12th month, 26th day, 967

  Sylfaena

  With a wave of my staff, I launched an orange-red ray of fire at the massive black widow spider; it hissed loudly as its insides were cooked from within and plummeted to the hard stone floor. I’m in a dungeon right now, but that’s not important. I had spent the better part of the early afternoon watching over Maera, our prisoner, along with Malcolm and the White Wolves; our conversation was puzzling to say the least. I am beginning to have suspicions about the identity of her father. When I asked her what his name was, she seemed genuinely confused, as though she had never thought of it herself.

  “Everyone calls him My Lord,” she had said.

  Malcolm vanished from sight for just a brief moment, only to reappear behind the two-legged misshapen creature with compound eyes and tap it on the shoulder - that distraction allowed Victor to stab it square in the neck. The more Maera spoke of this overchief, the more agitated Malcolm had become; once we had left on this errand, leaving Maera with Guy and Rayna, I pressed him on it.

  “The bastard reminds me of Fayd.” He said, grimly.

  He needed say no more; I immediately held him in a sisterly manner. I’d heard a full accounting of what he’d been through with the Black Order - even from the first interaction we’d ever had I could tell that the late overseer had done something terrible to him. Fayd had used insidious, poisonous words as a knife to twist into his existing emotional wounds left by what happened to Master Merlinda. Maera wanted nothing more than to please her father, to hear him praise her for doing a good job - and often got the opposite. It seemed like he was bent on turning her into a killing machine and would brook no affection - and she had no mother or even a substitute motherly figure around.

  We turned another corner. It was dank, damp, and covered in moss - I could hear the rush of water. Victor checked the ground - he was looking for signs of human disturbances - and he shook his head.

  “Look at this,” he’d said, pointing to a spot on one of Lord Hanzorian’s copies of the Gaian teleportation network. “There’s one right here, under the city.”

  The Black Order had a habit of squatting in old Gaian ruins, so logically it made sense to at least investigate before we went looking for the armies. Victor had also said we’d need to camp out near where the two forces were likely to meet for the purposes of enacting his plan, so we would certainly have time for the magic-users among us to recover our energy. I will admit, I was rather intrigued - this would be my first time witnessing the results of one of Victor’s unconventional strategies.

  Then something unexpected happened - we met up with our secondary target. It stood a head and a half taller than Victor and was covered in shaggy fur - a muscle-bound man-like monster with the head of a bull, holding a battle-axe covered in glowing runes. A longhorn minotaur, this far north? My sister was the first to act - she spoke a prayer to Elianora that caused all of our weapons to shine with holy power.

  “First thing we do,” she had said, browsing the Adventurer’s Guild bulletin board, “Is chase rumors of people being dragged underground, strange monster sightings, that sort of thing.”

  Sure enough, there had been several persons who’d gone missing. Victor found some tracks outside of the city that led a ways down a mountain trail, and directly into the waterfall - behind which was a cavern leading to a broken wall and into this ancient Gaian ruin.

  But that’s not important.

  The point is that the "overchief" seems to lack familial love of any sort, and he’s a ruthless tyrant who uses independent marauders as a loophole in the non-aggression treaty which makes me suspect that he - gah!

  Victor had thrust with his knife, only for the minotaur to swat the attack away and knock the knife from his hand. The beast raised his axe for a swing. Rather than tuck and roll away and try to strike from the side or recover his blade, Victor instead opted to punch the minotaur square in the jaw. Illiana squeaked, her face having turned scarlet, while Malcolm stood there stunned.

  I sighed. “Stop gawking!”

  I cast another ray of fire at the monster. This brought my sister and Malcolm out of their trances - a stone rifle spell and a pair of throwing knives gleaming with golden light flew through the air. Our three attacks hit the minotaur all at once, and it howled. Victor quickly drew his arming sword from his shadbard and thrust it into the monster’s throat. It tumbled to the ground and moved no more.

  I sighed in relief again, standing by Malcolm while my sister attended to Victor’s arm. Victor is fortunate he was wearing a vambrace under his duster, otherwise it might have been worse. She whispered something to him…he seemed alarmed but he nodded and allowed her to take him by the hand, and so they doubled back to one of the rooms we’d already cleared. Sis! Is this really the time or place?

  “What the long-devil did she say?” asked Malcolm.

  “You don’t want to know.” I could hear her clearly with my superior hearing, of course. “No matter. Malcolm, regarding Maera, are you perhaps thinking along the same lines as I?”

  He crossed his arms, nodding with eyes closed. “I believe so. I haven’t had the heart to bring it up with Victor or Princess Illiana as of yet, but I’ve begun to suspect something based on how she described her home-”

  “It lies upon an upland at the center of a swamp, concealed by tall trees and an ever present fog,” she had said.

  Guy and Rayna looked at each other, a concerned expression stretching across their faces. They were thinking the same thing.

  “More than that, Malcolm.” I said, “She claims her mother was an Eastborn elf, who’d been her father’s mistress.”

  “She certainly looks like one to me,” he shrugged. “The epicanthic folds of her eyes are unmistakeable.”

  I nodded. “Doubtless, but remember that humans from the Dragon Sea also have the same facial features. After all -”

  Malcolm laughed, “I know the story of how the Eastborn came to be, Sylfie. You’d best save your breath for when our resident fish out of water inevitably asks for details.”

  I laughed, “Right you are. I do hate repeating myself.”

  Speaking of which, the faint sounds that I’d heard had ceased. Unusually quick for Victor, and atypically quiet for Illiana - it's almost every night with those two. Why do I care though…they’re practically married already, so this level of passion isn’t unexpected or unusual. Ah, plus t’would be nice to have some nieces and nephews while they’re babies rather than having to meet them when they’re in their forties - wait! Focus, Sylfaena!

  I shook my head and sighed. “The point is, Maera claims that her mother died of an illness. Malcolm, have you ever stopped to wonder why elves live for as long as we do?”

  He blinked, raised an eyebrow and stroked his chin, “Now that you mention it, I’d never thought of it before. The longevity of the elder races is something that I suppose I’ve always taken for granted.”

  “There are many factors, but one of them is the fact that it is very difficult for any mundane disease to take hold of us. Often it isn’t literally age that kills an elderly human, it’s catching some form of cold or flu that would have only minorly inconvenienced him when he was a young man. Our ability to fight disease doesn’t diminish as we witness more winters, and our resilience to it is significant - the natural mana our bodies produce is one theorized reason. The most likely time that an elf will die of illness is if it was magical in nature - especially if it was tailor-made to target our mana.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Malcolm’s eyes widened, “You can’t mean-”

  “Sorry guys,” said Victor, who had just returned with my sister.

  “I needed Sir Victor to, ah, adjust something,” said Illiana.

  If by “adjust something” you mean rearrange your insides and give them a new coat of alabaster paint, I suppose. Blast it - I just realized what my problem is: it’s been too long for me. Danger nothing, I am starting to think it may be time to start allowing myself to be courted again. That said, I’m not about to let my sister go about this unteased:

  “Illiana,” I said, then I changed my tone ever so slightly, “pray don’t take this the wrong way but I need you to,” back to normal now, “help me remove the minotaur’s horns - I can make a useful decoction from them.”

  As planned she turned beet red - that’s what you get. Malcolm was oblivious to my subtle jab, and Victor seemed to consider for a moment, trying to remember whether he had just heard my sister say the exact same phrase minus four additional words. But he shook his head.

  He said, pointing down the hall, "I’d best check to see if I can’t track where this Moo Mesa reject came from.”

  Huh? Malcolm and Illiana looked at each other, nodded, and groaned for some reason. Unimportant. While Victor checked the next intersection, I moved closer to the minotaur and leaned close to Illiana.

  “Hey,” I said. “What do you make of Maera?”

  She paused a moment, placed her index finger on her chin and her head slowly waggled, “Lonely. That’s the first word that comes to mind. Without even attempting to feel her vital signs, she has an expression like someone who is lost. The fact that she hasn’t tried to escape tells me that we’re the first people who have ever treated her kindly and it confuses her.”

  Malcolm said, having finished detaching the left horn, “You and Victor have a knack for making others feel cared for.” He sighed, “I know well what neglect feels like. That said, even my own father praised me every once in a while; he may have ignored me most of the time in favor of concocting some crooked scheme or other, but never did he berate me…” His brow furrowed. “...and neither did he backhand me across the face.”

  Illiana’s eyes widened, aye, she wasn’t there when we were talking to Maera at the inn. “So that I need not repeat myself,” I said, “I’ll explain all when we’re done here. Now, I’ll also need to collect the minotaur’s tes-”

  “Found it!” Victor called out. He was pointing down the left corridor. “It’s a subtle disturbance in the moss and fungi but I reckon he favored that hallway.”

  Somehow we all managed to nod resolutely at the same time. Malcolm took point to check for traps, but found that any that had been installed here had long fallen into disrepair. Of course we stopped to remove any pieces that could be sold for profit - Illiana insisted. Elf-Bronze wall spears, oh, that’s fancy - but unimportant. We made our way to what seemed to have been a series of holding cells; if this had been some sort of administrative center it may have been where they held accused criminals for trial, or it may have been where they stuffed misbehaving soldiers.

  But what we found inside was a gruesome scene - human remains all around. Not all was hopeless; for we found two children, a human girl and a cat-ears boy, still alive and very frightened. We gave them food and water and assured them that the monster that captured them was dead; at which point we started collecting the bones of the deceased.

  Victor said, “At least we can give the families closure; thanks to Meli’s Matcher we can find out who these people were.”

  I nodded as I went about my grim task. “Are you sure about this? Making advanced scientific knowledge from your former world public, I mean.”

  “On this particular point, yeah. Before DNA was discovered in my old world, it was a lot easier for rapists and serial killers to get away with it.”

  Serial killer was a term I was unfamiliar with, but Victor indulged me with an explanation as the six of us continued to explore the halls - he spoke in English so that only those of us with Comprehension on could understand, incidentally. Hanzorian was sitting on a few cases that had yet to be solved, much to the frustration of both himself and Justice Minister Tadakarian. While I was thinking upon this, we found a chamber that had been blocked off - which of course we opened up with Illiana’s earth magic; she was getting much better at the earth discipline, actually.

  Once I stepped into the chamber I saw a faint glow and heard a humming sound. Between four obelisks, I saw it - a perfectly functional and well-preserved Gaian teleportation square.

  “Stay back,” I said. “I’m going to examine it.”

  Victor threw his hands up, “I’m no better at tinkerin’ with magic devices than I am at fixin’ computers.”

  I nodded, “You can at least tell me what the system map says about this location.”

  Victor brought the map out and my sister cast a levitating light spell over it. I heard laughter from the hallway; ah, Malcolm was performing for them. Good call - though I was somewhat sorry I was missing it myself. Cared I more to go to the theater, perhaps I’d have met him sooner; surely I’d have recognized his name if I had ever seen his play - alas.

  “Let’s see here,” said Victor. “Looks like this one goes to the central hub, and also, ah, it goes to the Calvernian Wilderland - where the Mastermind was - plus one other. That’s right, I remember this one was eliminated as a potential location for his lair because it didn’t connect to Fayd’s hideout in the Grimdark Forest.”

  “Aye. As I recall, each of these teleporters connects to the central hub but they only connect to one or two ancillary locations. What is the other location you spoke of?”

  Victor said, “One of the islands off the west coast; ah let’s see.” He brought out the map of Greenreach that Hanzorian had given him and compared it to the system map. “Cloud Island.”

  I didn’t know much about the Greenreach, but I had heard of Cloud Island. At the Grand University of Magic there’s a course focusing on the Wilderlands - Cloud Island was listed among them.

  “I know that name; it’s a dangerous place full of primal beasts, sentient plants, and other secrets. Ruins even more ancient than the empire, some even older than the elves, are scattered throughout. I see, so the Gaians must have put an outpost there.”

  Illiana said, “Sir Victor, do you suppose that the Black Order has a stronghold there?”

  He shook his head, “You’d have to be pretty dumb to put yourself on an island with dinosaurs and think you were safe.”

  Why was my sister glaring at him? Wait. That subtle way the left side of his mouth twitched, as though holding back a smirk - I’m beginning to see it. Ah-ha! But that wasn’t important. I immediately contacted Nenewyn:

  “Functional teleporter discovered under Rivercrown City, leads to Cloud Island and Calvernia Base. No sign of Black Order habitation in the ruin.”

  After confirming that nobody apart from the minotaur and some creepy-crawlies had lived here for over a thousand years, we departed. The two children were reunited with their parents, and the guild set about identifying the bones of those who weren’t nearly as fortunate. The local receptionist, being a mage herself, was able to learn Meli’s Matcher with ease - that lessened my burden significantly.

  I heard Victor burst out, “Wait! There’s an achievement patch for that?”

  Huh? My sister was blushing and holding her face. Oh.

  Good grief.

  ***

  That evening, I had a serious discussion with Victor and my sister. Malcolm, Rayna, and Guy were watching over Maera in the other room while we spoke; I didn’t think we were being spied on but just in case I had Malcolm use sonic magic on the room to keep prying ears out. I repeated everything that Maera had told us earlier that day while the two of them were speaking to Mister Eloyd. Illiana was horrified, and Victor clenched his fists - huh, I don’t think I’d ever seen him truly angry outside of combat situations before.

  “What’s worse,” I said, “Is that she still wants to go home.”

  “B-but why?” Illiana cried.

  Victor shook his head, “The same reason Mal never stood up to Fayd until we intervened, darling - she thinks this kind of treatment is normal and believes what he’s saying to her. But this is worse - it’s coming from her own family, from someone who’s supposed to protect and guide her.”

  “That isn’t all, Victor.” I said. “This situation may be far more perilous than you or I imagined…”

  I told them my suspicions, and Victor put it most eloquently:

  “Son of a bitch.”