[17]

After throwing up all my food during combat training, and nearly passing out from exertion, I was absolutely ravenous. I could not make it to the dining hall fast enough.

But just as I made it to the giant double door entryway, I got a mental tug that I had received a quest. I leaned against the white bricked building doing my best to ignore the smell of delicious food, staring at my new quest and wondering what the abyss it could mean. Vascora had better things to do than coerce me to eat, surely. Which meant that there had to be a hitch somewhere.

Quest

Eat Grub

Should I expect difficulty in trying to get a plate of food? The life of an ascendent was not always one of leisure. Theoretically, I could face enemy students from a rival deity, or maybe even traps. I am not sure what kind of trap would be in a large hall packed with hundreds of students, but it was possible. Reynold could be waiting for me right behind the potato cart with a shiv.

To that end, I cast Detect Poison, adding a mental strain to the physical one I suffered from. I could not help it, the exhaustion elicited a groan out of me. A scholarly studies student that had just exited turned to see who made the noise and blushed when she saw my face. I winked at her, and she hurried away. Real smooth, as always.

My heart pounded, and I crossed into the building. Students talked, laughed, and shouted at one another in a tornado of discordant sounds. To one side of the room, a sea of blue robes sat on wooden benches, eating delights that made my stomach rumble with envy. On the other, red robes similarly ate, though interacted with one another in a more rambunctious manner—slapping backs, and questioning each other's fertility and lineage. Along the wall near the red students were the black-robed tables, most of which were likewise full.

I took a circuitous route around the blue side of the room, making sure that it would be difficult for someone to attack me by surprise. As I made my way, I stopped to check the shadows that preceded each of the open windows of the building. The usual whispers and comments, blushes and laughs permeated around me, but there did not seem to be threats.

Finally, I made it to the food line and warily picked up my tray. Detect Poison identified nothing on my plate, nor silverware, so I moved forward next to a blue-robed boy that wrinkled his nose at me. It became hard to focus on the spell by the time I made it to the mashed potatoes and gravy. A bored dwarven food worker was happy to oblige my ask for double potatoes and pork chops though, saying “Y'all need to get some chew in ya”.

When I left the line, I saw that most of the ascendent tables were still full. Still wary of my quest, I looked for a place where I might dine alone and found a table near the corner of the room. It was next to the exit, making it absolutely perfect. The only problem was that as I got closer, I saw a small black-robed figure sitting there alone.

“Huh,” I said. It was actually perfect! I had not originally wanted to eat alone, and there was a person who needed company. Hopefully, they would not try to kill me.

Near the table, I picked out details about my would-be eating companion whose back was to me. Several blue and yellow flowers grew out of the leaf like hair of a four foot tall green skinned humanoid. It was a wildling female! I knew that for a certainty because it was only the females of their race that grew flowers on their heads.

Supposedly, during the Godswar when the halfling race had been turned into plant monsters, the gods hoped that sealing away Yagryzax would restore them. However, the titan’s magic had been too strong, leaving them half animal, half plant creatures.

I walked around her so that she could see me and gave my friendliest smile.

“Hi! Mind if I sit with you?” I asked.

She studied me with too human looking eyes for such an exotic face.

Only recently in Harcourt had I seen my first wildling. They were a clannish race, going back to their roots as halflings. Most spent their time near or around nature, doing things like farming, husbandry, and living in forests. Between their natural inclinations to avoid city and village life, and their inhuman appearance, Ergentein society did not treat them well. Further, considering their lack of desire to hoard material resources, they ended up having little financial power to change their station. Not that any of them seemed to mind.

“Why?” She asked.

“Why what?” I responded, confused.

“Did you lose a bet or something?” She asked.

“No?” I said.

“You don’t know?”

“I know. No, I did not lose a bet. I don’t know anyone here, and since you were alone, I thought it might be nice to sit with you.”

“Look honey bee,” she said. “We aren’t even the same species, and I think I’d let you try to pollinate my eggs. So, I know that there have to be human women who would be happy to have you sitting next to them, stench and all. There is no need for whatever game you are playing. I’m too exhausted to play along.”

“I’m not trying to mess with you, I swear it.” I said. “I just want to sit down and eat this food, we don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to.”

Without waiting for her to say anything else, I sat down and began digging into my food. The salty gravy from the potatoes hit my tongue and I let out an unintentional moan of pleasure.

I planned on pretending she was not there, but after she lifted one of her slender green arms from her bowl, I caught sight of something moving between her long wood nailed fingers.

Worms.

For all the leafy hair and wooden nails, she was basically just a green skinned, short human. Her eyes were an incredible shade of emerald green that contrasted with her dark green skin and sparkled under the giant flowers in her hair. Her face was quite pretty until she opened her mouth, revealing rooty jagged wooden teeth. Teeth, I should point out, that had no trouble eviscerating big white grubs.

Oh, come on, Vascora!

“Is that why you sit alone?” I said, pointing my fork at her bowl of worms and roots.

“I thought you said you would not talk to me?” She said.

“I wasn’t gonna, but I wanted to find out where you got your, uh, grub. I’d have gotten a big bowl of the suckers for dessert.” I said, smiling.

She snorted.

“Have you been here long?” I asked.

She ignored the question, and stuffed more worms into her mouth, slurping some of them up. It was an obvious attempt to gross me out.

I reached over, catching one that had fallen out of her mouth and onto the table, and stuffed it into my mouth before I could second guess myself. It could have been because I was still starving, but the grub ended up not being too bad. Grub jelly exploded into my mouth, tasting like a cross between turnips and pickled chicken.

I felt a notification for completing the quest.

+50 Essence

The Wildling girl stared at me with wide eyes. “I can’t believe you just did that!”

“I’m not going to have to marry you or something now, am I? I don’t really know anything about your culture.”

She laughed. “My culture? I’m from Ergentein, you idiot.”

“Well, that’s two things I know about you now.” I said. “My name is Harald, by the way.”

She looked at me skeptically for a few more seconds, then sighed again. “Fine, I guess we can be friends. My name is Joy.”

“Great! You will be the first friend I’ve made since I got here.” I said, reaching over to shake her petite hand. Joy accepted it, shaking it in return.

“I hope you know everyone saw you eat that worm. You might not be the hottest guy on campus anymore.” Joy said, grinning.

“Nah, only the people who saw it would believe I did that. Everyone else will just think the people spreading rumors are being jealous of my good looks.” I said with a shrug.

“Hah! Conceited much!?” Joy asked.

“No, no! I’ve just seen enough of side-mouthing horse crap to last a lifetime. People like who they want to like, and hate who they want to hate.”

“Wise words,” Joy said thoughtfully.

“Anyway, are you going to answer my question? How long have you been here?”

“I got here a few days ago. You?”

“Yesterday.”

Joy and I spoke between bites of food, but did not get to speak for long, on account of us having to get to our next classes. I discovered that there was a rotating schedule for the ascendent students. Joy had been in physical training that morning, while I was doing combat training. After lunch, she would go to the combat training and I would do the physical training. We exchanged a few tips about what we had learned. Tomorrow, we would have our scholar classes, then magic class respectively. I learned from Joy that ascendents had classes to improve every single one of their attributes for the time that they spent here.

The two of us made plans to meet up for dinner and swap more notes about what we learned, for which I was thankful. Vascora would not have directed me toward Joy if she would be a problem, and even if she had not, I had a good feeling about the Wildling.