Anneli: the female elven main character, played by Andy. She's now with the humans from the remnants of the Argentum Empire. Commander Aloysius, the leader of the base, promised her that they would kill Nomi, as partners.
Nomi: Anneli's older sister, who has become a dark elf, serving the orc god of anger Rahbarl. She stole the key to the Island of Eternal Youth, a little toy sword, from Anneli a few sessions ago.
Octavian: Aloysius' aide, who has been acting as Anneli's guide.
Salomo: a soldier under extra duty hours for killing a prostitute. He had tried to become friends with Anneli, who shunned him after being told by Octavian what he had done. He's pretty bitter about that.
Anneli was back in Argentum Prime. She heard Nomi call for help. She ran towards her sister, but began to sink into the land as it were water. The more she struggled the more she sank. There was a thrumming sound, going through the earth she was stuck in. An elf with non-ebony skin walked up to her, asking if she wanted to get out of the ground. Anneli told him she didn't know if she did or not. The pale elf laughed and said it had been a long time since he'd met someone so honest, and that he found refreshing. He knelt down, next to Anneli's head, and smacked her on the side of the head, hard.
Anneli was out of bed, wrapped in her blankets so tightly that she could barely move. There were no elves that were not ebony-skinned in her day and age, which must have meant she was dreaming of Liekki, the God Who had reclaimed their planet from the Khen-Zai, the Masters of Old. He had originally come as an elf, only to be betrayed by them and thrown off a cliff. That was long, long before Liekkin Mah, their kingdom continent from of old, had risen up into the air to become the Ring of Tears. Elves were pale-skinned in those days, before the radiation of the sun had darkened their skin and bleached their hair. But she also could have been dreaming of The Pilgrim, an elf from the elder days who now traveled through elven dreams. There were other ancient elves, those who had not darkened, who it could have been, but none that she knew of that visited the elves in dreams.
Someone was knocking at the door. After getting unwrapped from her bedclothes and getting dressed Anneli answered the door. It was Octavian and Salomo, who had come to get her for a meeting with Aloysius. She asked them what her place in their was, but Octavian declined to answer, given that was Aloysius' decision, not his.
All eyes fell on Anneli the instant they left the house. The whispers started a second later. Most of them didn't say anything that upset Anneli terribly, right up until someone called her "coal-face". That made her stop and s tare out into the crowd, phasing out just a moment as she processed that. One of the soldiers thought she was staring at him, so he came up and started to flirt with Anneli. snapping out of her reverie she tried to play along with his flirting. She was interrupted by Octavian, who put the soldier back in his place and sent him packing. He then upbraided Anneli for encouraging the soldier, and that earning respect wasn't going to happen that way.
In her meeting with Aloysius her place on the base was finally revealed: she had no place in the hierarchy itself, beyond reporting to Aloysius and his personal representatives. Out of the base, alone, they were equals. But on the base Anneli needed to follow his lead. Anneli surmised it was so that there would be no confusion for his soldiers, which Aloysius readily agreed to.
Aloysius then told Anneli had a job for her. He needed her to lead an expedition into Argentum Prime, to go after Nomi, who had been seen traveling around there, openly. Salomo was assigned to Anneli as a personal aide. They went into a smaller house, where a group of dirty and loud special forces stood. They didn't behave like the other soldiers; they mocked Aloysius and talked while he gave his brief, which he seemed to think funny and endearing. Anneli tried to play along with them, to awkward results. Grabbing Salomo, she went outside and asked what she was doing wrong. She gave Salomo permission to speak, freely even! Salomo tore into her for thinking he would help her now; he was done reaching out and trying help her. He didn't think Anneli fit to lead and thought she'd get everyone killed.
Anneli walked back into the house and told the unit to shut up and get ready, cause they were heading out at dawn tomorrow. She had a role. She'd fulfill it.
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