Elise barely had time to {Dart} away before a set of jaws with teeth as tall as she was closed around the air where she had just been. As the creature sank back into the dark water, she continued to fly up, as high as she could, until her wings were almost brushing against the roof of the cave. The monster leapt again, getting its full body out of the water– which was impressive, given its size– but it still wasn’t quite high enough to reach her.
[Darkwater Plesiosaur, lvl ???]
[{Inspect} lvl 25 -> 27]
The monster was a plesiosaur. An enormous, black plesiosaur. After its second failed attempt to get her into its mouth, it surfaced more calmly and stared at her with giant pale eyes. Thankfully, despite its size, it didn’t seem to be very powerful. Not compared to the warg, at least. And it didn’t have any ranged attacks. Elise was high enough up to be safe. For now.
The problem was that if she went too close to any side, the ceiling got lower, and she would then be within its reach, which meant she couldn’t go back to the tunnel. While her flight didn’t cost any mana, and her dragonfly wings didn't seem to tire, she doubted it was truly indefinite. Her wings would tire eventually, and she would have to descend.
Now that she knew what was probably the lake’s biggest danger, it left her more free to explore, at least. Whether she was closer to the edge like she was at that moment, or at the center where the water was deeper and the ceiling was higher, it still wouldn’t be able to reach her. She could roam about as she pleased.
The off-brand Loch Ness monster followed her as she flew toward the middle of the cave. She was again awed by its sheer size. It was dark, which limited her range, but she was glowing, and had good night vision, and she still couldn’t see any of the sides from the middle. She kept an eye on the dinosaur below her, wary of it making any sudden movements, but mostly, she ignored it as she flew on toward the opposite side of the cave.
There was nothing on the opposite side. Just more blank stone. She flew back toward the center, and as she was over the head of the plesiosaur, an idea struck her. She stopped right above it, and used {Fairy Dust}. The monster watched in confusion as the sparkling particles fell all around it, and flinched as a few hit its eyes.
[Darkwater Plesiosaur has been afflicted with {Cursed Fairy Dust}! The target’s stats will be reduced by 5% for the next ten seconds]
Elise had started moving as soon as the System message appeared. Her plan was to fly back to the tunnel while the plesiosaur was weakened by her curse. She didn’t register that the numbers were different until the shadow under the water sped under her and the monster surfaced on the shore blocking her path.
“What the heck?” she exclaimed. “System, why is it only 5%? And why only 10 seconds?”
“I believe you are referring to the effects of your skill, {Fairy Dust}. {Fairy Dust} is a skill that grants a blessing or a curse on any creature it hits. The power of the blessing or curse depends on the level of the skill, the difference in Charisma between the user and the target, and the target’s willingness to be affected by the dust.”
“What do you mean ‘willingness to be affected’? You mean that the target can just say ‘no’ and reduce the effects?”
“No. That is not what I mean. What I mean is that if the target has higher Charisma than the user, whether the blessing or curse caused by {Fairy Dust} applies to them depends on whether they want it to apply. If the user has higher Charisma, then it does not matter whether the target is willing or not, and the scale of the effects will be dependent on the skill’s level and the difference in Charisma between the two.”
Elise glared at the plesiosaur, which was baring its teeth at her as it waited in front of the tunnel. It almost looked like it was smiling.
“So you’re saying that that monster’s Charisma is almost as high as mine?”
“I do not have access to the stats of the creature in question. However, if your skill, {Fairy Dust} had reduced effects compared to what you were expecting, it is likely that that is the case.”
She looked back at the dinosaur. It was definitely smiling. It was swaying its head back and forth like a charmed snake, and making a soft purring noise with its throat. Elise turned away, trying to get it to follow her back out to the lake, but it was smarter than that. It stayed where it was. Even when she went out of its sight and stayed for a half hour, it was still waiting when she returned.
That did not bode well. That meant it was confident that the tunnel was her only way out. Either that, or it had better vision than she thought, and it had seen her hovering on the ceiling the whole time and knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
Elise didn’t lose hope though. It was smarter than she would have preferred, but it might still have been stupid. There could still be a way for her to get out that it didn’t know about, or that it had forgotten about. She went to the side cavern, taking a closer look to make sure she wasn’t missing any small tunnels that could provide a way out, and when that was fruitless, she went to the wall opposite where the monster was camped.
This side was better than the others, but not by much. There was a small shore, about the same size as the one on the tunnel side, but this side lacked a tunnel. The monster was out of sight, so she took a chance and alighted on the dry rocks. Her wings didn’t feel tired, but it was looking like things were shaping up to be a game of patience. If she was going to need to spend hours hovering, waiting for the monster to either sleep, or get hungry and go hunting, she wanted to be in as perfect condition as she could be.
She laid down on the most comfortable place she could find, and rested, but kept her ears opened for the slightest noise. She was ready to take off at a moment’s notice if she heard even the slightest hint of a splash as the plesiosaur re-entered the water.
However, it was not from the water that she heard the first sound, but rather from the stone wall behind her. She flew straight up and away as the wall rumbled. A few seconds later, a small crack appeared, and the crack got wider and wider until soon, it was wide enough for three people to comfortably walk side by side. And walk side-by-side they did, though she was not sure if they were people, exactly.
Out of the tunnel marched three stout, bearded men clad in heavy plate armor and wielding hammers and pickaxes that looked way too sharp and pointy to be used for construction or mining. They each had a large glowing stone inlaid on the foreheads of their helms that basked the shore in light.
[Dwarven Guard, lvl 7]
[Dwarven Guard, lvl 4]
[Dwarven Guard, lvl 3]
They noticed her immediately. It would have been hard for them not to, since she was the only other source of light in the room. For a few moments, they just stopped, and stared at her in confusion.
Meanwhile, Elise had gone through a full mental cycle of panic, and was returning to reason. First she had only thought of fleeing. Then she realized that they were not monsters, and that they might be able to help her. She forgot that she could speak now– which was perfectly reasonable, since she had only gained that ability less than twelve hours prior– and ran through a few ideas on how to communicate without words until she remembered.
“Hello,” she said in the same language that the hunter family had used. “I am not a monster. Please don’t hunt me.”
She did not know the word for kill, but she hoped that ‘hunt’ would get the point across. The dwarves had a new round of confusion when they heard her speak, and shared a few glances before the leader responded.
“Alex evi csy?”
Dangit! thought Elise.
Of course they spoke a different language! Why would the world make things easy on her when it could just do things like this instead.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she said, switching to English. There was no point in continuing to use the unfamiliar language if they didn’t know it either.
The dwarves talked amongst each other, but kept their eyes on her. Though she could hear what they said, she couldn’t make out a single word. Not only was it a different language, It was a different language that shared no words with the only other two languages she was familiar with. She was racking her brain trying to come up with a way to get her meaning across when suddenly, the one on the left gasped and pointed at her.
“Xli Vyri sj Jexi!” he exclaimed “Mx lew xli Vyri sj Jexi!”
The other two leaned forward and squinted at her, then almost simultaneously, they gasped as well.
“Xli Vyri sj Jexi! Mx'w xli Vyri sj Jexi!” exclaimed the middle one.
All three of them tossed their weapons to the ground, took off their helmets and did the same, then got on their knees and bowed to her, with their beards held in outstretched hands. Confused, Elise drifted down toward them. She wasn’t sure what they meant, or why they had suddenly decided that she was something worth bowing toward, but it was clearly a sign of respect and goodwill. She needed to return the favor, and she had the perfect way of doing it.
She flew over their heads, making sure to go slow enough that she appeared as non-threatening as possible, and when she was over the one, she used {Fairy Dust}, this time with a blessing in mind. She also tried to think about giving them a blessing that wasn’t a stat buff. They were peaceful now, but if they changed their mind later, she would rather not have to fight them when they were buffed by her own skill.
Once she was done in the middle, she did the same to the left, and to the right, and then landed on the ground in front of them.
[3 targets have been granted Minor Blessings]
[{Fairy Dust} lvl 2 -> 4]
At first, it looked like nothing happened, then in the same order that she had blessed them in, their beards started to lengthen. It was nothing immense, each only getting a few inches, but it was definitely something. The dwarves raised their heads, stared at their beards, then broke out into smiles so wide she could see their teeth, even between all the facial hair.
They stood back up, still smiling, and the middle one said something else to Elise while gesturing inside. It looked to her like an invitation, and she decided to take it as such. If it was a trap, then so be it. If they knew her well enough to know that such a trap would work, she never stood a chance in the first place. It was better than the almost certain death that awaited her if she tried the plesiosaur at least.
The middle one led her inside while the other two picked up the discarded weapons and helmets and followed behind her.
At first, the tunnel seemed to be just an empty dead end, but the lead dwarf put his hand on a seemingly random place in the side of the tunnel, and the dead end opened up into a large and well-lit corridor. He left the other two to close the doors behind as he led her down the hall.
Unlike the unmarked tubes of the wyrm tunnels, the Dwarven tunnels seemed like places that people actually lived. The floors were flat, the walls were straight, and there were glowing stones in sconces regularly to keep the whole area illuminated at all times. They seemed to be the same kind that Sophie had used to read in the dark.
There were no other dwarves in that particular hallway, but another two doors and a descending flight of stairs later, they came to a more open cavern full of stone huts and they started to make their appearances. Most were confused, but their confusion turned to elation when the guide dwarf made an announcement.
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“Psso! Xli Vyri sj Jexi! Mx lew xli Vyri sj Jexi!”
There was a collective gasp, followed by loud cheering. The dwarves bowed down as she hopped by calling out “Xli Vyri sj Jexi!” like it was a mantra. A few of the younger dwarves, whom she could identify by their lack of beards, even tried to reach out to touch her, earning a rap on the head from their equally beardless mothers.
This scene repeated itself a half dozen more times as the dwarves led her further and further into their city, and deeper and deeper underground. Each cavern was bigger than the last, and had more dwarves, until finally they arrived at a cavern just as big, if not bigger than the ones with the lake and the cows. Even more impressively, the cave didn’t look natural at all.
Every house was carved from a solid, singular piece of stone that was fused to the ground with no signs of any kind of joining. In the distance, there was even a castle made in the same way. There were no bricks, no seams, and no supporting structures. Everything, from the street lamps to the statues on top of the bigger houses was carved out of the same stone.
Their progress slowed down a lot once they got here. An impromptu parade formed behind them, and a dense crowd formed in front, and soon, it was more like they were wading through a sea of people than walking. Elise had never struggled with claustrophobia before, but with so many people around her, she was starting to feel a bit stuffy, so she took to flight again, staying a few feet above the head of her guide.
When she flew up, there was a round of cheering from the crowd. She had to admit, it felt good. She had never gotten this kind of reception anywhere before, and it was night and day compared to the reception she had gotten just about everywhere else in this new world.
She did a loop in the air, making the crowd cheer louder, then she flew over them and rained blessed {Fairy Dust} on their heads until she had none left. She didn’t realize that there was a limit, since it didn’t cost mana, but she did notice that her wings were much less sparkly than they were before.
Though most of the people in the crowd looked overjoyed, Elise would have had to be blind if she thought the feeling was universal. Even among the closest, there were a few sour faces, and around the edges, they looked more grim than glad. A few even looked angry, fixated on her with murderous glares.
She settled back into place above the armored dwarf who had found her, who was laughing and cheering with the crowd. Seeing her stop above him again, he started moving again. However, Elise’s theatrics had slowed them down even more, and ten minutes later, they had barely made it a block further. She was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to make it to wherever the dwarf was taking her when they were rescued by a regiment of shield-bearing dwarves.
They lined up on the street like riot police, leaving only a small gap for the three dwarves she had first met to pass through and blocking the rest. Behind the line, a dwarf in a much shinier, more elegantly decorated suit stood. He bowed to Elise and said something in Dwarvish and gestured toward the cleared part of the street. It was obvious that he was offering to escort her, but unlike the other three, he did not look pleased at all. He didn’t look displeased either, but she felt much less comfortable with him than she did with the others.
With their new escort group, they made it to the castle on the other side of the city with relative ease. At the gate of the castle, the dwarf in the fancy armor tried to dismiss Elise’s first escorts, saying something to them and waving back behind them. Elise was worried about what would happen if she didn’t have anyone on her side in the castle, so she flew down and landed on the head of her first guide.
“I want them to come with me,” she said.
Though he couldn’t understand her words, the other dwarf at least understood her meaning. He sighed, and said something that made the first three dwarves cheer, then opened the gate to lead them inside.
Inside the gate, leading up to the front door was a garden of sorts. There were two channels of water, dug in a symmetric pattern on either side of the walkway, and on its sides grew a wide array of multicolored mushrooms. There was no grass, but there was moss, and some carved stones decorating. Overall, it was an unusual, but pleasant sight.
The inside of the castle, however, was awe-inspiring. Every inch of the inner walls was carved with intricate patterns and inlaid with jewels and gold filigree. In some places, mosaic-like images made of equal parts carving, jewels, and gold portrayed dwarves in various settings. One showed a pair of dwarves hammering away at a glowing something on an anvil. One showed a mighty-looking dwarf bringing down an ax on the head of a giant wolf. A third showed a tall castle on top of a mountain with the sun setting behind it.
There were many more, but Elise did not have time to take them all in, because the dwarf in the decorated armor was keeping a brisk pace, leading them up a tall staircase and through another large set of doors. On the other side was a chamber as long as a football field with the ceiling a hundred feet up and supported by tall, decorative pillars. There was a large throne made of steel on the far end, with red jewels bigger than Elise set on the ends of its five pronged top.
On the throne sat a dwarf with a long black beard wearing pure white armor and a crown. His face was emotionless and unreadable, but he stared unblinkingly at Elise. She used {Inspect} and found that he was a king, just as he appeared. More specifically, he was the [King of Dokkalfheimr], and she couldn’t see his level, meaning he was stronger than her by a wide margin.
Beside him stood a wizened old dwarf wearing blue robes with a white beard that brushed the ground. His face was much more readable, and somewhat unnerving. His eyes had dark shadows under them, as though he hadn’t slept in a week, but they were also wide open, and a brown so dark they almost looked black. His beard hid most of his face, but even through the thick white hair, she could see that he was frowning. Contrary to his appearance, however, his class seemed perfectly normal. {Inspect} showed that he was merely a {Court Wizard} and his level was 13. He was holding a sphere that looked almost like a bowling ball without the holes, though when she looked closer, she saw that the swirling patterns were actually moving.
The four dwarves that were with her stopped and knelt before the throne when they got closer. Elise tried to do the same, but she had never knelt as a rabbit before, so she ended up doing an awkward half-bow, half-curtsey thing that she was sure looked foolish.
“Vmwi,” said the king.
The dwarves behind her stood up, so she did the same as the king nodded to the old man. The orb glowed so bright it was hard to look at, then settled down into a softer glow.
“Fated One,” said the king in perfect English, staring directly at Elise. “Can you understand me?”
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Stat sheet as of the end of Chapter 13:
Name Elise Burrow Age 0 (20) Race Lesser Fey (Rabbit) Level (III) 1 Stats Base Bonuses Total Strength 44 0 44 Agility 126 0 126 Dexterity 114 0 114 Fortitude 42 0 42 Charisma 390 0 390 Intelligence 149 0 149 Willpower 154 0 154 Mana 193 0 193 Mana Control 223 0 223 Skills Level Description Inspect 27 Identify the species and level of another creature Nature Magic Affinity - As a creature of the forest, you feel a strong connection to nature and natural mana Leap 7 Jump with additional force. Cooldown: 4 seconds Mark of Fate - ??? Dart 5 Dash quickly in any horizontal direction. Charges: 6. Cooldown: 10 seconds Sudden Growth 6 Cause all nearby plants to grow at many times their normal rate for 3 seconds Mana Sense 5 Sense nearby mana Magic Missile 5 Create missiles of mana that attack your target. Current missiles: 3 Suggest 2 Plant a subtle thought or desire in the target's mind Prehensile Vines 6 Vines grow out of the ground in front of you. You can control them as you would your own limbs. Charm 1 Increase a target's attraction to you Ensnaring Roots 1 Summon sturdy roots from the ground that wrap around the target Fey Wings - Fold or unfold your wings Fairy Dust 4 Release dust from your wing that either blesses or curses (user's choice) any living creature it comes into contact with Fey Bargaining 1 Form a contract with another creature. If either side breaks the contract, they will be cursed