A grand side Quest

The next day, we were off before I had even awoken. It was still dark when I did wake, and I was bouncing up and down, strapped to the female elf. At least this time, she had been kind enough to position me in a direction where I could see things—assuming there was enough light in the trees to make anything out. The elves must have great night vision. If it were me going through this forest, I would bump into everything.

This continued for what seemed like forever. I was clearly turning out to be an impatient child. With it being dark and boring, I wished I had a cell phone to flip through mind-numbing, useless videos on. All this unoccupied time was giving me too much time to think. The reality of this world was setting in. Everything here was too real. Even with the new pains I was feeling, it was better than the old pains I had before. Was it so bad? I was ready to go; everyone I cared about was gone. As you get older, there really are fewer friends, and with so little family, I was done and ready to move on. There was nothing for me back where I came from. I might as well make the best of this strange new world. Perhaps the system did well picking me for this adventure. I wonder what kind of new friends I would make. What was it going to be like being raised by elves? Will they be how Tolkien imagined them, or is it just the closest thing the system could compare them to, and I was not filled with a bunch of false assumptions that were going to be problematic for me later?

The sun burst out, momentarily blinding me. We had left the thick forest cover and entered a grasslands area. The sun was just popping over the horizon and shining right in my face. I looked around and saw a rabbit. Wait… That’s no rabbit. It has antlers. “Gasp, a Jackalope!” I became very giddy. I activated identification. (Gáráthómpt) popped above it. “What kind of dumb name is Garathompt?!” The elves stopped moving and both looked at me.

[That is what the creature is called]

“No, it is clearly a Jackalope. Another fictional creature that’s history is not that old where some taxidermist attached antelope antlers to Jackrabbit for the lols. Its anatomy would not make sense in reality as rabbits bury themselves and would not be able to do that with antlers.”

[You ungrateful little child, it is a Gáráthómpt a graceful prey animal that is loved by most.]

“Fine, I will call it a garathompt are you happy now?”

Thwap The female elf smacked me on the bottom and the male was looking at me with an unhappy face.

“System, why are they looking at me this way. I thought you said I should call the jackalopes garathompt.” Thwap she hit me again. Now I had to know. “Garathompt” Thwap

“I hate you, system.”

[I love you too.]

“Why do they keep hitting me each time I say garathompt?” Thwap “If that is what they are called shouldn’t they be happy I know one of their words?”

[I have had my fun, and your identify will now show them as Jackalope and let this be a lesson to you. If you want the elvish name for it. You are going to have to work for it the hard way.]

“That still does not answer why they smack me every time I say, uh that word.”

[Garathompt is the orc name for the jackalope and it just so happens to be a naughty word in Elvish.]

I went a bright shade of pink. “Sorry,” I said to the elves. I wobbled my head towards the jackalope and gave my best curious face. “What’s that?” hoping they would understand. It’s not like I could point being all bundled up.

The male elf looked at where I was wobbling my head. He then said one word very slowly with sharp pronunciation. “Rahss-lah-peen” and then he said it quicker “Rásslápín.”

I did my best to repeat after him “Ra-has-lah-peen.”

He shook his head and said it again slowly “Rahss-lah-peen.”

I tried again “Rahss-lah-peen.”

He smiled and gestured for me in what I guessed meant to say it quicker. I paused thinking and he said back “Rasslapin.”

I repeated after him “Rasslapin.” We all smiled and then I giggled.

We continued onward through the grasslands. The rasslapin were everywhere here. I guess they breed like rabbits in this place. They seemed as harmless as rabbits and they would bounce off when we got too close to them.

This grassland goes on for a long time with its soft rolling hills. I wonder if the prairies looked like this before giant farms took over. This untouched land is beautiful. Even though I am trapped in a cocoon, the trip becomes quite relaxing—right until some sort of large bird of prey swoops down and plucks a rasslapin up. The two elves stop and duck into the grass. I lose sight of what is going on. The female elf pulls out her bow and arrows and fires a few shots. I hear a thud as something hits the ground. A short while later, we continue on. I have no idea what that was, but the fact that they felt the need to kill whatever it was reminds me again just how untamed this land is. The rest of the morning is rather uneventful. By the time we stop, I am starving, thirsty and so uncomfortable from being wrapped up like a baby. The female elf frees me from my wrap and then quickly wraps me in a cloth diaper. I would complain, but I guess my track record so far has not been great and I am so happy I can move my arms and legs again. She then gives me some fruit and a water skin to drink from. I gratefully gobble up the purple thing. It’s strange—like a strawberry and avocado were somehow hybridized together. It’s uncanny valley odd and I don’t think I like it, but I am so hungry. It even had one giant seed inside it just like an avocado. This is the first thing I have eaten since I got here and it has to have been almost a full day. Silly elves should have fed me a few times by now. I then begin to drink the entire contents of the waterskin. She gives me a confused look as I chug it. I am still parched. “System, why is she looking at me funny?”

[Elves don’t need to drink or eat as much as humans do.]

“Let me get this straight, they have been starving me because they don’t understand human anatomy?”

[Yes]

“Are you going to tell them, so I don’t die!”

[No]

I wish I could stare into the system with a glare showing my extreme disapproval. I used to have a really good disapproving glare that I used to give to teenagers that would send them scurrying on their way.

After eating, I decided to stretch my legs and get away for a bit. This did not go over well. Turns out the female elf did not like me wandering more than two steps away from where she put me down. It became a game of me trying to get up and go anywhere and her picking me up and putting me back down in the same spot over and over again. I was so bored this was starting to become fun.

The next few days were more of the same—running through the grasslands, random attacks from flying things. I only got a quick glance at one with identify and it turned out to be a cockatrice. It looked like a bald-headed eagle, but instead of a nice white head, it was a red snake-like thing. It was different than I figured a cockatrice was supposed to look like. I thought they had flying serpent bodies and bird heads, but after my last losing fight with the system, I decided to go with the flow on this one. I did not want to see what a bite from that thing could do. Thankfully, anything that got too close was expertly shot out of the sky. This female elf was an amazing shot—Lars Andersen amazing, maybe even better. They continued to underfeed and under-hydrate me. She kept me wrapped tight when travelling, but the sun got the better of my pasty white face that was exposed all day while travelling and inevitably burned. There were a few more unfortunate situations that were more baby-like than I ever wanted to have, due to them not understanding me when I had to go to the, uh, potty.

It still took them far too long to notice. It was dusk and the male elf had just finished setting up a shelter built of grass. This was one seriously resourceful elf. When he finished, I walked up to him and dramatically pointed to my face that was starting to peel. He gave me a confused look. I went all in, started to cry, pointed at my face, and peeled some skin off. It hurt. Only then did it register with him that humans were not supposed to be red-faced all the time. I guess he thought this was normal. They had stayed a consistent unnatural pale pink colour the entire time. I guess in this odd world it was only us fair-skinned white people that changed colours to match the given situation—in this case, being burnt by a cruel sun.

His hands started to glow that wonderful soft yellow and he touched my face. It was wonderful.

[You have received minor healing: Minor sunburn removed.]

“Thank you,” I said as he smiled at me like he was doing a good job. Sure, I was not being eaten by a cockatrice, but if it was not for magical healing, I would have been dead by now. These new ‘parents’ the system gave me are incompetent when it comes to caring for a child. I still needed more to eat. Once again, they had forgotten to feed me or give me water. As soon as the male elf turned his back on me, I took his water skin and chugged it. He noticed right away and I suspect he could have stopped me; instead, he looked at me befuddled as I drank the entire thing. After finishing, I gave him my best insolent look, then tilted up and shook the last few drops out into my mouth, hopefully indicating I needed more. I am five and by human standards, I do not need that much food and water, but they keep looking at me like I am eating more than a bottomless teenager. Silly elves.

Reluctantly, he pulls out one of the purple fruits and I gobble it down in seconds and put my hand out for another. He caves and I greedily eat that one as well. Excited for more, I put out my hand a third time using my arm that was not sore. Yes, my main arm still stung when I moved it after the orc incident. The female steps into view and pokes my belly then says something to the male. Just like that, it looks like I am done. I get the odd impression she thinks I am fat. They have unnaturally skinny yet toned bodies that must be normal for elves but would be anorexic for a human. I, on the other hand, am an average healthy five-year-old that has just enough meat on my bones to keep me from falling over. So not at all fat. I could not get fat on an all-fruit diet if I tried.

“More food please,” I plead, but it is landing on ears that have no understanding of my words. I then try to slip away to go pee behind a tree, but the female stops me. I bounce up and down, pointing to my waist cloths and legs crossed, hoping she will get the hint. It’s not sinking in. I really don’t want another mess down there, so I put my dignity to the side—I am five, I can do this. I pull the cloths down and out it comes. She yelps and jumps back and then out it comes. She takes a few more steps back and turns away with an abashed look on her face and lets me finish in piece. Once done, I wrap my strip of cloth around my waist. Then I stomp off to the grass hut to go to bed. I was not in the mood to try and walk around. Exerting myself kept leaving me out of breath from my sore lungs. I sure hope they give me real cloths soon. Walking around in this is unpleasant, but better than being bundled like a baby like I was most of the time. I sure hoped we would get to wherever we are going soon.

The next day, the rolling grasslands were cut off by what looked like a forest in the distance. As much as I liked the scenery, I was done with getting my face burned by the sun. As we drew closer to the forest edge, I realized that it was not a very big forest—more like a line of dense trees. Turns out we had come across a river and it was fueling this line of dense forestry cutting through the grassy plains. We stopped at the edge and the female elf pulled her bow out and shot something. What it was, I could only guess, and I would. Since it was up in the trees, I assumed another cockatrice. She must have killed a dozen of them by now. Even if you gave me a rifle with a scope in my prime, I could not shoot as accurately as her.

The male elf went to the river and was filling up water skins. They only had a few that I knew of. I guess this means we won’t be staying here long. I wiggled against my wrap trying to get the female’s attention. I wanted out to go have a drink. She shook her head and I groaned. The male returned with a fish wiggling on a sharpened stick. It had bright silver scales that glinted golden in the sun rays peeking through the branches. Its fins were quite long and skinny. Longer than I was tall anyway. I tried to identify it, but it stopped moving when he got close and it only worked on living animal things. I was seconds too late in finding out what it was. I had tried the identify skill on everything I could see, including plants, over the last few days, but never got a result back.

The fish seemed like a perfectly normal kosher fish to me—fins and scales—so I hoped it would be safe to eat. I was never a fish person, but with how hungry I was, any meat looked good to me. I also hoped they would cook it first. The all-purple fruit diet was getting old and doing things I did not like when I had to go number two. My need-to-pee incident the night before had taught the female that it was better to let me go do my business behind a tree on my own than deal with the consequences. She was learning and I think we both were better off for it.

The male elf did indeed make a small camp fire. He gutted the fish and buried the innards and began roasting it over the fire. The smell was delightful. The scales began to fall off the fish and land into the fire, they did not burn but glowed red along with the coals. He pulled out a small beg and sprinkled the fish with a fine powder. The meat of the fish was a pure white that slowly turned golden brown as it cooked.

He sliced off a chunk and ate it carful to pull the bones off. He showed me this and cut me off a piece. The female looked unhappy and grabbed it before I could take it. She then removed the bones, cut it in half and then handed the small of the piece to me. It was barely a mouth full. It smelled of smoked hickory and melted in my mouth yet still crunchy. The taste was nothing like fish or chicken, it was spicy yet hearty with a soft flavor. She then took a small piece for herself. After the too small bite of food. The male began wrapping up the fish to put it away. I was shocked and reached out my good hand “More.” I pleaded. He smiled and went to cut off another check and the woman stopped him and poked my tummy again saying something. She was going to starve me to death. “System this elf woman is going to starve me to death please do something!” I pleaded. The male gave me a longing sorrowful look at this. The female stood her ground. The system did not respond to my begging. The fish was wrapped up and put away and I pouted. Don’t judge me, I’m five now and hungry. You can’t just tease with something so tasty and leave me hanging like this. So cruel.

After the fire was put out, the male elf sifted through the ashes and pulled out all the scales. They were like little shards of metal. He was placing them into a bag. They must be valuable, I guessed. I reached for one and he let me have it. No sooner did I take it, the female elf took it away. She is way too much of a helicopter parent for my liking. When will this guy grow a backbone and stand up to his wife on parenting decisions? Gah, it’s reasons like that that I probably stayed single in my past life. I would not have put up with this nonsense. I pouted again—it’s not like I could say anything meaningful.

They packed up and the female elf put me back into what I was now referring to as my prison wrap as it sure felt like I was in jail while bundled up in it. Then off we went. They followed along the river for the rest of the day, stopping to shoot something just out of sight every now and then. Seriously, this woman was the shot-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of gal. Still better than being eaten, I guessed, but it also seemed kind of wasteful. I thought elves were supposed to be nature-loving, tree-hugging vegans. I guess this was another close-but-not-true-to-this-world kind of thing.

We were going much slower while travelling along the river today. It seemed like the urgency had left them and they were both more relaxed as we travelled. They were also not stopping to shoot random things nearly as often. I hoped this was a sign that the travelling was soon to end.

My wish came true. We approached a village. The river diverted east, separating a new forest in the north and the plains to the south. There were no trees leading up to a vine-covered stone wall around the village. The largest tree I had ever seen stretched into the sky as tall as a skyscraper but much, much wider—like that of a football field at the base. It tapered out as it went up and then had a large canopy overhead. I had not noticed it sooner because the entire day we were travelling the brush obstructed my view of the sky.

We approached the gate and a guard with a green tabard and dark silver armour stopped us. When I looked up at him, he froze, then drew out his sword. A shouting match occurred between the male elf who rescued me and the guard. What was his name again? I should start thinking of him in that way now that we were around other elves. I activated identify on him.

(Male elf: Elanthrál)

Oh yes that name that’s hard to say and far too long. What if shorten it, Elan perhaps?

Both male elves now had their swords out and were staring each other down. The Female had stepped back and pulled out her bow and arrows. I did not see where the second guard had gone and that concerned me. Maybe I should be paying attention to this. The shouting stopped and the guard paused. He gave that look, the one that I was starting to associate with someone reading a system messaged. He slowly lowered his sword and so did Elan. I signed in relief. “Thank you system for whatever you did and thank you Elan for standing between me and that guard.” Elan glanced back at the mention of part of his name and gave me a cocked expression before turning back to the guard. The guard stood down and they both stood there waiting.

A stream of more elven guards rushed out of the gate and sounded us. The female elf had put her bow away and was now holding me closely and I could not see anything. With nothing else to do and not being able to see anything I decided to take a closer look at her name as a distraction Hémelathán. What a mouth full. This one I am going to think of as Hema.

When she released me the group of guards were gone and all that remained were the original two standing at the gate and what I assumed was the leader who escorted us into the village.