A tree branch moved in the wind. Someone was watching him. Quaraun spun around quickly, but found only himself facing more trees. In fact, it was more trees than had been there a few minutes ago.

"Fucking Faerie forest. Can't even trust the trees not to sneak up behind you and kick you off a cliff."

His pale blue eyes darted side to side, anglicizing every movement of every tree. This was definitely The Forest of No Return. He could tell by the fact that several trees had uprooted themselves and were walking around, pacing back and forth, stretching their legs. Roots? Who knows? A couple of the pine trees blinked their eyes and showed their fangs, while a weeping willow slowly inched its way around to the side, trying to get behind Quaraun.

"I see you," Quaraun snarled at the willow tree. The tree immediately rooted itself and pretended to be a normal, ordinary, not enchanted Faerie tree.

When nothing more happened, Quaraun relaxed. Still standing alone in the woods, at the base of Fire Mountain. No one to talk to. No one to ask for help. No one to yell at. Just him an these fucking trees that wouldn't stop following him.

"Hello?" Quaraun called out to the trees.

The entire forest stopped moving. Pine trees, oak trees, maple trees, birch trees... they all stopped walking and stood stiff, pretending to be normal trees.

The air around Quaraun grew colder. Frost crystals began forming on the pine needles below his feet. His breath grew frosty and cold, freezing in the air before his face.

"Lich," Quaraun said, as he looked up at the sky and watched the deep cerulean blue miasma mist swirling through the clouds over the tops of the enchanted trees. He frowned. "BoomFuzzy. Always near. Always watching. Always separated. Always apart."

Quaraun turned back around and stared at the mountain before him: Pepper Valley's infamous Fire Mountain.

He looked around again, hoping for some signs of civilization.

Something.

Anything.

A bridge.

A road.

A building.

A path even.

Nothing.

The trees continued to loom over him, dark and menacing.

"Oh, fuck off!" Quaraun yelled at the trees as they got too close to him. "I'm not scared of you. Now get out of here!"

The trees took several steps back away from The Pink Necromancer.

Fire Mountain.

Maine's ancient super volcano.

Long dormant.

One of four largest volcanoes in the world.

The volcano rumoured to have been so devastating the last time it erupted, that it caused the Ice Age and killed every dinosaur on the planet, by blanketing the planet in ash, preventing the sun's warm rays from reaching the surface and causing instant mass flash freezing of the entire planet.

Or so say the scientists who study such things. Quaraun was not in the habit of studying volcano, so he knew nothing of Fire Mountain other than a few random passages he had been told.

Quaraun had heard of Fire Mountain many times. Tales of it swarmed through myths and legend.

But this was his first time ever seeing it. He'd never been here before. He wasn't sure what to expect.

A volcano, so big, so deep, and so ancient, that it was rumoured to contain the world's last surviving dinosaur. A huge, viscous black scaled, fire breathing dragon.

Somewhere there was an entrance. A way inside. And then a way down. But where? How in the Hell does one get into Fire Mountain, to even start to look for the under mountain palace of King Gwallmaiic inside?

The trees began moving closer once more and with a sigh Quaraun continued forward, onward, and upward, up the side of Fire Mountain. He would find the entrance into Fire Mountain, even if it took him days, weeks, months of searching. He hoped it wouldn't take so long.

Quaraun sat on the ground. He was weak and hungry and thirsty and tired.

"I wish I could just find the entrance into Fire Mountain," he muttered to himself, quite forgetting that he was a Wizard of the Di'Jinn order and knew better than to ever star any sentence with the words "I wish".

Just then a large fortified gate, appeared. Quaraun stood up and stared at the huge cast iron fence, that stood around a stone archway. A 1920's neon sign, with art deco neon lights, stood over the entrance blinking the words: "Entrance!" in big, bold, friendly purple letters, while bouncing neon light purple puppies wagged their tails below the word.

"Oh good god, what have I done?" Quaraun questioned as he realized he's made and granted his own wish.

"Congratulations! You me friend has won yarself a prize. The location of the entrance into Fire Mountain!"

Quaraun turned to see who had spoke and found himself face to face with a small dark skinned Faerie, bigger than a Leprechaun, taller than a Dwarf, but standing at only five foot one, he was still shorter than a Human child.

"BoomFuzzy."

"At ya service."

BoomFuzzy dressed like a ringmaster of a big top three ring circus.

"Oh no!"

"Oh yes!" The Faerie took off his top hat and made a magnanimous sweeping bow at Quaraun's feet, than perch the hat on top of his wild mess of dreadlocks once again.

"Aren't we just a lucky one, eh?"

"Never." Quaraun shook his head. "No. I have no good luck at all. I have terrible luck. Especially when it comes to Faeries. I am not a lucky Elf."

The Faerie stood on tip-toe and kissed Quaraun's nose, then spun around and pranced to the gate. "Of course y'is. We are always so lucky. Lucky. Lucky. Lucky. Lucky! Ya should be a Leprechaun wid luck like yars."

"You do realize I've spent the last several weeks trying to catch you?"

"Oh, why of course! I do have so much fun wid de smoke un mirrors. Keeping yar running in circles."

There was a loud POUF!

And the Faerie disappeared, leaving behind a large pouf of purple smoke and several shards of shattered mirrors.

"Damn you," Quaraun said as he made his way to the iron gate.

As Quaraun get to the gate, he saw a dark skinned Asian solider, with long salt and pepper grey dreadlocks blocking his path. Quaraun tried to walk pass the Faerie but immediately, sharp spears grew up out of the ground, all pointing toward Quaraun and blocking him from going in any direction.

"Ah, uh, uh! Ye shalt no enter. Yar only wished to know where the entrance was. Ya did no wish to get inside."

"Will you stop it!"

"No, no, no! Wishes not carefully word are prone to backfire you know."

Quaraun glared at the Faerie. The solider had glowing blue eyes, made out of gemstones, and wore a cloak made entirely of black feathers. On his fingers where nails should have been, great glossy black talons grew instead.

"You're a Phooka!" Quaraun gasped. "Oh my."

The solider laughed.

"Well don't just stand there gawking at me," the bird man said. "You are in the presence of the Griffin King. Move aside boy."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Why not?"

"I must get into the mountain."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really."

"Why?"

"I have a renegade Lich to catch."

"The one you used to keep locked in a bottle?"

"Yes. He escaped. I wasn't done with him."

"Oh, my, my, my, my, my! Deary me. PoooooOOOOoooor wee lil Necromancer done gone un lost hims Lich?"

The Phooka fell on the ground laughing. When he did all the trees that had been following Quaraun, likewise fell of the ground and rolled around laughing.

"Are you done?" Quaraun snarled at the Faerie.

"Oh, no! Of course not!" The Phooka bounced back up to his feet. "Why would I be? I have so many much lots of time to torture you, remember?"

"Yes," Quaraun answered dryly. "I do seem to recall, being made immortal by a wish gone wrong."

The soldier stared at Quaraun.

"Oh, you're not going to cower in fear of me, are you?" the soldier asked.

"No reason to. You're just a psychotic Phooka."

"Just a..really? Just a Phooka? Is that all I am to you?"

"Just a Phooka."

"I feel I should be insulted." The Phooka looked past Quaraun to the trees. "Be insulted, boys, will you? I don't have the patience to do it myself."

The trees immediately started stomping around in circles looking as insulted as trees could make themselves look.

"So, I'm just just a Phooka, eh?"

"Yes. A psychotic Phooka with a lot of Psychotic trees at his command."

"Do you not like my trees?"

"You're trees are annoying, as they always are."

"Mighty bold of you to say as much."

"Not really, no."

"How so?"

"I've dwelt with Phookas before."

"Have you now?"

"Yes. I have. You KNOW I have. I have to keep putting up with you every few decades, don't I?"

"Oh pooh! You're not being any fun."

"You are dead, why should I be having fun?"

"We are the most fearsome race of all of Fae. No monsters are more feared than we."

"Yes. I am aware of this, but you see, I am Quaraun. The Pink Necromancer. As you very well know."

"Pink? Let me guess," the soldier said, pointing at Quaraun's robes. "You're a Flower Faerie, and this is why you're wearing pink. Am I right?"

"BoomFuzzy! I am an Elf. You know, I am an Elf"

"An Elf? Really?"

"Yes. Do we have to go through this every time you pop up!"

"Well, let me think... why YES!"

"Why?"

"Because you are a Necromancer."

"So?"

"I am dead."

"Yes. I noticed that. I'm trying to fix that."

"Ah yes. And how is that going?"

"Well, let me think... oh yes... you are still dead."

"I'm a Lich, Quaraun. Not much you can do about that."

"You don't have a physical body."

"Yes, let me see, that would be because I am dead. Being incorporeal kind of with the territory."

"Are you going to let me in the mountain?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhmmmmmm....... no."

"No?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"My, you're a lil one, aren't you?"

"I am short," Quaraun said, "for an Elf. And you already know that. Plus you're a full head shorter than me. And stop changing the subject."

"Indeed. You're not very tall," BoomFuzzy said. "But you're not very little, I've seen shorter, and that's good enough for me. And I is supposed to be short. I is a Phooka. We all us is short. You Elves is supposed to be tall. Taller than Humans. Yis a runt."

"Can you find something else to talk about?"

"Are you thirsty?"

"What?"

"I have water."

"So?"

"Yar can have some if ya wants it."

"One must never accept food from Faeries."

"Tis not food. T'is water. And I am not Faeries. I am your BoomFuzzy."

"I know you too well to trust you."

"You'd think you could trust me by now, I've been haunting ya bony lil ass for the past seven centuries."

"You being, BoomFuzzy, is EXACTLY WHY I can't trust you. No can trust you. You'd stab your best friend in the back if you thought you could get a laugh out of it."

"You ARE me best friend."

"That's exactly my point. I will never turn my back on you."

"You are thirsty. Here."

"It could be bottled dust for all I can tell. Faeries never offer real food."

"Not even for a shiny red apple?"

The bottle of water, he held in his hand, was now a shinny red apple. Quaraun smiled, and the soldier smiled back. Quaraun took the apple.

"There, you see?" the soldier said.

Quaraun threw the apple off the cliff.

"Yes. I do see. I am Faerie Sighted. You tried to offer me a maggot filled rotten apple core."

"But you are hungry and so too are I. But you can eat and I can not, for I am dead and you alive."

"I am not hungry. Only you are hungry. Here, I shall give you the apple core." Quaraun stretched out his gold armoured hand and the rotten apple core appeared in the palm of his bejewelled metal glove. "It is fresh from the garden of the apricot trees in the courtyard below. Eat it. Drink it. And live forever with me."

"If only that were possible. I seem to be lacking a physical body."

"It is possible. I will make it so, if that's last thing I ever do."

"You are the Elf who believes in love. That love survives all. Even death."

"I am."

"Your lover died and left you alone."

"Yes. You did."

"And now you wander the world in search of his missing soul."

"I do. And it would be easier to find a cure for you if you would stop jumping out of your bottle and running away. Every minute I spend looking for you is another minute I don't spend trying to build you a flesh body."

"But you murdered his other lover."

"Gibedon. Yes. I did. I killed Gibedon."

"Why?"

"Gibedon was going to kill BoomFuzzy. He was plotting wit Finderu to overthrow the throne. They were going to kill the King in his sleep. I had to stop them."

"Even though you knew King Gwallmaiic loved him."

"Yes. BoomFuzzy loved Gibedon, not me. I am so sorry I broke his heart. He killed himself a few days after I killed Gibedon."

"Apology accepted," the soldier said. "Now let us go inside, inside this mighty fortress we call home. We'll eat and drink until our bellies ache, till the sky falls in, and then we sleep the sleep of death."

The Phooka opened a massive stone door in the side of the mountain. Quaraun stepped inside the door and immediately it vanished, along with the gate and the solider, and Quaraun found himself standing on the dark cliff, overlooking a deep, ominous looking hole in the ground.

"Just remember, wishes come with consequences," BoomFuzzy said as his vanished once again.

"What consequences? BoomFuzzy what did you do this time?"

Quaraun waited for an answer but got none.

BoomFuzzy was gone again.

"A house wizard dispatches Quaraun to retrieve arcane and mysterious information that only the Thullids possess. A powerful magic item is said to be lost in the ruins of the ancient city," Quaraun said to no one in particular. Largely because there was no one around to talk to.

Legends told tales of a mysterious mountain, which could appear out of no where, whenever and wherever it pleased. Much the same as The Twighlight Manor did, the same too as The Forest of No Return did. Not surprising as all three were places BoomFuzzy lived and building himself enchanted homes, seemed to be a talent of his.

The mountain.

The Manor.

The forest.

Disappearing into the mists from which it had mysteriously immersed, the mountain proved itself difficult to find.

Normally Quaraun did not take on such risks, but, this particular mountain had been on his radar for a while now. For this, was Fire Mountain, home of The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley. Leastwise it had been his home, centuries ago, when he was still alive.

"What am I doing here?"

Quaraun stood on the cliff, looking down at the gaping black hole. A steam vent, from a long inactive volcano. The ancient, old Elf got down on his hands and knees and peered into the hole.

Nothing

He could see exactly nothing.

"There has to be another way in. A better way in. A way in, that doesn't involve me tying a rope to god knows what and hoisting myself down into god forsaken pits of who the hell knows what's down there."

"I suppose, I could just jump in. If I die I'll just start my life over. Won't I?"

The bizarre question was enough, without having to give an exact answer.

"How many lifetimes can I live, before I stop reliving the same life over and over again? I never jumped down this shaft before, did I? I don't remember. I've a dragon to get past. Jump it is."

Quaraun did not get a chance to jump, because just then, BoomFuzzy reappeared, and shoved Quaraun off the cliff, while yelling down the hole: "Seemed to recall ya was expecting me to stabs yas in de back. Figured kicking off a cliff works just as well."