It was still dark when the four elves met the next morning, the barest glimmer of the upcoming sunrise peeking through the trees. Aladwyn stood grumpily at the front of the group, staring off down the road from the inn with her hands on her plate-armored-hips, while Aralen stood at the back, nervously adjusting his armor and gear while the other two elves did the same, though with less fidgeting.

He hadn’t realized it until after the meeting with Alae, but she was essentially sending him and the other guards into the forest searching for Lithael while an incredibly powerful monster girl and a second, slightly less powerful monster girl roamed the forest. It was a haunting prospect for the elf. Especially when the more powerful of the two was also most likely to be the one who kidnapped the captain in the first place. It hadn’t helped that when he brought that up to Aladwyn that evening, she had scoffed and called him crazy for thinking the four of them wouldn’t be able to deal with a monster girl.

It also didn’t help that his status as rookie of the team seemed to make her disregard his assessment of their strength, and Caelan had seemed to agree with her, albeit completely silently. Eirik’s support didn’t amount to much either, since he was also new compared to the multiple years of experience the other two elves had between them.

The only thing that helped get Aralen’s mind off the potential threat posed by the succubus was the call he had made with the two monster girl hunters the previous night. He had finally caved and used the speakstone to contact them and try to convince them to join the band of elves on their hunt, though without success. That was only because they were already on a hunt, however, searching for the succubus on their own.

If two professional monster girl hunters can’t find the succubus while actively looking for her, the chances of us finding her on accident are slim to none. And if they do find her, even better for us, he had convinced himself at the time, though now that he was standing ready beside his horse, about to embark into that forest, he felt significantly less confident in that assessment.

“I hope you’re all ready because it’s time to head out,” Aladwyn said before mounting her horse, and the rest of the group followed suit. “Aralen, lead the way.”

He maneuvered his stallion to the front of the group, and the small band began their journey into the forest. Eirik rode his chestnut horse beside him, while their unofficial leader and Caelan made up the rear.

The city of Alvode quickly gave way to the dense forest, the thick canopies above casting shadows on their party as they traveled along the worn dirt path. Aralen knew that the chances of running into anything, let alone a monster girl, were slim this close to the city, yet his body was tense as he watched every shadow and movement intently.

Onward they continued through the forest, and the longer they continued, the more tense and anxious Aralen became. Every mile they traveled away from the safety of the city weighed on him until he was nearly jumping at any movement in the forest. It made him question why he had agreed to do this in the first place.

“Aralen, buddy, are you alright?” he heard Eirik say from the horse beside him as they galloped along. He looked over to see the snow elf looking at him with a concerned expression, which somehow managed to bring him back down to reality a bit.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little nervous, is all,” Aralen sighed, though he could tell the snow elf wasn’t buying it.

“Look, I know you had a pretty rough time in the forest last time, but you’re not alone this time. We’ll be able to handle whatever we run into, I’m sure of it.” Again, Aralen found himself marveling at how serious the snow elf could be when he needed to be, though he couldn’t bring himself to believe his words.

The lack of a wagon loaded down with supplies allowed the band to travel much quicker than the convoy had, and it was only a few hours until they reached the point where Aralen had been picked up by Eirik, at least according to the snow elf. It only took a little longer for them to reach the beginning of the overgrown section, and Aralen paused momentarily to warn his party of potential attacks from the plants. Eirik had said that they had been as harmless as the trees around them when he and the rest of the convoy had passed by, but Aralen wasn’t taking any chances.

Their pace slowed considerably as they started searching through the grass and vines, though Aralen didn’t seriously think they’d find anything at that point. Eventually, they reached the corpses of the plant monsters, the small wooden shapes of the smaller ones easily distinguishable even when the vine corpses weren’t.

“This is where I last saw Captain Lithael, so keep an eye out for any tracks or signs of either her or her letter,” the elf announced to the party as they dismounted their horses and started a more thorough search.

Not much came of it, as even an hour later, they hadn’t even found a clue that Lithael had been there other than the monster corpses. The thick plant growth hid any potential footprints, and enough travelers had been on this path since then that the trampled grass gave no indication either.

“We might as well check further up the path while we’re here. There’s a good chance that if the captain was kidnapped, they used the path to return to wherever they’re keeping her,” Aladwyn said, and the party remounted, though Aralen wasn’t entirely sold on the idea, and he could tell Eirik wasn’t either.

They continued their slow slog through the grass down the path, keeping an eye out for any sign of the captain. Even without a sign of anything at all, Aralen could still feel the nerves frazzling his mind as he trotted through the vines, each shadow and movement past the treeline of the trail causing him to jump a bit.

There’s no way those two would return here. There’s no reason for them to, right? Even though he believed his words, they didn’t help calm his nerves in the slightest. However, the lack of activity up until that point had been comforting. Presumably, if a monster girl were to attack twice in the same place, it would have happened already.

The other elves around Aralen had no such worries and looked comfortable as ever sat on their saddles as they confidently continued forward, searching for clues of Lithael or the letter. By the time they reached the edge of the overgrown section, the grass giving way to trodden dirt, that confidence had drained a bit, with no sign of the missing captain whatsoever. Sans any leads to continue their search, the group decided that returning to the city may be the best option. Eirik brought up the idea of perhaps hiring a seer to locate Lithael first, and Aralen felt he could convince the monster girl hunters to accompany them on a later expedition.

With that, they turned around, Aladwyn taking the lead, and they made their way back along the vine-filled path. Though they still were vigilant for any information about the captain, they were able to travel much quicker, reaching the other side of the grassy trail much quicker. Their pace began to quicken as the road transformed back into soil, but it was only a moment before Aladwyn stopped them again.

“Do you see that? Off in the bushes?” she turned and asked Caelan, who wordlessly nodded. And Aralen saw it too. A shiny steel blade, lying just off the dirt path, easily recognizable as the same one Lithael had used in their fight against the plant creatures. It honestly surprised Aralen that they hadn’t spotted it on their first pass.

“I think that’s the captain’s sword. Be careful, though, I can’t imagine why it would be all the way over here,” Aralen warned her, but she seemed to stop listening after the first sentence, as she immediately dismounted from her horse and stepped towards the sword.

It took a moment for Aralen and the other two elves to realize what had happened once Aladwyn touched the blade. There was only a little flash, and she went completely still. Eirik even asked a confused, “Aladwyn? Are you alright?” before it dawned on him.

She fell to the ground, stiff as a statue, right when they recognized the flash of light as the telltale sign of a spell. Immediately afterward, the bushes and trees around them came alive, and a rush of elves appeared around them in the bushes. Aralen nearly fell off his horse as the previously silent forest became filled with dark-cloaked figures in an instant, though he was not alone, as Eirik similarly jumped upon their appearance.

The figures wore dark green and black cloaks, with similarly dark masks on their faces. There were five in total, with two on the path on either side and three in the brush, all brandishing swords or daggers at the group of guardsmen, and even with their masks, Aralen could feel their smug expressions as they positioned themselves for a fight.

“Y’all need ta pay a lil’ more attention, dontcha think? Y’all walked right past us earlier, yammerin’ all about some missing lady, then ya missed us again on the way back. And you call yourselves adventurers?” said one of the bandits on the road, twirling his knife around as he spoke.

The elven guards readied themselves for combat, drawing their weapons and quickly assessing the situation. Beside Aralen and Caelen, each with their shortspear at the ready, Eirik’s hands flashed and a ghostly blue blade appeared, surprising the bandits and Aralen both. Somehow, the elf had never noticed that his fellow elf never carried a weapon on him.

“Oh, we got ourselves a fancy pants magic guy, huh? Cool trick, but I know someone who’s got betta’,” the same bandit taunted, right as a flash happened behind them, and Aralen’s horse whinnied in pain, rearing back and dumping him on the ground unceremoniously.

“Come on, man! I give ya the perfect opportunity and ya miss?” the probably-leader bandit yelled to the magic bandit, who muttered out a tired, “Sorry, boss,” in response. Aralen turned to the mage behind them, realizing now that what he had originally thought were just slightly larger robes were actually the magically attuned robes of a mage, with the telltale runes around the cuffs signifying that fact.

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As he slowly got to his feet, he watched as the mage’s hands started glowing again, and he called “Watch out!” to the rest of the party. Eirik turned, noticed the spellcasting, and conjured up a magical heater shield to pair with his sword, which he then used to deflect the oncoming blue bolt.

The rest of the bandits, realizing that the attack had begun, jumped out onto the trail, weapons at the ready, and the rest of the elven guards sprung into action.

Aralen managed to pick himself up from the ground, spear at the ready, as two of the bandits charged him. The first one came swinging at him with their longsword, only diverted from his course when Aralen made a quick jab at him and forced a dodge. While the elf was recovering from the first swing, the second bandit took the opportunity to attack, forcing him off balance and onto the ground.

Scrambling backward and taking wild swipes with the spear as he did, Aralen tried to back away and get back on his feet. Which he did successfully, but only thanks to the apparent lack of skill from his attackers and his leather armor absorbing a sloppy strike from the first bandit.

With him on his feet and his spear pointed threateningly at the two assailants, they decided to slow down their assault, staying wary of the weapon. Around them, the other bandits and guardsmen were locked in combat as well.

Caelan was in a vicious duel against the leader, his spear only barely able to keep the spinning dual knives of the bandit at bay. It was clear that despite his poor speaking, the leader had considerably more skill than the two thieves Aralen was fighting.

Adjacent to them, Eirik was taking on the mage and another melee bandit, his shield taking up most of the brunt of the magical attacks, while his sword skills were enough to halt the other thief in their tracks.

Unfortunately, it was difficult for any of the elves to make much progress in their duels, with the numbers advantage being a little too much for them to overcome, at least easily. The lack of their bruiser, Aladwyn, was hurting them badly. But she was incapacitated, frozen in place and still in the pose she had been in while reaching for the trapped blade.

A sword swinging right under his nose brought Aralen out of his thoughts, as he realized he had let the bandits approach a little too close for his liking. A few more quick jabs kept them back, but none connected and the stalemate continued.

Desperately searching for an opening, Aralen started trying to incorporate more feints and tricks into his combat. A short jab paused right before he fully committed to the thrust forced a pointless dodge out of one of the combatants, and a redirected thrust caught the off-guard bandit in the thigh. He yelled out in agony as blood dripped from the wound and he fell to the ground, Aralen mentally patting himself on the back for a successful maneuver.

It was short-lived, however, as this little trick left him open for another attack from the remaining bandit, who managed to get close enough while Aralen was recovering from his attack to punish it with a swing to the arm, cutting through the leather sleeves and causing a nasty gash in his bicep.

Aralen grit his teeth as pain surged through his arm, but he pushed through it as he jumped back from the attacker and retaliated with his own spear attack. It caught the bandit in the chest, who fell back similarly to the first one.

Panting from the exertion, Aralen turned from his fight to survey the rest of the battle, and he was pleased to see that it was looking much better for the guardsmen. Caelan was still locked in combat against the leader, but it looked like it was favoring the spearman, as the bandit’s movements were much slower than before and he appeared to be primarily on the defense. Eirik had incapacitated the melee bandit and was left dueling the spellcaster, attempting to close the distance with his heater shield as the opposing mage cast bolt after bolt at him, trying to halt his progress.

Aralen grimaced as the pain shot through his arm, but endured and went to join Eirik in combat. The mage scowled as he watched the second elf join the battle and cursed before his hands glowed even brighter and a small, glowing orb, maybe the size of an apple or orange, appeared in front of his hands. There was a short pause before it glowed brightly and started shooting pointed bolts of magic at the two elves, targeting them each with their own stream of magic attacks.

Eirik was able to simply reposition his magic shield and block all the attacks, but Aralen was forced to dodge, roll, and sprint away from the oncoming bolts, all the while thanking the deities above that they were slow enough to react to. Eventually, the ball fizzled out, leaving Aralen with space to breathe, but it was short-lived as another spell was cast by the mage, this time creating a rain of tiny magic spikes from above, embedding themselves in their armor and skin and covering them with tiny wounds.

However, despite the numerous stinging pains across their bodies, it gave them an opportunity. The attacks were small and weak enough that, while annoying, they weren’t able to stop Aralen from charging the mage, spear aimed forward, and he managed to thrust it into the spellcaster’s stomach, causing a gasp of pain and a spew of blood from the injury, before he fell down.

As soon as the spellcaster fell unconscious, they heard a thunk and a gasp as Aladwyn unfroze, collapsing gracelessly into the bushes. Simultaneously, a thud was heard towards Caelan, and the two victorious elves turned to see the bandit leader fall onto the ground, a nasty gash across one of his eyes and the cloth around his chest torn and saturated with blood.

“What… What happened?” Aladwyn mumbled out, her hand to her head as she sat on the dirt, blinking, apparently discombobulated from the paralysis spell.

Eirik moved to help her to her feet while Aralen turned his attention to the various bandits scattered around the battlefield. Caelan was tying up the bandit leader with some rope, and three other bandits were lying either dead or unconscious on the dirt trail. The remaining bandit was nowhere to be seen, but a trail of blood and scraps of a cloak led off into the bushes.

With the battle finished, all the pain from the accumulated injuries started to hit Aralen like a truck, the tiny nicks and scratches from the magic rain combined with the multiple bruises and, most importantly, the gash on his arm. While each injury wasn’t particularly serious on its own, the combination of them, plus all the bleeding they caused, was cause for concern for the elf, and he immediately started patching himself up with gauze strips and bandages.

“I can’t believe I fell for such an obvious trap…,” Aladwyn was saying when Aralen finished patching up his wounds. The tiny cuts were still exposed and hurting, but he simply didn’t have enough bandages for all of them; he resolved to get them fixed as soon as he returned to the city.

“That’s why you should have listened to Aralen, then,” Eirik grumbled quietly, out of her earshot as he and Aralen gathered around the captive bandit.

“Tell me why you have this sword, thief,” Caelan said bluntly to the bandit. Aralen realized that had been the first time he heard the other spearman speak, and the low, quiet voice was rather intimidating.

“Look, man. We fucked up, I know that. We’re just tryna get by, y’know? We didn’t mean no harm, honest,” the bandit said, his eyes nervously flitting back and forth between the three elves.

“Save me your lies, and tell truth instead, or you can join your comrades,” Caelan said, gesturing to the three bodies scattered around as he did, and the bandit leader slowly nodded as sweat dripped down his pale face.

“Alright, man, my bad. We found this sword and some otha goodies a day or two back, and decided to camp up by tha road. Caught you lot talkin’ ‘bout some missin’ lady, figured ya were lookin’ for this shite we had, and decided to set a trap just in case, y’know? Don’t know nothin’ about her, though. Haven’t seen her.”

“And you think we’re just going to believe some dirty bandits like you?” Eirik said, his voice raising in anger, but Aralen motioned for him to quiet down.

“I think he’s probably telling the truth. Lithael definitely wouldn’t let herself stay captive of these lowlifes for long, and I’m nearly certain she was kidnapped by someone else anyway. But I am interested in these ‘goodies’ you found, bandit.”

The bandit nodded quickly. “I have them, if ya want them back. No hard feelins’, just take ‘em. They’re right here,” he said as he pointed towards a nearby bush, just a bit further from where the sword was stashed.

Surprisingly true to his word, the leather satchel was right there, and upon opening it some rations and travel supplies were inside, alongside some coins and a bit of jewelry, but most important of all, a letter folded up into an envelope, the seal broken.

“This should be what we were looking for. Honestly, maybe it was lucky that these bandits decided to attack us. I can’t imagine we would have found them otherwise, especially with that invisibility stuff they had going on,” Eirik commented as he looked through the bag.

Even with the countless injuries still throbbing across Aralen’s body, he couldn’t help but agree. It definitely beat having to go back to the city, find a seer, find Lithael, and then deal with whoever kidnapped her - probably a powerful succubus that they had no chance of defeating - only to find out she didn’t even have the letter they needed.

The party took a small rest at the bandit’s hiding spot, recovering after their battle while also figuring out what to do with the bandits. The consensus was to bring the leader back alongside whoever was alive to Alvode to stand trial and ensure they never attacked anyone on the road again.

After a short time, during which they ate their field rations, they prepared to head back out. The bandit leader was bound and mounted on Aladwyn’s horse behind her, and Caelan was in the process of tying up the sole other surviving bandit when Aralen smelled it.

Even as his heartbeat quickened and his face went pale, his thoughts already started to falter as the sickly sweet smell wafted through the trail.

“Do y’all smell that? It's kinda nice, huh?” the bandit muttered, his eyes already drooping and head nodding.

Aladwyn nodded in agreement, already slouching over a bit in her saddle.

“Eirik, I know this smell. This is from the monster girl I told you about. We have to get out of here, fast!” Aralen said with the last of his mental capacities, even as it became difficult to stay on his horse, but Eirik, even with the dopey smile on his face, seemed to understand.

His face grew serious as he realized what was going on, and his hands shone brightly as he cast a spell.

“Mass Charm Ward!” A wave of light spread quickly from Eirik’s outstretched hand, and Aralen felt his head begin to clear. He shook it to rid himself of any remaining drowsiness and yelled out to his fellow elves.

“It’s a monster girl! We’re in no condition to fight right now, so we have to go, now! Caelan, leave the bandit. We don’t have time!”

Even as Caelan tossed the unconscious bandit to the side and mounted his horse, the surrounding grass started to writhe and grow as if it had a mind of its own, and a sing-song voice emanated from the trees.

“Daaarling, I know you’re out there! I knew you would return to me! Leave your silly little friends behind and come live with me forever!”

That was enough to get the rest of the group moving, and dust clouded around them as their horses began to gallop along the trail, away from the voice. But Aralen caught sight of a beautiful silhouette making her way through the trees, the petal dress and bright, pink flower on her head easily distinguishable even as they rode further and further away.

Even hours later, as the towers and castle of Alvode came into view once again, Aralen couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being pursued, the charming fragrance of Penora lingering still in his mind. And while the thought of a monster girl chasing him terrified him to no end, a tiny, secret part of him wished she would catch him.