Nat irritably rubbing her head. "What's your problem! First you destroy my town and now you made me bump the back of my head!"
That was a low blow. He felt a little hurt from that jab about Nat's hometown. He feels very guilty for that. He thinks it was his fault.
"I'm sorry! I should probably look at the ground more often." Isaac apologizes.
This only served to make Nat even more irritated. "Are you implying that I'm short! Hmp! Well anyways, I found something I think you should see."
Out of curiosity, Isaac followed Nat into some kind of lab room. The entire room was filled with jars that was connected to lab equipment. What makes this room disturbing was what was INSIDE the jars. In each and every one of them there was a type of disembodied cock floating in some kind of liquid. There was so many different species of cocks and all of them were floating by themselves in the jars. Who would collect cocks?
Oddly enough, Isaac doesn't feel aroused by the sight of cocks. Maybe when a part of Azaviel became a part of Isaac's soul, he inherited some of Azaviel's resistance to lust. Or maybe perhaps it's because Isaac just jacked off. But then again, he didn't feel vary aroused until he released his cocks from his pouch. Maybe his lust is suppressed and he can only feel the full force of it when he release his cocks? If that's the case, then maybe Azaviel's ability to suppress lust could allow Isaac to resist being aroused by others. Azaviel is a lust demon after all. Either way, the sight of all these cocks are really disgusting him right now.
"Hey Nat? Let's get out of here." Isaac said cautiously. He doesn't want to be around when the owner returns.
"Yeah. Let's." Nat responded.
But before they left the room, Isaac noticed a hand mirror sitting face down on one of the counters. He knew he shouldn't take things from other people's mansions but something about that mirror feels strange. If it's anything like the last mirror he saw, then it might be a good idea to have one handy. It's not like the owner would miss a single mirror, right? So Isaac grabbed the mirror before he left the room.
...
As Isaac and Nat left and closed the front door, Mary has already set up nap sacks on the front porch. Luckily, there was a roof over the front porch on this stormy night.
Since Mary didn't expected a forth party member, Nat has to use Ilivir's nap sack. Isaac is just glad that they don't have to sleep in the rain this time. It was a nightmare trying to dry his muddy body this morning. This morning... Come to think about it, this morning really took a lot out of everyone. Good thing the rest the day was a peaceful break from the action.
Surprisingly, the rest of the day was eerily uneventful. There were no attacks or any pit stops made, just Nat, Mary and Isaac walking through the cloud forest. There was some small talk but nothing really progressive. Nat tried guiding them with her maps but she was having a hard time comparing the map to were they are now. Usually it's because she was either holding the map upside-down or reading a map from decades ago but even when she has the right map and has it upright, she was having a hard time translating the map to the real life locations. And thats when Mary comes in. Whenever Nat's pride allows it, Mary would use one of Nat's maps to find shortcuts that allowed them to avoid other towns and dangerous locations.
With the combination of Mary's knowledge of the land and Nat's maps they were able to make tremendous progress. According to Mary, they made much more then 3 miles worth of progress today. She estimates that they will be reaching the mountains in about a couple of days. Perhaps less if they keep traveling during the night. But thanks to the rain storm, they decided to take shelter for the night.
Despite the cheery fronts they were putting up, everyone was cranky and emotionally drained by the time they left the town ruins this morning to reaching this mansion tonight. They were just lucky things were pretty quite during midday. Which is a good thing. No one was in the mood for action after what they went through. Isaac can tell that Nat was still hurting from losing her home town. Isaac himself is pretty exhausted after fighting the air dragon and the lust demon. Isaac suspects that Mary is exhausted too. Hence why everyone was cranky.
"Are done exploring yet? Make sure the front door is close. We wouldn't want to owner know anyone went in there. Just because the front door was unlock doesn't mean you should be intuiting in their mansion. Especially since no one is home." Mary lectured.
Nat rolled her eyes. They already explored the mansion so what's the point of this lecture?
"Hey Isaac. What's that you're holding?" Mary inquired.
Isaac held up the hand mirror. "This? I found it in the mansion."
"Isaac! That doesn't belong to you! Put that back were you found it! " Mary shouted.
Nat came to Isaac's defense. "Lay off Isa. It's just a hand mirror. It's not like the owner is going to miss a measly hand mirror. We made sure we didn't touch anything else. We were just looking, right Isaac?"
Isaac nodded. "Right."
Mary let out a grumpy huff. "Anyways, you two better sleep. As soon as the sun rises, we will be leaving. Wouldn't want to get caught trespassing when the owner returns, would we? I will be watch guard while you sleep."
Nat could sense that Mary was exhausted from all that running around in town. "Oh no you don't young lady! You are going to sleep right now! Don't worry about me. I will wake you up to finish watch by midnight."
"But-" Mary was interrupted by Nat.
"No buts! Let big sister Nat take care of you. You won't need to overachieve on my watch! I need to pull my weight too."
Mary let out a sigh of defeat. "Alright. But promise me you'll wake me up when you get tired okay?"
"Affirmative." Nat affirmed.
As soon as Mary slipped into her nap sack, she immediately went to sleep. Mary must really be tired.
Big sister? Is Nat older then Mary? But then again, Nathan is a couple years older then Isaac. If Nat is really Nathan's counterpart and Mary is his counterpart, then that makes Nat older then Mary. But Isaac has no intentions of asking. There are just some things he doesn't need to know.
Isaac was snapped out of his thoughts when Nat inquired about the hand mirror.
Nat came closer to examine it. "It doesn't look like a cloud mirror." She observed.
What makes a cloud mirror any different from a normal mirror? "What does a cloud mirror looks like? What is it made of?" Isaac questioned.
It took a few moments but Nat was able to pull out a cloud hand mirror out of her overstuffed backpack. But judging by her messy hair, Isaac assumes she never uses it. What caught Isaac's interest was that the entire hand mirror was made out of water. The handle and frame was a thick cloudy substance he would expect to see on the cloud plane and the mirror itself was a puddle of water somehow stuck to the frame no mater how it was held. "In the cloud plane, there is only water, air and light. It's rumored that the sun and moon are made of more elements but I believe they are just blue and yellow balls of light orbiting the cloud islands. The cloud Kingdom being one of the larger cloud islands. As for how the mirror works, it uses the reflective surface of liquid water. Does the other mirror work like that?"
Isaac examined the mysterious mirror in his hand. It definitely looks like it came from the material plane. It seems the entire hand mirror is made up of normal glass found in his world. At least... the frame and handle is normal. The mirror itself is made up of some kind of reflective glass. It definitely doesn't look like silver. The reflections on the mirror seems to be in constant motion even when he is holding it still. When he looks into it, he noticed that colors were floating in random directions in the mirror. Despite this, he's able to see his reflection just fine. Unfortunately, it doesn't looks like it could show his souls like the other mirror. Besides from the colors swirling around, it seems to be just a regular mirror. However, he seems to recall seeing a similar type of glass back home.
He recalls how would-be fortune tellers would use crystal balls or reflective liquids in cauldrons to tell fake fortunes. But he can only recall one true fortune teller who was always right. The royal oracle would use a bowl made out of a special material called mirror ore that can decide the fate of a kingdom by showing prophesies. Isaac has only visited the royal oracle only once but to his knowledge, mirror ore is a extremely rare mirror-like type of rock that is only found in the crypt. But why would a hand mirror made of mirror ore be in the cloud plane of all places? The best way to describe this hand mirror is as a oracle's mirror. Isaac decided to call it the oracle's hand mirror.
"This mirror has the same function as a cloud mirror but with different materials. It's made out of a substance called glass. I heard that glass is made when dirt is heated to extremely high temperatures." Isaac answered half truthfully. If Isaac is right, then this mirror can do more then just show reflections. It might show possible futures and pasts. But Isaac doesn't feel the need to mention that right now.
"What is dirt?" Nat asked.
"It's a material from the material plane." Isaac answered tiredly. He dosn't feel like giving a in-depth answer.
Nat accepted the answer and then went on watch guard. By the time Isaac went into his nap sack it was still raining hard.
The Moon light was making the outside of the mansion glow blue. To think the outside walls are made of clouds and the inside of the mansion was made out of material from the material plane. How did that material get here?
Mary was fast asleep in her nap sack. Isaac on the other hand couldn't sleep. He was too busy staring at the oracle's hand mirror...
It's obvious that this mirror is special somehow. If he is correct, then this mirror could show him the past or future. But he is also afraid of using it. There is so many things he wants to change and looking into the past wouldn't help anything. He wonder what would happen if he didn't find the ring of purity? What would happen if he never went to Nat's town? Would she be able to defend it alone? On the other hand, Ilivir would still have a body and Isaac would have a chance to stop Azaviel before he took over Ilivir. And what are Nathan's whereabouts? Is he really the air dragon now? Isaac wondered if the mirror could show him any of this but he was too hesitant to try.
As he stared at the mirror, thinking about what he could ask it to search for, it was almost like the mirror was drawing him in... showing him reflections of himself from different angles....
And before he knew it, Isaac was fast asleep without realizing it.
Nat turned around to see Isaac's eyes were closed and fast asleep. But he was also still holding the hand mirror and facing it in his sleep.
'Odd.' Nat thought. Then she went back at watch, staring out at the night time storm. Good thing that the front porch had a roof.