“The ruin is of Aglo origin, and has ten floors.” An elf spoke, leaning over a table and glancing down at a spread of collected papers, notes and observations about the ruin. The day after Tahir’s group arrived, Murabi led everyone to a meeting room, where all of the Redclouds from Balrech met with the head of the guard in Isanthyr to discuss the ruin. “The first floor has already been cleared, so with three of your groups we’d like for you to tackle three floors each. Over the course of one day per group, if possible.” He looked around, glancing at the room full of people as if to look for any objections. “Going by order of arrival, I would ask Tsekani’s party to clear the second, third, and fourth floors, and Talibah’s party to clear the fifth, sixth, and seventh. Murabi’s party is a special case, having more members than the norm, and so I would ask them to clear the eight, ninth, and tenth floors. Speaking of which, however,”
The elf’s gaze shifted to Tahir’s group. “Since you have brought more members than originally intended, I would ask if you would allow some of your group to supplement the other parties as they cleared their floors. Our estimations of the floors’ danger is based on what a contingent of guards experienced, but there very well may be unexpected dangers further on. You will be compensated for your additional assistance, of course.”
Tahir looked between everyone else at the suggestion, though Murabi spoke almost immediately. “I’ll leave it up to my mentees to decide. If a floor needs more than one mithral at a time we’d be looking at a totally different operation.”
He wouldn’t lie to himself, Tahir might have preferred it if Murabi decided for all of them one way or another. Still, a thought he had while Murabi talked had him speaking up. “I’ll do it, at least. I’d be happy to.” He needed to find a way to be ‘trusted’ enough by the elves of the city to let him use the leyline. Short of going out for community service on his days off, Tahir couldn’t think of anything that would help with that in the short term.
Hasio gave a shrug and said “I’ll offer my services too. Don’t wanna put too much work on the girls’ plates, since they’re not officially Redclouds.”
“Don’t be like that, we’ll help too.” Meti offered. “To balance things out, you and Theo can go with Tsekani’s party, and Tahir and I can go with Talibah’s. Assuming everyone is alright with that.”
There were no objections, and the elf gave a short bow. “You have my thanks. For the time being, you can make any preparations you need to and begin delving through the ruin tomorrow. I can recommend areas for you if needed and take any other questions. For the moment, you are dismissed.”
Before they left, the group confirmed when they would meet to tackle their parts of the ruin. Meti and Theo also took the opportunity to ask for smiths, and herbalists in the area respectively. Tahir held off on asking for a library, opting instead to ask for directions to the address that Fenian gave him. He didn’t go into specifics, but he could see the elf’s brow furrow when he asked. Whether from recognition or wonder at why Fenian gave him a specific address in Isanthyr, Tahir couldn’t tell.
Still, the head of the guard gave him good enough directions to follow, with the advice to ask the guard for direction if he got lost, since most of them would be able to speak common. Tahir thanked him for his help, before heading off with his group. They left the meeting room within the embassy and briefly convened at the lounge.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting them to ask us to do extra work.” Hasio commented. “‘Least they’re gonna pay us for it, but still.”
“It does rush some of our schedules a bit.” Meti replied. “But we can assume we’ll get some time in the city after the ruin is clear. Especially since we were so willing to take on the extra work.”
“They must really want to make sure there aren’t any issues with this ruin though.” Theo added. “Didn’t they say they figured out how hard it’s gonna be based on how their guards went through the first floor?”
“I’m sure they don’t want anything going wrong while they’re trying to fix their defenses.” From what Tahir remembered, the void corruption from the ruin’s reappearance in the city caused a portion of the city’s magical defenses to go into serious disarray. “Better to go in over prepared, I guess. Still, since I have a couple days, I’m going to go ahead and try to find the person Fenian told me to look up.”
“Don’t let us keep you. We’re going to make a run of all the shops we can get to today.” Meti waved him off. Confirming each other’s plans, they split off in different directions in the elven city.
The address led him somewhere in the middle districts of the city, and in traveling up through the ground level where the embassy was, Tahir managed to catch a glimpse of the site of the ruin and the way the void corruption affected the city’s magical defense. A spire of dark metal that jutted nearly 30 feet out of the ground, and around it he could see parts of a transparent barrier of sorts. In several spaces along hundreds of feet, holes outlined in a rainbow of colors created a colorful patchwork wall attached to nothing.
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He couldn’t even remember feeling the barrier when they all passed through, and wondered exactly what it protected against. He couldn’t see any to ask the average person without seeming odd, so he’d have to save it for the head of the guard whenever he got the opportunity to talk to him again. Continuing on, he made his way to the middle layers of the city. At this point, Tahir had to rely on more landmarks to guide him in the right direction. Specific buildings, plant formations, interesting statues held up along trees by the same silvery metal that the walkways and stairs were made out of.
In short, Tahir found the city beautiful. It gave him a more grand sense of wonder than when he arrived in Balrech for the first time and felt awed by the scale of the massive capital. Isanthyr might have only been a little larger in size than his hometown of Aldergate, but the two settlements couldn’t be compared. He supposed he should expect that out of a people who measured their lifespans in hundreds of years rather than dozens.
The head of the guard explained the landmarks with enough detail that someone who’d never been to the city before, but Tahir had a slower time than he would have liked. Partly because they didn’t all sit on quite the same layer. He never had to go too far up or down, but having to navigate different stairs and walkways to get to the right landmark for him to turn so that he could look for the next one was a process. He half-heartedly considered summoning the traveler to help him, but since he didn’t exactly know how the elves of the city viewed spirit summoning he didn’t want to draw any undue attention. In any case, he spent most of the late morning and afternoon going through what felt like an unguided tour through the middle sections of the city to find a singular address.
Finally, after a couple hours, he could spot the address Fenian directed him to. It stood out as a building with massive overgrowth, almost completely covered in massive vines and plant life. It certainly wasn’t the only building that had vines and flowers growing along it in Isanthyr, but Tahir nearly missed the building underneath the vines if not for the reflection from mostly covered windows causing him to take a second glance. Upon closer inspection, the vines that grew along this building split and avoided a single door - or maybe they’d been trimmed to keep the door clear, Tahir couldn’t tell.
Walking up to the door, he hesitated for a moment before knocking. The most they could probably say was ‘no’ to giving him any help. All things considered, he could probably find better material on spirit magic in Isanthyr’s library. It would be the only thing Tahir would consider asking Theo to help him translate. He stood at the door for several seconds, trying to calm his nerves, feeling the warm breeze and breathing in the heavy floral scent that seemed to persist throughout the entire city.
After some time passed, he considered knocking again before he heard the creak of the door opening slightly. A voice said something in what he imagined to be elvish, before a head peeked out to peer at him. “Oh, a human.” As Tahir expected, the woman who came to answer the door was an elf, with light bronze skin and long, dark brown hair. At around six feet or so, she stood only a couple of inches taller than Tahir. “And a Redcloud at that. To what do I owe this visit?”
“Fenian sent me.” Tahir answered, and he couldn’t quite make sense of the expression she made in response. A mix of shock and something else - maybe indignation? “He told me that you study spirit magic, and if you had the time, I was hoping you could maybe tell me about - well, any info you could reasonably provide. What I managed to find got my foot in the door, but I’ve kind of been blindly stumbling since then.”
“Wait, are you-”
“A spirit mage, yes.” Tahir confirmed, with a shrug and smile. “Though a very mediocre one, I have to imagine.”
She stared at him for a moment, seemingly deep in thought, though with an annoyed expression still very much present on her face, before she let out a sigh and opened the door. “Very well, come in. If Fenian sent you I’ll at least hear you out.”
With a nod, he stepped inside, and she closed the door behind him. From the entrance, he could see that the vines covering the building extended into the interior as well, creeping along the walls, and in some cases along the floor as well. Otherwise, the living room that the doorway led into looked almost cozy, with a large couch and soft cushions in front of a fireplace. Off at the edges of the room he could see doorways leading into what looked like a kitchen, and a hallway that led into other parts of the building. “Before we get started, I’m going to pour myself a glass of wine. Would you like anything to drink?”
“Wine?” Tahir repeated. “I didn’t take elves for heavy drinkers.”
“Most aren’t.” She stated.
“Alright then.” Not wanting to pry any deeper than that. “Just water would be fine.” He watched her leave toward her kitchen, and after a couple of minutes, she came back with two glasses. One of them very clearly held a red wine, and the other had something that decidedly didn’t look like water. He accepted his glass, though gave her a confused look. She held his gaze with a blank expression, and not wanting to question her on her choice of drink, took a sip and tasted something sweet. “Fruit juice?” He asked, and received a short nod in return. “Er, thanks.” He couldn’t exactly tell what fruit, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.
“Also, if we’re going to be speaking at length, I suppose introductions should be made. I am Merenthyl Norrona.” She moved over to sit on her couch, and motioned for him to do the same.
“Tahir. Just Tahir.” He replied, moving to sit on the couch himself.
“Very well then, Tahir. I suppose we’ll start by having you tell me what you know about spirit magic. After that I can determine how much I need to actually tell you.”
“Alright.” Tahir nodded in response. He’d kept the journal that he wrote his findings down in within his storage bag, it did make more sense for him to talk to her rather than watch her read it. “Where do I begin?”