Chapter 8 - End Of The Day

Chester looked at the watch on his left arm. As was his habit, his watch was upside down on his left arm, under his arm. It was still on old world time, showing 10.34 pm. But according to the weather here and what Mag had said, it was already past midnight.

As he observed the other creatures around him, a strange-looking rectangular frame hanging on the wall, which he guessed was a clock, caught his eye. At first glance it looked like an ordinary painting. A strange triangle stood in the upper left corner of the painting. Then it occurred to him that it might be some kind of clock. When he looked at the clock a little more carefully, he realized that it was made of two parts, the upper part was painted in black tones while the lower part was painted in light colors. It only gave an estimated time. 

It wasn't even halfway through the night yet. Mag realized where Chester was looking and after examining the watch for a while and doing some math, she called out to Chester.

"If we try to adapt the wristwatch to the clock on the wall, it should be 01.19. But the time zone here and the time on Earth are quite different. Since we witness the sun from noon to sunset, I think a day lasts about twenty-five hours, and if this planet is at the same angle with the Earth, I think we are close to the equatorial plane based on the falling shadow. So I assume that as long as we don't go too high up, we won't experience any change in the weather. Of course, the time interval I gave may be wrong, after all, I don't know how short or long the days are.But if you want to be able to use your watch again, we'll have to overhaul it."

Chester recalibrated his wristwatch after hearing this. 

Until Mag recalibrated it, all he had to do was set his watch forward two and a half minutes for every hour that passed. If that was true. 

For Chester, a planner, his wristwatch was one of his indispensable possessions. In his spare time, he liked to look at it in a strange way.

After he had put the watch aside, all the food he had eaten started to weigh him down, and combined with the tiredness of the day, he started to feel sleepy.

Not only did he feel sleepy, but he also thought he might have food poisoning. But Mag said in a stern voice that there was nothing to worry about, that he had just eaten something hard to digest.

He had already fainted once during the day. Now she didn't want to pass out at the table.

Chester was looking at Yigmir and Eela. Eela was poking and prodding Yigmir, saying something in a low voice. Yigmir, on the other hand, despite all the poking and prodding, was looking out the window at the stars, ignoring Eela. Rim had left the table a few minutes earlier and had gone to get more drinks. 

During the time at the table, Chester had asked them to show him around for tomorrow. They had told him that they had to go to the guild tomorrow, that they could accompany him to the guild at most.

That was more than enough. All he had to do was ask one of them how to get to the blood realms. He planned to get all the information he needed from the stone.

The day was over. He felt he had nothing more to do for the day.

Chester stood up. Yigmir and Eela were looking at him now.

"It has been a long day for me. Let's end it here and go to the guild with you tomorrow." 

"Agreed."

Yigmir pointed to a shop through the window,

"If you get here before noon, we can take you to the guild."

"I don't think Mr. Vegner will be able to see the shop that even an elf can barely see in a pitch-black alley without candlelight."

Chester really couldn't see where Yigmir was pointing.

Mag was calling out to Chester.

"It's light where we are now, so I'm going to give you a rather inefficient night vision."

After a short delay and a flash, he could see the place better. 

As Eela had said, it pointed to a shop like Yigmir, with some meaningless symbols on the sign. After a few well-thought-out guesses as to what the shop was, he gave up the trial and error in his mind. He didn't need to know.

"See you tomorrow then."

He made his way to the reception area in the center of the building. They were paying for the food, but he would have to break the bank for the accommodation. But there was no one at the reception desk. After looking around and waiting for a while, a voice came from near the reception desk.

"Excuse me, can I help you?"

Chester leaned down a little to look under the desk and then the unknown voice spoke again.

"On the desk, I'm here!"

Only on the desk...

There was only a strange goldfish in a glass lantern.

"I'm about to rent a room from a fish. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a bunch of talking furniture and a conversation about how rude their carpenters are."

He spoke after leaning down a little to the fish's level.

"I'm sorry, you're quite difficult to notice."

"..."

"..."

"I'm looking for a place to stay."

"How many days will you stay?"

"Just for the night."

After making some strange movements with his fins, a ball of fire appeared in front of Chester, then slowly died out and took the shape of a cylinder.

The cylinder was quite rough and heavy. It was probably a key, he thought, although he had no idea what it was for.

"Second floor, fourth door on the right. Twenty silver."

He left the money on the table and headed for the stairs. After a few steps, he could hear the fish whispering behind him.

"Racist asshole."

Chester climbed the stairs without any reaction and came to the door they called the door. There were no handles or keyholes, and the wooden door, with its three-eyed mantis-like craftsmanship, looked as if it were real.

A heavy and emotionless voice called out to him.

"Are you the new owner?"

Maybe it was real.

"If you mean the owner of the room, yes, I am your new owner."

"Show me my soul."

He didn't know what he meant by soul, but with a good guess he pointed to the cylinder he had been given. The sturdy carved wooden door in front of him suddenly took on an ivy-like structure and split in half.

"My new master is free to pass."

Chester took a step into the room. Everything inside was made of wood or leaves. It was as if the room was a continuation of the door. There was a bed, which didn't look very comfortable, a white wooden table, a stool, and a honeycomb globe hanging over the bed, giving off light. As he struggled with how to close the door, the door, or rather the room, spoke to him again.

"Was there something you wanted, master?"

"I want you to close the doors."

"Yes, master."

As the door took its old shape again, the room again called out to Chester.

"Anything else, master?"

"Lock the door and let me know if anyone approaches or tries to enter the room."

The door didn't respond this time, but Chester felt he understood.

"Mag, take off my helmet, or better yet, get off of me."

After a few mechanical sounds, he could hear the warning voices in his head.

"What's the matter?"

"I guess I can't get the armor off you."

"What do you mean?"

"It means that the armor worked normally during the experiments, but for some unknown reason I can't remove the armor after passing through the gate."

"Are you saying I'm trapped inside the armor?"

"-Are you having trouble understanding it? It's just not- Yes, that's what it looks like."

After a brief pause, Chester's hand balled into a hard fist in anger.

"Well, I have good news and bad news."

"Let the bad one come first."

"If I take the armor off you right now, you're dead."

"So what's the good news?"

"The armor is fused to your nerves."

"How is that better news than the other one?

"..."

"..."

"That your problem is no longer the unknown?"

Chester had gone from angry to a mixture of frustration and exasperation.

"Has some part of my brain always been this stupid, or is it you?"

"The first option seems more likely."

"If I can't take off my armor, at least get into a more comfortable state, or remove all the armor."

Mag had removed all the armor.He was now walking around the room in a diving suit with blue stripes. 

She was trying to decide what to do tomorrow.

"Mag."

"?"

"What do you think our next move should be?"

"Let's go to the guild tomorrow as we agreed, find out where the stone is. If it's close, we'll go get it, if it's out of reach, we'll look for alternative sources.

If necessary, we'll pay for information, and we'll beat those who refuse to give it, who push their luck."

"I like the idea, especially the part about beating them up."

"Right? That's exactly what you would do. Anyway, I'll make a few more arrangements for tonight. I also think we need to improve the language."

Chester objected this time.

"You mean that intensive information session? I'm sorry, but I don't want to lose my mind, because I seem to understand it well enough."

"No matter how smooth a dialog you had, I'm going to need that data to verify the accuracy of the information and for a better language experience. We will also take a safer approach this time."

"Then why didn't you do it before?"

"Because I didn't have enough data."

"..."

He sighed deeply.

"So, what are you planning to do?"

"We're going to set up a huge data station in the center of the room, and overnight it's going to listen, filter, and group an entire city. In the morning, we'll have the information ready to go and burn it into your brain."

"You're saying I'm going to go through the same thing again, but this time no rolling on the floor in pain."

"No rolling on the floor." 

"Fine with me.

Let's get this over with."

Chester looked at the list Mag showed him and hesitated.

"It looks like a pretty complicated machine. Tell me, why do you need a subsonic 6-channel data encryptor?"

He thought for a moment and then spoke again.

"You'd better do it yourself. Permission granted for the edge of darkness."

"You said earlier that this protocol can only be used in extraordinary circumstances."

"This whole thing is an emergency in itself."

"..."

"EDGE OF DARKNESS IN OPERATION"

Mag opened his focuser and started to pull out a rather complicated set of parts.

Antennas, receivers, transducers and amplifiers, and then he began to assemble them all on the wall in front of him. All the parts were designed to interlock. After five minutes, there was a machine in front of him, taking up a quarter of the room. After inserting a small core into the machine, it started to work.

Mag fed a series of information into the machine and then handed control back to Chester.

"Everything's ready now, we should have the information by tomorrow morning."

Chester lay down on the bed. He was going over and over what he was going to do tomorrow and still couldn't believe what a crazy day he had had. He put his weapons on the edge of the bed and concentrated on getting a good night's sleep. Chester made some strange gestures with his hand;

"Turn off the lamp in that room, I can't sleep because of the light."

After some delay, the strange-looking lamp above his head retreated into the wall and disappeared. 

In the dark, he took one last sleepless look at the necklace around his neck and closed his eyes.

He was having the same nightmare again. 

Wake up!

You have to get up and fight.

Wake up! Get up and suffer for not protecting me!

Splitstar was still awake. He couldn't sleep. He was making his rounds in the reception hall.

The reception hall was a very luxurious hall, with very imposing columns, huge finely carved statues, and the country's red, three-crossed crest, pennants and flags. Every corner was finely crafted. Not only was the floor covered with a red carpet, but the corners of the carpet were embroidered with gold. The red carpet ended at a sumptuous hill with three steps leading up to the throne.

There were three thrones on the hill. Not only were they of different heights, but they were all made of different materials.

The one on the far right was made entirely of bone, the one on the left was made of a shimmering blue metal that looked rather cold, and the one in the middle was strangely made of books.

All three thrones were uncomfortable, but you could tell that they had quite original designs.

Splitstar looked out at the city from his palace, built on a hill, through the huge glass behind the three thrones in the reception hall. The lights on the city streets, the faint glow of oil lamps and candles at home, the campfires on the ramparts...

He was enjoying every last part of it.

Suddenly a huge door opened behind him.

There was no one in the hall. Only two elite palace knights were in front of the hall, but Splitstar had told them to wait at the outer door.

Coming through the door were Chi'Gil'Rolth and ChainGeddon.

"You still haven't slept. You need sleep the most here. You are still human and one of the kings of the land."

Chi'Gil'Rolth was worried about him. Since the day he had been resurrected, he had had little rest, working hard and tending to tedious affairs of state. He had risen again as a human being. He still had human needs, but this time he had cursed himself, protected himself from death. In his next death, he would continue his life as a devotee. He knew that if he lifted the curse and died, like last time, Chi'Gil'Rolth would try to retrieve his soul from the realm of the dead. She already owed him, she had given up the wings that meant everything to her. She could not let him do anything like that again. ChainGeddon was in charge of all military affairs, while Chi'Gil'Rolth was in charge of diplomatic relations, the Executive and the judiciary. Splitstar, on the other hand, was engaged in long-range planning to guide the Kingdom, implementing promising research and synthesizing new spells and concoctions to make the land more fertile.

"Your concern for me is misplaced. I don't know if you realize it, but we've had this conversation with you for almost a century, at every opportunity. You still won't give up."

Chi'Gil'Rolth spread his hands to his sides. He was smiling wryly.

"I'm just worried about my best friend, I think I'll leave you alone until next time."

Chi'Gil'Rolth knew why he was here. They used to come here whenever they couldn't sleep, reminiscing about old adventures, chatting sweetly over the cityscape.

But now they had six huge cities, six different problems. They had no time for sweet talk. They tried to solve the problem by appointing various deputies and governors. It certainly created more space than before, but now they had to deal with the supervision of the governors.Now Splitstar had summoned Chi'Gil'Rolth and ChainGeddon to talk about something important. 

He had expected them to arrive around noon tomorrow, but he had forgotten that neither of them needed to rest or eat, and they arrived earlier than he had expected.

"What's wrong?"

"I was expecting you tomorrow, but I don't think it would be a problem to give you a cursory explanation now."

"I have received word that Asamel, Zelh'Rolth and Plain are on an expedition to expand their borders."

Asamel and Plain were the son and daughter of Splitstar, while Zelh'Rolth was the only son of Chi'Gil'Rolth.

Asamel and Plain were four years apart, and Asamel was Plain's older sister. Asamel was thirty-three years old. He and Zelh'Rolth, son of Plain and Chi'Gil'Rolth, had founded the kingdom of Clamor across the continent, beyond the Deep Valley. Everything had been going happily before, but suddenly Zelh'Rolth became convinced that he would never be king, so he took Asamel and Plain with him and they founded their own kingdom. Because all three kings were considered immortal. They would never rule the country unless something unusual happened.

Zelh'Rolth was a little more aggressive than his father, but unlike other demons, he could remain calm. It was a trait he inherited from his father.

Before they founded the kingdom, they were researching the ominous prohibitions to become more powerful. Later, in the blood realm, they survived their adventure in the Ominous Dungeon, and they had taken out three ominous treasures from there. The reason it was called ominous treasure was that it would imbue the wearer's soul with whatever item he or she was using in exchange for power and the fulfillment of his or her desires. Since the power of ominous treasures was usually too much and killed the wielder on the spot, they were sealed away in various caves and dungeons in the Blood realm with traps in the dungeons.

Asamel, daughter of Splitstar, is the purified Djinn,

Zelh'Rolth, son of Chi'Gil'Rolth, the Purified Betrayer

And finally,

Plain, Splitstar's son, had taken the Purified Cruelty.

Now they were on a path of no return. Once the treasures had seeped into his soul, it was almost impossible to go back. The Kingdom of Clamor was now a kingdom ruled by fear, the dead and demons.

"This is their second Expedition this year. We cannot intervene. Winter is coming, and if we go now, we will not be able to get supplies for the winter."

"Chi'Gil'Rolth is right. Unfortunately, we cannot organize an expedition. The kingdom of Clamor is too far from our borders and our relations with the Deep Valley are not good enough to send a large army."

Since Chi'Gil'Rolth was a demon, his relations with the Deep Valley were very bad. Whenever he went to negotiate a deal with the Deep Valley, they would tell him to go back to hell and deport him after insulting him severely.

Instead of using the Deep Valley, they were thinking of using the sea route. As a result, they had to go to SnowyIron, the only port city in the country. The port got its name from the rain, a kind of metal resembling iron dust, but white in color. 

This type of rain, which was unique to this port city, was very damaging to the environment, causing respiratory problems. 

The only good thing was that this metal was collected, melted down and then poured into various molds to make it useful. 

It was not a very durable metal, but it was obtained without going into the mines, without labor, and could be used in various places.

Almost everything in the city was made of metal. All snowiron was used in this city.

"What does the Deep Valley do?"

"They remain neutral again and do nothing as usual. I am sure they will be powerless to stop them when they are on their doorstep. After all, they use ominous treasures, and with the hordes of demons brought by Zelh'Rolth, they can constantly replenish their armies."

Splitstar had considered sending its troops anyway, but military intervention outside its borders was not only a very bad relations move, it was also not on good terms with the other continent. As a self-sufficient country, Diomarl had never paid much attention to foreign relations, except with its neighbors. Now he regretted this.

They could either wait for the country to come to their borders or answer the call for help from a kingdom that was about to be invaded. Either way, they had to wait.

"I brought you this far to see if there was anything we could do. Tomorrow we will look for a more detailed solution with the generals."

"Speaking of a more detailed solution, before I came here I came across a very strange murder case. The murder weapon was a...

A tool, or rather a weapon. It seems to be faster and more effective than arrows." 

"Maybe we could look into that."

"Anyway, ChainGeddon had gone to the garrison at the time, not wanting to overtax his rotten brain."

ChainGeddon was rattling his dry teeth.

"I hate you."

Chi'Gil'Rolth's face lit up.

"I know."

"Will you never stop picking on others?"

"Let me think... I guess not as long as I remain a demon."

Splitstar was expecting an answer like that. Not that it would help, but it was a rhetorical question. He let out a weak, wheezing sigh.

Chi'Gil'Rolth began to explain what had happened.