The elf high chief released the air from his chest sharply, it came out heavy and strained; he didn’t know he was that tense.

“The menace is gone!”

He could see the archers relax as if a heavy burden no longer pressed on their shoulders. Cheers resounded within the wall. He, however, didn’t feel all too joyous at all.

“We won the battle but not the war. The devouring spiders be back and we must remain vigilant.” He tried to drill a simple fact into the young elven minds.

However, he knew that the people needed a small respite and a celebration to ease the anxious soul. He left the young to party and left for the ancestral tree hall.

There the venerable elders were still pouring through texts, looking for answers.

“Anything?” He asked hopefully.

An elder shook his head. “There are some spells we can utilise, but nothing to guaranty our survival.”

“The evil is at our walls, I will take whatever help I can.”

An old and wrinkly scroll was pressed into his hand. It described a ritual to summon dryads, a type of forest spirit.

“With the forest guardian dead this won't be easy.” The chief grabbed for his chest still mourning the loss.

An elder looked with compassion. “The monster knows what it’s doing, that’s why they killed It first.”

The chief needed The Guardian to bless the ritual, but it was gone… The Guardian Spirit will reincarnate with time, but that might take years.

“Lesser dryads will have to do.”

“But that is dangerous” The elder cautioned.

“But we are desperate.”

Without The Guardian's blessing, the dryads he summoned would not only be weaker but harder to command.

“I’ll go and get ready for the ritual.”

…

The chief didn’t want or need to be interrupted right now, but the messenger was persistent in her urgency.

“High chief you have to see it!” She demanded.

“You already told me it’s not dangerous. So I don’t care about them pretty baubles and distractions.” In other words, he had no interest in the ‘gifts’ the evil monster left.

“But! Just come and have a look.”

It didn’t look like she would leave him, and his concentration was gone anyway. “Fine!” He agreed and stomped in discontent to the hall.

There on a long table were the ‘gifts’. At first look it didn’t look like anything offensive, just some fruits and cloth. No, it was quite plain, so maybe the monster was trying to offend him by giving simple gifts fit only for the slaves. Whatever… he leaned to inspect the fruit.

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“[Inspect]” he invoked a skill. “Well, it’s not cursed or poisonous. Actually…”

“We already tried some. They are delicious.”

That wasn’t very smart of the scout, but he was alive so the chief couldn’t say anything except for, “The fruits are magical. Where did he get them? I’ve never seen this kind before. Did the elders check the texts?”

“They did, they don’t know where it came from.”

“They couldn’t come from the jungle, nothing grows there.” He stated a simple fact.

“Here, check this out.”

A roll of cloth was pressed into his hands. It was vivid blue and pleasant to the touch, but there was something about it.

“[Inspect]” He invoked.

[Blue Cloth] an item made out of magic-resistant StemLeaf and enchanted with the dust of BlueDust flowers giving it a signature blue colour. Possible passive effects: [Magic Resistance], [Dirt Resistance]

He didn’t know what these StemLeaf or BlueDust were but those were the least of the things that bothered him.

“This is an enchanted cloth!”

The elves surrounding the table nodded in agreement understanding the chief’s emotions perfectly.

“That can’t be…” such items are very rare, and for a reason. “And there is so much of it.” He looked at the cloth rolls displayed on the table. There was enough of it for a king's ransom.

Then he realised. “The reports! The scouts told us that all of the spiders are cloaked in this cloth!”

“No!” The other elves realised that too. “This means…”

“The spiders are now much harder to kill.” He broke the bad news.

The arrows were imbued with magic, meaning that such magic probably wouldn’t work anymore.

“But they can’t be impervious to arrows, we still stand a chance.”

He had to remain hopeful. Yet…

“From all of this, I can only assume that this evil has a sponsor.” The high chief added fuel to the fire.

“But who?”

“Who else. The Demon Lord!”

Everyone gasped. “The Demon Lord…” Elves whispered to each other. “No…”

“I should have known. This makes perfect sense now. The Demon Lord must be alive and well, he had been plotting this for hundreds of years.”

“Can we still win?” An elf asked with worry.

“We must!”

…

The high chief rubbed his throbbing temples, this was just too much. His best scout was missing, forget that, his scouts were going missing left and right. He was at a point where he risked losing either all of his scouts or the precious info on the advancing forces of evil.

“High Chief! High Chief!” An errand girl was shouting with a big smile on her face.

Finally some good news. “What is it?”

“The Master Scout is back!”

“But I thought he died.”

“No, he is alive.”

The girl dragged an elderly man way too fast. There it was the Master Scout, haggard but alive. The elder went to hug the man.

“High Chief, I am sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“I… I saw that monster eating our deity and… I lost it… I ran away.”

The elder frowned. He knew the Forest Guardian, the spirit they all worshipped, was dead, but he didn’t know the monster ate it. This was disturbing.

“It’s Okay, we are all scared. I don’t expect you to be perfect.”

The Scout shook his head. “No, I did wrong. However… This is a long story, but I met other elves from other forests. They have their own prophecies and are worried too.”

The Scout delayed but clearly wanted to ask for something.

“Spit it out.”

“They are at our border, asking for the permission to enter.”

“This is unusual.” He didn’t expect that, the elven communities often stuck to their own staying away from other tribe’s businesses. “But, of course, I will welcome them.”

“There is more…”

The chief motioned for the scout to continue.

“They will help, they will send their forces to us, but we have to provide proof of the evil.”

“Proof? What proof do they need? They can go and see with their own eyes!”

“And they would likely never return to tell the tale. They don’t know the forest and the jungle like we do. We must show them the devouring spider, show them that it can be killed.”

This was an interesting idea, with many holes in it.

“We haven’t killed any yet, but, I guess, this is the time to bite back.”

The high chief agreed.

“Thank you chief, I know we can do it! I go get them and ready the hunt.”

The shout left in a rush.

“I better finish this ritual, the elves on their own will not be enough for this.”

He went back to drawing a large circle, in this circle there were hundreds of trees in the rough shape of people.