113: Knives in the Dark, Part Two

Knives in the Dark, Part Two

Standing atop the steps leading down into the train station, Charlotte felt both anxious and excited. 

On the one hand, here she was with a chance to wield the pen that painted the narratives surrounding two of the biggest stories in Starlight City. On the other hand, as usual, there was a small chance she could get herself killed. 

Be it from running into the wrong people or from a monster outbreak happening while she was in the middle of a place that was... 

Well, it was known for its monster outbreaks. 

It didn't matter, though. The story was worth it. 

[I'm not planning on staying here for too long anyway,] she thought as she walked into the station at a carefree pace. [I want to look for any potential clues. If I don't find anything, I'll walk right out. It'll be fine!] 

This place she was walking into had been cleaned up a few times, and yet as she descended the set of stairs, moving into darkness, she had to throw her legs over both monster and human corpses, some old and rotten, some a little fresher than Charlotte would have liked. 

[Actually, come to think of it... the guy who reported the murder, why was he down here in the first place?] Charlotte wondered as she turned on her flashlight, illuminating the dark space around her. [Was he heading into the same dungeon? Maybe he was the guy's friend... Or, maybe he killed the guy himself and reported it after, for whatever reason. I don't know.] 

The foul-smelling air numbed Charlotte's mind as she continued to make her way closer and closer to the spot she'd seen in the pictures. 

Past some turnstiles, just ahead of a green bench, she found the man's body. Left untouched, it was exactly as she'd seen it online. The only additions to the images were some caution tape set up around the body. 

That was it. No guards, no supervision, nothing else. Probably, again, on account of the whole "frequent monster outbreaks" thing. 

"... Okay, let's check the body, look around, and get the hell out of here," Charlotte muttered. 

Kneeling over it, Charlotte searched through the player's inventory. 

[Some notes, a phone, his wallet is still here... An enchanted ring? Yeah,] she nodded. [Doesn't seem like this was economically motivated in any way.] 

There was a tiny ding sound to the right. 

Charlotte may as well have had a heart attack then and there. 

Staring in that direction, she turned her flashlight off and waited. Eventually, the culprit made itself known. 

[A rat, putain de merde...] Charlotte sighed. [Though, if that had been a monster just now, would I have even been able to run away? I probably shouldn't stay for much longer.] 

The notes on the player's inventory were the only thing she suspected could carry any potential clues. 

There were three in total. 

One was a groceries list. 

One was a brief note where the player was reminding himself to talk to his girlfriend. 

One was a list of items he wanted to buy. 

[How mundane,] Charlotte thought, sitting on the bench as she dragged the notes into her own inventory. [Has anyone contacted his girlfriend and informed her? I don't envy whoever's going to do  that.] 

His girlfriend was a woman named Yesenia. Her number was listed in the note, beside a heart symbol. 

Seeing that made Charlotte consider something. 

[Actually, what if he was killed by someone he knew? It had to have been someone who he had informed about coming here, right? And that person ended up being a member of this Hidden Blade Guild? Maybe I should jot down his contacts.] 

She took his phone, then, and went to do just that. 

In the process, however, she noticed something odd. 

[That's... strange,] she thought, reading through the name's she just wrote down. [There's no "Yesenia" in his contacts.] 

Having noticed that, she wrote down his girlfriend's number from the notes he was carrying.

[Well,] she looked around. [That's probably all I'm going to find. Besides, if I stay any longer, an actual monster outbreak could-] 

Her phone started ringing. 

Walking away from the unmarked dungeon, Charlotte quickly returned to the staircase and she picked up the phone. 

"Hello?" She answered. As she heard the person on the other end of the line talk, her heart sank. "What!?"

---

{Neve}

Neve wondered if this place could ever have been considered "normal", even before the Unity Trials began here. The things she saw didn't inspire much confidence in that. 

Pyres with crosses fixed atop them, piles of old, burnt corpses, and shell casings littering the ground all let Neve know that, even at this world's most peaceful, it probably wasn't a very pleasant place. Granted, the same could be said for the Second Floor as well, but this world was especially off-putting. 

And yet, Lia strolled through it all as though she was walking through a field of flowers. Her tone was just as sweet, too. 

"Could you tell me a little about yourself, Neve?" She asked as the mage looked around. 

"Uh, sure. What do you want to know?" She asked, with her eyes roaming the space around them. 

Things were just a little too quiet. She expected to find a monster around here somewhere but, no. There was nothing. 

For a moment, she considered summoning Erin just in case something happened. 

Lia's voice, however, reached her ears and pulled her mind away from that thought. And, the thought of summoning Erin did not pop up again in her mind. 

"Do you have any lovers back in your world, waiting for you?" She asked that so quickly that it felt as though it had been on her mind for a while. 

"Nah," Neve answered. She kept scanning their surroundings, looking between the rickety buildings, checking the alleys and the corners. 

No enemies, no chests, nothing to interact with. For all intents and purposes, she and Lia truly were on a leisurely walk. 

Not that she minded much. Lia had the kind of voice that would have made her millions of bucks a month if she made an ASMR channel. 

That said, the same impatience that had been pushing her to blaze through the Second and Third Floors was now whispering in her ears, telling her that she was wasting her time. 

"Perhaps your culture has different tastes, but you certainly do appear beautiful to my eyes. Does your kind disagree with me?" 

"I think so, yeah." She blushed upon being complimented like that, but only a little, as her thoughts were still wandering. 

"Interesting. What about family?" Lia asked next. 

"Um..." Neve's thoughts were finally brought to a screeching halt by that question. "No." 

"What happened to them? Or, does your species reproduce asexually, perhaps?" 

Neve took a moment to consider how best to say this without letting her scarred heart show. 

"My mother was turned into a monster by the Unity Trials. She killed my dad and I had to kill her," she stated quietly. 

"My condolences," Lia replied, maintaining her smile. "I did the same." 

"Really?" Neve asked with some surprise. "Hm. I'm sorry to hear that." 

Finally, thanks both in part to the depressing turn this conversation took and the fact that the eerie ambiance had finally begun to affect Neve, she asked:

"So, where's this item, exactly?"  1

"Up there," Lia quickly said, pointing at one building that was taller than all others. A bell tower. "It was the only place I could find where the monsters would not reach it." 

[Monsters, huh? Aside from those werewolves at the start, we haven't seen anything, though.] 

The street they walked through became darker as the bloody moon above lost track of them, losing them to the leaning, twisting buildings. 

Arriving at the base of the bell tower, Lia pushed open a small grey door and gestured for Neve to walk in. She did so and quickly found a set of stairs leading up.

Following behind Lia, they went up, walking in circles as the stairs spiraled to the top. 

Once there, she found a brown chest sitting beneath a bronze bell. 

This one room, illuminated by the red moon and hovering over the strange town they were in, was the only place Neve had seen thus far that could be called "clean". Every single part of it had been maintained extremely well, from the metal railings in the balcony to the bell itself, it was like this one spot had been frozen in time, untainted by the battles that had taken place around it. 

"Here," Lia said, gesturing at it. "Hopefully, you will be able to make some use of it." 

"Thanks," Neve replied before quickly crouching in front of the container and prying it open. 

She looked through its contents...

... And found nothing. 

[Hm?] 

"Uh, Lia, this-" 

As she turned around, a knife found its way into her gut. 

The blade was being held by the same lady who'd taken her here. 

And the warm, kind smile on her face did not fade, even as she pushed the knife in deeper. 

"Aaah~" she half-moaned, reaching behind Neve's back and pulling her in. "It's been so long..." 

Lia then gave Neve a soft kiss, closing her eyes and savoring the moment as she kept one hand wrapped around the hilt of that dagger and the other moved up to caress Neve's cheek. 

All while Neve just stood there, too shocked to move. 

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