Initiatives

Erinara

I stared as the runic symbols began shifting around the feather, preparing themselves for the next part of the spell.
“He’s alive?”, Jin exhaled deeply. I felt relieved seeing him loosen up a bit.
“Yes. The tracking spell has three stages, this was the first one. Each stage takes longer to charge up than the last. By tonight, the second stage should be done, though it won’t give us any new information. It simply will have gathered enough residual mana to find Fyor’s location. The third stage then creates a guiding light that directly leads to him. It usually takes a couple of days for the spell to be ready for that.”
“I can’t thank you enough!”, he exclaimed, “You’ve helped me out so much already! Your magic abilities are amazing.”
Hidden from Jin thanks to my concealing shadows, a smile found its way to my face.

The rest of the day passed quickly. Kayon had requested me to help him with preparing some documents for Ebiron, as my mentor had notified him of his return today. While focusing on the preparations, we made idle conversation.
“Say miss Erinara”, Kayon said, suddenly nudging my arm with his elbow and changing the topic, “You’ve been getting quite chummy with mister knight, haven’t you?”
My tendrils that were sorting and stacking papers stopped dead in their tracks for a heartbeat.
A mischievous grin danced around Kayon’s lips.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time together and talked a lot”, I responded coolly.
“So speaks the lady of cold logic. I bow before thee.” He did a little curtsy. I couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“Oh my, I humored the lady of cold logic! What luck, how lucky am I?”, he said, unnecessarily eloquently. Then speaking much quicker he added: “I caught you staggering though.”
I sighed. Kayon found a new toy to play with it seemed. This wouldn’t end any time soon. I rolled my eyes.
“Aren’t you having a great time?”
“The best. Also, I can tell when you’re rolling your eyes even with the shadows, gotta try harder than that.” He winked at me.
‘Might as well talk about this’, I thought.
“He is unusually honest, and has been shown willing to change his mind with new evidence. I respect that.”
Kayon’s voice instantly became more sober: “If Jin Eaglecrest managed to gain your respect, he must truly be someone unusual. I should talk to him directly more.”
“Elves don’t even talk to me, normally. I don’t know what memo Eaglecrest didn’t get, but it is a very welcome change”, I smiled.
“If you ever need help, you know where to find me. I’ll be of assistance best I can, miss Erinara.”
“Right. Thank you.”
I might need to come back to his offer at some point.

We greeted Ebiron at the entrance of the citadel.
“Erinara, Kayon, hello”, Ebiron said.
“How was the executives’ meeting master?”, Kayon asked, “Oh, also, we have a guest. Jin Eaglecrest is here again.”
“The meeting was interesting, to say the least. All regions of the land of warlocks seem to be stable. Lazzal is making good progress on her research of fusing spellcasting schools. How did Jin Eaglecrest return?”
Lazzal, the executive of progress, was fully focused on trying to combine magic schools using runes to create something new. So far, she managed to combine destructive spell schools, but the breakthroughs in non-complementary magics still eluded her.

I briefly explained how Jin arrived here, hunted by the enforcers of the council before being teleported by me.
“Eaglecrest would prefer to talk about the rest himself, I think”, I reasoned.
“Perfect. We can converse with him right away.”
“Of course.”

Ebiron and I left for the study, where Jin still stayed in close proximity of the rune-encased feather.
“Greetings, Jin Eaglecrest. I hope you are well”, Ebiron entered the room.
“Ah, Ebiron! Thank you for giving me the transmitter. It’s thanks to it, and Erinara, that I still draw breath”, Jin bowed before Ebiron, while placing his hand over the Eaglecrest on his chestplate.
“There’s no need for such courtesy. I understand that your experience in the kingdom must have been difficult?”

Over the course of the next hour, Jin explained everything that had happened to him, including going through the contents of Fyor’s letter.

Ebiron listened intently, finally offering his opinion: “Pardon me for saying this, but the kingdom of crests truly is being led by conniving cowards. I have no doubt they would try to take down Fyor Eaglecrest, but it would come as a shock to me if they held that power.”
“The letter says they have four heroes on their side”, I noted, slightly worried.
“The ‘heroes’ who joined the council would most likely not be training. And even if they did, they would hardly outclass Fyor. He was the leading figure of the war from the side of the kingdom.”
“Can you recount the war, from your point of view?”, Jin asked. His voice bore no judgement, only a desire to learn.
Ebiron considered his request briefly. He then described the times of war, from the eyes of an executive.

He confessed that it took a few years until he realized that the war was unnecessary bloodshed on either side. It started with meeting Fyor on the battlefield for the first time. The man later known as Eaglecrest had defeated a group of warlocks, albeit letting them live and return to their homes. A concept that, at the time, seemed impossible to the master of shadow magic. So he confronted the wounded Fyor. During their conversation, Ebiron gained a new understanding of the nature of war, readjusting his mindset in the process, and letting a high value target, Fyor, return to enemy lines as well. It was thanks to this chance encounter and discussion that, at a later date, the executives, guided by Ebiron, and the heroes, led by Fyor, agreed to a truce on the battlefield. The war had ended on that day.

The land of warlocks brought this decision forward whole heartedly, as their political leaders were simultaneously their strongest combatants, the executives. On the site of the kingdom, however, the royal lineages of the council were not as thrilled. Wolfcrest, Elkcrest and Hawkcrest used to be in dispute with each other, it was the war that brought them together, and granted them absolute power over the humans, in the first place. If the war suddenly ended, without a victory nonetheless, they would surely start infighting. As such, any citizen of the kingdom of crests to this day believes the war to be ongoing in the form of fated duels, and any information that proves the contrary is quickly and silently snuffed out.

“So that’s what Fyor meant when he said that the current situation was nothing but ‘remnants of a war that should be a ghost of the past’”, Jin said, having apparently absorbed all of the information already.
“You are willing to change your opinion of everything you ever knew so quickly?”, Ebiron asked.
“I’ve picked this trick up from someone recently”, Jin’s lips curved into a grin.
Ebiron briefly glanced over to me.
“And your information aligns with that of Fyor", Jin added.

“Very well then. What is it you wish to do now, Jin Eaglecrest.”
In that precise moment, the runes around the feather ejected green sparks, indicating that they found Fyor’s location. Runic letters began shifting one last time, preparing to find a route to Jin’s mentor.
“I would like to find Fyor Eaglecrest. My reasons are admittedly mostly personal, but I realize that something has to change within the kingdom, and he would be a most important asset for that to happen”, Jin stated.
Ebiron nodded his head. “A wise choice, and one that shows initiative at that. Very well. By the looks of the runes, it will take two days until the path will be revealed. It would be best to prepare until then.”