Why couldn’t the elves be less competent?

That question flashed through my mind, just as yet another wave of magic washed around us, kept at bay by the combination of wards cast by Adra and myself. By now, we were reasonably confident that the elves wouldn’t be able to detect us with their sweeping, wide-area scans, otherwise they would have done so a while ago. But it didn't mean we had no problems just because we could keep those at bay.

Such as yet another group of elven scouts, leisurely making their way through the forest, taking their time to check any minute disturbance. They even used some strange magic to scale one of the massive trees when a large bird disturbed the canopy above, making it obvious that they were incredibly cautious.

So far, we had managed to avoid too much scrutiny, mainly by hiding in the shadows and remaining completely still, but each time we hid, we stuck in our concealment for at least thirty minutes, until we were confident that the elves had moved on.

It was stressful. We could never relax and if we made the slightest mistake, things could get troublesome incredibly fast. If we ever got caught, there’d be a fight, I had no confidence in the assumption that the previous contact that elven patrol had with our group hadn’t been reported, only for them to turn up gone shortly after.

Given our races, especially Sigmir’s and Rai’s, we were an incredibly distinctive group, one that would easily be recognised. There might be another Frost Giantblood running around in the elven lands, even if it was somewhat unlikely, their home being, as far as I knew, in the far north but there might be one who had travelled here. Maybe even one that looked somewhat like Sigmir.

Similarly, there might be more wolf beast people in the elven lands, but again, not their home range, so it would be someone who had travelled around half the world. Not impossible, we had done it after all, but somewhat unusual.

Combining these two unusual personages amplified their recognisability, making the connection incredibly obvious. And if any diviner managed to connect the feeding events with Nidhogg and sent that report ‘up the chain’, so to speak, until it reached the Gods themselves who had originally sealed the Nidhogg and likely knew where they had placed the Soul Prison? Well, at that point, a group containing two visitors from that part of the world would raise not only alarm bells, more something like air-raid sirens, with firecrackers and maybe a person with a megaphone screaming directly into your ear that we were suspicious.

Nobody would overlook that.

Anonymity and the sheer area the elves had to cover were the only thing keeping us safe, any blip on their radar, any small hint would reduce the area and make it more likely that we’d get caught. Thus, constant vigilance was the maxim, hoping we’d fare better than the originator of that phrase. Getting stuck into a travelling trunk for a year was not something I wanted to experience, even if there might be some similarities between that trunk and the capsules.

But with constant vigilance came constant stress and slowly but surely, that stress kept mounting. Having to permanently keep a part of your mind focused on those wards, ever ready to tweak them a little if a wave of divination-magic threatened to break them drained mental focus and it was difficult to get a good rest in when you always had to be cautious, ready to move at a moments notice. All of us were feeling it, but Adra and I bore the brunt of it, to the point that Rai and Sigmir were taking on a larger part of the simple duties, trying to take our burden as much as possible.

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A soft growl from Ylva stopped us all in our tracks, her canine hearing the strongest in our group.

“Three elves,” I warned, having understood her growl thanks to the ability gained from my bond with Lenore. Quickly scanning around, I noticed a small opening beneath one of the giant trees, mostly hidden by a shrub growing at its base and waved towards it.

All of us quickly moved over and slipped in one by one, while Adra placed her hand on the tree, her eyes closing as she communed with it. A quick look at the opening showed me that there wasn’t enough space for all of us, so I looked at Sigmir and nodded towards Ylva, the two instantly getting my meaning.

Seconds later, Ylva disappeared into her Hallow, decreasing the volume of our group by almost half and Sigmir squeezed into the narrow hole, following after Rai. I went next, plopping down on Sigmir’s lap in an effort to keep some space for Adra, who followed moments later. With all of us squeezing into the small cave it was incredibly cosy but needs must.

Reaching out with my mind, I pulled on the darkness around us, turning the shadows just a little deeper, making it impossible to notice that we actually were there. It was a small, dark hole, nothing more to see here.

Adra did something similar, the brush outside shifting just that tiny bit, making it even harder to notice the cave and from then on, it was time to wait.

We didn’t have to wait long and soon, I could hear the noise of soft boots, the occasional rusting of cloth against leaves and a bit of mumbling. Sniffing the air, I noticed a faint scent of magic, a weirdly monotone variant. Normally, there were those small differences, tiny traces that gave the magic an individual note but with this one, there was nothing.

Not certain what it actually did, I carefully warded it off, using the darkness of the cave around us to enhance the Cloak of Twilight I constantly used, making sure that it didn’t stick to any of us.

My heart almost stopped when I heard the elves speak, the voices allowing me to pinpoint their location. They were right outside the cave, just a few metres away from us, almost close enough to touch if we were to move out of our hideout. While listening to their conversation, I tried my best to remain calm, so the beating of my heart would remain as quiet as possible, or they might actually hear it.

“Anything?” one of them asked, sounding a little annoyed.

“Just like the last five scans, nothing’s picked up,” another voice replied, this one sounding less bored and more cautious.

“Does anyone know why the forest is this agitated?” the first voice grumbled and for some reason, the mental image of a complaining teenager sprung to my mind when I heard the voice. Their voices were getting further away from us and I could hear the fluttering of leaves as if one of them had kicked against one of the shrubs.

“There’ve been mutterings, something about a parasite that feeds on the forest’s vitality. You’ve felt it yourself, haven’t you? There’s Dark Magic afoot, something evil creeping in our forest,” the other voice replied, a hint of anger in her tone.

“Can’t say I have, no. Heard a whole lot of shouting, people claiming that the end is near and such nonsense. There’s going to be some malcontents, trying to grab some power for themselves and once they got it, they’ll be trying something stupid and die for it. As if anyone could shake the forest itself, I say let them make their fuss and kill them once they get caught. No need to send out half the army to hunt down a phantom,” the first voice complained, reciprocating the anger of the other.

“Not our place to complain, the Dryads are speaking with the voice of the Eldest Druid and the Forest. They say that something evil lurks and we need to stop this before it can spread. So that’s what we do,” the second voice rebuffed the first, the tone one that didn’t allow for any refusal. And yet, I thought I could hear one but by this point, they had moved on, too far away to let me hear them any longer. Looking at the others, I simply shrugged, not sure what to make of the few words we had heard and leaned against Sigmir, closing my eyes to rest a little.

It would take a bit of time until we dared move on and I had a bit of magic to consider. Namely, what had that odd, clean magic been that washed over us? The only time I had felt something similar had been when dealing with the human city barriers, so there might be some similarities, but it had to be considered.

And it wasn’t as if we could continue moving, not until those elves had moved far enough away.