Congratulations, you have activated the [Key of Ascension].

A blinding light followed by pain and then a thud as a small body hit the ground.

“Weston please wake up..!”

Out of the darkness Weston heard someone calling his name. Where was he? He felt blind and confused.

“Mom..?” He groaned.

He wasn’t sure if he had even spoken aloud, his ears were ringing deafeningly and he had a splitting headache.

“Weston!”

As the ringing started to fade he heard his name again and recognized his little sister’s voice. ‘Of course it couldn’t have been mom’ he thought, ‘she’s gone’. But why did his sister sound panicked.. and was she crying?

All at once in a moment of clarity the ringing abruptly stopped and his eyes snapped open. With his senses returned, he found himself lying face down, sprawled on the forest floor. Apart from his sister who had just stood up by his side after desperately sobbing into his cloak, the world now felt quiet and still.

He took a moment to breathe in the cool smell of earth and examine where a beam of light from the fading sun had found its way through the branches of the towering trees above. The warm light illuminated the layer of leaves and detritus that covered the uneven ground and scattered ruins that filled his vision. And was that dried blood and pipe tobacco he was smelling?

He felt like he had just experienced something important, but like a dream quickly slipping away upon waking, he couldn’t pin down what it was. There had been an unfamiliar voice. He squeezed his eyes closed tight trying to chase the memory that felt just out of reach when the spell was broken by a kick to his side.

“Ouch!” Well he could feel pain other than his aching head and body, because he definitely felt that.

“I saw you close your eyes, you faker!” His sister said between sniffles, and then barely above a whisper “Weston.. how did you do that?” She had stood up, shocked when Weston opened his eyes, only to feel like it was some kind of prank when he closed them again. “I was so worried.”

“Sarah what just happened.. and why did you kick me?” Weston said, pushing up against the mud and sitting against what was left of an overgrown wall. “And how did I do what?”

“It looked like magic” She whispered again, and then like the water pitcher she tipped over at dinner last week, she spilled the next words almost all at once “we were playing adventurers and you said you saw something strange in the ruins over here and then when you picked it up you started glowing blue and lifted up into the air, Weston you were screaming! Thank the sun you’re ok.”

That was ridiculous. Of course Weston knew what magic looked like- he’d seen spell scrolls before. Although he had never seen a mage or a spell caster with his own eyes nor had anyone else he knew, he could recite every story the adults would tell about them from memory.

The stories said that real magic was the weapon of heroic nobles for fighting beasts and monsters, or that it was the tool of ancient kingdoms that could shield entire battalions of soldiers from being plastered to the battlefield by devastating siege engines.

How could what he was feeling right now be compared to something like that? He knew he would know magic when he saw it, and this couldn’t be it.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

And even last month, while hunting near one of his forts, alone in the forest farther away from the village than he was supposed to be, he had seen an elf huntress running along on a game trail that wove through the mountainside.

Before the encounter, he had a feeling building in his chest that something was wrong, like he was the one being hunted instead of the squirrels and rabbits he was tracking so he decided to take cover.

Peeking out from behind the safety of a fallen tree and scanning around him, his eyes caught the slightest of movements among the shadows as one of their number silently broke away and formed into the lightly armored form of a lithe elf with a bow in her hand and quiver upon her back.

Almost as soon as he spotted her she stopped and looked in his direction as if she knew he was there, her eyes glowing green in the shadows, before suddenly snapping her attention in the opposite direction like a wolf that had scented its prey and disappearing into the wilderness beyond. In the moment she stood still, he was able to identify her.

Name:

???

Race:

Elven

Class:

Huntress

His feeling of dread had gone away soon after, and he picked up his bow and quiver and ran home like a fiend was on his heels. No one besides his sister and father had believed him.

Elves were rarely seen around here and although they weren’t considered friendly to humans, at least they weren’t hostile. Some people he knew even considered them good luck. Everyone knew that elf’s were magical, and since he had seen one, he considered himself an expert on the subject.

“That tale is longer than your hair” he chuckled before wincing, finding that his insides hurt too much to laugh, “Are you sure I didn’t just trip and hit my head?”

He had noticed dried blood on his face, his cheek was sore and his eye felt like it was swollen. As the moments passed he was feeling more confident in his side of the story. He was secretly thankful he hadn’t knocked out any of his teeth. His dad warned him that his new ‘adult’ ones wouldn’t grow back on their own for some reason, so he tried to take care of them.

“Actually, are you sure you didn’t hit your head sis?”

She looked at him like he was something smelly and opened her mouth to respond when the snap of a twig breaking underneath something heavy sounded in the distance.

Sarah stopped talking as they both looked towards the sound. Weston's heart started to race as that familiar feeling of being hunted came over him again, and he stood up picking up his dropped longbow and checking that his hunting knife was on his belt. He wished that his father would allow him to carry a real weapon.

Longbow (common)

A longbow made from low grade materials.

Knife (common)

A sharp and well cared for hunting knife, crafted by an apprentice blacksmith.

‘Wait how long was I out, if the blood on my face is already dry?’ he thought. Then the calm forest and the fading light hit him like an arrow to the chest. “Sarah the sun is going down, we have to get home!”

From the shadows something watched the two children as they ran, and it was hungry.