51.3 As Weapons

General Summary

Day 1027

Liliales and Qishali will come with me and Smolder to investigate the heart of the forest while Yneir and Aestien stay with the Inferno trolls.   From the air, Smolder directs me to a portion of the forest set amongst the hills where there are fewer forest trolls and it will be easier for me to land. I come down to earth at a small village near a quarry in the mountains where the Inferno trolls used to live and I get to see the kind of living quarters they used. The buildings and furniture are all stone and scattered about in a communal way much different from what I would expect of the more isolationist forest rolls. Amongst the buildings there are also flat-faced boulders painted with charcoal pigments, something Torch had told me that his people mourned the loss of.   The mist rolling through the humid, well-organized forest makes me think of home, and for a moment I have to fantasize about a history in which trolls and elves never went to war. We might have been quite close, with our long lifespans and peace with taking our time. The humidity is clearly not comfortable for Smolder, who cloaks himself in magic of dry heat.   But when Ausha steps out, she remarks that it feels wrong…it shouldn’t be so wet and humid here. And she’s right - the earth and trees still feel like embers what have been suppressed by the residual storm. The fire itself is not fully extinguished anymore than a hearth goes cold after a splash of water. By our shared estimate, if this place were left alone, it would take less than a decade for the forest to dry out. After that…maybe the trees will die off and the place will be left desolate, or something unpredictable might happen. Perhaps the build-up of magical energy will let it erupt into flame again, or it might catch slowly.   It does make the magical implementation of Torch’s plan much simpler. If we bring our own magical forces to bear, we could simply dry up half of the forest while managing the energy flow and allowing the trees to ignite again in a way that does not damage the forest or its surroundings. On the non-flaming side, we will have to dedicate more effort to putting out the deep-seated magical fire.   Regardless, we need to get to the centre of the forest to visit ‘the monolith’, which Smolder tells us is an enormous stone covered in ancient runes. The image he shows us in his fire illusions is as I’d anticipated - Osyr writing, though his recollection does not tell us what the words actually say. So our journey proceeds without issue, aside from encountering a single small moss troll gathering food. They are calm and unbothered, offering to share food with us before ambling away. As we continue deeper, Qishali sends one fox-self ahead to scout the way so that we are undisturbed as we travel.   Once we get closer to the centre, I can sense a faint pressure pushing back but Qishali comes to a complete halt. Smolder says this is normal for being around the monolith - it has a presence where the heat is most intense. I hardly notice the shift in temperature, but the other members of the group can clearly feel it. It is definitely Osyr magic, but dark and unfriendly like the ziggurat when I first encountered it; hhostile, but not to me. Once I realize that it is likely Imperial magic, Liliales can push his own presence through his bond with Qishali to take the pressure off.   The stone is, as Smolder showed us, a pentagonal base with faces of varying sides: One short, two medium, and two long, like a crystal. As I approach to examine the runes on each side, a flame-wreathed Imperial mage steps out of the stone: An Osyr Dread Lord. The poor man looks confused to see us all - a fiery troll, a spirit, a seemingly ancient and lost type of fae, an elf, and me…whatever I am. I give him the information and the presence that I think will tell him the things he immediately needs to know:  

I am Heiassa Duumn’ael, Imperator and Heartbeat of the Empire.

  Even without immediately knowing the words, he goes to his knees and clasps two fists across his chest, giving his name as Sha’an’derin. I greet him as a lost member of my Empire, and tell him that my sister remains alive and well in the Capital. He has been here since the fire was ignited, and so cannot possibly know the details of how the war ended…it will be a conversation for later, after we have worked through some of the details of this magic. To his credit, he does not push for answers before offering the explanation of the monolith that I expect. He looks doubly surprised to learn that the fire was (temporarily) doused by the remnants of a battle with the Storm - that someone battled the Storm and survived is notable even to him.   The magic here was the result of many lives and desperation, and contained a seed of hope for the future. Sha’an’derin is the only remaining member of the group that worked to construct this curse - he is the apprentice and Dread Lord of a Hand who created it. Kaide herself was evidently not involved.   The shortest side of the stone (the base) contains spirit calling runes which Qishali notices first; they create an energy siphon that calls on a place of great spiritual power beneath the ocean, much like the Great River and the Oasis. The two medium-length sides contain technical specifications for the environment being created by the working. One holds the definitions of the area - temperature, etc. The other holds the magic for containing the spread of the fire and creating a protective barrier around the monolith itself to keep it from harm. The two longer sides contain the most complicated runes.   One describes the specific cruelty enacted here: A punishment for the trolls who betrayed the Osyr to the Ancient Enemy after Kaide led her people away from the Covenant of Ten Nations rather than accept the Ingans’ offer. It decrees that so long as the twelve council members live, the flames will burn. And it names them all, along with their specific crimes: Trunk, Root, Canopy, Muck, Pinecone, Lichen, and Bark are the ones still alive based on the how the runes have gone dormant on the smooth stone face. Trunk, Root, and Canopy are named as the Three Great Trunks - leaders of the council and known to me as signators of the contract that enacted the Barrier. All three are accused of summoning Ingans to places they otherwise could not reach, places inhabited by lesser races, Imperial civilian settlements, places where the Ingans would break apart all resistance to the deal offered to the Covenant.   The lesser leaders are also accused of various war crimes, including Bark. My eyes sting to recall the dark-skinned troll who welcomed us as noble friends, knew me as a gardener when my magic woke a songwood seed, and who sang that seed into a tree with me. Surely there is still hope for some of these people, who must have been so young when this fire was set.   The last side, Sha’an’derin tells me, contains hope both for protection against the Ingans and for a race of troll that could be more flexible. They had hoped to bring up a race that could stand against the Ingan with fire rather than the never-ending cycle of water and fire opposed. And they had specifically hoped that trolls would grow to be quicker, more communal, if it took two trolls to plant a seed and nourish it with flame. Unlike the forest trolls, Inferno trolls must work together to plant a new being. They were imagined to be people who could join us, and they will be most welcome if they choose to join the modern Empire.  

So we were bred as weapons?

  Smolder is calm, taking in this news. And Ausha and I both leap to point out that elves were created as weapons as well, but the person who did that is not the same anymore. He nods thoughtfully. It will be something for Torch to think about, and decide whether it will be shared with the others. I can’t deny the wisdom of this, and I hope he will talk to me about it as he decides. Having known that fae were created, elves were created twice, thrice over - it has never changed how I feel about who I am and what my people are.   Our conclusion with Sha’an’derin is that we create a smaller obelisk to cover a small portion of the forest and shelter the Inferno trolls as we work on a longer solution. My own mind is roiling with thoughts over how to engineer a peace treaty with someone who personally still stands accused of war crimes against my people. I have no desire to keep the ancestral home from any of the trolls I’ve met - they deserve a Place. But in stripping Place away from so many Imperial citizens who were not combatants, who did nothing to engage in the war…I am not willing to forgive the named leaders just yet. I wonder if we can rework the magic to exile only those named by the original enchantment and only allow them access if they have changed their nature.