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R A I S I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !

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▶ BOOK 1: M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !
▶ CHAPTERS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

⊹˚₊·‧Chapter 5: Where?!

“Yo.” He greeted them, bored and slightly annoyed.

Pierrosie swiftly ran up to him, showing him her flashlight. Pomni’s heart made a little jump when she saw him take it and look at it — with a tad bit more interest than the item deserved.

“You finished doing your weird YouTube hobby?” he asked them while turning the object in his hand, then giving it back to the little NPC.

“It’s not a YouTube hobby,” Zooble answered, “But yeah. It was neat, doing it together for once.”

Pomni smiled at them.

“And what about you? Are the others trying to lock you behind bars because of all of your stealing? Preparing a little roleplay?” Pomni asked.

“Please.” Jax returned, rolling his eyes dramatically. “I did not steal. I told you, I was looting. Stealing requires estate, estate requires living people.”

“Oh, the archaeology and museum argument.” Pomni gave back, “Very handy.”

“They think hints for the intel are in there.” Jax simply answered.

“And you’re not in there with the others because…” Zooble began a sentence as a question.

Jax shrugged, not answering, busy focusing on something in the distance while the little clown doll crawled up his leg.

Before Pomni could investigate further, the others came out of the building, holding a shining, silvery metal case.

“We found it! It was just — oh, hi Pomni!” Ragatha announced before spotting Pomni, then Zooble and Pierrosie. 

“It was locked in a cell, we had to do some questing to get it out.” Gangle continued while coming closer.

“Well, what’s inside?” Zooble asked.

Kinger padded the case. “A good, old bee.”

“A… a bee?” Pomni asked, confused.

Ragatha chuckled. “Yeah. Apparently the last bee on earth or something. It probably was just a placeholder that Caine forgot. After all, this adventure wasn’t really about finding what’s in the case, but finding the case itself.”

“Umm… okay. His obsession with bees is becoming weird, though.” Zooble added, and then said, “Should we head back?”

“Yeah. I’m starving.” Jax commented, acting as if there wasn’t a tiny clown crawling up on his back now.

“We can’t exactly starve—” Kinger began.

“Yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing your wisdom once again, Sensei.” Jax interrupted him and started to walk back from where they came from, with Pierrosie attached to his shoulders, holding onto his ears.

He did nothing to acknowledge this, but Pomni thought she saw him suppressing a grin. 

When they were halfway back, Pierrosie hit his head with the flashlight.

“Ouch! What the eff? What was that for?” He asked, trying to look up to her. 

She pointed her flashlight towards a tall building.

“Oh, right. We promised her to bring back everything we took from the building,” Pomni answered as she came closer, reaching out her hands to help Pierrosie come down.

The girl made a disapproving sound. Jax laughed.

“Can’t blame her. Between the two of us, I’m the better ride. The taller one, too.”

With Jax as her mount, they went back into the abandoned store, together with Pomni, putting back the objects.

Then they left for the portal. 

“That was really, really nice,” Ragatha declared when they were in reach of the portal, a beautiful sunset in the distance. “Thanks for convincing me. I feel Pierrosie had a fantastic first experience. And you liked it, too, didn’t you, Pomni?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Pomni answered with a bright smile, then looking at the little pierrot. “We both did. Right?”

Instead of answering, Pierrosie shook Jax’ ears like rattles, excitedly, causing him to state several demonstrative but bored ‘Ow’s.

“I also wouldn’t mind another adventure here. We should let Caine know that. Seems like we all got something out of it.” Zooble added. Gangle took their hand. “I didn’t, but I enjoyed being here with all of you, nevertheless. I wouldn’t mind coming back.”

She was, indeed, still wearing her happy mask.

With these high spirits, they all walked through the portal.
Kinger was first, followed by Gangle and Zooble, then Ragatha, Pomni, and lastly Jax along with Pierrosie.

When Jax walked through it, arriving at the circus, the portal behind him flickered frantically, then disappeared. Not closing, like usually: literally disappearing. Into hundreds of broken image artifacts.

“Huh” Jax said while turning around, “That was weird.”

Ragatha was the first to notice.

“Jax…… Where… where is my daughter?”

The cartoon rabbit reached above his head. “Here, of c—” he began, but as his hands grabbed into nothingness, he quickly made a 360, panickingly looking around.

“Where is Pierrosie?!” Ragatha repeated, “Did you leave her!?”

“No, I swear! She was just on my shoulders when I walked through!”

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