Arcum led the way to the alleyway.
"You're stupid," Stelle laughed as she bounced behind Arcum. "Telling me to lead the way when I don't even know where it is!"
Grumbling, Arcum swatted at her, his hand behind his back swinging. "Shut up."
"What's the plan once you find her?"
Hysilens spoke up, asking about Stelle and Arcum's plan.
"I'm leaving that to Stelle," Arcum said. "She's leader now."
"Uh. No, am not," Stelle responded back.
"If it's a ghost, then we aren't dealing with it," Arcum explained. "If it's Sparkle, then we let Stelle deal with it. Either way, Hysilens, you and I aren't doing crap!"
Arcum let out a small cackle, before getting smacked on the back of the head by Stelle.
"Okay," Hysilens stated, before disengaging the conversation.
The trio soon arrived at the same alleyway that Arcum had previously tried to take as a shortcut.
As always, it was empty—the skeleton that was originally there no longer in sight.
"Here it was," Arcum said, gesturing to the empty alleyway. "It was here originally. I don't know whether or not anything happened."
Stelle walked forward from behind Arcum, scouting the alley. "Hm. I see."
"What do you see?" Arcum asked.
"I don't see anything," Stelle said.
Arcum deadpanned, looking to Hysilens for support.
Hysilens merely shrugged at Arcum's face, turning back to watch Stelle at work.
"Can you confirm that she was in a ghost hunting squad?" Arcum whispered to Hysilens, trying to confirm Stelle's background.
"I wouldn't know," Hysilens responded, not bothering to whisper. "If she has been, it would likely have been before she met me."
"So we're both trusting her, just blindly?" Arcum pointed out.
"Yes."
"Alright, fair game. We've been doing that for the past days anyway," Arcum remarked.
"Aha!" Stelle shouted, pointing down to a cobblestone block in the floor.
Arcum walked over, Hysilens behind him.
"Did you find something?" Arcum asked, looking toward where Stelle was pointing.
"This block..." Stelle said. "It's slightly chipped."
"... and that proves?" Arcum asked skeptically.
"Someone was definitely here before," Stelle said.
"Wow," Arcum thought. "Sherlock Holmes here."
Arcum turned to Hysilens. "Can you swap with Stelle?"
"I have no experience with ghosts nor illusions," Hysilens clarified, stepping back one step and holding her hands behind her back. "Please continue without me."
Arcum looked up to the sky. It had been a long day, and the blocky sun was no longer in the middle of the sky.
"Let's search for a little," Arcum suggested. "If we don't find anything, then we can just go rest for the night."
"Hopefully nothing happens this night, like Jing Yuan said happened last night."
While they were searching, Arcum decided to take off his armor and put it into his cluttered inventory—it was getting stuffy and annoying to move around in.
The group searched for half an hour in the alleyway and near the surrounding buildings and pathways, before regrouping in the original alley.
"Find anything?" Stelle asked, looking at the two.
Arcum and Hysilens both shook their head.
"Welp," Stelle said, shrugging off their failure almost immediately. "Then let's go get food and rest! I'm tired! I have rights."
"Ok," Arcum agreed. "We can wrap up. Do you know who's taking care of accommodations?"
"I can ask the general," Stelle responded. "And if worse comes to worse, we can just steal a bed in the infirmary!"
"Lingsha won't be happy about that," Arcum stated.
"Mm," Hysilens agreed, nodding her head.
"Yoo-hoo~"
The three were brought out of their thoughts by a holler from above.
Looking up, Arcum spotted a petite girl with dark brown hair, tied into two pigtails. She had fluorescent pink eyes, and a kitsune mask on the side of her head.
She was wearing what seemed to be a sleeveless red kimono, decorated with gold lining, cherry blossoms, and Japanese accessory motifs.
"Looking for little ol' me?" The girl asked teasingly, making an akanbe face towards the group below.
"Oh, hi Sparkle!" Stelle said, waving her hand up at the girl. "Want to come down?"
"Oh, but that's no fun, is it~" Sparkle hummed, putting a finger on her cheek and reeling her head back slightly. "Why don't you catch me instead?"
"I say we make Hysilens catch her," Arcum said.
"Why?" Hysilens asked.
"You're fast. Reason enough?"
Hysilens didn't respond, looking back up at Sparkle.
"Plus," Sparkle added. "If I go with you now, I have to stop pulling pranks... I just got here not too long ago, you know?"
"You can still talk with us—"
Before Arcum could finish speaking, Sparkle had dashed off, running across the rooftops and away.
"Catch her..?" Arcum shouted, which also sounded more like a question.
"Hysilens, you go that way!" Stelle said, pointing to one end of the alley before pointing to the other end. "I'll go this way."
"Me?" Arcum asked, pointing to himself.
"Arcum, you be Arcum!" Stelle responded.
"... piss off," Arcum thought as he watched his two comrades split off from him to cut off Sparkle.
Arcum look up from the alley to the rooftop, looking in his inventory for anything to follow.
"Blocks, or I could practice with parkour..."
Arcum decided to choose the former, pulling out cobblestone blocks.
"Sorry!"
Arcum started to pillar up onto the roof, hopping off his cobblestone pillar and onto the roof, spotting Sparkle dashing off, the setting sun slowly causing the base to descend into darkness.
Sparing no more time, Arcum chased after Sparkle, leaping over small gaps between rooftops, placing blocks where he needed to in order to close the distance faster.
Looking back up after block-clutching onto another roof, his eyes widen as Sparkle was no longer there.
"Woah, you're fast, aren't you~"
Arcum whirled around to see Sparkle, leaning over his shoulder, giggling profusely.
"You'll have to be faster~"
She burst into red flames, the embers disappearing into the wind.
"An illusion?" Arcum wondered aloud, before snapping out of it.
Spinning back around to where he previously saw Sparkle run off to, he noticed a small silhouette leaping down off the roof and onto the floor.
Arcum leapt from the roof down onto the wall, pulling out his trident and plunging it into the wall to slide down.
Once down safely on the floor, he pulled out his trident and ran out of the alley he descended into and out onto the main road.
People were still all around, walking and talking as if nothing was happening. The torches on the street lit up the area as the sun continued to set, although some seemed a bit antsy.
To the antsy people, Arcum went out on a limb to assume they were scared of what happened the previous night, but he had no time to pay attention.
"Over here~"
A voice called out from afar.
Arcum squinted his eyes to see Sparkle, waving at him, before putting a hand to her mouth and running off around a building.
"... is she trolling me? Or is she doing this with Hysilens and Stelle, too?"
Bonk!
As Arcum started running forward, he ran and collided into someone, falling onto his rear.
Shaking his head and looking up, he spotted Stelle.
"What are you doing here?!" The two exclaimed at the same time.
"Sparkle went that way!" Stelle said, pointing behind Arcum.
"I swear she went that way," Arcum rebutted, pointing behind Stelle.
"Argh, just keep looking!" Stelle said, rushing past Arcum to continue her chase for Sparkle.
"She's definitely playing us," Arcum mulled in his head. "And it's probably working."
Arcum ran around the building where he saw Sparkle run off to, finding the road empty, no torches in sight.
"That's a mob spawning hazard," Arcum said instinctively.
"Oh, scared of a little dark?"
Arcum heard Sparkle, his head darting around, unable to pinpoint her exact location.
"Don't worry, it's all just in your head~"
When he blinked, the torches were back. Although there still were no people on the road, it could just mean that nobody was walking here.
"You definitely have a cooldown for this," Arcum stated out loud, hoping Sparkle could hear him.
"How did you know?" the voice called back, a playful mirth still in her tone. "But it's not nearly as long as you make it out to be, hehe~"
"I want her," Arcum bluntly thought in his head. "This is some good utility."
"You've given up on chasing me?" The voice called out yet again, Sparkle appearing at the end of the road, sticking her tongue out at Arcum. "Come on, it's no fun if you don't play along."
"Maybe I don't want her..."
Arcum held back a sigh and ran to the end of the path, following Sparkle as she rounded yet another corner.
As he followed her around the building, Arcum is met with the clinic building.
"I ran here?"
Boom!
Red incense spilled out from the oak door as the door exploded outward.
Lingsha stepped out, her face looking calm, but the fist balled up at her side telling a different story.
"Arcum," she started, her voice holding back the fury of a thousand suns. "Why in Lan's name... did you burst in here, start bothering the patients, and wreck the place?"
"I wasn't in there," Arcum sorted out in his head. "Illusion? Was she also played?"
"My reputation is in the gutter..." Arcum trailed off slowly, before returning his gaze back to Lingsha, firm and determined. "Miss! I have been framed!"
"You just ran out of the clinic as I shot incense at you," she remarked. "And, I saw you do it."
"I didn't see me do it, though!"
It sounded weird, but Arcum meant what he said. He didn't see himself do it.
Arcum could have sworn he saw her eyebrow twitch.
"And can you prove... that you've been framed?"
"I cannot!"
Lingsha rubbed her forehead with her fingers, before her gaze cut through Arcum. "And you wonder why I don't take breaks, hm?"
Before Arcum could respond, his eyes spot Sparkle, laying on the roof of the clinic, her hands on her stomach as she laughed silently.
"... wait, you can laugh silently? That's one crazy lady..." Arcum thought.
"Uh. Stelle can explain. And I'm gonna catch the culprit too, so don't you worry, Miss Lingsha!"
Lingsha must have sighed for what seemed to be the hundredth time as she looked Arcum up and down. "Very well. I will give you the benefit of the doubt."
With that, she turned around and walked back into the clinic, most likely to fix whatever mess Sparkle made inside the clinic.
With Lingsha gone, Arcum looked back up to where Sparkle laid, her face gleaming with smugness as she looked down at Arcum.
"Come down here. I want to talk," Arcum said.
"You still haven't caught me, you know~"
"I found her!"
Stelle's voice cut through the night as two pairs of footsteps approached Arcum.
Turning around, Arcum saw Stelle and Hysilens approach the clinic, Stelle pointing up to Sparkle. "I found her! See!"
Hysilens poked Stelle's shoulder, pointing her attention to Arcum.
"Wait, you got here first? Wow!" Stelle said, aghast at Arcum arriving first.
"Oh, well, I guess you're all here," Sparkle responded dramatically, hopping down from the clinic roof and landing on one foot, her other slipper falling off slightly. "I suppose I can drop it... for now~"
"Drop it forever," Arcum declared bluntly.
"No can do, mister~"
"Join us, Sparkle!" Stelle exclaimed abruptly, pointing at Sparkle. "We have fun!"
"Oh, alright, if you say so then Nameless~" Sparkle accepted instantly. "What kind of fun?"
"Can we interrogate her first?" Arcum asked. "She's also ruined my reputation with Lingsha, so I'm kind of irked."
Arcum turned to face Sparkle. "First things first, why are you here..? You're just pulling pranks, when you said you got here not too long ago."
"Ah, well," Sparkle started, her voice still chipper and dramatic. "I was pranking some blocky people with long noses, until a hunk of metal decided to kick me out violently! How rude, really."
"Hunk of metal? People with long noses..?" Arcum noted, putting the pieces together in his head instantly.
"Wait, you found a village?!"