"I didn’t expect the elves to look exactly like they do in stories." Calen admitted.
"Neither did I." Sylara nodded. "They suddenly disappeared near the end of the age of wonders, so I never had a chance to meet one."
"So no one really knows what happened to them?"
"My master certainly didn’t know - or at least she didn’t share it with me."
If a literal Goddess didn’t know then Calen doubted anyone else did - still, it was strange that a significant portion of the population seemingly disappeared overnight and no one had any clue what happened to them.
"When will he wake up?"
"Difficult to say, but I’d wager he’ll be in a coma for at least a month, maybe two."
"That long? The animals took only a day or two."
"Different circumstances, with the cows it was akin to removing a particularly nasty parasite - here the Blight was present for so long that it developed a strange symbiosis with the body."
"What will you do with him then? I don’t think keeping him here is a good idea."
"Well, now that the Blight is gone we can move him to the fortress - he will be still locked up though, just in a much nicer room." She said. "I’ll take care of that later, for now wake up your friends and go get some sleep yourself - we’ll discuss your next steps in a few hours."
He wasn’t going to argue, the purification was quite draining, and it took much longer than he expected - he really needed a nap.
"Wha...?" Isara mumbled. "What time is it? Are you done yet?"
"Yeah, we succeeded - and the sun is about to rise, wake the other two and I’ll explain everything."
A few minutes of shuffling later all of his companions were staring at the elf, mouth agape, and they didn’t move until Calen was done explaining.
"What are you going to do with the gem?" Cassian asked once he collected himself.
"I was thinking of leaving it with Sylara, why do you ask?"
"We don’t know what it does - what if he’s still loyal to the Serakhiin empire when he wakes up? Maybe he’ll use it to escape, and we’ll be in deep shit."
"What do you want me to do then?"
"Keep it until we get back from dealing with the Order, then we can assess ourselves whether to give it back."
"You have nothing to fear if you’re leave it with me." Sylara interrupted. "I won’t give it to him until I understand what element or domain it is, and even then I’ll be sure to observe him carefully. Besides, it’s entirely possible you’ll come back before he even wakes up."
Since there was no more objections, Calen gave the gem to Sylara, and moved to leave the chamber.
"Come on, you might have had a nice sleep, but I haven’t slept a wink."
When Calen woke up it was around noon - a sudden noise interrupted his rather pleasant dreams.
It took a while before he understood what the noise was; a deep ringing of the fortress’ alarm bells.
He jumped out of the bed and quickly dressed himself, he didn’t know what was the emergency, but it had to be big since they didn’t ring the bells even on the night when they arrived here.
In the common room he found all of his companions getting ready to leave the room.
"Cal, you woke up!" Isara smiled. "I wasn’t sure whether we should get you since you didn’t get much sleep."
"I’m fine, don’t worry." He shook his head. "Do you know what the bells are about?"
"Cass says it’s a signal that the lookouts spotted something unusual - it’s not necessarily an alarm, but more like an early warning."
"We were about to go find Alison and get the details, are you coming with us?" Cassian asked.
"Sure, just let me check if I got everything."
When he was grabbing his sword he noticed that Auren was still sleeping on the couch in the exact same spot he left him two days ago. He’s unconsciousess might be a problem if they have to leave the city on short notice, but they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.
Suddenly the door got flung open, and Alison walked in.
"You’re all here, good." She was slightly out of breath.
"We were about to look for you, are you here because of the bells?"
"More like I’m here for the same reason the bells are being rung." She corrected him. "Come, lady Sylara wants to explain everything herself."
"The Serakhiin army is marching at the city."
That certainly wasn’t what they expected to hear.
"How long do we have until they reach us?" Cassian frowned.
"If nothing attacks them they’ll reach us by sundown - we can transport the city at a moment’s notice, so the issue is with you."
"We have to leave today." Calen clicked his tongue.
"It would be advisable, yes." She nodded with a grim expression. "The army won’t give up easily and they’ll comb through the surrounding area for at least two weeks, which would make the long trek from our new position all the more dangerous."
Calen nodded and looked at his companions for their opinions.
"We should leave as soon as possible." Isara stated. "It’s nice here, but it’s not worth it to delay an unpleasant journey when it means a much worse one later down the line."
Cassian simply nodded in agreement, but Elira had some concerns:
"What are we supposed to do with Auren? He’s too big to fit under one of the cloaks now, and he’ll stand out toouch in the open."
"You can leave him here." Sylara suggested. "While you’re away I’ll get Martha and Joel to come up with a solution to this problem."
"Are you sure you don’t mind taking care of a wyrm? He might have been lazy before, but I’ve read that personality of draconic creatures can shift drastically at any moment."
"We’ll be fine." Sylara chuckled. "Do you have everything you need, or did you left something in the room?"
"Just the dimensional bag with pretty much everything we own and some clothes." Calen said.
"Go get them then, I’ll find Alfred and we’ll meet you at the gates."
They’re departure was nowhere near as exciting as their arrival - only Sylara and Alison came to bid them goodbye.
The Guardian insisted to find everyone they met, but Cassian shot the idea down, reminding her that they would be back relatively soon.
So without any fanfares they left the city and entered the wilderness once more.