August picked up a slab of fish that was now developing a slimy film. Its quality was degrading with time, but he had no other option. He also had no option but to go sans water. He had been lucky enough to find a leather pack in the water, but it only contained an unrecognizable and inedible soggy mush that he had to wash out. There was nothing even resembling a flask or canteen.
Looking around to see if there was anything else he should take, a glint in the fire caught his eye. A ring was hanging off of a corpse's finger. The hand was previously monochrome because of the blood, so he had missed it. The heat made the blood on the golden band flake off and reveal its golden shine.
He covered his hand in some nearby cloth so that he didn't burn himself and picked up the ring. As he did, however, one of his feelers picked up something he hadn't expected. There was only a modicum of it, but there was magic inside the ring.
The feelers were useful and far more observant than anything on Earth, but they weren't omniscient. They could only pick up a limited amount of information because they were so thin. He made certain that the feelers closest to his body would pick up everything by increasing how many were there, but the density of feelers decreased at a distance.
They hadn't been dense enough to pick up what was inside this ring from a distance. Looking inside the metal of the ring, he saw structures made of loose neutral magic. The magic wasn't very dense, so it didn't interfere with the ring's internal structure much.
"Damon, c'mere." He still wasn't used to being the only mobile one.
"Why don't you come here?"
"...Why don't you stay over there and look at this ring? There's a spell in it, and I didn't make it. I don't know how or why it's here."
After examination, they still came to no conclusion.
"It looks like it directs something towards the wearer's finger when it receives a certain signal, but I have no idea what the signal could be or what it's supposed to do once it receives it," Damon summarized.
"It looks like it gives magic back to the wearer, but why? The signal is probably magic, too, so why wouldn't the user just keep that magic? There's also magic that isn't part of any of the structures and doesn't seem to have a purpose. Why is it there?"
They were both hit by an epiphany.
"We're idiots!" August exclaimed. "It stores magic for later use! It lets the wearer get around the limit of their soul by giving the ring magic to store for a time when they use most of it!"
"But can we use it? Do you know how to put magic into it? And how do you take it out?"
"We'll figure that out on the way. For now, we have to leave. Is there anything else we need?"
"Water."
"We already looked for something to hold water. Like I told you, if we see something on our way out that can help us that we didn't see with our feelers, then we'll pick it up. We have to leave soon because we'll run out of food if we don't, so we just have to explore for now and return if we can't find anything quickly."
"The only thing nearby is the scavengers, August. If anybody else was living nearby, then they'd be doing the same thing, looking for stuff to sell. Who would ignore this treasure trove? Everything here is free, so why wouldn't they be here?"
"You don't know that. There are plenty of reasons why they might not be here. They might not have enough people. They might be dealing with a pandemic or some other big event. They could..."
"Yes, yes, I get that, but how many of those possibilities are likely?"
"At least one of them is. This is a battlefield. They may have customs for mourning the dead or perhaps revering them or revering the battle itself that requires them to stay there. They could be religious and see looting the dead as a sin. Doing nothing after a battle would be abnormal for most people, in my opinion."
August continued, "Considering where we are, is anything off the table? If nothing is off the table, then how do you know that they're not close? I'm betting my life on this, Damon. I am confident that this is our best shot."
"It doesn't matter what a fool is confident of if it is incongruent with reality. You may be right in that this is our best shot, but the risk of your death is still high."
"Ok, then what do you want? Is there a point to this? What do you want that will convince you?"
"What I want is for you to promise that you will kill me before you die. Destroy the sword I am in by any means possible if you begin to die. I won't be able to get better without you."
"Again? It's always about suicide with you. You already made me swear to kill you if you go insane. Do you need me to swear it again under another condition?"
"Yes, I do. This is non-negotiable."
August swore to Damon again, though it was not for the last time. Wearing a suit of armor fit for the king of hell, a tortured sword, an enchanted ring of unknown origin, and as much putrid fish meat as they could fit in a lone pack, they left behind this hell, on course for another of a long series of purgatories.