22 Naiad

Based on the description the Book of Thoth provided on these Special Petitions, Arthur had to put in extra effort to overcome them so why would the Midnight Emporium and not Arthur himself who enjoy the rewards?

Granted the upgrade for Midnight Emporium would help improve the business and the book did say some of the rewards could help him manage the store better, but Arthur would have preferred if completing these Special Petitions would give him power like shooting lightning from his fingertips or turn invisible. Even Kelpie could morph into water and seaweed, so why couldn't the book give him useful, and most importantly, flashier rewards like superpowers? The young man found it difficult to be happy for the fact that the reward would be an enhancement to the store, thus indirectly giving him a higher workload in the future.

However, the young man swiftly changed his mind when he saw the reward that was provided by the Book of Thoth. The structure of the Special Petitions was slightly different from normal petitions, it probably had to do with how the reward system was arranged.

Enhancement to The Midnight Emporium: The Midnight Loft

Special Petition No. 1 [50 %]

Title: The Feeling of Home

Assignment Description: Return the naiad her home.

Special Petition No. 2 [25 %]

Title: Laying the Foundation Stone

Assignment Description: --

Special Petition No. 3 [25 %]

Title: Sweet Dream

Assignment Description: --

The Book of Thoth flooded Arthur with quite a generous amount of information at one go. Moving from top to bottom, the first thing that caught the young man's attention was the reward. The enhancement that was provided was the Midnight Loft.

Even though Arthur did not know for sure what kind of purpose it served but based on the different titles of the 3 special petitions, he surmised it would be a bedroom or a location where he could find rest.

The reward was much more practical than Arthur anticipated. He was risking the risk of being kicked out of his rented room so if he could have a place to sleep at the Midnight Emporium, it would save him plenty of trouble, not to mention money, because he would not need to pay rent.

However, this did trigger a thought in Arthur. He looked around the counter and realized he could have slept at the storefront if he really did run out of option. The cement floor would be uncomfortable but at least it was still indoors. Then again, if there was a bed, who wanted to sleep on the floor?

In any case, this gave him a sense of security because even if he was kicked out of him temporary home, even if he had not completed the petitions to unlock the Midnight Loft, at least he could find some copies of newspaper and sleep on the storefront. Therefore, Arthur would be spared the fate of sleeping on the streets.

Then, Arthur noticed the three percentages that were next to the Special Petitions. He believed this mean that he needed to complete all these three Special Petitions before the reward could be unlocked, after all, 50 + 25 + 25 did equal to 100. This also gave him a secondary information, since the progress provided by the completion of Special Petition 1 was the literal combination of Special Petition of 2 and 3, then Special Petition 1's difficulty could be believed to be twice the other two as well.

Arthur wasn't given access to the information on Special Petition 2 and 3, the part for their assignment details were mere squiggles. However, the young man was indeed given some hint for Special Petition 1.

It was titled the Feeling of Home and it requested him to return the naiad her home. This confused Arthur because to his knowledge, he had not stolen anyone's home before, if anything, he was the one facing the possible fate of being kicked out of his. So, where was he going to find a home to return to the naiad?

On that note, what was a naiad anyway? That was the question on Arthur's mind. It sounded similar to dryad and the young man suspected the two were related, perhaps they were both from Greek mythology. Arthur went on the internet to find out.

Incidentally, he was right.

Similar to dryads, naiads are spirits of nature from Greek mythology. However, unlike dryads, they are not spirits of the trees but instead they guard over fountains, rivers, brooks and lakes or in other words, bodies of fresh water.

Naiads derives from the Greek words, naien which means to flow or nama which means running water.

Arthur looked at the description and a specific someone came into his mind. Even though he did not meet any spirit that explicitly claimed herself as a naiad but he did come across a lake's spirit guardian. Her name was Diana.

Arthur was 80 percent sure the naiad pointed out by the Book of Thoth was Diana. After all, the clues fitted. She was the rumoured guardian spirit of Blue Lake and her home was indeed destroyed by human activities. The book probably wanted Arthur to return to Diana a pristine, and untouched Blue Lake. That was the request of the Special Petition.

However, Arthur still wanted to find a concrete proof to tie Diana to a naiad, he wanted to be 100 percent confirmed and not 80 percent sure. The young man scratched his head, thinking about it and then it suddenly hit him. 'The names!'

The lake spirit introduced herself as Diana and if the letters of the word, Diana was moved around, didn't it spell Naiad?

She was indeed candid with Arthur from the very beginning but he was too dull to comprehend the riddle in her name.

Nevertheless, as interesting as that little tit bit was, it did not solve Arthur's problem. His issue was still the same, how was he going to save Blue Lake? He had no resources and power. Perhaps he might be able to do it in the future but temporarily he was at a loss.