Hiroka stared at Elise for a few moments before speaking:

“Are you really as young as you look?” She asked “My nose says you are, and scent is much harder to fake than appearance… But you really don’t talk or act like a child.”

“I am currently nine years old. I just had a pretty unusual upbringing.” Elise nodded and replied.

“Somehow I feel like that’s an understatement.” Hiroka replied “Okay, I’ll send the message.”

Following that, the foxgirl took out a small white stone, whispered quietly into it and then carefully buried it into the earth, right next to one of the tree’s roots. There were no visible effects, but Nalia felt a pulse of magic and closed her eyes in thought.

A few seconds later, she spoke:

“It’s a form of message magic that carries information through the earth, using connected pairs of those stones as communication devices.” Was her conclusion “It’s not super fast, but it should be more than enough for sending messages within this forest. They should be pretty difficult to intercept too, pretty good for secret communications.”

Hiroka froze for a moment before sighing.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly right. That’s a technique developed by the Esla mole tribe. It isn’t really a secret, so you finding out about it isn’t really a problem, but it was still a surprise that you figured everything out so fast.” Hiroka said.

“I’m pretty interested in magic.” Nalia understated.

The foxgirl shook her head in slight bemusement before digging the stone back out now that the message had been sent.

Of course, even though the message would arrive at its destination quickly, it would take some time for a decision to be reached regarding it, and for another message to be sent back, so things got slightly awkward at that point. Hiroka was still slightly wary of the duo, so it was difficult for her to try and make conversation now that the important talk was over.

On the other hand, Elise didn’t really want to push her, considering that the negotiations were at a pretty critical stage and wasn’t sure about how to start a conversation in a way that wouldn’t make her warier.

Thankfully, Nalia was there to pick up the slack “Do you know about the Birthplace, or I guess you would call it Forest of Dawn?” She asked Hiroka.

“Only in very general terms. It’s a forest inhabited by a fairy tribe, isn’t it? I guess you came from there?” She replied.

“Yeah. I guess it’s far enough there’s no regular contact between here and there, even though we’re technically on the same region.” Nalia admitted “So there’s no reason to know more about it than that.”

“And you didn’t even know that the Forest of Theremis existed until I brought it up.” Elise teased.

“I was never very interested in geography.” Nalia replied with only slight embarrassment.

That broke the ice, so Elise explained that she didn’t know where exactly she’d been born, but she had spent most of her life in the White Star Mountain Range. That didn’t draw any attention because the common name for it was different. None of Elise’s sisters cared enough to correct people about the real name of that place.

Also, in her conversations with the others on the merchant caravan, Elise had figured out she wasn’t in the same continent, since the abode of the Transcendents was a mountain range located in the center of its continent, while the one she was in had mostly flatlands at its center.

Instead, Hiroka asked about why she didn’t know her own birthplace. Elise explained that her mother had passed away while she was a baby, and that happened shortly after she entrusted Elise to the ones who raised her, having only managed to tell them the baby’s name.

The conversation might have continued from there, but a quiet humming noise suddenly started coming from Hiroka’s stone. The response had arrived.

She took it out and pressed her finger onto three different spots, then the message started playing. The sentences were quite technical and official sounding, the type of language one would use on important documents to make sure there would be no ambiguity as to the meaning, but the gist of it was such:

They were interested in her offer, but were unwilling to allow a stranger to have knowledge of or access to their bases, so she would have to accept only having contact with them via intermediaries.

“That’s perfectly reasonable.” Was Elise’s comment after hearing the message “And I actually have a suggestion.”

“What’s your suggestion?” Hiroka asked.

“How about I capture one of those Strangers and hand them off to be delivered to our employers?” She looked at the woman “Either you or some other member would have to come with us to help identify our target, but I think that would be a good deal.”

Hiroka stared at her for a moment “So you’ll just casually capture of those people, huh…” She spoke in a tired voice.

Hearing that made the foxkin certain of what she had already suspected. She was way out of her depth.

“It isn’t going to be casual, but we should be able to do it.” Elise spoke with absolute confidence.

There wasn’t much more to say after that. Hiroka sent the message, and also added that she was willing to volunteer for being the contact. She simply wasn’t able to contain her own curiosity in regards to the strange duo.

+0+

“If you don’t mind me asking, how exactly do you plan to find one of those people?” Hiroka asked while they were waiting for the reply.

“Well, since I’m sure there’s some people among the tribes that are pretty good at magic, one of the Strangers would definitely have already been captured by now if searching via spells was enough.” Elise began her explanation.

“Yeah. If the mages of forest can’t find them even with a home field advantage, then those people must have some pretty good counter-measures against magical methods.” Nalia agreed.

“Which would be expected of secretive groups like that. And they would obviously have prepared counter-measures against normal tracking efforts, given that they wanted to conceal themselves from the beastkin inside their own forest.” Elise continued.

“Yeah. We wouldn’t be having this much trouble otherwise.” Hiroka spoke with a frown.

“So we’ll have to use an unusual method, one which would be very unlikely for them to have counter-measures for.” Elise finally got to the point “We will ask the forest itself.”

“Y-you mean to commune with the forest?” Hiroka asked in a tone of complete disbelief.

Even after everything she had heard from Elise, that was still completely ridiculous.

“No way.” She immediately declared “An actual full communion would have very large and very obvious effects, and it would be impossible to predict how everyone else in the forest would react, specially during such a tense time.” She shook her head “That would be way too irresponsible.”

Firmly deciding she was not going to think about the implication that Elise could actually do a full communion with the forest, Hiroka instead asked:

“Then what exactly are you going to do?”

“I’m going to use myself as a medium to allow Nalia to cast a spell that will draw information from the forest’s… ‘Memory’, you could say.” The girl replied with a smile.

“I have no idea what that means… But I hope it works.” Hiroka spoke tiredly.

She seemed almost relieved when the message they had been waiting for arrived right afterwards. The reply said that they were fine with Elise’s idea, but also that Hiroka herself would need an intermediary to deliver the promised prisoner through.

“Probably just in case I have been compromised in some way.” Hiroka said. She sounded blase about it.

“They’re being really careful.” Elise approved.

Everything being set, Elise said that they should go to another place which would work better for their plans and so the group set off.

‘Hiroka was really overwhelmed back there.’ Nalia said to Elise through the contract bond ‘You didn’t act like this with the people of the caravan, or the people of my village, for that matter.’

‘That’s because I have common sense.’ The girl answered the unspoken question. She sounded inordinately proud of herself ‘I’m doing this to make sure she takes us seriously, like I mentioned before. There was no reason for me to do the same while in the caravan.

‘After I prove myself with actual results that sort of thing won’t be necessary anymore, so I’ll treat her normally… Even though the way she reacts is pretty funny.’ Elise concluded.

‘I guess that makes sense.’ Nalia replied.

Thankfully enough, there was a place relatively nearby that Elise found to be suitable for their attempt, so the trio didn’t have to walk very far. Her Soul-Speak allowed for a vague sense of the forest’s ‘voice’, which was enough for her to tell which spots were more deeply interlinked with the forest as a whole.

And thus which spots would be best for their plan. The girl pointed to a short but very thick tree with bark colored a deep brown. Nalia landed on her shoulder as she walked up to it before crouching down and touching the ground with one hand. Then she focused.

One very crucial thing she had heard from her sisters was that out of all the abilities a contractor could have, the most powerful by far was their skill in making connections with others. Making a contract was creating a connection, and that meant opening their hearts to the other party to at least some extent.

And the action of opening one’s heart and creating connections could do much more than just that. The reason why Elise had been able to protect Nalia from the mental attacks of that abomination was simply due to the connection it created, the mental connection that allowed it to talk directly within Elise’s mind. Since she had already learned how to make a contract, Elise could use the same skills to draw those attacks towards herself by exploiting said connection.

In this moment, Elise was also utilizing the power of connection, only instead of making a connection, she was turning herself into one, acting as a bridge so that Nalia’s magic would be able to interact with the forest itself. Though perhaps it would be easier to think of it like Nalia handing a ball to Elise for her to throw it at someone else the fairy couldn’t reach herself. That wasn’t truly a connection, but if she wanted, Elise would indeed be able to connect with the forest in truth, which was what would would be called a Communion.

In the simplest of terms, communion was the act of establishing a connection with some sort of higher entity. Such a connection was not easy to make, generally speaking. One of the reasons for that was the requirement of opening one’s heart to the other party, as making an unequal connection required opening the heart to a much greater degree than normal.

It was hard to do such a thing. The fear and awe one would feel towards a greater being became a barrier that separated the two and made it harder to connect. However, that was something that could be overcome with enough effort. It was the second reason that truly made it so incredibly difficult. Said reason was that to create a connection, there had to be an understanding.

Just like it was impossible to truly become friends with someone without understanding them to a certain degree, creating a deep enough connection with a higher being required a certain level of understanding of them, while they were far beyond the scope of most people who would try to commune with them.

Elise wasn’t most people.

‘Hey.’ She spoke towards the forest. Like she was simply trying to get the attention of another person.

She didn’t hold any sort of fear or awe for the forest, given that her older sisters were so far beyond it there was no possible comparison. And she understood the fragmented yet whole nature of it for her sisters had taught her quite a lot about the way the world worked.

The forest as a whole still had much more power than Elise herself, but for her that interaction felt pretty much like asking a bigger person for a favor.

In response to Elise’s greeting, the forest did the equivalent of glancing at her.

“Compile!” Nalia declared, casting her spell.

Like what Elise had implied, the forest did not have ‘memory’ as such, since it was not a fully self-aware entity. However, everything one did left behind a mark in the world. Those marks were difficult to distinguish individually, but if one could take in a large amount of them at once, it became possible to form a general picture of events.

And the marks would generally fade away relatively fast, but living beings would carry it for longer, so the large, interconnected Forest of Theremis was able to retain quite a bit.

The fairy gathered all of that information and sifted through it looking for anything that felt different. The Strangers had come recently and their actions had brought chaos to the forest, so Nalia looked at the general picture and searched for a significant deviation.

Her spell was half-instinct. Elise had told her about those marks while they were still traveling through their original forest, but simply as a general curiosity, so they didn’t have any reason to develop a spell that could interact with them. As such, Nalia had to take advantage of being a fairy of a tribe that was particularly close to nature and forests in order to successfully collect and analyze that information.

It was enough. The fairy spotted the inconsistency and gathered all the information related to it, and as such, all the information she could get about the Strangers.

Nalia started breathing hard, and suddenly realized that she was now lying on Elise’s hand, and the girl had brought it up to eye level.

“How long…” She took another breath “How long did that take?” She asked.

“A bit over half an hour.” Elise replied “Good job.”

She had never doubted Nalia would succeed. Meanwhile, Hiroka had sat down next to another tree nearby in order to wait, so she quickly got up and walked towards them.

“So it worked?” She sounded like she still had no idea what was going on.

“Yeah.” Nalia replied before manifesting a small pyramidal prism above her hand. That was the information she had gathered, stored into a spell.

“This is the general impression the forest has of the Strangers.” Elise began to explain “We wouldn’t be able to find a specific person with this, but searching for members of their group in general is possible.”

“So this is…” Hiroka realized the implication.

“Now we can find traces that those people leave behind. And they have no idea such traces even exist, so they have no way to hide now.” Nalia said “And I believe there’s one of them quite close by… to the northwest.”

“Then we should go there and do our job.” Elise said with a smile.