Chapter 20: Eccentric old man.
They were slowed down by many curious and friendly greetings, but they eventually made their way to the central building of the ‘village’. By now it felt far too big to be called that, even if the population matched up. It seemed to be the castle that Talos had mentioned, a huge titan of stone with swooping and chaotic structures extending out from the graceful symmetric center hall.
As he and Bross approached the gigantic doors of the main hall, they were greeted by a widely grinning man in ‘robes’ made of a substance that seemed like flexible red crystal. Talos had been swept away somewhere by his somewhat frantic parents on their way through the village.
Velder (Lv. 47)
That probably meant at least three level ups. This was almost certainly an Elder.
The grinning red man greeted him exuberantly. “Hello! You must be Trent. My name is Nivulous, but you may call me Niv. Or Elder Niv if you feel like being formal.” He stuck out his hand with a grin. Trent took the proffered hand, a bit cautious that the apparent goofball might prank him. Instead, he just had his hand shaken vigorously. But while the motion action was vigorous, the strength and speed behind it was tailored to the level of his own stats.
Trent raised an eyebrow at that. “Are you the one who will scan me for anything nefarious, Elder Niv?” The ‘elder’ nodded expressively. “I can tell what your Strength and Agility are, and to a lesser extent your Vitality. Anything more than that I need the help of Med and Sacrill. But don’t worry too much, the Spell isn’t going to look at all your Skills in detail. I know you want to keep those private.”
Nivulous ushered him inside the giant hall, sending Bross away somewhere else. To Trent’s surprise, the big door was almost entirely decorative. The actual method of entry was multiple perfectly concealed smaller doors built into the big one. Considering that there was at least one small hallway, the one they went through, he thought it likely that the big door was just there for theatrics, and probably even non-functional. It was actually very impressive. He couldn’t notice from a distance, even with his enhanced Perception. The sheer impracticality of it all should have clued him in.
The halls were made of drab blackish stone like the rest of the city, only livened by patterns and texture to break up the monotony. Not that anything could compete with the sheer depression of the slope outside. He had been out there so long that he could easily detect the slight difference in the shade of gray that made up this hall.
The only light here was globes of heatless white fire. They didn’t have an obvious fuel source or byproduct, but he assumed that they used up magic to provide light. Actually, could Spells create infinite energy? Well, he could just ask. “Do those orbs use up fuel or have a limited lifespan?”
Nivulous looked back from where he strode in front, his red robes shimmering as he did. Trent wondered if they were actually gemstones, and the Elder was constantly manipulating them with Earth magic. Well, if they could create gemstones using their magic, they were probably capable of making them flexible.
The red man responded to his question. “After the initial mana cost, they do not require anything else to function. So, while they may go out if left long enough, that won’t happen any time soon.” Trent nodded. “That’s interesting. Are they absorbing mana or something from the surroundings, or do they just produce light from nothing?” Niv blinked. “Ah. I suppose they do. Produce light from nothing, that is. There are quite a few Spells that have effects like that.”
That was a bit of a surprise. The immediate violation of fundamental laws of physics turned mana into a slightly more appealing prospect in his mind. Still not enough to be worth it, though. Actually, the concepts in his Skills did quite literally produce energy out of nothing, right? Interesting. He followed up with another question he was curious about.
“Does language comprehension give you the definition of ‘conservation of energy’?” Niv chuckled. “It is specifically stated in that principle that it only applies when mana and concepts are taken out of the picture. Anything hypo-entropic or hyper-entropic will break that law.” It was Trent’s turn to chuckle. “I haven’t told you where I come from, then? On Earth, there is no mana and concepts have not been recorded even by the most advanced scientific instruments. As far as I know. Well, the government could be hiding the existence of magic... but nothing even happened when you tried to open your status, so they would have had to do something about that.”
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Niv was silent for a little bit as they continued walking. When he finally spoke it was in a disgruntled mutter. “You WILL tell me more about this later.” At that time, they emerged into a larger circular room, with two more Velders in there waiting. They would probably have gotten there faster if it wasn’t for Trent slowing them down, but he felt it would have been more rude to fly inside.
The other two Velders—assumedly Med and Sacrill—were both also wearing gemstone-like robes. This made it likely that they were also Elders, since all of the Velders he had seen while going through the village wore more plain shirts and pants. The one on the left was obviously female, and her robes seemed to be made of something like moonstone, a pale and opaque white with no hard lines. The right Elder was a man with clear purple robes. Probably amethyst if he had to assign it a gemstone.
The woman moved forward to greet him. “Hello, little human. Your level is awfully low. How did you get here? Where do humans naturally spawn?” Trent almost choked. Her entire manner gave off the impression of a gentle mother figure, or, well, a healer class. But her questions gave him the impression of a nosy and cheerful young girl. Were all the ‘Elders’ going to be like this?
...Maybe they were all hiding deep sadness from all the lives and friends they lost before establishing the village. Were they the ones who did that? It wouldn’t make sense otherwise, since they didn’t really age anyways, and they would only learn more Spells and grow stronger with time. Anything that could kill the founders would destroy the rest of the village as well. Actually, was there anything that could kill them at all? There hadn’t been any signs of monsters differing from the predictable patterns. Maybe a really old Mentis that had gotten really good with its conjuration?
Going back to the bubbly personality ‘issue’, they could also be playing it up to deceive him somehow, but that wasn’t a serious speculation. More of an intrusive thought. There was no point in constantly looking for things to go wrong. Anyway!
“Actually, my level is deceptive. I am perfectly capable of killing Morel Mentai and haven’t let one run away yet. My stats are way lower than yours though, even with all of them put into physical stats. Also, humans don’t ‘spawn’ as far as I know. I just woke up here with no sign of what happened. Oh, I did appear a bit before the slope started. Not sure I f I remember that right though.”
He took a deep breath. He had already told Talos everything, so there was no harm explaining a bit. “I’m actually from a different world, one without magic, or a godly presence of any sort. A place filled with plants and water and animals that aren’t constantly filled with malice for anything sentient, and things reproduce naturally instead of spawning.” He watched the reactions of his audience before dropping the final bomb. “And the system doesn’t seem to exist there. No levels, and no status screens.”
The moonstone woman was staring a hole in him as he talked, the amethyst man, who had looked rather bored before, was now fully focused on Trent. And Nivulous was grinning stupidly. The woman slowly spoke. “You… are from somewhere… other than this place?” She exchanged looks with the other Elders. “Can you… go back?” “No.” He quickly shut that down. “But I am growing stronger and making new Skills, which are a bit like Spells, so I may be able to escape this place sometime in the future.”
She sighed. “I’ve been a bit hasty. As you might guess, most of us older people want to get out of here more than anything. My name is Med. I would be glad to supply any mana such a Skill might need, but I’m not sure you use mana for your Skills.” Trent nodded. “Some do, but I don’t really have chance of getting my magical stats up to par. I stick with Skills powered solely by willpower.”
He shifted nervously under their scrutiny. It hurt him to even consider, but if they betrayed him, he didn’t have the best chance of escaping alive. He had to trust them just a little bit. It seemed that Niv noticed his uncomfortable expression, as he was quick to reassure him. “We do not require anything of you. You do not have to do anything you do not want to do. Just, a request that you have no obligation to heed.”
Trent glanced his way. “It’s not that… It’s just, you are more powerful than me, especially together. You could force me to do what you wanted, and… well…” He paused. It was quite surreal to think that these demonic-looking people were so much kinder and more united than humans. He wasn’t so illusioned about the nature of man to believe that they would be so generous in this position.
“Humans, my kind, would absolutely force me to make a portal out of this place. They would take advantage of the power imbalance and keep me here locked up until I could fulfil their demands.” Med tilted her head. “Um… I guess it is possible for a race to be evil but intelligent. Are you sure? You don’t seem nasty, and why would you be different?” That gave him a bit of pause. Were his ideas about human nature another false start from overconsumption of fantasy media?
No, real-life politicians definitely proved those stories right. “Maybe it’s just institutionalized people and those with only political power? I’m not sure why, but people in positions of power often hurt the people they ruled over for personal gain. Individual humans aren’t so bad… usually.” He trailed off a little bit awkwardly.
“Anyways, shouldn’t we do the scan thing now?”