Cara’s face lit up with fury. “Do you know what the word ‘grinding’ means, Jake?”

Jake shook his head. Suspicions were forming in his mind, but if he was right, sharing them would only make things worse.

“They’d slaughter entire villages, just for the meager XP they’d provide. Then, once a week, some evil, cruel god would recreate the villages so they could do it all over again. Every week, new, innocent folk, created out of thin air, ripe for the slaughter.”

Jake’s heart hammered in his chest and his throat tightened shut. He could imagine it all too well, but this world was clearly way more advanced than any Earth game. Cara, Jeremy, hell, even the wolf felt real. But if they were real, then—

A dark chill swept over him, leaving him sick to the core. No sapient being deserved that, and Cara at least seemed to qualify. And if she did, presumably the others did too.

Cara carried on, her voice swelling with rage. “The worst part must have been how helpless they felt. Even if they banded together and somehow killed a few, they’d simply come back, worse than ever.” She slammed her fists against the smooth bark floor. “Murderers, all of them. Thank the Forest they’re gone.”

Was he supposed to comfort her? Jake stopped his hand halfway. No. If she knew… Whatever her reaction would be, she damned well wouldn’t want him comforting her, least of all now.

Her breathing slowed, and her fists gradually unclenched. “Sorry. It makes me so damned angry, but…” She pursed her lips and turned away. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Whatever problems I have, they had it so much worse.” When she looked up, determination burned in her eyes. “Come on, let’s get you settled in.”

They walked in silence for a while. Her swift pace forced him to jog to keep up. Should he tell her? If he waited, he could build trust first. Trust that might be shattered by the truth. Assuming she ever found out; getting out of the forest might not be a bad medium-term plan.

Positives: He might be immortal here. Negatives: Everyone would hate him if they knew the truth. Typical. Thank heavens he hadn’t mentioned it yet.

Not that he’d been hiding it. It simply hadn’t seemed like the right time. “Hey guys, I know you’re interrogating me because you think I’m a shapeshifting wizard looking to murder you all, but did you know my character sheet says I’m a Hero?”

Somehow, he hadn’t thought that would go down well. He scrubbed it from the table of questions he planned to ask and started a new mental list. “Questions to never ask, ever, no matter how important.” They already had enough reasons to distrust him. There was no need to go giving them more.

Cara led him out into the biggest room yet, at least forty feet wide, formed in the middle of a gigantic tree. The room was full of wood elves, all plainly dressed with bare feet. Most worked away at some form of craft or watched those who did. There was a wide array of crafts—whittling wood, bow making, leatherworking, and more.

The hustle and bustle came with a sweet, soothing melody of Wood Elvish voices, all talking and laughing. Less soothing was the sharp, pungent smell. His nose wrinkled. The creature he’d carried back for Cara was mid-way through being skinned by an older male elf, while two younger elves watched and pretended to listen.

He caught the older elf’s gaze. He stopped mid-cut and stared, his sentence shuddering to a halt. Like a cascade of dominoes, the entire room fell silent, all eyes turning on Jake.

Just like being back home. Jake pasted on a smile. He wouldn’t give them any more reasons to dislike him, not if he could help it.

Silence hung in the air. He looked to Cara. She knew them, and she knew him; it was up to her now. Her eyes widened, and she turned away, fiddling with her hands as she tried to hide in the middle of the room.

His new inner sense informed him she was literally attempting to disappear. He raised an eyebrow and whispered, “You’re trying to Stealth?”

She froze up. A long, tense silence passed before she replied, quiet as a mouse. “… Maybe.”

Even still learning how the world worked, that seemed unlikely. “Does Stealth work in the open?”

More silence.

Awkward, but good to know people were people, no matter where they were. As usual, it was up to him. He stepped forward and waved. “Hi, I’m Jake.”

The elves stared back. They said nothing, but their expressions softened, at least.

The elf who’d gaze he’d caught laid down his skinning knife and stepped forward. He presented his hands, wide and open, palms outstretched. “Welcome, Jake. I am Reltan.”

Awkwardness filled the void between them, but Jake would take that any day over Jeremy or the unnamed elf deciding whether to kill him. “So, err… you’re a skinner, then?”

Reltan nodded. “No grandmaster, but skilled enough to teach the children.” He gestured to the two young but very much adult-looking elves beside him.

“Children?” The word slipped out of Jake’s lips without thinking.

The elf shook his head, a motion so small it was almost imperceptible. “All of the learners here today have yet to see a hundred springs. Some,” Reltan said, glancing at his two inattentive students, “have not yet found the right craft for them.” He refocused on Jake with a piercing gaze.

A tingle rippled down Jake’s back. Not unpleasant, but unfamiliar enough to be unsettling. Was this what it was like to be Identified? He hadn’t felt that before. There had to be a way to hide it.

Reltan’s jaw dropped, and he recoiled. “You have no profession skills at all?”

Jake shook his head. “No, and no useful experience, either.”

The elf smiled and nodded to Cara. “Then you have brought him to the right place, Cara. I can take custody of him for now, if you wish.” He held his arms out, looking from side to side at the crowd of elves still silently watching behind him. “I think between us we can handle him for a few hours.”

Her eyes lit up so fast it was hard not to be offended. She darted forward, pocketed a small chunk of wood from the carving desk, and dashed for the door.

Reltan shook his head slightly and gestured for Jake to follow him. “Come. We can try you on skinning first.”

Sweet, melodic Wood Elvish filled the hall once more. This was an opportunity for Jake to create a good first impression. Better not to spoil it thinking about Cara.

***

The carving knife thudded against the table, harder than Jake intended. He winced. He couldn’t even put the knife down right. “It’s pointless. I’m officially useless at everything.” Here, anyway. Give me a computer or some equations any day.

“Patience, young one.” Reltan pulled up a chair beside him. “Everyone has their calling. From the look of your stats, I would posit that yours are more cerebral than artisan. I have no doubt in a city you would make a fine scholar.”

“Fat lot of good that does me.” Jake sighed and buried his head in his hands. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”

“Understandable. There are many crafts beyond those within this tree.”

Jake bit back another sarcastic outburst. The other elves had treated him with a mixture of distant curiosity, apathy, and suspicion, while Reltan had been nothing but patient, taking him from craftsman to craftsman and introducing him to each in turn. “What would you suggest?”

The elf leaned back, and Jake felt that increasingly familiar ripple he’d felt again and again over the past few hours. “Craft choices are very personal. Most can only ever level two at a time, and, while the choice isn’t permanent, every level in a third skill costs one of the old.”

“As you said. And I assume each level gets harder to increase?”

Reltan nodded with a glowing smile. “Very good, yes. I never recommend particular craft skills to any of my learners. If you’re going to spend your life studying a craft, I feel it should be one that calls to you.”

“It matters that I’m not an elf, too, doesn’t it? No point in me learning a skill like bow crafting when I’ll be dead before I’m half as good as your intermediates, let alone your masters.”

“That is one way to look at it.”

“So, what do you have a gap in? What don’t enough elves study?”

Reltan’s frown made his disapproval clear, but Jake couldn’t just drop it. If—when—he got home, his skills here wouldn’t matter. So long as he was stuck in this world, he was damned well going to make himself useful.

The elf sighed. “I would recommend that you find crafts that you personally are happy with. However, I will not deny you the information you seek. First, there are skills that serve little purpose here. Farming, for instance—we have no farmland. Second, there are gathering skills, many of which are always in demand, especially those that require leaving the village. Having more herbs, for instance, is never a bad thing.”

He paused. The silence dragged into awkwardness. Tension coiled in Jake’s chest. What didn’t Reltan want to say? Jake’s heart sank. It made sense they wouldn’t trust him. He was, after all, asking in a roundabout way what their weaknesses were.

When Reltan finally resumed, he spoke slowly, quieter than before. “Third, there are the profession skills that are simply too dangerous for many elves to take them. Mining, Spellcrafting, and Archeology are the first that come to mind.”

That didn’t sound like mistrust. It almost sounded like Reltan, a stranger and an elf, didn’t want him to risk his life for them. Had he misjudged the man? Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad here, at least as long as they didn’t know he was a Hero.

If he stayed, a useful profession would help. Spellcrafting in particular might complement learning magic, although its inclusion in the “too dangerous for elves” set was more than a little concerning. “What’s so dangerous about those?”

“Mining and Archeology, in and of themselves, are not dangerous professions. The danger comes from where one would have to travel for them. The only usable mines around here are in the Deep-Forest, the underground dungeons beneath us. I believe you have already met one of their lesser denizens.”

Lesser? Jake swallowed and nodded for him to continue. It was almost sad how much his eyes lit up to have an attentive audience.

“Spellcrafting, on the other hand, is inherently dangerous. One mistake, and the spell might easily backfire. The more magic used, and the bigger the mistake, the greater the resulting… incident. Most elves would prefer not to risk their lives in that way. Instead, we pass down what little magical knowledge we have left, or can trade for, and that is sufficient.”

“I can’t say I blame them. How long do elves live, anyway?”

“It varies. With adept healers and a life well-lived, a wood elf would be lucky to reach a thousand springs.”

A thousand years was more than lucky. Better to move on before he started an argument. “You mentioned Archeology—what use would that be?”

It was only fleeting, but the elf’s expression left no doubt he’d asked a stupid question. Given the number of questions he’d asked, particularly how basic a lot of them were, it was a testament to Reltan’s patience that it had taken that long.

The expression of disbelief was swiftly replaced by a bitter smile. “Much knowledge has been lost over the millennia, or guarded with such jealousy that it may as well have been. Much of it was never held by the wood elves to begin with, or stolen—more’s the pity, for we would have preserved it better. Nowhere is this truer than in the art of Spellcrafting. Both the Heroes of old and the Divine Empire that followed them discovered many things about the craft.”

Jake leaned forward. What knowledge might he be able to find? Powerful magic? Maybe even a way out of this place? “How did they make so much progress if it’s so dangerous?”

“Death was no impediment to Heroes. There are tales that some would even embrace death upon an injury, such as losing a limb, returning whole once more. The Divine Empire…” He trailed off, his fists balling up in the first sign that the elf had anything but kind patience in his heart. “The Divine Empire had no qualms about using slaves to test their spells.”

Slaves were out, but given he was a Hero…

Archeology might pair well with Spellcrafting, at least if he could learn magic. Cara had assumed he was a mage based on his MP, so he had to have the stats for it. And who wouldn’t want to be able to shoot fireballs out of their hands?

“Thank you, Reltan. You’ve been more helpful than I could have imagined.” He’d certainly never imagined he’d have learned to skin a torric today. “I don’t think I’m ready to choose just yet but, could you tell me more about the history of the world?”

The elf sat up straight, his chest thrust out and a gleam in his eye. He kept it as brief as he could, in his own rambling way. Jake listened carefully. The more knowledge he could arm himself with, the better.

The gist was that the Age of Heroes had been a time of great upheaval, with many wars, principally centered around the throne of the Divine Empire. It was a time of great deeds and events, with many unbelievable occurrences and upheavals.

Jake nodded along, his hypothesis about “Heroes” becoming more and more solid. If the Divine Empire was tied to them, then he might find more information there. If he could figure out what happened, and where the Heroes went, that might lead to a way home.

Save your father, save the world. Had his father thought the same thing? He bit his lip. Wild speculation about a man he hadn’t seen in over a decade wouldn’t help anything. Paying attention to Reltan’s rambling history lesson might.

The Heroes had declined in numbers, disappearing to a fate unknown, until, one day, all the remaining Heroes had simply vanished. Since then, there had been scattered rumors of other Heroes, singular or in small groups, but never in the numbers there once were.

The Divine Empire had endured, its last emperor ruling with an iron grip. Since his death, no more Emperors had been crowned. Besides border skirmishes, the last ten thousand years had been relatively peaceful.

Power abhors a vacuum. Ten thousand years and no new empires? It made no sense. “Who’s in charge now?”

“The Divine Emperor rules all.”

Jake bit his lip. Had he missed something? “Didn’t you say that the throne of the Divine Emperor has been vacant since the last emperor, ten thousand years ago?”

Reltan winced for the briefest of moments. “That’s what I said.”

“Isn’t that a contradiction?”

The elf’s face twisted into an expression of agony that fled so fast it was hard to be sure it had really happened. Reltan seemed perfectly fine, with no trace of the flash of pain. “I don’t understand.”

Jake leaned back and bit his lip. The man appeared completely genuine, yet what he was saying wasn’t possible. “How long has the Divine Emperor been on the throne?”

Reltan shrugged. “As long as anyone can remember.”

“Was the Divine Emperor on the throne a hundred years ago?”

“He was,” Reltan said, with absolute confidence.

Jake took a deep breath. It made no sense. The current emperor had to be the same as the last emperor. Unless the handles pointed to different objects. Could it be? This was either going to be the dumbest question he’d ever asked, or one of the smartest. “A hundred years ago, was there a Divine Emperor?”

Reltan’s face flickered with pain again. Back to normal, he answered with that same confidence. “No. None have been crowned since the disappearance of the Heroes.”

A dark foreboding hooked into Jake’s gut. He prayed his hunch was wrong, but the quest had been clear on one point. “Save your father, save the world.” Whatever his father had gotten himself mixed up in, it was big.

Fourteen years of not knowing. Two-thirds of his life wondering what had happened and trying not to give a shit. I’m sorry Reltan, but I have to know. “Fourteen years ago today, was there a Divine Emperor?”

Reltan shook his head, a quizzical expression on his face. “No?”

Heat rose in Jake’s gut. It wasn’t fair, life never had been. Even knowing there was a connection wouldn’t help, just leave even more questions than answers.

He swallowed. He had to know. “Thirteen years ago, was there a Divine Emperor?”

Another flicker of pain crossed the poor elf’s face. Jake’s chest tightened. At least Reltan didn’t seem to remember it.

“Yes, there was. The Divine Emperor has been on the throne as long as anyone can remember.”