“Hey, Bean Pole, have you seen your uncles?”

Aila looked up from her book with a start, blinking owlishly at Volker. She’d been rereading the last two pages of Chapter Three: Practical Applications of Elemental Magic for the past hour. She felt she was close to having the material completely memorized and the annoying man’s interruption was disrupting her concentration.

“No, I haven’t seen them since lunch,” Aila answered, trying to keep her tone neutral. “Try asking Terentio.”

“I tried him first,” Volker said with the air of a child telling their mother they’d already washed up before dinner. “And I asked Specht. Dulfa and Wolfe, too. No one’s seen them for more than an hour.”

She wasn’t surprised. Aila knew her uncles well. Her whole extended family was from the same village in the northwest of Faustinroth, so she’d grown up with Gerwas and Ludwas around nearly as much as her own parents. The two were prone to wander the woods when they didn’t have a task or job to keep them focused. She supposed that was part of why the gods had gifted them Scout classes when they came of age. The roles suited them well.

“They’re probably in the forest, exploring,” Aila told Volker. Attempting to dismiss the warrior, she turned her eyes back to the book while assuring him. “They’ll be back before the sun sets.”

Volker tsked loudly, then set his booted foot on the log next to where Aila sat, leaning forward to adjust the laces.

“Never around when you need them, eh? Always roaming. You’d think they’d take you along more often, at least.”

Aila sighed quietly. Volker was trying to chat her up again, clearly. He was persistent, she had to admit. Most of the other mercenaries in the camp had taken her rejections to their advances easily enough, but Volker didn’t seem to want to give up. If she wasn’t so annoyed by his willful disregard of her obvious disinterest, she might have been flattered. Maybe.

It wasn’t that Volker was a bad sort. He was fairly good looking, strongly built, and had rather attractive green eyes. He wasn’t overtly rude or crass, in fact he was generally one of the more well mannered of the mercenary band. She imagined it was because he had been raised in the capital and had picked up on some of the more upper-class mannerisms.

Still, he called her Bean Pole.

Everyone called Aila Bean Pole. It was a nickname that had stuck to her since childhood. She’d always been tall and skinny, even before she had her full set of adult teeth she’d been exceptionally taller than the other children. Someone had once said she was as tall as a bean pole and growing just as fast and the name had stuck ever since.

She hated the name.

Aila’s family only called her Bean Pole if they were purposefully trying to rile her up. They knew it annoyed her and generally reserved it only for times they wanted to tease. Everyone else, though? Especially the mercenaries she barely knew? They thought it was a good laugh of a nickname and kept calling her it even after she told them not to.

So, she let them. Aila wasn’t one to complain. She simply marked those down who didn’t listen to her polite and earnest request as people not to be concerned with. If they would not pay attention to her desires, she felt no compunction about ignoring them and their wants.

She supposed it was fortunate, in a sense, that others had overheard Gerwas and Ludwas teasing her with the odious nickname all those months ago when she’d first arrived at Far Felsen. The nickname did make it easy to judge who was more of an ass than a friend.

“…and if Captain Renz agrees, we might set up an ambush tomorrow morning, draw in some of those bony demons that are still running around here and there. Maybe we’ll get a level out of it.”

Volker had been prattling on for a while and Aila had mostly ignored what he’d been saying, lost in her own thoughts. The mention of levels had caught her attention, though, if but briefly. She could easily tell what Volker was getting at as his damnably attractive green eyes tried to catch her own blue ones. It irked her that he knew how to draw her in so easily.

Levels. Aila was so close to reaching her twentieth level. With all the work she’d been doing for the past six months here on Weigrun, plus the incidental experience she’d gotten from the few times her uncles had actually let her join in on some demon hunts, she was already level seventeen. Having unlocked her primary class only two years ago, she thought it was an impressive number of levels for her age. Even before coming to Weigrun, she’d already reached level twelve. Luckily, the Bernd’s Blades mercenary company had thought her drive to level so fast with a non-combat class was impressive as well. That willingness to push herself hard and having her uncles to vouch for her had gotten her a job in the mercenary company, one that had gotten her another five levels in six months. An amazing amount of growth, even considering the extra experience that could be gained from participating in demon slaying.

It was just such an abysmal shame that the levels were in Cart Driver and not in a class she actually wanted.

Volker knew she was pushing to level up to twenty as fast as she could to unlock her secondary class. He was dangling the idea of a demon extermination ambush in front of her, hoping she would accept, probably thinking it would earn him some favor in her eyes.

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By the gods how it tempted her.

“Thank you for letting me know,” Aila said with a small smile, again keeping her tone neutral. She closed her book as she stood up from her seat on the log. “I’ll have to ask my uncles if I can join them, if they are also participating in the ambush.”

“Well, if they aren’t, I have no problem letting you join me,” Volker said, drawing up beside her and looking up to her with a much broader smile of his own. He’d dropped all subtly and just gone straight for the kill. “You’re always welcome to join me on any expedition hunts.”

“Thank you for the offer, but no,” Aila responded with a firm denial. “My uncles are my sponsors and per company rules I’m only supposed to go on hunts with them. Maybe once I have a combat class. If you’ll excuse me, it’s getting late and I have a few things to take care of.”

With that, she walked away from Volker with large strides made larger by her long legs. She suppressed a small shiver at the feeling of him watching her go. For all his civility, she didn’t need to turn around to feel Volker’s pretty green eyes roaming across her legs and ass.

Aila didn’t like the attention, but she didn’t blame him for his interest. Didn’t her own eyes seek out the handsome men around her? She’d be a hypocrite if she got mad at him for looking, and so long as that was all he did, she could live with it. Besides, if she were to be freakishly tall, it was nice to at least get something out of it other than an unwanted moniker.

Aila thought her legs were her best feature. Long and shapely, and toned from years of outdoor labor, they were exceptionally attractive in her opinion. They looked good in the leather breeches she habitually wore, a style she’d picked up from some of her more daring friends back home who had made visits to the capital or other big cities. She was quite satisfied to have some part of her that gave her some confidence in her appearance.

Not that she was completely lacking in confidence. If she were to be asked, she’d have to say she had fair looks, but nothing compared to the true beauties that could be found in the big cities. She didn’t have much of a bust, and her frame was on the skinny side. Her copper-colored hair was alright, she supposed, but the large number of freckles that came with it almost made her as self-conscious as her height did. Her face wasn’t plain, not by any means, but the freckles were distracting and if she could afford the cosmetics, Aila would have happily covered them up every day.

The true issue though, was her height. Aila was six feet and seven inches tall, by Imperial standards, or in common terms, about twenty hands tall. Twenty! The average woman was sixteen hands high or so, maybe a bit more. Most men were seventeen hands tall, maybe eighteen hands if they were tall like her uncles, but twenty? Utterly freakish.

Whatever her perceived physical deficiencies, they didn’t stop Volker from trying to bed her. Maybe he was attracted to woman taller than him? Odd thought. Most men Aila knew preferred it the other way around.

In any case, Aila had no interest in a fling with Volker, or any other mercenary around camp for that matter. She was here for levels, and more importantly, here for the kind of experience that would help her get a combat mage class. Her priorities put flirting with men in heat far down the list of importance.

Walking through the camp, Aila nodded amicably to the various others who were about on their business. It was nearing sunset and many were preparing for the shift change of the guard or working on the night’s meal. With fifty soldiers and a dozen or so support staff, the forward outpost was always busy.

Aila herself had nothing to do at the moment, which is why she’d been reading. The shipment of supplies she’d carted up to the outpost on her wagon that morning had already been unloaded and everything that would be taken back to Felsen was also loaded up. She’d be ready to ride her supply wagon back to the city in the morning with no delays, so long as the weather held. Since she had no actual purpose, she didn’t know where exactly she was walking to, but having excused herself from Volker, she walked with the simulated confidence of someone with a mission.

Walking briskly as she did, Aila quickly found herself at the gates of the palisade, still open since the sun was still above the horizon. Siward and Jagger were on either side of the gate, standing watch. She gave polite smiles and nods to them both and they greeted her much the same way.

“Looking for your uncles?” Siward asked. He was younger than many of the other mercenaries in Bernd’s Blades, closer to her age of twenty. “Saw them go out maybe an hour ago.”

“No, just stretching my legs,” Aila answered, taking a few steps further out past the gates.

The scenery ahead never ceased to impress her. The edge of the Great Southern Forest stretched out in front of her, massive pine trees at least twice the height of any ordinary tree lining the slope a couple of hundred yards away. They were towering giants, far larger than anything they had back home. And from what she’d heard around camp, there were trees even bigger the closer one went to the mountains. They had to be quite the sight.

“Don’t you go wandering too, Bean Pole,” Jagger called out. “At least not until my shifts done. I don’t want to have to be a part of any search parties.”

Aila frowned, the uplifting mood the sight of the beautiful trees had given her brought firmly down by the scraggly camp guard. Schooling her expression, Aila turned back to frown down at Jagger.

“I’m not a fool. I’ll be staying right within sight of the gate, I can assure you.”

“Fine, fine,” he waved her off dismissively. “I just—" Jagger cut off mid-sentence, pointing past Aila. “Hey, there’s your erstwhile uncles. And—by the gods, what do they have with them?”

Aila spun back around to see what both Jagger and Siward were staring at. There, coming out of the forest along the road, were Gerwas and Ludwas. But the two men barely registered, as Aila immediately saw what had caused their surprise.

Walking behind her uncles was a giant. No, not a giant like the demons or magical beasts she’d heard of or read about. It was… no, she was, like a walking statue. She was… beautiful. The woman, for Aila could easily tell she was one, had a shockingly attractive face, like something one of the great elven artists of old had carved from marble. Even at a distance Aila could clearly see the woman’s flawless features. The captivating beauty was made surreal by pure white skin, snow white hair, and startling violet eyes, all combined together to make a woman that would have been eye-catching anywhere, except she was also… so… tall!

Aila had met orcs that were her height, some that were a couple of hands taller, even, though rarely. This woman towered over her uncles, who were both eighteen hands high themselves, their heads only reaching to the middle of her waist.

As she watched in confused awe, Aila faintly recognized that her uncles were waving to her, or to her and the gate guards she supposed. She responded tentatively, waving a hesitant hand in their direction, only to freeze in shock at the realization that there were two more giants walking behind the first one! Three giant women!

In Valtar’s name, how tall were they?