Ulric was, for once, utterly defeated. He was, in fact, quite finished with this day already, and there was more to come.
On the one hand, he was glad to have put his issues with Geyrt out in the open, if in the worst way he could have managed. Go figure. On the other, he had, unfortunately, confirmed that most of the problems were either in her head or his. This meant that there was rather little he could do about the situation unless he found some way to reconcile his humanity, her fucked up situation, and his own absence of ability to not be an objective bastard when he was uncomfortable.
He was mostly alright with being viewed as incompetent, that part would, eventually, go away. If it didn’t leave him buried somewhere first. No, it was definitely the racism that stuck in his craw. He’d actually thought they were passed that shit. Ulric wasn’t used to being let down when a person turned out to be kind of awful. Normally he expected it, at least a little. It was then, all the more off-putting that he could feel disappointed in her, even if he really had no basis for that. She'd been pretty consistently down on humanity since their meeting. Nothing he could do about that, he wasn't lying when he told her he was trying. Fitting in with the Elf folk, learning their language, patiently adjusting to their odd culture, even trying to adhere to as many of their norms as possible, even where they were vastly different from anything he’d experienced in his home. He'd given it his best shot, but the interplanetary traveler had to admit that he didn't have what it took to convince her that humans were worth a second look. Ulric wasn’t even sure he could blame her, all things being equal. Not much indicated that humanity was worth that chance, no matter how little he himself had to do with the creatures that shared his form on this world.
Fed up with all of it, Ulric drug himself back to his apartments and fell onto the bed. His thoughts raced, his guts twisted. After running himself around in circles for a few minutes thinking about what great fun it was going to be to have the woman hovering around again in the future, Ulric tried to refocus on the budding understanding of what the hell was up with this inevitable war.
Ulric was onto something with his grasp on the game being played by his soon-to-be enemies. Part of him wondered if he even really had an enemy in those people. Did they even know he existed? He had a hard time believing they were totally unaware of him, which meant they would also know that he was the one who had intercepted their kidnapping attempt. So, yes, probably there would be no friends or allies abroad when he left Orlethrem. He had essentially been committed from the moment he'd let that first arrow fly. There was nothing for it though, they had made their bed by hurting a kid, he'd do it all again in a heartbeat.
The missing piece was the win condition. Ulric didn't know what the enemy considered their strategic endpoint. Was it genocide? A border adjustment? A depletion of the Orlethrem military power to win renegotiation of trade rights? Assassinating a few key leaders to weaken the Elves' leadership and create a power vacuum? He didn't know. Mostly because his rational mind struggled to accept that there was any goal worth causing the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people in violent conflict.
He'd have to ask the crafty Elf King he planned to meet in another hour. Fuck. Probably word had already reached that one’s overlong ears and he’d be subjected to some form of needling on the matter or another. Maybe it was finally time to ask for tips dealing with the man’s daughter. Surely, if anyone knew, it would be him.
There would be time enough for all that later, Ulric decided. First, he had to take a piss. As he did, he grimaced at another fresh bite out of his self-esteem. Geyrt had beaten the honest fuck out of him and he’d been doing well not to be laid out on a stretcher. He’d played by all their rules, spotting her maximum advantage against his lack of the only real weapon he had in his magical firepower. That was enough to earn praise from the Dragons and herself. Begrudging, reluctant praise, but honest. He had to wonder how much of that was because he was doing just so well, for a mere Human. Those were the kind of thoughts that were just a kick in the teeth. He stopped in the doorway to his apartments and shook his head. It saved his life.
The windows turned to white fire and Ulric was thrown violently through the back wall of the bathroom as his balcony evaporated. Frozen air rushed into the room, washing away the scorching heat that remained of the fire magic.
Ulric struggled to raise himself. He was on his back. Maybe. Something fell and hit his face and he was pretty sure, in spite of the ringing in his head and the flashing lights in his eyes. Up wouldn't stop turning into down though. Grabbing onto the remains of some piece of broken furniture in the adjacent room he struggled to leverage himself up, his left arm wouldn't work right and he couldn't feel himself, like he was numb. He pulled himself up and promptly fell back through the hole his body had made, distantly feeling another set of abrasions against the broken heartwood of the wall.
Ears ringing, room spinning, Ulric fought to his feet and saw what was left of the room. Half of it was simply gone, burned away. The other half was destroyed by force and flame. What hadn't been burned was thrown against the back wall, as he had been. His bed was still on fire. He liked that bed. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he absently wiped it away, the sight in front of him refusing to make sense.
Looking at his hand he was surprised to see that his sweat was red now. Hadn’t he seen that before? That wasn't right. He looked up and staggered forwards, away from the bathroom wall, entering the remains of the room and looking out into the air. He breathed for the first time in what seemed like a while and was surprised to find that it hurt, badly. His eyes moved away from the blood on his hand, streaked with black, like a sweeping tribal tattoo, to his arm, similarly blackened, to his, barely, clothed chest and swept down to the floor, taking himself in.
Smoke still coiled away from his singed inner clothes, the outer ones had mostly burned away and hung loosely from the singed, belt around his waist. The [Forest Lord] leather of the belt was the only thing that had escaped the blast unharmed. He could see his shins through the fragments of his pants and they looked like he'd been rolling around in a charcoal grill. Ouch.
Sound came back suddenly, but there was only the roaring of his own blood in his ears. That and the crackle of a remnant blaze in his room.
Wind suddenly rushed strongly into the room, sending him off balance to lean against a turned-over dresser, his rags fluttering and whipping against the gusts.
Where there had been blue sky and distant vista was now a stranger, a human, which penetrated the haze over his thoughts. Ulric hadn't seen a human since…he was having trouble placing it. There was definitely something wrong with him, his mind wouldn't focus on what he wanted it to.
The strange man was middle-aged, face deeply lined, and hard angled. Eyes of a deep amber pitilessly bored into him. Ulric took in strange robes, like a military trench coat, all charcoal grey.
Ulric realized that the man was also flying, standing weightlessly in the air supported on a small pillar of flame. His attention turned to the man's upraised hand and his deep gravelly voice boomed with contempt.
"You should have stayed in your hovel, and out of the way, traitor. Instead, you are ended."
Flame blossomed from his palm, blue-white and the sphere grew rapidly until it was a half-meter globe of roiling destruction.
Adrenaline flooded through Ulric's body, pushing away the confusion, the shock, and his injuries. He had no armor. No weapons. He'd left everything behind with Uldin, like a fool. Varda punished mistakes. Time slowed and Ulric cast as rapidly as he could.
Ulric reached for his saturated core, felt the strength there drawing warmth into his body as his will drove mana into the form of a barrier of insulating air. He layered two more behind it, building a set of incrementally smaller, stronger shields to prevent the air between them from superheating as they resisted the spell and twisted the Caelum into Incendere, as Shor had shown him, to immediately form a shield of spinning jewels of pure combustion behind these to absorb whatever remained of the magic of the man attacking him. Or his instincts were wrong, it would do nothing, and he would die.
[Skyshield]
[Skyshield]
[Skyshield]
[Cindershield]
The ball of flame lanced out into Ulric's shields dispersing the first into an iridescent plasma, before the second boiled off then shattered, and hit the third which simply broke apart as the fireball dispersed, washing over the shield in a hemisphere of coruscating flame.
[Cindershield] took in the remaining flame, pulling the heat into it to drive the three whirling crimson pearls of Incindere to greater brightness, iridescent diamonds of heat. The temperature of the air skyrocketed for a brief moment and Ulric screamed as he felt his already burned skin exposed to this newest punishment until the whirling gems of his mana drank it away.
Barely registering the stunned expression of the floating man, Ulric turned loose his shield, sending the three burning jewels at his enemy without a word.
[Cinder Pearl]
The streaking comets, amplified, greater than any he'd cast on his own, slammed into an invisible barrier and erupted, the heated shockwaves reigniting the charred edges of his apartments.
The man's expression calmed and he examined his defenses with forced casualness. He mumbled to himself and one eye twitched.
"That was a near thing. They didn't mention that you were casting adept rank spells, I will be collecting an additional payment for that oversight. Hmm…I did not expect another pyromancer. Perhaps…What are you doing?"
Ulric hadn't stopped casting since he'd started. Even while his [Cindershield] was absorbing the last bits of the mage's spell he hadn't stopped channeling his core. Gripped in his hand was his belt knife, a carved [Forest Lord] fang, and he was pouring every last bit of himself into the spiral of Ceraun linking his will to the knife. He needed some time. Just a few seconds.
Piss him off Ulric, it's what you're good at.
He yelled with as much biting sarcasm as he could, "I'm killing you, you fucking idiot! What do you think I'm doing!? You wouldn't mind telling me who I'm going to kill next would you? I am so very godsdamned curious who would have sent you all this way to end up a grease stain."
The older mage's eyes narrowed.
"Killing me? You? A jumped-up peasant fresh from shitting in a hole? Oh, that's rich. You'll regret that blood traitor. You're weak, barely standing, but this time I'll turn you and this Knife Ear's nest into ash."
The man reached into the upper body of his robe and drew a gnarled wand of black wood. He started doing something that made the air between them shimmer with heat. Ulric's skin flared in pain at the touch. Whatever he was doing, it was a doozy. And also, too damned slow.
Ulric's overcharge finished, all the mana left in his being tuned to the Ceraun screaming through his core, a tempest forced into servitude. He hurled the knife as hard as he could, sending it spinning towards the mage, polished bone glittering in the evening sunlight.
The mage smirked his contempt at the slow-moving projectile whose handle burned away to smoke as it entered the region his Incendere was turning to a firestorm and the blade, simple bone, drove more deeply into his barrier than he would have thought possible. His grin vanished when he saw the brilliant arcs begin pouring off the half-roasted upstart he'd been hired to slay. He tried to trigger his spell. Too late.
Forcing his eyes to stay open, the hand that loosed the knife clenched into a fist and Ulric freed the magic.
[Lightning Javalin]
The world vanished in searing light and a roar of sound that drowned out his own desperate rage.
When he regained sight, he realized that he was looking into a blue, blue sky, fingers of whispy cirrus gliding as they traversed the horizon. The twins were in a different place than they had been when last he'd seen them behind the bastard who had tried to kill him. Of that individual Ulric had a feeling there wouldn't be enough left to bury in a match book. He'd never overcharged that spell; it seemed like massive overkill. He would have laughed, if he could.
He was on his back probably. He couldn't actually feel much of anything, not even the burns. When he tried to move nothing happened. Ulric was distantly aware that he might still be breathing but he was just too tired to care. Something blocked the fading sunlight, an abrupt shadow. Ulric found his consciousness fading, the ringing in his ears that might have been shouting pulling him under as he dove into a peaceful abyss.
***********
Waking was a gradual thing. He drifted for a long time, in a place where thought didn't exist, only a vague awareness of existence. It was nice. Nice things don't last, of course. As soon as thought returned there was also pain. Pain all over him. Inside, outside, it didn't really matter. He must have made a sound. It probably wasn't the sort of thing he'd have been proud of.
A strange Elven face loomed abruptly over him, red eyes flecked with bronze. Remarkable. They were all so beautiful, these folk.
They were saying something but Ulric must have passed out again because it was a different face now. Concern painted these features, and the lips moved, their musical voice filling his ears. Ulric couldn't make it out for some reason. He heard sounds but they didn't mean anything.
Was he on drugs? The buzzing in his head said, adamantly, "You bet your sweet ass you are".
It was a good thing, was drugs. Very nice. Mellow. Marshmallow. Gods Ulric was hungry for some smores. He started to ask for some, before he remembered that it was, without a doubt, impossible for there to be marshmallows. He was going to invent marshmallows. Just mix some gelatin, syrup, and sugar, cook it down, and whip with a mixer. He'd have to make a mixer first. No problem, a motorized version of his brace drill, easy. Mmm…drilling for marshmallows.
Oh yeah, he was so damned high.
Hands placed on his cheeks turned his face towards the voice that was talking gibberish. Some part of Ulric's brain decided to get off its ass and work to make languages happen.
"..nd me? Ulric, can you understand me? I need you to tell me if you are with us yet." the voice said, so pretty. A pretty face and a pretty voice. He wouldn't mention the face though, that would be rude.
"Huummm, mum, muumm" He tried before realizing he needed saliva in his mouth.
He swallowed a few times and tried again "Yeah, I'm here, I think, Pretty Voice. What can I do you for? I got animal skins out the yazoo and, like, a bazillion trees. Oh! I can magic too! You wanna see some fucking magic?" Ulric was excited to show this awesome stranger some magic.
"No, no, no! Please, Ulric, not right now. I don't need to see any magic right now, thank you." Pretty Voice said, startled, for some reason.
"You have been asleep for a few days, you might be confused, do you know who you are?" She asked carefully.
"I'm the new [Forest Lord]. Do you want to make marshmallows with me? I think I can do it with magic, so I don't have to make a blender. Wind blender! It's pretty great stuff, marshmallows are. Like eating sweet air. Ahh yeah. It's been, like, forever since I had marshmallows. You'd like them." Ulric assured the Pretty Voice.
"Thank you Ulric, yes, I am sure that I would but we need to check on you first ok? Can you feel when we do this?" the voice asked, her eyes blinking rapidly for a moment like she hadn't understood him and immediately there was a prick somewhere on the bottom of Ulric's foot.
"Did you just stab my foot? Because yes, and that’s not real nice Pretty Voice, you're supposed to ask people before you stab them. Or, maybe, yeah, you need to duel them first. You shouldn't duel me Pretty Voice, I'm sorry, but I'd have to kill you pretty bad and that makes me sad. A sad lad." Ulric informed the voice, already bracing himself for another tragedy.
Pretty Voice looked up at someone else across the room, alarm on her face.
"It's ok, Grendha, he's not violent, just confused." the owner of a different voice said.
She looked relieved and turned her attention back to him, still holding his cheeks in her hand so he couldn't turn his head to find the newest voice.
"It's ok Ulric, no one is stabbing you. We are checking to see if your wounds are recovering and if you have regained feeling. You were burned and we had to heal you while you slept. Everything will be fine, just let me know if you can feel the poke." Pretty Voice, Grendha said calmingly, if still cautious.
That was ok with him, as long as he wasn't being stabbed. And, even better! He didn't have to kill anybody! That was nice. He'd have to start killing a whole bunch of people in a little bit. Like that mage. And whoever paid him. And whoever paid them. Yep, old Ulric was gonna have to go kill a heap of people. Not now though.
He let them know when he felt the pokes as they traced their way up his legs onto his stomach, which tickled, his chest, neck, and even his face. Ulric realized, that the hands on his face were touching his bare skin, he didn't have a beard anymore. As the poking continued, Ulric realized that he didn't have hair anymore.
That sonofabitching mage burned his hair away! Ulric tried to get angry and failed. He was so glad he'd lightninged that dick-ass, pedophile-coat wearing mage into vapor. The poking continued. Just how much skin had he lost? It was a good thing he was high as a giraffe's ass or he might have been upset about it.
Eventually, the prodding ended and, judging by the creep of a pronounced ache into his bones, some of the drugs were wearing off. That was going to absolutely ruin Ulric's happy fun time. Burns were not a great experience. Ulric thought briefly about Harvey Dent, his erstwhile coworker who'd taken a steam jet to the face. Old Harvey. Now there was a guy with a sense of humor. Life gave him lemons and he said "Fuck it, gimme the whole barrel, and who else wants Whiskey Sours!?"
Ulric grunted as the ache became a more pronounced throbbing that was, more or less, everywhere. He felt like he'd had a belt sander run over him but in a distant sort of way. He couldn't see himself while Pretty Voice was holding him. He was only vaguely worried that she didn't have to try very hard to keep him still.
"That would be the medication running its course. He's going to be in some discomfort but, if the feeling has returned, I believe we probably have managed to heal the worst damage. It is always a difficult thing with burns. This must be done slowly, it will take some time to recover his strength. We will need at least three more sessions until I have cleared him. A blood infection is still a risk, as is secondary Drowned Lungs." Said the other voice in dry clipped tones pronounced with a certainty Ulric could only attribute to a doctor.
Grendha nodded and turned back to him. "Did you hear that Ulric? You understand, yes? Good. Rest now, and sleep, if you can. I will give you more food and water in an hour or so." she said, releasing her hold on him. She strode away and Ulric saw that she wore simple white robes, at least, they had been white before someone bled all over them. He really hoped that wasn't his. It might explain how tired he was though.
"That was not nearly so bad as I thought it would be," Pretty Voice whispered conspiratorially, "I did not think he would survive with so much of his body charred, most of him was at least slightly burned. You have done a fine job Yes'ri, a very fine job."
Oh, by the Dancing Twins, the doctor was named Yessiree! That was one of Ulric's favorite sayings. He was probably going to have some fun with the Elf when he returned, if Ulric was awake and not septic. He was really starting to feel that pain, like his whole body was bruised and raw. He also realized that his left arm was in a sling. A sling! They hadn't just healed it away. That was probably important but he couldn't say why.
He looked around at himself with bleary eyes, but the motion cost him an unbelievable amount of effort. He was mummified in some kind of dark brown cloth that was similar to cotton, just woolier. It didn't feel wooly though, Oh! There was a silk layer underneath it all. He was double-wrapped, for freshness.
The doctor had pronounced bags under his eyes. To be honest, the Elf looked like he might be about ready to collapse. Ulric was about ready to collapse too, he laid his head back before the room went too crazy.
They must not have known his hearing was rather sharp or they'd have whispered more quietly. Charred? That was, what? Third-degree burns and then some? He actually should not be alive, char meant deep full thickness burns and he was a toasty boy. He must not have inhaled the fire. He was so smart, only lava fish breathe fire.
"The credit does not belong to me, as much as I would enjoy basking in your esteem Grendha." The doctor smiled at the nurse, who was smiling back at him. Get a room! Ulric wanted to shout but the medicos continued on "He has freakish life force for one so young. I am not completely convinced that he would have died of those wounds. There would have been terrible scarring and great pain, of course, but I think he would have yet lived. The story goes that he killed the Assault Mage in that state, Grendha. Terrifying strength is it not?"
The pair of them clasped hands as they exited the room, "It is Yes'ri. I thought I might flee when he started talking about dueling." the woman shuddered, closing the door behind her, "I cannot believe Lord Iriel has allied so close with a monster like that."
Suddenly Ulric wasn't feeling so charitable about Pretty Voice. He hadn't done anything to her, had he? Probably not, he'd never even seen her before. Maybe she didn't like marshmallows. Blasphemy, Ulric, do not even think such a thing. Hmm…but none of the warriors or royal guards thought he was a monster so that was good. Maybe soldiers tended to disregard the fine details when they were puking, struggling, and suffering together. He had trouble worrying about it.
Oh! Wait! Geyrt thought he was a monster too! Or, maybe just an animal. Yeah, that was what she said, wasn't it? He was Curious George, the magic monkey. He tried to giggle and failed. Oh well, hue hue internally. They really had loaded him up, he couldn't think very well. And he was starting to hurt now.
Outside the door, he heard, some muffled voices. More clearly, Yessiree gave the go-ahead "You may enter but be quiet and do not excite him, the drugs are suppressing pain and stress will erode their effect."
Uh oh. But he loved stress! It was his seventh favorite thing. Right next to justifiable homicide. He wanted to see who came in to visit him but he was too busy passing out.
**********
Ulric wasn't high the next time he opened his eyes. He knew that because he was immediately in an absolutely breathtaking amount of pain. Literally breathtaking, he'd instinctively gasped before his jaws locked so he didn't scream.
After a few seconds of full body vibration, some part of his brain turned off and he wasn't hurting as much. Now he was just back down to a nice, layered, agony. The effort left him panting, feeling wrung out.
Immediately he flashed back to the hospital room in which he'd learned that his legs wouldn't recover, that he would be an effective cripple.
Ulric suppressed the urge to panic. He'd been burned, not crushed, he still had all his bits. Skin would regrow, eventually. Probably? Did the Elves know how to do skin grafts? Or, you know just magic stuff. He could live with magic stuff, grafts were a messy prolonged thing that took months to heal.
"Self-assess Old Man." Ulric told the room.
He was alone. His entire body was bandaged, except for his head. He must have covered up by reflex. One arm was in a sling, the entire shoulder area felt not ok. Probably the one that had broken through the heartwood wall of his bathroom. That shit was denser than oak, it was a wonder he hadn't been pasted.
"Bless you Watcher, and both of your perfect boobs." He prayed.
From there down, bandages. He was, as he had realized while thoroughly stoned, double-layered. First some kind of silk, probably to reduce the aggravation to his ravaged tissue, and then in a more insulating cloth. He had no clothes. At least the blankets were nice and soft, what little of them he could feel.
Mostly, he was exhausted. Deep down exhausted. And in quite a bit of pain.
With an effort of will, Ulric summoned his status. The news was not good.
He was pretty fucked up. Since his Reforging, he hadn't been this badly injured, ever. Not even close to it. The depth of his physical trauma was reflected in the fact that he wasn't regenerating stamina at all, which explained the constant physical tiredness. Bruising, general. He would have chuckled if it wouldn't have been excruciating.
What really caught his eye though was his mana value, it was flickering constantly between around ninety-seven and one hundred percent. Normally, at mana saturation, his mana was sitting capped at 110%, and wouldn't his old sports coaches have just yucked it up at that? Now though, it would appear that his core was, somehow, utilizing the excess mana to funnel it into supporting his damaged body. Maybe it was even speeding up his natural healing.
Neat. He was even more grateful for this not quite human body, he totally should have been dead. The explosion that destroyed his room was definitely enough, it had turned his furniture into kindling. Same thing for the second fireball, that kind of scorching could flash fry a normal person. Somehow, he'd absorbed the residual heat into his [Cindershield] a pretty neat trick that, and something to keep in mind, mana could interact with other mana in ways he hadn't considered. If he weren't so completely drained, he'd love to examine it.
Best not to do anything mana related. A niggling little Something told him keeping his core saturated might be the only difference between being awake and alert and being a vegetable.
What a massively shitty day that had been.
Ulric hoped Bald'rt hadn't minded being stood up on account of he was busy being a smoking ruin.
His brain clicked, and he whispered "Holy shit. They went after Irielhos, attacked it directly. They got through the wards. No way it was just that one asshole. How did they get in without Bald'rt knowing? Did they go for anyone else? Did they go after the Iriels?"
Questions raced, slipping away before he could leverage any purchase. He made himself dizzy and had to relax. When the lightheadedness faded, he slowly tried to put the events in order.
First, his room got blasted. Then, somewhere between half a minute and a minute later, Captain Firecracker was floating where his balcony had been and tried to fireball him. Maybe half a minute later, Captain Firecracker's ghost was telling his ancestors about his new lord and savior Thor. After that, Ulric had no idea what might have occurred. So, maybe two minutes, tops, from first strike to sublimation.
No way could that kind of precision have been an accident. Mutterings of the recently departed pyromancer suggested that Ulric had been the target, specifically. They knew where he slept. Worse, Captain Firecracker had known where he was, in real-time. And, here he'd been unsure if he was a known quantity.
Which brought him to his next question: Who else had been attacked? Nobody risked this kind of assault unless they planned to make it stick, whatever vulnerability they'd exploited would be closed. No way, this was a one-shot deal that had to make it count. Ulric had fucked up one of their goals, sort of. He might not be dead but he was definitely not going to be dancing anytime soon. So where else had they struck? Bald'rt. Had to be. They wouldn't have done all this for just him. But a play to take out the Blood Moon? That was worth it.
His mutterings and half-coherent ramblings were interrupted by the door opening.
Geyrt entered the room stealthily, with a look that suggested she had done this several times already. He could tell because her eyes didn't scan the room layout, she already knew where everything was. She froze when she saw him awake and looking at her, totally deer in headlights. A moment, and then her usual grace reasserted itself and she closed the door. Gliding, silent steps took her to the chair near the bed and she sat stiffly. She'd been crying. Not for him, he was sure, so things were bad.
"Who else did they try to assassinate Geyrt?" He asked evenly, freezing her again with the question.
It took her a few moments before she was ready but he wasn't pressing. He didn't have the strength to argue with her or to deal with any of her usual nonsense. It didn't look like she did either though, and not because she'd been wounded. Unless there was something underneath her clothes, which were back to her Hunter's gear, full combat readiness, she was unharmed.
"There were six definite targets we know of. Other casualties were almost certainly of opportunity, just a case of maximum harm in minimum time. Father, Youngest Brother, Idra'se, the Hunter's Headquarters, the Smithies, and You. One Adept Assault Mage for each target, except for father; they sent twelve for him, led by an arch Cryomancer." She said, devoid of emotion.
"Heir Lumyt'seit was in the presence of his tutors who fought and were slain, though they took their attacker with them leaving him unharmed. Idra'se slew his opponent within moments and went to the aid of my father; he cut down the Cryomancer but was badly wounded and will be bedridden for weeks. We do not know if he will ever be able to fight at full strength without both of his eyes. The Hunters Headquarters are gone, nearly a third of those gathered there are dead or too badly wounded to continue on as Hunters. Iriel has lost an eighth of our total Hunters in the attack. The Smithies are a total loss with at least a dozen of the craftsmen themselves dead or crippled. Father scattered the first seven of his attackers in the first moments of the attack, until the archmage was able to restrain him temporarily. He was able to free himself and destroy the remaining adepts but not before one cut him with a weapon tainted by Aes'r Bane. Bald'rt Iriel, Crown of Orlethrem, [Lord of the Deep Wood] is not expected to survive the night, unless the combined efforts of Bathe, Shor, and Vedyr are able to purge the Bane from his body and mana." She recounted in that same deadened tone.
Ulric closed his eyes and wished he could do the same for his ears.
He didn't want to watch his Shadow weep.
Ulric was, for once, utterly defeated. He was, in fact, quite finished with this day already, and there was more to come.
On the one hand, he was glad to have put his issues with Geyrt out in the open, if in the worst way he could have managed. Go figure. On the other, he had, unfortunately, confirmed that most of the problems were either in her head or his. This meant that there was rather little he could do about the situation unless he found some way to reconcile his humanity, her fucked up situation, and his own absence of ability to not be an objective bastard when he was uncomfortable.
He was mostly alright with being viewed as incompetent, that part would, eventually, go away. If it didn’t leave him buried somewhere first. No, it was definitely the racism that stuck in his craw. He’d actually thought they were passed that shit. Ulric wasn’t used to being let down when a person turned out to be kind of awful. Normally he expected it, at least a little. It was then, all the more off-putting that he could feel disappointed in her, even if he really had no basis for that. She'd been pretty consistently down on humanity since their meeting. Nothing he could do about that, he wasn't lying when he told her he was trying. Fitting in with the Elf folk, learning their language, patiently adjusting to their odd culture, even trying to adhere to as many of their norms as possible, even where they were vastly different from anything he’d experienced in his home. He'd given it his best shot, but the interplanetary traveler had to admit that he didn't have what it took to convince her that humans were worth a second look. Ulric wasn’t even sure he could blame her, all things being equal. Not much indicated that humanity was worth that chance, no matter how little he himself had to do with the creatures that shared his form on this world.
Fed up with all of it, Ulric drug himself back to his apartments and fell onto the bed. His thoughts raced, his guts twisted. After running himself around in circles for a few minutes thinking about what great fun it was going to be to have the woman hovering around again in the future, Ulric tried to refocus on the budding understanding of what the hell was up with this inevitable war.
Ulric was onto something with his grasp on the game being played by his soon-to-be enemies. Part of him wondered if he even really had an enemy in those people. Did they even know he existed? He had a hard time believing they were totally unaware of him, which meant they would also know that he was the one who had intercepted their kidnapping attempt. So, yes, probably there would be no friends or allies abroad when he left Orlethrem. He had essentially been committed from the moment he'd let that first arrow fly. There was nothing for it though, they had made their bed by hurting a kid, he'd do it all again in a heartbeat.
The missing piece was the win condition. Ulric didn't know what the enemy considered their strategic endpoint. Was it genocide? A border adjustment? A depletion of the Orlethrem military power to win renegotiation of trade rights? Assassinating a few key leaders to weaken the Elves' leadership and create a power vacuum? He didn't know. Mostly because his rational mind struggled to accept that there was any goal worth causing the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people in violent conflict.
He'd have to ask the crafty Elf King he planned to meet in another hour. Fuck. Probably word had already reached that one’s overlong ears and he’d be subjected to some form of needling on the matter or another. Maybe it was finally time to ask for tips dealing with the man’s daughter. Surely, if anyone knew, it would be him.
There would be time enough for all that later, Ulric decided. First, he had to take a piss. As he did, he grimaced at another fresh bite out of his self-esteem. Geyrt had beaten the honest fuck out of him and he’d been doing well not to be laid out on a stretcher. He’d played by all their rules, spotting her maximum advantage against his lack of the only real weapon he had in his magical firepower. That was enough to earn praise from the Dragons and herself. Begrudging, reluctant praise, but honest. He had to wonder how much of that was because he was doing just so well, for a mere Human. Those were the kind of thoughts that were just a kick in the teeth. He stopped in the doorway to his apartments and shook his head. It saved his life.
The windows turned to white fire and Ulric was thrown violently through the back wall of the bathroom as his balcony evaporated. Frozen air rushed into the room, washing away the scorching heat that remained of the fire magic.
Ulric struggled to raise himself. He was on his back. Maybe. Something fell and hit his face and he was pretty sure, in spite of the ringing in his head and the flashing lights in his eyes. Up wouldn't stop turning into down though. Grabbing onto the remains of some piece of broken furniture in the adjacent room he struggled to leverage himself up, his left arm wouldn't work right and he couldn't feel himself, like he was numb. He pulled himself up and promptly fell back through the hole his body had made, distantly feeling another set of abrasions against the broken heartwood of the wall.
Ears ringing, room spinning, Ulric fought to his feet and saw what was left of the room. Half of it was simply gone, burned away. The other half was destroyed by force and flame. What hadn't been burned was thrown against the back wall, as he had been. His bed was still on fire. He liked that bed. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he absently wiped it away, the sight in front of him refusing to make sense.
Looking at his hand he was surprised to see that his sweat was red now. Hadn’t he seen that before? That wasn't right. He looked up and staggered forwards, away from the bathroom wall, entering the remains of the room and looking out into the air. He breathed for the first time in what seemed like a while and was surprised to find that it hurt, badly. His eyes moved away from the blood on his hand, streaked with black, like a sweeping tribal tattoo, to his arm, similarly blackened, to his, barely, clothed chest and swept down to the floor, taking himself in.
Smoke still coiled away from his singed inner clothes, the outer ones had mostly burned away and hung loosely from the singed, belt around his waist. The [Forest Lord] leather of the belt was the only thing that had escaped the blast unharmed. He could see his shins through the fragments of his pants and they looked like he'd been rolling around in a charcoal grill. Ouch.
Sound came back suddenly, but there was only the roaring of his own blood in his ears. That and the crackle of a remnant blaze in his room.
Wind suddenly rushed strongly into the room, sending him off balance to lean against a turned-over dresser, his rags fluttering and whipping against the gusts.
Where there had been blue sky and distant vista was now a stranger, a human, which penetrated the haze over his thoughts. Ulric hadn't seen a human since…he was having trouble placing it. There was definitely something wrong with him, his mind wouldn't focus on what he wanted it to.
The strange man was middle-aged, face deeply lined, and hard angled. Eyes of a deep amber pitilessly bored into him. Ulric took in strange robes, like a military trench coat, all charcoal grey.
Ulric realized that the man was also flying, standing weightlessly in the air supported on a small pillar of flame. His attention turned to the man's upraised hand and his deep gravelly voice boomed with contempt.
"You should have stayed in your hovel, and out of the way, traitor. Instead, you are ended."
Flame blossomed from his palm, blue-white and the sphere grew rapidly until it was a half-meter globe of roiling destruction.
Adrenaline flooded through Ulric's body, pushing away the confusion, the shock, and his injuries. He had no armor. No weapons. He'd left everything behind with Uldin, like a fool. Varda punished mistakes. Time slowed and Ulric cast as rapidly as he could.
Ulric reached for his saturated core, felt the strength there drawing warmth into his body as his will drove mana into the form of a barrier of insulating air. He layered two more behind it, building a set of incrementally smaller, stronger shields to prevent the air between them from superheating as they resisted the spell and twisted the Caelum into Incendere, as Shor had shown him, to immediately form a shield of spinning jewels of pure combustion behind these to absorb whatever remained of the magic of the man attacking him. Or his instincts were wrong, it would do nothing, and he would die.
[Skyshield]
[Skyshield]
[Skyshield]
[Cindershield]
The ball of flame lanced out into Ulric's shields dispersing the first into an iridescent plasma, before the second boiled off then shattered, and hit the third which simply broke apart as the fireball dispersed, washing over the shield in a hemisphere of coruscating flame.
[Cindershield] took in the remaining flame, pulling the heat into it to drive the three whirling crimson pearls of Incindere to greater brightness, iridescent diamonds of heat. The temperature of the air skyrocketed for a brief moment and Ulric screamed as he felt his already burned skin exposed to this newest punishment until the whirling gems of his mana drank it away.
Barely registering the stunned expression of the floating man, Ulric turned loose his shield, sending the three burning jewels at his enemy without a word.
[Cinder Pearl]
The streaking comets, amplified, greater than any he'd cast on his own, slammed into an invisible barrier and erupted, the heated shockwaves reigniting the charred edges of his apartments.
The man's expression calmed and he examined his defenses with forced casualness. He mumbled to himself and one eye twitched.
"That was a near thing. They didn't mention that you were casting adept rank spells, I will be collecting an additional payment for that oversight. Hmm…I did not expect another pyromancer. Perhaps…What are you doing?"
Ulric hadn't stopped casting since he'd started. Even while his [Cindershield] was absorbing the last bits of the mage's spell he hadn't stopped channeling his core. Gripped in his hand was his belt knife, a carved [Forest Lord] fang, and he was pouring every last bit of himself into the spiral of Ceraun linking his will to the knife. He needed some time. Just a few seconds.
Piss him off Ulric, it's what you're good at.
He yelled with as much biting sarcasm as he could, "I'm killing you, you fucking idiot! What do you think I'm doing!? You wouldn't mind telling me who I'm going to kill next would you? I am so very godsdamned curious who would have sent you all this way to end up a grease stain."
The older mage's eyes narrowed.
"Killing me? You? A jumped-up peasant fresh from shitting in a hole? Oh, that's rich. You'll regret that blood traitor. You're weak, barely standing, but this time I'll turn you and this Knife Ear's nest into ash."
The man reached into the upper body of his robe and drew a gnarled wand of black wood. He started doing something that made the air between them shimmer with heat. Ulric's skin flared in pain at the touch. Whatever he was doing, it was a doozy. And also, too damned slow.
Ulric's overcharge finished, all the mana left in his being tuned to the Ceraun screaming through his core, a tempest forced into servitude. He hurled the knife as hard as he could, sending it spinning towards the mage, polished bone glittering in the evening sunlight.
The mage smirked his contempt at the slow-moving projectile whose handle burned away to smoke as it entered the region his Incendere was turning to a firestorm and the blade, simple bone, drove more deeply into his barrier than he would have thought possible. His grin vanished when he saw the brilliant arcs begin pouring off the half-roasted upstart he'd been hired to slay. He tried to trigger his spell. Too late.
Forcing his eyes to stay open, the hand that loosed the knife clenched into a fist and Ulric freed the magic.
[Lightning Javalin]
The world vanished in searing light and a roar of sound that drowned out his own desperate rage.
When he regained sight, he realized that he was looking into a blue, blue sky, fingers of whispy cirrus gliding as they traversed the horizon. The twins were in a different place than they had been when last he'd seen them behind the bastard who had tried to kill him. Of that individual Ulric had a feeling there wouldn't be enough left to bury in a match book. He'd never overcharged that spell; it seemed like massive overkill. He would have laughed, if he could.
He was on his back probably. He couldn't actually feel much of anything, not even the burns. When he tried to move nothing happened. Ulric was distantly aware that he might still be breathing but he was just too tired to care. Something blocked the fading sunlight, an abrupt shadow. Ulric found his consciousness fading, the ringing in his ears that might have been shouting pulling him under as he dove into a peaceful abyss.
***********
Waking was a gradual thing. He drifted for a long time, in a place where thought didn't exist, only a vague awareness of existence. It was nice. Nice things don't last, of course. As soon as thought returned there was also pain. Pain all over him. Inside, outside, it didn't really matter. He must have made a sound. It probably wasn't the sort of thing he'd have been proud of.
A strange Elven face loomed abruptly over him, red eyes flecked with bronze. Remarkable. They were all so beautiful, these folk.
They were saying something but Ulric must have passed out again because it was a different face now. Concern painted these features, and the lips moved, their musical voice filling his ears. Ulric couldn't make it out for some reason. He heard sounds but they didn't mean anything.
Was he on drugs? The buzzing in his head said, adamantly, "You bet your sweet ass you are".
It was a good thing, was drugs. Very nice. Mellow. Marshmallow. Gods Ulric was hungry for some smores. He started to ask for some, before he remembered that it was, without a doubt, impossible for there to be marshmallows. He was going to invent marshmallows. Just mix some gelatin, syrup, and sugar, cook it down, and whip with a mixer. He'd have to make a mixer first. No problem, a motorized version of his brace drill, easy. Mmm…drilling for marshmallows.
Oh yeah, he was so damned high.
Hands placed on his cheeks turned his face towards the voice that was talking gibberish. Some part of Ulric's brain decided to get off its ass and work to make languages happen.
"..nd me? Ulric, can you understand me? I need you to tell me if you are with us yet." the voice said, so pretty. A pretty face and a pretty voice. He wouldn't mention the face though, that would be rude.
"Huummm, mum, muumm" He tried before realizing he needed saliva in his mouth.
He swallowed a few times and tried again "Yeah, I'm here, I think, Pretty Voice. What can I do you for? I got animal skins out the yazoo and, like, a bazillion trees. Oh! I can magic too! You wanna see some fucking magic?" Ulric was excited to show this awesome stranger some magic.
"No, no, no! Please, Ulric, not right now. I don't need to see any magic right now, thank you." Pretty Voice said, startled, for some reason.
"You have been asleep for a few days, you might be confused, do you know who you are?" She asked carefully.
"I'm the new [Forest Lord]. Do you want to make marshmallows with me? I think I can do it with magic, so I don't have to make a blender. Wind blender! It's pretty great stuff, marshmallows are. Like eating sweet air. Ahh yeah. It's been, like, forever since I had marshmallows. You'd like them." Ulric assured the Pretty Voice.
"Thank you Ulric, yes, I am sure that I would but we need to check on you first ok? Can you feel when we do this?" the voice asked, her eyes blinking rapidly for a moment like she hadn't understood him and immediately there was a prick somewhere on the bottom of Ulric's foot.
"Did you just stab my foot? Because yes, and that’s not real nice Pretty Voice, you're supposed to ask people before you stab them. Or, maybe, yeah, you need to duel them first. You shouldn't duel me Pretty Voice, I'm sorry, but I'd have to kill you pretty bad and that makes me sad. A sad lad." Ulric informed the voice, already bracing himself for another tragedy.
Pretty Voice looked up at someone else across the room, alarm on her face.
"It's ok, Grendha, he's not violent, just confused." the owner of a different voice said.
She looked relieved and turned her attention back to him, still holding his cheeks in her hand so he couldn't turn his head to find the newest voice.
"It's ok Ulric, no one is stabbing you. We are checking to see if your wounds are recovering and if you have regained feeling. You were burned and we had to heal you while you slept. Everything will be fine, just let me know if you can feel the poke." Pretty Voice, Grendha said calmingly, if still cautious.
That was ok with him, as long as he wasn't being stabbed. And, even better! He didn't have to kill anybody! That was nice. He'd have to start killing a whole bunch of people in a little bit. Like that mage. And whoever paid him. And whoever paid them. Yep, old Ulric was gonna have to go kill a heap of people. Not now though.
He let them know when he felt the pokes as they traced their way up his legs onto his stomach, which tickled, his chest, neck, and even his face. Ulric realized, that the hands on his face were touching his bare skin, he didn't have a beard anymore. As the poking continued, Ulric realized that he didn't have hair anymore.
That sonofabitching mage burned his hair away! Ulric tried to get angry and failed. He was so glad he'd lightninged that dick-ass, pedophile-coat wearing mage into vapor. The poking continued. Just how much skin had he lost? It was a good thing he was high as a giraffe's ass or he might have been upset about it.
Eventually, the prodding ended and, judging by the creep of a pronounced ache into his bones, some of the drugs were wearing off. That was going to absolutely ruin Ulric's happy fun time. Burns were not a great experience. Ulric thought briefly about Harvey Dent, his erstwhile coworker who'd taken a steam jet to the face. Old Harvey. Now there was a guy with a sense of humor. Life gave him lemons and he said "Fuck it, gimme the whole barrel, and who else wants Whiskey Sours!?"
Ulric grunted as the ache became a more pronounced throbbing that was, more or less, everywhere. He felt like he'd had a belt sander run over him but in a distant sort of way. He couldn't see himself while Pretty Voice was holding him. He was only vaguely worried that she didn't have to try very hard to keep him still.
"That would be the medication running its course. He's going to be in some discomfort but, if the feeling has returned, I believe we probably have managed to heal the worst damage. It is always a difficult thing with burns. This must be done slowly, it will take some time to recover his strength. We will need at least three more sessions until I have cleared him. A blood infection is still a risk, as is secondary Drowned Lungs." Said the other voice in dry clipped tones pronounced with a certainty Ulric could only attribute to a doctor.
Grendha nodded and turned back to him. "Did you hear that Ulric? You understand, yes? Good. Rest now, and sleep, if you can. I will give you more food and water in an hour or so." she said, releasing her hold on him. She strode away and Ulric saw that she wore simple white robes, at least, they had been white before someone bled all over them. He really hoped that wasn't his. It might explain how tired he was though.
"That was not nearly so bad as I thought it would be," Pretty Voice whispered conspiratorially, "I did not think he would survive with so much of his body charred, most of him was at least slightly burned. You have done a fine job Yes'ri, a very fine job."
Oh, by the Dancing Twins, the doctor was named Yessiree! That was one of Ulric's favorite sayings. He was probably going to have some fun with the Elf when he returned, if Ulric was awake and not septic. He was really starting to feel that pain, like his whole body was bruised and raw. He also realized that his left arm was in a sling. A sling! They hadn't just healed it away. That was probably important but he couldn't say why.
He looked around at himself with bleary eyes, but the motion cost him an unbelievable amount of effort. He was mummified in some kind of dark brown cloth that was similar to cotton, just woolier. It didn't feel wooly though, Oh! There was a silk layer underneath it all. He was double-wrapped, for freshness.
The doctor had pronounced bags under his eyes. To be honest, the Elf looked like he might be about ready to collapse. Ulric was about ready to collapse too, he laid his head back before the room went too crazy.
They must not have known his hearing was rather sharp or they'd have whispered more quietly. Charred? That was, what? Third-degree burns and then some? He actually should not be alive, char meant deep full thickness burns and he was a toasty boy. He must not have inhaled the fire. He was so smart, only lava fish breathe fire.
"The credit does not belong to me, as much as I would enjoy basking in your esteem Grendha." The doctor smiled at the nurse, who was smiling back at him. Get a room! Ulric wanted to shout but the medicos continued on "He has freakish life force for one so young. I am not completely convinced that he would have died of those wounds. There would have been terrible scarring and great pain, of course, but I think he would have yet lived. The story goes that he killed the Assault Mage in that state, Grendha. Terrifying strength is it not?"
The pair of them clasped hands as they exited the room, "It is Yes'ri. I thought I might flee when he started talking about dueling." the woman shuddered, closing the door behind her, "I cannot believe Lord Iriel has allied so close with a monster like that."
Suddenly Ulric wasn't feeling so charitable about Pretty Voice. He hadn't done anything to her, had he? Probably not, he'd never even seen her before. Maybe she didn't like marshmallows. Blasphemy, Ulric, do not even think such a thing. Hmm…but none of the warriors or royal guards thought he was a monster so that was good. Maybe soldiers tended to disregard the fine details when they were puking, struggling, and suffering together. He had trouble worrying about it.
Oh! Wait! Geyrt thought he was a monster too! Or, maybe just an animal. Yeah, that was what she said, wasn't it? He was Curious George, the magic monkey. He tried to giggle and failed. Oh well, hue hue internally. They really had loaded him up, he couldn't think very well. And he was starting to hurt now.
Outside the door, he heard, some muffled voices. More clearly, Yessiree gave the go-ahead "You may enter but be quiet and do not excite him, the drugs are suppressing pain and stress will erode their effect."
Uh oh. But he loved stress! It was his seventh favorite thing. Right next to justifiable homicide. He wanted to see who came in to visit him but he was too busy passing out.
**********
Ulric wasn't high the next time he opened his eyes. He knew that because he was immediately in an absolutely breathtaking amount of pain. Literally breathtaking, he'd instinctively gasped before his jaws locked so he didn't scream.
After a few seconds of full body vibration, some part of his brain turned off and he wasn't hurting as much. Now he was just back down to a nice, layered, agony. The effort left him panting, feeling wrung out.
Immediately he flashed back to the hospital room in which he'd learned that his legs wouldn't recover, that he would be an effective cripple.
Ulric suppressed the urge to panic. He'd been burned, not crushed, he still had all his bits. Skin would regrow, eventually. Probably? Did the Elves know how to do skin grafts? Or, you know just magic stuff. He could live with magic stuff, grafts were a messy prolonged thing that took months to heal.
"Self-assess Old Man." Ulric told the room.
He was alone. His entire body was bandaged, except for his head. He must have covered up by reflex. One arm was in a sling, the entire shoulder area felt not ok. Probably the one that had broken through the heartwood wall of his bathroom. That shit was denser than oak, it was a wonder he hadn't been pasted.
"Bless you Watcher, and both of your perfect boobs." He prayed.
From there down, bandages. He was, as he had realized while thoroughly stoned, double-layered. First some kind of silk, probably to reduce the aggravation to his ravaged tissue, and then in a more insulating cloth. He had no clothes. At least the blankets were nice and soft, what little of them he could feel.
Mostly, he was exhausted. Deep down exhausted. And in quite a bit of pain.
With an effort of will, Ulric summoned his status. The news was not good.
He was pretty fucked up. Since his Reforging, he hadn't been this badly injured, ever. Not even close to it. The depth of his physical trauma was reflected in the fact that he wasn't regenerating stamina at all, which explained the constant physical tiredness. Bruising, general. He would have chuckled if it wouldn't have been excruciating.
What really caught his eye though was his mana value, it was flickering constantly between around ninety-seven and one hundred percent. Normally, at mana saturation, his mana was sitting capped at 110%, and wouldn't his old sports coaches have just yucked it up at that? Now though, it would appear that his core was, somehow, utilizing the excess mana to funnel it into supporting his damaged body. Maybe it was even speeding up his natural healing.
Neat. He was even more grateful for this not quite human body, he totally should have been dead. The explosion that destroyed his room was definitely enough, it had turned his furniture into kindling. Same thing for the second fireball, that kind of scorching could flash fry a normal person. Somehow, he'd absorbed the residual heat into his [Cindershield] a pretty neat trick that, and something to keep in mind, mana could interact with other mana in ways he hadn't considered. If he weren't so completely drained, he'd love to examine it.
Best not to do anything mana related. A niggling little Something told him keeping his core saturated might be the only difference between being awake and alert and being a vegetable.
What a massively shitty day that had been.
Ulric hoped Bald'rt hadn't minded being stood up on account of he was busy being a smoking ruin.
His brain clicked, and he whispered "Holy shit. They went after Irielhos, attacked it directly. They got through the wards. No way it was just that one asshole. How did they get in without Bald'rt knowing? Did they go for anyone else? Did they go after the Iriels?"
Questions raced, slipping away before he could leverage any purchase. He made himself dizzy and had to relax. When the lightheadedness faded, he slowly tried to put the events in order.
First, his room got blasted. Then, somewhere between half a minute and a minute later, Captain Firecracker was floating where his balcony had been and tried to fireball him. Maybe half a minute later, Captain Firecracker's ghost was telling his ancestors about his new lord and savior Thor. After that, Ulric had no idea what might have occurred. So, maybe two minutes, tops, from first strike to sublimation.
No way could that kind of precision have been an accident. Mutterings of the recently departed pyromancer suggested that Ulric had been the target, specifically. They knew where he slept. Worse, Captain Firecracker had known where he was, in real-time. And, here he'd been unsure if he was a known quantity.
Which brought him to his next question: Who else had been attacked? Nobody risked this kind of assault unless they planned to make it stick, whatever vulnerability they'd exploited would be closed. No way, this was a one-shot deal that had to make it count. Ulric had fucked up one of their goals, sort of. He might not be dead but he was definitely not going to be dancing anytime soon. So where else had they struck? Bald'rt. Had to be. They wouldn't have done all this for just him. But a play to take out the Blood Moon? That was worth it.
His mutterings and half-coherent ramblings were interrupted by the door opening.
Geyrt entered the room stealthily, with a look that suggested she had done this several times already. He could tell because her eyes didn't scan the room layout, she already knew where everything was. She froze when she saw him awake and looking at her, totally deer in headlights. A moment, and then her usual grace reasserted itself and she closed the door. Gliding, silent steps took her to the chair near the bed and she sat stiffly. She'd been crying. Not for him, he was sure, so things were bad.
"Who else did they try to assassinate Geyrt?" He asked evenly, freezing her again with the question.
It took her a few moments before she was ready but he wasn't pressing. He didn't have the strength to argue with her or to deal with any of her usual nonsense. It didn't look like she did either though, and not because she'd been wounded. Unless there was something underneath her clothes, which were back to her Hunter's gear, full combat readiness, she was unharmed.
"There were six definite targets we know of. Other casualties were almost certainly of opportunity, just a case of maximum harm in minimum time. Father, Youngest Brother, Idra'se, the Hunter's Headquarters, the Smithies, and You. One Adept Assault Mage for each target, except for father; they sent twelve for him, led by an arch Cryomancer." She said, devoid of emotion.
"Heir Lumyt'seit was in the presence of his tutors who fought and were slain, though they took their attacker with them leaving him unharmed. Idra'se slew his opponent within moments and went to the aid of my father; he cut down the Cryomancer but was badly wounded and will be bedridden for weeks. We do not know if he will ever be able to fight at full strength without both of his eyes. The Hunters Headquarters are gone, nearly a third of those gathered there are dead or too badly wounded to continue on as Hunters. Iriel has lost an eighth of our total Hunters in the attack. The Smithies are a total loss with at least a dozen of the craftsmen themselves dead or crippled. Father scattered the first seven of his attackers in the first moments of the attack, until the archmage was able to restrain him temporarily. He was able to free himself and destroy the remaining adepts but not before one cut him with a weapon tainted by Aes'r Bane. Bald'rt Iriel, Crown of Orlethrem, [Lord of the Deep Wood] is not expected to survive the night, unless the combined efforts of Bathe, Shor, and Vedyr are able to purge the Bane from his body and mana." She recounted in that same deadened tone.
Ulric closed his eyes and wished he could do the same for his ears.
He didn't want to watch his Shadow weep.
