This time around, Elise was able to get out of the city without a hitch. She got a few glares and the occasional curse from passerby, but beyond that, there were no problems. There was only one guard at the tunnel to the lake, and though he looked suspicious of what was going on, the king’s note was enough to get him to look the other direction.
The lake water was just as still as it had been the first time Elise saw it. There was no hint of the monster that lived in its depths. That was all well and good, because if she stuck to the edges again, she could get to the other side before it noticed her. She flew around, keeping her senses peeled for any sign of the plesiosaur, but it didn’t appear. Not until she got to the other side, at least. And when it did, rather than making a mad dash for the other tunnel, she was forced to stop. It was waiting by the tunnel again.
Dang it! she thought.
She needed to lure it away somehow. She couldn’t turn around anymore. The way to the dwarves was closed, and she could not guarantee her position if she tried to return. This was her responsibility now.
It hadn’t moved yet, so she flew in closer hoping to get a reaction, but even when she halved the distance between them it still didn’t move. Something was wrong. It could have just been asleep, but she had a vague sense of unease, like something else was happening. She flew a bit closer, and then it hit her, both the realization, and a putrid stench that left her gagging.
It was dead. And it had been dead. Its skin was still intact, but it was sagging on its bones. Its eyelids were sunken inward, and there was a trail of dried mystery fluids leading from its body into the water. It had been dead for a while, from the looks of it.
She got closer, trying not to breathe in too much of the smell, but it was so strong that she felt she could taste it. There was an arrow sticking out of its back, and from the arrow wound, there black veins spiderwebbed outward, stretching halfway across its body. It had been poisoned, and the poison had worked fast, since it looked like it hadn’t even moved from the last place Elise saw it.
Unfortunately, that meant that Elise had to land on it to get into the tunnel. The gap between its body and the opening was too small for her to fly through, and she wasn’t confident enough in her aim to believe she could throw herself through without smacking the stone wall.
She landed on one of its ribs, which was a good idea, because as soon as she put her weight on the rotting carcass, the skin split open and fell into the ribcage. If she had landed anywhere else, she would have fallen in with it. When the smell hit her, she vomited. Half-digested chunks of mushrooms spewed from her mouth into the hollow corpse, and once she had gotten it all out, she held her breath and made a mad dash into the tunnel. She deployed her wings as soon as she could and flew as far as she could make it on that one breath, then stopped, gasping.
Her feet were covered in corpse slime, so the smell wasn’t fully gone, but it was at least bearable now. She took a moment to analyze the situation. A poisoned arrow could only mean one thing: drow. And the fact that the plesiosaur was exactly where it had been when she fled from it meant that it must have happened within a few hours of when she left the cave. That meant that the drow were only a few hours behind her. If her evolution had lasted a bit longer, or if she had decided to spend more time back in the wyrm’s main cavern, it would have been them she encountered, rather than the dwarves.
That made her feel conflicted. On one hand, she would have been worshiped, and that sounded quite nice compared to the constant paranoia and surveillance in Dokkalfheimr. On the other, if she had met first with the drow, she would never have met Hallbjorn or Greta or any of the other friendly dwarves she knew, and with the influence of the drow, she might have even come to believe that the dwarves were evil, like she almost had with the drow.
There was no use spending too long thinking about what might have been though. She had a mission, and she needed to get it done. With luck, the drow would be waiting for her in the wyrm’s cave. Without it, she would have to fly to their cave and find them herself. Either way, she was going to meet with them within the hour.
It turned out that she did not have luck this time, and all that awaited her was another snake, curled up in the corner. She took the free experience, killing the [Red Diamondback Viper] the same way she had killed the first one, and moved on to the drow’s cave. She was half-worried that she would have forgotten which tunnel it was, but the mushrooms she had left to mark the useless tunnels had sprouted, letting her rule out the other options without even trying.
The bodies of the cows she had killed were gone, and the only signs that they had ever been there were the faint blood splatters on the floor and walls, now dried and half-hidden by dust. She assumed that the drow must have moved those corpses somewhere, which begged the question why had they just left the plesiosaur where it was? Why didn’t they go into that cave? No viable answer came to her, so she mentally moved on and focused her attention on the cave’s exit.
The vines had grown down again, almost covering the entrance again, though not so completely that no light could get through this time. She listened carefully for the sounds of anything else that might be waiting for her, but the sound of the waterfall drowned out anything else that might have been there. She decided to risk going out anyway. This time at least, she knew that it was the drow’s cave, so she could fly up and in, rather than sticking close to the tunnel entrance.
She slipped between the hanging vines and immediately flew up into the air. The cave looked just like she remembered it, minus the cows. The tree branches still covered the ceiling and the white fruit still illuminated the area like giant lightbulbs. She could not see anything as large as the cows moving through the grass and forest below her, but as she looked closer, she saw a few smaller critters, such as snakes, bright red squirrels, and even a few small birds. Only the birds took notice of her, but they just watched warily. Elise was much bigger than they were, and even if they were stronger than they looked, which Elise didn’t doubt, they were still tiny birds, and were cautious of any aerial creature bigger than they were.
She took one last look around to make sure she hadn’t missed any drow, then prepared to fly off, but a voice from below stopped her.
“Cnawp Bau!" it said.
She looked down, and standing in the middle of the blue grass field next to the waterfall pond was a male drow. He wore nothing but a skirt around his waist made of purple leather and a bow and quiver slung on his back. She was completely certain that that place had been empty before, meaning that he must have been using some kind of stealth skill. He smiled and waved at her, so she flew down to meet him, inspecting once she got within range.
[Cave Hunter, lvl 2]
“Cnawp Bau!” he said again, this time getting down on one knee. “Dks ywj E oanra ukq?”
“I’m sorry, I only speak Dwarvish,” she replied in Dwarvish.
The man’s smile did not disappear, but it got less lively when he heard that.
“Eh? Dwarvish?”
“Yes.”
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“Oknnu.” He pointed to himself and shook his head. “No Dwarvish.”
“That’s okay,” said Elise. “Can you take me to your queen?”
The man maintained his confused smile. “Sorry.”
Elise flew a few feet away in the direction of the center of the cave. “Queen?”
“Queen?” he repeated. “Pda Ikpdan Pnaa?”
Elise racked her brains trying to remember what Marie had said the name of the queen was.
“The queen,” she said. “I think her name was Sally? Salami?”
“Oh!” exclaimed the man. “Mqaaj Salome!”
“Yes!” said Elise. “Salome! I’d like to meet with her.”
“Ukq swjp pk oaa Mqaaj Salome?”
“Yes,” said Elise.
The man dashed ahead of her, and gestured at her. “Bkhhks ia!”
Once he saw that Elise was following him, he bounded off through the trees. He swung from branch to branch like a monkey, so fast that Elise struggled to keep up. He had to stop a few times to allow her time to navigate through the trees. After a few of these moments, Elise decided to give up on flying between the trees and just flew up over them. The drow didn’t seem to mind, and just swung to higher branches so they could still see each other as they traveled.
When they had been traveling for about five minutes, the Mother Tree’s main body finally came into view. It was so impressive that words didn’t do it justice. Rather than one single trunk shooting straight up, it had three growing from a single stump, weaving together like a braid and splitting into more branches up higher. The trunks all had alcoves that looked small from a distance, but as she got closer, Elise saw that each was big enough for a fully grown adult to stand up in, and many of the alcoves actually did have people in them.
They passed a few dozen drow on the way in, and when they saw her, they all called out “Cnawp Bau,” and many joined them, swinging through the branches alongside the first drow, laughing and calling out to each other.
Around the roots of the Mother tree, no other trees grew, and all that remained was open grass, upon which hundreds of drow were scattered, laying around or playing games. Most were dressed similarly to the first one, though the women had coverings on their chests as well. All cheered when they saw Elise, and just like with the dwarves, a small crowd formed around her as she flew overhead. Also like the dwarves, Elise took a few seconds to sprinkle some blessed {Fairy Dust} on their heads. There were no visible changes, like with the dwarves’ beards, but everyone her dust touched laughed and cheered for her.
Once she was done passing out her blessings, she immediately regretted it. She should have just continued straight to the queen. Every second she waited was as second that the drow could be attacking the dwarves. The sooner she got an audience the better.
For that reason, she left her guide behind where he got caught by the ever-growing crowd. She flew toward the Mother Tree, where she now saw an opening between two of the trunks and from the opening, a massive amount of mana was flowing. She was somehow certain that was where the queen resided.
She flew toward it, and when she got closer, a small something flew up into the air in front of her. It was so fast and so small it took her a moment to focus on it, and when she did, she was shocked.
[Pixie, lvl 8]
“Sahykia, Oeopan!” it said.
Despite its diminutive size, it had the voice of an old-timey television host, deep and rich and with a certain cadence that made Elise sure whatever he said would sound interesting. Too bad she couldn’t understand what he said.
“Sorry, I only speak Dwarvish,” she said.
“Dwarvish!?” he exclaimed in Dwarven. “Gross! Come inside, and we’ll get you fixed up. My name is Jean, by the way. Nice to meet you!”
“I’m Elise, it’s nice to meet you as well. Sorry to rush you, but I need to speak with Queen Salome as soon as I can.”
“Well, Salome doesn’t speak Dwarvish, so you’ll have to get fixed up before you can talk to her anyway. Follow me.”
He flew down toward the entrance to the cave, and Elise followed.
“What do you mean ‘fixed up’?” she asked.
“Well, we need to get you speaking proper Fey, don’t we?”
“How can we do that? I don’t think we have time-”
“Oh, we have time,” said Jean, turning around to wink at her. “You’ll see.”
Elise wanted to protest that no matter how fast it was, she didn’t have time to learn a whole new language, but she decided to stay quiet. Learning a language in an instant didn’t make sense, but neither did Pixies or Drow or being turned into a rabbit and evolving into a Fey. She decided to trust him, at least for now. If he was right, it would be so much better than trying to learn a new language for now the third time since arriving in that world less than four months before.
The interior of the Mother Tree had mana so dense that it was visible. It was like a miniature aurora borealis all around, shimmering in the air and changing shape and color seemingly at random. Elise made a mental note to go back and watch it for a little while, once she was no longer in a hurry.
In the middle of the space between the trunks, there was a raised section, almost like a podium, and on it, there was a huge flower, like a sunflower but white and with longer petals, and in the center, an elderly drow woman was taking a nap.
[Voice of the Spirit Tree, lvl ???]
What does that mean? thought Elise.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that question,” said the System
I wasn’t talking to you.
Right above the queen, there was a young woman in a green dress with green hair and deer antlers and wings just like Elise’s drifting idly through the air, picking at something in her nail. {Inspect} told Elise she was an [Arch-Sidhe] of unknown level. Elise didn’t know what a Sidhe was, but based on how she looked and where she was, she assumed it was some kind of Fey. She would have to ask later, after she talked to queen Salome.
“Oh!” said the Sidhe when she noticed Jean and Elise. “Jean! Ukq'ra bkqjz qo w jas oeopan, E oaa.”
“E zez!” said Jean. “Pdana'o w heppha lnkxhai pdkqcd: Oda zkaoj'p olawg Bau necdp jks. Ywj ukq bet dan?”
“Kb ykqnoa!” she replied, flying up toward them.
“Hold still, Elise,” said Jean in Dwarvish.
The green-haired woman flew up to Elise, reached back to one of her wings, and then sprinkled some sparkling dust on Elise’s head. Elise closed her eyes; she wasn’t sure if fairy dust could even get stuck under her eyelid, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way.
“Better?” said the green-haired woman a few seconds later.
It was a word Elise had never heard before, but she somehow knew exactly what it meant.
“Yes,” she replied. “Woah. Am I speaking Fey right now? This is crazy!”
“Yes you are,” replied Jean. “A much more elegant and better language than Dwarvish. Did they capture you right after you spawned?”
“You poor thing,” said the green-haired woman. “My name is Emilia. Welcome to Paradise. You’ll never have to see one of those deformed invaders ever again.”
“I’m Elise. Actually, it’s because of the dwarves that I’ve come here. Please, if you don’t mind, I need to speak to Queen Salome.”
The smile slipped off Emilia’s face.
“Yes, if you wish. Salome won’t mind.”
She flew down and shook the sleeping drow gently on the shoulder. The old woman muttered something incomprehensible, then rolled over to the other side. Emilia shook harder, and this time she opened her eyes.
“Lady Emilia?” she said. “What’s-?” Her eyes found Elise. “Ohohoho! A new Great Fey!”
The old woman’s eyes filled with joy, and she sat up straight on her flower bed, beaming.
“Salome, this is Elise,” said Emilia. “She just arrived here. She wishes to speak with you.”
“Oh, forgive me, Lady Elise,” said the Drow queen, bowing as well as she could while seated. “I was just taking a quick nap. It’s an honor to meet you. This humble one is called Salome.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Salome,” said Elise. “I’m sorry to rush the conversation, but I have something urgent I need to discuss with you.”
“Anything,” said Salome. “Whatever you wish to discuss, I would be happy to talk with you.”
“I know this is a very difficult request,” said Elise. “And I know that this might sound like I’ve been brainwashed or manipulated, but I promise that this idea is entirely my own. Please stop the assault on the dwarves.”