Rebirth of the Nephilim

The flight back from the Hall of Memories was a relatively quiet one. Not that there was much time for idle prattle, since Jadis’ speed meant that the trip only took a few minutes, rather than hours or days. Still, Jadis found that she was lost in thought for most of the time, and Soteria was perceptive enough to give her space to think.

Techne had given Jadis a lot of information, both regarding the future, and the past. For the future, a part of her brain was thinking of ways to use the knowledge contained within the ancient Nephilim repository for the war against Samleos’ forces. For the past, she was going over the unfortunate fate of the nation of Asteria. Her refracted mind allowed her to have both thoughts at once, with room to spare for other considerations, and she couldn’t help but ponder what she should do with the information she had gained.

Share with her companions, of course, was Jadis’ first thought. Everything Techne had told her she would tell to her lovers. There wasn’t even a question on that point. She couldn’t wait to see how Aila and Eir reacted to the archive. Sabina wasn’t the only one of their number who would be excited by the discovery of an ancient Nephilim library, after all. There were so many ways that they might put the knowledge contained within the Hall of Memories to use that Jadis couldn’t even begin to guess what the end results might look like.

Beyond her lovers… Jadis wasn’t sure. She could tell Wilhelm and his companions about the archive, she was fairly certain. She trusted the Hero, enough to fight side by side with him in battle or entrust the safety of those she loved to his protection. From every interaction she had ever had with the man, she knew that Wilhelm had a good heart. She did not worry about him causing any problems if she gave him access to the Hall of Memories, especially if she told him not to share the information with anyone else. Jadis was certain that he would honor her request.

Wilhelm’s companions were another matter. She trusted them; mostly because Wilhelm trusted them, but she had formed relationships with some of them. Jocelyn was a pure sweet bun; the Oracle was entirely honest and trustworthy. Amarantha was a little imp, but Jadis liked the Lares a lot and would happily spend more time with her. She could be trusted, too. Ludger wouldn’t ever do anything to go against his best friend, Wilhelm, so he was no issue either. Tiernan…

Tiernan didn’t seem like he would intentionally cause problems, but he was basically Sabina with a more direct ability to blow things up. He definitely needed supervision.

Halvor, Rein, and Lucia were the true concerns. Jadis trusted them in battle, and all three seemed like good people to her, but she didn’t have as solid a feeling about them as she did the others. It might have just been because she hadn’t spent as much time with those three as Wilhelm and the rest of his companions, but Jadis couldn’t yet shake the impression that their loyalties weren’t one hundred percent towards the Hero.

Lucia was a paladin of Valtar, through and through. Jadis got the impression that the therion would always follow the will of the temple above all other commands, even her own judgement. That kind of fanaticism made Jadis wary, at least so far as a mere acquaintance went. Halvor was blunt and straightforward, which was good in many ways, but it also meant that he didn’t care if he offended other people. Jadis wasn’t yet sure if that translated to helpful honesty, or an attitude that would lead him to doing things without the consent of others. Rein was the biggest question mark of them all. Jadis barely knew anything about the elf since he rarely spoke. She knew he was a minor noble of some sort and was already a powerful warrior before he joined up with Wilhelm, but other than that, he was an unknown.

Jadis sighed internally. Telling Wilhelm meant telling his companions. She didn’t want to hide what she was doing from him or the rest, since that felt counterproductive towards their shared goals. She would just have to trust that telling them meant that the information would not get back to Prince Hraustrekr, because that was the last person she wanted to know about the Hall of Memories.

Jadis had no idea if the information contained within the archives would contain anything that the prince could use against others, but she didn’t want to risk the chance. Misuse wasn’t the other concern, either. Hraustrekr wouldn’t destroy the repository, she was sure, but he might cause problems in other ways that she couldn’t foresee, such as trying to capture it or restrict its access, so she didn’t want the man to have any knowledge of the Hall of Memories until after she had put some protections in place. Secrecy had been the site’s main defense for thousands of years. Revealing its existence and location before other methods of guardianship were in place would be a mistake. Even if Hraustrekr didn’t end up wanting to do anything with the archive, Kestil might, and he was almost as bad in that regard. In fact, when Jadis thought about it, the two brothers fighting over the very idea of who got to access an ancient library filled with Nephilim knowledge looked like exactly what would happen if they found out before she was ready. After all, it was what they had done when they found out about her, wasn’t it?

Of course, that put Jadis in the awkward position of not being able to tell the temples about the archive. Not right away, at least. She was sure that High Priestess Aurea’s head would explode once she learned of all the art contained within the enchantments. And the priests of Metethys would want to copy the entire archive ten times over. It couldn’t be often that they got the chance to examine a complete collection of records from a lost civilization. But, if the temples were told, then the princes would find out, along with every noble in the whole damn empire, and Jadis did not want to think about the potential political ramifications. Except, she had to, which was why she was certain that revealing the existence of the archive was a mistake. At least, for the time being.

Jadis would need to be careful to keep the knowledge close to her vest for the time being. Not just because she didn’t want the info to leak back to the princes, but because she didn’t want anyone in Volto to know about the archive either. She didn’t trust the senators any more than she did the princes, after all, and they were a lot closer to ancient Asteria than the empire was. Who knew what some of those bureaucrats might do if they were given access to the Hall of Memories? Or what they might do if they were denied access…

It was on that cheery thought that Jadis carefully landed just outside of Soteria’s grove. The sun was getting close to the horizon, a reminder that Jadis had spent all day with Techne and Soteria in the archive. She would need to gather Meli up soon and fly back to Thracina before nightfall. Jadis had promised that she and the Dryad would be back before the night of the second day, and she didn’t want to cause any panic among her lovers by delaying her return.

If only they had some means of long-distance communication, Jadis would just reach out to Aila and let her know what was going on. But as it was, she would just have to content herself with being able to fly around like a jet.

“Thank you for taking me to see Techne and the hall,” Jay said as she set the old Dryad down and dismissed her Succubus wings. “I still think you’re nuts for surprising me with that information, but thank you all the same.”

“You are welcome,” Soteria said before giving Jay’s armored shin a couple of taps with her staff. “Now come along. You don’t have much time to dawdle before you have to fly off again, and I need to start my preparations. There is always less time than one would like to have.”

Jay nodded, then frowned as she ran the old Dryad’s words back in her head.

“Preparations? What preparations are you making?”

“For my trip to Thracina and the lands surrounding,” Soteria stated mildly. “Didn’t you want my help with the blight?”

“Oh!” Jay exclaimed as she wrenched her mind onto a completely different topic. “Shit, I completely forgot about why we came up her. Damn, the archives really distracted me, didn’t they?”

“Unsurprising,” the ancient woman chuckled as she ambled along a worn path. “It’s not every day that you are introduced to a stud like Techne.”

“That’s not—I’m not distracted by him!” Dys spluttered as the old woman cackled.

“So, wait. You’re going to help us? Help Volto, I mean?” Jay asked to get the conversation back on track. “I thought you said you had to think about it? The way you were talking, I kind of figured you weren’t entirely okay with the idea.”

“I did think about it,” Soteria replied. “What, did you think it would take me months to come to a decision?”

When Jadis shrugged her shoulders, the ancient Dryad let out a huff of laughter while shaking her head.

“I may move slow most days, but I understand the need for urgency when I see it. And to answer your implication, my initial thought was to reject your request. As you have seen, our grove was attacked, and we need to focus on regrowth and recovery. Not to mention the possibility that those Demons and that Erinyes might return. For our grove’s protection, it would be best if we all stayed here and focused on defense.”

Jay opened her mouth to argue against that idea, but Soteria cut her off with a wave of her wizened hand.

“As I said, that was my initial thought, not my conclusion. Visiting Techne and the Hall of Memories has reminded me of those bygone times… Back then, we Dryads could have been more involved in the defense of Asteria. We could have rallied to their flag. We could have lent our aid. But we didn’t. We hid in our groves and trusted that the storm would pass, and the Demons would be defeated, and all would be well in the end.”

Soteria came to a stop, her head bent low. She let out a long sigh, almost visibly shrinking as her bent back seemed to bend further under a remembered weight.

“We were right, in a way. The Demons were defeated, eventually. The storm passed. But the destruction left in their wake was too much. We lost our friends, and I blame my own kind for that, not the Demons.”

“You really think Asteria would have survived if the Dryads had joined the war?” Jay asked somberly. “From what Techne was telling me…”

“Oh, probably not,” the ancient woman let out another sigh, though her tone grew brighter as she looked up at Jay. “But who is to say? We’ll never know what would have been. But I’ve been given a second chance to help a Nephilim, and I would be Villthyrial’s oldest fool to turn down the opportunity.”

“Then, thank you for the help,” Jay smiled down at the old willow woman. “I promise that I’ll do everything I can to make sure that this war ends as soon as possible. And when it’s over, I’ll make sure that you and your grove get all the support that you need to regrow the, uh, κήπος, and get things back the way they should be around here.”

“Good,” Soteria nodded, then resumed her walk into the grove. “I look forward to seeing Nephilim walking together with Dryad’s in peace among the flowers.”

After a short pause, the old woman continued.

“And maybe a few Nymph grandchildren, as well.”

Jadis couldn’t help but blush at the thought. She and Meli hadn’t conceived yet, and if Soteria and her extremely small number of children considering her age was anything to go by, Jadis didn’t think she and her Dryad lover would be popping out a whole litter anytime soon. Then again, she did have advantages that most other avatars didn’t have…

“Okay, that comment was obviously meant to distract me,” Dys accused Soteria. “But the joke’s on you, since I can have one of me get distracted by those ideas while another one of me focuses on business.”

“Oh? And what business are you focusing on?”

“How you and your grove are going to be helping Volto,” Syd interjected from behind. “And how we might be able to work things out so that your aid might act as a cover for trips to visit the Hall of Memories, without letting certain people know what we’re up to.”

“Hm,” Soteria hummed at the proposition. “I’m listening…”

Jadis and Soteria discussed idea for the rest of the slow walk back into the grove. By the time they made it to the central clearing, the sun was threatening to fall below the horizon entirely, which meant Jadis really had to go. When she went to fetch Meli, she found the Dryad sitting alone with her father, Kreios. The two weren’t saying anything, and Jadis could see that Acantha was hovering in the background with a worried expression, but there was a cup of steaming tea in Kreios’ hands.

“The ratio of red bush to blue petals is incorrect,” the older man stated after taking a careful sip. “And the leaves should have been ground more finely.”

“I understand,” Meli nodded, her hands clasped tightly together by her knees. “I—”

Before she could say anything else, her father gulped the rest of the tea in a single go, then breathed in deeply before releasing a slow exhalation. Setting the clay cup down, he motioned with one hand.

“Another cup, please.”

As Jadis watched a smiling Meli pour another serving of her tea, she decided they could wait a few minutes longer before leaving.