32.4 Smarter Than a Children's Game

General Summary

Day 490

Early morning startles me from sleep with the sound of a Frontier alarm bell. I'm on my feet, staff in hand, flying out to the perimeter in an instant just in time to see Jaeril and Trillium loping back from a pile of monsters in the distance. The other Frozen Shade denizens gather up behind me, Traelin and Maesha swords out but falling to ease as the two return to the village.   Apparently there were 10-12 creatures that the villagers have been referring to as 'crocs' - large river-dwelling humanoids clothed in painted patterns. They're clearly sentient in some way but not sophisticated enough to communicate with, unfortunately. They have been raiding the village every so often and larger groups live in the bog area across the river in crude shelters. Trillium and Jaeril handled them more efficiently than the villagers would normally be able, making it even more clear to Kaide and me that they will need some form of defence when we are gone. A quick letter to K'savi through Andstella tells me that he knows nothing of them either - river-dwellers the Nik'den have not yet encountered.    I leave the others to tidy up while Kaide and I go in search of Ilia both to ask about the crocs and to see if I can restore her shadow. We find her nearly an hour outside the boundary of Frozen Shade, staring out across the Sea. At first I think the Longing has drifted down to the shore but what I feel is actually her own magic resonating with it. I wonder if I felt like this in my first weeks on this side.  

The crocs are trouble...they follow the red moon. I feel apprehension as the red moon sets and it often coincides with a raid, but not always. Though the sense of apprehension is always there when they appear.

  The simple question aside, we settle in for a harder conversation. When she was burned by humans she felt like the Empress had left her. When her husband rescued her and then died, she could feel his shadow around her and she feels it still. I explain the Severed to her and how I was able to reforge their shadow, but I don't feel the same monster of light inside her, just the space where a shadow should be. And this time, I caution her, I'll need her to hold onto the remnant of her husband's shade that has given her shelter. I don't want her to lose it.   When I step into her space it feels not quite like the Dreaming. The landscape is scarred and burned with pools of molten stone simmering across the surface. Almost immediately I find her husband's remnant, Etsta'lin, and he bows before I can wave him up to stand.  

My lord always spoke highly of you. He said that one day soon you were sure to surpass him - I see he was right.

  He tells me that he met Ilia when Ankhatla had him leave his blood family and settle down elsewhere to build an unassuming life that would let him slip into places of conversation unnoticed. He had fought with his family, saying things that would provoke them into casting him out. When he met Ilia and she learned that his parents had thrown him out she was so angry that she could not forgive them and was determined to give Etsta'lin a permanent place in the world. She never knew about his connection to the Shadow or his lord, as it should be. He asks that when I return to the waking world I not tell her about him as a remnant - knowing that he is still here and she just can't reach him would hurt. But in time it will be proper to tell her the truth of his work with the Shadow and let her find a place with Ankhatla, however far in the future that opportunity may be.   In the time he has been here he has been protecting a tiny wisp of a shadow hidden amongst the landscape. The wisp is small - a young girl clinging to existence in an inhospitable place. Where usually I would feel confident blasting the landscape with cool air, I want to be more delicate to protect this wisp. Instead Kaide and I will work together to cool the landscape while bathing it in my dusk and renewal. I can shield her with my own shade and healing mist drawn from the Sea. Both Kaide and I can act as a beacon for the Empress' shade to connect to this weak little shadeling across all this distance.   It takes us the rest of the day but when we step back into the waking world I can feel Ilia's own shade present again and she reswears her oaths at dusk as my own magic is strongest. When we return to Frozen Shade her sight is beginning to return and we find ourselves mid-celebration for a successful defence against the crocs, whose bodies have been buried respectfully. Whistle says that they can't communicate enough to safely return them to their kin but we can at least lay them to rest properly by our own customs.   Liliales flutters up to me looking suspicious and guilty and admits that he snuck off the take a look at the crocs' settlement. He weaves illusions to show me the waterfalls where they congregate and the crude pattern-based magic they use to prickle like nettles as people approach. He says it seems like they get bigger as they age, perhaps they just keep growing without limit until they are slain. One particularly large one was being attended to by younger ones. He also shows me an image of one bursting forth from the mud, unseen, to hunt prey as it passes by unawares.   While I appreciate the information, I still have to scold him for the sneaking off without telling anyone. He's learned so much more from Miriam and Alder than they intended to teach, I'm sure. In the future he promises either to tell Jaeril or Trillium and let them come along if they insist. I'm not entirely certain that either of them is qualified to be the responsible adult in a group yet but being around someone younger often has a way of forcing it out of otherwise mischievous people.  

Day 491

The next day another letter from Tira arrives, dated two days after her first one. Seems like she hasn't received my response yet but I hope it will arrive in time. It has only been 6 days here since I responded and her letter from within the Barrier seemingly took 4 days to arrive. This one has taken 8 days.  

Unless I hear from you this will be the last letter I send, it has been 2 days since I sent the last letter. We are through the Barrier and on our way home. I hope this reaches you.

  The rest of morning is spent assisting Kaide with an enormous ice barrier for the village. It is several feet thick and projects from a central circle within the village connected to another near the Sea. She leaves behind a frosty container of seawater, telling them to pour it on the circle to produce an offensive array of ice that will slay attackers. She also warns them not to refill the container themselves - a surefire way to lose a hand to the cold of the Sea.   And in the afternoon we set off again for several days of uneventful travel before we encounter our next group of travellers.  

Day 494

Based on my scant memory of the area aided by the cartographer's pen we are about a day's travel from the canyon when we sight smoke from many campfires ahead of us. We come up to several brightly painted wagons with laughter and illusions spinning through the air from the hands of some human youths in fashionable Solace clothing. A slightly older man and woman rise from a table at the sight of us.   The woman, Lily, calls out a greeting to us as 'fae friends' while the man, Brandwin, seems hostile at the sight of Trillium. I realize that she is the only clear elf in the party. Lily waves off the man and welcomes us in as he grumbles and goes to tend to other things about the camp, leaving us on edge but hopeful that he's the only asshole in their group. Lily remarks that he's a 'fourth generation' member of Solace and it's not unlikely that his family once owned elves and faced the repercussions from doing so.   The two of them are chaperoning this large group of students on a field trip through Dreamfall and then on to Drognar. King Amytri feels that their mages have become too isolated and has elected to send three students from each school to learn more about the outside world and strengthen their ties with the other cities in the area. She chatters so openly and seems oblivious to my suspiciously detailed advice on their travel plans and the leaders of Solace, Dreamfall, and Drognar. I'm curious if this is her own lack of awareness or just courtesy to a traveller who hasn't offered any specifics as to her identity. We chat a bit more about magic and she says she's studying troll magic while Brandwin is studying Dwarven stone carving.   At Lily's urging we join their camp. Apparently Brandwin is truly the only asshole and all the youngsters are either fine or simply owe his family something and so are influenced by him. At the very least I have no concerns about Trillium handling herself either socially or in combat. True to form as dusk falls and we join in music and dancing around the fire she baffles a 15 year old boy who has been giving her dirty looks all night, insisting that if he's going to stare he might as well come dance with her even if he's a little young. He looks as red in the face as an apple to be dancing with a such a pretty young woman.   Meanwhile I corner Brandwin and engage him in talking about his field of study. Having tried to learn dwarven stone magic from Onyx I'm curious about what he's studying, even if he's an ass. He proudly shows me a series of carved tiles with various runes on them, telling me that they're a teaching tool for learning more advanced runic pattern magic. He shifts the tiles around like writing and shows me how they combine to produce new effects in the earth. As he drones on it's immediately clear to me that this is a children's toy - it can only be so powerful because it's for kids.   He tells me that he expects once he has unlocked the secret of the tiles he will be ready to head South and seek a place at one of the dwarven universities - Halls? My gentle prodding and questioning reveals still more of his distasteful attitude as he speaks with open disdain about Lily's lack of talent and her strange magic, citing the winter as the only reason that talentless people like her could find spots at the university, blatantly also saying that she's sleeping with a particular Master Axwin Ton to explain her progression.   He has such choice words about who is fit to study magic and the value of knowledge as opposed to human life. He dismisses the dwarven oral tradition as primitive compared to the written tradition scoffing at the idea that maybe those who died saving books from the library were wrong to do so. Even when I point out that a dwarf or elf might well outlive a piece of paper treasured by a human and so why wouldn't we store our knowledge in our minds?   After an hour of this nonsense I'm finally fed up enough that I plant my feet and tell him that I'm going to offer him a series of secrets, which I walk through like I'm teaching the youngest elf something truly elementary.   He glowers with confusion when I tell him that I'm over 500 years old. He looks at me with horror when I tell him I'm an elf, my wings flaring out behind me. It changes to disgust when I tell him I'm the daughter of a farmer.   And then I invite him to reach out and feel my magic. Usually it's somewhat rude to feel out another mage so blatantly but in this case I'll allow it - I want him to see what I am instead of having it explained to him. When he sullenly probes at my energy he gasps and falls backwards in shock at the enormous well of energy that I hold compared to him. As he is sputtering on the ground Kaide steps out from a shadow behind him (a surprise secret that I hadn't intended to hammer into him yet) and scoops up his tiles.   As much as Kaide has been my senior student as we have walked through bloodline echoes and gemstone focuses together, I have not yet seen her truly lecture. When she arranges the tiles in more than just a single line, shifts and rotates them, and throws up obelisks to place them in three dimensions his jaw hangs open. She lays into him with all the frustration of a senior professor to the brash overconfidence of a first year apprentice - they're representations of carvings and dwarves carve their runes in whichever orientation they must. It's not a piece of paper and ink, certainly not a chalkboard that can only ever exist in one orientation and writes in lines. Each tile has at least six points of connection and he's only using two at a time, like a fool.   I watch her dismantle his fledgling dissertation with fondness - it's a rite of passage for any young academic to think they know everything and have it so neatly disassembled in front of them. Most of us weren't so arrogant as to need to be frightened and thrown to the ground first.  

Stop trying to be smarter than a children's game!