The Arcane Archer - Chapter 26 Confusion

After the few nice moments of calmness, a few loud knocks echoed from the door. I looked up from my book at stared at the door.

“Who is it?” I asked lazily

“This is Belle Stormfoot, the guard who’s been assigned to you by the Queen for the duration of your stay.” She said

“And what does she want with me at the moment? I’m kind of Busy with something at the moment.” I said while indicating at the bath even though nobody could see me

“Yes, but she is the Queen. If you are doing what I assume you to be doing, please get yourself at least presentable.”

I groaned before getting out of the water and stopping the already dying flame. After that I stopped the enchantment and made sure that it slowly floated down to the ground instead of just falling and splashing water everywhere.

With that done, I looked around for something to help me dry.

“Do you have a towel!?” I yelled out in question.

“You’ve got magic from what I’ve heard. Just use that.”

I grumbled to myself and just complied. After that was done, I equipped my gear and put my bow and quiver on my back. Even though I had {Mana Archery} Which literally makes the bow and arrow from mana, using a regular bow was still preferable for me.

Exiting my room, I accidentally walked right into the Guard.
for visiting.

“Sorry about that uh, Belle was it?”

“It’s fine Sir Walter.” She gave me a quick look up and down. “I see that you’re dressed in your previous gear. If you want, you can wait with me here till its time to go meet the Queen.”

“Sure, why not.” Going back in my room, I grabbed a chair and pulled it out into the hallway and sat down on it. “So, Belle, you ok if I asked you some real quick questions?”

She looked at me sitting with the chair in contempt, probably because she herself wasn’t allowed to sit down while at work.

“Sure.” She said simply

“What can you tell me about the world?” I said while looking at the official quest given by the system. “From a dwarven perspective of course. I know the human one, but I would like to hear about it from a different perspective.”

She once again turned her head back to me which I felt like must’ve been very annoying.

“You know, you’re very weird for a human.” She said simply before once again, turning back to the wall.

“I know I am! Thank you!” I said gleefully.

She looked slightly weirded out by this but didn’t turn around this time.

“Us Dwarves were born from the ground. When we were first made, were shaped in the image of our Gods. Actual gods, not what you humans think are gods.” She started

‘Hah! I know the actual god, were the best of pals!’ I thought after hearing this. Immediately after I did-

[You’ve got a message from god. The message says, “We’re more like associates. -God”]

‘Wow, ok, thought we were friends ;-; ‘

“Our gods grabbed pieces of different stones and made us with those stones. Each dwarf is different because they were made from different amounts and types of stone. Occasionally there is a special case in which our gods decide to add a diamond or other rare gem to the creation process. This would make that dwarf very special by giving it some special powers, skills, or something.

Our gods instructed us to go build and create, so we did. We attempted to stay on land and build there but it didn’t feel right for us. Moving underground and in mountains, we then felt like we were in the correct places. Now feeling at home, we started doing what our gods wanted us to do. We learned how to transform the surrounding metals of the ground into beautiful creations, the gems and diamonds into little trinkets and jewelry, and the stone itself into our furniture.

From there on, we continued doing this until something miraculous happened, you see-”

At that point, loud footsteps were heard making their way in our direction. Belle, who was slowly starting to learn against the wall, straightened up and stood at attention. Slowly, the Queen started coming around the corner with her guards. The previous guard who was very rude to me earlier, was gone so that was nice.

“My Queen” Belle said as she bowed. She was about to say something else but the Queen raised her hand to stop her from speaking.

“I see that you got our guest here dressed, though it may not be actual decent clothing. You are dismissed, we’ll be doing the rest from here.” The Queen said.

Belle bowed before walking away in what I thought was a random direction as I still didn’t know the entire map for the area.

“Follow me and we’ll discuss your fate now that we now everything. I can promise that you won’t be killed because you were nice to the other races from what we’ve heard from both you and the Elves.” The Queen said.

“You talked to the Elves? Aren’t they many miles away?” I asked questioningly while following behind her.

“I had someone cast the sending spell.” She replied without even turning around.

Nothing more was said for the next few minutes until we got to what I assumed to be a dinning area from all the food on the tables. The Queen went to one side of the table, sat down, and then indicated for me to sit down in the chair opposite of her, which was pretty far away cause of how big the table was.

She started eating with perfect etiquette as she took her sweet time. I however, was very hungry from Evolving and not eating for the last couple of hours.

Chowing down, I ate as much as I could until I was unable to eat anymore. Some of the guards stared at me in either amazement or fright by how much I was eating and I made sure to take a mental picture of it because of how funny I found it.

After I finished and a couple of minutes passed in which the Queen finished eating as well, all the food was removed, and I was facing the Queen directly.

“Soooo…. We’re talking about my fate?” I asked

“Yes, we are.” Replied the Queen. “As you can probably guess from our previous conversations, we’ve been having multiple problems with Aetius and the humans who’ve started following him because they believe him to be a god. From what I learned from the Elves by having my Wizards casting sending a couple of times, everything you’ve said was able to be confirmed as truth. All the other races and I believe that you’d be able to help us achieve our goal if you’d be willing to help. Just know, that even if you don’t want to, you’d still leave alive, just with your memories altered and such.”

“And what is your goal exactly? I can make assumptions that its something to do with other humans and Aetius but other than that, I can’t really tell.” I replied while fiddling around with a fork in hand.

“Well it’s simple, we want your help in removing the Human’s false god and returning them to their former glory. You current Humans may not know this but back when you first came into existence, you were so much nicer! You were like the youngest child of the races and everyone wanted to take care of you. The other races of course still waged war and such but we all left it out of it and let you grow without anything affecting you. We wanted to see what you could do.” Then she scowled. “But then things changed. People started believing in Aetius and doing as he said and followed him without question. That previously nice race evolved into one that now made every other race hate them their entire being. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s still some good Humans here and there as shown by you, but it very rare to see.”

“I think I get your point. You want humans to return to their former glory and niceness that they once were by removing Aetius. Though how do you plan to do that?”

“War is upon us Leo; can’t you see the signs? After a few centuries of peace, it was bound to start again because of Aetius. To start this war, he’ll have to exert lots of power to make sure that he wins this time. Doing this will make him weak and give us the chance that we’ve been needing to finally kill him. So let me ask you once again Leo, will you be willing to help all the races and I return you Humans to your former glory? Will you help us kill that False God?