Day 449
In the next hour letters flood into my letterbox from every corner of the region detailing attacks and uprisings.
- Bran, Dal, Nina, and Torrick were attacked between Whitewater and Dreamfall. They are South of Dreamfall and headed there fast. Bran is in urgent need of help. Nina's magic is overdrawn from saving Torrick.
- An uprising has started in Drognar - trolls are following an 'Honored Teacher' who claims that elves have returned to subjugate free dwarves with Ventarri masters. Caravel is commanding Torrick's forces and Alrudian/Crag are gathering elves to defend the castle.
- Assassins have been captured in Dreamfall (part of the Twin Crescents, Twin Blades Hall). The Summer fae are wilting from human magic cast on them. Camellia sent a fragment of the scroll used so that I can study it. Further attacks are expected on Dreamfall.
- Andstella, Tira, and Haze were attacked by humans on winged snakes between Avan'Nal and Dreamfall. They are sheltered in the forest within a magical shell formed by Tira but Haze is gravely poisoned. Andstella will head for the Grotto for help if she does not hear back.
- Deldrin has been attacked but Yneir has dealt with it. She has hidden Vaneilli in the Weaver's Village and is on her way to Solace to meet up with me. Lyssa is expected to be attacked soon as she crosses over the Unfreezing Sea.
With each letter my heart clenches a little tighter and I gather Hella beside me to begin sending out orders and coordinating movement. I send guards to find Stella and leave her in charge (the humans think this normal - she is the princess after all) of the growing unrest in the streets.
- I send word to Ipthina and Hue to see if they can aid Haze and/or make sense of the magic affecting our Summer fae.
- I inform Andstella that I have sent for help but cannot guarantee its arrival.
With the immediate letters sent, Onyx and I take wing towards Lyssa with Kaide shielding us from the wind while I send out further letters as we fly.
- To Drognar: Who is this teacher? Inform me as you are able.
- To Dreamfall: Bring your civilians into the Ziggurat and let the Blaze ghosts manage as much as they are able.
- To Dal: I will come as soon as I can.
I warn all of my commanders that attacks have befallen all our centres of power (humans, dwarves, trolls) so they must assume that aid will not come. A coordinated series of attacks means this is something larger - do not let your guard down in areas where infiltrators might wish to take advantage of a distraction.
We can see Lyssa's magic before we see her - rain of lightning falling at the Southern edge of the Sea. She is surrounded by enormous stone golems all focused on her but clearly controlled by a nearby human mage who keeps a distance. Her arrows plummet to the ground before his earth magic. Onyx's flight falters and we careen towards the earth but avoid a crash and turn immediately to the fight. A combination of Onyx's earth magic and my sonic energy decimates the golems while Kaide slips through shadows and cleaves the mage at the knees.
Lyssa herself is badly injured - glass from her targeting lens is embedded around her eye and one of her hands is crushed and broken. I do what I can to patch her up as we all bundle ourselves back onto Onyx and take flight again towards Bran. At least we captured this mage - amidst all the orchestrated group attacks and rebellions I think it unlikely that our other prisoners will yield a clear path back to the puppet-master. I suspect we'll have better luck with this single agent sent to act alone.
Though our blood bond Kadia reports that someone tried to attack Lone Mountain Keep through the forest. Once the prisoner is bound they will be able to interrogate but that is all she knows for now. I am confident in Zadiyah's ability to manage her forces there - the other attacks are on places led by people untrained in war but Zadiyah is an old hand at this.
The flight is long enough to receive one more letter from Camellia - she has sequestered everyone in the Ziggurat as I suggested. Alder and Dawn are on their way to aid Tira. I forward this letter directly to Tira, not bothering to add any additional notes.
The breadth of these attacks is impressive and so cowardly. These are not organized forces, they are shards of a large plan that don't even fit together. It's the mark of someone weaving an unthinkably complicated plot together with the goal of tugging it all at once to ensnare me and my family. And to think just yesterday Amytri and I were discussing how maybe we should erase Drakken's memory instead of just killing him.
We descend onto Dal's camp just as dawn is breaking, accompanied by the sound of several dragons' roars across the sky. There are at least five in total but it registers as something that is so far beyond our current concerns that we can ignore it. It is either very good or very bad. It will either become relevant to us shortly or it won't. In the meantime I let Kaide and Dal tend to Lyssa while I go to my knees beside Bran. We are surrounded by a grim looking party of six battered looking dwarves and two trolls (including Puddle) who keep watch. Nina and Torrick are there as well - Nina is as overdrawn as I've ever seen someone, having burned her own life as energy to put back into Torrick. The king himself is bloodied but fully intact. She must have patched over all his wounds. They're fine for now and I turn directly to Bran.
His body is covered with bite marks from horrifyingly human teeth. It looks like he has been eaten...which Puddle confirms. They were set upon by an army of corpses. With my own energy still waning I slip one of the emerald beads of rebirth between his lips and flood his corpse-magic-infection ridden body with the purest magic of life I can summon. I push until even Onyx is slumping from the exertion but even still the infection isn't fully purified. It is contained, and maybe in a week we'll be able to push it out of him entirely.
For now though, we are all on the verge of collapse. Onyx settles in and raises a fortress of stone around us before passing out. It's all I can do to pass my letterbox to Dal before falling asleep as well.
Day 450
I wake to the smell of broth and the more oppressive stench of the dead. The blood bond has lapsed and my head feels remarkably quiet. Lyssa and Kaide are patrolling the top of the fortress, Nina and Torrick are asleep, Bran is stable.
As Lyssa settles in beside me one of the dwarves hands me a mug of soup and I sip hungrily as Lyssa tells me that they fought of 200-300 of the corpses about an hour ago. Kaide thinks they were killed by the storm but that something else reanimated them afterwards.
The letterbox is overflowing again:
- Ipthina has sent Hue to help Haze and jotted down some thoughts on the type of magic used on the summer fae. It is Post-Pruning, to so specifically target a particular season. And it feels compatible with the sort of magic that humans use, thought not entirely human. She also asks what remedies I might need from the Grotto to help heal our injuries.
- Camellia sends word that 150 dwarven wizards attacked Dreamfall wielding fire magic to try and burn down the Grove. The Blaze Ghosts had to move so far from the Ziggurat that they weakened themselves but the attack was neutralized and no trees were lost. The summer fae are still withering but healers are sustaining them.
- Tira, now in the Grotto with Alder, Dawn, Andstella, Haze, and Hue, sends me a thick stack of rough notes on the magic fragment Camellia gathered. She can't experiment with it but she suspects it might be a curse intended to get to the trees beneath which the summer fae will sleep. She theorizes that maybe we could use Grove sap to help them.
Deep in my sheaf of letters from Magdalena I find the exact recipe that I think Tira is inadvertently recreating:
To force a change to a specific season. The experience is shallower than what you would get from sleeping but it can be a necessary stopover if a fae cannot reach their Grove in time.
10 mL of the Water of Life
20 mL of Grove sap
5 mL blood from fae of a different season
Reassured, I send word back to them of this mixture and trust that they will be able to collect and transport back to Dreamfall in time. It will buy us more time to figure out the specific magic wielded by these mystics and what it might mean. I still see Drakken's grimy little fingers all over this "human compatible magic".
There is no letter from Drognar. Caravel is the only one in the city with a letter bird and inevitably he is busy commanding the defence. For now I intend for Onyx to carry Lyssa, Bran, and I directly to Drognar to aid them but before I can issue orders another letter arrives.
Drognar can hold. Bring Bran to Solace.
For saving Vaneilli and handling Deldrin I already owe this damn crow my gratitude and I'm willing to trust her a little further. So instead the four of us will go to Solace and then on to Drognar as we are able. At Dal's suggestion we bring Torrick as well, leaving Nina in the care of Dal and her attendant dwarves and troll (Loam) as they head to Dreamfall. The young royals might not like it but this is the sort of decision that they will need to be able to make for themselves one day. I know better than anyone that you can't always stay together.
The flight to Solace is quiet and gives me the opportunity to send out a few more letters to check in with people I haven't heard from:
- Gedrin, because I don't know how strongly associated his village is to me in the eyes of Drakken or whoever planned this.
- Anna and Tili, for the same reason.
- Renelli, because I fear for the safety of that one precious Celestial Grove.
- Mystery, of course.
- Dendra, a precious information gatherer who can help me start tying the pieces together.
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