Dense, white mist was billowing all around the four fleeing figures. Looking over, Adra could see the silhouettes of their leader, the slightly insane Traveller Morgana, and her stoic lover hurrying along, using the stolen Sabrecats to gain as much distance as possible. It wouldn’t last long, not in the dense forest, not with an elven town so near. Going to ground would be risky and, quite possibly, foolish but compared to trying a forcible breakthrough, it had better odds of success. Trying to fight all the elves just wouldn’t work, there were simply too many of them.

But her two companions didn’t seem like they were about to try hiding, Morgana had struck with vicious brutality, attacking the idiotic children that had accidentally broken their concealment, an action that was, sadly, not too unexpected for the mercurial elf. Firn-elf. But then, Morgana had been getting more and more unstable, ever since the foursome had arrived in the Forst of Dusk, even compared to her behaviour in Aletoma. There, she had taken bloody vengeance, literally, for an executed teammate, how she had found out about the execution, Adra didn’t know but Morgana had insisted. Sigmir hadn’t even considered asking questions, just hearing the petite elf relate Olivia’s death had sent her on a mission to avenge the cleric while Rai, Adra’s friend and occasional lover, hadn’t protested too much. He simply accepted his teacher's order, even if the teaching was mostly a thing of the past. Rai had matured rapidly, as people braving the unknown and daring to adventure often did, his level increasing and with the level came the class divides and rising attributes. They had changed him, from the foolish pup getting caught up in a bit of intrigue into a competent and quite vicious scout.

And yet, none of that mattered now, not with hundreds, maybe thousands of elves, all coming after them, Morgana’s behaviour had been odd, her sneaking off in the night to do something had been suspicious, and when the forest started to heave in a mix of disgust and anger whenever she did, it was difficult not to get suspicious. Magical Experimentation, she had called it, but what sort of experiment did that? Sure, all spell-casters needed to do some experimentation if they wanted to push their magic but this seemed to be too much.

Too much fear, too much power and now that the spellwork Adra had woven before was shifting, no longer concealing Morgana and Sigmir as part of the forest, the forest was reacting to them. Maybe reacting just to Morgana. Either way, Adra could feel attention focus in this area, the trees shuddering as power was poured into them. Her eyes flickering over to the other two, she noticed that they had leapt off their mount and were now fighting on their own, that stupidly massive axe dancing as if it was a twig in the giantblood’s hand, while the elf was using her magic to cause havoc. And the forest was shuddering in disgust, as vile magic started to defile the area. No, Adra needed to get away from here.

“Let’s go, we need to go,” she pulled on Rai’s hand and there was a moment in which the dryad worried that her friend and occasional pillow would follow his teacher on a mad, suicidal rush into the elven forces. They might be able to kill fifty, maybe a hundred or even two hundred. But there would always be more, Adra could faintly feel the movement of countless boots through the ground, roots all around her picking up the vibrations.

Adra pulled once more, ready to let go and simply flee, when Rai moved with her, their contact allowing Adra to blend both of them into the forest just a little more. Not enough to evade everything but enough to make them hard to notice, especially with the complete and utter chaos caused by the other two, on their suicide charge.

“Quiet,” Adra hissed, pulling Rai in a perpendicular direction to their previous course. Soon, they should either double back or find some nice burrow beneath some tree to dig in, letting the elves finish their battles and sneak away a day or three later. Hopefully, by then everything would have died down.

Thankfully, Rai cooperated, using his own class skills to conceal them, or maybe it was some sort of shadow-magic Morgana had taught him, the different parts of his skills often overlapped. The innate abilities gained from his class had stemmed from the training Morgana had given him, sending him down the path he was now on, and she had occasionally continued to teach him, though a lot of the skills he now had came from his own dedicated training and study.

Going from fleeing at a dead run to creeping along silently was an odd change of pace. At every moment, Adra was convinced that one of the elves still rushing through the forest would see through their magical concealment, would hear the beats of their racing hearts or maybe catch their panting the moment they failed to control their breathing. It was nerve-wracking and yet, it seemed to work out. None of the elves focused on the two creeping shadows, not with the screams of the wounded and dying, clangs of metal and general noise of battle coming from the other direction. To say nothing of the incredibly vile sensations Adra could feel through her connection with the forest, the trees screaming at anyone with the senses to hear that there was something filthy that way. Many filthy things, different filthy things, the forest was as furious as could be, the trees all but willing to pull up their roots and walk over there, even if they really couldn’t.

But the fury was there, the hate to remove something that was desecrating their forest. Adra felt herself shiver, wondering just what Morgana had done to evoke such a reaction. And realised that she didn’t want to know. Maybe getting away from the elf was for the best, before her often-times insane, reckless curiosity pushed her down a path of no return, if that hadn’t already happened.

“Down there?” Rai asked, gesturing towards a narrow opening between the roots of an ancient tree. It would work, Adra thought after a moment, before accepting with a nod. It might be a bit too tight a fit, but she was confident that the tree would be accommodating if she asked nicely. But only if it was necessary.

Absorbing her wooden spear into her body, she crouched down, sliding into the dark burrow feet first. It was a tight hole, filled with a mix of old leaves, hairs and earth, a damp, loamy scent filling her lungs as she looked around. It would work, at least it was enough for Rai and her.

Moments later, Rai slid into her, pushing her back into the wall as they were squished together. Placing her arms around him, as he adjusted himself so both of them were somewhat comfortable, they settled down, Adra stretching her magic outwards, supporting and comforting the tree that everything here was as it should be. Nothing to be alarmed about, nothing to worry about, nothing of concern going on, just two forest dwellers seeking shelter from the chaos outside.

The tree didn’t settle down but it also didn’t focus on the two huddling creatures between its roots, what little awareness it had, courtesy of the connection between hundreds of trees in the area was focused on the disturbance. The vile magic.

“We got away,” Rai muttered, “Do you think the others managed?” he asked, his voice thick with guilt. Leaving his allies behind, just like he had when Morgana, Sigmir and Adra had found him, all those months ago.

“I don’t know,” Adra admitted, not willing to lie about that. Lying wouldn’t help. She was just about to consider tapping into the forest, to listen to the communion between the trees and their distant bond partners but hesitated. And it was good that she did.

Moments later, she felt herself shiver, as incredibly powerful Ice-Magic swept through the forest. It was far enough away, and they were underground, so the sensation was mostly a physiological one, but what power!

Power that she recognised. Only far, far more than she had ever believed could be wielded by Morgana What had pushed her to this extent?

The forest around her was shrinking back, the smaller plants simply shrivelling as arctic winds pushed past them, the larger trees screaming their pain out into the forestsphere. They were being burned and even through the thin bond Adra had to the trees around her, she could feel phantom pain. So cold it burned, so hot it froze, she simply couldn’t do anything but whimper, clutch at Rai and endure.

Luckily, the sensation quickly faded, leaving her shivering from fear and cold, desperately praying that whatever had occurred was a singular event. One that she would never experience again.

When a loud, desperate scream filled with grief shredded the silence, neither Rai nor Adra moved. Fear held them in place, hiding in their tiny burrow like all the other critters of the forest. Fear from a great predator that had awoken.