The thugs charged, their forms graceful and their speed fast. Even she, a Sorcerer, could barely follow them. She looked at the reaction of the being. Due to elven battle doctrine, she expected them to be in movement. Constant movement, nonstop motion, was the key to not getting hit.

But the being just... stood there. Was it dumb? Maybe it was a construct, that would explain the size and the armor. Just it's axe was way too heavy for her, so she could not imagine the weight of even just one of its armor pieces.

The thugs reached him a second later. She almost felt sorry for the construct, knowing it wasn't it's fault that it's creator hadn't given it enough intelligence to move in combat. Honestly, five Elven Rangers might have been overkill, as it would take her several hours to even deal with one. Their combat prowess and magical defence was insane.

These thoughts spun in her head, which is probably why she missed what happened.

There was no way to describe it. One second, the five Rangers were all striking at the construct, and the next, there was ten on the ground. The construct was in a slightly different stance, with the axe at the end of what looked like an arc.

She blinked. When had it moved?

Seriously, in order to have cut all those Rangers in half, it must have moved way before they reached it. Except no, she realized, it never moved. She had watched it the entire time. She didn't even remember when it's stance changed!

Wait!, she thought suddenly, it just killed five rangers in under a second?!

Thats impossible! It would have taken her hours of flinging spell after spell, to the point of near total exhaustion to even kill one!

She had little time to reflect on that revelation, however, as the construct moved towards her. There was no elven grace in the movement, nor did it have the rough power in an orc's stride. It lacked the stout walk of the dwarves, instead it's walk spoke of restrained power.

Unbelievable restrained power. She started to sweat. Now that she had a moment to concentrate, she could feel something off about it. It lacked any mana signiture at all, but moved faster than her eyes could see?

The construct reached her, and she felt a tingling sensation on her finger, the one that was poked by the door.

She yelped, and looked down at her finger. To her surprise, the wound was healing. Although, calling the little poke a wound was stretching it a bit. Her energy was even coming back. But how? She looked at the construct to see a thin line of golden light going from one of it's hands into her finger, before it dissipated.

The construct looked at her. She looked at it. It blinked. She blinked.

"... um, thank you for saving me?" She said, unsure as to what it wanted. The construct tilted it's head before reaching a hand out slowly to her forehead. If it killed 5 rangers that easily, she stood no chance, so she accepted her fate and let it do whatever it was doing.

The moment the hand touched her, it was withdrawn. She blinked. A moment of contact and then nothing? What in the name of the Great One did it-

"I believe you will be able to understand me now." the construct said, shouldering it's axe on its, well, shoulder.

"... y-yes, I can understand you." Not that it said anything before. "If I may, what did you do to me?"

The construct blinked. "To you? Nothing. I simply copied your understanding of this language and imported the copy to my mind. Otherwise, we would not be having this discussion."

Her eyes widened. That was a spell that the magic user's of the empire had been trying to invent for centuries, no millenia! And it talks about it so casually?

"Anyway, what were those elves trying to do to you, that you were hurt and exhausted?" the construct asked. She took back everything she said about it lacking intelligence. The creator of it must have given it full blown sentience, something that was not unheard of but extremely rare due to how easily it can backfire.

"They wanted to return me to the lord of this land, Lord Bolderi, whom had me kidnapped on the road and taken to be his... his.... plaything." she said, embarrassed at the fact. The construct's eyes narrowed.

"A lord should do no such thing to a subject. Just because you are 'lower' than him? Pathetic." the construct said, fingering its axe with an uncomfortable amount of glee in it's eyes. "It seems I will have to show him how low he really is".

"I am not a commoner!" she seethed, the mere thought of such was an insult to her heritage. "I am the first daughter of the Lord of the region of Alteyr, and will not be seen as such!"

"A noble doing this to another noble? Even more disgusting. It seems like this Lord Bolderi won't just be getting off with a quick death." the construct said, before nodding it's head, assuring itself of something she presumed.

"You can't just kill a noble, they were put there by the Great One! That would be heresy!" she screeched.

"Bah! Like I care for your religion. Which way to the Lord's castle?" the construct asked. She blinked. It wasn't fazed by crossing the Great One? And not only that, it said 'your religion'. Does that mean they are a heretic?

"West, but I would greatly appreciate it if you took me home first. I don't doubt more will come for me. My home is east of here, about a days travel. If we left right now, we could probably get there a little sooner." she said, shaking her head of the thoughts residing there.

"How far is it? A day's travel by foot might be too much for you. I gave you some energy back, but your still exhausted." Well that was certainly right, she could still feel the fatigue, although lesser than what it was before.

"About 10 Kerips away." At his confused head tilt, she clarified. "20 Glarps... uh 100 Terurs...", she racked her brain for other languages and units of measurements, "umm... uh.. 5 miles?" The construct knew that last one, which was weird, since it was an ancient unit that was not really used by more than a select few anymore.

"5 miles? And it takes you elves a day? That should take me no more than an hour and a half, 3 at the most." the construct said, before bending over and picking her up with one arm and walking down the halllway to the cave entrance.

She squeaked, a fact she will forever deny happened, and scrambled to make sure she could keep her balance in the crook of their arm. "What do you think your doing!" she screeched, the comment about not being Elven going unnoticed.

"What? You would slow me down on foot too much, like this I can go a reasonable pace and arrive in like 2 hours."

She sighed. "Fine, just don't do that again!" The construct chuckled.

In a smaller voice, almost a whisper, she said to herself. "Without my permission".