Lord Troy drew a long, shining sword from the jeweled sheath at his waist, summoning a gleaming shield with a stylish flick of his wrist.

He nodded to Bert as he kicked off from the wall, coming to rest on the ground below the Waystation.

“Come then, swine!” He called, his voice rich and deep. “Come and answer for your crimes!”

“My crimes!” Bert hopped off the wall, dropping to the ground and rolling up as his prosthetic hand grew into an axe. “That’s rich, pretty boy. What am I supposed to have done?”

“You know what you did,” He nodded again, a steel helmet shimmering into place on his head. The faceplate showed a scowling face while it was topped with a stylish crown. He blurred forward, his overhand sweep with his blade clanging off Bert’s shield. Troy swung his own shield, slamming it into Bert’s head. Bert staggered back, but he grit his teeth and kicked out, throwing Troy back.

“First lesson!” Troy laughed. “Always wear a helm!”

Bert summoned his helm, placing the pot on his head at a jaunty angle.

“How’s this?” He leaped, slamming his feet into the shiny knight as he landed. Bert rolled away as Troy kicked out and swung his sword.

They traded blows, Bert blocking and countering as they slowly sped up. Bert’s knotwork began to shine as he pushed faster and faster. Troy kept up with him every step of the way.

Eventually, they broke apart, both panting and tired.

“You fight well,” Troy spat. “A pity you are such a rogue. We might have had a few good spars!”

“Me a rogue?” Bert laughed. “Naah, mate. I’m a garbage man.”

“I meant you are a scoundrel!” Troy spat back.

“No, I’m a garbage man!” Bert laughed. “You can hear in that bucket… right?”

Troy launched himself at Bert. “Do. Not. Laugh. At. Me!” each word spoken between powerful blows.

Bert kept laughing, noticing how much control Troy lost as he teased him.

“So, Mister Night!” Bert said as he danced under one of Troy’s swings. “What did she give you to sell her your soul?” He grinned. “Was it one blowjob? Or the whole anal thing?”

“You disgust me!” Troy snarled, swinging wildly.

Bert narrowed his eyes. It was almost time. He pushed the attack, trading blows as fast as he could.

“So it was the anal thing?” Bert nodded sagely. “She looks the type.”

“Fuck you!” Troy screamed and rushed him.

Bert dropped to one knee, firing a barrage of bolts from this crossbow, each one shining with Chill or Heat runes.

Troy staggered, falling to one knee.

Bert rushed the fallen knight, swinging his shield down on the back of his neck.

Troy rolled aside, kicking Bert in the stomach and slamming his blade into Bert’s shoulder. The blade slid in like a hot knife through butter.

“Hah! I know your tricks!” Troy kicked Bert’s arm aside and stood, pulling Bert onto his sword as he wrapped an arm over Bert’s prosthetic. “You hunt and attack that immortal woman! Then you leave her to die! I will not have it!”

Blood bubbled out of Bert’s mouth as he laughed.

“Oh, you poor bastard.” He pulled Troy in closer, feeling the blade slicing deeper into his lungs. “She fed you a crock of shit, posh boy.” Bert’s hands began to glow as turn runes blazed on his palms. He slammed them against the metal armor, feeling it warp and tear.

Troy screamed.

“I was the one hunted and attacked!” He felt the arm in his left-hand crunch as his armor twisted even more.

“Liar!” Troy kicked away from Bert. Bert tried to hold on, but his right arm was pretty much severed at this point. Troy was in bad shape as he fell back, one arm a shattered mess of crumbled metal. The knight’s backplate was twisted, pushing into his back.

Bert summoned a deer corpse, only for the mist to snatch it away. He tried again, this time getting time to cast reclaim flesh for a second before the mist could grab the deer carcass. One more try and he was healed.

He rolled his shoulders as Troy ran into the mists.

Bert fired after him, but the bolts disappeared into the mists.

A moment later, Troy was gone.

Bert sighed, gathering his shield and turning to where he sensed Wendy. He started to jog through the mists.

===========

Scruff jogged down another stone tunnel. There had to be some dirt here somewhere! How can anywhere not have a single bit of dirt in it? There should be dust if nothing else, but each place she passed was as clean and spotless as the one before.

“You can not hide, Farmer!” an arrogant voice called in the distance. “I have swept this entire complex; there is nothing here for you to use!”

A half-glimpsed movement from the shadows between the light crystals in the walls made her hesitate.

A whirring clockwork horror launched itself at her, gouging deep furrows in her arms as she grabbed it out of the air and dashed it against the wall. She searched frantically through the wreckage, finding nothing but metal cogs and springs.

She felt wetness on her cheeks and touched her face. Her hands came away wet with tears. She shook her head, slapping herself and forcing herself onward as the blood slowly seeped into the remains of her shirt.

She had been at this game of cat and mouse for what felt like hours already. Time seemed to pass differently when you couldn’t see any difference from one corridor to another. And always, the constructs snuck and crept and attacked.

Stone and metal that was all she found in the walls, floor, or the constructs themselves.

She was a farmer, dammit! How was she supposed to fight without anything to fight with? She knew the answer, of course… she wasn’t. She was supposed to die.

Her breath caught as an image of Wendy flashed through her mind. Wendy laughing, Wendy angry, it was all good to Scruff.

She was so distracted that she didn’t notice the corridor end as she stumbled into a large open room.

“Took you long enough!” A thin man sat on a stone throne. He was dressed elegantly, in a top hat and tails, and had a complex magnifier on one eye. He was tinkering with a small clockwork thing in his hands. “I was beginning to think I would have to go and fetch you.” He sneered at her. “The lower classes really should try and learn to be prompt!”

Scruff ignored the taunts, looking at the shadows dotting the walls.

“Give it up!” The man laughed. “You have nothing to grow with; you are powerless.” He leered at her. “Maybe it is time you learn to beg?”

“You know,” Scruff smiled as she drew herself up. “I almost did for a second.”

“Almost?” He chuckled darkly.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yes, I think if you had asked kindly… I might have actually done it for a chance to see my friends again.” She took a series of seeds from the pouches of her belt. “But you had to be a dick about it, didn’t you?”

“Stop pretending!” The man spat. “You have nowhere to grow those seeds!”

“Almost nowhere!” Scruff took a deep breath… and slammed the seeds into her open cuts.

“Kill her!” The man leaped from his chair, his magnifier toppling from his eye.

Constructs ground to life and moved towards her.

Scruff screamed as the roots dug into her skin, drinking from her veins and muscles. She gritted her teeth and forced them to keep growing, vines wrapping around her as others forced their way under her skin and down her arms. Steel vine thorns pushed through the skin of her hands.

The blood that had soaked into her clothes was pulled into the fast-growing plants. A ring of blood berries flowered and ripened around her neck. She popped a handful into her mouth, the juice flowing down her throat as the growth continued rapidly.

The first constructs that reached her were small, barely larger than a cat. She kicked and stomped, their sharp claws and rugged gears cutting into her boots. She winced as a pair of vines burst from her shoulders.

Scruff felt woozy, vines pushing their way under the skin and out from her knees, wrapping themselves around her feet. She ate more of the blood berries as the first of the larger constructs lumbered towards her. Multiple arms flailed at her as she batted them away, the thorns in her hands leaving deep gouges in the metal and stone the components were made of.

Scruff ducked under a pair of arms tipped with scythe blades and kicked hard at the leg of the construct. It listed and fell, its arms flailing uselessly.

She heard their creator gasp and looked over to see him scrambling back in shock.

“Kill her, I said!” He demanded, ducking behind the throne.

More of the constructs detached from the shadows, each one a different shape as she punched and kicked. Flowers appeared on the vines along her arms, growing into bright flowers that she snatched and threw at the constructs. Each one hit by a flower wilted as potent acids were released.

Her hands burned from it as well, but it was worth it.

She had spent days perfecting this variant of the vine with the potent metal-eating acid. It was much less effective on skin and living things. She ducked a hammer-swinging construct but took a hit to her back from a four-legged construct with a flat, hammer-like head.

The constructs kept coming, and she kept fighting.

Scruff was slowly being pushed back, and her arms and legs began to feel heavy and lifeless. Her head rang and pulsed with each movement.

She just couldn’t eat enough berries to keep going while the vines pulled at her blood and muscles for sustenance.

“Hah!” The man leaped over the back of the throne as she took a heavy blow, sent flying; Scruff landed at the foot of the throne.

She struggled, trying to push herself up.

He put his booted foot on the back of her head, forcing it down as he took his place on the throne again.

“That’s better!” He laughed. “A fitting end for a farmer, eh?”

Scruff growled, fighting to rise.

“Now, now.” He scolded her. “You did very well. Most impressive actually… but brains really do beat brawn, my dear farmer.” He sneered at her as the constructs gathered around her. “You simply needed more places to grow your plants!”

“You’re right!” Scruff laughed. “I do.”

The vines around her body thrashed, ripping themselves free of her and wrapping themselves around the startled clockmaker.

He opened his mouth to scream for help, but the steel vines slammed into the open mouth, forcing their way inside.

He gargled and twitched as he slowly stilled. His corpse burst open with newly growing plants as his constructs began to fall to pieces around her.

Scruff laughed and raised her ragged fist to the blood berries multiplying all over her former adversary.

Now, she just had to eat fast enough to survive.

=============

“Can’t catch me!” The horrific creature trilled as she floated away once more.

Wendy snarled in frustration. She had been doing this for a while.

Her opponent seemed to be made partly of the mist itself. Every time she got near enough to actually do some damage… her skeleton-wrapped fists passed through the thing as if it were mist.

“Hold still, you little bitch!” Wendy snapped as she leaped for a flash of golden curls. Her only reply was a high-pitched giggle that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Wendy broke into a sprint as she saw the creature again. It lay on its side in a cloud of mist, drifting ahead of her no matter how fast she ran.

“You really do like to play rough!” The girl giggled.

“I’m not playing!” Wendy jerked forward, her hands passing harmlessly through the creature.

“Yes, you are, silly!” The girl snarled and flicked out her arm, the long one with the twisted claws on the end. A line of fire erupted on Wendy’s chest.

She stumbled to a stop, feeling blood running down the inside of her armor.

The claws had opened a tear in it that went all the way through. She channeled mana into it to repair the armor as she cast Reclaim Flesh on a corpse she summoned from the storage.

“Uh uh uh!” The girl taunted Wendy, snatching away the corpse.

“If I ever catch you,” Wendy muttered. “I’m going to BURN YOU ALIVE!”

“Don’t worry,” The giggle came from behind her, “You never will!”

She lunged again, missing by millimeters.

Wendy danced backward.

“Fine, I won’t!” She grinned and dropped to all fours, dashing off into the mist.

“Hey! No fair!” The girl called. “You can’t go!”

Wendy dashed through the mist, trying to get her bearings. The giggles and calls came from her left, then right. Then it was in front of her. She leaped off to the side, only to hear the giggles again.

She tried to run another way, but the giggles and taunts followed no matter where she went.

“Run, little bitch!” The girl snarled as she appeared in the mist ahead of Wendy, her claws leaving marks all the way down the suit's left side as she lashed out.

Wendy put her head down and ran as fast as she could; she needed to get out of range of this thing.

“You’re funny!” The voice came again, and Wendy felt a slight weight settle on her back. “Giddy up, pony!”

Snarling, Wendy twisted, her claws slashing through empty air again.

Giggles faded into the distance as Wendy stood, catching her breath and looking around her.

“Fuck!” She swore. She was back exactly where she had started.

“Playtime!” The girl came again.

Wendy raised her fists and prepared to fight again.

===========

Dee felt the immortal punching and kicking at her but ignored the assaults. The girl was strong, but with immortal blood flowing into her mouth… she couldn’t care less.

She bit deeper, feeling another artery tear as the immortal began to push feebly against her.

“Shhh, girl!” Dee slapped at the glassy-eyed immortal. “Dee needs to FEED.”

She lapped at the flowing blood. Loving the warm feel against her skin as the immortal heart refused to stop pumping.

Clamping her mouth over the flow again, she made herself hold back. She needed to draw this out as long as possible. Too fast, and the heart would stop for a while. Too slow, and the immortal would heal.

Mists swirled and pulled at Dee, but she dug her clawed hands deep into the flesh of the immortal’s back and wrapped her legs around the shivering body.

The old tales were true.

There was no blood like that of a watcher.

============

“We are too weak for this!” Rose whispered to Lily as they drifted silently through the mists.

“No, we are not.” Lily shook her head. “We can help.”

“What can we do?” Rose waved her hands at the mist-wreathed valley around them.

“We can guide them home!” Lily hissed. “Can’t you feel them? I can feel where they all are.”

“Well, yes… but.” Rose had felt the power of some of the creatures that invaded the Waystation. It was terrifying. If Lily had not dragged her out here, she would still be hiding in Lady Bell’s rooms.

“You decided to serve them!” Lily hissed. “This is serving them!”

“I didn’t make you join!” Rose hissed back.

They had been arguing about this almost nonstop since the oath.

“I’m just going to let you serve them alone?” Lily sighed. “Come on, this way!”

“Where are we going?” Rose demanded, but Lily shushed her. She was just about to snap at her sister when she heard it… a giggling noise from ahead.

They floated silently on, hidden by the illusions of her sister.

Below them, they saw Wendy. The girl hated them. They knew that, could feel it even if she was being nice now.

Wendy was in some kind of bone armor, and she was bleeding. Both the half pixies could smell it in the air.

“What is she doing?” Lily looked down at Wendy as she swung and dodged… nothing. There was nothing there.

“What do you mean?” Rose whispered. “She’s fighting!”

“No, she isn’t.” Lily sighed and pointed at a malformed figure sitting demurely on a branch. It was about the same size as them but with one tiny arm and one incredibly long arm that had over a dozen elbows. It was grotesque, even its face twisted, with one side a child and the other a young teen. Parts of the body seemed to be trying to be a teen or even older, while the legs seemed withered and shrunken. One short and the other long and thin.

It breathed in the mist, breathing back out long streams of pale smoke. The difference was subtle, but it was there.

The thing giggled, but the sound distorted, seeming to come from a long way off.

“What do we do?” Lily placed her hand against her sister’s head, giving her a glimpse of the reality behind the creature’s illusions.

“She hates us, we could leave?” Rose said hopelessly.

“No, we can’t,” Lily sighed. “She’s a member of the Court.”

“I know,” Rose sighed, drawing her short swords. “I just really don’t like her.”

“Me either,” Lily grinned at her sister as she tightened her grip on the spear. “But I bet her parents will be happy with us if we save her!”

“What if we miss?” Rose fretted.

“Then I’ll see you in the Summerlands!” Lily grinned, her eyes trained on the creature below them.

The two sisters dove toward the giggling thing, weapons out, wings beating as fast as they could.