Chapter 24: Chapter 23: Payment

Downstairs

With the warning from magus Eirlathion, the members of the village who had begun to gather in response to the frantic report of the night guards had all moved to the nursery tree. Those non-combatants who were indoors were advised to stay where they were, but those were a great minority. With the exception of those pursuing the road of magic, there was little reason to stay indoors other than to sleep.

Currently, all 9 of those elves in the village who were younger than 40 cycles of the seasons were upstairs. That number included the two who were miraculously born at the same time, from the same mother, less than two cycles ago. Many people of the village had doubts about the peculiarities surrounding those two, but most wanted to trust what magus Eirlathion said about them merely being ill, even as it strained belief to even entertain that thought at this point.

It was well known the dark elves would always seek to prevent those of the light from raising a grey race. If a woman had carried a grey elf to term, the dark ones would come and seek to either acquire the child or see it slain. In the minds of every person gathered here, there was only one explanation for this.

[This is because we allowed those children outside to play!] a bitter man by the name of Byron muttered. He was a younger elf, at an age of around 120. This was something of a younger adult by elven reckoning, well past the age where he was considered responsible enough to marry, and still strong and young.

The mere fact he was among the non-combatants of the village had everyone irritated at this young man already. He was known to be a coward, incompetent with the bow, and barely passable with a spear. He would not survive alone should he become unattached from the village, and the only reason they even deigned to share food with him is because he was somewhat skilled at weaving.

He was an outcast in the village for his incompetence, and he was well aware of this fact. He was also the loudest voice fretting about the threat of those girls being raised by the village. [Even if we accept the magus’ word that they are merely ashen due to a spirit sickness, which I don’t, all those dark ones will see from the outside is an ash-skinned child. Of course they’re going to assume we’re raising grey elves!] The man grumbled to the crowd of 11 non-combatants.

The others, consisting mostly of elderly and some adolescents between the ages of 40 and 80, all glared at the wastrel of a man. Whether they admitted he was right or not, simply listening to the words of this man filled them with a sense of contempt and seething disgust that even made the few who had spoken out earlier want to recoil from the thought of supporting any argument endorsed by this man.

None of them liked what he was insinuating, but more importantly, this was the worst possible time to take a hard stance on this issue. They were currently inside the body of a tree that had awakened a nymph (Sikitii). While a nymph was not as powerful as a dryad (Lukis) in terms of their ability to affect a large area, it made little difference in terms of how dangerous they were if they were actually inside the tree that the nymph inhabited. And this particular nymph had clearly grown quite attached to the newborns. Byron was treading dangerous grounds right now, and one wrong step could blow back on far more than just him.

The rest all had the good sense to realize this. This was the thing frightening them the most as this man became so much more vocal. Just a short time ago, the nymph had closed off the stairs to the upper level, separating them from the humans and the younger children, with no sign of who had supplied the mana. It could have been one of the children, but it was impossible to shake the thought that the nymph had responded to the dangerous talk going on down here. They were already on a bad foot, and yet, this man simply began speaking the same dangerous words even louder.

Seeing that things would only get worse if left alone, Calnor, the elder of the village, decided there was only one stance he could take. He had to make it abundantly clear to the nymph that this man spoke for himself and that none of the others were with him.

He pushed off from the table in order to stand, and then worked every muscle he had to stand as tall as he could, with as dignified an image as he could possibly project. He stood before the impetuous young man, looking him dead in the eyes. [Byron, you are going to need to choose your words very carefully when you speak about those children. The words you are saying insinuate you are considering actions that cannot be permitted. You are lucky to even be allowed in here in the first place, while all of the hunters and warriors are out there fighting whether they be man or woman. By all rights, you ought to be out there, and I am beginning to believe you should be thrown out to join the defenders, not caring whether or not you are able to hold a spear properly. If you breathe even one more word of this dangerous talk, it will certainly cause me to favor this action more than any value we can get by having you stay.]

The young man went flush for a moment, and then he had a look of rage. [Elder, you cannot be serious!] he said, biting back his words. [You’re going to just…]

[I am quite serious,] the elder said. [You are of fighting age. Do you not feel ashamed that you are sitting in here, with children and the elderly?]

[That…] he stammered. [I can protect you if I’m in here!] he said.

[With what weapon?] Calnor asked. [I doubt at this point the nymph would trust you of all people to wield a spear in this place. You are a useless man, and you sabotage the few paths you have to improve by the carelessness of the words and actions you choose. I strongly suggest that you make efforts to fix this impotence, should we survive this trial.]

Calnor would likely exile the man from the village if the nymph were to ask for it. He would not say that aloud, though. He was certain the nymph would ask for him to do so the very moment the words were spoken. He would also have to avoid even thinking these things should he need to use the green word at any time in the near future, lest the nymph sense them through the spirit energy he sends in the process.

The elder froze as he was in the middle of sitting. Sometime as he was shifting weight onto the chair, the light apparition of a child had appeared. He saw this the very moment he began to seek a more comfortable sitting position.

He had seen the spirit of the nursery tree once before, after it had first awoken into a nymph. Even if he hadn’t, though, this form would be unmistakable to anyone who lived in the elven lands. Everyone knew about the light apparitions the nymphs and dryads used to show themselves to others.

Calnor glanced around the room and noted that he was far from the only one who had frozen in fear as they saw this projection of the nymph. Of course, this would be the primary fear they all had from the moment Byron started showing the danger of a mouth, and there were a few of them casting fearful and accusatory glances right at the previously blustering young man.

[If you elves want me to protect you, you need to give me mana.] The nymph said in a short and biting tone. The moment after the short message was delivered, the light apparition burst into several smaller motes of light before fading away.

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Everyone looked at each other. There was no doubt about it. The nymph was definitely angry. And, as they had all feared, that anger did not seem to be isolated to only Byron. The younger ones among them, aside from Byron, had already all hurried to the wall in order to pour mana into the nursery tree. Calnor just sighed and placed a hand on the table. The table was part of the tree, and thus part of the body of the nymph. It was attached to the floor, and through that, it could receive the mana from the elder elves sitting around it.

He wondered how concerned he ought to be about whether or not some stray thoughts about Byron leaked through. To be safe, he did his best to keep any wisps of spirit energy out of the mana that would be poured into the nymph.

-

After the children had begun to settle down from the sudden closing off of the stairs, Nymph’s projection rose up out of the floor with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. Just as I was starting to get suspicious of that look, Rolwen beat me to the punch in asking about it.

“Nymph, you’d better have not just killed somebody down there!” he said, being far less delicate and far more accusatory than I would have.

“Huh?” Nymph reacted. “No way! Well, I wanted to, but I knew you and Asa probably wouldn’t like it. But I’m probably going to be killing a whole bunch of those dark elf things in a little bit, so it wouldn’t have really mattered if I did, right?”

“What?” Levin responded. “There’s a HUGE difference between those two things!”

“Hell yeah, there is!” Rolwen backed him up. “There’s no way that’s alright!”

[Wow! You guys even taught the nymph (sikitii) that language?] a human kid commented.

[You’d better not be being disrespectful!] a somewhat older elven girl who looked around 10 years of age said. [Mommy says it’s very bad to disrespect a nymph]

Our caretaker, Catla, who seemed to have taken up the job of separating Tia from the elven children, paled in horror when she heard these kids talk. She knew a thing or two about Nymph from the time she’d spent in this room.

“Damn pests!” Nymph commented as she glared at the kids who just interrupted her conversation with Levin and Rolwen. She particularly glared at the elven girl and then a smirk suddenly came across her lips. “Ok,” she said as she looked back at Rolwen. “I’ll show you exactly what I just did. It’s the truth anyway, so I might as well have these pests help out too.”

[Hey, all of you!] Nymph yelled out in Elven. The children all went silent in an instant and looked over to her. [I’m supposed to protect you all from the dark elves, but I’m going to need a lot of mana to do it. I need all the elf kids here to give me all they can. Just put both hands on the floor and concentrate on me protecting you! Make it a prayer, that will help if you don’t really know how to do magic yet!]

A murmur swept through the crowd at Nymph's words. Well, I suppose this could at least keep the elven kids calm once the fighting outside starts. If they get scared, now they will just pour in more mana instead of panicking and making a scene. I had to admit, this really was not bad at all.

“Wait, wouldn’t Asa and Tia be able to supply you more than enough mana for whatever you wanna do?” Rolwen asked.

Nymph smirked and looked back at him. “Maybe. I just wanted to shut them up. Besides, all of them together can probably give about half of what Asa is able to, that’s definitely enough to make a difference, right?”

I just shook my head at Nymph’s antics while acting like I was following the instructions of the girl who had been holding me in her lap as she placed me on the ground. Seeing as she regarded me as a baby, and definitely an elf, she was repeating Nymph’s instructions from just a second ago as though I probably hadn't understood them.

As I began pouring my own energy into Nymph’s tree body, I made sure to include a mental message with it. ‘You know, we are seriously going to have to do something about your attitude toward people from outside our group.’

“What? I do fine with Eirlathion and that Catla woman!” Nymph protested aloud, causing Rolwen and Levin to follow her gaze over to me with confused looks on their faces.

Whatever. I’m not going to argue this point right now. This is definitely not the time or the place. So long as she’s willing to protect everyone, we’ll do fine.