Garrus woke me up early the next morning. I always seemed to be the last one awake, I guess my enjoyment of sleep was something that didn’t change with my race when I got to this world.
“Time to get up lad, you’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of you.” He said softly.
I nodded groggily, stretching while I sat up. I quickly ate and got ready and we sat together in the room going over everything one last time.
“Okay, so Karif you’ve got the enchanted item?” Garrus turned to look at Karif who nodded in return.
“Went ahead and just made it something simple like you said. A rock. Not exactly glamorous but that’s kind of the point. Will be easy enough to hide on your person and people won’t be inclined to try and steal it.”
He held his hand out and I took the small stone, it was easily able to fit in the palm of my hand. Definitely convenient, I was more worried about losing it than anything else honestly.
“Alright, so you’ll head out on your own. After about thirty or so minutes, Penny will head out with the rest of us and then catch up with him and watch over from a distance with your skills. We’ll avoid the town and go around the outside and sit on the Vinwood side so nobody walking between the two towns will wander across us as we’re camping out. Alex, you got a story ready?”
I nodded, “Yeah. Simple as well but believable from their perspective. You kicked me out because the people of Poulten acted up as well. It had started to become too much of a hassle for y’all to deal with. So I’m stopping in Muldren to gather a few supplies to make the trip back to Vinwood and then head out from there.”
“Good. Simple is best. Overly complicated lies tend to be more difficult to maintain, this makes it easy on both ends. Alright, any questions before you start moving?”
Nobody said anything. We were nervous, which was understandable. This plan was dangerous and put a lot of risk on my shoulders. Any amount of screw-up could potentially get me killed and that was something no one wanted to have happen, especially me.
“Alright then. Alex, get moving and stay safe. We’ll be watching over you, so don’t be too nervous alright?” He gave me a coy smile as I stood up.
I chuckled lightly despite the tension wracking my stomach. I then opened the door and walked out. As I walked down the road headed out of town I had a strange feeling. Not in the ‘I’m being watched’ way, more just it felt strange to be on my own in this situation. I know I had volunteered for this position, and I still believed it to be the right call. It just felt strange overall.
I kept my sense skills active, alternating between the two. I was slowly getting to the point where I could run both in tandem, it was still a bit difficult to differentiate between the two of them though. There was a bit of overlap that made it hard to tell what I was seeing or if I was seeing anything at all.
Now that I wasn’t walking with a group I was able to set my own pace. It was faster than what it had been before, I wanted to make it back to Muldren as soon as possible. The more time I spent there the more of an opportunity for me to be abducted. Or something along those lines. As I walked I kept a lookout around me while fiddling with my status, just looking at it to make sure I hadn’t missed anything since my classup.
It looks like I have managed to find everything for now, I assumed Karif would’ve told me if I had something I hadn’t been looking at already. After a while of walking, I began to fiddle with my other skills as well. I still hadn’t quite gotten over the giddy feeling of having magic. I caused sparks to fly off my fingers, I was able to mold electricity to do plenty of things beyond just what my skills allowed me to do.
In fact, that idea even got me thinking. A lot of the human body is controlled by electrical pulses from the brain through the nervous system. I wonder if I could override that. My main thought was that reflexes were based on how fast you recognized something added to the time it took the pulse to travel through your body. At least that was my primitive understanding of how it worked, I’m no doctor after all. But what if I could hijack that and just use magic to bypass the time it needed to travel and directly control the part of my body by creating the impulse where it needed to be so it didn’t have to travel?
This was going to be something that took a little bit of practice to get the hang of. And was also probably extremely dangerous. What if I sent something strong and fried my nervous system? Well, I could probably fix it, but I doubted it would be a pleasant experience altogether. My next idea was to speed up my thought process. The synapses firing in the brain were also electrical or at least some of them were. Others were chemical I think? Well, what if I could speed that process up with my control of electricity? I believe the electrical ones controlled things like eyesight, motor controls, and memory. There were probably others but I couldn’t remember everything off the top of my head. It had been roughly 8 years since I’d had any sort of biology learning. So I was kind of just pulling everything I had from memory.
This idea, though, seemed even more dangerous. The last thing I needed to do was fry my brain and then not be able to think at all. I’m sure someone here in this world had discovered this use of electricity already though, so in reality I just needed to find out what these people had learned and just utilize the knowledge they already possessed. So maybe some academy somewhere? A good old-fashioned school training arc?
I chuckled at the thought. I remember always enjoying those when reading books. Seeing the main character learn from someone and become stronger and more powerful in a short amount of time as they learn how to control their overwhelming strength. I didn’t hold the belief that the same would be true for me.
I certainly had some special circumstances surrounding me and had gotten one hell of an advantage through having this heart and being turned into an elf. But there was no doubt in my mind that strength wise I was still nothing special. There were plenty of people out there who were stronger than I am and smarter to boot. I was coasting on gifts given by people of unfathomable strength. A heart of a being as old as time and a sword crafted by someone with a unique class. My strength wasn’t truly my own as far as I was concerned. I had put in an amount of work, but it was only achievable by what I had been given so far. It was definitely a lot to try and live up to.
I moved my mind off the deprecating path it was on. There was no point in trying to put myself down. Regardless of circumstances I had stood on my own two legs and fought and gotten stronger because of it. That was something no one else could take away from me. Now that I thought about it though, it had been a while since I fought anything and gotten any levels. I was excited to put points into my enhancements and get stronger.
I spent the rest of my walk fiddling with skills and idly thinking about my future in this world and how I was planning on getting back home, and before I knew it I was back at Muldren. I flickered between my two sense skills.
‘Ping’ [Mana Sense] has leveled 1 > 2
Well, it was about time I guess. But using my senses I could see practically everyone in town, or at least feel their presence. As I got closer to the town I noticed there wasn’t a guard out on this side of town. Which was strange considering there had been one when we had left the previous day. Looking further into town I sensed two people with significantly larger mana sources than anyone else. These sources were comparable to second, probably even third-tier classes. I didn’t have a lot of experience to base it on but they looked about as large as Karif or Garrus in terms of strength. Maybe these were the ones blackmailing the town.
I moved through the town sticking to the alleys between houses, doing my best to move quickly and quietly while staying in the shadows. It took me a while to carefully navigate through the town without being seen, but I finally managed to set sight on the two sources I had sensed. It was two men wearing matching uniforms with a crest on them I didn’t quite recognize. It looked like the royal symbol of Seltas, but it seemed like it was a variation of it. I assumed they were from some government branch. But why were they here, and who exactly were they?
As soon as I had that thought the older of the two who had been talking to one of the townsfolk stopped and whipped around placing his hand on the sword at his waist. “I know you’re there, show yourself.”
Wow, had he really managed to detect me? I hadn’t made a single sound in my movement, but just because I stared at him for a while he managed to feel my presence. Honestly, it was pretty impressive.
[Level 22 (T3)]
That made more sense to me. He was out leveled me, and he probably had skills designed for this sort of thing. I decided hiding wouldn’t be my best option. I doubted these guys were involved, in which case talking to them would be a good idea if they were here to help. If they were involved then talking to them was still my best option.
With my mind made up I came out from the alley I had been skulking in. The older gentlemen instantly locked eyes with me as I came out. His eyes widened a fraction in surprise as he noticed my ears but otherwise didn’t make any other motions as I approached. The younger man, on the other hand, instantly started speaking what was on his mind.
“Wow, are you an elf? That’s so strange, what is one of you doing out here anyway? I’ve never actually seen one before. I had heard all of you were high-level and refused to leave your settlements but here you are. You’re not high level, are you a renegade?”
I stopped in surprise. He just instantly rattled off a bunch of different questions, I wasn’t quite sure which one to answer first. I glanced back at the older one, who stared at me for a while before sighing and relaxing.
“Jalen, I’ve said this before. But will you please shut up? I will handle the talking for now.”
“Whatever,” Jalen replied with a huff, but otherwise remained silent.
“I’m Investigator Warren, and this is my trainee Jalen. We were sent here after receiving reports of disappearances in the area. If you don’t mind, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Would you be willing to come with us?” Warren spoke clearly and calmly. He was confident but probably had every reason to be given his level.
I nodded slightly, “I’d be willing to do that.”
Warren led me back to the inn where we sat down at one of the tables there. He got out a small item, it looked like it had some carvings on it. He channeled some mana into it and placed it on the table.
Warren noticed me staring at the item, “It’s an artifact that prevents people from listening in. You can speak without fear that anyone will overhear you. If you would, start with your name and why you’re here?”
“Sure. My name is Alex, I was here with a party looking into the disappearances as well. But we’ve since gone our separate ways after a disagreement.”
“Your name is just Alex?” He gave me an inquisitive look. Something about what I had said seemed strange to him, I couldn’t understand why. I probably wasn’t the first elf he had come into contact with.
I just gave him a friendly smile, “Just Alex.” I saw no reason to tell him my full name. I wondered if most elves introduced themselves with the name of the forest they came from or something like that.
He nodded slowly. “What party were you with and why exactly did you go your separate ways?”
“The Earth Raiders. We came through Muldren initially but we were stopped at the front gate because I’m an elf. I’m still not sure exactly why, but it seemed the guard had a particular problem with elves, maybe some superstitious stuff. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Well, we went to Poulten and the same thing happened. At that point, the rest of the group decided they’d had enough of dealing with it and decided it’d be easier for them just to cut me out. So I’m moving back to Vinwood and I’ll plan my next steps from there.” I said the last bit with a light shrug.
Warren wrote down some notes, his hands moving rapidly in time with my words. He finished shortly after I did and tapped his writing device against the papers he was writing on. I was curious about what he was using to write. It didn’t look like a quill or a pencil. It looked somewhat similar to a pen but had a translucent blue body that then filed down to a point. I could see mana swirling around inside creating a beautiful display with what seemed to be a type of gem forming the shell of the pen. I was slightly entranced with the artistry of the device.
I was shocked out of my inner thoughts as Warren gave a slight cough to bring my attention back. “You said you were here investigating the disappearances as well. Have you managed to discover anything of use?” Every time he spoke with me he made eye contact. At first, I thought he was just being polite, but then I started to think maybe he had a skill that helped him with discerning the truth. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to lie to him and get away with it. But I still had to go through with the plan regardless.
“From the people in town? No. They refused to talk to us at every turn. The first person we even were able to communicate with on any topic was the guy from the bread store, and that had been a fluke.” Technically the truth, specifically none of the people in Muldren had talked to us. Based on how you wanted to spin it Clayton is a Muldren resident. But I felt that was a stretch for a lie-detecting skill.
Warren’s eyes narrowed slightly as I spoke. He was very clearly suspicious of me, but made zero effort to hide it, or apparently even act on it.
“I see. How long do you plan to be here until you move out?” I was a little shocked, I figured he’d detain me or something until he got the truth. From me, although I still didn’t really know who he was or what authority he even had. Maybe he wasn’t allowed to do that.
“A few days, it’s a few days walk from here to Vinwood and I’m just about out of food. I plan to gather some food before heading out there.”
Warren nodded, writing a few more things down. “That’s all I have, you may go. You will want to leave town sooner rather than later. People around your level have been the ones disappearing from here, so if you don’t want to be next I suggest you move quickly.”
“I will keep that in mind, sir, thank you for the warning.” I stood up and walked up to the innkeeper to pay for a room for the evening.
“That was eventful,” I whispered lightly to myself, hopefully, it would pan out from here.
Warren let out a sigh as the elf walked away.
“What’s up with that, he didn’t tell us practically anything, seems really suspicious if you ask me. A lone elf at that low of a level just doesn’t seem natural. Maybe he’s the one behind all the disappearances?”
“You’re almost correct for once, Jalen,” Warren said in response to the young man's volatile sentences. “He is suspicious and he told us practically nothing. He is not hiding his level, however. He is just that low of a level. This is most definitely strange for an elf, but everyone starts from level 1, and elves are no different. As for whether or not he’s behind the disappearances, I’m not entirely sure. I do know that he’s hiding something from us, but his intentions didn’t seem harmful. He also caught on to the fact that I was testing him with skills. So either he’s just naturally distrustful, or he’s a hell of a lot smarter than he lets on. I hope that it’s the former. It’ll be a pain to deal with him if it’s the latter.”
Warren let out a long sigh and massaged his temple. “Come along Jalen, let's go see if any of these other prudes will cough anything up.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Garrus woke me up early the next morning. I always seemed to be the last one awake, I guess my enjoyment of sleep was something that didn’t change with my race when I got to this world.
“Time to get up lad, you’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of you.” He said softly.
I nodded groggily, stretching while I sat up. I quickly ate and got ready and we sat together in the room going over everything one last time.
“Okay, so Karif you’ve got the enchanted item?” Garrus turned to look at Karif who nodded in return.
“Went ahead and just made it something simple like you said. A rock. Not exactly glamorous but that’s kind of the point. Will be easy enough to hide on your person and people won’t be inclined to try and steal it.”
He held his hand out and I took the small stone, it was easily able to fit in the palm of my hand. Definitely convenient, I was more worried about losing it than anything else honestly.
“Alright, so you’ll head out on your own. After about thirty or so minutes, Penny will head out with the rest of us and then catch up with him and watch over from a distance with your skills. We’ll avoid the town and go around the outside and sit on the Vinwood side so nobody walking between the two towns will wander across us as we’re camping out. Alex, you got a story ready?”
I nodded, “Yeah. Simple as well but believable from their perspective. You kicked me out because the people of Poulten acted up as well. It had started to become too much of a hassle for y’all to deal with. So I’m stopping in Muldren to gather a few supplies to make the trip back to Vinwood and then head out from there.”
“Good. Simple is best. Overly complicated lies tend to be more difficult to maintain, this makes it easy on both ends. Alright, any questions before you start moving?”
Nobody said anything. We were nervous, which was understandable. This plan was dangerous and put a lot of risk on my shoulders. Any amount of screw-up could potentially get me killed and that was something no one wanted to have happen, especially me.
“Alright then. Alex, get moving and stay safe. We’ll be watching over you, so don’t be too nervous alright?” He gave me a coy smile as I stood up.
I chuckled lightly despite the tension wracking my stomach. I then opened the door and walked out. As I walked down the road headed out of town I had a strange feeling. Not in the ‘I’m being watched’ way, more just it felt strange to be on my own in this situation. I know I had volunteered for this position, and I still believed it to be the right call. It just felt strange overall.
I kept my sense skills active, alternating between the two. I was slowly getting to the point where I could run both in tandem, it was still a bit difficult to differentiate between the two of them though. There was a bit of overlap that made it hard to tell what I was seeing or if I was seeing anything at all.
Now that I wasn’t walking with a group I was able to set my own pace. It was faster than what it had been before, I wanted to make it back to Muldren as soon as possible. The more time I spent there the more of an opportunity for me to be abducted. Or something along those lines. As I walked I kept a lookout around me while fiddling with my status, just looking at it to make sure I hadn’t missed anything since my classup.
It looks like I have managed to find everything for now, I assumed Karif would’ve told me if I had something I hadn’t been looking at already. After a while of walking, I began to fiddle with my other skills as well. I still hadn’t quite gotten over the giddy feeling of having magic. I caused sparks to fly off my fingers, I was able to mold electricity to do plenty of things beyond just what my skills allowed me to do.
In fact, that idea even got me thinking. A lot of the human body is controlled by electrical pulses from the brain through the nervous system. I wonder if I could override that. My main thought was that reflexes were based on how fast you recognized something added to the time it took the pulse to travel through your body. At least that was my primitive understanding of how it worked, I’m no doctor after all. But what if I could hijack that and just use magic to bypass the time it needed to travel and directly control the part of my body by creating the impulse where it needed to be so it didn’t have to travel?
This was going to be something that took a little bit of practice to get the hang of. And was also probably extremely dangerous. What if I sent something strong and fried my nervous system? Well, I could probably fix it, but I doubted it would be a pleasant experience altogether. My next idea was to speed up my thought process. The synapses firing in the brain were also electrical or at least some of them were. Others were chemical I think? Well, what if I could speed that process up with my control of electricity? I believe the electrical ones controlled things like eyesight, motor controls, and memory. There were probably others but I couldn’t remember everything off the top of my head. It had been roughly 8 years since I’d had any sort of biology learning. So I was kind of just pulling everything I had from memory.
This idea, though, seemed even more dangerous. The last thing I needed to do was fry my brain and then not be able to think at all. I’m sure someone here in this world had discovered this use of electricity already though, so in reality I just needed to find out what these people had learned and just utilize the knowledge they already possessed. So maybe some academy somewhere? A good old-fashioned school training arc?
I chuckled at the thought. I remember always enjoying those when reading books. Seeing the main character learn from someone and become stronger and more powerful in a short amount of time as they learn how to control their overwhelming strength. I didn’t hold the belief that the same would be true for me.
I certainly had some special circumstances surrounding me and had gotten one hell of an advantage through having this heart and being turned into an elf. But there was no doubt in my mind that strength wise I was still nothing special. There were plenty of people out there who were stronger than I am and smarter to boot. I was coasting on gifts given by people of unfathomable strength. A heart of a being as old as time and a sword crafted by someone with a unique class. My strength wasn’t truly my own as far as I was concerned. I had put in an amount of work, but it was only achievable by what I had been given so far. It was definitely a lot to try and live up to.
I moved my mind off the deprecating path it was on. There was no point in trying to put myself down. Regardless of circumstances I had stood on my own two legs and fought and gotten stronger because of it. That was something no one else could take away from me. Now that I thought about it though, it had been a while since I fought anything and gotten any levels. I was excited to put points into my enhancements and get stronger.
I spent the rest of my walk fiddling with skills and idly thinking about my future in this world and how I was planning on getting back home, and before I knew it I was back at Muldren. I flickered between my two sense skills.
‘Ping’ [Mana Sense] has leveled 1 > 2
Well, it was about time I guess. But using my senses I could see practically everyone in town, or at least feel their presence. As I got closer to the town I noticed there wasn’t a guard out on this side of town. Which was strange considering there had been one when we had left the previous day. Looking further into town I sensed two people with significantly larger mana sources than anyone else. These sources were comparable to second, probably even third-tier classes. I didn’t have a lot of experience to base it on but they looked about as large as Karif or Garrus in terms of strength. Maybe these were the ones blackmailing the town.
I moved through the town sticking to the alleys between houses, doing my best to move quickly and quietly while staying in the shadows. It took me a while to carefully navigate through the town without being seen, but I finally managed to set sight on the two sources I had sensed. It was two men wearing matching uniforms with a crest on them I didn’t quite recognize. It looked like the royal symbol of Seltas, but it seemed like it was a variation of it. I assumed they were from some government branch. But why were they here, and who exactly were they?
As soon as I had that thought the older of the two who had been talking to one of the townsfolk stopped and whipped around placing his hand on the sword at his waist. “I know you’re there, show yourself.”
Wow, had he really managed to detect me? I hadn’t made a single sound in my movement, but just because I stared at him for a while he managed to feel my presence. Honestly, it was pretty impressive.
[Level 22 (T3)]
That made more sense to me. He was out leveled me, and he probably had skills designed for this sort of thing. I decided hiding wouldn’t be my best option. I doubted these guys were involved, in which case talking to them would be a good idea if they were here to help. If they were involved then talking to them was still my best option.
With my mind made up I came out from the alley I had been skulking in. The older gentlemen instantly locked eyes with me as I came out. His eyes widened a fraction in surprise as he noticed my ears but otherwise didn’t make any other motions as I approached. The younger man, on the other hand, instantly started speaking what was on his mind.
“Wow, are you an elf? That’s so strange, what is one of you doing out here anyway? I’ve never actually seen one before. I had heard all of you were high-level and refused to leave your settlements but here you are. You’re not high level, are you a renegade?”
I stopped in surprise. He just instantly rattled off a bunch of different questions, I wasn’t quite sure which one to answer first. I glanced back at the older one, who stared at me for a while before sighing and relaxing.
“Jalen, I’ve said this before. But will you please shut up? I will handle the talking for now.”
“Whatever,” Jalen replied with a huff, but otherwise remained silent.
“I’m Investigator Warren, and this is my trainee Jalen. We were sent here after receiving reports of disappearances in the area. If you don’t mind, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Would you be willing to come with us?” Warren spoke clearly and calmly. He was confident but probably had every reason to be given his level.
I nodded slightly, “I’d be willing to do that.”
Warren led me back to the inn where we sat down at one of the tables there. He got out a small item, it looked like it had some carvings on it. He channeled some mana into it and placed it on the table.
Warren noticed me staring at the item, “It’s an artifact that prevents people from listening in. You can speak without fear that anyone will overhear you. If you would, start with your name and why you’re here?”
“Sure. My name is Alex, I was here with a party looking into the disappearances as well. But we’ve since gone our separate ways after a disagreement.”
“Your name is just Alex?” He gave me an inquisitive look. Something about what I had said seemed strange to him, I couldn’t understand why. I probably wasn’t the first elf he had come into contact with.
I just gave him a friendly smile, “Just Alex.” I saw no reason to tell him my full name. I wondered if most elves introduced themselves with the name of the forest they came from or something like that.
He nodded slowly. “What party were you with and why exactly did you go your separate ways?”
“The Earth Raiders. We came through Muldren initially but we were stopped at the front gate because I’m an elf. I’m still not sure exactly why, but it seemed the guard had a particular problem with elves, maybe some superstitious stuff. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Well, we went to Poulten and the same thing happened. At that point, the rest of the group decided they’d had enough of dealing with it and decided it’d be easier for them just to cut me out. So I’m moving back to Vinwood and I’ll plan my next steps from there.” I said the last bit with a light shrug.
Warren wrote down some notes, his hands moving rapidly in time with my words. He finished shortly after I did and tapped his writing device against the papers he was writing on. I was curious about what he was using to write. It didn’t look like a quill or a pencil. It looked somewhat similar to a pen but had a translucent blue body that then filed down to a point. I could see mana swirling around inside creating a beautiful display with what seemed to be a type of gem forming the shell of the pen. I was slightly entranced with the artistry of the device.
I was shocked out of my inner thoughts as Warren gave a slight cough to bring my attention back. “You said you were here investigating the disappearances as well. Have you managed to discover anything of use?” Every time he spoke with me he made eye contact. At first, I thought he was just being polite, but then I started to think maybe he had a skill that helped him with discerning the truth. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to lie to him and get away with it. But I still had to go through with the plan regardless.
“From the people in town? No. They refused to talk to us at every turn. The first person we even were able to communicate with on any topic was the guy from the bread store, and that had been a fluke.” Technically the truth, specifically none of the people in Muldren had talked to us. Based on how you wanted to spin it Clayton is a Muldren resident. But I felt that was a stretch for a lie-detecting skill.
Warren’s eyes narrowed slightly as I spoke. He was very clearly suspicious of me, but made zero effort to hide it, or apparently even act on it.
“I see. How long do you plan to be here until you move out?” I was a little shocked, I figured he’d detain me or something until he got the truth. From me, although I still didn’t really know who he was or what authority he even had. Maybe he wasn’t allowed to do that.
“A few days, it’s a few days walk from here to Vinwood and I’m just about out of food. I plan to gather some food before heading out there.”
Warren nodded, writing a few more things down. “That’s all I have, you may go. You will want to leave town sooner rather than later. People around your level have been the ones disappearing from here, so if you don’t want to be next I suggest you move quickly.”
“I will keep that in mind, sir, thank you for the warning.” I stood up and walked up to the innkeeper to pay for a room for the evening.
“That was eventful,” I whispered lightly to myself, hopefully, it would pan out from here.
Warren let out a sigh as the elf walked away.
“What’s up with that, he didn’t tell us practically anything, seems really suspicious if you ask me. A lone elf at that low of a level just doesn’t seem natural. Maybe he’s the one behind all the disappearances?”
“You’re almost correct for once, Jalen,” Warren said in response to the young man's volatile sentences. “He is suspicious and he told us practically nothing. He is not hiding his level, however. He is just that low of a level. This is most definitely strange for an elf, but everyone starts from level 1, and elves are no different. As for whether or not he’s behind the disappearances, I’m not entirely sure. I do know that he’s hiding something from us, but his intentions didn’t seem harmful. He also caught on to the fact that I was testing him with skills. So either he’s just naturally distrustful, or he’s a hell of a lot smarter than he lets on. I hope that it’s the former. It’ll be a pain to deal with him if it’s the latter.”
Warren let out a long sigh and massaged his temple. “Come along Jalen, let's go see if any of these other prudes will cough anything up.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
