Elfborn: The Quest

A Companionship Renewed

Things that belonged to the realm of the Shae. 'Now, I know it wasn't just my imagination that found that old priest Kapella and Frederik himself spouting elven to bind me with the ancient Life Oath. Ithus has taught me that much. It would seem my destiny, which shifts from time to time according to the decisions I make in pivotal situations, has reared its head again to summon some force from beyond to insure that I was properly oathed in the manner of Shae warriors.'

He let his eyes scan the reception area, a simple chamber with several chairs for guests and host, a place where people could be made to wait until Lash was ready to receive them in his office area. That thought triggered a derisive snort. 'Me, Lash, the youngest son of Baron de Marniet, who didn't even rate an office! What mockery of nobility these Evindel lords have made, reducing their knights to common merchants, with offices, staff and the like.'

The thought of staff, ergo servants, brought another frown to the young man's lips. According to both Frederik and Sir Hephestus, Lord Commander of Lash's newest place of allegiance, he was entitled to quite the bevy of servants running the gamut from a personal secretary to a body servant, responsible for ensuring Lash was properly dressed each morning. 'In what?' Lash mused with a quirk of his lips. 'Unless membership into this 'Order Militant' has also bequeathed upon me a large amount of clothing. The couple of shirts and tunics I own now, will certainly need no help finding their way onto my back.'

With a shake of his head, Lash returned his thoughts to the mysterious Shae power that had worked to make him a bona fide Shae warrior. 'At least, according to Ithus.' Mention of Ithus made Lash's mind return to the cylinder and ingot of mithril he had found in the small, strange chamber in the mouth of the crevice out on the plain. He refocused his scan to begin searching for the battered backpack he had barely let out of his sight since returning from the crevice.

Hmm, not in here. With a mental shrug, Lash stood and, by the light of the two oil lamps burning in the smallish tent, he located the passageway that led to the tent which held his office. Stepping through the passageway, he wasn't surprised to find that two more oil lamps had already been lit and hung there, presumably by the servants he would meet on the morrow.

A quick search of the larger chamber, complete with a desk, sturdy wooden chair and some more of the folding camp chairs, revealed his battered backpack sitting in a corner, looking much the same as it had when he had left it in his uncle's tent several hours ago. A cursory glance yielded the string he had tied around the cord that sealed the top of the pack was untouched, telling him that either nobody decided to snoop inside or they were skilled enough to detect the simple alarm and reset it after they were done.

But a quick tug on the pack's left strap confirmed its contents were intact, the tell tale weight of the cylinder and the musical chime of the mithril banging against it reaching his senses as a result of the short jerk. Untying the cord, Lash pulled open the pack and quickly fished out the mithril ingot.

The cylinder he left in the pack. It would have to wait until he had time enough to sit down and decipher the strange language that curled around its surface. For all he knew, the strange letters warned of even more traps or dangerous magic that would go off if he attempted to pull the stoppers out of the way. Best to wait as a precaution.

Lash tugged closed the backpack once again and let the pack drop to the floor as he frowned, his eyes scanning over the ingot as he strode firmly towards the passageway that led to his sleeping tent. He quickly picked out the forge seal, a circular symbol on one end of the ingot, marking it as coming from the Chan Birath mines, north of Kel Hath'Tinar, two places drawn straight out of Ithus' memories. 'At least the mithril is of elven origin,' he mused. 'Ancient elven,' he silently added as he felt Ithus' memories flood once more to the forefront as he turned the ingot over in his hands. Those mines had provided the Elves with the magical metal during their self-imposed exile, before they returned to join the Shae Federation and fight in the War of Domination thousands of years ago.