‘Never get close to the Master’s mines.’ The World Tree said via the mind link. ‘Never approach any location where the Eldritch hybrids might spot you. Just follow the Bringer of Unity and report his movements to me.
‘Any change in his patrol path or frequency must be immediately reported.’
‘Yes, My Liege.’ Ra’ntar replied, waiting for the Yggdrasill to be the one to break the telepathic connection.
Only then did he allow himself to ponder the situation at hand.
‘Kidnapping Elphyn Menadion in an unprecedented at of interference.’ The Chronicler thought. ‘The World Tree is supposed to observe and record Mogar’s history, not influence it for their purposes.
‘Getting themselves a tower in order to abandon the Fringe and attain Guardianhood is something no Tree has ever even considered before. My Liege claims they are doing it to better protect the balance, but that’s not how I see it.
‘If that’s not the biggest threat to the balance of the last one hundred thousand years, I don’t know what it is. I can only pray that the Yggdrasill’s actions are justified and their madness is actually a stroke of genius driven by the vision of a bigger picture that my limited mind can see.
‘If I’m wrong, however, this might be the beginning of a planet-wide cataclysm. The previous World Tree was tethering on the brink of madness before the Awakened Council killed them. What if they had already taken the final, damning step?
‘What if my old master was already insane beyond saving and chose their successor not according to merit but to pursue whatever insane agenda they had concocted in their final years of delirium?’
Ra’ntar sighed, hoping his worries to be groundless and that he wouldn’t need to report to the Yggdrasill again before at least one full day. No Chronicler could hide his thoughts from the World Tree.
The Yggdrasill’s fragment fused with his body maintained a constant mind link with the Chronicler’s staff that recorded the elf’s every thought, action, and perception. The World Tree would access that data during every mind link and add it to their archives.
Ra’ntar knew that his master wouldn’t appreciate a Chronicler questioning their sanity but, luckily, the Yggdrasill was slow to anger and wouldn’t mind even the most rebellious thought as long as it wasn’t put into practice.
Especially if enough time had passed since the rebellious thoughts to prove that the Chronicler knew his place and kept such ideas for himself.
The elf looked at his Yggdrasill staff, wondering for the umpteenth time if Mogar had outgrown its need for a World Tree.
‘I really hope I’m wrong.’ He thought. ‘I hope that the Tree can see farther than I do and a Fae Guardian is actually necessary, not the bitter fruit bloomed from eons of resentment that each Tree has passed upon their successor.’
The First World Tree had not only been the First Awakened on Mogar, back when dinosaurs still roamed the land but they also predated the Guardians by far. Ever since Tyris’ ascension to Guardianhood, the Yggdrasill lineage had been envious of her power.
The only consolation of the successors of the First Awakened was that Tyris was but a child with no desire to fill the chasm of her blissful ignorance. With the appearance of the First Guardian, the accumulated knowledge wasn’t enough to make the current World Tree the most powerful creature on Mogar, but they were still the wisest.
Then, Leegaain had ascended to Guardianhood too.
His accumulated knowledge and treasures were nothing compared to the Yggdrasill’s bloodline legacy but as years turned into centuries and then millennia, the Father of All Dragons bridged the gap with the World Tree’s library at an astounding rate.
Leegaain’s eyes could unravel the most complex enigmas with but a glance, he could travel wherever he wanted, and his Guardian powers weren’t confined to the boundaries of a Fringe.
One-third of one of the largest continents on Mogar was his turf and with proper planning, he could travel the rest of the globe with minimal loss of his might.
Leegaain’s existence was an affront to the Yggdrasill’s pride. His archives grew without the need for Chroniclers and his biomes hosted scores of endangered creatures.
His lair alone spanned for thousands of kilometers, matching the current size of the Gorgon Empire and doubling the Father of All Dragon’s dominion. Inside of it, Leegaain was even stronger, some said even invincible.
Many times had the elves living in the Garlen continent wondered why they had to remain hidden in the Fringes instead of joining the Father of All Dragons.
The only answer they had found was their own pride as free people and the traditions they had followed since their defeat in the War of the Races.
‘With Verhen befriending two elven colonies and offering them a place under the sun, it’s only a matter of time before other Fringes follow. I wonder if the Tree has kidnapped Elphyn Menadion to protect the balance or just to protect their interests.
‘Without us elves, the Yggdrasill would quickly fall behind the Dragon Guardian and become obsolete. The heir of the First Awakened would become no better than a magical tree and his wood would become the only reason people would seek them.’
The Chronicler shook his head and dismissed such thoughts for after his mission.
The lost city had started rushing his pace, forcing Ra’ntar to require spells and effort to follow Auros without exposing his presence.
The Chronicler tapped into the frequencies used by the Kingdom’s colonists to understand what was happening. He had to listen for a few minutes before discovering that a scout squad was passing dangerously close to the Master’s hidden trade routes.
‘Humans really are stupid.’ The elf smirked under his camouflage cloak. ‘I wonder when they’ll realize that the Bringer of Unity isn’t wondering aimlessly. He’s keeping them away from specific areas at specific times.
‘How can they not notice the pattern?’ The answer was that with so much of Jiera’s land up for the taking, the colonists preferred to avoid lost cities and search for the safest areas to mine.
Auros sticking to a specifying region was akin to a gifted horse for the Kingdom and no one had time to waste looking him in the mouth.
Ra’ntar’s Soul Vision spotted the boundaries of the lost city’s detection arrays and the Chronicler followed his mark by Warping right outside their range. The camouflage cloak hid him from regular sight while the Darwen of his armor made him and his spells invisible to mystical senses.
‘This is weird.’ The elf noticed that Auros had switched from his regular brisk walk to a jog and then to a sprint, something that had never happened before. ‘The human scouts are still quite far away. What’s the rush?’
Stealth was the core of a Chronicler’s strategy. Moving too fast meant not giving the cloak the time to blend with the surroundings and leaving behind a trail of dimensional openings that a skilled mage could follow.
Ra’ntar stopped in his tracks and followed the protocol that had been drilled in his head since his days as an aspirant Chronicler.
