“ l said it looked like Pinyin but it functioned differently than what humans had. It was more like an identity card or sort of like cause I did not see a ton of them wearing it. It was like an accessory to them.” Amir tried to clarify his mistake and it calmed my heart. If Depraves were using Pinyin, it would be a completely different set of rules of the game. If they could easily use them, the wall between Depraves and humans would become too thin such that it could easily spew out concepts that were out of this world.

  “ Now you know what l was talking about.” Tuz said with an air of assertiveness. It meant that he was going to talk about the main concern of the talk. “ You have to come with us to the forest of forgetness to culminate as a guest. It was the order of the higher ups and we have the information you have been so desperately trying to look for.”

  “ Really.” Among all of the talk, this was something that caught my attention the most. I usually never stray from the topics that were of real concern. It was still possible that it was just a ruse and Tuz wanted to snare me into his mess. He had then that a couple of times, though the commission actually made the part that he put into trouble go away. However, over the years, l have learnt my lesson and that was not to trust Tuz right away because he had the nasty habit of keeping secrets in his hairy skin. On the off chance, he got what I had been looking for, it would solve a lot of problems for me.

  “ Yes, for that matter, we have also looked at certain things that concern Ellaya. She had been on our radar for a hundred years, she had been under your care. A child in the middle of the no man’s land. It was something that was unprecedented and you had been keeping your mouth sealed up so it was more difficult to get information related to her. The council had an eye for anything related to her or any other incident like her. Thankfully, we were able to find something that was closely related to her. Do you want to learn about it?” Tuz enquired about my consent.

  “ Yes, l would like to learn about it and also the instruments that resemble Pinyin.” I quickly laid out my plans for Tuz as l was interested in this technology that resembled soul gadgets. For humans, Pinyin was like their second life without which they could not consider even living in the collapsed world. They were the most prized instruments of a person when it came to possessions. Pinyin manifested themselves as soon as the humans were spewed out of the time-space vortex. People had tried to go back to their timeline but it was something that was impossible because our understanding of the vortex was close to only rudimentary things like the types. They had not been invested that thoroughly as everyone was more interested in living their lives in comfort and other things.

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  “ OK, if you want to know more about it, you have to come with me to the forest of forgetness. Our base is there and we can talk about everything that is of concern to you and Ellaya.” Tuz said with a concerned look towards Ellaya.

  “ Why are you looking towards me like that? It feels like l have done something I ought not to do.” Ellaya complained.

  “ Nothing. You are just so cute. I heard so many things from Dehel about you. It was really a good thing we met.” Tuz formally met her.

  “ You are talking as if we had not met before. We have met sometimes before so what is this about? Why have you become so formal all of sudden?” Ellaya asked Tuz for the sudden change in the formal attire.

  “ It is not a very big deal. Yes, we have met before but all those times were for your training and we have only met a couple of times about thirty or fourty times. Haven’t we?”

  “ It is actually forty two times. It would be the forty third time that we have met but you never looked at it with a glance like that.” Ellaya countered Tuz’s advances with actual facts and figures. This was one of the characteristics that l liked about her.

  “ What do you say about that?” l teasingly asked Tuz.

  “ Yeah! Whatever.” Tuz rolled his eyes saying it like it was all nonsense.

  “ By the way, this forest of forgetness is unknown to me. I am not clear about the distinctions of the destinations that you have planned out” This was because l was not a very free guy. I only like to stay at a place for as long as possible unlike the drifters that wanted to move from one place to another. I had my own traveling baggage but I never went on cruise ships for joy. Most of the time it was for missions and for hunting purposes. I hated the type of people that always undermined the integrity and honor of others while trespassing their homes and other places just for the sake of fun and planned events for meeting up. Drifters were a group in the collapsed world that made exploration and mapping their main job but here l was who just paid a bill and made his work on the used maps while whipping up my stuff for the unexpected. In the collapsed world, exploration and other stuff was unlikely a work for the useless as in the millenia, l never have seen a correct map of anything. The voids and the vortexes all made the topography of the world to change continuously.