Summoning Redemption: Roboardo's Spiritual Journey

Catching a glimpse of the strange man through the crowd was impossible. His face was covered by a red scarf and his body was cloaked in the same maroon material. And yet, I knew he was there. The way that my chest became tight and my legs felt heavy told me so. A sense of danger filled the air, sending shivers down my spine.

I kept walking, my eyes darting about for any sign of him. My heart was beating furiously as adrenaline pumped through me. I looked up at the clear blue sky, and then back down at the cobblestone street below me. I froze when I saw him—he was standing directly in front of me, his face completely exposed. Without thinking, I reached into my pocket and grabbed my dagger. Just as I unsheathed it, the man quickly pushed me aside and disappeared into the crowd again.

"Are you alright?"

My heart skipped a beat as soon as I turned around to see Tullio standing there with a smile on his face. "Tullio!" I gasped, dropping my dagger onto the ground in shock. "I…I just had a close call."

The old spirit cultivator's smile faded into a look of concern as he saw the nervous look on my face. "It's not often that someone is able to sneak up on you like that," he said gently. "You're one of our best students after all."

I nodded silently and picked up my dagger before placing it back into my pocket once more. "This guy…we just met today outside of town," I began slowly, trying to catch my breath. "He offered to sell me some jewels he had lying around in his carriage."

Tullio raised an eyebrow curiously. "What did he look like?" he asked me, looking around at all the people walking past us while we stood in the middle of a busy market square in town. There were rows upon rows of stalls where merchants sold their products, but all I could focus on was the strange man who tried to attack me earlier today. He might have disappeared from sight now, but it didn't mean that he wasn't still here somewhere, watching and possibly planning something dreadful for us.

"He wore a red scarf over his face," I replied, trying to recall every detail about him that I could remember. "And…" I paused for a moment before continuing "…he had gold-colored eyes." It sounded absurd when I said it aloud, but those two details were what made me feel such an intense sense of danger whenever he was nearby.

"Have you ever seen this man before?" Tullio asked me calmly, noticing my evident fear and distress. Sensing my desperation, Tullio placed his hand on my shoulder, reassuring me that no harm would come to either of us while we were together. Guilt washed over me; I realized I hadn't been paying attention to Tullio's safety during this ordeal.

My heart sank as reality set in: we couldn't protect Tullio from whoever this man might be if we didn't know who exactly we were dealing with! At least not until we figured out precisely what the stranger wanted from us first. Once again, guilt filled me; how could I have been so selfish that day outside the city walls when offering to buy some jewels off him? If only I hadn't thought so little about the situation then, perhaps we wouldn't be in such a predicament now. But maybe nothing would have changed even if we had bought those jewels off him; maybe this entire thing started long before that day outside the town.

If only we knew where exactly these events began—how they started—maybe we could make sense of who the mysterious stranger really was and why they had followed both myself and Tullio around since our arrival in Florence! And where did they start following us from? Was it shortly after Father's funeral almost a year ago when we left Firenze for good? Or did these events start even earlier than that during Springtime last year, when Father decided to leave Firenze in secret without telling either myself or Mother beforehand?

What terrible mystery lay ahead of both Tullio and me if only we could figure out what brought all these events into motion during springtime last year? Too many questions flooded my mind at once, taking all my strength just to keep breathing properly. If only everything wasn't occurring so quickly, maybe it would have been easier for Tullio and me to track what went wrong on our journey to gain spiritual strength - the very strength needed, if we wanted more answers surrounding Father's sudden disappearance last April in Firenze.