The Keystaff Chronicles - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

“I do not trust them,” Gubriel glared ferociously at the companions. “For hundreds of years, we’ve not seen any sign from the outside, and all of a sudden a so-called apprentice of an Archmage would come, bearing the honored crest of the Great Lady and tales of servants?”

“But the Wise One did send us because she sensed an evil presence,” the leader replied quietly.

“And we have found that evil presence!”

“We should not be so quick to judge,” the leader turned to Ofeera. “We have all seen with our own eyes the lady healer’s power, and it comes from the Ancient One.”

“He forsook us centuries ago,” Gubriel replied, though he sounded a little more subdued by his leader’s logic.

There was a pause, and then the leader turned to Luthien, “I am Hazuriel Wyndarun. You will come with us to see the seer as our guests, for now. If you do us no harm, then no harm shall befall you.”

The implied threat hung thickly in the air, and the companions exchanged looks amongst one another. Still, having guides in this wretched place was far better than blundering around without no clear idea of what dangers lurked around the corner, and Luthien quickly thanked Hazuriel for his kind offer. And so, it was with an uneasy peace that they set off with their new found ‘companions’.

* * * * *

In the blasted wasteland that was Aztur, time held no meaning. To Theredoniel, the brief moments they had spent walking towards the Everstar Spire felt like eternity. It was as though they had become like the damned ghouls that they would occasionally stumble across, wandering aimlessly across this vast, dead, wasteland.

And so, when he first laid his eyes upon the stand of tall trees, he thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him. As they drew closer, he waited for them evaporate into red-orange tinged air like a mirage. To him, it was unimaginable that there could be anything alive in this damned place. How could anything, even a tree, breathe in this poisoned air year after year and still live? Even now, as he stood in the shade of these towering, ancient sentinels whose thick boughs seemed like the arms of giants that held up the sky itself, he wondered if he wasn’t hallucinating.

“The Everstar Spire – the wonder of wonders of great Aztur. Magnificent, isn’t it!” Lucien, who had come up beside him, said.

Despite the sickly sunlight that filtered through the vile air, the Everstar Spire’s many crystal facets still glittered brightly as it stood tall and proud, its peak overlooking even the tallest of trees that stood as its eternally faithful guards. Theredoniel had seen paintings of this breathtaking structure, but no elf, not even Azariel Gwenevar, had laid eyes upon this awe inspiring form since his great grandfather, Gordaniel.

“Father Heaven be praised! How was this built?! How has it stood in this cursed place for so long!” exclaimed Dao, the leader of the mages that had been a gift from Prince Yue.

When Theredoniel didn’t answer, Lucien replied, “It is said that the greatest mages of House Gwenevar pulled this crystal out of the earth in one single piece and over the years, its subsequent masters of crafted it with their arcane gifts. The Everstar Spire stands as a tribute to their ‘Eternal Father’, and legend has it that so long as the sun shines upon Faearth, the spire will stand.”

Dao shook his head, “It is not surprising that Aztur once boasted that it was the cradle of the arcane arts. We must bring a piece of this place back for the glory of his highness.”

Theredoniel spun around and glared at the man, “You will do no such thing! I will not allow you to despoil my House for the curiosity of your vile prince!”

“You dare speak ill of his highness?! I…”

“Oh come now, let us not fuss like little boys,” Lucien admonished, shaking a finger at Theredoniel and Dao. “Dear Theredoniel, please don’t aggravate our new friend so. The Rising Sun Empire is very much about pride and all, and comments like ‘vile’ are not particularly conducive towards the strengthening of our friendship. And dear Dao, please do respect our elven friend’s sensibilities. Saying that you are going to take a piece of his pretty spire is like saying that you will take a piece of his mother’s burial treasure. Besides…well… I think a demonstration would explain things better. You there, good sir, would you so kindly as to come over?”

The young man that Lucien gestured towards took a step back and looked at him suspiciously, knowing quite well that the pale-haired prince had nothing good in mind.

At this, Lucien chuckled, “Now, don’t be shy my friend.”

The man that Lucien gestured at suddenly felt cold, dark power pouring into his body and realized that he was not quite in control of his body. His legs moved on their own, propelling him towards the trees. He braced himself for a hard impact with the tree trunk, but what he did not expect was the sudden hair-raising, fiery power that crashed over him.

It was a warning that he was not welcomed, and the young man tried to stop himself from moving further. But the cold power that controlled his legs moved them forward relentlessly. He let out a desperate, horrified yelp and threw every ounce of his will into making his feet stop to no avail. As the men watched, he ran into an invisible barrier, sending thin, spidery lines of power flowing outwards from the point of contact and into him. The unfortunate fellow collapsed to the ground in an undignified heap, smoke rising from his senseless body.

Dao opened his mouth and glared fiercely at Lucien, who merely laughed and replied with, “Do relax, dear Dao. He’s quite alright, I assure you, just taking a little nap. You and I would share the same fate as him if we tried to pass through this charming little grove. And I would highly recommend that you don’t try and dispel the shield. I am quite certain the shield would get a lot nastier if you tried because it would recognize the ‘taint’ in our power. This was, after all, created by the great archmage, Elucielle Gwenevar.”

“Then how do you propose we pass through here?” Dao demanded. “You must have some sort of a plan.”

Lucien smiled and glanced at Theredoniel from the corners of his eyes, “I am afraid my meager abilities is quite unequal to the task of bringing down a shield created by the Great Lady, but fortunately, it would not be a difficult thing for our Theredoniel. Now, if you would call the staff, hold it up to the forest and will this troublesome shield out of existence, it would come to be.”

Theredoniel looked at the human prince with furrowed brows, “I can no more bring down a shield created by Lady Elucielle than you can, nor would I be able to use the staff.”

“Oh, you are not using the staff. You are simply allowing the shield to recognize the fact that you are in possession of it, and wish to enter. You see, the Great Lady knew that when she was gone, it would be quite some time before another with her power could defend the people and the land she loved. So, she devised a method to allow those in possession of one of her heirlooms to work the arcane creations she left behind. Well, at least that is the gist of it. She did put other conditions, but for our purposes, we are fine.”

“Now, that might seem like quite a lax thing, but Elucielle made it so that only those of her bloodline or those who have been gifted by her bloodline can touch the items she left behind, believing of course that non of her bloodline would ever turn away from her beloved ‘Eternal Father’.” Lucien smiled sardonically, his lips curving upwards ever so slightly at the corners as he glanced at Theredoniel from beneath thick, silver lashes.

Theredoniel felt himself stiffening, knowing what it was that looked implied. How he wanted to destroy his wicked companion, to rid himself of this insidious darkness that led him further and further away from Abihayil. Lucien had come to him when he held his beloved Eowyna’s body, after the plague had rendered her almost unrecognizable, and offered him her life in exchange for his assistance. Really, he had traded away his soul; he had betrayed his friends, his House, and even Abihayil.

But Abihayil had betrayed him first! Abihayil had allowed his kind-hearted and beautiful wife to die, to fall prey to a terrible sickness that she, a healer, had gone to save others from!

Gritting his teeth, Theredoniel spoke a quiet word and summoned the staff to his hand. Its rune-inscribed shaft felt cold to his touch, and the crystal that topped the staff was a dull amber color. If he had not known what it was that he held in his hands, he would have thought of this item as nothing more than just a fancy, overly-long walking staff. He could feel no powers stirring within this artifact, but then again, the staff was purported to be something that only an archmage could wield. It would not come alive unless it was in the hands of one with the power and will to be an archmage.

With the staff held horizontally in front of him, he willed the shield to come down. Because he could not even sense its existence, he felt rather silly standing there and simply thinking at an invisible barrier. If Azarielle was here, she’d most certainly make some crass comment about him looking positively constipated and follow up with a suggestion some herbs that act as laxatives to help him find relief.

The small smile that formed on his face died quickly though.

If Azarielle was here, she’d give him a good hard knock on his head and drag him off to a healer to have his brain examined. And if he persisted, he was certain that his friend would fight him. The prospect of fighting an archmage’s apprentice was not a pleasant one. But even worse, the thought that he would be fighting one of his and Eowyna’s dearest friends, was one that filled him with dread and sorrow. He did not ever want such a battle to come to pass, but it was inevitable.

“Nothing happened,” Dao remarked, quite unimpressed.

“On the contrary,” Lucien smiled like a cat about to swallow a bird. He stepped past the fallen mage and walked, unhindered into the trees. Shocked and horrified by what he had wrought with his own hands, Theredoniel trailed the pale-haired prince mindlessly.

A few short moments in the densely populated forest and it was almost as if they were no longer on accursed Azturian soil. The air smelled fresh, and the sound of birds and other small creatures scurrying for cover was all about them. Here was a miraculous oasis of life and hope that had somehow survived in this desolate wasteland.

“This is most unexpected,” Dao shook his head as he looked about. “We had no idea such a place still existed… People can actually live here.”

Lucien stopped in his tracks and cocked his head for a moment before smiling, “And they do.” He murmured a few words and then snapped his finger. There was an almost blinding flash of light, and all of sudden, they found themselves surrounded by a group of startled high elves, and all dressed in cloaks that changed colors like a kaleidoscope.

“What…” Theredoniel began, but he never had a chance to finish.

Dao said something unintelligible to his companions, and without a further word of warning, they all started to chant. They acted so quickly that Theredoniel barely had time to process the arcane words he was hearing before deadly bolts of life flew from the Rising Sun mages’ fingertips and struck the elves.

The strange elves, apparently disoriented from the blinding flash of light, had no defense against this swift attack. Those who were struck by the deadly bolts went down with pained and frightened screams. Only a few managed to aim their bows and fire back. But this counterattack was futile, because Lucien, smiling pleasantly, had already created a shield around them that incinerated upon contact.

“Stop it!” Theredoniel yelled at the Rising Sun mages, “What are you doing?” When Dao and his companions paid him no heed, the enraged young elf pointed his finger at them, intent on destroying these mages intent on killing his kinsmen. Power flowed through his veins, surging from the core of being and filling him with warmth. The air around him began smelling of ozone.

And then, suddenly and very abruptly, something icy and impenetrable stopped the flow of his power. He felt cold, vice-like grip on his writs and heard a low voice speak into his ears, “And what, pray tell, are you intending to do, dear Theredoniel? I assure you that these long lost kinsmen of yours will quite happily slaughter us the moment they learn of our intentions.”

Theredoniel tried to jerk his hand free of Lucien’s grasp, “There’s no need to kill them! We can simply incapacitate them!”

“I am afraid we can’t really take chances with such an important thing,” the human prince smiled. “You wouldn’t want to take chances on whether the lovely Eowyna successfully recovers from her current… state, would you?”

The young elf felt his entire body go cold and stiff at this implied threat. He turned to his wife, who stood still and unmoving, staring unseeingly at the massacre happening around her – a beautiful, lifeless doll.

Lucien watched the young elf with a slight smile, knowing that his silence was his tacit agreement. Dismissing Theredoniel from his attention, he turned to regard the surviving high elves who were now organized enough that they were seeking shelter behind the tall trees to hide from Dao and his companions’ attacks. Though his expression did not show, it was quite a strain to defend against the elves arrows. They were enchanted to break arcane weaves, very much like the weapons of a mage slayer, and he had to expand quite a great deal of power to protect himself, the rather useless Theredoniel, and the Rising Sun mages. If it weren’t for the fact that Yue’s ‘gifts’ would become useful later, Lucien would have happily let them become pin cushions.

Sighing at this unfortunately circumstance, Lucien lifted his wrist and drew a thin line of blood with a black-stained nail. Blood flowed from the wound and he let it drip on the ground. Then, he spoke words in the Arcane tongue, and the sounds that crawled out of his throat was a terrible, inhuman sound that coiled around those around him, making them shiver.

The power he wrought was even more unspeakable. When his blood drops touched the earth, the bodies of the slain elves instantly began to spasm violently. Like marionettes, they climbed to their feet, the movements of the limbs still retaining the fluidity that they had in life. As one, they began to charge their living brethren.

* * * * *

The Azturian high elves set a quick pace, loping through the dead forest with the swiftness and silence of a jungle cat. They had vanished again, fading into the surroundings with a swirl of shimmering colors immediately after the group set off. Only Hazuriel remained visible, jogging just ahead of Luthien as he led the companions toward Everstar Spire.

“Impressive,” Azarielle remarked as she kept pace with Luthien. “The arcane weaving in these cloaks basically bends and reflects light in such a way as to make the cloak blend into the background so as to render the wearer invisible. It’s basically the same principles applied to invisibility cast upon an individual person or object, but whoever made these cloaks just did it with far greater skill than anybody I’ve ever met. I wonder if we could barter for some of them? Actually, a more important question is this – if you have someone powerful enough to create cloaks like this for you, why haven’t the lot of you left this cursed place yet?”

Hazuriel glanced at the young woman from out of the corner of his eyes, “Not many could survive such a trip, mage. It is a rarity for the Fog to lift from some of these areas, and then to have to travel such great distances upon a land cursed with monstrous beings and the walking dead.”

“Well, I was thinking you could fly…”

Whatever Azarielle might had intended to say, she did not bother to finish. The young woman stopped very suddenly in her tracks, her eyes staring into the distance. Both Luthien and Ofeera stopped as well, with the young knight’s face turning dark, and the young healer’s hand flying to her mouth to stifle a gasp.

“What is it?” Hazuriel inquired.

“Lucien,” Luthien squeezed his brother’s name out from between his teeth.

“The servant of the Abyssal Ones, and he is raising the dead,” Azarielle’s eyes flashed dangerously. “The newly dead.”

The Keystaff Chronicles - Chapter 12 (May)

Chapter 12

The companions fled through the pathway that the young mage had created, the stench of burnt flesh tainting their every breath and the menacing gurgles of the ground chasing closely behind. Luthien took the lead, running as fast as he could and blasting away the ghouls that had somehow escaped Azarielle’s firestorm. Following closely behind, gliding gracefully over any obstacles as if he was following a pre-charted route, was Breaker ran with Ofeera clinging to his back. The deadly elf had his arcane breakers drawn, and made short work of any ghoul that wandered close.

“Azarielle…n…not following us!” Ofeera stuttered, trying not to bite her own tongue from the constant jostling she received as the elf performed gravity defying leaps.

“The mage is in no danger,” Breaker replied, not breaking his stride. “None of those creatures could lay a hand on her with the power she commands.”

“But…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Breaker abruptly plastered himself to the ground, making her words disappear in a gulp of air. She smelled a putrid odor and felt a gust of wind just above her back. Then, the elf was up and moving again, spinning around with such a tight turn that Ofeera was instantly disoriented.

She caught sight of the creature he had dodged from then. It resembled the thing that had attacked Luthien while they were still aboard Azarielle’s flying contraption, with a mummified body and large bat wings. The gray elf’s arm blurred in motion for a moment, and then he was suddenly holding the large throwing star he had used against the troll pirates. As he drew back to throw, Ofeera could feel his entire body growing taunt like a bent bow, and then the throwing star was airborne, cutting a silvery arc through the air.

Spinning so rapidly that it looked like a disc, the throwing star tore a hole in the creature’s wings. The thing let out a wail of pain that was surprisingly human and female sounding as it plummeted onto the ground. Almost immediately, the creature began struggling to its feet, but Breaker was faster. The deadly elf was upon the winged fiend in a blink of the eye, and plunged his arcane breakers through the creature’s skull.

Black liquid flowed out from the wound, but the wretched creature did not die! It reached out its skeletal hands and grasped the startled elf’s legs. Then, it unhinged its jaws and spat fat white maggots at the elf.
Sensing a sudden rise in dark power, the young healer reacted purely out of reflex. The words of a prayer tumbled from her mouth and a soft blue light fell upon the wretched creature and its terrible spawn. The creature was instantly stilled, it spindly limbs becoming as dead tree limbs. As for the maggots, they burst into flames almost instantly. And as they burned Ofeera thought she spotted a shadowy form dissipating into the air like black smoke.

“A priestess of the Ancient One in the flesh!”

Breaker spun around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, and though his expression remained unchanged, the elf was shocked by the sight that greeted him.

A dozen elves, cloaked in capes that shifted in color to match their surroundings every stood around them, with cross bows aimed at them. They had hair that ranged in color from wheat to melted gold, suggesting that they were High Elven by descent. But unlike most of high elves he had come across, these ones had a pale, almost sickly complexion that was very much unlike the sun kissed bronze of Azturoth’s denizens. And, the inflections and emphasis of their words were so different that Breaker barely understood their High Elven.

“Idiot! Why did you speak!” one of the elves with a hawkish nose glared viciously at his companion. “We should have slain them and be done with it!”

“Who are you?! Are you… minions of the Abyssal Ones?” Luthien demanded, anger and shock evident on his face.

“Silence, faithless knight! It is we who will ask the questions!” the elven speaker snapped back, glaring at Luthien. “Why are you here?”

“Oh well, just trying to stop a minion of the Abyssal One from doing something nefarious, the usual,” a voice responded cheerily.

This time, it was the high elves that were surprised by the sight of a young woman dressed in a flamboyantly red coat, standing casually in their midst.

“Azarielle!” Ofeera let out a gasp, part surprise and part relief.

“I have to say, I am impressed,” the young woman shook her head at her companions. “You people can really run. I mean, I knew the elf, being an elf, could run. But Luthien in all that clanking armor? Do the Knights of Elad get trained on how to make a hasty retreat or is that an innate ability?”

Before Luthien can answer, the high elf who had been speaking had aimed his crossbow at Azarielle, “Silence your nonsense, mage. Why are you here?”

Azarielle rolled her eyes and whispered conspiratorially to one of the other high elves standing next to her in flawless High Elven, “He’s not that bright is he? Didn’t I just tell you that we were here to stop the minions of…”

Apparently losing patience with the young woman’s rather meaningless rants, the first elf let loose his crossbow bolt.

“Gurbriel, no!” someone else yelled.

The bolt stopped a breath away from the young mage’s heart and hung suspended in the air. Azarille glanced at the bolt with an unimpressed expression and then arched her eyebrows at the elf that had shot at her, “A crossbow bolt, really?”

The high elf was suddenly surrounded by a giant pink bubble, which Luthien immediately recognized as the similar to the ones she had used on his men, and bounced up and down in it like a ragdoll.

“Witch! Release him or you shall die!”

Half of the crossbows that had been aimed at her companions were now aimed at Azarielle, who responded, “How much do you want to bet that none of your bolt things are going to hit me, and I am going to polymorph him into a… chicken?”

“Azarielle, stop this nonsense,” Luthien spoke up, frowning at the mage. “She spoke verily. We hunt servants of the Abyssal Ones who are headed to Everstar Spire.”

“Lower your bows,” a voice commanded as a tall elf stepped out from the crowd. Turning to Azarielle, “We acted hastily mage, but it has been a very long time since we have seen living beings in Gwenevar City. Will you release our companion?”

The pink bubble popped, dropping a very disoriented elf onto the ground.

“If we are the first non undead things you’ve seen in a couple of centuries, and assuming you are more fond of living things than dead or undead things, why would you try to kill us right away? High elves always boggle my mind so.”

“How do we… know… speak truth?” the elf Azarielle had released was climbing wobbly to his feet, and looking decidedly more than a little green in the face.

In answer, Azarielle drew the short sword hanging at her side, “Do you recognize the crest?”

“The Gwenevar crest!” the elven leader’s eyes widened in surprise. “How did you…”

“I didn’t steal it,” Azarielle gave the first elf, Gubriel, a disapproving look, interrupting him before he could start. “Azariel Gwenevar, its previous owner, would probably polymorph me into a rat and feed me to a cat if I tried.”
“That name is not known to us,” the leader said turning to Azarielle.

“He’s the second son Terciel Gwenevar who is the youngest, and only surviving son of the last lord of this city, Gordaniel Gwenevar,” Azarielle replied. “May the Everstar light your path, brother… or something to that extent.”

“And your name is Azarielle?” the leader asked, cocking his head to the side. “If this Azariel is truly who you say he is, and you bear his name, then that makes you his heir.”

“And elven nobility… weird, I know,” Azarielle shook her head. Glancing around as if she was worried her teacher would appear out of thin air, she continued. “It’s because no sane woman, elf or not, would marry him and bear him children. And since he’s quite old, practically a fossil really, he figured he had to make somebody his heir before he returned to the Eternal Father. And, good sir, I am his one and only apprentice, so I became Azarielle.”

The elven leader looked as if he didn’t quite know how he should properly react at this overflow of information. Luthien, who has heard of Azariel Gwenevar, was aghast, “You are Azariel Gwenevar’s apprentice?! The Archmage, Azariel Gwenevar?!

Azarielle gave a shudder and nodded, “Yeah, that Azariel. And let me tell you, he’s totally horrible. He had me do these calming exercises or whatever nonsense and nearly drowned me. And then, to teach me more about dragon behavior, he left me in the den of this big black dragon… actually Obsidian Star turned out to be a very intelligent and interesting dragon… but to leave his only apprentice at the mercy of a dragon without so much as a word of warning? I mean…”

“You are Archmage Azariel Gwenevar’s apprentice?!” Luthien seemed quite stuck on the idea and looked at the young mage as if she had sprouted a third head.

“Oh come now Luthien, it can’t be that shocking. I already told you I am not Wenriel’s apprentice. Theredoniel is only a few decades older than I am, which in elven terms is like nothing. Raphthanniel, Wenriel’s father, is the Revered Teacher to the Azturothian princes and princesses, so he doesn’t have time to take any other apprentices, besides which he’s got idiot Wenriel’s attitude about humans being slightly above cows in the grand order of things. That leaves Zuriel, Theredoniel’s father, who has been… um, quite dead for the last few decades. Oh, and Queen Illiendarielle… but she’s the queen. I hope you don’t think any of the other fluff balls were my teachers. Well, I suppose Parindielle isn’t a fluff ball, but anyhow, she’s not my teacher either.”

Luthien could not began to make his way through the tangle of elven names and relationships Azarielle had been spouting, but the one idea that was beginning to solidify in his mind was that the often confusing young woman before him was the apprentice of a mage many consider to be amongst the most power to ever walk Faearth. And, as Azarielle has so succinctly stated, he supposed that he should not have been that shocked. He had seen what she was capable of… had known from the beginning that she was strong.

And knowing what he faced in his brother, having someone like the apprentice of an archmage around was definitely reassuring.

“It would seem that much has changed in the world outside of Aztur,” the leader of the strange high elven band remarked, with a hint of bitterness in his voice. “We do not know of this new Archmage of yours. But, we do recognize the crest of the Gwenevar family.”

“World outside of Aztur,” Ofeera, who had been mostly silent throughout the exchanged, gasped. “Good sirs, you mean to say that you have lived here, in these accursed Forsaken Lands?”

“Forsaken Lands? Is it what the outsiders call this place now?” the elf Gurbriel sneered. “A fitting name, I suppose, for we have been forsaken by your people.”

“We did not know that there were survivors! The plague killed everyone!” Ofeera shook her head.

“Well my lady, your people were wrong,” the leader smiled sardonically. “Some did survive the plague. In fact, they have left descendants.”

“And some of you at least have been camping out at Everstar Spire,” Azarielle finished. “Doriel’s curse couldn’t overcome Elucielle’s power so her home and its surrounding area didn’t fall victim to the plague.”

The lead elf frowned ever so slightly at the mage’s comments, but it was Gurbriel who confirmed Azarielle’s hypothesis, “And how would you know of this?!”

“Hmm, well, because I am a mage,” she replied with an infuriatingly serene smile. “That’s what Azariel used to say whenever I asked him a question. It’s pretty annoying isn’t it?”

Gurbriel let out a very un-elf like growl and took a menacing step towards Azarielle, who shook her head at him. “Please don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the little bubble so soon.”

“Azarielle, you are not helping,” Luthien glared at the mage. Then, turning to the leader, he said, “I am Luthien Delynd, a knight of Elad, and a prince of the Achienda Empire. I have been sent by my Order to apprehend two servants of the Abyssal Ones who murdered Archmage Patel, who was also a member of my Order. The ones we seek are Theredoniel Gwenevar and… my twin brother, Lucien Delynd. They are headed to the Everstar Spire and we must not let them retrieve whatever it is they hope to get from the Spire!”

Now it was Azarielle’s turn to be surprised, “Did you say a prince of the Achienda Empire? That’s why Delynd sounded so familiar!”

Luthien gave Azarielle an exasperated look but turned to the elf leader, “If, as my companion has stated, you do live at the Everstar Spire, I pray that you will take us there. My brother… Lucien, is cruel of heart and capable of great evil. He would not hesitate to kill anyone there that gets in his way.”

“Yes, entirely unpleasant fellow,” Azarielle agreed. “He is all about the dark arts, you know animating the dead and all, which I assure you is very nasty stuff. Anyhow, Luthien, since you are a prince, do you think you can help me through the whole beauraucratic stuff about obtaining citizenship for the Empire? I am already a legal resident, but the wait…”

Deciding to completely ignore Azarielle, Luthien turned to the leader of the elves again, “What say you?”