Gearing up

Walking down the street, Leroy constantly looked around, trying to pick up any information that might help him later while escaping or fighting the roaming puppets.

Sadly, he couldn't decipher any more information than he already knew, so he proceeded to head towards the most bustling street in the slums.

Arriving there he looked around and took in the scene.

He was met with a peculiar sight. A crowd had gathered in a corner of the street, drawn to a wooden platform that had seemingly materialized overnight, its top adorned with a majestic marble statue. The air was thick with anticipation, and Leroy couldn't help but wonder what they were about to do.

The puppets, in a bizarre and unsettling display, began to kneel one by one. Their faces, once lifeless and wooden, now pressed against the dirt as they erupted into a loud, eerie chant!

"Praise the Sun God, Praise be to him who has given us Salvation!"

Shivers started to run through Leroy's body.

'Insane, Completely and utterly Insane. This entire area is insane.'

Leroy thought as he continued towards his destination, a hidden corner in the street where he could hide and observe the puppets more closely while not having to worry about dying the next second by them.

Despite the reassurance that the chances of being discovered while walking on the street were lower than he had feared, a persistent unease clung to Leroy. The feeling of being watched, of unseen eyes tracking his every move, was a weight on his shoulders he couldn't shake off.

Finally in his hiding place, Leroy started staring again, besides the kneeling puppets he saw pedestrians walking along the streets looking like they were going to work, beggars and hookers around the allies and finally what he thought would be the best target to get what he wanted.

Gang members.

While stealing from them was usually extremely risky, right now, he didn't have a choice as there weren't shops selling weapons around in the slums, and even if there was stealing in a shop, it was much more challenging than stealing from people who weren't wary of him.

Finally, he found a target.

It was a man of short stature with brown hair who was wearing ragged clothes and had a knife in his back pocket. His face was scarred, and he had a single teardrop marking on his right eye.

The teardrop was the mark of the red hoods.

A notorious gang around the slums.

The man was walking alone down the street, thus not having anyone nearby to notice Leroy.

'A perfect target,' thought Leroy.

Leroy started following him as quickly and quietly as he could until he was right behind him.

With him having already stolen countless times, he had the skill to steal the knife from the back pocket without the man even noticing.

Taking the knife, Leroy started walking past the man as if he had not done anything.

'With this, I'll at least have something to protect me with,' Leroy thought as he finally looked at his loot.

It was a small two-inch foldable knife. Its edge was rough, and the blade was rusted from beginning to end.

'It'll have to do'

Putting the knife in his pants, Leroy started to head back to the Tavern.

'The amount of time I still have left is about two and a half days. If the puppets won't be doing anything extreme until the last day, they should follow commands to act normal, as if they are still who they were before they were killed. Meaning, at night, would be the best time to start looking for the source of the threads.' 

Arriving at the front of the Tavern, Leroy decided against heading in but went into an unused alley next to it.

'It would be much harder to sneak out of the tavern without the others noticing than just staying out here and waiting out the time.' Leroy sat down as he prepared to wait until the night fell upon the world.

His stomach was already growling as he hadn't eaten anything since the morning.

Putting his hands on his stomach, Leroy thought.

'I'll just have to hold it in; if everything goes as planned, then by tomorrow morning, everything will be over,'

Hours later, the sun had gone down as Leroy went up to his feet and dusted his pants.

'Time to get to work,' he thought, heading towards the street.

Before going out, he decided to peek and see the situation.

The road was clear beside the beggars still on the street, sleeping on the side of the road.

Leroy looked at the beggars closely until the monocle started working, and he could see the red threads coming out of their bodies.

'The mage said to just follow them to their source, and I should be able to find a magic crystal. Destroying it would result in the ritual failing and the barrier around the slums falling.'

Leroy started following the Threads, trying to stay unseen even though he couldn't see anyone on the street. He decided not to just rely on his eyes as he didn't know anything about the ritual or magic overall.

'If magic can control hundreds of people, then it can probably also monitor the streets. Better safe than dead.'

After a while, he arrived at an intersection, and the road split into two, but that wasn't the concerning part. No, it was that some of the threads were going down one road and the others down the second road.

'Does this mean there are 2 Sources? Why didn't the mage tell me? Or was it that we had no time left in the dream?'

Leroy contemplated for a second and then decided to follow the road on the left, which was closest to where he was.

Continuing to follow the threads, he looked at the buildings. They were old and ruined, with some of them having entire parts entirely collapsed.

There was a rumor in the slums. It said that the slums had actually been a normal part of the city of Vigonna at first, but that something had happened, and overnight, this entire part of the city had been ruined. The buildings collapsed, and the air was polluted.

'I thought it was simply a rumor and that such a huge area couldn't be destroyed in a single night, but after seeing what this ritual could do, I'm starting to think it had quite a bit more truth than I had believed.'

A while later, Leroy stopped.

It had been half an hour since the intersection, but...

He had arrived back at the same intersection; it should have been impossible as he was only walking forward without turning even once.