Although he hadn’t been exercising much lately, Cobal still felt exhausted. He sunk into the strangely comfortable bench that he sat on in the Phantom Homestead. Sitting next to him was Salandra and across from them were Mana and Kayzel. They invited the scribe along when they walked past him in the main hallway of the Ruby Observatory. Eliana was still out with Grac and probably wouldn’t be back anytime soon, so it was just the four of them.
“So how are you finding our lovely little city?” Kayzel asked. “Now that you’ve been here a couple of days.”
“It’s been surprisingly pleasant,” Cobal said.
“Nothing like your Blueyerd towns, right? We’ve got something impressive here.”
Cobal smiled. “My kingdom has its beautiful places too. You’d be less confident if you ever laid eyes upon the Ravadier Peninsula.”
Kayzel shrugged. “I doubt it’ll hold a candle.”
“I’ll take you there someday then.”
“I’ll have you keep that promise. Perhaps you can show me the palace as well.”
“No promises.”
“What does he mean by that?” Salandra asked, listening to the conversation with growing confusion.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kayzel said.
Cobal shook his head. “That’s quite alright.” He looked at Salandra. “I’m nobility from Blueyerd, that’s why I could probably invite someone into the palace.” He wasn’t quite ready to share his entire story with her, he didn’t know her well enough. He only told Kayzel because Eliana already knew him and he was their ticket into a fast track at the library.
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Salandra replied, “I hope I haven’t been rude to you in any way.”
“Not at all, I didn’t share it for a reason after all. Don’t worry about it.”
Salandra nodded and took another sip from her ale while Clara appeared with their food. “There you all go, today’s special is this lovely pork that the local butcher slaughtered today.” She looked around. “Where’s your fun friend?”
“You mean Eliana?” Mana asked.
“Yes, I miss her energy.”
“She’s currently out, but I’m sure she’ll be back sooner rather than later.”
“Hmm.” Clara didn’t seem content with that answer. “Well you all enjoy your evening. I would tell you to not drink too much, but the more you drink the more I earn so drink what you want, I’m not your mom.”
“You’re a fantastic role model,” Cobal commented.
Clara chuckled as she walked away to go help out at another table.
Kayzel and Salandra didn’t know each other. Cobal expected the scribes to all know each other to an extent, but Salandra explained that there were far too many of them for that to be reasonable.
“Well, when I was still a teacher in my old world I had to learn the names of about two hundred kids within a few weeks. And after a year I had to start all over again with a new set of kids.”
“You were a teacher? So you worked with scribes and scholars?” Kayzel asked.
Mana looked at Cobal and they both bursted into laughter.
“Did I say something funny?”
Cobal nodded. “I once asked Mana the very same question, I think it was the first time I ever saw you laugh at something.”
Mana smiled, thinking back on it. “This was when we just started traveling together and I was very distrustful of Cobal. But because teaching is so different in my world compared to here, the idea he had of it wasn’t comparable to reality, so it was funny.”
“Hold up now,” Salandra said. “I was suspicious at first, but I didn’t want to be rude by making assumptions, but you’re talking about another world than ours, could it be that you’re…” Her eyes went wide and she stopped mid sentence.
“You really shouldn’t drink this much if you want to keep secrets,” Kayzel commented.
Cobal sighed. “Allow me to explain what’s going on.”
“I can’t believe it.” Salandra said. “You’re a prince and you’re someone who grew up in a completely different world from ours?” She leaned back on the bench. “That’s crazy.”
“How do you think I feel,” Mana said. “I was at home minding my own business one moment, relaxing in front of the TV before I suddenly looked up to see a bunch of strange mages stare at me like I was their savior.”
“I have so many questions,” Salandra said.
Mana smiled. “Go right ahead, you’re not the first one.”
“For starters, what is a TV?”
Mana looked at Cobal. “They never ask easy questions, you were the same.”
“I gave up on understanding your world a long time ago.”
Returning her attention to Salandra she explained, “A TV is a television. To explain it in very simple terms, it’s like a mirror that shows you something. This can be a show of sorts, like a play that will be on. If I want to go into more detail I’ll just make it more confusing.”
“Sure.” Salandra didn’t seem convinced, but she also seemed intimidated by the sudden knowledge of who she was talking to. “What other crazy stories can you tell me about your world? If you don’t mind.”
“Hmm.” Mana rolled her cup in her hand, the liquid sloshing from side to side. “I think a lot of the things that were just commonplace to me would be very weird to you. It’s the same the other way around, I had a ton of culture shock when I first arrived here. Lucky for me, Cobal was kind enough to help me out in those first months. Our friendship started off very rocky but we got there in the end.”
“A sage punched me in the face and then we became friends.”
Mana burst out laughing. “I feel like you’re making it sound much worse than it really was.” She let out a content sigh. “We’ve come a long way.”
“You were punched by a sage?” Salandra looked at Cobal. “I’m starting to believe more and more that you two are messing with me.”
“We really aren’t. When Mana and I were first traveling there was a lot of tension between us. Mana had an understandable amount of mistrust for us, since we summoned her here without consent. This turned into more and more animosity and eventually I kind of snapped and got angry at someone who was much stronger and wiser than me. After he knocked me out cold once he explained what was really going on and we made up.”
“Good times,” Mana added.
“In a way.”
“Coming back to your earlier question, I suppose planes would blow your mind.”
“What’s a planes?”
“Plane, planes is just the plural. A plane is like a giant metal tube that flies through the air and can carry a whole bunch of people all at once.”
“You’re truly messing with me now.”
“I’m completely serious. It was invented by two brothers who initially built a much smaller version that could only carry one person and only barely. As time went on, the technology kept being improved upon and nowadays it’s safe enough to send people across oceans. Having said that, one of the biggest creators of these planes kept getting into scandals about not making sure the planes were safe enough, causing a few of them to crash. Not great, but our world had its fair share of problems.”
Salandra took all of it in. “I don’t know if I need more drinks or if I’ve had far too much.”
“Don’t question it too much, I had to learn about magic and elves and Irkans and I’m still trying to process it all.”
“You know about the Irkans?”
“We met one.”
Salandra’s eyes lit up. “Please tell me everything about them that you can.”
As the evening slowly went by they ended up chatting about many different things. Cobal and Mana explained a little bit about meeting Grac, but to make sure they didn’t share too much information about their friend who was currently lying in wait outside of town they told Salandra that they parted ways a while back. Salandra told them a little bit about the research she’d been doing on their culture a while back and how fascinating some of their celebrations were. She also lamented the fact that a lot of information about them was unconfirmed. Most of the sources she had weren’t officially published but were still in the hallways of the library, waiting for someone to read them and accept them into the library proper. It wasn’t until the sun was long gone and the moon was high up in the sky that the conversation turned to the Solin Manor. It was the place that was most likely to contain the cultists as well as Grac’s wife. At least that was the conclusion they’d come through early on and that was exactly what Eliana and Grac were looking into. Cobal had been interested in the place for a while now and as they talked about it, it seemed that a stranger overheard them and came over to join the conversation.
“I don’t mean to be impolite, but I couldn’t help but overhear part of your conversation.” An older gentleman, probably in his early seventies, walked over to their table and put his hand on the backrest of one of the empty chairs. “May I impose?”
“What is it that caught your attention?” Cobal asked. Although it was probably just a random old man looking for company, he wanted to be careful with who he invited to listen along to their conversation.
“I overheard you mention Solin Manor, which is my old workplace. I was a weaver there for many years, when the weaver’s guild was using the building for their production.”
“Well then by all means take a seat, what may I call you?”
“My name is Zegred, a pleasure to meet you young folks.” The old man sat down and leaned his cane against the table. His thick mustache and beard were groomed very neatly and he wore a rather expensive looking suit. “If there’s anything I can give you some insight on, I would gladly oblige.”
“So you say you worked at Solin Manor, how much do you know about the ghost stories that took place there?”
“Ah, not an unfamiliar question. I suppose many stories are out there, but a lot of them aren’t representative of what actually happened. Having said that, there were definitely strange things happening before the weaver’s guild shut down. For starters, the building was always eerily creaking. This was likely to do with how old and poorly taken care of it was, but it still created an atmosphere where people are on edge. If you worked late and it was already dark by the time you finished your shift you were certainly likely to hurry home and not look at whatever’s behind you. To that point, there were definitely employees who claimed to have seen strange hooded figures staring at them from a distance and some claim they heard monsters under the floorboards whispering to them. Personally I’ve never seen anything all that strange while I worked there, but it was definitely a creepy building.”
Zegred smiled and waved Clara over to order himself some ale as well.
“May I ask why you show interest in the weaver’s guild?”
“Well, I’m curious about noble families from this country,” Cobal lied, “as I’m of the nobility back in Blueyerd. When I heard that this city was once ruled by three different families and eventually turned into what it became now, I got curious about it. Then I heard that the manor of one of those families ended up being used by a weaver’s guild before being abandoned.”
“I see, that makes sense. The true reason that the weaver’s guild ended up leaving the building behind was due to a collapse. During a particularly bad storm, a part of the roof gave in and buried a bunch of room. This made the structure very unstable and the guild decided that it was too risky to continue their business there. If you’re more interested in the history of the Solin family itself, who lived there before the weaver’s guild, then I can write down some titles of fascinating books you can find in the library.”
“That would be much appreciated,” Cobal said. “Are you retired then, since you said you no longer work at the weaver’s guild?”
Zegred nodded. “I mostly just hang around in local inns and bother young folk with stories they’re not interested in.” He chuckled. “It’s a way to pass the time.”
“Well, feel free to join our table whenever you’re in the area then,” Kayzel said with rosy cheeks and an unstable posture.
“I think it’s time for us to start going to bed soon, perhaps the two of you should get a room here as well?” Cobal looked at Salandra and Kayzel.
“I didn’t drink all that much,” Salandra said, “so I’ll be fine going home. Besides, I don’t live too far from here. As for Kayzel,” she looked over at the other scribe who seemed to be much worse at holding his liquor.
“Clara,” Cobal called out. “Can we get a room for our drunken friend here?”
“You got it, boss,” Clara responded, quickly helping Kayzel up and escorting him to one of the empty rooms.
“Well then, we’ll probably see you around some other time then, Zegred.” Cobal got up as well and shook the old man’s head. “Good night.”
“To you as well, young Cobal.” And with a slightly unsteady step, both Cobal and Mana made their upstairs and promptly to bed.
Opal Kaharis 