CHAPTER 6 SELF-IMPOSED QUESTING
“I called you sir elf? You are an elf are you not?” The lady gave me a confused look as my mind completely shut down. I quickly brought a hand up to my ear and sure enough, it was extremely long and pointed.
“What the hell?” I whispered to myself. How had this managed to happen? It was the Heart, it was always the Heart. I focused hard and managed to bring up all the notifications I’d received since coming here and managed to scroll back until I found what I was looking for.
‘Ping’ Biology enhanced to accommodate Heart
Huh. So that’s what that had meant. I realized the receptionist was trying to get my attention, “Sir? Sir? Are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah I think I’m fine. Ummmm, how common are race changes?”
“Race changes? Like changing from an elf to a human? I’m sure there’s a way to do so but none of them are ordinary or necessarily common. In fact you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone that’s changed races at all and anyone that has, did it through their classes ascending.”
Well I guess that made sense, it seems like the Heart forced this change. And I didn’t necessarily have a problem with being an elf either way. It was just frustrating, once again I wasn’t given a choice in what had happened to me. The change was just forced upon me whether I liked it or not. Just one more thing to add to the pile.
“I see. Sorry about the strange question.” I gave her an awkward smile, I was not going to enjoy explaining what came next.
“No problem! Is there anything else I can assist you with?”
“Yes. I came from a few hours down the roads to the mountains. On the road I found these, I don’t know who they belonged to but I figured the people here might be able to figure it out..”
I laid the weapons out with the associated tags I had found onto the counter, the receptionist's eyes went wide, the chattering that had been going on within the guild instantly quieted.
“Oi elf. What did you do with the bodies?” A man walked up to me, about a head taller than I was so I had to look up to see his face. I identified him,
[Level 103]
“I buried them using my magic.” I gave a small demonstration using the wood on the floor and having it curl up around my feet. The rugged man raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press the issue.
“I don’t suppose you saw what happened to them?” The receptionist spoke next, she looked extremely distraught. It’s more than likely she knew them just based on her reaction.
“I didn’t see it happen necessarily. But I think I know who did it, at the very least I know what they look like.”
“Who?” The warrior spoke simply, it was more a command than a question.
“It was a group of three people. One of them was taller than you, skin completely red with two short horns coming out of his head, he was extremely muscular. Another was golden, she glowed with an aura of power, large breasts, along with 2 golden horns that spiraled out on either side of her head. The last seemed unnatural. Like they were from another dimension. Wings with feathers of pure white.”
The warrior briefly glanced at the receptionist, then back at his friends before looking back at me, “Are you fucking with us?”
“What? No? What makes you say that?”
“You just described three members of the Sentinels of Discord and expect us to believe that a fairy tale just happened to be what killed them off?”
“... First, who are the Sentinels of Discord? Second, why is that something I’d want to lie about? Third, all I did was describe the first people I saw before I came across the bodies. I never said they did it, only that these people were the most likely to have done it.”
The warrior opened his mouth to say something but quickly stopped. I could see the gears turning in his head as he tried to process what I had just said and formulate his response. Truly the ideal stereotype of a muscle-brained fighter. Has exactly two brain cells to knock together and try to formulate thoughts with. One of the people sitting at the tables stood up and walked over, an archer of sorts it seemed.
“The Sentinels of Discord, from a historical standpoint, are a group of different species that have banded together and seemingly the only known purpose of their group is to sow… Discord.” She gave me a half smile as she said that. “It’s said that they’ve razed nations to the ground and slain heroes of unfathomable strength over time. But in reality no human has ever laid eyes upon them, at least none with any credible proof of the situation.” The archer shrugged as she finished.
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“Huh, interesting. And how exactly would one prove that these people exist. Do you all expect them to bring back a head showing one of them? Not like you’d believe them then though because something that could be slain by a normal person clearly couldn’t be one of these people, right? So do you expect an autograph then? But if they were as bloodthirsty as you’ve made them out to be they’d just kill the person asking. It seems to me like you all would rather just believe it’s a fairy tale rather than acknowledging the truth of the situation. Regardless, that's besides the point. I’m not claiming these people are the Sentinels or whatever their name was. I’m just saying those are the descriptions of the people I saw. If the description matches the Sentinels then I guess that’s who they are. And if it’s not them, it’s people pretending to be them. Either way, I came across the bodies and went out of my way to respectfully bury them and bring identifiers to the nearest town I could find in hopes that someone knew them and be able to pass along the message.”
I was done talking to these people, mindsets like theirs just pissed me off and I wasn’t in the mood to entertain people without critical thinking skills. I turned back to the receptionist, “Do you know a place I can go to start gaining some levels? Maybe a dungeon nearby or something?” The warrior and archer clearly weren’t done talking to me and were about to say something when they suddenly stopped and just stared at me, jaws dropping slightly. Even the receptionist seemed taken aback.
“Umm… Sir I don’t think any of the dungeons here will be to your level…” What the hell is going on here? Why is it so difficult to get a grasp of what’s going on with these people? Everytime something like this happens I find some other new revelation about my circumstances. There’s no way she doesn’t know about a dungeon for a level 1 adventurer, even if there’s not one nearby. Unless my status didn’t show me as level 1.
“I’m sorry, but what does identify tell you my level is?”
“It doesn’t, all it shows are question marks…” Well, there’s the problem.
“I see. That’s probably why you’re so confused. I have no idea why my status is hiding my level from you, but I’m level 1 in all of my classes.”
“Level 1? An elf at level 1? That’s definitely a first…” She was now whispering to herself, she definitely seemed to be struggling with comprehending what I just said.
“Listen I know it may seem strange, but there’s a lot of unique circumstances surrounding my level right now and I just don’t have the time to go explaining my life story, if you could just point me in a direction I’d appreciate it.” I just needed to get out of here as soon as possible. The longer I stayed, the more complicated things got.
My words seemed to pop her out of her reverie,” Oh right, yes, of course. A dungeon. Ummm… Nearest dungeon that a level 1 could handle safely…” She started sifting through a bunch of papers and some maps before finally nodding her head, “Right, so you’re going to want to head east, about 2 hours travel you’ll come across a meadow, in the center of the meadow you’ll find a burrow inside the burrow is a mole infestation. It’s kind of out of the way and hasn’t really been a problem so no one has bothered putting a bounty out for them yet. They're roughly between levels 6 through 121, so if you stay careful it shouldn’t be an issue for you.” She showed me on her map where I was supposed to go.
“Awesome, thank you miss-?”
“Jamey!” She said with a cheerful smile to which I returned with one of my own.
“Thank you miss Jamey. And it’s not much, but I’m sorry for your loss. It seems like you knew them to a degree.” I gently placed several of the silvers from my pouch on the counter. It felt kind of disingenuous using their money, but they didn’t need to know that.
“I did… They were good people, really strong too. It’s surprising that someone managed to kill them.” Her smile faded away as she took in the weapons again before gathering up the tags. She treated them carefully, with respect, as if they were made out of glass and not metal.
I nodded before I silently took a step back and turned to walk out the door. Just as I was about to reach the door I felt a hand on my shoulder stopping me. It was the warrior from before.
“Hey, I’m sorry for getting heated back there. It’s just, I knew them. Good people like she said, they didn’t deserve what happened to them. Names, Garrus. I don’t know if it’s my place to say, but if you’d like I can give you some pointers on your classes and maybe help you get started with your initial few levels and also just be someone to watch your back down there in those tunnels.”
I hesitated, it’d be nice to have someone helping me. But my paranoia of this world instantly sprung up. What if he was tricking me and planned on killing me? He had more than just a few levels on me. No, I didn’t want to risk it.
“No problems, Garrus. I got a bit heated myself so don’t let it get to you. For your offer I’m going to have to turn you down, I definitely appreciate it though.” I gave him a friendly smile before gently moving his hand off and heading outside.
The door swung shut behind me as I stepped back out onto the street. I looked up to get a grasp on the time. The sun was starting to set, as it sat low on the horizon. I managed to get directions to a relatively cheap inn nearby. Going in and getting a key to a room was pretty simple, the rooms seemed kind of expensive at a silver a night, but everything was clean and comfy so I didn’t worry too much about it. I ate some of the food from the inn for dinner to save on the preserved rations the rogue had in their bag. I laid down in bed feeling absolutely exhausted. Which made sense, this was still the same day as when the citadel had been attacked. Already it felt like I’d experienced enough for a week to go by.
“Too much is happening. Way too much…” I could hardly make sense of what was happening around me, only that more of it seemed to be bad rather than good. I closed my eyes praying that tomorrow would somehow be better than it was today. But it was a faint hope that was mired by fear and anxiety.
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I woke up to sunlight filtering in through the window illuminating the particles flitting about through the room. I managed to push myself up. It looked like it was early morning, not even past noon yet. I’ve never woken up before noon and not felt like I wanted to die instantly from exhaustion. Maybe being an elf wasn’t so bad after all.
I got out of bed and started gathering my things, double-checking that I hadn't misplaced anything. Alright, which way had she said was that mole burrow again? East? That sounds about right. And with that I set off after turning the key back in to the innkeeper. The town was pretty decently sized, and looked like it had a population of roughly 10,000. The streets bustled with activity despite the early morning, the background noise was relatively pleasant to listen to, and had a nice soothing effect on the soul. I got my bearing with the sun, yes only one sun. I know how disappointing, right? I had been parked on the west side of the city so making it to the east gate took me about half an hour. Walking out was as easy as walking in, the guards on this side didn’t say anything to me as I walked past them.
The walk out to my destination was pretty uneventful which I was thankful for, it gave me time to just think over everything and appreciate the scenery around me which I hadn’t really had an opportunity to do in this world so far. Not that the scenery here was particularly special, just that it was nice. It had a calm air to it and was peaceful to look at, kind of like a starting zone of an rpg.
Soon enough I had reached the meadow that Jamey had told me about, “You can not be serious right now. That’s hilarious.” All around the meadow they hopped and hopped, it was quite an amusing sight. Yes the entire meadow was filled with slimes. I walked through the meadow seeing slimes of all colors of the rainbow and everything in between. They were pretty docile, I picked one up, it was like holding jell-o that didn’t break apart.
[Level 1]
Yep, just about as expected. It had roughly the same structural integrity as a jelly-fish and squirmed a lot in my hands trying to jump around. It was hard to tell if I had upset it by grabbing it so I placed it back on the ground letting it go back to whatever it is slimes did in this world.
After wandering about in the field for a little bit I found what I was looking for. Honestly it was kind of hard to miss. The burrow was about 10 feet in diameter and sloped downwards into the ground. ‘Ah shit, I forgot a torch.’ Maybe I could make one with my magic, wood and lightning should serve in some form. I just needed kindling? Grass should work well enough for that purpose. I focused on using my nature class to form some wood as a torch handle and I quickly got to work with the grass.
All-in-all it turned out better than I was expecting. The wood seemed to burn extremely slowly and should last a long time. I gathered some spare grass just in case I needed to rekindle my torch and set off into the burrow, hopefully the moles weren’t more deadly than the receptionist had let on.