Iro and Beo were just a few miles away from Urû'baen when Fa-Lin's scale token started burning from its position on Iro's arm. Iro hissed in pain and he felt Beo's mind touch his in concern.
What could it mean? Beo wondered. Iro was at a lost for words. This had never happened before and he was both afraid and excited about what it might mean.
"Let's not worry about it right now," Iro said, "We have to get to E'egroth as quickly as possible."
But what will our goal be? Beo asked. Do we intend to find the Dark Elves or seek the power? I notice that you failed to mention that you can only ask a single boon from the El-Dars. If the Dark Elves are all gone, you will have wasted your opportunity to gain the power to defeat the Wraiths because there will not be another Dark Elf to ask for the power.
"I know!" Iro growled. "But this is my only chance! There are other places in the city where the two of us can gain enough power to seek and destroy the Wraith Monarchs."
But not enough to help the other races in the coming war, Beo said. It wasn't a question since they both knew the answer.
"No..." Iro answered after a moment of silence. "If this is for nothing and there are no more Dark Eles to ask for the power, then there will be nothing anyone one can do to save them. Alagaësia will die and become part of the hive."
And what of us?
"We will scour the world for power until we have enough to end the Wraiths once and for all. No matter the cost."
*******
They continued the journey in silence. Resting during the day and covering more distance at night that they possibly could during the light hours. Iro even performed a large piece of magic to create a violent storm that would buffet Beo, who lent his strength to the spell, through the sky towards their destination.
I see it, Beo announced at the end of the week. Iro sat up eagerly in the saddle, stretching out his cramped muscles. He looked down and saw the outer wall. The city of E'egroth was built underground in an enormous cavern that could be accessed by a huge chasm at the base of a tree twice the size of the Menoa Tree in Ellesméra.
The chasm was ringed by a thirty-foot wall made of petrified wood. Battlements and towers lined the top while various obstacles rested at the foot of the wall. Quicksand, poisonous thorns and brambles, geysers that spewed scalding water, and misshaped beasts that prowled the perimeter.
But the wall was in ruins. Topers were toppled to create makeshift bridges across the quicksand. The thorns and brambles had been cut through. The geysers had been plugged up with boulders. And all that remained of the beasts were bones that stuck out of the mud. Iro seethed with rage. Other than the dead beasts, the destruction was recent.
Wraiths must have returned to seek out survivors once word of you had spread, Beo growled, as equally angry as Iro. That Heart Wraith in Ellesméra must have sent news back to his raiding party.
They flew down to landed on the edge of the chasm. And that's when the trees started to move.

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Inheritance Fanfic - The Precursor Elf
FanfictionIro is a Precursor Elf, a race that has long slept under the earth of Alagaësia. But when he wakes up, lost in the forests of Du Weldenvarden, he finds that he has been asleep of thousands of years. Just in time for the enemy of his people to return...