The entress stood in the doorway, the scarlet vestments she wore like a fiery bea against the dark frame behind her. She held her hands together, hidden ihe rge sleeves of her robe, while the crab with great i and a discreet smile.

  “Wow, you live here?” excimed Balthazar. “This pce looks like a dump!”

  The mert’s bluntness did not seem to faze her.

  “Ah, still a charmer as always, I see,” said Ruby. “Looks be deceiving, as I’m sure you know. Shall we go inside?”

  “If it will look less depressing than out here, sure.”

  As the crab took a step forward, Rye pced a hand on his arm.

  “Balthazar,” he said with a whisper. “What are we doing here? This could be a trap for all we know.”

  “You’re w too much, Rye,” the crusta whispered back. “I get why, even if you don’t. If you’d prefer to stay out here, that’s fine, but I’m going in to get some answers.”

  The young maated for a moment, as if struggling with his answer.

  “No,” he finally said, with strain on his face. “If I thought it was dangerous but let you go in while I stayed out here and then something happened, I’d never be able to look Madeleine in the eye again. I still don’t like it, though.”

  Balthazar nodded. “If it will make you feel aer, I’ll tell Druma and Blue to keep watch out here, that way we got backup to get us out if somethio happen.”

  After the exge, the crab and the archer finally stepped into the old building, led by Ruby and followed by Jasper.

  It did not look much different ihan it did outside. Dark and dusty, no lighting other than what little light poured in through the broken windows, revealing rooms with missing floorboards and torn curtains. That anyone would live in such a pce surprised even a pond-dwelling crusta.

  “Sheesh, you live like this?” Balthazar said, as the four of them entered a living room in a worse state than his bazaar after a mad dark mage passed through it.

  “Certainly not,” said the woman. “I told you, looks be deceiving, and we very much like it that way. Jasper, if you will, please?”

  With a nod, the dark-skiraveler faded into a shadowy er of the room, and after a sed, they heard the sound of something heavy being pulled. He reappeared and pressed the tip of his foot onto a loose floorboard, following it up with a press of his hand against a se of a nearby shelf. There was a whirring sound of gears moving and then a click.

  Walking to the ter of the room, Jasper pushed a torn sofa aside and pulled back the tattered carpet beh it, revealing a hatch.

  “Ladies first,” he said, smiling at the entress while holding the hatch door open with one hand and her the other.

  Holding his hand for support, Ruby desded the few steps leading into a tight tunnel.

  Balthazar peeked dowch tentatively. “Ehhh, I don’t do very well with stairs.”

  “Oh,” said the redheaded adventurer. “Perhaps this would help?”

  With a quick cp of her hands, the stoeps rotated with a loud thump, turning into a ramp.

  “Huh, rick,” said the crab, as he followed into the tunnel.

  The walls and floor were made of stone, but they were visibly er than anything above. Uhe previous room, which was dark and hard to see in, this tunnel had lit nterns hanging from the ceiling, leading all the way to the other end of it, where a pristine iron door was.

  “Is your upstairs maid on holiday?” said Balthazar, while carefully moving through the corridor, the sides of his shell nearly scraping against the narrow walls.

  “Unfortunately,” said Ruby, “keeping up with surrounding appearances is a y, if we are to maintain a low-profile. It’s part of the job.”

  “Right, and what job would that be?” the crab asked.

  The woman stopped in front of the thick iron door. Pulling one hand from her sleeve, she produced a rge golden key and ied it into the keyhole. Letting go of it, the entress waited while the key turned on its own and unlocked the door, which blew a gust of wind onto the group as it opened.

  “Our job is to observe and learn what we are not supposed to,” said the scarlet dy as she stepped through the door and held it open for her guests. “Wele to the Birdwatchers headquarters.”

  Balthazar’s eyestalks stood up as he walked into the room. Well-lit and spotless, the hidden basement looked nothing like the house above it. There was furniture of the fi wood, with a glossy and immacute varnish finish. deliers hung from the ceiling, with goldeails over their brass structures. Most of the walls were covered in exquisite tapestries, and the floors in equally impressive carpets that made the crab feel like he should take off his shoes before entering, despite never having worn any before.

  The mert let out a whistle. “Nice pce you got here. ’t help but notice a distinct ck of birds, though. Not that I mind, of course.”

  Ruby smirked at the crab’s quip. “We like to keep the subjects of our watg at a distance. For safety, and to not disturb their natural behavior.”

  “Still, that’s kind of a me name for a secret society of… whatever you guys are.”

  “Yes, uhe Pie cil’, I suppose,” the entress said with subtle irony as she turned around.

  The crab looked around awkwardly. “Yeah, well, that was just… hey, wait a minute, how would you know about that?!”

  Jasper shut the door behind them as he stepped through, causing the two visitors to jump in pce.

  “I imagine you must have many questions,” the adventurer in red said. “As do we. That is the reason we are all here. Please, e, let us sit down and talk.”

  She led them to a differeion of the rge hall, with a low table and a few seats around it. As she moved around to her chair, she pulled a pair of round reading gsses from the inside of her robe and put them on, like someone preparing to read a book.

  “May I offer you anything?” said the woman as she sat down on a cushioned chair. “Something to drink, perhaps tea? Something to eat as well? You must be famished after such a trek.”

  “Thanks, but what we really want to know—” Rye started.

  “Amber, dear,” the entress called towards a nearby doorway. “Are the pies ready yet?”

  “Shush, Rye,” Balthazar said quickly, waving a front of the archer while sitting down on a low stool by the table. “Did you just say pies?”

  A short-haired girl walked into the room, wearing the same attire one would expect from any adventurer, except with a white apron on top as well.

  “Hello,” Amber said in a shy manner while bowily. “The pies are ready, Madame Ruby. Should I bring them out?”

  “You should ask uest,” the woman in the chair said before looking at Balthazar again. “Knowing your love for baked goods, I had our dear Amber here try her hand at preparing some delicacies for your enjoyment. She is by no means a proper baker like your friend from Ardville, but as you could probably notice outside, we are rather limited in terms of nearby bakeries, so she tried her best.”

  “Right,” the slightly nervous girl said, turning to the crab. “I wasn’t sure whie would be to your preference, so I tried baking four different types of pie. An apple pie, a pumpkin pie, as well as one lemon cream pie and a strawberry pie. I serve you any of them?”

  Balthazar stared at the shy adventurer, unblinking.

  “Yes,” he said in a dry and quick tone.

  Amber’s eyes darted between him and her superior. “Y-yes to whie?”

  “All of them,” the deadpan crab said. “Obviously.”

  “Oh,” the girl said quietly, gng at Ruby as if looking for instrus on how to proceed.

  The entress gave her a gentle nod and the young adventurer retreated back to where she had e from.

  “Don’t take me for a fool, Ruby,” said Balthazar. “I know when someone is trying to win me over, and I’m telling you, this won’t stop me from wanting some answers…” His words trailed off as Amber returned, pushing a small trolley with several ptes on it. “...after a quiack break.”

  Four different miniature pies came strolling into his sight. One by ohe girl moved each pte from the cart and onto the table, uhe crab’s attentive gaze. They were not quite as perfectly shaped as Madeleine’s, the crust was visibly uneven in pces, and overall much rougher-looking, clearly the work of a novice baker, but that did little to stop Balthazar’s mouthwatering.

  “They’re not very good, but I… I hope you will enjoy them,” said Amber, her eyes glued to the floor.

  Balthazar started with a generous bite of apple pie.

  “A bit crumbly,” the crab said with a mouthful. “The middle area is a little undercooked, too. The apple slices are slightly too thick as well.”

  The girl’s eyebrows arched into an expression that resembled a lost puppy. “Oh…”

  “But all free pie is good pie!” the hungry crusta added, shoving the rest of it into his mouth unceremoniously.

  The apprentice baker perked up slightly. “Oh!”

  Rye shoved an elbow against Balthazar’s side and muttered under his breath. “I thought we were supposed to be looking for Madeleine, not looking for her rept.”

  “Right, ahem, right!” said the crab, between coughs and a slight choking fit, thanks to the boy’s shove. “We should get down to business, Ruby.”

  “Of course,” the dy in red said, leaning bafortably on the scarlet cushions of her golden throne-like chair and giving the girl in the apron another nod.

  “ I get you anything?” Amber asked Rye.

  “No, I’m… fihe young man said dismissively.

  “Please, at least have a cup of tea, for hospitality’s sake,” said Ruby.

  “Fihe annoyed adventurer said. “Just a cup.”

  Amber disappeared bato the presumed kit, while Ruby pced her hands together in front of her face, ected at the fiips, peering at the crab through her red-tinted lenses.

  “Where shall we start?”

  “How about…” Balthazar started, while struggling to gulp down a generous bite of pumpkin pie. “How about you start by telling me who in the world you all are and what you’re doing here?”

  “A perti question,” said the experienced adventurer. “We are a group of people who have bee aware of the maations of the system in this world, and that there are things bei hidden from almost everyone, be it adventurer or local. We seek to uhe truth.” She paused and looked at the archer for a moment. “If you mean who we are as in us, adventurers in general, and what we are doing or where we came from, then I’m afraid I have no clusive answer for you, but that is also part of what we seek to find out.”

  “That was a lot of words to say very little,” said the mert, while nibbling on a bit of pie crust.

  “I’m sorry, but shouldn’t we be talking about the big red dragon that took Madeleine instead?” Rye excimed, standing up in a sudden outburst.

  “Woah, easy, buddy,” Balthazar said. “I’m getting there. Please calm down.”

  “T-tea?” Amber hesitantly said, arrivio the table with a smoking cup in her hands.

  “Please, sit down,” the calm entress said. “Have some tea. I promise all will be clear soon.”

  Exhaling sharply, Rye obliged, sitting back down and taking the cup into his hands.

  “How about you expin that, huh?” the crab said, with his mouth covered in lemon cream. “Why is it that whehe subject is anything to do with the system or where they came from, every other adventurer seems to get all touchy and averse to it, and then immediately fets all about it, unlike you?”

  Ruby nodded.

  “Ihe system, and whatever is behind it, does not want us asking inve questions, ging for answers. The way it seems to prevent this is by creating a selective bnk spot in an adventurer’s mind. Upon arriving into this world, something is doo us, to our brains, to block out the memories of our previous life, and most importantly, also block out the sense of what was lost, so that we never even realize a piece of us is missing. Like a mist pulled over our—”

  “...eyes,” said Balthazar, ing the cream around his mouth. “I’ve seen it. At Star Beach, when some kid arrived, there was this moment where his eyes went foggy, and after that, he no longer seemed to remember or care about anything that happened before.”

  “Exactly,” the entress said, the golden frame of her gsses refleg brightly as she leaned forward on her chair and into the light of the ntern above them. “Someone, or something, works very hard to prevent us from remembering how we got here and from asking why we are here, and that’s what the Birdwatchers are about. We want to know the truth, to know what’s really going on, at all costs.”

  Balthazar paused, looking up at the light and thinking.

  “So wait, how e you guys seem to remember stuff and be able to ask these questions unhindered by that ‘mind fog’ thing?”

  A sudden shattering sound startled the crab, making him jump on his stool.

  Rye had dropped his teacup, which shattered to pieces on the floor.

  “Are you alri—” the worried crusta started, but before he could finish, the young man dropped from his seat and onto his knees, curling up as he clutched his stomach, grunting in pain.

  Balthazar’s eyes darted between his friend and the shattered cup as he jumped off the stool.

  “What have you done?!” he yelled at Ruby. “You poisoned him!”

  The scarlet entress calmly stood up from her throne and pced her hands together inside her sleeves.

  “No, we did not poison him. Look closer.”

  The crab turo his friend as he arched back, clutg his head with both hands.

  Suddenly, Rye’s yells of pain ceased, and a milky white fog washed over his eyes.