15) Where the sun and the moon meet

As the first rays of light reflected off of Ryker's dried tears, his eyes slowly opened up.

'Oh god, I can't believe I broke down yesterday, I even fell asleep here on the floor'

He stood up and stretched before going into the small bathroom to take a shower. He wiped the foggy mirror to see his reflection. His eyes were inflamed and slightly red. He looked into his own eyes and put his mask back on. He smiled and the pain behind his eyes slowly disappeared.

'If you lie to yourself enough, you will believe it' -he thought.

He walked out the door and into the diner of the inn. He had breakfast and got ready to leave for the day. He had a lot of things to do. His main goal was to locate the entrance to the Underground Market as they might sell way more than food.

His first answer to the riddle was the horizon, but how can one get to the horizon? It was impossible. The thing is it said, "where". If it were to say "when" then early morning would be the answer. He believed that there might be some clue hidden in plain sight and that it must be obvious, otherwise not enough people would find it.

He walked around town, paying special attention to the names of the businesses or the things in the windows. Finest Flour. By Hammer and Hand. Obelisk Brewery. Of Many Words. The names in this world were all over the place. Some were poetic while some were puns. It was bizarre and refreshing at the same time.

After a couple of hours, he didn't find anything, which greatly annoyed him.

'Alright, maybe I am looking at this from the wrong angle. I don't know if this is a quest or not because I haven't seen the quest notification yet but assuming it is not then it should be focused on locals. What do locals have that we players don't? Knowledge of this world. I guess it's time to visit Mr. Hoot hoot again. Or at least go to the library to investigate.'

Last time, he didn't pay attention to the library building because he was too excited. Now that he had a good look at it it was a very majestic build. It had a greek pantheon feel to it, rows of columns made out of a crystal-like material that reflected the sunlight as if it was a giant prism. But as soon as you entered through the double doors, he noticed it was not the same room where he spawned. It looked like a normal library and he realized that the clouds he saw before were the ceiling, it had some type of illusion spell to it which made it look like clouds were rolling by. The bookshelves were not as tall as before and there was an elderly man drinking tea behind a desk.

"Oh but look who is back hoot hoot" -said the middle-aged man.

"Mr. Hoot Hoot?"

*Splash*

Mr. Hoot Hoot spit out the tea he was drinking when he heard how the young brat called him.

"You can go now you… Hoot hoot! I am The Guide! In charge of moving souls between worlds"

"Yeah yeah, and I am the great Ryker! Destroyer of dreams and Emperor of Evil."

"More like Emperor of Eating hoot hoot!"

"Hey! That is not fair"

"Alright alright, enough hoot hoot. What are you doing here Ryker?"

"I came to read, Are there any books that talk about the place where the sun and the moon meet?"

"I see you have embarked yourself in the search of the Underground Market hoot hoot. That is wise, it will be of great help in the future. You need to learn about the different affinities hoot hoot. That is all I am allowed to say. Third bookshelf on the left."

Ryker nodded his head and walked to the bookshelf. There were a total of 32 books of all colors, from black to white going through all the colors of the spectrum along with several tones. He grabbed one that he felt attracted to, a light brown leather-bound book. It was a recipe book. As soon as he opened it there was all kinds of details about the food affinity, from spell examples to wild monsters that had food affinity. Even though he wanted to sit and read through it all, right now he had to do what he came for.

He checked all of the rest of the books and soon learned the 32 types of affinities which are:

Air

Artificial

Arcane

Beast

Blood

Cosmic

Chaos

Creation

Dark

Demonic

Dream

Earth

Electricity

Fire

Food

Forest

Holy

Ice

Lava

Light

Metal

Mind

Mineral

Neutral

Phantom

Poison

Runic

Shadow

Sound

Space

Time

Water

"Alright so from all of these, either space or cosmic will be related to the moon and the sun."

He first opened up the "cosmic" book. In it said that the people with cosmic affinity drew power from the stars planets and stars. He looked through a few spells and he realized most of them had to do with constellations. There were hundreds of drawings that he didn't understand as he had no cosmic affinity. After finishing the book he realized that the place where he was looking didn't exist. By now he was really frustrated.

"What the hell! It didn't mention anything about the sun and the moon meeting. The sun and the moon can't meet. Whoever made that riddle was delusional. I can only dream of finding the place."

*sigh*

He then had a lightbulb moment.

"Wait! Don't tell me… the place where the sun and the moon meet… a dream! They can only meet in my dreams! I was looking at it too literally. So it is not the cosmic affinity but the dream one. I feel so dumb right now but I need to know."

He opened up the "dream" book and in it, he found a little marble. It looked like it had an aurora boreal inside it. There was also something on the first page of the book.

"To go where the sun and the moon meet, you need to place the dream transportation stone in between your eyebrows and do not resist it. The market only opens after the sun goes down and it closes before it comes back out. Good luck and remember to follow your dreams"