This city truly never slept. The moon now shines the sky, and the Moonbright district was still filled with people. All around us, there were merchants luring people in to buy their products, workers and laborers diligently working to prepare for the Norone Festival. Amidst the business of the city, there was always a sound of music playing from the nearest tavern. It felt lively, even more than the day. Maybe this is the reason why it is called the City of Night.

“Do you guys want to rest up and find the contractor tomorrow? Or we could find the contractor right now, it doesn’t look like this city is going to sleep soon.” Alberto told me. He seemed to still have energy left. It had been a long day. We escaped from Stratford’s ship, became adventurers, and took on our first quests. This might have been the most eventful day in my life.

“Do we even know who the contractor is?” I asked Alberto.

“Think about it. There is only one person who truly cares about the city and the festival. The merchants are in it for the money, the festival is just a method for them to sell. The mayor is our contractor.”

Why didn’t they include their name in the quest paper? I questioned myself. “Fine, we will look for the mayor first, so we can start our job as soon as we wake up tomorrow,” I said, with my head down. I was exhausted, but I did not want to delay the quest. Now, where would the mayor be? Talking to the merchants about commerce? Or commanding the workers for the preparation? Alberto noticed me being trapped in my head.

“Maybe we should ask around?” Alberto suggested while making eye contact with me. Why didn’t I think of that?

“Yeah, let’s ask,” I said. We walked around the district while asking multiple people, but no one seemed to know. The diversity in this district is no less than the harbor. There were all kinds of different races here, trading with each other. We decided to come to the workers to ask them, but there was a crowded area. It was difficult to get through this crowded area, people kept on bumping into me, to the point where I almost fell over. Fayette was holding tight onto Alberto’s shirt, as he nimbly moved through the crowd. Amazing, how he can move like that. I wonder who’s stronger, him or Vesper? Another man bumped into me, he had a hood on which it was hard to see his face.

“Watch out.” Said the man. I swear I have heard this voice before. But I quickly brushed that thought off as I realized I was losing Alberto and Fayette. I quickly followed them through the area, and finally got to where the workers were. Even though it was still in the preparation phase, I could already tell that the festival was going to be huge. Ginormous wooden frames filled the area, with magical blue lanterns highlighting the color of the sky. Everyone that I could see was working tirelessly, but they all had a happy smile on their face. This district is truly beautiful. I asked some of the workers about the mayor, but they proved to be unhelpful.

“This man is nowhere!” Fayette said. She seemed to be more tired than any of us. Now that I think about it, she hasn’t eaten since she was still on Stratford’s ship. Her red hair is now messy, her eyes were closing.

“Maybe we should get some rest. Fayette doesn’t look like she’s gonna hold up for long,” I said to Alberto. I was a bit annoyed that we were being delayed because of Fayette, but it couldn’t be helped. Before Alberto said anything, a man wearing blue and white noble clothes approached us.

“I heard you have been asking around for me?” He said.

“Are you the mayor?” I asked.

“Indeed I am. Sir Hazer Grandore of the Grandore house, mayor to the Night City of Lunae Lumen, how may I be of your service?” He said in a relaxed, happy tone. He bowed down slightly, reflecting the shining color of the blue lanterns with his gray hair.

“Are you the one who put up this quest?” I showed him the quest paper. He took his glasses and skimmed over the paper.

“Ah, you must be the adventurers that I need. I apologize deeply for not writing my name and location on there, I was in quite a hurry.” He said, giving the paper back to me with his skinny hands. “You guys will act as bodyguards for the festival, if anything happens, your job will be to minimize the casualties. When the job is done, I will sign this quest paper and your rewards will be given to you by the guild.”

“Alright, so I am assuming we are going to start tomorrow?” Alberto asked him, slightly tilting his head.

“That’s right. Tomorrow night,” He took out a piece of paper, wrote his name, and signed it. “Is it just you two who accepted this quest?”

Fayette suddenly flew on top of Alberto’s head. “There’s me too!” The mayor widened his eyes in surprise as if it was the first time he saw a pixie, but he made no comments. He wrote down “3” on the piece of paper as he gave it to me.

“This will get you a discount at any inn. I would suggest the Windguard Inn. They have good food and comfortable beds. Now, I have to go, the paperwork isn’t going to do itself. Have a good night, and enjoy the festival!” Said Hazer as he put on a smile while leaving.

Alberto looked at the mayor leaving with envy. After a while, he started moving towards the Windguard Inn. The Inn was glamourous, with a big, white wooden gate highlighting the color of the blue lanterns right above it. We walked into the inn, and we saw a bright lobby with men and women in silk clothes. They all looked at us as we walked in, but they tried to not stare too much. We walked over to the innkeeper, a glamorous woman in her 50s with heavy makeup.

“How can I help you? She said, not particularly paying attention to our clothes.

I gave her the piece of paper that the mayor gave us. She carefully examined it and looked back up at us. “A friend of Hazer eh? Any friend of his is a friend of mine! My success is because of him after all!” Her tone now switched to a friendly one. “How about this, I usually charge 1 Hydra for a room, but for you, 1 Virgo would do with complimentary food.”

“Sounds like a deal for me,” I said happily. We were going to have to stay in the same room but I’m sure Alberto and Fayette wouldn’t mind. They both looked quite out of it, so I wanted to get to our room quickly. She gave us the key with our room number on it. 203.

“Your room is on the second floor, food will be brought up shortly,” Said the innkeeper. We walked up to the second floor. The hallway was carpeted fully red, with famous paintings displayed on the walls. We walked into our room, which had a king-size bed, a desk, and some spare clothes on the white bed. I could not be happier with some new clothes. All my belongings were taken by Stratford when he captured me, and the only thing I got back was the ax. I lost my books, my map, and I would have lost the money as well if I didn’t put the coins in my pocket. Fayette got on the bed as Alberto and I changed out the clothes. The bed was big enough for all 3 of us because of Fayette’s size. Food was brought up shortly after we changed our clothes, it was steaming hot beef soup. They gave us 3 full portions, but Fayette didn’t need that much because of her size, Alberto and I shared the rest. None of us said anything much, we were all so tired from such a long day. We finished the delicious food and went to bed shortly after, escaping from an exhausting day.

When I woke up, it was already near noon. The sun was up high in the sky. Fayette was still asleep, but Alberto was already up, reading a book that he found on the desk. Fayette was still sleeping next to me, She must have been very tired. I got off the bed carefully to not wake her up. Alberto turned around as he noticed me.

“Good morning, feeling better?” He asked me. I felt fully energized. It has been quite a long time since I felt this good. “They don’t need us until night when the festival actually starts, so we have the whole day for ourselves. The innkeeper might kick us out before night comes however, since we don’t really have any money anymore.”

“Morning. Right now, I think we should just rest until tonight, or whenever we get kicked out.” I said

“Actually, I have been wanting to spar with you, to assess our abilities.” That could be fun. I wanted to know what’s the difference in our skills as well. Moreover, I wanted to know why he is a gold adventurer while I’m only at silver. “This inn has a backyard that we could use, would be fun,” said Alberto.

“I’m up for it. Let’s leave a note for Fayette, in case she wakes up before we are back.”

Alberto wrote something in the piece of paper that the mayor gave us. “We will be right back” and left it on the desk. We both walked down to the backyard, with our weapons. I just now noticed that he is not wearing any armor. I did not need any armor myself, as I usually tried to over-power my opponents before they could react. When we got to the backyard, there was no one here, it was just a big garden with mostly well-kept bushes. We stood thirty feet away from each other, as we prepare to spar.

“Here I come,” Alberto said, as he charged to me. No spell? He’s getting cocky. I blocked his strike, as I noticed his strike did not have much force to it, but he immediately went for another strike. He’s faster. I blocked that strike as well, but he went for another one, which I had to dodge, creating some distance between us. He came after me after I dodged, but this time, I didn’t block it. I used my handle to try to go for a riposte. He had to dodge that strike, giving me an advantage over him. I came after him this time, diagonally swinging my ax. He nimbly dodged out of the way, as I tried to divert my ax to where he dodged by making my body heavier for more force. To my surprise, he didn’t try to dodge it but went for the attack instead. We stopped our blades right before contact, but his blade was closer to me. I would have lost if he wanted to kill me. He smiled at me.

“You are strong,” He complimented me. I lowered my head in embarrassment because I

thought he wanted to console me. “No seriously, you are. I would say you are very very close to gold, if you do well in this quiet, you might even get promoted.”

“Again,” He smiled as I said that. And we kept on sparring until the afternoon.

When we came back to our room sweating all over, Fayette was pouting on the bed. She did not seem to be happy that we left her alone for too long.

“What took you guys so long!?” She said, fuming. However, the light aura around her seemed to be brighter than yesterday, so she is feeling better at least.

“Sorry, won’t happen again,” Alberto said to her in a laughing tone. She never replied to him.

“We should get ready soon, the sun is going to come down, and the festival is going to start soon,” I said to both of them. Fayette flew over to my shoulder and landed on there. Alberto seemed to be ready as soon as we were. We nodded to each other as we walked out of the room, unto the festival.

We waited until the festival actually started. People gathered around a big, outdoor stage where the mayor was supposed to give a speech. We walked to the very front row of the stage, looking out for any danger. Magical arrows were shot up to the sky and exploded into beautiful flowers, signaling the start of the festival. A man in a hood went up to the stage. Is that the mayor? Wait, isn’t that the guy I bumped into in the crowd yesterday? The man then slowly brought his hood down, as I widened my eyes.

The cult leader that took Vesper, why is he here?