Stray Soul

Hearing me, Heinrich closed the book that he was reading and turned towards me.

“Ah, good morning, Caroline! Its really nice to zee you again and, did your zleeping habits change? Because I zwear you used to get up earlier in the past!” Heinrich said in his usual cheerful tone.

“Heinrich, what the fuck are you doing in my room.”

“Oh, thank you for asking, I’ve been pretty well as well! But how about you? How’s the business going? Have you managed to get access to a high ranked alchemy class? If not, are you zure you ztill don’t want my help or uncle’s?”

“Heinrich, what the fuck are you doing in my room.”

“Yes, I have to agree on that one with you, its an awfully nice day, isn’t it? The sun is zhining, the zky’s clear, its just the perfect day to relax with a cup of tea and a good book, don’t you agree?”

“Heinrich, what the fuck are you doing in my room.”

“You know Caroline, you are really killing the mood, can’t you contribute to the conversation a bit more?”

“Heinrich, what the fuck are you talking about?! You suddenly appear in my room and expect me to just chit chat with you?!” I said, quite angry at him.

“Zuddenly appearing? But I zaid to you last night that I’d be visiting in the morning...” he said, putting a hand to his chin, and seeming thoughtful for a moment, then I remembered the knocking and yelling from last night.

“You call that telling me that you’d visit?! I couldn’t even hear what you said, nor did I even know that was you and not some random dumbass that couldn’t read the sign I’d put in front of the shop! And shouldn’t you’ve come in the morning, after I opened up shop to visit me?! What time is it and how did you even manage to enter my home, because I am sure as hell that I closed all the doors and windows last night!” I continued.

“Oh? I’d just assumed that you heard me last night, zo zorry for not waiting for you to open up before I came in...” Heinrich said, his voice conveying that he was being honest.

“And how did you come inside my house?” I replied.

“I entered from a window of course!” ... what?

“And how did you manage to do that after I closed all the windows?”

“I zaw one that was open on the zecond floor, zo I just entered from there!” he said, as if it was only natural that he’d done that, which was fucking not!

“And how the fuck did you mange to reach a window on the second floor?!” I asked, still quite angry, but at the same time quite impressed, with him.

“I climbed from the zide of the house? Is that that a weird of a thing to do? Hey, why are you looking at me like that?” he said, and I was just... baffled that no one saw him and reported him to the guard.

“And how did you manage to do that without getting caught by the town guard or any of my neighbours?” I asked, being genuinely curious as to how he managed to just... climb the side of my house without getting caught.

“Like what I zaid, I just climbed the zide of your house after making zure that no one was near or watching. And why would the town guard even bother with me? Not like I was trying to do anything illegal now, was I?” Heinrich asked back, quite baffled himself, which he didn’t have any right to be after saying that he didn’t see any problems in doing an illegal act if you didn’t intend on doing an illegal act which was... just confusing as hell.

“I—you know what? Get out of my room, now. We are continuing this conversation after I’ve changed up and am a bit more awake.” I said and quickly sent him out of my room.

“Then I’ll be preparing breakfast while you change!” he said while getting out of my room, which was not a good idea because I had a lot, and I mean it, a lot of plants that were neither safe for human, nor half-elf consumption.

“Heinrich please don’t touch any plants, or you might kill yourself and then I’ll have to deal with your corpse which... I really cannot be bothered to explain to the town guard, or anyone else for that matter.” I said quickly, to which he replied to with giving me an okay sign.

Quickly changing to something better, and more formal because I had to open up shop after this, I got out of the room, just to see that Heinrich had gone against my advice and was brewing some... tea if I had to guess.

“What did I just tell you not to do not even 5 minutes ago?”

“To not touch any plants or that I might get die?” he replied with a surprised tone.

“And what are you doing right now?”

“Brewing tea?”

“And where did you get the leaves to brew tea?”

“I bringed them myself? Why are you asking this?” he replied to this time with a questioning tone which was fair because I just assumed that he touched something... which I hoped he really didn’t.

“Oh... that’s fine then, but make sure you never, ever, touch anything without my permission, okay?” I said, emphasizing my words so that he’d remember them.

He then gave me looked at me and rolled his eyes and started pouring some tea into some cups he placed and called for me to sit down.

“So... why are you here Heinrich? It’s not like you to appear out of nowhere.” I asked him after taking a sip of the tea.

“What do you mean? Isn’t it only natural for zomeone to want to zee their zister?”

“We are not blood related.”

“I meant zister in a more metaphorical sense.”

“Heinrich, I sent you a letter half a year ago, and you are still yet to reply to it, I am not sure you could call me your sister in a ‘metaphorical sense’. Out with it, what do you want?” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Can’t a man just want to zee his friends every zo often?” he then asked, trying to seem honest, but I was not about to fall for his tricks, so I continued to stare at him with narrowed eyes.

“Wait, no! I am being zerious, I just happened to be headed this way, zo I thought I’d give you a visit while passing!” he said, while I still wasn’t sure if he was being genuine... I could let this slide, for now.

“And why are you headed north from here? Its all wildlands up north after this town, other than the few villages that dot the nearby forest, but I seriously doubt you’d be interested in visiting an elven village or two... unless you finally want to settle down and get married?” I asked, quite curious about his motives.

“What?! Marriage?! What are you talking about?!” he quickly replied back, quite flustered.

‘And to think I am talking to a fifty-year-old...’ I thought to myself, because while elves and half-elves aged far slower than humans, it was still weird for a man of his age to be this flustered by the mere idea... I wonder, did he actually come here for that and got flustered after I mentioned it?

But before I could probe him further, he put a few loose papers on the paper, his pose implying that whatever these were really important.

“These! I came up here because of these papers, more importantly, what’s written on them!” he said, quite pumped up.

Slowly, I picked up the papers and started reading through them while taking sips from my cup.

“Hmm... have you gotten into writing fiction? But why’d you come here for that? Wouldn’t literally any other place have been better for that?” I asked him, not understanding his reasoning for coming here.

Did he really just want to show these to me, and for some reason didn’t want to send it via mail?

“NO! These are pages from the diary of a researcher that is lamenting his past decisions! I came up here to go to the implied black site located in the mountains somewhere north of here!” he said, his eyes brimming with enthusiasm, and offended that I’d think that these were just pieces of fiction.

“...Heinrich, are you being serious?” I asked, looking straight at his eyes because, while I knew he had been launching a few small-scale expeditions to discover ‘truths’ forgotten to time for some time... I’d never thought he’d come this far away, and go farther away just for... what? A few pages from the diary of someone that was probably on some high-quality gnomish dust that implied the existence of a black site of some sorts?

“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I?” he asked back, fixing his glasses and sitting back on his chair and drinking from his glass.

“Heinrich... I know you’ll live long, maybe to your hundred-fifties—”

“Hundred-eighties, I had someone check my blood and said that I had a lot of elven blood in me.” he cut in while I was talking.

“—wait, really? You are nearly a full elf then, no?”

“Yeah, zadly not one enough for the zystem to recognize it.” he said, and while some may have thought that he was sad that he wasn’t a full elf, I could say that he wasn’t actually bothered at all.

“Anyways, no matter how long you’ll live for, be it your hundred-fifties or eighties, don’t you think spending your time on something with this little evidence is a bit... stupid? Counter-productive even?” I asked, trying to make sense of what was actually going on in his head.

“He he he...” he suddenly started giggling, and then continued.

“You may think I am a fool! Or maybe even crazy! But worry not my dear Caroline—don’t quote me on that—for I have a sound reason for all that I do!” he said, and then suddenly whipped a system window towards my face with a quest on it.

Unearthing The Forgotten (A)

Description: Be it be to the sands of time, or the meddling of others, truth often gets lost, and is forgotten. But not this time.

Through years of work, determination, and dedication to finding the truth, the one which cannot be disproven for it’s the absolute, you’ve discovered the diary of a long dead researcher of some kind, and with this diary, knowledge many believe to be impossible, or just plain wrong. But will you let the words of others, who’ve not seen the truth you have to sway you, and let the truth be lost to the sands of time once again, or will you finally unearth the forgotten, and prove to the people what they once thought impossible and improbable?

Quest Completion Conditions:

-Find the black site hidden in the depths of the great norther forest, hidden in the foots of the mountains, and bring pieces of evidence for the world to see the truth you’ve seen.

Quest Failure Conditions:

-Come back empty handed without finding anything or returning with any evidence to support what you’ve seen.

Quest Rewards:

- 5.000 exp

- Title Upgrade, Truth-seeker (C) > Truth-seeker (B)

Looking at Heinrich after reading through the system window, I once more turned my attention to him.

“Are you seriously going to say to me that you are doing this because you got a quest? You know quests can be impossible to complete, right?” I asked him, hoping that he’d answer that he didn’t actually know that so I could tell him the ‘truth’ he seeks so desperately, but to my dismay, he answered me.

“What? Of course I do! Who wouldn’t? Maybe a child, but not me!” he said and the fact that he said the last part with a bit of passions was... concerning to say the least.

“And how do you plan on even plan on finding a ‘secret black site that is hidden in the depts of the great northern forest, on the foots of the mountains.’?” I said, emphasizing the vagueness of the sentence.

“Well... the quest seems a bit... lacking in the information department but, here.” he said and handed me another paper, seemingly from the same diary of the ‘researcher’ that for some reason wrote about the secrets going behind the scenes in his diary.

Reading through the paper, I quickly noticed that it was describing the nearby terrain of the ‘black site’, but there wasn’t really anything that narrowed down where this ‘black site’ could be, until I read the last sentence of the paper...

“A spirit tree? And one that hasn’t been discovered yet?” I asked putting down the paper.

“Yup.” he said and just started sipping from his cup.

While a spirit tree narrowed the areas where this ‘black site’ could’ve been, because of their rarity, there wasn’t just one way for a spirit tree to come to be.

It could either have been that the spirits really liked the spot, and decided to turn a tree there to their home, or it could be the sign of a dryad nearby...

Dryads are rare intelligent monsters that evolve from normal plant beings, which can be made by another dryad, or just come to be because of high ambient mana or a dungeon.

While a plant being by themselves are not dangerous, a dryad is. Dryads will start turning other plants nearby to plant beings, and sometimes intelligent monsters like themselves or, very rarely, to other dryads, allowing them to expand their domain, and sometimes even build towns.

And while a town of intelligent monsters wouldn’t be a problem by itself, because even I can tell the names of a few green skin towns from my head, the problem is... all plant beings are carnivorous by nature, and they are not attacked by animals because they are just walking plants, and animals, unsurprisingly, don’t want to bother with something they’ve never seen before, so they can grow very large, very fast.

So, any incursion to their territory by any living being, especially a sapient would result in death, and not a quick one at that.

“Are you sure you what to go there, knowing that there may be a dryad nearby?” I asked Heinrich, this time worried about his well being because he didn’t seem like he’d back down.

“Oh? Now you believe me?” Heinrich said with a toothy grin, which I wanted to reply o with a punch to his face, but before I could do so he continued.

“Of course!” Heinrich said with a beaming smile, and then continued.

“But I won’t be alone, zo you don’t have to worry about me! I’ve even got an elven explorer to make sure we don’t enter the territory of a dryad, or anything similar to that!” Heinrich said, weirdly proud of himself for making a contract with an explorer...

“Why do you seem so happy that you’ve got an elven explorer? You’re quite rich, so you could even get a C-rank explorer group to escort you, did you find a B rank willing to work for cheap or something?” I asked Heinrich.

“Nope, just an E ranker.”

“Then why are you happy that you got an E rank explorer? They should be pretty common as you need to be at least E rank to become an explorer.”

“Oh, because I was blacklisted from the explorer’s guild, but I was able to get zomeone to make a contract with me through... other channels.” Heinrich said nonchalantly, but I wasn’t really focused on his tone, no, I was more focused on the bomb that he’d just dropped.

“YOU’VE BEEN BLACKLISTED FROM WHAT?!”