“For those who often say it’s just living in a forest, there was more than that, far more than that. For the elves of the forest, they did not just live in the forest. They consider themselves as part of the forest they inhabit, as one small part of a great whole. It’s little wonder that they used to view those who lived outside their groves as mere prey to be devoured, really.” - Marabok Evantres, scholar of sociology from the Kingdom Down Under, circa 101 FP.

After the short interlude at Allevens, Aideen and Celia continued their westward journey once more.

They passed through many villages big and small, as well as towns here and there, on their way towards the Forest of Shadows where the elves once reigned. Of course, in the present day the forest was merely another part of the Lichdom, something even the elves would admit, if at times somewhat begrudgingly. Still, there were plenty of new sights for Celia to witness.

Aideen naturally took every opportunity to show and introduce the local customs and cultures to Celia as they passed through the countryside. The girl was quite surprised to see the terraces built on mountains and hills to accommodate rice paddies in the wetter regions of Ptolodecca, a practice she had not run into before in her life.

Some of the larger terraces even took up entire mountainsides, where the typically steep, inhospitable slope was turned into fertile fields through the power of ingenuity and hard work. It was a sight that quite mesmerized the girl, and Aideen could see her mind churning. She probably thought about her homeland and how they had so many mountains and hills left unused there.

As the two of them traveled further to the west, the weather grew slightly warmer, and the vegetation became more lush and dense. Groves of trees became more common sights on the sides of the well maintained roads they traversed, while the wildlife presence also noticeably increased. The trees also shifted gradually, from the coniferous trees more commonly seen on the east and the Jarldoms to more deciduous kinds.

Celia also curiously noted how the skeletal sentries that lined the roadsides would gently turn away harmless animals like squirrels and wildcats with the blunt end of their spears, practically just shooing them away without hurting them. On the other hand, any beast that showed signs of aggression were met with the pointed ends of the spears and were dispatched promptly and efficiently, before a couple skeletons would toss the cadaver back into wherever they came from.

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Probably to keep the roadsides from smelling badly with rotten cadavers and all.

Either way it was a clever bit of necromantic work. Aideen told Celia that the Bone Lord was one of the pioneers in the way people give permanent commands to their undead in the present day, and was the first to develop such techniques. Over the years, the original techniques had been refined quite a lot, to the point that the undead could independently make such distinctions without prompt.

When they eventually neared the Forest of Shadows, around a month after their departure from Tohrmutgent, there was no need for Aideen to inform Celia. It was plain to the eyes that the road they took headed towards a truly massive patch of forest compared to anything they had seen along the way, with no sign of a detour.

As they approached close to the border of the forest, a couple elves leapt down from the trees, sentries who were keeping an eye on the road. Since the two came from within the Lichdom and the elves still remembered Aideen – they were old enough to remember her aid during the plague centuries ago – the two were allowed to pass after a brief and mostly cursory check of papers where the elves left Aideen with a note to pass on to those further in.

For Celia, it was almost as if she had entered a different world once she walked into the forest.

The younger unliving woman had never had the chance to visit an elven forest after all, since the Great Emerald Forest in Alcidea were under the control of the conservative, isolationist faction at the time. As such, the sudden change from the open road with skeletal sentries stationed at regular intervals into one where the trees seemed to endlessly cover the sides was a drastic one.

As for the lack of skeletal sentries in the forest, it was a concession the Bone Lord gave the elves, as they were a proud people. He basically allowed them some autonomy in their own ancestral lands, with the understanding that they remained citizens of the Lichdom as a whole, and that they would follow the Lichdom’s rules even while in their forest.

It was a gesture that the elves cherished and were thankful for, and in the centuries since they had integrated into the Lichdom, they had taken care of things in their forest satisfactorily enough.

Not that there was no presence of the undead in the forest, as there were still a few necromancers present most of the time, though they were typically there to rest for the long trip from the Lichdom to the former Fort Asconix – now renamed Fort Bharat – which stood on the border between the Lichdom and the Empire.

It was within that fort that the Lichdom maintained a stronger military presence, with some higher ranked undead like Death Knights and the likes stationed there as well, along with multiple cadres of necromancers who rotated after a few months on duty each. The fort itself was set up similarly to the fort Aideen and Celia had entered the Lichdom, though, with part of it under imperial management.

In essence, it served more like a large and well defended border checkpoint jointly operated by the two nations, rather than a defensive fort. It was another gesture of friendship made by the Bone Lord, since Khaer Ul and Lucea had both stuck to their promise and maintained friendly relations with the Lichdom.