What greets Ren must be the most rustic village that he’s ever seen in his life, and that’s saying something, especially after having stayed at Gyldon. The houses here are all built of stone and sticks, with roofs made of straw, in the shape of domes and arches. There are but a few people hanging about a well in the centre of the village, who peer over at their appearance.

But none of them… appear wholly human.

Black fur grows around their eyes and ears, the latter of which is pointed like elves’. They clutch objects between their claws, ebony fingers digging into wood. Grey skin attaches their forearms to their sides, almost like that of… bats.

What did they just stumble upon?

Before Ren can call out to them, or do anything at all, they scream. Loud, piercing shrieks that forces him to jam his fingers into his ears. He grits his teeth, clenching his jaw as he watches the world warp around him, like the very soundwaves distort space themselves. It’s all he can do to not scream himself.

However, subverting expectations, the bat-people scatter, making no move to attack them. They drop whatever they’re holding, items like fruits and buckets, flower bundles and shiny gemstones. They dive into their houses, and they pile boulders at the entrances. Within seconds, the village becomes silent.

It’s almost eerie, how quickly they returned to their abodes and blocked the entrances off. It makes Ren wonder how much punishment these houses can take—they don’t look at all sturdy to him. Is this measure really effective in preventing the march of intruders?

“Um, hello?” Penny calls.

Her voice bounces off the walls, echoing in the tiny chamber. Now that Ren thinks about it, it’s not that big. Compared to the open space that was Gyldon, and the sprawling underground area that was Betty’s Marketplace, this place is… small.

“They must think that we are a threat,” Vane observes.

Gridel nods. “I can’t fault them. If a stranger wandered into Gravelle uninvited and unaccompanied, we would have responded with hostility as well. The fact that we are not experiencing hostility right now is a miracle.”

Now that Gridel mentions it, why aren’t they attacking? Could they be afraid of them? Is their first instinct to hide, and not retaliate? Or are they baiting them into an ambush, like Zhuge Liang’s Empty City Ruse?

“Well, since we’re here and all, I guess we should find the mayor or something and introduce ourselves,” Penny says. “We’re not bad guys.”

“They may perceive us as enemies, though,” Vane says. “It’s less of what we are, and more of what they think.”

Ren nods. “But I agree with Penny. If we can explain ourselves, then I’m sure they’ll be willing to help.” That is, if they haven’t gotten their eardrums blown to bits by that horrendous screeching yet. It would most certainly be a tragedy if that is the way by which they communicate.

With that said… Ren wonders if they even have a leader, like a chieftain, or a mayor, in such a tiny place. That said, even a tribe would have someone calling the shots now, wouldn’t they?

They wander through the village, stepping across hardened, orange rocks. Homes are carved into the sides of cliffs, most houses built of rock that are both sand-coloured and red. Penny trudges bravely forward, Gridel accompanying her at her side, whilst Ren and Vane trot behind them.

One moment, the place had been a lively village, and now… it’s nothing more than a ghost town. Silence bathes them like wisps of fog, curling around them and leaving a droning hum in Ren’s ears, punctuated only by the light crunch of soil and pebbles underfoot.

Their destination is a small house situated on the top of a small hill, its walls carved and etched with hieroglyphic-like designs. It’s the only building with such inscriptions, and its elevation probably means that whoever they are, they’re important.

At least, based on past experience, anyway. Who knows whether that still holds true for a colony such as this?

The house, up close, is almost Ren’s height, just a couple of inches or so taller. He never quite noticed how tiny these buildings are, or how small the people were, for that matter. Penny squats, knocking lightly against the stone pile at the doorway. “Hello?”

No answer. Not that Ren expected that to work. If a stranger came knocking on his door, he wouldn’t answer it either. Probably hide in his room, under his blanket, and wait for the threat to pass.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Penny coos.

“Yeah, that sounds exactly like what a serial killer would say,” Ren says. “Penny, we don’t even know if they understand us. All we heard was screeching.”

“Actually, there’s reason to believe they do,” Gridel says. “Remember the plaques we saw on the walls? These people are probably responsible for putting them up, and we could read the words on them just fine.”

Bat people who speak English. That’s not something that one sees every day. Penny continues to try to coax the bat people from their homes, voice gentle and soothing. But there are still no signs of activity from within the house.

“I think we’re going to have to give this up,” Ren says. “I don’t think—”

“Wait.” Vane turns around, Claymore drawn. Ren follows his gaze, only for his eyes to widen at the sheer crowd behind them. Bat people of all shapes and sizes gather at the base of the hill, watching them with beady eyes. Or maybe they’re using echolocation. “We’re surrounded.”

“Oh God,” Penny whispers, as she glances from one face to another. Her expression of shock soon gives way to a pleasant smile. “Hi there. How are you guys doing?”

Several of the bat people blink, but none of them answers. Ren fidgets nervously with the hem of his sleeve. The tension in this chamber is high, like there’s electricity crackling between the two groups of people. The locals, and the intruders.

“So, uh… isn’t the weather good today?” Penny says, a second before she frowns. “Actually, there’s not much of a weather down here now, is there?”

The longer this silence stretches, the more awkward it gets. At this point, Ren is willing to dig a hole in the ground and bury his head in it like an ostrich. His gaze flits from one bat person to another. Please, say something. Just say anything.

Then, it happens. The first bat person totters over to them, claws clasped together and fidgeting nervously. They sport short hair that falls just below their shoulders, beady, fully-black eyes sunken into their skull. They glance about, at their friends for support, then back to the strangers.

“Are you…” The bat person stutters, staring at the ground. “Are you th-the Sun people?”

“Sun people? You mean people from the surface?” Penny nods, relief flooding her voice. At least someone’s willing to be on the other end of this dialogue. “Yes, we are.”

“Are you here to save us?” the bat person asks, hope glimmering in their eyes. “That’s what the Sun King said. That the Sun people will save us from the Horseman.”

“Well, that we are.” Penny grins. “We’re here to take care of the big, bad Horseman and to bring joy to the world again.”

The bat person smiles, and they turn to the rest of the villagers. “Did you hear that? They’re going to save us! We’re going to be free!”

The villagers raise their fists, and they cheer, in screeching noises that could potentially tear Ren’s eardrums out many times over. But they have cause to celebrate—after all, they have spent so many years in fear of the Horseman, before their promised saviour arrives to bring them salvation from their suffering.

“We need to have a party,” the bat person says, grabbing hold of Penny’s arm and dragging her in the direction of the well. Some of the other bat people scatter, chanting incomprehensible words in their otherworldly bat language. “Please, join us in this joyous occasion! We don’t have much, but whatever we have, it’s yours!”

Penny shoots Ren a smile, just before she’s tugged away by the bat person. Before Ren can act, however, he, Vane, and Gridel are surrounded by other bat people, each of them peering up at them with beady, black eyes. Observing them, committing every detail of their face to memory. Ren can liken them to little puppies, plodding after their master.

“There are a couple of houses that you can stay in,” one of the bat people says, in a rather heavy accent that Ren cannot tell where from. “We would be happy to host you.”

“Yes! Please save us from this torture,” another bat person clinging to Ren’s arm begs.

This should be a normal scene, being paraded around the village with many villagers crowding around them, cheering and laughing, and possibly even crying from relief. But this feels different. It feels…

Wrong. Desperate. Cloaked by faux happiness and relief.

The bat people lead them to what looks to be a small house just beside the well. It looks small—much like every other villager’s house in this cavern. Ren isn’t even sure they can fit all four of them inside.

“Please, do rest up here,” the bat person leading Penny says. “We will prepare the feast, and then we will call for you when we are done.”

Penny smiles. “That would be perfect. Uh, before you go, could you tell us your name?”

“My name? Of course. I’m Shih’van,” the bat person says. “I am the chief’s daughter, and I… I live up there. In that house.” The house that Penny was trying to coax its inhabitant out of, it seems. “If you ever need to look for me, I’ll be around!”

“Okay. We’ll take you up on that.”

Shih’van gives a little screech of delight, before excusing herself and heading off towards the well, where the villagers are setting up a makeshift table made of rocks. The bat people who were gathered around them have left too, perhaps to prepare for the feast.

Ren turns back to the house that they were led to. It has a dome for a roof, made entirely of straw bundled together. Spidering cracks run along the walls of the building, cutting through the lines of hieroglyphs running along the stone. If only he knew what it read.

“Well, it seems that that has gone well,” Gridel says. “We should settle down and get some rest.”

“Yeah, and there’s supposed to be a feast,” Penny says, her gaze on the interior of the house. “Makes me wonder where they get their food from.”

Ren glances about. Yeah, he’s not entirely sure either. It’s not like back in Gyldon, when they had fields and fields of crops and herbs sprawling across the grassland, and even up to the mountains. So far, he has spotted only one or two trees growing amongst the cluster of houses, and the fruit borne from those plants look as yellow as yellow can get.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Ren says. “We don’t have to take their food if they don’t have enough.”

“Although, for a society to function down here for so long, they must have had some way of getting sustenance,” Vane says.

Makes sense, although... they’re bats, aren’t they? Would their diet—?

Nah, Ren shouldn’t think about that for now. Focus on getting some sleep, or at least, relax some. The Horseman shouldn’t be able to find them here, if this community of bat people have been surviving for centuries.

Penny ducks into the house, having to lower her head so that she can pass through the doorway. Ren follows her, then Vane, and then Gridel. The house is almost bare, not that Ren expects them to sleep in beds. After all, they can probably fly—

Now that he thinks about it, they’ve been skittering about on the ground, haven’t they? They haven’t flown yet at all. Why is that?

Oh well, it’s not quite in his place to question. Evolution probably played a part.

Penny settles in nice corner, curling up into a ball and bidding them good night. Vane looks around the room, gaze staying longer on the windows—haphazard shapes in the walls that look like defects rather than windows of any kind. Probably looking for escape routes in case things go south. Gridel, on the other hand, is sorting through her medicines and their provisions.

“Do get some rest, Master Ren,” Vane says, and it is only then that Ren realises that he’s still standing in the doorway. “If we are to confront the Horseman, then we are going to need as much energy as we can get.”

“What about you guys?” Ren asks. “You were keeping watch when Penny and I were sleeping the other day.”

“We are used to it,” Gridel says. “Staying up for long periods of time is nothing new.”

“Yeah, well, same here.” Ren nods. “Besides, I’m not going to sleep just yet. There’s something I want to ask Shih’van.”

Vane raises a brow. “The person we were speaking to?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember to take Ifrit with you, in case anything happens,” Gridel says.

Ren reaches behind him, making sure that his staff is still strapped to his back. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Let me come with you,” Vane says.

“Really, I’m fine—”

Vane frowns. “I insist. This is a new place, and we’ve barely been around these people for minutes.”

He’s got a point that Ren cannot quite refute. “Well, when you put it that way…” He turns towards the door. “Let’s go, then.”

Gridel promises to look after Penny. And with that, Ren and Vane leave.

*

With so few villagers, it’s not difficult to locate Shih’van amongst the crowd of bat people. She’s the only one with green spots on her wings, green of a darker variety that could blend in with the dominant black.

“Oh, Sun people!” Shih’van gasps when she sees them. She almost drops the plate of pie that she was holding, which she hurriedly sets down on the long stone table. She rushes over to them, a little clumsy on two legs, as though she were meant to be walking on four. “Is there anything that I can help you with?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Ren says. “You know how we need to get rid of the Horseman to save you guys, right?”

“Yes, yes. Of course.”

“Do you think that you can tell us where the Horseman’s palace is?”

“Palace?”

Ren nods. “Yeah, like, where does he return to after his patrol? It’s normally a temple, or a white building. Something like that.”

“Oh… um…” Shih’van sighs, staring at the ground dejectedly. “We don’t usually venture out into the deserts. So…”

However, she brightens, like a thought’s just occurred to her. “But that is not necessary when we have my grandmother’s All-Seeing Eye.”

All-Seeing Eye? Sounds like something straight out of a manga. It makes sense that the bat people wouldn’t leave this sanctuary, but then…

Who lit the candles outside the coffin?

“Please follow me,” Shih’van says. “My grandmother must be resting right about now.”

Ren and Vane exchange glances. She seems enthusiastic to help, and it doesn’t seem as though the endeavour would present any danger. Shih’van plods up the slope to her house, and waves at them from midway up the hill. Ren and Vane quickly follow her.

Shih’van reaches over and grabs the boulders in front of her house, which has not moved since the inhabitant locked themselves in. She rolls the rock away with ease, with those superhuman muscles packed into those arms of hers. Turning to them, she implores, “Please wait out here. Grandmother doesn’t like visitors much.”

With that, she disappears into the house. Ren turns his gaze away, not quite wanting to intrude.

“It’s hard to imagine that someone would have an All-Seeing Eye,” Vane says. “It sounds… almost magical.”

Ren stifles a laugh. “Look, we have magic-imbued weapons. An All-Seeing Eye really isn’t that much different.”

“Even magic has limits,” Vane says. Ren doesn’t miss the way his gaze slides towards Ifrit. “And, so far, Ifrit has broken all of them.”

“Yeah.” Ren reaches for Ifrit on his back, and he holds it out in front of him. “You did say that Ifrit was the weakest staff, and that it wouldn’t have amounted to anything.”

“Yes, that was quite right. Ifrit was a weak staff that hardly exuded any magic at all, but perhaps, I’m not wondering whether he hid that power on purpose. Clearly, Ifrit is capable of greater things than what we thought he was.”

Like transforming into a giant, fiery dragon. Ren can’t summon it at will, but it always appears whenever he really needs it to. Maybe that could be Ifrit himself emerging from the staff, his spirit taking on the shape of a serpent?

“Makes me wonder why he made himself so weak, though,” Vane mutters. “Perhaps—”

The shuffling of feet interrupts Vane as someone short and stout hobbles out from the house. The bat person’s arms are dotted with green, much like that of Shih’van’s. Shih’van stands behind her, a wide smile on her face.

“Grandmother, these are the Sun people who—”

“I know who they are!” Grandmother huffs. She peers at both Ren and Vane’s faces, scrutinising them with those all-black eyes. Except… one of them seems to have a little bit of a sparkle to it. Like constellations in the night sky, white dots blotch her right eyeball. “I heard them when they first came in.”

“Well, Grandmother, they wish to know the location of the Horseman’s base,” Shih’van says. “They—”

“What? And they want to kill the Horseman?” Grandmother snarls. She turns her back to Ren and Vane. “Neither of them has half the strength your mother had. Do they think they can really take him on?”

Her mother?

“But Grandmother, they’re the Sun people. They can—”

“So what?” Grandmother harrumphs. “Doesn’t matter if you’re Batlings or Sun people. If you don’t have the strength, then he’ll just hunt you down and kill you just the same. Just because they’re a different species doesn’t make them more able to kill him than we are.”

“But…” The fight drains out of Shih’van’s voice, and Grandmother begins hobbling back into her house.

“We’ve defeated three Horsemen before,” Vane says, a hint of annoyance in his tone. “I’m sure we can take on the last one.”

Grandmother stops in her tracks. “Three Horsemen, you say?”

“Yeah,” Ren says. “We’ve freed three quarters of Zenthos from the Horsemen’s control. Please, let us save Ruk’vahn as well.”

Grandmother chuckles, but it holds no emotion. No mirth, nor contempt. “What a noble dream. What do you hope to accomplish by saving Ruk’vahn? We are leading a happy life down here, without the Horsemen being able to find us.”

“We need to rid the final Horseman to summon the route to Pandora’s Citadel,” Vane says. “Once we do that, we can return Zenthos to how it was it like before the apocalypse.”

“Then you must have a drive,” Grandmother says. “If your conviction isn’t strong enough, then I cannot let you go. Otherwise, I would be sending a couple of innocent youths to their deaths.”

“How can we prove this conviction?” Ren asks. “I mean, to you, we’re just a couple of Sun people, right? Like—”

“After the feast, come meet me,” Grandmother says. “In this house. Bring those other two friends of yours too.”

With that, she hobbles back into the house, without even glancing back. The three of them can only watch her go, with nothing more to say. If Ren had to guess, it’s quite possible that Shih’van’s grandmother had suffered a loss a long time ago, and that was the loss of… her daughter.

Shih’van bows, her voice shaky. “I-I apologise for my grandmother’s unkindness. I promise that I would speak with her later—”

“It’s fine,” Ren says. “We understand.” Naturally, Grandmother wouldn’t want to be responsible for the potential deaths of four youths, the Sun people hailed as their saviour. He wonders what she’s got in store for them, though. Why would she invite them to her house? Is it some kind of test they’ve got to pass?

“Before we go, there’s one question I’ve got for you,” Ren continues. Shih’van raises a brow, tilting her head.

“Whatever happened to your mother that got your grandmother all like this?”