When the elves had crossed the great ocean and come to the Sunset lands, they had found themselves almost immediately at home. The local spirits and gods and the like had a similar -- if not identical -- stance when it came to the great Tellings and while their stories did not mesh, they didn't come into direct conflict. And so, elves who wished to find higher places in the Telling without needing to challenge the established Players -- a dicey and dangerous proposition even in the best of times -- flocked to the Sunset lands to establish their own households, to tell the old stories in a new land.
This was all well and good...until someone needed to actually
make
the props.
Oh, it was all well and good for The Smith in the tale of Brannywise and the Smith to hammer on an anvil to make the horseshoes for the penultimate game that ended with Brannywise fleeing downriver with the Smith's wife in one arm and an horseshoe around his neck. But The Smith couldn't
also
be expected to forge the blade of Kale Tall Grass. That blade was from one of the stories that had been snuffed out by the Dark Lord -- no elf could dare take up the guise of the mage-smith Stormrider and hammer out a new blade that was fit for Kale Tall Grass or any of the other heroes who bore it in their stories.
To fill this need, the elves, somewhat sheepishly, had opened the ports to the Sunset lands to others.
They didn't get who they wanted.
Elves preferred the beautiful and the kind and the merry when they would interact with mortals. They could gladly host entire villages of the smallfolk among them. Brownies and knockers? Oh, they were a delight! Dwarves, they could tolerate. Orcs were, ah, well, orcs were sometimes quite energetic, but that was still acceptable. But all those peoples had their own lands and their own worries. They had not wanted to cross a dangerous ocean and come to an unknown land populated with strange gods and stranger spirits.
Instead, those who were not wanted had come. And the elves, with fixed smiles and strained voices, had welcomed them. They had welcomed the trolls. They had welcomed the trow. And, with their smiles nearly shattering apart, they had welcomed the Fiends.
[Interlocutor/Speaker/Craftsman] -- or, as mindblind races called him, Librarian -- sometimes recalled the race-memory first thing in the morning and enjoyed it immensely. His great great grandfather had been there, and had committed the memory to the communal pool. The bloodline link meant that the memory could be felt fuller and more colorfully than it might have been by some other Fiend. His facial tentacles writhed in a single happy spasm and he let the memory of the disgusted Lord Winsom fade. He did have some actual work to do today.
He began with a quick circuit of Lord Winsom's inner sanctum. The Telling that Winsom was preforming involved a poisoned dagger, placed by an unnamed and unknown assassin, in his bed. He would cast back the bedsheets and throw down his best friend's wife upon the bed as part of their forbidden lovemaking. She would be pricked and die -- and lead to Winsom and his friend's fatal duel. As the person who placed the dagger wasn't a Player, anyone could do it -- and for his entire life, Librarian had been the one to handle such things.
He pulled the dagger from its sheath with a twist of his mind -- he kept his fingers pressed together before his robes. He floated it before his midnight black eyes and gently prodded the hilt with one of his facial tentacles -- to set it spinning in the bubble of telekinetic force he exerted upon it. As it spun in the air, like a magnetic compass in water, he observed it. Yes, the poison had been applied exactly as he had ordered.
The door to the bed chambers exploded inwards -- rebounding off the wall with the force of the movement.
Librarian started and clutched at his chest, feeling his hearts hammering through his silken robes as the dagger clattered to the floor, rebounding off the hardwood. Standing in the doorway was Lord Winsom's squire, Fireheart. She strode into the room, her twin swords jouncing off her hips, and snarled at Librarian. "Outside, squid. Now."
Librarian spluttered, his facial tentacles writhing. "Squire Fireheart, you should be out in the marsh!"
"Now!" Fireheart shouted.
Librarian, feeling as stunned as if he had been clouted about the head with a pole, started to the door. Fireheart stalked around like a caged beast. As she paced around, Librarian felt her anger and frustration -- and her fear -- sparking off her. The emotions buzzed and sparked along his hairless scalp and Librarian hurried even faster. He had no idea
anything
could scare Fireheart. The first thing that popped into his head was the rise of a new Dark Lord, or the conquest of the Sunset Lands by the Dragon Empire, or a new orcish migration or...
He stumbled down the stairs that circled around the center of the castle. Each step was carved ornately, and the banisters that went to either side of the stairwell were decorated with inlaid scenes of battles and history. It made gripping them easier when one had slick, slippery skin -- something that Librarian was eminently grateful for. But the sheer number of the stairs and the height of the castle meant that hurrying down the stairs left him out of breath, his gills straining behind the little flaps between his facial tentacles.
He found that the foyers of the castle had the entire hunting party within it, including The Quarry. The poor troll that had been pulled off the streets to play The Quarry didn't look as if he had been hurt much, and he was cowering behind...behind a collection of strangers. The strangers made Librarian wish he had brought the dagger downstairs with him: Four of them were clad in solid, heavy, iron looking armor and carried what were clearly majiles. Then he took a second glance and realize that the weapons had no power gems, and were carved of metal and strange black material, not of wood and brass.
The other two were clad in lighter suits. One was green and brown, while the other was dressed in a sky blue uniform with a single gold bar on the shoulder and a few patches across the chest, written in a tongue he did not recognize. The men in heavy armor stood in a defensive position about them, while the troll ducked his head down and tried to seem as unnoticable as possible.
The elves all started to lobby questions at the Librarian -- not just verbally, but mentally as well. And then the strange mentality of the strangers started to
slam
into him. He could feel their shock. Their disgust. Their utter confusion. It hammered into his mind and sent spiking pain through his temples. He flung up his hands, his purple fingers spreading, and bellowed: [
SILENCE
!]
Everyone shut up.
Librarian let out a long sigh, his facial tentacles flapping. He clapped his hands together. "You begin!" he said, using his vocalizations. The sound, he knew, was odd to anyone who had never heard a Fiend speak aloud -- musical, fluting and faintly
wrong
. But as most of the races of Earth refused to hold their diplomatic meetings underwater, they would simply have to make due. He pointed at one of the elven squires. "Where is Lord Winsom."
"Lord Winsom," the squire said, his voice tight. "Is right there."
He nodded to the stranger in the blue.
The stranger -- [Helen Trevor] -- scowled and put her hands on her hips. "Where the fuck are we and
how
the fuck did we get there?" she glared around herself. "I'm an officer in the United States AstroForce, you cannot fucking kidnap me and expect to get off without...without some kind of repercussions!"
The words were translated by magic, and he heard the echo of them within her surface thoughts. Despite this, Librarian stood perfectly still, his gills flapping open in shock.
"...what?" he asked.
"I said-" Helen Trevor growled, her eyes flaring -- trying to cover for her terror and confusion with bellicose shouting.
