"A wandering spirit in a cloak?" said the strange man in a conical straw hat, a blue robe, and a sword strapped to his left with a sash around his waist.
"The Cloaked Wanderer- they call it." replied a drunken man sitting one seat apart from him by the bar counter. "Every few moons, some folks would see it in the streets, walking as if it was searching for something."
"Its been years since I heard a ghost story."
"You can call it whatever you want." said the drunken man before having another gulp of beer from his wooden mug. "Not that anyone knows much about it… except for one thing, a man once claimed… he saw it stop one night, he said the spirit stood still… then it turned towards him… it had red glowing eyes staring into his soul… he ran and ran endlessly as if there was no tomorrow."
"Then what?"
"Well, he went paranoid- couldn't sleep after that… poor guy."
The man in the blue robe sighed, then stood, "Thanks for the company." he spoke before walking to the door just behind them.
"Wait!" the drunk man stopped him. "You were asking about the Dark Territory right?"
"Yeah, what about it?" the man in the blue robe answered as he tilted back his head to him.
"The Cloaked Wanderer- it's becoming less and less of a folklore…" he took another sip from his cup. "Travelers who went around Dark Territory came here about three weeks ago, they said… they saw it… they saw it enter the Dark Territory's border."
"That is… something."
"Thought it might help."
"I appreciate it." the man in the robe spoke before proceeding towards the door and stepping outside.
"Captain!" a voice then suddenly called from his left.
"Lith," he called back turning to a tiny winged woman hovering with a faint red glow.
"Found anything?"
"Unfortunately nothing." she answered.
"What were you doing in there?"
"Gathering information."
"In a tavern?"
"People here know a lot more than you think."
"Why do you smell like alcohol?"
"Had a few drinks with a fellow, but it was worth the information he gave me."
"You smell too much of an alcohol."
"It was a long conversation."
"You didn't spend too much of the money did you?"
The Captain paused. "...You worry too much."
In an instant, Lith flew to his ear and grabbed it with both hands.
"WHERE is the money!?" she shrieked.
"Ow—ow! I might have gotten a little carried away—ow!"
"What did you DO!?" she yelled, pulling harder.
"I'll make it up to you—ow! I swear!"
"That was for food and travel expenses!!"
The wind grew cold, and the trees rustled in the breeze under the stars. Somewhere beneath the surface of Dark Territory in a gigantic underground dome, millions of small eye embedded centipedes crawled all over thousands of shelves, telekinetically taking out books and flipping their pages one by one before returning them.
"Anything?" asked Cog.
"Give me a minute." replied Optessa in a strange posture. Her right hand covering her eye, and the other extended downwards with her palm facing the floor.
Amidst the commotion, Fel's eyes wandered all around the dome, in witness of a bizarre scene unfolding before him as he smoked his cigar.
"Hmmm?… I went through every single bookshelf," Optessa then bent her knees and laid her left hand on the floor. In an instant, all eye embedded centipedes began swarming in the middle of the dome towards her and disappeared into her sleeve leaving three books placed before her. "But this is all I could find."
Cog sighed and picked the books up.
As they were about to leave the spot, Fel suddenly began to act strange. He turned and he frisked through his clothes, "Hey… what the..." Fel yelled as he kept turning and frisking.
Finally, he grabbed his coat draped from his shoulders and shook it until it dropped one of his cigars and a small familiar creature.
"Uh lady, I think you forgot this one." said Fel as he stared at the eye embedded centipede down the floor.
"I must apologize," uttered Optessa. "I can't control him unfortunately. He is different from the rest of the optipedes."
"Optipede?"
"Here Sighter," Optessa called to it. "Come,"
Hesitant to her call, it froze looking back and forth.
Fel draped back his coat, bent down to grab his cigar only for it to suddenly levitate away from his grasp and slowly fly towards the optipede.
He then watched the cigar turn as the optipede had a look at it. Slowly the tip of the cigar began to obliterate to smaller and smaller bits until it disappeared.
"Oh my, it seems Sighter found a treat." chuckled Optessa.
"What?" Fel exclaimed. He stood, stepped back from Sighter clutching his coat and slightly turning it away.
Sighter looked at Fel and crawled closer.
"What are you looking at?" said Fel staring back.
Creeping a few more inches, Sighter instantly began crawling in circles around Fel.
"Is he going to be alright?" Optessa spoke as she watched Fel jump around yelling "No! It's mine!!" while Sighter writhed beneath his feet.
"He's fine." replied Cog before the two of them walked away.