body mass to add up to a Jenny.”

“But they didn’t get every part of me!”

“That must have been horrifying to watch…” Nina said.

Amaris shook her head. “Happens a lot to Jenny, seen it all before.”

“But…”

Amaris caught Nina staring at the scars on her lips. “Auntie… you can’t stop these things from happening to me. I know how much you want to and I appreciate it, but nothing you do is gonna do anything.”

Nina looked to the ground, ashamed.

“Hey, Auntie, it’s okay…”

“You’re right, of course. I just…” She placed a hand on Amaris’ shoulder. “I saw it, Amaris. Now that I’ve seen it…”

“Nothing’s changed, Auntie.”

“How I think has changed.”

Amaris considered this. “That’s… that’s right. I… don’t know what to do about that. I changed too.” Amaris rubbed the back of her arm and glanced to the side. “After enough of it, I just… gained strength.”

“But it’s not happening to me, it’s happening to you, and I have to watch, and I…”

“I have to watch it happen to everyone around me,” Amaris snapped. Then she sighed. “Sorry, Auntie, that wasn’t right. I…” She shook her head. “I really do have to watch it happen to everyone. People around me are in danger. Jenny gets traumatized. Coleus loses her family. Irene continually gets put in situations she really isn’t suited for.”

Nina put a hand over her mouth. “I… I didn’t realize…”

“It’s fine,” Amaris said, scritching Pitch on the head as he slithered out of the backpack. “You’re not me, you don’t have it stare you in the face all the time. You’re you. And you just want to protect your niece.” Amaris smiled warmly. “It really is good that you do, and by being around you’re definitely helping. But you are at some point just going to have to accept that things are going to keep coming.”

Nina had nothing to say to this. She gained a distant look, as though her gaze were looking past Amaris and to the ground below… or even beyond that.

“We do need to lock these puffballs up, Auntie,” Amaris said. “They are gonna break out eventually.”

“Right, right.” Nina sighed, moving to a chair up against the wall and sitting down. “You do… your job.”

“I will.”

“...Amaris?”

“Yeah?”

Nina looked up at her. “I don’t think any of us knew what we were signing up for.”

Amaris nodded solemnly. “Neither did I.” With that, she and Jenny rolled the cart deeper into the headquarters to place them in a more permanent holding arrangement.

“How do you do it?” Nina asked Irene.

“Resignation and stress,” Irene said. “Don’t recommend it.”

“Does it get… easier?”

“Yes and no?” Irene folded her hands together. “Yes in that you start expecting all the nonsense and are able to laugh about it with everyone more. No in that the flavor of horror is different every week. So.” Irene shrugged. “You’d think by looking at Amaris, you eventually learn to stop worrying and get some confidence.”

“Hasn’t happened with you?”

“I certainly worry less and have more confidence. But that’s still all in very short supply…” Irene leaned forward on the desk and sighed. “I suppose all you can count on is eventual acceptance.”

“You’re not obligated to stay, though.”

“Neither are you, technically,” Irene said.

“She’s my niece.”

“She made it very clear when she came back that you didn’t have to stay with her, right?”

Nina furrowed her brow. “Yes, she did…”

“So there you go, you have an out, just like I do.” Irene locked her hands behind her back. “We just… don’t want to take it.”

Nina nodded slowly.

“Now as for where I find the mental fortitude to stick with that decision I have no idea but it’s here and I’m not complaining!”

Nina chuckled. “You have a strange strength about you Irene.”

“I know! It’s so confusing!”

The two of them laughed and continued to chat, eventually devolving into talking about nothing.

Amaris and Jenny returned at this point.

“Anomalies secured!” Jenny said. “And they only got off with two of my fingers!”

“I’m thinking we should name them…” Amaris said, scratching her chin. “Glitching puffballs… glitchballs? Fluffsparks?”

“Fuzzy Garbage Disposal.”

“That’s a description, not a name.”

“F.G.D.”

“Let’s not go the acronym route…”

Jenny shrugged. “Maybe pick one later. Anyway, now that we’re done… Irene, my papers, please!”

Irene reached beneath her desk and pulled out a stack of papers. “Here you go!”

Jenny picked a few pages off the top and roughly rummaged through them. “So, about our two major outstanding mysteries, the Mysterious Doors and the Crop Circles…”

“Oh, you have been digging into it!” Amaris grinned. “I was worried you’d gotten distracted.”

“Pff, me, distracted?” Jenny chuckled. “Never!”

Amaris raised an eyebrow.

Jenny awkwardly coughed. “Anyway, I’ve found a lot more of the mysterious doors, but there’s not much progress in all that. Most of them only lead to unusual rooms, not to weird mazes like the one we had in the Arcade—though I did find one that took me to a red forest and then led me out on the other side of town. Was really strange. Regardless, they’re everywhere. They generally appear after a place has been built, but there are a few cases where they popped into existence without a building, or manifesting a wall of their own in the middle of nowhere.”

“No patterns in where they lead?”

Jenny shook her head. “Some are single rooms. Some of the rooms physically exist and I can break into by smashing down walls. Some, however, don’t seem to exist but can still be entered even if the other side of the wall doesn’t actually have anything on it.”

“Hmm…”

“I do often find monsters or other weird things near the doors, though not necessarily inside them.”

“They might attract them,” Amaris suggested. “Of course, since I’m involved, it’s hard to test if there really is some kind of weirdness attraction involved, or if I’m just making things conveniently line up for you. Or inconveniently line up.”

Irene considered this. “You keep mentioning wanting to do tests on things, Amaris. Wouldn’t your curse ruin a lot of those?”

“Yep. Haven’t figured a way around that yet, I’m totally a massive data corrupter.”

Jenny flipped to another page. “Anyway, the crop circles. I’ve only really started looking into them since our encounter with mister face-stealing memory-eating tree.”

Nina shuddered at the memory.

“I have locations of about two-dozen, seemingly unrelated to each other. However, I have found that other things have been disintegrated in them. A few of the central circles had traces of ash in them. But I haven’t been able to trigger them even by walking into them and shouting insults at the sun.”

“It’s probably not sun related as the tree monster was disintegrated during the night.”

“Ah. Right.” Jenny rubbed the back of her head. “Ehe…”

Amaris took the page out of Jenny’s hands, examining the map. “They really do seem to be placed randomly… I was hoping for a pattern.”

“Just as much of a lack of pattern as with the doors.”

“Are they related?” Irene asked.

“I don’t think so,” Amaris said. “Even though they were both part of our arcade adventure, they didn’t seem to… mesh, if you get what I’m saying?”

“...Makes sense.”

The doors to ORHI slid open, allowing Iwakiri and Kirishima to scramble in.

“We’ve got something on the crystals,” Iwakiri said.

“Ooooh, mystery three!” Amaris rubbed her hands together. “What do you have?”

Kirishima relayed the events of the prior night to her.

“Hmm… I’m kind of surprised you didn’t stay longer.”

Kirishima glanced at Iwakiri. “We had all we needed, there was no requirement to take more risk when Orville could go in later.”

“I think it was the right call, once we have information we should send in one of them. Since it’s stealth, we’ll be using Orville. …When he shows up. Whenever that’ll be.”

Iwakiri frowned. “Really? The right call? But…”

“Learning restraint is a good step on your two’s progress. Keep it up!”

Iwakiri looked down at the ground and kicked at nothing. Kirishima, meanwhile, actually smiled. She quickly forced her face back into a neutral position, but Amaris had seen it and there was no denying it.

Amaris winked at her.

Kirishima hissed back.

Such was their dynamic.

~~~

Jenny leaned on the railing atop one of Nuk’s taller water towers, looking down over the city. She could see several of the crop circles from here, but she had already compared their locations with the ones on her map—she was just sitting up here now, taking in the view.

It wasn’t often she let herself slow down like this. To just… sit and look out at the everything. The office buildings, the streets, the fields, the mountains, the wreckage of the Strider…

She wasn’t a particularly poetic sort so she wasn’t one to put the feeling she had into words, but she was certainly feeling something looking at it all. She felt… lifted up, as though she were higher than even the water tower.

Of course, that feeling dissipated as she heard the sound of someone climbing up the ladder behind her. She didn’t take her gaze away from the scenery, though.

“Really hard to carry a pizza box up here…” Scarlet said, breathing heavily. She handed Jenny the pizza box, which she accepted and started eating from, still without adjusting her gaze.

“You look thoughtful,” Scarlet said, leaning on the railing next to Jenny.

“Surprisingly, no,” Jenny said. “My head was empty.”

“A good place to be, sometimes.”

“Yeah. It was.” Jenny sighed. “What have you found?”

Scarlet pulled out a folder from inside her suit. “Our inventory of the crop circles is complete, and no place aside from Yeshalo has them—at least not in the same design. A few have cropped up, likely from teenagers wanting to play a joke. The big thing I’ve been able to show is that the crop circles are new.”

“When the Strider showed up?”

“No, actually, they only started showing up a month or so afterward. It could still be something from the Strider, but if it is, it didn’t start acting immediately.”

Jenny took a bite of the pizza. “Hmm…”

“I’ve found many more of the mysterious doors, but no new information on them. I have found some evidence that they don’t always take the form of doors, a few places have staircases or windows that just show up, but they are significantly less common. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to what kinds of doors show up, and several have even appeared with designs that don’t match any known doors in Yeshalo. One was made out of solid bone.”

“Geez.”

“I also found another one of your invisible eyeball bats. I found a lab to dissect it covertly.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“Evidentially not, they really are just flying eyeballs. Their wings are essentially big leaves they use to absorb energy from the sun, and their invisibility is mediated by a bizarre pink-white organ. They appear to just be some kind of weird animal.”

“Weird. Do they taste good?”

“Why on earth would I eat the flesh of some random creature?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Jenny glanced at her and raised an eyebrow.

Scarlet simply grinned at her and gave a thumbs up while tilting her other hand side to side. Tasted delicious but wouldn’t recommend.

Always gotta have that plausible deniability, don’t you Scarlet? Jenny rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the info.”

“Got anything else for me to look into?”

“Anything on the colored crystals?”

“Nothing yet.”

“The Kiris found some weird society that meets with pointed hats that is apparently involved. Orville should be investigating now.”

Scarlet scratched her chin. “Pointed hats? Like the kind worn when you want to dress up like a stereotypical fairy tale witch?”

“Apparently.”

“I’m not aware of any society that does that seriously, but I suppose there could be fronts in place. I’ll look into it.”

“It may not be necessary.”

“You can’t trust Orville for everything.”

“No…” Jenny frowned. “You know he could show up at any moment and find us in these meetings.”

“Yes. What exactly is he going to do about it?”

“Tell the others. Make it really awkward.”

Scarlet folded her arms. “If Amaris hasn’t figured out you’re getting your info from me already, she will soon. She’s very clever.”

Jenny sighed. “She probably knows, and probably isn’t asking too many questions for my sake and everyone’s sake and… bleh, why does it have to be this way?”

Scarlet folded her hands behind her back. “...Because I’m selfish and Amaris isn’t. I think that’s ultimately what this boils down to.”

“...Amazing how you can still find ways to be honest in the middle of all this.” Jenny turned her gaze to Scarlet and grinned. “And you’re wrong. You’re not completely selfish. Wouldn’t be helping me otherwise.”

“I suppose not.” For once in her life, Scarlet looked awkward, shuffling her feet. “Look, Jenny…”

“Oh please don’t go on one of your double-talking attempts to appeal to my emotions to make yourself feel better, we’ve done that enough already.”

“Um… well no, that wasn’t it. My niece has invited me to some kind of live-action role-playing thing, and it honestly sounds right up your alley. Might be fun?”

Jenny stared at her blankly.

“Okay, okay, ideas for fun from Scarlet not welcome, got it.” She put her hands up in surrender. “See you when I have more information for you, then.”

“...When’s the thing happening?”

Scarlet visibly lit up. “Three weeks. I have no clue what’s actually going on there, I just told her I’d show up.”

“...I’ll think about it.”

“I hope you think well!”

Jenny snorted. “That never happens. I’m Jenny.”

“I dunno, now that you’ve got a mystery and a job, you sure seem to think about that a lot! You might even be the one to solve the crop circle mystery!”

“Nah.” Jenny shook her head. “I’ll just get everything in front of Amaris so she can figure it out.”

“You could do better if you applied your brain a bit more. Just something to consider.” With that, Scarlet started climbing down the ladder once more.

After she was long gone, Jenny found herself staring out at the scenery once again.

She closed her eyes and frowned. “What have you gotten yourself into, Jenny…?”

~~~

Orville’s quest was, as usual, espionage. He traced Kirishima’s memories back to the moment they found the strange people with pointed hats. He chose the tallest one in blue robes and shifted into his memories. He was a neko holding a blue crystal, pointing it at the square carved into the wall. He was chanting something, but it was in a language Orville couldn’t understand.

Odd, I don’t encounter those very often…

Orville moved back through time, winding everything back to the start of the meeting. Every member of this secret society had arrived at the warehouse at exactly the same time, though when they arrived they were not in their robes, but completely ordinary clothes. Granted, the quality of the robes changed significantly: there were nekos in barely more than rags, cats wearing nothing, humans in casual clothing, and even a few in proper suits. There appeared to be no dividing lines of race or class here. They spoke to each other only in the strange language, and they did so in hushed tones.

They entered the basement and removed a stone from one of the walls, revealing a hidden compartment where they hid their robes and a variety of colored crystals. However, Orville noted that some of them had brought crystals with them. Once they put on their colored robes and pointed hats they simply talked for a while, casually. They were underground so they didn’t feel the need to be hushed. Sometimes they would laugh. Perhaps they were telling each other stories of what had happened in their lives?

Despite this, they were intensely paranoid of being seen. Orville figured this out because the memories reacted to his presence readily, freaking out whenever he happened to be in someone’s gaze. Such was the problem of his existence, he had to appear somewhere in the memory. Trying to go back multiple times wouldn’t help as his presence was technically overwriting the base memory, so if he missed something important he missed it.

Though at this point he doubted he was missing much of anything, as he couldn’t understand anything they were saying. After they finished chatting, they all turned to the square carving and pointed their crystals at it, making the crystals glow. They started chanting.

Despite some of them having purple crystals like the Kiris, none of them were using it to create specific kinds of light. They were just making the crystals glow, no matter what color they were, and chanting.

Orville spread through the chanting and eventually found where it ended, about an hour later, where they returned to talking. But instead of just normal chats, they let their crystals take center stage. One of the human women in purple robes projected an image using purple crystals onto the wall, and she started showing others how to do it. A male cat showed everyone how to take a red crystal and create a blue flame. Then a neko drew a knife and for a moment Orville thought there would be drama, but instead she made a small cut in her hand, and showed everyone how to use the green crystals to heal it.

Each color has its own effect… I suppose we probably could have just asked Vayvaresi about that, but that’s still something. As he continued jumping through memories observing the group sharing crystal techniques, he began to wonder. They’re being extremely secretive… I wonder why?

Their meeting wrapped up, they all took their robes off and left, going their separate ways.

Orville spent the next several hours discovering that all of them were, essentially, completely normal people. Outside of the meeting, they never used their mysterious language and while some of them had crystals, he only saw them used in private places or, in one case, a neko burning a violent attacker to a crisp out of necessity. After that the neko was absolutely terrified of anything occurring, as though using a crystal in public was a death sentence… but nothing happened to him, and he eventually calmed down.

He went further and further back in memories, finding that there were previous meetings, though given the fact that they occurred in the unknown language, they all told him roughly the same things. He did start to get indications that there were other cells, as occasionally there would be a guest member. However, he didn’t investigate that at the moment, for his primary curiosity was to find an initiation ritual. Everyone had to be taught the language and told what was up at some point, right?

He was eventually able to trace a female cat’s experience all the way back to the day she found a necklace made out of the green crystals in her attic. She wore them proudly for a day, but was approached in an alleyway that night by an unreasonably tall human woman in yellow robes and pointed hat. It was the only time Orville had ever seen someone in their robes outside of a super secret meeting place.

He watched as the woman pulled out a yellow crystal. “I can show you what the necklace you wear means. But you have to let me in.”

“W-why would I do that?” the cat stammered.

“You are in danger. The crystals have great power.” She demonstrated by making her yellow one glow. “Yours is much the same.”

“I… I just found it…”

“As most of us do. It has power. You could use it. But… it also draws attention.”

The cat furrowed her brow. “What… do you want to do?’

“I want to show you what it is. All you have to do is accept the touch of this crystal.”

“And if… I refuse?”

“I will let you go. And those who hunt may or may not find you instead.”

“O… Okay. Let’s… let’s try this.”

And then the yellow crystal flashed brightly. Both the woman’s and the cat’s eyes became yellow. Immediately afterward, the cat started talking in the strange language. Orville watched for some time, discovering that the events were once again inscrutable to him.

And then everything went completely yellow for Orville.

It was like he was standing in an expanse of only a single blank color.

Nothing had triggered this, as far as he knew. He hadn’t tried to jump memories. He was just watching one play out and then… blank nothing.

He tried jumping back into the memory he was just in… but found that it had been replaced with yellow as well. Jumping out of the memory was just fine, and he could go to the future of the cat woman’s memories, but that moment in the middle… there was nothing but the yellow.

Orville scratched his chin. That’s never happened before… I’m not being blocked, it’s like the memories have been replaced…

He tried jumping back to one of the other meetings he had seen earlier. But it too was replaced with yellow.

It didn’t matter whose memories he jumped to. Any memory where a meeting was actually taking place was entirely wiped with the yellow.

They must have noticed me in their memories… and the yellow crystal can probably mess with them. Orville crossed his arms in the expanse of yellow, looking at it defiantly. They don’t want me poking around anymore. Unfortunately for them, I have a lot of information.

He returned to the near-present memories and started investigating all of the meeting places he had located before.

All of them had burned down in the last few hours, or were in the process of burning down.

Orville jumped to a memory of someone walking in a park and sat down on a bench. They’re very thorough. VERY thorough… but surely they’ll still have their crystals?

He jumped to the neko who had used his red crystal in self-defense. In the closest-to-present memory he could, he twisted things such that the neko thought he was being attacked by Orville. But no crystal came out, and in fact there was no crystal on him.

“Where is the crystal?” Orville asked.

The neko was not at all used to talking to Orville, and not to mention his memories had just jumped from being attacked to talking to a man in a calm suit. “Wh… what crystal?”

Everything’s been wiped clean.

Orville left his memories and found a bench to sit on.

They really don’t want us to know. Unfortunately, it’s in our business to know… better get back and tell everyone. Vayvaresi may be able to tell us what to expect with those crystals.

~~~

Amaris let out a very large yawn and closed her book. She was currently sitting on her bed, with only her lamp providing any light. “I think that’s enough for tonight…” she muttered to herself. She placed the book on the lamp—Ancient Legends of Yeshalo—and checked the foot of her bed. Vayvaresi was curled up on top of a cushion there, sleeping soundly. Pitch was in his enclosure, sleeping soundly as well.

Amaris turned off the lamp and laid down, fixing her gaze out the window. The moon was near the horizon, casting several rooftops in silhouette. She spied a humanoid figure standing on a roof, punching the sky. Jenny, no doubt, actually on patrol tonight, for once.

Amaris idly wondered what strange thing she’d find tonight. Nothing? Nah, that didn’t feel right, tonight just felt strange. Maybe zombie cats? The queen invisible eyeball of doom? Strider ghosts? Those pointed hat people? Honestly, that would be kind of boring and predictable, it was what they were currently focusing on.

But still, if Jenny caught one of them, that would solve a lot of problems…

Amaris let out another yawn and closed her eyes. She took a moment to realize how easy it was for her to relax these days. A monster could charge through her bedroom window at any moment and try to eat her, and that threat didn’t particularly bother her. She was home. This was her bed. And she wanted to sleep.

Sleep…

…

…Out the window, Jenny put her hands on her hips and gave the moon a big grin, as though challenging it to come down and fight her.

A dart punctured her neck.

“Wha—” she didn’t even finish her word before her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She flopped forward head over heels until she reached the edge of the roof, then she fell on top of a metal dumpster. As it was not open, the landing was extremely hard and loud and rang out through the entire neighborhood.

The noise reached Vayvaresi’s ears. She lazily opened an eye and glanced out the window. She saw nothing, sensed nothing. She let out a huge yawn, licking her jowls. She stood up and walked in a circle, laying down and twisting her tails around herself once more.

A few minutes later, a soft orange glow appeared around the window’s lock and very quietly undid it. The glow reappeared at the edge of the window, sliding it up almost soundlessly, making only a slight crack where the air could come in. A blowgun floated into the air, glowing the same orange as everything else.

Vayvaresi’s ears twitched. Then there was a dart in her neck, and her ears stopped twitching.

The blowgun turned to Amaris’ form. A dart launched.

Amaris jumped out of bed, throwing her blankets over the path of the dart. She landed on top of the blankets. Her crossbow was in her hand, pointed directly out the crack in the window where the blowgun was.

It wasn’t there.

It was floating behind her head, surrounded in an orange glow.

The dart pricked her in the back of the neck.

That’s cheating… she flopped forward, her face pressing into the window. With everyone in the room taken care of, the necessity for silence was over. A dark figure opened the window the rest of the way and, with some effort, pulled Amaris out.

The figure was gone within minutes.

~~~

“What do you mean you can’t follow her!?” Amaris’ Dad shouted. To everyone else, it looked like he was shouting at a random clock on the wall, but everyone present also knew better.

Orville nervously adjusted his suit. “She didn’t see her attacker, and she either hasn’t awakened yet or something else is blocking me.”

“Then… then, I don’t know, follow them the old-fashioned way!”

“Coleus is on that,” Irene said, wringing her hands. “She’ll call if she finds anything.”

A walkie-talkie buzzed on a nearby table. “Coleus here, checking in.”

Amaris’ Mom ran to the walkie-talkie and frantically put it to her ear. “What did you find?”

“I found Jenny,” Coleus said. “Just as drugged as Vayvaresi. Her face made an im-press-ion on a dumpster.” There was a slapping sound from the other end of the line. “Yeah, she’s not waking up anytime soon.”

“Keep looking.”

“Will do!”

Amaris’ Mom set the walkie-talkie down and sat back down in a chair. She immediately pulled out a sketchbook and started carving geometric shapes into it with a tiny knife.

“We need to find her,” Amaris’ Dad said. “We… we have to find her.”

“Y-yes, but how?” Irene stammered. “Coleus is doing what she can, we just…”

“Have to wait?”

“U-um… w-well… unless y-you can think of something else…”

“We can come up with ideas. We can make a game plan. The cops may not be trustworthy but surely we can use them to our advantage…”

“That would look bad,” Amaris’ Mom said without looking up from her sketchbook. “Amaris is the one who is supposed to deal with things. Making a public show would just ruin her credibility.”

“She’s in danger!”

“She’s always in danger, Dmitri!” Amaris’ Mom threw down her sketchbook, embedding the knife in the floor. “It doesn’t matter if she’s here, at school, or kidnapped in some sack, she’s always in danger! We’re always in danger!”

“Anna… we can’t just…”

“We are going to have to get used to this, Dmitri. We are not the ones who can go out and save her. She has other people for that, and she is usually going to be the one going to save others.”

“This… this is different, she’s been targeted…”

“She’s been targeted every time, Dmitri.”

Dmitri gained a dull, blank expression in his eyes. He sat down, putting his head in his hands.

Orville cleared his throat. “You support her very well from the background, Mr. Kelvin. You got us the ORHI office with your skills and influence. This is simply… not your domain.”

“...I thought I was a patient person,” Amaris’ Dad said, shaking.

“I d-don’t think anyone could be patient at a time like this…” Irene said. “B-but we all have to sit here until Coleus finds something.”

Amaris’ Mom carefully picked up the sketchbook and the knife from the ground and returned to her seat, continuing her work. Her motions were slightly less aggressive than before.

Irene continued wringing her hands.

Orville sat down next to her. “You’re even worse than them.”

“This is how I am…” Irene laughed nervously. “All the time… always…”

“...There has to be a better way…”

“Oh, there is, I-I know it. I j-just can’t.” Irene started scratching at her arm. “I don’t know any other way…”

“You have the strength in you. I’ve seen it.”

“Th-those moments of s-surprise courage are the most s-stressful I have…” Irene wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “It… it f-feels like my stomach is eating me from the inside out…”

“...I wish there was some way I could help you…”

“Isn’t making a wish h-how you get cursed?”

Orville fell silent, staring blankly at the ground.

“...Th-thanks for the thought, though.” She closed her eyes. “Just gonna keep… imagining every w-way this could go wrong in excruciating detail.”

“She’ll be fine, Irene. The curse won’t let it end.”

“There are a l-lot of scenarios that don’t kill her that are maybe even w-worse…”

The room fell into silence.

It was true. They could only wait.

~~~

Amaris woke up in a very comfortable bed that wasn’t hers. She wasn’t restrained in any way, so she could jump up into a defensive posture. Her head reeled from the drugs in her system, but by sheer force of will she remained standing on top of the bed, hands outstretched to meet whatever was going to face her.

She was in a basement of some sort, the room lit only by a single lightbulb. Standing at the foot of her bed were at least a dozen people in brightly colored robes and pointed hats, staring right at her. Some faces were angry, others were confused, and still others were… afraid? Of her? They clearly had the numbers, why would they be afraid…?

Amaris quickly took in the room she was in. The bed clearly didn’t belong, as the room was entirely devoid of any other pieces of furniture. The only things she noted were the door—which was behind all the people in pointed hats—and the carving of a square in the wall.

The boring option. Though I suppose Jenny didn’t just catch one in the middle of the night…

Amaris quickly ran through her options, though that took a minute because the chemicals were still running through her brain, severely impacting her focus and critical thinking. At least she was aware of it. There were too many people here for the violent option, and she also didn’t like her odds of jumping over their heads and running out the door. It was taking all her focus just to stand in a proper defensive posture, doing something complicated would likely result in failure, and as far as she knew there were more behind the door. However, she was awake, and hopefully Orville was looking for her at this point. So she just needed to stay aware and awake.

She didn’t lower her fists. “What do you want with me?” She asked.

A cat in green called in an unknown language through the door. Immediately, it opened. Amaris tried to see as much through the door as she could, but the person coming in was so tall she could only make out that there was more basement back there. The new individual was a human woman in yellow, most likely the one Orville had encountered in the memory before he had been locked out.

However, he had not mentioned her eyes. They were a brilliant golden color. Amaris… felt calm, looking at them.

Naturally, this made Amaris’ suspect mental tricks were at play, so she turned her mental paranoia into overdrive.

“Are you going to answer my question?” Amaris asked.

“We want to know who you are,” the woman said.

“Amaris Kelvin, but you know that, so what do you mean?”

“Who you are as a person. Who are you, at the bottom of it all?”

Amaris’ thoughts immediately turned to her curse. “I a—”

As she was speaking, the woman suddenly flashed a bright yellow color. Amaris felt something prod at her mind.

She clenched her jaw, shaking her head. She expected the poke to turn into a spike, an illusion, or some other thing intended to tear her mind apart. Instead, the poke simply… went away.

The woman took a step back from Amaris. “Your mental fortitude is impressive.”

“You didn’t push very hard.”

The woman pulled part of her robe to the side, revealing a yellow crystal in her hand. “The art of the yellow crystals cannot be done on unwilling targets.”

Amaris nodded slowly. “But you can get people into a state of suggestibility and surprise, sometimes getting through anyway. I see.”

“A remarkable mind as well.”

“Are you trying to butter me up?”

“I am trying to put you at ease.”

“I noticed that I felt more relaxed when you walked in. I’m not falling for whatever emotional game you’re playing.”

Some of the others in the room backed away from Amaris.

“...They’re afraid of me,” Amaris stated. “I’d like to know why.”

“Multiple reasons. Some of them are afraid of what you might do to them. Others are afraid that they might have to kill you.”

Amaris nodded slowly. “Why?”

“You would expose us.”

“ORHI already knows about you.”

“We’ve kept your dream ghost at bay well enough, but your organization is an active threat to our way of life.”

“Which is?”

The woman folded her hands together and gave Amaris a smile.

“Right, you never say it aloud. You’ve probably said more to me than you ever would without that weird language of yours already.”

“Correct.”

“Well. In order to tell you if I’m a threat or not, I’d have to know if you’re a threat or not. And right now kidnapping a girl doesn’t make you look very good.”

“We are aware. Which was why I was hoping to forge a soul connection, to erase all doubt.”

“I’m not going to let you.”

“I will endeavor to convince you then.”

“Unlikely.” Amaris narrowed her eyes. “You can clearly suppress memories with it. My mind could be cleaned or, worse, replaced with something new.”

“Does your memory ghost not do that already?”

“He tries his best.”

“He does not succeed. Many memories of my people were quite scrambled.”

“They were paranoid, it made it difficult for him to observe.”

“Is it really paranoia?”

“Yes. There is no reason for your little magic society to stay hidden anymore, the Strider came in, everyone knows about magic now. I even use your crystals in my work, for crying out loud!”

“You do not know the history.” The woman held out the yellow crystal. “But I could show it to you. I saw your memory ghost in my friend’s memories. I know you know of the initiation. It would be much the same, I could share the secret with you, and you could determine whether to keep it or not.”

“Or you brainwashed her.”

“The other options are unpleasant for everyone involved. You stay locked down here for eternity while we carefully round up every other member of your group. We start killing people, which we really don’t want to do. Or…” She frowned. “I apologize, but it is likely that torture and pain could be used to force a connection, with time.”

“You think you can break down my mind?”

“I do not like the chances, unfortunately. You have experienced too much already, it seems.” The woman sighed. “I… Amaris, I do not wish to torment you, I sense that you would be a great boon to us, and that you are not the… threat. But I cannot be sure. Lives are on the line, and we are afraid. What can I do to get you to trust us?”

Amaris stared right at her. “Lots of things that you wouldn’t be willing to do, like simply letting me go. So… let me think.” Amaris frowned, crossing her arms. “Something you could do with just words and actions in this room… something…” Amaris’ gaze drifted down to the yellow crystal in the woman’s hand. “...Anyone can use that, right?”

The woman fell silent.

“I get it, your magic rocks are your secret, but anyone can use it, I think Orville and our research can confirm that much. And the one with the rock does the controlling, so…” Amaris held out a hand. “Give me the crystal, tell me how to use it, and I will forge this soul-connection of yours. It will be in my control. Bare your mind to me, not the other way around.”

Everyone in the room gasped, except the woman in yellow herself. “You would not be able to perform any advanced techniques without training.”

“Less risk to you. I think.”

“Decidedly so.”

“So if you really just want to know who I am… let me tell you.”

The woman paused. “One of our creeds is not to teach anything before membership is certain.”

“You’re going to have to break something to get through to me and you know it.”

“You are correct…” She glanced to the others and started speaking in their strange language. There were a few responses, cycling through basically every emotion on the spectrum.

“...It has been decided,” the woman said. With that, she placed the yellow crystal in Amaris’ hand. “The simplest yellow spell is to simply form a temporary soul bond between two individuals. Simply focus your will into the crystal and think about connecting to me. The method of connection is largely irrelevant, the crystal will respond either way. The connection is always two-way, but you will have more control and can direct the way things go.”

Amaris nodded. She held the crystal in her hand and focused.

Something in her clicked immediately. The crystal flared brilliantly.

She felt the connection form. She could see past the woman’s interior and feel her emotions. There was a lot of fear, of stress, and of… pain? But there was also hope, and a sense of relief. Then… anticipation. For Amaris’ answer.

So Amaris gave her answer. Her curse. The foes she’d faced. The friends she’d made. The struggles she’d fought through. The places she’d been. Her goal to use what she was to help everyone. These thoughts manifested as images laced with emotion and sensation, thrown at the woman in quick succession. Amaris found herself sharing more than she’d initially intended, but it was not as though the woman forced her to. She shared her fears, her thoughts on faith, her worry about the friends and family that surrounded her, and those nights she shouted at the sky hoping her ‘why’ would reach Dia and get an actual answer, though one never came.

But, in the end, she knew ‘why’ better than most. She had seen suffering produce greatness firsthand. In her and everything around her.

That did not make those nights any less painful… staring out at the corpse of the Strider… where the memories of Toad came flooding back… nightmares where all her friends turned on her…

Suddenly, Amaris felt a… hug? It was not really a hug, the sensation was not physical, but purely an emotional one. The woman was holding Amaris close, sharing her pain, sharing her memories. Amaris could see some of the woman’s as well. Making peace through understanding brought with the yellow crystals. Watching that peace be shattered by powers beyond her control. Craters in the ground. Mysterious loss of her own students to targeted tragedy—those students she was allowed to remember, anyway. Much of her memory was a jumbled mess, and it was not her doing, but something outside. Something that screamed in the back of her mind, always reminding her that their enemy did not stay remembered so long as they were looking at it.

Amaris replied to this by showing the notebook pages with the sketches of the broken “angel” core they’d found.

The woman’s emotional state reacted in shock, then elation. They did not have that, they did not have any of that. They knew very little about their enemy, they had never known there was a core, and they had never known they could be defeated. Amaris was thanked profusely, with sorrow turned to delight.

Then regret seeped in.

The woman saw Amaris for who she was, and what she could offer. Taking this route had been expensive, and elsewhere a group had been lost to the enemy while they were distracted. Had they done this earlier… something might have been done. Perhaps they could have been saved.

Amaris calmed her. Lives were on the line. For all they had known, Amaris was working with the “angel” beings, not against them. It was not unreasonable.

The woman responded by inviting Amaris to know.

There was no brainwashing as part of initiation. All that would happen was that Amaris would be given knowledge. Nothing more. Nothing less. Even if the woman wanted to do more, Amaris was in charge of the nature of the connection. She was even a natural, this was a far smoother connection than any novice had ever established before.

Amaris supposed she was just interesting.

And as the woman now trusted her, she now trusted the woman. All she asked for first… was a name.

Faith.

Amaris accepted Faith’s metaphorical hand.

Then the knowledge exploded into her mind, and she understood.

The fires of the Red.

The force of the Orange.

The spirit of the Yellow.

The life of the Green.

The time of the Blue.

The light of the Purple.

The connection of the pink… no, Magenta.

All together, the magic of the world, shifting together into a brilliant shining square.

Amaris blinked.

“Welcome to the Society of Pointed Hats,” Faith said in a language Amaris could now completely understand with ease. “What speaks to you?”

“...I seek to bridge the gaps between the normal and the strange, the mundane and the interesting,” Amaris said, giving her a soft smile. “Yellow, if you don’t mind.”

“Shall you renounce your previous path and take this one?”

Amaris shook her head. “I am still an Aware. I will not join in worship.”

“Then let it be so.” The woman bowed her head. “You are nonetheless one of us.”

“Really awkward that Orville found a worshipping group, huh?”

“Quite.”

“Hey!” one of the cats called. “We are not crazy!”

“Your chanting makes you look like cultists,” Amaris pointed out.

“We aren’t cultists!”

Faith held up a hand. “That is not an argument to have now, Amaris is a fresh initiate into the society. We are not bound together by our beliefs but by our magic and a need to protect one another. In Amaris, we have found a most powerful ally… but also a weakness.”

Amaris nodded. “I am cursed to be interesting. You all are going to be thrown into this mess with me if you let me in.”

“We let all in, it is one of our creeds.”

“I want to make it clear that you don’t have to. I’ve seen what I need to see, you are no threat to us or to the people of Yeshalo. You just want to live without fear of your magic getting you killed. I already strive to build that world.”

“It will be discussed. But you have seen my heart as I have seen yours, Amaris. Do you think we will take your offer?”

“I do not. Which means I have gained a powerful ally this day as well.”

“Most excellent.”

“Just, uh, I know there’s probably some more initiation stuff I need to go through that wasn’t conveyed to me, but my parents are probably worried sick so I’m going to go tell them I’m okay.”

“You are one of us now. You are free, and we will no longer hide from you.”

Amaris nodded. “In that case… I’ll be back. I’ve got lots of questions.”

“And we can finally give you answers.”

~~~

When Amaris arrived completely unharmed on the doorstep of her house and walked in without any fanfare, her parents could only stare at her in shock.

“I’m back!” she said, putting her hands on her hips and grinning.

“Amaris!” her parents and Irene shouted, jumping up and pulling her into a tight hug. She didn’t complain, though it was hard to breathe.

“Did they do anything to you?” Irene asked. “Did you do anything to them?”

“We have new allies,” Amaris said, brushing her hair back. “To put it simply, they’re a group of wizards who band together in secret because they’re hunted, apparently by those memory ‘angel’ things that attacked us at the restaurant. They were afraid we would either give them up to them inadvertently or were actually working for them as we ‘handle’ weird things. Orville’s abilities made them even more nervous.”

“Then why’d they kidnap you?” her Dad asked.

“They have a way to know the true soul of a person, they tried to force me into a connection. It didn’t work, I was too strong. But… I turned the tables on them and managed the connection myself.” She gave everyone a smug grin. “I am now their newest member and I am going to be studying Yellow magic, the magic of souls and connections.”

“You’re…. Going to be a wizard too?”

“Yep.”

“That’s amazing!” her Mom said, beaming.

“You could as well, apparently everyone can do it. I could bring you to… well, our leader. I know her name, I’m just not going to say it, secrecy is kind of important for the sake of protection, and I don’t want to overextend their trust. But you could totally become a wizard. If… okay so I don’t recommend it since using the crystals makes you a target for some reason, but maybe once we figure it out it’d work out.”

“There’s so many questions we have…” her Dad said. “But, right now… I’m just glad you’re home safe.”

“I am too!” Amaris beamed. “Though, I admit, my time was probably a lot less stressful than yours, and I was actually being kidnapped.”

At this point, Vayvaresi lazily strolled down the stairs, yawning. “That… was the best sleep I’ve had in months… wow…” She examined the scene before her. “...Did I miss something?”