"Alright, it's time to go home now, little one."

"Anything new happen since I was gone?"

"Fish are hard to come by nowadays, seems something's got 'em spooked."

"I overheard some humans in the market saying that there's some problem with their army."

"Who cares about stupid humans, I heard that an actual dragonkin is clearing the land of those foul spawn!"

"What!"

"Where did you hear that from?!"

Any other discourse was completely disregarded once news of a dragonkin got out. I nudged the tamed rat acting as my eyes and ears to slink into a nearby alley to prevent it from being crushed accidentally as a wave of gossipmongers rushed toward the one who had spoken about the dragonkin.

The short journey to the port town, unimaginatively-named Trader's Bay, was uneventful, though the bustle of the town more than made up for it. The beastfolk as a whole didn't have a fixed currency, so transactions between two parties were either done by exchanging goods or services, or the promise of goods or services. However, this led to an obvious issue when it came to trading with the other races, who each had their own currencies. While humans used coins of different metals to denote their value, elves used the same concept just on wooden tokens, each carved with a number denoting their worth.

All of this was to say that the town was a clusterfuck of shouting, as each and every deal had to be agreed upon with both parties walking away satisfied, or more likely walking away from the deal altogether. There was no currency exchange, so the value of what was being offered was decided upon by the seller and buyer. Even if the prices seemed fair in the foreign countries, if the beastfolk found it too difficult to trade for, they'd walk away rather than let themselves be swindled. At least, the more experienced ones did. I saw more than one naive beastfolk trade animal goods exclusive to their tribes for a fraction of their true worth, and receiving what would basically be junk in the human lands. The human merchants were only too happy to conduct such deals, even if it meant they'd lose future business the next time they came. The relation between elves and beastfolk, on the other hand, was much more comfortable, with some elves willing to go so far as to visit distant beastfolk tribes in order to secure a deal.

The market was the most boisterous part of town, but it wasn't the loudest. That honor went to the fishing section, where seafood was being dumped, transported and butchered, loudly and at decibels that could shatter glass. How people were unaffected was a mystery to me. The smell wasn't as bad as I'd expected, seeing as I was in the residential part of the town furthest from the actual docks, but that could have just been a side effect of sharing senses with something over a distance.

The town was a chaotic mess, and while it was unlikely that I would be recognized, and subsequently punished by local authorities, I wanted to minimize any interactions I had with both the beastfolk and the humans present, hence my scouting with the tamed rat. For the moment I was staying in a beastfolk-run inn after healing the owner's daughter of a persistent fever. The act had bought me a week of lodging, during which I hoped to hear news of an elven ship docking or leaving. Unfortunately, my search was fruitless thus far, and I was wondering if I needed to walk the docks myself to ask directly. There were elves selling their wares just like the other races, but I had no idea how to go about securing passage for myself on one of their ships. Not to mention that even asking would be considered odd at best and criminal at worst. I could always mesmerize a random elf and work my way up their chain of command, but with what I knew of the elves' high compatibility with essence, they might be able to detect it, although the fact that the dragons never noticed Reela's change was a point in favor of trying it out.

There were some guards walking around town, but for the most part, they ignored whatever duties they might have had to drink and chat with residents they came across. The one time I had seen them do anything remotely close to guard duties was when a beastfolk and a human merchant got into a heated argument, with the beastfolk giving in to his anger and throwing the first punch, or tail whip more accurately. The guards promptly detained the human, who protested as loudly as his injuries allowed him to, and took him to a building that looked like the guard's headquarters. From there, he was thrown into a cell and actively ignored, at which point I made sure that any plans I concocted from that point on accounted for the guards' movements.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

My attention then turned to finding the elves in the city, and seeing if I could overhear when they were departing or if they had any news of other elven ships arriving soon. To my surprise, all the elves I could locate, numbering about thirty, were staying in an inn across from my own on the other side of the street. Fortunately, it seemed that they couldn't detect any abnormalities with my little animal scout, even if there was one heart-stopping moment where one elf looked straight at the beady-eyed rat in the cracked wall before dismissing it, and continuing on with her conversation...which brought up another issue I had neglected in my haste.

I couldn't speak elvish.

It wouldn't be an issue here, but I would have to learn to speak it once I got to the continent, yet another reason to be annoyed. All the elves I observed spoke the language of the beastfolk while out and about in the town, but to my consternation, they switched to elvish when in their own rooms, meaning my eavesdropping was rendered useless. Maybe it was my desire to leave the town as soon as possible, but I couldn't think of a better plan than approaching one of them after the market closed the next day and broaching the subject. In the beastfolk tongue, no less.

Whatever, worst case scenario, I mesmerize them all and bide my time on their ship once they point it out to me.

I laid down on the bed and tried to sleep, but my mind kept imagining all the different ways my 'plan' could go wrong. What could I do to handle this situation? Was I even sure that there was a situation, to begin with? Elder Dusk had evicted me so quickly that the exact terms of my 'banishment' were left vague, and it was possible that the dragons wouldn't even enforce their ruling if I stayed in the continent for a few days longer than expected. Then again, they weren't exactly thinking rationally right now, being in crisis mode and hunkering down in their realm for a while.

Should I explore the town myself? It wasn't like there were dragons walking around in the market, and it was possible I was overreacting to everything. Being able to shapeshift or disguise myself would be useful right about now, even if it was basically a non-option. I recalled one of the first lessons I had at the academy where a certain elven teacher body-morphed into various genders and body shapes, and found myself wishing I could do the same thing.

Wait... I pulled my attention to the Trove, stored within the Seed in my soul, and searched for transformation, illusion, and disguising techniques that I could use. Sadly, the Trove was more a starter guide than an encyclopedia, and only made references to techniques like that. Even worse, I assumed they all utilized mana. Given the problems and kinks I was having with essence, I chose to wait before using any of those techniques. Even the most basic illusory technique required a light-affinity, which seemed to be one of the few affinities I was not in possession of. Right now, I was operating under the premise that affinities were unaffected by what energy was used to interact with them, but if that turned out to be false, I would have to do some serious thinking about which one was worth more.

Actually, scratch that. Hands down, mana is more important than these other affinities. I've gotten by so far only using blood, and I doubt it'll be a problem in the future. Even if it is...I can probably induce other affinities into myself again like I did this time.

And with that, I fell into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of beastfolk guards hanging me upside down and pummeling me in the town's jail cell for the crime of being human, while elves laughed at my plight from the doorway, calling me a worthless fool before they sailed away, leaving me stranded forever.

I woke up in a cold sweat, emphasis on the cold. Winter had made its way south, and there was an undeniable chill in the air. I threw off the blanket and yawned as I got up to stretch, the details of the dream fading as I wiped my eyes. Before I could go in my space to clean up, I heard a soft series of knocks on the door. Maybe it was the inn's owner again, offering breakfast? The dinner last night was warm, if nothing else, and I could use some of that heat right now.

What I saw when the door opened wasn't the middle-aged fox beastkin, or his rambunctious daughter, but two elves, who took one look at me before nodding at each other and nonchalantly walking right past me as I stood there like an idiot with the door still open and my eyes bugged out.

"Excuse me, but would you mind closing the door? We have something we'd like to discuss with you." The soft yet audible voice jolted me out of my stupor and made me turn around to look at the elves, one of whom was sitting on the corner of the now pristine bed, the other one standing behind her. I quickly shut the door and was about to speak when the elves shared another look, communicating somehow, and a dark violet barrier spread out and encapsulated the entire room.

"Now we can be sure no one is listening." The seated elf said. She looked roughly my age, but elves were well-known for their longevity and deceptive appearance. Both of them could be centuries older than me for all I knew, but once again I was focusing on the trivial to distract from the big picture. Two unknown elves had waltzed into my room right as I woke up and had put me in a barrier that prevented eavesdropping. They were clad in traveling clothes but weren't visibly armed, though to be fair, weapons would probably only hold them back. And yet, despite their behavior...I oddly didn't feel in danger. Suspicious as hell, sure, but not in danger. They were speaking in the human tongue, so I did the same.

"May I ask why the two of you accosted me in such a manner? I'm almost certain nothing about me warrants the use of such measures."

"Had this happened a few months ago, you would be correct, but, well. That is not relevant to you. What matters is why we came to see you. We'd like you to accompany us to our homeland and join the battlefield against the great monster army."

"And why would I do that?" I replied with doubt. If it weren't for that little caveat, I would be more than willing to go with them, but the timing of it all seemed almost too perfect. Coincidences have been known to happen, but this didn't seem like one. At least, until the next words came out of her mouth.

"Because we can teach you about your spatial affinity."