Fritz scrabbled and struggled on the uneven stone, the dark making it far harder to pick out a clear path to where he had seen the lavender light. Even with his amber stone, it took some minutes to reach and stand where he was sure the light had been. But there was nothing revealed under his swirling orange-yellow light. “Final Spire, I better not have just been seeing things,” Fritz cursed, shining the amber stone’s light this way and that.
After no success, he turned to leave and began scrabbling back towards Bert, his own amber light glimmering like a lantern in the distance. Sighing and muttering in frustration he made his way across the stone, in one last act of hope he looked over his shoulder. Expecting nothing he almost jumped when he saw the light again, just where he had been standing before. Why didn’t I see it when I was there? Eyeing the spot suspiciously he began to make towards it, again. As he approached the spot slowly he saw the light wink out, he stopped when it did so, then took a step back.
There the lavender light was again, was it closeness or something else? Fritz pondered, but luckily he didn’t have to think for long as when he scratched his head with his amber glow-stone. He saw the lavender luminescence react, growing darker as the light approached. Of course, I only noticed it when the pyramid went dark. He placed his glowstone down, abandoning it for now but softly telling it, “Don’t worry I’ll be back for you.”
Why he did so he did not know. He found his way toward the purple glow on his hands and knees, not trusting himself to stay upright in the black, especially in his ragged, desperate condition. He was shocked to see what had been producing the light. Small mushrooms, as tall as his hand, that looked almost like a jellyfish’s tendril with a small glowing lavender bulb at the end swayed in the non-existent breeze. They poked out from a fissure and led away, near to where they had entered this horrible floor.
Making sure not to disturb the odd fungi, he crawled, following the seemingly aimless trail. His rough scrabbling pursuit of the origin of these lights finally led him to a wall, a wall that had a luminescent lavender fissure climbing up it then down it in a subtle oval. Giddiness rode over him and he jumped up, this time suspecting his fortune had changed dramatically for the better. A Hidden door? It can’t be! It must be!
He stopped his crawl before he slammed into the wall or accidentally tumbled into the ‘Door’ head-first. He reached out a hand, touching the stone on the outside of the glowing purple oval, searching for a button or mechanism that might make the Door open. If it was one, a pessimistic part of his mind thought. Nothing. Not dismayed, he placed his hand on the stone inside the fissure and felt the stone give a little, gelatinous, like he was pressing on a jellyfish’s cap.
His hand began to sink through the stone like it was a sheet of honey and Fritz pulled back his hand quickly, not knowing if he could come back if he went through the Door. He needed to get Bert, there was a way out for them both, the Spire had lied to them. Or had it? Fritz recalled the insidious not-words of the Spire. Those Doors it had said, so not technically lying, just a complete misdirection.
Fritz smiled grimly at the Spire’s game, it wanted us to turn on each other rather than look for this or other Doors. Evil, cruel and completely callous. No wonder this Spire has been kept secret for so long, anyone climbing it is likely to die horribly and never live to tell the tale. Fritz snapped out of his internal complaining, there was a way out and he would take it. He scrabbled back to his amber, scooped it up and returned to Bert’s side it seemed like moments to his excited spirit.
Fritz appeared stepping into Bert’s circle of light, grinning widely and squirming to give Bert the good news. Then his face fell as he saw Bert, he had only been gone a few minutes, no more than ten but Bert had taken a turn for the worse. He was sweating, bleary-eyed and weak. It seemed a lot of the strength he had put on before was just a show and now he didn’t have the energy to perform it anymore.
“Bert!” Fritz hurried to his friend's side, “Bert, stay with me, I found a way out of here, Bert!”.
“Wha – Fritz you’re back, good it was starting to get cold, start a fire would you?” Bert mumbled, babbling and panning his dazed eyes just over Fritz’s shoulder before closing them. His face went slack and his hand slipped from his body to lie on the cold stone.
They had to leave now, nothing he could do here could save Bert, his only chance was the Door he had discovered, if he had the time maybe he could have found another Door, one that didn’t seem so weird. As it was though this was his only choice, now how to move Bert? I can’t carry him, how about I fashion a sort of pallet or sled or something?
Fritz discarded the idea, not enough time to be messing about trying to build something, he was no engineer or carpenter after all. But he was a thief and he had slapped together makeshift backpacks and harnesses, he looked to his rope and to the oilcloth Bert was using as a blanket.
With a plan in mind, Fritz was a frenzy of movement, he grabbed Bert’s blanket, and punched two holes in its top corners, grabbing his rope and threading it through the new openings. Pulling Bert onto the oilcloth proved difficult but Fritz managed it, not as gently as he wanted but he was concerned more about speed than comfort. He wrapped his friend up in the cloth then tied his rope around the man at his feet and shoulders hopefully enough to keep the oilcloth in place.
Fritz tied the other end of the rope into a harness he could slip over his shoulders and added both Bert’s and his own backpack to his burden. He made sure to tuck away the amber glow-stones, he wouldn’t need them not when he just had to follow the fungus. Securing the haphazard but solid contraption of rope and cloth he pulled, dragging the unconscious Bert behind him.
The sound of his panting breath and the scraping of the load he pulled behind him were constant companions during the long haul across the stony plain. He had been lucky the hidden Door was so close to the entrance where they had left Bert and it only took him five or six minutes of the backbreaking labour to reach the glowing oval. Though to Fritz it felt far longer as his worry and fear pushed him on but also dragged the time out in his mind.
Fritz stood before the luminescent lavender outline of the Door, catching his breath for a moment and trying to overcome his fearful apprehension of what lay beyond. It can’t be worse than here. Right? It was an odd feeling, a prickling sensation on his skin, it was like standing on top of a cliff peering down into a distant raging sea. What was the word? Precipitous. A moment of no return.
Discarding his fear Fritz plunged forward pressing his hand then his face, then the rest of his body through the membranous stone. It was like pushing through an enormous jellyfish, cold and thick but not sticky as he worried it would be. His eyes could not make sense of what he was seeing, swirling lights and colours, some he was sure a mortal was not meant to see. He quickly closed his eyes to shield his sight from the onslaught of eldritch brilliance.
Fritz held his breath unwilling to test if the substance would enter his mouth or nostrils if he inhaled and kept walking onward. It was a wholly dissonant feeling, like stepping both only once but also walking three thousand miles in a matter of seconds. The notions of near and far clashed in his mind and spirit, turning his stomach and spinning his senses.
Still, he slipped through the jelly-like portal, a mere three steps and he was through, the cold slipperiness replaced with a mild, merely cool breeze. He stood there taking a deep breath, waiting for the nausea to settle before opening his aching eyes. When Fritz opened his eyes he could see he stood atop a grassy hill. The light was dim, the world was painted in shadows while the sky was hued in ever-shifting oranges, reds and purples. To his left, there was a forest of grey-barked trees flourishing in or perhaps reflecting the colours of the sun that lay setting or rising on the horizon.
It was breathtaking, but Fritz didn’t have time to be distracted by its beauty. Still, he took a moment to just take it all in. The way the breeze seemed to dance through the strange knee-height grass in its metallic hues of copper, silver, gold and many other colours Fritz couldn’t name. The plains of grass refracted the myriad rays of light in subtle scintillating pools of illumination.
If Fritz hadn’t just gone through the strange Door and seen whatever it was in between these two places then he might have thought it all too much. As it was, the light wasn’t all that bright it was just all constantly in flux, always moving in unpredictable, intriguing ways. It occurred to Fritz that he should probably be on alert for danger, but the strange mildness of the breeze and the soft quiet of the rustling grass lulled him into an odd tranquillity. The alien landscape had such a sense of discordant familiarity it felt like he was in a dream, he pinched himself just to make sure.
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He wasn’t in a dream, he hurt too much both inside and out. Accidentally pinching one of the many cuts that hadn’t quite healed yet, he let out a small yelp, “Ouch.”
The jolt of new pain brought him back to his senses, back to his mission, back to finding Bert the help he needed. The Well Room, it was his only hope, so he had to get through here as quickly as possible. These hidden Doors often gave extra ways to avoid danger, find better Treasures or receive strange opportunities. Most of the knowledge Fritz had on the matter was vague as hidden Doors were, well, hidden, shrouded in secret and rare. They could also be dangerous, but it was usually well worth the risk.
For Fritz and Bert, it wasn’t a risk at all, it was their only way through this crisis. He stood on stone that ended in a circle of the strange purple mushrooms. Past the mushroom’s purple periphery, they were surrounded by the metallic grass, no sign of the Doorway back. A One-way trip then.
Searching for a clear path forward he scanned his surroundings: a glimmering forest to his left, shadowed rolling hills to his right, what looked like a foggy swamp behind him and in front a seemingly endless grassy plain.
“Straight it is then, over the plains,” Fritz announced to no one in particular. Deciding to take the ‘easiest’ route. He had to keep his wrapped-up Bert ‘sled’ safe, and that meant no more difficult ground.
Not having any time to waste he set off, trudging down the hill, through the tickling fingers of grass. He had some time to enjoy the dull, peaceful pace of this strange realm he found himself in, that was until he spotted something flitter and flutter out from the trees from his left. Somethings, he amended as he saw the small shapes dancing through the sweet scented air towards him.
He readied his fish blade as they drew closer, the things looked to be moths or butterflies the size of his outstretched hand. Fritz was poised to strike them if they posed a danger to him or Bert, but once they were close enough that he could get a good view of their features he instead stood frozen in disbelief.
They were tiny, fine-featured people with butterfly wings, clothed in tunics and dresses made of autumn leaves or sometimes nothing at all. Dust fell from their flickering sunset-hued wings in glittering trails as they passed over the plains and rode the dancing breeze.
There was a name for the creatures and Fritz would know, he’d always had a soft spot for Faerie tales as a youth. Even if his father had tried to dissuade him from his interest in them, saying there were far more real monsters he had better study and that he was wasting his time. Pixies, really!? Maybe I am dreaming, he pinched himself again. Nope, still painful. An immense joy and giddy validation bubbled in his chest, wonder mixed through and it all threatened to burst past his lips in a torrent of laughter. They are real. Real and heading right for you.
Then caution overrode his elation, he remembered a lot of the tales had ended in, well, less than desirable outcomes. Like being turned it statues for giving offence, or having your memories stripped away in a bargain or any number of bizarre punishments after misstepping according to their unknowable alien customs.
For every Faerie tale that ended happily for the men or women there was also one that ended horribly. Fritz thought that all the stories, good or ill, had an ominous undertone running through them like they were dancing on a knife's edge the whole time the Faerie was present on the page. That on getting their ‘happy ending’ they would smile too wide or be too joyous for it to be anything more than an uncanny performance or hazy everlasting dream.
Still, the pixies flew towards him, then when they reached him, they danced through the air around him. Their high-pitched voices that sounded like birds or strange insects chirping. They chatted and babbled incomprehensibly as they conversed, sometimes their conversation would be punctuated by fits of shrill giggling. Obviously, they saw him as no threat as they hovered and darted past his head around his body and under the arch of his legs.
One peculiar pixie hovered a foot in front of his nose, it stood around six inches tall and its tunic was dark grey, much unlike the yellows and oranges of the others. The dark tunic had some sort of heraldry emblazoned on the chest that resembled half of a sunburst in burnished gold. The pixie itself had flowing rose-red hair out of which thin pointed ears protruded and had the slitted eyes of a cat shaded in clover green. He could see needle-like fangs in its mouth as it jabbered imperiously at him and pointed a minute silver spear at Fritz’s eye.
Fritz assumed the tiny Faerie was giving him an order or demanding something from him in its strange tongue. Not knowing exactly what to do and not wanting to feel the bite of that silver needle or the pixie wielding it for that matter, Fritz improvised. A little bit of deference wouldn’t hurt he suspected. He took one step back and bowed to the pixie and spoke in the most polite tone he could muster, “Oh great Faerie I beseech thy help-”
Their chattering stopped as he reached the word help, then they all parroted it back at him in giggles cry’s and curses. Fritz risked a look up at the spear-carrying pixie, and it smirked at him in cruel satisfaction. “Help,” it repeated nodding once then racing away across the plains. The other pixies looked around at each other they’re nervous Fritz judged. That’s if could read pixies at all. In a flash they were flying away, scattering to the winds and chittering in their strange way.
Left alone in the dim light, Fritz searched to horizon, the treeline and the hills for any sign of, well, anything. Nothing, even the sun hadn’t properly set or risen yet, it still cast that glorious half-light across the land. Odd. But what about this place wasn’t? Fritz decided to keep travelling across the grass. Standing still would get him nowhere and if ‘help’ was coming he wasn’t sure he wanted to meet it, not from the feeling he got from the look on that red-haired pixie’s face.
Fritz felt he was beginning to get used to the strangeness of the realm that was until he nearly walked face-first into a door that had crept up right in front of his face. The door was dark brown wood with an ivory frame, knocker and decoration. Attached to the door was a manor of that same dark wood and ivory, it was a small manor to be sure, only three stories.
It was quite unlike some of the sprawling estates in the Upper Ring, but that’s still not something that can just sneak up on someone, even though it just did. It was also far more exquisitely carved and decorated, with flowing arches and columns, its every angle and curve perfect in its elegance and uncanny in its perfection. Fritz shivered, he knew he was in way over his head, this was the dwelling of something powerful, something terrible and something he had to beg help from.
He gulped knowing he had to knock, to be polite and to keep his wits about him. The Faerie were nothing to trifle with. He reached out to the pale knocker which looked eerily like a human fist suspended upside down, he grasped it and knocked once, twice then a third, final, time. Knowing that like the Spires, Faeries also loved their threes. In fact, that was one of the fringe theories that linked Faeries as one of the peoples who could have built the Spires.
Trivia later Fritz, keep you’re mind clear, focus on the moment. He told himself as he patted down his ragged clothes, trying to look a little presentable and tucked his fish blade into his belt. He waited for a few minutes, which stretched his nerves, but he knew he shouldn’t leave or knock again, that would be rude and rude was death, or worse. A first test. Just hold out, if you can get them to welcome you can claim their hospitality. And if you can claim their hospitality they might help Bert, they would at least be obligated to do something.
“Who knocks thrice upon my door?” A woman’s voice demanded in a sonorous, sensuous sigh. Though the voice was low, quiet and cool, it made Fritz sweat and his body tingle with heat as it reverberated through his bones. Again, another test. No yelling. No babbling. Wait until she appears before answering.
Fritz nearly jumped and would have if not for his complete attention to his surroundings, as a small window opened within the door and out flew the red-haired pixie. It looked him up and down, scowled, then trilled out a high warbling whistle that set his teeth on edge.
“The mortal who begged the help of my seneschal is it?” The deep seductive voice called.
Fritz addressed the pixie in a quiet polite voice, “Please inform your illustrious queen that I request an audience, if that can be arranged for a poor dreg like me?”
The pixie narrowed its eyes suspiciously but turned, flew inside again and closed the small window. He was left there for another minute stewing in fearful apprehension. Will they let me in? is this hopeless? Are they just playing a trick on me? His racing, nervous thoughts were interrupted when the door began to silently swing open.