Peregrination - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The Forbidden Forest looks innocent when on the outside, but once you enter you can see the evil coming out of the trees. The Coppice Sophia Stone, had made all the trees, nymphs, dryads, and carnivorous plants live with each other in unity. That was when the elfs still lived in the forest. When the stone was stolen, the elfs moved out forseeing that nothing good was coming out. The spores in the poisons plants would never reach any living animal or human when the stone was still there, but now everyone was dying from ailments caused from the plants. To each person his own soundtrack came from the forest, to some it would be loud noisy and awful, to others it would be silent.

There are three stages to the Forest, one, was you had to get through the nymphs and dryads domain; two, you had to get through carnivorous plants; three, you had to get through the area where there were quick sand and trap doors into vine plants where one would suffocate and die. Our group was about to now enter the nymph dryad's area.

Everyone felt there presence of something.. not of their species when they got deeper into woods. The whispers of the nymphs whispering sent chills down the veratbraes. Every single crack or snap of a twig left them on the edge of their sattles, they were all holding on tightly to their weapons, like they would help. Dryads that one could barely see unless one would look for them were hoping around from tree to tree, glaring at strangers with their evil yellow eyes.

Hisssss......
They sound came over from a large willow tree where a old gray dryad was sitting underneath it. The dryad nodded toward them to come closer.

Beware! You should have never entered these woods! the dryad whispered.

"We had to come."

I know, I know and I knew everything.

The whole group sucked in there breathe, when suddenly Serena felt something grab her arm and pull her into a tree. Screaming as loud as she could, but for some reason known of the company could hear her. Then thats when it dawned on her, that the yellows eyes of the dryad hypnotized them.

"HEY GUYS! Look over here! ugh-!" She shouted as she was being pulled farther and harder against the tree. "GUYS!!" She kicked a stone towards Eric which hit him on his head making him flinch shouting "OUCH! What the heck was that for?" Then he turned aroundn seeing the situation Serena was in. "GAHH!" He said as he jousted the tree with his sword, dropping Serena from the tree.

"Are you okay?!" Eric asked urgently. "Don't worry about me! Get Bard and Anneliese! Watch out for the dryads eyes they hypnotize people so they can become dinner!"

Taking a large rock Serena threw it over towards the dryad who turned on her and was charging at Serena when she stopped, because she couldn't go any farther because the shadow of the tree was as far as a dryad could go. "Hurry get them over here!" Eric started dragging Bard as Serena grabbed onto Anneliese.

You will never make it out of the forest alive!! The dryad said as she disappeared into the willow tree.

"whoa what happened?" Asked Bard as he shook his head trying to get out of the daze. Anneliese took a little bit longer to rouse out of hypnotise.

Once she arose from the coma like hynotise, which took awhile since she had already had dramatic shock from earlier that day from the griffin. But once she got up she as ready to do anything. She understood that she had to get as far away from the tree as possible. Scurrying over to where the rest of the quartet was standing.
"What happened?" She asked panting, her face pale white.
"You were hypnotised by the elder dryads eyes." Said Serena who was panting heavily.
"Wait where did Eric disappear too?" She asked looking around. No one noticed his a disappearance when he came out of know where leading the horses that had fled when the dryad appeared.
"Oh there you are! Thank goodness you got the horses before something else did." Serena said thanking him.
"No problem," he said wearily. He was acting very tired and strange, but that was probably because of all that has happened in the last 5 hours. "Shall we continue on? When catching the horses i saw a path though there that looked safe." Eric said pointing through a clearing.
"Brilliant! That would be perfect! On ward company! We need to get through this forest so we can camp for the night. It would be dangerous to do it in the woods." Serena noted as they set off once again, with not quite so much as a bounce in their step as before.