John maintained his smile, consciously willing it to appear warm and unassuming. It was an expression he had practiced.
Internally, he had made a firm resolution: to understand Graheel and his place in it, he needed to stop being a spectator. He had to engage. That meant seizing every chance encounter, like this one in a quiet tea shop, and attempting the delicate, bewildering dance of human connection. For John, this was a mission as daunting as any he had faced.
He was acutely aware of his own social shortcomings. Where others navigated conversations with intuitive grace, he felt he was constantly consulting a mental manual, one written in a language he only vaguely understood. The book from his old world—a dusty tome titled "The Art of Amiable Association"—had stated that a shared interest was the best foundation for friendship. He had thought this "Mike" was a regular, a perfect starting point. That plan had fizzled, but the setback presented a new angle: perhaps they could bond over both being new to this establishment. A shared experience of discovery.
Yet, a familiar, gnawing doubt crept in. “Am I being a nuisance?” His internal barometer for such things was faulty, to say the least. A more reliable instinct for social cues might have spared him the profound, quiet misery of his last years on Earth, trapped in a marriage that had curdled from affection into something beyond cruel. He had missed the obvious signs then; he was terrified of missing them now and alienating a potential friend before it even began.
He watched Mike from the corner of his eye, searching for any definitive signal—a turned shoulder, a clipped response, a glance toward the door. He saw none that were blatant enough for him to decipher. The man just seemed... tense.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” John recited the old adage to himself, a mantra of encouragement.
Unless Mike explicitly told him to go away or displayed an unmistakable signal of discomfort, John would press on. The potential reward of a friendly interaction, of perhaps not feeling so utterly alone in this vast new world, was worth the risk of a little awkwardness. He took a quiet breath, steeling his resolve to try once more to bridge the gap between them.
From John’s perspective, the conversation was progressing adequately. He was asking questions, showing interest, and the other participants were responding. It was, by his metrics, a successful social endeavor.
For Mike, it was a high-wire act over a pit of unseen consequences. His mind was a tactical command center, rapidly calculating exit strategies. Every potential disengagement—a sudden pager ping, a feigned illness—was weighed and discarded for being too abrupt, too insulting to a figure who might incinerate him with a thought.
John, blissfully unaware of this internal panic, pressed forward with his friendly overtures.
John: “So, Mike. Did you also discover this place through a coupon?” he asked, his tone genuinely inquisitive.
Mike: “Oh, um. No,” he replied, his eyes darting toward Cindy, who was calmly steaming milk, utterly oblivious to the minefield she was inhabiting. “I kinda know the owner.” He willed her to look up, to catch the desperate plea in his gaze, to intervene with some invented emergency in the back. She remained focused on her task.
A cold realization washed over him. Cindy didn’t know. Her mini information gathering network had a colossal, crimson-eyed blind spot. She had no idea that the man she’d almost turned away over a pet policy was the same entity the Night Queen seemed to take personal interest in. He was on his own.
John: “Oh, are you friends?” he inquired, taking the bait.
Mike: “Kinda?” the word laced with a nervous uncertainty he didn’t have to fake.
John’s head tilted, a gesture of pure, analytical curiosity.
John: “What do you mean, ‘kinda’?”
Before Mike could fumble through an explanation, Cindy chimed in, her back still turned as she poured the tea.
Cindy: “You're making it sound like we were dating. It wasn't like that, okay?” she called out, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Mike winced internally.
Mike: “Um, yeah… what she said. Just an old friend trying to reconnect.”
John: “Oh, I see. Well, how long has it been since you last spoke?”
Cindy: “You're kinda nosey, aren't you?” she replied smoothly, finally turning and placing the finished cup of milk tea before John with a soft thud. Her interruption was a lifeline, but it was one she threw with playful sass, not tactical concern.
A flicker of confusion crossed John’s face.
John: “Am I? My apologies if that is the case. If it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to say anything.” The response was textbook, pulled directly from the chapter on respecting boundaries. He took a sip of the tea, and his eyes widened in unfeigned surprise. The detached analysis vanished, replaced by pure, sensory pleasure. “Oh, wow. This is amazing,” he said, savoring the flavor on his tongue.
Cindy’s posture softened at the authentic compliment. A smile touched her lips.
Cindy: “For saying that,” she conceded, leaning slightly on the counter, “I’ll let you know, just between us. Mike helped me out of a bad situation decades ago, and we became ‘friends’ since then.” She gave Mike a quick, playful wink. “But that’s all I’ll say.”
Mike managed a strained smile, his heart hammering against his ribs. Cindy had just handed a deeply dangerous piece of his personal history, thinking it was harmless shop banter.
Cindy’s smile remained, but a new, professional sharpness entered her eyes. The friendly banter had seamlessly transitioned into business. For her, every conversation was a potential source of intelligence, and this polite, well-dressed stranger was an untapped ledger.
Cindy: “Well, now you know a little bit about me,” she said, her tone light and conversational as she polished the same spot on the counter. “What about you? Where are ya from?” It was a simple, innocuous question, the kind asked a thousand times a day in a thousand different shops. She had no idea she was casually dipping a line into waters haunted by leviathans.
John, delighted to be included, smiled warmly.
John: “Oh, I’m from the east end of Graheel. I have a little shop on Eld Street, not too far from the redlight district.”
Cindy nodded slowly, as if this confirmed a quiet suspicion. The location was telling; Eld Street was a borderland, a place where legitimate commerce bled into the city’s more questionable enterprises.
Cindy: “What kind of store?” she pressed, her voice a model of casual curiosity.
Mike, who had been trying to mentally map the nearest exit, suddenly went still. Every sense was now focused on the man beside him. This was it—a potential glimpse behind the veil. He kept his eyes fixed on his own mug, but his entire being was listening, analyzing every syllable, every pause.
John: “Oh, you know, just odds and ends,” he replied with a modest shrug. “I sell all kinds of random things.”
It was the classic non-answer of someone who dealt in things that didn't want to be named. Cindy, ever the professional, wasn’t deterred.
Cindy: “What kind of things?” she asked, leaning forward just slightly, her chin resting on her hand. The picture of a friendly shopkeeper making small talk.
John seemed to consider it, his crimson gaze drifting upward in thought.
John: “All kinds of things,” he repeated, before offering a more tangible thread. “It's a sort of antique store. But I have all kinds of items… old books, dried herbs, curiosities. And if I don’t have it…” He paused, and a faint, knowing smile touched his lips. “…I can always find something you might be looking for.”
The statement hung in the hazy air, simple on its surface, yet bottomless in its implication. To Cindy, it was a standard pitch for a specialty broker, a promise of procurement. She filed it away: “John, Eld Street. Antiques, books, herbs. Resourceful.”
To Mike, it was a chilling confirmation.
The phrase "I can always find something you might be looking for" wasn't just a boast about inventory; it was something more. It spoke to him of knowledge that stretched beyond dusty shelves, of the ability to locate not just objects, but secrets, truths, perhaps even lost knowledge. This was no simple shopkeeper.
A cold certainty was crystallizing in Mike’s gut, cutting through his earlier paranoia. This was no longer a suspicion; it was a deduction. The man’s words were a palimpsest, with a mundane text written over a far more profound and disturbing subtext. John wasn't just being modest; he was being deliberately, carefully obscure. Mike decided then to reject the surface-level interpretation entirely. He would assume every word from John’s mouth carried a hidden weight, and the burden of deciphering it fell to him.
Cindy: “Oh, do you perchance carry any unique spices?” Cindy asked, seamlessly slipping into her role as both host and information broker. “I’m always looking to expand my selection here.”
John tapped a finger against his chin.
John: “Hmm, perhaps,” he said, the word dangling like a hooked worm. “You should come visit me on Eld Street. My store is called the Mystic Emporium. I might have something you’ve never heard of. It’s situated right between a bakery and an alchemy shop.”
Cindy: “Maybe I will pay a visit one day, then,” she replied, her tone light and diplomatic.
“Over my dead body,” Mike thought, the vow silent and fierce. “I need to warn her. As soon as he’s gone, I have to make her understand she can never, ever go there.”
John: “Oh, if you do,” he added, his tone shifting to one of mild, almost apologetic caution, “I must warn you, my store is rather hard to find. It’s literally difficult to see unless you look at it from the correct angle.”
Cindy’s brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
Cindy: “Huh? How does that work?”
John: “Um, it’s some sort of… quirk of the architecture. Creates an optical illusion.” He delivered the line with a practiced ease that suggested he’d used it many times before, a simple, plausible lie to deflect from an impossible truth.
Mike’s knuckles were white where he gripped his mug. “Optical illusion?” The word was an insult to the reality he had witnessed.
Weeks ago, on Joe’s insistence, he had spent a frustrating hour on Eld Street. He had walked the length of the block a dozen times, counting the doors, measuring the spaces. The math didn't work. The bakery and the alchemy shop were adjacent; there was no physical room for a third establishment. Then, just as they were about to give up, he’d noticed a subtle, odd distortion—a shift in his perception not of light, but of geometry itself.
A doorway had slowly phased in a space that was solid brick the moment he changed the angle he looked at the shop, the building around it seeming to stretch and warp to accommodate its impossible presence. It wasn't an illusion; it was a physical reconfiguration of local space. And the most terrifying part was the absolute silence of it. Powerful illusion magic always left a trace that any trained mage or sensitive could feel. This had been utterly silent. A fundamental rewriting of the rules without any discernible energy signature. The sheer, quiet power that implied was beyond anything in Mike’s experience.
Cindy: “Strange. I may have to visit you just to see that for myself,” she said, her tone laced with a playful curiosity that made Mike’s blood run cold.
John merely smiled and nodded, a picture of benign hospitality, before taking a long, savoring sip of his tea.
For Mike, the casual exchange was a cage locking shut. Cindy’s innocent intrigue had dragged him from a passive observer to an active participant in this high-stakes charade. Feeling the opportunity to disengage slip away, a reckless, contrary impulse took hold—the very same detective’s instinct that had doomed his break. If I’m already in the lion’s den, he reasoned against his own better judgment, I might as well try to map its corners. This was for Joe.
Mike: “Um, Mister John?” he began, his voice carefully neutral. “You said you owned an antique shop? Correct?”
John’s crimson eyes slid toward him.
John: “More or less,” he replied, the phrase a masterclass in evasion, hinting at vast, unspoken complexities.
“There it is,” Mike noted, his mind latching onto the ambiguity. “He can’t give a straight answer. It’s always a half-truth, a deflection.” He was overanalyzing, yes, but in the presence of such power, he felt every syllable needed to be decoded.
Mike: “That must mean you’ve come across a lot of… unusual artifacts, then? Things that defy easy explanation?” he pressed, choosing his words with the precision of a bomb disposal expert.
John considered the question. To him, the objects themselves—a music box that played melodies from a world away, an electronic display that had HD resoultion—were not inherently strange. Their method of arrival, spontaneously appearing on his shelves, was the true oddity. But he was aware that items from his original world, like an e-reader or smart phone, would be profoundly bizarre to a native of Graheel. From Mike’s perspective, yes, his inventory was undoubtedly peculiar.
John: “Yes,” he answered after a moment. “I suppose I have come across many strange things.” It was an honest admission, though their definitions of ‘strange’ were worlds apart.
Mike: “Does that mean you’ve come across strange books?” he ventured further, inching toward the precipice.
John: “Again, probably,” the well dressed man conceded with a slight shrug.
Mike took a silent breath. This was it.
Mike: “What about books on curses?”
“Curses?” John’s internal monologue sparked with a flicker of distant recognition. The word echoed from a previous, similarly tense conversation, though the details remained frustratingly blurred. “Why does this topic keep arising?”
John: “Can’t say that I have those kinds of books,” he replied. This was technically true in the moment; he had no conscious inventory of such texts. But his answer carried a deeper, unspoken caveat: even if he did, he would never admit it to a near-stranger asking pointed questions.
Mike: “I see… Do you perchance know anything about powerful curses? The kind that could… irrevocably harm a person?”
Cindy, who had been listening while wiping down a grinder, paused and raised a skeptical eyebrow. It was a bizarre leap—from antiques to arcane, lethal magic. What could this unassuming shopkeeper possibly know that the city’s established mages did not?
Mike knew how it sounded, but he was desperate for any thread Joe could pull. He couldn’t ask directly, but perhaps he could glean a hint, a reaction, anything.
John’s pleasant demeanor cooled by several degrees. His smile didn't vanish, but it became fixed, a porcelain mask. His piercing red eyes narrowed just a fraction as they studied Mike.
John: “Why are you so interested in curses?” The question was soft, but it carried the sharpness of a drawn blade.
And in that moment, Joe’s warning echoed in Mike’s mind with the clarity of a bell: “Everything went south the second I mentioned curses. He clammed up, got this look in his eyes… like he was looking right through me.”
Mike was on the same treacherous path. He had triggered John’s suspicion. Now, his only task was to find a way back from the brink without confirming the very fears that had put that look in John’s eyes. He had to de-escalate, and he had to do it flawlessly.
The silence stretched, thin and brittle, under the weight of John’s suspicious gaze. Mike knew he had to answer, and the truth was not an option. He crafted his words with the care of a forger, blending a sliver of fact with a larger lie.
Mike: “It’s just… someone I know is convinced he’s been cursed,” he said, letting a note of weary concern seep into his voice. “And I’ve been looking everywhere for information on how to… deal with it.” It was a half-truth that felt like sand in his mouth. Joe was convinced, and Mike was seeking information, but not for any benevolent purpose.
John: “Oh,” he said, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. The shift in his expression was subtle, the suspicion replaced by a flicker of understanding. “So, you're looking for a way to break a curse?” The clarification was crucial, framing Mike’s quest as a noble one.
Mike: “Yeah,” he lied, the word tasting bitter. He leaned in slightly, projecting an aura of desperate hope. “So if you know absolutely anything at all, any piece of lore, I would appreciate it more than you know.”
John’s face became a canvas of complicated emotions. Helping someone break a curse sounded like a virtuous endeavor, and a part of him yearned to be helpful. But the chasm of his ignorance yawned wide. He knew little of this world's arcane principles. Frantically, he reached back into the dusty archives of his life on Earth, to superstitions and pop culture.
John: “Would a powerful curse not be something born from… strong resentment? So if you deal with the resentment maybe your curse will go away.” he ventures. It was the classic trope—the bitter witch, the vengeful spirit. It felt like a safe, universal guess.
Cindy, who had been following the exchange with growing bemusement, couldn’t contain a soft snort.
Cindy: “We are talking about the kind of illegal, active magic people place on each other, right? Not just bad vibes?” she clarified, her tone laced with a professional’s skepticism.
John’s confidence deflated. He had stepped in it again. “Idiot,” he chided himself. “You know nothing about their magic.” He backpedaled instantly, a flush of embarrassment warming his cheeks.
John: “I guess? I’m afraid I’m not that knowledgeable when it comes to that kind of thing. It’s just… things I’ve heard. Old stories. You can just disregard what I said.”
But Mike was no longer listening to the words; he was studying the subtext. Is this a genuine admission of ignorance, or is he hinting that such magic is beneath him? The possibility was too significant to ignore.
Mike: “No, please, go on,” he insisted, his voice intense. “I’m looking for any information, from any source. Even old stories.”
“Oh, you dumb, dumb man,” John internally admonished himself. “You should have just pleaded total ignorance. Now you have to follow through.” He felt the social momentum carrying him forward against his will.
John: “Well,” he began, choosing his words with extreme caution, “I just heard that to truly curse someone, a deep, genuine resentment is required. Like, most of the stories I’ve heard always depict some great misfortune befalling a person, and then they…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely.
Cindy: “I guess in a metaphorical sense, resentment is necessary,” she offered, trying to help him save face. “You’ve got to hate someone pretty badly to go through the trouble and risk of casting an illegal curse.”
Mike: “But you said a strong curse is from strong resentment,” the officer noted, latching onto the specific adjective with the focus of a bloodhound. He was no longer humoring a quirky shopkeeper; he was interrogating a primary source.
John, feeling cornered by his own simplistic logic, could only shrug.
John: “I mean… doesn’t that follow? If you really, truly hate someone, wouldn’t you… try to curse them harder?” he said, his innocence completely genuine.
Cindy chuckled softly, brushing off his comment as a charmingly naive understanding of a dark and complex art.
But Mike didn’t chuckle. He was taking it with the utmost seriousness.
“Strong resentment…” The phrase echoed in his mind. “What if he’s not speaking metaphorically at all? What if he’s describing a literal, quantifiable component?”
Then, the connection fired in his brain with the force of a lightning strike.
The Purser Slime incident. The city-wide chaos. The official report he’d personally filed. One of the critical, horrifying conditions for the ritual that had spawned those monsters was the willing sacrifice of an individual so consumed by bitterness and hatred that their very life force could catalyze the abominations.
His blood ran cold. What if a deadly curse operated on the same horrific principle? Not just a spell fueled by passing anger, but a vile, potent magic born from a willing sacrifice—a person so full of hatred for their target that they would offer their own life, their very soul, as the engine for an irrevocable curse. The resentment wouldn't just be the motivation; it would be the fuel.
In John’s clumsy, "uninformed" guess, Mike saw a terrifying and plausible blueprint for how Rob might have truly died.
Not feeling like he was going to get much more information out of John than this, Mike quickly started to make his exit.
Mike: “Thank you for that. Truly,” he said, the words rushing out as he slid off the bar stool. He made a show of glancing at his wrist, though he wore no watch. “Oh, would you look at the time? My break is over. I gotta get back to work.”
Before Cindy could form a question, he slapped a handful of coins onto the counter—more than enough to cover his tea and a generous tip—and moved toward the door with a speed that was just short of a full sprint. The bell above the door jangled violently as he shoved it open and disappeared into the bright light of the street, leaving a vacuum of sudden silence in his wake.
Cindy stared at the empty doorway, her brow furrowed in genuine confusion. Mike said he was hiding out here from Joe. Why would he suddenly run back to Joe? The contradiction nagged at her, a puzzle piece that didn’t fit.
For his part, John simply took a slow sip of his excellent tea, the abrupt departure barely registering as a ripple in his calm. He assumed Mike was simply a man bound by the rigid demands of a schedule. He gave a mild, internal shrug and savored the fragrant liquid, the steam warming his face.
But in the quiet that settled over the shop—between Mike’s frantic exit, Cindy’s bewilderment, John’s placid acceptance, and the oblivious chatter of the other patrons—there was a single, profound absence that no one noticed.
Lunar was gone.
