“Wh-where did they go?” said one of the drow.

The three scouts started looking around frantically, before getting in a defensive formation around Naomi. Elise glared at Emilia. She could still see the older fey just fine, and she could see herself, which meant Emilia was using her skill that hid them from the perception of others. She must have been lying when she said it didn’t work as well on intelligent life. The drow scouts were some of the highest level people in the whole cavern, and they were completely fooled.

“You’re clever,” said Emilia, still smiling. “Too clever. What are you?”

A chill ran down Elise’s spine.

“What do you mean?” she said, trying to remain as calm as possible.

“I think you know exactly what I mean.”

“I- I don’t know-”

“How about this: You tell me the truth, and I won’t kill them.” Emilia gestured toward the drow.

Elise glanced back at them. Naomi was still unconscious, and the other three were still in formation around her, looking around frantically. One called something out, but her voice was muffled and Elise couldn’t tell what she was saying.

She needed to find a way out of this situation. Emilia had at least three evolutions on her, and centuries of experience, and Elise didn’t even have any divine power left at her disposal. Her only potential advantage was that Emilia might be underestimating her. That meant that Elise might be able to take her by surprise. But how?

There was no way that {Magic Missile} would ever reach her, and while Elise’s Charisma was high, Emilia was a manipulator too. Her Charisma would be higher. She scanned up and down her status window, hoping for something that could save her, and her eyes caught on the one skill she had yet to use: {Fey Bargaining}.

“I’ll tell you the truth about what I am,” she started carefully, activating the skill as she spoke. “If you promise not to harm them in any way. That includes manipulating them into fighting each other.”

“Of course!” said Emilia immediately.

There was a sensation like someone was pouring ice water directly onto Elise’s heart. It was gone in an instant, but it still caused an involuntary shiver. Emilia clearly felt it too, because she froze, and the warmth left her eyes.

“Clever,” she said. “Well done. Now tell me, what are you?”

Elise hesitated for a moment. “I’m a Lesser Fey.”

She waited for a moment, and Emilia did as well, but nothing happened. Emilia’s smile faded and turned into a frown.

“What?” she said. “How old are you? Have you been living with humans for decades, unable to level up?”

“Our deal only extended to that one question.”

“So it did.” Emilia smiled again. “Let’s make another deal then. For every question of mine that you answer, I will answer one of yours. And we must both answer truthfully.”

“If I answer any question of yours, that means you must answer one of mine,” said Elise. “You can’t ask me one question, then refuse to answer.”

“Deal.”

The cold sensation came and went again. This time, Elise was more prepared for it, and she managed not to shiver.

“I’m 0 years old,” said Elise. “Why are you trying to start a war?”

“Oh, it’s still my turn,” said Emilia. “I haven’t asked my question yet.”

“Yes you did. And I answered it.”

“No, I asked that question before we made the deal.”

“The deal mentioned nothing about when the question had to be asked. It was only about whether or not I answered truthfully.”

“If that’s how you want to play this game, then the reason I showed you how to use {Suggest} to make the cows fight was because I thought you had potential. But neither of us get what we want if we do it like this. Let’s amend the deal. The questions we answer must be the one that the other asked most recently.”

“Fine,” said Elise.

Before the cold sensation had passed, Emilia was already asking her first question.

“How are you deceiving me right now?”

Elise felt like she had been shot through the heart. Emilia had really gone right for the throat.

“I’m telling you things that are technically true, but deliberately misleading,” she said begrudgingly.

“How are they misleading?” asked Emilia.

“It’s my turn,” said Elise. “How are you currently deceiving me?”

“Oh, there are a few ways,” said Emilia. “The most relevant one though is that these bargains we’ve made aren’t nearly as tightly bound as you probably think they are. I can break them at any time, really, and not suffer any permanent consequences. It might weaken me for a bit, but…” She shrugged. “Well, I really don’t think that matters here.”

Emilia smiled, and Elise’s heart sank. She was being toyed with. It infuriated her, but at the same time, she felt a glimmer of hope. Now she knew that Emilia was looking down on her. If she could stall for time long enough, she might be able to come up with a way to get out. She glanced back and saw Naomi still slumped against the wall, unconscious, and remembered what had happened when she first tested her divine power channeling on her. Her new eye allowed her to see Elise’s Rune of Fate. It was a long shot, but if her eye could also see through Emilia’s invisibility, they might be able to take her by surprise.

“How are answers true, but misleading?” asked Emilia.

“They are true to what is on my status window, but my status window doesn’t reflect everything,” said Elise. “Why are you trying to start a war between the dwarves and drow?”

“For the experience points,” said Emilia. “How does your status-”

“You what!?” interrupted Elise. “You’re starting a war for experience points?”

“It’s not your turn, but yes,” she said. “And also for fun. How does your status window not reflect everything?”

“I wasn’t always a Rabbit Fey.”

“That answer isn’t valid. Evolution makes that a given.”

“It’s the truth though, and that’s all we agreed to.”

Emilia frowned. “Fine. But I answered an extra question for you. The least you can do is elaborate.”

“No. Are you the one who started the conflict between the dwarves and the drow in the first place?”

“Yes,” she said dismissively. “Explain further what you meant by your last answer.”

“That’s not a question.”

Emilia knitted her brows, which Elise considered a win. It was her first real sign of frustration. Emilia might have centuries of experience manipulating people, but Elise doubted she had ever needed to survive anything like the interrogations her adopted mother would often give her. Telling convenient half-truths and giving only the bare minimum was like second nature to her. If Emilia wanted real answers, she was going to have to work for them.

“What evolutionary path were you on before you arrived at your current one?”

“I was a human,” said Elise.

“Ohhhh,” she said. “That makes sense.”

It was Elise’s turn to ask a question, but she was having trouble thinking of anything good. For one, she was furious. For centuries, Emilia had been manufacturing conflict between the two races, and Elise had gotten caught in the middle of it. If not for her, the dwarves wouldn’t have even been underground. Without the drow at their backs attacking whenever they got the chance, the dwarves would have reached the surface long ago. If not for her, Marie and Claudia wouldn’t have had to die. Greta wouldn’t have gotten sick. Hallbjorn’s wife would be alive. There would be peace.

In addition, Emilia had been so forthcoming that Elise didn’t even know what else there was to ask. She already confirmed what she needed to know. She could ask about the details, but did she really want to know? She looked up at the older fey, who had a triumphant look on her face. She had gotten her answer as well. She was just waiting for Elise to ask her last question so she could end things.

That meant there was only one thing to do: not say anything.

The seconds stretched into minutes, and neither of them made a sound. The longer it went on, the more hopeful Elise felt. Although Emilia had said she could break the deal whenever she wanted, the fact that she hadn’t meant that she didn’t actually want to. The curse wouldn’t be debilitating, but she still didn’t want to incur it if she didn’t have to. That meant that if Elise could somehow get her to break the deal, she might be weakened at least enough to let Elise escape.

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If she just waited until Emilia got impatient, that might break the curse, but if Emilia’s impatience manifested in one of the blades of mana that had severed the heads of the poisoner dwarves, Elise would have no chance of survival. Was there anything she could ask that would help? Asking what her greatest weakness was might help, but it also might be something as simple as her having weak physical stats, since she was focused on magic and manipulation. That wouldn’t be helpful at all. She half-wanted to ask if Emilia had been the one who manipulated the dwarves into poisoning the Mother Tree, but she was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that one.

“It’s a shame,” said Emilia, still smiling triumphantly. “You really did have potential. I would have been more than happy to take you under my wing and teach you more.”

“I don’t want to learn anything you have to teach.”

“I know you’ve already benefited greatly from the one lesson you’ve already had. I watched you practice it. You have a talent for this.”

“I don’t care.”

“But look at what you can do with it,” said Emilia. “Look around. Look what I’ve done. For almost 400 years, I’ve had two cities fighting over something neither of them had any part in. No one even remembers why the conflict started anymore. I barely even have to do anything to keep it going. It’s self-sustaining. All I have to do is pretend to be a benevolent goddess, and they die for me, giving me free experience points.”

“You’re a monster.”

“So are you. That’s what the System calls us. This is what we have to do to survive.”

“Not this,” said Elise. “You’re killing innocent people.”

“No one is innocent.”

“They’ve done nothing to you.”

“And?”

“You can’t just kill people like that!”

“Why not?”

“Why do you-?!”

Elise caught herself before she could finish. She almost slipped up. As soon as Emilia answered that question, the situation would be out of Elise’s hands. Emilia was a monster, plain and simple. There was nothing more to it. Why she did what she did wasn’t important. What was important was that if she wasn’t stopped now, Elise would die, and the dwarves and drow would likely soon fall as well.

She racked her brains, and after another minute of silence, she finally came up with a solution. A surefire way to make Emilia break the deal. She just needed to wait for the right moment. It wasn’t long before that moment presented itself. The second Elise heard Naomi stirring behind her, she made her move.

“What is the next major way that Ostra plans to improve the integration of non-humanoids and humanoids?”

Emilia’s confident smile turned into an expression of confusion, and then to anger.

“How?” she demanded.

“That’s not an answer,” said Elise. “Are you going to answer, or-?”

[Another creature has broken a deal with you created by {Fey Bargaining}. They are now cursed. All stats reduced by 20%. 23h 59m remaining.]

Before she had time to register what had happened, Emilia grabbed Elise by the throat and held her up to her own face.

“How?!” she shouted. “Tell me!”

Elise was overcome with a sudden, intense compulsion to answer the question.

“It’s because I have-” she started.

Suddenly, Emilia gasped, and the compulsion vanished. Elise looked behind and grinned. Naomi was awake. Emilia had ignored the old scarred drow, thinking they would still be invisible, but Naomi’s golden eyes were locked onto them, and mana flowed from her into the ground and up through the root into Emilia.

“What?” she said, looking down.

A second root pierced her left leg, and her grip loosened enough that Elise could wriggle free. Elise sent a volley of {Magic Missile} as she retreated back toward the drow who, aside from Naomi, were very confused. Getting attacked like that had apparently been enough to break the invisibility spell, creating what was probably a baffling scene.

“What’s going on?” asked one of them.

“Emilia betrayed everyone,” said Elise. “She poisoned the Mother Tree.”

“I did no such thing!” said Emilia, breaking free of the roots and flying up out of their range. “It was Elise! She’s been conspiring with the dwarves the whole time.”

“She’s lying,” said Naomi.

She was standing now, her wooden limbs grown out to their original shapes. Her eyes– of which she now had two– were almost glowing, and her expression was steely calm.

“She’s been lying to us from the start,” said Elise. “She was the one who started the conflict with the dwarves in the first place.”

“Preposterous!” exclaimed Emilia. “She’s trying to turn you against me!”

As she spoke, dust drifted down from her wings, and her wounds started to close, just in time for Naomi to try making new ones. The nearest branches extended like whips, swinging wildly through the air. Emilia flew up higher, trying to get out of their range, but the branches just extended further and further.

The other three drow looked back and forth between Emilia and Naomi and Elise. It was no secret that Naomi had never liked Emilia, so it wasn’t out of the question that Naomi had finally snapped, but at the same time, they had known Naomi for years. She had never done anything like that.

Naomi wouldn’t be doing this without a good reason, sent Elise using {Suggest}

Above, Emilia dodged the whipping branches a few more times before shooting toward them. The drow tensed and held their weapons up defensively, but Emilia suddenly changed course, instead going right above them and raining dust from her wings down.

“Dodge!” said Naomi, doing just that.

Elise shot forward to evade whatever attack Emilia was planning, only to realize that she had been deceived. Emilia came to a sudden stop a few dozen feet away and snapped her fingers. Behind, the three other scouts froze in place, and their eyes glazed over. Only Naomi and Elise were unaffected.

Why didn’t she use it on us? She thought. Or did it just not work on us?

It would make sense if Naomi was able to resist it. Aside from Emilia, she was the strongest person in the cavern. Her stats were probably high enough to resist it. It was also possible that Naomi’s conspiracy about Emilia using her dust on the mushrooms was correct, and it was only because the two of them had been subsisting on wild and home-grown mushrooms that they were unaffected.

There was also the question of why she didn’t make the drow attack them if she could control them, but the answer to that question came almost immediately. The first deal that Elise tricked her into specifically prevented her from making the drow attack each other. Maybe they could attack Elise, but if Naomi got hit in the crossfire, or if Naomi jumped in to defend, the deal would be broken, and Emilia would need to take another 20% hit to her stats, which could prove fatal.

“Dodge!” shouted Naomi again.

Elise barely had time to react before she felt a huge amount of mana heading straight toward her. She flew straight up, but wasn’t fast enough. It was the same kind of mana blade that Emilia used before to decapitate the captive dwarves, but stronger and faster. She cried out as her back legs exploded in pain and she saw her back feet fall to the ground below her.

The pain almost completely overwhelmed her sense of reason, and made her want to flee. If Emilia had sent a second attack at her right then, she would have died for certain. The only reason she didn’t was that Naomi had taken a flying leap and grabbed onto the other fey’s legs. Her wooden left leg stayed rooted in the ground though, extending like they were in a cartoon to stay attached to the rest of its owner’s body.

Elise recovered her wits enough to use her own {Fairy Dust} on her own wounds. It wasn’t enough to heal herself, but it stopped the bleeding, and numbed the pain enough that she could make sense of what she was seeing.

As soon as Naomi’s left arm made contact with Emilia’s leg, it started writhing and convulsing as it sent out tendrils to wyrm its way inside the flesh. Emilia screamed out in pain and immediately sent another blade of mana downward, severing the wooden arm. When she did this, Elise got another System notification.

[Another creature has broken a deal with you created by {Fey Bargaining}. They are now cursed. All stats reduced by 20%. 23h 59m remaining.]

It’s the first deal we made, realized Elise. But wait, doesn’t that mean-?

Before she had time to process, the other drow behind her started moving. They looked at her with blank expressions and empty eyes, then they turned invisible. Elise went upward immediately, knowing that if she stayed too close to the ground, she was going to lose her head. She got about as high as she thought she needed to, then reconsidered, and flew twice that high.

Meanwhile, when the second curse hit, Emilia’s flight faltered again, and Naomi’s wooden stump extended and reconnected to the severed part, and the violent invasion of Emilia’s leg began again. She screamed in pain again, but at the same time, she leaned down, and grabbed Naomi’s head in her hands. Naomi’s wooden arm stopped moving and her eyes glazed over, as Emilia made a pained, but triumphant expression.

At the same time, below them, Naomi’s wooden leg suddenly shattered, and one of the mind-controlled drow became visible near its base. Naomi didn’t react, still frozen with her head in Emilia’s hands. Her whole body was stiff, and the only thing keeping her airborne was her arm halfway inside the fey’s leg. Emilia grimaced in pain, but didn’t let go of her prey.

By this time though, Elise had recovered enough to attack again. She spent the last of her mana on another volley of {Magic Missile}. Another shield of mana appeared, but this time weaker. Whether she was running low, or just trying to conserve her mana, Elise didn’t know, and didn’t care. It blocked six of her missiles, but then shattered, and the other two hit her in the shoulder and her side. It didn’t do as much damage as Elise hoped, but it was enough to make her let go of Naomi for a brief moment. As soon as her hands lost contact, the drow woman’s eyes cleared, and her tendril attack resumed.

Emilia tried to regain control, but Naomi was prepared this time, and sent a thin shield of wood up from her left shoulder to block the hands. The older fey looked truly panicked at this point, and after one final mana blade to break Naomi’s grip, she vanished from Elise’s sight. The only way that Elise could tell she was fleeing was the occasional blood droplets falling from seemingly nowhere.

“We need to follow her!” said Elise, flying toward Naomi.

Naomi didn’t need to be told twice. She snatched Elise out of the air and tucked her under her arm like a football before bounding after Emilia. Every step they took sent a jolt of pain through Elise’s wounds, but she gritted her teeth and bore with it, keeping her eyes on Naomi the whole time. She couldn’t see the older fey herself, but she could watch Naomi’s eyes as she tracked Emilia through the invisibility.

When they reached the base of the Mother Tree, they were met by a crowd of drow, all with the same blank expression and glazed eyes as the scouts back by the tunnel. They reached toward Naomi and Elise, some with their bare hands, and others with weapons. None of their attacks or grapple attempts reached their targets, but it did slow them down. Naomi had to weave through the crowd, changing direction so quickly that Elise never even knew exactly where they were before they had already gone somewhere else. When they finally reached the trunk, Naomi looked up and cursed. She released Elise and bounded upward.

“I’ll go first!” she said.

Elise tried her best to follow, but even though she had wings, Naomi was still much faster than her. Elise’s Agility was not very high, and Naomi moved with a precision and confidence that indicated she had done this before. She would grab the lip of one alcove, then pull with her arms and push with her feet, sending herself straight up so she could do the same thing again.

It only took her a few seconds to reach the top and disappear into the leaves, but Elise wasn’t worried. She knew where to go. They were heading to the same tunnel hidden by the Mother Tree’s leaves that Emilia had taken her through to go to the Ostra meeting.

By the time Elise reached the tunnel, Naomi was so far along that even the sound of her footsteps were gone, and the only thing left behind in the tunnel were a few drops of Emilia’s blood. Elise flew as fast as she could through the winding passage, but when she was only about halfway up, she got a new System message

[ You have participated in defeating Arch-Sidhe, lvl 26 ]

[ You have leveled up! 10 -> 18 ]

[ {Fey Bargaining} has leveled up! 1 -> 14 ]

[ Agility +40, Dexterity +40, Charisma +160, Intelligence +120, Willpower +40, Mana +80, Mana Control +80 ]

[ You have unlocked the skill {Telekinesis} ]

[ You have unlocked the skill {Mimic} ]

Naomi got her, thought Elise, feeling relieved. She slowed her pace, and a minute later, finally emerged into the clear night. But something was wrong. It was cold.

Too cold.