Eli POV

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My mind flashed back several hours ago as I took off from Rancho's tent. Making my way into one of the bathroom stalls, I sat down and concentrated the external emission of mana in the sides of my arms,the top of my legs, and chest. After a while the mana fog gradually formed a slight distortion in its middle. As I felt some pressure in the air, the fog gradually began to twist and swirl as it condensed into a hair shaped crystal. This whole exercise left me sweaty and tired after what felt like 30 to 45 minutes. I repeated this process until I got 4 strands, luckily there were many stalls and most people weren't too keen to pry into people doing their business in there.

"Thank you sir" I said as I counted the 30 gold coins. Satisfied, I went out the entrance of the tent. The prices of the market being a rough estimate, I imagined I could live well on this for a few years.

"I feel kind of guilty getting this much for just a few hours of work but hey that was what he was willing to pay." I thought as I tied the pouch around my neck.

Having got my money I needed some rest so I headed towards an Inn. It was of the same strong block style and cramped entrance of its peers but considerably larger with four floors. As I came through its door I noticed a sign that read "See manager for Necrosis specials". Taking the opportunity to learn more about this world I walked through a long hallway into a large bar room. I walked up to a large man cleaning a mug with his back turned to me. Upon hearing some one coming the man turned around displaying a white apron over his brown shirt behind the bar of what was the tavern of the first floor and responded to my Necrosis special question as I maintained an abiding interest in the mug.

"Ah, yes while the dead are roaming about town, we have a large store house that can hold 4 months worth of non-perishable goods if we have full house. The cost to stay here during that time is 500 silver" The man said, this sales pitch clearly well practiced.

'500 silver? That's almost enough to just buy a house from what I saw in the cities housing brochures. Although with food.....the dead. Did he say the dead roaming about town? As in zombies in the very city?' I couldn't keep the surprise off his face but I managed to quickly recover.

"For now just some lodging for the week" I replied

I paid out the requested silver and 10 coppers, made from the change of a gold coin which the tavern owner quickly hid from public view. My time in the market gave me the exchange rates for the coins: 100 coppers for a silver, 100 silvers for a gold. I then went up the flight of stairs to the right and made my way to the room marked number 3 on the second floor. I opened it and shut the bolt across the door put in place to keep intruders out when one was in the room. 'I guess metal locks and keys would too much of a luxury, so no keeping any valuables in here' I though as I looked around the room taking in the well made bed and table. My love of wood was still there, but the obsession was somewhat dulled with constant exposure to the famed substance over the past few days. I rubbed the smooth wood floor appreciatively before laying on the bed.

Experimentally I then let out a small amount of mana around my hand. The white fog swirled around my right hand for a while. Strangely, it did not simply emit outward but after a certain distance circled back into the skin. "So that's why I didn't get tired when I was walking outside with no mana control". I said idly to myself, the emotional pain that now marred that memory quickly moved me away from the subject.

'So what now?' I thought, a question mankind had been asking since its very first achievements. My previous life's work was just to get away and transcend the limits of my body. Back in my universe the main goal was to improve this body by cyber enhancement, which in a large spanning galaxy was not as easy as one would think. All the corporations and governments worked together to keep the limits enforced, so if some one tried to kill the tracking equipment in their gear the local authorities would be alerted. If the medical equipment was being tampered with to allow extra biochips it would sync with the ship controls to alert the cops. Try to hack the ship controls and it would message the coffee maker to send a signal out so the cops could come "discuss" your DIY modifications. A nice little web in your very own home.

The answer was to actually live in the most densely populated areas possible. The unrelenting sea of change through broadcasts, hacks, countermeasures, accidents, and sheer unrelenting data flow provided heavy camouflage against what would have been easily distinguished activity out on some asteroid belt.

'Well I am going to have to create a connector, so what would that take to accomplish?' A flood of the science expertise's necessary came to mind: Biology, High level mathematics, Chemistry, Computer science, Neurology, General medicine if I wanted to survive the procedure. Ugh,.. the approaching migraine was called off. Never mind the knowledge, the industries required alone was a unthinkable undertaking.

'Maybe this magic system they have could provide some short cuts.' I thought quietly to myself.

'Alright, Come morning I will contact one of the blacksmiths and see if I can't make something worth trading after I visit the library.' The solution coming to me after a few minutes.

'Wow Eli, your a real piece of shit. Some one in this world gave their life just to get you to safety and all you want to do is get on with it like nothing happened?' said the nasty voice in the back of my mind.

'All right, they don't seem to have pumps here, maybe that could be one the first charity projects I work on' I thought, showing complete capitulation to the voice. That was all the planning I could get in before sleep took me, the strain of long days of travel as well as the other work I put in today was no longer willing to show patience in its demands.

I woke up the next morning and asked one of the cleaners pushing a mop around for the nearest washroom. It was a simple wooden room that had the benches and style of a locker room. The big bowl of warm water and a towel was all that was provided. After getting as refreshed as I could, I headed down to the tavern. The breakfast consisted of a creamy vegetable soup with some hard brown bread. The simple meal being washed down with a glass of milk.

The first chore today was to head out to one of the blacksmiths I saw off to the left side of the town. The open workshop contained a simple enclosed brick forge, circular grinding stone and a grey anvil, all of which had a shabby roof hanging over them. This roof leaned on a house of the same large block style of the other buildings. On the anvil was a red hot piece of iron being slowly worked into a sword by a burly man with a brown leather apron. He stopped when he noticed me in the corner of his eye.

"What'll it be lad?" he asked, putting down his hammer.

"If I wanted to use your forge for a while what would that cost?" I responded carefully keeping my eyes on the red hot iron ingot.

The blacksmiths was left silent as he thought about it for a few minutes.

"I can lend you some iron ingots and tools to use the forge, but I am going to need 100 silver for collateral as well as a silver and 40 copper for each bar used and if the tax man comes by we are cousins and you dropped by to try out the family business. The earliest I could let you is tomorrow though." he said. I figured that amount would more than cover any potential loss of tools or damages inflicted by me if my faint grasp of the prices of goods here was anything to go by.

"All right, I will see you tomorrow morning then?" I quickly responded, thankful that I got this chance at all.

The black smith was gave a grunt of surprise, I guess my estimation of his price gouging was spot on. But for me time was of the essence here for.

The blacksmith grunted a goodbye and I took his leave. I then went to visit the library, After paying out the required sum I perused the local books. They mostly contained books on history, philosophy, some had more knowledge on magic but the basic ones I needed were under repair and the librarian said they would be done in a few days.

I figured that trying to rush ahead would not be a good idea considering the power of the forces involved. While I was continually looking through the shelves I came upon an old book. It was behind a few books in a corner of the bookshelf, and had the dust and wear of a forgotten volume. Its title was "The Places of Palantia" and had some descriptions of various cities, rivers and towns. It held a crude map and oddly enough showed that the elves were what laid beyond the hills of Dwarves Rumble.

'Odd, then why did Lilly take me there if it was closer to the elves than the humans?' I asked myself

I was thinking it over when anther question presented itself.

'Come to think of it, why are they in an old book if it was made just a few years ago?'

"Excuse me, may I ask when the Dwarves Rumble was made?" I asked the man in a brown friar robe that acted as the librarian. His feet told of old age through his sandals.

"Careful lad, the government stiffs don't much like that name. Pig headed fools think that if they just change the name everyone will forget, the 'proper' name is now just the hills. Now if my memory serves me well I think it was made near 100, 120 years ago." The librarian replied matter-of-factly.

" Thank you" I quickly bowed and left. 'A few years back my ass. Even as ancient as I am I would know that most people don't consider that a few years.Although, maybe a tree spirit would consider 100 years to be a slightly faded memory if she had sufficient memory capabilities'. There was something else bothering me but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.

I went back and looked over the map and saw that to the south of ...Dunwhich, which is what the map called this town, was some fortress called the Bulwark. A massive swamp covering almost the entire southern portion of the continent was to the right of Bulwark. To the swamps north was what was called Dwarf Beards Drip. So, the wide mountain range to the north of that was the home of the dwarves. To the west of what I assumed was my current position, was a large forest called Elves Clay. Further west was a city called Oceans Breach on a bulge of land sticking out towards the ocean. South to Oceans Breach was the Capital. In the Dwarf Beards Drip was outline a small road in between the mountains which ended in what was called the Stop Gap. Beyond that were blank plains called the Phoenix Empire and the Fire Tribes to the north of that, brushing up against the territory of the elves.

I then looked around the library for some time before I left. The day then went by

quickly as I hung about the market sampling and looking over various goods. At one of the stalls I purchased a new clothing set made up off a new pair of wool socks, cotton underwear, a proper pair of custom shoes, a black shirt and brown pants to go with it, both having the ties of older shirt design.

Some time in the afternoon I ended up around the tavern holding my bag of clothing when I noticed a small procession of friars from the church walking down the street. I followed behind, trying to make sure that I remained unseen. They eventually stopped by the stone entrance to the church. On the steps, stood Bartholomew by his side was a small girl with long brown hair in a ragged brown cloth dress.

"Brothers and sisters, today we perform one of our most sacred rights. The burning of the witch is one of the founding tenants passed down to us from Saint Adia. And on this day we will perform this ritual devised by her very hands. By the fruits of our hands will our homes be cleansed of the taint of demon hood." He said

' Shit, for all of the technological advances, they're still in the burning heretics stage.'

The irony was not lost on me looking down on them for this considering my journey,but.. my people had good reasons I reluctantly admitted to myself. Not good enough to change my mind, but still good reasons. These people clearly did not have those reasons.

'What can I do? ....I don't know glow mana at them? Shit' .A bonfire of wood on a stone plaza to the right of the church was set ablaze and the child was brought up to it. The feeling of a stone block dropping into my throat went down into my stomach. Quickly thinking over all of my options I realized that there was nothing I could do.

Even if I could get close to them in time, what then? I had no weapons and the knowledge to use spells wasn't something I had managed to acquire at the library. The fact that I gave these people money left a feeling of vomit rising to my mouth. My mind blanked out at the realization of uselessness and I simply turned around and started walking the destination unknown. When the glow of a great blaze shimmered across the dark wood of a house I was looking at a scream penetrated the air, I stared numbly at the wall for a long second. Then I headed back towards the tavern, opening the door with my clammy hands.

Once inside I bought a steak dinner and several tankards of beer, but try as I might the brown liquid wouldn't take the day down with it. So I stumbled up to the room and latched the door behind me. I laid in bed for a torturous moment before sleep mercifully took me.