by Max Jager
- Next Chapter: A Moment Too Late. -
Chapter 16: A Moment too Late
~~ Chapter 16: A Moment too Late ~~
The four Alphas looked around the fairy city in awe for several seconds, the gems all over the city were making it sparkle and cover the city in bright colors. The fairies were zipping about wearing lots of jewelry along with colorful clothes that were often relatively revealing, loose, adorned with many gems, and flowing with their every movement. They stared for a moment before Pex shook Estellese out of it. "Focus. It's just a city. We need to go speak to the king and queen."
"We need time to rest Pex, we are all hurt and exhausted." Mendelen stated. "Can you point us to a healer?"
"We don't have time to stop I can sense it, something is not right." Pex stated. She got down from Estellese's arms and stood up on her own. It was strange for the Alphas to see the tiny fairy woman standing just as tall as the rest of them. They even noticed, for the first time, that she had been carrying a sword and several small pouches on her belt this whole time. "I'm exhausted too. I just had to cross the ocean twice and the amount of magic I've been burning off probably woulda killed me a long time ago if not for my emeralds." She said, referencing one of the many green gems she was wearing. "We need to get going, follow me." She finished as she began walking towards the center of the city.
"Your emeralds? What do they do?" Estellese asked.
"Same thing all the gems in this city do. Gems are really only good for one thing." Pex answered. "Oh, wait, you don't have magic where you come from. Well to put it simply, gems have this odd ability to absorb and store energy. If you pour your energy into a gem it will just stay there, and the gems will also absorb the energy of the area surrounding them. So all the energy that seems to radiate off this island is being sucked up and stored by the gems here before it disappears. Then we have the gems enchanted to cast certain spells or do things like make the houses float and stuff." She explained "I spent a few days pouring my energy into all these gems to charge them up. Then when i went on that trip I pulled the energy back out of the gems for my spells so I don't exhaust myself so much. Of course, the gems can only store a limited amount of energy based on their size, so my gems eventually ran out, they were enough for me to boost myself across the ocean really fast without getting too tired." She explained. "Some people are sick-minded enough to trap elementals within gems and use them as a rechargeable power source. So long as the elementals don't get drained so much that they die. But those are disgusting people, the elementals are living creatures after all and that is without a doubt painful for them."
"That is pretty dark." Kaden stated. "But useful, so if we want to use a lot of magic we should invest in getting some gems."
"Yes. Remember if you don't live on this island you will have to charge them manually, with your own energy and only, like, half the energy you put into it gets stored. But think of it as banking your energy for an emergency. If sometime later you find yourself in a tight spot, that banked energy may just save you."
"Hmm" Kaden murmured.
As they walked they could see a massive shining castle made almost entirely of gems levitating high in the air. "So, is there any special manners we need to use when addressing the king and queen?" Mendelen asked.
"Usually, yes." Pex started. "But this is a special situation, so for the time being just don't be rude and I'm sure they will not care. They are nice and reasonable people." She stated. As they reached the castle the group saw one really long rope ladder hanging from the front of the castle down to the ground.
"I'll, uh, meet you at the top. This walking stuff is not for me, and climbing is surely not something I wanna do." Pex said as she began fluttering her wings and lifted off the ground. Moments later she flew up to the castle leaving the Alphas to climb up on their own.
"Can everyone climb? Given our condition?" Mendelen asked. Everyone hesitated, they were still wounded even if their wounds were partially healed. But the group nodded. "Let's go then. Stop this last group of demons and then we can rest and figure out what to do from there." He said.
The four of them began climbing up the rope ladder. Mendelen went first incase it was a trap or something, Kaden followed behind him, with Zanath third and Estellese last. They reached the top where Pex awaited them and together the group of five walked in through the massive diamond doors. Which, retrospectively would've been pretty small if the humans were normal sized. As they walked in through the doors they heard a familiar girl's voice.
"We suffered heavy losses from the fight we were in before, and we fear a counterattack on the village from any nearby rifts we may not have known about. We can't spare any elven soldiers. Believe me, I really want to and I wish I could, but there is no way we can. Have you asked the dwarves?" The girl asked.
"Alicia, you can't even spare a couple of your veteran soldiers?" A woman's voice asked. "The dwarves have not responded to any of our messengers yet. I fear they may be facing their own demons."
"I am sorry, we lost too many people. If I had more time I could send some, but right now the vast majority of our soldiers are either dead or badly wounded. We only have a handful of veterans who are unharmed, and our healers can only heal so many people in one day. We have nothing to spare."
The doors to the throne room opened and Pex stepped into the room, with the four Alphas following briefly behind her. "I brought help" Pex started.
As the Alphas walked into the room they saw Alicia's spirit standing in the room, speaking to a girl with fairy wings and a crown. The fairy queen wore a long, flowing, sleeveless black dress that was adorned with countless gems, mostly diamonds. She had butterfly-like wings that were purple around the edges but faded to blue as they got closer to the center of each of the four sections, with black lines drawing patterns across her wings. Her violet hair was long and straight and her eyes matched her hair. Like the other fairies she was wearing lots of jewel encrusted jewelry. Her arms, neck, and face were covered in black tattoos that looked like wispy curvy lines with jagged edges every here and there. She looked like she was in her early twenties.
Of course, Alicia could not have come in person so she used her signet skill to send her spirit here to speak to the queen. She was not looking good though, her spirit looked exhausted, she no longer had her armor on and instead was wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts with most of her body covered in bandages. Any part of her skin that was visible was very badly burnt and on a closer look her right arm was clearly broken by the way it bent in the wrong direction just a little above her wrist. She was visibly in a lot of pain, and while she tried to hide it it was obvious just by hearing the inflection in her voice.
Sitting at desks lining the walls on either side of the throne were six other fairies, three on each side. Three females and three males. They all looked very old and wise.
The queen looked over at Pex and the Alphas "Who are these people?" She asked.
Alicia turned to them, "you guys survived. That is a relief." She said before turning back to the queen. "These are the humans I mentioned before. They created the device we used to close our rift, they can make one for you too. This is the best I can offer."
"Humans? Like that rumor of the boy and his dog?" The queen asked. "Can they fight? Are they powerful?"
"I am pretty sure the boy and dog are a fairytale. Or some insane elf getting off on pretending to be the son of the creator." Alicia stated. "But no, they are not powerful and can not fight. But they can build you the machine that closes the rifts, as long as you keep them safe that rift is as good as gone."
Kaden gave a brief wave as they were introduced.
"But that doesn't solve the problem!" The queen argued "the abyssal demon is out, my husband is holding it off right now! We need to take it down before we can consider closing the rift."
"Sybil."'one of the older fairies at the desks spoke up. "If this is the best the elves can offer right now, it is the best we can ask for. We c
an not pressure our allies to spare troops they can not afford to spare. All who agree?" She stated.
The elder who spoke up and three of the other elders rose their hands, only two of the elders disagreed and kept their hands down. "As majority rule, this is the council's stance on this issue. I do not believe anyone here is intent on forcing our decision, but you should consider it."
Sybil hesitated. "You have a fair point council, I may be out of line asking for more. I will step down, thank you for the support you did give, Alicia."
"Don't thank me" Alicia stated "I was unable to give you the help you needed and I am sorry for that. If anything changes, or anyone becomes available, I will send help immediately. Please be careful."
"We will." Sybil replied and with that Alicia's spirit disappeared, returning to her body back in the elven village. The queen turned to the council "Any suggestions for what we do now?" She asked.
One elderly man spoke up, "Us council members will have to join the fight. You too madam. Get the humans to build whatever their thing is, then we all join the fight and back up your husband. Some of us will die, but If we are going to rule this city we must be prepared to die for it. If we all fight together I know we can bring the abyssal demon down. Then the humans rush in and shut the rift to ensure that it doesn't come back."
"But I do not want to lose anybody, especially the stronger fairies and soldiers. If we lose them we will be vulnerable." Sybil stated
"Vulnerable to what?" One of the elder women asked. "If this does indeed close the rift and stop the demons like Princess Alicia says, there is nothing left to attack us other than the lizard men who do not pose much of a threat. The demons will surely open new rifts to attack but that will take considerable time, enough time for us to rebuild."
"I don't know, I should see what my husband thinks about this plan." Sybil said.
"Your husband went out to fight." The elder spoke up again. "He left you here to make the decision when we all know he could have stayed and sent you to hold the demon back, you are both equally skilled combatants. But he didn't send you to fight, he left you in charge of finding a solution because he trusts in whatever solution you come up with."
"I know I can make sound choices on my own. But this, this is a choice with no good outcome. On top of that it is a massive decision that shouldn't be made by one person alone, this battle is completely one sided, so many people are going to die. Who the hell am I to tell hundreds of people that they need to go die, just so we can bet everything on this new unknown device. What if it doesn't work?" Sybil stated.
"We understand your concern." One of the elderly council women stated. "But you are their leader, you are the one they put their faith in. They are soldiers, they know that not every battle they are thrust into will be easy. Anyone who is not willing to risk their lives for Evean simply won't fight, nobody is forcing them to. All of the soldiers are ready and willing to fight this battle, no matter the odds, they are just waiting on you to tell them when and where." The elderly woman turned to the other elderly fairies on the council "Do we all agree that this battle is worth the risk?"
Starting from left to right each of the fairies gave their opinion. All but one agreed that it was worth it. The very first one stating that "If it worked for the elves, we have to hope it will work for us too. We don't have much choice right now."
Sybil hesitated and thought about it. Then after a moment she straightened her stance and bowed her head a little to the council. "Thank you for your wisdom, council."
"That is what we are here for dear." The elderly lady replied. "What is your decision?"
"I will take your advice. It is sound and reasonable. We build the device and join up with my husband." Sybil answered.
"Good, then we will prepare for the battle ahead of us." A different elderly man on the council said. And with that the six fairies stood up and walked out of the room through a door in the back.
Sybil turned to the Alphas and Pex "I apologize for keeping you all waiting, your arrival was unexpected and untimely. But regardless I am glad you are here, how long will it take to build this device?" She asked.
Everyone turned to Zanath who answered "Two hours, assuming you have all the supplies I need. The elves had someone summon supplies for me so I am assuming you have someone who can do the same?"
"Of course, that is quite easily done." Sybil replied, giving them a curious look for asking such a silly question.
"Ma'am, they are not from this world. The world they come from has no magic, so this is all foreign to them." Pex explained.
"A world without magic?" Sybil asked, raising an eyebrow in interest. "Well I hope we live long enough to visit that world sometime. I'm interested in how such a thing exists and what it is like."
"We have technology that is incredibly advanced, compared to the technology here." Zanath answered. "We do not mind sharing such technology after this battle. We have already shared a little with the elves." He explained.
"That sounds good to me. Now follow me I will lead you to the supply runners, those fairies will be able to summon whatever materials you need to build the thing." Sybil replied.
"You are the queen, you are going to personally escort us?" Kaden asked. "I mean, what if we were assassins or something? Isn't that a dangerous job meant for a guard or something?"
Sybil laughed and shook her head. "I am a master of many elements of magic, two being Empathy and Telepathy. Or in other words, I know exactly what you are thinking and feeling right this second. If you had any hostile intent or thoughts of harming me in any way I'd know and you'd be dead before you could even draw your sword." She said with a shrug. "None of you seem to know how to guard your minds from mental intrusion, probably due to your lack of experience with magic. You're all open books. But you need not worry, I am not one of those unethical mages who would probe your mind for personal information or manipulate your emotions to sway your judgment. I only take the information regarding your intent, honesty, and my safety."
"That's pretty cool." Estellese mused. "What other elements do you know?"
"My primary element is Ice, secondary is Mental which is where telepathy and empathy come from. I know a few spells here and there from almost every element though, I just can't fully control the other elements." Sybil answered. "Anyways, we are here and I can not stay to chat. I'm going to gear up, Pex, as soon as they build the thing bring them to the front lines and find me." She stated.
Pex's eyes widened "You want me on the front lines? I can't fight that well." She protested.
"Take Eyrus with you, as soon as you bring them to me you may leave and go back to the village." Sybil stated as she turned and flew off.
Once she left Zanath spoke up "I do not mean to be rude, but isn't she a little young to be a queen?" he asked.
Pex shook her head. "No we don't do things the same way the elves and dwarves do. Our leader is chosen by the people who live here, not by heritage. We used to do it the elven way but changed over the last few years because we noticed that the old leaders were too resistant to change and out of touch with the modern times. Now we elect two young adult leaders who will be king and queen until they age out of the system. That's to keep us in touch with modern times and ideals. But we also know the elders carry wisdom and elect six elders to be the council so they can contribute their wisdom and experience to the king and queen." She explained, then promptly cussed under her breath "I'm going off on a tangent again, don't let me talk about history until we defeat this thing or we'll be here all day. We need to go." She said quickly as she rushed into the building.
The four alphas followed her into the building and looked around, it had a medieval look but there were replicas of modern day appliances that appeared to be powered by gems rather than electricity. The replicas looked significantly different from the human appliances they were made after but shared enough resemblance for the alphas to sort of tell what they did. Although even with these magic appliances the fa
iries only had the basic human inventions like lights that seemed to function without light bulbs.
"Eyrus wake up we need you!" Pex called out.
"Whyyy?" Someone groaned from the next room over. Within a moment a tall man stumbled out of the room, his cyan hair was a mess, he looked to be half asleep and was rubbing his eyes. The stubble on his face showed that he had not shaved in a few days, and his clothes were as disheveled as his house. "Why can't anyone just let me sleep?" He mumbled. His light green wings fluttering open and stretching out.
"The abyssal demon broke free, we need your access to the supplies to help us quickly build something to stop it." Pex answered.
"Damnit" Eyrus sighed, although it was unclear if he was referring to the demon breaking free or complaining about having to do work. "What do you need?" He grumbled.
Pex took a step back and gestured to Zanath, who stepped forwards and pulled a stack of paper out of his bag. "A lot, and very specific things too. I made this instruction book with the help of the elven summoners. It should give you enough detail to summon everything exactly as I need it, in a pace that isn't too exhausting."