Central Square looks basically the same as before. There's still a ton of yellow tape around the entrance to the Guild and police presence is a lot heavier than usual. Past that, the Christmas tree is still just as beautiful as before, though a few more ornaments and decorations are on. Much more than what Violet might remember. Probably just for Christmas. Violet appears as she finds a bench or somewhere to sit by the tree, waiting for Luna and Elara to arrive. Luna appears in Central Square just taking in all of the sighs and sounds of the area.
Elara walks out the arcade with pep in her step. The moment she sees Luna and Violet, two people she loves talking to, she dashes over waving awkwardly. "Yooooo it's nice to finally meet you two! I'm Elara!!" She looks extremely happy. She's around 5'5" tall and rather muscular wearing a pink cropped hoodie with a black skull on it and plaid lounge pants. Her face is full of piercings, most notably her ears, eyebrows, and lip. Her hair is clearly dyed an extremely bright electric blue. On her back is a backpack with a rainbow colored rabbit plushie sticking out of it.
Violet waves back, "Hello! It's a pleasure to meet you too Elara!" Violet touches her own chest a bit, feeling to see if the feather under her shirt is reacting at all to Elara or the bunny.
The feather reacts slightly to Elara, but the bunny plushie has a stronger reaction, curling up and feeling warmer than usual.
Violet takes note, smiling at her new friend, "I hope you have been well?"
Luna opens her arms up for a hug and Elara accepts. it's almost like two long-lost sisters have met for the first time in ages. And that's because it is. In fact, it's less first time in ages and more first time ever.
"Yeah, just been on the run from my mom's cult. It's been kind of fun." Elara smiles and nods after releasing herself from the hug. "So how's life Luna?"
"It's life. Best I can give you. Chaos in its basic form, but I'm used to that." Luna shrugs.
"I hope your mom's cult is not give you to much trouble?" Violet asks.
Elara takes a moment to pause and reflect before responding, "eh they can be a handful sometimes. At least out here I'm able to help Luna and her friends try and solve things in this world. It's a learning experience.
Luna leans her head to the side, trying not to cry, and exhales a bit, "well thank you Elara. You've been a huge help. Anyway, should we go for a walk? Maybe we can explore the city a bit?"
Violet gives a thumbs up, "Sounds good to me.
"Sounds good Luna. I got so much to ask you!" Elara leads the trio on a walk around Central District. She seems to be in high spirits, but her attention is focused on watching all around her. "Let's just be careful. I'd rather not attract the attention of the cult."
Luna follows behind sticking near Violet as if protecting her.
Violet nods, walking with the group
The district is bustling with sights and sounds of all kinds. Different shops line the streets, like a bookstore, an electronics shop, and many stalls selling street foods. One store catches Luna's eye, one she's never seen before. Luna's eyebrows raise slightly, "Meow Meow Clothiers??? Why do I feel offended by that?"
"Oh that? That's a place to buy pet clothes. I'm not entirely sure what pet needs clothes, but it's cool." Elara shrugs.
The district has any store someone could imagine. Name a store and it probably exists.
Violet shrugs as well, "Who knows." Violet looks around the district, looking out for a bookstore and an antique shop. She finds a bookstore pretty easily. The Book Loft. "Mind if we go into the book store?"
Luna and Elara pause in their tracks as they see The Book Loft near them. "Sure that sounds good. I wouldn't mind seeing what kind of manga's out here."
"I've been needing something new to read too. Let's do it." Elara goes inside. Luna and Violet follow.
Despite the boring name, The Book Loft is a rather large store, much too large to browse and find something in a short amount of time. In front of them stands a help desk and a computer terminal. A sign that says, "looking for something special? Please use me!" is above the terminal with an arrow pointing at it.
Violet makes her way over to the terminal, typing in 'Creatures Of Legend'
The search phrase is accepted. The terminal takes a moment to load before it prints out a map to a book about legends. The book is in the Mythology section and is called "Legends of the Creatures of Legend."
Luna goes next to find the general area of the manga section and it turns out that's just the fifth floor. "Score! Elara where are you going to go?"
Elara takes a moment to think her plans, "I think I'll join Violet at the Mythology section."
Luna nods and walks off to the fifth floor, "if you need me for anything, tell me. I hear everything sent to my mind."
Violet heads up to the Mythology section, looking for the book that was listed. The Mythology section is a bit of a walk. The map takes her to the escalator up to the 6th floor where many of the world history books are found too, showcasing countries and continents that Violet's knowledgeable of, like USA, Japan, Europe, Africa, etc. From there, the Mythology section is easy to find. Walking past many books, near the end of the shelf, Violet finds the book "Legends of the Creatures of Legend" sitting dusty a little bit. The area smells odd, like someone had sprayed an oddly sweet perfume nearby.
Violet is curious of the smell but pays no mind as she grabs and opens the book, looking inside, flipping though it. It smells like an artificial cotton candy spritzer.
Flipping through the pages, Violet can see all kinds of sections about what seems to be various myths and legends about the Creatures of Legend, though many of the details are strange? Like almost as if some of these are fairy tales, or just completely made up on the spot. She does see one about what seems to be the Flamebearer, but some of the details make it seem like it's a lot more dangerous, details about it killing innocent children or burning down massive villages. Along with these details, a code number and a name is included.
So for example, the one that seems to the Flamebearer is coded
Violet notes it down, flipping though and getting a list of all the names of the CoL, noting all them down and a basic sentence of their inputted lies.
The book is way too huge to do that.
Violet grabs the book, making her way to check it out, flipping to the first CoL and starting to read while she walks
The very first Creature of Legend is codenamed CoL - 01: Dream Weaver, a large arachnid-like creature that spins webs to draw out dreamers and trap them in a purgatory that they cannot escape. Legend has it that the Dream Weaver only appears in the dreams of those troubled by their pasts and feeds on their stressors, causing them even harsher dreams to continue their cycle of madness.
Elara is peering over Violet's shoulder reading the book too. "Spider dreams?" they raise an eyebrow.
"Seems like it. Maybe that could have been that spider you heard about?" Violet flips thought the pages, scanning for anything mentioning the glitchlike states she's been experiencing"
"Maybe? But this book says it's only in dreams, so I don't know." Elara shrugs.
There are no Creatures of Legend that specifically mention those, though one of them, "CoL 24 - Psycho Puppet" mentioned how those who encounter it can see into the very makeup of the world itself. There's also a sentence that's written in pen instead of typed out that says "The Glitches haunt me. CoL - 00."
"Eh? The glitches???" Elara tilts her head.
"What? Seems like I'm not the only one?" Violet looks to see if there is more information on CoL - 00
Try as Violet might, there is no CoL - 00 mentioned in the book aside from the single sentence. In fact, on returning to CoL - 24's entry, the writing in pen has disappeared. Almost as if it was deleted from existence.
"I swear it was just there..." Violet goes back to the book store terminal, looking up 'The Glitches'
On entering 'The Glitches', the terminal seems to freeze up slightly and a loud air blowing noise comes from it. After a few minutes of this and Elara watching curiously, the Terminal seems to unfreeze itself.
On the screen, a sentence is written out. "Do you believe Glitches are real?"
Violet looks a bit worried, but keeps her focus. She types out 'Yes'
Behind Violet, Elara has stopped moving. The only one able to move currently is Violet. On typing "Yes" into the terminal, it responds, "Come and find me." It prints out a very distorted map of the bookstore much like the very first one for the Mythology section, but instead this one goes to the fifth floor.
Violet nods, looking to Elara feeling a bit sorry to leave them but shakes it off, rushing up to the fifth floor with the map in hand. The escalators have stopped working, but the stairs still function just fine. It takes Violet a while to reach the fifth floor, almost as if the entire bookstore is a glitched mess. Instead of going up five sets of stairs, it takes Violet 12 sets to reach the fifth floor.
The floor, contrary to what Luna said, does not have manga or anything anime related. In fact, this floor is completely empty. The entire floor looks almost like a void in space, except she can step on a hard surface and her breathing is perfectly fine. From somewhere within this room, a voice calls out to Violet. It does not sound like anyone she knows, the voice is heavily distorted and deep. It sends a chill down Violet's spine.
░▒▓█►─═ "𝔀𝔼Ļc𝕆ᗰ€ ⓉỖ 𝓂у ᗪ๏ϻ卂ίή, 𝔳𝒾ｏ𝓛ᵉŤ ήᵃⓄ𝓶เ." ═─◄█▓▒░
"Hello? Um who might you be? How do you know my name?" Violet looks around the void like area for the voice, curious of where it is coming from
The voice sounds like it is coming from all around her, from above and below. Even from inside of her. The voice is everywhere.
"ɨ ǟʍ ɛʀʀօʀ." it responds. It sounds like hundreds of distorted voices at the same time, though Violet is able to comprehend it just fine. "¥ðµ Ðð ñð† ßêlðñg hêrê Vïðlê† ñåðmï."
"I'm sorry? What do you mean I do not belong here? What is this world?"
Violet feels something poking at her.
"ι αм єяяσя. ι αм єνєяутнιηg."
The void begins to rumble a little bit, the darkness becoming more and more red. Violet feels stuck in place.
Violet starts to panic, trying to see what is poking her and where. "What do you want Error? What do you want with me?"
The moment Violet goes to look at what's poking at her, she wakes up on the ground with a very concerned looking Elara teary eyed next to her. "Violet! Violet! Are you okay?" The void is gone. She is back on the 6th floor laid on the ground.
Violet tries to sit up in a bit of a panic as she starts to ramble "W-what just happened. I was at the terminal... and there was this void thing on like this 12th floor of sorts... and something was poking me?"
Elara looks at Violet weirdly. "Uh no? You seemed to have passed out while reading the book. I was poking you to help you wake up."
Luna runs into the aisle where they are with a concerned look on her face, "good gods what happened?" she asks the two.
Violet tries standing up as she rubs her face, "I think I'm fine... but... I... what page was I on? I mean everything was red and someone telling me I don't belong here...?"
The book is turned to an entry about CoL - 14 "Freeze Ursa", a massive bear that's apparently responsible for Winter, creating blizzards that kill innocent children and destroy villages. The author clearly has it out for children and villages.
Violet grabs the book, looking to see who the author is. She finds a blurb about a Maximillian Solaire who wrote the book who seems to be an author of fictional tales and novels that are a hit with young adults. His most recent book, the Legends of the Creatures of Legend won a number of prizes all around the world and is especially popular in Capital City. Even just by his picture in the cover, he looks extremely smug. Punchably smug even. Luna looks uncomfortable by the revelation, "Maximillian Solaire??? He's from Solaire??? Ewwww." Elara is watching silently, tilting her head.
Violet takes the book, putting it in her bag, "It was weird... I met this creature thing I could not see. It's name was Error... weird."
"Error? Like I am Error?" Luna tilts her head. "You do realize that's something from a video game right?"
Violet thinks for a moment, going a bit silent, then asks, "Luna or Elara. Answer me this. Where is this city located?"
They both respond with Ohio and Luna adds that it's in Northern Ohio. Elara chuckles, "what was the fuckin meme, ohio gyatt rizzler something skibidi whatever?? idk zoomers."
Violet then continues her reasoning, "Then how is this city the only one with this kinda magic. How has the rest of the world not interacted that much if all with this place."
Luna shrugs, "beats me honestly. I barely understand it myself."
Elara is confused by the question, "What do you mean? We're not the only place with magical abilities."
"Then what other places have magical abilities?"
Elara freezes in thought, "uhhhh there's Japan for example. And uhm.. California?? Good question honestly."
Violet looks at bit worried as she rambled muttering herself, her voice barely audible, "What is this place... an RPG? That would make the level system make sense. And the Error might be an error in the code and I might be one as well because I'm not supposed to be here... that would explain the glitching as well... but what can do to prove if I am right?" While Violet is talking she is making her way to the terminal, lost in thought, as she looks up 'World Map'.
Luna and Elara raise their eyebrows in confusion, "Are you feeling okay Violet?" Luna asks honestly worried.
On entering "World Map", Violet is directed to the shelf right next to the terminal. The world map is exactly as Violet would expect, it looks like a normal atlas of Earth. The only real difference is that instead of "Columbus, Ohio" being the capital of Ohio, it's now Capital City and it's around the place where Cleveland would be. "See? Told you? The earth is exactly what we have at home, except we have Magical Abilities." Luna smiles.
"I'm fine just... on a hunch of something." Violet goes back to the terminal, typing in 'The Glitches' once again
On typing "The Glitches" it returns, "no results found"
"Damn..." Violet sighs "Sorry for worrying you guys. Just... got thinking about something. I'll worry about it later." After looking around a bit more, Violet suggests they leave and Luna agrees. She has a large basket of various manga to take home and offers to buy Violet "Legends of the Creatures of Legend." On approval, Luna takes it and her basket to the register. She struggles to look above it but Elara helps her out. After paying for everything, the clerk places everything into a few bags, bags of which go right inside of Luna's Portal Messenger Bag. The other bag, the one with Legends of the Creatures of Legend is handed to Violet, "Here ya go my friend. Don't think that's all I got for you by the way," Luna smiles brightly.
"Hm?" Violet looks inside the bag, curious of what else Luna got for her
There's another book, a hardback copy of Magic, An Understanding of Abilities by Luna Selene Nightshade, 5th edition "I figured this might help you a bit, Merry Christmas Violet."
"Aww why thank you! I've been meaning to get and read this! Merry Christmas to you too!" Violet gives Luna a side hug as she makes her way out the door.
The three walk out back to Central Square. Then excitedly, Luna says, "Yo Violet, are you ready to learn how to use your Flamebearer feather? I've been really excited to show you this."
"Hm? Oh of course! Let's do this!" Violet responds with excitement.
Elara looks excited as well. "Whoa, a magic lesson from Luna herself? That's so cool, can I come?"
"Please do!" Luna says as she started heading for the treeline, back into the outskirts as Elara and Violet follow right behind