I completely forgot to include the stat sheet at the end of the last chapter. I edited it in, but here it is right now so you don't have to go back and look.

Name Elise Burrow Age 0 (20) Race Lesser Fey (Rabbit) Level (III) 1 Stats Base Bonuses Total Strength 44 0 44 Agility 126 0 126 Dexterity 114 0 114 Fortitude 42 0 42 Charisma 390 0 390 Intelligence 149 0 149 Willpower 154 0 154 Mana 193 0 193 Mana Control 223 0 223 Skills Level Description Inspect 45 Identify the species and level of another creature Nature Magic Affinity - As a creature of the forest, you feel a strong connection to nature and natural mana Leap 28 Jump with additional force Rune of Fate - A rune that @#$%^&*( Dart 27 Dash quickly in any horizontal direction. Charges: 8. Cooldown: 8 seconds Sudden Growth 15 Cause all nearby plants to grow at many times their normal rate for 3 seconds Mana Sense 31 Sense nearby mana Magic Missile 28 Create missiles of mana that attack your target. Current missiles: 7 Suggest 19 Plant a subtle thought or desire in the target's mind Prehensile Vines 26 Vines grow out of the ground in front of you. You can control them as you would your own limbs. Charm 26 Increase a target's attraction to you Ensnaring Roots 13 Summon sturdy roots from the ground that wrap around the target Fey Wings - Fold or unfold your wings Fairy Dust 28 Release dust from your wing that either blesses or curses (user's choice) any living creature it comes into contact with Fey Bargaining 1 Form a contract with another creature. If either side breaks the contract, they will be cursed

“They went well,” said Elise. “It’s nice being out of the castle.”

“Have you been sleeping well?” asked Hallbjorn. “Any nightmares.”

“No,” she lied. “None.”

“That’s good.”

“How have the Council meetings been?” asked Elise.

“Josef has been a pain in my royal arse lately,” growled Hallbjorn. “Won’t shut up about the damn ghouls. More people are falling ill by the day and all he can talk about is the damned ghouls! He says they’ve been too quiet lately, and that it’s getting suspicious. Of course it’s suspicious! They’re always suspicious! We’ll deal with them when they show their ugly faces again. We have more important things to worry about!”

“I noticed there was more coughing than before when I was on my way back from Greta’s.”

“Aye, and you don’t know the half of it. It’s even worse on the north side of the city. More than half the citizens in that area are sick, and none of them are recovering on their own. No deaths yet, but at this rate, it’s only a matter of time. And the doctors still have no idea how to stop it. They cure a patient, and a day later, they’re back in bed, coughing up a lung. The only good thing is that they’re at least leveling. Once we overcome this, we won’t have to worry about disease for a while.”

“Silver lining, I guess,” said Elise in English.

“Pardon me?”

“Oh, I was just saying that’s good. High leveled doctors and healers are always a good thing.”

“That they are. That they are.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “He also just came in to tell me that you were looking at a map of the city, and that you were planning on betraying us.”

“I was looking at a map of the city. I am not planning on betraying you.”

Hallbjorn grinned. “Aye, that’s what I told him, and he just stormed out. But, what else can I say? So, you’re heading back to Greta’s tomorrow as well?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Her doctor didn’t want her moving around too much with the epidemic going around, so until the problem is solved, I’ll be going to her house for my lessons.”

“Right, right. I remember.” He poked at a mushroom with his fork. “How is she, by the way? I’m always asking about your lessons, but never about her. It’s been a while since I’ve had a real talk with her.”

“She’s healthy. And she seems to be doing fine. She has… a relationship with her neighbors, so she’s not lonely.”

“A ‘relationship’, eh?” said the king with a grin. “And by that you mean she scolds them and they insult her back.”

“Usually. The other day, Emil, the man across the street, came out to call me a filthy rodent and a ghoul-lover, and she told him he was a terrible parent and that it was good his kids never talked to him anymore, because if they did, they’d probably end up killing him.”

“Ha! Sounds like she’s doing as well as ever, then. That reminds me of this one time when I was younger…”

They spend the next ten minutes or so trading stories of Greta. The old woman had been the king’s teacher when he was younger too, so he had plenty of tales of his own. From the way he told it, she was just as irritable and uncensored back then as she was now, if not more so.

Once they were done, Hallbjorn's face turned serious, and he leaned in, looking her in the eye. Elise had been slouching a bit while they laughed and joked about Greta, but seeing the king’s demeanor shift, she knew what he was about to say was important, so she sat up a bit higher and straightened her ears so that he knew she was listening.

“I almost have the council convinced to try the surface,” he said. “Or more accurately, I almost have Sindri convinced. Once he turns, Atli and Sigmundur will follow him, and with that we’ll have a supermajority. Even if Josef and his faction keep protesting, we’ll be able to move forward with the planning. That’ll be a whole other problem. Making a tunnel big enough to evacuate from and defending it from the ghouls will be a pain in the arse. It’ll probably be another two weeks before we can even start, and then two months before the tunnel is complete.”

“I hope you’re not leaving the caves just because of me,” said Elise. “I know I have the Rune, but you shouldn’t be making such an important decision based on something so vague.”

“Bah!” said the king. “This is something that we need to do anyway. You’re just a useful catalyst. I’m sure you’ve heard it from Greta, but dwarves weren’t made to live their whole lives underground like this. Our lifespans are getting shorter. My father barely made it to a hundred fifty. I’m only sixty, and my joints are starting to ache. Birth rates are in decline, and with the ghouls constantly picking us off, we can’t expand underground safely. We need to go back to the surface. Whether we have you or not, I will take my people up.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“You say all that, but you’ve been doing everything in your power to keep me here,” argued Elise. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I’m not going to be here forever. You can’t use me as a reason.”

“I want you here because of the power of the Rune of Fate, but I’m not using you to push my agenda. Not that much. I’m only using your arrival here, not your presence. If you left, it wouldn’t change my plans, or the arguments for my plans.” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait, are you leaving?”

“...Maybe.”

“If it’s because you need to level, I can get you into our experience caves,” he said. “There will be backlash, but if that’s what I need to do, I’ll handle it.”

“No,” said Elise. “I want to level, but the longer I stay here, the more dangerous it gets. There haven’t been any ghoul attacks but what happens when there are? You said they broke into the castle to rescue the last fey you found. Eventually, they’ll try that for me too. I don’t have anything against the dwarves, and I don’t care about the ghouls, but I don’t want to be caught in between your conflict.”

Hallbjorn stared at her for a few seconds in silent contemplation. Then, he sighed, and slumped his shoulders forward.

“When do you plan on leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No,” she said. “I know that helping me leave would put you in a difficult situation. I can get out on my own.”

While Elise was safe from harm living in the castle, Josef had been doing his best to rile up the people. Of course, there was no evidence it was him, so Hallbjorn couldn’t do anything, but there was no doubt about who it was. While Elise had gotten most of the residents of the castle to at least tolerate her presence, It was different out in the city. There were rumors flying about that she was controlling the king. If Hallbjorn helped her leave, that would only fuel the rumors. Her solo departure wouldn’t help either, but it would be easier for Hallbjorn to swing that story in his favor.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to make you stay?” he said. “We have artifacts. Tools. Jewelry. All enchanted with our finest runes.”

Elise hesitated. It was tempting. Maybe if she got the right rune-enhanced gear, she would stand a better chance against the warg. But it was too risky to stick around. She had already been there for too long.

“I’m leaving,” she said firmly.

Hallbjorn sighed. “Well in that case, let’s enjoy this meal. Better to end on a high note.”

The food arrived soon after, and the conversation turned to lighter topics as they ate. The atmosphere livened up soon after, and by the end of the meal, Hallbjorn was smiling and laughing again. Then, as Elise was preparing to leave again, his face turned serious again.

“You’re going to the surface when you leave?” he said.

“I am,” said Elise.

“Then this won’t be a permanent farewell. We’ll meet again.”

“I hope so. I’ll come back and visit, once you guys make it out.”

“You’d better,” said Hallbjorn with a smile. “Have a good night, and a safe trip.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “Good luck with the evacuation.”

Back in her room, Elise ran through the plan in her head once before starting on her nightly training. The next morning, she would attend the lesson with Greta as usual, then at lunch, she would put Greta to sleep, and after that, it was just a matter of making it back to the lake. Fortunately, the lake was not a heavily guarded area, and from what she had gathered talking to Baldur and Jonas, tunnels with that security level had simple buttons to open the stone doors from the inside. There would be no need for her to do any kind of specific verification to leave.

Unfortunately, the lake was on the opposite side of the cavern from Greta’s house. If she tried to fly over, she would draw the attention of the entire city, and complicate things greatly. Sneaking would take longer, but in the end, it would be worth it. After that, making it over the lake would be simple. As long as she stayed on the ceiling of the cave, the plesiosaur hopefully wouldn’t notice her. If it did, she was confident she could at least trick it away from blocking where she wanted to go so she could get past. And after that, she was home free. Unless something had moved into the wyrm tunnel…

But if something had, she would solve that problem when she got there. There was no way to predict what was going to happen, so wasting time worrying about it was pointless. Instead, she turned her attention back to her practice.

{Prehensile Vines} was coming along nicely. She had used a similar method to the one that Sindri taught her for {Magic Missile} to improve her efficiency, and every level she gained in the skill boosted the efficiency even more, so she could make the skill last for quite a while now. At full strength, she could control them for nearly five minutes before they withered.

When depleted and recharged her mana twice training that spell before getting in bed to practice unlocking what Jens had called her “mana cores.” According to him, fully unlocking them was a long and tedious process that few bothered to do, but Elise actually found it quite interesting. She had yet to unlock even her first one, but she was always making progress. The core in her chest now had about double the mana density of the air around here, which, while still a far cry from the rest of her body, was a significant improvement.

She meditated for almost two hours before falling asleep, and for the first time in a long time, her dreams were pleasant.

The next morning, she woke up before Jona’s knock. She had never been good at sleeping when something exciting was about to happen. They took a slightly different route to get to Greta’s house than they had the day before. They had decided it was best to switch it up semi-regularly to prevent any ambushes from extremists. There weren’t many of those, especially not in that part of the city, but better safe than sorry.

“Hurry up, slowpoke,” said Greta from the door when they arrived. “I don’t have all day.”

Elise hopped inside, then leapt up into her usual spot on the dining room table. Unlike at the Gray’s cabin, she did not need to use {Leap} to get up, since it was a Dwarven table, and was much lower. There was a shallow dish filled with water set out for her, and she took a few sips while Greta closed the door and hobbled over to join her.

“I’ll bet you’ve forgotten half of what I taught you yesterday already,” said Greta.

“Of course not, Teacher.”

“Tell me everything you know about Asbjorn the Unwise.”

Elise narrated back everything they had discussed the previous day, from Asbjorn’s birth as the second oldest of nine to the death of his father and elder brother and his ascension to the throne at age twenty nine, which was considered by dwarves to be far too young to rule effectively. His age combined with a few misguided decisions had earned him the ‘Unwise’ moniker from his detractors long before the incident with the dragon, but he had not been an especially bad king, according to Greta. Not bad enough to deal irreparable damage to the kingdom at least.

Elise told as much as she knew, and Greta filled in whatever small details she forgot until they arrived back where they had left off, with the evicted dwarves encountering the human nation of Albionia.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the stories from those no-good rumormongers who call themselves the Council,” said Greta. “Fools, the lot of them. No respect for history. Even young Hallbjorn is starting to act like he’s got mushrooms in his ears. They all think that the humans saw the defenseless dwarves and decided to mercilessly and unjustly subjugate and enslave them. Even the ones that know what actually happened choose to ignore it to further the worthless propaganda.

“What really happened was a much longer process that took a century to get to the point where the dwarves were truly enslaved. The humans actually welcomed us, at least officially, and allowed us to stay on their land as long as we paid our taxes. And we did that. We sold our goods and forged weapons as they requested, and generally enjoyed a harmonious relationship with them for half a century. It was only when Benedikt the Braindead came into power that things started to go downhill…”

Elise listened for an hour or so as Greta told of how Benedict the Braindead almost single-handedly brought the dwarves to ruin. He unilaterally decided that the humans were oppressing them by making them pay taxes, and declared war to gain their independence. But it had only been 50 years, which meant only one generation of dwarves had been born, and while it had nearly doubled their population, it had nothing on the two and a half generations of humans that had been born in that same timespan.

The war for independence was an abject failure, and the dwarves went from a taxed, but relatively independent race, to a group living under near martial law, and the taxes were quadrupled. Benedikt the Braindead somehow managed to not only survive, but retain some measure of influence over his son who succeeded him, and soon, the dwarves were selling off their own kind to pay their debt.

When they reached that point, Greta decided it was time for a short break, and went to make herself some tea. Of course, it was not real tea. There were no tea leaves underground. What she made was instead mushroom tea that she made from scratch by steeping dried mushroom she had grown in her garden in boiling water. She had given Elise a taste once, and while it was better than the king’s mushroom coffee abomination, it still did not taste very good. But, it was all she ever saw Greta drink, so Elise figured it must have been an acquired taste.

This tea break was exactly what Elise had been waiting for though. Whenever Greta got her tea, she always set it down on the table for it to cool, and then sat in silence for ten minutes or so. Once or twice, she had dozed off while waiting, and that was exactly what Elise was going to ensure would happen this time.

I’ll just close my eyes for a moment, she thought using {Suggest} once Greta was settled into her chair.

The old woman didn’t notice anything, and took the thought as if it were her own, and closed her eyes. A minute later, she was snoring softly.

Should I really have done that? she thought.

Was it really necessary to put Greta to sleep? Elise could just tell her she was leaving. Greta wouldn’t try to stop her. She might have spoken too loud though, and been heard by the escorts, which would complicate things. Then again, that might have just been Elise making excuses. She just didn’t want to have to say goodbye.

Well, it’s too late now.

She turned on her wings, and held the right one over the woman’s lap and used {Fairy Dust} with deep sleep and happy dreams in mind. At first, she wasn’t sure if it had worked, but a few seconds later, Greta’s snoring grew louder, and Elise breathed a sigh of relief. She hopped down from the table, disabling her wings as she made her way to the window by the side door. That was Baldur’s side, and while a competent guard, he was also the most laid-back, and the easiest to trick. She couldn’t see him, but she could sense where he was with {Mana Sense}, and was able to target him with {Suggest}.

What was that? She thought to him.

She heard the sound of metal scraping against metal as he turned to his left to look at the nothing that Elise made him think he had seen. There was no sound for a few seconds, so Elise used {Suggest} again.

Down at the end of the alley.

The dwarf started taking cautious steps down the alleyway, and Elise took the opportunity to hop up to the windowsill. He stopped when he reached the corner of the house, at which point, Elise used {Suggest} one final time.

I should ask Jonas if he’s seen anything.

“Hey Jonas, did you see something over here?” called the dwarf.

“What was that?” responded Jonas from the backyard.

“I was just asking if you had seen anything heading this way. I could have sworn I saw something moving over here.”

“It was probably just a cat, Baldur. Go back to your post.”

“Are you sure? I swear there was something else.”

“If you see it again, let me know. For now, just get back to your post.”

“Alright.”

By the time Baldur returned to his spot, Elise had already left the house. She used the sound of his voice to mask the opening and closing of the window, and rounded the corner before he had a chance to turn around and see her.

With that, step one of her plan was complete. She walked one house over, then entered the alley between them and started to make her way to her destination.

This part was actually fairly easy, though very nerve-wracking. She had planned out her route very carefully, and kept multiple detours in mind, in case something unpredictable happened and her chosen route was unavailable, but she still hadn’t expected it to go as smoothly as it did. She was highly visible and easily recognizable, so anyone who spotted her would know who she was, but at this time of day, anyone who wasn’t out working was locked inside, so there was almost no one out to see her. And her ears were good enough that she was able to avoid the few weirdos who were out and not working for whatever reason.

Even so, making it to the lake tunnel wouldn’t be easy. She had to wrap around a significant portion of the city without getting spotted, and had to make it past many relatively major streets to get there. Around the edges of the main Dwarven city, there were various offshoot tunnels leading either to mines, underground rivers and lakes, underground mushroom farms, or even experience farms. All of these types of caves saw regular traffic throughout the day, so crossing the streets that led into them was no easy task, and she couldn’t just fly over them because that was a surefire way to get spotted by half the city.

The first three tunnels and streets turned out to be relatively easy to get past. There were few enough people that as long as she waited for the right moment, she only had to {Suggest} one person to make them look the wrong way as she darted past. The fourth street though, was different. It led to one of the dwarves' two public use experience farms, and with all the talk of going to the surface lately, they were being used more than ever.

There was never a time that less than three people were looking at any one possible crossing point she had, and she could only target one person with {Suggest} at a time. She had foreseen something like this happening, and knew that she just had to be patient and wait for it to clear up, but every minute that passed that she couldn’t go any further made her more anxious. She had no way of knowing when Greta would wake up, or when one of the guards would notice her snoring or lack of lecturing. Once they noticed her missing, they would report back to the castle, and while she knew the king wouldn’t do anything too bad, there was no chance none of the elders did anything, and once word got out that she had disappeared from the castle, the whole city would be on high alert.

After about an hour of waiting, to no avail, Elise started to reconsider her options. Maybe she should try a different route. The further she went toward the city, the busier it got, typically, but maybe there was a sweet spot halfway between this experience farm and the city square that would be low enough on activity for her to slip past. Before she could move though, there was an angry hissing behind her.

She turned her head slightly to see a scarred, black cat stalking toward her.

Dang it! She activated {Suggest}. I shouldn’t mess with that thing.

The cat paused for a second, but continued moving toward her, crouching low as if ready to pounce. {Inspect} showed it was only a level 8 Cave Cat, something that even without magic, Elise could now handle with no problem, but she couldn’t do it silently, and making any noise would be bad. Hopefully, no one would take notice of the cat making sound, since alley cat fights weren’t exactly unusual, but when the cat pounced and she swatted it away, its squeal did not go unnoticed.

“Scram!” said an angry voice from a window above her. “You mangy beast, get out of here!”

A bearded head poked out the window, and the cat turned and fled. Elise huddled beneath the window, praying she would go unnoticed, but the head turned down, and locked eyes with her.

“Hey, wait a second, you’re-!”

Just then, alarm bells rang out through the city, and Elise heard the sounds of panicked dwarves jumping to their feet and standing at attention all around her.

“It’s the fey!” shouted the dwarf above her. “It’s trying to escape!”