Sachihiro (Steel)

''Hey."

"Hey," I say opening my eyes to complete darkness.

I wonder why he keeps coming back, could he be really that bored?

"Why aren’t you out exploring with the rest of your expedition?" Why do I keep asking these inane questions instead of the trades I’d like to attempt?

"I am exploring, this is my area to scout. I’m pretty good at spotting things."

I don’t doubt that.

"Tell me again in what condition you found me."

"Why?"

"I’d like to figure out what happened to me."

His aura spikes with interest, I actually hear him scramble closer.

"You were covered in a liquid metal moving all over and through you, like quickly on a pile of bone but different, more like sand than quicksilver.

"I thought maybe you had just recently gone in for suicide and were still dissolving so I stayed to watch. Nothing was changing though even after many hours. The liquid metal just moved about all over and inside you, I watched for three days. When I took you out the metal solidified, when they started healing you the metal dissolved turning into your skin and you woke."

Three days huh, the guy just watched me for three days. But at least his curiosity got me out of there, I’d still be stuck there for sure, turned into a melted slug of metal by a giant tuning-fork-stone-thing. What a fucking useless way to go!

"And people don’t usually survive in there long?"

"I could stay a few hours maybe, but I’d have to cheat. You weren’t cheating the way I would, I don’t know why you aren’t dead. Your constitution is impressive but it doesn’t explain how you’re alive."

Okay, so I survived where others don't, how?

I take a breath, concentrate as I tap my foot activating Vibrational Sense.

With each tap of my foot I listen to the vibration of the rock, I perceive the rock. I perceive it’s solidity, I perceive weak spots where I could break it with enough force, I perceive it’s unity. This is solid rock, it’s been here many centuries, it will be here many centuries more.

"My vibrational ability doesn’t seem to have changed at all," I report feeling him closer though still unable to spot him.

"How does it work?"

"Buff me and I’ll show you."

He doesn’t immediately answer, I hear the scratching of his rough beard tufted under his chin. "How will you show me?"

"I’ll use it on you."

He doesn’t immediately agree, why is this so important to him anyway?

"Okay, use it first and I’ll give you dark-vision."

Not a way across but a win nonetheless.

He steps closer, cocks his head as I turn towards him as he steps within my awareness. "Its strange, I can tell you now see me, I can even feel a bit of your mana but the spell you’re using eludes me."

Dimensional awareness is not a spell.

"I have to touch you."

He steps once and is within arm’s reach, scary fast.

I place a hand on his shoulder running vibrational sense through him, he cocks his head at the intrusion. I didn’t even realise vibrational sense was an intrusion of my own frequencies until just now.

"I can feel that but it’s not a spell is it?" He steps back, a distant expression on his face.

"No, it’s not a spell."

"Racial trait?"

"I’m human."

"Don’t be dunce, there are different types of humans with their own unique traits."

Like the Barbarian beserker rage.

"No it’s not a racial trait, I’m the only one I know that can do this."

"What exactly is it though?" He asks stepping close indicating I do him again.

I clasp a hand on his shoulder again checking him out with vibrational sense. He’s quite well put together all things considered. He’s lean and strong, not a blemish on his body but he isn’t built to take punishment, rather, he’s built for speed. Everything about him is ready to explode in movement, he practically oozes energy but it’s all very controlled. His clothes are enchanted, well made, armoured somehow.

"It’s like a wave, it picks up other waves and they tell me things about objects."

"Or people."

"Yes, or about people."

"What did it tell you about me?" The mischief is back in his aura, stronger even.

"It tells me you’re old," he vibrates at a lower frequency than most people I’ve sensed. The younger the person the busier their particles, this guy's particles aren’t that busy moving about.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"You could have guessed that from my power."

"I don’t know your power."

"I told you."

Was the guy serious, a 4th tier Awakened being just randomly wasting the afternoon with me?

"Right."

He places a hand on me and suddenly I can see again. It’s quite startling.

"Thanks," I step back looking around."How long will it last?"

"Different for each person, a day, half a day." He shrugs floating away.

"I’m gonna try to go around to the other side, maybe the gap is easier to transverse elsewhere."

"Okay," he shrugs again. He doesn’t give me much hope, I grab the stick and start walking.

The place is bare. Bare rock, sharp in areas cutting at my borrowed sandals. The place is vast, I can see for kilometres all around, a cave system large enough to fit all of Paradisum and more in its belly. The dark maw of a hole to my left doesn’t look any less intimidating, more so in fact as I try to gaze into the depths of the gaping divide. I walk along the edge but I’m not very hopeful I’ll find a crossing.

As much as I resent being here like this with everything else that’s happened since the summoning I've noticed the gease in my head has been leading me through a very specific route. A quick route but also one most suited for to my ability to handle. This route is catered to me I’m convinced since I skirted the Daarkarn settlements without stumbling into them, what are the chances of that?

However else Phosphorus is screwing with me he doesn’t want me to die on the journey. How could I use that to my advantage against him? How did he get around not paying me for providing him with a body, aren’t spiritual oaths supposed to be super inconvenient to circumvent?

I scramble over a rock-face, carefully lowering myself onto the other side before getting to a vantage I can see the gap from properly.

Yep, the dividing gap gets bigger as I walk along the ledge. The aura of the hole more certain in its promise of death, more menacing.

Yea no. I don’t want to be down there, I turn around heading back.

"Have you figured out how I survived?" I ask.

"You haven’t given me all the information."

True.

"What would you like to know?"

"What was that metal, can you conjure it at will?"

"I don’t know, I suspect my bound weapons melted but the spiritual binding wasn’t affected. So the molten sludge just stuck to me. You said the suicide-stone crushes everything to dust?"

"Well you could have led with that,'' he grumbles. ''That makes sense at least, spiritual bindings wouldn’t necessarily unravel with the unravelling metal if they are anchored well enough." He looks at me oddly, puckering his lips.

I disregard the look for now, "so the metal broke down and got bonded to my body somehow."

"Still doesn’t explain how you survived, though it makes me re-evaluate your general importance to others."

"Why?"

"Well you’re wealthy, or were."

"Not particularly."

"Spirit metal is very expensive, for you to have had a bondable weapon means you’re wealthy. It must have been fairly large too, armour, a shield maybe. Did it have any special enchantments that wouldn’t breakdown with the material?"

"Ahh…, not that I’m aware. How rare are spirit bound objects, I mean you seem well travelled."

"Very rare, you should know that if you bought some. Unless you didn’t, which means you mined it or have a repository, which means it’s more common where you’re from. Where are you from again?"

I giggle at his interest, he’s deductions are pretty spot on as well.

"I’m from Sandoria, one of the small continents off the North Western coast of Pangaea a ways. You know it?" I wonder what he’ll do with the information.

"No I can’t say that I do," he gets a map out of nowhere. "Show me," he demands flattering it out like a carpet to decorate the stone.

I step closer, it’s a large cloth with artfully depicted landscapes shifting subtly with some sort of enchantment. I spot Pangaea immediately, the entire continent depicted in its entirety for the first time in cartography for me. I take the shape in, nectagonal, raggered in some edges east and south west. Rivers, dams, mountains and forests act as dividing landmarks for kingdoms then monsters and powers that keep the territories.

Pangaea I recognise immediately from the shape of the northwestern coastline. I spot names of lands I’ve walked, there is the Nexus comprising the five cities of the half-elves. There is Romania, small but prominently marked, it’s a very accurate map.

Where the Foothills should be there is a slash with the name 'Alderman' on it, but no detail on lands there. But even without depicting the vast Alderman lands the geometry of the map appears accurate. It's like the Foothills don’t really exist there, just the door leading to them. Mhmm...

That fucking forest of birds, some kingdoms I’ve never seen, some I’ve heard off. There is the border to Atopia, Princess Erena's home, I wonder how she's managing with that cult that was threatening their rule. Everything I recognise is north west corner of Pangaia demacated by a river, Pangalata.

There are a lot of kingdoms marked on the Pangaea continent on the map, at least 12 large empires and dozens of smaller kingdoms. Relatively smaller but large in their own rights, especially compared to any kingdom I've ever personally known. There is the Tiba Desert, the home of the Order and their Brotherhoods, there is a Conclave Enclave marked on this map, that’s surprises me.

There are seven supercontinents on this map with Pangaea being the 3rd largest, there lies Sandoria further not amongst a spattering of continents that look like isles next to the giants surrounding them.

"My home is here, Sandoria continent" I point at where Sandoria is and the name magically appears on the previously unmarked landmass. The shape changing subtly but otherwise, all else stays the same.

"I’ll go visit it sometime."

I gaze at him intently, "you say that so casually. Like you have an easy way to cross all these distances," my heart is pounding in my throat.

"Of course, how do you think we got here?" he points at another continent far to the North and West of Pangaea.

"The Dark Continent," I read in a daze. Could this guy get me home?

''That's here,'' he says pointing at the stone at our feet.

"Could you help me get home?"

"No, brother doesn’t trust you. He’d never allow it."

Hope, such a cruel thing. But it’s worked into me and I can’t shake it off, I’m invigorated.

"How could I gain his trust?"

Aeonian laughs slapping his thigh like I cracked a good joke. He stops abruptly, "oh you’re serious."

Like a fucking nodachi through the heart. "Yes I’m serious," I say as calmly.

"No, brother won’t just take you home from the goodness of his heart. Do you have any interesting treasures there that he could go looking around for? Ancient civilizations, lost temples, ancient creatures that slumber beneath the depths whose bodies can bestow power? That sort of thing," he says waving his hand casually, 'treasures are his thing.''

How the fuck am I supposed to know about hidden treasues in Sandora? I know a lot of Barbarians went raiding Maori lands so they'll be lots of newly buried loot all over the Tundra soon.

"We have a mountain range said to be the petrified bodies of dead Titans. Celestial ores can be found amongst some of those peaks, as evident but my now lost spirit bound weapons. As far as I know ancient things slumber everywhere in the world so I’m sure we have a few of our own in my homeland."

Can these people really get me home? I look carefully at the large map rolled out on the floor at my feet, where I am, where Pangaea is. Using it as a measure of scale I’m hopelessly far from home, hopelessly. According to this map I'm on an entirely different supercontinent somewhere in the middle of the landmass plus I'm underground.

Following an inexplicable urge, I throw my empty palm onto the map.

11 blood crystals roll from thin air onto the map moving by some queer unseen power. Spirit-energy depletes from me as they arrange themselves on the map. Some landing on the middle of a sea with monsters depicted on it, some landing on Pangaea is separate groups around the Alderman marking.

I sway in dizziness, eyes on the dark dun crystal disregarding the ones faintly glowing with a crimson sheen. "Where is that?" I ask pointing at the dun crystal with blood rushing loudly passed my ears.

"That’s a scary place, you don’t want to go there."

"Where is it?" it’s not marked on the map with any words but the skull paints a clear enough picture.

He’s playfulness is gone as he studies me, as he studies the small crystals on his map.

"That’s the doorway to the land of the dead."