The train stopped at a small, barely lit station. The wooden platform canopy was the only visible part of the station, and everything beyond was shrouded in darkness.
"I don't think it's a good idea to go to an abandoned village at night," Halankuo said, looking out the window.
"There are almost no passengers at night," Itinit explained. "Let's go before the doors close."
Halankuo and her friend approached the open door and soon found themselves standing on the platform. The train moved on down the single rail, leaving the two passengers in what seemed like a terrifying place.
The wooden supports of the canopy were badly rotted, and several holes had formed in the roof, so it offered no protection from the rain. However, it housed a round light bulb – the only source of light that kept the creatures from dying of fear immediately after exiting the train.
"Itinit," Halankuo said. "Can I take your hand?"
"Why?"
"I know I'm not your little sister or your pet, but it's just..."
"Are you afraid I'll disappear? Don't worry, I don't have that ability. It's very rare."
"That's not what I meant. I don't want something to happen..."
Halankuo didn't have time to finish her sentence. Two round blue lights appeared right in front of her face. The girl immediately screamed and somehow found herself on a wooden support, as if she'd lived her whole life in the forest.
Itinit just yawned. He understood energy too well to understand the source of the glow.
"You're just in time," Itinit said. "We just got off the train and don't know where to go."
"I see that," a voice from the darkness answered. "Big sis has already gone down the wrong path. You can't manage without me."
The voice sounded familiar to Halankuo, and she looked down. A head with glowing eyes was visible in the darkness, and behind it was a hand.
"It's just Sitihi, my fake little sister," Halankuo sighed. "But now, I guess she's true. I don't have a real little sister who's truly true."
The hand continued to extend out of the darkness, and soon Halankuo saw the head of a doll with shoulder-length blue hair and large, bulging eyes that glinted from the light source on the roof of the canopy.
"That's definitely her," Halankuo said, stepping down onto the platform.
"Why didn't you come to the town?" Itinit asked. "They don't sell tickets to dolls?"
"My sis said that they would notice me there and disassemble me," Sitihi answered.
"Actually, I wanted to get rid of her, at least for a while," Halankuo thought. "But it's good she didn't figure it out."
"I need to take you somewhere," Sitihi continued. "My sister's head will shine on the road, because you can't see in the dark."
Itinit looked at Halankuo, but then saw a head with glowing eyes and a matching face, and he understood the doll's words.
"It's as if I see two Halankuo: one human, the other a doll. It's interesting, but... a little creepy."
Sitihi turned back. The weapon-head's mouth opened, adding another source of light. Now this strange object has turned into a creepy lamp.
"I have something to shine with," Itinit suddenly remembered. "But I think it would be too noticeable."
"Yes," Sitihi answered. "The light is only needed for walking. My sis has a good head. My mother made it."
Sitihi took a few steps forward, nearly colliding with a thick wooden post that remained of another awning, and then stopped near the wall of the wooden station.
"Looks like your sister's head needs some help," a bright blue energy ball appeared in Itinit's hand.
"Just a little while longer, and he'll befriend the doll," Halankuo thought. "Then he'll have me and another me... ah, what am I thinking? I guess I'm too used to being the big sister."
Immediately beyond the station, a path began, paved with stones and partially overgrown with moss and low grasses. On either side of it, the silhouettes of spiky conifers could be seen, giving the area a rather menacing appearance. Despite this, Sitihi walked ahead and flashed her weapon-head, and Halankuo walked behind her near Itinit and periodically looked around.
"Do you see anything in the dark?" the creator of dog girls asked.
"No," Halankuo answered. "I just don't want to suddenly start cutting me up."
"Kyotyoryon isn't here. There's no one to cut you up."
Halankuo turned sharply and grabbed her friend's hand.
"I didn't give you permission to do that," Itinit said.
"I..." Halankuo only now noticed where one of her hands was. "Oh, sorry, it was an accident."
Halankuo let go of her friend's hand and turned away. Itinit smiled.
"Her hand is so warm, like a human's. I can't even believe Halankuo doll..."
Itinit looked at his friend and noticed her hair, which was unusually smooth, and the blue light gave it a distinctive hue. Then the creator of the dog girls turned his gaze to Sitihi's head and didn't notice much of a difference.
"Maybe I shouldn't have said that," Itinit looked at the glowing orb in his hand. "I so wanted to touch a warm, living doll, but it looks like I'll have to do it in my dreams. Maybe Sanachan could send me a signal? I've been receiving them often lately, but there are no dolls there."
Sitihi stopped at a crossroads where the path forked into two. One of them was heavily overgrown and now barely distinguishable from a path made by wild animals.
"We're going that way," the doll pointed its weapon head at the overgrown path.
"That's even better," Halankuo thought. "If we take the other route, we'll end up in Yueret's village. His little sister might attack us there, which would be even worse than running into a living statue."
The old, overgrown path led downward. Halankuo noticed how the shadows of the coniferous trees gave way to those of the high cliffs, and immediately recognized the surroundings of her village.
But the cliffs quickly ended, replaced by the shadows of man-sized bushes. Sitihi stopped near a wooden post, which Halankuo also recognized.
She had walked somewhere around this spot last year with Kyotyoryon. Back then, the girl had visited her home for the first time in many years, but had lost her character.
"This time, I didn't bring Kyotyoryon with me. Even if something happens to her in Yenekit, even if she accidentally falls out of a window and then decimates the entire forest around the city, it will be nothing compared to what happened in the Mausoleum of Nature. She must never end up there again."
Sitihi walked further and stopped near a large stone that blocked the abandoned village's only former street.
"This stone is strange. Sis, was it here last time?"
Halankuo approached her "little sister" and noticed that the stone was lying right on the path, as if someone had left it there.
"I don't remember. But it does look strange."
"You can pick it up to check," Itinit suggested.
Halankuo summoned a wrench and then aimed it at the obstacle. The next moment, the stone rose from the ground as if it weighed nothing and moved into the bushes.
There was nothing strange at the site of the obstacle; just broken paving stones and crushed moss, which was still alive even in such conditions.
"Probably a rock fell from a cliff," Itinit suggested. "It's rare, but it does happen."
"There's something down there," Sitihi looked down. "Sis, can I check?"
"Uh..." Halankuo looked at the remains of the paving stones.
"Okay, I can," Sitihi said, a shovel appearing in her hand.
The doll tried to thrust the weapon into the ground, but the ground was too hard, so the blade remained on the surface.
"Oh, wrong place," Sitihi pointed her weapon-head at the ground next to the path.
This time, the ground accepted the shovel, but only partially. Half the blade remained on the surface.
"I didn't ask you to do this," Halankuo answered after all this.
"I used to ask my elders for permission to dig the earth," Sitihi explained. "But now my mom and dad don't exist, but I have a big sister. So I asked you, sis."
Sitihi looked at Halankuo with large doll-like eyes, which, when combined with serious phrases, became creepy.
"You don't really have to ask anyone for permission," Halankuo answered. "You're grown up, so you can decide for yourself what to do."
"I decide for myself and I do it myself," Sitihi answered. "I'm just asking because..."
Sitihi's eyes began to move. For a moment, Halankuo thought tears would start to flow, but the doll simply poked her thumbs into her eyeballs, stopping them.
"My eyes are running away from me," Sitihi said. "That happens when I remember things that happened before."
Halankuo and Sitihi stared at each other for several dozen moments, noticing nothing. Even the rock that suddenly exploded in the bushes didn't bother them. Only the energy barrier created by Itinit protected the "sisters" from fragments the size of their heads.
"I think something's happening," Sitihi suddenly said.
Halankuo turned her head to the side and saw the translucent wall of the energy barrier, behind which lay large stones.
"Yeah, indeed, something is happening," Halankuo almost repeated.
"It's a stone," Itinit explained. "It cracked."
"But stones aren't supposed to crack," Halankuo said. "Or is this not an ordinary stone?"
"It's a trap skill," Itinit explained. "It's summoned, and then it lies dormant until some creature discovers it and activates it."
"Someone summoned it," Sitihi said.
"That's understandable," Itinit agreed with the obvious conclusion. "Such skills have a lifespan. Therefore, someone summoned it relatively recently."
The barrier disappeared. Itinit approached the site of the stone explosion. All that remained of the thicket of bushes were thin stumps and a small crater, at the bottom of which lay a glowing blue rectangular object.
"It looks like a memory card. Whoever summoned this trap uses some strange things."
"You don't know what this is?" Halankuo approached her friend.
"This is the first time I've seen this," Itinit said. "There's something inside this thing that triggered the explosion, but there's probably something else too."
Itinit stepped away from the glowing object at the bottom of the crater, and then grabbed his friend's hand.
"Itinit, have you changed your mind?" Halankuo asked.
"Get out of here. Don't ask why. I'll explain later."
"Are you leaving too?" Halankuo asked.
Itinit didn't answer. He let go of his friend's hand, then summoned the interface and selected the camera icon.
"Come on, sis," Sitihi now took her "big sister" by the hand.
Halankuo tried to object, but didn't dare and went for the doll. Itinit was left alone in the abandoned village, holding a blue glowing orb in his hand and a virtual screen with a large black button.
"I hope this light is enough for at least some kind of photo," Itinit pressed a button, causing a miniature image of a blue object to appear at the top of the screen.
Itinit reached for the thumbnail to examine the photo, but instead of the illegible image, he saw the skull of a three-horned dinosaur.
"Uh, what's that thing doing here? Okay, it's just a glitch in the software."
Itinit took another photo and then examined the result. This time, the skull had been replaced by a statue's head with two horns. Its face was obscured by a white cloud, the kind often used to obscure certain parts of characters' bodies in games.
"It feels like the camera is generating random images of horns. Maybe I need to reset it?"
Itinit closed the screen and the camera and decided to wait a while for the virtual device to return to normal. He even forgot he was in an abandoned village next to a strange glowing object that resembled a memory card.
"Maybe I should just take it away if I can't take a photo?"
Itinit's hand reached for the glowing object, but missed its target. His brain realized the danger of this action in time and canceled it.
"How stupid I am. I don't even know what this is."
Itinit summoned the interface again and turned on the camera.
"I hope this is just a coincidence. These things happen."
But the camera showed a completely different image again. This time, it was a mushroom with horns and a black hole in its stem.
"So, what's this doing here?" Itinit recognized the creature as one of the mushroom spirit forms. "Looks like I'll have to retrieve the image from my memories."
Itinit closed all the screens and was about to head back up the old path, when he noticed a girl with curled horns sitting on some kind of stone object near the bushes.
"She's not a doll, and she's not human. Okay, I have to go back."
The next moment, Itinit realized he'd turned off the screen, meaning the creature before him was real.
"Finally, someone's come to visit," the girl yawned. "I've been waiting for this for a long time."
Itinit did not leave, and continued to examine this strange creature...
…A yellow dress made of stone plates with black veins running between them. Her yellow hair reached her neck and then parted into several braids and regular strands.
The stone object turned out to be a yellow-brown barrel with glowing bright yellow veins, which helped this strange rider be seen in the darkness.
"Who are you?" Itinit noticed the spiraling horns. "You are a goat?"
"I'm a sheep," the girl pointed at her head with her index fingers. "I'm the spirit of the stone sheep. I even have horns."
"I see," Itinit noted that the horns were made of metal.
"Does it have antennas? But I can't sense a signal. Maybe I'm just standing too close."
"Did you see what was on that glowing blue thing?" the girl said, standing on the barrel.
Itinit explained what he had seen.
"Okay," the girl looked at the black, starry sky and raised her index finger to her mouth.
"I think she's about to do something dangerous," Itinit thought.
"So you couldn't read it," the sheep girl looked at the man in front of her.
"But I know someone who can," Itinit lied slightly.
The sheep girl spread her legs, fell onto a barrel, and yawned.
"Is there something important in there?" Itinit asked.
"Of course," the sheep girl frowned. "It's got my name and something else... I forgot my name while I was sleeping. Something from my head transmitted to the earth through my horns, and that round thing formed and burst. Inside was a memory card, but I couldn't read it. So I put it back together and waited for someone to come here."
"She really is a sheep," Itinit thought. "No other creature could have come up with such a plan."
"I waited, and at first I was happy, but then..." the sheep girl leaned over and looked at her interlocutor. "Then it turned out you can't read the map either."
"Maybe we should just touch it?" Itinit suggested.
"Then you can take it. I just need to know what's on that glowing thing. It might not be the map I'm looking for."
"Poor sheeppy," Itinit looked at the glowing object. "She can't read the map, and her hooves prevent her from touching it, or the horns that have grown into her brain."
"There were some other creatures with you," the sheep girl continued. "Summon them."
"I can't summon them," Itinit answered. "They're not on my list of skills."
"You're so weak. You can't even read the map, let alone summon those creatures. So, I'll crush you easily, then wait for those creatures and force them to read it."
The sheep girl climbed off the barrel, fell on her back, and then tried to climb back up. Itinit noticed the yellow-brown, knee-high, hoof-like boots that suited the creature perfectly.
"Don't be afraid, my head is as hard as a rock," the sheep girl said, standing on her horns.
"Yeah, that's not what you should be afraid of," Itinit agreed silently.
The animal girl puffed out her cheeks, wrapped her incredibly thick legs around the stone barrel, and then threw it at her opponent...