The sorrow of a setting sun is that it repeats over and over again.

- A nameless samurai long, long ago.

The Moonflood Festival is a one-of-a-kind festival celebrated by Blood Falls. It occurs roughly every thousand years or so using the universal calendar everyone uses, or Tuesday, whichever happens first. Right now though, the day has been set as a Friday like has it always been since forever, and everyone is all the better for it, save for Reuth Giapain, who is missing a package and a bomb. In his haste to try and set one up over his employers, the drifter missed his appointment to pick up the package he was supposed to deliver and now his deadline loomed within striking distance. He faced this dilemma like he's faced all others before it; by finding a noodle shop with big portions, get a seat that faced the ocean of blood, and start eating silently while music played in the background, somewhere.

"Who are you looking for?" Another patron suddenly asked while Reuth was in the middle of slurping. The drifter squinted his eyes at the sudden question, but something about eating noodles brought out the honesty in Reuth Giapain.

"It's none of your business. Also, I'd like to be left alone to eat my noodles now in peace." Reuth laid out the terms and hoped the fellow patron would get the message and move on.

"Ah, okay. Sorry. I hope your search will be a short one." Reuth scoffed as much as one could scoff with noodles in their mouth. He tried not to think too deeply about what has driven him for this so long and this far, mostly because of the heartache that comes with the territory. But for every reminder, the flashes of her smiling face and gentle eyes seems almost like an apology, which Reuth Giapain was determined to throw right back in-person. Until then though, he'd keep an open eye and-

Any and all thoughts were cut short, and not just those of the drifter, but also everyone else', as a peculiar sight for even Blood Falls was unfolding. An arm, impossibly long, crashed into the bloody ocean and the impact sent a tsunami racing towards the coast. What made this unusual was that the arm was still connected to something, and it in turn, was still back in Blood Falls. It was the world's longest staircase, and a thought came to the forefront of mos of Blood Fall's residents.

I got to get the top before the arm comes loose!

At the noodle shop, Reuth watched as several patrons jump off their seats and made a general mess of the place. None of them dared to leave without paying though, as evidenced by the stack of paper, coins, gems, and assorted goods deemed to have value in Blood Falls. Reuth Giapain followed suit soon after, though he paid his fare with a defensive ward, which the cashier accepted and added to the noodle shop' defense matrix without much fuss.

Once the drifter was out and about, he considered his options once more while Blood Falls roared and swelled with cheers and laughter as well as shouts and screams of terror. Tidal waves surged and swept off the weaker masses to their fates in what was once streets and alleyways, but in his own personal bubble, Reuth Giapain decided that he was going to do a job properly for once. He clacked his heels twice against the pavement and took one step forward. The sight changed from a flooded district to that of a very dry and sterile bank counter. From the other side, a package was pushed out and Reuth Giapain took it, no words exchanged by anyone as the drifter clacked his heels twice once more.

He arrived to the blazing spear tips of the third and final group that controlled the Blood Falls he knew; the Sixty-Six Sextuplet Sextants. No one saw them coming up the ranks until it was too late, and these right-angled ones maintained their control with ruthless efficiency. Of all the groups, Reuth knew them the least and his unfamiliarity became glaringly obvious as he made the error of bowing before his opponents at a nearly ninety-degree angle, instead of precisely at a ninety-degree angle.

He was corrected with a precise blow from above at right angles with respect to the ground, followed by several perpendicular blows upon his sides. Thinking quickly, Reuth made one gesture he knew for sure would guarantee him some safety; a perfect cube made from magic, elevated at the precise elevation as his tormentor’s eyes as to perfectly halve said cube in half. This final peaceful gambit paid off as the blows ceased and he was forced upright to stand as still as a pillar.

“State your intention, intruder.” One guard spoke with an even, measured cadence.

“I have information on an event in the near future. It concerns the Fourty-Fourth. The Trium Illustricate is involved.” Reuth condensed his offer to include all of the relevant information, stressing the last part a bit more than the rest. The lack of faces made gauging the guards’ reaction difficult, but not impossible if one knew what to look. The slight tilt forward of the head, the firmer grip upon their spears, and the more frequent flashes of light traveling through their translucent crystal bodies told more than words could convey.

Finally, a guard with distinctive patches of rubies on its shoulders stared at his peers and nodded to each in turn. With practiced ease, they shuffled off to the side while the locking mechanisms of the gate they guarded clicked and whirled out of the way, revealing a corridor which seemed to go on forever.