No, he was overreacting.

No one could have found him so quickly, and judging by how decayed the temple grounds were and how dense and old the trees were, he was likely far from civilization. These two were probably just adventurers looking to complete some errand or quest. If he simply stayed put, he was sure they'd pass him by... unless... what if they didn't? What if them coming here meant more adventurers would return in the future? What if his perfect new beginning had failed before he even got started?

He sighed.

He couldn't decide whether to laugh or rage at his luck. He had hoped he would have more time to get established again on the surface. If only he had his former power. It would have been child's play to kill these two. As he was now, he wasn't sure he could. They didn't seem all that powerful, and their equipment was simple and middling in quality, but the two had rapport, showing that they had worked together for some time. Also, they both moved with the ease that came with experience, though neither showed the overwhelming confidence that exuded from those with true power.

He could take the gamble, but he concluded that it wasn't worth the risk. He'd just stay put. Even if it did in fact make him feel a bit like the roach that Nocturne accused him of being, he'd just have to swallow his pride. And if this place became frequented by more adventurers in the future, that was a problem for future Abad-Shai.

A loud noise interrupted his thoughts. The dwarf yelped in pain.

"Watch your step!" The elf hissed.

"It isn't my fault! You didn't point out the stump!"

"What am I, your servant? Watch your own steps."

"Well excuse me if my short height doesn't give me a perfect view over all these bushes! Unlike you, I wasn't born with the privilege of long legs!"

"Shush, you old coot... Hey, I don't think that was a bush." The elf looked down. "That's stone." She looked around. "I think there are buildings here." The elf looked around more, her eyes glowing in the dim starlight. "What is this place? Did you see anything on the map that said there was an old settlement out here?"

"No, there wasn't anything out here. My map is the best you can get, and it spans back several hundred years. It was made by my great uncle, who was a famous traveler. There can't be anything here." The dwarf kicked the stone he had tripped on. "It does seem like stonework though."

They turned in a circle. At first, they merely looked, but after several minutes, they started to point in different directions, noticing the structures around them. Each took turns commenting on the structures that they saw. After some time passed and the two poked around at the buildings a bit, they gathered back together near Abad's little hut.

"This is odd," the woman said, her hand raising to her chin. "This was a sizable settlement."

"The stonework is excellent. Only my people could do better," the dwarf replied.

The pair walked a few steps, coming even closer to the little building that Abad was hiding in. He slowed his breathing as much as he could. He hoped they wouldn't hear him.

"Wait... I feel something." The elf looked around. Then, turning toward the gazebo, she started walking toward the old structure... and the magic circle that contained his lingering essence.

"Damn it all..." Abad muttered. He'd have to confront them. She seemed completely at ease in the forest. He knew a ranger when he saw one. She'd be able to pick up his trail from the circle, either by his essence or by his tracks. Once she picked up on his trail, he knew he'd be caught, and it would seem way worse for him if they found him hiding like some thief.

He called upon the star he was born under for the first time in ages. Channeling some of the mana he recovered over the past few hours, he masked himself into the form he had always liked to use in these situations. Thinking back to the only impressions he had left of his mother, he made his skin fair and lightened his long black hair until it was a light blonde color. Once the magic took hold, he knew his eyes would appear to be blue to others, masking him in the traditional look of the sun elves. With a deep breath, he shoved the old metal door open, which groaned loudly as he did, and stepped outside of his hiding place.

The two adventurers turned, raising bow and axe as they did. "Who goes there?" the dwarf asked. "Are you our little monster come out to play?" The man grinned. Abad knew he could see in the dark, but a dwarf's night vision wasn't as keen as his own at this distance. The elf's eyes, however, narrowed as she saw him.

"Monster? Can't say that I am." Abad replied as he walked toward them.

"He's an elf. But I can feel magic coming off of him. Something feels off." She drew her bowstring back, readying herself to shoot if he did or said the wrong thing.

"An elf? Bah, I thought it was time for a fight, not an ass beating." The dwarf wasn't nervous at all. He planted the knob of his axe in the soil. "He doesn't look like much. Don't be so unfriendly, girl." The elf glared at him but loosened her bowstring.

"I'm a simple mage of some small power. That's why you feel magic coming from me." Abad lifted his hands so they could see he was unarmed.

"Why are you out here? You're far away from anything important. It's pretty strange to find a mage with no entourage in a place that the maps don't show." Her eyes were trained on him, and her fingers never left her knocked arrow.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"I'm..." he hesitated a moment, searching for a lie. A moment later, the lie came to him. "I'm a bit of a historian. I read about an old temple of Yslene that was built before the Dark One's rise. If you look in that building over there," he pointed to the large stone building that held the goddess's statue, "you'll find her statue. It's even well-preserved! Who would have thought? A statue of Yslene preserved in this day and age!" He did his best to sound like a giddy academic. In some sense, he supposed he was one.

"Yslene? Then this place is old. No one has worshiped her in centuries. Seems like your uncle or whatever was wrong"

The dwarf shuffled. "Who's that?"

"The moon elf goddess."

"Moon elves? They're all dead." The dwarf bowed his head. "Goddess shelter them." He placed his hand over his heart, lifting his eyes to the sky. Abad could see a small pendant around his neck, which the dwarf fingered as he prayed.

The elf loosened the bowstring more. "Interesting... How did you get out here? This place is two weeks from the nearest settlement." The elf's eyes remained narrowed on him.

"I..." the true lies were often the best kind. "I found a picture of the teleportation seal in a library. It referred to the seal that's carved into the ground of that building over there." He pointed to the gazebo. "Unfortunately, it's badly decayed. Like a fool, I cast a teleportation spell but didn't account for the weathering this place had suffered. When I cast my spell, it went haywire. I almost died, and I lost my familiar, most of my equipment, and for some reason, I also lost..." How did adventurers talk about their power? "I lost most of my levels somehow."

"I've never heard of that happening before." The dwarf looked toward the elf. She shook her head.

"Me neither. People lose levels if they stop training or doing quests, but it takes years. I've never heard of a failed spell causing someone to lose them like that."

"Then perhaps I have received Her ire for some reason?" Abad had felt her ire his entire life.

"Perhaps." The elf relaxed. The pair walked toward him. He did the same. Extending his hand, the dwarf took it in his large, meaty, gauntleted hand.

"Firtz." The man's grip was iron. Maybe these two were stronger than Abad had assumed.

"A-Nis." The elf didn't extend her hand, instead pulling out an orange and peeling it with a knife she retrieved from her belt.

"Abad-Shai." Abad's heart froze. He hadn't thought of giving a fake name. Damn, he was rusty. He mentally began pulling on his essence in case he'd need to burn these two alive. Putting on a friendly smile, he hoped that the title Nocturne had given him, [Lord of Nothing], worked the way he thought it did. Cheeky bastard. Lord of Nothing indeed.

"Abad-Shai, huh?" The elf slipped an orange slice in her mouth. "I feel like I've heard that name somewhere."

"Bah, it doesn't matter. For what it's worth, I've never heard of you. And I'm old as hell and been places." The dwarf slapped his shoulder. "No offense."

"None taken. I'm not particularly well known, and my studies are limited to subjects that few find interesting." He thought for a moment, then decided it couldn't hurt to say more. "I'm a bit of a collector. Whenever I see something interesting, I get fixated on it. That's how I ended up here." He had been rather infatuated with the King of Saern's throne. And his beautiful wife. It wasn't really much of a lie.

"Maybe you should work on that." The elf popped another slice of the orange in her mouth. When she did, Abad noticed a long scar down the right side of her face.

He laughed. "Maybe I should. But, seeing as I'm stuck out here and don't quite know where I am, would you two mind pointing me back to civilization?"

The elf snorted. "I wouldn't call Farnfoss civilization."

"Bastards, the lot of them." The dwarf spat.

"Farnfoss?"

"A small town at the edge of Nolei. Pretty uninhabited out here, and the townsfolk aren't exactly a friendly lot. A couple of the bastards tried to corner A-Sha, hoping to get a new slave or some such, but the girl carved them up. Good one, that girl is." The dwarf smirked at the memory.

A-Sha had to be A-Nis's sister. For some of the elven peoples, their surnames came first, and it wasn't that common for elves to share surnames. Sun elves ordered their names the opposite way, however, at least since the humans arrived from whatever world they were from. A-Nis wasn't one of his people. For that, he was grateful. The Shai surname wasn't well regarded, entirely because of him. "Still, I need to stock up and figure out my next steps." It wasn't exactly untrue. Abad wasn't much of a hunter, and he'd need something to eat at some point.

"Do you have any tracking skills? Ever been trained?" The elf asked, eying him up and down critically. "You don't look like you'd be able to find your way back, even if I told you the way."

"I did a bit back in the war, but my ser—my troops mostly did the scouting."

"Your troops?"

"Yeah, the troops I commanded in the war." Had he said something wrong? It couldn't have been that long.

"The war?" The dwarf asked. "Which war?"

The one that he had been a general in, when he almost brought the Ten Kingdoms to their knees before deciding to infiltrate the court of the strongest kingdom after his forces and their forces hit a stalemate. "The war against the Dark One's children. You know, the War of Shadows." That's what they called it, at least. He and his fellows called it the War of Domination.

The two looked into one another's eyes. Something passed between them. Abad pulled upon more essence, readying himself.

"The War of Shadows?" That was five centuries ago. My grandpa fought in that war, even killed a demon with his bare fists. Damn near lost his hands. I saw the scars myself when I was a lad. My dad was born around that time too, back when the girl here wasn't even a gleam in the Goddess's eye." The dwarf ribbed A-Nis and looked Abad up and down. "You sure you don't mean the Scion's War? Or the War of the Nations?"

"I don't... I don't know what those are."

"I thought you said you were a historian?" The elf's jaw set. Her fingers tightened around her arrow.

"I am, but I mostly focused on ancient history, from before the Dark One. I've never heard of the Scion's War. What happened?"

"Haven't heard of it? It's basic knowledge!" The dwarf scratched his eyebrow, shuffling a bit. "From my memory, one of the Thirteen broke out of the seal and rallied some monsters. He was put down by the Hero of the West and resealed."

Seal? Hero of the West? "Do you know anything about the War of Shadows?" Dread began to fall upon Abad.

"Yeah, a bunch of the Dark One's children tried to burn the world down. Damn near succeeded too. They got put down by the Hero and sealed in the Great Seal under the Tower of the Sun."

"What happened to the Seven?"

"Who's that? Never heard of them." The dwarf laughed. "You mean the Five? The hero's companions all went on to found major institutions that do all kinds of work today. Lad, are you sure you didn't lose some memories in this little magical mishap of yours? You hardly look a day over a hundred. I really don't think you're older than my grandpa was, Goddess preserve him."

"Maybe..." the elf paused, thinking. "Maybe his spell sent him through time? What year do you think it is, Shai?"

"Just Abad, if you would. Well, last I remember, it's 4E 572."

The two looked at one another again. "Abad, it's 5E 443. The fourth era ended with the War of Shadows in 4E 597." Her eyes filled with compassion for the first time, and the dwarf patted his arm.