The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2

Part 12

"Wow, over twelve thousand of them at once!" Karzog marveled as he appeared in the air beside them and surveyed their new catch. "And almost a quarter of them are adults!"

"Yes, and almost all of them attacked us." Helemia growled as she flew down and landed on the ground amongst the new captives. "They almost killed Stripe and Scout. And this one was directing them!" She gave the unconscious adult male Sylvan a vicious kick in the head, then felt remorse for it and Healed him.

"I've got to admit, when you two set out to find some people, you do a job of it!" Mark laughed from Yazadril's house, where he and his wives happened to be at the time. "How did you find the ones that weren't attacking you?"

"They were following the attack psionicly, just so they could watch." Reggie reported as he and Karzog joined Helemia on the sand and began inspecting their captives, temporarily confiscating a few magic items and the more dangerous enhanced weapons. "That was all it took for us to find them. Our psionics really work better when we're mad at someone. Most of the adults and their dependant children weren't casting or watching though, so they're still out there."

"Most people's best abilities improve when focused by controlled anger." Alilia commented. "And by the way, well done! We're very proud of you, and we do love you so very much!"

"Thanks, we love you all too, and thanks for the power." Reggie sent.

"Karz, we're beat." Helemia said as her anger faded and her fatigue and lack of sleep registered. "I know I'm not scheduled for sleep until Val comes back, and Six after me, but we're really leftovers. We'll leave these asleep until we get back. They should be fine. Will you be okay on your own until we get back with Val later?"

"Sure, go ahead." Karzog nodded and gave them a dismissive wave. "With this capture, we're way ahead of schedule anyway, and the ones we got yesterday sure aren't going to give me any trouble. You drained them pretty good just now. The work's ahead of schedule too, by the way."

"Good to hear." Helemia told him as she gave his ankle a quick hug.

"We'll see you in about six hours then." Reggie said.

"Sure, take your time." Karzog replied, and vanished as he went back to supervising the construction.

Reggie and Helemia Translocated their armor, weapons, and outer clothing to the floor of their bedroom and themselves into bed with Valentia, all in one step. They were asleep in less than a minute.

PART 13

The three of them woke six hours later, and the twins let Valentia know what had happened that morning while they washed up and dressed. They found their parents in the kitchen, and a hot meal was on the table already.

"Good afternoon, loves. Hungry?" Talia asked with a warm smile.

"Starved." Helemia smiled as they sat down. "And good afternoon to you too Mother, though it feels like morning."

"I imagine it does." Alilia smiled.

"Congratulations again on your fine work." Mark told them. "You must be ahead of schedule on bringing the Sylvan under your command, and your organization and socialization efforts were first-rate." "Thank you Father." Reggie mumbled around a bite of chicken.

"What will you do with the adults you've captured?" Alilia asked.

"Work 'em into the program with the younger ones, I guess." Helemia mused.

"We sure can't just let 'em go after they tried to kill you this morning." Valentia declared. "I'm sorry I missed that, by the way."

"We managed." Reggie smiled. "The Sylvan's reliance on Stealth has it's disadvantages. They almost never fly, since it's easier to notice someone flying, so they don't tend to check the sky much either. And of course, their general distrust of each other and everyone else has crippled them psionicly, though I think it's only cultural. I think if you raised Sylvan babies in elven communities, their psionics would be just as good as elves, on the average."

"The adults we caught were all younger ones anyway." Helemia stated. "None of 'em are older than a hundred. I'm kind of curious as to why they attacked us like that, though I can think of a few good reasons. There's no use speculating though, since we'll know in an hour anyway."

Conversation faltered as they concentrated on their meals for a while, then Alilia announced; "By the way, we've made some progress on the human longevity problem. We'll probably want your help with it in about three months. We'd already found ways to reverse most of the signs and problems of aging in humans using modifications of conventional Healing techniques, but a lot of the true ageing in the internal organs and nervous systems persisted. Not to mention that they resumed aging again after the treatments.

"The breakthrough came when Hilsith's regular testing revealed that Nek and Mandri aren't aging. Mandri's a fine young wizard; one of the very best of her age among the humans, but Nek Sibook is a real phenomenon; at twenty-four years she's quite likely one of the ten best human wizards, and she's just as good at everything else she does, which is almost every field of endeavor. Particularly military pursuits. She learns everything quickly and retains it almost perfectly, both knowledge and skills, even without magical assistance. Of course she does use magical assistance, which speeds her advancement even

more.

"At any rate, Nek and Mandri are the only two human wizards in Homestead, since Mark isn't technically a wizard, and the two have been working together closely since they came here. Mandri probably wouldn't be advanced enough to cease aging without Nek's help. Hilsith routinely tests everyone in Homestead, so she found that the two weren't aging, which reminded us that most human Master Wizards don't age either, or do so at a reduced rate. We're getting close to isolating how they do it, and it turns out that it's pretty much the same way other long-lived races avoid aging. To be honest, it's more technical than I can explain, but using magic has a lot of beneficial health effects, including improving nerves and protecting against infections."

"Homestead?" Reggie asked.

"We've decided that our community needs a name, now that there's contact between us and the Sylvan." Mark explained. "You'll need to refer to here when you're talking to them, and it'll be easier that way. Sana suggested Homestead, and it was the most popular suggestion, so Homestead it is."

"And in three months?" Valentia prompted.

"In three months we'll probably know how to prevent aging in any person of any race who has the potential to use magic." Mark stated. "Then we'll want your help in isolating why some humans can use magic and not others, and to try to find a way to give every human the ability to do it, at least enough to get the health benefits. Hilsith says the work you've done on each other's brains, and the techniques you've developed to do it, are probably the best avenue of research we can take to solve this problem. And of course, being able to give wizardry to all the humans and selkies and others who lack it will have colossal benefits beyond solving the aging problem."

"Oh. Well congratulations to all of you for your progress." Valentia responded. "Of course we'll be glad to help. We should be done with this project by then."

"Yah, but we've got other stuff we're putting off while we do this." Reggie mentioned. "Especially my work with Kragorram on the void warfare project. So we won't want to work on the longevity thing for more than about four hours a day, unless we think we can finish it up pretty quickly."

"We'll adjust the schedule as we go." Talia smiled. "The longevity project is important but not immediately urgent, like most of them I suppose. Our priorities and schedule tend to shift at least every week, depending on what's happening in our various projects, and in everyone else's schedules, of course."

Conversation faded again for a few minutes.☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐