I raised a brow. “Well, that explains all that gear.”

  Raster’s lips curled into a smirk, and his eyes softened behind the odd glint of his mushroom-cap lenses. He looked over at Kolson, then back at me.

  “Well, yeah. I mean—of course, I made the mushroom beer. That was the easy part.” He flicked his fingers like he was brushing away a cobweb. “But actually brewing it at scale, tending to it, bottling, maintaining temperatures, and dealing with all the tedious nonsense that comes after the development part?”

  He groaned and threw his arms up in theatrical despair.

  “I hate it. It’s menial! Mind-numbing! It makes my knees itchy! I’m getting a rash just thinking about it. My rashes are why Ruth enforces such a strict bath schedule.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not the only reason,” I flatly replied.

  Runica snorted. Tess tried and failed to hide a smile behind her hand.

  Raster then turned and pointed dramatically to the side, like he was introducing royalty. “But then! Enter my cousin Kolm, like a saint sent from the Spirit’s own garden.”

  My mouth dropped. “Is that a portrait of Kolm??? How didn’t I notice that earlier?”

  Raster hugged himself, and almost looked like a swooning maiden. “Quiet, reliable Kolm, with his calloused hands and uncanny patience. He’s my favorite cousin, you know? Always helping me whenever I look like I need it. The good man one day asked me how to make the beer. Said, ‘I’ll learn how to do it, so that you never have to be bothered with it again.’ I wept golden tears that day… which I then proceeded to bottle, but I wept.”

  I raised a brow and looked at Runica. “Hold on, did he actually shed gold tears?”

  Runica, grinning, replied, “He drinks a lot of strange things.”

  “I don’t think I can accept that as a good enough answer—”

  “My cousin Kolm is just a few steps above ‘dull,’ but what he lacks in sharpness, he makes up for it with heart!” Raster spun around, arms up like he was praising life. “My whole family does! I’m glad I was born on this plot of land!” He hugged himself again and swayed. “That’s why when Ruth asks me to see if I can develop new flavors, I’ll do my darndest!” He pointed at the table while his face loosened so much you’d think he was drunk. “She gives me so many specifications–some of it is even contradictory.”

  “I’m sorry… I guess?” I replied.

  “Don’t be! She’s trying to keep my mind engaged. She believes that I could make something contradictory work! Isn’t that the greatest vote of confidence a person could receive?”

  My eyes widened further while Runica giggled beside me. Kolson, meanwhile, cleared his throat.

  “And there you have it, Set. This is our family’s greatest secret… Not just the beer, but rather, Raster. This place that Raster’s built for himself—this is what we protect… So, please, don’t speak of anything that you learn here.”

  I didn’t need to look back to know the man was smirking. I just laughed.

  “Raster, you’re definitely the person I need on my side if I want to make sense of what I’ve learned.”

  Raster rubbed his chin. “Is that so? Well, sharpen us up a bit, then. Relieve us of our ignorance. What does the dangerous world outside hold for us?”

  “Sure,” I said, already wondering what reaction this expressive man would have. “The sleeping Shadow Beast I mentioned to some of you last night… After getting past it, I went on, and then, I found an abandoned village.”

  The moment the word “village” left my mouth, the air in the room snapped taut like a pulled string.

  Runica stiffened beside me. Tess gasped so sharply that she nearly knocked over some books. Kolson’s arms slowly crossed, but not out of suspicion—more like bracing himself for whatever I was going to say next.

  Raster’s whole body jolted. “An abandoned village?” he repeated, eyes wide behind his foggy spectacles. “Not a… structure or ruin or a cave that looked like someone maybe slept in it, but a village-village?”

  I nodded slowly. “They even had their own style of houses. These round things. It was crazy.”

  Tess finished fixing the books. “That… that isn’t possible,” she whispered, then turned to Kolson. “That can’t be possible, can it?”

  Kolson didn’t answer right away. He just grunted for a bit. “My grandfather was the type who believed there were more people out there… But we never had proof.”

  “I’ve never had proof of it either,” Raster said, solemn. “The genesis of our village—we were a people running from the Shadows. We founded a village, where there sat a brilliant Shadow Flame. Any thought of there being others, comes from that first story, and the notion that Shadow Beasts split us up… Our ancestors, a population of three thousand or so, survived, and we are the remaining thousand…”

  I looked around, and saw everyone at a loss for words after Raster’s exposition. Seeing that, I decided to continue.

  “As of right now, I know that there were at least two other villages out there.”

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  Raster raised a finger. “Why use that word, ‘were?’ Do you mean to say that this second village is also no more?”

  “Yeah, because see, I met a person from the second place. Her name was Lyra.”

  I told everyone a carefully curated story, mostly focused on Lyra. I told them of how I met her while traveling down a hidden passage, told them what she told me of her village—the sheep, the healing gems, the natural resources, and told them the big points of our journey. How she was taken, how she suffered, how she was replaced, and how she died.

  I also told them about her village’s flame being extinguished, and the subsequent attack, but said nothing of the blue elves.

  A heavy silence hung in the room when I finished. They were stunned to say the least.

  Tess had both hands over her mouth. Her eyes were holding back tears. “She… she died like that?” she whispered. “That poor girl.”

  Kolson’s brows were low, knitted in a way I hadn’t seen before. He looked like he was holding in a storm. “The Shadow Beast that pretended to be her—it was that convincing?” he asked, low and quiet, as if not wanting to believe it.

  I gave a slow nod. “Yeah. It wore fear and desperation as naturally as we would feel it.”

  Runica was already beside me, but she shifted even closer. Her hand found mine again, fingers tightening. “I’m so sorry, Set…” she said, voice fragile. “I’m sorry you had to do that alone.”

  “I did it,” I replied. “I’m still alive—”

  That’s when I felt a soft pressure on my side. Tess had come forward, arms wrapping gently around me. She rested her cheek just below my shoulder and gave a trembling sigh. “You did what you could. No one could have predicted any of what you said.”

  Kolson didn’t say anything as he stepped forward. He placed a heavy hand on my back… then, awkwardly, wrapped the other around too, folding me into their warmth. “You did good, making it back.”

  Then Runica leaned into the embrace, head on my chest, her arms folding in as well.

  Just like that, I was swallowed in a lopsided, awkward, gentle group hug… To be honest, the only thing that could make it better was if Selma were here.

  And just beyond the knot of arms and hearts, Raster stood off to the side, arms crossed in thought, staring at me like he was watching a play unfold and couldn’t quite believe he was part of it.

  “Tragic!” he suddenly declared, clapping his hands once in an awkward burst of emotion. “The tale of Set and Lyra–but I am left with too many questions! Set, how did you learn of the Gigas Berry?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Lyra mentioned it to me,” I said, nonchalantly lying. “She didn’t know what a Strobe Berry was.”

  “Ahh, of course, it was part of your information exchange. I see…”He stroked his chin as he hummed. “But that was the first thing you asked me about?”

  “Sorry for testing you,” I replied. “Had you not given me an answer, I had a list of things I would try to ask.”

  Raster stared for a few seconds and then laughed. “Good thing I passed the test then, huh?”

  “Anyway,” I said, the rest of the family letting me breathe. “There’s still a bit I want to tell you about.”

  “We’re all ears,” Raster replied, speaking for the family.

  “So, the abandoned village I found—it’s pretty obvious to me that it was abandoned because the flame went out,” I said.

  Raster, surprisingly, tilted his head. “It’s a conclusion I couldn’t fault someone for having.”

  “Well, in that village, I discovered something. Below its obelisk—the thing that held the Shadow Flame—there was a whole underground cavern, and there was the giant statue of a woman built against the obelisk.”

  Their stunned eyes on me, I went into further detail, answering Raster’s questions as they came.

  “So, that’s it,” I said. “I think this village might have a giant statue beneath it… And, I think there might be a passage to it beneath one of the houses.”

  Raster scratched his head. “And we can’t just dig into the cavern…”

  “Well, what do you think about it, Mister I-Dig-Up-Books? I feel like you would have discovered that thing already if we could get in there.”

  Raster let out a loud laugh. “You got me there, Set.”

  Kolson stroked his beard. “You said the crater you found was deep, right? That’s probably more than we’ve ever dug. There’s also a very hard layer of rock about six to eight feet down. We can’t break it.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Huh, so people have tried, and had a reason to not continue…”

  “Awfully interesting, huh, Set?” Raster replied, thinking the same thing I was.

  “Probably better to not think about this right now.”

  “We can give it some thought another time.”

  The other three looked at us with curious gazes, but didn’t ask any further questions.

  Kolson cleared his throat. “From the sounds of it, this passage wasn’t known to the people of the old village.”

  “Agreed, Uncle Kol,” Raster said, snapping his fingers. “I bet the passage had seen many houses built over it. Which is to say, that if we have a passage here…”

  “I can’t imagine a passage that had a house placed over it was something that started its life out in the open,” Kolson said, getting a nod from me.

  “Uncle’s sharpening,” Raster said with a snicker. “If it’s the same here, it’s possible that our passage has been lost. This sort of thing, you’d think the most important person in the village would be privy to its biggest secrets, but~”

  “Under standard thinking, the elder would be sitting on the passage,” I said. “But if no one knows about it and just keeps building houses…”

  “It could be anywhere,” Runica said.

  “But I have maps!” Raster declared. “I don’t have maps of the very first days, but my oldest is 500 phases after the villages started keeping records. We can study the maps and see if there is anything strange…” Raster licked his finger and held it up like he was testing the wind. “If I recall correctly, I have 17 maps we can analyze.”

  I sighed with a smile and dug through my bag. “Well, Raster, it’s nice meeting you. Actually, this meeting has gone better than I could ever have predicted. If you don’t mind, I’d like to spend some more time with you.”

  “Oh! That’s great! I actually have some field research I wanted to do today. Maybe you’ll agree with me!”

  “Maybe. Whatever it is you’re researching,” I pulled out the books I had taken from the village, “I’ll go with you if you’re willing to have me—”

  Raster’s impassioned gasp echoed. “Goodness, what are those, Set!?”

  “These are some books I took from the village. I haven’t had time to go through them, but I think they’d be better off with you—”

  Raster grabbed my cheeks and planted a wet one on me, loud smooch and all.

  “Oh no,” Runica yelled. “He was too fast!”

  “It might leave a bruise,” Tess followed.

  “Okay, okay, let the boy go, Raster,” Kolson commanded.

  “Thank you, Set!” Raster said. He graciously took the books from my stunned hands and twirled around with them while I blinked repeatedly.

  “Hehe… Raster’s a pure soul, right?” Runica nervously asked.

  I glanced at her. “Thank everything that you were my first kiss.”

  Runica went red immediately, while her mother giggled behind her. Raster was in the highest of spirits.

  “See? I didn’t do anything bad! They already kissed before!” he said excitedly.

  Kolson sighed. “Raster, you better not scare this boy off.”