This was a little unfair, Michael felt. After all, this was his first time skipping class. Well, the first time he did it on purpose, that is. And now he got a magical hound hot on his tracks. Named Skipper! Or maybe there were more dogs like this one and they were all names Skipper. He wasn’t sure about that. Not that he could devote too much brain power to that little riddle, since his entire being was concentrating on escaping.

Shit. Oh, shit!

Thankfully, the dog kept barking as it ran, which let Michael know approximately how much of a head start he still had. Not so thankfully, the dog sounded like it was getting closer and closer, which wasn’t surprising, since it looked like a someone took a dog, gave it magical barking and enlarged it to be the size of a small horse.

Which was actually a decent explication on how its breed came to be.

Michael turned a corner, noticed a flight of stairs going down and decided it his best bet would be to slid down the side railway. He jumped on it and started to slide at speed, when his momentum suddenly halted mid-slide.

“Sliding down railways is prohibited.” A voice spoke from the air.

Great, now they care about safety.

He got down and jumped the remaining stairs, landing in a somewhat hurtful crouch. He knew this intersection. If he went left, he’d eventually reach outside. If he went ahead, he’d be reaching a series of laboratories. Going down the other flight of stairs would take him to the lower levels.

Behind him, a loud bark let him know that Skipper just reached the top of the stairs. Michael turned and didn’t see what he expected to see. Because he expected to see a huge dog trying to run down the stair. He didn’t expect to see a huge dog crouch and then do a huge leap.

Forwards it is.

He ran, hoping against hope that by the time the dog landed he’d have a head start. He didn’t , as the loud thud from behind informed him.

If I attack it, it attacks me. That much I got. But what if I trip it?

He chanced a look behind, saw the hound not even twenty feet behind him and shouted.

“|Trip Vine|!”.

A vine sprouted from the ground and wound itself around the running dog’s leg. It got ripped apart after a few seconds of struggling, but it still allowed him to get some distance. Which might have been fine and dandy, if not for the dog seeming to have considered that an attack.

It growled, low and deep and the next series of barks sounded less like normal ones and far more aggressive.

Great, now I made it mad.

Michael kept on running, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t need to sacrifice his Friday on cleaning duty. It was stupid and probably juvenile, but he had a lot of things to do and he really didn’t think the punishment fit the crime.

He ran. His only hope now was to reach the laboratories and hope there was an Ascentionalist there to help him. Maybe a Martial. Either something to hide him or something to serve as a distraction. He got as far as the end of the corridor, seeing the double doors to the room he so desperately wanted to enter, when a second hound turned the corner.

Michael skidded to a stop in front of it, remembering what the student said.

“Right. They can call for help.” He muttered.

He turned and saw that both dogs were now less than ten feet away from him.

“I don’t suppose you’ll let me off if I pat you?”

The twin barks were all he remembered clearly until the end of his current Class.

***

“Dude, that was so funny. You have no idea. You just walked in, smiling and stuff.” Micah laughed.

“You were even smiling when the professor told you that your punishment was cleaning duty this Friday.” Bob observed. “You even thanked him.”

Michael sort of remembered what happened. He remembered the dogs barking and he remembered suddenly feeling very aware that he was skipping class. The shame! He hurried back to the classroom, the two dogs tailing him closely. Before he entered, he thanked them for reminding him of his studies, before patting them and calling them ‘good boys’.

He even remembered their wagging tails.

What was left of the class, he spent in a stupor, smiling like a loon and being the best student ever, until the class ended and his two friends took him aside and inform him of what happened. And make fun of him, of course.

It might be put to a good cause, but that’s a dangerous sort of mind control.

Not like Gnosis probably cared about such things though.

“I needed time to think, guys. I didn’t know about the whole giant, student-chasing, education hounds.”

“I didn’t either.” Micah grinned. “Thank you for informing me!”

“Did you manage to reach a conclusion?” Bob asked.

He had updated his friends on what Melissa had told him, tough they had no idea how to obtain the funds or the secret either.

“No… My best bet so far is to ask Erea for coin. Not that I think she has nearly enough.”

“Probably not. Your elf doesn’t seem like the economical type.” Micah mused, before catching Michael’s raised eyebrow. “What? Takes one to know one.”

“Yet she may know how to make coin in Gnosis.” Bob said. “She is, after all, un upper year student.”

“Yeah. Guess so. I mean, anyone who hangs around Alex long enough probably gets at least a little pragmatic, right?”

Sadly, that wasn’t the case. Michael went hunting for Erea, but since the elf also wanted to work on her armor, she invited him to her room. Which was… yeah. Still, the elf didn’t seem all that weirded out about it, Michael guessed her mind didn’t run down the same paths as hid did. Benefits of not growing up in his world, he guessed.

That being said, once they get there and Michael explained what he had found out and what he needed to help Melissa, Erea just laughed. Not at him trying to help the girl, Erea already knew Michael to be ‘too soft’ about things like that. No, she laughed at his assumption that she had any kind of coin scrounged up.

“When I get coin, I use it.” she laughed. “Use it on armor, on wands, on potions… on anything really. What’s the point in saving?”

“Holding out for a better option?”

“Martials don’t do patience.” She smilingly informed him.

Seeing how Kelunad acts, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

“Now, keep me company while I deal with this.” She said.

And started taking of her chest armor. Which, yes, wasn’t a first. Michael had already seen her in that light blouse she wore underneath, from when they had fought the golem. And courtesy of the dryad, he had technically already seen her naked. But still, he liked to at least think himself of as not a douche, so he turned around, preferring to take that time and observe Erea’s room.

Which was… so very much her.

Spatial wise, it closely resembled his own. It had the same dimensions, at least. But while his room was tidy, her room was full of knick-knacks. It had a kind of woven carpet on the ground, green and a little faded. A second carpet, more closely resembling a tapestry, hung on a wall. This second one depicted a forest, with a full moon being observed from behind a series of trees.

The floor had all kinds of empty potion bottles, full potion bottles and half empty potion bottles on it. Not one shard of glass, though. It did, instead, have a lot of parchments and broken quills. Even a few books. It seemed that Erea found those unimportant.

What was important, she placed on what was probably the most looked after piece of furniture in her room. It looked like a cross between a wall rack and a shop display window. It had two wooden mannequins, on which a series of mismatched pieces or armor were arranged. All of them looking worse than what she currently had on. The tack behind it held different things. Wands, both broken and whole. A staff, though it didn’t look magical. A sword and a mace. Even a double whip, with glowing blue tips.

“Don’t worry, I won’t use that on you. Yet.”

Michael turned around to joke back and stopped. Erea was wearing the Gnosian equivalent of a flowy tank top and shorts. Her clothes were strewn on the floor, not important apparently, while her amor was placed in high esteem on her work table. She already had a series of magical dyes and a repair kit opened. Not that Michael was stammered about that.

“What?” she asked, half losing her smile. “Oh. Wait, this isn’t a prudish short of thing, right? Because I though humans didn’t mind things like that.”

“Uhm, no. Nope, not a problem.”

“Do I… look odd to a human?”

“No! You look like someone took a human and forced fed it beauty potions. …If they exist. Trust me!” Michael tried to clear things up.

“Thank you! Had to ask, since you seemed kind… of shocked. And since you didn’t seem all that handsy before- Not that I mind! Really. Sign of a… a… Ugh, I suck at this. A good character? But, you know, you start to wonder…”

It was nice to know that no matter which world, Michael always managed to find a way to make situations like these at least a little odd. Smooth talker, he was not.

Still, he was honest, so he did that.

“No. Trust me, out of everyone I’ve been with so far, you far exceed my expectations. I was just shocked how little I had to work to get you out of your clothes.” He joked.

“You did see me naked.” She grinned.

“True, but… wait. How-“

“Hah! I knew it. Don’t worry, I peeked too.”

“Yes, well. Seeing the dryad… emulate you, was one thing. I guess seeing the real deal kind of left me speechless.”

“Oh, you haven’t. Not all of it, anyway. But you know, let’s see how the night goes.” She grinned.

Of course she enjoys making me flinch. It basically her whole nature.

“I had no idea elves were like this liberal in private.” Michael joked. “Kind of makes me wonder what Regitris is like too.”

Oddly enough, that made her smile drop completely.

“I’m sorry, was it because I mentioned Regitris? Because I wasn’t comparing you to him, really.”

“No. Yes. I mean… no? It’s not Regitris himself that got me all…”

“Is it about elven private life?” Michael tried. “Is that something… taboo?”

“No. It’s… well, did you ever notice how I’m not like most typical elves?”

Don’t laugh!

“Uhm, well, I don’t know many elves. I only know Regitris, as much as a student can actually know him. And other than that, I haven’t even seen many elves here at Gnosis.”

“Yeah, there aren’t many of us. I guess that’s part of the story.” She sighed.

She got up from her chair and left the armor where it lay. She then proceeded to pace around the room, miraculously not stepping on any bottles. She looked troubled, so much so that Michael didn’t even get distracted by… well, her. He wasn’t kidding when he told her she looked like a human that had been drinking beauty potions since she was born. Erea was ass tall as him, but lithe. Almost impossibly so. Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect movement. Not so perfect temper, but he’d already gotten used to that.

Yet the elf looked troubled, her faced scrounged up in thought. She finally made her ay to her bed and sat down on it, motioning at him to join her. He did, sitting down next to her and when he looked at her, he noticed that her expression now seemed sad, but determined.

“So… and I shouldn’t even start with ‘so’, since that’s not how a proper elf starts her sentences, but that’s the gist of it. I’m not a proper elf. And… I haven’t told anyone this, but I’m going to tell it to you. My story, that is. Just… if you think it’s stupid, please don’t tell me, alright?”

“Of course not.”

“Thanks.” She smiled. “And, I don’t know, hold me?”

It might have sounded odd to hear that from the normally brazen Erea, but Michael didn’t think so. Not when he saw how se was without her guard up.

“Alright, here goes. I guess I’ll start from… the start.”

She took a deep breath and started to speak.

“The first thing you should know is that I’m an orphan.”