Orcs, Harpies, and Humans have a lot in common. They are adaptable, fairly intelligent species with a tendency to consider taking things from others if they truly need it. Lëordan, in a typically Elven fashion, understood this and decided to create a system where everyone provided each other the most sought-after commodity: Safety. Then, he himself provided the only missing piece for the puzzle to be complete; food for Humanity. Thirty years later, all three communities are more powerful than they have ever been, and they all have a healthy amount of respect for Lëordan’s powers. As long as his Garden is there, we can expect this equilibrium to remain in place.

Extract from “Commentary on the Covenant of La Réunion” by Tanaka Inagi, First Librarian of La Réunion

Étienne de Carné was tired. He was taking an early dinner with his son, who had been retelling the adventures he had lived during his excursion for the last hour. He had mixed feelings about the whole affair, but was mostly proud of his son, although he would have words with whoever had surveyed the tunnels and thought that sending a group of Acolytes into the deep reaches of the Undergrounds was a good idea. He berated Damien for his use of highly explosive spells in a confined space and decided to not reveal that four Combat Mages were hurt while working to remap the tunnels. He did mention, however, that the population of Fire Ants had been dramatically reduced, and that the corpses of half a dozen Queens were currently being recycled in the Manufactorium.

When the conversation progressed to Damien’s description of extracting themselves from the rubble, Étienne frowned. He knew his son quite well, and he could feel that there was something off about Damien when he spoke of his classmate Louis’s reserves of Wands of Shape Earth. He looked for Damien’s hands, waiting for the telltale rubbing of his thumb with his ring finger. Here it was! He silently fumed, astonished. His son was lying to him! He let him go on with the narration of his epic, mourning the loss of yet another militiaman under the coils of a monster – He would have to make a note of compensating his family. – Nodding at his son’s interactions with the Harpy queen and the young half-orc, he privately celebrated that his son’s relationships with Humanity’s allies were as good as they could be. He had already received a small cache of elemental ores from a representative of the Harpies, which he had given to Roland with instructions to withhold them from Damien until he was good enough an Enchanter to use them effectively. With a tinge of guilt at his potential nepotism, he mentally added one of the boa’s horns to that pile of Enchanting material, considering Damien’s contributions to the beast’s demise.

They took a breather, slurping on a fruity beverage. Étienne asked “And then? What happened at the Garden? You had a good night and smooth sailing in the morning, I expect? Except for the shark, that is. No one recognizes the clan insignia on that thing’s harness. I don’t know where it came from, but it wasn’t from around here, that I can tell you!” He exclaimed, still puzzled about that particular issue.

He looked back at his son, who was looking for something in his pocket. He finally fished out a piece of dark wood. Étienne looked at it, saw the Elven runes, and recoiled. “You didn’t enter the Garden or bother him, did you? That could be very bad.”

“I think… He saved me from something inside me. You see, when I first saw the Garden, I didn’t react well to it…” Damien described his 'little cardiac/elemental discharge problem' and the help he had received from the Garden, in the form of a Thorn Elemental performing some kind of surgery on him to his father.

The latter stood up, and thundered, “Why in the name of a fishman’s scales are we here and not at doctor Ferrand’s clinic! Do you have any idea of what Lëordan did to you? Do you know what’s written on this?” He asked, indicating the remains of the Thorn Elemental. “He recognizes our bloodline, son! He knows who our founder was! Back, way back, when my parents and I left for this island, even most of the family was clueless! He could have done anything to you.”

Damien looked on while his father panicked. “I didn’t ask to go to doctor Ferrand's because I felt just fine and he has to rest. He just presided over a childbirth.” He explained in a firm, calming voice. “If Lord Lëordan wanted to hurt me, he could just have left me and whatever was happening to me would have almost certainly done the job.” He observed his father, who was laying back on his chair. “Can you read that?" He asked, gesturing toward the wooden block. "I tried on the boat, but I kept getting distracted, and I don’t have a whole Sylvan lexicon in my head unlike a certain someone.” He winked at his father, who smiled.

“I’m not sure of what it means. It reads; Sut lle runya nae beleg, Domitius Ahenobarbus sut hae ron palua! Tuulo' i' alps a' i' ear, ume Cacus’s rutha sila! Ahenobarbus, rusva, en' taurerim, tal samanar, malle' samanar! Oira edhel Ndengina , taure naara, wenesse Cam'wethrin, cinis pontifex! lle hini naara lle moota, naara self. Sen erin naa lye cael!” Étienne winced. “Sounds like the list of crimes our dear ancestor committed against the elven race… Domitius Ahenobarbus was a Roman general and Pontifex, that is, the great priest of one of the gods. He venerated Cacus, a Giant-God aligned with Fire, Order, and Conquest. That got him far in life. He made a road that linked the North of Italy to Spain and got his eldest son in the Roman senate. The youngest became something of a local noble in Narbo Martius, in the middle of his new road. The problem is that he burned half of Gaule’s primal forests on his way, eradicated at least one Demi-Human species in the Alps, and killed anything that hampered him… He slaughtered a whole gathering of hibernating elven druids and their guardians.”

At that sentence, Damien shivered. “How is it that we are even alive today? Houses which make foes of the Elves rarely survive a generation past the incident, let alone two millennia!” Damien was sweating.

“Well, if I read this correctly, Lëordan thinks that our family burnt itself down somehow. I think he refers to what happened to the great-grandson of Ahenobarbus’s elder son.” Catching Damien’s questioning eyes, he grinned. “Ho, you know of him. That was Nero.”

“We’re related to Nero? Really? Of all of Antiquity’s legendary characters, we’re related to him?” Damien shook his head, disillusioned.

Étienne grinned. That was almost the exact same reaction he’d had. No child was fond of the thought of being related to a half-mad tyrant. “Now you know why we’re not crowing about our illustrious ancestors as some other noble families would. Not that I dislike the de Bourbon, but we’re an older family than them, and that doesn’t stop them from flaunting their riches...” He grumbled a little more, then said seriously. “That last part still worries me. It says that he “claims our ashes”. That sounds as if he wants to use our family!” His fists were squeezing so tightly they were shaking. The idea was intolerable, even for such a jovial, mild-mannered man as him. “I’ll ask around for a Diviner to help Roland check if you have traces of a Charm or a Geas of some kind on you, and if I can’t find one, I’ll have to commandeer the Cognizance Chamber.”

Damien gulped. He seriously hoped that it wouldn’t have to come to that. Commandeering the Cognizance Chamber was one of the powers his father had in theory, but never used because of the political cost. It would make him lose some of his standing in the eyes of the other councillors and the public and might even lose him his position outright.

Damien slept fitfully that night. He dreamed yet again of a pursuit in a burning forest. This time, he could feel the weight of the gladius in his hand and the heat of the blaze on his skin. When his prey, that he could now recognize as a young elven druidess, began losing ground he could feel his lips parting and a savage cry leaving his throat. Only then did he mercifully wake up, early in the morning, his heart roaring in his chest with fear and disgust. Damien fervently hoped that he wouldn’t see what came next in another dream, another night.

While eating breakfast, he peered at the block of wood that was left from the Thorn Elemental. Looking at the grain of the wood, his fears calmed. He thoughtlessly drew a mandala on a piece of paper, then another, and yet more, immersing himself on magical theory. When Étienne woke and entered the kitchen, a good hour later, he found his son lost in thought, his drawn sword’s blade hidden under papers covered in mandalas.

“Want me to call for Roland, or can you bring all these papers to the Manufactorium without mixing them up?” He asked his son cheerily. He had been calling in favors for the whole evening and was now confident that his son would receive appropriate care.

“I have an idea. If I use the same principles as Conjure Minor Elemental… I’m sure the Scroll is somewhere in my room…” Damien said, not even acknowledging his father’s presence otherwise.

“Alright, I’m calling Roland over.” Étienne laughed.

He left the house, hurrying to Roland’s home three streets further. When he came back he had an irritable and barely-awake Manufactorum Overseer in his wake. Roland took a quick look at Damien’s mandalas, nodding at some details, shaking his head at others, and finally sighing when he saw the central part, which was resting on the sword’s pommel.

“Looks like you’re inspired for your first great Work, lad!” Roland said, gingerly putting a hand on Damien’s shoulder. “Let’s tidy all that up, shall we? We’re going to have a good conversation about the ways of using weapons as summoning tools for Conjurers this morning, and this afternoon we’ll meet my beloved sister. You’ll like her! She’s la Réunion’s Oracle, and I can’t stand her.”

After a pleasant morning spent theorycrafting with Roland and inquiring with Manufactorium Transmuters about the heat resistance and Mana tolerances of some materials, Damien had a basic idea of the structure of his first original Work as an Enchanter. He patted the sword’s pommel, thinking of the way he would soon replace its ordinary wood with something far more suitable for a young Enchanter-Conjurer, and left Roland to eat. Roland was very strict on that particular point. They were tutor and pupil, not Master and Apprentice, and Damien acknowledged that the old man was keeping some of his knowledge for someone. Probably Cynthia, now that he thought about it. She was his grandniece and an Enchanter, after all.

When he came back, another small, white-haired person was waiting for him in the sole guest's chair in his tutor's office. She cleared her throat, studiously ignoring Roland in his master’s seat, and said; “I woke up this morning knowing it would be a bad day, so don’t waste a 'good day' on me, young man.” Her voice felt older than she was, somehow, and Damien could swear he saw beard-like hairs on her chin. “I am Lucinda de Hautlieu.” She took his hand and shook it. “Oracle of this sorry rock of an island.” Damien sought traces of humor in her expression but found none. “I’m going to try and see what exactly our dear friend in the Garden did to you. Roland tells me that your father suspects a Charm or a Geas, and I will have to ask you a few questions under a suite of Detection spells to find it. Ready?”

Damien nodded. “Ready, ma'am.”

“Eyes of Truth. Detect Magic. Detect Trap.” The old Diviner intoned.

Damien felt a little insulted by the last spell and was about to protest, but his objection was cut off by the Oracle's sudden outburst.

An alarmed expression appeared on the Oracle's face. Then a wall of sound hit him. “WHY DO YOU HAVE A HALF-ELF’S HEART IN YOUR CHEST!? WHAT ARE YOU!?”

Damien's face fell, the youth gobsmacked by the old woman's utterance.

Out of breath, the Diviner continued, noticeably lower. “Your heart is oozing Druidic Essence! I saw the reading of your Cognizance exam, and that was certainly not on it. What the hell is happening on this island! First, the Half-Elf girl born of two perfectly ordinary parents – And I checked! – now you? You look like you ripped the heart from the chest of a half-elf and used it to replace your own! Were you born like this?”

Great, Damien thought. Another mystery. And I’d just gotten the one about Ahenobarbus out of my head, too. He sighed, expecting his day, maybe even his entire vacation to unfold at Doctor Ferrand’s clinic, under permanent Diagnostic spells.