The moment their feet touched solid ground after being teleported, Kaiser's instincts took control. The small, dimly lit building they had arrived in was suffocatingly silent—an eerie quiet that set every nerve in his body on edge. Pools of ink, dark as spilled blood, were splashed carelessly across the wooden floor, and the air hung heavy with the acrid scent of decay.

Without hesitation, Kaiser shifted into a fighting stance, blade drawn in one hand, his crimson eyes sharply assessing their surroundings. Celestine mirrored him a heartbeat later, her posture tight with readiness, eyes narrowed. Ivan, Aria, and Elsie hesitated briefly, caught off guard by the sudden seriousness of the situation, but quickly followed suit, their previously excited faces now drained of joy and shadowed with unease.

Kaiser's voice cut sharply through the oppressive silence. "Celestine. Where exactly are we?"

She responded without looking back, her voice controlled but tight. "We should be at the northern edge of the village of Logshare. This building is an outpost where the teleportation circle was placed, specifically for Liberator access."

Kaiser's gaze swept over their surroundings once more, his mind rapidly analyzing what he saw. If this building was anything to go off of, then this place reminded him far too much of the nameless villages of his old world, insignificant, forgotten by larger kingdoms, ripe for disasters to go unnoticed. His brow furrowed in suspicion.

"Geographically," he pressed, "Where does this place sit on the map?"

Celestine hesitated, eyes briefly losing their fierce focus as she recalled the map. "It's far south," she answered. "Almost as far as one can go before reaching the continent's edge."

Kaiser nodded grimly, confirming his own suspicions. The farther a village was from the Liberatoriums, the more likely problems could spiral unchecked. It was suspiciously convenient for something so obscure yet clearly sinister to occur in such isolation.

His heartbeat steadied, and with each breath, his pain faded like smoke in wind. The broken ribs healed, cracks knitting back seamlessly, and the lingering poison within his veins diluted into nothingness. He flexed his fingers experimentally. His full strength had returned.

But then he caught a scent that made his blood run cold—blood and the unmistakable, sickly-sweet stench of burning human flesh. He had known it too intimately, too many times. His jaw tightened.

"Celestine, are you absolutely certain we're at the correct location?"

"Positive," she replied immediately, the certainty in her tone unwavering. Yet her eyes reflected his own unease.

Behind them, Ivan shuffled anxiously closer to Aria, his voice barely above a whisper but tinged with worry. "This doesn't look right. Wasn't this just supposed to be some kind of weird animal infestation?"

Aria, eyes darting uneasily around the ink-stained walls, nodded faintly. "I thought it'd be easy too, but… something feels wrong. Really wrong."

Elsie glanced around nervously, eyes wide and whispering far louder than she realized. "Elsie thinks this place is creepy! Why are there weird puddles everywhere? And why is it so quiet? Elsie hates quiet."

Kaiser's voice lashed out like a whip, slicing through their whispers. "Quiet," he ordered sharply, his tone low and lethal. "I need to hear."

They fell instantly silent, startled into obedience.

After a moment, he shook his head slightly, turning to Celestine. "Standing here accomplishes nothing. We need to move. Now."

She nodded briskly. "Agreed."

He gestured toward the exit. "Stay behind me, and stay alert."

As they slowly crossed toward the building's exit, Kaiser's attention was drawn to the walls. Paintings covered nearly every available surface, dozens upon dozens of them. Portraits of random, unknown faces—some stern, some smiling, some utterly expressionless. Their wooden frames ranged from perfect and polished to splintered and shattered. The ruined ones had lost their images entirely, ink seeping from the empty canvas like tears from hollow eyes. Those untouched, however, glittered strangely, decorated intricately with dozens of tiny pearls surrounding a single massive pearl crowning each frame.

"What kind of place is this…?" Ivan muttered, voice barely audible.

Aria leaned closer, whispering cautiously, "It feels more like a tomb."

Elsie moved slightly ahead, curiosity overtaking fear. "Maybe this is a gallery of a famous painter? Elsie likes the pearls—perhaps they are valuable! Do you think Elsie could—"

Kaiser glanced sharply over his shoulder, silencing her mid-sentence.

Celestine's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, her voice low and tense. "These pearls... They're strange. Unnatural."

Kaiser nodded curtly, his voice flat. "They're not important right now. We move carefully. Whatever created those pools of ink might still be nearby."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Elsie reluctantly pulled her hand back from the pearls, sulking slightly. "Elsie only wanted one…"

Ignoring her, Kaiser reached the heavy wooden door and tested its handle cautiously. The door swung open without resistance, revealing the village beyond—and with it, a wave of dread that tightened the breath in their chests.

The group stepped onto the packed dirt street just as the sun touched the edge of the horizon, washing the village in a surreal, molten orange. The sky blazed, gold fading into crimson, clouds lit from beneath like fragments of sculpture, impossibly vivid against the gathering dusk. Kaiser paused, struck for a moment by the sheer, improbable beauty of it, but the unease beneath his skin did not fade.

This was not the heart of the Southern Liberatorium. Here, there were no glowing signs or busy stone boulevards, no distant shimmer of neon nor the hum of strange machinery. Only narrow streets, crooked timber houses, and old stone walls, their age evident in every moss-darkened crack. A few rooftops, battered and warped, speared the skyline. Smoke curled up from behind them, thin, black, and steady, too regular for a mere hearth fire.

Kaiser took it all in at a glance, cataloguing the foreign and the familiar. He could feel the tension winding through his companions behind him. Ivan and Aria both shuffled a step closer together, eyes darting from the distant smoke to the empty, silent doorways. Elsie seemed less afraid, and more curious—her gaze darting hungrily from window to window, lips already parted for some glib remark.

But Celestine froze, her gaze caught by the sky. Her golden eyes widened, pale as the moon, and all the warmth fled her cheeks. She raised her hand, summoning her Albus with a fluid motion…

But nothing happened.

She activated it again, more urgently. Still nothing. Sweat prickled at her brow.

Aria's brows drew together. "Princess? What's wrong?"

Celestine shook her head, looking at the sky, the smoke and her unresponsive Albus. "I… I don't know. Something's wrong. Terribly wrong. My Albus isn't working." Her voice trembled with real fear.

Kaiser stepped forward, calm despite the knot of tension curling in his gut. "Could it be the teleporters? Some artifact glitch, maybe the plate itself?"

"No." Celestine's answer was instant. "If it were a ticket error, the worst would be arriving off-target by a few meters. And those plates, they're maintained by the Liberatorium itself. Failure is almost impossible."

She pressed her finger to the side of her head, near her eye, and a faint blue glow flickered beneath her skin as she activated the Vizbot lens. Relief flickered over her features, as at least the Vizbot worked. She tried her Albus one more time, to no avail. "Whatever this is, it's not natural. Albuses never fail for no reason, and even when they do, the reason has to be significant."

Elsie, adjusting the new armor that hugged her frame, shrugged. "Elsie thinks this Tale just got more interesting. Elsie also knows that something is off with the sunset. There is no way it should look that pretty." She grinned at Kaiser, who reacted to her by nodding in agreement. She then paused, eyes narrowing as she reconsidered. "Wait… If the villain agrees with Elsie, maybe Elsie is wrong…"

Ivan, swallowing hard, looked back at the building they just left. "Maybe we should just wait. If it's a malfunction, the plate should reset, right? I mean, it's the safest thing to do…"

But Celestine shook her head, voice regaining a measure of her usual command. "It'll take at least thirty minutes to recharge, maybe longer if the area is compromised. This isn't a primary Liberatorium plate. And if things are this strange already, we can't risk wasting time."

Elsie chimed in, rubbing her hands together, "And if it's dangerous, that means the people here need someone to save them. And someone to reward Elsie handsomely for it!" She winked, but no one laughed.

Aria stared out at the darkening street, jaw tight. "This doesn't feel right. Not a single person in sight. No noise. Just that smoke and ink."

Kaiser's eyes followed where Aria was looking. "Either the village is hiding… or there's no one left to hide."

That was when Aria stepped close to Kaiser, eyes landing on him, voice dropping to a whisper. "So what do we do? You're the one who actually looks like you know what you're doing."

Kaiser felt every gaze snap to him—Aria's blunt expectation, Celestine's expecting gaze, Ivan's anxious trust, Elsie's greedy anticipation. He looked out over the haunted sunset, the empty street, the pools of ink on the windowsills.

He nodded to Celestine first. "You're right. If things are this broken, someone needs to get to the bottom of it. We're not going to stand here and do nothing while people are in danger, or while someone's out there making a ruin of this place."

Elsie blinked, surprised and delighted. "Elsie secretly knew Kaiser was on the side of the good guys!"

Kaiser gave her a sideways look, smirking. "Don't get used to it. I agree, but keep your head first. Danger is an opportunity for gold, just as much as it is to get killed."

He turned to Aria, meeting her steady gaze. "You asked what to do? We move. We look for survivors, figure out what happened, and if anyone's left to save, we do it."

As the words left his mouth, a piercing scream shattered the tense silence—a woman's voice, desperate and shrill, echoing from somewhere down the left-hand street. Instantly, both Elsie and Celestine spun toward the sound, armor and cape flashing as they broke into a run. Before they had taken three steps, another scream rang out—this time male, ragged with panic, from the street to their right.

Celestine hesitated, her body tensed between directions, torn for the barest heartbeat. Elsie stopped short, looking back in open confusion. "Well? Which way will the princess go?" she demanded, agitation clear in her tone.

Kaiser stepped between them, voice unflinching. "We split up. No point losing any lives we can save. Celestine, take Aria and Elsie with you. Ivan, you're with me." He then looked directly at Celestine. "Shoot a beam of light in the air in an hour and wait for us there. We will come as soon as we can with any survivors we find."

Celestine's eyes darted to him, worried but resolved. She nodded, gathering herself with a steadying breath. "Understood. Don't do anything reckless."

As Aria turned to follow Celestine, she hesitated, glancing back at Kaiser. "You be careful, old man. I'm not dragging your body back if you get yourself hurt, got it?"

Kaiser cracked a faint, sardonic smile. "I'd like to see you try, little spider."

Elsie bounced in place, fists clenched in anticipation. "Elsie will make sure the princess survives, and she will be hailed as a hero! Villain, try not to look too jealous."

Ivan looked pale, torn between wanting to join the others and dread at being stuck with Kaiser. "Uh, can't I just… I mean, maybe they need more help—"

Kaiser silenced him with a sharp glance, grabbing Ivan by the shoulder and steering him down the right-hand street. "You're with me, kid."

Elsie waved them off with a dramatic flourish of her cape, "Good luck, villain! Elsie will tell everyone how bravely you fell."

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