Nasty, brutish, and short.

In my first year political theory class, that’s the way Hobbes had summarized life on Earth before people had entered into an unspoken social contract. I would’ve expected a Neanderthal dressed in furs the way Makayla looked at the man who burst through an archway curtained by hanging moss.

But no. I wouldn’t describe him as short, either, since he probably stood a forehead taller than either of us. Yet, Makayla somehow managed to look down her nose at him.

Me, I thought he radiated a certain roguish appeal, a cross of Robert Downey Jr and Idris Elba—even though he was neither Black nor White, nor from any identifiable ethnic group from Earth. He was undeniably human, though, with a short mustache and beard and flowing dark hair. With his grey robes, he looked as if he’d robbed the set of a Chinese wuxia drama.

His eyes scanned the room before falling on us. He dropped into a stance like Jamie from Street Fighter.

“Surrender the vessel,” he said, voice guttural. He jabbed a finger past us.

Makayla clucked.

My gaze strayed to the enormous vase in the center of the room. What was so special about it? And how would he escape with such a large, metal object?

“You’ll have to get past me.” With a smirk, Makayla sang out a syllable, and fire sprung to life in her outstretched palm.

She could use magic!

Of course she could, she was an elf.

“Gladly,” the human said, returning the grin. He launched himself forward, higher in the air than should be humanly possible, and cocked his fist back like a scene from the Matrix. Swirls of blue coalesced there.

Makayla threw the fire globe at him, but he punched through it, dispersing the flames.

“Shield,” she yelled, throwing a hand back and pushing me.

Whether Alyna’s body was clumsy, or I just wasn’t used to it, that one nudge sent me tumbling back onto my ass.

My head hit against the vase, and it again tolled like a bell. The moss flared brighter, though a circle of it fizzled and darkened where the man’s fist slammed into the floor.

A dozen stunning elf maidens dressed in ribbons of black flooded into the room, each bearing silver rods. Their hair gleamed in shades of brass, gold, silver, and bronze, and their eyes glittered like sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, and other precious gemstones. Never had I seen such beauty in one place.

Then again, I did grow up in the Bible Belt.

“Cultivator!” Makayla yelled.

That word again.

“My, my,” the farmer chuckled. He turned in a circle as the women surrounded him. “A veritable feast.”

As if stealing third base, he dove feet first towards the legs of the girl closest to me. It swept her legs out from under her, but she thrust her staff back and twirled around it like well, a pole dancer. With lithe grace, she landed on her feet and lifted the staff in a ready position.

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

Still, the human was that much closer to the vase.

“Here!” one of the elves yelled, throwing a pair of silvery tubes in my direction.

Mid-flight, the ends popped out, elongating to the same length as the other women’s poles.

Makayla pulled me to my feet, then without looking, reached back and caught one of the staves.

The other flew towards me. Like those old Hong Kong movies, I swept my hand out to catch it.

And missed.

Instead, it hit me in the shoulder with more force than should’ve been possible, knocking me back to the floor. At least the moss softened the blow to my ass, if not my ego.

“Protect the vessel!” Makayla yelled, twirling her weapon.

I’d have to find out what was so important about that vase! Did it contain one of Kavala’s fingernails or something?

The ladies crisscrossed between each other with the precision of the Jabbawockies, minus the masks and 99% of the clothes, and formed a wall of silver staves between the farmer and the artifact.

Undaunted, he surged forward, punching, kicking, and jumping. Bolts of blue energy shot towards the defenders, while all I could do was watch.

His impossible speed and ferocity would’ve taken down a platoon of marines in seconds, yet the elves responded by dancing, literally dancing, in perfect synchronicity. Despite the dire situation, they wore flirtatious expressions as they twirled and slid into seductive poses. Back arching, hips swaying, butts tilting, it was like watching Black Pink perform one of their banned dances.

Amazingly, their positions always put them just out of his lines of attack, their silver rods blocking his progress towards the vase. Even when he tried to jump past their wall, the ribbons of a dress would interpose themselves on his path. Was this some martial form? Or a dance choreographed to defend?

I scrabbled to my feet, but my knees buckled. One of my hands shot out to the giant vase to keep myself from falling.

Instead, I shoved a golden-hair beauty.

Luckily, too, because the farmer’s glowing palm would’ve slammed into her face.

Unluckily, because his arm slipped between her head and mine and his fingers closed around the lip of the vase.

He pulled himself through the gap—in retrospect, had I been in the dance formation, he would’ve tripped over one my dresses’ strings—and stood next to the vessel.

Makayla was screaming something, what I wasn’t sure, even as the phalanx lost its synchronized beauty and broke into a convoluted mess.

The human closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and waved his arms into a circle. Blue streaks of energy coalesced into a disk.

And in the center was nothingness.

With a thrust of his heel at the lip of the relic, he sent it tipping over. Curiously, it didn’t ring out from the blow as before.

He brought his hands around the top, and the neck of the vase disappeared past the circle formed by his arms. With a sweep of his heel at the tipping base and a rapid side kick, it disappeared.

Several of the women cried out, even as they reformed a circle around him.

Almost a circle.

The weak link was where I sprawled, struggling on the soft floor to gain my feet.

He sprang over my head on light feet, darted to the arch, and disappeared through the curtain of moss. Three of the women dashed after him.

My chest constricted as everyone turned their attention to me.

A precious artifact of a goddess, lost because of me.

“Is everyone all right?” Makayla asked.

For an abbess of a sanctuary dedicated to a relic that had just been stolen, she sounded amazingly calm.

All of the maidens formed the circle with their thumb and forefinger at the crown of their heads. Should I do the same?

A look of collective relief washed over them. They were all remarkably composed. I imagine that back home, if someone had stolen a piece of the True Cross, the Holy Grail, or Joel Osteen’s spittoon, an entire religion would call for a crusade on the thieves.

“Very well,” Makayla said. “Someone go after Anya, Eliya, and Maya. They’ll never catch the Cultivator with his unnatural speed, and it’s not like he stole anything important.”

Gawking, I gestured to where the giant vase had once stood. “He stole the Kavala’s Vessel! Because of me!”

All eyes darted to me, the collective relief contorting back into universal concern.

“What?”

Makayla’s head jerked up, and if I’d widened her eyes several times tonight with my cluelessness about myself and this world, it didn’t compare to her shock now.

“Alyna, you are the vessel.”