Missteps of Adventure
Chapter 80 – Sidelined Ranger
From what little he’d experienced of Fairy Bless Valley so far, Carric decided that it wasn’t someplace he’d want to vacation.
Currently he sat on a damp boulder, bound to a blackened and dead tree with vines that were as thick as his forearm.
After he’d been plucked up by the shadowy raven, he’d been flown to the other side of the valley. It hadn’t been comforting to watch the green of the valley turn a dark, mottled brown under his feet. Even the air had turned colder. By the time he’d been tossed back down on the muddy ground the ranger had goosebumps up and down his arms.
He wasn’t sure what he expected his welcoming committee to be, possibly more shadow creatures like the one that had delivered him, but instead he’d watched as the dead trees around him pulled themselves out of the muck and dragged him to his current spot. Even now, the bare branched trees patrolled the dead mire around him. Some of them were only a bit taller than Ander, but others reached up to the seven- or eight-foot range.
The half-elf sighed, and leaned back against the tree, trying to get as comfortable as possible. This valley seemed to have a problem with letting him be with his friends.
Then again, he couldn’t blame the valley entirely on the whole separation issue. No, that honor lay with Glendaia.
***
The red-haired ranger sputtered as air found its way into his lungs again. He grasped onto the rocky outcropping at the edge of the pool with his good arm as the weight of his pack threatened to pull him back under again.
“What the hell?” He managed to gasp out as he took a harried look at his surroundings. One minute he was running through the woods after a fairy, and the next he was being pulled into a small pond by a beautiful woman. He twisted around and saw the woman who’d kidnapped him out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to look at her fully, he saw that she had a large, majestic, tail.
His eyes widened as he took in her appearance.
“Don’t blame Jesic, she was acting upon my orders.” A familiar feminine voice said from behind the redhead.
Carric turned and saw the goddess Glendaia kneeling on the side of the pool. He took a moment to take in his surroundings and saw that he was in her grove.
The goddess’s face was full of relief as she reached towards him. He allowed her to help him out of the pool.
“What was so urgent that you had to send someone to kidnap me?” The ranger grumbled as he tried to wring the water out of his clothes one-handed. He was low-key impressed that the vine sling the fairies had rigged up hadn’t become dislodged after his sudden swim.
“You disappeared.” The goddess explained. “I was unable to sense you at all, and I feared the worst.” She gestured down at the mermaid. “I sent Jesic to see if she could locate you.”
The dark-skinned mermaid gave a small wave from the middle of the pool. “I owed Glendaia a favor.” She turned her attention to the goddess. “Need anything else?” Glendaia shook her head.
“Hold on,” Carric cried as the mermaid started to sink under the water’s surface. The woman paused. The ranger looked back at the goddess of the ley lines. “I have to get back to that valley, my team needs me.”
The goddess frowned and shook her head again. “Absolutely not, I will not risk losing you.” She dismissed the mermaid with a flick of her wrist, and the dark-skinned head bobbed back under the water. Glendaia stood up smoothly and headed for the base of the large willow tree.
Carric ground his teeth together in frustration as he got to his feet. “You can’t do that!” He cried. “My team needs me.”
The goddess paused before the tree. “I’m sorry,” She said softly before she walked through the trunk of the tree like it was a door and disappeared.
The redhead stood there in the grove, angry, cold, wet, and alone. With a shout he ran up to the tree and banged on its trunk, demanding that Glendaia come back and send him away.
There was no response, and he gave up after several minutes.
“You’re just going to let her do this?” He growled at the tree. “You’re going to let her kidnap me, forcing me to abandon my friends?” His eyes narrowed as he glowered up into the branches.
There was no response.
With a final elven curse, the redhead picked up his still soaking wet pack, and headed out of the grove. If no one was going to take him back, then he’d find his way to the valley on his own.
He didn’t have a specific direction when he started through the forest. Usually, in his dreams, he’d start in the forest and head for the grove. This was his first time trying to make the trip backwards. It definitely didn’t help that all the trees looked the same, and there weren’t any tracks on the ground. He was mildly concerned about becoming lost but figured that Glendaia would send out a search party if he was gone too long.
After a couple of hours of wandering aimlessly, a sound reached his ears.
It was the sound of people talking, a lot of people.
He let the noise guide him, and soon enough came upon a large camp. This camp had multiple fire pits, large canvas tents erected in long rows or groups, with tables and benches spread out sporadically all around.
The inhabitants of the camp paid him little heed as the redhead wandered in. Some of them sat playing cards, others were in the middle of skinning or preparing animal hides. A group of five off to the side cried out in glee as they took turns shooting arrows at a target.
Seeing that no one stopped him, Carric settled down around one of the fire pits and took advantage of its warmth. He slowly unpacked his pack, glad that he didn’t have much in it that would have been ruined by a sudden bath.
After a few minutes he was joined by a big, burly, blond-haired man dressed in furs. The man settled himself on a stump across the pit.
“Took you long enough to find your way here.” The man pitched an apple across the fire.
Carric caught it easily enough. “What do you mean? What is this place?”
The man chuckled as he took a bit of his own apple. “Every person here is one of Glendaia’s ‘gophers’. When we’re not off doing a job, she likes us to hole up here, ready to depart at a moment’s notice.”
The redhead’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t think you were the only one, did you?” The man laughed heartily this time. “She collects us from across all the different realms.” He shook his head, before he gestured to Carric’s shoulder. “What happened there?”
The redhead shrugged, with his good shoulder. “Fell down a cliff.” He looked around at the other people in the camp. They all seemed to be primarily human or elf, with maybe one or two of the other races strewn in. He did notice that all of them were garbed similarly to him, in shades of green or brown, with garments that were easy to move in, and boots that could traverse the wilderness without leaving a mark.
He turned back to his new companion. “How do I leave this place?”
The man stood up. “Anxious to leave already?”
Carric nodded. “I have people counting on me.”
“I’m afraid that the only way out of here is through Glendaia or to Realm-Walk.” The man announced as he made his way around the fire to the redhead. He held out a hand to the redhead. “My name is Jarred, by the way.”
“Carric.” He grasped the man’s hand and allowed him to pull him to his feet. “What do you mean by ‘Realm-Walk’?”
Jarred settled a hand on his waist. “It’s an ability that some of us are gifted when we’re chosen. It allows us to traverse the realms under our own power, though it can be very dangerous.”
The ranger’s mind went back to Glendaia’s comment, that he had more control over his appearances in her grove than he thought. He clenched his good hand down at his side. “Teach me how to Realm-Walk.”
***
Even now Carric wasn’t sure how long he’d spent in that forest camp. He was told that like Fairy Bless Valley, time worked differently there. He was there long enough for his shoulder to heal, to gain some trick arrows, and for him to learn the basics of his new ability.
What Jarred had initially left out about Realm-Walking, is that if one did it wrong, then they could end up lost for all time in the primordial ooze of the universe. A key component of the ability was to have something from the realm one wanted to travel to as an anchor.
Part of his training involved being a passenger as another ‘walked’. Through these trainings, Carric had briefly visited a handful of other worlds.
One world had a green sky and blue fields of grain.
Another was nothing but desert, with large bands of light falling from the sky.
In one of the last ones, he’d watched as a large dragon flew overhead, a rider on its back.
On each trip, he gained an anchor, and the process was not pleasant. In a relatively simple ritual, he cut a band around his arm. This cut was then filled in with the dirt, sand, or even vegetation of that realm as he chanted. The pain was intense as the ritual burned the frequency and location of that realm into his very body.
Jarred and others warned him that even with the anchor, it still took immense concentration and power to traverse between the worlds. He was cautioned that this was only the beginning of his training.
After the others were satisfied that Carric at least had the basics down of his new ability, they began to work out how to get him back to the valley. Luckily, he still had the vine sling. He wasn’t allowed to make the attempt on his own, and he was allowed to passenger only after one of the more experienced Walkers (with both arms full of multicolored bands) successfully made the trip.
Before he left, Carric made one last trip back to the grove.
***
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting as he walked through the white veil of leaves into the groove.
The place was empty, with the only sound being the soft gurgling of the water as it flowed from the base of the tree to the small pool.
The half-elf stepped closer to the tree. Unbidden his mind thought back to the diseased bark and blood-red leaves of the vampiric tree that’d been trapped underground. If it had grown aboveground like it was supposed to, he supposed it might have resembled the large tree in front of him.
Even without Glendaia, he could feel the power that radiated through the space.
“Why me?” He asked the empty air. “Why did Glendaia pick me to be her gopher?”
A familiar chuckle answered him.
Carric turned to face Jarred, who had accompanied him. “What’s so funny?”
The blond man walked through the white veil. “It wasn’t Glendaia who chose you.”
The redhead frowned. He thought for a moment, then sighed. “That’s right, she said that her father sent me to serve her.”
Jarred laughed again as he crossed his arms. “You may have been selected by Ekolord, but the final decision was not his.”
“Then whose decision was it?” Carric asked, thoroughly confused.
The large man nodded towards the tree.
With suspicion written on his face, the half-elf turned around.
Both men watched as a slender body emerged out of the tree. A man with green hair, dressed in a simple green tunic with brown leggings smiled out brightly. “Nice to meet you, officially.”
Carric felt his jaw go slack as he watched man step lightly towards him. The ranger could feel the power radiate from this man, but he wasn’t afraid. Strangely, the power felt familiar.
The man stopped a few feet from the redhead. “What’s your first question?”
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“What are you?” The question fell from his lips before Carric could even form it in his mind. He heard Jarred chuckle from behind him.
“I’m the tree,” The green-haired man pointed to the tree behind him.
“I thought the tree was Glendaia’s?”
The man smiled. “Originally it was. It’s the tree that she was born out of.” He crossed his arms behind his back. “I was one of the first mortals that Glendaia met, and we became fast friends. Unfortunately, I got hurt, badly, by people that wanted to hurt her. I tried to warn her, so I ran to her tree. She wasn’t there, but I was still being chased. I climbed in, and it became my tomb.” His smile fell. “When Glendaia found me, she tried to bring me back to life, but it was too late, my soul was already in the afterlife, and my body had already decomposed within the tree. Somehow, she got my soul back, and fused me with this tree.”
“So, you’re a god?” Carric asked as he started to circle the green-haired man.
The man shook his head. “No, I’m not sure what I am, but I know I’m not that. However, I did pick up some cool tricks.” He snapped his fingers, and lines of light sprang to existence from the base of the tree, leading in all different directions.
One of the lines touched Carric’s foot, and for a second, he saw a vision of a green glade, with a pack of deer lounging under the shade of large willow tree.
“It’s under my power that you and the others are able to Realm-Walk.” The man’s voice said as Carric’s vision came back to the grove. “You may work for Glendaia, helping her supervise the ley lines, but I’m the one that decides if you’re worthy of that honor.” He clapped the half-elf on the shoulder as he walked past him and back towards the tree. “Keep her happy, or you may find that your next journey between the realms isn’t as stable as you thought.” With that, the green-haired man disappeared back into the bark of the tree.
***
Carric sighed as he leaned back against the dead trunk. Every time he thought he had a handle on this whole ‘Glendaia-situation’ some new wrinkle came out of the woodwork. With a chuckle he wondered if that wasn’t part of the goddess’s process to keep him on his toes. In talking with her other gophers, it seemed like they weren’t informed of all the details either.
Most of their jobs seemed to consist of traveling to different worlds to check on her trees, the ones that acted as anchors to the ley lines.
Like a grasping vine, the ley lines liked to move and shift, without regard for how their presence affected the land above them. If an area was exposed to too much of the raw power of a line, then any number of effects could occur. Nature itself could awaken and take a stroll, the dead could rise from their graves, and the excess power could be siphoned off by others for use in spells or items.
It wasn’t so much that the goddess wanted to protect the different realms from the raw power of the ley lines, but she wanted to protect the lines from the realms. The power itself wasn’t necessarily good or evil, but it could easily be used for both by others.
Carric’s own world was heralded as a prime example of how the lines had been abused by the Exalted, nearly destroying the lines entirely in the creation of the Second Gate. Now that the lines were healing and once more stretching out across the realm, the ranger wondered how long it’d be till he was asked to perform another tree-related mission.
The redhead wasn’t sure how long he sat there, tied up to a dead tree and sitting on a very uncomfortable rock. Out of boredom he tried to talk to the plants that walked by him but was ignored every time.
Finally, he was approached.
The man that sauntered up to him was one of the oddest men Carric had ever seen. He had long brown hair that was highlighted by strips of muted green. It’d been tied up very messily, with an obvious lean towards the left, and several thick strands that escaped and hung limply down his back.
His face was gaunt, but Carric couldn’t tell if that was from malnutrition or if he came by it naturally. The most prominent feature on the face was the eyes. They were round, but slitted like a cats. The eyebrows above had obviously been plucked very thinly, and they were the same mixture of brown and green as the hair. His nose came to a sharp point, but you could really only tell in the man’s profile.
Poking out from the side of his head, were long, pointed ears. Easily twice the length of a normal elf’s.
The ranger knew instinctively that he was looking at a member of the Fey.
The Fey man didn’t say anything as he approached the tied-up ranger, his large eyes fixated on the red head. His hands were clasped behind his back as he took long, exaggerated steps.
He wore tight, torn leggings, with an oversized, short-sleeved tunic thrown over the top. His skin was fair, but held a slight green tinge, and there were patches of roughness that almost resembled bark.
Carric tried not to breathe too deeply as the strange man encircled him slowly. He didn’t want to startle him, Lia’s warnings about his kind having no qualms about acting on their whims and current moods ringing in his ears.
Finally, the man stopped and squatted in front of the ranger. He rested his hands on his knees as he just stared into Carric’s eyes.
The half-elf barely had time to notice the Fey’s missing right hand, before it felt like his world had turned upside-down. Dizziness overcame him, and even though he could feel the stone underneath his ass, it felt like all the blood in his body suddenly rushed into his head. The beating of his own heart filled every cavity in his ears, the world took on a reddish tint, and everything before him began to sway.
He felt the Fey grasp the back of his head and pull him closer. This close, the ranger saw the swirl of colors within the other man’s eyes. Tried as he might, Carric felt himself falling into those eyes. He could feel his inhibitions fall as his strength waned.
Whatever this man wanted of him, Carric was ready to give it all.
The Fey let go of the ranger’s hair. Shivers traveled down his spine as the Fey let a long fingernail run across the length of Carric’s scalp on its way to his ear.
“You have elven blood,” The voice was deep, but still secreted a lilt that commanded attention. The nail traced the half-elf’s ear. “Not much, but some.”
“My father was elven, my mother human.” The voice that answered was not one that Carric recognized. This voice was somber, held no bite, and completely submissive. That irked him. He may play the submissive in bars, but he was no one’s bitch. With that thought, his world rightened and the eyes stopped swirling.
With the spell broken, the redhead suddenly twisted his head and bit the hand that had once held him.
The Fey suddenly yelped and fell back on his ass into the muddy landscape. He cradled his injured hand up to his chest, his eyes narrowed in anger.
“How dare you bite me,” He growled.
Carric returned the glower. “Next time ask before you start caressing someone.”
The man scoffed. “As if I would ever ‘caress’ someone like you.” He got to his feet. “I was just checking to see if you were even worth my time.”
The ranger leaned back in what he hoped was as nonchalantly as possible. “What’s the verdict then?”
“Nothing but a waste of time.” The Fey smirked. “Your blood is so soured by the blood of humans it’s of no use to me.”
Carric crossed his legs. “Great, so when you gonna let me go?”
The smirk fell and the Fey’s eyes widened just a bit. “Well, I hadn’t planned on letting you go.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer immediately. The thin mouth that had once been pursed in a straight line, now drooped down slightly at the sides. As his shoulders fell, the Fey man’s entire demeanor changed from one of intimidation, to one of slight innocence.
“What do you want with me?” Carric asked, more than a little perturbed at this sudden change.
The Fey knelt down into a squat again. “Would you have lunch with me?”
Slightly in shock at the sudden invitation, the ranger could do nothing but nod.
With an escort of two medium sized bare trees, Carric was escorted into a large area that seemed more like an abandoned campsite than a living space.
Large wooden planks had been laid upon the muddy ground, and the space was separated by various dividers. Behind a fabric screen in a corner was a hammock, and the opposite corner held a large washtub. The center of the room was dominated by a very large desk. Pages upon pages of parchment sat stacked all around, weighted down by large rocks. The chair in front of the desk was piled high with faded and worn-out pillows. The desk itself was marred with various ink stains and small scratches. A pile of used quills gathered underneath.
The Fey walked right by the sight and instead led the way to a table. He indicated for Carric to sit down as he approached a large cabinet.
“I’m afraid Tyren wasn’t that concerned with hosting, so you’ll have to excuse me for not having a proper table.” The host pulled out a pale white tablecloth and deftly draped it over the table. Then, with a precision that spoke to a practiced hand, he began to pull out various cutlery, plates, bowls, and glasses from the cabinet and arrange them. Within moments Carric was seated at a table that would make any noble lord envious.
The Fey disappeared for a few moments off into the trees but returned with a small cauldron dangling from one hand, and a bowl of fresh bread in the other.
“I hope the food is to your liking, my stores are rather bare.” The man’s tone was apologetic as he elegantly ladled the mouth-watering stew into Carric’s bowl.
The redhead waited until his host had settled himself at the table before he dug in. The stew was rich, with vegetables cut to the perfect size, and meat that melted in his mouth. Even the bread was the perfect consistency and was exactly what was needed to sop up the stew liquid.
“Is it alright?” The Fey asked, worry and expectation written all over his face.
The ranger nodded vigorously as he took another large bite.
The man’s shoulder instantly relaxed as he smiled. “I’m so glad, I was afraid that I was out of practice. Tyren didn’t really care about food as long as it wasn’t poisoned, and she was able to eat it.” He sighed ruefully. “I guess that’s what happens when you grow up as a slave.”
Carric swallowed. “I didn’t catch your name.”
The man smiled. “You may call me Lurc. What can I call you?”
“Carric,” The ranger reached for another piece of bread. “So Lurc, how’d you end up in the valley?” Thinking back to what Darnell, the former occupant they’d met before entering the Valley themselves, had said, he didn’t remember hearing about any fey.
“Actually, I’ve been here longer than anyone, even the draconics.” Lurc took a long sip from his wineglass. “This place is, was, and always has been my prison.”
“Doesn’t seem like a prison.” The redhead gestured around at the lack of bars or walls.
The Fey chuckled. “When I first imprisoned, I was locked in a dark, dark cave.”
“What’d you do to get locked up?”
“I failed at my duty.” Lurc set down his glass, but his gaze still remained on the remnants of water within it. “Back in the Fey Realm, I was a butler to one of the nobles of the Unseelie Court. I ran her household, managed her staff, and ensured that there was a never a cause for her to be slighted. I was good at it, until the day I wasn’t.”
The Fey took a long shuddering breath. “My mistress had been honored by Ekolord, who’d decided on a whim that he wished to dine with her. Of course, it’s never just the god, it’s his whole entourage. With barely any time we had to set up for a banquet numbering in the hundreds.”
Carric shook his head. “Damn, sounds like a lot of work.” Honestly the ranger had no idea what all went into a banquet, but the fact that a god was in attendance couldn’t be a good sign.
“It was, and by the grace of my mistress we managed to make it work. The food wasn’t up to the usual standards, but no one seemed to notice, and a good time was had by all.”
“What went wrong?”
Lurc finally looked up. “Near the end of the night, when Ekolord was the drunkest of them all, I happened to walk by him. I was carrying a tray with the last decanter of wine. The god reached out to take it from me, but missed and hit the tray instead.” He chuckled. “I can laugh about it now, but back then, watching that decanter fall, break, and spill wine all over the feet of the god of wild nature was the most harrowing moment of my life.
“Instantly every sound of the banquet went silent. Even I was frozen in shock. If only he’d waited a few more seconds, I would have poured the drink for him.” Lurc shook his head. “It was finally my mistress clearing her throat that woke me up. I grabbed a napkin from the table, got on my knees, and started trying to sop up the wine.”
Carric raised an eyebrow. “And that was enough for your mistress to imprison you?”
The Fey shook his head. “No, it was not my mistress who imprisoned me. I have no doubt that she would have punished me, and undoubtedly fired me, but it was Ekolord who imprisoned me. His drunken demeanor turned from one of merriment to anger, anger that I’d wasted the last of the wine. With a flick of his fingers, he sent me sprawling out of the Fey Realm to this valley and decreed that I be imprisoned until I’d learned my lesson.”
“The lesson of wastefulness?” The half-elf guessed.
Lurc shrugged. “That or clumsiness, Ekolord never said what the lesson was. So, I spent my days locked in a very small chamber, bored out of my mind. Then one day Tyren showed up. She’d been looking for somewhere to hide herself. I told her of my plight, glad for at least a little company, but then she did something I hadn’t been expecting.”
“What?” Carric tore off another piece of bread.
“She chiseled away at the walls of my prison. She said that they had power running through them, the power to hide.” Lurc drained the last of the water from his glass. “Honestly, I’m not sure what sort of spell or magic she cast, that was never my area of expertise. All I know is that she expanded the boundaries of my prison to encompass the entire valley, and then moved the place into its own little dimension.”
The half-elf nodded, glad that at least one mystery had been solved. “Where’s Tyren now? Why isn’t she here eating with us?”
“We had a kind of falling out.” The Fey admitted. “I tried to enchant her, to put her under my spell and for once be the master. It backfired and instead of her becoming subservient to me, she became obsessed. In an effort to keep anyone from gazing upon me, she trapped me in a tree.”
Carric couldn’t stop the chortle that dripped out of his mouth. “So, you managed to get imprisoned, while in your prison?”
Lurc sent him a sideways glare as he sighed. “Trust me, the irony is not lost on me.”
“How’d you get out of the tree?”
“Luckily a band of elves managed to infiltrate the Valley like yourself. They made it all the way to my tree, and I elicited their help to get free. As you can see, our efforts were successful. After I was free, Tyren fled, presumably to escape retaliation for my imprisonment.” The Fey suddenly stood up. “Come with me, I want to show you what I’ve been working on.”
The redhead nodded and allowed Lurc to lead him off through the trees. He kept his eyes peeled for a chance to escape and get back to his friends, but not only were they constantly surrounded by the creepy trees, a weird shadowy form trailed them from a distance. He wasn’t completely sure how safe he was in Lurc’s presence, but at the moment it seemed as if the Fey just wanted some company that could actually talk.
It took close to an hour before they finally reached their destination. The area became increasingly swamp-like, and eventually they were walking on the only solid path through the muck. Their final destination was a large pond, with a tree set up in the middle.
The first thing that Carric noticed about the tree was that it was only half of one. The trunk had been split down the middle, a split that extended up towards the canopy and the roots. The canopy was bare.
The tree’s roots were half in and half out of the water and extended all the way to the shore all around. In fact, it was possible to walk along them all the way to the tree, which he and Lurc did. The roots clustered together and were so tightly packed at the base of the tree, that they formed a sort of platform.
As they got closer to the exposed middle of the trunk, Carric could see a man-sized indention. He pointed at it and looked over at Lurc with a questioning face. “Yours?”
The Fey nodded with a grimace. “It was the most uncomfortable I’d been in my entire life. Imagine being stuck in the same position for years, unable to scratch any itch, or move any part of your body.” He shuddered. Lurc knelt down and reached within the roots, slowly pulling out four boxes and a book.
“With so much free time on her hands, Tyren began to experiment with her magic.” He opened the cover and flipped through the pages, showing Carric all the handwritten notes and diagrams. “I’m not sure how much of these are actually viable, but I was fascinated by one ritual in particular.” He stopped at a page and practically thrust the book into the half-elf’s hands.
The vast majority of the page was covered in squiggles and words that he recognized from peering into Ander’s own spellbook to be of the arcane nature. However, one word near the top, written in common, stuck out.
Gate
He pointed to the word and looked at Lurc. “Gate to where?”
The Fey smiled. “As far as I can tell, anywhere the caster wants. I guess she was getting bored at being cooped up.” He took the book back. “Now, as I said, magic is not my area of expertise, but I’ve studying, and I think I’ve figured out how this works.” He set the book down and turned to pick up one of the boxes.
“If you’re not a magic-user, then how do you expect to actually cast the spell?” Carric asked.
Lurc tsk’d. “See, I thought of that, and I came up with a solution.” He opened the box and held it out. Inside sat what appeared to be a large gem with a glimmering center. “I remembered what my mistress had said once that any fool can cast a spell, they just needed something to power it.”
The half-elf’s eyes widened. “And this is your power source?”
The Fey nodded.
“Where’d you get it?”
Lurc shut the box. “From the elves that freed me from the tree.” He carefully set it down on the ground. “Do you know why elves have such long lives?”
“Not really.” Carric answered.
The Fey stood up. “It’s because they have the blood of the Fey in their veins. The Fey can live practically forever, thanks to the blessing of the god Ekolord and our connection to the timelessness of nature all around. Now elves, their blood is a bit tainted, but at its core is still Fey, and so their spirits are still connected to the Fey Realm.” He smiled. “So, all I had to do was extract the pure Fey spirit from within them.”
The ranger could feel the ice form within his veins. “How exactly does one ‘extract’ a pure Fey spirit?”
Lurc waved him off. “It’s a simple enough process, Unseelie do it all the time to ensure that their bloodline is kept pure.” He looked down with pride down at the boxes. “I think I have enough power in these crystals to be able to power the gate, but honestly, I’m scared. I’d like to have a bit more, just as a backup. Thank goodness there’s another elf out there still. She was a member of the group that managed to get away. I’ve got my shadow pets out looking for her, and she should be in my grasp soon.”
Carric was glad that Lurc was so focused on his precious boxes, otherwise he might have seen the color drain out of the half-elf’s face. He was sure the Fey would be overjoyed to hear that there were actually two elves in the valley.