Ulric's waking from dreams of being chased by a giant cobra wielding a laughing crimson sword in its mouth while dragons circled overhead did not bode well. The misapprehension that followed through the morning meal was not misplaced when that day went much like the one before it. Ulric got his ass kicked, metaphorically, physically, and magically, for an entire week.

Instructor Gother began, in his usual fashion, and then saw fit to bless his students with an exceedingly thorough rendition of the trade purposes for refined [Azure Cedar] bark, the historical and modern trade routes, both domestic and foreign, for it, the customs laws of those nations through whose borders the bark passed, and, finally, the market environment for bark product sales. Ulric was starting to see the point of the exercise, as each day unfolded into the next. A comprehensive whole of Elven civilization was starting to emerge in that dusty dry room, listening to that dusty dry Gother.

Elves didn't teach from a set of specific fundamental concepts and then try to use a specific example to elucidate the concept, at least, that wasn't Gother's philosophy. The wizened creature introduced a common or obvious object and then began to unwind the role that object played in Elven life. From its location for foraging or proper cultivation, to its harvesting, then its usages as an edible, construction material, medicine, or more arcane applications as alchemicals, then to the methods utilized to process it, depending on those uses, and then to the means and methods for its transport and distribution to market. At all times the old Elf told the story from the perspective of the gatherer or craftsman or trader that was interacting with the item in question. The lessons were then deeply rooted to the role of the individual, there was no doubt as to how the instructed material applied to a particular elf's life, all was immediately applicable, if not for every single individual.

The concepts being taught were not outright stated, there was no lesson whose objective could be: Trade Laws of Orlethrem. Instead, if one paid attention, they began to grasp that each nation taxed and tariffed items according to their own needs for goods or to protect their own production. The important over-arching ideas became self-evident as the Elf went through the seemingly arbitrary description of the "lineage" of usage for the item in question. By the fourth item, this one being cores of Lesser beasts, Ulric was catching onto how Orlethrem society, economy, and governance operated and how it interacted with the other nations, with a special emphasis, of course, on Iriel's role in the confederation.

That role turned out to be fascinating. Iriel was mostly self-sufficient but acted as the main economic source of procurement for high-rarity commodities via the Hunters of the Deep Wood, who were tasked with venturing into the extreme danger of the wilderness to gather valuable herbs or reagents. Hunters were both the main persistent military arm of Iriel and its most critical economic asset. In addition to supplying the bountiful plants, insects, or saps unique to the region, which were highly sought after in other nations and thus whose procurement brought astronomical wealth, they would also hunt and harvest specific monsters, oftentimes those deemed too hazardous for a regular Iriel'en hunter or forest materials cultivators and gatherers, called Gardeners, to handle. Hunters would also scout the forest to reconnoiter and guard locations for craftsmen to make temporary camps where they would procure and process materials at a larger scale than a single scout, on-site, from more remote locations distant from the settled regions of the wood.

Then Hunters, alongside their Gardener companions, acted as cultivators of the entire forest. Safe trails for travel were scouted and marked, symbolic annotations describing dangers or boons to the particular length of the trail, which was then tended by the Gardeners creating an effective Elven highway system through the wood. Because the Elves did not set up permanent camps in the deep wood and those camps were moving frequently, so as to leave the harvest sites alone long enough to recover swiftly, the wilderness was relatively unscathed. Years could go by between harvestings, meaning that there was a relatively minimal impact on any particular region by their activity. It was a completely sustainable model of civilization, the Iriel'en took only enough for their needs and never to the point of damaging the land that supported them.

This is where it got interesting. Because the Hunters were so good at it, other tribes hired the Iriel'en Hunters to do the same for them. They had their own craftsmen, their own means of production, their own specialties, and their own traditions, but none did what Iriel'en Hunters did as efficiently or as well. This made the Hunter not just an instrument of raw material acquisition but a critical part of Orlethrem policing. Because the Hunters were always out, always roaming the lands, they had the additional role of stopping poaching, smuggling, and border control. That resulted in these scouts serving as the backbone of Orlethrem's military coordination.

Reports were sent to the local village heads, sent to the regional tribe rulers, kept those leaders abreast of the goings on of their more remote lands. That information would then travel to Iriel itself when the Hunters rotated home, their reports going to the ruling Lesser and Greater Houses, and, eventually, to the overlord of Iriel, Bald'rt, [Lord of the Deep Wood] and his inner circle. That meant that Iriel had a particularly sensitive role in ensuring the bedrock effectiveness of trade and defense, it was the hub for information gathered from across Orlethrem. While other lands had far more importance for logistics or production, or for economy, such as Aktinia with its fishing, oceanic salt production among other goods, and a vast network of shipping routes, or Zelussin with their great water-driven mills and their transportation along the great river that bisected the continent, it was the Iriel'en that served as the first responders, cartographers, and minute-men of the Elven confederacy.

As he sat in his rooms jawing through a hard, though tasty, bread and a bowl of some mystery stew, ten beating days after the recommencement of his bargained instruction, nagging details started to accumulate, building an itch in his thoughts. Slowly, the picture began to come into focus for Ulric. There had been many question marks earlier on, starting with his encounter with the not Viking raiders and Brighteyes. He'd shelved it then, having more pressing matters. It had arisen again as, the more he learned about the Elves, about Orlethrem, and about their relationships with their northern neighbor, ruled by the heavily maligned Prosper.

As his lessons had continued, his short discussions with Geyrt here or a chance meeting with Brighteyes there, a random statement from Idra, when he wasn't making millimeter corrections to Ulric's joints, and an afternoon spent studying a set of maps, sent by Duty at a request paged to Bald'rt, all of it added up and he got a better feel for what sort of world he had been dropped into as well as the current geopolitical climate. The more he learned, the less sense any of it made. And then, as he learned more still, sitting here in his borrowed room, suddenly the more sense it made.

The northern nation of Prespang, consisting of a bunch of pseudo-independent city states of beastkin and humans, was unified under rule by the leadership that built and occupied their fortress city Prosper some eight hundred years ago. Historically, Prosper was reliant on Elven trade to access the Southern seas and the resources of the great forests. However, by controlling the access point of Zelus with the vast continent splitting inland sea Vatyn, they were heavily dominant over the northern half of the continent, and lusted greatly after sea access to expand their power.

They also needed those trade routes to access the dwarven craftsmen located in the Heaven's Reach Divide, the massive mountain range that split the Eastern side of the continent, between Vatyn, who ran all the way to the frozen glaciers of Everwinter in the North, and the Eastern Ocean. The Elves had colonized the Southern reaches of the continent long before human and beastkin settlers came to the land, thus the great river, nigh unto a narrow moving sea itself, the coasts, and the only two large navigable passes through the massive mountain range, were all under the umbrella of at least one of the tribes of Orlethrem, giving them massive influence on procurement and movements of goods on the continent. The ruling party of Prosper, which had been explained to Ulric by Brighteyes to consist of a consortium of Merchant Kings, was angling to break the Elven control of the Southern half of the continent, having become aggressively expansionist and ever more chafing at having to accede to Elven trade agreements, despite the bounty they brought.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

One way to do that was to gain control of the Zelus, though it lie in the near geographical center axis of the continent and thus ran directly through Orlethrem. It was also jealously guarded by the Zelussin. Another way was to forge across the Northern reaches to the East, and establish ports on the North Eastern Coast, which had been done, though that ran into problems in the Eastern Ocean that hadn't been clarified to Ulric and took much longer. It wasn't efficient enough to leverage power from their Elven neighbors, at least not with acceptable profit margins for the heads of Prosper. Or, they could try to seize one of the two great passes from the Melondi, the highland Elves. That was open war, which had been avoided for the same reason as wrestling control away from the Zelussin.

The Western expanse was even worse, but due to geography. The winds blew East to West and crossed the continent by first climbing the Heaven's Reach Divide. Passing over the mountains the prevailing winds then continued on over the continent, including the inland sea Vatyn, before reaching the Ancient Plateau, with its colossal forest, before descending to rush over the Western expanse to the ocean. That meant that the Eastern coast was a rainforest as the air currents were forced over the mountain range, cooled, and dropped heavy precipitation. The rapidly cooling air also produced the permanent snow coverage and glaciers that sat on the mountains and fed the Zelus and Vatyen. Thus in this passage the air became more arid. Vatyn recharged the winds somewhat with moisture but then that skyward current hit the plateau, the great, several kilometer high wall pushing the flows up rapidly to cool again, raining heavily over Iriel and Celestin, before continuing on over the plateau where it was then harvested of its water by the kilometer high arboreal monoliths.

All of this added up to make the Western expanse of the continent a vast desert. Water was nearly impossible to find, most of it having either dropped at the face of the plateau or been scraped from the air by the hungry trees that towered above. No rivers flowed from that side of the [Plateau of Ancients] to the Western coast. The desert, called the Great Dracla, killed nearly everyone who attempted to cross it. Establishing trade routes From the Vatyn to the plains was difficult but done. Pushing those trade routes from the northern part of the continent, around the massive plateau, then West across the Dracla or South to the sea, was impossible. Even with the assistance of magic. The Elves could have done it, with their long lifespans and incremental persistence over centuries, but they had never seen the point and left the desert to cultivate its sand in peace.

That left the plateau itself. The land was uninhabited, except for the monsters, and rich with resources untouched for eons. It was easily navigable. It spanned half way from the northern half of the continent to the southern half of the continent and provided a large enough coastal access to build a trade colony on the Eastern Ocean. For the purposes of the powers that be in Prespang it was perfect. Except for all those pesky Elves insisting that it be left alone. And the murderous Greater beast the [Forest Lord] that killed everything that crossed the threshold of its domain, that couldn't flee to the canopy fast enough. The [Forest Lord] was no more.

A tale as old as time then, in Ulric's mind. A bunch of rich old men wanted to get richer. Somewhere there was a land rife with unexploited wealth being guarded by a bunch of inhuman savages, who also, somehow, had a civilization too strong and prosperous to destroy outright. The solution was clear: dissolve that civilization through infighting, graft, assassination, and, if needs be, war against its weaker tribes, if it could be done without mobilizing the greater part of the Orlethrem. The objective was to gain, through one of these means, access to a militarily unbreakable chokepoint or leverage to hold a massive economic advantage or both.

The problem was that the current head honcho of the confederacy was a hardliner with a chip on his shoulder. Bald'rt Iriel held the reins of power and had no love for Prosper, thanks to events long out of living memory for the current leadership. Any attempt at aggressive action now, against either Zelussin or Melond would almost certainly have the Elves mobilizing all forces. The same was likely true if they tried to colonize the sacred [Forest of the Forgotten]. Some way was needed to neutralize this leadership or to cast doubt on it such that a rapid, concerted response would not be available should Prosper's gambit to take control of either the plateau, or a mountain pass be attempted. The river was out, too centralized, too long, too easy to be cut off and destroyed. So that left an attack on a potentially fortified defensive position packed with Elves, or, a try at grabbing the Holy Land of the savages. Ulric knew which one he would try.

Ulric was starting to get suspicious about those supposed poachers. How would a lowly group of poachers get so deep into Iriel undetected? The more he learned about the deep woods folk, the less likely it seemed that they would have allowed such an incursion to reach so far. Add onto that, not only had they penetrated a dense, dangerous, foreign territory undetected but they had also, by sheer chance, stumbled across the young son of the single man who was the lynchpin of the Orlethrem defense, alone? No sir. No that just did not add up in Ulric's mind. Nobody gets that lucky.

What then? Ulric concentrated on the separate pieces, laying them out, as his spoon circled idly in the stew broth, his fingers snapping away beneath the table. A group of poachers, but too many to be poachers, more men made harder hunting and more chance of discovery and only three or four would be needed to take most Lesser beasts. They weren't very experienced at slaying beasts either, as they had demonstrated against the wounded [Shadow Panther] and [Venom Bolt Viper]. Poachers that traveled in too large a group to be effective and also sucked at hunting beasts? So obviously they weren't poachers, now that he'd had time to mull things over. Probably more like a squad of special action folk, either domestic operatives good at flying under radar or a very effective mercenary group. Probably more likely to be mercenaries, the attack on the Greater beasts didn't make any sense otherwise. That reeked of a lack of discipline, a perceived chance to get rich in spite of the risks to their objective. A well-trained group of stealthy state actors would have kept the mission in mind and passed on by, leaving no traces, and taking no chances. Then there was the fact that they had attacked an Elven royal with his attendant and friend, alone, with a scenario that felt more and more like a setup. That took intel. The good stuff, times and places, a who, where, and when sort of thing. How the fuck had they gotten that kind of information?

And then, they had taken their quarry and, instead of crossing through Iriel East to the Zelus or north to pass through the lowland forest and plains to get to Prespang, they ascended the [Ancient's Gate] to the plateau. Nobody did that, nobody who wanted to live long, the [Forest Lord] was waiting up there. Unless, somehow, you knew it wasn't. Again, intelligence of surpassing quality. Those child-murdering fucks had way too much information to not have a backer with deep pockets. The more he turned it around in his head, the more he felt like he was onto something.

Consider also that Bald'rt Iriel, in all his years and with three surpassing advisors in his wives, had immediately locked down the entirety of Orlethrem and sent its people into their hidden sanctuaries. Zero to Mach fuck it, and without a single body to make the judgment. No, they'd spotted it already, all the way back then. Not poachers, hired guns there to take a hostage and try to force one of Prosper's most dangerous adversaries off the field. A silent declaration of war, to which Bald'rt had responded immediately by putting his people on defcon 5.

Ulric was now certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that whoever was running things in Prespang had exactly no fucking idea who they were dealing with. Even if they'd gotten Brighteyes all the way back to some secret prison, gotten proof of his capture to Iriel to try to force negotiations with the Orlethrem Crown using his son as collateral, what then? Did they honestly think they could just keep Brighteyes a hostage for the literal centuries he would live? Or that the Elves would just sit and allow a royal family to be murdered? Ulric would bet all the gold in the world, nothing was going to keep skin on those idiots when the shit hit the fan. Forget about Geyrt, who would likely have made sleeping a capital offense for any Prespang soldiers in the field, Ulric didn't want to even think about what would happen if Vedyr went to work on them. Shor probably had tactical nukes in her cleavage and a joyous itch to use them. He'd watched Bathe jump across a football field size arena like you'd sidestep a puddle and strike a man hard enough to launch him through dense hardwood furniture like it was balsa wood. And then there was the man himself, the Blood Moon.

Bald'rt had, by all accounts, decimated Prosper when he had learned of his son's murder by pirates hired by the merchant lords of that city. He killed so many people his lunar mana soaked with blood, turning crimson, and left that place in shambles after having slaughtered the ruling lords and their families. All of their families. It was a deed he much regretted and while the [Moonlit Berserkir] class carried some element of memory loss during the rage that eased his burden, he worked to avoid subsequent conflict in the coming centuries. Still, the violence did have the intended result: peace. The raiding, the pirates, the mafioso thuggery, it all came to a halt overnight. No one wanted to risk the ire of the young [Lord of the Deep Wood].

Stories were told. Centuries passed. Stories became just that: stories. Myths. A ghost tale around campfires meant to spook children with the horror of that nightmarish happening. The old greedy bastards, once culled, were replaced, eventually, by new greedy bastards. Inevitably does the cream of humanity seem to rise to the top. Now, here they were. Ulric had come into Varda at a turning point in history, had seemingly become something of a fulcrum about which the region would be directed into the future. He had slain the aged beast that had, for millennia, closed the plateau from serious consideration. Now it was back in play. And now, time enough had passed that men born to power, unwise in its use, and uncaring of the lives lost in its exercise or expansion, had turned their gaze from history's lessons to gaze on a gilded future. If only they could do something about those blasted knife ears.

A tale as old as time, Ulric thought.