Encounter: Half Elf Adventurer x1

Demeanor: Unwinding

Significance is defined as being worthy of attention. In the land of the Shared Realm, the hierarchy of species was defined by their significance and prominence. Dominating much of the Shared Realm were the elves. A brilliant species of beautiful individuals who were skilled at both magic and bow, elves were a proud and powerful race. They were known for their pointed ears, their youth appearances, and their mystical aura. There was no prominent member of the Shared Realm that did not know of the elvish race.

On the other end of the spectrum of significance were the humans. Standing at no more than an elvish millimeter were the most insignificant species of the Shared Realm. Even ants that elves could step on without noticing them beneath their boots could give humans a difficult time. Only those who deliberately took the time and effort to take notice of humans would even realize their presence. The dominant species of elves had no need to ever pay humanity any mind. Even the lowest among the elves, the half breeds known as half-elves, could live without ever realizing human nests were just beneath their feet.

The human kingdoms of Asiden and Oscour discovered just how unnoticeable their land was when a lone half elf wandered by the pond they called their home.

“Looks like this should be a safe place to camp for the day,” the half elf, Lusine, mumbled to herself and tossed her sack on the ground and leaned it against a large rock. She found a suitable, clear and flat dirt area surrounded by rocks and grass to rest after a long day’s travel. Born of the opposing tribes of elves, the drow and the high elves, she received traits from both her parents. The fair youth had the radiant sapphire eyes of her high elf father and the delicate, moon kissed white hair of her drow mother. Her skin, while not as dark as her mother nor as pale as her father, was a healthy tan.

Lusine sat down on the edge of the dirt, stretched her tense body, and soaked in the light of the setting sun. It was an enjoyable and relaxing way to relax after a long journey. Being a half-breed of two rival tribes, she had never really had a place to call home, so she was accustomed to travelling and camping and found the adventure enjoyable.

Unfortunately, Lusine’s relaxation came with the caveat that she was completely unaware that a human settlement was by the grass she sat on. The farmland outside the kingdom of Asiden and its farmers saw their sun eclipsed by a massive shadow before they were completely covered by a dark cloth and then instantly annihilated by the sheer weight of the half elf’s behind colliding into them. The exhausted traveler had come suddenly and unexpectedly. The entire human kingdom shook as their clear and peaceful skies became filled with the smooth, tan skin of Lusine’s mountainous rear and leg that were laid bare for all to see through the slit in her skirt.

“All men search for any survivors! Stay alert! Figure out what happened if you can, but ensure the safety of the people!”

The entire kingdom was put into a state of emergency as a third of their land had vanished beneath the half-breed’s butt. The wooden homes of the various towns throughout the kingdom collapsed from the earthquake caused by the impact. Men, women, and children were buried in rubble and tiny houses no larger than pieces of pebbles began to burn. The stone structures, the castles, forts, and walls were also crumbling from having been shaken to the very core. Inside the royal family’s castle, several guards were attempting to protect their rulers while the remainder moved out into the city to check on the populace, but their number was as small as they were tall. The castle guards and king had only survived because their building had miraculously remained standing, but the guards who were stationed outside had no chance of survival much like the townspeople.

“By the gods, it’s… it’s horrible!” The king heard several guards cry out as they saw their entire city in ruins and a massive crater and fissures out in the distance.

“What could have possibly done this, my liege?” The majesty’s advisor asked as the two of them looked through the window of the castle to see the same destruction their men were seeing. “Was it perchance an enemy attack? Did a sorcerer cast a meteor strike?”

The king did not answer. He and the rest of his remaining subjects could clearly see the sudden cause of their downfall. The fleshy wall that stretched high up into the sky beyond the green grass towers the considered the edge of their civilization had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. There was no doubt in his mind that the end of days had come and that monstrous tan wall was the harbinger of destruction.

The millimeter high humans could not see high up enough to ever realize their destroyer was no more than a young half-elf girl. Almost 2000 times larger than them, Lusine’s mere presence was apocalyptic. She was a 10,000 foot high megalith. Her thin black skirt blacked the sky above the human civilization that was no vaster than the girl’s feet were long and her imposing posterior jiggled and shook as she stretched her arms.

Then suddenly, the wall of flesh began to move. Lusine began to stretch her legs. She kicked her legs forward which pushed her butt back towards the kingdom. Her rear end did not slowly inch its way to the ruined cities. It crossed acres and acres of human land in an instant, completely tearing up the fields and ground. A storm of dust blew towards the castle and a wave of dirt was sent flying into the walls of the castle town, completely rending the stone barrier until it collapsed.

The fall of the great defensive outer wall of the largest city in Asiden was not an event the king and his men despaired over, however. They had no time to cry. The girl’s bare rear continued, bulldozed the guards, buried them beneath, crushed their armor under her weight, and ground them all into an unrecognizable paste Lusine would be unable to distinguish from the rest of the grime. The castle, its king, and the retainers inside somehow were still standing, but in front of them, in all of its imposing glory, was Lusine’s dark skin. The wall of flesh had broken their defenses in an instant and killed the remainder of the troops.

The king’s maids paled and felt weak in their legs. “My gods, everyone by the outer gates… they’re… they’re…”

“Dead,” the king frowned as the head maid coldly finished her subordinate’s sentence. He placed his hand on the nervous maid’s shoulder to calm her. He would have liked to give his subjects some words of encouragement, but the sight of his kingdom ruined sobered the man. His body was prepared to tremble from the primal fear. It took all he had to hide it beneath his stern expression. He was certain their demise was approaching, but admitting defeat would make his subjects despair. Even in the face of danger, he had to remain strong for his people.

“Y-your Majesty, we must flee!” panicked his portly advisor. “Let us hurry to the underground passage. We can escape!”

“No. We cannot. A king must not abandon his kingdom, Cromwell… Besides… there is place to escape to.”

The king shook his head. He maintained his composure despite the feeling of helplessness. He saw how quickly the wall could move. It could easily overtake them. And their passage was not deep enough to escape the alien structure that tore through the ground as easily as a fish could swim through water. They were already in the shadow of the foreign destroyer. All they could do was wait and see how fate would treat them.

Fate decided to sit up once again.

“Phew. I am tired,” Lusine yawned. She had put her sword down, believing she was safe. When she ventured around the area, she had checked to see if there were any wild animals around, and there were very few. The region was fairly devoid of both native animals and monstrous beasts due to overhunting after all. She was simply passing through on her journey and needed to rest before continuing on. She briefly stood up and rummaged through her belongings. She took out a pile of twigs she had collected and used fire magic to create a camp fire. “It’s still another day until I can reach the cave. Exterminating the kobolds there shouldn’t be too tough.”

After leaning in to warm her body by the glowing orange flames, the young half elf frowned. The days were getting colder. She’d much rather be at an inn sleeping in a comfy bed, but she made her living as an adventurer. She had to fulfill the quests she took before she could be paid enough to stay the night at an inn.

“I guess I had it coming when I splurged on this new armor the dwarves made…,” Lusine laughed at herself. She tried to convince herself she had no regrets with her decision. “At least it’s easy to kick with this since there’s a cut on the skirt. And for something so light, the material’s pretty durable. Those dwarves sure are great craftsmen.”

As Lusine crouched by the fire, the king of Asiden and his surviving subjects reorganized while still gazing into the distance tensely. Though Lusine had moved slightly away from the kingdom, the last standing building was still dangerously close to her. The people of Asiden had seen the giant tan wall rise up and retreat from their kingdom after almost entirely obliterating it, but the tan megalith that dwarfed mountains and even the distant Great Trees (grass) had not left their domain. It remained there, menacing the servants and royals with the fear that it would attack again.

“Your Majesty, our men have returned, and the servants are tending to them as you have ordered.”

The Asiden King walked through the shaken halls of his castle with an anxious look on his face. “Great, Cromwell. Are they all in the main hall?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. All survivors have been gathered together into what’s left of the castle’s main hall. We’ve cleared most of the debris out as quickly as we could.”

“Excellent,” the king nodded. He entered the formerly grand main hall with his advisor. As he did, the troops getting receiving their provisions from the servants and the surviving commoners who were being treated for their injuries by the nurses turned their attention towards him.

In a time of crisis, it was up to the king to calm and rally his people. Though he himself was as fearful as they were, he could not bring himself to turn his back on the peasants and soldiers who pledged their lives to him. Their presence had motivated him through his despair when he had lost his wife years ago. He had to return the favor. He was a noble man, the Asiden King, and he would eloquently support his people through thick and thin.

Sitting on the cracking throne of the hall next to that of his late queen, the King of Asiden cleared his throat to call his subjects to his attention.

“Everyo-” 

Crash!

And that was it for the Asiden Kingdom. Lusine had finished warming up by the fire and decided to sit down again. She threw herself back onto the dirt and grass. Her massive posterior, black skirt, tan skin, and all, fell like a super-massive meteor and utterly annihilated the remains of the tiny human kingdom. The castle instantly collapsed under the weight of Lusine’s body, the stone brick fortress crumbling to dust along with the people inside who were buried under tons and tons of rubble and half-elf flesh. The sheer, world-ending impact of Lusine’s forceful method of plopping down onto the ground created a crater where the entirety of the human civilization used to be. Though the half-elf maiden would find it embarrassing to have imprinted her butt on the ground, that imprint was the last remaining bit of proof that Asiden had existed.

To be wiped out of existence by a half-elf’s rear end, the humans at least died quickly.

But the people of Asiden were not the only humans around that evening. No, there was a second. Lusine’s preparations for spending the night were only half way done. After making sure she would be warm for the night, the half elf traveler prepared food by heating some meat by the flame, took off her leather boots, and headed over to lake to wash her feet as she waited.

The seafaring merchant run land of Oscour was the next human civilization to face the giantess half-breed. She stepped on and the tall grass wall of ‘Great Trees’ that surrounded the humans living by the water and stepped over the kingdom to take a dip.

“Oooh. That’s a little cold,” she remarked as she cleaned her feet by rubbing them against each other. As she did, she created massive waves that quickly moved towards the edge of the pond, the coast the Oscourans had settled on. In just three seconds, the tsunami made by one girl washing her feet sank half of the Oscouran territory underwater.

“Gaaaaah! Help!” “Oh Gods! I can’t swim!” “The boats! Even the boats have capsized!”

The panic amongst the millimeter high specks would not even reach the ankles of the gigantic traveler. She continued to take advantage of finding a water source on her trip and washed her bare feet and hands thoroughly. Even as an adventurer, she took great pride in taking care of her body and maintaining a healthy, fit, and attractive (at least she hoped) lifestyle.

In Oscour’s largest port town, the Merchants’ Union built on the city’s highest point quickly gathered together for an emergency meeting about the sudden destruction of their town by the colossus that had suddenly appeared.

“What in the world is that thing, Raven? It knocked down all of the Great Trees and flooded our home in a matter of seconds!” shouted a fishing merchant.

“It looks like a girl… but it can’t be… right? That thing’s just too huge,” another guild leader was in disbelief.

“Huge is right, Frederick. Could that possibly be… one of the gods?” a devout guild leader was also confused. “Have we angered one of the divine Goddesses?”

The man the dozen Union members who were able to make the meeting were speaking to, Raven, was a gruff bearded man with an eye patch. An experienced merchant, he was the person many of the Union members came to for advice. To consider him one of the Union leaders was not that far off. At the very least, with so few members gathered, he was the most senior of the group.

“She may be pretty like a goddess, but that’s no god, Cedric,” the man answered the devout guild leader. “That’s some sort of elf.”

“E-Elf? No… it can’t be…” the fishing merchant, Eliza, shivered at the word. She was not the only one either. The other meeting members also shuddered. Elves were the dominant race in the Shared Realm. Even humans who had never seen one before recognized the sheer power the name of strongest race carried. They now stood witness to that great power. A lone elfish girl had drowned almost their entire nation without even touching it.

Rattle!

The ground had been shaking with every slight movement of the distant, tan skinned girl, but suddenly, an extremely violent quake knocked all of the Union members except Raven to the ground.

“What? What’s going on?!” shouted Cedric. He barely managed to pick himself up using a table as a crutch.

Raven, who had only buckled from the earthquake sensed the danger that was about to come. “Everybody out! That elf’s coming!”

The experienced merchant was correct. The cause of the earthquake from earlier had indeed been Lusine. After taking washing her hands and legs, she moved back towards the edge of the water. Though still in the water, she had gotten closer to Oscour. A single step half the city’s length away from the water’s edge pushed the scattered, capsized boats of the port deep underwater along with the helpless passengers on them. The weight of her foot pressed into the mud and dug a deep hole where the miniscule humans trapped by her foot became buried in. That muddy footprint became their graves as they either drowned or suffocated from being trapped underwater in the wet dirt.  

Lusine hadn’t even noticed she had submerged half of an entire kingdom. She was busy readjusting her clothes before she left the pond. She removed her breastplate and the gauntlets she used to protect herself and tossed them back in the dirt patch she had made her fire by. Whatever was left of the Kingdom of Asiden, which was almost nothing, was now completely wiped out by the falling hunks of metal that Lusine had worn around her chest and hands.

And still, the half-elf continued to destroy the human societies without ever realizing they were there. The Oscouran Union members watched from their base on the cliff overlooking the city as she stepped out of the water. Their faces paled when the light of the sun became completely obscured by her imposing sole.

“Oh Goddesses, run!” panicked Cedric. The religious merchant turned to run as far as he could from the giant foot. He was the only one to attempt it. The others stood and braced themselves as drops of water larger than the city square fell from the sky like a waterfall of meteors, demolishing their buildings and flooding their tiny city. The torrential cataclysm of water dripping off of the giant girl’s bare foot did not even last very long as the greater danger came plummeting down.

Boom!

Bracing was the right idea. Lusine’s foot descended, crushing the lower quarter of Oscour’s port with the ball of her foot. The houses, businesses, and people directly beneath were either smashed beneath her sole or buried in her footprint. Everything else not held down was launched away at breakneck speeds from the shockwave the impact caused. Though a majority of the Union members were blown back into the front wall of their Union building, bruising bodies and breaking bones, they miraculously survived.

The same could not be said for Cedric. Trying to flee did not protect him from the shockwave. He was sent hurtling far past the Union building. The ant sized man’s body slammed into the ground a mile and a half away from his perspective, less than a step and a half for Lusine. He landed head first, spelling a quick and easy end for the devout merchant whose neck snapped immediately when he hit the dirt. Lusine would later unknowing step over his corpse that was lost amongst the towering blades of grass.

“Gnk…. Urgh…” Eliza flaked herself off the wall of the Union building, bruised but not beaten. She spat out blood. The pain in her chest told her she had broken a rib or two. Looking behind her, she found most of her other comrades had also fallen off the wall and onto the ground. She was one of the few still conscious. Whether or not that was good news, she was uncertain.

“Liza, you alright?”

“Raven? Yeah… I think I’m alive…”

At the very least, Raven was fine, but judging from the way he was holding his right shoulder, he had broken his arm. The only thing he couldn’t keep protected while holding onto one of the pillar supports of the building had been pulled backward and dislocated in a flash by the shockwave of the half-elf’s footstep.

The fishing merchant limped toward her friend. Raven was looking forward with a somber gaze. Eliza knew the cause: their entire city in ruins because of one young girl. She turned so she too could see their flooded and demolished cityscape.

What she got was a dark wall.

“T-This is…”

Looking to her left and then to her right, she found the entire Union building had been surrounded by a wall of dark skin. She had noticed that it had gotten darker since their city had been under the shadow of the girl, but she had been so disoriented that she hadn’t realized exactly what had happened.

How were they still alive? What kind of prank were the gods and goddesses pulling on them? The white cliff their Union building had been built on was the only thing left standing of their fair kingdom. The dark skinned elf had somehow managed to step on everything in the home they lived in except where they were. They were now in between her largest and second largest toes. A single drop of water clinging to her big toe could easily envelop the Union Building.

“Well, I guess this is the end,” Eliza scowled. She knew there wasn’t much time remaining when she couldn’t even see the top of the elf girl’s toes. She felt helpless, fragile, and small. She could just as easily have been snuffed out as the rest of the city. She didn’t believe her luck would last much longer. “I would’ve at least liked spend that two thousand I just made.”

“You would’ve wasted it on that dingy ship of yours anyways. It’s probably wreckage at the bottom of the sea by now. At least splurge on some booze,” Raven snidely remarked. He also felt as helpless as Eliza and was just venting with what he considered to be humor.

“You drink too much, Old Man,” the fisherwoman laughed bitterly. “And don’t you dare insult my Serena. She’s my invincible and beautiful baby doll.”

“You damn crazy boat lover,” Raven laughed. “And we’re the same age, you fool!”

Tremble!

The half-elf was about to take another step. The millimeter high humans felt the ground buckle again as the weight of her foot shifted. Raven fell to the ground from the sudden shaking. Eliza dropped to her knees.

“Well, I’d like to say it was nice knowing you, Raven, but we broke it off years ago.”

“You just had to go bring that up. At least let me get killed by a pretty giant lady in peace.”

“What, I ain’t pretty?”

“Well, you sure as hell ain’t gi-”

As Lusine’s heel rose, her toes squeezed together for just a brief moment. In an instant, the entire cliff and Union building was destroyed. The remaining merchants’ lives were snuffed out by a single reflexive twitch. The white cliff, a pebble, was lifted up, flipped, and dropped in less than a second. The last standing building of Oscour was no more, neither were the last survivors of the kingdom.

Lusine fully stepped out of the pond and walked back to her campfire. She had no idea that another kingdom had fallen to her toned and youthful body. She sat down by the flickering blaze and picked up the meat she had been warming up. She sat down to eat while drying her wet bare feet with the heat. Any traces of destroyed buildings and slaughtered humans were too small for her to even notice.

“Mmmm… Nothing like a warm meal after a long trip,” she savored the flavor of the spices that had been added to the meat. Pleased with her dinner, her toes wriggled, knocking off whatever traces of the human civilization that had stuck to her feet. 

Looking at the darkening sky, Lusine spotted the first visible star. The half-elf girl smiled and looked out to the pond she had washed her hands and feet in. She would have to continue on her way to the kobold cave for the quest she had taken, but until then, she had a beautiful and safe place to rest. It wasn’t often her place to camp for the night was by water. The pond was reflecting the last of the setting sun and starting to reveal the night’s sky. It was a shame that she would have to leave in the morning.

Yawn!

But that was the life of an adventurer. Upon finishing her meal, the half elf girl yawned. She was tired enough to want to go to bed early. In the morning, she would wake up, continue her journey, do her job for the adventurer’s guild, and move on. Though it sounded monotonous, her pointy ears perked up at the thought.

Standing up, Lusine patted the dust off of her butt and scrunched her toes.  The weapons of destruction that had wiped out two human kingdoms had done their duty for the day, yet that was not the last time they would be used. As the girl pulled a blanket out of her bag to sleep, she pictured finding another peaceful location on her journey where she could take a breather. She was looking forward to the new sights, sounds, and experiences. There would be plenty of other places to rest, plenty of other places to enjoy, plenty of other spectacles to tell tales of…

And plenty of other unnoticeable human kingdoms to be extinguished right under her nose.