That night, when everyone settled in for bed that night, Tahir found himself unable to sleep. He opted to take the first watch, and then have the traveler take the second, but throughout his spirit's watch, sleep did not take him, so he spent most of it staring up at what stars he could see through the dense foliage of the unclaimed lands. His mind initially raced with how he would test using aura with his spirit summoning instead of just mana, but in an effort to think of something else so he could fall asleep, his thoughts drifted back to well over a month ago, and his reading of the fortune teller of Noxulla that led him toward spirit magic.
As he lay on his back, he held up an arm between him and a small patch of moonlight that slipped through the trees. His mind went back to the odd shape that wound around his arm during the fortune telling. The teller herself acted as if she couldn’t see, but he remembered it vividly. If the fortune telling involved communing with Noxulla herself to read one’s fortune in the stars, did that mean that the goddess showed him something that she only wanted him to see?
“Tahir, you awake?” Hasio’s quiet voice interrupted his thoughts. Tahir rose from his bedroll to see the blond looking out into the forest. “I thought I heard something. Wanna go take a look at it?”
Another boon of his spirit magic, he could send spirits ahead to scout, or in this instance, leave on behind on watch while he went to scout himself. “Sure, give me a second.” He went to summon the traveler, and then paused. He wanted to wait and test using aura instead of mana tomorrow, but he figured with everyone nearby, and Hasio watching, it should be fine. He looked to Hasio, who looked on with a raised eyebrow, probably wondering why Tahir hadn’t summoned a spirit already. “Let me know if you see anything odd.”
With a deep breath, he called on his bond. During the process, when it came for him to add mana to create spirit energy for the traveler, he cycled his aura and willed it to fill in along with a smaller amount of mana than what he’d usually add. The energies merged, and he felt a wave of cold throughout his entire body, and a kind of tug in his stomach. It felt odd, but he didn’t feel anything wrong from this arrangement. The traveler emerged at the edge of the camp, and gave a short bow.
“Tahir, you-” Hasio started, his pause suggesting something had happened, and in response to Tahir’s questioning look, he moved to his pack and quietly rummaged through until he pulled out a small, handheld mirror. He brought it over and handed it to Tahir. Looking through it, Tahir could see Hasio’s cause for alarm. His eyes, and the tips of his hair, had changed into the same silver of the Traveler, and his eyes had a soft glow to them. Looking over himself, the skin on the back of his hands also changed to an odd silver color.
“Careful how you manage this arrangement, contractor.” The traveler spoke softly. “I believe my desires are benign enough that it shouldn’t affect you overly much, but sharing your aura with other contracted spirits will change your state of mind while you call them, intensely so if you give them too much.”
Tahir gave a nod in understanding. He couldn’t really give a comprehensive overview of his own mental state, but he didn’t feel much of anything different from the traveler. His thoughts occasionally flashed back to his impression of their eventual destinations of Isanthyr and later Osni, his memories of passing through Paxoruche, and what they’ve seen of the Unclaimed Lands so far. Everywhere he traveled or hopped to. The thoughts came, but didn’t interrupt any of his own thoughts, so he could push them to the side easily. He could only imagine how it might feel if he put more aura in.
Similar to getting drunk, he figured, but driving his thoughts more and more toward what spirit he had contracted. More testing for later, but for now, the benefits outweighed any potential drawbacks. Instead of taking up a third of his mana pool, it only took a fifth, and the aura he filled in put him about on par with his mana pool. He’d definitely take a little less of either rather than a massive dip into one of his pools.
“Alright Hasio, I should be fine, but I’ll let you know if anything feels wrong. Traveler, can you let me know if anything happens here?”
“You’ll be the first to know. Try to keep me informed as well.”
With the Traveler keeping watch over the rest of the sleeping party, Hasio and Tahir crept toward the sound that Hasio heard. As he described, the sound was a faint scratching that he only heard from listening intently, and it sounded a little far off. They crept through thick bushes and across heavy roots, deep forest without a path and no natural trail leading to their destination, only following the direction that Hasio heard the sound coming from. As he hunted occasionally to feed the group and make sure they didn’t run out of supplies, nearly always managing to come back with something when he did, Tahir didn’t have any reason to doubt his ability to track.
Several hundred feet through dense forest later, and the two of them emerged into a clearing. A rarity in these woods. “About here I think.” Hasio said, and looked around, daggers in hand, for the source of the noise. Tahir kept a hand on his blade, but also took a glance around the clearing for what he could see.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Toward the opposite end from where they came in, a single large oak tree stood. The moonlight shining down revealed several deep carvings into the tree at about six feet up. Tahir could tell they seemed to be writing in some kind of language, but before he focused on deciphering it, his eyes came down to settle on a wide ring of mushrooms and bright flowers growing just in front of the tree.
“A fairy ring?” Tahir pointed out. Supposedly, circles created by fey creatures. They were known to entrap people, putting them to sleep, making them dance, or in more rare circumstances simply whisk them away to lands unknown. Thankfully the solution to avoiding the danger presented by them simply lied in not stepping in them.
“Well that might partially explain who was behind the sound. Any idea what that says?” Hasio motioned to the carving on the walls.
Once he focused on it, Tahir found that he could read the language, but he couldn’t understand what was carved into the tree. “I think the Traveler recognizes the language, but it’s not a word I’m familiar with, let me try to ask them.” He called on his link with the traveler. With their souls being linked together, a mental link was also established between them, though Tahir had yet to test the limits of this link.
Hey, Traveler. He sent his thoughts toward the spirit. We’ve found some carving on a tree. We found a fairy ring nearby, so we think the language is Sylvan, but I don’t recognize the word.
A moment passed, and Tahir heard the Traveler’s voice in his mind. “I will see if I can assist. For the time being, try focusing your aura toward your eyes.”
Tahir did as asked, cycling his aura through his body and willing for it to gather around his eyes. At first, he felt nothing, but then another wave of cold passed through his head. He blinked, and felt tears welling in his eyes, as if reacting to the wave. The aura that he willed to gather there stayed without him needing to focus on it, and after he rubbed his eyes to wipe away the moisture, he heard the Traveler’s voice once again. “Ah, I see. I believe this doesn’t have a direct translation to common or draconic, but there is a similar saying that I have heard in the past. ‘S.O.S.,’ or a similar cry for help at least. I would wager that whoever needs said help lies beyond that fairy ring.”
You can tell it's a portal? Tahir tried to confirm with the Traveler while he relayed what he learned to Hasio.
“Quite.” The Traveler replied through the bond. “Should I require it, I would be able to follow you through the fairy ring as well.” After that, Tahir felt the aura around his eyes dispersing back to the rest of his body.
“So it’s someone calling for help from beyond this fairy ring.” Hasio summed it up, after Tahir told him all of the information he’d gained. “Doesn’t this seem like a trap?” He asked, eyeing the fairy ring warily.
“It kind of does, but for who? It took us a while to get here, and you might have missed it entirely if you weren’t on watch. If someone set it for us, they probably would have set it closer. Besides, we haven’t been doing much in the way of heroics since we got here. Mostly traveling, training, and hunting.”
“Right.” Hasio looked around again, scanning the clearing and the surroundings. “And so far, unless they’re extremely good at hiding, no one else has saddled up to this spot. The odds of a random hero walking through these woods are pretty low I imagine. So it’s probably a genuine cry for help. Should we go back and get the others?”
“Do we have time?” Tahir asked. He didn’t quite understand how, but someone sent this message out, maybe set the fairy ring at the same time, or chose this tree because they knew the fairy ring was already here. They could head back and get the others, but they didn’t know if too much time would pass between then and now. He also found himself incredibly curious just what lies beyond the fairy ring after the Traveler confirmed to him that it was in fact a portal.
“What, are you suggesting we go ourselves?” Hasio asked, though he didn’t seem too averse to the idea.
“The Traveler can follow us, they could also bring the others. We could go through to get an idea of what’s going on. If we wait too long, it might be too late.”
“And if it does end up being some kind of trap?”
“Then the Traveler can get us out.” Tahir answered. “You’re fast, and can become invisible. I can teleport us both. We can stall until the others arrive.”
“I’m beginning to see why Theo and Metilia told me to keep an eye on you.” Hasio said with a grin. “But that logic is sound, ignoring any number of bad things that could happen. So what, should we step into the fairy ring at the same time?”
“Probably, let me get the Traveler to wake everyone else up.” They approached the fairy ring. Tahir sent his request to the traveler, and before they stepped through he called on his bond for the spirit of air. This time, he split the already fairly low cost between aura and mana, leaving him with about three-fourths of both pools between the air spirit and the traveler. He checked himself and found no physical or mental changes, at least none that he was aware of.
He didn’t know what he’d need beyond the ring, but he felt more confident in using any of his magic with more of his mana at his disposal. The Traveler’s affinity reduced the teleportation magic, which cost the most by far of any of the spells Tahir knew, to a manageable amount for short distances. He’d take the moment to switch to something offensive if he really needed to.
“Alright, on three.” Everyone else should be scrambling to get their equipment together so they could follow the Traveler to the clearing - all Tahir and Hasio needed to do was get an idea of the situation and prevent the worst of whatever was happening. “One…two…three!”
With a coordinated leap, they jumped into the fairy ring and disappeared.