After leaving Tirin, the group traveled for a week before finally arriving at the edge of a forest. Duskwood was composed of tall trees that were somewhat evenly spaced out and a low amount of ground vegetation. Though in most cases such configuration would allow for a pretty good line of sight, that wasn’t the case in Duskwood, where the uneven terrain and mist that blanketed the forest for most of the day made it hard for one to see far.

“There are no settlements near this region, so not much is known about this forest, but remember the price we had to pay for the information. This is a dangerous place, keep your wits about you,” said Liza.

“Boro and I lived in Aldin. No forest can scare us.”

“Remove all of your weights, Ben. This is no longer training.”

“Gladly.”

They assumed a star formation, with Eliot, Boro and Ben in the front and Liza and Fang Chu in the rear. Keeping pace with each other, they delved into the forest. From time to time, the redhead would briefly close her eyes and scan the surroundings. As the group advanced, their movements fell upon the eyes of a small brownish owl that was perched up on a high branch in one of the trees. The owl watched them with interest and began following them from afar.

-

Somewhere deep inside the forest, there was a large circular clearing. Gigantic roots weaved in and out, forming a strange natural wall on its perimeter and the only gap was were the roots thinned out a little, forming an archway. This was the entry point to an ancient elven settlement.

Inside these “walls”, houses made of wood and stone were spread around a humongous tree that sprouted from a mound at the center of the clearing. Between two of its many huge roots that rose above the soil were large stones stacked upon each other, forming what looked like a tunnel. However, its entrance was closed off by a vast number of crisscrossed roots. Elves could be seen walking all around the place, but none approached the mound with the humongous tree at the center.

Near the entrance to the settlement, a group of elves were standing guard. They had light colored hair, going from platinum blonde to chestnut, and donned clothes and armor made of fur and leather. One of them was sitting to the side with his eyes shut. Looking closely, one could see his eyeballs moving around beneath his closed eyelids. Suddenly, he snapped his eyes open and quickly got up.

“Go grab the others! I was patrolling with one of my owls when I spotted intruders. There are five in total,” he yelled.

The shout was abrupt, but there was no confusion among them. Once the order was given, one of the elves ran away and returned shortly after with a couple more people.

“We’re leaving two behind to watch the entrance. Let’s go!”

They departed with haste. Seven elves ran across the forest like it was a flat plain, not slowing down in the slightest due the uneven terrain or poor visibility. As they drew closer to their targets, they began to slow down their speed and move more carefully. In this state, their movements didn’t make any noise. They were like ghosts, drifting in the woods.

The elves positioned themselves ahead of the invaders, with some of them climbing over the trees while others just stood hidden behind the tree trunks. Spotting Liza and the others not that far away, they began communicating through a secret sign language.

“Uhm, those two look strong,” communicated one of the elves with a hand signal as he pointed towards Eliot and Fang Chu.

“Yeah. Maybe we should’ve brought more people. We should focus on making sure one of them goes down from the start at least,” another signalled back.

“One arrow for each, but have the shamans focus on immobilizing the strong male so he can’t dodge it. He feels the most dangerous,” signalled the leader.

“Just give the go ahead,” the others replied.

While the elves were waiting and communicating silently, Liza and the others were oblivious to it. Despite their caution, none of them were able to detect the enemy’s movement or their presence. When Fang Chu closed her eyes to scan the surroundings, the only flames she saw were the myriad of plants and small animals that existed in the forest.

Nevertheless, they were on high alert and had their weapons drawn since they already had to deal with some of the beasts living in the woods. Liza was scanning the surroundings when she saw a silhouette suddenly pop out from behind one of the trees at their eight o’clock with a drawn bow.

“Watch out!”

As she shouted, Liza ran towards Eliot. There wasn’t any thought out plan going through her mind at this juncture. She acted only out of instinct the moment she realized Eliot was going to get shot from behind. Everything went down in an instant. Liza’s warning was still lingering in the air when roots shot up from the ground and, moving as though they were alive, entangled Eliot’s legs. Almost at the same time, the twangs from bows could be heard all around them.

Liza tackled Eliot with all her might, but the roots kept him from being pushed out of the way. The arrow that was aimed at Eliot’s back ended up hitting her instead. She could feel a fiery pain spreading from her flank to the rest of her body. Her legs soon lost strength and she fell to the ground.

The others were more fortunate. Due to her warning, Fang Chu, Ben and Boro managed to move away just enough to get out of the arrows’ trajectory, while the one aimed at Liza missed entirely because of her rush to reach Eliot.

“Liza!” Shouted Eliot, Ben and Boro.

The young man began to struggle desperately against the roots, cutting them with his sword, but they kept growing at a fast pace. Boro gave a ferocious roar and transformed into his dragon form, hellbent in making their attackers pay. Ben was about to rush towards the fallen Liza when Fang Chu grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along.

“We need to stop them from shooting again! Leave her be for now!”

While they were feeling a bit panicked because of the ambush, the elves also became somewhat astounded when they saw Boro in his dragon form. If not for that fact, they could have probably shot another round of arrows and finished a few of their enemies off.

“That form! Isn’t him from the divine clan?” shouted one of them.

“Shit! What do we do?”

“Don’t think about it for now! Let’s capture them alive and have the elder deal with it!”

While they were stunned, Boro, Ben and Fang Chu split up in different directions and rushed towards them. The elves had lost the benefit of surprise and now had to face their enemies head on. However, they still had the advantage of terrain and higher numbers, so they grouped up to deal with the attackers. Ben and Boro faced two each while Fang Chu ended up against three.

The elves kept retreating and moving in circles, shooting arrows to ward them off. This worked well against Ben and Fang Chu who had difficulties keeping up with the elves due to the terrain, but did little to Boro who could fly freely. Regarding the dragon, the elves that were facing him were in a pickle.

“Oh, great being, please surrender for now! We don’t want to fight you!”

“Surrender? As if the likes of you could subdue me! I’ll tear you apart for almost killing my companions! You’re going down, pointy ears!” roared Boro.

He tried using |magic hand| to grab a hold of his opponent’s ankles, but the illusory hand crumbled almost instantly. The elves retreated and dodged, but they didn’t make any attacks against the dragon. Looking at how nimble and hard to pin down they were, Boro had an idea. He casted another |magic hand| but instead of going straight for his opponent, he used the illusory hand behind them and moved a vine to be in the way as one of them retreated backwards. The elf, not expecting an obstruction to be there, stumbled just momentarily, but that was enough. Boro was ready and dived straight for the jugular.

“Joel!” the other elf shrieked.

After crunching part of his enemy’s neck, Boro let go and spit the rest of flesh and blood that was on his mouth.

“And to think I used to like the taste of blood and raw meat. How uncivilized,” he said as he turned to face the remaining enemy. “You’re next, elf!”

-

Ben was having a considerable harder time than Boro. The elves were much faster than him while trekking in the forest and he couldn’t get close enough to hit them with his fists. With no other option, he grabbed as many throwing knives as he could and tossed them at full strength towards his enemies.

“Ugh!”

The sheer number of knives and their speed guaranteed that some hit the elves, but he wasn’t sure how grave their wound was. Their movements didn’t seem to slow down at least, as they soon were far enough away that he couldn’t see them other through the mist. As soon as that happened, Ben jumped backwards and stayed low. Shortly after, two arrows hit the ground near his previous position, but their power and speed were much lower than before.

[I can’t see them through the mist, but it seems they can see me. This is going to be troublesome. At least it looks like I hurt their arms with the knives. That will help a bit.]

-

Despite being the stronger of the three, Fang Chu was the one in the worst position. She was facing the shamans and the leader of this ambush squad, so roots and vines kept shooting from the ground and the trees to grab her. No matter how well she dodged or crushed them, new ones would sprout. This made avoiding them indefinitely impossible. The moment she was caught, she had to use a lot of strength to free herself quickly, otherwise she would become a pincushion for arrows. This was draining both her patience and stamina rather quickly. Those three countered her perfectly so far.

-

Back in the original ambush location, Eliot had managed to free himself and was holding Liza who was feeling a bit feverish.

“An arrow will normally keep you down, but I’m feeling way too weak. Shit. It’s probably poisoned.”

“Quickly, Liza, tell me where is the panacea! You need to drink it!”

“Calm down, Eliot. The panacea is too important. Get me my medicine box instead. You know which one is it, right?”

“I know, but will it be enough? You look so pale and there are black spots appearing on your face.”

“It will be enough,” said Liza as she gobbled down the highest-grade all-purpose antidote she had. [Hopefully,] she added internally.

Eliot looked her in the eyes and said with a strong and firm tone that was highly unusual for him “If you start to worsen, I’ll have you drink the panacea no matter what you say. I’ll force it down your throat if I’ve to.”

Liza looked at his dashing face and, for a brief moment, forgot all the peril they were in as her mind wandered. [At first, I saw you as a man and was embarrassed by your naked body only to find out you were a kid inside. As I began to treat you as such, you grew bit by bit every day and look at you now, a grown man again. You’re making me blush.]

“Never mind that, can you see a bunch of bottles with ropes sticking out of them?” she asked after recovering from her reverie. “Grab them all, quickly.”

Eliot once again rummaged through Liza’s bag of holding and took out ten glass bottles that had pieces of rope sticking out of their stoppers.

“Help me light the end of those ropes with fire, Eliot. Imprison them, they said? Hell, no! I’m done getting locked up or stuck in places I don’t want to be!”