by Virlyce
“Yup,” Stella said from within Vur’s hair.
“If a physical impact could kill me, I think I’d be just as terrified as you,” Diamant said. “But it can’t, so I’m not.”
“I really should’ve just been an investor,” E mumbled.
19
“Is this it?” Lindyss muttered to herself as she hovered above a suspiciously evil-looking building. It was designed like a castle, its walls made of obsidian. There were no windows, and a moat with strange creatures she had never seen before were patrolling the entrance. The roof was covered by a blood-red tarp, and a massive fence with barbed wire at the top cut off the jail from its peaceful surroundings. The black structure looked completely out of place in the picturesque meadow it was located in. “I think this qualifies as a dungeon of doom and despair.”
A piercing noise caught Lindyss’ attention, and she turned her head towards the sound. A massive roc was flying in her direction, its wings cutting through the air, emitting shrieks. Lindyss gulped before licking her lips. “I could use a little snack before I begin,” she said as her eyes narrowed at the approaching beast. Her translucent purple wings beat once, launching her above the clouds and out of sight.
The roc screeched as it spread its wings and leaned back, angling its body to slow its flight as it approached the area where Lindyss had just occupied. It glided in a lazy circle, its head staring down at the castle below. Its eyes narrowed at the dwarves standing guard near the gates, and it beat its wings twice, positioning itself to dive. A whistling sound caught the roc’s attention, and it turned its head up towards the clouds. Its eyes widened as Lindyss plunged towards it, holding a massive spike made of purple mana in her hands. The roc twisted its body, dodging to the side. It managed to avoid a fatal strike to its vitals, but the spike in the cursed elf’s hands pierced its wing before she collided against the roc’s.
Lindyss smiled as a translucent purple bat’s head extended from her aura and sank its fangs into the roc’s neck. The roc opened its mouth, but instead of the shriek Lindyss was expecting, it let out a string of curses. “What the turnips!? Flying elves!? Quit biting me, you witch!”
Lindyss stiffened as her aura stopped draining the roc’s blood. Her mouth opened and closed before she furrowed her brow. “A talking roc?” she asked as she dispersed the mana spike in her hands. “The heck? How can you speak?”
“I’m a fairy, you numbnut!” The roc struggled to throw Lindyss off its back as it continued to plummet towards the ground.
Lindyss’ eyes narrowed as the bat aura sank its fangs deeper into the roc’s neck. “There’s only two things that really irritate me,” she said. “Getting woken up during a dream, and fairies. Become my dinner, please.”
“You’re a lunatic!” the roc shouted as it strained its neck, trying to pull away from the aura’s fangs. But all its efforts did was help the fangs dig deeper into its flesh. The roc screeched before rapidly shrinking, escaping from Lindyss’ grasp. Its feathers receded into its body while its wings took on a humanoid form. The voice coming out of the half-roc half-fairy sounded discombobulated as it asked, “Which colony are you from!? I swear on my name as Erin Koller that I’ll destroy it!”
“You can swear on anything you’d like,” Lindyss said, “but you won’t be able to destroy a single thing once I’m done with you.”
Blood gushed out of two holes in Erin’s neck as she retreated backwards in the air, flapping her wings to distance herself from Lindyss. She grimaced as she pressed her hand against her wound. “Why are you attacking me? Who sent you? Was it the dwarves?”
Lindyss shrugged as she swallowed, the blood in her aura disappearing. “Didn’t I tell you?” she asked. “Fairies irritate me, and lately, I’ve been in a very, very bad mood.”
Erin’s expression darkened. “Don’t you have any regard for life?” she asked. She gritted her teeth. “You’d kill a fairy just because you’re in a bad mood?”
“I’d kill a fairy even if I were in a good mood,” Lindyss said with a snort. “Rotten liars, every single one of you.” Her eyes narrowed at Erin’s silver hair. “Especially the queens.”
Erin wrinkled her nose. “Fell for one or two harmless pranks, have you?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips. The bleeding on her neck had stopped, the bite marks completely gone. “That doesn’t warrant such hatred.” She pointed her finger at Lindyss. “You’re an evil person.”
Lindyss nodded. “I never said I was good.” She flew forwards, a white halo appearing above her head and a white sword appearing in her hand.
“Polymorph!” Erin shouted. Lindyss’ eyes widened as she shrank and turned pink. The purple and white auras around her disappeared as she turned into a worm, plummeting towards the ground. Erin placed her hands on her hips and shouted down at the falling polymorphed elf, “Repent in your next life!”
Translucent purple wings sprouted out of the worm’s back, and an aura engulfed it, taking the shape of a bat. Erin raised an eyebrow as the bat flew towards her. “So you can still control your awakening as a worm,” she muttered. “You’re not bad.”
A massive fireball erupted from the bat’s mouth, flying towards Erin. The fairy yelped before diving downwards, narrowly avoiding the flames, but a series of thunderbolts rained down on her tiny frame, the lightning striking from a clear sky.
“Who the potatoes are you!?” Erin shouted as her limbs stopped tingling. She pointed at the bat aura and said, “Polymorph!”
The purple aura dispersed as Lindyss transformed into a rabbit. She clawed at the air as she plummeted towards the ground. A few seconds later, a pair of translucent wings shot out of her back, and she glared at the fairy floating above her.
“Polymorph!” Erin shouted again.
Lindyss’ aura wings disappeared again as she was transformed into a goat. It took her the same amount of time to adapt to her new form and call out her wings.
Erin ground her teeth together. “Polymorph! I’ll turn you into an animal so complex that you won’t know how to control your awakening!”
“Polymorph!”
“Polymorph!”
“Polymorph!”
“Polymorph!”
***
“If you look to your right, you’ll see our Dwarven Dungeons of Doom, Despair, and Decay,” E said. A set of armor sat beside him to catch him in case he fell out of his seat.
Vur took his eyes off the road and glanced towards the right. His brow furrowed. “Do bears fly on this continent?”
“No?” E asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh,” Vur said and blinked. “What about crocodiles?”
“What are you even thinking about?” E asked as he followed Vur’s gaze. He couldn’t see anything, but he thought he saw a dot in the sky.
“Look,” Vur said, taking his hand off the wheel and pointing. “There’s—”
Stella grabbed Vur’s ear and turned his head away from the dwarven dungeon. “Eyes on the road, please,” she said. “You almost ran someone over.”
Vur scratched his head. Maybe driving for too long caused hallucinations.
***
“You know,” Tafel said to Alice as she lowered her book, “this wasn’t what I had in mind when I set out on an adventure with Vur.”
“What makes you say that?” Alice asked. She was jostled into the air and crashed back against her leather seat as the leviathan skeleton they were riding ran over a tree. She grimaced as all kinds of animals shrieked, howled, and scattered as they were displaced. “Could it be the fact that none of this is normal?”
“Yeah, that could be it,” Tafel said and furrowed her brow while glancing behind herself. Hundreds of skeletons were dashing over the trees that had been toppled over by the leviathan skeleton. They were chattering and laughing amongst themselves while holding bound and gagged elves over their heads. A few of the elves met her gaze, glaring daggers at her. She turned her head back towards Alice. “Anyways, do you know where I can buy the joyf
ul tears of a darkness elemental?”
“I don’t think elementals cry,” Alice said and glanced at Tafel’s book. “Where did you even find that tome?”
“It was in the ruins of the holy dragons’ church in Anfang,” Tafel said. “There was a whole section of the library devoted to forbidden and cursed books.” She patted the sword by her side. “And it seemed perfect to learn how to evolve Spitty.”
“You named your sword Spitty?” Alice asked, raising an eyebrow.
Tafel nodded. “It was that or Sharpy,” she said as a green liquid leaked out from her sword’s blade. It dripped onto the leviathan skeleton, causing vapor to appear as bits of the skeleton’s bones were dissolved. “The book said Spitty can grow wings after it evolves.”
Alice stared at Tafel, causing the demon to tilt her head. “Why the heck would a sword need wings?” Alice asked with a frown.
Tafel raised an eyebrow. “To fly? What else are wings used for?” she asked. “It’s not like—”
“Elves ahoy!” Mr. Skelly shouted from atop the leviathan’s skull. “There’s only seven of them; sweep them up!”
Tafel stood up and squinted at the woods ahead. A few elves were standing in the trees, staring at the approaching horde of undead with their mouths agape. Despair filled their eyes as the cackling of the undead resounded through the air. Tafel sighed and sat down again. “None of them are ginger.”
“I don’t think you’ll ever find a red-haired elf,” Alice said. “Are you sure that tome can be trusted? I don’t see how strands of hair can help evolve a cursed sword.”
“Something about devouring souls,” Tafel said with a shrug. The newest elves were bound and gagged, unable to resist the skeletons’ fierce onslaught. They had tried casting magic, but the fairies by Mr. Skelly had silenced them. “How come we haven’t come across a village yet?”
“Elves live in small colonies,” Alice said and shook her head. “Why would they form a village?”
Tafel pursed her lips. “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s just how they worked on my continent. Wouldn’t it be safer for them to group up?”
“What would they need protection from?” Alice asked. “The forest is a sacred land because the phoenixes live here and declared it as such. Only elves are allowed entry because they’re beneficial to the growth of the forest unlike humans and dwarves, who only know how to cut trees down and take without giving back. No one would dare invade the forest to attack the elves; the elven slaves you see around the dwarven towns were all captured outside.” She frowned. “These undead are probably the first belligerent beings to enter the forest in a long time.”
“Then we’re offending phoenixes right now?” Tafel asked. “They’re supposed to be as strong as dragons if they’re imprinted, right?”
“Dragons and phoenixes both fall under the category of beasts you don’t want to offend if you value your life,” Alice said. “I’ve been trying to tell you that invading the forest is a bad idea, but everyone started ignoring me ever since these skeletons appeared.” Her eyes narrowed at the back of Mr. Skelly’s skull. “Are they that much more charismatic than me?”
Tafel hummed and rubbed her chin. “How hard do you think it’d be to get a phoenix imprint?” she asked, ignoring Alice’s question.
“Impossible,” Alice said and flicked Tafel’s forehead. “Don’t even think about it.” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t understand where these skeletons are getting their confidence from. I tell them it’s a bad idea to invade the forest, but they do it anyways.” She broke off a bit of the leviathan’s bone she was sitting on and threw it at Mr. Skelly. “It’s because you’re already dead, isn’t it? You don’t know what fear means anymore.”
“Well,” Mr. Skelly said as his skull swiveled around to face Alice. “Elves have a lot of mana. An average elf is easily worth twenty average humans. A high elf is worth a hundred humans. As the size of our army expands, the mana upkeep grows as well. Elves are very efficient in their mana produced to food required to keep them alive ratio.”
“Don’t treat living things like renewable energy sources!” Alice said and threw another bone piece at Mr. Skelly, causing a crack to appear on his forehead.
“But that’s all they are to an undead,” Mr. Skelly said and rubbed his skull. The crack shrank before fading away. “Unless you’re talking about zombies. Then living things can become a non-renewable resource.”
“Why are you complaining so much?” Tafel asked Alice. “You’re the one who wanted to go on this trip.”
Mr. Skelly coughed as Alice furrowed her brow. “Me? It was you,” she said. “I only agreed to come because that damned skeleton said you wanted to.”
“Wait a minute…,” Tafel said, her eyes narrowing at Mr. Skelly. “Did you—”
“Ah! A phoenix,” Mr. Skelly said, pointing off to the side. Tafel’s and Alice’s heads whipped around to look towards the direction he pointed in. There was nothing there. When the two turned back, Mr. Skelly was nowhere to be seen.
Alice snorted. “I’m going to kill him the next time I see him.”
“He’s already dead. But I’ll help.”
***
“We’re here; slow down,” E said and waited for Vur to stop the car before hopping outside. E fanned himself before snapping his fingers. A set of armor equipped with a shield appeared and used it to fan the dwarf king. “Hot, isn’t it?”
“It’s a fire mountain!” Stella said with wide eyes. They had stopped at the base of a volcano that had streams of lava flowing down its sides. The black ground occasionally split apart as red and orange bubbles burst to the surface. It was a stark contrast from the grassy green plains they had traversed moments before. A black road extended from the car towards a dark spot by the volcano’s base.
Vur tilted his head as he approached the flow of lava that spilled into a hole in the ground. He put his foot inside it and hummed while E watched on with wide eyes. “It’s a little hot,” Vur said as he retracted his foot.
E swallowed his saliva as lava dripped off of Vur’s unharmed limb. “I guess I don’t have to warn you about straying off the path, huh?” he asked as Vur turned his attention onto the volcano’s peak. “Just follow the obsidian and we’ll reach the entrance.”
“We couldn’t have driven?” Stella asked with a frown.
“The car would’ve exploded,” E said to the fairy sitting on Vur’s head and snorted. “You don’t even walk on your own. Why are you complaining?”
“I don’t want to hear that from you,” Stella said to the dwarf sitting on top of a dwarf-sized suit of armor. There was a second, human-sized suit of armor following closely behind, and E was using its torso as a backrest.
“The fire elementals live here?” Vur asked as he proceeded down the obsidian road. An occasional spray of lava would shoot out from the sides, splattering close to his feet. “I wonder what they look like.”
“Obviously they should look like fireballs with arms and legs,” Stella said with a nod. “Deedee’s an earth elemental and he’s a boulder with arms and legs. Then a wind elemental should look like a ball of wind with arms and legs. A water elemental should look like a ball of water with arms and legs.”
“Actually,” Diamant said, the runes on Vur’s arm lighting up, “fire elementals look like red boulders.”
“No way,” Stella said, glaring at the brown runes. A few roots on Vur’s rose tattoo whipped the runes a few times. “Then what does a wind elemental look like?”
“A green boulder,” Diamant said in a defeated voice. “Ow! Stop doing that! Hitting me won’t change the fact you’re wrong. While I’m at it, water elementals are blue boulders.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Stella said and crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring Diamant’s cries.
“Think about it,” E said. “How will they carry things if their arms are made of fire? They can’t. Same with wind or water.”
Stella pouted. “The world is
magical!” she said. “It can’t start making sense now.”
“I don’t make the rules,” E said and shrugged. “Well, not those rules. I guess, I don’t make any rules anymore after relieving my duties to Vur.”
“No,” Vur said. “You still have to make rules; I made you my advisor, remember?”
“Darn,” E said and sighed. “I was hoping you’d forget. Anyways”—he glanced around before cupping his hands over his mouth—“the dwarf king requests an audience with the clan master!”
The trio had arrived at the end of the road. It had led them face to face with the wall of the volcano. Stella tilted her head and asked, “Entrance?”
“Just give them a second,” E said. “Why are fairies so impatient? Don’t you know all your problems will be solved if you wait long enough?”
“Right?” Vur asked in agreement. “It seems like only dragons know that. Everyone else thinks you should take initiative.”
Before E could reply, the wall in front of the group melted, turning into a puddle of lava by their feet. A stout red boulder with red arms and legs stared at them with round obsidian eyes. “Dwarf king,” the boulder said and inclined its face, which was also its body, downwards. “Welcome to our clan’s headquarters. What brings you here today?”
“I’m not the dwarf king,” E said and pointed at Vur. “He is.”
The boulder turned and stared at Vur, unblinking. Its gaze went back towards E. Its mouth, which was a crack beneath its eyes, moved as it said, “I’m not blind.” It gestured with its arms. “This is a human with a tiny human on its head.”
“I’m a fairy,” Stella said.
The boulder ignored the fairy queen’s remark. “And I remember your face, Your Gloriousness,” the boulder said. “Or should I call you E like you always insist?”
“I’m positive I’ve never seen you before,” E said. “Anyways, take us to your clan master. The dwarf king”—he gestured towards Vur—“wants to speak with him.”