Outsiders
"Amun is going to the library, Sir."
"Ugh! I swear. This is gonna make me lose my appetite." I threw my fork down in protest, uncaring if Titus or Dende or whoever heard me.
Not that they were present in the first place.
The Storm King, Grandmaster Mage, General- whatever title Titus Zlock chose to go by didn't change the fact that he only cared about a few things. And the students who weren't potentials to become problems, walk in the Light, or become Paladins weren't among them.
As things went, that was a common mindset among the Polaris Guildmasters and their subordinates. Willard Rowe and Edgar Lope were from Maru, a realm that rarely spat out those willing to walk in the light. On top of that, the former was slotted to be a Bard while the latter aimed to become an Artificer.
As a result, the morning had been peaceful. Blissfully so, for the most part.
It was a single runner. A boy of low rank, seen darting back and forth between seven of the ten alcoves placed adjacent to the Cap.
"Why do they even care?" I groaned around my food.
"You know why." Olga quipped. "This has the chance of going terribly wrong."
I laughed. "Then why did we let the Headmaster convince us this was a good idea?"
"Because you and the Wooded One find yourselves unable to kick away the curiosities nipping at your heels. 'What is the scope of his power? What is his moral alignment state?' Those are the whispers I hear from your Ki. Retort to those whispers, and it shall lead you to your doom."
'There it is.' I pushed my plate away with a sigh. 'Appetite ruined.'
With my plate no longer an object of interest, I turned in my seat to peer across the Cap to the new object of conversation.
Sitting at the edge of a group of ten was an elven woman with shale gray skin and vibrant purple eyes. Her hair was the same shade as mine, but somehow richer as if it was made of actual silver. Long and flowing silver that converged into concentric onyx rings to make a ponytail that stretched the comparatively short length of her thin, ropy body.
Even those who'd never seen her would understand what she was at first glance. The long flowing robes of brown and green and the carved beads hanging from her neck displayed her Class with more clarity than any amount of reactive mana could hope to achieve.
"Eiriol! Everyone." I bowed before planting myself across from her. Then did the same to the Class Instructors before making a strategic halt at Zoop. "How goes things in the south?"
"Oh, you know. Same same!" Zoop bounced in the same overbearing way as her father. "All's the same in Bakewia!"
"Quiet as always, huh?" I chuckled.
"Oh, not at all!" Xalji hopped onto the desk to plant his gnomish fists on his hips in vengeful protest. Though his size was hardly a threat, even for Zoop. "Why, The Purple Leopard got raided it did! By Barbarians!" He snapped, twisting in place to aim his scowl at Urodar.
"Woah." The half-orc's low drawl continued long after his massive hands lifted in surrender. "Wasn't my Barb's. Leopard's too good a spot to raid."
"Well, it wasn't Mazi!"
While they continued their banter, I leaned in close enough so only the Abbot could hear. And perhaps Corym and Indra. Damned elves. "You mean to tell me you're not interested in the prodigious son of the Cole Family?"
"I am not." Eiriol quickly retorted. "My only curiosity lies in determining who is capable of walking the walk."
"Well-"
"I know. He is one of them." She sneered without so much as a budge in her eyes. "And Rua Nun. And this… Veil of Shadows as well. My interest lies in the unknown."
"I see." I turned away for a moment to try and catch some bait for the conversation. "And how's Shujen doing?" I turned back to her, smiling. "Is your family seeing as much prosperity as in the old days?"
"Prosperity?" She huffed. "Is that what you call living with nature, not tearing the jungle down for farms and cattle only to complain about a lack of resources in only a century? The Kingdom thrives because the rainforest thrives. It seems we're the only Kingdom that knows that."
"That's untrue and you know it!" The Wood Elf siblings spouted at the same time, exchanged glances, then offered the floor to the other in the same way they'd done a thousand times before.
Or perhaps ten thousand. They were old.
"Or, is Redagh Grove's existence insignificant to you as well?" Indra, the sister, huffed.
"Perhaps if you weren't so afraid of the sun you wouldn't be so bleak in the face and ignorant of the other kingdoms. Rhar is-"
"No one cares about Rhar!" Naki's fist nearly upended the table as it bounced up and down in tune with her boisterous laughs. "Three years! Three years and your Rangers have yet to make it to Isik'iertu!"
"Ah! That takes me back!" I rocked back in remembrance of the tepid waters and supple mounds of flesh that made the place famous.
"You're deflecting, Wolfgang. Now, do tell about why you approached me in the first place."
"Alright." I turned back to the Abbot with a long sigh. "What did you mean, our doom?"
"Hmph."She snorted in an all too familiar way. 'Humans,' is what it meant. Though her visage and words proved otherwise to those unfamiliar with her ways. "You are unaware of it. For now, that is. That your obsession with him stems from fear of him. I've seen it countless times, Doyle Wolfgang, so I know. Many of you fear him already."
She leaned closer and a subtle smirk peeled in the furthest corner of her lips while she peered into my entire being. "I can sense it in your actions," she said. "All of you. You give him what you think he needs in the hopes that he doesn't take what he wants. You've enslaved yourselves to curiosity by pushing him to bare his true nature and worse, you justify the actions you're apprehensive to take on account of outdated traditions.
"But, what of the pretentious ones?" She pointed, smiling, towards the little runner watching us from the corner of his eye. "When they see him bend the creature to his will or destroy it without much effort? What of them when the champion's roar reaches their ears? Will they be awed, Wolfgang?" She cocked her head and smiled. "Will they be proud? Hopeful? If I know you, humans- if I know them." Her eyes flicked to the runner. "Their fear will make an enemy where there is not. What then?"
"I hate to admit it." Corym, the brother, sighed. "But her words hold weight. We elves see dragons differently than you humans. A dragon on the precipice of being young is a prime target for enslavement by many Drow. Amun's victory is all but assured. Your concern should lie with the consequences of his victory." He flicked his forest green eyes, not towards the runners, but towards the stairs. Or possibly somewhere far beyond.
"What you're playing with is worse than fire," Indra said this time. "It's worse than death. Alone, the void is both the most atrocious and miraculous power in existence. But it is never alone, it's always accompanied by death and darkness. That's how it's always been. But now, four more magical affinities can be mixed into it. And the Headmaster is trying his best to see it unleashed upon the world."
"Then what would you have me do?" I splayed my hands. "Better yet, enlighten my ignorant mind on what I'm dealing with."
There was a brief look exchanged between the three of them. A glance quick enough to have hardly been noticed. But noticeable all the same.
"What do you know of the Cole Family?" Indra asked.
"The same as everyone else." I shrugged. "They're Sorcerers with ties to the Plane of Shadow and the Underworld. People call them Devils. They have immortal undead. They're insanely powerful. That's about it."
"They are Devils." Indra coldly spat. "Devils in human form. How many of them have you met?"
"Uh?" I paused, scratched my head, and chuckled nervously. "Two."
"Amun will be the sixth Plague to befall our eyes," Eiriol said with a curious glance at the other elves. It was almost… melancholic. "We met his father, Emeric Cole, some fifty-seven years ago during his stay at the academy. He destabilized the entirety of Brybs County without taking any action himself. We only know this today because the Necro King bragged about it to the Wooded One decades after the fact. That's how great of a Shade Mastermind he is."
"I taught Emeric's father how to be a Ranger," Corym said, giving me no pause between dialogs. "Like all of them, he obtained a Prestige Class, the Shadow Beast Tamer. Or." He paused, chuckling wryly. "More aptly, the Shadow Beast Maker. Any creature on which his eyes fell was turned into a shadow beast. That was a hundred thirty-two years ago. His creations are still at large today."
"Four hundred seventy-four years ago, just eighteen years after the breach to our home closed, we met the Necro King," Eiriol said. "Back then, he was Everandus Cole, the Lich Lord. An extraordinarily cunning devil with a deceivingly brutish appearance, armed with an army of immortal undead that warred with the living in Vruria throughout his time here. And then he became a Paladin. One that rarely needed to smite another."
"But even he wasn't the worst Plague." Indra shuddered. "Have you heard of the Raven Reaper?"
"In horror stories, yeah." I begrudgingly nodded. "She's the reason why crows and ravens are seen as ill omens."
"One of the reasons." Eiriol corrected.
"We knew her by Corvus Cole. Shadow Necromancer, Dhampir, and Druid." Indra shuddered again with an almost imperceptible gag. "Imagine a Druid talking to dead plants and animals. And she was Cleric of the Raven Queen on top of that."
"The Raven Reaper." I shook my head with a dry laugh. "It all makes sense now."
"But the first Plague was worst of them all," Eiriol explained with no mind paid to my ignorance. "He afflicted our lands and people with accursed darkness after doing the very same across the Northern Wilds. He cursed the Headmaster and formed Crater Lake with a single spell." She leaned closer, smiling from some strange cruel pleasure while she whispered. "We met him 999 years ago. His name was Cole Nox, a Monk who followed the Way of Void. Amun is just as much of a terror as he, but with four other arcane affinities.
"So, are you enlightened now?" She leaned back with a satisfied smile. "You are excited for what the Devil may show you. We are concerned with what he may be."
"Eiriol!"
"What he may be?" I shook my head with no mind paid to Corym. "You mean his class?"
"Change is coming, Doyle Wolfgang. If you want that change to be positive, I suggest you convince the Wooded One to reconsider. If not, convince the pompous ones to not Smite whatever they deem a threat.
"Because they may soon find a new enemy out to Smite them first."
"Eiriol!" Corym said in another warnful tone. "Then began rattling on in their mother language.
"Fuckin' elves think they know everything." Naki spat through her tusks, but their conversation continued unpaused. "I, for one, can't wait to see the little tyke go up against a young red draggy! It'll be a fight for the ages!"
'Yeah. Assuming he fights at all.'
"Let's just hope the Scourge doesn't wake up. Or worse, that she doesn't destroy the mountain." Urodar slowly chuckled. "That would be bad."
***
<
The exchange was like a blink dog disappearing the moment one stopped petting it. Urodar's damper on the mood pushed Wolfgang into an attempt to lighten the mood byways of a guessing game. And of course, the simple-minded ones were more invested than the Marulean races. Save the depressive Wizard, as usual.
While I cared not for such activities, I found myself keeping a close eye out for anyone capable of walking the walk.
One Thordrohilda Diamondblade was not among them. She battled with tools, potions, and cunning like an Artificer would to fell a giant stone tortoise.
As already surmised, Veil of Shadow was certainly expected at the monastery next year. Tabaxi made exceptionally well Monks, as did Drow. And while Amun's Way was uncertain, I was all but convinced of Veil of Shadow following the Way of Open Hand like so many others of his kind.
<
Hardly giving them the satisfaction of a change in expression, I turned to face the whiny twins to give them a moment of study. They were like all wood elves. Lustrous hair and vibrant eyes and brown skin that shined like copper. They had the tattoos denoting them as adults strewn across their faces, still as vibrant as their eyes and midnight black hair.
But their age was beginning to show.
I could see it in the way they moved. The brittleness was getting to them.
And to me as well.
But where my Ki kept me alive, their Perks steadily changed them. Or didn't at all, in Corym's case. Indra, however, was beginning to grow molds, fungi, and strips of bark like all Druids at the end of their paths.
Such a terrible fate.
<
The most bashful and arrogant and proud one of them all flopped himself into his seat with a crude fart through the mouth and threw his arm to the nearest screen, shouting. "Doyle! Tell us of this one."
Wolfgang, accomplished and aged as any unremarkable human could've been, was still spineless in the face of the man. He answered with a delay only to express his indignation through a tut of the lips before responding as requested.
"Ash is a Fire Genasi," he needlessly explained. "He, like a few other students, has rarely showcased his power or even conversed much with his peers."
<
"Do you wish to say something, Abbot Eiriol?"
"If it were for your ears it would've been said in Common."
More so than he would have on any other occasion, Zlock sneered and scowled like a child beneath the cowl of his superiors. And I relished in it. I fantasized about the fast-approaching time of reckoning, for I was tired. I was tired of the self-righteous keeping change from the realms.
I was tired of waiting. After centuries and centuries of waiting, I was tired.
Too tired to wait six months more.
Too tired feign interest in watching a Fire Genasi demonstrate insanity by pouring flames into an iron golem until it knocked him out cold.
I only wanted Telin's Champion to bring his long-awaited change to the realms. However admirable or abhorrent it would be, I would welcome it wholly.
"A one-trick pony." Titus harrumphed in disappointment.
"For some, one trick is all that's needed."
He heard me. I knew he did. The rest of Polaris did too. And they knew it was true, especially the brightest light of them all.
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<> I sneered at Corym without so much as an exhaled breath in his direction. <
<> Corym sighed with impatience. <
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