I was herded by the guardsmen into a building off to the side of the gate on the inside. They pushed me in through the door after confiscating all of my stuff minus the money in my arm.
I just grit my teeth and didn’t do anything to provoke them for the moment.
The building itself was pretty large and had several floors. It was relatively plain with minimal windows, a lot of which had bars over them. So a guardhouse and or prison. They led me over to the stairs before pushing me down them, and I mean that literally. I caught myself with my high dexterity so I managed to keep from tumbling down the stone stairs, I turned back to them with a hateful glare. But the guard that pushed me just gave me a challenging look basically saying, “What are you gonna do about it punk?”
Right now? Nothing.
They kept pushing me until they got me into a cell before closing and locking the door. I just frowned and looked around, it was kind of shabby but not as horrible as I thought it would be. I flashed a bit of magic to heal myself.
Or at least I tried to, runes along the cell door and walls flashed at the same time my skill should’ve activated, but it instead didn’t. The mana was still spent though. A couple of the guards just let out a barking laugh before walking away.
Obviously, they weren’t interested in telling me what that was about, but I could take a guess. It made sense that there would be some way to prevent people from using skills, otherwise, how would you be able to hold prisoners if they could just use their abilities and break out whenever they wanted? There had to be an upper limit on it though, probably something that existed on the skill of whoever cast or created the runes.
Whatever. I sat down against the wall and tried to make myself comfortable while I ran through scenarios in my mind.
Did they find out that I hopped the border? Unlikely, the guys at the border didn’t know I was an elf, and they would’ve had no way of knowing where I was headed. Even on Earth, they would’ve had a hard time apprehending me with the speed I could display. I could outrun most vehicles and if they lost sight of me at best they’d be able to get a general description of me that they could circulate, but not everyone would memorize that information, and if I ran several states over they wouldn’t be looking to try and apprehend me at all there. So it didn’t seem likely that the guards here knew of me or what I did. If they had they would’ve arrested me the moment they saw me rather than when they saw my ears.
So there had to be something about being an elf that they weren’t happy about. What would that be though? Did an elf come through here and cause a bunch of problems? That seems unlikely as well considering the only elves I’ve ever seen were the ones in the forest and the only one I’ve ever seen outside of that forest was Illesea, I’ve yet to even hear of another elf just wandering around freely. It just doesn’t seem to be something they do.
Something just isn’t adding up.
I whiled the hours away trying to come up with plausible reasons as to why this was happening but I just kept coming up blank. Eventually, I just gave up slowly knocking my head against the stone wall.
Even when you don’t do anything blatantly wrong you still get in trouble. I never really expected this to happen to me, but here I was. I wasn’t entirely sure how to handle it. Other than being irrationally angry. However was it really irrational if it was unreasonable detainment? I didn’t particularly think so.
I glanced around the cell I was in.
It was a solid block of stone with a small grate at the top to let natural light in, there was a door on the front that was made out of reinforced wood with a small barred window on it for the guards to look through. There was a small bucket in the corner that hadn’t been emptied since the last occupant had been in there. So it left an extremely unpleasant smell that had me feeling nauseous thanks to my enhanced sense of smell thanks to stats.
I’m not sure how much time in total passed but it was at least several hours before I heard someone walk up to the door of my cell and stop. Keys clinked against metal as they worked on unlocking the door before it opened. A guard entered, giving me a steely glare before gesturing with his head.
“Come on, scum. Captain wants to have a chat.”
I stared at him a few more seconds before slowly standing up, hissing slightly as the movement aggravated the small wounds on my back and side. They weren’t life-threatening, but they still went deep enough to be pretty painful. They had been throbbing the entire time, but sitting still enough prevented it from really bothering me, now though they flared up again with the movement making their existence apparent to my body.
I was led further down the hall into the building before they led me into a room where there was a table with a chain on it. They had me sit in the chair in front of it.
“Wrists together in front of you.” The guard said with a hint of boredom, he had obviously gone through this more than a few times.
I complied putting them together, giving the man his first glimpse at my wooden arm.
“Take the arm off.” He said a lot more alert now that I had an unpredictable element.
I frowned and attempted to comply, but the runes on the wall flashed again.
“I can’t.” I replied, “It was formed with magic and is directly attached to my arm, there isn’t a way to pull it off since I didn’t anticipate having to take it off without magic.”
He stood glaring at me before reaching back without looking and knocking on the door, a guy leaned in.
“Fetch Jervin. Need him to take a look at something for me.”
The other guard just nodded before closing the door behind him.
Just a couple minutes later while we sat there uncomfortably looking at each other, well I was uncomfortable, the guard was just annoyed with me, the door opened and a guy wearing a slightly different guard outfit than everyone else came in. He had a long staff slung across his back and no weapon beyond just a dagger at his hip.
“What is it this time?” The one I assumed was Jervin, asked with a bored drawl.
“Elf bastard has a wooden arm that he says he ‘can’t take off without magic.’ Wanted to know how true that is and if it’s actually going to be a problem.”
Jervin sighed, “You could at least still have chained him up, go ahead and do that. I don’t want him trying anything while I’m looking at it.”
The guard complied, chaining my wrists together extremely tightly to where it was almost painful. I winced as he gave them a tug to make sure everything was together tightly and I wouldn’t be moving easily before stepping back to let Jervin have his space.
The mage stepped forward whispering a couple of things under his breath before his hand started glowing and he placed it on the wood. He sat there for a few moments before frowning and humming to himself.
After a few more moments he pulled his hand back and turned to the other guard.
“He’s right on that, there’s not an easy way to pull it off without hurting him. It’d be easier to chop off what’s left of his shoulder than it would be to cut through the wood it’s made out of. He has a pretty powerful class considering he’s only a tier two.” Jervin tapped his lips while thinking, “Well at the very least it’s not a weapon beyond being a fist he could punch someone with so on that front you don’t need to worry about that. Oh yeah, he also has a coin pouch hidden in his arm. Although good luck getting to it, I’d wager the metal will melt before the wood does.”
The guard turned to me with a flash of anger in his eyes, he looked like he was going to do something before he glanced toward Jervin who had a dangerous glint in his eyes.
“Oh no, go ahead,” Jervin said with mock complacency, “Don’t mind me. I definitely don’t want a reason to beat one of you morons senseless for abusing our prisoners directly going against League Charter 77.1896 section 9.”
The guard scoffed, muttering some insult under his breath to Jervin and possibly myself.
Jervin just scoffed, “One of these days you’re going to piss off somebody stronger than you and he’s going to kill you for it and nobody will do a goddamn thing to save your ass. You and everybody else in this guardhouse need to correct their attitudes before something irreparable happens to this city because of your arrogance.”
“Oh shut up, Jervin. You’re not in our chain of command, so just because we’re not allowed to tell you what to do doesn’t mean you get to dictate how we handle threats, you just worry about the magic. We’ll handle the actual hard parts.”
Jervin's eyes flared again, the temperature in the room jumping up about fifteen degrees. Fahrenheit, in case you were wondering.
Eventually, he just scoffed again, apparently, this was an ongoing argument between them.
“Whatever, I’ve said my piece, it’s not my fault if you want to get yourself killed.”
Jervin flashed me a look that seemed like pity.
If you were going to feel sorry for me you could’ve not told them about my money! Bastard!
I just gave him a minute shrug as he looked away and stepped out of the room. The guard just took up a position by the door and waited, his eyes not leaving me the entire time we were in the room.
Eventually, after what seemed like an hour, the door opened again and a few people filed into the room. The first two were more guards. This room was starting to get crowded.
These guards had much better equipment than the guy already in the room. His armor was a bit ragtag and worn out, clearly of mundane quality. These guys or I guess guy and girl, had well-polished armor. It looked well-maintained. The guards here had what looked like steel armor trimmed in blue, possibly to signify their station or occupation. These new ones were trimmed in a royal red. I was even willing to bet their weapons were enchanted, not that I was capable of activating any skills to check. At best I could tell my passives were still running, but I couldn’t use any of the actives.
I wish I hadn’t turned off my lightning-speed one now. The chance I got to turn it on, it was staying on going forward unless there was a good reason to turn it off. Which would be never if I got a say in it.
The two guards took their positions, one behind me and the other behind the empty chair on the other side of the table. The guard that had led me in here left as soon as they came in.
The last person to step in was a large man. And I don’t mean large as in fat, I mean large as in powerfully big. He was at least as tall as I was but looked to be about 120 lbs heavier than me, and all that looked to be muscle. He had a shield slung on his back with a sword at his waist. A long red cape flowed from his silvery steel armor at the back and almost draped across the floor.
He had short-cropped blond hair with bright blue eyes. He had a ruggedly handsome face that kind of contrasted with his armor. Seeing his armor and large pauldrons and just how overly polished everything was I expected him to have more of a baby face, but he looked more like a drill sergeant for the army than anything else.
He seated himself with poise on the chair across from me, which didn’t look like it should be able to hold him, but it did somehow.
He was one of the few people I’d seen who was actually taller than me, if only by an inch or two. It was a little unnerving, his level didn’t help in that regard either.
[Level 226⁵]
He was sitting just under the cap of tier five. One of the strongest humans I’d ever seen. Only a few people in Seltas actually outpowered him in that regard.
For a long while he sat there and we just looked at each other without saying anything. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was here so I wasn’t entirely sure what to do. I assumed some powerplay was happening with the way he was looking at me, but I wasn’t noticing anything and I could quite literally sit here all day without an issue. I wasn’t a particularly talkative person to begin with and I wasn’t about to change that.
Probably fifteen minutes passed before he finally decided to say something.
“Who are you?” He asked in a powerful voice, it wasn’t necessarily deep or bassy, but it resonated with authority.
I tilted my head in confusion before anger slowly started to build up.
“You don’t know who I am?” I asked incredulously.
“Should I?” He asked with a slight tone of disdain.
“If you have no idea who I am, then why the hell am I here?” I asked, unable to keep the vitriol out of my voice.
The guard captain just frowned before leaning forward slightly, “Answer the question, elf. Who are you? Tell me what I want and you might get to walk away from this.”
Fury built up in my chest, but I squashed it quickly. Getting angry wouldn’t help me here. I needed to keep my temper and focus. A calm, clear mind will help me best right now. There will be a time for anger and now isn’t it.
“Somehow I doubt that. Call it a hunch.” I replied with more calm than I felt.
“If you and your cohorts were the honorable and respectful type I highly doubt I’d be here right now, and if I had still ended up here I wouldn’t have been treated the way I was on the way.”
“I won’t ask again, answer the question.”
I racked my brain. Should I just be forthcoming with my name? Or should I deflect? What was the best course of action in this situation? It was hard to say, would they just kill me when they were done and had gotten the info that they wanted? What were they looking for to begin with?
“Hand.” He said calmly.
The guard behind me moved faster than I could blink. The pommel of his sword came down on my wooden hand shattering it with a single strike, splintering the wood everywhere. The captain's eyes widened slightly in surprise as well as the man behind him.
“A prosthetic?”
My heart was hammering in my chest, my eyes still staring at the spot on the table where my hand used to be. That would’ve completely decimated my actual hand, it would’ve been completely destroyed and I’d be down another limb.
So this is how they wanted to play? But why were they so angry? This seemed a bit excessive for a small-time criminal. Which I wasn’t even, I was just a random person they plucked off the road. So what was the catch?
I took a shaky breath to calm my heightened nerves.
“Why am I here? As far as I’m aware I haven’t done anything to break any laws, I was just coming here to go to The Tunnel, I heard it was a great place for lower-level people to train even if it was kind of expensive. But as soon as I get to the gates here all of a sudden I’m being dragged into a cell without being told what’s going on. You acted like you all knew who I was when you arrested me, but if you don’t actually know who I am, and if I haven’t broken any laws I don’t understand why you need to know who I am at all. Either you know who I am and you can get to inform me of why I’m here, or this is a targeted instance of excessive racism. Although I still don’t understand the hostility beyond just hurling verbal abuse like everyone else I’ve dealt with so far.”
He frowned at me, staying silent for a moment. He looked like he was gathering his thoughts.
After a minute he finally gave me the answer I was looking for.
“A week ago, someone who looked identical to you came through Verdanst and killed over a thousand people, including the governor of the city.”
I was herded by the guardsmen into a building off to the side of the gate on the inside. They pushed me in through the door after confiscating all of my stuff minus the money in my arm.
I just grit my teeth and didn’t do anything to provoke them for the moment.
The building itself was pretty large and had several floors. It was relatively plain with minimal windows, a lot of which had bars over them. So a guardhouse and or prison. They led me over to the stairs before pushing me down them, and I mean that literally. I caught myself with my high dexterity so I managed to keep from tumbling down the stone stairs, I turned back to them with a hateful glare. But the guard that pushed me just gave me a challenging look basically saying, “What are you gonna do about it punk?”
Right now? Nothing.
They kept pushing me until they got me into a cell before closing and locking the door. I just frowned and looked around, it was kind of shabby but not as horrible as I thought it would be. I flashed a bit of magic to heal myself.
Or at least I tried to, runes along the cell door and walls flashed at the same time my skill should’ve activated, but it instead didn’t. The mana was still spent though. A couple of the guards just let out a barking laugh before walking away.
Obviously, they weren’t interested in telling me what that was about, but I could take a guess. It made sense that there would be some way to prevent people from using skills, otherwise, how would you be able to hold prisoners if they could just use their abilities and break out whenever they wanted? There had to be an upper limit on it though, probably something that existed on the skill of whoever cast or created the runes.
Whatever. I sat down against the wall and tried to make myself comfortable while I ran through scenarios in my mind.
Did they find out that I hopped the border? Unlikely, the guys at the border didn’t know I was an elf, and they would’ve had no way of knowing where I was headed. Even on Earth, they would’ve had a hard time apprehending me with the speed I could display. I could outrun most vehicles and if they lost sight of me at best they’d be able to get a general description of me that they could circulate, but not everyone would memorize that information, and if I ran several states over they wouldn’t be looking to try and apprehend me at all there. So it didn’t seem likely that the guards here knew of me or what I did. If they had they would’ve arrested me the moment they saw me rather than when they saw my ears.
So there had to be something about being an elf that they weren’t happy about. What would that be though? Did an elf come through here and cause a bunch of problems? That seems unlikely as well considering the only elves I’ve ever seen were the ones in the forest and the only one I’ve ever seen outside of that forest was Illesea, I’ve yet to even hear of another elf just wandering around freely. It just doesn’t seem to be something they do.
Something just isn’t adding up.
I whiled the hours away trying to come up with plausible reasons as to why this was happening but I just kept coming up blank. Eventually, I just gave up slowly knocking my head against the stone wall.
Even when you don’t do anything blatantly wrong you still get in trouble. I never really expected this to happen to me, but here I was. I wasn’t entirely sure how to handle it. Other than being irrationally angry. However was it really irrational if it was unreasonable detainment? I didn’t particularly think so.
I glanced around the cell I was in.
It was a solid block of stone with a small grate at the top to let natural light in, there was a door on the front that was made out of reinforced wood with a small barred window on it for the guards to look through. There was a small bucket in the corner that hadn’t been emptied since the last occupant had been in there. So it left an extremely unpleasant smell that had me feeling nauseous thanks to my enhanced sense of smell thanks to stats.
I’m not sure how much time in total passed but it was at least several hours before I heard someone walk up to the door of my cell and stop. Keys clinked against metal as they worked on unlocking the door before it opened. A guard entered, giving me a steely glare before gesturing with his head.
“Come on, scum. Captain wants to have a chat.”
I stared at him a few more seconds before slowly standing up, hissing slightly as the movement aggravated the small wounds on my back and side. They weren’t life-threatening, but they still went deep enough to be pretty painful. They had been throbbing the entire time, but sitting still enough prevented it from really bothering me, now though they flared up again with the movement making their existence apparent to my body.
I was led further down the hall into the building before they led me into a room where there was a table with a chain on it. They had me sit in the chair in front of it.
“Wrists together in front of you.” The guard said with a hint of boredom, he had obviously gone through this more than a few times.
I complied putting them together, giving the man his first glimpse at my wooden arm.
“Take the arm off.” He said a lot more alert now that I had an unpredictable element.
I frowned and attempted to comply, but the runes on the wall flashed again.
“I can’t.” I replied, “It was formed with magic and is directly attached to my arm, there isn’t a way to pull it off since I didn’t anticipate having to take it off without magic.”
He stood glaring at me before reaching back without looking and knocking on the door, a guy leaned in.
“Fetch Jervin. Need him to take a look at something for me.”
The other guard just nodded before closing the door behind him.
Just a couple minutes later while we sat there uncomfortably looking at each other, well I was uncomfortable, the guard was just annoyed with me, the door opened and a guy wearing a slightly different guard outfit than everyone else came in. He had a long staff slung across his back and no weapon beyond just a dagger at his hip.
“What is it this time?” The one I assumed was Jervin, asked with a bored drawl.
“Elf bastard has a wooden arm that he says he ‘can’t take off without magic.’ Wanted to know how true that is and if it’s actually going to be a problem.”
Jervin sighed, “You could at least still have chained him up, go ahead and do that. I don’t want him trying anything while I’m looking at it.”
The guard complied, chaining my wrists together extremely tightly to where it was almost painful. I winced as he gave them a tug to make sure everything was together tightly and I wouldn’t be moving easily before stepping back to let Jervin have his space.
The mage stepped forward whispering a couple of things under his breath before his hand started glowing and he placed it on the wood. He sat there for a few moments before frowning and humming to himself.
After a few more moments he pulled his hand back and turned to the other guard.
“He’s right on that, there’s not an easy way to pull it off without hurting him. It’d be easier to chop off what’s left of his shoulder than it would be to cut through the wood it’s made out of. He has a pretty powerful class considering he’s only a tier two.” Jervin tapped his lips while thinking, “Well at the very least it’s not a weapon beyond being a fist he could punch someone with so on that front you don’t need to worry about that. Oh yeah, he also has a coin pouch hidden in his arm. Although good luck getting to it, I’d wager the metal will melt before the wood does.”
The guard turned to me with a flash of anger in his eyes, he looked like he was going to do something before he glanced toward Jervin who had a dangerous glint in his eyes.
“Oh no, go ahead,” Jervin said with mock complacency, “Don’t mind me. I definitely don’t want a reason to beat one of you morons senseless for abusing our prisoners directly going against League Charter 77.1896 section 9.”
The guard scoffed, muttering some insult under his breath to Jervin and possibly myself.
Jervin just scoffed, “One of these days you’re going to piss off somebody stronger than you and he’s going to kill you for it and nobody will do a goddamn thing to save your ass. You and everybody else in this guardhouse need to correct their attitudes before something irreparable happens to this city because of your arrogance.”
“Oh shut up, Jervin. You’re not in our chain of command, so just because we’re not allowed to tell you what to do doesn’t mean you get to dictate how we handle threats, you just worry about the magic. We’ll handle the actual hard parts.”
Jervin's eyes flared again, the temperature in the room jumping up about fifteen degrees. Fahrenheit, in case you were wondering.
Eventually, he just scoffed again, apparently, this was an ongoing argument between them.
“Whatever, I’ve said my piece, it’s not my fault if you want to get yourself killed.”
Jervin flashed me a look that seemed like pity.
If you were going to feel sorry for me you could’ve not told them about my money! Bastard!
I just gave him a minute shrug as he looked away and stepped out of the room. The guard just took up a position by the door and waited, his eyes not leaving me the entire time we were in the room.
Eventually, after what seemed like an hour, the door opened again and a few people filed into the room. The first two were more guards. This room was starting to get crowded.
These guards had much better equipment than the guy already in the room. His armor was a bit ragtag and worn out, clearly of mundane quality. These guys or I guess guy and girl, had well-polished armor. It looked well-maintained. The guards here had what looked like steel armor trimmed in blue, possibly to signify their station or occupation. These new ones were trimmed in a royal red. I was even willing to bet their weapons were enchanted, not that I was capable of activating any skills to check. At best I could tell my passives were still running, but I couldn’t use any of the actives.
I wish I hadn’t turned off my lightning-speed one now. The chance I got to turn it on, it was staying on going forward unless there was a good reason to turn it off. Which would be never if I got a say in it.
The two guards took their positions, one behind me and the other behind the empty chair on the other side of the table. The guard that had led me in here left as soon as they came in.
The last person to step in was a large man. And I don’t mean large as in fat, I mean large as in powerfully big. He was at least as tall as I was but looked to be about 120 lbs heavier than me, and all that looked to be muscle. He had a shield slung on his back with a sword at his waist. A long red cape flowed from his silvery steel armor at the back and almost draped across the floor.
He had short-cropped blond hair with bright blue eyes. He had a ruggedly handsome face that kind of contrasted with his armor. Seeing his armor and large pauldrons and just how overly polished everything was I expected him to have more of a baby face, but he looked more like a drill sergeant for the army than anything else.
He seated himself with poise on the chair across from me, which didn’t look like it should be able to hold him, but it did somehow.
He was one of the few people I’d seen who was actually taller than me, if only by an inch or two. It was a little unnerving, his level didn’t help in that regard either.
[Level 226⁵]
He was sitting just under the cap of tier five. One of the strongest humans I’d ever seen. Only a few people in Seltas actually outpowered him in that regard.
For a long while he sat there and we just looked at each other without saying anything. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was here so I wasn’t entirely sure what to do. I assumed some powerplay was happening with the way he was looking at me, but I wasn’t noticing anything and I could quite literally sit here all day without an issue. I wasn’t a particularly talkative person to begin with and I wasn’t about to change that.
Probably fifteen minutes passed before he finally decided to say something.
“Who are you?” He asked in a powerful voice, it wasn’t necessarily deep or bassy, but it resonated with authority.
I tilted my head in confusion before anger slowly started to build up.
“You don’t know who I am?” I asked incredulously.
“Should I?” He asked with a slight tone of disdain.
“If you have no idea who I am, then why the hell am I here?” I asked, unable to keep the vitriol out of my voice.
The guard captain just frowned before leaning forward slightly, “Answer the question, elf. Who are you? Tell me what I want and you might get to walk away from this.”
Fury built up in my chest, but I squashed it quickly. Getting angry wouldn’t help me here. I needed to keep my temper and focus. A calm, clear mind will help me best right now. There will be a time for anger and now isn’t it.
“Somehow I doubt that. Call it a hunch.” I replied with more calm than I felt.
“If you and your cohorts were the honorable and respectful type I highly doubt I’d be here right now, and if I had still ended up here I wouldn’t have been treated the way I was on the way.”
“I won’t ask again, answer the question.”
I racked my brain. Should I just be forthcoming with my name? Or should I deflect? What was the best course of action in this situation? It was hard to say, would they just kill me when they were done and had gotten the info that they wanted? What were they looking for to begin with?
“Hand.” He said calmly.
The guard behind me moved faster than I could blink. The pommel of his sword came down on my wooden hand shattering it with a single strike, splintering the wood everywhere. The captain's eyes widened slightly in surprise as well as the man behind him.
“A prosthetic?”
My heart was hammering in my chest, my eyes still staring at the spot on the table where my hand used to be. That would’ve completely decimated my actual hand, it would’ve been completely destroyed and I’d be down another limb.
So this is how they wanted to play? But why were they so angry? This seemed a bit excessive for a small-time criminal. Which I wasn’t even, I was just a random person they plucked off the road. So what was the catch?
I took a shaky breath to calm my heightened nerves.
“Why am I here? As far as I’m aware I haven’t done anything to break any laws, I was just coming here to go to The Tunnel, I heard it was a great place for lower-level people to train even if it was kind of expensive. But as soon as I get to the gates here all of a sudden I’m being dragged into a cell without being told what’s going on. You acted like you all knew who I was when you arrested me, but if you don’t actually know who I am, and if I haven’t broken any laws I don’t understand why you need to know who I am at all. Either you know who I am and you can get to inform me of why I’m here, or this is a targeted instance of excessive racism. Although I still don’t understand the hostility beyond just hurling verbal abuse like everyone else I’ve dealt with so far.”
He frowned at me, staying silent for a moment. He looked like he was gathering his thoughts.
After a minute he finally gave me the answer I was looking for.
“A week ago, someone who looked identical to you came through Verdanst and killed over a thousand people, including the governor of the city.”
