The regular clacking of Moon Phase pieces filled the room as Claud nibbled on a chicken pie. The delectable smell was more than enough to draw the others’ attention, but it was not his fault that they had finished off their own chicken pie this quickly, so…

“Say, if I win, can I have the rest of that pie?” Lily asked.

“What?” Claud glanced at her. “What does my pie have to do with you winning? It’s not like I’m putting it up at stake and playing against you, right?”

She pouted, and Claud found himself somewhat uncomfortable. The judgemental glances from Risti, who was reading the newspaper, and Schwarz, who was Lily’s opponent, was quite painful to bear, and Claud found himself giving in. “Fine. I’ll let you have a bite or something.”

Lily’s eyes shone at those words, and Claud found himself sighing. Well, it wasn’t anything much, since it was just some pie, and Lily had, on more than one occasion, seen it fit to stuff some of her favourite treats into his mouth.

The two of them continued to play, but Claud had to set down the chicken pie reluctantly, just in case he felt the urge to finish it off and Lily actually won. Placing it by her side, Claud drifted over to Risti, who was reading today’s news.

“Oh, hey.” Risti looked up. “You worried about them too?”

“Yeah,” Claud replied. It had been a week or so ever since Farah and Dia departed for Farah County, but a couple of days ago, a disturbing development had occurred. Official news hadn’t reported on it yet, but apparently, animals left in the darkness outside could actually turn mad or something.

There were too many such pieces of news that Claud was already convinced that something nefarious was underfoot. Subsequently, it also meant that travelling out of cities and built-up areas were dangerous, since the darkness was the deepest outside of civilisation.

It was possible that most of the wildlife had been turned insane.

“Under the cover of the deep darkness,” said Risti, “I can’t really lock on to anything. It’s too dark for me to visually identify something; even Skyward Eye can only highlight little silhouettes.”

Claud nodded. “That said, there’s probably a link between the absence of such monsters in the day and their origin, right? The reports that trickled in all talked about encountering these changed animals at night. I’ve paid a visit to the local areas outside in the day, and there’s no sign of mad monsters then.”

“And you’re definitely not going out at night, right?”

“Not right now,” Claud replied.

The abnormally dark nights were a dent to his thieving enterprise, which had stopped for quite some time. Other than taking Lily and sneaking in and out of homes and courtyards, he hadn’t quite done anything else that resembled his original occupation, which could lead to a stagnating of his skills.

“Yeah, figured. But have you put in place any measures to guard against the possibility of a monster tide?”

“A monster tide?” Claud tilted his head. “Never heard of one.”

“It’s a rather old term,” Risti replied. “I guess you not hearing of it is natural, now that I think about it. Well, long ago, monsters had a tendency to group up and attack cities and settlements. But after Emperor Grandis smashed any uppity monsters that had sentience into paste, monster tides faded away.”

“So…”

“Well, you have lots of mad animals that are essentially monsters, right? What happens if all these monsters decide to charge the city?”

“That,” said Schwarz, who had just finished off Lily by taking her full moon piece, “would be indeed rather scary. Still, monster tides?”

“You two should read some history,” Risti muttered.

“I would rather read a book, though,” Lily replied. “More interesting.”

“You feel that way only because you haven’t read the good history books. Look, my point is that we are on a verge of a new age. You guys might not have internalised that yet, but the moment we saw that announcement about the great Dark’s descent, it was clear that something like a Fourth Godsfall was going to happen.”

Everyone froze at those words.

Claud took a deep breath. He had indeed wondered about such things before, but they had seemed too distant, too high up for him to care about. After all, surely the gods wouldn’t bother ordinary people, right?

“Does something like a war against the Coloured Gods seem a bit too distanced from everyone here?” Risti asked. “It does, right? But if you have read certain books, you would realise that the Six Gods of Virtue and the nine beings that would become the Coloured Gods had conscripted the ordinary masses and forced them to fight.”

She paused, and raised her voice. “Isn’t that so, Nero?”

The Holy Son of the Black God popped his head into the room a second later. “Ah, you got me. Yeah. I suppose the Elder Council of the Black Church is already ramping up their recruitment, what with this great Dark thing.”

“You don’t have any idea what this great Dark is?” Schwarz asked.

“He won’t know,” said Risti. “The reasons behind the First, Second and Third Godsfall are all unique, different.”

“What she said, basically.” Holy Son Nero eyed Risti. “Who are you, really? Why do you know so much? Is it because you read lots of books?”

“…How else would I know so much?” Risti rolled her eyes. “Point is, we all have to get stronger over this year. Grab lifestones, become bi-folders, maybe nab some neat artefacts and trump cards like super-powerful skillsticks. Not just lie around, nibble on chicken pies and play games.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t travel out of the city easily now,” said Claud. “Monsters at night, remember? And lifestones are at a premium now. Count Nightfall raised the price artificially, but it hasn’t come down ever since.”

“Yeah, we’re stuck…” Risti shook her head. “But since we can’t prepare in terms of items and mana circuits, we should at least do our due diligence by reading history books and learning about the past.”

“Okay, assuming that we accept…what books do you recommend?” Claud asked. “And it’s not like we have that much free time either...”

Risti rolled her eyes. “I’ll get some books for you guys to read, then. Like, do at least bring them around. They might be useful as reference material, if you’re outside of the city or if I’m not around.”

Everyone nodded.

“Why did you nod along?” Claud asked, directing his question at Nero.

“Oh, come on. Surely you aren’t going to kick poor little me out soon, right? My people haven’t responded for some reason…and well, I’m a tetra-folder! Surely you guys could treat me with more respect, right? Why, when I was at the church, the vanillas would call me Your Excellency and everything!”

“Well, you’ll be surprised to know why vanillas engage in such formalities, though,” Schwarz replied.

Claud nodded along. “Yeah.”

“There’s a reason behind this too?” Nero asked, curious.

“Fair warning. If I or Claud were to say the reason out loud, the three of you here — you, Lily and Risti — would probably never look at people the same way again,” Schwarz replied.

“You’re just scaring them at this point,” Claud replied. “Just explain to him.”

“Fine, fine.” Schwarz rolled his eyes and got up from his table, leaving behind Lily…who was eating Claud’s pie anyway, despite having lost.

For a moment, Claud wanted to protest, but Lily’s smiley face was enough to make him shut up. Besides, if he didn’t spoil her, who would? The others weren’t as close to her as he was, anyway. And…well, she didn’t really have the benefit of a functional childhood.

“Well, vanillas call mana-users ‘Your Excellency’ to create an obligation. In showing respect,” said Schwarz, “they oblige the recipient of such respect to do them no harm. Mana-users are beings that cannot be measured in the same breath as regular people, even if they share the same weaknesses and form. It is not respect, but fear of injury and death, that drives vanillas to use such terms to tie down mana-users.”

“That’s kinda horrible,” said Nero.

“You’re too young and inexperienced. It’s natural, really,” Schwarz replied. “But for people like me and Claud, who only recently became a folder, we lived our lives in fear. Mana-users were stronger, faster and had so many more means of killing other people. If they had a bad day, people could be killed.”

The kid looked a bit sad, and Claud patted his shoulder. “Well, now you know why we don’t address you formally. We don’t think you’re the kind of person that would kill us horribly on a whim, that’s why.”

“The same goes for everyone else here,” said Schwarz. “It’s a mark of friendship to not use ‘Your Excellency’.”

He produced a small bottle. “Here, have a swig.”

As the Holy Son’s face lit up, Claud took a few steps back from Schwarz. The alcohol in the released vapour alone was too deadly; it was far safer to be at a distance.

Heaving a small sigh of relief, Claud stretched his back. Their relaxed morning was over, and it was time to do some work again.

“Lily,” he called out. “Time to go!”

She stuffed the last of the pie into her mouth and promptly got up.