.·✧☆Stellarium☆✧·.

Chapter 8

Nova, Putting the Pieces Together | 2,415 words

We had searched wildly all over the train for Arthur, to no avail. Leaving him unsupervised while unconscious was apparently not the best move. I thought that the fact he was knocked out and tied up would give us a pretty safe bet he wouldn’t escape again. Mentally I’m kicking myself for letting Alex do some first aid and healing on his leg. Now that the train is pulling into the station, we all concluded that he’d have gotten too far to reasonably re-capture him. I slump over in my seat and mess with the ends of my hair like it’s a spring. “Hey, Nova.” I look up to see Sybyll and Alex looking at me concerned for some reason. Sybyll puts her hand on my shoulder, “I know you’re upset about losing an important lead like that, but we still have the artifact he was after.”

“And we did it without any kind of damages or passenger casualties.” Alex adds. They’re acting weird, I wonder if I look too upset. The artifact thing is good though. “Seriously I’m fine guys, don’t worry,” I sit back up and straighten my posture. “We just need to think of where to go from here.” Truthfully, I am not fine with any of this at all. We had him right there, I could have gotten answers to everything that's happening and been able to make it all go away. There has to be a rational explanation to everything– there has to be. Sybyll and Alex exchange a glance before we take our stuff off of the train. Quickly we learn we got turned around to Arkael, it's a bigger city than Parum-Lucis so it's a miracle that we weren’t hit by another train on the same track. We see the now recovered conductor argue with the station manager about their arrival, we walk past silently because we do not want to get involved in that conversation.

It does remind me that our time is running short on this all getting out. All those people saw us and know who I am at the very least. I jolt as I feel someone tap me on the shoulder, “Nova, it's almost morning. We really need to rest here soon,” Alex says. “Yeah, let's go find an Inn or something,” Sybyll says tiredly. I guess I didn't realize how worn out they were because of everything happening, I’m still very hyped up from the fight and the search though. “Alright, we’ll make finding a place to sleep top priority,” I say. We spent a few minutes wandering around under canopied streets and narrow roads. The town is overall very pretty, it's somewhat colorful with reds, oranges, and white buildings dotting the streets. It’s very different from the architecture found in Stellarium. Eventually though, we come across the Siren’s Song Tavern and decide anything is good enough. I pay the woman up front for a night, and we go upstairs to our room.

Sybyll nearly collapses onto one of the beds immediately once we get to the room. She kicks off her shoes, doesn't even go under the covers and just curls up on top of the sheets. “You okay Syb?” I ask, getting a “Mmffff” in reply. “You can have the other bed in the room,” I tell Alex. “I’m not tired, and someone should keep watch.” He looks at me kind of funny, but relents, “Just get some rest eventually, okay? You’re the only one with proper battle training and we can't risk you being out of commission with how things are going.” I tilt my head a little at that. “How things are going?” I repeat. “Yeah I mean, I don't think anyone would have expected an investigation like this at the agency. I can tell from here that this is going to go deeper than any of us currently understand.” He pulls something out from his travel bag, it's the gun he took from Arthur on the train. “Before you freak out, the safety is still on. I can't believe he didn’t notice it before he tried to take the shot.” He fiddles with it and pulls the bullets out of the fully loaded revolver. “I have a feeling that these–” he picks one from his palm, “Are going to at least be a silver alloy.” His hand glows as he uses the detect magic spell he used to track Arthur on the bullets. It's somewhat spotted but for the most part the bullets aren’t reacting. “That's a really high concentration of silver.”

“Yeah, looks like he was really willing to kill that guy,” I murmur quietly. It calls into question how I think of him, even now after everything. He just never seemed able to do something like that. Sure, he’s tried, but both times nothing happened. It's also strange that we are here in Forra.

Silver is outlawed here in Forra too, but I know that they’re less strict than us on it. Corporations are the ones who make deals on Forran silver the most, typically meant to illegally restrict employees from being able to use magic on assembly lines. Serena busts operations like that every so often. You can't restrict magic use by force in Crystalia, but the major manufacturers are convinced workers will use it to steal merchandise or designs. The other major illegal Silver trade is in Crimsonious, mostly for weapons bought up by mercenaries and assassins. It’s weird to trace Arthur back to Forra because of that. “You go to bed, I’ll be fine keeping watch. I have some stuff to think over anyways.”

He nods, “Thanks Nova” and goes to the bathroom to change into sleepwear. I pick up the gun and set it down on the desk in the far side of the room, away from the beds, same with the bullets. I think I saw Sybyll put the artifact in her bag, so I went through it to find it. It's not there though, maybe it's in Alex’s bag? I go through his and it's not there either. Did we lose it? Ugh and Sybyll is fully asleep by now so I can't just ask her. I sit down in the desk chair, combing my hands through my hair now. Alex comes back in his sleep clothes and says good night, even though the sun is rising. We maybe have until tomorrow until the story breaks across Crystalia. Maybe it already has? Who knows. The last thing I need right now is a low approval rating, which would make people want to challenge my claim to the throne and lead to ruin among the upper class. The power vacuum is too immense, and the delicate class structure would need complete restructuring.

I sigh and slump over. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I’m almost angry at Sybyll and Alex for my failure to find the artifact. I probably just haven’t checked everywhere and overlooked somewhere or something. I lay my head on my folded arms and mess with the bullets absentmindedly. Everything will work itself out in the end. My eyelids seem to get heavier automatically once I rest on something… maybe, I was more tired than I thought.

Before I know it, I’m back in the emptiness of what I think is the ghost world. It's as dark as ever, pitch black to the point it messes with your eyes. I see the familiar blue of my mother approaching me, knowing I'm probably in for it. “Nova, have you gotten any closer?” She asks me. I sigh out “No, I haven’t,” because how was I ever meant to find what was causing this? If this is actually real, that is. “This place is destabilizing fast, or really the afterlife as a whole is,” She checks behind her shoulder as she talks. “Ghosts have started interacting with the living more and more because the boundary is growing thinner by the second. Soon if the proper afterlife collapses they’ll flood here, and the force of all those souls coming here will eventually collapse this space too.” I don't even know at this point, I’m still tired even when I sleep.

“How do I even know if any of this is real anyways? I’m already dealing with a lot when I’m awake, and now I can't even go to sleep without being reminded that I have something to do!!” The ghost looks taken aback by this, and I feel kind of bad. “I just.. I just have no idea how to help you. I had no idea that ghosts were even real until a few days ago.” She sits down onto the darkness, it ripples like water as she motions for me to join her. “I understand feeling overwhelmed, I’m guessing you’re on some sort of quest like I was at your age.” I take the invitation to sit down beside her. “I can show you something that could prove that this is real.” Her whole body slightly glows as she creates this tear in the darkness, and I see myself passed out at the desk with Sybyll and Alex awake in the room, they seem to be talking about something I can't hear. The room is lit up with sunlight as I realize it’s fully day and not the dark of the morning anymore. “How long have I been here?” I ask her. “A few hours now, time moves differently for spirits.”

“Okay, I believe you, but I still don't know what to do about this. Is there any information you’re able to give me at all?” she pauses for a moment to think as I watch Sybyll and Alexander talk, I wonder what they’re saying. “I know one thing, this seems to be a problem higher up in the chain of command. This is all Fennagon business and they seem to be in a panic right now.” I look at her like she has three heads. Fennagon business? Are those real? Does my mother seriously believe Fennagons are real? I laugh at this, and it comes out as kind of a snort, “You believe in Fennagons?” She looks at me weirdly, “Of course I do, I was best friends with one up until I died.” My eyes flicker around to see if anyone else is hearing this, but we are totally alone in the space, “I thought those were just made up stories by Serena to make family history lessons more interesting as a kid.” She presses her forefinger and her thumb against her nose bridge exasperatedly, “Well, they’re real. One of them is supposed to watch over the afterlife and guide souls and he's apparently been freaking out in his office for the last two weeks.”

“Huh..” is the last thing I get to say before the ground gives out under me and I wake up. My body jolts awake violently and I gasp as I clutch my heart going way too fast. I look around to see the scene that was shown to me in the tear of the darkness, only now Syb and Alex are both staring at me. I guess it actually was real. “Are you okay Nova? Are you grabbing your..?” Sybyll asks me. “Ah, yeah I’m fine, don't worry,” I reply as her and Alex share another look. They've been doing that a lot lately, and it's starting to weird me out. “Are you sure? You've been a little off since the train,” Alex adds. “It was just a weird dream, you guys worry too much,” I half lie, but it's only because they wouldn’t believe me if I told the truth. “Alright, well we were thinking of visiting that museum the artifact is from to hopefully return it and learn why he wanted it. Do you remember the name?” I think it over, “I think it went something like the national museum of ancient history.” He nods, “That seems specific enough for us to go off of.”

“Just one question, do we really want to use the train again? The station management might be looking for us, and Parum-Lucis is too far to walk in a reasonable amount of time,” Sybyll questions. “Then it's our only option, I doubt they do carriages out here just by looking at the streets,” I’m actually not too keen on being on a train again, but if it's what has to happen then that's what's going to happen. “We should start moving then, we can’t lose any more daylight than we already have,” Alex gets up as he talks and grabs his bag. We all make our way out of the room, and walk towards the train station once more. I can't stop thinking about the artifact being missing. I feel like I really did search everywhere but it's gone. They were talking like they have it, so maybe it's not missing? If it is missing, do they know it's missing? Should I bring it up? I’m broken from my train of thought when we get to the train station and they need me to pay for tickets. It's not a luxury liner like before, but it’ll do since it's not the longest trip.

As we sit down in our seats the thought keeps eating at me, where is the artifact? “Hey, which one of you has the artifact?” I ask, trying not to make it too obvious I’m prodding for information. “I should, it's in my bag,” Sybyll says and rummages through her stuff. We don't have a luggage area on this train, so we’re expected to carry what we own. Maybe it's better this way, now we have our weapons on us just in case. “Yeah I have it right here,” She pulls it out of her bag. I’m kind of dumbfounded, that wasn’t in her bag just a bit ago and I don't know how or when it got in there. Maybe it happened when I was asleep, or maybe none of that was real and I’m going crazy. I’m probably going crazy. Fennagons aren’t real, ghosts aren’t either, and the artifact has been in her bag the entire time. I just had a weird dream and there is nothing going on in “the afterlife” void thing. I just.. I need… maybe I need some water? When was the last time I ate?

The train slows to a stop and we all get off, I'll do that stuff later, I just need to get answers for right now.