The noise of the sirens blared in their ears as they watched the ambulances and the Atelier Guard Force, also known as the AGF which were Atelier City’s personnel defense unit, pull up to the side of the park that neighbored the forest that surrounded the cemetery. They had helped each other carry Osvald to the street.

Afterward, the paramedics came out of the ambulance to take Osvald into the medical vehicle on a stretcher. Allen and Nera’s eyes lingered on him as the paramedics did so. The AGF officers then proceeded to speak with them about what happened.

“We were attacked by shadowy monsters, and he was grievously wounded on his arm and shoulder.”, Allen monotonously stated. Nera had instructed him what to say, and he followed Nera's guidelines to the letter.

“We were able to defeat those monsters and quickly called for an ambulance after that.”, Nera said in the same tone.

They both had a lifeless look. Their faces were drenched with sweat and their clothes were covered in blood. Their story sounded nonsensical to the grizzled AGF officers but the two young people had obviously had been through something very dire. They started to speculate if this was a case of gang violence of some kind. It had become increasingly rampant over the last year. The head officer pondered over whether it could have been a gang like the Green Manticores or the Void Fold. Either one could have been a likely suspect.

However, before they could question them any further, The head officer that was leading the inquiry got a call.

“Huh? You want us to head back? But what about the witnesses? …Are you sure? Fine, I guess I have no choice then.”, the head officer angrily grunted as he put his phone away.

“Hmph, you two brats are free to go. So get going already before I change my mind and make sure to get a good wash and stay out of further trouble or we’ll have to bring you in.”

The two young adults nodded their heads unenthusiastically and walked off down the street. As they did so, an AGF officer walked up to the one that had been questioning them

“Sir, do you think this has anything to do with the increased gang activity as of late? Maybe it could’ve been the Green Manticores or the Scrappers.”

“I’m not sure. The 10th, 12th, and here in the 13th district have all been hit pretty hard this past year by turf wars and the like, but this doesn’t seem like their usual M.O. to me. However, I wouldn’t put it past them.”, the senior officer commented coldly.

“You’re right, those punks keep causing all sorts of mayhem. What about those two? You think they could be members of one of the gangs?”, the less experienced officer asked.

“I can’t say. Let’s not jump to any assumptions. Whatever the case, those youngsters have definitely been through the ringer.”, He looked up to the lightening morning sky with tired eyes accentuated by the pronounced lines on his face. “It might’ve been because of the orders from the higher-ups, but I don’t feel too bad about letting them have a rest.”

***

Rest was the last thing on Allen’s mind as he walked further and further way from the lights of the AGF vehicles.

'I guess whoever their higher-ups are were listening in on the conversation and were trying to cover up the existence of specters and magic. I never thought about it much, but it makes sense that the ones who run Atelier City would know about those things. But if they're trying that hard to keep it a secret, why would they encourage so many people to come here?'

He wanted to ask Nera about but there was something else he needed to take care of first. They had only turned around a single corner before Allen said, “I want to go back there.”

“What? What are you talking about, Allen?”, Nera asked bewildered.

“I want to go back to that graveyard and check out the grave of Osvald’s uncle.”, Allen replied.

“Why is that? Why do you want to go there for?”, Nera questioned.

As Allen gathered his thoughts for a moment, placed his hand on the wall of the building next them.

“I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s to pay respects…and because it’s where we were supposed to go with him.”, Allen lied. He actually had a creeping suspicion that he wanted to look into.

Nera eyed Allen curiously. She wondered if the battle with Harpe and Hache had gotten to him more than she thought they did from his outward demeanor. She had hoped that he would not linger too much on the unfortunate experience. If Allen was too afraid to go on anymore jobs because of this, she did not know where that would leave her to do.

“Sure, didn’t think you were the sentimental type but going back there should alright.”, Nera relented. She decided it would not be a risky idea as long as they were careful, and it may even give Allen some closure to the whole ordeal. Although, it was hard for her to understand how normal people processed life-or-death battles, that one had been exceptionally harrowing even for her.

Nera sighed., “We’re going to need go way around from the other direction to avoid the AGF. So it’s going to take a while.”

“Alright.”, Allen nodded and followed Nera as she walked out of the alley from the other end than the one they entered from. They went around a few blocks. This part of the city had many buildings of medium height with three or four stories. They were mostly office buildings with a few restaurants dispersed among them.

They kept walking around this area until they reached another section of the forest that bordered the park. It was right behind some building with a small clearing of grass and a high fence that separated the structures from the woods.

They proceeded to go inbetween two of the buildings, one was a red-bricked up-scale restaurant with a spacious patio on its second floor while the other was a light brown-colored tax firm. With it still being somewhat early in the morning, around 9 o’clock AM, both of the establishments were currently closed.

After getting to the eight-meter fence at the edge of the clearing, they started to make their way over it. Nera grabbing the mesh of the fence and flipping completely over the top of the fence.

It was a hassle to do so with only one good arm. His other unbandanged arm dangled uselessly at his side. Allen grunted hoarsely as he climbed.

He carefully grasped any minute footolds in the mesh fence he could. They were barely much to speak of, and he slipped a patheric amount of times. Jolts of pain would shoot up his broken arm whenever it haphazardly swayed into the fence.

It took him several minutes to get to the top, what took Nera less than a second to do. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath before falling down to the ground with a thud.

"Ughh...", he could not help but let this out when he landed. Beads of sweat were dripping from his face onto the dirt of the forest floor while he was hunched over in exhaustion.

"Are you sure you'll be able to continue all the way there?", Nera asked in subdued concern.

"Yeah, this isn't anything to make a fuss over. We've just been through something much worse."

Nera responded by waiting a few moments before walking on ahead. That was just enough time for the pain in Allen's broken arm to stop pulsating.

"How does she always know?", Allen muttered to himself before following Nera.

They proceeded to head towards the cemetery from there. It only took them a little over ten minutes to reach the cemetery. The cliff that Allen had fallen off of was now facing them and there were a few other visitors besides them as well, but Allen and Nera did not pay them any attention. They soon realized that they did not know exactly where the gravesite was.

“This is going to be tough. We’re going to have to look over all these tombstones until we find the name ‘Gerlach Harvalson’ on them. Well, let’s get started, daylight’s wasting after all.”, Nera stated. However, Allen was too distracted to listen as he noticed something from the peripheral of his vision. He started walking towards it with great interest. Nera watched as Allen walked up to a particular gravestone and crouch down to get a better look at it.

“Huh, did you find it already?”, Nera asked as she walked up to the gravestone as well.

“I’m not sure…", Allen said as reached into his red-zippered jacked and pulled his small sketchbook out with his mechanical pencil attached to it. He raised it up to Nera.

"Hey, open this to an empty page and hold it down for me."

"Is this really the time to practice your drawing?"

"Just please do what I'm asking of you. This is important.", Allen stated firmly.

Nera sighed., "Fine, but I'm the one who should be giving commands, lackey." She did as Allen asked and Allen began drawing in the sketchbook.

It was harder to do with his left hand but thankfully he had taken classes not too long ago about drawing with a non-dominant hand. Allen diligently traced the image that he saw in his mind. He used precise lines and careful shading in an effort to recreate it as accurately as he could.

"That's..."

"This is the same symbol as the one that was in the draugr's Expanse, and the same symbol that's on that tombstone, isn't it?" Allen said as he looked after finishing the sketch he had been engrossed in. On a once empty page, was now a circular geometric ring divided into several parts.

Nera was slightly surprised and inhaled sharply, releasing her hold on the sketchbook which caused it to slowly shut. She quickly calmed down with a sigh and said., “Yeah, that was it. I can’t read the words on here but this is definitely the grave of Gerlach Harvalson.”

Allen scanned over the gravestone and noticed it had the same slightly blue tint to it that the draugr had, the writing on it was most likely Norwegian, and the material it was made out of appeared to be similar as well. All of this, including the rune engraved on it, all implied one thing.

“So, are you saying there’s some sort of connection between the draugr and Gerlach Harvalson?”, Allen finally asked after gathering his thoughts. He stored his pencil and sketchbook back into his jacket.

“Yeah, the specter that we fought is what killed him and because of that, it took the form of a draugr, a legend that he was probably familiar with.”, Nera explained.

“What do you mean? I thought specters were just clumps of imagination in general and not one specific person.”, Allen asked.

“That is what they are but there’s more to it. Shades are just hazy creatures without distinct forms that aren’t much stronger than normal humans and will fade away quickly outside of the underworld. However, by siphoning the life-force of humans through attacking them they can become stronger and, sometimes, they don’t just steal a person’s life-force but their “dreams” as well.”

“Their dreams..?”

Nera nodded before continuing.,”Whether it’s a person’s greatest hopes or worst fears, a specter can steal a “dream” from them and transform into a more powerful form that’s a representation of that, a Wraith.”

Allen’s eyes widened as he took in the revelation and his mind went back to what happened during the end of their fight with Harpe and Hache. He then took out the draugr’s specter stone.

“If that’s true, then this stone contains the dream of Gerlach then.”, Allen inferred. It almost felt like he was holding a tombstone in his hand.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be.”, Nera confirmed as she bent down to get a better look at the stone.

“I have a question for you now. How exactly did you manage to pull a draugr arm out of this?”

“I was just using mana manipulation to draw power from the stone, but it was like I suddenly sensed something deeper within in it and heavier than any mana I felt before, much heavier. When I drew that out, the draugr arm appeared on my arm. I was trying to act calm back then, but I was just clueless as you were.”

“Is that so? I guess it’s just an extension of mana manipulation then…but why weren’t you able to do it before?.”

Allen shrugged.,”I don’t know. Maybe it was because I was in the draugr’s Expanse when I tried to use it.” Allen’s guess was a fairly logical one based on the circumstances of that occurrence and the other times he had used specter stones. But something did not seem quite right with it, even to him.

“That’s your explanation? …Good enough for me then, I’m not a Crafter, so it’s not like I’m an expert on specters or magic.”, As if to prove this to herself, she looked at the specter stone again. Now that the expanse was completely gone it looked like a normal semi-translucent crystal with not a trace of the twisting darkness that Allen was able to see.

“Nera…”, Allen spoke up, snapping Nera out of her observation.

“...if Wraiths contain the dreams of the people, are they considered to be like ghosts of them as well?”, as soon he let out this question, Nera glowered at him with anger in her eyes, but it was not directed at him.

“No, absolutely, They may take their dreams but they’re not them in any way, shape, or form. They’re just warped monstrosities that make a mockery out of their hopes, fears, and memories.”, Nera uttered as she clenched her fist tightly.

“For the ones left behind to see something like that, it’s excruciating.”, Nera said through gritted teeth. Her eyes filled with a tinge of sorrow. Realizing how her expression must have looked at, she turned away from Allen.

“That’s pretty much it. Got it understood now?”

‘Should I ask her-no, if she wants to tell me, I’ll let her do it on her own time. She’s entitled not tell me anything about it, and I also don’t want to see her sad.”, He realized how much he hated it and how much he had seen it over the past week.

‘We need to get the Periapt to get rid of her Grim Mark and my spectral corruption, then we both won’t have to worry about all this insane stuff.”

He slowly got up to his feet and put his hand in his pockets.

“Hmm, so these could also be called Dream Stones, right? I wonder how much we could get for these if we advertised them like to normal people.”, Allen mentioned to Nera who frowned in irritation. Allen then gestured his hand in the air like he was trying to get Nera to see a a wide canvas in front of them

“Dreams Stones, each contains the dream of a legendary creature you can imagine about while going to sleep and maybe you’ll be able to have a dream about them. How’s that does that sound for a slogan?”, Allen unexpected inquired, hoping to break the dense tension that had developed.

She gradually stood up straight and turned back towards with renewed determination on her face and smirked, “Like trash, I’ve heard at least two better slogans from fortune cookies. Ugh, I think listening to that made me lose a few brain cells. Hopefully, a good shower will make me forget all about it.”, She mused as she fantasized about being free of the grime and sweat that had collected on her over the course of the morning.

“It can’t be that bad. Are you serious?”, Allen genuinely asked. He was glad to see Nera was in better spirits.

“Mega serious. Besides, I already know an ether crystal broker we can sell them too, so we don’t have to rely on some half-baked scheme you just cooked up.”

“That’s good, I was never much of a chef anyway.”, Allen wryly remarked as he brushed the back of hair with his hand.

"First off though, we'll have to get your arm treated."

"We'll be going to back to the crazy bin, huh? Oh, great..."

The two began to leave the cemetery, steadily talking as their voices faded into the distance. As they were leaving one of the other people raised up from the cemetery they were at, a young woman in a red blouse and long white skirt with lengthy black hair. She also wore a beige wide-brimmed sunhat that covered her eyes. She watched the two with much curiosity.

At the grave where she stood, there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers of a variety of different types. A strong breeze then blew that swept them into the air and blew the young woman’s hat up to reveal her deep blue eyes as she hurriedly grabbed it to keep it from being carried off by the wind.

Ambivalent to the wind or the scattered flowers, Charlotte watched in fixation as the two left the cemetery and into the forest. She then spoke so low that even she would not be able to hear it.

“Allen.”