??? — WEEKS OR MAYBE MONTHS AGO
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Her life had been rather hard as of late, the snowy peaks weren't the most abundant in game to hunt and even less so in natural bounties to subsist off but she still made do.
She was the big sister after all and her little brother was her responsibility ever since mother left them, even if he was a rash and annoying little rut.
This day started just like all others, she awoke before her brother and went out for a hunt with the intention of waking her little brother with a meal if she could manage and also hone her instincts. She knew she was different from all the other inhabitants of the forest, they needed to kill other beings with Cores and eat those to grow in power but it was much different for her.
She inherited more than enough Essence from her parents at birth to grow beyond even the third milestone but she still had to hone herself if she didn't want to be a bumbling idiot by the time she reached those heights. She just passed the first milestone while her brother was just a bit under it so she imagined she could hunt something more filling now.
Patience was the key, her future was bright as was her brother's, all they had to do was wait as the inherited Essence slowly reinforced their Core and body and soon enough very few could threaten them.
There was a spring in her steps as she dashed through the snowy landscape, her icy blue eyes questing for prey worthy of her time. Her nostrils flared and she stopped, her white-furred body laid itself onto the snowy ground to hide her as her snout moved around to catch the trail of that intriguing prey.
The trail wasn't that fresh but it wasn't too old either, a day old at most. She was confused for a bit, she knew what kind of prey left this trail just from that ethereal scent of snowcapped mountains and musky pine trees that invaded her nostrils.
Elf.
She snarled, Elves were dangerous but she could tell from the scent that this one was young, very young. And alone.
This elf will make for the perfect present for my brother when he crosses the milestone.
With that thought in mind, she started following the trail, she dashed without either a sound or much of her form being revealed. She always favored a more stealthy approach than her brother who was more standoffish, he just loved staring into the eyes of his prey as they fought and see the terror in them as he won and their lives were forfeit.
She had to admit it was sort of endearing, that ferocious side of his was very masculine and would surely lure all the females from this peak and the other ten to him in droves when he matures some more.
She was fast but she could tell that the Elf she was following was no slouch either, she must have run for hours and she only started to smell a fresher scent not long ago. She wouldn't be getting back before her little brother awoke for sure, she just prayed to the Great Mother that he wasn't dumb enough to go out to hunt by himself, he always wanted to hunt more dangerous prey than he could handle and outside of her supervision but her help saved his furry ass more times than she could count.
The trail dampened for a while as she rushed alongside a river and then she noticed it, trees had fallen over, snow busted up, blood, ash and the scent of burning flesh.
Her form stiffened as she took in a breath.
Brother....
She jumped over the river easily and rushed up the slight slope along the trails of destruction wrought by a short but devastating duel.
She smelled the Elf, her terror was evident in her leftover scent but she couldn't care for that now.
She arrived at the site of the final confrontation at the base of a large tree, she could see claw marks on its trunk and she absently noted that those looked just like her brother's. No, they were her brother's.
She felt all four of her knees grow weak as she slumped to the ground next to a pile of ash and blackened bone fragments. They were the remains of an adolescent Frost Wolf just out of his childhood.
Brother....
She sobbed uncontrollably as grief overtook her, she failed as a sister, what would mother think of her? She was a failure, she'd been entrusted with caring for her brother and now he was...dead.
Murdered.
An uncontrollable vindictive fury enveloped her mind as she growled, the trees shook and the fresh snow cascaded through the air, covering the remains of her brother.
Just as she was about to give in, to let her fury control her she stopped.
I am not like that...Elf....your death will come without warning and last until a new moon comes...I swear that on the Great Mother.
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Kali was captivated by the change of scenery for a couple of days. The high mountains wracked by eternal winter were such a large contrast to the rolling hills covered in verdant green forests that she had a hard time getting used to it.
There was so much life around here. The giant forest was lively with the many little animals living off of nuts and berries and the occasional predators that hid in the dense crown of the trees, but this forest was a unique thing.
The number of animals she saw in a week back in the mountains were as many as she saw in a day now, but even if she slowed her pace, she continued onwards. She wasn't sure where she should go from here, but she sort of kept her direction to be away from the mountains.
Now it was the fifth day since she last saw snow on a distant mountain peak and only now did she see the first Karst that was the namesake of this large forest. It wasn't as large as her books described them, but she reasoned that might be because she was still on the border of the ancient forest.
It was a towering mass of basalt and volcanic rock that protruded out from the ground and broke through the green ocean of leaves that was under the upper canopy of the forest. It was an unusual thing to find here, considering the closest even dormant volcano was on the eastern continent, but especially strong leylines had some sort of effect on their surroundings.
One was the leyline that ran right under the Dragon's Spine mountain range, which was home to her kingdom and caused the eternal winter that plagued the entire region, and another was this phenomenon in the forest. Her books assumed long ago the leyline was much stronger in this region and it caused spontaneous volcanic eruptions throughout the region, which left behind these majestic karsts.
She prioritized staying hidden and minimizing her trail. However, she always kept a part of her mind focused on maintaining the Mana Gathering Rune. As a result, her Core was almost filled, with only around five more percents remaining. She decided to stop there for safety.
I don't know if there are spells to fill up someone's Core forcefully to make it burst, but there is no reason there shouldn't be.
Her good mood also stemmed from the fact that flightless birds were abundant in the forest. The dumb little things were cluelessly clucking and ambling through the undergrowth, searching for nuts and fallen fruits they could eat.
They weren't an unfamiliar sight to Kali as they had made up most of her food since she first found them. Compared to the things she had to eat while traveling through the mountains, these birds were a delectable feast. The lack of spices was painful but Kali could only dream about spiced food for a while. I swear I don't even remember how good food tastes after eating things I refuse to think about for months.
The hair-brained birds were lucky today as she'd already eaten this week, not that they'd ever know death was just around the corner for them. They shouldn't be so tasty if they don't want to be eaten. She huffed. What kind of survival strategy was this?
The million and one sounds of the forest were highly distracting, but she was slowly but surely getting used to it. The spatial hearing worked just fine, but the amount of information it got her was overwhelming. Kali found herself astonished that her brain hadn't exploded yet from hearing every leaf brush against the other, every insect moving around and every little foot that crunched the fallen leaves beneath their weight.
By now, dozens of beasts managed to sneak up on her and slip close without her noticing. Many a predator thought the petite elf to be an easy meal, but even with her mind distracted by all the new information, she was faster than them. Maybe it was a combination of her instincts and luck that she hadn't become monster chow by now.
In the end, she was alive and they were dead. Maybe if they ganged up on her, they'd have succeeded, but predators tended to be solitary, especially the feline ones that were most populous in this forest.
She attributed it to her higher level of skill, or perhaps it was always within her, but she just couldn't prove it on a barren mountain peak. All of this caused her to be distracted from individual things within her reach. Things that would have caught her attention before now took a bit more time due to the sheer amount of information overwhelming her.
She slowed to a halt, collapsing onto a branch in exhaustion as she massaged her temples. This is untenable. I need to do something or the next thing ambushing me might just eat me.
Slowly, her breathing slowed as she rested her back against a trunk while her eyes continued to scan the forest for dangers. She pulled in her spatial hearing, slowly decreasing a range and collapsing in relief as it reduced to a ten meter circle around her where the information and the headache were mostly manageable.
Her normal hearing, which extended for a few kilometers, was even worse and she couldn't even retract that. It was purely biological and beyond her ability to control. She barely recognized a few things from that sense: loud howls at night, crashing waves of a river or thunder strikes in the distance on a stormy night but when she tried to go for exact things it all just washed into a chaotic mess of sounds which only worsened her growing headache.
Kali lazily tried to put up an illusion around her while she recollected herself but she couldn't quite manage to focus on an exact image so it came out as a blurry blob of colours around her which was only a smidge better at hiding her than her own white clothes.
Her eyelids grew heavy, but she knew falling asleep was a terrible decision here. She blinked, trying to clear her head of the mental exhaustion.
Minutes drew on and turned into an hour with Kali only having a mounting headache and a swimming vision to show for it. Maybe a bit of sleep will help …
Despite the nervous pit in her stomach keeping her awake for a few minutes more, she started nodding off.
"Where IS IT?!" Kali awoke to a shout, she might have only slept for a minute but she wouldn't be able to tell it even if a day had passed.
Her head was still foggy and as she stood on her branch her posture was wobbly, but she could see many forms moving through the forest and with them barely hiding themselves, even her hearing picked up on their voices.
There were dozens, or maybe even a hundred voices all around her.
"Fuck," she whispered and bolted towards the largest opening in the circle without a second thought.
Whoever these people were, they were slow and moved around like bumbling fools compared to her. Unfortunately, she underestimated their number and it turned out that more than a hundred people were closing in on her.
Humans.
She recognized them instantly the moment she laid eyes on the first one: bulky frame, ungraceful movements, unkept appearance and a smell that could kill people. The standard description of a human in the elven vocabulary.
They more than lived up to that description with muddy brown clothes that were torn in places and their unshaven faces. She glanced at their weapons and she saw barely maintained steel swords and shoddy-looking bows.
Among the mumbled chatter between the humans, her ears caught a single line that so out to her drowsy mind. "We might have lost that white mutt … but this is even better. THE ONE TO CATCH HER GETS TRIPPLE THE PAY THIS MONTH!"
Mutt? White? Did some dumb dog lead them all to me to throw them off its trail? Ah fuck … wrong time, Kali.
She zig-zagged between the trees, still down on the ground, as the branches were too dense in the tree crown for her to travel there quickly. She saw dozens of them around her position, with a few sometimes making eye contact with her before the trunks blocked her vision of them.
Strategy wasn't her forte. All she knew about it came from having read some military fiction. But even she knew she was in deep trouble. Encirclement was always bad and in historical battles they usually counted as a victory, and then she didn't even count the number of enemies that came just for her. WHY?!
She managed to stay focused on her objective despite feeling agitated. She searched for a weak link in the now-closed encirclement. A man was limping, the next one was short, and a woman was half blind. Oh, she also spotted that one was clearly malnourished.
In the end, she chose the limping one. He had a shoddy sword in hand and stared vigilantly into the woods; he didn't even see the attack coming as a Kinetic Strike slammed into his chest and sent him crashing into a bush. His shirt was getting bloody, and Kali felt slightly sheepish at the much too-strong attack.
He will die, so he should.
She leapt over the half-dead man and dashed into the forest, trying to focus on all the conversations and curses the humans were shouting.
"Fuck, WHERE IS THE BITCH?" was the most common one if she disregarded the many different curses, half of which she heard for the first time.
"SHE GOT OLAF!" one shouted from close behind her.
"CATCH HER, YOU MORONS!" this one was much louder than the rest and got many of the people behind her to give chase.
They were fast, faster than normal humans had any right to be, but she was an elf. She'd outrun them any day of the week. She almost sighed in relief as she started putting significant distance between herself and the humans in only a few short seconds but then all her muscles contracted and she fell forwards mid-step.
She found herself landing face-first in the dirt; she got a mouthful of mud and grass, but that was all secondary to the overwhelming pain wracking her whole body. It was like getting burnt at every part of her body at once, both inside and out. All of her nerves were on fire and she couldn't think straight.
She writhed on the ground, but she didn't feel it as her skin got scraped on barks or rocks. The pain didn't abate, but she was ever so slowly regaining some semblance of thought, and when she did, she soon realized the problem. A foreign spell matrix was inside her body and discharging something straight into her.
With a feral scream, she threw a torrent of mana at the abominable spell and banished it from her body; the pain stopped, but she was still twitching in agony. All her muscles ached and her nerves protested even existing. She used all her willpower to make the Illusion Ring conceal her, but before she could, something grabbed her throat and lifted her into the air.
"Slippery little bitch," a gruff voice entered her ears but she could barely understand it, from overwhelming agony to momentary respite and now she couldn't breathe. She kicked and flailed but all that earned her was the hand around her throat tightening as a fist stuck her in the stomach, pushing any air that might have been in her lungs out and making her cough but with the rough fingers constricting her airways she couldn't even do that as her eyes started to leak tears onto her cheeks.
"Stop that, knife-ear," in the back of her mind she recognized the grin leaking into the voice of the man, "I wouldn't want to damage you too much."
The only reason she hadn't passed out by now was her increased level and the elven physiology, but even then her brain needed oxygen, which it wasn't getting. Her vision was blurry and her mind was fading, along with her attempts to claw at the hand holding her throat.
Her mind slipped into darkness in utter horror, and nightmares tormented her all the way through.
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Her small feet gave off soft echoes as she ran through the dark hallways of the Castle, each of her steps annoyingly kicked her nightgown up but Mommy said ladies wore those at night so she didn't change it for shorts.
She hugged Tibbers close to her chest so he would protect her if any ghosts attacked her from the shadows. Tibbers was a strong teddy bear, so she was safe for sure.
She got closer to her parent's bedroom, her ultimate destination where she would snuggle in between them. She didn't understand why she had to sleep alone since her birthday but Mommy always allowed her to sleep with her if she looked cutely at her.
She heard crashing sounds echoing, a fist struck wood and the wood easily gave way. Kha'Lythria slowed her steps, feeling scared. She heard crashing sounds echoing from Daddy's workroom, but he never got angry. Was he fighting someone? She had to help!!
Tibbers let's go save Daddy!
She sneaked towards the source of the sound and it was the workroom where Daddy always stayed; he spent even most nights there.
As she got closer, she heard shouts and screams.
"You did WHAT?!" one voice shrieked, filled with indignant rage and she barely recognized it as her gentle mommy's voice.
"I HAD NO CHOICE!" another shouted. This one was desperate and just as furious. Daddy?
"YOU DIDN'T EVEN ASK ME," her mother screeched, "… not even her."
The second part was barely a whisper, and she didn't hear most of it.
"There is no other way," he heard the simmering fury in her father's tone. It made her stumble a bit.
"I refuse," her mother whispered, and the little girl heard her clearly now. She was just outside of the slightly ajar door.
They aren't in danger, but they are angry. But Tibbers can't beat that up. I should go back to sleep instead.
"What?" her father's tone was icy and questioning.
"I SAID I REFUSE ARAWN," her mommy screamed at the top of her lungs again.
"I REFUSE TO RAISE MY DAUGHTER TO BE A WHORE FOR A HUMAN."
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Kali awoke with a gurgled scream, sitting up quickly despite her whole body being in pain, especially her throat. She hit her head into something and that sent her back to lying on the ground.
She tried to massage her poor head, but she couldn't move her arms from behind her. What?
Oh, no no no no no no
"BOSS SHE'S AWAKE!"
Motherfucker, why are you so damned loud?!
She would have screamed it into his face were it not for the cloth that served as a gag that was in her mouth. She pulled her arms, straining them painfully against ropes around her wrists. As her eyes flickered open, a row of iron bars greeted her.
Her head was still spinning a little from hitting it with full force against the hard iron, but she was already panicking. What? Why? Where?
Then the memories about the encirclement, the agony and the man that choked her returned in a tidal wave of pain assaulting her head. The headache quickly subsided, but she was frantically looking around. Humans dressed like unwashed peasants in torn clothes were shoving each other's unshaven and dirty faces out of the way so they could get a look at her.
She couldn't see beyond the hundreds of humans crawling around her small cage, looking at her like some sort of exhibition animal. She blinked, but the situation was clear. Her panic was still going strong, but it was simmering underneath, letting her think somewhat clearly.
Shit, the artifacts.
She glanced down at her hand, feeling dread crawling up her spine as she saw nothing on it. No bracelet and no rings, but … I feel them.
She slowly grabbed her palm with her other hand, acting like it was a nervous fidget. Despite feeling them on her hand, she couldn't see them. Her attention was fixed on her left ring finger, where the Illusion ring should be, giving her a hint of what was happening.
Although she calmed down a bit, her situation didn't improve much; her clothes were gone, leaving her only in rags. The dread came back with a vengeance, but she didn't feel any discomfort between her legs. She slumped powerlessly against the bars, staring through the upper ones at the sky above. It was a much better sight than these unwashed barbarians surrounding her.
"MAKE WAY FUCKHEADS!" Kali shivered as she recognized the gruff voice of the man that choked her.
The ocean of people parted and a large human standing a head above the rest was revealed. He was wearing leather armor which looked somewhat well made compared to the torn clothes most of the others wore. He had long brown hair and a bushy beard that covered his neck, his tar black eyes stared at Kali showing no empathy within them.
Kali broke eye contact first, instead staring at her feet and she heard the man chuckle at her meek demeanor.
"Welcome to your temporary home," his voice carried an openly mocking tone, "I hope our accommodations don't disappoint a noble elf like yourself."
Based on how weird his men looked at him, he intentionally spoke exaggeratedly just to mock her, but most of it flew above Kali's head. She wasn't a Noble; she was a Royal, but maybe that was just his sarcasm? Kali barely knew anything about how humans interacted with each other. She only paid attention to their history and the wars they'd fought.
She knew he was mocking her, though, and that was enough. She huddled into the far corner of her cage and put her legs between herself and the man, burying her face in her knees. Her initial panic was still there, but so was the cold fury at being so humiliated like this. She was an object to them, or even less.
'Fooling your enemy is the first step to victory. If they underestimate you, you already have the advantage' She repeated her brother's words, he's taught her a few times about military history and strategy, but neither stuck her as something she would excel in but neither did she loath them like politics or ethics.
Some things stuck with her and this one might save her here if she played her cards right.
"LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU TRASH" the man shouted and Kali felt agony overwhelm her body again as she collapsed into a twitching pile of limbs, the pain withdrew quickly now, leaving her sobbing silently on the ground as her eyes teared up, "If you don't want another one look at me you knife eared whore."
Slightly shaking, Kali raised her gaze and met the monster's black eyes. She trembled in fear as she saw him grin at her miserable state, but she was sure he did not know what she was thinking, don't Fireball him, don't Fireball him, don-
While it would surely be cathartic, she didn't know if she could escape the cage and if she couldn't she would be turned into an elven porcupine soon after by the man's vengeful subordinates if not worse.
"We will have a pleasant time together if you understand your place," he chuckled, "from now on you are my pet, my slave. You sit when I tell you and you jump when I call. Am I understood?"
Kali nodded meekly, forcefully banishing the half-formed Runes of the Fireball Spell that she formed without thinking.
"AND TO ALL OF YOU FUCKWITS NO TOUCHING THE ELF, NO HURTING THE ELF AND MOST CERTAINLY NO FUCKING THE ELF OR I'M GOING TO MAKE WHAT I DID TO HER LOOK LIKE A PLEASANT MASSAGE, AM.I.UNDERSTOOD.?!"
"YES, BOSS!" the morons shouted back at the threat, making Kali flatten her ears against her head at the loud noise.
"You even get food and water if you behave well," the man turned back to her, "Aren't I generous?"
Kali averted her gaze, the urge to burn him to ash resurfacing with a vengeance.
"What did I tell you before?" his smile was frozen on his hairy face, his hand extending towards her cage in a similar gesture that sent her writhing in pain before.
"Mghf,"Yes! she answered in a panic, but only a muffled sound went through the gag. That pain was by far the worst she has ever felt.
"Good," he nodded. "Just a little gift to remember me by."
Son of a bi-
Her scream cut off her train of thought as her muscles spasmed and her nerves burned.
But one thing was different. Even if it was in a cage. She was more rested now, and she caught a blob of mana pushing into her body. Well, caught as in, she noticed it before it overwhelmed her mind with pain.
"I'm Mortis, by the way," he said with a smile as he watched her suffer. "I hope we get along well."
More on reflex than anything else, her mana surged through her body and crashed into the blob of foreign mana, which was igniting her nerves. If she managed to disrupt the spell matrix, the whole spell should disperse. She was only reflexively lashing out at a foreign thing in her body, though; she was hardly thinking about spell matrixes and their weaknesses at the moment.
If her mind could work clearly, she'd have noticed how flimsy the matrix was and the breakpoints of it. Spell matrixes were the very cores of spells and putting them directly into the body of another mage — their inner sanctum, where they had the most control over their mana — was foolish and asking for the other mage to just smash it apart.
Whatever guided Kali's mana at that moment, be it some subconscious instinct or pure luck, the spell matrix crack and burst. Not that the Princess was aware of that at the moment.
Overwhelmed as her body was by the torturous spell, she passed out again. Her body twitching for a few more minutes.