The white cape doned again, and with the device carried hidden underneath the cape and the arm, I sprinted through the empty town. But perhaps empty was not all it was anymore.

On my way there, I found a strange thing I had never seen before -- best words for it would be a robot before robots, a stone-built shrimp animated through emotions and magic. It looked up at me as I looked down at it, and through that, came a certain understanding in the stoppings of my duties. An understanding in, that, while we were personally alone, for now, we had each other. I knelt down to this creature, and could hear a lively, mechanical hum coming from inside. It tilted its head at me, chirped, before cutting off that feeling prematurely and scuttering away to its own business.

After that, my mission continued, at midnight. The secret entrance to the temple, or was it an emergency exit? I knew my way. I was invited here plenty of times before, and I just prayed that Mocha Ray Cookie would not wake up while I did these violent neccessarities. The steps became glass-noised, approaching the Sacred Pearl. It looked a little more dead than when I was last here -- and this little gift would revive it.

All I needed to do was

Just do this and

"Do not wait, she could awake any time. Purify as your duties have told. Become the hero once more. Go on. Go on..."

But I remained at the standstill in front of the pearl, my cape fluttering in gentle wind, merely caught up in my own word salads. The out-of-body feeling felt more intense than beforehand, and then, without a thought at all, I did what I was told. The device was unhidden, thrown to the ground like juniveile popping rocks, and with that, a smoke came out of the top. And with that smoke came a light from inwards, hazing upwards, and then, my own fleeance from the scene.