Kaladin Shadowheart’s POV

Well, I think I did it.

I believe I’ve done all that I could to hide my tracks. Even the light rain last night is going to help hide my escape. First, I used what little of the drugs I could handle to put as much distance as possible while heading south, then I went deeper into the forest and backtracked. My original goal was to head towards The Barrens, but I’ve decided it’s futile to attempt that.

There is no way I can get to the border in time to escape, and I’d be running to a place I can’t be sure is safe. And it would be impossible for me to go through the mountains. Monsters of immense strength live up in those mountains, and I’m in no shape to deal with such strong opponents alone.

Then again, I’m heading to the Kingdom of Luminar, and I can’t be sure if I’ll be safe there either. But at least I know I have someone who might be able to help me. The kingdom itself is also welcoming to escaped slaves. But I doubt that extends to slaves that brutally escaped from the mayor of a city-state while killing four people and maiming a noble child.

Either way, there are no guarantees.

I’ve been planting the seeds of my escape for years now. I subtly lied about my origins being from The Barrens, and Ester was kind enough to shout that I was a Dark Elf assassin out to everyone before I killed her. So hopefully, people will connect the dots and focus on the area surrounding The Barrens.

After all, it makes sense. The Dark Elf child would, of course, want to escape back to the homeland of the Dark Elves. If they pin me to the Shadow Clan, well… then things might be more difficult. But I feel they are backed by Luminar, which would make things more challenging, especially since I left no proof.

I sighed deeply. If only I could have at least kept my hand.

I hadn’t expected them to put an Obedience Collar on me at the very last moment. I thought that all my plans were about to be shattered. I was half tempted to start fighting right there in the middle of school, but I wouldn’t have lasted very long.

So I figured that I could always make another attempt later. Even if they figured out I had been lying about my name or origins, it would be better than if they just killed me during a battle. But when they placed the collar on my wrist, I was beyond surprised. I was surprised they let Adria put it on my wrist and not my neck. And I was shocked by the feeling I got when that blade sank into my arm.

First, I felt my mana get trapped in the center of my chest by the metal band, just like a regular slave collar. Then once that blade pierced my flesh, I felt a cold chill spread out from my wrist. But then the runes on my inner thigh burned and that cold feeling was washed away by the heat.

The runes that Squeaks placed on me must have somehow negated the collar’s effects. But I couldn’t be sure to what degree. I know the obedience side of things was hindered, but that was it. I felt no overwhelming sense of obligation to serve Adria whatsoever.

However, my mana was still sealed, and that blade was still pinning the band to my wrist. I couldn’t be sure if removing the collar with my own hands would kill me or not, so I was left with little choice.

The decision was simple, fight with mana or without.

Obviously, the choice was clear. I wouldn’t have been able to dispatch those four without access to my mana. So since I couldn’t remove the collar myself, what if I had someone else do it for me? I was half tempted to run my hand through a sword swing, but I decided against it.

When I saw the injured Dire Wolf, I knew my opportunity had come. So I did the only sensible thing, I shoved my hand into its mouth and let it take a bite out of me. I might have given it a little too much of my arm since I lost everything from the middle of my forearm to my hand, but nothing that can’t be fixed. On the bright side, I know that I can have my hand regrown.

And losing a hand didn’t deter my plan all that much anyway. My goal was always to get injured and isolate Martin from the rest of the group. I was confident that if I got injured, Adria would have ordered Martin to heal me. At that close range, even Martin would never be able to stop a sneak attack.

I let the mage heal my wound and stabbed him in the brain through the eye with a kitchen knife. Then, for good measures, I sent an Earth Lance straight through his heart. I knew anything short of an instant kill wouldn't have been enough to kill him. Watching him fight like that only cemented just how dangerous he was. Martin wasn’t even breaking a sweat as he dispatched all those monsters. I’ve never seen a light mage go on the offensive before, but I’m glad I did. I’ll never underestimate one again.

Speaking of monsters, I had expected them to do more. Along with a surplus of items, monster bait was one of the things I got from that merchant Deguzman. Beastmen hunters on Amoth use this trick. It leaves a distinct smell that is nearly impossible for Humans or Elves to detect. Since Beastmen have to rely on their sense of smell, they can’t use something that would hinder them, so they came up with this. It worked perfectly.

At first, I used the opposite method. I had some anti-monster repellent going which forced monsters away and made us move deeper into the woods to find them. Once we pushed further in, I sealed the repellent and opened the bait. However, I think if a monster ignored the repellent, it would send them into a blind rage, and they would attack us.

Regardless of the monster’s attitude, I was surprised when I watched those four effortlessly dismantle hundreds of monsters while being poisoned. I suppose they aren’t veterans for nothing.

I haven’t just been keeping tabs on guard rotations and other notable things. I’ve been paying attention to the habits of certain individuals for years as well. For example, I knew that Martin had an aversion to drinking and wouldn’t drink the poisoned wine. If he had consumed it, he would have probably realized something was wrong and healed himself, something I couldn’t afford.

But by using everyone’s expectations that the Obedience collar had turned me into a mindless dog, nobody questioned me. The poison in the wine was slow-activating and meant to kill over a long period of time. Symptoms would have taken almost fourteen hours to show up. Usually, a light mage would also have easily been able to remove the poison.

However, I also poisoned the drinking water. It was a shame I had to drag the kids into it but I had little choice. I owed those brats nothing, and I had at least the sound mind to spare Adria and Tristian from suffering. They were the only ones who didn’t deserve what I had to do.

The poison in the water was non-lethal and meant to drain one’s stamina and mental state. Through the combination, I managed to put those four into a disadvantageous state before I fought them.

Once they were tired from the poison and fighting monsters along with their only support dead, it was only a matter of taking one out after another. The longer we fought the more of an advantage I could press. The concoction of drugs I took helped alleviate any pain and allowed me to push through everything.

But it had a cost.

It turns out Dark Elves have a natural resistance to the effects of Berserker Caps. But the High Elf blood in me does not. So I needed to figure out some kind of combination that would allow me to use the Berserker Caps without losing my higher mental functions. And that’s when Magic Lilies came in.

I remember Adria talking about how her mother said Tel’an’duth had fields of flowers, and that got me thinking, why is a nation growing so many flowers? And the answer is simple, the pollen from Magic Lilies can be used in a drug for mages to increase their focus.

It’s also said to increase magical power, but I have my doubts on that one. So while I began cultivating the pollen from the lilies over the last year or so, I started testing drug combinations out. But, of course, I didn’t test them on myself.

I did the sensible thing and tested them on the guards.

Offer them a drink and send them to bed and see what happens. Most of the time, nothing happened. But I did end up killing two unfortunate guards at one point.

The lily pollen also needed a large number of flowers. A single flower was nowhere near close enough to make anything. I thought Adria had caught onto me at one point, but it seems I was just overthinking things. And I did this all after Muriel’s passing.

Muriel… she was murdered, no doubt about it.

I couldn’t be sure how but she was killed. That day when we went to the market, I found myself in a surprising situation. I had intended to find Deguzman and get my items, but when I saw that store, I thought fate couldn’t be any crueler. That clothing store was the same store that took in escaped slaves from Ostela. I thought it was odd that they had similar names, silver then followed by an animal’s name, so I tested my theory out.

When I gave that old man the passcode, his reaction let me know that I was right on the mark. That clothing store was a hidden base for The Keepers and what I learned surprised me even more. Muriel was a Keeper. The old man didn’t divulge much to me, but he confirmed that he knew who Muriel was, and that was enough to tell me everything I needed to know. That was the news Muriel had to tell me.

I don’t know if the Sanderviles found out she was a Keeper, but I doubt it. She would have been made an example if she was caught, so it makes me think it was just an act of malice. If I had to put money on it, it was the ladies of House Sandervile who killed Muriel. At least that’s my hunch.

I also didn’t intend to trust The Keepers in getting me out of Sandervile. That was a path I didn’t want to walk again unless I absolutely had to. I couldn’t rely on others to save me, not again.

However, regardless of my new combat drug and what I learned about Muriel, I was still injured. And now I am paying the price of my actions. My calf is burning, and I’ve destroyed it beyond repair. I need to find a light mage and hope they can at least heal me back to my previous state of just a painful limp. That’s not even including the backlash from the drugs either. When the book said fatigue was a problem, it wasn’t joking.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I had to re-dose just to stay awake and get further away, and after I came down from the second time, I crawled underneath a tree and covered myself up with earth magic so I wouldn’t get eaten in my sleep. If a monster came up to me in that state, I would have been unable to wake myself. The mental fogginess was accurate as well, so I didn’t want to continue to take the drug if I didn’t absolutely have to.

Right now I’m currently nestled into a tree by a stream and doing my best to recover my strength before I continue on. My goal is to come out of Gilcour Thicket from the north and work my way to City State Whieland.

From there, I will head through the mountain pass and into Luminar. I figured as long as I continued to move at a steady pace, I might be able to avoid any wanted posters. But, of course, I couldn’t rely on that hope, so I had Deguzman acquire other things for me.

At first, when I said I wanted an item like that bastard Alnwar had, he said that something like that was a one-in-a-million type of dungeon item. So he gave me something else that he assured would handle my problems.

The way I saw it, hiding in plain sight was unbelievably difficult. I simply stood out too much. My general appearance, my limp, and now my missing hand were all things that could be used to identify me regardless of how hard I tried to blend in. And every time I tried to solve one problem, the other issues would give me away.

So I had to do my best. And that started with my general appearance.

Deguzman handed me this mask; at first, I thought it was the world’s most useless piece of equipment. The mask itself was metal and, from its general appearance, seemed utterly useless since it had no eye slots or breathing holes.

It was just a sheet of metal with an intricate flowing design. It looked like ripples of water. It was a gunmetal gray color with dark, almost dirty, gold outlines. The back of the mask just looked like a black piece of cloth. But when I put the mask on, its real potential was obvious. This mask was years ahead of its time.

Once the mask was on my face, it formed around my head perfectly and made almost an invisible seal. When I first put it on, I tried shaking the mask off of me, but it wouldn’t budge. I could also see perfectly as if the mask wasn’t even on my face. And not only that, but I could also breathe normally as well.

But that’s not the only thing this mask did.

I walked over to the stream and sat down next to it to see my reflection in the water. I placed the mask onto my face and felt the seal form. Then in my reflection from the water, I watched as my appearance changed. Almost like a wave starting from the top of my head, my jet-black hair turned into an ashen gray. From my face, my tan skin turned a cream-white color. With this mask on, I looked exactly like a High Elf. Hiding my heterochromatic eyes was also a challenge that this mask handled.

This mask suited my needs perfectly. And according to Deguzman, people wearing masks wasn’t uncommon. Now that I think about it, I did see a few adventurers wearing masks from time to time. It seems covering your face isn’t much of a problem in this world.

But there were still problems for me.

My long hair was… not suited for regular High Elves. All Elves had somewhat long hair, even the men, but I took it to the extreme. At this point, my hair was longer than most girls', and sadly, I had to cut it if I wanted to blend in.

I need to hide as best as possible and change what I usually look like as much as possible. My long hair was as much a part of me as my eyes or skin color. But cutting my hair… It pained me deeply. I wanted to keep my promise to Dad… it’s such a simple promise, but yet I feel so awful for breaking it.

But I have no choice. Getting recaptured is no longer an option, and I won’t see Dad again if I’m dead.

I took the mask off again, placed it in the Spatial Storage Ring, and took out the cobalt sword I commandeered from a particularly annoying child. This ring… defied all logic that I understood.

If I had the ring on my finger, I understood how it worked, but if I took it off, I suddenly forgot how to operate it. It was… unexplainable, so I decided not to think too hard about it. When I had the ring on my finger, I could operate it just fine anyway.

I could dip what felt like my brain into the ring’s pool of… storage? And get a sense of what was inside it. It was almost like I was getting a manifest every time I did it.

If I focused, I got the general feeling of a room inside of the ring, and I could pick out the individual items in the room. The room wasn’t huge either, a little bigger than the average-sized bedroom if I had to guess. Like I could feel my rations in the ring along with this sword scabbard. But this ring was just… so odd.

If I placed the sword and scabbard separately, they became two different items. But If the blade was left in the sheath, then it became one. I couldn’t just pull the sword out of the ring if it was in the scabbard, just like I couldn’t pull the food out of its wrapping. So I tested this ring and found some more odd things about it.

For starters, I couldn’t “store” items from afar. I had to be touching the object. But I also couldn’t store particular things in certain conditions, like grass. Nothing would happen if I placed my hand on a patch of grass and tried storing it.

But if I plucked the grass, I could store it. Was that because the grass was no longer alive? Or was it because I had separated the grass from the soil? Bigger plants worked much the same.

I also tried to store a monster that was still alive after I defeated it in the forest. But since it was still breathing, when I tried to store the thing, I failed. But as soon as the monster expired I was able to store the entire wolf into the ring.

It also seemed that the ring tried to maximize its storage capacity by itself. I could feel the dead wolf monster in the ring, and it felt like it had been folded so it would fit better, but when I took the corpse out, it looked exactly how I had placed it in the ring. And that wasn’t the only weird thing… the corpse was still warm as if I had just slain it, even though it had been nearly a day since the body was still fresh.

And this leads me to the strangest thing about this ring… Dillian had a few things like rations, cooking supplies, camping gear, a bow and quiver of arrows, along with a decent amount of money in the ring, but that was about it.

The most bizarre thing in the ring, however, was a steak.

Yes, a cooked steak on a plate. I pulled it out to see if my mind was playing tricks on me, but it was indeed a steak. I was almost tempted to eat it, but I figured since it was so odd, it was probably a trap for whoever stole the ring.

Nothing screams noble brat like a prepared, cooked steak on a white dinner plate inside of a Spatial Storage Ring. I imagine the steak was poisoned since it was still warm to the touch and was meant to trick whatever unfortunate soul thought it was a good idea to eat it.

Either way, I wanted to test something important, but I needed an opponent to try it on. I was curious if I could store someone’s weapon mid-fight the same way I could store my own weapon. If I could remove a person’s weapon like that, it would be a great boon in a fight. But I was going to have to figure that out on my own.

I finished cutting my hair and winced at my failure. I was not a barber… I was going for the standard High Elf hair, short on the side and long on top, and well, I looked pretty bad. I would probably have to ask someone to clean me up when I got the chance, but at least I looked different now.

I was about to put the sword away when I gave it a once over again. I’d been using it since I got it, but I hadn’t really thought about it. This sword was supposed to be made out of cobalt, yet it wasn’t the same cobalt metal I was familiar with. Making a sword out of cobalt would have been a mistake in my previous life since cobalt was a brittle metal and would make for a poor weapon.

But this cobalt was entirely different.

When Tristan mentioned that cobalt could help with the flow of your mana and I’d have to agree that was the feeling I got when I used it. My mana felt… freer? I suppose it was a good way to put it.

When I used Martin’s staff, that was also the first time I had used a weapon meant for mages. I could feel that my spells were easier to cast and required less mana when I used the staff as a conduit. I also learned you couldn’t use magic without your hands…

Nothing happened when I tried to cast a defensive spell with my handless arm against Adria’s vines. I quickly realized it was because I didn’t have a hand anymore. So if that was the case… if you cut someone’s hands and feet off, they wouldn’t be able to cast magic. I also used my feet to cast earth spells, so I knew that for sure.

Well looks like I can’t lose both my hands at the same time then.

Speaking of Adria and Tristan… I felt somewhat bad for what I did to them. I didn’t plan on having them in the crossfire, but I guess it was just a wish. It was inevitable that they would try to stop me.

I thought Tristian would surely be the one to slow me down, but he passed out for some reason. And I didn’t know why either. Was it because of my bloodlust? But I was holding a majority of it back… I wanted to scare the other kids into not attacking me, not make them faint from fear.

But I don’t regret doing what I had to do. I might not hold anything against Tristian or Adria, but they were in my way. Seeing my family again and returning home is my number one priority right now, even if I have to sacrifice those two.

I decided that there was no point in waiting any longer. Kaladin Shadowheart needed to go on hiatus for a while, and the new High Elf version of me needed to be born. I took my ragged and bloody clothes off and placed them on the pile along with my cut hair, then I set them ablaze and buried the ashes under the earth. I took the new clothes that Deguzman had prepared for me and began to put them on.

It was difficult, putting on unfamiliar clothes with a messed up leg and a missing hand, but after some struggle, I managed. My new outfit was all black, meant to make my cream skin more noticeable. The clothes were best described as a traveling mage’s outfit.

No long robe to get caught in bushes. Instead, the outfit was rugged and meant for travel. The black leather pants were padded and lightly armored on the knees and thighs, and I wore long black boots to go with them. My upper body was covered in a black leather tunic that was taken from a monster and gray robes that went across my chest and down to my waist. The leather was solid and flexible, and surprisingly lightweight.

I looked down at the pair of black gloves and wondered if I could make something work. I took a few minutes and tried to make a fake hand out of earth magic, but I couldn’t get it to work. Securing the phony hand to my arm was difficult, and any time my arm flapped around, the earth magic was obvious. So I decided to forgo the thing entirely and just kept the gloves off. I also chose not to wear the sword on my belt since it would probably draw too much attention.

I also thought of wearing a hood, but Deguzman shut that idea down and said it would be too much. Next, I thought about wearing a helmet, but the second I put one on, I instantly discarded the idea. Covering my ears was a big no-no. The second that metal went around my head, I did not like the feeling one bit. I guess that’s why I haven’t seen an Elf wear any kind of helmet that covers the ears.

With my preparations complete, I examined the new me in the stream, and honestly, I barely recognized myself. I look like a completely different person now. The mask sadly didn’t change my voice, but I was willing to work with it.

When I asked Deguzman how I should travel, he looked at me like I was an idiot, as if the answer was obvious. He said I should be an adventurer. It was more likely that a team of adventurers would hunt me down than a squad of Sandervile soldiers.

So I should just join the people that were most likely to be the ones to hunt me down. Deguzman said if I could work my way up the ranks quick enough and become someone who was important, then I could, in theory, skate under the radar. It was a balancing act of becoming important while also not standing out too much…

Adventurers were wandering monster hunters and day laborers that held no allegiance to any country. They moved from town to town, taking missions and living off the rewards. It was the perfect disguise since if I got high enough in the ranks, I could just walk into cities and towns while flashing my status as a high-ranking adventurer.

But, of course, I had to get to that point first. So I put my items away, cleaned up after myself, and trudged into the forest again.

I’ll be home soon.