Acadian: Venca is indeed our Seven Magnificos' army guy. Given the new format, I was able to give him a much deeper background than he had in the Beth setting. In fact, I see an entire book about just who he was and what he did in the past. Of course Venca does not remember any of this. Yet.

The Mistress of Twilight is not quite what she was in the Beth setting either. I am drawing heavily upon comparisons to The Morrigan, Freyja, and Hekate for this world's goddess of death and magic. Hence the association with ravens (The Morrigan and Freyja), and the transgendered (Hekate, who was served by transgendered priestesses known as semnotatoi). Though as I will show later in the story, all magicians are people who walk between worlds. Likewise, so are all GLBT people, which I think is why IRL they were often considered the most powerful of all magicians by many cultures.


haute ecole rider: Venca is indeed our old friend Valens from the original Seven. He has undergone a lot of changes due to the new world, and his new history. Though on the outside he is still much the same.

I am glad to see you are still reading. I had a lot of fun building the world for this version of the story. I can see other tales taking place far in the past, that show major events which still effect the current story.. Such as the Sacerdotium conquering Rase, and the great war that destroyed the Dark Elves and freed humanity from slavery.

I am thinking of cutting out some of what I had about the Sluagh in the previous segment. A lot of it feels like telling rather than showing. Upcoming episodes also make references to the Sluagh, and in a more natural manner. Googling the name will give you an idea of what the Sluagh was, but that is just scratching the surface. It is a huge piece of the overall story arc I have in mind.



Chapter 7.1

Aela sat up in bed, allowing her brightly colored wool blanket to pool around her hips. Like all Rasen affairs, the bed possessed a wooden frame slanted up at the end to raise the head and shoulders. This one was only a simple wooden frame with a hay-stuffed mattress. She could only imagine what sumptuous devices wealthy aristocrats like the Camna's might sleep upon. Still, it was better than laying on the earth, or even the plain rattan bed her dorm room at the Ingenium had offered. However, it was not as fine as the feather-stuffed mattress she had slept upon as a child, long ago in Cymner. The freedom to be herself was well worth the trade in sleeping arrangements however.

Aela swung her bare feet out onto rug beside the bed. Again, it was no sumptuous Aymaran masterpiece. But it was colorful, and kept her feet warm. A quick drink from a cup upon the bed stand was followed by a visit to the chamber pot. In moments she was dressed in her white and brown adventuring clothes, followed by a Cleanse spell to chase away the funk of a night's sleep.

The room around her was simple. The plastered walls were painted light green and blue, and decorated with occasional images of ordinary Rasen women going about their daily lives. A few throw rugs surrounded the bed and plain dressing table. Otherwise the floor was bare wooden boards. A single window let in the morning sun, flanked by hanging pots of aromatic rosemary and basil plants.

Aela stepped to the dressing table, and reached into her small makeup kit. She opted for only a light touch of color to her lips and eyes. She was not trying to impress anyone today. Nor would she be for a long while. After an interminable period fighting with her hair, she put on a pair of short earrings of simple glass beads. No one was likely to see them though her hair, but she could still enjoy the feeling of them dangling from her ears. Finally, she settled her necklace around her shoulders, and enjoyed the warm feeling of mana stored within the spiral pendant as it rested between her small breasts.

She stared into the little mirror hanging from the wall above the table. Hair, makeup, jewelry. Simple things, that had taken her a lifetime to possess. Things that she had been forced to trade her old life for. She never doubted they were worth it.

"Be the person you see inside," Asaryl said. "Make that your reality. In time others will see her as well."

Aela allowed herself a brief smile. She missed the old elf. 'Old' being subjective of course. Her spiritism teacher had looked hardly any older than she did now. Yet what was he, a century old? A young man for his own people, ancient for her own. Who knew, with her own mastery of vitamancy, she might even live half and again those years. Assuming she did not get herself killed trying to pay off her debts.

"I will miss this room," Aela said to no one in particular as she took one last look around. She quickly loaded her scant possessions into a backpack. Makeup and some cheap jewelry, the mirror from the wall, a skirt and spare chemise, a few drakma novels, a cup, plate, and utensils, and other little odds and ends. She did not have many possessions to show for her life.

"A life is not measured in objects, but how it is lived."

Again, Asaryl's words came back to her from across the years. She nodded, as if to the elf, and shut the door to the rented room behind her. It was time to move on with life.

A few steps around the balcony that ringed the second floor of the boarding house's atrium brought her to Loria's room. She almost hesitated to knock. While she frequently rose with the sunrise, the elf was another story. Long nights tended to make for late mornings, and Aela was not sure how the Silaine had passed the time after they had returned from Waranari's. She had spent her own night in the aether, communing with the spirits of rock and air that predominated in the cliffside city. She suspected that Loria had spent his time in more earthly pursuits…

She rapped lightly on his door, and was about to repeat it again when the wooden portal slid partly open, revealing Loria's disheveled features peering out through sleep-fogged eyes. Disheveled with elves was of course just as subjective as age. Aela would have sworn that his crimson mane looked better than her own, even though he had obviously just risen from bed. Even in its wildest state, his hair only fell out of place when it would make him look more rakish. While Aela's own brown tresses always seemed to conspire to mortify her.

"Shhhh," the Light Elf whispered. "We don't want to wake our guest now do we?"

Aela made a show of trying to look past the bare-chested elf to see who was in the room behind him. She glimpsed a still arm and leg protruding from the covers of the elf's bed, but could not tell whom their owner might be.

Loria pushed out into the hallway, and gingerly shut the door behind him. Aela now realized that he was not scantily-clad, as she had first assumed, but completely naked. She resisted the urge to shake her head.

"Who is it this time?" Aela teased. "Someone you met on the walk home from Waranari's? Or did he just fall into your bed?"

"Well if you must pry it is Cai Atna," Loria whispered.

"From that clothier's shop?" Aela said, making no special effort to keep her voice down. "I didn't even know you liked him?"

"Well, like is so open to interpretation," Loria said. "A person might like a rosé one day, and dry white the next, and spicy shiraz after that. I was in the mood for a Cai."

"I thought you said he was too bony?" Aela could not contain a sly grin.

"Shhh, he'll wake up!" Loria exclaimed as quietly as he could. "Did you want something, or did you just come to bask in the glory of my love life?"

"Well, it is indeed majestic," Aela said, "and while I would love to soak up the warm glow of your amorous brilliance, we are supposed to be leaving today. Or did you forget about the cannibal bandits in Kye Rim?"

"Well of course I have not forgotten!" Loria declared. "We'll get there. Eventually."

"That's what I thought," Aela said. "I had better go on ahead to Waranari's, in case any new hopefuls arrive looking for us."

"And I shall rendezvous with our gracious employers and meet you at the docks." Loria said. "Before the ship departs."

"Remember that," Aela said, "Before this time."

"That only happened once." The Light Elf waved off the admonition with one hand.

"Once?" Aela raised an eyebrow.

"That other time does not count," Loria insisted. "It was not my fault."

"Then whose fault was it?" Aela asked.

"Well it was Aksil's of course," Loria breathed, "or was it Derrian? No, it was definitely Marce."

"Of course," Aela rolled her eyes. "What could I have been thinking?"

"Well I can tell you what I was thinking…" Loria grinned. "He had the most-"

"I can imagine," Aela waved off further descriptions. "I'll meet you at the ship."

The Arvern made her way around the second floor balcony and descended the stairs to the ground. Already there were sounds of activity in some of the other rented rooms, and she wondered if any of their occupants might catch a glimpse of Loria's naked frame before he returned to his room. It would be just like the elf to lock himself out with no clothes on. Not that any lock could stand in the way of his spellcraft.

Aela stopped at the landlord's apartment. As usual, her door was open, and on the table outside she found that the rotund woman had already laid out a tray filled with fresh rolls and a bowl of olive oil.

"Oh, you are divine Hennu," Aela said as she snatched up a roll and tore it in half. She dipped both pieces into the oil, and began a quick breakfast of the still warm bread.

"You are leaving today no?" the dark Aymaran woman said in broken Rasen. "Where is your friend the elf? He was out late last night."

"He's out late every night," Aela mumbled around a mouthful of breakfast.

"He still has to pay for his rent!" the landlord complained. "You, you are a good tenant. Sango bless you. I hope you come back when you are done, wherever you are going. But that one? Out all night, sleeps all day! Never thinks to pay!"

Never wants to pay, Aela thought, but wisely did not say.

"He will be down shortly," she said by way of explanation. "I am sure he will have the last of his rent for you then."

Aela sped out of the open air atrium and through the building's vestibule, pretending not to hear the Aymaran's loud complaints about her friend behind her. The Arvern was in the street a moment later, and made her way through lanes of white-washed brick buildings with red-tiled roofs. With the sun barely above the horizon, traffic was still light. It was mainly bakery employees making deliveries, and a few other early-morning workers.

Aela knew that would change soon enough, and transform Veia's streets back into the packed, noisy, smelly mass of humans and animals they usually were. She enjoyed the quiet and fresh air while she could, and was almost disappointed when she finally came to Waranari's. A quiet walk was always refreshing.



Aela's room

A wonderfully girly morning and pause in the action as we gain more insight into our pair of mages. The contrast between the witch and elf is stark indeed. Whereas Loria spent the night with someone warm and his hair is still coiffed upon waking, Aela communed the evening with rock and air – and must battle with her hair in the morning.

Though not bound to possessions, Aela does take what she feels as her responsibilities to others very seriously – such as paying her rent, rousing her partner in adventure, and ensuring she is not late for her pending voyage.


Nit -- ’She opted for only a light touch to color to her lips and eyes.’ - - Seems like the double use of ‘to’ disrupts this sentence. I’m guessing you may have wanted ‘only a light touch of color to her lips and eyes’ or perhaps ‘only a light touch to color her lips and eyes’.

A relaxing morning scene, other than some hair-fighting and bed-discovery. How does she accomplish the act described below? She go into a trance? Or dissociates mind from body? Or, something more simple?

5.2 - 5.3


Delicious, delicious combat. The technical details are spot-on and I’m absolutely head-over-heels in love with Phereinon White-Hair’s combat intelligence/precision/brutality/economy. The way she ‘bridged’ when she committed to the suplex, her immediate retaliation to a checked low kick (catch-and-pitch, as my MT coach likes to call it, though it’s not limited to leg kicks haha), her mouth-watering use of her cloak to trap and blind opponents, the way she responded to that Orc’s teep (I thought she would pull him in for a knockout hook Coban-style but breaking his leg is nice too KEK), her poison-cold calmness in the face of her foes’ numerical superiority...

And the trips! Dear lord the trips! Her subtle and disruptive trips made it x10000000 better than it already was! I’m a simple man, tbh. I see trips, I foam at the mouth in ecstasy.

If there’s one thing that kinda took me away from the whole thing, it was her decision on taking the final lad to the ground with that flying triangle-armbar hybrid. It’s more of a personal opinion than objective criticism, and I think I have an understanding on why she did it. Could be wrong ofc, but here’s how I saw it.

(Use a flashy move only experts can pull off to finish the fight AND further establish her dominance on her enemies WHILE using the aforementioned technique as a literal position of power to reveal what his brother really was.)

If that was the case, I like it. It touches on the fact that a fight’s mental as much as it is physical. You listen to the martial whirlwind who rampaged through your crew and is currently crushing your head between her legs, after all. With that said however, a grounded position is still a grounded position. The disadvantages it offers are many, especially considering the encounter’s in the street. She might’ve mollywhopped the frick out of her present/visible enemies but the unknowns in the crowds and maybe even those inside the armory...? Too risky for my tastes, tbh. In fact, this decision coupled with the way she nonchalantly dislodged the sword in her shoulder by simply ripping it out sideways leads to me think that she’s either dangerously dependent on her unnatural regeneration/resiliency or there’s some sort of self-destructive tendencies going on around inside her. Maybe even both. I’m very interested to see how she fares and what she’ll do if she ever loses her otherworldly traits.

All in all, I rate it an unforgiving 9/10. NOICE WOIRK.

————

So uh. Hey, SubRosa. KEK! I haven’t really read the story that much, tbh. I was actually planning to start from the beginning today but I was bushwhacked by the combat scene in Chapter 5.3. It caught my attention and well, here I am, jumping chapters because of a juicy fight scene. HA!

Acadian: I really like those old Roman beds, with the elevated head and shoulders. Those would be really nice for people (like myself) who suffer from acid reflux at night. In fact I love that whole room in the pic I posted. That would be an awesome place to live.

That whole segment was a nice little piece of character building that I enjoyed writing immensely. It shows Aela simply being herself, and it gives us a view into Loria as well. As you pointed out, Aela is the dependable, reliable, responsible one. While Loria is out having fun, she is paying the bills and keeping appointments.

Nit fixed. Thanks for catching that. It was just a typo, the kind that the spellchecker never catches.


Renee: If you ever saw Frozen, when Princess Anna wakes up is what I imagine Aela's hair is like in the morning.

Aela's mental projection into the aether is somewhat described way back in the first chapter, when she summons the air spirit from beyond the confines of the dark barrow. I will also go more into it later in the story. You can also refer to the There Goes The Neighborhood link in my signature, which features an early version of the same thing that I wrote for Elder Scrolls Aela.


Uleni Athram: Hi Uleni! I did a lot of research for that fighting scene in the street, as I am not a martial arts person like yourself. I only know what I read or see in videos. I am glad it was exciting. I imagine that the Orcs invented Muay Thai kickboxing. I got that push kick that the orc tried to finish Phereinon off with at the end of the fight from a video of an mma fight where I guy used it to knock his opponent out cold.

You are right in that Phereinon sometimes gets arrogant and shows off. She is 5,000 years old, and knows every fighting style that exists. Some of them she invented.

Other times she simply discards niceties, and just takes the pain instead of dodging or blocking, and counters with something devastating. It is a side-effect of her regeneration that she and Wolverine share. It is also inspired by an episode of Sharpe's Rifles. Sharpe is a Peninsular War veteran and returns home after the war. He gets goaded into a fencing match with a young dandy, and loses badly, because it is a nice, regulation match fought for touches. At the end of the movie they fight for real. The dandy stabs Sharpe in the shoulder with his rapier, and Sharpe grabs his sword, pinning it. Then he puts his broadsword against the dandy's throat and says something to the effect of "When it's for real, you take the pain." Phereinon is like that. Pain is nothing to her.



Chapter 7.2

The mercenary bar was nearly empty, and Aela wondered how many of the patrons she saw scattered about had been there all night. She thought that Waranari closed up at some point. But she had never stayed long enough to find out. For all that she knew, the Aymaran publican never slept.

"Aela," the very same tavern-keeper's voice rumbled from the bar. The tall, shaven-headed Aymaran was wiping cups clean. He paused to jerk a thumb to one of the back corners of the main room. "Someone's been asking for you."

"Thanks," Aela nodded. She headed that way, noting an indistinct figure in a gray cloak and hood seated there, back against the wall. An oversized book was spread open on the table, with a filled mug nearby.

The Arvern hoped that this person would bring their number up to six. She would have liked to remain in the city longer to recruit, but there was no certainty when the bandits would return to Agrigento. They would have to make do with whomever they left with this morning.

When she reached the table, its occupant looked up, and threw back her hood to expose iron-gray eyes, moon-pale skin, and stark white hair. It was the mystery woman she and Loria had crossed paths with first at the Camna estate, and then in the street outside the armorer's.

"You are Aela?" The mystery woman leaned forward with interest. "The Arvern mage trained at the Ingenium?"

"I am." Aela said, "My partner said your name is Phereinon?"

"Yes of course, the elf who followed me into the shop," she mused. "I am Phereinon. You sound surprised to hear that name."

"Well, when I do it is normally part of some lurid tale of vengeance and mass-murder," Aela said. "But those tales go back thousands of years."

"I have heard them." The other woman gestured to the chair across from her, and Aela sat.

"You were there in the street the other day, and at Camna's." Phereinon continued. "All this time I have been seeking you, and now here you are, for the third time. I don't know if this is fate, the bony claw of some divine power, or just the multiverse trying to get my attention. Well, you have it."

The Arvern thanked Waranari when the publican walked over with a mug of ginseng tea. She took a faint sip of the bitter drink, and turned back to study the mystery woman across from her.

Aela's gaze traveled across the scars that cut across the left side of Phereinon's cheek. They were jagged rents, which led her to discount the thought that they might have been caused by a knife or sword. They were also too unevenly spaced to have been the claws of a beast. Her experience in vitamancy suggested that whatever had caused the scars had been rough and irregular, like an outcropping of coral, or a bed of broken glass like those some builders put atop walls to discourage thieves from climbing over. From their lack of color, it must have happened some time ago.

"You have been looking for me?" Aela wondered. "Did you change your mind about joining us?"

"No," Phereinon said. "I seek the expertise of a conjurer who is skilled with the element of earth. Someone not daunted by long odds. Someone who will not break. I have been told by many that you are the second best in the city."

"Who did they say is the best?" Aela asked with genuine curiosity. While others might have taken it as a snub, she had to confess to feeling more than a little satisfaction at being held in such high regard as second.

"Every summoner I asked said they were the best," Phereinon said. "So I have been looking for you."

Aela stifled a laugh. If anyone else had spoken, it would have been funny. But nothing about the white-haired stranger evoked mirth. The Arvern shivered, and was not even sure why.

"So you want to do some digging?" Aela asked. "I can do that. I have experience working with earth spirits in underground spaces. Like back in the Old City under Alalia."

"Good," Phereinon leaned forward. "How are you with wild spirits? Can you calm them? Can you control them?"

"That really depends on the spirit," Aela replied honestly, "and why it has gone out of control. One that has simply slipped the grasp of an inexperienced summoner is a trifle to manage. But those that are genuinely aggressive or enraged, well those are more difficult."

"These are extremely aggressive," Phereinon said. "Lethally so."

"Where are you going where the spirits are…" Aela's words trailed away as she looked down at the book spread out between them. As Loria had said before, the pages laying open showed sketches of an ancient city. At first she thought it was Arvern, albeit thousands of years old. But the unmortarted stone in some of the drawings pointed to an even older age than her own people's civilization. Those had to be from the time of the Mound People.

"You are going to Tregyn," Aela breathed, "to the City of the Dead."

"Yes," the white-haired woman nodded. "I have lately come from there. What I seek lies buried deep beneath the modern city, beneath the ruins of the older cities underneath. I could dig myself, but it would take centuries."

"You came from there?" Aela looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. "Are you mad? Do you know how many return from expeditions there?"

"Not as many as those who remain," Phereinon almost seemed to smile then. "But really, it is not as dangerous as it once was. Eight years of tomb raiders have thinned out the deadwalkers considerably."

"Only the most powerful are still there," Aela observed, "that is not reassuring."

"Perhaps I sought the wrong person after all." Phereinon leaned back in her chair, and seemed to reappraise the Witch. "I was under the impression that the first ardhanari to graduate from the Ingenium was not one who required reassurance, or who balked at danger."

"I won't hesitate to kill anyone or anything that threatens me," Aela growled. Her arcane shield was instantly in her mind, ready to spring to life from her fingertips. By reflex, she partially shifted her senses into the aether, and felt a wood spirit sleeping within the beams of the ceiling. She reached out, gently waking the dryad and coaxing her attention. It would take only a second for her to fill the spirit with mana, and bring her fully into the physical world.

"Being a two-spirit in the Ingenium taught me to fight," Aela continued. "But it also taught me to pick and choose when and where I do. Tregyn is the graveyard of adventurers whose reach exceeded their grasp. Money is not a good enough reason to go there."

"Good," the white-haired woman leaned forward again, as if satisfied by Aela's response. "I can take care of the dead. They and I have an... understanding. I only need you to deal with the nature spirits."

Aela wondered just what an 'understanding' with the dead might mean. Was she a necromancer? Given the contempt Phereinon had displayed for necromancy in the street fight with Sethre Camna, that seemed doubtful. But Aela of all people knew that the face one presented to the world might not match what truly lay underneath.

"I had an experience with a mad spirit once," Aela mused, "during the Sluagh. It created a tornado, and tried to flatten my family's home outside of Cymner."

"You dispelled it?" Phereinon asked.

"I calmed her," Aela said. "I soothed her. She was far too much for me to simply defeat with raw power. Not that I even knew how to do that back then."

"How old were you?" The white-haired woman furrowed her brows in thought.

"I was, oh, thirteen," Aela said. "It was before I went to the Ingenium. In fact, it convinced my parents to let me study magic there."

"And the spirit?" Phereinon asked. "What became of it?"

"As I said, I calmed her." Aela shrugged. "Whatever madness the Sluagh had infected her with was gone. She drifted around the house afterward. But I have not seen her since I left."

"You pacified a mad spirit?" White-hair stared back at Aela. "You restored its sanity?"

"I don't really know what I did," Aela had to fight the urge to squirm. She felt like she was back in school, and one of her teachers was grilling her about some boring subject - like materiality - that she had failed to study about the night before. "I cannot put words to it. I just reached out and made a connection. I shared my warmth... my compassion. I felt her rage, her terror, her violation, and I... doused it, drowned it, with... well... love."

Aela had to fight the warmth rising to her cheeks. She hoped that she did not sound as trite and soppy as she imagined, talking about love.

"If only such a thing would work against swords," Phereinon murmured and stared away. If she had noted Aela's discomfort, she gave no sign of scorn. Then she looked back, eyes hard as steel. "You are the one I seek. I have no doubt."

"I am sorry, but I cannot go with you," Aela shrugged once more. "Loria and I already have a quest. We have given our words, we cannot break faith."

"But even if we did not, I still don't know that I would want to go with you," Aela said. "Like I said before, no amount of money is worth it. I advise you to look for treasure elsewhere. Leave Tregyn to the dead, it's their city now."

"I cannot," Phereinon said. "But I never said anything about treasure. I have little need for trinkets. Oh, there is gold, and jewels, and artwork, and other valuables aplenty within the Dead City. That is how I intend to pay you after all. It is not what I seek however."

"Then what?" Aela wondered aloud, "fame, power, glory?"

"Don't you want to know what caused the Sluagh?" Phereinon answered with a question of her own. "Don't you want to know how to stop it from happening again?"

Aela stared back at the other woman in sheer amazement. She did not know what to say. Was this mystery woman mad? That would explain her using the name of a millennia-old urban myth. Then Aela remembered how Phereinon had fought in the street, and her mastery of ancient magic such as aura cloaking and binding.

"You have some idea of what caused it?" Aela cautiously probed.

"I do," Phereinon nodded. "But I need to get down under Tregyn to be certain. Will you come with me?"

"I..." Aela had to admit that she was intrigued by this strange woman, and her quest. The Sluagh had nearly killed her and everyone she had known. It had killed hundreds of thousands of others who had been less fortunate. It felt personal, close to home. In truth, it was.

"We have a contract with the people of Agrigento," Aela rose to her feet, reaching for the rare comfort of ethics. "Our oath is our bond. Perhaps afterward… I'll need to think about it."

"Then I will come with you to Kye Rim," Phereinon stood as well. Closing the book of sketches, she slid it into the pack beside her chair. "And afterward, we shall see."

Using White Hair’s need for Aela’s spirit-calming was the perfect way to coax her into the little Agrigento group. The verbal probing and slight sparring between the two women was great fun to read. White Hair was impressive but it was wonderful to see Aela more than hold her own when challenged – in her Aelish way.

"Every summoner I asked said they were the best," Phereinon said. "So I have been looking for you." - Typical mages!

"Being a two-spirit in the Ingenium taught me to fight," Aela continued. "But it also taught me to pick and choose when and where I do. Tregyn is the graveyard of adventurers whose reach exceeded their grasp. Money is not a good enough reason to go there." - - Well put!


Nit- ‘They would have to make due with whomever they left with this morning.’ – I think the idiom is ‘make do’.

Oooooh, this is getting even better than I have come to expect from your masterful pen. Okay, not a pen, but still the same thing.

Knowing what I know about Persephone's backstory from Skyrim, I am really looking forward to seeing how this plays out after Agrigento. Do I scent a second story in the making here? Because as I recall it, your original Seven played out over quite a lot of ground, enough for a full novel. And here I see the makings of yet another, just as in depth, if not more, looming in the not so near future.

This is getting really exciting, and I'm looking forward to more!

Oh, and Acadian already put dibs on what is easily my favorite quote regarding who's the best mage in town.

Acadian: I was pleased with how I was able to dovetail Phereinon's goals into the current story, using Aela herself as the reason for her joining the defense of Agrigento. It took a while for that to come together.

Aela can be extremely stubborn when she gets her dander up, and Phereinon certainly knows how to do the latter. Part of her taunt was of course just to see how Aela would react. Aela is not just a fighter, but a thinker, so naturally both came out in her responses.

I must confess to the second best mage in town not being entirely my own invention. In an old episode of Magnum PI, someone hired Magnum because every other PI said he was the second best in Hawaii. You can guess who they said was the best...

Thanks for catching my 'make do' miscue. Another one that spellcheck does not catch, because technically nothing is spelled wrong.


haute ecole rider: Seven is indeed just the first act of a much larger story. It is really just an introduction to the characters. There is a much larger story waiting behind it, starting with the expedition to the City Of The Dead. Besides that story arc, I can see standalone prequel novels focusing on individual characters in the past. One on Phereinon and how she became undead, and exterminated the Dark Elves. One on Venca, and the rise of the Sacerdotium and the Rasen conquest of Aulerci thousands of years in the past. One on Hrafngoelir and her adventure with the orcs and elves in the mountains, and the Deep Roads beneath. And finally one on Aela and Ungarion's time in the Ingenium. It wold be nice to have one on Dhasan as well, I just don't know enough about his history yet. I only know that he is driven by a need to outdo his father, who didn't come back from a war.



I also made a minor edit to the previous segment, added a more detailed description of Phereinon's facial scars.



Chapter 8.1

Less than an hour later Aela found Loria and the others gathered at Veia's docks. The mercenaries all wore their armor and weapons. Hrafngoelir was clad in her full astril panoply, and carried her elvish bow and Skanjr sword. Dhasan wore his own people's ironleaf armor, and carried his flatbow and axe. Loria practically strutted in a new suit of green silk robes, and Aela wondered when he had gotten that. Then she remembered the clothier sleeping in his bed earlier that morning.

Aela noted that Venca was now clad in armor: a gleaming black lamellar cuirass of slender lorcras plates that ran vertically down around his torso, shoulders, and upper arms. Its long skirts hung down to his knees. Bracers of the same black steel plates wrapped his forearms, as did greaves that ran from ankle to knee. It was difficult to be certain against the fierce aura of the Ravenwheel, but she could feel no magic from the armor. Though given its material, it hardly needed enchantment.

Phereinon accompanied Aela of course. The white-haired woman was clad in a long-sleeved mail hauberk under a vest of hardened white leather that was embossed with eagles. Identical leather bracers were strapped to her forearms, and a pack was slung over her shoulders. Otherwise she wore the same white leggings wrapped in gray cord as before, along with gray boots.

"I thought you were not coming?" Loria wondered aloud. His eyes traveled from the mystery woman to Aela.

"Your friend changed my mind," was all Phereinon would say.

Aela fought the urge to blush as all eyes turned upon her. It was not as if she had said or done anything to convince the warrior to come. Phereinon's decision had been entirely her own.

She was rescued from the attention of the group when one of the ship's officers cried out that they were ready for boarding. Aela followed the others up the wide gangplank from the dock to the wide-bellied cog. It was much like the hulk that had borne them from the Stone Forest to Veia a week before. She and the others stowed their gear below deck and prepared for the journey ahead of them. Eager to escape the confines within, Aela was quick to return to the deck, along with many of the other passengers who had boarded the ship with them.

Aela saw that among the other travelers on the ship was a young Teodon with yellow and green scales. Aela recognized him immediately as the brash, would-be warrior from the street. She wondered how long it would take the others to notice the young Teodon. The cloak he now wore somewhat obscured his appearance. But she knew that on a ship only fifty feet long, he could not remain unnoticed forever.

She said nothing to the others, and instead made her way to the prow of the vessel. Like most cogs, this one had a small castle built up around the bowsprit. It was really nothing more than a flat platform with a crenellated wooden wall around it. She climbed inside and sat down with her back against battlement, legs stretched out before her. Craning her neck to the left, she looked out through the gaps between the merlons to watch the water below as it foamed up around the ship's prow.

She closed her eyes and shifted her senses into the aether. Almost immediately she felt an undine dancing within the water that sprayed up from the prow of the ship. The unearthly being seemed eminently pleased with this simple thing, and Aela easily slid her consciousness down into the waves beside her.

All too soon something else intruded upon her escape with the nature spirit. Aela felt it in the aether first. Bright and faithful elvish armor, accompanied by a composite bow that floated like a cherry blossom. Then came a stinging chill, like a frost wyrm's bite, and the ragged, yet somehow soothing, croak of a raven.

It was Hrafngoelir, and the varied assortment of enchantments that hung about the Skanjr like perfume about a flower. Aela was about to open her meat eyes, when she felt another enchantment, much weaker than the rest. It was barely even noticeable above the warm glow of the Northerner's own aura.

Unlike the strong and bright energy of the blond woman, this was dark, filled with loss and regret. It possessed no specific enchantment. It was just a miasma of sadness and pain, soaked up by some object like a sponge. It paused with Hrafngoelir at the nearby ship's rail, and hovered there above the waves.

Aela did open her eyes just in time to see that it was a palm-sized stone. It tumbled from the blond warrior's fingers, and the Witch saw that a Skanjr rune was carved into one of its faces. If she had paid more attention in her enchanting or language classes she probably could have identified the character. But Aela could not even put a name to it. She could only tell that it consisted of two vertical lines, joined by a single, slanting bar.

Then the stone was gone, vanished into the sea. It took all of that regret bound up with it to the sunless depths below. Aela hoped that the water would wash away the sorrow within its soothing embrace.

"What?"

Aela started at the blond warrior's voice. Had she spoken her thoughts aloud? Or had Hrafngoelir only now just noticed her behind the merlons of the forecastle?

"I'm sorry," Aela stood up. "My mind was elsewhere. I noticed your carving."

Aela nodded to the waves, that had so recently swallowed up the Skanjr's dark offering.

"Aye," the Skanjr said. "I was just saying eloi to someone."

"Hello or goodbye?" Aela recognized the unusual word as elvish, favored by the Silisce. It could be either a greeting or a farewell, depending on how the Sea Elves used it.

"Both I suppose," Hrafngoelir frowned. "What brought you up here?"

"Just staying out of the way," Aela shrugged and looked back to the waves. Clearly the other woman did not want to talk about the strange stone she had cast into the sea. Aela was not going to pry. She of all people understood the value of privacy. "I just like watching the water. It always feels peaceful to me."

The taller human climbed over the crenellated wooden wall and sat down beside Aela. The Arvern stared down at Hrafngoelir's armored legs as they stretched out on the deck beside her own. Looking back up, she noted that not only was the other woman's hair a masterpiece, but that even the powder above her blue eyes gave them a brilliant shine in the morning sun.

Aela could not help but to feel a twinge of envy, and turned away from Hrafngoelir. For the thousandth time, she wondered what it was like to be born normal, and have the option of living an ordinary life.

"That is a lovely necklace." The Skanjr's words broke Aela's reverie, and she followed the other woman's gaze to the crystal pendant that she wore. Shaped in a spiral, it hung above her small breasts from a chain of thin silver links.

"My spiral?" Aela said. "Among the Asokari - and we Witches here in Aulerci - it symbolizes the never-ending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. We all come from the Earth, and we all return to it. It also happens to be enchanted to store additional mana."

"Then you keep to the Asokar gods?" Hrafngoelir asked. "Or not gods. As I recall, they see all the Earth as a god, and all of us on it as well."

"You have traveled indeed," Aela noted. "I grew up in a city - Cymner in fact - but I have always loved the countryside. The forests, the rivers, the mountains, the sea… The wild places of the world are where I feel most alive. They are the places I feel connected to something beyond myself. In fact, it is in those places where I first met my spirit guides."

"You have spirit guides?" Hrafngoelir raised an eyebrow again. "Now you really do sound like one of the Fox Folk!"

"I am a Witch," Aela shrugged. "It is about the same thing. Oh I don't see them or smell them the way Dhasan does Wolf. But I do feel them, and I can learn from them."

"They really do see them then?" Hrafngoelir said. "I spent some time in their land, and some told me so. But I have always wondered if they were having a laugh on a foreigner."

"Oh, they see their guides," Aela insisted. "They are as much a part of their world as the earth or sky. In my case I met Turtle during a trip into the woods. There was a real turtle there, crawling ever so slowly across the path. But I felt so much more from him than just an animal. He taught me patience. Turtle is all about getting there, no matter how long or difficult the journey. Later I met Butterfly, who taught me the secrets of transformation."

"You sound like quite a Witch indeed!' the Skanjr exclaimed. "But I would not think that one with your gifts would require more magical energy?" She nodded toward the enchanted pendant.

"I don't anymore," Aela felt a wry smile come to her lips, and stared down at the spiral, "Well not usually. But when I first started casting spells in real combat, I had a tendency to use much more energy than I needed. I was like a fighter throwing a haymaker with every punch. It took me a while to learn to only use as much mana as was truly necessary. I keep it as a reminder to pace myself. And because it was a gift from a friend."

"You did not make it yourself?" Hrafngoelir looked confused.

"Oh no," Aela confessed. "Loria enchanted it for me. He has always been much better at that than I am. He did all of our gear in fact: his old robes and ring, my clothes, even Dhasan's axe and shield. Now that he has a new outfit, I am sure he will be enchanting that during our voyage as well."

"Forgive me," Hrafngoelir said, "the only other seidberendr I knew had been an enchanter. I just thought…"

"That we could do everything? Not hardly." Aela smiled. "The truth is Loria is a much better mage than I am in most of the schools of magic. The only ones I ever really had much interest in are vitamancy and spiritism. So I devoted all of my energy to them at the Ingenium. Well, and arcanism of course. Using it is part of all higher forms of magic. I never spent much time on the other disciplines. I only took the basic classes required by the school."

"Oh," the Skanjr blushed. With one thick finger she swept aside an imaginary lock of hair from her eyes. "Ever since I was a child I was taught that people like you have fearsome powers. And my brother…"

"It is true that people like myself have certain advantages as magicians," Aela admitted. She had not missed the other woman's mention of a brother, or how her words had trailed away into silence after his mention. She imagined he might have something to do with the seidberendr she had mentioned as well. "To use magic, one must walk between worlds. People like me, who change gender roles, also walk between worlds. I suppose we are made to be magicians."


Lorcras armor

Hagalaz rune

Nice character development here that begins with Aela’s delightful communion with the water spirit and is interrupted by the magical cacophony of Hrafngoelir’s approaching enchanted gear. What a fascinating perception of the world Aela can glimpse into!

I like that Aela has specialized in the magic schools that suit her and sacrificed some ability in the others. It supports the idea that one only has so much mojo. I also enjoyed her insight on mana management/efficiency in combat.

And finally, we learn a bit more about the girl with the golden hair. Oh, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about that young Teodon who ‘just happens’ to be sharing their ride.

Acadian: As I have been going back through the story and rewriting it, I have been really pleased with how ordinary Aela often feels. While surrounded by elves, lizard-men, fox people, unliving urban myths, and so on... To me she often feels like an everyman character, like Bilbo in The Hobbit. Then once and a while she shows that she is just as unique as everyone else. Like with how she lives in not just the physical world, but the spirit world, at the same time. She literally does experience reality differently than most people (although so would other advanced magicians).

More about the girl with the golden gun hair this episode, as we conclude their conversation. Then we will be going back to the young Teodon...


Chapter 8.2

"It is obvious you would study vitamancy to change your body." Hrafngoelir considered. "So why spiritism too? Why not something like enchanting or materiality?"

"I have always enjoyed conjuring," Aela mused. "Summoning nature spirits is all about nurturing your relationship with the spirits of the world: of the rocks, of the trees, of the sky, and so on. When I am with the spirits, I can be myself. They always see me for who I truly am, not what other people think I should be."

For a hired sword, the Skanjr knew quite a bit about magic. At their first meeting Hrafngoelir had said that she had spent some time among elves. Clearly the Skanjr had learned much, and with a more open mind than many others of her race. There was definitely more to her than met the eye.

That thought gave Aela a brief snort. She should be the one to know!

"But during the Sluagh, well that changed everything. spiritism wasn't just a way to escape from the company of people anymore. It became a matter of survival. Many of the spirits around Tregyn seemed to go mad, and my magic is what saved me from them. It made me realize just what I could do with spirits. It also got me into the Ingenium."

"The wizards at the school heard of your exploits?" Hrafngoelir scrunched her eyebrows in bewilderment.

"No," Aela laughed, "it made my parents take me seriously. They always said magic was just a phase, something I would get tired of and grow out of. But when I stopped a tornado from leveling our manor, even they had to accept that this was my calling."

Hrafngoelir smiled wryly, and nodded her head. "It was like that with my brother. My mother wanted him to be a shield maiden. Well, shield man. But magic was always in her runes too."

"Did they enchant your things for you?" Aela asked. She did not fail to note how the Skanjr had mixed up genders when referring to her brother.

"Aye, Hetha did make my raven." Hrafngoelir looked down to the black stone raven pendant that she wore, and held it up with one hand. As if wakened by her touch, Aela felt the magic within glow to brilliant life in the aether, a ward to protect Hrafngoelir against all magical harm. "He even carved it from basalt himself. She had always been good at that sort of thing, even when we were little."

"So what does Hrafnvartha mean?" Aela did not know a great deal of Skanjr culture, but she did know that Hetha was not a man's name. Now she was beginning to understand Hrafngoelir's interest in seidberendrs.

"Ravenward," Hrafngoelir said proudly. "Hetha said it would protect me from harmful magics. So far, it has saved my life more than once. But how did you know its name?"

"It told me," Aela said. "Except for those upon the simplest objects like warm cloaks and dry socks, all enchantments have a name. They are unique, special, so they must have a name, just like people."

"You sound so much like Hetha sometimes…" The Skanjr looked away from the Arvern mage, and stared off across the waves.

"So what about yourself?" Aela wondered aloud. "I can see from your aura that you have some magical ability as well. Is that how you do your hair?"

"Oh no, I do that the old-fashioned way!" The Skanjr warrior laughed. She reached up with one hand to touch the elaborate tapestry of golden locks that made up her hair.

"I only know a few spells," she said. Her free hand patted the glowing shaft of the composite bow nestled in the bowcase at her hip. "I know one to cloak Cherry Blossom here. Otherwise you can see me from a mile away at night. Another will muffle my foot falls, even on dried leaves. I know a Night Sight spell to see in the dark, and a few other little things."

"All useful for a hrafn," Aela observed, using the Skanjr word for raven. "So then your name means 'raven' and something else?"

"Hrafngoelir?" the Skanjr warrior turned back to look at Aela. "It means 'Makes The Ravens Sing'. My mother gave me that name because a conspiracy of them took roost around the house when she went into labor with me. They would not leave. She said that when I was finally born, they all began squawking at once. I made them sing. She said it meant that I would be a shield maiden, like she was."

"So what does Aela mean in your people's tongue?" the Northerner went on to ask.

"I don't know!" Aela laughed. Then she turned more serious. "In truth, it all depends on who you ask. Some people say it means 'rock' or 'rampart'. Others say it means 'amour'. Still others say it means 'divine messenger'. But I have simply liked the way it sounded, so that is why I chose it when I changed."

"When you-" Hrafngoelir stumbled momentarily, then went on, "of course, I forgot for a moment. When did you make your change?"

"I went to living female in my fourth year at the Ingenium," the mage said. "Afterward I met Loria. He told me that I should have waited. But I just could not bear it any longer."

"It could not have been easy," the Skanjr woman observed. Aela wondered just how much personal experience she had in the matter, given the matter of her brother, or was it sister now? "They say the elves and Asokari are much more accepting in this. Indeed, I saw more than one two-spirit among the Fox People, and they were all treated with great honor. But we humans…"

"We are not so comfortable with people being different from us," Aela finished the other woman's sentence. "My parents were furious. They tried to make a magistrate send me back to Cymner. But I had reached my legal age of majority by then, so they could not. Instead they disowned me and cut off my funds."

"Then the Ingenium turned down my request for a scholarship. They said my family was too wealthy for me to qualify. So I had to borrow the gold from a shark named Mamarce the Knee to pay my tuition. Many of the staff tried to have me expelled, and the other students… well, as I told someone else today, the Ingenium taught me to fight. I graduated a few months ago, but I'm still paying off my debt. I will be for a long time."

"Why did they do those things?" Hrafngoelir looked confused. "Because you are a seidberendr?"

Aela nodded, but said nothing.

"But that is mad!" Hrafngoelir exclaimed. "I would think they would want more people like you in their Ingenium? Aren't all these new magic schools I hear about based on the elven ways of teaching? Bringing teachers and students all together in one place, to gain further knowledge than could ever be done in the old way of master and apprentice?"

"They are," Aela sighed. "But they are still run by humans. And you know how we are. You are supposed to be like everyone else. Learn the same trade as your parents, inherit their property, positions, and titles. Marry who they tell you to. Have children of your own and do it all over again to them. Duty, loyalty, and obedience, that was all I was taught as a child."

"Aye," Hrafngoelir nodded, "and I know my own people are probably the worst of the lot. For all that these Rasen would not allow women to bear arms or use magic before King Knutr Serpent-Eye came south, in many ways they are far more enlightened now. Even though we conquered them, sometimes I think they are the ones better for it. The last of the Skanjr successor kingdoms fell what, two and a half centuries ago? Now Skanlond is just as poor and backward as it ever was. But these southern lands are rich, and people have more freedom than ever, men and women alike. They are certainly a lot more open to other races and ideas than back home!"

"They say my people were never bad in the old days," Aela frowned. "Now you can hardly tell the difference between a city in Aulertil and one here in Rase. But in the west, across the straits in Arvethair, they say we Arvernach are still like we were in the old days. I had some distant cousins living there, and they always shocked my parents with their impropriety. My parents once said they were more like elves than humans."

"The elves say that every person must find their own true calling in life." Hrafngoelir murmured. "They say no one can choose the fate of another. For no one can live the life of another."

"You seem to know a great deal about elves," Aela noted.

"As do you," Hrafngoelir replied with a smile. "You and Loria seem to get on well. Are the two of you…"

"No," Aela shook her head. "Loria has never been attracted to women."

"Oh," Hrafngoelir stared wide-eyed. "Oh! So then he and Dhasan?"

"By the blessed Earth no!" Aela laughed. "They are just friends. They just act like they are married from how they love to argue!"

"And what about yourself?" Hrafngoelir asked. "Which are you interested in, or both?"

"You first," Aela had to suppress a giggle. It was beginning to sound like they were a pair of teen girls. She had to admit, the feeling was not unpleasant. It was something she never had the chance to experience before.

"Well men of course," Hrafngoelir said matter-of-factly. "But they can be such crumheads most of the time. I cannot see why any woman would ever want to marry one."

"What about Venca?" Now it was Aela's turn to cast a sly gaze in the other woman's direction.

"Him?" Hrafngoelir sputtered. "Bah, he's too busy brooding - and looking for more black clothing to wear - to find the time for a woman."

"So the two of you never…" Aela let the question trail off.

"Well, there were a few times," The Skanjr stared down into the sea. "But those were just physical. You know, after battle celebrations. You have to put out the fire somehow. It's not like I want to have his children or anything."

"Well you might if you are not careful." Force of habit brought out the vitamancer in Aela. "It only takes one time..."

"Yes, yes, I know mother!" the Skanjr woman held up a hand to ward Aela off. "I learned a long time ago that a little princess nettle and tanet flower will keep that from happening. My mother taught me in fact, when I had my first courses."

"I wish I had a mother to teach me these things," Aela sighed. "I had to learn them in a class in school."

"Ach, you are doing just fine woman," Hrafngoelir waved a dismissive hand. "Besides, that is what friends are for. I learned more about hair and makeup from my friends than I did from my mother. She liked to shave the back of her head like the men do, said it made her helm fit better."

Aela could help but to gape. She could not tell if the other woman as being serious or not.

"Please tell me you did not really mean that," she blurted out. Instantly she regretted the words. What if the Skanjr would take offense? After it seemed that they had been getting on so well.

"I do!" Hrafngoelir nodded. "She wanted to shave my head when I was sixteen, but I would not have any of it. I like my hair. I plan on keeping it until I am so old it all falls out!"

"Well you wear it very well," Aela admitted as she looked into the Skanjr's eyes. She hoped that she was not blushing. "You're beautiful."

"That is kind of you to say," Hrafngoelir smiled. "But look at you, with that lovely long hair, and those soft brown eyes."

"Aye, hair brown as dirt, and eyes brown as bark," Aela grumbled, looking back down at the waves below.

"Nonsense!" Hrafngoelir exclaimed. "Well, your hair is rather sandy, and your eyes are brown of course. But there is so much more to you than that."

With that, the Skanjr leaned back. The next thing Aela knew, Hrafngoelir had pushed her forward, and was gently taking up her hair in her slender fingers.

"Let's do something with this," the Skanjr suggested. "We'll start with a braid around either side of your head, then tie it all in back into a tail. Then we can do something with your eyes. We'll start with some eggplant color on your lashes. That will make the whites of your eyes really shine. Then we'll put some gold on your lids, which will make the brown in your eyes glisten. It will give you more color, without being overwhelming. When you want that, we can use cobalt shadow, and deeper black on your lashes."

A small, white-winged butterfly danced across the rail before Aela's eyes. She could not repress the grin from her features, and knew that she was blushing now. But she could care less. For the next few hours she forgot all about prejudices, seidberendrs, loan-sharks, and everything else. She was just a young woman having her hair and makeup done by a friend.

Aww, an adorable chick episode! Complete with discussion of feminism, social/gender roles and limitations of said roles (which I find frustrating IRL, now that I have a nephew and a coworker who are trans and are both wonderful people), and ending with hair and makeup. Just the right touch of everything!

I did notice one tiny nit - Just wanted to remind you that the possessive form of it does not earn an apostrophe.

I continue to enjoy this story, and the hints and foreshadowing and world building that is going on here. I remember the original Seven as well as both the Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven and look forward to how our young, brash Teodon integrates himself into this group.

Rider is right – a delightfully girlish episode. And very nicely woven in there, we learn more about not only Goldenlocks but our brown-haired witch as well.

"That is kind of you to say," Hrafngoelir smiled. "But look at you, with that lovely long hair, and those soft brown eyes."
"Aye, hair brown as dirt, and eyes brown as bark," Aela grumbled, looking back down at the waves below.’
- - This is precious! We are never satisfied with what we have and often envious of what we admire on others.


Please for give me for piling on the same passage Rider cited: "Hetha said it would protect me from harmful magics. So far, it is saved my life more than once. But how did you know it's name?" - - Do you want ‘is saved my life’ or ‘has saved my life’?

haute ecole rider: I had two women talking to one another about something other than a man. So I passed the Bechdel test.

The dreaded It(')s strikes again! Another thing that spell check does not catch.

Lots more foreshadowing in the coming episodes.


Acadian: It was fun writing that girl on girl episode. It gave me a chance to do a lot of exploration of Aela's past and character.

Hetha's mispelled magic had saved Hrafngoelir's life more than once. Thanks for noticing that.




Chapter 8.3

"So why is it called the Bronze Sea anyway?" The aging Teodon Hyunsu scratched his fading green and brown scales in consternation. "The color is not like bronze at all. Not even old bronze that's gone green."

Loria piped up before anyone else could answer. "Why my good man, because while the sea may be made of water, it is bronze that flows over it."

"There beyond the far end of the sea, you will find many copper mines in the forests and meadows of eastern Aulerci." The Light Elf pointed a slender finger ahead of them to the east. Then he turned around, and gestured behind them. "But to the west, in the hills of Aela's homeland of Aulertil, there are tin mines. For thousands of years, both have been traded across this sea to create bronze."

"Aye," Venca spoke up from the rail where he stared out across the sea. "It is bronze that brought the people of this continent together, in peace and war. The Bronze Sea is the heart of Aulerci. They say that sooner or later, everyone passes over it."

"And perhaps sooner for some."

Aela turned at the sound of Dhasan's voice, and followed his gaze to the stern of the cargo vessel. There she saw Alcheon, the same Teodon from the day before. He tried to conceal himself with a cloak, but the stripes and irregular swathes of green across his otherwise yellow scales were impossible to miss.

"It would appear that these ones have been followed," Dhasan continued. The Asokar nodded toward the Teodon. "Is that the scaletail these ones spoke of before?"

"Aye," Loria said, "That is him to be certain."

"Well, he is persistent," Venca admitted. "I'll give him that."

"That persistence will earn him an early grave," Hrafngoelir murmured. "What are we going to do about him?"

"Do?" Aela finally spoke. "There is nothing to do. He can make his own bed, and he can lie in it."

"What if he dies in it?" Loria said.

"Everyone dies," Phereinon pointed out. "If he wishes to die with us, let him come."

"Remind me to never book you as an inspirational orator," Loria murmured.

"I know we all had to start sometime," Dhasan conceded. "Often not the best time. But I think we can all see that he is in over his scales."

"What we want does not matter," Aela said plainly. "Alcheon's fate is his to make, and his alone. None of us can change that. If he is determined, then we cannot stop him. Just like no one could stop me from attending the Ingenium, and no one could stop Loria from smuggling banned books out of the restricted section of the library."

"Trust a seidberendr to speak the truth no one wants to admit," Hrafngoelir said with slightly flushed cheeks.

"This talk of self-determination is all well and good," Venca argued. "But it still does not change the fact that the boy lacks skills."

"Well perhaps if someone who knows a thing or two about spear fighting teaches him - instead of humiliates him - that will change?" Aela took a moment to transfix the Rasen with her stare. Then she walked off. Stepping around crates and barrels of cargo lashed to the deck, she made her way to the rear of the ship. There she found the subject of their conversation.

The young Teodon leaned upon one of the side rails and stared out at the shore as it slid by to the right of the ship. The starboard side, Aela reminded herself. She leaned upon the rail beside him, and looked down at the water that foamed and eddied behind the cog. Alcheon said nothing, and for long moments neither did she.

Turning to Alcheon, she finally spoke.

"Tell me friend, do you know any magic?"

"The use of magic is not common where I come from," the Teodon hesitantly replied.

"Well then," Aela declared, "time we changed that."

"But I cannot-"

"Use magic?" Aela finished the sentence before Alcheon could. "Nonsense. Everyone can use magic. It is as much a part of us as blood and bone. Mana is the lifeblood of the world. It is just that many people do not want you knowing that."

"Why is that?" the Teodon asked through cautious eyes.

"Because you might change the world," Aela said plainly. "Do you know what magic is?"

"Well, potions, and scrolls, and bolts of lighting, and such things," the Teodon replied with a wave of one hand.

"Not at all," Aela shook her head. "Those are expressions of magic. But not the essence of magic. Magic, my young apprentice, is the ability to create change in accordance with your will."

"That is all?" the Teodon seemed unimpressed.

"It is that simple," Aela nodded, "and that powerful. Magic is quite literally the ability to reshape the world. To make reality how you will it to be. Is that not enough?"

The young warrior shrugged, and Aela hoped she was not wasting her time with the prospective mercenary. But she knew that if he did pay attention, her lessons might just save his life, or someone else's. That was certainly worth a little effort on her part.

"There are three things which comprise all magical workings, be they spells, scrolls, potions, or enchantments." Aela began. "First there is mana, then a pattern, and finally the will of the magician. Everything a mage does always comes down to these three things. Now, let us talk about each one."

"Mana is the first. It is the energy that powers all magic, just as pieces of wood are the fuel for a fire." The Arvern explained, and Alcheon nodded as she spoke. "All living beings have mana within them. It comes from the Earth and builds up in our bodies. Our spirits attract it, just like you have probably seen flies attracted to dung. And just as the bigger pile attracts more flies, the more powerful magician learns to store more mana within them."

That brought a wry smile from the Teodon, as Aela had hoped it would. It had done the same for herself, the first time she had heard those very same words spoken to her nearly a decade before.

"Now let us start by learning to feel the mana within ourselves," the Witch went on. "I want you to rub your hands together like this," she rubbed her open palms back and forth in a quick motion, as if she was trying to work the cold out of them. "Now you do it."

Aela watched as the Teodon rubbed his hands together as she had.

"Now what?" he asked earnestly.

"Do you feel that tingling in your scales?" the Witch asked. When the warrior nodded, she went on. "That is mana. In time you will learn to feel it within you with only a thought. But for now just rub your hands together like that."

"Next is a pattern, which is very important," the magician explained. "Think of it as the pattern of a tapestry. Or as a portrait or drawing. It is an image of what you want your mana to do. The only difference between a spell that summons a sylph and another that fires a bolt of lightning is this pattern. So learning a spell is really a matter of learning the proper pattern."

"Now there are all kinds of patterns for spells." Aela said. "In fact, there are many different ones to make the same spell. That is because magic is as much about your own personal inclinations as it is about universal rules. What inspires one person does not always work for the next. You must create your own magic or it will never work for you."

"For beginner spells, the patterns are very straightforward," she went on. "Simply imagine the result you desire in your mind, and channel your mana into image. As you can probably guess, more powerful spells require more complicated patterns. In time, you will learn to sense into the aether. There you can weave the individual strands of a spell's power, just like stitching a shirt, or a tapestry."

"Today we will learn an arcane shield spell, something very useful in our line of work. Shields can deflect physical blows, magical attacks, or both. Let us just start with the simplest: physical attacks."

Aela put out one hand, and with barely a thought a field of shimmering energy formed there before her. She turned, and stepped back so that she stood side by side with the Teodon.

"Do it just like me," she said. "Rub your hands together like before, and feel the energy rise in your scales,"

Aela watched as the Teodon did as she asked. She felt the power rising within the young warrior, and partially shifted her senses into the aether. "Now put your hand forward, and imagine a barrier taking shape there. This shield will turn aside any weapon that strikes it."

The Teodon put his hand out, palm flattened outward as if motioning to stop. Aela could see the ridges over his eyes scrunch up in concentration. His tail twitched, and his head spines rose up above his head. Yet nothing happened. Finally, he threw down his hand in disgust.

"It doesn't work!" he cursed. "I cannot do this!"

"Oh you just wait and see!" Aela's eyes sparkled with light reflected from her own arcane shield, which still glowed before them. "No one gets it right the first time. That is because there is one final ingredient we must speak of: Will. You must make the change happen. It is not enough just to want it, or hope for it, or even believe in it. You must know it. Just as you know the sun will rise tomorrow, you must know your magic will work. If your will is not this absolute, then you will cause your own spell to fail. Now let us try again, and this time focus your will."

The Teodon rubbed his hands together once more, and again the Witch could see his features scrunched together in concentration.

"That is right," she coached softly, watching the mana once more rise through his body. "You can do it. You have the power within you. You can do anything. You can make it happen. You will do it."

A disc of brilliant light burst from his fingers. In an instant it spread out to form a glowing oval in front of the Teodon, screening his body from head to toe. He opened his eyes, and stared in wonder at Aela behind the rippling light of the ward.

"See," Aela said, feeling no small amount of pride in both the Teodon, and in her own teaching ability. "I told you that you could do it. Now watch."

Aela finally allowed her own shield to fall, and she pulled back her senses from the aether. She stepped before the Teodon and balled up one hand into a fist. She beat it upon the face of Alcheon's arcane shield, as if pounding on a sealed door. She felt the magical barrier stop her fist just as firmly as such a door would. She struck again, and once more the ward halted her blow.

Then the light of the spell fizzled out of existence, and the Teodon sagged for a moment. Aela stopped, and waited for him to shake his head. He yawned, and Aela recognized this particular form of fatigue without even having to view his aura through the aether.

"You just used all of your mana," she explained. "Shields require much energy. Do not worry, it will replenish in a short while. The more that you use magic, the more mana you will learn to retain within you, the quicker you will recover it, and the less of it you will need to use in your spells. The important thing is that you did it."

"I did," the young Teodon said, "didn't I?"

"Welcome to a much wider world my friend," Aela breathed.

Sigh. I am hearing Tumindil's voice once again in my head as Aela teaches our young maverick the ways of magic. I quite liked your interpretation of how magic works. And I enjoyed Alcheon's growth, small as it may be, in this segment. I can't help comparing him to the Alcheon I am familiar with, and am sure he will turn out the same way . . . even though they start out very differently.

Story good, more please!

More and more, I’m realizing that much of Aela’s motivation comes from her nurturing nature. To insert herself into a physical altercation’s aftermath to heal the wounded. To wake her elven traveling partner to ensure he doesn’t miss their transport vessel. To recognize that if this young Teodon is going to survive among her band, he needs some training. . . and since no one else seems to be taking up the mantle, she feels compelled to do so. Though normally quite mild mannered, when Aela is ‘nurture-motivated’ to a task she becomes as assertive as necessary to accomplish it.

And what a fascinating lesson in basic magic use she gives! I’m so glad that Alcheon shows some arcane potential. After all, if Aela will be the one training him that will work out much better than the witch trying to teach him physical melee combat!

“Our spirits attract it, just like you have probably seen flies attracted to dung. And just as the bigger pile attracts more flies, the more powerful magician learns to store more mana within them." - - Every arch mage should have this posted on their wall to remind them to be humble.


Nit: ’Magic is the quite literally the ability to reshape the world.’ - - Methinks the first ‘the’ in this sentence is an extra one.

haute ecole rider: That does indeed remind me of Tumindil!

That is also the Alcheon I am familiar with! He was one of my favorite characters in that show. I was inspired by him when I reworked the Seven Reimagined version of the brash young Teodon warrior. I even chose his colorings - yellow with green stripes - in a nod to the Great Queen Seondeok Alcheon's yellow uniform.


Acadian: I would not put much faith in Aela's desire to nurture. She usually has ulterior motives when it comes to helping people. From stalling the younger Camna so Loria could talk to Phereinon in private, to looking out for herself by making sure her companions can hold their own in a fight. Being Loria's friend practically demands you be dependable and reliable. Because he is not going to be either! She would not even be going to defend Agrigento if not for Loria. And of course Loria is there for fortune and glory (preferably the first). She might feel differently about individuals once she gets to know them. But she looks out for number one (with Loria of course being number two, in more ways than one...)

I always did like the comparison of wizards to poop as a teaching tool. It breaks the ice, and is a good way to keep yourself humble.





Chapter 8.4

After the magic lesson, Aela introduced Alcheon to Loria. As always, the Light Elf's open and affable nature immediately dispelled the tension that hung in the air between the young Teodon and the others in the group. Well, most of the tension at least. Venca was certainly nonplussed. But then again, given the older mercenary's apparent disposition toward brooding, Aela was not certain if his behavior was truly related to Alcheon or not.

The villagers too still seemed unsure of both the youthful warrior, and the other mercenaries as well. Aela expected that. They were a group of armed strangers whom the Agrigentans were bringing to their homes, to protect them from other armed strangers. Aela knew it would take time to build trust with them.

The journey across the Bronze Sea was a long one, even via ship. The trip had been shorter in the opposite direction. But Loria was quick to remind Aela that they had been on a hulk then. A much larger vessel than the cog which they currently sailed upon, it could make better time over the waves. The wizard had quoted some mathematical formula about how the length of a ship's hull related to its speed, but it had quickly gone over the Witch's head. That larger meant faster was all that the Arvern really cared to know.

They ate a simple lunch of bread dipped in olive oil, washed down with the ship's cheap wine. Then Aela made her way back to the forecastle for some time to herself. As much as anyone could find solitude on a ship that was only fifty feet long. She leaned back against the parapet and closed her eyes.

The Witch shifted her awareness into the aether, and let her thoughts drift down into the water below. There under the waves, all around the small, dim spirits of fish and other marine life, she found the undines. Spirits of water, they were often the most friendly of the elementals. Indeed, at the Ingenium she had learned that water symbolized empathy and intuition. She found the undines near the ship to be in a bright mood, playing about the water that foamed off the prow, as if the vessel were a toy. They welcomed Aela as a sister, and she danced and splashed alongside them - if only spiritually - and whiled away the time with the elemental spirits.

The smell of roses and lilies filled Aela's nostrils, and the harsh croak of a raven or crow echoed in her ears. Hard footsteps followed, clanking across the wooden planks of the deck nearby. They stopped as a dark shadow fell across Aela's body, blocking out the warm rays of the sun. The cool light of the moon washed over her instead. Wood creaked loudly in her ears, and Aela felt the planks of the deck shift under her as a heavy weight lowered itself down upon them nearby.

The Arvern pulled her awareness fully back into her body. She opened her meat eyes to find Venca squatting beside her. The Rasen wore his black lamellar armor, even in the summer heat, and stared out at the waves beyond. She saw the Ravenwheel hanging from around his neck. Even no longer sensing within the aether, Aela felt its cool effluence bathe her, like flowers in moonlight. Then the mercenary's dark eyes turned to meet her own.

"So just what in the worlds are you anyway?" he asked bluntly.

"I'm Aela," the Witch replied. Her heart doubled its pace at the loaded question, but she did her best to keep her voice neutral. "That is all you need to know."

"So what do I call you," the Rasen went on, "'he' or 'she'?"

"Do I look like I want to be called 'he'?" Aela still fought to keep the anger from her voice. "I'm not wearing a bodice and a chemise because I want to trumpet my masculinity, and I'm not wearing makeup to impress everyone with my manhood."

"Fair enough," Venca nodded. He looked from her to the water, and stared into its depths for a long time before he went on. "You know, Hrafngoelir thinks you're something extraordinary."

"Well that makes one of her," Aela replied caustically.

"It must be hard living in Rase, with everyone who knows what you are treating you like an aberration," Venca observed. "Why do you stay here? You could go west. The Asokari love your kind in Hiakim, so do your own folk in Arvethair."

"Because I have just as much right to be here in Aulerci as anyone else," Aela insisted. "I won't be run out by a bunch of narrow-minded provincials. I would think that Nyktera's Champion would be a little more enlightened. She is the goddess of transitions after all, of traveling from one state to another. That is what magic does. It transforms reality."

"I'm not Nyktera's Champion," Venca stiffened, as she had accused him of a crime. "Or Mhorlor's, or Morrigu's, or whatever you want to call her. I've no use for the gods - or the Fomorians, or Fir Bolgs, or anything else - and they've none for me."

"Really?" Aela pressed on, "is that why you carry the very essence of the goddess of death and magic given physical form? Why do you worship her every sunset?"

"I don't worship her," Venca grumbled. "I'm just… thinking."

"What is the difference?" Aela asked.

"Plenty," the Rasen insisted. "I serve myself. No one else. This world - and the gods - have never done me any favors."

"What, you think the universe owes you some consideration?" Aela scoffed. "You think you're special because you lost something? Well join the rest of us."

"What would you know about it?" Venca shot back.

"What would I know about it?" Aela replied hotly. She noticed that several of the others were now staring from their positions around the boat. A little voice in her head said that she should be building trust. She ignored it. "My whole life was taken away from me when I changed. My family, my home, my future, the people I thought were my friends, everything. I lost it all."

"But you know what? It wasn't the end of the world. I have a new family." Her eyes glanced to Loria. The Silaine mage stood by with his arms crossed, and nodded back to her. "I make my own future now. One day I'll make a new home as well. The gods didn't create the world we live in, or our fates. We are the gods, and we make our destinies all by ourselves, every single day, by what we do, or do not do. What world are you going to make?"

"You sound like someone I used to know once," Venca murmured and stroked his goatee thoughtfully.

"Who?" Aela asked gently. Perhaps it was not too late to listen to that voice of reason in her head after all.

"Damn if I know," Venca sighed. With that simple honest admission, Aela felt her anger ebb away like the evening tide.

"Memories are stored in many different areas across the brain," Aela allowed the vitamancer in her to take the fore. "If you give me time, I might be able to restore some of yours."

"I have been down that road before." Venca shook his head. "There is nothing left to find."

"You have not been down that road with me," Aela insisted. "If you change your mind, I am willing to try."

"Have you done it before?" the Rasen asked.

"Never," Aela shrugged. "But I have read about it."

"I will forgo the honor of being the first then." Venca rolled his eyes.

"There is a first time for everything," Aela found herself saying. She almost felt as if she was she was channeling Loria's dry wit. "My mother used to always say I should try new things. Of course when I tried being a woman, she did not like it much."

The Rasen warrior almost smiled at that, almost. He stood, and looked about at the others, who were all staring back at them now.

"So what do I call you Venca?" Aela asked, still sitting against the parapet of the forecastle. "My friend, or something else?"

"I am your friend Aela," the Rasen rumbled. "Of that let there be no doubt."

Aela’s delightful romp with the water undines was rather rudely interrupted by the brooding mercenary!

"Do I look like want to be called 'he'?" - - I love the simple brilliance of this reply.

Wonderful little scene between Aela and Venca. Her advice about each making their own future was insightful and, I would think, likely just what Venca needed to hear.

Bit by bit we are learning more about each of the Magnificents – all the while revealing more depth to Aela.


Nits
’The smell of roses and lilies filled Aela nostrils,’ - - Aela’s vs Aela.
"You think your special because you lost something?” - - you’re vs your.

I really liked that whole confrontation/conversation/discussion between Aela and Venca. Trust him to get his doubts out of the way - he was sizing up what kind of person Aela was. It felt like he was putting out feelers to see if she could be trusted - or not.

That this exchange cleared his doubts and put his mind at rest is summed up perfectly here:



Looking forward to how Aela interacts with the remaining four(? three?) of the Seven!

[censored], I've fallen behind... way behind. Hard for me to keep up, because this story definitely demands no interruptions from work, or child, but I'll try.

The tension between Aela and Phereinon though... That part is pretty intense. Just like when I'm gaming and one of my characters must choose between two quests, each equally demanding in importance! :ahhh:

Dangit. Back to work.

I like this a lot...



And also this...

Acadian: Every time Aela tries to get some quality time with the spirits someone interrupts her!

I do not doubt that Venca has more than a little transphobia in him, thanks to his upbringing and his culture. He has forgotten most of that however, along with all of his history. But I think there are some things that still stick about right and wrong deep in his subconscious. He is a very complicated person. He is trying to take the high road, especially given that he knows his life might end up in Aela's hands. But it can be difficult to overcome the prejudices that have been drilled into you from childhood, and are continually reinforced every day by the society you live within.

Aela's vs Aela sounds like a Celebrity Death Match video!


haute ecole rider: As you and Acadian both noted, there is a lot of that sparring going on with the Magnificents right now, as they feel one another out and try to get to know who they are dealing with. As Aela thought a few times - "I should be building trust".


Renee: I enjoyed writing that interaction between Aela and Phereinon. As Acadian and Haute noted in the most recent episode, there is a lot of feeling out going back and forth as the Seven try to learn who they can trust and who they cannot. Phereinon is of course concerned that whoever goes with her to Tregyn is someone who can pull their weight and not lose their nerve. Aela, OTOH, is naturally suspicious of someone who sometimes forgets to breathe. Plus she has a visceral reaction, thanks to years of being on the ugly end of bigotry. Her dander can be easily roused.

I am glad you noted that line about being born normal. I am sure many people - trans or not - have felt that way. It is not easy being different from everyone else in the world, and seeing your opportunities vanish because of it - while others seem to have everything just given to them because they look, or act, or speak, or think, how they are *supposed* to.



Chapter 8.5

Later that day, Venca took Alcheon under his wing, and began training the young Teodon in the use of shield and spear. Aela watched with fascination as the soldier began his instruction. She was not the only one whose interest was piqued either, and in no time at all nearly all of the passengers and several of the crew were crowding around to get a view of the Rasen's lessons.

"Let's take a look at this weapon combination." Venca began as he picked up Alcheon's crescent-shaped shield in his left hand. He slid his right hand over its bright yellow face, and held it up so all could see. "This shield looks very simple. Some thin planks of wood with a piece of rawhide stretched over it. A little yellow paint and red eyes to make an impression. But don't underestimate it. The crisscrossing strips of wood give the design strength, and this hardened leather on the face reinforces it. If any of you have a dog and give it rawhide to chew on, you know how tough that can be."

The Rasen rapped his fingers against the gleaming metal boss in the center of the shield. "The boss here where I grip it is made of bronze, so not only is that going to protect my hand, but I can punch with it as well." To underscore his words, the Rasen jabbed outward with the shield. "This is a very simple piece of kit, and aside from the boss, something that anyone can make. But in the hands of a skilled fighter, it gives you both a strong defense, and a good offense."

"Now the spear." Venca stepped over to Alcheon once more and took the weapon from the Teodon's hands. Its leaf-shaped point was now wrapped in several layers of thick leather, secured by crisscrossing strips of cord. "This looks even more primitive. It's just a stick with a pointy end! But don't laugh, this is one of the oldest weapons in the world, and the reason people still use it today is because of how effective and versatile it is. Not to mention how easy it is to make."

"Now with Hrafngoelir's help, I'm going to show you just what you can do with this arms system." The Skanjr stepped up holding a shorter spear in an overhand grip. Like Alcheon's weapon, its point was also blunted. In her other hand she gripped her shield, which was decorated with a white knotwork dragon against a blue background.

Moving slowly, the Northerner stabbed overhand at the Rasen's shoulder. He easily raised his shield and deflected the blow. She followed with several more stabs in slow motion, each time going to a different part of his body.

"Now since this shield doesn't cover my entire body, I have to constantly move it to counter Hrafn's attacks," Venca said as they performed their intricate dance. "But what you have to be careful not to do, is hide behind it."

To illustrate his point, Hrafngoelir attacked Venca's face. He raised his shield to counter, and deflected the Skanjr's blow. She brought her weapon back for another strike at his head, and he continued to hold his shield up high to counter.

"Every second I have my shield up like this, I can't see what Hrafn is doing," Venca said. Now the Skanjr's spear darted down, its point angling for his belly. The Northerner stopped short, with the blunted point inches away from the ebon plates sheathing the Rasen's abdomen. "Now I'm dead, because I let her trick me into covering my eyes."

"But an enemy who feints high and goes low is not the only thing you have to watch for," Venca went on. "If you don't lift your shield when you need to, that leaves you open to another common move: going over the top of the shield rim." Hrafngoelir attacked high again, and in slow motion, she used her height to stab over the top of the Rasen's shield.

"If she's quick, and I'm not paying attention, I'm dead," Venca said. Now he finally brought his own spear into play. He held it in an underhanded grip, with the point straight up. The Rasen swung it across his body from right to left, and twisted his torso with it. The wooden shaft of his weapon met the haft of Hrafngoelir's spear and swept it away.

"But as you can see, I can use my own spear to knock hers aside," he said. "Now I can drive her back."

Then with a backhand motion Venca swung his spear back from left to right in a wide arc, once more twisting his body with it. The weapon's leather-bound tip slashed for Hrafngoelir's head. The Skanjr was forced to step back to avoid being hit, leaving her too far away for her shorter weapon to reach Venca.

"As I am sure you begin to see, the real strength of this spear and shield is my reach," Venca shifted the spear to an overhand grip, and jabbed at Hrafngoelir several times. She used her round wooden shield to bat his spearhead away. But every time she tried to close in to attack herself, the point of his spear was there waiting for her.

"This spear is at least seven feet long," Venca said. "So even when I'm holding it with one hand in the center, I've got a good three and half feet of range. When I am fighting someone like Hrafngoelir - who has a shorter spear or a sword - I have the advantage as long as I can keep her at a distance."

"Now the Teodon raiders we are going to be fighting prefer to use a short spear, about five feet long, the same as she has," Venca went on. "Some of them fight with a buckler as well, but others use their spears two-handed. They like to get in close, where they can land a flurry of blows with that spear, using it like a staff."

"So why don't they use a longer spear?" Loria asked.

"Now that is a good question," Venca said, momentarily pointing his blunted spear to the wizard. "The answer is where they live. Most bandits in Kye Rim make their lairs in the wildest areas. Usually swamps and jungles, filled with dense undergrowth, where no one else wants to go. They spend as much time in the water as they do on land. So the simple answer is that a seven foot weapon like this is just going to get in their way. They need something that is small enough that they won't be snagging it on everything around them. I can tell just by looking at this spear, that Alcheon is from a place on the periphery of the rainforest, where the growth isn't as heavy. Probably the northern coast. Or from one of the big cities."

In the meantime Hrafngoelir stepped aside and handed her shield to Aela. The Arvern's fingers naturally fell around the crossbar behind its steel boss. It was heavier than she expected, and smelled of leather, oil, and sweat. Gazing down across the leather that faced the linden wood core, she briefly studied the white dragon emblazoned there. Painted in an intricate knotwork design, it reminded her of her own people's artworks. Both the dragon and the blue background it rose against were worn and faded, showing the nicks and abrasions of hard use.

Hrafngoelir gripped her spear with both hands now. Aela glanced back up in time to see her sweep it around her body in a noisy flourish. Then she walked back to face Venca once more.

"Now just like before, Hrafn's going to want to get in close with that spear," Venca said to the onlookers as she closed in. The Skanjr deftly used the shaft of her spear to knock aside a jab from Venca's own weapon. Stepping closer, she brought the butt of her spear forward, only to see it deflected by the Rasen's shield. Still closing the gap between them, Hrafngoelir countered by sweeping the head of the spear forward. Venca brought his shield up to block once more, and the Northerner came right up to his chest. Rather than pull her spear back, or swing it around for another blow, she pressed right against his shield with both hands on her weapon.

"See how quickly she closed the distance between us?" Venca said. "Now watch what she does." The Northerner moved a foot around behind one of Venca' ankles and shoved. The Rasen went down to the deck on his back, with the shield maiden right on top of him. She dropped her spear and pulled a single-edged Skanjr knife from her belt. Unlike most daggers, this one's back widened slightly outward to two-thirds of the distance up the blade. Then it tapered down and forward to meet the cutting edge in a narrow point. Holding the broken-back seax overhand like an icepick, she slowly jabbed down at the Rasen.

Then she stood up and put the dagger away, while Venca climbed to his feet behind her. "See how fast that happened?" Venca said. "We went from spear-fighting, to wrestling, to knife-fighting. When it's for real that will only take seconds. That's what the raiders will try to do. They'll push it in close and take away your range advantage. Then they'll wrestle with you, and cut your throat."

"So now you know what you are up against," Venca concluded. "Next we'll start going through it one at a time with everyone, and you can learn how to keep Hrafn at a distance, and stop her from killing you."

Alcheon was the first to step up and take his spear and shield from Venca. Hrafngoelir continued her role as the aggressor, once again taking her shield to defend with. As with the demonstration, all of this was done in slow motion, so that everyone could see what was happening.

"Hold your spear overhand, high above your head, just behind the balance point." Venca guided Alcheon to lift his spear in such a manner, with the point drooping down from where he balanced the long weapon in his hand. "Now when you thrust, you're going to be using gravity to bring the point down into your enemy's face. Thrust over the top of her shield, just like Hrafn did to me at the beginning."

"So it's like fighting downhill," Alcheon observed as he took a tentative jab at the Skanjr.

"Exactly," Venca nodded. "That is going to give you more speed and power, and take less effort. Always take every advantage you can. With that in mind take a small step with your left foot when you strike. That will close the distance, and prevent her from being able to step back out of range. Once you hit, step back again, and get out of her range once more. Remember, always keep her in range of your weapon, but stay out of range of hers."

Alcheon took that half-step forward and jabbed once more, stepping back again the moment his spear head struck Hrafngoelir's shield.

They continued doing so for long minutes, and gradually picked up the pace of the drill as Alcheon showed that he was comfortable with the movements. Then Hrafngoelir began to advance, and Venca instructed the Teodon to step back every time she moved forward to keep her at a distance, and to always drop his spear point in her face to stop her.

The other four Agrigentans followed one at a time. Some had greater success than others. Daehyun seemed skilled with the spear already, and Aela overheard him say that he sometimes went hunting with bow and spear in the marshes. Ranazu dove into the lessons with a zeal that was nearly frightening, and Aela wondered whose face he imagined staring back at him when he sparred with Hrafngoelir. Vesia was clearly unskilled with the weapon, but diligently followed along with the lessons anyway. Finally the old Teodon Hyunsu seemed to be almost afraid of the spear, and looked like he was ready to jump off the boat the first time that the Skanjr struck his shield.

Perhaps most of all Aela was amazed at how Venca, usually so surly and morose, seemed to come to life in the training sessions. It was as if the person he truly was on the inside was showing through. Perhaps he was so engrossed in what he was doing that he forgot to brood? In any case the training sessions became a staple of life aboard ship, with Venca leading Alcheon and the Agrigentans in lessons every morning, afternoon, and evening.


Hrafn's shield

Hrafn's seax

A wonderful and easy to follow instruction period in spear & shield play. You bring to life the fact that Venca really knows what he’s doing when it comes to both close quarters combat as well as instructing it to others. You also show us that Hrafngoelir is no slouch either in this business.

The contrast the pair provides to the less knowledgeable/experienced Agrigentans is stark but I suspect the 'students' are in good hands. It was also fun to see that, in this arena, the magic duo of elf and witch were rather out of their element.

Acadian: One of the things that really annoys me about movies that have a training sequence, is that there is never any actual teaching involved. It is typically just one person beating up another, and somehow they are supposed to learn that way. So I did a lot of research to put together both a demonstration, and some actual hands-on teaching.

Aela and Loria are totally out of their element here! You are right, in that it was nice to write this from Aela's pov precisely because it is all as new to hear as it is to the people being taught.



Chapter 9

Dark-Eye called a halt to their march, and Sindeok found a log to sit upon. His feet ached. This was the price of having spent so much of life riding an oro everywhere. His once fine silk leggings were splattered in mud, and his leather boots were completely encased within the goop. Worse, the bronze plates sewn into the front and sides of the footwear were likewise inundated.

He knew the armor would not rust like iron would. But the last thing he wanted was for the plates to turn green with verdigris, or worse bronze disease. A nangdo would be expelled from his company for being so lax and slothful with his equipment. He might be an outlaw now, but he had not forgotten his pride.

The black and white scaled Teodon pulled off his boots and began wiping them clean of muck. It was a thankless task. But it was one he had performed a thousand times back in the barracks in Hansando. Somehow simply going through the motions took his mind off recent events, and reminded him of better days. Days when he was still a man of honor, still a credit to his family.

When he was almost finished another bandit came sloshing through the mud nearby, splashing a thick spray of the muck all over Sindeok and his boots. The former nangdo recoiled, shielding his eyes from the mud. After wiping his face clean, he curled a lip at the offender, who merely laughed as he walked away.

"They are testing you."

Sindeok nearly jumped out of his scales at the sound of Dark-Eye's low voice. He had not heard the bandit leader come up behind him. Turning, he found that the red scaled Teodon gazed at the interloper's back.

"You had better do something, lest you be found wanting in their eyes."

Sindeok nodded. He was no stranger to hazing. His first week as a nangdo in the Celestial Gallery had been the worst week of his life. Or at least he had thought so at the time. But he had found that by enduring it, he had gained the respect of his comrades, and showed them that he was strong enough to be counted among them.

"How do I earn their respect?" Sindeok asked. He suspected that things in a raider camp - much less a cannibal band - would be much different from a hwarang barrack.

"You don't," Dark-Eye said plainly. "They have no respect. Not for me, not for anyone, least of all themselves. They only thing they understand is power, and fear."

"Then I should do something dramatic," Sindeok said. It was not a question, so much as a thought spoken aloud.

"And do it soon, or something dramatic will likely happen to you," Dark-Eye cautioned. The raider captain turned his single eye to the former nangdo's boots.

"Those do not help," he said. "It incites them. It makes them think you are insulting them. There are no pure bone aristocrats here. We are all mud-feet now."

With those final words, Dark-Eye walked away through the mud. Sindeok noted that he did so with bared feet. He knew that the bandit leader had once commanded the Celestial Gallery company. His bones were born as pure as his own. Yet he walked barefoot through the mud, the same as any peasant.

Sindeok looked around him. Everyone was barefoot. Everyone but him.

He looked down to his boots. He knew that he would never wear them again. But he still had one final use for them. Picking them up in one hand, he rose to his feet and strode through the mud. He was surprised to find it was much easier than with the boots on. The webbing between his three front toes found more purchase in the muck, and allowed him to almost swim through it. It felt strange. But then lately so did many things.

He found the Teodon who had splashed him with mud. The offender's scales were dark brown, fading to a softer shade of the same color on his underside. He wore a bronze heart-guard disc over his chest, and a few belts to hold his gear. A spear tipped with a bronze head was nestled against his shoulder, and a long knife slung at his waist.

Sindeok ignored the other Teodon around the offender, and focused upon Brown-Scales. Lifting his boots in one hand, he flung them at the Teodon's back. They connected with a pair of loud thumps, plastering the bandit's scales with mud.

"Lick them clean you eggless bastard," Sindeok snarled.

Brown-Scales staggered forward, and rose to his feet with his spear in both hands. Sindeok's single-edged sword sang from its sheath. He brought it up with the point forward, and ring-shaped pommel at eye level. He waited calmly while the bandit spat and hissed at him. That might have frightened a peasant, but not a trained nangdo such as himself.

Sindeok moved closer, daring Brown-Scales to strike. The raider took the bait, thrusting his spear directly at Sindeok's face. By reflex he raised his sword blade just enough to meet the shaft of the bandit's spear. That lifted it up and to his right, and pushed Brown-Scales' weapon off line.

Sindeok simply had to flick his wrist to continue the motion. That spun the long, straight blade from right to left around his head. Before the bandit could bring his spear back to guard, the former nangdo's sword fell in a diagonal cut. Scales and bone parted as easily as rice paper beneath the blow. Brown-Scales' body fell to one side, and half of his head to the other.

Sindeok stepped back casually, but kept his eyes on the bandit's maimed body. Instant kills were rare. Even a mortally wounded enemy could still strike back to take his slayer with him to the grave. But Brown-Scales did not move, and Sindeok could pick out the convolutions on the surface of his bisected brain in the muck.

Now he took the measure of the other bandits. Some gaped openly. Others stared with hard, cold eyes, like sharks recognizing another predator in the water. Dark-Eye simply nodded when Sindeok met his gaze. It was a simple motion, but it conveyed much. Their leader had given his blessing to the killing.

Even as his bare toes sank into the mud, Sindeok felt that he was now on much firmer ground than before.



Here is a link to Sindeok's killing move

The magic tutorial had me fascinated, that was awesome, especially since she's teaching somebody who probably swears by weapons. As long as I've played RPGs, nobody has really ever explained it in such a way. Maybe in the tablegames I played long ago, but if so, that was long ago. And it wouldn't have been told in context of a story.

I seem to remember Simplicia the Slow taught Teresa her first magic, yes?

A neat interlude from the Seven’s water journey. Sindeok makes much progress within his new and ruthless bandit gang. Dark Eye recommended something dramatic to demonstrate power and instill fear. Sindeok delivered in full measure!

I like also how you have the bandits barefoot – given the muck they live in and the nature of Teodonic feet, it makes perfect sense.

Renee: The Shadowrun and Earthdawn rpgs were excellent at explaining magic, and making it an integral part of the world. No surprise there, since they had real life Witches like Steve Kenson on the writing staff. I of course drew upon my own experience as a Witch, and integrated that into the fictional world I created for Seven Reimagined. Check out Scott Cunningham's book Wicca: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner. It is an outstanding book to introduce one to magic and Witchcraft.

Simplicia the Slow raised Teresa. But it was Raminus Polus who taught Teresa her first spells. It was in a flashback chapter from her childhood, when she also first met Methredhel and Adanrel.


Acadian: I am enjoying writing Sindeok. He provides an excellent view into life as a raider. Since he is just as new to the outlaw life, that allows the reader to learn about it at the same pace he does. Of course being a former hwarang, he is killing machine of an order much higher than the other bandits. So long as he can adapt to a new life without honor or ethics, he will do well.

I liked what I was able to do with the barefoot nature of most of Teodon society, and how like their scales coloration, it is a means of denoting peasant from noble. Peasants have muddy feet, nobles are clean - above the common work of the earth.



I updated the first post with some examples of the scale coloration of some of the Teodon characters. They are from various dinosaurs, so they are not actual physical representations of the characters (Dark Eye is not an Allosaur!), just how their colors would look.




Chapter 10.1

Aela found that four days after leaving Veia, their ship finally came into port. The sun was at its zenith when the cog tied up at one of Telsin's stone quays. Loria led the way down the plank and onto the wharf. Like Aela, he was familiar with the seaside town. It was where they had boarded the hulk that had taken them to Veia just over a week before.

Situated at the mouth of the Nakdeok River, the small town marked the border between Kye Rim and the Stone Forest. The latter was nominally claimed by Veia. Not that any state in its right mind would waste its resources fighting over the rocky badlands. Surrounded by a stone wall, the brick buildings of the community were white-washed in the Rasen style, and roofed with red-glazed tiles.

Telsin sat upon the western shoreline of the river. A long stone quay jutted out into the water from the northern edge of the town. It was to this landing that their cog tied itself up, alongside other sea-going vessels. A wooden dock stretched the length of the shore to the south, and ended at another stone quay that bisected the river. The sheltered harbor cradled between the two piers was filled with small boats of many varieties, from sea-going dories to tiny one-man coracles.

Farther inland rose a line of warehouses and occasional ale-shops. Beyond them rose the small one and two story shops and homes of the town's inhabitants. Aela knew from experience that a single, cobblestoned road ran from the docks directly to the western gate of the town, the only other point of egress.

But Loria did not take them deeper into the city. Instead he led the group along the timber docks, to the southernmost stone quay. Situated farther up the river, this landing hosted a slew of small, flat-bottomed river boats. Among these the elf found a vessel willing to take them aboard.

The Nakdeok Queen was a curious affair. To begin with, she had not been tied up with her side to the dock as most vessels were wont to do. Instead her stern had been nestled against the quay, allowing horses and wagons to trundle directly on board and roll straight down the boat to the prow. Indeed, several teams of horses and saurians had already done so. The bow was not the usual narrow point that most boats possessed either. Instead it was flat, just as the stern. In fact, the entire vessel was rectangular in shape, with gently rounded corners. Either end appeared capable of functioning as bow or stern. She was long enough to accommodate three wagons from end to end, and two such conveyances side to side. Even after that there was still plenty of room for passengers on foot.

The most unusual thing about the Nakdeok Queen was the matter of her propulsion however. Rather than bearing sails or oars, Aela saw that she was driven by hadrosaurs. Not dragging her by tethers from the shore, but upon the boat itself!

At either side of the vessel a massive saurian stood in a stall that was cut through the deck, each pointed in opposite directions. Each hadrosaur sported a bony crest that began at the tip of its nose, and ran all the way back along the top of its skull. From there it jutted out from behind its head at an angle like a single, short horn. Otherwise they were just as large as a crumhead, and easily the mass of two draft horses.

The Teodon seemed quite familiar with the breed, and Aela heard Daehyun refer to them as spirecrowns. Hranfgoelir laughed that they should be kept away from bulls, lest they grow jealous of the other animals' two horns.

The Arvern Witch could see that once the spirecrowns began to tromp along, their feet would turn what appeared to be a disc hidden underneath the planks of the main deck. Because of this the enormous animals would remain walking in place as it spun beneath them. Aela imagined that there was other machinery hidden below the deck as well. Somehow it must cause the low waterwheels at either side of the ship to spin. Their wooden slats would in turn push the vessel forward or backward through the river. It was a very complex design, and Aela admired the engineering ability evidenced in its creation.

A canvas awning rose above the spirecrowns to give them shade, and Aela noted postholes spaced along the boat that would allow more tenting to be erected if need be. Aela saw no signs of there being a hold or lower levels. So far as she could tell the boat had only the single open deck, and either possessed a flat bottom or one with a very shallow draft.

Her captain was a Sea Elf named Hesari. Like all those of the Silisce race, his skin was the blue of a calm sea. Otherwise he looked much like a Silaine elf, with a similar willowy frame and graceful features. He was clad in a blue linen tunic that was open down much of its length, showing off the artistically-sculpted muscles of his chest. His long legs were bare, and likewise revealed wiry muscle. Finally he wore a simple pair of leather sandals upon his feet.

Aela found an open place near one of the waterwheels and sat down. She leaned back against the wooden awning that covered the wheels. The Arvern watched the brown water of the Nakdeok slide by as it fell behind the boat. The turning wheel churned up the otherwise peaceful water, and left a foaming wake behind the boat, marking a trail where it had passed.

Aela felt magic down beneath the water. She closed her meat eyes, and instead opened herself fully to the aether. Allowing her senses to sink below the waves, she was greeted by the powerful scent of an undine. As they cast off from the dock, the water spirit reversed the flow of the river around the boat, so that even though they traveled upstream, they were no longer pushing against the current. Just as with the hulk that had transported them to Veia the week before, The Nakdeok Queen still had to propel herself through the water. Hence the spirecrowns and waterwheels. But the intervention of the spirit insured that the boat would do so far quicker and easier than otherwise.

Aela traced a slender thread of magic from the undine to the boat, and found that it led to the captain. As the Skanjr said, wherever there is an alfar, magic is not far behind. Granted, they did not mean it in a flattering manner. But it was true more often than not. Given the Sea Elves' famous reputation for ruling the waves, Aela would have expected no less.

Still, the journey up the winding course of the Nakdeok River was a long one, even with Captain Hesari's conjured assistance. In spite of it being the edge of the Kye Rim, they came across numerous settlements as they traveled. Every few miles there seemed to be another farming and fishing settlement. All were fortified with strong timber walls, ditches, and moats of course. She doubted that anyone out here had seen a Rasen oathman or Teodon hwarang in years.

A glance to the west reminded her of the Dark Barrow that she and Loria had cleared such a short time ago, with the help of the Frisverd. It lay many miles in that direction, beyond the rainforest, and deep within the strange karst landscape of the Stone Forest. It seemed as if they were retracing their steps, for after the battle, they had taken this same river back to the coast, and from there boarded ship for Veia.

Everything happened in cycles, Aela thought. She had just not expected this particular one to turn so quickly!



Horse-Powered Ferryboat 1

Horse-Powered Ferryboat 2

Spirecrown - Saurolophus Angustirostris

A fascinating look at this river ferry that blends much familiar in using draft animals to propel its waterwheels – but with a nice twist of using animals well suited to this part of Aela’s world. Her unknowing but observant descriptions were perfect – I felt I was ‘discovering’ this wondrous ferry as much as she was. Aela’s perceptions moved very much into her arena once the ferry got underway. Indeed, only she could ascertain and trace the undine assist.

I’m ever so much enjoying this story!

Acadian: I was originally going to use horses on the ferryboat, as in the original Seven. But then I remembered that we are now journeying into Kye Rim, so I changed them to hadrosaurs to keep with the mysterious setting of the lizard peoples.

I very much enjoy writing a character with a magician's perspective, who sees things beyond just the ordinary, physical world. It adds more layers to the story, and their way of looking at the world.




Chapter 10.2

Captain Hesari stopped at many of the villages they came across. Their inhabitants all seemed to know him. Sometimes he bought supplies from the inhabitants, other times he sold them things, and often he even carried letters between them. Passengers left at some stops, only to be replaced by new travelers who boarded at other places. It seemed there was always something happening on the Queen.

There was plenty to see within the jungle between settlements as well. Wild hadrosaurs and theropods of all sizes congregated around the river. Of the two-legged saurians, some were as small as house cats, while others such as wild oros rose to height of horses. Aela noted that many of the smaller breeds bore feathers over parts - and sometimes all of - their bodies.

Of the hadrosaurs, some were as small as the fifteen foot long spirecrowns on the Nakdeok Queen. But most were far larger, many of whom stretched nearly three times as long, and rose over twice the height of a human. All had the same ornithopod body type however, with massive hind legs and more slender forelimbs. They all likewise bore the thick, stiff tail that thrust out straight into the air behind them, and finally the wide, almost duck-like bill of their mouths.

But these other breeds had many different forms to their head crests. Some bore tall, sail-like frills that ran evenly along the top of their skulls. Others had a fan-shaped crest that began small, then rose up dramatically behind their heads, only to veer steeply down again. Others had irregular frills and bony plates. Finally some bore no head ornamentation at all.

"The cattle of Kye Rim," Alcheon followed her gaze. "You will find them near all the rivers and streams."

"They like to swim?" Aela wondered.

"No," the young Teodon shook his head, "they just like the edges of rivers for drinking. They get out in the open fields too though. They can eat just about anything, grass or low leaves."

"Their feet are good in water," Hyunsu added. "Your horses with their hooves would never last in our rice paddies. It's too wet for them. But the hadrosaurs do just fine in the mud."

"The hadros thrive in almost all environments." Phereinon's voice rang out from farther back on the boat. Aela turned, and saw that she was sitting cross-legged with a book spread out before her. It was not the oversized folio containing sketches of ancient Tregyn that Aela had seen her studying before. Rather this was a smaller- journal-sized book. As Aela watched, she noted that the white-haired warrior was making notations within in.

"You can even find them along some of Rase's waterways." Phereinon continued to write in her book. "The Rasen have discovered that they can haul much heavier loads than even the strongest draft horse. They are prized for hauling barges along canals. They are really only limited by their food intake, which can be quite substantial. It takes a rich land to support them. For example, the Silmar use smaller ones like the spirecrowns and crumheads on the plains of Glastal. But the steppe there is just too arid and vegetation too sparse for the larger breeds, like the maias or hatchetheads."

"We have plenty of them back home in Hiakwia," Dhasan added from behind them. "Both big and small. I never smelled a horse until I came to Aulerci."

"Their smaller, two-legged thero cousins like the oros are even wider-spread." Now the scarred swordswoman did raise her head to look at Aela and the Teodon. "The oros are smaller, so require less food, and adapt easier to difficult climates. Members of their genos can be found all across Glastal - from the deserts of Tiwanku, and all across the steppes farther south. They live in the rainforest to the north, and up through the temperate forests and prairies of Hiakwia. The frozen north is the only place they cannot survive - there in Hiakwia, or over here in Skanlond. The Sea Elves have even brought them and the hadros to their islands in the Inner Sea "

"You seem to know a great deal about them," Aela thought aloud.

"I have studied life in my time upon this Earth." The ghostly pale woman turned back down to her book, and began writing again.

The Arvern stepped closer, and noted that a small insect crawled aimlessly across Phereinon's open journal. There sketched out upon the same open page was a large diagram of the same creature, with every detail of its form recreated in painstaking detail. It was not a work of art. There was nothing imaginative or aesthetically appealing to it at all. Rather it was a precise and analytical illustration. In fact, it looked just like those she had seen in her anatomy books in school. Except the specimen here was a bug rather than one of the manaborn.

"You are a naturalist then?" Aela said.

"Yes, when time allows." The insect came dangerously close to leaping from the page. With one hand Phereinon gently nudged it back toward the center. Aela saw it was some sort of beetle, with a bright orange design seemingly painted across its shell.

"This is a Tropical Milkweed Leaf Beetle," Phereinon continued. "It has a temperate cousin that lives north in Rase. This particular eidos is interesting, because I have observed that they guard their larvae from predators."

"Don't you have better things to do than draw insects?" Hyunsu spoke with the same bewilderment that Aela had to admit that she felt. "I have smacked thousands on my scales, and found nothing worthy of note in them."

"Ah… he means that a farmer's mind is preoccupied with his work," Alcheon interceded diplomatically. "Planting, harvesting, husking, digging paddies, shoring up the bunds to keep the fields intact, adding water, removing water, the work never ends."

"Farm work is hard work," Phereinon looked up from her illustration to the young Teodon. "From before the sun rises to after it sets. There is little time for dreams on a farm, and no time to make them real."

"I have dreamed much." Phereinon looked to the aging Hyunsu. His green and brown scales seemed so faded and worn compared to Alcheon's lustrous skin. "My dreams have murdered millions, and left this world scarred. So now I seek value in life, that rare spark that so quickly fades. Someday I might be the only one to remember it ever existed."

Phereinon looked away, across the river to the thick rainforest beyond. Then she turned her ghostly face back to stare at Aela.

"I will remember you all," she insisted.

Aela felt a chill creep through her bones, in spite of the bright sun overhead, and the thick humid air around her. The Arvern felt as if someone had walked over her grave. Perhaps someone had?

After that the white-haired woman turned back to her beetle. But the cold feeling persisted within the Witch's skin. She drifted away from the swordswoman, and found herself on the other side of the boat. Dhasan almost bumped into her when she stopped.

"That one's scent is all wrong," the vulpine warrior said in a low tone, nearly a whisper. He gave a brief nod to indicate Phereinon. "I do not like it."

"Why?" Aela whispered back, careful not to turn her head back toward the icy mystery woman.

"She has no smell," Dhasan declared. "No real one at least."

"That's bad?" Aela wondered aloud. "So she bathes…"

"No, that is not what I mean," Dhasan explained. "I can smell the natural odors of your body, of your sweat, of the pomegranate oil you put in your hair, of the vanilla you put on your skin. I smell the oregano and parmesan from the olive oil you dipped your bread in for lunch. But she has no body odor. She does not sweat. She is nothing but oil and leather, and… death."

"Death?"

"Yes," Dhasan breathed. "I was not sure of it at first. It is so... empty. All living things give off odors from their bodies. But she does not. It is as if there is nothing alive there to make a scent."

Aela thought over that for the rest of the day, and added it to the store of strange things she had already noticed about Phereinon. It all pointed in one direction. A direction Aela did not much like.

Aela was silent during their dinner of fried fish, still pondering this. They spent the first night tied up at the safety of a village's dock. She did not speak to Dhasan about it again, nor with Loria. Though she could tell the Light Elf suspected something as well, from the carefully disinterested glances he sometimes sent Phereinon's way, when the white-haired woman was not looking.


Lambeosaurus

Parksosaurus

Ornitholestes

Hadrosaurs 01

Hadrosaurs 02

Orodromeus

Gasparinisaura

Ouranosaurus

Maiasaura

Tropical Milkweed Beetle

A richly detailed study of life along the river. Trading with villages and a wonderful look at the fauna.

Phereinon is absolutely the most mysterious of the group. On one hand, it is clear she has a very different perception of time and life. She also emits an ominous aura (even if odorless). On the other hand, there is something in her that speaks of an inherent. . . goodness – at least some form of goodness. Her almost loving attention and knowledge of animals. Her rather tactful exchange with the young farmer confirming her recognition of the work involved with his profession. Not killing her assailants during that fight back in town despite her clear ability to do so. Yep, White Hair’s fascinating indeed.


Nit? ’There sketched out upon the same open page was a large diagram of the same creature, with every detail of its form recreated in pain-staking detail.’ - - I’d recommend respelling the word to painstaking. But if you feel a hyphen is necessary, remember that she is taking pains, not staking pain.

Thanks! I'll see if our local Borders has this one. Oops, Barnes & Nobles. I studied witchcraft way back in my teenage years but never really got the hang of it. I'm too much of a surburbanite, I think. Got much more into astrology, meditation and (as you know) tarot cards.



Oops, I was close though. At least I remember Simplicia factored deeply into her background (My memory is not very good).




Nice. And they're all barefoot, why is this? This scene reminded me of one of Darkness Eternal's stories from several years ago, in which a bunch of Morrowind slaves began having a food-fight or something.

I used to know a kid who was really good with ken-do by the way. This was back in high school. We'd watch a bunch of other kids (like four or five of them) grab large sticks out of the woods, and they'd ALL go up against the teenage ken-do master, but the master was really fast! Within seconds, there'd be four or five kids running away, only one left standing.

Acadian: I could have just said "they sailed down the river", but instead I saw this as a golden opportunity to do some character development and world-building. So I am lavishing several installments on the flora and fauna of Kye Rim, and using the time spent traveling to get to know the Seven.

I was also thinking that Phereinon is easily the most mysterious of all the Seven. Venca is a mystery because his past is a blank slate. But because of that, there is not much to truly reveal about him. He is an onion with only one peel. At least until we get much later into his story (which would not be in Seven). Phereinon OTOH, is plainly more than she appears. There is the mystery of what she is, and that of who she is and where she has been. I am having fun peeling back one layer at a time through Aela's eyes.

No more pains staked out like vampires!



Renee: The Teodon and their footwear is something I have explored in previous parts of the story as well. Peasants are not allowed to wear boots or shoes (this is like laws in England where only nobles were allowed to wear velvet or silk, or how only the Roman Emperor could wear purple). Instead they go barefoot. High born Teodon like Sindeok and the other hwarang all have footwear. They literally do not get their feet dirty. I got the original idea from how in Ancient Greece helots and slaves were called 'dusty feet', because they spent all their lives toiling in the dirt.




Chapter 10.3

The next day went on much like the first. Venca and Hrafngoelir continued to provide both instruction and entertainment with their spear-fighting lessons. Phereinon was one of the few passengers on the boat to ignore them. Instead she continued her studies of seemingly insignificant forms of life, such as birds and lizards.

Aela herself took advantage of the spectacle of spear training to break away from the others and find some quiet time at the far end of the boat. It had been far too long since she had worked on her aura - and thus on her body. She may have had all a woman's parts for years. But she still lacked the ideal proportions in many areas of her body.

She sat and stared at her hands. They were too big for a woman's hands, fingers too long, palms too wide. They were man-hands, as she sometimes heard. It was time that changed.

Aela slipped the bonds of the flesh and blood world, and rose into the aether. Her aura was bright and strong all around her, glowing with power. She sent her consciousness into that brilliant display, and felt herself encompassed by warmth. She even imagined that she heard the sound of her heart beating, a slow yet thundering drum, along with the warm winds of air flowing to and from her lungs.

The fibers of energy that made up every facet of her body felt strong and supple in Aela's metaphorical hands. The closer she looked, the more complex the tapestry they wove became. Numerous threads wove in and out of one another in a tangle far more complex than any of her countrymen's knotwork art designs.

Aela recalled that when she had first tried to study her aura in detail, it had all seemed so overwhelming. Now, as then, Turtle showed her the way. She took her journey through her own aura one step at a time. One thread at a time. Just like a turtle walking across a meadow. She would reach her goal in the end. She always did.

She followed thread after thread of power, and finally came to those of her hands. Years of study and experience at the Ingenium's hospital had taught her to easily identify which of the numerous strands of energy governed her muscles, which her tendons, her bones, her skin, her nails, her blood vessels, her nerves, and so on. Most people probably never imagined how many separate systems had to work in perfect concert to perform an act as simple as making a fist. Aela saw them all here, enveloping her consciousness.

So she took the strands of power that shaped her flesh and bone, and went to work. Auras were abiding, not easily altered. They were meant to last after all. Yet they were not utterly immutable. They did change naturally over time. As a mountain was slowly shaped by wind and water, an aura was slowly changed through the natural process of living.

It took energy to pare, and snip, and shorten the filaments of flesh and bone, of blood vessels and nerves. Yet that was the easy part. The difficult part was making those changes permanent. An aura wanted to snap back into its original design. That is what made healing so easy. Aela almost snorted at the thought. Yet the truth was that stitching together arteries and bones with nothing but mana and will was child's play compared to what she now undertook. This felt like she was trying to bend iron with her bare hands.

But what was mere iron compared to magic? Aela willed her reality to change. The mana she now expended was prodigious. More than defending the Frisverd in the Dark Barrow. More than any act of healing. Her power became a forge, her aura the iron, and her will the hammer that shaped it.

So she hammered away at her aura. Not blindly, or even brutally. But with the skill and precision of a master jeweler. She had to be that careful, lest she go too far and literally break one or more of the threads of her aura. Then she might end up maimed, or worse.

She did not know how long she spent there, laboring in the forge of transformation. She did know that she was exhausted by the time she had finished. Her body was covered in sweat, and her hair hung down like wet a mop behind her head. She was thankful for the braids Hrafngoelir had put in, otherwise that sweaty mess probably would have been plastered across her face as well.

She looked around to find that the sun was fading in the west, burning bright and red like a giant torch above the horizon. Loria sat beside her, his cards laid out on the deck before them. He had been playing a game of patience. He took the time to coolly lay down one final card before turning to look at her.

"So how went it?" he asked softly.

"Let us see," Aela breathed. She lifted one hand before her palm flattened outward. The Light Elf raised his own to meet hers. His soft skin pressed against hers, and Aela noted that her fingers were notably shorter than his now, and her palm plainly narrower. Her man-hands were gone. Now they appeared as normal - and evenly proportioned - as any woman's.

"Magic is the quite literally the ability to reshape the world." Her own words to Alcheon a few days before came back to her. "To make reality how you will it to be."

Aela could not restrain the grin that blossomed from her features. Loria wrapped his fingers around hers and squeezed gently. Then she hugged him, sweat and all.

"Did I ever tell you that you are amazing?" he murmured. "Almost as amazing as I am!"

What a wonderful episode as Aela addresses the man hands that have bothered her for a long time. I love how you described her ability to actually change her body. How the body’s desire to resist change makes healing easier but Aela’s current task much harder makes perfect sense.

Success - as she reveals her pretty little girly hands to Loria! Scenes like the end of this episode make it clear why Aela loves her dear elven friend.


Nit: ’That is what made healing so easy. Aela almost snorted at the that thought.’ - - Looks like one of the two underlined words is a spare remnant of the editing process.

Acadian: I wanted Aela's sex change to be more involved that just waving a wand and saying a magic word. Like anything important in life, I wanted her to work for it. It was also a great opportunity to show one of the ways that magic works in the world, and how it literally reshapes reality in accordance with your will. that is why Camna was so impressed with her. Aela is using magic for how it is ultimately meant, rather than just to sell cheap trinkets to make money. Likewise, that scene also adds more to how aura's work, without it being an infodump.


The that was indeed a fragment of previous edits. Thanks for catching it.




Chapter 10.4

The Nakdeok Queen spent the night pulled up to a clear stretch of shoreline, and the travelers rolled out their sleeping mats on the deck. It was not the comfortable bed Aela had left behind in Veia. The deck was hard, and the air was hot and humid. But the Arvern could still not stop from smiling as she stared at the stars overhead.

The next day they continued their way up the meandering Nakdeok. By now Alcheon had more than proved his worth as a river man, often diving into the muddy brown waters, only to return with a fish clutched in his bare hands. While some might have been doubtful of his fighting ability, all of their stomachs were thankful for the Teodon's presence.

They came across an area where the edges of the river rose up in steep banks of clay. Great flocks of colorful parrots and macaws clouded around the almost sheer surfaces. They darted in and around one another, in a great seething mass. Somehow they avoided colliding. In fact, they seemed to move in a strange sort of unison. Watching them reminded Aela of a rolling and undulating wave, which became almost hypnotic after a while.

"Are they eating the dirt?" Hrafngoelir wondered. Aela looked again, and saw that the Skanjr had been correct. The birds were indeed nibbling upon the earth of the high riverbank.

"Many of the seeds the birds eat are toxic to them," Phereinon explained. "The poisons bind to the minerals in the clay in their stomachs. Then in turn they are safely expelled when the animals… expel."

"How do they know to do that?" Hrafngoelir asked.

"Most populations produce more offspring than their environments can support. So there is always a steady rate of attrition." Phereinon explained. "The first bird to eat the clay gained an advantage over those who did not learn to expel the toxins from their systems. It lived longer, it bore more offspring. At least some of its young learned to do the same. Perhaps this was simply by observing the parent, even if not actively being taught. They in turn lived longer than other birds, and produced still more offspring. In time all the parrots and macaws either adapted, or were replaced by those who had the advantage over them."

"So you subscribe to the ideas of Epicura, from On The Nature Of Things." Loria observed. "That only the most functional lifeforms survive."

"I have seen it with my own eyes," Phereinon contended. "Life is always competing with life. Even the trees in the forest around us fight for sunlight. Only the winner survives."

"What of the Principle of Plentitude?" Loria debated.

"That when the amhranai sang to their sleeping mother Domhan, they created all the plants and animals that were imaginable, because the world would be incomplete without them?" Phereinon said. "That may be. I was not there to see it. But plants and animals do change. Even the manaborn deliberately change them, to suit their needs. Look at the Maelanu breed of horses. They did not exist a thousand years ago. The Arvern bred them from other lineages to create an eidos that is better suited to riding."

"I do not contest that we intelligent races intentionally alter other creatures," Loria said. "We certainly select them to succeed or fail to fit our needs. But do you really think that nature does so by accident? Do the gods play dice with the Earth?"

"It may seem accidental when you look at from a short term perspective," Phereinon said, "in timelines of only millennia. But when you view it over tens of millennia, or hundreds of them, chance becomes certainty. Random become inevitable. Nature's process of selection only moves slower than that of kith. But it does move just as decisively."

"Hundreds of millennia?" Hrafngoelir balked. "That is before even the First Age! The world is not so old."

"I suspect the world is far older than any of us might imagine," Phereinon contended.

"You radical!" Loria grinned. "Even I would not say anything so heretical. At least not out loud."

"But then how could history only go back so shortly," Hrafngoelir argued. "We are only five thousand years into the Third Age. And the Second Age was what, another four or five thousand years long? What was the First Age then, a million years?"

"Perhaps more," Phereinon said. "Perhaps much more. Our idea of history may be only a tiny chapter of our world's story."

"But what of the gods then?" Loria wondered. "What were they doing all that time? And what were people doing? Surely there would be more signs of ancient cities, monuments, roads, and the like."

"Maybe there were no people." Phereinon waved a hand out toward the clay riverbank and the birds clustered there. "Maybe it was all like this, growing, maturing, evolving, into what it is today."

"So maybe creation took longer than a song, but a million years?" Hrafngoelir wondered. "You have some wild ideas my friend."

"The idea of a boat was unheard of once," Phereinon contended. "Yet here we are."

"Since you believe in creatures evolving over time, surely you agree with Gwenael of Alalia's theory of mythic evolution?" Loria asked.

"The physical characteristics of the manaborn races certainly evolve to reflect their own self-image." Phereinon insisted. "Over time - a very short time - mythic values become physiological traits. The Silmar on the steppes of Glastal are a prime example. They did not exist in the Second Age. They evolved from Dark Elves who survived the Great War."

Aela shook her head and pulled Hrafngoelir away while the two talked natural and magical philosophy. Loria could talk about books all day long. When he found the time to read them, she had no idea. Personally, she would rather read a fiction about interesting and relatable people and their successes and failures, rather than dry and dusty philosophy and history.

Still, at least someone was drawing Phereinon out into a social activity. The corpse-pale swordswoman was usually even more distant and remote than Valens. He was merely gloomy and surly! Aela wondered if perhaps that had been Loria's intent with the discussion all along?

Nicely done!

You painted a nice feel for life on the river. Heat, humidity, Alcheon's fishing skill and, especially that fascinating scene of the jungle birds eating bits of clay.

Some evolutionary theory mixed in with more character study of Phereinon, Loria and even Aela. Somehow I got the feeling from Phereinon that what she refers to time before history, she has the first-hand creds to back it up. . . .

I love Aela’s pondering near the end of this episode as to whether Loria’s motivation had been academic curiosity or to draw out Phereinon some. I suspect the answer is both.

’Personally, she would rather read a fiction about interesting and relatable people and their successes and failures, rather than dry and dusty philosophy and history.’ - - Heh, I’m with Aela here.

Whoa. *shivers*

Acadian: I think I learned the part about the birds eating clay from a documentary called Wild China. I get a lot of ideas for the setting from nature documentaries like that.

Phereinon is not quite old enough to remember time before history. She's merely 5,000 years old. Just a drop in the bucket really. But she has had time to watch, and think, and ponder how the world works. Many of the books and authors I referred to in that part about evolution were taken from Ancient History. The Ancient Greeks were thinking about evolution even back in their day. Darwin was only really special because he spent years traveling and amassing a body of evidence to back it up.




Renee: That was just one more hint about Phereinon's true nature. That will eventually be coming to a head, because the other six mercenaries are all smart and perceptive people.


Chapter 10.5

The settlements thinned out as they penetrated deeper into the rainforest. Soon they found that Captain Hesari gave a wide berth to several camps that they passed along the watercourse. Their inhabitants were a mix of humans and Teodon, and all looked dirty, rough, and exceedingly well-armed.

"Bandits," the Silisce explained to Aela when she asked after the second such occurrence. "These backwoods are infested with outlaws and worse. Some will trade for goods and news. Some will cut your throat as soon as look at you."

In one stretch of river the captain even eschewed their usual break to rest the spirecrowns. Instead he continued on, using spells to restore the flagging stamina of the draft animals. He warned them all to be wary of strangers, and not to let anyone on the boat, even if they found them in the water.

"Why?" Hrafngoelir asked. "What is wrong?"

"Necromancers," the Sea Elf explained. He pointed to a scattering of cave mouths yawning within the bluffs to the west. "Those are Black Bog Caves. Some captains will trade with them. But I'll not have any part of such blackguards."

Aela felt a shiver run along her spine, and she could swear that her breath came out in cloud of frost. A feeling of emptiness came over her, like she was standing in a graveyard that went on forever.

She turned, and saw that Phereinon's eyes literally glowed silver-white, like twin stars shining from her skull. She had produced her sword from the aether, and gripped the long weapon in one hand. Now that Aela was closer to it, she noted that its narrow fuller began at the hilt and ran three quarters of the blade. A hand-span of the blade just above the crossguard was dulled, and Aela imagined that would allow its wielder to safely grasp it there, if they wanted to choke up on their hold of the weapon. This ricasso was etched with the design of an owl, wings outstretched and claws forward, as if it was about to snatch up its prey.

Aela knew that the Rasen believed the owl was a symbol of wisdom. It was often featured in sculpture and artwork within the Ingenium. But that was not the feeling that this inscription created within her. Instead Aela was reminded of the Asokar, who viewed the owl as the messenger of the White Bone Mother. To hear its cry was to know death was near, for they guided the souls of the dead to her in the underworld.

Phereinon's eyes burned at the caves, like such an owl sizing up a lost soul. Aela half-expected her to leap from the boat and race up the cliffs to assault them.

Without really thinking, Aela aesensed the swordswoman. As ever, her aura was bright and strong, that of someone magically adept, but otherwise ordinary. Aela knew it was a mask, but she could still not pierce the disguise. The sword in her hand however, was an entirely different story.

It screeched the name Malediction to her, like a great night bird. Aela felt her heart sink into a yawning black abyss as her perception roved over it. She was reminded of how she felt when she was only a child, and Duty - one of the family dogs - had died. Duty, who had slept in the same bed as her for as long as she could remember. She felt that same wrenching emptiness that had haunted her after his death, that same desperate frustration at the unfairness of it all. She felt cursed, cold, alone, and angry at the unfairness of it all.

The caves fell out of sight, and with a silvery glow, the sword vanished from Phereinon's hand. With it went that terrible feeling of loss and loneliness. Watching in the aether, Aela saw the threads of the weapon's aura likewise fade into nothingness. She imagined that they fell into the weave of the swordswoman's aura. But Aela could sense nothing beyond the carefully maintained facade that Phereinon maintained in the aether.

Clearly, she did not much like necromancers.

Soon they passed another set of caverns on the opposite side of the river, which the captain identified as The Lightless Pit.

"That one has vampires," he said. "I've seen them fighting the necromancers by the river's edge."

Aela looked to see if Phereinon reacted once more. But the white swordswoman made no sign of interest. Aela did see Loria taking mental notes however, weighing the danger versus the possible profit. The Arvern Witch had to admit that she was doing the same herself. Perhaps when their quest for the Agrigentans was finished, they might revisit some of these caves?

In time the Nakdeok turned west, and they came to a stop at the bend of the river. Here stood the ruins of an old Rasen castle. Only the crumbling stones of the outer walls remained, and even half of those were missing, with the gaps filled in by wooden timbers. Sweet wood smoke curled up from within, and a mixture of humans and Teodon could be seen standing guard at the single entrance, as well as around the rest of the site. A wooden pier stretched out into the river from the ersatz fortress, and it was here that Captain Hesari docked The Nakdeok Queen head on.

"This is the end of the line for you," the Sea Elf declared. "Welcome to Castle Blackwater. From here the river turns into the Stone Forest."

"Aye," Daehyun said. "I have been here many times. The Rasenna abandoned the castle ages ago. Now it's a trading post, inn, smithy, whatever folk need it to be."

"From here we walk," Ranazu added.

As Daehyun had intimated, he knew his way around the trading post. Many of its denizens - a hard and none too clean bunch - greeted him by name. Aela discovered that the bailey was filled with several daub and wattle buildings of much newer construction than the original fortress. Daehyun led them to one of these, which turned out to be the eating house. A meal of fried sausages and tangy onions filled their bellies. While the wine was hardly Alalia's finest, at least it was not served in mugs.

Since it was late in the day, they decided to stay the night. Another daub and wattle building doubled as the inn. They found the accommodations to be nothing more than a space on the floor and a rattan sleeping mat. Aela decided to use her own bedroll instead, as did many of the mercenaries. Still, she was thankful to be inside the walls of a settlement. At least they did not have to put out watches against night dangers.


Malediction

Owl Screeching

Owl Carving

A rather ominous transition through bandits, necromancers and vampires (Oh my!) to the end of the river that has seen them safely to this point.

Phereinon continues to mystify, but the fact that she dislikes necrodudes is a good thing. Very impressive how she can maintain a (mostly) Aela-proof aura of privacy to maintain her secrets.

Your descriptions continue to draw us into the story. I could almost smell the wood smoke curling up from what is left of Castle Blackwater and taste the adventurers’ sausage and onion dinner.

Acadian: Now that the river journey is complete, we are just a few more segments away from Agrigento itself. But first we will have the journey overland, in which we will continue to learn more about not just Phereinon, but all the Seven, and get some background on Agrigento and this corner of Kye Rim.


Chapter 10.6

The next day they pressed on overland, heading ever southward. They followed a road that was little more than a pair of ruts worn into the ground by wagon wheels. The trees grew thick around them, and it was only through the occasional break in the growth that Aela was able to glimpse the sun.

"Was there not an insurrection somewhere near here several years ago," Dhasan asked. "I recall hearing of some troubles. But a call never went out for mercenaries, as it usually does in such times."

"Aye, an insurrection," Hyunsu snorted, "at least that is what our fat gyukon in Hansando called it."

"I imagine it felt much different for those who were not provincial governors?" Loria ventured diplomatically.

"Much differently," Daehyun said. "The sublime ancestor in Hansando decreed that our taxes must increase. He needed our hard-earned money to honor the ancestors sufficiently, so they would continue to bless our lands with their good will."

The dubious expression on Daehyun's face showed how little of that he actually believed.

"Apparently the ancestors demanded a new bathhouse in his palace in return for their good will," Vesia muttered. "With marble imported from Rase."

"Thanks to our soju, we were able to pay," Ranazu said. "But only just barely. Many other settlements were not so lucky as we were."

"So the sublime ancestor sent out his dogs to take what could not be paid." Daehyun said.

"That eggless bastard Ugeo…" Ranazu fumed. Aela noted his hands clenching and unclenching into fists.

"He was…" Loria let the words dangle as an open question.

"The leader of the gyukon's company of hwarang - The Celestial Gallery." Vesia explained. "He led the 'pacification' of those villages who could not pay."

"Somehow one of the villages captured him. The hwarang claim that he went in unarmed to parley with them. But who knows if they would tell the truth." Daehyun shrugged. "In any case they tortured him, and put out one of his eyes."

"If only they had killed him when they had the chance," Ranazu fumed.

"So what happened then?" Dhasan asked.

"What do think happened?" Hyunsu said bitterly. "The rest of his nangdo came in and killed everyone. Women, hatchlings, even the oros and chickens. They left nothing alive."

"Some say he escaped first," Vesia said. "That he broke free of his bonds, and ate his torturer's hearts. Then he came back with his men to finish the rest"

"Wendigo!" Dhasan growled.

"So finally Manaha rears her ugly head…" Loria breathed.

"Afterward, when they saw what he had done, even his own men could not abide it," Daehyun said, "nor his master in Hansando. He was exiled."

"After that, most people paid the tax, even though they starved," Vesia frowned. "Those who still could not pay were killed by the Celestial Gallery's new leader, Daeso."

"Let me guess, after that the raiders appeared?" Dhasan asked.

"Yes," Daehyun said. "I think many were farmers who fled the gyukon's soldiers. Either before or after their villages were destroyed."

"I have seen it before." The vulpine shook his head. "A leader's misrule creates his own Fomorians, when before there were none."

"He created Dark Eye," Vesia lamented. "Now he terrorizes all of us, and the gyukon will do nothing about it. It's as if he wants them out here robbing and murdering people."

"Perhaps that is exactly what your provincial governor desires," Venca finally spoke.

"But that is madness!" Loria sputtered.

"Is it?" the Rasen warrior stroked the curled hairs of his goatee. "Now all of the settlements are too preoccupied with raiders to start another 'insurrection' against him. Maybe a real one the next time."

"But how can the people pay the taxes with Dark Eye and his ilk around?" Loria argued. "How can his own servants collect it?"

"His tax collectors have never been molested by the bandits," Daehyun insisted, "not once."

"How convenient," Hrafngoelir spat. "Either the raiders are smart enough to avoid directly antagonizing the governor or…"

"They are bribing him with part of their plunder," Venca finished her sentence. "The sublime ancestor has divided and conquered you all. He taxes you, and then he taxes what the raiders steal from you."

"Aye, like Black Venca over a thousand years ago, when he conquered Aulerci for the Sacerdotium," Loria murmured, "except without the outlaws and cannibalism that time."

Wow, the situation the villagers face is grim but rather brilliantly engineered by the evil bastage in charge around these parts.

We see some of Daehyun’s worldliness, Venca’s perceptiveness, Loria’s tact and Hrafngoelir’s temper on display while learning more about what the Seven face.

I recall early in my fanfic writing that it was you who patiently taught me how to write dialogue for fiction. I couldn’t help being impressed by your skill with non-dialogue ‘descriptors’ in these two passages:
- -"I imagine it felt much different for those who were not provincial governors?" Loria ventured diplomatically.
- -"He was…" Loria let the words dangle as an open question.

Sounds like the task ahead of the Seven has some real potential to escalate beyond Agrigento.


Nit: "Much differently, Daehyun said. - - Missing a closing dialogue quotation after differently?

Acadian: I put a lot more work into the background of events this time around. How Dark-Eye became not only a bandit, but a cannibal and champion of a dark goddess. And how he was able to operate unchecked. When working on the local governor, I was inspired by the Native American belief in the Wendigo. It is not only a cannibal, but it is also seen as an allegory for the dangers of capitalism and consumerism - and how the more money and objects one accumulates only makes you need more and more. Dark-Eye is the classic Wendigo who eats the flesh of others. The governor is this second type, who is driven by greed - and untempered by any sense of ethics or morality.



Chapter 10.7

Alcheon vanished somewhere during the trek. Hours later they came across a dead pheasant dangling from a tree limb by a rawhide cord. Dhasan declared that it had been slain by a javelin, the same kind as several which the young Teodon carried along with his spear.

"That Teodon is going to make us all fat before this is done," Hrafngoelir laughed.

They made camp for the night soon after, and were once again rejoined by Alcheon, who now clutched a duck in one hand. While he might have been inexperienced in war, the young Teodon was certainly a proficient hunter.

Venca was even more silent and moody than normal, and Aela realized that he was again entranced by the sunset. The Rasen spent the entire time staring at the falling sun, and the brilliant colors it splashed across the horizon. Aela wondered what it was he saw there, since it was plainly more than just the end of the day to him. Was it his own sun setting that he saw? Did he see his own doom writ upon the firmament?

They struck out again at dawn's first light. The forest grew warmer and damper than even when they had been on the river. Soon sweat began to drip from their skin. Except of course for the Teodon, who seemed more than ever at home in the moisture. It was not the heat that bothered Aela. An Alalian summer was hotter. But the humidity seemed to just suck the sweat from the Arvern's pores, as a vampire would blood.

Soon they came to a break in the trees, and found themselves in a wide field of grass. This was not the short green carpet one would find in Rase or Aulertil however. This grass stood taller than Aela, and came in thick blades, whose edges she soon discovered were razor sharp.

"Well would you look at that," Hrafngoelir whistled.

The Skanjr and the other, taller members of the group came to a halt. Aela stood on tip toes to try to get a look at what the Northerner saw. But the grass was still too high. A moment later she felt Dhasan's furred arms wrap around her waist, and the vulpine warrior lifted her high into the air.

Now that her head was above the grass, Aela saw a herd of wild hadrosaurs wandering lazily through the field. Over thirty feet in length, the adults were easily double the size of the crumheads that she often saw used as draft animals. They lacked the big, bony crests that rose up from the heads of so many other hadrosaurs. Instead they sported a single line of flat, bony ridges running down the middle of their back, from head to tail. The vitamancer within Aela immediately recognized them as elongated projections of bone from the vertebrae in their back bones. The manaborn possessed the same projections of bone of course, just not so long and dramatic.

"Maias," Alcheon murmured.

The maias were munching on the tall grass. The Arvern Witch imagined that with their thick scales, the sharp edges of the grass did not bother them. She could not suppress a smile as she watched the massive herbivores. Somehow by simply doing so, she forgot the heat and humidity. Instead she was reminded of her connection to the natural world, and part of her wanted to rush out and touch one of the gentle beasts.

But her amazement was cut short when one of the hadrosaurs reared up its head to scan the skies above. A moment later a series of short, yet booming roars rose up from one of the maias. It was almost like the moo of a cow, yet far deeper, and much more energetic. The herd scattered, running for the trees on all fours.

Aela reflexively brought the pattern for her arcane shield firmly in mind and called upon her mana. Dhasan set her down upon the ground, and reached for his flatbow. The other mercenaries did likewise, all looking this way and that for the source of the danger.

"There, a cockatrice!" Ranazu cried.

Aela followed the farmer's pointed finger up into the sky. She saw a dragon wheeling high overhead. The scales of its lower body were light green in color, and a row of spines ran down the length of its back, from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. Its head and back were covered in dark green feathers. Its four legs ended with long claws, and she saw that it clutched a dead hadrosaur within its mouth. Aela could see it was not one of the maias from the clearing below, but belonged to yet another type of duck-billed beast. For this poor victim possessed a large, bony sail that rose up along the top of its head, colored bright orange and purple.

"That is a cockatrice?" Dhasan stared amazement. "I thought they looked like chickens!"

"It does!" Daehyun insisted. "See the feathers on its head."

"That is a dragon with feathers!" the vulpine cried.

"Shhh, will you be quiet," Vesia hissed. "Don't get its attention. Our we might end up the appetizer for his meal."

Dhasan nocked an arrow on his bow as they began to back toward the treeline. The Teodon all looked horrified, and even old Hyunsu raised a hand before the Asokar warrior. They had not noticed it, but Malediction had formed from thin air in Phereinon's hand as well. Aela had felt its cold loneliness enter the air, and hoped that the dragon was too intent upon his supper to sense its presence as well.

"You must not harm it!" the old farmer cried.

"The cockatrice is sacred!" declared Alcheon.

"Well, as long as he feels the same way about us, we shall get along just fine." Dhasan said. The vulpine did not lower his weapon until Aela motioned for him to do so. She said nothing to Phereinon, but looked pointedly at her sword. A moment later if faded into nothingness, as if it had never been there in the first place.

No surprise that Alcheon is beginning to show his worth within his home turf.

Once Aela got a vulpine-assisted good view over the tall grass, the epic scene was reminiscent of some of the majestic dinosaur scenes from Jurassic Park.

"The cockatrice is sacred!" declared Alcheon.
"Well, as long as he feels the same way about us, we shall get along just fine." Dhasan said.’
- - Heh, this fox is wise and I fully endorse his thinking!

Acadian: All I need is Aela twisting her sunglasses off and pointing: "It's... a dinosaur!"

Next we learn more about the cockatrice and why it is sacred, as well as find out a little more about each of the Seven.


Chapter 10.8

"I suggest we keep our eyes open," Loria said, "and retire to the trees for a respite. Then perhaps our Teodon friends might tell us more about their feathered friend?"

The cockatrice paid no heed to the drama unfolding beneath him, and in seconds flew on out of sight. Still, the party of travelers moved back into the concealment of the forest. Once there, packs were shucked off, water skins passed around, and a welcome break taken by many.

"This is a very good sign!" Daehyun declared, still looking skyward. "To witness one of the sacred ones as we returned!"

"Perhaps the water flows our way for once," old Hyunsu murmured.

Like the others, Aela stared from one of the scaled folk to another. She had read about cockatrices at the Ingenium of course. But the Rasen books had little to say about the creatures, other than rumors and conjecture of course. The only thing they did seem certain of was that the fantastic creatures only lived within Kye Rim's rainforest. That much was at least borne out by their lack of mention in any other land's history and legends.

"The cockatrice is a part of our oldest stories," Alcheon explained. "Legend has it that thousands of years ago the ancestors of our nine tribes made an exodus across the Inner Sea. They were all that had survived a great calamity in some far off land."

"The Great Dying," Hyunsu nodded. "A terrible time."

"After many days and nights at sea, they came to a bright and green land, overflowing with life. They went ashore, and found a cockatrice egg within. It hatched when they opened the box, and from it a child was born. He shone with light, and all of the animals within the forest danced with joy to honor him."

"They named him Hyeoknuri," Daehyun now picked up the story, "which means 'Shining World' in the tailless tongues. They built Asadal, our people's first city, upon the spot, and named the land Kye Rim, or 'Chicken Forest'. The boy grew up to be our first seonjo, or sacred ancestor, and the cockatrice has been the symbol of the royal family ever since. They share the same sacred bones. So to harm a cockatrice, is to harm the king's family."

"Ahh, I see," Aela nodded her head in understanding. "My people in Aulertil honor dragons as well. My own city of Cymner's flag bears a red dragon.

"Your tale reminds me of one told to me by the orcs of the Alagar mountains," Hrafngoelir said. "Their legends speak of a terrible war across the sea, against the Silor. It ended when the Dark Elves were laid low with fire and thunder. But the land was shattered, and all were forced to flee or be destroyed with it. The Great Migrations began. The orcs spread out across the world. Some went east across the Inner Sea to the Alagar Mountains. They become the Guzuks, or Mountain Orcs. Others went north, and became the Assina, the Forest Orcs of Hiakwia. The remainder fled onto the steppes to the south, only to return decades later, and become the Rouran, or Desert Orcs of Tiwanaku."

"Aye," Venca spoke up as well now. "We Rasenna tell of the Great War with the Dark Elves as well, when all the races rose up to claim our freedom from them. After the war laid waste to the Westlands, we fled across the Inner Sea too. We landed in Old Perusna, to the east of Kye Rim."

"Everyone seems to have a story from back then," Aela noted. "We Arvern were already living in the heartland of Aulerci, but we tell tales of the Dark War against the Silor, and the terrible cost paid by both humans and the other elves to stop them. It is said that the Mound People, who lived in Aulerci before us, were the direct descendants of the slaves of the Dark Elves."

"My folk know the old tale of the war with the Dark Elves too," Dhasan said as well. "We also fled the southern lands to escape the scourging of the Dark Ones from the world. Even today there are whispers that certain places in Hiakwia are cursed, because the Silor once had outposts there. My mother even used to hush me at night by saying the Dark Ones would come to get me if I was not silent."

"It was the Fomorians in my case," Aela laughed.

"My mother said the frost wyrms would freeze me with their breath!" Hrafngoelir declared.

"My mother said an imugi - a leviathan - would come up from the swamps and swallow me whole!" Alcheon cried.

"My father said the Phereinon would strangle me in my bed." Loria spared an amused glance in the direction of the white-haired swordswoman.

Aela noted that while others were offering up their versions of the boogeymen whom their parents had threatened them into good behavior with, Venca remained silent. Instead the Rasen mercenary rubbed the back of his head, and stared off into the trees. Aela wondered if he could remember anything from his life at all. Or was it all empty doubt?

"What about you Phereinon?" Hrafngoelir directed the talk away from her silent Rasen friend, and to the white-haired swordswoman instead. "What did your parents frighten you with when you were acting up?"

"I never knew my parents," Phereinon said. "My owners told me that if I did not behave, I would be sold to the quarries, and die a slow death of toil and starvation."

"Your… owners?" Dhasan gaped.

All grew silent and stared at the pale woman.

"But slavery has not existed since…" Vesia murmured.

"Since the Dark War," Phereinon finished the Agrigentan's sentence. She turned her scarred features to the empty sky. "The cockatrice has been gone for some time now. Let us move."

A great deal of wonderfully rich world-building going on here as you share a wealth of well-thought out ‘Aela lore’.

This episode, despite being rife with history and information, flowed impressively from the cockatrice sighting to its significance to the culturally common dislike of the Dark Elves and overthrowing their oppression.

I can’t imagine a more perfect ending to this episode than the stark bits of her history that Phereinon offered. It seems the white-haired swordswoman gave away her quite significant age!

Yeah, it sounds downright horrible.

I like how all these different people, different races and so on, comparing all these different backgrounds to where they grew up and their facets of lore and whatnot. "Well where I came from it was X".... "it was Y where I was brought up..." etc.

Hope that cockatrice don't come back?

Acadian: I definitely worked hard at showing vs. telling in that last segment, where a great deal of information was dumped on the reader. I wanted to make sure it all flowed out through natural conversation.

Phereinon definitely mic-dropped at the very end there! I had fun with that.


Renee: I really enjoyed writing that second half, where everyone is retelling how their parents kept them in line. It gave me a opportunity to show how multi-cultural this group is, and give every one of the Seven at least one thing to add.

Perhaps the cockatrice should hope that Phereinon does not come back...


Chapter 11

"Come Sindeok, spar with me," Dark-Eye insisted. "There are none here who can give me a good workout."

The former nangdo did as his new leader commanded. He knew better than to gainsay the older Teodon. In the short time he had been in the raider company, it had become very clear that when the one-eyed Teodon spoke, everyone leapt. Failure to do so was tragic.

"I will show you how to use the longsword, as the elves do," the black-striped bandit leader said. "When not using a shield, their methods are superior to our own."

Dark-Eye tossed a wooden practice sword to former nangdo. Like the aetherial longsword that Sindeok had witnessed Dark-Eye summon, the weapon stretched nearly five feet long, with almost four feet of that being the blade. He caught the wooden weapon with one hand, then shifted his grip to both hands when he brought the weapon to a guard position.

It was not as heavy as he expected, nor did it feel at all clumsy. Dark-Eye took a few simple, testing strikes at Sindeok's head, and he easily parried them all. He found himself sliding one hand up past the crossguard, to the lower section of the wooden blade. That gave him more control over the long weapon, and Sindeok soon found, more force to his blows as well.

"Do the elves not use the shield at all?" Sindeok asked. Pure bone aristocrats like himself never used them when fighting in duels. It was considered coarse and crude. But during sieges or set-piece battles, shields were far too effective a defense against arrows for anyone to ignore.

"Their armor makes shields pointless," Dark-Eye said. "Even their simplest fighters wear astril, which will stop any weapon of mundane steel. Their greater fighters wear crystal panoplies, which even enchanted blades are hard-pressed to bite."

"Then how can they defeat one another?"

"With the longsword," Dark-Eye declared. "As you know, every part of your sword is a weapon, not just the point and cutting edge. But with a longsword this is far more the case than ever. Half-swording is much more effective, bringing you far more power and versatility. This allows you to accurately stab into even the smallest weak point of armor."

Dark-Eye emphasized his point by not only half-swording with his weapon, but also by spinning it around, so that he led with the grip. He swung the weapon down in a great arc over his head. This brought the crossguard down at Sindeok's skull like a hammer. The former nangdo brought his own longsword up to parry, also half-swording with one hand upon the hilt, and the other near the point of his sword. Sindeok caught the blade of Dark-Eye's sword upon his own, and they stood there, blades locked.

"This is the morte-strike," Dark-Eye said. "The crossguard itself will not pierce armor. But the physical force from the blow will. Strike hard, and you will break the bones of even an armored foe."

Sindeok was about to push his captain's blade aside when the bandit leader suddenly yanked down hard. The black-striped Teodon's crossbar caught upon Sindeok's blade and pulled it down. Thinking quickly, the younger warrior let go with his left hand, allowing Dark-Eye to harmlessly sweep his point down toward the ground. He imagined that if he had not done so, his sword would have been completely stripped from both hands.

Without thinking, Sindeok followed through with the swinging motion of his blade. This brought the point back toward his body, where he gripped it once again with his left hand part way down the blade. Only now he too was leading with the grip. He twisted slightly to the left, and jabbed forward horizontally with the weapon. His pommel nearly smashed into Dark-Eye's face. But the wily Teodon swept his own longsword in a sideways arc, pushing Sindeok's blade aside.

Continuing the same motion, Dark-Eye took a half-step forward. He thrust his point up toward Sindeok's face. Sindeok was as mindful of the bandit leader's feet as he was his point, and took a half step back. He knew that by coming in so close the red-scaled Teodon was probably intending to trip him. But he was able to get just far enough away to avoid such an opportunity, and parried the sudden attack.

With that Dark-Eye stepped back out of range, and lowered the point of his weapon. "Well done," the bandit leader said. "You have good reflexes, and have trained well. No one else here has ever lasted through an exchange of blows with me. Not even your former hwarang."

"It was you who taught him, was it not?" Sindeok ventured. He had witnessed Dark Eye's duel with Daeso, and his former leader had lasted far more than one exchange of blows. Still, he was not about to point this out to his new captain.

Sindeok had joined the Celestial Gallery company after Daeso had become hwarang and taken command. He had only heard whispers of Ugeo - Dark-Eye now - and those were rare slips of the tongue. None of the older Celestial Flight nangdo had seemed to want to talk about their former leader, and when they did it had been forbidding.

"Indeed I did," Dark-Eye declared. "I trained them all. But in my hour of vengeance, they betrayed me, and cast me out. All because I devoured the hearts of those who did this."

The bandit leader raised one finger to his eye patch, and the scarred scales above and below the leather strap.

"Now that you have tasted the sweet meat of victory, you are cast out as well Sindeok," the former hwarang went on. "Your brothers will now hunt you down and kill you. You now only have one course, as do I. We will take our revenge upon those fools in Hansando, especially the gyukon. They will learn to either eat, or be eaten."

At one time Sindeok would have shivered at the words. But now he simply felt the hunger twinge from deep within his belly. He knew that he should be horrified, but now the thought of eating another manaborn filled him with nothing but craving.



Morte Strike and Half Sword Defense

An instructive display of sword fighting, when the shield hand is free to optimize more of the weapon’s abilities.

You continue to paint Dark-Eye as an imposing foe – and his appetite for foe-eating renders him more so.

Acadian: Things have really slowed down in the story at this point. So I was hoping to liven things up a bit with a display of sword fighting. It also gave me an opportunity to look in Sindeok, and see what he and the raiders are up to.


Chapter 12.1

The sun had begun to dip in the sky when they came to the valley in which Agrigento was nestled. Their first sight of it was from the top of a ridge north of the settlement. From this commanding height, they could look down across the entire vale. The oval depression stretched at least a mile through the surrounding hills, and was filled to the brim by a brilliant splash of green trees and brush.

All of that changed at the far end of the valley however. There the woodland had been cleared to create wide fields. This open space was divided into a patchwork of dozens of irregularly shaped paddies. Each was separated from its neighbor by low bunds barely half a foot higher than the brown water around them, and just wide enough for a single person to walk along their muddy tops.

The hamlet itself stood behind the paddies, at the far end of the valley. Hills surrounded the settlement on three sides. Except for one rise that was topped in tall grass, these heights were covered with thick stands of bamboo. A narrow stream trickled down from one of the bamboo-crowned hills, snaked around the village, and meandered along the length of the valley. It gained width as it was joined by other small rivulets draining from the hills surrounding the dale, and vanished to the west. Aela imagined that it might eventually join the Nakdeok, and ultimately empty out into the Bronze Sea.

From the heights where they stood Agrigento reminded Aela of a great fried egg. It stretched out in all directions in an irregular glob, filled by over a hundred homes built of brown thatch. A large open field took up the center of the settlement, like the yolk of the egg. At the far end of this plaza rose a stone building in the Rasen style, stretching at least two stories high and roofed with red-glazed tiles. Another wooden structure of plainly Teodon design rose at another side of the town square. This one was capped sided with colorful pillars, which held up a gracefully curved roof. Finally a third large structure squatted along a third edge of the plaza, this one of simple, unadorned wood.

Aela could see that the perimeter of the village was marked by a line of heavy logs sunk vertically into the ground. The top of each was sharpened to a point to dissuade climbers. Aela sharpened her eyesight with a spell, and noted that the barrier had fallen into disarray. Many of the timbers had fallen, and near the main entrance they had vanished altogether, to be replaced by a thin fence of bamboo.

"You have a large village," Dhasan observed.

"This is small for Kye Rim," Alcheon noted. "Mine was over twice this size."

"How many people are there?" Venca asked.

"We are a new settlement," Vesia explained. "I would say about five hundred people."

"Hmmm," Venca murmured. He thoughtfully rubbed his goatee with an armor-plated hand. "Your defenses have seen better days."

"You see the work of the bandits," Daehyun declared. "The first time the thieving worms came to our village we thought our walls would protect us. We were wrong…"

"Let me guess, elemental magic?" Loria said. "Fireballs will incinerate wooden walls quite easily."

"Aye," Vesia now responded. "But that was the least of it. At one time the walls were on top of a rampart we had built up. A good five feet of solid turf. They used spirits to just level it somehow."

"The bastards pulled the very ground out from underneath us." Ranazu spat onto the dirt at his feet. "Then the wall around the gate went up in flames. We never stood a chance."

"We have not resisted since then," Hyunsu said. "What can simple farmers do against such terrible magics?"

Loria laced his long fingers together and stretched out his hands before him. His knuckles popped loudly, and he grinned. "Terrible magics are our specialty. These bandits have not seen anything like Aela and I."

"No one has seen anything like the elf…" Dhasan murmured under his breath.

Aela said nothing. Instead she stared at the ruins of Agrigento's defenses. As if fifty fighters were not bad enough, the brigands had conjurers and elemental mages as well. That made sense however. Otherwise how could they have intimidated a hamlet of ten times their number? Even given that they were experienced killers and the Agrigentans simple farmers, even ordinary folk could stand tall behind walls.

But simple farmers could not counter elemental magic. Certainly not of the magnitude she witnessed here. Her heart sank. This meant she and Loria would not have the spell advantage. Considering the damage the raider magicians had wrought, she imagined that they would be evenly matched at best.

Clearly this battle would not be won by simple magical or physical muscle. They were going to have to outthink the enemy.

"Well, let's get down there and get a closer look at the land," Venca said. "Then we can get a better idea of how to beat these buggers."

The four Agrigentans led them down from the ridge and into the rainforest. The sky quickly vanished behind a dense roof of greenery. The banyans rose all around. Their grey trunks were long and ropy looking, reminding Aela of strands of clay that had been soaked and stretched out before drying. Then there rose the durian trees, dotted with their large, spiky fruit. A host of other trees that Aela could not even hope to identify joined them to blot her view in all directions. All around their feet rose tall grasses, brilliant green ferns, and brightly colored bromeliads. Multi-hued birds flew through the growth or perched upon the trees, where they were kept company by lizards, serpents, and insects of all varieties. The forest was literally an explosion of color and life.

"I thought this place was supposed to be a swamp. But it looks more like a regular forest, just with different trees and animals than we have up north," Hrafngoelir commented.

"There are swamps in places," Alcheon admitted. "But our land is a large one. Here in the west the land is still somewhat high. Farther east things change. In some places between the hills the water pools in great swamps. Sheets of moss hang from the giant cypress and water tupelos, and nearly blot out the sun entirely. In many places there is no solid ground. There is only mud and water and roots and darkness."

"But in other places there are mountains," Daehyun explained. "Well, perhaps not what you northerners would call mountains." He looked to Hrafngoelir. "But they are high enough for us. Perhaps two or three times the height of these hills around Agrigento. They grow as you go east, toward Old Perusna."

"Aye," Alcheon nodded, "and along the coasts there are great mangrove forests. Excellent places for fishing and hunting."

"All of the best things in the Earth can be found in Kye Rim," old Hyunsu crowed.

In time Alcheon surprised them all when he leapt into the branches of a durian tree, and came back down moments later with one of its giant spiky fruits clutched gingerly in his hands. With a deft motion of his knife, he sliced it lengthwise, revealing a creamy pulp within. Even from several paces away, the stench of it curled Aela's nose. It smelled like a latrine filled with onions and sweaty boots. From the expressions on the faces of her companions, she could see that she was not the only one who was less than enticed by the food.

Yet the young warrior dove into the fruit with zest. The other Teodon stepped up to take pieces themselves, and joined him in the snack. Vesia surprised Aela by doing the same.

"Come and try some." The Rasen woman held out a piece of the yellowish-pulp to the Witch. "It's much better than it smells."

The last thing the Arvern wanted to do was eat the revolting fruit. But she was reminded that many people thought the same about haggis, laverbread, black pudding, and other dishes native to her own homeland. Determined not to discount the strange, smelly fruit just on appearances alone, she steeled her stomach for a taste.

Aela found that the creamy pulp was surprisingly good. It reminded of her of custard, with a strong taste of almonds. After the first dab from the tip of her finger, she eagerly took a palmful of the gooey fruit and devoured it with a gusto that nearly matched that of the others. Still, she wondered if the Teodon ate so quickly to avoid smelling the tasty fruit. It certainly was an incentive to gobble the meal down, rather than take the time to savor it!

"Try some Loria," the Arvern offered some to the elven mage. "It really is good."

"I think I should sooner lick his butt," Loria made a face as he nodded to Dhasan.

"For once I agree with the cream cake." The vulpine waved one hand before his nose. "I would sooner he lick my butt as well!"

"You should be so blessed to enjoy my linguistic ministrations!" Loria murmured with a smile.

That brought a chorus of guffaws from the group as they once again made their way through the rainforest. Aela found herself wiping the sweat from her brow in no time at all. It was even hotter than the Nakdeok River had been. Worse, the humidity in the air felt like a wet blanket wrapped around her body. A glance at the others showed that they were sweating as well. Only the Teodon seemed unmoved by the heat, and Phereinon. As ever, the white-haired woman seemed as cool as a glacier.

The path they followed was only a line of wagon ruts worn down into the ground. It was heavy with growth however, and the ruts were little more than grass-filled depressions. When Dhasan asked about it, Daehyun revealed that this was the route they used to take their wagons to sell their soju. It led from Agrigento to the Nakedok River. From there they took boats like Captain Hesari's down the river to Telsin, and finally cogs or hulks across the Bronze Sea to Veia. From the state of the path, it was obvious that they had not sold any soju in a long time…

When Hrafngoelir asked why they did not just sell it in Hansando or some other local city, Daehyun explained that everyone drank soju in Kye Rim, and every tavern or inn brewed their own. But no one in Rasen cities like Veia made the drink. That made it special, and as Daehyun pointed out, special was always valuable.

Soon the group came to a halt again, when Daehyun raised a warning hand from his position at the front of the column. The soft hiss of weapons being drawn came to Aela's ears. Out of habit, the pattern for her arcane shield popped into her mind. She called up her mana, ready to release it and create the ward at a moment's notice. At the same time she felt out in the aether for the dryads that lived in the forest surrounding them. She would need but an instant to pull one of the tree-spirits into the physical world.

The mercenaries fanned out across the path, armed and ready. Except for Phereinon, whose hands remained empty. Of course from what Aela had seen in Veia, the mystery woman hardly needed a weapon to be dangerous. Aela stepped to the fore with Loria at her side. The Silaine had his hands filled with fire, ready to annihilate anything that crossed them. Ahead of them the Arvern saw what had caused the alarm.

It was a snake, roughly six feet long, that slithered across the path with head raised high up above the ground. Its scales were black in color, but lightened to a shade of cream on the underside of its mouth. Its black eyes reflected the light with a gleam, and seemed as devoid of emotion as an opal.

"Forest taipan," Alcheon observed. "It's venom is especially dangerous to you softskins."

"Best just leave it be," Daehyun advised. "We see them often enough in Kye Rim. They hunt the birds and rodents in the forest. So long as we do not go near, we will not be in danger."

"Let's just leave it alone then," Venca said. Aela noted that his longsword Solagea bore an odd blade. Its black steel narrowed toward the middle of its length, then widened again, only to gently taper once more at the point. She would have sworn it was one of her own people's leaf-shaped swords, but for the black lorcras steel of the Dark Elves of which it was comprised. Not to mention the five foot length of the blade and hilt. Apparently the Arvern had not been the first to use that point-heavy design after all.

Aela also noted that a wolf's head seemed to protrude from the weapon's narrow crossbar. It was set so that it appeared that the top of the predator's skull rose from the side of the blade, and its eyes and long snout seemed to look down along its narrow fuller toward the sword's tip. Etched there on the blade before it was the name Solagea . The elvish word glowed softly, as if the moonlight it was named after shone from the sword itself.

A wolf and moonlight, Aela considered, how appropriate.

Venca sheathed the unusual sword, and took a step back from the snake. "We aren't here to kill every wild animal in the country."

As they waited for the creature to slide off of the path and vanish into the underbrush, Aela noted that Vesia stared at the serpent with hands clenched into fists. The Rasen said nothing, but it was clear that she would prefer to hack the jungle predator into pieces. Aela wondered what grudge she held against the snakes. Then the taipan was gone, vanished into the forest. However, the group was careful to stay near the other side of the road as they passed the spot of jungle it had disappeared into.


Banyan tree

Durian tree

Bromeliads

Solagea

You really bring the jungle-forest surrounding Agrigento to life here with some wonderfully rich descriptions.

This is surely going to be a bigger challenge than the witch and elf had first thought – particularly after seeing the results of the magicks their foes wield.

Yikes! Time to get busy with battle preparations and hope there is enough time to adequately ready this village to resist the bandit raiders.

Acadian: I expanded on the size of the village this time around, and on that of the entire land of Kye Rim. I picture the country as being roughly the size of the UK. So it will have lots of different evironments, not just all swamp. Everything it is getting bigger in this version of the story.



Chapter 12.2

In time they emerged from the rainforest and came out into the rice paddies. The fields were empty of the green stalks of rice plants, and were filled with nothing but muddy water instead. They followed a raised path that wound through the paddies to the hamlet's bamboo gate. Aela could see that the ground still bore the tell-tale scorch marks of flames around the entryway and flanking walls. As she stepped nearer, she partially shifted her senses into the aether. Now she could feel the burns seared deep within the soil as well, where the timbers of the walls had been incinerated all the way down to their bases.

"This was definitely done by elemental magic," Loria echoed her thoughts aloud. "I can feel the marks it left behind."

"Aye," Ranazu grumbled. "The flames seemed to just come from nowhere."

"Well, two can play at that game my friend," Loria vowed. The high elf rolled up the sleeves of his green robe and raised his arms, but Aela stopped him with a shake of her head. This was not the time for showing off with fireballs. Not when they were making their first impression upon their employers.

However, those employers were nowhere to be found. Daehyun and Ranazu pushed open the bamboo gates to reveal empty streets beyond. The seven mercenaries followed the villagers down silent lanes, flanked by tall houses to either side. There seemed to be little organization to the layout of the village. Houses were scattered about like dice tossed from some giant's hand. Small gardens dotted the irregular gaps between homes, and Aela noted vegetables such as basil, ginger, garlic, peppers, chives, and other spices growing within them.

The homes themselves were raised up above the ground upon thick stilts made from straight durian timbers. Their elevated floors were made of hardwoods, walls were cross-stitched rattan, and the tall peaked roofs were of simple thatch. Few of them possessed any windows, and none had more than a single door facing the street. All seemed to have a small porch before their entrance, reachable by wooden steps or notched logs. Upon every one Aela noted a bench or rattan chairs, and several wide bowls. Pairs of sandals or boots were tucked away beneath the benches at some of the homes. Others were bare of footwear.

Aela felt eyes staring at her from all around, and it was not those of the chickens or other livestock that lingered in the streets. The way the other mercenaries turned their heads this way and that, she could tell that they felt it too. The villagers were there. They just were not showing themselves.

They came to the yolk of the egg that Aela had observed from high on the ridge at the edge of the valley: the village square. A small wooden stage rose at its far end, in front of the temple. The shrine's gracefully curved roof seemed to almost float in the air, held up only by brightly colored columns that both paced around the perimeter of the structure, and rose from deeper within. It had no walls, but rather was open to the air, allowing Aela to glimpse into the interior. It was sparsely furnished, and the wide space was dominated by a large stone-rimmed pool in its center, where water rose in a gentle fountain. Aela felt an undine riding the waves, and imagined it might even be the village's guardian spirit.

Across the corner from the temple stood the high, Rasen-style, stone building. Its only windows were high on what must have been the second floor, and the angled roof was made of red-glazed tiles. On the other side of the plaza from the temple, a large building of thick wooden timbers squatted. This was also constructed at ground level as well, rather than raised up on stilts like the villager's homes. From the wide double doors this possessed, the Arvern Witch imagined that it was either a stable or communal storehouse.

Waiting for them on the wooden platform before the shrine was a single Teodon woman. She was covered in green scales along the top of her head and back, which faded to soft brown under her mouth and down her chest. Rows of black stripes crisscrossed her head and fell down her long neck, only to vanish beneath her clothing. Her eyes were bright yellow slits, and unlike the male Teodon, her head was bare of spines. From the luster of her green and brown scales, Aela imagined that she was young, possibly the same age as Alcheon.

The young Teodon woman wore a simple blue robe tied around her waist with an equally simple cloth belt. When she stepped down from the stage Aela saw that she wore blue trousers underneath the knee-length robe, but her feet were bare as she walked across the hard-packed dirt of the square. In one hand she held a small clay jug, and in the other a simple cup.

"Aecha!" Hyunsu exclaimed. The aging Teodon darted from the group with more energy than Aela had ever seen the farmer display. Taking the younger Teodon in his arms, he scolded the girl. "What are you doing? You shouldn't be out here like this!"

"Why, is she in danger from us?" Alcheon's voice betrayed the same bitterness that Aela felt rising within herself. "We came here to fight for you people, and this is how you greet us?"

"You are right," Aecha answered him, "this is not how Agrigento should greet you." Disengaging herself from her father, she crossed the distance to the mercenaries and stood before them.

Aela felt energy flowing around her like a cool stream. The young Teodon was a magician, the local Witch or priestess no doubt. Aela's attention was drawn to a bright spot of power that hung from her neck. There she saw a curious pendant hanging from a rawhide cord. It was a crystal shaped like an hourglass, surrounded by a latticework of delicate bronze all around. Within Aela could see a blue liquid that glowed with a soft light.

It was a dowsing crystal, Aela realized, enchanted to fortify its wearer's water-based magic. That meant that Aecha was probably a water priestess. Aela had learned about both at the Ingenium, but had never encountered either before. Well live and learn, Aela thought to herself, the Earth always had something new to teach.

"I apologize for the behavior of my neighbors," Aecha said. She poured water from the jug she carried into her cup and took a sip. Then she held it out before her. "I am our mudang, and on behalf of Agrigento, I greet you all and extend the hospitality of our village."

The mudang's eyes went to Aela's and lingered there for long moments. Her aura burned brightly, and Aela realized that the Teodon was sensing her power, just as she could feel the mudang's. Then Aecha's eyes moved to Venca, and each of the other mercenaries in turn. In the Rasen's case, it was clearly the Ravenwheel that drew her attention. The artifact radiated so much power that a magician could no more overlook it than a hadrosaur standing on their foot!

"A mudang?" Hrafngoelir whispered.

"She is their water priestess," Loria answered out of the corner of his mouth. "She purifies their wells, moves the water to their fields, enriches it, and charges it with life and good health. She is the soul of their village."

The Light Elf wizard stepped forward and took the cup from the Teodon's hands. He raised it high over his head for all to see. Then he lowered it and took a long drink. "On behalf of all of my comrades, we accept your offer of hospitality and pledge to honor your village, your people, and your ancestors."

Aela could not prevent a small smile at the Silaine. Apparently Loria had learned more than just smuggling at the Ingenium after all!

"Now that we are all friends," Dhasan murmured, "will the others come out?'

They looked around, and found that now both Teodon and Rasenna began to filter into the square from all sides. While they were of different races, the newcomers all seemed more alike to Aela than not. For whether they had scales or skin, hair or spines, they were all stained with the same dirt and mud. They all possessed the same weather-beaten look that came from years of toiling under the hot sun. They all possessed the same calluses, and the same wiry, lean appearance of one who eats just barely enough to get by. Most of all they had the same empty and defeated look in their eyes. Eyes which few of them raised to meet the stares of Aela and the other mercenaries.

"They do not look like much," Venca said in a voice too low to carry far. "I am supposed to make an army out of this?"

"We all fall," Phereinon pointed out. "But we can all rise again."

"And rise to the occasion we all shall!" Loria declared in a loud, bright voice. The Light Elf leapt upon the stage, and had to coax the others to join him there, where the farmers could get a better look at them. Then the gregarious elf began to make florid introductions.

"Meet the most deadly Phereinon," he waved a hand to the pale swordswoman. "She is a master of armed and unarmed combat, philosopher, poet, and naturalist. One who finds value in all lives, great or small."

"The man all in black beside her is Venca," the Light Elf went on. "He is the Champion of Mhorlor - the Goddess of Magic, a seasoned military veteran, and a great general of Rase." Aela noted the sour face that the Rasen made at the introduction.

"This golden beauty next to our champion is none other than Hrafngoelir," Loria continued. "She has come all the way from the frozen north to fight for you. She has made the ravens sing many times over the corpses of her enemies. Now they will do so again over your foes here in Kye Rim."

"This handsome young fellow with yellow and green scales is Alcheon," the Light Elf proclaimed. "He was going to join the hwarang, but turned them down to become a wandering mercenary instead. He said it was more challenging! And besides, he is far too good-looking for them…"

The final, offhanded remark brought a series of guffaws from the gathered villagers. Aela could see that as always, Loria was working the magic of his personality upon the gathered crowd.

"And of course we cannot forget my own partner of many years, the most inestimable Aela," the Arvern magician had to fight to keep a straight face as the elf piled on the accolades. "She is the greatest Witch who has ever lived. She is the master of spirits, healer of all injuries, reshaper of the world, and best of all, she's not married!"

Aela had to stifle a groan when the Light Elf winked to the villagers at the end. As if any of them would care in any case.

"Last, but certainly not least, there is my humble self, Loria" the wizard lowered his head, as if in humility. "As I am sure you can already tell, I do not like to brag. But since we are all friends here, why not?"

Now he struck a dramatic pose, arms akimbo and head held high. "I am a master of the arcane arts, a graduate of the Ingenium, and being an elf, I am naturally a superior being!"

"And so very modest about it all too," Aela murmured out of the corner of her mouth. She was shocked when some of the others heard, and began to laugh.

"You forgot someone!" the villagers began to shout. Some of them pointed at Dhasan's red-furred form. "What about him?"

Loria made a great show of searching here and there for the Asokar warrior, pointedly never looking directly at him however. He lifted one of Hrafngoelir's braids to check underneath, peered behind Alcheon's shield, and even tried to check down the front of Venca's trousers. But the Rasen shook a finger from side to side in front of him, and the Light Elf thought twice before doing that.

For his own part, Dhasan stood aloofly by with arms crossed, and merely stared at the Light Elf without saying a word. Finally, to genuine laughter from the villagers, Loria walked right into him. The wizard pantomimed seeing the Asokar for the first time, threw his arms up in the air, and screamed.

"It's a wolf!" Loria cried.

The Light Elf fled behind Aela, and now Dhasan growled at the wizard, baring long, vulpine teeth. The Arvern Witch wondered how she had gotten herself into this. A glance back at Loria reminded her. Still, she had to admit to herself that her partner's attempt to lighten the peasant's spirits had indeed worked, for now she saw smiles and heard laughter, where just moments before there had been nothing but empty hopelessness.

"All right, all right!" Venca stepped forward, holding his hands in the air to quiet everyone down. "In spite of what you might think, we really are mercenaries. Well, most of us are, and we really are going to fight for your hamlet."

"But we are going to need your help," the Rasen went on. "We cannot fight the raiders alone. You are going to have to join us."

That cut through the villager's mirth like a Skanjr war axe. Now the somber looks returned, and Aela hoped that the Rasen would not destroy the spirit of the villagers, which Loria had worked so hard to raise.

"We will train you," Venca declared. "We will make armor, and shields, and weapons for you. We will repair the village defenses. Then when the time comes, we will stand beside you and fight. We will crush these bandits, that I promise! When this is all said and done, you won't need to ever hire mercenaries again. Because no one will have the sack to threaten Agrigento a second time."



Teodon village house

Teodon village house

What a delightful episode as we finally arrive in Agrigento!

The villagers may not know how to fight but they certainly can tell when others are approaching and know how to hide. That is a start, at least.

I loved how the Arvern Witch and Agrigenton Water Priestess silently sized up each other’s likely magical prowess.

I grinned throughout the dapper Loria’s skilled introductions as he described the band’s skills with enough mirthful charm to warm up his audience. And the warm up was necessary, for it was with no such light humor that the Seven’s obvious choice for ‘Training Officer’ (Venca) began to spell out the task ahead in his no nonsense manner.

I continue to enjoy this reinterpretation of the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven tale.

If I were one of the villagers, I would find Venca’s speech sobering, but bracing. After all, he did promise that the mercenaries would stay with them and teach then want they need to know, make the armor they need, fix their defenses, etc. In other words, the mercenaries would invest in the village. That’s something.

I am looking forward to more.