Chapter 42: 38: Sense of dread

Reader requested content warning

Cliff Hanger. You can thank Seipherwood for requesting a cliff hanger warning be placed on this chapter.

Eirlathion’s POV

“So, just what are they saying?” Erlathion asks as he is making his preparations to go out for his rounds today.

“It’s horrible master! They think that the only reason you have the girls here is for an excuse to keep the humans!” Nymph tells him with an indignant tone.

“Well, that’s actually tame compared to some of the things they could be saying. Have any of them brought these rumors to Everon?”

“Yeah, somebody did talk to him.”

“And what did he say?”

“Hmmm… that… I’m trying to get the others to tell me more.” Nymph said with a frustrated expression. The spirit of Eirlathion’s house actually happened to be one of the more intelligent ones. They were far more helpful, especially in the area of communication, than your typical nymph. Most did not really know how to even form a complete sentence, and had little interest in the communications and daily goings on of the elves who lived with them beyond what they asked for while feeding them mana.

The only reason the rest were paying any real amount of attention this time was because Nymph had asked them to. They are no dryad, but being the oldest in the grove still gives their word some weight among the others. However, it is hard to change their nature.

“Hmm..” Nymph puts on a thoughtful expression. “Well, it seems like he said to leave it alone, but… there are some confusing things. There is all kinds of things they are saying that doesn’t make sense. He did say something about not crossing a mage, but from what I can tell of what the others are saying he also said something about getting someone to watch us. Or, maybe they decided to do that on their own?”

“Hmm…” Eirlathion took on a thoughtful pose. It was good if that was all there was to it, but for Nymph to be this hesitant it sounds like there may have been more to the conversation than has made it back to him. It was certainly a concern how quickly this rumor had spread. It was only 3 days since the new arrivals got here, and already it seems the whispers had reached the people who might actually act on them. This shows how far their respect for him goes among the younger elves of the village.

“Well,” Eirlathion says, “either way, if that is all, then I suppose that’s good for now. Please tell me if you hear anything that sounds more urgent.” With his mind heavy with what was going on, Eirlathion placed his hand on the wall and opened the stairs to the second floor and descended them.

[rwighd inbesh inger] He heard the children’s voices as he came down into their room. [eft wing inger] He looked over to them, sitting in the center of the room. The boys were playing a game of some sort where they sat facing each other and brought their hands together. He had seen them playing this game several times. This time, however, it seemed the girls were watching with quite a bit of interest, and kept saying something in the mysterious language that the boys had taught them.

[wight bingi] One of the girls said something again, and then the boys brought only the little fingers of one hand together. [zwitch! Wight bingi] After this was said, the boys, apparently in response to one of the girls’ words, look a little flustered and do the same with the other hand. Well, looks like they’ve decided to add something new to this game of theirs.

Eirlathion floats a momentary smile as he sees the children playing, but that faint smile quickly darkens as he looks at them. As if all the problems going on around them weren’t enough, Aerien’s spirit energy she had been releasing was still reducing. It seemed that day by day it just kept getting weaker. He quickly activated his mana sight and looked over the girls. This allowed him to pick Aerien out of the pair of them in an instant due to the different way the energies behaved around them.

It appears as though Aerien was the one giving the boys commands for their hand and finger game. She looked like she was happy and healthy enough just to look at her, but her energy was still declining every day.

This was beginning to become concerning. Eirlathion knew of only one way that a fey would actually release spirit energy. That was if they had made it to the very highest levels of magecraft. A bit over a week ago, Aerien had been releasing a level of energy that was comparable to the queen herself. Now, it was less than half what it was before.

Really, the most unnatural thing about her releasing spirit energy in the first place was her young age. There was no possible way she could have studied magecraft to the level necessary for what he had felt from her at her age. Other than that, this could offer something of an explanation for where the energy was coming from, except for the fact that it was reducing now.

The children seemed to notice Eirlathion watching them, causing them to stop their game and look over in his direction. He gave them a light smile and then opened the way to the first floor, which now remained closed at all times someone wasn’t using the stairs ever since Túeth started living here. It seems she didn’t like how the children kept coming down the stairs on their own.

Eirlathion’s mind was clouded. It seemed life had only continued to grow more and more complicated. There was the imminent and most urgent threat of some action being taken by Everon weighing most heavily on his mind, and since the beginning he was having to worry about Túeth’s strained relationship with her daughters. As if that was not complicated enough, there was also the big unknown of Aerien’s spirit energy in the first place. It was an unknown before, but now that its rise had turned into a fall it just sparked even more concern.

If the circumstances were better, Eirlathion would be closely observing and examining that girl for everything that might explain what was happening in her spirit. As things were though, he simply could not afford the time needed to figure things out. All he could do is hope that whatever is happening to her will not cause her permanent harm.

He looked over to Túeth, his apprentice. She was sitting on her matt on the floor, positioned right in front of her bed they had set up for her down here taking up half the alcove that used to be the entire cultivation mat when Eirlathion had been using it. He had offered to have her sleep upstairs with the children, but it seemed she simply was not ready for that yet.

She appeared to have just been working on her cultivation. She had likely long since reached the point where she could form her first apprentice level spell by now, but he had not even had the time to teach her with all that had been going on. Instead, she had simply been told to go on to refine the spell vessel she had already formed and gave her some brief instructions on how to manage that.

She was likely intelligent enough that, with the lessons he had given her so far, she could form the spell on her own. However, she might have to go outside to do that, and as things were now he could not afford to have the house without any adults in it.

She gave him a nod and then averted her eyes. This has been a pattern that has repeated almost every morning since Túeth started living here. She was usually very quiet. It was more than that though. Being quiet is one thing, but the constant nervousness and the pain that he saw every time he looked in her eyes was a constant reminder that she was probably every bit as vulnerable as those children. And yet, she was the only one who he could trust to be with them while he was out.

“I’ll be heading out.” Eirlathion says. “You should probably not leave the house today, not even for a moment. There are some rumors going around now about the girls. Some of the new residents here might want to question you on them, I’m pretty certain you’re not ready for that.”

“Ah...” She responds with a nod, after which her face tightens with worry. Yes, it’s pretty obvious that if she came under any kind of hostile questioning, there is no way she would be able to handle it in her current state. She already showed some signs of torment when she was brought to this village two years ago, but now ever since the threat of the tainted elves was revealed she has been looking worse and worse by the day.

“Túeth!” He called out to her, causing her face to snap up with a jump and look at him. “It’s going to be Ok. The reason we are putting in all this effort to protect the village is so that nothing else like what happened to you occurs again.”

“Y.. yeah.”She stutters and nods.

“Alright, take care of yourself. I am going to go and begin my work for today.”

“Yeah.” She says again. Her face at least looks a little better, although there is some question as to whether that’s because his words have had an impact or if she’s only responding to the fact he’s trying to cheer her up. To assess things honestly, it is far more likely to be the latter. There is not much more he can do or say in this situation though. That being the case, all he can do is simply accept it and walk out the door.

He looks back as he leaves and notices Túeth has closed her eyes and turned her head away. He has noticed her doing this before. He does not understand this behavior, but he has never asked. It most likely has something to do with her trauma, and that does not seem to be something she seems ready to talk about.

-

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“It looks like we are just about done here.” Calanor said, casting an appraising glance over the vine wall that was now lined with large thorny pushes climbing the entire thing. They had meant to only place the thorny plants on the trees, but then Laeril had started climbing on the vine walls, bringing their attention to the fact that it was indeed very scalable. It was clearly something they would have to act on.

“Hmm...” Eirlathion gave a simple grunt in response. It was currently his turn to be on break. This was the routine they had fallen into. He and Sainel would each take turns working alone to cast their plant growth spells, and then the apprentices would all take a third shift together. In this manner, they each got a chance to recover their mana. The addition of Sainel had been a great help in this. Before she had arrived, they had large periods of dead time where everyone was recovering their mana. With her addition, the time between active shifts left each of them with about enough time to make a full recovery.

“Alright, that looks good” Saniel said, stepping back and nodding in appreciation at her own work. “Shall we move on to the next section?”

Suddenly, the honking of a water fowl was heard from overhead. It was a strange enough sound to hear that all of them looked up to see what was making that sound. Around in the forrest, such animals were almost never seen. Not the natural animals anyway. In fact, these migratory water fowl were a popular form taken on by changelings who wished to travel long distances due to this animal’s incredible stamina in flight. Having visited the capital enough times, Eirlathion was immediately aware of these facts and held a stiff expression as he saw the bird flying down directly toward their location.

The muddy brown colored bird landed not so gracefully on the forest floor, kicking up a lot of leaves. “What kind of bird is that?” Laeril questioned, pointing and taking a step forward. Ceren quickly grabbed her shoulder and then looked forward with a stiff expression. An expression shared by all the rest of the adults there as the water fowl, quite as expected, began to deform into a grayish ooze that began to grow larger and take the form of a man.

The man’s skin was pure white for a second, with the slightest tinge of pink as blue and red blood vessels were visible under his skin. However, that skin quickly turned a pale shade of blue. This was not the natural color of a changeling’s skin. However, they often found that their naturally transparent white skin that was so devoid of pigment that one could see the blood vessels beneath tended to unsettle people. As such, even in their natural form, it was typical of them to use their transformation abilities to still alter the color of their skin.

The skin color alone though was not the most unsettling part of their appearance, although it didn’t help much. It was the fact that their eyes actually had no natural color to them at all. If one were to look at their eyes, they would be able to see straight through the clear surface to the back of the retina as it glowed an orange tinted shade of pink within those sockets. This disturbing sight was also handled with transformation powers, and it was somewhat typical for a changeling to have developed the habit of keeping their eyes closed as they were transforming back to their natural form until they could alter the pigment of their skin and eyes.

As the man turned to the group of them, he opened his large eyes, over three times the size of a normal elf’s eyes. He had pigmented them completely black. The large black eyes looked them over for a moment.

“A changeling!?” Laeril exclaimed as she realized what she was looking at.

“Hey!” Ceren barked at her, giving her arm a momentary squeeze. “Don’t be rude.”

“It’s quite alright.” The changeling man said to them with a slight chuckle and a voice that did not sound entirely male or female. His features were most certainly masculine, but if it weren’t for his physical build then it would be quite hard to tell his gender from voice alone. “I am Sagel, I was sent by the royal court as a war advisor to the fey dragon who was sent here. I take it you are the mages in charge of turning this village into a fortress?”

“That is correct.” Eirlathion replies. “We were just in the middle of placing thorny plants on the exterior of the walls in order to keep enemies from climbing them.”

“Hmm... well, that’s a good line of thought I suppose.” the changeling, Sagel, responds. “However, overall your defenses really do speak to the fact that you’ve never had to deal with a siege before. They are absolutely aweful.”

Eirlathion could see Ceren and Jedon nearly jump with that criticism. Even Calanor’s brows furrow a little, and little Laeril simply can’t help but have the emotions she’s feeling show on her face. Eirlathion himself however simply gives a nod. “I suspected as much, I suppose a changeling who has seen the fortifications the humans pose against the several sieges their war-like race has to endure would have some advice for us?”

“Of course, that’s exactly what I’m here for. I thought I would introduce myself to you first as I came in since I will likely be spending a great deal of my time working with you for a while.” Sagel said, giving them a friendly smile. “Anyway, I would recommend you stop wasting your time with what you are doing right now. There are several things that will have to be changed.” He says, and then looks toward Eirlathion. “You seem to have access to fifth tier magic, what spells have you set at that level?”

“I only recently gained access to the fifth tier.” Eirlathion tells him. “I have yet to set any spells.”

“Good, that’s very good.” Sagel says. “I want you to set the living arbor spell once you have the mana fully established. You are off duty until you have done so. I assume there is no dryad here, you wouldn’t be working at this yourselves otherwise, so having a 9th level mage with that spell is the next best thing. At any rate, how about you all take a break and show me in?”

“Certainly.” Eirlathion said, leading the way toward the gate. Once it was open and everyone was through to the other side, they could see there was some commotion near the center of the village. It seemed there were a lot of people gathered. As they approached, Eirlathion saw that it was his house everyone was gathered around, and floating above them was Everon suspended in the air by his anti-gravity magic with his serpentine form as his wings were held out like an umbrella over everyone’s head as he was looking straight at the house.

Eirlathion looked up and noticed the second story window was broken, there was a vine hanging loosely near it. It was pretty easy to figure out what had happened. A sense of absolute dread fell over Eirlathion and he started running. Before he could cross even half the distance, a sudden tremor occurred, causing everyone around to stir in panic. Right before Eirlathion’s eyes, his house began to grow at an alarmingly fast rate. The sides expanded, and he could see the top growing straight up.

After this already strange phenomenon, several particles of green light appeared outside the house directly between Everon and the house. The light coalesced into a genderless long green-haired humanoid form, about the size of an adult man and dressed in flowing light robes with various embroidery that looked like it was made of living vines and leaves.

A dryad!? But how? And, in front of his house too... that would mean, this dryad absolutely had to be... Before he could complete that thought, the dryad opened their eyes and glared straight at Everon. “YOU DID THIS! YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!!!”

At those words, absolutely filled with all the hate and anger imaginable, every tree and vine in the entire village began to move on its own. A large branch swung down on the back of the fey dragon’s head, causing him to shriek with a roar of fright. As he tried to begin flying away, he was caught and tied by several vines. By this time, the crowd of gathered people were absolutely screaming in fright and running as best they could to get away from this battle between the strongest class of nature spirit and the strongest class of fey.

Everon wreathed himself in a coat of white flames. In response to this, the entire tree that was Eirlathion’s home began to glow an intense shade of green. This green aura traveled down the ivy vines that were attached from it, and protected them from the flame. The vines began to constrict the fey dragon until finally one that had coiled around his left wing pulled it right off of his serpentine body, causing Everon to let out a large cry of distress.

“A dryad!?” Sagel shrieked as he caught up. “In the queen’s name, how could he have been so colossally stupid to have offended a dryad!?” Sagel was shaking with shock and rage as he looked on at the scene playing out in front of him.

Indeed, that would be foolish if he had known they were a dryad to start with. For a newly born dryad though, they were incredibly powerful. Just where had all this power come from? No, that’s not important. The better question is, what had enraged nymp enough to have brought this all on? Eirlathion’s earlier feeling of dread grew several times over at the thought. He began running directly into the heat of the battle as the severed wing fell to the ground with a thump.

“Nymph! I mean.. Dryad! What’s going on!?”

“AHHH!!!” Dryad lets out a cry of pain, clutching their head. “It... it’s too much!” Even as Dryad screams in distress, the vines continue to tighten around the helpless fey dragon, this time tightening around his mid section so tightly that it cuts straight through his body, causing his tail to fall to the ground.

Suddenly, the green glow around the tree fades to dark, causing Dryad to turn and look up, suddenly completely lucid. “It stopped? NO!!” they cry, and then turn to Eirlathion with a look of desperation. “Master! Quick! It’s Aerien!”

Eirlathion cursed in his mind. He had suspected as much, but now... as he was about to make a run toward the house, the door opened, and Túeth came running out clutching a limp child in her arms that could only have been the very one Dryad was distressed over. Her white dress was stained with blood all across the left side from arm-pit to thigh. The stunning sight seemed to confirm his worst fears as he looked over her limp form from which he could no longer feel even a trickle of spirit or mana energy.

Author's note

Err... yeah. Welcome to another multi-perspective scenario everybody. Also, finally the action hit! Errr... yay?

(Also, it's never a good sign when the chapter before the one you are currently reading has the words "the calm" in it.)

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