"Dawn may banish even the darkest night" - some verbose sage

  11th month, 25th day, 967

  Victor

  Howdy! It's your boy Victor Alexander Kirkland, originally from Texas in the good old United States of America, but now a resident of a completely different world. Together with my adventuring party, Red Lightning, I'd just struck a telling blow, a critical hit my friend Sakamoto would call it, against the Black Order by ganking "The Mastermind". I was cruising at about sixty miles an hour through some really lovely terrain, kinda reminded me of the land near Prague; actually the whole area looked a bit like old Bohemia except I'd yet to see a fortified castle on a hill like the one I'd taken a tour of.

  I wasn't alone on this trip. There were four of us in the Cadillac as we pushed east towards the kingdom of Kurvania. My girlfriend was sitting right next to me, an elf with long blonde hair wearing her usual green cloak, green skirt, brown boots, and leather utility corset that accentuated her substantial bust; Illiana Verissa tael Anaura, fourth princess of the elvish kingdom of Anaura. Gah! She snuck a rib-tickle and was giggling - oh you are so getting your ear nibbled on when I stop this car, darling. Sigh, my sweetheart is the cutest.

  "Ugh, hie thyselves to a bedchamber already," came a man's voice from behind me.

  I could see him smiling in my rearview mirror. That was Malcolm Kavian, Mal for short; our party trickster.

  "When Illiana is ready," I said, "She has but to ask."

  Illiana was blushing profusely, "I-er-um," She coughed and put on airs, speaking elvish by the way. She held her hand to her breast and said "I shall inform thee when this, thy princess, is ready to take thee into her royal bed and-" Her voice became positively feral "-wrap her legs tightly around thine back whilst thou, like a savage beas-" She yelped as a burst of force magic smote her in the forehead. Don't worry, gag-grade spells don't cause damage.

  That force bop sending Illiana to horny jail had come courtesy of Sylfaena Ardania tael Anaura, our party's dedicated mage, and my girlfriend's older sister; we all called her Sylfie. She actually starting treating Mal like a bonus little brother ever since she found out that her old teacher, Merlinda, was his grandmother. In fact she was like a big sister to the entire royal family of Kurvania where she'd been employed as a court wizard for, I think, like sixty years or more; she even used to babysit the current king when the previous royal couple had date nights!

  We were on our way to take Sylfie to visit her employer so that she could resign from her post; after learning that the Black Order was responsible for the death of not only her former master, but also so many people at the Grand University of Magic, including the teacher of her best friend Nenewyn she became pretty invested in seeing to their downfall. To that end she joined the adventurer's guild and advanced to within one rank of us so as soon as we had a chance we needed to get her officially added to the party.

  "Sis," Sylfie said, "I know that you've just fallen in love, but really." She sighed, "Victor, she'll be like this for a while, and by a while, I mean the rest of your natural life. We elves have a certain biological quirk - when in love, our desire to express it physically increases exponentially. You have been warned."

  Huh, that explained why she'd been saying those alarming but admittedly hot things to me ever since our first two kisses; she'd kissed me outta nowhere, then I laid the second one on her like that famous photo of the sailor from World War II. Don't worry Illiana, I'm sure the right time will arrive. Gosh, I hope his majesty accepts our relationship - was it really gonna be okay? I hadn't even thought about the differences in our stations, she's a princess of the elves and I'm just a scruffy-looking nerfherder. Ah, it didn't matter, all doubt and trepidation left me because my sweet princess had just cuddled up to me and pecked me on the neck. Huh that's right, if we got married Sylfie'd be my sister and Valyrian'd be my brother wouldn't they, and, also, oh yeah, I'd be Selafyn's uncle too.

  "That reminds me," I said, "How did things go with Selafyn and Valyrian up on the mountain?"

  Sylfie crossed her arms, "As far as I can tell, they still have no idea that they are father and son. Miss Rayna and Sir Guy I can forgive because they're humans and haven't known my brother as long as I have, but," she shook her head, hands held palms up in defeat. "Thanks to Miss Karga’s pattern magic and your advanced knowledge at least we know for certain. Sis, I'll be borrowing your lover's brain at some juncture - I must needs question him on matters of science."

  Illiana gave a thumbs up, sleepily. "As long as I can have my head in his lap while you talk."

  "Deal."

  Meli Karga, our sorceress friend who specializes in “pattern” magic, had been instrumental in proving that Selafyn is Valyrian’s son. Through various hijinks that are best told as part of a comical side story, we managed to get DNA samples from Valyrian and Selafyn and Meli found a match. We let her take credit for this "discovery" and I reckoned it was only a matter of time before it became known that one could check who is related to whoever else with a pattern spell - Meli's Mystical Marker Matcher, we'd named it, Meli's Match for short. Say what you will about fireballs, teleporting, doubling attack speed, or turning into a dragon or whatever - pattern is the real OP magical discipline. Folks living in a medieval world without modern ideas have no idea what the actual hell they are sitting on and for the most part I was fixin' to keep my damn mouth shut.

  "Don't forget, we also have more letters warning the various nations about the Black Order to deliver on our route," Illiana said, smiling, "Sir Victor."

  Yes, even though we were a couple now she still called me that, and I still occasionally called her Princess out loud too though I was sayin' her first name more. We'd gotten so used to calling each other those things that both had almost become our "honey" or "dear". Don't get me wrong, there were also plenty of sweeties, honeybiscuits, and even some nice ones in elvish that don't translate well in English to go along with them but for the most part we were still Princess and Sir Victor in most normal conversations. Of course we also had our favorite way of subtle flirting that you'll see soon enough; let's just say it evolved out of a bit we started doing whenever we were trying to hide Illiana's identity for brutally tactical reasons.

  "We're here," said Sylfie.

  So we were! Through the gently falling snow, we could see the walls of a fortified city blanketed in a mantle of white. There was a river nearby serving as a sort of natural moat around a sprawling outlying town. Naturally the biggest draw from this tableau of medieval architecture was the four-towered castle in the middle of the city at the center of a large terrace. Like most of the fortified settlements I'd been to, the city of Kurvenburg was divided into wards by crenelated and machicolated walls so that defenders could fall back and tighten up at great need; these walls had towers at fixed intervals in order to allow arrows and spells to rain down upon anyone stupid enough to try and scale the walls or bust through the gates. Kurvenburg was one of the cities that had come under siege in that war Valyrian was involved in, and of course he'd broken that siege himself. Once the elves of Tal Ayef had won their own battle, they marched northwest to wipe out any remaining orcs in the region - that included the force that was trying to take Kurvenburg.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Brr. It sure was cold; good thing I just had maintenance done on the car's heater before I got summoned here; I cranked that baby up while, funnily enough, a song about a man with especially hot vitae was playing. We still had no friggin' idea how that happened, by the way, but to be fair it's only been since this year's spring since I got here and I've kinda been busy. Anyroad, damn it, now they got me doing it too, we were fine for now since Sylfie could protect us all from the cold once we stepped outside. We pulled right up to the front gates, and as usual people gazed in awe at the other-worldly beauty in front of them. Hey guys I know she's hot but, don't y'all get any ideas; nobody drives my car but me and my party members!

  We passed by an inn, which Sylfie pointed out as being Valyrian's favorite one - hers too actually, he'd visited on her recommendation after all. Unfortunately, I needed an inn with a carriage house so we couldn't very well pick that one. It was already night time since we'd been driving for about eight hours, stopping here and there to catch a nice view and a picnic. The land between the Great Titans, which I'd likened to the Alps, and them cliffs up north, was rugged, beautiful and sparsely settled along various rivers and lakes.

  "Until you cross the two rivers that pour into Blackwater Lake," Mal had said, "the land here doesn't belong to any kingdom. They are independent baronies for the most part, each controlling perhaps one town and some farmland. No big cities until you reach Kurvania's neighbor state on the opposite side of the rivers, on the shores of aforementioned lake; oh, the waterfalls upriver of Blackwater City are rather breathtaking - gran-gran took me there once, you see. Lakes and waterfalls were some of our favorite places to go on picnics. There was another lovely little town with waterfalls near Avonia and Gwynhar out west, hmm, let's see what was the name of that place again," he snapped his fingers, "ah! Bucking Falls!"

  I snickered, "Mal, we found another one!"

  Illiana and Sylfie rolled their eyes, Mal said with a raised eyebrow and a wry smile of knowing, "tell me more!"

  Me and Mal had this sort of thing going where we were comparing words in Common, the main language of this continent, with words from my former world. Every now and again we'd compare notes about wordplay and found that there were actually a surprisingly large amount of word combinations that were similar enough for a joke to work in both languages - iron sounding like irony for example. Our bit annoyed the girls but, hey, guy friends needed to have their "thing" too ya know! I explained my findings to Mal, who wrote it down in his little journal of funnies - yes, that's actually what he'd written on the cover of the leather-bound book.

  "Ah so in English the word for falls begins with the same consonant as the verb, vulgar, meaning to engage in an act of procreation, or, a strong interjection used when something unexpected happens! So reversing the consonants - ah, I see it now!"

  Incidentally, the second usage of that particular word and its Common equivalent was the same in both worlds. Patterns gonna pattern. I guess people like to think about making love when they stub their toes or summat.

  "It's the little differences," I said, with a specific affect and meter, earning a quizzical look from Mal and a poke in the ribs from Illiana, but I countered with a tickle - gah, her utili-corset is too sturdy, can't get a lock onto her ribs! I gave up and just tousled her hair and touched her cheek - she leaned her face deeper into my hand and that was the end of that battle.

  "But seriously," I said, "I reckon we can visit on the way back especially if we're gonna warn whoever runs that place too, right?"

  Mal chuckled, "Oh I'll bet those bastards in the Circle are squirming in those robes," his voice changed to resemble that Baldric Neel guy, chamberlain of Cara, "which are so uninspired and jejune!"

  "Ha," I said, "Good one, wait, was that illusion magic?"

  "No, just an impression, I mean, I could use a little pattern plus sound for that effect, but why waste mana when you're," his voice deepened and he began speaking dramatically, "Already a thespian, who commands the stage to the applause of his audience!"

  I don't recall him ever showing off his acting chops before but, yeah I believed it. Reckoned I should get the guy a skull - ooh, I still had the complete works of The Bard on my phone too, I should let him read it! Movin' right along, we found ourselves a nice little Inn - we didn't do much besides try the food and drink, so I won't bore you with the minutiae of our stay. It wasn't as though we could just wake the king up in the middle of the night, we had to wait until the next day. Sylfie led us to the castle where she worked, a fairly normal-looking castle that I suppose doesn't need to be described so much - I will say that it was bigger and more fortified-looking than Castle Caradon had been but nowhere near as massive as the elven king's halls.

  Of course we checked our weapons at the door and we were led to a modestly-sized but well-appointed audience chamber of gray stone with a red carpet leading to the throne itself. King Morgan was about sixty-years old more or less, I thought, but already he looked old, wise and kingly with gray hair and a well-trimmed beard. That was the stern gaze of a man who meant business; the eyes of a leader. I knew I was gonna meet some incompetent inbred fool of a monarch eventually, but, not today I supposed. Sylfie and Illiana explained our situation, and what was going on; the king was surprisingly understanding about the whole thing - I guess the fact she used to tuck him in and read him stories helped.

  "The tidings you bring are quite heavy, and sorrowful moreover is knowing that you shall be departing once more. It is comforting knowing that this," he checked the letter from King Illorend, "Banderian fellow is a competent mage, and my son has become quite the accomplished wizard himself." He sighed, and his grave expression softened into a smile "Well, speaking as myself rather than the king of Kurvania, for my part, I shall miss you - Sylfie."

  Sylfie smiled, "and I you, little Morry," she curtsied. Aww, they just hugged - that was nice. Then Sylfie brought a stack of papers out and started speaking frantically, "Now here's the instructions for how to keep the guards and wards up in the main keep the maintenance schedule for the stone golems the items you'll need to keep in stock for Princess Katherine's hair care and the access keys to the secret passages that my replacement will need to rotate every few months or so and not to mention the poison scrubbers-"

  She went on like this for a while, until she was satisfied that the royal family would be safe in her absence; she promised to visit for special occasions when possible, though. Then, after introducing us to her apprentice and the aforementioned princess, we departed. Little did we know that soon after, the king would come under attack by the Black Order - but thanks to our warning, the attack was thwarted, and thanks to information that Hanzo would later relay, an entire noble house who had been plotting against the king for years was put down. But we weren't there for those events, so there's no need to go over it in detail. Just thought I should mention it.

  "So," I said, "what now, head down to Tal Ayef and hit all the kingdoms on our way back?"

  Sylfaena suddenly stopped and pressed two fingers up to her left ear, "A moment," she started nodding, "Hm, I see, hm," after counting on her fingers she said, eyes glowing,"We shall hie ourselves back to Tor Anaura immediately in that case. Don't even think of starting without us."

  She smiled, and turned to us. "That was Nenewyn - seems like our dear brother is planning a large celebration to commemorate our victory."

  I punched the sky. "Awesome! How far is Tor Anaura from here, anyhow?"

  Illiana pointed southwest with one hand, and had the index finger of her left hand on her cute little chin, "If we take the southern pass, some two hundred leagues that way more or less, we ought to be able to manage it in a day or two depending."

  Now that she mentioned it, we had to drive pretty far to the north before turning east through that gap. Reckoned we'd have needed to drive north anyways so it didn't matter if there was a pass close to Tor Anaura. Oh well - we knew which way to go. Yeah we were all kinda worn out still - it hadn't been that long since Mal woke up from his coma and it would be nice to get back to Tor Anaura; after all, I had to thank Hanzo for his intel and inform the king about me and Illiana. I smiled and took Illiana by the hand.

  "Can't wait to get back," I said, "After all, I need to inform his majesty that I'm fixin' to court his daughter."

  "Oh," Sylfie stopped, seeming to consider something, "I should probably inform our mother. Unlike father, she isn't in a position where you can tell her in person."

  She used her spell - "Illiana has fallen in love with a man. A human adventurer who saved her life. Summoned from another world. He seems marriage-minded. I miss you."

  A few moments later she repeated back to us the reply, "Wonderful news. Thank you for telling me. Send your sister my congratulations and my love. I miss you as well, my darling, and the others."

  Illiana smiled, looking all sad and precious - that earned a hug. "Hey, um, sis, shouldn't we also tell her that she's a grandma?"

  The look on Sylfie's face was priceless