Guardian core (Book 1 of: potentially many)

It's all fun and games...

Core/Yorick

They could hear me, like... my thoughts, including the one's I was think right now- that was not cool, not fun, I had not agree'd to this... How had they even done that? Had they unlocked some secret quest, or done some kind of secret spell that did this? I had no idea what was happening, and that scared me. I couldn't even hurt them directly, since I had no spells other than dungeon building ones, and even then I wasn't willing to actually kill them- I hated when things were left undone, and they still had a quest to complete.

That meant I just had to wait until the quest was done, and... and then not be able to kill them? I didn't want to kill anyone, admittedly, but I didn't want to be owned by anyone either! Just looking at the four of them, I felt safest with Stephan, and maybe Alcor after him. The women... well, Auriel had already threatened to steal my soul, and Val had already mentioned how much of a magical research fanatic she was... Before I went too far into my panic, though, I heard Alcor speak directly to me for the first time.

"Calm down. I won't let them hurt you." I felt stunned, unsure how to feel or how to react. He'd mentioned he could see all of my thoughts, including these ones, so I had to only think about things that made sense, right? Not crazy things about other worlds or magical C-... Why couldn't I finish that thought? I was just about to mention who ANGEL was, and then I... couldn't.

"Angel? Who's that...?" I considered that, trying to put it into words and failing every time. So I gave up on trying to explain what she was in favor of simply telling him what she did. She... she used to help me. I didn't know anything I should about being a dungeon core, because she left me on the first day... I don't really understand why. That much is true-

"But you're still hiding things from us? How? Are you actually censoring your own thoughts to keep me from hearing things you don't want us to know?" I had to remember that they heard everything I thought, and was grateful I hadn't been thinking of anything related to the things I wanted to keep hidden. I heard the Orc growl softly, and mentally flinched, worried he'd hurt me- I didn't trust him though. I wouldn't just tell him everything.

Alcor stopped growling, groaning instead. "Do you have to have such humanoid emotions?" I was confused, even more-so when I saw Val and Stephen stiffen slightly and look away from their group, seemingly very uncomfortable with something that had just happened. Val spoke up then, and Stephen silently took off to scout the tunnel.

"Alcor... just ignore it for now, let's finish this quest, alright?" She started walking before either Auriel or Alcor could apologize for whatever he'd said, and Alcor looked guilty. I wondered what he'd done or said, since nothing had been very offensive as far as I knew. Alcor flinched at that thought, looking at Auriel. He sighed, shaking his head and beginning to speak.

_________
Alcor

A long time ago, the elves had appeared on the continent. They were the second race to appear in this world, but no one really knew where the Kitsune had come from. Some theorized that their god had created them and the world in the same moment, but no-one knew for certain. We knew where the elves came from, though- that was where recorded history began.

A goddess had appeared and somehow created them, nurtured by the now-unheard-of Kitsune creator. She taught every other god who inevitably came, showing them the basics of how to build a race and how to balance them out with the other races. It wasn't perfect, and some of that was by design, but... the only major mess up was the last race to form in this world.

Humans.

They had appeared in a valley somewhere, and the kitsune had immediately let everyone know. All of the races believed it was best to allow them to grow on their own for a few generations before introducing them to the rest, so for a few centuries we didn't interact with them at all- which was a mistake. We didn't know how short human lives were.

Humans bred like crazy, and when we finally came to find them, they'd created their own magi, learned things that had taken us millennia to discover, and built a thriving kingdom... no, an empire. As soon as we made contact, they were wary. We helped them, taught them, and told them the rules... Everything went well until they learned the rules.

They had broken several, and didn't want to change their ways- so we tried to force them to agree. Unfortunately, we didn't understand what the terrifying truth of humanity was. They leveled up insanely fast. We races gained levels until we were considered old enough to care for ourselves. For humans, this happened at the tenth years old, and for most others, it was closer to thirty or forty. For orcs, it wasn't until fifty, and elves kept going like that until they were base level one hundred and twenty.