Sama and Briggs moved so efficiently into managing everything it was almost like they'd been doing it all along.

That was naturally helped by me being good at the job, and having inherited tons of knowledge on logistics from Aelryinth, who was very familiar with the styles both of them would use.

Introducing them into the Markspace earned them some gawking, because their presence was just as formidable as my own.

Sim Tenha was pulled off general spell-casting, item construction, and emergency support duty to work directly for Briggs and Sama, which certainly didn't take her spellcasting loads down at all.

Also, she could Cast the spell that would allow for Allegiance Oaths to the two of them, Sworn upon Sama's Sword and Briggs' Hammer.

Wishes resounded quietly in the Allegiance, scores of them per day, and the upgrades began. I would have to visit fairly often to deliver Permanenced spells… but Tier Four Runecrafting, the Runes of Magic, was available to them three times a week through Tenha, and could basically imitate much of the same things.

On the very first day, Briggs had quietly sent a dozen loyal families on through to Eislas to start the colonization process there.

My fellow students were enjoying Siricil and being shown around by Briggs' people, but also reminded they had to head home, too. They'd be very close to or able to graduate when they returned, which had some of them very excited… and I was going to be pretending to use a Teleport Rune ostensibly from 'my mentor' Princess Brittabelle to take care of most of the overland travel.

I also had a couple stops of my own to make while they were busy selling and buying in Siricil and the Mick and the other bodyguards squeezed in as much Weapons Training under the best weapons-master on the whole planet in the form of Sama.

Weapon Mastery in this world was pretty finicky, skill with one weapon not translating into skill with another. But Sama was a Power of Ten Grandmaster and Sage of the Sword, with her Tenet being The Sword is a Shitty Weapon, but It's Better than All the Rest. Her Grandmastery was built around insights on other weapons fueling the danger level of her Sword, while her Sagedom applied insights on many, many skills to her sword damage via Profound Artisan stacking repeatedly.

And let's not go into her being a full five-tier Ways Master of all Seven Dragons sword styles.

As a result, Sama had repeatedly spent time and Karma Mastering every single combat weapon out there that might apply to swordplay, and those that she might face with a Sword.

As a result, her Grandmastery here had a unique twist to it: she could apply her Grandmastery in a weapon to reduce that of her opponent DOWN. This was particularly useful when her opponent was using anything other than a Sword, as it didn't reduce her own skill at all.

It meant that her Swordplay really was better than any other weapon, and she had defeated countless aspirants and grandmasters, in addition to plenty of monsters and other beings, with her swordplay. No one had ever seen her defeated by a weapon, or even dozens of weapon-wielders. She was simply that damn good.

There had been offers of mountains of gold for her to teach people her swordplay, but only those who were personally loyal to her and Briggs were ever even taught the Ways, which by themselves were revolutionary. Her Grandmastery and Sagedom? Not only did normal people not have the ability to grasp profound combat, they didn't have the time or Karma needed to learn the foundation skills and weapons required.

But now she had Forsaken to train, and she could take Oaths, as could I. Our Alliance was firm, telepathically so, reaffirmed with Words of Creation, and would be incredibly hard to shake.

We were ready to bring some Heaven to this Immortal-dominated world.

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I materialized onto the Seal Focus in the great Relarin Forest, home of the elven kingdom of Sidheduiche, and immediately felt the surge in magic and life energy all around me.

The Seal Focus had been placed by Number Four in an out-of-the way location, then hidden under Permanent Illusion to disguise the fact it was there at all. Even the magic it was empowered by blended into that of the local manafield.

I stepped out onto the tree branch of the vrethmuir, or Sentry tree, the Seal carved into a flat area Wood Shaped and Sealed by Rune into one of the junctures of the titanic branches, looking out towards the trade road below.

In the distance, down the trade road, I could see the wooden walls and spires of the only true town in the whole of the forest here: Sidhetown, the nominal 'capital' of the whole forest and nation of the Sidheduiche. A status it held, I'd been told, because humans didn't really recognize glades and clearings and tree-homes as viable capitals and points for trade and commerce, and so it had been built wholly to accommodate other races.

The elves of the forest preferred to live in the trees and around them, not to clear land and make buildings. But in the interests of living harmoniously with their neighbors, they'd been forced to swallow their pride and build a city here.

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It was considered a marvel and a delight to see and live in by all other races who visited or stayed there. To most elves, it was considered a gauche eyesore and a travesty they dearly wished they could do away with. Naturally they had built it on a 'dead spot' in the forest corrupted by the magic of an extraplanar invasion, where no trees grew, just so they wouldn't have to cut anything down.

I wasn't one of those elves, of course, and found it a fitting tribute to common sense. The world wasn't going to ignore elves, so they had the choice of engaging with it on their terms or not. Making the city helped centralize things and provide a locus of power and identity that helped keep the elven nation intact.

That being said, I wasn't going to go into this meeting unarmed. I sat down on the concealed Seal Focus, and Cast Commune with Continent, mostly focusing just on the area around the Relarin forest.

I'd done this before, of course, the spell momentous in size, and I already had a layout of the forest that any elf of Sidheduiche would call alarmingly thorough… and that was just on the surface. My knowledge of the subterranean areas beneath it probably exceeded all elves alive, and I had to wonder if any of the druids who made their homes hereabouts ever bothered to look deeper underneath the place, or simply restricted their vision to the living areas on the surface, figuring there was nothing down there worth looking at.

Now, I began to survey the place in detail, scan it into my Visual File, and get a far, far more through awareness of the entire extent of the place, and specifically connections with the Underdark the surface elves either didn't know about, or couldn't bestir themselves to investigate.

The locations of the Lumina trees that were the heart of the elven clans stood out like suns in the middle of verdancy here… a verdancy forcibly brought about by tremendous concentrated magic that had warped the very world and its manafield around this place. Locuses of magic brought additional mana in from outside the world, circulated it through the place, and then exited to other locations in a swirling cycle of arcane and fey potency that powered, among other things, some tremendous alterations in the local weather, ensuring nightly storms that dumped a ton of water on the entire forest area every night, enough water to sustain the hlatal, or 'House' trees, which averaged two hundred feet high and over three hundred feet wide, and the Sentry trees that could reach four hundred feet high or even more as they reached for the sky with unnatural vigor.

It was a place of magic-fed fertility and vigor, where the elves had to do no work for wild game and food plants to grow, and they could live idyllic, simple lives of hunting and gathering without having to worry about where the next meal would come from, what the weather would be like, and have no need to prepare for the future, because the now was pleasant and perfect for them.

It was, just, wow, were these bastards spoiled by their own success.

Erendyl's histories that I'd read clearly indicated that the forest was actually force-grown from otherwise fairly empty and barren steppes by the elves, the first trees planted and then grown with magic and power to sizes and stature no natural plants of their types could reach. The elves kept planting, trees kept growing, and the Relarin had come from basically nothing into a sprawling, moody expanse of fey woods and excessive life that crossed most of the nation of Federyn.

Naturally, this was taking and holding territory, although the elves all justified it to themselves as merely making a home for themselves out of nothing. The Federyn humans had rightfully seen it as a slow and creeping invasion stealing up on them and threatening to take all of their lands, a conflict that had boiled over in short wars when demagogues screamed about the elves coming for people's souls and practicing their dark magic, stealing children away under the creeping trees, monsters manifested from the magic points escaping to rampage across human lands, and so on and so forth.

That battle and those following had resulted in wins for the elves, but also clearly shown them that the outside world was only going to get more and more hostile if they hedged it away and kept to themselves.

And so Sidhetown was founded, and it became the default capital and center of trade for the elven nation.

It wasn't much of a nation really, more a collection of very different tribes gathered under a nominal elf that the clan lords had enough respect for to let him take care of business with outsiders and one another that they didn't want to be bothered with. Elves themselves were free of heart and conducted themselves accordingly, and their lifestyles encouraged a lack of reliance on one another and anything.

They were born to be Independents, as it were. It was very different from the regimented discipline of shadenelf society and the Rules of Gaebrel.

I was going to get a terrifyingly deep look at their own land and country, and then I was going to wander down there, see about getting an audience with the king and elder council, or at least set one up.

Easy enough to do. I already had a reputation here, carried by Belle's words and conversations with her cousins in the Relarin, and some Sidhe elves had seen me in Erendyl and doubtless carried word of my unique appearance back here.

That I had appeared here without being seen by their scouts first would doubtless annoy them, but it was what it was. Powerful people moving around without clearing it with less powerful people did tend to make others nervous, an entirely reasonable state of affairs.

On a branch overhead, Duum, shrunken down to the size of a normal bat courtesy of his Top-Hat of Disguise, kept watch, unseen and vigilant while I learned more about the forest the elves had made here than any elf alive knew…

=======

Entering Sidhetown was pretty easy. Duum popped up to his full size, I hopped down onto the bright and finely tooled black and red dragonhide saddle on his back, and he swooped down slowly and grandly above the main road towards the city, Hat and Monocle firmly in place.

I should probably get him a cigarette holder to totally complete the image of a bat-about-town.

Naturally horns started blowing and elves started running about as a gigantic Bat came out of nowhere, with a rider no less, and in the daytime, seemingly in no hurry as we glided our way down above the roughly paved trade road toward Sidhetown.

I'd made my Seal Focus outside the inhabited areas around the city, which consisted of massive House trees connected by a dizzying array of rope bridges and stuff, the homes of the elves built up in them, with storage areas and greeting areas on the ground for potential guests who didn't want to climb up so high.

Similar bridges and arches connected this skyway of treehomes over the walls and into the city there, forming a second tier of basically elf-only paths above the inhabited buildings where they didn't have to mix with the majority non-elves below if they didn't have to.

Ah, such a fun place to live.

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