Ahead, she noticed two large ponds next to each other, two night elves in-between them. One was lying motionlessly on the ground, while the other leaned over him with hands glowing silver.
The woman noticed Ebonia and called out, "Stranger! I could use your help!"
Ebonia ran over to her. "What is it?", she asked.
"Iverron here ran afoul of some giant spiders to the north; their poison has nearly killed him. I have to stay here and use my powers to keep him stable, but there are some silvery flowers nearby that can heal him. Could you gather some for me please?", the woman asked.
Ebonia nodded, and immediately started looking around for them. She noticed a few growing in a cluster by one of the pools, and she carefully started collecting some of them.
Once she had a decent handful of them, she hurried back over to the young woman, who smiled at the sight of the flowers.
"I can quickly prepare an antidote with these. Thank you.", the woman said, before taking the flowers and crushing them into a paste, which she quickly applied to the various bite wounds across the young man's body.
"There. The paste should draw out the poison and destroy it, and Iverron will make a swift recovery.", the woman said. She stood up, and smiled at Ebonia. "My name is Dentaria. Who are you?"
"Kirana.", Ebonia answered.
"I am glad to have met you, Kirana. Are you new here? I've never seen someone like you in the area before.", Dentaria asked.
Ebonia nodded. "You could say that."
"Well, thanks again for helping me with Iverron.", Dentaria said, "He should wake up soon; perhaps you'd like to stick around so he can thank you himself?"
Ebonia shook her head. "Sorry, but I'm trying to find somebody and don't have much time. I am glad to have been able to help you, though."
Dentaria nodded. "And so am I. You have saved a life today. May Elune light your path, and help you find who you seek."
Ebonia smiled softly, before turning and setting off back into the forest. She wondered if Devrialstrasz would've been proud of her, for helping save a mortal. Ebonia felt a tinge of sadness as she remembered how she'd never find out.
She wondered how different things would be, had the two dragons never met. Would she still be in Deathwing's fort, trapped under fear of his power? Would she have simply killed all those night elves instead of helping them?
She would never know, and in this particular instance she was glad she would not.
Suddenly, Ebonia froze, for she detected a powerful natural presence nearby. Looking through the trees, she could see a large, dark cave, with an unusual person staring into it.
It was a night elf woman, except from the waist down she had the body of a deer. Her hair was a long and flowing green, and her skin and fur had a warm radiance about them. She was not wearing much, only a small leafy wrap around her chest. In front of her were several massive green spiders, all dead.
The half night elf, half deer (dryad, Ebonia realized) was studying a set of footprints that led into the cave. Ebonia wondered if they were Iverron's.
The dryad quietly trotted into the cave, and once she was gone Ebonia stepped forwards. Looking at the ground, she noticed another set of footprints, which abruptly came to a stop next to a large indentation in the grass. Another pair of footprints came to the indent and then left, and Ebonia realized that that must be Iverron and Dentaria.
So the footprints the dryad was following were someone else's.
The rain was slowly washing them away, but Ebonia knew what she needed to know. Eludian might be in the cave somewhere, and she needed to make sure he wasn't in the same situation as Iverron had been.
The young dragon-in-disguise hurried into the cave, magic humming at her fingertips. She did not want to run into any spiders without being prepared.
As she went deeper, Ebonia began to see large, dusty spiderwebs across the walls and floor, filled with bones and dry husks left over from past meals. Her skin was constantly brushing through them, and it felt rather uncomfortable. There was a deep, musty smell too, which Ebonia did not like.
There was a quiet skittering behind Ebonia, and she whirled around as a massive hairy spider leaped down at her, fangs dripping venom.
Ebonia wasted no time, shooting a fireball right into the spider's fanged face. It screeched horrifically as its hair caught on fire, and it fell over shriveling as the flames overtook it.
Unfortunately, the spiderwebs around it also caught on fire, which rapidly spread across all the surrounding threads. Although the heat did not bother a black dragon, Ebonia knew she might have just put everyone down below in mortal danger.
Cursing, she grabbed a nearby bone and started hacking down the webs, scraping them together so the blaze did not spread. Her clothes were smoking, but did not ignite; possibly because they weren't normal clothes, but part of her mortal form. Ebonia coughed slightly as the smoke whipped around her face, but years inside a volcano had made her quite resistant to the substance.
Once she had the fire in one spot, she did her best to stamp it out, hissing as it scorched her foot. Although heat did not bother her like other races, the burns on her back were proof enough she was not immune to fire.
But after a few moments, the fire went out, leaving only smoke.
Ebonia then started hurrying down the tunnel, wincing every time her burnt foot hit the hard stone. She mentally noted that she probably needed thicker shoes if she was going to stomp out flames again, but there was nothing she could about that right now.
She started hearing the sounds of fighting from below, and a dead spider flew past her and smacked into the wall. It had been thrown there from the force of a spell of some kind, and sure enough Ebonia saw the dryad from earlier, blasting at a swarm of spiders with bolts of green energy.
The dryad seemed to be trying to get out of the cave, but was overwhelmed by all the spiders. Ebonia knew she had to help...somehow.
"Watch out!", Ebonia cried, charging in and swiping as many cobwebs out of the way as she could. Once the area was clear, she used her flames to kill the majority of the spiders, and the rest fled back into the tunnels.
The dryad looked at her with fear and suspicion. "What kind of elf dares meddle with the arcane?"
"The one who just saved your life, obviously.", Ebonia replied crossly.
The dryad took a deep breath. "I suppose that is true. But such magic is forbidden among night elves. Where did you learn it?"
Ebonia growled, "That is none of your concern. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am busy looking for someone who I suspect is inside these caverns."
The dryad replied, "Interesting...I am looking for them too. Perhaps I should accompany you, make sure you stay out of trouble. After all, I suppose you DID save my life."
Ebonia sighed. "Fine. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"
"Tarindrella.", the dryad replied, "You?"
"Kirana.", Ebonia answered.
"Very well, Kirana. Let us go make sure this person we are seeking is still alive.", Tarindrella answered.
The two of them set off deeper into the tunnels, but did not end up meeting any more spiders. As they walked, Tarindrella started explaining the situation.
"I only recently returned to Teldrassil, after sensing a strange corruption seeping into the land.", she said, "These spiders are not normally so aggressive or numerous, plus there were those tracks suggesting somebody was also trying to solve the mystery. Hopefully we will find some answers deeper in these tunnels."
Ebonia shrugged. "Maybe. But what could we possibly find in a spider nest? I'm just looking for my friend."
Tarindrella sighed. "Perhaps we will find nothing. But I must search anyways."
At that moment, the tunnel widened into a large cavern, which was currently the site of an intense battle.
A large bear was facing off against a truly massive spider, thick webs all around the room. Many cocoons were tied up inside them, and other spiders watched from the shadows, waiting for their master to finish off the bear.
As Ebonia watched, though, a familiar faerie dragon flew in the face of the spider, showering its eyes in sparkly dust. "You attack friend! Faewing mad!"
Which meant the bear was...Eludian?
Tarindrella readied another spell. "That must be the broodmother of the den. Whatever corruption has afflicted these spiders must lie with her."
Ebonia did not care about that though. She saw one of the smaller spiders in the shadows preparing to pounce at Eludian.
"Watch out!", she yelled, and Eludian rolled to the side as the spider lunged, managing to dodge it.
"Kirana!?", he cried. Ebonia couldn't help but feel impressed that he remembered the fake name even in such a stressful situation.
Tarindrella fired off her spell, which nailed the big spider in the face and caused it to retreat. This revealed an odd totem stabbed into the web, which caused Tarindrella to frown.
Ebonia shouted, "Everyone, away from the webs! I'm going to take these spiders out!"
"Kirana, don't -", Eludian tried to say, but he was too late. Ebonia summoned a fireball and lit the webs ablaze, rapidly burning through them.
The brrodmother screeched in fury, before pouncing at Ebonia and using one of its legs to pin her cape to the ground, and prevent her from fleeing. Its fangs opened, and Ebonia tried to summon another fireball.
At that moment, Eludian charged the spider and knocked it over, which was followed up by Tarindrella blasting it repeatedly. The spider screeched, before curling up lifelessly.
Faewing cheered, "Yay, spider dead! Fire scary, though."
The fire, however, was dying down already, its fuel rapidly burned up. Tarindrella trotted over to the totem, which although burned was still recognizable to the dryad.
"The Gnarlpine furbolgs.", she growled, "I should have known..."
She stood up tall, declaring, "I must move on to Dolanaar, speak with the other night elves. Perhaps we can rally up a fighting force to handle this problem. You two may choose to help or not. That is none of my concern."
She hurried out, and Eludian donned his regular form once again.
"That was reckless.", he said, "That fire magic of yours is both dangerous and despised here. I am surprised that particular dryad didn't arrest or kill you as soon as she saw it."
"Well, I kinda saved her life.", Ebonia replied, "She didn't really have a choice."
Eludian sighed. "You MUST be more careful than that."
Ebonia held up her hands. "Well, it's not like I can use anything else..."
Eludian said, "That can be arranged. There's bound to be a weapons vendor in Dolanaar somewhere. We should head there quickly, before you get in any more trouble."
Ebonia felt pretty annoyed about this. She'd spent hours searching for Eludian, and the first thing he talks about is how she needed to hide her powers better. They had literally just saved him!
But she could discuss that more later...
"Come on, then.", she growled, "Let's head to Dolanaar. Since clearly that's so important."
Eludian sighed. "Look, it's just - you know what, let's just get moving. I can try reasoning with you later."
Faewing hissed at the two of them. "Friends fighting is bad! Faewing needs you to stop!"
And they did...but somewhat begrudgingly. *