Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

While Ella was having an easy time getting into the Noxus compound, Priya was having a much different day at the doors to the Sylvan Coven. Unlike Ella, who had decided to infiltrate by stealth and keep her status a secret, Priya had returned to her home with her head held high, ready to make demands and find out just what the status of the beleaguered Coven was.

Not that anyone in Sylvan Coven would deny her anything that she asked for, but she hadn't expected the level of reception that she had received.

The Witches had sensed her coming from dozens of kilometres away, and had prepared to fight if it were one of the foreign witches that had come to harass them.

They weren't in the Frozen Wastes, though the Fortress City was quite close to the border, so they saw no reason that anyone should be bothering them at this time, when there was so much battle already going on.

But there were four other Continents, so they could field many more soldiers than anyone here was prepared for, and there was a level of general anxiety that they would make good on the threats from before the war to ensure that this continent was left uninhabited and uninhabitable.

So, when Priya had come into sight, driving a mundane army military truck and accompanied by two junior witches, who were also Sylvan Citizens, the sudden shift from terrified to relieved had led to thousands of Witches coming out to greet her at the gates.

For the last hour, Priya hadn't moved at all, as the witches swarmed her truck to marvel at the fact that a living, breathing Rank Three Witch was here and part of their Coven.

Even better, she was part of the Priya family, who already held significant military power within the city, even after all the casualties that they had suffered over the course of the winter's campaigns.

Relatives that she had never known that she had were coming forward from everywhere, and she had just heard about the training aspirations of a fourth cousin thrice removed, who was going to begin her training in the next few months when she awakened.

The Coven leaders were outside already, waiting for the crowd to clear a little so that they didn't rob their people of this rare ray of hope. They had been short on any reason to celebrate for a long time now, and it felt good to get outside and actually receive good news.

Finally, she had a senior member of her family nearby, a Colonel in the army, and Priya used wind magic to literally drag her over to talk.

"I need to know what has been going on with the villages. The foreigners are increasing the number of monsters in the area, and almost all the villages are empty, with no border guards." Priya asked quietly, drowned out by the noise of celebration for everyone more than a metre away from the truck.

"Well, we would love to refill the villages, but with whom? They were mostly humans to begin with, and those who didn't retreat with the Grand Dutchies are almost all dead now. Some followed the invaders into the Morgana Swamps, but we don't have anyone to refill the villages with. 

The Fortress City lost a tenth of its people, and another quarter have damage from the nerve gas. The Coven is in such a bad way that they can barely keep things running, due to a lack of people. All the trained specialists who worked outside the city are gone, and we don't have anyone to replace them with." The Colonel replied.

"Shit. And you're so far out that we can't even have the villagers from the Frozen Wastes help you out. The Curse will prevent them from talking to you." Priya responded.

"It doesn't stop them from talking to you?" The Colonel asked.

"Not on our own territory. We've broken a lot of the curses within that limited range, but they're still in effect everywhere else. So, we can talk to the mutants and beast kin, and they can speak with us. We all live together for safety, and once we sort out whatever is going on with the so-called United World Army, we will be sending Witches to all the nearby villages to help keep them running, instead of having our Witches patrol the region.

Wolfe's plan is to turn the entire region into one large alliance so that the outsiders stop trampling over them like they're nothing. It's a good selling point with the beast kin, since nobody else treated them as human in the past, and we've arranged to get them a reliable food supply." Priya explained.

The Colonel looked confused. "How did you communicate with them at the start, to stop them from attacking before the curses broke?"

Priya laughed, then sighed and shook her head. "Would you believe that all we had to do was write things down on a notepad? We all speak the same language, it's just that the curse made it sound like animal noises and shrieking. Once we started passing notes, the problem basically vanished."

The fact that nobody had tried that before spoke to the centuries of discrimination that the residents of the Frozen Wastes had faced as outcasts and mutants. But now that was ending, and they were becoming valued trading partners and allies to the Fae Forest.

"We need to gather the Council Members and talk in private. Can you do something to clear out the road?" Priya asked.

"Of course. But we will have to show you off to them later. I'm sure you knew when you left home that it wasn't going to be easy to leave here again after you came back." The Colonel replied.

"That was my fear, but it is what it is. We couldn't send in a stranger, so if I have to take over to get things done, I will." Priya sighed.

"Look at it this way, at least you know your way around the place. You lived here for half your life." The Colonel chuckled as she gestured for the soldiers to clear the road to let the delegation inside the Fortress City.