“…Mage?” Foster asked with a wry smile on his face, after hearing what Aaron and Joyce had told him just now, “I mean, magic seems kinda cool and all, but it sounds like something for smart people.”

“I’m not saying that you should become a mage, I’m just saying that you have the chance to become powerful if you do it. Although in the first place, necromancy is rather frowned upon. It’s illegal in a lot of places in the first place, and in those where it’s not, it’s illegal to create undead out of people. So you shouldn’t do it in the first place, it’s probably way too-”

“I mean, can’t I just kinda hit people with magic?” Foster asked, interrupting Aaron, who looked back surprised, “I mean, you can, sure, but that’s a bit risky… There are those that fight while wielding lower-level magic, but it’s still kinda risky to do. You need high concentration to cast spells, and that’s not a good mix with martial arts.”

“Gotcha, then it’s really not for me.” Foster replied, when he remembered something else. He finally stripped the gauntlets off his hands and placed them onto the table in front of him, and then looked at the bracelet that had wrapped itself around his wrist all on its own. It was something like a metallic chain in the form of a snake biting its own tail. It looked pretty neat, so Foster didn’t mind wearing it, but it seemed to be some kind of weird item that he wasn’t all too sure about.

“You guys know what a ‘Legacy’ is? Thiodrus told me he’d give his to me, and then this came out of his skull.” Foster explained, and both Aaron and Joyce immediately jumped up from their chairs, “A legacy?! Thiodrus had a Legacy Class?!” Joyce exclaimed, and Foster looked at them confused.

“Guys, please… I literally don’t know what the hell it is, so just tell me.” He pleaded with them, holding his hand toward them so that they could look at his bracelet.

“Urgh, how bothersome… Don’t tell me you don’t have Classes there either?”

“…Do you mean classes like lessons in school?”

“…No…”

“Then yeah, we probably don’t have those.” Foster pointed out, and Aaron was already growing too annoyed with what this guy was saying to really question him anymore, “Fine… Alright, basically, Classes are… like your job. My class is a Brimstone Archer, Joyce is a Swordsmaster. We started out with respectively the ‘Apprentice Archer’ and ‘Apprentice Swordman’ classes. They’re basic classes that basically anyone can get after they practice for a while. We leveled our classes up further and could soon advance to higher versions, until we got here.” Aaron explained.

After listening curiously, Foster already figured why this ‘Legacy’ thing could be a bit more special than that, “And a Legacy Class is just… given to you by others or something?”

“Basically.” Joyce replied, “Like, it’s a generational thing. A Legacy Class is given from one generation to the next. It’s not like they’re particularly stronger than others, just… rarer. A Legacy Class is one of a kind, completely unique to the one that has it.”

“Eh? It’s that kinda special thing?” Foster asked with a slightly excited grin on his face, “So, what’s this one?”

Aaron rolled his eyes as he took a closer look at the bracelet, “No idea, but it’s clear that it has something to do with this thing. This artifact is most likely the legacy taken shape. Through it, you should be able to get a hold of that class.”

“Hm, neat.” Foster replied, looking at the bracelet. He slowly turned his head away, though, to look out of the window near him. In the distance, Foster was still able to see that huge tree of light, stretching far beyond where that weird one reached to earlier.

“To change the topic to something else for a second… Do you two think we should stay here for now, or should we leave as soon as we can?” Foster asked, mostly looking at Aaron since he was clearly the one with more experience. If he was a half-elf, then it must be true that he was 87 years old, so he should have more answers to things than either Foster or Joyce.

“I think we should be fine staying here for the night, but we should still be careful. If anything happens, we need to leave immediately.” Aaron suggested, and Foster quickly nodded his head with a light smile.

“Got it, then you two head to bed, I slept like 18 hours yesterday. I’m good for now.”

“You really expect us to just go to bed while you’re here with the capability to kill us in our sleep?” Aaron asked with a suspicious expression, but Foster simply stood up and let out a deep groan, “Man, why’d I wanna kill you? I just found some stuff earlier that I wanna look through… Might be useful. I don’t really care about either of you, y’know?”

“Fine. But the moment I notice you’re trying something, you’re dead. Now, where are the bedrooms?”

“There’s one right down here. There’s just one bed though, so you’ll either have to share, or one of you is gonna have to sleep on the ground.” Foster pointed out as he showed them the bedroom, and it was clear who of the two was going to get the bed. After finding a key laying around near there that seemed to belong to this bedroom, the two of them even locked the door just to make sure that Foster wouldn’t be able to come in. They didn’t really trust him yet, after all.

Understandably so, but Foster was still a little hurt. But in the end, since he didn’t care for either of these two, he just made his way to where he found some more interesting stuff laying around.

“Oh, now take a look at this.” Foster smiled as he stood in the storage room. There were some pouches holding what seemed to be kind of weird-looking coins, which Foster assumed to be currancy. Of course, he grabbed those, since Thiodrus wouldn’t need them anymore.

Beside those coins, Foster grabbed another pair of shoes that seemed to fit him, as well as a seemingly quite old bag. It had the kind of smell that old things had, at least. So, Foster put the things that he grabbed into that bag, until he was barely able to close it anymore.

“Kinda heavy…” He groaned loudly, and kept looking around the room. There weren’t many more things that really interested him, though, and nothing that seemed like it could be helpful beyond what Foster already grabbed.

So instead, Foster made his way upstairs. He didn’t have the chance to fully look around up there, seeing how he ran into Joyce when he tried, so he chose to do so now. The floorboards let out another loud creak while he walked up the stairs, making Foster slow down as he tried to get upstairs.

He grabbed a small lantern from the storage room earlier. And although Foster had no idea how it worked, since he started to doubt that electricity and batteries were a thing here, since it did work, he really didn’t care. He wasn’t the kind of person to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Foster curiously looked around the top floor, the large room only lit up through the lantern. There were a few interesting things here. Mostly, there were weapons here. Knives, swords, staffs, all those sorts of things. However, all of them were highly rusted, many being cracked into pieces. So as weapons, they were useless.

Even so, Foster opened up one of the displays that was holding a small throwing-knife. It looked pretty neat, although the outermost layer immediately crumbled away as soon as his fingertips touched it. It didn’t seem likely that you would be able to throw this thing more than once.

Although it was still surprisingly sharp. Maybe Foster should bring these with him after all, just in case. One of the guys he worked with, another executive actually, was really into throwing-knives, and tried to show Foster a few tricks here and there. He had surprisingly good aim, so he might be able to use these in an emergency.

Foster held the small knife in his hand and played around with it a little, trying to remember how exactly he was supposed to hold these things. But when he did, a small splinter of metal scratched up Foster’s finger.

It wasn’t painful or anything, nor did he bleed much, but it was still kind of bothersome, “Goddammit… Those literal monsters weren’t able to hurt me in the slightest, and now I cut my finger on a knife I myself am holding..?”

Foster placed the throwing knife to the side and took a closer look at the scratch by holding it near the lantern. But when he did, another source of light appeared by his hand. It came from the bracelet. The eyes of the snake’s head suddenly started glowing, and it felt like it started shaking around.

The snake released its own tail and started slithering over Foster’s skin. Logically, it should have fallen off, but it was practically glued to his skin. The metallic chain-snake slithered onto Foster’s hand. Before he knew it, the snake swallowed the tip of Foster’s finger, as if sucking on it. If it wasn’t so creepy, it would have actually been kind of cute.

Foster figured that it was trying to suck his blood for whatever reason, and he didn’t even know why he was letting it happen just like that. But then, something appeared in front of him that let him know it was probably the right choice.

—

[The Legacy Artifact {Snake of Death} has been activated by offering blood of the Legacy holder]