As we made our way down the street, I felt a tug on the back of my jacket. When I looked behind me, there was Kenji.

“Hey Kenji, what’s happening? Enjoying the day?” I said.

“Thank you,” he said in a quiet, timid voice. I almost didn’t hear him.

“Um, you’re welcome, I guess. But what are you thanking me for?”

His eyes darted to his sister, who had let go of my hand and was skipping along ahead of us with Petal, Jane, and Kay. “For helping Chika.”

“You saw that?”

Kenji nodded, his eyes still on Chika. I knew it, he really was a total siscon.

I patted the boy’s head. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to either of you,” I said. “After all, I need to get you both back to your parents safe and sound.”

“They must be pretty worried,” he said. “Do you think the people back home know what happened to us?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it must’ve been pretty weird to have so many of us vanish at the same time.”

“I wonder what they think happened?”

“I couldn’t tell you, but I’m willing to bet nobody back home suspects we were all isekai’d.”

He laughed at that. “Yeah. That’d take a whole fleet of truck-kuns.”

“Or one nefarious alien. You coming with us for some food?”

“Naw,” Kenji said. He looked longingly down at the knives strapped to my thighs. “The elves are gonna do a demonstration of their crazy knife fighting technique. I wanna see that.”

“It is pretty cool,” I said. “You go have fun. I’ll keep an eye on your sister for you.”

I went to pat his head again, but when I reached over he was already gone. He’d done his ninja disappearing act and I hadn’t even noticed. That kid.

When we reached Sadie’s food stand we ran into Sigrid there, already munching on a skewer. “Great minds,” she said.

Sadie flashed us a gap-toothed grin. “Back fer more already?”

“More?” I said. “Already?”

Sadie waved her chipped knife in Jane’s direction.

“Okay, so I may have already been here today,” Jane said, and held up five fingers. Sadie nodded, and began putting the finishing touches on five of the skewers already sizzling on the grill.

“I’ve brought you something, Sadie,” I said. “Consider it a thank you for so many fine meals.“

“Oh aye,” Sadie said, eying me with open suspicion.

“I’ll just put it there behind you, shall I?”

Without waiting for a reply, I pulled from my inventory a number of large packages wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string, and stacked them in the alley behind the cart. Then I created some blocks of ice and arranged them around the pile.

“I hunted you some war pigs,” I said. “I even took the liberty of, er, processing them for you, and the ice should keep them from spoiling. So there you go.”

“Oh aye,” Sadie said, as though I had just told her I thought it might rain later rather than dumping six orcs worth of meat on her figurative lap. But she now looked at me with something other than suspicion. I can’t be sure, but the look she gave me might have almost been one of approval.

She took our skewers off the grill and held them out. “Five silvers.”

Jane grabbed the food and left me with the bill.

“Five silvers?” I said. Was this just more of Sadie’s shady math or did the price go up?

“Special event pricing,” Sadie said with a shameless grin.

All that free meat and she still price gouged us. Sheesh.

I reached into my pouch and pulled out one gold coin. Sadie clawed it out of my hand and it disappeared somewhere inside her many layers of ragged clothing. Then she fished around in some hidden pocket and pulled out a handful of silver and began counting them out.

“One, two, three.” Then she held them out for me. “Yer change.”

I stared at her.

She stared back.

Her hand was still outstretched with the three silver coins on her greasy palm.

I continued to stare at her. “If you’re not even going to give us a freebie after we gave you all that meat, you can at least give me the correct change.”

“Fine,” she said, and took back one of the silvers, offering me two, shameless grin still in place. I sighed and pocketed the blatantly incorrect change.

“Never change, Sadie,” I said.

“Don’t know how,” she said, somewhat cryptically, then set to work cooking more skewers.

I found Jane and collected my snack.

“By the Green, this is delicious,” Petal said. “We eat orc all the time, but this has such a different flavor.”

“Maybe we should get Sadie to open a franchise in the elf village,” I said.

“Do you think she would?” Petal said, eyes shining with hope.

I took a glance back toward Sadie’s cart. She was busy fishing chunks of meat out of her bucket and threading them onto fresh skewers. She paused to sniff one of them, grimaced, made a surreptitious glance around to see if anybody was watching, then impaled the questionable meat onto the stick.

“I doubt it,” I said.

“What a shame,” Petal said, taking another bite. She closed her eyes and a dreamy look came over her face.

We enjoyed our snack as we wandered the streets for a while, ducking into various shops to do a little browsing. Petal was keenly interested in the sorts of wares they carried, but looked less impressed with them as she had been with Sadie's skewers. I couldn't blame her, the stuff here was of much lower quality than what she was used to. If we could get elven goods into these stores we'd make a killing.

After about an hour we found ourselves near Sadie's cart again. Jane looked at Petal. Petal looked at Jane. Nothing was said out loud, but an understanding had obviously been reached.

"Be right back," Jane said, and dashed over to the cart.

"She's insatiable," I said.

"You haven't seen the half of it," Sigrid said.

"You guys are talking about food, right?" Kay said.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Yup," I said at the same time Sigrid said, "Nope."

When Jane returned with two more skewers, she gave one to Petal and started in on the other herself.

"Hey, where's mine?" Sigrid said.

"I don't want you to ruin your dinner," Jane said between mouthfuls.

"Gee, thanks, Mom," Sigrid said, grabbing Jane's wrist and bringing her skewer close enough to take a bite from it.

"Hey!" Jane said and yanked it back. "Rude!"

Sigrid chuckled as she chewed her stolen morsel.

Petal was about to take bite from hers when her expression changed and she cocked her head slightly, as though listening to something.

“Petal? You okay?” Kay said.

“A whistle from the village,” Petal said.

Kay frowned. “I don’t hear anything.”

“The elves communicate over distance with these whistles that other people can’t hear,” Jane said.

“Oh, so like a dog whistle,” Kay said. “You can hear it here all the way from the village?”

“It is being relayed,” Petal said. “Several of our people were ensconced along the route in case the need to convey messages arose.”

“Smart,” Kay said.

Petal pointed at me. “It was his idea.”

“Figures,” Jane said.

“How come I can’t hear it?” I said. “I was always able to hear the whistles when I was in the village.”

“You were different then,” Petal said shiftily.

“Different, how was I...oh. Yeah. Right. I was different.”

Jane looked back and forth between us. “Are either of you going to explain what you’re talking about or am I going to have to jab you in the eye with this?” she said, holding up the pointy stick that only moments before had been packed with war pig, but was now empty save for some residual juice.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to do something and I don’t want you to freak out.”

“Now you’re freaking me out,” Sigrid said.

“What is it?” Jane said, looking excited.

“This,” I said, and I used one of my new powers.

Remember I said I got another ability when I got the Defender Of The Green title? Yeah, that’s the one I used. It felt weird, like pins and needles over my entire body. I never did get used to that sensation.

“Oh there it is,” I said. “I can hear the whistle now.”

Powers:

Stop Staring At My Ears: Adept - Turn into an elf

For a few long moments, nobody said anything. We were just standing there in the middle of the street: me, surrounded by five women, all ogling me.

“Holy shit, Daniel,” Jane said.

“What?” I said. “It’s not a big deal, really. It’s just something that came with Defender Of The Green.”

“Yeah, holy shit,” Sigrid said.

I could feel all their eyes on me. “Why are you looking at me like that? Now you’re freaking me out.”

“Well, how do I put this?” Jane said.

“You’re freaking gorgeous, Daniel,” Sigrid said.

“Yeah, that works,” Jane said.

“So I guess you do have a thing for pointy ears,” I said.

“Who me?” Sigrid said, mouth still agape as she stared at me. “Apparently so.”

“Now I know why this power is called Stop Staring At My Ears.”

Sigrid started looking around frantically. “Where’s Morgan? She needs to see this.”

“Why?” I said.

Sigrid answered by cuffing me on the back of the head, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to smack you, it’s just instinct.”

“I know, you do it all the time,” I said. “But this is the first time you’ve ever apologized.”

“Is it?” she said as she openly leered at me.

“You do realize you’re treating me completely different now just because of how I look. You of all people should see how wrong that is.”

Sigrid grimaced. “I know, but...god damn, Daniel. I mean, it’s not that you were bad looking before, but holy shit.”

“Gee, thanks. Not bad looking? Stop with the excessive flattery or I’ll get a big head.”

“You know what I mean,” Sigrid said, taking a step closer and sliding her hand down my arm, squeezing my bicep.

“She’s right,” Kay said. “You’ve always been cute in a sorta, I dunno...”

“Dorky way?” Jane said.

Kay laughed. “Yeah, that works.”

A not bad looking dork. Great. I mean, I’d always known that’s what I was, but it still smarted when someone else said it. Especially these someone elses.

Jane grabbed my other arm and pressed against me. “Aw, don’t go all sulky, Daniel. Didn’t you hear us? You’re pretty cute even when you look like a boring old human.”

“No I’m not,” I said. “Arthur’s cute.”

Sigrid shook her head, sending a flurry of thick blonde hair cascading. “Oh no, Arthur’s not cute. He’s handsome.”

“Mmm, so handsome,” Jane said. Kay nodded in agreement.

“What about Sam? I thought he was handsome.”

“No, Sam’s just plain hot,” Sigrid said.

“Super hot,” Jane said. Kay nodded again, and this time Chika joined her.

“I see,” I said. “Well, at least I’m cute.”

“Pretty cute,” Jane corrected, emphasizing the adverb. When she saw my reaction she quickly added, “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m pretty cute, aren’t I?”

“You? No you’re not, you’re...”

Jane squeezed my arm tighter. “I’m what?”

“Never mind.”

“Nuh uh. If I’m not cute, what am I?”

“You’re fishing again,” I said.

“Come on, Jane. Give the poor guy a break,” Sigrid said, who’d gone from rubbing my arm to caressing my cheek. I slapped her hand away and she pouted. “Meanie.”

“I wanna know,” Jane insisted, pressing herself against me and turning those green eyes on me full force. “What am I, Daniel?”

“Please don’t make me say it,” I said.

She brought her lips dangerouly close to my pointy ear. “Now I really want to know.”

“Jane,” Sigrid said, a hint of warning in her voice.

Jane let go of my arm and took a half-step back, but her big green eyes kept staring at me. “Go on, tell me. I can take it.”

“You really think I’m gonna say something bad? Come on, Jane. You’re not cute, you’re stunning.”

“Oh,” Jane said, looking away coquettishly.

“What about me, am I cute?” Sigrid said.

“Cute doesn’t come close to describing you either,” I said.

“So what am I?” Sigrid said.

“Hey Siggy, give the poor guy a break, huh?” Jane said.

“Quiet you,” Sigrid said.

“Sigrid, you’re like Sam,” I said.

“You think I’m hot!”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Oh please, everyone does.”

“It’s true, you are really hot,” Jane said. Kay and Chika nodded in agreement again.

Chika bounced in front of me. “What about me? Am I cute?”

I put my hand firmly on top of her head to stop the bouncing. “You are not allowed to ask me that.”

“Aw, why not?”

“You’re too young.”

“Hey, I’m sixteen,” she said, pouting.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Such a meanie,” Chika said, but she smiled when I petted her smooth black hair.

“Sigrid,” I said, “could you please stop looking at me like that?”

“Sorry, I’m just reeeeeally liking the ears and...well, all of it. You should totally stay like this,” Sigrid said.

Petal, who’d been trilling a message back to the village through the relay, took the wooden whistle out of her mouth. “That’s what I said! He looks so much better this way.”

“Wait a second,” Jane said. ”Shouldn’t you be, like, rushing back to the village to help? Doesn’t the whistle signal an emergency?”

“It depends how you blow it,” I said. “The whistle can convey all kinds of messages.”

“Like Morse Code?” Kay said.

“Kinda.” I took a casual nibble from my skewer. Sigrid watched me like she was hoping I’d leave some sauce on my cheek so she could lick it off.

“So what was the message this time?” Jane said.

“Oh. This one told us that another group of Players is about to attack the elf village,” I said,

“What?” Sigrid said. “Why are you just standing there?”

“Come on, let’s go,” Jane said, clapping her hands twice. “Use one of your crazy mystery thingy powers and take us to the elves. Let’s go help again.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” I said. “It's covered.”