Changes

The city of Geminus was still alive when they emerged from the tower, but it felt different now. The streets were crowded, the markets loud, yet Tanuki couldn’t shake the silence of that chamber. The frozen gears, the feathers scattered on the floor, Celeste’s arms around him, her whispered confession.

The world outside seemed thinner, like a stage set that might collapse if he pressed too hard against it.

Celeste walked beside him, her cloak glitching between silver and black. She didn’t speak, and Tanuki didn’t ask. Atlas and NV were waiting at the guild hall, and he knew the moment they saw her, everything would change.

The guild hall was flickering when they arrived. The banners on the walls shifted between emblems, their guild crest, then blank, then the sigil of rival guilds. The hearth fire burned in reverse, flames collapsing into logs.

Atlas was pacing when Tanuki entered. He froze at the sight of Celeste.

“You brought her?” His voice cracked with disbelief. “After everything?”

NV didn’t move from her roost by the window. Her eyes narrowed, sharp and calculating. “Explain.”

Tanuki’s throat tightened. He wanted to defend Celeste, but the words tangled. Celeste stepped forward instead.

“I have the Tarot,” she said simply. She opened her inventory, and the “???” card pulsed into view, static crawling across its edges, causing Atlas to swear and NV’s eyes to widen in contrast to the rest of her composed face.

Celeste continued, her voice steady. “It’s not a weapon. It’s a beacon. It points to something hidden Something buried outside the map. I can decipher it.”

The room went still as Celeste placed the Tarot on the table. The glow spread across the wood, forming jagged lines of light that stretched toward the southern edge of the map.

Tanuki leaned closer. The lines weren’t just coordinates, they were code, fragments of something deeper. His HUD flickered, displaying error messages he couldn’t read.

Atlas shook his head. “This is insane. You expect us to follow her after she-”

“She’s telling the truth,” NV interrupted. Her voice was calm, but her eyes never left the card. “And if she escaped from Arsenyx, it’s only a matter of time before he realizes that too and comes after her. And who knows what other goons he’ll recruit for his cause.”

Tanuki clenched his fists. “Then we get there first.”

Atlas’s ship lifted from the docks of Geminus just before dawn. The city’s spires fell away beneath them, their lights flickering like dying stars. From above, Tanuki could see the aurora glitching across the sky, freezing at midnight for a heartbeat, then resuming its fractured shimmer.

The ship’s engines hummed steadily, but the world below was anything but steady. Fields stretched out in broken patterns, rivers flowed in impossible directions, and whole villages blinked in and out of existence like faulty textures.

Tanuki leaned against the railing, hood pulled low. Atlas stood at the helm, hands firm on the controls. NV scanned the horizon with her usual sharp focus, while Celeste sat apart, the “???” Tarot glowing faintly in her lap.

“Where exactly are we going?” Atlas asked, not taking his eyes off the horizon.

Celeste lifted the card. Its glow pulsed, forming jagged lines of light that pointed south, beyond the known map. “Where the beacon leads.”

Atlas grunted. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one we have,” Tanuki said quietly.

Hours passed. The ship cut across landscapes that grew stranger the further they went.
Forests stretched in impossible spirals, their treetops bending toward a single unseen point.
Lakes rippled upward, water climbing into the sky before vanishing.
NPC caravans marched in reverse along empty roads, their dialogue scrambled into nonsense.

Tanuki’s HUD flickered. His minimap went blank, the compass needle spinning wildly before freezing.

“We’re off the map,” NV said, her voice low.

Atlas tightened his grip on the helm. “That’s not supposed to be possible.”

Celeste’s eyes stayed fixed on the Tarot. “It is now.”

By dusk, the beacon’s pull grew stronger. The Tarot’s glow flared, tugging them toward a vast woodland that stretched endlessly across the horizon.