91 Elven treasure

After being somewhat reassured that we wouldn't be met with another crazy plant, I took a look around.

'Seems kind of empty here.'

Tenten let out a bone-shaking caw that was answered by an assortment of weaker caws. The gently flapping of wings could be heard and a swarm of miniature Tenten's entered the tree hole.

"They are usually out guarding the caverns or spending time with their tamers. Only Tenten can get them to convene like this. All of them can potentially mature and become an ancient tenebrous owl but only under the right conditions."

As he said that, Night Owl walked to the center of the tree hole and took a dark sphere out of his pocket. Tendrils of darkness emerged from the sphere and attracted the gazes of all the owls in the room.

'What will you do now?'

"I'll use the dark origin to help support my domain. That way I should be able to keep going for a thousand years."

'You intend to spend the next one thousand years in this tree hole? You'll go insane!'

"A small price to pay if it brings back the ancient tenebrous owls."

'There is another way. With my help and a few of your treasures, I can build a formation that keeps up an area of effect filled with the core element.'

"Why do you need treasures? Are they your payment?"

'No, they will be the pillars of the formation. Without them, such an enormous amount of power couldn't be contained within the formation lines. As for my reward, since you will be free to move around, I will have an ally on the level of a chosen one.'

"That sounds a little too good to be true."

'But it is true.'

"I'll bring you to our treasury. I really hope this works."

Another five minutes of flying through the dim caverns and we arrived in the treasury of the dark elves. To my great surprise, all the rooms here were well lit, too bright even.

'I thought you dark elves dislike this kind of brightness?'

Looking over to Night Owl I noticed him wearing a black cloth tied over his eyes. Evidently, this was too bright for him.

"It's a defensive measure we adopted after years of experimenting. Enemies who can see in the dark will be extremely weakened in the light and stand no chance against the guards here. Enemies who can see in the light will have an easy time here but when they go back into the caverns they will be wiped out by the guards there."

'What if the enemy can do both or has two teams?'

"No strategy is foolproof or infallible but this path has helped us successfully defend our treasury until this day."

After walking through a couple of chambers filled with gold, jewelry, and crystals we arrived in front of another door. It didn't particularly stand out but gave me a sense of danger.

"It's made from the spine of a giant, ancient tenebrous owl. Should anyone without a contract with an ancient tenebrous owl attempt to open the door, he would be attacked by the owl's remnant spirit and torn apart."

A mental attack from a beast that had lived long enough to grow to the size that a part of its spine could be made into a seamless door. That was one nasty trap. After all, who would expect such a simple door to pack such a punch?

Night Owl pushed open the door and I entered behind him. The whole room was ordinary, crudely hewn from the stone, albeit quite large. 81 pedestals filled the room.

Each pedestal was made of bone and white as ivory. Atop them were colorful spheres that probably contained the treasures of the dark elves.

'Let me guess, every pedestal is made from another spine and can only be touched by those with a corresponding contract.'

"Indeed. However, as an additional measure of safety, the spheres contain the soul of the contractor of the owl that this bone came from. Only if they think of you as worthy enough will they allow you to take the object inside the sphere."

'What rank were they at?'

"The outer ones, king level, further in chosen ones and all the way in the middle, demigod level."

'Demigods! Are there any gods?'

"No, we aren't even sure they exist. What reason would a god have to stay here? They are all-powerful being after all."

'They would just be worldly gods, worth nothing in the eyes of those beyond the worlds. But what happened to this world? There are so many vestiges of powerhouses around here but now they all disappeared.'

"We don't have many documents of that time and most of them say different things happened but all agree that an enemy force invaded the world."

'That sounds rather unsettling... How about we just return to the matter at hand. I'll need four treasures to keep the formation stable.'

"Four! Isn't that a little much? You have to know that the ancestors' souls are a little stingy when it comes to giving treasures away. They prefer to receive rather than give. Preservation and such."

I just approached one of the outer pedestals and produced an enlightenment fruit of lightning.

'Wanna trade, four treasures for this fruit sound like a good deal.'

A hissing sound echoed through the room. Dark tendrils emerged from one of the spheres and began to wildly gesticulate in wavy but erratic movements.

"They are saying that they will at most exchange for two treasures."

'What if I add in the blueprint for the formation I'm going to lay. The formation can be used for both offense and defense as well so if you built another in here the treasure you have would be much safer.'

More hissing and waving of dark tendrils followed. Multiple spheres seemed to be communicating with each other. The hissing grew louder with every second and was soon joined by guttural growls and caws from the pedestal they sat upon.

Then a sharp whistle interrupted the commotion. The whistle had been accompanied by an ice-cold intent that made me shudder. All the waving tendrils vanished.