Sorry this was late, I've been caught up in writing my Dishonored/HP crossover. Not really an excuse, but I do tend to focus on only one task a day and it can mean I forget other things that need doing.
Teaching Training
After a day of rest you are feeling much better. Your conversation with Solas had been emotionally challenging but not physically tiring, and you think you are in a much better place to begin tackling the tasks required for this week. You write out your responses to your spies early in the morning, and then turn your attention to planning your week.
You will be working more on the chantry at Gladesville later this week. Perhaps starting tomorrow, and when that is done, you will need to ride to Lanaya's clan for that meeting of Keepers that has been in the works for some time. Other than that, you are free to do as you wish.
You sit back for a moment, contemplating your schedule. "That is not as much as I thought."
In truth, many of the events happening this week require nothing of you. Solas is leaving, but now that he has departed there is nothing you need to do regarding that matter. The notes your brought back have been entrusted to Merrill for study. That leaves you with a few days of free time.
Well, you are not going to let this chance pass you by. You have already spent yesterday on self-improvement, and proven to your own satisfaction that you are not someone who can luxuriate in idleness. So, with this extra time on your hands, your path is clear.
"It is time to train the staff further." You state to the empty air.
A moment passes.
'I should probably stop talking to myself before someone decides I have gone insane.' You resolve.
Concerningly frequent conversations with yourself aside, you have a point. Your staff could always use more training, though you cannot always give it to them. As things currently stand there are a number of different groups all in equal need for training.
There are the new heavy infantry, obviously. They are behind their companions in terms of training, being newly recruited. They should almost certainly be brought into line with their companions lest they become a liability in future engagements.
By that same token though, an argument could be made for training the new Mabari puppies. They could just as easily become a liability, even if unintentionally. Your memories of Turko's 'adoption days' remind you that young animals are forces of primal chaos that ruin perfectly good speeches.
Then there are your prior commitments. Crowsfoot is still unacceptably unskilled at the craft you have set her to. Then there are the farmers, whose skill is directly tied to your ability to supply your forces long term. By that same token though, you could argue for the creation of classes for your tailors and cobblers, because Manwe knows armies go through boots and clothes like a plague of moths.
A deep breath halts your racing thoughts. Slow, even repetitions of the motion bring calm to your mind.
Above all you must avoid catastrophising or getting too lost in your head. As grandfather would say 'no decision is worse than inaction'[1]. Finwë's advice has never steered you wrong before, and it would surprise you to no end if it began to now.
Calmer now, you review your options one last time and make your choice.
After briefly dallying with the thought that the new warriors should really be brought up to the same standard as your other infantry, you decide that the most pressing task is the training of the puppies. It is not something you have a great deal of experience with but nobody in Edataurëo does, so there is nothing to lose.
You walk to the stable where the pups still sleep. You understand that the hound masters spend most of their time looking after the young dogs, since their parents are often away with the Rangers. Thus, they are still kept in the stable to ensure they cannot scatter to the four winds.
The appearance of the two young men reminds you of nothing quite so much as the look of very new parents still adjusting to the demands of their role. The corner of your mouth quirks up in amusement, but you conceal any more obvious signs out of empathy for their likely rather frayed tempers.
"Nikolas, Philip." You greet them calmly. "I thought to take over the training of the hounds for a time. You should take some time for yourselves, perhaps a nap would be in order."
The two young men exchange glances. "Are you sure boss? I mean they're pretty reckless and you'll probably want another hand or two about."
"I am more than capable of handling them on my own, thank you." You reply. "Go, it is unwise to push oneself when there is no call to do so."
"Alright boss, give us a call if you run into any trouble." The older brother says.
"I will not need any assistance, but I appreciate the offer." You tell the humans.
The moment they leave, several of the puppies attempt to jump up on you.
"Fó![2] " You state sharply
Immediately all the dogs on you drop away and look up at you with sorrowful eyes. All around you the other hounds, who had been running and wrestling with each other, also come to a stop.
"I was addressing these four." You gesture to the animals in front of you. "The others may continue playing for now."
These Mabari do not yet understand the tongue of Thedas, but they are puppies and have the attention span of all children. It is almost no time before they are all once more running about and playing with one another.
Carefully, you insert yourself into their games. When their teeth nip at you, you are quick with a reprimand. Aided by the understanding that you can grant them to through your thoughts, the dogs quickly realise that they cannot bite you.
Strangely, one of the larger puppies seems to take the message in a way you were not expecting. She follows you closely, when she is not distracted by anything that moves, and growls at those who act too 'rough' with you.
From there you move on to helping the hounds understand that when you seize them, it is not a game. That takes longer, the better part of an hour, as it is much harder to understand than 'my skin is weak and easily hurt'. Your self-appointed bodyguard helps.
Since there is plenty of time remaining you clap your hands to bring the attention of the group to you and being a lesson on sitting. This takes the most time of the three lessons, as the attention span of the group is short and easily broken. Still, after approximately two more hours you have the puppies much more easily controlled.
During the course of these lessons, as you brush against the minds of the puppies now and again, you notice a process you do not recognise. Most comparable to an instinctive understanding of hierarchy, you guess that this is the 'imprinting' that was mentioned.
It is clearly a process rather than a binary, so you can intervene if you wish.
As much as you would like a hound of your own, you decide that you will put an end to this nascent imprinting. You do not want to offend the Lady of the Forest, nor do you want the responsibility of even a single pet hound.
Since you are connected to their minds, extinguishing the imprint would be child's play. Doing so without harming the animal is more complicated. You have to spend the better part of an hour studying how the instinct interacts with the rest of the mind before finally, carefully, disconnecting it from you.
For several moments you hold your breath, terrified that you will be assaulted by a veritable army of puppy eyes, or worse that you have managed to injure the innocent creatures. To your immense relief, they go about playing without any seeming ill effects.
Since you have done plenty of training already and do not wish to overwhelm the poor creatures, you spend the rest of the morning playing with the hounds. You throw balls for them to fetch, find interesting things for them to scent and generally have fun with them
The animals make you smile as they bounce and bound about, seemingly tireless. They wrestle and jump, fall and nip all about you. It is a new experience for you, and you think you see why your third brother was so fond of the company of animals. There is something in their uncomplicated joy at being alive that lifts your own spirit to match.
When you stop, tired, the puppies all flop down about you. There is a short struggle for what the animals have decided are 'desirable' positions, which seem chosen at random to you, and then all is still and quiet. You sit in the centre of a wide circle of scattered dogs and smile to yourself.
They are very cute when they are sleeping.
Merrill's Musings
Merrill stared at the book on the table. It seemed so inoffensive; a simple tome bound in cheap leather. Certainly, expensive for notebook, but nothing you would not find in a well-off mage's lair. Yet the contents troubled Merrill.
Blood magic. Well, probably blood magic anyway, she hadn't read the contents yet, only heard Nelyafinwë describe them. Still, this feels like something, like the deep breath before the plunge. She may not be as rabidly against anything beyond the strictest orthodoxy as those brainwashed by the circle, but blood magic is still a step beyond anything she is comfortable with.
It seemed so foolish to be hesitating now. Prior to this moment she had been all but begging Nelyafinwë to let her look at the notes. Being able to read the notes of a mage who had not only successfully done something akin to what Zathrien had, as well as the chance to learn more about the secretive Grey Wardens all combined with helping her teacher? She could not have been more eager.
Now though, it felt different. The full enormity of what she was about to do weighed on her. Avernus had been practicing very much forbidden magic, and she knew all too well the consequences of messing with magic you don't fully understand. She licked her dry lips, pulling the book to her.
Merrill closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened the book with a sharp motion. The sound of the cover hitting the table seemed to echo through the hall. Then she began to read.
The taint allows us to sense the darkspawn. The longer we survive with the taint in our blood, the more potent it becomes.
What? The Taint? The Joining? Merrill's immediate thoughts on her first read through of the notes was that she was missing important context. She could make some educated guesses based on what the text said.
The Joining must be the ritual to become a Grey Warden, nothing else makes sense. The problem is that she doesn't know what 'taking in darkspawn blood the obvious way' is. Tattooing would be her first thought, a literal Vallaslin., but Grey Wardens don't have tattoos, or do they? But surely that would be a relatively sophisticated method of imbuing oneself with darkspawn blood.
The elf shook her head. This was a distraction from the real questions. Avernus was trying to improve on the ability of the Wardens to contain the darkspawn taint within them, she should focus on that. Though, the fact that they don't immediately turn into darkspawn indicates that clearly, they already due to some degree at least. She'd never heard of someone accidentally becoming a Grey Warden.
The experimental notes are stomach turning. The meticulous records of the slow and painful transformation of his subjects, and his often cruel treatment methods, are horrifying in their emotionless, clinical detail. At several points Merrill has to stop reading and take a moment to compose herself.
But she always returns.
Magic's use in delaying the spread is an interesting avenue of examination, though admittedly Merrill has no idea of where to start and the notes gloss over the matter as though it were obvious. She idly wonders if there is some link to the Beyond involved.
Then of course there is Avernus' description of the voice and his visions of the Black City that interested Nelyafinwë so. Merrill is at a complete loss as to how to pursue this lead, that the connection is present is obvious but how to investigate it? Capture a darkspawn maybe?
If Merrill were to choose something without any consideration for the minor factors of the upcoming Blight and her teacher's personal interest, she would investigate Avernus' work on the taint itself. Present in darkspawn blood, it apparently kills Grey Wardens in the joining, when, to the best of her knowledge, it instead converts most normal people. If she could just get a sample.
The greatest crime Avernus had ever committed, in Merrill's opinion, was making it so that she wouldn't be able to study all of his work at once. Why couldn't he have rewritten his notes into a more digestible format? Admittedly, that would take away the thrill of investigation and cheapen the sweet satisfaction of successful research…
She is getting off track in her own head. Right, magic and the Taint, specifically how to use the former to halt the spread of the latter. Honestly the very concept is fascinating, admittedly she has no idea what most of his notes even meant. Strictly speaking she should have started with matching his understanding of what the Taint even is…
She's doing it again. Honestly, she needs to stop panicking. This is exciting! She gets to reverse engineer a complex spell from first principles. It's been nearly a decade since she was last allowed to do that. Keeper Marethari had entirely overacted banning her from the practice, explosions were normal when figuring out how to create fire.
She takes several deep breaths. Alright, so reading Avernus' work again, more closely, she had a few clues to work from immediately. The Taint responds to lighting by becoming more volatile but also more stable? Hmm, he's phrased that strangely, wouldn't stability result in less chaotic results?
The world around Merrill fades away as she immerses herself in the book. Avernus' thought process is alien to her, but she thinks that is concealing a more important issue. Now that she's looking at this for the magical segments only she's having a much easier time following his logic and…
"Mythal… Uh, I mean, Maker?" Merrill grimaces. "Ainur, yes that works better. Ainur I'm an idiot. He's several hundred years old, of course he talks weirdly."
Fortunately, the jargon of magic is much more unchanging than common speech. It is created and enforced by the Circle, at least among humans, and Merrill is reasonably familiar with it due to its sheer prevalence.
With an anchor to give her some much needed context Merrill begins to wrestle with the text itself. There's a much greater emphasis on Avernus' assumed knowledge here, as it directly relates to his own body.
Merrill finds herself returning to other sections of the notes, the ones on his experiments on other Grey Wardens to attempt to understand what a 'baseline' looks like. This and other things leave her struggling to truly understand what the spell is supposed to do.
"This isn't getting me anywhere." Merrill sighs. "I'm just going to have to brute force experiment."
It's lucky Avernus uses standard Circle notation, it makes it easy to modify the spell to affect someone else rather than the caster. From there it is a simple matter of acquiring a test subject.
"Don't worry Mr. Fluffles." Merrill soothes the nervous looking sheep. "The odds of this spell causing an explosion are vanishingly small."
For some reason this does not comfort the animal.
Fortunately, Merrill's prediction proves accurate. The spell does not cause an explosion, though since the sheep wasn't tainted it doesn't exactly do much else either. Though her diagnostic spells show that the sheep is in perfect health.
"I'm not going to get any further without something Tainted to work with." Merrill muses.
Merrill considers her options, acquiring tainted material was a dangerous task, one she felt ill-suited to. She wasn't even sure there were any darkspawn left in the forest anymore. Using her newly discovered 'mana sense' (any attempts by her Keeper to have it named Merrill Sense had been refused vigorously) she could examine the spell in detail.
It would have been a historic first, the examination of a spell not in the abstract, but through observation. It would be an accomplishment that, had it been reached by any other mage, would have been the defining moment of their career. Merrill itched to enact this historic development.
In the end, it is the historic nature of the endeavour that convinces her not to pursue it yet. This is a matter of practical achievement, a study directly relevant to upcoming events. The first time a spell is examined with her newfound sense deserves to be a momentous occasion. Something grand, a spell of great power or import, not a rush for as much information as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, this leaves her at something of a loss for what to do next. Without the taint to study or her own unique abilities, what avenue of research is left.
"Well, there is that thing Nelyafinwë mentioned." She says to herself. "Something about his body rejecting the Taint thanks to 'the inviolability of the Eldarin form'."
With nothing else to study, she decides to investigate that angle.
"Why do you want my blood?" Nelyafinwë asks flatly.
"Research?" Merrill says, wincing. "I mean, it's magic research. It's got to do with the Taint and…"
The Noldo holds up a hand to quiet Merrill. "I will give you a moment to think about what you have just said and explain yourself."
Merrill blinks in confusion for a moment, then rushes to explain herself. "It's not blood magic! I just want to test your blood against Avernus' spell. You know, see how they compare."
Nelyafinwë agrees cautiously, and Merrill collects a small vial of his blood. She tests it with every spell she knows, but there doesn't seem to be anything unusual. She is on the verge of giving up when something happens.
As with most great discoveries it is almost entirely by accident. She is attempting a healing spell on the blood, mostly to see if it reacts unusually, when she accidentally drags one of her hairs through it.
While she is berating herself for carelessness in the research process, she reaches to the end of the hair to wipe off the blood. She finds none. In fact, she finds that the hair is noticeably shorter than it was before.
"What on earth?" She asks, poking the blood with a stick, looking for the hair.
She assumes that the hair was simply stuck there, but it was not. In fact, now that she thinks about it, should this blood not have congealed by now? As she watches, curious, she notices that it does in fact begin to harden.
When she applies the healing spell again, it immediately liquifies once more. Which is a decidedly strange reaction, as it should not be doing anything like that. Several diagnostic spell later she discovers what is happening. Strangely, the blood seems to 'remember' its natural state. When healing magic is applied, it reverts instantly.
Further experimentation soon reveals that just about any magic will have a similar effect, though there are noticeably diminishing returns the further away she strays from the concept of 'life'.
From there she soon establishes that pretty much any foreign biological matter is aggressively attacked by something within the blood. Sufficient mass will prevent anything beyond a mild stinging (as she finds out when she puts her finger in it accidentally) but sufficiently small solids, and basically any liquid (such as her blood), is immediately vaporised.
She isn't quite sure what she is going to do with this information, but when she compares the results to what the spell accomplishes, she can't help but think that whatever is up with Nelyafinwë's blood is a better version of it.
Point Proving
You really need to get around to naming this chantry at some point, you muse as you ride to Gladesville. Anamára[3] chantry maybe, or Apairënya[4], even Noldorin would all work. Whichever you choose, you certainly cannot leave it up to the Chantry to name it, they will probably call it the 'Gladesville chantry and school'. Which raises the equally important question of what the school should be named.
It is while you are debating the relative merits of Enyálëa Finwën[5] compared to Nerdanelwa[6] for the school that you arrive at the gates of Gladesville. Truly such considerations are fascinating to consider, even if they take up far more time than they are worth.
You waste time greeting Ophelia and a number of other citizens of the town when you arrive. Maron and Lauron are thankfully available to assist you, since the recent exodus has left them with relatively little to do.
"That'll all change in a month or two." Maron explains, defensively. "Right now, everything's new so we can leave it alone, but maintenance sneaks up on you. Reckon we'll have people complaining about holes or mouldy thatch before long."
"Then I consider myself fortunate to require your assistance in this narrow window of opportunity." You reply.
As the brothers puff up in pride, you restrain your urge to roll your eyes. Humans are far too easily flattered. It is, however, fortunate that you have their assistance available, since they are the only others you know who have the skills to oversee this project.
Once the social obligations are attended to, you inspect last week's work on the foundations. You find it sufficient. It is hardly the equal to the work that a team of Noldorin masons could achieve, but then that would be an unfair comparison to make.
What matters is that the foundation is solid, and will bear the weight of the rest of the construction without issue. You turn to the workers you brought from Endataurëo and instruct them to begin work.
You had hoped for faster progress after last week. Perhaps it was an unrealistic expectation, but things had gone so well in such trying circumstances that you had thought that, with more time on your hands, this week would be as good if not better.
Unfortunately, those hopes have been dashed. Progress is steady, but not particularly fast. The large blocks of stone are heavy and it takes time for teams of people to move them into position. There are also a number of small inefficiencies that are adding up.
Despite your best efforts to fix these, the simple fact is that nobody here is a skilled mason and as such, solutions are as likely to cause new problems as to solve them, and that is before you account for the times when the labourers simply get lazy and revert to the simplest, and least helpful, techniques.
Saris proves surprisingly helpful. Doing his best to try and keep people on task, but he does not see the reasoning behind your actions, and you find it hard to explain it to him in words he understands.
All this leaves you with a decision to make. Things are not yet so bad that you cannot finish before the deadline Nova gave you, though you are somewhat behind schedule. You could continue as you are, or you could start looking for outside help.
Maron and Lauron had a point about maintenance. Endataurëo may have been made with magic, but it is as real as such things can be made. It might require a mason with a mind towards the less obvious facets of reality (as humans consider such things) but you could probably make use of it. In the best case scenario, you can leave the majority of the work on the chantry going forward to them.
Unfortunately, you are stuck supervising construction. Admittedly this is a relatively simple part of the process, simply placing large blocks of stone on top of each other with a binding agent, but it is crucial that it be done properly. A mistake here will become a much greater problem later on.
Even as you think this you have to correct a group of workers whose wall is starting to diverge from the marked line they are supposed to be following. You have not even begun the flooring, and you can already tell that is going to be an ordeal of its own.
While you correct the wandering wall, you plan how you might extract yourself from this task. You might be able to leave some of the oversight to Maron and Lauron, perhaps with some coordination from Saris.
Your thoughts are rudely interrupted by a sudden argument. A pair of elves are viciously contending on where the stone they were hauling should go. You intervene before the work can fall even further behind schedule, both of them were wrong incidentally.
Almost the moment you have finished dealing with that, you have to weigh in on a discovery about the land around the north wall, which caused Lauron and Maron to panic. This in turn reveals that the north wall has been marked as being in the wrong area.
For the rest of the afternoon you are running from problem to problem. The sheer lack of experience among your builders means that relatively routine problems that should be solved by one of your subordinates require your personal attention.
The result of that afternoon is that you cannot afford to leave the building site at any point in the coming week. Though there are windows where nothing goes wrong enough that you could have spent recruiting, the mere fact that you cannot afford to be off site if something does go wrong means you miss those windows when they come.
If you do not go personally to recruit people, you are unlikely to get anyone particularly skilled. Such people will be in high enough demand to seek out well known names to offer their skills or be in high demand. If you want to recruit someone who can work on the project without your supervision, then you will need to be able to convince them of the project's merits yourself.
There is of course the option of finding one of the specialists who work on these things traditionally. It was an option you had been considering very seriously, but the expense and the fact that they would not be sticking around had put you off the idea. At this point, it might be the best option though.
It would be simple to send off a flyer for recruitment, it might even be rather successful. You had managed to get a few skilled warriors by trusting someone else with the task of recruitment. Even if you do not get the kind of workman you are hoping for, something is surely better than nothing.
A great crash sounds throughout the village as a pair of labourers drop a wooden support beam on a newly placed brick, shoving it off the wall an onto the ground. You rush to the scene, heart racing in fear. Fortunately, nobody was beneath the block and so no one was harmed.
That incident, after a whole day of similar incidents, cements your decision. You have no desire to work with substandard masons. The simple fact is that you are attempting something complex and difficult. Your own immense skill can conceal such facts from you, but it remains the truth.
If you are to hand this task over to someone else, they will need to be a builder of significant skill, and that is not something you are going to just find by the roadside. If you want to get someone you can trust with the construction, and you do, then you will need to go in person.
So instead of preparing to send messages to the local villages you instead double down on your oversight of the construction. You scold the elves who dropped the support most harshly, and you set about tightening up safety practices.
[1] Alaná santië urra lá lacarë Q. Lit. Not is decision bad beyond inaction
[2] No, nay/ interjection of displeasure/dissent
[3] 'Best/Very good'
[4] 'My victory'
[5] Finwe Memorial
[6] Nerdanel's