Lofi Library

Chapter 4: New Equipment Lain pulls out a silver bracelet and hands it to Kaori. "This is an item we have come to rely on quite a bit. If you want to join us you are welcome to use it too. This stores a single item in a holding area. Each of these bracelets lets another item be stored in that same area. It seems as though they are linked." "It's probably easier if we show her Lain." Dante says while holding his staff out. Dante lets go of his staff and it disappears. He then has a concentrated look on his face and another staff appears in his hand. It is one of the ones that Lain was holding. A copy of himself pops up next to him without a staff. "Hey! Don't do that!" Both copies cross their eyes, then fall to the ground in unison closing their eyes. He lets go of the staff. It and the clone disappear. "Oops, sorry. I forgot." "I don't have a problem with you using it, you just have to ask first," she turns towards me, "It's just the last thing she gave me. So I'm protective... I understand if it is an emergency, but as you can see, it's not the easiest thing to use." Seeing this exchange, Kaori realizes just how much Lain is trusting her with the item that can call up any of the staffs. It works similarly to inventory space in games she used to play when she was a kid. Weight doesn't become an issue with something like this, but it seems that each bracelet only increases the inventory space by one item. Furthermore, it also seems as though the inventory is shared by anyone wearing the bracelets. "You two must trust each other a lot considering what the other could take from you," Kaori says. "I-It's not like that! I-if it ever gets knocked out of your hands it just goes right back into your storage! Especially for him, if he ever dropped his staff mid-flight he'd be dead!" Lain says nervously while her face turns bright red. "It's actually more secure this way. No one can take it from you because as soon as it is out of your hands it disappears." "Yea! And anyways she's like 200 years old!" "I am not! I'm not a day over 90!" "Oh so your story about '90 years ago' was about you being born?" Frustrated Lain picks up with, "Ok, I'm probably around 116, but I don't look a day over 90!" "Coulda fooled me." They bicker back and forth for a few minutes before they calm back down. Dante stands up, "That staff is useless anyways. When it creates a copy it's not like you really have two of you. You have to control them individually. You share eye sight, thoughts, emotions, even movement. I get so disoriented when I use it I can't even stand." "It's not useless. You just have to train with it. I can't control as many as my sister could, but having two of myself really helps some times. Oh! that reminds me. How old are you really? You can't actually be a 5 year old with the way you are speaking. I'd like to know you a bit better considering we'll be working together", She smiles. "A little over 5. Its one of the reasons why we went into that building. To get something for me for my birthday. I know I seem a little weird, but most people just assume I'm a fey. If you could, please keep treating me the way you were before you found out how old I am. It helps when we run into others. I may have a good vocabulary, but that is probably because I started talking early in my childhood. My mother being elven helped with the fey appearance." "That's exactly what I though you were!" Dante says. Surprised Lain says, "You are a little bit taller than the fey are. It may get hard to keep up the fey act since you'll be growing quite a bit here soon." "Yea, I figured that as well. It's one of the reasons why I'm so delighted to have found you two. I also want to get to know you better. I want to ask a lot of questions! I also won't stick out as much with you two here. We'll stick out together. You don't see too many mixed race groups in this wasteland. I'm hoping that'll distract them enough to not pay attention to me as much." "So you will be joining us! That makes me happy to hear!" Lain says clapping her hands together. Kaori smiles and thinks to herself, "She says she's over 100 but acts much like a high schooler. Even as a long lived race in this type of world I would expect someone to have a melancholy attitude. Maybe I can learn a bit about the other races since she has been around from before all this happened." "About this bracelet idea?" Lain then shows Kaori how to put the bracelet on and activate it for the first time while syncing her staff to the inventory. "Oh yea, here you go." She hands Kaori a small silver bracelet. "Put it on and hold the staff in your hand. That's good. Now think of a black space with the other items floating around, you don't have to know what is in there. It can just be a fuzzy visual, but you'll clearly see them when you have a better idea of whats there. Then let go of your staff and think of it appearing there." Kaori does as told and the staff disappears from the air as she lets go of it. She feels an itch of something moving on her wrist like something drawn with a stiff object. "If you check inside the bracelet you'll see an etching of something that is suppose to represent the staff. Only 1 item can be etched onto each of the bracelets, but each bracelet can be used to call up anything that has been stored in any of them. Try thinking of holding the fire staff." Calling it to her mind instantly puts the fire staff into her hands. When it appears she feels the hair on her arms and head light up. It scares her and she drops the staff. It disappears before it can even hit the ground. She thinks to herself, "This is definitely like an inventory system in those games, but it feels its a little... underpowered. Though you can definitely tells its magical and not something of a 'system overlay.' They just appear and disappear in a flash. No fancy effects happen." "Why did it have to be my staff?" Dante wines. "Well my two staffs don't have an instant effect like the two of yours do." Turning back to Kaori. "But like you saw. If you drop it, it goes right back into the storage space." Kaori calls her staff back to her hands and the floor freezes. She drops the staff to put it back in the inventory. "Sorry about that." "Oh, I had the same problem!" Dante belts out. Then he goes rummaging through his bag. "Here I have an extra pair." He hands her a pair of gloves. They are a little big for her but not big enough to fall off. The finger tip of the index finger is lopped off though. It takes her a second but then says, "Oh I get it." Kaori calls the staff back to her hand. The floor doesn't freeze this time. "My skin isn't touching the staff." The finger wholes are so she can touch it when she wants the effect to activate, but be able to hold the staff and it not activate as well. "Thank you. This is pretty ingenious." With a big smile he says, "I made them myself! It got pretty inconvenient being on fire all the time. In fact the first time I met her is because she was trying to make a camp fire. It was interesting to see her with her long hair ablaze. Since the staff also makes it lighter, it just kinda floats up and looks quite menacing. I ran up to her about to try and put her out since she looked so defeated and instead of just dropping the staff she tried to talk to me. It was weird to say the least. If she woulda been wearing these she coulda just taken her finger off it and not scare the crap outta me." "I wouldn't mind seeing that." Kaori said with a small chuckle. [Honestly, this is probably the first time I've laughed in earnest in this world.] The day goes on with stories about them traveling. At the beginning, since Lain was young, she followed an evacuation route to the east of her village. It took her to a decently large fishing village. Many of the people there took their boats out to sea carrying as much as they could. Since there were quite a few larger vessels, the people crowded their vessels together and made a floating island of ships. The people slowly made a society that could survive out in the water. A few people would venture off to gather resources needed for fishing as well as supplies for clothing and the like. Fewer and fewer were making it back with the resources they needed. A large group decided to split off and try to take back their land. Lain was one of them. By this time she had already come to realize that if things were going to go back to normal they would need to do something. A few whole generation of short lived races had already come and passed out at sea. The newly created large group protected each other and regained a bit of the coast, and barricading it again the undead. This let them get the resources they needed from the houses left behind. Lain then heard stories of the man in the lighthouse. The story was that for a few years after the original vessels had set out the lighthouse would still signal to those that had left for the ocean. It helped the vessel city to keep from floating too close to shore. When the light stopped a daily patrol would be on rotation getting close enough to judge if the vessel city should move or not. She asked for some help to go check on the lighthouse. If they could get it back running, they could use it as a way to signal the from land to the ships so they wouldn't have to make the journey each and every time. Once they got to the lighthouse they found a makeshift tall fence knocked over and the door busted down. Lain found the fire staff at the top. She realized then that this was another mage. The two large mirrors were used to direct the light caused by the staff out to sea. The central mirror however had been shattered. She figured one of the last times he tried to signal, the heat may have cause it to break and the light could have been seen in the opposite direction as well causing the undead to come to the lighthouse. She doesn't know exactly of course, but it seems about right to me. Kaori thought to herself that these things usually have a heat resisting type glass, but after so many years some times things have to be replaced. It could very well be what happened. After seeing the broken mirror they knew they couldn't use the lighthouse anymore. Not too long after that Lain decided to instead search for others that could help. That was about 3 years ago. She followed the coast and ran up on Dante during that camp fire scene. From there they went south a bit based on warning from Dante about being too close to the mountains could get them attacked by any number of big creatures. The forest below wasn't much of an option either. The creatures within are almost just as dangerous. So they circled back around south until they could safely follow the road while not actually being on the road then west again. This route took them back through Lain's home town as well as the kitsune's neighboring village. Both area's were still full of zombies. The journey took nearly a year and a half after she met Dante. They decided to follow the road north up to Fort Bastion. If any country were to survive all this, it would be the Northern Kingdom, they had thought. This is where they ran into Kaori and also found the northern kingdom's main line of defense in ruins surrounded by undead as well. Through the stories Kaori realized Lain is a pretty good leader. She doesn't know much about the zombies since she stayed on the boats for most of her life, but meeting Dante really helped with that. Up until meeting him, she would use the duplication staff as a way to distract anything that came after her. After Dante left the nest, he learned to fend for himself very quickly. Zombies weren't a problem near the mountains. The only ones he would see wore armor and carried weapons. Dante knew how to handle them quite well anyways. The harpy would take their young out while hunting. For Dante that meant being placed in a tree or on a ledge near by since he could not fly. This lets the fledglings learn how to hunt themselves. Unfortunately, the tactics they could use, Dante could not. But the places to attack were the same. Dante had an extra pair of limbs, arms, unlike the full harpy that had hands on the ends of their wings. This let Dante wield weapons meant for humans and other races. The zombies that were taken down by the harpy left armor, weapons, etc. behind. He used these and his knowledge of where to find them when he left his nest. He currently wears a bit of hardened leather on his legs as well as carries a halberd on his back. It's similar to an axe but has a small blade and a long shaft. He shows off how he used it to keep things at a distance from them along their journeys. "Hey Lain, could you teach me to use your staffs?" "Sure, Let's do it soon. It takes a bit to get use to the duplication staff though." Kaori puts on a giant smile, "Thank you!"