Elf World Shadows Rising

by Matthew Pequegnat

  “Tellaki, well it just might be for us,” thought Myst.

  They entered the main building, a three story atrium, decorated in fine statues and paintings of Nymphs. It seemed that the Nymph was a favorite subject of the local artists. This area was the main Nymph region found within the Empire of Kush. The Nymphs have a strong preference for pleasant open woodlands, and a rather strong dislike for the bushvelt that makes up the most of Kush. Although when asked, the main reason that most Nymphs dislike the lowland bushvelt is the presence of the Kushian Bush Lion, who have a particular taste for Nymphs. Their protective magic which discourages most predators, has no effect on hungry lions it seems.

  To the left of the atrium was a large walk-in fireplace, unlighted, and a small desk, where the clerk was waiting to assist new guests. To the right of the atrium was the entrance to an elegant cantina and dining room. Myst wandered over to the clerk, a small and quite attractive Star Elf lass. She had he noticed, a surpassingly rare light honey brown hair color. “Will you be staying with us sir?” She had a delightful and friendly smile.

  “I’m going to need one of your casitas for a week, perhaps longer.”

  “Very good sir. Our rate is one hundred fifty silver per night, breakfast included.”

  “Surprisingly reasonable,” Myst thought to himself. He paid for the week in advance, signed the register and received his room key, casita number eight.

  “If you go out through our patio and to the right, past the outdoor dining tables, you will find a path that will take you to your rooms. It’s the fourth and last one. Enjoy your stay, sir, and if there is anything that I can do to help, please ask for Dettra.”

  He smiled at her and headed out onto the patio to find Kell and Renna watching large purple and pink fish swimming in an elegant stone fountain and pool. The fountain was of a naked Nymph, this time pouring water from a golden pitcher balanced on her shoulder, and cascading down across her body to the pool and waiting fish.

  “We have the last villa along the path to the right.”

  Renna took off dancing along the path, enjoying the shade trees and glorious blooming flowers along the stone walkway. It seemed that each of the luxury villas were set back along the river amidst the vegetation, so as to afford the maximum privacy for the guest.

  Renna skipped along the path, stopping to enjoy the hidden art works and vibrant flowers. She danced at the joy of returning to her home, free, so unthinkable just a week ago. She bent over and smelled a large royal blue blossom; it was sweet and wonderfully tropical. She noticed that it was almost the same color as her new loincloth and halter, just a slightly darker royal than her’s. Her hands ran over the light cotton of her loin cloth, a light bright royal blue, not slave black.

  She looked back at the path and the two Elves following her. Who would do this wonderful thing for her, and how could he have spent what must have been well over ten thousand silver for her. Just to free her, it was still beyond believing. She vowed that somehow, some way, she would repay him for the gift that he had so astonishingly given her.

  “This place is fantastic, so peaceful and verdant!” Renna called to Myst as he caught up to her. “The property must have at least a fifty acres of tropical gardens, maybe more. Isn’t it lovely Myst?”

  “I think the resort also has the property across the river as well, Renna. And yes, it is lovely, just like you.”

  She smiled and winked back at him, delighted with the compliment she knew that he really believed. She stood up on to her toes, firm shapely legs lifting her up, so she could throw her arms around his neck and kiss him with every ounce of her considerable passion. She pressed herself hard against his six foot tall one hundred ninety pound strong body. Turning on her magic charm to a full flood of desire.

  “Kell, why don’t you go up to the city, and see if you can find out any rumors about what’s going on around here?” Myst suggested to a stunned Kell, who had been hit as well by the wave of Earth Magic that Renna was projecting.

  “I, a,.. Yes, yes Myst, that’s...I’ll go now and see, have a er dinner while I’m... Renna get a room for God sakes!”

  “I prefer the outside, but if you insist. Come on Myst, show me the room.” She laughed with the joy of life so common in Nymphs, eyes sparkling desire; lush dark hair tossed from side to side as she danced in his arms.”

  He got her down the path to the door of their room. He could see the waves of magic she was giving off. “Better get you inside, before you attract every male within a mile!”

  “Well hurry up and open the door silly man.”

  ~

  A half hour later, Myst was sitting at the table in their two bed room suite. He was in the large main sitting room, reading the local paper and drinking some fresh orange-pineapple juice provided for the guests. He had ordered dinner for Renna and himself. Kell wouldn’t be back for hours, he hoped. He liked the young Ensign, but a little privacy was called for.

  Renna was still in the bathroom, soaking in the hot tub of water. He had been driven from the water in the search for food, now the more immediate desire.

  The Resort would deliver the dinner to the private patio in back of the suite. He got up, and went through the double glass doors to the back patio. The heavily landscaped side walls provided complete privacy, and still allowed the guest a view of the river that was fifty feet from the patio and down a sharp little hill. A knock came from a small door in the wall to the right.

  “Come,” Myst called.

  A waitress delivered dinner on a small push cart. She was another Nymph, and he noticed not a slave. It was odd, this was the third free Nymph he had seen working at the Resort. They normally live in the woods away from civilization, coming to towns only rarely to buy things. And most Star Elf owned businesses use slaves only; a mystery, but one he might not have time to figure out.

  The patio doors opened, and a just dried Renna stepped out onto the smooth slate blue and rose colored tiles of the elegant patio. She had a soft white towel wrapped around her waist, and another twisted up with her hair.

  “Beleth!” A shocked Renna cried at the sight of the waitress.

  “Renna? Oh Renna, my God, how?”

  “I’m free Beleth. This is my friend, Myst. He bought my freedom. We just got here, that’s how." She smiled at the other stunned Nymph.

  They fell into each other’s arms, talking and laughing, or perhaps crying. Myst wasn’t really sure which, nor at the moment did he really care. The smell of the large steak and fried potatoes drove any other concerns from him. He helped himself to the food, since the two Nymphs were still busy crying, or laughing, whatever...

  “Myst, this is my sister Beleth. I thought that she had been taken by the slave traders. But I was the only one so slow as to have gotten caught, it seems.”

  The other Nymph looked somewhat like Renna, only her hair was more brown than black.

  “How is it that you are free Beleth, and yet you are here working for a Star Eleven resort? I didn’t think they hired Nymphs, only bought them.”

  “Some of us have come down from the forest, because it’s safer. We can work here and stay free and safe. Or risk of the slave traders and Ogres who have inundated the mountains recently.”

  “Ogres in these mountains; this is not an Ogre stronghold. It hasn’t had a significant Ogre problem in a thousand years or more?”

  “All I know is that about ten years ago, the slave traders flooded our mountains looking for slaves. About two years later, the Ogres started to show up. Now, there is a couple hundred Ogres between here and Arivaya at the other end of the mountains.”

  “Haven’t the Kushian army done anything about this. It’s hard to believe that they would let this happen in their own back yard?”

  “No, you would think they might, but they just sit in their garrisons or they patrol the main highway. But then the Ogres are not raiding the Elven towns. They are staying high in the mountains and hunting US!”

  “What do th
e Ogres do with the Nymphs that they are hunting?” Myst knew what they would normally do with a captured Nymph. It was too unpleasant to think about; the nicest part of what would happen, would be the Nymph winding up as dinner, after a long nightmare of torture. But he was beginning to suspect that there was something else going on here, but did it tie into his mission? Most likely the principles where the same, House Haddar and the Shadow Elves, but he wasn’t sure at all if they were directly related.

  “Well, I don’t really know what happens to the Nymphs they catch, not all are killed right away. They take them away, and we never see them again.”

  Both sisters were holding each other and crying. Nymphs have strong emotions, and they don’t hold back their feelings.

  “But that doesn’t explain why a Star Elf resort would offer you employment and not just enslave you,” Myst questioned in an attempt to get the sisters back from the brink of complete hysterics, at the thought of what happened to Nymphs caught by Ogres.

  “Well, that’s easy. This is not a Star Elf resort silly. They would never hire someone they could buy as a slave. This is of course owned by a Sun Elf family.”

  She was looking at him as if he was a complete idiot. It made sense. He had already guessed that it was probably foreign owned. But it was just as likely to be a Moon Elf or even a Gnome or Dwarven as anything else.

  “It is owned by the most wonderful Elf, Lord Pedar Sunstar!”

  “Dad!” Myst was for the first time in years completely stunned. “Dad had been expanding the family’s holdings in the last few years, but he never mentioned anything about a luxury Resort in the mountains of Kush,” Myst thought out loud! To himself he wondered, “What else has the Old Man been up to? I need to listen more at the family meetings and not just sleep through the business stuff. Well, maybe no one has tied me to my family.”

  “Everyone is curious to see the owners son. The desk clerk sent a runner to get the general manager. He’s having dinner with the Mayor of Tazco tonight.”

  “Well, looks like I have no choice on my cover story now,” he thought.

  “It’s an honor to meet you my Lord, doubly so now that I can thank you for saving my sister from slavery. I see that she has been thanking you herself, but if there is anything, anything, that I can do to express my thanks or that of my family...”

  “Beleth, hands off, get your own,” laughed Renna!

  “Oh, come on lets share.”

  “Ahem, thank you for your kind and most wonderful offer, but I fear I would be unable to…, to survive the two of you, but thanks again.”

  The sound of someone hurrying up the path saved Myst from further assault upon his notoriously weak resistance.

  The head of a well dressed Gnome popped around the edge of the patio wall door. It was soon followed by the rest of the poor fellow who had obviously run all the way from town, and his nice meal with the mayor.

  “Please pardon the interruptions my Lord Myst,” Puffed the more than slightly winded little fellow.

  “My name is,...”

  The two girls, who had been quietly giggling at him, now broke out in peals of raucous laughter.

  “My name is,” visible attempting to regain his dignity, “Thomas Farthing, General Manager of the resort. I apologize for not being here to greet you when you check in. I, we, had no warning that you were coming for a stay, my Lord.”

  Myst, liked the look of him right from the start. His father had picked a good choice to run the resort. Thomas was just under four feet tall and maybe seventy pounds, he guessed. Short curly sand colored hair and gray eyes, set off his friendly and open face. His slightly disheveled and rumpled appearance was the product of the two or three mile run he had just completed, and not the fault of his tailor. He was decked out in a heather tweed jacket, snow white linen shirt, dark hunter green corduroy pants, and soft hand tooled leather boots. Myst noticed that he also had on under his jacket a waistcoat done in the Bearnvald Night Guard Tartan. Which probably explains how Dad met the little guy. He had been the Military Attaché to the Embassy there, about ten years ago.

  “I am pleased to meet you, Master Farthing,” Myst stood to shake his hand. “My arrival was unplanned and so there was no way you could have known. I am on holiday, returning my friend Renna here, to her family.”

  Renna waved at him, and Thomas bowed to her, not seeming to even notice her state of dress, or lack there of. Working and living in a high Nymph population area had most likely accustomed him to their forward behavior. Hell, being around wild Moon Elves could not even prepare one for the experience of the Nymphs.

  “My Lord, it would be most unwise to return her to the mountains, I’m afraid. We have had a serious problems with Ogres in the area. They are going after Nymphs to trade them to the slave traders for gold. The whole area is unsafe because of them.”

  “But, they can’t trade me to the slavers, I have been freed. They would not be able to legally sell me,” exclaimed a visibly upset Renna.

  “If they take the time to catch you miss, and can’t sell you to the slavers, well there would be a worse fate than slavery.”

  Renna paled at the thought of what would await her at the hands of the evil Ogres. She pulled the towel from her hair and covered her shoulder with it, suddenly afraid.

  “My Lord Myst,” started Thomas.

  “Master Farthing,” Myst interrupted him, “Would you please be so kind as to just call me Myst. And if I might would it be alright if I called you Thomas, instead of Master Farthing?”

  “But of course Sir, Myst I mean. It would be an honor, yes it would indeed.” Thomas smiled. He was pleased at how well meeting the young master was going. Of course, the term young was loosely applied in that Myst was most likely many decades older than Thomas, but he looked twenty something and not a hundred and twenty something!

  “Well Myst, if you would like to have your friend permanently stay on here at the resort, we could find a position for her that she might like. We are short both a desk clerk and a gardener at this time, but if there was something else she might like to do we would find a place for her indeed. The pay is room and board, plus one hundred Silver Crowns per week.”

  “A gardener!” Renna jumped to her feet in delight, at the thought of spending her time taking care of all of these beautiful flowers and lush gardens. “Wow, that would be heavenly.”

  Renna looked confused for a second, being a Nymph and a slave she had little experience with money.

  "What's a Silver Crown, Myst?"

  Myst smiled fondly down at her. "Well lets see if I can explain about money. A silver Crown is the base currency that we use. It will buy you a tankard of good ale or a sandwich. Then there are Gold Marks; 20 Silver Crowns make up a Gold Mark, and that will buy you a good meal or nice bottle of wine. Next coin, (Myst dug a large gold coin out of his belt pouch) is an Imperial Gold Piece; 100 Silver Crowns make up one of these, and it will buy a poor horse or a good pair of boots. The largest coin is a Double Imperial Gold Piece, but, (Myst looked through his pouch) I don't seem to have one of those."

  "What's this one," Renna was fingering the different coins now in Myst hand?

  "It's a Half Silver Crown, worth half a Silver Crown."

  "And these," Renna was getting excited by all this new information?

  Myst held up a small gold coin with a crown stamped on it. "This is a Half Mark. It takes ten Silver Crowns took equal one of these."

  "And this, is a Copper Shilling; ten of these makes one Silver Crown, it will buy you an apple. And the last coin is a Half Copper; twenty of these makes one Silver Crown, and it won’t buy you much of anything."

  Thomas laughed both at Myst’s joke, and at the look of puzzlement on Renna's face.

  ~

  Thomas Farthing wandered back through the lovely gardens of the resort, stopping to smell the Night Blooming Jasmine that was one of his favorites. He liked his home here at the resort, and the job fit him to a tee. The managing of its operati
ons gave him the mental stimulation that all Gnomes need, but it was relaxed enough to allow him his many hobbies. Most of the statues found throughout the grounds of the resort were his work. He was a master sculptor, one of the best on the continent. He could easily make his living in selling his art works, but the simple task, while creative, was no where near stimulating enough for him. He liked the constant decisions that went into the running of a top luxury resort. Overseeing the guest lodging in the thirty rooms and eleven suites, the cantina, the four star restaurant, and most of all the extensive five hundred acre gardens, it was just the ever changing demands that kept his mind active.

  The gardens were his passion. He was an avid amateur landscape architect, and keeping the tropical gardens in a lush and natural setting was hard but gratifying work. It was no simple task to satisfy the preferences of the many types of Elves who stayed at the resort. Tazco was on the main northern trade route from Kush to the Star Elf Empire of Naya and the Moon Elf land of Tuscan. It was also the most direct route to Freeport and the Sun Elves in Surin north of that. So, he had to juggle the taste of these three types of Elves, who all love nature, but had differing views of how to best display it in the most pleasingly aesthetic ambiance.

  Star Elves like the neat civilized manicured look of formal gardens. The symmetry and intricate lines of orderly gardens, groomed and tended to cultured perfection. While Moon Elves preferred the wild look of nature run wild, with hardly any structure or form. While the Sun Elves were somewhere in the middle, liking the idealized look of a perfectly ordered wilderness. But since the owner was a Sun Elf, and to be honest it was the style Thomas preferred himself, he had gone for the lush tropical highland paradise, much too perfect for nature to have created on her own.

  He came to his home. A small hidden path led around the side of the main lodge. It ended in a set of three stone steps that went down to his sub basement suite of rooms. There were visible two large round windows, just set above ground level. They were on the far side of the door, placed past the path and in the garden, so as to give the homeowner privacy.