Meeting someone new with a side of investigation...

'The crystal might be another type. Just inside an object, like the symbols inside of the crystals.' Mors thought as his theory sounded more and more realistic.

Be he decided to not fully believe his theory, as great as it sounded. Having a healthy amount of doubt was a good thing to have.

With his fascination with the types of enchantments slowly dwindling, Mors finally began to move towards the door.

But a simple thought stopped his movement, 'what if I could also try and put the circle of symbols in my head? It worked accidentally with the crystal, and this one is simpler.'

So once again, saying, "dry," Mors tried to commit all of the symbols and such into his memory.

Eventually, with multiple viewings of the circle, Mors memorized the entire circle to the best of his abilities.

And there it was!

As Mors looked into his mind, the small circle containing 57 symbols appeared in his mind. It was slightly blurry, but it's there.

Feeling excited about his successes, Mors almost wanted to jump and laugh wildly. But considering Alice still being asleep, he contained his celebration.

Walking out again, Mors saw that Alice was still asleep, strangely enough. So after another attempt to retrieve the ghost, Mors decided to head out.

Searching for the key, Mors quickly found it and locked the door behind him. He wanted to get better at blending in with people. Maybe even talk to that guy from yesterday.

Walking out, he decided to jog to the crystal. He found his body feeling fine, without any strain.

He had heard that the Lavinia berries helped recover the body, but this was crazy. He had never bought them before, because they were a bit expensive and he didn't want to pay for a fast recovery since his old job wasn't that time sensitive.

He felt amazing, to be honest, and faster too.

So with haste, Mors traveled over till he reached the center of town, only to find a large amount of people standing around.

'They seemed to be standing around the crystal, but why?' Mors wondered, 'Did I notice the crystal fading first?'

Seeing as there was such a large crowd here, Mors decided that practicing his blending-in skills would be great to try.

So wandering through the crowd, Mors both investigated and practiced.

Eventually, he originally bumped into a lot of people, but after a bit, Mors didn't bump into as many.

On the investigation side, Mors finally got to reach the crystal again, to find it covered by a sheet, with a lump on the side that seemed to hold a body.

'A murder? No, there aren't stains. A cleaning session? Also no. An investigation? Maybe…' thought Mors as he moved closer.

Eventually, someone turned toward him and asked, "You curious too?"

"What? Oh, I mean, yeah. What are they doing under there?" Replied Mors with a slight fluster.

"Oh, so you didn't hear the news. Apparently, they pushed up the date for the town crystal study. Originally it was to be in a few weeks, but as you can see, they started." Replied the lady.

Since Mors wasn't as flustered anymore, he had the chance to look at the person and found it to be a lady with red eyes and blond hair. She was wearing a lab coat with full pockets and had red dried stains all over her body.

"I wonder what happened to cause it?" Mors thought out loud, thinking maybe it was his fault.

But giving him a more rational explanation was the lab coat lady, "it's likely due to the hordes presence. A lot of people are worried because of it and how it hasn't hit the town yet."

'That's right,' Mors thought before asking, "what could have stopped the horde from coming into town?"

Looking for a response, Mors watched as the lady paused, thought for a moment, and finally shrugged. After that, she quickly said she had to go and left.

Mors also started to feel worried. He was ok with the horde, he grew up with them, so he is used to them coming every so often. But what he wasn't ok with was how long they were taking.

Usually, a horde would have either been defeated by now, or overran the town. He had only heard of stories of delayed hordes, with them all ending badly.

Mors then tried to talk to others, but they seemed to ignore him entirely. Within 30 minutes, the investigation ended.

Traveling out of the crowd again, Mors quickly went to the farmers market and got another Lavinia berry. He couldn't pay for it, but Mors convinced them to give it to him if he did some jobs for them.

It was set up hours for the market, which meant there was lots of things needing to be done. So convicting the farmer didn't take too much.

An hour later and with a berry in hand, Mors traveled away from the readied stall and decided to go running.

Going back through the slightly shrunken crowd, Mors quickly reached the track again.

He was excited to run after yesterday's achievements, so without waiting much, he put the berry in his pocket and started jogging again.

He was definitely faster than before. Maybe only noticeable by him, but definitely there. But deciding to just go at a regular pace, he slowed down.

He was thinking, 'maybe I do an hour or two of this before returning,' Mors jogged.

Not even a minute in, his mind started to race with something. Maybe excitement, maybe fear, maybe both. Whatever it was, Mors decided to try calling out the ghosts again.

To which…

…

…

No one replied.

So traveling along on his little jog, Mors found a familiar face standing out on the track.

It was the red-stained lady he was talking to before.

She was just standing there, looking around for something.

Seeing as she helped him understand what happened, Mors decided to go up and ask, "what are you looking for?"

"Oh, well, my boss told me to stand out here and try and find an old man with black eyes." She replied as she looked around some more.

Before he could even talk, she continued with a rant, "He is supposed to come running down the track at some point today, but my stupid boss didn't ask the old dude when he would come back, so now I have to wait all day."

Mors then tried to say he was that person, but she quickly said, "if you see an old guy running around, come tell me, please! All I can hope for is that he comes sooner rather than later."

"But I am that person!" Mors finally interjected with a bit of relief. He felt like this boss she was talking about was the same person he talked to yesterday.

Looking at him with dead eyes, she eventually laughed and said, "Your joking, right? It's a good joke. You might be old, but you got pretty nice green eyes. They definitely aren't black. Thanks for the laugh. My name is Incanta; what's yours?"

For a moment, he thought she was joking. Did he really have green eyes? He wanted to quickly run and check, but he had to respond first, "Mors,"

Then Mors asked with a plea-filled tone, "Can I have something reflective for a second?"

"Umm, weird request… but sure, I guess. Don't break it, though", as Incanta pulled out a small metallic disk with a few symbols from her pocket.

And sure enough, as he stared into his eyes, he found them green. A dark forest green. They were quite nice, but they went his eyes. Not the ones he grew up with.

Shaking at this point, Mors thought maybe that crystal did more than just freeze the ghosts, once again pleading, "Hey Incanta, can you go get your boss, maybe? I promise to loo—."

But that huge request failed as Incanta replied, "What no! I can't just leave. Even if you were nice, I have to wait here. Even though my boss is a bit of a dummy at times, I follow his orders."

Sighing, Mors asked, "then where is your boss? I only want to meet him…"

"Go toward the building billowing smoke… just try not to disturb him, please. He is on the second floor, on the first door to the left. Be quiet and only knock once," sighed Incanta.

She wouldn't usually go out and tell people this, but Mors seemed like a nice enough person and even tried to cheer her up with that joke.

Hearing the directions, Mors quickly said goodbye before traveling towards the smoke-billowing building.

But as he left, Incanta felt like she was forgetting something, which was stupid since she had a great memory. Putting behind her, she sighed and continued to look for this old black-eyed person.