Myrrir had arrived on Muspellar a week ago, but he’d done his best to lie low. Between Wren, the exile imposed by his father, and the privateers he was meant to be hunting, he wasn’t exactly the most welcome person on an Elderworld planet.
First, he had arrived in the planet’s southern oceans, only to learn that the privateers were causing problems on the planet’s northern seas. So they spent another day travelling the Stream, navigating out through the network of rivers that ran through the star system. They raced towards the system’s star, then looped back towards the north pole.
When they made it back to the northern seas of Muspellar, Tye had asked, “Myrrir, why the privateers?”
“They’re the Mediator’s crew,” Myrrir had answered. “If they’re out here, then she could be anywhere on the planet. Hopefully, with them.”
“A planet is a large place to search...”
“She can’t have gotten far.”
They arrived in the atmosphere and headed towards the planet’s largest Stream-facing port. It was a city of respectable size, with a core of tall, stacked towers, and outskirts stretching far along the black-rock coast.
Its port beckoned mainly to cargo haulers, but security was incredibly tight—no doubt the fault of the Mediator’s crew. A cluster of Elderworld frigates floated offshore, and a first-rate ship of the line was anchored in the center of the harbour.
A frigate stopped the Hyovao at the outskirts of the port for an inspection. It caught them with grapples, then extended a gangway over. A party of bluecoats marched onto the Hyovao, muskets cocked and ready. At their center was a lower-class officer of some sort in a brown and gold coat. He looked around the deck nervously. Myrrir’s crew gathered around the bluecoats, weapons in-hand. They were an intimidating bunch, no doubt, but Myrrir didn’t need any trouble.
He ran down to the main deck and raised his hand, signalling the crew to stand down with a whistle and a wave of his hand. Then, he approached the Elderworld officer, an elf with a powdered wig and a bicorne hat.
“What is your purpose on Muspellar?” the officer demanded.
“We carry cargo,” said Myrrir. “Tea.”
“I don’t see any,” said the officer, glancing around. Aside from the cannons, crew, and longboats, the Hyovao’s main deck was empty.
Normally, Myrrir would have scoffed. No cargo-hauler with an ounce of competence would have kept their cargo on the main deck. But the Hyovao was a junk, and for lack of space below deck, many junk captains carried extra cargo on their main deck.
Myrrir shrugged. “There was a Stream storm a few miles out. We stowed what we couldn’t fit in below in the great cabin.” He motioned towards the stern, to his cabin, then bluffed, “You can check if you’d like.”
The officer clicked his tongue, then turned away. “That’s…alright. Carry on.”
Myrrir let out his breath, then helped free his ship from the grapples. He was lucky they didn’t recognize him. Or perhaps they hadn’t yet received word yet of his disgrace. Either way, Myrrir took what luck he could get.
They sailed onwards and found a berth in the port. It was meant for ore-hauling ships, and the Hyovao was much smaller than the harbour’s usual guests. When the portmaster began to inquire about the supposed tea, Myrrir paid him a sum of gold to turn a blind eye to the ship.
As soon as they arrived, Myrrir turned to Tye and said, “We’ll find the Mediator, I promise. We can ask around, and we still have half of the sum we promised to Wren, which we can use to buy information.”
“That will dry up very quickly if you keep bribing portmasters,” Tye replied.
“I’m open to suggestions.”
After a short pause, Tye said, “How long will you continue this game of cat-and-mouse, hm? You find her, then what? You imprison her again? You don’t have another Shadowthorn, and even if you did, would it work again?”
“She can still over-extend herself. She can still knock herself out, or—”
“And then what?” Tye growled. “You aren’t thinking, Myrrir. You have no plan. You’re making enemies left and right. How much longer will this last?”
“So you…what? Want me to give up?”
“Myrrir, my captain…”
“Commodore.”
“You will always be our captain.” Tye’s face scrunched, until it turned into a messy blend of sadness, frustration, and anger. “You’re starting to sound like Hammontor. And he is not one you want to imitate.”
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“I’m striving for what I was promised. My birthright, the strength of Gods.”
“And there is nobility in ambition.” Tye leaned against the railing and stared down into the water. “I respect a man who sees a mountain and climbs it for the sake of climbing. But I cannot respect the man who must climb every mountain. Ambition is an elixir that requires moderation.”
“And you’re starting to sound like a Velaydian.” Myrrir shook his head. “Next, you’ll tell me to accept a king with no Spirit Potential.”
For a moment, they stood at the quarterdeck railing, staring silently across the harbour. Myrrir knew he should stomp away. It would be what a God-heir would do—
No. A God-heir would have eradicated this mortal for speaking in such a manner, then for good measure, would have purged their entire family and kinship. Myrrir didn’t move.
“Myrrir, when my daughter—”
“I know about your daughter,” Myrrir said softly. “I can’t replace her. She’s gone. I have my quest, and it’s to be a God. Either you help me, or you don’t. But at some point, this nagging…it’s going to become too much.”
He didn’t mean for it to sound like a threat, but there was no way it came across kindly, either.
Tye stayed silent for a few more seconds, then said, “A plan, then? How are we going to catch her?”
“I figure we should make her come to us.”
“And to imprison her?”
“This is a mining planet.” Myrrir glanced back towards the shore, and at a high shelf of rock above. A small set of buildings clung to it, raising and lowering supplies down to the shore on a complex system of pulleys. “If they can contain lava, I figure there’s some equipment we can use to contain a Mediator.”
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Wren watched her competition prepare. In fact, she spent a few days staring at them, trying to figure out their plan.
Myrrir crept ashore with his first officer and a couple of his most trusted crew. Wren followed them, keeping to a safe distance, and keeping her core quiet by restricting her breathing. Besides, her low Spirit Potential would make her even more difficult to detect.
Myrrir and his pirates rode through the city on a pack of horses. She followed them from a distance, leaping from building-to-building with a flutter of her wings. Then, when they raced out into the barren wastelands, she followed them by springing between spires of rock as she chased after them.
They travelled for two days, until they arrived at a small encampment nestled into the foothills of the mountain range. It was a little town, made mostly out of tents. Fires burned out in the streets, and convoys of wagons rested. Most of the wagons were heaped with stone or ores. She waited at the outskirts of the camp, perched atop a stone spire, watching Myrrir.
He was asking the local camp-dwellers for directions. There were a few people dressed in Chambers Company garb, but the camp was largely home to workers in plain, ash-smudged uniforms.
After a few minutes, one of the workers began to approach the spire that Wren was sitting on. He must have seen her. She couldn’t have him causing a scene.
As soon as the worker made it out of the outskirts of the village, she drew a shard of wood from a small quiver around her waist, then imbued it with Arcara. The worker kept approaching.
Wren’s range with the shards was limited—after a short distance, she wouldn’t be able to propel it any further with Arcara, and it would have to fly on its own merit. A shard wasn’t the best at that; it wasn’t an arrow.
The moment the worker was in range, she flung the shard of wood at him. It pierced through his chest and pinned him to the ground.
Soon, someone would notice. Wren dove down and dragged the worker’s body behind a ledge of black stone, then retrieved her shard of wood. It still had retained most of the Arcara she had fed it, which she also absorbed back into her body.
“Ah, the wonders of wood,” she muttered, then wiped the blood off the shard.
A being with a weak spirit, like her, wasn’t gifted a realm of control from birth, and a Path? She didn’t have an ancestral Path to follow.
But as Wren grew stronger, the Victra scholars had determined that she had an affinity for wood. So that was what she had chosen to cultivate. A few runic tattoos along her spine, a few spirit-pine needles embedded in her skin, and constant consumption of the edible bark of the syniim tree…well, it had contributed to her Path.
It had been at the demands of her family, at first. They wanted their prodigal daughter to experience the life of a God-heir, and they had the funds to make it happen.
The moment Wren had gotten a taste of power, she was never able to forget it. Everything else was done by her. She’d do this too.
Clenching her fists, she leapt up to the top of the spire again and gazed at the camp. Myrrir was moving on, and if she didn’t catch up, he’d leave her in the dust—with no inkling of what his plan was.
He and his men rode south for another day, until they reached a large, complex structure that crouched in the shadow of the mountains.
Built on the bank of a dry riverbed, the structure had a utilitarian, angular shape. Its sloped walls were made of umber bricks and pure, smithed steel. The lowest sections, those closest to the riverbed, were shielded with plates of expensive, Arcara-enchanted metal.
The riverbed wasn’t just a riverbed, then. Wren fluttered to the shore and knelt by it. The rocks were glazed over with a glass-like substance. Some were obsidian, and some had just melted. This was the path of an occasional lava flow.
Already, workers chipped the riverbed out, making way for more precious, mineral-rich molten rock to flow their way.
It was a mining facility. It would have incredibly durable, strong containers—perfect for capturing someone with powerful arcane abilities.
“Oh, Myrrir, you schemer…” Wren muttered to herself in a sing-song voice. Then, she wove her fingers together. “You need to lure her out, then? How will you do that, I wonder?”
For a moment, Wren did wonder that herself.
“The privateers. The Mediator’s friends…he’ll need them, too.”
With an enormous grin, Wren spun about. She leapt off the edge of the riverbed edge, then took flight. With a flutter of her wings, she launched herself up into the sky. “And how will you fare, I wonder, if she has warning…? Not enough time to spring your trap on her, but enough time to weaken her. How hard would it be for a competitor to swoop in?”
Wren’s conversation with herself ended in a cackle. She swung her body around and fluttered towards the mountains.