rogue_4

The heat stopped again last night. A layer of frost had formed on the window when Nymph awoke to Crownie's call.

Packages and boxes of various sizes had formed a small mountain at her door. A walking staff pokes out from behind the boxes, knocking on it.

'Is this... your luggage?' Nymph asks, rubbing her sleepy eyes.

'I came to say goodbye.' Crownie's voice is a little hoarse. 'I have to go and find it.'

The 'Storytellers' have struggled to fit in ever since they were chased out of the Soul Furnace by Fremont and went back to their lives. Some find it hard to muster the energy to do anything, some shudder with fear to even open the door, while others would put pot on firewood and mutter that dinner was done, without ever lighting the fire. Babel doctors say patients of this 'Furnace Syndrome' require counseling, not medication.

Crownie's symptoms are the most severe. She could not forget the legendary city of Kazdel, deep beneath the earth.

'This time, I've made up my mind,' she says with reddened eyes. 'I've seen its location in my dreams. I can see the pit, the well of my inspiration, whenever I close my eyes... I can't forget it, I just can't!'

'Well, good luck then,' yawns Nymph as she reaches out to close the door.

'Wait! Aren't you going to stop me?' Crownie stops the door with her stick.

'Nah, too busy...' Nymph stumbles towards her bed. 'I'm about to miss the party in the floating city. They've thrown down the rope, so I've got to climb it...'

Nymph's symptom is sleepiness, but she insists she is not sleeping, but rather visiting a floating city by the name of Kazdel.

'It's okay. You can ask them to move Kazdel over to the pit, and we'll jump in directly—Oh no, the Lich is coming! Run!' Crownie tries to persuade Nymph, but sees a terrifying figure coming from the furnace node.

'Oh, you're here too? Perfect. Nymph, Crownie, come with me.' Ermengarde binds Crownie's wrist with Arts threads, preventing her from escaping.

Hearing her name, Nymph mutters, 'I don't need treatment... I need to get to the part where...'

'Come on, Nymph, wake up!'

Ermengarde snaps her fingers, and Nymph's eyelids fly open. The Lich waves her hand, and all the luggage at the door disappear into a cube.

'Come. Everyone's already there, except for you two.'

'Again, Ermi? I almost... I just want to see it again! Can't this wait?'

'I'm not the one looking for you. It's Master.'

'Master... Master Fremont? Wh-What does he want?' Nymph is a little grumpy from the rude awakening. 'I would've gone into the sky with Kazdel if he hadn't chased us out!'

'Don't worry, you'll have all the time in the world this time,' says Fremont, half an hour later, after listening to Ermengarde's report.

Nymph pouts, but dares not speak upon seeing the anger on his face. She cuddles up and rubs her feet for warmth.

'Why is it so cold?' asks Crownie. 'Did the heat stop again?'

Pohl, with a pot in his hand, replies, 'It stopped last night and hasn't been restored. This is the longest it's been down.'

'Is something wrong with the Furnace?'

They all look towards Fremont, who could not help but raise his voice. 'It's because of all your GREAT stories!'

'The revenants got so excited that they're demanding stories all the time now, night and day! They're even threatening to go on strike! You know what, forget it, why should I bother explaining this to you?'

He flicks his sleeve, and everyone present is thrown into the furnace, as though dragged in by an invisible rope.

'Just this once, I told them! This is the last time!'

Nymph's eyes light up. 'You mean we get another adventure? Yay! The floating city...'

'The great pit... did you hear that, Nymph? My dream is coming true!' Crownie keeps shaking Pohl's shoulder.

Pohl hugs his pot and smiles with confidence. 'Good thing I came prepared. I'll have warm meals anytime I want, as soon as I get back into the story.'

'Don't you dare babble on like you did last time.' Fremont smacks Nymph on the head. 'This time, I'll be watching your every move from close by. Anyone who runs their mouth is getting kicked out on the spot.'

But it only makes Nymph more excited. 'I didn't fully appreciate the opportunity last time. This time, I won't let it go!'

Fremont cannot help but roll his eyes at the excited Furnace Syndrome patients.

'Just make sure you get out once you've told your story. And under no circumstance should you promise the revenants another one, no matter how much they plead!'

The day that Tin Man left Kazdel, Nymph and the other Storytellers went outside the city to see him off.

The dream seemed to linger in them; none knew what to say at a time like this. They stared at each other under the sun, and the workers moving stone on the walls laughed at them during break time for standing out here on such a hot day.

It was Tin Man who broke the silence. He shows off his newly-bought knit shirt, with a mini Soul Furnace embroidered on the chest. Nymph is impressed by his metal body's heat dissipation capability, while Crownie recognizes the shirt as being from her stall. At the end of the farewell, Nymph presents a gift on behalf of the group, a box of 'potato fries' sculpted using scrap Oriron from the Great Furnace. Tin Man laughs and says being a box of fries wouldn't be so bad, if he had never found an appropriate body.

'Farewell. I'll be back once my work in Columbia is done. I just hope I'll still recognize Kazdel by then.' Tin Man lights a pipe and walks into the wilderness. The three 'Tin Friends' on his shoulder snatch his hat and play catch with it in the air.

A month later, Qalaiša left without telling anyone.

There is a box and a letter where the hut used to be. The box was filled with ointments and a single garland. The witchcraft on the garland had been removed, but it remains beautiful. In the letter, Qalaiša asked Nymph to bring the ointments to the Nachzehrer soldiers working on the new plate outside the city. She had officiated funerals for their fallen comrades, and the ointment soothes the pain the survivors suffer from their rotting skin.

At the end of the letter, she asked Nymph to forgive her abrupt departure, for she did not want to experience the awkwardness of Tin Man's farewell again. She believed that the secret to soothing the pain of the Nachzehrer awaited her in Sami, but would continue to look toward Kazdel from the wind and snow.

Nymph had returned to the Great Furnace to tell the revenants more stories, and the symptoms of Furnace Syndrome had faded, but reading the letter put tears in her eyes. Crownie comforted her by saying that she could always visit Sami in the furnace while telling stories to the ancestors.

In time, the Soul Furnace's renovation was completed, and the revenants left. Crownie once again packed her luggage; this time, she is really leaving.

The Storytellers once again gathered under the walls to see their friend off. The walls were now fitted with brand-new Arts defense units, and there were no longer any workers to laugh at them. Nymph grabbed Crownie's sleeves and cried, 'The ancestors have gone, and now you too!'

Crownie pins a rose-shaped hairpin on Nymph's head, and places a garnet necklace around her neck. She steps backward twice, takes a good look, and smiles. 'Don't cry. I'm really proud of this work, but it only goes well with a smiling face.'

No longer was Crownie seeking the legendary lost city. She had brought her designs, and was planning to apply to be a designer at the sportswear brand. She was not afraid of failure, she said; she still had her souvenir business in Kazdel, after all. The city was changing by the day. It might not be long before tourists started flocking here.

And indeed, there were new faces in Kazdel soon after Crownie left. Not tourists, though, but Infected of all races who moved in from the settlement outside the city. There was enough space for new accommodations, and the expanded vertical farms could feed more people. Even the ashes of the furnace nodes had more potatoes in them. Pohl told Nymph that this was how every prosperous city was: people come, and people go. Kazdel was not yet prosperous, but who knows what could happen tomorrow?

Nymph had planned to ask Mudrock when she was planning to leave, but left the question unasked when she saw the rows of houses behind Mudrock, and vegetables growing in the soil of the gardens beside them. She gave Mudrock a big box of protective gear, which Crownie had sent through Penguin Logistics.

'What should we do now? Do we stay or leave?' Nymph asks Pohl, as she helps him load his belongings onto a cart heading towards the new employee housing next to the Rhodes Island office.

Instead of answering, Pohl takes a booklet full of numbers from the cart and points out a few figures. New seeds had just been planted, and the previous season's crops had yet to be harvested, but mortality rates among the elderly were down significantly from previous years, because there was enough food and water to go around. The decrease in the overall percentage of the elderly was instead because more and more young people were coming to Kazdel, who were not only self-sufficient, but also helping to make the city a better place.

She turns around to look at the Great Furnace. It does not appear any different from how it used to be, before the revenants left, but Amnannam burns quietly within. Energy flows from the furnace into the pipelines, and towards the furnace nodes. In the flickering flames, Nymph could sense the breath of the city, a city that never stops growing. Her bloodline is as resilient as it is ancient.

It is a city that has many exciting new stories to tell.

Tin Man sighs when he opens the door.

The lamp lying flat on its side. The radio turned up to the highest volume. Potato chip bags floating in mid-air. Water seeping out of the bathroom door crack. Window shutters tied up in a knot. TV lying wrong side up. Books stacked haphazardly on the ground. Tea table upside-down. Sofa riddled with holes filled with potato chips.

There is no expression on his face. He knew what was coming.

'Where did you go? What took you so long?' 'Where's the yogurt I wanted? Is it the cilantro flavor?' 'Anything fun?' 'I'm bored! I want to go out!' 'Turn that damn noise off!'

'Slow down!' Tin Man puts down the bulging paper bags. 'One at a time!'

'Don't they give you straws when you buy yogurt these days? That's just shameful.' This was Ol' Curly.

'Lend me your hat! I want to make a parachute!' This was Lil' Mo.

Tin Man walks to the sofa, stops to think, and decides against sitting down. 'Can't you guys learn to quiet down, like Big Larry?'

On the sofa, Big Larry rolls his eyes, sucking on a pacifier. Tin Man hears a deep, rumbling voice in his head. 'Don't you see I have something in my mouth?'

'Revenants don't use their mouths to speak!' Ol' Curly angrily waves his walking stick. 'A few days in Columbia, and you've already forgotten how to talk?'

Big Larry's deep voice rumbles again. 'Revenants don't eat cilantro-flavored chips either, but you do.'

'What did you say?!'

'I'm saying... Ol' Curly, you damned fool! I've had enough of cilantro! You don't like cilantro either, Lil' Mo. Grab Ol' Curly's neck!'

'Sure... wait, he's a donut. Where's his neck?'

'Then grab the hole!'

'Woo-hoo—!'

'Fool! I meant his hole, not his whole!'

The lasso turns around in mid-air and flies towards Tin Man.

'Hey—' Tin Man swats it away. 'I'm the one who has to pay for all this ruined furniture. Can't you guys behave yourselves for the sake of my wallet... Well, for the sake of your chips?'

'We were so close!'

'I can't believe that cunning Columbian saw through it!'

'Hand over the hat, and I'll spare your wallet!'

The trio that had been fighting a moment ago now present a united front.

A hot dog, a donut, and a cheeseburger, all made from metal, like Tin Man.

'Cunning Columbian... is that a self-introduction?' Tin Man leans against the sofa armrest. 'You've got your passports right here... Hey, where did they go? Did you steal them again, Big Larry?'

Big Larry casually tosses three Columbian passports into the air. 'Not my fault you lost them because you're not paying attention.'

'One of these days, I'm sewing all my pockets shut.' Tin Man waves his hand, and the passports fall back onto the ground. 'Have you any idea how much effort it took to get these pieces of paper?'

Ol' Curly pokes Tin Man's knee with his stick. 'Can we go out onto the streets now?'

'Not so fast. Your security screenings are still in progress,' Tin Man says. 'Don't look at me like that. You wouldn't believe how many questionnaires and declarations I had to fill out these past few days.'

Lil' Mo, dressed in pioneer garb, kicks the air in disappointment. 'I'm about to suffocate, trapped in this cesspool all day! I want to sling guns and ride off into the sunset on a burdenbeast!'

'This isn't a cesspool, it's a transit center with special security measures. Everything here is valuable. Whoever left the tap on needs to shut it off, right now.' Tin Man takes a glance at the toppled TV and pulls the plug.

'Stop watching pioneer movies and childish comedies. You should've outgrown them millennia ago.'

'Like you're any younger,' counters Big Larry.

It looks so busy out on the streets...' Lil' Mo pokes his head into the gaps in the blinds, gazing out onto the midnight streets. 'But we're stuck in this stinking cesspool.'

'We should've gone back to Kazdel! At least there was heat in the furnace, and hot water that doesn't stop running!' Ol' Curly jumps on the sofa, and the sound of running water in the bathroom stops.

Tin Man knocks on his stiff joints with the back of his hand.

'We came with you because you promised Columbia was going to be fun!'

Tin Man removes his hat and uses it as a fan.

'I'll tell them you're a liar and a cheat!'

'Tell who?' Tin Man covers Big Larry with his hat. Big Larry has to hold the brim up with both hands to keep himself from being swallowed whole.

'Fremont? Wiš'adel? Or the one on her shoulder?'

Tin Man raises his voice.

'Kazdel is being born anew. All that is old is being melted down to form new bricks for the city. Who would care about you if you went back? What can you do?'

The revenants fall silent, and the lively music in the radio seems even more jarring.

Someone tutted, and the radio turned into a smoking pile of scrap in the blink of an eye, as though crushed by an invisible hand.

'One hundred and fifty gold certificates,' says Tin Man, 'deducted from your pocket money.'