"Hey little lady, whatcha got there?" Ulric drawled at the cinnamon skinned Huntress slowly.

Looking up from her soon to be meal, she grinned widely at him, "Ulric I have caught a true prize! It is a [Fading Lakemaker]! They are never found back home in Iriel, they prefer the longer, if milder Winters close to the Vatyn's shores, but their fur is prized. The meat will not be anything to amaze, though your spices help."

The rapid onslaught of cheerful exposition threw him for a bit. His partner took a few bites from the cooked thing and chewed thoughtfully before adding a few more pinches of herbs from her belt pouch to season it. Her mood was surprisingly elevated considering the task he'd left to her earlier.

"You aren't high, are you?" He asked, making sure, and receiving a roll of her brilliant green eyes for the trouble.

That had only really been the one time, but it had left an impression on him.

"Sit, Glade Chief, and no! I am not high. Just look at this pelt, Ulric!" Taipan demanded, dropping her roasted marmot-beaver-woodchipper meal to the forest floor to wave the furred skin at him.

"It almost crosses your eyes to stare at it! The beast's core imbues it with a subtle stealth aura, disrupting direct attention, blending it into the surroundings. I half believed I was being targeted by an enemy mage work when a part of the creek nearby refused to resolve itself to my vision."

Ah, okay, now this made more sense. If there was anything that would put some soggy in his mate's bottoms it was the idea of a waterproof cloak that also made you impossible to see. Especially if it wasn't something that was available to her peers within Iriel. She'd fairly lord that one over her comrades, Ulric could already imagine the exchange of mocking observations between Taipan and Hal'et.

Ulric crouched down to rest his forearms across his thighs, balanced on the balls of his feet comfortably. The smoky odor of cooked flesh wasn't bad, definitely gamey, and with a strong nutty overtone mixed with the mild fishyness that accompanied beaver. It reminded him of wild boar and talapia blended together. He had to admit, he didn't find the coupling as enticing as many of the other things he'd eaten but he wouldn't turn up his nose at a new experience so he picked up the dropped meal and started taking bites from the backstraps of the roasted creature while Taipan stroked the soft fur of her catch lovingly.

Alright, Ulric was ready to admit that it was better than he was expecting, Taipan's charring done to perfection, just past rare with plenty of charcoal to mellow out the gamier flavors. Not too fatty, but then, it was only late spring, plenty of feeding season left to pack on the calories. He'd give this little animal a solid six point five out of ten.

"So," Ulric said around a mouthful of beaver thing, "How'd the 'interview' with the Captain go?"

Taipan draped the hide across her knees and went pensive a moment.

"She resisted little once I threatened to remove her breasts. That one had no little vanity to her, for what little care she appeared to take of herself, shearing her hair like that, and the savaging you gave her" His mate said, frowning.

"It would have been better had she held on longer, it is unseemly to go on hurting them once they start the truth speaking." She complained, irritated.

He knew his partner held few qualms about extracting information from captives, based on their experiences together in Trachn'ir. What few reservations she might have had about putting her own kin to the question were completely erased when it was one of the instruments of Prosper. He found no blame in himself for his mate at that.

Especially not now.

When the Magister of Bartala had slain his new found friend Varrock, Ulric went on an alchemical spree cooking up plastic explosives to destroy the dockyards, killed the city's baron, his body guards, and then sank every single ship flying Prosper's flag he came across for two weeks passage across the Vatyn. He'd known Varrock for two days. That mattered little, he found. When the enemy took from you, the only response was to obliterate them. Especially when you promised to keep that friend's kin from harm, and what better way than to erase those who would, eventually, seek to target them?

"Alright, that's fair." Ulric told the Iriel'en woman without judgment, "So, what did you learn?"

He deliberately avoided asking for the whereabouts of the prisoner now. He didn't really like the idea of killing captives, even though he wasn't going to go out of his way to prevent it. Not with these people. They'd pretty much earned themselves the death penalty in any court of law that ever existed. Even so, he didn't need to dig too deeply just yet. Maybe literally, he had plans for the Captain, even if she was a corpse.

Fingers tapped lightly at the full lips, their hue slightly lighter than the surrounding skin of her face. That the Elf was thinking it over said she hadn't finished processing the information and was organizing it for herself before she spoke.

That was a thing Ulric appreciated about the Aes'r. Maybe it was because of their lifespans, or maybe it was thanks to the diffuse way they instructed their children, but oftentimes Elves were in no hurry when it came to discussing matters. When they needed a moment to consider they took it. None tried to hurry a conversation along or chafed when a thought was mulled for even minutes at a time. To speak obvious ignorance or ill-conceived notions aloud, without thoughtfulness, was considered demeaning to your listeners. The intellectual rudeness was, frequently, grounds for being scolded by others involved in the conversation.

Ulric was down for that, even though it got him in trouble when he said things as they came to him, instead of pausing to chew on it a bit more. He was coming around to the Elf way of thinking more and more. Taking an extra second to ponder was paying dividends on appearing less moronic. It was also improving his decision making under pressure. A half second to plan before acting could make the difference in outmaneuvering the enemy, thereby seizing advantage or failing to spot an opponent's feint and conceding ground as a result. When you actually had the half second and weren't dancing on a razor's edge, that is.

"I believe that we may have more trouble in Kistalfer than we initially suspected." Taipan told him, at last.

She glanced over her shoulder, probably in the direction of the captive leader of the garrison troops, before returning her emerald attention to him.

"The man who leads the city state is, according to our prisoner, a decorated veteran of a score of battles, mostly with various barbarian tribes. That on its own is not so concerning, but he was also, if this Captain as you called her speaks true, a commander chosen to periodically cull the more dangerous beasts from Prespang's holds. By her accounts, the Baron of Kistalfer is a war chief, nothing alike to the kind you encountered in Bartala." the former Hunter revealed with clear respect for one that had faced down Varda's monsters.

She brushed her hand through her lengthening hair, and pursed her mouth, as if biting into unripe plums. The other hand made the Elf hand speech for "Foreboding".

"I do not like it, Ulric." She admitted, "It is one thing to eliminate the leader of a criminal enterprise who holds an office within the city, they must take pains to avoid drawing notice, which opens their defenses. It is another thing entirely to challenge a seasoned warlord within their own hold."

He had to agree with her on that. The monsters he'd encountered in the short span he'd been on this world were no laughing matter. [Forest Lord] not withstanding, most of the species at large in the wilds were lethal hunters or tremendously able defenders from aggression. Many of the non-predatory creatures adhered to the principle of "good offense is the best defense" and would go out of their way to destroy potential competitors or predators. Look no farther than to the [Thunderhorn Sheep] for evidence of that. They'd blasted a hapless grazing ape from the side of a cliff with no exchange of warning, sign, or call to make distance what so ever. They'd approached while doing goat things, noticed the ape minding its own business a little too close to those goat things, and summarily executed it with prejudice.

If this Baron had been hand selected for duty cleansing the countryside of such monsters, then he was likely personally mighty. Ulric hadn't been put in the position of having to come toe to toe with any of the real movers and shakers of this world yet. Prosper's battlemages and that dwarf juggernaut were the closest thing to it and they were, more or less, hired help. Mercenaries.

The fop in charge of Bartala was probably there because his family had a talent for making money and running the shipping business, which trumped his combat potential in the eyes of the Merchant Lords, who valued stability of their empire and smooth collection of coin over much else. This Baron though, was a fixer. A problem solver where the problems were armed barbarians raiding the caravans or a slavering Greater Beast marking out a valued mine or trading hub as its territory.

"Grottenschlect." Ulric commented, before trailing off into a few choice bits of profanity in his grandmother's tone.

"So, you don't think a direct approach will yield much chance for success?" He checked.

Her hands crossed in an "X" across her bosom in answer.

"Even should we find a way to prevail on the battlefield, the chances of obtaining a small fleet, such as we now need, is minimal." She added, looking past the immediate threat.

No assault on the control room then.

"It's not like we really planned to do that to begin with though." Ulric reminded his mate.

They'd never considered open warfare to be a viable path to Prosper. That it had, more or less, come to that in recent weeks was a matter of bad luck, a bit of less than strategic vengeance war-pathing on his part, and the moral necessity of liberating the Orlethrem from their concentration camps. The last three days had only added to the complications facing this expedition.

"Sich einen abbrechen." Ulric noted, realizing they might be overthinking things a little.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"We don't have to fight absolutely everybody. There's no reason we ever need to come into direct conflict with this Baron or his men or Kistalfer in general. We're just here to buy some ships." Ulric reiterated.

Taipan dipped her chin in agreement, but didn't drop the thread. Contingencies had to be considered.

"Our original plan was good. I think, had not we been forced into confrontation with the garrison troops it would have worked without issue. The difficulty now lies in that the loss of these men will put Kistalfer on the defensive. No war leader takes so many troops vanishing lightly. He will suspect that, failing to report, his soldiers have met unexpected enemies of such strength as to be completely overwhelmed." Taipan rejoined.

She smiled then and her expression warmed substantially as she considered him.

"That my Glade Chief and I, alone, proved to be that overwhelming force is a thing I will enjoy the telling of when we return to Irielhos." She informed him cheerfully.

Ulric nodded at that observation. It was gonna be real big dick bragging rights, was this one. He'd be able to prick Bald'rt more than a little about being out here doing all the hard work while the Elf King laid around in bed. He rubbed his hands together eagerly, constructing a pointed series of near insults to lay at the wily King's feet. This dog will have his day, Ulric cackled silently to himself.

Putting needles in Bald'rt's eyes aside, they first needed to figure out how to deal with the little problem of surviving to tell the tale.

"You're saying," Ulric announced, continuing where the fearsome lass left off, "That we did ourselves no favors getting into the city unremarked when now they suspect, rightly, that enemies are just outside their gates."

"Just so, Ulric." Confirmed the Iriel'en woman.

They took a minute then to brood upon the problem.

"I could go alone to infiltrate?" Ulric asked, already knowing her reply.

"Trees will grow without roots first." Taipan warned him.

Worth a shot, he figured. Now, they really needed to come up with something sharp.

Rather than stew in stillness, he and his lovely bride began to perform the multitude of camp tasks that life in the field demanded. Processing wood to make kindling, readying a larger piece of lumber to create a slow burning coal bank for the morning cookfire, hauling water to fill their kettle for brewing a stiff tea, shaking out the bedding, laying out the furs under open skies to air them out for a few hours, and the like.

The Twins had fallen by the time all the doings were done and the pair, alongside the rest of the camp, were approaching ready to turn in for the night.

Elves huddled around their cookpots, foraged berries stewing, lending the damp night air a sweet fragrance, in addition to the rich bouquet of the forest foliage. In rapidly assembled huts were now housed the malcontent Prespangers. A hum of conversation huddled over the camp as the groups of individuals conversed around their fires. The entire thing held the feeling of unwavering determination, of men and women that refused to buckle beneath the weight of their sufferings. Beneath that more outstanding impression was that of suppressed hope. It came in the light chuckle of a joke told, the bemused outrage of a prank, the giggle of lovers in arms.

For Ulric Einar, the whole thing made him want to break out into hives. These were his people to care for now, for some reason.

As he lay back on his fur bedding, Ulric felt his mind vibrating with the urgency to come up with a solution to the problem facing them. He hadn't experienced this since arriving on Varda's cosmological shores, a castaway washed up on distant shores with a brand spanking new body and no responsibility for anything but keeping his well sculpted ass from becoming monster scat. His Iriel'en partner had no such concerns, she was out like a pinched candle wick, lightly snoring. The occasional, incredibly cute, "Om, nom, mum" burble of nonsense rose from her as she dreamed whatever Elves dreamed of.

Months ago, upon his shoulders had settled the weight of responsibility to this woman when she'd revealed her "prank" of taking him for her mate in official terms. They'd been playing night games for a couple of months by that point and, through various cultural oddities, he'd already had her effectively bound to his side for life. So, on the face of it, nothing had much changed. In reality, of course, Ulric had a wife and that Meant Things regarding his providing a suitable life and doing what he expected of himself in such circumstances. Part of that was establishing his household and means of supporting them both.

Today, he'd realized that he was now responsible for more than a semi feral Elf princess and an untamed primeval glade up on a mana-rich plateau in the vast wilderness of Varda. That weight made his breath come in short, and he had to run through the grounding exercises that suppressed anxiety attacks. At least the neurochemical make up of his brain hadn't yet had such stress fed feedback loops ingrained in it. General anxiety disorder was not fun times, even if it was treatable with dedicated effort. If you saw it coming, the sneaky bastard.

Was it odd that he'd felt much safer about going out to do mortal combat with a bunch of Prosper's legionnaires than leading a group of ethnically diverse hobos? Probably. No helping it though, feels gonna feel. Logic had nothing to do with this not vague at all unease. Would these people be able to detect exactly how little clue he had about anything? He'd essentially been flying by the seat of his pants for two full seasons of this world's solar cycles. He'd had a couple months of formal education with the Iriel'en children and then another couple months of direct exposure to the folk of the continent. He had precisely fuck all idea how to lead a bunch of strangers into anything but total disaster.

Realizing that he'd fallen into a variation on the same theme of "What the fuck am I doing here?" for the last ten minutes, instead of sleeping, Ulric started trying to get his shit together and treat this like an engineering problem. They always looked impossible from far away. The trick was to take the big, ugly situation, and break it apart into small, easily disposed of bits. Once you did that, you could figure out what sequence would produce a solution path that had a high probability of success. Then you could start overcoming the inevitable obstacles that would arise.

Alright, immediate problems were already well on the way to being solved, Ulric decided. They Were Not Starving. It was late spring, so nobody was going to freeze to death any time soon. Currently, nobody actually knew where all these rebels and runaway Elves were located. Hell, there were good odds that Prosper wouldn't even tell anybody that they were missing a few handfuls of slightly tortured Aes'r, not without having to own up to the seed of unrest Ulric had planted revealing the efforts to create the Bane, after having already used it once. That was as likely to cause mass revolts as anything else. Everybody knew that, when it came to Species Poison, all bets were off.

The Aes'r would respond to that existential threat in ways that created holes in history books for a millennium. The City States would be forced to rebel to avoid being caught up in the Elven purge of their would be genociders. It had happened before.

Okay, so he'd bought himself a little wiggle room with that maneuver. Not that he'd really thought it out in such terms at the moment. He'd just been incredibly pissed off and awash with the righteous fury.

Fuck it, results Ulric, just focus on results and how to get them.

No chance he'd be able to take a city by himself. Ulric was getting good at making with the magic now but he was no Bald'rt Iriel. Or Shor. Or even Bathe and Vedyr. To say nothing of Gother in the old man's prime. Even with Taipan fully recovered and the Germane Mage kid Ulric wasn't going to bank that they'd even get past the city walls. Ulric could probably destroy the walls but not and do anything beyond that.

He took a second to process that he could literally rip down a stone wall thirty meters tall and three thick with his mind, more or less. Wild shit. Anyway, it wasn't good enough. Force wasn't viable here. Deception was also a low probability strategy, on that Taipan had been right. Ulric would have bet his favorite testicle that Kistalfer was locked up tighter than a Jainist's asshole.

No to aggression. No to chicanery. What about graft?

Ulric was loaded. Question was, did he have the kind of money that would convince a warlord to part with a few ships and not sic his troops on him? Probably not, the reborn engineer decided. Based on the sizes of the cargo holds in the ships he'd seen and the prices of goods as he'd learned of them, the annual port income would dwarf Ulric's meagre funds, impressive though they might be for an individual to have in possession.

Was money the only thing he had to trade?

The blackness of the shelter's interior was impenetrable, but Ulric chased the ghost lights that impressed themselves on his eyes as he stared sightlessly at the sloped walls of the teepee. A trade of knowledge seemed a bad idea, especially given that it was unlikely he'd ever be able to enter into negotiations with the leadership of Kistalfer without drawing their aggression. Would the Baron be more willing to bargain if Ulric used the wounded garrison commander as a pot sweetener?

A trade of hostages, so to speak, the ships exchanged at fair price for the life of the Captain, one of Prosper's leaders of arms. Damn, Ulric grunted softly to himself, that just might be the ticket.

Sudden cold poured down his back. He'd left the Captain's fate in Taipan's hands, with no specific requirements that the woman be left alive at the end of the inquiry.

"Shit!" He called aloud, turning to shake his Shadow from her slumber.

The Elven beauty came awake under his onslaught, slapping him away and cursing him to a life of stinging nettles in his socks as she did.

"Gah! Ulric, you [Heckler Monkey] of a shaved Valin ape, what think you shaking me from my blankets like some rooting [Stoneplate Boar]?!" his surly mate demanded in lilting accents tainted by grumpiness.

"Taipan, enough of that!" Ulric said, fending off the beating hands before she damaged something important, "The Captain, tell me that you did not terminate her after you were done with your questioning!"

The flailing subsided and his partner sat up. She leveled a menacing squint at him, her arms coming to cross over her chest, making her displeasure clear before she answered him.

"She hangs from a tree, where I left her to think on her crimes. This is why you have disturbed my rest?" the Iriel'en woman said.

Ulric tore out from the blankets, thoughtless of his nudity, and scrambled out into the dark. If some little beasty was eating his bargaining chip he was going to be cross. And he really had no one to blame but himself for it. Damn it!

He activated his [Ceraunoperception], the triplet moons being absent this night, or perhaps just covered by high flying clouds, he still didn't have a real bead on the exotic patterns of the lunar cycles of this world yet, to make his way through the pitch dark.

His Shadow-Wife had been carrying out her inquisition somewhere just back of the main camp clearing, to keep her workings from the prying eyes of the camp and to impose a sense of isolation upon the prisoner. Slapping branches from his path and navigating the wyrd electroperception that imprinted the grey scale relief painting of the forest upon his flesh, Ulric searched in vain for a few minutes.

"Idiot! Go wide, just find the woman's signature and then focus it down to navigate through this thicket!" He mocked himself, before putting the plan into action.

There! By amplifying the strength of the Ceraun pulses he could detect the conductive body of the prisoner, hanging by her feet upside down about fifty meters away, by the feel. Pulses this strong were perceptible as a crawling feeling upon the skin of others nearby, his magic raising hairs, which he wanted to avoid, as letting an enemy know you knew where they might be despite their attempts to hide from sight was relinquishing a terrible advantage. Now that his target was located, Ulric dialed the strength down and raised the frequency of the pulses, vastly improving the resolution of his immediate surroundings as he made his way into the stygian forest.

Steps taken silently by months of habit evidently caught the captive woman by surprise, her body jerked in their binds and she began writhing back and forth in anticipation of being consumed by some nocturnal hunter. When Ulric's form resolved itself to her immediate vision she tried to shout against the gag in her mouth, muffled profanity making clear her feelings on the situation.

Unceremoniously, Ulric reached out and used a whisper of his lightning mana to burn through the rope dropping the prisoner, only to catch her mid fall and sling her over his shoulder. He made his way back into the camp clearing, muttering his thanks to whichever deity, greater elemental, or Faustian bargainer of souls that listened for the woman not being dead.

Back in the subdued light of fading coals from numerous campfires, Ulric threw open the hide door to the teepee he shared with his wife and tossed the bound Captain to lie against the back wall of the shelter, where she awkwardly lay propped up against his pack. Her grunt and litany of invective, garbled through the cloth gag, were obvious enough.

Tough nuts, he noted to himself. Good things should only happen to good people.

"Whew!" Ulric sighed in relief, "Disaster averted."

Now he had two angry women in his tent. Taipan was waiting with her "I am now discontent" look, which meant she would be finding petty ways to make him unhappy for a few days.

"I think I have a plan, Taipan, and it requires this one alive." explained the still naked man to his sullen sylvan wife, using the Elves language to make sure the Captain wouldn't know what he intended and thereby try to subvert his plans.

"And, let me set a trap for [Bark Weasels], it only comes to you while you brood through the long night instead of sleeping?" Challenged the dusky Elf.

He took a second to parse her idiom. What did trapping [Bark Weasels] have to do with anyth- Ah, you just assume the little bastards are out there and lay the traps preventatively in suspicion that you'll catch one. Iriel'en way of snarking "Let me guess" when you know something for certainty. Got it.

"One of us had to find a way out of this mess, and you were snoring so marvelously that I could not bear to disturb you to talk it over." Ulric bitched.

A graceful finger pointed in his direction, making small stabbing motions, as the naked woman denied his accusations from her blankets, "I am not snoring, you great oaf! And to be always sleepless leads a Hunter to make mistakes, to put their feet in the jaws of the beasts, as I have told you before!"

Ulric didn't bother to reject her vehement denial. Or to acknowledge the unfounded accusation, he slept great these days, thanks very much. The first was absolute fiction, the second was inconvenient truth of his past but not so much these days. Neither held his attention currently.

"Can't be helped, Lady of the Glade, we needed a way forward and mine duty is to find our path. It cannot always be Taipan at the fore." Ulric chanted lightly, using his term of endearment for her, the one that he saved for dire straights.

It had the intended effect, the finger was withdrawn and she relaxed back, shedding some of her ire. It didn't stop her from giving a musical snort.

"Hmmph! Fine. It is as you say, Glade Chief. A Lord's duty to their people demands sacrifice of comforts. That does not mean you need to toss me about like laundry." Groused his wife, hanging on by a thin thread to her anger.

He saw weakness, it was time to pounce.

"I would have waited until morning, but yours is the only counsel I knew I could count on and time pressed heavily to guarantee our prisoner's usefulness. I apologize for my ungentle rousing, Wife, let me give you a rub down to sooth the ruffled feathers. I will share my strategy while I do and you can find its flaws."

The combination of praise, need of her expertise, offer of a thorough massage, and the chance to critique him completed the mollification. His partner rolled over to present her backside, cradling her chin upon her arms, her slight wiggle anticipating having all the muscles worked to deliciously boneless jelly.

"Acceptable, Ulric. You may begin. Lead me down whatever winding trail your spiderweb strewn mind has concocted for us, I will make sure it does not take us all over a cliff."

He resisted the urge to grin his victory, knowing she would be able to see it with her dark vision. Now, all her plotting against him would be curtailed, ensuring the next few days would be peaceful, his enemies abroad aside. Not just that, he had free rein to sample the delicious flesh of his wife, to feel her under his hands to his heart’s content. He'd won again.

All according to Keikaku, they both thought simultaneously, restraining showing their partner their smugness at coming ahead in the Great Game.