Summer Garden

Alphege

Challenge, he'd said. If the taint on the tree truly was a challenge issued by Tyr, then she had failed it. She slammed the spear into the grown and wiped her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand.

Whatever magic was infecting Yggdrasil was beyond her understanding. That any magic could overcome the tree was surprising in itself to her. It was the wellspring from which all elves fed. It was the source of their life, and magic.

Created by the Fate, F'rir, their goddess. It didn't make sense that something created to be eternal could be dying, and yet it was.

The taint was already spreading, burning through her race.

She was among the first to fall sick, her connection to the wellspring being stronger than most. She glared at the black lines tracing across the backs of her hands. It wasn't like anything that occurred in nature. They twisted and turned with sharp corners, spreading out across her skin erratically, seeking nothing obvious, no veins or muscles. Just a slowly spreading even and mathematically sound form.

This was a spellvirus of some kind. A kind she didn't understand at all. It was eating away at her, killing her. Yggdrasil was the source of the infection, but she hadn't been able to identify the vector used to spread from the tree to her or anyone else.

The symptoms were obvious, including the strange pattern. Fever, loss of muscle control, dehydration, dizziness, fatigue. She winced, holding her mouth. Add nausea to the growing list. She could tell the end result already. Death. First the weak, the young and old would die. Shortly followed by the healthy. This was a complete breakdown of the natural immune responses that they possessed.

She had knowledge in Gaian magic, but the spellvirus didn't act like it was made with living magic. It acted slowly, predictably. It had to be mathematical in nature, somehow. If you knew the formula, then disabling the virus would be easy. Reverse engineering the formula was fruitless, thus far, and by her own estimates she only had a day or so left to live. Time to her losing capacity to function, and able to continue trying to protect her world, was much less. A few hours, probably, before she started experiencing hallucinations.

She didn't have a choice. She needed help, and no elf was as equipped as herself to provide it.

She did know an expert in spellviruses. A witch who had killed thousands using her own creations. The woman was downright vile, and had amassed power that no mortal before her had. However, she was creative. She was an expert in almost all magic, and a prodigy in almost half of them. She had forced elfkind to sign a treaty of non-aggression once. Her people had been more than happy to. They weren't interested in the outside world. They wanted to be left alone. When a mortal had turned up and killed half their forest in a single moment, the treaty wasn't seen as an arduous or abhorrent task.

She didn't particularly want to be in this witch's debt.

She knew her own worth. She was a soldier, the Guardian of Alfheimr. She would be able to unleash a devastating attack on the mortal's enemies. Even in her current weakened state, where death was around the corner, she would be able to inflict immense casualties on most opponents. Goblin or ork invasions weren't a serious threat yet. Mortals even less so... Apart from that one witch. The best and worst humanity had to offer.

She was running out of time. Doing nothing but wasting time. She knew what needed to be done. She just needed to have the courage to do what was necessary. To offer what was necessary. It was her duty, as Guardian.

She knelt beside the spear, and touched her hands together, and then bowed and touched her head to the soil.