"Uuugh..." Dazed, Guppa sat up and came to a realization.

He was alive.

Distressed, his vision was still filled with white. After exploring, the space was comparable to a small house. A big cube.

He twitched when he saw his own hands. He was not flesh anymore, but yellow, ethereal energy in the form of himself.

Naked and isolated, he began doubting if he was alive, and wondered if this was where god would exact his judgement.

Something soft and bony touched his back.

"Agh!" Guppa screamed and recoiled in shock.

What stood before him was a smiling woman with green wings, dress and pink flowers sprouting from her long, green hair. A beautiful dryad came to mind as Guppa looked at the woman.

"Oh my, look at you, so scared." She took a step towards Guppa, sizing him up.

"Wow, you are sortof chubby, almost like... Umm..." She touched her lips, looking upwards, then chuckled. "That Jiao-long fatty, oh his death was so pathetic." 

Guppa felt annoyed, but realized that he needed to be cautious around her and cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, but do you happen to know where I am? I am Guppa by the way." Said Guppa.

"Guppa! What a weird name! I am Christina. You are currently in a pocket dimension at the planet called Goro, and I am here as your instructor." Said Christina and bowed.

Guppas eyes widened in suprise at the reality of his situation.

"This isn't earth? Is there any way for me to get home?" Guppa responded.

Christina laughed.

"Oh my, a way home? So what if you can't?" Said Christina as she looked at Guppa, grinning.

Guppa clenched his fist, annoyed at her behaviour. 

"Then I will sulk and be inflicted with another emotional scar that will be with me until the day I die." Said Guppa as he looked into her eyes.

"You sure have a lot of self awareness!" She responded. "But I can say this for certain, no one has ever gotten back home from Goro. You stay in Goro, you die in Goro." 

Guppa looked at the floor and sighed. His guts told him that she did not lie. He quickly snapped out of his melancholy, realizing that there are more concerning matters at hand and that his grief must be supressed until later.

Guppa nevertheless felt it was an acceptable price to pay for him being able to live again.

"So what do I do now? I have nothing." Proclaimed Guppa in frustration.

"Well..." Said Christina as she leaned forward. "To start with, you are a spiritlord. An ethereal being able to command his subjects to do things for him, assuming they are willing to listen. In this case it is to partake in murdering a demon general. Though there is a time limit of three years." 

"A time limit? What happens when the time runs out?" Said Guppa.

"You and your subjects die, and there is no coming back from death!" Said Christina while holding out her arms menacingly. 

Guppas mood soured even more.

"Why exactly is there a time limit?" Said Guppa.

"To motivate you to get the job done, obviously. It should be doable, but if you make a lot of big mistakes and end up failing, then that is all on you!" Said Christina.

"Fair enough. Where is the demon general and how exactly do I kill him?" Said Guppa.

"Well here comes the fun part. The thing is, I cannot tell you much about the world, as the gods do not like interference beyond my assigned duties. But where the demon general resides will only be known to you after you sleep." Said Christina as she pointed at her own head. 

She caressed her sleek, feathered wings.

"You will figure the rest out yourself after I give you some guidance." Said Christina. "You have unique powers as a spiritlord ingrained in your body. You just need to realize how to activate them." 

Christina touched Guppas forehead. Swirling yellow energy flowed into him.

Guppa shook and gasped, then held his head in pain, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Ow, you should have warned me. Somehow I understand my own abilities now.." Said Guppa, bewildered.

"Yes, spiritlords are quite amazing. Especially this space we are in right now. But that is all for naught if your spiritborn, in other words your subjects end up dead, as that will end up killing you too. Spiritborn and spiritlords can't exist without eachother!" Said Christina.

"Shit just keeps piling up to a mountain, huh? So, what are you anyway?" Said Guppa.

"I am an angel that works for the forest god. Perhaps you could call me a goddess?" 

A vine covered in red energy appeared out of the wall and whipped Christina in one strike. It then disappeared.

Guppa jumped in surprise.

"Ow! Demi-goddess!" She groaned.

"Back on topic, want to make a bet?" Wondered Christina.

"Uhh... What would that entail?" Asked Guppa.

"I bet a rare artifact that you will not be able to make it out of the thorn forest alive. You lose nothing by failing, you just die! Great, right?" Said Christina confidently.

"Why are you so sure that I will die?" Responded Guppa.

"You will just have to see, and you are really unfortunate with the spawn of your spiritborn. Could be worse though. I put my chances of you surviving at 20%. There are things in that forest that will give you both trauma, pain, paranoia and nightmares at the same time. Not that it will affect you much, but your spiritborn is a whole other matter! So how about it?" Said Christina.

Guppa gritted his teeth.

"I take your bet. I will have you know that as long as I am not alone, I will not be beaten by some thorny, forest." Said Guppa with vigor. 

"Great! Have fun dying!" Said Christina as she waved her hand, then disappeared in a flash.

Guppa's mood was still sour, but he remained hopeful. Even though he disliked the angel, he was thankful towards. He cracked his fingers, but it did not make any noise.

He opened a screen. It read as follows: 

Mana: 100/100

Spells: None.

Artifacts: None.

Affinities: Barrier. Light.

Boons: Unknown.

As the only information Guppa had about his one spiritborn, he was left disappointed. But he quickly understood that what little he knew was much better than nothing.

Guppa opened a screen showing a lanky, handsome blonde man laying on the ground in a small field of tall grass. The naked, lanky man was of white, slightly reddish skin, with a tattoo with a downwards crescent shape on each of his hands and the back of his neck.

Guppa moved the airborne camera spirit around a bit, but it could never stray more than 3 meters away from the head of the lanky man. The name of the camera thing was an Unseen Watcher. An invisible eyeball-like spirit that Guppa could hear and see from directly or through screens.

Guppa manifested a small, multi edged floating grey creature, in other words a kind of microphone spirit and spoke through it.

"Hey, wake up! It's dangerous here!" Proclaimed Guppa.

The man sat up.

"Ugh..." Muttered the man.

"How did you end up here?" Asked Guppa.

"Huh?" Said the man.

Guppa sat down on the white floor and decided to let the man regain his senses first.

The man looked around then on his own hands.

"What am I? I can't..." The man spoke. He was breathing rapidly while touching his face. His eyes are wide open.

His breathing soon slowed. He observed his surroundings, then got up and touched a tree.

"Ouch!" Said the man. He looked down on his feet. He got cut by a small thorn in the grass. The bleeding quickly stopped.

Guppa was impressed, it was faster than expected. As he innately knew, the spiritborn have massively increased regeneration, although it does not amount to much more that quickly stopping minor bleeding and healing cuts in combat. Even limbs can be regenerated if given enough time.

"Hey, have you regained your composure?" Asked Guppa.

"What is this voice?" Asked the man.

"I am Guppa. I am here to make sure that you survive." Said Guppa.

"I am..." The man squeezed his eyes as if he was trying to remember something. "I do not know what my name is, or anything else for that matter." 

"How about giving you a name. Is there any name that you would like?" Said Guppa in a friendly voice.

"F... Something that starts with an f. I can't think of anything else, my head is a mess." Said the man as he looked around.

"Finnick. How about Finnick?" Said Guppa.

"I do enjoy it. Finnick. Finnick. This works." Said Finnick, showing a weak smile.

"That is wonderful. Our priorities are to get food, water and shelter as fast as possible." Said Guppa.

Guppa looked up with the watcher.

"The sun is fairly high up. We have some time on our sleeves, luckily. You should get moving. Collect anything you think might be edible. Once you have enough, I will teach you an important trick." Said Guppa.

"Understood, sir." Said Finnick and started moving carefully around the thorny ground.

The ground was covered in roots, leaves, fir needles and thorny bushes. Red birds fly around around the tall, red fir and leafy trees, singing songs never heard on earth. It was as if the entire forest has been painted red. But the rocks, blue sky and dirty ground are the only things making a contrast to it all. 

Guppa kept scanning the area with his unseen watcher. Some of the trees and bushes were as if they had been smashed by something, and six quills were found stuck to a tree. Finnick pulled out one of them.

"Sir, what might this be?" Asked Finnick.

"Hmm, it reminds me of the quills from a porcupine, a mostly harmless mammal unless you threaten it. However, these quills are too big and red to be from any ordinary porcupine, but how did they get stuck that deep into a tree? It must have been launched at it." Said Guppa.

Finnick darted around with his eyes and carefully inspected the quill.

"Whatever did this... I wholeheartedly do not wish to meet." Muttered Finnick.

"That we can agree on. Hold on to the quills. They might end up being useful later." Said Guppa.

Roaring was heard a distance away from behind Finnick.

"We must keep moving!" Said Guppa, and Finnick quickly wandered away.

Finnick eventually found mushrooms, round red fruits, yellow berries, red stag beetles, a few worms that lived in a dead log, and a spiky red turtle. He collected them all, but let the turtle be.

Finnick was having a cold sweat, and moved around carefully to not make any sound. 

"Trust me, I hate this place just as much as you do. But at this pace we will get out of this shithole in no time! By the way, if you channel mana into one of the tattoos on your hands, you can whisper to it and I can still hear you well."

After focusing, the tattoo started to glow a dull yellow. 

"Do not worry yourself about me, sir. I can endure any hardship for my master." Whispered Finnick into the tattoo.

"Great, I can hear you well. Just make sure to go overboard on the hardships. Now, what you need to do is to put the collected foodstuffs, and a couple of the quills in a pile and channel mana into both of your tattoos, then... I just had an idea! Put the items close to a tree." Said Guppa.

"Ofcourse." Said Finnick. 

Finnick put the items in a pile next to one of the huge red fir trees.

"Channel mana now. You should be able to tranfer items to my pocket dimension, where I can discern the safety of eating them." Said Guppa.

Finnick channeled mana into his tattoos, making the glow brightly for two minutes, afterwards the items disappeared in a yellow flash. 

Guppa grunted in frustration.

"Ahh damn. I thought I could use it to hollow out holes in things, but this is good enough. I have the items." Said Guppa.

Guppa took a small bite out of the fruits, berries and mushrooms. With his innate ability "Edible analysis" he learned that the berries were inedible.

"It is best to bite into the sour apple." Sighed Guppa to himself.

Repulsed, Guppa chewed up one of the worms. It was edible. He did not touch the stag beetle, as that was too much for him.

Guppa put the items in a pile and cast energy on a couple of the fruits, making them glow yellow.

"You can transfer back some of the items now, as I have marked them for transfer. The berries are not edible, but the rest of the items are. Excuse the bite marks." Said Guppa.

The items returned to Finnick after two minutes of conjuring. Finnick then ate one of the fruits without any expression.

"Tasty aren't they?" Questioned Guppa.

"Exquisite." Answered Finnick.

Finnick kept wandering through the foliage. Finnick groaned as his legs were in a perpetual state of getting cut and healing, but he moved on, until Guppa stopped him.

"There is a black tower in the distance.. I can see it through the foliage. Can you see it?" Questioned Guppa.

"Hmm... Oh yes. I do see it. Should I go there?" Replied Finnick.

"Go investigate. Hopefully someone friendly lives there." Said Guppa.

They soon came upon the black tower. It was overgrown by thorns vines, and black pikes portruded from parts of its walls, but its materials were however in top shape. It's door had a shining lamp on it. It had no windows.

"Should I enter?" Asked Finnick.

"No, the big door, spikes, black walls and lack of windows gives me the feeling that it is most likely home to some very undfriendly fellows. Listen through the door first." Warned Guppa.

Finnick cautiously put his ear on the door.

He listened for a minute, furrowing his eyebrows, then stepped away from the door.

"There is something strange in there, sir. I sounded like metal hitting stone. It was as if some kind of metallic creature was walking on four legs, and breathed in a deep, slow, raspy voice. It did not sound human." Said Finnick.

Guppa thought for a while, but nothing came to mind about what it could be.

"I do not know what is in there, and I do not want to find out. Just move along." Said Guppa.

Finnick nooded in response and walked away to find a charred tree, then looked at the few scattered clouds in the blue sky.

"Master, somehow I know some things, such as rain and thunder, yet I have never seen it myself." Said Finnick.

"Strange. All I know is that you were created by me in some way, but I have no specifics about the process. Where your memories, flesh and personality originate from, I sadly do not know. Can you elaborate on your memories?" Said Guppa.

Finnick tapped his chin and peered.

"Certainly. From my memory about the thunder, although very unclear, I looked through windows with odd rectangular things in it. It was dark outside." Said Finnick.

"This makes no sense... That is... It can't be..." Said Guppa as he paced back and forth in the white room. 

Finnick carefully inspected the scorched bark of the tree.

"That might be one of my memories. That was from my house in midsummer the previous year." Said Guppa. 

"Perhaps I have inherited some memories from you, sir." Said Finnick.

"That must be it. Can you explain what a car is?" Asked Guppa.

"Car? I do not know what that is. But I think I know of Carts, which are dragged by... Something." Said Finnick.

"Something?" Asked Guppa.

"Nothing comes to mind. I do know it is dragged by something however." Proclaimed Finnick.

"Memories from me and this world huh? Simply absurd. We will have to investigate further later. Anyways, know what is up with that tree, lad?" Said Guppa.

"No. But it is scorched on only one side, like it was burned by something." Said Finnick.

"This forest..." Guppa facepalmed. "First quills, and now this? This is not thunder, not a chance. This is elaborate!" 

"Agreed, sir." Responded Finnick.

Being unable to figure out what had happened, Guppa ordered Finnick to move on. After a while Finnick stopped. 

"I hear a river." Said Finnick.

"Me too, let's find it!" Said Guppa

They came upon the river.

Finnick was about to walk up to it, but froze up in horror realizing that he was not alone. Now both Finnick and Guppa knew where the quills came from.