To keep things unpredictable, I had waited for one night, before Lenore and I headed back out, this time travelling multiple hours to the northeast, essentially travelling back in the direction we had come from. That way, it hopefully would obfuscate our speed and give a false impression of our destination. I was aware that such tricks would only work for a few more days, or rather a few more feedings, but for now, my tricks would lead them to false conclusions.

Finding a suitable location was quite simple, there were countless clearings in the forest and after a quick check of the surrounding area, I began to prepare my ritual. Given that I suspected that Nidhogg was the entity bound into the Soul Prison, I decided to experiment a little, making the effort to unearth the roots of the trees I was targetting, so as to allow the serpent to gnaw on them. I had no idea if it would do anything, but this was magic, the artistic kind, not the strict, almost mathematically precise kind guided by runes.

I had scribed runes into three of the trees, when an odd noise caught my attention, triggering my vigilance and making me wrap the concealment around me even tighter. Looking around, it only took me a moment to notice the large, rodent-like mammal, not attracted to me, but to the faint smell of sap, coming from the roots I had unearthed and carved with the runes to guide my ritual.

For a moment, I considered whether to deal with it or not, it didn’t actually notice me, only interested in the roots, so I could simply ignore it, but that would mean the destruction of my ritual. I wasn’t willing to let the efforts I had made go, just because some stupid jungle rat wanted to have a meal.

A quick check with Observe told me that it was a Capybara, with a proud level of fifty-five. Pathetic, in the context of the area, but quite impressive for a gunnie-pig with delusions of grandeur. But not impressive enough to make me give up my work.

Slowly and silently, I drew my blades, making sure not to make the rat notice me, so it wouldn’t cause any commotion and waited, letting it move towards the sap. Without moving, I was nothing but a shadow in the night and even the careful rodent didn’t notice me, at least not until it was too late. It might have noticed that something was amiss in that last moment when I suddenly moved forward, and one blade, carrying with it the power of death and lethargy, cut into its spine, the other striking at its throat. Even with a scissor strike, I wasn’t able to cleanly decapitate it, but the attack was easily enough to send it on to the next world, whatever that might be.

There were no EXP for me, but the fat gunnie-pig would make for some… adequate rations for the next few days, after we butchered it later in the day.

After freezing the capybara and putting it to the side, I began to continue carving the runes for my ritual. By now, I had some practice in carving them, so it didn’t take too long but before I managed to complete the circles on the five trees I planned to target, another intruder interrupted me. My first instinct was to hide, so when an elf, wearing a mix of browns and greens, with leaves and vines stuck to his body in order to obscure his silhouette, I was deep within the shadows of a tree. Sadly, the dead capybara was still near the spot where I had killed and frozen, quickly attracting the elf’s attention to itself and the dug-up roots next to it.

Without considering for more than a second, I decided to strike. A quick concealed Observe told me that the elf was only level seventy-six, so nothing overly problematic and given that he was carelessly walking over to the capybara, I didn’t think he had noticed me.

Given the situation, I wanted to strike silently and, hopefully, in such a manner that he wouldn’t even know what hit him, so I once more drew my blades and invoked the runes for Devouring, Blood and Magic on them, in order to give me that extra edge.

Weapons enchanted, I slid forward, silently moving across the ground, like a ghost in the night, until I was right behind him. As I struck, there was a feeling of resistance, as if an invisible barrier was trying to stop my strike from landing in the elf’s back, so I activated Overflow and channelled as much power into the runes I had previously invoked, causing them to flare with power. For a moment, not even the blink of an eye, there was parity between the invisible shield of primal energy and the devouring power of Darkness but once that moment passed, the shield shattered into motes of light and power, creating a beautiful dance of brown-green sparks.

With the shield out of the way, my sharp blade easily stabbed past the light armour of my foe, one blade sliding into his lungs, the other into his heart before the remaining power of my enchantment was unleashed, pouring into the elf’s body with deadly force. With a blade in his heart and a massive amount of deadly, blood-devouring Astral Power dumped right into the centre of his circulatory system, there was no way for the elf to live, not without some major divine intervention and here, in the darkness of the forest, there was none of that. With only the softest gurgling, as the air was pressed from his lungs by my blade, his life was snuffed out and I unceremoniously dropped him, before invoking some more Death-Magic to scatter his flesh into dust, leaving only a few of the larger bones behind.

Annoyed at the interruption, I rushed to finish up the ritual, fearing that something else might turn up and everything would be wasted, or I might even get caught. Once more, I held up the Soul Prison, channelling power into it, and unleashing my Blood- and Death-Magic at the same time, the trees stemming against my power in an effort to stave me off, only to fall into my ritualistic trap. The moment these trees were bringing their greatest strength to bear in an attempt to endure, I felt the power inside the Soul Prison flare, a tiny tendril slipping out and taking over my efforts.

And with that tendril, I was only the conduit, no longer the one actually using the magic, the effect somewhat reminiscent of what I had read about divine Spellcasting, only more intimate in a way. Under the entity’s control, the effect of my magic was elevated, as the difference between a novice who had only studied magic for a little under two years and an eldritch entity, ancient and experienced in the ways of magic, was made completely obvious. In that brief moment of contact, I tried to exchange information with the entity, asking their name and trying to bargain for power. It was a long shot, but if there was one thing I had realised, it was that I would miss a hundred per cent of the shots I didn’t take.

The roots of the trees, dug out and vulnerable, had no chance to stand against the power brought to bear and I even thought that I could hear the faint, ephemeral dragon’s roar of triumph when they crumbled into dust, the black flames of devouring I had seen before dancing on their scattered ashes. In the echo of that roar, at the edge of my mind, I could feel the dragon’s desire for power, their hunger for the roots of the world tree and finally, the absolute ecstasy that they might escape the wretched prison they were bound in. It wasn’t an outright confirmation, but I had a feeling that it was as close as I could get until I shattered the prison.

Once everything was done, I immediately returned to my Hallow, urging Lenore to quickly leave. We barely managed to get away from the clearing, before I could feel the Astral River surging behind us and when Lenore banked, to fly around one of the massive trees, I even got a glimpse of the now quite enlarged clearing behind us and I could only gawp at the events.

One of the remaining trees was shimmering with a gentle, golden light, a maybe three metre circle of its bark moving, as if it was liquid. Before I could see more, Lenore was behind the tree and out of sight, but I was pretty certain that the elves had employed some sort of portal, allowing them to travel from one tree to another, just like I was able to travel from shadow to shadow. Only that their trick apparently worked even without line of sight.

Slightly disturbed, Lenore and I continued to dart around the forest, once more trying to obscure our tracks and lay false trails before returning to the others at the crack of dawn. The game between the elves and me was heating up, even as the distance between the Mountains of Ice was getting shorter. Hopefully, we’d be able to make it there, before the elves managed to catch us.

As Lenore grouped up with the others, who had already taken down camp, I felt my face twist into a grim smile and made a decision. I needed something to make sure that if the elves caught up to us, it would be them who’d rue the day.