As the wagon approached the rider, Vesta could see that whoever this person was, they were not well. They were fidgeting in the saddle, talking to the empty air in a language that she couldn't understand. She had to assume it was Elvish, but never having heard the language herself, she couldn't be certain. However, while she'd heard that Elvish was a very musical language, Vesta didn't want to know what kind of music could contain words like the ones he was speaking. Whatever he was saying, it seemed to alternate between extreme angry and terrible sadness.

Unfortunately, she never bothered learning Elvish, since the race was currently down to maybe three hundred full-blooded members, so it wasn't one a person came across in their day-to-day life. In a couple of centuries, it was possible that the elves could go fully extinct unless there was a settlement of them out there somewhere in the world that no one had found yet.

Vesta smelled something in the air. It wasn't something she'd experienced herself, but she'd heard it described a few times. The sickly sweet smell of infection. The person ahead, elf or otherwise, had a wound that was turning septic.

Gramps slowed the wagon down, and whispered, "We'll need to handle this very carefully. The person up ahead is a full-blooded elf, lost in the Reverie."

At Vesta's confused expression, he explained, "Elves have perfect memory due to a curse brought upon them by the gods, to go with their agelessness and inability to tell lies. Their memory is so perfect that they remember things as if they're still happening, However, because that memory is so perfect, they can end up in a situation where they can no longer tell the difference between the past and the present. By the sound of it, the guy ahead is trapped in some extremely bad memories and may lash out violently if we're not careful."

Vesta sized up the elf ahead. He was tall, with broad shoulders. A sword was sheathed at his waist, and a bow was on his back, complete with a quiver of arrows. With a riding cloak covering his body, it wasn't possible to see any other details, but a large, strong, well-armed person not in their right mind could be very dangerous. Doubly so if he had armor to go with those weapons. Gramps had a sword he kept for self-defense, but Vesta couldn't say how well he could fare against a larger, stronger person in a swordfight. Hedea was very strong, but it was illegal for half-orcs to carry weapons...

"We could use the golems," Vesta noted. The ten Industrial-grade golems were hard-coded not to harm sapient life, but if ordered to restrain a person so that medical attention could be rendered, they would.

Gramps seemed to consider that, then shook his head and said, "He'd likely hurt himself struggling against them, and it's dangerous to underestimate the strength of an Elvish veteran. If he's as old as I think he is, then he's likely lived through the Scorn Wars. A wounded, battle-hardened elf lost in Reverie might be strong enough to fight off a golem, and he may well hurt himself trying. We're better off trying to talk him down. I have confidence in my command of the Elvish language, so I'll try to snap him out of it."

Gramps cleared his throat, and then shouted something that Vesta couldn't understand, but was far more harmonious than anything coming from the elf up ahead. The figure startled, then turned in the saddle to look back at them. When his face came into view, Gramps swore softly, although Vesta didn't understand why. The stranger's face was very handsome, even as pale and drawn as it was. Blood gently trickled from a long slash on his chest that had cut open his scaled armor. After a moment, the elf's eyes widened in recognition, then he tried to shake his head, seeming to be struggling with something.

He drew his sword, swinging it around wildly, but made no move to come closer. Still, Vesta heard Hedea's weight shift from the top of the wagon. If the elf made a violent move towards them, she was readying herself to intercede.

"Tiago!" shouted Gramps, this time in Common, "Remember Tiago!" The mention of the name startled the elf, causing him to drop his sword. After a moment, he began to weep, going very still.

Vesta wondered what that had meant. Tiago was the name of the hero of legend, the one who defeated the Dark Lord over two hundred years ago before riding off to parts unknown, promising to return when the kingdom needed him most. Much like the gods, it was very common to name boys 'Tiago' in the hopes that it might lead to their child having a measure of such a great man's heroism and valor. But the elf's reaction made it clear that the name had some meaning to him.

Then again, the Scorn Wars were fifty years before Tiago's vanquishing of the Dark Lord. It was fully possible that this elf had fought in the wars and later came to know the original Tiago personally. However, now Vesta understood why Gramps had cursed a moment ago. He knew this elf that they'd stumbled across on the road...

The elf, still reeling from Gramp's statement, suddenly clutched his head with both hands, his face distorted by anguish. After a moment, he turned his head to the heavens and let out a sound. It couldn't be called a cry, a yell, a shout, a scream, or a roar. None of those could fully encompass the raw intensity of the emotions conveyed by what erupted from the elf's throat. It was like several lifetimes of pain, rage, and sorrow had all been given a voice at once and were fighting each other to try and express themselves first. And it went on... and on... and on...

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Finally, the elf stopped and seemed to collect himself. Looking at Gramps, he nodded. He said something, and his sword raised up from the ground, floating in the air. He grabbed it and slid it into the sheathe at his waist. Then, he straightened in the saddle and turned his horse around.

He rode up to the wagon, and said in raspy Common, "When last we parted, I recall you saying that we'd never meet again." His tone wasn't exactly friendly, but it couldn't really be called hostile, either, although it was hard to tell, given what that... exclamation from earlier did to his throat.

"I said that fully expecting it to be true," Gramps replied. "However, I suppose time makes fools of us all."

"That may be accurate," the elf noted.

"Dismount," Gramps advised, "and we'll see about getting you patched up."

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The elf's name was Rayan, and he was an adventurer.

"It was a wyvern," he explained, as Hedea tended to the wound on his chest a short time later, the four of them now at camp. He was stripped of his armor, wearing only breeches and boots. While many told tales of how slender elves were, you'd never have been able to tell by looking at Rayan's muscular frame. His muscles were well-developed, to go along with the broad shoulders and chiseled features.

Vesta was still decades away from puberty, but she was pretty sure that if she had reached that point, she'd be too busy staring at his abs and pecs to pay attention to anything he was saying. Instead, she was busy inspecting his armor, tut-tutting to herself as she looked it over.

The group had made camp by the side of the road, to take care of the injured elf, while the golems creating a kind of defensive perimeter around them. While the roads in this section of Exaul were largely safe, it was always good to take precautions...

"A village a few miles back were having issues with a wyvern attacking them and stealing their cattle, and they'd put out a request to the guild," he explained, after drinking a vial of anti-venom. "I needed new wyvern-hide to get my armor mended, so I took the job. It went well enough, but I dropped my guard too early and it slashed me with its tail. I didn't realize its stinger had gotten through my armor until well after I'd collected the reward and was heading towards the Kingdom Under The Mountain. I know a smith there who could use it to make good armor, although he charges an arm and a leg for it."

"I'm surprised you didn't immediately administer an antivenom," Gramps noted, preparing a needle and thread.

Awkwardly, the elf admitted, "I didn't think I was poisoned at the time. Typically, wyverns have to stab someone with their tail stinger to administer poison, not slash with it, and it dries out very quickly. At a guess, the beast had hunted recently and there were still small traces of venom on its stinger when it got me." His eyes glanced briefly at Vesta, then added, "I'd expected the wound to mend quickly enough on its own, but with wyvern venom in the wound, it just turned septic instead." He winced slightly as Hedea finished cleaning the pus from the wound, and began administering the antibiotic salve.

"And by the time you realized," the old man noted, "you were probably already lost in the Reverie." The elf only nodded in reply, looking slightly embarrassed.

After a moment, Rayan added, in irritation, "I shouldn't have lowered my guard like that. But worse, I put too much faith in that armor. I fully expected that it would take the full brunt of the attack without giving."

"I don't see how you expected that to be the case," Vesta countered disdainfully, putting down armor in question. "This... I won't even call it armor anymore, it's such trash. At this point, it's just field patches being held together with other field patches. I don't know how long you've been wearing this, but it should have been taken to a professional to be mended long ago, if not outright thrown away for something new." With an annoyed sniff, she added, "If you sneezed while wearing this, it would probably come apart on you."

Rayan looked as if he might argue, then seemed to size her up, noted her ears, then stated, a bit more carefully, "I suppose you're an expert on the subject of armor?"

"Well, I can't say I'm the world's best smith, but I know my way around a hammer and anvil," she admitted. "I can tell the difference between a patch from a professional and a patch from an amateur that was done in a hurry." Scowling, she added, "A couple of these patches can't even be called amateur." Looking at a bundle lying nearby, she asked, "You said you had fresh wyvern-hide? How about gut? Fangs? Claws?"

Making a gesture towards his horse, who was calmly grazing on grass, he confirmed, "All of the above. The gut is from a kill I'd made over a year ago, dried and ready for use."

Looking the elf dead in the eye, Vesta nodded and said, "Fifty orichs, and I can have a new set of armor done for you by noon tomorrow."

Raising an eyebrow, Rayan asked, "You know how to work wyvern scale?"

"It's not my preferred material of choice," Vesta admitted, "But I have experience enough with it. I'd rather be working with steel or Mythril, but at least I won't need a full-blown forge to get the job done."

Vesta had, since she'd first fallen in love with the forge, spent a lot of time studying with smiths all over the city of Civitas, learning how to make everything from nails and horseshoes to swords and armor, on top of everything she knew about golems. Wyvern-scale was a fairly popular material for light armor since it offered the same amount of protection as steel armor but at a fraction of the weight.

Hedea, after a moment, nodded in satisfaction and said, "Wound clean. Blood stop. Medicine in. Ready. Can stitch now." She stood up and walked over to the wagon, looking for something.

"Thank you, Hedea," Gramps replied gratefully as she walked by, holding up a needle with thread. "I know that elves heal quickly, but you'll likely be weak for a few days as it is, given what you went through. Stitching it shut will help speed things along. Grin and bear it, and I'll be done swift as swift."

Rayan nodded in understanding as Gramps went to work, then turned to Vesta. "We've not been properly introduced," he admitted. "What is your name, young lady?"

"Vesta Herse," she replied.

"If you can provide me with armor crafted to my satisfaction," he stated, "I will be more than willing to pay your price. It'll be far cheaper than what I was prepared to pay my usual smith for."

Hedea walked back over to them, setting down a large, sealed trunk beside Vesta with a grunt. "Fairy Forge," she stated, then handed Vesta her protective gloves. "Will assist," the half-orc added, slipping on gloves of her own.

Confused, Rayan asked, "What in blazes is a Fairy Forge?"

Standing up and slipping on her gloves, Vesta muttered to herself, "I wish that name hadn't stuck."