Chapter 21: The Last of the Viridian Stewards

Imagining the dormant threat lurking behind every branch and bush, Chastity and Charlie made haste and did not stop to catch their breath, lest the aggressive vines surround them once more. Deeper and deeper they probed into the vast Evervale, pressing onward beneath the luminescent shimmer of the forest canopy.

At times they encountered swaths of ground overgrown with sharp thorns, or pools of knee-high quickmud, and Chastity would hoist the halfling onto her sturdy shoulders and quickly stalk through the difficult terrain.

After nearly an hour they realized they were hopelessly lost. They had just as much a chance of finding their way back to the forest entrance as stumbling upon the fabled Everglen.

They sensed that they were being watched from every conceivable angle, and yet, thankfully, no further attacks came. At last Chastity called for a respite, pulling thorns larger than shark teeth from the sides of her mud-caked boots.

Charlie drew his vegetable knife again, suspiciously surveying the trees.

“What do you know about Everglen, or these Wood Elves?” Chastity asked, hoping for any clue that could point them in the right direction.

“As much as you, I’m afraid!” Charlie answered. “We never had any dealings with elves on the farm, and I never saw one come to Goldenberry. Proud folk, I’ve heard.”

“Hmm. Well, what do they look like? What kind of homes do they live in?”

At this, Charlie shrugged.

“Tall and fair, I reckon. But I can’t imagine them being any taller or fairer than you, beg pardon. As for how they live–I couldn’t say. I don’t imagine they just roam about the woods like wild beasts.”

Chastity nodded. That description was more fitting for them at the moment. Some sign, any indication at all of civilization, would be a welcome sight. The Paladin bowed her head and offered a silent prayer for guidance.

“If you have the stamina, let’s keep going. Just keep your eyes open for anything–footprints, broken twigs, trails, discarded candy bar wrappers…”

“Excuse me?”

“Just a joke, Charlie,” she sighed.

“Ah. Must be Paladin humor, I reckon! As for broken twigs, I don’t think it’s in the nature of Wood Elves to go around breaking twigs, do you?”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about them!”

Another shrug from the halfling as he stowed his vegetable knife and stretched his limbs.

So they continued on, doing their best not to double back on their own tracks, unable to navigate by the night sky and hesitant to make any markings on the bark of the trees. For several hours they traveled in this fashion, but at last they noticed a change in the forest.

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The trees began to thin out. The canopy opened up, revealing a sliver of pale moon above. Up ahead, the white of crusty snow could be seen once again covering the ground. There was a clearing, a large circular clearing in the Evervale. No… not quite a clearing…

Ding!

[New Location Discovered]

[Everglen]

[You Have Gained Experience]

“This? No, this can’t be it…” Chastity murmured in disbelief.

Before them, silhouetted in shadow and moonlight, was the bombed out wreckage of what once must have been a majestic treetop community. It reminded Chastity of the Ewok village from Return of the Jedi, except that it was blackened and charred, husks of burnt trees and collapsed bridges hanging limply. A layer of ice coated the scorched ruins as if forever sealing them in this dreadful state.

If this was truly Everglen, the domain of the Wood Elves, it looked as if somebody had dropped napalm on it.

“This… what is this?” Charlie wondered, at a loss.

Chastity stepped cautiously out from beneath the green forest canopy and into the ring of destruction, her boots crunching on the icy slush. As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she made out several dozen dark, elongated forms lying in the center of the ruined village. They were oval-shaped bundles, laid out in perfect rows on the cold ground.

A voice clear and keen rang out from somewhere overhead.

“Go away.”

Chastity and Charlie halted, searching everywhere for the source of the voice. Instinctively, Chastity readied a javelin.

“Go away!” the voice said again, more forcefully. “This is a place for the dead.”

I don’t like the sound of that, thought Chastity.

“O-oh, yeah?” Charlie stuttered. “Y-you don’t scare us! Are you another wraith? A haunt? A ghoul? This here is a holy Paladin! She banished some of your vile kind just the other day and she’ll banish you too! Come out and do your worst!”

Chastity shot Charlie a disapproving look.

“Charlie!” she hissed. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but please don’t volunteer me for anything!”

A mournful laugh echoed about the skeletal settlement, putting the trespassers even more on edge.

“A Paladin? Is it really so? Just because you are no enemy does not mean you are welcome here. Again I say, go away!”

Not an enemy? Chastity thought, relaxing her grip on the javelin only a little.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and took another step into the village.

“Who are you? And WHERE are you? We have come searching for the Wood Elves, and we mean no harm or disrespect. Please, we need your help.”

There was another laugh, this time from a different point above but belonging to the same speaker.

“The Wood Elves cannot help you, for we could not even help ourselves. A man and halfling together braving the Evervale to find this place? My people would have sung of it for a hundred years. But alas, there is no one left to sing.”

From a half-burned wooden platform perched high atop a blackened tree, a braided cord of plant fiber unspooled. Grasping this cord with a single gloved hand, a slender figure slid down and landed soundlessly in the snow before Chastity.

The figure rose to its full height, eyes glinting in the low light.

“I am all that remains of the Skógaralver of the Evervale, the sole survivor of my kindred, the last of the Viridian Stewards. We elves can only perish by mortal injury or from deepest sorrow, and I am very near to the latter. As I warned you, this is a place for the dead. There is nothing here left to concern the living.”