Elise was floating on the ceiling of the cabin, watching as the scene from that night played out. She watched the warg shatter the cabin’s defenses and burst inside. She watched Corwin and Sylvanna’s futile attempt to fight back. Most of all, she watched herself trembling in the hall, doing absolutely nothing to help.

“Move!” she tried to shout. “Attack! Use {Suggest}!”

But her words were muffled and faint. The her on the ground didn’t hear any of it. She just sat and watched as what might have become her new adoptive family were slaughtered. It was only after they died that she moved. Too little too late. She followed along, being dragged along like a balloon on a string as she watched herself flee the warg. She looked into the warg’s eyes as it pursued. It was enjoying it. It was having fun. Every time it “failed” to catch the rabbit, its eyes lit up with sadistic pleasure.

Elise wanted to look away. She didn’t want to relive any more of that night. But it was like her eyes were glued open and locked in place. She watched as the her on the ground tricked the warg off the cliff. She should have felt proud of herself, but all she felt was guilt. She managed to trick and injure the warg, but couldn’t she have done that earlier? What if she had left the cabin to lure it away before it got in? Would they still be alive?

As the warg sailed through the air, Elise expected to continue watching herself as she turned around and headed for the tunnels, but instead, her point of view followed the warg. It landed on the ground far below with a mighty crash and a yelp of pain. She watched as it tried to stand up, only for both of its front legs to give out as it yelped in pain again. It was covered in blood, its legs were clearly heavily damaged. It howled in pain and rage, and then lay on the ground for a few minutes, panting and whimpering.

I never saw this, she thought. Why is the dream still going?

When the warg’s breathing steadied, it studied its legs with an almost intelligent look in its eyes. Frost formed on the ground, and even though she didn’t seem to have a body, she could feel the air getting colder around her. After a few seconds, ice started to envelop its front legs until they were fully encased. It stood up gingerly, its legs held stiff in the makeshift splints. It took a few cautious steps, testing the weight, then looked back up toward the cliff.

It snarled, then turned to find a way back up. Elise was forced to watch as it struggled to climb a nearby rocky hill. When it reached the place where the other Elise had stopped, it started sniffing the ground, tracking her scent all the way to the tunnel. It pawed at the ground, but with its legs encased in ice blocks, it wasn’t able to do much digging.

It turned around and looked off into the distance. While the only things in its line of sight were trees, Elise was filled with a sense of dread. That direction was the direction of the cabin.

She watched helplessly as the warg limped its way to the Grays’ former home and back through the hole in the wall to where Corwin and Sylvanna’s bodies still lay.

No, no, no, she thought. I don’t want to see this.

The warg approached Sylvanna first.

No!

It turned her body over with its nose so Elise could see her lifeless face and the bloody hole where her eye used to be.

Stop!

The warg opened its mouth wide and bit down on her torso.

I want to WAKE UP!

She was back in her bed in Dokkalfheimr, panting while her heart beat at what felt like a million beats per minute. She lay in that same position, trying to calm herself for a few seconds, but it felt futile. It wasn’t like a regular nightmare where she could just reassure herself it wasn’t real. The first part was real, and the second part… it certainly felt real, and though she didn’t want to think about what might have happened to the bodies, she couldn’t deny that what she had seen was likely.

“Elise?” said a voice.

She jumped back to the corner of her bed, searching frantically for the one who spoke. It was the maid. She was standing next to the bed with an expression that wasn’t quite concerned, but was definitely confused.

How did I not notice her before? thought Elise.

Seeing the woman though did help Elise calm down. If nothing else, it was at least a distraction so that she wouldn’t have to think about the dream anymore.

“Mx’w xmqi jsv csyv piwwsr,” said the maid.

Elise shook her head, then hopped forward. Sylvanna and Corwin were already dead. The warg killed them. It almost killed her. What happened to their bodies wasn’t important. What was important was that she was going to get stronger and get revenge, and to do that, she needed to get out of bed.

The maid took her down to the library again, and she had her lesson with Greta. Her mind kept turning back to the dream, but whenever it did she tried to turn those thoughts into fuel for her motivation. By the time an hour had passed, Elise was so single mindedly focused on improving that even Greta was starting to show signs of surprise. After some quick review of the previous day’s lesson, Elise breezed through the next section, which was actions.

They needed to recruit the librarian to help with this, since Greta was too old to demonstrate them herself. Greta had Elise introduce herself, at which point Elise learned the librarian’s name was Anna. Anna didn’t seem to like Elise very much, so Elise used {Charm} again. The younger woman looked first unhappy at being asked to help, and later embarrassed when Greta started ordering her around.

“Gveap,” said the old woman, pointing to the ground.

Anna gave her an almost pleading look, but Greta’s gaze remained firm, and her finger remained pointing downward. After a few seconds, the librarian got down on her hands and knees and started crawling, her face as red as a tomato.

Greta turned to Elise. “Gveap.”

“Gveap,” Elise repeated.

“Wli mw gveapmrk,” said Greta.

Elise felt pleased with herself as she was able to translate the whole sentence.

“She is crawling,” Elise said in confident Dwarvish.

Greta smiled.

The rest of the lesson went by smoothly, and ended the same way that the previous day had, with Greta yawning and ringing her bell to summon the maids and guards again.

Training with Sindri went largely the same as the day before. She had only just started with her mana training, so pretty much all she did was drills with {Magic Missile} until she was out of mana, followed by attempting to widen her acupoints until her mana was full again. She repeated this process four times, ignoring the grumbling in both Sindri’s and her own stomachs in order to get as much training time as possible.

They ate in the same mess hall, and Sindri and Jens left without even asking her if it was alright first. She had been half-expecting that to happen, since she had said they could the day before, but she was also a little surprised at how shameless they were about it. Evidently, they had pegged her a pushover, and as much as she disliked it, she was too much of a pushover to do anything about it.

She did manage to ask for her box of dirt before Jens left though, and, though confused, the maid agreed to bring her request to someone who could do something about it. She didn’t get her dirt that night, so she once again spent as much time as she could practicing her mobility skills before settling down to do her mana meditation until it was time to sleep.

However, even as tired as she was, she found it much more difficult to fall asleep than she had the previous night. Unlike most dreams she had, the memories of the nightmare from the previous night weren’t fading away. If anything, they had only gotten more clear. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the warg bending over Sylvanna’s body, and she heard the sickening crunch of its jaws on her bones.

Though she didn’t know when it happened, she eventually did get to sleep. While no nightmares visited her that time, it was not a good sleep, and when she woke up the next morning, she felt more tired than when she had went to bed.

She was woken up the next morning by the same maid in brown as before. The woman gestured for Elise to get out of bed and follow her, but it took Elise a few seconds to wake up enough to comprehend what was happening. When she finally did, she activated her wings and flew forward lazily. When she got to the doorway next to the maid, she realized that she didn’t actually know the maid’s name, so she turned to face the dwarf woman.

“Hello,” she said in Dwarvish. “What is your name?”

The maid frowned and hesitated before responding.

“Jona.”

“It is nice to meet you, Jona. My name is Elise.”

Elise used {Charm} when she spoke, hoping to improve the woman’s impression of her. Jona frowned more deeply, but Elise thought she didn’t look entirely unhappy.

“It’s nice to meet you ew aipp,” she replied. “Mx'w xmqi jsv csyv piwwsr.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Elise didn’t understand the words she said, but she knew what they meant.

“Yes,” she said, flying out of the room.

When they reached the library, Elise stopped in midair again, right in front of the two guards who were assigned to guard and surveil her during the day. She thought she might have known their names, just from their conversations with Sindri, but it would be better to actually introduce herself.

“Hello,” she said. “What is your name?”

She didn’t know the plural for that phrase, but she hoped it would be enough. Both guards looked taken aback when she spoke, and looked at each other in confusion. They had a brief, silent conversation before turning back to her.

“My name is Jonas,” said one.

“Baldur,” said the other.

“It is nice to meet you, Jonas and Baldur.” She used {Charm} as she said each of their names. “My name is Elise.”

“...Nice to meet you?” said Jonas, glancing at Baldur.

Baldur shrugged. “Nice to meet you.”

Jonas, Baldur, and Jona all seemed confused by her actions, and Jona seemed a little annoyed that she had stopped, but none of them seemed to particularly dislike her. Her plan was working.

When she got into the Library, she greeted Anna the librarian as well before finally making it to the table where Greta was sitting. The old woman wore her usual scowl, but Elise thought that her mood felt a little brighter than usual.

They jumped right into the lesson, which that day seemed to cover adjectives and other descriptors. Greta also tried starting small conversations a few times throughout the lesson, forcing Elise to put together what she had learned into mostly coherent sentences. By the end, Elise felt confident that she could converse about as well as a 2 year old could. It wasn’t much but it was an improvement.

The lesson with Sindri went the same as it had the previous night. Elise just drilled her magic over and over again as he watched over, and occasionally provided tips and instruction. Frankly, Elise was beginning to feel that she didn’t need him. Some of his tips were helpful, but they were also things that she would have figured out on her own if given a little more time. Ironically, while only there to translate, it was Jens who gave the most insightful comments. Elise gathered that while the old man didn’t like her, he couldn’t stand hearing Sindri’s sub-par explanations and instructions, and couldn’t help but to correct whenever the opportunity arose.

After the training was over, they prepared to head to the Royal Guard cafeteria again, but were met at the top of the staircase by another maid instead.

“Lmw Qeniwxc amwliw xs wtieo amxl xli jic,” she said.

Elise caught the words for “speak”, and “fey” in that sentence, and gathered that someone wanted to speak with her. Jens’ sigh confirmed her suspicion, and a moment later, both of them were following the new maid up the stairs and through the castle until they arrived at a different, much smaller dining area with only one single table where Hallbjorn sat at the head.

“Aipgsqi,” he said when they entered. “Lezi e wiex.”

He gestured next to him, and Elise recognized the word for “seat” when he spoke, so she flew over and took her place on the table beside him. Jens slumped into the seat next to her, trying and failing not to look annoyed. He sat still for a few seconds until Hallbjorn cleared his throat, and the old wizard lazily flicked his hand to summon the blue orb.

“So,” said Hallbjorn. “How has your stay been so far?”

“It’s been good,” said Elise. “It’s been very productive.”

He smiled. “Yes, Jens was telling me that you have some talent as a mage.”

“I do?”

She looked over at Jens, whose face was stony and unreadable.

“Yes, he said you were the most talented he’s seen in years.”

“I did not say that,” said Jens. “I said she was one of the most talented. She’s good, but she’s not that good.”

“Right,” said Hallbjorn. “Well, he says you’ve been making excellent progress. Are you satisfied with how your instruction has been?”

“I guess so,” she said. “I’ve definitely learned a lot.”

“Then do you think you’ll be staying for a long time?”

Is this why he called me here? she wondered.

Her lessons had definitely been useful, and having a safe place to rest and a constant source of food while she honed her skills was very nice, but she still had no way to level up. She still had a lot that she could learn while staying there, but she might have already gotten the most valuable information, that being the knowledge of how the stats worked. She could train her stats on her own now without them. It might not be as efficient, but it would still be progress. Perhaps by the time she next met a wall she couldn’t overcome, she would have another source of instruction to help her over it.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m not leaving yet though.”

“That’s good,” he said, nodding. “Well, I have good news about your stay from my end. The reports from those around you have managed to convince a majority of the Council that you are not a spy. Whatever danger still remained should be mostly gone. Of course, I’ll still keep the guards on you at all times, but you can be a bit more relaxed now.”

“That’s good,” said Elise. “Does that mean you can reduce the surveillance a little bit too.”

“Unfortunately, no. Not yet. While you most likely aren’t a spy from the ghouls, you are still a fey of unknown origin, and we have only been observing you for two days. I hope you can understand.”

“I do,” said Elise.

“That’s good. I know how uncomfortable it is to have your every move watched, but I can’t just have you wandering around unsupervised.”

“Yeah, I get it,” said Elise.

“Thank you,” he said.

At that moment, the doors to the room opened, and three servants entered carrying trays of steaming hot food. They walked in silently, set the dishes out in the middle of the table, prepared plates for each of the diners, and then exited. Elise noticed that when they left, one of them was carrying an empty plate of the same kind that she, Hallbjorn and Jens would be eating off of.

“Wonderful,” said Hallbjorn, taking a bite. “Dig in. I had the chef prepare our finest foods for tonight.”

The food was indeed fine. It was easily the best thing she had eaten since arriving in that world, and possibly even the best she had eaten ever, even back on Earth. The other two must have been having similar thoughts, since none of them said a single word until they had all eaten their fill.

“Ah, that was good,” said Hallbjorn, patting his stomach. “The chef really outdid himself today.”

“Yeah, that was delicious,” said Elise.

“I wish Johann had been here,” mentioned Hallbjorn. “I invited him. He didn’t want to come though. It’s a shame. But, I guess that meant more for us.”

“Did he not come… because of me?”

“Ah,” said Hallbjorn, his smile fading. “Most likely. Yes. When Rebekka–that’s my wife– when she died, he was there.”

“Oh.”

“The ghouls were after him. She didn’t even have a combat class, but she fended off long enough for the guards to arrive. Johann wasn’t hurt… but she didn’t make it.”

“I-I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “It was the damn ghouls. I expect we’ll be seeing some of them soon. Last time we caught a fey, they broke into the castle to get it out. I’ve increased security, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they appeared any day now.”

“You caught a fey?”

“Aye. He spawned right down by our pigs. Little tiny Pixie. I almost felt sorry for him, until three of my best men died when the ghouls came to take him away. Oh, but don’t worry. That won’t happen this time. As I said, I’ve increased security. If the ghouls want to get to you, they’ll have to send their best, and if they do that, we might finally be able to take them out and get the upper hand.”

“...Are you going to use me as bait?”

“What?! No! Never! If I wanted to do that, I’d lock you up. I’m just making reasonable preparations. That’s why I have Sindri teaching you instead of any of the others. He’s young, but he’s my most skilled Guard. There’s not a single ghoul in these filthy caves that can match up to him in a fight, even if they ambush him.”

“Oh,” said Elise. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Anyway, all this ghoul talk is bringing down the mood. I’ve got more good news to share. I think that I’ll finally be able to convince the Council that it’s time to leave this pit.”

“You’re leaving the caves?”

“We’ve been trying to for centuries. Every attempt failed, but I think this one could work. We’ve learned a lot about the ghouls. Even if they try to stop us, I believe we can fight them off. In our latest generation, the ‘of the Forgotten Kingdom’ suffix has been added to all our classes, and it’s bumped all of them up an entire rarity. We’ve never had warriors this powerful before. Not since before we came into the caves. And, we have you.”

“I already said-”

“I know, I know,” said Hallbjorn. “But that’s the great thing. You don’t have to be directly involved at all. The actual wording of the prophecy only says that the Rune of Fate will signal the dwarves’ return to power. You don’t have to do anything. Of course, if you did want to involve yourself, I would gladly accept your help, but you could never do an ounce of work for us, and it would still be enough.”

“What exactly is the Rune of Fate?”

“Hmmm,” he said. “I don’t think I’m the best person to answer this. To be honest, I don’t know. It’s a rune, but I don’t think it works like a normal rune does.”

“How does a normal rune work?”

“Well normal runes work by channeling mana in certain ways that have certain effects. Like Jens’ orb. That’s powered by runes.”

“But the Rune of Fate doesn’t work like that?”

“I don’t think so?” he said. “But that’s something you should really ask Greta. If there’s an answer, she is the one who would know it.”

“I guess I’ll ask her then.” When I can understand what she’s saying.

“Good plan,” he said, nodding. “Well, it’s getting late, and I don’t want to keep you for too much longer. Unless you have anything you’d like to say to me?”

Elise thought for a moment. “Why did you call me here?”

“Huh? Oh, I just wanted to check in on you. I get reports, but talking with you directly is different. I’d like to make these meetings a regular occurrence if you don’t mind.”

“I guess,” said Elise, unsure.

“If not for me, you should at least come for the food.”

Elise glanced at her empty plate. The food had been very good.

“Alright,” she said. “That’s fine. How regular?”

“How about every three days? I’d like to do more often, but I’m busy, and that’s as often as I can spare time.”

“That works for me.”

“Excellent!”

Hallbjorn got to his feet, pushing his stone chair back with a loud scraping noise. Jens, who had been nodding off, was startled, and for a few seconds, didn’t seem to know where he was. Then, he too stood up.

“Oh, one last thing,” said Hallbjorn. “Jona said that you seemed to not be sleeping well. Is your bed uncomfortable? We can cushion it more if you’d like.”

“No, it’s not that,” said Elise. “I just had a nightmare.”

“Ah. I see. Unfortunately, there’s not really much we can do about that. I’ve read that sleeping in a room that’s too hot can make those worse. I can have cooling runes installed in your room if you’d like.”

“N-no. No thanks. It’s fine.”

Making the room colder will probably make it worse.

“Well, if you change your mind, it would be very simple. If that’s all, I have a few things to finish up before I can go to bed. I’ll have some guards take you to your room.”

“Okay.”

“Have a good night.”

“You too.”