Cheal vehemently reminisced about a few events in Cleaving while his party filled with scapegoats had knocked on all the doors and openings. Some people responded, and they very passionately chose to attack one of the scapegoats.
Only for Cheal to respond by throwing a dagger at them that defied the armour responders wore. It slid through the reinforced armour of Rigac's soldier. Any who came, any who could respond met the same type of dagger.
Cheal carried twelve such daggers, each seemed the same. Except the truth was more horrendous.
His recollection of events in Cleaving was different from the ones the wandering boy who wore a brown overcoat knew of.
The night Cheal had arrived in Cleaving, he had been behind the wanderer by hours. But he was curious of one detail. How was the wanderer making those fire magical actions by tapping?
And so his investigation began.
Cleaving's second street is the street name given to the second street built during the inception of the settlement of Cleaving. It truly was the second street through and through. And today it had become a den of gamblers.
His kind of people, the ones Cheal could easily deal with. And the teen began a gambling challenge with every single gambler.
The wager was simple. An exchange of knowledge.
Cheal would share knowledge only he knew if he lost. In turn, the gambler would perform or detail something Cheal needed to learn as well as they knew.
The first gambler lost, and he performed the action of fire. As the gambler explained it, "tap three times consequently with any amount of intent at the same spot downwards, and the world spouts a fire action." He demonstrated.
The similar happened with a lady gambler, she lost and told of the action of earth.
"Make a circle then make another circle next to it and draw a vertical line top to bottom between the two circles. You can just use your fingers to trace this. It's not needed to use ink, it can be imaginary."
He asked of how many kinds there are, and third gambler who lost let in on a secret. "There are four actions, but fire has two different effects, water has two different effects, ice has one effect, and earth has more than a dozen effects. No one knows why."
This piqued Cheal's interest, as he distinctly remembered his first partner to demonstrate three fire effects.
The fourth gambler was given a simple task, 'perform the action of fire as many times as needed to get every effect in it.' This one laughed that it will be easy as he chugged down a liquid in his bottle.
The first effect was a simple melting fire, second one was a rising speeding fire that was trying to burrow into the spot at which it was initiated. He thought it was over, but Cheal said he hadn't shown all possibilities of the effects and so the man was caught in a logical loophole.
He performed and performed. The same action of fire demonstrated several different variations showing how the same two effects can have many variations.
Effects weren't just depended on tapping three times, they were depended on the material, the amount of fingers used, even hand, legs, forehead, rear. Anything worked.
But what brought more curiosity was the fact that even the collected gamblers were mystified when the action of fire performed a twisting tornado of fire. The same one the wanderer had used.
And Cheal's curiosity was settled a bit, but his mind and heart both had been in turmoil ever since the start.
His quest of beginning of joy is nowhere near its beginning.
Cheal walked several other gamblers through his investigation. Every gambler completely wasted due to the basic law of Cleaving "Remembrance is forbidden", if only they knew.
The second street was a den even the kingdom of Riga's army that laid siege to Cleaving didn't touch. Cheal didn't have their inhibitions. He set the gamblers rattling as every match on the game of rocks and squares was just a variation of another strategy game.
Quite the irony. A city plagued by forgetfulness, has its gamblers playing a game that requires memory the most.
Each gambler who lost to Cheal was demanding he play them again. They just couldn't shake the feeling off of losing to a boy!
Cheal assured them he would, if they could get him more knowledge on the city of Cleaving's name.
Several newcomers that had surrounded him earlier began challenging him thinking they could defeat him, having only heard his request.
Oh, the souls of those den dwellers. If only the soul could remind.
Only the ones who did lose to Cheal, remembered their loss to him. Unlike the other times they had lost that night. Cheal meanwhile heard them all.
"Cleaving is called such because the Kikren could only be cleaved."
"Cleaving is the name because Kikren's effect is cleaving at us."
"Cleaving is cleaving as that is how the first one who attacked it also cleaved out the entire few leti-leagues of the continent. Making this lower bank shore and a safe forest."
He collected plenty. He wanted more, and the night ascended into the daylight.
There was one more peculiarity about the Ashtrim. There was no sun or moon. Just stars in the night sky, and a light blue sky during daytime. Only during the morning and evening will the sky show a shade of red or orange.
"Weird", that's what he said as he murdered another guard who walked out of the hollowed chambers. His interest in peeking in the chambers was increasing, but Rigac's secrets were well hidden.
According to his knowledge the chambers must be traps. The real camp where the missing age group from other conquered territories of kingdom of Riga must be somewhere else in the castle.
The night in the sky of Rigac, suddenly parted. And Cheal moved fast ordering his scapegoat party to surround him. They were not mere scapegoats, they were his prized possessions he claimed from Cleaving.
He still wondered what else could be made using the mysterious and ever-present law of Cleaving. 'Remembrance is forbidden.'
His party made up of people that were doused in the Cleaving's seawater under the effects of three different actions of elements. The malicious law, rubbed these people the wrong way, and yet in the direction Cheal needed them.
This party cannot be seen or remembered unless you are stronger than the effect they induce. He still didn't understand how does the magic in Ashtrim worked; only he knew of the actions.
The starlight flooded the castle, again for the second time. It searched for the intruders. Found none hiding, no corpses of guards in the hallway of the hollowed chambers.
'Ingenious', that's the word Cheal used for the way starlight moved. He wondered how did the Monarch of Riga controlled this.
His daggers were also made similarly as the scapegoat party, and tested very thoroughly in the Sixth Library Street. He just couldn't stay for the entire day in Cleaving then, and left the city early that morning.
His only regret about Cleaving? He couldn't apologise to the boy who took care of a ramshackle building for pioneers, Cheal apparently had made a hole in the roof.
While Cheal protected himself against the Monarch's all searching starlight, the wanderer boy hummed a tune as the starlight graced his face. His plan was taking place slowly.
The leafy partner of his danced to the tune he sang. Wind became its partner in the dance.
The wanderer's plan was a simple one, let the outskirts know 'why the enhancing mix does what it does given its taken without knowing of the warnings.'
His plan had begun, a building that was supposedly going to be completed five days later, was built within the night. A child who was screaming due to thirst, had its thirst quenched but it drank a bit too more and thus threw a few chairs out into the neighbours building through the wall.
Not much. Just a simple, slow rise.
The wandering boy who wore a brown overcoat had walked to several different water reservoirs with lids as an inspection hunter.
Rigac Assembly and Rinet were kind enough to let him get to become a hunter of Rigac. And he hunted and reported on the ill maintenance of the reservoirs.
They were built high in the outskirt borough for that was the only way to provide and collect water for the bubbling population.
Normal streams and rivers weren't enough.
And he learned another part that the 'outskirts' didn't like being called 'outer city borough'. The Monarch had been made well aware of this fact, he had been contemplating it. He had decreed that "he will take the people's wishes into account and for the current time both titles can be used, and whichever is used more in the ten years of time is the one that will be etched forever as its name."
A simple decree. To give the outskirts people a sense of control that they could have the borough called 'outskirts borough', or 'outskirt borough'. But it was all a lie, history was written not by the people but the ones who could write.
He reminded himself of the fact. And another memory crashed into him, a simple one.
Of him waking up in the wagon, feeling violated. He now knew he had been out for 2-3 days. He knew it since talking to Rinet's coworker. And then the Priest Noria's words and hidden message. 'I have been outed.'
Everything felt the same as the last day he remembered in Cleaving, he wished to have a different semblance—and so, he sang.
An old tune from a lost city-state.