Medio: Join the dance ~ Present

“Please, we have children out here! Give us something, anything!”

The people outside of Medio were screaming to the walls in the hopes that the guards would respond, but unfortunately for them, there was none to listen to their pleas. After the wagon full of sacrifices entered the night before the guards abandoned their posts and joined the festival.

Raz couldn’t keep the people outside the city out of her mind, so after failing to immerse herself in the festivities, she concluded she needed to assess the situation to assuage her worries. From the ample viewpoint that spanned the entire city on the side towards the cliff there was an access the guards used to get up in the wall. From there she confirmed on a glance that all doors towards the top were locked. Maybe she could try to lockpick one of them?

In a way, she had no reason to do so, but it didn’t sit well with her to see the people inside the city eat in the festival non stop while the people outside were desperate for any kind of help. Maybe if she managed to get into the top of the wall, she could throw some things out for them.

She neared the closest one to examine the lock, but to her surprise, it wasn’t locked, it was wielded shut. Someone had melted metal in the keyhole, effectively locking the door in such a way that it couldn’t be opened without heavy tools.

“Raz, you are squeezing my hand.”

Yke complained and Raz immediately let him go. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she had completely forgotten she had brought him with her. After all, she couldn’t let Herm in charge of him, for all she knew, he would probably end up introducing the kid into the world of alcoholism as soon as she looked away. The world would end before she would let a kid drink alcohol, a belief she held even before the ocean decided to take the saying out of the mere hypothesis.

“Sorry Yke, I just want to make sure of something before coming back to the festival.”

Now that she saw the welded door, a bad omen set on her stomach and ruined any hopes she had of enjoying the festival. Something was wrong, and if the end of the world had taught her anything it was that bad omens now had catastrophic results every single time, without fail.

The other thing she had learnt, and that the fiasco on Sueño only confirmed more, was that in all scenarios the most important thing is to always have an escape route ready before anything could happen. There were only two main entrances to the city, one at each side, so going to the one they entered through would be the easiest solution. After all, if all guards had left, it would surely be the easiest exit.

That’s why, when she found out that the entire door had been completely welded shut into the wall around it she knew that she had already messed up. She didn’t need to see the other side to know that it surely had been closed too. With the entrances closed, a cliff on one side and a wall of stone on the other, the city had been effectively closed off from the world.

“Hey Yke, let’s play a game. Whoever spots Herm first, wins”

Yke was watching at the door, confused, but with a sense of dread forming inside. He didn’t understand why the doors were locked, but he did notice that it was starting to worry Raz.

Unfortunately for her, it took longer than expected to find Herm, the sun almost going down by the time Yke caught sight of him. The people on the smaller plaza had moved to the main one, and they were dancing in circles around the scenario in the center. In it, piles of wood had been put in preparation for a bonfire, with the gigantic straw man in the center.

In Between the people who danced without any worries was Herm, arms interlocked with other two men and with an enormous jug of Kykeon in each hand.

“I swear to God, I’m gonna kill this imbecile.” She muttered, hoping that Yke did not hear her.

Going around the dancing people and doing her best to avoid being dragged into the party, she managed to reach Herm from behind, pulling him from his shirt. When she did, the two jugs fell to the ground as he lost balance and crashed back. The men who were interlocked with him laughed, keeping the dance going between themselves and stepping around Herm’s body.

After he noticed what was going on and managed to scurry away from the grou´p, Raz had to summon all her self control not to drag Herm away from the plaza by pulling him from the ears. She did pull him by the shirt, which seemed like good enough of a concession from her part.

“Now, of all times, you think it is a good idea to get drunk?”

“Oh, hey now.”

Herm freed himself, slapping her hand away.

“First, rude. Secondly, I am not drunk yet. Believe me, it would take a lot more than that watered down excuse for ale they call kykeon around here to get me even tipsy. Thirdly, I thought we had agreed we would enjoy the festival until Ases arrived, didn’t we? I already took provisions for the chained men, there’s nothing else we can do.”

Raz, already out of patience, snapped back.

“There’s something we can do. We can find our way out of the city, for starters. The main door is welded shut and I have no doubt the other one is the same, so we have to find an alternate route. I say we separate, you can take Yke with you. I recommend you to start looking on the walls of the sides for any holes or places we could be able to pass through. I have a couple of ideas I would like to look at on my own in the meanwhile.”

“Are you going to leave me?”

And those words broke down the plan as if it was just a flimsy house of cards. Once again, even when speaking of him, she had forgotten he was there in the first place. For the first time in the day she looked at him and could only notice that he was terrified.

Of course he had noticed the welded doors. Of course he had noticed her worry the entire day, and ignoring him only aggravated the situation.

As the sun set in the distance and the darkness started to set in the city, she could only see the kid trembling in his place. Who knows what kind of ideas had been brewing in his head while she hadn’t even bothered to think of him?

“Kid, don’t worry about anything, I won’t let anything happen to you. We are taking you to Yatro with us, that’s a promise.”

Herm ruffled his hair, and although the gesture seemed to annoy him, his worries seemed to have lessened a little.

“But Raz is right in something, we may need to separate to cover more terrain. And between us, I think you will be more safe with the man with the sword than with the pregnant woman.”

Yke looked at him, not saying a word, but weighing his words in his mind.

“Don’t even try to make me sound like I am helpless. If you put it like that, it sounds like you should not leave me alone either.”

“True, I should not. There is a crazy cult in the city, you should not be alone. But unlike last time, I have not seen any beasts, so the situation is somehow slightly better than last time. As things are, as long as you keep going through the populated areas it should be fine.”

“That works for me. Actually, that gives me an idea for a rendezvous point, this is what we are gonna do.”

After a short talk the trio separated in opposite directions. After that, in a matter of minutes, night had fallen upon the city. There were public oil lamps in the main streets that on a normal day would have been lit at this point, but this day, all of them remained off.

The sunset began, but the sun seemed to slow down in the horizon, covering the city in a red light that came from the side, evolving the city in shadows. The shadows seemed to get bigger each passing moment, just as the darkness seemed to get more evident the more the three of them looked around.

Up until the last moment, the city would not know more light than the red brightness of the half hidden sun. Not like anyone else in the city could notice, as every single person was outside dancing their worries away in the streets, deep in the blissful ignorance that they all had chosen for themselves.