The Many Lives of Cadence Lee

*Phu’Shahalidin (The Eternal Forest) 51 Years Ago*

*Rei’Reihammara Solily POV*

The only thing worse than the knowing looks and empty platitudes that the older elves gave me whenever I expressed my boredom was knowing that the platitudes weren’t empty and that they were right. I had been taught about this well in advance, this boredom and the accompanying urge to do something, anything but spend another year practicing my Skills here in the forest. A forest I felt I knew so well by now that I could navigate it blindfolded.

After all, Phu’shahaldidin was eternal and unchanging. Nothing happened here that wasn’t part of some cycle, nothing happened that hadn’t happened before and that wasn’t expected to happen again on schedule. Outsiders, especially the humans who lived such short lives, might believe it to change but the passing of decades would reveal that it was all a part of some repeating cycle or another.

The path I was running down now was a bitter reminder of this, one I reflected on. Morning light shone through gaps in the leaves of the giant trees, illuminating parts of ground and shifting as the wind moved the branches. The path wound around the trunks of the giant trees, taking care to avoid the worst of the roots and rocks - but only the worst of them.

I always passed this rock, that slightly jutted out from the path and was almost completely unnoteworthy save for a small splotch of lichen, with extra care. There was little special about it, and I passed it without slowing my stride, but once years ago I had tripped over it and afterwards had thought to remove it.

I dug it out without effort and felt like I had accomplished something. Something minor, true, but I was young enough that it had felt important to me. Fifty years ago I had only been thirty. Of course, the next time I walked along the path the stone was back.

First I simply tried removing the stone again, but over the course of a few weeks I ended up trying many things that all ultimately failed. I took the rock with me, hauling it back to my home only to find it gone when I woke up in the morning. Putting it in a locked chest didn’t help, and neither did, with the help of a hammer, breaking the rock into pieces.

Eventually, frustration gave me courage to approach one of the [Rangers] and ask them to get rid of it somehow. That was when the knowing and amused looks started, the [Ranger] had that expression as she gently informed me that there wasn’t anything they could do. Humans called Phu’Shahaladin “The Eternal Forest” and they were more right than they knew. The cycles of the forest had continued for ages before and would continue long after I entered reverie, eternally unchanging and unmoved by anything but its own cycles.

However, today would be the smallest break from that tedium. Human [Merchants] - probably Ian Gregor and his caravan - had come to visit. They would bring things in from outside the forest, although what I really looked forward to was the tales they brought with them. The older elves who traveled rarely did the same because very little caught their interest in the first place. Which kingdom was rising or falling or at war or facing calamity and what kind, they had seen it all before and would see it all again and there was little that could touch them.

No one was sure if the incredible Vitality that came with us elves gaining one point of Vitality every year was the cause or if it was just an intrinsic part of our species, but as time wore on less in the world could touch us and we in turn fell out of touch with the world. Eventually I too, many years in the future, would slow down until I slipped into reverie and just stopped.

It always surprised humans that I was comfortable with that.

I slowed down as I approached the clearing, trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of one of the [Rangers] who were no doubt keeping watch. Considering how the forest was, I imagine that they were probably watching just to make sure I don’t leave with the [Merchant]. Still, trying to spot the [Rangers] was one of the other small bits of excitement I could find, even if I knew that any time I did see them it was because they had let me.

I didn’t catch a glimpse of them this time and walked into the clearing, blinking at the light as I stepped out of the shade. There were a few, small, human style buildings here that were normally empty, but were now full of people bustling in and out. A few other elves were here as well, probably to trade but I wasn’t really interested in checking. Instead I was looking for…

“Gregor!” I called out and waved to greet the large man and walked over to help him with the table he was setting up. “It is good to see you again.”

“It is good to see you as well Rei,” Gregor laughed and said. “I have quite the tales for you this time, and I have someone I would like you to meet as well.”

He gestured to his side, drawing my attention to the boy - young man, I suppose - standing nearby.

“Ah, it is that time already,” I murmured my thoughts aloud, but it just caused Gregor to laugh again.

“That reminds me, my father told me to say hello for him.”

The first human [Merchant] I had met was Gregor’s grandfather just before his retirement from traveling. He had introduced me to Gregor’s father, who had introduced me to Gregor, and now he would introduce me to his son. It always required me to adjust my thinking a bit, when I was really reminded of what it meant to think on a human timescale. At only eighty one years old, I imagine I thought more like the humans than I did the older elves, but I still didn’t really think quite like them - or even entirely understand them.

Gregor would introduce me to his son, and I would see them come back together for years - somewhere between ten and twenty, perhaps - until one day Gregor retires and it is just the son. In another decade, the son would introduce me to his son and then he would retire in another couple of decades as well.

I was a young elf and already I had seen two humans learn their trade, make and execute their plans for their lives, and complete them.

“You know this isn’t exactly my favorite topic,” I sighed. “I can’t help but envy you. You live your entire lives while I just exist and get told to work on my Skills more…”

“Which reminds me,” he turned to his son to shout. “You have to work harder, kid! Your Skills won’t level well if you don’t put effort into it! One of the most important things a [Merchant] has to learn is Hauling, because you will be doing a hell of a lot of it!”

*Later That Night*

I was sitting by the fire, mildly amused at how much humans seemed to enjoy telling stories around it, and happily listening to those stories. A lot of it was just news, hearing about how the world outside the forest had changed since his last visit. That was good, but the best was when news and tales mixed. Whenever possible I liked to hear the how and the why as much, if not more, than the what.

“I have got a good one for you too,” Gregor took a pull from his drink before continuing. “Some high-level came back with news about land over the sea to the south. Dunno why they were flying over the ocean, but they didn’t get to stay. Monsters chased them out, but some others put together an expedition and went over by boat. Turns out there is a whole ‘nother continent.”

“Really!?” I started to excitedly ask questions, “What is it like? You said there were Monsters? Strong ones?”

“Terribly strong. As far as anyone can tell the land to the south hasn’t ever been purged.”

That got a bit of a gasp from me as I sat back. Purging monsters was… Well it wasn’t something you could just stop doing. If Experience wasn’t removed from the ecosystem the strength of monsters could become dangerous. Strong monsters either got stronger or died to another monster and made them stronger and there was nothing stopping them from reaching the higher levels of power.

And monsters rarely have the kind of restraint a Sapient would, if they went on a rampage the damage would be cataclysmic.

“The expeditionary group was almost overwhelmed,” he paused for dramatic effect. “Until one of your elders showed up.”

An elder had woken up!? There must have been something truly dangerous… To the point I am not even sure I would want to know, the elder elves don’t move from reverie for much. I tried to tamp down the surprising frustration that had bubbled up as well, wondering why none of the older elves had told me about this and why I had to learn about it from a human [Merchant].

Of course, what followed was the elder vaporizing the monsters and then wandering off without saying anything.

“It is because after a while,” I tried to explain how the older elves think to Gregor’s son. “Nothing matters except what matters.”

Gregor started laughing and his son made a face at me, and I could only sigh. It isn’t like I think like that too much, yet, so I can only explain the behavior as others had explained it to me and give a few examples of how I thought.

“You see it even in me,” I thought back to earlier today when I came to visit. “Every day is… It is just another day, another week, another month - these things don’t matter to me. I watched your grandfather grow up, and your father, and I will watch you grow up but I won’t grow with you. Each day matters to you, but they mean so much less to me, it is only the things that stand out that draw my attention.”

“Now imagine that the knowledge of this is part of everything you do,” I pressed the point. “Imagine that behind every daily routine is a kind of… fog. Just like a fog, it isn’t terrible, but it isn’t something you can escape. It blankets everything you do and as you live it slowly gets deeper and deeper. Anything new, anything different, is like a ray of sunlight piercing through a fog bank.”

“That sounds horrible,” Ryan - Gregor’s son - muttered, his eyes getting a far-away look as if he was visualizing it. “Gods, I-”

Both Gregor and I give a bit of a chuckle and I say, “it doesn’t really work like that, I don’t mind it like you might think I do.”

“You have to stop thinking like a human and think like a [Merchant],” Gregor lectures. “Elves have a lot of time - a lot of days, so each day isn’t worth much. If you want to sell to elves you have to think about what they don’t have, what would be valuable to them.”

It was an easy question for Ryan to answer, much like it was for Gregor when he was in Ryan’s place decades ago. After all, they had helped to stock the wagons and so they knew what they were selling here in the forest.

“Novelty.”

“Exactly,” his father confirmed and Ryan smiled, but Gregor’s next statement caused him to glance at me nervously. “Elves crave ty, and it becomes harder and harder for them to get as they get older which makes it even more valuable to them. They will pay far more than what something is worth if it is interesting enough.”

“Um… Should we be…?” Ryan was clearly hesitating to ask, so I just decided to answer the unspoken question.

“It is worth it to us, obviously,” I shrugged. “I might look human, but I am not.”

Elves, with eternity, seek an escape from routine.

Dwarves, who have time and fortitude, take on long projects and seek things to aid them in those projects.

Dragons are happy to sleep years away, needing little and content in their superiority.

Humans, with such short lives, give themselves objectives to complete, constantly racing against time.

It was a fascinating bit of irony that the first step to learning how to interact with other species was to learn how different you are from them. Elves and dwarves were the premier example, we rarely get along for very long. Well, by the standards of our species that is. Generations of humans might die in the time it takes for an elf and a dwarf to tire of each other, although I had yet to experience this myself - which was exactly why learning this was so important.

In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder how true it was; how much were we really dependent on our natures? My teachers showed me examples from my own life, how I am behaving today, in fact. A young elf was supposed to work on their levels for up to three centuries before leaving. I was fifty years old and already craving something new.

Dwarves were, supposedly, very different. They were known for their stubbornness and their industry, and it was all tied together. Dwarves tended to pick a long term goal and then to work towards that goal with focus and passion. Dwarves find the elvish tendency towards ty and distraction to be frustrating. The history of our two species was fraught with misunderstandings when elves and dwarves picked up a project together and the elves wandered off, only to return a century later.

Meanwhile, elves find dwarves to be… Flat, for lack of a better word. There is often little to them, except their goal. Although I am unsure how much I believe that and my teachers didn’t really expect me to, they said I would experience it eventually. Dwarves received much the same lessons as elves did and found it just as inconceivable that elves had so much time and power, but did nothing with it.

Humans were so much more numerous than either the dwarves or we are and they weren’t provided these kinds of lessons. They had to learn from experience and from word of mouth and I was told some of them never did. It supposedly wasn’t much of an issue because most humans would never speak, possibly never even see, another race in their entire lives.

“Now adventurers are floodin’ down there,” Gregor continued his story, catching my attention again. “It is total chaos and anyone who is strong enough is trying to get a piece. Artisans too, the amount of materials comin’ out from the south… It is going to shake things up, the Kingdom of Gracel is sendin’ their own expedition down, and now other countries are scramblin’ to catch up.”

As dangerous as it sounded I wished I could go myself, it sounded like a unique experience. Of course, instead time passed, Gregor left, and I returned to my same routine.

*Phu’Shahalidin (The Eternal Forest) Outskirts 24 Years Ago*

It wasn’t often that a [Ranger] would show up to teach me for a time. Well, maybe they always did and I just never saw them, one could never really tell with them. The important thing was that I was always excited to see them, being a [Ranger] was one of my dreams.

The slight amused look on the [Ranger’s] face meant that he probably knew this, older elves always knew everything. They could practically, or possibly literally, read minds. Only a [Priest] of Aleth could do better, maybe, it depended on how old the elf was. My teacher hadn’t bothered to give me his name, which was one of the smaller indicators that he was very old indeed, perhaps getting close to reverie. Older elves tended to lose interest in pleasantries towards that time.

…Or he could just enjoy being a bit of a mysterious ass, that was always a possibility as well. Hells, it could be he was both a mysterious ass and extremely old, I wouldn’t even care. [Rangers] were one of the most exciting Classes available, and one with real responsibility, for an elf.

“The core element of our combat is range,” my teacher lectured as I strained to hold my bow drawn. “As a Sapient race, we alone are blessed with eternal life, but our numbers are the least - even less than apex Monsters like Dragons.”

I was the youngest elf in existence right now, the next youngest was nearly three hundred years older than me. There were even more half elves than pure-blooded ones, far more.

I refocused my thoughts back onto my target and my teacher, even as my arms started to tremble. I really hoped to impress him so that he would come back.

“One of the most successful ways of killing an elf is to catch them or trap them,” He lost his amused look as he said this. “Aside from the elders and despite our Vitality, suffocation or immolation will eventually kill us and our other stats all come from Classes. For most of your life, humans a fraction of your age will equal to, or stronger than, you - and Monsters are worse.”

I now had to consciously stop by breath from hitching as sweat beaded on my forehead, focusing only on the target and my teacher.

“So you must not get caught and this makes range your ally, and we Elves have a Talent for Archery.” He said and then watched me silently for a minute longer before giving me the signal to fire.

I heard the thunk of my arrow hitting wood, but I did not see it because I was already moving. I sprinted through the forest, vaulting over the occasional rocks and jumping a small creek. Through it all, my teacher was beside me and his voice was just as clear and calm as when he was standing still.

“Stealth, Ambush, Sprinting, and Jumping are your allies in this.”

I found the next target, released another arrow and kept moving. I saw the small rock cliff ahead of me and gritted my teeth as I started to climb, my arms shaking in protest.

“Climbing, both to find a vantage and for general mobility, is a necessity.” He was already at the top of the cliff, having simply vanished from the base and appeared at the top as if he had teleported. “Remember, few creatures look up and try to stay aware of what is above them. Often, height and altitude are all the advantages you will need.”

I reached the top, spotted the target, and let fly. Again, I heard the thunk of contact but did not see it. I didn’t know where the next target was, my teacher had purposely created a trail for me to follow - if I could find the signs.

“Gathering information on your target is equally important. It does you no good to move if you move into a trap, and the first step is Tracking them.”

When the trail split in two directions, I stopped. The [Ranger] gave me no hints, and I grew anxious as I examined both trails and could not figure out which one was real. This wasn’t quite a test, but I had a suspicion that the [Ranger] had set all of this up for a reason and I did not want to disappoint.

Unfortunately, my Tracking Skill was not high enough. I felt like I was running out of time, and I took a guess: left.

“There is Skill and there is skill,” my teacher spoke again. “There is more to it than numbers. Knowledge and wisdom can bridge gaps where your levels fail.”

I worried that I had failed, but in a clearing ahead I saw the next target.

“Sometimes, however, Luck is just as good,” I could almost hear the smile in his voice as relief flooded me. Now onto the final stretch, at least I didn’t have to run for this part.

“Trap Making is an often overlooked Skill,” he said, just as calm and put together as when we started. “However, most of a [Ranger’s] job is managing the Experience within an ecosystem. Trap Making can lift much of the burden involved in such a task.”

I had already learned a few tricks about this, like using a vine as a tripwire. It wasn’t easy to do right, but done correctly even a person looking for traps would ignore it with their eyes skipping over just another plant in the forest. I wasn’t a huge fan of traps, but it was part of being a [Ranger] and the rest of what [Rangers] did made up for it.

He looked over my work before giving a nod.

“So you want to be a [Ranger],” he said; not a question, but a statement.

“I do,” I replied as I straightened up, turning to look my teacher in the eyes.

“Why?”

“Partly because I want to be one of the protectors of our people,” I saw him raise an eyebrow. It was probably impossible to lie to him, but I didn’t say anything untrue. That certainly was a part of my reasons, if a small one.

“But mostly it is because you… well, [Rangers] do things!”

That finally cracked his pleasant mask. First with surprise and then with laughter. I got flustered as I watched him clutch his stomach and almost double over, laughing.

“I am serious, this is important to me!” I went from flustered to frustrated quickly, glaring at the laughing elf.

“I apologize, I know you mean what you say,” he said as he straightened up again with a smile on his face. “It is just so easy to forget what it is like to be so young.”

“I am over one hundred years old!” I snapped. “How long will I be treated like a child?”

“You know, us [Rangers] interact with the outside world more than most other elves,” he didn’t bother to answer my last question, he didn’t need to - I was keenly aware that I had another two centuries to go. “And having spoken to Sapients and Demihumans of all kinds, and even Monsters, I think that elves are among the worst at raising children. By the time we have kids we have long forgotten what it was like to be one, and with the passing of millenia it is so easy to dismiss a few centuries… You must be bored out of your mind.”

“Yes! Yes, I am!”

“Well I am looking for an apprentice…”

I agreed on the spot.

*Kingdom of Gracel Border, Two Years Ago*

I had to keep reminding myself that this was a calamity and I shouldn’t let my excitement show. With how much of a struggle it was I wouldn’t be surprised if the effort cause me to-

[Etiquette has leveled up! Etiquette is now level 18!]

Sometimes I wondered if the System was aware and sarcastic. I had asked and received the answer, “mostly not.” Which was not exactly a helpful answer, but the explanation I inevitably asked for made my head spin. Drys, my teacher, had said that it would make more sense after I had encountered golems and elementals, however this couldn’t distract me for long today.

I was following behind Drys as he walked through the army camp, doing my best not to be noticed - practice was practice - even though I was always spotted before Drys was, and he wasn’t even trying. I had never been around so many humans before or seen a place so busy! Although the less said about the smell, the better… Regardless, all these [Soldiers] had gathered to fight the goblin swarm, but Drys and I weren’t going to be with them. No, our destination was the camp within the camp, where all the high level adventurers were.

According to Drys, I would even be able to watch them in action through a divination circle back at the camp. I wouldn’t be able to see anything like this again until I was strong enough to survive nearby, or if another disaster like this happens again. I’d rather that didn’t hap-

“DRYS, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!” The voice knocked me over, and I wasn’t the only one. All around people stumbled, and more than a few shouted back at the voice to shut up.

“Dre,” Drys replied with dry calm. “I see you are just as loud as ever.”

“Only around you,” a giant human man, wearing plate and leather armor and a helmet from under which an untamed beard burst out of, walked up. “You still owe me ten silver!”

“You lost that bet and you know it Dre,” Drys laughed as I stood up and brushed myself off looking up, and up and up, fuck he was tall! “Do you even care about ten silver anyways- how bad with money are you?”

The change in my teacher was a bit shocking. To the point I almost missed being introduced.

“Rei, this oaf here is Dre,” Drys gestured. “Whatever else you do, don’t listen to him- you don’t even have any money, so stay away from his gambling. Dre, this is Rei, my apprentice.”

“I have been an instructor and advisor for the Adventurer’s Guild for two decades-”

“Rei is older than you, you know.”

“Two decades and I know for a fact my Etiquette is higher than yours-”

“Which would only matter if you used it.”

“And I am way more famous and well known-”

“What kind of [Ranger] would I be if people knew I was there? Meanwhile people can’t forget you even if they wanted to.”

“And you still won’t even let me finish a sentence!” Dre shouted at the end, causing me to cover my ears. I had no idea what his level was, but it must have been high. Just being around him was difficult!

“Ah Dre, isn’t hating people in the best way what being friends is all about?” Drys gave a grin, and after a second of glaring they both started laughing and walking back towards the central camp. I, in utter confusion, followed.

“So an apprentice, huh?” Dre gave me a look. “Never could have imagined you doing that, she isn’t your daughter is she?”

“Nah, she just wanted to be a [Ranger] and I thought it would be interesting,” Drys shrugged. “It hasn’t been that long yet, she started right before you somehow tricked people into becoming an advisor.”

“I will never get used to how old you elves are,” Dre grumbled. “They have me running orientations on the topic and half the time I wonder how the hell I am supposed to explain something I know they won’t understand until they see it.”

“I am, technically, an adult you know,” annoyance giving me the courage to interject, only to get Dre laughing as well.

“Well, at least something between us is the same. Wouldn’t be a kid if they weren't claiming they were mature,” Dre chuckled. “Tell you what, I’m going to call you ‘kid’ until you are strong enough that shouting across a bar won’t knock you on your ass, fair?”

I didn’t respond. At one hundred and twenty nine years old, I had lived long enough to dig myself any deeper into a hole here. Not when Drys found this too funny to intervene in.

For the next few days, I mostly stayed around Drys and Dre. While I wanted to explore and meet the people around me, I was too intimidated - and it wasn’t just in my head. The overlapping effects and magics and sheer, raw stats created a kind of pressure. It wasn’t impossible to walk around, but it just didn’t feel comfortable.

Thankfully, staying quiet turned out to be the right choice, because I was allowed to be in the room where the scrying divination was performed. Not every high level individual was combat focus, and having an [Archmage] focused in divination allowed information to be relayed directly to the [Generals] overseeing the battle. They had dug out and filled a fairly large pool of water for viewing and it was through it that I first saw what a goblin swarm was like.

There were so many that they had to crawl over each other. So many that they were several layers deep. So many that they had eaten everything in Gracel and left nothing but more goblins. So many that despite the massive level differences, the [Soldiers] were already taking casualties.

And then, suddenly, a hole opened up as a wave passed through an uncountable number of goblins and they were torn apart. Dre strolled forward, pulled his axe from his harness and then I learned why he had been given the epithet, “the massacre.” It was not pretty, no, it was actually horrifying. The friendly - almost jolly, if boisterous - man would swing his axe and waves would ripple out from him like someone had thrown a pebble in a pond. Anything caught in one of those waves was butchered. Rended limb from limb, torn apart, dismembered- it was carnage on a scale I had read about, heard about, but never truly appreciated.

I had to leave, it was more than I wanted to see.

Outside, I saw a bunch of the younger adventurers getting on wagons and went over to ask what they were doing as a way to get my mind off the images I saw.

“We are leaving,” one of them replied. “We have the wrong Classes to fight in an army, so we were just here for the setup. Now we need to head back and try to keep Monster populations under control while all the important people are here fighting.”

It was then that a crazy, wild idea came to me.

“I suppose I am in the same boat,” I said. “Mind if I join you?”

They just shrugged, and so I did. Drys wouldn’t be able to retrieve me for weeks, who knows what I could see in the meantime!

*Drys’Dryssilwrden Jama POV*

I immediately noticed the mark I had left on Rei moving and snorted, the brat was trying to sneak off…

Well it was about time, I had expected her to be plotting something like this but she had never taken the bait before. A little real world experience would do wonders for her and it would certainly improve her personality.

I ran over the goblins, who failed to notice me even as I stepped on them, the difference in our levels was just too great. Really, it wasn’t that they failed to notice me so much as they never could have noticed me. Nor, for that matter, could Rei when I landed on the wagon next to her.

So she was going with the adventurers? Well, so long as she didn’t imitate Dre everything would be fine, so I left her to it and went back to scouting for survivors.