"Meh. I'd worry about the master's master - for I can hardly believe this guy decided to take a shot at us on his own."
With another sigh she waves her hand and switches the subject, looking over Nathan's shoulder at the bow and the other items.
"Found anything useful?"
Nethan nods his head and looks at Elise, "It looks promising, just a little more time. After you interrogate our Eldred "friend" there, I should know more," Nethan states as he rubs one of the spike wounds he received from the hounds.
When Amelia comes to Nethan to heal him, he places his hand on the wand and shakes his head with a smile, "Please save the charge, I do not need it this time around but thank you for the thought! We all need rest after this encounter anyway. If not the rest of you, I believe Al, and I definitely need rest to restore arcane and meta reserves."
"Well, hopefully he has learned by now that it is our orb - not his!"
Though tied up the Eldred now out of his dazed state from the spell thrown out by Al. He lets out a melancholic chuckle "Ah maybe if I brought some backup you'd be dead instead, such a well oiled machine your crew." The Eldred loudly whispers in an accent that is very poor for common. Elongating syllables he shouldn't be, making short words even shorter. Might be he learnt most of his common from a book instead of practicing it with native speakers.
"Careful with that bow, might blow up in your face. After all... it has some charge left in it." He dips his head down while trying to right himself into a sitting position.
"It speaks!" Elise snaps back to the Eldred, pushing him to the floor again. With a hostile snarl she adds. "Maybe it should try talking..."
Nethan handles the bow with care.
The Eldred's garb is yellow, the bow itself is made of a similar bone you've seen to the spears the soldiers use. As Nethan examines the bow he can tell it is storing up some sort of charge that wants to be let out. With his magical expertise he can tell it won't explode. However he believes the weapon is taking some strain from keeping in the energy, whatever that might actually be.
The Eldred rolls his shoulders back "My name? Pah, what would you need that for? To gloat?" He shakes his head suddenly then spits out some blood from his throat. "Why? You outsiders need to know something, you don't go after someone else's quarry." The Eldred ignores the last question that Amelia asks him.
"If that bow needs to let off some steam, maybe you should shoot the guy in the leg with it. Or let me."
"You almost did kill me." Alþórel agrees "It is rare for someone come so close. I can respect that. I also respect that you tried to warn us off before attacking. I hardly think we want to gloat."
"I would like to know your name so that when I tell this story in the future I can credit the right man."
"You don't seem Evil; I am old enough to understand that someone fighting you is an enemy, not necessarily Evil. Better than winning a fight is befriending your enemy."
"You say we went after your quarry, but you are wrong. You were set against me - sorry - against us. This might have been an accident. I certainly hope so. The fate of your Race and your World hang in the balance. This is a gambit started before the creation of either."
"As for not bothering you again? Perhaps. Live a quiet little life, never meddle in the affairs of Immortals and Gods again, and certainly I think you need not worry."
"But you, you do not strike me as such a one. Why not join us?"
The Eldred shrugs and says "Heh, like you know how to use that burly man." He replies to Dreyyn, trying to keep his cool but with obvious bullets of sweat dripping from his face.
The Eldred goes from being threatened to being offered a place on the team. He is getting slightly confused though seems to be in a more comfortable position to relinquish some information. "You've .. lost me. The quarry you're after you know what she is right? There are a lot of people after her for the promise of lots of reward. I don't just mean money but power too. She has something to do with the blood crystals that higher ups are talking about...."
He shrugs and says "You are right, I'm just greedy. I don't really care for what you say is something to do with gods. I just want the challenge and adventure with a prize on the end. Though are the blood crystals..really something to do with gods?" The Eldred asks curiously.
Elise murmurs something in her native tongue and glares at the eldred. By the looks of it, she agrees with Amelias assessment of the eldreds character.
The young elf shrugs "He has a sense of honour. A code. I've seen heroes who started out with less. The real question is will he stay sane when he learns that everything he thinks he knows is wrong."
"I disagree, I am afraid. 'If he wants to know the story, he needs to pay the bard'."
Nethan smiles at Dreyyn, "Yes that may be one way to diffuse the energy but I am not sure if it will blow us up in the process and we may need our aggressor or for him to keep his leg for now?"
Nethan looks at Eldred, "So if you really wanted to join us for our benefit and yours, you would give us your name and how to safely diffuse the energy from this bow so no harm comes to it or us?"
He looks at Nethan and Amelia then shrugs. "What exactly do you want me to do in this ploy of yours?"
The Eldred realizes this is odd coming from this point but he seems to be interested. He then adds "As I sign of good faith, to discharge that bow without shooting place some blood on the wood. It'll discharge into the blood, it won't be dangerous. The blood will just be slightly tainted by otherworldly entities."
The Eldred leans back and continues with "No doubt you have seen my abilities there, other than that I have the ability to tame other worldly creatures. A ranger that likes to take his pets form the more... strange ilk, shall we say. Usually forcibly I will admit, which is why Kandra abandoned me there. Had no way to keep him heeled. He'll come back in a bit. When I assert myself a tad more possibly. Provided he hasn't found a way back to his home plane."
"Tainted? Well, anything that mixes with something made by a flayer will be tainted. Won't explode or anything, just don't try to drink it or anything." The Eldred replies.
Alþórel ponders this, trying to decode the Eldred's terminology into his own.
Nethan watches Amelia place her blood on the bow, does it do anything to the bow or Amelia.
Al discerns that the flayer he is talking about is a mind flayer a being that eats brains. Beyond that Al isn't sure what the creature is capable of nor why it would craft a bow.
If Amelia places her blood on the bow the magic dissipates and it doesn't look to be holding anything more. The blood however becomes a much deeper red, almost black. Nethan can see that magic is inside the blood now though likely can't do anything there. There was likely a spell stored in the bow, that magic is now just pure magic inside the blood. Though it seems to have been altered by the innate magic of the bow itself which could possibly be what the Eldred means by 'tainted'. The blood however has lost whatever spell the bow could've used if it were fired.
The Eldred says "See not so bad now is it?" He reclines a little in his corner "What would you have me do in your scheme then? I can't accept unless I know a little more about what this entails. Not necessaries the details, just the duties I would take."
Elise grunts and speaks up again. She didn't like the thought of having the Eldred around, but *sigh* Not my choice. Atleast I can be civil. Exorcising most of the hostility she felt she held her voice steady.
"You said it yourself - we're not from around. We trample each and every unspoken rule we encounter, we don't know any of the local customs - not anything!"
Does Nethan feel like the Eldred truly disarm the bow to be more safe or purposely went out of his way to make the bow inert. In other words, disabled it? Nethan cleans off Amelia's blood to see if the bow is permanently tainted.
"So be an insider, that is easy enough." He shrugs "The quarry you're after is the same as a group of, well, rebels is bad word. The quarry you're after is the same as what a group of usurpers in this town want to get a hold of. They promised a lot of money to let them go about on their way. We heard of some strange folks, namely yourself, with a way to track down the girl. No doubt you are using it so you know of whom I speak. There are a lot of people searching for those bloodstones, or whatever name that group likes to call them." The Eldred nods. "Follow so far? We assumed you were a rival group after the same goal, though you speak of nobility. So I assume you recovering the girl is for a different reason instead of placing a new king. There are many gangs in this 'fair' city. They all want pieces of the big pie but the rule basically is no stealing from each other, unless you want killing to be involved anyway."
Elise gives the nameless eldred a thin smile.
"Rest assured, we did not come all this way to meddle in your politics" She nearly spits out the last word.
"Now, is it customary for the new king to kidnap women across the worlds just for him to ascend the throne - or what piece does she play in this grand spectacle of yours?"
Ugh. This city could use a good shakeup...
"For the group I work for, it is because she is able to find the bloodstones which are said to make you as powerful as the first generation. The first generation are said to only be rivaled by the King of Whispers himself. Though those are the legends, only the heavens know if there is something else to those stones. Doesn't stop people banking on it working." The Eldred gives his usual shrug at this point.
"The point being without the girl, you can't find the stones, or at least not easily. If you could do that someone would have found it by now. All I know is her name is Atenzuki, the Heart of Azlanti" He chuckles "Well that is what she was spitting out when she was decrying the people drawing blood from her anyhow."
The bow could still be used as it would normally, though it does seem connected to the hounds he was using earlier. It might just be aberrants in general from what he was talking about before. Though when Nethan pulls the bow string back a little a magical arrow forms all the same. However it is not powered or changed like you saw him use in combat.
When Nethan sees the arrow appear after pulling the string back, he smiles. Then he slowly lets the string go back to an idle position. Nethan decides to hold on to the bow for now until the group can determine what to do with the Eldred.
He looks up from the inspecting bow, "There are so many tangents in here; it is hard to focus on what. If we gather all of these stones, will that end the use of Eldred as batteries and will that end the calamity that has claimed the island in our world? Nethan rubs the whiskers on his chin, "Perhaps we should find and escort this girl to help keep her from being used and perhaps if we do find all of the stones with her help, we can succeed in our primary mission in our world and in this world?"
"I see ..." Elise nodded
The Eldred shrugs again "Not sure what the problem is in your world but this girl is a recent discovery." The group does seem to remember that Daeron mentioned something about how the original group he was in was sent away when a rift opened in their world, Atenzuki was put into use shortly after groups were sent to investigate on the Eldred side of the World.
Holding the Eldred's bow in his left hand, Nethan listens to the conversation between Amelia and the Eldred before interjecting or asking his own questions.
I wonder ... The first of the Eldred where quite powerful - as powerful as Tar Baphon himself? And then the Bloodstones - if they are the shards of Aroden and Arazni why would he give them to the Eldred?
And how dose that rift we entered work anyhow? I wonder if we can come back to both our world and our time ... Elise sighed. As usual her internal philosophical debates didn't lead anywhere. Perhaps Al could shed some light on her thoughts later on, when they didn't have ... company.
Alþórel has never heard of Atenzuki before. Though he knows what or rather who Arazni was and what the heart could likely mean. Arazni was the Herald of Aroden, she was the saint of the Knights of Ozem while her power still existed. Little is known about what she was capable of or what exactly she did. However it is known that she was summoned and joined the Knights of Ozem in battle to her untimely demise at the hands of Tar-Baphon then the Whispering Tyrant. The knights that have allied with you as the group discovered before use the heraldry of Aroden instead of Iomodae. She was raised as Lich some time later in the nation of Geb. During that process her internal organs were separated from her body, due to the secrecy of her normal form no-one has recorded where those parts disappeared to. Many refer to them as bloodstones. It seems though one such part, namely the heart, has gained some form of sapience. Though it is said that these stones hold a lot of power, for it to be held so easily in a prison by what the Eldred describe must mean that either Atenzuki is weakened or she does not know how to use the extent of her power. Alþórel isn't sure which is better.
Nethan isn't sure as well
The Eldred shakes his head. "Not a name I have heard of, others might have I don't know. Though for .. some reason it feels familiar. Hmmm, it feels like I should know who or what that is. I don't know why though. Arg.. giving me a headache."
Alþórel looks askance at the Eldred.
"It is possible there is some sort of buried memory, or geas. Potentially one that afflicts your entire race. Please, for now, stop thinking about it. We don't know what it might do, if there is one."
"There are things about this that I would like to discuss. I'm reluctant to do so if thinking on a single name can give you a headache. I'm going to try to give you my suppositions, but I will be vague. I'm sure my companions will be able to add the detail in their minds."
"If you start to get a headache or feel faint, please, tell me and I will stop. Obviously this knowledge is of priceless worth upon this world. Consider it a deposit on your eventual reward."
"A long, long time ago there was a human. Nice guy, very driven. We will name him A. He became a God: that is, a being capable of simultaneously being in multiple places."
"After some time, he took as a Herald a human woman named... B. Some people suggested this was a bad idea, but he did it anyway."
"Thousands and thousands of years later another human started using Necromancy to gain power. He was called T. A killed T at a place called The Isle of Terror. Remember that name."
"The Gods made some sort of agreement, and A left the world."
"T came back from the dead recently, about a thousand of our years ago. B fought him, but was killed."
"Then shortly afterwards T was sort of killed, and imprisoned in his own tower."
"Yet another human necromancer, this one called G... no this should be safe. Called Geb. Geb stole B's body and turned it into an undead abomination. As part of that bits of her were found to be missing. I believe these are the Bloodstones you are talking about."
"About a century ago, A was killed. Despite being a God. At a time that should have been his greatest triumph. Whatever it was also shattered prophecy. Quite possibly this was by using the link between B's bloodstones and A to steal A's power."
"A little while ago something happened at the Isle of Terror that left a hole in the world. A hole that led here."
"I surmise that T killed B, took her power and somehow brought it here. He then used that power, somehow, to arrange A's death despite his imprisonment. I believe that your entire multiverse is little more than a weapon that allowed ex-humans in my world to strike out at each other."
"I believe your race to be Engineered. Each subsequent generation is weaker because you were never designed to stay powerful. The tragedy is that I believe you were engineered from Elves. Elves are very long lived beings of great power and wis... knowledge. Elves are able to reincarnate from life to life, making them essentially immortal, by attuning to The Brightness. Whatever has been done to you, you seem to have lost that ability - or at least the knowledge and aptitudes to do so."
"It is possible that by collecting all these bloodstones it would be possible to gain the power of a Herald. Given the particular relationship, it might even be possible to then resurrect A. That would close the Worldwound, bring on the age of humanity, and restore prophecy."
Dreyyn listens, lost in the details. He never was much of a historian.