Our first full stop, where I parked the van and could be confident I was done driving, was at a Ranger Lodge about twenty miles from Bardale. According to Dad, he knew a guy in the Ranger's Guild who had ended up being transferred to here, and that guy had, through an enchanted messenger pigeon, assured him that we could stay there for the night.

"Careful, carefu- aw, hell."

"Whoops," I said, watching the remaining urine trickle out of the poor deer's bladder.

The assumption wasn't ungrounded: boys tend to be like their fathers. Napoleon Ironheart is a master outdoorsman who could skin, drain, and gut a deer carcass in three minutes with his eyes closed and one hand behind his back. Therefore, Joseph Ironheart should be able to gut a deer carcass with a small amount of guidance and instruction from one of the Rangers.

Unfortunately, I was not a great outdoorsman. I didn't have what it took. And I had just demonstrated this by accidentally puncturing the deer bladder with the knife, spilling urine all over its lower half.

"I, uh... I don't suppose that's the sort of thing we can just clean off, is it? Or do we just scrap all the meat that got piss on it?"

"We rinse it off with a lot of water," the Ranger said, already doing that with his canteen. "Dammit. Oh well, mistakes happen. You'll get better with practice."

"Mm," I said. He was right that practice would improve my skills, but he was dead wrong about how often I intended to field-dress a deer.

The High Elves were not called that because we considered ourselves to be better than anyone. We were called that because we lived in densely-built cities of high towers, just like how Wood Elves are called that because they live in fairy glades which are almost always in the woods, and Dark Elves are called that because nobody knows where they live and that's how they like it. The fact that I was a city boy at heart was not a betrayal of my elven heritage, I swear, it's Napoleon who's the weird one with his stupid goddamn grass-touching addiction.

"How about you do the rest of it, so I don't screw up your dinner any further?" I suggested.

"Fair enough. Alright, watch closely. So what you wanna do is-"

---

We'd gathered around a bonfire as the sun set, and ate big, hearty bowls of deer and potato stew, seasoned with whatever wild herbs the Rangers managed to rustle up.

"So," the lodgemaster began, cutting through the chatter. "Joseph Ironheart."

"That's me," I said, after swallowing my latest bite of stew. I was learning that I didn't like deer very much, but whatever, free food was free food.

"I've heard a lot about your father," he continued.

"I take after my mother," I said idly.

"Tell me... how good are you at campfire stories?"

"Never done that once in my life," I said. "I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude, but I am not a Druid and I am definitely not a Ranger. I built an entire goddamn house inside my caravan because I was that opposed to spending a few nights sleeping in a tent. I know my dad's given you high expectations for what an Ironheart is like, but... That's not me, y'know?"

"You're an occultist who studies the magic of story and song," Faith said dryly.

"...Okay, point, but still," I said. "Uhhh... Okay, what kind of story would be appropriate..."

"Well, you're an elf," one of the miscellaneous Rangers (I would not be learning their names, I did not care about these people) pointed out. "How about something old and historical?"

I tapped my chin as I thought about the stories I could tell.

The first one that came to mind was the story of Terpsichore Ironheart, and how she'd united a Mage-Knight and a Succubus to destroy the cult of Demon King Paimon. And then I immediately dismissed that, because as cool and elf-like Rangers might like to think they are, they are fundamentally still Hikaano, and I'm not telling a bunch of strange Hikaanos a story about sex. Because that was the emotional moneyshot, for anyone who wasn't a direct descendant of Artorias Wind-Caller- the way that Terpsichore flipped the script on Volex, weaving a tale of love and redemption and betrayal around her, until a formerly cold and cruel demon for whom sex was just her preferred weapon became a noble, caring person who would betray her own king for the people she loved, who had shown her kindness she was unaccustomed to.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Because a big part of that kindness was that Terpsichore Ironheart fucked Volex so good she couldn't walk afterwards.

So... Time to pick a different one. Maybe... Ah, to hell with it, let's go real classic.

"...Alright, so," I began. "Let me tell you one of the oldest stories there is."

---

Six thousand years ago, there had been only two true peoples in this world: humans, and dragons. The capriciously cruel Fairy Lords of Annwn would abduct humans from our world, but a thousand years and several generations later, the Fairy Lords were slaughtered like cattle and their grand manors laid to waste; staggering back out of Annwn, and sealing the plane away from ours with the Iron Gate, came the hardy dwarves and the immortal elves, lost and homeless in the world that had once been their home.

The problem was easier for the dwarves than the elves- the inherent magic of the dwarves, plus their learned skills and culture, allowed them to carve vast holds into mountains, and begin building The Mountainhomes. For elves, though, they ultimately weren't anything more than humans whose profoundly traumatized old-timers lacked the good graces to die of old age.

The elves as a people splintered. The Dark Elves came to the dwarves, hat in hand, begging to learn their ways, and the dwarves, remembering their elven allies in the rebellion against the Fairy Lords, happily obliged; once the Dark Elves had learned enough of the dwarven craft to carve their own underground homes, they disappeared from the surface of the earth, never to be seen again. The Wood Elves found themselves longing for the lost splendors of Annwn, despite the overwhelming trauma of the Otherworld and the caprices of their captors, and strove to recreate some of those splendors, creating and nurturing rich Fairy Glades in the deep, untamed forests of the world. The High Elves tried their best to re-embrace their stolen humanity, and built dense cities of high towers, and welcoming humans into their midst.

Unfortunately for the High Elves, the Fairy Lords were hardly the only otherworldly tyrants they had to worry about. In the time the High Elves had been away, some humans, secluded and in shadows, had managed one way or another to make contact with the Demon Kings of Hell. The Demon Kings wanted the riches and resources of the mortal plane, for Hell had long since been depleted and despoiled beyond repair by their rapacious greed, and they promised these humans that, if they were to open a portal to allow the demons into the mortal plane, they would be rewarded greatly, and made a Duke in their King's new demesne.

One of these would-be summoners, a human whose name was lost to time, spoke to a Prince of the High Elves about the Demon Kings, explaining his task, and offering to share the reward with the Prince. The Prince, Mordecai Rosewood, had been but a child during the Fairy Rebellion, and had grown up knowing only the glory of victory, and none of the true cost of war. Over his thousand years of life on the mortal plane, he had been perpetually frustrated by the other High Elves- he knew just how effective an elven army could be, and yet his people refused to fight, refused to conquer the world that he believed should rightfully belong to the High Elves.

Mordecai wheedled everything he could out of this summoner, promising him that, soon, the time would be right to act. And then... Mordecai simply waited for the summoner to die of old age. He intended to rule the world himself, after all- why should he be forced to share it with some pitiful human? And once he knew he would not... He took a little vacation- he told his brother, Lysander Rosewood, that he simply wanted to visit the Wood Elves in the nearby glade.

When he arrived, he slaughtered the Wood Elves, and everything else living in that glade. With the unholy power of his bloody desecration, he wrenched open a hole in the veil between planes, and threw open the Gates of Hell.

And through those Gates marched the most successful Demon King there ever was: Lucifer Morningstar, the Dark Lord. The ranks of his armies were filled with special breeds of demon, crafted by Lucifer himself from the souls of humans who had been condemned to Hell, and bred into beings that we would today recognize as orcs and goblins.

Mordecai welcomed the Dark Lord with open arms, expecting to be rewarded for betraying his people.

The Dark Lord rewarded him as a traitor deserves: a swift death, before Mordecai knew it was coming. That he died painlessly was the only mercy.

From that point onwards, it was war. Grandiose, bloody, terrible war. Mordecai got his wish, in the end: the High Elves raised an army and went to war, immortal masters of their craft slaughtering demons like cattle, carving a bloody swath through the hordes of the Dark Lord, until, at long last, after three years of fighting, High King Lysander Rosewood faced the Dark Lord in single combat.

The fight was long, bloody, and brutal, carving huge gouges into the landscape, destroying their surroundings. By the end of it, their weapons- masterworks of artifice given the grandest enchantments their peoples could muster- had shattered, and become useless.

So Lysander Rosewood beat the Dark Lord to death with his bare hands. By the time it was over, nobody could recognize the Dark Lord's remains, and Lysander himself was only recognizable by the smoldering wisps of his soul still clinging to life.

Lysander recovered, under the care of the greatest Druids to walk the earth, but alas, his victory was not final. A Demon King, you see, is much like a Living God- simply killing them doesn't destroy them forever. A scant two hundred years later, in the lands still claimed by the orcs, a child was born with the reincarnated soul of the Dark Lord. Surok Mor'gash conquered the warring clans of orcs, and began the next Dark Crusade, starting a pattern that lasted for more than three thousand years. Only as recently as six hundred years ago was the mantle of the Dark Lord finally extinguished, by a young, half-elven knight sworn to The Mother, Elven God of Freedom, Justice, and War, bringing the world a measure of peace at long last.

---

"...Eh, you'll get there," the lodgemaster said, after I finished.

I rolled my eyes, and stood up, preparing to head back to the van so I could finally get some fucking rest.

"Wait," Faith said, before I could go. "Who was that half-elven knight? Don't we remember his name? That was only six hundred years ago- your own mother is more than two thousand! Surely someone who was there remembers his name!"

"You already know his name," I said. "His name was Hano, and he became the God of Paladins."