The Bloom family dining hall. Eight people were sitting at the table, waiting for dinner to be served. Only two of them were happily chatting though, the other six were still perplexed about the turn of events. The conversation the other two were holding was to put it nicely “not very interesting and very plain”. Joshua had the impression he had landed straight into a bad sitcom and had even ordered Luna to play a laughing track every time he deemed appropriate.

A woman suddenly marched out of the kitchen and said: “Dinner’s ready! Honey, can you help me serve our guests?”

“Of course, darling!” Henry Bloom replied and helped his wife distribute the dishes.

Joshua looked at the plate that was brought in front of him. It was a pasta-based dish reminding him of spaghetti. Instinctively, he scanned it to check if there was no strange substance hidden inside the meal but found nothing unusual. He took a bit out of it and found the food pretty tasteless.

Even the food feels fake… he thought.

About an hour earlier, the previously dead owners had come home, clueless of their previous state. Worse, upon discovering a bunch of intruders inside their house, their immediate reaction was to invite them for dinner. They were also overjoyed that their good friend Lucien had come to visit and didn’t care he had been tied up in their basement. And thus, the party was currently ‘enjoying’ a free supper as a guest of the Bloom family.

From Joshua’s point of view, the only positive element in the last hour was Catherine’s new clothes, she simply looked gorgeous in her new outfit. Clarisse had complimented her, naturally oblivious to the fact Catherine was wearing one of her own dresses.

###

Catherine was pretty clueless about the situation as well. When Joshua had announced the owners were coming home, she initially thought it was one of his dumb jokes. And boy, did she wish it was. Eric and Joshua briefly told everyone the population of the city suffered from what’s called a ‘Wiping’. They thus pretended to have had one and were confused about a lot of things. The Blooms had bought that lame excuse, no questions asked.

While eating, Catherine kept an eye on the rest of the party. They were all quiet, clearly wondering what to do next. Joshua’s expression was actually pitiful. He didn’t seem to take the situation well.

-Joshua, you look terrible. Can you adjust your position or they might start asking more questions... she said, mentally.

-Are you kidding? I could have entered their house dressed up like Darth Vador and they still wouldn’t bat an eye. These people are… I don’t know. This whole scene freaks me out.

-I’m not at ease either. Still, don’t you think it’s a good opportunity to gather information? They think we’ve lost our memory and answer everything without thinking too much about it.

-Go ahead, I don’t speak stupid. I wanna go home.

-Fine… I would have expected you to be a bit more mature, though. This doesn’t resemble you.

-Sorry, you’re right… I think I need some time to adjust to the general ambiance of this place.

-Suit yourself, but please don’t take too long. I need that brilliant mind you’re so proud of.

-Ha, unfortunately, I think complete morons are a natural enemy of mine, I cannot comprehend their actions.

Everyone was more or less done eating by now, so the moment seemed opportune to ask some questions.

“Mister Bloom, thanks again for the invitation,” Catherine began.

“Don’t worry about it, my dear. Your presence at our table has been so cheerful. It’s us who should thank you for bringing such joy in our daily life.”

Catherine took a quick glance at her friends who looked like they were about to die of frustration and couldn’t fathom where he got that idea.

She continued: “As we told you, we seem to suffer from a Wiping. May we bother you with another favor? Could you help us refresh our memory and give us a general information tour of the city?”

“Of course, of course! It will be our pleasure! Please wait a moment, I’ll go get our holomap.”

Henry left the house and headed for his vehicle. A moment later, he came back with a strange circular object. In the meantime, Clarisse and Lucien had cleaned up the dining table. Henry placed his weird ball on it and pressed a button on its side. Immediately, a few runes began to shine on the surface of the ball and a few seconds later, it began emitting light which formed a three-dimensional hologram of the city.

Catherine was delighted to see that Joshua’s expression became a bit more interested and he was examining the map in detail. The others were a bit more surprised at the sudden appearance, Catherine had slowly become more accustomed to technology thanks to Joshua’s influence so the hologram didn’t surprise her too much, but the others had only acquired Luna recently so they still had a long way to go.

The projection was extremely detailed. Catherine couldn’t help but fathom how ordered the map looked. The core of the city was surrounded by a large circular canal. From that circle, eight straight branches were flowing inwards to the center of the place, dividing the city into eight equal districts. Each of those had a massive pillar-like structure at its center. The eight water flows eventually converged into a big lake located right in the middle of the metropolis. On the lake, there was an island, on which a large magnificent structure, which Catherine suspected to be a palace had been built. Actually, the palace wasn’t the only beautiful thing to behold. Once you went past the first circle, the global architecture became extremely extravagant. Most houses seemed to have unique designs with their facade ornate with various motifs, statues, mosaics, and frescoes. Even though her family was wealthy, her own mansion paled compared to a mere random building found here. She wondered about their current position and it was easy to find. There was a glowing dot on the map, indicating it. They were currently in the suburbs of the city, outside the outer circle, where the structures were much more modest looking.

His dumb smile unwavering, Henry began his explanations:

“My friends, I hope you at least remember the basics. The city lord lives on the island in the center of town. Access to that place is strictly forbidden unless you receive an invitation.

The city is divided into eight districts, each powered by an elemental generator,” he said while pointing at one of the giant pillars. “There is one for each type of energy and we name the districts after the element their generator is producing. We thus have the Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, Dark, Lightning and Neutral Districts. Combined they provide all the energy we need for the whole city. Does any of this ring a bell?”

“It’s starting to come back,” Lydia lied.

“Wonderful. Now, considering the whole population is suffering from Wipings, we have established an office that records important events in one’s life. If you want, I’ll take you there tomorrow. They’ll perform an archive search and pull out all the data they can about you. This will help you stabilize your situation. Also, it would be nice for you to remember where you actually live.”

Catherine froze. This was a problem. Even assuming everyone in the city is as much of an escapee from the cuckoo’s nest as those three, even they would start to get suspicious if there is nothing about them in the archives.

“We appreciate your help, but you have already done so much for us. If you could point us in the right direction, we’ll go there by ourselves tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? Well, it’s up to you. You can borrow my holomap if you want.”

Catherine nodded and replied: “That would be appreciated.”

“Anything else you want to know?”

The obvious one was ‘Why are you alive after being murdered?’ but Catherine doubted he knew the answer to that. She decided to ask something a bit riskier.

“I think I remember a rumor that strangers came to our city recently. Have you heard anything about it?”

“Strangers? What silly gossip. There is nothing apart from our great city. It’s our whole world!”

“Hmm, you’re probably right, forget about it.”

It was best not to pry too much. Since Henry had graciously offered to borrow his map, they had everything they needed to keep exploring.

[Map Analyses Complete. The map of Easa is now available on-demand. ]

The whole party suddenly looked at Joshua.

What are you all looking at? Have you forgotten Luna’s equipped with a mapping system? Of course, the first thing to do upon finding a map as detailed as this is scanning it! You all need to become more tech-savvy. Anyway, we don’t need his holomap anymore. Mine’s better, he told them mentally.

Catherine quickly checked via Luna what he meant. Luna produced an image similar to the hologram, except showing everyone’s position except just the map’s current location. Joshua told them that obviously, apart from Catherine it would only work for those in range of the network. Furthermore, the map was equipped with a custom zoom that allowed them to see the nearby area in detail and would auto-complete as they explored more buildings.

###

After dinner, the Blooms proposed for everyone to stay for the night. They accepted and were given two rooms on the ground floor. One for the ladies and one for the guys. It was already fairly late by then so they quickly retired for the night, leaving the three morons up to their dumb conversations.

I think you all had your shares of weird emotions for today. You should all rest while I stay on watch duty, Joshua messaged them.

You… don’t want to talk about what happened today? Catherine replied.

I… need to… readjust my opinion on the situation. Clearly, as you all suspect there is something utterly wrong about this place. Just, give me until morning. I’ll try to learn more.

Fine, just don’t do anything reckless.

Still confused about the events of the day, the party went to sleep. As for Joshua, he exited the room he was in leaving Boris and Eric alone. He then dismissed his body and observed the three local specimens in their natural habitat. He tried to analyze Clarisse & Henry’s brain. They had the same advanced rune he had seen in Lucien but didn’t have enough information to find out how it worked.

Soon, it was well past midnight. Joshua was bored out of his mind listening to their primitive conversation. He was so frustrated he had to resist the urge to go punch a wall or something.

However, his patience was rewarded as their speech slowly became more aggressive and they broke into an argument. His interest was picked up and he grabbed some popcorn, waiting to see how the situation would proceed.

The argument kept escalating and soon they were fighting. A minute later all three of them lied dead on the floor after stabbing one another. Under normal circumstances, Joshua would naturally have intervened but considering it happened before, he figured they wouldn’t stay dead for long and somehow even felt delighted looking at the corpses in front of him. After materializing his body, he approached them and examined the bodies.

Even though those three morons suffered several stab wounds, no blood was flowing out. Furthermore, like last time, the bodies had no odor. Based on the previous occurrence, he figured it would take a few days for the bodies to vanish. There was no need to wake up the others, he could inform them in the morning.

This is a good opportunity to check out that rune of theirs a little. Hmm, this might be a good time to test out that device I was working on.

Joshua asked Luna to produce a blueprint and focused on his left hand. Soon, an object appeared. It was a copy of the rune-inscribing pen Catherine had used to remove the rune from everyone’s brain. Except it wasn’t attached to a machine that fed it with energy, instead a wire connected straight into Joshua’s arm. The device had 8 buttons, each for one of the basic energy types. Unlike the one in the lab though, it was possible to activate more than one element at once. He tested out a few random combinations in the air. As expected, a small stream of multi-elemental energy flew out.

Rubit tech 101, success!

He didn’t have concrete applications for rubits yet. But that would come in due time.

Joshua grinned and leaned over Clarisse’s corpse. He brought the pen to her head and streamed some neutral energy into the rune. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a big mistake. Mere seconds later, the lifeless corpse of Clarisse suddenly sprang to life, violently stood up, and knocked Joshua over. Before he could react, she grabbed his hands with extraordinary force and blocked his legs from moving by sitting on them. Shocked, Joshua looked at her face. It was staring at him lifelessly, although her previously normal eyes were now glowing with a red aura. Without further ado, Joshua dismissed his body intending to float away. However, Clarisse’s grip didn’t loosen at all, holding his spirit in place.

Clarisse opened her mouth and spoke in an unnatural calm tone: “Good day. I don’t believe you’re from around here. Do you mind telling me what you’re doing in my city?”