Redux: Lineage

"And you've brought friends, no less," Sellaweyr said with a kind and warm smile, drumming ring-clad fingers on the arm rest of her wooden throne.

"A tree-talking friend, eh?" Zane asked me with a cocked eyebrow. "She mention her other profession?"

"Surprisingly, no," I said with a shake of my head.

"I take it you have met Her Majesty before?" Rela asked me.

"Yes, I believe I was writing her up for illegal inhabiting premises belonging to another owner by right of law," I said, crossing my arms and smirking.

"Is this true?" Rela asked, a sense of alarm in his voice.

"..." Sellaweyr sat, lips pursed and eyes locked onto another part of the room before waving her hand with a sigh. "Perhaps."

"You did make the cabin look wonderful," I pointed out.

"Why, thank you," she said with a smile. "So, is there a reason you're all converging here or did you all just come for a family trip?"

"This," I said, taking Voleur de Vis from the place I fastened it to on my back and unwrapping it, showing the mottled, ruined green sword to the queen. "I would be very grateful if you could repair it."

Sellaweyr's expression was not a confident one, showing more apprehension as she used her magic to float the sword over to her. She took it in her hands as softly as possible, terrified that even the gentlest touch could cause the blade's damaged body to crumble into dust.

"Where... where did you get this?" she asked, looking up at me with an awestruck expression.

"Took it out of the treasure horde of a dragon we killed," I said, gesturing to my friends as I spoke.

"I'd thought it lost forever..." she muttered, more to herself than anybody else. "It still has her power... I can feel it..."

"The Alicorn that wielded it?" I asked.

"No... my mother's," Sellaweyr answered, a nostalgic and warm tone to her voice as she gently pressed her fingers to a small engraving of deer antlers under the crossguard. "She was the one who lead the crafting ceremony of this weapon."

"Will you be able to restore it?" I asked once more. "I'm more than willing to offer any services or favours you need to reimburse the time you put into it."

"There... there is one issue I'd like you to look into," she said, mumbling something else I didn't quite catch while she rested Voleur de Vis on her lap. "I shall set to work on repairing the sword immediately. I will not set any conditions for its restoration, I will do it as much for myself as I will for you, but I will tell you of my trouble nonetheless. If you wish to lend a hand, then I shall be more than grateful."

"Whatever you need, I shall try my best to do," I responded, bowing my head low to her.

"There is an ancient Elven ruin to the east of this city, one that was abandoned long ago when our numbers converged into a single location," she began. "While the area is no longer inhabited, it is still patrolled by the Far Guard on their way too and from specific locations. As of the few weeks, there have been many a strange noise heard in the depths of the ruin. The issue has been brought to my attention, but it is not serious enough for me to devote time and effort to cobbling together an expedition for what may be nothing more than a draft through a hole in a wall."

"But you'd rather be safe than sorry, no?" Grael asked, his tail gently wagging behind him.

"Definitely," Sellaweyr nodded. "As I said before: this is not a duty assigned to you and is not a condition for the restoring of the sword. If you view it as beneath you, I will not press and I will not refuse help. It is only if you find the time and the want to help."

"I have both of those things in great supply, Your Majesty," I said, nodding once more. "If it's alright with you, we'll head out immediately?"

"Of course," Sellaweyr said, looking to what I guessed was a serviemaiden by the side of her throne. "Would you mind fetching the four of them the Traveller Runes, please?"

"Traveller Runes?" I echoed.

"Oh, they're these basic bracelets that all of our guests wear to identify them as friends who have been given the right to travel wherever they please inside the Emerald Forests," Sellaweyr explained. "They're mostly to prevents incidents if you run into more of the Far Guard."

"While the bracelets will be a good idea, I shall send word to my other serving Guards to let them know the general description of the group, just so they are aware of their presence and reasons for being here beforehand," Rela said, looking at us with a kind smile.

"Thanks, man," Zane said with an appreciative nod.

"Do not mention it. I am glad to have helped," he said, bowing to the Queen and speaking up. "Shall I take my leave to do so, Your Majesty?"

"If you please," Sellaweyr said. "Enjoy your day, Rela."

"You too, My Liege," Rela said, turning to Faela and gesturing for her to take the lead.

The younger Elf turned to us and waved goodbye, another embarrassed mumble of departure given to Annerose as they left the room. That left us alone with the Queen and her servants, one of whom had just returned with the Traveller Runes. They were simple wristbands, green like the forest, made from what looked like leather, but I knew the Elves weren't really big consumers of animal products.

"What are they made of?" I asked Sellaweyr.

"A special type of sap drawn from a special type of tree. When thickened and left to set, it adopts all the qualities of leather. Strong, durable, and good for fastenings without the need to harm animals," she explained.

"Huh. Might have to look into buying a few of those trees from you," I said, looking at the same rune on the top of the band that I couldn't read, but knew it was in Elvish.

"I'm afraid they need the energies of the Emerald Forests to be nurtured and grow properly," Sellaweyr sighed. "Or else I'd be shipping them to every kingdom in the realm to help protect our animal friends."

"Damn," I sighed, adjusting the straps on my gear for a tighter fit before inhaling loudly. "Right, where exactly do we need to go for this ruin?"

"I shall have one of the handmaidens guide you to a portal," Sellaweyr said with a kind tone. "Once you return, I'll have already set to repairing the sword with the rest of the court mages."

"Right. Let's get to work then," I nodded.

Once escorted and teleported, we found ourselves staring at a much larger building than I thought we were going to. The city we'd seen before had conjured images of simply tree huts or small white buildings... not the enormous fortress that stood before us, standing well over eight storeys tall, with double doors twice the size of Zane standing large and strong before us.

"Well... this is kind of terrifying," I said with a gentle nod.

The air suddenly went cold, our breath fogging upon exhaling for the briefest of moments as an ear-splitting groan of pain and agony broke the peaceful calm of the forest around us. Weapons were in hand and combat stances were taken immediately, squaring off with whatever was about to come and eat us, but the sound soon died down and the temperature returned to normal.

We stood in silence for a long moment, breath held and eyes hardened, still waiting for the attack as the temperature returned to normal. After a while, we relaxed, not sheathing our weapons, but lowering them slightly.

"Okay... now that was kind of terrifying," Zane stated, moving towards the door of the temple and putting a hand on it, soon hissing in pain and recoiling.

"What?" I asked, readying a combat stance once more.

"The door's fucking freezing," he said, shaking his hand off before looking at the frost-coated tips of his fingers. "It feels like pure ice."

"That's not normal," I stated, walking over to it and staring.

I picked up a small twig from the ground, pressing the broken tip of it against the door and watching as the cold began to creep up the entire length of the stick, freezing it solid up until I dropped it.

"That is not normal," I reaffirmed. "So... any ideas of how we're getting inside?"

"A few," Zane nodded, stepping back and looking at the enormous doors with his hands on his hips. "Do you have the wood chopping gloves on you?"

"Yeah, kept em just in case we started camping," I nodded, taking out a thick pair of leather mitts that we wore when cutting firewood to prevent hand shock.

I handed them to Zane, the larger man pulling them over his hands and cracking his knuckles.

"Right... here's hoping this doesn't kill me," he said, sticking his hands in the crack of the doorway and attempting to force them open.

The doors were beyond the imagination of human strength, but so was Zane. He had the strength of ten men, easily, and it seemed to be enough. With a mighty roar and an even mightier heave, he pried the doors open and threw them apart, his hands coated in ice thanks to whatever magic was on them, just in time for a blizzard to come billowing out of the ruins, the biting wind taking my breath away and the force of the snow sending me tumbling back.

Grael bit down on the scruff of my shirt soon before pinning me to the floor, using his warm, large body to keep me covered and protected, while Zane did a similar thing to Annerose, grabbing hold of her and using his larger form to take the brunt of the blizzard. The storm lasted for well over fifteen seconds, a screaming wind, snow sharp enough to cut, and a below-zero temperature that bit me through to my core, even with Grael's added warmth.

But just as soon as it began, the storm ended. The winds died away, the snow stopped falling, and the temperature of the forest returned to normal. After making sure we were all alive, Zane and Grael shook the snow off themselves, getting their charges back to their feet, and dusting us off.

"What the fuck?" Annerose asked, voicing the question on everyone's lips as we stared into the fortress.

The floor was coated with thick, undisturbed snow, the kind only seen on the peaks of mountains. The walls were coated with pure ice, hiding away the wooden interior and the beautiful carvings with a layer of unforgiving cold. The chill of the insides was nowhere near as bad as the blizzard, feeling maybe a degree or two above zero, but just cold enough to be unpleasant. I walked towards the fortress, noticing frozen figures inside the icy building, covered in snow.

"Be careful," Zane said, taking point and keeping his axe in hand as we all moved into the fortress.

He walked over to the first of the frozen figures, on their knees and seeming like they were cowering in fear of something. There were others, buried in the snow as they'd fallen over, all looking like they were scrambling for the doorway... trying to escape.

"This is horrible," Annerose said, wiping the snow off one of the frozen figures and staring at them, squinting hard to make our their features. "Richter... this is... this is a Nekomata."

"What?" I asked, hurrying over to the frozen being and staring at it, noticing the cat eyes and furred ears, even as obscured by ice as they were, they were still unmistakable.

"Check... check the other bodies..." I said to the others, waving a hand at a few of the other frozen corpses.

They did as I instructed, and the search all brought back the same thing: every single one of the bodies in here was a Nekomata. There wasn't a single Elf among any of them. The age was hard to determine, as Nekomata were extremely long-lived, going easily over one hundred and fifty years before they so much as started showing signs of age. But their clothing... it was all robes, and there were a lot of magical instruments on belts and in hands.

"Nekomata... mages?" I asked aloud. "In a frozen fortress... in the Forest of Eternal Summer... that belongs to a race that doesn't let a lot of outsiders in."

"That single statement brings up more questions than I could ever hope to answer," Grael said in a horrified manner.

"Something in here's gotta have answers," I said, pointing towards a snow-covered corridor to the right of us. "So let's go find 'em."