Atop the tower, elevated only by her bravery and understanding, the librarian reached where the two wanderers could not. The tower was standing tall, and the librarian was alone. She was searching—and searching for truth that could come close for the invisible force from the machinery of the princess.
"Hmm...not here, not here, no—definitely not that one..."
"Come on, come on...where is it? Where is the darn truth? I know it should've been here...!"
"Is it really here...? Or is it not?"
But all she finds is nothing but a waste of an idea. The blueprint of this brilliance was nothing but a fool's work and exaggerated theories. Her focus remains on the invisible force, but there's no hint of this energy elsewhere other than sparks across the room.
"I had to find it...I could find it! I just know I could..."
"Maybe I could try connecting some of these machines like puzzles...see how they do their magic...and...and..."
"Cursed force. How can I read something invisible?"
Yet it didn't stop her from wandering through the observatory herself. The princess's castle is immense, delivering sparks through metals in a way she had never seen before. Entangled by the source of this machine, the librarian fell easily into the spark like a moth to a fire.
"This is terrible. So terrible..."
"What do I do...? What should I tell others about this? I surely can't..."
"No, I could...I knew I could...I just had to...keep going..."
"Truth is here...I just knew it..."
The princess tower is filled with transformative thoughts. Everything here is a change from an old method. From blaze turns sparks, even a machine for a simple task was done with less heat. But nothing about the process here seems normal for the librarian to comprehend.
"Done feasting those curious eyes, outsider?" The princess mumbled from behind.
"Princess! R-right. Just trying to have a look around for me to note..."
"You're quite a bookworm? I didn't think someone could be so tempted with truth this much...but as I said, let the ambition sparks as you will."
"Thank you, thank you...is it possible if you show me some machine here that uses invisible force?"
"Invisible force? Oh, you silly..."
The princess stands behind her as a comforting presence to change the tone of the room. Darkness was not too fit for the princess and her metal armour, but the librarian was more than happy to see her here—along with her creation in any light. The two ladies just get along so easily with these shares of creations.
"So how do you make these things?" Eve is holding the small, moving wheel on the table. It moves smoothly and endlessly without a change in speed.
"Oh...these? I didn't make it. I just did some tinkering and tampering on metals that are already there, little cat. Then, I add some improvisation..."
"That sounds absurd. Surely there's some scientific explanation here! Especially with an invisible force!"
"Oh, believe me, young one. It would be more difficult for you to understand if I had a paper on it." The princess glare back with a menacing smile.
"Darn it."
But the princess doesn't share wisdom. Her creation is too complex for the librarian to understand. She keeps innovating something new from the past, making it hard for the librarian to recognize the old machine it used to be before her making. Metals forged into something—something that hasn't yet been thought of.
"These machines you've been making. You seemingly find it so easy just to slap everything as a solution, huh?"
"You don't have to remember everything here. As long as you get the change in your head, you'll understand how it works. Things always change and you're not going to get anything you want from returning to the past." Alpha mumbled, hands grabbing a wrench and a plier from the workbench.
"The only truth here is that nobody should last for a reason to live. They should know that they make their own paths the moment they step out of the boundary between foundation and society..."
"Once you are free like me, machines are not simply a design. It's an art, and art doesn't need a design as long you as you can direct the paintbrush with your eyes closed."
But the newness does not suit the librarian. Everything about the inventions felt too shallow and lack of understanding. It is as if the librarian wanted to know more about the machines to cover up the darkness in her thoughts. She was a curious wanderer, but even an answer does not fit her.
"Then I'm afraid all of these are a lost cause for me. I didn't give myself freedom just to topple what's designated to be right. In my eyes, everything had to be coordinated through precise understanding..." Eve sat on the workbench, throwing blueprints and her book in desperation. The hope was nearly gone for this plan.
"But I? I failed to understand everything that existed here. This 'spark' is meddling with me. Trying to rid of me of the truth I have been a witness for long."
She knew she had to make it right for the wanderers. Otherwise, they could not return home. But how can the librarian believe she could do so with only a truth? The storm has ceased into the town and left it in terrible shape, so there's really nothing they can do. The truth is, the librarian didn't know what to do.
"My cleric friend...he's a devoted man. He had so much history back in the town and he loved it so much, he couldn't leave them..." Eve pulls out a shred of Cyrus's amice on her shoulder.
"When the disaster struck us, we were helpless. I was helpless, and I couldn't stop but hearing his plea to somehow alter the fate of others..."
"I've been trying to keep him off of the worry. I've tried not to engage him into the past, trying to riddle him in this game of questions at everything we could've thought of."
"I tried to tell him a story so he doesn't make one. Because he'll look back for the people he had cried upon. But that really are annoying..."
"The truth is—I truly resent his works and name. He worked in a way that keeps endangers himself, and he gets too attached with these people more than he do to me and Charger."
"It felt like he didn't care about anyone who doubted him. And I hate it. He was my lifelong friend since we've met, but he was so...stubborn..."
"Then I saw this town, and I think of it...I think of a way. But my friends? The cleric? He didn't favour this. And he wouldn't...he wanted that home. I wanted him to realize there's nothing waiting for him."
"There's really...nothing. I could only give him a false hope...because the truth is too bitter to him. He didn't want it...he just wanted home..."
"I just hope maybe the priest can just enjoy living here, instead. Can he?"
That's when the princess realized the librarian's flaw. She was so weak in her enlightenment and admired only the amenity of ignorance while eluding herself through the false sense of the future. Seeing the one soul uninnovated by the truth of her homeland brings her pity to help.
"Such a pity soul. That man had you believe in his design?" Alpha drops her stuff and shuts off her machines. The banging engine finally made it clear for her to hear Eve.
"I would say he had a hope for something. Maybe he has a reason to not accept the truth." Eve replies, denying Alpha's words.
"But you shouldn't have a reason to be stopped by him. You were a soul in seek of a newness—a truth formed in an innovation. But him? He wanted his past, and he wanted only to cling on it forever."
"Outsider, you deserve to feel yourself. You have the bravery of travelling here by yourself with him and your metal friend. But you cannot come here and say you are incapable of honesty when you are in fact... an honest life."
The princess slowly creeps her hand through the librarian's shoulder, comforting her with a soothing tone that confuses the librarian with a friendly gesture. But little did she know that the princess was keeping her as her new fortune of innovation—a mind of brilliance and curiosity with flesh so pure that it felt so priceless.
"But my friend—his life is honest, yet still he was lied to by fate. How could one life be redeemed but others not?" Eve sat in depression, her head lowered and soon her face drowning in the darkness of her head. But Alpha's hands
"Oh, Outsider. He was living a life of lies. There was no honesty in a man that shrouded himself in one's vanity without an effort. He who believes higher without an exercise is destined to work for their failure more." Alpha leaned down and brushed one strand of hair away from Eve's left ear.
"It is time you gave him a change of heart with an honest heart. The lie shall not be made from the grip of longing."
She sings of the past, the nostalgia that occurs not long after she departs from Gold Creek. Rubbles and destruction are everywhere, shifting what was once harmony into destruction. Yet the librarian and her friends are thriving in this town with a minor injury. Such a memory was hurtful. The librarian remembered everything, the terrible change that she could not expect to happen.
"You have gone through many things in the town. Think of what Gold Creek has become since you left."
"The houses, the people, the idea—all gone by the storm. And yet, the cleric believes in you to change that?"
"You can change this. You just had to gave him the idea of your truth as a librarian. I can help you with that, but only if you are willing to do so yourself..."
Homes were torn, lives were taken, and those she remembered there had been wiped out but herself. This is the wisdom the librarian had to bear silently with a fake smile. Yet she moved forward, pretending that she could ignore what happened there with her fellow wanderers. When the librarian looked behind, she found a cold metal lying on her shoulder, burdening her down to the ground like a hook.
"You're right...you're damn right..." She stands up firmly, eyes no longer looking down on the floor. Alpha's face has never been clearer than this.
"I couldn't see this voyage going any where than here. This is the only place we've had after the collapse..."
"It's time we've had a talk about this."
The librarian tried resisting it, but she found it useless against the very thing she was looking for. Knowing that she couldn't be indifferent to her past, the librarian eventually weeps in sadness and stops her search as the truth now reveals what she feels—doubt. She had doubted for long about this fate.
"We are better together." He whispers again.
The room emanates with sparks, each born anew like the thought of an inventor. But there was never one for the librarian who clings so hard to what she had lost by the truth. The truth compels her to move, but the librarian could not be indifferent. But the princess could.
"Woah, that really was easy. Maybe you are a candidate for this town. Think about it. There are many novelties you can uncover here in your awakening truth-seeking nature." Alpha commented.
"I could imagine we could start with the Soulwill rivers. I heard there's a dispute happening there recently—meh, probably already settled by now."
The princess comforted her, sharing a little spark of her innovative mind to help her ease the grief of her lost hometown. The librarian was hardly moved by her words. But when she saw the princess's hand moving slowly towards her face, she felt a faint spark tingling in her ears. It was just like how she remembered the desire when she was gifted a motive.
"But what do I say about this town to appease that man? We both agreed this town is a bunch of heaps. No heartbreak..." Eve waves her hand in the plea as she is halfway determined to be Alpha's puppet.
"Fear not, outsider. I shall show you a refreshing thought first." Alpha unlocks the door.
"Why did you lock the door?"
"Oh, uh...I'm just worried about security issue..."
She had no choice but to end this mission. There was no hope of changing the world anymore with only a truth, nor could they make the new town from the force. All they have now is this Alphiore town to live, grow, and get stronger. So she had no choice but to go.
———————————————————————————————————
As the librarian walked along with the princess onto the balcony, she finally found peace within the luxury of witnessing Alphiore from above. Such an afternoon view with a heavy breeze at this altitude has never felt so much like home. It's still a town, even if it doesn't look like one.
"Woah..." She awes.
"I know, right? Never get bored when I see this view all they way on my tower. Too bad this isn't what it looks like yesterday."
"What do you mean?"
*Brak* *Woosh* *Crack*
"Wow..."
The librarian was awed for a moment, never to have seen the beauty of a town this high. But the view was never permanent, for there are things that rise and fall every second. Like Novelty, nothing in here has ever remained the same, and everything she had seen is only happening once.
"How can you survive a fall like this? What about the crime, what about the order? What about the inequality?" Eve pulls out her book.
"None. Crimes exist in a world of stillness, but when everyone is equal...evil becomes less influential. Everyone is free to do what they want, so being evil doesn't make them feel any proud." Alpha stands proudly with arms raised.
"Then why are you their princess if they're all free to be anything?"
"Because I'm the highest lady of the Novelty for now. My tower is the only one that matters. But I'm starting to point an eye on that tower over there..."
"So what happened when you're no longer the tallest one?"
"I'll be replaced by the new ruler, and I'll have to start a new one. That better not be happening now..."
Her book remains tight in her fist, turning from writing into a drawing. Her pencil had carved a shape that was not an alphabet of her past culminating knowledge. Instead, she is drawing the image of what she was seeing right through her eyes—remembering the truth as she should.
"I'm ready." She said.
———————————————————————————————————
In a moment of clarity, she finally finds the courage to confront the cleric of this lie. Down the spiralling stairs of trial and longing, she arrived back on the floor where the cleric feasted upon the dinner of his life. Satisfied, he had no idea what would kill his appetite now.
"Eve, you're back! How's the finding, friend? Got any idea about the invisible—I mean, a truth over there?" Cyrus drinks for his last. But Eve remained silent.
"Eve? Are you okay?"
The librarian took a seat before him, eyes facing front and guards standing between. The truth is sourer than the grape he is eating right now. But the librarian would make it short and haste, and whatever the cleric would react is her final state.
The princess glanced before the librarian with a confident eye, ready to hear her words. The truth shall be revealed before the cleric with such a cold, indifferent face. And the librarian had finally built up the courage for this.
"We're not coming home."