Horrors in Timbrethinil

[Ataraxis]

“There!” Lillian shouted in haste, plunging her hands deep into the roiling green of the stream. She felt her fingers graze along a patch of scales before the salmon zipped past, slipping away between her ankles. The girl spun to recover her catch, almost losing her footing on the slippery stones that made the riverbed, but she found it too difficult to ford even these shallow waters. She ran after it in clumsy splashes, but gave up short of a dozen yards.

She could have easily fashioned a fishing rod from the long sticks that riddled the floor of the embowering forest, but chasing after fish without any clever apparatus had seemed like an amusing idea at the time, what with all those washed-out relics in the city complaining about how simpler things were back then. “That’s it, I’m never trusting elderly nostalgia again.” She padded along a few feet further, rousing the murky surface with froth, until she stopped before two tall branches, each towering soldierly over one side of the waterway. Between them was the open weave of a net, its dark and web-like threads reflecting the sunlight as would a glass mosaic. Trapped in it was the salmon that had escaped her, struggling in vain against that supple but unbreakable cage.

“Sorry, little guy,” she said after crouching over it, her tone genuinely apologetic. After dampening her hands in the stream, Lillian slid them beneath the flailing creature, closing the left around its tail while only using the right to support its head. With the utmost care, she slipped it into a half-filled wooden pail she had awkwardly assembled from leaves and slivers of bark. “I can’t afford to die from starvation just yet.”

Though not quite short of breath, the mere thought of working up a sweat had made her tired. Deciding she could afford a moment of respite, the girl closed her eyes, taking in as much as she could of her surroundings. The freshness of noontime air cleansed her lungs with every whiff, and the warm rays of the sun at its zenith, filtered through the emerald canopies overhead, felt like gentle sleeves that swathed around her protectively. The coolness of the stream washing against her forelegs was a pleasant contrast, and that subtle but undeniable smell of coursing freshwater caressed her nose like the sweet aroma of a heavenly balm. With that done, she undid her net and rushed to the riverside. Slipping into her boots, she feelt ready to tackle the long way back to her makeshift home on the hillside.

Lillian was deep in musing as she trekked up a natural path that cut between twisting rows of evergreens. It always amazed her how quickly this place could rejuvenate her, and it helped her understand just why the elves cared for this forest so much. It held something magical, something beyond the tired and secular meaning of the term, beyond the utilitarianism that so many had come to associate it with. It held a magic long forgotten, much more than parlor tricks or showy displays of power. It held something… sacred. Yes, she thought: there were things in this world she knew to be sacred, and without a doubt, the forest of Timbrethinil was one of them.

“Or at least,” she added with a sigh, stopping at the crest of a crisp and grassy rise, eyes wandering over the western panorama, “it used to be.”

There in the distance was the heart of the forest, but at its core was a cancer that had spread unchallenged. For miles and miles, the forest had darkened like an infection, and where proud trees had once stood as its stalwart guardians, only gnarled and crooked shells remained, corrupted into undead traitors by the far-reaching hands of the Necromancer. That wave of death was advancing, and she could almost see the forest wither, could almost see its colors fade before her unbelieving eyes.

She turned her gaze away, feeling like the lowest of the low, feeling as if a murder was being committed, and all she did was to turn a blind eye, thinking those exonerating words that all cowards think.

“There’s nothing I can do.”

[Ataraxis]

The cave was, in every conceivable way, a miracle. Finding it was by itself a most unlikely coincidence, considering it was over fifty feet above ground into a hillside, hidden by a natural growth of curling vines and halberd-shaped leaves. It had taken her quite some time to investigate, as she had to rappel down to it from the hilltop using what few tools she had on hand, a task made no easier by her mild fear of heights. A few heightened heartbeats were, however, far more desirable than the prospect of wandering the forest for days at the risk of encountering hordes of undead.

Lillian had been pleasantly surprised to see how vast the cave was, but the more she inspected it, the more she realized it could be turned into the perfect hideout. The stone floor slanted downwards from the entrance, reaching a plateau a few dozen feet in – no risk of rolling out the cave during a night of tormented sleep. Moreover, the ceiling rose sharply the deeper she went, which was perfect to set up a small cooking area. Serving as a hot plate were piles of sticks and tinder, walled in by adequately sized and shaped rocks and topped with a stone plate thin enough for the heat to reach. With a few patches of sealing web here and there, the smoke would only travel along a fireproof tube she’d magically sewn and affixed to a hermetic hole the ceiling, thus minimizing any risk that the smokes give away her presence and location.

In the three months since she had made it her primary residence, Lillian had spruced it up with a smidgen of feminine touch, albeit a very primitive one. She had fashioned a few sets of very basic chairs carved from fallen boughs, one for necessity and the others to kill time. A medium-sized slab of rock sat on the even area of the cave, and it doubled for a table. She had also broken the two mirrors she carried with her – one for detecting potential threats around a corner, the other for grooming – and hung the pieces at strategic points in the cave which she had determined with a few calculations that depended on the sun’s position. This allowed her a stream of light that reached her makeshift cooking device exactly at dawn and noon, for the span of an hour or so.

The most important piece of furniture, however, was a little wooden tray that hung on the wall. She had sanded it to a smooth white, and then proceeded to draw on it a map of the forest with pigments from crushed leaves. What was notable about it, however, were the pins she had arranged in a tentative circle around a cross mark that represented the hillside cave. Each was tied to a thin but strong thread that ran along the wall, streamlined by a little hole she had whittled into the very rock with her dirk. Each thread then went on for a little over a mile into the forest, spun around the midpoint of tall trees. Tied to those were weaker webs that hung between trees and rocks and into the underbrush at knee-height.

Anyone who crossed these would cause the higher threads to tug, alerting her to their general location via the oscillating pin on her board. Wild animals could potentially trip these as well, but they had become rarer and rarer, even in these unaffected regions of the forest. Animals had keen senses, and their instincts reacted much more strongly to the advancing wave of corruption than most sentient beings did. If only a single pin vibrated, then she would almost always investigate: the undead were rarely solitary, and even small regiments would trigger a minimum of two pins at once. If lucky, she would find quarry to hunt. If not… well that had not happened yet.

[Ataraxis]

“Not yet,” she repeated to herself, the gleam in her blue eyes deadening as fast as the daylight. She chewed on what little cooked meat remained of the salmon she had caught, then put the fish bone away. Sometimes, these moments would come: moments where she wondered why things had turned out this way, why she was here, alone, in the middle of a dying forest, hiding from a plague that would inevitably reach her one day.

Lillian thought back to that terrifying morning, months past, when she escaped from the city of Eluriand with each and every of her citizens. At that time, she was a new student of the Istien University, and only beginning to adapt to this new environment with the help of a friend who had long since vanished. Perhaps he had survived like she did, but perhaps he had died on his way out, run over mercilessly during the riots and stampedes. Perhaps, even, he had been infected... and the notion disheartened her. The girl held a quavering hand over her eyes, in a vain attempt to calm her breaking heart and troubled mind.

She remembered being whisked away to Carnelost during that escape, remembered trudging through the poisonous vines of the Red Forest with all of those in her situation, all the way to the Obsidian Spire - how they could have thought the mythical abode of Xem’Zund to be a refuge for their weary souls still eluded her. She fought next to the mercenary Godhand and alongside the daughter of Devon Starslayer, fought against one of his undead generals and then three of his lieutenants before escaping that god-forsaken tower as it burned and crumbled to the ground. All of this, so long ago… but here she was, still right in the middle of it.

Every attempt to leave this dying land had been met with failure, and each time, she was driven further and further back into this maddening war. Stumbling upon long-dead cities when she had expected the welcome of saviors, falling into ambush after ambush rather than finding a way to escape, all foes and no friends, every day of every month, for longer than even her weary mind could count… she was tired. So very tired.

Throwing her head back, Lillian forcefully stopped the tears from falling. It was silly to fold now, she thought, especially after enduring all this time. There would be light, one day, and she would be able to leave this dark cave where only shadows of the world she yearned for existed. No more adventures, no more battles. No more wars, and no more deaths. For once in her life, she truly wanted to live.

“It’s going to happen,” she repeated to herself, repressing the quaver in her voice. “It’ll be over soon,” she went on, the words becoming a manic mantra.

Alas, during this struggle of her heart, she had not noticed the pin move.

[Ataraxis]

Sparse few rays of moonlight could make it through the forest canopy, and Lillian knew this darkness to be unnatural. The obscurity seemed to thicken with every passing night, a phenomenon that she theorized had found its origin in the plague of corruption that was afflicting Timbrethinil. Not only did it violently siphon the life out of everything that stood in the way of its crashing tide, not only did it warp its victims into minions of a darker motive and of a darkest master, but it also drained the world of its very radiance, turning any glimmer of hope into mere fodder for the abominations that were growing stronger in its womb.

Lillian could still manage in this deepened darkness, her strange blue eyes having always favored the nightly realms to the blinding shine of broad daylight. What shafts of light had pierced through the shroud of palmate leaves overhead served as her guides, facilitating her navigation through the woods. Though she did not run, fearing not only the noise of withered branches snapping underfoot but also the traces they would leave, the girl could still travel fast over the dry soil and leafy patches. Be it her light weight or her fleet feet, she hardly left any visible tracks an undead scout could follow – not with their enfeebled minds and this advancing gloom, at the very least.

It was only a matter of time before she would make it to the edge of the perimeter linked to the vibrating pin, one she had noticed almost too late. A slew of hypotheses were running through her mind: it could have been the first solitary undead to ever wander into her web, just as it could have been nothing more than a lost hare or lone wolf. Were it the former, she would circumvent it as silently as she could and repair the thread it had walked through, then make her way back: this had to be done as quickly as possible, as a broken thread was a blind spot in her surveillance system.

In case others walked through while she was away, however, Lillian had affixed weak webs going from the wooden slate to the tip of each and every pin: a strong wind would only pull at the pins with so much force, managing only to stretch these webs, but the transferred force of a trespasser would break them cleanly. This she would see upon returning to her hideout, and in those circumstances she would simply repeat the process of replacing the broken webs, albeit grudgingly. That was, however, a possibility she would have to deal with another time. Right now, she already had her hands full with this intruder.

Though not a clearing per se, the trees were thinner where she stopped, save for the snapped trunks and hollow boles that littered the forest ground. This particular location seemed to have served as training grounds for inexperienced song-mages, from the hints left in the wreckage. Some trees were singed, their bark blown off and core burned out by what could have been a series of lightning bolts. Others had simply been shaved clean of their bark by some unknown feat of magic. The scores in the wood also matched the general shape and make of flute-blades, though she had a hard time believing that some of these mages had managed to cleave through a mature tree with what looked to be a single slash.

The more she looked, the more she was certain they had not been elves: they were foreigners to Raiaera, perhaps students of Istien who did not quite share their hosts’ symbiotic worship of nature. Over the ages, the grounds appeared to have fallen into disuse, either forgotten or replaced in the hearts of the men and women that had come to practice here. Perhaps they had been discovered, and chided for this sacrilegious vandalism. Then, she thought grimly, perhaps they all died without ever passing on the word. With a wistful look in her eyes, she brushed her fingers against the bark of a tree that had healed over its scars, tracing the grooves as she imagined the youths that had left them there as what could very well be the only remaining traces of their existence.

It was then that Lillian felt a sharp edge slide across her index. Her eyes widened, and as she inspected the score in the wood, she realized it was recent. Not months, not days… minutes recent.

A muffled sound reached her ears, like fingers snapping underneath layers of cloth. She then noticed a red glow dancing along the rough bark, until it tore through the pitch darkness. Lillian spun on the ball of her heels, unsheathing in one fluid stroke the glass dagger that hung from the rope belt at her waist. The blade slashed through the nipping air with a ringing vacuum, and from its core a sorcerous gust of wind was summoned forth. It flew through the clearing in a crescent of aggregate particles, meeting head on a monstrous wave of crackling fire that had cast the whole woods in a golden light. They erupted upon collision, the gust swallowed into the ravenous flames as the oxygen within made them flare up for an instant. Fortunately, the force and velocity of the squall had been enough to cleave through the burning gas, putting it out like a blown candle before it could reach Lillian.

Just as she thought she could rest, the girl saw a red blur slice through the diffusing fires, a silver blade trailing behind it in a deafening whistle. Lillian leapt backward, hoping to sidle the tree she had been inspecting and use it as an obstacle to her assailant, but she was caught unawares as willowy arms wrapped around her neck and arms, one strong grip on her dirk-wielding hand. Immobilized, heart beating against her chest, hearing the frenetic pumping of her blood, Lillian could only watch the blade’s arcing approach, watch it sweep through the cold night’s air, closer and closer to her neck.

Her mind went blank. Through her eyes, only red.

[Ataraxis]

How?

How could a body so small contain such unbridled power? Moments ago, the girl was helpless in his vice grip. Now, his feet had been robbed of purchase, a surge of vertigo had overwhelmed his mind, and panic had lodged itself in the pit of his stomach. Panic, because his body was careening through the air. Panic, because the creature he still held on to had sent them both soaring with a single, earth-shattering kick of her legs.

Just as he thought his back would break against a tree, the girl dug her boots into the earth, heels biting deep into the ground and leaving a backwash of dirt and peaty soil. His body jerked from the sudden brake, and he felt her reach for an armpit, felt the muscles in her fingers cord and coil like steel wires. He screamed as she threw him forward, straight at the red-cloaked swordsman that had not stopped his charge and whose blade was still singing closer, closer, dangerously closer.

The swordsman spat an oath as he corrected his aim, the silver blade slicing along his partner’s shoulder rather than his neck. Blood splashed over his face, and he heard the man cry out in pain as he landed in a heap, rolling along the dust until his wounded arm struck a hard mass of gnarled roots.

“You… you just cursed in High Elven,” he heard the girl with blood-red eyes speak, and the swordsman found his legs had slowed to a stop. “You’re'… you’re not one of them.”

“Orophin…. you were wrong.” His partner wailed weakly from behind, hands plucking patches of grass as he struggled on all fours. “When I grabbed her… she didn’t smell like rot.”

“You… you thought I was undead?” The girl was clearly insulted, but as she looked down to her dress, she seemed to realize it was so filthy and unkempt that the misunderstanding was, to some extent, justified. “Wait… Orophin?” There was a glimmer of recognition in her voice, in her gaze. The sanguine hue in her eyes receded like fading clouds of blood, leaving behind the strangest hue of sapphire he had ever seen. He knew them, just as he knew that lilting voice. “Orophin Súrion?”

“Oh, it’s you.” Orophin paused, ashen eyes rolling up as he raked the confines of his mind for her name. The scowl of disappointment across his face could not be any more obvious. He had seen her months ago, long before the return of the Black, in a magical maze of sorts. They had been trapped like lab rats with many others, to be observed and dissected. Though her participation had been crucial in their escape, he could not help his pathological dislike of the mousy little child. “Annoying girl.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she replied, brows knit in an equal expression of contempt. “If I knew we were using pet names, I’d have opened with ‘lecher’. The name is Lillian.”

“Really, Phin?” the supine elf asked, his tone part incredulous, part revolted. “That young?”

“Oh, no: he’s a least respectable in that regard. No cradle-robbing in his book.”

“Do enjoy this rare chance to laugh at my expense, but need I remind you that this is not a picnic?” The younger elf clamped up at this, and his attention returned to the bleeding gash on his shoulder. “We need to find shelter, or else we are sitting ducks to the forces of the Necromancer.”

“Yes, yes,” Lillian answered, waving her hands dismissively. “Do you think we just happened to cross paths by pure happenstance? I came here to investigate from my hideout once I detected trespassers. It’ll be safer to talk there, if you’ll deign follow me.”

As she began her trek out of the training grounds, Orophin stayed behind in silent consideration. When she turned to see what was the hold up, he knew he had seen true. With one arm, he pulled his injured companion to his feet and helped him along like a crutch. Just as the girl turned back to guide them through the forest, he used his other hand to grab at her shoulder, gently so as not to alarm her senses.

“There is no need to hold it in, Lillian Sesthal.” He felt a quaver run through her body, perhaps surprise that he actually had remembered her full name. “It must have been hard.”

“I can’t,” she said simply, one hand over his. She held it, squeezed it, as if to take in any amount of solace she could find in it. Letting go, she swept the back of her hand across her eyes, and walked onward. “Not until it’s safe.”

[Ataraxis]

Orophin did not harbor any hatred, any ill will toward the girl. His natural dislike of her stemmed from his certainty that the Lillian he had spoken with on so many occasions in that maze, the Lillian that had insulted his proclivity toward philandering, his haughty demeanor and highfalutin ways… that Lillian was a façade.

He could see all too clearly, all too painfully, that this mask was her only armor. The biting remarks and witty replies, that coy conceit and prissy attitude, all were fabricated to shield a soul that was constantly on the verge of crying. What he hated was that defensiveness, that refusal to let those who worried about her to come close, to let them support her and to help her mend. He hated to see her isolated, hopelessly watching this unforgiving land through an impenetrable shell. The song-mage had an inkling that she had been hurt, terribly hurt, and that the mere notion of opening herself up to that world of pain again terrified her.

But if she closed herself to avoid the risk of others destroying her from without, she was still destroying herself from within.

Looking around this cave in the cliff-side, Orophin was overwhelmed by two feelings. The first was awe, because this young adolescent had been able to devise a functional living space from wood and stone, as well as an intricate surveillance system with threads, pins and a slab of oak. The stove that did not let the smoke escape, the mirror shards that that reflected what little moonlight there was, he thought it all very clever. The second feeling, however, was an incredible sorrow. From the looks of it, she had lived here by herself for months.

Sorcerous spheres of dim light hung about the air like lanterns, summoned by the rhythmic click of his fingers, and with that he had seen the darker details of this makeshift home. Fish bones lined the bottom of the back wall, with the occasional remains of a hare or a fox. Amidst the trash, there were also locks of hair, hacked off by the blade of a dagger, and their length was further evidence of the accuracy of his first estimate. He wondered what this place would have looked like if they had met months later... wondered if this innocent child would have kept her sanity for so long.

They had waited in silence while she cried. Ever since their arrival to the cave, she had shed countless tears, unable to stop their flow, try as she might – it was like hoping to seal off a broken dam with mere sheets of paper. Orophin did not move, did not intervene, knowing that things like this needed to run their course. Rávion, his travel companion, had moved to sit next to her: though he was her senior by two centuries, he was still a boy whose heart was easily moved by the tears of a woman. In the end, however, he could only sit there in the dark, offering a patched-up shoulder to cry on, even if he knew it was one she would never accept.

“You’re... as skilled as I remember, High Bard Súrion,” Lillian said at last between soft sobs, pointing to the orbs of light floating in the cave like diamond stars. “Maybe even more. I don’t remember you ever summoning waves of fire with the snap of your fingers before.”

“And last I saw you, you only had those strange webs of yours: strong as steel and with an explosive adversity to magic. I do not think you were quite able to throw a grown man around like a rag doll back then, either.” He saw her smile at that, faintly, but it was quick to vanish, coming and going as fast as a wayward breeze. Rávion laughed nervously, remembering the ordeal with vivid clarity as he rubbed his sore arm. “I did not have the time to inquire about your studies at Istien,” he stated matter-of-factly, but Lillian could guess his true intent.

“The... entrance examination went very well. Your letter of recommendation… it eased things along, so... thank you for that.” She stared into oblivion for a moment, twiddling her fingers. When she resumed, she feigned a chipper tone. “They transferred me to a fledgling program called the Empirical Major.”

“Ah, yes: the result of my work with the lovely Aria Aerotone.” He could remember working with a number of other professors, but their names and faces were as ghosts, for they had all been either male or unattractive. “Did you learn much?”

“I did. Solfege, Musical Theory, Songwriting… I even learned how to play the flute rather well by the end. Unfortunately… I had no time to truly learn how to use songs or music for combat. I didn’t even have time to pack most of my things during the escape.” She was referring to the invasion of Eluriand, he knew. He had been there during the riots, had seen the frenzied citizens trample one another as their peaceful lives came to an end. It had... sickened him.

The girl chewed on her lower lip, sniffling once or twice before she found the courage to ask. “Do I… do I really look so terrible? For you to mistake me for one of them, I must…”

“It was dark, Lillian. Though my eyes are keen, they cannot see as well as yours in this kind of obscurity. I could only make out tattered clothes and livid skin… after that, I was blinded by the heat of battle – as were you, I believe.”

Lillian only nodded, but there was a darkness to her weary eyes. It was as though no matter what he said, she would remain unconvinced, fully believing she had become as horrid as the abominations she was hiding from. “What are you doing here in Timbrethinil, anyway?”

“We’re looking to rejoin the ranks of Nalith,” Rávion answered this time, feeling it was time for him to contribute in the conversation. “And I’m Rávion, by the way. From the Valdaglerion House. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Valdaglerion?” Lillian repeated, the first sign of genuine intrigue reaching her swollen eyes. “You mean the family of Soundsmiths that crafts the instruments and weapons used by song-mages and Bladesingers alike?” The elf nodded proudly, not as a child that had been flattered, but as would a young man that had just upheld the name of his family through heroic deeds. The emerald gleam in his eyes showed a true passion for his art, and that was something the girl could admire. “That’s very impressive. Though, how did the two of you end up traveling together?”

“Orophin, he…” Rávion hesitated, running a strong hand through the copper curls of his hair as he put words to his thoughts. “He saved my life during the riots. Some broke into my family’s establishment to steal our work. My brother and I tried to stop them, but we would have died if Orophin hadn’t come. Laerion left on a caravan to Tor Elythis, but since Orophin needed someone to maintain and repair his equipment, I decided to come along on his search for Nalith and her army.”

“Who is this Nalith you keep mentioning?” Lillian asked, and the looks of surprise both had given her made her feel rather ignorant.

“She’s the Lady General, High Bladesinger Nalith Celiniel! She’s the first real light of hope since this war began: every surviving High Bard and Bladesinger is under her command, and she’s been leading her armies to victory after victory. The problem is, by the time we learn of her latest exploit, she’s already moved on to another battle. The fact that we just can’t keep track of her is a good sign that her plans aren’t being leaked, though.”

“And you came to Timbrethinil because?”

“Because the undead forces that occupied Nenaebreth were pushed back to the forest recently, and we were hoping to establish contact with whatever general comes to finish the job. Re-sanctifying Timbrethinil is one of their greatest goals, so we gambled on that and came here. And now, thanks to you, we have a safe place we can use to bide our time until they arrive.”

“We should sleep,” Orophin said dryly after keeping silent during the younger elf’s recounting, a harshness to his voice that was thinly-veiled by his reasoning. “The undead favor the night to scout, but seeing how well-hidden this cave is, I doubt they will ever find our location. It is best to sleep while they are most active, so that we can use every bit of daylight for our own purposes.”

“Such as?” Lillian inquired, surprised to hear there was more to their presence here than to simply wait for allies to come and pick them up.

“For one, Rávion will need to study: our travels have forced him to neglect his profession outside common maintenance and repairs. You cannot allow your hands to grow idle.” The elf nodded at that, and it was obvious that he had been itching for an occasion to resume his practice.

“Of course,” Orophin continued, his mouth contorting into the first wry smile she had seen since their capture in that maze. “We will resume your bardic training, Lillian Sesthal. You should feel honored: it is not every day that a lowly student can take private lessons with a High Bard, let alone one as illustrious as I.”

Lillian blinked, twice, thrice. Then, for the first time in months, she laughed. “Oh, joy.”

[Ataraxis]

The break of dawn always had been a comforting relief from the dark and dreary nights that cursed the forest of Timbrethinil, and it was even more so when she could share that sunrise with comrades. Lillian stood on the hilltop above her hideout, greeted by the fresh and almost nipping breezes that cleansed her lungs from the stale dankness of the cave. Orophin stood nearby, still shrouded by his cloak of regal red, lined with golden trims and a slew of titular markings that announced his rank and seating amongst the other High Bards. At the very least, though, he had decided to take off his hood, letting streams of golden hair flutter like flaxen fields in the wind. It always amazed her how an elf that had nearly seen two millennia unfold could look like he had been born less than thirty summers ago, but at the very least, his eyes betrayed his age. Eyes the color of ash, full of verve and hope and even mischief, but there was still that undeniable wear of time, traces of that tempering wisdom that few long-lived races could ever escape.

Rávion had remained inside the cave, to ensure that no one would trespass upon this haven of theirs without immediate notice. He had, however, offered her a gift before she climbed up from the cave to the hilltop: it was simple flute, carved from a maple bough he had found in the abandoned training grounds. She remembered the score in the tree, and realized he must have been testing the wood to see if he could work on it with his tools.

“He really crafted this over night?”

“The children of the Valdaglerion always were very skilled, but trust that this is nothing compared to what he can do given the right tools, materials and time. A masterpiece by his hand would have magic of its own, independent of its wielder.”

Lillian smiled at that, glad to hear that Orophin was actually capable of giving praise. What pleased her most was that the young elf had remembered her mention how much she enjoyed playing the flute, and how regretful it was that she had no time to pack it. “Alright then: what do we start with?”

“I will need to assess your skill, first. Even with so little time in the Empirical Major, I would be sourly disappointed were you not capable of calling forth the semblance of an element. Do you remember the Melody of the First Revelation?” Orophin was referring to the ancient tune that students of Ost’Dagorlin played to discover their prime affinity. The average student would call upon sparks of fire, with the occasional mist of suspended raindrops or faint rumble in the earth. Some were gusts of soothing wind, others sudden squalls that lasted naught but an instant. The limits of how this affinity manifested, however, were virtually infinite.

“Of course I do,” she answered with a corner smile, feigning offense at the question. She brought the embouchure of the flute to her lips, and with a deep, soundless breath, she began to play. Orophin could instantly notice what qualities the idiosyncrasies of her personality brought to the melody: the music began slowly, much softer than he would have played it, almost timid to a fault. There was a power behind every high note, however, as if she were aware of this weakness and did everything she could to either hide it or defeat it. That desire to hide, he recognized it well in her, but he was pleased to hear that she was struggling to change, to stop hiding behind that façade of hers.

His mind focused to attention when she reached that determining note, which was the harbinger to whatever manifestation of power the Melody would call upon. However, he saw no spark of fire, no mist of rain, no quaking in the ground or sudden breeze upon his skin. “Did I overestimate Rávion’s work? Or is it you that I have overestimated?”

“Look at your feet, Phin,” Lillian said, interrupting the tune. She resumed the melody midway, and upon hitting that note a second time, Orophin noticed his shadow moving in a quite peculiar way. Though the sun had risen from the east, his shadow was not trailing to the west: it was facing the sun, disobeying the burning star with an insolence he found reminiscent of his own. He even thought he saw it shake the semblance of a fist at the golden disk in the sky. “An affinity to shadows?”

The look that crossed his face was not the one Lillian had expected to see. Grudging awe, she would have liked to see. Even pure interest and curiosity would have been acceptable. She doubted it could elicit fear in the bard, but that would have been fascinating to witness as well.

The psychotic glee that warped his face, however, had struck fear into her instead. “Could you… stop making that face? Please?”

“It is rare to see a manifestation outside the basic elements. I have seen orbs of light, heard the groans of metal, watched as plants blossomed at a student’s feet… but shadows are among the rarest. Not quite the rarest, but close enough.”

“And… your point is?”

“My point is that students whose manifestation was of a basic element had a set but broad range of acquisition in what kinds of magic their songs or melodies could call upon. Though still possible, it would be extremely hard for them to master what Istien has kept in its repertoire of shadow songs. Conversely, those with rare affinities have a more restricted range, but are more able when it comes to learning from other advanced domains as well.”

“You’re going to teach me a melody from one of those?”

“Precisely.”

“That still doesn’t explain why your face is like that.”

“Oh, but it has been ages since I have had the opportunity to teach these special classes…”

And then it struck her. Lillian had no need to ask him what he implied; she remembered during her stay at Istien University, the stories of a teacher sought out by many students for his successful but highly unorthodox teaching methods. When the administration discovered this, they had banned him from ever teaching advanced classes outside of a school’s set curriculum again. And, in reminiscing that event, the teachers at Istien would often say, somewhat jokingly, but with a genuine tint of dread:

Missing a note never had been a health hazard before that Phin came along.

[Ataraxis]

“Mother Aurient – what happened to you, Lillian?” Rávion had been sitting at the improvised table that the girl had fashioned from random slabs of stone, whittling away at a rod of crystal with a gem file when he saw her climb down from the hill to the cave. Her summer dress was in even more despicable shape than the day before, and he wondered if those were singe marks he saw at the hems of the off-white fabric. Her face and arms had been blackened, not bruises from physical combat but traces of soot and ash. His first guess was that Orophin had taught her how to sing or clap or snap fire into existence like he had last night, but the minute slashes and burn marks were not congruent with that type of spell.

“B-Butterflies,” she stuttered while stumbling into the cave like the living dead. Her eyes were wide in shock, a stray and frazzled strand of hair falling down her face unnoticed. “So… so many b-butterflies, I can’t...”

“What are you going on about?” Dust and pebbles fell from the hill as Orophin climbed down the same rope of webs they all used to enter and exit the hideout. “What in the Star-Mother’s name did you put her through, Phin? She doesn’t seem like... like she’s all there anymore.”

“No worries: I am certain her synapses will start firing normally sometime soon.” The High Bard had a smile like the young elf had never seen before, and it frightened him to see such a sour and secretive man so openly gleeful that it looked sadistic. “How goes the studying?”

“We... I’ve read the theory from title page to colophon ten times by now, so I figured it was time for practical use.” Rávion lifted the crystal tube he had been working on, displaying it under a ray of afternoon sunlight that was reflected from one of Lillian’s mirrors. Perfect gloss, perfect sheen, and even though he had filed it, there were no visible traces of scratching or scoring. “I’ve gotten the shape and texture just right, but there’s still the matter of whether or not it’ll be able to transform.”

“It will. Trust yourself.” Orophin had taken seat near the ledge of the cavern, finding Lillian’s hand-made furniture fascinatingly comfortable considering the materials. He stared out into the forest, through the high-rise boughs and millennial pines. It was hard to imagine that on the opposite side, there was only rot and decay, and a perversion of everything he thought to be sacred. “I wish I could help you more with this, but the magic I wield and the one your family and others like it do are far too different. Sadly, I lack the mindset for your work.”

“And yet it’s our combined effort that allows Raiaera to fight back, isn’t it?” Rávion retorted with a wise smile, one that wore the weight of centuries he did not yet live through. “Where does one get food around these parts?” he continued, the stream of his mind changing tracks without a moment’s warning. That was the image of a passionate but immature elf to which Orophin was most accustomed. “Lillian?”

“I’m not going to eat them. They’re… evil,” she replied, eyes still wide and dilated.

“The… butterflies are?”

Lillian only nodded.

“How about... rabbits?” Rávion asked, a hook in his brow.

“They’re fair game!” she exclaimed, the light returning in her eyes as she giggled with her hands over her mouth. She was obviously ecstatic. When Rávion realized what she had done, he groaned, deeply, and so had Orophin from his chair at the cave’s maw.

“Did you plan this? That’s terrible.”

“Hey. There isn’t much to do here… so I had a lot of time to think,” Lillian said with a frown. “And I really was out of it at the beginning – I only came to my senses when you talked about magic.”

“And setting up double-puns was the best you came up with in that time,” Rávion noted with a shake of his head, though the amusement was clear on his face. “I think you need to rest, so would you mind pointing us to the areas where you found those before?”

Grudgingly, she complied.

[Ataraxis]

There were still a few hours before dusk, but their hunt had hitherto left much to desire. They had not seen the shadow of a rabbit, or any wildlife of a size that could satiate their hunger, for that matter. When Orophin and Rávion had first crossed into Timbrethinil, the birdsong of blue jays, the scurrying of foxes and the crackling bounds of hare upon fallen leaves had been abundant... but the closer they traveled to the forest’s heart, the closer they came to that expanding mass of corruption, and the scarcer life of any kind became. A day or so before they crossed paths with Lillian, Orophin was forced to tear off a patch of bark from a maple tree, draining it from sap that had served them as both food and water. It had broken his heart, but at the very least, the tree would heal over time.

Rávion considered asking him to do the same again, as they now carried the pails the girl had crafted in her spare time, but he knew they would never survive on sugar and water alone. Without the protein from meat, or at the very least from pulse crops, they would grow weaker and weaker, perhaps even die before the army came to eradicate the darkness that infected these sacred lands. They always could ask Lillian, but there was something to be said about male pride in these circumstances. Considering her current shape, on top of all, she would be incapable of helping them. It was now, for all intents and purposes, their job to feed her – or at least it was Orophin’s responsibility, what with the draconian training he had put her through this morning.

“She said there should be a rabbit hole about eight hundred yards away, south-southeast. Do you think we’re too far past south or too far past southeast?”

Orophin was sitting on a lichen-covered boulder, wary of not sitting on the actual lichen – he would loathe himself if the undead became aware of their presence because he left the print of his buttocks in a carpet of fungi and algae. “I… am a High Bard. I should not be hunting game. The only reason why I have caught nothing is because I have transcended this primitive process.”

“Hard to imagine someone so powerful doesn’t have one song to track a rabbit,” Rávion commented with sharp sarcasm.

“I have many, but they are so sublime they would alert our foes to our presence. I would simply not risk it,” he defended himself with that same mirrored sarcasm.

“With all the time we spent travelling, I would have thought our survival skills would be worth a bit more than this. It surprises me that Lillian managed to make it for that long.”

“The animals have become scare in the months she has spent here. From the mounds of fish bones in the cavern, I would say she fished from one of the few streams that have not yet crossed the field of corruption... but it is only a matter of time before she will have to leave her her dwelling.”

Rávion considered this for a moment, worry crossing his jade eyes. “Why hasn’t she yet? We didn’t encounter any undead between the outskirts of the forest and her hideout. She could have left months ago, if she kept being as careful as she seems to be.”

“Rávion… it is not the forest that she wishes to escape. It is Raiaera herself. She is perfectly aware that she can leave Timbrethinil, but then what? Galonan is besieged, as are Winyaurent and Anebrilith. Eluriand is not much more than rubble, save for the few statistical survivors that have trapped themselves within their homes. Tilgonar and Carnelost are in ruins, and discarded undead still roam their vestiges. Narenhad and Trenyce are overrun by the Black’s horde. There is not a single place in Raiaera where a solitary child like her could be safe, where she could find refuge from the nightmares that have seeped into her waking hours.”

Orophin looked down to the brambles and sticks that littered the ground, the harshness of reality hitting him just as much as it would his comrade. “She has remained here, because she has given up hope.”

[Ataraxis]

“So she plans to die here? To become on of that bastard’s servants once the corruption reaches her? That’s preposterous! And she’s not on her own anymore, is she? We’ll take her with us to Nalith – Nalith! You’re wrong, Phin: there is one place where she would be safe, and it is Eluceliniel! Though the rumors never say where it is, and for that I am thankful, we know that she has established a base of operations somewhere in Raiaera. Once the army comes, we’ll take her with us...”

Orophin said nothing, considering the soundsmith under a new light. It was a moment before he spoke, a strange grin playing upon his lips. “Really, Rav? That young?”

“...Quiet, lecher,” Rávion snarled as he went back to inspect the area for that elusive hare.

The High Bard grinned, crossing his arms under his noble cloak as he looked up to the sky, to the clouds tinted in a pale, burning sienna. The more he watched them soar across the firmament, so carefree, the darker his expression became. “The truth is, Rávion… I think I have given up as well.”

“What? On rejoining Nalith?” The younger elf stopped in his tracks. Slowly, he rose to a stand, turning to face the song-mage with a silent furor in his eyes. “You would give up after we’ve traipsed around the country over half a year?”

“Rav… I had my chance of following Nalith, on the first day of Eluriand’s siege. I had my chance… but I let her leave. I regretted it the moment I did, but it was too late. Now she is the last of the High Bard Council - last, as I am no longer worthy of the title and position.”

“So we’ve been on a wild goose chase from the very start?” Rávion spat back, the emerald in his stare harsh and unforgiving in its glimmer. He turned away scoffing, chuckling derisively as he swiped the tip of his nose with his thumb. Spinning back, he swept his arm around as if throwing caution to the wind. “So you dragged me through all of this, feeding me lies about rejoining the Lady General, when the truth was that you were running away?”

“No, no! I... I ran away then, but I had hoped that I would have found her by now... that she would have forgiven me by now. And... will the army ever come to Timbrethinil? Though a priority, taking back the cities we lost will need to come first, and who knows how long that will be?” He lurched forward, hands on his laps as his gaze ever fell to the dirt under his feet. “What if I went on years upon years, hoping for our paths to cross, only missing her by a hair’s breadth? Rav, I am not yet old by our standards, but how I feel it reach, deep within me…”

Rávion had sensed it when Orophin first spoke of the Lady General by her name, but he had dismissed it until now. With what the bard had just said, however, the soundsmith was now certain of it. In a softer tone, he spoke. “In almost two thousand years, you’re still a fool? After philandering for the better part of two millennia, you’ve never once encountered it to recognize it?” To see him look up with that air of foolishness and bewilderment had baffled the young elf. “That’s not age, Phin. That’s love.” Again, that look of hopelessness. “Orophin Súrion, you are a fool in love with the Lady General, the High Bladesinger. You are in love with Nalith Celiniel.”

“That… that is madness!” he exclaimed, his youthful visage pumping red from anger at the preposterous accusation. Accusation? Was it, really? To say that it was an accusation would be an insult to lady Celiniel, and he would not have that. Claim, then. He was furious at that preposterous claim… but was he? Was that fury he felt? He thought back to his conquests, many amongst the eras, but what he had felt in those fleeting affairs was nothing like what was gripping at him now. And then, he understood. He understood, and he sighed. He really was a fool. “But… is there any way that… that she-”

“Of course not, you fool,” Rávion said, bluntly, driving what might as well have been a rusty spike into his chest. “Nalith is the Lady General: once she donned that garb, the burden of that title, she stopped being a woman. If you don’t have the common sense to understand that the world doesn’t revolve around your futile quest to gain the heart of the lonely maiden in a knight’s armor, then you really aren’t worth her trouble, are you? She has sacrificed her womanhood for the sake of saving our country; are you at least willing to sacrifice your loins to help her accomplish that?”

Orophin looked to the heavens, and he saw in it a vast stretch of golden eternity, devoid of clouds or any other obstruction. He realized, then, that the answer was just as clear as the sky. “Yes. Of course.”

“Then start by getting off your High Bard bum and helping me find this god-forsaken rabbit, will you?”

[Ataraxis]

It had taken them over five hours to catch that rabbit, and Lillian had half a mind to criticize their preparedness, survival skills and general worth as men from one of the most respected races in Althanas. The victorious smile on Rávion’s face contrasted with that hangdog look on Orophin’s, however, were too antithetic to their personalities for her to ignore. Unfortunately, she could get nothing out of her prying except their diversionary promise that they would skin, clean gut, empty, debone, slice and cook their catch on their own. Just as well, since those extra centuries they had on her at least came with extensive culinary skills. With the sun gone and the evening repast done with, they quickly fell asleep, knowing that every minute wasted awake at night was another wasted after dawn.

The next morning had been similar to the previous, with Orophin setting up a soundproof field around the hilltop so that the noise from Lillian's lessons would not reach across the forest and into the area of corruption. After all, they always said that trees had ears – quite literally at that, for the ones that had fallen victim to the dark infection. That afternoon, they decided to fish instead, and the haul was much more abundant than it had been before, thanks to some of Orophin’s slightly more sublime songs. Rávion would keep working on that crystal rod, or pore through a book he had already read countless times whenever he hit a snag.

As the days and nights cycled, few pins had vibrated. One time, they had caught several squirrels passing through, and that had made for a very unusual supper. Another had been a rather auspicious catch: a deer had wandered into the spider’s den, and while the imagery did not quite match reality, they still devoured it whole over the course of a week like a pack of famished beasts armed with sharp teeth and only a modicum of table manners. The rest of the time, undead sentries had wanderered through, but as was the protocol for multiple pins that oscillated in unison, they never bothered to investigate until the scouts made their exit on the opposite end. While they had to be careful in case of stragglers, they never ran into any actual trouble: the enemy was as oblivious to their presence as ever.

“How long until they come, do you think?” Lillian asked the soundsmith as they sat against the cavern walls. The girl’s back was resting snugly against his chest, and he loosely cradled her waist in the crook of his arm. Orophin had found it a strange picture, but what surprised him most was that there was nothing more to it than what he saw. Unlike those fictional tales where harsh circumstances were all it took for dreadfully codependent characters to unite under a flimsy banner of love, these two were ever the realists, simply finding comfort in amiable contact. Rávion, he guessed, must have realized since their rabbit hunt how inappropriate the difference in their ages was, and Lillian… well he had never seen her display any interest in males or the concept of love. That was something he would have found worrying, if Rávion had not revealed to him that only days ago, he had been just as clueless as the girl in that respect. He then mused on the possibility that she found her romantic interests in the fairer half of humanity, a preference not uncommon amongst elves as well. The gender one knows best is one’s own, after all.

“I wouldn’t want us to get our hopes up with too early an estimate,” Rávion replied at last. “I think it’s fair to think they’ll come before the infection overruns the whole of Timbrethinil, at the very least. They couldn’t risk it spilling out into the rest of the country, if it hasn’t already. I doubt they’d wait long enough for the undead to recuperate their losses either.”

“Sounds reasonable. That would give us a few months, I think.” Lillian looked at Orophin, who had been silent for far too long considering his usual talkativeness and and incorrigible tendency to boast. “I think we should be able to last... If the rot spreads to the cave, we’ll probably have to find shelter somewhere else, though. We could even leave the forest and wait outside until we eventually hear the sounds of battle. What do you think?”

“I think,” Orophin began, pointing to the wall they were leaning on, “that those five pins are vibrating.”

[Ataraxis]

Lillian started at that, spinning back with head askance to observe the pin-board, as did Rávion. There it was, clear as broad daylight. When she paused to consider the implications, however, she came to the conclusion that though this was the first time, five pins was not an untenable number. Twenty or so undead foot-soldiers could theoretically trigger this reaction, but if they kept quiet, then there would be nothing to worry about. There was the small kink in her surveillance system that did not take into account troop formations: a single pin could be triggered if a troop filed into her perimeter, but most groups of undead scouts were scattered to cover more ground, and soldiers kept to their bivouacs at the center of the forest, well within the security of that field of corruption.

“We’ll wait it out. Statistically, it was bound to happen some day,” Lillian concluded after her long musings. She detached her eyes from the pin-board, and took a moment to stand up. They had been sitting on the frigid stones for too long, and she felt her bones grind and wail as she stretched. “It shouldn’t be much more than an hour or two before they leave. In the meantime, do you have your next lesson prepared, Orophin?”

“Well, you have been a decent student this past week - your recent abstention from butterfly rants should be proof enough.” The High Bard hummed in wonderment from his chair, red-dyed boots tapping at the stone a playful tune. “Yes, I think I have. The first was the easiest of the uncommon elements, but I believe you have the potential to tackle the next. Or would you rather I teach you a more complicated song of the same nature?”

“Well, I’ve always been more about versatility than mastery, so I’ll tackle the next for now. When do we start?”

“Once the pests are gone, we can begin.” With that said, Orophin leaned back on his seat, thumbing open one of the books Lillian had managed to bring along with her – he had long since finished those he had brought himself for leisure reading during his travels, and had thus traded them for the girl’s own collection. With a rhythmic snap of his fingers, lantern orbs sparked to life over his head, casting a faint but adequate light over the yellowed pages.

When he looked up from the maddeningly minuscule scripts of his book, two hours had passed, on the dot. He afforded a glance to the leaf-pigmented map of the forest Lillian had drawn on the pin-board, casually expecting to see broken webs hanging from a handful of pins that usually announced an intruder’s exit.

His eyes squinted in the dimness of the cave, alarm clear in their intensity. “I noticed it too,” Lillian said from the other side of the stone table. From the looks of it, she had been silently practicing her flute-work when she saw it. “They’re still here.”

“Undead do not take breaks,” Rávion said from his side of the table, settling a crystal tube and a diamond file on the coarse surface. “Are they looking for something?”

“Or someone?” Lillian added in a grim note.

“You think they know?” the young elf asked, his voice almost breaking as he looked out to the grey skies outside. “How?”

“There’s a possibility,” Lillian began, turning to the two elves with apprehension in her eyes. “Do you remember the grounds where we fought? It was the region located under… this pin,” she continued, index pointing to one of the southwestern markers. “The previous undead intruders came two days ago. It was right after I came back from replacing the broken webs from one of the rare nightly patrols that actually come through here. These were scouts that triggered two pins… pins pointing right next to the one you two triggered, one week ago.”

“They found clues?” Rávion was sweating now, thinking back on what blunder he could have done. Though not the youngest, he was clearly the most inexperienced when it came to common sense when surviving in the wild or when eluding capture by trackers. “The tree I scored? Do you think that was it?”

“No, it wasn’t. I went back to dirty it up and darken it. If one still managed to notice the notch, it would have discarded it as something left by a claw or a beak. They might be smarter than the foot-soldiers in terms of observation, but not enough to notice the subterfuge.”

“Then… my blood?”

Lillian’s head spun at that, and so had Orophin’s. When Lillian had tossed him into the air towards the song-mage, the soundsmith’s shoulder had been injured by his blade. The gash was not deep, but it was a bit more than superficial. Lillian had tended to it before they left, thinking a trail of blood could have lead unwanted visitors to the cave, but once that was done, she had discarded it wholly. “I didn’t clean up what blood was already spilled!”

“Quiet,” Orophin said in a hiss, holding out his hand as he angled his ear towards the cave’s mouth. “I hear movement…” Slowly, he rose from his chair and lowered his body to the ground. He crawled on all fours up the sloping stone floor, head peaking over the ledge and in between a thick patch of halberd leaves to see what waited beyond.

“That sound… whirrs and clicks?”

“It is a cart,” Orophin whispered through clenched teeth. “Escorted by a dozen undead.”

“Who’s driving it? What’s it carrying?” Lillian asked as she made her own way to the ledge, closely followed by the soundsmith.

“A living human,” the High Bard snarled, but the girl could feel the contempt had nothing to do with racism.

“What is it carrying, Orophin?” she repeated.

He hissed. “Corpses.”

[Ataraxis]

“Are you certain you need me here?” the rotund man asked from the saddle of a gaunt horse, wiping the cold sweats from the bald pate of his head with a dirty kerchief. “I’m certain if there was an intruder, he’d be already gone by now, or dead.”

One of the soldiers walked up to him, his swagger oddly proud for an undead. When he came close, the carter knew just why: he had retained much of his shape in death, and the signs of his passing were very few and far between. His face had been conserved frighteningly well, the cyanotic hue of his skin the only indicator that blood had long stopped flowing through his dead heart. There were scars – no, not scars. There were open wounds that had never mended, but they were not bleeding nor had they festered. They simply existed, revealing coils of darkening muscles under the parted skin.

“That does not concern you, gravedigger,” the soldier spoke, his tone more assuasive than menacing. The carter almost felt like the man… the thing was sparing him from gruesome details. “Yet, I will humor you.” Then again, perhaps not. “Once we found the blood, we scouted the area, and stumbled upon the faintest traces of presence. Common scouting protocols would not have allowed us to detect it: we expect to find traces of fools passing through, not coming to stay.”

“The intruder is living here? Why in the hells?”

“Motives do not concern us. They are here. We discovered a rabbit hole, and the brood were dead within. Not for very long, considering the rate of decomposition. They waited to be fed, but the mother never came back. No traces of her corpse in any ditch or the like, and as you know… the undead do not eat rabbits.

“Moreover, though the intruder was wary not to leave visible footsteps, we became more… thorough in our methods. We could not trace them back to a shelter or any sort, but we do know what locations this trespasser frequents the most… it is only a matter of time.”

“What are you going to do afterward?” the gravedigger asked. Then, with a look to the decomposing merchandise in his cart, he felt foolish for asking. “You’re going to turn him into one of you?”

“Does that offend your sensibilities?” Again, there was no amused tone in his words. “You come here to sell us the corpses you were meant to bury, but only now you consider the moral implications?”

“I… For my family… I have to. Galonan will not stand… if this can spare them from such a terrible fate…”

“Of course, it will not stand. Of course it won’t, if you keep bloating the ranks of your enemies with the corpses of those who died to protect your pathetic lives in the first place!”

“W-why are you… but you are…”

“You tire me,” the soldier snarled as he turned away. He attempted a sigh, but there was only so much he could do with such a dry esophagus and lungs that had long collapsed. He could see the winds blow through the leaves, hear that deep whistling. Yet he could not feel it with his deadened nerves, nor smell its fragrances. “Be ready to load your cart with one more. We should weed him out anytime, now. Then, after you unload him and your fallen protectors at our bivouac, you can be on your merry way back, thinking yourself a savior. And even if my words convince you otherwise, you will return, with just as many corpses. You will come back, every time, because it is your nature.”

“Found… more traces,” one of his underlings muttered brokenly, the air hissing out of the rotting hole in his left cheek. “Stool in bushes… fresh enough. Was small hole, hidden under leaves.”

“Then his shelter must be close by. At the very least, within a two hundred yard radius. Still, quite clever of him, considering we cannot smell.” The soldier turned to the other undead, knowing they awaited his command. “Continue combing the area, then. Once we turn him, we will move on to the next carts. It won’t be long before our forces fully recover, so there is no time to- ”

A screeching from skies. The carter slapped his palms to his ears, but the deafening noise would not dampen. The undead, only looked about the skies in confusion, unable to feel the pain of their eardrums. Only the soldier, however, had the presence of mind to find shelter beneath the carted mound of corpses.

Blades of wind fell from the heavens, striking at the earth with the ferocity of a hailstorm. Plumes of dust and blown soil burst like blood from an artery, and soon the debris were joined by severed limbs festering entrails. When it finally came to a stop, the ground still seemed to quake in fear of what cataclysm had just befallen.

A pair of boots came to rest on a patch of grass right before the soldier’s eyes. Hands shot from above to drag him away from the safety of the cart, pulling him up by the collar of his chain mail as easily as if he were a child.

“Until the undead recover from their losses… how long exactly?” Orophin asked, staying the cold rage in his voice. The soldier looked about the clearing at the foot of the hillside, and he saw massive grooves in the earth, as if left by the hands of a vengeful god.

And that god, he believed, was currently holding him by the neck.

[Ataraxis]

“A month, at most.”

Orophin blinked at the simple, honest answer. Even if the undead had just lied to him, he did not understand to what ends. Perhaps the undead army would recover much sooner than in a month’s time, but that was irrelevant: even a single month was far too soon. Whether it be the Legion of Light, Tor Elythis or any other of the current Raiaeran forces, they would never make it to Timbrethinil in time.

“Why are you so compliant?” The High Bard hoped to better delve into this mind that was far too… aware for an undead monstrosity. He needed something, anything to offset the troublings news he had just been given. “You have not even considered stabbing me with that dagger you keep hidden in that arm guard.”

“Would it have worked?” the soldier asked, laughing. Orophin only smiled, perfect white teeth bared viciously. “I thought so.”

“I must say I am not accustomed to the idea of conversing with one of your kind. Since you seemed to be the only one to have the answers to my questions, or at the very least the ability to try and answer them…”

“Dull boys, aren’t they?” the soldier said scoffing, dead eyes set on the remains of his subordinates. “But I don’t hold it against them. In fact, I considered them the most fortunate of us… even now.”

“How much... how much do you retain of your previous life?” the bard asked, loosening his grip around that fold of chains. While he knew full well the answer would be irrelevant to the circumstances, he had still felt compelled to seek the answer. “And why do you retain so much?”

The soldier seemed surprised. Warily, he looked away to the range of trees to his left, noticing that whatever magic this elf had cast had reached that far, as some had seen their bark blown off by the pressure of the descending winds alone. “I seems I do not have much of a choice... How much, you ask? Everything. And why? Ah... cruelty, perhaps.”

“You recall your life, yet you fight along these... these mistakes of nature? I can only conclude you were a knave before death.”

Those grey eyes that had still in death, they had come afire for the span of an instant. “I was a soldier of Galonan. I saw my comrades die in battle, just as I saw them rise as his puppets. And I... with my own hands, I had to sever their heads, that they may die again!” The skin between his eyes folded in rage as he shouted, crackling open from dehydration. “I could see the horror in their eyes as they were brought back to that perversion of life, and I spared them from it… but no matter what I say, I still slaughtered my own brothers and sisters... slaughtered them as if they had been naught but rabid dogs.”

“But no one slaughtered you.”

“No… because I lived. Or at least, I lived long enough after the battle to die on a proper deathbed. I was relieved… I thought myself lucky.”

“But a gravedigger took you from your resting place,” Orophin concluded, looking back towards the cart. The portly man had fallen from his horse, but he was not dead: only unconscious. He had made sure to spare him, for now. “And they brought you back with your entire mind, that they may garner more information on Galonan’s defenses. No doubt they had a few of you already, but you must also have been formidable enough a warrior to warrant this... reanimation.”

“But I tire of this perversion. To hear that slithering voice invade my mind, push me to these atrocities, compelling me… no more. Had I been one of his grunts, I would have foolishly attacked you by now, and I would be dead… truly dead. This nightmare would have run its course, and I would no longer be sickened by my own existence... Why can I even tell you these things? I don’t know myself… but as I can, then so I do.”

“Then let us test how far you can, if you would agree to it?” With a wistful smile, the soldier only nodded. “Who is your current commander?”

“Valainistima Lithôniel,” the soldier replied. Orophin blanched at the name, fingers curling white about the soldier’s chain mail. He realized he was still holding him up, and let go. “It seems you know her,” the undead man said as he righted himself from the sudden drop, almost as a query.

“She is… a High Bard. Or was.” Orophin palmed his forehead, feeling the cold sweats there for the first time. “Where have they made camp? At the very heart of the forest, or is that a lure?”

“It is no lure,” the soldier answered once more, though there was a clearer struggle now. “It is only at the heart of the corruption that abominations such as I – no, worse than I are made.”

“I know of what you speak… tell me now, of how many undead does the army consist?”

“I… I am unsure. Tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred?” He was clutching at his heart now, and Orophin knew what was happening. The Black had sensed the betrayal, at last. Or at least, what necromantic command was left in all his pawns had detected it and was now consuming the soldier from within. “The corpses from Galonan and Trenyce… they replenished over a third of the numbers we… they lost.”

The soldier fell to the ground, feeling his body boil from within. He watched as the cyanotic skin of his hand quavered, bubbling underneath. “You would think pain would be a welcomed change from the numbness… but even now, I loathe it. Ask, while there is still time.”

“I have but one question left for you.” Orophin knelt to the ground, folding his bardic robes under his legs. He pressed a hand on the man’s shoulder, and looked him in the eye. “What is your name, soldier?”

If there had ever been life left in this man after death, then Orophin had seen it all gathered in his eyes, burning brighter than sunshine in that look of pain, of bewilderment… then of solace, and of gratitude. “Manwë… Manwë Arphenion.”

The convulsions had reached their paroxysm. His body was spastic, the boiling of his dead blood from within now reaching the High Bard’s nostrils in a gut-wrenching draft. Yet, he did not recoil. He took the silver blade that hung at his hips, placing it against the moribund’s neck, and in the silence that followed had been a question. As his only answer, Manwë closed his eyes, and nodded without fear.

The blade swept from side to side, slicing effortlessly through flesh, bone and sinew. Before it could fall to the ground, Orophin caught the severed head with his hand. “Once Galonan is saved, I will tell them of your courage,” the High Bard told Manwë solemnly. Gently, carefully, he placed it on a patch of grass, then stood to sheathe his sword.

“Lillian, Rávion,” he said after a moment of prayer. “There will be a slight change of plans.”

[Ataraxis]

That day, a whole troop of undead had been relieved from their curse. It was, however, because of that klling mercy that they could no longer hide away. Once the undead forces realized the loss, they would know an enemy was lurking in the shadows of Timbrethinil. While powerful, Orophin could not contend with a hundred, a thousand, let alone tens of thousands of these abominations. They could no longer wait, but they could certainly not fight the hordes head on. Were it that easy, then the Raiaeran forces would not be struggling against the pawns of Xem’Zund. He had realized that when he heard Manwë speak of the undead’s recovery, and the seed of his plan had been germinating ever since. That was why he had spared the traitorous gravedigger from his onslaught.

That was why they were being smuggled amongst the corpses into the very heart of Timbrethinil.

“This is madness,” the gravedigger whispered from his horse, wary not to look back. They were in enemy territory now, and the trees were twisted sentinels, eavesdropping on the unwary and invisible eyes spying from the hollows in their trunks. The slightest disturbance, the slightest oddity would be reported to archivists within the undead ranks. Thankfully, a human ranting on to himself about the madness of things, life and everything in it did not seem to be considered unusual. “This is really, really madness…”

“Won’t they know something is amiss, if the carter isn’t escorted?” Rávion was whispering to his right in a nasally voice, as he had been squeezing the bridge of his nose. Worse than the unbearable stench, however, was his indescribably sense of wrongess about hiding within a pile of corpses. To feel that cold chill, like a slab of frozen meat, to feel crowded by the knees and elbows and foreheads and bellies of people who had once laughed, loved and felt sorrow as he had, but no more... it revulsed him. It made him feel heinous.

“Manwë mentioned something about escorting other carts.” Orophin had answered in a murmur, his golden hair peaking in between the crook of a leg and a swollen armpit. For a man of his standing, he evinced none of the expected repugnance in this situation, only that sense of discomfort a professional would feel and discard before a dirty job that needed to be done. Rávion felt his insides roil at the notion that the bard might have done something similar in his lifetime. “I asked the gravedigger, and he confirmed that once within the field of corruption, his escorts would always leave to fetch others like him. I would assume the trees, or any other infected inhabitant of this forest, would be enough to keep him… safe.”

Rávion remained silent, watching as an oddly black ant slipped from the edge of the cart, scurrying in between the fallen leaves in the utmost silence. It had not been the first, and he knew it would not be the last. “Do you think this is going to work?”

“I should hope so, or you would have made a very poor choice in following me, the originator of that plan. But silence: I believe we approach.”

“Wait: shouldn’t we wake Lillian up?” The soundsmith looked to a patch of black hair to his left. There, Lillian lay unconscious, her nostrils and mouth shrouded by an almost invisible mask of webs. She had said she wanted to inhale as little of the rot as she could, even while asleep, but all he worried about was that her brain would keep being supplied with enough oxygen.

“If I dispelled my song of slumber now, she would scream and faint... much like she did when I fist announced the plan.”

“Once we’re unloaded, then?” Rávion muttered as he returned his eyes to the forest. The trees were dark and gnarled, devoid of their leaves. They seemed like crooked old men wearing crowns of twigs, and he could imagine them lurching over young whippersnappers with a cane in hand and ready to unleash a harsh lambasting. The sordid image would have been laughable any other time, but right now, it terrified him.

“Indeed.” As Orophin gave his simple answer, three more ants leapt from the cart, skittering in opposite directions as they vanished in the soil and shadows. “While I do believe that, thanks to her ideas and contributions, our chances of success are much higher… her presence of mind would only be a liability at this moment. But again, silence: someone comes.”

“Is it you, Maurice?” a woman’s voice crooned from the front of the cart; the two elves slackened their bodies and closed their eyes, feigning death as best they could. Their breaths had almost slowed to a stop, and to the naked eye they were as unmoving as their deceased neighbours.

“Y-Yes ma’am,” the portly man said as he slid off the perch of his saddle, little sandaled feet whipping at the dry leaves as he scurried ahead. While she looked away to inspect the merchandise, his hand went for his crotch, rubbing and scratching away furiously at the soreness of too long a ride.

“You are late,” said the commander of the undead army, crossing her pale arms over an ample chest as she stole him a chiding glance. Maurice stared intently, feeling sickened by his lust for a woman that had been dead for months. Yet, she was so well preserved… even her skin did not look like that of the dead, only slightly paler than that of a living elf. It pained him to look at her face, however: that ugly, open gash across her mouth marred what would have been one of the most beautiful countenances he had ever beheld, even in his wildest - and lewdest - dreams. “Is Manwë to blame?”

“N-No ma’am. I was late because the guards were being more careful about those leaving the city. I had to circumvent their security to-”

“Yes, yes. Come along, now.” Valainistima turned on her heels, her bardic robes fluttering about her hips in gracious billows of veridian and aquamarine; Maurice cursed at himself once more for the gaudy thoughts the image had stirred within. Quickly, he mounted his horse once more, feeling a slight wave of pain as his crotch struck the saddle. With a spurring tap of his boots, the gaunt horse trotted onward, its drawn-out neigh a lazy lament. “Seventeen other carters have arrived today. They had a more abundant haul than you, as well. Might I suggest you create more corpses, like some of these innovators have?”

“I… I will consider it.”

The encampment was unlike any Orophin had ever seen – he had afforded a few peeks. Somehow, he had naively expected tents and camp-side fires, but these were monstrosities animated by the darkest facet of the Tap. Fire would be more of an inconvenience to them in this pitch-black darkness, but they seemed to have lit a few torches and braziers to allow various murderers and gravediggers to move about the bivouac more freely. There were no tents, but Orophin realized that the undead needed to shelter to sleep, or sleep at all.

There were no camps or mess tables, for the undead did not eat, either… or at least, they did not need to eat. Once, he had seen them pounce and pile over a soldier like emaciated hyenas; they had ripped him apart, scraggly fingers plunging into live flesh like fork tines into cooked meat, and they had lapped at every gush and fountain of fluids, had fed on any visceral matter they could scoop from his belly as he screamed in untold agony, witness to his own horrific cannibalism. That had seemed more of a barbaric nightmare than a need for sustenance, and he had an inkling that it was a command in their curse for the purpose of striking fear into their foes.

Yet outside the battlefield, these undead only sat or stood, on rocks or against trees, or simply in the middle of nowhere with dead eyes staring into oblivion. Some were being outfitted with armors and weapons supplied from Trenyce, taken from crates that lined the a cluster of twisted trunks. Here, the undead were only commodities, as valuable and inanimate as the swords and spears they wielded. Other than that, Orophin could only see the carts brought in by the living traitors. Still, despite that strange sense of emptiness… the encampment was immense. The cart clicked on for what could have been a mile or two, and not once in that distance did he see the line of statuesque undead flitting past his vision thin in numbers at any point.

The horse’s reluctant hoof falls came to a stop, at last. Though he could not see what it was from his vantage point, he could see the eerie glow it emitted, bathing the area in a soft, purple light. That softness, however, was one he associated to malicious shadows, to that silent radiance of demonic eyes or the numbing serenity of a ghastly apparition.

“Well, well,” Valainistima began in a curious, lilting voice. “What shall I cook up tonight?”

[Ataraxis]

“She sounds like she has just as bad a taste for puns as Lillian,” Rávion whispered as lowly as he could, though he had been careful to see if there were any undead soldiers standing close. The freights of cadavers, however, seemed to have been isolated from the troops who only stood in a tentative circle about the ritual circle. It seemed relatively safe to murmur.

“I know. I have met her before,” Orophin muttered back, a clear wince on his face. That had come as a surprise: considering how gorgeous she remained while dead, he could not fathom how much more ravishing she was when gifted with the glow of life. If the rumors on the men from the House of Súrion were true, then she should have been one of his prime targets.

“Conquest, or?” Rávion asked, finding amusement in the repulsive idea. Only then did he realize he was talking towards a bloated stomach that stank of swelling gases. “Oh... ugh. Mother Aurient...”

“Or.” Orophin seemed rather intent on clarifying that. “She was a beauty, I have to admit… but I could not take her personality. No one could. She was such a... a child, and she was my elder by centuries. The mere idea of pursuing her was...” Orophin paused at that, then scowled out of remorse. “Not that I wish to speak ill of the dead. Bless her soul… eventually.”

“Perhaps, I would knit a patchwork golem?” Valainistima continued, clearly amused by the sound of her own voice in tandem with the palpable cleverness of her wordplay. “Or… or weave a basket of… hmm…” She clicked her frail fingers impatiently, trying to find that elusive word. “Weave a... bag of bones? Wrap myself a mummy? What do you think, Maurice?”

“Those had nothing to do with cooking,” Rávion commented sharply, finding the practice of puns more and more ridiculous with every failed attempt. “Lillian was better than that, and that says something.”

“Perhaps… she was going for a housewife repertoire?” Orophin surmised, a dubious hook in his brow. He snapped back to attention, however, eyes returning to the scuttle of four more ants that dropped to the cracked earth and disappeared beneath the cart. “But shush.”

“Uhm,” the plump gravedigger considered, the sheer volume of sweat he had accumulated since this evening giving him chills. “What if… you, uhm, looked into the… wight of their eyes for the answer?”

“But I’m asking you… oh!” Valainistima laughed at that, a crystalline sound made only slightly hoary from the dryness of her insides. “I see, because of the idiomatic human expression, and the homonymy of the creatures’ common appellation... It’s good. Though, that doesn’t work with the housewife theme I had.”

“…You know her too well. Are you sure you didn’t?” Rávion pressed on the matter, but Orophin only grunted his contempt of the idea, then shushed the boy as silently as he could.

“But I’ve decided: patchwork golem it is! We’ll need the added muscle to plow through our enemies.” That last note had been tinted with an unequivocal sadism, and that had been enough to remind Rávion that this quirky elf woman had not only been a feared and revered High Bard, but was now the corrupted commander of this army. “Though, since you were such a good sport, we’ll start with your offering, Maurice!”

“What?” came their common reply, though only Maurice’s surprise had been heard.

“Pick them up and throw them into the circle, will you Chéri?” Orophin could only hear a bloody grunt come from his right, then heavy series of footsteps that pounded into the ground hard enough to make the bolts in the cart shake loose.

One colossal hand pushed down on the mound of bodies, the sudden pressure knocking the breath from the High Bard’s lungs. Its meaty fingers closed around three or so corpses, lifting them up like a wooden crane before tossing them into the air. A second later, they heard three wet thuds on the ground. Orophin sighed in relief...

Until the hand pressed down again. This time, Orophin felt its disproportionately large thumb and index slide around his waist.

“Oh… no.”

[Ataraxis]

“Phin?”

Valainistima stood akimbo at the edge of the ceremonial circle, golden brows quirked above eyes of quizzical amber. She swept a finger through her flaxen locks, which seemed oddly well-maintained for a woman that had stopped breathing for half a year. Then again, perhaps that was due to an absence of perspiration. In any case, Orophin found that her personal maintenance of basic hygiene was the least of his concerns, as of this moment.

He had flied for the first time in his two thousand years of life, but his landing had been rather brusque and painful. The stomach of a corpse had broken his fall, but the more circumstances treated these unfortunate cadavers as objects of serendipity, the more he felt ashamed of being the prime instigator of this dishonor of the dead. Without saying much, he drew to his feet, industriously dusting the folds of his crimson cloak and matching bardic robes.

“Hello, Val.” He felt the idiocy as he spoke. In a hopeless effort to correct that, he waved at her with a lethargic hand. “Long time no see.”

“Well…” He saw her eyes light up then, and he knew to steel himself for the worst. “It’s really nice of you to- ”

“Please do not say drop by.”

Her spirits sunk after that, but she shrugged it off eventually. “You know, you’re putting me in quite a pickle, Phin.”

“I am certain I must be, and for that I apologize.”

“Personally, I would like to jump at your neck and cling on, you know?” She clasped her hands and gyrated ecstatically, her innocent smile revealing rows of teeth barely dirtied by her untimely death. When she considered her duty, however, the light in her eyes had dulled considerably. “But professionally... I’m supposed to jump at your throat and tear it off with my teeth.”

“I am… thankful you are still considering.” Orophin stepped forward tentatively, watching with care to see if any of the undead would slay him there and then. While the more sentient commanders stood taut in a readied stance, they could not act without the General’s orders: as such, their underlings could not as well, and this meant he would be relatively safe for the time during. This, he knew, was a golden opportunity. “Val, are you certain of this? I do know you, and this… this is not you. You were always… eccentric in your own, special and… endearing way, but you were never heinous. Your interest in the necromantic arcane, in treating the make of such abominations as nothing more than a new recipe? And then your leading an army of these same abominations against your own true blood?”

“Let me stop you there, Orophin,” Valainistima cut his supplication short, holding a satin-gloved hand up as she stepped into the circle herself, the sway of her hips graceful and indicative of no aggression. Even in undeath, her alluring silhouette was given even more appeal by the soft glow of the braziers surrounding the ritual array. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to appeal to my memories when I was living, to my convictions and my loyalties. To make me reassess my position as the General of this army, and to have me gain this one moment of lucidity wherein which I sacrifice myself for the sake of the country we were both born in, raised, taught and tempered.” She smiled despite herself, amber eyes rolling down in the burden of her reality. “I understand that very well, and I do sympathize. I would try the same, were our situations inverted.

“But Phin, while I am still capable of sympathizing… I can no longer empathize.” The undead bard swept a hand outward in deliberation, while bringing the other to gently rest upon her deadened heart. “The Black removed this from me when he brought me back as a commander, to avoid such moral crises. Any contradiction that I become aware of, any realization about the absurdity of my circumstances… they have no effect on my new directive. None at all.”

The commander stepped forward once more, letting her arms drop to her sides. Orophin still did not move, letting her come to him, his eyes wistful as she took what time she could to explain to him the futility of it all without ever once mocking him. “I cannot disobey, nor can I even feel a desire to disobey: this is a specification he has weaved into the souls of his every General, and because of it, his control over me, over all of us… is flawless.

“Everything that is currently passing through your mind… it passed through mine as well. And just as you cannot understand it, neither can I. It is a sick, cruel, twisted torture, and I cannot revolt. I cannot even feel wronged. Therefore… I can only comply.”

“Then, you have made your decision?” Orophin took one step toward the woman, his arms spanning wide open as if to welcome her in his arms… but he knew she would not throw herself into them. She had told him she would so often in life, if the opportunity ever arose. She had told him how much she yearned for it in that joking manner that hid the truth of her desires. Though they had never been intimate, he had known for long that she had wished it were so. Seeing her like this, he regretted... not because of what he missed, but because she had died with her heart unfulfilled. “Not even... for the sake of old times?”

“You cruel man,” she replied with a sorrowful smile, unable to shed the tears her body could not produce. “You know it is no longer mine to make.”

Her hands lunged for his throat, just as he knew they would. Without reacting, he let the fingers coil around his neck, let them tense and bunch and crush as they needed to. Valainistima picked up him, slowly, carefully so as to avoid his neck snapping under his own weight. “With what little control I have… I will end your life without bloodshed. Forgive me, Phin. It was nice seeing you again.”

“It is I… that should be asking you… for forgiveness,” he managed to mutter in between dry hacks. He looked down at her hands, at the countless ants that were now streaming across her arms and onto her neck, chest and legs. Valainistima looked up in confusion, noticing that he had raised a hand, fingers poised to snap. “That’s all… of them.”

A single snap echoed through the camp... and her ears perked. Lillian darted up from the cart as stiff as a spear, freed from both the sleeping charm and the mounds of bodies that were piled upon her, as Rávion had pushed them away while Orophin stalled for time. She spun to face the ritual circle, saw the undead general drop the High Bard to brush the ants aside with both hands. Without a moment’s waste, she ripped the mask of webs from her face and brought a strange crystal flute to her lips. With a single breath of power, she played a melody as fast as lightning.

Surrounding her in an ethereal halo were specks of blue light that sparked into existence, fluttering about her body as they grew faster than the eye could follow into a majestic swarm of butterflies, radiating with an electrical glow. In one shrill note, they bolted away from the girl in a circle, speeding across the clearing like shooting stars. They searched and searched for their elusive partners, these black ants that were shrouded with a shadowy blur, these black ants that each dragged behind them the thinnest of threads that now spanned miles and miles across the forest.

And from their fated union came the violent birth of fire.

[Ataraxis]

Orophin had not spoken in jest when he had said the girl’s webs had an explosive adversity to magic. When Rávion had heard the plan, it seemed more fantasy than a real strategy, but if their frightful confidence in those threads had not convinced the soundsmith then, they certainly had him persuaded now. He had watched in silent awe as the butterflies alighted on the backs of Orophin’s shadowy ants, discharging their electricity into the threads that the magical insects had carried throughout the infected regions of Timbrethinil, unseen from the prying eyes of the sentinel trees. For a single instant, the webs burst into a pale blue network that spanned the core of the forest, reaching to the outer edges of the corruption. The following instant, however, was brighter than any fireworks he had ever seen: the threads exploded into bright flames, igniting the dry leaves, the dust, the infected bark and clawed boughs. It had also ignited throughout the encampment of the undead, though the trees and any other form of kindling were sparser there. Still, the ensuing inferno had spread in the blink of an eye, the wildfire having already climbed the treetops in the immediate area. He felt a surge of pride then, not because he had instigated any of this, but because the tools used by those who had were of his make.

After all, it was his crystal flute that Lillian had used to summon these creatures of lightning, just as it has been his crystal flute that Orophin had used to call his shadow ants beforehand.

“Stop day-dreaming, Rav!” came Lillian’s voice, and he quickly returned to the reality at hand. They were not out of the woods yet, and quite literally at that. He saw that Maurice had already mounted his thin horse, and so he hurried to help Lillian push out the remaining cadavers from the cart, repressing his shame that they had become nothing more to him than ballast to jettison. With a spur and a tug of the reins, the gravedigger sent the horse into a mad dash towards Orophin, the cart bouncing shakily in its tow.

The High Bard was picking himself up woozily, having barely shielded himself in time with a quick defensive cantrip when the webs the ants had wrapped around Valainistima exploded into binding festoons of smoke and flame. It pained him to hear her screams of shock, but knowing the hurt he caused her heart by this last betrayal was worst than anything else. It was only luck that made him notice the wild beast charging at him, and even more luck that it missed him by a hair’s breadth. Rávion and Lillian had extended their hands, catching him by the waist and tossing him into the cart with intense groans of effort. Maurice, his eyes frenetic, spurred the horse on towards a break in the walls of fire that were flaring throughout the encampment. The undead were throwing themselves to the ground, rolling and rolling to douse the flames, but the many that had been spared in the blast and were now converging towards them.

Lillian resumed her song of lightning, and swarms of her crackling butterflies soared from the tip of the crystal flute, darting for the undead that came to close. Unfortunately, without her explosive threads, their power had been greatly reduced. Aware of this, Lillian had aimed more efficiently for their eyes. As they burst into sizzling blue flashes, they left singed, somewhat molten craters in those empty orbits, sending those unfortunate undead running blind in circles.

Orophin had raised his hands, clapping them in a quick and rhythmic beat at first, consistently widening every arc and increasing the volume of his claps. Soon, the air around them warped in a heat haze, until massive spheres of fire sembled into existence. As the undead rushed close, strands of flame would arc like solar flares, turning to ash anything that dared to cross their path. They fed on the corpses, using them as combustibles until they expanded to a critical size. In the ensuing explosion, they cremated all those caught in its wake and intensified the flames that were already raging across the encampment, before finally vanishing into puffs of smoke and haze.

Yet there were still so many. They were all too slow on foot to catch up to the cart, but those who waited beyond had attempted to throw themselves in the horse’s path, or to clamber onto the cart to weigh it down. Orophin did quick work of the wave to his side with his silver blade, but seeing that Lillian only had a glass dirk to fight off those on hers, his worry invariably grew… that is, until she brought down the crystal flute Rávion had crafted in a heavy swing. He saw the crystal vibrate, saw it shape itself in a flash of reflected fire until the flute was gone. In its place was a transparent sword, sparkling majestically in the firestorm even as it sliced off the hands of an undead. “I told you all you needed was to trust yourself, Rav: you mastered it!”

“Let’s celebrate my professional breakthrough after we’re done with this!”

“That’s it! They’re starting to thin! We’re losing them, we’re losing them!” Maurice cried out in joy from the saddle, piglet eyes filling with tears of relief.

Loud, heavy thuds, reverberating from far behind. They felt them quake through the ground, felt them getting closer. “No… no, no, no!”

“It is Chéri,” Orophin whispered. “And it sounds furious.”

“How much do you think it weighs?” Lillian asked, out of the blue.

“Seems like a ton, maybe?” Rávion answered. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Orophin, start wetting the ground behind the cart now,” the girl asked simply. He had not noticed it until now, but her pale blue eyes were now ringed with a deep red, far thicker and bloodier than they had seen before. She weaved a long strand of her webs and tied it around her waist, then affixed the other end to the sturdiest part of the cart. With that done, she placed her hands on the back end of one of the wooden panels, snapping a piece off as easily as one would a twig. “Wish me luck,” were her only words as she jumped off.

The hulking behemoth was upon her now, just as she righted herself from her fall. The creature was truly a patchwork of countless corpses, all of its limbs of colors mismatched, but its face was the most gruesome piece of work she had ever seen, what with its rows of malformed eyes, huge grinning smile of filed teeth and the bony hole for its nose. As it came closer to slam her down, it threw up those massive hands, so far out of disproportion with the rest of its colossal body she wondered how it could even lift them. Lillian wasted no time: she dashed a dozen steps, ground she covered in the blink of an eye. Upon that final step, the tip of her boot bit the ground, leaving a cratered imprint as she leapt high, reaching the forehead of this ten-foot tall aberration. Her knee struck it head on, applying a maximum of force at the point farthest from the ground: the sheer moment was enough to send it crashing on its back, breaking the roots caught beneath it in an impact worthy of an earthquake. Yet, Lillian was not done.

She landed silently past its head, poised on her feet. While it thrashed like an upended turtle, she rushed to its shoulder, picking it up at first, then throwing it upwards in one impulsion. The girl rushed beneath to catch the behemoth as it fell, her hands moving along the spine until she reached its center of gravity. Once there, she coiled her legs… and spun.

When she tossed it with the added momentum, the patchwork body crashed into a burning tree with just enough speed and force to snap it partway. The behemoth wailed as the sharpened wood impaled its back, blood seeping from its eyes and mouth as its mass slid along the immense stake, black blood and viscera trailing behind as it began to cook under the heat.

And just in time, she felt the thread tug at her hips. She rushed the opposite way to pick up the wooden panel and continued her run, picking up speed until the thread she had weaved had unfurled its length. She jumped, slid the panel under her feet, and aimed to land on the slippery trail that Orophin had left behind with his song magic.

The shock was intense, and the strain of the rutted pathway on her knees was nearly unbearable, but she held on to the thread, pulling at it as the board underfoot slid along the hosed passage. She could see Rávion and Orophin pull from their own end, fearing that she would trip from the board and crash to the speeding earth at any moment.

It was a minute before she made it safely back to the cart, gasping and panting from the strain. Rávion spat a thousand oaths, cursing her for her recklessness, but Orophin only watched the creature fade away in the distance, its thrashings quelling to a stop as the smoke rose from its insides, and it died one final time.

“Quite a gambit… but it saved us all.”

“There’s still the final leg of the plan, though,” Lillian managed in between huffs and puffs, wiping the sweat from her brows. In vain, as it seemed to be replaced by more perspiration almost instantly. “It’s all up to you now, Orophin.”

[Ataraxis]

Up in the dark heavens, a great cloud had begun to aggregate. It rumbled, sparks flying within in sheet lightning. The three watched as it grew with every second, knowing full well it was no work of theirs.

“Valainistima,” Orophin said in utter awe, still sitting in the cart that Maurice had stopped in a clearing just outside of the infection. “Only a High Bard could manage this… and she is much stronger now than she had been before.”

“She intends to douse the flames before they can inflict enough damage on her army… and on the corrupted forest,” Lillian said, though she was not surprised. “It’s as we guessed.”

“Lend me the flute,” the High Bard said, his eyes focused only on the thunderhead that was now casting on the forest the deepest shadow Timbrethinil had ever known. “I cannot let her get more of a head start.”

He pressed his lips against the crystal embouchure, and began a melody with a single note that wrenched their hearts. The sound crossed the forest, reverberating throughout in crestfallen echoes until they rose to the skies themselves, rose to meet the construct of water and mist. The melody played on, rushing, ever rushing, until there was a break in that despair, a beacon of light that tore through the darkness of its music.

And just as it had enlightened the sound of his melody, so had it torn through the overcast skies like a spear. Far above, the clouds parted, sucked inward to form a clear path for the moon's light to pass. In that single moment they could see the untainted starscape, and it was a time of clarity that purged the mind.

Yet it was not long to last. The clouds boomed before they could dissipate, thickening, growing darker as the lightning arced within that heavenly gash. Soon, the clouds sembled, swallowing the light again, and the rift was closing alarmingly fast.

“Try harder, Phin! You need to fight it longer: the fire hasn’t reached our side of the corruption yet!”

“Light… it’s not your forte, is it?” Lillian asked, not expecting him to answer while he still played. “But she was always like water, wasn’t she? Valainistima is fighting with her strongest asset, and she is also empowered by the Necromancer’s boon! You can’t win with just light… you always were fire!”

“That can’t be,” the soundsmith replied. “He told me that a song-mage with an affinity for the basic elements would need to go through hell to learn any of the rarer ones, but he wields light, shadows and lightning!”

“Then, at the very least, he went through hell thrice,” Lillian whispered, and Rávion said no more. “But now is not the time for those. If you can do all those wonders I’ve just seen you execute with the snap of your fingers or the clapping of your hands, then you must know what you could achieve armed with a full-fledged song!”

And what she then heard was fury in the music. It boomed across Timbrethinil in a maddened tempo, the motion of his fingers too rapid to follow across the flute. Across the skies, singularities of dark red light had begun to form, beseeming spheres of molten lava that spewed arcs of fire. They floated up, up, up, until they were positioned right beneath the darkening storm. The melody quickened again, and the spheres burned brighter like miniature suns. The clouds hissed under their heat, the vapors swirling about the spheres until they were no more. As they kept rising, the clouds became thinner, while the fires beneath raged with renewed vigor, as if deriving even more ferocity from the suns that watched over them. The smoke was rising high above the forest now, and they knew that this towering signal would not escape the sight of all Raiaerans.

“That’s it! It reached our end!” Rávion exclaimed as he pointed to the gnarled, black trees that were now wailing as the infection was being burned out of their cores. “Keep it up just a little more and-”

The melody came to a sudden stop, and the suns shrank high overhead, until there was nothing more. Orophin fell to the cart unconscious, completely spent by the continuous abuse of his bardic magic over the course of this night. The broken clouds gathered again, smaller this time, but there would be no stopping them now.

Soon, the rain came in a heavy downpour, dousing the flames from the encampment first. It was only half an hour later that the last of the fires had been snuffed out, and even a few regions of the forest that had not been corrupted were now nothing more than ashes. Lillian was far from concerned about that, however. If their sacrifice had ensured that the rest of the forest could be saved, then she was content. Moreover, the army that had escaped Nenaebreth had been dealt a second crippling blow, and the corruption that had grown and reigned unchallenged in Timbrethinil had been stunted. Whatever friendly eyes had seen the towering smoke rise from the forest would know the tides there had turned, and would press themselves to capitalize on this chance to sanctify the sacred forest, and perhaps even annihilate their weakened enemies.

The only thing she truly cared about right now was that albeit weak, Orophin’s heart still beat. Because of his rank as a High Bard, they had asked far too much from him, having him bring about what could only be considered as miraculous phenomena one after the other. The power he had shown just now, however, exceeded even that… and Lillian knew that Raiaera had found a new beacon of hope.

Sometimes, she had a hard time believing this beacon was a lecher… but in the end, beggars could truly not be choosers.

“When do you think they’ll come now, Rávion?” Lillian asked, cradling the spent song-mage in her arms with care.

“If no one’s here within the week… believe you me, I’ll have a few choice words about Nalith’s organizational skills.”

The girl chuckled, thinking to herself she would enjoy seeing that. The two were brought back to reality by a familiar, sweaty grunt. Maurice was coughing from his saddle, hoping to attract their attention. “You realize… we’re still not out of the woods? Physically speaking, that is.”

Rávion looked at Lillian, blinking in agreement. “What say you we remedy that?”

“Yes, let’s. If I even spend another day here, I think I’d burn the forest down to the ground again – and for good, this time.” Sighing, Lillian leaned back against a wooden panel, closing her eyes for a well-deserved moment of respite. She found much comfort in Maurice’s cry of ‘giddy up’ and the following whirs of the cart wheels.

But as the sickly horse pulled them along, Rávion had found one last thing to comment on. “You know… at this pace, leaving this place will be a two day ride.”

He heard something snap, and he knew it was not Maurice’s riding crop.

[Ataraxis]

I hope that you few who've read this from start to end could find a measure of enjoyment in it! It's very different from my usual writing, since I used it as an opportunity to unclog my writer's block. Probably the fastest solo I've ever written. Well, it's the second solo I've ever written, and the first one took 500 days, so it's not really that hard to beat.

But yeah! Hope you liked it.

Oh, and before I forget or before this gets judged, this quest was taken from an eponymous mission found in the Retribution Dawning Mission Board (http://althanas.com/world/showpost.php?p=154666&postcount=3). Details were discussed with Flames of Hyperion after I claimed it through PM. Not sure if that changes anything about rewards, but that's mostly where I got the ideas for the spoils from (specifically from this broken link in the Mission Board (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=131680)), so hey. ICly, it seems to be pretty important, but I guess I'll leave that to the people in charge.

Spoils

Wilwarin's Signature - A rapid melody that allows for the player to summon a swarm of sorcerous butterflies. Their wings glow an ethereal blue, and their flutter is accompanied by a sound much like the crackling of electricity. In large numbers, they are small and individually deal medium shocks, but they are larger in small numbers and can stun and cause a notable level of pain by electrocution. The effects of the song are best with a flute or when sung, but a very small fraction of the tune's potential can be used with finger snaps or hand claps. (Exact numbers to be determined either by judge or by the RoG mod).

Crude Maple Flute - A simple flute crafted from maple. It has no special properties. It was a gift from Rávion.

Valdaglerion Flute-Blade - Crafted from an unknown crystal, this flute is imbued with the magic of Valdaglerion soundsmiths, allowing it to transform into a flute-blade with a rapid swing or a strong grip. In its blade form, it still has apertures for wind to pass, allowing for the use of toned-down song-magic in combat. The use of song-magic through the flute form, however, enhances its effects by 1.5x. It was a gift from Rávion. (Strength to be determined the same way).

The equivalent of 4 shirts or 2 jackets (4 spools) in her magical black-silk cloth, as stated in her ability, Seamstress of the Sinister (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16278). They approach the strength of dehlar.

And the last spoil... isn't for me.

The Return of Orophin Súrion - I request that he may officially rejoin the ranks of the High Bard Council (of which Nalith is the only purported survivor). This would entail actually returning to Eluceliniel with whatever army picks them up from Timbrethinil, and him being hailed for his feats of pushing back by months the recovery of the undead army and of burning down over two thirds of the corruption there (with some credit to Rav and Lily). Also, by that time, Rav will have made him a crystal blade-flute too, and one much better than the prototype he gave Lillian. Otherwise, I don't expect he'll do anything other than apologize to Nalith for not being there to support her, and, well, actually start supporting her in battles and the such. Basically, it'd be cool if he started appearing places, and was written by other people as an official NPC of importance, maybe.

If there are any questions, qualms or doubts about the spoils, I would be glad to clarify through either PM or AIM (Username: Necathys).

[Saxon]

STORY

Continuity - 6/10 - I was a bit concerned that at the introduction of this thread, you didn't really give me enough bread crumbs to figure out why Lillian was where she was or even how she got there. What I've surmised though was that she was in Raiaera during Xem'Zund's rise to power and the initial invasion of his undead hordes, maybe at Istien University? I'm unsure. Even without this information, you took Lillian and ran with her through this thread and even if I was lost at first I quickly found myself unable to look up from reading this thread after being immersed in it.

My advice in the future is to always remember that everything has a beginning, even if you start at the end of something. While it isn't imperative that you dedicate an entire post to the history of the events that came before this, it does help significantly when you give enough details that readers can begin to connect the dots. I've never read anything from the Raiaera side of the FQ outside of the OOC posts, so my knowledge for example is very limited outside of that information. Giving me and others a quick game of catch-up, at least with the information that is pertinent to Lillian, would have been a huge help with reading this quest. Work on it.

Setting - 9/10 - Your work with setting in this thread was absolutely immaculate. I found myself right alongside Lillian and Orophin with the forest, the cave, the cart and eventually the biouvac. Everything was written in exceptional detail and I found myself wondering why you've never chosen to get anything published, because I think you could swing it. The only problems with setting that I saw was that it was often marred by the overabundance of detail that you chose to incorporate.

Yes, sometimes too much detail can hurt you. As I was reading this, I found myself wondering if you were unsure of whether or not people understood what you were trying to put forth. As I've had the same problem in the past, I want to assure you that it was never the case. There is no need to underline every point that you make with additional sentences of analysis, because after awhile it becomes tiresome to read.

But, overall, the setting in this thread was vibrant and came to life, helping your characters out significantly as you often used the setting to your own ends and sometimes even let the setting use you. Great job.

Pacing - 6/10 - Your pacing in this thread was my biggest peeve. Having known you for awhile now and while I haven't read much of your writing, I'm accustomed with your style enough to understand that you take your time when trying to set the pace of your writing while establishing what you need in the mean time. While this certainly has strengths of it's own, I feel that this style keeps you from moving as fast as you could have when starting this thread.

However, even if you started off slow in this thread, by about post 8 I found myself unable to put this thread down until I could hardly keep my eyes open from sleep. Hard as it is to believe after talking to me yesterday, Jean, I did enjoy this thread. While it wasn't as concise or fast-paced as I would have liked, I feel that lies more in my own personal tastes then what should be regarded in the rubric. I'd still like to warn you about the pacing so that in the future you can work on picking it up, because I'd very much like to see what you'd be capable of having as much fast-paced action as you did after your climax for the majority of your thread. Experiment and see if you like it.

CHARACTER

Dialogue - 7/10 - The dialogue here was very well written, if a bit long-winded. Orophin was a windbag. He might have been a 2,000 year old High Bard elf-thing from Raiaera, but throughout this thread he was a windbag. I often found myself cursing during his many speeches during this thread because it really killed most of the momentum you had going.

However, this was not a huge knock to your score. Overall the majority of your dialogue was fitting and made sense, even if it was a bit wordy for fantasy-set characters. But, I'll leave that to the suspicion it was a contribution of your sterling intellect. Just remember that when in character, you are that character. Not everyone has the answers to everything or speaks like Einstein if he LARPed, which a lot of this seemed like shadows of your own personality rather then individuals in your story. But, considering how hard that particular cord of ownership of a character is to break, I empathize.

Action - 6/10 - The action of this thread was really far and in between, but when it happened you were at your finest. A lot of the strategy and critical thinking Lillian and Orophin used on the battlefield was impressive, even if it was sometimes a bit far-fetched. I think after your climax, the bulk of your action helped carry this thread home. What I found to be your biggest weakness with it, however, was that it was still long-winded in your explanations of what was going on.

Whether you were aware of it or not, your establishment of a Setting and what made it so vibrant wasn't the abundance of details but rather the lack of them. You capitalized on certain parts of the setting, but left the majority of it to my imagination which helped me considerably when trying to immerse myself in this thread.

The same could be said for the use of action. Not everything needs to be absolutely spelled out to a T to keep your reader on deck with you. Don't be afraid to let your readers do some of the footwork for you when trying to connect the dots. Because not only will it keep them hooked on your every word, but you're doing them a service by not insinuating that they are children that need to be led around by the nose with every detail. Surprisingly, people do take offense to that sort of thing. Just try to be less wordy and give your writing a bit more space to grow in the reader's mind and you should be fine.

Persona - 9/10 - Your biggest asset in the rubric is by far this area of the score. While many of these characters possessed shadows of your own personality, I'd suspect many reading this wouldn't be aware of it unless they knew you very well. Despite this, all of your characters had minds and lives of their own even if they had a traits in common.

Lillian was ingenius from how she made use of her cave, to the surveillance system, to much of her ingenuity and forethought in combat. While I know you have a lot of skills with her that apply to quick and critical thinking, I saw much of it utilized here. Outside of that, you really took your time in analyzing her character and allowing the flaws and weaknesses to come out for everyone to see. While it isn't something everyone appreciates, it's the sort of thing I absolutely love to see. After all, what would people be without their faults?

For such a prominent and legendary figure in Raiaera, Orophin had a lot of flaws especially for being so old. I loved it. Being an elf or even 2,000 years old doesn't exempt you from the reality that nobody is ever perfect, and as somebody who has a deep, black hatred for elves I found myself liking Orophin and his compadre throughout this thread.

However, even with your own characters taking on a life of their own, what I most enjoyed was your own spin that you put on the undead when you used them. You have no idea how unique and satisfying it was to read some of the little odds and ends you incorporated with their physiology and into their character. Collapsed lungs, dry skin, The Black, etc. What is often mistaken is that iconic figures in literature like the undead can speak for themselves with little work needed with them. This is a fatal pitfall that many writers fall into today and is the source of much of my resentment towards races like Elves because of their overuse and how under utilized they are.

Though, I digress. What you managed to do with your undead NPCs during this thread really opened my eyes and if there was a hook in this thread to keep me reading, this was it. Don't underestimate your power to create and breathe life into characters, because if you ever had a source of strength, this was it.

WRITING STYLE

Mechanics - 7/10 - There were a few minor and petty errors here and there that I managed to spot over the majority of thread. Most of them were really hard to find, but I could tell you definitely proofread outside of the obvious answer of you asking me to give you time to edit before I read this thread. I honestly think though that you're big weakness is an overuse of weird word choices. While I understand you're somebody of high intellect, you need to compensate for those that aren't. The majority of your posts were around a thousand words or less, but they felt like 3,000. I don't really boast to have a huge vocabulary myself, but I had a lot of trouble understanding where you were coming from and spent the majority of my time trying to concentrate on dissecting words I can't even remember using in a sentence in my entire life.

Technique - 8/10 - A lot of this thread was done in a master stroke, and while I would classify this thread as a narrative rather then a story, it was done impeccably well. Aside from the purposeful use of terrible puns at every end, I found most of the strategy and use of techniques in your writing to be done very well. You've definitely found your voice as a writer, you just need to find the right octave for it.

Oh yes, you aren't the only one who can think up dumb puns on the fly, Jean. =P

Clarity - 7/10 - The majority of this thread was a tough read and requires a lot of attention to get through, and while you know my favorite literary word by now, it struck me very much in the style of lovecraft. He spent a lot of time in opening up his stories slowly and slowly building up with it until he hit the climax. While this is a decent trait to have, it was very much too slow for my own personal tastes. The sheer volume of your work hurt your clarity score as it's hard to maintain a clear, concise picture with this thread when you have 5-6+ more paragraphs to go through in a single post. Cut down on your word count, and do so properly, and you should see many areas of your score get boosted because of it.

Wild Card - 5/10 - As this is your second solo you've ever completed, and did so under your personal record of 500 days, I'm throwing you 5 points in the Wild Card. Congrats.

TOTAL: 70/100

You've gained 6028 EXP, 300 GP and leveled to 7! Congratulations!

Your flute, flute-blade, and melody are all approved. I'll leave it up to the RoG to hammer out the details with you later.

As for the return of Orophin, I'd support it after what he went through in this thread, but the power of that lies completely in Flames' court. But, knowing him, it won't be much of a fight to get Orophin mentioned in a couple areas of the FQ. Make sure to talk to him about it.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added, Axaraxis Levels up to 7!