“Samtha, do any of you three have the ability to detect secret compartments? Like, if someone was hiding something underground?”

“Yes,” she nodded, looking puzzled. “At least, to a degree. Korey and myself both have the Sense Stone spell. If there is a compartment in the ground, we will feel the absence of stone. Even simple dirt ground is littered with small rocks we can use. But if it’s a hidden spot in one of the walls, we won’t sense anything with these houses made of their strange grass bricks.”

“It’s alright, that should be enough. Alka,” Vin called up, distracting the girl from her turmoil. “Would you mind giving me a quick tour of the town? I only want you to show me the buildings owned by nobles.”

“Sure,” she frowned, clearly still bothered by her missing memories. “It won’t take long. Our town was small enough that we only had the one.”

Vin gestured for Samtha and her men to join them as they followed Alka’s floating form back into town. It didn’t take long for her to direct them to one of the larger grass buildings; the wooden door marking the entrance easily the most elaborate carving compared to the other buildings he’d seen.

“This was Mr. Faulk’s house,” she said, her headache seeming to grow worse as she gestured to the door. “He’s the last person I can remember drinking with that night… I’d never met the man before, but from what I can remember, I thought he seemed strangely welcoming for someone I’d heard less than pleasant things about.”

“You don’t say,” Vin muttered, motioning for the group to follow him inside. As he’d expected, the interior of the noble’s home was far more intricately decorated than the other houses he’d poked his head into. He wasn’t sure why wood seemed to be so important to these people, but there were intricate wooden carvings and wooden furniture placed all around the house. Ignoring most of it, Vin wandered through the house, quickly finding a locked door. He noticed that the wood making up the door seemed to be a darker brown than the rest of the furniture, but ignored the fact, gesturing for Samtha to take his place.

“Samtha, if you would.”

At his request, the warrior stepped forward, raising her stone mace and smashing it into the wooden door with all her might. To both their shock however, the mace actually rebounded off the door, leaving not so much as a scratch on the wood.

“Well… I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting that,” Vin said, staring in awe at the unmarred door.

“That door is petrified Elder wood,” Alka said blankly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You’ll break your weapon before having any luck cracking the door.”

Relaying the ghost’s words to Samtha, the warrior grinned and hefted her mace once more. “We’ll see about that!”

Raising the mace above her head, the warrior must have activated some sort of skill as the head of the mace began glowing a dull gray. Vin had just enough time to cover his ears before she slammed the glowing mace into the door; the resulting explosion of noise was enough to shake his very bones and rattle the structure of the house. Looking up, Vin couldn’t help but laugh at the aftermath of Samtha’s attack.

Even after all that, the door was completely undamaged. However, both the door and the frame it was still attached to now lay on the ground within the noble’s study. The force of Samtha’s strike had been so great that it had ripped the seemingly indestructible door from the wall; parts of the grassy bricks it had been connected to were now lying shredded around the room.

“Damn, that is some tough wood,” Samtha said, staring at the door in shock. A quick glance at her mace showed a few hairline cracks already spreading throughout the stone weapon.

“Petrified Elder wood,” Alka nodded, admiring the door like it was some sort of mystical artifact. “The material is extremely rare. Only the nobles have the knowledge and means to work with it. I… I remember being so excited about it for some reason…” she muttered, rubbing her head.

“Don’t worry, we’re nearly there,” Vin said, stepping over the door as their motley crew entered the study. There was a large desk and a massive portrait of one of the giant trees adorning the wall behind it, but not much else. “Samtha, could you use your spell and tell me if there are any hidden compartments in the ground?”

Nodding, she muttered something, and Vin watched curiously as her feet glowed a similar gray to her mace and she began wandering around the room. Vin waited with bated breath as the warrior slowly finished a lap around the room, and then a second. After her third, she looked up at him, frowning. “No secret compartments I can detect. Plenty of small rocks scattered around underground here.”

“Seriously?” He asked, his hopes plummeting. “I was so sure it would be here. I mean, where else…” He paused, looking at the desk once more. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Walking to the other side of the room, he took a closer look at the desk, before stepping right past it, staring up at the portrait of the large tree. Without a moment of hesitation, he reached up and yanked the portrait off the wall, tossing it to the side.

Revealing a glowing sword resting within a small, hidden cubby.

The sword was clearly made of the same mysterious petrified wood that the door had been made from, though not nearly as decorated. Somehow the blade looked as sharp as any metal weapon he’d seen despite being crafted from wood, and the entire sword from hilt to point glowed a very soft, gentle green.

Vin heard a gasp behind him, and he turned to see Alka staring at the weapon, her eyes wide with her hands covering her mouth.

“Dancing Leaf,” she whispered, almost in reverence as she reached out a hand toward the glowing sword, her flickering body not daring to come any closer. “That’s the name I gave my blade. All Slayers that pass the tests are awarded their own petrified weapon, and despite being a commoner, it was decided that I would be granted my own as well.”

“But petrified Elder wood is supposed to be for nobles only,” Vin continued, nodding along with her words. “In the most cliche possible fashion, Mr. Faulk couldn’t stand the thought of a lowly commoner getting their hands on a piece of petrified wood. I’m willing to bet he poisoned one of your drinks during your celebratory party, killing you and stealing your sword for himself to ensure that the line between nobles and commoners remained firm. Right up until your entire world died because of it.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“How?” Alka asked, barely managing to tear her eyes from the resting blade. “How could you possibly have put all that together?”

Years of watching low budget dramas and cliche detective shows while hiding in my bedroom in an attempt to distract myself from my parents fighting, he thought, wisely deciding to keep that tidbit to himself. And an assumption that the pettiness of humanity would overcome such tiny boundaries as a growing monster apocalypse.

“Just a lucky guess,” he said, thinking back to all the times he’d been arrested. Plenty of those arrests had been for him ‘trespassing’ on land that he’d come to learn had been owned by rich assholes, despite seeming like complete wilderness. “I’ve had my fair share of commoner vs noble mentality from my own world. The reason why I figured it was a sword you were anchored to is because of the empty sheath you’re carrying around. Seemed odd for a ghost to have something like that.”

At his words, Alka reached behind her and felt at the empty sheath secured on her back, surprise clear on her face. “It didn’t even occur to me… how could I possibly have forgotten the fact that I’d been given my own petrified blade?”

“Probably something to do with the trauma of dying or something like that,” he shrugged. “Like I said, I’m an Explorer, not a therapist. Actually, is that even a class that the System offers?”

Alka ignored his remark, her gaze returning to the glowing sword. The two of them stood like that for a moment, simply admiring the deadly work of art. Well, Alka was still floating, but it was close enough.

“So why is it glowing?” Vin finally had to ask, breaking the silence.

“All Slayer blades are enchanted,” she answered, not seeming to mind the question. “They are capable of interacting with and cutting through weaker magics. Ironically, given my current state, my world has… had, a serious problem with undead. Hence our burial grounds being placed so far from our settlements. This blade would have allowed me to more easily fight against monsters with additional magical defenses.” Almost as if she knew what he was going to say, she shook her head. “The enchantment won't be enough to kill me. That would work with something like a lesser spirit or will-o-wisp yes, but not a bound ghost. At worst it would disperse my form enough that it would take me a few hours to reform near my anchor.”

“And I guess destroying the anchor is entirely out of the question now,” Vin said, glancing at the unmarked wooden door lying on the ground. If the sword was made of the same material, and enchanted on top of that, he couldn’t even begin to imagine stumbling upon something strong enough to destroy the blade.

“Correct. Petrified Elder wood is supposed to be unbreakable. According to legend, the blade will never dull and the weapon doesn’t need an ounce of maintenance. Seems like the perfect tool for a wandering Explorer if you ask me.”

The weight behind Alka’s words took a second to hit him, and he started, turning to see the ghost watching him intensely. “In exchange for allowing me to accompany you until you can find someone with the power to put me to rest, I will give to you my blade. Do we have a deal?”

“Of course,” Vin said, rolling his eyes despite the suddenly heavy atmosphere he found himself in. “I already said I would help you, didn’t I? No need to throw a magic sword in there to sweeten the deal.” As soon as he accepted her terms, the strange weight that hung in the air vanished, and Alka gave him a toothy grin, her form seeming to solidify to the point of almost looking like a regular, albeit floating, human for a moment.

“Excellent! In that case, I believe it’s high time I put this godforsaken town behind me. I’ve spent the last three months drifting around here aimlessly, and I’m quite sick of the place.”

“Works for me. After we bring these guys back to their village, I have to make a quick stop at my own camp and report in.” Vin paused, wondering how Spur was going to react when he showed them Alka and his new magic sword. God damn it they really were going to try and make him king if this kept up, weren’t they?

Sighing, Vin reached into the cubby and grabbed his new sword, Dancing Leaf, and examined the blade. The hilt was almost warm to the touch, and he swore he thought he felt the wood shift ever so slightly at his touch to better fit his grip. Before he could examine it too closely however, two surprising things happened in quick succession. First, he received a message from the System he wasn’t expecting.

New minor artifact discovered! 1,000 exp gained.

Level up! Explorer Lvl 4.

+3 Attribute points to spend.

+1 Skill point to spend.

Hell yeah, he thought, unable to contain his grin as he looked at the sword in a new light. Now we’re talking!

But before he could revel in his newfound rewards, he heard a loud gasp, and turned just in time to witness Alka’s ethereal form begin rapidly flickering, as though she were fighting to stay in one piece within a whirlwind.

Without warning, her ghostly form snapped directly into him like a too taut rubber band, her body and limbs somehow overlaying his own despite their height difference.

Crying out in shock as Alka’s form merged into him, Vin leapt back, smacking his knee against the heavy desk and cursing in pain. While hopping around on one foot, he patted at his seemingly intact chest with his free hand, not finding anything amiss. Before he could start to wonder if he was finally losing it, he heard a familiar voice inside his head.

‘What..? What happened?’

“Alka?” He said, shaking his head as if that would dislodge the ghost somehow. His heart was still racing at their sudden predicament, but seeing as everything felt totally normal, he tried to stay calm. “Please tell me you have a good reason for flying into me.”

He spotted Samtha and her crew in clear combat stances and quickly waved them down. The last thing he needed was a stone mace to the head on top of whatever was currently happening.

‘I don’t know! One second everything was normal, and the next, it felt like I was being dragged into you by some sort of inescapable current.’

“Well clearly you’re not possessing me,” Vin muttered, opening and closing his free hand just to ensure he could. He didn’t know what being possessed felt like, but he assumed he would know it when it happened.

‘Yeah, I can tell that much.’ He snorted at the clear sarcasm in her voice. ‘It’s strange though… I feel like I could try and take over your body if I wanted. Like how you can choose to flex a muscle.’

“Please refrain from flexing anything inside my body, thank you very much.” Looking at the glowing sword he still held, he sighed, turning the blade over and examining it from all sides. As though the magic tree smith or whomever that had crafted it had installed some sort of off switch. “Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the cause of all this. I guess taking possession of your anchor somehow bound you to me? Or me to you? Or some other third thing? Damn it, I never went to college!”

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

The two of them stood together in silence for a moment, neither saying anything as they took in their new circumstances. Vin feared how Alka would react to suddenly having herself bound to his form. She’d been forcibly stuck in this town for so long, he hoped she didn’t take her anger out on him now that his own body had become her new prison. After a few tense moments, her voice finally rang out in his head.

‘So am I going to have to pay rent now, or…’

“God damn it.”