TO&FQ: Book 3: Chapter 7 (RAW)

Chapter 7 - The Price of Progress

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

- Frederick Douglass.

Seraphina drained the last of her flagon, the dwarven brew thick and earthy on her tongue. It was a strange thing, this ale fermented from mushrooms rather than grain, with an umami undernote that lingered like damp stone after rain. She held the empty vessel aloft a moment, considering its foreign strength. It went down easier than expected. It was, she concluded, very drinkable.

“And how am I to be of service, Master Goldsmith?” she asked, her voice cool and reserved, but not unkind.

The dwarf across from her shifted on his bench. This close, Seraphina could see that he really was rather thick about the middle, with beard-braids tangled by nervous hands and eyes that hadn’t seen proper sleep in some time.

“Well, there’s the matter of the forest, milady… and what lies within it.” He scratched at the side of his nose. “Every time we go in, we come back out again. Empty-handed. And… changed.”

Seraphina arched an elegant eyebrow. “Changed how?”

He looked away. “The dreams,” he muttered. “They come when the sun sets an’ we close our eyes. Strange things. Twisted things. Dreams that cling to a man like cobwebs, even long after waking. Nightmares, if I’m honest. And they feel… real. Not all of us are made of the Stone, milady. Some have gone back to Bronzegate already. What with the forest not being easy and the dreams chewing at our wits, prospecting’s proving difficult.”

Seraphina’s emerald eyes gleamed, cold and sharp as polished jade. She set her flagon down with a dull thunk.

“I believe I made myself plain in my letters, did I not? You would be crossing into the dominion of your ancient enemies. I said so in no uncertain terms. If you wished to claim the treasures beneath the soil, you would first have to drive the Fae from it.”

The dwarf flushed. “Aye, my lady. That’s true. You did warn us. But it’s been… gods, hundreds of years by your kind’s reckoning. We haven’t seen a true Fae in generations. Most of us thought it was old Greybeard tales—no more.”

Her lips thinned. “So, you thought me a liar.”

“No!” he blurted, hands up as if to ward off a blow. “No, never! Earthmother shield me, no. Only… we thought you might be mistaken, is all. We were grateful just to have a place to go, away from the Holds.”

Seraphina did not speak at once. She let the silence weigh on him, a pause heavy enough to draw sweat to the dwarf’s brow.

“Then tell me, clearly, how I may help you.”

Tam, seated farther down the table, cleared his throat. “Lady Seraphina, if I may—Gallenflux over there—” he nodded to a stout fellow three seats away, who dipped his head at the sound of his name, “—he brought a few old tomes. Belonged to his grandfather. Smithing manuals mostly, but there was something odd in one of them. Mentions of the Fae. And a few runes. Basic wards.”

She took a small nibble of a piece of something she had forgotten the name of. “Please, go on.”

“Well, with a bit of study, we think we might be able to craft weapons that’ll sting the bastards—if they are Fae, which seems likely now. But the problem is… we can’t bloody well see them.”

Seraphina reclined slightly, one pale hand stroking the coils of her serpent as it slithered lazily across her lap. “Then cut down the trees. Rip out their homes. I gave you leave to harvest them, did I not? Ten percent tithe on sold lumber, five if used for Undertown’s construction.”

Tam sighed. “We tried. Soon as the axe bites bark, the cutter forgets what he’s doing. Next thing he knows, he’s in Undertown again, axe in hand, dazed. We think it’s illusions. Glamours.”

He paused, scratching behind his ear as if unsure of his next words. “But there may still be hope. In those same manuals, there’s mention of a ‘Barrier of the Song of the Lost.’ Seems like the forest is warded with it. If we had someone who could counter that… a singer who can sing their tune, maybe, or someone with the knack…”

“A common Bard?” Seraphina asked with a crooked smile. “A fiddler to charm the woods? Why haven’t you hired one already? They are as common as the wheat in the fields.”

Mention of Bards made Seraphina think that perhaps she might have been forgetting somebody.

“We thought of that, milady. But none so far have been able to break the barrier… just like singing at trees, and there was nothing different.”

She nodded once, plucking a sliver of roasted meat from the platter before her and holding it up to her serpent, who snapped it up greedily.

“Very well. I’ll see what can be done. In the morning.” She gave a soft chuckle. “It would be foolish to challenge the Fae’s claim by night.”

To her, the agreement was a simple one. An easy promise. For Seraphina de Sariens, heir to the Duchy, already knew the nature of the Fae’s barrier.

***

It was a fine, crisp morning, the kind that came only in the heart of autumn, when the air bit just enough to remind one of the coming cold, and the sky, pale and cloud-streaked, seemed vast as a sea of silk. Undertown awaited them the next day, its mood unchanged, the excitement of its citizens still thick in the air. 

The dwarves of Undertown, for all their stoic reputation, knew how to celebrate. They worked hard, perhaps too hard, and when the work relented—even for a breath—they seized joy with both of their hands. It baffled Seraphina, truth be told. Not just here, but across it seemed the Kingdom entire, the frequency with which the common folk laid down their tools was astonishing. Compared to modern Korea, the peasants of her father’s duchy toiled perhaps half the year, if that. And somehow, by what dark miracle or divine joke, civilization had not yet collapsed beneath its own idleness.

That would have to change when she got in charge.

Once she eased her father into retirement, with flattery or force of will, she would take the reins in earnest. Perhaps a hobby would keep the old duke—gardening, or genealogy, or a mistress or two, if necessary. On second thought, she realized her mother would hardly allow her father a mistress, let alone two.

A large crowd had gathered to watch her. Not out of mere curiosity, but awe. For here stood the golden child of the Sariens Duchy, the girl with a voice that was praised as of the Divines. She dismounted from her palfrey and handed the reins to her Knight Sir Frest without a word. With measured steps, Seraphina approached the edge of the forest, stopping just a pace beyond the reach of the shadows of the trees.

The woods before her were not natural. The air between the trees shimmered faintly, as if reality itself thickened there, congealing into something solid and unseen. She studied the threshold, then turned to the crowd and smiled, her green eyes catching the light like twin emeralds.

Within those woods, beneath root and rock, lay wealth undreamt of. Enough precious stones and Mithril to elevate the Sariens Duchy above all others—perhaps even to rival Al-Lazar, the great City of Dust. And with wealth came power. Power enough to make the King pause and fools like Velens choke on their regrets. Let him chase his painted, silver strumpet. She would have wealth beyond measure.

Yet, for a moment, just a sliver, she wondered if all of these grand things would actually make her happy.

Tam appeared beside her, holding a miner’s helm in his thick fingers, his beard freshly oiled. “Will you sing for us, Lady Seraphina? Will you break the Barrier of the Song of the Lost? We heard you’re the best in all the land.”

Seraphina’s lips curled into a smile, soft and wicked. “Dear Tam,” she said, her voice like warm honey, “I am the best in all the world. No, in all the worlds!”

She drew in a slow breath, lungs filling with the sharp tang of leaf-must and moss. The forest watched. The wind stilled. And then, she sang.

Just a single note—pure, crystalline, perfect. It rang out like the chime of some ancient bell, unaccompanied save for the weight of expectation and the hush of reverent silence.

It was the same note the game’s protagonist would unlock only with a rare and magical music box, yet Seraphina sang it with ease. Perfection had long been behind her. She dwelled now in the realm of the sublime.

The magical barrier before her was no simple thing, but a tapestry protected thought woven by cunning Fae hands over centuries to turn the mind against itself. It would not fall in a breath. This was a siege. Her voice would be the first assault, her song the first rocks smashing against their walls.

Somewhere in the boughs beyond, the pixies surely stirred—startled, bewildered—as a mortal girl unraveled their precious enchantment note by glorious note.

She would have preferred Haze Finleigh, her Bard, to accompany her. Singing alone to undo ancient magic was taxing, even for her. 

Seraphina hoped that Haze was safe after all the hullabaloo with the Dragon attack and all of the nonsense that had followed. The young girl had invested far too much time, money, and effort in the Bard for something to have something untoward to happen to her. She would have to get Miriam to find out her current status.

Another note escaped her lips, and with it, something snapped. A tremor rippled through the air. The barrier had weakened. The crowd gasped, then erupted into thunderous applause.

“Is it done, Lady Seraphina?” Tam asked, almost whispering.

“The first layer is breached,” she replied, her voice calm but electric. “They’ll scramble to repair it. But defense… playing defensively only prolongs the end. Fear not, Master Goldsmith, I shall prevail.”

She clapped once. At the signal, her servants moved with practiced speed. A long table was brought forth, laid with a linen cloth, shaded by a canopy. Honey tea steeped in silver pots to soothe her throat.

This would be a long campaign. A marathon and not a simple sprint. 

Seraphina took a moment, sitting elegantly down as she sipped at her tea, letting the brew work its simple magic. This was a special tea that Catherina always made for her when she was sick when she was young. After she finished, she got up and clapped her hands again.

More servants arrived—one bearing barrels of polished stones, another, a stablehand carrying her modified sling. She took it with a wordless nod.

A voice behind her spoke. It was the striking female dwarf she had glimpsed the day before. The tallish one for the vertically challenged folk.

“What are you planning to do… with that?” the dwarf asked. Then, catching herself, added quickly, “I mean, Lady Seraphina.”

Seraphina did not look at her. Instead, she began to whirl the sling above her head, the cord hissing through the air with lethal promise.

“Name?”

“Aesalin Bumblebrew, if it pleases you, milady,” the dwarf replied, fumbling a bow with more heart than grace.

Seraphina loosed her first shot. The stones whirled through the trees and struck with a crack of splintered bark. A tree, cleanly shredded, wept sap.

Gasps followed. Her Knights, long accustomed to her eccentricities and such displays, remained unmoved. The others stood slack-jawed.

“We cannot allow them time to mend their defenses,” Seraphina said. “Singing to spirits is difficult enough. Singing while under an assault such as this, I would think, would be near impossible.”

She reached out again, and a servant hefted a second sling into her hands. Heavy and packed with a large amount of gravel.

She didn’t need to see the Fae to kill them. Just needed a fair guess and a strong arm.

The first few volleys struck only trees and shadows. But on the fifth she had a stroke of luck.

You have slain Unknown. 120 experience gained.

You have learned Slings (lvl.5)

You have 1 Luck.

Seraphina laughed and smiled an evil smile. A low, cruel sound.

“I do believe I got one of the little tricksy things,” she said, smiling. “Annoying pixies. However, there might be nothing left to find but paste.”

Tam’s eyes bulged. “You’ve slain one of the Fae?”

“I do believe I have,” she said, her smile enigmatic and unreadable.

She placed the sling gently upon the table, coughed once, and lifted her voice again. A new note, rising and spiraling like incense smoke, began to pull at the weave of Fae magic once more.

The Fae would adapt, no doubt. They would learn to deal with hail of stones that she could unleash. But Seraphina had planned for that too. The slings were only the beginning. Soon, she would launch Crystals. Later, she would burn the forest down if she had to. If the winds were favorable, that was.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the first of the wagons loaded with barrels of pitch rolling.

Perfect! she thought to herself. Sometimes it was just nice to watch the world burn.