-21-
[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]
This detestable chunk of rock. Such a condescending look on its face—well, on its lack of a face.
Sorry, not sorry nameless statue. You’re the closest thing I have to a memorial stone for father.
My hands quivered, still locking the ebony circlet firmly in my grasp. My knuckles were fading whiter than the snow banks built up around us.
Why couldn’t you have survived? How come Rias and I are the only ones here? What’s my purpose in all this…
“Why didn’t you tell us anything!?”
My emotions erupted, spilling out of the tiny bottle I had tried to trap them in.
Rias didn’t even flinch to my outburst, as if she had been expecting it since the start.
I glared angrily at the faceless surrogate for our father. My right hand finally came free from its clenched position around the metal band.
“If you knew, then why in the Aether didn’t you tell either of us? Destined for some great purpose… I never asked for this!”
I turned my head back to my sister.
Her head was tilted down, eyes closed. Listening and waiting.
I whispered through trembling lips.
“We didn’t ask for this…”
To endure all this stress. All this pain.
Another violent explosion clawed its way out of my throat. A slew of curses assaulted the skies above Tolin.
My sister’s arms wrapped tightly around me as the first swell of tears streaked down my cheeks.
A numbing chill blew through the graveyard. I braced myself for the frigid air to bite at my grief stricken face. Instead, my face was flush with an unknown warmth as the breeze whipped a frenzy of leaves around us in a vortex.
A moment later the air was still again.
----------------------------------------
When we got back to our room the only thing I wanted to do was flop into bed.
Getting out of the new gear was more than a little troublesome, but I had my sister to thank for being so studious when I showed it off earlier.
She was able to unfasten the new plate in no time.
I was out before my head even hit the pillow.
The herby aroma of freshly brewed coffee drew me from my slumber.
My eyelids raised to reveal a cascade of ruby hair hiding behind a steamy cup. Hailey grinned at me as my hands slowly crept out of cover to grasp the cup.
“Mmmm, it’s so warm.”
I sat up carefully and sipped at my morning kick-starter.
“Is it that time already?”
“Yeah, sorry. No sleeping in for us today.”
I let my head fall back against the headboard.
“Rias is coming with us, by the way.”
Hailey swung from her position sitting on the floor to face Rias’ bed.
My sister was already sitting up.
She covered her mouth to hide a yawn.
“Well, that will make seven of us then. A proper party, I suppose.”
“I’m still not thrilled about my lil’ sis risking the perils of this trip to who knows where. But this does make it easier than trying to convince Alistaire to leave Soren here alone.”
Rias perked her head up.
“You were going to try to do what? There’s no way either of them would’ve gone along with that.”
“Even Julius was hesitant to try asking. He was just going to find the first lone soldier and conscript them.”
Hailey shook her head.
“What a dummy. We could’ve pulled someone from Hanna’s party. Aeko would have jumped at the chance to accompany us.”
“Any other time I would have asked her, or even Abigail or Murphy—but they’re helping the Consulates and Ministers reform a new court and government. Hanna has her hands full. I couldn’t steal her people for an indeterminate amount of time because our team’s got two oddball ambassadors in it. With Luke standing in for Julius, the whole chain of command is a little off center, last thing we need is to start pulling people out of their own units to fill for us.”
A knock at the door followed by a gruff, “Get your asses out here so we can leave already.” indicated that Julius had rousted the rest of our party and was ready to go.
Everyone was already in the common room by the time us three geared up. I swiped through the interface and formed our party.
As usual, Julius was assigned the Initiator role.
Mei took over Luke’s assignment as the Field Monitor. She may not have the same skill-set to watch for traps and the like, but with Valiance performing overwatch and her experience in heavily forested areas, she’d be just as valuable.
Lady Aisling was a sort of guardian specialty, so she would be at the front with Julius. Lady Viane was a hybrid spec, but favored a bow and would stay at range with Mei, Hailey, and Rias.
PARTY MEMBERS
AIRIS
{OPERATOR}
HEALTH: [320] / [320]
STAMINA: [410] / [410]
MAGICKA: [600] / [600]
HAILEY
HEALTH: [90] / [90]
STAMINA: [190] / [190]
MAGICKA: [600] / [600]
RIAS
HEALTH: [70] / [70]
STAMINA: [120] / [120]
MAGICKA: [720] / [720]
JULIUS
{INITIATOR}
HEALTH: [630] / [630]
STAMINA: [400] / [400]
MAGICKA: [70] / [70]
MEI
{FIELD MONITOR}
HEALTH: [250] / [250]
STAMINA: [450] / [450]
MAGICKA: [170] / [170]
VIANE
HEALTH: [240] / [240]
STAMINA: [510] / [510]
MAGICKA: [220] / [220]
AISLING
HEALTH: [750] / [750]
STAMINA: [650] / [650]
MAGICKA: [650] / [650]
In terms of group balance we would probably have a pretty high stability index, a rating given to adventurer parties to provide a rough estimate if the member’s specializations were in correct proportions.
A proper party should have two heavy armor classes, commonly referred to as tanks; two support or healer specialized classes, which Hailey and I fulfilled; with the remaining members filling offensive roles.
I had to admit, I wasn’t expecting Rias’ statistic numbers to be as high as they were. She must have been training hard in the few weeks since the ordeal at the basilica. Even against most of the better trained divisional soldiers she would hold her own.
More surprising was the incredible numbers boasted by Lady Aisling. I now had a heavy suspicion that she was either much older than I had initially suspected, or much more than a simple envoy from the elves.
The higher your attributes got, the harder they became to increase. Some people’s growth stopped altogether at a certain level. Like Julius. After as many difficult battles as we’ve gone through, his STAMINA has remained at four-hundred.
So to see Lady Aisling show those high values, across multiple statistics, was a little awe-striking.
After a quick stop at the stables we departed Tolin. According to Mei, we could make it in five days: a two-day ride to the forest border, then another three days once we crossed over.
The forest was dense but not so much so that we’d have to dismount and go on foot.
We pushed close to fifty miles, an extra ten over what we had expected to make in the first leg. With a mix of anticipation and anxiety, we rode with few breaks and even less banter—until the first of the mounts started to show signs of nearing exhaustion.
Aside from a ten mile stretch along the roadway, the rest of our travel took us along the border of the Nariyn River, which flowed through the northern groves of the forest. This close to Tolin though, it was sparsely populated with foliage.
After riding for half a day we made camp at the crest of a rocky hill overlooking the river.
From the minor altitude vantage, Mei pointed out the overgrowth that marked the start of the forest’s border. A fork in the river defined a natural border. Anything west of the fork belonged to the Ixian Elves.
Knowing another faction had a border within a two day’s journey sparked a new kind of anxiety for me to deal with, and after eating a quick dinner I retired to my tent.
Our second day was more eventful than the first. But not in a good way. In a sense, it defined a clear factional divide within our party.
Throughout the day we were assailed by monsters that looked like rats, but were worse in almost every characteristic imaginable. They had horns, sharper fangs, bigger bodies, poisonous claws, thicker hides…
The list could continue until I ran out of breath.
And because of the constant attack by the rat beasts, we broke into two distinct groups within the party.
Team Anti-Rat: Hailey, Rias, and I; we hated them. The three of us found these things to just be disgusting. And they would show up outta nowhere! A muffled scratching would itch at your ears—then, POP! Dirt would fly up in the air and a dozen of the nasty things would crawl out of a burrow.
Team Pro-Rat: Idiots, AKA the rest of the party.
Julius and Mei were having a field day with the beasts. He would stun a pack as they breached the surface with a new shield ability he’d learned, and then she would nail them with a quick volley.
Lady Aisling and Lady Viane were both so enthralled with their antics that there was no convincing them. No matter how hard I tried to bring them to Team Anti-Rat, they sided with the other two.
Granted, it wasn’t all terrible if you considered that Mei had been packing the remains on her mount. As we rode towards the next inevitable pack of the damned things, she would whittle away at their corpses with a knife. She was able to carve them up into all sorts of usable materials.
When we finally reached our camping destination for the day she had amassed an impressive amount of fair quality hides.
Today’s camp was a spot along the border where the forests continued east into the plains, but the river made a wide bend north, into the heart of the forest. Tomorrow we would follow the river, marking our first crossing into Ixian territory.
Lady Aisling assured me that even if we were to be spotted by any of the shadow elves, they would ignore us because of our Aestori escorts.
I want to trust her, but after my run in with the would-be assassin, Hikita, I wasn’t so sure that the Ixians weren’t a threat.
Day three. We crossed into the vermilion veiled forest of the Ixians.
Massive oak trees rose up as far as the eye could see. We were engulfed by a rich red canopy which filtered out a vast majority of the sunlight. The ridged bark of the trees were a subdued reddish gray brown
Built up snow paired with wild overgrowth reduced our speed to a fraction of the previous two days. Nevertheless, we ventured deeper.
Not long after passing into the forest, Lady Aisling and Mei both noticed something off.
We were being followed.
Though, neither of them could tell what exactly was trailing us. Paranoia threatened to break my already strained will.
Hailey and Rias shared a tent with me that night.
Our fourth and, Celestials willing, our second-to-last day. I was still exhausted, missing about two hours of sleep keeping night watch for a shift with Julius.
Both Lady Aisling and Mei were now feeling the strains of trying to ascertain the nature of our stalker.
By the time we had traveled our allotted mileage for the day, they still couldn’t agree on a possible culprit, though they both rejected any notion it was another elf.
“No Aestori worth a damn would have trouble identifying an Ixian.”
Mei seemed upset I even made the suggestion.
“Listen, I don’t know enough to make an educated guess. But couldn’t it be possible that a scout with a high level stealth or evasion skill could be the one following us?”
“There’s just no way some two-bit stealth skill would fool me. I can sense something is there, but not what that something is! Even Valiance can’t get a target on it.”
“Screee!”
Aside from her aerial companion’s response, an unsettling silence followed.
I had a suspicion that the elves knew more than they were letting on, but didn’t want to make a bad call.
In an effort to learn anything about a potential foe, I had been reading everything I could find relating to the Ixians. Primarch Karina’s collection of questionably forbidden tomes had one book that was ripe with stories.
Tales of forest spirits, paganistic rituals, and terrifying encounters with the denizens of realms beyond the veil.
Such stories that I was certain the probably centuries old elven envoys would have also known.
Lady Viane was the most suspicious of them all. She’d been casting spells in the elvish runic language since we’d starting setting camp.
Strange glyphs floated around the campsite. They pulsated with a soft golden light. When I asked her about them, she’d simply said they were for our protection.
Anyone who sets warding glyphs around a camp has to know something. Why set up defenses if you have no idea what you’re defending against?
My question was answered not too long after, as Lady Viane completed another glyph that started resonating immediately.
“Well, that’s not good.”
“What isn’t good, Viane?”
“I can guarantee that it isn’t an elf following us.”
“Do you know what it is now then?”
“A goblinoid. One of the more malevolent creatures of the forests.”
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“Is it something we need to retreat from, or can we fight it off if it decides to attack?”
“Um, well that’s part of the, not good, thing I was gonna bring up. Since I put up a warding spell against it… There isn’t really an if anymore. It’s a when.”
“Great. A goblin can’t be worse than those rat things, can it?”
All three of the elves turned to me with uneasy grimaces on their face.
Mei shook her head and whispered in my ear.
“All races of goblins are known for… forcing themselves onto anyone they capture.”
“They what!?”
“They’re vile things and should be destroyed as soon as possible.”
“Agreed.”
Both Lady Aisling and Lady Viane nodded their head in agreement with Mei.
Not even five minutes had passed since the warding glyph was cast. A violent screech cried out from the dark forest.
Both Viane and Mei let loose arrows. Mei’s shot streamed into the blackness, Viane’s followed a moment later as she finished an incantation.
“LOCUS ALIA SAECULARIA. SAGITTAER EGI MUNIAE EMIPAER VO REMAE!”
The goblin shambled into sight. A single arrow stuck in its flesh just above its knee. Blue-stripped fletching marked it as Viane’s.
Mei audibly made her disappointment known.
The dark-skinned creature snarled at us, baring two rows of red stained teeth. From its stature alone it wasn’t very intimidating, barely rising to a child-like height of two feet—what did give it a menacing aura though, were its pitch-black eyes. Peering into the dark orbs sent a chill down my spine. The torches around the camp barely registered, with only a faint hue reflecting back within them.
Viane muttered something inaudibly to Mei whose posture froze, dread spread like wildfire across her face.
Julius and Aisling had already positioned themselves between the monster and the rest of the party.
Mei called out to them.
“That’s a greater goblinoid, called a trow. They’re more sadistic than any lesser goblin could ever be. Watch your moves carefully.”
“It has an immunity to physical attacks. We’ll have to rely on magick to take it down.”
Viane followed up with a disheartening warning.
Physical immunity took out half of our party’s damage output.
With another soured snarl, the goblin charged at the two defenders.
Julius completed casting his defensive barrier, and our party was enveloped in silvery light, as Aisling charged to meet the spirit.
Hailey and I both cast our own party buffs.
» YOU ARE AFFECTED BY A PROTECTIVE BARRIER
» YOU ARE AFFECTED BY AN AURA OF LIGHT
» YOU ARE AFFECTED BY ARCANE BRILLIANCE
» YOU ARE AFFECTED BY FORTITUDE
Aisling’s shield made contact with the monster—but the expected shield slam phased right through the creature.
That’s more than being immune to physical attacks!
“What kind of physical immunity is that!?”
I cried out to Viane for an answer.
“It’s a forest spirit, only the living or items imbued with spirit magick can harm it.”
What in the Aether is spirit magick? What about other kinds of magick?
She drew her bow once more, casting the same incantation as before. The arrowhead glowed a soft gold.
The arrow flew across the camp and hit the creature just below her first one. A direct hit to the kneecap. It fumbled a swing at Aisling, giving her time to recover and form back up with Julius.
I took the moment to perform an appraisal on the goblin with OMNISIGHT.
TARGET
STATISTICS
TROW
HEALTH: [0] / [0]
STAMINA: [0] / [0]
MAGICKA: [1832] / [2000]
» ACTIVE EFFECT: ENRAGE
An ice lance sailed past me towards the goblin. Both Aisling and Julius leapt forward after it, their swords glowing from weapon imbuement.
The jagged mass of ice made contact with the trow squarely in the chest. It impacted as if hitting a wall, shattering onto the ground leaving almost no visible damage against its target. Only a tiny point drew a single drop of… some sort of spiritual equivalent of blood.
I glanced at the arrows sticking from its legs and saw the same greenish ooze seeping from the wounds.
Both guardians faltered their attacks, trying to halt their advance as the creature was mostly unaffected.
Aisling came to a stop a few feet ahead of Julius, and within striking distance of the trow.
Her higher momentum became a curse as the trow countered. It pulled a wicked looking dagger from its side—stabbing Aisling in the leg.
Simultaneously, thorny vines spread through the clearing. They raced to each of us, wrapping around our feet and snaking up our legs.
» YOU HAVE BEEN IMMOBILIZED.
» YOU ARE AFFLICTED WITH CRIPPLING THORNS.
Both Aisling and Julius, were affected worse than us. The closer proximity causing the effect to be more potent. The two of them lost their footing, flailing towards the ground.
Aisling tried to maintain her balance by leaning against her shield but the vines wrapped around her hands, ripping her grip away and pulling her down.
“Flames that burn beyond the veil, burn away these gross vines and set me free, Fireball!”
Rias disappeared in an explosion of flames as she finished her peculiar incantation. The cloud of smoke slowly wafted away, revealing that she was still entangled by the thorny trap. Wispy trails of smoke emanated from her charred pants.
Playing with the blade in its hands, the trow squared up with Aisling and cackled wickedly.
“Gonna… open you up! Gonna… splatter! Blood! My grove—cover it with blood! Your blood!”
“Gaaah!”
The dagger pierced her skin just above the hip. The trow dragged the blade down in a jagged horizontal slice.
“Bleed! Die for me!”
I struggled against the bindings that immobilized me, my blade couldn’t cut them, so I tried to focus my magicks on breaking free.
The creature brushed its hand across Aisling’s wound and rubbed her blood across her own face.
“Red! Rage! Covered in blood. Bloody grove. Bloody elf.”
Aisling managed to grab a short-blade from her waistband, thrusting it into the monster and delivering a wound to the heart—which would have been fatal to any mortal being, but it had no visible effect on our spiritual assailant.
Mei and Viane continued to struggle against the creeping vines as they snaked their way around the two girls legs.
Both elves drew back arrow after arrow.
Viane was now casting her incantation on both her own and Mei’s weapons.
Staggering their shots, they prevented the trow from pressing its attack on Aisling.
One of Mei’s arrows struck the goblin in the hand, forcing it to drop the dagger. In response, thorny vines raced into the goblins other hand to form a spiky spear.
The goblin screeched in a rage, chucking the barbed weapon at Mei—
A brilliant flash lit up the battlefield and the spear was vaporized by Julius’ SILVER BULWARK. Bright light washed over the party, dissolving the immobilizing vines.
Aisling scrambled along the forest floor towards Julius, clutching at her side.
The enraged trow pursed after her brandishing its sinister dagger once more, swiping it through the air in complete abandon.
She raised a free hand to defend against an attack—the blade cut deep across her fingers, severing flesh and embedding itself in a bony knuckle.
As Aisling cried out in pain, reeling her hand back to her body, a string of golden bolts exploded directly in the trow’s face, sending it spiraling backwards.
» HOLY BOLT HITS, MINOR (57) DAMAGE TAKEN AS MAGICKA DRAIN
» HOLY BOLT HITS, MINOR (35) DAMAGE TAKEN AS MAGICKA DRAIN
» HOLY BOLT HITS, MINOR (51) DAMAGE TAKEN AS MAGICKA DRAIN
The barrage of fire I delivered had been charging up since Julius’ holy spell had dispelled the spirit’s magick.
Hailey had made it halfway across the clearing by the time my spells knocked the trow back. Her left hand glimmered with golden light, a stream of dense magick that connected to her staff.
I sprinted to their position, lobbing another HOLY BOLT in an attempt to disorient the goblin. Viane and Mei continued to assault the creature, taking advantage of the new gap in its defense.
Rias remained in the rearguard, but was channeling some sort of arcane spell that seemly imbued both the archers with a quickness effect.
In the corner of my vision, Aisling’s status flashed rapidly.
PARTY MEMBERS
AISLING
HEALTH: [72] / [750]
STAMINA: [225] / [650]
MAGICKA: [515] / [650]
Hailey reached her first, and poured the vast build-up of healing energy into her.
Aisling’s health bar soared.
The jagged cuts along her abdomen and thigh sealed quickly, and the blood-loss from her wounded hand slowed. She contorted in an obvious discomfort but with her life no longer in a critical state she started to catch her breath.
“I’m sorry, Aisling. But this next part is going to feel much worse.”
Hailey gently held Aisling’s severed digits in her palm. They shimmered faintly—having been purified with priestly magick.
I tuned out the agonizing squeals, turning back to reenter the fight.
Our party was now firmly on the offensive. Any attack from the goblin was either deflected by Julius’ shield and imbued blade, or dispelled by the barrier.
Another HOLY BOLT impacted, showering the goblin in a torrent of golden flame.
“Wraaaaaaaaaaaah!”
The creature let loose a furious cry. Bright red veins bulged across its skin and it seemed to swell in size, almost doubling to just under four foot.
Thaaaaaat’s probably not good.
“Well, no doubt that’s not a good thing. Is this little shit almost dead or what?” Julius disengaged, leaping back to where I was positioned.
“I was thinking the same thing. Defend me while I pull the damned thing’s appraisal up.”
TARGET
STATISTICS
TROW
HEALTH: [0] / [0]
STAMINA: [0] / [0]
MAGICKA: [198] / [2000]
» ACTIVE EFFECT: ENRAGE
» ACTIVE EFFECT: BERSERK
The trow’s MAGICKA was now nearly depleted and it looked to have gained a new active effect.
An enrage status seemed like it would be self explanatory, so I didn’t bother to try to appraise the effect earlier… but paired with this new berserking effect and the curve balls the creature had thrown at us already, I need to know everything I can.
INSPECTION
SPELL
SCHOOL
DETAILS
ENRAGE
Nature
Fills the caster with a maddening anger towards any attacker.
Allows the caster to ignore spells and abilities that influence aggression.
SPELL
SCHOOL
DETAILS
BERSERK
Nature
Causes the caster to enter a maniacal state in which their normal mental control is impaired.
Individuals affected by this spell deal multiplicative damage with their offensive abilities.
That confirms it. Not good at all.
Since no values for its other stats were being displayed I assume it would die, or whatever a forest spirit’s equivalent to death was, once we run the remainder of its MAGICKA down to zero.
“We’re in the final minutes. A few more hits and it’ll be out of MAGICKA. It’s got a berserking effect, so try not to get hit.”
“Heh. Let it try to get a swing in—”
A high-pitched whistle pierced the air.
The spirit whipped its head towards the sound’s origin, the forest canopy above—an arrow appeared in its left eye socket.
The wound bubbled and steamed as if boiling hot.
“Wraaah! Sneaky elves, nasty elves!—Guugh?”
The trow shouted up at its unseen attacker but was silenced as a second arrow struck the spirit in the throat, exiting in a gruesome explosion of green blood and spirit matter.
It faltered, grabbing at its neck.
A third arrow lodged itself in the creature’s forehead, and it slumped to the ground.
From the canopy, a man dropped down to the forest floor. A mop of dark purplish hair dangled in his face, descending down almost to the tip of his nose.
He quickly glanced around at the members of our party—revealing sharp pointed ears—before turning back to the hopefully deceased goblin.
“That’s quite enough of that deranged spirit.”
“…Arden?”
Mei’s voice faltered meekly, and the man turned back around.
“Meiko?”
----------------------------------------
A disturbance was currently occurring in the forest.
It wasn’t due to any creatures of the wilds. Nor was it caused by any natural phenomena.
This intense scene unfolding right in front of my eyes was being perpetrated by none other than the newest member of the OSW and the mysterious elf named Arden. When the man had turned around and uttered that one name…
Mei had simply exploded.
The two had some sort of unfinished business that must have been stewing for decades, and she had some things to get off her mind.
I felt bad for Arden. The guy was just trying to do a good deed and assist travelers in a tough situation.
I’m sure he never expected to stumble upon, who I’m assuming to be have been some fling of the past. Or maybe they were family?
Both of them had the same violet-purple shade of hair. It was possible they were related. Siblings, perhaps?
Either way, none of us had a clue who the two were to each other, but the fiery passion that had arisen from Mei paired with the dead eyes and posture of complete defeat from Arden hinted at something.
Since we had already set up camp prior to being so rudely interrupted by the raging forest spirit, I had retired to my tent to clear away the status alerts that had accumulated during combat.
» YOU HAVE GAINED IN POWER, YOUR ATTRIBUTES HAVE INCREASED:
» AGILITY HAS INCREASED TO 28
» PERCEPTION HAS INCREASED TO 24
» AETHER HAS INCREASED TO 49
» INTELLIGENCE HAS INCREASED TO 51
» SANITY HAS INCREASED TO 46
» VITALITY REMAINS AT 35
» RESOLVE HAS INCREASED TO 44
Rias entered the tent, handing me a bowl of stew made from cured beef and vegetables we’d foraged on our journey.
She plopped down next to me on a pillow. A deep sigh escaped her lips as she leaned on my side.
“Tired?”
“I’m beat. I’ve never felt so frustrated doing anything in my life.”
“Huh? Whatcha’ mean?”
“None of my spells did anything to that monster. I think I did more damage to myself than it.”
Rias held out her right arm, revealing brightly irritated skin—speckled with minor blisters.
“Gah! Rias, why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
I practically threw my dinner aside and gently held on to her arm.
“Divine light, Heal!”
A wave of light rippled over her arm from my hands washing away the blistered skin, returning it to its proper beautiful complexion.
“You gotta let me know if you get injured, okay?”
Hailey and Julius popped their heads in, and after confirming that we were in the tent, came in to sit with us.
Julius unwrapped two small loaves of bread from a cloth he’d carried in. He handed both my sister and I one with a stupid grin across his face.
Leave it to my second to remember how I like to eat stew!
I accepted the bread with a smile and a laugh.
Rather than eat with a spoon I tore little strips of the firm sourdough, using them as a scoop.
After we finished eating, all of us returned outside.
We joined Aisling and Viane around the campfire and listened to the crackling fire and the still ongoing berating of Arden.
He seemed to be taking it in stride.
Once our ranger had finally run out of breath and stamina she dropped herself to the ground, clutching her knees with crossed arms.
“Are you finished?”
Arden finally gave his own response, his words sounding more neutral than hostile.
In such a heated moment, I’d expect anyone to jump at the chance to defend themselves. Instead, he patiently waited for her to respond back.
Like he was just double checking with an officer to make sure he could move on to the next agenda item during a meeting.
“Screw you, Arden. Yeah. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Thank you. Would you mind introducing me to your companions now?”
Mei let out an exasperated humph.
“Nope.”
Aisling snickered uncharacteristically, catching herself quickly and slapping a hand around her mouth.
Julius placed a hand on Mei’ shoulder. “Come on, Mei. Cut the guy a break, would you? He helped us out. The least we can do is introduce ourselves and offer up some dinner.” He extended his other hand past her, holding out a bowl of stew.
Arden accepted the bowl, bowing his head gracefully.
“Allow me to introduce myself first then. I am Arden, Captain, Aestori Forest Guardian Core.”
“Julius Adaemus. Commander, Order of the Scarlet Wing, Vanixian Empire.”
Arden’s eyes grew wide with surprise.
“The Empire?”
Aisling joined Julius and pulled out a small red and gold badge, “Dux’ducae Aisling, ab Stellae Prolaetoris. Egi’syn dux vos’Imperium positaer Umbraedomis.”
“Dux’ducae!? Illa veneratae!”
Whatever Aisling had said to him in elvish had a dramatic reaction—Arden shot up and was now in full salute, which Aisling returned.
Hailey waved her hands cutely while also wiggling her fingers, “I’m Hailey Brooks, also a Commander of the Vanixian Empire. Thank you again for your assistance earlier.”
“Viane. Acting as an envoy for the Aestori. We’ve met before, but it was years ago.”
“Uhm, my name is Rias and I’m an apprentice artificer. Thank you for helping us—Oh! I also am with the Empire but I’m not in the divisionals or anything I’m just here because my sister is and I—”
“Easy there, kiddo. Keep it simple.” I interrupted my sister as her face started to glow red.
“It’s nice to meet you Arden. I also would like to extend my gratitude for your assistance with dispatching the trow. My name is Airis Vanixi, Empress of the Vanixian Empire.”