Joshua looked at the red-eyed Clarisse holding him down. He felt miserable, he had been too careless and now the situation had taken a turn for the worst.

Catherine, do you hear me? Wake up, we’re in trouble!

. . .

Nothing.

“Please, do not bother calling for help, Mister Spirit. I can block the communication between a spirit and their summoner.”

“Uhu . . . Something tells me you’re not Clarisse Bloom”, Joshua answered.

“You are correct, but that doesn’t answer my question. Please, identify yourself.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I’m a big fan of Nathalie Tangai and I was hoping to get an autograph from the authors?”

The woman continued to watch him emotionlessly for a few seconds before answering:

“Amusing. I have to admit I like that series too. But sir, you just keep dodging my question.

Not that it matters, I can answer that inquiry myself. As I mentioned previously, you are a spirit. Furthermore, you are a second rank soul, which means the person you’re linked to is less than a kilometer away. I know that four groups headed down from the surface to find my city. Each party had a summoner and their spirit accompanying them. Three of the parties are currently in my custody, therefore, you are undoubtedly the last party’s spirit. Analyzing the memories of the bodies in front of you, I see they had a group of strangers as guests, meaning your entire party somehow entered the city.”

“You really figured out everything, haven’t you Sherlock?” Joshua replied.

“I’m not sure who this Sherlock is, but no, not everything. For example, I’m not sure how you managed to enter the city undetected. Could you please enlighten me?”

At that moment, the inanimate bodies of Henry and Lucien slowly stood up. Their expression was as lifeless as the one Clarisse had. Ignoring Joshua, they began walking toward the bedrooms.

###

The bizarre situation of the day’s events was prolonging itself in Catherine’s dreams. She was living in a big house similar to that of the Blooms along with the whole party after they had decided to give up on adventuring. Their apparent peaceful life was troubled every day by Joshua, who insisted on trying to build a giant vehicle that would take them into space but ended up causing a massive amount of mayhem in the process. Ultimately, Joshua accidentally made their house fly at high speed and they landed on the moon, where they were welcomed by the locals, who were all a bunch of clowns. Everyone was confused, so the clowns brought them in front of an artifact they called “The Mirror of Truth”. Looking into the mirror, she saw herself wearing clown make-up. Her reflection suddenly burst into laughter and told her: “Isn’t it silly? Coming so far and ending up in a circus. I hope you’re satisfied!” The reflection then took a pie and threw it on Catherine’s face. Furious, she was about to retaliate when a voice shook her awake.

[Emergency! User Joshua is currently under attack. Immediate assistance is required.]

Being woken up so violently like this it took her a few seconds to get her bearings, but she quickly opened her eyes and redressed herself. A figure had entered the room and seeing her standing up immediately tried to jump on her. She rapidly duck out of the way as Lucien crashed on her bed, breaking it into pieces. Without delay, Lucien emotionlessly turned his gaze toward her and began assaulting her with perfectly executed martial arts. Catherine blocked his attacks without too much trouble but she noticed that his strength had risen several ranks since she last saw him.

Lucien kept throwing blows at her but his attack was rapidly interrupted when the twins joined the fight. An arrow lodged itself in his shoulder and Cynthia elegantly smashed his head with her electric staff. The man was blown away like a mere wisp of straw.

“Are you all right Lady Catherine?” Lydia asked.

“I’m fine, you both got Luna’s message I presume?”

They both nodded.

Lucien was twitching on the ground with a severe injury on his head. However, to the girls’ horror, the wound was healing with the naked eye. Mechanically, his arm grabbed the arrow stuck in his shoulder and began standing up.

“Leave this guy to me, go help Joshua!” Catherine ordered.

Without warning, she jumped forward, grabbed Lucien’s arms, and pushed them against the wall. A thick layer of ice started spreading on his limbs and soon they were frozen and attached to the house. He tried to kick Catherine away but she dodged and immobilized his legs the same way. She then left the room, following the twins’ trail.

###

Joshua remained silent after Clarisse’s last question. He appeared to be waiting for something. As soon as he realized he couldn’t use his mental link with Catherine, he used the Rune Network to shake everyone awake. Low and behold, loud fighting noises suddenly resonated across the house and a moment later, he saw Henry being blown back in the living room. Boris followed quickly behind them, charging toward Clarisse. Without hesitation, the giant man tackled her, knocking her off Joshua’s body. Joshua immediately redressed himself and hid behind his friend.

“Thanks, man!”

You’re welcome.

Catherine and the twins arrived mere seconds after Boris, with Eric following after them.

“So, they’re finally showing their true colors?” Eric remarked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’ve got reinforcements coming soon. We can’t stay here,” Joshua answered.

Catherine sighed: “Very well. Gather as much as you can and head outside.”

Having said that, she began freezing Clarisse to the floor.

“Running won’t do you do any good,” Clarisse told her.

Catherine ignored her and moved on to Henry. However, his body had already vanished.

She looked back at Clarisse and saw that she was disappearing too.

“As expected, these people are not real,” Joshua commented.

Suddenly, the television sprang to life and began broadcasting pretty jovial music. Then a male voice replied to Joshua:

“Oh, you are mistaken. They’re very real. They’re just not. . . how should I say, finished? Yes, that would be the correct term. They’re not complete.”

“Really, they’re never passing a basic Turing test the way they are now,” he replied sarcastically before destroying the television with a bolt of lightning.

Catherine looked like she was about to ask him details but they were in a hurry so she headed back into her bedroom to gather her stuff. In the meantime, Joshua headed outside and flew upward to scout the area. He didn’t hear any sound, not even a wild animal or the wind howling. As with everything in this place this wasn’t natural.

The calm before the storm. . .

About two minutes later, the others exited the house. They were hastily dressed and Joshua noticed Boris had been forced to abandon most of his armor, just taking his weapons and shield.

“Where should we head to?” Cynthia asked.

Joshua flew down and replied: “Let’s drop all pretense, we’re in way over our heads here. We should abort the mission and evacuate.”

There was some bitterness in his tone, he was so close yet so far from his objective. But the brief encounter he had with the ‘puppetmaster’ made him realize staying here was pure folly.

Catherine nodded and they ran back toward the barrier surrounding the town with Joshua flying ahead.

Unfortunately, when Joshua charged into the barrier, he bounced back as if he had tried to run into a brick wall.

Damn it! I was afraid of this. . . What about this?

He shot some lightning at the barrier, hoping to damage it enough they could cross it. However, everything he shot was absorbed. Seeing the ineffectiveness of the attack, the other gave it a try as well. Unfortunately, neither magic nor physical left as much as a dent in the structure.

They were trapped.