Chapter 380: 381: We’re running out of time

Fresh sits down by the front door, leaning backwards, her palms resting on the stoop as her eyes wander up towards the world-tree, towards the bubble above and around the city.

It is early in the morning and they’re already open for business, but nobody is coming today by the looks of it. The point has just about been reached, where the general population has been forced to tighten their belts yet another notch, down to their showing ribs. Occasionally, someone will come in to buy their medicine out of necessity. But all frivolous purchases seem to have just stopped entirely.

She wonders, this happened within a span of a month, give or take. What must the situation have been like back then, ten years ago, when the city was shielded off for over a year?

Fresh sighs, her shoulders drooping. “Times sure are tough these days, huh?” she asks.

Muldrich, standing next to her, by the door, doesn’t respond. The man just continues to stare out into the quiet city. A gentle breeze pushes past them, tousling her hair. “Muldrich, do you think things are going to ever be okay again?” she asks, tilting her head as she stares up towards the tree, not sure if she sees a hint of something green on one of the bare branches or not.

Muldrich doesn’t respond, just sticking to his duty of guarding the city. What a professional.

“I think so,” says Fresh, answering her own question. “I guess.” She looks around at the streets. People sure used to be a lot brighter and energetic when they arrived here. It’s surprising how fast faces can change like that. Smiles, warm feelings, security, safety and sanctuary, all erased in a matter of weeks and replaced with colder, tighter, more plain expressions. The winter has come and gone and taken with it many things from the world, including the light of many eyes that still live upon this ground, just now in a darker state than they were before. “It might take a while. But I think things are going to be good again,” she explains, not sure why she thinks that, exactly.

The girl lowers her eyes, staring at the ground for a moment as she thinks about that.

“I think…” She narrows her eyes, thinking about what she’s thinking. “I think that things were good before, so that means they’ll be good again later too, you know?” she asks, scratching her cheek. “I guess it doesn’t make much sense when I say it like that, but… hmm…” Fresh tilts her head, looking at a strand of long hair, dangling down from her forehead. “I want to believe that it’s going to be like that, you know?” she asks again, smiling. “It’s important to have something to believe in when times are tough and I think that I believe that things are going to be happy again. Somehow,” explains Fresh. “I don’t really have proof for it. But it just has to be that way, you know?” she asks a third time, receiving no response. “It’s important to keep the faith.”

Fresh smiles, leaning back on her palms again as she lifts her face towards the sky, feeling the sparse rays of sunlight that manage to find their way down through the shield, feeling them warm her face. She sighs. “I should get to work soon,” admits Fresh. “Though, I guess there aren’t going to be many customers for a while, Muldrich.” She turns to look at the man. “I think it’s neat of you,” says Fresh. “That you take your job so seriously. It’s nice to meet someone who's passionate about their work too.”

Fresh gets up, dusting herself off. “If things get too tough, we have food to spare, okay?” she asks, looking at the man as she turns to go back inside. “You and your family are still invited for dinner, if you ever want it.”

“No. Thank you,” says Muldrich, saying his first words of the morning.

Fresh smiles, heading inside. She would have been surprised if he had said anything else.

“Will… will it really help me?” asks the red-wizard, looking at the bottle of sunwater that Fresh holds in her hands.

“It will,” says Fresh. “I’m confident. But, there’s a price.”

The red-wizard nods, thinking about it. The woman, whose face was once hewn from thick, pliant skin, now looks gaunt and pale. Her cheeks cling to her bones and her eyes seem deeply tired, as if she was simply never rested enough, despite how much sleep she was getting. The sickness is taking her.

“I’ll still be able to use magic though, right?” asks the red-wizard. “It’ll just change my attribute to something else?”

Fresh nods. “Do you have to earn money for your family still?” she asks in return, looking at the woman who was once muscular and energetic. She seems frailer now, older. The strong legs, once akin to an anqa’s, barely seem to be able to keep her frame upright anymore.

The red-wizard nods. “Things are tough now. I just got here and I don’t know how else they’ll make it if I can’t help them.”

Fresh clasps her hands together, lowering her head. “You love your family?” she asks.

“Of course I do,” replies the red-wizard. “I’d do anything for them,” she explains. Fresh smiles, nodding. She understands that feeling. Her feelings towards the red-wizard have been solidified and shown to be true now. Yes, the caster had done her and her own family wrong. But she had done so for the same reasons that Fresh does everything too. While she can’t forgive her for putting her own family in danger, she understands that she did it to find and help her own. Does it balance out? Likely not. But, she understands that it doesn’t matter how it balances out.

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It is what it is.

Fresh slides the potion over towards the red-wizard. “I don’t know how it will feel to drink. It might be weird,” she says.

“Do you think I’ll be able to get back to work quickly?” asks the red-wizard hopefully.

“Well…” Fresh scratches her cheek. “If your attribute changes. I think you’ll probably get new spells and lose your old ones?” she guesses. “You might need to readjust for a while, honestly,” she admits. “I have no idea what will happen, exactly.”

The red-wizard stares at her for a moment and then nods, taking the potion and getting up. “Thank you,” says the caster, rising to her shaking legs. “And for what it’s worth…” says the wizard, grabbing her hat. “- I really am sorry.”

Fresh nods, smiling. “I know. Go eat something before you drink it, okay?” she asks. “Otherwise it might give you the goo.”

The red-wizard nods, tucking the potion away and going downstairs to leave. Fresh sits there for a moment at the library table, turning her head as a pair of boots walk out from behind the shelves. Basil.

The priestess walks up behind her, wrapping her arms around her, over her shoulders. “I’m very proud of you,” praises Basil. “That was a very mature way to handle it.”

Fresh leans back, rubbing the back of her head against Basil’s stomach. The truth is that she didn’t do it to be nice to the red-wizard or to be mature about it. She did it because she knew it would make Basil happy. Well, that and because of that other reason. But best not to think about that right now. That’s a problem for the future. It’s funny, how the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together in her mind.

But anyways, she has to be a good friend, after all. What kind of horrible person would she be if she made her friends sad?

Midnight winds press in through the open upstairs windows, the unusual draft moving both her hair as well as the chicken-patterned drapes. She exhales, the glow of the crystal-ball washing over her from below as her fingers spin around the glass sphere.

Five pairs of eyes, her friends, the spriggan and the springan, watch her curiously from across the table as she pushes her magic into the crystal-ball, thinking in her mind about what she wants to see most right now, the hero, Garnett.

- Where is he? What has become of him?

The glass sphere shakes atop its pedestal, the magical energy moving through it becoming more and more unstable as the image inside of it grows darker. It grows as dark as the night outside the open window and then a shade darker still.

Fresh exhales, staring at the glass as the vision comes into focus. A large, giant tree comes into focus from the distance. A shield, covering the city comes into focus as the view pans eastward, towards the outside of it. The vision rises, rises, rises like a bird flying high into the air until it comes to a stop and then it pans down towards the ground, towards a spot just outside of the city.

There, unmoving, quiet, still, stands the silhouette of a man in metal armor, doing nothing else but staring towards the bubble surrounding the central-city.

He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t pace or patrol or shout or try to find a way in. There is no sign of a camp or of a journey. He just stands there, waiting, staring, frozen. Unable to make a move until the shield has fallen, he simply stays put, like a statue, steadfast outside in the elements for days, weeks, months. The man stands in the spot that he has likely stood in for countless nights now, unmoving.

And all around him, the entire world, everything from the grass to the trees to the sky itself is just… lightless. It is as if a smear of black ink had been painted over the entire world.

Something creaks as he lifts his head. Whether the sound is from his rusting armor or from his stiffened bones is impossible to say.

The hero, Garnett, stares up towards the sky from where they view him, gazing back as if he could see them watching him.

The crystal-ball shatters.

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