Isekai Elf King: Architect of a New Empire

Lily pointed to a mushroom growing at the foot of a thick bush, about six inches tall with a deep-red cap, almost the color of blood. "This sinister-looking little fella is actually a mild healing mushroom, and with the right tools, any decent apothecary can make a weak healing potion from it—it won't cure bone or organ damage, but it will heal flesh and replenish blood quite well. Even just eating it will restore one to two health."

"Can we take it without being eaten?"

"Yes," Lily said. "The Mystic Orb Spider will literally only attack when directly threatened. Having a nest on a farm, back when the empire was at its peak, would usually make the farm about twice as productive as normal in monetary terms. There were attempts to create larger colonies, but past a certain point, the spiders leave, and if forced into close proximity in larger groups, they stop breeding."

"I wonder why?" Leo asked.

"Not sure, but people think it has to do with magic density near nodes. They were one of the creatures that every village wanted to complete the trifecta of magical beasts and beings—to get a colony of mystic orb spiders, an emerald beehive, and a dryad. A village with all three tended to be very rich for its size. The dryads have all disappeared, of course, and the Crone of Averia no longer answers. But the mystic orb spiders and emerald beehives can still be cultivated, I suppose."

This is fascinating stuff. If Audrey lives, I hope that she's seeing as much wonder in this world as I am. I would love to be able to talk to her about it when we get back.

Leo bent down and carefully extracted the mushroom, digging out the dirt at its base with his hands and slowly removing it. He saw a few more of the fungal specimens around and decided that having a bunch of healing mushrooms was a good idea. He also saw a few with blue caps.

"Don't touch the blue ones," Lily said. "Those release poison gas clouds with spores, and they grow on the bodies that die near them."

"Glad I have a native here," Leo responded. "I would hate to have tried to fend off a spider that wouldn't start a fight with me, or died to a cute, little blue mushroom."

"A native?" Lily asked, frowning. "As in, someone local with knowledge of the area? I'm a cultured and learned noble of this region, so of course I know it well."

Oops, that has a bit of a pejorative connotation. "Yeah, that."

"Well, glad I could be of help," Lily said, beaming at him. "I love this forest, even though I've only been able to spend time in its northern reaches before now."

Then her face fell. "I just wish Ilothulin could have been here with us. He was in most of my Flora and Advanced Wyld classes, and he loved this stuff as well."

"I'm sorry," Leo said.

"It's not your fault," Lily replied, staring off into the distance and absently playing with her hair.

"It was a sympathetic 'sorry.'"

Lily stared for a bit longer, then shook herself. "Well, shall we get back on the road? I think we've looted the local Mystic Orb Spiders enough for now. We have a slightly better chance of surviving to the vault, so it was time well spent, but we still have distance to cover."

And on that reassuring note…

***

A couple of hours of walking later, Leo saw a glowing, green tree outline in the distance, like someone had doodled a tree across the horizon and then made glowing panes form inside the outline created.

"What's that?" Leo asked, pointing.

Hugh and Lily, who had been arguing again, stopped and stared over at the glowing-tree outline.

 "The node?" Hugh asked. "Are you referring to the node?"

 "I have no idea," Leo said. "Non-magical world, remember? I'm talking about the glowing, green thing."

 "That's what it is," Lily said. "The famed Calasti Node, one of the sources of power and wealth for the Kingdom of Averia."

 "Elucidate, please," Leo said, bowing slightly to her. "Remember, I come from a world without magic."

Let's see if she can explain things a bit better than Hugh can.

 "Of course," Lily said, blushing slightly as the three of them walked along the broken cobblestone road toward the palace. The trees were becoming less prevalent and the broken buildings more common—and more intact—as they went. He was starting to get a sense of the style of the city. Statues, many intact, showed the art of the elves of Averia as they walked south, and once or twice, he saw a miraculously intact stained-glass window with a beautiful design on it. Most of the buildings were built of marble, which surprised him. It didn't fit with his preconception of elves—Leo would have assumed they were huge fans of wooden buildings, but the concentration of stone ruins made him think he was wrong.

 Lucy started talking, her shoulders relaxing. "So, nodes are fundamental upwellings of magic. They usually form on the surface of the earth at a rate of roughly one every fifty to one hundred miles, and below the surface of the earth, in the under-realms, at the rate of one every two to four hundred miles. No one has actually figured out why those distances. Perhaps it's the will of the gods, or perhaps it's a natural condition of magic, but our greatest scholars have not solved the enigma."

 "Gods, plural?" Leo asked as they walked.

 "Of course," Lily said. "Merdrek, whom your friend swears by, is the draconic god of battle and victory, and Iluvin Eteria is the mortal goddess of Wyld magic, commonly portrayed as an elf and frequently also treated as the patron goddess of the elves, even though there are weaker deities dedicated to our species in its entirety. Of particular note if you aim to get home, Asnandi is the goddess of the way between worlds and Travel magic."

 Asnandi! That other elf woman told me that she couldn't let Asnandi's Key fall into the enemy's hands. Was that related to an actual god of dimensional magic?

 "Tell me about Asnandi," Leo said, excited.

 Lily laughed, her voice musical. "In time, friend Leo, in time. And I'm glad to have an enthusiastic student. But for now, let us return to the lesson about nodes—we can learn of the gods together another time."

 She seems happier than I've seen her over the last couple of hours—like she forgot all the horrible things that just happened. Perhaps she just loves teaching, or maybe magic?

 "So, back to the nodes. Each node represents an upwelling of a single magic. Each node forms an aura around it, in one of three strengths. The node's aura pushes out with the square of its strength, but the effect is reduced by the square of the distance—this is the magical law of the double square. The point between two nodes at which the strength of each node is equal is the point where the auras touch. For reasons we don't understand yet, the auras never overlap."

 That's kinda complicated, but it makes sense—I mean, it's not that different than gravity, I suppose, with the effects increased by mass and decreased by distance, or light received being a divide-by-distance squared formula.

 "So, what do auras do?" he asked.

 "Well, every node's power goes to four different things. Some to create magical beasts, some to create familiars, some to create crystals and shards, and some to promulgate a magical aura. It appears to be random what percentage goes to each, and sometimes nodes become corrupted as well. I'll skip corruption effects for now."

 Yeah. I'm extremely bright, but this is a lot of information to process.

 Lily was continuing, genuine enthusiasm in her voice. "The effects of the node also seem to be stronger according to the nodes tier, squared. A tier-three node creates roughly nine times the effects of a tier-one node."

 Leo nodded along with her words, communicating to her that he understood and was ready for the next piece of information. "What effects, exactly?"

 "Again, it's different. But it always reflects an aspect of the magic. Take the Calasti node, ahead," Lily said, gesturing toward the glowing, green tree in front of them as they walked. "It's a Wyld node. It puts out an aura that makes trees far more productive, including magical trees. Making plants stronger is something that can be learned by Wyld magic users—the aura reflects the magic."

I wonder if a node could put out a static Toughness aura? Leo thought to himself, already calculating how nodes would affect the world he was in. Probably it makes a lot more about the world random. A death node in a fertile valley might render it worthless, but an agricultural node away from water might make the land livable.

Lily was still talking. "The aura region around this node can support magical trees normally only able to be grown on far more magical worlds, and normal trees grow about twice as fast. The Averian empire was famous for its orchards and fruit, especially its magical fruit and the potions created from them. Because of the aura."

 "Know your auras, Mom always said," Hugh chimed in. "They can make some places wonderful, and others hellholes. Woe be to the person who finds themselves in an Entropy node aura!"

 Lily gave him an irritated glance. "Don't interrupt. But, your mother is essentially correct. Back to this node, which also produces a decent number of magical beasts in the region. Sometimes, hives become Emerald Bee hives, and the Ghost Wolves, Sun Eagles, and our once-high concentration of dryads were well known throughout the continent of Beldin—those three were the once-allies to the Kingdom of Averia. Also, we sometimes find Wyld crystals growing on trees around the area."

 "So, nodes are generally a sort of uncontrolled magical pollution that alters the environment?" Leo asked. "Like, the magic just leaks from them into the surrounding area?"

 Lily's eyes widened. "I suppose that's an accurate, if dark, way to look at it."

 "Huh," Leo said. "So why is the far side of the river so devoid of trees if the main, powerful, node is merely miles away?"

 "Well, I did say 'usually,'" Lily responded. "The opposite river has a different node, a Light node that concentrates the sun rays. The Lightbearer node is only a tier-one node, but it's located about eleven miles from the Calasti node. The barrier between the two forms between the eight and a quarter and eight-and-a-half-mile point between them, in the middle of the Blue River, and then happens to match the curve of the river for a bit."

 "Convenient," Leo quipped.

"You'll see a sudden small grove of trees on the south side as we get closer to the node itself, here where the river empties into the Inner Sea, across from Elgin Isle."

 "We're about to hit the end of the river?" Leo asked. "And there's an island in the middle of it?"

 "Of course," Lily said. "One of the things that made Calasti such an important city was that it was the trade hub for most of the continent. It controlled the mouth of the Blue River, which links the empires and city states around the ten lakes—not least my home in exile, the Havi imperium—with the civilizations of the Inner Sea and the Split Sea beyond. It is also closest to the passes into the middle lands and the dwarven city of Stonehaven. Combine that with its powerful and beneficial aura, and you can see why we elves made it the seat of our empire."

 Fascinating. I would love to learn more about this world—heck, even just this continent—but I have to learn how to save Audrey and get home first.

 "Boring," Hugh said, drawing out the word. "So boring. At least talk to us about what you know about what we're facing ahead!"

 Lily frowned. "Speaking of corrupted magic, the wards that kept the woods out of Calasti have obviously failed. We haven't run into any yet, but I know that the magic has been creating horrible and terrible beasts, abominations of normal magical beasts. They're throughout all thirty-one districts of Calasti, stronger the farther you get from the palace for reasons I don't understand yet."

 Lily shuddered. "There might be serious danger ahead."

 "How do you know about the magic failing?" Leo asked, kicking a small marble fragment that lay on the road they were traveling into the sparse underbrush.

 "The same way I knew that Chao had left. We had divining magic in place, left during the collapse of our empire to aid in our return. Unfortunately, some of those have failed as well, and I can't see what is happening in the throne room. But there are no dragons present in the city currently, according to the more general divinations that remain."

 "Does magic normally fail?" Leo asked.

 "No." Lily wrapped her arms around herself as they walked, her voice suddenly soft. "It's normally of infinite duration and effect once created. That, more than anything, scares me. Magic slowly failing across Calasti speaks to something terribly wrong. I checked, and it's localized to this area, so it's not a greater disaster. But it still really worries me."

 "Huh," Hugh said.

 "Wait, how did you know your dad was missing, Hugh?" Leo asked. "I thought you barely saw your dad."

 "My sire was supposed to come visit Mom and me. I was really excited, but he didn't show. Mom used her Air magic to cast windborne words, and the magic couldn't target my dad. So he's either more than a thousand miles away, dead, or inside an area that stops magic. Any of those would imply he wasn't here."

 "Maybe he packed up and left?" Leo asked. "Took his hoard with him?"

 "Dragons don't tend to move once they have a good lair," Hugh said. "We're a possessive and territorial people."

 "Well, we're about to figure it out," Lily said as they rounded a corner of the riverside road they followed. Leo stared at an ornate, ten-foot-tall stone wall running from the river's edge deep into the forest. The path headed right to a twenty-foot gap in the wall.

 "Welcome to the central district of Calasti," Lily said. "Once inside that gate, we'll be inside the city proper, and only a half-mile from the palace itself, the node—and Chao's hoard."

 There was a brief pause as everyone stared at the gate.

 Leo was tired, physically and mentally. He was sore. And what he really wanted was to find Audrey, find a way home, and rebuild the life they had lost.

 But he couldn't deny to himself the thrill and the sense of excitement coursing through him. He felt that his three days here in this incredibly strange world had been leading him to this moment, and Leo was excited about what they would find.