We spent several hours with the emissary to the elves, a rather peppy woman by the name of Joan. Much off that pep faltered as she got the retelling of our story, how we'd encountered one of the more rare oceanic magical beasts and the loss of two thirds of our little excursion.

"My, I would expect a few lost to an intercontinental mission, but those numbers..."

"Quite severe, yes. The question is if we should continue or not." Olnir responded, all business.

"I haven't been read in on the details of your project. What are you able to tell me?" The emissary looked a bit irked that she had to ask, but it was what it was.

"I'm afraid we can't tell you much, but it is considered of extremely high priority to Emperor Durin. That is the reason so many were sent, and why we've been training for years for this."

Joan sighed. "There's nothing for that then. Could I assign one or two others to work with you? I have a few contacts from the city who've traveled the lands a bit, and could provide a little muscle. They could be instructed to keep out of the details, or to silence."

"Perhaps, we were hoping to hire a guide to the area anyway. If you have someone who you think is loyal, then we can discuss it." Olnir was being surprisingly reasonable about this, but we really did have no choice, we needed more numbers.

"On to other things. What can you tell me about these 'goblins', I'm afraid I've not seen their like before." Joan looked at me, as I'd been the one to give the name in the first place.

"Not much, they are known to be violent and reproduce at an insane rate."

"Can they speak, do they have language?" The emissary was obviously considering the implications of another sentient race.

"I honestly have no clue. They can scream, but I don't know if that is indicative of the power of speech. They were also using crude tools, so there must be some intelligence there, but I can't say how much." I only knew about them from stories on Earth, and who knew how true those were, so there was little help for it.

"Fine, do we know their location, or any way to contact them?" Joan continued to question. "Perhaps we could send someone to try communication."

"I agree," said Leah. "We know that at minimum they can use basic tools and magic, though how much of the latter they use is unclear. The issue is that based on the estimates of the captain on our ship they were both in an area known for a lack of wind, and in one of the higher magic regions of the ocean. It isn't the worst spot, but I doubt many sailors will want to go there."

Our ecologist was still excited by the idea, but I had my doubts as to their success. Regardless that was one mission I wanted nothing at all to do with. After a few moments of consideration Joan tapped her chin.

"I'll make note of the location and what we know so far, but for now we'll but that matter aside then. It's not either of our main missions and can therefore wait for a ruling from the emperor or one of his subordinates." With the exchange of a couple of sheets that bit was done.

"Do we have rooms we can stay in? i also wouldn't mind a proper place to wash," I asked.

"Yes, I live on the top floors, but there are a number of guest quarters on the floors just below. I'll get one of the servants to show you to your accommodations. I do hope you'll join me for dinner though."

The building itself was almost as one would expect from a modern apartment complex. There was an elevator, that humorously had a small plaque saying that the safety inspection was done by one Sharibari, there was even a little engraved picture of the woman. The maid working here was, to judge by her aura either a minor talent or a very weak mage, and was actually human. I watched as she used a rather modern looking panel to drop each of us off at our floor.

I knew that even though all of this was run by magic, but it clearly had other inspiration. My floor, because each of us was assigned half of one to ourselves, was one large suite. From the windows I could see out onto the bay we'd entered in. It also had, much to my extreme joy, a bathtub. For the last couple of months, I'd washed only using a bucket of water and a precious bit of soap. Now though I had a selection of such things, each a wondrous little product. It seemed that the emissary here was spending an absolutely incredible quantity of money on such arrangements.

Finally washed of salt, sweat, and the general grime of not having had a proper bath in months I found that some of my clothes had been laundered for me by one of the maids. I'd come not for parties and the like, but I still had one slightly more formal outfit, in case I had to meet anyone important, and it appeared someone had a spell that would clean clothing. I had my cleaning spell, but I'd always been rather hesitant to use it on fabrics since it was less discriminating than I'd like for delicate applications.

Around the time I finished getting myself dressed a knock came from my door.

"Hello?" I said moving over to the portal that led to the elevator and opening it.

"Ah, apologies miss. I came to see if you needed anything? Though you seem to have already taken care of things." A rather nervous maid looked in at me.

I nodded, "Yes, I'm quite well."

"Oh wonderful. We don't quite have the staff to assign everyone a servant, I hope you understand."

I smiled at her kindly. That was preferable to me in fact, as I found having someone hovering around could be a pain sometimes.

"Of course. I believe Joan asked us to join her for dinner later, do you know what time that would be?" It was still mid-afternoon.

"It won't be until sunset. Would you like me to come and let you know?" The maid inquired.

I told her that I planned on napping and asked for a wake-up call slightly before the meal and then went to try out the bed. It was, like most other things here, quite good. I don't know that it was quite as good as the bed back at my family home, but having not slept on a proper one for so long I quickly found that I didn't really care. I sank into the covers and drifted off to sleep.

After a rather unwelcome, even if asked for, waking I quickly prepared and headed to meet our host.

I arrived with Selene, who was sharing the floor with me to find Olnir and Joan in deep discussion. The latter looked up when we arrived with a bright smile.

"Well, it appears the time for business has ended my friend. Let's move on to more relaxed topics." The woman declared as she motioned us to some nearby couches. "You two seem to have relaxed well since last I saw you."

Both of us laughed as we sat and I looked over at her. "This place is wonderful, but isn't it a bit... much? I mean, our rooms are huge."

"Alana wasn't it?" When I nodded Joan continued. "Here's the thing, it kind of has to be. The council here in Atal sort of demands that buildings be build and set a certain way. The elves take put a lot of emphasis on how things like this look, it has to be artsy and the like."

"Okay..."

"What I mean is that every major building has to be a tower, and a damn big one. If we put our embassy in some small little structure then our whole nation would be looked down on terribly, and because of how things are run here it isn't exactly hard to use one this size."

"Everything is so nice too. Running water and that little... elevator? Is that what it's called?" Selene asked.

"None of that is outside the abilities of human mages." The emissary remarked, raising her eyes a bit. This seemed to be a point of some irritation for her. "It's just that there are too few of us to waste the amount of mana it would take to build and run things in this way. There are almost too few elves to as well, but that's neither here nor there."

"Yes, making a moving platform, even a safe one wouldn't be too hard, and with a bit of work you could do it... fairly efficiently. Same with the buildings, even if you can't get materials that will survive all the stresses, if you put support magic in the right spots..." I mused.

"Exactly, and the elves that run this city have had a long, long time to get it right." Joan nodded along.

"But why all the effort?" I asked.

"Because a lot of them are perfectionists."

Dras and Robert came in about this time and was motioned took their seats nearby. Dras had apparently heard enough of our conversation that he had thoughts on it too. "I don't know, the elven sailors we met didn't seem too bad, a bit grumpy at poorly made things perhaps, but nothing that extreme."

"Ah, I see your interactions have been a bit limited," Joan commented. "Okay, things are like this. With the lower order workers it's not as extreme, but as a family or individual climbs the social scale they want things more and more perfect, particularly over time. Most of those sailors were probably from poorer families, and also quite young, at least by elven standards. The leaders aren't like that though, and they have harsh demands."

That made good enough sense. I knew that my professor had very high expectations for herself in her chosen art, and for us who wanted to pursue it as well. We hadn't been told much about the leadership though, only that the country of Atal, which shared it's name with the city we were in, was a magocracy, a government run by those with powerful magic.

"These leaders, the council, do you think they'll be any issue for us? We're not here to start trouble, but if they're that demanding..." Robert looked at Joan with serious eyes.

"As long as you don't cause problems I doubt it. Partially because you're really unlikely to meet any of the councilors. They hole themselves up a lot, them and their families."

"How will we know if we do? Is there some indication of the very important people in the town? A badge or some uniform? Or do we just look at their mana?" I really didn't want to come across anyone who'd be dangerous, but it was best to know.

"Easy, look at their ears." Joan said.

"Ears?" Olnir asked.

"Yes. It's not well known unless you interact with a lot, and I mean a lot of elves, but there are several different groupings. Most elves that you see nowadays have some amount of human blood, they had to crossbreed to keep up their numbers after their empire fell, but not all of them did. The councilors and their families are from that latter group, those that never intermingled with humans. This means that their magic tends to be stronger than other elves, that they never really age, and that their ears are far longer." She pointed to her ears to emphasize.

"Wait, they don't age!?" I asked.

"Not really. Your average elf can live for centuries, some of those with more human blood live for around two. The old stock though, they can live for thousands, and normally die of either violence or accident. There are one or two of the councilors who claim that they met the king before his passing, though that's viewed rather dubiously even by their fellows."

"Um... wasn't that like... four thousand or so years ago?" Selene asked.

"Yes, and the fact that while nobody really believes them, nobody can easily refute their claim should give you some ideas."

"What kind of monstrous magic can someone learn in thousands of years?" Dras mused, looking out at the horizon.

"There are limits to what a mortal body can hold, but it's high. There is a reason that no human army has ever occupied territory on this continent. Between the weapons their king left behind and the power some of the elders can let loose, there's no way to take it."

"Why don't they rule the world?" I asked, a lot of people would try with that kind of power.

"Because every soldier they lose takes decades to replace. This city might as well be an unassailable fortress, but in war if they lose one soldier it's a far larger blow. Due to attrition they can't really project their power either. Which is very good for us." Sighing the emissary pointed out to the shore. "Enough about that though, you got here in time for a special treat."

We looked up from our conversation to see the ocean glowing. With every wave that crashed another wave of blue light joined it. All along the docks the moving water shone blue, and the beaches just to the edge of our view looked like a sea of stars.

"The star tide began a few days ago, and will continue for awhile yet. I thought it would make a perfect backdrop for our meal." At her words a pair of butlers came to serve us, laying down plates of food nearby. With the couches and platters it looked nothing like the meals I was used to, but that was different countries for you.