Alex jumped between rooftops as he ran toward their meeting place. The night was almost over, and he needed to meet with Sayed. He hadn't gotten the chance to grab any food, but he thought he might be forgiven, considering what he had found out. With any luck, maybe Erin had bought something in the tavern and taken it to the swordsman.

He noticed that the streets below were empty in his senses. He couldn't see people due to the fog to begin with, but not a single person walked the streets now. Maybe even the partygoers from earlier had gone to bed.

He thought about what the kid had said. The masks were part of the problem. He didn't know what they were, but he needed to get back with Sayed and Erin and hear what they had done before he went forward on it. It wasn't like he wanted to grab a random person on the street and remove their mask to see what was behind it.

"One step at a time," he said as he approached the docks and settled on the roof near where he left Sayed.

Unfortunately, Sayed was nowhere to be found.

"He wouldn't have just left," Alex lied as he squatted down and looked out over the bay. "Sayed definitely wouldn't just leave his post, right?"

Sayed was a very loyal person, to say the least. He wouldn't have left without a good reason and could take care of himself. Both Sayed and Erin had survived a brawl with an ex-Apostle on Glory Plateau, and that feat spoke of how strong they were. No, he would wait until they came back, and then they would make their plan.

He didn't have to wait that long before Erin showed up.

She walked down the street below, still shrouded in her cloak. She carried an extra bag in her hands as she approached the alley of the building he was on. He jumped down and landed in the alley a little way in front of her.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"We have a problem." Erin shook her head and walked over to him with the bag. "One of my people on the island found me and told me a lot. He showed me a lot. There's something weird happening here, and I have no idea what's causing it."

"Is it about the masks?" Alex asked, inspecting her bag as she sat it down on the crate. "I found a kid that told me the people in masks attacked him and his family. Something about them putting masks on other people."

Erin took in a deep breath and stepped back from the bag.

"Open it." She nodded at it. "That's one of the masks."

Alex looked between her and the bag and felt like he was being pranked for a moment. If they weren't standing in a fog-covered city on another world, he might have thought she was pulling the same kind of pranks his college roommates did to each other on a nightly basis.

He had to remind himself where he was.

"Okay," Alex said, opening up the bag.

Inside was a mass of flesh and tendrils, barely visible in the darkness. Little pieces of porcelain were stuck to the tendrils like eggshells. Alex's breath quickened, and he closed the bag tight. He hadn't needed to see that.

"What the hell is that?" Alex asked.

Erin took a few deep breaths in what Alex thought was an attempt to gather herself. Apparently, she had a bad experience with it. Alex hadn't seen the thing alive, so he had no idea what it was like. However, Erin seemed traumatized by it.

"I asked myself the same," Erin said, and Alex noticed that she looked even paler than normal. "When I went to the tavern, I was drugged. One of our people intercepted me and took me to his home. He took off his mask, and that's what it turned into."

"Did he tell you anything before he did it?"

"Only that the mask changes people. He didn't say anything about where it came from. It seemed like the mask made it harder for him to do what he wanted."

"Something's wrong with this place," Alex said.

"Agreed."

"We're not closer to finding the logbook either," Alex said. "If we find it, we could just get out of here."

A crushing weight was building in his stomach as he thought about it. Could he just leave the kid on the island? Whatever these masks were, they were clearly not good for that kid's life. The townspeople had driven him into a life on the street because the kid had survived their attack.

"That's an entirely separate problem," Erin said. "I'm going to have to report what's happening here in the least. I'm not even sure the Military Police know about it. None of the guards were wearing masks on the docks."

"Is it normal for them not to interfere with the locals?" Alex asked.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"On Fringe islands, yes," Erin said. "They don't have enough soldiers to patrol everywhere, so outposts must work with the local people. They're much stronger in the Twelve Kingdoms, so they can get away with being more brutal."

Alex had never had the time to find out about that. Since he ran from August, he had kept a low profile and went to islands that weren't part of the Twelve Kingdoms. In all the five years he had been free of the lab, he had only managed to run into the Military Police once, and that was on Tombstone.

"So, the question is, what do we do?" Alex said as he looked down at the bag. "Our main priority is the logbook, but all we found out about was the masks. Maybe we need to change our approach."

"Where's Sayed at anyways?" Erin asked, looking around.

"Sayed's gone."

"You don't think something happened to him?"

"Don't worry. Sayed knows what he's doing. What's the worst that could happen?"

----------------------------------------

Sayed followed the wolf over the rooftops. Step by step, the wolf led him further along the docks and toward the setting moon. Sayed knew he should return to his watch, and his brothers would return soon and be shocked to find him missing. However, he wanted to see where this wolf's tale took him.

The wolf stopped at the rooftop's edge, and Sayed slowed when he caught up to it. It didn't run any further, and Sayed had to lean over the rooftop's edge to see why it had stopped. Below him was a window on the second floor of the building.

To Sayed, the building looked like it might be a warehouse. There were large wooden doors down below and several windows on the second floor to let light in. He lay down on the tiled roof and leaned his head over to look through the window.

The inside of the building was lit by candlelight in one major place. Near that candle, Sayed saw the old man from earlier in the night, before his fight with the swordsman. The old man was, in fact, talking with the swordsman as they stood by a desk.

"I think, my friend, that I will need to get a closer look at this," Sayed told the wolf as he stood up and quietly walked toward the roof's edge.

He jumped down to the street below and landed with a soft thump. He considered his approach. If he had just charged into the building, there would have been another fight, and it was far too early in the tale for that. Instead, Sayed would see if he could find another entrance.

He made his way down the alley.

Craw. Craw. Craw.

In the sky above him, crows called out. Sayed kept close to the wall as he walked around the back of the building. There, he saw his opportunity. A smaller door on the first floor led to the back of the building. If it was unlocked, he could sneak his way inside.

He made his way over to the door and tried to open it. It cracked open slightly to his gentle touch. Sayed smiled, first peeking inside and then letting himself in. As soon as he closed the door behind him, the noise from outside stopped. Not even the crows' calls made their way inside once the door was closed.

All he could hear was the people talking above.

"The captain is far too obsessed with his promotions," the old man, Sayed guessed, said on the level above him.

"Doc, you're the only one who wants to work on a nowhere outpost like Cragg Hollow," Tanis, the swordsman, said in return. "How long have you been here anyways?"

"Long enough," the old man Sayed now knew as Doc said with a sigh.

Sayed began to make his way along the bottom floor. In the dim light of the candle above, he could make out the shadows of tall, long structures beside him. They were taller than Sayed was, and three of them, next to each other, stretched the length of the warehouse.

Sayed tiptoed down the structures and closer to the voices. He needed to get a better vantage point, and that was the only path forward. If he were to be a sneak thief, he would play the part.

"You two don't understand how important this place is," Doc said. "There are medical discoveries here that could change the world."

"Getting promoted would change our pay more." Tanis sighed.

Click. Tap. Click. Tap.

Someone walked around on the floor above him, and Sayed pressed himself against one of the containers.

"What do you even use this warehouse for, Doc?" Tanis asked, and Sayed could see him looking down over the bottom floor from where he stood. "I never understood how you always had something to do in this warehouse."

"Would you like to see my research?" Doc asked, and Sayed saw that he had joined Tanis on the railing. "Come downstairs, and I will show you."

They moved away from the railing, and Sayed quickly made his way to the far side of the container. He pressed himself back against it and peered around the corner. He saw the two men walking down the stairs and onto the bottom floor. Doc led Tanis past the first container, and Sayed immediately sprinted toward the stairs as quietly as he could. In moments, he was on the second floor of the building and out of sight of the two men.

"When I first came to Cragg Hollow thirty years ago, I made an interesting discovery," Doc said as Sayed quickly looked around the second floor.

He saw a desk off to the side, where the two had started. On it was a metal box of sorts. Sayed walked over to it and examined it. On the outside, he saw lettering. 'Roald's Log of a Journey to the New World' was written on it. Sayed picked it up.

"Roald was the name of the man Erin was looking for," he whispered. "Perhaps this is what we are looking for."

"I found a creature," Doc continued. "It was a crustacean of sorts that took the form of everyday objects when it hibernated. I spent decades working on it and modified it into a useful tool."

"What does it do?" Tanis asked.

"Here," Doc grunted. "Find out for yourself."

Splash.

"What was that, Doc?" Tanis yelled as water splashed around below. "Get me out— Argh!"

Sayed kept the metal box in his hand as he ran over to the railing. When he looked down, he saw the old man named Doc looking down over one of the large rectangular structures on the first floor from a platform. He had his arms crossed behind his back as he watched the swordsman, Tanis, struggling in the water. Long, spindly limbs had wrapped themselves around the swordsman's body and dragged him under the water.

"What trickery is this?" Sayed yelled out, looking down at the man below.

"Who are you?" the old man's head snapped to look at Sayed. "The book!"

Sayed looked down at the book and then looked out the nearest window. He didn't know what was happening, but he didn't like any of it. If he had the book they were sent to pick up, though, he knew it was the priority. He held the book close to his chest and ran for the window.

Ksht. Thump.

Glass shattered around Sayed's body as he jumped through the window with one leap. His shoulder slammed into the wall on the other side of the window, and he fell to the ground with a thump. He landed in a wide stance on both feet and, without missing a step, immediately ran out into the street and down the docks.

"The glory of this one is mine. I return with the treasure in my hand," he said between breaths as he ran down the street and back toward their meeting place.