It was the outworlder fairy who wound up explaining most of it. The damage the grey elf girls did to the lower fairy noble next to him was rather shocking. It seemed as though one of them was even aware of some details about the fey armaments that the outworlder was not made privy to in the years he had been at the capital. It was only after the fact he had discovered the man was equipped with a living wood weapon which he wore under the breast plate which the girl had frozen.

That was just the thing. That grey elf possessed the ice element. It was not one of the four basic elements held by the demon bloodline. That in and of itself was impressive, it meant she must have memories of some rather good magic in the order alignment.

More shocking though was that the other one possessed some kind of blood healing magic. Just hearing the terms blood and healing instantly conjured up images of the children of Lahamu. The child had even bitten the man. There was a rather noble use for blood magic in connection with originating a bloodline, but the children of Lahamu were a different thing all together.

These were the most stunning things about the report, but Sagle also did not overlook the nature of the mysterious opening attack the grey elf children had launched. Neither one of them knew the nature of the attack, and it seemed she had refused to tell them. However, it had struck and deformed the breastplate, but had not pierced it. Despite this, it downed the man who was wearing it and nearly killed him from the outset. A great fairy was nearly killed by an attack that had hit him in an area covered by armor and a living weapon. The only reason the weapon was not damaged by the attack was because it was in a flexible form at the time.

Perhaps the most significant thing Sagle was told though was that all four of the children, both the humans and the grey-elf girls, were from the same world as the outworlder. Somehow, they had been born as humans and grey elves instead of great fairies.

This piece of information was very interesting. What was more interesting about it though was what it implied. These four individuals could not have been the only cases of this happening. There were a handful born as great fairies around the location of the heaven fall when it happened. These four were born two as grey elves and two as humans. Surely then there were other outworlders born as humans or elves out there? This would be a matter of great importance to report to the queen.

‘I see.’ Sagle said. ‘I would be very interested in meeting these children. Can you guide me to where you had found them?’

‘We can, but they are highly distrustful.’ The outworlder said.

‘That is not unexpected.’ Sagle replied. ‘It is why I wish to negotiate personally, not in the company of the one who has foolishly caused problems thus far.’

‘Master Sagle, I have only been doing what I believed to be best for the village we visited.’ The dragon lord in question spoke up. ‘I was unaware of this at the time I made those decisions.’

“Heh.” The outworlder made an audible sound that seemed somewhat derisive. ‘I don’t think you get what I meant when I said they were highly distrustful.’

‘They extracted a thrice sworn oath from me and had us travel by an indirect route to where you two were waiting, and we also delayed in approaching you for several hours.’ The other fairy reported. ‘Also, they expressed suspicion for Lord Indirniri’s motives. They believe him to have been motivated by greed and a desire to acquire the human boys for personal gain and for him to be the type who would pursue the death of the two grey elf girls even knowing that they possessed significant power.’

Lord Indirniri hissed at this accusation. ‘That is quite a conjecture for a child who has never encountered a fey dragon of the court before. I have trouble believing that would have come from them alone. Who had filled the heads of those children with such slander?’ The dragon seethed.

‘I didn’t say anything like that.’ The outworlder said. ‘All I ever gave them was the exact orders I’d been given when the mission started. I don’t know what was said in the language you all speak when she was interrogating Nier here.’ He said, indicating the fairy next to him and providing the name of the man. ‘However, I do know it was after that the spook girl made her conclusion about our honorable dragon noble over here.’

‘Uhh… spook girl? What? Umm… well, I also only said what the orders of lord Indirniri were. It was when I suggested contacting the master who serves the queen directly that she suddenly declared suspicion over motives of my lord.’

‘One of you are lying!’ the dragon lord hissed again and began eyeing the outworlder. ‘I am certain that it is you!’ He said.

‘Hah, yeah, you go ahead and think that.’ The outworlder said. ‘I told you, that girl is a spook. It’s what we call people back from my world who have special training in information warfare. In other words, she specializes in figuring out what her enemy is up to. It’s just in their training. You can’t fool their kind. Also, in case you were wondering, another thing her kind are really good at is disappearing. If she’s on her own, she will never be caught unless she wants to be. The only hope you have is catching the boys, but they are acting under her instruction right now. It will make them impossible to catch as well.’

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Information warfare? Intriguing. ‘So, outworlder.’ Sagle said. ‘What exactly do these… spooks do in terms of information warfare?’

‘Hah! Mainly they are supposed to be spies that get information on the enemy. But, they tend to get into all kinds of dirty shit while they’re at it. If you’re smart, you don’t trust them even if they’re supposed to be on your side.’ He said.

Interesting. The man was obviously adversarial toward these ‘spooks’ as he called them, but it sounded like they served a role on the world of the outworlders very similar to what he did for the queen. Now he wanted to meet them even more. If they did have someone like himself though, it may be very true that it would be impossible to catch them now that they had several hours lead. It is likely that they even allowed themselves to be found in the first place. As for the objective, it was likely for this exact moment. These two are being used as a distraction, and by now it is already too late. The the spirit energy these two great fairies put out while approaching would have covered for the children and the adult elves with them as they cleared the forest and made off into the plains.

Sagle turned to regard the outworlder. Perhaps he might be the one potential line he has to catch these two. He had heard a little about the difficulties they had with the great fairy outworlders who came with him. There had been something to do with a violation of the courtly rules in regards to the realm spirit who inhabited the great tree. The situation had been responded to rather severely. The man before him would not have been involved in this incident, but the anger from this incident was clear by the contemptuous speech this man had been using.

‘Tell me, do you wish to leave the fey capital?’ He asked the outworlder. The Jin-like complexion the man had made it impossible for him to grow pale from shock, but the expression the man had was identical to someone who would have gone as white as a fine linen cloth.

>Shit! Serously?< The man laughed and had a strange smile as he made some kind of exclamation in the tongue of the outworlder home world. >Man that bitch is scary!<

Sagle did not understand the outworlder language, but he could make some good guesses as to what the man was muttering about from the context. If it was the prospect of leaving that had terrified him, he would have immediately attempted to reject the idea of what Sagle had asked him. He had not done that though. In this context, that left only one other likely candidate for why he would make such an expression. He was stunned that someone had predicted Sagle would ask exactly this question.

Indeed, this child really did have skill. If she had such skill, it may be worth truly considering the suspicions about lord Indirniri as well… wait, was even this predicted? Interesting. This child is rapidly putting him at risk of over-reading the other side. He concluded that he should proceed as though facing a legitimate member of the seventh committee.

This would also mean he should assume the man is unwittingly being used as a trap, but Sagle decided to proceed with the plan anyway. ‘I can assume the idea appeals to you?’ He asked the outworlder. ‘I will need for the two of you to report what you have just told me directly to the queen. While we are doing so, I will make a recommendation for you to be released to do as you will.’

***

It took only an hour to fly back to the capital at full speed together with only the two great fairies. Sagle had left the dragon behind to recall the rest of the search party. He was confident they would not be able to find those children even if he decided to try something. After that, the dragon was under orders to report the safe passage of the children to the nymph of the village he had been assigned to. Sagle may have been here under an advisory role, but this situation had developed to such an extent that he had decided to take full control of the situation.

The report was given. It was mostly a simple relaying of the same information the two had reported to him before this. He had mentioned the decision to release the outworlder as part of the deal. The queen immediately picked up on the intentions Sagle had in doing this. She strongly advised the outworlder to visit the other outworlders in the capital and bid them good bye before leaving, giving them plenty of time to put together a party to follow the man.

Interestingly enough, the queen had personally assigned him to the mission of observing these children. He was under orders to only approach if he judged it possible to make amicable contact. Otherwise, keep at a distance. He was then assigned five regular fairies who would act as advanced eyes for him and then they need only wait until the outworlder left.

It turned out exactly as Sagle expected it would. The outworlder flew immediately back toward the boarder in exactly the region the children would have left from. Sagle would be recognized as an owl, so he had changed form into a hawk and pursued at a low altitude. Once they got under tree cover, he changed form again into a bat. Meanwhile, the fairies assigned to him pursued from above the tree cover while invisible.

Finally, the outworlder stopped atop a small rocky ridge. He looked around the area for a while until he finally found a particular rock and stared at it for a while. Then, he left. Sagle sent the fairies ahead to follow him. He wanted to see what kind of thing these children had used as a message.

When he got there, it turned out to be something far more simple and yet far more impossible to decode than he had imagined. It was simply writing in a language he did not recognize. The tongue of the outworlders, no doubt. It was painfully obvious some members of the seventh committee would need to learn this tongue. No doubt the queen had already assigned some members to do exactly that. It would be too much to ask that a mere fairy have the attention span to know it in this short an amount of time since the outworlders arrived though.

Having a language only they knew was far too powerful a tool. At the same time, if the seventh committee could get ahold of this tool, it could benefit them greatly.

He almost wanted to stay here and study this written language, but he knew there would be several more opportunities in the future. He still had a mission to attend to.