BOOM!

The first two paragraphs of this chapter are probably unnecessary, but when I started writing them I found I was having too much fun to stop. there's not a lot of actual substance in them so feel free to skip them if you find it hard to read.

The sound was deafening.

The light was blinding.

The pain was...bearable?

"Whoa whoa whoa, what have we got here?" The voice was impish, and higher pitched than Tara's had been. Almost sleepily, Roland lifted his head. He was on the ground, he idly noticed, and a sleepy haze had descended upon him. He raised his hand to touch the back of his head, and found a wet patch which stung to the touch. Well, it didn't actually hurt, it was more like he knew it should hurt, and something was telling him that it _did _in fact hurt, except he didn't feel the pain, almost like it was happening to someone else. Bringing his hand around to his face, he noted that his fingers were now coated in some blood, his own he presumed, but again this didn't seem to bother him as much as he knew it should. swinging his gaze around, he saw that the truth stone had rolled under the cabinet, which he thought was very, very strange indeed, but again he wasn't exactly sure why he thought this. 'Truth stone, truth stone' he mulled this thought a few times over in his brain before eventually giving up on the thought. If it was really important it would probably come to him later.

With a grunt of effort he sat himself up. For some reason that felt much better. 'Much more stable' he thought proudly to himself. His gaze travelled up now, to take in the rest of the room. The table was lying on its side, which was very silly of it, and its contents were tossed all over the floor in front of him, which again seemed very strange to him, but it was probably just him being silly. Further up now his gaze travelled, reaching higher up now. 'Boobs'. Two sets of boobs now sat in his view. One of them bigger than the other set, but both very delicious looking. Further up his gaze travelled until he locked eyes with Tara. 'She looks very scared for some reason' Roland thought to himself. He slowly looked around until he saw another face, one he wasn't familiar with. This face didn't look scared at all, in fact it was grinning at him. Roland grinned back, making sure to show all of his pearly white teeth, just like Mama taught him. His gaze travelled upwards some more, until it finally settled on the big hole in the roof. That thought caught him. 'Big hole in the roof?' This thought, much like the others, swam around in his head looking for something to grab onto. Unlike the others, this thought succeeded.

Roland sat bolt upright, senses coming back to him. He quickly patted himself down, looking for any large holes or other signs of ****, but found nothing except for the bloody bump on the back of his head.

"Jeez, that fucker concussed himself real good, didn't he?" Roland's head snapped around to look at the speaker, and stood before him was the leanest woman he'd ever seen. She was built in such a way that he would be surprised if a gentle breeze didn't break her in half. Clothed in form fitting dark leather, her form was more pronounced than Tara's, even though she was clearly not as curvy. As his searching eyes found her face, he was met with a wide grin and eyes sparkling mischievously.

"Wotcher" she greeted him, grin widening even further than before if it was possible. It was at this point that Roland noticed that Tara was stood next to her. Tara was in quite a panicked state, terror clear on her face, and she was struggling desperately against the grip that the stranger had on her wrist, arm reaching straight up towards the ceiling. Roland traced the path of her arm and realised that above it there was a perfectly circular hole leading straight up out of sight, presumably out into the night sky. With a sudden queasiness he realised that whatever had caused that hole had initially been aimed straight at his head.

"Humans killing each other, I'm not surprised by that, but humans using that much **** against someone that clearly isn't dangerous enough to warrant it, now that I'm intrigued by" Then the lean lady let out a long, low whistle after glancing up through the hole in the roof.

"I mean that had to have gone through, what, 4 foot of wood planks easy."

It was only now that Roland's brain finally left the last of the foggy daze behind, and he noticed two important things. Important thing number one was that Tara was, in fact, struggling quite vigorously against the grip this lady had on her, and the lean lady wasn't being budged an inch. Important thing number two was that, tucked in behind the gentle brown locks of hair, protruding ever so slightly, were two very pointed ears.

Roland rapidly scrambled backwards away from the elf, fear gripping his heart as countless horror stories about the horrors of the forests rose to the forefront of his mind, but his back hit the wall all too soon, and he realised that he had put himself further from the door than he had been before.

"Elenwein, Wood elf and [Shadow Blade] extraordinaire, at your service" The elf bowed slightly towards him, and gave a small flourish with her hand not occupied with holding Tara hostage. Just then the wild panic on Tara's face vanished, replaced by a cold visage. She whipped out her free arm, and Roland realised she had been channeling another spell while the elf had been distracted. The same fizzling orb that threatened his life not 5 minutes before was brought to bear against the slim figure. Time seemed to slow down in that moment, as Roland saw the elf shift her weight slightly, bowed forward as she was, she seemed to twist unnaturally as her flourishing hand shot out across her body and in one smooth motion caught Tara's wrist and crossed her hand over her own body. Time sped back up in the next instance, and the room was once more enveloped in a flash of white, and a deafening boom rang out as a large beam of energy shot through the closed shutters of the window of the office. With a clatter the shutters fell to the ground, opening up the room to be bathed in a strange orange glow from the outside.

"tsk, tsk, tsk" A tutting noise emerged from the twisting elf as she straightened herself out, making sure to keep a grip on both of the wrists of the now glaring Tara, who had ceased struggling a moment ago.

"I can see why she wanted me to deal with ya 'fore everything kicked off. Good thing she sensed you too, else I might not have turned up in time for the fun." The grin was back on the elf's face, although now it seemed more predatory than before. "Anyway, as great as this has been, I really have places I've got to be, so let's wrap this up, shall we." As she said this, in one swift move she unsheathed a sword that was attached to her waist and brought the hilt up to Tara's temple, knocking her ****.

As Tara's limp body was let drop to the ground, the elf turned her gaze back to Roland. She slowly, casually strolled towards where he was sat, back to the wall, nowhere to go, and heart beating out of his chest.

"I really wish I didn't have to do this, but unfortunately it's against my best interests for you humans to know that I'm still alive and kicking, and I've only been allowed to bring back the really good toys, and you just don't seem to fit the cut." As she was saying this she was still moving towards him. She let her sword drag along the floor, so that it let out a scraping sound. "Truth be told, I should have probably killed you already and been done with it, but I've always been a fan of... Theatrics" She let this last word drag out, as she knelt down, so that she was eyelevel with him, terrible, predatory grin still plastered across her face. "Tough luck kid, you know, and nothing personal, I promise." With that she brought the blade up in one quick motion, and slit his throat.

Or at least that's what should have happened. Except as the blade began it's movement, something inside Roland switched again, and this time the world seemed to slow down. The blade was moving still towards his neck, but it was moving so slowly now, he could just move out of the way if he wanted to. So of course, that's what he did, or at least tried to do. He could see it all happening in slow motion but his body was too slow to react. He felt himself moving sluggishly, as if underwater. Realization hit him that he wouldn't be able to move out of the way in time, and he turned his gaze to the face of the elf, but her expression had changed. Gone was the impish grin, now a look of intense adorned her face. It took Roland a moment to realize his throat hadn't been cut, eyes locked to the gaze of the elf. With a slight movement of his head, he was able to glance down and see the razor sharp blade halted right before his neck. The elf had stopped the arc with millimeters to spare, and he could almost feel the coldness of the steel against his skin. She was frozen now, only moving now to breathe, but her eyes were flickering rapidly, seemingly trying to take everything about him in at once. Suddenly she withdrew and stood to her full height, stepping back to put some distance between them.

"You're Verging" She stated this as fact, not asking him, more telling him. "That explains a lot, but not why she was about to blow your head to the other side of the Instepid river." Suddenly the grin was back on her face, although now it seemed more sincere, as if before she had been wearing it because she had worn it for so long her face naturally reverted to that state when she wasn't expressing any other emotion, but now she was genuinely interested and excited about what was happening.

"Okay tough guy, I'm feeling that you're Verging pretty hard, so either you're right on the edge or you're gonna be pretty powerful, either way let's have us some fun with this shall we" She said this with a wink, and reaching down, unsheathed another, shorter sword from a strap hanging behind her waist, brought it up and after letting out a sharp "Catch" tossed it at him. Roland's hand shot out and deftly plucked the sword from the air. His arm stayed outstretched in front of him, as he gazed in wonderment and confusion at the sword held in his grip.

"From that fish out of water look on your face I'm going to assume that nobody told you what happens when you get a class" His gaze flicked back onto the terror in front of him. "Well let's see if we can rectify that, shall we" Her grin had that predatory quality again, and she was sizing him up now with a different kind of gaze, and a part of Roland realised that she was seeing him as a warrior now, and looking for weakness in his stance, in the way he held himself.

"When someone gets a class, most of the time, it's simple enough, they slowly and over time come into their class, and one day they wake up with the words in their heads and the knowledge of their job." As she said this she stepped in and brought her blade swinging towards him, arching through the air, much slower than before, and Roland's hand swung out and the blades clashed. His movement had been smooth, almost lazy, as if to say "is that all?". Her grin widened. Roland wasn't sure why he was acting like this, or how it was even possible, but he could only pray that this was his class saving him from certain ****.

"Now most people get their classes in the adolescents years of their lives. Of course it's different for every race, elves have years and years of their lives that they spend classless, whereas you humans have to find out what you're going to be for the rest of your lives by the time that you're 18." She had stepped back and was slowly pacing back and forth as she spoke, her voice adopting a lecturing tone.

"But sometimes, some people who've gone past their expected Class day start to develop a class." She stepped back in, bringing her sword in, quicker now, and the blades clashed, crossed in front of Roland's chest, she leaned across the blades, grin deepening and widening as she got close enough that he could feel her warm breath on his face. "Just. Like. You" She put extra emphasis on each of the words. With a twist and a flourish she was back out of his reach again, and he was left standing there waiting for her to come closer again and feeling the cold sweat pouring off him in buckets.

It occurred to him that he hadn't spoke since he'd snapped out of his daze, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to remember how to say his own name at this point, so focused on the woman in front of him and not dying a horrible ****.

"See the buildup to obtaining your class is because your soul needs time to build to that level of strength, that it can manifest itself well enough to be able to help you on your path, but if you don't know what you want to be by the time you hit that crucial age, then what does the soul do? I mean, if you don't know what you want to be then how can it help you. It shuts itself off from the rest of the world, and suddenly the poor lad becomes classless." She was probing now more frequently, her sword snapping forward to pressure him every few seconds, keeping him off balance.

"But the thing is, the soul doesn't stop growing during that period, still drawing in power, still trying to find anything to latch onto that it could do. And when the Classless lad experiences a meaningful event, could be trauma, could be fear, could be love, well the soul feels that and it wakes up." Suddenly something changed, she burst across the room, and Roland felt his body almost leave his control. He found himself furiously batting aside sword strikes as she unleashed a relentless onslaught of swings and stabs. Reflexes and muscle memory that weren't his took control of his body and kept him from being cut in half in the first half second of combat.

"And the soul starts to look for the thing that awoke it, the feeling or moment that caused it to be unleashed." She wasn't even labored in her breathing and she was speaking as if she wasn't currently making him fight for his life, the rain of blows coming faster and faster as she tested his limits.

"But then imagine that something more pressing comes up, say an evil elf comes along and attacks the person, then the soul needs to adapt, but it still wants to stick with the first class that it had decided on, well it starts to temporarily change to meet the needs of the person. We call this Verging, and the closer you are to actually getting a class the stronger the temporary classes tend to be. And you, my favorite new toy, are very close to your class, I can almost taste it." Throughout the entire conversation she hadn't let up her onslaught, and as she finished her lecture she finally gave him a moment to catch his breath, stepping back out of his reach. Roland was barely able to stand, short sword outstretched, sweat pouring off of him, he wasn't sure how he was going to get out of this.

"Now that we've got that out of the way, let's kick this up a notch" She winked at him, before lunging.

He slid to the left, narrowly dodging the point of her sword as she shot forward, leaving a shallow slash on his arm as he leapt to the side. His sword flashed out to try and catch her mid lunge, but even as he brought his arm around he found her stepping inside his guard and, with a slight push from her, he was sent stumbling into one of the bookshelves behind him. Staggering to his feet, he leveled his sword back at the grinning terror standing in front of him, and set himself.

"One more thing, when you Verge like this, the soul kind of supercharges the class it's temporarily giving you, to try and give you a fighting chance of standing up to a vastly superior foe, but because of this the class becomes very unstable. Eventually it'll fall apart and you'll go back to being Classless and waiting for your main class to manifest." With that she set herself, and for the first time in the fight her grin dropped from her face.

She flashed forward again, and this time Roland knew he wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time. Time slowed as he readied himself and stabbed out to catch the elf before she could cut him, but suddenly she kicked the ground, adjusting herself so she narrowly avoided his adept strike and, grabbing hold of his shoulder, she swung herself around and kicked him backwards towards the center of the room.

Stumbling backwards, he quickly found his footing and brought his attention back to her. And there she stood, outlined by the orange glow of the window to the outside. The orange glow. But wasn't it night time? And then it clicked. Something inside Roland switched back, and his stance became unstable, his grip on the sword went from firm, to unsure, to loose ,before it clattered to the floor.

"I must have forgot to tell you, I brought friends"

Roland stared at his home for the last 6 years as it went up in flames, while a deranged elf howled with laughter.

And then she stepped forward, and without the enhancements of his temporary class, she easily knocked aside his arms and smashed the hilt of her blade into his temple, knocking him ****.

Well that's chapter 5 for you (or chapter 6 if you count the introductory chapter I guess). Again not much in the erotica yet, but we're shortly coming to the beginnings of that, and to the function to bring about all the sex. Maybe. I'm enjoying writing the story but there will be sex don't worry.

Also my first attempt at a fight scene and pretty sure I messed up the dialogue/fight flow for the bit where she is talking a lot, but I hope that the other section was at least mediocre. :)