An Unwavering Craftsman

"I greet you, honoured hosts. May your land be fertile and your sight clear. You may refer to me as Greenhair," said the elf, sitting upright in the dining room. He was still very obviously malnourished, but was far more responsive than earlier. His condition on arrival had mostly been due to the method of transport, his frail body not handling Fleta's speed at all well, rather than his hunger, and a small meal and rest had been sufficient to partially recover. A couple of months of proper eating would be required to bring him back to full health, but he was in no immediate danger.

"That sounds more like a description than a name," observed Damien, resulting in Shigeo whacking him across the back of the head.

"That's because it's not a name," he explained. "Banished elves lose the right to call themselves by their birth name, so show some sensitivity!"

"How was I supposed to know that? You need to tell me these things beforehand!" hissed Damien, wondering if that long-winded greeting was traditional too, and if there was some set response he was supposed to give.

Greenhair took on a distant look, reminded of his homeland. "Worry not. I know as little of your culture as you do of mine. I will refrain from taking offence, if you do likewise."

"Sounds fair to me."

"We accept your greeting. May you find shelter and rest under our branches," said Fleta, confirming there was indeed a traditional response. One that Greenhair was obviously not expecting anyone to know, judging from his brief flicker of surprise.

"Not that we have any branches. Plenty of wood around the house, but none of it alive, alas," added Shigeo, which probably wasn't traditional.

"Indeed. We are a long way from the lehibe trees of Ygrillana, and never again will I lay eyes on them, unworthy as I am."

"Please don't talk like that. Your worth isn't decided by your class," replied Damien.

"Then what measure would you have me use? Does starving on the streets of a foreign land have worth? Needing to rely on the charity of strangers?"

"Being alive has worth. Everything else is just icing on the cake."

"Icing on the cake?" asked Greenhair, looking confused. "What is icing? Or cake?"

"Oh. Are all our analogies and metaphors going to fall flat here? Rain on the soil? Dew on the lettuce? Leaves on the trees?"

Greenhair stared at Damien for a few seconds before bursting into laughter.

"I assume none of them were correct, then?" guessed Damien, thankful that at least laughter seemed to be universal.

"I believe 'honey on my bread' would be appropriate, if I have correctly read your meaning."

"You have bread but not cake? Seriously? How does that work?"

"You will need to explain 'cake' if I am to understand your surprise."

"Okay, let's drop that subject for the moment," said Shigeo, and Damien turned to look at him, spotting Grace behind him, her shoulders shaking with the effort of not laughing. Lana was next to her, too. Apparently, that conversation had the full set of spectators. "Greenhair, we'd like to offer you a job. If you take it, you can stay here, and we'll help you to level. If you don't, you can still stay here until you recover, and then we'll help you find work elsewhere. Be aware there's danger involved."

"You would help me level? What purpose is there in that?"

Once again, Damien was left to explain, this time including the events at Illuganasis in his description. Despite having his class for five years already, Greenhair was still level one, never having obtained any materials with which to train his [Alchemy] skill, so the plan needed no modification.

"I will offer you my aid. Perhaps through this path I can find my worth."

"Great!" boomed Shigeo. "That's the last of our co-conspirators found. The dismantler is arriving tomorrow, and tools and equipment over the next few days. It won't be long before you can get started."

"I'll make another trip to the capital tomorrow; the bare minimum for you to start using your skills will be ready for me to pick up," added Fleta. "The day after, the pair of us need to eradicate the orgwöld nest, and the day after that, the rest of your equipment will be ready."

"I might ask a few friends to keep an eye on you all while we're away hunting," said Shigeo. "If anyone else is going to try anything, that would be an opportune time."

"What sort of thing could they try? Given how epically Lord Dwilerp failed after the temple of Gaia sided with us, surely any further attempts to claim we're out of favour with the Five will fail?"

"Frankly, with that path closed, I'm worried someone will try an outright kidnap. You can't defend yourself against any serious attacker, and you aren't a member of any guilds or institutions that would take offence at an assault on one of their members. If someone takes you, they could use you as a hostage to control the pair of us."

"Right... So, stay indoors while you're both out of town."

"Yes. Buy yourself some cheap cloth tomorrow and sit and practice. Give Lana and Greenhair a rundown of our wards and defences, too."

Damien nodded.

"Sorry, but for what reason have you summoned a dismantler to your home?" asked Greenhair.

Damien, having focused on the mechanics of his idea, realised he'd neglected some of the more practical details. He'd informed the pair that they'd be providing materials with which to grind their skills, but had never actually mentioned what those materials were.

"To level up the fastest, we want the highest tier materials possible," he started, breaking the news to them gently.

"You have prepared the corpse of some high tier beast, then? But what manner of monster has materials for the three of us, and is large enough to be worthwhile?"

"A dragon," admitted Damien, quietly.

"Forgive my poor hearing, but I didn't quite catch that. It sounded like you said a dragon."

"..." said Damien, knowing full well how utterly ridiculous the situation was. To be fair to George, he hadn't been completely wrong.

"You are serious?" asked the elf in shock.

"Completely."

Greenhair said nothing more, although his expression made it clear he would like to. The elven rules of hospitality probably forbade him from accusing his hosts of insanity.

"Umm..." interrupted Lana, raising a hand as if she were in some sort of classroom. "Can I ask a question?"

"Of course."

"What's a dragon?"

The entirety of the room turned to look at her, even Grace displaying open surprise. That wasn't completely fair; no-one came into the world knowing what a dragon was. Everyone must learn at some point, and someone spending their life in a small village smithy could go longer than most without learning something that anyone with a formal education would consider common sense.

"Most people consider them the kings of monsters, but that's completely inaccurate; they aren't monsters at all. They're native creatures, and highly intelligent. They're closer to humans or elves. Just another intelligent race of the bowl," answered Fleta.

"A race that considers every other race so far beneath them that they may as well be bugs," snorted Shigeo. "An adult dragon is likely to give as much consideration to you as you would to a mouse. It's not that they're belligerent. They just don't care, the selfish buggers."

"For our purposes, any materials from an adult are tier nine, and they're the size of a small house," added Damien.

"What?" gasped Lana. "You're going to give us materials that valuable just to grind low-level skills?! You could sell it for a fortune!"

"Already got a fortune," grunted Shigeo. "Don't need more. People are more important."

"I am uncomfortable with the thought of using materials taken from a dragon," admitted Greenhair. "Yet it is true that never in my lifetime will I see any other alchemical ingredient as potent as its blood."

"Yeah, bones and scales for Lana, leather and sinew for me, blood and... whatever else has an alchemical use for Greenhair."

"And the meat for me," added Shigeo, a creature the size of a small house having a decent chance of sating his appetite.

"I believe that bones can be powdered and used, but that would leave me in competition with Lana. There is some amount that can be done with internal organs, but they are complex to process and I lack the skills required."

"Devoting some of the bones and scales to alchemy should be fine; don't forget we've got a lot of adamantite too," pointed out Fleta.

"You certainly know a lot about alchemy," commented Damien to Greenhair. "That can't be coming from your [Alchemy] skill?"

"No. It is the result of my childhood education back in the forests of my home."

Maturing more slowly didn't mean that elves learnt any slower. If anything, their memories exceeded that of humans. With small bodies and immature minds, and needing to wait till the age of thirty to obtain a class, elves handled their children by piling up excessive levels of schooling, leaving them well versed in a wide selection of topics by the time they came of age.

Damien pondered as he watched the elf nibbling slowly at a bowl of fruit, pacing himself to avoid problems from his long period of starvation. One thing he'd picked up on without needing to be told was that, unlike humans, elves were not omnivorous. Their digestive systems couldn't cope with meat or other protein-rich foods. That still didn't explain the lack of cake, though. Elves probably couldn't, or wouldn't, eat eggs—or milk or butter, for that matter—but it wasn't like there weren't alternatives. Heck, you could just load up a batch of bread with sugar.

What Damien didn't know was that they did have such creations. They simply called them sweet-breads. Not to be confused with what the humans called sweetbread, which was something very different indeed. It was amazing the number of misunderstandings that could occur despite nominally speaking the same language.

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you get here? Dad implied you were kicked off and left to fend on your own, but it's hundreds of miles from Ygrillana to here," asked Damien, hopeful that Shigeo had been exaggerating, and their people saw them safely to other islands instead of abandoning them alone at sea.

"Jurelli was my intended goal. I was blown off course by a storm. An act of nature for which I am most grateful; at the time it struck, it was obvious that even the nearby Jurelli was out of my reach."

Damien peered, that answer not being within his expectations. What were the chances of a storm blowing him right to Hrellflan while missing the other islands in the way? It was hundreds of miles! There was no way that could happen.

No, there was no way that could happen naturally. Despite Greenhair's assertion, Damien harboured a suspicion it was no act of nature. In turn, that had the implication someone was trying to get this gang of three together.

No, it was even worse than that; Greenhair had been banished five years previously. If Damien's hunch was correct, it had been planned out at least five years before Damien took his class. Looking around, he saw Fleta looking concerned. She'd obviously cottoned on too.

Was whoever or whatever sent Greenhair to him the same entity as the voice in his dreams? Or perhaps his thinking was backwards, and the owner of that voice was trying to kill him while the Five were supporting his efforts? It had originally discouraged him from accepting a class from Grungle, after all. Damien couldn't help but feel like a pawn in someone else's chess game.

Lana left for her room, and Damien decided he should follow her example. It was late, and unlike his parents, he didn't have the vitality required to forgo sleep. Leaving his parents to continue talking to Greenhair, and Grace to tidy up his impromptu meal, Damien turned in for the night.

Fleta had left by the time he awoke, while Shigeo was sitting at the dining table with a book.

"It's not like you to read," commented Damien.

"Oi! I read! Sometimes. When there's nothing better to do."

"Aww, and now that your beloved wife has departed, leaving you all alone, you have nothing better?" needled Damien, which unexpectedly failed to get a rise out of his dad. "What's wrong?"

"Bah. You're too observant. Don't look, but there's someone on the roof next door, watching us. I was sitting here to see what he did."

As ever when someone is told not to look at something, Damien had to fight quite hard not to turn and stare out of the window, instead carefully taking his seat at the table.

"You aren't going to run out there and grab him?"

"If your mum was here, maybe, but if he has any half-decent stealth or movement skills, I wouldn't be able to catch him on my own."

"What do you think he wants?"

"No idea. Maybe waiting for me to leave, to break in, or for you to leave, to grab you while you're unprotected. Maybe looking for something to use against us. They could just be spying to see what we're up to, or it could be completely unrelated to you."

"Why would they decide to kidnap me now? I may not be able to defend myself, but that was equally true last week."

"Yes, but now there's no-one other than us who would protect you. Had someone kidnapped you last week, back when everyone assumed you would be tier seven, one noble making a move on you would have made an enemy of the others."

Damien shuffled in frustration. Kidnapping him before he had his class would make an enemy of other nobles, but kidnapping him afterwards wouldn't, even if the purpose of the kidnap was to control his parents? Perhaps it would be possible to spin things as his parents willingly joining up, signing a proper, official contract, but it was still a stretch. Either way, informing Lana and Greenhair about the defensive wards shot up to the top of his day's to-do list.

"Is Grace safe? I can stay indoors, but she needs to go shopping."

"Nah, don't cancel your plans; I'll keep an eye on you today. Grace will be fine, too. Prejudice can work for us, as well as against us. No noble would consider her a worthwhile hostage, simply because they couldn't comprehend that we treat her as part of the family. If it was one of their own servants captured, they'd write them off as dead and hire a replacement without a second thought. Lana will have the same protection. Just make sure not to act too familiar with them while out in public, or when being observed. Greenhair needs to stay indoors, though, simply for being an elf. They still won't consider him a useful hostage, but someone might decide he'll make a novel slave, once he stops looking so anaemic."

"Dammit... Wasn't this town supposed to be peaceful?"

"This will all blow over once everyone sees what happens to the first few people to try something."

"I hope so. I'm too young for all this stress."

"Well, make sure you succeed, then. No-one would ever be able to touch you again."

Damien nodded, more determined than ever to reach his goal.

Lana and Greenhair joined them at the table, just in time for Grace to serve breakfast.

"Never knew it was possible to set an apple on fire just by picking it up wrong," she commented as she placed a salad bowl in front of Greenhair.

"I... believe that was a joke?" he asked uncertainly.

"We think so, but I'm fairly sure no-one in the family would want to stake their life on it," supplied Damien.

A knock on the door partway through their meal heralded the arrival of the guild dismantler, his eagerness at working on a dragon resulting in his arrival before it was even fully light. Shigeo inhaled the remainder of his breakfast before going to meet him, leaving the trio of young adults on their own.

"Right, since you're both going to be living here, I need to explain our home security. With mum and dad often away on lengthy missions, and the house full of valuable trophies and equipment, we have a fairly extensive setup, including defensive wards, a bunker and a couple of escape routes. Should you be faced with an intruder, try to lure them into a trap; none of them will harm you, so you don't need to worry about running through one. The first layer are illusion charms, designed to fool observers into thinking my parents are home and stop them intruding in the first place. Second layer are 'safe' disablers, like net conjuration, hardening fluids and stunners. Finally, we have... well, let me fetch a melon and I'll show you."