A mysterious horde of dark creatures is invading the elven forest. They infest the magic trees to multiply themselves, turning them to the dark element, changing the very nature of the forest.
I don't know who the creator of these monsters is or what they are trying to accomplish, but their mana feels similar to mine, and they look a lot like the imps I can make. They also seem to originate from the area I'm in.
"This is bad, if someone sees me here they're going to think that I'm the one who did this."
"You ARE the one who did this! Don't try to play dumb!" Uh... if Xania is going to expose me like that then my plan of pretending that I don't know what's going on is not going to work.
But then what am I supposed to do? Those stupid imps are not listening to me, and for some reason, I cannot dispel them like usual.
Now my reputation, and by extension, the reputation of dark elves is going to get even worse... It wasn't enough for my imps to be useless, now they have actually reached negative levels of usefulness.
"Is this really a bad thing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, they only seem to be turning the normal trees, and you said earlier that dark trees will help elves in the same way as the other trees. So what's the problem?"
Xania has a point. In the end, the only thing that will change is that there will be more magic trees protecting the forest. Even if the elves call them 'cursed trees' they might change their mind after having them around for a while, and it's not like they're going to lose the trees of the other elements.
*munch munch*
I turn around to see a group of imp biting one of the earth trees.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"
The imps are not supposed to be intelligent or have free will, right? It's starting to feel like they can tell what I'm thinking and will do everything they can to annoy me.
Let's not panic, with how weak the imps are, it's going to take them a while to do any real damage to the trees. I need to analyze the situation calmly and come up with a solution.
"Hey Luna, look. There's a group of elves coming this way." Looking in the direction where Xania is pointing I see the elves trying to hunt down the imps, how did they get here so quickly!?
It seems like there's no time to analyze the situation calmly, let's use violence instead.
'Shadow needle'
A weak spell is all it takes to destroy one of the imps. The creature then merges with the mana of my spell and takes the shape of a ball, then the ball splits into two smaller balls that then take the form of two imps.
"..."
My imps can get killed instantly by any attack... Except for my magic, apparently.
"Look! It's the dark elf! She's making more of them!"
And the elves saw me doing that. Of course they did.
"Tell your minions to stop infesting the forest! Otherwise, we'll... uh... please tell them to stop." One elf starts yelling at me, but after taking a look at me he seems to become a lot less forceful.
"They're not my minions, I don't know where they've come from."
The elf looks confused. "But we just saw you..." He stops talking for a moment when he looks up, I look down, and our eyes met. "Yes! Of course! These are not your minions at all!"
A girl that was standing behind him pushes him aside. "We just saw you making more of those things, we won't be intimidated so easily!"
Even if she says that her body is shaking and she's avoiding eye contact with me.
"Alright, it's true that I made those imps. But it was an accident! I'm trying to make them stop but they're not listening to me."
"How stupid do you think we are..."
"This time I'm telling the truth! I swear!"
While I'm thinking of a way to make them believe me, Xania grabs another elf by the collar and starts shaking him.
"Hey, you! Do you know if there's a young gray demon boy in your village?"
"I... I think I heard that someone like that had been taken to the village."
"What!? What do you mean 'taken'!?"
She's treating him very roughly, it's going to be hard to teach her to be less violent.
"He's an intruder, so he was imprisoned."
"HE WAS WHAT!?"
She's shaking him even more brutally than before, and the other elves are pointing arrows at her. I hurry up to grab her and drag her away from them.
"Everyone calm down. You don't really want to start a fight right now, do you?"
For some reason, that last line seems to have had a strong impact. All the elves nervously lower their bows.
Still, the elves who are hunting the imps are doing quite well. But the dark trees do not seem like they'll stop making more of them, it seems like there was a lot of unused dark mana in this forest, which explains why the imps are not listening to me, even though they originate from my mana and my desire to change the forest, only a small part of the mana they're made of is actually mine.
If more and more imps keep being made, killing them won't do more than slowing them down. Whenever some imps manage to slip past the elves, another tree will be transformed, and they cannot continue to hunt them forever.
But I think that I've found a solution. The trees are not defending themselves because they cannot recognize the imps born from other trees as enemies, however, an elf can instruct trees of their same element to kill them. And the best part is that an elf can communicate with multiple trees at once if they are close enough, that gives me an idea...
I let Xania run to the village to look for her brother, I hope that she doesn't cause any trouble...
"What is that?"
"This is a magic circuit."
A group of elves is watching me prepare the circuit with amazement. The way they are acting makes it seem like they've never seen a magic circuit before... just how isolated are these people?
"This will increase the range in which you can communicate with magic, that way you can instruct the trees of the entire forest to protect themselves from the imps."
"Really? Then why don't you tell the dark trees to stop making more of those fruits?" An elf asks with a bit of suspicion.
"I... I already tried, they didn't listen."
That's probably because deep down I don't want the dark trees to stop being made. I had much more conviction when I gave my first instruction, so I cannot override it, but I don't want to admit that to them.
"How do we know that we can trust you?"
"If I wanted to destroy this forest I wouldn't need to trick you. Also, don't you want to know what it's like to use a magic circuit?"
They're curious, I can tell. It doesn't matter how strict their rules are, the temptation of trying something you have never seen before is strong.
"Stop right there!"
An old man is approaching. That's unusual, old elves are very rare.
"It's the elder." I hear someone say in a low voice. Is this man the leader of their village?
"I thought that I had warned you about this. You should never listen to what a dark elf tells you, she'll bring death and misfortune to our forest."
This old man is a bit rude...
"I don't want to bring death to anyone, I'm only trying to help."
"Perhaps, but dark elves like yourself tend to have some very strange ideas of what 'helping' means. Always trying to lure our people into danger, valuing their lives as little as you value your own."
"What are you talking about? I value my life quite a bit, and the lives of others as well."
"You are a dark elf. It's in your nature to put freedom over security, ambition over complacency, desire over life."
"Then I must be different from all the other dark elves. I don't like to take risks and I've lived a very peaceful life until just recently."
"You might have never had to make the choice. Tell me young lady, what are the things you enjoy doing the most? What is it that you want to do with your life?"
"What I enjoy... reading books and researching magic I guess."
"Then imagine that one day, it became impossible for you to do either of those things, and the only way for you to do them again is to travel to a distant city. But the trip is dangerous, and you're just as likely to die as you're to make it there. Would you make the trip? Or would you settle for another lifestyle that you do not enjoy as much?"
Uh... this is strange... I never saw myself as a risk-taker, but when I think about it the answer to that question seems obvious.
"I would make that trip. I'd rather live the way I want to than live safely."
"And with that, you just proved that you are a true dark elf. Most people would not make that choice, and certainly not so easily."
Now that I think about it, when I sensed Vilde at the bottom of the infernal caverns, I decided to go see him even if it was dangerous, for no other reason than me being curious. I think that I've just discovered something about myself that I've been ignoring until now.
"Still, I don't see how that's a bad thing."
"The problem is that the trees cursed with dark magic are also the same way. Instead of asking them to follow a strict set of rules, they will demand that the elves leave the forest, pursue their ambitions, and go on adventures that put them in danger. Having a long lifespan requires a safe, slow, and consistent lifestyle, not just the blessings of the forest. And so, the forest will not offer a longer life to those who choose to leave, the only thing it will give to those elves is the means of fulfilling their ambitions. Darkness is the element of death, we must destroy all of the cursed trees."
"I won't claim to know more than you about magic forests, but I'm sure that destroying that many trees will do quite a bit of damage. And it's not like the elves have to listen to the dark trees, the rest of the forest will still be around. Shouldn't people be allowed to choose for themselves?"
"No, not if their choices could end up killing them."
This old man really represents everything I hate about elven society... But I won't let him have his way. I have no right of forcing other people to live their lives the way I want to, but neither does he.
'Shadow lance'
I fire a spell upwards with more power than usual to show my strength and then activate my 'intimidate' skill.
"You are NOT going to get rid of the dark trees. If you try to do it after I leave, I WILL come back."
An expression of true terror appears on the elder's face, but he's able to stay on his feet, which is not something that I can say about everyone who feels my intimidation.
I then turn around to address the other elves.
"Choose for yourselves how you want to live your lives. But know that if you decide to always stay in this forest, you will not live longer lives, just slower ones. And there's one more thing I need to say..."
I just learned something new, it seems that when a shapeshifter gets really scared they lose control of their transformation for a moment.
It was only for a fraction of a second, and she was near the back of the group, but there's no way that I would miss it. I approach the 'elf' and punch her, revealing her true form.
"I don't think that you guys are as safe as you think you are."
BTW, the last time I did this it was not very successful, so I wasn't sure if I should do it again. But I made a pencil drawing of Xania and scanned it with my phone so that you can see what she's supposed to look like.
https://i.imgur.com/fuTJyIb.jpg
Scanning it with the phone makes the picture seem a bit off, but doing it this way is fast and easy so it might be worth it, I'm not sure.
So, does anyone want me to draw pictures like these? Or should I just forget about it?
Picture is good and you should do what you want like Luna does. In any case, chapter was fine and dandy
Picture's good. Looks neat
In general, drawing is normal for an amateur, but you need to work out your mouth better, you should not have adopted this style from rough comics.
The forest gave the elves a head start, but the rest of the world has been leveling up, and without dark trees, the magic forest has been unable to do the same. It won't be able to protect them for much longer. Ego driven conquerors like the demon lords aside, even the "civilized" countries will probably come up with excuses to exploit elven resources sooner or later if they don't toughen up. Think the elves are going to accept a deal with the d̶e̶v̶i̶l̶ dark elf?
How much does it take to set off the forest whispers? Infiltration doesn't seem to have provoked anything, and even that open fight earlier didn't.
But after last chapter, I didn't know how to continue, this is the first time that has happened to me. Then I wrote a chapter, didn't like it at all, and started again, which is also not something I had done before. Then I started thinking about a bunch of stuff that will come later and I can't decide exactly how everything will go and I just felt that I didn't want to write for a while...
Anyway, I hope that the chapter I ended up writing was at least a bit enjoyable and didn't feel too weird, let's hope that I don't have as much trouble with the next few.
As I understand you, you are worried that you have horror again instead of comedy, and so, here recently one work was published, which at its end received many positive reviews, including this:
I liked it a lot. Honestly, while it was happening the apocalypse didn’t seem that bad. The way it was detailed and written made it kind of seem like an “oh well” thing. While the time travel was pretty well done, it did invalidate a lot words previously written, making them pointless. However, since you stated you did that all without a plan, and it was all sort of comedic anyway, I don’t think it’s a bad thing overall, just slightly off. The perspective was well done, I still don’t understand why the pooping thing was included, and my only complaint is that it ended.
P.S. - the pooping thing is a joke!
You are good at comedy. You maintained a light tone throughout, even with the apocalypse and all the gore. This story was done better than the vast, vast majority of books on this website. I think with a proper thought out story you could do a comedy really well without having the slightly off putting apocalypse scenario repeating itself. I wish it was longer, as I was getting pretty invested in the characters, but then again, with how powerful Anya is, any more plot would have been pretty much filler. I’m just used to 100+ chapters in the web novels I read.
I suggest you follow the link and first read all the comments to that chapter, and then with the entire work as a whole.
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/245643-a-friendly-voidling/chapter/247521/?cid=639570
I hope that this will allow you to overcome your fear of writing dark and difficult moments, and on the other hand, you will be able to see how you can turn the events described in the novel.
In general, analyze this piece and become more self-confident.
So.... What's fire then? Darkness seems to be taking all the usual hot passion too.
Fire is still passion. By that I mean stuff like being quick to act rather than stopping to think and having strong and forceful personalities, which does not fit Luna very well. Irvan and Kalroth are examples of characters with a fire affinity, so you can get the idea.
Darkness is more about ambition and chaos (stuff usually associated with the darkness element) and mostly about choice and freedom. So if anything it's taking things from wind, but wind in this setting is different from usual.
Thanks for the chapter.
For imps just do what you want, having them is ok but they not necessary, darks threes are good enough.
Don't forget you can rewrite past chapters.
Thanks for the chapter.
Oh no. Luna might have just started an internal war between imps and the other trees. And the imps will start demanding for rights. And before you know it, it'll be a full blown war between imps and elves.
"Then imagine that one day, it became impossible for you to do either of those things, and the only way for you to do them again is to travel to a distant city. But the trip is dangerous, and you're just as likely to die as you're to make it there. Would you make the trip? Or would you settle for another lifestyle that you do not enjoy as much?"
Since the elder has such an opinion, I think he'll stay in the forest, regardless of the imps. And for Luna to travel to the next town isn't that hard. What's harder for her is actually staying out of trouble.
I honestly don't think you needed the imps spreading dark trees for Luna to have gotten in conflict with the elves. Her just showing up in the village will already start a riot given everything we've heard about them so far, and just her presence alone is enough for mass tree changing.
The imps suddenly doing this (and then starting to eat the other elemental trees...) just feels....meh. It's one thing for them to be utterly useless for Luna, it's another for them to be actively detrimental to her and it goes past "useless but amusing" to "....yeah, I wish these things had never existed". It's honestly just not fun to read stuff like that where you actively conspire to have Luna get the worst possible outcome despite it being blatantly insane and illogical for it to happen that way.
She's already causing trees to change just by being there and it will spread, and her presence alone will spur other elves to leave the stasis lifestyle causing more dark elves to be born/changed into and the dark trees to spread more anyways, ending the enforced stasis. The imps doing this crap just pushes it into "And now they'll be even more convinced she's the devil!" despite them already thinking that and being completely unneeded
Eh? That gives me an idea. Since they're just imps, Luna can summon her own and have them fight. If Luna's regeneration can keep up, her army of imps will overwhelm the forest imps. Except with their intelligence, they might just kill each other instead.
@Xyll-246 Given how this story works and the author's habit of making everything have the worst possible outcome for Luna, I'm 99% sure that if Luna did that it would simply escalate the problem and have the imps double in population and still not be under her control, just rampaging even more, or something absurd like that. Probably would have something like whatever spell she casts to summon imps would keep going on its own even if she tried to stop it or forcibly end the spell
Thanks for the chapter.