This week has seen the newly recruited vintners and farmers start adjusting to their jobs. For now, they are only producing as much as you would expect from a human farm, it will take time to master the processes that enable your buildings to produce beyond those limits. This week you are simply going to have to live with a reduction in the total amount of food you have to sell. A bright side is that you have more wine to sell, not quite the quality of your other producers but still better than most of the swill in the area. Martin grumbles about the weight, but you hear that one of the local taverns is interested in your wine.
Selling everything that Endataurëo has produced this week is not a simple task. You sell the wine, not the fine wine the normal kind, to a local tavern. That on its own requires messages to be sent and haggling to take place. The only redeeming feature of the task is that the long periods of waiting allow you to spend your time on other matters. Regardless, you sell what food you have in excess to the various merchants from Gladesville or the Dalish clans. The exchange of fruit for meat continues, though it makes you no additional gold. The largest single profit continues to come from Martins journeys to sell wine to the nobles of the Teyrn. A fortunate coincidence, given your new status, that has more to do with not wanting to leave roads than any planning.
A full set of armour and weapons for one of you heavy infantry. Both a way to make sure that the infantry do not fell like you are favouring the cavalry and a useful tool to get them used to the weight of the steel. It also will give you a gauge for how difficult to acquire such items are. The short answer is, both extremely and not even slightly. There are far more smiths producing suits of armour suitable for heavy infantry than you had expected. Scale, plate and many other kinds of heavy armour, though much of it is made of iron rather than steel. The trouble is that this armour is also almost entirely spoken for by the Teyrn.
Martin had all but given up on finding anyone willing to sell when he was approached by a burly dwarf with facial tattoos.
"You with that elf in the woods?" He grumbled.
"I am." Martin replied, surprised. "How did you know."
"The wine you were selling. Had that weird star on the barrels." The dwarf explained. "You're looking for heavy armour, human sized?"
Martin nodded. "You looking to sell some."
"My benefactors have a few suits they're looking to get rid of." Was the reply.
Martin glared. "I'm not looking to get mixed up with stolen goods or linked to any murders."
He had long had suspicions that Ursular was involved with the Carta. He could not overturn his employer's decision to deal with them, but he did not have to get them any more involved with them.
The dwarf grinned, exposing yellow teeth. "Nothing like that I assure you. We simply have a few contacts that might have some suits that were made before their orders got cancelled."
Martin continued to glare at the dwarf, deciding whether or not he believed him. "I need a suit of steel, plate preferably but scale is also acceptable."
The dwarf chuckled. "Expensive taste, I like it. I've got one or two I can set you up with, if you've got the coin."
"Armour first, then coin." The merchant replied.
Martin knew how his kind of people were. He was not going to trust anything they sold him unless it was triple checked.
Orundómë does not want to return to the wilds. Horses do not care for the darkspawn, to an even greater degree than orcs. It takes no small amount of convincing on your part to get him to carry you there. Even then, you have to promise not to ride him while you search for the creatures, merely until you reach the Kokari Wilds. After that you will need to proceed on foot. The trip itself is a very boring two day ride through the Teyrnin. You stick to the roads as much as you can, but inevitably you must leave them when you reach the border of Ferelden. Well, you think it is the border, the transition from Ferlden to unclaimed land is not terribly clear. The farmland had ended some ways back from the 'official border', and the hills had begun soon after.
Given that Orundómë and his herd had hailed from the wilds, you had assumed they would be plains of some kind. Though you cross the hills that you think might sustain horses, all too soon you are in a swamp. Knee deep water and sinkholes on one side, trees and mud on the other. You quickly discover a demon that Beleriand had been mercifully free of, flying insects that drink blood. They get under your chainmail and make a horrid whining noise as they fly. Your first few hours in the swamp are absolutely horrible. You are grateful to make camp, if for no other reason than an end to the search for ground on which you could do so.
As night falls you decide to head out alone for a preliminary scouting mission. You know that the creatures of darkness shun the sun when they can. If you want to find the greater part of the host, you will have to go out at night. You immediately realise your problem the first time you nearly drown by stumbling into the deep waters. Having crawled out of that, you are wet, angry and if you were thinking clearly would have simply returned to camp. Unfortunately, your temper gets the better of you and you proceed out of sheer spite.
As tends to be the case when someone continues to do something out of anger, you perform very poorly. You stumble through brush and mud making enough noise that a deaf man could have heard you coming. The new moon gives little light at the best of times. Again, a less gifted individual would have turned back. You, however, are used to moving by nothing but starlight. You manage to find some indication that there is something in the area. Thanks to your Eldarin senses you can follow these marks. There is perhaps a parable here about the talent of the Noldor being their downfall. Since, due to your gifts and your stubbornness, you blunder into a trap.
It seems innocuous at first. You find a group of darkspawn walking away from the direction you have come. Hoping that they are headed to join the main host, you follow. Through the darkness you stumble, wondering if these creatures are deaf, given that they do not seem to hear your blundering. After what felt like an age at the edge of discovery, they pass by a thick copse of trees. Thankful for the cover you rush to enter what you perceived as a safe place to hide. When you pass under the boughs instead of safety you are greeted by a large force of darkspawn. There are a hundred of the taller ones, and shorter ones in numbers beyond counting. There are even large creatures that you assume to be a cousin of trolls. Though given its great horns and protruding snout, it appears to have been crossbred with a bull.
With a snarling howl the creatures descend upon you. Their countenances and their tone filled with cruel glee at having caught you unprepared. Then your blade flashes through one of their leaders' neck. You take a grim satisfaction in the way their glee turns to rage. The light of the Eldar floods the clearing as you roar out the battle cry of your people. You cannot count how many fall beneath your blade as you fall back from the trees. You have no time to do so. You are barely beyond the shadow of the copse, when one of the troll attacks you. With a bellow it charges over its comrades to reach you. Your skill and experience is the only reason you manage dance out of the way at the last second. A strike to its leg reveals this creature lacks a troll's stony skin. The effort it takes to cut down to the bone demonstrates that it does not lack for toughness despite this.
With its leg out of commission, the troll is all but at your mercy. If only it did not have allies. You need to slay more than a few of its comrades, and dodge the swings of its mighty fists, a dancing beacon of light in a seemingly endless ocean of darkness. With several great blows you manage to clear a space and buy yourself time. You leap atop its head, to the fury of the smaller creatures. From there you deliver a two handed blow that takes its head off. You should have thought to use such a strike earlier but you have not yet fully internalised the return of your right hand. The collapse of the great beast sees more of the smaller ones flattened, and you leap off to gain distance from the press.
The further you flee the worse the situation becomes. More than once you stumble into water that stifles your footwork. Though it affects your foe too, they are not depending on their movement to preserve their lives. You are. Worse still, the retching, hacking coughs are starting to build within you. You do all you can to stay away from the strange black smoke your blade causes, but there is simply no way to avoid it all. Every stroke of your blade causes more and more, and the swamp slows your flight still further as you must beware sudden changes in depth. Blows start to find your body, your life preserved only by the armour your brother made. The end comes after what feels like an eternity.
In the endless dark of the moonless night a single star shines in defiance of the endless black. Lit only by the blazing Light of the Eldar, you fight. Time ceases to have any meaning. A second troll falls before you, and you dare not stop moving. Knee deep water turning blackish red, as you hew down yet another darkspawn. The third troll slams you into a tree, and you are back on your feet cleaving another darkspawn in two. At some point you were cut across the face and blood runs into your eyes freely. Still you fight. Cries of 'A Varda Elentári' are drowned out beneath the roars and shrieks of your foe. Your breath comes in ragged gasps as you narrowly twist away from the third troll. You fall back, unsure if you are wading through mud, or on the verge of collapse. Another darkspawn falls and still you move. The retching sensation overcomes you and you stagger, spewing dark gunk from your mouth. A darkspawn believes that this has left you vulnerable. Without conscious direction, your blade claims its life even as your chest heaves again.
Finally free of convulsions, you roll way from the troll's strike, lashing out with a lucky wound that causes the beast to lose its footing. You rush to clamber atop it, narrowly dodging its flailing fists. You hack at it, all art and planning lost. You only have desperate strength driving you at this point. You need to kill the creature before the rest arrive. Finally, the creature's struggles come to an end. You leap forward, hoping to avoid the strike you are certain is coming, but none do. You look around, eyes desperately trying to pierce the gloom beyond your light, but you see nothing. You hear nothing. You are alone. There are no more darkspawn to kill.
Your body forcefully expels more of that dark substance, and you drop your sword in the knee deep water. With numb fingers you grope for the blade, covering yourself in more bloody, muddy water. You spend whole minutes expelling the corruptive fluids from yourself, then you must count your injuries. Countless small bruises cover you beneath your mail. Fewer, but still numerous, cuts cover your hands and head. Marks of dodges made too shallow by exhaustion or that could not be made for fear of meeting a worse fate. Worst is the horn that had slipped beneath your mail to rake up your side. Though the wound itself is deep, the greater worry is the deeper pain in your side. You have been hurt internally; you suspect it will take two weeks before you are free of it.
You are exhausted and you do not know where you are. You had fled blindly from the hordes of the darkspawn, and now you are lost. Deciding that the worst that could happen is that you find Ferelden, you begin to stagger northwards. Through muddy water and watery mud, you trudge. You dare not rest, lest more darkspawn come upon you as you rest. You have let your light fade lest you tire yourself still further. You stumble over a hidden root and collapse into the marsh with a great splash.
You fight to find purchase, unsure of how deep the water is. You manage to find something with your toe. Despite this, your first attempt to heave yourself up fails. Your limbs feel like lead and the weight of your armour and the water is too much. Desperation growing as you being to run out of air, you throw all your remaining strength into a final attempt. At the last moment, you are aided by someone hauling you from the water. You burst from the depths of the swamp, heaving great breaths. The stranger leads you to more stable ground, where you collapse gratefully, turning to face your unexpected ally.
A brown face marked by darker still paint greets you beneath the stars. A human, a woman you think, silhouetted against the night sky. In the dark of the night you cannot see what she wears, nor more detail than what you have already noted. The woman babbles something you do not understand.
"Do you speak the tongue of Thedas." You gasp out between ragged pants.
"I speak." The surprisingly deep voice for a female human replies. "How badly it hurt?"
You blink in confusion. "Not the worst pain, but hardly something I am willing to dismiss."
The woman's face twists in confusion to mirror your own, and noticeably tries a different wording. "You be needing healer?"
Understanding dawns and you nod. "I will live, but better to see one than not."
The woman seems confused by your words, but nodding is universal in this land it sems. With a several deep grunts and sighs of exertion, she slings your arm over her shoulders and aids you in standing. It is an awkward position given the vast difference in height, but it works. The journey to wherever the woman takes you feels like a dream. You are well past the point of exhaustion, continuing only by sheer force of will. The woman pulls you in seemingly random directions, either to confuse you or to avoid things you cannot see. Eventually, you come across a small collection of huts atop a hill. You are led into one and given something to drink. Whatever it is, you fall unconscious soon after you drink it.
You awaken sometime mid-morning, if the light coming through the door, is any indication. You fight through dizziness as you sit up and walk towards the door. When you emerge from the hut, you are greeted by a small crowd of people who all seem surprised to see you. They are talking among themselves in their language, but you interrupt them.
"I thank you for your aid, but do you have any food?" You ask.
A woman you think you recognise from the previous night nods and wanders off while another, older, woman speaks to you.
"How you live? How you walk?" She asks, disbelieving. "You have great hurt. Lose much blood. Not to say dirt in blood. You either dead or in fever, I thought."
You are in no mood to explain the intricacies of Eldar biology, nor do you wish to reveal your immortality to total strangers. Also, you are lightheaded from blood loss.
"Does it matter?" You ask. "I need food. I get food, I will repay you."
You will figure out how exactly to do so when you no longer feel as though you are on the verge of passing out again. The older woman seems sceptical but is drawn into a conversation with the man who has to this point been silent. Seemingly dismissed as a concern, you lean against the wall of the hunt and slowly sink down to sit.
The first woman returns shortly thereafter with some dark bread and some kind of roasted frog, or toad you cannot tell. You gratefully accept them and wolf them down as the three argue among themselves. You finish well before their argument does, giving you time to observe them. You are reasonably certain that the one who brought you food is also the one who brought you here last night. Her face is marked by a number of strange designs, in white to stand out from her dark skin. You cannot tell if they are paint or something more akin to the 'tattoos' of the Dalish. The design of these markings is shared by both the burly man and the aged healer, though there are variations in shape and colour. A clan marking perhaps?
Eventually the argument stops and the three turn back to you. The man steps forward and points to himself.
"Velkind. Chief of Chasind Bann." He then points to you.
"Nelyafinwë Maitimo Russandol Maedhros. Son of Fëanáro." You reply.
Velkind nods. "Meen say, you sent by gods. That you fight darkspawn and win. She claim you lead us to safety. What say you?"
You gather your thoughts for a moment, well aware you are not at your best. "I am an enemy of the darkness in whatever form it takes. I cannot claim to speak for the Valar, but I will aid any who hate the forces of evil."
The silence that follow indicates that you might have spoken in a manner too hard to follow.
"I am sent by no one. Fight darkness yes, help any who fight monsters." You simplify.
Velkind smiles, nodding. "Good, we also fight monster. Darkspawn enemy of all. Evora say monster blood make you one. She say it happen soon. Can you prove not?"
You nod and call for the Light of the Eldar. You know for a fact that orcs cannot wield it, so it seems the logical way to prove your lack of taint. The response is more than you expected. The chief and healer gasp in shock and the other woman, Meen you assume, looks vindicated.
"You are sent by gods." Velkind says in awe.
He seems to realise something and immediately bows low. "Please tell. How save people? What we do?"
"Stand up man." You say, in no mood for this. "I am not sent by the Valar."
"Please." The man repeats.
You massage your temples. You are in no fit state to be dealing with yet another group of people mistaking you as a messenger of their gods. If there is a state fit to deal with such a thing. You force your mind to work, despite the exhaustion and light-headedness. You do not know the numbers of darkspawn in the area, but you can make some inferences. This Velkind seems desperate, so there is more than the warriors can handle. Whatever leads them had not seen a reason to husband forces, sending hundreds against you. It is likely that the darkspawn horde is easily a match for any of Morgoth's. Fighting is not an option then, perhaps if you were here for months, you might construct some defences, but you will not be. Even if you were, there is no chance the village would last that long.
Running is the best option, but it cannot be that simple, or they would not need your guidance. Logical deduction supplies a probable history of tension with Ferelden as the reason they have not done so. Since north is the only way out of here that does not involve mountains or an icy waste such a history would trap them. What they need is somewhere that the nobles will not care about, somewhere they will have protection from those who might take advantage of them. The solution is obvious, you just do not want to risk it. For a long moment, too long, you consider simply leaving them here. You cannot though, it is simply not in your nature, no matter how low you have fallen.
"I can lead you to a safe place. It is in Ferelden, but I control the area. Within its borders you will not be harmed." You inform the chief.
Velkind's face screws up in fear or anger or maybe confusion? You are really off your game if you cannot identify what a human is feeling. They are not exactly nature's deceivers.
"Ferelden bad. Many iron warriors, much warrior dies." He argues.
You fight back the urge to sigh. "Obvious solution, 'iron warriors' not everywhere. Sneak past, come where it is safe."
The chief laughs bitterly. "Where safe? How sneak? Ferelden many warriors, many as stars."
This time you do sigh. It is always frustrating when people see they have only one solution and refuse to explore how to enact it.
Drawing a rough map in the dirt you explain. "Travel east, into trees. Trees dangerous for iron warriors, they will not go there. Head north to here, here Endataurëo. My home, safe place."
The chief seems to be being slowly convinced. "Trees dangerous for clan too. Many dark creatures."
"Here, certain death." You point to the wilds on your rough map. "There, maybe death. Here you stand alone, there I come with you. The choice is simple."
The chief looks over the map, grimacing. "Much risk. No other choice."
Your worn patience finally gives out. Your head is throbbing and you can barely think. You are in no mood to babysit someone who is not ready for the role of leadership.
"I cannot simply wave my hand and teleport you to safety." Despite your anger you do not yell, your voice is worn and exhausted more than anything else. "This is not only the best option, it is the only option. If you want to stay here and die, then do so. I have no time to help those who will not be helped."
You stalk back to the house of healing, and collapse in to a random bed to sleep.
When you awaken in the evening, you find the village in a state of chaos. Orders are being given and people appear to be assembling wooden sleds of some kind. The woman who brought you here, Meen you think, is waiting for you.
"Eve well, Brightstar." She greets. "Chief thought long after left and agrees. We follow you to safe land. I knew gods send you."
"My name is Nelyafinwë Maitimo Russandol, not Brightstar. I have more than enough names to choose from without adding more." You reply, hunger making you irritable. "And I already said nobody sent me!"
"Your name hard for Chasind tongue. Brightstar easier." The woman replies. "You say not sent, but also say lead us to where safe. Gods send, even if you not know they do.
Your stomach decides to loudly announce its desires which ends the argument before it can truly begin. The woman leads you to dinner, laughing all the way.