It was a warm and hazy summer afternoon that had Harvey less than excited to go see clint at the sweltering heat of his forge, but he had promised he would come along to a bbq Clint had planned for their book club.
Emily and Elliot were chatting animatedly at Clints kitchen table, and he joined them with a waved hello. Emily broke out in a cheerful grin to see him. And Elliot shook his hand and clapped him on the back as he joined the well dressed pair.
"Hello Harvey, are you well?" asked Elliot in his typically booming and theatrical voice. The aristocratic but disheveled writer contrasted with the fashionable blue-haired girl in her long sleeve red dress. Her jewel-like eyes sparked as Emily grinned at him.
"Oh Doctor Harvey, its so lovely to see you. Your aura is so positive its delightful." Harvey smiled back, unsure if that was a compliment. He was closer to Clint that this boisterous pair but he liked both of their creative outlooks of the world, even when he clashed with more of Emily's 'natural medicine' approaches.
The food had been cooked over the cooling forge and was delightful; sweet glazed yams, tasty baked fish, and fresh cooked bread. All accompanied by some of Gus's special Pale ale Emily had gotten from the Saloon. At some point Elliot had brought out some fine plum wine and the half glass Harvey had sipped already had his head spinning. Soon enough they were gossiping about the state of last years town Luau and giggling about the governor throwing up into his fancy moustache and the rancid soup that had been trained by someone in the village, the culprit still unknown.
Emily and Elliot mostly dominated the conversation, matching each other for long and rambling conversations that left Clint and Harvey hanging onto the edges of the conversation trying to join in.
Eventually the night wound down to a close, a hiccuping Elliot left to head back to his beach front cabin reciting lines allowed to himself as he did. As Harvey was about to leave to walk Emily home on the way back to his apartment Clint interjected.
"Well hey what do you guys think of another game before we call it a night, Emily what do you say?" Clint seemed nervous, his eyes bright with drunken confidence still couldn't meet Emily eye. But Emily did crack a dreamy smile.
"Oooh I do love games, how about truth and dare?" Clint nodded vigourouly and Harvey found himself a third wheel sucked into the scene as he three of them sat on the bench outside the forge.
"You go first Harvey, ask me a truth." Demanded Emily with a drunken slur. Harvey groaned back at her.
"Have you ever broken a bone?" He asked dryly, Emily stuck her tounge out back at him.
"Yes, my arm in 3rd grade when Hayley pushed me off the playground. But I want jucier questions than this Harvey!"
"I got one for you Harv," floated Clints voice across the yard, "How many dead bodies have you seen, like up close. You must have seen a few being a doctor and all but I often wondered." His voice sucked the air out around Harvey, its was a heavy question to him, taking him back to his time as a student in a busy training hospital in Zuzu city where violent injuries and deaths were far more common than here in the peaceful Stardew Valley.
"Truthfully, I don't have an exact count, through my time in medical school we would do dissections on donated bodies, so you get desensitized to death. I didn't like that as much as being a GP where you can see people through their life, not just in their worst or final moments."
"Jeeze Clint, that got heavy quick." Snipped Emily, breaking the quiet tension,
"My turn next and its your turn Mr Blacksmith." Clint floated closer out of the shadows towards Emily's bright sirens voice. "Are the stories that Gunther tells me about the mines true, that there are vast civilizations of a tunnel city for the dwarves under the mountain?" Clints jaw dropped open, and he shook his head.
"What kind of truth and dare question is that Emily?" Clint gruffly admonished turning red as a beet, but Emily was undeterred. With a sigh he tried to answer, "I don't go into the mines much, and never too deep as it's not civilized anymore with mostly bugs and animals infesting its tunnels. But the mines do have an odd style. There are old railroad minecarts, and you can find seeds in some of the sandy soils, come to think it does have some odd text and writing carved into some levels."
Harvey watched with surprise as Clint's face turned pensive as he really thought on Emily's words. Emily herself looked delighted, her blue eyes wide picturing the old dwarven society and its strange language.
"You should ask Marlon about it, or some of the other old timers at the adventurer's guild up in the mountains. Most of them remember it before it was sealed off by that Joja landslide few years back so if there's any truth in the old stories they would know." Clint had no nerves in his voice as he spoke how, meeting Emily's eye for the first time.
"Or Harvey's farmer might know about it, Abigail told me she has reached the bottom, raided a horde of loot and treasure on the way, came out covered in monster gore and laden with stolen gems." Emily's voice was wistful, Romanizing Abigail's violent recounting. Harvey almost didn't pick up on the naming until the noticed the pair both staring at him waiting in interest at whatever secrets he had. He remembered the mysterious voice at the sewer speaking of humans and dwarves, his mind began to swim in hazy lines as his drunk brain figured out how much to say.
"Firstly she's not my farmer, and secondly while any injuries cannot be disuccesed due to patient doctor privligage I will say she is in the clinic for those undisclosed injuries very frequently, and she finds many interesting artifacts back with her." He thought on the device she had shown him after he had tended to an infected bat bite. It had been a metallic box, almost like a handheld version of Gus's arcade games but battered and busted in over time, its keypad broken and characters ineligible. "I guess some of those relics seem more like technology now you mention it."
Harvey felt like his brain was suddenly itchy, he could feel the alcohol in his drunk brain distracting him for putting something together. Clint and Emily continued the conversation on without him as he sat outside the forge staring into the summer night filled with the noise of bugs, bats and all manner of dark shadowy creatures. He straightened his glasses and sat up straight as he tuned out of the conversation and into the night around them, why did he suddenly feel like he was being watched. He couldn't fight his strange curiosity anymore, with a bravery gifted by the wine he stood up and grabbed his jacket to leave.
"I think I will call it a night, but don't let me keep you. Clint I sure you can walk Emily home, if that's alright?" Harvey felt like a new brave version of himself as he gave a sly wink to Clint that had the blacksmith suddenly nodding and stammering in reply.
"Yes, sure I – uh, love to walk. Huh I mean, to walk you Emily. I mean not love! Not walking that is, ha." Emily looked a bit disappointed to see Harvey leaving but she tried not to show a sad face to Clint.
"Sure, get home safe yourself Doc." With a last wave he followed the worn path past the ice cream stand to the bridge by the beach. It wasn't the fastest route, but this adrenaline burst inside of him was calling him towards the river south of town. Plus the more cautious side of him also preferred the street lighting in this route and decoration the farm had begun to place around town.
As he crossed the cobblestone bridge his courage continued to buoy him up, and he grew nearer to the graveyard in the middle of town. He skirted past the corner and his adventurous bravery had him look out into the slightly overgrown garden and at the stone graves. He knew the one close to him as it was different from the rest, the text worn but legible – yet entirely unreadable being a squiggly alphabet that made no sense. It made his brain itch again, his mind racing.
"What if the writing on the headstone is the same writing as Clint saw in the mines," He wondered aloud to the cool evening air, "if they lived her long before us the mines may just be less touched by time and the elements that the rest of town." He wasn't so sure about that thought, surly there may be some archiological record of clivlsation elsewhere if they were so advanced. He began the walk to the town square back past the flowers and park bench.
"Or maybe they only lived here, lived here for a very long time to make such sophisticated technology. And if they only lived here then maybe that's why they got wiped out – some terrible event happened to all these people at once and they were wiped out so well no evidence of them ever got out of their small location." The more he spoke the more it all felt like some fantasy novel, he laughed at himself in the night.
"Harvey you have cracked the case, detective, doctor you can do it all."He happily slurred to himself as the plum wine won over the itchy fire in his mind and he finally tucked himself safe and sound into bed high above the clinic.