For the love of the Watcher's Tits that child can yell, Ulric thought.

  His reprieve had lasted about long enough for his legs to collapse and now, this.

  Groaning, he forced himself to his feet and entered the burned out titan-tree cave he used nowadays for shelter to find the child crouched in a corner gnawing at the bindings on his hands. Ulric had left the bindings in place, and even secured them, by a long leader line, to the wall of the shelter because he was fairly certain that he'd pass out soon and he hadn't wanted the child to bolt. Or murder him in his sleep thinking he was a partner to the thugs. Pragmatism over sympathy, because he wasn’t particularly a nice person.

  "Easy there, lad." Ulric said, as gently as he could manage.

  He held his hands up and approached the child without haste, speaking softly and slowly, calming nothings to show he meant no harm. The child pulled his mouth from the bonds long enough to spit at Ulric, successfully, and then returned to attempting to savage them with his teeth.

  Flecks of spittle the twice born man brushed from his cheek, a little blood mixed in there by the color, and he continued to move closer, crouching so he didn’t loom so much. He noticed that the boy's nose had been badly broken and was leaning sideways against his cheek. Mouth occupied as it was, the boy was in clear agony breathing heavily through the broken nose and mouth between bites.

  Trying to avoid moving suddenly or any faster, Ulric knelt down just out of reach of the elf waif and tried speaking to him again.

  "I won't hurt you child, and neither will the ones who captured you." He said, calm, cool.

  Ulric didn't know how much he needed to spare the sensibilities of a child, but then, he'd never had a talent for coddling feelings and hadn't developed one while hunting beasts in a magical wood either, so he continued bluntly, "I killed the men, what didn't get killed by the monsters they fought, and took you back to my camp. I have no fellowship with them, nor anyone of this world."

  Elf teeth had a bit of sharpness to them, he noted, the kid was actually making progress on that leather. His jaws ached just looking at those cords.

  "You have been injured, and I will try to help you, if I am able. I will also keep you safe and return you to your people, if I am able, but you will have to guide me. I have seen no other men nor any of your folk and I know only the glade in which you sit." The increasingly awkward man tried again to put the elf child at ease, failing.

  None of this had influenced the vicious worrying of the boy's teeth on the binding and he was looking at Ulric with a wide-eyed panic, eyes that were startling for their brilliance, and most certainly not a set of peepers found on anybody human. Those slightly slanted, almond shaped eyes widened further to terror when Ulric drew his bone knife.

  Actions speak louder than words, and he was suddenly cognizant that the elf child might not even speak…English? Man-speak? Not the time Ulric, horrified abused child sees you holding a big knife and is justifiably concerned by this.

  Taking the elf's wrist quickly, pulling arms out straight up to avoid being bitten, Ulric ignored the kicking feet and slid the knife between the wrists to slice the rope holding them. Having freed his rescued dependent, Ulric released him and stepped back, crouching again to try to show his goodwill, and he remembered to put the knife away.

  Panting but now slightly calmer the elf's hands rubbed over his wrists, removing the remnants of the lashing and working the blood back into small hands tied too long and too tightly. Ulric merely watched quietly, letting the boy adjust to the situation at his own pace.

  After a few minutes, Ulric slowly reached his hand into his belt pouch, producing a piece of dried Forest Lord, and didn’t even consider that the boy might be vegetarian. No Watcher worth her wonderful decolletage puts chompers like that on a salad enthusiast. He held the piece out to the boy, gently prodding it in his direction.

  "Go on, boy, take a bite of food and rest. You've had a rough time but it's safe here." He offered, placing the food item down closer to the child, before retreating.

  As safe as it could be anywhere in the towering Forest of Yore, Ulric thought, but he didn’t share that because He Was Trying to Comfort here.

  It took a few minutes patient wait for the child to accept that Ulric wasn't trying to hurt him but he eventually capitulated. Darting forward he snatched the food when he thought Ulric wasn't paying attention and devoured it rapidly, barely chewing. He likewise took the next piece Ulric had offered, but only after a minute’s watch. This went on for a solid half hour, the elf "stealing" a piece of food and staying in his corner, and Ulric talking softly, explaining that this place was his home, the boy was inside a shelter, and that no beasts would come through without provocation.

  A good few pieces of food later, the boy seemed satisfied that he'd eaten enough. When Ulric offered a water bag from his belt the elf's eyes went wild and he drained the entire thing, losing about half of it to scatter on and around his body. Gooseflesh dimpled the child's skin and Ulric realized with a start that he'd forgotten to cover the child. Not everybody was fine with romping around the woods in the buff for weeks, and he had the body modesty of a cat by this point.

  Reaching over to his bed, Ulric pulled one of the Bolt Deer hides off and moved to the child.

  Frozen in place, the elf didn't move while Ulric draped the blanket over his shoulders. The Waif looked ready to try to make a break for it for a moment, but decided against and merely settled back into his corner, blanket blocking most of the chill from that dousing. As the lad dried off and warmed, Ulric went to the fire, stirred the coals and built up a great roaring fire in the stone lined pit. He knew well how the cold could seep into the bones out here under the canopy. He'd spent the better part of several weeks either naked or wearing leaves after arriving on this world, after all.

  It seemed like the elf youth finally came to a decision that Ulric was not going to kill and eat him. He carefully stepped over to the fire, blanket worn like an overlarge cloak, and sat next to it, letting the heat soak into his body. Neither had much to say then and they sat watching flames dance until large sticks had burned down to coals. Ulric was fairly sure the kid had fallen asleep sitting up. He knew he had for several moments, mana exhaustion was hard on the system, once his core reserves ticked up to over ten percent, he usually felt totally fine.

  Come to think of it, he’d slung around quite a bit of magic back there in the fighting. Multiple consecutive casts, each with plenty of juice behind them. It wasn't his imagination, Ulric mused, the continued use of mana to exhaustion was building up his core, analogous to muscles growing in response to heavy lifting, he could, without a doubt, use more mana than he could in those early weeks. He'd only been able to use three, maybe four spells without running dry, even when the spells were of moderate strength. Today he'd blasted that ogre warrior about as hard as anything he'd ever cast without using [Core Capacitor] and had then used about every spell he had to take down the Wolven, including an [Overcharge] on [Voltaic Grip].

  It had been worth it to fight the warrior that way. Not fair, per se, because he was using magic while that one couldn’t, an evaluation made given that none of the Viking child harmers had used any obvious powers while attacking the entwined super predators. Dangerous, but he needed to learn to fight enemies that had the capacity for thought.

  Ulric Einar, once an engineer in a world too tired for war any longer, had need to kill other men, and he would have to learn to do it well or this second life was going to be short. It was a little disappointing that his first contact was with thugs worse than the monsters but, at least, he knew that people were people all over the whole sonofabitching universe.

  Anyway, he refocused, trying to analyze the fight. Trying to dissect why he'd responded as he had and how his choices had played out. After seeing the child there'd been little in the way of a plan or grand strategy. He'd known he was well hidden, he'd escaped the notice of the monsters, far better hunters than those men, likely. He'd had the advantage of both height and range, especially after both ranged warriors got slagged early by the Venom Bolt Viper. And he'd felt, part of his brain calculating coldly while the rest of him got pissed, that he held the dominating position in the fight. Warrior's instincts, indeed.

  The bow was a miracle, his hours of practice over the weeks since he'd completed it well worth the time. Three enemies out of the fight in a matter of fifteen seconds and two of them from complete stealth. Another forced into a reckless charge to close distance, setting himself up for getting incinerated in the open. It was only at the last that Ulric had been in any true danger. He'd have been concerned about a magic user had any of them demonstrated any such ability while fighting the monsters, and the importance of waiting and observing was thereby reinforced. None had, and it seemed a good chance they'd not have held back against such foes. Calculated risk.

  Fighting the Beastman hadn't been too much risk, he decided. Ulric had the distinct advantage of magic and that was a hell of an edge. What he didn’t have was the advantage of strength, or, not against the Wolfish featured humanoid. That bastard was strong, really strong. A little love tap had sent him sprawling, and Ulric was not a tiny dude. The big lupine warrior had also had a little bit of cheating of his own with that trident.

  Something about it, Ulric couldn’t put his finger on it, but he suspected his spells shouldn’t have come apart like that, it was as if they didn’t express their full potency. With casual ease, the Wolf faced marauder had been able to crush his [Windscythe] and that made his [Ice Blade] a liability, even with all the durability reinforcement he'd spent time building into it. Good to learn that now, rather than against an enemy even more dangerous. Magic was pretty rad as a weapon, but there were counters, and they weren’t necessarily obvious.

  Combining spells had been something he'd tried by instinct.

  If the spells had fizzled out it, would have indicated that magic could destructively interfere with itself after formation. Now he knew magic could be used to interact with itself post spell creation. Thaumaturgy was a more fluid thing than he’d appreciated before.

  The combination of Infrig and Incindere was a bit of an inspired risk, Ulric was chasing a hunch there, following a feeling. It was still gambling with his life and he resolved to try not to do that often. The outcome had been acceptable, in this case.

  Steam was wicked dangerous, something which Ulric had experienced in his previous life. He'd witnessed an incautious colleague breach a pressurized steam conduit, having failed to depressurize the line, or to wait for it to cool. A helicopter had transported the man to the nearest trauma unit and he'd lost most of the right side of his face, if none of his sense of humor, since he'd changed his name, legally, to Harvey Dent. Steam was nasty stuff. Thermodynamic energy dump, from a highly conductive material with incredible specific heat, from vapor to liquid, shedding tens of thousands of kilojoules of energy in a moment. That the Beastman hadn't been totally blinded indicated a highly robust physiology. Or that Ulric’s magic wasn’t as robust when used on the fly like that, without specific control over the Field to focus the energies. No way to know for sure without much more testing.

  Also potent had been that old friend lightning. Once again, [Voltaic Grip] had proved itself to be a terribly effective weapon.

  Ulric knew, first hand, the power of lightning. He'd been struck as a seventeen year old idiot. Hanging out with friends, daring a thunderstorm, they'd been running from a porch to a lone Oak in a field. Not three steps from the Oak on his return trip, a sizzling silver lance had hit the Oak and had blasted Ulric into unconsciousness. He woke up a week later in the hospital. One of the group had been planning to be an EMT and had taken first responder classes. If she hadn't done CPR until professionals arrived, he'd have died there in that field.

  A body made mostly of water, operated mostly by ion flows, was particularly susceptible to a fuck load of current driven at high potential. His spell required him to get in close and maintain contact with both hands, but the destructive power had been enough to cook a monster he had no business even thinking about taking on. It had killed that Beastman pretty much instantly, although that also had to do with him knowing exactly where to position that current flow to disrupt the heart's auto-rhythm, rather than brute forcing electrocution of a Watcher juiced up warrior’s body. Decades since his anatomy course work but something-something Purkinje fibers and AV nodes.

  Still.

  Hell of a tool for calming down hostile animals.

  Speaking of which, the elf kid looked like he might be waking up.

  The worst of the effects of mana exhaustion seemed to have lifted. Ulric was feeling a little less like he'd been run over and more like he'd been merely beaten, which was just the bruises, and those were small potatoes. The kid, who'd actually been beaten, was stirring. A decent nap he'd gotten, an hour or so next to the fire after a decent meal and something to drink. Probably did him worlds of good.

  Slowly the elf woke, eyes opening. Impressive eyes they were too, brilliant emerald irises flecked with a deep golden yellow, like slivers of gold sprinkled here and there. The beating must have occurred recently, as the boy had slept, those peepers had nearly swollen shut and were darkly blacked. Those motherfuckers had savaged this kid, and just recently. It made Ulric want to kill them all over again.

  Trying to shelve the anger, before his expression scared the lad, Ulric spoke to him to try to avoid startling him when he realized he wasn't alone, waking in a strange place.

  "Well met, boy, can you understand me? I don't even know what tongue you speak, not even sure what language I speak, come to think. Nod twice if you make sense of me, stare blankly if you've no clue." Ulric's attempt at greeting was met by the latter option, rather than the former.

  Damn. Plan B?

  Ulric pointed to himself "Ulric Einar" enunciating clearly, he then pointed to the elf and spoke deliberately, "Boy". Pointing to the fire, he named it thus and then continued, pointing at the various objects in or near the shelter before naming them. An hour later he was sure the kid had no fucking clue what he was saying and might be too concussed to even be coherent. Hell, he was barely aware of what he was saying. Sighing, Ulric subsided to silence for a few minutes.

  Fuck he was tired.

  "Fuck, I am tired." Ulric informed the camp.

  Daylight had gone. Passive mana regeneration had blunted the more oppressive symptoms of mana exhaustion but the rigors of battle, transporting the spoils, and watching over the youth, stress, adrenaline, the day had tapped Ulric's energy reserves. He needed sleep badly, if only to reset his poor overwrought noodle. How to handle the kid? He really didn't want to end up shanked to death while he slept. He also couldn't think of rebinding the child, a measure of trust was necessary here, if he ever wanted to earn any trust of his own. Ulric was not, by nature, a highly trusting individual. A sigh escaped him, he couldn’t see any alternative.

  "I sleep now." Ulric said, pantomiming laying his head on his hands to, hopefully, demonstrate sleeping.

  If the kid had any sense, he'd do the same. A nap wasn’t going to cut it as beat up as he was, the child needed sleep’s healing boost. A highly suspicious and not so optimistic part of him thought that, if the elf child didn't try to murder him, it was even odds he'd run away over-night and get eaten. But. What happened, happened. Ulric was too tired to be able to cover all eventualities.

  Besides, the body of the Beastman was laying over by the wood pile and if seeing one of your abusers treated like * ahem* dead wood, wasn't enough to convince you what else could a man do? So, Ulric went to his bed and lay down under layers of fur, asleep before his body even settled.

  Bird calls greeted Ulric. Morning light filtering through the boughs. The air was sharp this morning, doubtless the frost was on again.

  Ulric's body was still vaguely stiff from the previous day's exertions but the faint hot/cold pulse of his core alongside his heart told him that he'd totally recovered from mana exhaustion. He was ready to rise when he noticed the slight weight of the elf child curled up on his legs. Hm. So he'd been smart enough not to run off into the forest at night. Maybe there was hope for the kid after all. Something would have to be done about that nose though, the kid was breathing loudly through his mouth. Not going to be a good time fixing that, broken noses hurt like a bastard to set.

  Gently, Ulric removed the child from his legs and rose. The stillness of the mornings were always his favorite time of day. This hour always felt like a fresh start, full of endless possibility. Basking in the moment just a little longer he let the chill air dance across his skin, savoring the taste of the forest in his nose and lungs. He definitely should have been a druid, this forest felt more like home now than any apartment in which he'd ever lived.

  "Alright then, let's make some luck." He quoted.

  It had been one of his favorite sayings from the old world. Chance favors the prepared mind, a quote from one Louis Pasteur, the man who, single-handedly, proved life beget life and saved billions of lives through the treatment of milk and other easily spoiled potables. He also contributed to the determination that molecules had distinct, mirrorable geometries which were chemically distinguishable. Ulric considered him to be a folk hero and a model for making hard work do most of your dice shaving.

  First, the fire. Some light digging with his belt knife revealed coals that soon glowed to life with vigorous fanning. A handful of wood shavings from the corner of his shelter he knew to be driest, a bundle of twigs, and more fanning produced open flame. In a few minutes the fire rose tall, gifting the tree cave heat and light with its flickering dance.

  Next some wood cutting.

  Large branches yielded to Ulric's bone axe, driven by strong back and shoulders. In a quarter hour a stack of cut wood to sustain fire for the day and night to follow both, he liked to stay ahead of the wood game.

  He'd bathe this morning, just in case he decided to hunt or need to go up the canopy, so he set a few cuts of the deer he'd butchered a few days ago, alongside some tubers, forest garlic, onions and greens, to slow roast inside a stone and clay oven he had built into the wall of his shelter.

  Shedding the Forest Lord hide clothing as he went, he hustled over to stand by a bathing pool made with [Stone Walls] near his huge rock pool reservoir. There, in the side depression of this little bathing area he’d filled for this purpose, he scraped the previous day’s accumulated filth from his skin and lathered with ash-lard soap, a crude, harsh stuff, but it beat being gross. Cold water sluiced over him from a watertight woven bucket, and he gasped involuntarily at the brisk experience, as he always did.

  Gods what he would do for a hot shower!

  Ulric’s discarded leather clothes were in need of cleaning as well. He'd need to rinse the clothing and soak it in the soapy pap he'd found you could generate by grinding the bark of one of the shrubs in the glade, he didn’t have enough soap yet to spare on laundry, not when sap-cleaner worked fine.

  A big supply of camp soap was a project on Ulric's radar. He had a goodly store of lard now, all the wood ash a man could want, and, after some tinkering from his last attempt, he was confident he could render the lard efficiently in a double boiler using one of his baskets and a stone bowl, a large batch this time, with the lye pre made in a separate pot, so he could measure the acrid shit in with more certainty.

  A mark of how accustomed he'd become to the morning chill that Ulric barely noticed how he shivered in the cold water, although his good friend and partner had nearly sought refuge inside his body at the combination of cold water and colder air.

  There would be a freeze soon. The frosts seemed not to touch the canopy, yet, but that couldn't be far off. Vibrant gold foliage up there betrayed the movement of the seasons. Ulric lost himself in thought until he heard soft footfalls behind him and the sound of something dragging. Turning, Ulric found the boy had followed him to the pool, hide blanket still wrapped around his body. Ulric pointed to the spring and said "Water. Clean." before miming drinking from the clear waters.

  Hesitating only slightly the elf youth went to the pool's edge and drank deeply. While he did, Ulric shrugged into his soiled clothes, their familiar weight blocking the chill air completely. Forest Lord was some fine hide, durable as all hell, warm, surprisingly limber after you worked the ever-loving fuck out of it.

  Nothing for it then, they had water to clean up the mess, and Ulric had to do something about that nose. He strode to the child's side and took a corner of the hide blanket, dipping it into the water, and gently as he could, scrubbed the child's face holding the kid's shoulder to steady him. Dirt, snot, dried blood, and whatever other filth came away and the damage could be seen clearly.

  Those assholes had sure enough pounded on the kid. Eyes had been blacked and, although the swelling seemed to have come down slightly since just a bit ago, an incredibly rapid rate of recovery to his understanding, they were still very much swollen. Cuts on the high cheek bones and above the eyebrows indicated he'd probably been hit with either bare fists, boots, or some kind of weapon handle. No fine edges to suggest a bladed weapon had been used on him, except on the one ear, the animals. So, they'd wanted him alive for something but hadn't been worried about roughing him up, or leaving scars. At least the kid had all his teeth. The nose was the worst that could be seen, however, and the only thing Ulric really knew how to deal with.

  Best to get the worst over with soonest.

  "Boy, you've broken your nose badly. It's got to be set, and you're not going to like it." Ulric told his guest, softly but firmly.

  He knelt down next to the child and pointed at his nose, and then pointed to the child's own. The boy knew what he meant and he also knew it was going to hurt, shaking his head.

  "Can't be helped. You can't breathe right. Longer it goes on, more it's going to hurt and the longer it's going to take to heal." Ulric was pretty sure the elf had no clue what he was saying, but he needed to reassure the kid as much as he could.

  He'd never been good with young people. They seemed to think older people told them to do things for fun, instead of trying to avoid cleaning up yet another mess made by an incompetent attempt at something. Tell them, "No, not like that, do it like this." show them step by step and everything, and they'd still do what they thought the first time they lay eyes on it and fuck it up royal. Still. The kid was his responsibility, for now, and he'd do his best to prevent him coming to undo harm, if it could be avoided.

  He reached to the child's nose and the boy squealed and tried to pull away. And that was precisely enough of that nonsense.

  Scowling at the child, he felt the spirit of his iron souled grandmother, her stony aura which brooked exactly zero fuckings with, rolling off him. One hand held the child's shoulder like a vise and the other, gently, but with that matron’s borrowed iron in it as well, took the kid's chin and he stared into the vivid eyes of the child his ancestral tongue coming easily as he repeated the words said to him when he'd skinned knees and had alcohol applied to the wounds.

  "Schrei, wenn du musst, aber jammer nicht."

  Wide eyed, the youth stilled and nodded his head. Even if he didn't understand the words, he knew the hard gaze and the tone well enough to stop squirming.

  Ulric set the nose cleanly in a single twist, mercifully only needing the one try, which was accompanied by the loud wailing of the child.

  Gently he patted the boy's back, while he cried into Ulric's shoulder. He deserved a cry, that had definitely hurt like a bitch. A few minutes passed though and the sobs had died to the odd sniffle. When the Elven youth stepped back Ulric released him. The child looked up at him and nodded his thanks. At Ulric's return nod, and gesture towards camp, the two returned to the fire. There they breakfasted on roasted meat and vegetables. Both ate greedily, and washed the meal down with fresh water.

  As they sat, heat of a warm meal in their bellies and the cheerful glow of coals washing over them the boy looked up and spoke for the first time, "You asshole, even not bad man. Thank you."

  Ulric was stunned. He had been able to speak the entire time?

  "You little bastard!" He proclaimed, shocked.

  The elf boy spoke, what sounded to Ulric's ears, broken English. He was now almost certain that it wasn't English that his own voice spoke, nor any language spoken on Earth. But his brain had been rewired by the Watcher's tuning to utilize some kind of communal language. Magic. Go figure.

  In any case, communication would be drastically sped up compared to pointing at random shit and saying its name. However, this did indicate a future problem. Ulric was going to, potentially, need to learn several languages to speak and interact with the peoples of this strange world. There were elves. There were Beastmen and Ogrefolk. What the hell else was there? Dwarves? Gnomes? Shire-folk? No telling.

  It wasn't that unusual for a person to speak three or four languages. Look at the old Europe. There were corners of nations where it wouldn't be uncommon to need French, English, Italian, and Swiss-German all within a hundred mile radius. Really, it was only the more arrogant empiric nations like the Russ, Chino, and Americs that had such dogmatic devotion to their own language. While these peoples engaged in cultural prick waving wars, the rest of the world got on with trying to be a little less awful. And a big part of that was learning each other's languages.

  Ulric was fairly well committed to the idea of learning Elven. Where this boy had come from there would be others.

  Others!

  Just that on its own was huge! Paradigm shifting. Ulric wasn’t alone, although months without seeing anybody did sort of indicate he was well off the beaten path. He wasn't ever going to be a social butterfly way out here, but living on his own in the woods had taught him how important the power of a community could be. One guy by himself, even if he had the tools to accomplish whatever he wanted, was limited by hours of daylight to get things done. With the help of commerce, suddenly the Reforged man had a great many plans for things that would improve his life here in the glade-homestead.

  For the most part he had the necessary starting points for the skills he'd need, if not the practiced application of them. He had most of the knowledge to create the things he'd need to make that would drastically increase his standard of living, his safety, and his weaponry.

  The limiting factor was time. Time was needed to make what needed making, to find the materials what needed finding, and, while that was happening, he still needed to improve his mastery of magic, hunt, gather produce, tend fire, and on, and on. It was a shitload of work being a forest hermit. And that was excluding the very high probability of being injured. Every trip to the canopy was a risk, he knew that now more than ever.

  Those creatures that recently started to roam on the forest floor, for the most part, were the least of the things you'd encounter out here. Some monsterized wolves, some car sized elk, no problem. But, for some reason, the more dangerous things all lived in the canopy. And, while they had been absent from the area around where he'd begun his journey, that was all, most likely, thanks to the presence of the Forest Lord. The nasties up there, they’d make their way down, eventually, especially when stuff that ate the low vegetation hugging the rolling terrain of the plateau started to become abundant. Prey drew predators, that’s just how it worked.

  It had only been a couple of months and things were already flooding into the area. This glade, especially, was a vibrant oasis in the endless green desert. The rock pool, the nutritious plants, saplings, fruit, yummy roots, they would attract beasts and the beasts that preyed on those beasts. If he wanted to live here for any extended length of time, he'd have to work hard to secure it as his own territory.

  If he could find these Elves and establish lines of communication or trade, they might know how to help him get to civilization. They might even just be the civilization for which he was looking. He'd never know unless he investigated himself. And that all started with the boy, who, he decided, he would call Brighteyes, until such time as he knew the kid's proper name.

  Ulric pointed at himself, reiterating "Ulric Einar", he then pointed at the boy, "Brighteyes. Understand?" at the Elven child's nod he continued.

  "You hurt bad? Inside?" Ulric asked, even though he was fairly sure that a severe internal injury would have killed a child so young already, and those Vikings wouldn't have bothered hauling a dying hostage through the forest canopy like that.

  If they only needed a corpse, they'd have made one.

  "Not bad hurt." Brighteyes told him, meeting his eyes before looking down.

  His expression soured.

  "Ashamed. Caught. Beaten." Lamented the boy child, and he stared at the ground in shame.

  Ah. A proud lad then. Best to nip that in the bud. Ulric reached a conclusion, based on the odd scenario playing out in front of him, the puzzle pieces of a child with a rather impressive decorum, a kidnapping, and at least slightly educated to have multiple languages in the tool box, even if not so great at using them.

  "How did you get captured by those men? They kidnap you from your house? Important, Chief's kid or something, right?" Ulric had his guesses but it was best to better understand the whole picture before he committed to anything.

  Brighteyes frowned, shaking his head in the negative. Probably the negative. Body language could be different between cultures. Then the elf got a suspicious look on his foreign featured face before asking "How know? Talk bad guys?".

  "No.” Ulric said without rancor, “Only reason they'd take you alive. You're a skinny brat too ugly to sell, of course you had to be the chief's get."

  Ulric saw no reason not to get a little back for the kid calling him an asshole after he’d gone to all the trouble to rescue the munchkin and slay his captors and even fixed that banged up wheezer.

  Forget that it was true.

  Besides, Brighteyes seemed like he had a good sense of humor, if nothing else, he smiled briefly at the teasing before answering.

  "Very stupid. Was in deep woods to, uhm, training. Saw bastards poaching. Desecration. Taking cores no meat, is not way of elf land. No men in elf land, umm, forbid. Shouted. Friend and I too dumb, too proud. They see chief symbol, take. Kill friend." The pain was obvious on Brighteyes' face at the memory.

  The kid had suffered something nobody that young should, being made powerless. It wasn't until you got older you should have to learn that goddawful shit just happened to you sometimes. Forced you into awareness that the world wasn't the safe haven a proper home made it out to be. Part of being an adult was knowing you were going to have to face the world on unfavorable terms. Mostly alone. Kids with parents doing their job were protected from that realization, for as long as possible. It was one of the reasons the death of your parents hit so hard, in Ulric's mind. The people who spent their lives making you ok were gone and it was now all on you to take on every damn thing the world had to throw at you.

  It was probably important that Brighteyes get it out of his system now, so Ulric just waited him out. Soon enough Brighteyes continued the tale of how he found out people could be a motherfucker sometimes.

  "Friend and Me fight. Them too many, we too young. They win. Tie me. Big blue one grab friend. Crush head in hands. My friend dead, my fault." Tears threatened.

  Ulric felt awful for the kid. He'd suspected a kidnapping, he hadn't expected Brighteyes had watched his friend tortured and murdered. It was a shit hand he'd been dealt. No wonder he'd been so skittish at first. He didn't know what comfort he could offer against that. Wait. There was something he'd been told by his dad, once, when he'd struggled with a friend of his dying in high school to a drunk driver.

  "You fought hard as two youths could, against grown men and experienced hunters. They killed for a living, killed things stronger than normal men and they outnumbered you grossly. Don't try to take the blame for what evil men do, you'll never get a moments peace." Ulric offered the boy, that last the wisdom he had from his own father.

  It was something a young man did, a mistake they all made. Thinking that they could do something about anything, not knowing that there were things that simply were and could only be endured. Ulric hoped he could take some of the burden off the kid, let him know that he didn't have to be responsible for it all. He'd been around that particular block. It wasn't fun.

  "Would it make you feel better to know how I killed the blue Ogre-man?" He didn't know of any other solace he could offer except to give the youth vengeance by proxy.

  Brighteyes looked down for a moment then back up into Ulric's eyes, nodding. Fair enough.

  "I killed his friends with arrows and, when he tried to charge, I burned him alive. He experienced horrific pain. It didn’t take too long for him to die, but it was a pretty awful way to go. Here's what I used."

  Ulric held a hand out towards one of the torn-up boulders lying near the rock pool.

  [Flame Crash]

  The bolt of flame hit the rock and flame rolled outwards, pool of flame burning for several seconds before dying out.

  Brighteyes gazed open mouthed as he watched the stone scorch and crack under the heat of the flame. He understood from the damage done to the rock that whatever that magic engulfed wouldn't die easily.

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  Grimly he looked back up to Ulric and nodded once more, saying "Thank you, friend deserve bastards die."

  It didn't make it better. Not really. But at least he'd be able to know that those monsters wouldn't get to hurt people anymore or continue to pillage the land. Not being perfect didn't make good enough any less.

  Ulric decided he'd try to get things out in the open then.

  "If you know the way, I'll take you home." The hermit wizard offered.

  He pointed towards the ridge that led to the escarpment, saying "That way is a cliff that takes you down from the plateau to the lower forests. If that's where you're going, I'll need to get some equipment to make the climb."

  He had no idea how those fuckers had gotten up that cliff, especially not carrying a naked child tied between poles. Might be there was a pass a slope that could be climbed, surely the plateau wasn’t a fuck off huge butte with sheer vertical sides all the way round.

  Pointing back the opposite way of the distant mountains, at the closest edge of the plateau Ulric had scouted for himself, he continued to try to give Brighteyes some sense of his current whereabouts. He'd been unconscious for a while, after all.

  "That way is the deep forest. Beasts and great trees, far as the eye can see. I don't know the way deeper into that wood. Can you find your way home?" Ulric asked, trying to restrain his excitement.

  It would be a hell of a thing, visiting an Elven village in a faerie forest. Magic. He almost laughed at the absurd reality of it.

  Brighteyes was pensive. Whatever it was must have been some heavy thinking because he made like he was going to speak several times before reconsidering and keeping his mouth shut. Finally, he made some decision. A serious expression was on his face as he questioned "You, Ulric, name?"

  To which Ulric gave him a quick "Yup."

  He then asked, "You Valin?"

  Ulric nodded, the term was a sort of formal way to say human, kind of like homo sapiens was the scientific way to say it back in the old world. He was, or at least he was close enough for the Status. Never mind that asterisk, didn't mean a thing. Probably.

  "Ask now, rude. Sorry, [Scan] you?"

  Now that raised Ulric's eyebrows. [Scan]?

  The magic that let someone view your status? The Watcher had warned him about the power of diagnostic magic like that, the advantage it gave someone to be able to view the information stored about you via the Akashic record. He thought it over. He didn't have anything to hide, particularly, but the kid had indicated that it was something of a big deal to scan someone without permission. And the Watcher’s warning made that a damned near certainty. Probably indicated a violation of privacy or the prelude to hostility. Sort of like looking into the curtains of somebody's house you didn't know. You were probably up to no good, and it wasn't to be done, regardless of the situation.

  "Only if you show me how to use [Scan] myself." Ulric countered.

  He didn't mind if the kid looked him over, especially not if it made Brighteyes more comfortable about traveling with a stranger. Even one who had been kind. But he didn't want to put himself in the situation where everybody but him got to use this power. The world was a dangerous place and he planned on living a good long time in it. Caution was a minimum expectation, information was power, yadda, yadda.

  The request seemed to surprise the youth, his head tilted to the side as he spoke, "You no know? But you strong Magic. It first spell after status."

  Ulric shrugged, replying "What can I say Chief? I'm self-taught and the first time I used magic was about seventy sunrises ago now. Or, actually…" the bush wizard broke off, tallying his fingers and realized he couldn’t come up with a solid number, he didn’t know how long he’d been out here with any certainty.

  He really needed a better way of telling time.

  Now it was definite, Brighteyes was stunned by this revelation. He initiated what must be [Scan] his already impressive eyes glowing white.

  Ulric didn't feel anything, maybe a little like somebody behind him staring. That feeling you got when you suspected somebody was talking about you somewhere. About that time, Brighteyes looked at him like you'd look at a tiger that was sitting on a couch with you. A gentle trembling was visible in the youthful limbs.

  What the hell was the matter now? Ulric wondered. He'd just seen his stats when he'd finished checking up on that status update. Nothing stood out at the time. Also, the kid hadn't said whether he'd teach him [Scan], which was annoying, and he was sure he'd failed to keep that annoyance off his face. His poker face was terrible.

  Voice definitely shaking Brighteyes asked, "You kill Forest Lord? Own self, not already dying?"

  Oh. Yeah. He'd sort of forgotten that would show up in his status.

  "Hey, I killed that monster fair and square!” Ulric denied, and, if it had been dying it did a piss poor job letting on about it.

  “And it attacked me first! So, if it was your tribe's spirit animal or something take a walk, I nearly died killing that thing. As a matter of fact…" Ulric took a few minutes to explain his encounter with the old horror.

  While the story unfolded Brighteyes went from rapt to confused.

  Ulric had known it was a sort of big deal. Like killing the dominant lion of a Pride there was going to be a huge shakeup down-stream as everything else adjusted. Especially if the whole damned world sent you a private message telling you about it. But that was all, just a big damned strong monster that scared off the local wildlife.

  He hadn't known that the Forest Lord was a near mythical figure in this part of the world. A monster that had ruled this part of the forest uncontested for, not one, but many generations. Generations of Elves, mind, not humans. Brighteyes informed him, broken speech making clear that the slaying of the Forest Lord was far more momentous than Ulric was aware. Then, the boy insulted him, which, Ulric could now see he might deserve.

  "Ulric idiot. Kill Forest Lord by accident? Too dumb know territory? Fool man lucky more than all stars in sky." At least it seemed like incredulity had replaced fearful awe.

  Brighteyes wasn't shaking anymore. And he had the balls to show that cheek again.

  "Whole forest move now. Territories shifted. Greater Beasts vying. Ulric idiot. Village need know, we go when can drag, no, carry, Myert! Walk! When I walk. You explain father." The youth said, struggling with language in his excitement.

  Brighteyes seemed to have, at least for now, forgotten his own troubles as the full situation in the forest became clear to him, far more clear than it was for Ulric, who had none of the common sense and contextual knowledge of this world.

  So. It would seem he would get a trip to the Elven village after all. He needed to know more though, this camp was his home. Everything he'd done thus far was to survive, and getting this place set up had been most of that. He had food stores to protect. He had a shelter to winterize, it wasn't near good enough serve through a bitter cold. He had to get winter wood chopped. A lot of it, and he wasn’t going to get it by logging the glade’s trees, that was for certain, he wanted to disturb this paradise as little as he could. To top it all off, he was going to have to do it all with stone age hand tools.

  What he'd give for his old work shop, even for his work place’s machining department.

  He had his name on a whole section of the place, was how often he could be found there, with all the tooling labeled and arranged to handle the projects on which he was personally in charge or for projects which needed his collaboration. He missed having powertools and longed for them. For his drill press. His lathe. His bench grinder and planer. His routers.

  A table saw! Ye gods what he would do for a table saw.

  Ulric shook his head, dispelling thoughts of the impossible, a modern tinkerer's workshop. He needed to return Brighteyes to his home with the Elves. He needed to figure out a way to establish some line of communication with these strange peoples and maybe even some way to trade for goods and services. He didn't have anything that anyone would want, not that he knew what Elves wanted, but he did have some useful skills and these he might be able to put to work.

  As he thought about it, Ulric realized that, as usual, he was forgetting the magic aspect. He didn't need a saw, he could cut cleanly with air or water jets. A blade of pure heat? A…gasp…laser? Hell, maybe he could figure out how to extract ore or even raw metal from the ground. Have to find it first, but obviously electricity was still electricity in this land. A little magnetic resonance sensor spell keyed to metallics? Some kind of underground density radar magic? He didn't know how to do it, yet, but he remembered the basic principles and he might be able to rig something with a little…

  Ulric didn't figure out that he had slid down a wormhole of thought for indeterminate time until he realized his fingertips were starting to get raw from their involuntary snapping and Brighteyes was looking at him like he might be sick.

  "Why Ulric talking self? Worms in the head?" The damned boy didn't even have the grace to sound like he was joking.

  Ulric had to admit, the little guy had a point. Maybe months living in the wilderness alone were having some effects on his socialization. He'd always been fairly withdrawn, to the point that many of his coworkers, especially the ones that knew him well, called him a "Furnace you'd freeze to death next to". But now? And it had caused him no little concern that he'd killed five people in cold blood the day before and hadn't really felt a thing about it. He regretted that they had made it necessary. He felt bad for the waste of life, especially, from that warrior who seemed to have some sense of honor, if not decency. But there'd been no sadness, no hesitation, no grief over the first time he'd spilled the blood of conscious thinking men.

  It helped that they'd been hauling a half beat to death child between them, but even then. Ulric felt like he should have responded more negatively to the violence. But why? Some vague notion that it Wasn't His Place to put them down? A remnant of the conditioning of his old society?

  Well, he'd already decided those people had mostly been full of shit about everything else, so they were probably wrong about this as well. There were no police, this was the wilderness. There was no government in this place, no one to which he had to defer his moral judgement or onto which to pass responsibility.

  As before, Ulric had to conclude that, in this second life, he would be the arbiter of his own judgements. He'd seen a situation which could not be ignored, not by anybody with an iota of civilization. He'd had the power, within his own estimation, to rectify it. It would have been an abdication of his responsibility to the peoples around him to let those men continue on as they were. It wasn't like he could just tell them to stop. No. This was natural justice and, if he was intending to live this life proper, if he wanted evil men to stop being evil, either he imposed his will on them to cause them to change their behavior for the better or he'd kill them and let the air they were breathing go to somebody who'd not waste it making other people's lives worse.

  Perhaps this was what the Watcher had referred to when it said he didn't harmonize with that other world. Or maybe he'd had a psychotic break at some point? Potato. Potahto. Tomato. Avocado. Self-reflection was fine, but only if it led to growth. Here was the reality: he'd killed people. Bad people, in his eyes, but people. He didn't feel good about it, but he'd not done it in a fit of rage or unthinking. He'd been angry and entirely rational, even practical about their murder. After the fact, he decided that he'd have done it again. In the same circumstances he'd have chosen the same path to the outcome of saving a little boy's life.

  There, he thought, there's the learning moment. Ulric was not the same person now who he'd been in that old life. The core, metaphorically, was the same, but there was a harder, more crystalline exterior that refused to defer his will to that of some unknown judge. And, maybe that was the difference. He'd simply stopped caring how what he did or thought appeared to anyone at all. He would do his best, make the best choices he could, help people if he could, make his own life better without regard for the feelings of others only when he absolutely had to. He would not enjoy the pain of another. He would not add to the suffering of the world out of pleasure or self-gratification. He would be only as cruel as strictly necessary to accomplish his designs.

  What else could anybody ask of him?

  "Yup. It worms in the head. Sorry, Ulric man, but is no medicine." the Brat announced confidently.

  "You'll be finding worms presently, if you keep that up. I'll bury you under this tree." Ulric warned him.

  Jokingly warned him.

  Brighteyes smiled then, a brief break in the morose expression he'd been carrying. Life had been hard on Brighteyes lately. He needed someone to talk to. Someone to be a dick to, who wouldn't be hurt by it. Someone who could listen without judging unfairly. Damn shame, Ulric thought, that he was all Brighteyes had here.

  "Alright Brighteyes, we've got to get things moving." He told the boy for whom he’d taken responsibility.

  It was still early morning, sun well up and daylight established, but the suns hadn't yet moved into the canopy window so the glade held its usual light sprinkled gloom.

  "First order of business, you can't keep using my blankets as a cloak, and I can't return you to your kin naked as the day you started making noise. I'm making you some clothes." Ulric told the youth.

  Brighteyes nodded his assent, bruised nudity having been an unfortunate imposition of the last few days on his dignified person.

  Gesturing himself, Ulric instructed "I need you to hold your arms out wide and stay still."

  When the kid had complied, Ulric grabbed a vine he'd used for similar purpose to measure the lengths of limbs, the distance from shoulder to shoulder, the circumference of waist, neck, wrists, and ankles, and the distance from base of spine to hollow where skull meets vertebrae. These values Ulric scrawled onto a piece of bark using one of his bone awls.

  Releasing Brighteyes from his clutches he ordered the child to "Fuck off and do kid stuff, but stay in the camp and eat whenever you want." and got to work on the deer, rabbit, and elk hides he'd been storing under his bed.

  Morning passed rapidly then. Barely looking up, Ulric cut hides, soaked sinew, punched holes, and sewed leather pieces together according to the pattern he'd developed after wasting a great deal more of the Forest Lord hide with mistakes than he wished. It wasn't until he'd roughed out the vest and over coat that he stopped and shared a meat stew with Brighteyes, who had wondered off, slowly, to marvel at the Ancient Glade. A holy land, but Ulric wouldn’t learn that until later.

  The suns had already left the window and light bespoke of the golden hour before night. They spoke little, eating their fill. Brighteyes went immediately to Ulric's bed and sprawled out, snoring loudly through healing nose. Ulric didn’t comment on the balls of the kid to steal his bed, mostly because he wouldn’t be using it tonight.

  Instead, the hermit worked through the night, putting finishing touches on coat and vest before doing pants in one sitting. He felt pleased with himself when he looked at the set of children's clothes, the craftsmanship in them clearly better than that of his own clothes. Improvement of a skill always felt good.

  While his hands worked, Ulric couldn't help but ruminate on how much he'd changed in the few short months since his strange rebirth. Hunting, gathering, fishing, sewing, weaving, firecraft, magical senses, physical prowess, and mastery of the strange flows of energy that he had to assume were mana. So very much had changed and, most of that change was reflected in his status.

  As he'd grown here, the Akashic record had indicated that he was gaining power. His body learned to use its strength, he learned to move better and more gracefully, he worked his senses and perceptions against the challenges of the land, and, gradually, he had become more here. This last series of events, capped off by giving a child clothes, of all things, seemed to have cemented in his mind his place as the master of the grove in which he'd vanquished the Forest Lord. He was responsible for taking care of this place, as it had taken care of him.

  It was a great gift and Ulric had to again be thankful to these old trees, most especially, this fallen one. If not for its passing there would not have been provided the clearing and the pool where he could make sustainable life.

  Ulric thought back to his sudden claim to ownership of the territory in which he'd come to call home. Well. He supposed he had earned it. He'd killed its original master in self-defense, putting the maddened creature down, he'd built a near civilized shelter and camp from nothing, and, now he'd experienced the duality of man with the first strangers to visit his lands. Harsh cruelty for the ones who had deserved it. Kindness and empathy for the one who had needed it.

  If those qualities were what the Akashic deemed worthy of a Lord in this world then maybe the lands outside here that had people on them wouldn't be so bad. He'd been a little reluctant to go out into the world, fearing that it would be overrun with wizardly warlords, or necromantic empires, or any of a million atrocities that power overwhelming would inspire people to. Not that they probably didn't exist. But maybe they weren't as widespread as he'd supposed.

  So far as civilization goes, clothes, a bed, and a good hot meal weren't much but they definitely weren't nothing. He indulged in a bit of hope that Brighteyes' village would prove to be everything a former Tolkien weeb could dream. He'd have to broach the idea of learning Elven to Brighteyes. It would be rude to show up in somebody else's land without even the most basic knowledge of their language.

  Speaking of learning things, the sight of his status reminded Ulric that he needed to learn [Scan]. Brighteyes knew how. He'd try to get it out of him later this morning. Might allow him to determine just how bad the lad was hurt, and how long it would be before he could travel. The savage assholes had been in a group and they'd still managed to get a third of themselves killed against beasts mostly already dead fighting each other. Ulric wasn't going to risk a trip through the canopy unless he had to, and he didn't want to try escorting Brighteyes home until he had a plan for how to keep him safe while they moved. Then there was the cliff. Had to be a couple kilometers climb, easy.

  For now, Ulric decided to get the fire going and get some food ready. He'd do some leaf wrapped tubers rubbed in a garlic "butter" made from animal fats, with a big damned slice of deer shoulder, flame roasted. Ulric decided then that there was little he wouldn't do for a loaf of fresh baked bread slathered in cream cheese.

  Brighteyes woke to the smell of food and tucked in without speaking, while Ulric, who'd already finished, watched. When the youth finished, meat grease dripping from his bruised chin, Ulric pointed to the clothes hung on a pole in a corner of the shelter.

  "For you, try them on. Might be a little stiff at first, but you'll work them out soon enough." He said, satisfied at being a good host.

  Ulric turned and went out of the shelter to clean up the camp while Brighteyes changed. Soon enough, his elven guest exited the shelter and stood to the side of the fire.

  He was still banged up but, Ulric had to admit, the kid managed to look like a proper junior elf hunter now. With lean limbs, piercing eyes, platinum blond hair, and a serious demeanor, Brighteyes was going to be a heartbreaker one day. For now though, he was a scraggly beat up youth trying not to be embarrassed at receiving the generosity of a stranger.

  "Is good clothes. Am debted." Brighteyes seemed to be taking this harder than Ulric would have thought.

  Too proud by half was this elven whatever’s son. Definitely needed dropped down a peg.

  "Oh for crying out loud, " Ulric said, cutting the tension, "You think I want to see your skinny elf ass hanging out all day? Keep the clothes, I'll never get your stink out of them anyway. Besides, you're going to guide me to your village remember? I can't get there on my own. And if that doesn't square you, you can teach me how to speak your language so I don’t embarrass us both. Share some of the wisdom of the Elves, or that’s what some rumors say is going on around here. You can start with that [Scan] magic."

  By giving him an easy out, he took some of the pressure off the kid. Nothing worse for a young man than being forced into a situation to which you can't respond. They just didn't have the patience to ride the wave and wait for their moment. The way Brighteyes' expression lightened, he was clearly glad to have a way to settle some of his self-imposed obligation.

  The elf lad's face scrunched up as he thought about how to explain, with his limited command of human speech, how to focus the Akashic record onto another person and extract their status from it, creating [Scan]. Ulric wasn't particularly hurried, they had plenty of daylight, although the previous few months had decreased that daylight by nearly two hours compared to his initial days. Eventually, the Elf started speaking, broken language tentative but gaining confidence as he explained.

  "Ulric man know about status?"

  When Ulric nodded affirmative, he continued "World remembers us. Men. Elves. Dwarves. Dragons. All leave imprint, imprints touch."

  Brighteyes brought his hands together, fingers interlocking to show that the effects of one life intersected with the lives of another.

  "Call self-imprint [Status]. Focus mana on self, on imprint, call it, see own status. [Scan] like this. Different. Focus mana on other. Harder. Demand from Akashic. But focus on other. See details. Like Ulric man filthy stiff hair or round scary gray eyes." Before Ulric could launch his own assessment of Brighteyes, he'd soldiered on, keeping the momentum, "See detail and call mana. Core bridge world, self, other. Call status but of other. This [Scan]."

  Ulric listened intently to the explanation. It was obvious that Brighteyes was choosing his words carefully, trying to make a subtle point with what limited language he had.

  Ulric thought about his own status. How the Watcher had said it was a manifestation of the Akashic record, the world memory. That must be the imprint. Mana was how you communicated with the Akashic. It was easy to bridge yourself to the Akashic, you were already connected through your own core. Summoning the imprint, you made on it yourself was as easy as concentrating on it. But [Scan] required you to try to see another's imprint. Naturally you lacked most of the context for the other person's imprint. You only saw the barest slice of their impression on the world, and only really because they were imprinting it with you.

  Wait. That's it, you imprinted the world together with all the other connections to the Akashic. No man is an island eh? Ulric nearly smiled. Seems the great philosophers of his own world had found common truths to those of this world. It would be worth searching his memory for the lessons of those greats to mine them for more universals.

  Ulric shook his head to refocus. Later. He'd do that when he had a spare moment at night, right now he had to get to the bottom of [Scan]. Connection was the key Brighteyes had given him. He focused on Brighteyes, on the details of the strange but similar features. High hair line in a widow's peak. Brilliant green and gold flecked eyes. Bruises. Leather hides that fit loosely, hanging stiff with newness. Keeping these details in focus Ulric reached out and flexed his mana, like he would if he was getting ready to shape a spell. He reached out with his core and sought to create a link from himself to the world, like he would with [Scan] only he would first link to Brighteyes and reach that connection through the elf first.

  It took a few minutes of awkward regard, as details soaked in, and then, like an anchor dropping through the water hits the sea floor, Ulric felt a grounding and suddenly a window snapped into place in front of him. Almost involuntarily he muttered the name of this new magic

  [Scan]

  The results of this peeking into the never were frankly absurd. Ulric was almost used to himself, but seeing a whole other race, a whole suite of possibilities was now shown him.

  Varda is wide, her distant shores vast he realized.

  Cheating. This was absolutely cheating.

  Ulric had a moment of epiphany as he realized what absolutely insane bullshit magic could be. There had to be a catch, somewhere. A balance. If anybody could do anything there's no way society would function as he'd known it. Just a guy with some cash, some guns, and a hardened disregard for the well-being of others was enough to rule significant portions of the world from which he came. What could a man have brought under his umbrella if he could have access to this? Probably didn't bear thinking about, his old world had spawned tyrants and monsters aplenty sans magical fuckery.

  Speaking of magical fuckery, Brighteyes had a few curiosities to chew on. Firstly, the little guy was way older than he looked. Elven physiology traits did say elves aged more slowly, Ulric wouldn't have pegged him any older than twelve. The kid was half his age! So that meant he’d be a teenager for, like, a decade. Poor parents.

  Also strange, the name was listed as Brighteyes. Odd that it would have only the name Ulric had given him and not his real one, even though it showed all kinds of things Ulric would never have known without being expressly told or shown. Like the traits, titles, and thaumaturgy the kid possessed, kind of impressive really. The baffled engineer turned hedge wizard took a closer look at those, trying to make sense of it all. Starting with the traits innate to Elves, dubbed Aes’r on this world, it seemed, and Iriel’en seemed to be a subcategorization. The presentation of that was different than his own, perhaps because Brighteyes had actually been born on this world, to real parents, not cobbled together from aether by a cosmic spook.

  Huh, Ulric grunted to himself, what do you know, the kid really is some bigwig’s offspring. Looks like the Elves practice eugenics too, Brightheyes is a high bred, if this is anything to go by.

  Neat. The kid was gifted. Probably a side benefit of good parents doing good parent things. At least he knew he probably wasn’t going to be taking the young elf back to a shitty place.

  This [Scan] business just didn't jive with any analogue Ulric had. Some things the record showed you like you were the gods of the universe looking down. Some things it left for you to figure out on your own. Some things seemed to carry an outside perspective, a mirror but passed through the polarization of your own experiences first. Maybe he couldn't see Brighteyes' name because it wasn't important and he'd just keep thinking of him as Brighteyes until a real name had relevance.

  It was a distinct possibility.

  One of Ulric's many, many, character flaws was that he had difficulty paying enough attention to people to remember their names. It really took the piss out of his coworkers, some of them who'd been around for years, when a situation finally placed he and they in close enough contact for them to figure out he had no clue what their name was.

  Well enough. Brighteyes it was and will be until needs arose.

  There were two titles, each yielded their descriptions to his mind through spooky Vardan shenanigans.

  How curious. Did Brighteyes consider himself acting in some sort of official capacity? The boy was definitely related to somebody, maybe a bunch of somebodies who were important. Ulric had rescued a friggin Elf princling or something. What is this, some hokey ass holonet flick for children? Whatever, weirder shit had happened, probably. Ambassador. That sounded semi-important. Was the kid? As he thought about their interaction, he realized that it was more true than not, Ulric was using the elf lad, a little unfairly, really, as a measuring stick by which to form a framework for how he thought of all Elves. No pressure little dude!

  Or had Brighteyes sort of acquired that duty by this weird ass title thing clinging to his Akashic imprint? More two-way stuff, a little of column A mixed with a little of column B.

  “Hey, kiddo, you better not think I’m going soft just because you’re somebody special’s blowby. We don’t do Kings and shit where I’m from, just so you know. But, seeing as how you’re a guest and pretty alright for a brat, you can ambassador as much as you want.” Ulric told the Elf, who endured the pain it would cost to very deliberately roll his bruised eyes at the Valin man.

  Got some sass to him, Ulric thought, with a slight chuckle, I can dig it.

  Dismissing these errant thoughts Ulric tried to wrangle his brain onto the other features of this new window. Stat distribution pretty similar to a human with a little less in the physicality and higher in the mobility and mental departments, especially with that precocious trait. Color him surprised, Brighteyes wasn't a dummy. Low vitality though, maybe something to do with Elven biology compared to humans, or maybe an age thing, he was, to appearance anyway, a child at the cusp of adolescence, if his benchmark of ten for an adult human theory was correct, being less tough than a grown person wasn’t unusual.

  Given the total lack of background knowledge, Ulric couldn't assume anything with any certainty. It was entirely possible that even the humans of this world didn't grow and age like they had on his prior one. Ulric himself was a good case for that.

  The Watcher had said he'd been reforged and his trait to that effect was that his body was the peak of his soul's imprint. Whatever the fuck that meant. The result was not questionable, however. He was much more physically able than he ever had been on Earth, even at his absolute peak. Playing around in the woods he'd vaulted bushes and limbs he'd struggle to climb over previously. Easily a two and half meter vertical, hell he'd proven that when he'd jumped the Forest Lord. That beast had stood all of three meters high and he'd easily been able to grab its head from a running go.

  He could dunk. Ulric almost giggled at the sheer asinine incredulity of that thought. But there it was. He could not only dunk, he could climb like a world class free solo rock climber. He could run as fast as any qualifier in the Olympics and for longer at that speed than any of them. Ulric wasn't sure how strong he was but he had a feeling that he'd have made a good showing in the power lifting department. He'd never lifted weights in his life.

  If this was the result of being remade to fit this world it would stand to reason that the other beings were also stronger than their Earth counter parts, and that definitely checked out. The deer were faster and stronger than deer on Earth. The wolves he'd seen slaughter an elk had torn it apart far more forcefully than their old-world counterparts. And the Forest Lord was to a bear like a candle to the sun. It had been less animal and more force of nature. All of this pointed to the stats being representative of some sort of quantization of an individual's qualities, and those qualities being generally higher than on his old world. Perhaps it had to do with mana infusing everything with additional possibility.

  He'd thought it over during his time sitting next to a fire alone in the wilderness. He'd thought over a lot of things. You'd be surprised how much thinking you do when the sun goes down and the forest turns to pitch.

  He'd gotten side tracked. Again. Brighteyes seemed to have gotten used to it already as he didn't say anything when he noticed his strange savior go blank eyed and start snapping his fingers. Damn it. Moving on, he examined the entire Thaumaturgic list. What he got was a swift kick in the pants.

  The spells, Thaumaturgy, had odd names until he realized that what he saw from the core was referencing the moon, Lunar, in terms he understood, but that the Coven might refer to a colloquialism for the three moons of Varda. More confusing mixes of known and unknown information. Anyway, it would seem that Brighteyes had an elementally harmonized core, and that moonlight was a lot more serious business on Varda than he would have expected.

  Those dickhead Viking guys had better count themselves lucky they didn’t try their kidnapping at night, Brighteyes had some nasty surprises hiding in his Moon Elf tool kit.

  Was this what you got for having your core tuned to a particular manaform? Ulric didn't know. He knew that his own had no such indications, just reading "Tempered". It had been "Untempered" when he got mana sickness, which suggested that cores weren't static fixtures but could evolve over time, perhaps through experience or extended saturation with different types of mana. Wild stuff.

  Ulric hadn't had much contact with different types of mana that he hadn't made himself. There were faint fluctuations that could be felt if he concentrated really hard, but, ideally, he could use [Core Pulse] to sort of ping them and get an impression of the manaform in better detail, which let him intuit how to use it better.

  The fireplace was distinct, thrumming heat. The rock pool had subtle difference between the shimmering stillness of the pool itself and a more static feel to the surrounding stone. During the storms he'd felt something, like the impression of a bird flying just out of the edge of your sight when the wind blew strongly. He'd never forget the sense that came from the lightning that struck a bush in the glade. A lifting of hair, feel of a buzzing across his skin, threat of unimaginable energy barely contained. Then sizzling light, burning air destroying sight, followed by roar of thunder. Almost a religious experience being that close to lightning again.

  He couldn't feel anything from Brighteyes' magic. No stirring, no pulses, nada. Which kind of made sense. A core that let its mana seep out wasn't very efficient, and inefficient organisms tended not to live long. Whatever process created cores and allowed creatures to use and be magical seemed to have produced a fairly well integrated union of meat and mana.

  The moon magic was definitely interesting but seemed too restricted to be exceedingly powerful, to Ulric's perceptions. Not compared to what he used, at least. The interference of daylight was a big downside, for one. But he could see some nifty applications. The two melee spells, for one, were useful. He had his own Infrig analogue for the [Witchlight Blade], but his wasn’t named anything anything close to as impressive. Maybe Ulric was a very boring person?

  Anyhow, the sharpening one, that was useful. Very useful. It also opened Ulric's eyes to a whole new use for magic. Not just manipulating raw mana but infusing it into objects and modifying them.

  He might not need to sew clothes together, maybe he could simply will them to merge. What once was one piece of leather could again be one piece. Would save a hell of a lot of time and make the result stronger. He could seal his shelter's cracks not by daubing it with mud and leaves but channeling mana to swell the wood together. Sharpening his bone tools with a thought.

  Fucking cheating ass magic.

  Ulric fell in love with this world all over again.