Chapter 7

Side Quests and Safe rooms.

The settlements of men were few and far between in the lands of the Queen of Beasts, with the ones that did exist preferring a more nomadic existence to stay a step ahead of her herds and packs.

One of the few exceptions to this rule was a small hamlet almost entirely settled by a large and extremely violent bandit gang. Unlike their more passive and kind neighbors, they had thrived in the cut-throat world that Earth had become since the arrival of magic into the world of men.

It is often the most violent, most unfit for civilization that survives in the first few days, weeks, and years that follow the return of magic and the system that comes along with it. They are simply closer to the lifestyle by nature of their own choices. As things crumble and punishments and laws falter, they are free to act as they have always wanted to.

Much was the case with this group, who had spread their violence and evil about as much as possible, recruiting those of like minds willing to bend the knee to the gang’s leaders. They stole everything they wanted, killed, enslaved, and much worse besides. Indeed, it was a heady time for them and others like them in those early days.

Their willingness to kill gave them a boost in leveling speed, while their thievery allowed them to stay healthy by simply taking what they wanted from others without ever having to ration things in order that others could survive as well.

Heady days, indeed.

None of this was a surprise; after all, the movies and stories of Earth are full of post-apocalyptic situations where, no matter the details of said apocalypse, it is always the other humans who pose the greatest threat. It was such a common cliche that many people never even noticed the problem with it.

The problem was one that the bandits had been discovering for themselves over the last few months. Preying on others is only an effective strategy for an extremely limited time. Once the nearby and vulnerable had been killed, looted, or forced to flee, what was their plan?

The answer is, of course, that they never had one.

The heady days were gone for the group; with no one left to rob and kill, everything was becoming scarce, while the violent tendencies that had been so quickly sated were now naturally turning on their neighbors and gang mates. What those couple of months without fresh victims also meant, when paired with exclusively having preyed on other, weaker humans, was that the animal life was now much too strong for them, as were the roving bands of survivors.

So they all felt pretty tired, hungry, and angry when the two strangers pushed open the door of the Pub they had taken over, sitting alone on the top of a hill when the rest of whatever city, town, or village it had once belonged to was whisked away.

They were also pretty drunk, but to be honest, they would have acted much the same if they had been sober, so that wasn’t much of an explanation or excuse for the stupidity that followed.

A clever man, a careful man, or a wise man would have taken a second to Identify the man and woman who walked so casually into their midst, but the leader of this band of ruffians was none of those things.

His gang had seen him cower as the giant crab creature had walked by earlier in the day, so he felt like he needed to make a point.

An example, so to speak.

He really should have taken a second, but alas…

“Oi! You better be willing to share that bitch, coming in my place like that!” He leered at the red-haired woman. “Shit, she’s all scarred up; well, we ain’t picky, are we lads?”

“Say that again,” Felicia said, her lips stretching into a wide smile. “And I’ll show you what your entrails taste like.”

The gang members all stood, grabbing their weapons and looking menacing.

“Let’s teach this bit—” The man didn’t have time to even finish the word before Felicia’s sword disemboweled him; the following scream soon choked off as she made good on her threat, shoving handfuls of his own guts into his mouth until the dropped, twitching to the floor.

The second in command reacted on instinct, swinging his machete at her neck, only to feel it slam to a stop as the smiling man behind Felicia stepped forward and caught his arm like it was nothing.

“Now, now,” Benedict said calmly before someone smashed a bottle over the back of his head, which he barely even seemed to notice.

“Shit, run!” Someone at the back yelled.

“Do we let them go?” Felicia asked.

“Honestly, I suspect they are not to be trusted,” Benedict looked around the rapidly emptying room. “Do as you like; I’m going to get a drink.”

The first two bandits to run made it almost to the bottom of the hill before a swirl of mist left the redhead, her clothes coated in blood, standing in front of their headlong flight.

A second later, it became a headless flight while Felicia walked calmly back up the hill, humming softly to herself. Benedict had carefully cleaned the blood off a pair of barstools and was washing a second glass, having rescued a whisky bottle from the chaos when she came back into the blood-drenched public house.

“Just a quick drink, you said,” Benedict said with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, please,” Felicia smiled. “They deserved it.”

“You knew they would react like that,” Benedict accused.

“And you didn’t?” Felicia frowned. “There are bodies nailed to the wall outside.”

“Is that unusual?” Benedict asked honestly.

“Well, obviously,” Felicia took the offered drink and sat on one clean barstool. “You didn’t find it strange or threatening?”

“I was a Death,” Benedict noted. “In my experience, decoration with dead bodies is a fairly common practice.”

“Don’t give me that,” Felicia snapped. “You saw plenty of other places, not just tombs and shit.”

“Would you believe I never really paid attention to the decor?” Benedict asked.

“Not for a second, Bennie.” Felicia gave a slow smile. “You wanted to kill them too.”

“As a Death, I was forbidden from interfering,” Benedict drained his glass. “I am not bound from acting anymore.”

“Then why let me do all the killing?” Felicia asked.

“Your level is somewhat embarrassing,” Benedict admitted. “You need the exp more than I do.”

“Fuck you,” Felicia growled. “I didn’t convert from being a fucking God.”

“No, thank you,” Benedict said seriously. “I know where you’ve been.”

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Lily floated back toward the town, hoping to find some more comics to read. They were a revelation to the young pixie. The colors, the stories, all of it. If she had only known about these things in her old world…

Still, it was not something she could change, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy them going forward. It had opened up a whole new set of ideas for her mirages, illusions, and mind controls. The sheer imagination in some of them was boggling. Bert had promised that if they found a larger city, there would be more, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t at least look around. Surely, some of these houses held more of the treasures.

In her opinion, they must do.

Who wouldn’t want to positively fill their houses until they burst with art like that? In her world, art was just boring paintings and carvings, but here! Art that told stories! Some of them even had people in them with art on their skin. It was amazing, and she had learned about plays that happened on a flat screen, which she already had Way Way working on…

The first house she came to had a strong stench of death, but she entered anyway, floating invisibly near the ceiling to avoid the large spiders scuttling back and forth across the walls and floor. Four figures of various sizes were webbed into the corners, but the people inside were long dead, so she ignored them and drifted silently up the stairs, searching through the infested rooms.

There was nothing… which was disappointing.

Drifting out an upper window, she stopped for a second, worried she might have missed something in the cupboard, and turned back.

Now, facing the other side of the house from which she had approached, she saw the graffiti sprayed all over the back of the house. It was hardly artistic, which made her angry, but when she read the words, she felt her eyes widen.

FUCK THE FAE!

KILL THEM ALL!

FUCK THE QUEEN OF BEASTS!

BOB WAS HERE!

Nancy’s a slag!

Billy has a tiny dick!

FUCK THE FAE!

It was a symbol on one far corner, half buried by the other symbols, that caught her eye. It was a symbol used by the Half-Fae, their own secret language, to show the way to a place they could hide.

If there were half-fae here, Lily intended to find them.

She stopped floating and converted to pixie form, shooting off in the direction of the sign, seeing more of them carved on trees and a few spray-painted amongst other graffiti here and there.

Finally, she found it. The symbol for a hidden door.

Lily pulled it open carefully; they tended to load traps and spells to catch the unwary and found a tunnel vanishing beneath the shed it was hidden in. It was the work of seconds to fly down it and discover the hidden room beneath.

The moment she saw it, Lily swallowed hard and headed out to find Bert and Bell.

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Bert had to crawl through the tunnel to access the hidden room of the Half-Fae, but he trusted Lily to know what he needed to see and what she could merely tell him about. The young pixie was clearly disturbed when she came and found him, even ignoring the nearly completely tattooed man who was now lying patiently while Bell practiced her new hobby.

Emerging from the roughly dug tunnel and into the room beyond, the first thing to surprise him was that it was an actual room, not a cavern or cave.

There were wooden walls, roofs, and floors, even a few pieces covered in wallpaper or paint, while threadbare rugs and old bits of carpet covered the floor.

The furniture was all child-sized, but whether that was related to the size of the average half-fae or more about the available space in the tunnel that offered access, he could not even guess.

Lily emerged from the tunnel and silently led to to an area of the far wall, which she was able to pass through quite easily, and, when he questioned her, did not even see. It was something like a last line of defense, with only the half-fae who were born that way being able to see through it.

It was telling that they had a defense against the Fae, not just other people, which was a damning statement about the Fae, even if he didn’t already know how badly they treated the half-fae.

Beyond the illusory wall, he saw two corpses, both long dead to the point there was little left but bones with scraps of cloth, but it was the walls above these corpses that really drew his attention.

There were stacks and stacks of magazines, newspapers, and printouts. Each one was carefully marked, with the shelves they sat on marked with days, months, and years. The organization was amazing, and it spoke of not just a neat mind but an obsessive one.

One of the walls was clear of shelves, instead showing pictures of places and events that had happened, joined with pieces of string. Most of the pictures were crossed out, with the remaining being faded and dusty to the point of being completely obscured.

“What is all this?” Bert asked Lily, who was sitting quietly on a small, comfy chair in the corner.

“The repository,” Lily said softly. “We aren’t supposed to talk about it to real Fae.”

“Half-fae are real fae,” Bert said absently, “What can you tell me about it?”

“Everything,” Lily said, wiping her eyes a bit. “I don’t think the rules apply to you.”

“Why?” Bert asked.

“You know what I thought when I saw the half-fae markings?” Lily asked. “I can find them, and they can join the court.”

“Yeah, if they are decent enough, the more the merrier,” Bert shrugged. “Keeping the half-fae out of courts is stupid.”

“That’s why the rule doesn’t apply,” Lily laughed a little before taking a deep breath.

“The Repository is the half-fae version of record keeping,” Lily said, her voice starting off shakily before it steadied as she continued, “We don’t exactly advertise our presence on worlds, so we can’t communicate long distance like other races do. Instead, we have these safe zones spread all over the place, with markings hidden to bring any traveling half-fae to them if they need somewhere safe to stay.”

“Right, like hobo sign,” Bert nodded.

“What’s that?” Lily asked.

“A series of symbols used by homeless people who travel from place to place to signify if somewhere is safe, likely to give food, stuff like that,” Bert explained.

“Same thing,” Lily nodded. “Well, once that half-fae gets here, the place could be empty. If that is the case, how are they supposed to know where to go for help, places to avoid, where other half-fae might be or have been sighted, that kind of thing?”

“The Repository,” Bert guessed.

“Exactly.” Lily nodded and gestured to the first and lowest shelf. “The half-fae who builds the safe house adds their name and why they did it as the first piece of paper to be placed on the shelf, and then they begin to keep a record of anything that happens that might interest the half-fae: local events, people to avoid, friendly areas, places to feed if you’re that kind of half-fae, and so on.”

“Is it always this detailed?” Bert asked.

“At the start, no,” Lily laughed. “But once the Repository gets big enough, it kind of calls a half-fae that is suitable to it.”

“A caretaker?” Bert asked.

“I guess you could call it that,” Lily frowned. “We normally say librarian or record keeper, but they do tend to the place as well.”

“And it calls a half-fae to it?” Bert asked, his mind spinning. “Are they always like this? With the wood and that?”

“Most of them start off as just a dug-out hole, while the wood and stuff just kind of builds up over time.” Lily frowned. “Why are you smiling?”

“Lily,” Bert smiled. “It’s a gathering place that attracts a half-fae when it gets enough attention and care, then it starts to grow and change.”

“So?” Lily asked.

“Lily, these places, they are like half-fae Waystations!” Bert laughed. “They just have the caretaker and fae in a single creature instead of two.”

Lily gaped around the room.

“Proof positive that half-fae are fae,” Bert noted. “And, I suspect, another part of the original Waystation long lost to time.”

“Is there any way to know for sure?” Lily asked.

“Say your name,” Bell said simply, making them both jump. She was decidedly sneaky when she wanted to be. “Your real name.” She nodded to Bert.

“Greetings, Waystation,” Bert said, formally bowing. “Caretaker Hudson, at your service!”

The walls shivered and began to shine with a soft light as Lily squeaked and flew over next to Bell.

“That’s his real name?” Lily whispered.

“It’s who he is,” Bell beamed at him. “Someone who cares for those in need of shelter.”

The shine shifted and flowed until it gathered around the two dead bodies.

“Bell?” Bert asked.

“It misses them,” Bell said simply.

“What can we do?” Bert asked.

“We could claim it,” Bell offered with a shrug. “Make it part of our own Waystation.”

“Wouldn’t Way Way be upset?” Bert asked. “Like having a new kid?”

Bell just laughed.

“Just asking,” Bert muttered.

“Waystation, you are young and alone. Would you care to join ours and travel on into the future?” Bell called out firmly.

The glow moved again, gathering around Bert’s feet.

“I accept?” Bert tried and then gasped as something passed through him before vanishing along the link to the Waystation.

The room immediately began to collapse.

“Oops?” Bell offered. “Run for it!”

Bert looked at the wall of information about to be buried and sighed.

It was too important to leave behind.

“Reclaim Knowledge!” He called and then fled.