Elders [el-ders]

Appearance: Humanoid

Power: Immense

Habitat: Unknown

These magical creatures are said to be distantly related to elf-folk. Although a sighting of an Elder has not been confirmed in over a hundred years, old accounts say that they are tall, lean, and very pale, often with light hair and bright eyes.

Some say that the reason they are so uncommonly sighted is because, after the Great Human War, they swore to stop all interactions with humans. Others believe that their entire race has died out.

No matter which story you believe, all accounts have said that these creatures have immense power and are not to be taken lightly. If you encounter one, do as it says, or your life could be in great peril.

- - -

I sat at the base of the tree, sketching an image of the Elder's face as the fire flickered away. I was hoping to get the angles right, particularly the jut of his jaw. I was finding it difficult to strike a balance between his beautiful boyish look and the obvious power he had radiated in person.

I had traveled already for six hours, following the rough map the Elder had given me through the dense woods. But night had fallen over the forest, and traveling while the sun was down was a dangerous endeavor. So I sat in my makeshift camp, which was nothing more than a cleared patch of earth and a crackling fire surrounded by a ring of salt for protection. If the salt failed and a creature managed to reach me, I knew my hunting knife would do the trick.

As I placed the single beauty mark below the left Elder's eye, I heard a crunching sound: boots breaking through twigs and dried leaves. I paused for the second time that day and inhaled deeply. This time, there was no scent of sulfur in the air. No magic.

I sat and waited, the boot-crunching grower louder and louder, and soon accompanied by voices.

"...going the right way?" came a male voice.

"Yes," a female said exasperatedly. "I'm a cartographer. If there's one thing I can do, I can follow a map."

"Sorry, sor..."

The last "sorry" trailed off midway as the two suddenly emerged out of the trees and paused, staring at me sitting in the middle of the clearing. There was a boy and a girl, both about my age although the boy seemed a touch younger even though he towered over his companion by several inches. He had blond hair, though nowhere near as pale and translucent as the Elder, and dark brown eyes. Slung over his back was a bow and a quiver of arrows. The girl meanwhile had thick curly black hair like mine, though her skin was chestnut brown. She held a map out in front of her and stared at me with a flush rising on her cheeks.

"Sorry," the girl said, as if embarrassed to have stumbled onto my camp. However, before she could rush away, I saw what she carried in the crook of her arm, partially hidden behind her map.

It was a jar.

"Wait," I said, standing up suddenly and pointing. "What's in that jar?"

She looked at me, startled, and shook her head vigorously. "Nothing." She turned to the boy, "Nathan, we—"

I wheeled around to face the boy, but he was much too slow to hide the jar he was carrying from my sight. Just before he whisked it behind his back, I saw its contents: water that swirled unnaturally, unconstrained by the normal pull of gravity.

Immediately I dug into my backpack and pulled out the jar of lightning, like a peace offering. "I have one too. I'm assuming you were given one by an Elder and told to deliver it to a faerie named Athia?"

The two exchanged looks, and finally the girl nodded. "Yes," she said. "So that makes three of us that have been given these jars." She rolled up her map, stuck it in her side satchel, and carefully held out her jar. The base of her jar was covered with black dirt from which lived some sort of changing plant. One second, there were vine-like tendrils pressed against the glass, and the next they had shriveled away to reveal a beautiful red flower.

I gestured at my camp. "Feel free to sit," I offered. "Just don't break the ring of salt. It's meant to keep magic out."

The boy grinned. "A magic-free zone? I like the sound of that right now."

The two stepped over the ring of salt easily—proving to me that they really were non-magical—and sat between me and the crackling fire.

"I'm Lira," the girl introduced, "and that's Nathan."

"I'm Krista," I said, and then gestured between the two of them. "How do you two know each other?"

Nathan rolled his jar between his large hands; the water sloshed around merrily. "We just met a few hours ago. I'm from Pesh." He gestured vaguely east as he named a small village that bordered the woods. "I was hunting this morning when I encountered the Elder, and then I ran into her when I was deeper into the woods."

"I'm a cartographer," Lira explained, slipping a piece of her curly hair behind her ear. "I'm trying to map out these woods for my employer in Manos, but that requires me to live a sort of vagabond existence in the woods for the past few months."

I grinned. "I've been living a fairly similar existence, but I'm an artist. My focus is on plants, particularly the ones with healing properties."

"That's cool," Lira said, rubbing her arms. The fire made the shadows on her face dance. "So, all three of us were approached by an Elder and given a jar to deliver to this faerie, Athia. How strange."

Nathan shrugged. "I mean, Elders are a strange sort of people. You've heard the stories, I assume."

"Yeah," Lira said with a sigh, "but I'm still confused. Why couldn't the Elder bring the jar to the faerie himself? Why did he ask me? And why are there more than one jar? He told me not to open mine because it was going to save her life, but considering there are more than one..."

"Maybe the faerie needs all the jars to survive?" I suggested.

"Then why not give all the jars to one person?" Lira pressed. "What if someone runs off with one of the jars? If she needs all the jars to live and just one of us didn't make it to her, she'd be doomed."

I shrugged. "I mean, we were approached by Elders. I'm not sure if we're supposed to understand their logic."

Lira frowned. "It just seems like a waste of resources, in my opinion."

I hid my grin; she reminded me a bit of my older sister, a pragmatic woman who now owned a bakery with her husband. I stifled the feeling of homesickness and opened my scroll, finding our position on the map. "Well, at least it's only a waste of time for a few more hours. If we sleep now and wake up at dawn, we can arrive at the mountain by noon to set her free."

Nathan stifled a yawn and leaned his head against a tree. "Sounds like a plan to m—"

But before he could finish speaking, I heard yet another rustling from among the trees. I reached out my arm to silence Nathan.

What? he mouthed to me, but I barely gave him a glance. My focus was on my breathing. I inhaled deeply for a moment, letting the air linger in my lungs, and then I smelled it.

Sulfur.

Magic.