Disclaimer: I don't own it, period. This applies to all chapters.

Plight of a Half-elf

Chapter 1: Change Isn't Always Good

As a child of six, Lloyd was a curious boy, as was usual. There was something wrong with a six year-old boy if he wasn't curious as to what was going on around him and why that was happening. Even though his dad, Dirk, knew that he was curious, he had to put rules surrounding his most volatile ingredients. He always told Lloyd to never touch anything regarding his work, but he somehow knew that wasn't going to be enough, and he was right in every way.

As Lloyd wandered around the house, he began to think about what his dad was doing. Mie Clyent had asked for more stuff to be made, and it was the same stuff as last time! It was like he broke everything, kinda like his friend Colette. She always managed to break something, no matter the precaution taken. It was like she was made to break things...

So, he walked around the house, looking for something to sate his curiosity with. Something on a high shelf caught his eye. That something was a glass orb, filled with an eerie, glowing white substance. Looking at it, he felt compelled to touch it, even though, in the back of his mind, he knew that it was one of the things that he wasn't supposed to touch. As he walked towards the orb, something in his mind was telling him not to try and touch it, but the look of the orb was pulling him towards the shelf.

When he got there, he noticed that he was too small to reach the orb, which sat on the highest shelf above him. He tried dragging a chair over to the shelf, but that wasn't enough. So, he began to climb up the shelves, making his way up the wall to the orb that was enchanting him. When he was high up enough, he reached for the orb, and when he had finally gotten a good grip on it, he fell from the top shelf, orb in hand. To Lloyd, the fall played out in slow-motion. He watched as the shelf got smaller and smaller as he fell to the floor.

During the fall, Lloyd had let go of the orb. Physics played out their part, and when it landed, the orb fell right into contact with Lloyd's left hand, the hand that his Exsphere was located on. The orb was only a little bit bigger than Lloyd's fist, but it was still big enough to do sufficient damage to Lloyd's hand, and to allow the liquid inside of the orb to enter his body and taint his Exsphere.

Before Lloyd lost consciousness, he felt a burning sensation start at his hand and quickly move throughout his body. The pain from the liquid entering his body was so intense that he blacked out within two seconds of the event. The liquid was a mysterious substance, one that had been found by Dirk when he was exploring a cave system before he had found Lloyd. He too had been enchanted by it, so he took a sample of it and placed that into the glass orb that had just broken.

The liquid was a rare compound that was made of pure liquid-form mana mixed with the blood of various creatures. It was a material that only occurred when there was an infinite source of mana, so the supply of the mysterious liquid was extremely low. The liquid used to be used to power many of the weapons used in the Great Kharlan war, but as that era had passed away, the knowledge of the liquid and its uses and all but vanished. The reason that the liquid was so enchanting was because of the pure power that it held within itself, the power of pure, untainted mana.

The liquid was now changing Lloyd so that he would be able to better use the liquid which would inhabit his body. It was changing his body to that of something hated by some and "loved" by others. He was only a human, and in order to utilize the power of mana, he would need to be at least part elf, but not a full elf. His DNA, proteins, and cells were all systematically changed to that of a half-elf. They were changed so quickly that neither the original body nor changed body could reject the other, making the transformation extremely effective. Throughout the whole process, Lloyd experienced a seizure as muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments were all transformed to better fit a half-elf. As the changes reached his brain, the unconscious Lloyd let out a primal yell that ripped at his throat, his back arched, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

Dirk heard the scream and ran in to investigate. What he saw made him worry to a great extreme, for he saw Lloyd, his son, lying on the ground having a seizure and the orb with the mysterious broken on the ground near him, the liquid no where to be found. He tried to keep Lloyd in control so he wouldn't hurt himself during the seizure, but it was no use. The seizure was simply too violent for Dirk to control. Suddenly, the seizure subsided, and Lloyd just lay there completely silent except for the still rasping of his breathing caused by the ferocity of the yell he had let out. Dirk picked Lloyd up to take him to Raine and also picked up the remnants of the orb in case there was any residue of the liquid left on the glass. If he had been concentrating on Lloyd's Exsphere, then he would have noticed something that would have chilled him to the bone. Inside of the Exsphere there seemed to be a glint, one that screamed paranormal to the greatest extreme.

He ran out of the house and ran towards the village, hoping to have Raine tell him what had happened to Lloyd. He dodged the monsters as he went, not wanting to delay the medical treatment of his son for much longer. He ran as fast as his small legs could carry him, praying that he didn't trip along the way.

Dirk arrived at the villages gates about five minutes after he had left his house in the forest. He quickly ran to Raine's house, kicking the door when he got there. Raine opened the door shortly thereafter and gasped at the sight of Lloyd. "What happened to him?"

"No time for that, he needs to be stabilized and healed right now!"

Raine was slightly put off at the outburst, but nonetheless knew that Lloyd needed treatment for his wounds. Raine stepped back from the door and let Dirk inside. He ran into the house and looked at Raine to pointed to the couch, where he set Lloyd down. Raine began to use some basic healing spells to bring down the fever that Lloyd had developed from the energy released during the transformation and to close all of the wounds brought on by the glass and the seizure. "How did this happen to him?" Raine asked.

"I'm not entirely sure, but I know that it has something to do with what is left of this orb," he replied, showing Raine the remnants of the orb.

"What was in here?" Raine asked.

"Just a sample of a liquid that I had found in some caves before I found Lloyd. Quite a mysterious substance it was," Dirk replied. "Why don't you cast some sort of diagnostic spell to see if you can identify the liquid if there is any left on the glass."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do. The orb, if you would," Raine said.

Dirk gave the remnants of the orb to Raine, hoping that there was something there to help unlock the mystery of just what had happened to Lloyd and what was going to happen to him in the future. Raine went into the other room to see if she could get anything from the orb. Inside she was as giddy as she got when around ancient things, but she couldn't determine why. After about five minutes of trying to determine what the liquid was, she found something. It was known as Liquified Mana, or LM for short. It had been used during the Great Kharlan War to power the most devastating weapons during that time period, but had been thought to have disappeared from Slyvarant at around the time of the end of the war, when Mithos had driven the Tethe'allans back to the moon. Raine wondered where Dirk had gotten a hold of the liquid for but a moment before a worrying thought came to her: what would LM do to a body when it came into contact with the blood?

She immediately went back into the room where Lloyd and Dirk were, hoping that the test that she was about to run didn't turn out like she thought it might. She made a small cut on one of Lloyd's fingers and took a sample of his blood, silencing Dirk's protests with a wave of her hand when she saw that he was about to protest her actions. Running a diagnostic spell on the blood, the color of the blood changed to show positive for LM. "This is not good," Raine stated after healing the cut on Lloyd's finger.

"What is it? What happened to Lloyd?" Dirk asked fervently.

"The liquid that was in the orb is known as Liquified Mana, or LM. It is extremely rare nowadays and has hardly been found in any quantity since then. It was extremely lucky of you to have found such a decent sized sample of it so long after the war ended. Anyways, LM is created under extremely rare circumstances, as it is made up of pure, liquid mana and the blood of various magical creatures. The liquid form of mana used to be found inside of the Tree of Mana, as it was the sap of the Tree itself. Now that the Tree is gone, the only deposits found are leftovers from the war, located at places were silos would have been to store the LM.

"I don't know what the liquid has done to Lloyd, but I do know that it has changed him in someway. For better or for worse, I don't know, but I am hoping for the better. I am sure that the Mayor will be here at any minute to investigate why you burst into the village randomly, so we should get prepared for his appearance," Raine replied.

"Okay, good idea Raine," Dirk said.

As they began their preparations for the impending meeting, something was happening to Lloyd's Exsphere. When it came into contact with the LM, something happened to the Exsphere. Its abilities were changed, and it could be now classified as a near living organism. It had intelligence, a personality, awareness of its surroundings, and complete control over itself to the minute factors. On the plus side, it didn't need to eat, drink, or sleep, allowing it to plan its announcement to Lloyd day and night, and so it could weigh the problems that could arise from announcing itself too early or too late. All the Exsphere could do now was wait and see what was going to happen to Lloyd, and the consequences thereafter.