Victor

  This is one hell of a forest, by which I mean it is impressively oppressive; a dark and twisted place where the bark of the tree is almost as black as a moonless night. These wicked looking stalks of furniture-to-be had dark green leaves producing a canopy that would make a pretty damn good haunted maze on Halloween. Well, call it being used to horror movies, call it courage, call it not giving a damn, I wasn't terribly worried. I had the princess with me, and Mal was there too - this was our first quest as a party of three and I was kind of excited to see what our new ally could do.

  We'd girded ourselves for foot travel, with tents and bedrolls strapped to our backs; quick releases to be employed in case of combat or severe fatigue, of course. Without much ado, we strolled down the road in a V formation - I was on point, the princess behind me to the right, and Mal behind me to the left. I say we strolled but it was more like a cautious, but casual, saunter down the long and dark path - hoo boy, good thing we had someone who could cast light magic to keep us relatively illuminated. Two someones in fact. It was late in the morning, and yet the sun didn't even touch the ground after only, what, two leagues? Yeah I'd decided to count by leagues while we were on foot since I didn't have an odometer on me.

  Our first day of travel through the dark forest started out fairly mellow, though we did run into a giant pinkish spider with black spots - a combination of our longbows and throwing knives meant the poor bastard never saw it coming. Still not the grossest thing I'd ever seen.

  That night we found ourselves a sort of a turnout on the road; an area where the trees had been cleared away and a fence erected surrounding a fire pit. It was carved out adjacent to a crossroads, northwest and southwest; we wanted to go southwest, as the sign going down that fork clearly read "Ara Lahee." Of course we grilled some thick sausages for dinner; oh that sizzly goodness.

  The next day, we'd hoped to arrive in the afternoon, was a bit rougher - we were waylaid by forest goblins. Dark green little punks with purple and blue pointy hats - where did they get those? It wasn't a terribly exciting fight; they had the numbers advantage, but we had established pretty decent team tactics by that point. Only thing was, I did get hit with an arrow while I was chargin' in with my bowie knife. But I shield bashed the little booger who shot me and shanked his pal.

  Damn, that was painful - but adrenaline, and something else I'd have explained much later, kept me in the fight. Mal, on the other hand, had managed to deafen a column of them with a burst of sound, disorienting them long enough for us to pop them off with ranged attacks. The princess also got to use that entanglement spell of hers, which helped too. Once we were done, the first thing we did was check ourselves - sure enough, I'd been the only one to take a direct hit. As it should be.

  I winced, the princess needed to remove the arrow before she could heal me. Through grit teeth I said, "I ain't fixin' to quit adventuring."

  "Sir Victor," she said, sighing, "'tis just an arrow in the knee; naught that I am incapable of healing." She furrowed her brow, "Malcolm, he's doing it again," I felt a sudden thwack upside my head.

  "Ow!" Mal had hit me with a gag-grade spell, Force Bop. I would later learn that the spell was often used by magic teachers on misbehaving students. Good grief, now there's two of them.

  None of the equipment the goblins had on them was good enough to sell unfortunately. Despite being attacked by damn dirty goblins, we made it to Ara Lahee pretty much on-time. One thing I will say about this bleak forest, is that at least it smelled really nice; I'm talking loaded with herbs, flowers, and other sorts of delicious things. Surely there had to be an herbalist here who could sell me some dried herbs for the grillin' and the stewin'.

  Ara Lahee was surrounded by an impressive palisade crafted from darkwood, which I had come to discover was what they called the trees that grew in these parts. Straight up, darkwood tree, that was it, that was the entire name of the tree. I could see the roofs of wooden houses; ah so they favored log cabins, I noticed. Somehow I was imagining yurts and tents but - then I realized that these guys live a really long time so maybe they wanted something sturdier. We approached the gate, presently closed, bracketed by a pair of high guard towers and that is where I saw them.

  Two women, almost my height, each bearing a large sword and wearing armor that brought to mind the princess' outfit; some sort of armored corset that did little to protect the heart as it seemed designed to show off their considerable busts, and a brigandine skirt. Their sharp, fearsome eyes had bright yellow irises like a cat, and their hair was ash-like in its aspect. They certainly looked strong, but they didn't have the bodies of monkey-tailed space fighters or bodybuilders; no, they still had what you might call elven grace and beauty, but it was like, it came from their raw power instead of their charm, if that makes sense?

  Oh, speaking of being elven, their ears were actually longer than the highborn elf ears I'd gotten used to and they protruded from a different angle. As to their skin tone, I would call it um, cinnamon? Yeah that seems about right. In other words, out of all Sakamoto's figures they most closely resembled the half naked one whose name was, um, gah! Sorry Kenny - Pirate Ass? Nevermind. Anyway. They did have the same fearsome expression as that excruciatingly detailed model, or close enough to it, but seeing it in real time was surreal.

  "Halt!" one commanded; ah, they had gauntlets too and I was too distracted to notice. Armored sabatons, too, though their legs were still mostly bare due to how short they were.

  We obeyed of course. I was about to introduce us but then Mal placed a hand on my shoulder, shook his head, bowed to the guard and started to speak - in elvish! De wha?

  "Greetings to you, oh mighty and beautiful darkborn warrior! I am Malcolm Kavian, and these are my adventuring companions: Sir Victor Kirkland of Texas, and her highness Princess Illiana Verissa tael Anaura, Illorend's daughter, of Anaura. Upon our errand at the behest of the royal courts of Cara an Anaura both, we seek to recruit one of your fine warriors as a temporary party member - for which we are prepared to pay handsomely, of course. Would you be so kind as to introduce us to your clan Dach that we might pay our humblest of respects?"

  I had no idea he was actually fluent in elvish! The princess took a few steps forward, standing beside Mal, and bowed.

  The warriors laughed, "You wish to enter our village, with that flatborn? Only to seek one of our superior warriors? Ha! Mean you to toss the flatborn by the wayside, do you?"

  The other said "Flatborn princess with no hills, all plains!"

  Flatborn? What's that mean? Wait, the princess had turned towards me, away from the guards, and was looking down dejectedly, touching her own - oh no. That's what flatborn means. At this point the guards were still laughing, and now they were pressing their cleavage together, mockingly.

  Oh that pissed me off. I was also mad at myself too for thinking that the princess was exaggerating - O Lord forgive your wayward son. Well good thing I'd been practicing Common and elvish both, and had learned a decent amount of informal words in the process. I had only a moment to formulate my words in a way that the guard would understand. Roughly translated into English, I said something like this:

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  I glowered at the guards, took an aggressive step forward, fists clenched, and said "Hey! My friend's got great tits, so how about you shut your damn mouth!"

  The princess gave a wide, closed-eyed smile and said, "Aww, thank you!", then she did a double take, and shouted, fists clenched arms extended down by her hips, "HEY WAIT! Sir Victor, really!" then she turned away and said, quietly, "but, all the same, thank you…"

  The warrior women looked serious, one said, "Do you issue challenge, strangely-garbed human?"

  I clicked my tongue and said, "Well nobody gets away with bullyin' on my watch."

  Mal chuckled, "Well, I warned them they were dealing with royalty - if they want to cause a diplomatic disaster by attacking an official emissary of the king of Anaura then there is nothing more I can do. If they wish to fool around," he smirked, turning to me with an exaggerated thinking pose.

  I added "Then it's time for the find-out stage."

  "That's enough!" came a voice from behind the gates, a man's voice. The warriors froze, trembling with fright, and they took a knee. The gates opened and out stepped a male darkborn elf with short charcoal black hair; no wait, it sort of had a dark bluish tinge. "Ashlee, Dusky, what have I told you about antagonizing people who may be here to spend money?"

  They gulped, "You told us not to, Dach."

  Incidentally, that word was pronounced with a soft "ch" not a hard one. Wow this guy had those scary girls practically begging for mercy. I had him pegged for some kind of mighty warrior or something.

  He clicked his tongue and pointed at them sternly, "I shall not take either of you to bed for three months."

  The warriors cried out in shock.

  "Wait, that's not fair, Dach!"

  "It was my turn tonight, too!"

  His gaze turned dark, "You ought to have thought of that before you insulted the daughter of my old friend. Three months, and no lap-pillows either."

  They turned pale. Brutal. Scary as he had been, however, when he turned to me, smiling, he didn't seem all that terrifying.

  "Well met, child of human-kind," he began, "I am Mora, Dach of Clan Darkblade. Please, do forgive my wives of their rudeness."

  Wives? Plural? Was I hearin' things? Wait, shut the foxtrot up, wasn't Dach Mora the name on the-

  "Ah," I said, beginning with Common, "we are condemning a package for you."

  "De-li-vering," said the princess, sounding out the syllables. Oops, my bad. Gimme a break it's only been like, what six weeks or less? "Your supreme virileness Dach Mora," that was an actual thing? The princess began again, in elvish, "we iron-ranked adventurers are here on a copper-ranked quest and, as you can see, we are short one person. We were also hoping to hire a guide to lead us to a specific destination within the wood, if we may be permitted."

  Mora said, "There is no need to be so formal with this one, in particular, daughter of Varielle."

  "Huh?" The princess seemed surprised, oh yeah he did say something like that, didn't he? "How did you know?"

  "You are practically a mirror-image of your mother as she appeared at your age, give or take a century, you even happen to have the same colored eyes as her, though I am told with the highborn that is not always, how you say, a given."

  So this guy is pretty old, too, damn, wish I could look that good at his age.

  "Wait," the princess said, her slender index finger draped over her chin, eyes cast down in thought, "could you be referring to her first pilgrimage, before she became queen?"

  Mora nodded, "Indeed, I have not forgotten what she did for Ara Lahee and all of the people in it. But that tale is as long as the long-devil's tail."

  Tale and tail clearly didn't rhyme in elvish because nobody reacted. But who are the short-devil and the long-devil anyway?

  Mal gave a chortle."Oh, I know that story well! Goodness," he said as he turned on his toes and started capering. "Yes, indeed, you must permit me to tell it to you some time - ah I shall need a lute, a bottle of wine, and a surface upon which to cast shadow puppets!" That sounded lit, I was game.

  Both Mora and the princess smiled, they seemed to agree. The princess said, "Given that you know who I am, more or less, may I presume that you know about my gifts?"

  She glanced sidelong at me, awkwardly.

  Mora replied, "Yes and no, I understand that divine power isn't always passed down from parent to child, but I do know there is always a chance. To answer your real question: indeed, you may approach and prevent your friend from making any more odd, albeit hilarious, linguistic errors."

  Gimme a cock-eyed break.

  As soon as the princess cast her spell, Mora said, "Much improved. Pray tell me, adventurer, what cargo is it that you bear?"

  I brought out an unadorned tin box, "Package for Dach Mora, Ara Lahee."

  "Oh? For this one? What could it-" His face grew grim again, and he turned to the guards. "You two nearly cost this one his butter cookies? You can forget about paddle-bottoms, too!"

  There was an anguished cry, wait, that wasn't anguish that was something else...were those women-

  "I'm sure he's thinking of some harsh punishment!" Ashlee had her wrists pressed to her cheeks,

  "Oh, I can hardly wai- I mean, ah I quake in terror!" Dusky was doing the exaggerated stage fainting gesture with the back of her hand on her forehead and another hand on her collarbone.

  I groaned. Yup. My suspicions were right. Just like that one blonde babe who only became a holy knight, honed herself into an immovable object of absolute defense, because she derived extreme pleasure from getting mauled by an unstoppable force. I think she was from one of them anime shows - Kenny had a figurine of her, too. Never saw the show.

  The only anime I'd ever seen in their entirety were the fightin' show with the spiky haired dudes (you know the one, don't lie), the giant robot show where the boy somehow turns a girl on by threatening her, and that one about space cowboys. When the guys and I had our infrequent movie night gatherings, hurray for free flights from the army, Sakamoto usually brought us a one-shot anime movie: like that one with the moving castle. Beyond that, my anime knowledge was pretty much nonexistent, and my knowledge of Japan in general is mostly limited to military history, food, giant monsters, and architecture; mostly. But I digress.

  Mora rolled his eyes, as he put quill to paper, and muttered "masochists," with exasperation. "They insist on wearing those impractical corselets while on-duty and I can't do a gods-damned thing about it."

  Mal seemed not to care much, the princess was speechless, and quite frankly, so was I, but I cleared my throat, "are all darkborn women like this?"

  "As far as I can tell, it is only those two in particular who enjoy pain and humiliation," the Dach said, "but then again this one is only Dach of the Darkblades, smallest of the great clans, with only thirty wives to care for."

  "Thirty, good grief," I said, imagining the grocery bills, "well um, may we enter now? We still need to get supplies and find ourselves a temporary fourth member, preferably iron or tin rank."

  Mora shook his head, "enter you may but I fear that I shan't be of much help with what you seek; there are many brave warriors with official guild presence, but none of them are mine to lend. For that, you will need to seek an audience with Dach Karth of the Darkbeast clan - It is he who handles hiring out mercenaries and mustering us for war at need. He is also a mighty warrior in his own right, and an astral mage. "

  I turned to the princess, ah there's that bright expression and the lecture finger. She said, "astral is a discipline dealing with spirits - usually spirits that dwell within the land. Used in conjunction with nature, one could even awaken a tree into a treant."

  I was imagining talking trees throwing apples or speaking in really long sentences, turns out I was close.

  I nodded with a hum. "Well then, your um, Dachness, thank you for extending your hospitality." I took off my hat, hidden helmet and all, and bowed.

  "Thank you for a speedy delivery, well if you'll pardon me," he walked through the gate, called out to someone inside the tower and said, "Let them through," he turned to us once again, "I shall send word to Karth that you wish to speak with him, if required."

  "Oh! Thanks again!" I said, as we started to follow him through.

  Ara Lahee, here we come!

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