by G. R. Cooper
After several minutes walking, Wulfgar noticed movement on the periphery of his vision. Glancing quickly left then right, he saw more elves. All wore similarly dissimilar clothing to the leading pair. None seemed worry about whether or not the colors of their outfits served in any way to camouflage them. They all converged on the visiting party with a casual insouciance that impressed Wulfgar. Their entire escort seemed unconcerned with the humans.
Shortly afterward, the forest opened into a larger glade. More elves approached from the other side. A quick estimate told Wulfgar that there were upward of a hundred elves converging on the center of the clearing. Wulfgar didn’t need to be told which was the sylvan king. There was no deference on the part of the rest of the elves, but one carried a gravitas that dwarfed any other occupant of the glade. By a long shot, Wulfgar mused.
He was no taller than the rest of the elves. No more or less ornately dressed. Wulfgar admitted to himself that if he was looking at a picture of this crowd, there would be nothing that indicated which was the leader.
“Bow,” said Bael quietly.
Wulfgar complied, bending deeply from the waist. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw his companions mirroring his movements. He held the bow until Bael whispered that he should again straighten.
After he rose, he made eye contact for the first time with the elven king. He didn’t have to be told to be deferential - it was as natural as drawing his next breath. Even though he was much taller and larger than the elf, he felt dwarfed by his presence.
“Thank you,” said Wulfgar softly. He felt no need to explain why, and he saw that the elf understood. Simply granting the human an audience was obviously reason enough for thanks. He got the impression that the fewer words he used, the better. He waited for the elf to speak. He held the king’s eyes for an uncomfortably long, silent time. Eventually, he seemed to have passed some sort of test and the elf lord spoke for the first time.
“You are the new leader of the humans. Marchstone.” There was no question in the statement; it was a preamble.
Wulfgar bowed again, remaining silent.
“Do you come to offer fealty?”
Wulfgar looked into the elven eyes, “No.”
The elf nodded. Wulfgar thought that he’d passed another test - no king worth considering would offer fealty to another. Alliance, yes; allegiance, no. The elf king remained silent. Wulfgar took that to indicate that it was his turn.
How to continue? he thought. He remembered Bael’s description of the elven folk and realized that he had to tread lightly. He couldn’t be obsequious, but he couldn’t be arrogant either. He had to be deferential without showing weakness or indecisiveness.
“I merely come to introduce myself. To offer my assurance that we wish for a mutually beneficial relationship. One that can grow over time.”
The king frowned softly. From his own character sheet, Wulfgar knew that the elves regarded him with suspicion. Mainly from his relationship with the dwarves - the elves’s neighbors to the south. To be a dwarf-friend was to be suspect to an elf.
“I would offer the same that I offer to all of my neighbors,” Wulfgar added, leaving out specific mention of the dwarves. That would be obvious to the elf and refraining from mentioning their longtime antagonist could only help.
“What of the other humans?”
Wulfgar shrugged, “I did not declare war upon them. I would live in peace with them, but sometimes peace must be tempered in blood.”
The elf nodded.
“In any case, the lands of Marchstone were not part of King Clive’s kingdom. His declaration of war is unjust.”
The elf shrugged. Justice would be determined by outcome; the king that won would be the king that was in the right. That was the way it was with kings, the way it always had been. Write the history, and you determine right and wrong, and it was usually the winner that wrote the history.
“I am not unwilling,” said the elf king slowly, “to accept your assurances. But there is first something I need you, as the leader of Marchstone, to address.” A dark cloud floated over the glade, dimming the sunlight and spreading a shade over the meeting. The rest of the elves seemed to shrink a little, dread overcoming them.
“I will do what I can.”
“We would not willingly leave our wood. Occasionally, however, one of us disappears. Without trace or sign. They are never missing for more than a week before their body returns to us. In the river.”
Wulfgar nodded. The river flowed out of his territory. Any body that was in the river was first placed in the lake. His lake. He thought to yesterday’s ride. To the little stand of trees that they’d passed - the copse had emanated a sense of dread; one similar to the feeling that now permeated the glen.
“Two are now missing,” sighed the king. “One of us was taken. A week ago. The other,” a shudder went through the crowd, “was taken two days ago. My son. The prince.” He looked to Wulfgar questioningly.
“I will do what I can,” repeated the human.
“You have accepted the quest Prince in Peril from The Elf King!”
Wulfgar nodded and smiled, even though the quest felt red. Highly dangerous.
Crap, he thought, and on top of that, it’s not as if I don’t have enough to do. He knew that trying to bring up any talk of an alliance or help in the war was pointless until the quest was completed. Successfully completed.
The trio of humans and their faerie guide left the elven forest in mid-afternoon. The heat of the day was cresting and the westering sun lit the eastern mountains of Wulfgar’s realm beautifully. The distant snow-covered peaks loomed over the valley.
They rode briskly, trying to retrace their previous day’s ride quickly. Wulfgar wanted to complete this quest and return to the elves as rapidly as possible; there were a little fewer than five whole days until resurrection was once again turned off.
Wulfgar looked to Bael, the little faerie sitting cross-legged between the horse’s ears. He looked up at the human, smiling.
“Yes?”
“I was just wondering how you got here so quickly. Did you use plane travel?”
Bael nodded, “Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
The faerie began scratching at the base of the horse’s left ear. “It’s a pretty standard means of getting from one place to another fairly quickly. It’s dangerous, though. Very dangerous. Especially so for beings such as yourself.” He paused in thought for a moment, “If I were to accept your offer to create a kingdom here, I would return to my people using plane travel, but I would not come back through the planes with those of my people who wanted to settle here. It’s perilous for a lone faerie to go through the nether planes, but to take a large group through? That would be foolish.”
“Why?”
“The denizens of the other planes are typically more powerful, much more powerful, than those of us on the mundane plane.”
“Demons?”
“Among other things. Even the counterparts of those that live in this world are much more powerful in the planes. Even the most ancient dragon in this world would be only a middling power in the planes, but the denizens of the planes are much less powerful in our realm than their own.”
Wulfgar thought for a moment, “Where can you travel to? I mean, can I just open a portal here and go through and enter Edonis?” He was worried about a force being able to leave that city - or just outside of it - and bypass his wall, attacking from within the kingdom.
“It’s not that precise, no.” Bael shrugged, “The entry and exit points are not fixed. And the further you travel, the more power it takes. A non-magical being such as yourself would not be able to use the planes for point to point travel. Even the most powerful of your wizards would not be able to open up an exit portal that was in another location from that which they entered. While you have magic, yours is learned. Mine is,” he shrugged, “more inborn. You use magic, I am part of it. It’s a distinction that usually doesn’t matter, but in
the case of plane travel it’s very important, and that’s what I mean when I refer to you as non-magical.”
“Would a magical being be able to take a party of non-magical beings through? To travel point to point?”
“Could we? Conceivably. Would we? Highly unlikely. The further the non-magical being gets from their entry point, the more noticeable you become to the denizens. After a distance, and not a relatively long distance, your very presence acts as an alarm, attracting the residents to your presence. It would be a suicide mission for even the most powerful of us within this world.”
“But a short distance travel would be possible?”
“Not point to point. For you to create an exit point, you have to get far enough away from your entry point that you would also attract attention. And you would have to get many kilometers away from your entry point in order to create an exit point. No, the entry point acts as a kind of binding point for yourself within this world. If you leave the plane, you’ll exit at the same place that you entered.”
Wulfgar nodded. That seemed to be a good game design decision, if nothing else. The word’s designers didn’t want players using plane travel to get from one part of the world to another - it functioned more like an instanced dungeon; the deeper into which you got, the more dangerous it became.
“Would you be able to help a non-magical sorcerer prepare a plane travel spell?”
Bael frowned, “Possibly. If I were present when they cast, I would likely be able to add my own power to theirs, allowing them to extend their time within the planes, or even reach a deeper plane than their skill would otherwise allow, but none of the restrictions we spoke of would be affected at all by that.”
After they left the elven woods they turned to the southeast, following the shoreline of the lake. After several kilometers, Connor pointed out two figures in the distance. They were on an intercepting course and their paths would cross in a few minutes. As Wulfgar watched, the figures seemed to drop to the ground and begin a loping run on all fours that would quickly eat up the distance. The pair soon altered course and turned directly toward the humans.
“Spread out,” said Wulfgar quietly. Calmly. He turned his horse toward the figures and saw that Connor and Corwin moved out several meters on his left and right flanks. Connor lay his Fire Bow across his lap and nocked an arrow, ready to pull. Corwin drew a thin, single-handed sword. The blade rested on the pommel of the dark man’s saddle.
Wulfgar sat up straight and watched. As they neared, the pair resolved into what looked like large, dark wolves. Their running slowed as they got within one hundred meters and Wulfgar sighed, leaning back in the saddle.
“It’s OK,” he whispered. “I think.”
The two Canis Arcturus raised back into bipedal locomotion as they approached the horses and Wulfgar waved.
“Gar! Nop!” he hailed, hoping that he was right. The toothy grins that broke out on the pair of werewolves - a race that were allies within the outer Omegaverse - told him that he was.
On first entering the Omegaverse he had earned the Cowl of the Wolf, a relic that granted him neutrality with the Canis Arcturus; known as werewolves colloquially within the game world. Ironically, he’d gained the cowl by killing an elder of the species; shot with a powerful rail gun. A gun that had been so rare and valuable that when he’d later auctioned it off, it had provided enough money to purchase a top of the line trading ship.
He had then used the cowl to go to the Canis Arcturus home-world and establish a partnership that allowed him to visit their otherwise unreachable - by humans - space station and purchase trading goods at much lower prices than were available anywhere else in the known universe. The constant stream of income from that route had provided an important revenue stream for his burgeoning empire.
His first night in this world within a world, he had stumbled into an inn and met these two werewolves and their human friend Snorri. He hoped that their friendship would transfer, but he wondered at their sudden arrival. He knew - or at least assumed - that the Canis Arcturus were like he, Connor, and Corwin. Players in this world. Not AI. That was a conversation he wanted to have with the pair at some point. Were they part of the experiment, whatever it was? Were they xenoanthropologists like Clive? Were they just a couple of alien guys who decided that they wanted to play an earthling biased role-playing game?
“Wulfgar,” nodded one of the pair.
Wulfgar was unable to tell them apart. He smiled back and introduced the werewolves to the humans and faerie, and brought the newcomers up to speed.
“We would love to have your help in the village, and I’m sure Snorri would appreciate it.” He smiled, “And I would appreciate your help on this little quest of ours.” He wondered if their sense of smell was as canine as their appearance.
“We’d be glad to help,” said the other.
They reached the eerie copse in the late afternoon. The sun shone on the western side of the wood, sending lengthening shadows eastward. The humans dismounted and they moved into the trees. The total area of the mini-forest was no more than half an acre, if that. But it was dense. Darker than it should be for its size. The undergrowth was thick; the complete opposite of the open and inviting elven woodland. They worked their way through the trees, side by side, until they emerged back into the open.
Wulfgar looked at the others, who shook their heads. Nobody had seen anything out of the ordinary. He turned to a werewolf, “Did you notice anything?”
“A dank smell. Worse than I would expect. But nothing specific.”
Wulfgar nodded and made his way around to the lake-side of the wood. He was looking back into the trees when Connor hailed the group.
“Look!” said the ranger, pointing at the lake surface.
The rest turned and Wulfgar saw a bubbling in the water, about thirty meters offshore. As they watched, the size and rate of the bubbles increased and were shortly followed by a body that surfaced, face down. The bubbles stopped rising and the body bobbed in the water, slowly moving westward toward where the lake emptied into the elven river.
Wulfgar quickly shed his cowl, cape, and backpack and running toward the water, pulled his belt loose and let it fall. Still on the run, he dove into the water and began swimming, using his forward momentum to help carry him ten meters underwater. As he surfaced he began kicking. His sandals and clothes slowed him, but he reached the naked body quickly and pulled on the far shoulder, turning it over in the water. He got the head above the surface and, reaching over its right shoulder, he pulled the body into his hip, keeping the face above water. Wulfgar began kicking and using a side stroke toward shore.
As he reached the shallows, Connor and Corwin took over and pulled the body onto shore. Wulfgar immediately stood and pointed his right hand at the lifeless elf, activating his healing spell.
To no effect.
Wulfgar looked to the others and shook his head. He bent and examined the elf. Even in death, it looked serene. Almost lovely. He touched the skin. It was cold - but he had no idea if that meant that the elf had been dead for a while or if elves were just naturally cold. He looked over the face and neck, then down the body. There was no obvious sign of trauma. He rolled the body and look down the back to the same result. The elf looked fine.
Apart from being dead, that is, Wulfgar thought, standing and facing the others.
He thumbed over his right shoulder, toward the lake behind, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m kind of curious just exactly how an elf suddenly surfaced from the bottom of an otherwise placid lake.” He began taking off his shoes, pants, and shirt. Standing naked, he turned toward the water.
“I’ll be back in a second. Can you guys figure out how we’re going to get this guy back to his people?” He began wading into the lake.
“We could just drop him back in. Let the water take him back,” suggested Corwin.
“Maybe something a little bit more dignified,” responded Wulfgar. “We’re trying to create a good impres
sion with the elves.” When the water reached his waist, he dove again and swam as far as he could underwater. About thirty meters out, he surfaced and turned to the shore.
“Is this about where the body came up?”
The rest of the group waved from the shore, Corwin giving a thumbs up.
Nodding, Wulfgar took a deep breath and dove.
The water rapidly darkened as Wulfgar kicked away from the surface. Tiny bubbles continued to rise, giving him an indication of which direction he should go. After diving for thirty seconds, he saw a faint glow in the darkness and as he got closer, it widened and grew until he could just make out an opening in a small cliff-side that thrust upward from the bottom of the lake floor. Turning, he kicked back toward the surface, his lungs aching. He wondered if carrying some kind of weight to help him sink would get him to the bottom faster and with less exertion than swimming downward.
His face burst through into the air and he gulped a deep breath, then began swimming toward the shoreline and the waiting group. He waded onto the ground and turned and sat, looking out over the lake. The two humans returned from the horses, where they’d just finished draping the hapless elf over the flanks of Wulfgar’s mount.
“We thought putting it on the king’s horse would create the best impression for the elves,” said a grinning Corwin.
“Smart-ass,” smiled Wulfgar, looking up over his shoulder. He turned back toward the lake, “Just underneath where I dove, there is a small cliff face on the bottom.”
“How deep?” asked one of the werewolves.
Wulfgar shrugged, “I’m not really good at judging the distance, but it probably would have taken all of my breath to get to it.” He looked back at the woods, “Did anyone see anything in there that we could use to weight ourselves down? To make diving easier?”
