Force of the Dark

The following day, or rather, when Roko woke up again, he packed up as much of the displacer beast meat as he could, leaving behind perhaps a good quarter of the beast before he set off with the blink dog leading his way to the water source he had been hearing. The forest's shifting nature seemed to have worked in Roko's favor this time as even after walking the short distance back in the direction of the displacer beast's former nest, he never came across it nor even recognized any of the immediate scenery around it. In fact, despite walking out from his former camp, Roko could no longer hear the faint water that he had before he went to sleep. On one hand, if there were any remaining displacer beasts that were out out for revenge for what happened to their home, it might be difficult for them to find him now. On the other hand, there was no sign of that water that Roko now really needed. But he did have this blink dog leading him now. And it did promise to lead him to some water. So Roko silently followed as the blink dog seemed to lead him down random directions and sometimes in what Roko could swear were circles. But a creature that lived in these woods must be able to traverse it right? And dogs have better senses than humans, right? So this should be fine.

Roko followed the blink dog until the young dog stopped, his ears and tails perked as if he heard something.

"Something wrong, boy?" Roko asked, looking around and straining his hearing to try and sense what the blink dog sense to no avail.

The blink dog barked once and began to run off, Roko following close behind. Soon, the sounds of fighting could be heard ahead of them. Along with the roaring of what sounded like a high pitched owl mixed with a bear's guttural howl. A few desperate strained voices floated over to Roko from across the distance.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

"People?" Roko frowned, "Getting attacked by a beast?"

Roko followed as fast as he could until the dog stopped in front of a series of bushes. In front of them, in clear view, was a giant owlbear on it's hind legs, swatting the arrows being fired at him out of the arm with its paws. The arrows kept being fired by a pair of hunters from a few steps away to no avail as the bear continued to march forward towards as a young female hunter lying on the ground with a nasty gash on her leg, unable to move. Of particular note were these hunters' long ears...and dark skins. Dark elves. For a brief moment, Roko considered the stories he'd been told about dark elves since coming here. And even more quickly came to a decision.

"Doggy. If you can't distract the owlbear, keep the elves away from the bear." Roko said as he drew his bow.

The blink dog barked and disappeared, first appearing in front of the owlbear and barking wildly at it, surprising the frightening beast a few steps away from the injured dark elf. Then it disappeared and reappeared in front of the two dark elves with bows and began to bark at them instead.

"What the-"

Roko could hear the dark elves' surprise as the blink dog pushed them away from the owlbear. Roko fired an arrow or two at the owlbear but even with the enhanced arrows the elves gave him, they didn't seem to able to injure the owlbear. In fact, he wasn't even able to draw its attention as it began to rise and make it's way to the frightened and injured dark elf.

The few arrows Roko had fired wasn't effective. Even when he tried targeting things like the joints. And targeting a more vulnerable spot like its eyes was too small a target for Roko to hit in such short time. He couldn't reach the dark elf in time to intervene either and he probably only had time to fire one more arrow. He had one solution and he didn't waste time drawing it and firing it.

Roko's next arrow spiraled through the air with contrails of water before piercing the owlbear's neck. The force of the arrow came with a torrential amount of water that smacked the owlbear with such force that it knocked it off balance. As the owlbear reeled back from the magical arrow, a gust of wind lifted the beast up helplessly into the air. The owlbear screeched and roared, confused and angry until an earthen spike formed underneath it and the monster was dropped, impaled onto the spike. With a sizable hole made in its body, the owlbear made a few more weak cries before it died.

"Are you okay?" Roko called as he stepped out from the bushes.

"A human?!" The injured dark elf cried as the two male dark elves ran up to their female brethren.

"What the-wait!" One of the uninjured dark elf cried as he pointed at Roko, "You're that human from that princess party a couple days ago!"

"Were you one of the elves spying on us?" Roko raised an eyebrow, "For the time being, let's tend to your friend's wounds first."

"T-That's right!" The two dark elves cried as they quickly knelt down next to their comrade, "Reaumur! Are you okay?!"

"I-I'm fine." The female dark elf said, still stunned by the sudden events.

"I've got a few medical supplies." Roko said as he slung his bow over his shoulder, "Do you need it?"

"N-No, we've got plenty of our own." One of the male dark elves nodded gratefully as they pulled out a series of bandages and medicine from their backpacks.

Roko waited to the side with the blink dog as the two dark elves preformed simple medical treatment to the female elf's injured leg. Once they were done, they hefted her onto their shoulders and helped her stand up.

"Thank you so much for helping us." One of the dark elves bowed in thanks, "Reaumur would be dead if not for you."

"I'm glad I was able to save her." Roko bowed back politely, "That was my first time fighting an owlbear. Though not the first time fighting a bear funny enough."

"You have some frightening magic." The other male dark elf gulped, "Are all humans as powerful as you?"

"Oh no, I'm quite powerless." Roko explained, "That was just a bit of the elf queen's magic. Just simple one use cheat skill. I'm all out of tricks now."

"The elf queen? Are you perhaps on the Hero's Trial?"

"Pretty much." Roko shrugged, "I'm supposed to find a Sanctuary Lily and present it to Lady Brea's grave."

"I see..." The female elf named Reaumur muttered.

"That arrow I fired was supposed to be my key to Brea's grave." Roko thought aloud, "Now I have to find some other way to enter it."

"O-Ooohhh..."

"Ah, don't mind me. If you need to return to your village, go on ahead. I'm considering cutting up and storing some of this owlbear."

"Y-You're eating the owlbear?!" One of the male dark elves cried.

"Well, I actually have a pretty good stock of displacer beast meat." Roko explained, "But since this blink dog doesn't eat it, I figured I'd stock up on some meat for him."

"You Killed A Displacer Beast?!" The dark elves cried, "Ah wait, more importantly, Shadow! Where have you been?!"

The dark elves turned to the blink dog who scoffed at them and laid down on the ground.

"You know this dog?" Roko asked.

"That's Shadow." The female elf explained, "He's one of our blink dog trainees. He ran away like a week ago and we hadn't been able to find him."

"So your name is Shadow?" Roko turned to the blink dog who made a disgruntled growl and turned away again, "What, do you not like you name? Want me to come up with a new one?"

The blink dog growled indifferently.

"So you didn't like your name, Shadow?" Reaumur frowned, "You could have just told us instead of running away."

"Shadow" the blink dog just scoffed.

"He's always been a bit hard to handle." One of the male dark elves said apologetically, "But I'm glad you two seem to be getting along. If you'd like, you can come with us back to our village. We'd love to have the opportunity to thank you properly for your help."

"Ah, I'm good for now." Roko replied, "I'm still in the middle of this trial that I'm supposed to do with minimal help and if I leave now, I might not be able to find this owlbear again. And I don't think I'll be able to kill another."

"We have supplies we can provide you though."

"I'm actually pretty set on supplies right now." Roko shrugged, "Between all the displacer beast meat and the owlbear meat, I don't think I'll be starving soon. Just need to get a few more herbs and, oh yeah I really need to refill on water."

"We have some water we can give you!"

"Again, thanks for your offer but Sha-I mean the blink dog seems to know the location of some water I can get. It's not that I don't trust you, I just don't want you to lose out on supplies while bringing your friend home."

"Oh, I'm fine!" Reaumur cried, "I can sta-owowowowow…"

"Don't push yourself." One of the male dark elves said gently as Reamur tried pushing off of him. Then he turned to Roko as he said, "My name is Drift. This is my companion Ohm. The girl you rescued is named Reaumur. We're in no hurry to return to the village so please allow us to help you in exchange for saving our companion."

"I'm not against it by nature." Roko frowned, "But I'm not sure how the elf queen would feel."

"Ahaha, we've helped people in the midst of their Hero's Trail before, this is not unusual for us."

"Well, I suppose you guys can stick around if you want. I don't know how exactly you can help though."

"You said you were going to cook and store away some of the owlbear right? Allow us to help with that. We're quite experienced with cutting and skinning animals."

"I'm not that experienced in that myself so I'd appreciate it." Roko nodded.

"Then it's decided! We'll get to work on cutting up the owlbear for you!"

"If we're setting up camp for the moment, I'd like to try cooking the owlbear meat just to try it. But if we're having a meal, I've got displacer beast meat that we could have instead."

"That's perfectly fine stranger."

"Ah, my name is Roko."

"It's nice to meet you, sir Roko."

It was a bit early in the day for lunch but the preparing of the owlbear meat took long enough that Roko was hungry by the time they were done. Having cooked some displacer beast meat in advance, the growing group of allies shared a lunch where Roko was forced to regale them with the story of how he killed a displacer beast on his own.

"That's quite the amazing story, sir Roko." Ohm said, "You wield some peculiar magic."

"On the downside, I can't seem to learn any new magic." Roko sighed, "Although I'm doing well learning archeomancy."

"Shadow, I got a cream puff for you." Reaumur called gently to the blink dog, "You wanna come and get it?"

Reaumur waved a small cream puff at an unimpressed blink dog that remained lying down at Roko's side.

"Most of the blink dogs usually like cream puffs." Reaumur sighed, "I wonder why Shadow doesn't."

"You train blink dogs, Reaumur?" Roko asked.

"Oh yes! I love dogs!" Reaumur grinned, "We dark elves are great with animals usually. Be it killing them or domesticating them."

"That reminds me, the elves said that the owlbears were endangered." Roko said, "Is there a reason why the dark elves are hunting them?"

"Ah, the elves would tell you that wouldn't they?" Drift sighed, "What they don't tell you is that the owlbears are only endangered in regards to this forest. The owlbear population is perfectly healthy in the rest of the world but in this forest, yes they are endangered you could say. However, they are also a big menace to the natural wildlife. The elves may not see it this way as the owlbears were always a native species but the truth is that there is no hunter for the owlbears and without proper culling, they'd start taking over the forest. The elves think they will balance themselves out once there's no longer any food for the owlbears to eat but that'd just create more endangered species in this forest before it balances anything!"

"Is that so?" Roko replied, "So that's why you hunt them then?"

"Heh. Aside from providing for our families, that's one of the reasons sure."

"So do you hunt displacer beasts as well since you train blink dogs?"

"Hmmm, displacer beasts are a bit of a trickier prey so we don't usually go out on explicit hunts. Blink dogs naturally hate displacer beasts though so if they pick up on the tracks of one, we do our best to back them up."

"Are displacer beasts endangered?"

"Displacer beasts...they've only recently moved into the woods in the past 500 or so years so it's too early to quite determine how they're going to affect the ecosystem. They're not invasive since they're not exploding in population but they are certainly deadly. Certainly doesn't make the woods much safer for us."

"Shadow seems to especially hate displacer beasts." Reaumur sighed, "Some blink dogs run away to hunt displacer beasts on their own but Shadow's still pretty young."

"Well, what can you do when your dogs can teleport?" Roko shrugged, "They're pretty intelligent so you can't treat them like pets either."

"But they still like petting and scritches." Reaumur said, "Look. Come here Shadow, you want some headpats?"

Reaumur reached out to the blink dog who teleported to the other side of Roko, dodging the dark elf's attempt to pet him.

"Ohhh...if only Umbra was here..." Reaumur sniffed as she sat back down.

"Umbra?"

"She's my personal pet blink dog! She's really cute and friendly. She's helping train the blink puppies back at our village right now though."

"I see."

"If you don't mind us asking, sir Roko." Ohm spoke up, "You're here on the Hero's Trail by the elves right? Might we ask why you're taking it?"

"Ah well..." Roko thought about it for a moment, "I need access to certain forbidden records in the elves' library."

"What kind of records?"

"Anything related to the spell, holy. Do you guys know of it?"

"Holy?" the dark elves consulted each other, "We've never heard of a spell like that."

"Really? It seems to be a particularly powerful spell. Granted it's apparently a more human spell but it's said to be wielded by heroes."

"We dark elves don't really have much of a relation with other species." Drift explained, "We've rarely had contact with humans and only one or two of us have ever accompanied a hero."

"Is that so..."

"But we'd like to offer our help regardless." Ohm nodded, "We still owe you for saving us."

"I'm not against accepting your help but the circumstances as they are, I don't know how much more you can help without causing more trouble for either party."

"You don't have to worry on our part." Drift smiled, "We're more concerned about your situation. You said you used the key to Brea's grave on the owlbear correct?"

"Yeah. As I understand it her grave is protected by magic and the only way to bypass it was to demonstrate earth, water and wind magic. Since I couldn't use any magic, the elf queen Rivera enchanted an arrow with the requisite elements to unlock the path for me."

"Yes, that is one way into Lady Brea's grave." Drift smirked, "But we dark elves have our own way into her grave."

"You do?" Roko raised an eyebrow, "How?"

"Heh, the elves might have told you that Lady Brea was the creator of this forest but they might have forgotten to mention that Lady Brea was in fact a dark elf."

"A dark elf?!" Roko said, surprised, "Really?"

"To be honest, Brea was an outcast to both normal and dark elves. She was a perfectly reasonable and nice individual, just a bit odd. She created this forest as a space for herself but once the elves noticed how masterfully protected it was, they immediately began asking her to provide a home for them. Lonely Brea was quite happy to do so and in the end, the elves began calling it THEIR home instead of Lady Brea's. For a long time we dark elves considered her a traitor who defected to the elves' side until around the reign of the 3d Demon King Graffica. When the Demon King attempted to take over the human world, the hero Mahara rose to stop him. The hero came to this forest, met with the elves and was able to meet with Lady Brea. Among their party was a foreign elf that was disgusted to learn that Lady Brea was a dark elf. However, Lady Brea nonetheless helped them, even joining their party to vanquish the demon king. While she didn't exactly win much favor with foreign elves, she did prove that both elves and dark elves can help each other. And so the dark elves moved into the Arbrea forest as well. Though we number quite little in comparison to the elves."

"I see." Roko nodded, "If that's the case, it sounds like both elves that live in this forest have good reason to get along with each other. Why do you two still seem to be in opposition?"

"Sharp aren't you?" Ohm chuckled, "Well, we just don't agree with how the elves have been taking care of the forest. And to some people it is questionable on whenever the elves stole this land from Brea or not. The Arbrean elves didn't do much to help or protect Lady Brea either, the damned freeloaders."

"Ohm." Drift sighed.

"Sorry, sorry." Ohm winced, "It just kinda came out."

"It's fine." Roko replied, "You clearly have a lot of history with each other."

"But more to the point, we can get you access to the grave." Drift nodded, "How does that sound?"

"Well, first I have to get a Sanctuary Lily."

"Oh right!" Reaumur cried, "You have to get one of those don't you? We can help with that too!"

"You can?"

"The Sanctuary Lily was Lady Brea's favorite flower." Ohm explained, "They can only bloom in certain conditions so Lady Brea created these controlled environments to grow these Sanctuary Lilies. Some of them are under the elves' control but we dark elves have access to some of these sanctuaries ourselves."

"Between finding Brea's grave and finding the Sanctuary Lily, I'd prefer to gain access to one of these lilies first."

"Then we'll lead you to it." Ohm grinned, "We can start tomorrow morning, once we've packed away all this owlbear meat."

"Actually, could you show me where I can get some water? I'm a bit thirsty."

"Of course. We'll head to the nearest river once we're done with the owlbear. Until then, you're free to take some of our water."

"Thanks."

"Shadow, I got a little saucer if you want to drink some water too!"

The blink dog turned his head away from Reaumur and began to go to sleep.