Chapter 2

Meeting Nymphs on Ring One

I batted Aurier’s hands away. Then I fended off Sreketh. This was a difficult battle.

“Your cape isn’t fully straight,” Aurier said, ignoring my recalcitrance and straightening the flapping fabric on my back.

I jerked away. “It’s fine.”

“I think your belt can be tighter too,” Sreketh said.

She was trying to reach forward and strangle my waistline, but thankfully, her arms were too short. I was holding her off with a hand on her head.

Swiftly slipping away from them, I released my hold on Sreketh. She went on to promptly ram her head into Aurier’s gut.

“Oof,” he muttered, while Sreketh mumbled an apology.

I chuckled. “I think I look as fabulous as someone from Ring Four can be expected to look.”

It wasn’t a lie. My white robes trimmed in gold were clean and pressed. The belt buckle emblazoned with the symbol of the sun—the golden circle with the silver rays—shone bright enough to reflect everything. Even the short cape with the chain was held down by fancy little epaulettes on my shoulder.

“I suppose that’s true,” Aurier said eventually.

“It’ll be fine,” I said. Their attempts to help came from a place of wanting to make sure everything would be alright. Anxiety I was familiar with. “It’s just a meeting, and the Councillor who was—well, the Ogre Councillor will be there too.”

I had been about to say the Councillor who was the Elder’s friend but had decided against it. Same reason why I hadn’t asked where their enthusiasm had been on the day of the trial on Ring Four. The wounds of grief were still fragile scabs. No need to poke it before it was fully healed.

“Focus on your own stuff instead,” I said. “Sreketh, what are you painting today?”

“Birds! If I can hop by painting bunnies, then I should be able to fly by painting birds, right?”

“Uh… yeah sure, why not? Worth a shot, I think.”

Considering I was trying to fly properly while finagling two different Aspects together, I wasn’t certain something as advanced as flight could be possible just by drawing birds. But I wasn’t lying. Sreketh would be getting something out of it. I was curious what that would be.

Plus, I still hadn’t told her the proper name for bunnies was rabbits. But hey, she was young. Forbidden knowledge could wait until she was older.

“I, um…” Aurier was hesitating. I wondered if I was going to have to encourage him, but he mustered the courage to go on himself. “I’m almost at Silver on my smithing Path. Just need to make… a masterpiece. That’s the breakthrough.”

“Oh, so you’re at Iron X,” I said. “That’s great!”

“Yes, you can do it, Aurier!” Sreketh said with a small fire in her eyes. “I know you’re going to make a masterpiece that will make everyone stare in awe!”

Aurier flushed under our well wishes. I was curious just what kind of plans he had for this masterpiece of his, but I’d have to ask that later. They had both risen early to see me off, and I didn’t want to waste their efforts by being late.

So, with a short farewell, I hurried away.

I had to set out a little extra early because of my tendency to get lost. The Ogre at the Rat Catcher’s Guild glared at me as soon as he saw me at the end of his street, but I quickly turned around. I didn’t know how I ended up at the Mage Guild afterwards, but I did manage to find the Preserve leading to Ring Two in the end.

It didn’t help that most places were deserted this early in the day so I couldn’t use people as a sort of guidepost on where to go. But at least there was no one around to see my befuddled state.

Seriously, I had no idea how I was on the driveway of the Kalnislaw estate.

I blessed the moment I saw a guard at the abalone gates of Ring One. From then on, it was smooth sailing. The fancy, official letter from the Ogre Councillor got me a one-way ticket straight to the location of the meeting, with the guard—his dark-coat-white-trousers uniform a clear remainder he was separate from the city guard—leading me to where I needed to be.

The building where the meeting was supposed to happen was more of a strange pavilion. Four pearlescent white abalone walls stood between tall metal towers at each corner of a square. A roof of blue fabric was suspended over the entire gazebo with chains handing from each of the towers.

As I approached, I didn’t fail to note how many other officers in the same uniform were all over the place, though strategically placed. A few were arrayed farther off at different corners of the pavilion. And a few more were close to the Councillors.

The air rippled and thickened as I approached. Just as in the courtroom during the Kalnislaws’ trial, the auras of overpowered beings needled at me from all around. It wasn’t as bad as it had been then. There were only a couple of Councillors present here. Still. Even with their power tamped down, I could feel it trying to sting through my skin.

“Ah, there he is.”

I was greeted by the elderly voice of the Councillor Wargrog—I had learned his name when we had discussed this very meeting earlier. His warm smile was welcoming. Even his silver-capped tusks didn’t make him look all that intimidating.

“I got here as fast as I could,” I said, deciding against mentioning my lost escapades. “Good morning, Councillors.”

“Greetings, Cultist Moreland,” the Se-Targa Councillor said. Even in her sitting position, she was almost as tall as I was. Her skin gleamed radiant, threads of glinting gold had tied her dark hair into neat braids, and her prism-feather wings were furled against her back. “Or rather, Interpreter Moreland.”

I didn’t miss the slight emphasis there. “I’m surprised you don’t have actual interpreters at work here.”

“We do. Unfortunately, our guests aren’t the typical foreigners where trained diplomats and interpreters can readily use their experience to assist in our negotiations.”

I was directed by the officer leading me to take a kneeling seat beside and slightly behind the Ogre Councillor. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but I’d manage.

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The Se-Targa Councillor’s statement had me even more curious about who we were dealing with. I had heard they were nymphs. Or the Anymphea, as was their proper name. Strange that they were willing to conduct the meeting this early, and yet, they were the ones who were late.

Although, that wasn’t true for long. Within a couple minutes of my arrival, the Anymphea came in.

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting. My time on Earth had obviously affected my impression of what “nymphs” could refer to. Mythologically, they were usually pretty women, often associated with elemental things like rivers and trees and whatnot.

The latter of that was definitely true in this case. I could only blink as people came in with hair made of clouds or a tangle of tree branches or even what I could swear was a nest of coral. The rest of their forms were partway between humanoid and the element they appeared to represent. One guy had tree branches for arms, while another slithered on his fishy tail instead of walking.

Their faces, interestingly, were rather human. I had no trouble discerning noses from mouths from eyes and so on.

“Greetings of the lightless dawn upon you, Zairgon,” said the Anymphea man at the lead. His head was adorned with seaweed. As in, he had kelp for hair. “I hope this day finds you blessed as well.”

His words were followed by silence, and I was starting to wonder if he had said something wrong—it had sounded foreign to me, sure, but it wasn’t anything too weird—before I realized nearly everyone was staring at me.

Oh, right. Crap. I had almost forgotten. They didn’t have a Universal Language Approximator thingy like me.

I cleared my throat. “The Anymphea greets you good morning. Or, good dawn, I guess.”

“A rather simplistic translation,” the Anymphea leader said, raising his seaweed eyebrows. “But that there is one who knows our tongue is… rather incredible.”

I thought about grinning at his surprise, but that was probably unbecoming of an interpreter. Interesting that he seemed to understand New Zair to a decent degree, and yet the Councillors floundered on his language. “He says my interpretation can be more… rigorous.”

Wargrog laughed.

With that, the official meeting began. Greetings were exchanged, positions taken, and all the while, the Anymphea looked minorly miffed. I soon learned it was because the Councillors wanted to conduct the meeting from the top, now that they had someone who knew the Anymphea language.

That last bit made one of the Zairgon officers wince. Ah, that poor fellow was probably the real interpreter.

“To start off with introductions on our end,” the Se-Targa Councillor said. “The main negotiators from Zairgon shall be I, Se-Vigilance, and my fellow Councillor, Wargrog. We will be assisted by one Ross Moreland, a cultist mage adventurer interpreter.”

I stared at her. Wow. Way to make me feel like a terrible spy thriller parody.

The Councillor’s name was rather interesting too. It was the second time I was hearing the name of a Se-Targa, and I wondered if they all had that sort of naming convention. Staring off with Se- and then adding on a descriptor that fitted well. How was Vigilance significant for our Councillor here?

They looked at me meaningfully and I translated everything I heard back to the Anymphea. I felt a weird twitch in my hands as I did so. It made me frown.

Speaking a new language with full fluency had stopped feeling weird after over a month of doing it. Even when I had discovered I could somehow speak Sortecarii, the native language of Plumefolk people who weren’t raised in Zairgon, switching seamlessly between it and New Zair hadn’t been too disorienting.

But what was this physical reaction? It almost felt like an internal urge that popped up whenever I was speaking the Anymphea language.

I ignored it for now and focused on my job.

“We are the Anymphea,” the leader, kelp-head, said. “The thrust of our movement is led by myself, Ascelkos, as well as our esteemed Wayfinders Eliokolos, Kyris, and Helike.”

As he spoke, he indicated each person in turn. Eliokolos was an older Anymphea man whose face was carved in a tree trunk. Kyris was a somewhat severe woman with the same seaweed hair, just stringier, giving her an aged impression. Lastly, Helike was a younger woman with flaxen, almost wheatlike hair.

She was the only one who showed a proper expression, though the scowl on her face wasn’t exactly better than the impassiveness from the rest of her party.

I noticed that they were all wearing tunics and clothes that looked like they were made of a mix of leather and rough-spun fibres. It made me more and more curious just who these people were and what they did for a living.

“You chose a curious interpreter,” Kyris said, eyeing me with those unreadable eyes.

“They’re curious about me,” I explained to my side of the delegation.

“Interpreter Ross Moreland is a dependable individual,” Se-Vigilance said. “He has proven himself capable of handling high responsibility and against adversaries one would assume would be beyond his station. I urge you not to underestimate him.”

Wargrog echoed his partner’s sentiments, though much more briefly.

I held back my smile. It was nice to see that the Councillors had my back here. We were all on Zairgon’s side.

Not that there were moral teams or that we were in opposition here. The only information about the meeting I had received stated that the Anymphea wanted to integrate into Zairgon to some extent.

Satisfied, the Anymphea began the actual negotiations. I paid full attention. Not just because that was what I was here for, but because their circumstances were genuinely interesting.

They were nomadic. In a world that seemed to struggle to create normal kinds of food, where regular vegetation and animals that might feed on them were nonexistent, the idea of wandering tribes surviving off the land seemed impossible. And yet, the Anymphea apparently did just that, and the Councillors didn’t blink an eye. Clearly, it was the truth.

So what in the world was their secret to surviving out in the sunless wilderness of Ephemeroth?

Maybe it was related to the current issue. The Anymphea wanted to cease their wandering and were seeking a more permanent settlement. Apparently, they were in danger, and only a city could protect them against the threat to their lives.

“Living Teeth?” I said. Was that really the correct translation or was the Universal Language Approximator malfunctioning for some reason? “That’s what they’re saying are driving them away…”

My words faded when I saw the Se-Targa Councillor’s expression. Oh, yes. I got the translation right.

“The Blight Swarm?” Se-Vigilance said. “Are you certain? It hasn’t been seen in over two decades now, and not near Zairgon for nearly a century.”

“We are certain,” Eliokolos said after I translated it back into the Anymphea language. I ought to ask what it was even called. “Several of our outriders were waylaid by the Teeth’s forward elements. This Blight Swarm, as you southerners refer to it, is a plague that will ravage everything in its path, and staying out in the open is a death sentence.”

“This is valuable information,” Wargrog said. The earlier warmth he had greeted me with had vanished. “A Blight Swarm is a serious development. If nothing else, this information alone would—”

“It would not,” Se-Vigilance said with a sharp glance at her companion, and then one to me as a silent warning to be careful of how I translated things. Considering the Anymphea had a passing understanding of New Zair, I figured they were picking up on it already. “We would have been able to acquire that information in due time ourselves. This merely hastens the matter.”

I blinked. Interesting. Back at the courtroom, it had seemed that the Councillors were capable of telepathically communicating among themselves. Yet, that didn’t appear to be the case here.

“You’ll need to sweeten the pot a little more,” I translated to the Anymphea.

The Councillors raised their eyebrows at me but didn’t contradict. It wasn’t wrong. They couldn’t blame me for not receiving official interpreter training.

“Of course,” Kyris said. “We were going to make real contributions to Zairgon as its potential new citizens. Namely, our Bloomwagons.”

I had no idea what Bloomwagons were, but I translated it all the same.

“Our Preserves serve a similar enough function,” Se-Vigilance countered. “I’m afraid that isn’t quite enough.”

Ah. Context was starting to fill me in on just what Bloomwagons, with their oh so suggestive names, were supposed to be.

“Your Preserves are stationary,” Kyris countered. “Nor are they anywhere near as modular as Bloomwagons. We have seen them before. We are aware.”

“Besides,” said the younger Anymphea called Helike. She wasn’t just talking. She was also using her hands to gesture very expressively. “*** Bloomwagons are simply ******.”

I blinked, then stared. As the conversation continued, more words from the Anymphea delegation were completely illegible to me, just like my first day on Ephemeroth.

Kyris gestured as well. “We *** ***** several Bloomwagons for **** *******.”

My heart thudded. What was going on? How was I going to be an interpreter now?