Leonidas grunted when he was hauled to his feet by a pair of armored elves, and didn’t make the mistake of resisting when they aggressively searched his ruined clothes. The attack they’d launched, whatever it had been, had thoroughly destroyed his attire—and he looked like he’d been subjected to a close-range firebomb.

Thankfully, it hadn’t dealt any major damage to him.

“Do any of you speak English?” he asked with shallow hope.

“If you mean your inelegant common tongue, then yes.” the same elf that had demanded his name replied from where he stood before Leonidas. “We’ve learned it, though I can't say speaking it is all that enjoyable.”

“Is there some reason you yelled at me in Haelfenn tongue, then?”

“So you know our tongue.” the elf observed with an approving once-over, before he continued. “You were the odd one out among a gathering of enemies, and I wanted to shock you into speaking. Your kind tends to shout information in a panic, we’ve found.”

That actually made sense, Leonidas admitted to himself begrudgingly. He’d seen more than a few people just start screaming information in the vain hope it would belay or disrupt the inevitability of the consequences coming their way.

When the pair of elves finished searching him, he was permitted to stand unrestrained, and he eyed the elves surrounding him.

“So I take it that since I’m still breathing, you aren’t planning on killing or torturing me?”

“Neither, if you cooperate.” the elf confirmed with a nod to his compatriots. “We’re going to Dawnhaven, and you’re coming with us. The Dusk-Lord will want to see you.”

Dusk-Lord? That has to be a coincidence, surely…

In Elatra, and specifically Melredor; the title ‘Dusk-Lord’ had referred to the leader of the specific unit of warriors tasked with the defense of a settlement during the nighttime hours of 6pm to 6am. Their contemporary, the Dawn-Lord, served the same purpose from 6am to 6pm, and the two switched every twelve hours like clockwork.

“When does the Dawn-Lord begin their Watch?”

The elf that had been speaking to him raised his eyebrows at his question, and murmurs broke out among the elves around them. Leonidas immediately cursed himself as a fool, and idiot to boot, upon realizing what he’d done.

Why had he asked such a stupidly revealing question?

The first rule of blending in, as he’d learned repeatedly on Elatra, was to be exactly as ignorant as people suspected. He’d gone and done the opposite, and demonstrated cultural knowledge. It wasn’t exactly secret knowledge, but it was still knowledge.

“You’re well informed, for an ‘American’.” the elf said finally. “Most of your ilk are more interested in our weapons than our culture.”

“Weapons are our culture,” Leonidas replied with a mirthless smile. “And I suppose I’m just someone who fancies himself a scholar, uh… what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.” the elf said pointedly.

“That’s not great for the whole communication aspect of this relationship.”

“Oh? And what makes you think you need to know my name?”

“Common courtesy, I guess.” Leonidas said with a shrug.

“Hm.” the elf said consideringly, and then shrugged. “I am known as Tarnys.”

“Do you lead this, uh, group?” Leonidas asked while avoiding the term ‘Lance’.

“No, I am merely in charge of one of the Daggers.” Tarnys replied with an appraising look, and a shrewd consideration that told Leonidas perhaps he hadn’t been as convincing about his lack of knowledge as he’d hoped. “The Lance-Mistress, what you might call our Captain, died to the Nomad. In her absence, I am the senior most remaining Dagger-Master—what your kind would call a Lieutenant, as I understand it.”

Tarnys at least seemed to be playing along with his ruse, and Leonidas nodded.

“Okay, Dagger-Master. What now?”

The elf smirked at him, and waved a hand.

Immediately the entire Lance—or platoon, as Leonidas forced himself to think of them—marshaled together in a soft whisper of metal and fabric. The wounded or dead elves were braced on what looked like oddly modern stretchers, and Tarnys gestured not-quite-mockingly for Leonidas to walk with him toward where his World Map told him Dawnhaven was located.

Leonidas complied without argument, and set off alongside the shorter elf toward the distant settlement. At a conservative estimate, it looked to be perhaps two miles away, and that told him that he’d have plenty of time to carefully question Tarnys.

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“You’re being very polite with me, despite trying to kill me a few minutes ago.” Leonidas observed. “Not that I’m necessarily complaining,” he clarified, “or wanting you to change that attitude—but I have to admit, it’s a little odd.”

“We identified you when you first arrived,” Tarnys explained while they walked, “and observed you with scrying magic. Other than talking to yourself like a madman, you seemed relatively harmless given your negligible cultivation level.”

“So I was too weak to be a target, basically.” Leonidas translated dryly.

“Yes.” Tarnys confirmed with an unapologetic shrug. “At least, until the others appeared. At first we thought we were seeing things. The Iron Duke? The Coalition Archmagus? Then the Iron Duchess and the Sword of Atlanta? By the time the Reaper’s Shadow appeared, we were in full alert mode.”

“Yeah. That makes sense.” Leonidas said while rapidly trying to fit the pieces together. The Iron Duke was definitely his grandfather, which made his grandmother the Iron Duchess. His father was, apparently, the Archmagus of his faction, and his mother was some sort of famous warrior in Georgia. Kairi, meanwhile, was the least surprising of all: her reputation had been shown without need for telling, in the way his parents and grandparents had reacted to her.

“So you came to save me?”

“What? No. We were attempting to capture them for intelligence.”

“Then why spare me?”

“We aren’t savages, Leonidas.” Tarnys said with a sharp look. “We’re Haelfenn, as you already discerned. Our pride is not so fragile that we would kill a weak human just to satisfy the slights inflicted by others.”

“And because the Dusk-Lord will want to question me,” Leonidas reiterated.

“And because the Dusk-Lord will want to question you,” Tarnys agreed.

“How long—” Leonidas weighed his words carefully “—has Dawnhaven been part of Earth? I’ve been out of touch with things for the past few years. You could say I was removed from the world.”

“We arrived on Terra four summers ago.” Tarnys answered without obfuscation. “Summers which, I may add, are terribly oppressing compared to where we come from.”

“Which is?” Leonidas asked immediately.

“Our homeworld is called Altera. When the latest System Incursion began, we were among the volunteers that agreed to transmigrate and form a new nation.”

“Altera…” Leonidas repeated quietly. “Is that a solely Haelfenn world?”

“Not at all. It’s home to a myriad of races, though we certainly are one of the most prominent.” Tarnys explained while they walked. “Our Prince and Princess are the children of House Eldormer, and were low enough in the line of succession that they were permitted to take charge of the new nation.”

“You’re being very forthcoming, Tarnys.” Leonidas observed despite his better judgment. It was, he had to admit, a little odd for the elf—one who ostensibly had him prisoner—to be so talkative.

“Well, there’s logic to my transparency.” Tarnys explained with an amused glance. “Who are you going to tell? All the people in Dawnhaven that already know?”

“I take it there aren’t many non-elves in Dawnhaven, then.”

“The population that was here when we arrived remains, and we have allowed the Adventurers’ Guild to set themselves up as well.” Tarnys said to Leondias’ surprise. “We have strict rules about Nyrfenn in the Thronehold, but we cannot deny that we did settle occupied land. The locals are an eclectic mix, and some have adapted better than others.”

“Are they considered citizens of Dawnhaven?”

“Some are, when they prove themselves. The majority are considered residents, to use your local nomenclature. They won’t shut up about this ‘Bill of Rights’ and ‘Declaration of Independence’ that they apparently hold as sacrosanct documents, though we’ve largely dissuaded them from trying to enforce either one.”

“I take it that went over terribly.”

“Yes, but we have all the magitech and all the weapons, and they have strange tubes that make loud noises. It’s all very primitive.” Tarnys glanced over and shrugged. “No offense.”

Leonidas snorted. “None taken. Tell me about the Adventurers’ Guild?”

“The Adventurers’ Guild has an old compact with the Haelfenn dating back to Altera, and has operated in every other Incursion World as well. It’s one of the few organizations that is universally recognized by the System—though their ‘Guild Masters’ are specific to each branch, in each world.”

“Is there a way to travel between worlds?” Leonidas asked with a surge of interest.

“No.” Tarnys said simply. “We can purchase things from the Aetherium Store, but we cannot transit between different worlds conventionally. The System offers that only during Incursions, and once you choose to settle during an Incursion, you are committed for better or worse. There are many nations of Haelfenn throughout the Nexus, and other than the occasional story or purchased item, we have no idea about them.”

“The Nexus?” Leonidas asked while feeling his head starting to throb faintly.

“The web of worlds that are connected by the System. The Aetherium Store is the only place where they all converge, in a manner of speaking.”

“So Earth is just the latest world on the web?”

“In essence, yes.” Tarnys confirmed. “Though I will admit, this Terra of yours is the most unique one I’ve ever heard of. Harnessing lightning? Nuclear Power? Guns? Airplanes? Your people have created some truly bewildering, and self-annihilating wonders. We’re already trying to see if we can find a way to re-engineer some of them with Magitech.”

“Not the Nukes, I hope.”

Tarnys snorted.

“We aren’t as stupid as your species, Leonidas. We want to thrive, not destroy ourselves. Besides, the System would never allow those sorts of things to exist. It needs these worlds. It feeds off of them. Without a flourishing population, it loses fuel. Our interactions give the System life, and in turn, it grants us power beyond our wildest dreams.”

“So it’s symbiotic?” Leonidas queried with genuine interest.

“Oh yes.” Tarnys confirmed with a nod. “It’s what your people tell me is called a logic engine: life connects, life interacts, and those interactions generate System Energy. It gives that energy back to us in turn, and with it we cultivate and grow stronger. When we grow stronger, we create more interactions, which creates more energy, which then cycles back.”

“It’s a perpetual loop…”

“Yes.” Tarnys agreed again. “The System is a living thing, in its own way. A metaphysical and bewildering thing, but a living one no less.”

That silenced Leonidas, and he took a minute to let it sink in.

So the System is alive, and we’re all just fuel for, what, a symbiotic biological superintelligence?

The thought was less than comforting.