Autumn advanced as the twinned suns whirled over head. The days shortened, even shorter seeming for their fullness. The two strangers grew more comfortable as they alternated roles, sometimes teacher was taught, and student, whether old souled human or Elven youth, gained both knowledge and an appreciation for the instructor.
Ulric learned Elven at a fairly rapid pace, the language being similar to Finnish, and with similar grammar. Having been bilingual already paid dividends in this process, and greatly sped up acquisition. A little over a week of daily instruction, given in multi hour lessons interspersed with Ulric and Brighteyes doing forest parkour to help Brighteyes loosen joints and regain strength lost being essentially bedridden for over a week, had resulted in his being able to make very simple conversations in Elvish. If Ulric had to summarize it he'd guess he was somewhere on the level of a first or second grader.
As was usually the case, the consistent hurdle was vocabulary. Grammatically, Elvish wasn't particularly difficult, especially compared to English, but the language possessed a number of contextual vocabulary words. There were the usual mix of words for water in its various forms, sort of like how there were words like rain, river, pond, lake, ocean, etc. In addition to these though were odd words that would describe a very specific situation, like a phrase turned into a word. An example that had come up was frost, given that it had frosted more days than it hadn't in the last ten days. There was your usual word for frozen water deposited on surfaces. Then there was the term for frost shimmering in a morning sun. Then frost under moonlight. And, also, a word for frost on leaves so thick it nearly looks like snow.
Ulric was shocked at the sheer number of words for trees. Trees budding in spring, new word. Trees with new leaves, new word. Trees with full foilage, new word. Trees in flower, you guessed it, new word. He should have known Elves would have a word for a day out of the year which just preceded the major leaf fall, when an imminent storm was due to cause the dead leaves to blow through the air en masse. It was some kind of Elven feastday with the leaf fall day itself reserved as a day for celebrating the dead. Brighteyes was sad he'd miss it, they would surely not be able to get to his village in time as the frosts were causing leaves to trend to brown as the cold set the trees to dormancy.
The time had been necessary, as their jaunts through the glade and surrounding forest soon proved. It was highly likely Brighteyes had had badly cracked or partially broken ribs, a bit worse than Ulric had expected from reading the child’s status. Their early excursions had the youth in great pain soon after they'd started and he'd needed to rest frequently. Breathing heavily was agony. It had taken most of the week for him to do better than a jog. He'd mended rapidly though, with a steady supply of food and rest, interspersed with exercise. As his body recovered so did his mood, the tragic loss of his companion and trauma of the experience fading quickly, as it does for the young. Soon enough Brighteyes was keeping pace with Ulric's movements and, incredibly, he was rapidly leaving Ulric behind in their arboreal gymnastics. It was awe inspiring, to see how an elf could move through the bush. At a sprinting, vaulting, jumping cavort through the trees, the elf prince had shown Ulric that his agility and dexterity stats weren't just for show, the kid could fly.
They only made one climb to the canopy, and that just long enough for Ulric to take Brighteyes to the site where the raiders had perished. Of the battle, little evidence remained, other than the torn brush, which was already growing back in. The bodies had long ago been consumed. A few of the weapons remained, found where their unfortunate owners had dropped them, untouched by the scavengers that consumed their wielders. Ulric's hollow pointed poison carrying arrow was gone and that made him sad. He didn't have that many Giga bear teeth left.
On the morning Ulric's scan of Brighteyes showed a clean 100% health, 100% stamina, they sat down to make plans for the journey to take Brighteyes home.
Ulric was committed to trying to use Elvish as much as possible, there might be a lot riding on meeting with an Elven king.
"Brighteyes you health now?" Ulric's accent was painful in his own ears.
"Thank you, Ulric Glade Chief, I am well now. You have my gratitude for your patronage and I will not forget the debt of my life. My father will likewise not allow such debt to go unpaid."
Damn, Ulric thought, that was fast, pretty sure he mentioned his dad too, but what the hell does a salad have to do with anything?
"I live here, no journey. No map. Glade home, woods run, no wait, explore not much. You walk, shit, I mean, path can find home Brighteyes?"
"I know the general lay of the land Ulric Glade Chief, and I can find our way once we reach the edge of the [Plateau of Ancients]. We are come far from my home, a journey of winding traversal, but the mountains and sun will give bearing."
Ulric had to clarify a couple of new words in there. Apparently, the name for where they were was the "Plateau of Ancients" and Brighteyes had used a particular term for a travel through winding terrain without known direction for unknown time. So, basically, he was totally lost but he thought he could use the landmarks to get a general direction of travel back to familiar territory. Fair enough.
"Is we time to leave tomorrow? Ready make for preparations, I need. I have food and water, tools and little rope, but difficult cliff climb."
Ulric hadn't forgotten that breathtaking view from the escarpment. It was at least a couple of kilometers straight down. The sides had looked so sheer, from his vantage, that they'd need to do some serious rock climbing to reach the forest below. He knew he was up for it, he'd spent hours climbing the giant trees near his camp for practice and to find routes up into the canopy that weren't dens for violent monsters. What he wasn't prepared for was doing it in near freezing temperatures with possible wind blowing your hands numb and nowhere to get a fire for warmth. He also didn't know how well Brighteyes would do making that kind of climb so soon after convalescing, although he'd taken steps towards that end during the preceding week.
He had a couple of hundred feet of vine rope, eight [Forest Lord] metatarsal climbing pitons, and had worked out a strategy for how to do controlled descents using them; that included a heart racing drop of ten meters to be arrested by his harness/piton sets, testing their ability to abort a fall. He'd learned a painful lesson about where you tie knots in a harness when one of them dug out his grundle and pinched his tackle, making sitting an ordeal for a few days.
With the both of them tandem climbing and using pitons they should be relatively safe to make a slow but sure way down the cliff. If somebody messed up and took a dive, the roped harnesses should catch them before they built enough steam to pull the piton's loose. Of course, that meant Ulric would be having to ascend and descend twice as much to set them retrieve his pitons. Good thing the Watcher's body work was top notch; Ulric was confident, all things considered.
Then again, he'd felt confident about the lightning bolt too and that hadn't worked out as well as he'd hoped. As a matter of fact, he considered shrapnel a distinct indicator of failure. Most especially when that shrapnel ended up in his body.
Ulric was pulled away from his thoughts because Brighteyes was now starkly confused.
"What climb must we make Ulric Glade Chief? The course we travel will be lengthy but there are no great obstacles once we descend from the plateau. Unless you mean to climb the plateau but that will not be necessary, we will take the [Ancestor's Gate] down. Ah. You would not know of the Gate would you? My apologies, Ulric, I had not thought to mention it, as it is common knowledge for those who reside in the Great Forest. The [Plateau of Ancients] goes unexplored, not because it is difficult to reach, but because it is profoundly dangerous. Or was, thanks to the presence of the [Forest Lord] who hunted any manling, elf, or creature it detected. But now, and until a new [Lord] takes its place, this place is far safer, aside from the beasts of the canopy. In any event, to scale or descend the Plateau takes but a few minutes, for the Gate is a mass transport device of the eras bygone. Its magics allow an entire convoy of trade wagons to be raised or lowered all the way from the bottom or top. You simply call the lift by placing your hand on the summons pagoda."
It took several minutes for Ulric to parse through this tale, his Elvish not being up to the task. Brighteyes was patient though and helped him through, repeating when necessary, clarifying when Ulric couldn't follow the syntax or remember the proper words. As the story unfolded Ulric went from astonished at this alien magitech, to relieved at the relative ease of this towering challenge, to frustrated at his lack of knowledge taken for granted by the denizens of these lands.
So much wasted effort and concern, just to find out that there was a godsdamned elevator all along.
There had been a time, back in his old life that Ulric would have spent hours chewing on this, obsessing over it. These days, he had learned to stay in the moment. Imminent threat of being consumed by hostile creatures and the absence of any modern convenience had a way of doing that to you. Clarifying your priorities. What before would have been a source of anxiety for a few weeks until he got over it was now a footnote and a reminder that ignorance frequently wasted more time than incompetence.
"This good Brighteyes. I am happy path - damnit - journey not as difficult. You know how many days to find village?" Ulric questioned.
He'd be able to readjust his kit drastically, now that the climbing gear had proven unnecessary. It'd be a lot lighter minus the rope, certainly. It was liberating really, the way he made plans here, and then promptly had them shat upon by the realities of this both seemingly familiar and yet wildly divergent plane.
"We may go tomorrow, Glade Chief, and journey take, in my best estimate, around three days total, barring interference by the forest denizens." Brighteyes informed him.
Only three days, not so very long. Best to be overprepared though, Ulric would pack rations for over a week and a tanned hide tarp with three guide poles to make a fast teepee shelter while they traveled. Between the food, the hide backpack itself, the water bags, the bedroll, the shelter materials, his axe, metal trident, knives, bow, arrow quiver and all he'd be carrying forty kilos.
Easily manageable, with his current strength. The Watcher's gift of body and core were a strong blade of good metal. The forest had been a whetstone, bringing an edge of proper geometry from sharp to razor edge. All under the ever-present record of the Akashic where you could see your growth rewarded numerically in your status; it was motivating, being able to see your own improvement in such a way.
The time spent with Brighteyes had likewise paid dividends. What began as physical therapy had transformed into friendly competition with the two of them racing through the forest. Losers of the race owed the winner a camp chore. They'd both benefited from the experience, and not only physically. For maybe the first time in his life Ulric wasn't chafing at the company of another. Perhaps he'd grown in more ways than physical in this, the world Brighteyes called Varda.
Autumn advanced as the twinned suns whirled over head. The days shortened, even shorter seeming for their fullness. The two strangers grew more comfortable as they alternated roles, sometimes teacher was taught, and student, whether old souled human or Elven youth, gained both knowledge and an appreciation for the instructor.
Ulric learned Elven at a fairly rapid pace, the language being similar to Finnish, and with similar grammar. Having been bilingual already paid dividends in this process, and greatly sped up acquisition. A little over a week of daily instruction, given in multi hour lessons interspersed with Ulric and Brighteyes doing forest parkour to help Brighteyes loosen joints and regain strength lost being essentially bedridden for over a week, had resulted in his being able to make very simple conversations in Elvish. If Ulric had to summarize it he'd guess he was somewhere on the level of a first or second grader.
As was usually the case, the consistent hurdle was vocabulary. Grammatically, Elvish wasn't particularly difficult, especially compared to English, but the language possessed a number of contextual vocabulary words. There were the usual mix of words for water in its various forms, sort of like how there were words like rain, river, pond, lake, ocean, etc. In addition to these though were odd words that would describe a very specific situation, like a phrase turned into a word. An example that had come up was frost, given that it had frosted more days than it hadn't in the last ten days. There was your usual word for frozen water deposited on surfaces. Then there was the term for frost shimmering in a morning sun. Then frost under moonlight. And, also, a word for frost on leaves so thick it nearly looks like snow.
Ulric was shocked at the sheer number of words for trees. Trees budding in spring, new word. Trees with new leaves, new word. Trees with full foilage, new word. Trees in flower, you guessed it, new word. He should have known Elves would have a word for a day out of the year which just preceded the major leaf fall, when an imminent storm was due to cause the dead leaves to blow through the air en masse. It was some kind of Elven feastday with the leaf fall day itself reserved as a day for celebrating the dead. Brighteyes was sad he'd miss it, they would surely not be able to get to his village in time as the frosts were causing leaves to trend to brown as the cold set the trees to dormancy.
The time had been necessary, as their jaunts through the glade and surrounding forest soon proved. It was highly likely Brighteyes had had badly cracked or partially broken ribs, a bit worse than Ulric had expected from reading the child’s status. Their early excursions had the youth in great pain soon after they'd started and he'd needed to rest frequently. Breathing heavily was agony. It had taken most of the week for him to do better than a jog. He'd mended rapidly though, with a steady supply of food and rest, interspersed with exercise. As his body recovered so did his mood, the tragic loss of his companion and trauma of the experience fading quickly, as it does for the young. Soon enough Brighteyes was keeping pace with Ulric's movements and, incredibly, he was rapidly leaving Ulric behind in their arboreal gymnastics. It was awe inspiring, to see how an elf could move through the bush. At a sprinting, vaulting, jumping cavort through the trees, the elf prince had shown Ulric that his agility and dexterity stats weren't just for show, the kid could fly.
They only made one climb to the canopy, and that just long enough for Ulric to take Brighteyes to the site where the raiders had perished. Of the battle, little evidence remained, other than the torn brush, which was already growing back in. The bodies had long ago been consumed. A few of the weapons remained, found where their unfortunate owners had dropped them, untouched by the scavengers that consumed their wielders. Ulric's hollow pointed poison carrying arrow was gone and that made him sad. He didn't have that many Giga bear teeth left.
On the morning Ulric's scan of Brighteyes showed a clean 100% health, 100% stamina, they sat down to make plans for the journey to take Brighteyes home.
Ulric was committed to trying to use Elvish as much as possible, there might be a lot riding on meeting with an Elven king.
"Brighteyes you health now?" Ulric's accent was painful in his own ears.
"Thank you, Ulric Glade Chief, I am well now. You have my gratitude for your patronage and I will not forget the debt of my life. My father will likewise not allow such debt to go unpaid."
Damn, Ulric thought, that was fast, pretty sure he mentioned his dad too, but what the hell does a salad have to do with anything?
"I live here, no journey. No map. Glade home, woods run, no wait, explore not much. You walk, shit, I mean, path can find home Brighteyes?"
"I know the general lay of the land Ulric Glade Chief, and I can find our way once we reach the edge of the [Plateau of Ancients]. We are come far from my home, a journey of winding traversal, but the mountains and sun will give bearing."
Ulric had to clarify a couple of new words in there. Apparently, the name for where they were was the "Plateau of Ancients" and Brighteyes had used a particular term for a travel through winding terrain without known direction for unknown time. So, basically, he was totally lost but he thought he could use the landmarks to get a general direction of travel back to familiar territory. Fair enough.
"Is we time to leave tomorrow? Ready make for preparations, I need. I have food and water, tools and little rope, but difficult cliff climb."
Ulric hadn't forgotten that breathtaking view from the escarpment. It was at least a couple of kilometers straight down. The sides had looked so sheer, from his vantage, that they'd need to do some serious rock climbing to reach the forest below. He knew he was up for it, he'd spent hours climbing the giant trees near his camp for practice and to find routes up into the canopy that weren't dens for violent monsters. What he wasn't prepared for was doing it in near freezing temperatures with possible wind blowing your hands numb and nowhere to get a fire for warmth. He also didn't know how well Brighteyes would do making that kind of climb so soon after convalescing, although he'd taken steps towards that end during the preceding week.
He had a couple of hundred feet of vine rope, eight [Forest Lord] metatarsal climbing pitons, and had worked out a strategy for how to do controlled descents using them; that included a heart racing drop of ten meters to be arrested by his harness/piton sets, testing their ability to abort a fall. He'd learned a painful lesson about where you tie knots in a harness when one of them dug out his grundle and pinched his tackle, making sitting an ordeal for a few days.
With the both of them tandem climbing and using pitons they should be relatively safe to make a slow but sure way down the cliff. If somebody messed up and took a dive, the roped harnesses should catch them before they built enough steam to pull the piton's loose. Of course, that meant Ulric would be having to ascend and descend twice as much to set them retrieve his pitons. Good thing the Watcher's body work was top notch; Ulric was confident, all things considered.
Then again, he'd felt confident about the lightning bolt too and that hadn't worked out as well as he'd hoped. As a matter of fact, he considered shrapnel a distinct indicator of failure. Most especially when that shrapnel ended up in his body.
Ulric was pulled away from his thoughts because Brighteyes was now starkly confused.
"What climb must we make Ulric Glade Chief? The course we travel will be lengthy but there are no great obstacles once we descend from the plateau. Unless you mean to climb the plateau but that will not be necessary, we will take the [Ancestor's Gate] down. Ah. You would not know of the Gate would you? My apologies, Ulric, I had not thought to mention it, as it is common knowledge for those who reside in the Great Forest. The [Plateau of Ancients] goes unexplored, not because it is difficult to reach, but because it is profoundly dangerous. Or was, thanks to the presence of the [Forest Lord] who hunted any manling, elf, or creature it detected. But now, and until a new [Lord] takes its place, this place is far safer, aside from the beasts of the canopy. In any event, to scale or descend the Plateau takes but a few minutes, for the Gate is a mass transport device of the eras bygone. Its magics allow an entire convoy of trade wagons to be raised or lowered all the way from the bottom or top. You simply call the lift by placing your hand on the summons pagoda."
It took several minutes for Ulric to parse through this tale, his Elvish not being up to the task. Brighteyes was patient though and helped him through, repeating when necessary, clarifying when Ulric couldn't follow the syntax or remember the proper words. As the story unfolded Ulric went from astonished at this alien magitech, to relieved at the relative ease of this towering challenge, to frustrated at his lack of knowledge taken for granted by the denizens of these lands.
So much wasted effort and concern, just to find out that there was a godsdamned elevator all along.
There had been a time, back in his old life that Ulric would have spent hours chewing on this, obsessing over it. These days, he had learned to stay in the moment. Imminent threat of being consumed by hostile creatures and the absence of any modern convenience had a way of doing that to you. Clarifying your priorities. What before would have been a source of anxiety for a few weeks until he got over it was now a footnote and a reminder that ignorance frequently wasted more time than incompetence.
"This good Brighteyes. I am happy path - damnit - journey not as difficult. You know how many days to find village?" Ulric questioned.
He'd be able to readjust his kit drastically, now that the climbing gear had proven unnecessary. It'd be a lot lighter minus the rope, certainly. It was liberating really, the way he made plans here, and then promptly had them shat upon by the realities of this both seemingly familiar and yet wildly divergent plane.
"We may go tomorrow, Glade Chief, and journey take, in my best estimate, around three days total, barring interference by the forest denizens." Brighteyes informed him.
Only three days, not so very long. Best to be overprepared though, Ulric would pack rations for over a week and a tanned hide tarp with three guide poles to make a fast teepee shelter while they traveled. Between the food, the hide backpack itself, the water bags, the bedroll, the shelter materials, his axe, metal trident, knives, bow, arrow quiver and all he'd be carrying forty kilos.
Easily manageable, with his current strength. The Watcher's gift of body and core were a strong blade of good metal. The forest had been a whetstone, bringing an edge of proper geometry from sharp to razor edge. All under the ever-present record of the Akashic where you could see your growth rewarded numerically in your status; it was motivating, being able to see your own improvement in such a way.
The time spent with Brighteyes had likewise paid dividends. What began as physical therapy had transformed into friendly competition with the two of them racing through the forest. Losers of the race owed the winner a camp chore. They'd both benefited from the experience, and not only physically. For maybe the first time in his life Ulric wasn't chafing at the company of another. Perhaps he'd grown in more ways than physical in this, the world Brighteyes called Varda.
