World of Tiber

Chapter 42: The Message

Nava's PoV

I want so badly to make them stop hurting Nightbreeze but I promised her that I wouldn't fight. When a voice yells to stop I look over and see the Speaker walking towards the center. The Speaker is what Elves calls the leader. The Silvanesti and Qualinesti both have Speakers. The Kagonesti don't because they have their clan leaders or they go out on their own. Quintrine asks me “Who's that?”

Rosa says “He's the Speaker. Which means he's the leader of the Qualinesti people.”

“That makes sense why he's wearing gold robes.”

The Speaker starts speaking and I can't understand it. They are all still talking in Qualinesti. The people start to look angry but the Speaker keeps talking. He stops when a messenger runs up to him out of breathe. He takes the note and reads it. He tells us in common “The war is starting.”

The people all start to quickly move. I'm guessing they are getting ready. I walk over to Nightbreeze and the others follow. The Speaker says in common to the leaders “Untie her. Once you are done you are under arrest.”

They untie her and she gets up. She tells the Speaker “I don't disagree with arresting them all for having slaves but now isn't the time. You need their help with the war. After the war is over then arrest them.”

He ponders for a moment then says “You are right. I will let all the slaves free. I have stood idle for too many years while slavery has been going on here. Qualinesti years ago when it first started was supposed to be a place where everyone of any race was welcome. Its has slowly gotten worse throughout the years. And I didn't stop it. But they won't get away with it any longer. Who were you a slave for?”

“Leoroth.”

“I sent him on a mission to become allies with one of the cities. He never came back.”

I tell him “He got arrested for having slaves. The one city that has a rule against slavery is where he got arrested at.”

The Speaker smiles then says “I'm honestly happy that he got arrested. He always goes against anything I say in our council meetings. He's a great negotiator but I won't miss him in the council.”

Nightbreeze tells him “He was the hardest on his slaves. When we talked with slaves of other people they never got it as bad as we did.”

The Speaker calls some soldiers over and says “Tell all the Kagonesti they are free to go. They aren't slaves anymore.”

“Yes sir.”

The soldiers leave and he tells us “The children you came in with are at his house now with the others.”

I ask him “What others?”

“The slaves of Learoth. Most of them left after we told them they could go. It was a while after he didn't come back. The kids stayed though. They don't know how to survive without their parents.”

Nightbreeze asks “Can we go see them?”

“Sure. I can send some of my men to take you there.”

“You don't need to do that. I know how to get there.”

“At least let our Healers heal what we did.”

“You don't need to. I'm used to it.”

The Speaker looks really sad that she's used to getting punished. I tell her “They can heal you. It won't kill you.”

She looks at me then says “Ok I'll let them heal me.”

The Speaker calls two Healers over and they quickly heal her. Then she gets her bag back because they took it from her after they took our weapons. We all get our weapons back then we head to Learoths house. Nightbreeze leads us and we all look around to see what Qualinesti looks like. I never did pay attention to all the designs in the buildings. The farther away from the gate and main area, the taller and bigger the buildings get. This must be where the richer people live. Their buildings have way more details and and bigger gardens then the other houses do. We stop once we get to Learoths house. After a minute we walk inside and we see kids running all over the place. And the women watching over them are yelling in common to stop running around. His house really did get turned into a kids place. When the kids see the five of us they all stop messing around. They already took the Qualinesti kids to their families because there's no Qualinesti kids here. Nightbreeze asks one of the women “How long have the Kagonesti kids been here for?”

“After it was past time for Learoth to get back it's been too long. We don't know where to take them. We didn't know they were all slaves until they told us. We've been slowly teaching them. Starting by teaching them common. They told us after they learned some common. We tried getting a meeting with the Speaker to end the slavery but the other leaders kept saying he was too busy. But that wasn't true.”

I ask her “Can you start teaching the others here too? Until we can find their families.”

“Yes we can. How much common do they know?”

Rosa says “The Silvanesti kids know but that's because they are older. The Kagonesti kids barely know any of it. The Human kids know it because it's their main language.”

“We will try our best to help them out.”

We talk with them about helping the kids and they reassure us that they can take care of the kids. A soldier rushes into the house and says “The five of you are needed at the councils meeting.”

Thintop yells “Yay! Wait….what's a council?”

We quickly follow the soldier to the council meeting. When we go in we see thirty Solamnic Knights and ten Silvanesti Elves with the rest of the Qualinesti council. They are arguing about the Highlord army. The Speaker stops everyone and says “I believe they know more than I do. They saw the army themselves.”

The Head Knight asks us “What exactly did you all see?”

Quintrine says “It's a long story.”

I tell them “We won't tell you anything unimportant but we have seen a lot.”

We spent the next couple hours taking turns telling them about how many Ogres, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Draconians, Wizards, Dark Knights, and Dragons we have seen. They all listen very carefully as we tell them. When we finish the leader of the Silvanesti group that came asks “Do you know how they torture people? Or do they just kill them? Or did you see it from a distance.”

Nightbreeze says “Some of us know how they torture. I have been tortured and I know the most from the three of us.”

“And how do you know the most?”

“I was in a relationship with a Highlord leader.” Everyone starts talking at once when she says that. This is going to be a long council meeting. 

*Picture at the top of the chapter is the Qualinesti Speaker*