SURVIVAL OF THE SMARTEST
Summary: The uninteresting journey through the Tangled Depths. (Uninteresting in the TD? Whaat?)
Chapter four: Tarquazin
Author's Notes:
Oh no. I'm running out of things to say in Author's Notes. Oh dear. Oh well.
Okay, here's the story now:
There is a scout at the Whispers base of operations in the area - and this scout has had other Pact scouts reporting the lay of the land to her since the crash.
"Yes, the only pass is directly south of here," she tells them. "You just came from the outpost to the east? The only road that gets to te pass anything like a timely manner in that direction the path that outpost is camped on. If you're looking for speed, talk to Tarquazin over there."
"I don't speak the Nuhoch language," the Commander says uneasily, glancing over.
"Oh, you don't need to," Sella says dismissively. "Tarquazin's really friendly. You'll see. She'll be able to direct you safely and quickly to the pass."
"Thank you for the information, Sella," the Commander tells her.
"Hello!" Taimi says to Tarquazin. "Can you help us get to the southern pass so we can find our friends?"
"Your friends aren't my friends," Tarquazin points out mildly.
"Please, every moment they're out there Trahearne has a greater chance of being turned - by force. The war effort against Mordremoth will crumble like soft clay if he's turned... and they're our friends," Eir pleads.
"Turned?" Tarquazin seems interested now. "So your friend is a sylvari?"
"Yes. He'd kill himself before being turned... but the dragon won't let him have any say in the matter. You've seen the turned sylvari, and the distrust sown among the Pact because of it." the Commander says.
"This dragon doesn't even try peaceable methods," Tarquazin growls. "At least the Zintle tribe don't invade our minds,"
"The dragon's methods - not to mention it's purpose - are unforgivably evil," Canach says dryly. "We all know that."
"Every victim of the dragon's that I see makes the fire burn hotter in me, and yet, after weeks, I have yet to see anyone - anyone! trying to do anything about it!" Tarquazin says in frustration. "Except for you. I'll help you get to the pass. We'll save your friend from the dragon's invasions."
"And - hopefully - end the dragon so he can't violate anyone else's privacy," the Commander agrees.
"Show me where the caravan you were tracking went, on the map," Tarquazin tells them. "Hm..." Eir traces the route they know the Mordrem took. "They will be greatly slowed down, taking that route," he says, analyzing the map. "Even if it was the same route, we'd be going quicker, just because we know exactly where they're going. How old are the tracks you found?"
"Two days behind, by now," Eir reports.
"They'll be halfway through this maze, then," Tarquazin informs them. "Our route only takes two days, so you should catch up to your quarry near the place your Pact has taken to calling 'Dragon's Passage'.
"Two days," the Commander ponders, her eyes drifting to the map where Tarquazin had outlined the estimated route the Mordrem had taken for the quickest time to the pass, outlined in black ink. "What's our route?" she asks, after a moment.
Tarquazin outlines the route, which really is almost directly south. Once he was done, new details jump out at Eir from the map that had just been mere details before; the U-turn near the bottom of the map, the nearly-hidden passage into a place labeled 'Ogre Lane' from Deeproot Sink, the squiggly path near the very end of the map, and a lone waypoint at the end. Tarquazin's mark of where he thinks the Mordrem are now is a large loop that curves north - giving the Mordrem a large detour - before going south. The predicted route for the Mordrem is long and winding, much longer than their planned path.
"There's only one approach to Dragon's Passage. See, we sort of cut onto it here - " Tarquazin taps the near-hidden passageway that links Deeproot Sink and Ogre Lane - "whereas the Mordrem will probably be on it at it's beginning, way east here. It may be a good idea to look around for tracks at that point, to see if we're behind or - Ameyalli willing - ahead."
"Let's get moving, then," the Commander says with a decisive nod. "No need to wait around with our friends in mortal peril."
"There will be numerous enemies to fight, so be prepared," Tarquazin warns.
"Alright, this part is very tricky," Tarquazin warns them, midmorning on the second day. "The map shows the beginning of two paths that point to each other, here, but there's nothing in-between. They seem like they connect, but really they don't. If that's all we knew, we'd be sad that we don't get the short cut it looks like. In reality, our end of the path comes out here, which is even better. It cuts this loop here."
After the group follows Tarquazin through the passage.
"Alright, we've still got this loop go through, but we just skipped this one. Follow me, and don't get lost."
Tarquazin leads them through a twisting tunnel, glancing back every once in a while to ensure nobody lags behind.
'Really,' Eir reflects, 'He's been doing that the whole time,'
After they go past a place where it's even more twisty and turny than usual, with side passages, Tarquazin stops them.
"Alright, 'till now we've had to deal with a smattering of Mordrem and chak, but there is a hive of chak just ahead. It's best to take them on one by one - at least alone, or they'd swarm you. What you don't want to do is charge through and ignore them, hoping they'll forget about you eventually.* With this many people, it won't slow us up much, but we still need to get through." Tarquazin points ahead. "Kill those chak there, and I'll check the egg clutch to see how much time we have, and how long before they get vicious and possessive," Tarquazin instructs. "And here is where we check for the Mordrem trail."
After the small cluster of chak are defeated, Tarquazin pulls a flask out of a pouch and dribbles a light blue fluid on the egg clutch. It seeming gets absorbed, but bubbles up again a moment later.
"We can take our time, we'll be fine." Tarquazin informs them. "Defeat the chak just here and check for tracks - knowing the Mordrem, they'd stick to the middle of the lane, as there's the fewest chak there, and the Mordrem and chak aren't allies."
Eir and Rox move to faint outline of a path near the center of what seems like a ravine, and the rest of the group form a defensive perimeter around them, in case Kasmeer's invisibility ward fails.
"They were here," Eir determines after a while. "We should catch up to them by noon tomorrow, even if we stop for the night."
"There's a Pact camp just south of Dragon's Passage," Tarquazin tells them. "We can stop there for the night."
"Alright, let's fight through this mess," the Commander decides.
Author's Notes:
Yay, how do you like it?
That is all I've written in my notebook as of 7/7/2018 (today).
Oh dear. I've only got one response to my request for feedback in Temporary Chapter 19 of Tyria's Real!? ? I suppose that means I'll just finish writing this, then.
Can you believe how much space the last four chapters took up?! And how sore my hands are after each writing session? Oh dear.
Anyway.
Don't worry, all this is posted all at once. So, for once, I'm not requesting feedback, because this is an on-the-side story. And once this is done, I'll pick up another one!
Because I've got a lot of ideas, let me tell you.
What if when Rytlock jumped into that portal to the Mists, it stayed open? And Rox followed him in, and Braham went after Rox, and Taimi went after Braham, and Zojja went after Taimi, and... and the portal led to all sorts of different places, but not the Mists? I've also got a bazillion others. Like what if the Commander turns to Mordremoth, like inside the dragon's mind or something? That's when the biggest assault comes.
Or what if Elder Dragon's didn't know everything their minions know pre-corruption?
My next'll probably be my take on why Mordremoth does things that he does - not why he wants to take over the world, but his tactics. And things.
I. Am. Rambling. Again. I have to get out of that habit, so bye!
Oh, and think up a name for this chapter. Oh well.
* This is actually very sound advice for traversing Ogre Lane (why oh why isn't it Chak Lane? There's no ogres! Just chak!) because just running through and hoping they forget about you doesn't work. It's a longg lane with enemies the whole way until Dragon's Passage waypoint. It takes a long time fighting through everything, but it's better than dying and never getting there. Don't give up or lose patience (that happened to me a lot) but it is so worth it to have that waypoint because then you never have to do it again!
The locations and routes mentioned are actually possible routes to Dragon's Passage. I actually logged on and made sure. Yay! If you want me to show you the trail... er... I don't know how, unless we both happen to log on at the same time (which is bound to never happen, with my schedule and tendency to never stick to it, which rules out agreeing on a time and place through PM)
Annnyway
I hope you liked the OC I invented, Tarquazin. My first choice of name was Tarquintle, and then I changed to Tarquatle, but that reminded me of Tequatle the Sunless too much, so I settled on Tarquazin. Yay me! She likes fighting for freedom and not giving up, which is why she switched attitudes so fast from 'your friends aren't my friends' to 'I'll escort you there myself'. I am uncertain if she'll stick around past Dragon's Passage... it's hard enough keeping everyone enough in the story as it is, however... wow, I actually am doing a reasonable job of it, aren't I? Wow!
Waypoints are a thing for me. Meaning, they exist for NPCs as well. And they work the same (except for, of course, clicking 'M' for map, and clicking in general, because it's not a game to them)
ANYWAY. I ramble wayy to much...
