“Was it not difficult to keep all the lights on the past couple days?” Natalie asked Ziba, who was sitting across from her.

“I hardly noticed, miss,” Ziba replied. “They are much easier to use than the amenities in the Silas Building, my usual place of work on the Ficial Estate.”

“But you’re keeping at least seven or eight going all day. Usually, they’d go out after an hour or so. You aren’t ensouled, and humans can only get a death icon from the churches, so how?”

“I have a simple icon provided by my generous employers, in addition to the death icon. It allowed me to learn to power artifacts and use the functions of powered buildings. I suppose I’ve been maintaining focus on the lights as I would an artifact.”

“So is it really true that elves can get any icon they want from a church when they turn twenty?” Saul cut in, interest drawn by her question.

“More or less, if they can find the relevant temple,” Natalie agreed. “So, you only have two icons? Why not get a third like Bart?”

“It would come with more…responsibility than I am comfortable with,” Ziba said carefully.

“Why don’t you go to a Temple of Space or Life then?” Saul asked. “Any of the really rare ones, actually. Maybe not you specifically, but other part-elves and elves.”

“How so? Would you have to fight monsters?” Natalie asked Ziba, ignoring the continued interruption.

“I apologize, miss,” Ziba replied quickly as Toby and Saul scowled. “Perhaps you could direct your questions to my lord please? There are nuances that I would not presume to explain to one such as yourself.”

“Nobles do not pass their Duty off to others,” Toby told her. “We enjoy many privileges as a result of that duty, so the price in blood is ours to bear alone.”

“If a house had one of their peons doing their Duties,” Saul said, “then they would be expected to bring him or her into the house through marriage or adoption if they wished to avoid censure.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know it was a touchy subject,” Natalie raised her hands defensively. “Also, Saul, you do know there isn’t a ‘Temple of Space’, right?”

“There isn’t?”

“The dispensation of the Angels isn’t widely known, but I would have thought you would be familiar. There is no Angel of Space, supposedly that’s part of why the icon is so vanishingly rare. The same goes for several of the other rarest icons. There are Saints with some power over those icons, but it’s peripheral.”

“I see. To my knowledge, no one has written about that in the March where I live, but it could be better known elsewhere,” Saul said. “Do you know why?”

“No. It might be more well known among elves for the same reason you mentioned the church in the first place. Most of us just take the light or dark icon, it works well with a trait of ours. Some take the sheep icon from the Temple of Beasts to work with iconic wool, or one of the elemental icons for similar purposes.”

Curiosity satisfied, Saul returned to reading. That evening, Natalie tried to help Ziba and Dinah make preparations for the evening while Saul and Toby exercised. When he went to bed, Saul was able to turn off the glass light, Ziba having ceased powering them remotely just after they ate. The lights stayed lit for another hour, but if powered briefly by someone else, they could then be extinguished by that person.

Over the next few days, Saul learned a bit more about Natalie’s sleeping arrangement after asking Ziba and Bart to subtly keep an eye out. At night, she did something that involved waving her hands around above her head, possibly while holding rope but Bart wasn’t sure, before vanishing with a small flash. In the morning, she would reappear with a similar flash then go about her business. It sounded similar to Warlick’s teleportation, but Saul had no idea where she would be teleporting to.

Natalie started taking part in their evening training to a degree, copying each of Toby’s abilities to try out. Her ability to use the powers of others while nearby seemed to have a range of around thirty feet. She wasn’t especially impressed with any of his healing abilities, but became fond of Blade of Wind. She could create the blade then copy another of Toby’s abilities without it dispersing. The reason Natalie had never noticed this with other weapon creation abilities became obvious when they learned that she lacked any practical combat training whatsoever. Even while copying Toby’s Blade Mastery, she swung the sleek blade around like a stick.

“If I have to fight something, I’ll fight like a Wizard,” was all she offered as explanation.

After almost a week of travel, they approached the first elven village. Saul passed his cloak around for everyone to clean themselves properly, and he and Toby used small amounts of perfume. Saul put the silver lizard artifact on his ear for the second time and began operating it.

“Say something in the local language,” he told Natalie.

“Motive.” She replied incomprehensibly, the meaning occurring to Saul a moment later.

“Motive?” he asked.

“I said ‘why should I,’” she clarified. “Is that earpiece a translation artifact?”

“Yes. It can translate anything I hear or say, but can’t adapt grammar and syntax.”

“Limited. Utile.”

He repeated what he had understood, and they went back and forth for a minute. Calling the effect a translation was a generous description; it seemed to condense each complete thought expressed into a single word. It only happened if he didn’t understand what he had just heard, and the translation of his own words should work the same way. Saul didn’t know any languages that Natalie didn’t, so he couldn’t test how he would sound. Confidence somewhat diminished, they reached the village.

Saul’s ability to understand what was going on was very limited, but the elves who greeted them were understanding. If Natalie hadn’t been with them, he would have been reduced to charades and single word back-and-forth. As he walked through the village with Natalie, Bart and Toby trailing behind to avoid nauseating the elves, Saul noticed that the largest obvious difference to the several human towns and villages they had passed through on the way here was a preponderance of chairs. There were two or three chairs in front of literally every building, as well as near the sheep, goat, and chicken pens he saw.

There were also small garden patches scattered around, bare this time of year. The only visible crops were vines growing along all of the fences that an elf informed him were grape vines. They reached a particular house and stopped.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“This one is for visitors,” Natalie explained. “No beds, but they offered to bring cots they use for sick people.”

“They don’t sleep at all?” Saul said with raised eyebrows, “well, we can use the bedding we brought.” He pulled out his schedule and turned to a list he had made. “We need to refill the water barrels and purchase a small amount of fresh food for the next couple days.”

“They’re offering to host a meal for us tonight.”

“That would be nice. Would it be appropriate to offer to pay?”

It was not, but they did have to pay for the food they would take with them. Ziba would take care of it, as well as the other things that needed taking care of, though he soon returned to ask for Natalie’s help communicating those needs.

Saul and Toby walked around the village for a while, many elves coming up to greet them. The limitation on his ability to communicate had become common knowledge, so no one tried to make complex conversation. They used single words spaced a few seconds apart, making Saul feel a bit like a toddler. This was at odds with his height, both Saul and Toby standing several inches taller than nearly all of the elves, who averaged just under five feet.

Now able to compare dozens of elves, Saul found that despite all appearing similar to his eye, they did have differences. Every single elf he saw had blond hair, but the shade of blond varied between platinum and golden blond. The most common eye color was a honey yellow, the only other he saw being green. Gender was completely impossible to ascertain, if they had it at all. All the clothing he saw seemed to be dyed wool, the most popular colors being blue and orange.

When the day began to fade into night, the number of people out and about increased, elves who had been sitting and sewing or whittling now getting up to water gardens, care for animals, or head towards the middle of the village where the ‘potluck’ would be held. Saul and Toby headed that way as well, Saul pulling out one of the spare glass lights he had kept in his satchel. The village didn’t have any lights in the street just like the city.

In the town square, rows of wooden tables with attached benches were laden with food in bowls of wood and glass. Some people were already eating, the informality of the arrangement obvious. Saul and Toby joined Natalie and a couple elves, and Saul balanced the glass light between some of the dishes in the middle of the table.

“You can’t do Light yourself?” Natalie asked, and Saul shook his head, “I can help you with it if you like, you’re already familiar with my mother’s style of cantrip use.” She turned to some nearby elves and changed languages. “Blind. Cantrip.”

There was some good natured conversation Saul couldn’t follow, someone said something to him he only understood as ‘unintentional’, then several elves made gestures in the air.

“Eclairage”

A modest area around them lit up, growing larger as people asked what was going on and added their own lights. The cantrip appeared to create large cubes of relatively gentle illumination that were hard to see the edges of from the inside. Able to see, he turned off his glass light and returned it to his satchel before availing himself of the food. The foods primarily consisted of cornmeal fried chicken, soft goat cheese, corn bread, corn bread with goat cheese baked in, creamed corn, and wine that had been slightly watered down and spiced.

While Saul wasn’t able to participate in much conversation, the elven villagers created a convivial atmosphere. He ate and listened as best he could until it was very late and he felt very full. In the guest house, three cots had been laid out.

“Is everything ready to leave tomorrow morning?” Saul asked Ziba.

“Not quite, my lord,” Ziba replied with a slight apologetic bow. “I still need to fill the water barrels in the portable hole, and I believe we were all invited to a late morning service at the local church.”

“Then we will go, of course. I’ll open the hole afterwards, we should still be on the road by early afternoon. We’ll have ready meals with us, so we won’t need to stop so early.”

“Very well, my lord.”

The following morning, all six of them made their way to the isolated church. The town seemed just as lively as last night. Several elves walked with them to the church, breaking off to tend to the fields that surrounded it. While the rest of the gardens in the town reflected the early season, the church’s yards were practically overgrown with crops nearly ready to harvest and occasional weeds that were growing at an almost visible speed.

“Three guesses what Saint’s church this is,” Toby commented as he ran his fingers along some of the stalks along the road.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Natalie warned, “corn stalks are rigid and have sharp leaves.”

“It does prickle a bit,” Toby grinned and pulled his hand back. It had dozens of shallow scratches along the palm that quickly closed, “but I’m fine.”

“Right, you’re human. Do you mind if I copy that ability?”

“Sure.”

She ran a hand through the stalks on the other side of the path. When they reached the church, a tall red building made of wood with large doors, they found the elves there were nearly all children. Light filled the huge room from two broad windows far enough off the ground to be at a level for a second floor the church didn’t have. In the middle of the room, an older elf in checkered yellow, green, and brown flannel greeted them with a wave and a smile before raising both hands and incanting.

“Scientia est lux lucis”

There was no visible effect, but Natalie started looking around at something. Saul started fishing around in his satchel for a quarter, not having bothered to feed his tattoo when he got up.

“Welcome, humans!” the priest called, making their way over, “just be patient for a moment, children, I need to speak with our guests. Hello! I am Dior, Priest of the Farmer Saint.”

They each introduced themselves, then Saul asked, “was that a translation ability, or…?”

“I asked a miracle of the saint,” Dior replied with a warm smile, “all touched by the light in this church can understand one another. I invited you not to preach to you, I am sure that you do not need my words of satisfaction through a life of labor. Instead, I thought to provide a chance to learn and grow to the children as well as yourselves. Where a plant needs the light of the sun and the weeding hand of a farmer to flourish, so too does each and every one of us need the glow of knowledge and the plucking of intolerance. Most of these young ones are twenty or so, a good age to learn more about the lives and experiences of other people and peoples.”

They were ushered into the center of the church and surrounded by children. Toby and Bart became the most popular among the kids, Toby telling stories of hunting monsters on duty. Surprisingly, after one child vomited when they got too close to Bart, almost a third of them flocked to him. They ran around him seeing how close they could get before they got nauseous or dizzy while yelling questions about sailing at him.

Saul was determined by consensus to be a more boring version of Toby and somewhat ignored. He was fine just staying to the side, hoping to ask the priest about his abilities, when one of the older kids approached him. To Saul, they looked maybe eleven or twelve. The kid asked him if it was true that he only had ‘outside or inside parts’ and Saul acquired a sudden interest in finding someone, anyone, else to talk to. At the priest’s recommendation he managed to strike up a conversation with a child named Alma who was intensely contemplating what icon they wanted when they grew up.

Alma looked maybe ten, but was apparently seventeen. They wouldn’t be able to get an icon until age thirty, which was the standard for elves. Saul asked several questions about how icons were distributed in the village, which the child was thrilled to explain with great intensity. Interestingly, it was expected that every elf would end up ensouled eventually. They got the first one at thirty, always a light icon, then received a simple icon for their fortieth birthday. The final icon could come before or after the simple icon, depending on what they wanted and what the village found. The exception were people who became rangers, they received three proper icons at thirty and began awakening abilities immediately.

In turn, Saul explained the icons that he was planning to use and what he hoped to get out of them. Alma was adorably disgruntled to learn that he would have a full set of icons at only twenty-one. Saul tried to mollify them with an explanation of being like a super ranger. The chat ended with Alma swearing that they would get a mirror icon.