[Hlaeth] Ch 7 - On Bloodlines

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            “We… do respect some of the ancient, natural magicks,” the wood elfin Captain Fyanyl finally managed to get out. “But we place far more respect on those who can do deeds themselves, instead of having magic do it for them!”

            “I will venture a wild guess and say the reigning monarch is not a member of your people.” I couldn’t hide my amusement.

            “I… no. The upper ranks of the kingdom are always gold elves, with a few scattered silver here and there,” she admitted grudgingly.

            “And would I be wrong to deduce that the gold elves are very big into magical mastery of all kinds?”

            “...You would not be,” she answered reluctantly.

            “Do you believe your upper leadership is corrupt or weak because they practice a form of magic that you do not, and glorify it?” I went on curiously.

            “… No. But their reliance on magic means they do not have true strength if they cannot have access to their magic!” she exclaimed forthrightly.

            “So, you could beat the Commander there in a non-magical melee duel?” I asked brightly.

            She gave the back of my head a hard glare. “Perhaps?” she acknowledged uncertainly.

            “And you’d have precious little chance at all if magic was permitted, given the mild nature of your own talents in that area.”

            I wasn’t looking at her, but I could still see the frown on her Aura. “That… is probably true,” she conceded unwillingly.

            “Would I be wrong to say that your people simply don’t have much talent for arcane magic, but they do for primal magic? And the silver and gold elves do have such talents?”

            She actually grit her teeth at that. “There are some Wizards among our people, but they do not measure up to the power of those of the gold and silver,” she reluctantly admitted.

            “Whereas your Druids are at least as powerful as theirs, if not more, but as Druids, consider serving in governmental positions a thankless and boring task, to be avoided if at all possible?”

            She paused, eyeing me strangely. “Are you attempting to inveigle information out of me, Magos Aelryinth?” she asked suspiciously.

            “I’m just wasting time having you take a look at yourselves and your people in a new light, in a way you probably have never done before,” I replied easily, making her frown again. “I have no political ambitions here, and what I know of the elven style of magic isn’t really compatible with my own.

            “Mostly, I’m working around to the topic of why you haven’t triggered your Bloodline and at least indulged the magic native to you and to all your people. Elves are a magical race, they live and breathe it in far more harmony than humans do. Seeing the very minor magical ability of you and your fellow scouts was actually something of a shock after all I’ve heard of you. I just assumed all of you would have prodigious magical skills in at least some minor area, even if just as a hobby, and be developed to a level that would be the envy of many human spellcasters.”

            “Magical Bloodlines are not common among my people, Master Aelryinth!” she sniffed in disdain.

            “You’re an elf, living and breathing. At the very least, you’ve have the Elven Bloodline. You might not be very talented at it, but you WILL have it. Whether you have any other Bloodline is a toss of the dice,” I corrected her mildly.

            I could sense her staring at my back as I continued crisscrossing Walls of flames across the shattered treescape below. We were coming up on one of the big Elder trees, and it was time for me to scheme about appropriating some wood for myself. Some of the reinforcements were also in the area around the tree, and seemed to have found some remains of the Keepers, by the activity there.

            “This looks like an Elder Tree area,” I said over my backside. “How close do you want me to get?”

            “Stay at least two hundred paces from any of the fallen elder trees with your flames,” she directed me.

            I nodded and moved upwind of them, laying down the flames… with a little bit of a misting Kicker on them from reserves, so they’d kick out a larger and thick wall of mist as they rendered down the trees here.

            “Do I truly have a Bloodline for magic?” she asked again, as Feature glided away from the fallen Crystal Needle Pines.

            “All elves have the Elven Bloodline, so that would be a yes. They might not be GOOD at it, but they have it. It’s part of being an elf. Why, is Sorcery looked down on among your people, too? Even the ancestral and innate Bloodline of Elven Magic?”

            She was biting her lip slightly, wondering what to say about that. “How do I Awaken such a thing, then?”

            I turned my head slightly, not interrupting my other duties. “All sorcerer Bloodlines open to Charisma, but that is not your highest mental strength. Happily, the Sylvan Elf Bloodline variant also opens to Wisdom, which you are much stronger in.

            “If your people don’t have an easy method for Awakening your Bloodline, I can do so when I am done succoring the forest here. The method is largely universal, and you already have a Matrix, if a minor one. It should not be difficult at all.”

            She was trying to remain aloof and unreadable, but it definitely wasn’t natural for her. Her people probably emphasized displaying their emotions naturally, which likely made them hillbillies among their more citybound cousins.

            “If it would not be too much trouble, Magos?” she finally asked politely.

            I waved a hand negligently. “Five minutes of my time,” I assured her, while Feature slowly and grandly followed the edge of the forest around.

            The white mist had closed in on the fallen Crystal Pines, driven by the prevailing breezes, and indeed had covered the highest branches of the tree, hiding them from view. Fyanyl called out in dismay at the sight.

            “Commander Tellusian, you may want to sit up a wind barrier or breezeway against the vivic mists to protect the wood of the fallen Elder trees here. Captain Fyanyl indicated it would be better to preserve them and take them away for the use of the nation over time, rather than render them down?”

            The gold elf commander looked down sharply, and quickly issued orders. One of the dragons rapidly dove down as Feature dipped lower, and began to Summon up a wall of winds to cut off the intervening fogs from the crystalline limbs of these pine trees.

            Alas, it wasn’t in time to save a hundred feet of the upper branches and trunk, which had already coated the ground in white dust, obviously going up with great speed under the vivus.

            In my Sanctum, the seeds were already being carefully brought away to be planted, and the wood stored as adamantine tools were brought out to trim it. Even the bark and wood chips on something like that would be valuable.

            The ground mists were already rising quickly as a result of the vivus pouring into the ground, the fog rising and sparkling under the fallen trees. It would only grow higher and thicker as the rendering down of the treescape continued, and my little collections of pay took place.

            Harvesting the seeds alone was going to be worth a great deal if they could be convinced to bloom elsewhere. Like, right atop a major ley line or two.

            Humming happily to myself, Feature and I continued on with our task.

------

            It took hours to do everything properly, following a full ring around the destroyed area. Then I cut across the middle of the area in a broad and sweeping X, so that whatever direction the wind came from, the vivic mists would spread.

            Looked like the north at present. They weren’t advancing fast, maybe a mile an hour, so I went with the fact they were forming a de facto vivic burn, slow and sure, and started cutting more Walls back and forth in staggered lines ahead of them, working with speed as the sun came down and headed for the horizon.

            I had a lot of the area covered but not all of it, having covered over two hundred miles flying and erected over a thousand Walls by the time I was done. From up on high, Feature glided along with dragons, griffons, and pegasi, watching as the sun went down, and waiting for the reaction.

            There it was. I could see the flow of blackness, clear as night, as the last ray of sunlight faded to the west, the sky still painted, but the direct reproaching and protection of daylight gone. Shadows began to lengthen towards infinity, and from them something darker and bloodier arose.

            And, for the most part, met a lot of drifting vivus in the ground fog and flashed into unwhiteness and was gone.

            The elves were all watching the magic, and saw the shadows twisting, writhing, and then bursts of vivus erupting all over the place where the flames had not yet passed, multiple contacts on the edge of the advancing burnline. Strange sounds began to rise, bloody, angry, yet hollow, as things which had died came back to an unlife they did not want, and screamed their pain and torment to the skies.

            But of the dozens of square miles of forest, less than a half-score had not been Burned clean, reduced down to miles and miles of softly glowing white plains under the mists billowing along the ground.

            “It seems, Magos, that your assessment was correct,” Commander Tellusian’s voice rang out as he drew his sword at the sound of some terrible shrieks. “It seems we will indeed have some company this night we did not want.”

            When the giant eagles, blackened, put back together crudely and awkwardly, organs still revealed and feathers covered in glistening darkness, came beating up out of the forest for us, the elves reacted instantly. Lightning gathered around their lances, while others instantly sent out streams of fire to take down the massacred magical birds, their singsong voices both fierce with revulsion at the defilement of the noble beasts, and horrified at what they had to do.

            None of the eagles truly got away, nor was it much of a fight. Lightning and fire tore into them, and one after another they were sent back down from the sky.

            “Owls to the north!” I warned them all, and the fliers turned around to see the silent predators gliding towards them in absolute quiet, bones gleaming black around rounded heads as they closed in.

            The golden dragon politely incinerated two of the owls without effort, and the elite elves and their mounts faced them with little difficulty once again. Soundless and voiceless in death, not a hoot coming from them, the owls fell from the sky burning and blasted, towards the waiting vivus below.

            “This is truly horrible,” Captain Fyanyl murmured, lowering the bow which had contributed a half-dozen flaming arrows to the fight with unstinting accuracy. “They are some of the noblest beings of the island, and to die so swiftly and ignobly…”

            “Vivus purifies everything, so worry not about their spirits, and their deaths are feeding the Land. As for the source of this travesty… they got off no easier, at the very least,” I assured her mildly.

            Under cover of the mists, I’d swept away quite a few branches and scattered trunk pieces of the fallen elder. Vivus in the mists was pervasive, and the elves had even let the bodies of the fallen Keepers Burn away in the whiteness, after seeing how it took down the trees, in effect sending them away with the trees they had cared so deeply for.

            I continued setting up Walls of Holy Fire in the trees below, which seemed to be writhing and flexing and perhaps even trying to reach up to us, but we were flying too high. They were definitely moving in ways they should not have, but the ones doing so were also the first ones to start Burning when the vivus reached them, or my Walls cut across them and we saw hacked trees with branches welded back onto themselves shivering and falling apart below us, ablaze with heavy unwhite flames falling from branches falling rapidly to dust and white ash.

            It was going to be a long grim night, but eventually the whole area was going to be Burned en vivus, and nothing was going to get away from it.

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