The next morning dawned cold and wet, and the damp had invaded Elijah's room. So of that was mitigated by climate control enchantnts – common in many inn rooms he'd visited over the years – but they were clearly unequal to the task. Extending his senses, he could feel their sputtering supply of ethera, and he idly wondered whether that was the result of poor craftmanship or just the enchantnts wearing out over ti.
Either way, as he pushed himself upright, he was cold and uncomfortable. So, he wasted no ti getting dressed and leaving his room behind. Thankfully, despite the ongoing darkness of the early hour, the kitchen was already up and running. Elijah once again sat at the bar, and this ti, a much younger girl served him a breakfast of rye flatbread, Havarti cheese, and slices of cured lamb. Completing the al was a hardboiled egg and a cup of dark tea.
The al wasn't the best he'd ever eaten, but it definitely went a long way toward preparing him for the coming day. He did wish he could have substituted coffee for the tea, but he didn't want to offend the proprietor by pulling out his French press. So, he drank the stuff and pretended to enjoy it.
After paying his fee – for the room as well as the al – he bought a few pounds of the cured lamb, then set off through Hafnarfjörður. By that point, the sun had begun to rise, and dawn cast the city in a very different light than the night before. A low fog hugged the streets, but without the rain or darkness of the night before, the colorful buildings seed even more vibrant.
It was the sort of place Elijah would have loved before the world's transformation. There was a part of him that would have liked to set up in such a town, maybe work as a fisherman or in so other solid but simple job. But that was just a fantasy, and one he knew would never make him happy. Maybe it would occupy his mind for a little while, but eventually, his wanderlust would take over.
If life in the grove couldn't keep him tethered, then an Icelandic fishing village – no matter how cozy or quaint – had no chance of doing so. Still, the stroll through the city was pleasant enough to awaken that desire for a simpler life, even if he knew it would never make him happy.
Soon enough, he left the city behind. Going north instead of east toward the Conclave spires definitely got him a couple of curious looks, but Elijah ignored them. He knew precisely how dangerous it could be for a lone traveler to traverse the wilderness, so their concern was well-founded. There was no way for them to know that he had nothing to fear.
After a few miles, he saw the first evaporation pool. It was fenced in and guarded by a handful of sentries, but even from afar, Elijah could feel the dense ethera wafting from the nearby volcanic vent. In addition, he saw a canal that had been dug to the nearby sea. He was no engineer, but even he could appreciate the system of levies and dikes that regulated the flow. It was an ingenious system, the result of which allowed the workers to flood the evaporation pool, then cut off the flow to let the increased heat do its job. Once it did, they could gather the salt that was left behind.
Elijah watched it for a while, wondering if he could implent a similar system in the grove. He already had a few of the ingredients, like tidepools lined with basalt and plenty of salt water, and he suspected that a few ash lotuses could accomplish sothing similar to the volcanic vent. Yet, he also suspected that it would take quite a lot of ti and effort to put sothing like that in place.
He'd need to talk it over with Nerthus once he returned to the grove.
For now, though, he only spent about an hour in observation before moving on to his destination, which was the cave leading to the Hollow Depths. The governnt of Hafnarfjörður had established a small outpost ant to regulate the traffic through the cave. Few would venture below, but there was always the chance that sothing would find its way to the surface.
Rare, but possible.
The result was that the guards in place were lax, bored, and with high enough levels to at least slow a powerful creature down. Elijah chose to bypass them entirely by shifting into the Shape of Scourge and relying on Guise of the Unseen to conceal his passage. They never even knew he was there.
Cloaked in stealth, he trotted along for a few miles until the cave walls closed in on him. That was one thing he regretted about the scourgedrake form. It was powerful and deadly, but its increased size ant that it couldn't move quite as freely as its predecessors.
It wasn't sothing he could change, though, so he shifted back into his human form and continued on. Along the way, he noticed quite a few interesting creatures. So almost resembled aquatic predators – like octopi – though instead of swimming, they clung to the walls and relied on ambush and stealth for their hunting thods.
None bothered Elijah, though. Not only could they sense his relative power, but his nature attunent did a lot of heavy lifting to ease the weight of his passage on the local environnt. Sotis, he took that for granted, but he'd heard enough stories about the nightmares of the Hollow Depths that he appreciated that aspect of his attunent.
Miles passed by without issue, though he did encounter the site of a battle. There were no bones or rotting corpses left, but Elijah could sense the conflict in the air. More importantly, the stench of blood was almost overbearing.
Or at least that was how he interpreted it until he suddenly realized that it wasn't actually a sll. It was the atmospheric attunent. The sll was just how his mind made sense of it. Only when he looked closer did he recognize what was really going on. A few monts later, he sensed a shallow grave containing two corpses. A dwarf and a gno, which suggested they'd been part of Sadie's party.
The ssage was clear. They'd fought a powerful foe, losing a couple of mbers of their force. That sothing was strong enough to do that while Sadie was around was sothing of an eye-opener.
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Though it did beg the question of what had happened to the creature in question. There were no bones. No clumps of fur or scales. Just an ominous feeling that Elijah couldn't shake. To call it eerie would have been an understatent, and after he'd discovered what had happened, he moved on fairly quickly.
As he continued to traverse the series of tunnels and caves, Elijah periodically wavered between claustrophobia and wonder. The first, because the path was often quite narrow. It wasn't to the point where he was forced to adopt the much-smaller Shape of the Master just to pass through, but it definitely wasn't comfortable. At tis, he was reminded of his ti beneath Chira Island, and more than once, he found himself jumping at one sound or another, half expecting to see a skittering horde of flesh spiders bearing down on him.
That never happened, but such was the horror of his experiences that it never really left his mind.
But there were also plenty of monts where he was overco with awe. Many of the chambers he encountered featured a variety of bios, ranging from deserts to forests and everything in between. Elijah flew over the truly difficult terrain, though he did take so ti to go on foot. That allowed him to better connect with the environnt.
After all, just because it might not look exactly the wilderness with which he was familiar didn't an it wasn't just as natural. Along the way, Elijah encountered a wide variety of animals and flora, most of which was entirely alien. But in a good way.
Days passed, and he even deployed the tent Atticus had recovered for him. The chanism that enabled its use was strikingly simple, and to the point where Elijah felt a little embarrassed that he hadn't figured it out after killing the gnomish golemancer. Just a strand of ethera injected into the proper spot, and it automatically unfolded and erected itself. The sa ans took it down.
However, in Elijah's defense, it emitted no signature at all when the tent was already deployed, which explained why he hadn't felt it.
Unfortunately, it was a bound item, and one that would not grow to its full potential until it had been bound for quite so ti. So, instead of the spacious, apartnt-sized interior he'd seen when the thing had been the property of the gno, it now was closer in size to a compact car.
Still, it featured climate control and had simple but effective enchantnts to prevent surprise visits from the local wildlife. That last bit wasn't such a huge selling point for Elijah, largely because he usually had nothing to fear from local beasts. However, the climate control was more than welco.
After all, the atmosphere in so of those cave bios was as cold and damp as the region surrounding Hafnarfjörður. Protection against those elents – and the comfort that followed – was worth far more than Elijah wanted to admit.
He liked sleeping outdoors. It allowed him to connect with nature in a wholly unique way. However, he was too used to civilization to completely ignore the simple comfort of climate control.
A little more than a week into his journey, he rose from within his comfortable blankets and muttered to himself, "I'm definitely getting soft."
After awkwardly donning his armor, he brushed his teeth and collapsed the tent. It featured a significantly advanced spatial enchantnt – marking it as a creation from another world – so it folded into a tiny bundle. He packed it away into his Arcane Loop, then continued his journey.
For the next couple of days, it was more of the sa until, at last, he reached his first destination. According to the directions he'd received, he'd arrived at the closest illythiri outpost, which was called Nathûn.
The outpost was little more than a fortress and a small settlent whose sole purpose was to support that stronghold. Maybe a thousand people, all told, and that estimate might've been generous. However, as Elijah strode toward the gate, he couldn't help but be impressed by what he saw.
The walls were made of black stone that reminded him of obsidian, though without the glassy sheen. Instead, it was rough, almost like granite, but far darker in hue. Highlighting that was crystal trim, often forming glyphs that he recognized as enchantnts. The gates were made of white wood, probably harvested from so similarly colored trees he'd encountered in a nearby forest.
As expected, the guards were dark elves, their skin color ranging from deep purple to almost completely black. Predominantly, they featured white hair, often arranged in elaborate braids held together by elegant jewelry, but there were a few whose hair skewed closer to slate grey.
Upon Elijah's approach, the guards snapped to attention. They didn't level their spears in his direction, but he knew they weren't far off from taking that asure. He stopped ten feet from the gate and introduced himself, adding that he'd co at Sadie's behest. The guards had clearly expected soone to co soon, though they also seed very disappointed that it was only him.
He assured them that more were on their way.
As usual when he t guards, he also saw a few twitches of anxiety. They hid them well beneath their disciplined deanor, but Elijah didn't miss the signs of intense anxiety. After all, he'd co to expect that kind of thing from people who possessed identification abilities. He didn't know what their skill told them about him, but it was enough to put their hackles up.
After they were joined by their boss – probably a head guard – Elijah was allowed to enter. Inside the walls was more of the sa. The black stone was ubiquitous, though Elijah wasn't certain if that was due to availability or preference. However, in addition to the crystal enchantnts, Elijah saw that most of the buildings featured subtly glowing patterns. Purple, green, and yellow were the most prominent colors used, but they were by no ans the limit. In so ways, it felt like he'd stepped into a neon-soaked science fiction movie, though that impression was contrasted by the elves themselves.
Not that it really mattered that much. He didn't intend to stick around long. He wanted to get to Sadie and deal with the problem at hand. He didn't have ti to tour the alien settlent.
Though he did find it interesting enough that he could have spent a few days just studying those designs. He suppressed that desire and moved on to their version of a teleportation hub.
Upon reaching it, he saw that instead of what he'd expected – a similar design to the Conclave spires – it was built around a single stone pillar that looked a lot like carved bone. But as curious as that was, Elijah was more interested in the white-clad attendants.
Or more importantly, the discomfort he felt the second they ca into view. They were all female and, like most elves, quite striking. And for a while, Elijah had no idea why, when he looked at them, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. That feeling only grew stronger as they approached.
His instincts scread at him to shift into the Shape of Thorn, activate Domain of Vines, and turn the entire structure to rubble. And when he looked at that engraved stone pillar, the feeling beca even more urgent. It didn't fade until he looked away.
That was when he realized he was trembling, his fists clenched tight, and his Mantle of Authority fully extended. So of the nearby elves had collapsed, though the white-clad won – priestesses, he suspected – remained upright. Their expressions were aghast, but they hadn't reacted.
Elijah forced his mantle to retract, made a hasty apology, then asked for a map. After what he'd felt, he had no intention of using their teleportation system. The re thought of doing so sent a spike of anger through his mind.
No – he'd have to go the long way if he was going to continue his journey to Eldrathûn.
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