Sean’s POV

“Oh? Not practicing magic today?” Gareth asked as he vaulted into the back of our cart. We were a few hours out from Edgehall,

“Shouldn’t you be out guarding?” I chuckled. I shifted my legs a bit to give him some room to sit. “And I need a bit of a break. Too much intense thinking over too long of a time, my brain is going to explode. Feels like I’m trying to think through a fog.”

“I’ve heard of that before.” He nodded. “Right Carrigan?”

“Oh god, you’re thinking of the exams, aren’t you?” Carrigan cringed. “Yeah, usually the day after the magic academy exams the entire campus is barren. People spend the day inside sleeping, or occasionally heading to someplace calm like a lake.”

“Yep. Easiest day for us guards.” Gareth chuckled. “No mage brats running around causing havoc. Really takes the load off.”

“Sounds like it.” I said, thinking back to some of the stuff we pulled in my college days. Hell, we did that without even the slightest bit of magic. I could only imagine what we could get into. “So, Carrigan. What’s the worst thing you got into?”

“The worst?” He said, leaning a head back. “Oh I don’t know. Probably the great beer bread fiasco.”

Gareth leaned forward. “That was you guys? Oh man, that was hilarious.”

“Yeah, we got in a bit of trouble for that. Ya see Sean, we wanted to create a new food. A light, fluffy bread with ale in it. Instead of being smart, and starting small, well. We figured we had it right, and that we could do a large batch right away. So a little magical altering of the yeast, a bit of extra sugar so that everything could eat their fill. Well, the problem was that Corey was in charge of giving the yeast a magical boost. We wanted it done in a night, so we were going to speed it up a bit. Unfortunately, he sneezed right as he was casting the boost, and supercharged it.”

“Oh no.” I muttered.

“Oh yeah.” Carrigan said. “The yeast went wild, frothing like it was boiling water. We ran like the wind, being chased down by a giant foaming mess. Thank the gods we had the foresight to do it in the alchemy building. Once we hit the stairs, the wards kicked in and prevented it from expanding any further. But the yeast wasn’t done. The foam kept compacting, and one of the professors lost a particularly expensive experiment.”

“Yeah, that was a fun thing to clean up.” Gareth chuckled. “We smelled like a brewery for weeks. Something in the professor’s experiment caused the foam to harden, so we spent weeks with a pickaxe trying to smash through it.”

“Damn.” I muttered. “That sucks. What happened to you guys?”

“After explaining what we did, and were trying to do, we had three punishments. First, we had to take a shift a week trying to smash through the foam with the guards. Even if we didn’t have a high strength, it was more a symbolic punishment. We also had to get all the ingredients for the professor’s experiment again and help him run it. The last part was the best though. With proper supervision, we had to follow through on the experiment and see if we could make an ale bread.”

“And damned if they didn’t do it.” Gareth chuckled. “We forgave them pretty quickly when the bread became available. It gives people the ale flavor without the alcohol, so you can have it any time you want. Helped us bring back a few of the more belligerent town drunks from the edge they had gotten to.”

“So you are famous for it?”

“Not at all.” Carrigan chuckled. “We opted to keep the inventors unnamed. The alchemy labs produce it, and take 91% of the profits. Our group of three each takes 3%, deposited into our own accounts. Sort of a perpetual apology to the professors, as well as a way to help finance improvements to the campus.”

“So why are you out and about?” I asked. “Surely you could make enough to retire on that.”

“Oh that would be way too boring. I want to be able to put my skills to the test on occasion, see the world. And do it in a safer way than diving through a dungeon.”

“Dungeons?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Something the gods created to test us and help us grow after the first shadow incursion. You’ll have to go to one eventually to upgrade your species. Pretty dangerous, but you can make a lot of money if you bring back some rare items or components.”

“Let me guess, most of those dangers involve traps and monsters?”

“Yeah. Sometimes you’ll find a few unscrupulous adventurers as well. They usually resort to basic robbery, but some will go a bit further. Dungeons are lawless places, so watch your back if you ever get in there.”

“Thanks.” I said with a nod. It was very good information to know.

“So what about you Sean? Don’t think I didn’t catch your eyes flash when Carrigan mentioned his memories.” Gareth chuckled.

“You caught me.” I said, shaking my head. “So back in my college days, a few of us guys had a brilliant idea. Not as good as Carrigan’s, but that’s fine. See, we had these things called showers to get cleaned in. Think of them like indoor waterfalls where you can control the temperature. Well, we wanted something a bit more relaxing, like a nice, hot, bath. So we decided to make our own.” As I was talking, I saw both guys’ eyes lighting up with the thought of where this could go.

“There were a few strikes already against us. We were a bit on the poor side, so we couldn’t afford the best stuff. We also weren’t engineers, so we didn’t use the best of practices. Anyway, our objective was to seal off the door with a bit of plywood. That’s wood pressed together with glue to make it stronger. Being cheap, we got the thinnest board we could afford. So we nail the board to the wall, but we only used four nails per side and didn’t give it much overlap. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two was putting the board on the outside of the door instead of inside.”

“Why did the side matter that much?” Gareth asked.

“Had we put it on the inside, then the water pressure would have helped hold the board to the wall. With it on the outside, the only thing holding the board to the wall was eight nails.” Gareth sat back, eyes wide as it all sunk in. “Yep. So we have our bath house set up, and we plug the drains and turn on all the showerheads to fill up the room. Everything was going great. The water was the perfect temperature, and the benches we had brought in were fairly comfortable.”

“So what happened?” Carrigan was leaning forward now.

“We knew something was wrong when the water reached waist high. It started with a little crack. Conversation stopped, Jeremy even had a beer halfway to his lips when we all froze. Eyes wide in horror, Tim tried to get to the plugs but the water pressure was too much. He couldn’t pull them up. And then the plywood gave way, and a massive wave of water flew down the hallway. The third floor hallway.”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” Both men were laughing, rocking back and forth. At the mention of the third floor, Carrigan fell over onto his side. “Oh god, the cleanup must have been awful.”

“Oh yeah. We ended up getting stuck helping maintenance for eight hours every weekend after that for the rest of the year.” I chuckled. “They were good sports about it though. Showed us where we made some mistakes and how to improve it in the future. And made us promise that if we were going to try it again, to ask them about our setup before we went through and tried it.”

“That was nice of them.” Carrigan chuckled. “I like how most of the college people I know prefer to see things as teaching opportunities rather than punishment.”

“I hear that.” I said with a nod. “They could have easily kicked us out over it. But what about you Gareth? What’s your story?”

“Not nearly as great as any of yours, sorry to say.” He started. “Oh, let’s see. Started out as the fourth son of a farmer, but that wouldn’t have been too bad. Pa was always fair about things. He would give each of us a small plot of land to farm for ourselves, make our own miniature garden. Then compare it with our brothers. I could grow things, but I never had the true green thumb of my little brother. We could both plant the exact same thing, and he would end up with one and a half times what I could grow. He just had that special touch.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Well, me and my older brothers realized that if Pa went and split the land, there wouldn’t be enough for everyone. Oh, little Tyler would have been fine, but the rest of us would have issues growing enough for our families. So we all decided that Tyler would get the farm, and if we could swing it have someone come down and teach him how to grow some medicinal herbs. The rest of us would travel to Kornig, the nearest city. City. Heh. Smaller than Edgehall, but it at least had a guard unit. We joined up, and started life. Got a few years of experience before we decided that we needed to expand. Kornig was just too small. Packed off and joined a caravan headed to the capital, with letters of recommendation. Worked my way up a bit, made lieutenant. Captain told me there wasn’t much of a chance for promotion, as he was recently promoted and he didn’t want to see me stagnate. So he gave me a recommendation and told me to look for Bribis, said he was dependable and needed a guard captain. Been working with him for the last six years, and haven’t had any complaints.”

“That was nice of you and your brothers.” I said with a nod. “I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be near as generous with their brothers if they had a choice.”

“Eh. None of us truly enjoyed the farming life save Tyler.” Gareth shrugged. “It was really a win for everyone involved. Tyler was thrilled of course.”

“Did he ever get the medicinal herb training?” Carrigan asked.

“Yeah. We pooled our money and sent someone out. Not sure what became of it, but that’s fine. It’s hard to track me down nowadays, but I keep him informed when I can. Last I heard he had a wife and two little girls.”

“Good for him.” Carrigan said. “Think you’ll ever head back?”

“Na.” He said with a sigh. “I’ve seen too much of the world to want to go back to a small village. Besides, I get enough excitement here, and Bribis doesn’t run the incredibly dangerous routes.”

“Unnnnggghhh.” We all looked to see Elendria shifting under her blanket before sitting up. “You guys are too loud. How can a girl get her beauty sleep?”

“As if you really needed it.” I chuckled, nudging her shoulder. “Besides, you shouldn’t be sleeping all day. It’s not good for you.”

“I suppose.” She said through a yawn. “So what was so funny earlier?”

“Oh just going over some youthful mistakes.” Carrigan chuckled. “Though Gareth never admitted to any, I’m sure he has a few stories hidden somewhere.”

“I do, but not for today. Most of them are just pranks that the older guards pull on the younger guys.”

“Sending them out to get things that don’t exist, like elbow grease?” I asked.

“That’s one, yep.” Gareth chuckled. “So what about you Elendria? I must say, a lot of the guys have been wondering about you for the longest time. Bribis had standing orders not to interact with the slave caravan if we could help it.”

She sat for a second, long enough that we were starting to get a bit uncomfortable. Just as Gareth was about to speak, she started, “Obviously I’m an elf. What you don’t know is that I was of sufficient lineage to be considered a contender for the crown.”

“Oh?” Carrigan leaned forward. “I’ve heard elves did things slightly different, but would you mind explaining?”

“It’s fine.” She said with a sad smile. “It all comes back to our long lives. As most with the long lives, our children are somewhat rare. Rather than give then decades to try and assassinate each other in a bid to get closer to the throne, we have a different system. Thirty years after a ruler is crowned, they pick three children around 20 years old to start training. They are silently ranked by the ruler, so there is no outward competition between them. Should any feel enough jealousy to assassinate one of the others, they are all removed from the succession. Should the ruler pass, their choice is revealed and they take the throne. Should thirty years of training pass, then they will form part of a council to aid the next rulers. Three new children are chosen, and the cycle starts again.”

“Impressive.” Carrigan was nodding. “Not only do you have a merit based system, so the theoretically best leader is chosen, but you also have a system to ensure that they have a proper council to help with ruling.”

“It is. The lower classes will never be able to rule, but every thirty years they get to send four people to the advisory council. That at least lets them have enough power to overrule possible laws. This keeps the balance, and prevents too much of an abuse of the lower classes.”

“Balances in governing are always a good thing, unless corruption is allowed in.” I nodded. “Then things can break down.”

“That’s true, and is something I fear. I’ve no idea what happened after my brothers enslaved me, but I don’t think they would do it willingly. If they were corrupted by shadow, like that false hero in Three Rivers…” She trailed off.

“As soon as we are strong enough, we will figure out what happened.” I said, taking and squeezing her hand. “These shadows threaten everyone, and seem to be very subtle.”

“Why would they want to enslave you though?” Carrigan asked. “I know you are strong, but there has to be something more than that.”

“Indeed.” She nodded. “I have soul vision. I can only assume that I would be a threat somehow with this. Maybe I could even see if someone has been corrupted.”

“Soul vision?” Carrigan asked, eyes wide. “My word, that’s a rare ability. And a dangerous one if you can see shadow. Do you think they know you are free?”

“I’m assuming so. As we get closer to cities, I’ll change my appearance with a bit of magic. Though that won’t do anything if they have a locator spell crafted with my blood.”

“True, true. Tell you what, if you need anything, just let one of us know. We’ll keep you protected in the city, and won’t let you go anywhere alone.” Gareth said.

“Thank you. All of you.” She said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“About your brothers.” Carrigan started, staring down at his hands. “What do you think we should do with them? If they have been corrupted for this long, there isn’t much of a chance of saving them, is there?”

“No, there isn’t. Even if there was, what they did was unforgiveable. Elves don’t use slaves. Period. It doesn’t matter that they had a bit of corruption. They gave in to it, and they will die. All who surround them and knew of it will die. It has been far too long since the elven royalty has had a purge.” Elendria practically snarled. “It couldn’t have even been the threat of me taking the throne. Those with soul vision and truth sense can’t lead our people. We are immediately brought in as advisors upon our majority. I was four years away from it. Four years.”

“Shhh, it’s ok.” I said, pulling her into a one-armed hug. “I know you want vengeance, and we will do our best to give it to you. But we lack the strength just yet.”

“I. Know.” She said between sobs. “I just-.”

“Elendria.” Carrigan said, patting her back. “If it’s ok with you, I’ll pass this information on to Bribis. It’s something he needs to know, and something that the gnomes and dwarves will need as well. If two of the races have been compromised….” He left it hanging, though we all realized the implications. I held Elendria as she sobbed for the next half hour, while conversation for the day was fairly well ended.