“It is exceedingly rare for anything to go wrong in that process beyond that. Only if the mother’s life is at risk, or extreme circumstances can cause a pregnancy to fail.” Driveal continued. “And seeing how Narusil is happy enough, and healthy enough, that within hours of her insemination barrier being broken her first child was released… I am not worried.”


    I shifted nervously, “And how often do matrons… die giving birth?”


    Driveal looked at me shocked. “Your world may not have magic, but surely you have found ways to save the mothers of your children from the trials of childbirth!?”


    I spread my hands, “We do as much as we can, but it still happens that mothers die giving birth.”


    Driveal shook his head, “No… no, no…. with the aid of magic it is incredibly rare for a mother to die in childbirth… though I suppose most of the time the deaths aren’t so much from childbirth, but by external forces that are more dangerous since the mother cannot protect herself as well while giving birth.”


    So if I made sure my matrons were safe, there should be no real risks to them. I’d just have to make sure that I kept Ealphamir safe so my matrons could bear my children in safety. I needed to learn all I could and prepare to defend the city. God, there was so much I needed to do. I needed to figure out attacknes, probable attack progressions, evacuation ns, backup ns, but most importantly, I had to bring the fight to the shadow elves. All wars had coteral damage, and if I didn’t want my matrons and children to be in danger from that damage, the battlefront needed to be moved out of our front yard. I needed to make sure the city was safe enough it couldn’t be just destroyed while I was bringing the fight to the shadow elves though. It was like the paradoxical statements: “The best defense is a good offense” and “The best offense is a good defense”.


    I also needed to optimize myyout. If I could always sit on the edges of battlefields or ensure I was doing long range encounters, my rifle was plenty. If I was going to be trying to take a fortified location, a stronghold Tavorwen had called it, I needed smaller arms. My rifle was over 4 feet long, which would make rounding corners or fighting in close quarters difficult. I probably needed an intermediary rifle that wasn’t bolt action and probably a handgun as well. I could learn the sword, and learn magic, but if Durithana could make me the firearms I needed in a night, that would make me far more capable far more quickly. Things had moved far too fast for me to learn the techniques of this world.


    Driveal saw my shifting attitude and his face fell. “Well now…” He murmured. “I had struggled to believe you were capable of the things I had heard… but this…. This is the face of a warrior who has seen death and is ready to see it again.” His face grew sad. “I’m sorry you had to endure this, but if it keeps our people safe, I suppose what must be done… will be done.”


    I looked at him. “I’m sorry. I need to learn. Where do I start to learn about magic?”


    Driveal nodded, “I can give you a basic understanding. Much of the work of learning magic however requires personal study.” He motioned to the tomes on the shelves behind him. “I imagine your home study could be provided copies of the tomes we study for our magics.”


    I nodded, “I’d appreciate that. Let’s get started.”


    Driveal sat back, “The first thing to understand about magic, is that magic is a strange and diverse field of study, there are countless types of magic, and even with the generations of elves who have studied magic, we only have scratched the surface. We have learned fundamentalws that govern magic, but there are even branches of magic that unt the rules we know and abide by their own rules. The mostmon forms of magic, Secr and religious, also known as arcane and divine magics, are the ones mostmonly utilized by all of the races of the elves.”


    He reached behind him and pulled out a book. Opening it, he showed me a page with diagrams, hand signs and carefully marked words. The runes and lettering seemed to swim on the page, settling into English so I could read it.


    “Secr magic is founded on the idea that by utilizing forms and repeatability. Anyone providing the appropriate inputs can obtain the same output.” Driveal exined, “For example, anyone could pick up my cane,” His hand closed on it, “raise it to this angle,” He lifted it to be roughly horizontal, “And rotate to where it makes contact with you.” He brought his cane over to tap my arm. “The contact will always happen. Now, each person doing this may be able to perform the action with varying speed and strength which changes the potency of the result, but the general course of actions are the same.”


    He returned his cane to its resting ce against his chair.


    “The downside of secr magic is that it takesrge amounts of mental energy and mental capacity. The force you apply to this magic is wholly supplied by your mind and you must carefully craft what you want to do mentally. For example, just earlier I performed the actions and said the words for the spell that allowed us to view Tavorwen’s reproductive tract. I needed to apply the correct amount of energy and mentally work through exactly how much of what she is wearing and theyers of her flesh that I desired to make transparent, allowing the light to travel through it as though it were not there. If I applied too little energy, I could have only made theyers only partially transparent. If I didn’t understand the nature of what I was trying to make transparent, I could have either made only her clothing transparent, and it would have been highly inappropriate showing her unclothed in the presence of a male who is not her master, or I could have made herpletely transparent, which would not have served the desired purpose.” Driveal exined.


    He picked up a small symbol, and a pair of arrows in a wreath of holly. “Religious magic however, is far less reliable, but has potential far beyond the ken of mortal men. The caster of religious magic must understand not the fine details of what they wish to do, but whether or not it is something their God or Goddess would be willing to do. A religious practitioner of magic must simply clearly request of their God or Goddess the desired result in fervent prayer, and the magic either seeds as the God acquiesces or fails as the God rejects the request. Now, there is far more that most Gods require before they will condescend to answer the requests of mortals. For example, clergy of the Enlightened Hosts begin by devoting themselves to in order to gain favor from their chosen god. The Great Father has different acts that he mandates of his clergy than Noriva, the Great Druid. Now there are… technically sixteen gods in the house of the Enlightened Host, however two of the goddesses have removed themselves from the host. Ya’av, the Vile Betrayer, once known as the Caring Nurturer, attempted to usurp the Great Father and im the ce as the head of the Household by killing the Great Father. However, since only a God can kill another God, she could not take her legions of followers with her. So while her followers were almost boundless, thebined might of the rest of the house overpowered her and she was forced to flee, bing spiteful and enraged, ceasing to nurture and care for the followers who remained faithful to her after her betrayal, dragging them deep into the earth.” Driveal exined.


    “The other Goddess that left the house was Govarinta. Once she was known as the Kind Harvester. The casting out of Ya’av, despite her crimes, did not sit well with her. She believed that Ya’av should have been cared for and reformed instead of being cast out. She left and tried to save Ya’av and bring her back to the house, over thousands of years, she became corrupted and tainted by Ya’av’s influence and she became cold and cruel. Now, she bears the title ‘the Cold Assassin’, wielding her scythe to cut short the lives of those she deems unworthy instead of cutting grain to feed the elves, children of the host.” Driveal continued.


    “That’s unfortunate, but can we stay on topic?” I interjected, “If religious magic is less reliable, I’ll go with the secr magic.”Content (C) N?v/elDra/ma.Org.


    Driveal seemed surprised, “Was I not on topic?”


    “You were going a bit afield.” I exined.


    Driveal seemed confused, “Strange, I thought I was spot on topic. An in depth discussion seems necessary for any true discourse on the matter. If we don’t spend at least a month in a proper-”


    “Do elves always take so long to make decisions? I mean, it didn’t take the council so long to decide what they were going to do when they summoned me, and my matrons made the decision to be matrons far quicker?” I snapped, slightly agitated.


    Driveal blinked, “Well, I suppose elves do take a fair amount of time when making decisions. I mean your summoning was urgent, so they were able toe to a conclusion with expedited discussion, so it only took ten years to make the decision. And I suppose it would appear your matrons would appear to have made their selection quickly, but I assure you they spent most of their lives debating the decision, it is merely a matter of who they would ept as their master. Many have presented themselves for any master who would take them. Which would seem a hasty decision, but it is more a matter of that not being part of the choice being offered I suppose. Why do you ask?”


    His answer was both educational and infuriating.