22nd September , 1137
Suiming.
Suiming held his briefcase. What broke the horizon was not the sun drifting down, but something almost as great as the sun.
The city, the capital of Euth-Grand dome.
Its metal structure stretched like a mountain. Standing tall for years beyond any man, yet it was built without any modern technology, pure faith and wisdom crystallized into the structure that millions call home.
The symbol of Euth stood there. In Suiming’s eyes, it is alive. The framework of it is the ribs, the factories and cities in it- lungs, the unsealed lid-possibly mouth, and the middle of everything, the tower with the Cross of dilemma-the heart. People are the blood that flows in the living, breathing city, like cells that multiply.
Autumn wind gently combed his hair and the torn edge of his clothes.
He looked at people passing by him, behind the aircraft port were the remnants tide explorers. They dressed in different clothes, some equipped with decent gear while others held crossbows and swords. Firearms were rarely seen among remnant tide explorers; after all, bullets cost money, but blood doesn’t.
“…Choice,” he muttered to himself as he slowly started walking.
He lost count of the times he walked on the same earth from when it was a small patch of dirt to a simple stone paved road, and now the wide, solid avenue smoothed by travelers’ feet and the unpredictable rain.
None of the crowd caught his eye, he was looking for the Letter-Writer.
Suiming searched for that blue figure. The nearer he was to the dome, the less dense the crowd. Eventually, there was only he and the story-high gate of the Grand Dome.
It stood before Suiming, the arch curved like a dead metal whale. In the war times, the gate was indestructible, but the armies of other nations never made it here. Metallic cold reflection from the Dome and the scent of steel, the screech of water steaming as a craftsman shoved a glowing blade into the water, and the calling from the merchants and explorers welcomed him back to the land that he once felt he belonged to.
Around the gate were peddlers selling their goods for either such a cheap price that it felt suspicious or such a high price that it felt like a scam. He stopped by one of them. Suiming recalled the contents in his filled briefcase- many arcane items, none good for a weapon. To carry all of them, he had to throw away some of his spare clothes and soap. He doubted that he smelled anything acceptable after a long trip.
The lady overlooking the shop was reading the newspaper. On the headline was news about rising numbers of missing explorers. From the slip of paper, he could see the shop owner was not reading the newspaper, but a light novel from Senhashi. It looked new, possibly even the most recent editions. he heard that this foreign literature was popular among young people.
He took a look at the goods. There were all kinds of arcane items, some even bloodstained. On the wooden table lay bones, amulets, daggers, and other items shining or emitting an unearthly aura. One of the items caught Suiming’s eye.
Frowning, Suiming picked up one of the items- an ominous dark quill pen that looked oddly similar to him. Its vanes and barbs were disordered and chaotic as if it had been stomped and thrown, forgotten and abandoned for a lengthy time. Upon touching the unnamed and unnameable feather, he recognized it. It was one of the sacred treasures in the arsenal of messengers, only allowed to be used by the Letter-Writer. The pen had the name “Outsider”, it was a gift from a scholar to the Letter-Writer from times when only birds soared in the sky, on the streets only ran horses, and when books were written by hand.
“Ahem.” Suiming coughed. The shopkeeper kept looking into her newspaper-hidden novel.
“What do you have to say about this?” Suiming said as he waved his hand in front of the shopkeeper.
“Y’know if I want, I could get you arrested for having this. We all know how the messengers treat curious cats…”
Hearing the word ‘messenger’, the shopkeeper finally put away her readings. She was a woman who looked around in her mid to late twenties, with blue hair tied in a ponytail, wearing sunglasses. She pushed her sunglasses up and bit her lip.
Seeing that he got the shopkeeper’s attention, Suiming said:
“That would be a different case if you’d give me a discount.”
“Messengers, The Letter-Writer? You sure?” the shopkeeper questioned in an accent that Suiming had not heard in a while.
“Take another look, perhaps it’s something even better,” she said tauntingly as she took away the quill pen. The shopkeeper flipped the quill pen around with her index finger and thumb like playing with a fallen leaf. As she did so, in Suiming’s eyes, her mouth, nose, ears, and eyes behind the sunglasses started to come together.
Eventually, the facial features and the accent all pointed to one possibility.
“Damn it, Seren! You almost had me!” Suiming shouted.
“Three years and you already forgot how I look? Or are the arcane sunglasses working too well?” Seren said as she stood up, leaping forward like an arrow and poking Suiming’s nose with the quill pen.
“Yeah, three years, and I would have forgotten you if you didn’t bother me with your letters!” Suiming said, half joking as he shuffled around the other things on the counter.
“I’m elected as the Letter-Writer for a reason.”
“I do have things that’ll catch your eyes,” Suiming said as he rolled up his sleeve. The scribe was blurry but still visible. Seren took off her sunglasses and squinted her eyes, carefully inspecting the words in cursive.
“When the stars are right, when the tide is stopped, when all life dreams the same dream, it shall arise. When candles burn out and stars turn dark, He shall be crowned.”
“…You kept surprising me ever since I was formed from the blood of Starseeker.”
“Where did you get this from?” Seren said as she frowned. The scribe was not only alarming, but the language it was written in is only spoken between linguists and long-living beings.
“Do you remember that abnormality from the War? The one that someone unknown banished into the Prolonged Mist?”
“That one?… Should I call you lucky or unlucky?”
“Lucky, of course, no one died except my new clothes.”
“Right, right, I’ll get you clothes after this.” Seren said as she bent down and took out a thick-sided metal box with the word “supply” on it, and put all the arcane items in it carefully and swiftly, except the quill pen. She then closed it tightly.
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“By the way, souvenirs from Siyue,” Suiming said as he put his briefcase on the metal box.
“You can have it back,” Seren said as she put the quill pen in Suiming’s hand and gently closed his fingers. She walked towards the gate as she picked up the box. Suiming walked behind her as he put the pen in his waistcoat’s inner pocket.
“Now, Seren, if you are willing to lend me the Outsider, how big of a trouble are we talking?” he asked as he rubbed his nose.
“Unexplored ruin B one-nine-nine-one…there was a squad who entered four and exited five,” Seren said calmly.
“And? That member could be an abnormality…hallucination, a typo in the documents.” Suiming said as he walked faster to catch up to Seren.
“Well…it wouldn’t be such a big deal if the fifth member didn’t speak only in Yellian,” Seren explained, looking towards Suiming, “but I have another offer for you if you don’t feel like exploring it.”
“Spill it.”
“Investigate the recent appearance of the School of Faust; they’ve been causing some trouble, but most importantly, reports have suggested that the Troupe is connected to them.”
“…I see…where is that person now?” Suiming asked as he stretched.
“Dead. Turned into ashes once he walked into the headquarters. Like Lily’s Realm-arts. It won’t be such a hassle if Rosemary is here.”
“You haven’t even met her, but true, it won’t be so troublesome if Nameless’ here,” Suiming answered as he recalled the face of Nameless. The ruins remind him of her white hair that flows in the wind, reminding Suiming of how ancient she is…and how lonely she is.
I must go there. This time, no matter what, even if she isn’t there.
Suiming felt something. A tingling and coldness from his spine spread to his body as he felt a flame burning in him.
A feeling that he had been waiting a long time. He had seen Acryl and wondered if his chance had come.
Suiming’s view was taken by the emptiness of a night’s sky. Stars dotted and embroidered above him, under the sky, was a great mossy obelisk. It was taller than any towers Suiming had seen, and it was quieter than anything he had heard.
The obelisk spoke of nothing. It was just there. Being. Yet Suiming’s head was filled with whispers that more resembled rumbles of some kind of unknown creature. The voices echoed as his face felt the cold ground. His mind was surrounded by emptiness as he heard colors and smelled shapes of nothing. Suiming’s five senses merged as he felt what was beyond the obelisk. Something beyond the night sky, beyond what is behind the dark curtain of the atmosphere, perhaps even further from the stars and other deep space objects he observed. He could not use any language to describe, nor could he say what that thing was.
“An…Existence?!”
The shape of that thing stretched into directions Suiming couldn’t comprehend. It seemed like the embodiment of what can be called despair. Feeling the presence of that Existence made Suiming feel something. He felt the time it had been there before the first stars shone, before the first dew dropped, and even before the first living turned dead. It did not belong to This World.
He wasn’t even able to think like he could. That thing was not even its entirety, he was sure of that. Using a sense that wasn’t earthly, through a gap of space that was like a lens of chaos, he saw a thing that could be described as a gavel. As he tried to rebel against his instinct and raise the non-existent eyes, trying to see the hand holding the gavel, he collapsed as if his knees were turned into jelly.
In front of an Existence, everything can only choose to bend its knees.
The Existences never frown upon what is in This World, their humans and abnormalities are never significant enough for them.
But that thing was looking towards Suiming.
As Suiming’s mind was about to break, Seren’s voice came in.
“Suiming?”
“Suiming!”
“Darn, do abnormalities even have allergies?”
“Seren…I have good news,” he said as he stood up. Seren put her fountain pen away as she helped Suiming get up.
His head was hurting as if a stone was shoved into his skull through his ear.
Realm-art: Dance of a Stardust
A light emerged on Suiming’s palm. It condensed into a sphere as white light reflected on his monocle. He recalled the knowledge he was born with as the miniature star slowly expanded.
As he smiled, pretending that everything was smooth sailing and that the pain he felt was nothing more than a hallucination, the star went dim and disappeared into a cluster of stardust.
His smile quickly turned to a frown.
Suiming manifested the constellations, something that shouldn’t be impossible, had just happened.
Can dulled Realm-art change its powers after re-sharpening it? Suiming thought to himself.
“Sharpened your Realm-art?” Seren said as she leaned closer to Suiming.
“I suppose…long story short…I saw something I shouldn’t.” Suiming answered, his hand holding onto a star. The star did not belong to that constellation, but it did centuries ago, before the star disappeared for an unknown reason.
“Seren, have you seen this in your Realm-art?”
“No…do you want me to turn the clock back?” Seren said as she shook her head.
“Turn it all you want, but I doubt the hands won’t return to this exact outcome.”
A lifelike image appeared between the constellations as Suiming finished moving the stars.
“Here, the beginning of the great war.”
The image moved, an entire army of messengers marching in the birch forest of Treisaules. They dragged the most primitive industrial arcane creations by today’s standards. Heavy, inefficient, and unstable compared, not even the poorest caster would get one, even if someone paid them to do so.
“…The days when Euth just dug up the runes…let’s see what is written here,” Suiming said as he took a closer look.
“A flame vomit-er in Yellian. The grammar is quite terrible.”
Seren put her hand onto the image. Her eyes turned dim. The Great War was never great in any way. She emerged from the blood of an Existence. Born as a soldier, yet everyone around her sank into the soil, only to become the voiceless forest of monuments that speaks the horrors of the war.
“Cancri of the blue mist…I hope Fosfor didn’t give him a normal death.”
“Fosfor treats every mortal equally.” Suiming reminded. He put his hand through the image. It was from the view of his memory, he could recall it.
“But yes…I always had hope in humanity, but Cancri…he made me doubt my views.”
“Is this just a moving image?” Seren asked.
“I guess so…quite a time-killer,” Suiming said as he turned off his Realm-art. He’d like something more destructive or something more…familiar to him. “I’ll figure out what else it can do. I believe it has some limits on what I can see.”
As the guarding messengers saluted and let them inside, Suiming asked:
“So….Seren, what do you have to say about the oracle?”
“Nothing much…I’ll talk to you after I dig through the archive,” Seren said, combing her hair with her fingers, playing with the strand of hair between her fingers.
They both bid each other farewell and went to their destination.
Sunlight shone through the transparent dome as Suiming walked. He went past the outskirts, avoiding a street he used to visit often. Crossing into the park and slowly towards the center, where the church of Starseeker and the tower, where the headquarters of Messenger are. Inside the dome stood many houses; from afar, they looked like mountains.
The waves of colorful and elegant buildings reminded Suiming of the days he lived here. Not great, not terrible, like rice, flavorless yet acceptable. As he walked down the alleyways of the dome while he tried to ignore the luring smells of restaurants, street foods, and bakeries, he saw the Dome’s academy, the most prestigious school in Euth.
“I was a teacher once…” he said to himself as memories of a teen bubbled up.
Time has left its mark on the wild-spruce tall academy. From the newly painted walls and half-rusted, half-shining rooftops, Suiming could tell how time had hurt and healed the academy.
He felt that something was missing as he took a turn on the brick road and saw the Dome’s academy. Something that he felt he should have remembered but had not.
Like a fireplace with no fire, a concert with no audience, and he was the only dancer on the stage.
On the way, he fidgeted with the quill pen.
“If I find her this time, I’d better bring some snacks.”
