Chapter 147: The Elven Children

  “It is beautiful,” Maveith noted. He was staring at the ceiling. The flowing river of lights and silvery fshes might be beautiful if you didn’t know you were in a duhat was trying to kill you.

  “Yes, Maveith, it is.” I couldn’t get angry with the goliath as our teamwork was going to be important iing through this. “What do you know about shape gers? That is what is down this corridor,” I pointed.

  Maveith moved painfully to look down the corridor. It looked to go for maybe a hundred feet before opening into a room. Maveith sidered my question, “Many creatures ge shape. Doppelgangers are the most on in cities. I have never met o least not one I was aware of.”

  “The elves wrote that they were extremely dangerous. you fight?” I asked my friend, and he affeately rubbed the head of his hammer on his belt.

  “ we wait a day? I should regain movement and feeling in my leg by then,” Maveith said, rubbing at his hip.

  I nodded as waiting made se would be suicide to rush through the dungeon. “I will go scout. Have you ever been in a dungeon?” Maveith shook his head no. “Well, my experience is limited, but so far, I learhat if you doer the rooms where the monsters are, they ot attack you.”

  Maveith nodded, “I heard a lot of dungeons have dangerous traps between rooms, and there were also some rooms that were safe to stay in.” Great. That was all we raps. I hoped Maveith had not just jinxed us for mentioning it.

  “I will be careful. Wait here, and I will be ba a few minutes,” I stood, adjusted the small round shield, and drew my bck bde. I proceeded down the corridor to the room, doing my best to remain silent. I ted my steps, one hundred and six, probably the length of a football field. It made me worry just he this dungeon might actually be.

  The light ghter as I approached the room. It was a rge room with a green carpet of moss and bushes dotting the floor. The bushes had blue-green leaves and dark blue berries. Movement caught my eye in the room, and I eechless. A young elf child stood, perhaps only ten years old by human standards. She said something in elvish that I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to catch. Another elf child stood oher side of the chamber, this one a male and looked to be about the same age. Both were dressed in rags.

  I aying attention this time as the boy spoke, “Have you e to save us? Take us out of the dungeon?”

  The elf girl added, “We have been trapped in the dungeon for so very long.” Both children had rge, blue, i-looking eyes, and I immediately felt pity for them.

  I was still developing my elvish, so I took my time in responding. “You e with me. The exit is down this corridor,” I indicated behind me. I already khese were the creatures in the warning written on the wall.

  “Really!?” The female said excitedly. “ you e and help us carry our treasure out? You have some for saving us.” I almost wao ugh at the obvious trap. “What is this treasure?” I asked. They just wanted me to ehe room so they could attack me. I paused, sidering maybe these shape gers had sapience?

  There were two exits from their room. I poi the other corridors, “Where do those lead?”

  The boy poi the ohat one leads to a big, mean red bear.” He poi the other corridor, “That is where we get our treasure. We show you if you want.” I will admit the elven children in their rags looked i and ving. Maybe the elves of Caelora were fooled by the act. I knew no one had ehe dungeon in fifteen hundred years, so still being children was impossible. Also, the warning on the wall helped.

  The childrerying to lure me ihe chamber as I examihe mossy floor. Was there a dahere as well? Were those berries good to eat? I wished the Schor or even Konstantin was here. Did I just wish for Konstantin? Well, his ability to know if something was safe to eat anyway. The elven girl started to approach cautiously, almost like I was the monster. She stopped te from me, well within my range. I remained calm and uening.

  “If you don’t want our treasure, maybe you want something else?” She said provocatively. I aligned a box over her head and attempted to move it into my dimensional space. I let out a small smile as I used my dimensional ste.

  I woke on the ground moments ter with a splitting headache. The two elf children standing at the entrance, evil smirks on their faces. “Look at the poor soldier boy,” the girl said. “Did he hurt himself?”

  “He tried something and failed. He is a failure,” the boy mocked me. I stood slowly, my aether barely recovered from bottoming out. The weird thing was that the shape ger had not resisted my attempt. It was like my ability had rebou the entrao the room. I backed away from the smirking monsters.

  Thinking about what just happened, I was making a wild guess. The monsters could not leave the room. So, if you have a ranged on or spell, you could kill the creatures from the doorway. I o test my theory further. I waited until my aether recovered and removed a bow and a single arrow from my ste. The two children’s eyes went wide, not in surprise but mog merriment. I aimed at the girl and fired. My aim was true, but the arrow lost all momentum at the door and just fell into the room softly.

  The elf girl walked forward, picked up the arrow, and touched the sharp tip. “I don’t think he wants to py with us,” she said, log eyes with me. She blinked, and her blue eyes went pletely yellow before they were back to blue in the blink. I started bag up as the two started ughing in a musical tone. I returo find Maveith sitting against the wall. Several empty bags were nearby him from the elven rations I had given him.

  Maveith handed me a half-full bottle of wine, “What did you find, Eryk?”

  “Two demon tricksters were masquerading as children,” I said, sitting dowo him. “They are blog us from expl further in the byrinth, so we will have to deal with them. But that is a problem for tomorrow.” I fihe half bottle of wine and relieved myself along one of the walls. We set up our bedrolls just to the left of the exit of the dungeon. We were going to have to trust that we were safe iry room.

  I pced the amulet around my ned told Maveith I was going into the dreamscape. He aowledged my words before falling asleep himself. Maveith was too exhausted to even ask to join me.

  Entering the dreamscape, I was iry room as normal. I walked to the scorpion room, where I had stashed everything and everyone. I silehe people ao my bookshelf. I added a dozen of the elven books I had not gotten to yet and then pulled a book oher shaping. During my time in the dungeon, I would foy magic, hoping to find magic essences in here eventually. Learning a dispt spell form was a waste of time, and I didn’t have spell form manuals for my h affinities.

  Oscar sat in my p while I studied, seeing we would not py. I spe hours ihe dreamscape going through the aether shaping and eling exercises that I learned Damian, the healer, back during legion training before exiting. The practiside the dreamscape was always more effective, and I made progress in my trol of the aether, even though I was fairly sure my shaping had already been maxed. My limiting factor was my aether-shaping attribute.

  Maveith was still sleeping wheed, his breathing hoarse but deep. I o get him a healing potion. My aether was over half recovered, and I stood. There was no point hiding things noere going to be depe on each other. I pulled out the elven tablet table. I was ing it when Maveith stirred and woke. He looked fused at the table, “Where did that e from?”

  “I picked it up in the uy. Have you never seen one before? It is a tablet reader,” I said nontly. Maveith’s brow was furrowed, and he erplexed. I could see his mind w on the problem, and he came to the correct clusion. “Your dimensional space is much bigger than everyohinks!”

  “Bingo!”

  “Bingo?” Maveith replied, once again fused and trying to puzzle out the meaning.

  “Don’t worry about it, Maveith. I wao show you this to prove my dimensional space is slightly bigger than you thought,” I indicated the table.

  Maveith ied the table, “I have seen them before, but I have never used one.” His fingers ran across the dispys. This table had everything, all attributes and all the affinities. But from my uanding, it was keyed to the elven race.

  “Maveith, you just o el a tiny bit of aether in here,” I poio the handprint on the right side of the device. “The results will e out in elven numerals, but I will read them to you,” I enced him. I was also curious about what his readings would be. Maveith pced his hand and forced his aether into the deviothing happened. Maybe it had been damaged and didn’t work.

  “I think I o hold the other side of the table as well,” Maveith guessed. There was no handprint oher side of the table, though.

  “Try it and use a little more aether this time,” I enced him.

  Maveith gripped the edge of the table and pced his hand again. A heartbeat ter, the table was illuminated in a soft glow, and numbers filled in after the eleven scripts oable.

  Physical

  Mental

  Magical

  Strength

  77/107

  Intellect

  20/38

  Aether Pool

  9/10

  Power

  60/90

  Reasoning

  34/46

  eling

  19/30

  Quiess

  38/55

  Perception

  29/40

  Aether Shaping

  15/16

  Dexterity

  22/40

  Insight

  15/30

  Aether Tolerance

  22/25

  Endurance

  44/90

  Resilience

  19/34

  Aether Resistance

  9/21

  stitution

  39/101

  Empathy

  48/67

  Prime Aether Affinity

  Earth

  Coordination

  23/33

  Fortitude

  30/50

  Elemental Magics (on)

  Fire

  0

  Air

  3

  Water

  0

  Earth

  14

  Lightning (Energy)

  7

  Spirit (Healing)

  0

  Nature (Pnt)

  2

  Unaffiliated Magics (Unon)

  Charm (Mind)

  0

  Illusion

  0

  Cirvoyance

  0

  Prote (Guardian)

  0

  Neancy

  0

  Celestial

  0

  Abyssal

  0

  Rare Magics

  Space

  0

  Time

  0

  Dispt

  0

  Materialism

  0

  Worlds

  0

  Void

  0

  vergence

  0

  His readings firmed it was keyed to elven physiology. Maveith had two potentials past one hundred, where one hundred should have been the maximum. Well, that was how it worked on a human tablet anyway. I started reading off the numbers for Maveith.

  When I finished, I expio him, “Unless you fortified your stats with essehey may have dropped while we starved iy. It looks like Earth is the only spell form you learn.” Maveith could shape stone, so he had already learned his one spell form.

  “I have never ed an essence,” he replied in his deep voice. “I feel really weak and have lost a lot of weight since we ehe library. we check again when I am healthy and fit?”

  “Sure thing, Maveith. Now, I need you to uand the size of my dimensional space is a secret. you keep that secret for me?” I said seriously.

  It didn’t take long for Maveith to nod, “I uand, Eryk. What about you? Are you going to use the device?” Maveith questioned.

  ? Chted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne

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