Chapter 107

Uncanny Valley

Sylas stood at the front of the village, looking at the thatched roofs that were finally coming into light under the shine of the rising, morning sun. The eerily silent village seemed to wake at that moment, with the faintest sounds of the noise beginning to emerge out into the open.

He remained alert though not afraid. Above all emotions, curiosity reigned; as far as he could tell, there was no energy, no magic within the village. It could be that he was entirely unqualified to notice it, but he suspected that wasn’t the case. Even if he had little faith in himself, he understood that he was hardly just a layman at this point.

“Who are you?!” an alarmed and cautioned voice broke out amidst the silence. Sylas looked to his right--a mail-worn man seemingly in his mid-twenties stood there, a brittle sword drawn out, shaking and pointing toward him. Though he was surprised that the man didn’t raise any alarms for him, he dismissed it as he didn’t seem to pose a threat.

“Put that thing down,” Sylas said. “You’ll cut yourself. I’m just a traveler. Do you have a village chief or something? I’d like to talk to ‘em.”

“Y-you--”

“It’s that different building, I’m guessing,” Sylas interrupted him. “C’mon. Lead the way. Chop chop. Though the day is young, I ain’t. I’m fuckin’ old. How do you know when you’re old? When you go ‘oh snap’ when you hear something snap. It’s really a terrifying sound, right?”

Under Sylas’ repeated barrage of nonsense, the young man seemed overwhelmed and actually followed Sylas’ instructions, leading him through the streets toward the brick-laden house. On their way over, Sylas saw many faces, most hidden behind the windows, staring at him with strange looks.

There was certainly something strange about the place, as he could really discern any of them through magic, only with his eyes. They all stood still and silent, watching him. Even the young man didn’t speak, silently walking forward like a voiceless guide.

If nothing else, the place was strange and odd, even slightly more than whatever was happening underground. Then again, this was only odd for those who've never gone to a small town. Sometimes, those places to an outsider could even feel cultish, as everyone ended up staring and dancing around for the longest time. Experiencing this, though uncomfortable, wasn't all that strange; being an alien inside a tightly-knit community was usually a death sentence to social life.

Luckily for him, he wasn’t here to necessarily socialize. He was hoping that he’d begin to slowly unravel a story behind both the village and people living underneath it with the visit, even if, inevitably, he’d have to come back to complete the full picture.

The young man stopped in front of the building, glancing back for a moment before running away. Though strange, Sylas shrugged it off and headed inside. A single corridor awaited him, leading into what appeared to be a lobby-like building where he saw a few people standing around. All turned toward him and stared intently, though nobody moved in toward him or spoke--at least not initially.

“Forgive me, but do you necessitate any assistance?” a woman’s voice spoke out, framed within a tiny, five-foot-one body of a middle-aged woman cloaked and hooded in damp brown.

“I’m a traveler,” Sylas said. “With some business proposals of trade. I was wondering whether I could meet with your Chief.”

"Naturally of course," stumped for a moment with the ease with which the woman seemed to accept his story, he was forced to immediately follow her as she turned around and sauntered deeper into the building, toward its rear. "We shall accommodate travelers and traders naturally. We accept merchants."

Sylas looked oddly at the woman, namely questioning her education considering how she spoke, but didn’t take it to heart; his exposure to largely relatively educated and well-lived people in the castle could have likely skewed the general outlook on education in this world.

The woman didn’t speak further as she led him to the rear and into a small but relatively cozy-looking room. There weren’t any chairs, instead there were pillows kneaded against the ground and surrounding a low-hanging table. The walls were dyed--or, at least, there was an attempt to dye them--in almost-white, with a few pots holding flowers standing in the corners and against the wall.

“Chief person shall arrive in time not long,” the woman said, reaffirming Sylas’ belief that she was likely foreign and have learned the local language as an adult. “Please lower your body on the ground.”

Ignoring what sounded like a tamely-veiled threat, he escorted the woman out of the room with his eyes before sitting down on the pillows. They were quite hard, he noticed, and hardly cushioned much--in fact, he'd much rather have sat on the floor but elected not to do it as to not invoke some hate because of a custom or such.

Things weren’t adding up, that much he realized; judging from what he was told, he expected to be fought off immediately. Besides, if that young man was the median of the guards in the village, he had to wonder how they managed to expel anyone, let alone drive them underground.

The village mostly looked just like any other small-town community wary of outsiders, though perhaps slightly odder and eerier.

“Welcome,” once again, he failed to both hear and detect any presence through energy. For a moment, he humored a thought that this was a ninja village. Looking around, he saw two people walk in--a man and a woman--both of whom stood equally tall, wearing the exact same robes just with different colors of brown and black. The two sat down opposite of him, and a whole foot apart from each other, lacking any facial expression. “You are a merchant we were told of recently. Welcome.” Hm? By now, Sylas was wary. It was one thing for a random villager to speak strangely, but for a Chief... something was definitely off.

“Thank you,” Sylas said, using energy to mutate his eyes for a moment, looking for any minute changes. Nothing. The both of them were still and motionless, as though they didn’t feel anything.

“What can we assist you with? We are open to suggestions.”

“... I was wondering if I could open up a shop here,” he posed an innocent question, all the while inspecting and scrutinizing the both of them. “So I can sell some of my merchandise.”

“Naturally of course,” the woman said. He realized that the man was yet to speak out. “We are open to anyone. If we can inquire of shall what you sell?” Wait... are... are these fuckers not even breathing?

“I was wondering if I could sell some spices,” he continued to lie randomly, focusing specifically on the chest of the two--as he suspected, he saw no movement. While it was possible they were so well-trained as to completely disguise their breathing, he highly doubted that was the case. “Y’know, to spice shit up and whatnot.”

“Naturally of course spices are loved,” the woman said. “We are agreeable with it.”

“What about him?” Sylas pointed at the man.

“We are agreeable with it,” the woman said still.

“... how many people live in the village?” Sylas asked. Can’t breathe... are they like an intelligent mutation of the Ghouls? No, they aren’t rotting in any way.

“There are a lot of us living here in this village, a very lot,” the woman said. “We shall buy your spices all the time.” Hm?

“Oh,” he exclaimed softly, realizing something--something was blocking his ability to use energy. “It’s a trap,” he mumbled, stroking his chin and beginning to ignore the two in front of him. “Airborne? Talismans? Right. I didn’t inspect for talismans since I never sensed any magic. These two... probably projections of those two women,” he added, glancing at the two. “Why are they speaking in such a broken language, though?”

“SYLAS, RUN!!!!” a throat-ripping scream blew through the village and quickly reached his ears, causing him to shoot up to his feet and without a second thought ram through the doors and run out of the building, rushing toward the location of the voice. It took him less than ten seconds to get there, where he saw his ‘little sister’ being chased by several rotten-looking men and women. “YOU IDIOT!! WHY THE HELL DID YOU COME HERE?!!” she cursed, yet still ran toward him and hid behind his back.

"... how'd you get away? You don't strike me as a prime specimen," he quizzed indifferently. Though he didn't have a full picture yet, a good chunk of the story was forming already.

“I... I told them I had to go to the bathroom and ran,” she said. “What about you? Where were you?”

“Why did you run?”

"Because it was creepy! The two women wouldn't leave me alone," she said. "And I never got to meet anyone else. That boy, too, would sometimes just randomly pass out and start having these spasms but nobody paid attention to it. Look, I may not be the most conscious person, but I can still see some things. Can you get through them so we can run?” she asked as more and more rotted-looking men appeared, circling them.

“Nope,” he shrugged. “I can’t even use magic anymore.”

“You... what?! How?!”

“Don’t know. Maybe some talismans? Or something else? Besides, why would we run? I can just reset it and we’ll come back here, much stronger.”

“...” she looked at him for a moment, a faint pang of pain emerging in her gaze. One he deliberately chose to ignore. “Fine,” she said. “Reset it.”

“... you... you might, y’know, remember.”

“Just do it.”

“No, no, we gotta wait for the stars of the show;” he said. “Don’t you know that the bad guys are notorious for expositing their plans when they think they’ve got the hero cornered?”

“--of all the wrong things in that sentence,” she said. “The wrongest one is that you think you’re a hero.”

“...”

“W-what’s with that look of pride?!”

"Because I'm proud," he said. "Finally. You're finally beginning to understand the classic art of shitting on others."

“You... you’re weird. Really weird.”

“Hush now,” he said. “Here come our stars to brag. God, I love these moments.”

“Really weird...”