Book 1 Epilogue – While the youngling’s away, the elders will play (Patreon)

Korse

I swear, if she keeps this up one of us isn’t going to make it to her Class Day, maybe both…

Korse kept his grumblings to himself as he sat alongside the comatose form of his young charge. She’d gone and done something ridiculous again. They didn’t know what exactly she had done to get her into this situation yet, but they were certain that it was either profoundly stupid or absolute genius. Or both. Like usual, it was probably somehow both.

The matron that oversaw the recovery ward, he believed her name was Erc, he hadn’t really been paying attention when she’d introduced herself, watched from nearby.

“You really should go rest; you’ve been here since she came in last night.” She said gently. She wasn’t very hopeful that her advice would be taken, but she gave it nonetheless.

“Hmm?” Korse looked up, any further response cut off by a wide yawn.

“You didn’t even leave to get dinner.” She shook her head. She tried to keep her tone neutral, he was an Elder after all, but she wasn’t one to shy away from scolding him but if he didn’t start taking care of himself. “Go get some sleep. Someone will be with her the entire time and if anything changes, we’ll fetch you.”

When he had to stifle yet another yawn before he could respond, Korse gave in. “Fine…” He stood and began dusting himself off. “But I want regular updates.”

Erc held back her groan, half of the Elders had already demanded the same. “Yes, yes. I’ll be sending updates to Chieftain Ortik every morning, and evening…” She rolled her eyes.

Kles

Today was one of the few days she missed her predecessor’s presence. The old toad had been gone for the better part of twenty years, but they’d still not managed to reproduce an archivist of her stature. Yit had been one of the few Tier fours to ever arise within the matrons, and the only one who had managed to evolve her librarian class into a Grand Archivist. The woman could tell you where any scrap of writing she’d ever seen was, and had spent the better part of her life ensuring she knew at least the topic of nearly every record the clan kept.

Kles on the other hand, had taken the more typical approach to matronhood. That of an Orator. She also suffered for her predecessor’s exceptionalism, who needed more librarians when someone like her was around after all?

She’d spent the last few hours recalling nearly every librarian, scribe, historian, and apprentice they had to the archives. “Alright everyone, I know it’s late but we need any information on this we can find.” Her voice didn’t sound like more than a whisper but carried to every ear in the room. “We’re facing a condition called Mana Corruption. It’s not listed in any of the generalized tomes, so that tells us that if we have anything on it, it’s going to be old.”

She looked across the sleepy faces that had assembled. “I want you working in teams, a historian or scribe to go through the records quickly and a librarian to help find anything that might be relevant. Apprentices, your job is to do whatever your seniors ask of you, keep notes, reshelve materials, fetch supplies, whatever they need. And if you’re putting something back, make scale damned sure it’s in the right place.” Some of the newer apprentices gasped at her impropriety; everyone who knew her well enough just shrugged it off or chuckled.

The search dragged on through the night, they went through records from the Circle on healing methods, their own order for histories of treatment and convalescence, and finally found the first hint of what they were looking for in some of the clan’s most important records, and the last place anyone wanted it to be found.

The first mention of the sickness was a notation under ‘cause of death’ within the clan’s necrologies dated over two hundred and twenty years prior. While it told them little of use, aside from the fact that the condition could be fatal, it did give them a timeframe to target in order to hopefully find something useful.

With a renewed vigor they dug in, records that hadn’t been needed for generations were dusted off and skimmed for anything related before the apprentices were sent scurrying off to reshelve them. It still took them hours longer to find anything more than a mention of the condition. Buried within the Elder’s meetings records was a mention of reorganizing the way mage apprentices were trained after a rash of incidents that resulted in mana corruption.

Apparently, rather than teaching the young mage apprentices to first sense mana to begin acclimating them to the energy they would adopt the approach used by the Circle of teaching meditation first. Possessing the Skill did something to prevent the cause of the illness, though the information was not clear on what or how exactly.

From there they made the leap to the mage’s apprentice roll for the same year, which gave them dates for the incidence to look for treatment reports, and finally from there they were able to get a glimpse of the situation as it had unfolded over two centuries past.

The condition hadn’t been common, one or two cases most years until the final year, enough to shrug off as simply another part of the culling. But that final year they lost over a dozen. A group of apprentices who were struggling took it upon themselves to practice after hours and their efforts ended in tragedy.

It didn’t help matters that the Circle had never bothered to mention that they rarely lost a single apprentice to the condition until after it cost them a quarter of the year’s apprentices...

Kles knew enough to put together at least a little of what had happened. The fact that Kori had some sort of mental block when it came to meditating placed her at risk according to the records.

When enough was found to begin to see the patterns, none of the searchers wanted to be the one to tell Kles. They all knew that she liked the youngling, all the Elders seemed to, and no one wanted to be the bearer of bad news. They even went so far as to writing out a summary and having an apprentice deliver it labeled as an ‘initial finding’.

It didn’t take long for the document to elicit a response from the ancient woman, though it wasn’t a particularly long one.

“Damnit.”

The other Elder’s responses weren’t much better.

Har

Har was up late yet again, pouring over plans that he’d thought were all but settled and in motion. “It’s been six days… Scale me, this is going to be a problem if that little dullscale doesn’t wake up…” Anyone who didn’t know better would assume he was angry, but Tuli, laying awake while she waited for him to come sleep, could see it was his anxiety talking.

“Come sleep, driving yourself mad over what ifs isn’t going to change anything.” She beckoned.

Har just shook his head and focused on his work. “I’d love to my dearest, but I’ve already made deals, promises, and bargains. Half a dozen merchants are poised to act when those herbal creations start flowing. It’ll take years to repair my reputation if it all sours…”

Tuli simply tsked, she’d told him time and again he was putting too much stock in the youngling. “You know better than to count your hatchlings before they’re culled.” She admonished him. “We all agree she was going to be a boon to the clan, but you heard what Kles said… She’s as good as gone.”

“You weren’t there, Tuli.” Har began. “You didn’t just watch while that nasty potion peddler tore down her confidence. Or as she sobbed on a park bench…” The heat in his voice rose as he remembered. “I made a promise, though not one I ever told her about, and I intend to keep it.”

“Yes, we’ve all read your plan. Me probably more than any other since I helped you rewrite it half a dozen times.” The exhaustion in her voice had nothing to do with sleep and was entirely because of his near obsessive plotting. “If she’s gone, then you’re just going to have to give up on it. You know as well as I that without an alternative, Renava’s untouchable.”

Har just grumbled in response as he leaned back over his work.

I wonder how close that brother of hers is to getting the Skill?

Deq

Unlike the other Elders, Deq was not preoccupied with the ongoing drama surrounding the peculiar youngling. The angler was much too busy with managing the deep lakes and their dwindling stock of fish.

Most of the kobolds didn’t understand why it was such a problem. According to them if one lake was down then they should just fish more from the other two. Deq knew the truth though, or as close to it as anyone did at least. There weren’t three deep lakes, there was a single massive aquafer that spanned all three of them and beyond.

They could never prove it for the smaller of the lakes, it was over four kilometers away from the others and no one had ever been able to chart a path beneath the water that far. Deq himself had swum the caves between the larger of the two though, so there was little doubt there. When the fish stocks began to decline at all three, though the main lake was hit the hardest, it was finally hard proof of what he’d believed all along.

“Gyk, what the scale did you do to my nets?” He yelled, pointing at the torn mess sitting on the shore.

“Wasn’t me boss, I know the rocks and peaks to avoid like the scales on my tail, I didn’t catch on any of em.” The accused fisher hollered back as he began stringing a new net to be hauled across.

“Well, ya must not know your own tail from your arse then, cause you caught on somethin!” The angler retorted, pointing at the gaping hole in the net.

“Or something caught it.” Another kobold muttered loudly enough to be heard.

“None of that nonsense now, ain’t nothing in my lakes that’d do that to a net.” Deq didn’t sound as confident in the response as he had when the rumours started.

The argument continued for some time, drawing attention from the other fishers as they got ready to haul the replacement net across the waters from the suspended ropeways that crossed the massive cavern.

Another kind of attention was paid to the argument from a distant shore of the lake. Two black orbs, each the size of a kobolds head, hovered above the water briefly before sinking back into the depths.

Ortik

For someone accustomed to being in control and in charge, the current situation was a nightmare for Ortik. He felt useless. He’d done everything he could to try to help. There was nothing to heal as far as he could find. There was no poultice, tincture, or draught to prepare to restore the youngling. And aside from complaints about a thief, an accusation he was having a hard time understanding let alone dealing with, the spirits were as useless as always when it came to Kori.

Even the spirit within the crystalline inkpot only really knew that it wasn’t being used anymore. It had been pouting that no one had used it for over a week when he thought to check on it a few days prior, so he’d taken to using it himself since.

The potential loss of the youngling had upset more than a few plans within the clan. It was a shock when he realized how fully she had managed to integrate herself into the workings of Clan Emberscale in her short life.

Har was going to be cleaning up the mess he’d created for years. Ylst was already making plans to continue the teaching of Kori’s brother in hopes of reproducing her Skill. Bolst was bemoaning her lost potential. And Blonc was complaining the loudest of all, mostly about the loss of her creations and how much worse a goblin war would be without them. Though Ortik also heard a few grumbled complaints about losing a gaming partner.

Korse was the worst of them all, he wasn’t complaining or saying much of anything. He just spent more hours at her side than he did working and sleeping combined. Ortik knew it wasn’t because of what would happen if she passed. He’d seen the broodkeeper go through it with Kord and Korf and the penalty from his skill, as bad as it was, was nothing compared to the grief and loss. He honestly wasn’t certain Korse would make it through something like that again. If he lost Kori, Ortik was fairly certain he’d be looking for a new Elder for the minders.

Ortik was stuck rehashing an old argument with himself at the thought of losing Korse. They didn’t grow too attached to the young for a reason and the broodkeeper’s Ability was a double-edged sword. He’d nearly forbidden its usage a dozen times over the years following each death and he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t if someone new managed to acquire it.

Another Elder was unexpectingly taking the event quite hard as well. Much harder than he had expected her to. Kles was uncharacteristically morose. Her age was showing a little more each day and he’d caught her pacing outside the recovery ward on more than one occasion. When he’d asked her about it, she’d mostly brushed off his concerns. Still, he could feel it in his tail that there was more going on there than what she was telling him.

If there was one thing to be thankful for though, it was that his tail hadn’t started bothering him. He had decided to take it as a good sign. It had ached the night before the caravan ambush and for many other events over the years and he put great stock in its warnings. Though the one time four or five years past that he never figured out still bothered him a little. He’d still find his thoughts turning to the odd occurrence at the oddest of times.

While he mused about prophetic tails, a young shaman apprentice rushed towards his chamber. He’d assigned the apprentice himself, something he rarely did, to assist in the recovery ward and act as a gofer for the matrons and shaman that served there. The news she carried would soon reach the entirety of the Elders and dispel the shadow of death that had been hanging over them for the past twelve days.

When the out of breath apprentice, who had apparently taken his command to relay any news ‘with the utmost haste’ quite literally, finished relaying their message, Ortik was already ordering them to go again to find the others. He took a moment to carefully stopper the inkpot and wipe the nib of the bone pen before placing them in a pocket and leaving for the recovery ward.

The last thing the messenger heard from her chieftain was a quiet, baffling, utterance.

“Thank the Garnet Tyrant, she’s okay…” He sighed in relief. “Once she’s better, I’m going to wring her scaley little neck...”