Content Warning: Confirmed existence of a pedophile in Harriet's vicinity. I'll warn you now, if this is triggering to you, then back away now, because this story isn't one of the ones where the MC always wins. This story involves dark themes, and 'it gets worse before it gets better', okay.
St. Grogory's Primary School was situated on the outskirts of Little Whinging in Surrey, with Privet Drive a ten-minute walk away. It wasn't the poshest school in the district – and Harriet would happily wager that it fell further down on that scale than the school committee would have liked. Yet that was all she really had as an escape from that place she called home. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon couldn't bother her there during the day, and Harriet liked that.
With her newfound friendship with trees of all things, Harriet found herself liking another aspect of the school. There were numerous trees in and around the grounds, most of which were small trees whose voices were softer and more sibilant than the craggy deep timbre of the old oak tree in the main courtyard besides the headmaster's office on the third floor of the main building.
It was why she found herself chancing spending her breaktime and lunchtime within the bounds of the main courtyard – and it also did wonders for improving her stealth skill. Dudley and his friends didn't find her so easily when she actually remembered to activate that skill and skulk around in the bushes, listening to the trees talk. Elves were, after all, a race which loved nature, so Harriet supposed it made sense that she felt so at home amongst the shrubbery and trees.
There was also something quite curious she had noticed about her nature magic – that being it didn't cost her any mana to use for some strange reason. Meaning there was no harm in keeping it activated, at least until people started talking about how strange the plants suddenly were.
She wanted to visit Elvenguard, meaning she had to complete the preparation quest – and that involved using that magic and levelling it up. So that was what she was trying to do, though admittedly she wasn't very good at it. There was always that nauseating, biting fear that her aunt or her uncle would discover her… freakishness, they'd no doubt call it, strange and almost alien as it was. Harriet supposed she couldn't blame them for it.
Her other quest preparations were no easier. Exercise was hard, and Harriet had yet to breach the three kilometre mark in her running. Squats and push-ups were no easier, and part of her could only wonder if she'd ever be capable of running the distance and completing the rest on top of that. Yet she had never gone over the two-hundred mark on her exhaustion – and the one time she had reached two-hundred, she had to rest for three days to get her exhaustion level back to a reasonable number where she could exercise once more.
"Where'd she go?" Dudley whined, and Harriet hunkered down in the bushes, stealth skill activated as she hid from her cousin and his cronies.
"Dunno," Piers mumbled, peering about for her half-heartedly, whilst Malcom stalked around the old oak tree as though she was hiding somewhere around there. None of them seemed to think to look in the bushes.
Sometimes being small for age played into her advantage. Dudley would never have been able to hide in those bushes, bulkier as he was, meaning he never seemed to think to look in them. Uncle Vernon had taken him to a boxing gym as of late, meaning though he was mostly fat, he was also putting some muscle on. His strength stat was probably improving, not that Harriet could see such a thing. Though she rather wished she could see the stats of others. Maybe then she'd have an idea of how she compared to everyone else stat-wise.
Maybe then she'd know how stupid she was in comparison to everyone else, and particularly the boy who had the love of his family.
"Maybe she went around there?" Gordon suggested, pointing to the edge of the portacabin which was one of the Year Three classrooms.
"Good idea!" Dudley crowed, a cruel grin curling at his lips as he hurried around there, breathing heavily as he lumbered past the building and out of her sight.
Harriet breathed a sigh of relief. "Detect Enemies," she mumbled out of habit, the nerve-wracking fear of her mysterious enemy forever haunting her whenever she lingered outside in the fresh air.
[ALERT! Enemies Detected! (Count: 2)]
Shivers ran down her spine – because Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, two of her known enemies couldn't be anywhere near the school. Though one of them perhaps could be explained away by the fact that Dudley's relationship had only grown worse in a matter of days, thanks to the fact, Harriet presumed, he could no longer find her so easily to vent his frustrations. Yet, according to that blue box there were two enemies in close enough proximity.
Maybe Mrs Hart was hovering around? Harriet comforted herself with the thought, even as she spoke hurriedly. "Relationships."
[RELATIONSHIPS]
Petunia Dursley: Rep -48. Enemy. (Type=Abusive)
Vernon Dursley: Rep -70. Enemy. (Type=Petty)
Dudley Dursley: Rep -42. Enemy. (Type=Abusive)
? ?: Rep +65. Enemy. (Type=?)
Ian Strange: Rep +40. Enemy. (Type=Child Predator)
Harriet blinked, staring at the new name added to the bottom of her relationships screen. The fact that Ian Strange was on her relationships screen meant either he was in the vicinity, or he had somehow become an essential relationship. Still, the name Strange was familiar to her – but as far as she was aware there were no teachers called Strange.
A frown curled at her lips, lines appearing on her brow as she stared at the positive relationship, and the odd new type of enemy she seemed to have. She'd never heard of a child predator before, though there was a creeping sense of dread which ran down her spine at the sight and thought of it. Predators were things which hunted prey, after all, and evidently Ian Strange's prey of choice happened to be children, of all things.
She didn't quite understand it though – because predators usually ate their prey in the wilds. Harriet didn't quite understand how someone could eat a child. She hadn't heard of any children going missing and never turning up. There was usually a huge story on the news if that were the case. Her stomach twisted, and Harriet sunk down in the bushes.
[ALERT! Stealth (Novice) has levelled up to Lvl.18!]
The bell rang, a crisp, sharp sound which cut through her peace and quiet, and Harriet slunk from the bushes and all but ran back to class. Class and Miss Chenhelm were better than Dudley and her odd, new enemy. Or maybe he'd been her enemy all along and she simply hadn't been close enough to him to detect as such. Harriet didn't know – all she knew was that maths was their next class.
"Detect Enemies," Harriet mumbled, walking home, all too aware that Dudley, one of her enemies was lurking close by which meant—
[ALERT! Enemy Detected!]
As long as there was only one for the time being that was fine, and so long as there were only three enemies when she got home, then all was well and good. Even though her family hated her. There were worse things out there, as she had long since discovered. At least her aunt, uncle, and cousin weren't going to hunt her or kill her.
[ALERT! Detect Enemies (Novice) has levelled up to Lvl.28!]
Harriet smiled at that, thinking on how Detect Enemies had become one of her higher-levelled skills over the last few weeks. Well, one of the higher-levelled skills of her newly acquired ones – of the ones which her family would probably consider strange and unnatural. Just like her. Though Harriet supposed the improvement of that skill was only truly thanks to the fact that she was all but surrounded by enemies.
She didn't have any friends. That was a fact Harriet could never forget, the thought festering in the back of her head as she went about her days there.
She wished she did.
"Have…" Raspy voices reached her, reminding her that she still had Voices of the Trees active. "Us…" Harriet blinked, the frown which had overtaken her face shifting back to a grin as she stood there, beneath the boughs of the trees which lined the pavement and the road in uneven, haphazard places.
"Thank you," she murmured, listening as the leaves seemed to rustle in the wind, as if in acknowledgement. A smile pulled at her lips, a skip overtaking her step as she thought about the trees which could now talk to her. Even if they weren't humans or an elf like her, the idea made her feel a little less lonely. A little less like the world was chewing her up only to spit her out again.
A harsh shove pulled her attention away from the trees, a yelp escaping her as her hands and knees collided with the harsh pavement surface. Skin stung, and Harriet felt the first trickle of blood staining her knees. "Oy, Potty!" Malcom, Dudley's dear friend, hollered, and she could only grit her teeth and reign in the instinct and impulse to punch him right on his slightly too large nose. "Where're you going without us?"
"Home," Harriet muttered, irritation and anger surging through her as she climbed back to her feet and stared up at the larger boy. Most of Dudley's friends were on the larger side of things, aside from Piers who was as skinny as a rake. "Where else do you think I'd be going?" A sneer curled at her lips. "Or do you not have enough braincells to work out that much?"
Really, she shouldn't have been surprised when the next shove came and sent her sprawling on her backside – on the grass, thankfully. The tree behind her creaking, the rasping whispers becoming something of a discordant hum of anger. A curtain flickered in the house across the street, someone having undoubtedly been watching their drama unfold. Harriet knew better than to think anyone would ever intervene though. Nobody ever intervened when it was her being bullied.
It had all started before she had chosen to become an elf – back when she'd been human – so it was hardly because of that particular choice.
"Should we…" the trees rasped, "get… rid… of…" Harriet frowned, only partially paying attention to her bully even as Dudley joined him in jeering at her. "Them?"
"Huh?" Harriet mumbled, wondering exactly what the trees meant. It wasn't like they could scare the boys off—or maybe they could? Yet wouldn't word get back to her aunt and uncle? Especially if she used nature magic or something else they would deem creepy and strange. Dudley could tell them anything, and they would always take his word over hers.
"Eliminate…" the trees almost sung. "Them…?"
Shivers rolled down her spine, eyes widening as she turned away from Dudley and Malcom to face the innocuous-looking tree behind her. "No," she mumbled hurriedly, realising in an instant what exactly the trees wanted to do to her enemies. All of those boys were marked as abusive enemies, their names marred red whenever she decided to use her observation skill on them. "Don't," she muttered, heart beating like a drum as she was reminded that trees were different to elves and humans. "Observation," she mumbled, musing on how she might as well use it now that there were less people around.
Too many people – too many named objects – gave her a splitting headache that much quicker.
[ALERT! Observation (Novice) has levelled up to Lvl.4!]
A smile curled at her lips, even as she stared at the two names and levels marked in red above her cousin and his friend's heads. Harriet blinked, freezing in the next second as she caught sight of other red lettering.
? ? – Lvl.? – Age:?
It was hovering above thin air, right outside the house she noted belonged to the Eckins family. She swallowed, her throat dry, because there couldn't be that many people with question marks in place of names, levels, and ages, and the only one she knew was that mysterious enemy of hers. Her legs were moving before she realised it, bolting past Dudley and Malcom and all the way back to Privet Drive.
Part of her could only wonder what exactly was going on there – she had never seen nothing with a hidden name, level, and age. Her cupboard door shut behind her with a soft click, neither her aunt or uncle seemingly having noticed her arrival home. Harriet let out a long breath, the smallness and safety that nothing could really sneak up on her in her cupboard comforting her then. Not even something invisible—"Oh," she mumbled, wondering then on why she had assumed it was invisible. Though she supposed it could just as well be a ghost. Maybe that would explain the question marks?
Harriet chewed on her lip, mind going back to that time he had chased her through the woods, sounding far too real and solid to be anything of the ghostly plane. Well, that was if that was the same being. For all she knew there were many beings with question marks in place of names, levels, and ages.
Pain pulsed in the centre of her forehead, and she scowled, shaking her head at that. She had seen kids whose names she had never known before hovering above their heads, so it wasn't like the names she saw with the observation skill were limited by her own knowledge. Which meant that there was something else in play, or so she thought to herself with her INT and WIS stats of fifteen. Yet even that wasn't enough to puzzle out the mystery lain before her.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, healing scabs on her knees and hands stinging and aching, head pounding from overusing the observation skill out on her run, all too aware of the fact that mysteriously invisible being was seemingly haunting her neighbourhood. The garden was a safe place though, or so she had seen – there being no sight of any red question marks hovering above seemingly empty air.
[DAILY QUEST: PREPARATIONS FOR ELVENGUARD]
• Run: 3.5/5km
• Squats: 45/100
• Push-Ups: 21/100
[Note: As the Player progresses more challenges may be added to the daily quest!]
[REWARDS: +100 EXP, +1 STAT POINT, +Cursed/Blessed Random Box]
A soft sigh escaped her, even as she stared at her failed quest, part of her always wondering whether such things were possible for her as she kicked at the grass of the garden and scowled. Her stat gains were becoming fewer and far between as she exercised more and more. Even then, exercising had hardly improved her stats as much as levelling up and gaining those all important unallotted stat points to distribute.
"Stats," she mumbled.
VIT: 10, STR: 6, DEX: 12, INT: 15, WIS: 15, CHA: 30
Unallotted Stat Points: 5
Her eyes fell on those five remaining points which could go anywhere, memories of that chase ever stirring whenever she mused about where she was supposed to put her points. Did making her family love her matter as much when there was a potential killer on the loose? She swallowed, feeling bile rise in the back of her throat as she thought of everything which had happened since gaining that odd gaming system in her life.
"What even is a cursed/blessed random box?" she muttered, turning her focus back on the rewards for her daily quest she felt she might never complete. There was barely an EXP gain, what with level ups gaining a higher EXP threshold each time, as was the nature of them in games. Part of her wondered if there was any real point to that daily quest. The other preparation quest looked far more important. Though Harriet supposed it was a way to build up a bank of unallotted stat points, given it gave her a possible one new stat point per day.
[ALERT! Help Functions Activated!]
[Cursed Random Box – Gives THE PLAYER an Item they NEED]
[Blessed Random Box – Gives THE PLAYER an Item they WANT]
Harriet blinked. "I don't suppose the help functions would tell me who my mysterious enemy is?" she muttered, huffing loudly when nothing happened. Not that she hadn't expected that much. "Of course that'd be too easy," she grumbled, sinking back on her bed, listening as the springs of her mattress creaked.
"Girl!" A meaty fist hammered on the door, startling her out of her daze. "Your aunt needs help with the cooking."
A sigh escaped her before she even realised it, a familiar blue box appearing in front of her with a quiet ding.
[A NEW QUEST HAS ARRIVED!]
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," she called, barely bothering to look at the screen which popped up in her peripheral and told her to make her relatives dinner for EXP and improvements in her cooking skill. Harriet supposed that cooking, in part, was rather enjoyable for her by such a point, no matter the fizzles of oil which stung her skin and the other hazards she was exposed to. It was more enjoyable by the fact she could see her improvements in numerical form.
There was always something so very satisfying about levelling up whether it be a skill or herself.
