Favor

He made do in the living room for the night, then had the slaves clear out all the clutter the next day. He would buy all-new furniture. He also needed to check on logistics at Sun Sail Harbor. The trading ships had recently returned, and some of the resources passing through were exactly what Shane wanted.

After cleaning himself up and enjoying lunch, he headed to the docks in good spirits. High Elves had been almost entirely freed from manual labor; at a glance, all the cargo handlers on the docks were mechanical constructs. He soon found the Dawnblade berth, where several constructs were busy working.

"Lord Shane?" The elf overseeing the constructs spotted him.

"That's right." This was where social rank came into play. Casters occupied the highest tier of elven society, sharing power over the nation with military nobles such as the rangers.

"Welcome. We're honored to have you inspect our work." Casters would never be assigned dockside transport duties. Someone else would handle those tasks for them.

I hear he's already gained access to the library. If I'd worked harder back then, perhaps people would be calling me 'Lord Mage' too, the dock manager thought enviously.

"Give me the cargo manifest."

"Please have a look."

Before long, the elf in charge brought over a stack of forms. Shane immediately crossed out everything that wasn't a material, leaving only metals and magical dust.

"Mithril, thorium, and dust essences-set aside twenty percent for me. I want all the steel ingots and half the dark iron." His pen scratched across the forms as he marked those quantities as lost in transit.

The elf opened his mouth but said nothing.

"I'll compensate you with golden sansam from the nursery."

Only then did the dock manager leave. The family had put Shane in charge of logistics to win him over and cultivate his potential in the first place, so he had no qualms about helping himself.

When he returned to his cottage, the new furniture had just been piled outside the door. Shane personally used Levitate and Mage Hand to arrange it all on the second floor.

Back downstairs, he sensed a subtle change in his surroundings. Something felt unnatural.

"Report: female elf intruder detected. Hostility scan: slight hostility." The Eye of Truth sounded an alert as well.

"Detection. Temperature Detection." Two motes of arcane light fell to the floor, releasing rings of radiance. Before the spells could return their results, the hidden figure stepped out on her own.

"I've never met an elf so brazenly decisive." The visitor had a graceful, swanlike neck, and she held her chin slightly raised.

"Uh... Lady Alleria." Shane inwardly grumbled that both sisters apparently had a habit of stalking people.

"I'm here for Vereesa. I caught her here and took her home a few days ago. Why am I explaining all this to you? I'm leaving."

With the Eye of Truth's help, Shane detected that Alleria had not gone far. Apparently, she was using him as a marker to catch Vereesa. The night was perfectly peaceful, apart from the pair of eyes constantly watching his cottage.

On the balcony, three spell orbs revolved above Shane's head. He slowly opened his left hand, conjuring three more orbs that began to orbit in concentric circles. My control has improved a little, Shane thought. He tried moving the orbs above his hand to his head as well, and succeeded. The two sets circled one another overhead, though the second set moved a little more slowly.

"I wonder what Vereesa is doing right now." Shane leaned back in his chair, maintaining the orbiting spell orbs. His thoughts drifted to the youngest Windrunner sister, then to his future. Now that he had the Eye of Truth, could he revise his earlier plans? "Ah... choo! Is someone bad-mouthing me?"

"Sneaking out to see a man in the middle of the night, my dear little sister?"

"I'm not here to see a man. I just came to see Shane."

"What exactly is your relationship? You think about him every day."

"We're... friends. Buddies... yes, buddies."

"What's so good about that shameless male elf?"

"Ah... choo!" The sisters' voices drifted over on the wind. Shane dismissed his spell orbs and looked in their direction. The woods were pitch-black; he couldn't see a thing. He didn't dare cast a flare or any other illumination spell, for fear of provoking the she-dragon.

"Night Vision." With this second-circle spell cast on himself, he could see through the darkness. The two female elves stood facing off on branches of separate trees.

Whoosh! An arrow buried itself in the floor just in front of Shane's feet. Along with it came the she-dragon's glare, sharp enough to pierce his heart a thousand times over.

All right, the she-dragon was already furious.

Vereesa seized the opportunity to escape. Both sisters moved with lithe grace, darting and leaping like dragons woven from magic. Shane watched until they had both disappeared into the night.

The arrow embedded in the floor reflected the moonlight. It took some effort to pull it free. Its mithril head bore the Windrunner emblem. Shane put it away; perhaps it would come in handy someday.

Just then, fireworks rose from the neighboring estate. His neighbor was a wealthy fellow who loved parties and banquets, spending his days making friends or inviting passing travelers to join the festivities. He had invited Shane once, but Shane had declined.

With such long lives, most elves made pleasure the focus of their existence. Shane neither wanted nor could afford to live as they did. Class divisions among elves began with their ways of life.

"If I didn't have memories of my previous life, perhaps I'd be just like them, drinking fine wine, holding an elf woman in my arms, and indulging myself." Shane reclined in his chair again and honed his spellcasting techniques, with the stars for company.

"I still need a power core and an intelligence core for the construct. Tomorrow, I'll ask the family elders and my mentor whether they can spare any." Shane knew that even privileges had to be exercised with restraint, so he decided to visit Silvermoon City.

Beneath the Sunwell's radiance, Quel'Thalas always enjoyed gentle breezes and bright sunshine, and today was no exception. At a fork in the road to Silvermoon City, he came upon an elf woman sitting on a roadside rock. His mood became just as sunny.

"Vereesa! You didn't get dragged home?" Shane smiled in the sunlight.

"My eldest sister left Silvermoon City in a hurry today, so I came out." Relief was written all over Vereesa's face.

"Where did Lady Alleria go?" Shane remembered that Alleria had left to help the humans, during the Second War.

"She went to the Ghostlands. The trolls there have been causing a lot of trouble lately."

He still couldn't pin down the exact point in the timeline.

"I'm on my way to Silvermoon City. Want to come along?"

"Sure, but wouldn't it look strange for a Windrunner and a Dawnblade to be together?"

"I don't think so. Any elves who see us will probably think, 'Look, the Windrunners and the Dawnblades are at it again.'"

"Pfft... that's so true." The two clans' family traditions were so incompatible that tales of their petty rivalry had circulated among the elves for ten thousand years. Ten thousand years! "What are you going to Silvermoon City for?"

"I'm studying Construct Biology. I've reached the practical stage, so I'm going to look for a few construct cores."

"Huh? Already? Are you really an elf? You only just got into the library!" Vereesa's ears stood straight up. She cupped Shane's cheeks and examined his face from side to side.

"Cut it out." Shane batted her hands away. "I'm very confident in my skills."

"Looks like I'll have to work harder. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm." Vereesa gave herself a little pep talk, then patted her chest. "I know where to find construct cores. Leave it to me, Shane."

The Windrunner family held an unrivaled position among the rangers and sentinels, and their forces possessed many mechanical guards. Over the years, they had accumulated considerable resources.

Vereesa's solution was to scavenge old cores. They didn't even need to enter the city. One circuit of the construct graveyard guarded by the Windrunner family yielded five power cores and two intelligence cores.

"User, even after repairs, their performance will be ten percent lower than that of new cores. However, the design includes a twenty-percent performance margin. Reducing that margin to ten percent will not affect the final performance," the Eye of Truth advised as he acquired them.

There was always a reason something hadn't been recycled.

"You've been a huge help again. Thank you, Vereesa." Shane spoke to the elf beside him.

"No need to be so polite. We're... we're... we're good buddies!"

Shane noticed that Vereesa's face was a little red. "As thanks, let's head back and have a feast."

"Yes, yes, yes! You have to cook it yourself. I want apple pie!"