Weatherwise, the day of Ulric's departure couldn't have been better. As had become the norm, the temperature was icy, the wind bitter and dry. Snow fell intermittently as the finest of crystals, shimmering iridescence that pervaded the gaps between branches. In the complete absence of leaves, sunlight poured down onto the leaf-carpeted forest floor. Ulric was a little surprised at the difference in how much brighter was the journey for his return to the grove, dense canopies had made for a rather closed-in, dusky forest. The Elven escort padded lightly, a slight crackling of frosty leaves that was mostly lost in the comparative din of his heavy tread, whose impacts crushed down to the soil beneath.
Ulric was finding that his [Bolt deer] boots would need a substantial upgrade to be fit for extended winter trekking, his toes felt keenly the cold ground beneath. Once they stopped moving he'd need a fire immediately to keep the impending frostbite at bay. The magical substrate of the Iriel'en fortress city, famed Heartwood, resisted greatly the winter's grasp, aided also by the ensorcellment that prevented the air from losing its heat within that place. Out here though, the full weight of the season pressed down onto the land. Unlike the Plateau, with its near constantly gusting winds, the arctic chill pushed through in vigorous waves only every once in a while, all the more potent for its infrequency. Ulric's [Forest Lord] overcoat, fur-trimmed to the inside, bolstered him against the cold, likewise for his leggings of the same material. Such a boon that the Greater beast's carcass had proven to be, food that had sustained him in those early days, protective clothing that, even now, made him virtually impervious to the elements, and bones and ligaments that had produced tooling capable of carving out a living. These had allowed him to carve staves and handles from the improbably hardened boles of [Steelwood] and had given him the ability to cut a dwelling out from the monstrously dense trunk of the fallen giant whose passing had opened a window to the sky through which the grove had come to life. The old beast had turned out to be Varda's gift to him, as he'd been able to survive its last whisps of fury.
Ulric considered that as he walked, confident in his personal safety, that a Vardan gift was an excellent euphemism for something that looks nice but will attempt murder before you can use it.
Geyrt trailed behind him, bow strung and held at an easy ready, hand span arrow head fitted for flight at any sign of threat. The only alteration in her gear from their initial meeting, newly gifted bow aside, was an overcloak of white dappled myriad greys and brows. Clearly, it was meant to be camouflage for those Hunters and soldiers who roamed the deep wood in Winter, with its heavy, deep hood, and thickly furred interior. Ulric had asked her at their outset about the animal from which its hide was derived and Geyrt had been glad to gloat about its construction, the otter-like beasts having been harvested by herself and those considered exceedingly challenging to hunt as they blended into the environment at any season and were swift to evade to cover at the slightest hint of a predator. The fur exterior shed water like oilcloth while the densely fluffy hide of creature, akin to a snowshoe hare, called [Dagger Feet] for their wickedly sharp hind clawed paws, retained heat extremely well.
Ulric had only briefly wondered at how well the cloak actually served to hide its bearer until his Shadow had swiftly climbed a tree and promptly vanished against the backdrop of snow-covered branches. She had run a circuit ahead of their course, scouting the land before returning to her position as rear guard. Ulric would have admitted easily that it was a comfort knowing she was on duty, a drawn bow aimed outwards towards anything that might make trouble.
Few words passed the lips of the travelers. The going was easy, Winter had, as Bald'rt had claimed, been generous in withholding the heavy snows that were typical of this time of year. They were coming, a few dark grey clouds promised it, but, for now, only the lightest dusting had fallen, and that only lasted in the darker shadows of brush or the leeward side of a hill. The trails remained clear and clearly marked, just as they had been when Brighteyes had shown Ulric the way on their journey to return the lad home. With such easy travel, the Elves and their Human ward made distance-eating strides and tirelessly covered the kilometers between Iriel'hos and the great towering wall of Vardan stone that was the face of the plateau. Only the rapid descent of the twinned suns in the sky brought their advance to a pause, the shorter days and seasonal cold forcing a timely camp. Ulric estimated they had covered roughly two-thirds of the distance from Irielhos to the [Ancient's Gate].
Interestingly enough, Geyrt was carrying the tent Ulric had made for Brighteyes. Whether a testament to his own craft or a symbolic gesture of keeping the lad in her thoughts Ulric knew not. Either way, it was a nice thing to see. Driving poles into the frozen ground was less pleasing. Theoretically, he didn't need to do it, the poles balanced well on the level patch of clear ground Christ had declared a traveler's campsite, but he'd rather not chance a stray down gust coming off the plateau tipping it over into campfire or some similar punishment for laziness. Better to give a mallet its time in the sun and be safely assured of warmth through the night.
Travel rations provided proved delicious: bread, cheese, fruit, and charred meat, washed down by jamfruit juice. Ulric couldn't complain, he and Brighteyes had mostly subsisted on dried, smoked meat, and baked glade potatoes, at least until the boy had scored his kill on the [Rock Boar]. After a short communal sit around the campfire, dark and the effort of many kilometers bygone called the travelers to their bedrolls, saving those on watch. Ulric's turn was in the Moon's peak, midnight on his old world, so he gladly turned in early.
An ungentle nudging with delicate feet covered by Geyrt's tall, hard-soled boots urged him from his slumber. Ulric struggled to keep his bitching confined beneath his breath. Even with firelight behind her, the contrast carving Geyrt's form into a silhouette, Ulric could smell the delight she took in rousting him from his blankets. That boot had very obviously been driven by malevolent glee, though her face revealed nothing. Damned Taipan. At least the watch passed without incident, while he huddled with his back to the fire, tucking himself into an imitation of a hermit crab with a fur shell. Of his unruly Shadow, he saw no sight, she had taken to the trees immediately. He didn't mind the absence, the tongues of flame, starry skies, and his own thoughts were company enough, as they had always been. Besides, he used the time to work through the mana channeling and manipulation exercises prescribed by the three Great Ladies and that now familiar balance routine Idra'se had given him to improve his basic coordination when he felt like he needed to warm up.
The second day of the return picked up nearly as the first one had left off. The fire, fed regularly by those on watch, was brought back to full flame.
Breakfast, a haunch of some beast or another, sliced and roasted with seasonings sprinkled over it went well with the bread and fruit. Fruit would become a luxury as Winter wore on and the fresh stuff was consumed. From then on, the fare was preserves, jams, jellies, berry leathers, and other, somewhat more exotic methods of keeping produce. Infrig was used liberally to flash freeze a host of things but many leafy greens couldn't survive the process, these items would be gone until the spring gatherers returned to cultivating their forest plots and tradesmen brought in shipments of summer harvests from abroad. Fortunately, the Elves had made an art form of preparing cuisine from preserved goods, Ulric had little doubt that he'd be glad to sup with these folk all the Winter long. It beat to hell his plan of subsisting on smoked meat and root crops.
Once fed, the travelers packed up camp with practiced efficiency and were devouring the kilometers that separated them the [Ancient's Gate] just after the Twins showered the forest canopy with golden spears of brilliance. Ulric initially kept his attention on his Elven companions and the landmarks of their trail, trying to pick up whatever navigational tricks he might. Occasionally, when Geyrt had returned from one of her frequent rounds of scouting, Ulric would ply her for practice with Elvish. He wasn't quite fluent, still needing to translate the things he wanted to say in his head before he could say them and needing help with many of the contextual vocabularies that littered Elvish.
In a way, their language reminded him of speaking to technicians in niche fields. They used so much jargon that, if you were an outsider to that particular area of expertise, you would swiftly be lost. He remembered the floor engineers placing pools on how long it would take him and his colleagues to lose executives or administrative personnel when they inevitably attempted to peek under the hood to find new ways to squeeze productivity out of the already overworked staff. Ulric smiled at the memory of winning a rather large prize pool by using terms for metallic bonding interactions that hadn't been employed since precollapse, most of them dug out of a preserved library of long-extinct publications on the topic. Zintle type polyanionic clusters. Mixed doner ligand strategies. He nearly spat to remove the taste of the obnoxious terminology from his mind.
Other than the few tangential distractions of these reminiscences and tricks for keeping one's way in the bush, Ulric found himself growing slightly bored by midmorning. Thusly motivated he made the hike into an applied Thousand steps practice session. He kept the angles of his feet firmly in mind, alternated in half steps on occasion, and he would run through short sequences and then jog to make up the ground before repeating the process. The soldiers accompanying him razzed him briefly until Christ joined in, the two of them trying to outdo one another for the more ridiculously difficult transitions or rapid cadences. Seeing their royal guard companion seriously engaging in the training put a thoughtful expression on their faces. The guards were chosen based on highly competitive dueling and combat scenario games, similar to how the ancient Olympics were used to display combat prowess between the Grecian city-states of old. Young as he was, Christ was head and shoulders the superior fighter amongst these trained combatants. Even hard to impress old Idra thought he had potential.
Minds flashing back to more or less horrific memories of being subjected to Idra's brand of combat school, the warriors focused on keeping watch on the surroundings then and hoped not to be roped into more of that special flavor of misery. Aside from this game between Ulric and Christ, little evidence was there to suggest that this party was anything other than a particularly devoted group of outdoors enthusiasts. If, of course, you ignored the baleful gaze of Geyrt Iriel, a scowl that seemed to dare the forest to spit up something to deserve her wrath, and enough weapons between the lot of them to convince an observer that they meant to arm a small village.
The odd detail about field craft here, linguistic touch-ups there, and a particularly devilish series of movements designed by Christ to make ones knees invert kept Ulric fully occupied. It was with some surprise that, upon breaking out of a particularly dense copse of [Azure Cedar], Ulric found himself but a stone's throw from the platform of the [Ancient's Gate]. Time spent enduring combat drills with the Royal guard had paid dividends, Ulric's fitness had found a peak he and Christ stood panting before the monument to Elder days. Legs tired but not spent soon regained their strength as one of the troop, a heavily scarred Elf whose name Ulric had been unable to remember, activated the lift to bring them up the sheer face of the escarpment. Home.
As the platform soundlessly rose, Ulric, more sensitive now to mana than he had been when last he had ridden the lift, and now with a less mana-dense environment with which to compare, felt the thickness of the magic as they approached the plateau's surface. Heavy, cold air, laden with a certain stiffness he now attributed to sheer magical density, swept into his lungs. It tasted like home. Scents of the Elder trees, the mossy floor of the forest, free of snow thanks to the densely covering skyward ceiling that was the great Canopy, drifted up to his nostrils. Other odors pervaded, fallen leaves, and those of a more animal nature. The musk of a buck [Bladefern Elk] hit Ulric's senses, and he could have sworn he could follow it to the owner, so rich was the air with it. The others were no doubt aware of the animal's presence, if the scrunched noses were any indication. Pleasant was not on the menu with [Bladefern Elk], they frankly smelled like fermented shit and that without the musk.
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Unaware of the slight smile upon his features Ulric started forward now fully capable of leading the party back to the familiar ground of his glade. The Twins, high up now, though mostly obscured by a dense cloud promising snow fall, still provided sufficient bearing to permit easy navigation. There was also the panoramic vista of rolling forested hills, the fantastically ribboning Zelus, and, far more distantly, the faint mountain chain that defied his old world understanding of perspective.
Ulric had learned more about the geography of these parts, some from Brighteyes some from the odd conversation with Taipan, Geyrt, Ulric reminded himself. Those mountains were absolutely mind fuck colossal. Even the middling ones were Everest sized and the highest would dwarf that greatest of Earth's peaks. Nothing lived at that altitude above ground, earning it the apt name Skypiercing Spear or, in Elvish, Caelus Dor'yt. Just visible was that peak so impossibly far to the South that Ulric would not have believed it, stretching near to the outer reaches of space. Only the curve of the planet and atmospheric conditions could ever hide that mass of stone. Impossible was what that mountain was, the product of some ultimately powerful entity or magic, to lift stone upon itself in defiance of reason.
With all of these guideposts so readily at hand, Ulric could retrace his steps, and the glade called like a lodestone, pulling him to his domain.
This impulse was brand new and, Ulric suspected, deeply related to his title [Lord of the Ancient Glade]. Perhaps a budding instinct of similar source to his troubling aggressive tendencies towards all challengers. There had to be a linkage between them, he might have been an asshole in his old life but he'd never been homicidal. And there was no doubt, that instinctive reaction was decidedly more murdery than Ulric was comfortable admitting. At least the other facet of his Akashic nonsense, the one called [Warrior's Instinct] tended to pull a calming frame of mind into place that resisted the influence once the shit was on. Damned good thing too, losing your cool in a fight was bad for longevity, from what he knew.
Stats weren't the only influence of these connections to the Akashic record, the world exhibited its own pull on the denizens who resided thereon. Varda itself had a mystical communication with the lives that populated it, largely through the manifestation of whatever the fuck the Akashic record actually was. Classes, stats, titles, it all got murky in Ulric's mind and reeked of godshit. The real kind, none of that thee and thou wilt worship this statue every third day stuff, just good old fashioned Let There Be Light levels of fuckery. These were influences well beyond the philosophies of Ulric's old universe and he was distinctly unsure where in this whole scheme a reincarnated former engineer fit. If, indeed, he fit in anywhere at all. That could have been the Watcher's game, afte r all. A cosmic wrench thrown into the works to see what happens when it locks up the gears. Ulric didn't think that to be the case, not seriously, but, anymore, it wouldn't have surprised him either.
Breathing deeply of the heavy air he let that train of thought go. Spiraling and unproductive, there was nothing to be gained plumbing the infinite possibilities of what if, not without any means to test his ideas. A hypothesis without an experiment was the grossest waste of brain cells this side of string theory. Fortified, Ulric started to push forward only to be halted by a hand on his shoulder. They were a bare few meters away from the platform and the unexpected contact made him impulsively look around, Elven folk didn't touch casually, not out in the field anyway.
"A moment, Glade Chief." The hand belonged to Christ, whose normal good cheer had been replaced by concern.
The troops had scattered to canvas the Gate and the surrounding ruins near the landing. One, a female with ribbons of silver fabric woven into her short braid, looked up and shouted, "Here! There is sign, though it has been obscured. A small party, no more than ten, at least ten turns of the Twins ago."
The group drew up around her as she rose. His escort had grown grim, this meant an incursion into the sacred lands, again, and unscouted. They took it personally.
"This is ill fortune, Glade Chief. It cannot be allowed to pass." Christ said with smoldering anger. He and the rest had clearly not expected such a finding. Hands were unconsciously testing weapons in sheaths and gripping hafts. Ulric caught himself fingering the small Giga bear bone throwing knives in his leg holster and willed stillness into his hands.
Scar spoke up, gravelly voice hard "Word must be passed to Irielhos. Lord Iriel must know of this, and sooner than later."
Nods passed around the group of warriors.
"This is true." Christ admitted. "Which among you covers ground most swiftly?" He asked the group.
"I do." spoke Ribbons. "I can run this lot into the ground and have energy to spare when it done." She grinned as she said it, taking the edge off the jab. The rest of them greeted her sass with a roll of eyes.
Christ acknowledged her with a grin that vanished as he considered events.
"Then you will take the Gate and return to Irielhos, report what we have found here to Lord Iriel. I will continue to lead our party to Ulric Glade Chief's home, as we had originally intended. We will also be able to scout for sign of these trespassers and, perhaps, determine their intent."
Christ's words were turned into actions, Ribbons activated the [Ancient's Gate] immediately and descended.
Turning to Ulric the royal guard apologized needlessly "I am sorry Ulric, but this has changed things. We must determine if there is a threat to Iriel. None should be here, none would dare. No word has passed Iriel'en lips to outsiders of your killing of the beast. There are trespassers within Iriel, and this cannot be allowed."
Shaking his head Ulric put him to ease, at least on that score. "There's nothing to be sorry for Christ, we are of one mind in this. We're going to kill two birds with one stone here: get to the glade and put my house in order, and also find out who has the balls to stomp around my home while I'm visiting friends." A simmering anger had entered his tone even as he thought about the presence of strangers invading his glade.
It was back again, the whisper of violent intent. A murmur he suppressed thoughtlessly, not needing the distraction. Just what in the hell was going on here? Winter was on in full, only the massive arbors had kept the ground here free of at least a meter of snow. Blizzards would be blowing in fiercely, carried on a brittle wind. What would drive someone to travel all this way, through Elven territory, uninvited? At the least they risked the few denizens of the forest that roamed actively in this season, hunger driving them to heightened aggression, according to Geyrt. At the worst they risked running into Hunters on patrol and, in all likelihood, those would shoot first and ask questions later. The fact that they had made it this far, for a second time in as many months, meant that they had to have some way of evading detection or that they had intel on the positions and patterns of Iriel'en patrols.
When Ulric voiced this concern more than one set of eyes widened. One of the other warriors, a rare greatsword wielder whose blade vaguely resembled a great butcher's cleaver, objected. "None would tell an otherkin of the patrol dispositions, none who know them, at least. That they have a way to escape notice is clear, but I cannot believe that any would reveal this knowledge willingly." Cleaver declared with certainty.
Ulric was inclined to agree with him, nothing of his experiences with the Iriel'en indicated that they would have problems with moles in their outfit. They were too unified, too insular, and, if Ulric was being totally honest, too contemptuous of the otherkin. That meant that someone had figured out a way to avoid some of the best scouts, admittedly self-proclaimed, on this corner of Varda.
Ulric had been hunting most of both of his lives and he hadn't met any people that moved so easily through the brush or as quietly as these Elves. Earthen myths had been pretty spot on with regards to their sylvan prowess. Taipan had managed to sneak up on both Ulric and her own little brother, from the front no less, and take a shot in total stealth. That there was someone or someones who could bypass similarly skilled woodsmen was almost certainly due to some bad juju being worked. It also served as a warning to Ulric. Moving through enemy lines and setting up an ambush required virtually the same skillset.
Geyrt, in a rare occurrence, addressed the group.
"It is not impossible for traitors to exist, it has happened, rarely, before. Information can be gained through many methods, however. Passive external spellworks are disrupted within Irielhos but active intrusions or scries, if cast by a gifted enough mage, could get through to listen to enough soldiers to get tactical information. It would take a very subtle touch and a great deal of time to accumulate information this way without detection but it could be done. The potential also exists for enough clues regarding Hunter locations, gleaned from copied scouting reports, to reveal the most likely patrol courses. These could be gained without an active conspirator but, more likely, would involve someone connected to the regional villages who could also gain access to scouting reports in number to cross-reference them and gain a rough map of our force concentrations. Iriel supplies its scouts to most of Orlethrem, it would take a great effort to identify holes in our security for a well-funded and long-running spy network."
Wow. Ulric couldn't help gawping at her for a second. Who would have thunk it? Geyrt Iriel was a counterintelligence expert. In a way, it made complete sense. She had learned from her mother, one of the best Hunters her people ever produced, and had been carrying around a murder boner for otherkin ever since her brother was assassinated. What else to do with one's hundred year-long grudge than learn to recognize and deconstruct organized intrusion attempts? It briefly made him wonder just how many people this adorable, dusky vision had killed in her time. That…probably merited a short discussion later.
It was a solid analysis, Ulric, no great military mind, of course, couldn't see any flaw in her conclusions. She had also introduced a possibility that had never occurred to him, but which he now could not get out of his brain: scrying. Remote viewing or listening spells. It was one thing to improve your eyesight through some kind of mana binoculars or telescopic air lenses or some shit, these ideas had been tossed around in Ulric's idle brainstorming sessions, but the thought of magical surveillance from afar sent chills up his back. He needed to figure out how to enable some kind of passive scry busting and he needed to do it ASAP.
"Nahl’ir and Taipan may both be right.” Christ announced, “These are all good and fair points, I say. And all deserving of consideration for the powers that can act on them. Here and now though, we grow no closer to our goals and the Twins dance no slower for our uncertainty. We have, perhaps, enough time to get to the glade, if Ulric is able to find his old path swiftly.”
Ulric felt a little more pressure to get the team to the glade now, the stakes were higher than before. So occupied was he that he missed the glare his defacto body guard shot at Christ, and that Elf’s returned wink.
“Best case scenario we arrive by nightfall, the [Forest of the Forgotten] is dim at the best of times but that snow cover is going to be near impenetrable as we get deeper in and lose the sunlight. I can’t see in the dark so I hope some of you can." He told the group without enthusiasm.
Christ didn't seem thrilled at that prospect but agreed in principle.
"So be it, we must now move with haste. The time for easy pace is gone, we will move as swiftly as we are able, I would prefer camp in a defensible location from here on out. We go." Declared the young guardsman.
The group followed his lead breaking out into a rapid jog. Ulric was near the front, using the navigational tips he'd been teaching Brighteyes when they came through the first time to retrace their original route. The lack of undergrowth and snow cover allowed them to make excellent time.
Down the rolling hills, buried trunks of ancient trees long dead, and over them, they ran, jumping creeks and rock outcrops, around the massive pillars of Elder trees, on and on for kilometers. Cleaver and Christ were on point, to Ulric's left and right and a few paces ahead, the other two soldiers, near twins of one another, were a few paces behind and ten or so paces out wide to either side, ready to flank any opposition. Geyrt maintained her usual position in Ulric's shadow. His legs were lightly burning, and he grimaced, recalling the expenditure of energy playing games with Christ. He was fine though, he would be able to keep this up for as long as he needed to, it was not in vain the hours spent both with Idra and without working his body. Eventually the burn faded as his muscles settled into the marathon rhythm. None of the troops fell out, of course, they were veterans at least a hundred years Ulric's senior, and the party made a ruck that would have killed the much vaunted Rangers of the precollapse North American military.
Unfortunately, though it was as Ulric had predicted, darkness fell far more rapidly than was welcome. There was a glorious span where the rays of the twin suns poured into the gaps between the plateau below and the snow-blanketed canopy above and turned the forest into a prismatic golden tunnel. When that period ended though, dark swiftly followed, as if consuming the light to create total blackness. They passed a landmark, two great pillars that stood so closely that even the slightest of these Elves would have to turn sideways to squeeze between them, that Ulric declared to mean they were around five kilometers from the glade. Christ declared the trees a fortifiable position and, with the forest turned to pitch around them, a stop to the journey. Ulric chafed a little, he could almost taste the air of the glade, but agreed. With who knows what out there and making light being out of the question, they'd be a beacon for enemy fire, it was the right call. He didn't have to like it though. What he liked less was that they ate cold rations and camped without fire that night. It was a long, cold, misery of a night. Ulric alternated sleeping, laying there staring at the blackened roof of his travel teepee, and shivering to stay warm, even in his fur clothes the night air held a bitterness that seeped into bones. Just before his mind faded to sleep one last time that night a though hit him: he'd missed his evening balance and magic exercises. Fuck.