Chapter 8

There was a golden palace with pure white flags sailing from the dozens of towers that pierced the sky like the claws of some ancient beast. It stood on a rise in the land, surrounded by miles of beautiful townhouses, opulent manors, and busy trade districts. But underneath all of that blinding shine, the dark underbelly of the city is all the more noticeable.

In one such area, in a narrow, neglected alleyway, a gathering was held. Several men whose identities were masked by the hoods draped over them spoke in quiet, but urgent voices.

One of the hooded men raised his voice a bit, “Someone needs to tell him to stop this bullshit. He’s going to ruin the entire plan.”

Another of the men, who stood nearly a foot above the rest, responded with a scoff, “And who will that be, hmm? It is just like you to complain without ever trying to do something about it.” The tall man brought his arms up in a wide gesture, “Besides, at least the fucker is doing something, I have no problems with his actions in the first place. Why am I even here?”

The question was directed to a man who was sitting against one of the stone buildings. He sighed and stood up, “I’ll get straight to the point, the Hero passed away last night.”

Everyone present began expressing their surprise. One of the men spoke up and asked the question that was on all of their minds, “What does this mean for us?”

The news bearer shook his head, “It doesn’t mean anything, our goals are not going to change. Even if those damn gods choose a new hero, it won’t end like last time. I only called everyone here so that you are all informed. However, speed up your work, we need to finish preparations sooner rather than later.”

The shrouded figures took that as their cue to disperse until only the informant remained. He looked up at the bright moon, and his hood fell back. The moonlight illuminated his face, reflecting off of his pale white skin, and his ears that poked ever so gently through his golden blonde hair. “I need to hurry…” He pulled his hood back up and set off down the dimly lit road.

~~~~

Light peeked through the shuttered window above my bed. I slowly sat up, trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes and wincing when the pounding of my hangover caught up to me. I had that strange dream again. I guess it was more than likely that there are still other elves out there somewhere. I’ve recently been getting super vivid dreams of a huge city with a massive gold building in the middle, but I always forget about the details shortly after I wake up. Even now, the faces of the people and the conversation I watched was fading, and try as I might, I couldn’t recall it.

I knew I shouldn’t have drunk with Isayah. He was someone who always got overly competitive when it came to drinking. Though I spotted a cup of tea good for headaches that was still steaming on my nightstand. Isayah must have brought it.

The bitter taste cleared my head a bit and helped me to wake up. I stumbled up to the washing basin and splashed some of the refreshingly cold water over my head, trying to wave away the last of my drowsiness. I really didn’t deal with alcohol well.

The main reason I accepted his offer was that it was for my birthday celebration. I turned 18 years old yesterday. Come to think of it, it’s been 5 years since that day. Back when we almost got found out by the humans that had come to the mountain we had lived on, I ended up fighting with Isayah. I may have won that day, but I still feel bad about it. I remember dragging Isayah back to our cabin after he fell unconscious.

I shivered, I still remember the look he gave me when he woke up the next morning. I thought for sure he was gonna kill me back then. But, what happened that day is the reason I can drink with Isayah without it being so awkward.

Isayah didn’t hit me, he didn’t lash out and scream at me, he only hugged me, and said that he was sorry that I had to fight him like that. It was the first time he had ever shown such compassion towards me. I remember we didn’t leave the house at all that day, we just stayed near the fireplace and talked.

He told me about his life from before. About how it was to live in an elf village. He told me about my parents, and about his friends, and the woman he loved. He talked about anything and everything that came to his mind. There were times when he would fall quiet, and I’d just stoke the fire, and wait for him to continue.

From that day on, I feel like we had grown closer, he talked to me a lot more, and he even made me my own sword. We became closer to real brothers than before. Of course, I was forced to chop wood not only till fall but through the winter too.

My arms ached at the memory. I finished washing up and made my way downstairs. In the end, we did end up moving about a month away from our old house and fixing up an abandoned hunter’s lodge we had found. There was a lot more space and even a clearing nearby with a decent-sized pond.

I stepped into the main room that had kind of a tavern-like feel to it. I caught a glint of metal in the corner of my eye and was barely able to duck before a dagger pegged the wood behind me. The surprise made me squeal a tiny bit.

“What the fuck Isayah!” I yanked it out of the wood and glared at Isayah who was sitting at the table eating breakfast.

He only chuckled to himself, “Don’t be such a little girl.”

“I’m the one who has to fix the fucking hole in the wall now.” I lightly tossed the knife back to him and he caught it with one hand, sheathing it in his belt, all in one fluid movement. I plopped down on the other side of the table and helped myself to a large portion of ham and potatoes.

It has been quite a long time since I’ve eaten eggs because we had to leave the chickens behind when we moved. But on the bright side, the area we live in now has quite a few wild hogs, so thinly sliced bacon has become my new favorite. The crispiness is quite addictive, though Isayah says I’m just burning the meat.

“Elias, we have things to do today, so eat quickly.” Isayah scarfed down the last of his share and tossed his dishes into the washing bin, which was also one of my responsibilities this week. I followed suit and hurried up to my room to get my gear.

It was about a week until the summer solstice, and the monsters in the area would be getting more and more aggressive. We probably should have dealt with them earlier in the summer, but we both had been procrastinating on it.

I met up with Isayah outside and we headed off toward the foothills of the nearby mountain range. We didn’t end up settling down in the mountain this time around, we lived in a large forest bordering the Sethro Mountains to the south and the Northern Wastes. Humans and the like didn’t live around here nowadays because of some great calamity that turned the northern section of the continent into a field of miasma.

From what I know about miasma, it is supposedly dangerous enough to outright kill people who don’t have a lot of mana. And what's worse, it’s said that creatures that die in the wastes are brought back to life and attack any living thing in sight.

Isayah and I reached our destination, it was a troll’s nest. We had been avoiding this fight for a couple of weeks now because of how dangerous it was. Trolls are able to regenerate their flesh as long as they are alive, which makes it basically impossible to kill without magic.

But low and behold, due to their naturally high resistance, magic barely works on them. But my specialty, poison, tended to work rather well.

My equipment included a longbow, my isayah blade, a dozen poisoned arrows I had prepared the day before, and a few miscellaneous healing potions, paralytics, and even my emergency smoke bomb. Isayah had more or less similar things with him.

Isayah stood right behind me, “There should be two of them in there, so keep your guard up at all times, you hear me.” I nodded, swallowing hard. This wasn’t my first hunt, but it was my first troll, so I was kind of nervous.

“Alright,” said Isayah quietly, “Let’s go.”