Chapter 11: The Merchant

The crimson glow pulsed on the horizon. Cedric was out there, somewhere, and the Phoenix Quill with him. Arlene's ghost rode every breath he took now. The ache in his chest hadn't faded since the apple, sharp and deep, but he grit his teeth and kept moving.

Nathaniel trudged beside him, the four rings glinting faintly—Chronos, Gaia, Eos, Nyx. "Your steps are louder," he grunted, nodding at the grass. It curled tighter around Arwyn's boots than his, shimmering like it was tasting him. "6,000 poules'll do that. You're waking this place up."

"Screw that," Arwyn muttered, scar humming warm. The sky was darkening fast. Stars flickered like bad sketches. "We need light." He flipped open his sketchbook, pencil scratching a small lantern. He slammed his palm down, the page flaring yellow. The lantern popped out, glowing bright—too bright, a beacon in the dark.

The grass lunged, blades curling around it like fingers, draining the light into ash in seconds. Pain spiked through Arwyn's chest, sharper than before. He dropped to his knees, gasping, poules dipping to 5,900. "G-God…"

"Oi, what manner o' foolery be this?" a voice boomed, thick and rolling like it belonged in a tavern 500 years past. Arwyn's head snapped up. A figure emerged from the grass. It was a wiry man, bearded and weathered, draped in a patchwork cloak stitched with glinting trinkets. He hauled a rickety cart behind him, wheels creaking, piled high with oddities: half-drawn swords, glowing vials, a birdcage with no bird.

Nathaniel's hand clenched, but the merchant raised a palm, grinning yellowed teeth. "Peace, lads! I be no brigand. Just a humble peddler o' wares, traversin' these accursed fields." His eyes flicked to the ashen lantern, then Arwyn's sketchbook. "Thou'rt a scribbler, eh? Rare sight, that."

Arwyn pushed up, wincing, katana bumping his thigh. "Scribbler?"

"Aye, one o' them dream-weavers what doodle life from naught," the merchant said, accent chewing every word. "Seen around seven in me time, but none so green as thee, though." He squinted at Nathaniel, grin fading. "Hold a tick… thy face. I've glimpsed it afore, in tales spun two thousand winters past. The Blue-Haired Boy, they called 'im. A legend what vanished into the void."

Nathaniel's jaw tightened, green eyes narrowing. It had been a long time since he'd ever heard a name like that. He attempted to brush it off. "You've got the wrong guy, old man."

The merchant chuckled, low and rough. "Mayhap. But time's a fickle wench here. Two millennia in Terra Incognita's but a blink elsewhere, they say." He tapped his temple, winking at Arwyn. "Legends don't die. They just wander off."

Arwyn's gut twisted. 25 years on Earth, 2000 here? Nathaniel's 25 years away meant…

"You've been gone that long?" he hissed, glaring at Nathaniel.

"Later," Nathaniel snapped, voice cold. He turned to the merchant. "What's your game, peddler?"

"No game, milord!" The merchant bowed mockingly, cart creaking as he shifted. "I roam, I trade. Headed for yon crimson towers. Runar, they name it. A land o' wild sketches and wilder folk. Heard tell o' a dark 'un named Satsuma passin' through, chasin' whispers o' a quill what rewrites fate. Farther still lies Sketcher's Rest, but that's a journey for madmen or heroes."

Arwyn's scar flared yellow at "Satsuma". Cedric's bloodline.

"Where'd you hear that?"

"Whispers in the grass," the merchant said, shrugging. "This place talks, if ye listen." He rummaged in his cart, pulling out a small, cracked mirror etched with runes. "Take this, scribbler—free o' charge. Reflects more'n thy pretty face. Might aid thee in Runar."

Arwyn grabbed it, the glass cool and heavy. The grass twitched as he tucked it into his jacket, like it smelled the trade. Nathaniel's eyes flicked to the horizon. Those crimson spires were sharper now, a city of jagged sketches clawing the sky.

"Move on, old man," Nathaniel said, tone flat. "And keep your legends to yourself."

The merchant tipped an imaginary hat, chuckling as he hauled his cart away, trinkets clinking. "Fare thee well, Blue-Haired Boy. Mind the fields, they hunger for more'n lanterns."

Arwyn watched him vanish into the grass, the ache in his chest pulsing with his scar. He flipped open his sketchbook again, sketching a quick bandage for his grazed arm. Careful, small. The page flared softer, the bandage wrapping tight, but the grass shivered around it, blades sniffing. His poules held at 5,900, but that ache deepened, as if a warning.

Nathaniel adjusted the rings on his fingers, voice low. "Sketcher's Rest, huh? That's where Cedric's headed. Let's go, kid, before this place eats us alive."

Something rustled in the grass behind them faintly, but closer than the merchant's cart. Arwyn gripped his katana tighter. Terra Incognita was listening.

"What's that?" He couldn't help but ask Nathaniel, though even he didn't know anything about this new world despite it being his homeland.

"Don't ask me," he said with a small titter. "Ain't visited this for two millennia. Expect me to know little to nothing, kid."

The world had gone dark, the moon shining as it rose from the east. Unlike the city he lived on Earth, the stars visible in the sky were uncountable. The crimson sky lightened, replaced by a peaceful and calm night, accompanied by the nearby crickets' croaking.

Arwyn, still hurt from the earlier sketches, still focused his attention on Nathaniel. "So, 2000 years?"

Nathaniel reached inside his jacket, bringing out the Delacroix Diary. "I brought it for you to learn faster."

"Yeah? What else do you have there?"

"A couple of books from your dad's bookshelves, and your Glock," Nathaniel responded, flipping the diary to another page. The concept of time in Terra Incognita wasn't available in the book, till he'd flip the book to the final, auto-written work.

"Hey kid, your volume just updated. I'll read it out for you." And so, Nathaniel recited it as they slowly walked towards Runar. At that point, they walked for hours, from Marco's house to the outskirts of Runar. Even so, they weren't tired—not a single bit.

"Time bends here, like ink on wet parchment. A day on Earth is 80 on Terra Incognita, they say. Even the stars lie in this place. The merchant spoke of Runar, a city of jagged sketches and wild souls. He called it a land of chaos, where dreams bleed into nightmares and nightmares into truth."

Arwyn mockingly sighed, though his mind worked like a flash, calculating how much time would pass on Earth from a year in Terra Incognita. He was already considered smart in his mathematics, but with these newfound senses of his, his skill increased significantly.

'There… Using inverse variations… Then that…' It'd only take him a few seconds to think.

"So, a day on Earth is 80 days in Terra Incognita, huh?" Arwyn asked to confirm. Unfazed, Nathaniel nodded as he kept his gaze at front.

With a smirk, he was confident with his calculations. "If a day on Earth is 80 days, then one year here is just like… 4 and a half days there."

He chuckled, turning his eyes to Arwyn with amusement. "Well well, you finally got something right, genius."

Then a shooting star from above drifted from west to east, brighter than the other stars and enough to comprehend. Arwyn, his first time seeing one, smiled with gleaming eyes. He pointed to the star as it travelled. "Look! A shooting star!"

"In here, they say a shooting star means fortune for someone who sees it." Nathaniel took a deep, refreshing sigh and sat on the downwards terrain. The night wind blew in front, just right. "Terra Incognita's a place of dreams and nightmares, kid. I bet you'll like it here, and I bet your father would too."

Arwyn stood still. He let go of the lantern. It pressed into the rustling grass as it landed. "I'd agree. He told me once that his bucket list was to go somewhere in Europe, where we could live in a cabin somewhere far from the city. There'd be mountains, rivers, trees and all."

The grass under the lantern twitched harder, blades curling up like they remembered it—then stopped, flattening out as if listening. Arwyn's scar pulsed faintly, a warm flicker syncing with the night's hum. He pulled the cracked mirror from his jacket, turning it over in his hands. The runes etched into its frame glinted under the moonlight, and for a split second, the glass flickered—not his reflection, but a shadow moving fast, too blurry to make out.

"What the…" Arwyn squinted, tilting it. The flicker vanished, leaving just his tired face staring back. There was his hazel eyes, messy hair, and his scar glowing soft yellow.

Nathaniel glanced over, still sprawled on the slope. "Told you that peddler's junk's more than it seems. Keep it close. Runar's gonna test us." He tapped the diary against his knee, voice dropping. "That 'Satsuma' bit? Cedric's been here, alright. Left a trail even the grass can't shut up about."

Arwyn tucked the mirror back, his smirk fading. "Then I guess we're following it. Quill or not, he's got the answers." He stepped forward, boots sinking into the grass, the rustling louder now—not crickets, not wind, but something shifting beneath. The terrain dipped sharper ahead, Runar's crimson towers looming closer, their jagged edges cutting the starlight like broken pencils.

Nathaniel stood, brushing dirt off his jacket. "Answers don't come cheap here, kid. Neither does fortune." He nodded at the lantern, still dim on the ground. "Next time, sketch something that fights back."

The rustling grew, like a low, scraping hum. Arwyn's hand hovered over his sketchbook, scar flaring brighter–not from danger, but from determination.