CHAPTER TWO:
As a group they were led deeper and deeper into the castle, through an array of dizzyingly intertwined tunnels and passageways. After their umpteenth turn down a passageway that was entirely indistinguishable from the myriad others Kellindel walked forwards and slapped their guide on the shoulder, "I've been wondering how you knew where you were going all this time, and I've worked it out, either you yourself are lost and are waiting for us to come to a recognisable landmark, or you have some Minotaur blood in you somewhere."
The guide offered him a watery smile and they turned one final corner to see a large and well appointed drawing room before them.
A tall, silver haired half-elf stepped out to greet them, and the guide bowed before heading off again, but not before Kellindel had leaned over once more and muttered, "I pity whichever of your relatives it was", into his ear.
The half elf shot the bard a questioning look, but Kel merely responded with a cheerful smile and a shrug, and so Methrammar gave his own rather nonplussed look before turning to the others.
"Good afternoon all of you, thank you for coming at such comparatively short notice, and thank you for appreciating the urgency."
Llana looked up at the far taller and figure and dropped into a curtsey, "It is a pleasure to meet you Sir Aerasumé, but I believe I speak for all of us when I say that, though we are happy to aid you in whatever way we can we remain entirely in the dark about why it is that you have summoned us all together?"
"Straight to the point then?"
"I have always found it to be the best way." Replied Karosin with an expression that was virtually unreadable.
Aerasumé looked down at the assassin with barely concealed distaste, frankly from what he'd been told of the fellow's past he had no idea why the Sunite tolerated his presence anywhere, never mind in her bed. But he'd been told that the man had useful and potentially necessary skills, as well as being part of the deal in getting he better half to come along.
Unfortunately, he reflected, it seems that we're all going to be rather strange bedfellows one way or the other.
It certainly said something about the dark haired human though that the half-fiend that he travelled with possessed a far less noticeably malevolent aura.
"Well quite," he eventually replied before leading them through to his drawing room.
The only real concession towards that fact that the room was buried away at the very centre of the castle was that the windows were filled with globes of light rather than actual sunlight. Other than that though there was little to give away the fact that it was one of the most heavily fortified areas in all of Silverymoon.
"Please, all of you take a seat", gestured Aerasumé towards a small row of chairs. Yami span one around to accommodate his wings, Kellindel dropped heavily into the furthest away, Orrin sat on the one closest to the speaker, something he had to do now after a blow in the past left him deaf in one ear, Kelron perched on one of the seats, looking uncomfortable at not being outside, and Llana and Karosin sat by Orrin's side.
"Thank you", Aerasumé himself leaned against the wall and sighed. "These places are, as you know exceedingly difficult to tame and settle, from the Orcs and their kin, to the trappers and tradesmen, to the barbarian tribes and the werewolves, all of them working as their own small reasons why we struggle to make many inroads into taming this wilderness."
Kelron shifted uneasily in his seat for a moment, wondering why he had been brought to this meeting, because if there was going to be a fight, physical or otherwise over continued expansion in the far north of Faerun then he knew well which side he would be coming down on, and it wouldn't be the one that Silverymoon was likely to back.
Still, he had pledged himself to nothing yet, and could leave at any time, though a treacherous part of him wondered at how easy it would be for him to leave from so deep in the bowels of the castle.
Aerasumé, seemingly ignorant of the Elf's discomfort continued, "Of course, whilst we would love to make more space with which to grow our interests into we still have to respect the interests of the other groups up here, especially those of the tribes and those of the woodlands, and respect them we do."
"The problem we have currently is that we're actually pretty content with where we are in terms of how far we've managed to expand, we are certainly planning to make the roads safer, as well as giving the outlying villages a decent amount of protection, but we don't plan on settling any more land, and don't envision doing so for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately", he continued, "someone out there is certainly doing their damnedest to make it look as if we are stretching deeper and deeper into the Cold Wood and other areas that are, as far as we're concerned, off limits." Aerasumé rose from his own seat and crossed to a map that was affixed to the wall, the various pencil markings and ingrained dirt had left a patina over it which left a very good indication as to how often it was used.
"In the past month more and more reports are coming in from the Wood Elf tribes that live in these woods that someone is burning out huge swathes of the forests. Apparently there are human footprints and other things which indicate that they are the cause, more than that though apparently they keep on finding little hints that these humans hail from Silverymoon", he pointed to the far side of the room, and there on a table was a selection of smouldering items, apparently salvaged from the fires.
"Amongst that little junk-heap over there you'll find coinage, seals and ward tokens that do indeed all hail from Silverymoon, including one token that is very rare indeed", this was something that deeply troubled Aerasumé, for the token had belonged to a good friend, and someone who was no more likely to aid in logging or anything of that ilk that he would have been to sprout wings and fly.
"We've tried to reassure the Elves and the Fey who listen to them that it isn't us, but they're proving unusually hard to convince at the moment."
Turning away from the maps he studied the group before him with a combination of weariness and annoyance, "I don't like having to call in outsiders, but none of you have any overt ties with us and we've exhausted most of our usual methods."
"Including diplomacy?" Asked Llana, for whom a battle avoided was always better than a battle one, at least in physical terms anyway.
Aerasumé smiled wryly, "astonishing as it may seem that was actually our first port of call, but they're not willing to listen to reason, nor to accept our promises that we ourselves will get to the bottom of this.
This has become an issue beyond diplomacy now because in the outlying villages people have started to go missing."
He let his words hang in the air for a moment before continuing, "and, similarly to the case with the fires we invariably find a hint that the kidnapper's are Elven." He pointed then at another heap, where a few arrows and their fletchings lay, as well as an Elven dagger, the blade still stained rust-red with blood."
"It's all too pat, too clean", said Orrin cautiously, as if not entirely ready to give voice to his thoughts, aware of the danger behind such a conspiracy.
"That's exactly what we're thinking", agreed Aerasumé as he wandered back to the map and scrutinised it once more, as if staring a whole through it would force it into yielding some kind of answer.
"Someone is trying to force us, if not into war, then into some kind of separation from those that we have counted as allies in the past." This oblique reference to the D'lardrageth's brought a frown of memory from Kelron, for he had fought in that blood and brimstone tinged campaign, and had lost many friends to the swords and spells of Sarya's unholy armada.
"You can probably also look forwards to them trying to drive a wedge between the Dwarves and yourselves as well." Observed Llana, who looked worried by these revelations, aware of the fragility that existed in the far North of Faerun, and how any destabilisation of the bonds between the 'good' races could lead to ruin, for there were simply so many forces at work, from the Shadovar, to the Orcs and virtually everything between.
"For the time being the Dwarves and ourselves are on good terms, the strength of the trade between us will probably prove sufficient to keep human's and the Dwarves working side by side for the time being."
"Which, assuming our fears are correct that someone is trying to spilt us all apart, will almost certainly be known by your hidden enemies, who would, were they to have any kind of sense of strategy, use this as a way to leave the Elves feeling ever more ostracised and endangered." Said Orrin with a thoughtful tone.
"Agreed", said Yami, interjecting, "I wouldn't be at all surprised if before long you also start to find 'hints' that there have been Dwarves involved as well."
"What are your thoughts", asked Aerasumé, turning to the Wood Elf, who had remained entirely silent throughout the whole explanation.
For several moments he said nothing before standing up and offering a low bow, "Your Grace, I believe that your people are not advancing any deeper, but I also understand the concerns of my people. Trappers, hunters and the like still occasionally move into territory that should, by rights, be the sole preserve of the forest dwellers."
"Though I am sure you shall protest it, you have already taken far too much land for the balance to remain healthy in this region".
Behind him Karosin's lip started to curl upwards in a sneer, he'd never liked Elves, and this ranger here was virtually a picture perfect representation of what was wrong with about half of the species. So remarkably focused on their little forest companions and their ways that they had never managed to understand what it was that drove humanity ever onwards. Then there was the other half of the elves, the mystics, who viewed even the most powerful human as little better educated than an ape, and worth nothing but condescension.
He remembered a rather brief discussion he'd once had with a High Elf, who had compared humanity as a whole, and thus included him, to a mass of parasites, of worms feasting ravenously on a corpse.
It had pleased him immensely to leave the Elf to endure the second half of that metaphor himself.
Aerasumé began to frown but caught himself, he really hadn't brought him in to begin a debate over the rights and wrongs of the 'civilising' of the Northern Reaches, and frankly this wasn't a discussion that they could afford to have now, perhaps in the future when things were better balanced but...
"I apologise for this but that has to be a discussion for another day and another time, I promise though that once we have managed to get to the bottom of who is trying to pit us all against one another then Lady Alustriel and myself will be happy to meet with any representatives of the Elven Nations and the forests.
"Speaking of the Elven Nations", said Llana, who had been reflecting that it seemed that the troubles of the Elves would ever be a pattern in her life, "I assume you are talking to the leaders of Myth Drannor about this issue, because I can't see that it could have escaped their notice?"
"I'd personally heard that Miritar was a fine leader and an upstanding character", agreed Orrin, who was beginning to feel the scope of this occurrence more and more, the simplest of things always seemed to lead to huge, world shattering events in the end.
"He is at that", Aerasumé said with a nod, "and if it were just him we were dealing with then this issue would almost certainly be brushed under the carpet with minimum fuss, but there are more groups in the area that just Myth Drannor, and more than that we would be guilty of the worst kind of self denial if we assumed that all of the figures of Myth Drannor either listened to what Miritar had to say, or considered themselves under his control."
"Lest we forget he himself was only able to raise an army to take back Myth Drannor by ignoring the demands of most of the council of Evermeet, who is to say that someone else couldn't build an army themselves to 'liberate' the forests from human and Dwarven interloper's?" Aerasumé virtually spat out the word 'liberate' as he spoke, investing it with his distaste over the whole sorry affair.
"More than that", he shrugged, "there is plenty enough on his plate at the moment that he will have to delegate a level of responsibility, and there's no saying that the person it is delegated to will prove to be as able as he is to find a decent solution."
There didn't seem much more to be said at this point, and so Aerasumé pointed up to the map once more, "This is where the last of the burnings occurred, I leave it in your hands as to how you plan on proceeding, but my suggestion is that you start there."