Part 29: Strawberry Cocktail

“Do you know why I wanted to talk to you?” asked Princess Candiere while using a spoon to sip on the fresh strawberry cocktail in her tea cup.

I had just sat down in the princess’s brightly lit office at night. Peppie and Prince Cinnamint were also there to accompany them. They seemed to be acting a lot more different than they were previously.

“I mean I wanted to get some things out of my head but you can go ahead,” I replied.

Princess Candiere placed down her tea cup next to some paperwork. She folded her hands on the table while staring down at the documents with concern.

“You’re not like the others here are you?”

This statement confused me.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you this. You see, our world existed before the game you played ever did. It was never always like this. We lived in harmony until a darkness befell the land. One we were not prepared for.”

“What kind of darkness?”

Pausing in her thoughts out of fear, the princess eventually continued on.

“The Traveller.”

“Who is the Traveller?”

“It is an evil monster that can control your imagination. Unlike nightmares where it is what you’re afraid of that brings those fears to life, it does not need your emotions to dictate its actions. The Traveller plays with his victims when they least suspect it.”

This made me curious. I had never heard of such a thing before.

“What did this monster do to Tartropolatté?” she asked the princess.

“It cursed the land. We don’t know why it came here. All we know is it is responsible for what happened to our library. It seems to be connected to another world but we had to close it down after experiencing paranormal activity there.”

“So that explains why the cafe’s catalog is shut down…”

During the conversation, Prince Cinnamint added his own words on the matter.

“I was the one who found out our library had become haunted. The bookshelves were taller and emptier than usual. We found crayons everywhere. It’s like they turned that entire space into a different place. However, we did find out about something called The Books Of Fate.”

“I never heard of that title being used to describe the books I saw before,” mentioned Ararima.

“That is because it is placed on the back cover.”

“Ohh… Interesting…”

“Each book we found seems to be from The Traveller. It started writing down every single death with illustrations to seal how the events would play out. We later learned that this was tied to it threatening us while we were asleep. It told us to take its victims by day and mention nothing about death to them. It goes through the portals at night somehow. Unfortunately, the victims seem to remember nothing about their past lives so it was hard to help them.”

This made me worry a lot. So if The Traveller was a monster, then what were its connections to UVOCA? I had to find out more in order to help Princess Candiere and everyone who lived in Tartropolatté. Whatever was going on in that library would prove to be important to finding my way back home. However, in order to do that, I needed them to talk about their origins.

“Princess Candiere, I’ll help you stop the Traveller. First I need you to tell me everything about yourself because I don’t really know any of you besides what the games say.”

Hearing this made Candiere uncomfortable for some reason.

“I don’t know. My past is really not all that pleasant. In fact, it is really frightening. Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes. Don’t worry. I haven’t had such a good life either so I can understand,” I said.

Holding her breath, Princess Candiere began to tell her story.