The mana spring building sat down the hill from the keep, closer than the old bath house had ever been, and by the time Harold pushed through the door, the mana density in the room settled over him. It was different in here. Everywhere in the Landing was rising, and the basin behind that, day by day, but the air inside these walls was where he wanted the whole peninsula to be. It was oppressive if you weren't used to it. To Harold it was the feeling of walking into a house he'd already lived in — the density he remembered from later in the first timeline. The mana levels would keep rising. More and more powerful monsters would rise with it.
The spring itself came up clear through the floor of the largest room, crystal clear water, and the pools they'd built off it stepped down the terrace in a series he and his alchemists had designed. Some heated. Some not. Some kept as cold as possible without freezing. He and two of his people had been planting the edges out with anything he wanted greater potency in—a stand of amberleaf against the back wall, silverstem along the western pool, a young mistvine climbing the trellis. The plants grown in here would be potent ingredients for future potions. But for now they decorated the place and made a relaxing environment.
He stripped, dropped into the hottest pool, and let the mana move through him. The buzz in his shoulders eased first, then the low burn in his thighs, then the small, tight knot behind his temples. Easier to recover in here. Easier to relax. Easier to think. He absorbed while he sat, and he made a note to lean on Josh regarding the crafting chambers that were supposed to be attached to the west wall.
By the time he padded back up to his room and changed into his clothes, he was starving and looking forward to his meal.
A stack of folders was waiting on the desk that hadn't been there when he'd left the previous evening.
He recognized the seal on the top one before he sat down. The new templar cross, pressed in blue wax, with the small mark beneath it that signified requested information. He'd asked them a couple of months back for whatever they had on Tyrfing, not just the preliminary paragraph they'd sent originally. This was everything they had been able to gather in that timeframe.
He sat, set the coffee down, and opened it.
Fifteen minutes later, he closed it again and sighed.
This was nothing.
Or — not nothing. A very thorough, cross-referenced, beautifully indexed nothing. The Templars had done good work, but it was nothing he didn’t already know.
Svafrlami commissioned the dwarves to forge it. The dwarves cursed the blade in return for being forced into the work. It would be responsible for three great evils; every time it was unsheathed, it had to kill. Then finally it would cause the death of its owner. The folder contained every retelling and every academic argument about which retelling came first, cross-referenced with three Templar scholars' opinions on which pieces were probably older.
Harold rubbed his temple, frustrated.
He'd known most of it. He'd been hoping the Templars had a source he didn't, some fragment his own reading had missed. What he had instead was confirmation that the myth was exactly what he'd remembered it was, which meant the system had exactly as much material to work with as he'd assumed it did. Which then probably meant the sword — whenever he actually found the shards and reforged the thing — was going to be cursed in whatever creative way the system had cooked up from all of that.
He didn't need the Templars to tell him that. The system liked its inspirations. It was inspired all the time. Like the grail quest itself.
It was a blatant trap. He was being messed with again.
He set the folder aside, drank half the coffee in one pull, and reached for the next stack.
These were from his intelligence sections. He opened the thin one first.
The latest on the Velthari movements. The map inside had been updated in three colors, and Harold traced the lines with his thumb. The cat, at least, was out of the bag. That was the one relief in any of this. A month ago the Velthari had walked into Hallow's Reach expecting to destroy it and kill everyone, except that six of the Landing's ballista had been sitting on the walls, four hundred explosive potions distributed among his army, healing potions in their hands, and a small batch of the new body enhancement potions Harold had made. Hallow's Reach had spent months fortifying and utterly broke the Velthari attack.
The Velthari had broken off, pulled back, and left a mess of their own dead on the valley floor, and by that evening everyone on the forum knew about it. The response had been about what he'd expected. A lot of loud posturing. Many quiet requests for information. A useful amount of movement from the Lords that would actually matter later.
He ignored the second folder and opened the forum to see the latest on it. The forum front page loaded in the soft column of light. Threads sorted themselves by activity, the most active floating up, everything else falling, and Harold let his eyes travel the top of the list.
The Velthari. 483648254 replies.
Northern Border — Lord Check-In. Post daily. 346274932 replies.
Margaret's thread. Her fingerprints were all over the title.
Gnoll Nest Coordination. 23747629 replies
That one was organized by an alliance of Lords out west of Ism Thalor who were fighting the expanding Gnoll nest. They were at a stalemate for now, but that wouldn't work in the long run. The winter was giving the nest time to consolidate.
Kobold Region Coordination - 298739734 replies. That was also organized by an alliance of Lords except they lost their region across the sea to the nest. Now there were coordinating defenses around the region to contain it. They would soon be fighting against a kobold city down there.
MISSING — Please help. 293742 replies
Always in caps. Margaret's office quietly ran the credible posts down through a finder's network they'd built, and Harold tried not to open that thread too often.
The Landing — Alchemist's School Now Open. Battle Alchemist Prime Perk Path Available Upon Graduation. 268459273 replies
He had posted that a month ago, and the replies were staggering. But humanity's response was overwhelming. People asking what paths were, what was being taught in the school. People were moving en masse to the Landing just to attend.
Look what I found in a series of ruins! 2562373 replies.
That was actually an interesting read. The adventurers had found a cache of system weapons and used them to defeat a monster guarding a chest containing a Perk combination token.
He clicked the Velthari thread.
The pinned post from Margaret's office sat at the top of the thread — a summary of everything the Landing had released about the Velthari, cleaned up and cross-linked to the illustrations his office had commissioned. He'd written half of it. He scrolled past it and dropped into the last few days of activity.
Lord Kessler — Northmarch Hold
Check-in the twelfth. Still upright, still holding. Two nights ago a probe hit our east wall — twenty-plus bonded, three of them clearly bird-bonded by the way they moved. Our crossbows took down four. The rest broke off before we could get a solid count on wounded. If anyone's still tracking bird-bond types up here, we're calling this two hawks and one that looked more like a shrike from the head shape. Illustrations attached.
Anonymous Adventurer
please stop the bird posts. I killed my neighbor's chicken last night. I thought it was scouting
Lord Kessler — Northmarch Hold
@Anonymous Adventurer chickens do not fly
Anonymous Adventurer
IT LOOKED AGGRESSIVE
Crafter - Margaret
Reminder that Velthari are have a limited number of bonds. They will not bond with weak animals. The behavioral markers are in the pinned resource. Please read the pinned resource. We do not want to see another string of posts from the southern coast regarding gulls.
Adventurer — Sparrowbane
sorry
Adventurer — CrossbowMike
@Sparrowbane your handle is Sparrowbane
Adventurer — Sparrowbane
Like you’re one to talk.
Harold rubbed his temple.
Lord Vandry — Silverpine
We took a raid two nights ago. Near four hundred bonded, including at least twenty large-cat types and a few bears. We lost the eastern gatehouse and forty-two people before we broke them. I do not have another fight like that left in me. If anyone in the northern coordination has forces or potions to spare, I need help. I have gold. Please.
Lord Aldemar — Hallow's Reach
@Lord Vandry I am four days south of you. I can push a cart of supplies north at first light tomorrow. Reply with your best road.
Lord Vandry — Silverpine
@Lord Aldemar I do not know how to thank you.
Lord Aldemar — Hallow's Reach
Don't thank me. Thank the Potion Lord and hope more help comes in the spring.
Anonymous Lord
Are we just going to keep pretending the Landing is not running this entire war from behind the curtain
Anonymous Adventurer
@Anonymous Lord, we're not pretending anything; we just think it's funny you just figured it out.
Harold drank the last cold swallow of his coffee and kept scrolling.
Lady Ferran — Ashholt
Has ANYONE on this thread even TRIED to talk to them?? I have been reading for weeks now and it is nothing but weapons weapons and I am SICK of it. These are PEOPLE. They have families. They have children. They have reasons, and none of you have even bothered to ASK what those reasons are. Maybe if we STOPPED shooting at them and actually LISTENED for once instead of jumping straight to killing them we would find out this whole thing is a MISUNDERSTANDING. Violence is not the answer. It has never been the answer. I am begging the coalition to send an envoy — a real envoy, not a soldier — before we go and make orphans out of an entire people because our first instinct was to grab a crossbow. Do better.
Lord Vandry — Silverpine
@Lady Ferran I invite you to come north and ask them personally. I will provide the horse.
Lord Merrick — Blackfen
@Lady Ferran Where have you been since arriving in Gravesend? Tell that to the 21 towns and thousands of people they slaughtered before they were revealed. There is nothing to negotiate.
Adventurer — GraveDigger_Prime
@Lady Ferran ma'am with the greatest respect they eat kids
Adventurer — Hopeful
@GraveDigger_Prime source
Adventurer — GraveDigger_Prime
@Hopeful the last four villages
Lady Ferran — Ashholt
That is NOT confirmed and you know it.
Adventurer — GraveDigger_Prime
@Lady Ferran ma'am I have been to two of them
Lady Ferran — Ashholt
...
Lady Ferran — Ashholt
I still want more confirmation of that.
Harold exhaled through his nose and kept moving. The Velthair don’t eat humans… their beasts and monsters though…
Lord Thane — Coldwater
As of the fifteenth, Coldwater will commit two hundred adventurers and two hundred soldiers to the coalition summit when it convenes in the spring. We will hold our own border in the meantime. We stand with the Landing. We stand with the north. We are done pretending this is someone else's problem.
Lord Halbrec — Ironmarsh
Ironmarsh matches Coldwater's commitment. We will be there in the spring.
Lord Osric — Redwater Vale
Redwater commits three hundred adventurers and full supply for our own troops. We will be there.
Anonymous Adventurer
I love this bit
Anonymous Adventurer
it's like the roll call in a song
Adventurer — Poet
if any bard is writing this down I have several suggested rhymes
Adventurer — CrossbowMike
@Poet no
Harold caught himself smiling and killed it before it settled.
Anonymous Handler
my lord is dead. my town is gone. I was the runner and I made it out with fourteen people. we have been walking south for six days. we are out of food. we are near the ridge above near the singing mountain and we are lost. if anyone is close please come find us.
Crafter - Margaret
@Anonymous Handler, stay where you are. A party out of Hallow's Reach is being routed to your position now. Post your handlers token when they arrive so we can confirm receipt.
Lord Aldemar — Hallow's Reach
@Anonymous Handler, party of six adventurers is moving. They will reach you before dark tomorrow. Stay put. Conceal your fires.
Harold sat back and closed his eyes for a moment.
He'd wanted the cat out of the bag, and he'd gotten it. The forum was a perfect example of how fractious humanity could be while also supporting one another. He was just glad the attacks had slowed down. They had been attacked, and people were angry. Thankfully, so far they hadn't been attacked so badly that people would be more worried about defending their lands than about supporting each other, but he knew that would change in the summer, when the Velthari attacked in earnest.He backed out of that thread and scrolled down some into a rising thread. My Lord died on his Grail Quest. Where can we go? 23127 replies
He clicked it.
Crafter — Whitmere
My lord took the grail quest a month ago against the counsel of every one of us. He did not come back. The stele crumbled away this morning. We are six hundred people. We have some food and enough animals to travel. We have no walls and the monsters have already started sniffing at our roads. We do not know what we are supposed to do. Where can we go?
Anonymous Adventurer
f
Anonymous Adventurer
@Anonymous Adventurer read the room
Anonymous Adventurer
They need to man up and make it work.
Lord Osric — Redwater Vale
@Crafter — Whitmere Redwater will shelter you. We have farmland we cannot work with our current levy and I have wall space to spare. My oath before the forum. Six hundred people is not too many. Post your position and I will send guides to meet you on the road.
Anonymous Handler
@Steward — Whitmere DO NOT go to Redwater without confirming, but if Lord Osric has posted publicly, he'll do it. He has a name for it.
Adventurer — Nords
@Steward — Whitmere do NOT go west. I know one of you was thinking about it. I will not name a name because I have family in his lands. But the last people who walked to him for shelter, he pulled the women out at the gate, split them between his men, and put the men in his mines. I lost a cousin. If you get any offer from a lord west of the Split River, ignore it. Come to my lord. He is a hard man, but he is not a monster.
Anonymous Lord
@Adventurer — Nords lies
Adventurer — Nords
@Anonymous Lord post your name and we can discuss it
Anonymous Lord (deleted)
Lord Halbrec — Ironmarsh
@Steward — Ironmarsh will also shelter. Same terms as Osric. I would rather Osric take you because his roads are safer than mine, but if you cannot make it to him, you can come here. My oath, publicly.
Crafter — Whitmere
I do not know what to say. Thank you both. I need to talk to my elders. We have wounded and we have children, and I do not know if we can move fast enough to reach either of you before we are overrun. I will post again when I have spoken to them.
Harold pulled the map up next to the thread and found Whitmere. His finger stopped on it. Then it moved.
Coast. Inner sea. A day-and-a-half's ride from a bay.
He looked at the map for a long minute.
Then he clicked the reply box.
Lord Harold — The Landing
@Steward — Whitmere Can you move your entire population?
He closed the tab.
He didn't post often. When he did, people replied faster than the forum could update, and he had learned to walk away from the thread before he went back and looked.
He reached for the second folder Margaret had left him, the one he'd shoved aside, and opened it.
Margaret had put her cover note on top in her sharp, precise hand.
A party of thirteen adventurers is currently on the road from the western peninsula, bound for the Landing to petition entry into the Adventurer's Guild. Six are from Lord Vantrell's lands. Four are from Lord Halbrooke. Three are from Lord Ceynin. All three of those lords have been the subject of correspondence with my office in the last months. I am confident, based on documentary evidence in the enclosed subfolder, that at minimum eight of the thirteen are traveling under private instruction to build an intelligence presence within our Guild. My recommendation is that we accept all thirteen into the Guild and quietly turn the eight. I have three approaches drafted below. My preferred approach is A. If you approve A, I will move on it this week. — M.
He read the approaches. He read the subfolder. He read Approach A twice.
He stamped his seal on the top of the cover note and pushed the folder to the pile of things Adeline would take.
Then he sighed and clicked the forum tab back open.
Two hundred and forty-eight replies. In under an hour.
He scrolled.
Adventurer — Pike_Standing
potion lord posted
Anonymous Adventurer
MY LORD
Anonymous Adventurer
my lord sees me
Adventurer — Daolord
@Anonymous Adventurer he is not looking at you
Lord — Anonymous
Predictable Lord Calder always seeking attention
Adventurer — Small_Ben
@Lord Harold my Lord I have three sick children can you ship me healing potions?
Adventurer — Daolord
@Small_Ben read the thread
Adventurer — Small_Ben
I did, but while I have his attention
Handler — WildwoodMayor
my Lord my town needs help with monsters
Anonymous Adventurer
everyone in this thread who did not just lose their lord on a grail quest move can you please shut up
Harold scrolled past twenty more like that until he found the one he was looking for.
Crafter — Whitmere
Lord Harold. Four hundred and twenty able-bodied. The rest are children, elderly, or wounded. We can walk but we cannot walk fast, and we do not know how long the roads are safe for us.
Harold set his elbows on the desk and pulled the map back over.
Whitmere was near the coast. The Landing's new galleys and Henri himself were a day out on the ride home with a fresh Prime Perk path book. Might be a good opportunity for his new sailors to start gaining perks related to the Path. They couldn't get the true path by using the book, but they could give them the requirements for it, and they could work towards the path on their own.
It was a good opportunity for Henri. He'd check with him. Before then, he wasn't going to make any promises on the forum.
He clicked the reply box again.
Lord Harold — The Landing
@Crafter — Whitmere Stay where you are. Hunker down. If I am able, I might send a force to extract you. Confirm my next post before you commit to a move.
He closed the tab before the replies loaded and did not have to wait long for the count to jump.
By the time he'd stood up and stretched his back, it had already gone up by a hundred.
He sat down and opened it anyway.
Adventurer — Kest
extract them how
Adventurer — Bearcub
Can his Legion reach there? His Knights??
Lord — Warrick
how does the Landing project a force across the inner sea
Lord — Draven
He has ships now?
Lord — Draven
What kind are they (ಠ_ಠ)
Adventurer — Bearcub
Watch the Landing come sailing out with 3 masted ships of the line
Adventurer — CrossbowMike
boats you idiot
Adventurer — Kest
a navy???
Lord — Talia
At this point, what does the man not have?
Adventurer — Harvardstudygroup
What about the sea monsters?
Harold closed the tab and reached for the remainder of his breakfast. He felt like he owed something to the people whose Lords died off on their Grail quest. He knew it was irrational, but he couldn't help it. Still. It was an opportunity. There was a set of ruins near there he wanted explored. Maybe he could combine those objectives.