Wonderful 26.

The Principality Of Maladimbáh...

Seething, as she always is after having a conversation with her father. Kaldeàlil Haldéilv makes her way from the village at the base of the escarpment in the warm morning sun, and enters the rock face through a large swinging door.
The guards and others keep their distance as she walks towards the wind tower that goes up through the escarpment, upon which is the tower that her father's family has called home for over fifteen hundred years.
The attractive elven maid steps into the tube like wind tower, hoping the magically cooled air within it will cool her temper. Alas it doesn't, for as she shoots upwards, she's still hot, figuratively, due to the latest argument with her father.
"Fucking rapist" mutters Kaldeàlil Haldéilv under her breath as she floats upwards in the wind tower, she gets to the top of the hundred and fifty foot tall magical tower and steps out, kind of wishing she had taken the steps up so she could work out some of her frustration.
The attractive elven maid who is now in the tower proper, makes her way through corridors and hallways, heading up steps and stairwells of the keep like structure. Those she passes on her way, keep their distance, for though the elves who serve lord Haldéilv now know that Kaldeàlil is his daughter, she is basically shunned by them since she's the product of his shame, the product of his crime.
The elven spellcaster once up a short set of steps, makes her way along a hallway on the south facing side of the large tower, she approaches an open doorway, she can hear laughter coming from the room the doorway opens into, as well as talking in the common language.
The attractive elven maid makes her way through the doorway, and closes the door behind her, the conversation in the room stops, and a trio of humans at the table in the center of the large room, turn and look at her.
They glance at one another, then one of them speaks up "Everything alright my lady?" asks Harrick the mercenary "Fine" replies the elven magic user in a sour tone, which causes two of the humans, the two mercenary guards to slightly wince, and the other human, their prisoner, to wryly smile.
"You know, if you want to get the better of him, do something he won't expect" says Mira Reinholt the mage, who then adds "Like kill one of the Walashàelé's" the attractive elven maid says "If i want your opinion mage, i would ask for it" says Kaldeàlil Haldéilv in a caustic tone of voice, she then adds "And besides, the nobility here don't go around killing their rivals unlike what they do in a lot of places in the Southlands".
"Pity" murmurs the mage Reinholt who got his ability to speak properly again early this morning, after taking the potion that blocks his magic the night before last. Well that's what the once powerful mage wants his captors to believe.
The elven spellcaster whose mother was a servant in this very tower, but she Kaldeàlil was brought up by members of her mother's family in a hamlet in the mountain forest away to the northwest in the lands of the Haldéilv family. Sourly smiles at the Vexilian mage in exile and his two guards, who get on well, as they're the only humans here in the tower of the elven noble family that's been here for fifteen hundred years. Or down in the village below either. Though the attractive elven maid knows that the mercenaries and their captive have got along ever since Kaldeàlil hired Harrick and Ginden on the coast, down in the south of Belinswae, not long after she and the mage Reinholt came ashore.
"What happened this time?" asks the spellcaster from south of the equator, the elven spellcaster rolls her eyes, as her prisoner will never learn his place. Though she must admit she, along with the two mercenaries have encouraged his behaviour, especially since arriving here in the principality of Maladimbáh. For the simple reason Kaldeàlil Haldéilv hasn't really got anyone else to talk to about things, apart from her prisoner and his two guards. And she's learnt the Vexilian mage in exile is highly intelligent, and vastly experienced for a human being who is only around thirty years old.
The attractive elven maid walks over to the open balcony doors where a warm breeze is blowing in from outside, she closes them so that the pair of elven house guards out on the balcony can't overhear what she says.
"The usual, among other things" says Kaldeàlil Haldéilv once she sits down at the table, and she accepts a mug of cider that Ginden pours for her, with a thought she makes the cider cold, making it more refreshing on what is a warm morning here in the mountains of the elven principality.
After a moments hesitation, she makes the cider in the mugs of the other's cold too, as well as what's in the glass jug.
"Thanks" says the swordmaster Reinholt after taking a sip of his now ice cold cider, the two mercenary guards thank their employer too once they discover their drinks are cold as well.
The spellcaster who is in exile from his homeland of Vexil then says to his captor "Well?" followed by "What was it this time?" Mira Reinholt as he looks at the attractive elven maid adds "Apart from the usual".
"His lack of helping me out in certain things" says the elven magic user, the human mage wryly smiles, then says in a dry "Let me guess, it has something to do with the trap that I'm the bait in?" Kaldeàlil Haldéilv rolls her eyes, and though she doesn't say anything in reply to what the mage Reinholt just said, she does nod in agreement with it.
Damn mage, knows me too well, the attractive elven maid dryly thinks to herself "Well that's if anyone bothers to free me" says the highly skilled swordmaster who shrugs his shoulders before he takes another sip from his mug of cold cider.
"You think he won't?" casually asks the elven spellcaster, once again fearing that she might be wasting her time, considering the last time someone tried to free the once powerful mage, it wasn't the person she wanted to.
Mira Reinholt pauses for a moment as he thinks about that, then he truthfully says "I think there's a better a chance that he probably will, than he won't" the exiled Vexilian mage then continues in the elven language which the two mercenary guards don't understand apart from a few basic words and sayings "Unless someone else tries to free me, like last time on the ship we were on".
"Don't worry" says Kaldeàlil Haldéilv in the same language, who continues with "If you think that" she briefly pauses before she adds "Thing" then she says "Will come and free you, it won't as i took care of him".
The mage Reinholt wryly smiles, and in elven, which he still speaks with an atrocious accent, says "If you think you took care of him, you're more delusional than i thought you were" the spellcaster who is also a highly skilled swordmaster adds "You better hope to those forest gods of yours he doesn't show up here to free me".
The Vexilian mage in exile knows that if he's still useful to a certain someone, which he assumes he is, he'll be freed by someone. Though when, he has no idea, as he doesn't even know if any of the others know where he's being held prisoner at the moment.
Kaldeàlil Haldéilv who momentarily pauses as she thinks of the undead being that attacked the sailing ship she and her prisoner were on, hoping that though it might not be at the bottom of the sea, far out in the Great Western Ocean. That at least it won't know her and the mage Reinholt's current location.
While she does hope that the person she's actually after, does know where she is, for she has left some clues to where she is. Hoping that he travels to Maladimbáh once he figures out that she and the once powerful mage are currently here.
"Spare me" says the attractive elven maid who is continuing to speak in her native language "It won't show up" adds the elven spellcaster, the swordmaster Reinholt doesn't say anything to that, he just wryly smiles and shakes his head as he looks at his captor across the table from him.
Switching back to the common language, Kaldeàlil Haldéilv says "Yes, indeed he has" in reply to Mira Reinholt saying to her in the common language "He's come up with something new to take a dig at his rivals to the east?" as they resume the topic they were previously discussing.
The human spellcaster from south of the equator says "Well if you want any information" the once powerful mage then nods at his guards Harrick and Ginden then continues with "Have them go over to the Walashàelé's tower, and that town at the river crossing they run" the mage Reinholt then adds "Apparently the Walashàelé's couldn't care less about Harrick and Ginden, and what they do and see, just like your father's people here".
The attractive elven maid slowly nods, for that's not a bad idea, for the two mercenaries are free to go where ever they want, as the elves here, and in much of the principality of Maladimbáh, don't exactly care what humans, and any other races, who happen to be in the principality get up to.
Kaldeàlil Haldéilv is just about to say something about that, when Ginden interrupts the conversation between the two spellcasters as he says "What's this?" the younger of the two mercenary guards nods to the balcony outside, and he adds "Something's got their interest".
They all look out through the wide glass windows, and see the two house guards out on the balcony, are now standing next to each other, and are talking about something, while one of them is pointing at something away to the southwest.
After a few moments as they look that way, Kaldeàlil Haldéilv says "Wyverns, two of them" the three humans lift their eyebrows at hearing that, for they've learnt that the wyverns from the nomads plains avoid the mountains of Maladimbáh because of the griffons that the elven nobility have. Infact there's a griffon on top of this very tower, who they hear letting out a squawk as it too has spotted the wyverns.
Then there's the fact that the wyverns who have their hatching grounds in the east of the nomads plains, avoid the mountains of the elven principality, due to the fact that there's apparently an actual dragon that dwells somewhere in these mountains.
Kaldeàlil Haldéilv who knows that seeing the two wyverns heading in this direction, can only mean one thing, says "Riders from the coastal city of Falnic".
Mira Reinholt, who like the two mercenaries Harrick and Ginden is unable to see the wyverns at the moment, as they're too faraway for their eyesight to spot them, says "Are these ones coming to see your father?" he pauses before adding "Or to visit his neighbours?" . . . . . .