Zilo and Tess took off into the treeline in the direction that Zatrian was elf-napped in. Just as they broke the first few rows of trees, they both stopped still and looked to each other. Zilo broke the tension and asked, "Hey Tess, any idea how we are gonna track down those little fellas?"
The dragon's eyes went wide as she responded, "You're the professional hero. I was just following your lead." The bard stops and looks up.
"Maybe the other invisible folks can help?" Tess looks up to the sky and tilts her draconic head questioningly.
"Zilo, who are you talking about?" Zilo walks back and points up to the giant tree and explains. During the fight there were more than just those guys hiding from sight, a few more things were hovering up near the branches of this here tree.
"Don't you think the last thing we need is more invisible forest folk?" Said Tess with a shrug. Zilo shakes his head and says, "Absolutely not, but I have no idea how to track those little jerks, so this is our best chance." Zilo is hoisted up on Tess's back as she steps forward into his stance and she says,
"I know, I know, but I can't help but distrust it. This forest is starting to give me the creeps."
Tess flies off into the air and begins to approach the tree branches. As she does Zilo's eyes flicker again and he shouts,
"Tess fly right! Now!"
The dragon cranes her neck back to question, but as she does, she hears the sound of a bow releasing an arrow. She releases a burst of air to change her position in the air and narrowly dodge a magical arrow fired from above the branches. Tess was immediately assailed by a flurry of more arrows. She twisted and flew her way around the upper section of the tree trunk.
Zilo did is best to call out the shots with what remained of his magic eyes, thankfully Zatrian's spell was robust and would last for another few hours, but his own detect magic spell was all he could do to help the locate arrows themselves for Tess.
As he began to zone in on the sort of magic the arrows held he saw what the archers were intending. He leaned down to Tess and told her.
"Tess those arrows are endgame for us right now, unless you can get me close to the tree line."
"Copy!" Tess does a spin roll to her left and hugs the base of the tree trunk as more and more of the arrows come flying in the lightning quick dragon proved more than a match for most of the arrows, but a few were nipping at her tail as she flew up. Then as she seemed just about ready to hit the branch divide all of her forward momentum was neutered.
Her dragon form was forced back into the form of an elven woman as she reached for the lowest branch on the tree. She looked down and saw the long fall back to the ground, as the arrow that shook her free of her draconic power fell to the ground after it bounced off her scales.
But then she feel her body gripped by the waist and looked back up to see Zilo's whip gripped around the branch she feel short of. He was holding it strong trying to swing the both of them up to the tree line.
Tess smiled as she found she wasn't meant to die yet and reached up to help Zilo pull his way up. With her dragon strength it was a simple task. The two of them balanced above the tree line and
Zilo kept his balance easily from his training in dance, but Tess looked to have a issues.
She was gripping the branch all the way around like like a dwarven child would grip it's mother out of stubborn fear of the first day of their apprenticeship. She was shaking and refused to move.
"Tess, come on, we need to move before they find out where we are."
"Absolutely not, my wings up and vanished a good 200 feet up, this is not a moment to just smile and keep going."
"What does that matter?! We made it, but we won't if we don't move!"
"I will okay! just give me a second, I swear you younger races are too quick to want to rush life like this!"
"ARROWS SHOT THE DRAGON OUT OF YOU! I think now is the perfect time to rush things."
"Gav ma siluir?" Spoke a deep but silken tone from behind Zilo. Zilo turned to see a man who by all accounts could pass for a common elf with waist length silver hair. His eyes were deep and full with a silver white color pigment that glistened with the rays of moonlight that poked through the trees. He wore a tight leather stained silver jerkin and matching pants with a longsword hooked on the side and a majestic mythril bow aimed right at the bard.
Zilo recognized the language, he had read a bit about it in his studies. It was sylvan the language of the fair folk of the Feywilds, a extra planar realm that exists secret on the material plane. It's denizens, the Fey, are The unimaginably powerful beings who the elves came from and the druids learned to emulate. Zilo couldn't speak the tongue, but he could see that this man had a gaze that could pierce a tower shield. Zilo raised his hands as the elf danced gracefully along the branches like a cat and stood before the bard.
He gripped the surrendering bard and looked him over, but as his gaze fell to Zilo's Violin the elf spoke, "Harmony? Ho."
Zilo couldn't hold back the question, "You know of my bow?"
"I know a great many things dustly." Spoke the man in perfect common with a very condescending tone.
"Normally I'd have no qualms with throwing you and your woman from this tree with your magics naturalized, but my master had been wondering of late what became of that bow, and so you may yet have a chance to finish your short life."
"But-"
The man in a flash had both his fingers to the bard's mouth and said, "Do not waste my, your, or most unforgivably my master's time with idle questions. Gather your girl and follow me."
Zilo looked down to the ground from how high up he was, and shrugged without much of a choice so he looked back to Tess who had managed to stand herself up and having heard that little exchange spoke muttered, "Damned-able Eladrins giving orders like they matter more than air."
"Eldarin? You mean that wasn't an elf like you?"
"Trust me, eldarins and elves may look similar, but we elves are closer to human than we are to them."
The two began to follow along the tree line with Tess not shifting her gaze from Zilo as she spoke.
"You know much about the Fey, Zilo?"
"A bit, they are ancient beings of nature who the elves came from and who druids base their magic in."
"Both true, but elves weren't born of the Fey, we were born of the eldarin, a hybrid of the forces of nature that is a Fey and the mortal guise that is what elves are today. Eldarin are the Fey's hand past their courts, pretending to be mortal."
"Pretending to be mortal?"
"Fey and eldarin don't age, they can still die, but some of the greater Fey won't even let that stick. Suffice to say eldarin treat us like little misguided animals, who could never match up to them and their 'eternal status'."
"Don't take this the wrong way Tess, but that sorta sounds like how the elves treat the rest of us."
Tess steams at Zilo for a moment before her eyes drift back over to the eldarin guiding them to the tree. She sighs and says, "And its views like that, that are just the sort of thing elves like me and Zatrian fight every day to make disappear."
Zilo and Tess silently follow the mysterious eldarin warrior, hoping that maybe he and his master could be the key to saving Zatrian.
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