Excerpt from Keeper Sonn of Milur’s ‘Lineage of the House of Shiningblade.’

“So it was that Gyee passed her role to Syee, and Syee to Phree, and Phree to Junu, who bequeathed willingly to her sister Yuyu, who passed her role to Yuyi, and Yuyi to Lile, and Lile to Lije, and Lije to…”

The following morning, the group departed. Yenna’s stomach injury wasn’t fully healed, but it wasn’t in danger of reopening in transit—with Mayi’s approval, Captain Eone had the entire camp packed up in a matter of hours. With a hurried goodbye, they left Sumhrell behind and carried on down the road. Yenna couldn’t help but feel odd about leaving so quickly.

“What is it that’s got the captain in such a hurry?”

Unable to ask the captain herself, Yenna questioned Mayi—the doctor had been asked to sit with her, just in case. Naturally, Jiin was here too, though neither of them seemed to have much of an answer.

“The captain has important business in Milur—some town near the border. She’s not led us astray before, so we haven’t felt the need to pry.” Mayi gave a non-commital shrug and looked over at Jiin, to see if she had anything to add.

“Don’t ask me! Th’ captain’s been good t’me, so I do what th’ captain says, an’ follow where she leads. Captain Eone wants t’race off t’wherever, I’ll gladly follow.”

Yenna frowned. Eone was impressive, certainly, but there had to be more to the story—she couldn’t imagine any leader inspiring such earnest devotion without having earned it in some way. The mage was not normally one to pry, but the answer had been so utterly unsatisfying that she had to know more—at least until she could talk to Eone herself.

“Just who is Captain Eone, anyway?” Yenna idly rapped her fingers against the cover of her journal. “How did you all meet?”

The pair exchanged a look. It was an expression that Yenna wasn’t entirely sure how to read, though she worried that she had asked about something sensitive. After a moment, Mayi spoke up—narrowly cutting off Jiin, who looked thankful to be interrupted.

“The captain is an adventurer, first and foremost. She made her start doing all the ordinary adventurer things—fighting problem monsters, exploring old mines and haunted caverns, picking through ruins, that sort of thing. Apparently she’s been all around the place. I believe Muut is an old adventuring buddy—Eone’s always telling stories about the stuff they got up to when they were younger.”

“Were you an adventurer, then?” Yenna couldn’t picture the doctor fighting monsters and spelunking through caves.

Mayi shook her head and laughed. “No, no. I joined up after Captain Eone stopped her adventuring…well, the ‘swinging a sword around and looting forgotten treasure’ kind of adventuring, anyways. I had barely completed my medical training—an apprenticeship with a doctor up in Yenel.”

Yenna recognised the name—it was a large town not far from the capital of Aulpre. “With a start like that, you really could have just stayed where you were and lived quite the comfortable life. I can’t imagine there’s a lack of demand for doctors of your skill in Yenel.”

A little smirk played across Mayi’s lips. “Likewise, I can’t imagine the school in Ulumaya was happy to see you go. Why did you come with us? Don’t say the pay—we both know that entirely slipped your mind.”

Jiin snorted with laughter and Yenna blushed a little—of course Jiin knew about that. However, it was a question that the mage felt needed a bit of thought. Looking back, the decision to leave had been so thoroughly last-second. She wanted to see the world, sure, but Yenna didn’t need to join some mad expedition just because it tore through her town. She easily could have taken her time and left when she was good and ready– It was that thought that sparked a revelation in Yenna’s mind.

“If I hadn’t left then–” Yenna paused and chose her words carefully—she knew she was telling this to herself as well. “If I hadn’t left then, right then, I…I never would have left Ulumaya again.”

She knew it was true. The amount of times she had told herself, I’ll make a big change in my life, just when I’m ready, only for that readiness to never manifest. Yenna had been waiting for something to come and sweep her up, take her off to a world of discoveries and excitement—and it had come! This shining gap in the comfortable nook of her daily routine, asking for her to leave that valley of safety and head on. To new heights, to an interesting life.

This thought hit Yenna quite hard. She realised that if she hadn’t come along on this expedition, her life as a teacher would have been comfortable—probably even enjoyable. There really would have been no problem, except for that constantly suppressed desire to see what the world had to offer. The mage chuckled—barely two weeks out on the road and she was already acting like she would be out here for the rest of her days.

Jiin and Mayi had patiently waited for Yenna to come back to reality—at least until it became clear that she wasn’t going to. The doctor gave a quiet ahem, and Yenna snapped back to attention.

“S-Sorry, I got, erm, sidetracked. So, yeah. I think that’s why I joined. Wait.” Yenna narrowed her eyes at Mayi’s smirk. “You’re just the same, aren’t you?”

“Not exactly the same, but the general gist is there.” Mayi looked over at Jiin and smiled. It clicked for the mage that the world wasn’t the only thing Mayi was here to learn more about. “I could have just stayed working as a doctor, possibly even had my own clinic someday. Perhaps when I’m too old for the adventuring life, I’ll go and do that—though, if Hirihiri has anything to say on the matter, there’s no such thing as too old.”

The three of them laughed in a way that made Yenna feel warm inside. If she hadn’t come on this expedition, Yenna never would have met these wonderful people. Of course, she never would have burst into flame, or been stabbed by a water elemental, but…somehow, all these good moments made it feel worth it. Thinking back to her hometown of Ulumaya, she never really had any friends. Close acquaintances, sure—colleagues she worked with, neighbours and local shopkeepers she shared pleasantries with regularly, but no friends. Another thing she had always hoped would just happen. Had she really been so stuck in place, waiting for someone else to pull her out of the muck?

The thoughts in Yenna’s head had begun to get a little bit grim, so she gently pushed them aside into their own compartment and moved on. The mage turned to Jiin.

“How about you?” Jiin had seemed willing but reluctant to share earlier, so Yenna hoped that her own heart-baring would make it easier. “Did you join alongside Mayi?”

There was an awkward quiet between them for a moment—Yenna cursed herself for not just leaving it alone. Still, Jiin spoke up.

“Um, kinda. S’more like Mayi came with me.” Jiin gave an awkward chuckle. “I, uh, was kinda runnin’ away. Th’ captain kinda, erm, adopted me. So here I am.”

“As far as I can tell,” Mayi added, “she’s functionally adopted a fair few of the crew. Tirk, Hirihiri and Chime too. Mysilia and Muut have been with the captain the longest, so I guess they just signed up the normal way.”

Yenna nodded along. It hadn’t been much of an answer, but it was obvious Jiin didn’t want to say much more—the mage respected her decision to be private on the matter. Still, Yenna wasn’t much of a conversationalist—she really couldn’t think of a way to put matters back on track. Fortunately, she didn’t need to.

“PRAY, WHY HAST THOU NOT ASKED AS TO MY METHOD OF ARRIVAL?”

Demvya was loud, and as far as Yenna could tell, not even remotely joking. The mage wasn’t sure how to respond, so she decided that ‘calm explanation’ was the ideal approach.

“We were all there, Demvya. We don’t need to ask.”

“OH.” The small ‘oh’ out of Demvya’s mouth felt decidedly opposite to the harvest spirit’s divine persona. “I WAS FORGOTTEN, ONCE. I WISHED TO ENSURE IT WAS NOT DONE AGAIN.”

Yenna laughed, then Jiin’s laughter burst through—forcing the spirit to retreat in whatever approximated embarrassment for a creature of magic. Mayi laughed too, but Yenna got the feeling her heart wasn’t in it. It reminded the mage of why she didn’t like talking to people—sometimes a thing that felt like nice, innocent fun could be upsetting, and Yenna wasn’t particularly good at dealing with that. Did Mayi have some problem with Demvya? Yenna honestly couldn’t tell, and it scared her a little.

For a short while, the group alternated between polite conversation and comfortable silence—Yenna mostly read her books and half-listened to the pair chat about this and that. However, that obnoxious feeling in the back of her head was itching away—there were mysteries to be solved, but they were people mysteries, and people tended to resist their mysteries being solved. It was a frustrating feeling. Frustrating enough that, when the group stopped at a roadside clearing for lunch, Yenna wasted no time approaching Eone.

That was, at least, how she imagined it would go. Instead, Yenna had to get away from people for a moment. The rolling hills and forests of Aulpre were starting to give way to the peaks and valleys of the typical Miluran terrain, their rest spot sitting at the top of a rise that looked down upon a lightly forested valley. Tall trees with leaves like long streamers swayed in the wind, catching the light as it shone down into the shallow valley—Yenna thought it looked very similar to waves at sea, the wind billowing and dancing through the trees.

A certain feeling of peace filled Yenna. The need to fill in the blanks, to discover the why and how of all things, still itched at the back of her head—but it no longer scraped like an angry creature, just a quiet knocking at the door. Taking a deep breath, she walked back to the group. The four-armed bodyguard Narasanha was in whispered conversation with Eone, and for a moment Yenna’s resolve wavered. Narasanha was intimidating, and unlike most of the other members of the expedition, Yenna had barely spoken to her at all. The guard did all her guarding from the shadows, and she seemed to like it that way.

Fiddling awkwardly with a sleeve as she waited for them to be done, Yenna pretended to appreciate some nearby patch of flowers—they were pretty, but not a species she recognised. The idle thought of conducting some botanical research came to mind, then to a long list of books that could help¹, before Yenna finally realised she had been staring at the same patch of flowers for several minutes. When she looked up, Narasanha was once again nowhere to be seen—but more importantly the captain was free.

“Captain, I hab– ugh!” Yenna trotted over and bit her tongue as she spoke too quickly. “I have an important question, um. About…Milur. Why exactly are we going to Milur with such haste? What’s there?”

“Oh, loads of things!” Eone deflected with the practiced ease of someone used to speaking, but it was clearly deflection—so clearly, in fact, that even Yenna could tell that Eone wanted her to know so. “We can pass through to reach the Seven Peaks of Ruli Brighteye, the Greater Sand Temple, the Holy Strand, the–”

“C-Captain!” The mage had intended to yell, but instead made an awkward squeak. “Ahem. Captain. Why are we going to Milur in such a hurry?”

There was a change in Eone’s demeanour, almost immediately. For a moment, she looked annoyed—but only for the slightest moment. Then, she sighed. “I never took you for one to be persistent on such things, Mage Yenna.”

The overwhelming urge to drop the issue, to apologise profusely, maybe to simply run into the woods never to be seen again, all assailed Yenna’s sensibilities. Fortunately, through an odd mix of mental discipline and burning curiosity, she stood her ground—though Yenna wasn’t above admitting that her back legs were shaking a little.

“I…I’m not sure I can rest easy, knowing some great secret looms over our travel plans. Especially not when we’re so close to the border.” Despite their delays, the expedition was only a handful of days from reaching Milur itself. Unlike Aulpre’s fairly sparse border territory, Milur was a lot more densely packed—they would not be stuck with days of travel between towns, no matter where they went in the state.

“You really are insistent.” Eone looked up at the sky and sighed, her hands on her hips. Shaking her head with a wry chuckle, she looked back down at Yenna. “Alright. I suppose I have to tell everyone sooner or later. Muut’s been nagging me to do it, Mysilia’s been telling me in her own way—figures that someone else would too. I was expecting Mayi, to be honest.”

Without another word, the captain paced over to where everyone was seated around Hirihiri’s cooking pot. Mayi and Jiin were sitting together on a fallen tree trunk, Tirk was handing out lumps of bread to the crew, old Hirihiri was stirring the pot, and Muut was inspecting three different maps. Chime had coiled part way around the spot where they all sat, blocking a cold wind as they tried to keep out of the way of the road—not that this was a particularly busy thoroughfare. The peaceful atmosphere broke almost immediately as an uncharacteristically sheepish Eone stood before them.

“There’s something I’ve got to, ah, admit to you all. That I should’ve told all of you a long while ago, to be honest.” Eone made sure to look everyone in the eye, choosing her words carefully. “We aren’t going to Milur simply for the sake of the expedition—though we absolutely are continuing on with our journey, to see all sorts of new sights and make wondrous discoveries. I’ve got some rather pressing business in a town on the border, you see—someone I’ve got to meet with.”

Muut had put away his maps to listen intently—though he seemed more interested in the reaction of the group than the content of Eone’s admission. The captain continued, her usual confidence returned.

“I have been summoned to the town of Hilbar, a town right on the border—though somewhat out of the way. I am meeting with Aroearoe Deepstar, to discuss dire events transpiring amongst the great houses.”

There were a few murmurs—Mayi and Jiin looked quite surprised, and Chime was jingling quite excitedly. Muut wore a severe expression, as though silently chastising Eone for leaving out some important detail.

“Excuse me for my asking,” Yenna raised a hand, “But…who is Aroearoe Deepstar?”

All sets of eyes turned to the mage as though she had just asked what that big light in the sky was, or if there were any numbers after four.

“You really don’t know?” Mayi was the first to respond. “She’s the head of House Deepstar, one of the Great Houses of Milur!”

Yenna frowned. Politics was never her forte—too much talking with people who expressly wanted something out of you. Never mind foreign politics, she could barely deal with the kind of petty break-room politics that cropped up at the school she taught at. However, Yenna knew of the Great Houses—massive, influential groupings of nobles ruling over particular sections of Milur and other nearby regions. If the head of a Great House personally wanted to meet with the captain, then she must be someone important too. Yenna gasped. Was her idle speculation from the day before correct?

“Captain, are you, by any chance, a member of House Deepstar?”

Every eyeball locked on Yenna suddenly changed targets, putting Eone in the spotlight. Hirihiri was the next one to talk, as everyone burned with curiosity.

“Why is the head of a Great House asking for you, Captain?”

“Erm.” Eone smiled, and bowed her head a little—as though to apologise for what she was about to say. “She’s my mother.”

¹ - Yenna lists 24 different books on botany. Twenty-four! Then she spends a paragraph or three lamenting that she’s missing some, or that she lost one to a careless borrower, or that she failed to get the limited-print collection of special editions for a set. Yenna gets sidetracked from telling us how she sidetracked herself pretending to be sidetracked.