I was a bit nervous, because I was carrying a lot of responsibility in this mission. While I had confidence in my abilities, this was a project that would test my limits. I hoped I was ready for it.

Just as we had agreed upon I met up with Richard's group in front of the adventurer's guild and then we headed to the northeastern outskirts of the city. First drops of rain began to fall down. Hopefully it wouldn't start raining heavily. I wasn't looking forward to camping in the mud.

We arrived at the meeting spot and I saw a military force of around forty solders waiting there. Another 15 people who were probably all adventurers stood nearby. They had really put a large force together here.

We headed over to one of the guards, who seemed to be responsible for managing registration of the forces. He wrote down our names.

“Mr. Naljec and Shalyne please head over to the captain.”

He gestured into the direction of a tall imposing man who was wearing a similar uniform to the others, but it looked more impressive at the same time. The others went into the direction of the adventurers, while Richard and I headed over to the captain. He immediately looked up and introduced himself.

"I expect you are Richard Naljec and Shalyne? I am Captain Ravon and responsible for this mission. Well, the prince will give most of the commands and I will stay in the back. We will start a quick meeting once he arrives and then head out. Until then you are free."

We turned around and went to the rest of our group.

"You also have a special position Richard?"

"I will probably have to take over organisation of the adventurers. I have been around here for a while and have a good reputation. Most adventurers don't stick around for this long, so I am usually in one of the leading positions."

“And you have no interest to travel the world?”

“I am an adventurer for the money, not for dreams. By now I have build up a good place for myself here and it would be a pity to start over somewhere else.”

Orlund joined our conversation just when we arrived.

“It's better to be realistic and work with what you have. Other places aren't better either. I might come along if everyone left, but searching for a place in another group just to see new places isn't worth it.”

Brinnia: “What are you talking about?”

Richard: “I just said that I have been around here for quite a while. Come to think of it, except for Tarvek we are all locals at the moment.”

It was a nice enough town, but I couldn't imagine staying here indefinitely. Once I was done learning what I could from Mr. Heart I wanted to get around a bit. I was cut away from my real home. I didn't have anything to bind me to a particular place, so I might as well travel some more. It was a strange feeling, being in exile. I felt a yearning to return home, but didn't even know why particularly. There were few things waiting for me back there.

My job had been dull, I had lived almost exclusively for 'Ascension' and all that was left beside that were a few friends, my dojo and my family. Did I miss them? There was a sense of loss, because I couldn't contact them any more. I had never maintained a strong relationship with most of the people I knew and we only met once every blue moon. But the possibility had always been there at a fingertip.

Was there even any possible way to get back there now? I had left in the most bizarre way, and when I actually got close back home I was pushed away. Did I want to return? In this world I had a place with this body of mine. A place of magic and peculiarities. On earth I might be able to move around in public, my elven race was pretty close to humanity. I would still draw many looks, and not just for the beauty of my body. Some parts were slightly off and didn't fit. A bit too much perfection for an actual human, but I would get by.

The actual issue was that no one would recognize me like this. I could go into a long explanation and maybe someone might even believe me, especially if I showed some magic, that is if that even worked on earth. But how would I be treated? No, there was no place for me back on earth, it might be for the best that I had ended up here.

It did still tempt me to just try. Could I slip past the defenses that had pushed me away? Would I even be able to reach the same place again, where all the worlds had opened up? And would I even find earth, now that my connection had weakened and I had stayed in this world for a bit? And on top of all that I still had to actually leave this world in some way.

Of course I could try to replicate the process I had used before, but it scared me. The places I had been to had been among the most strange and maddening ones I could imagine. It could very well be possible that the way I had gone around had been a fluke. Perhaps I could make it to one of those planes, but would be unable to leave another time. I knew far too little about the whole process to blindly jump into something like that. And this time I meant it, no crazy experiments. But my interest had been sparked. I would seek out information when I got the opportunity.

Richard pulled me out of my thoughts: “Shalyne? The prince is coming, we should head over to the command post now.”

I looked up to see a pair of two apparent nobles walk down the street. They were protected by three guards and a small entourage of civilians was coming along. I glimpsed another familiar face and saw that Arienne had arrived just in time and was just finishing up the registration. She always arrived at the last moment. I had no time to spare her right now and followed Richard to the place Captain Ravon was standing at.

We then waited while the prince bid the woman who had come along with him goodbye. One of the guards followed after her, while the other two joined the camp. Prince Nelantis arrived before us. Aside from the captain another three soldiers were here, one of them an overweight older man who stood a bit isolated, just like Richard and I did. I recognized one of the other two from the enchanter shop.

Prince Nelantis: “I am here as a soldier, so keep the formalities to a minimum. I will be leading this mission, with a little assistance from Captain Ravon.”

He gave a nod to the captain and then took a look around.

“You are all part of the staff of command. Everyone please quickly introduce yourselves before we discuss the mission itself.”

Captain Ravon: “You should already know me by now, I am Captain Ravon and official leader in the subjugation force.”

The soldier who had delivered the letter to the enchanting shop spoke up: “I am Lieutenant Kite and responsible for communication.”

Soldier 2: “Lieutenant Riley, logistics.”

Overweight Soldier: “I am Captain Windon and lead the towns guard.”

Me: “I am Shalyne, an enchanter and scribe.”

It was a bit presumptuous to call myself a scribe after such a short time, but now that I had been drawn into this I had to go with this description.

Richard: “I am Richard Naljek and am responsible for the communication to the adventurers.”

Prince Nelantis: “I will start with a short recapitulation of what we found out. When our force scouted out the wilderness three days ago, we found a strange monolith. While he refused to interfere with it, the archivist that was accompanying us took a look at it. What he said seemed to fit together with our observations.

The beasts are able to gain classes, or professions as he said, when they touched the monolith. They were also very protective of it and we didn't stay there for long.

Those beasts are a security risk for the kingdom and our objective is to take down the monolith and stop them from gaining strength. Supposedly there are another three monoliths, but we do not know of their positions at this time. If we are successful here, you might have to come along on another few trips.

You may wonder why we have recruited such a large force. The beasts are far more dangerous than usual, and we will have to stay at the site of the monolith and hold them off until Shalyne here has dismantled it.”

He looked at me.

“The local scribe has praised you as very capable. It was on short notice, so I hope this mission didn't inconvenience you. The local guards had no one capable of this task”

“It was no problem, please continue on.”

“Judging by the attitude of the archivist the process might take a while and we will have to make camp there until the monolith stops working. Depending on who is behind this we might also face other foes we currently don't expect. Keep your eyes open and report anything suspicious.

We should head out now, so that we can make camp close to the monolith. Tomorrow we will arrive there early in the morning and prepare our defenses.”

The group split up and soon everyone set into motion. I wasn't in the mood for company and kept to myself for a while. The rain trickled on the leaves and suited my mood well. It was an enjoyable type of melancholy. I didn't follow any actual thoughts and for a while I was able to drift along while listening to each steady step and the rain and I almost blinded out the noise of all the people around me.

We traveled through the forest I was slowly getting familiar with. Although everyone seemed to easily be able to step up their pace we still were moving slower than that. Every now and then someone stumbled or took longer to walk around a tree than the others. Some liked to keep their personal space and slowed down in time. Others stopped and waited for a bit. In the end the little things added up. We were not really slow, but moving as a huge group just isn't as effective.

I actually didn't mind. Even when I had to stop for a moment or adapt my pace to someone else's it didn't concern me at the moment. I was half a step removed from the things around me and was just observing indifferently.

Every peace must come to an end, but at least she had left me a suitable amount of time.

Arienne: “It's not good to lose yourself in thought too much.”

“I don't know, it's nice every now and then. The weather agrees with me, too.”

“Maybe, but it gives you other opportunities as well! Do you see that guy up ahead who is always cursing and souring the mood? He wouldn't even suspect anyone if, say some water splashed into his face.”

The man Arienne was referring to was walking a bit further ahead of us, and I hadn't really paid him or anyone else any attention. He was one of the soldiers of the subjugation force, and judging by his aura someone capable of magic. I had seen a few extraordinary persons already, so he didn't appear to be someone who had a crazy amount of power. But compared to Orlund he still seemed to be quite a bit stronger in that regard. Sadly I had no idea how well I fared in terms of magic capacity when compared to others. My aura was nothing I could use for comparison.

Aside from his magic capabilities the man indeed was very grumpy. He certainly wasn't struggling in any way, but walking here didn't seem to be his favorite pastime. His only close neighbor was also beginning to lose his nerves because of the constant cursing.

“He is a mage, he will know if I try anything funny.”

“You overestimate them. I'm sure if you are careful he won't notice a thing. Look, this is how you do it stealthily.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Arienne showed a pebble to me before nonchalantly throwing it up ahead. It was like she didn't even try to aim. Something flickered around the pebble, but I couldn't make it out.

A few seconds later the grump began to walk differently, slightly avoiding putting his right heel to the ground. Obviously he had a pebble in his shoe now. He let out another few curses.

“How did you do that? I thought you were no mage.”

“I'm not. That was just a lucky trick. It's your turn now.”

She had wanted me to splash him, so I was going to do just that. Why did I not protest anymore? Spur of the moment I guess.

Arienne had definitely done a masterpiece of an undetectable prank. How could I avoid drawing anyone's attention here? I didn't want to just hide my spell from the man, but also make sure no one else would piece things together. It was a kind of challenge.

Even mages didn't seem to have the same perception I did, so if I managed to use mana really sparsely, it might remain beneath his detection threshold. Instead of actually creating a splash of water, I instead redirected the falling drops right into his face. It only took a very minor deterrent to guide them away from their normal trajectory. The real difficulty laid in getting a sense and grip on the drops.

They weren't charged with energy beyond what was naturally in the environment. The rain drops were also outside of my sight. Even if I were able to get a direct vision on one of them by that time it would already have fallen to low.

I sent as much of my sense as I could spare while still walking into the vicinity above my target. Then I used a very minor amount of energy and began enriching the whole area with it, trying to let it flow mainly into anything watery. That finally gave me a grip on the rain and I redirected it. In the end it just turned into an intense drizzle, but part of the game was to make it appear natural and not a prank of someone else.

“I hate this stupid rain! What are you laughing at?”

By now his voice even carried over to us, when before I had only been able to make out the general tone of what he spoke. His neighbor had apparently begun to take some amusement out of his partner's misery.

“Well done. I'm curious how this one turns out.”

Arienne held another pebble in her hand and I quickly tagged it with some energy. She then got an irritated look and threw it towards our back. I was tracking the pebble but right as she started to throw it, a strange energy was latching on to it. Because my focus was on my own energy my mind shortly brushed against another and I immediately canceled my connection. It wasn't the first time I had observed this around Arienne. Fortunately it seemed to be passive and didn't follow after me.

It would be nice to get some information beforehand, but Arienne was dodgy about the topic, so I refrained from asking her about it again and just watched things unfold. Just a minute later one of the scouts ran up from behind and passed us. Nothing happened as he passed our target. I gave Arienne a questioning look.

“Just wait.”

The scout had a quick discussion with Lieutenant Kite before he quickly stopped to pull off his shoe and turned it around. I gave Arienne another look while she just smirked back at me. One of the pack horses had to step around him and dumped a load right then. I could only watch in awe as a certain unsuspecting man inexorably walked right into it.

“I swear someone is out to get me!”

We weren't the only ones loudly laughing at that. I just couldn't help asking:

“That was beyond even lucky, how do you do that?”

“Dunno, I just go with the flow.”

I just sighed, if she didn't want to talk about it I wasn't going to force it.

“You know, I have no idea how you two are doing it, but anyone who is a bit observant can see that you are behind it. Somehow.”

We turned around to see that Richard had made his way over to us.

Arienne: “We have no idea what you are talking about. No one can be held responsible if someone else doesn't watch his steps.”

Richard: “Well, I can't argue against that. And what random chance event is going to befall this poor guy next?”

Arienne: “I don't know, I guess that's up to fate.”

She gave me a nod at 'fate'. I wasn't sure if it was a good decision to continue on, now that I was aware that we were not as secretive as I had thought. Before I could even voice my concerns however, I had already caught an elbow in my side and caved in to Arienne's stern look.

I began looking around for something else to manipulate. Arienne's last effort was difficult to top, so I took my time to consider. The ground around us was mostly soil, although there were also spaces that were more rocky or full of roots. I began looking for spaces that consisted solely of soil. This next spell might use up more energy and be easier to detect. I practiced a bit to our side before I was ready to try it.

I only had a short time when the guard who was walking before the grumpy man was past a position and he himself had not yet arrived there. I watched out for a suitable place and then quickly drew together all the water in the soil to a single spot just wide enough to ensure the trap would not be bypassed. Then I thinned out the soil a bit by pressing it against the borders of the muddy area.

Sorceress has increased to level 11.

I think this time I used to much mana at once, because I glimpsed one or two people turning around to the place I changed. Nobody seemed to sense the connection to me, and the upcoming commotion swept away any remaining considerations. My target was none of those who had enough perception and easily fell into the trap. Knee deep.

“This is ridiculous, it hardly rained this much. How can there be such a fucking large mud hole? By the gods, why the fuck did no one else step into it before me?”

Arienne: “Beautiful.”

While he took the time to clean his foot as much as he could, everyone else walked around him. When we were past and out of earshot we continued talking again.

Arienne: “Now I almost feel a bit sorry for him. Don't you think that was going overboard?”

Me: “Are you for real now?”

Arienne: “No, it was quite fitting.”

Richard: “That was nicely executed. Almost no one even realized something was happening.”

Me: “That's because there was nothing happening. Just a mud hole in the forest while it rains.”

Arienne: “Yes, and a soldier who didn't pay attention where he was walking.”

We continued traveling through the forest and took a quick break for lunch. Some soldiers handed out rations. We didn't take much time and soon were back on our way. It didn't take long until we finally reached the foothills where the activity of the beasts had gotten more dangerous the last time I had been in this area.

But even as we made our way to the top of the first large hill, I didn't see any activity of a fight. I didn't sense the presence of any beast that was keeping a watch on us either. That might however have been because there were a lot of other people around me and detecting something that didn't even look at me in particular became more difficult. The number of scouts that were keeping a watch on the different directions might also deter anything from coming closer to us.

I was anticipating a good view from the hilltop, but everything was just shrouded in trees and the weather also made it difficult look very far. The somber atmosphere began to put pressure on everyone's minds when the first attacks began. I myself wasn't involved and just observed. The attacks were not really dangerous.

For one it mostly consisted of the mindless animal type that just blindly charged at anything it might be able to eat. I was sure animals on earth were not even close to this stupid. Any predator would keep a good distance to a force as large as ours. The wolf pack I had fought in this area was far closer to what I would consider normal behavior, except the organization was beyond what I would normally expect. Where were comparable groups of beasts now? The ones that did attack couldn't even harm us, because they were met with equal or even greater numbers of well trained fighters.

The terrain we crossed through was the ever same forest, just with more rocks and different heights. Sometime in the afternoon I felt the familiar swipe across the area. Just my luck, that right in the middle of a journey I would have to answer another one of Parangante's calls.

I sent off a thought towards it, before the intent had even detected me. It questioned if I was expected as usual and received an acknowledgment as answer. Now I had to see if I could spend the night without anyone bothering me or if the whole camp would be in a riot when I didn't wake up. Perhaps it was possible to set up some kind of spell that would inform me if anyone tried to interact with me during my absence, but I wasn't sure I could accomplish something like that.

After Parangante's intent disappeared I took a look around and to my surprise I had to find out that nobody seemed to be startled. Was it because the search had been locked onto me specifically? Was everyone except me this dense in their perception? It might be better to say my perception was different from everyone else. Naturally as a normal human I had not possessed any such ability at all. I didn't really understand anything about me and my situation at this time. I left that train of thought behind for now.

Endurance has increased to 25.

It was slowly getting late when I saw a lone wolf rushing right at the center of our formation. I wondered how he didn't get caught by the thorough patrols on our sides. I wasn't the only one becoming aware of the attacker and everyone prepared themselves to dispose of him. It didn't come to that though.

An icy projectile flew straight at the wolf and pierced it through without giving it any chance to get even close to anyone. Every face turned into the direction the ice lance had originated from. Prince Nelantis stood straight and yet gave the impression of having done nothing but slapping away a gnat.

He walked right over to me.

“I hope you were not disturbed Miss Shalyne. The patrols must be getting careless this late in the day.”

Was there any need for him to come up to me just for that? Having to do with royalty only complicated things for me. Being the plaything of gods was one thing, there was little I could do except follow along. But with human nobles there was still the chance to steer clear of any responsibilities. I couldn't just brush him off and had to stay polite. It was aggravating that yet another personality intruded upon me.

“Thank you for taking care of it, Your Highness.”

“Please, save the titles and proper form for the court. You may just address me as you would anyone else.” There goes some of my personal space. “Perhaps we should soon make camp for the night. How well did you get along so far?”

“I have gotten along nicely, the protection is very good.”

“It has come to my ears that you have taken part in the mission to find out about the strange beasts here. You even fought against a whole pack of intelligent wolves? I like women who can take care of themselves.”

This was going into a direction I wasn't comfortable with at all. But how could I deter a prince?

“Oh, we had not gotten nearly as far out as we are now and after that one fight we were quickly able to get back to safety. My own part in the fight was only minor.”

“You were still able to handle a real fight. That is more than can be said even for some soldiers. You must have collected quite some experience on your way to our kingdom. How do you like Varieste so far?”

“It is really beautiful here, but I haven't really been around much beyond Barlaine.”

“You should visit our capital Saiphis sometime. It isn't as grand as Elenigal, but it is still worth visiting. You haven't been there yet, so I could tell you a bit about it.”

What place was Elenigal? It seemed to be famous enough that he expected me to know about it. I didn't let it show that I was ignorant of it and would find out about it some time.

“I have already heard a lot of nice things about it from my friend. She is even with us today.”

A vague memory reminded me of, well nothing substantial really. I took a look around and was happy when she was walking close nearby and gave her a pleading look.

“There she is, actually.”

And she hopped over to us at once. You can say what you will about her, but Arienne certainly wasn't fearful, and the prince's status didn't intimidate her either. As if she had waited for a chance to shine, she chimed in at once.

"It's not that long ago that I was there. It has a few nice sights to visit. Of course I didn't enter the palace, but I could view it from outside. It's a magnificent building. It sure must be nice to live inside."

The prince didn't seem all that happy about the new participant in our conversation.

"Yes, it is certainly luxurious. I would invite you for a small tour, but sadly we are a bit far away right now. Miss?"

"Lightleaf"

"Miss Lightleaf, we were just having a discussion here and I am sure Miss Shalyne here would like to hear a different perspective of things. I am actually living there and can tell insider stories you wouldn't hear otherwise. It might not be best if too many ears heard about that though..."

Me: "Oh, that's alright. If it's confidential we can just talk about trivial things instead. I love hearing Arienne's stories. What were you in the capital for at that time again?"

"Ah yes that's a long story. I should perhaps explain how it came to that..."

A short time later my 'guest' excused himself, because he had to take care of making camp for the night. I whispered to Arienne:

"I owe you one."

"Glad to help you out. But this won't be the last time he will come looking for you. Sure you don't want to play with him and bleed his purse a bit?"

"I would rather keep out of his way."

“I can't fault you for that. He still has that noble woman at his side and is already taking shots at you. There must be something to these rumors, but that's to be expected of someone of his stature. Now about the reason why I was in the capital that time...”

Somehow I had taken a liking to Arienne lately. Sure, she was trying at times, but the way I had to fight boredom these last few days, I actually welcomed the diversion she offered. Even a long monologue wasn't that scary anymore.

Aside from that I liked how dependable she was. She was actually quick witted behind that strange facade and easily picked out things that were happening around her. She had almost been waiting to intrude on the conversation just now.

The stories she told me were mostly incoherent, because she tended to jump from topic to topic. I was beginning to get curious where she had actually traveled, instead of random pieces of the landscape were parts of some event happened. When I found a short gap I intruded:

“You have been all over the place, was there any place you haven't been? I really wonder about the general route you took so far.”

“Hmm it may sound like I have been all over the world, but time goes by really fast. I have only been to a few countries and then traveled around there. I have always been an adventurer and it takes time to establish yourself in a new town. Anyway, I left home for the lands of the beastmen, crossed the gray hills and have been staying in the Empire and Varieste since then. I took a quick look into the north, but it's a bit too uncivilized there for a lone female elf, even as experienced as I am. I think I will pay the dwarves a visit next. I don't know about all of them, but they can be very friendly. Do you know the smith in Barlaine?”

I shook my head.

“His name is Faulon Ceirnt. If you need quality weapons you might have to deal with him sooner or later, he is the best smith around here. I have also been drinking with him now and then. A good listener. I think he sometimes visits his home. Perhaps I will join him next time he goes there.”

While we were talking we had stepped off our usual direction and began following along a mountain. A short while later we arrived at a place that was almost devoid of trees and was two thirds encompassed by a very steep mountainside. Even most animals wouldn't be able to make their way down that wall.

A small group of soldiers was already waiting there and had set up a large tent in the center. We made camp there.