CHAPTER 85: Lord Berelli
We did it! Eureka! I couldn’t help but shout. Before setting out the next morning, we put on the chains with rubies gems on them. The difference in travelling was blatantly obvious. How the blazes it worked I didn’t know, but how we missed that road the day before floored me because before us lay a beautifully meandering path with no roots, swamps or even monsters. We felt as if the forest finally welcomed our presence and tried it’s best to help us. No wonder we felt so uncomfortable when we first arrived, none of us were wearing those ruby gems. What a difference. That confirmed why the dark elves wanted us blindfolded. At one stage Hana couldn’t hold back her curiosity any longer and asked the obvious question.
“Hey Shane, do these necklaces have some skill attached to them that makes it easier to walk through the forest?”
“It has a skill called Friends Of The Forest. Do you know anything about that Elle?”
Elle shook her head.
“We don’t have anything like that, but then I’ve never dealt with many elves outside of my own tribe.”
“You have a tribe?”
She only smiled at the question and didn’t offer anymore information. I knew when to keep quiet, but Hana tried more than once to elicit information from her without success. Fear of persecution remained one of the main reasons I suspected the elves preferred to remain elusive. Elle would tell us more about herself when she felt ready for it.
On the following nights we slept two at a time while one kept watch, although nothing happened. I wasn’t interested in trapping for rabbits, too afraid I would catch something more than I bargained for. Besides, leaving Hana and Elle alone in that forest simply lacked any appeal for me. We were rather quiet during those nights, preferring just to sit quietly around the fire. In case you wondered, since we wore the elvish gems we could start a fire without fear of being attacked by local creatures. Without having to concern myself with unwanted attention from the local fauna and flora, I spent some of that time trying to figure out the nature of the medicinal herbs we picked up from an apothecary at the dark elves’ village.
From what I could work out, there were some particularly valuable and rare plants only found in the depths of the Ironwood Forest. Once particular innocuous looking acorn thing interested me because it was wrapped in many layers of leaves and placed inside a beautifully decorated box. When I appraised it, the only thing my appraisal said was that it was called a Dryad tree seed. Go figure, it sounded just like the old man’s workplace. Would it produce some sort of dryad creature I wondered? I stored it in my pocket dimension storage, separate from the other items.
While we sat in the woods I looked at the Ironwood trees around us. Knowing how valuable Ironwood was, I itched to cut some wood from the surrounding trees. Wisely, Elle suggested I stick to picking up branches on the ground, we didn’t want to jinx whatever luck we were experiencing at the time by upsetting some or other forest monster. I’m not sure if something out there was listening to me because I continually found truckloads of Ironwood branches lying on the ground at each camping spot. Most of the wood looked in particularly good condition.
Ironwood was a dense, deep coloured wood, making excellent musical instruments and handles for ornaments. It was even useful as a jewellery item. Its dense nature gave it the name and characteristic that quickly blunted cutting tools with surprising ease. When I wasn’t sorting out plants I found along the way, I was whittling smaller pieces of ironwood to make chess pieces with. The other two didn’t pry as to what I was making, although I could sense their curiosity, there was little point in me describing anything until I finished the whole board. It would be nice to have games with them when we were done. I only had one complaint; I couldn’t stomach us using ironwood to feed the fire, but even I couldn’t deny it made excellent fuel, similar to coal, once the fire became hot enough to burn.
Five days flew past and soon we found the Old Forest Road on the eastern side and returned to Camp Endeavour. Folks at the camp were suitably relieved at our arrival. Concern about the Goldcastle’s long silence started to rise as worried enquiries from the men. In a meeting with Karato, Grenfell, and the Goldcastle team we described the events since we left for the dark elves’ village.
“Dark elves you say?”
Karato seemed surprised. He never expected to see dark elves.
“I just heard they could be a difficult bunch to deal with. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t know an ordinary elf from a dark elf.”
Grenfell thoughtfully stroked his beard and wondered aloud.
“You say they attacked human villages because they were being enslaved? That’s not difficult to believe. Elves are rare to find, and I’ll be there’s a few slavers out there that will stoop as low as to slaughter entire elf villages just to get a few slaves.”
Whatever their reasons, it seemed pretty desperate. There was one personal observation Elle needed to mention. She didn’t know if it encouraged the dark elves’ behaviour, but she thought it worth mentioning.
“I noticed there were hardly any children in that dark elf village. As you know, Elves have a long lifetime and children are usually few, but even then, the number of dark elf villagers looked sparse. I counted around a hundred people including one child.”
Could some form of social desperation motivate the dark elves? Were they protecting their children by forcing the surrounding human villagers out of the area? On the other hand, perhaps we were overthinking it and they were nothing but a particularly nasty group of people. After all, who would’ve thought the pretty Floréal had a deadly dathrod as a pet Labrador? At the end of the day, it was purely speculation.
“Where are all the dark elves now?”
Grenfell enquired.
“In the same place I put the dathrod originally. I'll release them when of had a bit of time to think about what to do with them.”
He made a humph sound.
“Remember you're dealing with people not monsters. I know nothing is happening with them in your storage but decide what to do with them quickly or let them go.”
It was a bit of an admonishment, I guess he didn't approve of my actions, but I wasn't going to kill anybody, it wasn't my style. I still believed anyone could better themselves if given the chance. It would have to be a particularly bad situation for me to have to kill them.
There we were, Hana and I looking at each other across the sputtering candle. The beers we drank during the festivities probably loosened our usual reserve a little.
“What’s bothering you?”
Hana’s question surprised me a little. It wasn’t like her to ask me about my feelings, usually she accepted my attitude without question. Normally I didn’t want to burden her with my concerns, so I didn’t speak to her about my thoughts, but I realised that if I wanted to include her more into my life I needed to accept her feelings too. Hana spoke before I could reply.
“Are you thinking about the dark elves?”
Goodness she was sharp. In the short time I knew Hana, we had faced more than one near death experience together. Probably more so than most couples I ever knew. Perhaps that was the reason she understood me so well. I wondered if the surprise on my face made her smile. I loved her smile because her face accepted her smiles as if naturally made for them. All the soft lines on her green eyes were in harmony with her mood. Of course, I wasn’t dumb enough to mention that to her. No woman wanted to hear the loveliest part of her was the wrinkles on her face.
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“I’m thinking about what to do dark elves in my storage.”
“What have you decided?”
“I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“Oh, really? Tell me then.”
“I want to use slave collars.”
Hana didn’t get angry. She just asked,
“Why do you want to do that?”
“Because to let them go will mean they’ll just go back to what they did before, also I cannot jail them because I’m not looking after all of them.”
“Why not jail only the ones that were involved.”
“I’m afraid that I’ll have to hurt them to find out, and I don’t want to do that either. There’s a better chance for me to find out the reason for their attacks and to try and rehabilitate them.”
“Why do you think I wouldn’t approve you using slave collars?”
“Because of what your slave collar did to you.”
Hana’s hand touched the leather slave collar that marred her beautiful neck.
“I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not angry with the collar. The collar didn’t put itself on me, so being angry with it doesn’t make sense. Also, the collar isn’t at fault, there’s a purpose for slavery in the kingdom. I’m angry at the reason those people that put this on me. If I find them, I’ll not hold back.”
Her words sent shivers down my spine.
“I think I can remove your collar…if you want.”
“Really? But didn’t you try and fail once before?”
I nodded because she was right. Once I tried removing the enslavement skill from her slave collar and got whacked by a massive rebound EE effect that knocked me off my feet, leaving my ears ringing for hours afterwards. I quickly learned my lesson and didn’t want to mess with the collar until I felt better prepared. However, another way presented itself.
“Yes, you’re right, I did fail. However, this method is similar to how I removed those ruby necklaces from the dark elves.”
Her eyes opened wide.
“You mean you want to put me in transfer storage?”
“Yes.”
I thought Hana would tell me to take the transfer storage and stick it where the sun didn’t shine, but she did the opposite.
“I’ll do it.”
“Huh, you’re happy to do it?”
“No, I’m not happy to do it. But if it means I’ll get rid of this thing and get a chance to go further than fifty paces from you…then consider my buy in as given.”
I certainly couldn’t blame her. I was just as tired being woken up in the middle of the night to guard a W.C. I didn’t need to use. Unexpectedly, she added something else.
“You’ve always been kind to me, and I’ve never been treated like a slave. For me, I am happy for you to use the slave collars with the dark elves because I know you’ll never abuse them, and you’ll try your best to help them.”
Shucks, I didn’t have the guts to tell her I probably wouldn’t do it for such altruistic reasons. If anything, they were going to work like they never worked before. Only the one dark elf child we noticed would be exempted from having a collar and being treated like a slave.
“Are you okay if we do this now? It should go quickly, although it will seem instantaneous to you.”
I repeated the obvious to Hana just to confirm. She already knew about the technical details of transfer storage, after all, she witnessed it from the first time I used it. It was time for me to start.
Lord Berelli was a pragmatic man. To him, problems required practical solutions, and being Lord of an estate required a hard hand. Both his father and grandfather drilled that fact into him mercilessly. The prosperity enjoyed by Taveil, his south-eastern region hometown, proved that point. It wasn't an accident that Taveil remained the wealthiest of the largest towns in Aryonne following Shimmerstal and Draguilet. Lord Berelli believed that wealth, coercive power, and family trust made for an unassailable political trifecta. To him, the fact that the Berelli estate produced a sizeable portion of the kingdom’s wealth lay secondary to the importance he placed on family. But even he would concede that wealth played a key part in political leveraging and that without it, his family would’ve been no different than the other noble houses.
From that perspective, it was easy for him to look down on the other estates. Take for example Lord Talus, the noble family ruling the north-eastern region of the kingdom. An obese man who apparently went to great lengths to make himself seem less than he was. At one time, his family held great power in the kingdom, but little remained of that once noble estate. Any remaining worth probably lay in that man’s stomach.
The once powerful city of Draguilet brought low by its tourism, pitifully low city walls, and pathetic ruling lord. Only tourists, it's main source of income, could appreciate a little of its historical value. Even travelling merchants spent little time tarrying there, instead preferring to hurry onwards to Shimmerstal. Lord Berelli considered Draguilet strategically worthless just like its ruling noble. Lord Talus knew how to kowtow to Lord Berelli, it was his only redeeming attribute. Besides, what could Lord Talus do with his patched-up mercenaries against the Berelli Estate’s professional and well-equipped soldiers?
On the other hand, he considered Lady Hull the only noble worth his consideration because he thought of her as an ogre in disguise. Her frail and petite physique belied her fiercely competitive nature. Anyone that thought she looked like a pushover soon discovered otherwise when she ruthlessly stomped all over them using her influential contacts. Few ever recovered from double-crossing her. If they did survive, the never-ending onslaught she generated soon wore them out. As a result, few of her enemies remained and those that did were beaten into submission. Lord Berelli never openly confronted her, considering himself a patient man who waited for the right opportunity. Patience always paid its reward.
When it came to the amount of brawn the Berelli family excelled. Luckily, he inherited the brains in the family. The same couldn't be said for his two sons, who like their ancestors, used their muscles first and dealt with the pesky consequences afterwards. He realised his sons’ arrogance borrowed heavily from the Berelli's power and ‘persuasion’ abilities. Unfortunately, arrogance also created enemies, and thanks to his sons, there were many of those.
When the number of their enemies threatened to rise above the ability of corruption to curtail them, force became the only solution. After all, money was an abundant resource for them. Sometimes it became necessary to quickly nip trouble in the bud before it blossomed into chaos. Perhaps his sons uninhibited actions provided him with ample practice in being able to quickly identify potential problems. One of those potential problems lay in three intelligence reports on his desk.
The first report highlighted a recent incident involving the mayor of Obon and the disappearance of a significant number of silver coins. The incident on its own would not have attracted his attention if it wasn't for the close involvement of Obon's mayor in the noble’s plans. The mayor's involvement, although not critical, was nonetheless important in the nobles plans to overthrow the king by destabilising the kingdom's currency.
The dilution of small gold coins into fake gold coins required many silver coins. Acquiring silver from official sources attracted unwanted attention from the palace's auditors, even if some of them were already in the Berelli estate's pockets. Obon's mayor was one of the few outside sources that supplied laundered silver coins. Unfortunately, Obon's stupid mayor was considered a necessary puppet. The brazen theft of his silver coins on its own wouldn't have triggered any alarms for Lord Berelli, after all, thieves were common enough in the kingdom. But even thieves needed to know their place when they interfered with the noble’s plans.
“Bring me the head of security!”
Lord Berelli instructed the attendant stationed at the door.