AN: I LIIIIIIIIIIIVE. I know I've only been gone like one day, but it felt like more to me. Long chapter, for reasons that will be revealed tomorrow. There's some new formatting, I've had a few people complain about spacing here so this is yet another attempt to fix that. Finally this is the schedule you should be expecting going forward 2 chapters then a day of nothing or an extra long chapter followed by two days of nothing.
"What kind of a name is Endataurëo? What does it mean? Is it some kind of significant name in your culture?" Merrill gushed at you.
You look at her flatly, your hair still damp from your bath in your new bathtub. "Good morning Merrill. I am pleased to see that your enthusiasm has not made you forget your manners."
Merrill is barely thrown off by your reprimand, apparently too excited for her lesson to be embarrassed. "Good morning. Do songs of power have to be in your language, or can they be in any language? Or do different languages have different effects?"
With a sigh you sit down at the head of the table. "Should our lesson not wait until after breakfast?"
Merrill falls silent but is staring at your plate with a fearsome intensity and practically vibrating in place.
"I will answer your questions about the name if you swear that you do not intend to kidnap me to the library the moment I finish eating." You compromise.
Merrill swears thusly with a speed that would make you suspicious if you did not know her as well as you do.
Quickly you take a bite of your food before speaking, lest you have no chance to eat before your lesson. "Endataurëo means Heart of the Forest, or near enough to it anyway. It has no significance in my culture, it is simply a combination of my language and the Dalish name for this place. I chose it as a name as it mimics the combination of Elven construction and Eldar design that is present in the building itself. May I eat my breakfast now?"
You get the distinct impression that, while Merrill falls silent and lets you eat, she is not particularly thrilled by having to do so.
The library is all but an exact copy of what you think the one in the ruins once looked like, complete with the strange altar. There are no books on the shelves, you had not had the mental ability to create any in sufficient detail. You doubt any mortal could do something so complex, though an Ainur may have managed it. You did create a number of large, comfy chairs and a number of those clever crystal lights that the Casaillë use in their mines. The result is a much brighter and more welcoming environment, the roots and ruin replaced with bright banners and carpet.
You sink into a replica of your favourite chair and look at Merrill, who is perched on the edge of her chair with eyes focused on you like they were connected with chains.
"To answer your earlier questions about songs of power." You begin. "The language is not important beyond the fact that you understand it. It can be beneficial in contests of song to use a language your opponent understands, but otherwise you are the only one who needs to know what you are saying."
Merrill leaps at the chance to ask more questions. "How do they work? What do you sing? Do they have any long lasting effects?"
You prop your head on one arm and cross one leg over the other. "Songs of power work by invoking the song of creation, that which created Arda, Aman and maybe this world too. Fundamentally it is the raw power of creation channelled through the individual, this is what makes it so exhausting. Mortal forms are simply not designed to channel that kind of power for long. There will rarely be much in the way of lasting damage, but it will leave you exhausted for some time."
At this point Merrill squeaks and excuses herself before running out of the room. You would stand up to find out what has disturbed her, but you did just get comfortable. Fortunately, Merrill returns before too long with paper and ink, she places them on a desk and drags her chair to it.
Once she has finished scribbling down her notes, you continue. "Whatever you sing should invoke the effects you wish to cause. It should not be a detailed step by step run-through or even a description, that is a common mistake made by those new to the art. Instead, you want to use the connections we talked about to invoke images and concepts that link to or cause the effect you desire. A good example of what I am talking about lies in the tale of the contest between Sauron and Findaráto."
You sing the tale to your student. The vivid descriptions of the contest between two masters of the art should help Merrill understand what she is undertaking when she inevitably attempts one herself.
Merrill wipes a tear from her eye as the last notes fade. "Are we going to be learning about songs of power today? We've talked about everything else."
"We have not in fact covered every other facet of magic in these lessons. The one on innate was interrupted, if you recall." You tell your student.
Merrill fidgets nervously at her desk. "You did say that you didn't know if I had any, or if being a mage counted."
You give your student a stern look. "It is understandable to wish to achieve the greatest heights of the arts before anything else. To do so is a mistake. Everything else I will teach you will form the foundation that will allow you to wield songs of power."
Merrill looks disappointed, so you decide to explain your decision. "I have no doubt that after what you witnessed me wielding a song of power you wish to do the same. What you do not realise is that in order to do so I needed, not only the innate power of the Eldar to act as a channel, but the knowledge and understanding to recognise the problem and how to tailor my song to it. Much as you do not run before you can walk, you should not learn songs of power until you understand power itself."
You can tell that Merrill still wants to learn songs of power, but she is somewhat mollified by your explanation. With that out of the way you begin your lesson.
"The best place to begin is how it feels to use your magic. How would you describe the sensation?" You ask your student.
"Ah, it's, hmmm." Merrill begins to answer then stops to think. "I would say it feel kind of like I'm a riverbed? Like something is passing through me into the world."
"That is not how using innate power feels, innate power comes from within. It should feel more like using a limb than anything else." You say, "Begin as though you were casting a spell but search for a different source of power."
You and Merrill spend an hour searching for some kind of inner well of power she can draw on but come up with nothing. There are a few moments of false hope when she discovers unusual uses for the fade energy that clings to her. She seems quite thrilled by this, and you struggle to get her back on task rather than exploring the new possibilities she has discovered.
"This is not working. Are you feeling anything at all?" You ask.
Merrill raises a finger to her chin, frowning in concentration. "Kind of. It's not like there's nothing there, but it's like there is some kind of barrier stopping me from reaching it, or something."
You stare at Merrill for a moment. You recognise that feeling, and when you hear it several other things start to click into place.
"Fool! Fool! A stubborn fool!" You leap from your seat and begin pacing around the room, castigating yourself. "Blind and stubborn moron!"
Merrill flinches backwards, "I'm sorry…"
You interrupt her before she can take too much offence. "Not you. Me."
Merrill is looking at you as though you have gone completely insane, so you explain your realisation. "Dwarves are Casaillë, Humans are Atani, yet I have never questioned the existence of Elves. I assumed you had no analogue but there was an obvious parallel. Elves, once immortal who diminished when humans arrived and a barrier designed to stop immortal creatures from returning to their physical bodies. You are Perequendi, or their descendants rather."
Merrill looks beyond confused. "Perequendi? Is that related to what you are? Are you trying to say that we are the same kind of people? What's going on"
You realise you have come dangerously close to revealing more than you meant to. In your shock you had admitted to that which you have hidden for so long, your immortality. You know Merrill is curious and intelligent, she will likely realise the implications of your words if she is left to think on them for long enough.
"Throughout my time in this land I have noticed certain parallels between the people of this land and those of my own. Dwarves and Casaillë are similar in appearance and temperament such that one might be mistaken for another." You begin. "Humans and Atani are identical save for their natures. Yet your people have no clear analogue, or so I thought. In my land there are those called Perequendi, half-quendi. They are the result of a union between Atani and Quendi. They are given a choice as to which of their parent's natures they wish to inherit. I believe that the elves are the local equivalent of that."
Merrill looks confused and offended "You think we're some kind of, what, half elves? That we're descended from humans?"
"It is not quite so simple as that." You move to mollify her. "Your people say you lost your immortality when humans arrived. Why?"
Merrill is moving further to confused than offended, which is a good sign. "Well because… That is… I don't know actually; we just say that we started aging after we met them."
"I have noticed that there is a barrier between the unseen and the seen. This barrier is specifically tailored to prevent souls from passing through. My theory goes that it was not so much that the Elves started aging so much as they stopped returning after they died." You tell your student.
"What, they were immortal they couldn't die." Merril objects.
You shake your head. "That is not how immortality typically works. If your body can be harmed it can die, if it cannot you are typically remembered as impervious or invincible rather than immortal. Immortality most often means the ability to take on a new form after death."
Merrill looks mutinous for a few minutes but your explanation seems to make sense to her and, to your surprise, she does not question how you would know such a thing.
After you have given her enough time to speak if she so desired, you continue your explanation. "Once the full Elves stopped returning then eventually only half elves who chose their human heritage would remain. Their children would inherit some elven ancestry but would be by and large humans by another name."
Merrill practically leaps out of her chair, voice and figure trembling with rage. "So what you're saying is that we aren't really elves. That we're basically just humans. That everything we value and believe in is a lie."
"I am saying nothing of the kind." You say, sinking into your own chair to deescalate the situation. "I mentioned that Perequendi have a choice of which of their parents they inherit their natures from. That is what you are doing when you wear Elven clothes and speak Elvish. That you had the choice to inherit their nature, their immortality, taken from you changes nothing. You and the Dalish as a whole are still the only ones who have a right to the culture and history of the Elves, you are still their heirs. You just do not share their natures. You already knew all of this; I am only explaining why what you know happened did so."
Merrill slowly sinks back into her chair, looking a little embarrassed but not particularly so. "Oh… Sorry it just sounded like you were saying…"
You raise your hand. "I know, I also am sorry. I did not think of how my words might be interpreted. the fault is as much mine as yours."
There is a moment of companionable silence between the two of you, Merrill seems to be considering what you have said
You are on the verge of proposing an end to the lesson when Merrill asks another question. "You seem to know a lot about immortality, and you compared Elves to your people. How old are you again?"
"I am fully grown by my people's standards. Where were we in that lesson." You speak quickly, trying to distract Merrill.
Merrill is not distracted, and she spends the next half an hour trying to get you to admit how old you are exactly. You have no idea how you are supposed to admit that you cannot possibly say with any precision, so you avoid her questions. It is an exhausting experience.
Once your lesson with Merrill has ended, she leaves the study. You do not, you had another reason to be here today. You close your eyes to witness the study in the Beyond. An unintended consequence of your actions in building your base is that it is exactly mirrored in the Beyond, you are unsure if this is because you have permanently shaped the fade energies of the area or if your base reflects in the Beyond due to being originally made there. What matters to you is that you can study the barrier in more detail in relative safety and comfort.
With a thought your senses race along the walls, floor and ceiling of the Beyond's version of your base. You find the barrier between the realms once more, your senses reaching out to gently wrap around it. You are interested to note that it has weakened ever so slightly from your binding of fade energy to the real world. You feel that if you were more versed in crafting you might be able to create some kind of device to tear a hole in the barrier. Since you are not you cast the though aside and focus on how you are to pass your soul through the barrier. You already know that you will need to conceal the nature of your spirit as a soul, but surely there are more defences. If that was all that was needed surely there would be far more demons in the real world.
With time and safety to focus on your study of the barrier it is no surprise that you manage to gain a complete understanding of its defences. The Veil, for the longer you study it the more convince that is its name you become, has a certain 'thickness' or concentration of power. This 'thickness' waxes and wanes depending on where you are and anything that should enter it will be subject to continual probing, searching and resistance for its entire journey. This is, you suspect, what prevents ordinary people from wielding fade energy in sufficient quantities for magic. The Veil prevents more than a trickle from passing into the real world and thus only mages, who carry the energy on them, can manage to wield magic. There is also a 'skin' on top of the barrier, one that acts as a more solid barrier that cannot be easily penetrated. This is what prevents the 'physical' parts of the unseen from intruding on reality. Once all that is done you will be able to pass through the barrier, though in doing so you will expose yourself to the defences and be forced to contend with them. While you are in the beyond you examine the barrier to see where it is weakest. Your senses race along the barrier in a brightly shining spiderweb. You find three possible locations of varying strength. While you are doing so a thought occurs to you, you have thinned the barrier here you could in theory weaken it further and skip the need to find a new location.
You have no intention of going on an extended journey to one of the other locations. The only question in your mind is whether you will weaken the veil further first. It is a tempting prospect, though the veil is thin here it will still be quite the challenge. You are also excited by the method of thinning the barrier, you could use the same principle behind your base to make roads or other fortresses.
In the end you decide against it because of your vision. You know that you are not the first to weaken the veil in this area, and those who did so before you had summoned demon by the hundred. You have no desire to assist those horrifying mockeries of beings into the real world to wreak havoc. You are also certain that you will be able to overcome the veil in this particular area, you are the eldest son of Fëanáro no challenge is a match for you. You turn your attention now to how you will be going about making the hole in the 'skin' of the veil in order to pass through it. You are most certainly not distracting yourself from the revelations of the nature of the elves in this land. That would be preposterous.
As you had already noted there were two stages to the defences of the barrier between the Beyond and the Physical world. You were concerned with the outermost defence, a 'solid' barrier that allowed nothing to pass through it. It was never designed to be a permanent barrier. It was more like skin on an organism, easily pierced and quickly healed. Your challenge is not so much piercing it as it is keeping the piercing open long enough for you to not be trapped inside if your attempt to pass through should fail. Your first thought had been to examine how magic, especially sustained magic, functions. This quickly proved a foolish mistake, since magic uses the fade energy mages carry with them rather than what resides in the Beyond. You also cannot use your ability to press reality into fade energy, as the barrier is not strictly speaking fade energy.
You consider your options in depth. You could study a mage, probably Merrill, to figure out what it is about them that allows them to pass through the barrier by nature. Then once you know what it is it should be possible to replicate artificially that which they do naturally. Another option is you could try to build some kind of device that will open a hole in the outermost defence and maintain that opening. You are cautious of this option, both for its inherent danger and the challenge that making it will be. Your final option is to create some kind of spell or working to create a hole and simply use it whenever you need to pass through. This will require a great deal of understanding of the magic of this land in addition to that of your own.
You have never been one to shirk hard work when it will result in a superior result. This particular challenge is no different, you do not have the skills needed to reliably craft an object and the risk of leaving it in the Beyond is simply unacceptable. Mages take just as many risks. You have no intention of inviting anything to share your body, even if you are certain, you would retain control if you did so. The only option you have is to have some kind of power or skill that will allow you to pass through, or open a hole in, the Veil.
You try to think of something else you need to do before you begin to study how you might open a hole in the 'skin' of the Veil. The only thing you have yet to prepare is passing through the Veil itself, and that is not something you can only prepare for in the manner you have already considered. You will simply have to trust everything that you have planned thus far will be sufficient to allow you to pass through the barrier. You carefully double check that there is nothing else to be planned or prepared, once you are certain there is not you can begin preparations. Since you have many other things to do this week you decide to simply plan you weaving, or spell as the locals would call it.
You find yourself constantly distracted while you try to plan. You want to compare the two magic systems at work to figure out what your weaving will need, but your mind drifts to the need for staff for your base. You will end up listing possible roles instead of similarities between songs of power and sustained spells. Other times you should be considering the barrier, but you instead start worrying about the village of Gladesville. The sad truth is that you simply have too many responsibilities. You can ill afford to simply take time whenever you feel like it. You are going to need to schedule some time in future weeks for serious study lest no progress be made.
You find some more success planning out what you will need for future study sessions. You are determined to find out where Merrill keeps getting her paper from, you know how to make it but that takes far too long. You also consider where you might find information on the matter, you doubt Merrill will be particularly helpful since mages can slip through the Veil subconsciously. You notice you are having a much easier time planning this then you had figuring it out in the first place, you wonder if the problem is that you simply find magic a very boring subject. You quickly dismiss such thoughts, boring or not you need to do this. You will not accept being crippled semi-permanently. You also suspect that you need to pass through the Beyond if you wish to leave this land, given the green flash when you arrived matches the sky of the Beyond.
Once you have finished your sojourn in the Beyond you stand up from your chair, pausing briefly to stretch your legs. Then you set off to the task that you foresee taking the next few days. You have constructed your base, but it currently has only two people in it. If you do not want the place to descend into mess or simply be a waste of space, you need to find something to do with it and people to fill up its many rooms. You do not need any particular skill in planning and organisation to see that there is a clear need for staff, guards, cleaners, cooks, stable hands and so on. Orundómë may be content just wandering the forest and courtyard, but Da'banal'ras needs far more care, which is wasting a lot of Merrill's time.
Further complicating your plans is the fact that there is a notable lack of survivability for those living here. If you are not a gifted hunter then there is no way to get food or other supplies regularly. Now bringing Ranger on as a trainer for a small cadre of huntsmen picked from the local villages could solve the issue, but you are concerned about sustainability. Trade would be the obvious option, though you are not quite sure what would be traded. The village you have created is already handling the leather supplies for the area, so that is an option that is taken away from you. You could try some kind of farm, maybe an orchard. Which could either provide a trade good or simply feed those who live here. There is the option of simply acting as though you were the lord of the land, either collecting wealth through taxes and toll or supplying it yourself, though you fear that will result in stepping on many different toes. The Dalish who live in the forest, the humans who believe they own it, the spiders who actually own it and the dwarves who trade in it. In truth you have many options, you are just not sure you have any good options. Fortunately, once you have a plan you are more likely to be able to attract a group of people to make that plan a reality. Ultimately, you need to decide on something that will let you feed the people you are now capable of housing.
At first you consider simply taxing and tolling the area, you were a lord of the Noldor even if the locals did not recognise the title. You quickly realised though that you were only considering the option due to your pride. It was far too close to banditry for your taste. Once that option was discarded you quickly decide that you are going to be growing some kind of food. It is simply too useful should you ever come under siege, or the area experience a drought. The only question in your mind is if the food grown should be intended to sustain the people within or primarily focused on trade. Eventually, the same concerns that drove you to pick growing food as your supply of choice drive you to a more trade focused crop.
The advantages of a trade focused crop are twofold. Firstly, money keeps much better than food. If you primarily focused on food production, selling excess would give you money for times when your harvests were less plentiful. By focusing on trade though you can narrow your crop choices down to those with highest value, thereby potentially ensuring that even a long drought or plague of locusts will not have the inhabitants of your base starving. Secondly, it will enable you to vary the diet of the inhabitants more widely. You will also be able to increase your relationships with the other inhabitants of the forest, helping them while they in turn aid you.
You decide to set up your orchard farm combination outside of the walls, it is somewhat riskier but it will allow for the orchard to expand far further. You cannot at the current time clear any space for the orchard, but there is enough of a natural clearing to get a start. You go throughout the forest gathering any fruits you can find. Wild apples, strawberries and anything else you recognise is gathered. You then spend most of the remaining morning digging irrigations ditches from the stream. You spend the afternoon digging rows and planting seeds from the fruits you have gathered. You use horse manure for fertiliser and build a fence to keep said horses from munching on your fruits.
You have to take a second bath after the sun sets to cleanse the sweat and the stench from your body. You then use your time in the evening to start planning out the trade routes you will be using. The first stop on your journey will be the Dalish clans. In addition to having good relations with them already, they struggle to get enough fruit and vegetables while they have a surplus of meat. Trading with them will certainly provide some variety in the diets of both participants. They also use a barter system so if necessary other things could be traded for fruit, woodworked materials come to mind. Then you could continue to Gladesville, trading for leather or anything they have grown there. This base could, if you played your cards right, end up taking over trading duties for the village, leaving them with more time to increase production.
With the trade routes planned, you turn in for the night. The next day you realise that you are going to need even more people to attend to all these new tasks. You sit down and plan out what roles need to be filled now. There are a number of possible roles, but the one that occurs to you most is that of a steward. They would act as the head of the household and could then recruit other roles. The problem with that is that you would need someone you trust, and no one you do trust can be wasted in that role. You would have to take a risk on a stranger. You could also try to find a group yourself, you would need a cleaner/cook, a farmhand/stable hand, and at least two guards. You would have to go through the populace of the local villages and the Dalish clans, which will take time. Finally, you could simply put out some kind of notice and let people volunteer, though this risks getting dregs no one else wants.
You are uncertain about what you should do. You know you want staff, but you are not sure what kind of staff you want. You are not even sure how to best go about acquiring said staff. You push through your hesitancy and decide that you will search for the staff yourself. If you are not sure what you want, you will simply have to recognise it when you see it. As for what kind of staff you will get, you will simply go around to all the locals and see who is willing to join up. You will start with the human villages and then move on to the Dalish clans.
That decision is what has led you to stand once more in the village of Brynwich, despite its dangers. You have plans to spend at least half the week on constructing a wall for Glensville, and you fear you will not have time if you travel further than this. You cast a keen eye over the people of the area, searching for those who have skills you need and no connections to the land on which they currently dwell. You do not want to simply pick up beggars and drunks, they might be made loyal by mercy but you have no interest in taking on yet more students.
Fortunately, you are an old hand at finding talent, and the recent upheavals of the area have left many bereft of their usual connections. You pass more than a few farmhands who smell of booze and complain loudly of the new taxes being robbery. The guards seem to have either forgotten you or been replaced, you are undisturbed as you search. You ignore the drunk farmhands and move towards the sounds of spinning wheels. You know that widows and the unwed among men are often consigned to spinning for the rest of their lives, you have a decent chance of finding someone worthwhile. If you are especially lucky, they may know someone suited to yard work looking for employment, if they do not you will have to head towards the job board where the industrious will be.
Your inquiries among the spinning women are met with some suspicion. More than a few of them are there by choice. There are far more options for women in this land then you remember in your land. That is not to say you find no one, a sturdy looking middle aged woman named Karla is interested by your job offer. She has a young son and no husband, and she is more than willing to clean and cook for room and board. You were surprised that she did not want to be paid, but it seems she simply values the chance to have time with her son. When the son has ears that look very similar to what you would expect if an elf ear and human ear were mixed together you have a suspicion as to why she is so willing to leave.
The farmhand you end up picking up is someone named Wesley. He is willing to work as long as he can bring his sweetheart with him. You inform him that you expect reproductive activities are to be kept away from where you can hear them but have no other objections. He does not seem embarrassed by your comment and, though you suspect he is underestimating how well you can hear, is pleased to have a place to be with his paramour. With four people in your party, you once more head for your base to drop them off. Then you head for Lanaya's clan to see if they can spare a few warriors to guard the base.
You are in luck. The death of Zathrien and revelations about what he had done have left a few of the warriors looking for another path. You are accounted a friend of the Dalish and are a companion to another clan's first. As a result, you actually end up with twice the number of warriors you were expecting. You are concerned about your ability to support them, but you are quickly reassured that they are happy to support themselves. When you return to the base with your new followers you do have to spend some time soothing various egos, the Dalish not trusting humans who do not trust them in turn. In the end though everyone is at least tolerating each other.