In the evening of the day, the force of elves and one human set out to the vast wilderness and find the relics and antiques that would save Kishtan and with him, the world from a disaster.
However, the group was only at the start of the adventure. In the green forest, filled with an abundancy of life, the squad of elves marched through in a fast pace. Their long bows over their shoulders and quivers filled with arrows with iron tip that was as sharp as a scalpel. The hunter squad wore green cloaks over their brown leather armour to camouflage themselves in the green scenery.
The priestesses wore white robes that normally mages would wear, that had a dignified look to them. In their hands was a wooden staff, which amplified their holy power, since it had been blessed by their goddess for them to serve faithfully.
Quin herself was more of a mix of oriental clothing and elven clothing, since it wasn't a long bow over her shoulder, but a small short bow that was capable of shooting faster than the long bows, who shot over a long distance and took a long time at charging up. Her arrows were the same as the ones of the elves but her clothing consisted of colourful rags, that she had worn in the morning during her kidnapping from Kishtan, and leather armour below the colourful rags.
After a few hours of hiking along a small trail in complete silence because they were near the border to the dark elves territory, where there was a hidden entrance to the underworld, they arrived at a small clearing in the middle of countless ancient trees that were lush in life and had immense amount of leaves that rustled in the wind. There was a rainy day coming. "Set up the accommodations for the night. There will be rain coming." And a few minutes later one of the priestesses came to me and told me: "Ma'am. We have set up the treehouses." And there really were treehouses. Just not like the ones on Earth which we would assume, but ones who were holes in the tree and with more space in it than it would look like from the outside.
Stroking my chin in satisfaction, I gave of a grin and said to her: "Nice. Very nice. Now, let's gather all the members of our squad and make a plan." I walked towards one of the holes in the tree and on the inside, I sat down, waiting for the other, while trying to recover from the stress this day had held.
Somehow, the elves had sneaked in and sat beside me silently, because after I opened my eyes again, I received the shock of my life, and I fell on my back by jerking back from them.
"Whoooa! You can't sneak on me like that! JEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS! This is not good for my health." I received a chuckle from the surrounding elves and as well a few weird gazes, since they didn't know who 'Jesus' was. Well, I didn't either, but Kishtan had used it during his tirades, while thinking over the matter of how to revive her biological dad, so it had to be good swear word if he used it this often. Together with 'Fuck', but that wasn't used as much.
To the matter at hand. After that short joke, they got serious again. In the village, after she had told them about the time limit of one month, everybody in the council of the village had become silent and thought about things by themselves. Finally, the first elder suggested that they would exchange messages by post over birds, but they had to go, if the time limit really was only one month.
Back at the group in the tree house ,or better, hole, they had a heavy debate about what to search first and it was decided, that they would go to the hidden entrance to the underworld, which was accessible to everybody if they thought that they could survive by themselves.
I didn't really think that we could survive, but we were forced by time, urgency and need to deliver a result that could save the world. In the end, the result was, as predicted, into the underworld, find the eternal flame and take it from there to sacrifice it to Kishtan or one of the other deities.
On the next morning, after only a few and short hours, they woke up and had to walk again. My poor look! After what had been about 3 hours, they reached the border to the dark elves territory. Normally the near vicinity to the dark elves was seen as a curse, now, it was a blessing. Having to walk only a few hours to reach their territory and now a two-days walk to arrive at the door to the underworld.
A day passed without incidences, but on the second day, well, you can say things got hot.
On the second day we felt observed and looked around us multiple times, but didn't find anything. While we continued walking, that particular feeling got worse, as if it had multiplied by a few times and a few kilometres before our target, the entrance, we were ambushed.