Lowee was already a kingdom straight out of a fairy tale.
But at night, it looked like a city of crystals.
All the streets were lit by luminescent blue lanterns, and their glow reflected off the icicles and snow, creating an artificial veil of aurora light around the buildings, topped off by the ring of rainbow-colored lights that floated around the Basilicom like a giant crown.
Not many people were out here, enjoying the magnificent views, however.
For it was twenty degrees below freezing outside, and the wind was howling mercilessly above the domed buildings and cone-shaped roofs, bringing countless snowflakes along with it that scraped across her skin like tiny glass shards.
Even her soft, huggable rabbit companion didn't offer her much protection from the cold, as she walked around the deserted bus station in circles, trying to keep herself warm through rapid movements and failing miserably at it. Across the street, lights still shone through the windows of a few buildings, but she knew that the doors were locked.
Why? Why did she take the bus all the way back to the arcade? Was she expecting that woman at the front counter, Asa, to offer her a place to stay or something? Impossible, since every shop on this street was closed, and their employees had probably left for home a few hours ago.
Maybe she should have stayed in Lastation after all. It would still be cold at night, but at least she could sleep on some unoccupied solid surface without the very real risk of freezing to death. Who knows, if she kept walking around the bus station, she might just fall asleep while standing, get buried in a pile of snow, and never wake up after that. What an embarrassing way to die...
Darn it. What was with all these macabre thoughts? She couldn't just succumb to her fate like that. Besides, if she died here, bad things would immediately happen back on the PC Continent—what was Gertie's theory on that? "A localized MESA Class Resonance Event caused by the sudden deprivation of..."
She finally stopped walking and pinched herself on the face, just to clear up her mind a little—even though her hands and cheeks were already numb from the cold. There had to be a way out of this situation.
Her knockings on the doors might not have received any responses, but maybe she just needed to try harder? Be more persistent?
Heck, maybe the shop owners would get so annoyed that they ended up calling the police, and she would be arrested for loitering. Oh, Clancy was going to be so proud of her when she came to bail her out, a week later...
But the inside of a jail cell would be a lot warmer, and frankly, that was all she cared about right now.
She absent-mindedly made her way across the street, staring at her boot prints in the shallow snow. There wasn't a single vehicle out on the street at this hour, and with how narrow the roads were, Lowee's oldest city district just did not seem like it was ever built to accommodate modern traffic. Guess the low crime rates also meant no regular police patrols.
...She couldn't believe she was starting to miss having several Gold S.R.C. vehicles wheezing past the windows of her residence every night, back on the artificial continent.
Homesickness and possible hypothermia was not a good combination. As she was glancing around, looking for a building with its lights still on, the tall spire to her left almost looked like one of those signal towers she used to climb when she was younger. And a pang of nostalgia just hit her squarely in the chest at that observation.
With how slippery and smooth most buildings in Lowee were, all those sharp edges on the spire and the elaborate carvings on its exterior would make it a piece of cake to ascend, compared to everything else. Wait—did she see an open window up there? Maybe the darkness and exhaustion were playing tricks on her mind, but...
She peeked around, carefully. Not a single living soul was on the street. Only shadows, silence, and snow. Which meant—
One, two, three. She closed her eyes, and they were glowing gold as she opened her eyes once again. Embracing the sudden clarity in all of her senses, she raised her head and concentrated her sight on the spire.
Seventh floor, definitely open, large enough for a person to fit through, right above a narrow ledge one could grab onto...footprints? On the same ledge?
She counted to three again, closed her eyes, and felt her senses returning to normal. That was suspicious.
Another gust of wind blew through the streets, causing her to shudder uncontrollably. Well, it was either climbing into that window or freezing to death outside. If she hesitated any longer, even the enhanced senses and agility granted by her power might not stop her from screwing up at the worst moment during her climb.
Rubbing her hands together in a futile attempt to regain some warmth, she put down her backpack on a snowless patch of pavement, stuffed the big plushie inside (its ears were still stubbornly sticking out, but good enough), then walked to a spot directly beneath the window she saw.
The power rushed through her veins once again, as she took a few steps back for a running start, before jumping towards the wall and using a well-timed kick to propel herself upwards. She quickly grabbed onto the first decorative ring of overhang around the body of the spire, lifted herself onto the tiled platform, and counted to three.
The strange calmness and glee that came with the Gold Form were quickly displaced by exhaustion and a surge of adrenaline, as she knelt on the narrow overhang. But she was used to that, at least.
Not bad. Now she just had to repeat the process six more times.
In a dark alleyway behind Lowee's National Archive of Magical Scrolls and Runes, squeezed in between rows and rows of domed buildings, a small silhouette was sitting in the snow.
Her face buried in her arms, she remained as still as a statue. Snowflakes piled onto her cyan-colored hair, and her dark, short-sleeved vest that was entirely unsuitable for the weather, but she did not react to the cold at all.
"Go say my apology..." She murmured, in a shaky voice, "...to that other kid I killed."
Her left hand, previously clenched tightly in a fist, suddenly went limp. A small shard slipped out from her palm and fell onto the snow. Its weak blue glow was the only light in the inky darkness of the alleyway.
After a while, she finally looked up at the moonless sky. Her gaze was unfocused, her eyes glassy and cold, like stones in a stream. If one could see through the darkness, the raw redness around her eyes, and the fresh scar on her forehead would be visible at first glance.
This small movement quickly faded back into motionlessness, and for a moment, it seemed like she was about to drop her head down back into her arms, once again—
—Until something caught her sight, up high in the air.
As she squinted her eyes, focusing her sight on the jarring silhouette moving up the building, she unconsciously reached for the shard and held onto it with an iron grip.
Warmth! Central Heating! I'm alive!
Words could not describe her joy as she clung onto the window rail with one hand, awkwardly tossed her backpack through the window, then squeezed herself through the same narrow space.
After what seemed like an eternity moving across narrow ledges in the howling wind, the small stairwell she found herself in was a safe haven. A paradise, really, despite the smell of cigarettes, moldy mops, and dust.
It took several minutes for her stiff, frozen fingers to regain some sensations after she shut the window, removed her gloves, and tucked her hands into her sleeves. It was a miracle that she didn't miss a grip, or slip and fall off a ledge out there. Fate might like to kick her while she was down, but it didn't seem to wish for her death. Yet.
The indoor space was completely dark, and it took some fumbling around the walls to find the light switch. She walked down the stairs, grabbed the door handle on the sixth floor, and tried to open it. Locked.
Well, there went her small hope of going into the building proper, and finding a comfortable couch to spend the night on...but hey, at least those stuffed rabbits in her bag would make sleeping on the floor a little more bearable.
Removing the smaller plushies from her backpack, she arranged them into a pile, before switching off the light with the big plushie in hand and collapsing onto the soft cushion in the dark.
Her elbows still pressed uncomfortably against the hard floor, as she shifted her position and pulled her hood down. But the warmth, darkness, and her exhaustion were making this temporary rest spot a lot more homely than it actually was.
"Goodnight, little one." She whispered, burying her face into the soft body of the stuffed rabbit as she closed her eyes, and drifted into the sweet, sweet void of sleep.
Tomorrow would be a much better day. Hopefully.
Verdna Sirotek wondered if it was possible to be bored of boredom.
After spending thirty years in the same building, nothing in Lowee's National Archive of Magical Scrolls and Runes was new to her. Yet she would still wander through the spire every night, from the basement to the rooftop, stare at the sky for an hour, then go all the way back down.
Rinse and repeat, out of sheer force of habit. Even the soul-crushing boredom was becoming a comfortable routine, a kind of quiet, pensive sleep for a ghost who can't fall asleep.
The everlasting status quo makes small changes stand out, really, a stray thought flashed through her mind as she drifted back into the building, leaving the howling winds behind her.
The top floors were dedicated to the preservation of scrolls and writings that were well over a thousand years old, and every single wall was embedded with some kind of temperature or humidity control spell. She knew well enough not to pass through one of them, as she made her way around the corridors.
The coldness aura around her really screwed with the more delicate spells, and it would be a great irony for those priceless collections—some of which had been stored here since the original spire was first constructed, during the reign of Lowee's second Goddess—to perish in the hands of a careless librarian.
And there it was, the gate to the actual staircase. Travel two more levels down the stairs, and she could go back to phasing straight through the floor like the spooky scary ghost she was.
While she was making a final check for stragglers, before the archive officially closed its door tonight, she did notice that the staircase window on the seventh floor was open. Judging by the cigarette butts on the nearby floor, that old janitor probably sneaked off to take a smoking break here, again...why they still hadn't fired him was one of the great mysteries in this archive that she could never find an answer to.
Verdna did not expect to come across a person, sprawled out on the floor, when she turned around the corner and glided down the staircase. She almost phased right through their body, before making an abrupt stop in midair at the last second.
They were sleeping soundly, on a pile of toys that looked like...the Vorpal Bunny's mentally challenged cousins.
Verdna bent down to get a closer look at the mysterious intruder's face, relying on the soft glow of her ghostly form for illumination.
This person was definitely not here when the archive closed its doors. Nor did Verdna see her while she was going up the stairs an hour ago. And the open window was slammed shut now. Which meant the only possible point of entry might be that window.
Even if she would have to climb up seven floors from the outside.
Out of the ordinary, but not impossible, Verdna gazed at the sleeping person's face, frozen in a goofy, childish smile that could only come from the sweet relief of dreams—something that she had not experienced in decades. You know someone who has that kind of climbing skills, after all. While you were still alive.
Speaking of which, this stranger here would look exactly like Brøø, if her hair was a little shorter and messier, and she was ten years younger. It was such a Brøø thing, too, climbing into random high places like there would be a trapped princess somewhere, waiting for her to rescue—
Verdna shook her head. She considered herself quite well-adjusted to her new life after death, but moments like these stood out like a sore thumb. Made her aware that it had really been thirty years, since her departure.
Verdna darling, you are getting old. What's next? Reminiscing about the good old days, while grumbling about "kids these days", just like that sorry janitor?
As if sensing her pensive thoughts, the stranger stirred in her sleep, and the smile on her face slowly disappeared, fading into a deep frown as she dug her fingers into the big stuffed rabbit, and mumbled something to herself.
Unpleasant dreams, hmm. Perhaps it would be best if Verdna left her alone, and came back in the morning to check on her. These adventurer types still had their pride, even if they were dirt poor, and had to spend the night in a dusty staircase that smelled like cigarette butts. Sticking a cold, ghostly hand through her face to wake her up was unlikely to be met with a warm reception.
Verdna was ready to drift away when a faint beeping rang through the hollow gap between the stairs. It quickly became a shrill screech, as the silent intercom on the wall came to life, and started broadcasting in a loud monotone.
"Warning. This is not a drill. The fire alarm on Level B2 has been sounded. Please evacuate the building through the emergency exits. Do not take the elevators..."