My mystery captor walked in front of me, whose name I found out is Illesea, and seems to be the equivalent of a guard captain. The squad of elves that had been with us had dispersed and I was led to another chamber where several absolutely ancient-looking elves awaited, distinctly none of them looked like the Speaker had which seemed to confirm my suspicion that he was not an Elf.
The elves seated in the room did not deign to grace me with their name nor did they seem to care for mine in the slightest. When I sat in the room the pseudo interrogation began with a stare-off.
“You are human, yes?” The oldest-looking one in the certain spoke first. A lot more basic start than I was expecting but let’s see where this went. I could probably wrangle some info out of them about this world as well.
“Yes, I am.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five years old. How do you measure time here? In my world, it was 365 days to a year with every fourth year having a 366th day.”
“Time is measured the same here, where 365 days constitute a year. Although we do not have your extra day every fourth year. How advanced was your society? You say you have no magic and I see you have no classes or levels to speak of, and yet your pants are not made of natural fibers or material nor are they made of any that are created with magic here.”
“Ah yes clothes, speaking of which would it be possible to get some? It’s a little strange walking around half-naked talking to important people. As for society, we were sufficiently advanced. I don’t know much about magic so I wouldn’t be able to draw particularly accurate direct comparisons. I could speak for hours on inventions from my world with the surface-level knowledge that I have, but I don’t necessarily know that I could provide anything worthwhile on them.”
The one I was speaking with gestured with her hand and Illesea left the room, presumably to get my change of clothes. “Tell us what you know about those clothes than to start with.”
“Uhh, okay gimme a sec. And maybe close your eyes for a brief second? Or don’t see if I care.” I pulled down my pants to look at the tag on the inside.
“It says here that it’s made from 100% polyester. Polyester is a kind of synthetic material. So it’s not naturally occurring where I come from. If I remember correctly it’s derived from petroleum… I don’t necessarily know the process it’s made though.” Thank the lord for the internet. Long rabbit-hole wiki dives have finally come in useful.
“What is this petroleum you mentioned?”
“Petroleum is a fossil fuel, a better description might be as an energy source. That seems kind of oversimplified and not entirely accurate. Fossil Fuels as a whole are what make my world turn. It’s one of, if not the most, valuable things that exist. It was used for borderline everything, from clothing to transportation. Even some weapons used it.” At this point, Illesea walked back in with a light green tunic with pants and boots. I took the time to change into them during our conversation, eager to try them out. The shirt and pants fit perfectly. Too perfect, definitely magic involved with those. The boots actually physically changed size to match my feet and mold to be more comfortable, which was a very pleasant surprise.
“What kind of weapons did your society use?” And there it is one of the few questions I wasn’t really interested in answering.
“I don’t really want to answer that.”
“Why is that?” For the first time during our conversation, she actually seemed to take interest for once, although the interest went from human garbage to mildly interesting specimens. It still didn’t seem like she was necessarily respecting me, more just tolerating me.
“The weapons we created are devastating. Weapons that could accurately eliminate targets from beyond their sight, missiles that could target structures from miles away. Bombs could completely erase cities off the map and make the environment uninhabitable for years after killing everything within range either from the blast or the poison that seeped out afterwards. No, I’d much rather you not know what these things are. Even if I don’t know how to make them I don’t doubt that someone here is smart enough to figure it out from the little information I do know. And quite frankly our world couldn’t be trusted with those weapons, I have nothing to convince me this world would be any different with the same knowledge. If anything, if our world had your magic on top of science, we could create stuff of incomprehensible destruction. Not necessarily the kind of thing I want weighing on my conscience.”
‘How strange he is…’ Illesea thought to herself. The Human had adapted remarkably quickly to his situation. Unnervingly so from what she had managed to gather of his life so far. Initially, he had seemed terrified and confused, but the more he talked the more grounded his personality became. He did, as he said, seem to only have surface-level knowledge of most of the stuff he talked about. But even then that knowledge was more extensive than the vast majority of humans that lived in this realm, even if it was only superficial.
When asked about the most in-depth level of education he had received he said that it was music. I’m sure the elders would’ve preferred someone with a background in this science that he spoke of. It was extremely amusing to see him tell the elders ‘No’ to certain topics of discussion. The last person to tell them no to anything was several hundred years ago. They died shortly after.
Alex had also begun probing the elders for basic knowledge about this world from how to acquire a class to the different types and categories of magic. What was probably the most interesting was his ability to accurately guess certain things like compound elements from different types of magic and affinities. He attributed this knowledge to books from his world. It was interesting that someone in the fiction of his world had devised systems like ours as a form of entertainment.
The fact that the Speaker had not instantly kicked him out of the forest after determining he wasn’t a threat was interesting as well, the Speaker saw something about him that convinced it to let him stay. Was it something the Speaker saw, or was it something the Heart noticed? In the end, it didn’t really matter what the reason was, the fact of the matter was that it was happening. Which meant that she was more than likely going to be assigned to him for the duration of his stay. Her time with the guard had been starting to grow stagnant as it was. Watching over the young human would surely alleviate some of her boredom in the coming days.
After several hours of talks with the Elders, I finally put my hand up bringing the questions to a stop.
“I’d love to continue talking, but as it stands I’m extremely tired and hungry, and I kinda need to go relieve my bowels of their contents. Final question, since there is space magic or something similar, would it be possible to send me back to my realm? Potentially there’s some kind of fissure left behind where I came in?”
There was a brief pause before the answer came “That will not be possible. Not because we don’t want to, but in this specific instance where you ended up is the problem. Around the Heart's chambers are many enchantments that protect it, one of the enchantments instantly closes up any fissures in space or by other magics. So if a fissure that we could use had been left behind at all, it’s long since been closed up.”
Well, that was quite literally the best shot I ever had at getting back to Earth. Just my kind of luck. I sat for a while thinking things through before shelving the thought for now and standing up. “Alright then, thank you for your insight.” I gave a brief bow, might as well make an effort to be respectful to these people. A little effort goes a long way and all that.
“Indeed, we will speak again at some point. Illesea, you will be assigned to watch over him while he is here, maybe assist him with being able to withstand the mana density so that it is easier to move him around the city if necessary, you are allowed assistance if you feel it necessary for the time being. You are dismissed.” And with that, Illesea led me back out into the hall.
‘Ping’ You’ve conversed with the Elders of an elven citadel - 5 ability points awarded
The walk we took this time led me to a much easier area to breathe within. While we walked I let my mind wander over the information the elders had given me. Magic worked kind of like how one would normally expect, ice is weak to fire type of stuff. Apparently, you could compound elements to create other things, for example, you could combine water and earth to get mud magic, or you could combine fire and fire to get blast magic. Thankfully it seems you can’t combine two compound elements with each other. Not only does that save me the effort of having to try and learn a disgusting amount of magic types, but that also means no one can infinitely combine magic until they somehow get to some mega-ultra-op-super magic that does every type of damage all at once and is unblockable and practically irresistible. The elders weren’t interested in explaining the finer details of magic to me, more interested in trying to get as much information out of me as they could, but they had practically given Illesea orders to get me classes so I could better withstand the high concentrations of mana within most of their citadel. And from what I saw, the citadel was really the only way to describe this place.
It was like someone had plucked a painting of Rivendell and brought it to life. The area we left of what I had initially assumed to be a building could only be described as a World Tree. This incomprehensibly tall tree dwarfed everything around it. It was miles wide just around the base and easily extended beyond eyesight. Nature abounded in everything but was equally complemented by the fantastical architecture. Materials made purely from magic made up a huge portion of the designs. Metals, granite, marble, everything you could imagine and more constituted the make of everything in the city. Despite how neat and orderly everything was placed, there didn’t seem to be any division in the city. No specified districts as far as I could notice. We walked past a smithy and I could visibly see an elf working but no sound came from the hammer as she brought it down on the anvil.
Much of the general populace was walking around as Illesea led me through the different streets, and they were just as interested in me as I was in them. Every single one of them had the same level of perfection that Illesea had. Most of the interest was in general curiosity, some of the elves coming up and inspecting me before smiling gently and walking away. Others looked at me with just flat-out disgust. None of them spoke to me.
Eventually, we made it to what appeared to be the barracks for the guard.
“You’ll be staying here, it’ll be easier to keep an eye on you this way as well.” She continued to lead me inside and up to a room, as we walked by the other elves they stopped and gave Illesea a brief salute before continuing on their way. After going up a few flights of stairs I was led to a door which she opened for me and gestured me inside. It was a cozy little room with a personal bathroom, I was actually pretty surprised to see that. Other than that it was furnished with a few other things you’d usually see in a hotel room. There was no kitchen or anything similar, likely it was unnecessary given that there was probably a mess hall or something similar that the guards would eat in.
“Make yourself comfortable and I’ll bring you something you can eat shortly.” With that Illesea closed the door behind herself. The rest of my day was rather uneventful as Illesea brought me my food, which consisted of bread, salad, and surprisingly some meat, the leg of some creature. I wasn’t sure what it was but it certainly wasn’t chicken.
“If you need anything either myself or another will be outside your door at all times, I will come to collect you tomorrow several hours after dawn, and from there I’ll take you to get your first class.” After placing the plate of food on the table she excused herself and closed the door behind her.
After I ate, I laid down in bed thinking about everything that had led up to this point. Now that I wasn’t constantly under the stress of keeping the present under control I could think a bit more about the future. I didn’t particularly like what I saw. Once again it started to sink in that I was really alone in a completely different world. No friends, no family, nothing. The chances of me being able to actually find a way to get back as well did not look great either. Theoretically, my best shot was just going back the way I came in, but apparently, that was no longer an option.
I could feel the anxiety of my situation start to press in all around me. That choking feeling crashing down around your throat. I quickly cut down on those thoughts and started taking some deep breaths to center myself. I wasn’t going to get anywhere throwing a pity party for myself, sure my situation sucked but as far as bad situations go this could’ve been a lot worse. I had to look at the silver lining no matter where it was. I closed my eyes and tried to relax and get some rest. I needed to keep my chin up and keep looking forward. After all, I was getting my first class tomorrow.
My mystery captor walked in front of me, whose name I found out is Illesea, and seems to be the equivalent of a guard captain. The squad of elves that had been with us had dispersed and I was led to another chamber where several absolutely ancient-looking elves awaited, distinctly none of them looked like the Speaker had which seemed to confirm my suspicion that he was not an Elf.
The elves seated in the room did not deign to grace me with their name nor did they seem to care for mine in the slightest. When I sat in the room the pseudo interrogation began with a stare-off.
“You are human, yes?” The oldest-looking one in the certain spoke first. A lot more basic start than I was expecting but let’s see where this went. I could probably wrangle some info out of them about this world as well.
“Yes, I am.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five years old. How do you measure time here? In my world, it was 365 days to a year with every fourth year having a 366th day.”
“Time is measured the same here, where 365 days constitute a year. Although we do not have your extra day every fourth year. How advanced was your society? You say you have no magic and I see you have no classes or levels to speak of, and yet your pants are not made of natural fibers or material nor are they made of any that are created with magic here.”
“Ah yes clothes, speaking of which would it be possible to get some? It’s a little strange walking around half-naked talking to important people. As for society, we were sufficiently advanced. I don’t know much about magic so I wouldn’t be able to draw particularly accurate direct comparisons. I could speak for hours on inventions from my world with the surface-level knowledge that I have, but I don’t necessarily know that I could provide anything worthwhile on them.”
The one I was speaking with gestured with her hand and Illesea left the room, presumably to get my change of clothes. “Tell us what you know about those clothes than to start with.”
“Uhh, okay gimme a sec. And maybe close your eyes for a brief second? Or don’t see if I care.” I pulled down my pants to look at the tag on the inside.
“It says here that it’s made from 100% polyester. Polyester is a kind of synthetic material. So it’s not naturally occurring where I come from. If I remember correctly it’s derived from petroleum… I don’t necessarily know the process it’s made though.” Thank the lord for the internet. Long rabbit-hole wiki dives have finally come in useful.
“What is this petroleum you mentioned?”
“Petroleum is a fossil fuel, a better description might be as an energy source. That seems kind of oversimplified and not entirely accurate. Fossil Fuels as a whole are what make my world turn. It’s one of, if not the most, valuable things that exist. It was used for borderline everything, from clothing to transportation. Even some weapons used it.” At this point, Illesea walked back in with a light green tunic with pants and boots. I took the time to change into them during our conversation, eager to try them out. The shirt and pants fit perfectly. Too perfect, definitely magic involved with those. The boots actually physically changed size to match my feet and mold to be more comfortable, which was a very pleasant surprise.
“What kind of weapons did your society use?” And there it is one of the few questions I wasn’t really interested in answering.
“I don’t really want to answer that.”
“Why is that?” For the first time during our conversation, she actually seemed to take interest for once, although the interest went from human garbage to mildly interesting specimens. It still didn’t seem like she was necessarily respecting me, more just tolerating me.
“The weapons we created are devastating. Weapons that could accurately eliminate targets from beyond their sight, missiles that could target structures from miles away. Bombs could completely erase cities off the map and make the environment uninhabitable for years after killing everything within range either from the blast or the poison that seeped out afterwards. No, I’d much rather you not know what these things are. Even if I don’t know how to make them I don’t doubt that someone here is smart enough to figure it out from the little information I do know. And quite frankly our world couldn’t be trusted with those weapons, I have nothing to convince me this world would be any different with the same knowledge. If anything, if our world had your magic on top of science, we could create stuff of incomprehensible destruction. Not necessarily the kind of thing I want weighing on my conscience.”
‘How strange he is…’ Illesea thought to herself. The Human had adapted remarkably quickly to his situation. Unnervingly so from what she had managed to gather of his life so far. Initially, he had seemed terrified and confused, but the more he talked the more grounded his personality became. He did, as he said, seem to only have surface-level knowledge of most of the stuff he talked about. But even then that knowledge was more extensive than the vast majority of humans that lived in this realm, even if it was only superficial.
When asked about the most in-depth level of education he had received he said that it was music. I’m sure the elders would’ve preferred someone with a background in this science that he spoke of. It was extremely amusing to see him tell the elders ‘No’ to certain topics of discussion. The last person to tell them no to anything was several hundred years ago. They died shortly after.
Alex had also begun probing the elders for basic knowledge about this world from how to acquire a class to the different types and categories of magic. What was probably the most interesting was his ability to accurately guess certain things like compound elements from different types of magic and affinities. He attributed this knowledge to books from his world. It was interesting that someone in the fiction of his world had devised systems like ours as a form of entertainment.
The fact that the Speaker had not instantly kicked him out of the forest after determining he wasn’t a threat was interesting as well, the Speaker saw something about him that convinced it to let him stay. Was it something the Speaker saw, or was it something the Heart noticed? In the end, it didn’t really matter what the reason was, the fact of the matter was that it was happening. Which meant that she was more than likely going to be assigned to him for the duration of his stay. Her time with the guard had been starting to grow stagnant as it was. Watching over the young human would surely alleviate some of her boredom in the coming days.
After several hours of talks with the Elders, I finally put my hand up bringing the questions to a stop.
“I’d love to continue talking, but as it stands I’m extremely tired and hungry, and I kinda need to go relieve my bowels of their contents. Final question, since there is space magic or something similar, would it be possible to send me back to my realm? Potentially there’s some kind of fissure left behind where I came in?”
There was a brief pause before the answer came “That will not be possible. Not because we don’t want to, but in this specific instance where you ended up is the problem. Around the Heart's chambers are many enchantments that protect it, one of the enchantments instantly closes up any fissures in space or by other magics. So if a fissure that we could use had been left behind at all, it’s long since been closed up.”
Well, that was quite literally the best shot I ever had at getting back to Earth. Just my kind of luck. I sat for a while thinking things through before shelving the thought for now and standing up. “Alright then, thank you for your insight.” I gave a brief bow, might as well make an effort to be respectful to these people. A little effort goes a long way and all that.
“Indeed, we will speak again at some point. Illesea, you will be assigned to watch over him while he is here, maybe assist him with being able to withstand the mana density so that it is easier to move him around the city if necessary, you are allowed assistance if you feel it necessary for the time being. You are dismissed.” And with that, Illesea led me back out into the hall.
‘Ping’ You’ve conversed with the Elders of an elven citadel - 5 ability points awarded
The walk we took this time led me to a much easier area to breathe within. While we walked I let my mind wander over the information the elders had given me. Magic worked kind of like how one would normally expect, ice is weak to fire type of stuff. Apparently, you could compound elements to create other things, for example, you could combine water and earth to get mud magic, or you could combine fire and fire to get blast magic. Thankfully it seems you can’t combine two compound elements with each other. Not only does that save me the effort of having to try and learn a disgusting amount of magic types, but that also means no one can infinitely combine magic until they somehow get to some mega-ultra-op-super magic that does every type of damage all at once and is unblockable and practically irresistible. The elders weren’t interested in explaining the finer details of magic to me, more interested in trying to get as much information out of me as they could, but they had practically given Illesea orders to get me classes so I could better withstand the high concentrations of mana within most of their citadel. And from what I saw, the citadel was really the only way to describe this place.
It was like someone had plucked a painting of Rivendell and brought it to life. The area we left of what I had initially assumed to be a building could only be described as a World Tree. This incomprehensibly tall tree dwarfed everything around it. It was miles wide just around the base and easily extended beyond eyesight. Nature abounded in everything but was equally complemented by the fantastical architecture. Materials made purely from magic made up a huge portion of the designs. Metals, granite, marble, everything you could imagine and more constituted the make of everything in the city. Despite how neat and orderly everything was placed, there didn’t seem to be any division in the city. No specified districts as far as I could notice. We walked past a smithy and I could visibly see an elf working but no sound came from the hammer as she brought it down on the anvil.
Much of the general populace was walking around as Illesea led me through the different streets, and they were just as interested in me as I was in them. Every single one of them had the same level of perfection that Illesea had. Most of the interest was in general curiosity, some of the elves coming up and inspecting me before smiling gently and walking away. Others looked at me with just flat-out disgust. None of them spoke to me.
Eventually, we made it to what appeared to be the barracks for the guard.
“You’ll be staying here, it’ll be easier to keep an eye on you this way as well.” She continued to lead me inside and up to a room, as we walked by the other elves they stopped and gave Illesea a brief salute before continuing on their way. After going up a few flights of stairs I was led to a door which she opened for me and gestured me inside. It was a cozy little room with a personal bathroom, I was actually pretty surprised to see that. Other than that it was furnished with a few other things you’d usually see in a hotel room. There was no kitchen or anything similar, likely it was unnecessary given that there was probably a mess hall or something similar that the guards would eat in.
“Make yourself comfortable and I’ll bring you something you can eat shortly.” With that Illesea closed the door behind herself. The rest of my day was rather uneventful as Illesea brought me my food, which consisted of bread, salad, and surprisingly some meat, the leg of some creature. I wasn’t sure what it was but it certainly wasn’t chicken.
“If you need anything either myself or another will be outside your door at all times, I will come to collect you tomorrow several hours after dawn, and from there I’ll take you to get your first class.” After placing the plate of food on the table she excused herself and closed the door behind her.
After I ate, I laid down in bed thinking about everything that had led up to this point. Now that I wasn’t constantly under the stress of keeping the present under control I could think a bit more about the future. I didn’t particularly like what I saw. Once again it started to sink in that I was really alone in a completely different world. No friends, no family, nothing. The chances of me being able to actually find a way to get back as well did not look great either. Theoretically, my best shot was just going back the way I came in, but apparently, that was no longer an option.
I could feel the anxiety of my situation start to press in all around me. That choking feeling crashing down around your throat. I quickly cut down on those thoughts and started taking some deep breaths to center myself. I wasn’t going to get anywhere throwing a pity party for myself, sure my situation sucked but as far as bad situations go this could’ve been a lot worse. I had to look at the silver lining no matter where it was. I closed my eyes and tried to relax and get some rest. I needed to keep my chin up and keep looking forward. After all, I was getting my first class tomorrow.
