Taken By Surprise

The Elf stopped and stared at John when he addressed her by name. The cobalt glow in her eyes diminished for a moment while he cast Observe three more times. He identified each of her current active effects, and then took her pause as an opportunity to put the table between the two of them all over again. He kept his hands clenched and locked into fists at his sides, ready for the moment when she might try to attack him, but it didn’t come yet. His attempt at surprising the Elf seemed to have worked.

Stoneskin, Toggle (Active)
Stoneskin: Charges and summons mana to the surface of the user’s skin for added protection, strengthening the user’s own flesh to the point that it becomes hard and resilient like stone and adds a shield of HP to go over the user’s maximum health. The amount of health added is determined by Ability level multiplied by five.

Greased Lightning, Paragon Passive.
Greased Lightning: This change marks a new degree of Agility in its user. The subject’s Agility has surpassed the standard limits of mortality and, as such, is no longer bound by the laws of physics or the limitations of her own body. She and the things she carries are all immune to damage that would ensue from violating said laws or limitations.

Hive Linked, Passive.
Hive Linked: This user has been telepathically connected to a multitude of other people. All of the user’s five senses, thoughts, and emotions are magically linked and shared with everyone else connected to the hive’s source. Past memories of the users currently connected to the hive are available to the user at their own discretion. Likewise, all the senses, thoughts, and emotions of anyone else connected to the hive are shared with the user as well.

The last effect was the one that John spent the most time staring at. The mention of a shared consciousness between other people caused John to shudder as soon as he read it. He didn’t like the idea of sharing his private thoughts with other people… but it still made him curious regardless. If the Elves were mentally connected to each other through magic, then it made him wonder how many of them were actually a part of their current conversation. It was entirely possible that there could have been one for every voice he heard when the Elf was speaking. If they were all connected, then how did they prevent the shared thoughts from creating a feedback loop between them? What was in place to keep their thoughts from bouncing back and forth between each mind over and over again until it became a jumbled mess of conversations in their head?

Lastly… his thoughts went somewhere perverse. If they could all feel what everyone else was feeling, then how often did the Elves accidentally get each other off?

“How do you know my name?” Elisrya snapped, and John glanced up at her. Her recovery came soon enough to help him clear the twisted thoughts from his mind, but perhaps not as soon as the Elves in Dornwich would have liked. When she spoke, large amounts of the echo he had heard before had gone silent, and now mostly just her own taut, feminine tone remained. Her eyes dimmed back down to the point where only her irises remained faintly glowing, and John lifted up a hand for her to see.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move his fingers around to weave mana into complicated spells. His hand just burst into flames with a flicker of orange light that peeled down from his fingernails to burn at the skin past his wrist by a few inches. It was like he had put on a glove made out of the pure heat, and the only thing he could feel from it was a sense of comforting warmth. The Elf’s eyes widened and her jaw fell open as smoke began to drift in long, thin lines from John’s fingertips, but her surprise didn’t last for very long. Her eyes flashed brightly once more and the echo returned to her voice, shocking her out of her stupor.

“You can cast spells without chanting?” This time, John couldn’t even hear Elisrya’s own voice. It was drowned out by all the other ones that spoke from the depths of her throat. Her eyes moved from John’s hand over to John himself, and then her gaze narrowed at him as she finally took another step around the table to get to him. “How?” she asked.

“No,” John answered. “I showed you that I have magic to answer some of your questions. It’s time that we addressed some of mine,” he told her, and watched as the Elf took another step towards him. Her jaw tightened and her eyes flashed again, but eventually she relented. She stopped in place… and then gestured for him to continue with a wave of her hand. Her eyes dimmed once more, and John watched as she glanced over at the drinks in the center of the table, but she didn’t move to pour anything… so he reached out and poured one for her, hoping that it might help to somehow impair her own senses and reactions. He didn’t know if it would affect any of the people connected to her through the Hive Link, but he figured it was worth the attempt at least.

Unfortunately, she didn’t even look at the cup when John offered it to her. She completely refused it. If not for the fact that he was worried that the booze would make him blackout, he might have tried it himself to show her that it wasn’t poisoned. Instead, he left it alone.

“I want to sue for peace,” he grunted, and watched as the corners of Elisrya’s lips curled up into a tiny smirk.

“Peace?!” she exclaimed, and the second she opened her mouth to laugh, her eyes glimmered again. Whatever effect the Hive Link had on Elisrya cut her off before she could make another peep and caused her breath to hitch in her throat and her ghostly white cheeks to fill with color. She shook her head briefly as John stood silently in place… and then even stopped doing that after a couple of seconds. He watched her swallow deeply and slowly… and then frowned as she finally closed her eyes and nodded. “Very well.

“We assume, since the Craggy Keep remains locked up and you are now leading a tribe, you follow the Orcish traditions for rules of negotiation?” she asked, and John immediately cocked an eyebrow at her. It was only one sentence, but it had a lot for him to try and process in it. The Craggy Keep was a name that hadn’t really been brought up yet, except once by Mub. When he pulled open his map to try and find it in the Kingdom, he had to skip over most of the things that were left on it. The Craggy Keep, also listed as the Tower of Brim on his map, was up in the northernmost part of the continent. It was the last piece of civilization up north before the map reached and then ended at an area that had been painted dark and described only as the Ember Desert. If he remembered correctly what it was that Mub had told him about the Craggy Keep, then it was the last standing outpost and capital for all Humans in the Kingdom. He didn’t remember Mub mentioning that the keep had been locked up though.

“What are the Orcish traditions for rules of negotiation?” he asked and watched as the Elf blushed again and then straightened up. She stared at him for a long moment, searching his features as if she was trying to discern whether or not he was serious… and then answered him when she found the nerve to take a shaky breath and another step towards him again.

“You do not know?” she asked, and John shook his head. “Surprising, for one that supposedly leads this nest of savages. We thought that everyone north of the Burning Pass knew about Orcish raids. Your mother never told you bed tales of what might happen if you played out too far in the forest?”

John didn’t answer her. He simply grit his teeth together and stared at her, choosing to keep silent instead of acknowledging the fact that he wasn’t originally from their lands. Elisrya’s eyes narrowed at John like she was trying to read the answers off his face, and then took another step towards him.

“Traditionally, your savages used to have no desire for conquering places like this. They’re nomads without proper leadership, and they typically only kill, ****, and raid places until the tribe is given gifts to show submission and help placate them.” Elisrya paused as her eyes glowed once more and then the Elf smirked at John. “At one point, the Bomasi tribe might have been large enough to **** us to cower and hide, but it is not this way anymore. Dornwich will not surrender. We will give you a ransom, but we shall also negotiate,” she said, and her voice thrummed with all the other tones that spoke with Elisrya. John blinked, and watched as the Elf took another step towards him and hovered just out of his reach. His jaw tightened as he watched her clench and unclench the hand at her hip… but her other arm still remained behind her. It hadn’t move once since John had walked into the tent. While he stared at her arm, the Elf, or perhaps the term he should have used was Elves if he was actually talking to more than one, took the opportunity to continue chatting. Except, when she spoke John could only hear the echo in her voice.

“We did not bring with us the traditional coins, baubles, collars, and slaves that the Bomasi usually wanted… but we do have this one to offer you and... all that she wears now.” In a way, it was like the host had stopped talking. Elisrya herself remained quiet while the magic tones of every other Elf that was there with her continued speaking. The hand that had been nervously fluttering about her waist stopped shaking as the rest of Dornwich spoke… and instead slid across the front of her armor where her breasts would be and then slipped down the length of her stomach. “She is well-endowed... as a woman... and virginal…” The voices remarked the last part with a single, welcoming pat to the silvery plating that hung off Elisrya’s hips and over her crotch like a bulky metal skirt. “She is yours,” they told him, and then the hand moved back to her hip. There were no conditions or additional comments. They just gave away one of their own as if it was nothing.

Again, her other arm remained where it was.

“For your part, you will teach us your speechless casting.” And again, they just told him what was happening. In a way, it felt less like the negotiation that they had labeled it as and more like terms for his surrender. Elisrya was just a gift meant to placate him, and would probably continue to do so while she remained by his side... if she wasn’t just used to kill off all the orcs when they were done with him anyways. They were dealing in politics and threats, and the message was clear. If he didn’t want to fight all the dead they had, then he needed to agree to their terms. Technically, they didn’t even need to agree to his terms or give him any gifts. They could have just captured him by **** and taken him back to Dornwich to get their answers.

They didn’t ask him if the terms sounded alright to him. They didn’t wait to hear his agreement. They just assumed that the deal was already made. It didn’t matter that John didn’t know if he could even teach them how to cast spells without talking or moving their hands. If they were willing to sell one of their own as a **** to figure it out, then he figured they’d probably do anything to try and learn that.

“Will you be commemorating this event with your new acquisition?” the voices asked almost nonchalantly in that same echoing tone, and John watched as, even though the tones of all the other Elves seemed happy and proud of the way that things had transpired, Elisrya’s jaw tightened and her eyes became focused. She stared at John just as much as he stared at her and refused to look away now, like she had become determined to do her duty no matter what was asked of her. The arm behind her back shifted slightly as she stared at John… and the Gamer blinked as he looked down at her legs and realized that she was crouched low like she was still in her battle ready stance. He blinked… and glanced at her arm…

And something about the image of her holding herself like that reminded John of how Otrov held herself around him... like she was constantly ready to reach for a weapon that was hidden behind an illusion.