Chương 2

Rasil of Greenwood At some point, the drider either got too tired to follow him, or got massively more sneaky, because he could no longer hear her pursuit in the rustle of the canopy behind him, even after long periods of deliberate silence and careful listening. If she wasn't following him anymore, then he was relatively safe. If she was massively more sneaky, then he was screwed anyway, so there was no point in worrying about it.

He could settle down somewhere for a nap, to recover from the interrupted period of sleep, but that would only aid any potential pursuers. Instead, he would simply keep walking along the river, catch something to eat from it, and rest at his normal time later tonight. He'd be extra sleepy, so he'd probably wake up exceptionally refreshed by the end.

The primary issue was that most of his camping supplies were in that bag, and now he was going to have to rely on his wits and the little bit of practical magic he'd been taught. Elven education was a long and drawn out process that relied on apprenticeships and direct, personalized tutelage. Traditionally, each student was given firm grounding in all aspects of the field long before practical applications actually began.

The physics of the field, the history of the field, notable applications and things to avoid, all the various background details that technically didn't actually improve your ability to throw balls of fire around, but certainly allowed fully educated elves to stomp most others when it came down to it. Having more information to work with typically meant winning, and elves were masters of trivia. The important term there being "fully educated", because for elves that was around three hundred years of work.

A prodigy might get through all the material and master magic in only one hundred years instead. Rasil, being twenty, had exactly ten years of magical education backing his efforts, the vast majority of his knowledge being metaphysics and broad strokes of historical information. Good to know, but it didn't actually make him better at throwing fire around. This suited him just fine, because he wanted to hit things with weapons.

He already had a way to deliver consistently high targeted damage at a long range, it was called a bow. Not one of those lame tiny bows either, his bow was two-thirds of his height, made of ironwood, and reliably punched through most things he shot at. In terms of practical magical effects, he had exactly one 'spell'. It was called 'push mana into something'.

Mana, being the magical energy that fell from the skies and accumulated upon and within the earth, was something that inherently elevated things by saturation. Just having more mana in a thing made that thing slightly more of itself, better at whatever its particular purpose was. There was also tainted mana, which was used by people who were evil or perverse, or both. It was pretty useless to him, and using it would turn him into a dark elf, so he was just going to avoid it.

If he wanted darker skin for whatever reason, he could always just go get a tan, the 'mental pollution' was something he didn't have much interest in. The 'spell' he did have was already more than versatile enough to cover basically anything he really needed anyways.

'Push mana into a thing to make it better' was an inefficient, brute-force, unga-bunga manner to utilize magical energy, which was perfect for going around and unga-bunga-ing at things like he wanted to. Without his flint and steel, he had to resort to the spell to make a fire for his delicious freshwater fish dinner. Without a cooking surface, he had to resort to a thoroughly cleaned rock and a slow-cook on top of a broad leaf wrapping.

Pushing magical energy into the kindling and making it better at being kindling made the process of rubbing sticks together to produce a spark vastly easier than it normally would be. A process that would normally take a couple minutes instead took about thirty seconds, and the kindling worked exceptionally to bring the small pyramid of twigs into a merry crackling campfire. Delightful little campfire on a delightful riverbank in a delightful temperate forest, all without a single elf in hearing range.

A delighted little smile came over his lips as he took it all in. Rasil let out a long and contented sigh, leaning back and watching his sword-cut fillets slowly bake in the ambient heat of the campfire, leaf-bed curling up as it dried out and fish not quite sizzling. A comfortable look grew over his face as he leaned back, casting a gaze up to the twin moons. Supposedly they were twin gods, Ron and Cyron.

There was a great deal of religious significance in how important they were to the world and the lesser races, and how enlightened elves were for only worshipping an Earth-Mother and a Sky-Father, the twins' parents, of which the Sky-Father was currently dead. It was mostly unimportant to him, because he wasn't a priest. Most pertinent to him was that they looked way prettier out here than they did back in the Greenwood lands. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled.

The smell of smoke and riverbank filled the air, a far cry from the curated placements of fragrant flowers and fruit trees designed to optimize nasal enjoyment no matter where you were and what you were smelling at any point in time. Here the world smelled of bark and pollen and rot, the rough scents of wilderness untamed.

"Gosh, it's a really nice night," he happily declared to the dark wilderness. The song of crickets and other night-insects was his only reply. The fish was entirely unseasoned. It tasted of freedom and no elves. Naturally, it was delicious. He made a note to catch more fish tomorrow, because he was still hungry after just the one. — Overland travel speed for a single person traveling through wilderness was about twenty miles per day.

Assuming that he was maintaining that pace, it meant he had traveled about ten miles due west, and about ninety miles due south. Pythagorean theorem here, and he was about ninety and a half miles away from home when he first came across signs of people who were not him. Keen senses allowed him to overhear them well in advance, low and scratchy voices that barked at each other in an unfamiliar language, angry about something and fearsomely debating about what to do.

And just like the heroic busybody he was aiming to be, he approached to stick his nose in other people's business. His mostly silent approach went unnoticed under the loud and angry voices, and eventually he was close enough to get a visual. Short, greenish figures with great hooked noses wearing crudely made armor and wielding battered weapons stood in the midst of a clearing, two keeping a lookout as the other three argued in the middle.

In between them was either a tiny woman or a mature girl, bound and teary and doing her best to pretend that she wasn't present as they barked and growled at each other through worn and yellowed teeth. It was fairly obvious this was some manner of kidnapping by what looked like goblins. The most concerning feature was the battered black powder guns carried by each of them, rifles and pistols on the same leather belts that their crude cleavers were carried.

He was somewhat irritated by this; no one back in Greenwood had bothered to tell him that early firearms were a thing. He made a snap judgement call and decided to side with the group that wasn't ugly, drawing four arrows from his quiver, setting them up in between his fingers, and took aim. He couldn't do this for more than four arrows at a time, because he only had five fingers.

Perhaps he would've been more reluctant to kill them if they were human, or attractive, but as it stood, he was unsurprisingly fine with their deaths. Fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip. Four goblins fell to the ground, strangled grunts and pained gurgles as the arrows punched right through the gaps in their armor and into their lungs. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The last one swerved around, suddenly aware that he was in danger.

It wasn't enough to actually help the probable-kidnapper, as a few seconds later a hundred and eighty pounds of Elven male plummeted from the canopy above and staked the goblin-kidnapper to the earth like he was setting up a flagpole. He grunted slightly, having absorbed the force of the impact with his knees, and pushed himself back into a standing position. Hand on the upper shaft of his ironwood spear, he briefly considered pulling it out to keep using before deciding he was just going to leave it here instead.

As soon as he had a proper shield, he was going to be wading into combat; that instance of sneak archery made him feel dirty. No shame about the dragoon drop though, he was feeling pretty giddy about actually being able to pull that off. He turned his head to the bound woman, getting a better look at her now. Wide-eyed and muffled, the woman was tied in a manner that was more provocative than actually effective.

Rasil wasn't quite surprised, the usual role for goblins in these sorts of fantastical worlds were low-level canon fodder and to provide titillating scenes by harassing defenseless female characters. The woman had probably been about to be thoroughly molested. Light brown hair, short stature, curvaceous build, and looked like she was a few moments away from pissing herself. He sniffed. No, she already had a while ago, it seemed. Stale urine had a distinct scent.

The most notable features were the little horns that curled up from the sides of her head, which meant that he didn't know what she was. Except clearly still scared of the figure that had jumped out of the woods to murder a bunch of her captors and was now staring down at her from behind a wooden masked helm. He reached up, taking hold of the ironwood that concealed his face and pulling it off, blond hair bunching up in the helm and then flowing out as he removed it and shook his head.

He gave his best gentle smile, twitching his ears and crouching down to set his helm aside. He raised a hand to tap at his mouth, then pointed at her and miming a 'take off' gesture. She hesitated, before giving a little timid nod and staying still as he leaned forwards to remove the gag.

"You're safe now, do you know why?" He grinned, tossing the gag aside and pointing at himself.

"Because I'm here now!" Unfortunately, the cheesy line was less than effective, because she just swallowed and replied in a language that he didn't understand.

"... ~~, ~~ ~~~~~, ~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~." He replied with a furrowed brow and frown, reaching up to scratch at the side of his head in a manner that clearly indicated his confusion, before shrugging. He glanced over at the impaled goblin, reaching over to draw his crude iron knife out of its sheath, then returned his gaze to the woman and made a gesture of 'may I?' at her bindings. She stared at the knife, then at his face, before giving a sharp nod and wiggle.

He stepped closer to start carefully sawing away at her ropes, gently pulling them away as they came loose. After a minute or so of work, she was loosened and rubbing at her wrists, still staring at him with nervous eyes. He smiled, pulling back and standing up again, snatching his helm and putting it back over his head as he did. He looked around at the corpses, giving a deliberate look at the crude leather bags that they were carrying, and the little jackets of thin iron lamellar.

He turned back to the little horned woman, before raising a single finger in a 'one minute please' gesture. — Packs laden with loot were often low on supplies, as the adage of the honorable Ancestor went. It was fortunate that 'supplies' and 'loot' were the same thing for him right now, because he was still out of pretty much anything that wasn't on his person when he leapt out of that tree. He took two bags of supplies from the goblin corpses, and left his ironwood spear in payment.

Mostly because he really didn't feel like pulling it out and washing it off afterwards. His newest companion, still smelling vaguely of urine and shooting him the occasional nervous glance, took one bag for herself, and picked out things that weren't too close to any corpse-bits. With that settled, she accepted an offered hand and the pair of them traveled back to the river to wash off before moving along."

Rock," he said, pointing at the stone in question as they moved downstream along the riverbank, towards the inevitable civilization. There was always some kind of settlement somewhere along a river, rivers had everything that people needed in order to live.

"~~~." She replied promptly, adding another word to his vocabulary. It was something of a game to facilitate their ability to communicate, a cousin of 'I spy'. She was clever enough to have picked up on his intention relatively quickly, and it was a good way to pass the time. She pointed at one of the trees, repeating a word from earlier.

"~~~~."" Tree.

"He gestured to another object." River."

"~~~~~~," she replied with a nod, before glancing up at him hesitantly. She raised a hand to pat at her chest in a self-referential manner.

"Dura." She spoke, clearly introducing herself. He tilted his head, raising a hand to point at her. She was much shorter than him, standing at eye level with his belly-button, so every conversation was him literally looking down on her.

"Dura?" he asked for confirmation. She nodded, and repeated the name with another pat of her ample chest.

"Dura."

"Dura." he repeated with an understanding nod. Briefly, he considered introducing himself with his actual name, but he had already been considering this for the past few years now. If he went around calling himself Rasil of Greenwood, it would just be that much easier for the people back home to track his movements and eventually find him. That would just be unnecessary trouble. He could avoid a lot of that trouble by simply deciding on a new name for himself.

He had thought about that particular issue for many months, rolling over choices in his mind as he debated symbolism and meanings and other such factors. Eventually he'd decided that he would pick a name that meant nothing here, something to himself, and was very easy to remember. With that settled, he had the perfect name prepared for his new life. With a smile, he raised a hand to pat at his own chest, covered in plates of ironwood and varnished into a dark brown.

"Mallorn."

"Malorn?" He shook his head.

"Mal-Lorn."

"Mal-lorn?" she tried again, brows furrowing. He nodded in a jolly manner, returning his gaze back to the riverbank-way and waiting for her to name something else. Maybe he'd find a cool rivercrab to boil and munch on tonight using the goblin pot he'd taken. If nothing else he could always go fishing again, and it would be easier to cook more with another person helping him out. Delicious rivercrab ov'r a delightful little campfire, what more could he ask for?

Later that night, he would discover that boiled rivercrab was actually kinda gross. — Mallorn A mere five days after leaving the Greenwood, and two days after rescuing Dura from the group of goblin kidnappers, the first proper civilization came into sight along the riverbank. A logging town by the looks of it, with great sawmills constructed along the river and the occasional felled log along their path leading to it. Modest farms, basic watermills, a little stone wall, and most importantly of all- actual roads.

Sure, they were basic packed dirt and nothing else, but they were absolutely enthralling to step upon. Wonderful, beautiful indicators of mass and consistent overland travel leading from a fishing dock up the river all the way down to the charmingly quaint township and its brightly colored red and yellow banners.

"Dura talk," his shortstack companion declared, looking up at him and asserting herself with recovered confidence.

"~~~," he replied with the word that either meant 'good' or 'yes'. He wasn't quite sure yet, and either would function in this context. Her mood and smell had both improved substantially over the past two days, with frequent scrubs in the river followed by being dried out in front the fire, his dark green cloak lent out to cover her up while her silks and laces were drying.

He was fairly certain that she came from wealth, from the quality of her clothing, but it was hard to tell with how much he had grown used to seeing elves in luxury silks as daily wear. When you had years and years to buy new products, and you never actually changed in overall proportion, eventually all of your clothes became exceptionally high-quality through buying them from exceptionally talented local seamstresses, who had been making clothes as a hobby for the last eight hundred years.

With that in mind, he was hard-pressed to actually determine the level of quality of anything around him, other than 'worse than his old home'. Seeing so many lovingly-made but crude products around added a great deal of rustic charm, and he could hardly contain his excitement as they approached the outer gates of the little logging village. Logging meant sawmills. Sawmills meant steel. Steel meant blacksmiths. Which meant he could finally pawn off all this Elven and goblin shit and finally buy some good steel.

With pep in his step, Mallorn cheerfully followed Dura.