The fatal flaw in our plan is almost immediately discovered when we wait for a cart to pass, only for me to go left as Noli goes right. My omni-vision catches the flub right away, but Noli doesn’t even notice we’ve separated until she’s half a house away. We need to use our limbs to hold our cover overhead, and since we also need to use our limbs to communicate, this means we can’t do both at once. After regrouping on the other side of a small mob of children, we reevaluate. I pass one of my shards off to Noli, which she holds with one of the limbs she’s using to keep her mask in place. Even if I can’t see under her cover, I can feel which way she’s pointing it. As long as she stays within a foot of me, I’ll have enough foresight to stay on her heels.
We keep as close to the houses, and as far out of the street, as we can manage. I’m starting to doubt the practicality of our plan (apart from choosing to navigate a crowded village while being only three inches tall). I try to sneak glances at the signs that decorate buildings as we pass them, but most of my brain power is being spent on trying to avoid getting stepped on—and not all the signs even have words on them. Some are just symbols or drawings, which my Google Translate apparently doesn’t deem worthy of interpreting.
“Whoa! What the fuck is that?” someone cries, which I don’t immediately pay attention to, until I realize they’re pointing at me. Shit. I guess it was too much to hope everyone would blame the wind for a couple of masks suspiciously shuffling about. Not giving our detective a chance to investigate further, I give Noli’s glass a couple warning tugs and hastily guide us beneath the nearest cart. A shopkeep is pushing it down the street, and luckily the crowd has hampered its movement enough for us to keep pace.
“Whew,” Noli signs, risking a peek out from beneath her camouflage. “This is a little crazy.”
You know, it is, Noli. Who would think this would be a good idea?
“Did you read?” I ask instead.
“The street signs? Only a little,” she admits. “It’s a bit difficult to see from under here. But I’ve been tracking our turns as we take them. I think we’re heading closer to the town center. If there’s going to be a telepad, it’ll be there.”
“And writing paper?” I press.
“Sorry,” she signs sheepishly. “Haven’t been able to look.”
“It’s okay. I’ll look.” Might be better to divide and conquer, anyway. And we still have time. Better to tackle this methodically than rush it and get ourselves hurt. “Ready?”
“Always,” she signs, lowering the disguise back around herself. We strike out once more.
This time, attempting to emulate a couple of paper masks caught in a gust of wind—rather than a pair of rats in poor disguise—we try a sort of start-and-stop method, timed with passersby. “Hurry up and wait.” That’s what they always used to say on set. Apparently, it’s good enough for sneaking through a fantasy fire festival, too. Who knew?
Avoiding footfalls while trying to catch glimpses of signs between a forest of people is no easy task. It certainly helps that I can, technically, look for signs while also seeing someone come at me from behind, but trying to focus on and register those two things simultaneously is more than my human-programmed mind can handle. So I surprise myself, then, when I find what I’m looking for.
Excited, I tug on Noli’s glass to get her attention. When she pauses to check with me, I steer us both out of the danger zone.
“Look,” I sign, pointing up at a building.
The logo is styled like a stack of scrolls, and the name of the shop is painted across the window: Attiru’s Atlas Emporium.
“A map shop,” Noli signs. “Oh, yes! Good idea. They definitely should have some ink and paper in there. And if we can’t figure it out before then, that should tell us where we are!”
Maybe I could even learn a thing or two about what planet I’m on. I haven’t spared too many thoughts before now on exactly where we were—priorities and all that—but now I’d be lying if I said I’m not at least a little curious. What does this world look like? How is it similar and different to Earth?
Noli makes a verbal note about the shop’s location—I have no idea how she knows where we are—and then we strike out again.
It’s a long night. The festival never wanes, though children thankfully become less frequent, and we continue our scouting mission far into the early hours of the morning. Noli picks out a place where we can send wyverns—apparently similar to messenger pigeons, though these small winged creatures appear significantly more scaly—and I find another couple candidates for ink theft. There’s no telepad, it turns out. Noli seems to have expected this, though she still seems a little disappointed when she tells me. I think I’m okay with that not being a possibility: If it’s what cast Noli Between in the first place, I’d honestly rather not risk another run-in with the predator until we’re out of all other options.
“We’ve been going for almost a whole day now,” Noli comments when we pause beneath a food stand to gather our bearings and share our findings. “I mean, not the festival. That’s only been all night. But we started walking at dawn yesterday, and it looks like we’re only another hour or two away from hitting it again. I keep feeling like we should stop and rest. But I guess that’s more out of habit than need, isn’t it?”
I sign an affirmative. It does feel weird. I’d been using Attunements before to simulate a dreamless sleep-like state, but I guess I haven’t really rested since I arrived in this world. And that’s been, what… at least a week now?
With everything that’s happened, it feels so much longer.
“So what’s next?” Noli asks.
We’ve figured out the layout of the village. (Well, Noli has.) We’ve found places for ink and paper and sending messages. We determined there’s no telepad. All that remains, I suppose, is writing out our messages and…
“Find a wizard,” I sign. “To help our spell.”
Huh. Maybe we’re not so far from resolving our predicament after all. Finally, things seem to be falling into place.
“I’m not even sure what to look for, there,” Noli admits. “There are homunculus specialists, but they’re fairly rare, and this town is pretty small. Maybe a healer could help? Though they probably won’t know any summoning type spells. Rezira doesn’t, anyway. Well, I’m sure we’ll find something. We’ve only scraped the surface of this town, after all!”
After a whole night of walking? She says that like it’s a good thing.
But she’s given me an idea. We don’t need to find a business; we just need to find a wizard. And I have just the dowsing rod for the occasion.
Echo, I say. Can you give me a Class Check on everyone I point out?
[Affirmative,] Echo says.
And level? I add.
[Affirmative.]
Sweet. Might be a bit preemptive if I lose them in the crowd, but it couldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for anyone powerful enough who might be able to recognize or fix our spells.
I clock a robe-toting elf in flowing purple and silver attire.
[Level 10 Rogue]
Oh. Way off base there. Okay, well, how about that halfling in a pointy hat?
[Level 22 Beastkeeper]
Nope. The gray-bearded man at the fireworks stall?
[Level 9 Bruiser]
Maybe I need to stop relying on movie stereotypes.
I absently follow Noli as I pick out more of the village folk, this time selecting at random just to surprise myself.
[Level 7 Brawler. Level 14 Warrior. Level 12 Guardian. Level 31 Rogue Artificer. Level 6—]
Woah, back up. Level 31? That’s the closest I’ve seen to Trenevalt’s level so far. I skim back through the crowd, trying to find the rogue artificer. He’s nearly out of sight when Echo picks him up again. Even from behind, though, I can tell he’s not human. Orange curling horns, a prehensile tail, and crimson-red skin give me flashes of demons and devils.
[Name: Zyneth]
[Species: Cambion]
[Class: Rogue Artificer]
[Level: 31]
[HP: 150/150]
[Mana: 580/580]
Devilish looks aside, that is some mighty fine mana. He’s the best target I’ve picked out so far. I wonder if I should catch Noli’s attention and head after him, or if we should continue to—
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I almost don’t notice the fight breaking out until it’s too late. I’ve filtered out raised voices as background-noise of the festival, but these ones are sharp, tones filled with drunken irritation. The flurry of movement catches my attention at the last second, and the ground thrums with heavy laden footfalls as someone stumbles toward me.
I throw myself to the side, heedless of any fall damage, as a foot slams into the ground behind me. I hit the pavement next, just barely getting some signing glass under me to break the fall.
I feel several pieces snap, disembodied jabs of pain shooting through me.
[3 points of Bludgeoning damage sustained.]
I don’t have time to worry about that as panic forces me stumbling to my feet and out of the way of the drunk bystander. My signing glass flies behind me—whole and broken pieces alike—as I scramble to take in my surroundings, locating the brawlers. Noli! Where’s Noli?
But the fighting has already moved on down the street, and I catch Noli ahead of me going the opposite direction, blissfully unaware of the mortal danger we were just in.
Relieved, I hurry to catch up. I suppose it was just a matter of time before one of us was nearly crushed. Even so, it’s an experience I’d love to not repeat, especially given the damage I took to my bonus HP. I’m lucky it wasn’t to my vial.
Echo, Check, I tell her, just to make certain I hadn’t missed any other surprise blows.
[Name: Kanin]
[Species: N/A]
[Class: Wizard]
[Level: 3]
[HP: 10/10]
[Bonus HP: 21]
[Mana: 23/23]
[Void: 95%]
[Role: Homunculus]
I freeze. Ninety-five percent. When had Void gone to ninety-five percent? It was ninety-three last evening, I’m sure of it. I’d been checking the whole afternoon, and it hadn’t moved at all, but then—shit, I’d forgotten to keep checking once we arrived in town. Too much other stuff to worry about. But when in the last eight-ish hours had this happened? And why? I haven’t done any magic, right? So spells can’t be it. I did just get hurt. But that was three points of damage, and this is up two percent. I mean, maybe the math isn’t one-to-one, but… Jesus, I have no idea. And I hate that so much.
Anxiety pooling inside me, I finish catching up to Noli. Should I tell her about the Void? I haven’t even been able to articulate the concept of “Stats” to her yet. It doesn’t seem like she sees stats or hears an Echo—or if she does, she’s not giving any indication that’s the case. How would I even explain all this? I don’t know what Void is. Maybe it’s not even important.
Somehow, I’m not able to convince myself that’s the case.
Gradually, the sky begins to lighten, and just like the vanishing stars, the festival goers thin from the streets. Eventually, with fewer and fewer people around, our disguises become too conspicuous, so I store the masks in my inventory. Back to skittering from hiding spot to hiding spot again.
“Alright, I think I’ve got a good layout,” Noli signs. “It’ll take us another hour to get back to the map place, but that should be our first stop. Sound good to you?”
I sign my best approximation of a thumbs up. “Let’s go.”
Maps seem like the last thing we need with Noli’s natural sense of direction, because we make it back there faster than she suggested. I feel like I might even be starting to pick out some familiar landmarks, but maybe that’s just because everything has started to blend together.
However, navigation becomes the least of our problems when we make it back to Attiru’s Atlas Emporium.
“So.” Noli wrings her limbs awkwardly. “How do we get in?”
You’d assume at some point during the night I would have thought this part through, but you’d be mistaken. I check the bottom of the shop door: There’s a gap, but not nearly enough for my vial to squeeze beneath. Noli could flatten herself better than me, but she’d also still be too big.
“Back?” I suggest. With little else to do, we circle around the building.
“If this doesn’t work out,” Noli signs as we go, “We still have other options. There was that book store, too. I’m not sure if the wyvern master would let us borrow any, but that might also be worth a shot.”
Borrow. Oh, honey.
As luck would have it, however, there is a backdoor to the shop—and the door is propped open with a rock. As luck would not have it, the gap is still too narrow for my bulbous form.
“Here, let me try something,” Noli signs. She finds another rock nearby and drags it over to the door. Wedging herself in between the gap, she pushes against the frame with all her might. Picking up on Noli’s plan, I hurriedly use my glass to corral the rock into the extra space Noli manages to eke out. Noli lets go with relief, and the door holds. Not waiting to see how long that hold will last, I hastily step over the doorstops and inside the shop.
An eerie familiarity creeps over me. Wood floors thump dully underfoot, while log rafters stretch overhead. It’s all too similar to Trenevalt’s cabin. The walls feel too close, the still air oppressive and suffocating. My hackles raise at the memory of the last time I was in such a place and the distinct feeling of being watched.
But as Noli and I linger by the door, the differences start to become more apparent than the similarities. We’re in some sort of storeroom, with cluttered shelves stocked with papers, bindings, and rolls of leather from floor to ceiling. There’s another door at the far end of the room that presumably leads into the front of the shop—which swings open even as I’m looking at it.
Noli and I scatter. I dive beneath the nearest shelf as Noli jumps onto one across from me and vanishes into a nest of twine. The room rattles as the far door closes and a person with glasses, red skin, and black horns strides down the racks. They make it to where Noli and I are hiding—then keep going out the backdoor. Whew. They must not have seen us.
We wait a beat or two, but the shopkeep doesn’t come back. Noli pokes her head out of her hiding spot.
“Should we wait?” she asks.
“Yes,” I sign back. Actually, snooping around the backroom might be better than us poking around the front of the shop—assuming we don’t get caught by the owner, first. Why were they even working this late on a holiday? Or early. We should give it another minute or two in case—
The back door swings open again, the map maker heading back in. This time, however, they kick the rocks out of the door frame, and when the door closes, it’s with the click of a latch. Welp. There goes our escape route. They stop a few feet away, gathering a box of leather and papers from a shelf, then disappear through the front-shop door once more.
Noli and I give it another five minutes, but they don’t head back in.
Cautiously, I creep out from beneath the shelf. Noli untangles herself from the twine.
“Well,” she signs. “Time to get to work?”
“Look for ink first,” I respond. If nothing else, we can use our masks for paper.
I suppose climbing the shelves is always an option, as I had back at Trenevalt’s place anytime I needed to get up or down the table. But even with my meager “Climbing” skill I’ve obtained, doing so here would be flirting with death. Luckily, I have a Noli.
While I check the contents of all the shelves within reach, Noli begins climbing the scaffolding to see what she can find higher up. No ink down here—or any other kind of writing utensils for that matter, who knows what they use in this world—but I do find two leaves of crumpled and discarded paper, which I set aside for Noli. There’s also rolled up scrolls and what might be maps tied shut with string, but without knowing their contents I decide not to take them. Only a couple spaces left in my inventory, and I’d rather snag some more magic books than half a dozen potentially useless topographical maps of forests and mountains. Maybe Noli will know what’s useful to take.
A flicker of movement catches my attention as I emerge from the scrolls, and I notice Noli trying to signal me from a couple rows up.
“Found something,” she signs, waving around some stubby black sticks. “Don’t have enough arms to carry them while I climb down, though. Catch!”
Noli, what, no—
I sidestep the lethal projectiles and let them clatter to the ground beside me. One of the sticks snaps in half and rolls up to my foot. I nudge it, and it leaves a black smudge on my glass. There are black marks where they hit the ground, too. Oh. Some kind of charcoal?
“Sorry!” Noli rushes over to me after she makes it down the shelves. “Forgot how fragile you are. Right. No more throwing things at you.”
How kind. But hey, at least we’ve got what we came here for. Noli gathers up the sticks of charcoal as I retrieve the crumpled papers. Finding a remote corner of the storeroom and smoothing out the pages, we get to work.
“What should we start with?” Noli asks.
Given my struggle initiating communication with Noli the first time, this is one area in which I have something of an expertise.
I point out parts of the paper where I want her to start writing. “Yes. No. Help. Wait…” I pause as I go, waiting for Noli to painstakingly draw out the words. Some are longer in her written language than they are in English or Signs, so Noli makes substitutions where she thinks it’s necessary. She also messes up the first couple of times and has to start over; even if she claims she’s gotten pretty good with this body, it’s clear that dexterity is still difficult for her. I can relate.
It takes about ten minutes to fill up the page with a dozen important words and phrases. As she reaches the end, Noli steps back to admire her penmanship.
“Thank you,” I sign. This is a great start. And it should be a huge step toward getting us some help. I gesture to the other blank paper that’s left. “You write to Rez?”
“You wouldn’t mind, would you?” Noli asks. “I know we’re in a hurry and all, but she must be worried to death about me. And once I figure out the name of this town, we can tell her where we are.”
“You write. I’ll look,” I sign. This is a map shop, after all. There’s got to be some indication of where we are. Might as well be multitasking anyway, and if Noli’s previous writing speed was any indication, we’ll be here a while.
“Really? Oh, thank you, Kanin!” It looks like Noli is about to go in for a hug, then thinks better of it. She gingerly pats one of my pieces of glass instead.
As I add the communication cheat-sheet to my inventory, Noli turns back to her blank page, wringing the giant charcoal stick between her limbs as she stares at the empty letter. I feel a faint pang of sympathy. What must her wife be thinking right now? Does she think Noli is dead?
As I wander through the room, looking for ideas, my mind drifts back to Earth and the people I left behind. I haven’t really given myself a chance to think about them much before now.
How much time has passed back there? Has it been a week, like it has here? Or are the timelines completely separate from each other, given the worlds are divided by the Between, a place where time doesn’t even seem to exist?
I think about my dad. We haven’t talked in years; acting wasn’t exactly his first career pick for me. Would he care that I’m missing? Or dead, I guess, assuming any time has passed over there. I have friends who would care. Li from Wardrobe, and Harold from Sound, and Jenisha from Make-Up and… I mean, I definitely also have friends outside of work! Like, Stevo. Okay, more of an ex, but he’d probably still care, right? And there’s Imani, of course. We were best friends in college. And we just caught up last…
Jesus. How long has it been since I’ve hung out with any of my friends off-stage? No, that’s beside the point. Surely, there has to be someone out there who’s worrying about me as much as Noli’s wife is worrying about her… right?
With my current line of thought taking a depressing turn, I force my attention back on the task at hand. Maps. Village. Where we are.
Unfortunately, short of snipping the string on all these scrolls and unfurling everything within reach, I don’t have much to go on. That is an option, of course, but I don’t have much faith in my ability to roll everything back up again, which would leave very obvious evidence of hideaways for our shopkeep friend.
I’m near the door to the front of the shop—actually, only inches away from it—when it swings open once more. In a panic, I brace my signing glass against the door as it sweeps toward the wall, pushing me along with it. The owner steps into the room once more, but I’m more preoccupied with the wall that’s rushing toward me. I try to scramble out of the way, but my feet slip over the ground, and there’s not enough time—
Until the door slows to a stop, a handspan from the wall, sparing me death by trash-compactor. Slowly, the door begins to swing back into the closed position once more. But if it does, then I’ll be left out in the open. Nowhere close enough to hide behind if the shopkeep turns back around and looks. I have to think fast—run toward the map maker and hope I can dive into a shelf before they turn around, or…
Taking a chance, I skirt around the open door and into the front half of the shop. The floor rattles as the door shuts behind me, and then I’m alone in Attiru’s Atlas Emporium.