Blue Lake

Since Armana was a coastal city, it was famous for its many sandy beaches. Both local citizens and foreign tourists preferred to spend their time at the sea, enjoying sea-related activities. In other words, people flocked to Armana for its sea-related tourism and not those inland... Or at least that was what Arthur thought.

Indeed, Armana was most well-known for its seaside attractions but it didn't mean that it was lacking in other choices either. The two weren't mutually exclusive. To put it simply, the other places were simply overshadowed by the more vibrant seaside festivities and attractions. Arthur had learned that much from visiting Armana's official tourism website.

He scrolled through the selection of tourist attractions available on the website and a particular one caught his attention. It showed the picture of a pristine lake with crystal-clear water and wooden pier. It looked just like a fairy tale with the falling leaves and the lake surface forming a perfect reflection of the lake shore.

According to the website, the place was called Blue Lake. 'Such a mundane name,' Arthur thought. 'No wonder I've not heard of it until now. It needs some rebranding, starting with a name with more punch.'

The small passage on the website introduced Blue Lake as one of the oldest fresh-water lakes the city had to offer. In fact, according to the older generation, the earliest settlers found their home near this lake since it provided an abundance of food and fresh water, therefore without Blue Lake, Armana wouldn't have existed today.

Arthur didn't know his city even had such a history. He wanted to find out more about the lake, specifically, why it had fallen out of the public eye in the recent years. If the lake held such a historical importance to the city, why didn't the city council promote it more often?

Posting some information of it on the city's tourism website didn't count because who would visit government official website like this to plan their holiday? They should have organized events at the location or even posted posters about it like they did with Armana's annual seaside festival.

Realizing he was not going to get any more information from the tourism site, Arthur went back to the search engine and keyed in the name Blue Lake. The search came back with plenty of results but none of them were exactly what Arthur was looking for. To help narrow the search, Arthur added "Armana" to the keyword search.

The result he got was so little that they barely filled up one page. For anyone who had used internet search engine before, they would know how rare that was. The previous two hits were from the city council's main website and the tourism website. Arthur had already seen those so he handily skipped over them.

The remaining results were from personal blogs and special interest websites. Reading through all of them, the information Arthur gathered on Blue Lake was still pitiably little.

Apparently, Blue Lake enjoyed its fame before the era of mass communication. Then, just as the world was taken over by electronic devices such as phones and laptops, the place fell off the map just like many other things that were forgotten by technology and time.

One of the more interesting things Arthur found on Blue Lake was provided by a blogger who specialized in local rumors and urban legends. According to the blogger, the lake was home to a guardian spirit and the locals from the surrounding villages said that the spirit would often take on the form of a young girl. She was a kind soul and would appear to help those who accidentally slipped and fell into the water.

Before that day, Arthur would have no problem brushing that off as mere superstition but after what he had been through, the young man wouldn't bet on his life that these were mere rumors.

Arthur was apprehensive of the prospect of dealing with another mythical creature but at least from the legends, the guardian spirit wouldn't be as difficult to handle as Miss S. The blog also attached a map of Blue Lake and after studying the map for a while, Arthur had a general idea on how to get to it.

It did not escape Arthur's mind that this Blue Lake might not even be the location where Miss S' K would be found. Then again, with nothing else to go on, this was his best shot. He was going to pay Blue Lake a visit before deciding if he needed to come up with a new plan.

With a rudimentary plan in place, Arthur decided to call it a night. He had had an interesting day and he was drained. Too many life-changing events had happened that day and he would need to sleep it off to process some of the information.

Arthur closed the Book of Thoth and wandered about taking it with him back to his rental room or just leaving it behind at the Midnight Emporium. Leaving it at the store might risk the chance of theft but carrying it back home meant facing questions from his nosy landlady. Neither option seemed particularly attractive to Arthur.

Just as Arthur was contemplating what to do, a sentence surfaced on the cover. "I am an extension of the Midnight Emporium so one cannot exist without the other. Leave me be and I shall watch over the Midnight Emporium."

"So, now you're feeling chatty?!" Arthur huffed but since the book had provided him with the solution then he was not going to crack his head worrying about it.

Arthur walked out from behind the counter and told the shadows goodbye. He exited the front door and was about to ask how to lock the place when the door slammed shut. Arthur tried the doorknob and realized it was already locked. "How convenient."

Arthur shrugged and left the street, heading home. He turned the corner and the Midnight Emporium disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind a plot of empty land.