A blur of green soared through the air, Muu reaching out and catching Yohsuke with enough force that his momentum carried them upward. Wings of almost solid green venom spread from his shoulders and fanned out, using the heat from the magma below to glide toward us. Jaken sent his shield out to meet the two of them, and Muu bounced off it to safely land next to me.
I dropped my flame elemental form instantly, and cast Void’s Respite as the others poured healing spells into him. They didn’t seem to be doing the best on him, but he was no longer at less than half health.
He was covered in blood and gore; Infernal Body having worn off. It was all over him, wet and black liquid and bits on his face, in his hair. And he was unconscious, blood coagulating on his neck still, after having been bitten.
“Muu, stand guard over him, we need to speak to these guys.” I nodded to him as I passed him where he stood in front of where Yoh lay on the ground.
Maebe had stepped forward, and I joined her, the others falling back behind us except for Fainnir. The young dwarf stood at my left with his axe drawn and a look of pure, unadulterated hatred devouring his features.
“Fainnir, you’re family to me, buddy.” I turned so that only he would hear me as I whispered the rest, “But if you fuck this up because you think you can take them, I will beat your ass myself once all of them are dead. Calm down.”
To his credit, he took a deep breath, like he had when we began meditating, and slowly let it go. He stepped back with the others and Balmur stepped up next to me, tapping his ears.
I cast Languages, so I can understand them and translate for you. I nodded once to him at his explanation and then looked to our guests. Or were we theirs?
They motioned to each other with their hands, complicated series of flashes that reminded me of sign language, but the intensity of the conversation and the complexity of it eluded me to no end. I had no clue what was being said—neither did Balmur.
The one who looked to have spoken the least stepped forward, his white hair was cropped short to his head, almost in a military-type fade, with his angular elven features making him look severe as he spoke in an almost inaudible voice. Black eyes watched us from around him, making his blue ones seem out of place.
“He wants to know what we are doing here so close to their tunnels,” Balmur translated, the speaker tilted his head, and another drow stepped forward and whispered into his ear.
He motioned for us to continue, pointing from us to the one who spoke to him, then to Balmur. We had a way to communicate.
“We are here to see your ruler,” Maebe spoke, and the others looked confused. “I am Queen Maebe of the Unseelie Fae, and this is my husband.”
They seemed wary, Maebe took the hint and brought a globe of darkness into one hand, and ice into the other before smiling sweetly.
“Do you dare doubt?” They shook their heads, and the leader spoke again, motioning toward us.
“Your consort and the other male slaves, what of them?” Balmur frowned at the name, but James sent a telepathic explanation.
Males in their society are seen as lesser because their women are stronger, he tapped a book in his hand. All the lore in this world and ours points to that being the same.
“They are my knights. Servants of my will and my court,” Maebe explained away with a wave. “They are mine.”
“Why would you want to see our Queen?” He motioned to the area around us. “We are far from the Fae, and she rules here. What could you gain?”
“What could she lose by allowing a visiting queen to meet her in her domain, to bask in her glory, and share knowledge?” Balmur offered slyly. “Queen Maebe has come to usher in a new era of prosperity for her people. Maybe that prosperity is shared with your people. But it needs your Queen’s support, of course. If you would turn us away, we can leave, and she can decide what to do with you from there.”
They didn’t really seem fazed until Balmur muttered something in a guttural language that I didn’t understand. The one who translated for them stiffened, his eyes wide as he repeated what had been said.
“Stop!” The drow spoke louder as if shouting, Balmur echoing him to us. “If you did well enough to come this far, we will allow you to follow us to our city. What the Queen chooses to do is her choice, but your concubine and the other males should learn their place.”
I could feel the anger seeping from the men behind me, but held a hand up to wave it away, it’s their culture guys. They don’t mean it necessarily in a bad way. Though we should stick close to each other.
Why? I could almost hear the audible gulp from Muu.
They may try to take you and add you to their slaves, or worse—their beds. James whispered through our heads. And trust me, you don’t want to end up on one of their ladies’ menu.
“Shit.” A groan behind me made me still and I turned to see Yohsuke sitting up with a hand to his neck. “What the fuck was that?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Balmur looked him over with Jaken. The drow stepped around us to get a better view, their hands flashing to each other. “Those things seemed hell-bent on you, and when they surrounded us, you went down like a sack of potatoes. What the fuck?”
“Some sort of echolocation that they use as an attack?” He grumbled and held his head. “My bell is still fucking ringing.”
“He was bitten,” Balmur translated for one of the drow, a look of concern on his dwarven features. “Before the bite perverts him and he kills you all, you must end him.”
That resonated with me more than a little. “No.”
Yohsuke seemed confused, then a look of acceptance passed over his features as he read something, “Got a notification.”
We blinked at him and waited, finally he spoke through our earrings, It says that I can be cured, but that it’s hard. And reading some of the stat boosts I’d get, I don’t know that turning would be a bad thing.
What’s the downside? Bokaj asked softly. Yohsuke looked at him in askance. We all know there’s a downside. Zeke went furry for a bit, well furrier, and lost his shit a lot before he was able to fully take control and not kill someone. Or at least have us not worry about it. What would yours be?
He shrugged, then seemed to be reading, Hunger seems to be the worst of it, knowing that I’m a little resistant to traditional healing magic, and then there’s the sunlight. I have less of an allergic reaction to silver than Zeke does, but that’s because it’s a type of holy metal.
We can try and find ways around that, I offered. They had tried to do those things for me when I was learning.
“Why are you not killing him?” Balmur angrily translated for the drow once more. They seemed genuinely confused. “He will turn. He will need to feed. Those creatures you fought are just minions, little more than shadows of their master. They are nothing more than cannon fodder and hunters at their master’s beck and call.”
“Does that mean that he will turn into one of them?” James tried not to sound like a dick, but I could tell he was ready to scrap.
Balmur waited while the drow conferred with each other, finally deciding to answer. “We don’t know. There are others among our kind who would know more, but all know that those bitten feel the call of the one who made them.”
I pointed to the rapidly decaying bodies. “The one who made him died. Does that count for anything?”
They shook their heads, the speaker stating, “The bite belongs to the master.”
“Well, Zeke was able to kill Pastella and take control of his own line,” Maebe began, she leaned down to offer a hand to Yohsuke. “We will do the same for you, my friend.”
“We must go,” the drow urged, their weapons bared as the others looked around. “We have wasted enough time here as it is, and there are always others.”
I pressed my awareness into the darkness that I had seen the ones we’d fought exit from, stretching my shadow thin and calling more to it as it went. There was definitely something there. Many.
> “Let’s move,” I whispered to the others, and we were on our way into the darkness the drow had separated themselves from during our fight.
We moved as fast as we could behind them, their maneuvering in the darkness better even than ours likely would have been in broad daylight on the surface.
It felt like forever moving at their pace, but we kept up as they bounded over rocks, shelves of stone, and around corners. They stopped to let us recover as they could, warily watching their surroundings, their suspicion making me cast Life Sense.
There were blips on the map in my head, the gray ones that matched the drow within the spell’s radius. Then, as I pressed my awareness into the shadows around us, I discovered more drow who seemed to be staying more than a hundred feet away around us.
There are more drow around us, I can feel at least twenty, I warned the others.
Balmur tapped the translator for the drow, his smack audible, making all of us stiffen in the near silence around us and pointed to his ear. They both cast their spells, and he mumbled to him. The drow motioned that he should calm down and muttered back.
This is their main hunting party. They were the scouting party sent to check on the noise that had been in the chamber we were in, they keep their distance in hopes that we attract something they can take back to their people.
I rolled my eyes. We spent several more hours moving toward the city before the drow halted us, Balmur told us, “They’re stopping to rest. We have eight hours.”
I don’t think we should use the spell for the night, man. Yohsuke stopped Balmur as he rifled through his inventory. We can save that as a means to hide if shit goes south. No need for them to know about it.
It’s going to suck, but okay. Good idea. Balmur stretched and pulled out his bedroll, casting his dome so that it surrounded him, Muu and Bokaj. They were our snorers, and the dome would dull the sound a little.
“My lady wife, would you like to create a barrier of shadow to cover all of us?” I glanced her way, and she smiled. The darkness around us came alive, motion everywhere as she funneled it into her body, her skin darkening completely, then a soft thrum of power played along my skin as she pressed that darkness outward in all directions covering not just us, but the elves that had refused to come much closer.
“How is that, my lord husband?” She raised an eyebrow, her green eyes glowing even in the darkness.
“They want to know what that was.” Balmur poked his head out of his dome. “I told them it was you making a barrier, but they don’t believe that anyone but their Queen has that much control over the darkness.”
Several of the drow that had remained hidden came forward with weapons drawn, looking around angrily. One of them was a woman, and she was physically larger and stronger looking than the males who accompanied her.
The way she strode forward left no doubts about who was in charge, her bare shoulders powerfully muscled, and the small globe of darkness in her palm meant she had access to magic as well. Her broad, severe-looking face was calm, yet somehow still appraising as her eyes wandered over my body. I took it, no need to worry, really.
Drow Hunt Leader Level 40
“Who did this?” She asked, her accent thick, but her attempt to speak the common tongue, not unnoticed.
Maebe stepped forward. “I did.”
“This is pretender magic.” The drow snarled, her features screwing up.
“You guys gonna get your girl here, or is my wife going to have to stomp her skull in?” I blinked tiredly at the drow, the translator gasping audibly at what I had said before passing the message along to those closest to him. Their weapons pointed my way, and I smiled.
The drowess ignored me, her eyes on Maebe. “This magic is pretender magic, and does not belong in our Queen’s domain. Take down.”
“If you want your people to be exposed to the cavern we’re in, by all means,” Maebe snapped her fingers, the click making the drow flinch as the barrier flashed past all of them until only the three of us were in it. “There. But you should know, child.”
Maebe stepped closer slowly, her hips swaying with her movements almost as if to provoke the person in front of her. She waited until she stood directly in front of the other woman, then levitated until she was eye to eye with her to speak, “The realm of shadows is mine.”
Maebe reached out with her left hand and plucked the softball-sized globe of darkness from the other woman’s hand and smirked. “Cute.”
The drow leader looked ready to throw a punch, but I stepped closer. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’ve seen her freeze people for less. And if you hit her, I’ll kill you myself. Now, so we can leave this unpleasantness behind, how long have those vampires been around? They recent here?”
She glanced at me, her red irises captivating for a second before she narrowed her eyes. “Males seen, not heard.”
She stuck out a hand, and a whip of shadow leapt from it, my awareness tipping me off to the motion as the thing cracked the air in front of my face. I reached up with my own left hand and snatched the darkness from her grasp, making her gasp in outrage.
“Males should not raise hand to woman!” She stalked closer slowly. “Males not to touch the shadows!”
I rolled my eyes at her, Maebe smirked and let the ball of darkness go before spreading the shadow barrier out until all of the drow were inside once more. Maebe pointed to the drow translator and pointed to her side. Her motion left no room for any kind of disobedience.
“You will be my mouthpiece,” she explained to him, his hands signing her words to the others. “Your leader has insulted me by accusing me, the Queen of the Dark Frost, of being a pretender. If I were not here to speak with your Queen as a potential ally, I would kill her, and a war unlike anything you have ever experienced or read of would ensue. I would swallow your people like a plague and take what I wanted from the corpses and frozen wastes that your lands would be. But I am forgiving. I would propose a little contest. My husband, whom she has also insulted, is King of the Unseelie, and by all rights, my equal. If she can wrest the shadows from his hands without bleeding, I will settle for you simply taking us to your Queen, and I will praise you all as friends.”
The motioning didn’t stop for a moment, but the drowess raised her head, “I not lose, no need to speak more.”
“This is not for you.” Maebe smiled sweetly. She turned to the others. “When she loses, I will kill her, and those of you who raise your arms to me, or mine, will all die horribly. The survivors will take us to the city, and I will not turn my ire on your people or Queen. Do we have an agreement?”
The others quickly put their weapons into their sheathes, eyes on their leader.
“I not lose. If I win, I beat male for insolence, and you no use pretender magic again.” She seemed to take joy in the little addition that she had. “Unless afraid?”
Maebe’s smile was even more unnerving. “I so swear it.”
The shadows danced once more around us, and the leader panned through her notifications.
I looked to Maebe, stricken. But she only nodded to me once and stated, “You have one minute.”
QUEST ALERT!
Shadow Boxing — Queen Maebe has offered a contest with simple rules, you are to hold a ball of shadows in your hands while the other participant tries to take them from you, or makes you lose your grasp of them without them being bled within the time limit. Should they fail to take the shadows, or be bled, you win! Should they succeed, you lose.
Success: Queen Maebe exacts her vengeance on the opponent and may continue using Shadow Magic.
Failure: You receive a beating from the winner, and Queen Maebe loses access to her Shadow Magic.
Do you accept? Yes? / No?
I sighed softly, allowing my jitters to siphon from my body into the nether. Opening my eyes, I called the shadows to my hands, packing them tightly until the ball was roughly the size of a basketball in my hands.
The leader hissed as I did so,
and Maebe laughed softly. “The count begins…now!”
A small clock counting down from sixty seconds appeared in the left bottom corner of my vision, and I grinned. The drow reached out, a little over a foot away from the ball of void energy in my hands and grasped at the air. I felt her will barrel its way toward the shadows in my grasp and held firm. Nothing happened, and her former look of cocky anger transitioned to disbelief, then rage. She stalked forward until she almost touched the shadows.
57, 56, 55, 54. Nothing happened still, and she drew her weapon, aiming it at my heart. 52, 51, 50. She tried to strike at me, the blade sliding off my right arm as I twisted my body to avoid the strike.
Nothing had been stated about her trying to make me lose focus and having the shadows disperse. 48, 47.
I laughed, enraging her further. Maebe had trained me well, taking the shadows from me all the time. Forcing me to move and control them with nothing but pure will and tenacity. The strikes came and kept coming. Do I want to say that I didn’t take a single cut? Sure. But that’s not what happened. The little cuts and slashes I took stung, but the look on her face as I continued to dance away from her, drawing more shadows to me was worth it. She had lost, and the rest of this was for show.
Plus, how many people could say they’d fought a drow and walked away?
40, 39, 38, 37. She snarled, her blade flashing forward at the shadows held in my hands as if she meant to cleave it in two. I let the blade pass through the outside of it and into the center, then solidified it with my will, jerking it aside so, the blade snapped in half.
While she was distracted with what had happened, I hopped into the air, spun and snapped my right leg back in a vicious spinning back kick that I had learned when I was a teenager in taekwondo. My booted foot slammed into her solar plexus knocking the wind from her and forcing her to bend a little toward the ground.
In a move that I thought would make James proud, I shot my foot forward in a front kick that knocked her onto her ass with a thud. Several of the male drow drew arrows, but they held their hands as my opponent hissed at them.
Into the Darkness: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Axe Druid Book 4) Page 49