The portal
Finrod was put off by his dirty clothes. He sniffed them lightly and frowned his face in disgust. Unfortunately, he had only one outfit and he couldn't have it wet otherwise into the lake it would have gone with some hard scrubbing.
He looked at Elessar who was curiously eying him. The brown-skinned Terian had her eyes on him like she hadn't seen a naked elf before and for the first time since going naked, he felt ashamed and quickly donned his outfit.
After he was done putting on his black outfit and smelly boots, Elessar stood up and dusted her body, and she was ready to escort him to her village.
Finrod equipped his bow and struggled to decide what to do with his free arrows. He finally decided to keep the two arrows in his hand. He had his steel sword in his sheath and a knife in his pocket, he was rather low on weapons but this was the best and safest he had felt since the beginning of the invasion.
He went with Elessar down a path that led in between rows of trees, by the first few trees, brown threadlike outgrowths on the soil were by the foot of the trees up to their stems.
[Fungal growths]
He spotted some brown mushrooms overhead on branches. He squinted his eyes in observation and a strange coldness ran through his body. He reflexively stumbled backwards, his eyes still on the pack of brown mushrooms.
"What's wrong?" Elessar asked noticing his strange reaction, Pouka also was curious as he switched between looking at the tree and the elf.
The brown mushroom had a red glow in it that grew and dimmed at intervals, it was like it was nursing a thing in it.
"Is that thing alive?" He asked, pointing at the mushrooms.
"I do not know. I have never thought that much about them and they're unmoving so most likely not." She answered casually, totally oblivious to Finrod's observation.
She left the worried elf and went down the path. It was hard to beat away the worry but Finrod chose to ignore the eldritch fungal growths and moved on.
The light from the suns lessened as they walked into the trees, it was like dusk and yet Finrod could see his surroundings much more than he ought to.
'Is this an ability of the system? I suppose not.'
Suddenly, Elessar stopped and looked up to the branches overhead. She crouched and then leaped safely landing on a branch.
"Come." She said, also making a hand gesture.
Pouka leaped on a tree branch as well and surprisingly it held up the large beast's weight.
Finrod lacked in the strength department to make such a jump and he didn't sense any mana from Elessar which meant she did the jump without a reinforcement of any kind. He felt envious of her stats at that moment.
'level 19 huh'
Finrod's white glabella creased as he focused on channelling the energy stored within him, it was a euphoric feeling and yet it was exhausting. He felt it reach his legs and he went up, he jumped and landed perfectly on a branch of the same massive tree that Pouka and she stood on.
"Keep up."
She jumped into the leaves, rattling them as she moved on and on. Finrod followed, he jumped on the highest branch and went in her direction, he couldn't see her but he could hear the leaves and her giggles.
He took a blind jump forward hoping to land on a branch since leaves blocked his view and luckily, he landed on one.
He turned to the side and saw the Graimpuf cautiously looking at him like a caretaker.
Finrod ran down the large branch and once he was close to the end, he leaped, breaking through walls of leaves.
"Wooo wooo!" He cried as he spotted a portal just below while he was still in the air afraid of the possibility of stepping into the demon's world.
Luckily, he didn't reach it and he landed on the next large tree branch executing a roll.
He got up eying the portal.
'This one is different."
And true to his thoughts, it was. He looked around for Elessar but he couldn't see her.
The usual ones were like a crack in space and they were either a bloody red or a warbling purple and white. The one that stood in front of him was neither.
It was mostly a light green and it had splotches of white and it….
"It smells!"
True to his observation, the portal exuded a mild green fragrance.
"It doesn't seem like a portal that would release monsters, I wouldn't be surprised to meet pixies at the other end."
Then, there was a thump from behind, Finrod turned and saw that it was the black beast– the Graimpuf Pouka.
"Do you think she went in there?"
The beast only gave Finrod a cold stare as it walked forward and walked past him into the orb.
It stretched its back backwards and then hopped in. The man-sized portal swallowed the beast with no trouble.
"Looks like it"
He turned back seeing nothing but leaves around him and an unclear image of the dark sky above.
"Mother, Father. I pray that you are both resting peacefully, I'm about to venture into worlds beyond my own. I pray and hope you watch over me." He mumbled with closed eyes and turned back at the portal.
And then, he jumped in.