Ohoho

A handsome black-haired teenager with dark brown eyes stood on the top of a large cliff overlooking a lush valley full of trees and foliage. A small river ran through the middle of the valley cheerfully moving down the valley.

The black-haired teenager was dressed in dark ranger clothes, he had a dark bow in his hand and a quiver full of arrows on his back.

The sun shown down on him and the blue sky seemed to give off an aura of peacefulness.

Arjuna turned to the blond-haired elf standing next to him. She was covered in a dark cloak, but she had taken off the hood to reveal her piercing green eyes and pointy ears.

Alanis looked at the view at the edge of the cliff with observant eyes. Both Arjuna and Alanis had excellent eyes, with Arjuna having an (eagle eyes) skill and Alanis who was born with elven spirit eyes which were known for being able to see much farther than any other race on the continent and much more.

Arjuna opened his mouth and asked Alanis as they both enjoyed the view

"so, do you have any idea where we are?"

Alanis turned to Arjuna her peaceful expression changing into an annoyed one

"you were the one who brought us here!"

Arjuna widened his eyes as he realized that he actually did drag Alanis over on a random path that he thought looked cool.

"in my defense," he said while raising his hands

"it was fun right?"

Alanis grit her teeth and yelled out

"and we're lost!"

Arjuna had no response, Alanis let out a huge sigh and looked around her eyes scanning the air for something.

Arjuna watched her curiously as Alanis reached out with her hand out to the sky like she expected something to land on it.

A light green orb slowly shone into existence and in gusts of wind flew down from the sky to touch Alanis's hand.

It hovered over the palm of her hand as Alanis cupped it with both of her hands, it gave off gentle gusts of wind that lifted up Alanis's long blond hair.

She let out a small smile and started to whisper to the orb of green light. The two seemed to be communicating, and Arjuna stood in the back confused but patient.

Eventually, Arjuna pulled out potion ingredients that he had gathered on the trip and started to prepare them, he had been able to find some plants that had nature mana flowing through them. They were called Ame Leaves and were huge golden-green leaves that grew on trees. Supposedly they were rare, so Arjuna gathered quite a bit of them.

The ame leaves were just one of the things that Arjuna and Alanis had gathered and explored in the past few days.

They had left the city of dawn to the city of twilight a week ago and according to the map that Sninkkaakac had given them, they weren't even a quarter of the way there. The Gnome Nightfall Archer had mentioned that it would be a long journey but it seems it would take them much longer than both of them had predicted.

Arjuna remembered seeing the rolling plains gradually change into the forest biome, soon lush forests and trees could be seen everywhere and more and the paths seemed to be more unkempt and small.

Alanis let out a quick breath and let the orb of green light float away from her hands. She turned to Arjuna.

"Alright, we need to go that way," She said pointing to the left of them, where a hill covered in rocky boulders and small shrubs stood.

Arjuna stood up throwing all of the ingredients into his inventory.

"how do you know?" He asked while packing up

Alanis grabbed her new golden bow and quiver given to her by Sninkkaakac and carefully ran her fingers over them with a satisfied smile. She gave Arjuna an answer

"The wind spirit told me"

Saying that she stood up and walked towards the hill.

Arjuna followed her asking her again

"wait, the wind spirit?"

Alanis responded while climbing up some of the boulders with Arjuna climbing right underneath her.

"yup! the wind spirit, beings made out of elemental mana, in this case, its wind mana"

Arjuna responded

"well, yeah, but like how did you talk with it and how did you find it?"

Alanis let out a small chuckle and with a quiet grunt lifted herself up onto a large boulder that jutted out of the tall hill. She stopped for a second and reached out a hand for Arjuna to take.

Arjuna took it together they sat on the boulder. Alanis started to speak

"you may somehow know the elvish rune language, but it seems you don't know spirit language, and as for how I can spot them"

Alanis turned her face to Arjuna and pointed at her eyes. Arjuna looked at them, the color of them reminded him of leaves in the forest, it was dark green but it had light green tones mixed in. The black iris in the middle glinted as it focused on Arjuna's face.

Alanis moved her head back, her cheeks bright red as she explained to Arjuna

"spirit eyes, an elven trait that allows us to see spirits, even in their invisible form, I used to play with spirits as a child, in fact, wind and wood sprits, if they are strong enough, can take human form, but I've only seen that once or twice."

Arjuna wondered out loud as the two took a quick break drinking water from a flash and munching on some food that Arjuna seemed to never run out of.

"hmm, I wonder how strong an elemental spirit needs to be to take human form"

Alanis tilted her head and thought for a bit

"well," she said "I guess an intermediate spirit could temporarily make one, but maybe for only a few minutes, anything above that like an advanced spirit or spirit lord could do it"

"interesting, so was that little guy you just met, an elementary spirit or something? " Arjuna asked,

Alanis smiled and shook her head.

"no, that little one has only reached a sense of awareness, he was probably born just a few days ago, he has only gained a tiny bit of real power"

Arjuna nodded storing the information about the spirits in his head, perhaps they could become useful in the future.

The two finished resting and started to climb up the large hill, it wasn't too hard, but it was steep which made them sometimes need to get on their hands and feet to climb up, thankfully there were many rocky ledges for them to use as handholds.

Finally, after a few hours of climbing and hiking, they reached the top of the hill. They were both covered in dirt and dust but they were extremely satisfied as they stood at the top of the large hill.

The sun was still high up in the sky, and the cool breeze hit them in a refreshing manner.

The two looked out to see the large forests and hills stretching out of them. From their vantage viewpoint, they could see paths that lead into the forest, sometimes they saw flocks of birds flying around in the sky and as they looked farther out they could see the smoke of a campfire in the sky.

Besides that, there was no sign of civilization in sight.

Below them was a rocky cliff with no actual paths leading down. Just the occasional bush and a cliffside of rocks and boulders.

Just as they two were about to start the trek down to the forest path below them. The sound of a quick breeze picking up made them stop momentarily.

The green orb which they had seen before appeared in front of Alanis and hurried to her frantic and worried.

Alanis stretched out her hands with a worried expression and listened as the wind spirit started to talk.

She listened for a bit and then turned to Arjuna and relayed the information.

"there is a caravan of humans in the forest that is being attacked by a large group of kobolds, they are about 1 mile away from here, should we try and help them? even if we do we might not even make it, and still is it worth it to save them?"

Alanis turned back to the wind spirit which was trying to get her attention again.

She listened again for a few seconds and said in an alarmed voice

"There is a kobold leader, in their midst, we must be careful...."

Alanis's words trailed off as she noticed that Arjuna wasn't even next to her. She swept her eyes around the place and then saw a figure underneath her.

Arjuna covered in a green glow of the speed potion was sliding down the cliff using a dislodged piece of rock as a surfboard. The wind blew past him at ridiculous speeds and he had an excited grin on his face.

Alanis watched Arjuna slide down and let out a big annoyed sigh.

"Why does it always end up like this...."

She turned to the floating green orb which was floating up and down in slight confusion.

"Well, want to help me out a bit little guy?"

The floating orb stopped and let out small squeaks of approval and agreement.

It suddenly dissipated into the air and a protective wind wrapped Alanis as she ran to the edge of the cliff and leaped off like a skydiver out of an airplane with her arms spread out, the sound of an eagle could be heard as she dove down.