New World / Act 1, Part 1

We walked up the stairs and arrived

Shin took me back to his place but now we were on the third floor (second highest)

I sat at the table while Shin took the chair opposite from me

I looked at Shin

"So what now?" I asked

"Uh,,, we use my Portal finder and we locate a gateway and we take you to the New World"

I didn't really have a problem with this but I wasn't too excited about this. As it would mean my life would continue to change.

And right now that was the last thing I needed, First Allen then Mom and now Holly, my life as i knew it was coming to a complete turn.

"So how long is that going to take?"

When I asked this I was talking about how long it was going to take to get to the gateway

"The Gateway is about an hour drive..."

As soon as he said that he stopped talking, he put his hands together and stared at them.

After a few seconds of silence, He continued

"Finding the gateway shouldn't be a problem, the problem comes in finding a Portal Finder"

I looked at Shin with a confused expression

"I thought you had one?"

"Hehe...long story short one of my friends took it from me and he now has it in a warehouse"

"Why don't you just ask for it back?"

"..."

Shin didn't say anything, he instead opted to look down at the table

A couple of seconds passed

But then he started to talk

"uh...currently in the New World there are two big nations"

I shook my head indicating that I was following along but I didn't expect him to talk about he New World

"Fayhall and Grimhold"

Fayhall and Grimhold?

"Inside of each nation, there are 5 big cities, inside Fayhall there is one city called Madhollow"

Shin seemed to have been involved in something in Madhollow

"My "Friend" took my Portal Finder and went to Madhollow and destroyed the city, he had something against the Noble House that lived there"

Noble House? What was he talking about?

"Whats a Noble House?"

"In the New World, there are 11 Noble Houses, each Noble House controls one of the big cities in Fayhall and Grimhold, there are 5 cities in each nation, so one Noble House is assigned to one city"

I thought about what Shin had said, and the math didn't add up

"That only makes 10, there should be 11 cities to make sure every Noble House has a city"

"True but, the last Noble House oversees operations in both nations and is also home to the capital of the New World called Oceanspire"

The name Oceanspire made me think

"Why is it called Oceanspire?"

"My best guess is that Oceanspire is filled to the brim with skyscrapers and is the only city surrounded by an ocean"

When Shin said this, it made me think what the New World looked like if it was in a map

"So how does the New World Look? from the sky of course," I asked

Shin took is time

but then finally answered

"You could say it looks like a badly drawn circle which is divided in the middle with the top part having another circle but this time smaller. The left side of the circle is Fayhall and the Right is Grimhold, At the top is Oceanspire."

I thought about something Shin said before and it didn't make sense

"If Oceanspire is the only

nation with water surrounding it, then what surrounds the other nations?"

Shin looked at me, but he looked like he was reliving past nightmares

"The Dark Forest, its an area beyond the nations which is overrun by powerful creatures, even the strongest Kin and Ronin users have trouble here"

"How big is it?"

"We don't know, no one has ever successfully explored The Dark Forest"

I changed the subject at hand

"So what happened to your friend"

Shin looked down at the table

"He was captured and given the death penalty, seeing as he destroyed Madhollow, Last time I went to Madhollow, the citizens were still rebuilding"

I didn't want to speak of this matter any longer, as it might be hard for Shin to talk about this topic

"So what do we do?" I asked

"We go to the spot where he left the Portal Finder and steal it:)"