Ulric's gaze was drawn undeniably towards the bier, where lay Bald'rt Iriel [Lord of the Deep Wood], as near to a corpse as a living creature could be without being so. Distracted as he had been by the astonishing living core of the [Heartwood] above, by the tapestry of energy woven by the three wives who attended him, Ulric had not seen the spikes of silvered metal driven through his form into the bier, into the flesh of the great tree below. Twelve slender rods of metal pinned the Elven Lord to the Heartwood and, up through those magical connections rose the strength of the vast being that surrounded them, channeling its own power into the Elf.

Whatever they were doing, whatever ritual they had enacted here, it burned with puissance. His mana sense could barely see the edges of it. Like watching a storm roll across the ocean horizon, even as vast as the sight, the reality was still vaster.

Vedyr turned back to her focus, taking up reigns of some enchantment beyond his ken. Shor, turned from her task to levy crimson eyes on him. She was as aged as her sister wife, as drawn by the effort of their labor.

"Tell me what you have come to say Glade Chief. I cannot spare much time. We will fail here, but I will not surrender while life burns in him. Quickly now." She demanded, voice heavy with loss even as she struggled against it.

"The Bane is a targeted substance, with a very specific composition, a very specific signature both physically and magically, yes?" Ulric asked, trying to make sure his guesses were correct, so that the bounds on his theory were defined.

"It is so. The Bane is a revenant, a shard of the All-Knowledge warped to destructiveness and given physical form through the core of the victim." Shor told him, clipped tones impatient.

"You can detect the presence of the Bane through magic, spells that recognize its distinct signatures, even down to the last mote of it, yes?" Ulric asked, keeping his voice steady.

"This is also so. We can find any and all of the Bane. I can feel it now in each part of my husband's body, in each piece of his core as it destroys him." The exhausted Wife of Bald'rt said, hurrying him.

Ulric wasn't certain, he had not the magical expertise nor the familiarity with these matters to know if his ideas could bear fruit, but the basis was sound.

In the background. a pulse of thrumming energy pinged off his manasense, even though that was nearly useless in this chamber. Being here was like staring against the glare of a noon-day arctic snowfield, washed out with light but for that combination of physical and magical that made up his own arcane nexus. The core chamber was saturated with the elemental power of [Irielhos] and the most recent pulse was merely a crest in the surf that was the roiling energies. All of this, just to stave off the corrupting influence of the abomination that had been used to assassinate the [Lord of the Deep Wood]. They weren't even winning here, just barely hanging on. Focus Einar. Solve problems.

"Then is there an herb, a metal, a soil, a creature, some form of material that will bind specifically to the Bane, to all of it, no matter how small or secreted in the body?" Ulric asked, now trying to pin down the existence of a chelator.

Shor's eyes widened, some of the life coming back into her. "There is. Heartwood ash, mixed with Elf blood, distilled through a cooled flask. Mix it with the one hundredth a volume of acid of [Silverbore Beetle] and cool it again to near freezing, pouring off the liquid. A few other substances are added but they are stabilizing agents and help to separate the desired product from the rest of the solution. This alchemical liquid can then be mixed with powdered Aes'r bone and, dried, it will bind to any amount of Bane, no matter how small. We use it to ensure that we have removed all of the toxin from an area, and to be certain that the land is safely decontaminated."

Brief though it was, the budding hope fell out from her eyes and her gaze was drawn indelibly back to her husband's fading life.

Exhaustion and grief mingled again in her voice, "But this does not help him. In this form it cannot be delivered to the insides of a living being without binding the malevolence within his veins, stopping his heart's blood from flowing. It would kill him. And, even if you administered it, all it would do is attack the Bane inside him, it wouldn't remove it." She said, frustration welling, hope diminished.

"But does the poison have the ability to spread when it is bound so?" Ulric pressed

The Crimson Sphinx's mouth worked before she closed it, her eyes went vacant.

"No. No it does not. Even though it tries to corrupt the flesh and mana, the Elf blood in the purifying reagent binds, while the bone component isolates, even the magical component of it. That does not remove the Bane from the body though Ulric, we would already have tried that. What is your point, Glade Chief? What do you have in mind?" Shor said, still not convinced but slowly starting to open her mind to the idea.

Ulric chewed his lip, his fingers popping at his thigh. They had a chelator! A damned good one, if they were so certain that no further contamination would exist after the cleanup. This just might work. He was never certain about being able to make such a thing, he wasn’t a chemist, well sort of, but not a pharmaceuticals puke. Even so, if they had one, he might be able to figure out how to help them administer it.

"One more question Shor, and then I think I might be able to give you a solution. The binding substance, the chelator, does it still work when it’s dissolved in water?" He asked, hopeful.

Now she shook her head, waves of crimson slashing limply. "The powder does not dissolve Ulric, that is what I have said." She was getting short, and he didn't blame her, "Else we would use this 'chelator' of yours to help in the treatment."

Shit. Magic and material properties were doing weird shit in tandem. Perhaps this wasn't some Vardan fuckery though, plenty of things weren't soluble or miscible in water. Perhaps there was a chemical explanation. Something simple. Hell, what if it was as easy as the chelator had a hydrophobic component, a strong one? How to solvate it? He pushed his brain back through thirty years of physical properties, solubility theory, kinetics, and pharmaceutical delivery tricks. This shit was known, he'd known it before, he just had to figure it out. While the clock ran closer and closer to zero. Not helpful Ulric.

Ignore magical shenanigans, concentrate on the chemical process. Wood ash made the substance alkaline, reacted with the slightly alkaline blood, probably related to the carbonates, a heavy fraction of wood ash composition, along with the various organic alkanes and aromatics, particularly those benzene rings. Unless it was a low temperature burn making the ash heavy on three to seven carbon alkanes, and shifting the carbonates towards calcite instead. Fuck.

"Shor, does the ash come from a hot burn or a cooler fire?" He checked, ignoring her confused expression.

"The [Heartwood] must be burned in a forge that is already lit to create the ash, Glade Chief." She told him, still fixated on her husband but curious at the seeming randomness of the question.

Alright so calcite, benzene, small fraction of potash, mixed with the blood, it makes something organic, that whatever is separated out by distilling. The result, acid washed then mixes with bone powder creates a bonding agent keyed physically and magically to the Bane. Fair enough, it sounds like hocus pocus, but he'd heard of worse in a synthesis.

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So we have this complex organic compound. Then it gets reacted with acid to partially neutralize the solution, drive out the oxygen from the metallic complexes that have to be in there, thanks to the blood, denature the proteins to allow those heme groups to shake loose and, probably, react with benzene to create some kind of cellulose/blood matrix stabilizing the molecule. Metal-organic frameworks were an old tool for removing pesticides and toxic substances. The cooling further stabilized it, maybe helped it separate out from less volatile components whose freezing points were much lower. You got a liquid, a distinct, separable liquid fraction, so probably a low-weight organometallic sugar. Piss. Those things loved water, that can't be the final substance, but then you mixed it with bone?

Why the bone? Bone powder…mostly collagen and mineral salts? Carbonated hydroxyapetite, predominantly calcium and phosphorus, phosphates...Hey now! Bunch of metal phosphates fucking hate water, Ulric Old Man, they precipitate instantly. That was it then, almost certainly. The end product was going to do some funky pseudo-mana chelation but it was also going to tie up the physical component of the Bane. Hmm....he went back over the concept, looking for holes. It seemed sound. But what about the solvation later, to make it work inside somebody without killing them? It had to be forced into solution, it had to be.

No neutralizing agent added past the acid and no titration? They couldn't be eyeballing it, Shor was specific about the volume of acid. Wait, maybe that was only before the substance stabilized. Maybe the resulting chelator could be acid washed and diluted into water? Maybe? No, the acid would be too likely to break apart whatever complex is being formed from the metal-catching oxygen binder, Ulric would bet his liver that there was an iron binding heme group involved in tying up, not oxygen in the chelator but Bane molecules, fragments, evil spirits, fucking whatever. Fantasy magical bullshit on a different world or not, some things just worked and biology loved efficiency.

Magical bullshit poisons. For the first time in nearly a year Ulric felt like he needed a drink to cope with the stress.

A Drink? Ulric's head jerked up, his fingers froze.

A drink! Ulric needed a drink, holy shit! Not acid, alcohol! You got lipid and phosphate solutes by polarizing them and you didn't need an acid that destroyed the complexes, you needed an alcohol wash. Fuck! They needed booze! They needed that godsbedamned head splitter of a hootch. It'd work, it was a classic technique for solubilizing intractable oils and phosphates and it didn't touch the binding component of the molecule, it just massaged it into mixing with water.

"Shor we need to whomp up some of your Bane binder, I know how to administer it without killing him. Probably. But I'm going to need your strongest spirits. If we can get the chelator into him this way, I think it will be able to pull the poison away from the rest of him, stop it from creating new poison, and without causing his blood to harden and kill him. Best of all, if this works like it does back in my world, his liver and kidneys can interact with it, break it down for elimination from his body. The potency of this maniacal shit is how it corrupts Elf matter into more Bane, if we can stop it from doing that, I think his body will be able to process the chelated poison, given time. Time and whatever the fuck you guys are doing that feels like wrapping him in sunlight." Ulric told her, absolutely certain he could make this work.

Ulric wasn't a chemist and he was the farthest thing from a genius, but Humanity had been riding on the backs of giants for some thirty-five hundred years and they had a habit of writing shit down. Just in case somebody came along who could connect the dots. Twenty years of a classical education for the win! He owed his mother an apology. She always said he'd thank her someday for insisting and here he was.

Thanks mom, I might be able to save a friend.

Shor's eyes bored into him, dissecting out every secret he'd ever held. Whatever she found there made her decision.

"I will make the Bane Purification Powder, and then you will save my husband. If you fail, and you have taken the time and energy from me that I could have used to keep him just a few days longer, I will tear your heart out. Do we have a bargain Ulric Einar?"

It would have been scary if he'd had any doubts. Wait…no, never mind, it was still terrifying.

"Done. Can someone else make the Powder and allow you to go back to helping them do…whatever that is?" Ulric said, gesturing wildly at the circulating power around the other She-Elves and their fading Husband.

"No. It would take them too long and then they would have to transport it here. No, I will do it. I have the reagents at hand. For when all hope was lost." Shor admitted, profound pain bleeding through her control.

"The spirits I will send Choric for. Choric!" She snapped.

The Elf appeared, as if pulled by strings.

"Yes, Lady Shor! Your will?" the dedicated guard asked.

"You will go and obtain the Amphora of Vanished Nights, the good one, the one I keep hidden from Lord Bald'rt. You know it?" Shor asked.

"I am the one who has changed its location since the last time you commanded it retired, Lady, and the twice more hence, when Lady Bathe and Vedyr each ordered it holed-and-cornered upon discovery. I know it." Answered Choric, who then fled at top speed.

Ulric did not envy him the climb.

That was…an interesting image. Had Ulric stumbled into a domestic conspiracy?

"Even if this works, it will only delay the inevitable Glade Chief, there is still the Bane inside him." Shor said, weariness bending her posture.

Ulric nodded, he was aware. They needed a way to destroy the Bane's influence on Bald'rt's mana, it was this corrosion that led to the corruption of his core and the generation of fresh poison.

"Alright, this is where I am afraid that you Ladies will be of far more use than I. Here is the theory. The Bane is some kind of Anti-Aes'r construct, almost a malicious soul given physical structure, but it is, fundamentally, a magical creation, right? Which means it's sort of like an elemental Anti Elf mana. It interacts with normal Elf mana, and inverts it into itself. Sort of like a mirror flipping the image of whatever is cast in it." Ulric tested.

Shor thought it over, tapping her chin. Ulric could see her fighting through the days of whatever this ritual had required of her. The other two were so deep into their concentration that he could barely tell they were alive. They barely breathed. He couldn't fathom the kind of willpower it took to maintain that for a literal week unending.

Eventually, she gathered her thoughts enough to speak them.

"More or less, Ulric Glade Chief. More or less. It is certainly true that the mana signature to find Bane is a near mirror to the one I would use to make, say, a [Hunter's Mark] for any of the Orlethrem or to bind a curse to the Aes'r in general." She admitted almost casually.

A curse to an entire people? And somebody had tried to assassinate her husband? Whatever happened here, those people were boned. Ulric imagined Vedyr ghosting around their cities harvesting souls, Bathe crushing their armies in the field like a rampaging beast, and all the while, Shor crafted creeping death. He put the imagined vengeance that would roll out from this place out of his mind.

They used a Bane. Whoever "They" was had it coming.

"Alright, Shor, then I think we might have a way to interfere with the Bane's mana signature. We can create a mana pattern that matches the Bane in such a way as to force it to resonate, just like you told me unaspected mana resonates with everything. We force the Bane to resonate destructively with itself, so that it destroys its own mana inside Bald'rt's core, even while the chelator binds whatever poison has escaped into his body or will while you do...whatever." He explained, vaguely, describing his hunch and pointing to the ritual.

Shor blanked. She was gone, buried so deep in her own mind that he had stopped existing. It creeped him out. One second there, penetrating gaze with her full attention on him, the next, she might have died. A few seconds, three of Ulric's somewhat quickened breaths, and she was back, laser-focused.

"It is done. I have the resonance spellform. This was a remarkable idea Ulric, where did you learn this?" the Elf asked, distracted for the first time from her husband's ordeal. Or maybe just multitasking so hard it seemed that way to a guy with Ulric's limited hardware.

Done. Just like that. From a poorly outlined half-theory, half wild-assed guess to a functional Bane-destroying spell, if only it could be kept from contaminating Bald'rt's physical matter? In a couple of seconds? And they had the nerve to say Ulric was freakish?

"Oh. Ok. Umm…geez. I guess we should get started on the chelator?" Ulric said uncertainly.

She rejected that idea instantly, "No. You are still weak from your injuries and I will not risk your clumsiness ruining the process. You will explain to me this process to modify the, chelator you say? in as fine a detail as you are capable of, and I will implement it. Then you will leave this place and take Vedyr's daughter with you before she finishes collapsing from mana sickness." Shor told him flatly.

Mana sickness?

Ulric looked to Taipan who had gone somewhat pale and was sweating profusely. He scanned her quickly and saw that she did indeed have mana sickness at its initial stage.

"Sweet Watcher's tits, Taipan! Why didn't you say anything!?" He cried.

She looked affronted that he would even ask. "Because you are here and if you are here than I am here with you. I had thought that I had made that clear yesterday. And then again this morning. And then twice more." She said with familiar sarcasm lightened by a smug grin, in spite of her complexion, and no blushing at all in her ears.

Well, Ulric certainly was. Being open and having her talk about her, call it, athletic prowess, in front of her parents was a different thing. She really was acting more like her Father, ever since she'd stopped blaming everybody else for her problems. He liked this new her, even with the fangs.

He looked over towards the bier, resting underneath that shimmering colossus of a core, the whole place illuminated by golden fluorescence. He really hoped he had helped save her dad. He owed that wily Elf this much and more.

Shor had assembled a set of alchemical equipment while he was distracted and was organizing everything with efficient, tidy movements. You know the look of an experienced tradesmen when they were doing their thing and it was just best to stay out of the way, anything you did to help would just cost them time when they had to work around you. The rest of the room disappeared from her mind and he could have juggled chainsaws without getting her attention.

Ulric's brain popped.

"Hey! Who the hell is in charge of this place if you guys are down here?" Ulric inquired.

His Shadow tilted her head, as if slightly confused.

"Did I not mention? Heir Lumyt'seit is acting Chief of Iriel until Father can resume his duties, if he ever can. Until the war is over, all of Father's titles and responsibilities are his to dispose. There will be a moot, once the war is concluded, to choose a new leader, but until then Lumyt'seit is Crown of Orlethrem. He is doing very well already." Taipan said, pride in her voice for her youngest brother.