"Here is the last of my current questions. What do you mean when you say 'this place' I have heard many people bring it up and it is always in a strange context, Leo has said it a few times in the short time we have talked also," Winter asked.
A look of surprise appeared on both Lucifer's and Leo's faces. Lucifer sat down, seemingly no longer interested, so it was Leo who broke the news. "Well, both of you have died to get here, haven't you?"
I felt very silly all of a sudden. I had been so caught up with my feeble attempts at hiding my own situation that I hadn't realized the extremely obvious reality that someone like Winter was also not from here. Throughout all the time that we've spent together he has been even more clueless than me, and when I met him he was just wandering the woods completely lost. I sighed and mentally shook my head. 'This whole thing seems like it's just some Games for the Dead' I thought. "Yes," Winter and I said at the same time. "People call it different things, but because everyone knows what you're referring to it usually doesn't matter, and in case you haven't realized it by now everyone up here that you'll meet has also died, except for the locals, which before you ask, are people that are either born up here or are native to a world or fragment." Leo explained. "How can you tell if someone is a local?" I asked. "I'm not sure, you kind of have to guess I think, right?" Leo said, looking at Lucifer to confirm, but he simply shrugged slightly. "Any more questions?" Leo asked. "How many people are up here?" I asked. "I've heard that it's around a quadrillion," Lucifer said before Leo could speak. 'Just how many zeros is that?' I wondered. My system informed me that it was 16.
I'm going to have to ask Winter why he was trying to hide his past life, but I didn't really care given that I was doing the same thing and it really wasn't a big deal anyway. But something that would be cool is if Winter was a wizard in his past life, given his seemingly large knowledge base about magic. "Winter, were you a wizard," I had to ask. "People called me many things, but essentially" Winter responded. "Like what things?" I asked, "Pretty much any magical title" Winter said with a light laugh, "but I just called myself a martial mage." He said. "Ooh! I was a martial mage too," Leo said excitedly. Oh, very nice" "I focused on swordsmanship more than most though." he said with a new glimmer in his eye. "I wasn't half bad myself," Winter said with a subtle smile. "We should spar sometime," Leo proposed. "That could be fun, but we will have to wait until there are no wisps potentially lurking," Winter said sadly. "They get drawn by fights and the like," he followed up with.
"Oh, right, do you know how to defeat those?" Leo asked, remembering where we were. "Well, you can either trap them in something, bind them to something, overfill or absorb their mana reserves, or shatter the very fabric of reality where they exist causing them to fade to nothingness in an instant. Those are the options that I know of" Winter said matter of factly. "One of those sounds quite a bit more difficult than the others," I pointed out. "Yeah, trapping them in something does suck," "no that's not what I was…" "I am just messing with you, the last option is the most convenient but also the most impossible for this group" Winter said. "We should find a way to temporarily trap them, or maybe this place has something in store for us," he said knowingly. "Good point," Lucifer said gruffly. "Yes, given the nature of this place it would be unsurprising if the key was here somewhere." Leo said. An idea popped into my head. "What if the 'key' as you've said requires different parties working together, if the… Firmament works as you've said, different parties are isolated from each other when they go to a fragment or world normally, following that it makes sense that the way to leave this place involves other people, right?" I asked. Winter nodded with an impressed look on his face. Lucifer spoke up, "there are exceptions to everything in the firmament I've heard, but that reasoning stands on solid ground," to which Leo agreed.
"Well if you guys are all rested up, what do you say about exploring this place a bit," Winter said. "Leo, did you get the water?" Lucifer asked. "Oh yeah," Leo handed Lucifer a bottle of water that appeared in his hand, it looked to be a used health potion bottle. After taking a sip we got up and left. "One last thing, do not make any sudden movements or attack them if you see a wisp or they will notice us," Winter said.
Our exploration was relatively quiet, but Winter and Leo would talk every once in a while. To which I learned a few things from. Apparently Leo and Winter could fly in their past lives, and that Winter had this awesome wizard tower that had a bunch of magical stuff in it. He also mentioned that the way he died was by getting 'too silly', I don't even know where to begin on that one. Leo was one of the strongest warriors in the Dragonfolly Kingdom, He talked about that place quite a bit. It was called that because the founders defeated many dragons and took some of their strength such that many of the inhabitants including Leo had some dragon blood ingrained into them, even after the thousands of years since those events took place.
After walking for who knows how long and only seeing a few wisps, I spotted something. At first I thought it was just a strange looking stick poking out of the ground. But after looking at it for a little longer I realized that it was much too perfect to be a stick. "I think I see something over there," I said, pointing at the object. We walked over and found that it was a sword. It was stuck in the ground at an angle, with a light green moss covering most of the blade. There was a simple metal hand guard and the hilt was made from a dark red wood. It was worn down after many years of being there, but it looked surprisingly good for how much moss was on it. 'What is this?' I asked the system internally. 'Basic Weathered Longsword' was the reply I got back. "I am not surprised that this is here," Winter said. "The only places that I have seen wisps have been old battle grounds, sometimes castle dungeons. I bet that a war took place here hundreds of years ago… look there is another sword over there," He pointed a bit to the left and sure enough there was another sword, then another, then a few more.
Name: Kevin
Age: 17
Level : 21
EXP: 5,500/10,000
Lesser Shapeshifter
Health: 281
Mana: 25
Stat Points: 0
Stats:
Vitality : 23
Mind : 15
Endurance : 10
Strength : 20
Intelligence : 5
Soul : 5
Instinct : 30
Tinkering : 5
Luck : 0
Skill Points: 0
Skills:
Language
Lesser Shapeshifting(level 11)
Red Demon Transformation