28th September 1137

  Neon

  The sky was colored by the night and brushed by the stars as she walked home. The dome’s metal structure curved like a mother’s arm hugging her child. At night, most parts of the Grand Dome are rather safe.

  When Siyuenese poets gazed at the moon, the writers in Euth watched the stars. Neon can’t tell which one she is, whether a pair of gazing eyes looking into the road ahead or a heart lusting for home.

  She had not seen or known what the ‘Troupe’ really was. In six days, she watched every play she could around the squares and open stages around the Grand Dome. Initially, Neon thought it would be quite easy to spot a ‘Troupe’ that could be the one she thought, yet she could not make any connections between the world she learned from her mother’s journal with the performers of those troupes. Something was off, as if the figures of them never existed, as if the stories and tales, the old clothes and cosmetics lying in her father’s house were nothing but a dream.

  Can I even do it? She thought to herself.

  Neon looked at her notebook for the clues she had gathered. She flipped the half-hard paper that didn’t allow ink and ideas to bleed onto the next page.

  Missing explorers…ruins guarded by messengers… a sudden and large amount of Siyuenese talismans flooding the arcane market

  She stopped by a crosswalk as she put the notebook into her dress pocket. Across the street was the empty road illuminated by the gas lamp; the only thing there was a moth dancing a dance with no meaning and playing a play for nobody. She felt nothing for a second as she stared at the lamp.

  “…Turns out they haven’t replaced all lamps with runes yet,” Neon said, shaking her head as she crossed the street. Passing the familiar street, walking through the street where the shops in her memories either closed or changed the shop owners, a shop caught Neon’s attention. It was an arcane shop still open at night, selling arcane items manufactured and findings in the remnant tide.

  The handrail on the small stairs of the shop was covered with brown rust. The shape of the house was something strange that Neon couldn’t tell what it was, perhaps it was the contrast between it and another shop, or it was because the temperature was falling. Moon reflected on the puddle that formed on the sidewalk’s water pipe, which was distorted like a melting clock.

  Neon could not remember why she decided to walk up the short metal stairs and turn the cold handle.

  The inside of the shop was quite different from what it looked like outside, lit with warm and soft light. Gentle music was playing as Neon glanced at the walls hanging filled with items and wooden shelves squeezing on each other, some cloth was stretching on the ceiling like a rainbow, and strings reflecting strange lights added a nice accent to the interior. Arcane items of different kinds, some engraved with runes and some looking like ordinary jewelry. The shop was as full as it could be.. Neon felt that there was not even a place for her to put her foot.

  There was nobody at the counter. The music was still playing, it did not come from anything like a radio, but Neon would not be surprised that an arcane item dealer could afford the expensive rune connections and a radio.

  As she was amazed by the atmosphere and the diverse arcane items, the owner came from the back door as the music stopped. He hung his violin and bow on the wall as he blew a long breath. The owner was in his fifties without any signs of balding, even tying his hair into a small ponytail around his neck. He stood straight and confident like an oak.

  “Good evening! How’s the business doing?” Neon asked as she moved to the counter, almost knocking off a vase.

  “It’s doing alright…new shop, not many customers. But I didn’t expect a foreign lady this late.”

  “Speaking of foreigners, how do you view us, Euthians, and how we treat abnormalities?” he asked as he put his hand against the counter.

  “Do you think, this twisted symbiosis with remnant tide, this religion-like trust we put into the unknown…is it acceptable?” he continued. Leaving Neon confused, his tone did not sound like he was at all satisfied with the current state of Euth and its relationship with the world of the Realm.

  It was not hard to understand. The War was only two centuries ago, yet the aftermath changed Euth forever. Religion separated from politics, the messengers- no more missionaries, Realm-arts were no longer a thing of nobles and status, but became a mere tool.

  Neon couldn’t answer his question; she felt the urge to say something, whether it was to fill the lead-heavy silence or to answer the shop owner’s question.

  “…In Siyue, the deities…or as you say, abnormalities live in peace with humans.”

  “We treat the Prolonged Mist and the remnant tide as mere phenomena…like floods or earthquakes.”

  “Yet Euth sees it also as a phenomenon, a rain of the past, a flood of history for us, then why can’t we treat abnormalities the same as Siyue does?” the shop owner said as he rested his chin on his hand.

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  “But I don’t think what Euth is doing is wrong, my father used to say that the unknown is the mother of all beliefs.”

  “…As you said, the abnormalities live in peace with humans, is it a true peace or a mere facade under the reign of the Burnt Codex? Without that creation of the Serpent Father, will the Siyuenese purge all abnormalities and cults like Auderheim did?” he said, eyes looking into Neon. The stare was not dreadful nor threatening, but it felt like it was rushing, pursuing Neon to answer.

  “I-I hope that even if it’s a facade…the common people and deities could find a way.”

  “I hope so as well.”

  They did not talk for a minute, Neon had questions to ask. Right as she was about to ask about the arcane items, she noticed a mask on the wall. A mask of messengers.

  The shop owner noticed she was staring at the blue, bruised mask. He did not speak but showed Neon to open her hand.

  Realm-art: Beauty lasts short

  He put his fist on the open palm. His rough hand opened as a small plum blossom twirled in Neon’s arm. It felt real, as if it were not a creation or summoning of a Realm-art.

  Right as Neon was about to thank him, the flower burned in her hand. It was’ ot, but she did flinch.

  The man giggled as if he were looking at his child or grandchild.

  “I am a messenger…for Starseeker’s sake, I have to plan my retirement.”

  “…I’ve never heard about any retired messenger,” Neon said. As the words slipped through her mouth, she felt that she shouldn’t have said that.

  “You couldn’t guess why we don’t retire? ” he said as he pulled out a chair from the back. As he sat down, he took out a cigarette, but after looking for a lighter in his pocket and finding nothing, he put it back.

  “…So what are you in Euth for? You’ve missed when the remnant tide just started, can’t you catch the end of it? Or that you want some souvenirs, authentic arcane items from the West?”

  “No, no…I just…have some questions to ask.”

  “As long as it’s not about the messenger, ask all you want.”

  Neon looked away from the mask as she remembered the old costumes of her father. He never explicitly said where it came from or what the meaning and motifs behind them but from what she could find and connect, they all pointed to the troupe and the director of it, yet all clues seemed to fall apart from there. Was the troupe gone or disassembled? If the director were still alive, was he an abnormality?

  “…Do you know what the Troupe is?” she asked.

  “…Seren will forgive me for this,” he whispered to himself as he reached for something in his pocket. The shop owner grabbed his cigar, a flower opened in his hand, and it burned and heated the cigar.

  Neon did not feel pleasant with the scent of the smoke, but she was sure that she could bear it for a few minutes.

  “Do they teach arcane studies…realm lore or whatever the nerds call it these days in the east?”

  “I studied in Dome’s academy,” Neon answered. She remembered taking the lesson years ago; it wasn’t mandatory, but she took it because it looked interesting. If she remembered correctly, such a lesson was never an option in Siyue unless she entered the Court of Silu.

  “Who was your teacher? Was he a man in blue and black suits, talking wittily and always rounding up your grades?”

  “…No, I had a pretty strict teacher.”

  “…Do you know the concept of Unknown Existences then?”

  The words did not fit anywhere on her shelf of knowledge. Aren’t all Existences unknown? She thought to herself.

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “It was said the Realm is the source of all things arcane…Existences are those who could use the power of the Realm at a scale that none of us could comprehend, but Unknown Existences…Let’s just say that one who prayed them couldn’t even fit in a coffin, another one burned under the eyes of the entire square…their book and all of its copies were gathered and set ablaze, the flame was so bright that it shone through the dome, the first one’s body had to be disassembled and separately contained so the flesh won’t poison the soil”

  “And the Troupe, the Yellowcoat Troupe, are those who somehow are fine with connections with the Unknown Existences.”

  “But-” he stopped as he took a deep breath.

  “We do not know if the director of it had stayed the same or found a way to bypass death since we confirmed he is not an abnormality…nor that thing in legends.”

  As soon as he stopped talking, the shop owner started to cough uncontrollably, falling off his chair and curling up on the ground as if something punched him in the stomach. Neon ran to his side, but he raised his hand, and from what Neon could hear from the slurred and muted syllables, telling her not to come.

  He stopped coughing and slowly stood up with Neon’s help, his bones cracking as he spewed something into the bin. It was only for a second, but Neon saw it.

  It was a flower.

  “Was that-”

  “Side effect, you haven’t seen one like this?” he interrupted.

  “This is what happens when someone’s Realm-art is sharpened three times.”

  They talked briefly. Neon wanted to ask more questions, but the shop owner only gave vague answers after the first question.

  “You have no Realm-art right?” the shop owner asked as Neon pushed the door. He grabbed something out of the drawer and threw it to Neon. She caught it right before it slipped from her hand.

  It was a necklace made of a warm, dark, reflective copper-like metal. On it hung a little flower with small marbles and other stones on its sides. As she held it, Neon noticed that it radiated heat, yet holding it felt cold as ice.

  “It shields you from things, mostly heat…but as it does, you’ll feel emotions from a random person near you.”

  “We are the stars in the night to guide others in the darkest nights,” Neon recalled the motif of the messengers.

  She felt that she was stuck in a dead-end, but also somehow managed to find a ladder.

  The moon shone, but Neon saw no nostalgia in its merciful light; she saw something else. She saw an urge. An instinct to run, to stride forward, and to see what was in the end, the end of her questions and the end of her wanderlust.