"What about it?"
Lady Farren opened her mouth, about to say something, when a thunderous, crashing sound echoed throughout the entire Municipal Hall Tree, creating tangible reverberations in the ground.
She turned towards the source of the sound, a concerned and worried expression written all over her face. The words that were building in her mouth were quickly replaced by silence.
With trepidation in her steps, Lady Farren turned towards the Vine Elevator and grabbed onto one with both her hands, before letting herself fall back to the ground floor.
Michael, curious about the whole situation, decided to follow her down as well. Whatever crashed must have been something hefty and massive in size if it could produce those kinds of reverberations.
Lady Farren landed squarely on her feet, with Michael arriving just a few moments later.
They saw the reception area of the hall filled with tumultuous murmurs as the Elves scurried to find the source of the crash. They crowded around the double doorways, making it hard for anyone else to get out.
"What happened?" Lady Farren asked the receptionist.
"We don't know, milady. But it seemed to have come from the Monuments," she replied.
Lady Farren walked briskly to the door, jostling her way through the thick mob of Elves crowding the exitway. It was only when the others realized her identity did they finally make way for her and Michael to go through.
They both exited the Municipal Hall, overseeing a vista of the Elven village in its entirety.
Michael saw a crowd of Elves on the bridges between the houses, looking down at a specific direction with grimaces and wry expressions on their faces.
Down below, Elven guards wearing leafy cuirasses had their bows and arrows at the ready as they rushed through to the source of the sound. They skillfully jumped, hopped, and skipped through the miniature hills brought about by the protruding roots of the gargantuan acacia trees, and reached their destination at a brisk pace.
Michael followed them with his eyes, his gaze eventually landing on the center of the Elven village, where a large, ornate, and ethereal garden was located.
This garden was circular in nature, with flowery shrubs and foliages serving as the walls and edges of the entire collection of greenergy inside.
Most of the plants and flowers growing in this garden were foreign to the Royal Continent. They moved with alien motions and glowed unnaturally compared to the rest of the vegetation here in New Sparta.
But strangely enough, even standing on the elevated root stairs of the Municipal Hall, he couldn't see the entirety of the garden itself. He had to get his Drone to move closer for him to actually see it in its entirety.
This was weird because gardens were meant to be flaunted. It was supposed to ostentatiously show the rich culture and history of a specific place. Why would they spend lavish amounts of effort and resources just to keep it away from view?
This garden was closed off, like a castle guarding a royal or a monarch.
It's not a garden… it's a monument, he realized.
This was more evident from the fact that he saw a menagerie of stone statues peeking out from the shrub bulwark of the 'garden'. It's not a garden… it's a monument, he realized.
This was more evident from the fact that he saw a menagerie of stone statues peeking out from the shrub bulwark of the 'garden'. He would have thought that these statues were meant to commemorate an Elven hero from their history, but there were too many of them to count. There must have been more than a hundred of them erected in this lavish, closed-off garden.
And even though he could only see the statues up to their shoulders, he was pretty sure that they weren't even Elves at all. They lacked their distinct up-turned noses, their sharp eyes, and most of all, their pointy ears.
These statues were of an entirely different ethnicity!
…
…
…
"Lady Farren, please come inside."
She and Michael finally arrived in the Monuments after following the guards. They entered through a gated arc, which was currently being guarded by multiple Elven warriors.
Once inside, Michael's nose was assaulted with the fragrance of flowers harmoniously emitting their natural scents and aromas.
With the vibrant, lush, and blooming flora around, it would have been a perfect, heavenly experience…if not for the giant statue laying shattered on the ground, crushing a patch of vermillion flowers underneath it.
So that's where that crashing sound came from.
"Those damned troublemakers," Lady Farren hissed. "They even dare to touch our ancestors."
The statue itself was scrupulously made, with details of its Elven-style tunic clothes perfectly capturing reality. Too bad that its head was crushed and its body shattered into different pieces, or else it would have been one of the seven wonders of the world. The only thing left standing on the marble pedestal was a stump where its ankles would have been.
"Has anyone seen the people responsible?" Lady Farren asked.
"Unfortunately not, milady. We didn't think they'd be attacking us in our own village so we focused all our forces on the outskirts of the forest. I take full responsibility," said one of the Elven guards.
Lady Farren then turned to Michael. "This is the reason why I couldn't meet with you earlier. These vandals have been terrorizing our village lately, giving me a massive headache."
"Vandals?"
She nodded. "It started with small pranks, like writing vulgar words on the tree barks. It was annoying, but nothing truly serious.
But lately, it's been becoming more and more of a nuisance. They're not just limiting their attacks on the outskirts of the forest, but inside our village itself.
Now, it has escalated to the point where even our ancestors are getting caught up in the tail end of these harassments. It's why I had to cut my journey short. These no-good sinners had to be stopped."
The fact that even after she employed all of her forces to catch those scoundrels and still wasn't able to stop them stressed her to her wits end.
"If you see any hooded figures, tell me immediately," Farren warned Michael.