On the mossy stone streets of Grovepeak, villagers commuted to their day-to-day procedures. Farmers traveled in carriages packed with workers rambling about elbow room and tools. A cobblestone bakery blew the smells of puff pastry and hazelnut through its windows. A playful row of schoolchildren walked to their morning lessons, but were startled by a humble beekeeper on the verge of flipping his honey cart.

"It's 26 silver!" He asserted, fuming from his exposed forehead vein. The salesman was somewhat elvish with pointed ears, but the visible wrickles and lack of hair suggested mostly human. His surprisingly meaty arm tensed pointing a stern finger at the chest of a tourist in a fiddler cap. This escalation was ignored by Georgie Galmot, staring past the man's rising temper and locked on a jar of purple tinted honey in his big hand.

"For 16 onces and two fruit infusions," he pressed without caution or awareness. "The market price in this region averages between 15 to 19 silver."

"I'm not a grocery, kid," The beekeeper flared, shielding the jar behind his back. "I extract, sift, and remove the wax caps all by hand!"

"And that is worth the high average," Georgie acknowledged his skill without acknowledging the man himself. Still, he tried to look at the honey again. "The flowers in these parts are too common to the rest of Mystmere. How could your bees produce anything above 2 gold?"

The cart keep's oval ears opened to the gangly man's understanding of flower visitation and honey quality. The tension in his shoulders loosened and leaned forward. It had been far too long since he was able to talk shop. This full-blooded know-it-all needed to be directed back to his lane.

"My bees don't like common flowers," the keeper snickered. "Ever heard of a heliodor star?"

Georgie was stunned, "But those are native to the coast."

"A buddy from Horseshoe Bay sent me some seeds," the honey vendor smirked, waving the jar in Georgie's fixated mug. "It's my third pride and joy. Right behind my bees, and honey."

"Prove it," the businessman challenged, dead set on calling his bluff. "I request a free sample."

The beekeeper slammed the jar back onto the cart and retrieved another filled with classically colored honey labeled, Sample. The lid spun clean off with a flick of the wrist, and a wooden teaspoon dipped into the thick well of gold. Georgie was mesmerized by its perfect consistency. He wasted no time and put the spoon in his mouth. A flowery sensation soaked into his tongue while the texture was almost like butter. Its sweetness was present but not overwhelming, perfect for fruit infusion. In that tasting, Georgie was transported to the east, laying in a flower garden of heliodor stars.

"26 it is," he spoke up, pulling a drawstring pouch from his overalls to produce two gold coins and six silver pieces. "My mistake for thinking you were exaggerating."

The hidden elvish traits of the gruff cart keep came through, and his skinned glowed a faint bronze light at the respect. "That's more like it. Takes a big man to admit their wrong."

"Quality deserves recognition," shrugged Georgie while storing the honey in his messenger bag.

Most people who'd say that would follow up with a hardy laugh or the tone of casual playfulness, but not Georgie. He was always so matter of fact; it was daunting. Even his admiration was given with little energy.

"Do you bake?" the beekeeper asked, looking the full-blooded human up and down to figure him out. "Plum and lime is a pretty specific flavor. You're either baking something or making a fancy drink."

"It's not for me," Georgie responded vacantly. He tipped his cap to the honey merchant before returning to the street of with the rest of Grovepeak's citizens. "I'm trading it."

With the transaction finished, Georgie entered the foot traffic. He navigated past the people and wagons at a purposeful pace. Over the course of his life, he had become proficient in evading many different forms of contact. A moderately sized village in the morning was an effortless jaunt out of town.

On the western road from Grovepeak, Georgie hiked over a lush valley of hills, scattered with pink daisies and cornflowers. Every decline in elevation revealed his destination as a cluster of trees came into frame. Larger and brighter than others nearby. The Bantriaf Greenwood, the enchanted domain of the Bantriaf fairy circle. Beneath those trees was a zany den of 18-inch fey beings, each with the power of chaotic nature magic.

A little over a century ago it was known as the Grovepeak Greenwood, no different from the rest of the region. Then one day the circle decided to extend a branch of the Fey realm to the material plane and made it theirs. For some reason, the Fey were very into creating territories in the 10th age. Unpredictable nonsense, but useful a century later. These pockets of the Feywild had their own environment, warped and remade from what was there before. Apples tasted like pie, deer fur turned to moss, and all strangler trees became wooden double helixes, renamed, binder trees. This was what Georgie was looking for. Most of his potions required binder root to merge chemical properties typically incompatible. Alchemists would usually aquire these roots from traders at 3 gold a pound. Georgie however wanted to cut out the middleman and find his own source.

The potion brewer stood at the threshold of shimmering pines. He murmured a loose string of words to himself in repetition before taking his next step through an iridescent ripple. It ran over his skin with the softness of cotton linens. An unseen choir of ambiguous voices hummed in his ears, welcoming Georgie to the uncanny lands. Before the young man was a small grove of turquoise grass, surrounded by trees of various barks and colors. The sky was pink with blue clouds fluidly shaping into different animals. The air felt refreshing, nostalgic.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Spice cookies," Georgie murmured after a deep breath. "And mothballs... my favorites. I guess that's accommodating."

Growing in the vivid grass were vines covered in buds, forming a row of arches to the grove. Each bloomed different breeds, colored in a rainbow order. Georgie kept a hand in his pocket and followed. He looked around while picking his ear. The singing from the choir was faint, but still present; and Georgie wondered if it was gonna be there the whole time. Once he passed the violet vines, leaves from the brush flew off the branches in a trail of spinning wind.

It was unclear, so the alchemist waited for something else to happen. He stood motionless for nearly three minutes before an indigo squirrel with two tails ran down from a nearby tree. It visibly stared directly at the patient human, taking Georgie's attention. His eyebrow raised at the rodent's little finger, pointing to the twirly display ahead.

"What?" He questioned the enchanted squirrel. "I'm not going in that."

The squirrel pointed its tails in the same direction.

"No thank you," Georgie continued to wait. "It looks like a trap."

The squirrel gasped, looking almost offended. The rodent began stomping its paws, and squeaked like it was being accusatory. This made Georgie take a step back as he watched this Fey touched animal throw a fit.

"Who do you think you are?" A high-pitched voice came down from the sky. The whirling leaves broke apart and returned to their branches reattached. Flying down like a hawk on its prey, a fairy swooped into the rude human's space. Georgie was suddenly face to face with heated silver eyes. She was funny looking for a fairy. Not her long pointed nose and detailed moth wings, but her style. Usually, the fashion of fey beings like fairies were gaudy outfits made from nature or loungewear. This one was covered in bark, like crudely made armor. Her hair was a vibrant platinum, but it had grown to her ankles and was very matted.

"Where's your sense of wonderment?" The fairy snarled. "This was Jermaine's first welcoming, you know!"

Georgie looked back at the cool colored squirrel boiling and asked, "Are you Jermaine?"

The rodent shook his fist like its meaning was ugly. Jermaine paused and his demons began haunting him again. All that time working on his insecurities, was taken by this bored looking human. The squirrel couldn't fight his tears. The fairy swiftly flew to Jermaine and rubbed his back. She was only a few inches taller. They looked like two dolls in emotional distress.

"De ton hearsee etta nolo," she soothed her depressed familiar while glaring at the nonplussed human. "Jermaine had a whole thing planned! The leaf tornado was gonna fly you to Shashana, the tree! We put a table up there and had sweet beets ready. Now it's ruined!"

"I told you guys," The squirrel, fairy and Georgie looked in the same direction of a dryad with peeling birch tree skin and wearing a bush as a bulky sweater. Was she there the whole time?

"I told you we needed a trail of acorns. It's symbolic of growing relationships, or whatever."

"Pu-yo lo-vo, D'artagnia!" The fairy yelled at the tree girl in sylvan. "If your brother's kids have talent, then they need to prove it. I will not allow nepotism to infect this production!"

The whole interaction went south fast, a total kerfuffle. The fairy was back and forth scolding the human and D'artagna the Dryad. D'artagnia, was pleading with a fist full of acorns. Jermaine was sobbing into a tree knot, and Georgie just stood there, hating everything in front of him. He had a way to silence them, but he couldn't yet. Not without attempting a full dialogue. It was a dangerous game tangling with the Fey. He was in their world, and the only way to survive was to accept that.

"Ne asorloga," Georgie spoke up, silencing the extraplanar hams in their native language. "Ni humat lus etti napped seremelodies."

"Oyoi?" The fairy chirped, gripped by the fluent apology and poetic admission of ignorance. Her wings fluttered and twirled back into Georgie's space. "Na waweck Sylvan?"

"Some," he answered in unilingua and stepping back from the reinvasion. He reached in his bag. "I'm sure the tornado would have been fun, and acorns are an idea, I guess. Since we're meeting here though- "

A pint-sized hand squished Georgie's mouth shut. The fairy shushed him with a tender hum contrasted by her shaky, sleep deprived pupils.

"Ni asorego na, fool," she smiled, revealing a tooth missing. "That means, 'I forgive you, idiot.' We can salvage this! It's still an experience, regardless of surprise!"

Jermaine perked up; I light reached the darkness the squirrel was falling into. Hope rekindled by an ember. He squeaked at the fairy, revitalized with inspiration and pointing to the end of the path. She nodded back, using her power to recreate the welcoming.

"You heard the squirrel!" The fairy shouted in Georgie's face.

"I really didn't," Georgie cleaned his ears. "The singing is back, and I was caught off guard. Are we still doing the tornado? How far is it taking me, because I want to first ask- "

The closest vine archway reeled back and pushed Georgie into the spiraling leaf current. Surprised, he held his cap tight and bag close to the chest. His eyes bulged and nearly bit his lip wincing from the wack.

"Oh, you gotta be," he grunted as his body was launched sky high. "DAAAMMIIIT!"

Jermaine saluted the screaming human sailing through rings of blue clouds. D'artagnia tossed her neices and nephews in the air like confetti. This wasn't in the script, but Jermaine let her have it.

"Look at him go," the fairy watched as Georgie tipped into re-entry. "Better meet him there."

She fluttered to a literal redwood and placed her hand. An iridescent ripple formed between the wood and palm.

"Doram," she hummed to the tree. "Romi Ni etta Shashana."

The fairy sunk into the growing portal, leaving her companions to celebrate. She emerged out the other end from the floor of a tree house made entirely of tightly knit branches. Georgie's scream was approaching the open roof. The fairy sat at a chipped white tea table, waiting with two plates of glossy sweet beets.

Instead of crashing into paste on the wood, Georgie was whiplashed and planted firmly into the opposite chair. He coughed trying to catch his breath, panting like a confused dog. He centered his exasperation at the creepy little fey, biting on a sparkly root vegetable. Fairies were known for their unpredictability, but there was a limit to what material beings could expect.

"Oyoi!" She spit halfway across the table. "A VISITOR! Welcome traveler."

Scooting his chair from the chewed projectiles, Georgie wheezed, "Don't act surprised, we could've done this down there!"

"Welcome," she ignored the angry man and struck a pose on the table, squashing her sweet beet. "To the Bantriaf Greenwood! I am Selly, circle mother of this miraculous domain!"

Oh, dear daemons, Georgie thought dejectedly as Selly raved at him with a red stained chin. This had to be the closest feywood to Lazlo. It's going to be a whole day of this, isn't it?