“That was when I began to understand that this world wasn't a game, but that doesn't change the way the rest of my people think. Some of them attack this world's natives without restraint. Others go around killing our own people so that they can steal from their corpses before the person's new body can return to their corpse and retrieve their items.”
“How do we know you're telling the truth?” Loradine questioned.
“Kill me,” I responded. “Kill me and you'll see the truth. When our avatar dies, we are resurrected at the fountain in the center of the last city we visited.”
“I told you we wouldn't harm you,” Loradine insisted.
“Then I'll do it myself.”
I placed my fist under my chin and the blade erupted from my skull. Before I died, I heard Loradine shout, “Stop her!”
The next thing I knew, I was looking at the wooden fountain again. I rubbed my chin and the top of my skull, remembering. It was the first time I'd died in the SRU. Dying hurt. I still had my anti-theft purse and I was once again in my beginner's clothing, but my gloves and hair piece were left on my corpse. I raced back to the meeting hall and burst through the curtain.
Aden and Benedict spun on their heels and cocked an arrow on their bows. They recognized me instantly and lowered their bows, shock the dominating expression on their faces. The elders were speechless. They kept moving their gaze from the corpse and large bloodstain on the floor to me. I walked over to my corpse, removed my hair piece and gloves, the one stuck in my skull making a sucking sound as I pulled it out, put the gloves on, removed my beginner's hair piece, and put on the one given to me by Queen Isabelle.
When I made the sign of the cross over my corpse's forehead, it disappeared and the elders all gasped. Nothing remained to suggest there had been a death there at all. The blood, guts, and smell of death had all vanished with my corpse.
I sat down as if nothing had happened and continued my story. I told them about Lesley, the Avengers, my quest, meeting Bartholomew, what had happened amidst the dwarves. Everything except for the teachings I had promised not to share.
When I'd finished with my tale the elders continued to question me. They seemed to want every detail that I could remember about every incident. I was sure they were using all they gathered to determine my true character as well as to determine if I was lying. They were testing my story, looking for holes that suggested dishonesty, but found none. I spoke nothing but the truth in their presence.
By the time the questioning had finished about six hours had lapsed. My real body was getting hungry and I really needed to go to the restroom. When they were finished, they asked for some time to discuss the matter amongst themselves. I told them it was fine and stepped outside the room. I made my way back to the fountain with Bartholomew and told him that I'd be back in about a half hour. Then I logged off and disappeared from Evanasia, Bartholomew watching me depart.
The Verdict
I returned to the SRU to find Bartholomew sitting on the fountain, twitching nervously. Aden and Benedict were standing nearby with annoyed expressions. When Bartholomew noticed me, he stood and raced over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder to comfort me, but also seeking his own comfort. I think he was making sure I wasn't a ghost since I'd vanished before his eyes. His fingers kept flexing against my skin as if he was making sure they wouldn’t pass right through me.
“Well,” he gradually seemed a little less uncomfortable and confused. “It's been a strange day. You know, I never really believed your story about coming back to life if you were killed, not until you showed everyone today. And that was the first time I'd ever seen you leave this world to return home. I wasn't sure if you were coming back or not.”
I placed my hand on his for reassurance and support. “Of course I was coming back. I frequently leave this world to return home. My real body has needs that I can't satisfy in this avatar. Food, restroom breaks, sleep. It would be nice if I never had to leave this world, but I know that's an impossibility. Instead, I try to spend as much time as I can here.”
I heard a throat clear and gazed at Aden. He seemed bemused by my interaction with Bartholomew. He was also irritated by something.
“We've been waiting here for you for a while. The council has made their decision. Follow us.”
Back in the meeting hall the atmosphere had changed. The dissension I'd felt earlier was gone. Now this place radiated the same serenity as the rest of the town. Whatever their decision, they were clearly unanimous in it. Loradine stood once more and gestured without speaking for me to sit.
I took my seat and waited for the verdict. The only sound in the hall was the huff of air as chests rose and fell slightly. I was so nervous that I was certain the elves could hear my heart beating at twice its normal speed.
“Valkyrie,” Loradine announced, sounding all the more official. “The council has come to a decision about you and your people. First, we will start with the obvious. The council has decided that your people are dangerous. As such, we will not allow them to enter into our kingdom. We will fight to protect our borders from these assailants at all cost. What have you to say about that?”
I gave him a warm smile of understanding and sat up straighter in my chair. “I think you made a wise decision. There are some of my people who do not pose a threat to you, but it is impossible on first glance to determine who is friend and who is foe. The best way to protect yourselves from us is to kill any on sight. We can't die, but if you kill us before we enter your city, we will reappear at the last city we visited which is quite far from here. Some will find your resistance to be an invitation to attack, but most will realize that the risk isn't worth entering Tetherwood and will stay away. What is most important is protecting your people. I've seen my people slaughter innocents, including children, gleefully because they don't care about this world. I would not want that destruction to plague your people.”
The entire council nodded in agreement and Loradine continued his verdict. “Secondly, regarding your relationship with Bartholomew, we are all confounded but also grateful for it. You see, we've always honored dragons, but this is the first time we've ever seen a dragon show any sort of interest in another race. Bartholomew has told us all about how you changed his heart and what you have told us has shown us that you are a being of pure spirit.
“You have a gift that has an effect on everyone who knows you. It is our hope that you never lose that spirit of yours. We pray that it will spread like a wildfire to others and change this world. Maybe someday, with your help, we will be able to open our borders to others and won't have to kill them to protect ourselves.
“And finally,” Loradine gestured toward all the elders in the chamber, “this is the decision the elven elders have made regarding you. We are willing to teach you everything we know regarding magic, our trades, customs, and language. All we ask in return is that you keep our confidence. Like you have with the dwarves, we request that you not share our knowledge with others, especially those from your reality.
“Some of what we will teach you is common knowledge that you can attain anywhere in the world, so we don't mind if you share that. We will clearly tell you which knowledge you are bound to keep secret. If you agree to these conditions, we will teach you, but if not, we request that you leave now. What is your decision?”
“Elder Loradine.” I bowed my head and my eyes moistened as I tried to express my gratitude properly in words. “I swear to you that I will keep your confidence. Learning from you is my greatest honor. I humbly submit myself as your student and I will strive to continue to make this world a better place, doing everything I can to create peaceful relations between my people and the residents of this world. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this opportunity.”
By the time I'd finished speaking, tears were falling from my eyes. I'm not sure why, but for some reason, being allowed to study here held more
weight than anything else I'd done in this world. I instinctively felt that some of the most important things I would learn in this world would be my teachings here. This was why I'd felt a pull to enter Tetherwood. This was what my journey had been about from the start.
Unlike the dwarves, whose majority mistrusted me from the start, the elves welcomed me graciously into their city. They were apprehensive at first as they are a secluded people who don't let any outsiders near their home. Still, they trusted their elders with their lives and once the elders told them I was permitted to stay, and was trustworthy, they never questioned the decision. I made quite a few friendships among the elves and many more acquaintanceships during my stay.
I enjoyed my training a lot more with the elves than I had with the dwarves too. My dwarven instructors did their jobs reluctantly, while griping behind my back. The elves were lively, friendly, and had an abundance of patience. They also didn't mind Bartholomew tagging along with me during training. Mostly, Bartholomew was a silent comfort during my training, not wanting to interrupt my instruction. He would comment on my progress when lessons were complete and encourage me whenever I began to doubt my ability to complete my tasks.
The training I received with the elves was a unique experience. The first thing they had me do was write a list of all the magical spells I knew to make sure that they didn't waste time on training I'd already had.
Thanks in large part to my ability to memorize quickly and retain information, I had a larger spell base than the elves expected. Most people from my world only knew an average of ten to twenty spells with most being beginner level spells since they had a hard time remembering the incantations. Beginner's spells had incantations that ranged from one to six words, intermediate level spells had poetry couplet incantations, and advanced spells had incantations that contained four or more lines in poetic meter, making them the most difficult to learn.
Although it had never been proven that a person could have an eidetic memory with perfect recall all the time, my mind was about as close as it could be to eidetic. The list I created for the elves contained over four hundred spells. The majority of the magical training I'd had with the dwarves was earth magic and enchantments for crafting, but I also had some basic training in healing magic and other magic I'd learned from the dwarves and from Lesley.
It took me a full night to create my list of magic and my training began the following morning. The elves broke my training up into segments. Instead of just training me on one subject until it was completed, they had me spend a few hours a day on magic training, a few on learning to read, write, and speak the elven language, a few on combat, and a few on different trade skills.
Learning the elven language was a fun challenge, one that only took me about a week. Since the language was so similar to Italian, I learned to speak it fluently in only three days. Reading and writing the language was another matter. The elven language was a runic language with forty-three runes to represent the different sounds and one rune which took the place of a period. They had no other punctuation in their language.
The other training that I went through took me longer to learn. I was surprised to find that Aden was my combat instructor. He was the best archer in Valanesia. Even more surprising was when I learned that it had been him alone who'd killed Garoth. I'd assumed, since there were two arrows fired, that both Aden and Benedict had fired, but Aden had fired both arrows in such quick succession that the arrows hit at almost the exact same time. He tried to teach me how to fire arrows as accurately and quickly, but I never managed to learn. I could shoot the arrows as swiftly, and sometimes faster than him, by using my Shadow Arts but my accuracy was terrible. If I slowed down, my accuracy was perfect, but there was enough time between shots for the enemy to counter-attack.
“Don't worry,” Aden would console me. “You're doing exceptional for the short time you've been training. Keep training and you'll eventually surpass me. Your speed is incredible. Accuracy at that speed will come with patience and practice.”
In addition to learning how to use a bow, Aden also taught me how to use throwing weapons. He trained me on throwing knives, hatchets, shuriken, kunai, and throwing needles. Shuriken were difficult to use because of their star shape. It was hard to hold and throw accurately without stabbing my hand in the process. The kunai were easier. They were similar to throwing knives, but with a diamond-shaped blade, smaller handle, and a ring at the end where you could slide your finger in to pull the kunai from its sheath.
I especially liked the throwing needles. They came in different shapes and sizes. I preferred the ones that looked more like large acupuncture needles. They were thin needles that would break easily if not thrown correctly, but the needles were sharper, so they penetrated deeper and didn't cause as much pain, giving a less painful death. They were harder to see when flying through the air too, which made them more suited for ambush attacks. Still, the thinner needles were practically useless against a warrior clad in armor, even if it was only leather armor. They were more for taking down animals such as the large wolves and boars in Tetherwood.
The elves were vegetarian and didn't kill needlessly. They killed outsiders to protect their city and they killed the occasional wolf or boar in the forest in self-defense if that animal attacked them, but they never harmed an animal unless provoked, and they had a ritual which was like a small funeral service anytime they had to kill an animal or even an outsider. They taught me this ritual which reminded me of last rites and it became my standard for any time I had to kill.
The elves were so kind to me that I really felt like I'd found a home in this world. With my dwarven instructors, when I finished training with one, it was like I'd given them the gift of never having to bother them again. With the elves, each instructor seemed genuinely disheartened that they wouldn't be training me any longer when I'd finished training under them.
The elves didn't just teach me. They also gave me the tools I would need to continue my training on my own.
When I finished my language training, Zaleth, my instructor, gave me an Elven dictionary and a lavishly decorated, thousand-page journal for me to keep a record of my travels. He also gave me a quill with an infinite ink bottle, which worked on the same principle as my enchanted canteen. That very night, I began writing in my journal. I chronicled all the important events that had happened to me in Evanasia, writing in the rune script of the elves so that no one would be able to read my journal. I made sure to keep the journal with me at all times in my enchanted purse, so that I could take it out and write anytime I felt like it.
Aden gave me gifts at different stages of my training. He led me into Tetherwood when I completed my archery training, Bartholomew keeping close by to protect me, to gather wood from one of the living trees. It wasn't until Bartholomew dug his claws into me again that I realized where we were. We had returned to the forest nymphs' nest.
Aden walked up to the nearest forest nymph and greeted it. She returned his greeting with a kind smile and nod of her head. There was no trace of lust in her eyes and she didn't try to make any passes at him. The elves in this forest were never harmed by the forest nymphs. They protected the forest and in return the nymphs left them in peace.
Then Aden asked, “May I have one of your branches to make a new bow?”
The nymphs weren't capable of talking. The only sounds I'd ever heard them make were a whistle and a roar. The nymph looked around, fixing her eyes on me and Bartholomew for a brief moment, and then looked up at the sky. She whistled, not a catcall like I'd heard last time, but something that sounded more like bird song.
The tree she was leaning against shifted as if it were alive. There was a snapping sound and a branch six feet long and six inches in diameter fell at Aden's feet. Now I understood. The forest nymphs were the trees in this area. That was what Aden had meant when he told me we needed wood from a living tree. I looked down at the nymph's feet and saw som
ething I'd overlooked the last time I was here. Small roots traveled from her feet like wires, connecting to the large root protruding from the ground next to her.
Aden thanked the nymph and we turned to leave.
“That's how it should be,” Bartholomew announced. “The forest nymphs never should have attacked you last time we passed by because you were with us. I guess they thought you were a prisoner last time. Now they know you aren't to be harmed so you should have no further problems with them, even if you encounter them alone.”
Two days after we'd returned, Aden presented me a magnificent wooden bow. The bow was thick and strong, almost as wide as the tree branch he'd gotten from the nymph. It was about four feet high when strung and about six feet when unstrung. There were intricate carvings in the wood, depicting the different animals of Tetherwood Forest. Unlike the limbs, which just had engravings of animals on them, the handle of the bow was carved into the likeness of a forest nymph. All of the bows the elves made had a forest nymph on the handle to remind the elves that the wood was from a living tree and the bow should be treated as if it were alive.
The forest nymph had her arms stretched high, which connected to the upper limb, and her long legs connecting to the lower limb. The nymph's waist was where the bow was gripped, and the nymph's breasts were where the arrow rested.
The bow also housed multiple enchantments. There was a protection enchantment so that the wood would never rot or break, the same anti-theft enchantment that was on my purse, and an enchantment to make the bow light. Since it was carved out of one single piece of wood, it would have been incredibly heavy normally. The bow string was made of silk and was enchanted to never fray. There was also an enchantment on the bow to increase the pressure when an arrow was released. This enchantment was the reason an elven bow could fire up to three hundred yards without having to tilt the bow upward. If you tilted the bow slightly you could get an additional two hundred yards distance from the bow. More drastic tilts would allow the bow to fire up to a mile, but the more you tilted the bow the worse the accuracy became.
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