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Author's Chapter Notes:
Phantom Stranger: Robert
Max continued to follow the black cat back downstairs.

At the grand stairway landing, he paused again to look inside the junk room, only now it was all in order, looking more like a child’s playroom rather than the ruins of one. Now he could find no trace of the toy sailboat that spooked him earlier, most likely lurking in a toybox against the far wall. After that moment of distraction, he was relieved to see the cat still loitering near the bottom of the steps, almost as if waiting for him.

Just like each time before, as if leading him somewhere, and he turned to follow, barely noticing as he nearly tripped on the curled rug on the stair landing, absently kicking it back into place in his focus on the cat.

Whom he had started out thinking of as a he, most likely because of his long acquaintance with Bandit, but was becoming increasingly certain was a she, for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on. At first, he thought the cat might be leading him to Melissa, but now he was starting to wonder if he should have grabbed Justin before following this strange lead. Especially now that the trail was apparently leading back out of the house.

Through dimly-lit rooms and corridors, then some storage room, finally to a back door hanging wide open.

He stepped out, blinking away at the daylight and wondering for a moment if the girl hadn’t found her own way out of Vineholdt. If the cat might perhaps lead each of them back out in turn. Yet that felt too much like wishful thinking, given this place’s grim reputation, and now he suspected that he had just been led right back to the beginning of the maze.

Feeling cheated, and more than a little foolish, he was surprised to still see the cat, sitting over near that giant gameboard he saw from upstairs earlier.

Sure enough, the cat once again got up, sauntering alongside the board, and he followed. Standing this close to the whole thing, Max couldn’t help pausing to examine the nearest game piece. Stepping on a dark square to reach it, he moved in for a closer look.

Nearly as tall as he, and set on rolling casters, its squarish base topped by what appeared to be the stylized head of some sort of winged sea serpent. Carved of some dark flecked stone, looking quite solid, heavy, enough to cause serious injury if it, say, fell on someone. With that thought in mind, he was about to step back, when he noticed a name inscribed on the back of the base.

Nemo, a name that sounded simple, yet for some reason suggested to him hidden depths.

The light around him fell into shade, and he snapped his head up to find himself nearly surrounded by more pieces.

On reflex, Max stepped back, off the gameboard, realizing even as he did so that that was the only direction he wasn’t hemmed-in from. He stumbled back a couple more steps, whipping out his laser sword in case they continued to press the attack. Already concerned about whether he could actually evade several falling hunks of stone at once.

Yet when he looked back up to face that very task, he found all the pieces lined back up at opposite sides, as if starting a new game, looking for all the world as if they had been arranged that way all along. He stared for a long moment at the lineup of potential opponents. A open but faceless helmet, a pyramid, something vaguely canine, with a long snout and tall, pointy ears…

After taking a moment to pull himself back together, he remembered the cat. Who was now nowhere to be found, and he couldn’t help but feel that she had led him into some sort of trap. Found a moment to wonder how he let himself get separated so easily, no matter how much the cat gave all the air of leading him somewhere. Especially now that he had seen for himself where that led.

So focused was he on trying to pick up the trail, he hardly noticed the dark clouds creeping in as he skirted the edge of the board, giving the darker pieces on this side a wide berth.

As he rounded the corner of mansion, wondering if he should perhaps get back inside to find Justin” or Shades, or even this Melissa he went in looking for” he spotted a crumbling stone fence marking some inner border of the estate. Originally about waist-high, more decoration than barrier, whole sections of it had toppled over through the years. Only the section that joined the mansion wall still standing fully intact, with its half-open iron gate.

Still no sign of the cat, though.

Nearby, built into the wall, he saw a fountain full of clear water.

On some vague impulse, Max ambled over to the fountain, looking down at the smooth stone basin. As the wind swept his shaggy hair, he was taken aback at just how much resembled his father in that moment. Or at least, what he remembered of him. Though he didn’t really like the stern vibes he was getting from those storm-clouds swirling overhead.

Much like that toy sailboat from earlier, he found himself profoundly uncomfortable with where all of this imagery was leading.

A few seconds later, a few drops of rain began to fall, then more, obliterating all reflection, and he looked around under an ever darkening sky, that night swirling around him as surely as the storm growing above. He blinked at the crumbled line of fence, a flicker of lightning showing him ancient Cyexian tombstones, runes and all. In the background, swaying trees all seemed to hang down with thick willowy fronds, completing the scene for him.

Somehow, he was back on Kinsasha, the farthest of the islands of Layosha, and he half expected the infamous clan ringleader, Slash, to grab him from behind, for Cyexian pirates to hold him hostage as they did one night long ago.

In his growing alarm, he spun around, and was genuinely surprised to find he was not surrounded by Slash’s old crew once again.

His relief, though, melted into sublime shock at the figure who came stumbling through that iron gate instead.

“Dad…” Max’s voice breaking even as he uttered that one word.

Sure enough, there stood Robert of Layosha, Slash’s mortal nemesis, sopping wet in the rain, and smelling faintly of sea-brine, as he strode toward this surreal reunion.

“My son…”

“Is… it really you?”

“Son… I forgive you…” Robert’s voice stern and somber, making Max cringe in spite of himself.

“Dad… How did you find me?”

“I forgive you…” Robert repeated, and as he drew nearer, he seemed to loom over Max as if he were still a child. “For failing me…”

Max backed up a step, finding himself up against an overflowing fountain that instantly put him in mind of the railing of a storm-tossed deck, the thunder rumbling overhead, just loud enough to make itself heard over the waves and the rain.

“I forgive you…” Robert said once again, reaching out for Max with both hands, “for letting me die…”

Even as he reached out to ward off those pale, seaweed-draped hands, having nowhere to retreat to, he struggled against that crushing feeling that he somehow deserved this, even as his small, feeble hands struggled against the steely grip of a man who had never laid hands on him like that…

That somehow the watery grave he avoided back then by the unintentional sacrifice of others had finally caught up with him.