For a moment, I wasn’t sure how to respond to Adra. The look of sheer horror on her face made it obvious that there was something going on that I couldn’t see, some sort of disturbance only she registered. Given the rather delicate and problematic identity of the Soul Prison still clutched in my hand, I wasn’t sure how to respond. Sure, she was my companion and I trusted her, but at the same time, the thing I was holding had been locked away by multiple deities. Just that would bring tremendous pressure to almost any native of Mundus.

“Just a small, magical experiment with Blood- and Death-Magic, it worked a little better than I had expected,” I fibbed, trying to deceive her with the truth.

“Whatever you’ve done, I could feel the entire forest shudder in…” she paused and I could see a shudder shaking her, “terror? It felt as if there was a terrible predator stalking the heart of the forest.”

“That doesn’t sound too good. You mean other people may have noticed my actions?” I asked, realising that she wasn’t the only being attuned to the forest.

“True,” she nodded and I felt myself turn pale, “We should go,” she suggested, an idea I immediately agreed to.

Given that my action had likely been felt throughout a massive area, especially by spellcasters attuned to the forest, staying anywhere nearby would be idiotic to the highest degree. From everything I knew, the elves were living in symbiotic unison with the forest, so if my actions were felt, it was akin to striking the foundation of their entire way of life.

Instead of resting for the night, we roused Sigmir and Rai, eating some of our rations dry and cold, before continuing on our journey, cloaked in the shadows of the night.

As we ran, a small part of my mind was focused on the earlier experiment. It seemed that the Soul Prison, with a little help, was capable to exert some power on our surroundings, or at least enhance my spell-casting if the entity within was motivated to do so. Empowering my Blood- and Death-Magic might only be one way it could do so, I would have to find out more in the future.

Spooked by the intense reaction I had caused, we continued to run through the night pushing our bodies to the limit, both Adra and my magic continuously deployed to conceal our tracks. And it was necessary, as we travelled, we noticed multiple groups of elves.

The first, only an hour after we had started running, was spotted by Lenore when she was scouting high above us, flitting between the massive trees. It wasn’t a unified group but a flight of elves, riding massive avians. Luckily they were above the canopy and she noticed the magical emanations of their wind magic, or it was likely that she would have been spotted. Instead, she instantly dove down, hiding between the trees and returning to her Hallow as fast as possible. My assumption was that those elves were the first responder, trying to figure out what had caused the earlier event and then start looking for the culprits.

A few hours later, an hour after sunrise, we noticed another group of elves. Instead of an entire flight of scouts, this was a small group of four, all well-equipped with leather-armour, short bows and curved blades, mounted on massive, quite intimidating, felines. They weren’t moving with purpose in the direction we were coming from, but it looked more like a scouting patrol, Looking for something. Possibly us, but in that case, we either hadn’t managed to conceal our tracks or the elves were incredibly agitated by my actions.

Either way, their presence was problematic. And even worse was that we couldn’t take them out, or it would be akin to a giant signal, telling the elves that something problematic was in this area. That would only lead to more people investigating and ultimately, we would fall. There was no way for us to fight all the elves.

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No, we needed to run, even faster and further, without getting noticed.

Thus, we continued running. For two more days, we kept running, day and night, resting only briefly, eating dried rations on the go as we pushed our endurance to the limit. Both Adra and I had to pull double-duty, keeping a constant magical cloak around us, the effort to do so slowly draining our strength.

During that time, we spotted a few more groups of elves, some riding on those felines, others above the trees, either propelled by personal wind-magic or on the back of some sort of flying mount.

And it wasn’t just mundane patrols, during our flight, Adra and I both noticed the occasional weird pulse of energy flowing through the forest. While I could only feel the presence of that magic, Adra identified it as a peculiar type of Divination Magic, an attempt to have the very forest assist the elves in finding us. At its base, it was what she used to commune with plants right next to her, have them work in tandem with and even give information to her, only that here, the effect was spread out across a vast area. Thankfully, Adra was confident in her ability to prevent that type of magic from detecting us, or we might have been spotted. Given that hiding within the forest needed more than tricks of light and shadow, I wasn’t certain whether I would be able to magically conceal myself and even less confident when it came to hiding Sigmir.

As we ran, we noticed a few elven settlements, their presence relatively easy to detect due to their peculiar construction, or rather, the peculiar construction of their walls. The elves didn’t build walls like everyone else, instead, they were growing them.

Their walls consisted of specifically grown trees and shrubs, the trees forming a lattice structure the shrubs and various vines were using, forming an impenetrable thicket. What made it even worse was that, according to Adra, the whole thing was one creature, similar to the forest around Neyto, and just like that forest, those walls were host to a Dryad.

It became incredibly obvious when we saw a large feline try sneaking into one of the small settlements, the moment the feline came too close to the wall, a cluster of tendrils struck out, ensnaring and twisting it, before dragging the mangled carcass into the wall, to never be seen again.

Without seeing it personally, I wouldn’t even have noticed that the walls were able to strike out some thirty metres, the vines more akin to striking snakes with incredible power. I tried to cautiously use Observe to gauge the thicket’s level, only to get an incredible headache when my attempt was foiled.

Once that happened, the idea to maybe have one of us sneak into town to replenish supplies died a sudden death and we were running again, glad that the elven forest offered bountiful forage. It was almost as if the elves, or maybe even the forest itself, had cultivated some of the trees, so their fruits turned into something more than a vehicle to transport seeds.

On the third night, we finally had to rest. While I was capable to rest during the day by switching with Lenore, the others had been running the whole time and their exhaustion was mounting.

While they slept, I kept guard, sitting on one of the larger shrubs, the trees around us having no suitable branches to sit on. A part of me wanted to climb up, into the canopy, so I could actually see the night sky above but that would make the guarding almost entirely ineffective.

During the darkest hour of the night, when the shadows were at their deepest, I felt something, a faint tugging at my mind. I was used to mental contact, thanks to my connection to Lenore and Sigmir, but this was different. Where the bond between us was one woven on both sides, this was entirely foreign, almost akin to someone knocking on the door to my mind.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do, my first instinct was to draw the cloak of shadows I wore tightly around me, scared that some scrying elf might have found me and was trying to find out who or what I was. The contact didn’t feel hostile, but just the detection of my presence could be problematic.

Despite the utter darkness around me, the knocking didn’t stop, if anything, it became more distinct, as if the shadows were helping it.

Remembering a previous situation where the cloak was unable to conceal me, I reached into my magic back, pulling out the Soul Prison. The moment my hand touched the crystal, the knocking faded, replaced by a flurry of sensations.

Delight, hunger and desire, all mingled together in an impressive bouquet, the breadth of the emotions strong enough to make me sway on my branch.

Whatever was in there, it was slowly regaining a bit of power.