5th of Sunsfall, 3418, 638 spans north, 342 spans east of Celes, Yaavy, After-Action Guild Report

Initially written up by Aure Feresi, reviewed by Teale Deei, Elya Deei, and Mere Saavfi

Outpost located within the vicinity of disappearances, and identified as unofficial- not appearing on any provided maps. 9 human inhabitants, no elves, officers or otherwise. Less than 2 full Yaavian militia uniforms between them. Suspects failed to provide any sort of authorizing documentation from either the Yaavian Crown or from local militia administrations and were evasive as to the purpose of the outpost. Suspects turned violent upon mention of our mission, this was assumed tentative confirmation of banditry and the suspects were firmly but gently subdued without issue for the rest of our investigation.

A thorough dissection of the site revealed a loot pile filled with common human civilianwear and a freshly dug pit of human remains in varying states of recent decay. Suspects definitively confirmed as bandits and summarily executed in the traditional form as allowed by Guild charter. Human remains and identifying objects within the bandit loot pile found at site sent to Celes by enchanted wagon for proper funerary procedures.

I reread my report for the final time before nodding to myself and folding it up to be sent back to the capitol when we next visited a city with mailing services. Now all there was left to do was figure out what to do with the last human. Obviously, we were going to eat him along with the rest of his little rabid pack of wolves, the problem was who would be the one to eat him? We'd captured 9 bandits today, and 9 couldn't be split evenly between 4 elves.

Not without butchering 1 of them anyway, but no elf would ever cut apart their prey if we didn't have to. Butchery was messy, frequently ruined the taste, and risked killing the head where the folk's soul resided. You might as well eat fire-tamed food like a human had to for all the good it would do for you and your bloodline. Though elves without a background in thaumaturgy or theology just knew it wasn't as enjoyable if your food found guilty of high crimes didn't struggle and fear as you ate them. A useful instinct that, Goddess' wisdom be praised.

So we had an extra bandit who couldn't be split evenly between us, because that would practically defeat the point of eating him. But we couldn't just let him go because that was even more wasteful, not to mention an unforgivable betrayal of all the folk that he had harmed and would harm in the future. It was quite the issue, one unique to high elves. River elves could have a similar problem, but simply resolve it by giving the extra to their leader in the group. High elves didn't have any leader or creed to bind us into loyalty but the Goddess herself, and our freely given vows made in her seldom spoken name.

Dark and wood elves meanwhile, were so small that they frequently had little choice but to butcher their captive evil folk. A dark elf looking to swallow a bad human would have to at the very least remove the limbs at the knees and elbows first, and for the best digestive results, cauterize the stumps so that the scum did not bleed out before settling down. Wood elves could do the same but at the shoulders and hips. Even then, a human torso was a bit too much at one time those smaller kin and they risked choking or organ ruptures without imbibing the smoke of specific magic herbs to both drug their meal into compliance and make their throats and stomachs more elastic throughout the endeavor. As a result, it was really only members of the wood and dark elf nobility who still tried to improve their lines in this way, with the majority sticking to either devouring dwarves and goblins or else getting friendly with skilled humans like Markus for fractional reinforcement.

I rubbed circles between my temples and ears, this was supposed to be easy and instead the whole mess was giving me a headache. At first we simply put it to a vote, each elf voting for someone besides herself. Unfortunately, that resulted in the very predictable scenario in which the sisters voted for each other, and Mere and I, knowing that would happen, also voted for one another. A 4-way tie.

I looked down at our lunch, enjoying the way they cowered under my gaze. They probably never thought it would happen like this. Most of the communities in this part of Yaavy were entirely human, so options to capture bandits were fairly limited unless a squad of elven bounty hunters like ourselves happened to be in the area. Humans were forbidden from carrying out their own justice by heavenly decree, so most humans don't even know what happens to the folk they send to be found guilty a second time in elven courts.

These 9 probably thought we were as deviant as themselves, preying on their convenient weakness as they did other humans. In reality, this was probably the best they could have hoped for from the path they'd chosen. Most murderers and rapists in Yaavy were traded to the neighboring queendom of Buor in exchange for mass amounts of seaweed and fish; and there they'd end up populating the plates and soup bowls of river elf nobility, or perhaps the queen of Buor herself. Perhaps if they knew that, these humans who'd consigned themselves to be food would be more grateful that their lives would come to a painful end in the bellies of the greatest of the Goddess' children instead merely the second greatest.

“You want me to- what? Take a vow in the Goddess' name over something so petty? Have you no shame, Mere?”

“I wasn't suggesting anything that drastic, no. I was just pointing out that holding another vote is useless when Aure and I both know that you'll vote for Teale and Teale for you.”

“Oh I apologize! Is my love for family bonds inconvenient for you?”

“No! Yes! No in general, I think it's very sweet. But right now it's a trap that forces Aure and I to either pick 1 of the 2 of you to win or else create this deadlock.”

“Is that so bad?”

“In the spirit of fairness? Yes. I'm just saying-”

I sidled over to Teale who was quietly watching Mere and Elya bicker over the results, before mumbling just loud enough to be heard by her over the argument. “When do you think they're going to kiss?”

Teale, instead of laughing immediately, hesitated for a moment before quipping back. “Not for a while actually, Elya takes after our mother on that and prefers dark elves at the tallest.” We both shared a giggle at that remark, which had the gratifying result of getting the others to cut off and glare at us.

I took the initiative while I had their attention. “I agree with Mere,” I said, ignoring Elya's squawk of annoyance. “What we need is a tiebreaker to decide who gets the human, not another vote. All in favor of a tiebreaker?” Three hands went up. Thankfully, I had not just Mere's support, but also Teale's. Elya was still frowning, but she wouldn't argue the point any longer, there was no conflict with a fair majority among equals. “So what should we decide it with?”

“A game, definitely.”

“Aye.”

“Perhaps a race?”

“The human might get away if we did that.”

The bandit leader in question, hanging by his feet from the watchtower of the outpost, chose this point to speak up. "Can't you just let me go anyway? I promise I'll never-" A quick finger flick to the scum's midsection knocked the wind out of him before he could say more though. Idiot. Alas, if bad humans were smart enough to realize that food couldn't bargain out of being food once caught, they would have doubtlessly been smart enough not to become bad and therefore food in the first place. Every time we rounded a bunch up like this, there were always some that begged and pleaded with us that they had no choice. But not one of them could honestly say that they ever asked an elf for assistance with whatever matter it as that supposedly caused their banditry though. Pride, it seemed, was more important to bad humans than the lives of their fellow folk.

"Although that is an interesting idea, what if we let him decide who eats him?" Mere posited thoughtfully.

"Kinky, but no. That's too good for him." Elya shot it down immediately.

I had to agree with her on that. "Aye, he's had plenty of chances to make decisions and all he's done with it is ruin the lives of other folk. Clearly he doesn't have a fair bone in his body and would make a poor arbiter."

“A game of riddles maybe?”

“That's just handing him to Aure without a contest.” I couldn't help but snort to myself at the admission. Riddles might be more about memorization than intelligence, but most spellcraft used riddles as mnemonics so I did in fact have a bit of an unfair advantage as the party wizard.

“True.”

Then it came to me. "What about Markus? He's fair and impartial." Really we should have just defaulted to asking him his opinion. He deserves as much of a say in the party as any of us, even though he's of a lesser folk and prone to strange ways of thinking.

Mere perked up at that "Oh good idea! I should've let him out anyway since he's bound to be just as hungry as us at this hour." She immediately began digging between her tits to find him. Sometimes I envied humans for how decadent that must be, Goddess knows if I had a friend big enough to get lost in her chest I'd never get anything done.

When Mere took longer than a half minute to find him, Elya spoke up. "I wouldn't say Markus is impartial, he very clearly has an interest in watching high elf justice in action." Pfft! Aye, he's a real stiff supporter of it.

I almost said my joke out loud but before I could Teale replied. "So he can be bribed, whatever. He's still a good human and that just means we can have our game decide it anyway."

“Oh, true! I like that.”

I snorted to myself at the ongoing deliberations as I rummaged around the outpost's cooking supplies. They didn't have much, but I did find a can of smoked bacon, Markus' favorite if I remembered correctly. What was that old human woman saying I'd heard? 'The shortest route to a man's heart was through his stomach.'? Somehow I doubted the saying had thaumaturgical significance, but I didn't miss how happy Markus always was to eat my cooking. I hoped that it'd be enough to sway the man's judgment, but pleasing my dear friend was also its own reward.