14th October, 1137

  Herald Romily Church

  Acryl

  Acryl sketched the church. He worked quickly, using squiggles for trees and only creating general shadows and blocks of shapes for the objects around the church. The tiles on his sketchbook were tiny waves, while the lines for the roof looped and covered over each other. Neon was sitting on the bench next to him, watching him sketch while she hummed a song that Acryl didn’t know.

  Hesitating, he stood up from the bench and closed his sketchbook. The sky was crammed with gray clouds. Acryl stared at the clouds as he waited for raindrops to splash down like stars painted by flicking white paint with a brush.

  “I’ll wait for you here,” Neon said as she yawned. Acryl nodded in response.

  He walked to the church, climbing up the stone staircase, his eyes noticing the green mosses and lichens growing on the stone surface. Weak, hanging, but alive, and would survive for a long time. The lichens might die anytime from pollution or outside force, yet they lived on.

  After his eyes and mind had sketched the shapes of the greens in his head, he reached the gate of the church.

  He entered the church as he adjusted to the dimness inside. He looked toward the organ that was built into the church, inseparable as the frame and the canvas. There was somebody sitting in front of the organ. As he closed the door behind him, the two massive pieces of wood made an echo in the church, and the person started to play the organ. It was a tune he hadn’t heard before, different from the music played in church, but something more mundane, joy found in the daily life, yet he could hear the underlying melancholy while he felt chills running down his spine, not his sense of Realm-art, but the pure emotion from the song.

  The last note dragged long in the echo as the musician stood up from the chair. She walked down the podium while the light hit their face. Acryl saw the pastel, washed-away color of her braided hair, her linen shirt, and the dark blue cloth where her braid lay. He walked toward her without hesitation. She seemed so familiar. As they both reached the spot lit in the centre of the church, Acryl saw her face clearly.

  It was the girl she saw in his dream. Her bluish, almost green, eyes looked at him as she smiled.

  “Nice to meet ya,” she said in Euthian, knuckle reaching for a fist-bump.

  “…What flowers are on your table? I hope you have some yarrows.”

  “Not really, but do you fancy steak seasoned with thyme?” Acryl asked; he noticed the emphasis on the word yarrows.

  “He is waiting for you there,” she said, looking at the door right to the organ.

  “Thanks,” Acryl said as he passed the rows of chairs. There weren’t many people in the church today; only a few priests were busy doing their own things, scattered around the church.

  Acryl knocked on the door as he heard a voice answering his knocking, it was muffled like spoken through drapes. He opened the door as he noticed the darkwood booth, separated from the room with a thick curtain. Acryl tried to sense any casting or scents as he sat in the booth. He didn’t sense anything, but the room was cold, even for autumn.

  “Acryl, can you feel it?” Canvas’s voice came from the other side of the booth. Hearing that, Acryl tried to sense something as he closed his eyes. As before, no scents, no waves of casting.

  “No?” Acryl said.

  “Not external, Acryl, but do you feel something in you?”

  “…I don’t,” he answered. Acryl tried not to think about the reason for his visit, trying not to ponder the direction of the change within his body. That blue blood, the morphed Realm-art and its foul colors, he pushed the images of them away from him in his mind.

  “It starts in your bones,” Canvas said, while Acryl saw a light bloom in front of him, “like most vertebrates corrupted by them.”

  The light turned dark while it disintegrated into sparks, then fell into the darkness.

  “Then it gets in your blood, your tissues…”

  “You will be very ill from it. Wait, I think you already know it.”

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  Canvas hesitated for a second.

  “Hmpf, well, this is gonna be a bad day for you, Acryl, the Starseeker is using you.”

  “What?!” Acryl exclaimed.

  “Then what should I do?” Acryl asked as his hand twitched from the pressure.

  Silence fell in the room. The cold was ever so more present as Acryl breathes heavily. He could smell the scent of the old wood, soothing, yet it did not comfort him. The dark booth felt closing in on him while his heart pounded loudly. He whispered to himself in the dark, sweating cold sweats. Acryl couldn’t hear what he was whispering; some syllables he couldn’t comprehend came out of his mouth while he felt the darkness stretching longer and longer until it was the only thing remaining. As he felt like he was lost in the darkness, Canvas’s voice came:

  “Acryl, what is art? Say the answer you have, not the answer I taught.”

  “Art is…” Acryl stuttered, “art is…”

  “Art is rebellion.”

  Acryl could hear a faint laugh from the other side of the booth. It was the Canvas’s laugh of satisfaction.

  “I want to commission a piece from you, Acryl, any medium, any size…But I want its title to be”

  “‘Deicide’.”

  “This will determine if the Euthian Association of Painters will grant you the title of a master, just kidding, or am I?”

  “Canvas…when is the time you come back? When is the time you tell me the truth?” Acryl asked as he looked at the sliver of light coming into the booth’s curtains.

  “…I won’t be in Auderheim for long.”

  Acryl couldn’t remember how he dragged his exhausted body out of the church; that girl from before was nowhere to be seen, while Acryl exited the church and bathed in the gray sky. His mind was on the words Canvas said, and it all looped back to the word deicide. It sounded absurd, out of anybody’s mind, both the word and its interpretation. How could one kill a deity? Whether it was the societal construct in Siyue or an actual Existence, the idea of deicide was too absurd.

  I just have to paint something about it…but there are definitely more than what he meant. I need to think beyond the mediums I am familiar with.

  He walked down the stairs, letting his steps fall while he looked in Neon’s direction. As he noticed the yellow next to her, not the vibrant yellow of Nameless’s windcoat, but the wicked, sickening yellow of the Troupe. Acryl rushed down the stairs while he sensed for any casting. There was one wave of casting, almost unnoticeable, but his hypersensitivity caught it in the wind.

  Keep calm, Acryl thought.

  He slowed down as he sat next to Neon, focusing on what the cloaked person was saying. Acryl searched for the source of the casting; it did not come from the person sitting there, but it came from beneath. He couldn’t determine the sharpness of the Realm-art, but it certainly came from a more experienced caster.

  “…Daughter of Xihua, this is what she would have wanted if she were still alive. That you join in the voyage for the Script, then we shall all unite in the endless play of His glory,” the person said in Siyuenese, their voice neutral and low, hood obscuring their face.

  Neon did not answer. She clung harder to her dress while she looked away from the person. She locked eyes with Acryl while Acryl felt the source of casting intensifying. His mind raced to find a solution. The Troupe knew their faces, and Acryl was sure that they wouldn’t leave without a fight.

  The ghostly wind brushed in while he felt the cold on his face. Acryl swallowed. He looked toward the church and estimated how long it’d take for him and Neon to rush inside.

  Canvas was there, even if he wasn’t there, the priests wouldn’t turn them down.

  Before the crunchy leaf dropped to the ground, he grabbed Neon by her wrist as they ran to the church.

  They both staggered up the staircase while Acryl heard the cloak flap in the air. Acryl gasped for air as he gripped Neon’s wrist harder; the staircase seemed to stretch longer while they ran. As they ran up the staircase, Acryl felt a shadow casting over him. The cloaked figure landed before him as they adjusted their hood.

  “One does not jump onto the stage and proclaim to be the protagonist.”

  …

  Neon

  Her mind raced for solutions. Calling for help seemed most rational right now, but she couldn’t let go of the chance of knowing more about the Troupe. The runes carved into the streets were silent, and so was her sense of Realm-art. They aren’t casting, thankfully, Neon thought.

  “How far is the Director from fixing the Script?” Neon asked.

  The cloaked figure seemed surprised that she knew of the Script; their body shook a little, but Neon suspected it may be the Troupe’s practice to implement their performance into daily life.

  “The stage is ready…only the actors await their roles,” they answered.

  Neon squinted her eyes as she tried to calm her breathing.

  “…Nai, my mother, what happened to her?” she said, voice trembling.

  “I was not there, but I’ve heard, oh, I’ve heard…”

  “A lover’s soul forsaken, her body rests frozen…forever adrift under the sky foreign. How pitiful! How tragic! Such shame, such shame…but I’ve heard, I’ve heard…The mother of the lantern’s spark, as fair and noble as her name…” the cloaked figure said, arms reaching to the sky as her mask slipped under the cloak’s hood. It was a mask with both elements of the East and the West. Shaped like a fancy mask, but painted and decorated like the masks of demons.

  “Alas…Ni, Daughter of Xihua, I hope you consider…the curtain shall never fall.”