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Gothi was lost.
He’d been lost for quite some time now.
Lost on where to go, what to do, or even if he should do something at all. He didn’t expect that to become literal and for his ass to suddenly pop into a magical forest of all things. The weight of his armor was little comfort, his back rested against a plush armchair which had seemingly grown out of the massive tree he’d been hanging around for the past day. Pulsing with the mystical force of mana.
Who would have thought? Furniture that could be magically grown out of trees!
It was a surreal experience.
Waking up in this strange forest. Surrounded by creatures he thought were either long gone or fictional at best. He was sure he’d drunk a bad batch of wine the night prior, the dream little else than a fanciful whim of his noggin’.
Only it wasn’t.
He didn’t wake up.
He went to sleep and didn’t find himself back at the inn he’d opted to stay over the previous night.
‘Magical Elf Forest, guess its a thing.’
Massive houses grown out of trees.
Strange beings who seemed able to manipulate mana to do as they wished, depending on it at every step of their daily lives. He’d have grown green with envy hadn’t he ran into that giant fire-breathing pig. He couldn’t imagine having to live in a place swarmed with creatures like that.
Though it might as well have been an exchange.
A swarm of smaller monsters instead of the great monsters of Gothi’s homeland.
‘Foods great though.’
Outside of making him sick, at least. Not badly enough for him to not eat again when they had a late afternoon snack. An upset stomach was a small price to pay for the delicious food his long eared hosts were capable of. Why, if these were the rations, he could scarcely believe the kind of wonders they could conceive of with a proper kitchen.
“You seem distracted, friend.”
Gothi snapped back to reality.
“Sorry, just.. been thinking.”
Now that he had a place to crash, food to eat, and didn’t have to worry about impending starvation or a violent death, the man in armor found he could finally relax and take stock of himself and his circumstances, and how important meeting the elf sitting across from him really had been.
Such a strange fellow.
Looking no older than some of Gothi’s fellow adventurers. He’d very nearly mistook him for one when they first met, before noticing the point ears, that is.
“Missing home?”
Gothi gave the elf a side eye.
“Reading my mind now?”
His friend snorted.
“It is entirely understandable that you’d feel that way. Many of my brethren never leave our woods, and those who do tend to return and not repeat the feat. Though, I can’t say if its the same way for humans.”
He said the last word awkwardly.
That was okay. He was still trying to wrap his head around elves actually being real.
“What will you from here on, Mr. Gothi? If you don’t mind the intrusion.”
He too, would love the answer to that question.
“Leave the woods, try and get some directions. Failing that, getting my hands on a map.” He wasn’t the most… expert explorer, usually nothing more than plain dumb muscle if he were being honest. Traveling alone was dangerous, and so close to Winter when the great beasts were soon to awaken.
It was… ill advised. But he still had time.
Fall had yet to take hold, and there would be a few months until Winter arrived and his folks had to take shelter inside one of the cities.
‘I still have time.’ He reassured himself again.
But it just might take him that long to go back home.
For starters, he didn’t even knew where he was. Greenhold, Pineskeep, Woods Clan. Those were names he didn’t recognize. Forests that he’d never seen or stepped into. People who seemed as familiar as they were strange. The way they reacted to him, the reactions they had to his presence.
It had the markings of a proper mess.
‘Alright, calm your tits Gothi.’
Panicking would do nothing but throw him off balance.
A calm mind and healthy body. So long as he had those there wasn’t anything he had to fear. Those were the lessons given to him by that lunatic of a woman back when he’d been just a farm hand with a penchant for mischief. And it was those lessons that allowed him to trail the path he did rather than staying at the farm.
They served him well back then.
And would continue to do so now.
“Well, if you find yourself in need of assistance…”
Gothi smiled underneath his helmet.
“Then you’ll be the first I’ll ask.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Nearly dying together, as it turns out, had a way of bringing people together. And Gothi honestly liked the overly prim and proper Hemlock. Sure, the fancy talk was a wee bit annoying, but he didn’t treat him badly for being a country bumpkin and actually listened when Gothi told him a little about himself.
Elves were great listeners.
Well… at least if it was something new they were hearing.
The elf was at ease, the ripples emanating from his heart steady as he lunged back on a chair of his own, writing down something or another on a small notepad he’d seemingly produced from the aether. A far cry from the turbulent waves he’d sensed back when they first met.
Sometimes he’d catch a twinge of unease.
Other times there would be anxiety, or eagerness.
But Gothi would be lying if he said that predicting the older man’s thoughts wasn’t hilarious. Maybe he’d catch on eventually. Maybe he’d just tell the guy once they got to his village and Gothi could work on trying to find a way home. No matter how many times he tried to reassure himself, he still could feel the ripples of unease within.
“You reckon it’ll take them long to swing by?”
Time.
He still had time.
It was all going to be okay.
“It should not take them long, no. By this time the guards should be preparing for a turn shift. We’ll talk to whoever they send to meet with us, and return to the village with Basil.” Nursing a cup of tea that didn’t get thrown out the window, his elf friend was like a calm pond now that the uneasiness had faded from him.
Basil, by contrast, shifted and turned like the sea.
He was restless, as were most kids his age.
‘Right, right. He is nearly a hundred.’ And wasn’t that a head scratcher.
Imagine being nearly a hundred and forbidden from leaving your town. Gothi could hardly keep himself from running to the next city over when he finally turned eighteen, he’d have gone mad if he had to stick around somewhere that long.
He was the chatty type.
Quite different from Hemlock, but still… eerie in his own way.
“Feeling up for the trip back, kid?”
The blue haired elf looked at his strangely.
“I can manage it, yeah. Just… feeling the jitters, ya know?”
Gothi let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Sorry about that. Still getting used to how you elves see stuff. Didn’t mean to hurt ya.”
Basil waved him off.
“It’s… well… not alright. You still look like a ghost. But like… a friendly ghost. Got used to it already.’
Now wasn’t that a thought.
Gothi the Friendly Ghost.
The feeling was mutual, however. As he’d never expect to meet living breathing beings who had mana in their bodies of all things. That is to say, beings with mana who weren’t giant crazy monsters. It screwed up with his own senses, something fierce at times, but it didn’t interfere all that much with the-
There was a noise.
“Do you hear that?” He stood up.
Basil looked at him strangely, but it wasn’t long before Hemlock had joined him on his feet.
“It sounds like… steps?”
Gothi focused on his senses, allowing the rippling life force within him to spill forth and bounce back from the ambient. Basil’s and Hemlock’s own rippling in response. He could feel their confusion and apprehension. And then he felt a sudden spike as a massive ripple hit him.
Before the side of the cabin exploded.
A shower of wood washing over them, the impact alone blasting Gothi back a few feet as a massive bird’s head pecked its way into the room. Bright pink skin, a long neck with blotches of purple around the things face, its eyes zeroing on him as it thrashed around.
“Mana beast!” Basil scrambled back, the massive creature’s eyes laying on him.
Before lashing out.
‘Crap.’
Gothi dashed forth, legs burning with barely contained power as he pulled out the still sheathed blade from his hip, blasting the massive bird on the side of its face with a swing. His arms buckled at the force of the strike, before the monster's neck gave away and its head hit the wall, stunned.
“Run!”
He immediately turned tail and the others will quick to follow.
And then the treehouse shook again, its door caving in as a second head joined the first, letting out an awful cry, the skin on its chin bloated and glowing with mana as lunged at them, barely missing Hemlock, but crushing the table besides him, is beak leaving a dent on the floor.
“It’s more than one?!”
He heard the younger elf shout.
‘No, that can’t be right.’ Hand flying to the hilt of his sword, Gothi focused on the monsters as they thrashed about like serpents. The life energy that rippled off of them spoke of hunger, anger, and an overwhelming need to crush and hunt. An abomination driven to extremes by the unfamiliar energy inside its body.
“Quickly, through the back!”
Hemlock moved first, darting away from the main room and towards the storage, an unfamiliar flash of light forming around his hand, taking the shape of what might have looked like a knife of some sort.
If not a heavily disfigured one.
‘He can do that?’
Questions for later.
Swift on their feet, Basil and Gothi followed, ground beneath them shifting and cracking as the tree fall apart around them, chips of wood and furniture raining on them as the older elf hastily undid the locks on the door. The human took a deep breath, trying to feel if they had been followed.
Those things were hard to keep track of.
Mana interfered with it. And there was enough of it that he had a hard time believing they were alive at all.
‘Feels like they are all… around… us’
Gothi lunged for Hemlock, but was too late, a third head blowing the door of its hinges with a loud screech, beak closing around the elf as it dragged him through the exit before he could grab him.
“Do you have an alarm? Anything to call help?”
“Yeah, a flare!”
The human nodded.
“Good, you go and run ahead. Send for help. I’ll get Eartips!”
Not waiting for a response, he jumped through the ruined wood, back into the open forest. Other trees having toppled over all around by the beast’s long necks as they thrashed about.
Not two or three monsters as he had feared, but a massive one coiled around the cabin.
Larger than the boar by a wide margin, it was nearly as tall as the trees surrounding it. Gothi couldn’t even see the main body, probably standing further away, too large to move comfortably through the woods without causing a racket.
One of its heads screeched in pain, the elf having stabbed its head with the glowing mana knife.
The other two heads lunged after him, and the man in armor moved.
To him, it was like wading through mud on a hot day. The air was thick with mana, the warmth of the strange power weighing down on him as his armor did its level best to protect him and he pulled the sword and came loose from its sheath.
The fight was on.