Chapter 3.

The Introductions.

I waited anxiously, eyes scanning the quiet jungle.

We had escaped the clearing, but there were still archers out there in the thick scrub.

A minute or so passed. I had caught my breath and was thinking about our next step as a group, when I heard a polite cough.

"Here you go darling." the toga woman smiled her accent sounded Caribbean but I couldn't tell where. She held out the cloth coated in runes she was working on before. I cocked my head not sure what she wanted me to do.

"Huh?" I asked her not making eye contact, looking over her right shoulder.

Her smile slowly dropped as she looked me over. She gently approached me her arms creeping forward cautiously, and tied the cloth around my waist like a sarong. I looked down and chuckled, I had forgotten I was only wearing my necklace and the mud from the rainforest floor.

I grunted in thanks. I backed up to press my back to the walls of the buttress root, things were settling down. We had a defensible position, and there were no more attacks for now.

And I had a sarong!

"Backpack?" I rasped out, my eyes scanning the trees.

A rich voice that sounded like it would make beautiful songs, spoke

"I lost sight of him in the fight, I think he circled around and got one of the archers."

I looked out of the corner of my eye at the laughing man, his hip looked better. he was carrying a handful of arrows and had picked up a long fallen branch. I smiled at him in greeting and went back to looking for Mr. Backpack.

"My name is Indaya, thanks for the help back there." He said, he smiled as he squatted down. Starting to work the fallen branch with one of the sharp arrowheads. His eyes darted up and down, from his work to the trees constantly.

I nodded carving his name in my heart, it was the first human name I had heard in what felt like aeons.

"I am Tobias Dahm." the Short man said his deep voice rumbling. "Good work with the smokescreen." he glossed over his thanks and gave us a backhanded compliment.

"I am Delia, you can call me Dee." toga lady had slowly sidled up beside me and was standing within arms reach, I shuffled further along the root.

"Elina, its so good to see other humans again!" shouted the javelin chucker, she was bouncing with excitement.

"My name is Abu Abdulla, as-salamu alaikum." the shepherd gave a greeting of peace. I returned a solemn nod.

"Yoroshiku, I am Yamato Keisuke." the swordsman bowed at the group, his blade wasn't anywhere to be seen. I could feel her presence in the Sea nearby.

I pointed in her direction and asked Keisuke "Geisha?" my eyes flashing ghostly green.

He furrowed his brows and he took a minute to respond "ah. She is known as 'Tsubame To Hasu', the Swallow and the Lotus."

I gave a jerky bow mimicking him poorly, after a few quiet beats I turned to my skin head friend.

"Jack." she grumbled out, running her hand over her stubbly head. Sweat was pouring off her, the jungle not a good place for a fire wizard I guess.

With my incredible skills of observation I had realised she was a she. Now that we weren’t getting mauled by lizards, it was kind of obvious.

She was incredibly skinny, not a scrap of meat on her. Her shaved head made me mistake her for a petite man at first.

My eyes shifted to the Wrestler.

"My name is Paula, nice to meet you all." Her voice was quiet and she sounded shy, her New Zealand accent was thick. I shuffled over to her and lifted her arm.

The bites were fading fast a sure sign of heightened Vitality, it worked well in conjunction with healing spells...speeding the process up.

Huffing a sharp breath from my nose I nodded, satisfied with her progress.

"Thanks for those by the way." she said pointing to my smoking totems. They were clearly the source of the healing, not exactly a subtle looking magic.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I looked over at Abu and moved my hand to my throat, he lifted his chin and gave me a good view. There was a twisted white circle of scar tissue the width of my knuckle it was still swollen and bruised around the edges, it went in right above his prominent Adam’s apple.

I slowly moved my hand up and gently brushed my finger to the scar, I focused and let a small trickle of [Cure Wounds] bubble out of my fingertip.

The swelling faded and I lowered my hand.

"Lucky." I grunted out. 'If my driftwood totem had a different ratio of radius or power he would have died on the spot', the arrow punching through his trachea and severing his vertebrae.

"Not luck, your carvings saved me. I saw the broken one, it took the blow did it not?" he stated. "I owe you my life."

'Yes my totem helped, but it was a close thing. Your greasy mist must have reconnected your airway and any severed arteries, my totems aren’t powerful enough to do that yet.'

There was silence around the roots, as all eyes were on me. I realised I hadn’t spoken aloud.

A hand lightly rested on my shoulder, as gentle as a humming bird. I could barely feel it, But it still made me jump. Delia spoke, her voice was very quiet and soft as she asked an unexpected question.

"And what’s your name darling?" her accent was Creole! I recognised it now. And realised my Accolade for being a Delegati was translating for me.

[Delegati of Terra]

You have passed through the Eligere and become chosen to Struggle. You are an exemplary member of your species, you understand all human languages.

I met her eyes shocked, it had been so long since I interacted with other living people. I hadn't used a name in years, it even disappeared from my Codex.

I had only spoken briefly with some long dead ghosts drifting through the Ethereal Sea. My mate Kraas’vub hung around for a long time but even he was dead. 'Not to mention a Goblin, they had pretty loose standards.'

His nickname for me was Lump. Because I was a big lump when compared to his short form, no bigger than a human child.

'Was Lump my real name? No of course not, it was just a pet name from that gobbo bastard Kraas'vub.'

"Uhh…" I felt alarm bells ringing and I backed up to the edge of the massive roots to peek out, I whipped my head around looking for danger. Sweat beading on the back of my neck. The trees were quiet. 'What’s going on?'

I looked back at my new friends trying to warn them something was wrong. Indaya had been listening, but his dark eyes had only left the tree line to glance at the branch he was whittling. He was turning it into what I saw now as the limbs of a bow, Keisuke also hadn’t seen anything his calm gaze wandering across the leafy undergrowth.

"Do you remember your name sweetheart?" Delia’s voice came again so soft and caring it nearly brought a tear to my eye.

I scrunched my eyes closed and thought back to my memories. The earliest thing I could remember was my brother’s hand giving me a cup of tea, it tumbled to the ground as he disappeared in a flash of white light. Then my arms glowed white and I appeared under the bright yellow sun of the Eligere.

Was that my earliest memory?

'No way, what kind of child drinks tea... I must have been 25 or 30 when I entered the Eligere anyway...'

I couldn’t remember my brothers face…

What was my Mum’s name again?

How long had it been since I could remember them?

How long was I in the Eligere?

Decades at least... I opened my Codex and looked for a clue, I scanned over my attributes page. There was nothing. It was blank...I dropped the Codex out of my hand it vanished before it hit the floor.

My breathing was heavy. had I sold it to afford [Ethereal Heart]? I had no memory of that...No I don't think you could sell your name for Cassa...

So what if I couldn’t remember. I just needed to clear Potestas and I would find my family, and they would tell me.

'Bah! my mind was just playing tricks in my old age, now that I was young again I’d be back to normal soon.'

I looked up at Delia.

"No."

"You don’t remember?"

"Mm." I nodded.

"How long were you in there?" she asked, referring to the Eligere trial.

"Long." I shrugged. Not even sure myself,

"What should we call you?"

I thought for a bit, thinking of a bit of a joke. Smiling I told them. "Crass."

'Ha-ha! Take that Kraas’vub, I would use your dumb name for now. And look... Speaking was easy! I wasn’t a hopeless barbarian unable to talk in full sentences after all... look I was holding a conversation, I even had a sarong!'

"OK sweetie, nice to meet you Crass. We are all out of that hellish place now, we will get out of here together too."

I gave a serious nod, eyes drifting across the dirt floor. 'She's nice, I felt warm when she called me sweetie…'

She was right, no species could beat Potestas alone.

The strongest champions of dozens of races had drifted across my path over the years, they all fell.

Kraas’vub especially, he fell hard. Jokes aside, his was a cautionary tale. I learnt from his lessons for decades. The consequences for the Goblins hubris were too dire. None of us could afford to fall to our own ego’s.

I would carry these nine people to the top. We had to make it.

Wait where was Backpack again?

There was a crackling of dried leaves and the coughing hack of someone spitting, as Backpack rounded the towering roots that sheltered our huddled group. 'Poor bloke...He’s still shirtless.' Not to mention he even had an arrow in his chest now. blood was streaking down his side, as he limped into cover.

He looked at us his brutish face pale and drawn with pain, a furrow of four deep cuts ran from the back of his head, crossing around the side through his ear and ending next to his eye on his cheek, something with sharp claws must have raked across trying to drag him over. He had been in a close quarters fight, then got plugged in the chest with an arrow.

His formerly cheap looking knife was gone from its sheath, and his pants were ripped and scuffed his backpack however was in good condition. Suspiciously so… didn’t even have blood on it, maybe its a Soul-bound item?

"Lizardmen…|Hunters...Two escaped...Cough...Cough…Gutted one." He managed to gasp out, and quickly collapsed onto his backpack exhausted from his ordeal. I started channelling a new [Knotted Wounds Totem] as soon as I saw the arrow, that coughing sounded like he might have a collapsed lung.

The twin knotted snakes burst up next to me, its two pairs of eyes pulsing with healing light. Abu was moving too, he looked at me and grabbed the arrow, about to pull it out.

"NO!" Indaya shouted. Abu raised his eyebrow.

"The arrowheads are barbed metal, not sure what kind. You will do more damage than you can heal if you pull it out. Better to push it through to the other side. Cut the fletching off and pass it through cleanly then you can close the wound, it will heal much faster." Indaya stated clinically, echoing my own thoughts.

He was clearly a bow hunter, his rapidly forming bow showed that. He knew his stuff, I found out the hard way in the Eligere that you should do everything you can to avoid barbed pointy things.

"Shit did he say Lizardmen, I had hoped it was Kobolds?" I heard Tobias mutter looking at Paula.

She had a serious look on her face when she nodded.

"Fuck…" Tobias neatly summarised