*************Outskirts of Irielhos, Lower City, Two Months and Eight Days Gone***************
Taipan's breaths came ragged as she leaned against the lift. A Hunter she'd flagged down was already carrying word to her the acting Crown of Orlethrem, her twenty-nine-year-old brother, Lumyt'seit. Youngest of Bald'rt Iriel's children he may have been, he had been groomed to take command of the Deep Wood when it was his sire's time to step back from rule. Lumyt'seit was also the only of his sire's offspring to be suspected of inheriting his might. For all of that, Taipan's brother was still a child. No one would have thought that time would come so soon or that it would arise in such a trying season.
None but Taipan, that is.
She had long harbored suspicions that the Beasts of Prosper would not be content to carry out their petty evils and would act towards a greater conspiracy one day. It had come quicker than she thought, but she was validated in her vendetta against the Otherkin. Forget that most of Prespang were unaware of the monstrous acts being carried out, they were still complicit. They gave their tithes to the cause of fattening the spiders on their Golden Thrones, bent the knee to her laws, and gave their sons and daughters to the army that she had spent an entire spring season now driving from her ancestral home.
All the guilty would pay for what they wrought against Iriel and Orlethrem. But not so many more by her hand, just now. For now, she was utterly spent, legs barely supporting her, hurts not given chance to heal aching. A fever was taking hold, vanishingly rare illness telling her more clearly than a healer's words how badly her body had been taxed.
As her shaking limbs quivered from exhaustion, muscles spent, not even the battle song in her veins could push her farther. But farther she did not have to go, she'd done it. Eight days. That was how long it had taken her to cross most of Orlethrem. Traveling nine hours of every ten, eating, sometimes sleeping, and all else during that one remaining, she had made four leagues an hour on average for two hundred hours. It was a feat of endurance that she had never heard tell of before. Not her father nor his sire had ever done the like. Taipan was a Paragon Aesir-Iriel'en, the peak of her kind.
She would have smiled had she had the strength to feel anything but fatigue to her bones and the ache of barely closed wounds, some freshly received from roving predators that had attempted ambush on the way.
Several of her kin descended the lift, the great Heartwood platform lowering to ground level. These wore the robes of Sano mages, healers. She couldn't resist, and didn't bother trying, when they carted her off to a litter and packed her into a bed, warm flows of mana harmonized to the beat of life and health reaching deep into her to knit flesh and wash away accumulated damage. The relief was instant and she slept.
Time passed indeterminate, she woke later to a pair of Duties picking the, until recently, unconscious former princess up, and moving her like a sack of precious alchemical reagents to be put to a different room. This one held a familiar face. The former daughter of their liege, no longer, as she had declared herself dead, saw a weary Sano mage face showing the strain of recent efforts working over a badly injured hunter. One of the most gifted healers of Iriel, one Doctor Yes'ri, hung a bag of clear fluid from a stand, salt water with a large amount of dissolved sugar, connected to sterile, hollow tubes through which a needle in a vein would introduce the solution directly into the patient's blood.
The simple but revolutionary invention of the Twice Born Valin who had escorted home their Prince was a godsend for stabilizing those too injured to take sustenance on their own or who could not due to being unconscious. Already there was progress concerning the use of Sano magic to prepare transfusions of blood and thus buy time for the Healers to close wounds that would otherwise kill. Yes'ri marveled at what miracles seemed to pour forth from the bizarre mix of otherworldly knowledge and barely subdued violence that called itself [Lord of the Ancient Glade].
Well, the Sano mage philosophized, even forest fires brought new growth. He was surprised to see the Shadow of that same man brought before him. The last anyone knew, they were most of the continent away. He raised an eyebrow at the ragged state of the former first among princesses. She was old enough to know better.
"Iriel welcomes you home, Shadow of our liege's ally. I am tired, but I think I may have strength enough to put you to rights...Those cuts on your face are inflamed, and made by a slightly curved longsword, if I am not mistaken. Feverish. Bruising to indicate a fight or three. Well, it matters not, stay still." Yes'ri told her without presumption.
Crisp and sharp of mannerisms and wit was the healer, Taipan knew not to take offense at the brusque greeting. He would have said the same to Vedyr, had she been in the same position.
Taipan remained still while the doctor tended wounds and repaired what the other healers had not had the skill to fix. Lying there gave her time to think, for the first time in what felt like weeks. It had been a savage grind of a run. Taipan would never tell the man himself, it would only cause him to make her life difficult in their habitual exchanges of wit and insult, but it was partly thanks to the bizarre mate she'd tied herself to that she'd been able to cross the vast distance so quickly.
After her shaming and binding, she had rededicated herself to rise to her potential, to meet her mother's demanding expectations, and she wasn't dishonest enough to say that receiving Vedyr's "instruction" had not been humbling, the Heartwood Spear was not gentle, even to her only daughter. In all honesty, it had been a brutal winter for the young woman. Being a pariah left much time for introspection. The rest of her time was filled more satisfactorily. Time spent training fundamentals of the Dance amongst the Royal Guard while they prepared for war. Time spent teaching her mate, at once familiar, even intimate with warfare's strategies, but in the next moment like a fledgling hunter just starting their path, all she could of unarmed and dagger fighting, drilling anew the angles for opening arteries, passing bones to pierce organs, and cutting the tendons that deadened limbs. Time spent fighting spars against the best warriors the Iriel'en could offer, as well as her partner, the unpredictability of the man, his commitment to unimaginably poor attacks lacking regard for the myriad gaps he left in his defenses, kept her on her toes. Time spent pushing to stay ahead of the man's monstrous physicality in their conditioning had elevated her to peak fitness. Taipan was at her zenith.
Or would be, when she recovered from the erosion of her body from pushing it to its absolute limits and beyond. A pinch found no softness upon her belly or thigh, she'd shed two stones of weight on the long run from the Legranel Moot to Iriel. Worth it. She would even likely have scars to tell of her vanquishing of the Leor assassin! Yes'ri prodded and frowned over the wounds that crossed her face and generally seemed to take offense to the refusal of the wounds to perfectly seal absent proof that they were there. Taipan didn't mind in the slightest. These marks were a testament to the caliber of her enemies, and a reminder when she looked upon her reflection in still waters that a hunter always rode the knife's edge.
The effort taxed her healer and he departed with the same words of every doctor for their patient: it will itch, don't scratch, drink water, sleep well, eat a little, at first, then a lot later.
Now that Taipan had found some measure of rest and treatment to restore her, she worried for her people. For her home.
Her Honor, the one who held her Oath bond as a Shadow, and also the man who she had claimed for husband, had spoken true: Only Taipan could bring word in time. And she had. Flitting like the shadow whose powers her core wielded, Taipan had cut through territories of slavering monsters, two hordes of insectoid creatures usually circumvented, and outpaced three Greater Beasts in her flight. She'd sent arrows with warnings scrawled hurriedly tied to them into every village she'd come across. The chiefs of those places would not move on the words of a random Hunter's arrow alone but they would be making ready when her brother called the Orlethrem to gather its strength to repel the forces attacking their Havens.
It might not be enough. The fear that had spurred her, that had lent desperate speed to her legs, was always that it would not be enough. Always the Aes'r had been able to hide the heart of their people away in the refuges, safe. It allowed the Orlethrem to evacuate their fixed settlements and disappear into the terrain, to become as the wind amongst the leaves. Then the Hunters and Warriors would turn the lands through which their enemies marched into a thirsty field, ready to quench itself with their blood. Drip by drip, arrow by arrow.
That was no longer possible. The same artifact that had pierced the ancient veils against scrying, the very one that had been destroyed negating Irielhos' wards of protection, had also revealed that most dear secret of the Elves. The Havens were Heartwood trees. Specifically, they were the offspring of Irielhos itself, the guardian deity of Iriel. In a time so long ago it had passed beyond even the memory of the Deep Wood Elves, an existential threat had come to the Aes'r. The Heartwood had answered, offering shelter to the children of the forest. The cores of seven great trunks had hollowed themselves and their roots had bored towards one another, creating an interlacing roadway beneath the surface of the forest. It was inside these ancient offspring of Irielhos that the Elves had established their Havens. Supplied in such a way as to be able to support the entire population of Orlethrem for a decade, if necessary, the natural mana density of Heartwood made it impossible to scry. Until the Ancient's artifact saw through the millennia-long subterfuge.
Few were privy to the knowledge of where these ultimately secret refuges were to be found, even amongst the Orlethrem. Secrecy was not their only defense. The Havens were not unmanned, always there were elite Warriors attached to guard them, under the guise of scouting parties training in war games. But that would not be enough to deter an army. Mighty though the Heartwood trunks were, they would not long repel a coordinated army's effort to bring them down. When they fell it would spell the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new time of trial for the people of the Deep Wood. Now the craftsmen, farmers, gatherers, grove tenders, young children, and elderly masters were at risk. If those were lost it would cripple the very cultures of the Iriel'en, losing all the most experienced loremasters and artisans along with most of the families. Taipan refused to accept that as a possibility. She would not allow it.
Nor would House Iriel. Heir Lumyt'seit was a talent of rare caliber. He saw clearly for his age and had a way of finding the wisest voice to guide him in most things. If there was a way to stop the attack before it began he and they would find it. If not, then the beasts of Prosper would find out what it meant to face Iriel in total war.
Taipan's thoughts turned to her father then. Bald'rt, the Blood Moon, was recovering from nearly being consumed by Bane poison. His core was depleted and his flesh weakened. So too were his wives, they had channeled a considerable portion of their vitality through a ritual with the core of Irielhos itself to rejuvenate Bald'rt through the destruction inflicted by the Bane. It worked, stabilizing the dying King. Her Honor, worms in the head though he was, had otherworldly knowledge. Often useless or so esoteric as to seem it, he had exhumed a piece of priceless alchemical wisdom and helped Mother Shor to create a cure for the Bane that could be administered without killing the victim. Crippled though he was, Taipan knew her father would not sit idle when danger came to his kin. Nor would Vedyr, Shor, and Bathe. They would go to war and all the Aes'r with them. To the last. And so would she.
***********************Lowest Tier of Bartala, Innroom, Present****************************
Ulric permitted himself ten minutes of wallowing in uncertainty before he sat up and got his ass in gear. He worked himself out, centering his mind in the routines of the Dance and physical exertion. Maintaining the exacting positions of his body, precision of motion and balance, and breathing with his core, circulating the lightning essence through his mana network was a task of absolute concentration. It left him more at peace than when he'd begun and nicely loose. He was ready to set to solving his problems.
"First: Get the lay of the land, the routes through the city, both open and more circumspect." Ulric told himself aloud.
Frowning as he turned his attention to the next issue his tone shifted towards pessimism, "Second: Book passage by ship to Prosper or intermediate port in that direction without revealing your intention to conduct fantastic violence upon the Merchant Lords there."
His attitude lightened when he came to his last dilemma, "Third: Use the shit loads of money made by selling 'contraband' [Azure Cedar] in lands that have no access to it currently to make trouble or secure my House's future, or both."
He didn't need the cash. Between the astronomical bounty for killing a nascent [Mind Worm] infestation before it could begin and Taipan's ludicrous dowry, Iriel'en Princesses didn't go for cheap, Ulric was loaded.
It was an oddly unimportant thing too, because he'd found very little need for currency since his waking beneath the colossal arbors on the [Plateau of Ancients]. First living a life of bare necessity, surviving along the lines of a hunter-gatherer alone in a foreign environment and later a guest amongst the Elves, who took their hospitality seriously. Especially towards a man who had rescued their King's heir from what turned out to be agents provocateur, courtesy of Prosper. Along the way between Irielhos and here, much of the journey had been conducted on foot, with not much more than he could carry on his back. The sled first, and later wagon were mostly suggestions from Taipan, to better carry off the disguise by which they'd hoped to penetrate Prespang's territory undiscovered.
So, while he did not manifestly need to do anything with the remaining goods in his wagon, he couldn't deny a niggling perceived obligation towards his wife to turn an even greater profit on her practical joke. It would be amusing in its own right for him to present her a gift of a small fortune. Maybe they could exchange the coin for gold so he could melt it down and gild the skulls he planned to collect from their owners. Ulric was a modern man, once, but here, he was [Lord of the Ancient Glade] and those bastards had it coming.
"Settle down Einar, you're getting all riled up and murdery." He warned himself.
A couple of deep breaths put him back in order. One of the emergent realities of his new life in Varda was a growing aspect of…intensity…to his personality. Where once he would have tended towards a passive observance of things he was now more inclined to put himself forward. To engage. The additional aggression found expression in his magic, in its concentrated destructive tendencies. It underpinned his intuition for combat, to advance and overwhelm, neutralize and move. Dynamic. That was how he would best characterize his evolving personality. Avoiding letting that newfound layer of his emotions put him into unnecessary conflict would be the challenge. You can't kill all your problems, Ulric, he reminded himself. The reverse side of that coin was that there were indeed some few problems you could kill. And would, he had learned of himself. This was in addition to the Lord Instinct, not because of it. That double dipping was what he had to be careful about.
"Alright! Let's get out there and start having a look-see." Ulric told his room, replacing Xef'tocht in its position over his shoulder, a hand thoughtlessly checking its readiness to be deployed from its sheath at a moment's notice.
He hefted his pack and exited the room, locking the door behind him. The pronounced "click" of the mechanism sliding home was reassuring. Into his belt pouch went the key.
Long steady strides took him to the end of the hall and he turned to access the stairs and nearly upended a Wolven Beastkin, bouncing the startled individual back when their chests collided.
A growling voice and curse filled the space between them, even as Ulric started apologizing, habits of forty years of socialization coming to the fore.
"Ah! My apologies Mr…er…Sir." He said in a mildly embarrassed rush.
"Blood and Bone, you clumsy welp! You almost knocked me down the stairs!" Accused what Ulric now noticed was a male Wolven Beastkin of elder years.
He was of advanced age, his once jet-black fur silvering, his eyes squinting suggesting a need for corrective vision, and the tuft of fur beneath his chin had grown in a sort of long, narrow beard. The Lupid had strung beads into the tuft, making some sort of braid out of it.
The Beastkin was about as tall as Ulric, as became evident when, still muttering complaints to himself in a half-growling basso he stood to full height, back rigid with offense.
Ulric reminded the Beastkin that he had run into himself every bit as much as the other. A reproving glare accompanied that observation but the bitching came to a close.
"Hrmmph! Well, perhaps that is so. You should still be careful pup, strolling around like that, you might run over some unsuspecting women and children." Returned the aged Wolfkin, but his lips drew back in a slight smile as he said it.
Okay, Ulric could relax, this was just the normal way older folk complained about young people. Nothing out of the ordinary. You know, other than the shaggy fur and potential for dog breath.
"I do apologize Elder." Ulric offered again, still being conciliatory, "My attention is not on my feet today. I will be more careful."
"Varrock." Coughed the older man.
"Gesundheit." Ulric replied instantly.
The canine features drew up in confusion. They relaxed as the Beastkin offered a clawed hand in a handshake.
"My name, welp, it is Varrock. And your own?" He restated, as Ulric traded grips with him.
Oh. Oops.
"I am Einar, Old Man Varrock. Well met." Ulric said, with some humor in his tone as he gave a single firm shake and reclaimed his hand.
"And you, Youth Einar. Good day then, and try not to stomp down any innocents like grapes." Wished the old Beastkin, with a wry humor in his rough voice.
"I will endeavor. And a good day to you as well. May you make it to your rooms untrod by clumsy welps." Ulric declared, with similar dryness.
They took opposite sides of the hall and continued on past one another, both with a respectful nod as they did.
It was an interaction so very…natural. That was, in many ways, not far from a mirror of how the old folk in his homeland would have interacted with a younger person in similar circumstances. He smiled at the familiarity. The old Beastkin gave the impression of being a proper fire-breather.
The last time he'd interacted at length with a lupine Beastkin he'd been fighting for his life. And the same for the time before that. Hmm. He'd not had so great a track record with the Wolfkin, now that he thought on it. Good to know that it wasn't some kind of essential incompatibility.
The Twins rode high, at or very near the apex of their dance across the sky. Sunscrest. That meant he had some six rounds of the binary stars dance to explore and get a feel for the organization of this fairyland metropolis. Nothing for it but to start walking and keep his head on a swivel. Times like this, having his Shadow around to keep an eyeball peeled on his six o'clock would have been comforting.
*************Outskirts of Irielhos, Lower City, Two Months and Eight Days Gone***************
Taipan's breaths came ragged as she leaned against the lift. A Hunter she'd flagged down was already carrying word to her the acting Crown of Orlethrem, her twenty-nine-year-old brother, Lumyt'seit. Youngest of Bald'rt Iriel's children he may have been, he had been groomed to take command of the Deep Wood when it was his sire's time to step back from rule. Lumyt'seit was also the only of his sire's offspring to be suspected of inheriting his might. For all of that, Taipan's brother was still a child. No one would have thought that time would come so soon or that it would arise in such a trying season.
None but Taipan, that is.
She had long harbored suspicions that the Beasts of Prosper would not be content to carry out their petty evils and would act towards a greater conspiracy one day. It had come quicker than she thought, but she was validated in her vendetta against the Otherkin. Forget that most of Prespang were unaware of the monstrous acts being carried out, they were still complicit. They gave their tithes to the cause of fattening the spiders on their Golden Thrones, bent the knee to her laws, and gave their sons and daughters to the army that she had spent an entire spring season now driving from her ancestral home.
All the guilty would pay for what they wrought against Iriel and Orlethrem. But not so many more by her hand, just now. For now, she was utterly spent, legs barely supporting her, hurts not given chance to heal aching. A fever was taking hold, vanishingly rare illness telling her more clearly than a healer's words how badly her body had been taxed.
As her shaking limbs quivered from exhaustion, muscles spent, not even the battle song in her veins could push her farther. But farther she did not have to go, she'd done it. Eight days. That was how long it had taken her to cross most of Orlethrem. Traveling nine hours of every ten, eating, sometimes sleeping, and all else during that one remaining, she had made four leagues an hour on average for two hundred hours. It was a feat of endurance that she had never heard tell of before. Not her father nor his sire had ever done the like. Taipan was a Paragon Aesir-Iriel'en, the peak of her kind.
She would have smiled had she had the strength to feel anything but fatigue to her bones and the ache of barely closed wounds, some freshly received from roving predators that had attempted ambush on the way.
Several of her kin descended the lift, the great Heartwood platform lowering to ground level. These wore the robes of Sano mages, healers. She couldn't resist, and didn't bother trying, when they carted her off to a litter and packed her into a bed, warm flows of mana harmonized to the beat of life and health reaching deep into her to knit flesh and wash away accumulated damage. The relief was instant and she slept.
Time passed indeterminate, she woke later to a pair of Duties picking the, until recently, unconscious former princess up, and moving her like a sack of precious alchemical reagents to be put to a different room. This one held a familiar face. The former daughter of their liege, no longer, as she had declared herself dead, saw a weary Sano mage face showing the strain of recent efforts working over a badly injured hunter. One of the most gifted healers of Iriel, one Doctor Yes'ri, hung a bag of clear fluid from a stand, salt water with a large amount of dissolved sugar, connected to sterile, hollow tubes through which a needle in a vein would introduce the solution directly into the patient's blood.
The simple but revolutionary invention of the Twice Born Valin who had escorted home their Prince was a godsend for stabilizing those too injured to take sustenance on their own or who could not due to being unconscious. Already there was progress concerning the use of Sano magic to prepare transfusions of blood and thus buy time for the Healers to close wounds that would otherwise kill. Yes'ri marveled at what miracles seemed to pour forth from the bizarre mix of otherworldly knowledge and barely subdued violence that called itself [Lord of the Ancient Glade].
Well, the Sano mage philosophized, even forest fires brought new growth. He was surprised to see the Shadow of that same man brought before him. The last anyone knew, they were most of the continent away. He raised an eyebrow at the ragged state of the former first among princesses. She was old enough to know better.
"Iriel welcomes you home, Shadow of our liege's ally. I am tired, but I think I may have strength enough to put you to rights...Those cuts on your face are inflamed, and made by a slightly curved longsword, if I am not mistaken. Feverish. Bruising to indicate a fight or three. Well, it matters not, stay still." Yes'ri told her without presumption.
Crisp and sharp of mannerisms and wit was the healer, Taipan knew not to take offense at the brusque greeting. He would have said the same to Vedyr, had she been in the same position.
Taipan remained still while the doctor tended wounds and repaired what the other healers had not had the skill to fix. Lying there gave her time to think, for the first time in what felt like weeks. It had been a savage grind of a run. Taipan would never tell the man himself, it would only cause him to make her life difficult in their habitual exchanges of wit and insult, but it was partly thanks to the bizarre mate she'd tied herself to that she'd been able to cross the vast distance so quickly.
After her shaming and binding, she had rededicated herself to rise to her potential, to meet her mother's demanding expectations, and she wasn't dishonest enough to say that receiving Vedyr's "instruction" had not been humbling, the Heartwood Spear was not gentle, even to her only daughter. In all honesty, it had been a brutal winter for the young woman. Being a pariah left much time for introspection. The rest of her time was filled more satisfactorily. Time spent training fundamentals of the Dance amongst the Royal Guard while they prepared for war. Time spent teaching her mate, at once familiar, even intimate with warfare's strategies, but in the next moment like a fledgling hunter just starting their path, all she could of unarmed and dagger fighting, drilling anew the angles for opening arteries, passing bones to pierce organs, and cutting the tendons that deadened limbs. Time spent fighting spars against the best warriors the Iriel'en could offer, as well as her partner, the unpredictability of the man, his commitment to unimaginably poor attacks lacking regard for the myriad gaps he left in his defenses, kept her on her toes. Time spent pushing to stay ahead of the man's monstrous physicality in their conditioning had elevated her to peak fitness. Taipan was at her zenith.
Or would be, when she recovered from the erosion of her body from pushing it to its absolute limits and beyond. A pinch found no softness upon her belly or thigh, she'd shed two stones of weight on the long run from the Legranel Moot to Iriel. Worth it. She would even likely have scars to tell of her vanquishing of the Leor assassin! Yes'ri prodded and frowned over the wounds that crossed her face and generally seemed to take offense to the refusal of the wounds to perfectly seal absent proof that they were there. Taipan didn't mind in the slightest. These marks were a testament to the caliber of her enemies, and a reminder when she looked upon her reflection in still waters that a hunter always rode the knife's edge.
The effort taxed her healer and he departed with the same words of every doctor for their patient: it will itch, don't scratch, drink water, sleep well, eat a little, at first, then a lot later.
Now that Taipan had found some measure of rest and treatment to restore her, she worried for her people. For her home.
Her Honor, the one who held her Oath bond as a Shadow, and also the man who she had claimed for husband, had spoken true: Only Taipan could bring word in time. And she had. Flitting like the shadow whose powers her core wielded, Taipan had cut through territories of slavering monsters, two hordes of insectoid creatures usually circumvented, and outpaced three Greater Beasts in her flight. She'd sent arrows with warnings scrawled hurriedly tied to them into every village she'd come across. The chiefs of those places would not move on the words of a random Hunter's arrow alone but they would be making ready when her brother called the Orlethrem to gather its strength to repel the forces attacking their Havens.
It might not be enough. The fear that had spurred her, that had lent desperate speed to her legs, was always that it would not be enough. Always the Aes'r had been able to hide the heart of their people away in the refuges, safe. It allowed the Orlethrem to evacuate their fixed settlements and disappear into the terrain, to become as the wind amongst the leaves. Then the Hunters and Warriors would turn the lands through which their enemies marched into a thirsty field, ready to quench itself with their blood. Drip by drip, arrow by arrow.
That was no longer possible. The same artifact that had pierced the ancient veils against scrying, the very one that had been destroyed negating Irielhos' wards of protection, had also revealed that most dear secret of the Elves. The Havens were Heartwood trees. Specifically, they were the offspring of Irielhos itself, the guardian deity of Iriel. In a time so long ago it had passed beyond even the memory of the Deep Wood Elves, an existential threat had come to the Aes'r. The Heartwood had answered, offering shelter to the children of the forest. The cores of seven great trunks had hollowed themselves and their roots had bored towards one another, creating an interlacing roadway beneath the surface of the forest. It was inside these ancient offspring of Irielhos that the Elves had established their Havens. Supplied in such a way as to be able to support the entire population of Orlethrem for a decade, if necessary, the natural mana density of Heartwood made it impossible to scry. Until the Ancient's artifact saw through the millennia-long subterfuge.
Few were privy to the knowledge of where these ultimately secret refuges were to be found, even amongst the Orlethrem. Secrecy was not their only defense. The Havens were not unmanned, always there were elite Warriors attached to guard them, under the guise of scouting parties training in war games. But that would not be enough to deter an army. Mighty though the Heartwood trunks were, they would not long repel a coordinated army's effort to bring them down. When they fell it would spell the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new time of trial for the people of the Deep Wood. Now the craftsmen, farmers, gatherers, grove tenders, young children, and elderly masters were at risk. If those were lost it would cripple the very cultures of the Iriel'en, losing all the most experienced loremasters and artisans along with most of the families. Taipan refused to accept that as a possibility. She would not allow it.
Nor would House Iriel. Heir Lumyt'seit was a talent of rare caliber. He saw clearly for his age and had a way of finding the wisest voice to guide him in most things. If there was a way to stop the attack before it began he and they would find it. If not, then the beasts of Prosper would find out what it meant to face Iriel in total war.
Taipan's thoughts turned to her father then. Bald'rt, the Blood Moon, was recovering from nearly being consumed by Bane poison. His core was depleted and his flesh weakened. So too were his wives, they had channeled a considerable portion of their vitality through a ritual with the core of Irielhos itself to rejuvenate Bald'rt through the destruction inflicted by the Bane. It worked, stabilizing the dying King. Her Honor, worms in the head though he was, had otherworldly knowledge. Often useless or so esoteric as to seem it, he had exhumed a piece of priceless alchemical wisdom and helped Mother Shor to create a cure for the Bane that could be administered without killing the victim. Crippled though he was, Taipan knew her father would not sit idle when danger came to his kin. Nor would Vedyr, Shor, and Bathe. They would go to war and all the Aes'r with them. To the last. And so would she.
***********************Lowest Tier of Bartala, Innroom, Present****************************
Ulric permitted himself ten minutes of wallowing in uncertainty before he sat up and got his ass in gear. He worked himself out, centering his mind in the routines of the Dance and physical exertion. Maintaining the exacting positions of his body, precision of motion and balance, and breathing with his core, circulating the lightning essence through his mana network was a task of absolute concentration. It left him more at peace than when he'd begun and nicely loose. He was ready to set to solving his problems.
"First: Get the lay of the land, the routes through the city, both open and more circumspect." Ulric told himself aloud.
Frowning as he turned his attention to the next issue his tone shifted towards pessimism, "Second: Book passage by ship to Prosper or intermediate port in that direction without revealing your intention to conduct fantastic violence upon the Merchant Lords there."
His attitude lightened when he came to his last dilemma, "Third: Use the shit loads of money made by selling 'contraband' [Azure Cedar] in lands that have no access to it currently to make trouble or secure my House's future, or both."
He didn't need the cash. Between the astronomical bounty for killing a nascent [Mind Worm] infestation before it could begin and Taipan's ludicrous dowry, Iriel'en Princesses didn't go for cheap, Ulric was loaded.
It was an oddly unimportant thing too, because he'd found very little need for currency since his waking beneath the colossal arbors on the [Plateau of Ancients]. First living a life of bare necessity, surviving along the lines of a hunter-gatherer alone in a foreign environment and later a guest amongst the Elves, who took their hospitality seriously. Especially towards a man who had rescued their King's heir from what turned out to be agents provocateur, courtesy of Prosper. Along the way between Irielhos and here, much of the journey had been conducted on foot, with not much more than he could carry on his back. The sled first, and later wagon were mostly suggestions from Taipan, to better carry off the disguise by which they'd hoped to penetrate Prespang's territory undiscovered.
So, while he did not manifestly need to do anything with the remaining goods in his wagon, he couldn't deny a niggling perceived obligation towards his wife to turn an even greater profit on her practical joke. It would be amusing in its own right for him to present her a gift of a small fortune. Maybe they could exchange the coin for gold so he could melt it down and gild the skulls he planned to collect from their owners. Ulric was a modern man, once, but here, he was [Lord of the Ancient Glade] and those bastards had it coming.
"Settle down Einar, you're getting all riled up and murdery." He warned himself.
A couple of deep breaths put him back in order. One of the emergent realities of his new life in Varda was a growing aspect of…intensity…to his personality. Where once he would have tended towards a passive observance of things he was now more inclined to put himself forward. To engage. The additional aggression found expression in his magic, in its concentrated destructive tendencies. It underpinned his intuition for combat, to advance and overwhelm, neutralize and move. Dynamic. That was how he would best characterize his evolving personality. Avoiding letting that newfound layer of his emotions put him into unnecessary conflict would be the challenge. You can't kill all your problems, Ulric, he reminded himself. The reverse side of that coin was that there were indeed some few problems you could kill. And would, he had learned of himself. This was in addition to the Lord Instinct, not because of it. That double dipping was what he had to be careful about.
"Alright! Let's get out there and start having a look-see." Ulric told his room, replacing Xef'tocht in its position over his shoulder, a hand thoughtlessly checking its readiness to be deployed from its sheath at a moment's notice.
He hefted his pack and exited the room, locking the door behind him. The pronounced "click" of the mechanism sliding home was reassuring. Into his belt pouch went the key.
Long steady strides took him to the end of the hall and he turned to access the stairs and nearly upended a Wolven Beastkin, bouncing the startled individual back when their chests collided.
A growling voice and curse filled the space between them, even as Ulric started apologizing, habits of forty years of socialization coming to the fore.
"Ah! My apologies Mr…er…Sir." He said in a mildly embarrassed rush.
"Blood and Bone, you clumsy welp! You almost knocked me down the stairs!" Accused what Ulric now noticed was a male Wolven Beastkin of elder years.
He was of advanced age, his once jet-black fur silvering, his eyes squinting suggesting a need for corrective vision, and the tuft of fur beneath his chin had grown in a sort of long, narrow beard. The Lupid had strung beads into the tuft, making some sort of braid out of it.
The Beastkin was about as tall as Ulric, as became evident when, still muttering complaints to himself in a half-growling basso he stood to full height, back rigid with offense.
Ulric reminded the Beastkin that he had run into himself every bit as much as the other. A reproving glare accompanied that observation but the bitching came to a close.
"Hrmmph! Well, perhaps that is so. You should still be careful pup, strolling around like that, you might run over some unsuspecting women and children." Returned the aged Wolfkin, but his lips drew back in a slight smile as he said it.
Okay, Ulric could relax, this was just the normal way older folk complained about young people. Nothing out of the ordinary. You know, other than the shaggy fur and potential for dog breath.
"I do apologize Elder." Ulric offered again, still being conciliatory, "My attention is not on my feet today. I will be more careful."
"Varrock." Coughed the older man.
"Gesundheit." Ulric replied instantly.
The canine features drew up in confusion. They relaxed as the Beastkin offered a clawed hand in a handshake.
"My name, welp, it is Varrock. And your own?" He restated, as Ulric traded grips with him.
Oh. Oops.
"I am Einar, Old Man Varrock. Well met." Ulric said, with some humor in his tone as he gave a single firm shake and reclaimed his hand.
"And you, Youth Einar. Good day then, and try not to stomp down any innocents like grapes." Wished the old Beastkin, with a wry humor in his rough voice.
"I will endeavor. And a good day to you as well. May you make it to your rooms untrod by clumsy welps." Ulric declared, with similar dryness.
They took opposite sides of the hall and continued on past one another, both with a respectful nod as they did.
It was an interaction so very…natural. That was, in many ways, not far from a mirror of how the old folk in his homeland would have interacted with a younger person in similar circumstances. He smiled at the familiarity. The old Beastkin gave the impression of being a proper fire-breather.
The last time he'd interacted at length with a lupine Beastkin he'd been fighting for his life. And the same for the time before that. Hmm. He'd not had so great a track record with the Wolfkin, now that he thought on it. Good to know that it wasn't some kind of essential incompatibility.
The Twins rode high, at or very near the apex of their dance across the sky. Sunscrest. That meant he had some six rounds of the binary stars dance to explore and get a feel for the organization of this fairyland metropolis. Nothing for it but to start walking and keep his head on a swivel. Times like this, having his Shadow around to keep an eyeball peeled on his six o'clock would have been comforting.
