I shot up in bed. Who? What? Why?

My first move was to look at Rose's bed. There she was, safe and sound, her chest rising and falling steadily as she breathed in her sleep. She was the only person that had ever caused that message before, and her safety just made this more confusing.

Hilda? I wondered to myself. I kind of doubted it, but for safety's sake I jumped off the front end of my bed to check her room, and... stepped on something soft? I glanced down and saw Hilda there, curled up like a cat at the foot of my bed. What the fuck? I tried moving so I wasn't stepping on her, but she just curled around my leg and purred in her sleep. She was too heavy to easily lift, and I definitely wasn't about to try shaking her off.

I sat back down on my bed, surrendering my leg to Hilda's sleeptime embrace. Who had just died? Well, there were two likely options. The first and less likely of the two was that a member of dwarf, beastkin, or demon royalty had just died miles away and I was fucked. The second and more likely was that the elf princess had just been assassinated, probably due to my revival.

It was something of a leap of faith, but it seemed reasonably safe to me. The list of facts was like so: I needed to gather five royals as part of the prophecy; Rose was one such royalty; when she died that message popped up; and when others died it didn't. It wasn't too hard to connect royalty to the message, and from there the question was, how likely would it be for prophesied royalty to randomly die miles away the day I entered the elf capital? Answer, not very likely, by my measure anyway.

The question was what to do next. I had less than an hour, presumably, before Wannabe Sauron lopped my head off with a very painful mace. I could quickload now, or try to gather a modicum of information.

I mulled that second option over for a second. If I ran, I could probably have reached the palace in half an hour or so at best, and from there I had twenty-ish minutes (or less, the longer I thought this over) to gather slivers of information. Call me lazy, but I didn't really feel like it. Especially if Wannabe Sauron popped up earlier and took me out on the way there. Simple was best here.

I glanced at Rose. A bit had happened between us in this loop, and I felt sad to lose it. During the border skirmish, I hadn't really cared whenever I looped, but now it cut a bit deep. I lost nothing each loop back then, just getting stronger and stronger while spending half an hour fighting or whatever, but now I was losing time with people that I... that I... fuck it, losing time with people that I cared about, at least a little. It wasn't a good feeling.

Too bad I didn't have any other options.

"Quickload," I muttered.

"It is good to see you here, honorable paladin," Leh'hah said upon reaching us. It wasn't quite as memorable as an orc swinging an axe down at me, but it was certainly a moment from which things could dramatically branch. The question of what prompted autosaves was a mystery, but here I could feel purpose behind it. This moment was important.

"...—of course. Unfortunately," the elf looked up a bit at the sky, "you have arrived just at luncheon. The Council of Three will soon be occupied with their meal. If you would like, you can settle into one of our fine inns and spend the afternoon touring the city. An audience can be arranged tomorrow; most of the formalities were taken care of upon receiving your letter."

"That is," Rose began, preparing to say "acceptable," but I stepped forward and cut her off.

"No," I said. "We need to see the Council of Three today, as soon as possible. Tomorrow is too late."

Rose shot me a look. It wasn't angry, but her eyes were narrowed in thought, and it was clear she was prepared to challenge me if I didn't have a good reason for this. Understandable, since we had been planning for this moment for like a week and I had said jack shit about any emergency needing to be immediately attended to.

"And you are...?" Leh'hah asked, looking me over.

"The Heir of the World," I said. Might as well throw a fastball. I needed to say something to get into the royal palace that housed the Council of Three and the princess, and if he rejected an urgent meeting then the only way in would be guns blazing. Or swords swinging, rather. I needed to be convincing, and this felt like my best option.

"I see," he said, impassive. I had expected a sneer or at least some eyes widened with surprise, but his face remained blank. Either he knew who I was ahead of time, or he was just exceptionally well-trained. Honestly, it could be either. He was a servant of the Council, after all. "If you insist, then, the Council can perhaps squeeze you in following lunch before their regular scheduled audiences. Be warned that they will be none too pleased about this, however."

I shrugged, and off we went to the palace after stopping by the inn exclusively to drop off our stuff. That was easy. Maybe he had been told to take us directly if I outed myself as Heir.

Rose jabbed me in the side. "Explain yourself," she said. Obviously, the unstated half of that was "in a way you don't mind Leh'hah hearing."

"I saw a vision of a future which warned of tragedy if we spent the afternoon sightseeing" I said, doing my best to word it in a way that was technically true. Rose blinked, gave me a thoughtful look, then fell silent.

The road to the palace was somewhat uneventful, and fairly long. Running here last night... uh... last loop definitely would have been unpleasant. We made it, though, climbing a tall tree on the other side of the circular river and then crossing a skybridge to the palace (which was built atop the Eternal Tree). The palace itself was largely remarkable only in where it was located; the building itself was made of an ivory-like substance which left it gleaming white amid the green. For a second I was surprised they hadn't just built it into the sacred tree, but then I realized why they might have been discouraged from hollowing out the primary object of their worship.

Leh'hah guided us to a waiting room outside of the main audience hall, then left, saying he would alert the Council.

"I-I'm kinda embarrassed," Hilda said, wilting. To say her black robes stood out among the white ivory of the building was an understatement. Even a proud Cursed magician who had honed their dark fashion would be a bit embarrassed standing in such a pristine building.

"You look fine," I said.

"R-Really?!"

"Yeah. It's all in the contrast. Palaces like this are pure white to contrast with the supposed filth of the world, and you wear black to contrast with the smug fucks who have arbitrarily defined white as symbolic for purity. You're in your element here, proving their arbitrary standards as wrong."

"I just think black is neat."

"Same."

Rose smirked. "Your silver tongue never ceases to astound."

I waved a hand. "We have to kill time somehow."

"Perhaps we could discuss strategy?"

"Sure, but this is exactly the situation I described on the way in. I strut in, grab the princess if necessary, we leave, and then wait in a pub for it all to blow over."

"I recommend attempting a bit more diplomacy."

"It may or may not be too late for diplomacy, but I will keep that in mind and think on my feet."

"What in the world did you see in that vision?"

I rose an eyebrow. "What, you actually believe that?"

"Of course. You didn't lie, did you?"

"No, but I didn't really expect you to believe me." Love point gained, Malcador, plus one. "I'll refrain from explaining, in case the hills have ears, but I'll be more or less saying exactly what happened one the Council sees us."

"Hmm."

It didn't take too long for the Council to see us; from my understanding they had started lunch a bit before we got here, so we just had to wait for that to end. We were escorted to the council chamber and there they were.

The audience hall was a long rectangle with massive pillars on either side, leading up to a raised platform carrying three chairs up front, then a higher-up chair behind the middle one. On the three chairs sat the councilmen: a high elf on the left, a tree elf on the middle, and a dark elf on the right. The high elf wore a long green robe with impossibly complex silver embroidery; elves supposedly lived forever if not killed through external means, but even then he was visibly aged, looking something like a kindly grandfather. The tree elf in the middle wore a bark tunic, but his showed no flashes of green, and was smooth enough I wouldn't have recognized the material as bark if not for my prior experience. The dark elf wore an ornate suit of pitch-black armor that looked more like a general's outfit than anything.

And behind them all sat the elven princess.

She looked young despite having reached her coming of age ceremony. She had the long, blonde hair of most high elves, though hers was straight and neat in comparison to Rose's rippling, auburn-blonde hair. Her light green blouse and skirt seemed almost translucent, and hugged her well enough to show how slender her figure was; the mounds indicating her chest were just barely visible, and you had to look to notice her girly hips. The hem of her skirt showed some bare white skin, and then there were the green tops of her forest boots which covered most of her legs.

Most noticeable of all, though, was the perpetual scowl she wore on her face. She looked down at us with narrowed eyes that were slightly less intimidating due to the slight puffiness of her cheeks. She definitely looked like someone who had just graduated high school, but felt like they were top of the world.

"You are in the presence of Princess Soh'fia and the Council of Three," announced the elf who let us in. We knelt before them out of respect.

"You may lift your heads," came an airy voice from the left. We did so. "You claim to be the Heir of the World," continued who I now saw to be the high elf. "We ask, first, for some demonstration of your abilities. We have reason to believe the truth of your claim, but such a demonstration would make this much easier." He was taking this fairly well, all things considered. He didn't yell at us for being rude, or demand any unreasonable greetings.

"Certainly, your grace." I raised a demonstrative hand in the air and chanted the spell for Fireball, then Darkness Ball, and then, finally, formed a visible Magic Barrier above them both. A murmur ran through the officials present, and the tree elf councilman leaned over to murmur something to the dark elf councilman.

"Your demonstration is satisfactory," said the dark elf councilman. As expected of the leader of the race most familiar with the other four Arcanas. "State what compelled you to accelerate this meeting."

General-like indeed. "Your graces, I bring terrible news," I began. I had thought about how to frame this ahead of time, and concluded it didn't really matter outside of eyeing their reaction to see if I could glean if any of the three were behind the plot. My current bet was on the dark elf or tree elf, but that was literally just because they seemed the most likely to want a high elf princess dead. You see, the vast majority of elvish queens were tree elves due to their spiritual connection to the Eternal Tree, and [politics redacted]. "I have reason to believe that there will be an attempt on Princess Soh'fia's life tonight."

The attending officials let out shocked gasps, and the three councilmen all widened their eyes in surprise simultaneously. A chattering filled the hall, with even Rose shooting me a look, but what caught my attention the most was Soh'fia's reaction. She balked, at first, then gave an open-mouthed frown so harsh that if looks could kill, I would have been stabbed to death in an instant.

The dark elf waved a gauntleted hand, silencing the officials. The tree elf continued for him.

"And your proof of this is...?" he asked.

"I have no proof, but hope that my status as Heir will allow me the trust necessary to be afforded the opportunity to guard her until the night is over."

"Following which, you will ask to leave the city with her, no?" asked the high elf. They knew the prophecy: gather the five royals, take them to the top of Dragonmount.

"That is correct, your grace."

The councilmen spoke briefly among themselves. They had expected my arrival since the letter arrived days ago, and likely had already discussed all the basic course of actions to follow me asking to leave with the princess.

"We are not unreasonable," the high elf eventually said, speaking for the group. "As the Goddess's chosen people, we hold the Heir in the highest honor, and although we have long thought they would arise from one of our own, we would sooner perish than aid the darkness and stand before the Heir in their time of need. We will allow you to guard Princess Soh'fia, but ask that you stay in Koh'rin until her coronation, so that she might convene with the Goddess and speak of this matter with her."

"By your will," I said, bowing my head again.

From there we were escorted out, and I did my best to ignore Soh'fia's intensified scowl.

We were taken back to the waiting room until the day's audiences were complete and Soh'fia would be retiring to her room.

"That might have been something I would have liked to know ahead of time," Rose said.

"Same here, but such is fate. I only learned it the second we stepped through the gate to the city," I replied.

Rose gave a curt nod and left it at that. Which... was kind of weird.

"You seriously believe me? Like, just like that?"

She rose an eyebrow. "Again, do you want me to not believe you?"

"I mean, I do want you to believe me, but also, I thought you would at least want me to like, list off of a series of predictions for you to check so you could confirm it was legitimate, or something."

"I trust that you would not lie about something this serious, and that if you knew any other critical fact about the future, you would tell me."

I looked at Hilda. "And you?"

"I would never doubt you. I would kill myself first," Hilda said flatly.

"H-Haha...?"

"A world where I doubt you is a world I don't want to live in. It'd be too sad."

Sometimes, I almost forgot how much her brain had been broken. Was this the true power of love...?

"Okay, so I have Rose's calculated faith and Hilda's blind faith. Thanks. It... It means a lot," I said, and I actually found myself stumbling slightly. It wasn't like me to get emotional, but I actually felt something here, like... like some warmth pushing against the steel prison of my heart, desperate to escape. It was... It felt weird. For them to just trust me like that. It hit me that they really... they really were my companions. And I was their companion too. We were in this together. They mattered to me, and I mattered to them. We... We were companions, and we trusted each other.

Trust. The word felt weird to me. The only time I ever said "trust" was in the platitude "trust, but verify," which essentially meant "don't trust anybody but yourself" when you actually got down to it. The tricky phrasing just made it sound better, by pretending "verifying" everything someone said didn't inherently involve not trusting them on some level. You didn't verify with actual trust, the meaningful kind of trust. You just believed.

Meanwhile, Rose just nodded briskly, and Hilda hugged me from the side. My emotional speech about trust was slightly disturbed by the feeling of her boobs pressing against me immediately taking up 50% of my attention. Thinking about it, she had gotten a lot more bold over the past week. She used to stammer and not even look anyone in the eyes. Now she barely stammered, and she didn't break eye contact whenever I caught her staring (which may or may not have been a good thing, all things considered; It was kind of intimidating when she did that). This was what I called character development... if you could call getting increasingly consumed in an unhealthy obsession character development.

In any case, we passed the hours chatting aimlessly. I, somewhat fruitlessly, levitated various objects to grind up Mysticism a bit. Rose suggested we box to give me some more experience with unarmed fighting and dodging, but I declined, knowing she was just joking anyway. Probably. Hilda offered to be a test dummy for me levitating clothes off someone while they were wearing them, which I also declined, knowing she wasn't joking. Though levitating random objects really wasn't getting me much EXP; maybe I would have to do something like that to level it up outside of combat. Just, not now.

So it came to pass that when Princess Sof'iah and her entourage came to pick us up that I was fairly sweaty. She stepped through the door and sniffed the air, instantly wrinkling her nose with a grimace.

"Why do you human monkeys all have to smell so bad?" she blanched. "I can barely stand to be near one of you, much less three."

"Er, sorry...?" I said. For her part, she smelled kind of like a mix between flowers and grass.

"Apologies won't make the smell go away. Guards, I will be taking only the so-called Heir with me. Escort the other two out."

Rose and Hilda stood up to protest, but I waved them down. "Let's not cause an incident. I'll be fine."

"If you insist," Rose said, and Hilda gave an exaggerated pout. To be honest, though, I was glad they were going. It was dangerous here, and who knew when the next autosave might happen. I wanted them to be safe, not cut down then dead forever. Or even cut down at all, really; if I could do this alone, I would.

The two of them were escorted out, leaving me alone with Sof'iah. She looked me over, gave a dismissive sniff, and blanched again. I got the feeling she was used to haughtily sniffing in dismissal and was now being betrayed by her own habit.

"Follow me." She twirled around and left the room, her guards scurrying to follow behind her. She seemed to have a surprising amount of autonomy; there was no elderly advisor guiding her by the hand or anything.

I power walked to catch up, and she didn't even turn her head to look at me. Her head was held high, and the perpetual scowl was still on her face. Her pointy ears broke her straight blonde hair into two streams, and I really, really wanted to stroke them to see how she would react. Were these the kind of elves that had erogenous zones in their ears? That was one mystery I was highly motivated to find the answer to.

"So the Heir is a stupid human," she finally said, still not looking at me. I had been warned ahead of time that high elves were racist, but I guess all the high elves I had met up until now were just better at hiding it. Not Soh'fia. She was blasting me in the face with max power racism. Or species-ism I guess.

"Unfortunately so," I said with a shrug. I wasn't too invested in verbally sparring with her, halfway because I didn't want to get stabbed by her guards, halfway because I figured that would just make her mad.

She scowled at me. "I don't believe you, human. You pulled some kind of trick there. I don't know why the councilmen all believed you so easily, but when I'm queen, I'll talk to the tree, prove you're a faker, and then have your head cut off."

"That's pretty violent. Do you want to be a tyrant?"

She faced forward again, chin up. "It would be justice. That's what good queens do. Justice. They punish liars and criminals. A good queen wouldn't even let a human in the city."

"Shall we pass the time by debating the ethics of human genocide?"

"No." We reached a door, which she stopped in front of. "Guards, stay by the door. I am going to have a private conversation with this Heir. If I yell, come in and kill him."

The guards saluted. In a way I was uncertain of why they would let us be alone together at all, but then again, maybe they were baiting me into attacking her so they could kill me. High elves probably had a habit of actively looking for excuses to kill humans. Oh god, why did I walk into the lion's den alone.

Soh'fia and I walked into what I presumed was her room. There was an ornate bed by the leftmost wall, a large window with a brilliantly carved windowsill, a dresser with a mirror, and a wooden table with chairs. There was certainly a lot of wood being used here, and most of the wood was some kind of white wood. Pearlwood, maybe?

The princess sat at the table, so I did too. An attendant poured a glass of tea—for Soh'fia, not me—then left the room. Soh'fia lifted her chin as if to give a dismissive sniff, but stopped herself ahead of time. She was learning.

"So," she began. "You really think someone is going to assassinate me?"

"Yeah, it's pretty much guaranteed. All I know is that it happens tonight."

She scowled. "That's dumb. The greens are mad one of their own wasn't chosen by the Eternal Tree, but they wouldn't kill me over it. That would be heresy to their religion. And the metalbrains are violent brutes, obviously, but if they had a problem with me specifically they would have gone for the kill the second the Tree singled me out. They're dumb like humans, they don't try to make plans, they just attack and say it was a rogue soldier from some other forest."

I shrugged. "Maybe you just trip and fall on your own sword. It might not specifically be an assassination."

"Shut up!" she barked, like a puppy. "I don't even have a sword. What do you think I am, a metalbrain? I use a bow, and if I have to, daggers. But I don't have to. Because I'm not stupid and violent."

"Well, it's true that you don't look violent."

A second passed. Then she slammed her fists on the table and stood up.

"YOU'RE INSULTING ME?! ME?!"

"I take it back, maybe you do have a violent streak."

She seethed, then smoothed her blouse and sat back down, waving a hand. Why the hand?

I turned around just in time to see an elf with a pulled bow before the door shut. Eep.

"I just saved your life, stupid human. You should be groveling in gratitude right now."

"Oh wise and just Soh'fia, your compassion is wasted upon me," I said, dramatically taking her hand and kissing it. Honestly, something about her exaggerated hostility was just pushing me to be a wiseass. Being shot in the head by an arrow would be an unfortunate reason to repeat this loop, but it was worth it.

"Wh-Wh, Y-You..." Soh'fia shook with sheer anger, looking between her hand and me. "Yooooou!" she choked out.

"Was my groveling not satisfactory?"

She was so red in the face with anger I thought she was going to explode. I had no idea how she survived with so much rage bundled up in her, but on second thought, she was probably treated like a princess by most people... since she was a princess. Okay, fair.

Eventually, she calmed herself down, after clenching her fists and unclenching them for several minutes. "You," she said, pointing at me. "You are lucky people think you are the Heir. And that I'm so generous. No human has ever been in this room before, you know. Bah'loh'kah would never have allowed it. But he's letting this happen because you are the heir. You don't even know how lucky you are. Most humans would kill to be in here for even a second."

"When you put it like that, I honestly do feel pretty lucky. You're a funny girl. I like you."

"Bwuh?!" she faltered. "FUNNY?!"

I raised my hands defensively. "Look, if you weren't so fun to tease, I wouldn't be doing this. I literally can't help myself. You make it too easy."

She growled at me, like an actual growl, and plopped back down in her seat, head held high and scowling.

"You're lucky you're so..." she trailed off, looking me over. "You're lucky. Stupid human."

From there, the conversation was pretty light. After some more demonstrations of Heir multimagic, she—looking annoyed—plopped onto her bed and started reading, pretending I didn't exist. She was resting on her stomach, facing away from me, kicking her legs in the air as she read. She probably didn't even realize how defenseless that posture was. She was just used to doing it and didn't really think about the implications of a stupid human being in the room with her, instead of just silent guards and attendants. I was glad she had come of age, because I didn't feel like a creep looking at her legs. She had a slender frame overall, but her legs were still deliciously supple and juicy-looking. She was no stick, that was for sure. Just a bit challenged in the chest department.

I leaned back and scanned the room. The window was the obvious entry point for a would-be assassin. Now that we were mostly done talking, it seemed probably wise to call the guards in, but it wasn't really my place to do that. Or even suggest it. I got the feeling suggesting it would immediately result in Soh'fia making a point to never do it, so I had to wait for her to make the first move. Which she didn't seem to be willing to do. She just kept glancing at me sometimes then immediately looking away with a scowl, like she had been hoping I left while she wasn't looking. Her leg kicking intensified sometimes, flipping her green skirt up a bit each time, slowly revealing more and more of her bubbly butt and the light green panties she was apparently wearing. I felt like if a guard walked in right now, they would shoot an arrow in my head on sight, but again: if I said anything, it was hard to imagine it going well for me.

The sun fell, and she shooed me out the door so she could get ready for bed. I obliged, and waited outside with the guards.

"So," I said to one. He didn't even turn to look at me. "Elves sure like the color green, huh? Like, your clothes. All your clothes are green."

Silence.

Fair.

"H-Human! I'm ready! Guard me, stupid!" came a voice from behind the door.

"You guys, uh... Gonna follow me in?" I asked. Silence. OK.

I went into the room and found Soh'fia wearing a light green babydoll dress, which was standard sleepwear for girls, albeit kind of transluent.

Once I shut the door behind me, she let out a loud "Hmph!" and turned her head high to the side. "Listen here, human. I'm going to sleep. You're going to sit silently. Don't do ANYTHING! Don't even THINK of doing anything, okay?" She jabbed a finger in my face. "ANYTHING!"

"Does that include fighting off assassins, or...?"

"None are coming, stupid! So you're going to be sitting all night. But that's it. Don't do ANYTHING ELSE while I'm asleep!" Another jab. "Got it?!"

"Sure."

"Good!"

She stomped to bed, jumped under the covers, and just like that, I was sitting silently and staring at the window.

By the second hour or so, I was starting to question myself whether anything was going to happen or not. I didn't remember how long I had been staring at the ceiling last loop, but it had been a decent bit. Maybe the time had already passed? Maybe my actions had changed the timeline? Maybe my life was now going to be following this bratty eighteen year old elf around for days until she was coronated as queen and tried to lop my head off?

Those were the thoughts running through my mind when the window shattered. A black-clad figure burst into the room through the broken glass and instantly threw a dagger towards the bed, but I had already started chanting the spell for "reverse" from the second the window cracked. The dagger flew back at the assassin—unfortunately, the assassin had already hit the ground, so I couldn't launch them back. The dagger fled fast and true, though, and the hilt slammed into the assassin's wrist. Score one for me.

Soh'fia let out a shriek, during which time I stepped forward with my sword. The assassin drew their own sword and faced me—their initial plan had likely been to kill Soh'fia and get out, but now they knew I was too big of a threat to just ignore. We both paused at the edge of our sword ranges; whoever took the next step forward would be in range to both attack and be attacked. We circled, with me trying to position the assassin's back to the window to encourage them to leap back out. My goal was Soh'fia's survival, not killing the assassin. Security would be amped up after this if sh—

No time for idle thoughts. The assassin threw a dagger at me, which I sidestepped to avoid. I then stepped forward to slash while their hand was hanging in the empty air, and... stumbled forward. The dagger was piercing my back; it had flown back to me. They're a fucking Mystic! Everything's a boomerang!

This was good and bad news for me. The good news was that I had learned more about my enemy; the bad news was that a probably poisoned dagger was sticking out of my back. Regardless, I carried the momentum from my stumble into a slash. The figure parried, and we were off. The rapid-fire series of blows between us was something I never could have comprehended a week prior; my frequent training sessions with Rose were not only saving my life, but the only reason I even stood a chance at winning at all. The assassin prioritized thrusts, since they were the most deadly of sword attacks, and if not for her prioritizing those in practice I would've had a hole in my throat in seconds.

Eventually, the clash of swords went on long enough for the tide to turn in my favor in a way the assassin never could have predicted.

Skill Up! One-Handed Blades Level 50! Proficient Tier Reached!

Bonus: +15 Base STR

Tier Bonus: One-Handed bonus is now multiplied slightly when wielding a single blade rather than dual-wielding.

Instantly, I felt my skill increase. My connection to the blade was truer and more steadfast than ever. It was me, an extension of my hand, and with each twist of my wrist it danced.

That said, it wasn't a god-like tier bonus or anything. It just made me marginally better, but the assassin and I seemed to have been almost equally skilled before the boost, so it made a difference. I had to admit, it felt pretty nice to pair up with a trained assassin after only a week. I would graciously give Rose some of the credit for that.

I heard the assassin curse. Why they thought the Heir of the World wouldn't be good with a sword was beyond me, but-

"One will have to do," the assassin said, then fled out the window. The voice had sounded like a woman's, but my attention was elsewhere. Soh'fiah.

She was... She was dying. A sharp branch had sprouted from the base of her bed and twisted through the air to pierce her heart. I hurried over and cast Heal but it was too late and not enough. The wound was so severe that it would take master-level restoration to undo the organ damage, if even it could do it, and that was a long ways away. It looked like the wood even had split apart into branches inside of her to stab as much as possible. She gurgled blood, tried mouthing a word, and then was gone.

With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.

The... The black-clad assassin ruse was all just a distraction?!

I slammed a fist against the bed in anger. Despite her bitchiness, I liked Soh'fia. There was something about her that made me want to hug her in a tight, loving embrace until she stopped pounding me with her fists and melted in my arms. Whereupon I would stain her with my foul human stench. This wasn't a permanent death, but it frustrated me that I hadn't managed to save her.

I glanced at the branch piercing her back. She hadn't seen it coming, and neither had I. The assassination attempt had been two pronged; one through the window, then from... fucking somewhere. The only clue I had here was that the assassin I saw had been buying time or something. Hmm. The assassin had said "One will have to do." That meant, unless she was playing mindgames, that I was one of their targets too, but she gave up after realizing she couldn't kill me... in a reasonable time frame, at least.

It hit me, after some thinking, that I would never be able to save her in the situation. The elves were letting me guard her, but I doubted they would let me move her somewhere else, and I couldn't fight off a dark elf assassin plus a... plus a... wait. I looked at the branch again. Tree singing was a tree elf thing. The other Arcanas, such as Mysticism, were a dark elf thing. This was... a joint operation between dark elves and tree elves? That felt like it put the whole puzzle into clearer focus, if so.

What wasn't put into clearer focus, though, was my vision. Everything was getting blurry. The blood loss from the dagger, or maybe poison on the dagger. Who knew.

Time to try again.

"Quickload," I muttered.