The High Priestess of Soldier’s Rest waited outside an office as she pondered recent events. The Elven attack on Humanity had been a long time coming, though the sheer speed and utter completeness had been a complete shock. So shocking in fact, that it was only a matter of time before the Dwarves and Orcs moved to push the Elves back to their original lands. The High Priestess wasn’t sure of every detail, her troop had only recently arrived back from their section of the Eternal War for recuperation when they had been informed of the full scope of what had happened.
While she would’ve thought the sheer scale of such things would’ve justified an immediate retaliation, it had been complicated by one simple fact. There had been no Curses. Not a single one had been created, which was by all accounts, impossible. The only way for such a thing to have happened would be for each and every member of Humanity to have simply…accepted their deaths. Which clearly did not happen, if the scant few reports she had seen were to be believed. And considering she had personally met the Archmage who featured heavily in nearly every major battle, she knew for a fact his death alone would’ve spawned a Curse of some magnitude. One did not become an Archmage following purely Human Magical Traditions without having an outsized will…and ego. She shuddered slightly, the man’s ego had been both as large as a mountain and wholly deserved, but the mere fact of such an ego being deserved hadn’t made talking to him any more pleasant.
She pulled on her beard, she needed to focus. She could pour over the reports later, right now it was of utmost importance to speak with the current resident Archmage. The Gods had refused to clarify certain matters to her, something that hadn’t happened in her four centuries of life, and she needed to know if the Archmage could get some information from Magic. The knowledge she desired wasn’t something so horrible that the Gods would punish her for searching for it, but their refusal to answer told her there was something that she wasn’t aware of. So now she was standing outside his office door, waiting to be let in. The current Archmage assigned to Soldier’s Rest was well known to her, and she knew he wouldn’t keep her (or anyone really) waiting as long as he had unless he was doing something he considered genuinely important. Even if his version of importance could be highly skewed to the niche and obscure uses of his mix of Magic Traditions. She hoped that she had not arrived in the middle of one of his testing phases, it might genuinely be weeks before she could talk to him if that was the case.
Luckily for her, and probably most other Mages in the Hold considering they would inevitably be forced to listen to him speak on such matters, the delay only lasted a couple more hours. With the arcane lock undoing itself and the burning sigils on the door rearranging themselves to read “Free to enter”. Opening the door, she was treated to the overly familiar sight of an overly messy office space, not due to the amount of actual paperwork being done but rather due to the occupant’s rather horrid habit of not putting things away when he was done with them. Sitting down behind a large desk, which was also the only clean space in the entire room, was the Archmage dressed in his usual clothing. Iron plate mail that the man had personally crafted and which he had enchanted with the express purpose of functioning as if he was wearing a normal set of clothing without compromising his protection, he had even gone so far as to ensure it would sound like cloth rather than metal. When he had first started wearing the thing, it had taken her a while to get used to it, metal isn’t supposed to just flow like his outfit did. The High Priestess watched as the Archmage took in her clothing, the official robes with everything adorned, and frowned slightly as she ensured the door closed behind her properly.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Should’ve expected the first visit since you came back to be an official one. Doesn’t mean I’m not a little disappointed.”
The High Priestess cleaned off one of the other chairs as she sat down, ignore the look of horror on the other Dwarf’s face, “Yes well, other than the tradition where we each gripe at each other about our respective ways of keeping others out of our offices, I do genuinely have an important request.”
The Archmage holds his hands towards the High Priestess before speaking, “You cannot simply forget our ever more important tradition of ignoring the other’s complaints before we both drink a keg of spiked ale and then seeing who folds first.”
He put his hands down onto his desk before continuing, “But I understand the need to forgo traditions when important tasks need to be done. What would you ask of me that is so important to forgo our longstanding traditions?”
“I need you to ask Magic if it has any information on the last object the Human Gods blessed. Our Gods refuse to give me any information other than the mere fact that they did use the last of their existence on blessing something.”
The Archmage groaned into his hands, “It’s always a fucking religious artifact with your requests. Have you considered the fact that maybe the Gods aren’t telling you about it because you already have a collection of dozens of religious artifacts? Or maybe it’s because for once, the Gods would rather you not recover something blessed because it is a trap laid for those who would seek such things out.”
The High Priestess blinked rapidly, in the several hundred years they’d known each other, the Archmage had never once done this. Which could only mean one thing, he’d already asked Magic and received an answer he hated. But still, “Would they really have made such a thing a trap? That would ruin the last of their traces of existence, all for what? Killing or maiming those who came searching for their remains?”
“Do you even need me to answer your question, or are you going to realize that the mere idea that they only possibly trapped one thing in the entire war means it is probably enough to take down a Hold by itself? Because yes, Humans are that spiteful, and doubly so for their Gods.”
“You’re right, but still. The archivist in me can’t stand the idea of such things being permanently lost because of something as simple as that.”
The two continued talking for several more hours, before the High Priestess finally departed the Archmage’s office. After she left, the Archmage once again sealed it shut, and began trying to coax Magic into giving him more information. It was being even more cryptic than normal, and that never boded well. If he had to continue his meditations for another week or two, he would, but he would not let any potential thread of information go unpulled. Magic had a tendency to balance things, and if the Elves and their Gods had done what he feared and put their fingers on the scale, then the overcorrection would be of most legendary proportions. He needed to know when it was coming, as that might mean the difference between life and death. He had not lived this long just to die due to some failed idiotic ambitions by another species.
There will be 3 chapters of the main story here soon-ish.
