Ruinous Return

Whisperwing perched on Lyn\'s horn as she walked up the stairs to the top of The Dragon\'s Maw. Looking out over the land, she saw Fort Watch on the horizon, and smaller dots all around it. Thanks to the Farsight Eyedrops she had enhanced her body with, she could zoom in her vision and make out the colors of Valagonia: a green field with a black star. Why would Cecily bother with wanting to capture a Fort?

She had mulled over that question on her short jaunt here from Lynhold. According to Thomas – whom she had asked that morning before departing – the Fort was stationed by all three kingdoms and had Kory\'s Killers as a neutral force to keep a balance on things. Thomas was at a loss, having been out of the loop on most going-ons in the wider world for the past month due to his sudden death and recovery.

The only thing that makes sense is if she is making a move on Khrelardia. If that\'s the case, then this act of aggression will be returned by James. She looked up to Whisperwing and scratched her bird companion\'s head. "Hey, I need you to return to Lynhold. Find Marshal Remora and tell her I want ten Duskari squadrons at The Dragon\'s Maw to escort these mercs. You travel with them and wait for me here."

"Okay! You got it!" Whisperwing took off.

Lyn didn\'t have enough forces yet to hold any territory or fortifications that she conquered – they were spread thin as-is with the Valley and the five entrances. The ten she had sent Whisperwing to gather were all of the reserves; meant to be able to rapidly respond to any location within the Valley or rotate out on relief. Fort Watch was something she couldn\'t afford to have sitting so close to her lands; too safe of a location to strike out from. And since she didn\'t have the forces to capture and hold it…destroying it was the best option her and Remora could come up with.

Lyn pulled out Cataclysm, switched it to the bow configuration, and took a deep breath. "Gothron i gwanno / min enni / na rem in edin nin: / na nin togwath, athano hain thron, gwelu, throneth, a nîn rath; / na nin inath, cirad nin hoth; / na nin inedhil, athano nin thîr a cirad nin; / na nin rhaw, hathol han uin del." She felt the burning of the Destroyer core as it sizzled and bubbled up, the mana shooting through her body and enhancing all her combat characteristics – speed, strength, and reaction time. Channeling a slight bit of mana into the storage choker, she pulled an arrow from the pocket dimension and let loose, counting the time down with toe-taps until it landed in the center of the fort almost three miles away. "Adhano na phain nin galu."

"We\'re under attack!" one of the men screamed as an arrow thudded into the wooden flagpole at the center of Fort Watch.

Every eye – Lionel\'s included, snapped to the walls. "Get up there!" he shouted. "To arms!" Fucking Destroyer not showing up. Stupid raven. They-

"I\'m here to get you lot out of here," a female voice said in Shereldian behind Lionel. He turned and saw a woman wearing black full plate, holding a longbow with a blazing string of mana instead of a normal bowstring. She was standing at the foot of the flagpole. She wasn\'t very tall, but she was muscular, the full plate hugging close to her form.

That has to fucking chafe, Lionel thought. The mercs looked to the voice and several drew arms. Lionel held up his hand and approached the woman with horns on her helm, her eyes the only part of her he could make out – two gorgeous, blue eyes that flickered with an inner flame. "You sent the raven?"

"I\'m guessing you\'re their boss. Lionel, was it? That\'s what I was told," she replied. "Are you lot ready to leave?"

Lionel looked at the men who were standing waiting for orders, torn between going to the walls and listening in to the conversation, or even attacking this strange person. "Yeah, that\'s me. How\'d you hear about me?"

"Sources," she replied plainly. "Right, how many total?"

"Five hundred, plus horses. Each has their own."

The armored woman nodded, "I\'m going to scare off this army. And if they won\'t be scared, then they\'ll die. Gather up and be ready to move out." The woman seemingly pulled an arrow from thin air, raised it, and let loose at top of the large tower standing at the rear of the Fort – the highest place on the fortification. A moment later, she muttered some spell and vanished.

"Did she just-"

"Fucking teleportation?!"

"That takes so much mana…"

Lionel raised his voice, "You heard the woman! Get everything in the center of the fort! Now!" He barked out the orders and his men, Kory\'s Killers, set to task. But he stood stock-still, and everyone froze, as the voice they had all heard almost a month ago roared out from the top of the fortress.

"I am Lyn Rivers, Destroyer!" the draconic growl seemingly vibrated the air. "Fort Watch will be demolished, so go! You have no prize here! Tell Princess Cecily Valagonia that Lady Rivers has declared this a no-man\'s land! Flee, or suffer the consequences. You have five minutes."

Lionel ran up to the wall and looked out. The army surrounding the fort – at least on the Eastern side – looked to be forming up for battle. He glanced back at the armored figure atop the tower. I don\'t think just shouting is going to scare them, he thought.

"Captain! Look!" one of the men who was making his way off the wall with quivers full of arrows paused and pointed into the sky.

The cloud-studded sky became much darker as the puffy masses merged together above the fort. They began to twist and swirl around each other. What in Aelor\'s name?

"I\'ve seen these, sir!" the man with the quivers said in awe. "Twist-wind, just like the edge of Glaurin."

The clouds suddenly surged down toward the ground outside the fort, and a swirling mass of dust and debris began to violently swirl around. Blue lightning crackled inside the vortex, and bright, blue lava surged around the center in bands that made the whole moving structure appear like blown glass ornaments. Lionel had to cover his face as the radiant heat reached the tops of the walls.

Once more, the voice of the Destroyer came from behind him. "Four minutes."

She\'s doing it! Lionel swallowed the knot that had formed in his throat. What kind of monster is she? He grabbed a quiver from the man and pushed him towards the stairs down, "Come on! Let\'s get ready!" He tried to ignore the howling that began to echo out from the raging wind, the crackling of lightning, and the loud sizzling of molten rock that would crack and pop as it cooled and melted once more.

The vortex eventually grew to encompass the whole fort over the five-minute time frame; and they were standing in the eye of the storm. Sparing a glance up, he saw the armored figure seemingly shake her head. Lionel didn\'t want to risk being sucked up into this twist-wind…but he had to see. Clambering up the stairs with orders not to be followed, he looked out and saw the Valagonian military in full rout – leaving behind near-full camps of supplies.

The winds died down as the figure leaped from the tower, a cloak billowed out behind them, and she landed at the center of the fort amongst the arrayed mercenaries, having slowly descended like some type of dark harbinger from the skies. "Captain Lionel," she shouted in her female voice. "Take your men out. Straight to The Dragon\'s Maw."

"You heard the woman," Lionel shouted as he directed his men out of the gates. She came up to stand next to him, and her full helmet seemingly melted into her armor. She was Duskari, with a very cute, gorgeous face and those blue alluring eyes that – quite literally – had inner flames that he could see flickering.

"Good job. You can follow orders well enough," she stated bluntly as the bow she was holding morphed into a sword hilt, which she then socketed into her armor. At the same time, her body decreased in mass. "Not half bad looking either."

That was an internal spell? Wow, she is tiny. Barely any muscle on her. He shook his head. Snap out of it, it\'s just a woman. "Thanks, Kory taught me well."

"Where is he, these days?"

"No clue. He was injured, went to-"

"Yes, the Healer hero. Well then, looks like you have just as much info on him as I do." She sighed and cracked her neck. "Right. I\'ll have your Gold Eagles at Lynhold. Then, we can discuss a contract."

"What contract?" Lionel asked, genuine curiosity taking over as the allure of money overcame his earlier desire to just go with her and then depart.

"Simply put, I have a standing army of less than fifteen thousand. I need to expand." She smirked, "Not battlefield combatants, are you? Your gear suggests strike forces and ambushes, am I right?"

Lionel nodded, "Yes ma\'am." He reverted to his roots in the Shereldian military, before it was taken over by Valagonia.

"Well, you\'d be working under my Marshal, Remora. You would be used as she sees fit; but no open engagements." She smirked, "I like having my troops play to their passions and strengths."

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"I\'ll have to run any long-term contract by the men. We vote on the big decisions. Kory insisted all men had a voice for the big deals."

"Smart," she chuckled. "Didn\'t take him for wizening up after all these years."

"Beg my pardon…did you know him?"

Lyn looked off to the North, where the mercenaries were traveling out of the gate. "Once you\'ve met one Berserker hero, you\'ve met all of them." She waved her hand, "Get out of here. I\'m going to level the place, and you won\'t want to be inside the walls."

Lionel didn\'t need to be told twice and nodded his head curtly before mounting up and riding after his men. As they rode for The Dragon\'s Maw, he craned his head back to Fort Watch.

In an instant, the whole fortification turned to sand. Spokes of wood and other non-earth-aligned objects were left in the sudden dunes. She pulled that bow out once more, nocked and loosed an arrow…then vanished.

And changing stone to sand? Her control must be extremely refined. He found himself quite enamored with her mastery of Elenthir. Makes sense, she\'s just a new version of an ancient creature. But that also shocked him as he turned back to his Northern ride. The heroes must have been insanely powerful in their own right to beat whatever it used to be.

One last thought flitted through his mind as he played back the conversation he had just concluded with the Destroyer. Did she…she complimented my looks. He let out a laugh, and the men riding near him looked over with faces of confusion. He just waved them off. Maybe I\'ll try to sleep with her. Those claws look a bit dangerous, but I\'d be the first in Kory\'s Killers to sleep with a Duskari. The bragging rights alone would be worth it.

"My Lady!" a servant shouted as he chased Cecily down the hallways of her palace.

She turned and gestured, the servant bowing as soon as she did so. "What is it?"

"Your highness, a report has come from your commander at Fort Watch." The servant – who was a go-between from Cecily and her war council – handed her an inscribed mirror. The item was rare, and only her five members of the high command in her military held them.

Cecily looked at the object and channeled mana into it. The image of a grizzled, scarred woman appeared. "Commander Sigurd. Report."

The grizzled veteran nodded tersely, "Fort Watch has been destroyed. A person in full black plate armor appeared atop the fort. She called herself Lady Rivers, the Destroyer, and that the area was a no-man\'s land."

Fucking bitch, Cecily thought. Having Fort Watch would have given her the means to easily garrison along her Northern border. "You said it was destroyed?"

"Turned to sand, your grace."

That sent a chill through Cecily. Fort Watch was not a small place, easily a square half-mile of fortified walls and interior buildings. Turning the whole construction to sand meant this Destroyer had enough mana for transmutation external spells – one of the most taxing to use – or their control over earth elementalism was flawless. For the first time in many, many years…Cecily felt a hint of fear trickling down her spine.

"My Lady?" Commander Sigurd asked. "Are you well? You look pale."

Cecily pushed aside her emotion and closed her eyes momentarily, taking a deep breath as she pulsed her mana core. Almost enough, she thought. She opened her eyes and nodded, "Commander, take your forces to Komorra to back up the Berserker hero. I want the duchy secured by week\'s end. Use whatever force necessary. Then, you and Lord Smith will march on Rist and get them in line."

"Your will be done, your grace." The mirror faded to a silver polished surface. Cecily handed it to the servant and continued her jaunt to the gardens. As she walked amongst the flowers and sweet-smelling herbs, she began to plot. The Destroyer seeks a no-man\'s land. And they\'ve walled off the North of The Rill. This \'Lady Rivers\', Lyn reborn, whatever…she\'s moving to ally with Trisk and building up a barrier.

She couldn\'t afford to strike out against Trisk or the now-extremely defendable Valley of the Volcano with James and Khrelardia a threat. But this Destroyer wasn\'t moving on the offense, just playing defensively.

That meant Cecily had time. Time to fully cement her control of Valagonia. Time to finish consuming mana cores of criminal scum. To finally have enough mana to cast a kingdom-wide memory muddling spell on her own. With the restriction of Human only, the mana cost would be significantly reduced.

She let out a deep exhale before walking over to her favorite rose bush. The dirt below was recently disturbed – new compost from ground-up corpses of the criminals she tortured before consuming their mana cores. She picked one of the violet roses and sniffed the sweet scent. One goal still eluded her, and that was getting an expedition to the Ruins of Elent. I need to find some way to avoid mortal demise.

Cecily knew she was aging, and it grated on her. Now at the age of thirty-three, she knew she would not live forever. But there had to be a way to transfer mana cores. She knew there had to be a spell, since dungeon cores of the Elenthians operated on the same property. And she knew that those cores contained whispers and fragments of memory; the last words when they were consumed. There must be a way to transfer my whole consciousness with the mana core. It was the whole point of VEROG, the project her Spymaster had been assisting with for years now. Finding the perfect candidates for Cecily\'s new body.

She smiled as she took a few more roses from the bush and ventured to the wing of the palace dedicated to the boarding school for VEROG candidates. Young women from all over the kingdom, those who looked like Cecily, were invited to obtain the highest degree of education possible, whilst also improving upon their mana cores. She had twelve candidates at present, all varying ages.

One of them would be her vessel. Once she had the knowledge required. I need to have someone explore those Ruins. If only Thomas was still alive. She had heard rumor of his downfall at the hands of James, and the smashing of the statue of Aelor. Shame he died. I would like to thrall him again and extract everything he knows.

"Bring me that scrap of parchment," Thomas ordered in Triskol as he worked feverishly on his current project. As the Court Scholar, his job was to work under the office of Chancellor Vehenna, and his current task was something he had always wanted to try.

Education reform.

Most kingdoms did not have much formal schooling. Private tutors were the norm for those who could afford it. Only one kingdom – Trisk – and the Free City of Bashinol offered free public education…and it was nowhere near what Thomas and the other heroes had experienced on Earth. Lyn had asked him to set up the foundation of a public school system.

As she had put it during their brief conversation the prior morning, "I want every person in the empire who wishes to learn to be given the opportunity to do so." It was a bold maneuver, and once established, could be used as propaganda to entice settlers to come to the Valley of the Volcano and bulk out the population. Parents would jump at the opportunity to have their children educated. And many of the adults would benefit from Elenthir courses.

Stellas was assisting him in this endeavor. He was quite proud of her development thus far, and she had a very strong grasp on Elenthir\'s guiding principles. Enough that he trusted her to create a simple primer with the Elenthir alphabet and some of the basic word structure. She brought over the script he had asked for, and he checked over the notes on it. "How\'s it coming along?" Stellas asked.

"Decently," Thomas replied. "We\'ll need people to copy down these master textbooks, and then also do translations to each of the languages." He took a deep breath and leaned back in the padded wooden chair. His quarters in the dread fortress were spacious; bedroom, attached bathroom, and a salon where he had set up several desks with reams of parchment, plenty of ink, and quills. "How is the primer coming along?"

Stellas handed him the book and he nodded as he read through, marking some minor fixes before handing it back to her. "It goes well," Stellas said, practically beaming with pride at the very few changes Thomas had to make.

"Good. Want to take a break and get something to eat?" Thomas asked as he stood up and stretched, feeling his back pop several times as he did so.

"Sure," Stellas replied as she set the book down and headed to the door.

The two went through the now-illuminated fortress to the kitchens. The deeper Conclave was kept in darkness, as the Duskari had no need for light, and it made for an excellent security precaution. These days, only Lyn, her council, a handful of servants, and her bodyguards went into or out of the hidden tunnels.

They both acquired platters of food before going to the dining hall. It was quite empty, as the fortress had been designated for the use of visiting emissaries, ambassadors, diplomats, and the Council itself. Most Duskari had moved out of the fortress and into Lynhold, due to Lyn\'s desire to have the various races intermingle as much as possible.

Stellas probed at the fuzz-covered bacon with her fork and made a slight whining noise. Thomas just chuckled and dove right in, savoring the sweet, salty flavor and pushing aside the odd tickling sensation of the fuzz on the exterior of the meat. "Come on, try it," he said.

The Vharthon woman picked up a slice of the bacon and chewed a corner, taking the tiniest of bites. Her eyes went wide, and she began digging into the meal in earnest. "It\'s so good," she muttered between bites. "But it looks weird. It doesn\'t look like food."

Thomas chuckled and continued eating. After both had finished, they were getting up to leave when they spotted Zebed, the emissary from the Free City of Bashinol, entering with his bodyguards. They, too, had food piled high on their platters, and the man bowed to Thomas with reverence. "Give me a moment," Thomas said as he got up and walked over, swapping to Khrelardian. "Zebed, it\'s been a long time since we talked."

The man squinted slightly, "Do I know you?"

"Thomas Harrow, Knowledge hero. We met a few years ago when you visited James. I was the guy living on the-"

"Living on the docks with the wyvern! I remember! You look younger!" The portly man\'s stomach jiggled as he chuckled. "Where is that beast of yours? It was as big as a wolf back then!"

Thomas\' heart dropped and he just shook his head.

"Ah…condolences," Zebed replied to the silent answer. "You are allied with this Lady Rivers?"

"Yes," Thomas replied. "But I wanted to ask you something. What route did you take to arrive here?"

"I came up the Azure Divide after visiting Kor\'s Hold."

"…Did you meet James?"

"The new king? Yes. My boys are staying with his family whilst I am here on this business trip."

Thomas nodded as the vivid memory of being stabbed through the torso replayed in his mind\'s eye. "Well…I am happy your family is safe. We are working on good things here."

"Oh, yes. I heard. I cannot wait to begin shipping in new citizens seeking a lease on life. It ought to be quite lucrative."

"Mhmm. Well…nice seeing you."

"Likewise."

Thomas walked back to Stellas, sullenly grabbed his tray, and returned it to the kitchen before trudging back to his quarters. Stellas followed him in and closed the door gently. "What\'s going on?" she asked politely in Triskol.

"I…" Thomas went to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. "…Remembering my friend…stabbing me…"

She came over, sat down next to him, and he felt her tails flutter out behind him; one caressing the back of his head gently. "Dying must have been rough."

Thomas nodded, "I don\'t wish it on anyone," he stated bluntly. "But it comes for all of us." He felt his arms shaking and he gripped his thighs as tightly as he could to keep from trembling all over.

Stellas gently put her hand on top of his, "But not you, with those scars."

He shook his head, "I\'d need to make a new body first, then re-scar it with the same verses…and it requires someone else to activate the body with mana. The inscription takes a lot. Misty could do it. Any of the heroes could." He glanced over at her, "With training, you could."

Stellas smiled gently, "Well, if you don\'t think it too bold…may I propose an idea?"

"Sure," Thomas replied as he laid back and closed his eyes.

"We can be each other\'s insurance. I\'ll work on training my mana core…however I do that…and then we both can have backup bodies."

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose, "Making a new body isn\'t as simple as casting a spell," he said. "It takes years to grow an exact copy of yourself."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Thomas opened his eyes and looked at her, sitting on the edge of the bed. He could see the hunger for not only knowledge, but multiple lifetimes to continue learning. "Why not. I\'ll work on getting the materials we need. Having another backup plan is always a good idea."

Stellas grinned broadly and nodded, "Of course."

"But…a warning. Your mana core will not transfer when you die. The only reason I got the Knowledge hero core back is because it fled my body when I died and sought me out. Most mana cores just expire after a minute. That means we\'ll have to have a mana core placed in your cloned body."

"Not…harvesting one…right?"

"No. Nothing like that," Thomas replied. "We can use any simple animal\'s core. But…you want something stronger." He smiled, "If I can get to the Ruins of Elent, well, let\'s just say I have several mana cores available to choose from."

Stellas grinned, "Then what are we waiting for? Let\'s work on this curriculum so you can go sooner!"

Thomas nodded and took her offered hand as she pulled him up. Back to it then.