"[No, I'm serious!]"
A gruff, rumbling voice reminiscent of the groan of bending metal brayed inside the Faun barracks. Its owner looked as nervous as he sounded, though inexperienced ears might not have picked up on that right away. The long ears of his goatish visage kept turning and swivelling around like tiny radar dishes looking for low-flying enemy planes. Or, in this case…
"[Ghosts?]"
His companion, a more common Faun of the ram phenotype, responded with eminent skepticism, much to the first guy's thinly veiled annoyance.
"[Yes. Or rather, just one.]" He glanced around, not like there was anyone else nearby, and gestured for the other Faun to lean closer so he could whisper the rest. "[They say the castles of the Lords often have ghosts, right? Resentful spirits and wraiths. It's not strange that one would wander around the Chasm of Desolation.]"
"[I'm not sure those are real either,]" the second one mused. "[I've never seen one.]"
"[That's because your squad just came back from a mission. That's why I'm telling you about it, so you know what to look out for.]"
"[What are you two whispering about?]" a third Faun entered the conversation as soon as he came into the building. This one was also the common ram-type, though he had a long beard and was wearing his armour.
"[He's telling me about the ghost.]"
"[Not so loud!]" the goatish Faun hissed and gestured for the newcomer to come closer. "[I told you the Warmaster doesn't like to even hear the word.]"
"[Right. He's been a bit irritable ever since he failed to capture General Brang.]"
"[Ex-geneal,]" the second Faun corrected the newcomer, then turned to the one with the goat-features. "[Not that it matters. So? What am I supposed to look out for again?]"
The first guy gulped hard and leaned in, lowering his voice like a kid telling a scary story around a campfire at night.
"[It is said that it's the ghost of a long-deceased noble of House Inanna whose spirit was roused from the dead by the war. People call him… the Hoar Hatter!]"
"[… Hoar?]" asked the newcomer with considerable apprehension.
"[As in old. Ancient. Antediluvial, even.]"
The first Faun's explanation only made his companions look even more confounded.
"[They why aren't you calling him the 'Old Hatter'?]"
"[Don't look at me like that! I didn't come up with the name!]" he protested, but quickly quieted down to continue in a low voice. "[That's not important though. What you have to remember is that, like all ghosts, the Hoar Hatter also follows certain rules.]"
The newcomer grumbled something along the lines of 'Since when do ghosts follow rules?' under his breath, but the goatish Faun kept talking.
"[If you ever encounter the Hoar Hatter, you must pretend that you haven't seen him. However, if your eyes meet, one of two things will happen: he'll either use the Rites of Dominance to overwhelm you and knock you unconscious…]"
"[Wait, what? He can do that?]" the second Faun blurted out, sounding mildly alarmed for the first time.
"[Yes. Just ask Hraskl if you don't believe me. Poor bastard encountered the Hoar Hatter three times already…]" The goatish Faun shook his head in a show of sympathy. "[But listen, because this is the important part: if you meet the Hoar Hatter, he might not attack you right away. Instead, he might ask you a question. If he asks, 'Is my hat too big?', you must never respond to him! No matter what you say, he'll attack your mind with the Rites of Dominance, so you must never, ever say a single word to him. Don't look him in the eye either, and just pretend he's not there until he goes away.]"
"[That… is a little spooky,]" the newcomer admitted, and it was at this point that I exhaled a long breath and got out of Far Sight.
"Great. Now I'm creating straight-up urban legends.
Exhaling hard, I got up from my bed and was about to reach for the water bottle on the nightstand when I noticed some movement in the corner of my vision.
"Uncleee?" Ollie, dressed in his usual pyjamas, was peeking into my cell with a colourful box in his hands. "Can you help me?"
"With what?" I asked back, and the kid skipped over to my side and presented the box to me.
On closer inspection, it was one of those really big LAGO sets; a pirate-themed one, from the looks of it. The kind that wasn't really made for kids to play with, but for adults to display on a big cabinet or something, and…
"Holy-moly! That's almost two-and-a-half thousand pieces!" Ollie was taken aback by my sudden outcry, so I hurriedly added, "Building that may take a while."
"So… you can't help?"
He was giving me the patented puppy-dog eyes, so I hastily raised my hands in surrender.
"No, it's just… Uncle has something else to take care of first, so how about we do it after dinner?"
"Promise?"
"Of course." I rubbed his noggin a bit and gestured towards his cell. "It'll take some room to lay out all the pieces, so can you clean up the carpet?"
"Yes!"
The tiny Abyssal beamed at me and scurried back. As soon as he returned to his cell, he started piling his toys, crayons, and other miscellaneous stuff on the floor into his toy box. In the meantime, I drank some water (my tea reserves were vast, but not infinite, so I was holding onto my flask for later) and wondered why he was so hyped about this. I was pretty sure that they didn't have LAGOs in the Abyss, so… maybe it was because I promised I'd help him build it.
Yeah, that made some sense. Considering how much time I'd spent outside lately, maybe the kid was getting lonely without me around. If my hunch was right, that was pretty cute. No, scratch that; Ollie was pretty cute, period. He was in that perfect Goldilocks zone, where he was just young enough to be precious, but he was already old enough that he didn't require constant supervision. Was it all downhill from here, I wondered as I picked up two frozen ready meals and threw them into the microwave.
But putting all that aside, what was I doing before Ollie interrupted me? I already hydrated myself, and before that, I was looking at the Fauns, and I was Far Sighting them because…
"Ah, right."
I sat down on the edge of my bed again and closed my eyes. A moment later, I was staring down at the Matron from above. She was currently impatiently waiting for someone inside a rather inconspicuous room inside Castle Inanna. Now I remembered; I Far Glanced at the Fauns because the last time I checked, she was discussing the recent reports about the 'ghost sightings' around the Chasm of Desolation with the young man from the salon. I got curious, so I shifted my point of view over, and while looking around, I got distracted by the Fauns' discussion.
At least I was back on track now, and the first thing I noted was that she was alone this time. She wasn't doing anything either, only standing by the window of the empty room and impatiently tapping her foot, so I figured she was waiting for someone. I was tempted to Far Glance away again and come back later, but I had already been diverted once, and I didn't want it to happen again, so I patiently waited for some kind of development.
I didn't have to wait for too long, fortunately, as the only door leading into the chamber soon opened and a short old man walked in. He was wearing the popular gothic-style men's ensemble decorated with rows of medals and other rank insignias, and despite being almost completely bald, he had a bushy beard that put Lord Ambrose to shame. In his youth, he might've had a robust physique, but it was clear that the only things he'd been lifting as of late were pens and wine glasses.
His dull green eyes lit up the moment he noticed the elderly woman by the window, and he cleared his throat.
"Good evening, Matron. May I ask why you called for me? My heart isn't what it used to be, so these kinds of clandestine meetings are a little…"
"Stop fooling around, Marshal. I don't have the patience for this."
The old man gulped hard and quickly closed the door behind himself.
"Is there… a problem?"
"Potentially, yes." The Matron sounded even more exasperated than she looked, and she levelled a dispassionate gaze at the old man. "I'm afraid I have to request a favor from you."
"Oh?" The man perked up and stood just a little straighter. "Of course, Matron. You know that I'm always at your service."
"Quite," she spoke laconically and glanced outside the window again at the darkening red skies. "My request requires tact and meticulousness, so while you normally wouldn't have been my first choice, our Spymaster is still missing in action, so I have no choice but to work with what I have."
The old man completely ignored the shade she was throwing his way and attentively nodded along. At last, she turned to face him again.
"Do you remember the adornment around the neck of Neige?"
"Hm? No, I don't recall…" he started, but then his eyes opened wide and he beamed a smile. "Oh! Do you mean that black thing? Forgive me, Matron; I'm unfamiliar with fashion."
"That's not important. Do you remember when she started wearing it?"
"Hmmm…" The man thought long and hard about it, going as far as to scratch the top of his bald head in the process. "I think it was a gift from the Liege? For her birthday, I think. No, it must've been!" He let out a soft chuckle, and his lips bent into a grin. "She was quite attached to that silly little thing! She wore it all the time!"
"She did, didn't she…?"
The old geezer waited for the Matron while she sank into deep thought, but when she didn't say anything else and the atmosphere was turning awkward, he cleared his throat and said, "I do miss Lady Neige. I still can't believe that she turned her back on our Liege. That bastard Dunning, or Polemos, or whatever he's calling himself now, must've done something to her, I'm sure of it!"
"That's…" The Matron considered her words carefully, but whatever she wanted to say at this point, she kept it to herself and steered the conversation back to its roots instead. "This is not the time for idle chatter. As I said, I'd like to ask for a favor: I'd like you to ask the Fauns if they know about the origins of that choker necklace."
"The Fauns? Why would they?"
"Because if he was indeed the one who gifted it to Neige, he had to commission or procure it from somewhere outside of House Inanna. Knowing Noir, while he might have covered his tracks, his disregard for the Fauns might have left a few loose threads hanging in the process."
"Excuse me, Matron, but if you want to find out where the Liege got that piece of jewellery, why don't you ask him? He should be returning to the castle in a couple of days' time."
"No." Her response was sharp as a knife, and she glared at the man. "As a matter of fact, I ask you to conduct this investigation before he returns, and you have to make sure that he never learns about it. The same goes for Ekhtear and… I shouldn't need to say this, but ensure that the 'Emperor' is none the wiser about it as well."
"I… can try." Seeing the elderly woman's palpable disapproval, the old man sucked in a sharp breath and tried again. "What I meant to say was that I'll strive not to disappoint you, Matron!" His declaration was followed by a short pause and a considerably less confident, "So… is this for a gift, or…?"
"Don't concern yourself with that, Marshal. It's…" This time she was the one who paused for a beat. She raised a hand to massage her eyes, and ultimately concluded her explanation with a laconic, "I was made aware of a troubling possibility, and so I simply wish to make sure there's no stone left unturned."
"Oh, I understand perfectly!" the bald man declared, even though it was clear as day that he had no earthly clue about what she was talking about.
The conversation didn't end there, but the rest of it wasn't very riveting. It was mostly just setting up some protocols and the Matron repeatedly insisting on how important it was that their investigation would never reach the ears of Crowy's inner circle. Or, considering that was them, the 'innest circle'?
Whatever. The point was that, despite my initial reservations, the old woman was willing to perform at least due diligence. Whether she would uncover anything or what she would do about it were, frankly, unimportant. I triple-checked future-me's notebook, and there wasn't a single mention of her in there, which meant she probably wasn't going to be relevant to our main plot, so I let her do as she pleased.
Or rather, even if I wanted to do anything about her, it wasn't like I could, because my Phasing was still restricted. At this point, all I could do was sit tight and watch things unfold.
What happened to my communicator-plan? Well… Let's just put it this way: I severely underestimated the difficulty of the task at hand. Yes, the hologram-orb (or 'Spirit Pearl', as the old woman called it; maybe because the holograms looked like spooky ghosts) had the kind of functions I was looking for, and yes, the enchantment arrays could be jury-rigged and transplanted into my Leoformer, but… How should I explain this?
Okay, so let's use mobile phones for an example. If you had a smartphone, it would let you talk to people, send text messages, e-mails, and even use chat apps. All of those were forms of electronic communications sent through radio waves, but they were using different technologies to operate. To translate that back into my current conundrum, I had the 'address' of Judy's funky glasses that transmitted audio at long range, and I had an orb that was designed to transmit video across sub-spaces.
To simplify even further, it was like trying to send an e-mail to someone's voicemail using a camera. It wasn't entirely impossible, but it required waaay more work, reverse-engineering, and rule-breaking than planned. Story of my life, really.
At least it wasn't hopeless, and I was sure that with enough phantom-elbow grease, I would figure out a way to get it working, but then the microwave pinged and I got up again.
"Dinner?" Ollie asked from his room, so I raised my voice to respond.
"In a minute!"
"Okay!"
Meanwhile, I took out the food boxes and picked up a pair of plates. Today's menu was 'stuffed chicken-drumsticks á la Bugac', and while I had no earthly clue about what a 'Bugac' was, there was lots of meat and cheese there, so it couldn't be that bad. Once I was out of here, I had to make sure to look these up and maybe ask the princess about them. She liked these kinds of things; both the cooking and the eating part. Judy might be interested as well, and…
"Damn, I'm getting homesick again," I grumbled as I emptied the boxes onto the plates. "Maybe distance does make the heart grow fonder, after all…"
In fact, since Ollie still wasn't here yet, I figured I'd give my girlfriends a Far Peek. Just to see how they were doing. What I absolutely didn't expect was to find Judy on a rooftop in the downtown area of Timaeus and already wearing the aforementioned funky party glasses.
"Boogies are approaching, roger." I couldn't hear the response on the other side, but after a long beat, she let out a soft, "Mmm."
On closer look, she was being flanked by Penny and Snowy, and I could feel a whole lot of other marks in the vicinity, so… wow. It seemed that Lord Marzanna bit the bait they threw out hook, line, and sinker, and pretty damn quickly too. The exam period ended just the other day, and the whole gang was already doing the operation they planned.
Well, crap. I resolved myself to finish my meal quickly, no matter how piping hot it was, so that I could give my whole attention to the show unfolding in front of my ethereal eyes. It's a good thing I Far Glanced over at this time; they were apparently still in the setup phase, so I still had time.
Of course, I would've preferred if they chose to do this after I hammered the whole communicator-thing together, so that I could say hello to Judy and tell her I was all right, but I doubt the timing was up to them. Anyhow, there was quite a crowd here. I already mentioned my sisters standing guard over my girlfriend, but they were far from alone, and I quickly pinpointed the location of the childhood friend couple on the street, accompanied by Zihao Feilong of all people.
A quick shift of my perspective, and I found them sitting around a table at a local café, and they were clearly disguised. Not in big brown trench coats, thankfully, but wearing artifacts that distorted their hair and skin colour a bit to make them less easily recognisable. It was the same thing I used for my original Bel disguise, and I left some of the prototypes to Galatea. By the looks of it, they made good use of them.
The trio acted naturally, but I noticed that the Draconian was paying lots of attention to something across the street. There, next to the large fountain in the middle of the crossing of this pedestrian zone, a conspicuous couple was playing out a very stereotypical date scenario. Or, considering it was Ammy and Mike, maybe they weren't pretending at all, and they just enjoyed the opportunity to hang out like this. Across the fountain, I also found the princess' mark, and she was sitting on the public bench along with Sahi and Pascal. Only she had a disguise artifact that turned her hair a dark shade of green and… huh. It didn't look half bad.
Anyhow, the other two had to settle on hiding their faces behind open newspapers. That wasn't exactly high-tech, but it was better than trench coats and fedoras, so it was fine. With that, we had the whole gang accounted for, but they weren't the only marks in the neighbourhood. At a glance, most of the Praetorian Guards were present, though they remained on the outskirts of the city centre. I could also feel a couple of other marks in the vicinity, and it took me a while to recognise them: they were Squires. I didn't have all of them marked, but just working in the same underground base (plus a few training sessions here and there) let me bump into enough of them anyway.
Of course, those were only the relevant marks I had. By this point, I had literal thousands of them, because any skin-on-skin physical contact was enough to mark someone. Just in the school alone, I had over a hundred of them due to daily life shenanigans, and then there were all the placeholders I poked on purpose, or people I bumped into on the street or in a crowd. Due to that, even when I excluded all the important people, there was something like half a dozen other marks just in this pedestrian zone alone, and…
"… Wait a second."
I almost skipped over them, but there was a cluster of 'fuzzy' red dots at the edge of my vision. That usually represented people who were in pocket spaces like the Abyss, Elysium, or a Purple Zone. Suspicious (and maybe a little worried), I shifted my point of view over to these fuzzy marks, and as expected, my vision was immediately tinted violet, and…
"Oh. This isn't good."
"Hm? But it's tasty."
Ollie's response jolted me out of both my Far Sight and my shock, and as soon as I snapped back to my body, I had one of those 'and then I had five minutes' worth of thoughts in five seconds' kind of moments. My eyes darted around the cell and ultimately landed on the small wooden box on the table.
"Ollie?"
"Yes?"
"Uncle has to go upstairs for a moment. We might have to build that LAGO set tomorrow…"