Unfortunately, it looked like that line of questioning was a dead end for now. Trying to get Whitebone to stop firing arrows was apparently also a dead end, which was not surprising in the least. Maybe answering Flit's own questions would be the best course of action.

"Well, 'Wishbone' wasn't kidding when he said that. It's been a damn long time since this place could even be recognizable as a city. Been so long, in fact, that nobody even remembers what it was called before it fell. You'd probably know more about the city itself than we do."

Juliana paid little attention to Whitebone's antics, only showing a reaction when he started firing arrows. At that point, she shot him a glare to make it obvious that she was not impressed. Now wasn't the time to get all moody.

"Okay... Flit? I'm afraid that's not a name I'm familiar with. I do have another question, though. Like Whitebone asked, how the hell did you get trapped in a sword?

Finally, the being inside the sword said something that Juliana could actually understand and relate to. The feeling of being trapped against your own will... nobody should have to go through that. With that thought in mind, Juliana finally began to calm down. For now, though, all she could do was try and find all the information she could get.

"Alright, alright. Just calm down. Yes, the Fell used to be a city, but it was destroyed years ago. Right now, we're standing in the ruins of said city. If you're old enough to remember a time when this place was still a city, then your owner is certainly dead by now, by old age if nothing else."

Whatever was trapped in the sword was clearly not pleased with being overwhelmed by questions, so Juliana decided to take them one at a time.

"Okay, we'll start with something simple, then. What's your name? If you can even remember it, that is."

Juliana nodded in agreement to Whitebone's words.

"I know I can't say for certain, but when you find something half-buried in a place as dangerous as the Fell, it doesn't take much to put two and two together and conclude that the owner isn't sticking around. Besides, if anyone knows where your owner is, it should be you! You were with him when it happened, weren't you?"

It was obvious that the conversation was growing tenser, but Juliana didn't care. She'd never been great at trying to defuse a situation, anyways.

As Juliana watched Whitebone strike a pose with a pretend sword, she made a mental note to hold onto the real sword. She might not be too open to the idea of a talking sword, but handing it over just seemed downright dangerous.

Taking a deep breath, Juliana decided what she had to do. She was going to do the unthinkable. She was actually going to talk to the sword.

"...Alright, listen up. My name's Juliana, and that crazy-sounding guy is called Whitebone. We're here because we're looking for artifacts. Well, at least that's what I'm doing. As for your 'wielder'?"

She paused for a moment to think.

"If you're referring to your owner, they're probably dead. People generally don't leave this kind of stuff just lying around."

This couldn't be happening. It had to be the product of some messed up dream. Luckily, Juliana had an easy way of testing if this was the case. Disregarding the caution she had shown before, she poked the side of the sword... and immediately recoiled from pain.

"Ah!"

That hurt like hell, but nothing else changed. She was still standing there, holding a sword that was apparently capable of talking. Juliana couldn't make that up if she tried.

"Hey, I'm not 'chill'. How on earth can someone be calm when a sword starts talking to them? If someone doesn't explain this, I'm gonna lose my mind."

Juliana accepted the sword, once again examining the gem. It seemed to react more violently when she touched it, but now it seemed to have died down. For a moment, Juliana was a little worried that she had broken it, but not long after, the sword emitted a soft sound. Was that... a yawn? No, that obviously couldn't be it. Swords didn't yawn. However, it continued to do another thing that should have been impossible.

The sword talked.

Juliana's jaw practically hit the floor, her eyes alternating between staring at Whitebone and staring at the sword. This was ridiculous. It had to be some kind of joke, right?

...Right!?

"...That didn't happen. Tell me that didn't just happen."

Juliana's eyes grew wider as she noticed the gem start to glow. It definitely wasn't like that when she saw it lying on the ground. So, the sword must have been enchanted in some way after all. That was cool and all, but it also meant that swinging it around without knowing what it was capable of could be dangerous.

"Be careful with it. We don't know what that thing can do yet."

Juliana slowly leaned in closer to the sword, her eyes naturally drawn to the gem. Out of curiosity, she gently slid her finger across the gem to see if it would react somehow.

"I don't know if it has a name or not. Is it engraved anywhere?"

Juliana frowned disapprovingly when Whitebone shrugged off her question. Sure, it was a pretty unique sword, but she didn't think that was something to get so excited over. She was more interested in the sword's more supernatural quality, the ability to stand up to the ultimate trials of time without even a scratch. Something was definitely up with this sword, and Juliana was determined to figure it out.

"I don't know very much about weapons or enchantments, so I was kinda counting on you to know something about it. I just know there's something special about this sword, beyond how it looks."

Juliana jumped at Whitebone's sudden appearance, nearly dropping the sword out of surprise.

"Oh, for god's sake! You could at least warn me before popping up out of nowhere like that!"

The response was more out of shock than of anger, but it wasn't exactly easy to tell the difference with her. Taking a second to regain her composure, she then held the sword in front of herself so that Whitebone could see it.

"Check this thing out. It might look brand new, but I found it like this buried under a bunch of rubble. It looks really strange, so I thought it might have an enchantment of some sort. What do you think?"

After a few minutes of searching, Juliana finally felt the sensation of iron growing more prevalent. It didn't take long after that for her to pinpoint the object in question: a blade that had been buried in the ruins for god knows how long. Juliana took her time removing rubble from around the sword, being careful not to touch the blade of the sword. Afterwards, she slowly wrapped her hand around the handle, extracting the sword from the rubble and holding it up to the sun to examine it. It certainly looked customary made, with its odd shape and the gem planted on the hilt. Strangely, it looked brand new; the blade was completely devoid of rust, contrary to most metal found in the fell.

Trying to decide what to do with it, Juliana took a few small swings with the sword. A lot of people made doing so look easy, but the thing was a lot heavier that she expected. Tiring herself out pretty easily, she quickly decided to stop fooling around with it for now. Instead, she tried to find anything else unique about the sword. Judging by the embedded gem and untarnished metal, there was no doubt that it was enchanted in some way. However, she knew nothing beyond that, and the aura of the iron interfered with her sensing anything else coming from the sword. If she wanted to learn anything more, she'd need some help.

"Hey, Whitebone? I found something you might want to see!"

"Yeah, I'll be sure to be careful around here. Make sure you don't hurt yourself, either."

Leaving only those words, Juliana left to go explore the ruins on her own. Whitebone wasn't terrible company, but she did like to have some time to herself once in a while. Plus, this way each of them could examine whatever interested them without slowing the other down.

For Juliana, the first hour or so of exploring was... uneventful, to say the least. The closest thing to relics she came across were a few pages from various books scattered across the ruins. Unfortunately, they were all rendered essentially useless for one reason or another. Some of them included diagrams that were near impossible to understand without proper context, while others were written in a language that had likely been forgotten over such a long period of time. The most common problem, though, was that the pages were burnt beyond recognition. Regardless, Juliana decided to gather them up and keep them in case they proved useful at a later time. Mostly, she just didn't want to walk away from this place empty-handed.

As luck- or perhaps fate?- would have it, something unusual eventually happened. Juliana was searching around, trying to find buildings that were actually accessible, when a familiar sensation washed over her. She stopped dead in her tracks, trying to recall what the cause of that particular feeling was, when it hit her.

Iron.

Yes, the sensation was unmistakable. Juliana was approaching something made out of iron. The question was, where exactly was the object located? She couldn't simply try feeling around with her hands, as she would end up burning herself if she touched it directly. That really only left her with one option, which was to wander around like an idiot until she felt the sensation get more powerful.

Faaaaaaaantastic.

Juliana simply gave a nod in response. She wasn't entirely sure what she was going to be looking for in the ruins, but she had a few rough ideas. Most of all, she wanted something that could amplify her magical abilities, something that would help her to achieve her true potential. If no such thing could be found, though, then perhaps there were some writings left behind from the mages of ancient times. Finally, if she was going to frequently visit places like this in the future, something to defend herself with wouldn't hurt.

"Okay, lead the way." Juliana responded plainly, eager to get moving.

"Don't worry about it, I can eat while we're travelling."

Juliana was clearly more energetic than she was yesterday, after getting some rest and having a renewed sense of hope that she would actually find something in the Fell. She'd survived one night just fine, so she felt a lot more confident than she did initially. Heck, today might even be enjoyable.

Truth be told, Juliana was pretty relieved to wake up in the morning and realize that nothing too eventful  had occurred during the night. As far as she could tell, everything seemed the same. At the very least, it didn't look like they'd been ambushed during the night.

Juliana sat upright, spending a few minutes stretching and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. That wasn't the greatest sleep she'd ever had, and as a result she still felt a bit tired from the previous day's events. Eventually, she stood up, removing her hood and trying to fix her hair.

"Hey, are you awake yet?" she asked, not bothering to go and check for herself.

Juliana frowned, a little disappointed that they couldn't get moving right away. However, they couldn't exactly be walking for hours in the middle of the night. The best thing she could do was to try and get as much rest as possible.

"Alright, then. G'night."

With that, she approached the fire and curled up on the ground next to it, pulling the hood of her robe over her head. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable position, but she decided that it would have to make do. She stayed awake a little while longer, trying to shake off the feeling of dread that constantly radiated from the Fell. For all she knew, this might be a sleep that she never woke up from...

Finally, after a few minutes of silently staring into the fire, she drifted off to sleep.

Juliana crossed her arms and looked into the distance.

"Okay, as long as you're absolutely sure. But if I were you, I would've questioned what a person was doing in the Fell before inviting them into my shelter. There's no limit to people who are willing to take advantage of those willing to help them."

She paused for a moment, then shrugged.

"I guess there's no use trying to get someone who devotes their whole life to something to change their mind about it so easily, though. If that's what you want to do, then you'll end up doing it regardless."

Juliana glanced down at Whitebone, who was currently making himself comfortable on his bedroll.

"So, uh, when are we planning on leaving here?"

Juliana sighed and shook her head.

"Look, I'm going to be honest for a moment. I have no idea why you put so much more trust in me than you do in others, especially in a place like the Fell. You have no guarantee that I'm not lying to you, or at least that I don't have evil intentions. But, if you're really sure about showing me these ruins... then alright. That would be pretty cool."

Juliana shifted around, obviously uncomfortable when it came the the subject of her presence in the Fell. She didn't wish to divulge the true reason, as doing so would reveal details about herself that she preferred to keep hidden. On the other hand, though, she couldn't just outright refuse to answer the question without seeming incredibly suspicious. After thinking about it for a while, Juliana finally decided on an answer.

"...I'm searching for magical artifacts. You know, the kind of stuff that you would find here all the time before it became the Fell."

Again, it wasn't the whole truth, but as far as Juliana was concerned, giving away very little information was the best choice in this situation.

Juliana wondered what Whitebone meant by 'the balance'. Maybe it was a balance between being cautious and trying to enjoy yourself, or maybe there was some deeper meaning. Whatever it was, she really didn't want to think that right now.

"Whitebone? Pretty strange name," Juliana replied, without even considering that saying so could be considered offensive. She stared into the fire for a few seconds before realizing that she should probably introduce herself, too.

"Oh, right. My name's Juliana. As you've probably figured out by now, I'm a healer."

She didn't reveal too much about herself, which was usually the case with a person she'd just met recently.