"Fairies' main form of attack is its hallucinations. It will play with your senses and try to force you to peek into its eyes. If you do, you are dead." Me and Zack sneak around the spiked buildings as I recall Azu's breakdown. Each building here is the exact same. A square base with nothing on it and an intricately carved spire on its roof. These spires are at least a hundred feet tall and can vary in shape and size. Some are cones with tribal carvings; others are octagonal with hundreds of stars or small animals on them.
The floor itself has been carved with tonnes of little paths cutting between buildings and into small squares centered around statues and water fountains. I peeked into a few of them, but there was nothing in them. Very similar to the housing platforms.
We have our goggles on, blurring my view slightly. These will negate most of the visual illusions, but our other senses are at the mercy of the Fairy. Zack dashes between buildings, his spear at the ready. I follow the best I can. Hopefully, we can get to the center building before the Fairy finds us. If not, it'll come down to a game of cat and mouse until one of us slips up.
We stop at a square with a deer statue, Zack motioning me to hang back. I hold my breath as the flap of wings catches my attention. From the shadows, we peer into the sky, watching as a furry humanoid-shaped creature flys over. It's huge, and the wingspan is three or four times my height. The wings are shaped like butterflies, but gray and fuzzy instead of colorful.
Zack grips his spear tightly. He probably wants to attack while we have the advantage of stealth, but for how strong he is physically, that won't matter against the Fairy. Not if it gets ahold of him.
The Fairy disappears, and we dash across the square, slipping back into the shadows. "An apex will know we are here, but the silver lining is that it won't know our exact location, just the general area. We can use this. If we split up, we can double the areas it needs to search." So far, Azu seems to have nailed it.
We're about halfway to the center building when a hole opens up just in front of us; the floor has decayed. We stop just in time to avoid an untimely death. "Shit, it must know we're here," Zack swears.
The sound of flapping wings and the smell of burning flesh fill my head. I gag as the smell shoves its way into my throat. I stagger to the nearest wall as my throat closes, and I feel the panic of suffocation rearing its ugly head. As I fall to the ground, Zack slams his foot into my stomach. With a wheeze, I collapse, saliva dripping out of my mouth, but the suffocation feeling is gone, and so is the smell of burning flesh.
"Sorry," Zack whispers by my side. I say nothing, just nod as the pain in my stomach fades. The Fairy might not know our exact location, but it can cast hallucinations in a general direction.
"What do we do?" I whisper, fear lacing my body, threatening to take over. This is something my skills can't combat. I'm at it's mercy. It is a terrifying thought.
A bead of sweat forms on Zack's forehead. He must be just as unnerved as me, "We keep going. It might know the general area we're in, but as long as we don't draw attention to ourselves, we should be able to meet with the other two." I nod, and we continue our walk among the shadows. Every now and then, a hole will open up near us, or the feeling of suffocation, phantom pain, or some god-awful smell will cause us to pause.
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Eventually, we approach the large building. It is much bigger now that I'm in front of it. It is a huge square, hundreds of feet long and wide. On it are hundreds of texts, pictures, and designs. The roof is made up of ivory ribbons, each overlapping and forming a beautiful dome. Two massive doors with a tree branch engraved into them mark the front of the building.
The sun must be going down as the dome starts to glow slightly. Azu and Hearon aren't here yet, and Zack is already at the doors and in the middle of opening them when we hear a blood-curdling scream. I glance around me, my grip tightening around Nebula. But the scream isn't coming from outside. No, it comes from the inside.
"Zack, move," I scream, but it's too late. The doors swing open, and the Fairy stares us down in all its glory. The creature is twice as tall as me, and its body is seductive in shape, filled with curves and plump features in all the right places. But it's covered in gray peach fuzz. The ends of its toes and fingers are decorated with six-inch-long claws, and a fleshy tail is tipped with a sword-like edged point.
But it's face. A shiver runs through my body as my eyes are naturally drawn to its face. But not because of its beauty but the horror. It has a set of long teeth that poke out of its lower and upper lip. A hole where the cheeks should be show its black tongue slipping out from both sides, resting on each side of its face. The eyes are blood red, and tears of red drip down.
"No!" Someone yells as an arrow slams into the monster's eye. It screams, the sound similar to breaking glass. It withers in pain, wrapping its massive wings around itself before flying over Zack and me, escaping into the sky.
"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" Azu yells as she grabs Zack by the shoulders. His face is pale, but otherwise he seems fine.
"Sorry, I got a little eager," He replies with a ghost of a smile.
"We were tricked," I say, going to Zack's defense. "We saw it several times flying around, so we assumed it wasn't inside." At least he did. I wouldn't have opened without the other two.
Hearon grunts, readjusting his shield, "It might have been a blessing in disguise. If all four of us had been here, we would have all been caught in its gaze."
Azu says nothing as she gazes into Zack's eyes. He tries to avoid it, but Azu forces him to look at her. She sighs in relief, "Good, it didn't get ahold of your mind." We don't have time to talk as the Fairy screams above us.
"It's Time to end this," Azu states. We nod and dash into the courtroom in front of the doors. Above us, the Fairy hovers just in front of the dome. "Watch its eyes and your feet. It has to be using a lot of power to keep this place frozen in time. We can use that to our advantage."
An unnatural silence fills the area as we prepare ourselves to fight. My eyes zero in on its wings. Azu said that our fight would be decided based on how quickly we could clip those. As I ignite Nebula, the beam shoots up into the trees, blinding me temporarily. All I see is the faint outline of the Fairy before my eyesight is awash in white. "Fuck!" I yell, clutching my goggles.
The sound of wings fills the area to my right, and I swing my sword, adding the weight of my core behind it. A grunt follows as my sword meets metal. Zack's spear. I immediately drop the weight, pulling back as fast as I swung. An arrow pierces my shoulder, and I let out a muffled scream. The Fairy. It's playing with us. I rip the arrow out, the warmth of my blood blooming into my shirt and into my armor.
I open my eyes, which are no longer blinded, to find the Fairy an inch from my face, its blood-red eyes piercing into mine. I hear the muffled yell of my companions, but my vision is already going dark.
"Silen?" My blood freezes. I would know that voice anywhere. I stiffen, afraid to turn. "Brother?" The voice whispers. This is cruel. Rage fills me as I turn, seeing Silo staring at me from atop a horse, his bright smile and electric blue eyes alight with life. He goes to say something else, but nothing comes out as the vision fades, the beam of light, the light of the entire city, flowing into the trees.
I look around frantically to find Zack streaking towards me, a swarm of sparkling scales headed my way. What is that? I don't get a chance to find out as Zack shoves me, sending me slamming through a nearby building. My vision blurs as the scales settle around him, and he flops to the ground, not a twitch seen or sound to be heard. Still. Still as death.