Following after the hag and her goons, they were back to the forest again. And it was already late in the day but their guide wasn't worried. Soon they got to a clearing no different than any other and the hag stopped.

"Here it is. The only clandestine stable Fey Crossing on the entire island, right under that overgrown lizard nose." The hag stated proudly. "I designed it myself. You are searching for twelve stones with mushrooms growing nearby. Each one sounded a different key when you hit it. Then if the moon is shining upon the meadow and you play the right tune, which is 'The Hag and the Shepherd' I'm going to teach you, a portal would open to the Feywild through that pond right there. Sorry for that but I'm afraid you will have to get wet."

It was oddly and whimsically specific. Basically, it was a portal that only opened with a musical password, at the right time of the night, and only if you knew what to search for in the first place.

So everyone went searching for one such stone and started testing each one of them. Then, the hag started teaching them the melody, before night fell upon the island once again. And by the time the moon was up and shining upon the meadow and its ponds, they had repeated it enough time to succeed on their first try, causing the moonlight to gather in the pond, shining brightly, at the same time eerie and beautiful.

"What are you waiting for? The portal isn't going to stay open all night, you know?" The hag exclaimed, pushing one of her sprite minions toward the portal while ordering the others to stay back. "Dusty is going to escort you on the other side. So hurry up! Out of my sight! Now!" She bossed them around.

But as always, Sophia waited for the entire team to jump through the portal to follow after them, exchanging one last glance of mutual distaste with the hag before leaping into the cold shiny water.

Only to realize the pond was far deeper than she thought.

On the feywild side, she had ended up at the bottom of the pond, which was a lot bigger and actually only a little shy of being called a lake. And even more: the pond was inhabited and the creatures were not so welcoming. They had to fight, swim, and struggle for air to get to the shore. And that had been quite an unpleasant surprise.

"That wicked hag!" She shouted once she was back on land, and struggling to remove all the sticky fish-like creature entrails that had stuck to her armor. "She could have warned us. But did she? Of course not! A good thing we never would have to meet her ever again. Or I swear I would kill her."

"The Feys like to play tricks," Prince said before shaking himself. "even, hags."

"It's our fault for not asking." Paolo pointed out, "Let's make sure it doesn't happen again."

Of course, both of them were right. It had been one of the things Scruffy had warned them about: things were radically different on both sides of the archipelago. And they definitely should have asked or checked before jumping blindly into a Fey Crossing. Sure, the map would not tell them anything about the oversized pond's creatures. But it would have let them know that they would have to swim instead of taking a bath.

At least, they all made it in one piece, including their unwilling guide. And the hag packages were still intact.

Now, all they had to do was get the Winter Island through a Fey Bridge, then find another Fey Crossing to get back on another side and bypass the Winter Forest, and its werewolves inhabitants entirely. She did not fancy herself becoming cursed with Lycanthropy. And the werewolves living there, on the Feywild side, they were religious fanatics and perceived their own curse as a blessing to be spread to as many people as possible.

It would not be easy to find that second Fey Crossing. But that was what the hag minion was there for.

But first, they would set camp for the remainder of the night, dry up, and get some sleep.

★☆★

"Dust Bunnies!" Sophia was startled awake by Paolo's unusual Alarm Cry.

And indeed, they were under attack, by strange rabbit humanoids, wearing dust-grey wool clothing in lieu of armor.

"Rabbitkin bandits." Prince immediately corrected.

"They are so cute!" Moana exclaimed. "Can I squeeze them to death?"

The rabbit humanoids exchanged horrified looks between themselves at her words, giving the team a few extra milliseconds to get ready to fight back. And so, realizing this, Sophia chose to play along and capitalize on their aggressors' shock to gain more time:

"Let's make prisoners first. I would let you squeeze them if they do not squeal"

And Michel, probably reading her mind, immediately caught up and joined the fun:

"Forget about boots! They are so big that we can make an entire set of armor for each of us out of their pelt! As long as a certain someone show restraint and don't burn down the material" He gave Paolo the mean eyes.

Which finally clued the Battlemage on what was going on:

"Hey! Not my fault! Try to kill anything with lightning without frying their innards.

Their performance was actually cringe-worthy. But the 'Rabbitkins,' so far as they could tell, were completely clueless about humans and taking things they said at face value. It was the first time that the system was showing such a communication gap, as the sapient creature clearly spoke English too, but could not read through their bluff.

It seems that the system's proprietary magic had no trouble teaching every representative and some monsters how to speak English, implanting them with actual memories of learning the language. But actually could not care less about the culture and biology of its native speakers.

So them talking about the 'Rabbitkin' from the Dust Bunnies' funny comment to Paolo's last performance must have gone weird and weirder for the bandits. And exploiting that confusion even further, Prince had flown up and then dived at the apparent bandit boss's face, effectively blinding them with his 'mighty' claws.

"Good job, Prince!" Sophia shouted as she proceeded to follow through with an arrow to the bunny's chest.

The bandit chief didn't even get a chance to see it coming. As then, with their leader already down and their previous successful attempt at intimidation, it did not take that much effort to make the bandits lose morale and run away.

And Dusty whistled his appreciation. "I must admit I had some doubt but you sure know how to handle bandits!"

He then rose from his crouching position within the nearest bush, before collecting his own backpack and walking past them.

"What are you waiting for?" The little sprite called them. "The bandits are going to regroup and get back up. Let's hit the road and create as much distance between us as possible."

And so they did.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

★☆★

After a few hours, tiredness came back to bite them and they had to take a break once again.

"Okay. But just a short rest." The sprite reluctantly grumbled. "We are still half a day away from the Fey Bridge. And you don't want to cross it at night."

Sophia had no idea what the issue was. But they weren't the werewolves the map warned them about and the sprite wouldn't tell.

"Okay Everyone, please take some rest while I'm cooking. We are going to have a long day ahead." She concluded and the sprite nodded in approval.

And then, she got to the 'cooking,' which was a misnomer for heating their precooked rations with prestidigitation to make themselves a decent meal. After last night's attack, it wasn't worth it bringing attention to themselves with smoke when they had another way around 'cooking'. Sure, it would be less tasty. But it was the price to pay to avoid trouble.

"Bad food will do bad things to you, you know?" Dusty said wrinkling his nose in disgust.

But Sophia chose to ignore his comments. That little guy had so far been utterly useless. And Prince would have let them know if anything in the food had been poisonous. Maybe eating nothing but precooked food would be bad for their health, but Sophia had no plans to make it a habit. So it should be fine.

"This place is messing up with my magic. And Michel isn't doing much better. So I'm glad to see you are doing fine." Paolo finally observed.

"If by fine you mean that my magic isn't more of a mess than it usually is, you are about right. Perks of already having Feywild magic, I guess." Sophia brushed it off.

Scruffy had also warned them that it could happen. Here, the air was saturated with magic and it was exclusively of the Feywild variety and so, it stood to reason that she was unaffected. It was old news to her as it was basically what she had to deal with on a daily basis, every time she was casting a spell, or spamming a cantrip for a little too long.

If anything, she was feeling more powerful than usual, like... she was filled to the brim with wild magic and could probably cast two more spells before feeling the spell fatigue kicking in.

"Actually, you are right." She finally admitted. "I'm feeling pretty great. It's unfair to you guys but it is what it is."

It's not like she ever asked or wanted that Feywild bloodline. She even tried to get rid of it. And while it somewhat backfired, she got her in not such a bad deal for how idiotic it all had been. In retrospect, she would probably have been fine as a wild sorceress, though she would never have come across anything as handy and versatile as her weavesinging. At this point, it wasn't wrong to say that her weavesinging had taken precedence over her spellcasting over even, her primary archetype.

But that place... the magic here was truly wild and running rampant, making her own magic feel pretty tamed in comparison. It was like she felt under the anti-magic field all over again. She was feeling more like herself. Except that this time, her magic had not disappeared. It had just broken free and was participating in the ambient but harmless chaos all around them:

Flowers changing colors, the wind making fallen leaves dance, mushrooms that suddenly started singing... all those things were pretty normal stuff here. There was always something happening. Sometimes, things were even randomly popping in and out of existence. And chances were that nine times out of ten, it was some whimsical magic effect firing with no rhyme or reason. At first, they had felt jumpy about all that nonsense. But at some point, their brain simply gave out and they got used to it, like the background noise and artifacts on an old television.

Soon enough, everyone was done eating and so they resumed their journey through the enchanted forest.

★☆★

The Fey Bridge was another misnomer as it was more of a staircase. Or to be more honest: it was indeed a vegetal living bridge. But it was also going straight up and the Feys had added stairs made of planks for convenience.

Which Sophia wholeheartedly approved cause it was huge and one wrong step on that particular bridge would have anyone plummeting to their death... after an agonizingly long fall.

"Here we are: The Fey Bridge." The sprite announced proudly, though a little too late for its intended effect. "7777 steps to climb it up and unfortunately, only two hours and a half to do it before dark."

"Is it a wrong time to say I definitely can't do this?" Paolo said looking at the bridge like a deer in headlights.

"Is this guy for real?" Dusty laughed at Paolo's expense.

But no one else felt like laughing. And Sophia was throwing daggers at the Sprite with her stare. This guy was unhelpful at best and truly belonged with that hag.

And yet again, her emotions started boiling until she snapped.

"Cowardice, I can work with. But belittling my companions' fears to make you feel better isn't okay." She growled pinning the tiny little guy to the floor.

"You should be glad we need you to guide our way," She threatened. "Or else..."

Sophia didn't feel the need to finish her sentence but killing Dusty or plucking his wings felt like they weren't enough of a threat. And she was lacking the creative cruelty for this.

"My left arm is about to break." The sprite said, matter-of-factly.

It was such a dispassionate observation that Sophia could not help but wonder what was wrong with the little guy as she released her grip. He was truly infuriating. But she also felt like her anger was wasted on him.

"What's wrong with you?" She asked.

"My words exactly." Dusty retorted. "You want to get to Winter Island? Unless you can grow wings overnight, this Fey Bridge is your only way to get there. So? What are you gonna do?"

This little guy was infuriating. But unfortunately, he was also right about it. She glanced toward Paolo, looking the other way, disapproving.

"Now stop withholding information. What happens if we cross that bridge after dark and why can we not wait until tomorrow morning?" Sophia demanded and the sprite obliged.

"The Fey Crossing will stay closed during the three days of the full moon, starting tomorrow. The werewolves made it so. So that the newly cursed cannot run away and ask for help before it's too late. And for the Fey Bridge... it's guarded by pixies. Their illusion magic isn't strong enough during the day. But at night... they will lure you to your death."

As he said so, Dusty looked utterly terrified. But Sophia could tell that it wasn't about the pixies. No, he was utterly terrified of the hag and what she would do to him if he failed his own mission as their guide. It would be a breach of the hag contractual obligations and so they would all be freed from her clutch. Or all of them but Dusty, to be more accurate.

"See? It wasn't that difficult." Sophia said, patronizing, before turning to her teammates. "And now that we know what we are dealing with, we can prepare for it. Paolo, we will go at your own pace and be there for you every step of the way. And if we don't make it for the night, so be it. No pressure."

She saw in her peripheral vision that the Sprite was about to argue and so she explained:

"So long that we take no hostile action against the pixie, I can lure-sing them to let us through. Maybe I can even convince them to help us. It will be difficult to sing and climb the entire time. But I have done worse."

It took some time for the little guy to mull it over but in the end, he nodded.

Her argument was perfectly sensible. And she was confident in her abilities. She had been itching to use them for quite some time already and here was the perfect opportunity to do so without hurting anyone in the process.

"You're ready?" She asked Paolo, concerned.

He gulped and nodded. And then, gathering his courage, he took the first step on the giant staircase to the next sky island on their journey up to that floor exit.

★☆★

Four panic attacks later, they had progressed at a snail's pace, climbing up two-thirds of the way before the sun finally set on the horizon. And the mischievous pixies who had previously only tried to distract them and slow them down were now about to become more aggressive with their illusions, as Dusty warned them.

But Sophia had been prepared.

And this time, she had her lyrics and song prepared well in advance:

"In moonlit whispers, please hear my plight,

A plea in song to guide us right.

Pixies dancing, guardians of the span,

Let our melody weave a safe path's plan,

Through your bridge, a peaceful plea,

Grant passage true or let us be."

It wasn't anything fancy. But she could tell that the extra preparation and effort had not been wasted, making the compulsion of her Luring Song even more potent. And before she knew it, they found themselves escorted by hundreds of pixies, dancing and singing along with their bell-like voices and unknowingly participating in sustaining and spreading the charm she had put them under.

They looked so happy and eager to help that Sophia almost felt sorry for them. And her teammates were already looking at her as if she had turned into some vile monster for their sake, with mixed guilt, fear, and disgust plastered all over their face

But it couldn't be helped.

And they made it to the Winter Island edge in one piece. But to Sophia's astonishment, even after she was done, the pixies had waved them goodbye, looking sad they had to part way and kept singing. The charm was truly self-sustained and Sophia was truly starting to feel guilty for them.

"We need to make them stop. It's too cruel." She said.

"We can't help it," Paolo responded, comforting her with a hand on her shoulder. "Only the silence spell would make them stop. And they would be pretty angry at us. Beside, the charm might break on its own, once there is no moonlight."

It did help lessen Sophia's guilt a little. "Thanks." She whispered, her voice breaking from overexertion.

"You're welcome." Her friend said before giving her some space.

But her alone time was soon broken by the sprite:

"It was quite a frightening performance. I understand you must be exhausted. But the clock is ticking. We only have a few hours left before the Fey Crossing is closed. And I don't want to know what would happen if you are attacked, captured, or killed by werewolves."

Again, she could not find a fault in his reasoning.

And so she forced herself back up.

They had to keep going.