Larilda laughed maniacally as she turned around and started walking off. The friends gathered around in a circle and started talking.
“Well,” Stephanie said, cheerfully, “at least we have something to go on now.”
“We barely have anything to go on,” Luke replied. “There are thousands if not millions of trees in that forest. How the fuck are we gonna find the one with the spell? You heard that crazy bitch. She said it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Angered by Luke's tone of voice, Alyssa turned to him and said in a less-than-friendly tone of her own, “Well then we'd better get going. It's gonna take us a long time to find that needle – a needle that I shouldn't have to remind you we need to get home.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Luke replied.
The friends picked up a few supplies around town and Luke had his longsword sharpened by the weaponsmith before they headed south out of Lakewind. They followed the road out of town that led to the forest where Larilda said the spell could be found. It was a massive forest, one filled with all kinds of monsters. When the friends got to the edge of the trees, they stopped to discuss the difficult task at hand.
“So, how the fuck are we gonna do this?” Luke asked.
“I think we should just start walking through the woods, looking for anything out of the ordinary,” Mitch replied. “Look for strange looking trees or anything else that might give us a clue.”
“Larilda said the tree was in the northwestern part of the forest,” Stephanie added. “That's where we are now. Let's spread out a little bit and start walking.”
And that's how the friends spent the entire rest of the day. They walked, spread out, through the forest, looking for anything unusual. After an entire day of searching, they found nothing.
“This is ridiculous,” Luke said as they sat around a campfire. “We're never gonna find that fucking spell.”
“We're gonna find it,” Alyssa replied. “Even if we have to examine every tree in the entire forest, we're gonna find it.”
“I know it sucks, Luke, but that spell is the only way we're gonna be able to get home,” Mitch said. “We have to keep looking for it. We'll do the same thing tomorrow that we did today. And the day after, if we have to. We're so close to getting home, we can't get discouraged now.”
“Well said!” Stephanie added, smiling at Mitch. “We gotta stay positive.”
“Whatever,” Luke said, shaking his head.
The four of them settled in for the night around the fire. It was a cool night and the campfire allowed them all to sleep comfortably. They took turns keeping watch, as they almost always did when sleeping in the forest. Each of the friends spent a quarter of the night awake on guard duty, sleeping the rest of the time. Mitch spent a good chunk of his guard time thinking about Stephanie, admiring her beauty as she slept. That night, he made a promise to himself that if they ever ended up making it home, he'd finally ask her out. It was something Mitch had wanted to do for a very long time, but could never work up the nerve.
The night went by smoothly and uneventfully. As the sun began to rise over the forest, the friends got up, had something to eat, and prepared for another day of spell searching. None of them were excited about the task, but knew it was necessary if they wanted to get home.
The morning was spent walking through the northwestern part of the forest, spread out, looking at each and every tree. After a few hours of searching and not finding anything, they took a short break for lunch. Before long, the friends were back at it again, looking for the tree with the spell on it. They spread out and resumed their search. A couple hours later, they all stop suddenly after hearing a sound.
“Did you guys hear that?” Stephanie whispered, just loud enough for the others to hear her. “What was that?”
“I don't know,” Mitch answered, then pointed in front of them. “It's coming from over there. Whatever it is, I think there's only one of them.”
They all raised their weapons and prepared for battle, though they weren't sure if it was necessary. Up ahead, they heard something moving around in the forest. None of them could see what it was yet, though. They carefully continued forward, until the sound suddenly stopped.
“What happened?” Alyssa asked. “Where'd it go?”
“I don't know,” Luke replied. “It sounded like it was right in front of us. Maybe, whatever it was, it decided to...”
Before Luke could finish his sentence, a monster jumped out at him from behind a large oak tree. Startled, he jumped back and raised his sword, preparing to strike. Standing before Luke was a creature that none of the friends had ever seen before. They knew it was some kind of gnome, but it was much larger than any gnome they'd ever seen or heard of. It stood at almost six feet tall, taller than all the friends except Luke.
“Oh, I get it now!” Luke said, taking a step toward the gnome, sword raised. “Gnome-Man's land. He's a Gnome-Man, man. Half man, half gnome. But in about two seconds, he's gonna be half dead and half deader.”
Luke took another step toward the Gnome-Man and prepared to swing his longsword. The other friends were right behind him, having walked over from their spread-out position. Just as Luke started to swing his sword at the Gnome-Man's head, it pointed at him, smiled, and blinked....
Turning Luke into a chicken.
The mighty human warrior was instantly turned into a chicken by the Gnome-Man. The friends had heard about evil trickster gnomes, but had never actually encountered one before. As soon as they saw what it did to Luke, they all snapped into action. Stephanie started reading from her magic book, preparing to cast an offensive spell. Both Mitch and Alyssa started to shift into their animal forms.
The Gnome-Man laughed maniacally as it watched Luke run off into the forest. Its laughter didn't last long, though, coming to an abrupt end as Alyssa bit into its leg. Shifted into her lioness form, she started gnawing away at the Gnome-Man. It shrieked in pain as her razor-sharp teeth dug into its leg.
Mitch finished shifting shortly after and joined in on the fun. On all fours, he ran up to the Gnome-Man and bit it in the other leg. Again, it unleashed a high-pitched scream as it fell to the ground. Alyssa and Mitch continued biting it over and over, tearing the Gnome-Man apart.
Stephanie was several feet away, reading off the final words of her spell. As it was getting mauled by the two shifters, the Gnome-Man looked over at Stephanie. It took a deep breath – its final breath, as it turned out – and smiled, pointed at her, and blinked. Then, the Gnome-Man's eyes shut forever as the shifters feasted on its flesh.
While the shifters were chowing down on the Gnome-Man, Stephanie walked around the area looking for Luke. He was nowhere to be found. After Mitch and Alyssa finished feasting, leaving a bloody, torn-apart corpse, they shifted back into human form. When the two of them saw Stephanie, they couldn't help but laugh.
“What?” she asked, feeling incredibly self-conscious. “What's so funny?”
Alyssa walked up to Stephanie, stroked the long and bushy beard growing out of her face, and said, “We're not laughing at you, sweetie. We're laughing at the gift the Gnome-Man left you.”
Stephanie touched her face and her eyes widened when she felt the beard. She knew something felt different since the Gnome-Man pointed at her and blinked its eyes, but didn't know what.
Now she did.
“I can't believe that fucking gnome gave me a beard!” Stephanie yelled.
“Wow, Steph,” Mitch said, “you almost never swear.”
“Well, I'm pissed!”
“I know the beard's unsightly,” Alyssa said, “but at least the Gnome-Man didn't hurt you.”
“That's true. But I'm still angry. And embarrassed.”
“Don't be,” Mitch said, trying to comfort Stephanie. “You're the cutest bearded elf in all of Bloodfeast. And I'm sure it's not permanent. Whatever spell the Gnome-Man cast will wear off eventually.”
“It better!” Stephanie re
plied. “I don't want to look like this forever. But we've got bigger problems than my beard. While you two were snacking on that stupid Gnome-Man, I went looking for Luke but couldn't find him anywhere around here. He must've run off pretty far.”
“Why don't the three of us keep looking for the tree with the spell on it,” Mitch suggested. “And we'll look for Luke at the same time. He could be just about anywhere.”
“Then when we find him,” Alyssa said, smiling, “we can make chicken stew.”
“No cooking my best friend,” Mitch replied. “as delicious as he may be.”
Chapter 19 - Spellbound
The three friends continued their search for the tree with the magic spell on it. Like before, they spread out and walked, looking at every tree along the way. Without Luke, they felt a little more vulnerable than usual. Even Alyssa, as disgusted as she usually was with his behavior, felt safer with Luke around. There's no denying it: He was the muscle of the group.
They walked for hours and hours. After a while, all three of them were starting to get tired and discouraged.
“What are we gonna do if we never find Luke?” Stephanie asked.
“We're gonna find him,” Mitch answered. “We have to find him.”
Mitch was trying to sound confident in front of Alyssa and especially Stephanie, but was himself afraid that he'd never see his friend again. They kept walking in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Suddenly, they all stopped.
“Did you hear that?” Mitch asked.
“What?” Stephanie replied.
“I did,” Alyssa answered and pointed to her left. “It sounded like it came from over there.”
“What?” Stephanie asked again. “What did you guys hear?”
A few seconds later, Stephanie realized what they were talking about. She heard clucking coming from somewhere to their left. The three of them ran over to where the sound was coming from. Standing next to a large tree was a chicken clucking away. They surrounded the chicken and closed in on it. When he was close enough, Mitch picked it up.
“Gotcha!” he yelled.
“Are you sure it's Luke?” Stephanie asked.
“It has to be,” Alyssa answered. “Of all the times we've been out in this forest, we've never seen a chicken before. Wild turkeys, yeah. Chickens, no.”
“It's him,” Mitch said. “It's definitely him.”
“The question is, how do we get him back to normal?” Alyssa asked. “Will it eventually happen on its own or do we have do something about it?”
“I have no idea,” Mitch replied. “None of us have ever had to deal with a half-human trickster gnome before. Hopefully Luke will just go back to normal on his own.”
“Let's hope so,” Stephanie said, running a finger through her coarse beard. “And let's hope the Gnome-Man's spells wear off sooner rather than later.”
The friends were all happy to have found Luke, even though they didn't know how to get him back to normal. As Mitch was holding Luke and the friends were talking, he kept clucking.
“Shhh,” Alyssa said to the chicken. “Don't worry, Luke. You'll either go back to normal on your own soon or we'll figure out a way. You have nothing to be afraid of.”
Luke kept clucking away. Alyssa didn't actually expect him to understand what she said, but figured she'd give it a shot. The chicken continued clucking, poking his head over Mitch's shoulder.
“Um, guys?” Stephanie said. “I think Luke's trying to tell us something.”
“What?” Alyssa asked.
“I think he's trying to get us to look at that.”
Stephanie pointed to the tree behind Mitch. He and Alyssa had their backs turned toward it. They turned around and both of their jaws dropped when they saw it. Written on the tree, wrapping all the way around it, were several paragraphs. As soon as they read a little bit of it, the friends knew that they'd finally found what they were looking for.
“This is it!” Mitch yelled, almost dropping Luke in the process.
“Yes!” Stephanie chirped. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“I can't believe it! It's the tree with the spell we've been looking for,” Alyssa said, then turned her attention to Luke and stroked his feathers. “You actually did something useful for once. Well done. And to think I was gonna turn you into stew.”
“Bock bock!” Luke clucked.
“I'm gonna get to work writing the spell down in my magic book,” Stephanie said.
“Good idea,” Alyssa replied. “We'll break camp here for the night. Me and Mitch will get a fire going and figure out a way to keep Luke safe and contained. You just focus on copying down the spell so we can finally get the hell out of here.”
Stephanie took out her spell book and writing utensil. Before she started writing, Stephanie read the entire spell beginning to end. It was a long spell, much longer than any of the ones she had in her book. The words were carved into the tree and wrapped around it several times. Stephanie had a smile on her face as she read the spell, knowing that it was their ticket out of Bloodfeast and back home to Boston.
Meanwhile, Alyssa gathered up some firewood and Mitch built a small enclosure for Luke. Using a combination of sticks, rocks, and a blanket he had in his inventory, Mitch was able to make a suitable coop for his friend. Once she'd gathered up enough firewood for the night, Alyssa used her flint and steel to get a campfire going.
“Um, guys,” Stephanie said after trying to copy the spell into her spell book. “I have a problem. We have a problem.”
“What, your beard is getting in the way of writing down the spell?” Alyssa asked, laughing.
“Ha ha. Very funny. I can't copy the spell.”
“What? Why not?” Mitch asked.
“Every time I start writing it down, the words disappear a few seconds later. See?”
Mitch and Alyssa walked over to Stephanie and watched her write down the first few words of the spell. Just like she'd said, the words on the page slowly faded as soon as they were written.
“I've never experienced anything like this before,” Stephanie said. “I don't know what's causing it.”
“Maybe the spell can't be copied,” Mitch suggested. “Maybe it has to be memorized.”
“Seriously?” Stephanie exclaimed, almost yelling. “Do you see how long it is? How am I gonna memorize all of that?”
“I'm sorry, Steph, but I think Mitch is probably right,” Alyssa said. “When your character cast the spell on everyone before they all touched The Orb, did it pull up your spell book on your screen?”
“No, I don't think so.”
“So your character must've had to memorize it,” Alyssa said. “And you're the only one capable of casting it.”
“So, what? I just read the spell over and over until I memorize the entire thing? That could take days!”
“Why don't we sleep on it,” Mitch said. “Maybe we'll think of something else. If we don't, we'll stay here until you've memorized the spell. We'll stay here as long as it takes. I know you can do it, Steph. It'll just take a while.”
“Yeah, well I hope one of us is able to think of another way.”
None of them did. After sleeping through the night, the friends woke up refreshed but without any new ideas. They ate breakfast and then Stephanie got to work.
“If I was trying to memorize this back in Boston,” Stephanie said to Alyssa, “I'd definitely ask you for one of your Adderall.”
“You know what?” her friend replied. “You just gave me an idea!”
Alyssa took out her spell book and flipped through it. A smile appeared on her face as she found what she was looking for: a focus spell. Alyssa read the spell and pointed at Stephanie. Focus appeared over her head.
“There you go!” Alyssa said. “Now you should be as focused as a laser beam.”
“Great!” Stephanie replied. “Hopefully this spell doesn't keep me up for two days straight like Adderall does.”
“Don't worry. My focus spell has all the benefits of Adderall with none of the side effects.”
Stephanie began the arduous task of memorizing the long spell written on the tree. The focus spell that Alyssa cast definitely helped her, but it was still going to take a while.
Alyssa stayed with Stephanie and Luke while Mitch went off to hunt. Luke was by far the best hunter of the group, but Mitch was proficient enough to consistently catch small game. He went off into the forest, hoping to fetch a good meal for everyone.
Inside Out_Bloodfeast Book 1 Page 14