Kya sat in her simple bed, feet not quite touching the ground, and felt… everything. She felt the normal things, the blanket underneath her, the simple gown against her skin, but she felt more than that.
The other two had begun talking, but she had absolutely no idea what they were saying. She was simply trying to get a grasp on these crazy new sensations.
She felt the other two across the room from her. She was aware of the table, of her bag, of the chair and stool and door and glowstone, it was all piling on, each thing tugging at her brain for attention, as if calling out to her.
As she clutched her head, all of it, all at once, receded down, and down, and finally all she could feel with her newfound sense was the gown she wore. Looking up and seeing the radiant green eyes of Rory, she asked in a hoarse voice
“What’s happening?”
He stared at her for a long time, his face once moderately tanned, had gone white as a sheet.
“We need to start over,” he said at last “because there’s a lot you don’t know, and a lot we don’t know.”
He finished by turning to Wade, and said “Jules, sit down, and put that away. I’m head of this clinic and no one will interfere, at least not for now. If you can’t bottle up your instinctual aura, though, things will get very bad very quickly.”
Kya couldn’t see anything for her to “put away.” She was just standing in front of her chair, seat pushed back from the speed of her getting up, with a stormy expression on her face. At the words of the healer, though, she changed.
It wasn’t a visual thing, she didn’t literally shrink, but her presence in the room seemed to. It felt to Kya like a puffer fish deflating after a shock. With a sharp nod, she pulled the chair back in place, and sat with a thump, her deep maroon eyes locked on Kya’s.
“Thank you” said Rory, with an audible exhale. Rory had seemed carefree at first, almost uncaring in fact. But Kya decided to reevaluate the man. It wasn’t that he lacked passion, but rather that he lacked energy. His shaggy hair and lustrous eyes distracted from the absolutely haggard look on his face, telling of a tedious and tiring lifestyle.
He smiled at her, seeming genuine, but also so, so weary. “I’ve been head of this clinic for the last fifteen years, seeing thousands of people from every walk of life. Humans are a rarity in these parts, but there are a fair few of you still, and you’re nothing new to me. But what we’ve just seen is… well it’s extraordinary. To say nothing of the… results.” He paused, seeming to contemplate where exactly he wanted to take the conversation.
“Let me start simply, which I think will benefit all of us. What is your name?” He said, sitting back on his plain wooden stool.
Kya, however, had stopped listening part way through. She hadn’t even really understood the question being asked.
“What do you mean, humans are a rarity? “ She asked, not entirely sure what to expect in reply.
Seeming to catch Rory off guard as well, he answered simply “Well, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that the only human settlement on this island is a couple hours south by carriage, and it's a small town at that. Hardly more than a few hundred people working out of there.”
“So what kinds of people live here then?” Kya asked
“Elves.” Said Wade, speaking for the first time since her class awakening.
Then, unclasping her hands, she pushed back her hair to show long tapering points on her ears. They weren’t the simple human sized ears with a bit of an edge from fantasy movies back home, these were proper inhuman things, with points several inches long. Now that she knew what to look for, she could see the ear on the other side poking out of her hair, and the same went for Rory.
“How did you not know this was an elven city?” asked Rory, in astonishment “Where are you from?”
Again ignoring the question being posed to her, Kya stared at the two, going back and forth.
“You two are seriously Elves? And this is a genuine Elven City?”
Both of their expressions changed at this comment. Rory grew puzzled, like he couldn’t understand what was confusing about this concept. Wade’s expression only grew darker, lighting beginning to form behind her eyes.
“Okay” Said Rory in a voice of forced calm, directed both at Wade and Kya “let me be explicitly clear ma’am. For the past several days, we have healed, fed, and looked after you. Wade here saying your battle was so extraordinary, she wanted to take you back to Partalis for training.” He let this last part hang for a second, apparently hoping it’s implication would mean something to Kya “But we need some information and answers from you before you can go anywhere. Believe me, you’d much rather it be me asking in here, than Wade asking in Loterre. So, come on, what is your name? Where are you from? Let’s start with the basics.”
Kya knew she was against a wall. That was a threat, as clearly as any made in any culture, regardless of species or world, she could be sure of that. But she also got the impression that this healer genuinely didn’t want to hurt her or put her in danger. Wade, she wasn’t sure about, but she had a pretty good feeling from Rory.
Trying her luck, she attempted to extend her first olive branch.
“I will answer one question from you for every one you answer from me. Deal?”
Some of the tension seemed to ease from Rory’s shoulders, and he said “Deal.” without any hesitation.
Nodding, she began “My name is Kya, and I’m from… well, a small town a long way away from here.”
All three knew she had just dodged the question of origin, but just happy to be moving in a positive direction, Rory didn’t push it.
“Nice to meet you Kya, once again, I’m Rory Mayler, and this is Julia Wade. I’m a healer and she’s a fighter, to grossly simplify things.”
Thinking for a bit on her first question, she eventually asked “What was the feeling I got after my class? Why could I feel everything around me?”
“Aura,” said Wade. She too had seemed to grow less tense as she grew more cooperative, but still looked more tightly wound than a clock tower.
“Exactly so,” said Rory “Each aura power is unique in its specific effects, but they all have the same general features. For example, I get my aura from the Life class, so anyone within it recovers a little more quickly than they otherwise would. It can do other things as well, but…” He shrugged there, a smile pulling at his lips “They’re not very relevant right now. Yours, though, as a newly awakened Spatial aura should grant you some sort of heightened spatial awareness. I’ve suppressed the effect for now, but you’ll need to get a handle on it rather quickly if possible.”
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Aura? She had an Aura? It wasn’t entirely shocking to her they existed. She’d felt an intense presence from some of the monsters in the forest, and from Wade as well. A so called Aura being the reason just put a name to that feeling for her. But the fact that she had one too, and that it moreover had its own unique magical effects?
Kya was giddy with anticipation as to what exactly she could do. But, before getting to explore abilities, or even pull up some of the screens she now had access to which would likely answer many of her questions anyway, Wade spoke up.
“I have a question, then. Who taught you to fight?”
Rory had turned to look at Wade as she started speaking, but now looked back curiously at Kya.
“What makes you think I know how to fight?” Asked Kya in return. She trusted these two, but only so much. Apparently her hasty choice to pick Space as a class was seen as some faux pas to these two, and she needed to know what she was in for now. If it was simple discrimination, she could overcome that. If it was outright hostility, she didn’t want to be the focus of a witch hunt. As she reached these conclusions, she decided to try and give away as little as possible while trying to get as much as possible.
“Answer me first.”
“I’m a soldier. What made you think I could fight?”
She scoffed derisively, before running an inspecting eye over Kya “I watched your fight with the tiger. You were wildly outmatched in almost every conceivable way, but managed to stay calm and fight back. It was sloppy as hell, but you managed to pull it off. Now then, no nation I’ve ever heard of would employ a zero as a soldier. Logistics sure, but never infantry. Were you being trained by someone, and they sent you here for your class?”
“So far as I know, I wound up here entirely by accident. Why is it bad that I chose space for my class?”
This question returned the tension to the air that had been slowly easing with the rapid fire questions.
Wade looked to Rory for this one, who sighed, scratching his head and gazing at the glowstone in the ceiling.
“Okay so… Every class is powerful.” He started, trying to ease into it “But some have inherent advantages in some aspects. No one has more raw killing potential than death. No one is better at healing than life. Well, Space and its complement Time were found to be…” he trailed off here, waving his hand while looking for the right word “outliers, I guess. About a hundred twenty years ago, there was a breaking point. A big war was fought, with space and time against the world. She’d probably know quite a bit more, but suffice to say, it left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. For the last eighty years or so, there haven’t been any new spatial users. I didn’t even think it could still be claimed as a primary class?”
This last bit was in the form of a question, directed at Wade.
She nodded “It can’t. There are groups that find ways of claiming it as a secondary class, however. It’s frowned upon, but the abilities it provides are so useful and versatile, even as just a secondary class, that many don’t mind it. You’ll find more than a couple elites throughout the world with space as their secondary class, especially if they’ve been around since the war.”
“Since the war? You just said it was at least eighty years ago, how can they still be alive?” Asked Kya incredulously.
They both gave her looks of absolute confusion, mixed with a little contempt. Like a four year old had just asked what two plus two equals.
“It’s not your turn for a question” said Wade slowly “So how about this. Why don’t you know… anything?”
“I’m pretty new to magic, I literally just got my class five minutes ago.” Kya said, trying to deflect the question. “Okay, so-”
“No.” Wade cut her off “A lot of zero’s, especially out in the country, don’t know the first real thing about how users work. But they know about classes existing, they know about users and the guild and Elves. They know that, to answer your question, users live a very long time as they get more powerful. You don’t know anything at all though. What’s your story, that’s my question.”
Rory never broke eye contact with Kya the whole time Wade was talking. He had been watching for her reactions, and she knew he knew. They both knew.
Not seeing much of a choice, Kya started to speak at least parts of the truth “About what, six days ago now, I woke up in a temple in the woods. I have no idea how I got there, or where ‘there’ even is. Since then, I’ve been trying to survive and get out of the forest. Where I come from, they don’t have magic or classes or aura’s or anything like this stuff. That’s why I’m pretty out of it when it comes to common knowledge. Just assume, going forward, that I don’t know a single thing about magic.”
Feeling as though she might have given away too much of the truth, and wanting to move the conversation along, she asked “Now that I’ve made my choice of class, what will happen?”
The other two were sitting contemplatively. Neither in any hurry to answer, seeming to just… stew on the information she’d given.
Eventually, Rory looked up and said “I’m sorry, you asked what happens now? Well… that depends greatly on what you want to happen.”
Wade picked up the conversation here “You’re most likely the reason we’re here. You waking up and us receiving feedback from the spatial stone happened at the same time. I can’t even attempt to think they aren’t connected. Which means, Sayrin will want to take you back to Loterre.” She finished, letting that last part hang in the air.
“I’m assuming that’s not great?”
“Sayrin is one of the most respectable and honorable commanders I’ve served under in the army” said Wade “But in Loterre, you’d likely be imprisoned or at least thoroughly questioned and magically probed for information on who you are, where you come from, and how you got this class.”
“So… Not great.”
“No, not great.”
“However” Chimed in Rory “If you were a registered guild member, they wouldn’t be able to simple up and take you. Not without Foring’s permission at least.”
Nodding slowly, Wade stood, and looked directly at Kya “My duty compels me to report what I’ve learned about you. To keep it hidden would be to perjure myself, and although I respect your accomplishments in battle, I will not do this for you. But…” she struggled for a moment, her stormy expression softening just slightly “If you join the Questers Guild, and I mean as soon as elvishly possible, I can get distracted on my way back to report these events.”
Kya returned the towering woman's gaze, feeling a profound respect for the woman being to take hold, as she returned the deliberate nod. “I genuinely don’t know what that will entail, but I’ve heard from a reliable source that the questers guild is the one to join. Rory” She turned now to the healer, who had also stood and made his simple stool vanish “Can you take me to register at the guild please?”
He smiled at her, a genuine and delighted smile, and said “I was just thinking of taking a break, and I’d be happy to show you around. Not sure about that gown though, it practically labels you as just out from the clinic. Not to mention those eyes…”
“Oh!” exclaimed Wade, “Did you kill a nest of Necro-Spiders in the woods a few days back?”
“Yeah, burned the whole thing to ashes, why?”
She laughed, a full bellied thunderous sound, then handed over a small leather pouch that suddenly appeared. “I’m starting to take a genuine liking to you, Kya of the forest. Well done, extremely well done. I’d like to hear the story of that encounter sometime. This the reward money from the city lord. He’s a miserly bastard, so it isn’t half as much as it should be, but it’ll at least buy you some clothes, and give you some money to throw around.”
Wade slid open the door, but paused with one foot out the door “The road ahead won’t be easy for you. A lot of people in this town won’t know what it means, the color of your eyes, but some will. They’ll hate you for it.” Holding up her left hand and brandishing a small tattoo, she said “But as long as you’ve got this, they’ll respect you all the same.”
With that, she turned and strode purposefully down the hall and out of sight.
Kya saw that Rory had two fingers to the bridge of his nose, and was suppressing a smile.
“What?” she asked
“Nothing, nothing.” He said, his smile getting a little wider, the mirth audible in his tone. “Once you get to know Jules, you’ll realize that not only does her mood shift a little too easily, she also has a penchant for drama.”
Straightening, he said “Well then, come on. We need to get you registered at the guild, and then get you some new clothes. I’d be happy to show you the way.”
Kya gave her assent, and then slipped on her boots. They were as exquisite as ever and having them back on her feet truly made the world seem more at ease. No matter what happened in her life, she’d be walking on clouds and pure, condensed softness. Besides, she was magical now. What could possibly get in her way?