Journey

Arthur woke up fresh early the next morning. He sat up in bed and thought about what he had been through the night before. The Midnight Emporium, Miss S., the Whispering, the Book of Thoth, it all sounded like such a dream that he had no issue convincing himself that it was just that.

However, when he cleared his throat and heard the girl's young voice came out of his throat, he knew that it was as real as it could be.

In retrospect, Arthur had a hard time justifying why he had accepted this job. Perhaps it was because he was out of luck and would do anything to save his arse, or perhaps there was something more mythical at work, in any case, that was already in the past. He couldn't change the past but he could still introduce change into his future and that was what Arthur was going to do. He was going to make something of himself through this opportunity.

After all, not everyone was given a chance like this and since he was, he swore to take advantage of it to the best of his ability. That way, it wouldn't have been a waste.

Perhaps the book was right, there were indeed silver linings. The job did look like it come with its perks. At least now he had a shiny new power to play with, albeit it was a power that he couldn't find the usefulness yet. Furthermore, Arthur believed he would gain more powers in the future as the Midnight Emporium returned to its glory. Perhaps he might get the chance to use the artifacts that he would come across on his journey. He could be Thor wielding Mjolnir. Now wouldn't that be cool?

All in all, it was already too late to argue about what if's. Since this was the path he was given, then Arthur was going to strut down it with determination, confidence and pride. He was going to give it his all.

With that in mind, Arthur turned to his itinerary for the day. He considered paying the Midnight Emporium a visit to see how the place look in the morning but he didn't want to arrive late at Blue Lake.

After all, he knew where the Midnight Emporium was but Arthur only had a general idea where Blue Lake was located. It might take up a whole afternoon just to locate this elusive lake.

Furthermore, there was the issue of transportation for Arthur to deal with. As mentioned earlier, Arthur was a young man down on his luck, he just got fired from his normal job so he had no extra cash to spend on a taxi. Considering how isolated Blue Lake was, Arthur doubted there was a bus going that way.

All through breakfast, Arthur tried to come up with a solution for this problem but even when he was washing the plate at the sink, no bright idea occurred to him.

However, time waits for no man.

After breakfast, Arthur left his rented room and decided to head for the nearest bus stop to check out the available routes. Perhaps there might be a bus that pass through the general area where Arthur believed Blue Lake was located. If there wasn't, Arthur would figure out what to do next. He might need to spend the emergency store of money that he was going to use to buy his grocery for the rest of the week.

When he arrived at the bus stop, there was already a long line. There were school children and working class people.

Arthur walked around them to reach the board where the bus routes were pasted. To his surprise, there was indeed a bus going through his destination and Arthur could not help but frown when he noticed it was a newly opened route.

'Is there a new project or residential area coming up near Blue Lake? Why did the city council open this new route?' Arthur wondered to himself but he was not going to question his good luck.

Arthur moved to the end of the line and waited patiently for his ride to arrive. After about 30 minutes, the bus that he was waiting for finally arrived. Quite a number of people got on the bus as he did.

Arthur noticed that most of the passengers were blue-collar workers. Some of them were already wearing factory-use gloves and none of them seemed unhappy that they were leaving for work. Then again, how many normal people would be happy at the prospect of work?

'Perhaps a new industrial area did open up recently near Blue Lake,' Arthur surmised, answering his own previous question.

Arthur took a seat by the window and watched the scenery roll by. The city streets soon changed into trees and shrubbery as they left the city and headed for the countryside. Arthur rolled down the window and took a good sniff. There was nothing better than the smell of fresh dew in the air.

He allowed the countryside air to drift through the open window until one point where the air quality dropped drastically. Some of the passengers who sat closest to him started to cough and put on their masks.

Embarrassed, Arthur quickly shut the bus window. Curious at the sudden change in air quality, Arthur looked out the window. Soon, he found the culprit.

Not far from where the bus was traveling, there were pillars of black smog rising through the canopy of trees into the sky. Arthur's earlier speculation was right, there was indeed a new industrial area nearby and they might need to have a chat with people from the department of environmental protection.

While Arthur was miffed at the factories' wanton destruction of nature, he didn't feel the pressure to do anything about it. After all, that wasn't part of his mission, his assignment was only to find Blue Lake. Furthermore, he was only one person, what could he realistically do about this?

The bus continued to bounce on the rocky road until Arthur saw they were reaching his destination. He rang the bell, signalling for the driver to halt at the next bus stop.