148 – A Private Conversation
Elise stared into Jesse’s face, half-comprehending what was going on. He—or rather, she—was disguised so well that the thought hasn’t even crossed Elise’s mind that Jesse might be anything but what he looked.
“I don’t remember,” said Elise, not wanting to let the silence drag on too long.
“Who said it?” asked Jesse.
“Just someone from another class. Why? Do you know the place?”
“…I’ve heard of it.”
“Really? Where is it?”
Jesse glanced around at the others who were all staring with curious expressions.
“Ah… It’s a small town. Really small town out in the boonies. It’s near where I grew up. I just didn’t expect there would be anyone from that area here. Do you know who they are? If they’re from that area, I might know ‘em.”
“Yeah, we can talk after class,” said Elise.
“Right,” said Jesse. “Good idea. Don’t want to be late.”
She turned and walked almost robotically toward the classroom, and the rest followed. No one bothered to mention that they were all running early, so there was no chance of missing class. While Jesse’s lie had been almost believable, she had clearly not spent months training her lying ability like Elise had, and the rest of the group was nothing if not perceptive.
Emmet was reading a book when they entered. He nodded and smiled at them, and when it was clear that they didn’t have anything to say to him, he went back to his book. Elise and the others sat in the same places as the first class, taking over the front left corner, and Sophie, Samantha, and Helene immediately started chatting. Samantha asked Sophie what life at the Academy was like, and Sophie gladly started going into every little detail, leaving Elise free to think about how she would talk to the Saintess.
They would only have a few minutes after class, so if possible, she wanted to cover everything she could with {Whisper} beforehand, but her experience earlier made her hesitate. With {Aether Sense}, she was able to tell that Samantha and Helene were having a telepathic conversation. She couldn’t make out the words, but she would have been sincerely surprised if there wasn’t an eavesdropping Skill. And assuming such a Skill existed, Emmet probably had it.
Elise glanced at the professor, once again struck by how unassuming he looked. His aether was perfectly restrained as well. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought absolutely nothing about him as she passed by, even if he wasn’t using any illusions to warp her perception. Yet from everything she understood, he was probably one of the most dangerous people in the nation, and with everything he knew, if he wasn’t alert and on guard at all times, Elise would eat her hat.
“Professor Emmet,” Elise sent with {Whisper}.
“Yes?” he replied immediately without looking up.
“Is it possible to eavesdrop on conversations had through {Whisper} or {Telepathy} or other similar Skills?”
“Yes, but it’s very, very rare to have the ability to do so. I’d wager no more than a dozen or so people in the entire nation—perhaps the world—can do it.”
“And you are one of those dozen?”
“Naturally.”
“How much do you know about me?”
“Almost definitely more than you would like me to.”
“And how much is that?”
“I believe I see where this is going. Yes, I know you are a changeling. No, I don’t intend on doing anything about it, so long as you behave. Yes, I will promise not to eavesdrop on your private conversations in the classroom, and I will accept a fey bargain if necessary for you to trust me.”
“...Thank you,” said Elise, activating {Fey Bargaining} and feeling the aether bond form between them.
“I will have to request that you refrain from distracting others from my lectures now that you have this power.”
“Of course. Thank you, sir.”
Emmet didn’t seem to want to say anything else, so Elise cut the {Whisper} connection, mildly unsettled. He was indeed alert, based on how quickly he responded, and he was an excellent actor, since throughout their conversation, he appeared every bit engrossed in his book, even sometimes squinting, widening his eyes, and nodding as he read. He also knew quite a bit, and now that he had explicitly confirmed it, Elise felt uncomfortable not knowing how much he knew, and more importantly, where he had gotten his information. It was perfectly believable that he had found out that she was a changeling on his own, but it was also believable that he had known before she even appeared in his classroom because he was working with Ostra. If it was the latter, she might have to have a word with Freddy about spreading her information without letting her know first…
Regardless, she had permission, and reasonable assurance that her conversation would not be overheard, so she turned her attention instead to Jesse, who was fidgeting anxiously.
“This is Eleanor,” she sent.
Jesse flinched, then Elise felt her eyes boring into the back of her head.
“Hello?” asked Jesse.
Through the telepathic connection, her voice was female, untouched by whatever disguise changed her voice in person.
“Hi,” replied Elise. “First of all, I recommend not using whatever telepathic conversation Skill you’re using right now with anyone else.”
“Why?”
“It uses your real voice.”
Elise sensed a strong wave of panic from behind through {Sense Emotions}.
“Don’t worry,” she said in a reassuring tone. “I already knew. I won’t tell anyone.”
The panic intensified.
“And it’s not because your disguise is bad,” added Elise hastily. “I was actually looking for you. Mentioning America was bait. No one in my class was talking about it. It’s where I’m from.”
Jesse’s emotions were in turmoil, one second panicked, the next confused, then hopeful, then excited.
“Wait, you’re the white rabbit?!”
“That’s me. Maggie told me roughly how to find you, and I’ve been looking all day.”
“Bloody hell, finally! And you’re from Earth too? You speak English?”
“Technically, I speak every language now, but English is my native language.”
“Oh, this is great! It’s been so long since I got to talk with someone from Earth.”
“Me too,” said Elise.
Then, she noticed something about Jesse’s voice. Tongues had always translated everything into English for her, but suddenly, her voice had taken on a new, but familiar accent. She must have switched back to English, but she was clearly not American.
“Are you Australian?” asked Elise.
“Yeah. Damn, you really are from Earth. Unless Maggie told you that too, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t know.”
“She could know. She said she was watching me before I came here.”
“Really? Weird, she didn’t tell me that part. Well, either way, I’ve kind of already dropped the ball on keeping my secrets, so I’ll just trust you for now.”
“I don’t think that’s very wise.”
“Well, maybe I want to be unwise.”
“...Fair enough.”
“So, Maggie said you were gonna ask me something?” said Jesse after a few seconds.
“Yes. I have a friend who has a severely damaged soul. Maggie said you would probably be able to heal him, and if not now, then you would be able to after you evolve your Class once or twice more.”
“I can help with that. But I want to ask you for help with something in return.”
“What is it?”
“Help me escape.”
“Escape?”
“The church. But, like, not in a bad way. They’re good people. They’re just… overzealous, and they barely let me do anything. It’s a miracle they even let me come here, and that’s only because of that white rabbit prophecy.”
“So you want me to help you leave without getting caught.”
“No, I want you to help me leave with permission. Maggie said you could help. I don’t want to ruin my relationship with them, because I’ve met some really great people there, and I know even the ones I don’t like very much aren’t evil, just misguided, but holy shit I need a break. I want to go exploring. I’m in a fucking fantasy world! And I haven’t even seen a goblin! Or any other fantasy monster! They won’t even let me in the Dungeon! It’s the coolest thing ever, and famously safe, and they won’t let me in there without a full entourage of holy knights because they need to make sure I don’t get a scratch.”
“Yeah… That sounds pretty suffocating. I can relate a bit.”
It reminded Elise a lot of her time down in the caverns with the dwarves and drow. With the drow, she had at least been able to go hunting, but being chained down was frustrating.
“Yeah, it is,” said Jesse. “So can you help?”
“I’ll try my best,” said Elise, not wanting to pass up a chance to get Jag healed. “But I’m not sure how either. You said you want to leave with permission. Under what circumstances would they let you leave with permission?”
“As far as I can tell, that would only happen if Lucena herself told them I could, but fat chance of that happening.”
“...Have you never spoken to Lucena?”
“No? I mean, I’ve prayed to her, but I’ve never had a conversation with her.”
“Have you asked her to let you leave?”
“Of course I have. She never responded though.”
Is my relationship with Titania just weird? Elise wondered.
“Has she ever granted any of your requests?”
“Well, the church asks me to perform three ‘miracles’ every month, and when we do that, I pray to her, and she grants me some of her power. And she gave me that rabbit prophecy recently, but that wasn’t in direct response to anything I said.”
“So you’re using your {Rune of Fate} charges on church miracles?”
“My what? Woah, holy shit!”
Elise sensed surprise from behind her and assumed that Jesse had just gotten the same notification Elise had gotten many months ago about the Skill’s description being updated.
“Okay, hold up,” said Jesse. “What did you just do? How did you do that?”
“I didn’t do anything. It does that automatically when you hear new information. It’s done that to me a few times. Want to hear the full description? Or at least, everything I have?”
“Yes.”
Elise read out her own description of {Rune of Fate}, then waited a few seconds as Jesse stared over the updated description. Then, she sensed something that felt almost like a puff of aether from behind her followed by joy from Jesse.
“I got {Aether Sense}!” she shouted mentally. “Wow, this is crazy. A year and a half stuck with that stupid censored description and now I get all this at once.”
“A year and a half? You’ve been here for a year and a half?”
“Yeah. Got bit by a taipan while out hiking and woke up in the church. Been stuck there pretty much ever since. By the way, I should probably introduce myself. My real name is Jessica. My friends call me Jessie though. That’s with an -ie, unlike my disguise name, which just has an -e. You can call me Jessie too, since that’s my disguise’s name anyway.”
“I’m Elise,” replied Elise, reveling in the feeling of not having her name get automatically translated to Snowberry. “My friends just called me Elise. It translates to Snowberry in Common though, which is really annoying, and is why I have to go by Eleanor instead.”
“Haha, yeah it does. That’s pretty funny. Also, how come you’re not tied to the church?”
“I woke up as a rabbit in a forest full of monsters pretty far from any churches. I also don’t channel the power of a goddess that the human churches would worship. I think.”
“Wait, you’re literally a rabbit?”
“Yes.”
“Oh damn. Huh. Well, at least you were free.”
“Not really.”
“Oh. My bad.”
“Anyway,” said Elise after a few seconds. “Is there any other way the church will let you go?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I think the best bet might be to try to get Lucena to say something then. I’m pretty sure she’s spoken to Maggie before. Maybe you could ask her how to make it happen? If not, I guess I could poke around on my end. I can ask my goddess—it’s Titania, the fey goddess, by the way—and see if she can help.”
“Damn, your goddess actually listens to you?”
“I think so? She’s spoken to me a few times before, at least, and she seems to hear what I say to her.”
“Lucky. Well, I guess I’ll keep trying. Until I figure something out though, this is pretty much the only place we can talk. I’ve got hidden escorts in all my other classes, and I need to go back to the church as soon as my classes end.”
“That’s rough.”
“Yeah. As soon as I’m free though, I’ll see what I can do about your friend though. Maybe I can do a ‘miracle’ for him too.”
“I hope so…”
“Well, looks like class is starting soon, so I guess we’ll talk more afterward.”
“Yep.”
“I’ve got a lot to process anyway. Thanks, by the way. Not sure if I said it. If you can get me out of the church… Well, I’ll heal your friend obviously, but I’ll also do something else. Not sure. I’ll figure it out.”
“You don’t have to,” said Elise. “Healing him is more than enough.”
“Yeah, but–”
“Alright class, let us begin,” said Emmet, cutting through the conversation.
“We’ll talk later,” said Jessie.
“Alright.”
The following class was relatively interesting. As promised, Emmet went into more detail on how to detect different kinds of aetheric illusions. The class was 100% lecture this time with no activities, but Emmet kept it interesting by telling stories from both his own experiences as what seemed to be a spymaster or something, and also from previous classes.
Elise found it all fairly interesting, and had a few important takeaways. First was that visual aetheric illusions were simultaneously the most complex, and also the most difficult to detect without {Aether Sense}. And even if someone did have {Aether Sense} and recognized that the other person was using a visual aetheric illusion, that didn’t mean they could see through it. It turned the illusion from an illusion to a mask, but it would still hide whatever it was supposed to be hiding.
Meanwhile, things like {Suggest}, {Command} and its variations, which included Elise’s own {Royal Decree}, {Forced Feeling}, and more that directly affected the target’s thoughts or feelings were the easiest to detect for someone looking out for them. They were the most simplistic as well. That didn’t make them easy to avoid though, as even if they were detected, their effects could still be unavoidable if the user had enough aether.
The most insidious were Skills like Elise’s {Don’t Look At Me, Peasants!} as anyone hit by them wouldn’t even know they were being hit. According to Emmet, if someone was using one of those Skills in public, odds were that they would never be found by anyone without {Aether Sense}. And some of those Skills even worked in spite of {Aether Sense}, so someone strong enough could be completely invisible. The only way around this was to have a mental defense Skill to neutralize the effects, or an artifact designed specifically to detect such Skills, and such items were so rare they were basically nonexistent.
“This is not too much of a worry though, as there are no known assassin Classes or monsters who receive such a Skill,” said Emmet after seeing everyone in the room grow uncomfortable. “In fact, there are less than twelve Classes in existence known to have something similar, and none are combat classes, and all known Skills have safeguards built in to instantly deactivate when the user takes a violent action.”
Does mine have a feature like that? Elise wondered.
“Yes,” replied the System.
“The only kind of person who could work around those restrictions would be someone with high level {Aether Manipulation}, and if someone with that Skill decided they wanted you dead… Well, frankly, there’s nothing you could do. Not as you are, at least. So there’s no need to worry.”
After those reassuring words, he continued his lecture, ending right on time before dismissing the class. Elise and Jessie stayed right in their seats, finishing up their telepathic conversation, but there wasn’t much more to say. With Jessie so restricted, all they could do was promise to look for solutions on their end and say their goodbyes. They both left in good spirits though, each now one step closer to their goals.
As Jessie left, Elise was rejoined by Sophie, who was practically skipping. Elise glanced back to see Samantha, smiling happily behind them. Sophie rushed Elise out of the underground area and down the path a little ways until the others were far behind, then turned to Elise excitedly.
“She thinks I’m a half dragon!”
“She does?” asked Elise, feigning ignorance.
“She recognized my eyes.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said ‘maybe.’”
“Nice.”
“Should I tell her the truth?”
“I don’t know. That’s up to you and Irylax.”
“I guess. I’ll ask! Also what’d you talk about with Jesse? What’s America? Are you guys dating now?”
“We talked about America, which is a small town that he grew up near, and no, we are not dating.”
“Really?” asked Sophie, raising an eyebrow. “I saw you talking secretly before class. Are you sure that’s all you talked about?”
“No, but I’m not allowed to tell you what we were talking about, so no matter how many times you ask, I won’t say anything.”
“You’re definitely dating,” said Sophie smugly.
“Believe what you want,” said Elise. “Let’s get to class. We don’t want to miss the good seats.”
As soon as the curtains were pulled over the carriage windows, Penelope slumped down with a sigh. It had been a long few months since she returned to Jelor. While the public had gone back to normal fairly quickly, Ostra had thrown the upper class world into disarray that was, as far as she could tell, only growing. Among the most powerful people on the continent, three factions had formed.
One wanted to welcome Ostra with open arms. This was mostly led by the merchants and more financially focused nobles who apparently saw great trade opportunities waiting for them if they could secure Ostra’s cooperation.
One wanted to remain neutral, allowed Ostra to exist, but doing nothing to assist them. This group was mostly made up of the more cautious nobles. Those who did not want to burn any bridges, but didn’t want to let a potential enemy in through the front gate either.
The last wanted to use the knowledge of Ostra’s existence to purge them from existence. To them, a group of monsters containing multiple 9th tiers and dozens of 8th tiers was an existence that could not be allowed to remain under their noses. This faction was headed by high profile members of the three largest humanoid religions, the church of Light, the church of Nature, and the Clay Order.
Penelope was working as an ambassador for the Jelorian royal family, who was sitting somewhere between the first and second factions. While it was a lot of work, Penelope was fairly satisfied with what she was doing. She represented the position that she felt most closely aligned to her own beliefs, and with explicit orders from the king to “do whatever is necessary to protect the people of Jelor,” she was even earning Class experience.
She had just gotten done with an intense meeting between the first and third factions. She didn’t need to do more than keep the peace, but it was still stressful with how much shouting and insults there were. She was glad to be back in the quiet, cushioned carriage, if only for a little while while she made her way to her next appointment.
“Need a little pick-me-up?”
Penelope suddenly sat straight up and reached for her sword as a woman appeared on the other side of the carriage across from her. She wore a thick black dress, gloves, and had a veil that completely covered her head so Penelope could not make out any features aside from her height.
“I’m not here to fight,” said the woman, raising her hands.
Penelope kept a hand on her sword handle, but did not strike.
“You are trespassing on royal property,” said Penelope. “I suggest you remove yourself.”
“In just a minute,” said the other woman. “I am just here to deliver a message.”
“Out with it then.”
“What is your opinion on Ostra?”
“That is not a message.”
“It’s the preamble. Humor me, and I’ll be out sooner.”
“My opinion on Ostra doesn’t matter. I work for Jelor.”
“How very dutiful of you.”
While Penelope could not see the other woman’s face, she got the sense that she was smiling.
“Well, what if I told you that the entire Blood Syndicate incident was a ruse?”
“What?”
“The Blood Syndicate was created by Ostra. It was raised by them. Everything the Blood Syndicate did, they did with Ostra’s knowledge, consent, and blessing.”
“Why would they do that?”
“So that they could destroy it. What better way to introduce yourself to the world than by destroying one of the world’s great evils?”
Penelope narrowed her eyes. “The one who raised the Blood Syndicate was a former Ostra member who has since been slain.”
“Oh, she is still a member, and she is very much alive.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Your loss. Well, I’ve delivered my message. As promised, I’ll be off.”
Just as quickly as she appeared, the mysterious woman vanished. Only after a few seconds did Penelope relax. Then, she slid down even further in her seat than before, letting out an even longer sigh, and closing her eyes. A few seconds later, she opened them and sat back up, then opened the window so she could speak to the driver.
“Change of plans,” she said. “Head to the castle.”
“But–” started the coachman.
“It’s urgent,” said Penelope. “I need to speak with the commander.”