Master Of None

The pair seemed that they had a lot on their minds when it came to the water elves. The fact that Alma was just as stuck as Walker on the water elves being so isolated, made them both worry. "If they had always been that way I would understand. But they are not necessarily high elves, right? Eleven you and the queen have mentioned how high elves are too thin of blood nowadays. That's why the skills are so rare." 

Alma knew that this was more true with every elf born, "There has to be some outside force that made them this way. I understand leaving the oceans because it is safer in the lakes. That makes sense for their people. But isolating themselves has to be something else. Something that convinced every single member of their people. I asked around and apparently, there was nothing recent for their history. It was as if they stopped accepting people near them one day out of the blue." 

She paused for a little while while speaking, "Yes they are the closest to the high elves and they had some bad apples. There will always be those that get a rare bloodline related skill and try to preserve it. But this was a little too much." Alma wished she had answers but decided to try and push the thoughts from her mind while tossing another log on the fire. 

Walker glanced at everyone else asleep. The only one still awake was Neil. He was meditating while trying to improve his control of the ice on his hands. He wanted to try and do the same so that he could see if he could also learn some elemental armor skills. It would be amazing to have an elemental armor of mana and have it work with his own armor. It was one thing that he would test when he returned home. It would also potentially work with runes, therefore, opening another thing to study. 

"Hey, can you see that? There are three torch lights way over there." The three faint lights that Alma could make out were definitely dancing flames. They were too far away to make out what was holding them but they were a little taller than the enforcers that Alma normally had around her. She couldn't help make the comparison in her head. 

"I wish we could make it out. But even if we had some night vision skill we would have trouble with the way the torches are. Trust me. I have seen Midnight avoid looking in the torch light when we have one at night." Walker had taken some time to learn that Midnight Had trouble looking through the dark then back at a strong light source when it was night. He easily chalked it up to being her natural night vision. 

"You don't think there would be some foolish merchants out trying to get closer to the lakes, right?" This was the first worry that came to Alma. She had a feeling that there just might be some people that heard their group was heading toward the lake. That would bait them in to going and trying to take advantage of a newly opened trade route that no others had. 

"What's going on? Is there something wrong?" Gil had woken up hearing the slightly raised voices of Alma and Walker while they had debated what they had seen. 

"There were torch lights in the distance. From what Walker showed us on the map they were walking a trail nearby. We are worried that merchants followed us out here." 

"Merchants?" Gil had a hard time thinking that people would be so foolish to waste their time coming out to the lakes just to get turned away. "They should know that even your city took time to allow merchants to travel. Even now it is a very controlled matter." Since he had the best tracking ability, Gil stood up and grabbed his arrows. He wasn't sure he would get by with just going to take a look. "I will scout it out then come back. Just keep the fire warm."

At this point, Midnight had woken up to. Gil and Midnight were the first to head out while Leon and Neil focused up as well. "I was having the best dream about a silver skinned tuna. And now, I feel like I should be ready for a fight." The anxiety that Leon was feeling came from his natural merfolk instincts. He knew when enemies were nearby. It was very valuable for anyone in the water to be hyper aware. 

"Gil and Midnight are already on it. They should be back soon. Walker just reassured Leon that everything would be fine. It was enough to get Leon to sit back down without any more jokes. 

It only took a few minutes for Gil to return with a puzzled expression. "So, it looks like whatever you saw were the monsters foot prints we saw earlier today. But that means they are most likely a demi-human. All the tracks are very similar though. Definitely the same species." While Gil explained, Midnight was rubbing her nose clean. "Oh, and they have the same scent as what we smelled earlier. But it is much stronger. I don't know what it is but they definitely had it all over their bodies." 

"Same foot prints, same smell, and we are all wondering what it is still? Let me take watch. if anything shows up I will defend it." Neil stood up from his training and stood in the middle of their camp next to the fire. He had his eyes ready to see any threat. He also caught glimpses of the torches as the night went on. "So someone's surveying us. Let's see how this goes tomorrow." Neil was ready to fight whatever it was. 

…..

….