Despite my misgivings, I shambled out of the hut two hours later.

Mavari’s Cure Ailments potion had worked magic on my illness, though faint traces of malaise remained.

The elves had gathered around a raging bonfire in the center of the village, built opposite Nana’s longhouse. Nana, for her part, sat on the stairway leading to her home, locked in discussion with a few elf casters.

The rest of the villagers occupied the ground and neighboring steps, feasting on food and drink. A small group kept the meals flowing from a kitchen adjoined to the longhouse, but the flutists drew the greatest attention by far. They played a jolly tune in a corner of the crowd, accompanied by quick, insistent drumbeats.

Their tranquil expressions, which remained unfazed regardless of the difficulty of the notes, served to rob me of breath. The Dark Elves had no right to be this attractive. No right at all. It made them even more difficult to approach.

Nana’s red eyes twinkled as she caught sight of me. She grabbed a wooden cup from a nearby tray and raised it into the air.

“To Damien,” she proclaimed, “our newly promoted ranker!”

“To Damien,” the rest of the elves cheered, raising their mugs.

An unrecognizable fellow nudged me into the crowd. In no time at all, I was surrounded by pleasant faces, all of whom had been dying to meet me. They patted my shoulders and swarmed me with questions I couldn’t remember answering.

A fair bit of gossip had made the rounds since my arrival. Everyone had heard about the low-leveled stranger, who possessed a black leaf crest and had earned the right to specialize while fighting the goblins.

A few other elves had also partaken in Nana’s generosity, and they hobbled up to me in various stages of ritual sickness. None had been gifted a Cure Ailments potion, but they swelled with tired pride at their new caste regardless.

Specialization meant a lot to Vizhimans, didn’t it? Eternal regulars probably felt lower than dirt.

Nana plonked a platter of roasted Dread Goat into my lap, interrupting my umpteenth retelling of the fight with the goblins.

“Having fun, eh?” she said, shooing my audience away.

I ignored my queasy stomach in favor of tearing into the goat, which was dressed with herbs and a black sauce that tasted like sin. The stretchy exterior of the meat broke beneath my teeth, flooding my tongue with a sweetness that curled my toes.

“Can’t complain,” I replied as nonplussed as I could manage.

Nana guffawed and slapped me on the back. “Can’t complain? You look like you could perish in bliss!”

She offered a second helping of meat which I graciously accepted. Good food had been a luxury for me back on Earth. Poor wages meant a life scraping by on bread, noodles, and beans.

“Why the big celebration?” I asked after filling the black hole in my stomach. “I thought the village would be more concerned about the goblins.”

“I’m doing this because they are concerned about the goblins,” Nana said. She had lit her pipe sometime during my meal and blew a puff of sweet smoke into the sky. “Everyone’s on edge at the moment. I was hoping to bolster morale.”

“The calm before the storm, huh?”

“No, Damien. The storm has already begun. This is the short gasp before the ship capsizes over our heads.”

I shivered at her words.

The other villagers continued their merriment, at odds with the impending doom. Tybalt and Mavari huddled on a bench in the distance, engrossed in quiet conversation. They looked so good together, I wondered how I’d managed to miss the nature of their relationship.

“Mister,” a bunch of kids squealed, running up to me. “Mister!”

Nilen shoved her way to the front of the group, easily the tallest among her peers. “Show them. Show them, please!”

“Show what?” I asked.

“Your affinity! I told them what it was, but everyone keeps calling me a liar.”

I fought down a gulp, then glowered at Nilen. She averted her gaze, revealing that she knew exactly what she had done.

The kids had unfortunately created a ruckus in their race toward me. A group of Dark Elves looked up from their refreshments. Even the flutists slowed their music to stare in curiosity.

I scratched my hair. “I’m not sure I should—”

“Oh, go on, already,” Nana said with a mischievous grin. “And, make it dramatic. I want to see the look on their faces.”

"That is so not a good idea."

"We're a small village, Damien. The news will spread anyway. Better they receive it with full bellies than otherwise."

Well, since I had her permission . . .

“Gather round,” I said in my best imitation of a showman and leaped to my feet. “What you are about to witness will go down as the greatest feat you’ll ever remember!”

I'd probably delivered that with more cringe than I intended, but the kids lapped it up anyway. They cheered loudly.

“Is that your answer?”

They cheered again.

Nilen crossed her arms and inflated her chest: a perfect picture of teenage maturity. But, there was a glint in her eyes and a twitch in her fingers as she restrained herself from bouncing on her feet.

The musicians halted all pretense of disinterest and dropped their instruments to observe the scene. It placed a huge amount of pressure on my shoulders. I now had to deliver a shock.

[Fear Aura] was probably best in that regard, but I didn’t think the adults would appreciate being put on sudden diaper duty. That left me with one other option.

The audience gasped.

I couldn’t tell what they saw, but the colors around me dimmed to a muted grey. Orange bled off the fiery bonfire, leaving shades of silver in its wake. The [Dark Stalker] ability wrapped me in shadows, but to my stunned audience, I'd vanished from sight.

“Hey, mister,” a kid yelled. “That’s not funny. You promised us a show! Where did you go?”

“This is the show,” Nilen said, arms still crossed atop her chest. “Don’t be a moron.”

I shifted positions. Nana's gaze followed me with uncanny precision, tracking—to my amazement—my imprints in the dirt.

So, that’s how she wanted to play things, huh? Well, what about this?

[Stealth].

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A few more gasps rose from the crowd. Nana murmured a word that sounded like twat and returned to her pipe. Some of the bolder kids pawed the air around my last known location, but I ignored them to focus on the restless adults.

A short-haired elf reclined on a bench at the other end of the bonfire.

I squatted behind him and flicked him in the ears. “Boo.”

The elf jolted with a scream.

I didn’t expect him to be easily alarmed, but I also couldn’t help but chuckle at his reaction.

More yelps rose among the crowd as I skirted between the lines of Dark Elves. I picked a mug from a serving girl’s tray and placed it on a musician’s head. I held a blade of grass up to a ranger’s nose, then scampered away from his grapple.

The children proved to be the easiest targets. Most of them broke down in giggles at the slightest poke, though a few came close to retaliating.

One particular elf rocked in a drunken daze, only to tumble as his stool sailed out from under his rump. He sprang up with a sword in hand, promising bloody murder, much to the amusement of the crowd.

The gathering soon devolved into a scene of chaos. Riotous laughter erupted alongside snarls as adults and kids made attempts to grab me.

Mavari and Tybalt sat in my path, both wearing different expressions. The former chortled at my unfunny antics, while Tybalt glowered like he had missed a bathroom break for the last three months.

I slipped a flower stalk into Mavari’s hair and moved to do the same to Tybalt.

He growled. “Don’t even dare, outsider. I know where you are.”

“Oh, don’t be a wet blanket,” Mavari said with an airy giggle. “Damien’s just trying to entertain us.” She touched the flower in her hair and beamed in my general direction.

Tybalt grumbled a few choice words which I missed on the way to the next target. Fun or not, my little jaunt provided some much-needed practice. [Dark Stalker] served as an effective tool for infiltration on its lonesome, but [Stealth] heightened its potency.

The ability had also come with a warning of instability during attacks but stayed up throughout my pranks regardless. Elves closer to the bonfire reacted faster to my presence than elves further away, revealing [Dark Stalker]’s weakness to intense lighting.

My empty VP counter also revealed crucial information about energy consumption. Techniques with a per-minute cost drained energy points at the start of each minute, which meant I lost 2 VP when I activated [Stealth] and another 2 once sixty seconds were up. It didn’t matter if I turned off the skill the next second, the lost energy didn’t return.

Nilen stood with a defiant expression in my line of sight: a good choice for a final target. I stalked up to her with the last of my MP and—

Wham!

“Got you,” Nilen said, hopping on her feet. “I knew you’d come for me.”

My gut smarted where her elbow had landed, but the pain was no match for my shock at being anticipated.

Nilen stuck her tongue out at my now visible form, pleased with her victory.

It had to be a lucky shot. Regardless, I dove forward in retaliation and tickled her for all I was worth. The crowd guffawed at our antics.

“What affinity is that?” someone asked.

“It’s Fear,” Tybalt said. “The outsider controls Fear.”

A hush fell over the crowd. Elves who had erstwhile been laughing trailed into silence.

I shoved Nilen, who had just begun gnawing at my leg, and frowned at the gathering of elves. “Anyone willing to tell me what the big deal is with my affinity?”

“It’s considered taboo,” a volunteer said. “You shouldn’t attune it.”

“A bit too late for that, all things considered.”

“You don’t understand,” an elf-maiden pressed. “Fear cannot be trifled with. The last time anyone tried, they dragged an entire kingdom to death with them—”

“You’d bring a curse down on us all!” someone added.

Nana jumped to her feet. “Enough with that idiocy. A lot of those stories are old wives' tales, told for unassuming tickle-brains wet behind the ears! There’s a boatload of nuance missing in this discussion.”

I shot her a frantic look.

“Peace, Damien. I intend to explain.” She stopped to blow a stream of smoke into the night sky, closing her eyes to savor the sensation.

Three silver moons shone down on our gathering, clashing with the orange of the firelight.

Nana opened her eyes. “Despite the best efforts of the holy books, some affinities are more reviled than others among Vizhimans. Envy and Hatred tend to send most people fleeing for the hills, and don't even get me started on Despair.”

“Yet, Fear is worse,” Tybalt interjected.

“It can be worse,” Nana agreed, “but only because of its ruler.” She regarded me with solemn eyes. “What do you know about the dragon lords?”

My expression must have clued her in because she laughed soon after. “Right. Pointless question. Before the elves awoke in Vizhima, the dragon lords ruled all of creation. They have since decimated their numbers in ancient battles, but of the survivors, one was known as the [Lord of Terror].”

A shiver crawled up my spine at the name. It wasn’t just me. Everyone—young, old, frail, spry, drunk, sober—shuddered in tandem. A few elves backed away without conscious thought—regulars, by the looks of it.

Nana pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ugh. That name’s particularly eerie to invoke at nighttime. I don’t think it needs repeating.” She smoked some more as if to wash the taste from her mouth. “Bottom-line is: one of the surviving dragon lords held dominion over the attunement of Fear. Each time the affinity was invoked, he appeared and destroyed the area.”

I managed a response after multiple tries. “Why didn’t you warn me of this sooner?”

“Because it shouldn’t matter. What’s done is done. The dragon lords haven’t been seen in ages.” She spared me a small smile. "You won't be the first to spit in the face of taboos. Nor the last."

“And yet,” Tybalt said, unable to contain his glee, “none but the most foolhardy of folk dare to do so.” He slipped an arm around Mavari as if her mere presence validated his existence. “The dragon lords may have vanished, but right as rain, they would return someday to exact their due.”

The elf-maiden from earlier shivered. “Dreadwood cannot survive an attack from a dragon lord . . .”

“Dreadwood is protected,” Mavari countered.

“But, isn’t it curious”—Tybalt drowned out his betrothed—“that the moment the one with the cursed affinity appeared, goblins arrived on our doorstep.”

Murmurs broke out among the crowd.

“Hey,” Nilen said, furrowing her brows. “Stop implying bad things about him.”

“Tybalt's right,” Nana said. “Not about Damien’s character but about the unlikely string of coincidences.” She avoided the look of betrayal on my face and put away her pipe. “I don’t think we have anything to fear from the dragon lords, at least, not in lieu of more pressing threats on the horizon. You’ve seen how harmless Damien’s powers are for yourself. Let’s decide once we are out of the water.”

“We can’t afford to put this off for later!” Tybalt said, slamming his fist against a stair. “We’ve assisted the outsider far more than is sensible. For the price of his Specialization, three of our own lost out on being specialists!”

“If they had earned the privilege, they wouldn’t have been overlooked.”

A few of the quiet elves turned furious. Nana had been harsh in her rebuttal though factually correct. But, the words didn't need to be said. The wounded elves focused their ire on me instead, unable to challenge her words.

I sighed into my cheek. So much for overcoming social awkwardness. There'd be no recovering from this. Not unless I found a way to reassert myself.

And, there was only one option to take . . .

Mavari glanced between the fuming Tybalt and his grandmother. “Um, maybe we can talk this through in private? Damien is too kind to be subjected to this. Not to mention, we need all the help we can get against the goblins.”

“Damien has been rewarded handsomely for his courage,” Tybalt growled. “But, at what point does the Harkon respect the will of the people? You spent our goats and charges all for his sake. What more do you ask the rest of us to give? Our lives?”

He lowered his voice as though intended for only Nana, but it rang throughout the clearing regardless. “He is not Cyran—no matter how much you wish him to be. Stop being deceived.”

Nana clenched her fists.

I wouldn’t get a better chance . . .

“I’ll leave the village,” I said, “if that’s what it will take. I didn’t intend to spend long anyway.”

Mavari leaped to her feet. “Damien, no—”

“It’s the right thing to do,” I said with a nod at Nana, and a sword cut through my heart. “If a war is coming, then I don’t want a part in it. I'll take my curse and get out of your hair.”

The number of dark looks doubled in the crowd.

Nana stared at me with those violent red orbs of hers, but I met her gaze head-on, undeterred. As long as I remained in Harkonean, Tybalt would continue being a nuisance. And, the village needed unity at this time above all else.

Besides, I had problems of mine that needed solving. Unlocking my inventory had bought me a few more days, but the sooner I got around to permanently resolving the issue of spirit orbs, the better.

Nana smirked. “Very well. If that’s what you want, it is not my place to stop you. Consider your specialization fair payment for your assistance. You leave at first light.”

She retreated into her longhouse with that.

The festivities restarted, albeit in a somber mood. Nilen yelled something about unfairness to all who would listen. Mavari approached me for desperate conversation, but I couldn’t hear her over the sound of blood in my ears.

Once again, I was alone. Just when I’d settled into a home. But, my choice was for the best, right?

It was for the best.

Tybalt’s receding smirk boiled the last of the Cure Ailments potion in my gut.