'What do you see?' The words resounded in his head. 'What am I supposed to see? My eyes are closed.'
"Blackness?" Kaulder ventures. "I mean what am I supposed to see?"
"I cannot tell you. That is something you must search for. It is different for everyone." Sander says without a trace of hesitation.
The nice crisp wind blows through Kaulder's hair and as he digs deep into his mind in an attempt to find something, anything, to no avail.
Kaulder opens his eyes and looks at the calm face of Sander "Well.. what do you see?"
Sanders eyes flash open. His eyes are filled with a strange blue glowing energy, "I see... I see the universe... the way it was... the way it could have been... the way it should have been..." For the first time Kaulder saw the strange old man show real emotion, this stunned him inwardly momentarily.
Sander shakes his head and closes his eyes once again. Through the cracks in his mask around his one eye, Kaulder sees a glistening tear form in the corner, in response Kaulder reaches his hand out to comfort him but before he could Sander stands to his feet.
"We'll continue this later. Let's get a move on." The familiar words brings a slight smile to Kaulder's face.
Sander quickly packs up the items created from the Dense Mana Tree into his satchel. He hands a pair of nunchucks to Kaulder, "Here," he says and walks off without much thought.
Kaulder quickly chases after him and asks "So.. what exactly did you do to these 'nunchucks' and where are we going?"
Sander peeks at him with the corner of his open eye. He takes a slight pause in an attempt to think of a way to dumb down the response.
"The nunchuks were made from the Dense Mana Tree making them quite durable and have a unique effect of the ability to condense mana through it. The symbols I've added makes them burn and cleanse the demons once they're hit. Although theoretically it is possible to cleanse a demon to become something 'else', it hasn't been done before. The mana required is immense. Its also impractical and illogical to attempt to do so."
Kaulder nods his head to show he understands the response and continues walking.
"As for your other question.. it is quite known that this world has become ever changing and illogical in certain areas, we're at a safe area from the unknown changed laws of physics and such, but we're not safe from the ever changing aspect. However, the mountains here never change." Sander points at one of the tall mountains off in the distance.
"We're going to make a base there." Sander continues and smiles.
"Perhaps, a castle." He laughs to himself quietly.
Kaulder lets out a chuckle and runs up next to Sander and walks side by side with the man.
Soon enough the two make it to the base of one of these mountains through hours of walking. Sander then stops and casts a blue barrier around both of them.
"This is a barrier against the cold, it won't work against magic or any form of defence but it will stop you from freezing to death, in short, don't be cocky."
The two then begin hiking up the mountain. Snow pelts their faces with high wind. Occasionally Kaulder would ask for a break in which Sander just rolled his eyes and told him to man up. They can't really take too many breaks in their situation.
As they were climbing up, they are interrupted by a voice below them. This shocked both of them.
"Hey! Down here!" The voice shouted with pure neutrality.
It was a teenage male in a large coat, he was waving his hands in an attempt to be noticed.
Kaulder turned to Sander with a worried expression. "Sander, maybe we should talk to him?"
Sander simply shook his head and continued climbing without the least bit of emotion or care in the world.
"He's a fake, he's likely just one of the demons taking on a form to trick us to come down for him to eat us, its an old tactic. Don't be so surprised, outside of the factions established there isn't all that many humans alive, those that are alive will also quickly die."
Kaulder paused and looked down at the teenager once more before listening to Sander and continuing on the climb.
Down below the teenager's face became one of anger and his body slowly morphed into a slime-like creature with tentacles protruding from multiple angles.
"COME DOWN HERE! NOW!" The monster angrily yelled with a disgustingly horrific expression.
Sander just laughed in response and the two continued on their way.
The monster then attempted to climb up the mountain using its tentacles to burrow into the mountain, creating holds that it would quickly walk with.
Sander of course noticed this and just casually shot down a spear that pierced the monster and they pretended that it never even happened.
When the monster hit the ground it didn't collapse and die however, it turned into mist that slowly formed into a raven that flew off into the distance, unbeknownst to Sander.
The raven flew at a high speed and eventually vanished completely.
Elsewhere in the normal world the Raven entered out of thin air and flew onto the shoulder of the man known as the Bloodless.
The Bloodless was currently stomping an old lady's mouth into the curb, this was one of the dead cult member's wife.
The raven sat on top of the Bloodless's shoulder and disappeared soon after.
"Interesting! Haha! That brat lived after all. How exciting!"
The Bloodless stomped harder and faster, without stop until all that remained was a bloody meat pile that was unrecognizable, only then did he calm down.
He exhaled and inhaled deeply and then stepped over the corpse and walked away.
At this time Kaulder and Sander reached the top of the mountain!
"Okay.. this is the plan.." Sander started to explain to Kaulder the schematics of what they'd be building as well as the time management. By tonight they'd have a room to call their own on this lonely mountain.
After a while they began to get to work, chipping away at the mountain to mold it into a luxurious castle.. They spoke to one another as time went on.
"That's how I entered this world!" Kaulder said with pride.
"Interesting.. so there is a world untouched by these monsters?" Outwardly Sander had a tone of uncaring, but inwardly if the world Kaulder had explained truly existed.. he was free.
"What about before all this? Who was Kaulder?" Sander asked with a plain expression.
"I was just a useless person.. spending my days getting drunk to forget my past. Well, I wasn't always like that. I have a question for you now, why do you wear that mask?"
Sander smiled in his mask and touched his mask. "Not only was this given to me by someone dear.. the mask helps hide my presence and boosts my capabilities. It's been partly destroyed from the battle with the smoke-man as you can see.." Sander explained.
"How about this. If we can find some of the materials needed for the mask, we'll create your very own! Of course, you can choose the design." Sander continued.
"My own mask.. that would be nice!"
The day went on as they spoke until the sunset appeared that looked quite peaceful, everything was well. No monster came, no murderous threat, they were just two friends, at peace.
They managed to build a lot of the castle in one day thanks to the fact that the tools had runes on them. They currently shared a room with two makeshift beds, since they were both under the effect of the cold resistant spell, they didn't need blankets for now. Tomorrow would go on quite similar, and the day after that, and this repeated until a large completely built castle was created on top of this mountain. From afar it was massive and insane that two men built this in the span of a month!
Currently Kaulder was on top of a watchtower they had built, practicing magic. He had practiced this everyday in hopes he'd finally be able to see something in his mind like Sander had explained, but nothing ever came.
Someone did come however.. At the castle door was a man with long black hair wearing a dark jacket.
"Hello?! Is anyone there? It took me forever to come up here! Is there anyone home?" He shouted. Sander of course knew of his appearance but just wished to observe the man before making any moves, if he could he'd rather the man just get annoyed and leave. After all there was no point in bringing in more people right now, especially an untalented one unsuitable to magic.
Kaulder had different thoughts.. he heard the man and quickly opened the gate!
"Hello!" Kaulder shouted with a smile.
The stranger smiled in response and bowed deeply to Kaulder as if he had just seen a king, there was something off about him...