Charomera
The 20th of Thargelion
The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals
Lyssa regained consciousness slowly. She was slick with sweat but couldn’t stop shivering, sprawled sideways across her bedcovers and still covered in dried goblin gore. The bed would need another round of cleaning.
Sitting up, she felt weak. Sick, almost. Her Mana was low and a little tab below her vitals told her she suffered from Mana Burnout. She stared at the notification for a while, trying to comprehend it. Slowly, bit by bit, she recalled her obsession with the Hyperbow and how the magic had sung to her. Her right hand twitched and she looked down.
Soft, golden lines of light wrapped around her hand like a tattoo, crossing her fingers and palm in an intricate design. With a thought, the lines consolidated and grew, leaving her skin and forming the bow. It was still made from consolidated light, illuminating the room, but it was different from before. Instead of a copy of her old bow, this one was shaped like the antlers of a stag, fashioned into a recurve. Elvish runes adorned the antlers, lines of dark against the light, and as Lyssa read them, she realized they told of her. Her desires, her grief, her pain, and her joy.
It was her story, all captured in light.
*UNDECIDED*
Rarity: Mythic
Quality: Demititanforged
Durability: 25,000 / 25,000
Weight: 3 kilograms
Traits: Bound, Repairing, Reform, Mana Storage, Sun Pierce
It was no longer the Hyperbow that Hyperion had given her. She had made it into something new, something unique. It needed a name. As she pondered one, she looked over the new traits.
Mana Storage
Mana can be stored in this object for later use.
Current Mana Storage: 0 / 5,000
Sun Pierce
Mana can be channeled through this weapon for a devastating attack.
Mana Cost: 1,000
The secrets of the bow had been revealed to her as she remade it. Both would be incredibly useful tools in the battles to come, she had no doubt. Her eyes settled again on the lack of a name.
“Iliofotia.”
The word fell from her lips as she stared at the bow. She preferred the elvish way of naming things, always had. It was a way to honor her roots as her path brought her further away. With the name affixed, she released her grip and the bow molded back into a tattoo on her hand, bound to her and only her. There was nothing more of Hyperion in it.
Lyssa stood from the bed and moved to the bath. At one point in her life, she’d gone months in the wilderness without access to enough water to wash. Now, she could barely get through three days without craving the need to be clean. Strange, yet comforting. If an elf could change their ways, perhaps there was hope for the rest of Tartarus.
Once washed, she left her armor in the bath to soak and donned a simple, green tunic that reached down to her knees. She left the dark sanctuary of her room and stepped out into the hall. By the darkness through the windows, it was the very early hours of the morning. The two guards at the door stiffened, coming to attention as she passed the threshold and left the building. She put them at ease with a wave of her hand.
“Is all well with the village, tonight?”
One of the guards rendered a salute, a fist placed over her heart. “Yes, Archousa.”
“Keep a vigilant eye. We’re all relying on you.”
“Yes, Archousa!”
Lyssa left them behind and faded into the shadow of night. A thick layer of clouds covered the moons, drenching the land in darkness. She moved through the village, careful and quiet. The majority of the villagers slept in the insulae, but several still chose to sleep in their tents for the privacy it offered. Until they were able to build homes for everyone, true privacy was a luxury afforded only to those who lived in the village hall. It wasn’t fair, but it couldn’t be helped. The village needed things before each person could have a separate home.
Once past the tents, Lyssa made her way toward a tree that stood atop one of the nearby hills. It was easier than ever to pull herself up into its high branches, from which the entirety of Myriatos was displayed before her. The village hall and insulae were the only buildings that had been completed. The forge and workshop had been started, but they needed another week, at least. Once they were finished, more hands would be freed to help with the other constructions. So much death had slowed their progress.
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The forge and workshop were vital for Myriatos. The lack of ability to work metal meant many of their tools were reaching a point of limited usefulness. Whenever one broke, it was difficult to fix or replace it, and often it had to be done without. Once a dedicated crafting space was built, the crafters could quickly create weapons and armor that the guards sorely needed. Most of their current equipment was either basic or a personal belonging. Their current standard consisted of a breastplate, a kopis, a dory, and, if they were lucky, a helmet. Almost all of their training equipment was made from wood, with only a few practical weapons from Gigator’s personal collection. They’d performed as well as they could, but without the proper weapons and armor, there was only so much the guards could do.
The goblins had been crudely equipped, but their sheer numbers and surprise attack had caused massive casualties. A similar feat could not be allowed to happen again or Myriatos would not survive. They couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. As it was, the score of children they’d rescued now composed a sixth of the village’s total population.
Once daylight came, she would instruct the villagers to assist in the building of a palisade. Arche had, it seemed, had the right of it. The cost would be intensive, and it would take time to fell the trees, but it was necessary. After the threat of the beastmar was eradicated, a wall had seemed like too much trouble. There were other infrastructural needs that took precedence and the lack of an immediate threat drove the village’s defense down her list of priorities. The goblin attack changed that.
A palisade would not have stopped the vermin, but it might prevent other tragedies. If nothing else, the effort was worth it to ease the troubled minds of the villagers. They had survived attacks before, but none had been so bloody. Once those defenses were in place, she would work out some way to protect against the air and the underground.
Lyssa pulled the City Stone out and stared at it. The gem was colorless in the dark. A legendary artifact in the palm of her hand. She’d heard of City Stones, of course. Every major city was formed around a City Stone, they gave a city special qualities beyond what was offered by settlement menus. With luck, it would give them some options for defense.
Movement caught her eye and she vanished the stone into her inventory. A figure separated from the line of tents and made their way toward her tree. Lyssa’s eyes picked out the features beneath their hood well before she arrived. Lyssa climbed down from the tree and walked over.
“After the last two days, you should be resting. Healing.”
Elpida pushed back the hood of her cloak and flashed a rare smile.
“Odelia fixed me up good and proper after we got the kids. Besides, I don’t do much sleeping these days.” She shifted her feet. “Where are you, exactly? I can’t see a thing out here.”
Lyssa took Elpida’s hand in hers and held it gently. Elpida glanced down at it, then looked away.
“Are you all right?”
“It’s been a long few days.” The warrior woman chewed her lip. “The kind that makes you stop and think when it’s all over.”
“And what are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about how cruel I was to you, that day in the mine. It wasn’t fair for me to put you in that position. Skies above only know the pressure you’re under. I shouldn’t have added to it. I’m not trying to make your life more difficult, I just don’t understand why you’d refuse the chance for happiness that’s right in front of your face. I know you feel it too. I’ve seen you looking when you think I’m not.”
Lyssa didn’t say anything for a long moment. Elpida pulled her hand away and drew her cloak tighter around herself against the night breeze.
“Do you know what it means to love a mortal, as an elf?”
Elpida’s eyebrows rose.
“No, I suppose I don’t.”
“It means watching them die. You all scurry about your lives, making mad dashes toward one thing or another, but it all ends the same way for you. Your thoughts are of yesterday, today, tomorrow, and nothing else. That isn’t how we see things.”
Elpida kept quiet, so Lyssa continued.
“Elves persist. Other peoples don’t understand that, so we pull away from the rest of society. Love between elves can last centuries, if not more, but loving a mortal race means only decades at best. I am over two hundred years old, Elpida. When I was your age, I was still a child, and your grandmother’s grandmother had yet to be born. What you are asking of me, I don’t know if I have the strength to bear it. It will be hard enough, knowing I will bury every friend. I don’t know that I can bury my love, as well.”
Elpida dipped her head and pulled her hood up, obscuring her face with the brim.
“Your answer is clear, then.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you, El. I’m just trying to make you understand. What you want from me, I can’t give you, not even if I want it myself.”
Elpida’s head jerked up sharply and she took a step closer, squinting to find Lyssa’s eyes.
“Do you? Want it yourself?”
Lyssa hesitated.
“I do,” she admitted. “But I can’t.”
A tear streaked down Elpida’s face, hidden from all the world, but not from Lyssa.
“Your fear of a pain decades down the line is robbing you of a joy that only the present can bring. I can’t promise to spare you pain of my death, but I could still bring you happiness in life. Isn’t that worth something?”
“Consider, for a moment, my position, El. I am responsible for this village, for every person in it, and I failed them. So many are dead. The dirt over their graves has not settled. They died because I was not powerful enough to protect them. Tomorrow I will honor them and their sacrifice because that is all the solace I can provide to those still living. I care for you, El, I do. But the joy I gain from us is stolen directly from Myriatos. A storm is building on the horizon, and I have to be ready. Things are shifting in Tartarus and I don’t know what end will come about because of it. If I am not prepared, then it will be more than eighty-seven lives extinguished. All will die.”
Shock rippled across Elpida’s face.
“What’s coming?”
“War.”
“With whom?”
“The sides have yet to be drawn but the strings are being pulled. Champions, recruited. When it arrives, I cannot have joy distracting me from what must be done.”
Elpida’s brow drew together and she bit her lower lip.
“I served in a war, years ago. A soldier in a nation now shattered, across the sea. I swore I would never take sides again.”
Lyssa took a deep breath and ordered her quaking heart to quell.
“I will not ask you to. You’ve made your desire clear. Go, live your life. Run and cling to your tomorrow. Find a woman who will love you with the fierceness you deserve, who will bring a joy untempered by regret.”
“And who will love you?”
“I…” Lyssa’s words failed her. There was something so incredibly earnest in Elpida’s expression that it went beyond words. “I don’t know.”
“Thank you for being honest with me, at last.”
Elpida took a step backward. Then, with a whirl of her cloak, she was gone, walking away into the sea of tents. Lyssa watched her leave, feeling a wave of misery crawl out of the hollow space that once housed her heart, shattered some ten years ere. Words sprang to her lips and fell in her natural tongue, lines to an old poem her father had once sung.
“Pale flower, weep thee not over light squandered hence. Turn thyself to the sun and blossom sweet fragrance.”
There was much left to do and the burden fell to her.
They would be ready, she would make certain of it.