Chapter 9.11 W

Chapter 9.11 W
Chapter 9.10 W	Chapter 9.12
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Chapter 9.11 W is the 16th chapter of Volume 9. The W stand for Witches.

tl;dr[edit | edit source]

More meetings happen in Riverfarm, and Erin summons a water elemental from Riverfarm's river.
Erin decides to apprentice herself under Wiskeria.

The chapter picks up with more introductions and meetings. Inkar lets Tkrn know that Erin's appreciation of her is intimidating, and more people come out to meet Erin. The goblins are one group that came out mostly to see the spectacle of the Liscorians' arrival, and the [Witches] also come forth in numbers to greet Erin. Erin learned that the goblins were not being horribly mistreated and that they had a cell phone, and the [Witches] greeted her but were unimpressed by her lack of hat or formality. As these greetings were winding down, Erin heard the crying old man that Wiskeria had been ignoring last chapter.

Erin had other priorities though. One of those priorities was meeting with Laken about goblins and the other was meeting with Nanette. Wiskeria told Nanette about her past and connection to the Griffin Prince through Belavierr while walking to Laken's throne room where they heard Erin and Laken arguing about goblins. Erin wanted Laken to let the goblins go, but Laken wanted to keep his subjects and was concerned that Erin would take them by force. In the end, they brought in Nanette before the topic got out of hand. Erin told the young [Witch] about Califor and the promise she'd made to her to find her daughter and to make sure she grew up safely. Erin offered to take Nanette back to Liscor, but Nanette acceded without much emotion. She said little and asked few questions just accepting the change. Wiskeria brought her out of the throne room and let the group know that she was Belavierr's daughter before leaving.

Erin wasn't the only one to have important meetings. Others in the group mingled as well from the thronebearers joining Durene on a long trip to slay undead nearby to Inkar bartering with Oliyaya everyone got involved. Lyonette made friends with Eloise as they were both at one point nobility from Terandria, Numbtongue and Ulvama looked around the goblinlands, Mrsha tried to make inroads with Laken but was rebuffed and went to play with some of the local kids, Garia met with Prost and got in a fight over Ryoka's friendship with Charlay, and even Tkrn had a place when he helped introduce a bit of traffic control using methods from Liscor that weren't standard in the northern human cities. Laken saw this and was impressed enough to request his help in setting up traffic lights using some of his people's expertise for the empire. While all of these meetings were happening, Erin honed in on what was making the weeping sound which ended up being an elemental that was a large river running through Riverfarm. She decided to summon it and maybe take it with her to give to Gaarh Marsh as a replacement for Khoteizetrough. The other witches were happy to help support her and few said no. Even Laken was okay with it as meeting an elemental would be interesting though he did think she would fail. The only one that tried to stop her was Wiskeria, but she arrived too late. Erin brought the river elemental out, and like any elemental, it had no concept of human morality. It came out full of joy and immediately started to drown Erin. It sensed her panic and let her go, but it quickly found Cade instead and tried to capture Mrsha. Griffon Hunt and Erin tried to save him, but they could not hurt the water. In desperation, Lyonette called for Tessa who managed to free Cade but the elemental started to rampage, getting angry at all those trying to hurt it. Wiskeria came forth and realized Erin's mistake and the two tried to put an end to things, but neither of them had any craft. The other powerful witches chose that moment to intervene and were able to beat the elemental back into the river.

Wiskeria and Erin talked afterwards about how the witches had known that the summoning would go poorly, but they'd wanted to teach Erin a lesson. Briganda punched Erin for endangering Cade, and the elemental was still alive in the river raging away, just not able to take form. Wiskeria told Erin about how the other witches would likely pressure her into apprenticing with one of them now and how she hated Erin because of how similar she was to Belavierr. Though the messages were harsh, Wiskeria was ultimately truthful and straightforward with Erin, so Erin decided to apprentice herself under Wiskeria instead. Wiskeria accepted and the two went off to apologize to Briganda once more and help repair the damages Erin had caused. While this was happening, Numbtongue met with Laken and the two talked about goblins and the goblinlands. Laken decided to share some secrets with Numbtongue including a message scroll about the monsters from the High Passes that caused Numbtongue to swear impressively. Finally, when Erin and Wiskeria were ready to sleep and had finished helping and talking to each other, Wiskeria heard another sound like a close eerie wail that she had never heard before.