The blonde elf from the night before was standing in front of him with a curved shortsword at his throat. Her entire presence was something else; now that Galahad was right in front of her, he could see her like he did when he was so young.
Now that Galahad could see her in the sunlight, he could see her armor was similar to the black leather armor he used to wear before being blown up in the dungeon, hers seemed to be made of some kind of green scaled beast instead. A brown bow was slung across her back with a quiver of metal arrows. The final piece to her set was the thin blade with very detailed leaf like design carved across both sides, it was even a forest green that matched the grass patches sticking out of the snow perfectly.
"Hello again, are you still trying to kill me? If so, I can make a request to please make the death more merciful and instant than a sword to the face." Galahad spoke as causally as he could while slowly raising his hands up in surrender.
She was clearly uncharmed at his words, "You must die for the dark entities you have allowed to enter your body. To be so bold as to project it into the magic that resides inside the communication crystals. Only a demon could survive such power and even have a chance to escape from me."
Galahad was somewhat entranced by the elven accent and her voice, so his brain was on a bit of a delay when processing her words. He quickly shook his head and tried clearing his thoughts 'I need to stop focusing on pretty women today, all of them will try and kill me.'
"Hold on," He interjected. "I didn't let any entities enter my body, and I certainly didn't catch anything from someone if that's. . . what. . . you. . . mean. Are you talking my Karmic Plate? My plate has been shattered for a while and still in my bag. I couldn't..." Galahad began to recall that his crystal wasn't in his bag when he pulled everything out the night before. Suddenly the memory of a black crystal that was relatively the same size as a Karmic crystal crossed his mind.
Everything was starting come to together in the back of his head.
'The black mana orb clearly did all this, to me and the crystal. It blew apart my arm and now I am infected with whatever that spriggan did to it. If it's monster based dark magic or something monster in general, then that explains how I can consume the mana orbs. I just need to tell her before she thinks I'm some kind of devotee to Demons.'
"I think you've misunderstood me, I didn't affiliate myself with any demons, but -"
"Do not lie to me you disgusting zealot." She spat. "Where is your false god? Take me to him, now!"
She brought the blade up to his throat and applied a bit of force to make his throat let out little beads of blood. The blade was sharp enough to cut with just the smallest amount of pressure.
Her eyes were dead set on killing Galahad; he would have to take her to this false god if he wanted to live, but he didn't know anything about it. This the first time he even heard about some god the demons follow.
'Unless its the same fucking thing the spriggan and blemmyae worked for.' Said the more rude side of Galahad's mind.
More pieces were appearing to the puzzle Galahad slowly found himself trapped inside. Now it seemed the puzzle was about to end with his head impaled by the elf's sword.
Luckily something interrupted the interrogation before it turned to the deadly portion of the conversation.
The rocks that collapsed on the opening to the dungeon were still very loosely falling. A massive half of the boulder came tumbling between Galahad and the elf. Galahad shoved her away as they both instinctively reel backwards before the giant rock could kill either of them.
Galahad took advantage of this distance to start running away through the forest once again. Too bad the elf prepared for that.
Galahad made it a couple long steps before he felt something swipe his feet out from under him. His momentum carried into an odd flip upside down and into the air. For a brief moment, Galahad saw a silver wire glinting in the sunlight. The elf had tied a trap between the trees at calf height.
'Of course the crazy elf has trip wire.' Galahad thought while landing into a relatively large puddle of barely frozen mud. It was a fortunate landing that stopped the impact from hurting; the downside was it stopped him from moving for more than a few seconds, giving the elf enough time to catch up and notch an arrow towards him.
Galahad bent his leg and kicked his foot off a solid tree root in the mud to slide just enough out of the way to not get skewered in the stomach. The arrow made a dull splat as it impacted against the dense mud.
'Her shots aren't feeling as quick now.' Galahad thought as he jumped up and ran through the woods.
"Time to see how well this new power can keep me alive." Galahad muttered to himself beneath his breath. Fire and sparks trailed behind his limbs as he began sprinting through the forest to avoid death, at this point he couldn't remember the count of how many times this week.
*****
Galahad ran through the forest at breakneck speeds, dodging the fallen tree trunks and jumping over low brushes as quickly as he could.
"How do you even keep finding me? I'm not exactly leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for you to find." He shouted into the air.
"Heh, you might as well be." She responded quietly to herself while jumping between trees. She didn't elaborate on her answer and Galahad wasn't planning on digging into the subject. Priority number one was surviving for him.
Galahad thought about the direction he was currently trying to make his escape through, and realized he would soon encounter another problem. The direction would take him straight down the summit back to Apharine's clearing, where he'd have the same problem as the night before.
He was going to make it into the open fields that left him open to getting shot once again. Galahad made a fast judgement call to turn left to try and lose the elf before leaving the forest.
The game of chase went on for a few minutes before Galahad heard a ping go off in his head. At the bottom left corner, a timer began counting down.
[ 2:59 ] ...
[ 2:58 ] ...
[ 2:57 ] ...
'That can't be good. He thought while hurtling himself over a large log in his path.
In the process of trying to lose the murderous elf, Galahad jumped through so many different obstacles, he nearly missed the fact that he turned himself around and was nearly back up the summit again.
[ 1:24 ]
Galahad jumped through a thick brush and came out to a cliffside. He was looking over Teramore again, but he wasn't in the mood to sightsee this time. He nearly skidded to a stop and saw the deadly plummet he almost ran right over.
[ 1:20 ]
Galahad was incidentally back up at the top of the summit, and now he trapped himself at the edge of a cliff with nowhere else to go. Before he could think about a new direction to run, the elf was right behind him.
"Don't move. Turn around slowly."
[ 1:18 ]
Galahad turned slowly to face her. She had an arrow notched only ten yards away from him, she couldn't miss and he couldn't dodge from that distance. Not even with his Fury and Fyre coating his body, Galahad could practically see the flight path of the inescapable arrow.
"Those commands kind of contradict each other, I only mean for you to clarify because I'd rather not be shot because of miscommunic-"
"Shut up!" She angrily shouted while pulling the arrow back even further. "Why do you try me and jest when I can kill you in an instant."
[ 1:08 ]
"Honestly? I think its either a nervous tick or I've been suffering from brain damage for the last three weeks. A lot of things have hit me around the face recently." He said without blinking.
[ 0:58 ]
'Oh shit, I hope she didn't think that was a joke.'
The elf made a face at Galahad, he wasn't sure if she believed him or not, but she said nothing against it. He had no idea that she was staring at the scars across his face in confirmation to his claim.
Galahad tried to change the subject to his questions while he had the chance. He figured he could at least figure the one thing that had been on his mind since he had started visiting Apharine in the forest.
"Do you remember me?" He asked gingerly. It was a rather out of place time to have when facing imminent death.
"What?" She was fuming at the human and his face for so long, she was starting to get distracted.
"Twelve years ago. You were here, in this forest, and you found me lost here and crying. Do you remember me?"
[ 0:34 ]
The elf stared harder at Galahad now, it seemed she was trying to look past the burns and age to see if she could recall him. Something sparked behind her eyes and Galahad saw it.
"You found me, I was lost and crying. I lost someone that day, and you told me something that made it all seem to go away, just for a moment." Galahad wanted to feel the emotion that used to come with that memory, but something was suppressing it even more now.
[ 0:22 ]
The elf closed her eyes for a moment before revealing anger once again. "It seems that weakness years ago let you wither into this disgusting form, letting corrupted mana run through your body!" She nearly screamed at him towards the end.
[ 0:13 ]
"This is the last time." She said on the verge of shouting with spit and profanity flying at him. "Where is your filthy god, so I can put an arrow in his skull."
[ 0:09 ]
"I told you already, I have no idea about all this god business or where to find him. I was in an accident a few days ago that made me-"
[ 0:00 ]
The timer hit zero and Galahad's flaming limbs and body were suddenly extinguished. He felt them go out all at once, making him feel suddenly very cold and very tired.
His knees buckled and before he could even realize what was happening, he tumbled backwards off the cliff.