The Dawn Of The Fourth Day

In the span of a mortal heartbeat, I went from being seated in my tower to standing in the room I sprang to life in. I took a look around and allowed my senses a moment to catch up with me. And that was when I received a quiet and understated notification.

[Alert: Your body has finally finished acclimating to the demands of your new and improved senses. Your body and mind are now equipped to handle the sensory overload of detecting any creature on which light is shining, and your senses are now capable of differentiating between things close to you and things far away. Preparing the initial burst of sensory information in 3... 2... 1...]

By the time another mortal heartbeat would have happened I began to hear my surroundings. And they were quite loud. I could hear the sounds of more patrons of the Silver Xana, something new as until yesterday morning I had been the only person here aside from Isadora and her family.

My new senses really came to life in the town of Comillas. I could hear all manner of noises, and they were all distinct and identifiable to me.

Some of them were the gentle noises of people turning over in their sleep, others were the sounds of people putting on their clothes as they got ready for a lively day in the field. Others were the muffled moans of people having sex as a way to start the day feeling satisfied.

I could smell not only everything in my room but everything for a full twenty-four kilometers. I smelled the scent of washed bodies, unwashed bodies, the scent of wild and domesticated animals alike, and the fetid odor of corpses becoming fertilizer. It was nauseating, but only for a second.

I willingly opened my mouth and inhaled, allowing my sense of taste an opportunity to be overwhelmed. And as quickly as my nostrils had adjusted my sense of taste adjusted.

"I guess I'll just have to allow each of my senses a chance to be overwhelmed and then adjust to this new, immense amount of information huh?" I rhetorically asked myself, as I went ahead and placed my hand on the bed behind me, casually stretching my arm out so that I could get my fourth sense over and done with.

I could feel each imperfection and crack in the wood my fingers were on top of. I could sense where the blades of man had cut and shorn into the wood to force it into its present shape. I feel where the blades had chipped and left minute scars.

I turned and looked at the bed, and felt tears begin to pour out of my eyes as I leered at the bed that I had only really used when I first awoke. I could see every centimeter of the bed's straw and I was able to count the number of straws that softened the bed to make it suitable to sleep on.

My discomfort lasted for only a second and after it, I was able to grin as I wiped tears from my eyes. Now that my discomfort had passed, I turned and went out of the door so that I could chat with Isadora once more.

________________________________________________

Isadora was standing behind her usual desk and greeted me with a smile. I grinned back at her, as I approached her desk and began to speak.

"Hey Isadora, you're up bright and early." I told her. She nodded at me, her hair unusually messy.

"Yep! We got another set of guests this morning. They got here this morning so I had to be up early to help them check into their room." She explained, an easy-going grin on her face as she spoke.

"I was surprised to not see you come in last night. A bit worried even." She told me, her eyes brightening as she reaffirmed that I was here and okay.

"I was fine. I just had to spend a few hours in the forest, inspecting some trees." I told her, lying but doing so with enough confidence and casualness that after a few seconds considering my excuse she shrugged at me and accepted what I told her as true. And then she scooted closer to me and began to whisper.

"I'm pretty the other guests aren't humans. They seem like they might be something else. Something more." She gossiped, a look of conspiratorial concern on her face as she told me that.

I hadn't expected her to react that way to a non-human individual, so it caught me off-guard. That didn't keep me from seeing what she knew, while I checked out the pair of newcomers on my mini-map, mentally fiddling with the thing so that I could discover the species of the newcomers.

"What do you think they are?" I asked Isadora while I selected them on my mini-map. She gave me a careful glance as if sizing up my trust-worthiness.

"I think they are elves. But... I've only ever heard of elves in forests and living in communion with nature. These elves are oddly... cosmopolitan." Isadora told me, struggling with the pronunciation of the word "Cosmopolitan" for a second.

As she told me her speculation about the true nature of the Xana's newest residents, I quickly inspected the information given to me by my mini-map. I chuckled and noticed that she wasn't wrong. The two creatures were "High-elves". The system then whispered in my mind, chuckling as it did so.

[High elves are regal, city-dwelling and empire-building elves. Most humans know of elves as woodland-dwelling humanoids who live in forests, as most non-forest-elves live in a distant continent and have little to no contact with humans.] The system slyly revealed. I hadn't known what elves were until this point, so I felt a slight kinship to humans right now.

[Humans in this world tend to not know much or even anything about the other types of elves who aren't forest-elves. Dark-elves, winged-elves, high-elves, and aquatic-elves are largely unknown to humans.] The system told me, a smug grin audible in its voice. I could tell it enjoyed knowing what they didn't. I didn't begrudge it for that though, in fact, that endeared it to me a bit.

I grinned at Isadora and replied to her. "I'll keep an eye out for the two of us. If I can ascertain what they really are, I'll tell you." I whispered, conspiratorially. She smiled back at me and nodded appreciatively.

At that point I began to think. My mind turned to what I ought to do today, and I quickly came up with an idea that I liked that would endear me to the community.

"My mission today is to go out and check out the fields. I leveled up last night and I wanted to see if I could figure out what's going on that's lessening the harvest." I explained to Isadora, to explain why I wasn't taking on a quest today.

As I told her that her face positively lit up. Her eyes radiated excitement, and a part of me was glad that that was the choice I was going with for today.

"Oh that's just excellent! Mateo will be so excited to hear that you've leveled up and that you're hoping to really dig in and help." She exclaimed, sounding honestly relieved that someone was here to help out.

"Though I guess that means that you might not be around today to help out... You see the Xana's newest guests mentioned wanting to go into the woods today... Hmm, well maybe if you can solve the problems with our fields quickly then you could do both at once..." Isadora whispered her resolve audible in her words, quiet though they were.

I chuckled, drawing her attention back to me. She looked at me and then quickly grew flustered, color rushing to her cheeks in mild embarrassment. I looked at them, admiring their rosiness for a moment, before speaking to her.

"I suppose if you've come to rely on me I can't let you down huh?" I asked, teasing the girl. There was a light and playful smile on my lips as I playfully messed with her. She shook her head at me sheepishly and began to speak in her defense.

"No, that's not what I meant! I just meant that you're our only real adventurer and you've proven yourself as a trust-worthy healer. It makes the most sense that you'd be the person to guide these newcomers into and maybe even through the forest." Isadora told me, it obvious that she thought to convince both herself and me as opposed to just seeking to convince me of her words.

I teased her for a few more moments before biding her farewell and heading towards the fields outside of town. The quicker I got this over and done with the better overall it would be, both for the village and myself.

Reaching the fields took me not very long at all. And as soon as I did, I rechecked my agriculture subdomain scanning and checking out old and new abilities alike.