After a little over a month with the dwarves, Elise was ready to leave. She had learned a lot, and was very grateful for everything they had given her, but she was getting antsy. While she had made great progress in almost all her skills, she hadn’t gained a single species level, and she needed those if she wanted to get a human form.

Hallbjorn did mention that the dwarves had some caves full of monsters that were hunted for meat and experience that he might be able to get her into, but there would be backlash from the Council, and the citizens. He could force her in with his power as king, but he would rather not if he didn’t have to. No doubt he would offer to do just that if she told him that she was planning on leaving, but at that point, Elise didn’t think even that could convince her to stay.

Her entire time living with the dwarves, she had been hearing non-stop about the “ghouls”, and though she had never seen one, and there had been no incidents since she entered the city, she knew that wouldn’t last forever. She didn’t want to be caught in the middle of a conflict, especially when it was so likely that the conflict might start because of her.

That was why, at that moment, despite being in the middle of her daily lesson with Greta, she was more focused on mapping out her escape route than she was on the lesson content. She had already completed the first step, which was convincing Hallbjorn to let her have her lessons with Greta at the old woman’s house, instead of in the castle. She still had her escort/surveillance guards, but being outside the castle, it would be much easier to give them the slip.

“What are you looking at?” snapped Greta.

“You,” said Elise.

It was half true. One of her eyes was pointed at the old woman. The other was looking out the window toward the far wall of the cavern. Greta lived in a small stone cottage with a front door, a back door, a side door, and five windows, two each on the front and back of the house, and one on the side. The front door led out to a relatively quiet street, where the neighbors were all old like Greta and loved to gossip. The back door led to a small mushroom garden where Greta liked to sit on a bench and talk at her neighbors. The side door led to a dark alleyway that a family of cave cats liked to roam.

Elise knew these things because finding all the ways to get out of the house was one of the first things she did when she got there two days before. Greta never locked her windows, and they were lightweight, because Greta was too old to lift anything heavy. That meant that even without {Prehensile Vines}, with a bit of careful maneuvering, Elise could open them too.

From there, she had to get past the guards at each entrance to the house, but she thought that wouldn’t pose too much of an issue. Her skill {Suggest} had reached a high enough level that she was confident she would be able to distract the guards long enough to get away.

“Don’t give me that!” said Greta. “Pay attention!”

“I am, Teacher”

“Then tell me, where is the old kingdom of Dokkalfheimr?”

The lessons took place on Greta’s kitchen table. The old woman was hunched over in a raised chair, pointing to a map that Elise sat at the foot of. Elise hopped over to the northern regions and pointed her paw at a small valley in the middle of a mountain range.

“Good!” said Greta, holding out a piece of dried mushroom for Elise. “And who was the last king of Old Dokkalfheimr?”

“King Asbjorn the Unwise.”

“And why is he called Unwise?”

“Because he tried to evict the dragon that made its home in a nearby mountain. It had settled into a cave, and by all accounts was bothering no one, but the cave was in Dokkalfheimr territory, and he couldn’t abide by that. He sent a polite message asking the dragon to leave, and then followed it up by sending Dokkalfheimr’s greatest warriors to slay it. They were slaughtered, and in retaliation, the dragon also killed Asbjorn and his entire family. With their greatest warriors and the entire line of succession dead, the kingdom only survived another year before the orcs overran them and forced them south.”

“And what is this dragon’s name?”

“It’s-” Elise stopped and thought for a few seconds. “Munir?”

Greta took another piece of dried mushroom and threw it at Elise, hitting her directly in the nose. Elise didn’t know how she did it. No matter how far away she was, or how she moved, the old woman always hit her right on the nose. She suspected that Greta had some kind of skill related to it, but if she did, she had never shared anything about it. It did not hurt, but Elise’s nose was sensitive enough that it always made her flinch.

“Wrong. I never told you its name.”

“Sorry, Teacher,” said Elise, grabbing the bit of mushroom from the island nation it had landed on.

“Your Dwarvish is getting better.”

“Thank you, Te-”

“It’s almost as good as mine when I was a year old.”

“Well, I’ve only been learning for a month, so I’d say I’m doing pretty well.”

“Don’t get smart with me,” said Greta, throwing another piece of mushroom.

“Sorry, Teacher. I’ll try to be dumber in the future.”

“Brat.”

As Elise's language lessons had gone on, and she was able to understand more, they had slowly turned away from language and toward history. It had really started when Elise asked Greta about how the dwarves ended up in the cave in the first place, but Greta felt like the story needed to start further back than that, so Elise was becoming very educated on the entirety of dwarven history. It wasn’t the most productive use of time, but it was interesting enough, and Elise had already gotten most of the information she wanted from other sources.

The lesson went on for another hour, and Elise learned about how, after Asbjorn the Unwise’s demise, the dwarves had been forced to flee to the west, which was a harrowing and dangerous journey, constantly slowed by orc raiders and unwitting shortcuts through high-leveled regions. The lesson ended when they finally made it to their destination, the human empire of Albionia. It was a bit early for the lesson to end, but Greta was getting too drowsy to continue.

While she still claimed to be in perfect health, Elise had come to realize that Greta was borderline narcoleptic. Both times that Elise had been to her house before, Greta had fallen asleep almost immediately after bidding Elise farewell, before Elise had even left the room. Elise had factored this into her plans as well. With a little bit of subtle nudging from {Suggest}, Greta would fall asleep during the lesson, and Elise could leave without her noticing.

As she flew out the door, Elise looked back at the old woman, drifting off in her chair.

Should I tell her? she wondered.

Greta probably wouldn’t mind. She understood Elise enough to know why she would want to leave. But it would also complicate things. Elise planned to tell Hallbjorn beforehand, but she wanted her departure to be as quiet as possible. No one would know she was going until she was gone. Not even Greta. It was the most practical option.

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The journey back to the castle was not long, but it was convoluted. The king wanted to avoid any potential incidents, so the route they took to and from the old woman’s house was not the fastest one, but the one with the least people. They took a right out of the woman’s house, walked down the quiet little neighborhood for a few blocks, and then took another right, which took them the opposite direction of the castle so that they could go around the public square at the end of the street.

They also made Elise wear a black cloak, which she thought was silly. Even if they couldn’t see her clearly, the only other small animals living around the city were cave cats and cave rats, and she was clearly neither, and she was also the only small animal that had a half dozen armored dwarves escorting her. She supposed she was at least less eye-catching with the cloak on though. She hadn’t noticed in the dark of the wyrm cave, but in her latest evolution, her fur had taken on a reflective silver sheen that made her really stand out anywhere there was light.

As they walked through the slums, Elise noted that the coughing seemed to have increased again, which wasn’t good. There was a minor epidemic in the city at the moment. The king wasn’t too concerned, since it was not deadly, and the symptoms were mild, but every day, Elise noticed more people getting sick, and she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or not, but the coughs seemed to be getting worse as well.

When she got back to the castle, she immediately went to the training grounds, where Sindri was already hard at work. He had left the dummies out for her, so she went straight to work with her own training. Her progress on {Magic Missile} had slowed even further, and she could barely go over half power with good efficiency. Her full power spell had definitely gotten more efficient than before, but she still had a long way to go before she could cast it perfectly.

Since she was using more power than before though, that meant she was running out of mana sooner, which meant she spent more time recharging. She could hold a full 7 acupoints open now, and when she stopped focusing, none of them closed quite as much as they had before she started working them.

She ended her training a bit early that day though, because she had other things to do. Sindri stayed behind to train more while she went to grab a quick bite at the cafeteria. Most of the Royal Guards were now accustomed to seeing her there. She had {Charm}ed some of them into friendliness, but she still got her fair share of stares and glares as she ate. She didn’t care though. She was going to be leaving soon, so it didn’t matter anymore.

After eating, she made a beeline for the library. She felt a little sorry for Baldur and Jonas, who were forced to speed eat to keep up with their escort duties, but she knew they were paid well. When they arrived at the library, Anna was at her desk as usual, with an empty plate next to her and a book in her hands.

Anna had a round face, a round body, and long, curly, brown hair. Her eyes were the same color as her hair, but it was almost impossible to get a good look at them because of how much she squinted. The dwarves had no optometrists, which was a shame because Anna really needed one. She had to hold her face a few inches from the pages to be able to read the words on them.

“Ehem,” said Baldur.

Anna still didn’t notice them. She had the most intense tunnel vision Elise had ever seen. Before Baldur could clear his throat again, or say something to get the librarian’s attention, Elise tried a different method.

Behind me! she thought, targeting Anna with {Suggest}.

The poor woman nearly fell out of her chair in surprise. She looked around the room for a few seconds, panicked, until her eyes settled on Elise and her two guards.

“Oh!” said Anna, straightening her clothes. “Elise! Sorry, I was just so absorbed. I’m reading a book called the Wives of the Lost Expedition. It’s about- well, I bet you can guess what it’s about. It’s really interesting! I’d highly recommend checking it out. After I’m done reading it, of course.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Elise. “But I’m here for the maps again.”

“Of course, of course. You must really like geography!”

“I’ve always thought it was pretty interesting.”

“For sure! I’ve never really seen the appeal myself, but my brother loves maps. I bet you and him would really get along!”

“Maybe,” said Elise.

The dwarven library was relatively sparse, for its size. Apparently, in the past, their chief historian had been murdered by drow while holding a significant portion of their collection in an extra-dimensional space skill. No one knew what happened to items in such skills when the user of the skill died, but whatever it was, the books were never seen again. Still, they did have a good collection of maps of the surface. They were ancient and dated, of course, so the borders were probably irrelevant, but Elise doubted the major landmarks had changed much.

She had spent an hour or so every day for the past week poring over the maps, trying her best to memorize them, and locate points of interest that she could go to once she left. With a few hopefully-not-suspicious questions to Greta, she had gathered information and decided on what her destination would be once she left. Far to the south, there was a region known simply as “the Jungle” that was a popular place for adventurers to earn levels and for hunters to gather monster parts. It was one of the biggest spawn zones in the world, but as far as Elise could tell, the level of the monsters that spawned there weren’t too high. The innermost portions of the jungle supposedly spawned 5th or 6th tier species, but the outskirts were generally limited to 3rd or 4th tier.

It would be the perfect place for her to do some hunting and gain some levels. Getting there would probably prove difficult, but if the maps were to be believed, between where she was and the Jungle, the most dangerous spawn zones were 2nd tier at most, so her main danger would be humanoids, and humanoids she could handle.

She felt a little bad about abandoning the dwarves like that. She had come to like them a fair amount. However, as the bearer of the Rune of Fate, continuing to stay was like playing with fire. Sooner or later, she would get burned.

That was why, in addition to the maps of the surface, she also spent time studying the maps of the caves. The system was much more complex than she initially realized, but the dwarves had explored it very thoroughly. Thoroughly enough that she knew the only way out was back through the wyrm tunnel.

She was preparing to put the maps away–a process that took quite a while without hands–when the door to the library opened and a familiar old man walked in, flanked by Jonas and Baldur. He looked around the room for a moment, but as soon as he saw her in the corner, he sneered and made a beeline her direction.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” he said.

Elise glanced at him, then down at the maps, then back at him.

Shoot!

“What does an innocent, harmless fey need with a map of the city?” he continued.

“I was just curious,” said Elise. “I think maps are interesting.”

“Of course,” he said. “They are interesting. I’m sure the ghouls would also find them… interesting.”

“I am looking at these maps only for myself,” she said, using {Charm} at the same time.

{Charm} didn’t work. It never did. Not in situations like this, at least.

“Lord Josef, she has proven herself trustworthy already,” said Jonas.

“Trustworthy?” said the old man. “It’s only been a month, and you believe it’s trustworthy? Good at manipulation, more like. That thing’s got half the castle wrapped around its grubby paws, and no one seems to care.”

“Lord Josef, His Majesty says-” started Baldur.

“His Majesty is under her spell too,” snapped Josef. “You’re all fools. I’m going to report this incident to him. Not that it will do anything. But mark my words, fey, your days are numbered. I’m not going to let you destroy my kingdom.”

He turned and marched out of the room.

“What are you doing with those maps?” asked Jonas.

“Just looking at them,” she lied. “I think they’re interesting. You see this cave section over here?” She hopped a step to the side and pointed at the map with her paw. “This is actually connected to the wyrm tunnel that I came in through. I went to that part of the cave once, I think, but I didn’t stay long. It was full of nasty bugs.”

“Oh, the Bloat Wasps?” asked Baldur. “Or were you talking about the Sulfur Centipedes? Or maybe the Tunnel Ants?”

“The ones I saw were fat and purple with big stingers,” said Elise.

“So the Bloat Wasps then,” said Baldur. “I had a training mission over that way once. I’m never going back if I can help it.”

“Me neither.”

Jonas squinted at her suspiciously. “I don’t think you should look at those maps anymore.”

“Yeah, probably not,” Elise agreed. “It will start rumors. Can you help me put them away?”

“Sure,” said Baldur.

A few minutes later the three of them were on their way to the king’s personal dining room for Elise’s semi-regular royal dinner. Usually, she looked forward to those days, since the food was so much better than what she normally got, but this time, she was a bit anxious. It very well could have been the last time she saw the man.

“Elise,” said Hallbjorn when she entered. “How were your lessons?”