Suggested Listening

"You did WHAT!?" Calenda shouted loud enough to attract a glance from the people in the distance. That, or it was Lemia laughing nonstop as Elruin delivered the news. Cali chose to believe it was the latter.

"I got a House, and I named it after you," Elruin said. "Lady Juna said you'd be proud."

"Worst part of being dead," Cali muttered. "Everyone starts to imagine they can talk about what you would or would not have wanted. Funny how what they think you'd want is what they want."

Lemia managed to get her giggle-fit under control. "Look at it this way, you couldn't have asked for a more convincing method to tell everyone that you're no longer amongst the living. Your beloved adopted sister said you were dead point blank to Lord Garit and Lady Juna, while who knows how much lie detection magic was in the room, then to honor your memory she names her fresh-minted noble House after you."

"I would have preferred you turn down the titles in the first place. Didn't I tell you not to take gifts from the nobility? I meant all of them." She knelt down in front of Elruin. "I was trying to protect you from their world. Now that you've taken a title, that means you're part of their system, which comes with obligations. From now on, you'll be expected to show results to prove you're using your holdings well, oaths of loyalty. For you, in particular, that means they can and will make you serve the crown one way or another."

Elruin looked down. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize."

"Guess there's no point fighting the system, they always get what they want, and there's not much we can do about it now." Cali stood. "Now we need to plan what to do with your so-called estate." She made a gesture at the ramshackle assortment of buildings.

Elruin looked around. "I was told I have to talk to Erra. Lyra's my responsibility, too, since she built her tree on my land."

"It seems the gods of fate are determined for you to lead an interesting life." Calenda chuckled. "Let's go find Erra."

As they walked, Elruin asked a question that had been bothering her for a time. "Umm, what's a wolf?"

Cali's face scrunched in thought while she walked. "I don't know. I think they're some sort of giant rat monster, but I've never seen one. In old myths, they hunt in swarms and eat livestock, or even people when they get a chance."

Suggested Listening

Before they made it to the tree, Lyra came out to meet them. She flitted down from the tree and touched the ground like a leaf. Cali stepped back when Lyra looked at her. Lyra sniffed the air, then ignored her and went straight to Elruin and dropped a pile of small white crystals in front of her. They resonated with life energy, condensed and contained in shards that were not sarite, but served a similar function.

"Oh, the crystals we found with the monsters..." Cali trailed off when Lemia reached back into her hair and withdrew three black balls of fluff. "Those. Don't get too close, they're more dangerous than they look."

"They're so adorable it hurts." Lemia stepped forward, only to jump back when the tiny furballs looked at her, their eyes glowing like hellfire. "Gah!"

They squeaked at her, with a deeper tone than one would expect for such small animals. Fragments of fear magic emanated from their shared song, not enough to overcome Lemia's resistance to magic, but she didn't need active magic to make her wary of the unnatural beasts.

Meanwhile, Lyra began handing them all off to Elruin, who scratched one's neck while the other two climbed up her arms. "Aren't they cute? What are they?"

"I don't know, but we found them in the rafters of a barracks that Claron's people set up in. We tried to burn the nest, but Lyra's taken a liking to them. They have some nasty darkness oriented magic, drives people insane, and then they, well, harvest them."

"Harvest?" Lemia began using her own magic to observe the animals. These babies weren't much, but she could see how the magic clung to them and transfused their bodies. Insidious stuff which would over time warp the native aspect of the environment into what appeared to be a rage-oriented elemental state, which might drive people insane without any direct action on their part. As they grew, so too would their strength. If they retained a natural squirrel's reproductive rate, they could become a serious threat.

Then she realized what the pile on the ground was. "Are those eyes?"

"They were." Cali inched toward the pile of crystallized human eyes. "Infused with life energy extracted from Claron's dead soldiers. Near as I can tell, this is what they eat. Two died before we figured that out."

"Oh," Elruin sounded sad. "Poor babies." She looked down at the pile of eyes, observing the condensed and chained life force being used like fertile soil to grow into the necromantic energies the squirrels fed on. She could do that. She began to hum, and drew her well of power into a cupped hand, as if holding a small pool of deadly black fluid. Soon, the three surviving babies came down to the 'pool' and began to lap away at the energies.

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Lemia shuddered when she realized there must have been thirty eye-crystals in the pile, then true horror dawned on her. "Uh, tell me I'm imagining that magical undertone."

"I thought the same thing, but without having her nearby I couldn't be certain. And now I was hoping you'd tell me I was wrong. Or at least could explain to me why these things have Elruin's resonance all over them."

Lemia swallowed, considering her training. Hybrids and chimera were not her specialty, but she'd taken a class on the subject. "Well, it's possible for magic to infuse into living things, causing spontaneous conception. It's... how spirits sire demigod offspring in the first place. But it's unusual, especially if it's not deliberate, but it is known to happen. Ell, what did you do?"

"I made a squirrel help me kill the bad men Claron sent," she said. "It did a really good job."

"Does this mean you're taking them away?" Erra stayed a safe distance away from the fuzzy harbingers of madness and death, even though they seemed docile enough and Lyra would slaughter anything which was a threat to her.

"We'll figure something out," Lemia said. "But if Elruin keeps them fed, I don't think they'll have a reason to hurt anyone. Magic chimera tend to be smarter than their origin species, too. Maybe they can even be trained."

Elruin smiled at them. "I'm a squirrel mommy!"

"I tried to get Lyra to get rid of them, but she just put them in her hair and acted like that was enough." Erra inched closer, not taking her eyes away from Elruin's new pets. She feared she was being rude to the girl who had done so much to help them, so she tried changing the subject. "I heard you helped kill Lord Claron, and then went to the capital?"

Suggested Listening

"I have a House, now!" Even as she spoke, Elruin continued to provide supernatural nourishment to her new pets. "I have to make sure you and Lyra behave."

"She means we were granted honorary noble titles." Lemia may have been speaking to Erra, but she couldn't take her eyes off of the squirrels, either. The things were somehow even more unnerving than their accidental creator. "And House Arila gave her the Shelter as an official holding. Seeing as your tree mansion is here, we need to talk."

Erra looked around. "I'm sorry, I've still not found much time to study noble protocol."

"You can join my House!" Elruin stepped toward Erra. "I named it House Cali, after my big sister."

Erra stepped back. "That's actually quite touching. I'm sure Lady Calenda would be proud if she could see you now. I think it would be nice to help honor her memory."

Meanwhile, a few feet away, Cali wondered if it was possible for a dead woman to develop a nervous tic. "As Lyra's keeper, it's better than you don't join. Lady Elruin has attracted quite a lot of attention lately, and the church feels safer if Lyra is seen as theirs, rather than belonging to any specific noble house. Officially, of course. Unofficially, we'll have to work together a great deal if we both want to stay here and make the Shelter a better place for everyone. But, well, you're the one with the real power here. It may be Elruin's estate, but it's your home, and as we've seen, there's no force in Arila which can make Lyra do anything she doesn't want to."

Erra relaxed. "So, what were you going to do with your new estate?"

"We can make a farm!" Elruin slowed her feeding of her new pets, now that they seemed to be going to sleep in her palms. "With lots of nice crops to feed the city and make everyone happy."

"A farm, without any animals to work it or space enough to feed said animals, or ability to stop people from sneaking in during the night to steal the nonexistent animals and crops." Calenda sounded less than enthused.

"Actually, it might work," Lemia said. "Can't do much about animals, but with Lyra and some botanical magic, we could get something decent going. Let anyone try to steal food meant to support the poor within the nonviolence field. Or just let these squirrels play in the fields, that'll scare 'em off. And if we drop the 'food' crops for alchemical plants, it might even be profitable. As long as Lyra's around to boost growth speed."

Elruin looked at Lemia. "I thought you said farming here would be bad because it would drive away the community."

"It would have," Lemia said. "But Claron made a bigger mess than the farm ever could have. When the chaos settles down, everything will have changed. With our help, maybe we can make that change be for the better."

"I don't know how well it would work, but at least you'll have something to show your chosen overlords that you're trying." Calenda sighed, then looked out at the shanty town rebuilding itself amongst the temporary blockades which Claron's people built. Either moving into the shacks, or tearing them apart for construction material.

"Would a hospice be an option?" Erra asked. "We have so many who can't make their way to the wealthier part of the city where they build the respite houses."

"That could be done," Cali said. "Or a small chapel, which would all but obligate the church to station a handful of the priesthood here permanently. Then they'll deal with the healing, instead of us volunteering to handle the task. No sense in going for both, however. We don't have infinite space."

"I say hospice," Lemia said. "If the church wanted our support, then they should have supported us against Claron. Cowards. Besides, Lyra is a beacon of nature magic, she doesn't need the church."

Calenda couldn't object overmuch. "It will take more work than that, and you know it. If you want to establish a hospice without the church, it will require time and effort on all our parts, to avoid looking ineffectual."

"Or we make it look like we need the church," Lemia countered. "And I'm not sure how they'd respond to some of our other projects. Like going back into those tunnels, or whatever we're going to do with these squirrels." She left the more objectionable projects unspoken.

"Will you have time, between that and dealing with school?"

"I think I'll be fine. With the sarite I have, I don't need to sleep anymore and can even use some to cast healing magic." Lemia smiled at how convenient things were for her, now. "And more important, the deans sent us a letter, explaining that they understand the difficulties of running a noble house and were willing to be accommodating to our unique circumstances. Oh, and if you can believe it, Dean Meris is claiming he gave me his prized sword, so that I could use it to help stop Lord Claron."

Cali frowned. "Well, that is convenient. Speaking of messages, our other allies sent one as well. They say they cleared out a major goblin nest. Nothing of value but a large supply of weak sarite. We should send a message back about this whole 'House Cali' mess. Do we want to go collect the sarite, or donate it to Sonhome in the name of your new house?"

"You mean House Cali," Lemia said, then basked in Calenda's glare.