Into The Depths

Before the sun could peak over the horizon, the birds were already out, waking everyone up with their noisy chirping. Slowly, the elves woke up and waited patiently for everyone else to wake up as well. When everyone was awake, Nyana split the team into three smaller ones to search for the entrance to the underground lake.

Nyana took half of the recruits with her while Idril took her disciple and the other half of Nyana's team with her. And then there was Kies, who was on his own. It was funny how despite Nyana explicitly saying that she didn't want him acting on his own, she didn't assign anyone to watch over him.

The elves went about the search on the ground and atop the tree while Kies did something different. He channeled his magic and sent the winds from location to location, systematically scanning the area for any signs of a cave or hole in the ground.

Kies prioritized searching places thick with vegetation as they were the more likely places for hiding the entrance. Hours went by and his search turned up fruitless. A loud whistle grabbed his attention and he stopped his search to rendezvous with the rest of the team.

Kies launched himself into the air and propelled himself to the location of the whistle which was the house by the edge of the village. When Kies landed, he discovered that he was the last one to make it. "Flashy as always," Nyana commented at his arrival. "So, any luck?"

"None."

"Same with us. I think the elders might have sealed up the entrance completely." Nyana looked at Selphie and asked her, "Was a person that teleported you, or did you use a magic circle?"

"It was a magic circle."

"Perfect. Now, do you know where the magic circle is?"

"All I know is that it was somewhere dark and cramped. Sorry..."

"Well, I expected as much. Somewhere dark and cramped, you say. That's still more information than I thought we'd get to work with."

"I think there were almost glowing mushrooms and the walls were rough like wood," Selphie added.

"So inside a tree?"

"Wait!" Idril shot out of her seat. "I think I know where it might be." Everyone followed the elf deep into the forest, away from the village. She led them down a small hill to a large dead tree with its upper half missing.

"This tree doesn't look like it was done in by poison," Nyana observed. There were black charred marks at the outer edges of the tree, signifying that it had been burned.

"No, this tree was where the old village was before it got struck by lightning and burned down. It was generations ago and almost no one remembers this place," Idril informed her and everyone else.

Idril slouched down at the base of the hollow tree and pulled away some vines to reveal a narrow hole. "Here it is."

Nyana eyed the hole and scratched her chin. It looked like a rabbit's den with how small it was. "...Can we fit through that?" She walked over and put her foot over it, covering the hole completely. It was even smaller up close. "Never mind, I got my answer. That aside, what is this place?"

At first glance, the place looked like any normal part of the forest, but some parts stuck out oddly. There were no signs of animals or other critters. The trees were rather big compared to the rest of the trees in the forest and they were covered nearly to the leaves with vines.

"The history of this place is not something you want to know," Idril warned her. There was a brief pause before she finished off with, "Let's just say calling this place a graveyard is not too far from what it really is. There are bodies everywhere."

"Graveyard!?" Selphie blurted out. Noticing that her voice came out a little louder than she intended for it to, she covered her mouth embarrassed. In her normal tone, she asked, "Didn't you say that elves return to nature as spirits when they pass away?"

"That, we do. Our bodies disappear into particles of magic before converging into lesser nature spirits without memories. If you have high enough of an affinity with magic, then you may become a more powerful nature spirit and retain some of your memories." Idril stopped and closed her eyes for a moment. "I can feel several of their presence scattered around this place. You should be able to as well if you focus," she told her disciple.

Everyone, not just her disciple closed their eyes and channeled their magic when they heard that. It was as Idril said. There were faint magic presences in the leaves of the trees all around them, observing them.

"That's quite the number of them," Nyana commented. And it was true. Kies counted somewhere between twenty to thirty spirits. It was impossible to determine the exact number because there were so many of them and their presences were overlapping with one another. There could be even more than thirty. He knew that this was unusual even without the elves telling him.

"Why are there so many nature spirits gathered in this place!?" one of the elves from Nyana's team asked loudly. Kies was also about to ask that but the elf beat him to it.

"Like I said, this place is a graveyard," Idril repeated.

"But that doesn't answer the question. It's not like spirits are bound to the place they died. Spirits like to gather in places with high magic concentrations. This place hardly has any magic at all," the elf stated.

"You will find out soon." Idril walked to where Nyana stood and gestured politely for her to move aside. She then kicked the stump hard. The floor rattled, surprising everyone. The hole in the ground widened, opening the side like some sort of mechanism was pulling it apart.

"Selphie, take the lead," Idril called her disciple over to her. She conjured up a green ball of light and handed it off to her disciple.

Selphie took the green ball of light into her hands and cautiously went to the entrance. She looked back at her mentor, her eyes asking if this was safe.

"There's nothing down there that will hurt you," Idril reassured her. But as Selphie was about to enter, Idril suddenly remembered something and called out for her to stop. "Wait, there is something down there, actually… But we will be fine as long as we don't wake it."

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