After a hushed conversation, Ash straightens up and gestures over to his traveling companions. The younger elves are staring this way, and Heppa even gives a friendly little wave. “Here are some elves. Are you comfortable meeting them?”
“Anyone that you feel comfortable introducing me to, I am happy to meet.”
Ash stays seated where he is, still letting the cold water soothe his injured legs, but he calls his kin over. “This is Aglana,” he tells them when they sit down on the bank. “This is Hepalonia of House Thrandolil, and this is Tric Manu of the water dowsers.”
“I really only dowse for water recreationally,” Tric corrects.
“There’s not much call for that trade where I’m from,” Aglana comments.
“There’s really not much call for it until there suddenly is, where I’m from,” Tric adds.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Heppa says politely, though internally she is brimming with questions. Up this close to the mermaid, Heppa can see that the fish-like scales end in fins. The upper half of her body is quite mammalian, though, not like Hezzis’s flat chest. Do merfolk lay eggs? Heppa wonders, but she cannot think of a good way to ask that right now. She does get an opening to some questions though, when Aglana compliments her on the thorough job she has done treating Ash’s injuries. “Oh! Are you a healer?”
“I am practiced in the healing arts, yes.”
“You must be the one that Ash mentioned healed him from the spider!”
“Yes, I cured him of that,” Aglana acknowledges.
Oh, she must have done that magically… I wonder what kind of magic merfolk do? “Is your magic similar to elvish magic?”
“Well, is it elvish priestess who cast healing magic?” Aglana asks back. That derails Heppa from her first line of questioning, as this is a societal structure with which she is unfamiliar. Heppa learns that one commonality between the two peoples is that casting is primarily a female activity, though Aglana seems to belong to some kind of religious organization. The netting satchel that she wears slung across her back contains a variety of odds and ends, including a likely magical implement. The rod is made from a narrow, elongated conch. A circular design made of metal is affixed to the top of the twisting shell.
Tric has only heard of the existence of merfolk and his stories about them have certainly not been based in fact. Certainly none of the streams in Estbryn Forest are large enough to support a merfolk society. He fondly remembers spending a pleasant evening musing with Heppa about what water locusts could do to algae crops grown by underwater people. Now is his chance to pad out such stories with some true details. He asks Aglana, “How do you like it up here in the mountains? The water is cold, I gather.” He wonders what she is doing living way up here, but he is not the kind to cut to the chase so directly.
“Yes, the water is cold,” Ash confirms.
Aglana does not say anything from which Tric can glean why she spends time in the mountains, but perhaps that is because he himself dominates the conversation. It is not long before he is talking about horses and ponies. Looking to expand his Master Edward work in new directions, he says, “Some people have speculated that such creatures as our mounts exist in the sea as well. I don’t know if there’s creatures that you can ride on the waves…?”
“Like a seahorse?” Heppa suggests.
“My people do not keep steeds, but some have pets,” Aglana says.
That answer intrigues Tric. “What kind of pets do merfolk have? Small fish?”
“One of our kings had a pet cuttlefish.”
“That is quite a creature to keep!” Tric marvels. Cuttlefish venom knocked Heledd out, and even experienced fighters like Knots and the Beard viewed the creature as one to be wary of.
“That is not a common pet,” Aglana explains. “It’s name was Inky. It was considered a great hero among the people. It played a vital role in fighting off foul undead forces that had terrorized us.”
“Unfortunately there are foul undead across the land as well as the sea,” Tric commiserates.
Aglana has been floating in front of Ash, one webbed hand resting on his knee as he sits on the bank sharpening his nicked sword, but her attention has been directed to the two new elves. She turns now to him. “So this was not more spiders, then?”
Tric jumps in before his brother can speak. “Well, it started with spiders. The spiders part went very well. We were prepared for spiders.”
“We were not prepared for the other… whatever they were,” Heppa adds.
“Mounds of flesh and claws,” Tric supplies.
Ash provides a more tactical description of the creatures, and Heppa details some of their more disgusting features. “But I don’t think they were infectious, not with the disease…” Heppa trails off, thinking of the plague touch. Hopefully if Ash or Tric die, they will not turn into one of those foul things.
From the input of the three elves, Aglana is able to identify the creature. The terms used for its kind are ghouls, necrophages, and ghasts, depending on how far developed it is. Each one is more disturbing than the one before. “I do not know how necromancers or liches construct them, but they are unnatural creatures,” Aglana says. “They were part of the troops that set upon Jotha.”
“It doesn’t look like they used a lot of care putting them together,” Heppa observes, thinking of the sloppy stitchwork.
“I do not think the word ‘care’ is generally applied to anything that necromancers do,” Aglana comments.
“I don’t know. We heard a voice in the cave that seemed strangely…” Tric searches for the right way to phrase it, finally settling on, “parental about these necrophages.”
“My parents do not speak to me that way,” Ash says.
“All right, neither do mine,” Tric allows.
“You probably don’t eat your cousins, either,” Heppa mutters, shuddering at the memory of the one creature devouring its fallen comrade.