Whatever I stepped in kept me bolted like quicksand. Rufian moved his fight a few paces away so we wouldn’t be pummeled, leaving me with the fae with the long black hair, Eresthea. A level 55 fae nymph. She slashed and swiped, doing work on my armor. Her speed forced me to protect my face with my cyber arms, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. But if I waited for her stamina to die down, I’d be left with nothing shield-wise. So I stood straight and leaned back, stretching my torso out instead of balling it up. With my arms over my face I set my trap, baiting her to strike me at my torso. The temptation was too hard to resist, Eresthea falling for it immediately. And when she swung her sharp nails at me again, I engaged my Enrage mode, doubling my strength and clipping her with an impactful rib shot.
I sent her flying, her back hitting the body of the tree across me hard. Despite the attack knocking the wind out of her sails, she got back up on her feet, dashing at me with adrenaline.
What the fuck?! How was she still alive?!
My arm jerked forward for a direct blast, but it was no good. She was incredibly fast, almost as fast as Jezz. I gritted my teeth and fired another blast shot, the nymph dodging each one. But before she got too close, I shot one a few meters away from her position, noticing a pattern with her scattering. A preemptive shot avoided attacking her directly, but instead, marked where she would move to next. The strat worked and I nipped her, finally slowing the nymph down.
When I blasted a hot one into her thigh, she whimpered in pain and finally fell back.
This gave me a second to unlodge my foot in the dirt and shake off the stabbing pain lingering as I paced forward. My eyes peeled wide open for the sister who had yet to reveal herself, Rufian still engaging with red. He summoned one big ice hand out of thin air and then slammed it down against the red-headed sister, Sabiella. The ground shook violently under my feet, though when he peeled the hand off the ground, the fae was nowhere to be seen.
“She already morphed…” Rufian cursed under his breath, and then he pivoted his head to me and shouted, “Don’t give them time! Kill Eresthea before the forest heals her!”
Guess the whole plan of sticking together went out the door as soon as the sisters closed in.
I could see why Rufian wanted me to pursue her. If we gave her time to heal, then she could restrategize with Rosalind, the sister who had yet to reveal herself. Fighting the clutter of bushes along my path, I searched for the wounded nymph. Up and down I went, but I couldn’t sense her. I tried following a metallic scent, the pungent odor growing stronger and stronger. At the dead end of the path I expected to see Eresthea, instead, I was met with a field of corpses.
Men, both young and old lined my worrisome eyes as they slumped and lay against the edge of the mountain. I held my breath, noticing that their bodies were still intact, but they were crumpled up and scaled down to mere skin and bones. Most were warriors from the dragon nation, with scales along their jaws and horns on their heads. These girls were professionals, sapping life forces down to the marrow of their victims.
“Jesus Christ…” I whispered under my breath, and then I felt a light flapping along the nape of my neck. When I turned around I was blessed with fae dust puffing in my face, my immediate reaction backing me into a ditch.
I coughed, hacking up as much as I could while my hands flailed in front of my face. And at a distance I saw her, Eresthea the size of Tinkerbell.
Pint sized but fully healed. She was masked in beauty again, but in her less monstrous and tiny nymph form, she was slower. It wouldn’t matter though, because whatever she blew in my face was slowly making me numb.
That wasn’t the worst of it. Not a second later I felt wraps of roots swinging along my wrists and my ankles, keeping me down in the ditch. When I heard giggling behind me I already knew who it was, Rosalind swinging her little finger in the air as she flapped her wings delightfully. “Naughty boy,” she cooed, swirling her index finger to make the roots tighten on me. I gritted my teeth in pain, my ankle already sprained.
If this was what Rufian had to go through earlier, I saw why he dreaded landing in the heart of this nymph forest for some god damn fruit!
With quick thinking, I shot a small legion of minions. Using the mana I had left, my plan was to try and distract the girls. Despite their ability to fly, my minion bots preoccupied the tricky fairies, tossing themselves like soft balls to knock them out of the sky while I fought the numbing effect of their fairy dust.
“Ugh! Human filth!” Eresthea sucked her teeth, trying to evade my relentless minions. She snapped her fingers and sprouted vines from the ground to counter their efforts, each out tripping over the other. Some roots were strong enough to squeeze my bots into mere bolts and circuits, but their job did the trick, because when Eresthea took one sigh of relief after breaking them down, she turned around to the center of my blaster in her tiny face.
Lights out.
With one gasp, she met her end. Her smaller size made her an easy target, and a more susceptible one. Rosalind cried out at her sister’s death, morphing into that hideous banshee looking demon again. This form granted them speed and strength, while their small fairy form granted them access to flight. At least that was what it seemed like, because one second Rosalind was along the bank, and the next, she had her hand on my chest.
She was too quick for me to react defensively. My heart raced, her fingertips glowing white just like Naiiah’s had. She fed me a crooked smile, flashing me those yellow-stained jagged and sharp teeth.
“It’ll take longer without a wish, but you’re worth it,” she said in a deep and sinister growl. “After all of the grief you’ve caused me and my family. I will enjoy sucking the last seconds you have on this earth!”
I choked up, Rosalind catching me in a vulnerable predicament. The numbness hadn’t worked through me entirely, but it was still hard for me to swat her away. I begged my body to move, but it was a trial that was getting nowhere fast. Until I noticed Rosalind suddenly stepping away from me, with a terrified look on her pale face.
She held her breath, that disturbed expression making me drop my guard. Her lips quivered as she faltered through her question, “What… what are you?”
Shit, she knew!
The fae must have read my soul and saw that there was a mighty powerhouse inside of me.
She transformed into her ethereal beauty again, and seeing as she continued to back away from me, she was ready to buck it. But before she could turn around and dash off, an ice fist broke clean through her chest, the good ol’ traveling priest finishing her off.
“Now, we won’t have any of that,” he taunted, squeezing her heart in his fist. “Our secrets will rest with this forest.”
Just as he said that, he snapped his finger and two long strips of flames ran its course from the tips of his feet and into the forest. He pulled his fist out of Rosalind, letting her body drop lifelessly. We’d killed the nymph sisters, and he was tying loose ends by laying their home to ashes.
Rufian snapped his arm to flick the blood off his fingers, before settling for steam instead. “We should get going, Silas,” he said as he looted the girls, “before you get caught in the fire.”
I looked at Rufian funny and then asked him, “I’m curious, if you knew this forest was infested with wish fairies, then why hadn’t you destroyed it earlier?”
He smiled. “Resources. Of which this forest has plenty of.”
“Then why burn it now?”
“Clearing our tracks, Silas. We leave no stone unturned. I might have short-changed the power of these mystic and majestic places. When I said that the fae are connected to them, I meant on a spiritual level. The forest heals them, guides them, empowers them, and educates them. The nymphs are all connected to their roots, which means when one dies, their knowledge doesn’t. Rosalind discovered your secret, and for that reason and that reason alone this lovely plethora of fruits and busty women must perish along with the forest. And quickly, before she spreads her knowledge to her children.”
My secret… Rufian didn’t know I had the dungeon core inside of me. He thought that Rosalind felt the crystal in my inventory…
“Reasonable enough?”
“Well, these fae aren’t the only ones living here,” I commented, realizing the numbing effects were now fading quickly.
“And why does that concern me? Why does it concern you? Don’t lose sight of the mission, Silas. And don’t let your humanity get in the way of our goal. We find the Grimoire at all costs.”
I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “Right, after we get the shards.”
“But of course!” he hesitated. “Now, before you suffocate in these glittery fumes, let us pluck the plum and escape.”
I followed Rufian’s lead, but what he’d done left me uneasy. I get that we had to burn the forest down for the mission, really, I did, it was just the way he did it. The guy had no remorse, and no sympathetic reaction on his face. Only bliss and satisfaction. It was subtle yet methodic. I could tell that he didn’t want me to see how much he enjoyed killing those girls and destroying their home.
