My eyes shot open, and I sat up looking around. I was in the rest house room.

“How are you feeling?”

My body was covered in a cold sweat and my muscles ached.

I looked around and finally saw Alcoroth sitting on the post of my bed.

“It hu-s” my voice cracked halfway through.

“You need to drink something. But do you remember what happened?”

I shook my head and swung my legs off the side of the bed.

I remembered we were in the encampment, and I fought one of the captains but after that I don’t really remember too much.

“Well, the floor was cleared, but Dodger carried you back here. It seems aside from something else happening… you’ve cleared all your pathways.”

“Wha-” I croaked.

I looked at my arm, I now had black intricate lines going down it. I looked at my other arm and they matched.

“It appears that once a half goliath clears all their pathways their markings form permanently.”

That’s just great, another extremely noticeable thing about me.

I sighed.

What does it even matter? There’s nothing I can do about it.

I got out of bed and left the room. I smelt food, and heard some soft chatter come from the stairwell.

“The young master is with Brick. You’ll need to feed him later if you’re up for it.”

I looked at him and made my way down the hallway.

Why wouldn’t I be up for it?

Wait-

I looked at him closer, nothing seemed physically different. It was Alcoroth.

Why would he even leave it up to me?

I shook my head and headed downstairs.

In the end did it really even matter? He’d shown concern in the past…. I think… but I guess something else had happened that I couldn’t remember properly.

The living room was empty, so I went to the kitchen.

“Good you’re up,” Paeris said turned in his chair.

Mezu leapt off of Brick’s lap and ran into my leg hugging it tightly. His eyes looked up at me, his lips pouting a bit.

“Fluffy was worried when you passed out.”

“S-rry abo-“

I coughed and Sailhin passed me a cup of water. I downed it and cleared my throat again.

“Sorry about that,” I coughed again trying to clear my throat, “I don’t know what happened.”

“You must’ve had a rough reaction from clearing your pathways,” Dodger said.

“Would I really have passed out from that?”

She shrugged, “it’s a rough thing to go through, and you have a lot more aura than I do so it could’ve been too much. Mine happened when I was super young, and I don’t really remember it all that much.”

Brick started signing.

“I passed out?”

He nodded.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Oh, see it happened to me too. You must’ve just passed out quicker cause it was more of a shock to your system. But you’ve got all your markings now.”

“Yeah, it’s great…”

I picked Mezu up and sat down in my chair.

“I’ll be even more eye catching, a goliath with elf ears.”

“If anyone tries anything though you’ll be able to stop them. And if you really wanted to you could just get some disguise earrings,” Dot said over her shoulder from the stove, “I’ve always wanted to try making a pair, but I’d have to make the tools too…”

“Maybe someone’s got something on the fortieth floor?”

Oh right, the fortieth floor. A place filled with other climbers. And along with those other climbers, there’s bound to be more high elves.

I looked over at Sailhin for a moment.

I had a high elf right next to me. She was oddly friendly, but all the ones up there were probably with Winged Mercy. And they didn’t have any reason to even feign friendliness with me.

This was all so bothersome. Just a whole bunch of things that I don’t even know what to do with. And each thing is increasingly annoying.

“I’m gonna go feed Mezu.”

I muttered this instead of saying it loud enough for people to hear and I left the room. Alcoroth held out the blade and the bandages. I took the blade from him and put it to my arm hesitating for a moment before slicing it off.

Mezu took it but still looked at me with his brows furrowed.

“Just eat out here, don’t want Paeris puking before he’s even eaten.”

I turned away from him and went back into the kitchen. Paeris quickly pushed me into the chair and wrapped me up. When he was done, he produced his bow.

I sighed and laid my head on the table and watched Paeris wash my blood from the floor. Before he finished Lefty put a bowl in front of my face.

“My Dad always made this for me when I wasn’t feeling well.”

I looked at his face and saw a small smile.

I lifted my head up and muttered some thanks.

I looked at the bowl, took a spoon and started eating. A couple bites in and my vision blurred with tears.

This is so stupid.

Why was this stupid bowl of food making me feel like this?

I don’t even remember why it could even possibly be familiar to me.

This stupid bowl of food that made me feel better and yet made me cry.

I rubbed at my eyes to wipe the tears, but they kept coming as I ate. When I finished the bowl, I was given another and finally remembered that I wasn’t alone in the room.

I looked up but they were all minding their own business. Fluffy was in the room again, in Brick’s lap stealing food from his plate. Dodger and Dot were eating as if it was the only thing they could think of doing. Them avoiding looking at me was probably forced, but I appreciated it.

Paeris was reading a book as he ate and Sailhin wasn’t in the room at all.

I made eye contact with Lefty who simply shrugged and went to fill his own bowl up with food.

By the time we finished eating my eyes were puffy and I felt a little better.

“Uhhh, Quartz I wanted to say sorry.”

I looked up and saw Dodger avoiding eye contact and fidgeting in her seat.

“Why?”

“Well, when I mentioned another way to awaken your aura fully it was the trial option. The old lady told me that there were a couple ways goliaths…. Used to…. Well at least she told me about two ways in particular. One where someone, who has more aura than you, helps to get your circulation started and works to clear your pathways with you and the other way… the way I did it….

“Was to fight to a point where if you didn’t move it in the way you wanted to, you’d die. I have less aura than you so I kind of told Paeris and the others not to help you in your fight unless you passed out.”

She rubbed the back of her head.

“Sorry about that, it seems like it was a bit rough on you. I guess I didn’t really think about it since I didn’t remember mine being all that bad.”

So, she was talking about a life or death situation. I didn’t think that would’ve been possible with my blessing and all, but I guess it was.

“It’s fine, when I started training my aura my teacher mentioned something about that to me but with Mezu, I didn’t really think it’d be possible.”

“Yeah…. I mean I don’t know what the specific conditions for it are anyway…” She rubbed her fingers together avoiding eye contact.

“It’s nothing you’d need to apologize for.”

“But-” she actually looked at me this time.

“I don’t know why I cried either, not worth spending the time to think about it right now anyway right? Let’s just keep going.”

“Nope, not happening.”

I felt a hand land on my shoulder and tighten its grip.

“You passed out, in the middle of a floor. Even if you think you’re fine,” there was something in Paeris’s voice that made me not want to turn to face him “you should rest for the day and we’ll start up again tomorrow.”

“I’m fine really-“

I winced the grip got even tighter.

“I am the healer, even if you don’t necessarily need my healing, you just cried all through lunch, you should not be fighting.”

“Hey, he’s a goliath, if anything fighting should make him feel better,” Dodger argued “I know that whenever I was pissed off about something, punching something always made me feel better.”

“Then I will allow the two of you to spar for an hour at the maximum. And tomorrow after breakfast we will-”

“Paeris” Sailhin said as she entered the room “I think you should do your best to remember that he’s already slept through a day and most of this one, we’ll have to challenge the floor whether or not you want to in three hours. Just be satisfied with him having woken up before the time limit was reached.”

“I slept for a whole day?”

I looked around at them and they pursed their lips.

“Yeah, and Mezu did his best to eat our meals for whatever reason so is there any way to feed him again and be ready to fight?”

I stared at Fluffy, he didn’t just eat when I was asleep?

“Quartz?”

I looked back at Sailhin, right she asked a question.

“Well, it takes about an hour for my arm to heal fully so if I just cut my leg off now, I’ll be fine by then.”

“Alright. So, we’ll be ready to leave in two hours then.”