She moved through the trees like a shadow.

Mind you: not the dark and evil, unwavering specter of inky skulking that many people might assume a shadow’s passage might be—no, this was more of the silent, unnoticeable movement of a friendly prey animal’s shade on a midday stroll. This was a mission of a different sort than something nefarious or perilous, and there was no immediate danger to her. Currently.

She was scouting.

Her long limbs might’ve seemed ill-suited to this work, but she was dexterous and stepped along the soft, weedy earth with grace and intention. She was an elf, and this sort of meandering was second nature to her kind. Further, she was a Lotus elf, and theirs was a long history of confidently performing tasks just like these with finesse.

Well, most of the time.

Her boot found a gnarled, uprooted tangle of plant, and it shattered with a loud crunch under her weight, and she stumbled.

“Shit!” She roared, catching herself on the trunk of a sapling. However, her unwieldy momentum was too great, and the sapling cracked. She hit the ground in a heap, the top half of the baby tree in her hand.

“Oof!”

Just like that, she was covered in dirt.

At least the ground isn’t hard here, she thought gratefully.

She stood, brushing herself off and continuing again through the wood, wholly embarrassed but relieved no one else had seen that display. She’d been tasked with this mission with reluctance, and she did not want to be the cause of any future woes to her people—nor did she want to return empty-handed of information. Whether or not it was in their nature, this particular Lotus elf had something to prove—but don’t we all?

It was her third day out here alone, stomping through the muck and grime during daylight and combating the painfully chilly air in the evenings. She’d made good headway, she liked to think, and was learning a lot about herself in the process. For instance, she really hated getting rained on when she had only a thin cloak to shield her. Precipitation had never bothered her much in the past, but being unrelentingly subjected to the harsh whims of the elements had a way of changing a person. In fact, the constant presence of the miserable most-likely Autumn climate weighed on her so much that she was just beginning to consider turning back.

That was when she noticed the dirt road cutting through the wood.

After last night’s lovely little torrential downpour, mud road would have likely been a more appropriate description. It appeared to be well-traveled, something her Tracking Skill confirmed, dotted with countless foot, hoof, and miscellaneous other prints swaggering to-and-fro along its length as it slithered through the trees and bent away into a smudge of darkness in either direction.

A little while later, after bravely skirting the edge of the path, she saw a tower. She’d spotted it jutting over the tops of the unfamiliar trees and, at first, was worried it was nefarious—as seemed to be the case of most structures here. However, after watching and waiting within the trees for hours, she began to sense that this tower was not holed up in some fortress of malicious intent but was, in fact, a regular, old, run-of-the-mill building. Even later, as she watched the occasional creature waddle toward it down the road, she realized the tower belonged to a village. The scope widened in her mind as she neared, saw the well-made walls and squat stone buildings, and decided it wasn’t a village at all but a town. One teeming with people.

She let out a squeal of joy before stifling it reluctantly. She would do well to be careful, even in her glee, to make sure no one spotted her before she was ready to be seen. That was practically Scouting 101, and she knew that. If the simulations she’s run countless times in her past were any indicator, bad things happened to excitable stalkers who couldn’t help but eek and hurray their way into conflict. It was tricky, though, because this revelation changed everything for her and those back at the base. Plus, it was exhilarating and a bit relieving on a more personal level.

What was more exciting and even thrilling was that she saw quite a few humans within the curvature of the open portcullis. Grubby, boisterous, awful, beautiful humans!

She’d almost vaulted from her hiding place, arms wide and shouting for them to notice her, but then remembered that she was an elf and a foreigner. Her instincts bid that it wouldn’t be wise to stumble into their sight without any idea of how reactive they could be. Additionally, of course, she had just reprimanded herself—however lightly—for almost making a joyous peep, and this could be much worse than that. It would not do to trot back to the others with her body filled with arrows. That would be uncomfortable.

So, she planned to wait a while longer. Planned being the operative word because she didn’t. Despite her knowledge that it could be incredibly perilous and even stupid to do so, she couldn’t help herself from popping out of the brush like some woodland hobo and entering the wonderful little town.

She encountered no difficulties upon walking through the gateway, just a handful of stares and a few confused eyebrow raises. She paid it no mind, though. She was positively alight with awe, her eyes wandering along the contours of every perceivable scratch of land and architecture. It was all so remarkable.

She saw bustling, hustling, and a whole lot of tussling all around her; individuals of myriad races and apparent cultures rushing here and there, groups of children and adults alike gathered together, living their lives quite sonderously within the confines of this hamlet-ish microcosm. The structures that made up the bulk of the town were made of craggy brick—though she didn’t know what material precisely—and seemed to be sturdy. It was ancient stuff too, by the look of it; pock-marked by age and cracks that may have held thousands of stories as to their origin. The roofs were a mishmash of styles, with some favoring the classic thatched design she’d seen in many iterations in her life. In contrast, others consisted of slate or even clay. Despite the mild chill, most windows were open to let in the midday sun, and they had no sense of insulation. She reasoned they’d likely be frigid winter palaces come snowfall.

She continued along the main thoroughfare, absorbing everything with a fiendish delight. A handful of stalls lined this drag, and people fluttered around them like hungry birds as the vendors cried out to passersby to sample their wares.

“Double-baked mince pies,” she heard one of them shout from behind the cavalcade queueing up in front of a yellow awning. “All the way from the towns of Kess! Warm from the oven! Only five coppers!”

“Which Kess!?” A human man shouted nearby.

The vendor paused for a moment, and it seemed to the Lotus elf that he was seriously considering his answer.

“Erm,” he finally said, sounding unsure. “...East?”

There was a collective groan as roughly half of the patrons in line abandoned their places and walked away.

“I mean West—er, both!”

This caused another exodus of disappointedly muttering folk until the Lotus elf found that she was the only person standing in front of the stall, a smile plastered on her face.

“Hello!” She said exuberantly.

The vendor was a squat, middle-aged dwarf with a mane of silver curls who had propped himself up to stand on a steam trunk. He looked down at her from his lofty position with surprise. Then he shook his head, righting his mind, and slipped back into his sales-friendly persona.

“My, my, Miss,” he said. “You’ve come to sample the most tremendous treat known this side of the Fury River?”

She was about to respond when another voice shouted.

“There’s a Kess on both sides of the Fury, you charlatan!”

The dwarf blinked, ignoring the comment and hoping that the woman would as well. He plastered a look of pure, blissful ignorance onto his friendly visage as if the shouter was speaking to some other mince-peddling swindler.

“Um, yes,” the Lotus elf said. “Please.”

“Well, right-o, Miss! Let me grab one right for you—as I mentioned, they're right out of the warming oven.”

The dwarf hopped off from his perch on the trunk into the mud and yanked open the top to reveal a pile of parcels wrapped in parchment paper. Despite the afternoon's chill, no steam escaped from this particular steam trunk.

“The producer of these fine morsels of tongue-exciting scrumptiousness is a little lass with whom I have an exclusive contract. It’s a special recipe—fully secret, mind—that she developed herself and one that I have the pleasure of being the sole proprietor to administer the labor's fruits of!”

The dwarf snatched one of the top bundles from the pile, slammed the top of the trunk back in place, and hopped atop it again. With a grin, he unfurled the paper to reveal a lumpy mass of bread bleeding with dark gravy. The Lotus elf stared at it for a moment but then found her manners had faded and smiled up at the dwarf.

“Lovely!”

He winked.

“Now, usually, I charge five copper a piece for these. But for a charming beauty such as yourself—who clearly has a discerning eye for quality pies—I’ll give you two for eleven copper.”

He smiled in a perfect display of genuineness.

“But, that’s more than if I were to buy two separately,” the Lotus elf said kindly, hoping that he’d made an error and not saddled her for an easy mark.

The dwarf stiffened and then cleared his throat.

“My! She’s beautiful, and she’s a whip at arithmetic! Fair enough! Ten for the both!”

The elf woman chuckled.

“Can I just have one for now? I’m not that hungry.”

“Oh, but after just one taste—you’ll be glad you had another in reserve, Miss. One never does it all in, you understand. Two is the way to go—trust me on that!”

She blinked, unsure how best to approach this interaction. She wasn’t sure what would be considered rude, but she knew she only had a little bit of coin on her. Spending more than she wanted on something as trivial as badly abused pastries was probably not the best way to start her journey. She still had to make sure she could buy any supplies if she blundered into any.

This is not like the simulations, she thought.

Seeing her hesitation, the dwarf nodded and hopped down from the trunk again, sloshing in the mud. He disappeared from view for a moment before returning, holding a rusty spoon in his hand.

“Here you are,” he said, holding it out for her to view. “Thought I’d sweeten the deal for you. A genuine Dimlocke food dipper. Best way to get your fill of the mince, if I do say so myself! I’m a bit of an expert on the subject of consumption!”

He patted his gut with a laugh.

The elf examined the object.

It’s just a spoon…

“What does it do?”

The dwarf gave her a curious look and then brightened.

“My, it is a wondrous tink for procuring the best experience in your food devouring needs! You just stick that shovel end into the pie and—”

He stuffed the spoon into the center of the pie and dug a portion of its sloppy innards out from the crust. Then he proffered it toward her.

“See? A real meal on the go. I hear it’s quite the dandy of a device down in Malort. All the noble ladies are using one,” he said. “Though, I can’t imagine your like beating a path down there, Miss, seeing as it’s a nasty cesspool of a rotting dung heap—but, I’ll keep my personal politics to myself. As you please, then.”

He flipped the spoon around so the handle faced her and smiled wide.

But… it’s a spoon! Is that a fresh new technology here? If that’s the case, I’m going to blow their minds with some of my own neato… What was the word he used? Tinks?

She accepted the spoon with all the grace she could muster and nodded.

“Thank you so much, but I think I’d still like just the one minced pie.”

A few minutes later, the Lotus elf found herself walking through the town again, a minced pie tucked under each arm and a spoon in her belt. She glanced down at her haul with a sigh and continued on, feeling ever much like easy pickings.

Over the next half-hour or so, she perused the many vendors and brick-and-mortars that dotted the roadways. There were different varieties and flavors of use and necessity, all with that cozy, quaint, archaic flair that filled her with a strange sense of nostalgia for something she had never personally experienced. Eventually, she wound her way into a road with a dead-end and a handful of building fronts that seemed more interesting than the others. She had no way of knowing that she’d stand out like a sore thumb in this particular stretch of town. Or, at the very least, be regarded with suspicion. But that was irrelevant to her at the moment: she was browsing. One shop bore a wooden sign with flecked and fading purple paint and the symbol of a foot freshly applied in silver paint. Inside the deep glass panes of the window, though, all she saw were lit candles.

Odd, she thought.

Another was clearly some sort of tool shop, with a marquee above the wide, open door that said ‘Toolery.’

I wonder if they have spoons in there?

Still, another had an equally-chipped wooden sign as the ‘foot’ one, but depicted what looked like a bovine animal of some kind—though with a single horn instead of two—standing on its hind legs. She couldn’t see within this building, though, as heavy, wine-colored curtains obscured the view, deterring any unsavory sorts from having a bit of a gawk. She was just about to enter that one out of curiosity when she heard a commotion behind her.

“Stop, menace!”

She balked.

What in blazes?

To her extreme confusion, she saw a figure that confounded the fabric of her mind and struck her with the immediate fear that she had burst something loose from her brain. Herself.

A nearly perfect copy of her rounded the corner, cheeks flushed and puffing out dramatically as she raced along in the mud, splashing and sloshing in her haste.

I’m definitely losing my mind! Unless I crossed some magical barrier that causes hallucinations?

The elf wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, but she had a sneaking suspicion that there would be an overripe helping of complications because of it.

The duplicate elf didn’t even seem to notice her as she approached at top speed. The copy looked over a shoulder and suddenly hurled something behind her that exploded as it hit the ground—filling the area with smoke.

A grenade?

Then the doppelganger moved past her and into the shop she’d just been preparing to enter herself, dashing into the darkness within.

The elf stood stunned for a moment before shrugging her shoulders.

“That was strange,” she said aloud. Then, thinking that perhaps she ought to get a little bit more information about this predicament, she took a step forward to follow. That was when she felt a cold point press into the back of her neck. She froze.

“Don’t even think of moving, scoundrel,” the same gruff voice from before commanded.

“Uh, what?” She asked, her back still to whoever it was behind her. Whoever it was, she was most decidedly not interested in disobeying a command like that as this particular someone was clearly not happy.

“I don’t have much money,” she continued, staring directly ahead at the shops on the other side of the street from her. “But you can have whatever is there. I don’t want any trouble.”

“It’s a bit late for avoiding trouble, dwarf,” came the sharp reply.

Dwarf? Is he blind? I’m a tall, thin, lightly-garbed elf. There’s literally nothing dwarvish about me.

“I’m sorry,” she said hesitantly. “But you might be mistaken. I’m not a dw—”

“Quiet, dwarf,” the man barked. “We already know you use illusory Arcana. Not to mention, we saw you change right in front of us. You must have quite the high opinion of yourself—or an extremely low one of us—if you think we would fall for your trickery.”

Illusions?

Something clicked into place then, and the elf furrowed her brow. The vendor with the mince pies. He had been the only dwarf she’d seen so far, and the sole person she’d really chatted with since arriving—other than this fine gentleman behind her with a sharp point inching into her spine. He must have used Arcana to disguise himself as her and escape from…

She saw two armored individuals round the same corner her double had come from.

The town guard, she thought, anxiety spiking in her heart.

“Please believe me,” she began, her voice taking on a tone of desperation. “I’m not really certain what’s going on here, but it seems like I’ve been framed. The dwarf you’re chasing must have disguised himself as me to throw you all off.”

She sighed, wishing she’d dumped at least a few more Points into Charisma, or had picked up a Diplomacy Skill like Saban had.

“I am not involved,” she continued, taking a risk and turning her head to the side and gesturing to the building before her. “You have to believe me. He just ran into that shop right there…”

She blinked. The storefront she’d just been preparing to enter—and where the dwarf had escaped into—was no longer there. In its place was a dilapidated structure with an entrance barred by thick, wooden planks. The windows no longer remained and were instead ghosts of what she had seen: the glass was shattered, and the curtains were either torn or moth-eaten where they existed at all.

“Sure thing,” the voice behind her said, but it was clear from the way he said it that he didn’t believe her. The elf could hear the thick clank of something metallic behind her.

“I suppose he leaped right through that shattered pane and didn’t leave so much as a print in the dust.”

The man chuckled.

“Or did you forget, dwarf, that you’re carrying some minced pies yourself?”

She frowned, the weight of the pastries feeling tremendous now that they were apparently some sort of accessory to a crime she did not recall committing.

“I bought these,” she said quietly.

“Sure you did,” the man said. “Because they taste so good and are just flying out of that chest.”

“I’m not the dwarf,” she found herself saying, but knew it was useless. The guard seemed to have made up his mind, and based on the looks his companions were tossing her way, they agreed with his assessment of the situation. This wasn’t good. It would be very bad if she couldn’t get back to the others.

“Enough of your lies, dwarf. Your disguise is flimsy at best. Why would an elf be here, of all places? You’ll come with us now, and then you can argue about who you are or aren’t with the headsman.”

Shit, she thought. If I don’t return soon… the whole camp will be at risk. And Alpha… well, he won’t even bother to try to send people out to look for me. I’ll be done for.

Then she felt a powerful and painful blow to the back of the head, and everything went black.

Hey All: As has been pointed out, this story has been stubbed. That's because this chapter is the first in Book 2. You can begin the journey here: https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0BLQ4QVW5