Geneva was cold. Freezing even. Well, perhaps it wouldn’t have been freezing had I bothered to wear an autumn jacket, but I didn’t think one would have been required in late summer. I had been wrong. And some small business profited a fair bit from that.

Wrapped in my new knee-long parka, with a sketchbook in one hand, and a warm coffee in the other, I found myself a bench with a nice view of the boat-renting company. Thankfully, there was only one official tourist boat company in Geneva. Judging by the looks of the boats to rent, and the people renting them out, it seemed as if several companies had merged together, perhaps to pay lower taxes, or for some other reason.

I double checked that I had everything I needed. My lunch and dinner were packed in my backpack, alongside some cheap black clothes that I was planning to discard afterwards. I also had a spare ‘civilian’ outfit, as I didn’t yet know what I’d have to wear to get into the lab.

With my eyes fixed on the embankment, I started drawing.

Around midday, put down the horribly deformed sketch of the scenery around me, to have a bite of my sandwich. Thankfully the temperature had gone up, once the sun rose higher in the sky, so at least I wasn’t cold anymore. But a shiver ran down my spine when I looked down at my drawing. It looked like some vicious, twisted, version of reality, where none of lines in the landscape lined up as they should, and depth of the image seemed to wrap itself around some central point.

“It is very avant-garde.” A voice behind me spoke.

I turned around, with a hand covering my mouth, to meet the eyes of a well-dressed older gentleman. He was leaning onto a cane, and seemed to eagerly await a response to his ‘feedback’.

Ignoring the empty System notification (it wasn’t the first time this happened), I finished chewing what I had in my mouth, and said:

“Thank you. But I was going for realism. I think I still need more practice.”

“Oh, you speak French? Excuse me, I was just admiring your work.” He replied.

It took me a second to realise that he’d switched languages, since I only heard word in French. Thankfully this gentleman seemed to know more than one of the national languages of Switzerland.

Not wanting to take my eyes of the embankment for too long, I put my sandwich away, and made some space on the bench next to me. Something told me that this man was not going to go away easily.

“Oh, thank you mademoiselle.” He said and took a seat. “You were saying that you were going for realism?” He asked.

“Yes.” I answered, handing him the sketchbook.

Thankfully it was empty but for my sad attempts at drawing landscapes, so he could only compare my work to my earlier failures. But the man didn’t seem to mind. He flipped through the pages, with the expression of a connoisseur.

“You seem to underestimate your talent young lady. You see, I have an eye for art, and yours stood out to me.”

“I mean no disrespect, monsieur, but I think you might benefit from a pair of glasses.” I said, in as much of a polite tone as I could master.

“Please, call me Theodgar. Theodgar Müller.” He extended a hand.

“Camille. Camille Labranche.” I shook it, making a mental note to never show my ESW to him.

Although, he didn’t seem like the type to care, since he hadn’t introduced himself with a system window. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was old-school, or eccentric.

He lifted my sketchbook in the air, juxtaposing the failed sketch against the landscape.

“You have a lot of talent. And I am not saying that just to flatter you. It is rare to see anyone with your dedication; to come out in this cold, and to spend this much time capturing the true form of this twisted reality. Your use of linework, with no color, but a reliance on live weight and width, shows an intuitive understanding of what draws in the eye in a scenery such as this. And the intersection and displacement of your foreground, main and background object symbolizes the way our focus never truly shifts away from a predefine center of the universe.”

I was at a loss for words. Never in my life had I seen a real, tangible, person give such a far-fetched and borderline nonsensical speech.

He turned towards me and smiled warmly.

“At least that’s how I interpret your work.”

“Well,” I stalled, trying to think of something, anything, to say. “Would you like to keep this piece then?”

His eyes widened as he raised an eyebrow.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Truly?” He asked.

“Yes, of course. You seem to like it so much more than I do. Would you like me to sign it as well?”

His eyes lit up with a mixture of amusement and genuine happiness.

“Well, if you insist.” He agreed.

“Sure.” I reached for my pencil and turned the paper over.

I suddenly paused, trying to figure out what kind of signature I should make. I briefly considered using ‘memoire’ to imitate the signature on Laura’s bank card, but I hadn’t introduced myself as Laura because I didn’t want to be tracked, so signing with her signature would have directly defeated that purpose.

“Evacuate the embankment!” Someone yelled. “Evacuate the embankment! Evacuate the embankment! Evacuate the embankment!” They repeated three more times.

I looked up, and saw a small group of tourists running away from the edge of the water, as someone in a police uniform was trying to direct them to safety.

Mister Müller got up as well. He raised a hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sun, as he tried to make out what was going on.

Before I had had the time to think of a plan of action, three large purple tentacles emerged from the water and grabbed the police officer. The man tried to free himself, as more tentacles, made of water this time, and somewhat resembling human hands, attacked the flesh ones.

“What were they thinking, stationing a water elementalist by the lake…” Mr. Müller muttered.

One of the boat captains hit the purple tentacles with a paddle, as some woman fired a ball of energy at the creature. But when a large octopus head, with over a dozen globulous eyes growing all over it, emerged from the water, both the woman and the sailor gave up, and took refuge with the rest of the tourists.

The octopus did not relent, as it tightened its grasp on the cop, as if trying to strangle him to death.

“Well, he’s a goner.” Mr. Müller said, as he sat back down. “The police won’t get here in time.” He explained, as he turned towards me.

I couldn’t take my eyes off this scene. I had to do something, but I couldn’t think of a single thing I could do. Suddenly, I felt a warm sensation in my lower back, where my sword had been resting under my jacket. Right. I had a sword. I could win him some time.

“Please watch my things.” I said, as I got up.

My body seemed to move on its own. I dashed towards the creature, pulling out my sword, and stabbing one of its eyes. I expected the monster to shriek, or at least to emit some sort of sound. Instead, it lazily let go of the unresponsive cop. It seemed to wonder, for a second, if fighting me was worth it, or if it should take its prey, and go back to the water with it.

I glanced at the cop, then at the crowd of people who refused to intervene. I could only hope one of them had called the police or the military. It seemed no one wanted to risk their lives to save this man, and I couldn’t really blame them. But I felt a strange compulsion to intervene. I just needed to get the monster away, not fight it, that was all.

Outsider

Target aquatic mutation

Duration 15 seconds

MP - 6

The monster fully emerged from water, and slid towards me. It reached out with one of its slimy arms, trying to grab me, but I shoved the limb away with my blade. As I continued to move backwards, I noticed that the cop had come back to his senses. Our eyes locked for a second.

The monster grabbed my ankle. I planted my sword into it, making him let go, but by doing so, I left myself exposed. The creature grabbed me, trying to take control of the hand I held my blade in. I tried to resist with all my strength, and just when I thought I’d let go of the katana, a jet of water pierced the wooden embankment and hit the octopus in its underside.

It released its grasp ever so slightly, and I used this opportunity to stab it again in the head.

Strength -1

“I’ll distract him!” The cop yelled.

I gave him an angry look, since this situation was partially his fault, but didn’t get distracted for long enough to let the monster tighten its grasp over my hand. I stabbed the base of the tentacle that was holding me. The blade didn’t seem to go in as deep, but I immediately felt the creature’s grasp relaxing.

I wrapped my other hand around the handle of the sword, and brought it over the creature’s head before stabbing it with all my strength.

The monster let go, and started quickly sliding back towards the water. Clearly, this much resistance wasn’t worth a meal for it.

Suddenly, two concentric circles of energy formed around the monster. Spikes emerged from them, and floated around the octopus. For a second, it looked as if the creature was wearing two thorn crowns. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the crowns shattered into the creature. It spasmed, and fell on the floor, with blood oozing out of dozens of holes on its body.

I froze, as my mind struggled to process what had just happened.

“Are you alright?” The cop came up to me and asked.

He was walking with a limp. I imagined the monster must have hurt him pretty bad, although his luck points hadn’t dropped low enough for him to take physical damage.

“Yes, are you?” I asked.

“Thanks to you. You really did a great job killing that creature.” He answered, as he tried to smile through the pain in his leg.

“You should go sit down.” I told him. “And I wasn’t the one to do that. I would have helped you earlier if I had this powerful of a skill.”

He was about to say something, but was interrupted by police sirens. Two cars had just arrived on the scene.

“I will be right back.” He said, and limped away.

I shook my head, sheathed my blade, and headed back towards my bench. If my ‘Black Trail’ skill hadn’t yet activated, I was planning on using it if someone came to interrogate me.

When I got back to the bench, I noticed that Mr. Müller was gone. Where he’d sat, now laid my sketchbook. Its top page, the one with my latest failed sketch, had been neatly torn-off.

I picked up the thing in confusion. I was planning on tearing it out anyway to give to him, but the fact that he did it himself, before running off like that didn’t sit right with me. Especially considering how calm he’d been during the start of the attack.

As I closed my sketchbook to put it back into my backpack, a 20 € note fell out of it. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I couldn’t decide what was stranger; that he took my drawing or that he thought it was worth 20 €.

When I lifted my eyes form the sketchbook, I was surprised to see none other than Alonzo Rossi (aka Mr. Idiot) on the other side of the street. He seemed to watch the police with curiosity, no doubt having arrived after the attack. He then looked at the boat renting place, and seeing how deserted it was, idly turned around and headed back into town.

“Oh no you’re not.” I whispered as I shoved everything into my backpack, and discreetly ran after him.

[https://i.imgur.com/4kYktbo.png]