REYTH
Things were moving so fast now.
Reyth looked out from atop the hill, watching the frame of the waystation come into being. Not actively – it wasn’t quite that fast – but even a few days showed measurable progress in the construction of the fourth station along the growing road.
She sniffed, and her stomach growled as she caught the smell of the roast. It was a monster of some sort, and the massive size of it was a chore to butcher and smoke, with a good amount of the meat being cooked in a heating pit that the casters had prepared.
Slowly, the road was forming, and the hunters that had accompanied the crew had done an excellent job of clearing out the worst of the monsters along the path. Reyth was very pleased with that, even if watching it made her stomach do flips at times.
Her task had seemed impossible at first. Fifty years was plenty of time if the elves were driven to do it, but a random attendant with a very specialized class from a fringe settlement outside of civilized lands didn’t have a lot of influence.
Or, to be more accurate, hadn’t had a lot of influence.
Times had changed, and while socially she was still invisible, Reyth had learned how to be a more subtle influence. Her Quest flagging ability had appeared powerful on the surface, but in practice each time she assigned a quest she had to word it in a way that would be appealing to not just the subject, but to whatever dragon would approve it as well. That hadn’t seemed to be so bad a restriction at first, but upon realizing she couldn’t choose which dragon received the request. She couldn’t even customize it to a particular personality.
Not that she had met many dragons to learn their personalities yet, either.
Even if she had figured out how to get the interest of dragons, now she had another issue to deal with regarding Quests.
“I thought the name of the class was Dragon Bride…” she muttered to herself, pulling up her special status menu that only she had.
Only the barest rumors of these ‘dungeons’ had reached Reyth’s ears yet, and she wasn’t sure what to think of them at first. The idea that they could approve Quests was… disquieting, to say the least. That would put them as a power on par with the dragons, and she worried about their motives.
And yet…
This dungeon had approved her Quest. A dungeon with a worrying name, to be sure, but she wasn’t even sure where it was. It wasn’t clear to her how geographically close the one approving the Quest had to be, or if it mattered at all. If the dungeon was nearby, that meant it wanted a road… perhaps to bring more people to it.
This whole situation made her head hurt when she thought of it too long.
“Why me, of all people?” Reyth muttered to herself, alone atop the hill, and tugged her cloak around herself. It was getting chilly this time of year, and her ears twitched as her nose caught the faint dampness on the wind. She should find shelter soon, instead of standing around feeling contemplative. Snow didn’t come to this area often, but the rain would be cold and clinging.
“The real question is… why not you?”
Reyth whipped about, startled. She hadn’t caught anyone’s scent, and her levels in [Survivor] should have made anyone this close easy to detect, especially when she was upwind of them. Yet she still caught no hint of elf in the breeze, despite one standing not three tail-lengths away.
She knew this elf. She knew the voice, too.
“Wryna?” Reyth asked that hesitantly, the lack of scent and the strange, tickling wrongness she felt from her magical senses arguing with her eyes and ears. She knew some kinds of magic, especially Umbral, could make one’s eyes deceive themselves, but this didn’t feel quite like that.
The other elf hopped in closer, brushing a hand over Reyth’s shoulder… and the soft tip of her tail gliding across hip. A small shiver ran down Reyth, that touch sending an odd tingle of mana through her body.
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“Not exactly,” the ‘Wryna’ elf chuckled. “But I doubt you’ll be seeing Wryna again this lifetime, so it’s as good a name as any. I’m just borrowing her body, since she wasn’t using it herself.”
The ‘new’ Wryna paused and rubbed her chin. “I guess she might learn about me earlier than I intend if another of your bloodline does run into her, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim. And I don’t think it would be a problem if she learned about me anyway. Might be fun for her to try to figure me out.”
Then she frowned. “Or… maybe it would be bad, now that I think about it. Hmm…”
Reyth shook her head rapidly and stepped away, remembering well the pain that happened when Wryna got too close to her last time. This wasn’t the same situation, but it was still a memory she didn’t want to repeat.
She breathed in to recover her wits, and asked quietly, “If you aren’t Wryna, then who are you? Where is she?”
The new Wryna tilted her head, ears doing a small quiver. “Hmm, good questions, but not important right now. I am who I am, and trying to explain it would be… complicated. I doubt you’d understand. Just think of me as a helpful god who doesn’t usually get to visit. And who doesn’t have any worshippers.”
The strange elf rubbed her chin as if thinking. “Though a real god can’t exist without worshippers so that comparison isn’t very good… oh well.” Her ears perked up in a playful, attentive manner. “As for the Wryna you met first… she’s fine! She’s just busy and it would be rude of me to tell you what she’s doing. That’s her business, isn’t it?”
A statement Reyth couldn’t argue with, although she was still confused about the ‘borrowing her body’ comment. She tilted ears downward with a sigh. “So are you part of this dungeon Quest system?”
“Ah ah!” Wryna reached out and tapped Reyth’s nose, then swayed her tail in that playful way again. “No, not exactly, but that isn’t what I’m here for. I’m not going to just answer all your questions, I was just checking on your progress. I don’t get much time to myself to do this sort of thing. So, so busy! But having a body – well, half a body – is just so… different!”
This was getting too much for Reyth. She rubbed at her nose where had Wryna tapped, the tingle of that connection threatening to bring up a sneeze. After fighting that down, she looked toward where the waystation was being built. “Checking on my… Quest progress?”
The Quest had stated not to tell anyone, so she caught herself before saying more.
Wryna, if she cared at all, said nothing about the near slip. She turned and gestured to the road and waystation being built down below. “That’s right! I can already tell in the… it’s complicated. I can tell you’re making progress but it’s so much different actually seeing it! Isn’t it wondrous? Just looking at the road and knowing this will be all because of you?”
Reyth shifted from foot to foot in an uncomfortable fidget. She tugged her cloak tighter as a stiff breeze teased her tail with a chill, and took a moment to stare at Wryna’s simple tunic. That was far too little to be wearing right now, but she did say she was only half here. Whatever that meant.
“It’s impressive, yes,” Reyth agreed. “I was just thinking about that. What I don’t understand is why? Wouldn’t someone else have been a better choice to do it faster? And why is this needed anyway? Is it so the dungeons can get more people passing by?”
The barrage of questions turned Wryna around, her tail curling in a vague show of annoyance. Her ears were still up, so her mood was apparently more teasing than true annoyance.
“You ask an awful lot of questions for someone who took two hands of lifetimes to leave home!” She gestured with one arm toward the road. “It is nice to get the dungeons more traffic, but I wasn’t really thinking of that. Your people will be having some tough times soon… um, soon in my terms, I mean. It might be another lifetime for you. I just thought I’d give a little nudge so they were prepared for what’s coming.”
Reyth opened her mouth to comment on that, but Wryna wasn’t done. The other elf stepped in close and wrapped her tail loosely around Reyth’s side, with one arm tucking around her shoulders.
“As for why?” Wryna chuckled. “Well, I’m the one who chose who the System gave that Quest to, so I get to decide! A little bit like what you do now! And it sure would have been done quicker if I’d given it to someone on the Grand Council of Relya, but they have other stuff to work on and I didn’t need it in ten years. Fifty is fine.”
Then Wryna’s tail squeezed gently. “As for why you specifically? I just took a liking to you. I thought it was sad for you to stay all stuck inside, and you’re cute.”
Heat suffused Reyth’s ears and cheeks when she heard that. About half her lives had been more interested in girls – though admittedly one of those had been male – and Reyth herself was more of an either-or sort, so that much didn’t bother her. She just was not interested in this energetic, playful young Calen that had so casually confessed that.
Said Calen was also clearly very powerful though, and Reyth wasn’t sure how to handle this.
“Um… that’s… thank you, but I really don’t know you that well…”
Wryna laughed and released the flustered elf, stepping back to give her some space. “Not like that! I just like your… spirit, I guess you could say? I’m not interested in the sort of thing you just thought of.” She waited a beat, and then her ears flicked up briefly in amusement. “But I admit I was kind of curious to see what you’d think about it.”
The blush in Reyth’s ears didn’t fade as she realized she’d been teased by some kind of goddess that could control the System itself. She really had no idea how to handle that information, and her tail quivered with restrained worry. It took a few breaths for her to realize that if she was teasing this way, Wryna was specifically looking for a reaction.
Just like anyone else teasing.
“How many elves do you do this to?”
That made Wryna’s ears go upright again in a jovial mood. “Show up in a body and talk with? Just you. I’m normally a lot more subtle, but I think I like having someone to talk to. I can’t really talk to my parents… parent? That gets confusing. Not important. The term ‘parents’ is close enough for you to understand, I think.”
The blush faded as Reyth peered curiously at the other elf, her tail lowering with a concerned flick. “You’ve never spoken to anyone else like this? Why not?”
Wryna made a dismissive ear flick, then spread her hands before stepping back again. Her body started to vanish, disintegrating into motes of blue light that swirled around her as she gave her parting jab.
“I never thought about it, before.”
As Below, Tis Above
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