The books Scott discovered previously once belonged to Saelil. They contained her knowledge and at least two of them were grimoires. She would be able to teach him the spells once she was able to read the fell runes once more. In her current state the words refused to allow themselves to be known to her.
Grinding for essence was not particularly useful at the moment outside of acquiring enough to make certain that he would be able to heal desiccation. Instead, Scott chose to move forward. His primary goal at the moment was to escape the underworld.
An undead soldier rose to try to stop him, but he easily cut his way through the beast as this one did not possess a shield and moved sluggishly. A few well timed feints led to heavy strikes that sent the undead screaming back into the sweet embrace of death.
They returned to Saelil's room then headed to the steel gate. After a bit of discussion with Saelil, he learned that he needed to touch his ring to the door lock and command it to open with the proper phrase. "I command thee to open in the name of Saelil Lothuialeth."
"So commanding, beloved," murmured Saelil warmly.
Scott closed his eyes and sighed slightly. A ghostly elf cheerleader, what should he expect next from this world? After they unlocked the door with the key phrase, they continued down the tunnel. After a short period of winding here and there, they arrived at a second obelisk. This one radiated a bright white light.
"Excellent!" cried Saelil. She floated over to the obelisk then moved around it in circles. "It shines so brightly in your presence, beloved!"
Scott walked over to the obelisk and touched it. The now awakened obelisk flared brightly with an awesome power. A column of white light rose up nearby, and then expanded outward. A crystalline staircase rose up from the ground and twisted into a spiral. At the top, Scott saw a hole appear. Daylight streamed down. Sounds and scents of the living world came to him not long after.
"I see. White obelisks let me out of the underworld?" asked Scott.
"You are indeed a Child of Heros, beloved!" cried Saelil before she hugged her arms tightly to her chest.
Other than creating an escape from the underworld, the white obelisk also provided two new options. He could now form, or disband, a party.
Scott chose to party with Saelil, an action that caused her to chuckle warmly then spin around in place. A musical fanfare played in the background while the party function performed its purpose. Their souls were now linked. They would share essence from defeated opponents.
"Let's get out of here," said Scott in a friendly tone.
"Yes, let us leave this place!" cried Saelil excitedly.
The duo stepped onto the stairs then ascended out of the underworld. The moment they reached the overworld, the stairs disappeared, and the hole closed behind them.
Scott breathed in the fresh, clean, air and then released his breath slowly. "This is awesome!"
"Indeed, I am filled with great awe as well," said Saelil. She looked around at the bright blue sky, the green of the grass, and the way the branches of a nearby tree swayed gently in the breeze.
"You haven't been top side in a while, huh?" asked Scott gently.
"I don't know how long it has been, beloved. I despaired that I would never see such beauty again." Saelil smiled gently then started to cry a little. Ghost or not, she still had her full range of emotion. This moment was tremendous for her.
Scott would have held her, but that was impossible. Instead he sat near her and allowed her all the time she needed come to terms with her newfound freedom.
They sat in the middle of the grass covered field for quite some time before she finished feeling her feelings. She apologized for being such a bother, as she put it. Scott did not see it that way.
"I'm not sure how long I was down there, but I was glad to be free of the place. I can't imagine how it feels for you to be out in the daylight after all this time," said Scott.
She nodded then granted him a shy smile. She gently clasped one of her hands with the other then said, "Thank you, for your kindness."
The day wore on as they sat and talked. She told him more of her former life, her drive to become a truly powerful sorceress.
Scott was still uncertain of her loyalties despite her friendly demeanor. He mostly listened to her tell her tale, but occasionally he would supply little tidbits of his own mundane backstory. However unintended, his words did lend an air of mystery about him that caught the ghost girl's attention quite keenly.
"So mysterious," she said, before tilting her head to the side. "Where is it that you come from, beloved?"
Scott smiled slightly then looked down at the ground. Telling her the absolute truth would either help or hurt his situation. She claimed to be bound to him, and the ring proved to be a potent symbol of that fact, but not too long ago she was hell bent on destroying him. There was also the part where she had slammed her foot into his man-tackle. It was hard to forget that sort of thing.
"Oh, worlds away," said Scott, without looking at her, "Worlds away."
Her cheeks puffed up slightly, but the moment she realized that a pout started to form she relaxed. Pouting was childish. What she wanted was answers, not sympathy. Unfortunately, the big half-naked man was playing hard to get with what she wanted to know. "Tease..."
Scott laughed slightly then shrugged. "I am what I am. Explaining it will be easier after the end of my mission," said Scott.
"Perhaps I should pout at you after all," she asked, before she crossed her arms over her chest and leveled a decisive look in his general direction.
His response, a soft chuckle, only served to intrigue her more. She was not a true social butterfly, but Saelil was accustomed to men giving in to her threats when it came to potential pouting.
"You won't tell me more, beloved?" she asked, her ghostly pout put into full effect.
"You'll just have to suffer the mystery," said Scott with another soft chuckle.
Saelil gasped slightly. Her pout failed! What sort of creature was this man? His occasional glance at her breasts indicated that he found women interesting, but her visual psychological tactics failed to achieve the desired result! The failure both infuriated, and further intrigued, her. "Mystery indeed..."
After they spent another few minutes chatting back and forth about his masculine mysteries, they rose up then picked a direction to head out on their journey. Neither knew where they were, but if they traveled in one direction long enough they were bound to find some hint of civilization somewhere.
Chapter 9
The grassland was beautiful to behold, but filled with biting insects and slithering serpents. On more than one occasion, Scott needed to hop away at the last moment when he came upon a snake hiding in the grass.
"So, this land that you come from. You said that it is far from here?" asked Saelil.
Scott slapped at a mosquito that decided to try to slake its thirst on the side of his neck. He eyed the girl jealously for a moment. There was something to be said for being completely devoid of a physical body. The insects could not bother her.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you've never heard of it," he said.
She made a thoughtful humming noise, but did not ask for further information. At least not for a time. Eventually, her curiosity got the better of her. "What is this distant land called? I am quite knowledgeable regarding geography."
"America," said Scott simply.
Saelil tapped her chin lightly for a moment then pouted. "Is it a small nation?"
Scott laughed a little. "No, it's not small. It is actually one of the largest in the world."
"Truly? A large nation is it?" she asked, a curious tone in her voice.
"Yes, and quite populous," replied Scott with a smile.
Her thoughtful expression returned and she hummed to herself for a moment. "Perhaps it is a young nation? I have been in the underworld for quite some time..."
"Well, I suppose it is relatively young as nations go," said Scott amiably.
"Ah! There we have the answ
er," she said, mollified by his admission.
Saelil danced around him in a circle while he walked, a happy smile on her lips. "One mystery solved!"
Scott could not help but laugh a little. She was far too excited about getting an answer out of him.
Time wore on. They eventually reached something new, and interesting.
"A road!" exclaimed Scott. Roads were good. Roads were some-thing that led to some-where.
"Yes! We have rediscovered civilization, beloved," said Saelil joyfully. She whirled around and danced along the roadside.
"You've been dancing a lot since we got out of the underworld," mentioned Scott.
"I enjoy my freedom to see the sun rise." Saelil smiled softly then hugged herself. "If only I could feel it on my skin..."
Scott blinked slowly as he took in the sight. While she was completely nude, he was able to ignore it, but now that she was partially covered he had to admit the truth. Saelil was quite attractive for a nigh-transparent ghost elf.
"Yes, sadly I can feel nothing on my skin... Neither the rays of the sun, nor the sensation of dirt between my toes," she said once more, before she released a soft sigh.
"Well, I'll help you feel it again," said Scott casually. Even he was not certain exactly what he meant by those words. However, he did have a strange desire to say it.
Saelil gasped gently and placed her hands to her cheeks. "Goodness, beloved... I'm too innocent to be certain, but something about what you just said seems aggressive."
"If you were truly that innocent, it wouldn't seem aggressive," muttered Scott.
"What was that, dear one?" asked Saelil with a smile. A moment later she bit her lip and made a strangely sensual humming noise, much like the sound one made when tasting good hot soup on a cold day.
"Nevermind..." Scott eyed her carefully. Verbal sparring made her a little too happy. Though, it could be simply that she had not spoken to anyone for years uncounted.
She hummed at him lightly then danced around a little. "Joyous is the sun and the blue sky above."
He watched for a moment then looked away. There was a choice to be made. He could not spend the entire day bearing witness to her glory.
Scott looked one way, and then the other. There were no apparently obvious signs of which path to take. Saelil would be unlikely to know any more about the surrounding area than he did, since her geographic knowledge was no doubt vastly out of date. In the end, he shrugged then turned to the left. One way was as good as another when there was no clue where to go next.
They walked, and in one case danced, their way down the road for quite some time. The number of bugs attacking Scott slacked off, but every now and then one would bite or sting him with enough ferocity to make him cry out in annoyance then swat it.
Nothing existed for miles around save for grassland, a handful of trees, and the two fools who traveled the open road.
"Shit, I could use some baby powder or something," mumbled Scott as he felt himself beginning to chafe. Where were his hit points now? Why had they forsaken him?
Truthfully, he did have hit points, but not many. Without his true equipment, he was as prone to inconvenient chaffing as anyone else. His hit points were not high enough to completely rid him of common afflictions. They worked to reduce damage based on the number of them that he possessed, and several other variables.
The damage of simply living his life in a half-naked sense, began to build up over time. After walking most of the day, his feet began to blister. His thighs were chafe. Sweat poured down his body, and the god damned flies would not stop biting everything that dangled luxuriously within in their sight!
"Hey, what's that?" asked Scott, after another lengthy period of walking? Night was beginning to set in, but smoke was visible in the far distance even in the dimmed lighting.
"A campfire! Lovely, I do wonder if they will prove helpful," asked Saelil with a smile.
Scott glanced at her and then to the campfire. "Yeah, I wonder..."
In a perfect world, he would be able to sneak up on them safely to see what sort of people they were. Unfortunately, as they drew closer to the source of the smoke, the grassland decided to die away and give rise to flat land.
The tall grass was well away from the campsite, so much so, that it would be useless to try to watch the small humanoid blobs for long. "Shit, what is that a mile or more of no cover?"
"No cover?" asked Saelil. "Do you believe them to be bandits, beloved?"
"Would you like to risk ending up all the way back at the last obelisk?" asked Scott. "Think about what you're seeing out there."
Her eyes widened frightfully. "So, they are a danger? How can you tell?"
Could she really be this sheltered? Scott glanced at her briefly, incredulously, then looked back to the blobs in the distance. "Well, look at what they are doing."
"They are merely walking around. The pretty blond one with the blue eyes is singing a song. The big muscular one with the black hair and the scar on his chin is..."
"You can see all of that?" asked Scott, once again incredulous.
"Yes. Can you not?" asked Saelil, surprised. "They are not particularly far away."
Scott's eyesight was rendered perfect the moment his stats were corrected at the beginning of the game. Yet, his perfect human eyesight only saw vague blobs at this distance. As far as the blonde one singing, at most Scott heard the occasional hint of a sound. He was uncertain if it was from the camp, or merely an insect droning near his ear.
He pointed to the grass then bid her to enter it with him. Afterward, they remained hidden near the edge so that they could spy on the camp from a distance using Saelil's elven senses. It was strange that they remained despite no longer having a body, but why argue about it?
A few minutes later, her eyes widened. "Glorious!"
"What is it?" asked Scott.
"Oh, they appear to be allies of yours, perhaps even countrymen," said Saelil.
Scott's head snapped around toward her. "How do you know that?"
"Oh? I... Well, they are carrying on about how no one should mess with America. Though, they say the country name strangely. Also, the reason for them to keep referencing each other as infant goats eludes me," she said.
"What do they say exactly?" asked Scott quickly.
She approximated their movements by taking up a stance with her feet shoulder width apart. She lifted one hand up and shook her hand quickly while saying, "Dahn't mess with Ameahicah, kid."
"Shit!" snapped Scott. He dropped down as far as he could in the grass. "Worse than I thought..."
"Are they not your countrymen?" asked Saelil.
"If they're carrying on like that, they probably are," said Scott. "The problem is that they're also probably like me."
"Like you, beloved?" she asked, her expression warm and curious. "What do you mean?"
Scott frowned through the blades of grass. This was dangerous, quite dangerous. Would these guys be friend or foe? Were there special rules when he would come across others who played the game? Was there actually an America in this world?
There were so many unanswered questions, and each one of them could lead to an inconvenient death, some would perhaps be forms of death that he might not recover from depending on the rules that he did not yet know. Though, the latter question was more of a curiosity than a dire issue.
"Do they sound similar to me?" asked Scott.
Saelil tilted her head toward them for a moment then shook it slowly. "They seem to have a different accent. They speak a little more quickly in comparison and have a different inflection on their words. At times it almost sounds like a different language."
"So, probably from a city, and definitely not Southerners..." grumbled Scott. It was too much to hope that three random guys from the south would appear before him. If anything, it was surprising that three probable Americans appeared before him.
"Is it bad if they're not from the ...South?" she asked.
"Not necess
arily, but I am," Scott sighed. "Sometimes people from up north can be obnoxiously certain of their superiority, despite any lack of it that they might possess."
Saelil looked to her beloved, her lips lightly pressed to the left. "Something you aren't telling me?"
"Nah, nothing too important," said Scott. "I don't trust it, though."
It was too convenient, too random. What were the odds? Scott shook his head. It was obvious that the meeting was pre-arranged. The smart money was on skirting these guys entirely, and trying to work their way clear of them without them becoming aware of that fact.
The problem was two-fold, however. If he did that, he lost out on a major opportunity to learn more about this world's current nature. At the least he would lose out on acquiring proper directions. Worse, he would miss out on learning whatever those guys might know about the game.
Scott rubbed his nose carefully and frowned. If he died he might respawn back at the obelisk. That should be the way the situation worked. However, he could not always rely on that. Also, that would suck a massive amount of big hairy balls.
"Saelil, can you make yourself transparent?" he asked after a moment. It was worth a shot to task. She was a ghost after all.
"Possibly? I generally need to concentrate to remain fully visible anyway," she said.
"Would you please do so?" asked Scott.
"If you wish it, beloved..." she said, uncertain of his motivations. She pouted slightly then closed her eyes. A moment later she became indistinct to the point that she appeared as little more than a slight distortion in the air.
He questioned her regarding whether she would be able to become even less visible. After a moment it was revealed that if she did not move at all, even the minor distortion faded from sight.
"Stay behind me and keep perfect time with my movements, please. I don't want them to know you exist if we can help it," said Scott.
"Oh beloved! Are you trying to protect me?" she asked, before reappearing. Her eyes were wide and excited.
"Sure," said Scott in a flat tone of voice. "Let's go with that."
She laughed softly then faded away once more. "I'll wear you down, yet."
Galactic Fist of Legend: Volume 2 Page 14