Chapter 134: Book 3 chapter 35

Astari drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair as he thought, the annoyance clear on his face as he looked out of his “modest” home towards the false village that now housed the human crew. 

He was slightly thankful Eryl had chosen to remain with her crew for the night, giving him time to prepare a proper greeting for a one such as her, but she still confounded the man. Why would a clearly high-born elf choose to remain with the humans instead of her own kind? Moreover, how did she even come to be on a human ship?

He recalled Tinaka’s brief report the night before, but that just left him with more questions. How does one like Eryl become captain of a pirate ship? Why did they introduce that human as captain when they arrived? Then there are the two girls Tinaka couldn’t read… 

Astari clicked his tongue as he stood, “This is what happens when you rely on your lesser.” He could admit that Tinaka was a competent mage, but in the end, he was still just a low born elf. Even with all of Tinaka’s achievements, Astari was wrong to trust him with such an important task. And now he would have to clean up the mess the elderly elf left after getting himself attacked. 

Astari shook his head as he made his way into his home, selecting two of his helpers he started preparing for the day. 

With little more than a glance, he started speaking, gesturing to one of them lazely. “I require you to go to the great tree and request a healer from the council. Inform them that it is not a dire situation, so they can come at their leisure.” He dismissed the slightly flustered elven youth with a wave of his hand. 

There were faster ways to summon a healer but Astari didn’t see the point, Tinaka may have more information about Eryl but in the end he himself wasn’t worth the effort of alerting the council to the humans just yet. If he sent a courier, it would take a minimum of a week for anyone to come, giving him more than enough time to sort this all out.

“As for you,” Astari pulled a rolled-up scroll from his robes, “Collect these items and have them delivered to the port. Speak not of anything you may see while there, understand?” Tinaka did manage to come to some form of deal with the humans, and Astari saw no reason to go against the agreement. If all goes well the humans will be gone in a day or two and Eryl did seem to be concerned about them; yes Tinaka was indisposed, but one low born elf was a small price to pay if he could curry favor with her. After all, she did tell him she had no intentions of leaving on the ship, so, if need be, he could always send a handful of his own men out after they depart and reacquire whatever is lost.

 He tapped his chin as he thought of what to do next. The humans were an annoyance but a temporary one; Rilitar and his men should be more than enough to keep them in check, even if he did manage to lose that girl yesterday. 

But it will be a good deterrent for them. If Tinaka is to be believed, apparently the man they called captain feared the missing girl. If that’s the case, it should keep them from wandering off. And it did give me a chance to impress on Eryl the dangers of the forest, she even accepted the escort of guards to keep her safe. 

Yes it was tragic, the small creature’s death, after all Astari had never seen one of her kind before. But in the end these things happen, the creature was not all that impressive if it wandered off and got itself killed that easily. Just another beast likely, hopefully the scouts can recover part of her body, Astari was sure some of the more eccentric elves around the great tree would be interested to know about whatever she was. If nothing else his brother would like to know about another race, he was after all the council member in charge of defending the western border.  

As for the other two Eryl said were planning on accompanying her when the pirates left, the healer with the bad leg and the girl in all black armor, what to do about them? Astari didn’t really see the harm if Eryl wished to keep the two of them, the healer could be useful to have around, and the armored girl… 

He thought about the meek looking human who wore what humans would call “mage armor”, having seen her several times the day before, she was… odd. She was the only crew member that was not interviewed, yet every time he caught a glimpse of her she would quickly hurry away from him as if afraid… no matter, if she understands that much then she should not be a problem.

He dismissed the two girls from his thoughts as he focused on Eryl herself. Astari had spent the better half of the night pouring over the sparse documents he had on hand and still found nothing that could indicate what exactly she was. It’s clear she is a high born elf, given her appearance she must have quite pure blood as well, but from where? There are only a handful of blood lines left not including his own, and she did claim to not be from the forest? 

He would have assumed her to be an outcast, but with how few families were left would they risk exiling her? Even if she had no talent a female high elf is invaluable, so the likelihood of exile is slim; and if that were the case, she wouldn’t have returned to Felnnor. And she was clearly in charge of the human crew, despite what she said about the human “captain” it was obvious that the crew deferred to her. Even if they are simple humans, controlling an entire crew of them while at sea is no small feat…

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No matter. He briefly thought about the way her ears moved, it was such an oddity that it still gave him pause. He had considered requesting more information from the council but if she did turn out to be someone special he would lose her before he had a chance to do anything. He couldn’t let that happen, with the unrest from the war picking up in the east he will need every advantage in the end. it was only a matter of time until council members started to either parish or lose favor, and he didn’t plan on spending his entire life as an elder of a simple village. If he could gain Eryl’s support, even if she were only a high elf, it would increase his chances at a seat in the council. After all the words of a pure-blooded elf go far, even an unknown one will have weight when the time comes.

Yes, if he could indebt her to him before introducing her to the council then he could leverage that in the future. If nothing else it would help with the lesser elves, he had a feeling she would be popular with the populace given her appearance and her clearly caring nature given her interactions with the humans. 

And if that doesn’t work out in the end and she turns out to be useless in that regard he had a few sons that were still young, pure blood elves are in short supply so one without ties to another bloodline is a great boon in and of herself. Rilitar was smitten with her, sure Astari would prefer one his own sons but if it came to it, he could support his nephew in his endeavors.

Rilitar is young, but in time I am sure he will grow into a fine elf. He is sure to follow in my brothers’ footsteps and if that’s the case, Eryl would be pulled up into a position of power with him. He filled that firmly into a possible plan for later, after gaining more information about the woman.

For now, “Prepare a feast for tonight, along with a room for a guest.” What he needed most of all was information about Eryl. Specifically, what she was hiding, he didn’t mind letting the humans go and even losing Tinaka was acceptable at this point, but if she turns out to be an exile he hadn’t heard about? And what of her capabilities? if she is a capable mage then would it matter if she were an exile? 

He sighed, “I’ll have to go to the port again today.” He didn’t look forward to having to go to the human camp, but he saw first hand what happens if he doesn’t take care of these things himself. Could he leverage Tinaka’s condition? Maybe granting the humans a pardon would help, Eryl may not have expressed it but he was sure an act of “generosity” would help his chances of endearing her to him. 

And there was no proof that the humans attacked him, so executing the humans would likely harm his chances of getting information from her… if he had died though? Tinaka was a decent soul mage but he was far from the only one in the village. His only true use to Astari was the fact he spoke the human tongue. But he could always have someone else trained to speak another language, maybe even have Eryl take up the mantle of teaching someone to buy time. it really was a simple plan, he was sure if Eryl simply spent time with her own kind she would realize this is where she belonged; and give him time to figure out what she was hiding. It would make this all much simpler if that were the case…

Astari froze when he felt a sudden chill, the few people around him staggering as he looked towards the west. “Well, she isn’t inept after all.” He couldn’t help but smile a little as he felt the pressure radiate for a moment before abruptly cutting off, but what could have roused her. She seemed intent on keeping her power hidden yesterday.

His smile faltered for a moment as he realized something. The port town wasn’t that far, about a 20 minute walk if one were to take their time but… I am sure I could project my power that far, I just never had a need to. He banished the thought; after all he was a high elf after all, projecting ones power was a simple trick.

He shook his head as he felt another brief flash of power, just a sudden flare followed by an echo… she must have cast a powerful spell. That's it, if she happened to be facing the town proper when she cast a spell then of course the pressure would travel this far, and the second flare up must have been her actual power. 

Astari rationalized it in his mind as he strode out of his home, being sure to be seen walking up the street towards the flare of power to ease the clearly nervous townspeople who were cautiously exiting their homes. His own delusions keep him from realizing the glaring problems in his attempts to make sense of what happened. 

If he could look past Eryl’s existence he may have noticed the two bursts of power were so distinctly different they couldn’t have come from the same person. More importantly he, as a mage, should have recognized the first burst was… strange. It was clearly magical, but it was clearly not mana, an odd power everyone in the world has felt before, even if it was barely a muted flash of the last time the world shook just over a month ago. And even then, it has been years since the moon was destroyed after all.