Early Evening - Late Fall : The Golden Lotus, Northern Market District (Valtivar)

*Click* A click echoed down the silent hallway as we opened the door to our room.

-Hey, not bad...- The room was quite large, with the main area and several different bedrooms, but to my surprise, not only was there a kitchen, but also a bathroom with proper running water. -It reminds me of hotels on Earth, just with a generally lower build quality...-

But now wasn't the time to explore the rooms. Instead, I quickly set Amara on the bed in the first room next to the front door and made my way back into the living space.

"Haah, alright. Back to you." As I sat down on a nearby cushion and patted my side for Ilios to lay down next to me, I looked up at Sigmond with a serious expression. "I want you to explain everything related to those scales all over your body."

She tensed up the instant I asked but took a deep breath and quickly calmed back down. "Haaah.. where do I start?"

The next hour felt like an eternity. My mind raced to make sense of complicated explanations and apply logic to illogical situations, but that difficulty only accumulated the more she spoke.

"My grandmother mentioned that the mystic beast was also likely an evolutionary one, which is a type of beast that evolves extremely frequently based on what it eats." Even though we had been talking for quite a while, she was still nervous. "Elixirs made from their body parts are usually what helps elves and demihumans evolve and become closer with the gods."

-Closer to the gods? Wait, first of all...- "Demihumans and elves can evolve? What do they evolve into?" My curiosity shot through the roof immediately.

"Y..yes. They evolve into high-elves or high-demihumans, respectfully. They are known as races with bodies capable of obtaining 'divinity', similar to dragons. Although I only have my Grandmother's word for the dragon part..." There was not an ounce of confidence in her voice.

-'Divinity'? 'Similar to dragons'?!- My mind stuttered the more she spoke. It wasn't till after several more seconds of silence that I finally spoke again. "What do you mean by 'obtaining divinity'?"

"Well..." She glanced around the room like she was struggling to think of what to say. "In school, we were taught that you needed two things to become an apostle. You must not only be a 'high' race to have a body capable of handling divinity but also have unparalleled devotion to either Dagr or Nott. (The two gods the Sirathan religion worships) I'm.. still not sure how obtaining divinity really works."

-'A body capable of handling divinity' and belief in a god...- "Is divinity a type of energy like mana?" -But if that's the case, what does prayer have to do with it?- I accidentally said what I was thinking out loud, but I still looked toward Sigmond to see if she knew.

But she just tilted her head like she didn't understand what I meant.

-I guess I was expecting too much from her...-

As I leaned back and wracked my mind to try and think of any other mysterious energies I knew of that weren't mana, a foreign yet familiar voice met my ears. "~It's a bit more complicated than that...~"

Immediately tensing up and locking my eyes on the source of the voice, I glared at a fairly large warp in the fabric of space not far from me.

"~Not again!~" The warp vanished the instant I set eyes on it.

-Is this thing different from what caused the first warp I saw?- I thought back to the spine-chilling hostility I felt when I woke up after fighting the lurkers. -This one looks smaller too.. like the one I saw in the lab...- Frantically scanning the room, I tried to find the warp again but found nothing.

"Is there something wrong?" Sigmond's voice was a bit shaky as she gave me a confused look.

-Huh?- "Did you not hear that?"

"Hear what?" Her head tilted like a confused puppy.

-She really couldn't hear it...- I was at a loss for words, but that was when the voice returned.

"~Wait, you can finally hear me?!~" The warp appeared in front of me instantly as if it teleported. "~I really thought you would take longer to be able to hear me.~"

As I turned back to the warp, this time with less hostility, I felt like I could see the faint outline of a person, but their body was just made up of a cloud-like fog. -Why does that voice sound familiar though...-

"~Finally... Only one more step before your body is prepared...~"

-What does that mean?- I felt a chill pass down my spine as I thought of the meaning behind those words. "Who are you?"

"Huh? Me-"

"No, not you." I looked at the warp in space once again. "I'm talking about you."

"~Awe... Have you really forgotten me? It has only been a few years... Or are your eyes just not as developed as your ears?~"

-What does that even mean...-

"~Well, it doesn't really matter anyways. We will meet again soon enough.~"

"Can you at least tell me what or who you are?" My hostility against the voice at that point had already been replaced by curiosity.

"~Just think of me as your personal guide!~" Almost immediately, two cloud-like shapes extend from the back of the figure like wings. "~In any case, you shouldn't attack me, unlike 'him'.~"

"What? Who's 'him'?" Ideas and theories raced through my mind as my thoughts continued to speed up.

"~Hmm. I'll just say its the guy you have dealt blows to more than once already.~"

-What?- The image of the small warp I knocked out of Amara immediately came to mind. -Was whoever 'he' is, controlling Amara's actions somehow?!-

"~Although I can't tell you why right now, he is after your life and will use every opportunity he can to take it.~" The figure vanished for a second before immediately returning. "~I'm all out of time. Just know it's easier for a being like 'him' to control someone who has lost themselves to their emotions. If he takes control of someone, handle it like you just did unless you don't value their soul.~"

-Like I just did?- Although I'm still not sure where my trust in the figure's words came from, I immediately thought back to what I did to Amara and committed the act to memory.

But even though it only took an instant for me to memorize it, by the time I finished, the figure was already gone.

-Damn... I still had so much more I needed to ask...- Trying to control my curiosity and slow my thoughts back down, I looked around the room and noticed Sigmond showing me a look of concern. "Haah.. so you really couldn't hear any of that?"

She quickly shook her head.

-So what could that figure even be then...- Countless ideas or theories passed through my mind, but none of them made any sense. "Haah.. it really feels like I just talked to a ghost." As things finally calmed back down, I moved back over to the cushion and went to sit down. -How do I even make sense of all that...- I felt like I had a clump of raw information slammed into my brain that I still couldn't make sense of. -So Amara was being controlled by some supernatural being that is after my life...- It was a hard pill to swallow.

But while I was hastily sorting the information, I heard an odd groan from Amara's room. "Ugh..." *rustling*

-She woke up already?!-