A great many things ran through Alan’s head for hours following the defeat of Akira Black. Was she the guardian of this section of Ojin? By the sound of it, she’s one of many. And what did he unlock by defeating her? Is it just area of visibility… or something more?

Ojin is a paradise compared to Strangey Town. He plopped down under an umbrella tree of fruits rustling softly in the wind, taking note that the grey fog was still gone. It can be peaceful here, unlike there—under the thumb of some zany god.

He shivered at the chaos, and thanked his lucky stars he didn’t have to suffer it.

Safety in exchange for being a puppet? Spinning in circles and eating sand? No thank you.

A deep breath filled his lungs, and he didn’t have to worry about a frog flipping in zero gravity, or dancing fish-head humanoids trying to suck on him. He could actually think here.

Maybe it’s all of them who are just wired backward. Lucius is right – Flint’s been here too long.

Nah, don’t be an idiot. I just got lucky one time, and I’m still on a high from it. If those tentacles fell on me, I’d be screaming for Mujungo just like everyone else who’s been pulled back.

He looked to his dagger and considered whether or not to unsheathe it. A voice whispering in his ear to kill was not something he valued, especially when there was another option.

On the other hand, it had kept him alive.

Shnnk.

He drew it, the subtle motion making the bruises on his limbs ache. But not enough to port back to Strangey Town. Not even close.

“Hi,” Alan said matter-of-factly.

“You… are a marvel of this world… Sir Alan.” The dagger pulsed blue.

Alan wasn’t fond of high-praise – not that he ever got it back home. But his first instinct was to be skeptical. Not to mention, he didn’t want it to be true, because getting home was the priority. He didn’t need any more temptation to stay.

“No one tried to reason with an Ojin minion before?” he asked.

“Oh, they have. Of course. Most deaths end with begging and pleading.”

“Then what?”

“You got through. Initiated a trade mid-combat. It’s unheard of.”

My ultra unique ability to barter with any entity… I guess the rarity is true.

Alan shrugged.

“Apparently you gained the respect of that minion, too.” The dagger shifted weight in Alan’s hand, the tip pointing to the pendant hanging from his neck.

“Why do you say that?”

The dagger guffawed. “It doesn’t take a genius to realize you are Colorless. Red Saro reflecting off you when your weapon is clearly Blue. Hah. She played to it. She gifted you a pendant so you can understand the fluctuations.”

“Uh huh. Not sure I want to deep dive into all this if I’m going to be exiting to my Origin soon. All I have to do is find someone who wields the Pegs of Fate and trade them… somehow.”

The dagger grumbled sadly.

“What?”

The dagger cleared its metaphorical throat. “I am Dante Durghowler, great armorer of Hightower Brack. Everyone calls me Durger. Well, used to call me that, anyway.”

“Durger? It sounds like I’m saying dagger like an idiot.”

“Hah.” A bead of sweat rolled down the dagger’s edge. “Never thought of it that way.”

Alan considered revealing he knew exactly who Durger was, and that he went mad trying to resurrect his pet – Sir Ooman. What he didn’t realize in his visions, was that Durger bonded to the blade too. He guessed there were gaps in his trances.

“Let me put things delicately, so not to destroy your hope,” Durger said. “If you are ever to make it back to your Origin World, you will have to earn great mastery in this place.”

Alan shut his eyes tight and exhaled strongly. His hopes of a quick port home dwindled by the minute. And the thought of that ridiculous Archer who shot him in the first place grew that much more aggravating.

“How would you know?” he pretended to be ignorant.

The gibberish inscriptions raised like eyebrows. “Now that, is a long story, Alan Right. And that story I will tell you. But first… basics. You must understand the potential that surrounds you, and the intricacies of the pendent you earned.”

Alan scratched his head, reluctantly pulling up the pendant’s text in his mind’s eye.

Saro Pendant of the Depths

+Colorless Saro Enhancement

Enchantment: While equipped, the wearer may enter a meditatively focused state that aids in wielding the depths and complexities of Saro.

Note: The colorwheel will signal how close or far you are from a particular effect.

“Okay. Apparently this will help me wield Saro more effectively,” Alan said.

“Precisely. We shall practice this art – as it will be new to the both of us since I was never privy to the challenges of a Colorless. In my past life, I was able to use my weapons to help bolster Saro effects. Where I can, I will do the same for you.”

“Thank you. Uhm—”Alan held back his questions since a strange buzzing overwhelmed the part of his chest where the pendent rested. Durger noticed it too.

“Fear not, Sir Alan. You are merely getting acquainted to all of this new potential. This might all feel overwhelming.”

“You don’t say,” Alan’s voice vibrated from all the buzzing.

“It is all quite exciting, truly. There is more than Saro. So much more. Soon we will dive into the varying effects of donning a specific Title – how one may be good for certain instances, and detrimental to others. A long road… a long road indeed. But first! My story—”

The next hours were filled with painfully detailed retellings of Durger’s past. He was the support class in a powerful party chasing the deep purple Fog of War – two colors under crimson. They toppled dungeons, volcanic monsters, headless dragons with faces inside their talons. He even recalled a ghostly vapor with tubes that could port you to other realms. One of his party members aged sixty years in a town that had no access to Ojin. When they found him again – he was the party’s crazed grandfather.

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Ojin’s sun sent waves of yellow plasma rippling through the sky – casting the forest in inverse, black light colors for the instants it passed over. It was bizarre – like Strangey Town bizarre – but Durger said it was common.

During the night, Alan reluctantly listened to hints about Saro. He recalled Lucius’ power, and asked Durger if he, Alan, could replicate that somehow with his Colorless affinity.

“Pull your pendant,” Durger said. “I will teach you to survive.”

As soon as Alan touched the amulet, his surroundings darkened, and the pendant became transparent like a crystal.

“Saro is a color wheel to you. I too had a Colorless in my party, many, many moons ago. She was weak in terms of great conjuring, but versatile. You, on the other hand, have the potential to possess all of her strengths and none of her weaknesses. Hold the pendant up. Good. Now concentrate on your Origin memories. Yes. What do you see?”

Although his surroundings were dark, what lay in front of him grew bright. Colors, prismatic reflections stemmed from the crystal.

“The pendant is a representation and amplification of how your body molds Saro. You should see many options, as Shelk had back when.”

“All the colors,” Alan said, trying to focus on Orange – to pull fire like Lucius.

“Right. When I would hold up the same type of amplifier, I would see only bright Yellow, as was my Saro,” Durger said.

“Fascinating.” Alan’s mouth remained agape. He concentrated hard to see if he could bend the prismatic reflections. The tingling sensation tickled all down his back and arms, but no matter how hard he tried, the abundance of variant power was too chaotic to focus on.

The prism amplified the harder he tried… brightening, straining.

“Alan,” Durger’s voice echoed all around him.

His thoughts were all orange and fire, but the color wheel refused to adhere.

Recalling his home life, the pain of being dumped, the day he failed out of college… it burned inside him.

“Sir Alan,” Durger repeated.

An explosion of glass shattering resounded, and Alan was forced to drop the pendant.

He exhaled heavily when darkness enveloped him, thinking he might’ve somehow blinded himself.

The faint light of two moons slowly returned, however, as well as forest silhouettes.

“That was,” Alan gasped, “intense.”

“Careful,” Durger said, the Blue Saro fading around his edges. “You will deplete yourself entirely if you extract too much.”

It was only then he realized the Saro within him could be syphoned to naught. He must’ve pushed himself too hard trying to will the Saro through his pendant.

“The process of altering Saro depletes me.”

“Of course, Alan. You have only just awoken here, and are no longer under duress like in battle against Akira. Adrenaline cannot be high at all times. You must build endurance.”

Alan felt his arms grow heavy all of a sudden, his vision hazy. Fatigue.

Soon after, he passed out.

xxx

The next days, Alan and Durger grew closer. Coaching sessions became useful the more Alan tried to control the Saro within him. In between gathering logs for his meager campfire in Parose – the grey fog region of Ojin – he often sat by the tree to alter his Saro. Through the chaos of an endlessly expansive color wheel brought to life by his pendant, he glimpsed moments of clarity.

He pinpointed Orange on more than one occasion, and pictured himself holding onto a container of that light. The prismatic pendant shivered whenever he did, and eventually, the glass would break all over again, shattering his vision and bringing him back to Ojin.

On the third evening, he wondered whether Lucius and Flint were doing alright in Strangey Town, or perhaps taking on their own adventures somewhere else in Ojin. He had no way of knowing.

So far Durger took good care of Alan by pointing him to helpful berries and non-toxic fruits. Ever since the defeat of Akira, this turned into a prolonged camping trip of magical training. It scared Alan… because he liked it.

Blue Saro represented foresight, which ultimately led to the unlocking of Durger’s language. Red represented instinct – which he understood the moment he used it against Akira, but it was good to have confirmation. Orange was one third of the basic elemental plane, as was White. There were so many nuances, and it didn’t help that Durger was a forger once upon a time. It was its own subsect of Saro manipulation, similar to Alan’s mercantile type.

His head was spinning from both knowledge and Saro extraction, but again… it felt good. Each nugget of history blended well with Alan’s true strength – the value of items in these realms. Should he survive, trading would take him far.

That clairvoyant frog’s reel may have gotten into his head a little.

“I have a special talent that allows me to trade with any entity,” Alan revealed one day. “Which makes me wonder, can I trade with you?” He tilted the dagger to inspect it.

“If I had my old form, we would be trading all day and night.” Durger laughed. “Unfortunately, when my blessed necromancy failed, the price was my soul. Now I’m stuck in here for the rest of my days… until I eventually peter out.”

“But you are technically an entity,” Alan replied. “I don’t buy that your confined state prevents you ownership. Surely your weapons and armor are still yours, wherever you stored them way back when.”

The inscription line furrowed like a brow. “I—never considered it. I leave the rulebook to the scribes and Stone Chasers. The only thing I could imagine is some law of eminent domain where the gods break down or distribute the loot of the fallen in the event it isn’t gifted beforehand.”

“You’re speculating, though,” Alan hoped.

“About transfer, yes. But of my status, I am sure. I am your weapon, Alan. I am not meant to be more any longer.”

I still don’t buy it, Alan thought. My ability says ‘any entity’ for a reason. But I’ll let it go for now.

The rest of the day Alan learned the story of Dante Durghowler – whose origins stemmed from a fantastical world called Al’tayu, leading all the way to a realm called Hightower Brack after his first death – which apparently is a Strangey Town realm equivalent, with its own governing god.

So many questions popped up in Alan’s mind, like whether or not Durger knew Flint – the White Saro Wizard. Apparently, Flint was a mage in his past life, which sounds pretty similar to Durger’s beginnings as a magically-charged castle defender in Al’tayu. Alan kept his cards close to the chest for now, though.

There was also one inconsistency he couldn’t overlook. If Durger’s journey never crossed Strangey Town, then how in hell did he, Alan, wind up with the dagger? How had some Mujungo-worshipping goblins get their hands on it in the first place?

Little did Alan know, that question opened a whole world in and of itself.

Gods have scouts. Intense worshippers that crawl through realms to do their bidding.

It made Alan think of the ridiculous Archer with warpaint again, and his message to Alan before shooting him in the face – ‘Live again, you weird asshole!’

Could he have been a scout?

The night carried on as Alan contently gathered berries that kept his belly full through the days.

Then, on the fifth dawn, the blue outline of his dagger puffed away mid-conversation.

Alan’s heart dropped into his stomach when Durger didn’t respond. He swung the blade a few times and knocked it against a tree hoping it would activate. But deep down, he knew it wasn’t just the dagger. Something changed in the air… in him.

He got to his feet and wiped his hands of the breakfast berry residue. The tingling sensation within him vanished entirely. It wasn’t fatigue like all those other times he’d depleted himself. This was something deliberate, like a blocker.

Flowers wilted around him suddenly.

“Help!” a voice resounded from down the dirt pathway.

Alan hid behind a large tree of long spindly purple leaves. That could easily be a trap. He peeked out to the sight of a man in leather armor darkened with blood. The man limped, awkwardly barreling forward using each tree to keep himself upright.

“Bo—” The man coughed blood. “Borai. Help…”

Alan gritted his teeth and rushed over to aid him.

“Oh, thank Jaeger.” The man reached forward and fell on his stomach, his two long swords clanking from his belt. “Arh.”

Alan reached down to help him up. “What the hell is going on? Do you still have the Fog of War here?”

“N—no. Chased from black fog… by Borai. Terrible monster. It sucks all the Saro out of a vicinity. We’re sitting ducks. Run, friend. Save yourself.” The man blinked hard – dirt all over his twirled mustache.

“You’re bleeding everywhere. Tell me how to help you.” Alan started to panic seeing the man’s breath grow shallow.

He pointed to white lily-type flowers growing out of the grass. “S—since we have no Saro, we’ll need to do it the old herbalist way. Fetch t—” He coughed loud and pointed. “Those over there.”

Alan struggled to carry him.

“Hurry, friend. The Borai must be close.”

Boom!

The entire ground shook, scaring Alan straight for a second. He had no idea other minions or monsters could transfer between fogs.

“Hurry. A little more.” The man struggled out of Alan’s grasp and clasped the flower in both hands. He then stuck his hand in a bag, pulling out multiple White Saro essences – Alan knew from the one he gifted Lucius back in the cave.

“Yes.” The man tore the essence apart like an accordion and pressed it over his wound. The flower petals swirled to life, healing the blood while the essence froze the wound over. He gritted his teeth, face scrunching under the horrible pain.

As the essence melted, the petals stilled into healing stiches across his abdomen.

A long sigh escaped the man. “Thank you, friend. I am Farante Del Sol. Warrior Bladesmen of the Sonj.” He pushed himself up and wiped the remaining wetness off his leather cuirass. His long coat dirtied from the grass.

I could’ve taken the flower and traded him. Alan winced. He didn’t like the selfish thought, but getting out of here was still his number one priority.

“Alan Right. Uhh, new Merchant of Strangey Town, I guess.”

“Strangey Town, huh? Poor guy.” Farante drew his long swords and crouched low. “Come,” he whispered. “Behind the trees.”

Alan hurriedly got behind one, noticing random plots of grass dying.

Boom!

“Is the Borai invisible? Does it suck the life out of plants too?” Alan pointed.

Farante tilted his head, looking adequately disturbed that the plot near them had died. “That would be a new ability.”

Boom!

Alan tensed.

“Stay low, don’t move,” Farante warned. He pulled out a bright set of binoculars and traced something in the distance. “This is not the day we die again.”