"This is more weird Elf shit, isn't it?!" He demanded.
Taipan nodded her confirmation, and gently stroked his head with delicate fingers.
"I am afraid so, Glade Chief. You should know, by now, that you cannot give Elves gifts without incurring debts. These are the rules. It goes doubly so when you take an Aes'r life under your wings, as a mother owl covers her chicks. Our kind do not do such things lightly, and the gift of one's aegis, one's honor, is not accepted without demanding balance. These were not Hunters accompanying you where you all shared the danger. You sought out danger for them, took their enemies for your own, without bargain, or recompense." His mate reminded him.
He really should have known. The fae folk do not give gifts freely. A gift accepted demands a gift of equal value in turn. A life for a life.
Ulric lowered his chin to his chest and sighed again, sadly. His destiny, it seemed, was bound up in having to deal with these pointy eared not Humans and their bizarre cultural nonsense. At least he wasn't going to have to keep up with all those Prespang freem-
"Fuck!" Ulric shouted at the hide ceiling, coming to a realization, "Does this mean I'm on the hook for all these fucking wannabe Prespang rebels too?!" He demanded of Taipan, desperate for her to set him free with a simple shake of the head.
"I told you to stop picking up strays, Ulric, but you would not listen." Taipan told him remorselessly.
"Get over here!" Ulric demanded, grabbing up the Elf woman and squeezing her bounty, reveling in the delighted squeal she released.
"I thought you were 'out of juice'?" The Iriel'en woman snarked, as he massaged her gently.
"I just found out I have to play Duke Hermit to a bunch of friggin Elves and now these damned Prespangers, your boobs are the only thing that are going to make me feel better now." Ulric told her, allowing himself to pout just a little.
"Just my bosom?" She challenged, wiggling her hips.
"Fucking fine." Ulric groaned, realizing he was going to have to get in there and pitch one more game on short rest.
"But just the once!" Ulric lied.
"Okay." Taipan fibbed in return.
Noon came and went. No jeers greeted him, his Iriel'en wife alongside, when they exited the confines of the shelter. Instead, there was a boisterous clapping, the applause and whistling doing more bring blood to his cheeks than any amount of ribald commentary. It was far, far worse than the hazing ritual of the Deep Woods baths for being well earned. That went on for longer than was decent, but eventually trailed off and the Orlethrem, now Ancient Gladers, or whatever the fuck they wanted to call themselves while they were breathing his air, resumed whatever the fuck they did when they weren't harassing him. Probably feeding small animals to trees, the heartless monsters. Ulric was, to put it mildly, not entirely alright with the current circumstances.
He would tolerate it, for now, because he was riding post coital bliss. But there would be a reckoning! Probably. Or, at least some ground rules. He'd have to sit down and write some ground rules. Godsdamned Elves and their finicky fae horseshit. No good deed went unpunished.
It was a minute before Ulric was ready to entertain notions that didn't involve running away and leaving all these people behind. When he got around to it, he now considered the prisoner but recently freed from her duties as a banner. Dressed in a rough robe, one sleeve empty, with heavy bandaging around her limbs, legs, and one not so small one across her hard, yet once fine featured face, the Captain was a rough sight. She might keep the eye but most of a cheek was gone and the bones had been cloven in a way that probably meant she'd always have a divot in her facial structure.
Ulric couldn't summon any sympathy. The only thing those warriors had to do to avoid any of this was to stay home.
Crouching lazily in his loose wool robes and tough canvas pants next to the prisoner, his forearms resting across his knees, Ulric drawled, "Howdy miss. Got anything to say for yourself?"
A silver irised eye tried to bore through his head and he couldn't help the malicious grin that widened his lips. There was a specific joy in the misfortune of those who had earned it.
"I should have known a Brownie was involved in all this." Hissed the woman, turning her bandaged visage upon his Shadow.
"Curse your line you blood traitor! Have you any idea how many fine men and women you gave horrible death to with your poison? Three healers burned themselves from within, drawing the mana to try to save their friends and comrades." The defeated captain accused.
Was he supposed to feel badly about that?
Ulric looked over to his partner and gave her a thumbs up, calling "Nice brew lass!" as he did. Taipan winked at him and made a kissy face at his praise for her poisoning talents. That one had been a special little something whomped up to drive off the raiders attacking the havens that she hadn't gotten a chance to use.
Addressing again the now even more menacingly staring Valin woman Ulric asked simply, "What would you tell those men and women over there whose kin you murdered for wanting simply to be free of Prosper's slavery by proxy?"
"Traitors!" She growled.
"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Ulric remarked.
It was an age old paradox. Breaking free of bondage required destroying the systems used to enforce it. Collateral was always necessary and war was messy, no matter the justifications.
"I had hoped to find some degree of reasoning from a worthy enemy. If all you are is your master's dog, then I have no further use for you." Ulric decided aloud.
"Taipan, would you enjoy extracting what useful information might be had from this one?" He asked the Elf behind him.
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"This Valin will howl to give me her soul before I release her." Taipan answered coldly.
Ah, yeah, that's right. Taipan's older brother had been murdered by the order of Prosper some century ago. She'd nursed a hate boner for the men and women who carried out the Merchant Lords' will ever since.
Something clicked in the thoughts of the Captain as she beheld the form of her soon to be interrogator.
"You! Blood Thorn! You are the Blood Moon's vicious little spawn!" shouted the Captain with open hatred.
She tried to wriggle from her bonds but the wounds and densely woven rope easily held. All the woman managed to do was fall over onto the recently sealed wound where Ulric's magic had removed her right arm. Her agonized cry failed to stir him.
Taipan put a hand on his shoulder, having quietly approached to stand next to him.
"I am. Your people tried to take my father from me, and, Void Born, you used the Bane to do it. But the Blood Moon lives on and his strength will return in full. Soon he will come for you, this time with the might of Orlethrem at his back. We will water Iriel's roots with every one of you." His mate gloated.
Yikes. Taipan was going full Taipan. Ulric noted that she'd used a particular epithet that he wasn't familiar with. He knew the words but he'd never heard her call anyone "Void Born".
Patting her thigh calmingly to settle her down before she got too excited he posed the question now circling his thoughts.
"What's a Void Born lover? That's a new one."
"Sometimes, rarely, there are those who, unlimited in their cruelty and depravity, call out to the Abyssals, the primordial demons that live between moments of time." Explained his partner in her mother tongue, broaching a completely new realm of Aes'r mythology, one with which he wasn't familiar.
"These demons cannot exert themselves within the river of Time without being corroded, nor can they choose when they will manifest. Therefore, they wait until a mortal soul beckons to them, using that call as a lodestone to anchor them, preserving their essence to grant that soul a dark boon. The Eternal Gaze is ever watchful and has its own means to destroy such entities but they still slip through to work their evil upon Varda. Ones who call them are called Void Born." His partner narrated, never taking her predatory gaze from the injured Captain of Prosper's warriors, her enemies.
Now she did turn her attention to him, softening as she took him in, despite the severity of the topic.
"The Bane is one of the Abyssals' workings, Ulric. Long, long ago, a Void Born asked for a weapon to destroy their enemies and the gift granted was the knowledge for how to maul a soul and turn its magics into the fuel to kill any individual of a species. The alchemical process for rendering the Bane core into a liquid that would not decay was also provided. This evil is but one example of one of the demons trying to undo the Eternal Gaze's workings."
Now that there was some properly scary shit. That was the kind of magic that made Ulric's hackles rise. There was enough about mana and the Akashic that made him nervous, this ability to use will and a core to change reality, but the existence of some kind of quantum foam demons waiting for a chance to unmake the universe, piece by piece, that was another level.
Disturbed, Ulric had actually managed to forget the squirming captive soldier. He noticed flickers of red gold and his core felt a draw of that distinct waveform that made up the solar mana the Captain had wielded.
"Now, now, enough of that!" Ulric said warningly and laid a hand on the Captain's leg, drawing the Ceraun of his own core lightly.
[Voltaic Grip]
Thin ribbons of violet arclight danced down the woman's thigh and her back arched from the current now racing through her, muscles involuntarily rippling into contractions.
Ulric let his power flow for a few more moments, leaving the Captain groaning into the dirt.
"I won't have you causing trouble. Any more of that and I'll just have to take the other arm, don't think I won't. Far as I'm concerned, every time I kill one of you people I'm doing Varrock's shade a boon, so too with all the Aes'r you bastards have enslaved." Ulric told the woman tonelessly, deadly serious.
"So, back to the topic of these demons. They are rare?" He inquired of his mate, still using the Aes'r tongue.
She nodded, dispassionately watching her Honor's arcane "scolding" of the bound enemy. She'd tasted that particular use of his powers, the strange way he could join himself to lightning's flow and pull others into it as well, though he apparently suffered no ill effect in the doing. It was an incredibly painful experience and one she'd not repeat again if she could manage.
"They are." She confirmed, fingering her knife while she did in anticipation of having one of her people's enemies beneath it.
"Invariably, the summoning of an Abyssal destroys the Void Born, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Always the price demanded comes due and the soul of the Void Born is consumed on the death of the caller. The boon does not always vanish with the summoner though, as was the case for the Bane. These corruptions persist and create ruin wherever they are found. Some of the dungeons, the more malevolent ones, are thought to have been created when a desperate Ancient tried to preserve their dying race by creating a haven, only to have the bargain fulfilled in a manner they did not suspect." Taipan revealed.
Hmm. Brighteyes had once spoken about dungeons. Places of wild mana, guardian monsters, and hidden secrets of the fallen first race of peoples. They fairly reeked of Greek fairy tale, the trials of Hercules and Perseus and such. Ulric had better things to do than go for a field trip into Tartarus looking for some golden fleece.
"The demon, you say it is corroded by time, that sounds like they can't hang around then." Ulric murmured, thinking aloud.
"No, the anchoring only shields them for a short duration, then Time begins to eat away at the essence of the things. They do not possess a core with which to guard themselves from wild mana's influences, it tears at their being." His well versed partner explained.
Whew, at least there was that. Given that he'd actually met the Watcher, with its impossible form and the weight of its immortal nature, he'd hate to run into something that directly set itself in opposition to that entity. They might have a particular bone to pick with him, who had been brought to this world by the Watcher's will specifically. Ulric Einar might have been a bit of a pet project from the immortal, for reasons beyond his understanding. His connection to Ceraun gave that supposition more weight than before his core's awakening. That kind of shit was outside his pay grade though and he refused to contemplate the doings of gods any more than he actually had to.
"Well then! Nothing to worry about. Sorry about this tangent Taipan, I just got a little sidetracked. You know how it is with me." He said sheepishly, knowing he tended to get distracted on new trains of thought.
The She-Elf ruffled his short hair lightly and smiled for a brief moment, before returning to her neutral "business" face.
"It is fine, Ulric, I am well aware that you are worms in the head. Thoughts are bound to find their way to fall into the holes. Just to be clear, I do not actually believe this one to be consorting with demons, it is merely the worst thing I could think of to label the murdering butcher." Taipan made sure to clarify for him.
"Barbarian! You sold away your own kins lives to be the pet of a Brownie murderess." Spat the Captain, recovering from Ulric's electrical disciplining.
"Once again, I cannot find the logic of such accusation." Ulric complained in low tones, "I have been in Prespang a bare few months and seen the way Prosper controls the lives of the peoples, abuses them, degrades them, makes of them less so that they are easier to dominate. And, when they refuse to be held captive by the gilded chains of Prosper's laws and the Magisters, they are slain like animals."
"I have never killed a man that did not offer me violence or cause first. I was content to leave your people to their foolishness until you sent your mages for my life and killed the ones who offered their guest right to me. Why do you think me traitor for opposing those who were never my ally and who I never considered my liege?" Ulric asked, genuinely confused.
Angered righteousness spilled from the captive woman, she railed at him "All the Valin and Jormun of Prespang owe fealty to the Gilded thrones! They have protected us from the knife ears for centuries, they united the tribes and clans to give us the power to control all the lands from the Vatyn to the White Wastes. They brought prosperity and unity to our people."
"Which is why so many of the Beastkin are treated as second class citizens, the Barbarians of the wastes, who refuse to bend knee are decried as savages to be warred upon and tamed, and the Orlethrem, who will not fall under Prosper's shadow should have her people visited by violence every few decades to know sorrow time and again. Your Merchant Lords are parasites, and Prespang is a slave empire masquerading as some kind of fucked up feudal system of independent Baronies." Ulric countered.
He shook his head wonderingly. Zealotry was always based on insanity. No reasoned person could believe anything with such single mindedness, such lack of doubt.
"I've walked through the gutters of your cities, seen how the powerless among you live. I have walked amongst the Elves too. The Aes'r do not know such poverty, they do not make of their kin less to rule them, rather, they demand from the ones who would lead them that those rise to worthiness to rule by their own wisdom and virtues."
"It figures that a barbarian would consort with the Elves and think their wilding ways superior to civilization. Go on then, do your worst you knife eared slut! I will give you nothing!" Challenged the injured captive.
Ulric rose from his crouch, raising an eyebrow as he looked to his partner, mouthing "Wow!" at the sheer density of this woman's devotion to the pseudo religion of Prosper.
"Welp. You asked for it." Ulric commented, lifting her by one leg and raising her up from the ground her head a few inches above the clearing floor supported by his left arm alone.
He ignored the lack of dignity in the captive's current pose, she was about to have bigger worries.
"Where do you want her Taipan? She's all yours." He condemned the prisoner.
His Iriel'en mate gestured to a stand of something approximating cottonwood trees some few meters distant from the encampment.
"Over there will do. She will make noise and I would not have these peoples put off their suppers on her account." Answered the Huntress.
Ulric tossed the bound prisoner up and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, hauling her to the place indicated. He left his Shadow behind with the prisoner and made his rounds through the camp, seeing to the needs of the Elves. Needs that, fortunately, they were increasingly seeing to themselves. Many still required help but injuries were healing and strength was coming back to them. Now he had these new people to worry about so he went to find their defacto leaders, the odd couple of Leor girl and the Ginger mage. If he wasn't getting the same Treatment, Ulric had on his return.