Chapter 430: The Elven City

Naturally hearing that the people that she had been planning to visit were just ’gone’ came as a bit of a shock to Belladonna, especially since she still had the symbol from the elf she had met. That was supposed to be her ticket into discovering more of her race, and although the Avatar had been helpful enlightening her on certain things, when she asked him further about it he made it clear that he just knew the stories that had been passed down.

Most of which were completely mutated or bastardised from the pollution of time and constant retelling.

In an effort to show her what he meant, Raev offered to take them to the Elven city, and even slightly corrected Belladonna’s teleportation calculations.

"So we don’t end up in the wall." He had said with a smile. Then they linked up, held their breath before Belladonna retrieved her clone and activated the scroll.

With a flash and a gut-wrenching twist, they vanished from the Moonlit meadow, leaving behind the Perception filter devices to turn away anything that might come along.

Of course, hours after they had left, such a plan had unfortunately had the opposite effect.

At the edge of the Moonlit sanctuary, the shadows darkened until they were a black abyss, that slowly lifted off of the ground.

The shadows twisted into the form of a tall and elegant woman before they slid over her divine figure and formed into a silky black dress that trailed along the ground.

The woman’s crimson eyes scanned the meadow with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. She could feel the Perception field, and the way it was trying to alter her mind and push her away. But it was such an adorably feeble attempt that it didn’t take much to brush it off.

However she didn’t break the field, it was this feeling that had attracted her attention in the first place after all, instead she spent a few moments examining the devices with a strange sense of pride, as a soft smile never left her lips.

The woman lifted her head, drinking in the scents that filled the air, before her smile spread even wider.

"Oh my Dear... Already dabbling in such wonderful arts at your level. You really do take after your mother. But why were you here? And... what did that miserable little tear do to my precious baby?"

The woman clenched her fist tight, letting out a gruesome aura of unrestrained bloodlust that burst out of her body in a thick, deep red miasma. It curved harmlessly around the Moonlit Sanctuary and instead flooded the jungle.

The deadly and fearsome beasts lurking within let out whimpering cries as they turned tail and ran, those that could at least. Some collapsed to the ground, their eyes bulging as they choked and gagged on the miasma.

Plants withered at its touch, snakes and birds dropped from the sky and splattered against the ground.

When the woman finally withdrew her bloodlust after just a second, she was surrounded by death. Not even the trees were spared, as those nearest her were shrivelled and grey.

The woman glanced at the destruction she had left in her wake and clicked her tongue in annoyance, before she simply turned on her heels and started to glide across the ground around the border of the Moonlit Sanctuary before eventually dissolving back into the shadows.

***

Belladonna swayed slightly as she came out of the teleportation just an inch above the ground, a much better drop than last time.

Once she regained her bearings, Beans popped out of his first class seat, also known as her shadow, and landed on her shoulder, taking his place of luxury once again.

"Welcome to the Elven City of Razz." Raev said with a drunken smile, sweeping his arms around him, but his gesture was completely lost on the pair as Figg and Belladonna looked around in confusion.

There was nothing here. They were still in a jungle, and had just appeared at the bottom of a cliffside that towered over them. Belladonna tried to see the top of the cliff, in case he meant the city was hanging off the edge or was just visible from there, but there was nothing.

"I don’t get it, there’s nothing here. Is this supposed to be your way of saying that the city was completely destroyed?" Belladonna asked with a shrug.

"Huh? No Spooky dude, it’s right here! All you need is a little change in perspective." He chuckled, before pulling out a new joint, lighting it with a snap of his fingers and taking a long drag of it to get it started.

Before Belladonna could tell him that she didn’t want to puff and pass, Raev spewed out the cloud of smoke right at their feets.

It gathered around them, before suddenly pulling them off the ground, as they started to lift into the air on a cushion of white smoke. The cloud extended outwards to catch Figg as he stumbled and fell backwards, as it just kept climbing to the top of the cliff.

At first Belladonna was confused, but the higher they climbed and the more she looked at the cliff, the more she noticed some things about it.

There were thick trees embedded in the cliff at even intervals, as if the forest had started to grow into the stone, or the stone had buried the trees. But not even nature was this perfect in its patterning, and more than that she could see holes in the trees.

Twisted knots where creatures would hide their nuts or make their homes, but these too were spaced perfectly evenly. A knot every five metres up this fifty metre cliff face.

A cliff that was not a cliff, as Belladonna finally remembered who it was that they were dealing with. It was in fact a wall. A naturally grown wall woven from nature, and as they settled on top of the wall, she could see the sprawling city woven from nature with the same Elven magic as the wall.

"Once again, Welcome to the Elven city of Razz." Raev said with a drunken laugh, sweeping his arms across the cities vista.