Thanks to Ulric inflicting the entire hillside with mana exhaustion, nobody was going anywhere soon. Varda’s wilds were dangerous enough without good walls to keep out the nasties, escorting the refugees, most of them wounded, if not actively bleeding, unready to repel attacks with their core’s resources was folly.
"I said it was going to need some testing to confirm if it would work." Ulric said for the third time that day.
"Hmph!" Replied his Shadow.
She wasn't taking the [Deathstone] explosion very well and he wasn't sure why. In a way, this was an opportunity! The Elves had this idiosyncrasy about their cores in that they were far, far more efficient at replenishing themselves but only when they were within a region in which they had synchronized themselves to the local manaflows and natural currents of mana in the environment. It required a period of meditation and contemplation, to feel and harmonize with the dragon pulse of the planet.
Taipan had been moving too quickly to be able to do such a thing and the Orlethrem had been too busy being tortured to reflect on much at all that wasn't a way to somehow commit suicide. Now the Elves all had the chance, and it would serve them well. The scowl leveled his way when he reasoned this way towards the tall Huntress was just more evidence that she wasn't ready to be rational, even when she immediately sat down to attune her core's energies to the local Vardan currents of coastal Prespang.
For Ulric's part, confusion was just something he was going to have to live with. Elves. Women. Women Elves. Some combination of those was responsible for this situation, he was sure of it. Gah!
Whatever, she'd figure it out, he decided. Maybe she’d even let him know some day.
Ulric huddled over a fire and relaxed, his armor laying by his feet. He was glad to be out of it. Not because it was uncomfortable, Galed Uldin's work made the stuff feel like a second skin, but because it was growing warm and Ulric hated being hot. Even with the mild sea breeze, he found himself sweating under the noon day heat of the dancing stars above. Unless he was badly mistaken, this was the perfect opportunity for a siesta. Most of the Orlethrem were meditating or just sacked out. Enough were milling around that it should be safe to sleep away the more acute effects of mana exhaustion, namely the eye watering headache.
He lay on his back, using his pack for a pillow and watched the low flame that had cooked lunch burn down to coals. He was asleep not long after. When he woke to a booted foot prodded his ribs to wake him he was feeling much better. The sight that greeted him was the frown of his wife and he wondered if this was how Bald'rt got to start most of his days.
No wonder the Elf liked fucking with people, he had to take it out on somebody. It was an ungenerous thought but he could not unthink it.
"Taipan, if you don't stop frowning, your face is going to stick that way." Ulric advised, as he sat up and took in the boulder strewn hillside with its impromptu refugee camp.
His sylvan wife crouched down in a squat that looked as stable and easy as sitting in a chair. She leveled those piercing, beautiful green eyes at him and said "You are worms in the head."
It was not the first, nor perhaps even the hundredth time she had accused him of such. She sounded serious this time though.
"I am serious this time." Taipan told him resolutely.
Before he could say anything, his Shadow began to pace, that half stalking back and forth, graceful strides taking here here, then yon, then back again to a beat only she knew. Her pace was not normally a good thing as it meant her agitation required physical outlet. He wondered what brought this on. Surely not the test run for his [Sundering] which was how he'd come to think of the [Deathstone] bomb set up from earlier. Welp, time to stay quiet. Anything he said could and would be used against him. With her doing all that back and forth there was no way she'd outlast him.
After a minute of aggressive waiting, she came to rest and attempted to bait him saying "Well!? Are you not going to ask why?"
"Nope, I'm sure you have your reasons, and I trust you." Ulric said, artfully disarming that particular trap with honesty.
Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment as she attempted to incorporate that statement into her reality and failed for a moment. Eventually, he saw her repeat his statement to herself silently, as if to taste the words for poison. A toss of her hair saw her on the offensive again.
"Ulric, this is not a matter for your endless joking. Something is wrong with you." Taipan declared.
I mean, he thought to himself, where to start?
"Lass, you're clearly angling in a certain direction. You'll save us both a lot of time if you just say what you're thinking." He told her earnestly.
Normally she wouldn't be beating around the bush. He wasn't sure what was different this time around, but he was confident she'd get there soon.
He received a flat look, as if he'd been attempting to trick her somehow. Ah! The hands went on the wide hips, a sure sign that he was in trouble. If only he knew why.
"Now I am concerned, Glade Chief." the Elven paragon of her clan told him in a suspicious whisper, "You are making this too easy. You are up to something and I will find out what it is."
Thus accused, Ulric wasn't entirely sure what was going on here but he was now certain it would be amusing. He raised his hands with his wrists crossed, as if beckoning for the rope.
"Mea culpa, noble wife. You've caught me." He said without inflection, "Now, I'm pretty sure there are some chains somewhere around here. Maybe when I've been properly arrested, you'll decide to tell me what is going on between those luscious ears."
Her blush and the quick look around to see if anyone had overheard were worth the slap of his offered hands and her hurried hushing, hand clamped over his mouth aggressively.
"Hush, you shameless! It is bad enough you keep staring at my breasts where all can see, we are not even in the baths!"
"Thayproplyherdeverthnglasnyte." He mumbled through her hand.
Her aforementioned lovely ears twitched and she probably considered stabbing him just a little as she glared into his eyes while her own narrowed dangerously. Her hand came away from his mouth and took him by the hair firmly. He briefly considered kicking her legs out from under her, but decided that he was enjoying the game too much in its current phase.
"Ulric Einar, you will stop playing games with me right this second." He was ordered.
"I am sorry, Taipan. Please, go on, I submit to your judgment." He surrendered without effort.
Late afternoon light cast long shadows on the hillside, the combined shade thrown from the pair of them made for an interesting shape on the moss-covered stones. When Ulric noticed two Orlethrem holding conversation, pointed looked directed their way, and wind carried voiced that sounded suggestively like they were taking odds of some sort, he was certain about his course.
All of this was going in the Reforged man’s tool kit for wrangling deadly snakes. Normally he would have been offering resistance, denials, defenses, reasoned arguments. All of which would have only served to give his strikingly beautiful mate something against which she might push back against. His passivity now was turning her attempts to provoke a fight into a display remarkably like someone trying to combat water. And every bit as amusing to watch.
Against Taipan right now, he might as well have been Idra'se in a sword fight, simply never being where a sword's blow was going to be. The major source of his enjoyment of this byplay was how little he was involved in it. Honestly, his lovely lass was doing all the work here.
The Elf huntress, mistress of her environment and deadly fierce, regarded him carefully, still hanging onto his hair like he might make a break for it at any moment. Normally, Ulric wouldn't tolerate anybody laying hands on him. In fact, if anyone on this entire planet ever tried it, they'd get to find out if they could hold a live wire. But, for her, he was willing to make an exception. Especially on account of he could really glomp a nice survey of her tits from here. They were amazing tits and, with her bent over and looming he thought he might just be able to see their tips, even beneath the sturdy wool of the Hunter's coat she wore. Mmm…no, just a trick of the light, he decided.
"Did my father teach you this!?" Taipan demanded, releasing him to step back.
"This?" Ulric gave her nothing, sitting there with the innocence of a babe newborn.
She started fondling her belt knife's hilt, the way her mother did when she was deciding how out of line Bald'rt was for one of his endless prodding statements, made just ambiguously enough to avoid being taken as an antagonism. By a gnat's whiskers was the difference, and Bald'rt Iriel lived entirely on that line. Ulric couldn't help some degree of pride in being compared to that great man. Still, they had places to be, eventually, and he'd rather be doing something other than getting grilled for…something, he was sure.
"Wife, in these past five minutes, joy though it does give me to have your eyes so intent on my person, I have not yet arrived at the foggiest notion of what you might be talking about." He duly informed her.
More of the Orlethrem appeared to be taking notice of their byplay. Some weren’t even being so very quiet about their betting pools. Most appeared to be accepting credit on future favors, since none of them had much more than the clothes on their backs at the moment.
With the solemnity of clergyman taking the sins of the parishioner Ulric said, "If you plan to keep me under inquisition much longer, however, I feel I need to remind you that you will need to meet the obligations due a prisoner of war who has surrendered honorably."
That broke her.
"Iriel'en do not take prisoners of war, you accursed man you!" Taipan screamed at him, her melodious shriek echoing across the hill and turning heads towards them.
Oh yeah, that's right, they didn't, did they? He laid back down then, on his back. If she killed him, at least he'd not have to worry anymore about whatever the hell had her so riled up.
"Mete out my fate then, Taipan. I would have an end to this." Ulric demanded from the ground, for the first time indicating that he was growing weary with this farce.
The Iriel'en Paragon looked around desperately and was awash in the amused observance of her cousins, who dearly needed something in which to take some solace from recent trials. Many smirks met her unhidden.
It was unseemly to have their business on display amongst a hundred strangers and none of them even from the same clan, let alone household! Her partner was still there on the ground, making of himself a rotted stump for all the resistance to her cuts. Why didn't he fight back? What game was this? Taipan was sure she'd have pushed him into some kind of defensive position from which she could secure an oath, which he would keep, to never again do whatever he'd done to destroy those wicked cores.
A few tens of meters closer, a handful of seconds earlier, and that negation would have torn her mate's core apart in its hungering greed to consume mana. And here the idiot was with that calm, relaxed stare, as if none of this was important. And why wasn't he falling into her trap!? Thus foiled, the woman found she had no outlet for her agitation. A remedy for this iniquity she was going to partake of post haste.
Reaching down, Taipan pulled Ulric up by the black silken undershirt on his chest and hissed menacingly in monosyllables, her furious, cute, button nose pressed to his, "I will bed you now and when I am done, if I am still angry, I am going to hurt you."
Thus threatened, Ulric saw no other option but to accept her challenge. It's what Bald'rt would do.
"Do your worst, I will not negotiate with terrorists." He challenged, enjoying the smell of her from this close and the downwards, angry turn of her thin, dark eyebrows.
Unamused by her mate's antics, the Huntress dragged him to their rocky nook and, with quiet intensity, tried to slay him through coitus. When she had failed gloriously, and exhausted both of them in the attempt, they lay together soaking in the heavy after-action calm. It was probably the best hate sex of all time, in either of the two worlds he'd lived. He still didn't know what brought it on, but figuring it out, and how to reproduce it, was priority one. Ulric Einar would never tell his mate of the abandoned thought experiments he indulged to provoke the hotter than a forge fire Iriel'en woman into a wanton rage fuck. Ten minutes of cuddling later he didn't have an answer, either to the initial question or the reproducibility program, but he wasn't being injured so he supposed that she'd worked whatever it was out of her system. Perhaps she was ready to negotiate.
"You ready to tell me what's going on?" Ulric asked, cautiously.
"I have. You are worms in the head, Ulric. There is an absence in you, of even the most remote fear of dying, or, perhaps, just no conception of its possibility when you do things that are not to be done." Came her muffled response from her position sprawled across his body, using him as a pillow against the hard ground beneath.
She raised her head to stare down from his chest at him and told him plainly, at last, what was on her mind.
"What circumstance would prompt a normal person to turn back is treated by you as, at most, a cause to take extra precaution as you commit to some fresh insanity."
It had not necessarily escaped his notice that he didn't respond to incredible danger with terror. A healthy dose of quiet fear, but not pants shitting terror. He'd mostly just chalked it up to being in acceptance of his own life's choices and their consequences. Only when the Elf woman stated it as she had, did he reflect that she had a good point. Maybe he really was crazy.
"I think you're right." Ulric told his partner and gently ran his fingers through her hair, enjoying its silken softness.
Her surprise at his admission was duly noted. Was he really so clueless all the time? Best not to ask that particular question. Let's try a different one, Ulric decided.
"Is that a bad thing though?" He asked, plying his lover with a scalp massage, of which she was enamored.
"Mmmmm…bad is not how I would…mmm…say it." Came the slightly glazed over response.
Odd that he had a harder time wrapping his head around enjoying being fully subdued into Taipan's mate than being some kind of fearless Geomantic guardian for a primeval forest memorial to a dead race. She might be exaggerating though, he still felt fear, something crawling out of the weeds and eating him was more or less background noise to his existence, ever since the [Forest Lord] tried to do it.
She must be interpreting his fatalism for lack of comprehension. Ulric was willing to admit that he didn’t respond to threats or frankly horrifying situations with much in the way of panic or terror. He was completely willing to grant the woman that absence of that kind of reflex might be indicative of some kind of mental illness. But…so what?
His cogitation was ended when his Shadow recovered enough from her massage tranquility to follow up on her previous statement.
Worry tinged her voice as Taipan followed the thread of her own concerns, "Dangerous is how I would describe it, Ulric. You do and think things without the limit that normally restrains mortal beings. Paths untrodden because they lead into the Dark. This [Deathstone] explosion is just the most definitive example. Ulric, what would drive you to make an [Unraveling Flare] like that?"
Her point was a good one. How many awful things done, unleashed, on his old world because men with more intellect than sense did things that they could before they considered whether or not they should. Was he retreading the path that led his own world to its crippled half-life?
Maybe. Probably even. Ulric had decided early on that he wasn't going to introduce Earth's technologies willy nilly into Varda. He'd more or less kept that personal oath so far, having avoided any real detailing of things like bombs, guns, biological agents, or chemical weapons. Given that there had already been invented species curse poison in the Bane he really didn't want to add to that potential for mass harm. Crawling around in Ulric's head were all the ingredients for baking a fresh hellscape pie. In his head was where they were going to stay too, most of them. The C-4 didn't count, not really. Firstly, the alchemists of this world already had working knowledge for creating similar substances, just not the ability to scale it up or mass produce it, and Ulric hadn't so much as whispered in his dreams how to industrialize the methods he'd employed in Bartala. Secondly, if one of those alchemists got curious and starting mucking around with the combinations of substances, and apparatus set ups he'd been using to produce the high explosives, they might figure out a working recipe. Far more probably however, the town guard would be scraping the bits of them off of the walls of their destroyed lab. Ulric couldn't discount the slim chance, but he wasn't overly concerned on that score. The secret of primary explosives and remote blasting caps was basically safe.
Anyhow, that had nothing to do with this conversation and Taipan was antsy enough without his woolgathering making her more upset.
"Okay Taipan. Okay, I will not say that you are wrong." Ulric conceded softly, hating the uncertainty, "Only that I was not otherwise sure how to prevent those warped cores from being a threat down the road. Shor came up with a way to invert the Bane's mana signature to destroy it but, I'm not going to lie to you, that's well beyond me right now. It's probably going to be beyond me for a good few years too."
Considering the colossal loss of life that could accompany those nuggets of awful and the consequences of leaving them behind he whispered meaningfully, wanting to know if there was a better way, "What would you have had me do, Wife?"
Taipan's expression dimmed as she too let her thoughts drift over the potential for tragedy represented by the Bane cores.
"…I do not know, Ulric. Truthfully, I do not. They could have been buried. They could have been thrown into the sea. But none of that would have destroyed them and in this world, they would have remained, to cause grief later. I do not know what else you might have done, Husband." the Elf woman admitted reluctantly.
She sharpened and headed him off before he could say anything.
"But you put yourself at terrible risk to do what you saw as right, and did it, seemingly, without pause. It is not what course you chose, but that you have so little regard for yourself that you do not even attempt less dangerous roads when you find one that accomplishes your intent." His Shadow said, some of her aggravation returning.
Easy for her to say, he thought somewhat harshly. They were on the clock over here and he was the only one who even had a remote shot at keeping Prosper's hired bastards from sniffing around here and taking their monstrous work home to finish it.
Ulric had the power to kill their ambition right here and now. Didn't that also mean he had the responsibility to do it, even if it might hurt him?
He was a single man. He'd be here and gone in, at most, a few centuries if Bathe's wyrd body magic did what it was supposed to for extending his life span. A single vial of the Bane could sit around ready to unleash a genocide for all time. It wasn't right to turn away from his duty just because it was dangerous. Weapons like this thing had no place in the world.
"I refuse to apologize for that, Taipan." Ulric told his partner severely.
"I made a choice when I woke up here on this world to do what my conscious tells me is the right thing. No more compromises. No more deferring to another to let it be their responsibility. Good men permitting evil to exist, granting it freedom to go on blighting the world for fear or because it was far away, was a cowardice that nearly killed my old world. It will not have this one, not while I have some say on it." He declared angrily, meaning ever last word of it.
Ulric Einar was no bystander, not anymore. If he'd chosen differently, he wouldn't have bothered saving an Elf child and putting himself on this collision course in the first place.
Taipan punched his thigh viciously, glaring, and hissed at him, "I know this you insane, valiant man! That does me no comfort when you end up dead for it!"
Oh.
Ulric calmed, his budding anger gone completely. She was afraid for him. He'd almost forgotten that his dying had impacts beyond himself now. Taipan had suffered losses enough already. Of course she'd worry about him. She was hiding her face from him now, tucked against his side so he wouldn't see her "weakness".
Still an asshole, Ulric, he chided himself.
He took a few breaths and pet his Taipan comfortingly. He did owe her more than to be a widow because he didn't have enough regard for himself not to do something stupid. Or to put himself, maybe themselves, into a situation because he didn't stop to find a better way.
"I'm not used to caring about other people's hearts, lass. I'm sorry. For making you worry, for being too far up mine own ass to consider you. It's a habit from a past that needs to be broken." Ulric apologized quietly to the top of her silken tresses.
"I'll do better." He promised her.
She bit him. Lightly. Just hard enough to break the skin.
"See that you do, Glade Chief." His Shadow-Wife threatened him, "Or I will drag you back to that hovel you carved into a [Godtree] trunk and see that you never leave it again. Varda has survived before you arrived, and it will survive without you. So have the Aes'r. You are mine, Ulric, and you should not forget it."
He wasn't sure he'd ever been told he was cherished and credibly threatened all at once. It could be tough being close to Taipans. He didn't complain about the bleeding though, he'd deserved it. That didn't stop him from throwing the Elf onto her back and biting her back though. Granted he wasn't biting her anywhere near as hard and her breasts would surely survive the experience. After some brief resistance and playful shrieks they made up. He really had missed her all those days and he was going to be better in his duties towards her. Or else.
Later, when they'd returned to clothed status and he'd slathered his hand and side with a coagulant plant extract to stem the bleeding, they attempted to come to something approximating a productive plan of action.
"We're gonna need a big ass boat lass." Ulric summarized succinctly.
From her cross-legged perch on a smooth stone, using her coat for a cushion, his Shadow reviewed the troops. A hundred and change beaten, bruised, and thoroughly traumatized Orlethrem that wouldn't be fit to do much more than walk for days or even weeks. Some of them would never run under their own power again unless there were Healers that could reverse spinal injuries.
His lady love chirped her begrudging agreement, their having debated the matter for several minutes past, "Very well, Glade Chief. I will admit that separate vessels will only introduce chances that our wards are separated and recaptured, but there may not be a choice. We simply cannot eliminate all risks.”
“Besides,” the ever-realistic Elf challenged, “You still have not told me how you plan to achieve the task of obtaining this 'big assed boat', as you call it, or a crew."
Now Ulric reached down into his coin purse and provided her answer summarily, a single Tun Servant, it's untarnished sheen catching the setting suns brilliantly, the emphasis to his calm assertion, "Easy. We buy one."
Between the fat dowry Bald'rt had gifted his daughter when she went through with her marriage plot against him and the bounty on a [Mindworm] they'd collected early in their trip through the Lowlands forests, they had the cash on hand. Minus the coin he’d spent on alchemical supplies, buying silence, and making a donation to the brothel’s denizens, they still had plenty of coin to handle a few boats, surely.
Hell, Ulric realized, unless he was missing his guess, he could buy a fleet of ships if he had a mind to.
It wouldn't even be a bad investment, such a thing would almost inevitably be one of the ways he eventually established his territory's sufficiency, creating a stable trade route from the Northern edge of the [Plateau of Ancients] through the narrow band of Celestin woodlands and across the Legranel's great plains. A few ships to run the riverways connecting the Zelus from Iriel to the rest of Orlethrem wouldn't go awry. The bigger waterways would support even a deep keeled galleon. One of those, coupled to a small fleet of schooners or longships would more or less be sufficient to keep his domain financially solvent.
Ulric Einar would, if he managed to survive, establish a comfortable living for his budding household. Taipan would be happy camped out under the stars, tracking and killing various nasties that climbed down from the Canopy of the [Godtrees], but Ulric's long-term plans for her involved maids, an efficient staff to run the glade's affairs, and traveling the world. They just had to both survive.
One thing at a time Old Man, he cautioned.
Taipan's shrewd gaze locked onto the coin he displayed and she immediately announced "I will do the bargaining, Ulric."
That went without saying. He had little idea about the fair cost of things and Taipan was a cutthroat negotiator. The girl had haggled her own godfather relentlessly into accepting the price for an artifact blade to be the cost of materials and the opportunity to learn a foreign world's armoring and metallurgy techniques.
Speaking of which, Ulric still owed Galed a sit-down talk on grain structure and some of the intricacies regarding massaging metallic properties with alloying, heating, powder sintering, and some vapor deposition tricks that might let the master craftsman generate the sorts of tailormade alloys and ceramics that drove Ulric's old species to technological supremacy. Just nothing related to atomics, engines, or the energetics that might make mass produced artillery.
To demonstrate his concession, Ulric placed the Tun servant, with the intentional motion of a ritual, into his wife's own belt pouch, wisely intoning "My fortunes are yours to administer, dearest Taipan."
"It is good that I found you so quickly Husband." His Iriel'en partner informed him dutifully, her softened expression denoting her pleasure that she'd reigned him in appropriately, "Who knows what trouble you would have found if I let you go on rampaging around Prespang? Rumors about a maniac in bestial umber armor razing the coast with impunity had me concerned. I confess I am surprised by the…thoroughness of your campaign."
"They killed my friend." Ulric responded simply, still angry about it, somewhere down in his bones.
She patted his head gently, nodding her agreement, "I know, husband, I am not faulting you. In fact, it is good to find that you have this ferocity in you. I sometimes worried that the softness that you carried around would stay your hand when it was time to show your enemies the sharp side of your blade. No more. My [Lord of the Ancient Glade] bares his fangs with satisfying result." Taipan told him smugly.
Another reminder that Elves weren't pointy eared Humans.
Where he tripped himself up thinking in circles, she tended to cut across to the most direct route. Not inconsiderate of subtlety or nuance, just more willing to put the small things to the side and focus on the problem at hand, without letting her focus be diverted. Aes'r lacked the desire to expand and dominate their surroundings, but they held to a chosen purpose with a single minded devotion that was alien in its longevity. Which was why getting one of them riled up enough to carry out a vendetta against you was poor planning in the long term.
"Just make sure that you consider whether the path you see first is not beset by avoidable sorrow. Boldness and foolhardiness are separated by a fine degree." His Shadow cautioned, a moment later.
The point was well taken. Last thing Ulric needed to do was sit down and become the next Oppenheimer. Now that Taipan had sort of highlighted the problem he decided then and there not to make another [Arcanite Diamond] until he'd solved the spontaneous saturation problem. There had to be a way. A way to flush the residues of mana from the matrix of the crystal or a way to conduct those remnants of mana, like a heatsink drawing excess thermal energy.
Hadn't he, in the course of working out a way to generate a more universal mana shielding effect than his [Cindershield] spell already worked out a concept for using water mana to carry energy? That line of thought was the one which had resulted in the solid white magic spell in the first place. Perhaps a solution lay in that direction. Or maybe it was one of a physical sink. Some kind of material that would shed the mana from the philosopher's stone, or isolate it from the residues of power that accompanied spellwork. A faraday cage of sorts to shield it, made of…oh damn, you could do it with Helite, the mana disrupting metal from which his old trident had been made.
Ulric couldn't keep from stroking the bristles on his chin as he vanished into his own mind. Woven wires of gleaming blue metal wrapping the pure mana jewel to preserve its purity danced before his thoughts. A rude elbow interrupted him.
"You are doing it again." Taipan chastised flatly from her rock.
She sighed her resignation, planting her chin into her hand to rest a head weary of her husband's tangled roads before she asked, "Well, out with it then. What fresh madness leaks through the worm-eaten holes of your brain now?"
Shaking himself from his tinkering fugue, Ulric patted her shoulder consolingly, "Nothing crazy, this time." he told her putting her at ease.
"More like, an answer to crazy." he explained, outlining his safety precaution, "Your warning got me thinking about how to prevent the white magic stone from saturating to produce those spooky [Deathstone] explosions.”
Sea eagles called loudly overhead, as if commenting on the future prospects of people who dick with things they don’t understand.
“I got an idea, but it requires Helite, or something similarly able to disrupt and shed mana. If the [Arcanite Diamond] is shielded, it might not contaminate. If it is also enmeshed in a substance which draws mana, like a vacuum from the crystal's interior, I think you can also purge the crystal, venting off the saturating mana and preventing the transformation. So long as the application doesn't pull too much magic through it and saturate more rapidly than the purge can disperse. My kingdom for some numerical metrics on mana energy units, this is a straightforward related rates application."
He stopped when he realized he'd been roaming through his brain aloud again.
Sylvan eyes, their slight tilt and almond shape lending exotic casts to her Iriel'en features, glazed lightly before she refocused. Too much magical theory did that to her, Taipan had almost no interest in the metaphysics of the arcane. Not interested did not mean not able, however, his lass was fast on the uptake and caught on to his meaning quickly, once he stopped bombarding her with his stream of consciousness babble.
"Perhaps, Ulric. What you speak of has precedent in the stable Artifacts and catalysts of which I know. Staffs of Verdant Growth and Rain calling rings must also be worked by their makers to prevent mana corrosion and instabilities. You should speak to Mother Shor and my Uncle Uldin before you go playing around with this. Their experience may find shortcomings that are easily avoided."
Truth.
Her next musing thought he could do without.
"By the Roots and Skies Ulric, I leave you alone for a couple of Moons time and you work out the Alchemist's methods for manufacturing [Blast Clay], only more destructive, make an [Unraveling Flare], and, now, Artificing. If I do not put apron strings on you, or children under your feet, you will think us into untold troubles."
He hadn't really considered children. He'd never wanted them in his previous life, but then, he'd never really known anyone he wanted to have them with either. Little Ulrics running around? Taipan had indicated that interbreeding was possible, though he couldn't see how given that they were, clearly, different species. Gametic exchange of genes seemed unlikely between such divergent creatures. But, then again, spooky magical bullshit and he was pretty sure he’d seen a half breed at least once already. That her motive to have them was to keep him busy and out of trouble was the part that he found disturbing. Sounded like something her own mother would do to keep Bald'rt out of her hair.
Drily, he told his partner, "Thank you, for your confidence in me Wife. It warms the cockles of my heart to know you hold me in such high regard."
He didn't mention his last suspicion. Honestly? He didn't want to know.
Her steady regard said she meant business.
"Do not worry, Ulric, we are not yet ready for children. But when our enemies are feeding the roots and my season comes again, I think that I wish to try. If only to ensure your line before you start another war, you silly man." The Amazon snarked playfully.
He feigned outrage, knowing her to be in jest.
"Now hear this! I didn't start any damned wars around here, you folk were doing just fine on that score without my help. All I did was maybe nudge things forwards a little by deep sixing some child harmers and maybe upsetting a continent's ecosystem of fantastical eldritch nightmares by killing their king beast." Ulric proclaimed.
Raising his voice loud enough to be heard by their nearest neighbors, he announced "And don't think you can threaten me with a good time! If you are so foolish as to permit it, I'll put children at your hips, to follow you like ducklings for a century, just see if I don't! And you're going to like it too, why there'll not be enough juice in my body left to fill an aco-"
Raising up in alarm she hurried over to shush him mashing her hands over his mouth and stop him from adding any more details to his monologue.
Ear tips reddened, anxious glances around to see how many had heard, more reddening when the knowing glances of the Orlethrem nearby met her gaze, all of it was greatly amusing. She would learn not to challenge his auth-or-i-tah, not where others of her kin were around to be used against her.
She glared down at him and spat, "Shameless!" and he grinned, because he was.
He wasn't sure about the particulars of when and how much one could speak publicly about their bordello but Taipan had confused him before with her openness. Apparently, ears were off the table. And probably any mention of fluids. He was also starting to wonder if she was going to realize that he would need to breath, eventually.
A distant call came across the hill "No wonder the Treesleepers practice stealth, they have to learn to hide from their wives!"
Taipan jerked away from him and spun while she scanned the hill for the source of the sally but came up dry, her stance promising Bad Times for whoever had heckled them. Ulric chewed a knuckle to hold a belly laugh down, shaking with the effort of it. He needed a laugh, things had gotten awfully grim around these parts as of late. Their bramble, his new term for a group of Elves, of thin, wan, convalescent souls was improving. Poking fun at the odd couple carrying on like newly-weds, which is what they were, he reminded himself, was good for them.
"Easy now, Taipan, it was a good joke." Ulric calmed, patting the stone where she'd been sitting earlier.
"Besides," He continued mirthfully, "I would like to imagine a sort of societal arms race of Iriel'en wives learning to hunt and track the Deep Wood for their spouses, while said mates grew ever more desperate in their practice of avoidance and traceless movement through the forest. The culmination of which is the peerless forest folk I have come to know and the pinnacle of which I am come to love."
He was uncomfortable with straight admissions. It was a vulnerability he avoided mostly unconsciously. Sometimes though, it was best to be uncomfortable and honest. Especially with regards to the lady who had been teaching and guiding him all these months. There were some very good odds that Ulric would have died, either in the forests on their way through the wilds, or in the various circumstances that had presented themselves between, without her. Besides, the mollified warmth of her beholding was worth being bad at intimacy.
Reclaiming her throne on the coat padded stone, his Shadow-Wife was, finally, back to her usual even, if barbed, kilter.
"Fine, Ulric." Taipan allowed, "They may have their jests at our expense. I suppose it harms nothing and they have earned from this world some ease to their pains."
She straightened slightly, indicating that they were back to business, "Then we are agreed? We enter Kistalfer, discretely, and procure a ship large enough to carry my cousins back to their homes with a crew hired on that contract that will not turn aside from their duty."
Ulric gave her the Elvish hand sign for "Yes/Continue"
"Then, we part from the ship past the Iron walls of Prosper, it and its cargo of my kin to continue up the Zelus, we to infiltrate the stronghold of our enemy. From inside, we then find means to choke to death the Merchant Lords with their gold chains of office." Taipan summarized.
"Yep." Ulric confirmed.
"And, when it goes badly, because things seem to have ways of turning on their ends when you are around, Ulric, we die bathed in the blood of our enemies and leave their burning city a shambles as precurser to my father's inevitable return to remove Prosper from living memory." Taipan smiled, even as she said it.
The would be hermit returned her smile.
"Exactly." He agreed.
Thanks to Ulric inflicting the entire hillside with mana exhaustion, nobody was going anywhere soon. Varda’s wilds were dangerous enough without good walls to keep out the nasties, escorting the refugees, most of them wounded, if not actively bleeding, unready to repel attacks with their core’s resources was folly.
"I said it was going to need some testing to confirm if it would work." Ulric said for the third time that day.
"Hmph!" Replied his Shadow.
She wasn't taking the [Deathstone] explosion very well and he wasn't sure why. In a way, this was an opportunity! The Elves had this idiosyncrasy about their cores in that they were far, far more efficient at replenishing themselves but only when they were within a region in which they had synchronized themselves to the local manaflows and natural currents of mana in the environment. It required a period of meditation and contemplation, to feel and harmonize with the dragon pulse of the planet.
Taipan had been moving too quickly to be able to do such a thing and the Orlethrem had been too busy being tortured to reflect on much at all that wasn't a way to somehow commit suicide. Now the Elves all had the chance, and it would serve them well. The scowl leveled his way when he reasoned this way towards the tall Huntress was just more evidence that she wasn't ready to be rational, even when she immediately sat down to attune her core's energies to the local Vardan currents of coastal Prespang.
For Ulric's part, confusion was just something he was going to have to live with. Elves. Women. Women Elves. Some combination of those was responsible for this situation, he was sure of it. Gah!
Whatever, she'd figure it out, he decided. Maybe she’d even let him know some day.
Ulric huddled over a fire and relaxed, his armor laying by his feet. He was glad to be out of it. Not because it was uncomfortable, Galed Uldin's work made the stuff feel like a second skin, but because it was growing warm and Ulric hated being hot. Even with the mild sea breeze, he found himself sweating under the noon day heat of the dancing stars above. Unless he was badly mistaken, this was the perfect opportunity for a siesta. Most of the Orlethrem were meditating or just sacked out. Enough were milling around that it should be safe to sleep away the more acute effects of mana exhaustion, namely the eye watering headache.
He lay on his back, using his pack for a pillow and watched the low flame that had cooked lunch burn down to coals. He was asleep not long after. When he woke to a booted foot prodded his ribs to wake him he was feeling much better. The sight that greeted him was the frown of his wife and he wondered if this was how Bald'rt got to start most of his days.
No wonder the Elf liked fucking with people, he had to take it out on somebody. It was an ungenerous thought but he could not unthink it.
"Taipan, if you don't stop frowning, your face is going to stick that way." Ulric advised, as he sat up and took in the boulder strewn hillside with its impromptu refugee camp.
His sylvan wife crouched down in a squat that looked as stable and easy as sitting in a chair. She leveled those piercing, beautiful green eyes at him and said "You are worms in the head."
It was not the first, nor perhaps even the hundredth time she had accused him of such. She sounded serious this time though.
"I am serious this time." Taipan told him resolutely.
Before he could say anything, his Shadow began to pace, that half stalking back and forth, graceful strides taking here here, then yon, then back again to a beat only she knew. Her pace was not normally a good thing as it meant her agitation required physical outlet. He wondered what brought this on. Surely not the test run for his [Sundering] which was how he'd come to think of the [Deathstone] bomb set up from earlier. Welp, time to stay quiet. Anything he said could and would be used against him. With her doing all that back and forth there was no way she'd outlast him.
After a minute of aggressive waiting, she came to rest and attempted to bait him saying "Well!? Are you not going to ask why?"
"Nope, I'm sure you have your reasons, and I trust you." Ulric said, artfully disarming that particular trap with honesty.
Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment as she attempted to incorporate that statement into her reality and failed for a moment. Eventually, he saw her repeat his statement to herself silently, as if to taste the words for poison. A toss of her hair saw her on the offensive again.
"Ulric, this is not a matter for your endless joking. Something is wrong with you." Taipan declared.
I mean, he thought to himself, where to start?
"Lass, you're clearly angling in a certain direction. You'll save us both a lot of time if you just say what you're thinking." He told her earnestly.
Normally she wouldn't be beating around the bush. He wasn't sure what was different this time around, but he was confident she'd get there soon.
He received a flat look, as if he'd been attempting to trick her somehow. Ah! The hands went on the wide hips, a sure sign that he was in trouble. If only he knew why.
"Now I am concerned, Glade Chief." the Elven paragon of her clan told him in a suspicious whisper, "You are making this too easy. You are up to something and I will find out what it is."
Thus accused, Ulric wasn't entirely sure what was going on here but he was now certain it would be amusing. He raised his hands with his wrists crossed, as if beckoning for the rope.
"Mea culpa, noble wife. You've caught me." He said without inflection, "Now, I'm pretty sure there are some chains somewhere around here. Maybe when I've been properly arrested, you'll decide to tell me what is going on between those luscious ears."
Her blush and the quick look around to see if anyone had overheard were worth the slap of his offered hands and her hurried hushing, hand clamped over his mouth aggressively.
"Hush, you shameless! It is bad enough you keep staring at my breasts where all can see, we are not even in the baths!"
"Thayproplyherdeverthnglasnyte." He mumbled through her hand.
Her aforementioned lovely ears twitched and she probably considered stabbing him just a little as she glared into his eyes while her own narrowed dangerously. Her hand came away from his mouth and took him by the hair firmly. He briefly considered kicking her legs out from under her, but decided that he was enjoying the game too much in its current phase.
"Ulric Einar, you will stop playing games with me right this second." He was ordered.
"I am sorry, Taipan. Please, go on, I submit to your judgment." He surrendered without effort.
Late afternoon light cast long shadows on the hillside, the combined shade thrown from the pair of them made for an interesting shape on the moss-covered stones. When Ulric noticed two Orlethrem holding conversation, pointed looked directed their way, and wind carried voiced that sounded suggestively like they were taking odds of some sort, he was certain about his course.
All of this was going in the Reforged man’s tool kit for wrangling deadly snakes. Normally he would have been offering resistance, denials, defenses, reasoned arguments. All of which would have only served to give his strikingly beautiful mate something against which she might push back against. His passivity now was turning her attempts to provoke a fight into a display remarkably like someone trying to combat water. And every bit as amusing to watch.
Against Taipan right now, he might as well have been Idra'se in a sword fight, simply never being where a sword's blow was going to be. The major source of his enjoyment of this byplay was how little he was involved in it. Honestly, his lovely lass was doing all the work here.
The Elf huntress, mistress of her environment and deadly fierce, regarded him carefully, still hanging onto his hair like he might make a break for it at any moment. Normally, Ulric wouldn't tolerate anybody laying hands on him. In fact, if anyone on this entire planet ever tried it, they'd get to find out if they could hold a live wire. But, for her, he was willing to make an exception. Especially on account of he could really glomp a nice survey of her tits from here. They were amazing tits and, with her bent over and looming he thought he might just be able to see their tips, even beneath the sturdy wool of the Hunter's coat she wore. Mmm…no, just a trick of the light, he decided.
"Did my father teach you this!?" Taipan demanded, releasing him to step back.
"This?" Ulric gave her nothing, sitting there with the innocence of a babe newborn.
She started fondling her belt knife's hilt, the way her mother did when she was deciding how out of line Bald'rt was for one of his endless prodding statements, made just ambiguously enough to avoid being taken as an antagonism. By a gnat's whiskers was the difference, and Bald'rt Iriel lived entirely on that line. Ulric couldn't help some degree of pride in being compared to that great man. Still, they had places to be, eventually, and he'd rather be doing something other than getting grilled for…something, he was sure.
"Wife, in these past five minutes, joy though it does give me to have your eyes so intent on my person, I have not yet arrived at the foggiest notion of what you might be talking about." He duly informed her.
More of the Orlethrem appeared to be taking notice of their byplay. Some weren’t even being so very quiet about their betting pools. Most appeared to be accepting credit on future favors, since none of them had much more than the clothes on their backs at the moment.
With the solemnity of clergyman taking the sins of the parishioner Ulric said, "If you plan to keep me under inquisition much longer, however, I feel I need to remind you that you will need to meet the obligations due a prisoner of war who has surrendered honorably."
That broke her.
"Iriel'en do not take prisoners of war, you accursed man you!" Taipan screamed at him, her melodious shriek echoing across the hill and turning heads towards them.
Oh yeah, that's right, they didn't, did they? He laid back down then, on his back. If she killed him, at least he'd not have to worry anymore about whatever the hell had her so riled up.
"Mete out my fate then, Taipan. I would have an end to this." Ulric demanded from the ground, for the first time indicating that he was growing weary with this farce.
The Iriel'en Paragon looked around desperately and was awash in the amused observance of her cousins, who dearly needed something in which to take some solace from recent trials. Many smirks met her unhidden.
It was unseemly to have their business on display amongst a hundred strangers and none of them even from the same clan, let alone household! Her partner was still there on the ground, making of himself a rotted stump for all the resistance to her cuts. Why didn't he fight back? What game was this? Taipan was sure she'd have pushed him into some kind of defensive position from which she could secure an oath, which he would keep, to never again do whatever he'd done to destroy those wicked cores.
A few tens of meters closer, a handful of seconds earlier, and that negation would have torn her mate's core apart in its hungering greed to consume mana. And here the idiot was with that calm, relaxed stare, as if none of this was important. And why wasn't he falling into her trap!? Thus foiled, the woman found she had no outlet for her agitation. A remedy for this iniquity she was going to partake of post haste.
Reaching down, Taipan pulled Ulric up by the black silken undershirt on his chest and hissed menacingly in monosyllables, her furious, cute, button nose pressed to his, "I will bed you now and when I am done, if I am still angry, I am going to hurt you."
Thus threatened, Ulric saw no other option but to accept her challenge. It's what Bald'rt would do.
"Do your worst, I will not negotiate with terrorists." He challenged, enjoying the smell of her from this close and the downwards, angry turn of her thin, dark eyebrows.
Unamused by her mate's antics, the Huntress dragged him to their rocky nook and, with quiet intensity, tried to slay him through coitus. When she had failed gloriously, and exhausted both of them in the attempt, they lay together soaking in the heavy after-action calm. It was probably the best hate sex of all time, in either of the two worlds he'd lived. He still didn't know what brought it on, but figuring it out, and how to reproduce it, was priority one. Ulric Einar would never tell his mate of the abandoned thought experiments he indulged to provoke the hotter than a forge fire Iriel'en woman into a wanton rage fuck. Ten minutes of cuddling later he didn't have an answer, either to the initial question or the reproducibility program, but he wasn't being injured so he supposed that she'd worked whatever it was out of her system. Perhaps she was ready to negotiate.
"You ready to tell me what's going on?" Ulric asked, cautiously.
"I have. You are worms in the head, Ulric. There is an absence in you, of even the most remote fear of dying, or, perhaps, just no conception of its possibility when you do things that are not to be done." Came her muffled response from her position sprawled across his body, using him as a pillow against the hard ground beneath.
She raised her head to stare down from his chest at him and told him plainly, at last, what was on her mind.
"What circumstance would prompt a normal person to turn back is treated by you as, at most, a cause to take extra precaution as you commit to some fresh insanity."
It had not necessarily escaped his notice that he didn't respond to incredible danger with terror. A healthy dose of quiet fear, but not pants shitting terror. He'd mostly just chalked it up to being in acceptance of his own life's choices and their consequences. Only when the Elf woman stated it as she had, did he reflect that she had a good point. Maybe he really was crazy.
"I think you're right." Ulric told his partner and gently ran his fingers through her hair, enjoying its silken softness.
Her surprise at his admission was duly noted. Was he really so clueless all the time? Best not to ask that particular question. Let's try a different one, Ulric decided.
"Is that a bad thing though?" He asked, plying his lover with a scalp massage, of which she was enamored.
"Mmmmm…bad is not how I would…mmm…say it." Came the slightly glazed over response.
Odd that he had a harder time wrapping his head around enjoying being fully subdued into Taipan's mate than being some kind of fearless Geomantic guardian for a primeval forest memorial to a dead race. She might be exaggerating though, he still felt fear, something crawling out of the weeds and eating him was more or less background noise to his existence, ever since the [Forest Lord] tried to do it.
She must be interpreting his fatalism for lack of comprehension. Ulric was willing to admit that he didn’t respond to threats or frankly horrifying situations with much in the way of panic or terror. He was completely willing to grant the woman that absence of that kind of reflex might be indicative of some kind of mental illness. But…so what?
His cogitation was ended when his Shadow recovered enough from her massage tranquility to follow up on her previous statement.
Worry tinged her voice as Taipan followed the thread of her own concerns, "Dangerous is how I would describe it, Ulric. You do and think things without the limit that normally restrains mortal beings. Paths untrodden because they lead into the Dark. This [Deathstone] explosion is just the most definitive example. Ulric, what would drive you to make an [Unraveling Flare] like that?"
Her point was a good one. How many awful things done, unleashed, on his old world because men with more intellect than sense did things that they could before they considered whether or not they should. Was he retreading the path that led his own world to its crippled half-life?
Maybe. Probably even. Ulric had decided early on that he wasn't going to introduce Earth's technologies willy nilly into Varda. He'd more or less kept that personal oath so far, having avoided any real detailing of things like bombs, guns, biological agents, or chemical weapons. Given that there had already been invented species curse poison in the Bane he really didn't want to add to that potential for mass harm. Crawling around in Ulric's head were all the ingredients for baking a fresh hellscape pie. In his head was where they were going to stay too, most of them. The C-4 didn't count, not really. Firstly, the alchemists of this world already had working knowledge for creating similar substances, just not the ability to scale it up or mass produce it, and Ulric hadn't so much as whispered in his dreams how to industrialize the methods he'd employed in Bartala. Secondly, if one of those alchemists got curious and starting mucking around with the combinations of substances, and apparatus set ups he'd been using to produce the high explosives, they might figure out a working recipe. Far more probably however, the town guard would be scraping the bits of them off of the walls of their destroyed lab. Ulric couldn't discount the slim chance, but he wasn't overly concerned on that score. The secret of primary explosives and remote blasting caps was basically safe.
Anyhow, that had nothing to do with this conversation and Taipan was antsy enough without his woolgathering making her more upset.
"Okay Taipan. Okay, I will not say that you are wrong." Ulric conceded softly, hating the uncertainty, "Only that I was not otherwise sure how to prevent those warped cores from being a threat down the road. Shor came up with a way to invert the Bane's mana signature to destroy it but, I'm not going to lie to you, that's well beyond me right now. It's probably going to be beyond me for a good few years too."
Considering the colossal loss of life that could accompany those nuggets of awful and the consequences of leaving them behind he whispered meaningfully, wanting to know if there was a better way, "What would you have had me do, Wife?"
Taipan's expression dimmed as she too let her thoughts drift over the potential for tragedy represented by the Bane cores.
"…I do not know, Ulric. Truthfully, I do not. They could have been buried. They could have been thrown into the sea. But none of that would have destroyed them and in this world, they would have remained, to cause grief later. I do not know what else you might have done, Husband." the Elf woman admitted reluctantly.
She sharpened and headed him off before he could say anything.
"But you put yourself at terrible risk to do what you saw as right, and did it, seemingly, without pause. It is not what course you chose, but that you have so little regard for yourself that you do not even attempt less dangerous roads when you find one that accomplishes your intent." His Shadow said, some of her aggravation returning.
Easy for her to say, he thought somewhat harshly. They were on the clock over here and he was the only one who even had a remote shot at keeping Prosper's hired bastards from sniffing around here and taking their monstrous work home to finish it.
Ulric had the power to kill their ambition right here and now. Didn't that also mean he had the responsibility to do it, even if it might hurt him?
He was a single man. He'd be here and gone in, at most, a few centuries if Bathe's wyrd body magic did what it was supposed to for extending his life span. A single vial of the Bane could sit around ready to unleash a genocide for all time. It wasn't right to turn away from his duty just because it was dangerous. Weapons like this thing had no place in the world.
"I refuse to apologize for that, Taipan." Ulric told his partner severely.
"I made a choice when I woke up here on this world to do what my conscious tells me is the right thing. No more compromises. No more deferring to another to let it be their responsibility. Good men permitting evil to exist, granting it freedom to go on blighting the world for fear or because it was far away, was a cowardice that nearly killed my old world. It will not have this one, not while I have some say on it." He declared angrily, meaning ever last word of it.
Ulric Einar was no bystander, not anymore. If he'd chosen differently, he wouldn't have bothered saving an Elf child and putting himself on this collision course in the first place.
Taipan punched his thigh viciously, glaring, and hissed at him, "I know this you insane, valiant man! That does me no comfort when you end up dead for it!"
Oh.
Ulric calmed, his budding anger gone completely. She was afraid for him. He'd almost forgotten that his dying had impacts beyond himself now. Taipan had suffered losses enough already. Of course she'd worry about him. She was hiding her face from him now, tucked against his side so he wouldn't see her "weakness".
Still an asshole, Ulric, he chided himself.
He took a few breaths and pet his Taipan comfortingly. He did owe her more than to be a widow because he didn't have enough regard for himself not to do something stupid. Or to put himself, maybe themselves, into a situation because he didn't stop to find a better way.
"I'm not used to caring about other people's hearts, lass. I'm sorry. For making you worry, for being too far up mine own ass to consider you. It's a habit from a past that needs to be broken." Ulric apologized quietly to the top of her silken tresses.
"I'll do better." He promised her.
She bit him. Lightly. Just hard enough to break the skin.
"See that you do, Glade Chief." His Shadow-Wife threatened him, "Or I will drag you back to that hovel you carved into a [Godtree] trunk and see that you never leave it again. Varda has survived before you arrived, and it will survive without you. So have the Aes'r. You are mine, Ulric, and you should not forget it."
He wasn't sure he'd ever been told he was cherished and credibly threatened all at once. It could be tough being close to Taipans. He didn't complain about the bleeding though, he'd deserved it. That didn't stop him from throwing the Elf onto her back and biting her back though. Granted he wasn't biting her anywhere near as hard and her breasts would surely survive the experience. After some brief resistance and playful shrieks they made up. He really had missed her all those days and he was going to be better in his duties towards her. Or else.
Later, when they'd returned to clothed status and he'd slathered his hand and side with a coagulant plant extract to stem the bleeding, they attempted to come to something approximating a productive plan of action.
"We're gonna need a big ass boat lass." Ulric summarized succinctly.
From her cross-legged perch on a smooth stone, using her coat for a cushion, his Shadow reviewed the troops. A hundred and change beaten, bruised, and thoroughly traumatized Orlethrem that wouldn't be fit to do much more than walk for days or even weeks. Some of them would never run under their own power again unless there were Healers that could reverse spinal injuries.
His lady love chirped her begrudging agreement, their having debated the matter for several minutes past, "Very well, Glade Chief. I will admit that separate vessels will only introduce chances that our wards are separated and recaptured, but there may not be a choice. We simply cannot eliminate all risks.”
“Besides,” the ever-realistic Elf challenged, “You still have not told me how you plan to achieve the task of obtaining this 'big assed boat', as you call it, or a crew."
Now Ulric reached down into his coin purse and provided her answer summarily, a single Tun Servant, it's untarnished sheen catching the setting suns brilliantly, the emphasis to his calm assertion, "Easy. We buy one."
Between the fat dowry Bald'rt had gifted his daughter when she went through with her marriage plot against him and the bounty on a [Mindworm] they'd collected early in their trip through the Lowlands forests, they had the cash on hand. Minus the coin he’d spent on alchemical supplies, buying silence, and making a donation to the brothel’s denizens, they still had plenty of coin to handle a few boats, surely.
Hell, Ulric realized, unless he was missing his guess, he could buy a fleet of ships if he had a mind to.
It wouldn't even be a bad investment, such a thing would almost inevitably be one of the ways he eventually established his territory's sufficiency, creating a stable trade route from the Northern edge of the [Plateau of Ancients] through the narrow band of Celestin woodlands and across the Legranel's great plains. A few ships to run the riverways connecting the Zelus from Iriel to the rest of Orlethrem wouldn't go awry. The bigger waterways would support even a deep keeled galleon. One of those, coupled to a small fleet of schooners or longships would more or less be sufficient to keep his domain financially solvent.
Ulric Einar would, if he managed to survive, establish a comfortable living for his budding household. Taipan would be happy camped out under the stars, tracking and killing various nasties that climbed down from the Canopy of the [Godtrees], but Ulric's long-term plans for her involved maids, an efficient staff to run the glade's affairs, and traveling the world. They just had to both survive.
One thing at a time Old Man, he cautioned.
Taipan's shrewd gaze locked onto the coin he displayed and she immediately announced "I will do the bargaining, Ulric."
That went without saying. He had little idea about the fair cost of things and Taipan was a cutthroat negotiator. The girl had haggled her own godfather relentlessly into accepting the price for an artifact blade to be the cost of materials and the opportunity to learn a foreign world's armoring and metallurgy techniques.
Speaking of which, Ulric still owed Galed a sit-down talk on grain structure and some of the intricacies regarding massaging metallic properties with alloying, heating, powder sintering, and some vapor deposition tricks that might let the master craftsman generate the sorts of tailormade alloys and ceramics that drove Ulric's old species to technological supremacy. Just nothing related to atomics, engines, or the energetics that might make mass produced artillery.
To demonstrate his concession, Ulric placed the Tun servant, with the intentional motion of a ritual, into his wife's own belt pouch, wisely intoning "My fortunes are yours to administer, dearest Taipan."
"It is good that I found you so quickly Husband." His Iriel'en partner informed him dutifully, her softened expression denoting her pleasure that she'd reigned him in appropriately, "Who knows what trouble you would have found if I let you go on rampaging around Prespang? Rumors about a maniac in bestial umber armor razing the coast with impunity had me concerned. I confess I am surprised by the…thoroughness of your campaign."
"They killed my friend." Ulric responded simply, still angry about it, somewhere down in his bones.
She patted his head gently, nodding her agreement, "I know, husband, I am not faulting you. In fact, it is good to find that you have this ferocity in you. I sometimes worried that the softness that you carried around would stay your hand when it was time to show your enemies the sharp side of your blade. No more. My [Lord of the Ancient Glade] bares his fangs with satisfying result." Taipan told him smugly.
Another reminder that Elves weren't pointy eared Humans.
Where he tripped himself up thinking in circles, she tended to cut across to the most direct route. Not inconsiderate of subtlety or nuance, just more willing to put the small things to the side and focus on the problem at hand, without letting her focus be diverted. Aes'r lacked the desire to expand and dominate their surroundings, but they held to a chosen purpose with a single minded devotion that was alien in its longevity. Which was why getting one of them riled up enough to carry out a vendetta against you was poor planning in the long term.
"Just make sure that you consider whether the path you see first is not beset by avoidable sorrow. Boldness and foolhardiness are separated by a fine degree." His Shadow cautioned, a moment later.
The point was well taken. Last thing Ulric needed to do was sit down and become the next Oppenheimer. Now that Taipan had sort of highlighted the problem he decided then and there not to make another [Arcanite Diamond] until he'd solved the spontaneous saturation problem. There had to be a way. A way to flush the residues of mana from the matrix of the crystal or a way to conduct those remnants of mana, like a heatsink drawing excess thermal energy.
Hadn't he, in the course of working out a way to generate a more universal mana shielding effect than his [Cindershield] spell already worked out a concept for using water mana to carry energy? That line of thought was the one which had resulted in the solid white magic spell in the first place. Perhaps a solution lay in that direction. Or maybe it was one of a physical sink. Some kind of material that would shed the mana from the philosopher's stone, or isolate it from the residues of power that accompanied spellwork. A faraday cage of sorts to shield it, made of…oh damn, you could do it with Helite, the mana disrupting metal from which his old trident had been made.
Ulric couldn't keep from stroking the bristles on his chin as he vanished into his own mind. Woven wires of gleaming blue metal wrapping the pure mana jewel to preserve its purity danced before his thoughts. A rude elbow interrupted him.
"You are doing it again." Taipan chastised flatly from her rock.
She sighed her resignation, planting her chin into her hand to rest a head weary of her husband's tangled roads before she asked, "Well, out with it then. What fresh madness leaks through the worm-eaten holes of your brain now?"
Shaking himself from his tinkering fugue, Ulric patted her shoulder consolingly, "Nothing crazy, this time." he told her putting her at ease.
"More like, an answer to crazy." he explained, outlining his safety precaution, "Your warning got me thinking about how to prevent the white magic stone from saturating to produce those spooky [Deathstone] explosions.”
Sea eagles called loudly overhead, as if commenting on the future prospects of people who dick with things they don’t understand.
“I got an idea, but it requires Helite, or something similarly able to disrupt and shed mana. If the [Arcanite Diamond] is shielded, it might not contaminate. If it is also enmeshed in a substance which draws mana, like a vacuum from the crystal's interior, I think you can also purge the crystal, venting off the saturating mana and preventing the transformation. So long as the application doesn't pull too much magic through it and saturate more rapidly than the purge can disperse. My kingdom for some numerical metrics on mana energy units, this is a straightforward related rates application."
He stopped when he realized he'd been roaming through his brain aloud again.
Sylvan eyes, their slight tilt and almond shape lending exotic casts to her Iriel'en features, glazed lightly before she refocused. Too much magical theory did that to her, Taipan had almost no interest in the metaphysics of the arcane. Not interested did not mean not able, however, his lass was fast on the uptake and caught on to his meaning quickly, once he stopped bombarding her with his stream of consciousness babble.
"Perhaps, Ulric. What you speak of has precedent in the stable Artifacts and catalysts of which I know. Staffs of Verdant Growth and Rain calling rings must also be worked by their makers to prevent mana corrosion and instabilities. You should speak to Mother Shor and my Uncle Uldin before you go playing around with this. Their experience may find shortcomings that are easily avoided."
Truth.
Her next musing thought he could do without.
"By the Roots and Skies Ulric, I leave you alone for a couple of Moons time and you work out the Alchemist's methods for manufacturing [Blast Clay], only more destructive, make an [Unraveling Flare], and, now, Artificing. If I do not put apron strings on you, or children under your feet, you will think us into untold troubles."
He hadn't really considered children. He'd never wanted them in his previous life, but then, he'd never really known anyone he wanted to have them with either. Little Ulrics running around? Taipan had indicated that interbreeding was possible, though he couldn't see how given that they were, clearly, different species. Gametic exchange of genes seemed unlikely between such divergent creatures. But, then again, spooky magical bullshit and he was pretty sure he’d seen a half breed at least once already. That her motive to have them was to keep him busy and out of trouble was the part that he found disturbing. Sounded like something her own mother would do to keep Bald'rt out of her hair.
Drily, he told his partner, "Thank you, for your confidence in me Wife. It warms the cockles of my heart to know you hold me in such high regard."
He didn't mention his last suspicion. Honestly? He didn't want to know.
Her steady regard said she meant business.
"Do not worry, Ulric, we are not yet ready for children. But when our enemies are feeding the roots and my season comes again, I think that I wish to try. If only to ensure your line before you start another war, you silly man." The Amazon snarked playfully.
He feigned outrage, knowing her to be in jest.
"Now hear this! I didn't start any damned wars around here, you folk were doing just fine on that score without my help. All I did was maybe nudge things forwards a little by deep sixing some child harmers and maybe upsetting a continent's ecosystem of fantastical eldritch nightmares by killing their king beast." Ulric proclaimed.
Raising his voice loud enough to be heard by their nearest neighbors, he announced "And don't think you can threaten me with a good time! If you are so foolish as to permit it, I'll put children at your hips, to follow you like ducklings for a century, just see if I don't! And you're going to like it too, why there'll not be enough juice in my body left to fill an aco-"
Raising up in alarm she hurried over to shush him mashing her hands over his mouth and stop him from adding any more details to his monologue.
Ear tips reddened, anxious glances around to see how many had heard, more reddening when the knowing glances of the Orlethrem nearby met her gaze, all of it was greatly amusing. She would learn not to challenge his auth-or-i-tah, not where others of her kin were around to be used against her.
She glared down at him and spat, "Shameless!" and he grinned, because he was.
He wasn't sure about the particulars of when and how much one could speak publicly about their bordello but Taipan had confused him before with her openness. Apparently, ears were off the table. And probably any mention of fluids. He was also starting to wonder if she was going to realize that he would need to breath, eventually.
A distant call came across the hill "No wonder the Treesleepers practice stealth, they have to learn to hide from their wives!"
Taipan jerked away from him and spun while she scanned the hill for the source of the sally but came up dry, her stance promising Bad Times for whoever had heckled them. Ulric chewed a knuckle to hold a belly laugh down, shaking with the effort of it. He needed a laugh, things had gotten awfully grim around these parts as of late. Their bramble, his new term for a group of Elves, of thin, wan, convalescent souls was improving. Poking fun at the odd couple carrying on like newly-weds, which is what they were, he reminded himself, was good for them.
"Easy now, Taipan, it was a good joke." Ulric calmed, patting the stone where she'd been sitting earlier.
"Besides," He continued mirthfully, "I would like to imagine a sort of societal arms race of Iriel'en wives learning to hunt and track the Deep Wood for their spouses, while said mates grew ever more desperate in their practice of avoidance and traceless movement through the forest. The culmination of which is the peerless forest folk I have come to know and the pinnacle of which I am come to love."
He was uncomfortable with straight admissions. It was a vulnerability he avoided mostly unconsciously. Sometimes though, it was best to be uncomfortable and honest. Especially with regards to the lady who had been teaching and guiding him all these months. There were some very good odds that Ulric would have died, either in the forests on their way through the wilds, or in the various circumstances that had presented themselves between, without her. Besides, the mollified warmth of her beholding was worth being bad at intimacy.
Reclaiming her throne on the coat padded stone, his Shadow-Wife was, finally, back to her usual even, if barbed, kilter.
"Fine, Ulric." Taipan allowed, "They may have their jests at our expense. I suppose it harms nothing and they have earned from this world some ease to their pains."
She straightened slightly, indicating that they were back to business, "Then we are agreed? We enter Kistalfer, discretely, and procure a ship large enough to carry my cousins back to their homes with a crew hired on that contract that will not turn aside from their duty."
Ulric gave her the Elvish hand sign for "Yes/Continue"
"Then, we part from the ship past the Iron walls of Prosper, it and its cargo of my kin to continue up the Zelus, we to infiltrate the stronghold of our enemy. From inside, we then find means to choke to death the Merchant Lords with their gold chains of office." Taipan summarized.
"Yep." Ulric confirmed.
"And, when it goes badly, because things seem to have ways of turning on their ends when you are around, Ulric, we die bathed in the blood of our enemies and leave their burning city a shambles as precurser to my father's inevitable return to remove Prosper from living memory." Taipan smiled, even as she said it.
The would be hermit returned her smile.
"Exactly." He agreed.
