Balefire figured out a new trick in this world; how to wash his head under a water tap to chase off his drowsiness.
He slept… for many long years he didn't sleep but for the first time in a bloody long while he managed to sleep.
And it scares the living hell out of him.
Sleeping is something that he couldn't afford in the past, a commodity for the brave, a luxury for the safe. He, on the other hand, was always awake, afraid, and hunted.
Moreover, sleep was almost the same as death. He may have conquered death and cheated it out but he never surrendered to it.
Such a fearful notion! Death!
Balefire stumbled out of the bathroom barely keeping his balance and sat on the bed trying to shake away the night terror which assaulted him.
In truth, all he got was one hour of sleep which seemed to have done more harm than it did well. He had to go through the whole state of mortal suffering in order to get his mind straight.
Some say that living for long long years gives your mind a feeling of mental fortitude. All that Balefire got from counting the years was depression and so it was long since he stopped counting. His opinion on the matter is that living long is nothing more than a curse that leaves its victims twice the coward they once were.
He had to pull himself through all the self-loathing and face reality.
He needed this…
This new life…
Whatever it offers…
He needed to experience life just for once.
Will he experience anything if he keeps sitting here cowering in the room that he was reborn in instead of facing reality?
That didn't seem like much of a plan.
But what to do?
Where to go?
Scout.
Yes, in a new territory, he must begin with scouting.
This is one of those survival situations when he was pushed after a bad defeat and had to rebuild and organize.
First, scout. Second, locate. Third, gather. Fourth, build. Fifth, expand. Sixth…
No… no need for that.
No need for fifth even. He can just gather, build, and live.
A strategy of a normal person.
First, to scouting.
He took the phone, the cards, and made sure to find the biggest coat which can serve as a cloak on this night. No daggers or any sort of weapon were present so he had to pick the biggest kitchen knife he had and hide it in his pocket.
And soon he stood face to face with the door. He experimented earlier and learned that the door can be locked and unlocked with a key card that makes red and green dots of light appear and disappear on the door.
He finally opened the door and took a steady step outside before looking left and right and closing the door after himself. What he saw on the left was a bland-looking hallway with many doors similar to his but it would turn to the right just a few meters on. What he saw on his left, however, was an open part of the building which had a direct view to the street and a stairway going up and down.
He walked to the balcony before the stairway and saw the street much closer this time. Pedestrians minding their business with most of them having their faces directed to their phone artifacts, carriages made of metal and glass without any beasts of burden pulling them, the roads made of a very rich looking pitch-black stone material which appeared very smooth.
What made things feel way more strange was the fact that the streets were lit with thousands upon thousands of their weird lights which shone ever so brightly like the stars with no oil traces around them.
However, the smell of the air was pretty terrible. In a way, the whole city was covered in strange clouds that made it smell worse than a cemetery at the hour of a death march during full moons.
"What a world!" Balefire couldn't help but exclaim.
"What?"
He never really expected a reply to his words but once he looked to his side with a pale face, he saw Maia standing beside him blowing off a puff of smoke through her red glossy lips.
Balefire was on the verge of panicking if not for his chubby body making such reactions feel so heavy and thus he controlled his mind instead of panicking and nodded towards Maia.
"Greetings." He said.
"…" She just stood there, sparing him only one glance as she looked at the street and put her cigarettes back between her lips.
She was dressed in little pieces of clothing which were barely a mini skirt and a mini top with a painfully colored short jacket on top. Her legs were covered in fishnet tights reaching down to her high heel boots.
"I can feel your disgusting look all over me." She said.
"Apologies, Miss Maia." Balefire immediately looked away, "I only found you pleasant to look at and admirable too."
Maia stopped smoking with a perplexed look on her face trying to comprehend Ashton's manner of speaking.
"I'm not sure what a fatass finds me admirable for. So unless you have something from Lisa's stuff, mind your own business before O'Brien and his boys see you roaming around." She said.
It seemed that the relationship between Maia and Ashton was not that pleasant, to begin with even though she acted very friendly to get a discount just some time ago.
"I am not sure about that… but I guess I can pay you." He replied.
"I'm not sucking your bitch ass dick again." She immediately turned off something he wasn't offering.
"Not what I had in mind." He raised his hands.
Maia sucked a breath of smoky air through her cigarette and turned to Balefire while blowing the smoke at his face.
"What did you have in mind then?" She asked.
"Can't a man seek the company of beautiful ladies?"
"Fucking creep!"
Maia's disdainful reaction was natural since the Ashton she knew had no redeeming feature other than the fact that he knows a few things about how to get her some special pieces that spice up her cam stream.
"I'll be honest then." Balefire said as he looked to the distance, "The world is alien to me so much so I feel like I would no longer figure out the purpose of anything and everything."
"Are you on weed?"
She asked but he didn't seem to be understanding her question.
"What did you take?" She asked again, "Nothing from this Zodiac shit, right?"
"I have no recollection of what you speak of, Miss Maia." Balefire replied naturally.
The situation felt serious to Maia as he was not acting like himself at all. If it was just speaking nonsense then she would have noticed but he was completely acting like a creep.
"For fuck's sake!" She put off the cigarette she had right away and held him from his wrist, "Let's fix you up."
She dragged him towards the stairs and they descended down. He didn't resist her since he felt like he would be introduced to more wonders of this world.
"Will you excuse me for a second, Miss Maia! I seem to have misplaced my possession…" He said as started looking through his pockets for the cardholder and the phone he kept in just to be safe, "Oh, here they are. Goodness! These little trinkets tend to get hard to keep your mind on."
She looked back at him and didn't seem quite understanding what he was going on about.
As soon as the two walked down the stairway which was lit by odd colors and covered in colorful graffiti, Maia reached out to a metal door made of bars and signaled for Balefire to follow.
From here, Balefire walked on a modern street for the first time and he was completely and fully lost.
Nothing to compare between the world he came from and this one. Not even a speck of dust on the streets and everything was made of stone, metal, and glass.
The more he looks around, the more he realizes and discovers new things. To him, this mundane world felt so terribly exciting despite how bad smells and how loud it is.
The street was wide and despite the night, people still couldn't come and go but there were more horseless carriages than actual pedestrians.
"What are you doing? Hurry up before the boys show up." Maia noticed that Balefire was still lagging behind and looking around thus she had to walk back to him and drag him again.
Yet as soon as that happened and he was pulled towards her, a man ran into him. This body was not only heavy but also tall thus Balefire had a substantial amount of mass at the moment which caused whoever ran into him to fall down with him slightly flinching. Balefire immediately towards the man who bumped into him and immediately offered a helping hand.
"Excuse my rudeness, good sir, I wasn't paying any heed." Balefire apologized as he turned to the man.
There he saw a black man wearing what seemed to be neat and rich clothing. Still, the man was so jumpy that he backed off Balefire giving him uncertain looks.
On the other hand, Balefire noticed that something fell from the man and as he saw what it was, he immediately leaned down to pick it up.
"I must sincerely apologize. Your precious artifact… it is my fault." He tried to pick up the man's phone but the man was faster and picked his own phone from the ground before Balefire could reach it.
"Back off!" The man shouted as he retreated with the phone deep into his pocket before looking at Balefire, "He's innocent. He knows nothing. Just leave him be. He knows nothing."
Then he turned around and started running.
Whether it is Maia or Balefire, both of them had the same puzzled expressions on their faces.
"It must have been one pricey artifact." Balefire exclaimed.
"Shut up, man. You're creeping people out." Maia ignored Balefire since there were a ton of nutjobs in this neighborhood and running into one of them is quite common.
The two of them crossed the parking lot in front of the apartment and Balefire was still looking left and right.
"Look at the inside of that wagon. Those seats are much better than the bed up there." He exclaimed as he looked at a car.
"It's an SUV, not a wagon." Maia had to hold his wrist again and drag him.
"And what are those ropes hanging up through those poles?" He asked, pointing up.
"Power lines."
"Astonishing!"
"You really smoked something, didn't you? How can someone so big be this lightheaded?" Maia pushed Balefire across the street all the way to a store before going in.
The amount and the variety of goods were so numerous that he had to take a halt to realize what he just stepped into. He looked around and saw many cans, foods, bottles, and glistering items on display.
"Hey, Raj." Maia walked in ahead and greeted someone inside the store which caught Balefire's attention as well.
"Oh! Hey, Maia… and Ashton too."
The one who replied with an old man with a brown skin color sitting behind a counter and surrounded with all manners of tiny goods.
"Good day to you, trader. Quite the merchandise you have here." Ashton spoke in a tone of respect.
Raj, the store employee, frowned and turned towards Maia nodding with his head towards Balefire.
"Don't ask me." Maia replied, "He's on some drug. If the Brain saw him like that, he'd pick on him immediately."
"Always the saint, Maia." Raj replied and signaled for Balefire to approach.
Balefire was skeptical but as soon as he stepped closer, Raj held him by the head and pulled him closer.
"Let's see. Eyes are normal, skin is normal. He's a bit pale though. I think he hasn't been eating well. But no, no drugs in him."
"No, alcohol?" She asked.
"The word drugs included that too." Raj replied.
Maia walked to Balefire and hit him on the back.
"Get your act together, you fucking Paparazzi." She said and walked away inside the store.
Raj and Balefire watched her go and looked at each other.
"She's a nice kid." Raj replied, "Parvati gave her a good heart but Lakshmi made her poor."
"Who're those?" Balefire asked.
"My Gods. You don't know Hindu goddesses? I always tell you about them and you don't listen." Raj spoke.
"I'll make sure to educate myself." Balefire replied before looking around and noticing some containers, "Dried herbs?"
"Indian Spices, good stuff. Won't find them anywhere. Want some curry? Tobacco? Any special mix?" Raj asked.
"You mix your herbs?" Balefire asked with curious eyes.
"Sure sure. I mix good herbs. Very good stuff." Raj replied.
"I want my mix, Raj." Maia returned with a stack of beer cans and requested a mix which Raj seemed to have prepared in a separate bag.
"So you're an alchemist then?" Balefire asked Raj.
"A what?" Raj frowned and seemed nervous, "I don't sell charms or strange stuff. I only operate in goods verified by Titan Inc."
"Fine. Can I make a request then?" Balefire asked.
"Yeah, whatever!" Raj replied.
"I want a container that is both durable to impact and acidic solutions. I want it filled with acid and some enriching herbs like the Mandrake if possible. Finally, I want a few poles of lead that can fit inside the container." Balefire listed his request.
Raj frowned harder than before.
"I see. He must have smoked something so good that even I can't figure it out." Raj said.
"See? I told you." Maia shook her head.
"What's wrong?" Balefire asked since they were speaking about him but not to him.
"You." Raj replied, "You're so high you want to create some sort of a battery or something."
"A battery?" Balefire tilted his head, "What is that?"
"Batteries? What kind of batteries are we talking about?" Maia asked Raj.
"That's a very simple one like the old car batteries." Raj replied.
"What are those batteries?" Balefire asked again.
The two in front of him turned towards him with strange looks in their eyes.
"I told you he's on something." Maia said.
"His eyes look normal, he doesn't smell funny either." Raj said before turning around and opening his drawer and taking out a small black and blue metal object that can be held in one's hand.
He looked back at Balefire and handed him the item.
"That's a battery." Raj said.
Balefire held the item, turned it left and right then shook his head and handed it back to Raj.
"What do you want then?" Raj asked.
"Well, the one I know must be liquid and contain lead. It must hold energy." Balefire tried to explain.
"This holds energy." Raj said.
"Does it? How much energy does it hold?"
"It is a 38000 milliampere-hour battery so… not really sure." Raj shrugged his shoulders, "Also, it is hard to get a single car battery these days, you know. All batteries must be integrated. That's the law."
Balefire frowned.
Whatever this world calls a battery seems to hold some kind of energy but holding it around is against the law.
"Why is that?" He asked.
"All hardware should be integrated and can't be disassembled. Disassembling a piece of hardware makes it lose its value. It is not a crime but you can't just do it since no one will fix it for you otherwise." Maia said and added something interesting, "Even phones are only a screen with a battery connected to the cloud where all the private data is stored."
The cloud where all the private data is stored? Balefire felt like he just heard something important but he shifted his focus to something else.
"Phones have batteries?" He asked.
"Duh!" Maia replied, "You really should check your head, man, that stuff you smoked fried a few circuits up your brain."
Maia walked off past Balefire who recovered his phone from his pocket and looked deeply at it.
Such a device is mundane, light, and he can carry it everywhere. If the Battery inside that phone is strong enough and is compatible with what he has in mind, he can make a lot with it.
A lot more than anyone can ever expect.
He can make his own Necromancer Phylactery… in a smartphone.