The elven girl adventuring group was shown into Ranma’s guest room once the young man had finished his bath.
The sight that greeted Thorn made the wait worth it.
Freshly bathed, the young man was clad in simple male elf clothing, a loose tunic and pants of a light white fabric, the tunic hanging open to expose his toned chest and abs. A pale green sash around his waist provided a splash of color while the dangling cloth served to hide the bulge of his manhood in the loose pants from prying eyes.
His hair was now hanging loosely about his face, the inky black locks still damp from his bath. The long hair that had been formerly braided was tied with a pale green ribbon in a loose ponytail which was hanging over his right shoulder to allow him to dry comfortably after his bath.
All in all he’d gone from an interesting human to gorgeous even by elf standards. Even his demeanor had changed as the young man was now comfortably reclining while sipping from his cup of tea.
Being unable to talk to anyone except the dragon woman, Ranma reflected on his day as he enjoyed his cup of tea. It was a pleasant surprise to actually receive warm hospitality and not just a thin veneer of it.
The monsters he’d fought earlier today reminded him of mountain goblins back in Japan. They still existed in the mountains and the various projects to run roads and rail through the mountains would disturb them every so often. Dealing with youkai was how traditional martial arts families like theirs made their living, as only the Tendo family really had holdings that would allow them to live off of investments. For the Saotome family, it was more like doing odd jobs for a living, and Ranma was much better at it than both of the fathers combined.
Back in Japan, he would have avoided spilling blood as that usually made things worse, instead holding them off so they could be placated or sealed or otherwise dealt with in a more peaceful manner.
The creatures here were similar to bloodthirsty youkai, but different enough he could immediately tell the difference. While there was a lot he didn’t know about them or the situation just yet, he was confident he’d made the correct call.
What had him thinking was his use of lethal force, or rather the contrast with his usual style of avoiding injuring opponents. He was so careful with his strength that people would actually forget he was as strong as Ryoga, as the lost pig was always blundering around and breaking stuff with a complete lack of restraint.
Impaling the local equivalent of a mountain goblin on a stalactite from a simple uppercut was a good example of what happened when he released his restraint a bit in a fight. Still, like most serious fights, it took him some time to adjust his fighting style to something more powerful.
It looked like he would be needed for more battles here, so he should be prepared for the coming battles. Nice clean deaths would be the goal if lethal force was needed, no reason to do something messy or too violent. The change in style would take a little contemplation however.
The elf girls had discussed a lot about the strange young man in hushed tones. That Thorn had offered them to him using charades meant her offer didn’t carry a lot of weight.
Despite that, the elf equivalent of a group of teenage girls discussed the possibility anyways.
When Ranma shifted from drinking tea to meditating in the lotus position, even the less sexually inclined girls became a bit interested in him. They were fairly sure humans slept instead on meditating like elves, yet this human was clearly meditating in a rather relaxed way.
He was different from other humans, enough like an elf to make the less adventurous girls at least a little interested in him.
Their chatter died down as a rather noble looking elf woman with golden hair entered the room, flanked by two elf maidens and one dwarf woman as attendants.
To their surprise, the noble woman seemed capable of talking to the their human.
Opening his eyes, Ranma glanced up at Aurieste.
The dragon woman smiled at the young man, offering him a pearl. “Simply place the under your tongue and you will be able to speak the common tongues of our lands.”
Rightly distrustful of magic, Ranma was willing to trust the pleasant dragon matron in this instance. Popping the pearl into his mouth and letting it roll under his tongue, he felt it settle into the soft tissues there. Other than settling in place like a tooth attached to the root of his tongue, he felt nothing strange.
At Aurieste’s gesture, the elf woman to her left spoke up. “Greetings traveller. As representative of the elves of these woods, please accept my thanks for now, ‘til we can prepare a proper reward for you.”
Ranma was pleasantly surprised to finally understand one of the pointy eared women, and even more so that he could respond in the same language. “Ah, well I appreciate the hospitality and all. Nice to get a thank you for once too.”
The elf maiden was amused by his reply. “Oh no, this is Lady Aurieste’s hospitality. Ours will be given at our village, which you have apparently already visited.”
Ranma looked thoughtful, hoping the hospitality wasn’t a trap to get him to do something. Speaking of which, he’d done more than rescue elves today, causing him to turn to the dwarf woman. “So are you represent’n the short guys at the mine I rescued from those giants?”
The dwarf woman glanced at him with some confusion as she spoke up in Dwarven. “Say that again dearie, my Elvish isn’t that great.”
Ranma perked up on hearing her speak. “Yeah, that’s their language.” Trying to recall what they had said afterwards, Ranma realized the translation magic didn’t work for memories, so he had to try sounding it out. After chewing the words for a bit, he figured out what they’d said. “The Grotahn clan commends thee as a dwarf-friend and giant-slayer today. That was what they said to me.” Once he’d puzzled out what they’d said from his memory, Ranma could finally react to the actual content. “Oh, that was nice of them.”
More than a little confused now, the dwarf woman gestured for him to slow down. “Dwarf-friend of the Grotahn clan? What exactly happened lad?”
Ranma looked at the elves and dwarf, realizing they were speaking two different languages. “Uhm, is there a language everyone here can speak?”
Aurieste nodded, speaking up in common. “Yes, this language they call common, or the trade language. The humans and halflings use it as their native tongue.”
Switching to common now, Ranma decided to give a recap. “Well let’s see here. I found this thing today that lets me make holes to other places, so I decided to go exploring. Found myself in this cave and rescued those girls from a bunch of orks, then fought more orks and rescued their friends.”
“Then a little ways from the cave, I found a bunch of big smelly guys fighting short guys like her, helped them beat up the big smellies and they invited me in for lunch. The mutton was pretty good.”
“Let’s see, then more orks attacking the village of the pointy eared people in the trees. Then it was rescuing the talking tree guys from the little speedy goblin guys. Then smacking the orks stealing the dragon egg. Then yet more orks at the human village. Then I came back to the dragon to ask for directions since she was the only person I could understand so far, and here we are.”
Silence reigned in the stone carved guest quarters for quite some time.
“So what, are we gonna have to share him with dwarf women too? Ewww.”
Several of the women present shot Thorn withering glares as her conspiratorial whisper to Mist wasn’t quite soft enough to go unnoticed in the silent room.
Aurieste broke the silence by speaking to Ranma. “Well, you’ve certainly had a busy day young hero.”
Ranma shrugged, obviously less impressed with his day. “Eh, not really. The rescuing was more interesting than the fighting. You normally get this much action around here? Cause this seemed kinda organized.”
The other elf woman spoke up. “Orks attacking isn’t too uncommon, if it had been night. This many attacks during the day means they’re being used as soldiers.”
That confirmed one of Ranma’s concerns. “So there might be other attacks?”
Unsaid but clear from his tone was a desire to find and stop those attacks. Aurieste came up with a compromise. “If you wish to help defend these lands, staying with the elves tonight would be ideal. There likely won’t be any more raids today, but they might try again in a day or two. Until then, if I could have your attention for a bit longer?”
Ranma nodded as he considered that logistics of organizing attacks supported her assessment. His arrival had probably cost them an unexpected number of troops if nothing else. “Alright then.”
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(Posted Wed, 24 Jul 2013 23:28)
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