Chapter 12 – Rooted in Fairyland

  Jezza

  Jezza had neglected a variable – she’d been out of adventuring life for long enough to lose her peak physical conditioning. Her legs were complaining on the way down the spiraled hallway. That bothered her more than she allowed to show, and she started planning how to work laps back into her daily routine. Every semester, she gave her wizards that can’t move die speech to her arcanists, much to their dismay. For now, she needed to deal.

  Too many people counted on her right at this moment. Clover, mom – the whole enclave really. Djanara, too. Especially Djanara. Jezza marveled momentarily at her from behind, watching the fighter lead them down with her wooden weapon readied. She had to bite her lip to keep from saying something useless and distracting like thank you. Running her diminished self in here had been one of those emotional decisions – the type that got people killed.

  But that was the thing.

  Being logical meant leaving Clover to her fate and evacuating the enclave to minimize losses. Being rational meant not involving this wolf-folk she’d known for about ten days in this dangerous gambit. It had taken something else to get them in here to begin with – something that had nothing to do with reason.

  Now that they were down here, however, they logically had one path available: forward.

  The pair curled around the ashen helix with their weapons raised.

  Their descent down the hallway remained silent, Djanara a few steps in front. The wooden corridor twisted around in a spiral time and time again, until at last a faint blue glow lit the bark around them.

  Djanara stopped, raised her hand toward Jezza, who paused as well. The wolf-folk sniffed the air curiously, ears perked up and listening.

  Jezza listened as well but didn’t hear anything.

  “There’s water ahead,” Djanara reported. “Nothing moving in it.”

  The gnome nodded, at first thinking they’d gotten to an aquifer. Then, she remembered they were in the fae wilds, so the only safe assumption was there’s water ahead.

  “Walls and ceiling,” Jezza commented. “They’ve been coming from above.”

  Djanara gripped her sword with both hands, continued into the growing blue light with Jezza. When they rounded the final spiral, the water came into view.

  This definitely wasn’t an aquifer.

  The root passage came to an end at a gray stone brick entrance, leading to a chamber constructed from truly ancient materials. On either side of a stonework aisle in the center of the room, shallow reflective pools stretched from one end to the other, their ambling floes shimmering with a cyan color. Small, glowing white-blue flowers grew up from the water’s surface, collecting hovering motes of faelight around their petals which swirled wavelike projections across the beaten walls. Deep purple obsidian obelisks stood on the far sides of either pool, facing the central path. At the far end of the central aisle, a large stone door stood closed, painted with an eye resembling a gomaling’s.

  The only sound between them was the steady churn of patient waters.

  Jezza instinctively scanned the walls and ceiling for threats. Djanara stood tense, doing the same – but the only movement came from the pools and their lazy lights. The old stones along the walls and ceiling were broken through in some places, root growth forcing its way inside. Still cautious, they took several steps down the aisle before Djanara relaxed slightly and broke the silence.

  “Nothing here,” Djanara said. She glanced at Jezza; her face bathed in ethereal blue that gave her a ghostlike appearance. “What is this place?”

  Jezza thought about the available information.

  “Possibly for rituals,” Jezza said, pointing to the obelisks and pools. “Beyond that it’s almost pointless to speculate. In Terria, we have written histories and contexts to give us clues. We can reasonably say when or who a ruin belongs to. The Fae Wilds, though, have been here long before Terria, and they’ll be here long after. They actively defy study, routinely mock Terran logic. Laugh at and with us in equal measure.”

  Jezza paused, looked at the far door with its eye painting, and concluded: “this could be from a civilization eons ago, or it could be something the fae set up for us just now. We’ll never know.”

  Djanara went quiet, her face pensive. Jezza figured the warrior was internalizing that the fae were indeed beyond even a magister’s understanding. She decided to look closer at a nearby obelisk, realizing they all had flat faces pointing toward each other across the path. Something was hewn into its stone face – symbols of some kind, but the carvings were too weathered to make them out clearly. There was definitely more to this room, but she needed more information.

  Jezza approached the stone door at the end of the path, joined by Djanara. More symbols had been carved into the stone under the eye – no, not symbols, letters. In Terran Common script, no less.

  “It says something,” Djanara said, scratching her head.

  “It’s old, give me a sec,” Jezza’s voice turned detached and cool. Her eyes scanned the letters while Socrates billowed around inside gaily.

  Prewar, very prewar, Socrates noted, that word there – that’s the Lencian spelling. Other Lencian influences? Yes, the spellings are consistent. Hmm, I see ‘King Omma.’ That’s going to be Kingoma perhaps? Okay, what are these other nouns, is that a pidgin verb? That’s ‘word’, that’s ‘truth’. What is that verb? Oh, of course – Lencian, the root is ‘vabula’ not ‘vox’. So, then translated to modern Common, this would mean something like –

  “To enter the domain of Kingoma’s sacrifice, speak words of truth,” Jezza spoke with her incanting cadence.

  The letters shimmered, then glowed blue, highlighting the old Common she’d just read. Djanara looked around in surprise, then tapped Jezza’s shoulder.

  “Look,” Djanara pointed to the obelisks they’d passed. The words they bore now similarly glowed blue.

  “Yeah, I see,” Jezza said, still cold. “Stay on guard, I think this is gonna take a bit.”

  Jezza really did have to work to keep her serious face while approaching the obelisk path. Flayme fucking loved this.

  Socrates, do the thing! Flayme called.

  Okay, yes, Socrates chuckled, I must admit I’m delighted as well. Can you quiet down and let us proceed?

  She walked between the first pair, paused to examine the now-glowing blue letters on their faces. They spelled words from the same era of Common.

  Mountain. Peerless.

  Hm. Onto the next pair of blue words.

  Slay. Iron.

  Socrates extrapolated: the first pair was noun-adjective, the next was verb-noun. They’ve both had equal numbers of letters so far. Keep in mind this responded to your modern common, that may be important, it may not.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Three pairs of obelisks remained. Jezza checked the next.

  Lucette. Artist.

  Jezza frowned, pausing at this one for longer. There went the number of letters pattern. Could she still reasonably assume this was old Terran Common? The word artist was correct, but Lucette – it was possible that Lucette had been there for that long. She was relieved to see the next pair kept to the pattern.

  Hero. Flower.

  One more pair to inspect, then she’d start putting the pieces together. The final words, however, made her groan in annoyance.

  Jakko. Demon. In plain modern Common, glowing blue.

  Gross name. Dad’s idea. Always hated it.

  “Whatever,” Jezza whispered. Her breath left behind a dead bubble in Socrates, starved the angering Flayme down.

  Just a word, no sweat.

  “What?” Djanara said from nearby, causing Jezza to jump in surprise. She’d not even realized the wolf-folk was following so close.

  “Er,” Jezza mumbled, “fae nonsense. It looks like to open the door; we need to figure out which of these words are true.”

  Djanara tilted her head quizzically and asked: “how do you do that?”

  “Well, not sure yet,” Jezza said, “I need to find a pattern to all of these, something that requires no maybes. Saying one of the false words could spring a trap. Sorry, it’ll be faster if I stop talking.”

  The fighter self-consciously scratched the back of her head and looked away. Jezza refocused on Socrates.

  Confounded fae logic, Socrates decried, putting the oddball last, that was certainly on purpose. No matter. That wound up being useful in itself – we should not be looking at this like linguists. Put aside notions of etymology, there is going to be something fairy-like to this solution. We should explore the number of letters total, and how they are distributed across the obelisks.

  Jezza began to pace up and down the blue-tinted aisle, counting letters back and forth. This went on for a few minutes; she was mid-way through a new calculation when Djanara’s voice broke through her concentration again.

  “Hey,” Djanara’s voice rang heavy. “Jezza?”

  She frowned, losing track of her place.

  “Quiet, I need to think-” Jezza began to snap at Djanara, but the look on her face stopped it: vulnerable and nervous. She even winced subtly at the harsh response. Jezza exhaled, then said: “Sorry. What is it?”

  “Um,” Djanara said, “do you think – do you think killing this Kingoma will make the people of Berr better?”

  There was a na?ve hope in the fighter’s question.

  Jezza hated to kill it.

  But she respected Djanara too much.

  “No, that’s backwards,” Jezza said. “It’s not the Kingoma causing those people to be that way. It’s those people being that way that caused the Kingoma.”

  “What do you mean?” Djanara asked, shoulders falling.

  The gentle movement of the waters echoed around the room. Pleasant, if a little mysterious. It helped her form her response.

  “There’s one phenomenon of the Fae Wilds that stays consistent,” Jezza explained. “It’s these Primals that can appear. They coalesce when negative and harmful emotion gathers nearby in the material planes. That’s what Lucette meant when she said it was born of Terran fear. We can kill it and stop whatever it’s going to do to the enclave, but that’ll make no nevermind to the folks back on Terria.”

  Djanara appeared crestfallen. She mumbled something about it not being fair.

  Jezza let the bad news settle for a few moments, watching the waves of reflected water across her face.

  “Not every problem is a matter of smashing the big nasty monster,” Jezza continued. “But that doesn’t mean smashing the big nasty monster isn’t important. Berr’s not mine to save, but Clover is. The enclave is. My roots are all here in fairyland, so thank you for coming with me.”

  Djanara wiped her face, nodded.

  After a long moment, Jezza watched the strength return to the fighter’s shoulders.

  “You’re right,” Djanara said, “sorry for getting blue.”

  Oh, blue! Undine spoke rare words, redirected Socrates.

  Jezza glanced around Djanara.

  “I think you just gave me the key,” Jezza said, hurrying over to the furthest pair of obelisks to confirm. Djanara gave a curious snort.

  Some of the words glowed darker blue than others – they always had, she’d just discounted it before. Between Jakko and Demon, her old name glowed brighter. And she could certainly say Jakko was false. She checked the other obelisks. Four of their words had the darker shade: Demon, Artist, Hero, Slay. The rest glowed lighter.

  “I’ve got something worth trying,” Jezza announced.

  Jezza and Djanara returned to the door, with the gnome positioning herself directly in front of the central painted eyeball. Briefly, she wondered if the order of the words mattered; and if they did, how would she figure that out? But, given everything, she decided not to think about it too hard.

  “Artist hero slay demon,” Jezza spoke with conviction. She couldn’t resist raising her arms dramatically as she did so.

  The door shuddered with a great rumble, knocking eons of stone dust into the air. The thick cloud obscured the sight of the door sliding down into the floor, slowly, an opening at the top widening inch by inch. It was impossible to see what was on the other side just yet. While it lowered, Djanara stepped in front of Jezza, her stub-tail wagging in excitement.

  “You figured it out!” Djanara called, looking over her shoulder with genuine admiration.

  “Oh, well, it was-” Jezza began.

  From the half-open door, through the dust cloud, something large and terrible emerged.

  “Dee-Jay!” Jezza called. Djanara barely had time to whirl around before a viscous black tendril emerged and swept her off her feet. It sent her flying and billowed the smoke clear.

  Now Jezza could see it.

  The eye.

  The terrible, terrible eye, large as her small body – larger. Yellow, with that same sickly purple-violet iris. This one’s slit pupil had dots on either side like an obelus. The eye sat upon a black, writhing mass of ichor that extruded pincer-like tendrils and a cross-slit opening in the center. The formless phantasmagoria clung to either side of the doorway, began forcing itself through. The pupil looked around the room, manic, until it landed on Jezza and shuddered.

  Jezza raised her focus and incanted the first fire runes of her spell immediately.

  The monster’s chest yawned open four ways to reveal a deep violet void – then, the most awful drone in the world pierced her ears, stopping her speech instantly.

  Demon slay hero artist.

  Socrates left her. Flayme left her. Undine, even Gaia, her silent earth.

  Only the drone. She covered her ears.

  No, it was psychic, still heard it.

  The pitch – like Ailred’s angriest voice.

  Tears filled Jezza’s eyes. The horrible creature approached with its horrible eye and horrible sound, advanced on her, raised its pincers in black violence. Jezza couldn’t even shout against the aural attack, let alone incant. The runes for her go-to spell were there, she visualized them so clearly in her mind, yet Ailred’s tone kept stopping her throat short. As a result, the gnome stood petrified with her focus aimed forward, that deathly void threatening to envelop her.

  In her assaulted mind, the shapes of her runes faded away, replaced with useless memories. All she could think about was explaining how she didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.

  I just wanted to make sure I understood why you can’t use it! I would never imply Lanya didn’t exist! Please, I’m nice!

  The flies.

  They were all looking at her with such anger and hatred, in the building attached to the chapel, with its green shelves holding green lying books. With its flies. Green books covered in flies. Buzzing. Flies covered in buzzing flies and flies buzzing.

  All their cries and angry lies.

  All disguised their empty skies.

  All their eyes green obeli.

  All these flies should fucking-

  Clonk!

  A brick bounced off the back of the creature’s eyeball. It barely flinched.

  However.

  The drone faltered for half a second – far more than enough time for Flayme to return.

  Jezza let the big one go before she was even aware the runic had left her lips.

  A small, ember-like bead shot from her focus into the violet void of the monster’s chest cavity. Its eye twitched in surprise, and its maw closed back.

  Jezza realized what she’d just cast.

  She dove back.

  Her most used spell from the adventuring years. Fireball, by name. She’d burnt the rest of her reserves to put extra spice on it. For a few seconds, the room went from blue to orange. The creature exploded into a fiery conflagration that sent a wave of heat across Jezza’s prone body. A bubbling, sizzling sound joined with the smell of ozone. White-hot fire boiled the creature into a dark stain on the stonework in a mere couple of seconds, then extinguished as suddenly as it had come.

  Silence. Djanara, hand on her bruised shoulder, quietly walked into view while Jezza stood. The wolf-folk gave a low whistle.

  “Thanks,” Jezza said, pausing to breathe heavy. The fatigue blanketed her all at once. She had to put her hands on her knees and close her eyes to keep from falling. Several seconds passed before she could open them again. After Jezza caught her breath, Djanara helped her stand back up straight. The initial wave had passed, but now a deep tiredness lay in her core.

  Apologies, Jezza, Socrates whispered, Flayme is going to have a nice rest now, she says.

  Jezza exhaled deeply. Made memories of that room small again. Forced those folks to be the most miniscule of potatoes. Mere spuds compared to her own enviably sized potato-aura.

  Great big tater in spirit. Tiny little body. Unassailable.

  Flayme is correcting me, it is apparently ‘ni-nis’, Socrates noted.

  Alright, she was fine. She turned to Djanara.

  “Was that it?” Djanara asked, “the Kingoma?”

  Jezza looked into the open door, which led into another hallway between roots. Still ashen.

  “I don’t think so,” Jezza said, “there’d be some change to the tree. We’re getting close though – that must have been something like an elite guard.”

  Djanara quietly matched her gaze, looking ahead.

  “I hate to say this,” Jezza admitted, “but I think the Kingoma is gonna be your kill. I’m down to cantrips.”

  “I figured,” Djanara grumbled. “Hope it’s really big.”

  Jezza smirked, stepping through the puddle of monster toward the path forward. Djanara brushed at her bruise while moving ahead.

  “Hang on, Clover,” Jezza said, “just a few more dice rolls.”