Author's Notes: I swore I would make this chapter longer, but I feel like I'm rushing myself so this is it. More will definitely come sooner because I cut it off here, so expect it! Hope you like it. Note: Any characters that seem like they are stolen should be pointed out and explained from where they came from originally very clearly. Haters, I appreciate you even if I don't like you.
As Liz and I continued down the path we passed many people all doing various things, all of which were very interesting to me. Some were talking and joking around while others were trying to sell things. Liz seemed to understand my interest in all of it, but she said we had to keep going, so we did. I guessed I would be able to spend as long as I liked watching the people go about their lives (or deaths, whatever it was considered here) after we got to wherever she wanted us to go. The path under our feet never seemed to change from a dull gray stone pounded down flat after being walked on so much for so long, and as I looked to the edges of it, it seemed to come right from the soil as if it was a part of it and not manmade.
"The path has always been here ever since the very beginning of time. It goes all over the Second World, connecting everything together so we can easily travel across it. Of course, battles are much easier to start because of it, but it's still nice to know that you don't have to fly or swim anywhere to get some place far away. As long as you follow the path and think clearly of your destination, you'll end up there in no time at all. No one's quite sure how, but it's one of those things you just don't worry much about." Liz explained to me, noticing my curiosity.
"Battles?" I asked, the word catching on the edge of my mind like a snagged piece of string. I had no idea why, but this word caused me great unrest and made me a little jittery.
"Yeah. There are three distinct races on the Second World. There's us, the Shades, then there is the Elves and the Beasts. The Elves and the Beasts fight a lot because they share a boundary line that is connected right on the path, but it's really nothing serious. Just little fights here and there. The Elves' Elders are smart enough to know that starting a war with the Beasts is not the best thing to do, and the Beasts really just don't want to be bothered at all." she shrugged, beginning to warm up to telling me about the world around us. "Each of the three Major Races kind of agrees that peace is important, so when anything too bad happens to one of them the other ones usually help out if they can. Like, when the Darkness almost completely wiped out the Elves. That was a huge battle, and the Elves wouldn't have won had it not been for us Shades stepping in a teaching the Darkness a thing or two."
"The Darkness," I murmured, the name or title sending shivers through me. That was a bad name; an evil name.
"We Shades rule this part of Second, so you won't see too many Elves or Beasts here. Everyone pretty much knows that it's best to stay behind their own borders, even the traders. Of course, the path makes doing that a little hard, since to go anywhere you almost always have to pass by at least one of the other Territories." Liz continued, shaking her head as if the thought was slightly troubling but not that alarming. She acted as if this was normal, all of this strangeness, and I supposed it was. It was my fault it seemed so confusing since I was such a new person in this abnormal place.
"Where are we going?" I asked, looking ahead and seeing nothing but what looked like a mound of stones close to the same color as the path. It was huge, like a small mountain, and had a bunch of little openings on it that looked suspiciously like windows.
"That there is the Institute. It's a school of sorts for Shades. No place safer on Second besides six feet under, and even then you aren't on Second anymore." she smiled, gazing fondly at the mound of stone we were headed towards.
"Are you trying to tell me that that mound of rocks is a building?" I asked, my confusion overriding my instinct to be polite.
"It is an ugly place, isn't it?" she laughed, not sounding at all insulted. "That place has survived more wars than in the text books, you know. She's been around since the beginning. She's even older than Rodric!"
"Who's Rodric?" I asked, jogging after her as she skipped up to the biggest door I had ever seen anywhere. It too looked to be made of the gray stone, but with just a touch she was able to get it to open wide enough for us to get through.
"He's our neighborhood Immortal."
"Wait another minute. Did you say he is an Immortal?" I asked, my mind finding that hard to understand. If this was a place you went to after death, then didn't that mean that by definition everyone had to die at some point?
"Exactly!" she grinned, seeing my confused expression. "Everyone that comes to Second comes because they have died. It's simple like that. But instead of dying here and returning to wherever they came from, a few folk just never die. They get to an age that seems kind of high, like say 50-something, and then they just stop aging. Most Immortals knock themselves off after a while, but Rodric says he's never even considered it. He says it's his job to record everything that happens so he can tell the next generations about it. Like the world's biggest, oldest history book. He's pretty cool once you get past the fact that his eyes make you feel like he's looking into your Soul, though." she explained patiently, leading me into a huge cavern-like room where quite a few people were scurrying about and heading down tunnels that seemed to branch off in every direction opposite the huge door.
"How long has he been alive?" I asked, a little impressed by the old guy. If I had to live forever I wasn't sure I would be able to handle it that well like he had.
"From what I've been able to get out of him he was just a teenager when the very first Dark War broke out. That was before Shades he says, so it was a long time ago. Like, hundreds of years."
"Dark War?"
"Ever since people started to come here after dying it hasn't always been all peaceful and controlled. Some say the Darkness was here before us and we intruded, but most believe the Darkness came to act as kind of an equilibrium so everything was more fair. I mean, it sucks really, having something as dangerous as the Darkness plotting to kill us all, but it usually only strikes every few hundred years or so. And ever since the second Dark War we've always won. We lost the first, but we learned a lot about who we were fighting." she explained, and I just nodded, my mind reeling from all of the information.
How was this all even possible?