As two people have already discovered, my new patreon is a lot further ahead in chapters than this blog, with a new chapter being posted at about 11 AM EST time every day until I run out of chapters. I might vamp that up to two chapters per day if it looks like I'll finish editing sooner.
I should note it is paywalled. Patreon will charge you $1 per month to read them. Sorry, but I have to put a paywall up otherwise Amazon and my audio people will get mad at me, and $1 is as low as I could make it. On that note, we're going to tap out what I'm contractually able to post on my blog in another few chapters.
Memories of the Reborn Chapter 3
With the small horde of undead defeated, we collected all the death aspect spellhearts. The Songstone would redeem a few of them to clear the names of the rest of their members, but most would go into our vault.
Sava joked that we should raise a necromancer, given all the death spellhearts that we’d been finding. I’d taken it to be a joke, but when I counted I realized there were only seven mage acolyte level spellhearts in our collection. The eighth had gone missing, and Segolas had been holed up in his tent, feeling ill.
I ignored it. I had nothing against necromancy, despite how sinister it seemed. Not long ago I’d been trying and failing to bind a death spellheart myself. The kid might have bitten off more than he could chew picking up a mage acolyte level one, but if he could successfully bind it he’d fly through the Heartwielder ranks as fast as he could get his body to adjust to the power. Which would be very fast, considering the life zeal his body naturally generated as a half-human.
With all the valuable materials already gathered, we left the rest of the Hearthwood clan to loot what was left of the battlefield. They could consider it their reward for a fight well fought. If anything else I wanted turned up, I could always buy at the little clan market we’d set up.
Having cleared this brief enemy incursion, we were all left with thoughts of how we’d fare against the much more numerous and troublesome enemy lying in wait just around the corner.
I was not the only one worrying about our oncoming war. We’d only just finished licking our wounds after rescuing Nela and the other elves who had been captured by the Corpse Collectors, but we all knew the main attack was right around the corner.
So to prepare for our next move we held another council meeting. Sava had spent the last week growing an absolutely massive tree that looked like it had stood for a hundred years. High up in the branches was a small circular chamber with nothing inside but a round table. A few tiny porthole windows adorned the unblemished solid piece of wood encompassing the room. Candelabras holding light potions dangled from the ceiling and the floor was smooth hardwood. The room was built like a log cabin and felt warm despite being so high in the air.
“Yorik, Nela, you two faced their main army on the field. What do you two think?” I turned to the only orc present and the golden-haired leader of the Songstone division of my Hearthwood clan.
Since being captured and rescued, both of them held a gloomy and anxious countenance that was infecting my entire council.
“They’re as well equipped as I’d expect of a major mercenary organization from the Queendom. They’re mostly mage acolytes or heartwielders a step away from that rank, and their officers all have mystic beasts and enchanted weaponry.” Nela sighed and glanced down at her hands on the table, rubbing at her wrists and the invisible ropes she claimed she sometimes felt there after getting captured. “They outnumber our force eight to one, and every one of them is a fighter.”
Yorik grunted and I turned my gaze to her. “More acolytes than we have heartwielders. The Hearthwood is outnumbered. Outmatched.”
“I refused to believe there is no hope!” Sava pounded her fist against the table. “We’ve just started building something great here, and I won’t let it be washed away because of some war started in a faraway land.”
“The Cult of the Unblinking Eye will harvest this place and its people like adding grass to a bonfire.” Illiel laid her old assassin’s dagger on the table. A memento of her previous time as a low-ranking grunt under the Cult of the Unblinking Eye. “I’ve seen the places they’ve conquered. The Sakaku clan works for them, and the Corpse Collectors work for the Sakaku. Ultimately, the cult is our true enemy.”
“But,” I interrupted before the mood could turn gloomier, “we can’t fight the cult right now. Though, from what Illiel told me, if they moved directly they’d arouse the ire of the Queendom.”
“And having accepted our gift of vitality potions,” Sava added, “the Sakaku clan can’t honorably strike at us. A small backwoods forest like the Hearthwood isn’t worth damaging their reputations.”
“For one of the great clans, to move against us personally would be a source of gossip and ridicule in the Queendom and make their allies question the ability of the Sakaku’s subordinate organization, like the Corpse Collector Company we now face.” Illiel said.
“So we’ll face only the Corpse Collector Company for now.” I replied. “But I don’t enjoy relying on honor and reputation to protect us.”
“Agreed.” Eltiana said. “Those are poor bricks to build a wall with.”
“Then how goes the Hidden Serpent’s inquiries outside the valley?” I asked the poison-wielding elf assassin. “Have you found us any allies to help us deal with the Shadowblade Beast? Even better if they could help us with the other foes we now face.”
Eltiana grimaced. “The obvious ally would have been the Songstone clan.” Eltiana cast an apologetic look in Nela’s direction. “After their collapse, none of the other great clans are competing against the Sakaku for territory in this region. There just isn’t anything valuable to attract them.”
Illiel nodded along. “My tutor once told me that when Dean the Destroyer was founding our Queendom, he swept through this entire region and gathered up anything worth more than a hundred Queensmarks. He sold everything and used the money to build a set of a hundred statues of himself around the Queendom.”
“Mhm. Dean didn’t want me to face any big players too early. It might have worked if not for the Cult of the Unblinking Eye wanting this land by proxy.” I said.
“Should we think about evacuating the Hearthwood?” Nela asked. “This was one of three locations I thought to flee to. We could start anew somewhere else.”
“Absolutely not.” Assyrus said. “My tribe has lived in this forest for generations. It’s all we know. We’d sooner die fighting than abandon it.”
She looked around the room and found resolute faces all around. Everyone was prepared to fight for the forest and their place in it.
“So there’s no avoiding this fight.” Assyrus said. “And even if we win, we’ll face a bigger enemy shortly thereafter. What do we do?”
Yorik slammed a fist on the table. “A long war. Fight for months. Years. Stay behind walls and have many children. Blood them early and raise them into fighters. Let them think the Corpse Collectors can take us in a siege. All the while, we train and raise more warriors. When we have overwhelming power, we break free and crush all foes.”
“It could work.” Nela said. “That was my original plan for the Songstone clan. With a chaka, we could increase our numbers with unrivaled speed. And that’s not even counting Segolas and any future children he could sire. Now that we’re all mage acolytes, making more mage acolytes should be easy. A few decades and we could overcome our disadvantage in power and numbers.”
The elves glanced around the table, nodding to each other, having apparently settled on this strategy.
“This…” I began, “seems like a rather poor way to spend the lives of our children.”
“It’s true, it’s rather inefficient.” Nela said, “And we’ll do our best to preserve the lives of the most talented of our descendants, but it’s not like we’ll be limited in how many we can have with you around. Our lines will not end with us.”
I glanced around the room and realized I was the only one so uncomfortable with this idea. The elves loved their children as much as humans when they could, but they also had no qualms about throwing them into the ocean to teach them to swim. I supposed it helped that souls could often be revived and elves had a much easier time laying more eggs.
“Alright.” I said with a sigh. “I’ll have to upgrade the hydroponic farm to keep up with the population growth, but between that and the dungeon beneath us we should have the resources to support a much larger population. Just… I want us to keep an eye out for allies.” I turned towards Eltiana. “Maybe this doesn’t have to take decades.”
Eltiana shrugged. “I’ll keep my ears to the ground. To be honest, the only things of value we possess are you, The Wanderer, and the zeal crystals beneath us. The first two we can’t trade and the last we can’t get to without first getting rid of that Crimson Eye Observer.”
“Speaking of,” Sava said, “we’re starting to run low on zeal crystals. We’ve had dozens of new mage acolytes, but we also have a higher demand for spellheart enhancements than ever.”
“Then the first thing we should do is go back into the dungeon to get more zeal crystals.” I said, latching onto a problem I could solve. “We’ll have figure out how to deal with the Crimson Eye Observer. Bring ideas to the next clan meeting.”
Afterwards, we discussed a few more mundane matters, like tax collection from the dungeon and settling the Songstone Clan here in town. More problems to add to my ever-growing to do list.
We were just about to tidy up and call it a day when the door opened. Ghessa appeared from behind it, giving everyone a false smile.
“Matriarch, chieftains, Theo, and… everyone else. The representatives from the Myriad Hues of Flame and Ironwood tribes have arrived.” Ghessa intoned. Despite being a mage acolyte, the ladder leading up to this room was long and would have tired out even the best athletes out on earth. “We retrieved them from the designated meeting location at the old Waterbeetle tribe and led them through the dungeon. They’re waiting in a tent outside.”
“Representatives?” I quirked an eyebrow. “Didn’t I ask them to come personally?”
“Chieftain Arwena of the Ironwood tribe sends her apologies for not attending in person. She says she’s busy at the moment and will visit at the next available opportunity.”
“And the Myriad Hues of Flame tribe?”
“Well… they…” Ghessa bit her lip.
“Can speak for themselves, outsider.” An elf with bright orange hair and a hawkish scholarly demeanor strode into the room.
“Chief Firebrand sends her regards.” The orange-haired elf said.
“Firebrand? Did Mosi take a cultivator name?” Eltiana asked with a tense expression.
“Mosi Whisperflame has been deemed a traitor by the elders of our tribe, for having conspired to share our secrets with outsiders. She was executed the day she returned from Queenshold.” The messenger stated coldly. “And we are not part of your Hearthwood alliance. I am only here to make that clear. Any agreements made with the false chief are void. Chief Firebrand merely sent me to ensure you lot understood that fact, and to… retrieve the egg containing Chief Conadur.”
Myriad Hues of Flame Tribe Messenger (Level 6)
She was only a mid-level heartwielder. That meant Illiel should be able to pick up on some of her surface thoughts and be able to pull a few more tricks besides. I glanced at her and she nodded. Her magic was perfectly effective against such a target.
“I see. So the Myriad Hues of Flame tribe has renounced its opportunity to join the Heartwood clan. You wouldn’t have already signed yourself away to the Corpse Collector Company?”
“N-no! How dare you besmirch the honor of our tribe! You…” The messenger took a deep breath, and Illiel let out a sad breath that confirmed my suspicions. Her zeal flared from her spellheart, but before she could use it, Sava appeared in front of her.
“I just grew this room. I can’t have you burning it down already.” Sava held a finger-sized round piece of orange stone.
“My spellheart!” The messenger cried, disbelief in her voice. “But…” she looked around the room, eyes wide at the realization that everyone here was a mage acolyte.
“Alright then.” The messenger balled her fists and turned. “I’ve said my piece. Return my spellheart. I’m leaving.”
“You may have said what you came here to say,” I stood up, “but we haven’t heard all we want. Grab her.”
“You can’t dare do this! Chief Firebrand—“
Sava cut her off. “Even if Chief Firebrand came herself, we’d still dare.”
Without her spellheart, the messenger was helpless.
“Funny.” Assyrus snorted. “These Myriad Hues of Flame girls always called learning to fight with your body barbaric and primitive for those without skill in zeal manipulation. What good is zeal manipulation without a spellheart?”
“How did you all get so strong?” The messenger muttered. “Weren’t you all supposed to be heartwielders?”
Nela must have picked up some odd skills after her stay with Sharian, because she had a bundle of soft silken rope in her bag of holding and bound the messenger by her hands and legs to the chair. We all loomed over our prisoner, glaring down at her as Nela tightened the ropes.
Just then, the door to our meeting room opened again and an unfamiliar light gray head of hair poked through the gap.
“Good evening. I’m the messenger from the Ironwood tribe, I heard you… all…” The other messenger trailed off at the sight of us standing around the now bound Myriad Hues of Flame messenger.
“Nela, can you please tell Ghessa to get our other guest some tea or something? Just get her to stay put for a while.” I sighed into my palm. That had been a rather unfortunate time for her to walk in.
Having dealt with the other messenger for now, the girls and I returned to extracting answers from the Myriad Hues of Flame messenger. With Illiel’s capacity for mind magic, we didn’t have to do anything drastic to get the information we wanted. While asking seemingly harmless questions about the Myriad Hues of Flame tribe, we lifted the story of what happened from the elf’s mind and where the Myriad Hues of Flame tribe now stood.
The story was much as we expected. There was an internal conflict over the title of chief, and the girl who’d taken part in the ritual with us lost the power struggle to a mage acolyte from her tribe. This Chief Firebrand had lucked into a potion that allowed her to reach mid mage acolyte and seize complete control of the clan. The moment she gained the upper hand, Mosi lost her life.
“You don’t just find one of those potions lying around in the woods.” Sava said with a roll of her eyes. “I expect it was a reward from one of our enemies.”
“I think you’re right.” I agreed.
The elves shared a moment of silence for Mosi Whisperflame. They knew that if things had gone differently, they might have been the ones murdered by their own clans and usurped.
As for the Myriad Hues of Flame tribe’s situation as a whole, they were much the same as they had been before the incident with the Crimson Dragon clan’s temporary takeover. As skilled laborers, they’d been largely unaffected by the change in leadership, though losing Chief Conadur had dealt them a blow.
Their current chief, Firebrand, wanted to establish herself as the only authority in her clan. Usurping Mosi’s authority hadn’t been as easy or as bloodless as the messenger implied, and Firebrand was busy tying up any loose ends. Destroying Conadur’s soul to ensure she couldn’t come back was part of that. When we sent this messenger back, I’d let her think she’d accomplished that mission. I didn’t plan to let them know that Chief Conadur had not only already hatched and been reborn, but was running around as an inexperienced maiden along with my son Segolas stealing biscuits and having fun.
I’d heard all the reincarnated chief’s played supportive roles during the battles with the undead, and a few memories of their former lives had already manifested themselves. I’d heard Yulli had even bound a new spellheart and was cultivating again.
“Alright, I think we’ve gotten all we will get out of her.” I announced after an hour of intense questioning.
“W-what’s happening now?” The elf stuttered in both fear and confusion. We’d been asking random questions to keep her talking, and the intensity with which we asked about her breakfast and how many stairs led up to this room had left her jittery and nervous.
“Illiel, you can handle it from here, right?” I asked my mind mage.
Illiel nodded. She met the messengers gaze and moments later her eyes when cloudy and she started babbling something about birds.
“Make her think she accomplished everything she set out to do.” I instructed. “Then have her sent back through the dungeon and back home.”
With the precautions I’d taken in getting them here, it was unlikely anyone could get information out of her about our defenses or the forces we had here. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. Without zeal of their own coursing through their bodies, mind magic easily influenced heartwielders and Illiel had no trouble convincing the elf she’d finished her job and had us all trembling in fear at her biting words. Sava returned the elf’s spellheart and Nela put away the rope.
We finally had the Ironwood messenger enter the room, who was considerably more nervous and far less aggressive than the Myriad Hues of Flame messenger.
“So your chief isn’t here.” I began. “Instead you are.”
“Y-yes. But s-she had a reason! She’s concerned about the outsiders who are going to invade the Hearthwood and is overseeing our defenses.” The messenger stuttered.
I turned to Sava. “What do you know of the Ironwood tribe? Can their defenses withstand the Corpse Collector’s assault?”
Sava shook her head. “Not a chance. They’d be crushed like an insect under the wheel of a chariot.”
“Well, there you have it.” I announced. “Your tribe’s best chance of survival is to flee and seek shelter with me. Tell Chief Arwena that the safest place for her people is here, and she is welcome to come and join us.”
“I’ll tell her.” The messenger stared at me with wide eyes, growing anxious when I didn’t add any additional demands or conditions. “I was also sent here to retrieve the egg bearing Chief Antgut’s soul. Chief Arwena is eager to meet her old lover again and hopes to raise her back into the elf she once was.”
“That will be a bit of a problem.” I replied. “Antgut’s egg is no longer with us.”
The messenger went pale and before she could start asking panicked questions I explained.
“She’s hatched already. Antgut is outside somewhere training. And I won’t let you just take her away either. If you can persuade her to leave with you then certainly, but I don’t think you’ll be able to. She’s become attached to my son.”
“Then what will I tell Chief Arwena?” The messenger cast her eyes to the ground.
“Tell her that Antgut is waiting here for her.” I shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
After a few farewells and inquires about the state of the Ironwood tribe, that messenger left as well to rejoin her people. We sent her out through the dungeon, where she’d make her own way back to the Ironwood tribe. I’d done my part. The fate of the Ironwood tribe was in Arwena’s hands now.
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