Wichita wondered if somewhere, in some hiding place, the System was laughing at her predicament. The Fae certainly were. The Iridor had left, the Fae had simply gotten bored with the world. But it was known that they still watched it, and sometimes even interfered.

Wichita wished that they would interfere in her favor, cause the situation just kept getting worse. Why did she have to tempt fate by thinking of her Skill? Of course the System would turn the Skill into something that was even harder to put to use. Perhaps somewhere down the line she could have fashioned needles out of wood.

Now that wouldn’t help. There was just one needle in the picture. And it refused to listen to her. Wichita lifted said need to her eye, the bloody thing turning around to point at her. A part of her wanted to jerk back, avoid giving the needle a chance to poke her eye. But the Heart kept her from doing it. For once, though she was doing that quite often now, she listened to it.

The needle seemed to be glaring at her, though she was probably attributing too much intelligence to it. Even if it had developed some sort of sentient, it had to be limited. Perhaps only enough to move around on its own. The thing had not shown any signs of it before it stabbed into her either. Well except disobeying…hmm. Where had the needle been moving to?

Well obviously, it had stabbed into her, the squirrel and the leopard. Wichita did not remember where it was trying to head out while she tried to get her Skill, but what were the chances it was aiming from something with mana? And she had experimented with using the emotion of hunger, specifically hunger for mana as a core for the mana eating enchantment.

What if the hunger resonated with her own hunger for power, and caused the formation of a Fae enchantment? That was possible from what she knew of such enchantments. A week was not too long a time for the enchantment to gather mana passively. Just enough to start disobeying her and head for the nearest source of mana.

There was just one problem with this unexpected enchantment. Iridorian enchantments had far more limited than Fae enchantments. There was a reason anyone that could cast Fae enchantments at all became a jewel of their organization.

A Fae enchantment could grow, it did not depend on materials, and had the Fae tendency to just randomly break its own laws when it would be convenient. But Wichita could not cast Fae enchantments, the needle’s enchantment was simply a stroke of luck.

The other enchantments on it were simply Iridorian ones. Master craft, but they would still fall apart if enough mana was funneled into them. The steel would not last much longer.

“I think you need me, my dear.” she told the needle, hoping that her Story could communicate with the needle’s. A Fae enchantment was just that, a Story. Just like the one the forest had, now that she thought about it.

“I can smelt you again when you break, alter your enchantments, so the mana doesn’t fray them.” she offered. “In return, you defend me, listen to me when going into battle. And don’t go around killing random things.

The needle did not look convinced. Wichita wondered what exactly it had a problem with now. The deal was a good one, and they could both help each other. Was controlling itself really that much of a bother?

“I was the best enchanter of my age in the Lower City you know. A Master enchanter at the age of fifteen. Do you really think you’ll be able to get a better deal?”

The needle did not respond. Wichita wondered if it had already accepted, and she just wasn’t feeling it. The acceptance would change, and perhaps even enhance, her Story. But she did not really have a way to detect that. Not with her mana sense. Not with any of her Skills. Leirot was supposedly able to feel the hints of it, though she had trouble believing him. The boy had been prone to exaggeration.

The only thing she could rely on was the System alerting her. Perhaps it had simply chosen not to do so.

“Perhaps just for a bit? If you wish to leave once we reach civilization, go to whomever you find more worthy.”

Skill [Mana-eater needle] transformed to Companion(temporary)

Level up! [Forgotten Queen] has reached level 2.

+50 mana

That bloody thing! What was so bad with her that it wanted to leave her the first chance it got? Was she really that incompetent? Sighing at her predicament, she turned to the other thing of interest. The level up. Now that she thought about it, how had killing the squirrel and fighting the leopard not given her one?

The squirrel was one thing, but the leopard was Tier 2. With how easy it was supposed to be to level up in Tier 1, she should be level 3 by now. At least. And yet the System had not seen fit to give her a level. Dare she hope that she was close to another? That didn’t seem accurate given that she had only gained a level now, but perhaps. Perhaps.

Shaking her head, she planned what to do going ahead. The needle would require maintenance, but she could do that after she fed it a few times. And she would have to do that.

An artifact with a hunger enchantment, especially of the Fae variety, needed to be fed. Or else it would start breaking down on its own. Even eat her to satiate its hunger. Yes, she would need to hunt.

But first she needed to get out of here. The leopard could come back, and she did not want to be here when it did. Not to mention it would probably be attracted by the scent of blood. Yes, she needed to leave.

There weren’t any more squirrels on trees as she moved forward, noting how barren the land seemed. Of course, the trees had surprisingly large amounts of holes in them, and they could hide animals.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Wichita did not dare check. There was a darkness in the hotels that did not let her take a peek inside them even as she walked past them. Perhaps it was a coincidence that one hole remained dark, but every one of them? There were hundreds of them on the trees she had passed.

The needle wanted to check them out anyway, she could feel it, but she was not about to send her only way of defending herself into a beast’s den. Just because it was made of metal did not make it invulnerable. Even steel could break.

The enchantments would break even easier. Wichita did find that the needle loved her mana. Eating it made it stay calm for…well however long it had been since she fed it. There was precious little she could do to figure out the time here.

Looking up at the sky revealed little. The sky was a carpet of light purple, sometimes pink that had barely changed since she came here. Wichita wondered if this was specific to the forest, or if this was the sky of this Age. The environment changed between different Ages, and she had hoped that it hadn’t changed too much.

The First and Second ages had supposedly been very different from the Third, whose environment she’d had the pleasure of experiencing. Wichita had enjoyed the star-filled nights when the sky held a welcome resemblance to her hair. The fact that the day sported only a pitch black sky without a star in sight made her feel lonely.

The purple sky have her a similar vibe. Looking up at the sky occasionally as she walked, she found that she missed Veruna. The girl had become someone she had relied on. And now she was dead.

The Heart only burnt warmly, as if it knew that she would follow its commands this time. And of course, she did. Thinking of Veruna would only bring her sadness, and distract her. This was not the time for distractions, even if she had not encountered another beast yet.

The needle jutted out of her finger as she walked, its enchantments glowing as it swallowed her mana, little by little. Wichita pulled it out, much to it’s discontent.

“I know you’ve drunk more than enough. So stop whining and get working.”

There were fewer trees with holes now. This was the only one she had encountered in a long while. Wichita would be surprised if there weren’t any beasts in there. The needle perked up every time they passed close ton one, though it did not head for them. At least it was keeping to its deal.

How was it sensing things though? Perhaps it had some sort of mana sense. That would make things so much more convenient for her…if she could speak to it. But of course, she could not.

The forest was quiet as she walked, no sign of the promised challenges. That was until the needle finally got impatient and shot towards one of the holes. There was only one of those around now.

Then it stopped, turned around and looked at her. As if asking her permission to go kill something. Wichita sighed. In her heart, she had known this was coming. The needle’s hunger might be sated, but violence was still a core part of it’s Story. A part that probably predated her, given that her tries at violence weren’t exactly Story worthy.

This was a chance to show the needle why it needed her though.

“Don’t enter the hole, go near it and then fly away.” she ordered, suddenly wondering if it could actually understand her. The negotiation she’d had a short while ago might be indicative of that, but that was Fae magic. What was possible then might not be possible now.

Thankfully, she didn’t turn out to be the idiot that talked to a needle that couldn’t understand her. The needle stopped just short of the hole, and then stood there, inching towards the hole.

Wichita growled in annoyance, and then pulled at the control enchantments. The needle flew towards her hand, its point bared. Why was it so hungry? Was she really so tasty that it needed to try to get at her every time? Sending it back to float near it, but not right in front of the hole, she started watching it. There wasn’t a long wait before a glistening head popped out.

A black snake head, with veins of purple running through it’s body. Space affinity, clearly. The needle shot into it before she even had the time to say anything. The snake writhed, banging its head against the tree.

That just shoved the needle in deeper. The snake reared it’s head back, and for a second she thought it was going to put out some final struggle. A final spell. But it only let out a call, a loud, ear piecing shriek that sounded like something that would come from a bird. The shrivelled skin that was left of it fell back into the hole as the needle shot back towards her, having had its fun.

Wichita was not so convinced it was over. That last screech. The snake had decided to make it instead of putting up more resistance. Even though she wasn’t very good at combat, she had read a lot. On the habits of animals, on the customs of the Arcana’s enemies and anything else she might face in battle.

There were too many beasts for her to know the natures of every one of them, but she had a general idea. And that was a call for help.

Wichita ran. The needle followed her after a second’s hesitation. There was no sound of anything following her, no sign when she looked behind her.

But she did not stop. The other holes were a bit away, it could be a while before they arrived here. Wichita had no intention of being there when they arrived. The sky was changing color into a darker shade of purple, as it had for a while. But she was only noticing the sheer amount of shadows now.

The snake had been black and purple. Was it simply a color combination, or an indication of affinity? What if the snakes had a shadow affinity? Shadow walking wasn’t a common affinity, but this was not a common forest.

The needle stabbed into her dress, like it was going into hiding. The same overly hungry needle that had a better mana sense than her. Wichita dodged cracks, abandoning any caution as she sped through the forest. The cracks made that difficult of course. But she had grown used to sensing them now.

The Heart pulsed as she ducked, pushing her head into as much into her chest as she could manage, even as her body protested. The farther she got from how a normal human was supposed to look, the harder it got. Wichita had to remember that. Perhaps just reducing her height might have been easier.

A black shadow jumped across where her face had been, a tongue made of spacial mana sneaking towards her body. The needle ate it eagerly, finding it’s way out of her dress. Wichita popped her head back out.

Just one? No. Wichita sensed more, just behind her, popping out of the shadows. Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. There were snakes in every shadow behind her as far as she could sense. But they weren’t attacking her.

Even that last snake had jumped into the shadow as if it would die if it didn’t. To be fair, the needle might have done precisely that. But Wichita was pretty sure it wasn’t her they were afraid of.

Turning around, she looked at the forest that had darkened considerably. The sky was still the same. But there was something in the air. The snakes had brought it, the change. The mana was charged. More alive.

Wichita turned around, crouching as she hoped that she was ready for whatever awaited her in this new section of the forest. The needle floated right next to her shoulder, somehow managing to have a reddish hue.

Then the howling started.