“And what happened to Solus? We agreed on resuming her lessons once she returned from a smash-and-grab job but it’s been three days since I’ve heard from her.” Dawn said.
“It wasn’t a smash and grab!” Baba Yaga in her Maiden form came out of the hut right after the Horseman. “That’s something Lith would do, not Elphyn. Anyway, where is she? Her rune is still active but hasn’t been available for days now.”
“Thank the gods you are here!” Kamila kissed Elysia again, considering the baby a lucky charm for summoning her unexpected but most welcome guests. “I wanted to ask your help from the day I lost contact with them, Malyshka, but I don’t have your contact rune.”
“Mama!” Elysia pouted while pointing behind Kamila. “Dya! Dya!”
Her mother couldn’t possibly miss the mystical blot of darkness just because it was invisible to everyone else on Mogar.
“Sorry, little one. I’m not your father.” Dawn was coincidentally in front of Elysia’s finger, angering her further.
“Don’t worry, child.” Noticing everyone’s distress, Baba Yaga shapeshifted into her Mother form, spreading a soothing aura. “Now calm down and explain everything to me from the beginning.”
“Dya.” Elysia couldn’t have been clearer. “Dya! Dya!”
“Shush, child. Let the grown-ups talk.” The Mother put her forefinger on the baby’s lips. “I know you miss your father and I promise you we’ll do our best to find him.”
Elysia slouched her shoulders and shapeshifted back into her human form. Keeping the Abomination form for too long made her hungry and altered her perceptions in a way she didn’t like.
After a while, everyone smelled like food.
“I think she’s hungry.” Baba Yaga said, garnering herself the dirtiest look a toddler could give.
“Baba.” Elysia grumbled, angry at the nice woman for getting the hunger part right at first glance and yet being clueless about everything else.
“How cute! She has already learned my name.” The Mother said, drawing hilarious glances from Kamila and the Guardian. “I guess it’s too early for her to say Yaga.”
“Sure.” Kamila didn’t have the heart to tell Malyshka that Baba was the baby speak for “very bad person” so she cut to the chase and told her everything that had been discovered up to that point.
“This is the personnel file of Strider the Zouwu and these are the fragments of a Darwen armor found on both sites where Lith was attacked.”
Baba Yaga had just taken Kamila’s amulet to examine the holographic documents when sunlight reflected on one of the fragments, highlighting a specific rune.
“By the Great Mother. Hold that thought for a second.” The Red Mother tried and failed to study the armor shards with her breathing technique, Sun and Moon, just like everyone else before her.
Then she cast her best Forgemastering spells, including Creation Magic, on the fragment to uncover its secrets but the result was the same.
Darwen was impervious to all forms of mana and world energy. It was one of the reasons the crafting techniques for Darwen artifacts were among the most closely guarded.
An armor made from the dull black stone would make its wearer invisible to mystical senses while a weapon would escape detection and ignore energy-based defenses. On top of that, Darwen artifacts required no cloaking runes.
The material they were made of ensured they couldn’t be studied with magical means. If even one rune was damaged or missing, the artifact would be no different from a piece of junk, making its secrets impossible to discover.
“I got nothing.” Baba Yaga said, making Kamila sigh deeply.
“Nothing? I hoped that at least Creation Magic-”
“No, you don’t understand. I got nothing. Literally.” The Mother cut Kamila short.
“What do you mean?”
“Darwen is impervious to magical energy, but depending on the amount of impurities it carries, it can still conduct mana and world energy. Artifacts like those your husband makes are in their raw state because Lith is still learning how to handle Darwen.
“The armor the Council uses has less than 5% impurities to ensure perfect cloaking. This one, however, has less than 1% impurities. Just enough to be enchanted. There is only a handful of people on Mogar who knows how to handle Darwen this pure and only one of them uses this particular rune.”
Baba Yaga pointed at the word of power that only reflected light made visible.
“This is the work of the World Tree.”
“Are you sure?” Kamila racked her brain, trying to make the new piece of information fit with everything she already knew.
“I am.” The Mother nodded. “I’m familiar with this design because I’ve spotted the Chroniclers multiple times while they studied my tower and they all wore this exact same Darwen armor.
“They ran away as soon as I activated the defensive protocols of my tower, but little did the Chroniclers know that as they scanned my tower, my tower scanned them. Also, don’t forget that the Yggdrasil doesn’t’ share their knowledge.
“At most, they would have bartered a single armor in exchange for information. Xenagrosh finding fragments of multiple broken armor means that the World Tree is sending the Chroniclers to either capture or kill Lith.
“The only question is: why would a being so powerful as the World Tree go this far to get their hands on Lith and Solus?”
“Maybe I know the answer. Just give me a second.” Kamila called Zoreth back and shared Malyshka’s findings with her. “As far as I remember, both the previous World Tree and the current one showed great interest in Lith’s bloodline.
“After quitting her role as candidate Chroniclers, Aalejah told us never to accept the Tree’s invitation to their Fringe. She said the Tree would likely take Lith prisoner until they were done studying him.”
“Good theory, but it’s not supported by evidence.” The Shadow Dragon shook her head. “On the second scene there were all the signs of a huge fight. The Chroniclers didn’t try to capture Lith, but to kill him.”
“You didn’t let me finish.” Kamila glared at Zoreth in annoyance. “Also, Lith and Solus interacted with the new World Tree during a visit to a Fringe.”
“Lith found one?” The Shadow Dragon felt hurt for the umpteenth secret that Lith kept from her, showing he didn’t trust her fully.
“No. He was brought there as part of a deal. It’s not his secret so he couldn’t share it with you and neither can I.” Kamila hated breaking Nalrond’s confidentiality, but if it meant bringing Lith back home, she would rather ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
She never mentioned the Agni or hinted to knowing the position of the Fringe. She only explained how once inside, an elf name M’Rael had enslaved the Tree and taken the stone ring from Lith.
“I have no clue what M’Rael wanted to do with Solus, but that’s the only time the World Tree had the opportunity to interact with her. Any idea?”
“I’m afraid so.” Baba Yaga nodded. “The Yggdrasil love collecting knowledge. There’s a strong chance he thinks that Solus holds the key to find Menadion’s legacy.”
“What?” Zoreth was flabbergasted. “But she’s amnesiac and even if she wasn’t, that’s old junk. After all this time without an owner, even Menadion’s tower is bound to have crumbled.”
