Time was weird in this place. Soon people started showing up. At first they were people Elric did not know well.. When the fifth person appeared it was someone he actually knew. Mr Wesley.
Elric went up to Wesley. Started talking to him. He learned a lot from him. Wesley had finished his narrative by showing that the village chief was the one who killed his wife. He passed. He did not get a very high score.
This made Elric think about a lot of things. He realized that he did not have to make things so hard for himself. He could have just done something to finish the narrative. He did not have to worry about getting a score because all that mattered was passing. Elric had taken the way solving every mystery he could find.
Then Elric asked Wesley some more questions and he found out what was going to happen next. There were these floating colors that would show up. Wesley only had a few of them. They were all the same. Elric had a lot of them. They were all different colors.
Elric thought that these colors might be like rewards for finishing a narrative. Like when you finish a level in a game you get some kind of prize. Since Elric got the full score he got a lot more of these colors. It was too bad that he did not know what to do with them. He hoped he could figure it out.
At that point Elric wanted to find some people who had been in this place before him.
The history of this place went back 4,000 years to the hundred people who came here. They were bad people. They had killed and hurt a lot of others.
Elric wanted to learn more about this place so he could find a way out. He did not want to be stuck. He was willing to do whatever it took to leave. He wanted to get revenge.
Wesley thought this was an good idea but he also knew that he was not very important.
"Having a goal is good " Wesley said, thinking about his past. ". There are some things in life that you cannot pay the price."
Elric was not interested in learning about peoples lives. He did not care if they were good or bad. He did not want to know much because that might get him into trouble. So he never asked any questions.
"In narrative I told people to hide. This place is not safe especially if you are walking around.. Remember what Death said. If only one person is left they can leave. What if someone believes that and starts killing everyone? We are normal people we do not have any special powers." Wesley said.
Elric understood what Wesley was saying. He said goodbye to Wesley and the other people he had met.
Out of the ninety-nine people who were brought here only about thirty survived. They split into three groups.
One group followed Wesley. They had met at a church. They shared the same beliefs. They were going to north.
The second group followed a leader who seemed aggressive. A lot of people believed in his strength. They were going to head west.
The last group was one person. Elric. He was a boy who had just turned eighteen a few months ago. He did not have anything. No beliefs, no strength, no guide. He did not know which way to go.
All Elric had was his thoughts. He did not believe in strength or religion. He believed in himself. He had to rely on himself.
So he decided going to the south.
After half an hour the landscape started to change. It became a pink desert.
The desert went on forever with sand that looked like it was glowing. The light reflecting off the sand made everything look blurry. There were heat waves rising from the ground and the dunes looked like they were moving. There was something about the desert that felt suffocating and unnatural like it was alive.
Elric was not feeling well. His clothes were stiff with sweat. He had sand all over his body. His lips were dry his throat. His eyes felt heavy. He was hungry, thirsty and tired. He did not know how far he had walked.
The pink sand felt hard under his feet like cement. Each step he took disappeared behind him like something was eating his footprints. It was weird. It was also kind of useful. No one could follow him.
He walked for what felt like a time with hunger and thirst bothering him. He was tired. He did not know how he would survive.
Maybe a demon would just show up. Kill him. Maybe that would not be so bad. Just dying like this... The price of his choices would be regret. No he would get his revenge.
With that thought Elric kept moving even though his body was giving out. He did not know how far he had come. To distract himself he thought about the world he came from.
He remembered a news story about a country where a massacre happened on a beach. Hundreds of people died. The person who did it said he was bored with life. He killed people. Covered the blood with blue ink on the sand.
Later, it came to be known as...the Blue Beach.
Elric had read a lot of news. It gave him some weird thoughts to think about while he was walking. He thought about countries that had changed over 4,000 years. Some got stronger some got weaker. New countries became powerful and old ones disappeared.
There was still a lot of tragedy in the world.
He was lucky to be born after the Fifth World War so he did not have to live through that.. There were still disasters, like the Three Thousand Days of the Red Sea or the Mountain That Erased a Nation.
Elric had always been optimistic until his parents were killed. He thought it was probably that person Noah who did it.
He had been walking for long that he could barely think. His body gave out. He tripped over something.
He fell down. He could barely get up. He looked at what he tripped over. It was a rock. It was silly. Then he looked closer and he saw some blue and pale colors on it.
It was an cerulean stone.
Had it followed him here too? Was he going crazy? He was too tired.
He picked it up. Put it in his pocket.
So it was not a hallucination. Cerulean stones really existed in this place.
He slowly got up. Then he saw something that looked like a deer.
He rubbed his eyes. Looked again. It was a deer. It was weird. Its body was too long. Its antlers were all twisted. Its eyes glowed red like embers. Its skin was. Rough like old bark. It had eight legs, all different lengths and shapes. It moved fast even though it looked unstable.
The deer saw Elric. Charged at him.
Elric, who was about to collapse suddenly felt a surge of energy. Maybe it was adrenaline.
He tried to run. He was too slow.
Just before the deer reached him a flame shot past. Hit the creature.
"Finally found the thing. Took forever."
"We are rich now. I am going to spend it on prostitutes."
Two voices rang out. Two men appeared. They started fighting the deer.
Elric did not watch. He fell unconscious.
The two men fought the deer for seven hours before they finally killed it. When they saw Elric they just shook their heads.
"This desert is bigger than the world we came from. How did he even get here?"
One of the men went up to Elric poured some water into his mouth and looked at him with a staff.
The staff was black, gold and brown with some vine- patterns and thread-like strands.
"He only has one lexecon. He must be new here."
"What should we do? Should we take him with us? There is a reward for helping lost people."
They looked at each other. Nodded. One of the men picked Elric up. Put him on his back. He used some kind of tree- power in his left hand.
"Lets go back, to Mortifora."