"What?" Mike says
This vengeful spirit that was here in this place, that could drain the life force of their victims and this spirit was lonely!
What the heck was that! These spirits were supposed to attack the living at first sight and drain them like vampires with no concern or regard for the consequences of other things. However, this spirit could be considered to be an anomaly at best since she was actually lonely as she put it but then again Mike could not be sure, however, that this was a ploy or trap for him to lower his guard against the spirit so that she could kill him more easily without taking much damage herself. This was something Mike was not expecting, at most he was expecting a fight to the death or a riddle or anything other than keeping her company.
"How long do I have to stay then?" Mike asks but he feels like he might know the answer
"Until I am satisfied with your company," Sarenthia says
"..."
"Look don't take this the wrong way but I am more into people that are well... alive," Mike says turning her down
"Th-that is not what I meant!" Sarenthia says evidently flustered at what Mike was saying
'She cannot blush... right?' Mike thinks
Mike was not the best at dealing with girls evidently because he preferred to interact with them through the roleplaying games that he was apart of like Warhammer 40k, Dungeons and Dragons, and other similar roleplaying games where he controlled one character or a whole army to fight against whatever the Dungeon or Game master threw at him. Still, when it came to social interaction he tended to avoid it at all costs but now that he was in a fantasy world he was trying his best to talk to random people, and to that he took on the role of himself being a country kid that was sociable and likable. Somehow it had been working whenever dealing with random strangers but his one weakness had always been women.
In Mike's, opinion women were as strange as the void creatures and demons of the Warhammer games that he played. They were strong, elusive, and something that he was uncomfortable to talk or deal with. He could hold a conversation with them sure, but if they were someone that he fancied Mike would crumble faster than an iron golem being thrown into the bottom of the ocean and being crushed by the pressure of the sea. Enough of Mike's pitiful love life though he was talking to the dead spirit of a girl so even though she was quite beautiful Mike could not be charmed by her due to that fact of being dead.
"So what exactly do you want me to do then?" Mike asks
"Tell me what it is like up there," Sarenthia says expectantly as she hovers towards Mike
"Hm... alright I guess I can do that for a bit, but I got to go soon so don't expect a bunch of details," Mike says as he thinks about what to tell her
He knows that if he tries to make up a story about his life then he would have to roll for that as the system is like that. So instead mike decides to do the next best thing by telling her what he has experienced ever since he came to Irondale, of how he had to prove his innocence of not being apart of the plot to help with bombing the Drunken Kight Inn, fighting off those people that tried to assassinate Dike, and up till now with how he was a freed prisoner and was trying to escape.
Now, why would Mike tell her this? He just wanted to leave the place and considering that there seemed to be no other way into this room Mike was assuming that there was no place where someone could listen in on their conversation. Still, what could they do about it unless those three that captured him came down here to get him again he was confident that he would be able to deal with the regular thugs like the ones that he has encountered until now? With his force of freed slaves, Mike was confident that he could escape from the underground.
"So that was it," Mike says completing his tale and he didn't even need to roll his dice since it was the truth with some details skipped or omitted.
'Now please let me go now'
Mike had spent the last 15 minutes talking to this damn spirit and he really wanted to leave so that he could actually escape from this wolf den. With that in mind, Mike had to consider just forcing his way out of here with his strength and wit if necessary.
"Wow, you sure have gone through a lot ever since you came here huh," Sarenthia comments as she floats over to one end of the room and points at a wall.
"If you want to leave this place you can just go through here," She says
"Really!" Mike exclaims as a glimmer of hope dances in his eyes
"Yep, there is a way to leave through here," Sarenthia says as she phases through the wall of the room
"Wait I cannot do that!" Mike exclaims as he runs over to the wall
He frantically searches for some sort of mechanism that can open the wall through some means like the classical pull the level that is disguised as a book trick. Still looking through everything Mike still does not see anything cause Mike had basically stripped the room bare of anything and everything that was of importance. So seeing this he realized something else. The system was not rolling the dice for him. In the past whenever he was searching for something he had to roll the dice to see if he could find it. He once had to roll to find his only pair of underwear that he misplaced so seeing that he was not rolling spoke volumes that he was not going to find what he was looking for in this room.
Mike goes to the door and sees that it is still locked and Mike has nothing to use to lockpick it even if he wanted to. Still stuck Mike brandishes his sword and strikes the door to try and break it down with his strength. As his blade makes contact with the wooden door it connects and bounces back causing Mike to accidentally drop his sword as it felt like he had just hit a solid metal door with his power. His hands were now numb from the strike and were slightly shaking from the strike.
"Hm... aren't you going to follow me?" Sarenthia says as her face comes out of the wall and looks at Mike
"I can't I am alive remember," Mike says as he tries to stop the shaking of his hands and grabs his sword off the floor
"Oh right I forgot about that whoops," Sarenthia says as she enters the room once again and hovers over to the seat by the desk, and 'sits' down
"Can you please open the door and let me leave?" Mike pleads
"No way you are the first person to come and speak with me besides that creepy old man that is keeping me here," Sarenthia says
"You are being kept here?" Mike asks evidently confused as most spirits are vengeful and attack people because of their vengeance and wanting to make people suffer as they did when they were alive
"Well yeah when I was alive I was captured just like you, but I had it better than the others since I was good at counting finances and keeping records so the old man's father decided to keep me around to do the job he did not want to," Sarenthia explains
"So then how are you here now?" Mike asks confused
"Simple I died due to some disease I had and the old man's son decided to keep me here after death so I could continue to work for him and get out of the job he hated," Sarenthia replies
'Never underestimate laziness I guess' Mike thinks as he puts it all together now
Sarenthia was a slave but worked for the slave traders while she was alive and was employed by the current leaders father, but when she died due to some illness the current leader decided to keep her against her will through some forbidden means and use her to do the work he did not want to even in death. Mike felt a bit bad for her as she has been staying down here for so long that now even death was taken from her.
"Sarenthia would you like to leave here?" Mike asks
"Hm... I would love to leave but I have been trying to all this time but I can only go so far from this room and then some," Sarenthia says
'Hey Abbey, how are sentient weapons made?' Mike asks
"Well, there is a multitude of ways to do so like a huge input of magic to the point where a new consciousness is created, when someone's consciousness is inserted into a weapon... you want to put her into your sword?" Abbey says
'Yep now tell me how I do it' Mike asks
"You don't really need to do anything, just let her inhabit the sword and it will become a sentient weapon like that," Abbey says
"Sarenthia you can leave this room and be able to see the world above but there will be something that I will want in return," Mike says looking at Sarenthia who was just floating around the room evidently bored
"Hm... Wait really you can get me out of here!"
"Yes however the only way you can do so is by getting into this," Mike says as he holds out his sword towards Sarenthia
"That won't work I have inhabited other objects in the hopes of getting out of here while attached to them but after a certain distance I am forced out of the object and cannot move further"
"Wait you cannot move further why not?" Mike asks
"There seems to be some sort of barrier in the way preventing me from moving past it no matter what direction I go it will always be there"
'Abbey any idea what it could be?'
"Could be a spirit holding formation from what I can tell from her description" Abbey replies
'So how would I get rid of it?'
"Simply find and destroy the power source of the formation to allow her to leave"
'Find and destroy the power source that is a lot easier said than done' Mike thinks to himself as he tries to figure out what to do
From what he had gathered magic in this world would be drawn towards things that are constantly using it. Like how Mike used magic with mana he would first have to draw in mana from his body which would draw in mana from his surroundings naturally. The higher the draw of mana in the air the bigger mana less zone there would be from what he had read from the beginner magic book that he has. This was why whenever higher rank magic-users tended to absorb mana alone in mana rich environments as they don't want to impair other peoples progress along with their own by taking in mana while they were nearby.
The same might apply with the formation's power source as it would have to draw in mana from its surroundings to keep the formation active unless a magic-user took it out every so often and recharged it to prevent this no mana zone. That was unlikely as Mike knew that it would just be poor management of the magic users mana and time since they would have to meditate again just to bring up their mana before having to dump it into the power source to keep the formation going.
That was not likely so Mike had to sit down in the middle of the room and try to feel out the mana that was in the room and seeing if he could find out where it was heading. Sitting down and feeling for mana Mike was able to vaguely grasp where it was coming from now after a few minutes of trying. With that established Mike tries to feel the general direction that the mana is heading if there was any.
Mana in the world tended to just float around much like the tiny particles in the wind and just do their own thing, however, when someone was trying to recharge their internal mana supply this normally free-flying mana would flying into the object that was recharging like a vacuum would do and suck it all up. Eventually after some more meditating and feeling for this empty spot Mike finds it above him in the ceiling.
Looking up for the first time Mike sees nothing up there but seeing as how there was no mana up there when there was mana in most parts of the room Mike took that as a sign that the power source was up there.