章 7: More Dwarves

A dwarf. A human shaped entity that dwells in mountains and in the earth and is variously associated with wisdom, smithing, mining, and crafting according to Germanic mythology. In various fantasy stories and shows depicting dwarves, they were shown as a short species with unrivaled physical strength and stamina. There was way more about them that he had read about but thats all Victor could really come up with as he swam through the water.

Around an hour had passed and the sun had finally disappeared, the light fading away only to get replaced by a the light of hundreds of stars. Victor had been in the water almost the entire time and still had no thought of getting out despite his hands now looking wrinkly as hell.

To the left side of the lake lay a huge rock that blocked off the view from those on the right side. Originally Victor had wanted to bathe over on that side, but Julia had adamantly refused and told him that she would take it. Though he understood that she wanted him to have more room, as the left side was marginally smaller, he tried to tell her no. It was only after she deployed her sad face, a combination of melancholy blue eyes and her pointy ears pointing downwards, that he conceded defeat and allowed her to have her way.

Thinking of Julia, Victors thoughts shifted to that of elves which he had read about quite a bit as well as seen them in numerous animes. To put it shortly, elves were blessed with high magic capabilities as well as longevitiy, able to live hundreds or even thousands of years. Elves were known for their pointy ears and, in some of the books he had read, extremely prideful mannerisms. It was said that they lived separately from other species except when travelling and doing other such things. Of course seeing as Victor knew nothing of this world, any of these things could be true but it could also be entirely false. It was hard to expect an outsider to know anything when he had only been around for freakin less than a day.

Sighing to himself, Victor swam back to shore, planning on finally getting out. He had been able to mostly wash the smell of sweat and smoke off of himself even if his shorts and shirt still reeked of it. However, as he didn't really wanna walk around a forest in the nude, he had no choice but to put them right back on no matter how bad the smell was. To others the smell of smoke wasn't that bad but Victor could hardly stand it and had only put up with it due to his previous situation.

Climbing out of the water, Victor shook the water off himself before pulling his clothes back onto his body. His shirt was still in okay shape and was only slightly burnt but his shorts were another matter altogether as they had numerous cuts on them from the trek through the forest and a part of the cuffs on the legs were burnt off.

"Damn, what a fine day to run into a bunch of freakin pyromaniacs," Victor grumbled as he pulled his boxers on followed by his shorts. "Couldn't have ran into people who simply decided to fight with brute force. Nope!!! Instead I had to run into people who set fire to things for fun and probably steal candy from babies."

"Well, did you have a nice dip in the lake?" A voice said from the side. "You should have as we try to keep it nice and clean. Free from any filthy humans we see walking around such as yourself."

Now, Victor wasn't an idiot nor was he deaf. His senses were pretty sharp and his guard was up even though he had just taken a nice hour long swim. He hadn't gotten so soft as to suddenly be unaware of his surroundings but despite all that, he hadn't sensed anyone approaching and he damn sure didn't hear anyone or anything. So his confusion was clearly justified as he looked to his right to see who had spoken to him.

Astra Carda had returned but this time with five other short men who each sprouted neatly trimmed beards and all had a head of gray hair. They each had on different sets of clothing that seemed suited for combat rather than for a casual stroll through the woods. They all had spears and almost all of them oozed with hostility except for Astra and the one who stood in the middle who Victor guessed had initially spoke to him.

"Ummm, hello?" Victor said, unsure of how to respond. He wanted to say something else but his mind drew a blank. He didn't know how to reply when he was still processing how 5 short men and a girl could sneak up on him without making a single sound.

"Greetings filth," The lead dwarf said with a smile that held no traces of kindness. "My name is Doc and these are my brothers as well as my daughter Astra. Its a pleasure for us to meet you this late at night. Tell me, what brings you here?"

"Ummm, dude, you can stop pretending to be so polite," Victor didn't need to even use much thought process to figure out this guy was hiding his hostility. Hell the dwarfs words alone spoke volumes about how this situation would play out. Total racism.

Doc's face slowly changed from his obviously fake smile into a sneer of pure condescension. "Your pretty observant for a useless waste of space, I'll give you that. However, a human is still a human, a vile species that only knows how to destroy what other races work so hard to build. Your nothing but trash!!"

"Okay firstly dude, you sound like your trying to pin all sins of humanity on just me even though we literally just met which is just f*ckin stupid," Victor replied without even hesitating. While he was outnumbered, he didn't like being looked down on....despute being taller then the person who was looking down. "Also, my name is Victor. Make sure you remember it!! One should always keep their manners when meeting new people. Didn't any of you learn proper manners?"

"Humanity is trash and every person has to bare the weight of their predecessors actions which includes you," Doc raised his spear, a weapon that Victor had grown tired of seeing. "However seeing as you have an elf with you, I shall let you go. Of course the condition for you leaving is that you set her free and part ways from each other. Do that and I shall not harm you even if you are disgusting to look at!!"

"What are you talking about??!!" Julia shouted as she approached the group from behind Victor, water dripping down her long blonde hair and onto her makeshift burlap sack dress. Her chains clinked together as she walked, announcing her arrival even if she hadn't yelled at them. "What do I need to be set free from? I CHOSE to follow this human and I'm most definitely no longer a slave."

Doc's face changed from a sneer into confusion as he watched the elf girl approach and inform him of the situation. He clearly wasn't sure how to respond as this girl had walked up without a hint of fear and firmly stated her position. He had nothing against any race except humans so he was unsure how to vent his anger which had been growing stronger just moments ago.

"Is that so?" Astra asked as she pointed to the shackles on Julia's hands and feet. "Then why do you have that on as well as that slave collar? Explain those!!"

"Didn't we already explain this to you an hour ago?" Victor asked with a touch of annoyance in his voice. "How did you already forget the conversation? Are you secretly a blonde?"

"Hey," Julia protested, taking a bit of offense to what Victor had said. "Are you calling blondes dumb? Thats rude!!" Her expression turned into one of a pouting kid, her cheeks puffed out slightly and her eyes squinted.

Victor laughed a little. "Calm down, I was only kidding. Your an exception. Also, its amazing how even though you were recently a slave that you behave just like a regular person. I figured being rasied as a slave would have psychological effects on you."

Julia was just about to answer when she was cut off by Astra who was stamping her foot in frustration. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!! I'm not dumb!! I'm as smart as anyone else and maybe even smarter then both of you. I won't let you look down on me."

"Getting back to the topic at hand, would you like us to remove the chains you have on your hands and feet?" Docs voice took on a polite and well mannered tone as he addressed Julia. While Victor really wanted to shout "RACIST", he held it in and kept his mouth shut.

"I would greatly appreciate it," Julia responded with equal manners though her tone sounded a bit off to Victor but he assumed he was imagining it.

Oneof the dwarves standing behind Doc walked forward to stand in front of Julia. Grabbing the chains around her wrists, the dwarf gave a hard tug in opposite directions, breaking the chains with brute strength. He then bent down and separated the ones at her feet, ripping them apart and showing off his raw power at the same time.

Julia stood there with a smile on her face as she moved her hands around, obviously happy to be able to have the clinking sound gone. However she immediately smacked the hand of the dwarf away when he went for the collar, her expression changing into one of seriousness.

"I'll be keeping the collar on thank you very much," Julia said, her voice lowered to a tone that was rather frightening. "This is the only thing that I'll be hanging onto no matter what."

The dwarf backed up without a word, obviously a little freaked out by the elf girls sudden change in attitude. He turned around and walked back to Doc's side, not emitting a single sound though he looked rather muddled, concerned about if he had didn something to offend her.

The air had turned awkward after that, neither party saying anything for about a minute, each one simply staring at the other. The silence got so uncomfortable that Victor felt that he had to say something or just walk away from them.

Victor cleared his throat before speaking. "Ahem....So what now? We still doing the whole parting ways thing or not?"

The dwarves looked hostile once again as they looked towards Victor but Doc didn't have that look. Instead, he looked rather intrigued, as if the words of this elf had made him look at the human in a whole new light. That or he was just feeling gassy. Victor had no freaking clue.

"You saved an elf from human knights...why?" Doc stroked his beard as he asked this question, making him appear much older and wiser. "Why risk your life for another?"

"Well to be honest I actually saved demihumans as well," Victor replied. He wasn't bragging or anything remotely like that. He just wanted to make sure these dwarves understood what he had gone through. "As to why though, I did it merely because I felt like it. I could've just run away, but that would've left a sour taste in my mouth and not the good kind of sour either. Like the sour when you throw up a little in your mouth and swallow it again."

Doc stood there as he mulled over everything that Victor had said. He didn't say anything for a while, his expression changing throughout that entire time as he was obviously having an internal debate. Finally, after what felt forever, Doc removed his hand from his beard and actually smiled.

"So, do you guys have anywhere to sleep for the night or do you want to come to our house?"

"What?" Victor, Julia, and Astra all asked simultaneously.