The journey back from Riverwood was... loud.
Inside the carriage, the air smelled of expensive perfume (Taylor), strawberries (Violet), and roasted garlic (Ria).
"Open wide, My Angel!" Ria cooed, holding a spoon of glistening, amber-colored consommé. "This broth was clarified with egg whites and the tears of a virgin chicken! It will make your skin glow!"
"I can feed myself, Ria," Taylor sighed, pressed against the window.
"Nonsense!" Ria wiggled closer, her ample chest pressing against Taylor's arm. "A Goddess should not lift a spoon! It wastes calories! Let me be your delivery system!"
"Back off, Cook," Violet hissed from Taylor's other side. She was sharpening her dagger on the leather seat. "Or I will fillet your delivery system."
"Oh? A spicy knife-play?" Ria's visible eye turned into a heart. "I like danger. But my kicks are faster than your blade, little shadow."
"My Lady!" Luna cried from the floor, where she was kneeling. "Please! Eat the soup! If you do not eat, you will faint! And if you faint, I will have to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation! Which I have practiced on a pillow!"
"Everyone stop!" Taylor shouted. "We're stopping."
***
[The Crossroads]
The carriage lurched to a halt.
Outside, the sun was setting, painting the sky in bruises of purple and red. They had reached a fork in the road.
To the left lay the path to Oakhaven Castle—clear, paved, and safe.
To the right lay a path that seemed to disappear into a wall of unnatural, swirling grey fog.
An old, rotting signpost stood at the junction.
<-- Oakhaven (10 Miles)
Ravenswood (Do Not Enter) -->
Taylor stepped out of the carriage. The air temperature dropped ten degrees instantly.
"Ravenswood," she whispered.
It wasn't just a town. It was a legend. In the game lore (and Arthur's memories), Ravenswood was a cursed territory. A place where compasses spun wild, where gravity felt wrong, and where people went to disappear.
"I hate this place," Taylor muttered, shivering. "The humidity is 98%. The atmospheric pressure is fluctuating. It's a meteorological nightmare."
"It's a ghost town," Luna whispered, hiding behind Taylor. "They say the people there don't die. They just... turn into smoke. And the crows... they watch you."
*Caw.*
A massive black crow landed on the Ravenswood sign. It stared at Taylor with intelligent eyes.
"Ravenswood..." Ren walked up, looking at the fog. He scratched his chin. "I think I went there once."
"You did?" Taylor asked.
"Yeah. I was looking for the bathroom," Ren nodded solemnly. "I walked into the fog. saw a man in a white cape flying without wings. Then I woke up in a desert three days later. Weird plumbing."
Taylor froze.
A man in a white cape.
" Flying without wings?" Taylor asked sharply. "Glider technology? Or wire work?"
"Magic," Ren shrugged. "Or a demon. He laughed at me. Then he vanished in a puff of blue smoke."
Taylor looked at the fog. The "Magician" who left the card at the tavern... was he from there?
[System Analysis]
Location : Ravenswood Border
Status. : Restricted Area
Threat : Unknown / Supernatural / Illusionary
"My Lady," Ria said, her voice unusually serious. She walked up to Taylor, draping her chef's coat over Taylor's shoulders. The warmth of the coat—and Ria's lingering hand on Taylor's shoulder—was comforting.
"That place smells... fake," Ria murmured, sniffing the air. "Like chemicals and mirrors. Not like food. Nothing grows there."
"Fake?" Taylor asked.
"No natural scent," Ria explained, her hand sliding down Taylor's arm to hold her hand protectively. "Just... ozone. And sulfur."
Sulfur. The same ingredient Taylor used for gunpowder.
Was Ravenswood a town of ghosts? Or was it a town of *scientists* masquerading as ghosts?
Suddenly, Violet walked past them toward the fog.
"Violet! Stop!" Taylor shouted.
Violet stopped at the very edge of the mist. She reached out a hand. The fog seemed to recoil from her fingers.
"It's quiet," Violet whispered. "Too quiet. Like a grave."
She looked back at Taylor, her eyes dark.
"Someone is watching us from inside the cloud, Big Sister."
Taylor squinted.
Deep in the fog, for just a fraction of a second, she saw a flash of white. Like a cape snapping in the wind. And a single, monocled eye reflecting the moonlight.
Then, nothing.
"Let's go," Taylor said, turning back to the carriage. A chill ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. "We're going home. We have a castle to fortify."
As she climbed back in, she noticed something stuck to the wheel of the carriage.
A flower.
A **Blue Rose**.
It wasn't a natural flower. It was dyed. Or genetically modified.
"Impossible," Taylor whispered, touching the petals. Blue roses didn't exist in nature. They symbolized the impossible. The miraculous.
*He was here. The Magician.*
"My Lady?" Luna asked.
"Drive!" Taylor ordered. "Get us out of here!"
As the carriage sped away toward Oakhaven, Taylor looked back at the fog-shrouded road to Ravenswood.
"A" was trying to kill her with assassins.
But this new player... this "Magician" from Ravenswood... he wasn't trying to kill her.
He was inviting her to a show.
[Ding!]
[New Location Discovered: Ravenswood]
[Lore Unlocked: The Town of Illusions]
[Foreshadowing: The Phantom Thief's Origin]
"Blue roses and gunpowder," Taylor muttered, clutching the flower. "This story is getting complicated."