==Getting Back Gertrude==

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Gertrude was gone.

No matter what the poor knight could do, there was just no getting around the fact that his sword was now useless.

"What have they done to you, Gertie?" sobbed the bereaved knight through his vale of tears.

"They?" Thimol watched the knight with some amusement, but mostly with a certain distasteful interest, and with a bit of contempt sprinkled in. "You do mean you, right? I mean, who uses their sword to keep a hydraulic-powered door wedged open?" he said, keeping the mangled piece of metal that was formerly a sword dangling from his fingers.

The knight continued crying, and Thimol knelt beside him, copping a feel of his back in the guise of comforting him.

"There, there. I have the materials needed to make a new sword for you, but you have do a few favors for me first."

"Hey, what did I tell you about soliciting 'favors' from other knights?" snapped a familiar voice. Thimol turned around to see Sylvanius standing right behind him.

"As long as I don't get caught, it's okay?"

Sylvanius sighed. "Let's go."

Thimol got up and stretched suggestively in front of Sylvanius. "Where to~?"

While Sylvanius was especially disturbed by the addition of the tilde at the end of Thimol's question, he decided to forgo commenting on it lest he start an argument that would last the day.

"The new gate. You know, I thought I talked about this the whole day yesterday."

Thimol turned his head away defiantly. "Well, I do have an impeccable BS filter, so if I didn't catch it, it's not totally my fault."

"Look, are you coming or not?"

"Pff. Fine."

Just then, the bereaved knight came running to Thimol.

"Wait!"

"Oh~ Well, it's fine if you want to come along, too, if you want to be my pet," Thimol quipped in his trademark voice that smacked of depravity. "But I do imagine it will be difficult if you don't have a weapon."

"Would you be willing to make me a new sword if I pay you guys crystal energy?" asked the knight with the saddest puppy eyes he could manage.

"Well, we are broke, but if you can make a better puppy face, that can be negotiated," said Thimol.

"Shut up," Sylvanius turned to the knight. "How much?"

"D'uhh... maybe around 3200?"

Sylvanius rubbed his chin, looking at the knight doubtfully. "How can we know you'll be able to give us that much energy? That's quite a lot."

"Well, I get my energy from a Master... 'Card', I think its name was? It makes crystal energy from extradimensional currency, I think," the knight said, sniffling.

"Hm, well I have heard of knights able to procure infinite amounts of energy as if from nowhere by way of extradimensional brokers..." Sylvanius paused a moment in thought. "Well, I can't really discredit that."

Thimol guffawed. "'Discredit'."

"SHOOSH. We have a deal, fellow knight."

"Thanks so much, guys." said the knight, getting up on his feet. "Here's a list of the materials needed to create the sword."

He handed over a rolled-up piece of heavy stock paper sealed with a gilt ribbon, and Thimol took it.

"How ostentatiously refreshing," Thimol said, examining the paper. "This must be the first thing I must have seen in a while that isn't made of metal or worn cloth."

Later, at the bazaar, Thimol and Sylvanius examined the contents of the paper. Written within, in incongruously plain text, was the following:

Gertrude:
-Sun Silver
-Spark of Life
-Forgery
-Vanilla Sugar
-BluBerry
-Sealed Sword

"Well, I WAS going to use this Sealed Sword to get an Avenger, but I guess for the sake of the irresponsible knight, I could stand to fight Royal Jellies another FIFTY TIMES," growled Thimol.

"Well, that's the least of our problems. Where are we going to find a "forgery", vanilla sugar, and a blueberry?" Sylvanius grimaced at the paper. "At least I could spare Sun Silver and a Spark of Life, but these other three, I don't have a clue as to where to begin looking for those."

As they pored over the paper, a large shadow was cast upon the two.

"Hello there, little ones. You look as if you require knowledge of some kind."

Standing behind them was one of the Strangers, leaning toward them in a manner that suggested that he had no sense of personal boundaries.

"Oh, well we actually do need help, big guy~" Thimol cooed in his trademark voice.

"Yes, we wanted to know where we could find these materials." Sylvanius had shoved Thimol away, pointing to the materials written out on the paper.

"Yes..." The Stranger examined the paper with childlike fascination. "Forged documents are common among Devilites, each one falsifying documents to satisfy their diabolical, personal needs."

"I guess that should have been obvious, in retrospect," Sylvanius commented. "Go on..."

"Vanilla sugar is a rarity coveted by all on this planet, but only very few know where to find it. However, Kata are rumored to hoard large stores of it."

"A good a place to start looking as any, but what about blueberries? As far as I know, those are impossible to cultivate here. Or for several million light years, as a matter of fact."

"Ah, but what is written here does not call for blueberries, but the BluBerry. From what we know, this is a versatile communication device manufactured and used exclusively by the Gremlins. It was intended to make working easier, but they seem to use it more for discussing brain-hemorrhaging minutiae of daily life, a trend perpetrated by the younger generation."

"Something tells me this is becoming an allegory for the life of a really bitter person." Thimol said with disgust.

"Hey, you're about to break the fourth wall," Sylvanius hissed.

"Oh, crap. I forgot I'm not supposed to do that."

"Uh, anyway, that's all. Thanks for the help," Sylvanius told the Stranger.

"I am glad to be of service."

"That's great, cause..." Thimol giggled naughtily. "I was thinking you could do me another 'service' later..."

Sylvanius pulled Thimol away by the arm, heading to the arcade.

Upon arriving at the new gate, Thimol and Sylvanius stared at the screen that bore the name of the gate: Scarlet Punishment. It displayed a knight being cut apart by spinning scythes in excruciating and immaculate detail.

"Well, I..." Thimol sputtered, thinking of something to say, clever or otherwise.

"Did it just move?" Sylvanius leaned in closer.

"I--I don't think so..." Thimol stood erect, walking over to the lift. "Well, we should be going down now. It's pretty, but I don't want to stare at it all day."

"Sure." Sylvanius reluctantly made his way over to the lift, still looking at the screen.

Riding the lift down, they entered into a space dotted with buidings and chunks of pavement floating about. No doubt, they were in the realm of Devilites, but there was not a single one to be seen.

"It's unusually quiet. And desolate," Sylvanius noted.

"You say that as if it's never quiet and desolate here," said Thimol, lazily waving a Gran Faust from his arm.

"Er, touché," Sylvanius said, surprised by the somewhat astute remark. "Although, I do have to ask: Don't you have anything other than a Faust? That's no good against Devilites."

"No, not really. I keep this because I hate hostile Gremlins and slimes and I wish to cut them down wherever I may find them. That and it's a metaphor for my--"

"NO, stop. Don't finish that sentence."

"Pff. Prude."

As the two ventured deeper, they came across two Devilites, up to the usual Devilite-related activities. Just as Sylvainus was about to sic the Peacemaker on them, the Devilites caught sight of them.

"AUDITORS!" one of the Devilites honked, and both bolted for places to hide.

"'Auditors'? What--?" Sylvanius looked around to see what the Devilites may have meant, but saw nothing.

"They must mean us," Thimol said, going over to one of the Devilites.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

As Thimol found the Devilites cowering in a dank alleyway, one of them turned around and gasped in shock.

"It was him!" the Devilite honked, selling out his former friend. "He made copies of our contracts with the 'paid vacations' edit!"

"What? That was YOU!" The other Devilite retorted, assaulting his companion with a half-eaten eclair that seemed to be fostering some form of primitive life. "Well, now you can find someone else that'll stand in for you during off-the-clock lunch breaks."

"Hey, guys. I'm not an editor--"

"'Auditor'" Sylvanius said, correcting Thimol.

"Suck it," Thimol snapped, thrusting his loins at Sylvanius, and continued speaking to the Devilites. "We're not auditors, whatever those are. We're just looking for a forged document 'cause we're crafting a sword for someone."

"What, and have that guy kill us with that new, shiny sword of his? Why would we help someone kill us?" honked the Devilite, waving his arms about.

"Other than the fact that you're already doomed to an eternity of filling out invoices in triplicate and receiving calls from angry clients and superiors?" Sylvanius shrugged. "Gee, I have no idea. Oh, well. We could just leave these two to the auditors, I guess, and we could find someone else that would gladly take our shinies in return for a small favor. Let's go Thimol."

"Sylv, what are you--?"

"Wait, what kind of shinies?"

"Oh, I don't know... Money, Fausts..." Sylvanius added a deliberate pause. "...freedom?"

"F-f-freedom?" The other Devilite shuddered with excitement, his eyes becoming as wide as turkey platters.

"Yes, freedom." Sylvanius spoke in the voice of an amateur hypnotist, moving his hands in a large arc. "The great outdoors and all the leisure time you could ever ask for can be yours if you give us one forged document."

"Cool. Let's do it," honked the Devilite excitedly. "Follow me."

"We're really not going to take them to Haven, are we?" Thimol asked in one of his rare moments of mental brilliance where he applied the ever-elusive faculty of common sense. "They could be leading us to a trap or something."

"They won't. They'll never turn down a chance to escape their drudgery. And in the event that they do try to spring a trap on us, you have your Thorn Blade."

"Actually, no. I don't," Thimol said with a wince.

"Why?"

"Well, it's difficult to carry around something that gives you night terrors of the Snarbolax, even during broad daylight, and you're awake and charged on two quarts of coffee."

Sylvanius stared at Thimol.

"But I did bring my Rigadoon... Not nearly as useful, but still good at skewering devilites. Just... takes a lot longer."

They entered into the sickeningly bland lobby of an office building, where a Pit Boss had papers stacked to the three-meter high ceiling on his desk.

"Hey, hey, no visitors. Never." The Pit Boss honked, waving his mug at the group, splashing coffee everywhere. "Well, unless you have some arabica. Then you're more than welcome."

"Hey, boss, uh... do you have some forged stuff you're not using?" asked one of the Devilites.

"Oh, come on. I use everything here, but the auditors are out and about so..." The Pit Boss pushed one of the stacks over. "...take all you want from here, and the rest, I guess we could just... I dunno, use to fuel the copy machines or something."

"Wow." Thimol picked up a paper and perused it contents. "You think I could buy some paper goods off you?"

"Huh?" The Pit Boss looked up from scribbling on something. "Oh, we don't sell paper goods. We do condiments."

"Oh..." Thimol sighed with disappointment. "Well, thanks for the thingy."

As the group started to leave, the Pit Boss wakled over to them.

"Now, wait. Why are you two going out?"

"These guys promised us freedom if we gave them one of our forgeries!" The Devilite giggled with an eerie stutter that made Sylvanius and Thimol cringe.

"Well..." The Pit Boss looked at the knights suspiciously. "...I suppose whatever they have planned, it couldn't possibly be worse than what you've already experienced. Well, it's been nice knowing you men. If you're going to go out there with the Auditors, then you'll need this..."

The Pit Boss produced a sprinkled donut that strangely smelled of tire smoke.

"Give 'em hell," he said with a grin.

"I'm guessing this donut does more than give a stomachache?" Sylvanius asked with a look of utter confusion on his face.

"Just give that to anyone bothering you, and you can literally watch the sparks fly." The Pit Boss laughed heartily. "Now get out of here. I still have fiscal reports to draw on."

As they walked out, the two Devilites started to shudder violently.

"Hmm?" Thimol picked one of the Devilites up, and examined it before his face slowly twisted along with the perverted smirk that had been forming on his face.

"Focus, Thimol. Listen to what he's saying."

Indeed, the Devilite in Thimol's hands was muttering something.

"H-he's coming... so c-c-close..."

"Who?" Sylvanius turned the Devilite to face him, but it was cowering at this point. All it did was point behind.

The knights turned to see a black car screeching down the road, coming their way very quickly. They jumped out of the way before the car could run them over, crashing into the lobby of the building they had just exited. Once they got up on their feet, theysaw a sharply-dressed Devilite step out from the rear of the vehicle, holding a briefcase.

"Please remain where you are. We are currently auditing your work schedule,' said the Auditor in a calm, professional voice, taking out several papers from his briefcase. "Fill out the following form while we direct you to a representative that will ask you some questions."

The papers the Auditor held were strangely stiff and shiny. It raised the papers above its head before throwing them at the knights.

"Bwoahh god!" Thimol strafed away from the path of the spinning papers and watched them wedge into a wall with a "shunk". Sylvanius had already moved out of sight to shoot down the Auditor, but upon firing, the dapper Devilite had disappeared in a blur and reappeared right behind him.

"Your cooperation is appreciated,' the Auditor said, sluggind Sylvanius on the head with the briefcase. He plopped on the ground, but rolled away before the Auditor could land any more blows. Thimol put down the Devilite he was holding and lunged after the Auditor with the Rigadoon, trying to stab at it, but it dodged his blows with blinding speed.

"If you have any questions, plese feel free to ask, and I will help you to the best of my ability." The Auditor took out a pen and a beam was fired from its ballpoint tip, knocking Thimol back.

"Wait! The donut!" one of the Devilites honked. It was then that Sylvanius remembered what the Pit Boss told him and took out the donut, ran over to the Auditor, and thrust the donut in front of its face with all the fury and power of the natural forces ever to exist in the universe.

"Hm! Food! I haven't had anything to eat all day!" The Auditor eagerly took the donut from Sylvanius's hand and wolfed it down. Whilst consuming the donut, it froze, and started twitching.

"What the--?" Sylvanius stepped away, watching the Auditor fall on all fours.

"Ohh... That went south rather quickly..." The Auditor groaned before it swelled up and burst into a spray of sparks, leaving nothing behind.

"W-wow..." the Devilite squeaked. "It's gone!"

"Was that--?" Thimol got up from a pile of rubbble he landed on and saw that the hectic encounter was over. "The donut did that?"

"I think so," Sylvanius replied. "I'm a little shaken, though. I was thinking of trying that donut later."

It didn't take long for them to get to the next elevator, where the knights and the Devilites would part ways, the knights to continue their expedition, and the Devilites, to Haven. The knights decided to see them off.

"Well, you're free and on your own now," Sylvanius told the Devilites. "I don't know how you'll manage up there, though. I don't imagine the knights take too kindly to Devilites."

"We'll manage," the other Devilite assured the knights. "We've been hiding and running for as long as we can remember, and we're real good at it."

"All right. Take care."

"And don't die up there," Thimol added. "I'd like your help sometime in the future."

"Okies. Bye-bye, nice people!"

The elevator ascended into the macinery above, and the Devilites disappeared from view.

Thimol and Sylvanius continued their search for the rest of the materials, with no idea how to go about it. Making their way slowly through the first tier, they eventually came to Moorcroft Manor.

"HEY!" Thimol was at the reception desk, incessantly tapping the call bell. "What am I going to have to start doing to get someone over here?"

"Stop that, you child." Sylvanius was stitting on a bench nearby, reading some booklet. "You shouldn't do anything."

"All right, but it's been a while since we got here. What could they be possibly be doing?"

"Gosh," Sylvanius said annoyed, slapping the booklet down on his lap. "I couldn't possibly know. The note on the desk probably has nothing to do with it."

Indeed, on the desk was a note that read the following:

Attending to event in ballroom; as of half past noon, will be back in approx. thirty minutes. Sorry for inconvenience. --Management

"Well what time is it now?"

"12:28"

"And when did we get here?"

"12:25"

"...really?"

As Thimol went to take a seat next to Sylvanius, a bunch of Kats came bustling out from a hallway rather excitedly and quite noisily. Among them was the distinguished Desk Clerk, as recognized by his monocle.

"My, I could hear you through the crowd." The Desk Clerk returned to his place behind the desk. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Yeah, my boytoy and I were told we could find out how to get our hands on some vanilla sugar here," Thimol said, stepping forward.

All the Kats immediately grew silent and faced Thimol.

"Vanilla sugar?" the Desk Clerk repeated in a hushed voice.

"'Boytoy'?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't say," the Desk Clerk continued. "You see, vanilla sugar is a necessity for our well-being, and for us to just give to anyone would be unthinkable."

"Oh, please?" Thimol asked as politely and sweetly as he could, which he pulled off very well, actually, and it seemed so incongruous with Thimol's usual composure that it was plain creepy. "I'm finding materials to make a sword for someone, you see, and vanilla sugar just so happens to be one of those--"

"NO." The Desk Clerk and all the other Kats present stopped being adorable all of a sudden, staring Thimol down with their sunken eyes and letting hang open their gaping, endless maws. Thimol reeled back, startled, and gulped.

"Well, what if I gave you ice cream?" Thimol suggested half-jokingly.

Just as suddenly, the Kats reverted to their innocuous-looking state.

"Certainly," the Desk Clerk mewed. "Let me show you to the storeroom."

Thimol was shown to a room with endless shelves of vanilla sugar, all packaged in one-pound paper sacks.

"You may take as much as you can carry," the Desk Clerk told Thimol. "I would like to know where you will procure ice cream, though."

"Hmm... I need a moment."

After consulting with Sylvanius, Thimol assembled a makeshift ice cream maker using parts of a Cryotech Alchemer and a Striker and presented it to the Desk Clerk.

"You can just put the dairy, sweets, and flavorings in there, start it up, and bam. Ice cream." Thimol had just demonstrated the operation of the ice cream machine.

"How delightful! This is certain to please our guests!" the Desk Clerk mewed.

"Heh, well, I'm just glad I could have some vanilla sugar."

"Oh, the sugar is no issue anymore now that we have ice cream. If you ever need any more, you're free to come here and ask for some."

"Sweet."

"Hey," Sylvanius called from his seat. "Are we done?"

"Yeah," Thimol responded, then said to the Clerk "Thanks, and see you."

"No, thank YOU. I look forward to your next visit."

The knights finally left the manor, taking the elevator down and making their way to the next location in mind: Emberlight.

"Emberlight, huh?" Thimol was staring at the floor of the elevator, whilst the knights rode down.

"I don't suppose you'd be planning on asking the residents of the Deconstruction Zones."

Thimol remained silent, only staring off distantly. Sylvanius didn't think much of the sudden change in mood, until they'd made it to Emberlight a while later, when Thimol had said something strange.

"I'm going to stay behind."

"What?"

"Well, let's just say I have some past experiences here that I rather wouldn't have resurface in my mind." Thimol sat down on the floor.

"So... what do you expect me to do all by my lonesome?"

"Look, just ask for the one named 'Flak'. He'll help you find or make whatever, as long as it's smaller than a commercial fridge. In the meantime, I'll wait for you here."

Sylvanius looked at Thimol before going off on his own to find the elusive BluBerry. He came upon a small hovel, which was quite kept in comparison to everything else in the vicinity, and he could hear arguing from within. As he was about to enter, a Gremlin went bursting out from the threshold.

"FINE! I don't need you OR your exploding power cells!" the Gremlin yelled to whoever was inside. "Freaking... I spent months on that excavation device."

"Excuse me, do you know where I might find a 'Flak' here?" Sylvanius calmly asked the clearly incensed Gremlin so as to not anger him any further.

"Yeah, that's his place," the Gremlin replied sullenly, nodding to the hovel. "If you're looking for someone to build you something, go somewhere else. This guy doesn't know what he's doing."

The Gremlin ran off, muttering and swearing, and Sylvanius stepped inside, looking for the Gremlin that could help him.

"Hello?" Sylvanius called out into the cramped room. He walked in further to see a Gremlin picking at some bare machinery. He looked up from his work to see who had come in.

"It's not everyday I see a knight come looking for a Gremlin."

"Are you the one called 'Flak'?"

"Yeah. I guess you'd heard of my services?"

"Well, barely. Just from a friend, in passing."

Flak sighed. "I guess Thimol's still upset, then," he said, returning to tinkering with the device.

"Wait, how'd you--?"

"The only other knight I'd met with so far was Thimol. Actually, I'd found him barely alive. Turns out, he hadn't been too familiar with the Clockworks yet."

"You know, he's here with me. I can go get him--"

"No. I know he can't see me. Not yet, at least. He seems to think he betrayed me, and even though I keep telling him it's not his fault, but..." Flak sighed again. "Anyway, I shouldn't be bothering you with personal details. You came for something, right?"

"Yeah, I was looking for a BluBerry."

"Why? We replaced those things weeks ago, but I mean, I have, like, a pile of them over there," Flak said, pointing at a corner with a pile of handheld devices, covered in a thin layer of dust.

"Thanks. It's for a recipe," Sylvanius said, taking a BluBerry.

"Hmm. Never heard of that. Well, I'll see you some other time, I guess," Flak said nonchalantly.

"Sure," Sylvanius said, leaving.

"Uh, wait..." Flak said, Sylvanius stepping back for a bit. "Tell Thimol I said that once he feels comfortable enough, I want to speak to him."

"All right. I'll do that."

Sylvanius went out and found Thimol waiting at the elevator to Haven.

"When I first came here, I'd been badly beaten and barely able to stand. I'd narrowly escaped death from the hand of a particularly nasty group of Darkfangs. I honestly thought I was going to die, you know." Thimol looked up at Sylvanius. "I'd never been much of a spiritual person until then. I asked something, anything, to help me to live, and that's when Flak found me."

Sylvanius looked on as Thimol chuckled in spite of himself.

"You know, he's not much of a doctor, but he did a damn good job of fixing me up. I told him after that I owed him my life, and I really did mean it, but when it came time to repay that favor, I failed. I couldn't look at him ever since. I'm not the kind of person easily given to guilt, but this is the one thing that bites at my conscience, and I sometimes lose sleep at night because of this."

"Wow, I... never knew you were so..."

"Serious? No. I may be depraved and selfish a lot of the time, but I am a person, too. I know at least a smattering of kindness and decency when it is due, and even though I tried to make up for this mistake by doing other good things, I still feel like I haven't quite gotten back that bit of decency. I can't say I'm a moral person at all, but to abandon someone in need is something I can't ever forgive, especially if I were the one to do that."

"Well, I..."

"Sylv, I know what you think of me, and honestly, I wouldn't have you change that impression. Just forget all that I told you, all right? Let's go."

"Okay," Sylvanius said, getting on the elevator back to Haven. "Actually, I should tell you that Flak said that he wanted to speak with you, but he'll wait until you're comfortable enough to talk to him."

"Sure," Thimol said with a certain weightiness. "I'll keep that in mind."

Once back in Haven, the knights were hard at work, trying to figure out how to bring the materials together to make the sword, since "Gertrude" was a recipe that the alchemy machines didn't recognize.

"Hey," the knight from earlier called out to the two. He had found them in the process of creating the sword. "Did you get the materials?"

"We did, but we can't quite get the machine to make the sword," Sylvanius said with disappointment.

"Just leave it to me, man," the knight said. Sylvanius and Thimol handed over the materials, and the knight whispered something to the machine, and dumped them in, and in just a few minutes, after a deafening hum, the machine spit out a strangely iridescent sword that seemed to exude an air of comfort.

"Gertie!" the knight whispered with elation. "You're back!"

"Wow." Thimol picked up the sword and swung it around. It left a trail of silky, ethereal dust in its wake. "I've never seen anything like this before."

As Thimol tried to hand the sword over to the knight, the knight found that he could not take the sword from Thimol's hands. He tugged and pulled to no avail.

"What's going on?" the knight said with excess confusion. "Why won't this thing budge?"

"Oh." Sylvanius pointed to a label on the handle of the sword. It read:

"THIS ITEM IS BOUND TO YOU"