The Arcane Book

Chapter 7: The Calm Lands

"We're almost there," Sai said and we could see a part of the Calm Lands from where we were walking.

What he said was true. The Calm Lands is very vast and is full of flowers and we could really feel the nice breeze.

We woke up early. Dionne slept on the bed and Klein and I slept on the floor. Since then after we ate breakfast, we've been walking towards the Calm Lands for half a day. Once we reach the location, we will rest before we start with our training. Sai made sure that we got some items we needed for camping before we go to the Forest of Grief.

We got to know more about each other as our journey continued. On our first hour, most of us were quiet because we just woke up and not most of us were morning people, except for Sai. Apparently, even though it was mostly night for Dionne up in the tower, she found out that she was not a morning person, too. Most of our walk was about me and Sai telling them stories about our world.

Now our topic was about Klein and Dionne's journey together until they met me. Most of their journeys were escaping from the machines. Dionne told me it had been like this for the past 5 years. I asked them what took them so long until they decided to go on a real journey, and Klein said they didn't know when to start, and they only knew what to do when I suddenly came out of nowhere. Sai and I let them describe the machines they've already encountered for us to come up with some strategies.

They say the most common machine that they fought was a beast-looking machine; one that kind of looked like a lion. The next machine that was a little bit difficult to handle, was an eagle-looking one. Flying types were always difficult to handle, even in RPG games.

I asked them about the enemy's weaknesses and Dionne said the beast-looking machine is immune to most magic, but is vulnerable to the attacks Klein does. The eagle-looking machine is weak to lightning, but aiming at those kinds of enemy is quite difficult.

I asked about the machine we've just encountered last night and both of them said that it was their first time encountering a human-like machine. We only came up to one conclusion that they were defeated once we get the source of its energy; the wires shaped as a heart.

Klein and Dionne also told us that they had no clue as to who the antagonist is as of the moment. They only know that the machine was the work of the antagonist since it had been roaming around after Dionne's disappearance from the tower. They also told us that they wouldn't sometimes understand what their motive was because they also captured other people, and won't even have some traces or clues if the person was okay or not. But their top priority was mostly creating machines that would capture Dionne.

We arrived at the Calm Lands and we all prepared the things we needed for the camp. We all sat down and ate some prepared food that Klein made from home. Apparently, Dionne didn't know how to cook. Well, how could she learn from the tower? But hasn't she learned anything for five years since she stopped singing?

I looked at the nearby river and admired the place where we were staying. It amazed me how beautiful their world was despite it being in peril right now since Dionne stopped singing. I kind of envy their world from our world being swallowed by technology's advance.

Half an hour passed when suddenly Sai stood up, and we all looked at him. "Let's start with our training, shall we," he said and we all nodded as we stood up to follow him.

"We're going to make strategies since we're going to do battles together from now on," Sai said and we all listened to him attentively.

"I just based our roles on a game back in our world that is applicable to our powers," he added and we waited for him to continue. "Klein is a commando, Cevin the synergist, Dionne as a medic, and I'm called a sentinel."