Waking was slower than normal for Ulric, almost resembling the cycle of foggy not sleep interspersed with a blankness that characterized his old life's mornings. It was a similar enough experience, in fact, to make Ulric jerk fully awake after a certain point, wondering if he'd been dreaming the entire time.
His senses filled him in satisfactorily. The rub of armor plates and chain mail through leather undercoat, the fine texture of his travel robes, a sore hand from a certain ill-tempered travel companion, and the soft warmth of said companion next to his body, all served to swiftly remind him of his circumstance even as the exhaustion that had brought him down somewhat dissipated.
Memories fired off unbidden, the long run, the hidden den of wraiths, new, unbidden magics, and, lastly, the horrors of the [Bloodstarve] swarm with their infected queen. He'd dumped every last thing he had into a spell to wipe out some creature called a [Mindworm] that had been awful enough to spook his normally fearless Shadow. After that, things got pretty hazy.
They must have fled, he didn't recognize any of the terrain, but, then again, he'd spent most of the night following Taipan through the dark and didn't have any damned clue about the lay of the land anymore, even if it had been daylight. It was an odd feeling, being lost in a world in which he hadn't ever really needed to get anywhere in particular. He almost got anxious, until he reminded himself that he wasn't wandering around alone and that, if there was one thing the dark-skinned Elf next to him was good for it was roaming the wilderness in relative good order.
He must have stirred as he woke because the bronze-flecked emeralds turned from their vigilance to assess him briefly. She almost smiled when she did and that was pretty nice. Ulric admitted feeling a little comforted by having a companion who found his presence so, what? Pleasant? No, no. Stimulating? Probably better.
Soft light revealed that it was well past daylight, judging by the way the beams of light pierced through the webs of naked branches above them, casting sharp reliefs of shadow and brilliance around the frosted humps of undulating forest. A small feeder creek nearby burbled audibly beneath its icy cover. Ulric and Taipan were enshrouded by the large stitched shelter hides, their heavy weight holding the pair's body heat easily. In spite of his general tiredness and the tree roots jutting rudely into his anatomy, he felt alright.
"Must have slept in. Sorry about missing the watch there Taipan." Ulric greeted her softly.
She had no doubt kept watch for all that remained of the night, she had to be whacked out at this point.
"It is no trouble, Ulric, you gave of yourself all that could be asked to put to rest a menace to the forest. I cannot begrudge you a few hours of sleep." She returned.
"So…we got it?" He asked hopefully.
She nodded and then did smile broadly, "It is, as you say, compost, Glade Chief." she confirmed.
Her body shuddered slightly and her expression dimmed as she recalled the nature of the abomination that had produced a lesser infection in the wood of her homeland. He felt her shiver and saw her face shift.
"What the hell was that thing Taipan? Cause, let me tell you, it freaked me right the fuck out." He lead, knowing she wanted to speak of it.
Her features calmed, comforted by the calamitous riot of fire and light that had surely consumed the threat before she answered.
"You know how I tell you always that you have worms in your head?" She asked, rhetorically. "Well, that creature last night is what happens when one of those worms undergoes awakening. Normally, [Brainworms], they simply lead an infected host to a nicely damp patch of soil and eat the brain, killing the host so that it will rot and deposit eggs into the soil to infect some other scavengers or creatures that investigate. Unpleasant, but, mostly harmless."
She took a steadying breath before continuing the newest Vardan horror story that would steal sleep from him in the future.
"[Mindworms] do not eat the brain, they become it. They take over the body completely and use the remnants of the mind they have stolen to replace it, infiltrating. Once their eggs reach maturation they spread them into other hosts who do the same. From there, the epidemic spreads. Each [Mindworm] knows what the mother worm knows, each passes their own knowledge to their offspring, along with the single instinct to travel. To roam far and wide, contaminating as many different creatures as possible. All that saves the land from them is that they have very great difficulty with rapid movement, they are worms, after all, and flight is impossible for them." She revealed.
"Entire towns have been lost in a matter of weeks. The creeping infection is incredibly difficult to detect. So long as the worms are not forced into sudden, violent motion they can pass almost perfectly for a person, using the memories of the host's own brain to infiltrate long enough to infect their kith and kin. We were lucky here, the worm was using a [Bloodstarve] swarm to find prey, probably trying to get a thinking host, where its powers were best used, rather than a monster."
Gods' blood, it was invasion of the body snatchers. Who'd have thought he'd trip over classic Pre-Collapse cinema in Wonderland? Given all the rest of the myths that had expressed themselves in this reality, he probably shouldn't have been surprised.
Ulric remember the shambling zombie, driven by tentacles inserted into the limbs.
"Wait, so killing the host doesn't kill the worm?" He asked, with growing alarm.
Her hair tossed softly, as she affirmed the negative.
"It does not. [Brainworms] die with the host, after laying their eggs, but [Mindworms] are not parasites Ulric, they are predators. They can violently take a new host just as you saw, by activating the nerves of the deceased host to move. It doesn't even take very long, just a few tentacles at the base of the spine are enough for the abomination to destroy the host's will and achieve a takeover. Among the fearful creatures of Varda, they are considered one of the most insidious." She declared finally.
Fucking hell. That was a kind of body horror he could very damned well do without. They weren't just lucky, they were gods blessed to have encountered the thing in a monstrous host.
He released a breath held as the nature of the Greater beast was made crystal clear to him.
"Are you sure it's dead? Should we go back and, you know, just burn everything around there down to be sure?" He asked, dead serious.
If it took all week he'd sterilize that cave and its surroundings with fire.
Her gentle shake, the bells still tied into her short hair jingling soundlessly, to him, declared it unnecessary.
"It is dead and gone, Ulric. [Mindworms] are not dangerous because of their physical prowess but because of how hard they are to recognize. We will return though, after the both of us have rested. There are cores to collect. That brood mother's core, to say nothing of the damned worm, will fund our journey in its entirety. An open bounty of One hundred golden royal crowns stands for a [Mindworm] core. No one cares where it came from, either, just the act of submitting one is enough to pay the bounty, and gladly."
He was far happier knowing that the creature was put paid but he couldn't help but note that she'd said nothing of the broodling swarm.
"And the [Bloodstarves]?"
"They are without their brood mother. They will, as their name suggests, starve within a day or two without her enriched blood nursing them. Time enough for us both to recover our strength and for me to fletch a few arrows to replace the ones lost to them." Answered Taipan.
Damn. They hadn't made it half a week away from the safety of Irielhos before they'd gotten stopped by some walking nightmare or other.
"Is the Deep Wood always this dangerous Taipan?" He asked, almost certain as to the answer.
There weren't many old Elves, after all, despite their long lifespans.
"Iriel suffers not the weak Glade Chief, and culls us of the incompetent or the unfortunate, with regularity. It is the way of our people and the burden the Hunters bear. We live to reduce these threats from the crafters and harvesters." She answered, radiantly proud of her former comrades.
"You have been remarkably unlucky though, I must admit." She exclaimed suddenly eyes narrowing as she considered the sheer number of unfortunate events that had accompanied him.
"Ulric, I do not wish to alarm you, but you may be cursed." Taipan said, too deadpan for him to determine if she was telling a joke.
He did have to admit that he'd been living a fairly exciting life. Meeting the [Forest Lord] a couple of days after waking up on Varda, fighting off beasts, getting stampeded, hunting kidnappers, meeting and living with wild-assed Elves, almost getting assassinated, meeting a lightning god that tried to convince him to join it through his core, and, now, fighting a horde of vampiric murder bats as large as a man before coming face to face with a Hell worm. It was just enough to make him consider again if the Watcher was getting her money's worth out of Reforging him.
"You can accuse me of many things, dear Taipan, but you may never accuse me of being boring again." He rebutted.
A thought occurred to him though, of the previous night's journey into darkness.
"But, seriously, don't use the both of us to lure in monsters so you can kill them, you murder junkie! There's a limit to overconfidence, sheesh." Ulric bitched.
Taipan scoffed good-naturedly, "Pfaaah! If a [Bloodstarve] swarm is enough to deter you we may as well head South, to ride out the war on an Aktinian beach, sipping [Hora] wine while we dine on spiced and honied fish."
That did not sound bad, actually. He hadn't even known it was an option, either. But, pleasing as that sounded, there was business to attend first. And. She had left an opening.
"Look, Taipan, I'm not a jealous man but I'm not going to hand deliver you to your old boyfriend, just because I won't let you use me as live bait." He said, keeping his face straight.
Her ears reddened instantly, and she choked back a yell before restraining herself.
"You! You- ahhg! Galed Uldin I will stuff [Candela Ants] down your apron when I get hold of you!" She swore to the sky, fist shaking impotently.
"And you Ulric! There is no such thing that will happen! Firstly, I would not so much as speak to that humorless web-foot, call me a spoilt [Bitterjade] will you, you…" She trailed off there, muttering imprecations in Elvish that Ulric was almost certain had to do with an unlikely romantic relationship between spawning squids, grandparents, and pine pitch. His Elvish wasn't quite up to handling that one.
She snapped out of it with a cutting hand gesture that more than suggested holding a knife to make unpleasantness out of someone's anatomy, before continuing her diatribe, thoroughly riled now.
"Secondly I am part of your household and may not have dalliance outside of it, this is common knowledge for the Shadow to Honor pact, which you would know if you were not an ignorant savage of a manling. Thirdly, you are much better at using your mouth to-"
Ulric checked his ears.
"Hang on a second there, Taipan! Did I hear you right? What do you mean you can't 'dally' outside my household? I don't even have a household!" He interjected.
She'd dropped a bombshell on him. Besides, she was about to start making him blush. He knew there should have been an instruction manual with this Shadow bullshit.
Taipan looked at him like he was slow, which, you know, if the shoe fits.
"Ulric, we have been over this already. I am bound into service to you as an extension of your will. To go outside of your house romantically would introduce possible angles of compromise. It is done to order a Shadow into arrangements with other households, as a way to cement ties or obtain advantage against them, and you will never do this or I will kill us both, but a Shadow may not seek out partners. It creates a fundamental vulnerability and conflict of interests that is unacceptable."
Ulric took a minute to digest that. It made a sort of Machiavellian sense, but he, honestly, wasn't expecting so sophisticated a sociopolitical angle on the whole Shadow business.
"That…is both logical and awful Taipan. Watcher's tits, I like this Shadow thing less and less, it feels way too similar to slavery for my liking." Ulric admitted.
She did smile a touch at that.
"Why do you think it is the worst form of punishment, some argue the worst amongst the Iriel'en, Ulric? Mother Vedyr spoke truly, by all rights, Father should have taken my life on the spot. I violated no fewer than three central tenets: Guest Right, Abandonment of a Hunter's Post, and Withholding of Critical Knowledge with Intent to Deceive." She remonstrated, defending her father's decision.
He knew some of this already, it just failed to sink in properly. Suddenly he jerked to sit completely upright.
"Wait! So the only reason you sleep with me is because you literally can't with anyone else?" He asked, horrified.
His self-confidence was about to be in tatters. Godsdamnit he should have known there was a catch out there.
The universe threw him a bone, Taipan made the deliberate decision not to kick his legs out from under him and eviscerate his ego. Even she couldn't muster that level of cruelty, even though she did, briefly, consider it.
"Do not be slow, Ulric Glade Chief. I bed you because it is fun and because you make yourself worthy of my attention." Taipan said lightly.
Her eyes went serious then though and, despite her almost cheerful tone of voice he knew she was absolutely serious.
"Abandon any thought Ulric, that I do not choose my partners carefully and without full consideration of my decisions. If I did not wish it, I would not share my blankets with anyone, you included, and any who would insist otherwise would not long live their lack of wisdom."
Oh. Well. That was fine then. Right? Some things a modern education and good parenting don't prepare you for. His relationship with the Elf next to him was right there on top of the heap, as far as he was concerned. Fuck it, ride the wave.
"Sorry, Taipan. I didn't mean to suggest you were, somehow, coerced. Just…you know…you had a pretty wicked hate boner for Humans and I was pretty sure I was included on that list with a little additional baggage due to the, call it awkwardness, of our meeting."
She shifted to lean against him a little more, which was nice. She had a nice smell, sort of flowery, with a hint of earthiness. Probably because they were both three days outside a bath. He was vaguely wondering if she would smell better or worse a couple of weeks into this bushwacking and wasn't ashamed to admit the curiosity if anybody asked. His musings were interrupted though by her next words.
"It is fine. You were right to suspect this. I spent much time debating how to have you killed in ways that would be untraceable but Father saw fit to provide watchers over you most of the day to make this difficult. Later on, I began to resent you for not being the verminous deceiving filth that I had suspected you would be, most especially for conning mine little brother into liking you. Then you kept earning respect from people that I respect, such as Idra'se and even Mother Vedyr and I was forced to acknowledge that you were not as your kin and that goaded even worse than the rest. It helped nothing that you were pretty without clothes and act like Father Bald'rt's long-lost bastard brother." Taipan confessed casually.
There was a lot to unpack there but Ulric was going to just skip on past it to note that this was all as good as ancient history.
"Uh, thanks?" He managed.
Smooth Ulric. Real smooth. Wit like that, that puts you right up there with the legends, you'll go down in history as a regular Casanova.
She nodded her acceptance though, as if that were entirely sufficient. Shakespeare was onto something. Brevity was awesome, especially when it covered for a lack of anything close to a coherent response.
"It is nothing to be thankful for, but you are welcome. You were right about me, back then. I did blame you for everything that happened, and I did find it intolerable to be made as a pet, even in the reckoning of the all-knowledge with your naming of me. Which made it worse when we were attacked and I had spent so much time resenting my position instead of fulfilling it, that I was not of use to defend you or my people. That life was a shame beyond words and I will speak no more of it. Better this life where I have purpose and meaning. It is not so bad, being your Taipan."
That last she said warmly.
"Besides, if this keeps up we will one or both of us be dead inside the year so we had better enjoy ourselves while we may." She concluded, unnecessarily.
Cheerful lady. Super-mega cheerful. She might be onto something though.
"Yeah, about that, are we, you know safe here?" He asked.
Probably a silly thing to ask, but his Shadow had thought nothing of inviting attacks on them both by bloodthirsty monsters when they could have been far more conservative. They, evidently, had different definitions for what qualified as risky.
"If you mean from immediate harm, then yes. I scouted before you woke and found no sign of danger. The [Bloodstarve] swarm has at least done us the favor of clearing out this region of most roaming threats and the broodlings have returned to their mother to join her in death. For now? We are free from threat." She reported.
Cool.
"Tell you what? You hang out here and rest, I'll set up camp and get a breakfast rolling. I brought a little of your favorite [Reaperfern]." Ulric offered.
He had her attention now, at the mention of that fiery herb.
"Oooh yes, please." She moaned, scrambling free of the hide despite his suggestion she take it easy.
"Up with you Glade Chief!" she commanded her outstretched finger pointing at him and her other hand on her hip, power pose complete.
"We will establish our base camp and take this day to recover while the broodlings starve out. Tomorrow we may collect our harvest and be on our way." Taipan ordered, enthusiasm for the day growing.
Bemusement painted his features as he extracted himself from the warmth of their impromptu bedding and got to work setting up the shelter under her orders.
It was surprising how the mind adjust to repeated stresses. Ulric sat next to his cook fire, much as he'd sat next to similar fires many months ago in his old home in the Ancient Glade. Despite the recent battle, despite the strange terrain, and despite what eventualities lay ahead, he was, in that moment, content. Tongues of flame, swaying in the gusts of wind were accompanied by the soft crackling of wood, the popping and hissing of damp logs drying, and the roil of boiling water all served to wash away the harrowing desperation that accompanied last night's battles.
Taipan was asleep, buried in her bedroll in a power nap while he cooked. Once the shelter was finished and Ulric assured her that he would not leave the camp for any reason or forget to wake her for breakfast, she was dead to the world within moments of lying down. Occasional burbles of sound escaped her as she slept, unusual cuteness for such concentrated evil while awake.
Ulric stirred the pot, satisfied that the boiled water was ready to add ingredients. First, a cubed chunk of dried meat. It's origin was unknown to him but he'd long since stopped worrying about the source of meat amongst the Elves. They hunted most things that walked, crawled, and flew and ate all of it. Next up he added some of the dried seasonings packed away in one of his sealed wooden tubes, a sprinkle to flavor the broth. Fresher herbs and bulbs of tubers he went ahead and minced, ready to be added.
Afterward, he had to wait for the meat to reconstitute, time he spent practicing the detection spell, the aura of electromagnetic perception that had startled him so greatly the day before. It wasn't even so much a spell as an extra sense, activated through his concentration on his core's lightning mana and the faint pulses of mana around him. [Ceraunoperception] cost him very little in the way of mana, just a faint draw on his resources as he sent pulses of energy outwards.
What it cost him greatly was his ability to interpret the information. Like having his skin given a sunburn that did not hurt, but instead detected pressures according to the forms of things around him. So light as to be almost impossible to distinguish for things like dirt, dead dry wood, or very small objects. Far heavier pressure for minerals, especially magnetically active metallics, things containing heavy moisture content, like living trees and plants, and, of course, a definitive impression of living things. His sleeping Shadow lit like a beacon against his side from where she slept. The sensation was incredibly distracting and he only poorly was able to determine what the itches here or pinches there were telling him. He'd have to immerse himself in this spell to ever make it into what he envisioned: proximity radar.
It would have been extremely useful to have had this going last night, instead of having to rely on his sketchy night vision. Not to mention, he'd been mulling over some way to create a small moving fog bank, both to obscure vision and to gather dense charges to store potential charge, sort of a prepackaged lightning kind of thing. That was a project that he was currently shelving because he didn't want to evaporate himself building a dense cloud in which contaminant Ceraun was already present. If his warped [Flamecrash] was any indication, large workings were a bad idea until he polished his skills. Unless things were already tits up, in which case, he'd be ready to explore desperation's dice rolls. When he was able to pull it off though, he'd be able to steal his enemy's sight while retaining his own inside the cloud, a pretty awesome advantage.
Ah, meat's ready. He scooped the minced produce onto his knife blade and added them to the pot, stirring vigorously. Lastly, he tossed a few pinches of the molten hot spice herb from his glade. It would be a thing used sparingly, to remind him of home so far away. When the tangy smell of stew reached the smooth odor profile that said the fat-soluble spices had joined in gastric harmony with the water-soluble ones he woke his Shadow to join him in a meal. They ate with gusto, having missed their afternoon meal in the insanity of the [Bloodstarve] hunt.
After partaking of the meal, his Shadow returned to her blankets and Ulric returned to his contemplation of magic and mayhem, wiping fresh tears elicited by the flaming hot meal from his eyes. Very deliberately, he did not use any spells other than the [Ceraunoperception], saving his strength for any unexpected visitors. It had proven to be a massively distracting experience having Taipan moving around and feeling it like someone dragging their finger down his hide as she did. Yeesh. He refused to let up though, this technique demanded constant fiddling to become useful and he wasn't going to stop just because it sucked.
Sitting there with the heat of food in his belly Ulric reviewed recent history for his daily dose of self-criticism.
Yesterday's exhaustion highlighted the risks of using his core's ability to shunt its entire reservoir of power into a single spellform. He left himself incredibly vulnerable afterward. Depleting his reserves twice in relatively close succession had taken a massive toll. Sheer adrenaline and the aid of Taipan had allowed him to keep his feet; on his own, he likely would have been unable to do much more than crawl and stumble a few hundred meters. So, as great a weapon as [Core Capacitor] was, it was a double-edged blade. Not quite so for his other core trait, [Overcharge]. That one was a far more efficient use of his mana, concentrating spell power to greater effect but without totally emptying himself on a single attempt. The main problem with [Overcharging] a working was that it required absolute concentration to avoid a backlash and he couldn't do it sequentially, at least, he hadn't managed to do it with an acceptable success rate. Yet. Similarly to dual casting, working two different spellforms at the same time, he simply wasn't good enough to consistently pull it off. Again. Yet.
The lesson learned from last night's encounter was, unless things were absolutely dire, hold a little something in reserve. Ulric, above anyone, could appreciate that there was a time to cut loose everything without regard for the next moment. But Idra'se's philosophy of winning through inevitability also had strong merit. Ulric doubted that the older Elf would have come out of the night even breathing hard. Some things sheer experience offered that no amount of talent could reach. All Ulric could do was learn from his mistakes and commit to improving daily.
Speaking of which, it was time to run through that national past time of his balance exercises and stance work. Ulric's form was, to put it plainly, shit. He was still tired, still magically hungover, and a few hours leaning against a tree wasn't going to fix that. Even so, it was all the more important that he force his limbs into the positions and concentrate on keeping his balance through the exercises designed to strain it. Ten times forwards and ten times back. He struggled through it and the worst of the aches passed as he warmed up. The stance work was, marginally, better. Months of grueling practice had vastly improved his proprioception and coordination, even if it still lagged behind the more studied Elven warriors.
Ulric found that last night's combat had sharpened his practice considerably. One of the tools he'd begun to use was to envision an enemy while he was going through the routines, trying to picture an opponent and his steps as a response to their attempts to cut short his Reforged life. The [Bloodstarve Broodlings] gave that habit an additional punch this morning. The sight of the fanged maw flying toward his face was nice and fresh in his thoughts. He hadn't had the time to consider it then but he was more than pleased that he hadn't frozen up or bungled his fight against the creatures, other than allowing the one to close with him, being bailed out by the sheer heinous sharpness of his enchanted sword.
That mistake was almost entirely attributable to the fact that Ulric could not see in the dark and that the batlike monsters made very little noise for how big and fast they were. He didn't allow himself the excuse, it didn't matter that the monsters were unfair, that was just the way Varda spun. If he wanted to keep seeing its turns he'd better fix his shit and find ways to work around his limitations or some nasty critter was going to turn him into feces.
Keeping the image of the monster firmly in mind, the feel of its rapid approach, Ulric forced himself through ever faster progressions of some of Idra'se's more evil step patterns. He even made himself use the tricky cross steps that he saw now were just the thing to let him turn his body rapidly, shifting himself out of the line of a head-on attack or changing the level of his body, lowering himself underneath a high strike naturally, without the bending that might compromise his center of gravity. It sucked that he wasn't a natural at this but what was a guy going to do? He'd been a damned geek with aspirations of becoming a mountain man for thirty years. A new body and some tough love don't just change that overnight.
So shut up and get good you asshole, he scolded himself, pushing through the next sequence and losing his throat to the fangs that would have brushed by because he wasn't fast enough to complete the backcrossing branch step. It took three more failed attempts before he finally managed to clear himself from the imagined attack angle and successfully come away clean. It was another half dozen before he managed that evasion and a counterstroke that would come close to hitting the creature as it passed. How the fuck did Idra, or even Christ for that matter, make it look so damned smooth and easy?
About a decade of doing what you're doing right now, he reminded himself.
Two hours of this passed, leaving Ulric both frustrated at the distance yawning between himself and his betters and satisfied that he'd ended practice better than he'd started. When you're trying to improve a skill, better every day is the golden rule. If you have got the fortune to have enough days between when you start and when something kills you for your lack of ability, which was where running very fast came in handy. The better part of Valor and all and Valor was Ulric's middle name. That was actually an old joke from his previous life, when his few close friends noted a predilection for getting himself into trouble with superiors by being entirely unwilling to compromise on certain red lines. Unwilling to compromise and not particularly nice about it.
Speaking of discretion, Ulric had exactly none wearing this armor. Anybody who saw him would have no doubt that he was up to no good, this getup screamed "Murder Time" for all to hear. Gods bless Taipan's Uncle Uldin, it was a thing of beauty. As he removed the pieces and wrapped them up in their bundle, returning them to their place in the bottom of his pack, he felt incredibly exposed, damned near naked. Not a good feeling while being up to your neck in a savage wilderness.
Then again, he had been naked in a savage wilderness for long enough that it wasn't so bad. Just like old times, he laughed to himself, sweat steaming off his form in the cold air. Air that lacked the bite it had held a scant few weeks earlier, Ulric noted. Spring would be arriving soon. And with it? War.
Taipan's timetable had them trying to break free of Orlethrem right around when the snow cleared from the passes and the ground firmed up enough for standard travel. Caravans wouldn't operate until their wagons, loaded heavily with the trade goods procured during the previous Autumn and Winter hauls, could traverse the trade routes without burying in mud or fording rivers raging with snow melt.
Much had been made to him by all who had spoken of it about the state of the Zelus when the glaciers of the Heaven's Reach mountains bestowed upon it their springtime off pouring. To a lesser degree, all such river portages would be dicey in the extreme, another reason that Taipan had them going the theoretically much greater distance of the northern track. It would be a longer trip but shorter in duration since they would only be minimally impacted by the influences of the spring thaw.
This Western side of the Zelus was far less impacted by the deeper snows at the foothills of that colossal mountain chain, between the influence of the Plateau grabbing moisture from the air as it lifted over those eternal trees and the mountains themselves forcing the air up over them, shedding most of its remaining humidity as snow before passing over their towering peaks.
Ulric wanted desperately to visit the mountains. In addition to their majestic beauty, they were the home of the Svartalfin, the dwarves renowned for their craft and for the sheer multitude of metals mined from beneath the bones of the range. It would have to wait though, until after he'd handled the affairs of state.
Unbidden came the whispers of violence that accompanied any conscious thought regarding the conflict to come. Another wrinkle that. He'd felt last night the Lord Instinct keenly, its murderous rage spurring him forward. He couldn't deny that it probably played some role in his willingness to be less reserved in his use of destructive magics. Definitely, a thing to keep tabs on, he couldn't have instinctive rage putting him into poor positions when more measured decisions achieved the same outcome with less expenditure of energy.
Nothing was allowed to be simple, he mused.
At some point, Taipan awoke from her nap and began to shuffle around. Ulric was curious until she obtained a set of carving tools from her pack and began to cut small saplings of a tree called [Scroll Yew] for the use of its bark in paper making. Turns out it was also exceedingly straight-grained and made for acceptable arrows, if not quite as sturdy as the [Steelwood] ones he'd provided her. She compromised by making these substantially thicker.
It was fascinating to watch the near casual ease with which his Shadow split straight lengths of sapling down into quarters and then shaved them round with her knife. Rounded proto shafts were then shaved with the edge, instead of whittled, the blade held at a ninety degree to the wood and lightly brought to a smooth surface. It was methodical but swift, the application of thousands of hours of repetition. In a mere hour, she was holding four new arrow shafts. From a thin, narrow pouch on her pack was extracted a handful of long flight feathers, the fletches to be. On the coals of the fire, she placed a stone jar holding glue to warm. As the glue obtained its proper tacky sludge consistency Taipan drew a bandolier of sheathes, which held arrowheads, in a way that reminded him of a gunner's ammo belt. The notches for the heads were carved in a mere minute and tied with thin bark wetted from her water skin, her fingers weaving with inhuman precision. At the moment she finished tying the last head into place atop its shaft the glue was ready, this timing having been worked out decades ago. The glue was tracked thickly over the strands of fiber holding the arrowheads in place, and cooled in a mere minute, hardening like wax. When she flicked her finger against it though, it was hard as acrylic. Damn. That was pretty impressive, about as good as his glassresin. Lastly, she applied a thick coat of the slightly cooled glue onto the end of the shaft and tied her fletches into place, before coating the feather quills again to secure them. Once cooled, the finished arrows were slid into her quiver, its base slathered in a sludge holding a potent poisonous mixture that coated the arrowheads.
The entire operation took an hour and a half. Now that was impressive.
Ulric whistled softly in appreciation. His comrade's eyes raised from her tasks to find his, curiosity clear in her expression.
"What is this for, Ulric?" She asked.
"Just you being super good at being you Taipan. It took me half a day to make that many arrows and you go and knock them out like an assembly line." He complimented.
"What is an assembly line?" Her eyes screwed up in confusion.
"Just a really fast bunch of workers making things step by step." He said, carefully not mentioning the fact that almost all assembly lines in his world were completely automated, machines building other machines at scales that would likely beggar her imagination.
"Oh. Thank you, Glade Chief. It comes with practice. Your arrows were not of bad quality. If you like, I could teach you." His Shadow offered generously.
She'd be able to finish the task faster without him and he knew it so Ulric jumped at the chance to learn the trade from an expert.
"No kidding!? Hells yes I'll learn to fletch the Elf way!" He said enthusiasm brimming.
She smiled, genuinely pleased that he was interested in learning the Hunter's methods, and rose to her feet.
"First, you must recognize the correct source of lumber for the arrows. A poor choice here can waste hours of effort and make everything to come harder. Here, see this bark? See the striations? These tell you that this is a good grain, free from knots or burls that will ruin your work. That stand over there? It is useless for arrows, the rough patches of bark show where it dropped limbs many years ago and healed over, producing the sorts of imperfections that will only make arrows that break when you loose them from a powerful bow." She taught, cheerfully.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with the former Hunter of Iriel instructing Ulric in the methods and tricks to Elven arrow-making. She even commented on his lack of a bow and suggested that they should be able to replace it, selecting a sapling of suitable dimension but not cutting it, saying only, "Greenwood is poor for staves Ulric, it must season three Winters before use."
It had been a fortunate thing that he had had the materials available for a laminated composite bow. Greenwood would dry and crack and lacked the power of a properly aged stave. Normal wood did, anyhow. Magical steel-strong wood grown in Fern Gulley and steeped in the densest manafield that could be found upon Varda's face? Who the fuck knew?
Ulric didn't question her, her expertise was obvious. They ended up making another dozen arrows to fill her quiver. And no, that wasn't a euphemism.
Actually, the rather quiet afternoon of peaceful activity was refreshing. If he didn't think at all about the future or recall the recent past he could say, without qualification that he was having the time of his life with Taipan. So, when such thoughts reared their hydra heads he smashed them ruthlessly and had a wonderful day with his Shadow, another passable traveler's stew for supper, and an early repose, or so he thought. The dusky beauty had other thoughts when she rolled over on top of him and cupped his hands over her bottom. The not-so-early repose was certainly the more restful for its delay.
Waking was slower than normal for Ulric, almost resembling the cycle of foggy not sleep interspersed with a blankness that characterized his old life's mornings. It was a similar enough experience, in fact, to make Ulric jerk fully awake after a certain point, wondering if he'd been dreaming the entire time.
His senses filled him in satisfactorily. The rub of armor plates and chain mail through leather undercoat, the fine texture of his travel robes, a sore hand from a certain ill-tempered travel companion, and the soft warmth of said companion next to his body, all served to swiftly remind him of his circumstance even as the exhaustion that had brought him down somewhat dissipated.
Memories fired off unbidden, the long run, the hidden den of wraiths, new, unbidden magics, and, lastly, the horrors of the [Bloodstarve] swarm with their infected queen. He'd dumped every last thing he had into a spell to wipe out some creature called a [Mindworm] that had been awful enough to spook his normally fearless Shadow. After that, things got pretty hazy.
They must have fled, he didn't recognize any of the terrain, but, then again, he'd spent most of the night following Taipan through the dark and didn't have any damned clue about the lay of the land anymore, even if it had been daylight. It was an odd feeling, being lost in a world in which he hadn't ever really needed to get anywhere in particular. He almost got anxious, until he reminded himself that he wasn't wandering around alone and that, if there was one thing the dark-skinned Elf next to him was good for it was roaming the wilderness in relative good order.
He must have stirred as he woke because the bronze-flecked emeralds turned from their vigilance to assess him briefly. She almost smiled when she did and that was pretty nice. Ulric admitted feeling a little comforted by having a companion who found his presence so, what? Pleasant? No, no. Stimulating? Probably better.
Soft light revealed that it was well past daylight, judging by the way the beams of light pierced through the webs of naked branches above them, casting sharp reliefs of shadow and brilliance around the frosted humps of undulating forest. A small feeder creek nearby burbled audibly beneath its icy cover. Ulric and Taipan were enshrouded by the large stitched shelter hides, their heavy weight holding the pair's body heat easily. In spite of his general tiredness and the tree roots jutting rudely into his anatomy, he felt alright.
"Must have slept in. Sorry about missing the watch there Taipan." Ulric greeted her softly.
She had no doubt kept watch for all that remained of the night, she had to be whacked out at this point.
"It is no trouble, Ulric, you gave of yourself all that could be asked to put to rest a menace to the forest. I cannot begrudge you a few hours of sleep." She returned.
"So…we got it?" He asked hopefully.
She nodded and then did smile broadly, "It is, as you say, compost, Glade Chief." she confirmed.
Her body shuddered slightly and her expression dimmed as she recalled the nature of the abomination that had produced a lesser infection in the wood of her homeland. He felt her shiver and saw her face shift.
"What the hell was that thing Taipan? Cause, let me tell you, it freaked me right the fuck out." He lead, knowing she wanted to speak of it.
Her features calmed, comforted by the calamitous riot of fire and light that had surely consumed the threat before she answered.
"You know how I tell you always that you have worms in your head?" She asked, rhetorically. "Well, that creature last night is what happens when one of those worms undergoes awakening. Normally, [Brainworms], they simply lead an infected host to a nicely damp patch of soil and eat the brain, killing the host so that it will rot and deposit eggs into the soil to infect some other scavengers or creatures that investigate. Unpleasant, but, mostly harmless."
She took a steadying breath before continuing the newest Vardan horror story that would steal sleep from him in the future.
"[Mindworms] do not eat the brain, they become it. They take over the body completely and use the remnants of the mind they have stolen to replace it, infiltrating. Once their eggs reach maturation they spread them into other hosts who do the same. From there, the epidemic spreads. Each [Mindworm] knows what the mother worm knows, each passes their own knowledge to their offspring, along with the single instinct to travel. To roam far and wide, contaminating as many different creatures as possible. All that saves the land from them is that they have very great difficulty with rapid movement, they are worms, after all, and flight is impossible for them." She revealed.
"Entire towns have been lost in a matter of weeks. The creeping infection is incredibly difficult to detect. So long as the worms are not forced into sudden, violent motion they can pass almost perfectly for a person, using the memories of the host's own brain to infiltrate long enough to infect their kith and kin. We were lucky here, the worm was using a [Bloodstarve] swarm to find prey, probably trying to get a thinking host, where its powers were best used, rather than a monster."
Gods' blood, it was invasion of the body snatchers. Who'd have thought he'd trip over classic Pre-Collapse cinema in Wonderland? Given all the rest of the myths that had expressed themselves in this reality, he probably shouldn't have been surprised.
Ulric remember the shambling zombie, driven by tentacles inserted into the limbs.
"Wait, so killing the host doesn't kill the worm?" He asked, with growing alarm.
Her hair tossed softly, as she affirmed the negative.
"It does not. [Brainworms] die with the host, after laying their eggs, but [Mindworms] are not parasites Ulric, they are predators. They can violently take a new host just as you saw, by activating the nerves of the deceased host to move. It doesn't even take very long, just a few tentacles at the base of the spine are enough for the abomination to destroy the host's will and achieve a takeover. Among the fearful creatures of Varda, they are considered one of the most insidious." She declared finally.
Fucking hell. That was a kind of body horror he could very damned well do without. They weren't just lucky, they were gods blessed to have encountered the thing in a monstrous host.
He released a breath held as the nature of the Greater beast was made crystal clear to him.
"Are you sure it's dead? Should we go back and, you know, just burn everything around there down to be sure?" He asked, dead serious.
If it took all week he'd sterilize that cave and its surroundings with fire.
Her gentle shake, the bells still tied into her short hair jingling soundlessly, to him, declared it unnecessary.
"It is dead and gone, Ulric. [Mindworms] are not dangerous because of their physical prowess but because of how hard they are to recognize. We will return though, after the both of us have rested. There are cores to collect. That brood mother's core, to say nothing of the damned worm, will fund our journey in its entirety. An open bounty of One hundred golden royal crowns stands for a [Mindworm] core. No one cares where it came from, either, just the act of submitting one is enough to pay the bounty, and gladly."
He was far happier knowing that the creature was put paid but he couldn't help but note that she'd said nothing of the broodling swarm.
"And the [Bloodstarves]?"
"They are without their brood mother. They will, as their name suggests, starve within a day or two without her enriched blood nursing them. Time enough for us both to recover our strength and for me to fletch a few arrows to replace the ones lost to them." Answered Taipan.
Damn. They hadn't made it half a week away from the safety of Irielhos before they'd gotten stopped by some walking nightmare or other.
"Is the Deep Wood always this dangerous Taipan?" He asked, almost certain as to the answer.
There weren't many old Elves, after all, despite their long lifespans.
"Iriel suffers not the weak Glade Chief, and culls us of the incompetent or the unfortunate, with regularity. It is the way of our people and the burden the Hunters bear. We live to reduce these threats from the crafters and harvesters." She answered, radiantly proud of her former comrades.
"You have been remarkably unlucky though, I must admit." She exclaimed suddenly eyes narrowing as she considered the sheer number of unfortunate events that had accompanied him.
"Ulric, I do not wish to alarm you, but you may be cursed." Taipan said, too deadpan for him to determine if she was telling a joke.
He did have to admit that he'd been living a fairly exciting life. Meeting the [Forest Lord] a couple of days after waking up on Varda, fighting off beasts, getting stampeded, hunting kidnappers, meeting and living with wild-assed Elves, almost getting assassinated, meeting a lightning god that tried to convince him to join it through his core, and, now, fighting a horde of vampiric murder bats as large as a man before coming face to face with a Hell worm. It was just enough to make him consider again if the Watcher was getting her money's worth out of Reforging him.
"You can accuse me of many things, dear Taipan, but you may never accuse me of being boring again." He rebutted.
A thought occurred to him though, of the previous night's journey into darkness.
"But, seriously, don't use the both of us to lure in monsters so you can kill them, you murder junkie! There's a limit to overconfidence, sheesh." Ulric bitched.
Taipan scoffed good-naturedly, "Pfaaah! If a [Bloodstarve] swarm is enough to deter you we may as well head South, to ride out the war on an Aktinian beach, sipping [Hora] wine while we dine on spiced and honied fish."
That did not sound bad, actually. He hadn't even known it was an option, either. But, pleasing as that sounded, there was business to attend first. And. She had left an opening.
"Look, Taipan, I'm not a jealous man but I'm not going to hand deliver you to your old boyfriend, just because I won't let you use me as live bait." He said, keeping his face straight.
Her ears reddened instantly, and she choked back a yell before restraining herself.
"You! You- ahhg! Galed Uldin I will stuff [Candela Ants] down your apron when I get hold of you!" She swore to the sky, fist shaking impotently.
"And you Ulric! There is no such thing that will happen! Firstly, I would not so much as speak to that humorless web-foot, call me a spoilt [Bitterjade] will you, you…" She trailed off there, muttering imprecations in Elvish that Ulric was almost certain had to do with an unlikely romantic relationship between spawning squids, grandparents, and pine pitch. His Elvish wasn't quite up to handling that one.
She snapped out of it with a cutting hand gesture that more than suggested holding a knife to make unpleasantness out of someone's anatomy, before continuing her diatribe, thoroughly riled now.
"Secondly I am part of your household and may not have dalliance outside of it, this is common knowledge for the Shadow to Honor pact, which you would know if you were not an ignorant savage of a manling. Thirdly, you are much better at using your mouth to-"
Ulric checked his ears.
"Hang on a second there, Taipan! Did I hear you right? What do you mean you can't 'dally' outside my household? I don't even have a household!" He interjected.
She'd dropped a bombshell on him. Besides, she was about to start making him blush. He knew there should have been an instruction manual with this Shadow bullshit.
Taipan looked at him like he was slow, which, you know, if the shoe fits.
"Ulric, we have been over this already. I am bound into service to you as an extension of your will. To go outside of your house romantically would introduce possible angles of compromise. It is done to order a Shadow into arrangements with other households, as a way to cement ties or obtain advantage against them, and you will never do this or I will kill us both, but a Shadow may not seek out partners. It creates a fundamental vulnerability and conflict of interests that is unacceptable."
Ulric took a minute to digest that. It made a sort of Machiavellian sense, but he, honestly, wasn't expecting so sophisticated a sociopolitical angle on the whole Shadow business.
"That…is both logical and awful Taipan. Watcher's tits, I like this Shadow thing less and less, it feels way too similar to slavery for my liking." Ulric admitted.
She did smile a touch at that.
"Why do you think it is the worst form of punishment, some argue the worst amongst the Iriel'en, Ulric? Mother Vedyr spoke truly, by all rights, Father should have taken my life on the spot. I violated no fewer than three central tenets: Guest Right, Abandonment of a Hunter's Post, and Withholding of Critical Knowledge with Intent to Deceive." She remonstrated, defending her father's decision.
He knew some of this already, it just failed to sink in properly. Suddenly he jerked to sit completely upright.
"Wait! So the only reason you sleep with me is because you literally can't with anyone else?" He asked, horrified.
His self-confidence was about to be in tatters. Godsdamnit he should have known there was a catch out there.
The universe threw him a bone, Taipan made the deliberate decision not to kick his legs out from under him and eviscerate his ego. Even she couldn't muster that level of cruelty, even though she did, briefly, consider it.
"Do not be slow, Ulric Glade Chief. I bed you because it is fun and because you make yourself worthy of my attention." Taipan said lightly.
Her eyes went serious then though and, despite her almost cheerful tone of voice he knew she was absolutely serious.
"Abandon any thought Ulric, that I do not choose my partners carefully and without full consideration of my decisions. If I did not wish it, I would not share my blankets with anyone, you included, and any who would insist otherwise would not long live their lack of wisdom."
Oh. Well. That was fine then. Right? Some things a modern education and good parenting don't prepare you for. His relationship with the Elf next to him was right there on top of the heap, as far as he was concerned. Fuck it, ride the wave.
"Sorry, Taipan. I didn't mean to suggest you were, somehow, coerced. Just…you know…you had a pretty wicked hate boner for Humans and I was pretty sure I was included on that list with a little additional baggage due to the, call it awkwardness, of our meeting."
She shifted to lean against him a little more, which was nice. She had a nice smell, sort of flowery, with a hint of earthiness. Probably because they were both three days outside a bath. He was vaguely wondering if she would smell better or worse a couple of weeks into this bushwacking and wasn't ashamed to admit the curiosity if anybody asked. His musings were interrupted though by her next words.
"It is fine. You were right to suspect this. I spent much time debating how to have you killed in ways that would be untraceable but Father saw fit to provide watchers over you most of the day to make this difficult. Later on, I began to resent you for not being the verminous deceiving filth that I had suspected you would be, most especially for conning mine little brother into liking you. Then you kept earning respect from people that I respect, such as Idra'se and even Mother Vedyr and I was forced to acknowledge that you were not as your kin and that goaded even worse than the rest. It helped nothing that you were pretty without clothes and act like Father Bald'rt's long-lost bastard brother." Taipan confessed casually.
There was a lot to unpack there but Ulric was going to just skip on past it to note that this was all as good as ancient history.
"Uh, thanks?" He managed.
Smooth Ulric. Real smooth. Wit like that, that puts you right up there with the legends, you'll go down in history as a regular Casanova.
She nodded her acceptance though, as if that were entirely sufficient. Shakespeare was onto something. Brevity was awesome, especially when it covered for a lack of anything close to a coherent response.
"It is nothing to be thankful for, but you are welcome. You were right about me, back then. I did blame you for everything that happened, and I did find it intolerable to be made as a pet, even in the reckoning of the all-knowledge with your naming of me. Which made it worse when we were attacked and I had spent so much time resenting my position instead of fulfilling it, that I was not of use to defend you or my people. That life was a shame beyond words and I will speak no more of it. Better this life where I have purpose and meaning. It is not so bad, being your Taipan."
That last she said warmly.
"Besides, if this keeps up we will one or both of us be dead inside the year so we had better enjoy ourselves while we may." She concluded, unnecessarily.
Cheerful lady. Super-mega cheerful. She might be onto something though.
"Yeah, about that, are we, you know safe here?" He asked.
Probably a silly thing to ask, but his Shadow had thought nothing of inviting attacks on them both by bloodthirsty monsters when they could have been far more conservative. They, evidently, had different definitions for what qualified as risky.
"If you mean from immediate harm, then yes. I scouted before you woke and found no sign of danger. The [Bloodstarve] swarm has at least done us the favor of clearing out this region of most roaming threats and the broodlings have returned to their mother to join her in death. For now? We are free from threat." She reported.
Cool.
"Tell you what? You hang out here and rest, I'll set up camp and get a breakfast rolling. I brought a little of your favorite [Reaperfern]." Ulric offered.
He had her attention now, at the mention of that fiery herb.
"Oooh yes, please." She moaned, scrambling free of the hide despite his suggestion she take it easy.
"Up with you Glade Chief!" she commanded her outstretched finger pointing at him and her other hand on her hip, power pose complete.
"We will establish our base camp and take this day to recover while the broodlings starve out. Tomorrow we may collect our harvest and be on our way." Taipan ordered, enthusiasm for the day growing.
Bemusement painted his features as he extracted himself from the warmth of their impromptu bedding and got to work setting up the shelter under her orders.
It was surprising how the mind adjust to repeated stresses. Ulric sat next to his cook fire, much as he'd sat next to similar fires many months ago in his old home in the Ancient Glade. Despite the recent battle, despite the strange terrain, and despite what eventualities lay ahead, he was, in that moment, content. Tongues of flame, swaying in the gusts of wind were accompanied by the soft crackling of wood, the popping and hissing of damp logs drying, and the roil of boiling water all served to wash away the harrowing desperation that accompanied last night's battles.
Taipan was asleep, buried in her bedroll in a power nap while he cooked. Once the shelter was finished and Ulric assured her that he would not leave the camp for any reason or forget to wake her for breakfast, she was dead to the world within moments of lying down. Occasional burbles of sound escaped her as she slept, unusual cuteness for such concentrated evil while awake.
Ulric stirred the pot, satisfied that the boiled water was ready to add ingredients. First, a cubed chunk of dried meat. It's origin was unknown to him but he'd long since stopped worrying about the source of meat amongst the Elves. They hunted most things that walked, crawled, and flew and ate all of it. Next up he added some of the dried seasonings packed away in one of his sealed wooden tubes, a sprinkle to flavor the broth. Fresher herbs and bulbs of tubers he went ahead and minced, ready to be added.
Afterward, he had to wait for the meat to reconstitute, time he spent practicing the detection spell, the aura of electromagnetic perception that had startled him so greatly the day before. It wasn't even so much a spell as an extra sense, activated through his concentration on his core's lightning mana and the faint pulses of mana around him. [Ceraunoperception] cost him very little in the way of mana, just a faint draw on his resources as he sent pulses of energy outwards.
What it cost him greatly was his ability to interpret the information. Like having his skin given a sunburn that did not hurt, but instead detected pressures according to the forms of things around him. So light as to be almost impossible to distinguish for things like dirt, dead dry wood, or very small objects. Far heavier pressure for minerals, especially magnetically active metallics, things containing heavy moisture content, like living trees and plants, and, of course, a definitive impression of living things. His sleeping Shadow lit like a beacon against his side from where she slept. The sensation was incredibly distracting and he only poorly was able to determine what the itches here or pinches there were telling him. He'd have to immerse himself in this spell to ever make it into what he envisioned: proximity radar.
It would have been extremely useful to have had this going last night, instead of having to rely on his sketchy night vision. Not to mention, he'd been mulling over some way to create a small moving fog bank, both to obscure vision and to gather dense charges to store potential charge, sort of a prepackaged lightning kind of thing. That was a project that he was currently shelving because he didn't want to evaporate himself building a dense cloud in which contaminant Ceraun was already present. If his warped [Flamecrash] was any indication, large workings were a bad idea until he polished his skills. Unless things were already tits up, in which case, he'd be ready to explore desperation's dice rolls. When he was able to pull it off though, he'd be able to steal his enemy's sight while retaining his own inside the cloud, a pretty awesome advantage.
Ah, meat's ready. He scooped the minced produce onto his knife blade and added them to the pot, stirring vigorously. Lastly, he tossed a few pinches of the molten hot spice herb from his glade. It would be a thing used sparingly, to remind him of home so far away. When the tangy smell of stew reached the smooth odor profile that said the fat-soluble spices had joined in gastric harmony with the water-soluble ones he woke his Shadow to join him in a meal. They ate with gusto, having missed their afternoon meal in the insanity of the [Bloodstarve] hunt.
After partaking of the meal, his Shadow returned to her blankets and Ulric returned to his contemplation of magic and mayhem, wiping fresh tears elicited by the flaming hot meal from his eyes. Very deliberately, he did not use any spells other than the [Ceraunoperception], saving his strength for any unexpected visitors. It had proven to be a massively distracting experience having Taipan moving around and feeling it like someone dragging their finger down his hide as she did. Yeesh. He refused to let up though, this technique demanded constant fiddling to become useful and he wasn't going to stop just because it sucked.
Sitting there with the heat of food in his belly Ulric reviewed recent history for his daily dose of self-criticism.
Yesterday's exhaustion highlighted the risks of using his core's ability to shunt its entire reservoir of power into a single spellform. He left himself incredibly vulnerable afterward. Depleting his reserves twice in relatively close succession had taken a massive toll. Sheer adrenaline and the aid of Taipan had allowed him to keep his feet; on his own, he likely would have been unable to do much more than crawl and stumble a few hundred meters. So, as great a weapon as [Core Capacitor] was, it was a double-edged blade. Not quite so for his other core trait, [Overcharge]. That one was a far more efficient use of his mana, concentrating spell power to greater effect but without totally emptying himself on a single attempt. The main problem with [Overcharging] a working was that it required absolute concentration to avoid a backlash and he couldn't do it sequentially, at least, he hadn't managed to do it with an acceptable success rate. Yet. Similarly to dual casting, working two different spellforms at the same time, he simply wasn't good enough to consistently pull it off. Again. Yet.
The lesson learned from last night's encounter was, unless things were absolutely dire, hold a little something in reserve. Ulric, above anyone, could appreciate that there was a time to cut loose everything without regard for the next moment. But Idra'se's philosophy of winning through inevitability also had strong merit. Ulric doubted that the older Elf would have come out of the night even breathing hard. Some things sheer experience offered that no amount of talent could reach. All Ulric could do was learn from his mistakes and commit to improving daily.
Speaking of which, it was time to run through that national past time of his balance exercises and stance work. Ulric's form was, to put it plainly, shit. He was still tired, still magically hungover, and a few hours leaning against a tree wasn't going to fix that. Even so, it was all the more important that he force his limbs into the positions and concentrate on keeping his balance through the exercises designed to strain it. Ten times forwards and ten times back. He struggled through it and the worst of the aches passed as he warmed up. The stance work was, marginally, better. Months of grueling practice had vastly improved his proprioception and coordination, even if it still lagged behind the more studied Elven warriors.
Ulric found that last night's combat had sharpened his practice considerably. One of the tools he'd begun to use was to envision an enemy while he was going through the routines, trying to picture an opponent and his steps as a response to their attempts to cut short his Reforged life. The [Bloodstarve Broodlings] gave that habit an additional punch this morning. The sight of the fanged maw flying toward his face was nice and fresh in his thoughts. He hadn't had the time to consider it then but he was more than pleased that he hadn't frozen up or bungled his fight against the creatures, other than allowing the one to close with him, being bailed out by the sheer heinous sharpness of his enchanted sword.
That mistake was almost entirely attributable to the fact that Ulric could not see in the dark and that the batlike monsters made very little noise for how big and fast they were. He didn't allow himself the excuse, it didn't matter that the monsters were unfair, that was just the way Varda spun. If he wanted to keep seeing its turns he'd better fix his shit and find ways to work around his limitations or some nasty critter was going to turn him into feces.
Keeping the image of the monster firmly in mind, the feel of its rapid approach, Ulric forced himself through ever faster progressions of some of Idra'se's more evil step patterns. He even made himself use the tricky cross steps that he saw now were just the thing to let him turn his body rapidly, shifting himself out of the line of a head-on attack or changing the level of his body, lowering himself underneath a high strike naturally, without the bending that might compromise his center of gravity. It sucked that he wasn't a natural at this but what was a guy going to do? He'd been a damned geek with aspirations of becoming a mountain man for thirty years. A new body and some tough love don't just change that overnight.
So shut up and get good you asshole, he scolded himself, pushing through the next sequence and losing his throat to the fangs that would have brushed by because he wasn't fast enough to complete the backcrossing branch step. It took three more failed attempts before he finally managed to clear himself from the imagined attack angle and successfully come away clean. It was another half dozen before he managed that evasion and a counterstroke that would come close to hitting the creature as it passed. How the fuck did Idra, or even Christ for that matter, make it look so damned smooth and easy?
About a decade of doing what you're doing right now, he reminded himself.
Two hours of this passed, leaving Ulric both frustrated at the distance yawning between himself and his betters and satisfied that he'd ended practice better than he'd started. When you're trying to improve a skill, better every day is the golden rule. If you have got the fortune to have enough days between when you start and when something kills you for your lack of ability, which was where running very fast came in handy. The better part of Valor and all and Valor was Ulric's middle name. That was actually an old joke from his previous life, when his few close friends noted a predilection for getting himself into trouble with superiors by being entirely unwilling to compromise on certain red lines. Unwilling to compromise and not particularly nice about it.
Speaking of discretion, Ulric had exactly none wearing this armor. Anybody who saw him would have no doubt that he was up to no good, this getup screamed "Murder Time" for all to hear. Gods bless Taipan's Uncle Uldin, it was a thing of beauty. As he removed the pieces and wrapped them up in their bundle, returning them to their place in the bottom of his pack, he felt incredibly exposed, damned near naked. Not a good feeling while being up to your neck in a savage wilderness.
Then again, he had been naked in a savage wilderness for long enough that it wasn't so bad. Just like old times, he laughed to himself, sweat steaming off his form in the cold air. Air that lacked the bite it had held a scant few weeks earlier, Ulric noted. Spring would be arriving soon. And with it? War.
Taipan's timetable had them trying to break free of Orlethrem right around when the snow cleared from the passes and the ground firmed up enough for standard travel. Caravans wouldn't operate until their wagons, loaded heavily with the trade goods procured during the previous Autumn and Winter hauls, could traverse the trade routes without burying in mud or fording rivers raging with snow melt.
Much had been made to him by all who had spoken of it about the state of the Zelus when the glaciers of the Heaven's Reach mountains bestowed upon it their springtime off pouring. To a lesser degree, all such river portages would be dicey in the extreme, another reason that Taipan had them going the theoretically much greater distance of the northern track. It would be a longer trip but shorter in duration since they would only be minimally impacted by the influences of the spring thaw.
This Western side of the Zelus was far less impacted by the deeper snows at the foothills of that colossal mountain chain, between the influence of the Plateau grabbing moisture from the air as it lifted over those eternal trees and the mountains themselves forcing the air up over them, shedding most of its remaining humidity as snow before passing over their towering peaks.
Ulric wanted desperately to visit the mountains. In addition to their majestic beauty, they were the home of the Svartalfin, the dwarves renowned for their craft and for the sheer multitude of metals mined from beneath the bones of the range. It would have to wait though, until after he'd handled the affairs of state.
Unbidden came the whispers of violence that accompanied any conscious thought regarding the conflict to come. Another wrinkle that. He'd felt last night the Lord Instinct keenly, its murderous rage spurring him forward. He couldn't deny that it probably played some role in his willingness to be less reserved in his use of destructive magics. Definitely, a thing to keep tabs on, he couldn't have instinctive rage putting him into poor positions when more measured decisions achieved the same outcome with less expenditure of energy.
Nothing was allowed to be simple, he mused.
At some point, Taipan awoke from her nap and began to shuffle around. Ulric was curious until she obtained a set of carving tools from her pack and began to cut small saplings of a tree called [Scroll Yew] for the use of its bark in paper making. Turns out it was also exceedingly straight-grained and made for acceptable arrows, if not quite as sturdy as the [Steelwood] ones he'd provided her. She compromised by making these substantially thicker.
It was fascinating to watch the near casual ease with which his Shadow split straight lengths of sapling down into quarters and then shaved them round with her knife. Rounded proto shafts were then shaved with the edge, instead of whittled, the blade held at a ninety degree to the wood and lightly brought to a smooth surface. It was methodical but swift, the application of thousands of hours of repetition. In a mere hour, she was holding four new arrow shafts. From a thin, narrow pouch on her pack was extracted a handful of long flight feathers, the fletches to be. On the coals of the fire, she placed a stone jar holding glue to warm. As the glue obtained its proper tacky sludge consistency Taipan drew a bandolier of sheathes, which held arrowheads, in a way that reminded him of a gunner's ammo belt. The notches for the heads were carved in a mere minute and tied with thin bark wetted from her water skin, her fingers weaving with inhuman precision. At the moment she finished tying the last head into place atop its shaft the glue was ready, this timing having been worked out decades ago. The glue was tracked thickly over the strands of fiber holding the arrowheads in place, and cooled in a mere minute, hardening like wax. When she flicked her finger against it though, it was hard as acrylic. Damn. That was pretty impressive, about as good as his glassresin. Lastly, she applied a thick coat of the slightly cooled glue onto the end of the shaft and tied her fletches into place, before coating the feather quills again to secure them. Once cooled, the finished arrows were slid into her quiver, its base slathered in a sludge holding a potent poisonous mixture that coated the arrowheads.
The entire operation took an hour and a half. Now that was impressive.
Ulric whistled softly in appreciation. His comrade's eyes raised from her tasks to find his, curiosity clear in her expression.
"What is this for, Ulric?" She asked.
"Just you being super good at being you Taipan. It took me half a day to make that many arrows and you go and knock them out like an assembly line." He complimented.
"What is an assembly line?" Her eyes screwed up in confusion.
"Just a really fast bunch of workers making things step by step." He said, carefully not mentioning the fact that almost all assembly lines in his world were completely automated, machines building other machines at scales that would likely beggar her imagination.
"Oh. Thank you, Glade Chief. It comes with practice. Your arrows were not of bad quality. If you like, I could teach you." His Shadow offered generously.
She'd be able to finish the task faster without him and he knew it so Ulric jumped at the chance to learn the trade from an expert.
"No kidding!? Hells yes I'll learn to fletch the Elf way!" He said enthusiasm brimming.
She smiled, genuinely pleased that he was interested in learning the Hunter's methods, and rose to her feet.
"First, you must recognize the correct source of lumber for the arrows. A poor choice here can waste hours of effort and make everything to come harder. Here, see this bark? See the striations? These tell you that this is a good grain, free from knots or burls that will ruin your work. That stand over there? It is useless for arrows, the rough patches of bark show where it dropped limbs many years ago and healed over, producing the sorts of imperfections that will only make arrows that break when you loose them from a powerful bow." She taught, cheerfully.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with the former Hunter of Iriel instructing Ulric in the methods and tricks to Elven arrow-making. She even commented on his lack of a bow and suggested that they should be able to replace it, selecting a sapling of suitable dimension but not cutting it, saying only, "Greenwood is poor for staves Ulric, it must season three Winters before use."
It had been a fortunate thing that he had had the materials available for a laminated composite bow. Greenwood would dry and crack and lacked the power of a properly aged stave. Normal wood did, anyhow. Magical steel-strong wood grown in Fern Gulley and steeped in the densest manafield that could be found upon Varda's face? Who the fuck knew?
Ulric didn't question her, her expertise was obvious. They ended up making another dozen arrows to fill her quiver. And no, that wasn't a euphemism.
Actually, the rather quiet afternoon of peaceful activity was refreshing. If he didn't think at all about the future or recall the recent past he could say, without qualification that he was having the time of his life with Taipan. So, when such thoughts reared their hydra heads he smashed them ruthlessly and had a wonderful day with his Shadow, another passable traveler's stew for supper, and an early repose, or so he thought. The dusky beauty had other thoughts when she rolled over on top of him and cupped his hands over her bottom. The not-so-early repose was certainly the more restful for its delay.
