I instantly knew I was somewhere else. It was like stepping off a plane into a different country. The air was different, the smells were different, the sun was a different colour. The only thing that was the same was the white-knuckled grip I had on Artemis and Autumn’s hands.
My knees buckled and gave out, and I crashed down to one knee, my hand slipping from Autumn’s and landing on the soft, mossy forest floor/sinking into the brackish swamp water, a small puff of powder dusting my face/filthy water splattering my cheek.
I quickly looked up and twisted my head around, trying to orient myself to where I was, and assess any threats. It was nearly impossible.
I slowed down, and tried to figure out what I was seeing, my mind screaming as it tried to process the deluge of information, my dulled senses entirely overwhelmed by the double - triple? - load they were under.
I tuned out everyone else’s words, trying to focus, trying to figure out why everything was so heavy, why I was so slow.
Ok. Mental reset. Time to figure things out one at a time.
We were in a forest/swamp. It wasn’t a marshy forest, no. There was the forest, bright and green. There was the swamp, drab and dark. Two layers of existence overlapping into one, giving me a migraine.
Verdant trees brimming with life surrounded us/Dead trees had gnarly, twisted branches, reaching for us/Thieving hands in the corner of my eye flashed out.
The trees were a riot of colours, impossible fruits surrounded by clusters of brightly coloured flowers/The trees were drab, weeping moss hanging off in clumps, fat lumps of flesh ready to explode their spores.
Songbirds sang sweetly, their songs yellow and red in my vision, smelling of crisp ocean breeze/Vultures shrieked as they circled, their songs tasting of rot and the open grave.
A warm summer breeze gently caressed my face/A hot, damp, muggy atmosphere smothered my body.
Round and round it went, my head screaming as it tried to process it all. Artemis was sick, throwing up a small bush. Autumn closed her eyes and held herself, shivering.
Round and round and round and round and round and round and round it went, until I managed to get a grip.
“Urggggggh.” I moaned, trying to stand up and not managing it. Artemis and Autumn weren’t in much better shape, but Auri?
“Brrrpt!” She cried at me, flying around me. “Brrpt brrrpt BRRRPT!”
It took a moment to process what she was saying. It was so weird that her sound was only sound and didn’t cause flashes of light to play over my vision.
Everything just looked like a nice, happy forest to Auri. I had to guess it was the four leaf clovers. Was our intel wrong, or did Auri not see the hidden dangers around every leaf? Not realise that the tasty fruit was also a rotting eyeball?
“Auri. Dangerous. Do. Not. Touch. Anything.” I said, trying to be serious while my breakfast tried to escape out the wrong pipe.
“Brrrpt!” Auri understood the seriousness of the situation. I’d also made it clear that she needed to listen to me on this mission.
Benefits to the clover. Downsides to the clover. I briefly debated ripping it off, but chose not to. As difficult as it was to see and understand everything, there wasn’t safety in ignorance.
“Elaine.” Artemis croaked after a moment. “No System.”
I immediately grasped what Artemis was saying, and tried to pull my System up.
Nothing.
I quickly flickered through all my skills, just feeling a blank nothing where there was usually magic.
We were entirely mundane. Human, without a single augmentation to our names.
“Shit. Also hello Lightning Reaper.”
Artemis shook her head, grasping what I said. I also realised I’d messed up calling Auri’s name before. Hopefully that didn’t count as giving the fae her name. After all, it wasn’t her full name. I’d given her a doozy of a full name, and I doubted a partial counted.
“Right, Dawn, thank you.”
She sounded scared, and I didn’t blame her. I was feeling a mite terrified myself. Half my life I’d been hunted and stalked by predators, the System being the only thing I had to defend myself with. Now it was gone.
“Bag.” I panted out, and Artemis figured out what I wanted. She took the tower shield off my back, and a few other things, lightening my load enough that I could stand with her help.
Autumn was still shivering.
“Take the four leaf clover off of… Spring?” I asked Artemis. She was infinitely more mobile than I was, but right now I was glad for the layers of armour and the weapon I had. Being entirely mundane now, they were our only defenses.
Artemis did, and Autumn slowly stopped shivering, opening her eyes after a few minutes.
“That was awful.” She complained.
“Spring, you don’t have the four leaf clover anymore. System doesn’t seem to work here. Be careful, and listen to us.” I emphasised her new nickname, hoping she’d get the hint.
She nodded her understanding.
“Which way?” I asked, not preferring any direction over any other.
“Let’s follow the sun?” Artemis suggested.
I glanced up at the sun/watching eye, and shivered.
“Why not.” I agreed, lacking any better plan.
We walked and we walked, in total silence. For how long, I couldn’t say. The forest/swamp seemed endless, only the occasional small rabbit/frog hopping along. The occasional laugh/giggle echoed to us, but the only traces of people or fae I saw were the occasional flash out of the corner of my eye, which had me twisting and turning in confusion. Trying to catch whoever did it. Whatever did it.
That just caused more of the scratching-nail laugh/giggle that tasted of cranberries. The sun/watching eye slowly rose as we followed it, and we paused when it was high above us in the sky.
“I’m not hungry at all.” I slowly observed. We’d been going for hours at least.
“Same here!” Autumn agreed.
“I’m not even tired.” Artemis stretched her arms out.
“Let’s take a short break?” Autumn suggested.
I frowned. On one hand, I didn’t want to pause. On the other, we had no direction to go before the sun/eye moved.
“Ok.” I agreed. “But don’t sit there.” I pointed to what was a rock in the forest, but some sort of ugly crab in the swamp.
The moment we sat down, a half-dozen creatures that I could only assume were the fae surrounded us. Each one was tripled and gave me one hell of a headache to look at. They were small pixies with a single flower acting as a crown/murderous redcaps with bright red mushrooms as a hat/noble and elegant elvenoids, except all their limbs were too long and their eyes were too large, like a bug’s. Upon their heads there were crowns. A crown of gold, shining in the bright noon light. A crown of thorns, bleeding the fae. A crown of vines, a crown of a hangman’s noose, a crown of gems. A crown of berries.
And the weapons they had! . Regal, awe-inspiring, beautiful... Cruel and terrible things that hurt my eyes to see, that sent vicious spikes into my brain simply for thinking of them.
They were eating berries/eyeballs/pastries. They laughed and they joked without words. I simply knew they were funny. It sent cold shivers down my spine.
I had been right.
Fighting was entirely out of the question.
“A jolly good day to you all.” I carefully greeted them, following the rules the best I could. No bargain, no gifts, I was being polite. We had violated their rings, but the goal had been to get here. We had to break one of the rules. Well, Artemis had decided we needed to break two.
“A mortal!” Goldy exclaimed. His/her voice was that of summer. Growing fields under a warm sun, a time to play and jump. Swimming and sandcastles, festivals and midsummer night’s dreams, war and marriage. The season of growth and creation, of becoming more, their words echoed yellow and gold in my mind.
I was convinced. Last year I’d heard the fae, but the court of fall, not summer.
“A trio of pretty mortals for us to play with!” Noose chimed in, sniffing Artemis. I locked eyes with her, trying to transmit one of the rules through sheer mindpower.
Give no insult. Sniffing might be a common form of address here, the polite thing to do. Or they were screwing with us.
My bet was on the second one. The fae had an infamous sense of humour.
“Mortals, mortals, three mortals for us~” Berries sang on. Berries, Gems, and Thorns all held hands together and danced around the entire glade, encircling us with horrifically long limbs that just stretched and stretched and stretched.
“Mortals at highest noon!” Thorn called out.
“Mortals on the longest day!” Gems agreed.
What I saw in Artemis’s eyes surprised me.
Fear.
She had no defences. Nothing against the fae, except a crown of holly tucked in her bag. And they were merrily singing and dancing, and I knew she could see the way Vines was eagerly sucking on an eyeball. There was no way it was a coincidence that it looked exactly like hers.
“Brrrpt!”
“Shoo stinky bird!” Berries hissed at Auri. “You are no mortal!”
I wondered: if I had used [The Stars Never Fade] on myself, would I no longer classify as mortal? Would it have given me an edge?
Not wanting to let the fae simply do what they wanted, I took initiative.
“Is there a preferred form of address for you, fairest of the folk?”
“Names! She wants names!” Gems cried out.
“I want your name! Give me your name! Then it’s a deal! A name for a name!” Goldy got in my face, stabbing her trident/spear/finger into my chest. Vines loomed up next to her.
Auri landed on my helmet, puffing her chest up. I noted that she was still merrily burning away, her lack of a System not hampering her too much.
I stilled, trying to think of a way out. I didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want to accept the bargain. I didn’t want to tell her my name. “You may call me Dawn, and have the knowledge free.” I carefully said. No bargain, as tricky as Goldy had phrased his words.
“Booo! BOOOOOOO!” Vines cried out, flying around me. “This one’s tricky! Tricky! Tell me a secret! I must know! I must!”
To my horror I saw Autumn shaking hands with Thorns and Gems.
She’d totally made a few deals with them already. Somehow.
We were so fucked.
No offence. No gifts.
How could I give no offence, no gifts, and no deals? Everything felt like a trap.
I leaned forward and cupped my hands as though I was imparting the biggest, baddest secret in the world. “I’m not from this world.” I whispered into her ear.
“That’s not a secret!” She protested. “No mortal is from here!”
I straightened up and put my hands on my hips. “I’m not from that world either!”
Goldy gave a dramatic gasp.
“Gasp. GASP!” She said.
Don’t give the weird fairy weird looks. Even though she’s earned it.
Autumn took a few steps over.
“I made a deal with them.” She stated, half-cringing at me.
“I know.” I sighed at her.
“A bargain! A deal! And what a deal it was!” Vines agreed. The rest of the fae huddled up, whispering loudly at each other.
“Whisper whisper WHISPER whisper.”
I honestly didn’t know why they did that.
Autumn straightened up.
“They’ll take us to Julius.”
Ok. That, I hadn’t expected, but Autumn had pulled through.
“What did it cost?”
“This and that and morning dew, a shard of my soul, and a string of hair.”
I gave her a look, then realised she was serious.
“Your SOUL!?”
“It’s not like I’m using all of it.” She defended herself, and I facepalmed.
Artemis doubled over in hysterical laughter, the combination of shock and horror too much for her. Probably. Artemis was cruelly cold and callous at times, but wouldn’t be laughing at Autumn’s misfortune. I hoped.
“We dance! We go! Nightwards we march, to the great twilight!”
We started to follow our fey guides through the winding, twisting woods/swamp. I swear they were trying to kill us, or get us in trouble. They brushed up against bushes with berries/gnarled creepers with bleeding flesh, and with the casual way they moved hoped we’d do the same.
We journeyed. Time passed, adventures, mischief, and mayhem reigned. The sun slowly set as we travelled. I asked about it.
“Yes. YES! This world makes sense!” One of the fae happily told me, flying around my head/malevolently sneering at me/nobly deigning to impart wisdom. For whatever reason I was getting the manic-pixie version in my ears, but it was all too easy to shift my perspective and hear one of the others. “The sun isn’t all in a tizzy! She knows right where she should be, and stays there! Yes! The moon wanders though. Comes to and fro, depending on her mood. But! We know where she lives! There is Sunwards, and there is Moonwards! Two directions! Two more directions are Stormfront and Calm! Yes! We are near Calm!”
I doubtfully pulled Autumn away from a carpet of leaves/spikefall trap, and decided to shut up and not argue with the fae.
“Thanks.” Autumn said, lost in thought. She got a sudden grin.
“Watch!” She hopped on one foot, wrestling with her sandals. “Can I borrow your knife?”
I handed it over, trusting Autumn with it. She wasn’t a kid.
“Here!” She sliced at her shoe, handing it over to the fae she made a deal with. “A part of my sole.”
The fae clustered around what she was holding, giggling and talking with themselves.
“A soul! A sole! She’s paid with her sole!”
“It’s not fair! It’s trickery! Vile trickery!” The shorted fae complained. The other five maliciously laughed.
“A trick! A trick! A good trick!” They chanted. “We like this one! Let’s trick her next!”
Shrieking and laughing, they dive-bombed around Autumn, pelting her with mushrooms/mushrooms - funny how that worked - pulling at her hair.
Autumn yelled and covered her hair as Artemis and I moved in to shield and protect her. Auri flew over to Autumn’s hair, puffed out her chest and flared her wings.
“Shoo! Shoo! Silly bird shoos!”
“Not mortal! No fun!”
They circled us for a moment more, before one of them crashed into a tree/tripped over a root. The fairies got distracted, tittering and laughing at their clumsy companion.
We carried on.
Memory… slipped away from me. I couldn’t tell you how things happened. We encountered a bear. The bear died.
Were fantastic magics cast? Did the earth shake and the heavens tremble? Did we draw our weapons and charge it, engaging in deadly combat? Were clever traps made, was a poison snare used?
Or did the fey simply gesture in a come-hither motion with a single, too-long finger, and the bear, docile, walked over, letting the fair folk swiftly break its neck in a single motion?
Part of me hoped once I’d returned to Pallos that [Pristine Memories] would kick back in, and I’d remember.
Another part of me was terrified that I might.
A horn blew, calling me. Calling me to hunt, to run wild with baying not-dogs and riding on majestic almost-horses. To hunt some poor fool who’d crossed the fae one time too many, who’d broken the rules.
Five of the fae bounded off in delight, while the sixth stomped around in frustration.
“It’s not fair! Not fair at all! They go and I guide! Humph!” He grabbed his flower/cap/crown and threw it against a bush/rock.
My head hurt.
We travelled, meeting others, hearing the Wild Hunt in full swing. The fact that only one moon was mentioned twinged a memory, a thought, a fleeting idea just out of grasp.
What if we didn’t end up back in Pallos? What if we ended up somewhere else?
The thought sent cold water down my neck. Quite literally, soaked my tunic and everything, and had everything rubbing raw down my back.
I could get hurt again.
I might end up somewhere entirely different.
Autumn seemed to be having fun, but the sheer scale of how badly things could go wrong for us didn’t seem to be taking hold of her. She was armed with teenage invincibility, and I couldn’t deny it - we were better off for it. Artemis and I were hesitant. Careful. Following the rules, to the best of our abilities.
We would’ve never gotten here, guided straight to the festival Julius was supposedly at without Autumn taking the initiative and making bargains and deals.
Did we travel a minute? An hour? A day, a week, a month, a year, a century, a thousand years or more? Impossible to tell. The sun didn’t move, but our guide spoke as summer incarnate the entire time. Less than a season? Were the fae forever trapped as their season? Did they turn?
The weather slowly changed, turning to the lightest of drizzles, or a playful wind. Naturally, rain falling down from the sky would be asking too much of the fae. No, it came from the ground, or the side, or emitted from the trees like sprinklers.
It was usually water.
Usually.
I pretended the sticky, syrupy substance was honey, and didn’t think too hard about it.
We hadn’t seen any of the other seasons, although we did occasionally meet with other fae, Autumn enthusiastically bargaining with them. She wanted to be here. She wanted to be doing this, in spite of our warnings.
I let her. I steered her clear of branches/snakes, but she was her own person. Someone who was successfully getting us through this, somehow.
She did end up with a limp though.
How?
I had no idea. Every time Autumn tried to tell me, the memory slipped, like a fox leaving a henhouse. We’d heal it together once we got out of here.
We made it to where the fae claimed Julius was. A grand festival, a gigantic party. Fairies danced and twirled around the maypole/bounced and flopped around the pyre.
We were at the edge of twilight, the sun just as low in the sky as the moon. The border between light and dark, the changing of days.
Lights floated across the sky, and we were mildly Stormwards. A few flakes of snow got obliterated, turning into a laughing wind fae who twirled, grabbing a bed of fresh green leaves for a dress.
“Your friend! Your friend is here! Go find him!”
I eyed the party, the festival, the sheer rambunctious medley of the fae.
“How do we want to tackle this?” I asked the group.
“Well, we can’t just stay here.” Artemis said. I nodded agreement.
“One of us should though.” Autumn said, and I sensed ulterior motives.
“Why’s that?”
“Because if we all split up and go looking, when we find Julius we’ll also then need to find each other. We should have a touchpoint. It should be me, I have no idea what Julius looks like. I stay here, you three go looking for him.”
I nodded.
“We can regularly come back, use you as a way to get messages to each other. I like it.” Artemis agreed.
“Auri. Can you fly above, and see if you can spot Julius? He’d probably look like a splash of brown haired human. Not sure how many of those there are.”
“Brrrpt…” Auri hunkered down into a little puff of flaming feathers.
“Not up for flying?”
“Brrrpt?”
I missed the connection I had with Auri, the loss of the System having removed that among other things. I still understood her though. We resonated with each other on a deeper, more fundamental level than just the System.
Something had Auri not wanting to fly, or go particularly far from me. It wasn’t clear what though.
“Ok, be my fancy hat for the party?”
“Brrrpt!!”
“Just remember, you can burn me now, and I’m very, very fragile.”
“BrrrRRrrrrrrRPT!” Auri trilled her acknowledgement.
“Just like old times?” Artemis asked me. “You take the left, I take the right?”
I nodded at her. Just like old times indeed, when Artemis had been training me on the fundamentals of how to be a Ranger. Those lessons were still strong, still heavily influenced how I tackled situations, and there was nobody more perfect for this than Artemis.
“Here. You need this. Get used to it.” I handed Autumn back her four-leaf clover. She took it with a grimace.
“I agree, but it’s harder for me to scam the fairies if I have it.”
I did a double-take at that.
“What?”
“Well, they love bespelling a pile of acorns to look like gold. To ‘sucker’ me into trading for them.” Autumn explained. “Except, by accepting that, yes, it’s clearly valuable gold, and wanting it, the fae think I’m not very bright. It makes them overeager, giving me holes to exploit. How do you think I’ve been getting the good stuff? Can’t do that if they know I can see through their illusions.”
Note to self. Autumn was scary.
What made her all the more terrifying was she was doing all this without any System-enhancements. Just raw human ingenuity and guile.
I shook my head in wonder as we approached the whirling, dancing fae together, the party in full, wild, exuberant swing.
“Dance! Dance! You must dance with us!” Three of the fae peeled off from the party, surrounding me. Bright-eyed pixies/too pale elvenoids with black eyes and smiling faces/elegant ladies-in-waiting. None of the layers I could see looked particularly menacing or deadly, and I was having minor faith in my ability to see. Things that looked harmless in all perspectives usually were. They were remarkably transparent in that way.
“It’d be rude not to dance, and just shove our way through.” I said to Artemis as a half-question.
“It would be.” She agreed, and sighed dramatically. “It’s a real shame I don’t have my Lightning or flesh-and-blood dance partner. What I wouldn’t give for one of those.”
She pitched her voice so it would carry, and I swear I saw a dozen fairy ears twitch at that. Clever. Either she got Julius, or she got her power back.
No, not back. She’d get an entirely new set of power, and if she played it carefully, she might even be able to bring it back with her. I didn’t know what sort of price she’d need to pay for that, and it wasn’t one I was too interested in looking into.
I was happy and secure in life. I left the wild risks for insane gains to the others.
“Brrrpt!” Auri cheeped at Artemis. Yeah, I should tell Artemis as well.
“Good luck!” I told a grinning Artemis as a dozen fae descended on her. I let the three fae pull me into the dance.
Oh, what a dance. It was a raw, primal dance, letting our wild side out, our instincts taking the reins. I threw my head back and forth, my long hair spilling and flaring from under my helmet like a ballerina’s tutu. We got in touch with nature, with the wilds, communing with Gaia herself. The entire thing was wild and untamed.
“Brrpt! Brrrrrpt! Brrrpt!” Auri was enjoying herself, the whirls and twirls to her liking.
The weather did whatever it felt like. A boat made out of Lightning stately sailed across the sky, and a tornado took the form of a tiger, prowling through the dance.
According to my dance partners, that all counted as weather.
Once in a rare, rare while, it even rained. Normal water from cotton candy clouds. It was asking too much for the clouds to also be normal.
The dance was like nothing I’d ever experienced. We tangoed. Foxtrotted. Waltzed, boogied, swinged, foursquared, went through dances with a thousand choreographed moves and three repeated moves. The entire thing was carefully structured, in wonderful dresses. The women were beautiful and mysterious, and the men were handsome and ethereal.
No two dances were with the same fae. Boisterous summer, generous fall, cosy winter, and vibrant spring, my partners whirled in a dizzying kaleidoscope even as I started to leave red painted footsteps in my wake.
I’d dance with the occasional elvenoid, never having the same partner twice. A man with metal armour for skin like a crab, a Minotaur with elegantly flowing robes, a gnome in the most intricate lace dress on a pair of stilts nearly as tall as I was. A human, now and then. My partners flashed through like anyone else, the only notable part was that they were all mortal. Not a single elf or devil to be seen.
I carefully studied each of them, checking if Julius was right in front of me. It’d be just like the fae to put the object of my search directly in front of my eyes, only to glamour him such that I couldn’t identify him. In that respect, the four leaf clover I wore proved invaluable, letting me confirm that I could still see through their illusions.
Find Julius. I kept repeating to myself between each dance, sweat pouring down my body as I heaved for breath. Only for another fae to offer me their hand, for me to take it, and whirl through once more.
Now and then I’d glance out, seeing how my apprentice was doing, checking if Julius had been found yet. There was no clear signal, but my main mango hookup was constantly haggling with fae. Hands were shaken and goods bartered. More fairies were constantly circling her, waiting for their turn to strike.
I sure hoped she knew what she was doing. She was playing with fire, and while she seemed to know the risks, I still worried.
Was that how Artemis and Julius had felt about me going into Perinthus? In a few ways, I suppose the parallels were there. Teenage me had no business being with the Rangers like the teenager had no business being with Artemis and I, and yet, I ended up saving thousands of lives. I had to admit, mini-merchant was following a similar story, and I was only comfortable thinking that because we were in the land of stories and tales come to life. Otherwise it’d be sheer hubris that’d get us killed.
I was all too aware that I was practically powerless here. No magic. No system. No skills, social or otherwise. All I had were the rules that Night had imparted and the tools I’d brought. I had faith though - they would be enough.
I looked over at the super healer-in-training once more, only to see Artemis and Julius standing near her, waving at me. They’d succeeded. They were holding hands, and I’d bet money Artemis’s four leaf clover was between them.
Honestly I was feeling a bit like chopped liver. I’d done practically nothing. The only thing I could claim credit for was getting Artemis and beanpole together and getting them equipped with some anti-fae protections.
“Brrrpt!”
“Yeah I see them.” I told Auri. Well, at least I’d been as useful as Auri had been. This should end up being great experience for her. [Butterfly Mystic] was all about flitting around, travelling and experiencing new things and new magics, and oh boy did the fae count for that in spades.
Auri had been roughly level 62 or so before we entered. Just a hair away from unlocking her second class. Every drop of experience I got in [The Dawn Sentinel] and [Butterfly Mystic] would be funnelled to her until she caught up with [Butterfly Mystic]. Then all the experience [The Dawn Sentinel] got would be funnelled to her, while we’d split the [Butterfly Mystic] experience in half. I’d also get half the experience from whatever she was doing. Once she hit level 513, we’d split all of our class experience equally.
Skills still did their own thing and didn’t share experience.
It was crazy to think about. One day, Auri burning stuff to the ground would make me a better healer.
Magic was wild.
I started to dance out of the circle. The fae seemed to know what I wanted, what I was going for, and it felt like every dance conspired to bring me in, pull me down. I remained polite, playing their game, and I wasn’t sure if it was my religious following of the rules, or simply the nature of the fae, but no overt attempts to waylay me or stop me came to fruition.
The fae were not some grand monolithic entity. Some played the game, wanting to drag me in. Others didn’t care, for they were after prey of their own, playing their own games. One sent Auri and I spinning up high and out, fouling a competitor from a rival court. A second traded me as a dance partner for a poor werewolf who looked lost and confused.
I assumed he was a werewolf. Lupine features on a furry elvenoid?
“Don’t make any deals with them.” I quickly told him before he was spun off into his own wild adventure.
“Brrrpt!” Auri tried to help.
I mentally wished him luck.
Eventually, an eternity of crimson-painted footsteps later, I was freed from the dance. Out and about.
“Elaine!” The teen of the hour gestured me over, and I glared daggers at her. What happened to the nicknames!?
My annoyance softened as I took in her appearance. She looked worn down, haggard. Thinking about it, none of us had slept since we came here, and oh, we’d been here some time. Her left eye was… well, I hesitated to call it an eye anymore. There was a swirling mass of purple mist contained where her eye used to be, but it seemed to track and follow me just the same.
I took a step and stumbled, almost falling. Julius and Artemis caught me, and I got to look up at their worried faces.
Julius had something like an 11 o’clock shadow. Not quite a beard, but a few days of scraggly growth. Artemis looked much the same, and wow my feet were killing me.
I looked down at my feet, only to see a mass of blood where they belonged. The pain hit me in crippling waves, and I screamed at the raw freshness of it.
I hadn’t felt true, unfiltered pain in almost a decade. Even when my anti-pain skill broke, it still helped. But no, I was mortal now, and I’d almost literally danced my feet off.
“Brrrpt!?” Auri flew around my legs, all concerned and worried. “Brrpt BRRPT!?”
She couldn’t figure out how she hadn’t noticed what was going on.
“Probably the same reason I didn’t notice dancing my sandals off.” I got out through gritted teeth. “Can you cauterise it?”
“Brrrpt!?!?”
“Yes.”
“Brrrpt…”
“Now, Auri.”
“BRPT!”
With a blast of flame and heat - fascinating that she still controlled fire without the System giving her a hand - a crying Auri bathed my ankles and feet in phoenix-fire.
I screamed. I cried and I wailed and I sobbed as the fire sealed off my blood vessels, stopping me from bleeding out. I wished for the sweet release of unconsciousness, only to be denied, forced to endure through the pain.
I curled up and collapsed from the pain, my friends circling around me to protect me. Soothe me. Artemis held me, and I found myself clutching at her tunic.
Fuck, that hurt.
Auri immediately flew to my shoulder, awkwardly perched herself on my prone form, and nuzzled my cheek.
“Brrpt? BRRRPT?” She was worried.
“You did the right thing.” I croaked out through the blinding red haze of agony. Despite the pain eating at my mind, I knew this was a critical moment for Auri. The first time she had to hurt anyone to help them. “I’ll be fine as soon as we get back home.”
“Brrrpt…”
“I promise. You did good.”
“Ready?” Artemis asked.
“Ready.” Julius confirmed.
Hang on, what-
“Lift!” They said at the same time, lifting me up. They manhandled me, such that each of my arms was around one of their necks, my feet dangling in the air.
“BRRRRPT!” Auri whined as she came along for the ride, my smooth armour not giving her a good foothold.
I hurt too much to complain about how embarrassing the look was, and kiddo had the good grace not to laugh.
“Well Dawn, it looks like Spring here wasn’t the only one who lost her sole.” Artemis cracked one of her usual terrible jokes. I groaned, as much from the physical pain as the psychic.
“Please no?” I begged her, only for Artemis to grin wider.
“You! A defiler!” A fae stormed over. She had a venus fly trap on her head/her cap dripped with fresh blood/her crown was made of writhing black flames, and she looked pissed.
“Who…?” I dumbly asked as she stormed over, pain still spiking through my mind.
“YOU!” She poked me in the chest. “You brought Cold Iron into my ring! You spent the night blinding my poor eyes with Arcanite! Then you scurried, like a mouse, into the dark! I found you then, and I’ve found you now, and how may I serve, your majesty?”
I blinked at the sudden change in demeanour, then felt a peck on my forehead.
I looked up at Auri - and the crown of holly on my head.
“Brrrpt!”
“Get us out of here.” I ordered. I would’ve paled further if I could as I realised my potential mistake.
“By us, I mean me, Lightning Reaper, Commander, Spring, and my friend on my head.” I clarified.
“As you wish.” The fae said with gritted teeth.
I looked at my apprentice, and realised I couldn’t remember her name. It had slipped away from me. Some fae trickery? Had the angry fairy snatched a memory from me before I’d gotten the crown on?
Was I missing more memories, and didn’t know it?
Either way, beanpole was looking at me with pleading eyes, and I gave a subtle shake of my head. The crown of holly was only good while the fae deigned to entertain it. If it could do more?
Someone would already rule all the fae.
The merchant quickly crammed as much stuff as she could into her pockets, securing her well-earned, ill-gotten gains.
“I’m sorry.” I told her. “I seem to have entirely forgotten your name. Some fae trickery, I’m sure.”
She stiffened, then leaned in.
“Hang on, names are dangerous here.” I told her.
“I know. Let me whisper it.” She said, and leaned in, cupping her hands around my ear.
“Amber.” She whispered.
We were pulled along in the mad fae’s wake, pulled Stormwards along the edge of twilight. Deeper and deeper into an eternal howling gale we were pulled, our ability to communicate was stolen by the wind.
I hadn’t asked for a safe exit, and the fae’s clever trickery had ensured I couldn’t modify my orders.
Auri ended up tucking herself into my armour as the rest of us made sure my crown of holly was well-secured upon my head. Our path home, our path out.
“Here!” The fae crossed her arms as branches/branches whipped us in the blistering gale. A ring of mushrooms, untouched by the wind, glistened poisonously in front of us.
I opened my mouth to reflexively thank her, and closed it.
Give no thanks.
Both manners and rudeness seemed to be a trap.
“Everyone hold tight!” I screamed into everyone’s ear.
We stepped through together, feeling a deep wrench grab us and pull us.
A second force grabbed at us, stretching us like a noodle. A pair of thunderous voices hammered my ears, echoed in my mind. One was like twinkling chimes in the wind, the other was like the warmth of a meadow in spring.
“Well, since the two of you asked so nicely.”
It felt like dozens of hands were grabbing us, pulling us in different directions. Trying to rip us apart. We held onto each other, keeping a grip on one another. Making sure we stayed together, that we’d be together. I just knew getting separated here would mean I’d never see them again. We were pulled and stretched along, pieces in some great cosmic tug of war, until we arrived back in an ancient forest. The sun was setting, just as the Dragoneye Moons were rising on the horizon, golden light fighting with crimson on the edge of twilight.
After a half-heartbeat pause, thousands of notifications started to ping in my ears.
I instantly knew I was somewhere else. It was like stepping off a plane into a different country. The air was different, the smells were different, the sun was a different colour. The only thing that was the same was the white-knuckled grip I had on Artemis and Autumn’s hands.
My knees buckled and gave out, and I crashed down to one knee, my hand slipping from Autumn’s and landing on the soft, mossy forest floor/sinking into the brackish swamp water, a small puff of powder dusting my face/filthy water splattering my cheek.
I quickly looked up and twisted my head around, trying to orient myself to where I was, and assess any threats. It was nearly impossible.
I slowed down, and tried to figure out what I was seeing, my mind screaming as it tried to process the deluge of information, my dulled senses entirely overwhelmed by the double - triple? - load they were under.
I tuned out everyone else’s words, trying to focus, trying to figure out why everything was so heavy, why I was so slow.
Ok. Mental reset. Time to figure things out one at a time.
We were in a forest/swamp. It wasn’t a marshy forest, no. There was the forest, bright and green. There was the swamp, drab and dark. Two layers of existence overlapping into one, giving me a migraine.
Verdant trees brimming with life surrounded us/Dead trees had gnarly, twisted branches, reaching for us/Thieving hands in the corner of my eye flashed out.
The trees were a riot of colours, impossible fruits surrounded by clusters of brightly coloured flowers/The trees were drab, weeping moss hanging off in clumps, fat lumps of flesh ready to explode their spores.
Songbirds sang sweetly, their songs yellow and red in my vision, smelling of crisp ocean breeze/Vultures shrieked as they circled, their songs tasting of rot and the open grave.
A warm summer breeze gently caressed my face/A hot, damp, muggy atmosphere smothered my body.
Round and round it went, my head screaming as it tried to process it all. Artemis was sick, throwing up a small bush. Autumn closed her eyes and held herself, shivering.
Round and round and round and round and round and round and round it went, until I managed to get a grip.
“Urggggggh.” I moaned, trying to stand up and not managing it. Artemis and Autumn weren’t in much better shape, but Auri?
“Brrrpt!” She cried at me, flying around me. “Brrpt brrrpt BRRRPT!”
It took a moment to process what she was saying. It was so weird that her sound was only sound and didn’t cause flashes of light to play over my vision.
Everything just looked like a nice, happy forest to Auri. I had to guess it was the four leaf clovers. Was our intel wrong, or did Auri not see the hidden dangers around every leaf? Not realise that the tasty fruit was also a rotting eyeball?
“Auri. Dangerous. Do. Not. Touch. Anything.” I said, trying to be serious while my breakfast tried to escape out the wrong pipe.
“Brrrpt!” Auri understood the seriousness of the situation. I’d also made it clear that she needed to listen to me on this mission.
Benefits to the clover. Downsides to the clover. I briefly debated ripping it off, but chose not to. As difficult as it was to see and understand everything, there wasn’t safety in ignorance.
“Elaine.” Artemis croaked after a moment. “No System.”
I immediately grasped what Artemis was saying, and tried to pull my System up.
Nothing.
I quickly flickered through all my skills, just feeling a blank nothing where there was usually magic.
We were entirely mundane. Human, without a single augmentation to our names.
“Shit. Also hello Lightning Reaper.”
Artemis shook her head, grasping what I said. I also realised I’d messed up calling Auri’s name before. Hopefully that didn’t count as giving the fae her name. After all, it wasn’t her full name. I’d given her a doozy of a full name, and I doubted a partial counted.
“Right, Dawn, thank you.”
She sounded scared, and I didn’t blame her. I was feeling a mite terrified myself. Half my life I’d been hunted and stalked by predators, the System being the only thing I had to defend myself with. Now it was gone.
“Bag.” I panted out, and Artemis figured out what I wanted. She took the tower shield off my back, and a few other things, lightening my load enough that I could stand with her help.
Autumn was still shivering.
“Take the four leaf clover off of… Spring?” I asked Artemis. She was infinitely more mobile than I was, but right now I was glad for the layers of armour and the weapon I had. Being entirely mundane now, they were our only defenses.
Artemis did, and Autumn slowly stopped shivering, opening her eyes after a few minutes.
“That was awful.” She complained.
“Spring, you don’t have the four leaf clover anymore. System doesn’t seem to work here. Be careful, and listen to us.” I emphasised her new nickname, hoping she’d get the hint.
She nodded her understanding.
“Which way?” I asked, not preferring any direction over any other.
“Let’s follow the sun?” Artemis suggested.
I glanced up at the sun/watching eye, and shivered.
“Why not.” I agreed, lacking any better plan.
We walked and we walked, in total silence. For how long, I couldn’t say. The forest/swamp seemed endless, only the occasional small rabbit/frog hopping along. The occasional laugh/giggle echoed to us, but the only traces of people or fae I saw were the occasional flash out of the corner of my eye, which had me twisting and turning in confusion. Trying to catch whoever did it. Whatever did it.
That just caused more of the scratching-nail laugh/giggle that tasted of cranberries. The sun/watching eye slowly rose as we followed it, and we paused when it was high above us in the sky.
“I’m not hungry at all.” I slowly observed. We’d been going for hours at least.
“Same here!” Autumn agreed.
“I’m not even tired.” Artemis stretched her arms out.
“Let’s take a short break?” Autumn suggested.
I frowned. On one hand, I didn’t want to pause. On the other, we had no direction to go before the sun/eye moved.
“Ok.” I agreed. “But don’t sit there.” I pointed to what was a rock in the forest, but some sort of ugly crab in the swamp.
The moment we sat down, a half-dozen creatures that I could only assume were the fae surrounded us. Each one was tripled and gave me one hell of a headache to look at. They were small pixies with a single flower acting as a crown/murderous redcaps with bright red mushrooms as a hat/noble and elegant elvenoids, except all their limbs were too long and their eyes were too large, like a bug’s. Upon their heads there were crowns. A crown of gold, shining in the bright noon light. A crown of thorns, bleeding the fae. A crown of vines, a crown of a hangman’s noose, a crown of gems. A crown of berries.
And the weapons they had! . Regal, awe-inspiring, beautiful... Cruel and terrible things that hurt my eyes to see, that sent vicious spikes into my brain simply for thinking of them.
They were eating berries/eyeballs/pastries. They laughed and they joked without words. I simply knew they were funny. It sent cold shivers down my spine.
I had been right.
Fighting was entirely out of the question.
“A jolly good day to you all.” I carefully greeted them, following the rules the best I could. No bargain, no gifts, I was being polite. We had violated their rings, but the goal had been to get here. We had to break one of the rules. Well, Artemis had decided we needed to break two.
“A mortal!” Goldy exclaimed. His/her voice was that of summer. Growing fields under a warm sun, a time to play and jump. Swimming and sandcastles, festivals and midsummer night’s dreams, war and marriage. The season of growth and creation, of becoming more, their words echoed yellow and gold in my mind.
I was convinced. Last year I’d heard the fae, but the court of fall, not summer.
“A trio of pretty mortals for us to play with!” Noose chimed in, sniffing Artemis. I locked eyes with her, trying to transmit one of the rules through sheer mindpower.
Give no insult. Sniffing might be a common form of address here, the polite thing to do. Or they were screwing with us.
My bet was on the second one. The fae had an infamous sense of humour.
“Mortals, mortals, three mortals for us~” Berries sang on. Berries, Gems, and Thorns all held hands together and danced around the entire glade, encircling us with horrifically long limbs that just stretched and stretched and stretched.
“Mortals at highest noon!” Thorn called out.
“Mortals on the longest day!” Gems agreed.
What I saw in Artemis’s eyes surprised me.
Fear.
She had no defences. Nothing against the fae, except a crown of holly tucked in her bag. And they were merrily singing and dancing, and I knew she could see the way Vines was eagerly sucking on an eyeball. There was no way it was a coincidence that it looked exactly like hers.
“Brrrpt!”
“Shoo stinky bird!” Berries hissed at Auri. “You are no mortal!”
I wondered: if I had used [The Stars Never Fade] on myself, would I no longer classify as mortal? Would it have given me an edge?
Not wanting to let the fae simply do what they wanted, I took initiative.
“Is there a preferred form of address for you, fairest of the folk?”
“Names! She wants names!” Gems cried out.
“I want your name! Give me your name! Then it’s a deal! A name for a name!” Goldy got in my face, stabbing her trident/spear/finger into my chest. Vines loomed up next to her.
Auri landed on my helmet, puffing her chest up. I noted that she was still merrily burning away, her lack of a System not hampering her too much.
I stilled, trying to think of a way out. I didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want to accept the bargain. I didn’t want to tell her my name. “You may call me Dawn, and have the knowledge free.” I carefully said. No bargain, as tricky as Goldy had phrased his words.
“Booo! BOOOOOOO!” Vines cried out, flying around me. “This one’s tricky! Tricky! Tell me a secret! I must know! I must!”
To my horror I saw Autumn shaking hands with Thorns and Gems.
She’d totally made a few deals with them already. Somehow.
We were so fucked.
No offence. No gifts.
How could I give no offence, no gifts, and no deals? Everything felt like a trap.
I leaned forward and cupped my hands as though I was imparting the biggest, baddest secret in the world. “I’m not from this world.” I whispered into her ear.
“That’s not a secret!” She protested. “No mortal is from here!”
I straightened up and put my hands on my hips. “I’m not from that world either!”
Goldy gave a dramatic gasp.
“Gasp. GASP!” She said.
Don’t give the weird fairy weird looks. Even though she’s earned it.
Autumn took a few steps over.
“I made a deal with them.” She stated, half-cringing at me.
“I know.” I sighed at her.
“A bargain! A deal! And what a deal it was!” Vines agreed. The rest of the fae huddled up, whispering loudly at each other.
“Whisper whisper WHISPER whisper.”
I honestly didn’t know why they did that.
Autumn straightened up.
“They’ll take us to Julius.”
Ok. That, I hadn’t expected, but Autumn had pulled through.
“What did it cost?”
“This and that and morning dew, a shard of my soul, and a string of hair.”
I gave her a look, then realised she was serious.
“Your SOUL!?”
“It’s not like I’m using all of it.” She defended herself, and I facepalmed.
Artemis doubled over in hysterical laughter, the combination of shock and horror too much for her. Probably. Artemis was cruelly cold and callous at times, but wouldn’t be laughing at Autumn’s misfortune. I hoped.
“We dance! We go! Nightwards we march, to the great twilight!”
We started to follow our fey guides through the winding, twisting woods/swamp. I swear they were trying to kill us, or get us in trouble. They brushed up against bushes with berries/gnarled creepers with bleeding flesh, and with the casual way they moved hoped we’d do the same.
We journeyed. Time passed, adventures, mischief, and mayhem reigned. The sun slowly set as we travelled. I asked about it.
“Yes. YES! This world makes sense!” One of the fae happily told me, flying around my head/malevolently sneering at me/nobly deigning to impart wisdom. For whatever reason I was getting the manic-pixie version in my ears, but it was all too easy to shift my perspective and hear one of the others. “The sun isn’t all in a tizzy! She knows right where she should be, and stays there! Yes! The moon wanders though. Comes to and fro, depending on her mood. But! We know where she lives! There is Sunwards, and there is Moonwards! Two directions! Two more directions are Stormfront and Calm! Yes! We are near Calm!”
I doubtfully pulled Autumn away from a carpet of leaves/spikefall trap, and decided to shut up and not argue with the fae.
“Thanks.” Autumn said, lost in thought. She got a sudden grin.
“Watch!” She hopped on one foot, wrestling with her sandals. “Can I borrow your knife?”
I handed it over, trusting Autumn with it. She wasn’t a kid.
“Here!” She sliced at her shoe, handing it over to the fae she made a deal with. “A part of my sole.”
The fae clustered around what she was holding, giggling and talking with themselves.
“A soul! A sole! She’s paid with her sole!”
“It’s not fair! It’s trickery! Vile trickery!” The shorted fae complained. The other five maliciously laughed.
“A trick! A trick! A good trick!” They chanted. “We like this one! Let’s trick her next!”
Shrieking and laughing, they dive-bombed around Autumn, pelting her with mushrooms/mushrooms - funny how that worked - pulling at her hair.
Autumn yelled and covered her hair as Artemis and I moved in to shield and protect her. Auri flew over to Autumn’s hair, puffed out her chest and flared her wings.
“Shoo! Shoo! Silly bird shoos!”
“Not mortal! No fun!”
They circled us for a moment more, before one of them crashed into a tree/tripped over a root. The fairies got distracted, tittering and laughing at their clumsy companion.
We carried on.
Memory… slipped away from me. I couldn’t tell you how things happened. We encountered a bear. The bear died.
Were fantastic magics cast? Did the earth shake and the heavens tremble? Did we draw our weapons and charge it, engaging in deadly combat? Were clever traps made, was a poison snare used?
Or did the fey simply gesture in a come-hither motion with a single, too-long finger, and the bear, docile, walked over, letting the fair folk swiftly break its neck in a single motion?
Part of me hoped once I’d returned to Pallos that [Pristine Memories] would kick back in, and I’d remember.
Another part of me was terrified that I might.
A horn blew, calling me. Calling me to hunt, to run wild with baying not-dogs and riding on majestic almost-horses. To hunt some poor fool who’d crossed the fae one time too many, who’d broken the rules.
Five of the fae bounded off in delight, while the sixth stomped around in frustration.
“It’s not fair! Not fair at all! They go and I guide! Humph!” He grabbed his flower/cap/crown and threw it against a bush/rock.
My head hurt.
We travelled, meeting others, hearing the Wild Hunt in full swing. The fact that only one moon was mentioned twinged a memory, a thought, a fleeting idea just out of grasp.
What if we didn’t end up back in Pallos? What if we ended up somewhere else?
The thought sent cold water down my neck. Quite literally, soaked my tunic and everything, and had everything rubbing raw down my back.
I could get hurt again.
I might end up somewhere entirely different.
Autumn seemed to be having fun, but the sheer scale of how badly things could go wrong for us didn’t seem to be taking hold of her. She was armed with teenage invincibility, and I couldn’t deny it - we were better off for it. Artemis and I were hesitant. Careful. Following the rules, to the best of our abilities.
We would’ve never gotten here, guided straight to the festival Julius was supposedly at without Autumn taking the initiative and making bargains and deals.
Did we travel a minute? An hour? A day, a week, a month, a year, a century, a thousand years or more? Impossible to tell. The sun didn’t move, but our guide spoke as summer incarnate the entire time. Less than a season? Were the fae forever trapped as their season? Did they turn?
The weather slowly changed, turning to the lightest of drizzles, or a playful wind. Naturally, rain falling down from the sky would be asking too much of the fae. No, it came from the ground, or the side, or emitted from the trees like sprinklers.
It was usually water.
Usually.
I pretended the sticky, syrupy substance was honey, and didn’t think too hard about it.
We hadn’t seen any of the other seasons, although we did occasionally meet with other fae, Autumn enthusiastically bargaining with them. She wanted to be here. She wanted to be doing this, in spite of our warnings.
I let her. I steered her clear of branches/snakes, but she was her own person. Someone who was successfully getting us through this, somehow.
She did end up with a limp though.
How?
I had no idea. Every time Autumn tried to tell me, the memory slipped, like a fox leaving a henhouse. We’d heal it together once we got out of here.
We made it to where the fae claimed Julius was. A grand festival, a gigantic party. Fairies danced and twirled around the maypole/bounced and flopped around the pyre.
We were at the edge of twilight, the sun just as low in the sky as the moon. The border between light and dark, the changing of days.
Lights floated across the sky, and we were mildly Stormwards. A few flakes of snow got obliterated, turning into a laughing wind fae who twirled, grabbing a bed of fresh green leaves for a dress.
“Your friend! Your friend is here! Go find him!”
I eyed the party, the festival, the sheer rambunctious medley of the fae.
“How do we want to tackle this?” I asked the group.
“Well, we can’t just stay here.” Artemis said. I nodded agreement.
“One of us should though.” Autumn said, and I sensed ulterior motives.
“Why’s that?”
“Because if we all split up and go looking, when we find Julius we’ll also then need to find each other. We should have a touchpoint. It should be me, I have no idea what Julius looks like. I stay here, you three go looking for him.”
I nodded.
“We can regularly come back, use you as a way to get messages to each other. I like it.” Artemis agreed.
“Auri. Can you fly above, and see if you can spot Julius? He’d probably look like a splash of brown haired human. Not sure how many of those there are.”
“Brrrpt…” Auri hunkered down into a little puff of flaming feathers.
“Not up for flying?”
“Brrrpt?”
I missed the connection I had with Auri, the loss of the System having removed that among other things. I still understood her though. We resonated with each other on a deeper, more fundamental level than just the System.
Something had Auri not wanting to fly, or go particularly far from me. It wasn’t clear what though.
“Ok, be my fancy hat for the party?”
“Brrrpt!!”
“Just remember, you can burn me now, and I’m very, very fragile.”
“BrrrRRrrrrrrRPT!” Auri trilled her acknowledgement.
“Just like old times?” Artemis asked me. “You take the left, I take the right?”
I nodded at her. Just like old times indeed, when Artemis had been training me on the fundamentals of how to be a Ranger. Those lessons were still strong, still heavily influenced how I tackled situations, and there was nobody more perfect for this than Artemis.
“Here. You need this. Get used to it.” I handed Autumn back her four-leaf clover. She took it with a grimace.
“I agree, but it’s harder for me to scam the fairies if I have it.”
I did a double-take at that.
“What?”
“Well, they love bespelling a pile of acorns to look like gold. To ‘sucker’ me into trading for them.” Autumn explained. “Except, by accepting that, yes, it’s clearly valuable gold, and wanting it, the fae think I’m not very bright. It makes them overeager, giving me holes to exploit. How do you think I’ve been getting the good stuff? Can’t do that if they know I can see through their illusions.”
Note to self. Autumn was scary.
What made her all the more terrifying was she was doing all this without any System-enhancements. Just raw human ingenuity and guile.
I shook my head in wonder as we approached the whirling, dancing fae together, the party in full, wild, exuberant swing.
“Dance! Dance! You must dance with us!” Three of the fae peeled off from the party, surrounding me. Bright-eyed pixies/too pale elvenoids with black eyes and smiling faces/elegant ladies-in-waiting. None of the layers I could see looked particularly menacing or deadly, and I was having minor faith in my ability to see. Things that looked harmless in all perspectives usually were. They were remarkably transparent in that way.
“It’d be rude not to dance, and just shove our way through.” I said to Artemis as a half-question.
“It would be.” She agreed, and sighed dramatically. “It’s a real shame I don’t have my Lightning or flesh-and-blood dance partner. What I wouldn’t give for one of those.”
She pitched her voice so it would carry, and I swear I saw a dozen fairy ears twitch at that. Clever. Either she got Julius, or she got her power back.
No, not back. She’d get an entirely new set of power, and if she played it carefully, she might even be able to bring it back with her. I didn’t know what sort of price she’d need to pay for that, and it wasn’t one I was too interested in looking into.
I was happy and secure in life. I left the wild risks for insane gains to the others.
“Brrrpt!” Auri cheeped at Artemis. Yeah, I should tell Artemis as well.
“Good luck!” I told a grinning Artemis as a dozen fae descended on her. I let the three fae pull me into the dance.
Oh, what a dance. It was a raw, primal dance, letting our wild side out, our instincts taking the reins. I threw my head back and forth, my long hair spilling and flaring from under my helmet like a ballerina’s tutu. We got in touch with nature, with the wilds, communing with Gaia herself. The entire thing was wild and untamed.
“Brrpt! Brrrrrpt! Brrrpt!” Auri was enjoying herself, the whirls and twirls to her liking.
The weather did whatever it felt like. A boat made out of Lightning stately sailed across the sky, and a tornado took the form of a tiger, prowling through the dance.
According to my dance partners, that all counted as weather.
Once in a rare, rare while, it even rained. Normal water from cotton candy clouds. It was asking too much for the clouds to also be normal.
The dance was like nothing I’d ever experienced. We tangoed. Foxtrotted. Waltzed, boogied, swinged, foursquared, went through dances with a thousand choreographed moves and three repeated moves. The entire thing was carefully structured, in wonderful dresses. The women were beautiful and mysterious, and the men were handsome and ethereal.
No two dances were with the same fae. Boisterous summer, generous fall, cosy winter, and vibrant spring, my partners whirled in a dizzying kaleidoscope even as I started to leave red painted footsteps in my wake.
I’d dance with the occasional elvenoid, never having the same partner twice. A man with metal armour for skin like a crab, a Minotaur with elegantly flowing robes, a gnome in the most intricate lace dress on a pair of stilts nearly as tall as I was. A human, now and then. My partners flashed through like anyone else, the only notable part was that they were all mortal. Not a single elf or devil to be seen.
I carefully studied each of them, checking if Julius was right in front of me. It’d be just like the fae to put the object of my search directly in front of my eyes, only to glamour him such that I couldn’t identify him. In that respect, the four leaf clover I wore proved invaluable, letting me confirm that I could still see through their illusions.
Find Julius. I kept repeating to myself between each dance, sweat pouring down my body as I heaved for breath. Only for another fae to offer me their hand, for me to take it, and whirl through once more.
Now and then I’d glance out, seeing how my apprentice was doing, checking if Julius had been found yet. There was no clear signal, but my main mango hookup was constantly haggling with fae. Hands were shaken and goods bartered. More fairies were constantly circling her, waiting for their turn to strike.
I sure hoped she knew what she was doing. She was playing with fire, and while she seemed to know the risks, I still worried.
Was that how Artemis and Julius had felt about me going into Perinthus? In a few ways, I suppose the parallels were there. Teenage me had no business being with the Rangers like the teenager had no business being with Artemis and I, and yet, I ended up saving thousands of lives. I had to admit, mini-merchant was following a similar story, and I was only comfortable thinking that because we were in the land of stories and tales come to life. Otherwise it’d be sheer hubris that’d get us killed.
I was all too aware that I was practically powerless here. No magic. No system. No skills, social or otherwise. All I had were the rules that Night had imparted and the tools I’d brought. I had faith though - they would be enough.
I looked over at the super healer-in-training once more, only to see Artemis and Julius standing near her, waving at me. They’d succeeded. They were holding hands, and I’d bet money Artemis’s four leaf clover was between them.
Honestly I was feeling a bit like chopped liver. I’d done practically nothing. The only thing I could claim credit for was getting Artemis and beanpole together and getting them equipped with some anti-fae protections.
“Brrrpt!”
“Yeah I see them.” I told Auri. Well, at least I’d been as useful as Auri had been. This should end up being great experience for her. [Butterfly Mystic] was all about flitting around, travelling and experiencing new things and new magics, and oh boy did the fae count for that in spades.
Auri had been roughly level 62 or so before we entered. Just a hair away from unlocking her second class. Every drop of experience I got in [The Dawn Sentinel] and [Butterfly Mystic] would be funnelled to her until she caught up with [Butterfly Mystic]. Then all the experience [The Dawn Sentinel] got would be funnelled to her, while we’d split the [Butterfly Mystic] experience in half. I’d also get half the experience from whatever she was doing. Once she hit level 513, we’d split all of our class experience equally.
Skills still did their own thing and didn’t share experience.
It was crazy to think about. One day, Auri burning stuff to the ground would make me a better healer.
Magic was wild.
I started to dance out of the circle. The fae seemed to know what I wanted, what I was going for, and it felt like every dance conspired to bring me in, pull me down. I remained polite, playing their game, and I wasn’t sure if it was my religious following of the rules, or simply the nature of the fae, but no overt attempts to waylay me or stop me came to fruition.
The fae were not some grand monolithic entity. Some played the game, wanting to drag me in. Others didn’t care, for they were after prey of their own, playing their own games. One sent Auri and I spinning up high and out, fouling a competitor from a rival court. A second traded me as a dance partner for a poor werewolf who looked lost and confused.
I assumed he was a werewolf. Lupine features on a furry elvenoid?
“Don’t make any deals with them.” I quickly told him before he was spun off into his own wild adventure.
“Brrrpt!” Auri tried to help.
I mentally wished him luck.
Eventually, an eternity of crimson-painted footsteps later, I was freed from the dance. Out and about.
“Elaine!” The teen of the hour gestured me over, and I glared daggers at her. What happened to the nicknames!?
My annoyance softened as I took in her appearance. She looked worn down, haggard. Thinking about it, none of us had slept since we came here, and oh, we’d been here some time. Her left eye was… well, I hesitated to call it an eye anymore. There was a swirling mass of purple mist contained where her eye used to be, but it seemed to track and follow me just the same.
I took a step and stumbled, almost falling. Julius and Artemis caught me, and I got to look up at their worried faces.
Julius had something like an 11 o’clock shadow. Not quite a beard, but a few days of scraggly growth. Artemis looked much the same, and wow my feet were killing me.
I looked down at my feet, only to see a mass of blood where they belonged. The pain hit me in crippling waves, and I screamed at the raw freshness of it.
I hadn’t felt true, unfiltered pain in almost a decade. Even when my anti-pain skill broke, it still helped. But no, I was mortal now, and I’d almost literally danced my feet off.
“Brrrpt!?” Auri flew around my legs, all concerned and worried. “Brrpt BRRPT!?”
She couldn’t figure out how she hadn’t noticed what was going on.
“Probably the same reason I didn’t notice dancing my sandals off.” I got out through gritted teeth. “Can you cauterise it?”
“Brrrpt!?!?”
“Yes.”
“Brrrpt…”
“Now, Auri.”
“BRPT!”
With a blast of flame and heat - fascinating that she still controlled fire without the System giving her a hand - a crying Auri bathed my ankles and feet in phoenix-fire.
I screamed. I cried and I wailed and I sobbed as the fire sealed off my blood vessels, stopping me from bleeding out. I wished for the sweet release of unconsciousness, only to be denied, forced to endure through the pain.
I curled up and collapsed from the pain, my friends circling around me to protect me. Soothe me. Artemis held me, and I found myself clutching at her tunic.
Fuck, that hurt.
Auri immediately flew to my shoulder, awkwardly perched herself on my prone form, and nuzzled my cheek.
“Brrpt? BRRRPT?” She was worried.
“You did the right thing.” I croaked out through the blinding red haze of agony. Despite the pain eating at my mind, I knew this was a critical moment for Auri. The first time she had to hurt anyone to help them. “I’ll be fine as soon as we get back home.”
“Brrrpt…”
“I promise. You did good.”
“Ready?” Artemis asked.
“Ready.” Julius confirmed.
Hang on, what-
“Lift!” They said at the same time, lifting me up. They manhandled me, such that each of my arms was around one of their necks, my feet dangling in the air.
“BRRRRPT!” Auri whined as she came along for the ride, my smooth armour not giving her a good foothold.
I hurt too much to complain about how embarrassing the look was, and kiddo had the good grace not to laugh.
“Well Dawn, it looks like Spring here wasn’t the only one who lost her sole.” Artemis cracked one of her usual terrible jokes. I groaned, as much from the physical pain as the psychic.
“Please no?” I begged her, only for Artemis to grin wider.
“You! A defiler!” A fae stormed over. She had a venus fly trap on her head/her cap dripped with fresh blood/her crown was made of writhing black flames, and she looked pissed.
“Who…?” I dumbly asked as she stormed over, pain still spiking through my mind.
“YOU!” She poked me in the chest. “You brought Cold Iron into my ring! You spent the night blinding my poor eyes with Arcanite! Then you scurried, like a mouse, into the dark! I found you then, and I’ve found you now, and how may I serve, your majesty?”
I blinked at the sudden change in demeanour, then felt a peck on my forehead.
I looked up at Auri - and the crown of holly on my head.
“Brrrpt!”
“Get us out of here.” I ordered. I would’ve paled further if I could as I realised my potential mistake.
“By us, I mean me, Lightning Reaper, Commander, Spring, and my friend on my head.” I clarified.
“As you wish.” The fae said with gritted teeth.
I looked at my apprentice, and realised I couldn’t remember her name. It had slipped away from me. Some fae trickery? Had the angry fairy snatched a memory from me before I’d gotten the crown on?
Was I missing more memories, and didn’t know it?
Either way, beanpole was looking at me with pleading eyes, and I gave a subtle shake of my head. The crown of holly was only good while the fae deigned to entertain it. If it could do more?
Someone would already rule all the fae.
The merchant quickly crammed as much stuff as she could into her pockets, securing her well-earned, ill-gotten gains.
“I’m sorry.” I told her. “I seem to have entirely forgotten your name. Some fae trickery, I’m sure.”
She stiffened, then leaned in.
“Hang on, names are dangerous here.” I told her.
“I know. Let me whisper it.” She said, and leaned in, cupping her hands around my ear.
“Amber.” She whispered.
We were pulled along in the mad fae’s wake, pulled Stormwards along the edge of twilight. Deeper and deeper into an eternal howling gale we were pulled, our ability to communicate was stolen by the wind.
I hadn’t asked for a safe exit, and the fae’s clever trickery had ensured I couldn’t modify my orders.
Auri ended up tucking herself into my armour as the rest of us made sure my crown of holly was well-secured upon my head. Our path home, our path out.
“Here!” The fae crossed her arms as branches/branches whipped us in the blistering gale. A ring of mushrooms, untouched by the wind, glistened poisonously in front of us.
I opened my mouth to reflexively thank her, and closed it.
Give no thanks.
Both manners and rudeness seemed to be a trap.
“Everyone hold tight!” I screamed into everyone’s ear.
We stepped through together, feeling a deep wrench grab us and pull us.
A second force grabbed at us, stretching us like a noodle. A pair of thunderous voices hammered my ears, echoed in my mind. One was like twinkling chimes in the wind, the other was like the warmth of a meadow in spring.
“Well, since the two of you asked so nicely.”
It felt like dozens of hands were grabbing us, pulling us in different directions. Trying to rip us apart. We held onto each other, keeping a grip on one another. Making sure we stayed together, that we’d be together. I just knew getting separated here would mean I’d never see them again. We were pulled and stretched along, pieces in some great cosmic tug of war, until we arrived back in an ancient forest. The sun was setting, just as the Dragoneye Moons were rising on the horizon, golden light fighting with crimson on the edge of twilight.
After a half-heartbeat pause, thousands of notifications started to ping in my ears.
