Chapter Text
Hat Kid didn’t have any contracts left to do, but she still didn’t have her soul back. When she brought it up with the Snatcher, he just said to keep exploring the forest to find more contracts. It wasn’t so bad, every time she finished a contract she got a timepiece. So the more contracts meant the more timepieces she would recover.
Across a broken bridge that she hadn’t explored past yet, Hat Kid spotted the twisted vines poking out of the ground. The last time she had seen them was when she had been encouraged to step inside by one of Snatcher’s minions, only to end up in a trap. This must have been what Snatcher was talking about when he said to keep exploring.
Hat Kid stepped inside of the circle, startling when the vines suddenly sprang up, trapping her.
“AHAHAHAHA! FOOOOOOOOL!!!!” yelled the familiar voice of the Snatcher after Hat Kid had been transported to his pocket dimension. This time Hat Kid wasn’t so scared of him, she had seen his whole entrance at least three times by now.
“YOU’VE STEPPED INTO MY FOREST, AND NOW- wait a minute.” Snatcher’s wide grin abruptly faltered when he noticed who was standing in front of him. “It’s you? Again? You should really know by now not to step into my traps, kid.”
Hey! He was the one who hinted at getting more contracts by stepping into his traps! And now he was acting like she was just an annoyance.
Well, she was an annoyance to him. She was trying her best to be.
“As long as you’re here, we might as well extend our business endeavours!” Snatcher then said, his grin returning. “I have two lovely contracts for you to choose from!”
Hat Kid stepped up to the one on the left first, examining it. A contract to retrieve something from a manor? That looked pretty cool, but she wanted to look at the other one before picking. The second contract was titled “Check out that weird lantern that’s sitting in the forest and get rid of it”, with pictures of said weird lantern sitting in the forest. Actually that one looked neat as well! She was sure the manor would be open even if she didn’t sign the contract, so she would choose the second!
“Awesome!” Hat Kid whispered to herself as she signed her name. Snatcher’s wax seal automatically appeared after, and the contract then disappeared in a poof of smoke.
“Picking the easy ones, huh? Now you’re leaving all the difficult ones for the other contractors! How could you!” Snatcher grinned. “Better hop to it!”
He dove into the ground, dropping her back onto the forest floor. Hat Kid rolled her eyes, he would have said that even if she picked the other one. Alright, where was this weird lantern? She took out the contract that had magically appeared in her pockets, taking a look at the photos. It seemed to be located right near the burning part of the forest, in the middle of one of those stone circles. Ugh, she hoped it wasn’t the one near the headless statue, those things were a pain to deal with.
The burning forest wasn’t that far away, but Hat Kid took out her scooter anyway, veering off the path and into the grass. She could smell the burning before she even saw it, hitting the breaks on her scooter as soon as she reached the edge.
There it was. The torch wasn’t directly in the burning forest itself, but a little ways past it. How appropriate that a lantern was located right next to a forest on fire! It was just asking to be lit! This sure was a weird lantern though, at the bottom was what looked like a pile of coals. Oh Hat Kid really wanted to light it now. But the contract said she had to get rid of it.
She tried simply taking the lantern with her, but it appeared to be stuck to the ground! No matter how hard she tried, it wouldn’t budge. Trying to break it didn’t work either, her umbrella didn’t do any damage at all.
“Well there isn’t really anything else to do with it…” Hat Kid said out loud. She would light it! Maybe then it would move. That logic didn’t really make sense, but it didn’t need to. She just wanted an excuse to light it.
Striking the coals with her umbrella would never work, her umbrella wasn’t built for that! Could coals be lit with the fire from the forest? Hat Kid would find out. She grabbed a stick off the ground, and jogged over to one of the burning trees, lighting the stick on fire. Snatcher’s minions who were nearby were watching with interest.
“Yes.. burn!” Hat Kid laughed as she stuck the stick into the coals. It instantly lit up with a loud “FWOOSH”, the fire somehow spreading to the lantern as well. The last thing Hat Kid expected to hear after that was creepy sounding accordion music before the flame died down.
“Weird,” Hat shrugged, and then tried to move the torch again. It still didn’t budge. Maybe she should go tell Snatcher about this.
“Hey Snatcher, I tried doing your dumb contract but it didn’t work,” Hat Kid announced at the entrance of Snatcher’s tree.
“Aw, was it too tough for you? You’re always welcome to give up and then I can eat your soul!” Snatcher replied.
“No, the lantern just won’t move,” Hat Kid said, unphased by Snatcher’s threats. “I tried lighting it but-”
“You lit it?” Snatcher said, setting down his book. “Kiddo, what part of ‘remove the lantern’ did you not understand?”
“Well it wouldn’t move!” Hat Kid complained. “So I tried lighting it to see if that would make it move!”
“That doesn’t even make any sense!!!”
“Hey uh- boss?” called out another voice.
Hat Kid and Snatcher paused in their arguing, both turning to see one of the minions standing nervously in front of them.
“What is it?” Snatcher asked.
“Something weird happened in the village,” they replied. “I think you should go take a look at it yourself.”
“Fine,” Snatcher said, picking up the minion with one hand and Hat Kid with the other. He then teleported to the middle of Subcon village, dropping Hat Kid to the ground.
“Don’t do that!” Hat Kid grumbled, fixing her hat. “At least warn me before you teleport!”
“No,” Snatcher said, and then turned his attention back to the minion. “Alright, what did you want me to see? This better not be a waste of my time!”
“Look right there,” they pointed. Hat Kid could see a small crowd of dwellers and minions gathered at the edge of the village. They were looking at a pair of red tents- those certainly hadn’t been there before. Outside of the tents were two strange looking creatures, Hat Kid hadn’t seen anything like them before, and she had explored all over this planet! Faint accordion music came from the bigger tent.
“Oh cool! What’s that?” Hat Kid said, running forward. “Those torches out front look similar to the one I lit!”
“I’d say these are foolish campers looking to test their bravery, but I don’t think that’s quite right,” Snatcher said, floating behind her. “Say, have any of you minions gone inside?”
“Yeah, I tried to,” said one of them. Hat Kid recognized them from the shiny jewelry (most likely stolen) that they wore. “Me and a couple others went in together, but some big guy said we shouldn’t go further in. We weren’t supposed to be there or something, we weren’t the summoner or whatever.”
“Aw what are these guys?” Hat Kid said, looking at the weird creatures sitting outside. “A giraffe? I saw a picture of one once.”
“I have never seen a real giraffe in my life before, even when I went outside of the forest,” the same minion said. “It’s probably a giraffe.”
“Well I’m gonna go in!” Hat Kid announced.
“Be my guest, kiddo! Try not to die!” Snatcher cheerfully said, pushing her in the direction of the tents. “This is probably your fault anyway!”
“Is not!” Hat Kid protested, but he was probably right. This likely had something to do with the torch she messed with. Shoving Snatcher away, she entered the bigger tent.
The accordion music was getting louder, and Hat Kid saw its source. It was a man dressed in grey and red, a mask covering his face. Like she expected, he was playing an accordion. At least she thought it was an accordion. Was an accordion supposed to have legs? This must have been the guy the minion was talking about.
“Mrmm. You called us?” he asked as Hat Kid walked up to him. “Speak to Master.”
“I don’t know, did I call you? I don’t even know who you are,” Hat Kid responded. “What’s your name?”
“The Nightmare Lantern. Didn’t you light it?” he said.
“The what? Also you didn’t answer my question.”
“The torch in the middle of this dead kingdom. You lit it. And my name is Brumm, if you really want to know so badly.”
“Oh.” So that’s what it was. “How was I supposed to know that it would summon you?”
Brumm didn’t respond, and just kept playing his accordion. It seemed like she wouldn’t be getting anything else out of him. So she kept going. Time to go see whoever Brumm mentioned before.
The room at the end of the hallway (which Hat Kid now realized was impossible considering the size of the tent outside) was dimly lit by a few lanterns hanging from the ceiling. What was with these guys and lanterns??? It was quiet aside from Brumm’s accordion, until she reached the center of the room, and the music stopped.
Spotlights spun around the area, and a drumroll accompanied a different accordion tune. Hat Kid took out her umbrella, she was way too used to people trying to attack her, especially if they had a dramatic entrance! But usually they were fine at first, only betraying her at the end.
There was a loud sound as a tall man teleported in front of her, Hat Kid nearly instinctively swinging her umbrella at him.
“So it was you who called us,” he said, turning to look down at her. After hearing his voice, Hat Kid resisted the urge to get him a glass of water. He sounded like he was in pain.
“Yeah, and I didn’t even do it on purpose!” Hat Kid said. “I just wanted to see if something cool would happen! And I guess it kind of did, this place is pretty cool.”
“Hm, a summoner who didn’t even know she would be taking part in the ritual? This isn’t the first time something like this has happened,” the man said. “Maybe we should start attaching instruction manuals to the lantern.”
Was that a joke? Or was he serious?
“Well met, my friend, well met,” he continued. “I am Grimm, master of this troupe. What a fine stage this is, a kingdom destroyed by ice and shadow. A wonderful earth for which the ritual will take place!”
“Ritual?” This was the second time he had mentioned that.
“Of course!” Grimm said. “When you lit the lantern, a contract was written in scarlet fire, and now your role is cast.”
“Hey! I’m the only one with contracts around here!” yelled Snatcher. Hat Kid jumped, she had no idea he was right there the whole time, invisible! She didn’t know he could do that. Makes sense though. “Who do you think you are, going around recruiting MY contractors in MY forest?”
“Ah, I was wondering when you would show yourself,” Grimm said calmly. “It's rare for one of the dead kingdom’s old rulers to be present for the ritual.”
Snatcher went still as soon as Grimm said that. What did he mean by that?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Snatcher said after a moment. “But like I said, you cannot go stealing my contractors! She already gave her soul to me!”
“Yes I can,” Grimm responded. “I just did it right now. She’s part of the ritual whether you like it or not. And I’m not after her soul. Anyway, where were we?”
“No! I’m not just going to sit idly by while you weird bugs carry out some weird ritual in the middle of my forest!”
Ohhhh that's what they were. Bugs! Hat Kid was surprised she hadn’t figured that out, but these guys were three times the size of her, which wasn’t normal for bugs. Hey if they were bugs, then what did that mean for the cockroaches she found in Mafia Town? Best not to think about it.
“For the ritual to commence, some illumination is required,” Grimm continued to say, as if Snatcher hadn’t even spoken. He reached inside of his cloak (or was it wings?) and pulled out a circular item, handing it to Hat Kid. It looked like a badge. Maybe she could stick it on her hat? She’d have to try it out. “Across the land my kin now spread, collecting the flames. However it doesn’t seem to just be contained inside of this small kingdom, but in other lands as well.”
“Then does that mean the whole planet is a dead kingdom?” Hat kid asked.
“Seek my kin, claim the flame, and then return to me. Together, marvels shall be achieved!”
Hat Kid wasn’t surprised he avoided the question. She was all too used to that by now.
“Hello? I’m right here! I can easily destroy you and your troupe in a matter of seconds!” Snatcher said, growing more agitated. “Kiddo, you can’t really be thinking of helping them!”
“No you can’t. If you even try, the seals on these tents will prevent that,” Grimm said. This was all quite entertaining to Hat Kid. “Anyway, you shall not travel alone for this journey. My child will guide you to the flames and gather them within itself. Only with the child can you find these flames.”
“Okay, I think I’ve got all that… sounds cool!” Hat Kid said.
“I wish you the best of luck, summoner.”
And with that, Grimm disappeared in a flash of red.
“Who does he think he is, marching right into my forest and acting like he owns the place?” Snatcher muttered angrily to himself. Hat Kid walked towards the exit. Snatcher could sort all that out on his own, right now she had a cool new badge to check out!
“So what happened?” asked the same minion from before, the one with the jewelry, as she left the tent.
“A tall bug gave me this cool badge and now I need to collect flames,” Hat Kid replied, showing off the badge. “Isn’t it neat?”
“Where’s the boss?”
‘Oh he got super annoyed, it was really funny,” Hat Kid giggled. “I’m sure he’ll show up eventually!”
She jogged away from the now much smaller crowd, and pinned the badge to her hat. A small, flying creature appeared out of thin air, chirping softy,
Oh. My. God. It was so cute!!!!!! It looked like a little baby Grimm!
“Aw! Aren’t you adorable!” Hat Kid cooed at the creature. “So cute!”
“Nyeh,” responded the creature. It couldn’t talk? Well, it was just a little baby after all!
“So your dad said you would lead me to the flames? Is that true?” she asked, despite knowing she wouldn’t get a response. “I can go back up to the spaceship and maybe you’d be able to show me where to go if we use the telescope!”
The creature chirped.
“I’m taking that as a yes! Lets go!”