Ulric's eyes snapped open. He instinctively felt for the presence of Taipan before his think meat turned on enough to remind him that she was playing messenger pigeon to try to avert a genocide in progress. If what that murderous catkin had been saying was true, and she had seemed too bugfuck crazy to be capable of lying about it, then things were much, much worse than he'd known.
Bane. Prosper was at it again with the stuff and, this time, they were going to try something a little more large scale. Several dots connected suddenly with that revelation. Way back in Celestin the slaver thugs they'd run into had been only interested in taking Elves. Now they knew why. They weren't doing it because those slaves would sell at higher value, even though they would. He hadn't missed that reference to the Zelussin Greater House either.
Lord Morion, the father of the brat he'd had to murder all those months ago, was padding his coffers by transporting his enslaved kin. That motherfucker. It didn't make it any better that he didn't know he was being used to create magical poison for his people's enemies. He thought he was just engaging in a little profitable treason, just selling a few unlucky Elves into magically bound servitude for fucking centuries, no big deal. No indeed, his pals downriver were buying raw materials to create the Aes'r Bane. Most of the people they tortured wouldn't live long enough to complete the process of having their own cores converted into death magic so they needed a steady supply. A massive number of people, if Taipan's tale was true.
"Ye gods." Ulric whispered, struggling to comprehend the calculated cruelty of it.
Whoever was running the show in Prosper was willing to torture thousands and thousands of sentient beings to death to make a weapon of mass murder. The black names of his old world, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, to say nothing of those that desecrated Earth with their nuclear war, would be proud at this callous act of savagery.
Ulric sat up and yawned, trying to pull himself together. It was too early for this level of morbidity.
He'd slept outdoors and the early spring air was, to his sensibilities, about perfect. Streaks of orange and pink ran the length of the visible horizon to the East and he saw the last of the moons sinking below the horizon, three crescents racing to hide from the twinned suns. It was a beautiful day. It was also the day to take leave from the Moot, if possible. Taipan had secured deliveries of goods but that had been under the assumption that they would be traveling together. He would now be moving alone and the amount of supplies would be major overkill.
Ulric decided that a wagon was in order. He could use his [Skyshield] trick to make a set of frictionless runners but inertia was still inertia and pulling a sled loaded heavily alone could be dangerous if it ran over top of him. He probably wouldn't be killed, given his toughness, but even a twisted knee or broken foot would be a matter of precious time lost. That meant he needed to figure out how to acquire a wagon and what passed for draft animals around here. The Legranel used those great bastard bison things that seemed docile enough. He wouldn’t need to worry about the terrain too much, the prairies were about the easiest to navigate territories for which he could ask. Or, so he thought. Varda had a way of springing nasty surprises on him every time he had something figured to be easily managed.
Fingers snapped at his thigh and he came up with no better alternatives in the few minutes he was willing to dedicate to the search for alternatives. Odds were he could make it with only the pack on his back but that provided other problems, namely, would he draw attention as a lone Valin traveler crossing vast distances through Elven territory when Orlethrem and Prespang were about to play a game of hide the swords with each other.
He wasn't terribly concerned anymore about a one on one fight straight up. Experience was teaching him that, other than an ambush or one of the high tier warriors he should be able to hold his own. But. A well laid ambush would still fuck him up before he had a chance to employ the majority of his magical talents, the classic weakness of a mage.
Briefly, the fledgling adventurer considered putting on the fantastic armor he'd worn only briefly since its crafting. Glancing at his pack in which the set was dutifully hidden, he very nearly went right on ahead and equipped it. That would have solved darts launched from hiding and protected him from the majority of what some mook could throw at him. It also marked him out as being not exactly a peaceful traveling merchant, as Taipan had suggested to be his safest, most efficient cover. There was also the fact that wearing armor made you think you could take a hit. Had he been wearing the sturdy gear Uldin had crafted, he might have accepted a blow from that Svartalfin tank's hammer, under the misguided notion that he would be protected. The armor would have probably been fine afterwards. The pulped Ulric inside of it, not so much. Varda's rules were different from Earth's rules. Nothing could be taken at face value.
Not yet, he decided. There would be a time and a place to go hard, guns ablazing. That time was not here. He was hundreds of kilometers from where he needed to be and marking himself out as a target this far out was a bad idea. Ulric only had a little time before that bastard Lord of River dicks figured out his assassins were being used for fertilizer and sent new ones.
"Alright Old Man, that's enough of that." He announced to the hastily reconstructed clearing.
Priorities were now, in this order, finish preparations to travel, conclude business with Adept Autumnclaw, thank Prenya and her kin for their hospitality, and then, fuck off to cross the border without running into soldiers from either side. Ulric very deliberately did not think about Taipan, still freshly wounded, crossing a thousand kilometers of heinously dangerous wilderness to carry word to her brother of the planned treachery. Was it technically treachery if they were your enemies already?
Details, Ulric, details. Evil fuckery of colossal magnitude, even minus the implied deceit.
Once again, the now lone traveler set about completing his tasks. First came stoking the poop coals into flame, fresh bricks of prairie pie serving as the sagey fuel. Then he remade the [Stonewall] benches to give himself and the admittedly scarce fellow travelers convenient seating. Next came a hurried dough of flour and water, sprinkled with powdered swamp grass that produced a magnificently sweet paste not very unlike powdered sugar. This he put into his [Steelwood] bush pot and buried in coals to bake. A few slices of dried meat he rigorously rubbed in his hands with water to massage the hydration back into them before he skewered the strips and gave them a light char for flavor. Lastly Ulric grabbed a few stalks of the prairie celery that he'd come to enjoy since traveling with the plains folk.
Ulric was chewing mindlessly the stalks, mind blank except for the hazy niggling of a desire to be murdering the people that had become the sources of his discontent. The Lord instinct added its own bit of inspiration to these impulses. One saving grace of having traveled so far from his glade was that the kill beast urges had died down somewhat, the territory to which he was attached being so distant. Not gone, not by any stretch of the imagination. Merely quieter. Staring into the fire counting minutes until the camp bread was ready, trying not to obsess over his dear departed Shadow occupied him fully.
So it was that he did not hear the silent advance of Mage Werona behind him and was unprepared for her large clawed hand to rest upon his shoulder firmly.
"Haagh!" he cried out manfully and not without bass in his voice.
Or so he would have hoped.
"Holy monkey's! Werona. Hoo boy, you took years off me, would it kill you to make more sound before you grab me?" He deadpanned.
The Sauri Ash Mage grinned her fearfully put to use recently grin a moment before her countenance returned to calm composure. Clearly she had enjoyed spooking the calcium out of his bones.
Ulric tried to salvage his dignity, what precious little of it Varda had left to him.
"Ehem! I mean, welcome to my fire Adept Autumnclaw. I have prepared a breakfast if you would like to join me." He said with measured cordiality.
The Sauri crouched down, ignoring the clay of the clearing marring the hems of her robe as she did and refused gracefully, "No, thank you Mage Ulric. I have already eaten this morn and would not thicken my mind with food. There are, I think, matters of import that we should discuss."
He hadn't noticed before but she used her tail sort of like a kangaroo, the extinct leaping beasties of the Australopacific territory of old Earth, its heavy base acting as a third point of balance to rest easily upon.
"It would seem," began the smooth rich voice, catching his attention "that there are events in motion which dictate that you must move on with immediacy."
Now that was an understatement. Mage Werona had a bandage on her arm and side from wounds taken when he'd been attacked yesterday and had personally killed on of the assassins herself. She may or may not have used her own jaws to deliver the coup de grace. He owed her for that and for her swift care for Prenya when the Elf had arrived battered into camp. Just sort of generally he figured he owed her.
Drily Ulric confirmed this statement, "You might say that events have been dictating that I move with immediacy for over a month now."
On his hands he counted out a mere seven weeks of travel since leaving Irielhos. Seven weeks of humping gear through the late winter forests, slaying monsters, slavers, criminal masterminds, and now hired killers.
Ulric shook his head with resignation before meeting Werona's slit eyed gaze.
"I did not mean others to be caught up in my troubles. I had not thought that those troubles would even have known where I was, much less for them to find me so soon. I am sorry that you were brought harm by those who sought me." He apologized earnestly.
Werona's teeth flashed again as she observed, "I should have known you were trouble as soon as I saw those flame jewels. No one creates magic like that unless they have very big problems at which to aim it."
Her clawed finger raised, as if calling for an instructor's attention and she grew more animated.
"Ah! And another thing! You integrated yourself into several Ceraun spells, a controlled lance of Ceraun, and also a directly targeted bolt of lightning, if I am not mistaken. You also utilized an enhanced sensory spell, no other means could you have located the cloaked murder-hire. Are you sure you will not tell me who taught you those techniques? They are quite challenging theoretical projects and I would enjoy greatly to speak with the one that developed such spellforms." She requested again.
"Well, actually, " Ulric began a bit sheepishly, "Those were somethings I came up with by myself. The first two are mostly a careful separation of electric force between its two poles, with the sink attuned to an object that might be thrown, to reduce the difficulty of aiming a breakdown voltage cascade to a single position. The detection spell is a much more difficult application of a weak electric field and incredibly tedious mana perception of small fluctuations in that Ceraun field to identify objects, both organic and not."
"My teachers all say that the first two will kill anybody else that tries it and I believe you must have a Ceraunic core to do the third." He revealed to the mage, embarrassed to admit that he was unable to help her with any of the workings.
The Sauri deflated a bit, her curiosity unsatisfied. She refused to accept the offered explanation though.
"Even so! If you will not name your Aes'r teachers I understand. But I would still know the mechanics of your spellforms. This at least is in your power and I would claim that knowledge to clear the debt of having been drawn into facing down professional killers on your behalf." Adept Autumnclaw pressed.
Ulric was caught. The Beastkin woman had a point. It also wouldn't necessarily hurt to explain to her the theory of his magics, just as he had tried to explain it to Taipan and her mothers way back when. They had heard the methodology and immediately judged it as exceedingly unwise to attempt without his very unique knowledge and experience. Perhaps though Werona would find a way to take those methods and adapt them to this world's philosophies. Up to this point, Ulric had been nothing less than impressed with the structured way this mage attacked problems and her adherence to a robustly scientific approach to applying knowledge.
It only took him a moment of tossing her request around before he bowed to her demands. They were not unreasonable and he did owe her plenty for her assistance. Besides, he got to teach another physics lesson and that wasn't not fun.
Ulric indicated one of the stone benches, destroyed in the fight against the Terra wielding Dwarf Hammermaster that he had rebuilt just before starting breakfast.
"Sit on a seat, if that is more comfortable. This won't take a tremendously long time to explain but you will likely have questions that I will have to answer to make the process of directed currents and electrical fields clear enough to be useful." the once engineer told his otherworldly colleague.
Midsunsrise had come and gone before the inquisition of Adept Werona Autumnclaw ended. She had indeed had questions. Many of them. Several of them that had required calculus to answer. Ulric had scrawled Gauss's law into the dirt with a stick and wondered if this profane wisdom might, somehow, contaminate the Akashic Record of Varda with its existence. Fortunately, no blast of heavenly fury came to scrub him and his blasphemies from the planet so he guessed it was fine to talk about the nuts and bolts of Earth's physics. Probably the Watcher already knew all this in the first place, it being a cosmic entity of unfathomable age and power sort of thing. Maybe it even knew how in the hell quantum mechanics actually worked.
Werona sat back on her tail and stared at the sky. She mumbled about heat flow being analogous to charge flow, and he could faintly hear her repeating "Source to sink, close the system" and hoped her chant would not eventually bring her to bad ends.
Ulric was now ready to get on with the business of obtaining a cart and team of animals to pull it. The Legranel had shown back up and he saw for the first significant duration the husband/wife team of travelers as well as Prenya, still bandaged heavily, and her nephew.
It was with some degree of chagrin that he presented himself to Prenya and her kin to inform them of his plans. She'd been caught up in the attack as well and was none too happy about it. The Legranel, in general, were not a warlike people. They weren't nearly as hard edged as the Iriel'en. It was all enjoy the journey and take things as they come with them. The last year had seen their ruling family murdered and, now, their Moot disrupted by a hit squad from Prosper. Or maybe Zelussin, which wasn't much better.
The injured Elf frowned her disapproval for a moment before she let him off the hook.
"It is a shame that your lovely wife had to leave so quickly. I will miss her cutting wit. And her hands. And her thighs. And…other things. I will miss her, is what I am saying." Began the bandaged woman, her frown inverting as she delineated the boons of Taipan.
Joclyn indicated the hide rug upon which he sat, patting it to prompt Ulric to join them as he said without heat, "Sit Ulric, sit and speak with us. And ignore my Aunt's lamenting, she is just pouting that her favorite toy has run away."
He certainly owed them that much, rather than looming over them like a stranger. He'd rode and bled with these Herd Riders, they were practically distant cousins. Not that he had a thing for boffing cousins, eeww Ulric, gods' blood, terrible analogy. He buried the intrusive thought and did as the young rider asked, sitting cross legged on the hide rug with the Legranel.
"Thanks to you both. For your hospitality, and for your companionship on the road." Ulric began slowly, not sure how to proceed.
"You are leaving then. No doubt to find trouble by the set of your back and the haste of your partner's departure." Stated Prenya plainly.
Ulric nodded once, before confirming his intentions. He couldn't completely erase the simmering anger at the bedlam that had befallen these folk on his behalf.
"I am. Just as soon as I can find a cart and beasts to haul it. Staying longer just makes it easier for whoever sent those whackos to find me and puts more bystanders in harm's way. Too many have already been hurt to my liking and I would like to bring it up to whomever is responsible. I am sorry, beyond words, that I have caused you and your people grief by bringing my bugbears with me."
Both the Elves made a gesture as if waving gnats away from their ears.
"Pish." Stated Joclyn in time with his Aunt's delivery of spittle to the grass nearby, "All know that Prosper's elite murderers for hire travel in threes."
Prenya joined her nephew's dismissal, now certainly irritated, though not at him.
"Those monsters have gotten away with breaking the peace through their catspaws for long enough. Triads for hire for crime lords, fostering bands of ravening thugs such as those led by Vars and his twisted brother Graus, setting patrols of troops to harass our herds and foraging grounds, it never ends!" Flared the Elf, her notched ear twitching to emphasize her grievance.
"It was not you who ordered those killers to our lands, Ulric. It was not you who murdered our Lord and his young family in their beds, or set fire to the tents of their attendants and waited with bows drawn to shoot those who escaped. It was the beasts of Prosper. It is always, eventually, the beasts of Prosper." Hissed the Herdrider.
A nearby guard nodded in agreement. The eavesdropping pair of Jorn natives, Hild and her mate Tomas similarly made hand signs towards affirming their cousin's outrage.
Ulric looked around the battered enclave and saw that the feeling was general. Even Rik'e and Dais'e, two of the more nonconfrontational individuals he'd met since Reforging had adopted a distinctly martial air about them.
That made him feel a little better about the situation but it didn't change the facts. Trouble would follow him. If he didn't get out of Dodge he'd just be causing them problems down the line. He wondered if the Legranel would manage to extract the identity of the Triad's contractor. If it was the same party leading the charge against the Elven confederation that would do his reputation well, the Orlethrem lords would know that Ulric was as much an enemy of those bastards as they. If it were someone other than the jackels in the fortress city to which he currently traveled, he was basically shit out of luck for dealing with them directly.
Ah Hell, Ulric groaned internally, odds were good they'd been hired by that dickhead Morion, against whom Bald'rt Iriel had warned him. Mostly, it was a non-issue.
He had no proof and he couldn't really do anything about it if he did, it would be a detour of at least a month to travel to the hold where the corrupted Orlethrem House held treaty with the enemies of its people. There was damned near a certainty that most of the Morion Elves were completely innocent of wrong doing, their ships, river trade ports, and routes being abused by the machinations of their leaders. His showing up with a hard on for killing Morion's Lord wouldn't accomplish much. Besides. If it did pan out that the vengeful Lord put the hit out and the Iriel'en found out about it, that was going to be the grisly end of old Savris Morion. Bald'rt would eat the scumbag's heart from his rest bed for going after his daughter. Morion selling Aes'r for slaves that would eventually become fuel for Bane would have the rest of the tribes of the confederation lined up right behind Iriel to carve their own choice morsels.
Ulric pushed past that to consider these cavalier peoples who just wanted to travel with their herds and tend their prairies. Prenya over there who had been around long enough to know the drill with the drawn out cold war with Prespang. The pacifist duo who just wanted to tend wounds and keep their kin hale and healthy. The guards who looked uncomfortable with keeping eyes peeled for hired killers and intruders into their so rarely held Moot. All of them were being put into this position absent any desire from their part for the conflict. Iriel was more or less constantly in some low grade alert, given their self-assumed duty of patrolling the hazards of the Deep Wood and the borders of Orlethrem. The Legranel simply wanted to be left in peace. They would not get it until he was gone. They would not get it until the individuals holding the reins to this war got what was coming to them. They certainly would not get it if Taipan didn't make it home in time to deliver word of the encircling of the Elven Havens and all those innocent men, women, and children got slaughtered.
Recordings of his own species' horrors played silently in his mind for a moment, archives that had shown what depravity man could enact on other men. It was too much to hope that Varda was a world free from the potential for that large scale evil. But, perhaps, it wasn't too late. If Taipan managed to pass the warning, if Ulric managed to cull the genocidal madmen pushing everybody down this road, maybe none of it had to happen.
"Wishful thinking." He muttered aloud, prompting curious gazes from the nearby plainsfolk.
"Sorry. Distracted." Ulric shared the obvious, before he got himself aimed towards his real objective.
"I am thankful that you don't hold the evils of others against me, but it does not alter the reality that more may follow. I and my partner originally intended to make our way across the border before the armies began their marches and that is still my goal. Events here give me more reason to make that happen post haste. Supplies my partner ordered will be delivered soon, might I ask for some assistance in the buying of a cart and draft animals to pull it?" Ulric asked, being cognizant of the original gist of his and Taipan's cover story.
"I will help you in this." Declared Rik'e, just as Joclyn and Hild and Tomas chimed in with their own offers.
It was a little overwhelming, the support of these Legranel. He wasn't under the impression that he'd so much earned this kindness but they offered it anyway. Even a social moron like himself knew better than to turn away their offers. They took charge of the arrangments immediately and Ulric found himself under orders to keep Prenya company and organize his kit for the road while they scattered to the winds to find a suitable conveyance. Prenya spent a few minutes flirting but mostly just to pass the time, soon enough she announced that she was tired and her wounds ached and she returned to her blankets, despite the suns dancing high overhead.
Not long after, Mage Werona Autumnclaw came to make her goodbyes.
"These past few days have been more than I anticipated when I thought to travel to the Legranel Moot to witness an event rare in the experience of those not born in Orlethrem." Noted the Sauri mage drily.
"Yeah, well, it has certainly been something. Whole lotta something, yessiree." Confirmed Ulric.
The Ash Adept gave him a steady eyeballing from somewhere in the upper stratosphere before confiding with a friendly tone "You are an odd man, and you hoard secrets like a matron hoards her clutch. But it has been a pleasure to exchange knowledge with such an unorthodox school of Magic."
She began to paw through her belt pouch with some determination before coming up with the little gem of [Arcanite Diamond] he'd given her. Holding it up, the adept brought her focus to bear on it and wove some kind of spell creating a cloud of ember laden Tephras magic. Black ash roiled around the catalytic material of crystalline mana before forming fine black wires of obsidian which framed the jewel in tight hexagonal netting. The reactive mana responded by flaring once, radiating intense heat, before returning to dormancy.
Ulric found himself completely enthralled by the working. Werona must have been feeling tricksome then because she deliberately tossed the interned crystal at him and he scrambled not to drop it.
The fearsome grin of the Sauri filled his sight when he managed to wrangle the stone under control.
"What is this?" He asked, trading glances between the object and the mage.
"It is now a Tephras focus. Instead of reacting to any input, it will now respond to create a dense [Pyroclasm] for which you may guide it to an enemy or to use as a defensive tool or heat shield. I gather one with your talents will find other uses for a binding spell that isolates and amplifies a specific mana waveform, perhaps something that might apply to lightning eh?" She responded.
Now that was a hell of a parting gift. She'd created a focus, like the little beast core staves or wands he'd seen, or like the wand that Captain Firecracker had tried to use on him once upon a time. They significantly increased the magnitude of a working by resonating with the specific manaform. Better, by showing him the crafting she'd given him the method of its construction, if he could reverse engineer it.
He shook his head, it was too much.
"Werona, this is too much. You should should take it, I already offered the gem to your keeping. To say nothing of the focus weaving."
She waved him off with a clawed hand.
"It will only cause me problems later. For one thing, all too soon it will expend itself and become a Deathstone jewel which I have no intention of being near. For another, I will now be heading to my post as a faculty member of Cinderspire Island's Magus College. The questions and attention that thing would draw are not something I wish to have upon me until I know my position is secure and my inevitable rivals put into their places." Explained the Mage.
The Sauri gestured away to the South, "If, at some point, your journey takes you away from the beast ridden wilderness and strife of Aesvartheim I would welcome a visit from a traveling scholar."
Suddenly her expression turned reticent and she looked around, as if her distant colleagues might overhear.
"Please," Mage Autumnclaw whispered, bending low over him, "If you should visit, do not speak of my, erm, loss of decorum regarding the assassin. Such things are, umm, frowned upon in the halls of academy."
Ulric couldn't help but laugh at that reminder. The Beastkin mage had nothing to fear from him. If for no better reason than he'd best not be throwing stones from his glass balcony with regards to losing your shit and going all rage beast.
"I would never intentionally shame you, Mage Autumnclaw." Ulric told her with gravity, once his chuckles had subsided, "Consider me in your debt, and, if I can ever do anything for you just send word. I will be traveling but the Iriel'en should have the means to get message through to me, make "Brighteyes Iriel" the recipient of the message and I think things will work out."
Mage Autumnclaw blinked once at that but stood straight, her calm restored.
"Very well. The Iriel'en eh? Well, I have enough mysteries to look into without prying into why a cryptic Valin spellsword roams around with a Brownie Huntress wife. I will be away now, may the Twins warm the sands beneath your feet and the Moons guard your sleep." Farewelled the Sauri Adept.
"Yeah, it's been swell. Fortune favor you Ms. Autumnclaw." Ulric bid.
At that, Adept Werona turned tail, literally, and made her way from the clearing. An odd gal was the mage, but definitely his people. She'd taught him much, probably more than she knew. He rolled the focus around in his hands for a minute before pocketing it in his belt pouch. If he started looking into it now he'd do nothing else for days. Time he couldn't afford, he had places to be and all that.
With that, he'd checked two items off his list for the day.
It didn't take long to get his pack arranged. Taipan had absconded with the shelter they'd shared and he would need another, a matter of a half hour spent steadily searching through the Moot's many shops and stalls, a single Legranel guardsman in tow to make sure more ruckus didn't start. Damn. At this rate the entire Elf Confederacy would have standing orders to see him watched before anything got set on fire while he was around.
He returned in time to see the first of the ordered goods roll in. Taipan had executed one last practical joke, absent his knowledge. In addition to the various traveling supplies she had, somehow, obtained a large array of one of Iriel's exclusive trade goods: [Azure Cedar]. The characteristic blue toned tree was only harvested by the Iriel'en grove tenders and only traded for as part of contracts with Iriel'en carpenters. Where the roofs of the Celestin's structures hadn't been slate they had been [Azure Cedar] shingles, especially in the richer parts of Trachn'ir, a display of wealth. Ulric, in now being in possession of a modest shipment of milled lumber, bark shingles, clay pots of the special pitch, and woven inner bark rope. Any wagon loaded thusly would have had to have essentially been stolen from its native Deep Woods producers, which would make Ulric essentially look like a smuggler to any who saw what he transported. Additionally, [Azure Cedar] was one of the first topics that the dusty old Arch Mage Gother Cenur'it had instructed Ulric in his classes taken with Elven children, which he'd suffered through to Taipan and her kin's great amusement. Hilarious.
Even more hilarious, Ulric actually knew the value and uses for each of these items and could use them as trade goods, just like their planned cover as traveling merchants entailed. His Shadow must have set this up weeks ago to make the border crossing and subsequent inspections by natives in Prespang better hide the true nature of their identity. He couldn't help a bit of bittersweet recollection about the departed Elf now, with the familiar scent of her homeland's trees tickling his nostrils.
"Fuck, okay, get it together Einar, you're not a girl mooning over her first breakup." He scolded, after a minute of standing around being sad.
Thereafter, he got his head in the game, and, when the Legranel crew showed up not long later with a wagon and a pair of enormous ox-things which they claimed were "docile" and "well-broken" so that even a novice Herd Rider could manage them, he set to loading the wagon. That too was a task full of memory, for it was the Elf Hunter Serlic, who he had named Santa in his mind that had taught him how to efficiently pack cargo into a travel sled. Serlic had perished in the canopy of the [Godtrees] back on the Plateau, killed by an insidious owl monster. His killer, a Greater beast that flew without sound under cloak of invisibility with razored wings still stalked those woods. Serlic was the very first Elf who had died on account of Ulric's existence in this world. He was determined to not let that have been in vain.
With a few hours work, assisted by the Legranel, all things were packed, stowed, lashed into place, and generally secured. The beasts of burden chewed grain from a feed sack tied to their bridles with no indication that they would ever do anything else, which was comforting. Any animal so calmly lazy in disposition should be easy to handle, as the plains Elves promised.
Ulric decided to cook for his hosts as a show of appreciation and he pulled out all the stops. Tossed salads with the nearest approximation of vinaigrette that he could whip together, preceded maybe the best Beef Wellington that he'd ever produced, probably thanks to the incredibly succulent tenderloin provided, courtesy of Joclyn. The travelers ate heartily, joined by the three remaining attendant guards and Ulric made no enemies that day by his actions. A real win, the way things had been going. When the meal was eaten, not in silence as that was not the way of the Legranel, a cask of mead was broken out and that corner of the Moot joined in the festive atmosphere that had been adopted generally elsewhere amongst the plainsfolk. Dour might have been the cause of the gathering but the nomadic peoples were dead set on throwing a week long heller. Prenya joined in and Ulric got to learn that a dice game similar to Kings was played, for mostly the same purpose as it had been on Earth: to encourage drunk people to become profoundly inebriated whilst encouraging them to do ever more ridiculous things they would live to regret later.
When, late into the night, the party faded out, its participants dwindling as the couples drifted away to do couple things, Ulric laid in his bedroll under the stars. Prenya had made herself *cough* available, but he found he lacked the starch for it tonight. The Elf understood, it was mostly Taipan that had been the catalyst for their tryst and, even though the Legranel woman was a banger at night things, he wasn't able to push past the melancholy that lovemaking, or, in this case, a rousing see ya later fuck, would entail. He did accept a cuddle from the notch eared woman though, both of them appreciated the shared warmth in the cool spring's witching hour.
Dawn broke and Ulric pulled free of sleep, confused, this time, by the warm presence next to him. Prenya stirred but didn't wake when he carefully extracted himself from the blankets, and he was left to do his morning exercises in peaceful silence. Still air and perfectly clear skies promised good traveling weather. It was an auspicious beginning to his continuance of the quest. Breakfast was rather subdued, even the Plains Elves could be solemn for a departure, it seemed. After some guidance on the proper calls and gestures with the reins to direct the pair of [Dire Ox] wagon pullers, Ulric departed the Moot.
Vast plains stretched out in front of him, new grass waving gently as the odd breeze stirred it before stilling. The Legranel prairie seemed endless and the human, now on his own for the first time in forever, turned his attention to the path forwards. Leather cracked when he snapped the reins and the wagon creaked, its planks still green as it was drawn forwards by the plodding beasts hauling it. As the wagon rattled over tracks established by generations of Legranel Herd Riders Ulric was left to think and think he did. Had he encountered any other travelers along this particular trail they would have thought, by the expression written, incognizant, on his face, that the apparent Valin merchant planned murder.
They would have been right.
Ulric's eyes snapped open. He instinctively felt for the presence of Taipan before his think meat turned on enough to remind him that she was playing messenger pigeon to try to avert a genocide in progress. If what that murderous catkin had been saying was true, and she had seemed too bugfuck crazy to be capable of lying about it, then things were much, much worse than he'd known.
Bane. Prosper was at it again with the stuff and, this time, they were going to try something a little more large scale. Several dots connected suddenly with that revelation. Way back in Celestin the slaver thugs they'd run into had been only interested in taking Elves. Now they knew why. They weren't doing it because those slaves would sell at higher value, even though they would. He hadn't missed that reference to the Zelussin Greater House either.
Lord Morion, the father of the brat he'd had to murder all those months ago, was padding his coffers by transporting his enslaved kin. That motherfucker. It didn't make it any better that he didn't know he was being used to create magical poison for his people's enemies. He thought he was just engaging in a little profitable treason, just selling a few unlucky Elves into magically bound servitude for fucking centuries, no big deal. No indeed, his pals downriver were buying raw materials to create the Aes'r Bane. Most of the people they tortured wouldn't live long enough to complete the process of having their own cores converted into death magic so they needed a steady supply. A massive number of people, if Taipan's tale was true.
"Ye gods." Ulric whispered, struggling to comprehend the calculated cruelty of it.
Whoever was running the show in Prosper was willing to torture thousands and thousands of sentient beings to death to make a weapon of mass murder. The black names of his old world, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, to say nothing of those that desecrated Earth with their nuclear war, would be proud at this callous act of savagery.
Ulric sat up and yawned, trying to pull himself together. It was too early for this level of morbidity.
He'd slept outdoors and the early spring air was, to his sensibilities, about perfect. Streaks of orange and pink ran the length of the visible horizon to the East and he saw the last of the moons sinking below the horizon, three crescents racing to hide from the twinned suns. It was a beautiful day. It was also the day to take leave from the Moot, if possible. Taipan had secured deliveries of goods but that had been under the assumption that they would be traveling together. He would now be moving alone and the amount of supplies would be major overkill.
Ulric decided that a wagon was in order. He could use his [Skyshield] trick to make a set of frictionless runners but inertia was still inertia and pulling a sled loaded heavily alone could be dangerous if it ran over top of him. He probably wouldn't be killed, given his toughness, but even a twisted knee or broken foot would be a matter of precious time lost. That meant he needed to figure out how to acquire a wagon and what passed for draft animals around here. The Legranel used those great bastard bison things that seemed docile enough. He wouldn’t need to worry about the terrain too much, the prairies were about the easiest to navigate territories for which he could ask. Or, so he thought. Varda had a way of springing nasty surprises on him every time he had something figured to be easily managed.
Fingers snapped at his thigh and he came up with no better alternatives in the few minutes he was willing to dedicate to the search for alternatives. Odds were he could make it with only the pack on his back but that provided other problems, namely, would he draw attention as a lone Valin traveler crossing vast distances through Elven territory when Orlethrem and Prespang were about to play a game of hide the swords with each other.
He wasn't terribly concerned anymore about a one on one fight straight up. Experience was teaching him that, other than an ambush or one of the high tier warriors he should be able to hold his own. But. A well laid ambush would still fuck him up before he had a chance to employ the majority of his magical talents, the classic weakness of a mage.
Briefly, the fledgling adventurer considered putting on the fantastic armor he'd worn only briefly since its crafting. Glancing at his pack in which the set was dutifully hidden, he very nearly went right on ahead and equipped it. That would have solved darts launched from hiding and protected him from the majority of what some mook could throw at him. It also marked him out as being not exactly a peaceful traveling merchant, as Taipan had suggested to be his safest, most efficient cover. There was also the fact that wearing armor made you think you could take a hit. Had he been wearing the sturdy gear Uldin had crafted, he might have accepted a blow from that Svartalfin tank's hammer, under the misguided notion that he would be protected. The armor would have probably been fine afterwards. The pulped Ulric inside of it, not so much. Varda's rules were different from Earth's rules. Nothing could be taken at face value.
Not yet, he decided. There would be a time and a place to go hard, guns ablazing. That time was not here. He was hundreds of kilometers from where he needed to be and marking himself out as a target this far out was a bad idea. Ulric only had a little time before that bastard Lord of River dicks figured out his assassins were being used for fertilizer and sent new ones.
"Alright Old Man, that's enough of that." He announced to the hastily reconstructed clearing.
Priorities were now, in this order, finish preparations to travel, conclude business with Adept Autumnclaw, thank Prenya and her kin for their hospitality, and then, fuck off to cross the border without running into soldiers from either side. Ulric very deliberately did not think about Taipan, still freshly wounded, crossing a thousand kilometers of heinously dangerous wilderness to carry word to her brother of the planned treachery. Was it technically treachery if they were your enemies already?
Details, Ulric, details. Evil fuckery of colossal magnitude, even minus the implied deceit.
Once again, the now lone traveler set about completing his tasks. First came stoking the poop coals into flame, fresh bricks of prairie pie serving as the sagey fuel. Then he remade the [Stonewall] benches to give himself and the admittedly scarce fellow travelers convenient seating. Next came a hurried dough of flour and water, sprinkled with powdered swamp grass that produced a magnificently sweet paste not very unlike powdered sugar. This he put into his [Steelwood] bush pot and buried in coals to bake. A few slices of dried meat he rigorously rubbed in his hands with water to massage the hydration back into them before he skewered the strips and gave them a light char for flavor. Lastly Ulric grabbed a few stalks of the prairie celery that he'd come to enjoy since traveling with the plains folk.
Ulric was chewing mindlessly the stalks, mind blank except for the hazy niggling of a desire to be murdering the people that had become the sources of his discontent. The Lord instinct added its own bit of inspiration to these impulses. One saving grace of having traveled so far from his glade was that the kill beast urges had died down somewhat, the territory to which he was attached being so distant. Not gone, not by any stretch of the imagination. Merely quieter. Staring into the fire counting minutes until the camp bread was ready, trying not to obsess over his dear departed Shadow occupied him fully.
So it was that he did not hear the silent advance of Mage Werona behind him and was unprepared for her large clawed hand to rest upon his shoulder firmly.
"Haagh!" he cried out manfully and not without bass in his voice.
Or so he would have hoped.
"Holy monkey's! Werona. Hoo boy, you took years off me, would it kill you to make more sound before you grab me?" He deadpanned.
The Sauri Ash Mage grinned her fearfully put to use recently grin a moment before her countenance returned to calm composure. Clearly she had enjoyed spooking the calcium out of his bones.
Ulric tried to salvage his dignity, what precious little of it Varda had left to him.
"Ehem! I mean, welcome to my fire Adept Autumnclaw. I have prepared a breakfast if you would like to join me." He said with measured cordiality.
The Sauri crouched down, ignoring the clay of the clearing marring the hems of her robe as she did and refused gracefully, "No, thank you Mage Ulric. I have already eaten this morn and would not thicken my mind with food. There are, I think, matters of import that we should discuss."
He hadn't noticed before but she used her tail sort of like a kangaroo, the extinct leaping beasties of the Australopacific territory of old Earth, its heavy base acting as a third point of balance to rest easily upon.
"It would seem," began the smooth rich voice, catching his attention "that there are events in motion which dictate that you must move on with immediacy."
Now that was an understatement. Mage Werona had a bandage on her arm and side from wounds taken when he'd been attacked yesterday and had personally killed on of the assassins herself. She may or may not have used her own jaws to deliver the coup de grace. He owed her for that and for her swift care for Prenya when the Elf had arrived battered into camp. Just sort of generally he figured he owed her.
Drily Ulric confirmed this statement, "You might say that events have been dictating that I move with immediacy for over a month now."
On his hands he counted out a mere seven weeks of travel since leaving Irielhos. Seven weeks of humping gear through the late winter forests, slaying monsters, slavers, criminal masterminds, and now hired killers.
Ulric shook his head with resignation before meeting Werona's slit eyed gaze.
"I did not mean others to be caught up in my troubles. I had not thought that those troubles would even have known where I was, much less for them to find me so soon. I am sorry that you were brought harm by those who sought me." He apologized earnestly.
Werona's teeth flashed again as she observed, "I should have known you were trouble as soon as I saw those flame jewels. No one creates magic like that unless they have very big problems at which to aim it."
Her clawed finger raised, as if calling for an instructor's attention and she grew more animated.
"Ah! And another thing! You integrated yourself into several Ceraun spells, a controlled lance of Ceraun, and also a directly targeted bolt of lightning, if I am not mistaken. You also utilized an enhanced sensory spell, no other means could you have located the cloaked murder-hire. Are you sure you will not tell me who taught you those techniques? They are quite challenging theoretical projects and I would enjoy greatly to speak with the one that developed such spellforms." She requested again.
"Well, actually, " Ulric began a bit sheepishly, "Those were somethings I came up with by myself. The first two are mostly a careful separation of electric force between its two poles, with the sink attuned to an object that might be thrown, to reduce the difficulty of aiming a breakdown voltage cascade to a single position. The detection spell is a much more difficult application of a weak electric field and incredibly tedious mana perception of small fluctuations in that Ceraun field to identify objects, both organic and not."
"My teachers all say that the first two will kill anybody else that tries it and I believe you must have a Ceraunic core to do the third." He revealed to the mage, embarrassed to admit that he was unable to help her with any of the workings.
The Sauri deflated a bit, her curiosity unsatisfied. She refused to accept the offered explanation though.
"Even so! If you will not name your Aes'r teachers I understand. But I would still know the mechanics of your spellforms. This at least is in your power and I would claim that knowledge to clear the debt of having been drawn into facing down professional killers on your behalf." Adept Autumnclaw pressed.
Ulric was caught. The Beastkin woman had a point. It also wouldn't necessarily hurt to explain to her the theory of his magics, just as he had tried to explain it to Taipan and her mothers way back when. They had heard the methodology and immediately judged it as exceedingly unwise to attempt without his very unique knowledge and experience. Perhaps though Werona would find a way to take those methods and adapt them to this world's philosophies. Up to this point, Ulric had been nothing less than impressed with the structured way this mage attacked problems and her adherence to a robustly scientific approach to applying knowledge.
It only took him a moment of tossing her request around before he bowed to her demands. They were not unreasonable and he did owe her plenty for her assistance. Besides, he got to teach another physics lesson and that wasn't not fun.
Ulric indicated one of the stone benches, destroyed in the fight against the Terra wielding Dwarf Hammermaster that he had rebuilt just before starting breakfast.
"Sit on a seat, if that is more comfortable. This won't take a tremendously long time to explain but you will likely have questions that I will have to answer to make the process of directed currents and electrical fields clear enough to be useful." the once engineer told his otherworldly colleague.
Midsunsrise had come and gone before the inquisition of Adept Werona Autumnclaw ended. She had indeed had questions. Many of them. Several of them that had required calculus to answer. Ulric had scrawled Gauss's law into the dirt with a stick and wondered if this profane wisdom might, somehow, contaminate the Akashic Record of Varda with its existence. Fortunately, no blast of heavenly fury came to scrub him and his blasphemies from the planet so he guessed it was fine to talk about the nuts and bolts of Earth's physics. Probably the Watcher already knew all this in the first place, it being a cosmic entity of unfathomable age and power sort of thing. Maybe it even knew how in the hell quantum mechanics actually worked.
Werona sat back on her tail and stared at the sky. She mumbled about heat flow being analogous to charge flow, and he could faintly hear her repeating "Source to sink, close the system" and hoped her chant would not eventually bring her to bad ends.
Ulric was now ready to get on with the business of obtaining a cart and team of animals to pull it. The Legranel had shown back up and he saw for the first significant duration the husband/wife team of travelers as well as Prenya, still bandaged heavily, and her nephew.
It was with some degree of chagrin that he presented himself to Prenya and her kin to inform them of his plans. She'd been caught up in the attack as well and was none too happy about it. The Legranel, in general, were not a warlike people. They weren't nearly as hard edged as the Iriel'en. It was all enjoy the journey and take things as they come with them. The last year had seen their ruling family murdered and, now, their Moot disrupted by a hit squad from Prosper. Or maybe Zelussin, which wasn't much better.
The injured Elf frowned her disapproval for a moment before she let him off the hook.
"It is a shame that your lovely wife had to leave so quickly. I will miss her cutting wit. And her hands. And her thighs. And…other things. I will miss her, is what I am saying." Began the bandaged woman, her frown inverting as she delineated the boons of Taipan.
Joclyn indicated the hide rug upon which he sat, patting it to prompt Ulric to join them as he said without heat, "Sit Ulric, sit and speak with us. And ignore my Aunt's lamenting, she is just pouting that her favorite toy has run away."
He certainly owed them that much, rather than looming over them like a stranger. He'd rode and bled with these Herd Riders, they were practically distant cousins. Not that he had a thing for boffing cousins, eeww Ulric, gods' blood, terrible analogy. He buried the intrusive thought and did as the young rider asked, sitting cross legged on the hide rug with the Legranel.
"Thanks to you both. For your hospitality, and for your companionship on the road." Ulric began slowly, not sure how to proceed.
"You are leaving then. No doubt to find trouble by the set of your back and the haste of your partner's departure." Stated Prenya plainly.
Ulric nodded once, before confirming his intentions. He couldn't completely erase the simmering anger at the bedlam that had befallen these folk on his behalf.
"I am. Just as soon as I can find a cart and beasts to haul it. Staying longer just makes it easier for whoever sent those whackos to find me and puts more bystanders in harm's way. Too many have already been hurt to my liking and I would like to bring it up to whomever is responsible. I am sorry, beyond words, that I have caused you and your people grief by bringing my bugbears with me."
Both the Elves made a gesture as if waving gnats away from their ears.
"Pish." Stated Joclyn in time with his Aunt's delivery of spittle to the grass nearby, "All know that Prosper's elite murderers for hire travel in threes."
Prenya joined her nephew's dismissal, now certainly irritated, though not at him.
"Those monsters have gotten away with breaking the peace through their catspaws for long enough. Triads for hire for crime lords, fostering bands of ravening thugs such as those led by Vars and his twisted brother Graus, setting patrols of troops to harass our herds and foraging grounds, it never ends!" Flared the Elf, her notched ear twitching to emphasize her grievance.
"It was not you who ordered those killers to our lands, Ulric. It was not you who murdered our Lord and his young family in their beds, or set fire to the tents of their attendants and waited with bows drawn to shoot those who escaped. It was the beasts of Prosper. It is always, eventually, the beasts of Prosper." Hissed the Herdrider.
A nearby guard nodded in agreement. The eavesdropping pair of Jorn natives, Hild and her mate Tomas similarly made hand signs towards affirming their cousin's outrage.
Ulric looked around the battered enclave and saw that the feeling was general. Even Rik'e and Dais'e, two of the more nonconfrontational individuals he'd met since Reforging had adopted a distinctly martial air about them.
That made him feel a little better about the situation but it didn't change the facts. Trouble would follow him. If he didn't get out of Dodge he'd just be causing them problems down the line. He wondered if the Legranel would manage to extract the identity of the Triad's contractor. If it was the same party leading the charge against the Elven confederation that would do his reputation well, the Orlethrem lords would know that Ulric was as much an enemy of those bastards as they. If it were someone other than the jackels in the fortress city to which he currently traveled, he was basically shit out of luck for dealing with them directly.
Ah Hell, Ulric groaned internally, odds were good they'd been hired by that dickhead Morion, against whom Bald'rt Iriel had warned him. Mostly, it was a non-issue.
He had no proof and he couldn't really do anything about it if he did, it would be a detour of at least a month to travel to the hold where the corrupted Orlethrem House held treaty with the enemies of its people. There was damned near a certainty that most of the Morion Elves were completely innocent of wrong doing, their ships, river trade ports, and routes being abused by the machinations of their leaders. His showing up with a hard on for killing Morion's Lord wouldn't accomplish much. Besides. If it did pan out that the vengeful Lord put the hit out and the Iriel'en found out about it, that was going to be the grisly end of old Savris Morion. Bald'rt would eat the scumbag's heart from his rest bed for going after his daughter. Morion selling Aes'r for slaves that would eventually become fuel for Bane would have the rest of the tribes of the confederation lined up right behind Iriel to carve their own choice morsels.
Ulric pushed past that to consider these cavalier peoples who just wanted to travel with their herds and tend their prairies. Prenya over there who had been around long enough to know the drill with the drawn out cold war with Prespang. The pacifist duo who just wanted to tend wounds and keep their kin hale and healthy. The guards who looked uncomfortable with keeping eyes peeled for hired killers and intruders into their so rarely held Moot. All of them were being put into this position absent any desire from their part for the conflict. Iriel was more or less constantly in some low grade alert, given their self-assumed duty of patrolling the hazards of the Deep Wood and the borders of Orlethrem. The Legranel simply wanted to be left in peace. They would not get it until he was gone. They would not get it until the individuals holding the reins to this war got what was coming to them. They certainly would not get it if Taipan didn't make it home in time to deliver word of the encircling of the Elven Havens and all those innocent men, women, and children got slaughtered.
Recordings of his own species' horrors played silently in his mind for a moment, archives that had shown what depravity man could enact on other men. It was too much to hope that Varda was a world free from the potential for that large scale evil. But, perhaps, it wasn't too late. If Taipan managed to pass the warning, if Ulric managed to cull the genocidal madmen pushing everybody down this road, maybe none of it had to happen.
"Wishful thinking." He muttered aloud, prompting curious gazes from the nearby plainsfolk.
"Sorry. Distracted." Ulric shared the obvious, before he got himself aimed towards his real objective.
"I am thankful that you don't hold the evils of others against me, but it does not alter the reality that more may follow. I and my partner originally intended to make our way across the border before the armies began their marches and that is still my goal. Events here give me more reason to make that happen post haste. Supplies my partner ordered will be delivered soon, might I ask for some assistance in the buying of a cart and draft animals to pull it?" Ulric asked, being cognizant of the original gist of his and Taipan's cover story.
"I will help you in this." Declared Rik'e, just as Joclyn and Hild and Tomas chimed in with their own offers.
It was a little overwhelming, the support of these Legranel. He wasn't under the impression that he'd so much earned this kindness but they offered it anyway. Even a social moron like himself knew better than to turn away their offers. They took charge of the arrangments immediately and Ulric found himself under orders to keep Prenya company and organize his kit for the road while they scattered to the winds to find a suitable conveyance. Prenya spent a few minutes flirting but mostly just to pass the time, soon enough she announced that she was tired and her wounds ached and she returned to her blankets, despite the suns dancing high overhead.
Not long after, Mage Werona Autumnclaw came to make her goodbyes.
"These past few days have been more than I anticipated when I thought to travel to the Legranel Moot to witness an event rare in the experience of those not born in Orlethrem." Noted the Sauri mage drily.
"Yeah, well, it has certainly been something. Whole lotta something, yessiree." Confirmed Ulric.
The Ash Adept gave him a steady eyeballing from somewhere in the upper stratosphere before confiding with a friendly tone "You are an odd man, and you hoard secrets like a matron hoards her clutch. But it has been a pleasure to exchange knowledge with such an unorthodox school of Magic."
She began to paw through her belt pouch with some determination before coming up with the little gem of [Arcanite Diamond] he'd given her. Holding it up, the adept brought her focus to bear on it and wove some kind of spell creating a cloud of ember laden Tephras magic. Black ash roiled around the catalytic material of crystalline mana before forming fine black wires of obsidian which framed the jewel in tight hexagonal netting. The reactive mana responded by flaring once, radiating intense heat, before returning to dormancy.
Ulric found himself completely enthralled by the working. Werona must have been feeling tricksome then because she deliberately tossed the interned crystal at him and he scrambled not to drop it.
The fearsome grin of the Sauri filled his sight when he managed to wrangle the stone under control.
"What is this?" He asked, trading glances between the object and the mage.
"It is now a Tephras focus. Instead of reacting to any input, it will now respond to create a dense [Pyroclasm] for which you may guide it to an enemy or to use as a defensive tool or heat shield. I gather one with your talents will find other uses for a binding spell that isolates and amplifies a specific mana waveform, perhaps something that might apply to lightning eh?" She responded.
Now that was a hell of a parting gift. She'd created a focus, like the little beast core staves or wands he'd seen, or like the wand that Captain Firecracker had tried to use on him once upon a time. They significantly increased the magnitude of a working by resonating with the specific manaform. Better, by showing him the crafting she'd given him the method of its construction, if he could reverse engineer it.
He shook his head, it was too much.
"Werona, this is too much. You should should take it, I already offered the gem to your keeping. To say nothing of the focus weaving."
She waved him off with a clawed hand.
"It will only cause me problems later. For one thing, all too soon it will expend itself and become a Deathstone jewel which I have no intention of being near. For another, I will now be heading to my post as a faculty member of Cinderspire Island's Magus College. The questions and attention that thing would draw are not something I wish to have upon me until I know my position is secure and my inevitable rivals put into their places." Explained the Mage.
The Sauri gestured away to the South, "If, at some point, your journey takes you away from the beast ridden wilderness and strife of Aesvartheim I would welcome a visit from a traveling scholar."
Suddenly her expression turned reticent and she looked around, as if her distant colleagues might overhear.
"Please," Mage Autumnclaw whispered, bending low over him, "If you should visit, do not speak of my, erm, loss of decorum regarding the assassin. Such things are, umm, frowned upon in the halls of academy."
Ulric couldn't help but laugh at that reminder. The Beastkin mage had nothing to fear from him. If for no better reason than he'd best not be throwing stones from his glass balcony with regards to losing your shit and going all rage beast.
"I would never intentionally shame you, Mage Autumnclaw." Ulric told her with gravity, once his chuckles had subsided, "Consider me in your debt, and, if I can ever do anything for you just send word. I will be traveling but the Iriel'en should have the means to get message through to me, make "Brighteyes Iriel" the recipient of the message and I think things will work out."
Mage Autumnclaw blinked once at that but stood straight, her calm restored.
"Very well. The Iriel'en eh? Well, I have enough mysteries to look into without prying into why a cryptic Valin spellsword roams around with a Brownie Huntress wife. I will be away now, may the Twins warm the sands beneath your feet and the Moons guard your sleep." Farewelled the Sauri Adept.
"Yeah, it's been swell. Fortune favor you Ms. Autumnclaw." Ulric bid.
At that, Adept Werona turned tail, literally, and made her way from the clearing. An odd gal was the mage, but definitely his people. She'd taught him much, probably more than she knew. He rolled the focus around in his hands for a minute before pocketing it in his belt pouch. If he started looking into it now he'd do nothing else for days. Time he couldn't afford, he had places to be and all that.
With that, he'd checked two items off his list for the day.
It didn't take long to get his pack arranged. Taipan had absconded with the shelter they'd shared and he would need another, a matter of a half hour spent steadily searching through the Moot's many shops and stalls, a single Legranel guardsman in tow to make sure more ruckus didn't start. Damn. At this rate the entire Elf Confederacy would have standing orders to see him watched before anything got set on fire while he was around.
He returned in time to see the first of the ordered goods roll in. Taipan had executed one last practical joke, absent his knowledge. In addition to the various traveling supplies she had, somehow, obtained a large array of one of Iriel's exclusive trade goods: [Azure Cedar]. The characteristic blue toned tree was only harvested by the Iriel'en grove tenders and only traded for as part of contracts with Iriel'en carpenters. Where the roofs of the Celestin's structures hadn't been slate they had been [Azure Cedar] shingles, especially in the richer parts of Trachn'ir, a display of wealth. Ulric, in now being in possession of a modest shipment of milled lumber, bark shingles, clay pots of the special pitch, and woven inner bark rope. Any wagon loaded thusly would have had to have essentially been stolen from its native Deep Woods producers, which would make Ulric essentially look like a smuggler to any who saw what he transported. Additionally, [Azure Cedar] was one of the first topics that the dusty old Arch Mage Gother Cenur'it had instructed Ulric in his classes taken with Elven children, which he'd suffered through to Taipan and her kin's great amusement. Hilarious.
Even more hilarious, Ulric actually knew the value and uses for each of these items and could use them as trade goods, just like their planned cover as traveling merchants entailed. His Shadow must have set this up weeks ago to make the border crossing and subsequent inspections by natives in Prespang better hide the true nature of their identity. He couldn't help a bit of bittersweet recollection about the departed Elf now, with the familiar scent of her homeland's trees tickling his nostrils.
"Fuck, okay, get it together Einar, you're not a girl mooning over her first breakup." He scolded, after a minute of standing around being sad.
Thereafter, he got his head in the game, and, when the Legranel crew showed up not long later with a wagon and a pair of enormous ox-things which they claimed were "docile" and "well-broken" so that even a novice Herd Rider could manage them, he set to loading the wagon. That too was a task full of memory, for it was the Elf Hunter Serlic, who he had named Santa in his mind that had taught him how to efficiently pack cargo into a travel sled. Serlic had perished in the canopy of the [Godtrees] back on the Plateau, killed by an insidious owl monster. His killer, a Greater beast that flew without sound under cloak of invisibility with razored wings still stalked those woods. Serlic was the very first Elf who had died on account of Ulric's existence in this world. He was determined to not let that have been in vain.
With a few hours work, assisted by the Legranel, all things were packed, stowed, lashed into place, and generally secured. The beasts of burden chewed grain from a feed sack tied to their bridles with no indication that they would ever do anything else, which was comforting. Any animal so calmly lazy in disposition should be easy to handle, as the plains Elves promised.
Ulric decided to cook for his hosts as a show of appreciation and he pulled out all the stops. Tossed salads with the nearest approximation of vinaigrette that he could whip together, preceded maybe the best Beef Wellington that he'd ever produced, probably thanks to the incredibly succulent tenderloin provided, courtesy of Joclyn. The travelers ate heartily, joined by the three remaining attendant guards and Ulric made no enemies that day by his actions. A real win, the way things had been going. When the meal was eaten, not in silence as that was not the way of the Legranel, a cask of mead was broken out and that corner of the Moot joined in the festive atmosphere that had been adopted generally elsewhere amongst the plainsfolk. Dour might have been the cause of the gathering but the nomadic peoples were dead set on throwing a week long heller. Prenya joined in and Ulric got to learn that a dice game similar to Kings was played, for mostly the same purpose as it had been on Earth: to encourage drunk people to become profoundly inebriated whilst encouraging them to do ever more ridiculous things they would live to regret later.
When, late into the night, the party faded out, its participants dwindling as the couples drifted away to do couple things, Ulric laid in his bedroll under the stars. Prenya had made herself *cough* available, but he found he lacked the starch for it tonight. The Elf understood, it was mostly Taipan that had been the catalyst for their tryst and, even though the Legranel woman was a banger at night things, he wasn't able to push past the melancholy that lovemaking, or, in this case, a rousing see ya later fuck, would entail. He did accept a cuddle from the notch eared woman though, both of them appreciated the shared warmth in the cool spring's witching hour.
Dawn broke and Ulric pulled free of sleep, confused, this time, by the warm presence next to him. Prenya stirred but didn't wake when he carefully extracted himself from the blankets, and he was left to do his morning exercises in peaceful silence. Still air and perfectly clear skies promised good traveling weather. It was an auspicious beginning to his continuance of the quest. Breakfast was rather subdued, even the Plains Elves could be solemn for a departure, it seemed. After some guidance on the proper calls and gestures with the reins to direct the pair of [Dire Ox] wagon pullers, Ulric departed the Moot.
Vast plains stretched out in front of him, new grass waving gently as the odd breeze stirred it before stilling. The Legranel prairie seemed endless and the human, now on his own for the first time in forever, turned his attention to the path forwards. Leather cracked when he snapped the reins and the wagon creaked, its planks still green as it was drawn forwards by the plodding beasts hauling it. As the wagon rattled over tracks established by generations of Legranel Herd Riders Ulric was left to think and think he did. Had he encountered any other travelers along this particular trail they would have thought, by the expression written, incognizant, on his face, that the apparent Valin merchant planned murder.
They would have been right.
