Eremire Firegleam

Over the years many have questioned the need for the constant vigilence maintained by the devoted servants of Miluril Starbrow. We are after all the true people, blessed with both a reasonable lifespan and minds capable of understanding the consequences of our actions in future centuries. A constant watch on our own surely cannot possibly be necessary? And for the majority of people that would be true, but occasionally someone gives in to the call of ambition or greed and when they do the consequences can be grave.
Let us consider the case of Eremire Firegleam, who lived in a village not far from the edge of the forest. Eremire was a forager who didn't stand out much, having few talents beyond a knack for finding mushrooms. Rather than celebrating this ability to provide for the village Eremire harboured a deep resentment over the talents others hand. This might have come to nothing if were not for the arrival of a group of refugees from the Fleeting nations.

The fleets had been granted sanctuary by the grace of the Lord Starbrow, but they were woefully ignorant of the proper respect to show to the forest and had no understanding of how to survive out of the stone boxes that are their usual dwellings. A teacher was required and to many people's surprise Eremire stepped up. While working with the fleets, Eremire seemed happier than he had been for decades. It was thought this was because Eremire had obtained a long desired position of responsibility but in hindsight we should have applied a greater level of suspicion.

Could we have intervened sooner? We probably could have acted when Eremire uncharacteristically volunteered to look after the fleets, but how many would have objected over us taking steps because someone volunteered to help

We learned later that one of the supposed refugees was in reality an agent of the very creatures the refugees had fled from. Through flattery and pointing out the other fleets obvious respect for Eremire this agent fanned the flames of Eremire's ambition. It was not difficult for this agent to persuade Eremire that other people in the village viewed the forager with contempt, and from there it was only a short step to introducing Eremire to a way to gain the power to force their respect. Eremire was corrupted by ambition and barely gave a second thought ot becoming a demon worshipper.

The obsession with teeth may seem a little unusual, but the domons were training Eremire to think of the teeth as trophies. And they wanted Eremire to expand the collection.

Eremire was soon doing the demons' bidding in the belief that the tasks the fiends insited be completed would lead to the granting of great power. The early tasks were simple enough, and barely worthy of consideration. Take a tooth from a corpse. Take a tooth from a sill living fleet. Take a tooth from a recently killed fleet.

Since there weren't any fleets looking like they were going die in the immediate future Eremire took a fairly direct approach, with nary a pang of conscience. After all it wasn't like fleets were people and they would be dead in a few years anyway.
With Eremire started down a dark path, the demands gradually grew with each one designed to take Eremire another step along the road away from the light of Starbrow. By the time the first demand to kill a person arrived Eremire was almost relieved as it had been getting hard to conceal the disappearance of so many fleets, and it was getting more difficult to conceal the collection of teeth. The demons (or perhaps their agent) chose well for Eremire's first real victim - a neighbour who had long been the subject of Eremire's envy for his skill in magic. But now Eremire had magic too.
Much to Eremire's disappointment the long anticipated magic duel never happened as it proved almost too easy for Eremire to sneak across the branches that connected their trees. A quick cut with a well sharpened knife and then some effort with a pair of pliers and the task was complete. Buoyed by success Eremire returned home, not once considering that the body might be discoverd before morning. Fortunately for the forest the scent of death was strong enough to alert the companions of one of the village trackers. When the body was found the village's elder scent for us immediately and we arrived within the day. But we were too late to capture Eremire who had slipped out of the village and the first sign of alarm. We did at least manage to seize the collection of teeth and the demons' agent who had corrupted Eremire and from him we learned that the demons had been leading Eremire towards completing a ritual that would have opened a breach in the forest's protective barrier.
And so I return to my original point. Ambition, envy, greed, impatience. All of the things personified by the fleets can lead even one of our own into corruption. We could keep a lesser watch. We could trust more. Or we could protect the forest and prevent such incidents ever happening again.

The header was created in Flowscape and relates to Baramith.