Focus, as so often, was the bane of concealment. It was relatively simple to remain undetected if your opponent wasn’t actually looking for you. You just had to trick their eyes and blend into the environment and they might never know that there was something to look at. But the moment that arrow shot into our concealment, subtly disrupting the spells before getting swallowed by the shadows and disappearing from their view, the elven Scout, and the elven teenagers who had shot the arrow in the first place, knew that something was up.

Due to his surprise, the scout failed to keep the necessary discipline, becoming clearly visible, his mouth gaping open in shock and confusion. He took a deep breath and, thanks to Lenore’s sight, I could see magic gather on the pendant he wore around his neck and react. With a burst of magic, I manifested a beam of Dark Radiance, devouring the magic he was focusing on and disrupting whatever he was trying to do. At the same time, Rai disappeared into the shadows, only to reappear right behind the scout, his blades already in hand and striking down. The surprised elf had no chance to avoid the attack, or maybe he was just too slow and went down, blood gushing from two deep wounds in his neck.

Sadly, while that one elf had died, there were more where this one had come from and nearby, the laughter had already morphed into screams and I could see some of the teenagers already fleeing towards the nearby town, while others were gawking at Rai and the three of us who had now become visible. Even worse, I noticed the air distort in multiple nearby places, hinting that there were more scouts, who were now starting to move after their comrade had died.

Turning, I instantly created a set of runes, nothing special, just conjuring up a few Icicles and launching them at those odd distortions, forcing the scouts to react. My broad attack revealed that there were three more and, to my utter surprise, one of them was hit by my probing attack, the Icicle sticking in his shoulder.

“We need to run,” Sigmir reminded me, even as she pulled out one of the Ice-axes I had previously supplied her with, lobbing it at another of the scouts and scoring another hit. Just those two hits made me realize that the Scouts were still in training and not a huge threat but where there were trainees, the trainer wouldn’t be far away.

“I’ll give them something to think about,” I told the others, before ordering Adra to get that last scout. Focusing on the teenagers, some of whom were still gawking in utter incomprehension, I quickly drew up another set of runes, conjuring up another volley of Icicles. If there was another, more experienced, scout nearby, I wanted to give them something to think about, something that they would have to deal with if they wanted to protect their young.

I didn’t bother to carefully aim my attack, merely launching them in a lazy arc in their general direction but that was enough to cause panic to break out. Not even waiting for my attack to land, I started running, fully aware that I had reduced the speed of my Icicles, not out of mercy or compassion but because the panic of their children would force the adults to deal with them, buying us more time. With a thought, I took control of two of those already launched Icicles over the lingering control with my Astral Power and accelerated them, increasing their velocity by an order of magnitude and letting them pierce one teenager’s leg and another one’s arm. The wounds would be painful and, if not treated, eventually lethal but it would take time and in that time, the elves would have time to save them. If they didn’t focus on chasing us.

Just before the Icicles I had launched could land amongst the fleeing elves, I caused them to shatter, peppering the elven teenagers with razor-sharp fragments, their screams filling the air behind us. More tasks to accomplish before the adult elves could chase us.

Knowing that the elves would hunt us down and that we were far too close to disappear into the shadows again, we simply ran. Not even five minutes after the initial encounter, I could hear shrill whistles in town, shouts and screams as some of the teenagers made it back and moments later, I could feel magic reaching out for us, divination to mark and track us, maybe something worse. Without a lot of thought, I lashed out again, sending my Darkness-Magic out to disrupt their working, but it was only a stop-gap measure.

Before long, the first wind riders, mounted on their avian steeds, were above us, skillfully weaving between the trees and chasing after us. This time, it was Adra who turned, an arrow already knocked on her bow and without even stopping, she smoothly launched the arrow at our pursuers, the projectile imbued with potent magic. The arrow burst apart in mid-flight, turning into a volley of splinters, none too big but all imbued with that magic and all aimed at the mounts that were hunting us. The elves tried to dodge, some of them successful, but a few of their mounts were struck and one, in a lucky shot that struck a critical hit, even went down. Clearly, these elves were not their best and brightest.

But they didn’t need to be, even as we managed to force these elves to stay further back, I could hear more elves coming in the distance. If they were mounted, it would take only a few minutes to catch up with us and even if we managed to kill those there was an entire town just a few kilometres away from us.

“Keep running,” I told the others, deciding that I needed to do something, or there would be a never-ending stream of elves, all coming after us. Deception and misdirection were what was necessary.

After stopping, I quickly drew a set of runes and channelled a burst of Astral Power into it, not caring too much if I was efficient, just trying to get the magic to manifest in as broad a scope as I could manage. Moments later, the previously somewhat dark and gloomy forest was shrouded in dense and cold fog, blocking what little light managed to get through the canopy and spreading rapidly. Retaining my connection to the formation, I turned and started to run after the others, Astral Power pouring out of me and, in turn, mist pouring out of the runic circle.

It was merely another stop-gap, something to delay the elves and hopefully avoid the encounter we could not confidently win. There was no upside to fighting the elves, it would merely slow us down and allow them to bring in more forces and at the end of the day, we couldn’t kill them all.

That conviction only grew stronger when I noticed the familiar fluctuations of a portal manifesting in a tree ahead of us, luckily close enough to me, so I could cast another blast of disrupting magic, turning the elven portal against them as it collapsed. I couldn’t use the Flames of Nidhogg, so I wasn’t able to kill them all mid-transit, but the tree they had been using burst apart as the magic went wild, the portal never opening on our side.

After a brief stint in my Hallow, letting Lenore use her wings and wind magic to dash and catch up with the others, I popped back out, just in time to watch Sigmir charge one of the elves and cleave her in twain with a swipe of her Lok’nar, the light leather armour no hindrance for the heavy weapon. Nearby, Rai was kicking another elf from his mount, before landing on the feline with surprising grace.

“Hop on,” Sigmir called out to me, as she leapt on the mount she had just liberated, holding out a hand to me and quickly pulling me up, while I could see Adra’s body shift into the four-legged ungulate she used as her travel-form.

Holding onto Sigmir, I could watch a brief struggle between Rai and his newly acquired mount but it seemed that for the simple task of fleeing as quickly as possible, little control was necessary, just to make the mount scared, something both Sigmir and Rai managed with ease.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the mist I had conjured and could already feel the elven magic batter against it, trying to dispel it, or at least remove the effects I had imbued it with. Trying to hunt people through a dense fog filled with confusion and madness couldn’t be easy but then, I wasn’t trying to make it easy for them.

No, I was trying to make it as hard as possible for them to catch us.