《The Chronicles of Artharian Dagworth》


 Prologue - How the world ended.

    To explain how we managed to end the world in so many ways (do humanity get a prize for multitasking the end of the world?), I guess I need to tell you the big secret that 99% of the population was unaware back then. That magic is real.


    A whole world existed under the common people awareness. Wizards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Demons, Angels, Demi-gods the Fae and all sort of magical creatures from known and unknown legends lived hidden from almost everyone.


    Now that you know that magic is real, (well if you are reading this you survived the end of the world so far and probably already knew it) I can tell you it wasn¡¯t the reason the world ended, it might have facilitated it, but wasn¡¯t what it started it. What started it was just plain greed, stupidity and automation.


    I can¡¯t point to everything that caused the unrest and built the pressure that led to the end of the world, but the way I see it, we developed automation too fast with no plan on what to do with everybody who lost their jobs to it.


    In the 5 years that preceded the end, technology kept evolving at a rate that 70% of the occupations that existed in 2020 were replaced by machines and computers. That led to an even bigger concentration of wealth. That left us with an overpopulated world, where near all of it had no work and the dignity that comes with it. Adding salt to the injury, the people who had the resources to try looking for solution either didn¡¯t care or were too slow.


    As tensions raised, governments tried to control the masses. Nationalism politics, socialism politics, oppressive dictatorships, benefic dictatorships (!?), pure unregulated capitalism, everything was tried somewhere in the world at different levels. But the most common strategy to deal with it was the age proof strategy of blaming someone else.


    So, tensions kept raising and blame was shoved to ¡°enemies¡± of the nations, either internal or external. Talks about war and a rush to develop new weapons soon started a global Cold War.


    The first spark was due to biological weapons. The hysteria was so great that any new virus outbreak, from common or deadly flus to already existing rare virus like ebola was treated as possible enemy attacks. With minor wars and skirmish breaking out around the world.


    The pot was already boiling and close to exploding when the first zombie outbreak happened on China, until today we don¡¯t know if it was an attack or a research gone wrong. But the images shocked the world. And fortunately, the chinese military managed to contain and eliminate it.


    For a moment it seemed the world had a wake up call, the event being like a scape valve to the pressure and madness we were experimenting. People started to realize the rabbit hole the world was falling in.


    But someone somewhere must have jinxed it.


    Now, remember when I told you that magic was real? Have you wondered how it was kept a secret? Well it seems all the big players, the Council of the Magi, the Fae courts, Vampire Elders, Dragons, Gods and Demi-gods had some kind of accord that regulated a lot of things. And avoid being revealed was one of them.


    Now one of the things that was frowned upon and in some cases outright banished was necromancy. I guess if hundred years old wizards and sages, immortal creatures of immense power and knowledge says something is a no go, we can be 100% sure some people are going to do it.


    So at the time of the end, there was a war between the main council that regulated human magic users and a faction of rogue necromancers. This is relevant because the necromancers soon realized that the virus created zombies from the Chinese outbreak were perfect subjects. No magical cost to create and maintain also easy to control with magic. So they managed to steal a sample and started to use it as a weapon. Creating outbreaks on locations where the councils had strongholds and taking control of the hordes to strike at them.


    Now this was successful at first, but soon counter measures were created, either by quickly finding and striking at the necromancers or breaking the magic they held of the zombies. No need to say, many of these attacks led to out of control zombies outbreaks. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Now, take all this information I just gave you, and try to think how everyone else who didn¡¯t know about magic saw this events. Enemy attacks and terrorism! Fingers started pointing again. And when a new outbreak on China reached North Korea, the nukes started flying.


    I personally think that after the first waves of nukes we were fucked, but mankind could still rise again. North Korea was no more, when two nukes out of the dozens launched actually reached the United States (Las Vegas and San Francisco if you wondering) they leveled the place, even China and Russia nuked it, cause the situation was so bad that having a crazy regime with fingers on nukes and a tendency to try destabilize everyone else so it felt safe wasn¡¯t an option.


    South Korea and Japan suffered heavy losses, from both nuclear and regular artillery strikes from North Korea, and China was forced to use nukes on their own soil to stop the worse outbreaks from spreading. Russia and even the USA did the same to varied degrees.


    Billions would die of hunger, sickness, radiation and war, but half of the world was still standing.


    But that is when globalization came back to byte us our asses. And it involved magic again.


    You see, as I mentioned there isn¡¯t only good wizards and bad wizards on the ¡°hidden¡± magic world. There are fae, vampires, demons, angels, dragons and Dragons (trust me there is a difference), giants, old gods and eldritch abominations from outside our universe (Cthullu anyone?)


    Now you wonder how could magic, regulating council or not, be still a secret with these many things existing. Well, many of those being existed on parallel worlds/planes of existence, some very close to our own like a shadow of our world, others so far away that can be considered entire different universes.


    That is one reason. Now I don¡¯t want to start a class on magical history, but it¡¯s enough to say that with so many gods (or creatures who belived they are gods), demi-gods, elemental aspects of creation, there were a hell lot of wars fought on the magic community before things entered some kind of balance, those wars are usually documented in some form of myths all around the world, think the greek titans/gods/giants many wars, ragnarok, the wild hunt and many others. All these legends comes from somewhere.


    So there were many losing sides in our long history. And many of those sides, being immortal, couldn¡¯t just be killed, or being outsiders they just retreated to their own dimensions. So what the winners did was just sealing or banishing them.


    Now, many of these seals and gates had to be maintained, or depended of structures made to tap on powerful ley lines of magic that exist on our world. Everyone can do the math and realize what happened to those prisons that were located on destroyed parts of the world. So now we had lots of powerful creatures with bones to pick wandering the new desolated parts of the world. Bad, but manageable if all the powers that be, both magical and mundane worked together. Yeah, like that would happen..


    Now, I better get back to the globalization part again before you all think I don¡¯t know how to tell a good story (I don¡¯t, but that¡¯s not the case), those prisons and gates usually required especifical materials to maintain, paints made of rare flowers, sacred wood from petrified forest on Tibet and etc.. Now, for hundred if not thousands of years, those responsible maintained the resources themselves. In the last hundred years, industrial revolution, faster traveling means and the globalization made people careless. Why spend tons of resourses growing a rare Amazonian orchid on the middle of the Arizona desert if you can ship it from Brazil quickly. From what I heard, there was even a kind of magic UPS..


    Now, this is just a crazy bad example that came to mind, but it suffice to say that due to the outbreaks, wars, nukes some crazy evil and powerfull being were released back in our world either as direct consequence or indirectly due to lack of resources caused by the disruption of the global trade and travels.


    Quickly a (half?) world war started on the magic world and quickly spilled on the mundane world as well. So care to make a guess what the military would do when faced with a Titan like creature capable of controlling storms and a elemental Dragon capable of leveling mountains fight each other? If you guessed that the nukes started flying again, you would be right.


    After that I can¡¯t go in too much details, all was chaos. All the power and rules that controlled magic went crazy, I think the existence of so many powerful being at our dimension at the same time broke it. Some of those separated planes of existence crashed in to our reality, either ceasing to exist, completely replacing what existed before or merging with it somehow. We had huge earthquakes and tsunamis, mountains ceased to exist, while new ones were created as the world as we all knew ended.


    Now, you might ask how I know all this, well to that you will need to listen to my story.


    I was a regular guy once, I''m not telling you my real name, because they have power you know. Now I¡¯m a Knight of the Unseelie, Captain of the expeditionary legion of the Fae¡¯s Courts enclave on earth, my job is to lead a bunch of wizards, warlock, touched, soldiers and all around misfits in surveys outside the enclave shields to look for supplies, survivors and especially magic so we can keep living.

 Chapter 1

    Chapter 1


    In the eerie silence of the city ruins, the sound of the collapsing wall seemed to go for miles.


    I looked at Johnson who was still holding the two meter long iron bar with a bunch of concrete still attached to it. His face showing he couldn¡¯t understand what just happened.


    ¡°I just wanted to see if I could lift it, I had no idea the wall would just fall.¡± He stammered.


    I can¡¯t believe this kid, sure let''s lift the goddamn iron bar that is stuck to the wall. What the worst that could happen, sure it seemed stuck at the wall, but I¡¯m 100% that is not because it was supporting the weight of the wall, I will just apply some strength to it free and I am sure I can lift it to impress the girls. Maybe do some biceps exercises while at it¡­


    ¡°Dammit Johnson, how many times did we do this run, get in, grab the collector, leave a empty one and get out. Nowhere on the plan said to start playing with the scenery, we are in the middle of..¡±


    ¡°Arty, they are stirring we got go.¡±  Erick voice is low and a little nervous when he stops me from ripping Johnson a new one.


    Lis and Lilian are just standing to the side looking at the discussion. Lilian wide eyed still processing what happened and Lis, well, I just can¡¯t read her face.


    ¡°We need this colector, let me finish removing the crystal and we can skip setting a new one.¡± I answer Erick and go back to work casting the spell to remove the safety and stealth runes around the device. ¡°Everyone stay alert for freaks and junkies, or anything else out of the ordinary.¡±


    As I finish dispelling the safety measures and start to remove the energy crystal from the collector I hear the first moans. Everybody freezes at the sound, well with the exception of Lis,  but she doesn''t count, being Fae and everything.


    A loud sound of something hitting the ground follows and I turn to Johnson who has a terrified look on his eyes and doesn''t seem to realize he just dropped the iron bar he was holding. I have a fleeting desire to just freeze his leg on the spot and leave him behind, but I don¡¯t, first because I¡¯m not an asshole, second because he could easily free himself...


    The moans intensify and others sounds joins it. Louds clicks and some kind of scream that remembers me of a screeching tire. Freaks dammit, not my day, couldn¡¯t just be vanillas, there had to be freaks.


    I store the crystal on the container in my backpack and get up. - Move everyone, Johnson you lead, me Lilian behind, then Erick. Lis you bring the rear, if something gets close nail it, just try not to set a fire in case we have to fall back. Erick I need you to keep watch for any anormal magic signature that gets too close, by the sounds of it there are freaks close by.


    Quickly my vanguard gets out of it¡¯s stupor and we start moving through the ruins of the apartment building. I don¡¯t know what this place was called before the end of the world, the city ruins has no significant building to try identify it, but it used to be a big enough to have this building complex of 5 10 floors residential towers. We are inside one of the 3 that are still standing. Luckily for us the magic well is located on ground floor, so we can try making a fast exit before all the creeps can cut our way out of the building.


    The buildings are all square shaped with the elevator pit and stairs in the middle with the apartaments facing outside. We were in an apartment on one of the side corridor, so no exit in sight right away when we leave the apartment. We move quickly but not running yet, since more noise would be a very bad call. As we reach the end of the corridor and turn, there are 2 creatures on it and a third coming out of the entrance of one of the apartments where the door has long been removed. Unfortunately, the three of them are between us and the exit, fortunately they seem to be only vanilla zombies, the type that is slow and has suffered no magical or radioactive mutation. We are still careful, because looks can be deceiving, there are few freaks that don¡¯t show visually identifiable alterations.


    I look at Erick who gives me an ok. Erick has a decent amount of talent with divination magic. It doesn''t mean he can see the future or play with probabilities. Unfortunately divination magic doesn''t work like in the Alex Verus novels, although it may occasionally give glimpses of the immediate future,  few seconds at most according to Erick, and considering time doesn''t slow for him while those glimpses happens things they are usually more confusing than helpful. The biggest use of his magic is that he can detect magic auras close by, he even feels life signs when the life energy is strong enough, and his ability to see the magic aura of a creature is top notch.  The TLDR version, he can easily confirm if a zombie is a regular one, or a freak.


    The moment the creatures noticed us, they moaned higher and started shambiling in our direction.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Johnson you get the one closest to us, Lilian get the second, I¡¯ll hand the one furthest. And quietly please.¡±


    As we start moving to close the distance to the zombies, the sound of running footsteps going down a stairs come from our right, and as soon as I turn to the direction there is sound of something big hitting a metal door at full speed and low scream that sound like screeching tires.


    I turn to the fire door to our right that leads to the stairs in time to see it shaking again as whatever is on the other side keeps throwing itself against it. The fire door is seems durable, but the walls where its frame are set in too seems in a much worse condition. I quickly focus on the dark and cold spot inside my mind that I use as a visualization of my connection to the well of winter, grab the power and will it outside my stretched hand and a gust of freezing wind hits the doors hinges reinforcing it with a almost 10 cm of ice, I quickly do the same to other points of the door frame. That should buy us some time.


    As I turn back to my team I see that Johnson has already engaged the closest zombie and used his hammer to dispatch it. Lilian just finished casting her signature spell and a missle of pure raw arcane power blows the head of the second zombie. Noticing I was occupied Johnson was already moving to take the last one. As I get ready to get moving again, I feel an increase of the temperature behind me and a sudden red light flashes from behind me, As I turn around again I see Lis with both of her hands on fire. With a quick movement she throws the flames that something comes from behind the bend of the hallway. She light up her hands again and repeat the gesture quickly, and then a third time before lowering her hands


    ¡°We must move quickly Artharian.¡± She tells me with as much emotion as if we were having a cup of a tea back behind the shields of the enclave. Ok, Arty, it isn¡¯t like your still not used to the creep Sidhe casually bringing fire and destruction and make it look easy. Ok, I¡¯m still not used to it and also not envious at all.. Why would I want to be like Roy Mustang, Grey Fullbuster is much cooler..


    Johnson and Lilian having dispatched the zombies on our way were already moving to the exit I rejoin them and we keep moving on formation again. I see a dozen or so regular zombies coming from the hall opposite to us, but we can easily reach the exit corridor before they block our passage.  Right as we exit the building I can hear a a big crash and assume that the freak just brought the fire door down. I quickly turn around and see the dozen or so pack reaching the exit corridor. I lower my hand to the ground focus myself and murmur ¡°Sioc¡± I feel, my magic instantly gather and focus in a spell. I release a wave of frost that cover the ground from the entrance where we are standing all the way to the end of the small entrance corridor where the zombies were coming from. The thin layer of ice I created made the ground slippery and soon the zombies were falling on the ground.


    Just as I was feeling smug about myself I see a creature crash in the doorway, throwing 2 zombies out of its way. The creature seemed to be at least over two and a half meters tall, it looked humanoid, but had no hair on it¡¯s entire body, it had elongated ears and it¡¯s forehead was longer than a a regular human. It¡¯s limbs looked thin but strong arms unproportionally longer and the fingers ended in 15 centimeters long claws.  But what terrified me the most was that it¡¯s stomach was ripped open, and it¡¯s oversized ribs formed a mawlike cage, and the sound of tires we¡¯ve been listening so far is made by it¡¯s ribs grinding against each other as they open and close as it chews on the upper half of a regular zombie.


    Oh hell no! I instantly search for my dark and cold spot, draw its power as fast as I can visualize the spell form on my mind and chant it ¡°Balla, Balla m¨®r Sioc¡± and I feel my body tense as I release the energy and a transparent 30 cm thick ice wall blocks the corridor.


    I turn to Erick who is looking back at me, looking as shocked as I probably look. Whatever that freak was and what it could or couldn¡¯t do, I had no intention of finding out. I nudge him and we move out where the rest of the team is rushing to the building number two of the complex, well to the pile of rubble it used to be building number two.


    As we left the dark corridor of the building, I shed at least one layer of worry, since we should be safe from any kind of junkies for now.


    It¡¯s just a 90 meter run in the open, from our left I hear moans, now the sound is much scarier, it had a much stronger reberating note, I guess that is what happen when you get couple of thousands zombies together. When we passed stealthy through the horde was mostly shambling around the ruined cars on the big parking lot or just standing still, but now they are moving in our direction, worst I noticed one or two shapes that are moving quickier.


    Great, more freakies.. Still while the horde of zombies was 150 meter or so, the two are probably another hundred or so further away and had to push all the other zombies out of their way to reach us. I wouldn¡¯t say we had a free run to the second building cause I didn¡¯t want to jinx anything, but things were looking good.


    As Erick and me bringing the rear of our group enter the field of rubble that is the second build Lilian is alredy crouching close to a block of rubble made of big pieces of concrete and metal bars. She focus her magic and small hidden runes drawn on the ground and the rubble around us start shining.


    - Hurry Lily, they are rigth behind us. Erick complains. He doesn''t have the best of nerves, hates field missions, I think he used to be a some kind of a  clerk for the Magi council before the end of the world.


    I look back to the entrance and wonder if another icewall to buys us time would be a good idea, but decided against it, while the entrance was somewhat still standing forming this small alcove we were standing, both wall to the side passages are no more and the horde could easily flank us, so i rather save my magic, I already used good part of it with that wall.


    As Lilian finish activating the runes, part of the rubble start shaking and soon levitate revealing a hole in to what used to be the elevator pit, Johnson jumps in followed by Erick and Lilian, I look to Lis whos standing closest to the door and looking at me expressionless.


    - Come on Pyra, you know I¡¯m going last. Her left eyebrow raises a little and she gives me a small smiles that to me looks more like she is smirking and jumps on the hole as well. Damn I¡¯m sure she does it on purpose, I hate fae humor, I¡¯ve been trying to master the one eyebrow look for years!


    As the sound of many steps hitting concrete gets louder I dispel the runes and jump on the hole as the rubble start moving back closing it.

 Chapter 2

    Lis lights a flame on her hand as the daylight is cut out by the rubble falling back in place, the orange light reveals a roughly 5 by 5 meters room that seems to be excavated from what was originally the elevator pit.


    The room had few features on it, a small table with 2 benches that could sit 3 people each, a couch big enough for a person to sleep on, a bunch of sacks lying around and in one corner a big magic circle made with intricates runes and magic symbols. There also were a lot of magical script and runes written on the walls.


    Lilian quickly went for the couch and lay down with a smile on her face, Lis just went and sit at the table with Johnson doing the same. Only Erick and me kept watching the hidden door for a few more second and listening for noise. Typical, those 3 never saw a safehole being breached before like I did, and Erick, well being worried is his natural state. After half a minute or so, I went to a corner and grabbed my staff, it¡¯s my best focus and I felt a little insecure without it, but carrying a 1,7 meters long piece of wood with you while moving through ruins and trying to be quiet, not a good idea.


    Once I grab it, I channel my magic and create an orb of light that I leave levitating in the center of the room. ¡°Lis, be a dear and turn that fire out before you burn all our oxygen.¡± The fire on her hand goes out and the room looks a lot less creepy without the orange hues.


    Well, for those who are wondering, why the hell do we have a place like this in the middle of a zombie infested city, I will have you know that his is a prime piece of state. Close to two magic wells, well hidden and most important, there is a passageway that leads to a part of what is left of the old fae realm that we can use to travel back and from the enclave.


    With a sigh,  I remove the two charged crystals from my pockets and place then on two boxes that are designed to carry them. After that I start to roaming through  the sacks separating what is trash and what is usefull, few magical trinkets, a bunch of hand drawn maps of the surroundings and a notebook with where we keep our missions reports on it. Things like the dates we collected or set new crystals, known safe routes and known threats, everything a different team would need to know in case we didn¡¯t return.


    I check the wall opposite to the magic circle where a small gemstone is powering most of the enchantments on the room and feel for how much magic it still holds. Finding it worth to take it back, I take the steps to safely remove it from web of spells it help hold together.


    ¡°Erm, cap what are doing?¡± I hear Johnson asking. I turn to see him, Erick and Lilian staring at me with mildly worried looks on their faces. ¡°There is enough magic embedded on the spell runes to last a bunch of days.¡± I answer as if it should explain everything. And it does if they stop to think about it, but they still look perplexed. - ¡°There is no reason to waste magic to keep the room running after we leave¡±. Lis tells them.


    ¡°That makes no sense Lis, if we don¡¯t leave the stealth runes functioning, every creature with any decent magic sense will feel when we use the ways to come here the next time.¡±       ¡°We are not coming back anytime soon Lilian. Unfortunately, after today''s fiasco we will have to abandon this place.¡± I say as interrupt her. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    ¡° What do you mean cap? Sure, things got a little hot out there, but we got both crystals kicked some undead ass and got back safe and sound to the hideout.¡± Johnsons states. Well, you can¡¯t say the boy didn¡¯t just give me the perfect cue to lecture his sorry ass.


    ¡°First Johnson, we have the problem of a big vanilla horde is probably sitting right at the hideout exit, that without mentioning there are two to three freaks as well, and I know I¡¯m not the one who is going to place it¡¯s head outside and find out, but I¡¯ll let you volunteer if you want to. We also didn¡¯t set an empty crystal on the second collector, so recovering only one full crystal is barely going to pay the cost of the magic to open a pathway back here for the numbers we will need to safely force a passage outside.  Not to mention that we have no idea if even more zombies or worse things would be attracted by the commotion that such endeavour will surely create. Too much risks and a too big of a cost for it to be worth. Your little stunt to see if you could bench lift with a concrete rebar cost us this operation. That''s why I¡¯m removing the gem, if the runes last couple of days or couple of months won¡¯t make any difference, because we aren¡¯t coming back.¡±


    I take a deep breath, and almost feel bad when I see Johnson face that went from somewhat smugg, to confused, to surprised to downtrodden with guilt. Almost. I¡¯m not on the job to make nice with anyone, It¡¯s a good thing he understand that he fucked up, and that it was his fault and especially that he feels guilty about it.


    Guilt is one of the most fascinating emotion a human can feel. It¡¯s part of ourselves and can be a very powerful tool for good or bad. You can feel it for different reasons, for something you done, something you thought about doing, something you thought you should have done or done more and for just doing better in life than someone else. It¡¯s an alarm call that tells us something is wrong either with our actions or with our mindset, and how you deal with it can help you grow or destroy you. Now, not that I want to kid to blame himself for the rest of his life, but both because it reinforces this as a learning experience and especially because it proves to me that he is not a psychopath. Seriously, I¡¯m not joking, lot of people broke with the end of the world, and many other break when they become touched. Johnson is the newest of this bunch of misfits that were forced in to my care. So having the confirmation that the kid is not mad is very comforting. And If I can rationalize that some guilt can be good for you, it makes much easier to deal with all mine.


    The silence is palpable after I finish my tirade, Lilian is avoiding looking at anyone, Johnson is staring at the table like someone trying to memorize all the patterns of the wood, Erick is looking at the wall with a pensive look and Lis is being Lis, in another words, I have no idea what the hell she is thinking..


    I finish gathering our relevant supplies and move to set in the table, once there I grab the notebook and start reviewing the mission in my mind and thinking on how to write it down. We still had a bunch of hours until our gateway aligned with the explored part of the Fae Realm that could lead us back to the enclave.


    After some time, Erick breaks the silence.


    - ¡°Arty how many runs we did here?¡±


    - ¡°Seven or eight I think.


    - And all this time that thing was just sitting there, god knows how few floors above us? It could have been sitting right on top of the well¡­ If it had any intelligence it could have just made a hole on the floor to get to us..


    Now, that is a happy thought that sends a cold shiver through my back.

 Chapter 3

    You know when you have a fight in the family, the ones when only two people fights but everyone takes sides? And then there is that awkward atmosphere when your granny forces everyone to sit together for dinner? Where everyone is angry or bothered with each other but are forced to be polite since they are all stuck in the same room? That is how I felt, just that the granny, in my case, was a magic gateway to another world we couldn¡¯t open until the time was right and the dinner was a 5 by 5 bunker


    I would like to say that the situation didn¡¯t bother me, but it did. I was pissed with the kid, just the paperwork I would have to do to justify abandoning this small outpost was enough to make me grind my teeth. But what was really annoying me was how much heat he would get because of it. Not that that he doesn''t deserves it, but what troubled me was his Godfather reaction.


    I¡¯ve been sitting here trying to rationalize that it was his own stupidity that brought what is to come. Twice. First for searching for a patron with the unseelie, if he had done his research, he would know that price is rarely worth it and we always get the bad end of the deal. Second for his stunt on the mission. But no matter how hard I try, I can¡¯t find a way around the fact of how young he is. Could I live with myself with not doing anything? Yeah I probably could. Would I like to live like that? Probably not. Dammit. All that talk about guilty is coming back to haunt me. The kid does not utter a single word and still manages to guilt trip me.


    I make a decision and then start writing the mission report, finishing it a few minutes before our departure time. Time for the pep talk.


    - ¡°Ok everyone, I just finished our report, here is how it goes. We arrived here with no problem yesterday. We did a preliminary scouting around the safehole to determine if the mission was a go, and prepared to do it today. Today we went to collect the northeast crystal first and it went without a problem, we got in, grabbed the charged crystal and left an empty one. Then we went for the one directly north of the hideout. We got inside without a problem, but while we were securing the room and starting to remove the charged crystal we heard what it seemed the sound of a big piece of masonry hitting the ground. It sounded like a wall had fallen somewhere in the vicinity. Right away our divination specialist.¡± I give Erick a nod. ¡°noticed that previous magical signatures that were dorment started stirring. I made the decision of just finish removing the charged crystal and set a new one on another time. While doing it we heard noises indicated that the local population of undead had reached an active state and further noises indicating the presence of bio-magical mutations¡­¡± And kept rambling on until I finished describing the whole operation and my reasoning for closing shop on this outpost.


    ¡°But the main point is that we don¡¯t know what caused the wall to fall. Everyone understands that?¡± I look at each one of them. Johnson looked like he saw a light at the end of the tunnel, and nods eagerly. Erick stares at me for a few seconds, looks at Johnson whose face now was full hope of expectation, and nods. Lilian also agrees right away. I look at Lis who has a small enigmatic smile on her face, almost like a cat toying with a mouse it caught. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°You know I can¡¯t lie Artharian¡±. She tells me, Johnson face goes from almost jubilant to hopeless.


    ¡°Right, but you don¡¯t need to tell all the true. You wouldn¡¯t be lying by saying that what what disturbed the residents was the sound of a falling wall. And if someone asks you what could have the wall to fall, you tell them that many things, like it lost supporting beam for example. So cut the chase Lis, this kind of thing is bread and butter for the sidhe.


    Her smile gets bigger. ¡°True, but why would I do that? I guess having Johnson here¡±. ¡°Because I¡¯m calling it a favor for a debt.¡± I interrupt her before she goes further, last thing I need is to save the kid from one Sidhe displeasure by getting him indebted to another one from the opposite court nonetheless. Lis straightens up her back right away and take a much more serious air.


    ¡°Your proposing that my debts to your are paid if I do that? I snort at that. ¡°Of course not, this would be hardly of the same value of what you own me. I propose this as payment from the time I prevented you from burning a whole residential district on Net town.


    She thinks for a few seconds and nods ¡°I agree to keep up this story as long as not directly questioned and it as long it doesn''t go against an higher obligation.¡±


    ¡°Directly questioned intensely, you will try to deflect questions as long as it¡¯s viable¡± I counter.


    ¡°Done, done, done.¡± She says it three times. ¡°Thrice said and done Pyralis of the Salamanders.¡± I answer and feels fae magic stirring around us as the oath is finished.


    Johnson and Lilian are observing us with wide eyes, Erick also seems surprised, but being with me much longer it¡¯s not the first time he seen this kind of exchange.


    ¡°Ok everyone, now that this is out of the way, time to get back to Fairy Land, grab everything useful and be ready to leave. Lis, be a dear and open the gateway please.¡±


    Although, part of the magic I use is Fae in origin, I only tap in to it and use as fuel to power my own spells, like passing electricity through a circuit, or I meld it with my own magic, transforming it before using it.


    Pyralis, like all Fae, uses it as if it¡¯s a part of herself, for any magic users, it¡¯s a beautiful and terrifying sight to watch the Fae use magic. It¡¯s like comparing a human swimming with a dolphin swimming. We aren¡¯t made for water, but we learned how buoyancy works and how to use our body to create propulsion, and so we can swim. But the dolphin was born in the water, to swim for him is instinctive and he does it so well that we can only look and be jealous. So when Lis reach for the magic circle and start using her magic to activate it, I can only look in admiration on how easy she makes it look.


    Soon the gathered magic on the circle starts a reaction and a rift opens in front of her, big enough for two people to pass shoulder to shoulder and close to two meters tall.


    From where I¡¯m standing I see what looks to be a trail on a dead forest, and shattered pieces of the moon on the night sky. Lis looks back at us, then back at the portal and crosses over. Had she opened the portal directly with her magic, it would have quickly closed after her, but the magic circle will keep the spell going for a couple minutes more.


    I motion for everyone to move, and one by one they follow Lis. I take a last look around, sight and pass through the portal.

 Chapter 4

    The Fae realm used to be the realm closest to ours, you could call it our magical shadow. Although I started learning magic a little before the end of the world, I never had a chance to visit it before the end. But from what I learned talking to Erick and other wizards, while being the closest to us, the Fae realm wasn¡¯t an exact mirror, and it¡¯s lands were much smaller in size than our world. Due to this, the distance between pathways wasn¡¯t the same on their side as it was on our side.


    This allowed for someone to enter in Los Angeles for example, walk for a couple of hours and leave in a pathway that leads to New York. That without counting that the Fae realm was full of magic that allowed one to teleport to some places, and the most powerful Fae, The Queens and the most powerful Wyld Fae like Oberon, Herne and few others could move to anywhere on their territory instantly and bring others with them if they so desire.


    This allowed for those with the knowledge of the pathways, the Fae realms and that were in good graces with the Fae to be able to move quickly on our world. Knowledge like these were something wizards could go to war for.


    After the big end, when the Fae realm crashed with ours, most of it was destroyed or fused with our own world. But a few parts of it remains like corridors that can still be transversed.


    We use them whenever possible to travel when distances are too great, to bypass difficult terrain or dangerous places. It¡¯s still dangerous, and very limited to what it used to be, but much safer than crossing some places on our world.


    The reason we had to wait for a right time to open the passage, is that when the Fae realm crashed in to ours, the remains of it became like shrapnell being launched in all directions and then started, lacking a better word, spinning around our realm. Like small moons orbiting our reality. So, if we wanted to use a path way, we had to do it at the right time. If not, it would, at best,  fail to open. At worst it could open to an eldritch dimension that would spill even more abominations in to our world..  So kids, no opening the doors outside of permitted hours.


    As I stepped on the Fae realm, everyone was waiting for me further on the trail. There was no way they could have been so far away unless they started running as soon as they entered. Well there is no way in our world, but time in the Fae realm never ran exactly at the same rate as ours, sometimes I ran faster, sometimes it ran slower, time there was affected not only due to the magical nature of the realm, but could also be affected by the powers that be on the realm. That was another reason you had to be on the good side of the Fae or have a good deal with them to travel through it, wouldn¡¯t do good to take a shortcut to go from LA to New York in two hours and arrive there a day later because you pissed one of the Queens the last time you were here. Now that there is no more powerful Fae residing on what is left of the realm, you don¡¯t need to worry about someone screwing you up due to mischief, you only have to worry about being screwed up  by random changes on the time flow¡­ Yay..


    Well, I¡¯m exaggerating a little, all this things I tell you are true and can happen, but in general we (as the Fae enclave) are very good at predicting how time will behave in each corridors, so we can avoid using the most dangerous ones. This one we are travelling is on the mild side, varies between 2 to 3 times faster or slower than time on our world, so it¡¯s a safe bet. But there are corridor where time can slow to a halt, and years could pass while you walk for a day on the corridor.


    Anyway, putting the surprise of the time dilation aside, I take a look around while I rejoin my Vanguard, and the scenery is just as I remember. Eery dead trees, check. Shattered moon, check. Starless sky, check. Giant red light emitting rift crossing part of the sky, check. The sound of howling wind being sucked on that rift, check. Ok, things seen normal on this pathway. Once I reach them, we start moving.


    I keep watching the surrounding with more attention than usual. The true is, after today problems I feel like lecturing them the rules for traveling on this realm, just to be safe you know, but since one of them is being silent, it would be counterproductive. I guess I¡¯ll just go over them in my head and hope they are doing the same.


    Avoid making noises, there are plenty of things still living on the Fae realm, both old residents and new. And stay on the trail


    Be vigilant and look out for anything out of the ordinary. And walk on the trail.


    If you do spot any creature or being, don¡¯t make eye contact and keep walking unless it starts going after you. Running is preferable than fighting, but whatever you do, don¡¯t leave the trail.


    Make sure to keep everyone on ur group in vision range and inside the trail.


    And most important of all, STAY ON THE FUCKING TRAIL.


    Well, remember that I just said I was exaggerating on the the risks of alternative time flows on the Fae realm? Well, I¡¯m not exaggerating now about the dangers of leaving the marked path. This was always a dangerous place for the unaware, now it¡¯s worse. Although the Fae were miriad, we knew all that lived close to known paths, and had experience on dealing with them. Now, you never know what you might find when traveling the pathways. Most of the time it will be empty, but now there are much darker things that roams this corridors than before. And the trails we use are tried and true, not safe, but much safer than wandering around the corridors or trying to take a shortcut from point A to B.


    Despite all my worries, we make good progress and should soon leave the dead forest behind and reach a small plain with a stone circle where the pathway back to Fairy Land is located. As we reach the last of the dead trees Lia and Johnson who are leading, stop moving and make a signal for me.


    ¡°I swear I didn¡¯t just threw stones at the cross on one of my past lives, I probably threw the damm cross at the stones to deserve this¡±. I murmur to my self when I finally see what made them stop.


    A small plain stands downhill from us, with grass tall enough to reach a little over a grow man waist, and the trail we are following leading to the stone circle not 400 meters away from us located on the center of the plain. But halfway through there is what seems to be a fault on the ground that cross half the plain, including over our trail. It doesn''t seem very large, maybe an entire meter at the largest parts. But, the detail, is that it doesn¡¯t seem like the ground cracked open, like those faults you see that result from earthquakes or on the icebergs, it wasn¡¯t the ground that seemed to have opened up, but reality that was ripped open, and a purple tinted darkness was sipping out of the resulting rift.


    I know I wasn¡¯t going to try jump over it if I could avoid it. So we had to go around it. And to do that, we would have to leave the trail.. The rift seemed to cross the trail and keep going for 60 meters, so 120 in total. It wasn¡¯t a big distance, but I still hated it. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t look too big, we could jump over it¡± And just like that I reconsider my idea of lying for Johnson sake. Unfortunately, I already made a deal with Lis, so no turning back now, even if the kid just crushed my hopes for him.


    The silent that follow his comment is enough a tell for him to understand what everyone thinks about his idea. ¡°What, it was just an idea¡±. He says defensively.


    ¡°Erick, do you sense anything from around us?¡± I ask from our diviner.


    He concentrates for a few seconds, his face goes dark and he answer me. ¡°I can¡¯t tell, there is too much magic around for me to pinpoint any specific signature. But I can tell you that the rift isn''t Fae, it feels very alien, probably outsiders in its origin.


    ¡°I can confirm that thing doesn¡¯t belong here, it¡¯s not magic from my kind.¡± Lis complements.


    Outsider magic is basically, everything that comes from other worlds/dimensions that we can¡¯t identify and feels different from everything we encountered before. Maybe it¡¯s the alieness of it, but for us and the Fae, 99% of the times it feels corrupted and evil.


    ¡°Ok, we are surely not jumping over it. Anyone got any rope?¡±


    Johnson and Erick carried some, and it was enough for us to string ourselves together, with a two meter in between each person. We are surely not going to enter the grass to circumvent the rift without everyone being together. Last thing  we need is for a stealth bastard to get one of us and drag away.


    ¡°Lets do this quickly and quietly. I¡¯ll lead and Erick takes the rear, we will keep a shield ready to cover everyone if we need to, if something attack us, hit it hard and keep moving if possible.


    I take a deep breath and can¡¯t help but think ¡°Here be raptors¡± as we enter. And that brings me the memory of the Jurasick Park 2 movie with the guy yelling, not the tall grass, don¡¯t run in to the tall grass..


    Ok, 60 meters to go, and 60 to go back, even considering how much a pain is to move on the grass, shouldn¡¯t take us more than 4 minutes to do it in walking speed.


    We leave the trail and enter the grass. As we reach the end of the rift and start moving back to the trail I hear Erick say with a chilling voice ¡°Artharian we gotta move faster¡±. In my experience, when your diviner tell you to run, you run. So we started moving back faster and I look back and I can see many parts of the grass undulating as something moved through it, gaining on us.


    Pyralis quickly realized that we wouldn¡¯t make back to the trail in time, and castes a firewall, between us the and approaching creatures. It burns in a semicircle it¡¯s 10-12 meters long. We hear a shrill howl loaded with frustration as one of the creatures almost run into it.


    The fire wall slowed up the ones closest to us, but more seemed to be approaching from other angles.


    ¡°Lis, get us fireballs on the grass¡± and point to places along the trail. ¡°I don¡¯t want them jumping on us once we leg it on the trail¡±. Lis immediately understand and starts burning the grass close to the trail so they don¡¯t jump on us from cover when we move the last distance to reach the stone circle.


    As we reach the trail, I immediately turn around and yell ¡°sciath¡° and activate my shield, I immediately feel my magic reserves being drained as my shield catch two giant black dogs with red eyes and foaming mouths that were jumping on Lilian. My shield pushes the two black monstrosities back and they are thrown 3 meters away from us. I noticed that Erick caugth a third creature on his own shield, but being a diviner wasn¡¯t strong enough to push it away like I did.


    I drop my shield and Lilian immediately follow with an orb of pure arcane energy the size of a basketball that hits the two dogs that I pushed away, it explodes on contact. The one who took a direct hit from the orb is thrown a dozen meters or so away, and I¡¯m sure I saw limbs flying in a different direction, the other one is blown half that distance or so in to the grass.


    Johnson, who had already cut himself free of the rope drew his hammer and is moving to the dog still striking Erick shield, as a well coordinated unit, Erick drops his shield right after the dog hit it and Johnson capitalize on the fact that it¡¯s recovering it¡¯s balance to bash it¡¯s head in to a pulp.


    Looking at the dog, it was the long and lean, but full of muscle, It¡¯d say it¡¯s as long as a calf, but shorter on height. There are purple veins on his body and they look a lot like the darkness escaping the rift.


    ¡°A Barghest¡± Lis says. ¡°But something is very wrong with it¡±. Howling starts all around us, as if trying to scare us once the surprise was lost. ¡°Quickly, to the stone circle.¡±


    We start running for the circle while more barghest quickly approached from our right, and front. We could only see their movement on the grass, and once they reached the burning grass from Lis fireballs, they hesitate a little, but then charge through the fire to get to us.


    Four more were closing from our right and behind, thankfully due to Lis burning the tall grass we had 5 to 6 meters of vision, so when the barghest lef the tall grass I immediately summon the power of winter to cast half a dozen pen size icicles on the closest one, it falters on it¡¯s charge and falls, but start getting up right away. Erick casts a small bolt of lightning on the new leading barghest and it falls stunned for a second or so and then starts getting up again. Now the two that were furthest from us catched up with the ones closest to us, and a thin smile stamps my face. Now that is some good kiting and pulling if I can say so. The barghest are basically lined up and Lilian turns around  and casts another arcane orb. A little bigger then the last one, the orbs flyes straight in the middle of the trail and reach the approaching pack before they can react. The explosions sends all four of them flying away. Lilian stumbles right after casting the orb, but Johnson steadies her.


    The two bhargast that were approaching us from the front gets pretty close as we dealt with the pack chazing us, ¡°gaoth na sioc¡± I say as I extend my staff, and a cone of freezing wind strikes the two monsters slowing them down and partially blinding them. Johnson speed up to my side and as we pass the partially incapacitated creatures he strike one with his mace and I hit the other with my staff. As I stroke the creature, I activated one of the enchantments I have on my staff. It released stored kinetic energy on the strike. And just as a professional baseball player, I didn¡¯t even stop to see where the ball, well barghast, went and kept running to get to the next base, well stone circle.


    More howling came from our right, and now roar that sounded a little like wood cracking from our left, great more friends. ¡°Erick, Lilian and Johnson cover our right and behind, Pyralis cover our left, make sure nothing passes¡±. I yell as I reach to the pathway point and start working my magic to activate it. Lis could probably do this better and make it look good, but her talents were better suited to hold off what was coming from our left.


    It seemed that the forest wasn¡¯t as dead as it looked. What I think are treants or some similar creature were moving from the border of the forest crossing the plains to reach us. With orders given, I got my focus on opening the portal.


    That''s when I heard it, and I couldn¡¯t keep a maniac smile from my face.


    ¡°You -- shall not -- pass!¡± and then a bright orange flash to my left as the plain is lit on fire.


    I look right and Erick is staring at Lis with the biggest WTF look on his face. If we buy it tonight, at least my inner nerd will die happy.


    Ok, now you''re thinking how can this guy who seemed so serious and works hard to avoid unnecessary dangers and at looked, at first glance at least, responsible act like this when shit hits the fan. Well, cracking jokes (bad ones in general) and sarcasm are my copying mechanism. Whenever the adrenaline hits, my inner child comes out..


    Well, back on topic, I finish opening the path way and signal for everyone to go.  Erick goes first, followed by Lilian and Johnson, as Lia pass me I see a bhargast rushing me, it looks hurt, probably one of those hit by the explosion of Lilian arcane orb. It won¡¯t reach me before I cross the pathway, so I jump on it.


    As I cross I almost bump in to Lilian due to the time dilation effect. ¡°Coming hot¡± I yell right away and jump to the side. When the bhargast follows me he is met by 5 men in full tactical gear, each pointing an m-16 to it. And it¡¯s gunned down before it can even process where it is.

 Chapter 5

    Chapter 5


    As I dust myself up, I look behind and see the tactical team approaching the now dead Barghast. As the portal closes I warn them, ¡°Don¡¯t touch it, it¡¯s tainted with outsider magic.¡± The team stops advancing and take a few steps back, two of the members put their hands inside their vests, probably checking if they have their charms with them.


    A woman wearing a dark blue robe and a man wearing a verdant green one rushes forward and stars drawing a circle around the body with pieces of chalk. Once they finish it, I can feel a magical barrier raising around the creature.


    As I hear the team¡¯s captain calling someone for a clean up crew, I noticed the blue robed wizard walking in my direction. She is 1,70 meters tall, give or take, looks to be in her 50¡¯s, has dark hair with white strands and grey eyes. ¡°What have you done this time Captain Dagworth?¡± She asks me. ¡°You know to not allow monster cross the gates, especially tainted ones¡±.


    ¡°Greetings Keeper Terese, you look lovely today.¡± I give her my best smile.  She scowls at me. ¡°Everytime I wonder why I keep going outside and risking my life against monsters, wild magic surges and the dangerous pathways, I remember that it¡¯s all worth because I know you will be here to welcome us with a smile.¡± My voice goes from friendly at the start to acidic when I finish. If it¡¯s not obvious already, the keeper and I aren¡¯t on the best terms...


    ¡°That is enough¡± the man in green robe interrupt us. ¡°What happened Artharian? This was a safe pathway.¡± He is at least 1,90 tall, has light blond hair starting to go grey and deep green eyes.


    ¡°Emphasis on ¡°was¡± Keeper Gustaff. There is now a new rift to another plane close to the stone circle. It¡¯s leaking magic into it, and corrupting whatever creatures still lives there.¡± I answer him and keep talking. ¡°And it works pretty fast since it wasn¡¯t there when we crossed in our way out. Even with the time dilation, it couldn¡¯t have been there an entire week.¡±


    Keeper Gustaff face darkens as he realizes what that means, abandoning the use of this pathway.


    ¡°Now if you excuse, me and my team still need to go through decontamination and hand our reports. I¡¯m sure the commander will brief you on what happened once he finish with it. If he decides you need to know.


    Keeper Terese scowls deepens, but Keeper Gustaff put a hand on her shoulder and gesture for us to go.


    I gather my team, who were standing to the side, doing their best to avoid grabbing attention. Damm cowards, not coming to their captain rescue, what happened to the all for onel, hanging together, and there is no I on team? I guess not everyone is crazy enough to antagonize the Gatekeepers..


    The portal room is a round room the size of a field of indoor soccer. There is only one exit, and the entire walls and even the ceiling is covered with intricate runes and magical scripts. There are 7 big magical crystals powering it, six of those are constantly refueled with magic direct from both courts, three by each obviously, because you know, sidhe, balance, chicken. The last one is powered from the council hall on Net town.


    The ground contains dozens of magic circles, each opening to a different remaining pathway on the Fae realm.


    There are also seven tactical teams spread on the hall and two fae enforces on the entrance, all of those teams are composed 5 people wearing enchanted tactical gear and carrying automatic weapons full of clips with steel bullets engraved with runes whose function is to help break through magic defences. The enforces are usually Sidhe nobility and always strong enough to deal with anything that could come out of the portals. At least so far. Plus the two gatekeepers that are the two greatest experts on the pathways alive. They decide when a gateway is safe, the hours when the remains of the Fae are aligned with us and million other calculations needed to safely operate the hall. It really is complicated, but both being master diviners help. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    This hall if one of the greatest magical feats ever created, and probably the solo reason we, the Fae and us mortals, are managing to survive and even prosper to an extent.


    We head for the exit and as we pass the doorways I nod to the enforcers, the lady from winter gives me a predatory smile, it¡¯s enough to give me a chill on the back of my neck, even knowing it¡¯s all pretense, she wouldn¡¯t risk touching me. A perk of being the Queen pet dog. The one guy from summer totally ignores me. Also a perk of being the Queen pet dog.


    We move through a small corridor until we reach an antechamber. Magical glyphs lights the room. We step forward and place our hands on small pedestals spread through it. I feel it draining some of my magic as it activate the glyphs on the room. I feel a small pressure as magic scans me, for lack of a better world. A small blue faery fire ignites on my staff where it connected with the Bhargast and I noticed that the same happened to Johnson hammer. It burns for a few seconds before going out. The staff is undamaged and the lights on the room dimms as the decontamination is finished.


    The door glass ahead of us that was locked opens and the two guards on the other side stand to the side so we can pass. One of them nods to me ¡°Welcome back Captain¡±. he says and I nod back as we pass. The small corridor leads us to a set of open doors of reinforced steel that leads to the Expeditionary Forces headquarter plaza. The plaza is surrounded by 4 buildings, command center, barracks, portal hall and the frankenstein building. Well it¡¯s called multi-purpose center, since we lack space for more buildings, everything is done there, training, research, testing.. I think the frankenstein building sounds cooler, but I was vetoed when I suggested it.


    ¡°Everyone write your reports and go take some rest, we should have 2 or 3 days off. I will debrief the commander¡±. I say as we head to the command center. I think the command center used to be a city hall, the main entrance opens up in a hall, with many side rooms and a corridor at the back that leads to the rest of the building. The team splits going for the siderooms to write their own reports. Pyralis heads to one that where a young woman with a notepad is waiting for her. There is another room with a clerk, and the other are empty.


    This is necessary  because the Sidhe don¡¯t write things down. You see, words have power, even more for the sidhe. They don¡¯t lie, and are bound by any promise they make. So idea of written words that lack all the nuances of speech and can be interpreted wrong or as a lie out of the context they are spoken is alien to them, almost anathema. So we have clerks to write down their reports..


    I head to the service desk, identify myself and then ask to talk to the commander. The clerk tells me that the commander is busy in a meeting and I would have to wait for a while. I sigh and nods. Then walking around him I go the corridor, he follow me with his eyes to see if what I¡¯m doing, worried I might just barge on the commander. But I pass the commander doors and go for the bank. Well, it has another name, but everyone refers it as the bank. As I open the door I can feel the magic humming on the room. Inside I¡¯m met with two figures sitting on two diminutive desks and an big open safe on the back wall, I can see dozens of magic crystals stacked on the safe. The two fae raise their eyes to me and stand as soon as they recognized me. Both stand up, and both barely reach my waist. They looked somewhat the same for me, but don¡¯t tell them that, it will get them mad. The dwarf and the spriggan both stared at me. Their eyes full of glee. I smile while I remove the crystals containers from my backpack. They are fidgeting on the spot waiting for me to give them the crystals. When I remove the smaller crystal that powered the safe house their faces darken. They understand immediately that it means, that will be no more crystals coming from that source. I handle them the crystals, sign the correct forms and leave them without saying a word.


    They aren¡¯t really the talkative kind, and both dwarves and spriggan takes offence easily, real pain in the ass, but their love for treasure makes them wonderful accountants and guards for the magic reserve of the headquarts. So, I developed this silent relationship with them. And it¡¯s been working wonderfull for all of us. Especially because I only make deposits, if I ever need to withdraw some crystal, I¡¯m sure I would get the stink eye. But that is the commander problem.


    I get back to the hall and sit on one of the chairs waiting for the commander to finish her business. A few minutes passes and I¡¯m almost dozing off when Johnson comes talk to me. I blame it on being tired and distracted due to everything that happened. When he initially started talking it took me a while to realize what he was saying, and then I was too late to stop it.

 Chapter 6

    ¡°Captain, I¡¯m sorry for screwing up. I really wanted to thank you for covering up for me. If it becomes known that we lost the outpost and crystals due to me, I shiver to think what the prince could have done if I made him look bad or weak. I wanted you to know that I you saved my hide cap.¡±


    He finished speaking just as my mind really started paying attention to what he was saying. I bolted up right away and tried to muffle his mouth with my hand but I knew I was too late when I felt the fae magic, presented in both of us, stirring and binding him to his word.


    ¡°What the fuck kid¡±. I told him, trying, and failing to an extent to keep my voice down. I grab him by his arm before he can answer and drag him to one of the side rooms. Once we are inside, I point him to one of the chairs, slam the door, lock it and then cast a silence field spell.


    I know somewhere in the building an alarm just went off, so we don¡¯t have much time.


    ¡°Do you have any fucking idea what you just done kid?¡± I yell at him. ¡°Are you just stupid or you don¡¯t care for your life?¡±


    The kids assumed a defensive and confused posture. ¡°Easy cap, what got into you? I didn¡¯t do anything, I was just thanking you¡±.


    ¡°Just thanking me? You really are stupid! How long have you been living with the Fae? Probably just since the damm realm Fae crashed in to ours. You should fucking know how words and debts are binding. You basically gave me an open ended obligation that you said has the same value of your life.¡±


    He stares me for a few seconds and his mouth open in perfect oh when the understanding hit him. As my mind was working at 110% trying to look for a way to salvage this situation. ¡°But we are not Fae, we aren¡¯t bound like them.¡± He stammers.


    I take a deep breath and try to control my anger before I answer him. ¡°That¡¯s why I said you are stupid. You have entered a deal with the fucking Prince of Frost, to help you awake your touch, and you have no idea what that entails.¡± Well I did say I was trying to control my anger, not that I succeed. After another deep breath I do manage to continue more calmly. ¡°When you asked for his help, you not only entered in his debt, but also your touch manifested due to his help, it didn¡¯t have wild magic in origin, but Fae. In other worlds the magic inside you that fuel your ability is Fae. It means that you need to be careful of your words, if you break any oaths or fail to repays debts, not only you are free game for them to use their power to enforce it, but also your own magic will turn against you, more than a regular wizard.¡±


    There is a big difference between a regular person dealing with the fae and someone who has magic, being either wizard, sorcerer or other magic users. When a regular person deals with the Fae, only the Fae is magically forced by its nature to obey the terms. But if said person break their promise to the Fae, they are free from whatever code of honor and obligation they have and can use any and all of their powers to enforce the deal and get what they want. When someone with magic deals with the Fae, the oath is magically binding for both. If a wizard try to back off a deal with the Fae, their own magic start turning against him. Failing him when he needs it and might even make him sick. In both of our cases it should be even worse, since our magic is part Fae.


    ¡°So I need to worry about everything I say to everyone?¡± he asks me. ¡°Not exactly, when talking to anyone not Fae, the only judge if what you say is meant as a promise and to what extent is yourself. You only have to worry with formal promises, agreements and deals direct stated as so. But when talking to other Fae or people with fae magic, our magic resonates and our words and actions are judged by the magic and it can bind us the same way it would bind them.¡±


    He thinks for a few seconds. ¡°Ok, so I own you a big favor, that my magic will help enforce, can¡¯t you just release me or ask me to ge you a cup of coffee and considered it paid??¡± If it just was that simple¡­ ¡°Sorry kid, not how it works, a favor or debt can only be repaid by something of the same valor. That''s why you never give something to the Fae for free. They will be obligated to give you something of the same value, but their notion of what is considered a good gift is very different than ours. As an example, you give a gun to a Fae, it¡¯s a weapon, but since it¡¯s iron or steel, is pretty poisonous for them. So as a return gift they might give you a piece of radioactive uranium. You can use it as a weapon and it¡¯s poisoning to you if you don¡¯t have protection. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°Ok, so I¡¯m stuck owing you a big ass favor. Sorry cap, but I¡¯m not that worried. I don¡¯t think you are the kind of person who will ask me to do something terrible or suicidal.¡±


    ¡®Listen Johnson, I know you are a good guy, but you got stop being so ignorant about how things works around here. You own me your life, but you also own whatever you agreed to the Prince of Frost, you are his vassal, so to some extent your debts reflects on him, if you are ever incapable of honoring it, it would fall on him to do so. How happy you think he is going to be about that? Not only that but Mab basically owns me, she has enough over me to basically demand anything from me. Do you think I¡¯m a knight of winter because I wanted to? She could demand me to cash the favor you own me for anything, she can even demand that I pass her your debt in exchange for one of my own debts to her. And sorry kid, depends on what she offers, I would take it. And I bet the Prince of Frost would really love be indebbeted the Queen.¡±


    More silence as the kid took in all I said and processed it. His face darkened by the second. ¡°I¡¯m so fucked.¡± he finally states. Someone gives the kid a prize, he finally gets it.


    ¡°Yes you are. So, let''s keep the information about this between just us, and hope nobody outside heard and understood what happened.¡± I ended the conversation.


    And right on time just as if it¡¯s on a movie scene the door burst open and two guards enter holding assault rifles. They are followed by a woman with asian features. She looks to be on her 60¡¯s, grey hair and dark eyes. She is wearing a military uniform, and have a lot of shiny pins on it. I avoid my uniform like hell, so I never memorized what each one mean..


    I drop the silence field. Right away I can hear the guards telling us to drop everything, and put our hands where they can see. I look at the woman and once again try the raising one eyebrow trick with mildly success. Ah, take it Lis.


    ¡°Gentleman, you can lower your weapons.¡± Commander Nakamura tells the guards, and they reluctantly comply. ¡°Now Captain Dagworth, care to enlighten me why did you cast a silence field spell inside the command center, I¡¯m sure you are aware, that spells in general are restricted inside this building.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry Commander, but it was an urgent matter that I had to discuss with my team member in privacy.¡± I try giving her my best apologetic smile.


    ¡°And you couldn¡¯t take him outside to discuss it? You aren¡¯t trying to tell him what to write on his mission report are you?¡±


    ¡°Of course not Commander it¡¯s an entirely private matter. Johnson has already filled his report.¡±


    ¡°Have you private Johnson?¡±


    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am!¡± Johnson who was sweating cold answered the commander promptly.


    ¡°Still not a reason to break the rules Captain Dagworth, you know why we don¡¯t allow the use of magic freely inside this building. I will be docking the cost of the door from your pay, and we will further discuss an appropriate punishment for this in my office. Private Johnson, you are dismissed¡±. She tells us and turn to leave the room.


    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am¡±. We both answer. And pat Johnson on the shoulders before following her. The guards let me pass, and I follow the commander to her officer.


    Commander Hanna Nakamura was an US colonel responsible for a military base somewhere in Wisconsin near the lakes. In the last days before the end her base had turned in to a refugee camp. I think she commanded 2000 soldiers or so, and there was over 30.000 thousands refugees seeking safety by camping on the base or it¡¯s surroundings. When a zombie horde hit it, she tried to protect the civilians, but there were to few soldiers. As the story is told, she had lost more than two thirds of her numbers both civilians and military when the Fae realm crashed in to ours.


    When it became obvious that their realm was going down, the Queens of both courts gathered their supporters and some of the most powerful Wylde Fae on their capitals. Basically all the Sidhe and a big part of the Fae in general gathered for it. Then for the first time in thousands of years the courts worked together in an enormous spell to make sure that when realm crashed, the capitals and its surrounding lands would overwrite our reality instead of the contrary.


    So when everything seemed lost for Commander Nakamura both courts capitals appeared on the space occupied by the horde, missing her and the survivors for half a kilometers or so, killing 80% of the zombies hordes. Soon the remaining zombies were assaulting the recently arrived Fae as well, and with the help of the Fae, Nakamura remaining troops managed to fight back the remaining undead and few monsters that composed the horde. Soon after that the enclave was born. Of course there is much more history to it, but not relevant right now.


    As we enter her office after her and close the door, the commander walks to a cabinet, and takes two glasses and a bottle of scotch. She pours a dose for each of us and we down it.


    ¡°So Artharian, what the fuck was that about? Why do you have to always make my life complicated?¡± She asks me as she pours another dose for us. ¡°Not that I¡¯m am complaining Hanna, but obviously this extravagance is not due to my small mischief¡±. I ask her while holding the second shot before drinking again. ¡°No, just had a long meeting with my advisors, and I thought that if I needed a drink, at least I could do so with a friend.¡± she answer me. ¡°To a drink with friends¡± I raise my glass. ¡°To friends both present and absent¡± she answer and raise hers. And we down it again. ¡°Now, Artharian, what was that about?¡±


    Attempt to change the subject - Failure.

 Chapter 7

    Chapter 7


    Commander Nakamura kept staring at me after deflecting my attempt to change the subject. ¡°I had to talk to the kid about a private matter and it couldn¡¯t wait, commander.¡± I answer sheeply. ¡°You already gave me that line Art, if I am going to cover for you I need a better excuse. What was so important that you couldn¡¯t walk 20 meters to leave the building¡±.


    Dammit Hanna, can¡¯t you just drop it. ¡°Hanna, we¡¯ve known each other since before the enclave, trust me let this one go.¡± I try once again.


    ¡°I can¡¯t captain, you know why we have a ban on spells on the command center. Lord Firinne will demand to know why a minion of Winter was casting a spell, and Lady Cliodhona will also want to know, fearing it¡¯s part of a game on the Winter court that she is unaware. I need something to give them captain.¡± Never a good sign when she uses my rank instead of my name, it means she is serious.. Lord Firinne is the summer advisor to the expeditionary forces, and Lady Cliodhona is his winter counterpart.


    The reason why there is an advisor from each court is basically the same reason spells are banned on the command center. Both courts can¡¯t trust each other. Even now when they have to work together to survive, the Seelie and the Unseelie still can¡¯t stop trying to oppose each other. For the biggest things, they can work together, the Queens orders to all fae to do so are obeyed, but on the smaller things if any Fae see any chance they can sabotage the other court without direct disobeying orders or getting caught, they will do so.


    So due to abuse off magic trying to influence things on the command center, magic was banned. Only the guards, the dwarf and the spriggan can use magic, and only when doing their duties.


    So I get why the commander wants to know. Whatever if what I discussed with Johnson was private or not, everybody will assume that is a move by the unseelie to try to gain any kind of advantage on how the expeditionary forces are run. Still it¡¯s not only my secret to share, and I know that just knowing this can create more problems for the commander on the long term. No choice but to go for the big guns.


    ¡°Hanna, I swear to you on my magic that we only talked about a personal matter that have great importance to me and private Johnson and it has no relations to the army.¡± I feel my magic stir as I say it.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t have to that Artharian. I believe you.¡± After a few seconds of silence the commander tells me in a much more subdued tone. Ah, guilt again, I love it, when it¡¯s not me feeling it.


    ¡°I know, but now you can tell anyone who ask that I swore on my magic. All Fae should take the hint that no foul play happened. They will still be curious about it, but they won¡¯t be able to force your hand over it.¡± She nods in agreement.


    ¡°Ok, now that dealt with your little stun, give me the mission report.¡±


    So I spent the next 30 minutes recounting the mission and answering questions.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    ¡°Losing two sources is bad, Artharian. If it wasn¡¯t for the trouble with the pathway, I would be very tempted risking fighting to retake them.¡± She tells me somberly. ¡°We still have a good store of magic, but with the expansion plans, growing crops and this damned storm draining our shields this could change quickly.¡±


    Magic is the only thing that allow us to survive on this new world, it allow us to grow crops and raise livestock fast, and in great quantities, it gives us weapon and shields to protect ourselves against the hordes of mutations that exist out there. But it also one of the biggest dangers for us. Wild magic storms is a new phenomenon that came to be with the end of the world. They are surges of uncontrolled magic that can destroy and change things on their path.


    There has been a powerful one raging against our shields for the past month. Forcing the courts to commit most of their magic to the shields, and that everything else, need to be maintained with whatever magic we can collect from the wells.


    Magic wells are points where the magic from the ley lines leaks to the surface, and we can use crystals to collect it. The magic from the ley lines is, lacking a better world, neutral and we can use to power our spells and artifacts. While the current magic that is on the atmosphere has basically no life to stabilize it exists on chaotic state. Plus the corruption from all the outsider entities roaming our world now make it impossible to garner and use it.


    Hold on, backup a second, are you saying that life stabilizes magic? Yes, and it actually makes a lot of sense. Think about it, what is the common element on all gods, religions myth and legend on all cultures across the world? We, mankind. From the greek gods to, native american ancestors spirits to amateratsu to the hindu mythology and all between. We are on the stories, they tell about those beings interactions with mankind. And it¡¯s also why any gods that is hell bent on destroying life is usually ganked up by everyone else on those stories and defeated. Life generates and balances magic.


    It¡¯s also the main reason why the Fae helped create and protect the enclave. We are their rainforest, sucking up carbon-dioxide and releasing oxygen.


    True is, all life do it at an extense, but humans do it the best, I don¡¯t know why, there were many mages studying it before the end, but if they ever found a final answer, I don¡¯t know. It also explain why the magic world was so big before the end, the more there were of us, more magic was generated. And why the power that be at the time started losing control. Too many new magicians were born, too much magic attracting beings from other universes.


    This is also the principle of faith magic. If enough people believe something, the magic the course through them makes it real and why sacrificial magic works.


    ¡°Do the Fae have any estimation when the storm is going pass us?¡± I ask the commander, since not only it drains our shields, but also stops all non portal expeditions.


    ¡°Both their diviners and ours can¡¯t say.¡± She answers. ¡°But from our experience, it can¡¯t last much longer, it¡¯s already the longest we seen.¡±


    Now she is being hopeful, only because none we seen so far last this long, does not mean this one can¡¯t last much longer. It¡¯s not like wild magic storms are a long documented phenomenon


    ¡°Anyway, I should get going commander, I¡¯m really in need of some rest.¡± She nods to me as I get up and moves to the door.


    ¡°Captain.¡± She call to me as I open the door. As I turn to her again, I noticed she has a smile full of mischief on her face and I realize right away that I¡¯m in trouble. ¡°We haven¡¯t talked about your punishment yet.¡± Oh crap, here it comes. The Guard has asked us to help on an investigation.¡± Oh no, this is bad. ¡°There has been a series of disappearances on the special district, and they asked for someone who could help them deal with the locals. I had just started thinking on who would be best to help after finishing my last meeting, and then you showed up, it must be a signal.¡±


    Oh no, I didn¡¯t just throw the cross on the stones, on my past life, I might have thrown gasoline on it and set it on fire as well. ¡°I will let they know they can expect you there the day after tomorrow.¡± I¡¯m so going to you kill for this Johnson.

 Chapter 8

    Chapter 8


    ¡°So, how did you do it?¡± Erick asks me, before taking another drink.


    ¡°Did what?¡± I ask him doing my best to sound as I don¡¯t know what is he is talking about.


    Erick sights before continuing. ¡°How did you get Lis to quote Gandalf?¡± And just like that I couldn¡¯t keep the cheshire cat smile from my face anymore. ¡°That my friend, is a state secret.¡± I answer him before downing another shot. We were sitting at the cafeteria bar. I don¡¯t know if a regular military base should have an alcohol serving bar, but thanks god we do.


    Seeing as the force is made of so many different crazy, I mean, eccentric, people and creatures, some with the power to bend reality to their will, a bar was something the commander and powers that be had to compromise.


    Not only it¡¯s designed as place for people to calm down at the end of the day, but a safe place for the many factions that compose the forces to discuss non-military related matters. There are still regulations on on who can drink and how much they are allowed and etc. To avoid people on active duty or with scheduled missions getting drunk.


    Fortunately for me, the commander has a good enough heart to leave me with one day leave of my three hard earned ones..


    ¡°You called in a favor!¡± Damn, caught red handed.


    ¡°I called in a favor.¡± I answer him with a sheepish smile. ¡°But you are still paying for the drinks.¡±


    ¡°Whatever, I just can¡¯t believe  you would spend a favor owned by a sidhe royalty to win a bet.¡± He states dumbfounded. ¡°Such a waste.¡±


    I give him my sheepish smile again, and raise my glass for a toast. Erick sighs and toast as we down another one. Even with the small improvement to my constitution I get from my connection to Winter, I¡¯m starting to get drunk after the 5th, 7th shot if count the two at the commander office. Unfortunately, we are not drinking real scotch, like the one me and the commander toasted, but enclave made spirit.


    ¡°You see Erick, we could have died today, hell, I could die tomorrow or the day after. So I take these small pleasures whenever I can. Plus, owning me so much favors sits really bad with Lis, so I am collecting the small ones when I can.¡± Not to mention that I feel a little guilty for tricking her into owning me so many favors. Not that I did especially on purpose, I did want to have something over her, when I heard a summer sidhe royalty would join my team, but things escalated out of control that night. Plus I like her as much as you can like a Sidhe.


    He nods and pour us another drink. ¡°So I heard that you managed to piss of the commander again today. How did you do it? Considering we arrived barely an hour before.¡± The rumor mills surely run fast around here. ¡°Personal business Erick.¡± He nods again, being a wizard since before the end, Erick understands that when a wizard don¡¯t want to talk about something, there is usually a good enough reason, so he doesn''t press me. The commander could surely learn from him. ¡°I don¡¯t think she accepted that excuse?¡±


    ¡°She loved it. She liked it so much she gave me a job as consultant to the guard in a case.¡± I answer bitterly after downing another shot. Was it the the 9th or 10th? ¡°They asked for help with a case in the special district. I¡¯m to report there the day after tomorrow.¡±


    He freezes.  ¡°I hope this is not an attempt to recruit my help.¡± He tells me after a few moments. ¡®Well, considering we are bound as survivors of the old ways of magic before the end, and how well I respect you and your skills, I would love too ask you a favor.¡± Ericks goes pale as I make a small pause. ¡°Can I count on you to keep up the training schedule for the team while I¡¯m away?¡± I drop my serious tone when I finish and can¡¯t help grin at him. ¡°You asshole.¡± He answer relieved. ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll make sure to keep the training going. Lilian still need to work on her control, and Johnson needs to learn good sense.¡± The understatement of the year I think to myself. ¡°But I don¡¯t think Pyralis will listen to me.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to collect one more debt she owns me and have her taking care of my back in Net town.¡± I tell him. ¡°Better her than me.¡± He answers.


    After that, we made small talk until I felt drunk enough to fall asleep as soon as fell on my bed. I got my leather coat at the way out and walked all the way to my room on the barracks. I disable my wards long enough to enter and face plant on my bed after making sure they were up and running again. And the last thing I think as the sweet oblivion of sleeptake me is ¡°What a fucking day.¡±


    I wake up early the next day. Besides my little drinking adventure, it wasn¡¯t very late when I went to bed, so I¡¯m not feeling that terrible. A little headache, but nothing serious. After a shower, I almost feel like smiling, but then I remember that I have tons of things to do to prepare for tomorrow.


    Wizards, are the most common and versatile types of magic users. Contrary to Sorcerers, like Lilian, or Warlocks. We study magic for years, understanding the rules that it follow and we can devise spells for almost anything. It just take us time to study and develop them. A wizard who had time to prepare for a situation is a very dangerous foe, If we know what we are going to deal with, we can always come with ways to help deal with it. Sure, we are limited with how much power we have and ours skills. For example if I ever had to fight Mab, I would prepare against cold spells, glamours and to bring a lot of cold iron. And I would still get squashed like a bug. Because you know, Queen of Air and Darkness, Monarch of the Unseelie and all that..


    But the point was, if I¡¯m going to have to work with the guard on the special district, I better prepare myself for it.


    The special district on Net town, is where most of the magical beings, not belonging to the courts, reside. It¡¯s mostly Wyld Fae, plus a few more magic creatures who joined the enclave along the years. So basically it¡¯s a melting pot of powerful entities, many whose are regulated by their own codes, customs and even by their own magic like the Fae. And in top of that we have the guard trying to make sure they still follow their version of the law. Really nice place.


    Although they have some magic users and touched on the guard, the bulk of it¡¯s policing force are regular humans. So from time to time we and the defence forces get request to help in cases involving magic. And due to my status as one of the winter knights and long standing story with the magical beings, that dutie falls to me more often than I like.


    It does makes sense, since I¡¯m closely aligned with the Fae, the magic community value my word, as breaking it would look bad on Mab. Doesn¡¯t mean I have to like it. I already have enough trouble dealing with the Fae on the forces and whenever I¡¯m summoned to court (I mean the winter court, not a court of justice). Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    Ok, if we are going to do this, let''s review the facts. There has been a few missing persons case on the special district. The district being the district, means that the guard is having trouble getting any information from the locals. So, bribes are in order, I mean gifts. What the guard fails to understand is that with the magical community, nothing is really free. They value favor and obligations a lot, especially the Fae. So if you want information, unless helping you further their interests, they will not give you to for free. The guard has too much of that ¡®everybody''s the same at the eyes of the law¡¯ mentality. And that''s the citizens duty to help the law enforcement. That doesn''t work very well with the magic community. So if I want to get things done, I better be prepared to pay up from my own purse.


    Second is personal safety. That is usually easy for me. Abjuration is my specialty after all. What I didn¡¯t mention this before? I¡¯m sure I must have. Anyway, shields, barriers, counter-spells and etc are what I¡¯m really good at. But my last stint on this kind of job taught me that there is a big difference in fighting on the open with nothing but a small team of friendlies around you and in the middle of an urban area. So more compact shields, less brunt force, avoid striking first and beware of collateral damage (The commander wanted to skin me alive when the guard tried to bill the forces for that one building).


    Checking my available gear, the first thing I do is leave my scouting leather long coat on the closet, and grab my combat long coat. I check the coat enchantments and decide that reinforcements are in order.


    Second checking my focuses. The staff is in good conditions, since I reinforced the enchantments before leaving for the last mission. I check my amulet and my bracers and they also are on good condition. I also grab my combat stick (I refuse to call it a wand) it¡¯s a 45 cm longs heavy wooden stick with some heavy enchanting. Good for close combat in small spaces. I also deem a good idea to reinforce it¡¯s enchantments.


    Ok, with my gear selected, I pack it all and leave my room for breakfast. After a quick bowl of cereals and some OJ, I leave the barracks and head to the frankenstein building.  My first stop is at the comms room to have a message sent to Pyralis on the summer court. Then I go the workshop. The workshop occupies the entire basement of the building. It¡¯s has over 20 personal rooms for enchanting and alchemy plus few bigger rooms for projects that require more people working together. I sign in at one and start re-enchanting my stuff.


    You might be wondering why do I need to enchant my gear again, it¡¯s due to the nature of magic. You see, I¡¯m not changing the enchantments, like trading the kinetic energy absorber enchanting from my beads bracers, I¡¯m just reinforcing it so it doesn''t fade. You all remember when I told you all about how magic requires life or else it slowly becomes chaotic? The same principle applies for enchanting objects. No known non-living materials can keep a magic enchantment forever. It will slowly unravel with time. How long it lasts depends on how strong is the enchantment, the material (gems and things that used to be alive works better). Some big ritual enchantments can contain self-renewing enchantments, but they require a constant source of magic. That is how we power our safe houses, our shields and many structures on the city.


    Fortunately, for me to reinforce the enchantments is a simple act, unlike creating a new enchanted item, it can be done in a few hours instead of a few weeks.


    First my combat stick. It¡¯s has 3 enchantments on it. The first is the same kinetic energy storing and release enchantment I have on my staff. It basically stores energy from me walking around and swinging it and I can later release with as a big punch. Talking about punches, let me tell you a cool story. This idea is not originally mine, I have got it from two of my favorite wizard characters I used to read before the end. It¡¯s a genius idea in my opinion, it¡¯s charges itself, so no magic required, and it only requires a small amount of will to release, usually allowing you to sucker punch any enemy that is watching for spells. Anyway, the first time I tried this enchantment, I copied those two 100% and made rings that carry the energy, so I could punch out a troll for example. The idea was awesome. Little me with my 1,87 meters and 90kg knocking out a almost two meters and a half troll weighing half a ton.. But I must have jinxed myself, because somehow Dresden, and whoever designed the Ring ot the Ram, found a way to deal with the knockback that releasing such kinetic energy causes, it¡¯s a few times worse than shooting a gun, since the energy is more spread. So, when I went and try my new rings I ended with a dislocated shoulders and three broken fingers.. After that I switched to the staff and the stick. Much safer, and easier to enchant, since the surface area to enchant is much bigger.


    The second enchantment, is also one I keep on my staff, it is basically a spell circuit for me to channel the power of the winter well in to a cone of freezing wind, the same I used against the barghats yesterday. I like it because it¡¯s quick and have a good rate of magic energy conversion, since I¡¯m not trying to use the power of winter to light a fire for an example.


    The third and last enchantment I have on my stick is a dispelling one. It basically releases a charge of uncontrolled raw magic that can destabilize unprotected spells and enchantments. Any wizard worth their salt will have countermeasures on the form of their spells and enchantments, but sorcerers, warlocks, touched and especially the crazy wild magic monsters that lives on the wasteland, rarely do so.


    Once I finish with the stick, I start on my coat. Have you wondered why on all the old stories wizards were always wearing long robes and etc.? It¡¯s simple, because they didn¡¯t have long coats at the time. No, seriously, it¡¯s because of surface area. The more surface area an item has, the better you can enchant it. Of course there is a limit where bigger stops  being better, depending on what your trying to enchant, but in general the theory holds true. That¡¯s why enchanting a one piece robe or a long coat, for more modern wizards, is much easier and efficient then let¡¯s say a jacket and a pair of pants.  Ok, now that I already explained the reason behind wizard fashion sense, back to enchanting.


    My combat coat is focused on taking a beating. It has kinetic energy dispersion,  elemental, slashing and piercing resisting enchanted in to it. Plus a small thermal enchantment inside to make sure I don¡¯t melt on hot days. While my scouting coat that I used on the mission is more focused on avoid detection and hiding my magic from sensitive creatures. In my experience is much better to avoid a fight, then to survive one.


    It takes me the better part of the morning, but I finish my work in time for lunch, after that I check the comms room again. Lis received my message and agreed to meet me for lunch. I think it¡¯s funny, how before the end of the world, whenever you had to deal with the Fae, you did a summoning, and if you did it right, they would quickly arrive by crossing in to our world near you. Now, you got send message and they need to move like everyone else..


    Lunch goes without a problem, and I manage to secure Pyralis assistance. It only costs me a debt she owned me for rescuing her from a fight with the blue men of Mynch, on our first fated excursion on Net town (the same one where I stopped her from burning a whole residential district).


    With everything basically set, I went for the base observatory. From there you can see most of the enclave. With the enclave shields active and being battered from the wild magic storm, the entire enclave was colored in dark blue and grey tones, with sparks of white whenever the shield was hit by the storm.


    The enclave, home for near 60 thousand souls, plus another 30 thousands or so Fae and other magical beings. It¡¯s located against a cliff side in in a small valley. This semi-hidden location makes up for the bulk of hour defences and protects us against the worst of the storms. The enclave itself looks like a semi-circle cut in three pieces there is the Winter Court to the left, Neutral town in the middle, being as big as the other two pieces together, and the Summer court to the right. Four meter tall walls circle the entire enclave, powerful enchantments powered by the power of the queens are engraved on these walls. They both raise our shields and help conceal us. The expeditionary forces headquarters is located on a high hill against the cliffside, positioned where would be center of the semi-circle. I appreciate the view for a while, my mind wandering about the years after the end. From wizard apprentice, to military adviser on magical matters for the commander, to envoy to the Fae, to winter knight, to hero, to villain back to hero and now even leading people to the outside. It sure have been a hell of time, and it doesn''t look like it¡¯s slowing down.

 Chapter 9

    Chapter 9


    ¡°Balla Sioc!¡± I shout while pointing behind as we run through the tunnel and a 8 cm thick wall of ice blocks the tunnel. As we keep running I hear crashes against the ice and frustrated blood curdling screams. Lis stops as we reach a crossroad on the tunnels, and I point to the left. As we start moving again, I gather my magic and focus on casting another spell ¡°ceo ceilt¡± I murmur and a white mist start covering the ground on the crossroad, the mist that doesn''t go higher than 30 cm should help erase all signs of our passage and make harder to track us magically.


    We keep running for a while, the corridor is well lit with glowing gemstones, so we have no difficulty to keep as fast we can carrying two unconscious bodies, I soon hear the sound of cracking ice and know that the little pests are once again pursuing us. We reach an intersection and as soon as we turn right I spot an open door. I ask Lis to stop and look inside in what seems to be a crafting hall of some kind. I motion for us to get inside and silently lock the door. Once inside I drop Hendrickson from my shoulder and grab a piece of chalk on my coat. I start drawing concealment and warding sigils on the door. Once I finish me and Lis, who had deposited Ward on a corner, quietly move some of the work tables in front of the door.


    The room is one of the biggest I¡¯ve seen on the burrow so far, probably 10 meters long and 5 meters large at least, and mercifully it¡¯s seiling is almost two meters tall, contrary to the corridors that were 1,5 meters tall at best, meaning I can stand my full height, and no longer have to run while crouching. Doing that while carrying a man as heavy as yourself on your back is a pain in the ass.


    I had already given up finding a way out, so we were either going to be found, and then the high ceiling will make a much better spot for a last stand, or we will remain hidden until sunrise.


    As I stand, in all my glory, 1,87 cm tall, dirty blonde hair halfway to my shoulders, the power of winter turning my blue eyes in to a darker hue and dressed for combat in a heavily enchanted coat and carrying a staff humming with magic you could almost believe that being chased by a horde of undead gnomes in a faery burrow was how I expected my day to go when I woke up.


    But it wasn¡¯t, seriously, what kind of crazy idiot you would need to be to expect something like that? My day actually started very well, thank you for asking. I was confident, I made my preparations and had a nice rest the night before. Things were looking good, I even remember thinking that maybe this stint with the guard would go well. Looking back, I think that is probably the moment I jinxed it.


    Pyralis was waiting for me at the base entrance gates. She was easy to spot, not that it¡¯s hard to spot her, like all sidhe nobility she is a head turner. Lis is 1,70 tall, has shoulder length red hair and bright orange eyes that somehow always seem to be cintilanting. She is wearing what I call her military outfit, the only one I¡¯ve seen her using while on the job. With pieces her brown and orange padded leather armor set under her dark green cloak. Even with all that gear, she still managed to turn heads and have hearts beating faster. I look at myself, and feel underdressed with just a t shirts, jeans, my combat coat and boots. I knew I should have gotten myself a fedora.


    We took the downhill path in to net town on our way to the guard precinct.


    The town streets were getting full with people by the time we reach the precinct. The guard precinct on the center of net town is also their headquarters. They also have three more outposts. One close to the limits of the town with each courts and one at the district 9 (as many like to call the special district).


    Net town is about six times the size of the old vatican city. Occupying about 20% of the enclave size, each court occupies another 10% and the rest is either wooded area for the Fae who can¡¯t live in towns or used for growing food and raising livestock.


    The town itself is a mix match of old modern buildings that either survived the end or were built with salvaged modern materials and medieval like buildings of stone and wood. Thankfully, we salvaged enough materials to instal a modern plumbing system. I think it was on the second year of the enclave that a team discovered a way that led in to a huge construction material warehouse, part of a big construction retailer distribution center. Until today, members of that team rarely have to pay for their drinks.


    Anyway back to the story, we arrived at the precinct at 8 am. The place was mostly empty, with 2 clerks and a few guardsman around. After introducing ourselves to the clerks we were asked to wait for a few minutes while they called the officers responsible for the case.


    After 20 minutes or so, two detectives comes from one of the officers only doors. ¡°Ah, if it isn¡¯t officers Mulder and Scully!¡± I say as I stand up to greet them. Both officers scowl as they recognize me. Why so many people scowls when they see me? I wonder if there is anything wrong with me. It can¡¯t be, I¡¯m such a nice guy.


    ¡°Captain Dagworth, Sidhe.¡± Detective Mulder greets us. ¡°Will you come with us to discuss the case¡±. He says as he turns back to the door they without waiting to see if we would follow him. Well, at least, I¡¯m not the only one they dislike, Pyralis is also on the guad shitlist, well she did came close to burning part of the town, So it¡¯s understable, unlike my case.


    I felt tempted to stay still just for the principle of it, but decided to be the grow up in the room. See? Nice guy. Detectives Adam Hendrickson and Natasha West were the Guard detectives that handled most of the cases involving the special district or involving magical creatures. Reason why they got nicknamed Mulder and Scully. I bet you all just thought that it was me who gave them the nickname, shame on you.


    Lis and I follow them inside the precinct, we walk through a bunch of corridor and offices until we reach a door marked as special investigations. The room has two desks and a table for meetings. The table has an open map of the enclave and another one of net town in a bigger scale. There is a big circle around the special district, and at least 9 pins in different spots in the district.


    The detectives point for us to sit down. Once we are all settled I break the silence. ¡°Detectives, you have already met Pyralis of the Salamanders before. She is here as a favor for me and will assist us in the investigation to the best her knowledge. So you don¡¯t have to worry about owning her anything for her help as long as it¡¯s related to this case. So I would thank you if you would drop all this passive hostility bullshit. The forces aren¡¯t the courts to try gain leverage on the guard.¡±


    Both detectives demeanor change from strongly guarded to just moderate so as they understand what I¡¯m saying. Unfortunately, Fae courts power play does infest everything on the enclave.


    ¡°Thanks Captain.¡± Detective West says before continuing. ¡°Let¡¯s cut the chase, we have a missing persons case going on district 9, and as you are aware, we have trouble getting the locals to help us.¡± She then points to one of the pins. ¡°That is the first disappearance, a human, touched, that worked on the district as a courier disappeared during a delivery, the package was found on one of the main streets close to an alley entrance. So we discarded robbery for the cargo. That was 12 days ago.¡±


    ¡°We initially thought that it could be related to the victim work, maybe he stole from a customer or managed to piss some of the residents¡± She then points to another pin ¡°then we got the second disappearance, a regular human who lived outside of the district. He worked as a carpenter for the city, but has no relatives and his few friends have no idea what he was doing there. That was 9 days ago¡± She stops for a few seconds to gather her thoughts and then continues. ¡°We initially thought the cases weren¡¯t related until the third disappearance a girl who worked as a server on the Hole.¡±


    ¡°You mean The Watering Hole? Your talking about Cherrie?¡± The Watering Hole is a well known bar on the district, it¡¯s frequented by all kinds of magical citizens and has a reputation of neutral ground where different parties can make deals and settle disagreements. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    It¡¯s also my favorite place on the district. I¡¯ve been a customer since it opened early on the enclave creation. Cherrie served tables there for years, she is a nymph and a wyld fae. If there are any fae you can call benevolent, that is Cherrie.


    ¡°Not her, a new girl. Cherrie half-sister, from what I understand. That was 7 days ago.¡± Detective Hendrickson answers me. Fuck, Cherrie¡¯s father is a Gwyn ap Nudd, a powerful wyld fae King and was one of the leader of the wild hunt before the crash of the fae realm. And he is also one of the most important Fae living outside the courts.


    ¡°The girl is changeling¡± Hendrickson continues. That means a half-fae. Born of a mortal and a Fae. ¡°As you can imagine, any cooperation we were getting from the residents vanished after that. Gwyn put his own people to try find her and punish whoever is responsible.¡± ¡°As we were trying to get things done and Gwyn to back down the fourth and fifth case happened.¡± He points to another pin.¡± Two dwarves who owned a brewery disappeared from their house. That was 6 days ago¡±


    ¡°It was the first time that more than one victim was taken.¡± He continues. ¡°After that things started getting out of control, we had 5 more cases, with people gone missing every night, both individuals and groups. A total of 17 persons are considered missing.¡±


    Ok, that''s fucked up. My day just went from what I hoped was going to be talking around with the fae and other creatures on the district to help assure their cooperation too crisis control. Because there is no way this is anything else.


    ¡°And can you tell me why this mess hasn¡¯t been reported for the us or the D.F earlier?¡± I ask in a serious tone. Both detectives look at each other face and when West nod Hendrickson start giving me an answer.


    ¡°The true is that we didn¡¯t know things were so bad until the day before yesterday. After Gwyn started on his war path the guard is not welcomed there, only we are entering the district, and always with a 7 man squad at least.¡± Ouch. ¡°We didn¡¯t want to involve anybody because we can barely do our jobs with all the interference, and any help big enough to get Gwyn ap Nudd to back down wouldn¡¯t come without a big price. So before we knew how bad it was, we hoped that Gwyn would solve it on his own.


    Fuck court politics, that''s why I like to venture outside, the undead and other monster at least are pretty straightforward on what they want from me. I take a deep breath and focus my mind back on the case.


    ¡°Ok, you are the detectives, what you need from us? Any other information we should know?¡± I ask of them.


    ¡°We don¡¯t have much more, beside that one of our informants managed to pin the places of the attacks we are unaware off. And victims are both magical and regular. Looking at the map you can see most of the attacks are on the northern side of the district, close to the city town walls to the farm lands¡±. The farm lands are all the enclave territory that are inside the outer walls but outside the city and courts walls. ¡°With two exceptions, these two cases here, he points to two pins located more to the center of the district.¡±


    ¡°And your theories?¡± I ask of them. ¡°We think something is coming from outside the city walls, but we don¡¯t know how or what could kidnap both mortals and Fae alike¡±. West states. ¡°Pyralis, any ideas?¡± I ask. ¡°Many, but the only helpful one is that we need to talk to the Lord of the Tylwyth Teg.¡± Damm, she is right, time to go see Gwyn ap Nudd.


    The detectives wanted to bring a guard escort for us, but I shot the idea down. Gwyn was more likely to see us and cooperate if we doesn''t show up with a demonstration of force. We left the precinct and took a guard carriage to the limits of the special district.


    The detectives were using the guard coat over regular clothes. Hendrickson was as tall as I am at least, somewhere between 1,85 to 1,90 meters. He has a rough face and keep his face shaved and his blond hair in a military cut. West has a petite build, she is not over 1,6 meters tall, has brown eyes and hair, witch she keeps long enough to use a ponytail. As far as I know they both were police before the end. I never asked, but I estimate they are on their late thirties.


    They were both carrying only the guard standard combat rod. Unfortunately no guns allowed outside of the Expeditionary and Defence Forces. The true is, there is thousands of ways a magic user can hex a gun, they can cause sparks to ignite the powder inside the bullets, they can the gun in a myriad of ways, they can obstruct the barrel and etc.. There is so many options and so low cost on magic that it¡¯s very hard and time expensive to try enchant a weapon to be resistant to magic. That is true with technology in general, the more parts and the more advanced the item, the easier it is to make it fail.


    But also because the Sidhe don¡¯t like the idea of mortals walking with weapons that can rain a death of cold iron in to them.


    The carriage takes no longer than 15 minutes to drop us at the entrance of the district. It¡¯s located on the north east part of the enclave, you can tell the street where it starts because of the sudden change on the architecture. Most residue of modern architecture vanishes and while most of the town is packed with as much buildings as we can use, the special has much more green area, with some states consisting only of grove of trees, or mounds of earth with doors. There are also buildings that look like small castles or mead halls. You can feel the magic humming in the air from the multiple wards surrounding most buildings.


    The district is basically a quarter of a circle with the round part facing the walls. It¡¯s cut by two main streets one horizontally and one vertically and a lot of minor ones making a small maze inside.


    We arrive from the west and stop at entrance of the main horizontal road. The district looked empty, not deserted, but few souls walking around. At intersection where the district starts there is a group of fae wearing military like uniforms with red gloves. ¡°Ly Erg¡± Hendrickson says. ¡°Some of Gwyn enforcers¡±. As we walk past the group, they stare at us, but do nothing for now. Once we get inside the district, we follow the main road until it intersect with the other one and take the way north, deeper in to the district. Soon we pass a group of wyld sidhe also in the color of Gwyn. As we pass them they start to follow us. Hendrickson points them to me in case I haven¡¯t noticed. ¡°Ignore them, they won¡¯t do anything for now.¡± I answer him. We walk for another 5 minutes getting closer to the wall, then we turn right on a small trail between a grove of oaks and a big mound. From inside the grove I can see dryads staring at us. The small windows and doors on the mound are closed.


    As we come close to another intersection a group of Fae blocks our way. Three more


    Ly Ergs comes from one side, from the other there is two green humanoid figures no taller then one and a half meters but very sturdy they have pointy ears and fangs coming out of the corner of their mouths. They are wearing leather armor and carrying wicked looking scimitars. Walking in the middle there is one figure that can only be described as a Tylwyth Teg nobility. She looks like almost like a tolkien elf, with fair long blond hair, green eyes, pointy ears and a serene face. She wears a green and grey robe and walks barefoot.


    I make a gesture for everyone to stop. ¡°Let me handle this¡± I whisper. ¡°Lady Creiddylad¡± I greet the sidhe and bow my head. ¡°Wizard Dagworth¡± she answers me. ¡°Your kind is not welcome at this parts at the moment.¡± She says coldly. The sidhe who were following us creeps closer.


    ¡°My fair lady, what do you mean about my kind? Your talking about the wizard part, the human part, the soldier part or as an emissary of winter part?¡±


    ¡°Your part as keeper of the human laws wizard, we have made clear for the constabulary that they should stay away¡±.


    ¡°But my lady, who made clear? The sidhe? Have the Queens spoken, ordering them to stay away?


    ¡°My husband, Lord of the Tylwyth Teg has said so.¡± She answers in a much more colder tone then before. She clearly didn¡¯t liked me using the queens name here.


    ¡°Well my lady, the district streets are open to all by decree of Mab and Titania, if my lord Gwyn ap Nudd desires to change that he will need to convince the Queens.¡±


    ¡°We are not subjects of Winter or Summer wizard. The Queens don¡¯t command us¡±. If her was cold before, it was pure ice now. And that was a nice play of words from her, but I was ready for it.


    ¡°Indeed my lady, but have you forgotten that your husband as accept the authority of the Queens on matter os the enclave ruling? Are you saying that he is breaking his word to them?


    I ask even knowing she doesn''t. If you analyze her previous words, she didn¡¯t lie, the Tylwyth Teg aren¡¯t direct subjected to any of the Courts, and so don¡¯t directly take commands from the Queens, but when all the powerful Sidhe got together to save what they could and later build the Enclave, all Wyld Fae lords accepted the Queens ruling when both courts ruled together on a subject. This is one kind of the word play you need to be careful around the Fae, without telling any lies or implicating herself she managed to imply that the queens no longer ruled here and that any protection we get from them wouldn¡¯t keep us safe here. Together with all the thugs she brought with her the message was clear, if you don¡¯t leave you will regret. A less experienced person would think they are in danger, either retreating or making a move first, freeing the Sidhe to react.


    ¡°My husband keep all his promises Wizard, contrary to your barbarian kind¡±. Ha, I did struck a nerve. Better to press on while I have her on the ropes.


    ¡°Lady Creiddylad, I am here as a representative of the Expeditionary Forces to the Guard, whose institutions carry the will of both courts when in pursuit of their duties as set on the Foundation Chart. I bring with me two high members of the guard and Pyralis, princess of the Salamanders of the Summer Court. We are on official business of the Guard. We are on our way to speak with Gwyn ap Nudd, move or be known as oathbreaker and face the consequences.¡±

 Chapter 10

    As we kept moving through the streets of the magical district, Gwyn ap Nudd dwelling finally came in to view. In the end Lady Creiddylad did let us pass. There was a tense moment after my ultimatum, with Nudd¡¯s enforcers hands going for weapons and all. But I knew that it was mostly bravado. While I could have been more polite about it, we were within our rights and hell would freeze over before Lady Creiddylad would break her husband word, she was Sidhe after all.


    As I explained, all she did was to give us the impressions that there would be blood if we continue. It was all your not welcomed here not your forbidden to be here, a show of strength but no direct threat of attack if we don¡¯t leave.


    Still, I won¡¯t lie I wasn¡¯t a little nervous. It¡¯s like a somewhat narrow overtaking on the road. You did it lots of times, your experience tells you there is plenty of time to finish and return to your lane before the incoming truck reaches you, but ur adrenaline still spikes and and you still let go of the breath you were holding when your back in to your lane.


    The sidhe lord home was right against the wall, as was the home of all the powerful Wyld fae. It occupied at least 4 blocks, two of them being wooded area the rest there was a small keep with gardens.


    As we approached the gates we were met by two sentinels, one was an old looking man, clearly a mage of some kind as he was wearing a robe and carrying a staff. The other was a sidhe woman wearing tight leather armor and carrying a longbow. The opened the gates for us and our escort without a word as if we were expected.


    As we crossed the gates I could feel the fae magic pervading the air. Both the detectives stopped cold as the enchantment on their cloaks let them know of the magic. ¡°It¡¯s ok¡±. I let them know. ¡°It¡¯s only ambient magic, any powerful fae dewling is full with it.¡±


    Our escorts motion for us to keep moving, still without a word, they weren¡¯t really pleased with the way I treated their lady. Well, not that I care. And it¡¯s her fault for trying to play me like any other mortal.


    It takes us about 5 minutes walking to pass through the wooded area, the woods being much bigger then when looking from the outside. Probably extended by magic. Halfway through the wooded area our escort started to get bigger. Forest Nymphs, dryads and pixies joined us following us from outside the trail. A pack of great fae hounds left the woods behind us and started following our trail. As we reach the small plaza in front of the keep doors we were greeted by what I suppose was the entire host of the Tylwyth Teg.


    A few hundred of Fae were gathered there. Nymphs, dryads, pixies, goblins, hounds, even a couple of troll hiding on the shadows. But mostly the Sidhe, the fair folk.No beautiful dresses for the woman or dazzling outfits for the man today. Leather armor and mithril chains were the norm together with longbows, spears and swords. War horses standing by the side. The Tylwyth Teg were dressed for battle.


    And on a throne placed in front of the keep doors with his wife standing by his side sat Gwyn ap Nudd. Even sitting you could see he was tall, he had raven black long hair, his face painted black accentuated the silver of his eyes. Wearing a black coat over a set of mithril chain with a longsword resting on his lap and the air around him thrumming with magic, he was a sight to behold.


    ¡°Tell me, what brings the lap dog of the Queen of Air and Darkness, the one blessed by the spirits of fire and two mortals to my dwelling.¡± He asked us without lifting his head from the longsword on his lap. His voice melodic but cold. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Greetings Gwyn ap Nudd, lord of the Tylwyth Teg, master of the Wild Hunt and guide of fallen warriors.¡± I answer him. ¡°I thank you for receiving us, and pledge to act as a guest invited in to your home.¡± The Laws of Hospitality are a big thing on the magical world, especially among the Sidhe and the Fae in general. It¡¯s basically a code of conduct that most magical beings follow to avoid conflict when meeting. When you leave for as long as most of those beings live, it¡¯s good to be polite.


    The the most base principles of the law are that during your stay you won¡¯t cause any problems for your host and will not discuss anything you hear here outside if asked not to. And in return the host will keep you safe and be polite while you are his guest. There are thousand of small nuances that can change how this works, but that is the gist of it. Like oaths, breaking the laws is bad for any mage.


    I hoped that by offering to act as a guest without being offered an invitation, basically binding myself to follow the laws without Gwyn to be obligated to act as host, I could demonstrate good faith with the Sidhe lord and cut the chase.


    Murmurs from the gathered fae was the only sound while Gwyn judged my words and their meaning. The silence extended for half a minute until Gwyn spoke again. ¡°Very well wizard, I accept your pledge, tell me what brings you here?¡± From lap dog to wizard, that''s an improvement.


    ¡°My lord, I¡¯m here on business of the guard, who is searching for someone whos kidnapping people from the enclave. It¡¯s our understanding that you search for them as well, and it seems that both of efforts are hindering each other. I wish for us to discuss the problem and maybe pool our efforts to unravel the identity of the perpetrator and punish him.¡±


    ¡°What you mean Wizard, is that your Guard can¡¯t find the murderer of my daughter and hopes to use me and mine to help, and them deny me my revenge when the time to deal with this creature.¡± His voice never loses it¡¯s melodic tone, but I can feel the magic warping in response to the cold rage hidden on his tone. Still, we already learned that his daughter is dead not missing and discarded a mortal as the perpetrator.


    ¡°Now my lord, I hear your pain. But don¡¯t lay blame on me and mine when it¡¯s your to bear. Have you and yours not worked to keep the Guard away? Just today on my way here, your wife made clear the guard isn¡¯t welcome here.¡± There is a collective inbreath of most of the present.


    ¡°You speak true Wizard, on my grief I wanted justice faster than your mortal institution delivers. Still, my daughter is dead, she was the only thing I had left of her mother and I will have my revenge¡±. You might be thinking, hey guy, your mourning the loss of your mistress with your wife standing by your side? Well, that is because your making the mistake of thinking the Sidhe human. They look humanoid, and we can relate to them in many things, but they aren¡¯t human, assuming they will always act as we do is a mistake that many people lost their lives to. From all the Fae care about oaths, debts, honor and etc, infidelity is the only sin they don¡¯t mind, true is that are many stories of mortals marrying the Sidhe until their deaths when then the spouse returns to his immortal mate.


    ¡°My lord, if the missing persons are dead as you imply, promise you that after the guard gets anything they want from him, you can have him, if you help us catch him.¡± Gwyn nods, and the crowd murmurs approval, but detective West pull my shoulders and I turnt o her. ¡°What the fuck Dagworth, you can¡¯t promise that, citizens cannot deal justice, it¡¯s pure vigilantism¡±. She angrily whispers to me. ¡°Look detective, whoever is doing this is already likely to dance in the gallows for the abductions, and if the victims are really dead, the penalty is a given. But I don¡¯t think we will find him without Gwyn help. We surely won¡¯t with him interfering. Sometimes it¡¯s not about the justice you want, but about the one you can get.¡± I wait a few seconds for her to nod and continue. ¡°And to make sure you really understand, the thing with the lady on the way was a show of strength, this here" I point to the crowd" is a statement, Gwyn is calling a hunt to find whoever is guilty. He might not be strong enough to summon the Wild Hunt, but if all the Tylwyth Teg ride out, they will find and kill their prey, together with a lot of innocent bystanders. And we don¡¯t..¡± Fuck! I stop mid sentence, because as I explained how the fae roll to the detective I realized I¡¯ve been played.

 Chapter 11

    Chapter 11


    ¡°Very well Wizard, I accept your offer. We will hunt together to find and punish the responsible for my daughters death. We shall not stop until our prey is caught. Thrice said and done Artharian Dagworth, Knight of Winter.¡±


    As I turn from the detective to him I feel the fae magic binding me to the promise. Bastard got me with my pants down, I¡¯ve been avoiding the courts for so long that I¡¯m getting slow on the games the Sidhe plays. Tricked by the human emotions the Lord of  Tylwyth Teg has shown me I forgot he is not human.


    Gwyn ap Nudd, don¡¯t want to unleash a full hunt, it would get him in too much trouble with the other wyld fae powers and the courts, he would have to call favors or enter new debts to to avoid reprimands by the other Sidhe and the city council. But he does need to punish the responsible for the death of his daughter. So he just played me to agree to work for him.


    Now, this is not the end of the world, after all we did come here to get his cooperation, and I think he always intended to do so. But by presenting myself as acting part of the guard on this case I made it my responsibility to solve it. And if I fail to do so would look bad on my patron, Mab, and she would act to avoid being shamed by her underling failure. So Gwyn basically guaranteed that the criminal will be caught, either if I succeed or not. The only person screwed up on this was me, because if I did fail and Mab got involved, she wouldn¡¯t be happy with me. Son of a bitch.


    True is, she doesn''t need to get involved, but appearances matter to the sidhe. If I fail my vow to Gwyn, she either keeps me as knight anyways, and have all her enemies point that winter has a failure as one of it¡¯s  knights, she cut ties to me and discard me (I don¡¯t think I¡¯d survive that), or she fix the situation. I know, this whole debt and obligation on vassals and suseran is very confusing for me as well. But I wanted to make clear that it¡¯s not really a suseran obligation to fix all the vassal mistakes, I don¡¯t want anyone pleading to the sidhe thinking they are obliged to fix their problems..


    ¡°My lord is cunning and wise¡± I tell Gwyn through my teeth as I bow to him to concede a point. ¡°Now tell us what do you know of our prey¡±.


    ¡°Not so fast knight of winter, with business out of the way you all are my guests now, I won¡¯t have people say bad things about the Tylwyth Teg hospitality. Come have a meal with me, food and drinks given freely and willing.¡±


    Now that you got what you want, you play nice, asshole. Yeah, I¡¯m feeling a little bitter here, isn¡¯t like he screwed me sideways, but I really hate being tricked by the sidhe.  And yes, I¡¯m aware I¡¯m a sore loser.


    ¡°Thank you my lord, but considering that the criminal is still at large, shouldn¡¯t we focus on catching him before he strikes again?¡± I try to wiggle out of spending more time here then necessary.


    ¡°No sense Wizard, they will not act until darkness fall. Now let''s eat and then talk¡± He says as he gets up from his throne, hands his longsword to his wife and motion for us to follow him inside.


    As we follow the sidhe lord inside his hall I¡¯m starting to have a bad feeling about this. What does he means they won¡¯t act until darkness fall?


    We are led in to a great hall with tables set and enough food and drinks of all kinds and taste for a battalion. ¡°You can eat without fear, but don¡¯t accept or give any gift to the sidhe and be polite¡±. I tell the detectives, they probably already know it, but better safe than sorry.


    At least the food is damn good. And the music and entertainment as well. The sidhe do know how to live the life. After we are well fed and rejected some offers of fun by a number of sidhe ladies and boys, we are taken to a back room where the lord and lady are waiting for us.


    ¡°Your hospitality is as incredible as the stories tell my lord.¡± I tell Gwyn once we are all seated. ¡°But my mind is weighted with the case and I ask you again to tell us everything you know about our prey.¡±


    ¡°Very well Wizard, but first, I wonder if your companions have anything against me, they haven¡¯t spoken once unless to answer questions.¡± He tell us, while looking to the detectives and Pyralis.


    ¡°I¡¯m here to help guard the wizard on his mission, my lord, anything that doesn''t threaten him is not my concern at the moment.¡± Lis answer managing to make even her melodical voice sounds bored. Thanks, Lis, good to know you care..


    ¡°Very well.¡± He answers and turns to the detectives. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    ¡°My lord¡± Hendrickson answers ¡°Wizard Dagworth is our expert on this case, we didn¡¯t want to talk out of turn and intrude on his job.¡± Good, be neutral and put all the pressure on me. Thanks detective. Good to know you also care. But seriously, I did demand that they led me deal with Gwyn entirely before we even left the precinct.


    ¡°Wise¡±. Gwyn answer him.


    ¡°So, let''s talk about our prey.¡± He states.


    So, here is what we learned from Gwyn ap Nudd in three short words. We are screwed. Well mostly me, but I¡¯m being dramatic. And yes, I¡¯m also aware I¡¯m have a touch for it.


    First Gwyn explained to me his remark about darkness, all abductions happened during the night. One thing the detectives either didn¡¯t know, or forgot to share with me. And the moment I learned this I started doing some math.


    The second thing we learned were the exact number of victims and the exact dates. I quickly added it into the math I was doing in my head.


    The third thing we learned helped us confirm that whoever is doing it, is coming outside the city walls. As Gwyn had managed to confirm that the two cases that happened further from the wall were copycats trying to blame their crimes on the wave of missing people.


    That¡¯s when I finished my calculations and realized what we were dealing with. Somehow a junkie had gotten through the outer walls and shields, and now we are dealing with an infestation.


    Not only I have to deal with them when on missions, but now we also have vampires inside the enclave. I was sure of it. The events happening during night time only was one give away, but the timing from when the abductions went from single abductions to multiple matches the time it took for the first victim to turn, and then it kept escalating as more victims turned. If nothing was done, the number of attacks will keep increasing.


    Ok time for vampire lore 101.


    Vampires are mortals possessed by a spirit. I have no idea what is their origin and how the first possession came to be.The possessing spirit is like a parasite and a symbiotic at the same time. It gives increased physical abilities to the mortal, like extra strength, speed and reflexes. Also great regeneration powers that in tandem with allowing the vampire to recover from almost any wound it gives them their immortality, as their cells regenerate perfectly, no longer aging. But the spirit eats the life force of the host. The more the host uses the power of the spirit the more life force it consumes. For that reason vampires feed of other creatures. The blood drinking is not really necessary, just that it¡¯s the most effective way for the vampire to create a link to it¡¯s victim and drain their life force.


    If a vampire goes without drinking life force for too long, the spirit consumes all the host life force and the body dies. When that happens only the hunger of the spirit is left and the vampire will search and attack the closest source of life energy. Once it¡¯s fed and the life force returns the host wakes up from their death and their body is fully working again. This process makes the vampires creatures that can be both undead or alive. While alive a vampire can do everything a regular person can, including eating, it actually  helps them maintain their life force, reducing the need to feed on others.


    Also, a vampire can during the act of feeding,  infect a victim with it¡¯s curse, and in time the infection will grow and the victim will turn into a vampire as well.


    Now  before the end vampirism wasn¡¯t a big problem, outside of the sun, that for some reason unknown to me, burns them in to ashes, it was pretty easy to live as vampire. The amount of life force they needed to drink wasn¡¯t that big, and all that ecstasy during feeding is just teenage romance bullshit. So they could easily feed from a person without harming them, and their magical affinity due to the spirit possession allowed them the abilities to do it without even the victim being aware. Sure, some crazy people who became a vampire would go in a power trip, but there was enough checks on the magical community to avoid it becoming a big problem.


    Now, want to hear one more cool story of how the world ended? No? Too bad.


    When everything was going down, before magic went completely haywire, in a lot of places the highest danger were the zombies hordes.  And many people managed to create relatives seas of safety with high walls and other physical obstruction that your regular undead couldn¡¯t cross.


    But then came the vampires. By the end of the world, there was a big community of vampires around the world, but with the exploding population of humanity, there was never a lack of food for them. That until the zombies. No regular zombies (and they were basically the only kind before magic went to hell) could ever hope of killing a vampire, no horde could pin one down. So while regular people died left and right to them, the vampires survived. That at least until they run out life force. Then they went crazy and somewhere along the road they started to prey on the dead.


    Now, the undead virus and the spirit didn¡¯t match very well. All vampires who fed on the zombies went crazy. Whatever they get from the dead can maintain them on their undead stage, but doesn''t seem to satiate their hunger. And the virus kills the host, once and for all, so even if an infected vampire were to feed on regular life energy, it would not return to life, continuing its existence as undead creature who only wants to feed. They no longer have the control of not killing their victims and always infect them, as if the spirit possessing them is trying to escape it¡¯s new wretched existence.


    This new kind of vampire, we call junkies, because once they try undead blood, they are nothing more then junkies. And there were no walls that can stop a junkie, and so almost if not all the surviving compounds fell to them. With their numbers doubling or more every 3 days or so, any compound that didn¡¯t have a mage to identify what was happening early on, or a magical patron like the Sidhe fell to the junkies and increased their numbers.


    They grew to such numbers that they became a danger even for magically warded places. Most of them were wiped when the realms started crashing into ours, or fell victims to the battle of the big powers, but there are still many out there surviving from drinking the blood of the undead. And now it seems one of them found its way inside the the enclave.


    Time to find their nest and sharp our wooden stakes.

 Chapter 12 - Sniffing out the undead

    Chapter 12 - Sniffing out the undead.


    Aside of the information we got from Gwyn ap Nudd we also got a promise of help to raid the vampire nest once we found it. It was past noon when we left the sidhe lord dwelling, in other words, we had little more then 6 hours until dark. And unless we could find the junkies nest before that, they would strike again. They can¡¯t resist their hunger.


    ¡°We should inform the higher ups.¡± Detective West said as we walked the streets of the magical district. Indeed, if we failed to find the nest before nightfall, we will have to meet the vampires at the streets.


    ¡°Your right detective.¡± I answer her. ¡°But the guard can¡¯t handle this, and your usual channels for backup won¡¯t be fast enough and with magic being short due to the storm they won¡¯t want to deploy the big guns.¡±


    ¡°What about you captain, you are friends with the Sidhe, can¡¯t you request help?¡± I can¡¯t help but snort at Hendrickson question. Friend with the sidhe? Detective, I got a bridge to sell you, it even comes troll free.


    ¡°Pyralis, what you think of the situation so far? Any ideas who we could ask for help?¡± I ask the only Sidhe in presence. ¡°Are you asking for my help solving the case Wizard? That is outside our agreement.¡± ¡°Come on Lis, this fall inside your duty to the forces.¡± I answer her. ¡°Ah Wizard, but it doesn''t. You are the appointed representative to the guard, I¡¯m here as a personal favor to you, bought and paid, to how do you said, guard your back? To offer such insight on how to solve this problem is not part of the deal. This kind of information cannot be given for free.¡±


    I turn to Hendrickson ¡°See detective? She is the actually the sidhe I trust the most, and she still try to fleece me for favors anytime she smells blood on the water, there is no friends with the sidhe.¡±


    ¡°So what do we do captain?¡± Good question, if it wasn¡¯t for this damn storm, there would be enough free resources to deploy a battalion of sidhe guard and knights to protect the district against the junkies, but as it is, no court noble would risk their military for the citizens of net town, without powerful magic backing them up. They are more likely to weather one more night of deaths and deploy bigger resources to safely search for the nest the next day.


    An idea hits me as we walk towards the intersection of the two main roads of the district, where our transport is located. ¡°Here is what we are going to do detectives¡±.


    After the detectives left the district Pyralis and I started digging for the nest location. The enclave territory not covered by the town or the courts was big enough that we couldn¡¯t hope to search it before nightfall, not to mention that there are lot of places in it where space is bent, making it even bigger. Even limiting the search to the spots closer to the wall would be hard. And trying to track the vampires by their magical signature is not an option on the magical district, too much ambient magic to get a good reading, maybe a master diviner could, but no way I had enough time to get one here.


    But if I could find the trace outside the walls we could follow it to their lairs. With that thought in mind Pyralis and wasted almost two hours covering the entire district wall length from outside. With zero results.


    ¡°Ok Lis, I don¡¯t want you to answer me if you feel it¡¯s not you duty, you bloodsoaking leach, but at least be a good soundboard and let me talk through this problem out loud.¡± I tell Lis as we cross the gates back in to the town.


    ¡°The junkies must be coming from outside the inner walls, if not Gwyn or one of the power that be on the district would have found their nest.¡± As expected silence is my only answer.


    ¡°But we just scourged the land outside the wall we found no trace of undead magic or any breach on the wall.¡± The other reason I wanted to search the wall was because if we found how they are entering we could hold it as a choke point if we fail to find the nest.


    ¡°That means they are entering another way. While a elder vampire could have known enough magic to trick the wall enchantments and slip in, there is no way a bunch of junkies could have done so.¡± The most scary thing about vampire is that if a mage was turned in to one, there is a small chance they would keep their magic affinity, and a practitioner with limited time to perfect their craft is always a scary thing. ¡°So either they are getting help from someone, or they are using an already open passage.¡±


    Again I¡¯m met with silence, but this time light sparked in my brain while it made the right connections. Time to go drinking.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    The detectives met us at the Watering Hole. Me and Lis were sitting in a private booth. So how it went?¡± I ask them as soon as they sit. Detective West scowls at me as she notices the glass of whisky I¡¯ve been nurturing. ¡°We have less than 3 hours until sundown and you are drinking wizard?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be a pain detective, it¡¯s just some liquid courage.¡± And as I mentioned before, my slightly improved constitution can handle a few shots. ¡°Again, how it went?¡± ¡°She wasn¡¯t happy with it, but Commander Nakamura agrees with you. She will deploy as many squads as she can.¡± Sweet revenge, didn¡¯t the commander said that with the storm all force operations not using the gates were suspended? That mean that should be a lot of idle squads. Plus the commander, like me, is plagued with a good conscience. So I decided to ask her for help. And it serves her right for appointing me to this mess in the first place.


    With my inner child happy about setting the score with the commander, time to do what we come here for. I mention to one of the serving girls, not Cherry, according to the owner, she hasn¡¯t been to work since her sister death. I give her a paper and ask her to give it to another table. Soon after she departed I see a humanoid figure coming our way. On the short side, he looks human in general, but his face is thinner and angular. His shoulder length black hair have feathers intertwined in it. He is wearing a black cape also decorated with feathers.


    ¡°So wizard, a little bird just told me you have need of me.¡± He says as he pull a sit on our table. He laugh at his own joke, the sounds of it distorted with chirping sounds.


    Cirrus Birdwink is a Hyther. A shapeshifter who takes the form of birds. They are annoying fae who liked to pester human with their singing, lonely ones would try to get travelers to get lost on forest and in groups they would work to scary people from places with their sounds.


    ¡°I do Cirrus.¡± I answer him. ¡°Tell me, who is the go to person on the district if someone is looking to buy goods from the outside without going through the city customs?¡± Another thing that Hythers are good at is collecting information, as birds they see and hear much more than people think and can usually eavesdrop on a lot of conversations.


    ¡°I¡¯m offended Wizard, no hospitality or even barter. Just straight to the point?¡± He tells me with but his voice carries playful tone. I don¡¯t answer him beside keep staring at him. ¡°Fine, I might know who you are looking for, but information like this is not free Wizard.¡± I take two gold coins I had separated earlier today and place them on the table. Cirrus eyes twinkle at the sight of the gold. Another trait of hythers is that like many birds they love shiny things. But unlike birds, they focus more on things that actually have value, like gold or silver.


    ¡°If you are looking for ¡°imports¡± Whundal is your man, or dwarf actually.¡± He says and quickly tries to palm the coins. I quickly cover them with my hands. ¡°I gave you the name wizard¡±. He complains to me. ¡°Well Cirrus, I never said the coins were payment for the name, I just placed them on the table¡±. I answer with angelic smile on my face. Cirrus eyes widen when he understand he has been had and he starts cursing in a tongue I don¡¯t know, full of chirps. ¡°But I¡¯m not an asshole, after all information was given.¡¯ I say and pass him one coin. ¡°Now, who is Whundal and where can I find him? For the second coin.¡± I tell him.


    He sulks for a few seconds but then answers me. ¡°Whundal is a duergar, he smuggles things from outside the inner walls for a better price and in more quantity then you can get in the city customs. He lives in a building a block from the wall. But me and mine haven¡¯t seen him for some days now.¡± Bingo! I think to myself.


    ¡°Thank you Cirrus.¡± I tell the hyther as I throw him the other coin. ¡°Time to pay Whundal a visit.¡± I tell everyone as I get up.


    Whundal house was a one store block of stone with no windows and a single reinforced door. We are standing at the door that remain unanswered after we knocked for a few minutes. I study the building with my sight, the sight is like a detect magic spell, it helps you see spells auras and enchantments. If you are strong enough or with good talent on divination it gives you more information and even can help you see through charms and ilusion.


    Like all buildings on the district there are a few wards on the house, but it seems they are all alarm ones instead of for protection. With time running I get tired of waiting. ¡°Detectives, we are going in.¡± I tell them as I start sending my magic to inspect the door lock mechanism. ¡°We don¡¯t have a warrant Wizard.¡± West says and put an her hands in my shoulder. ¡°Look detective, we don¡¯t have time for a warrant, and we have enough information to believe that whatever way the druegar uses to bring his goods inside is how the junkies are getting inside.¡± I tell her. ¡°Look, if we are wrong, we tell them we had probable cause or that we heard someone screaming inside just like on the old movies ok?¡± She scowls at me but releases my shoulder.


    I start scanning the door again, and to my surprise I find that it¡¯s actually not locked, just heavy as fuck. ¡°It¡¯s open anyway. I¡¯ll go first, then  you two and Liz brings the rear.¡± They nod to me and I force the door open.


    The inside was a big open room, with shelves and a counter. From the information we had Whandul kept a small store of ores and tools as a front for his smuggling business. Many of the shelves were turned and the goods scattered on the ground. I can smell dried blood on the air. With a signal from me both detectives draw short swords they acquired when they went seek the commander help.


    There is four ways of killing a vampire, sunlight is one, then you either damage it until it runs out of life force and can¡¯t regenerate anymore, you cut it¡¯s head off, or destroy it¡¯s heart, that is where the spirit resides on the body. And now, you don¡¯t need to do it with a wooden stake, this legends probably started because back in the middle age a wooden stake was the best weapon the peasants and serfs could hope to have.


    I mention for Pyralis and Hendrickson to check one of the doors and move to check the other with West. The inside of the room is dark since no outside light from the open door reaches it, so I prepare a shield spell, cast a light inside go in. The room looks like a residential area, a small kitchen with a table and a bed and another door to a small bathroom. There is nothing here. I check it with my sight to be sure, but there isn¡¯t anything hidden as well.


    We move back to the main room in time to see Hendrickson signaling for us from the door to the other room. Pyralis is inside holding a small flame on her hand for illumination. The room is a storeroom with a lot of boxes around, and inside there is an open trapdoor. Dried blood scattered around it.


    I cast my own light in the room and move beside Lis at the trapdoor. Looking down I see a small ladder that leads into a dark tunnel. I check it with my sigh and sure enough I can see traces of necrotic magic in to it.


    With the passage the vampires are using found, it was time to make a decision, do we fall back and have the reinforcements guard the passage, or do we go in and try to kill them in the small time we had before sundown?

 Chapter 13 - Down the rabbit hole.

    Chapter 13 - Down the rabbit hole.


    ¡°We are going in.¡± I say and everybody nods. We had discussed this before, if there was enough daylight to raid the nest we needed to try. Now that we found the way in the vampires have been using, the district town should be safe. We had sent word to the guard and the commander about the smuggler house, so they will send someone here even if we don¡¯t report back. The real reason we had to try it is that while the junkies aren¡¯t able to rationalize anymore like intelligent creatures they are still cunning. And if they find too much resistance here they might try to feed somewhere else. Not the recently turned they will mindless look for the next fix, but those who fed recently might choose to so. Putting all the farming communities and the Fae who lived outside the city in danger.


    And if that was to happen they would spread in to the wild areas of the enclave making hunting them much more difficult. So we had to go down the hole. I keep the light spell on my staff going as we go down the ladder.


    The tunnel was small and the ceiling low, I had to keep my head low on it. Goddamn dwarves for being short. Why can¡¯t they be the tree loving ones and the elves the diggers? Would make human lifes so much easier when entering their tunnels..


    As all dwarven work the tunnel was well done. Lots wooden beams for support, the ground was even and it wasn¡¯t damp anywhere. Just no lights anywhere.. I guess they weren¡¯t necessary with dwarves having dark vision and all.. Very inconsiderate of other races these dwarves¡­ At least, the trail of dried blood on it proves we got the right runnel.


    Once everyone is down we start moving quickly, there is no time to lose. Single line is the only way to go. It did fit two people shoulder to shoulders but it would be too tight to react to anything. So single line it was, with me leading, then the detectives and Lis bringing the back.


    We walked for 5 minutes or so when I heard footsteps coming from ahead. I prepared my staff and willed the light spell from it to detach and pushed the ball  ball of light a few meters ahead of us. Soon the steps increased in tempo and a small dark figure, no higher than 1,5 meters, comes from behind a bent in a sprint toward us.


    ¡°seiceanna reoite¡± I quickly cast a spell I had prepared and feel my magic trying to lock the creature legs in a shackle of ice. But as soon as the spell hits the creature it seems to lose cohesion and burst as cold air only. Dammit dwarves, not only they aren¡¯t considerate enough to build tall tunnels, but they have high resistance to magic.


    The duergar closes the distance quickly and there is no time to try any other spell. So I brace myself for impact and when it lunges at me I use my staff and it¡¯s own moment to catch his lunge, turn it and threw him against the wall. It¡¯s strong as hell, and I am forced to summon a little of the power of winter to boost me in order to hold it in place. If it had any intelligence left it would have no problem in pushing against the wall with its legs to free itself, but right now all it was doing is snarling and doing his best to try to bite and scratch me, but his small limbs means I can keep it there safely.


    Hendrickson soon is at my side and buries the short sword in to the creature chest. But the dwarf don¡¯t stops trashing and tries to hold the blade with it¡¯s small hand. ¡°Go for the brains, it¡¯s ghoul not a vampire¡±. I say through my teeth as I struggle to keep it in place. At that moment the ghoul by luck or design managed to plant it¡¯s feet on the wall and push against me. I¡¯m forced a step back and the ghoul, no longer stuck between me and the wall falls face down on the ground. Hendrickson tackles it putting all his weight on it¡¯s back and West uses that opportunity to sink her blade on the side of it¡¯s head. The ghoul stops struggling.


    I ready myself for any other incoming danger, but nothing is on the way. West helps Hendrickson get up. ¡°What the fuck was that.¡± He asks as he gets up. ¡°That was a ghoul.¡± I answer. ¡°That explains everything.¡± He says sarcastically. ¡°Ghouls are magical creatures that succumb to the undead virus, most of my kind are immune to it, but there are some strains that mutated due to wild magic and can affect us.¡± Pyralis answers from the back. She did nothing to help, but I don¡¯t blame her. Her magic would have probably hurt us more than the ghoul at this close quarters.


    ¡°Ghouls usually maintain some traits from their original form, they are never slow like zombies but will attack any living things they can sense like zombies. Also having their own magic they rarely suffer mutations by wild magic.¡± I finish Lis explanations. For that same reason Vampires can¡¯t infect other magical beings, that''s why the duergar turned into a ghoul instead of a vampire. This fact escaped me earlier when planning the raid.. It means we will have less vampires and more ghouls to deal with. Damn, even if we find the nest in time instead of a bunch of sleeping or sluggish vampires we will have ghouls to deal with as well.


    We get moving again, we move for about 10 minutes in a pace as fast as we could with the low ceiling. By my calculations we are probably a few hundred meters outside the walls already when we reach the end of the tunnel and another ladder. The trap door over it is wide open. We stops and try to listen to anything, silence is all we get, I send my magic sense up there but find nothing as well. I cast a shield and go up the ladder.


    The trap door leads into what looks like a small cave. I can see two exits, one leads outside and the orange light of the sun setting comes from it. And the other it¡¯s a well craft door that is wide open. Claws marks and blood trails on it. Well at least is no mystery witch way to go.


    Once everyone is out of the tunnel, I call Lis to check the door. ¡°It¡¯s a gnome burrow.¡± Lis states. ¡°If the vampires have their nest here, it means all occupants are dead or turned, otherwise  they would have sounded an alarm.¡± Gnomes are fae. Like the dwarves they are short humanoid figures, but they are much more slim and have pointed ears and bigger noses. They don¡¯t have an alignment as a species but are separated by clans and families, some being from summer, others winter or even wyld fae. While there isn¡¯t a stereotype for gnomes, they have good talent in crafting and enchanting and some are even capable of using arcane magic beside their own fae magic.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    ¡°We must hurry,  we still have time to deal with the vampires.¡± West says as she looks to the fading light. Really detective? You had to go and  jinx it.


    We get inside using the same formation. The entrance hall is empty of enemies, but there is signs of struggle everywhere. Turned tables, scorch marks and broken furniture in general. There hall is high enough for me to stand, and we have 3 different doors for us to follow. The most promising one is where the blood trail from the entrance door continues.


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we lock the door in case there are vampires on the other passages?¡± Hendrickson asks. I ponder about it for a few seconds. ¡°It¡¯s better we leave it open.¡± I answer and motion for they to hurry. It¡¯s true that a junkie could escape by the door, but if it did so, it would go right to the tunnel and run in to the commander forces . While if we closed and warded it, a junkie might look for another exit and spread the infection. Not that I worry, if we fail to reach their nest before they wake up, they would come first at the closest life force they could detect. Us.


    Once we leave the hall the blood trail led us in to a small corridor with a low ceiling that forced me to keep my head low to avoid bumping it. We follow it in silence for a couple of minutes and pass by at least two crossways. There are more blood spattered on the corridor and signs of struggle, but they are old, while the trail we are following is made of older and fresher blood mixed. As if more then once victim was dragged this way. We reach a spot with two doorways, one each side of the corridor, the trail splitting and leading to both of them. Jackpot!


    We stops for a few seconds while everyone gets ready. Then we tiptoe to the doors a Quick look inside the room shows me the junkies sleeping around the room. As I explained earlier in the day, I have no idea why the sun burns vampires to ashes, my guess it has to do about the spirit that possessed and created the first vampire, but whatever the reason, it also makes a vampire to burn life energy much faster to be active during daylight hours, even when not exposed to the sun. For that reason vampires will usually be asleep during the day, but that doesn''t mean they can¡¯t wake up. I counted at least 8 vampires in one room and another 5 on the other.


    I point to the room with 8 of the creatures. ¡°We go fast, kill them and move to the other room before they finish waking up.¡± Everyone nods and ready their weapons. I raise my hand with three fingers and start a countdown. Three, two, one. We rush in.


    I focus my magic to create a sharp blade of reinforced ice on the tip of my staff and rush to the first vampire. I pierce it¡¯s heart just as its eyes open. It let a shrill scream as the magic keeping it alive disperses and only it¡¯s husk remain. To my side the detectives dispatch a vampire each stabbing their hearts with their short swords. Pyralis from the door cast s focused beam of heat that burns a hole on the chest of a forth one. Screams fill the room now and the remaining vampires are awake and starting to move, but they do so slugish. I charge the closest one, and it tries to jump me as I get close, I activate a shield and when the vampire momentum is spent against it I push the shield out throwing him against a wall. I use the range I have with the staff to pierce it¡¯s heart before it can recover.


    Another beam of heat to my right and another scream tells me that Pyralis dispatched a second vampire. Just as things were going well I see detective Hendrickson fly by me and hit a wall with a heavy thud. He falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes and stays down. I turn to find the vampire that thrown him chasing after the now unconscious detective. ¡°Gaoth na sioc¡± I yell pushing my free hand out in it¡¯s direction, and a cone of freezing wind hits him and the floors. It slow him down as his skin is damage by the cold and as he tries to balance himself in the now slippery ground. Just as he turns and lock eyes with me, detective West bull rush his back stabbing her short sword on his back to the hilt, piercing it¡¯s heart.


    As the vampire toples to the ground I feel a wave of fire shot right after the detective, but missing the vampire that was close on her tail. It tackles West and the both of them skid and roll on the ice for two meters or so before stopping, the vampire on top. I rush to them just as the creature bytes the detective neck. I hold my staff by tit¡¯s base and swing it upwards hitting the vampire on the its belly where it¡¯s not touching West¡¯s back, releasing the stored energy while doing so.


    It might have supernatural strength and speed, but it¡¯s mass was still the same as when it was alive, hitting it with enough force to turn a small car upside down shots it upward smashing him against the ceiling. As the vampire falls back to the ground, I bring my staff in a downward swing while at the same time willing the ice blade to increasing it¡¯s length and sharpness. Decapitating the temporarily stunned vampire, with an improvised naginata.


    I rush to check West state, her neck was bleeding some, but the byte wasn¡¯t deep and missed all her arteries. But she was out cold from the impact. Hendrickson looks the same. I leave them and rush to Pyralis side at the door. There is sounds comming from the other doorway, as the vampires are no longer sleeping.


    Pyralis casts a wall of fire to try and keep them inside. My mind was working maximum speed as I yell to Lis. ¡°Set the room on fire and I¡¯ll block the door.¡± She summons a ball of fire in each hand and throw them in to the room. Twin explosions reach my ear as the balls of fire consumed the room setting everything on fire. She quickly does it twice more. Screams of agony and rage  comes from the room, and I reach the door just in time to summon a pale blue shield of magic and block the first flaming vampire that rushed the door to try getting out of the room. The screams intensify for a while, and then start to slow down as the flames consumed the creatures. Just as I was about to congratulate myself a new round of screams pierce my ears, but not from the room,  but down the corridor we came.


    I look and see scores of small forms rushing ourway. Come on give me a break, couldn¡¯t they take just a little longer to show up. I keep my focusing my magic on maintaining the shield, grab my combat stick and point down the hallway, I reach for the cold dark place where the power of winter resides and open the flood gates, channeling as much power from it as I can handle. It¡¯s not only a cone of cold wind that releases from my focus, but a blizzard. The hallway freezes and the ghouls are forced to stop as I release the fury of winter in to them.


    Were they regular zombies or even junkies they would have been popcicles by now, but same as with the dwarf, the gnomes kept part of their magical resistance when they turned.


    As I overdraw from the well of power and loses my concentration the ghouls are still standing, damaged and slowed, but alive. The only noise coming from inside the room now was the roaring of flames, so I drop the shield and gesture for Lis to help me with the detectives.


    I get Hendrickson on a fireman carry on and Lis does the same with West. Once we return to the corridor, the ghouls that were on the back of the two scores or so of undead gnomes rushed by the damaged and slowed ones and were quickly closing on us.


    Having spent a good portion of my own magic, and exhausted the power of my connection to the well of winter, I decide to enact the best part of caution and run away.


    As we run we pass through a second set of doors. I look back as the sound of the ghouls seems to be getting closer and notice two humanoid figures by those doors staring at us with hunger in their eyes. Great there are still more vampires alive. And the unfairest part of it all is that they being dead already, are ignored by the ghouls who keep chasing us and are gaining ground.


    ¡°Balla Sioc!¡± I shout while pointing behind as we run through the tunnel and a 8 cm thick wall of ice blocks the tunnel.

 Chapter 14 - Between a rock and an undead place.

    Chapter 14 - Between a rock and an undead place.


    After a score of seconds we hear running steps outside. I tense up and ready myself for combat, but soon the many footsteps start to fade in the distance. Score one for the wizard and his concealment spell. I¡¯m pretty good with those, part of concealing yourself is hiding your magic, and abjuration is pretty good on blocking magic, even my own.


    ¡°Liz, keep an eye on the door, I got check on West.¡± I ask the sidhe lady as I turn to pick up Hendrickson from where I dropped him and put him in the corner with West. Pyralis position herself facing the door as I do so.


    Hendrickson is still out cold, the back of his head seems swollen, but he is breathing fine. I grab a piece of cloth from one of the crafting tables on the room and freeze it, and put against the swollen spot. I know it¡¯s not much, but it¡¯s the best I can do. Abjuration specialist here, not a field medic.


    I turn to West and check her vitals, they seemed fine. The puncture wounds on her neck are bleeding slowly. I conjure extreme cold on the point of my fingers and do a quick press against the wounds. The blood coagulates and the wound stop bleeding, but she is left with two small spots of frost burn on her neck.


    I focus my vision on the magical spectre. Like using a night vision goggles everything turns to grey forms with only magic shining strongly. I can see the enchantments on the room and crafting tables, Lis is like a beacon of magic and my enchantment at the door is like a mirror that reflects magic energies back in to the room.


    I turn to the detective and I can see the magic protections of her guard uniform and the combat rod she carries on her belt. Focusing on the wound I see a small spark of a dark red magic that is starting to crawl from her neck to her heart. Damn, I thought the vampire didn¡¯t have time to infect her. Fuck, time to get serious.


    I focus my vision on it and will my magic to form in a way to counter the spark. I form the dispeling magic on my mind and hold it there. Keeping the spell in place I take a small part of the power of winter I still have and focus on the intent of cleansing the vampirism from West. I touch her neck and mash the two spells together.


    A burst of light blue sparks leave my hand and travel through her neck until they reach the red spark and after a few seconds stinguish it. Ha, score two for the wizard who just performed a sorcerer trick.


    What I just did seems simple, but as far as I know there is nobody else who can do it. You see, Wizards cast spells from studying and understanding their own magic. We basically create constructs in our mind on what the spell should do and fill it with magic activating it. With time a wizard can imagine any kind of construct, and if he has enough power and affinity, he can cast the spell. But it¡¯s a time consuming and demanding act. So what we do is study and memorize a bunch of these constructs, that are basically the spells, and so we can quickly cast them by using a trigger to fill them with magic. That''s why most wizards use somatic when casting. And like all trigger is best to use something your not going to say by mistake. That''s why I named all my spells in Irish and say Balla Sioc instead of Ice/frost wall. It avoids casting the spell without the intention. A wizard can still use his or main language to cast his spells, but those who do have to be carefull everytime they say the trigger words to not cast it.


    Now, sorcerers are mages who cast their spells with intuition and feelings only. There is no construct or trigger, they will the magic to do as they bid. It makes their spell usually more powerful in general, but much less efficient. As the sorcerer has no construct to help him there is a lot of wasted magic on their spells and they tend to run out of power a lot faster than wizards. Lilian for example, was basically out of magic after two spells against the Barghast. Also as their casting is all intuition and feelings, they rarely manage to cast outside their affinity.


    It means that if Lilian for example, who has a big affinity to raw arcane power, were to try cast an ice wall spell she would run out of magic before managing to form the wall. But if she had infinity power for example, she would be able to get magic do almost anything she could think about just by willing it, while a wizard with infinity power would still need to design the construct for the spell.


    What I did to remove the vampirism from west was a mix of wizardry and sorcery. I say I¡¯m the only person I knew who could do it because of my connection to the well of winter, the source of the power for Mab and the Unseelie. It¡¯s a long story for another time, but basically I touched it once and now I got a connection that I can draw power from it. And since Fae magic works like much more like sorcery than wizardry, when I use the power of winter as fuel I can cast with intent only, instead of using a spell form. The downside of it, is that by being able to tap the well of winter also made me Mab subject. And she grabbed this chance by the balls to sink her hooks on me.. Bitch. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    But this connection is the only reason that I could take a dispel magic construct and morph in to a spell that was capable of removing and extinguishing the vampirism curse from West. Now if we survive the night, she only has to deal with the undead virus..


    I get up and go stand with Pyralis. She gives me one eyebrow raised look as if to ask now what? Dammit, why did I teach her that trick. ¡°Now we wait and hope we are not found.¡± She nods and sits in one of the tables that for us are just a little higher than a regular chair. I follow suit and to the same.


    Time pass by. I had no way of measuring it, but I think half an hour passed when Hendrickson woke up. ¡°Rise and shine detective! Welcome to the land of the living, or at least their last bastion on the land of the dead!¡± What can I say, I love being dramatic¡­


    Hendrickson takes a few seconds to familiarize with his surroundings and immediately checks on West when he notices her. ¡°What happened to Natasha?¡± He asks as he notices the wounds of her neck.


    ¡°Miss West decided to play hero when you got tossed against the wall and tried to save you. While she was successful she got bitten for it.¡± His eyes go wide when he hears it. ¡°Does it means she is going to become one of them?¡± He asks after a few seconds putting his thoughts on order. ¡°Relax, I managed to remove the curse from her wound, fortunately the vampire didn¡¯t have enough time to infect her with more than a spark of it.¡±


    Hendrickson shoulders visible relax when he listen to this. ¡°Now if we survive this she only has to deal with the virus.¡± I say nonchalantly. He quickly turn his face to me, eyes once again wide with worry. ¡°Calm down detective, the Fae on the enclave, or one of the few man of faith we have can cure her as long as she doesn''t die here and turn first..¡±


    After I¡¯m done scaring the detective the next hour passes with me explaining our situation to the detective. I was about to ask if anyone had a set of cards when someone tried to open the door. As soon it noticed the door was locked it tried pushing against it, than it struck with force against the door but the table held it in place. Shit, score one for the undead.


    I prepared a quick icicle spell and released it just as a fist broke through thick wooden door like it was drywall. I hit the arm as it retracted and a keen yell full of pain rewards me. Hendrickson brakes the leg of a table and hold it¡¯s as an improvised stake in one hand, his guard baton on the other. Lis takes a few steps back and assumes a combat stance, flames on her right hand and a small dagger on her left.


    But the strikes against the door stopped. Than the vampire started screaming and hitting the walls on the corridor. I was perplexed for a moment, but then understood what he was doing. The son of a bitch was trying to draw the ghouls. Considering that he also wasn¡¯t charging the door to get to us it must have fed recently enough to be really dangerous.


    Soon we hear more shrikes and screams coming down the corridor and soon after there are multiple strikes against the door, all lower than the hole the vampire made on the door.


    ¡°Lis, I don¡¯t suppose you got enough power to torch them?¡± I ask her knowing that burning the vampires on the room probably took a big part of her magic. She didn¡¯t just threw fireballs and set the room on fire, she had to use her magic as fuel to keep the flames burning, non magical fire would have gone out once the oxygen of the room burned out. Add the concentrated beams of fire and I doubt she has that much left, even with the short rest we had.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid not Artharian, it seems we will have to this the hard way.¡± She answer with a predatory smile on her face. The crazy lady was actually looking forward to this. I look to Hendrickson and notice that he was all business now, the anger for West injure burning on his eyes


    Seriously? I¡¯m the only sane one here who doesn''t look forward to fighting an overwhelming number of undead? Time to get serious again, I pass my staff to my right hand and push my left forward, my beads bracelet shimmer with magic as I form a kinetic shield just as the gnomes ghouls managed to rip the door out of it¡¯s hinges and top it over the table. The shield block the the doorway just as 5 ghouls were about to rush through it The shield stops the ghouls hard, but as soon as they see us they go into a frenzy and start hitting it non stop. The white beads on my bracers start getting warm and turning red. The ghouls keep striking the shield and after a minute or so all the beads are a deep red.


    I drop my staff against a table and remove the bracer from my wrist. As I do so the shield vanish and the ghouls topple forward on the ground. Those behind started trying to run over those on the front and I see at least 3 tall figures on the back. I grim at them and toss the bracers outside the room. A vampire dodges it and hit the corridor wall. The creature looks back at me with a smug smile on it¡¯s dead face. It quickly turns in to doubt as I have an even bigger smile on mine. There is a loud explosion noise of air being dislocated as all the kinetic energy the beads on my bracer absorbed is released. Score three for the wizard asshole.


    The vampire and a bunch of the ghouls are thrown inside the room. Lis quickly stab his heart with her dagger while it¡¯s still stunned by the detonation. I grab my staff back and smash one of the ghouls skulls. Hendrickson finishes another. The other three are getting up already, being undead means they didn¡¯t get stunned too long.


    I move to strike another one, but it tried to dodge and lung at me at the same time, making me hit it¡¯s shoulder instead of bashing it¡¯s head. As it rolls on the ground I look at the door and see that more ghouls getting ready to rush inside. I quickly cast another force shield, this one actually fed by my own magic to stop more of them rushing inside.


    I take bearing of my surroundings and see Lis blowing the head of another ghoul that charged her with a fiery open palm strike. Hendrickson tackles one from behind who had fallen closer to West and was going for her unconscious form.


    I turn back to the Ghoul I hitted. It was getting up and ready to lunge at me again, I take a small step back to better use the range of the staff and thrust it forward as I summon the ice blade at the point again. I pierce the charging ghoul skulls and it falls to the ground as soon as it¡¯s moments is over.


    Hendrickson is standing up after bashing the ghouls head against the floor. While resistant and attuned to magic, gnomes aren¡¯t really physically strong, so the boost they get from their new ghoulish existence isn¡¯t that significant. If these were all dwarves, for example we would be even more fucked up.


    ¡°Get ready, I can¡¯t keep the shield anymore¡±. I yell to them as I remove my staff from the ghouls head. Hendrickson forms on my right and Pyralis on my left. As I drop the shield, a dozen or so of ghouls rush the room.

 Chapter 15 - The Hunt of the Tylwyth Teg.

    Chapter 15 - The Hunt of the Tylwyth Teg.


    As the dozen or so ghouls funneled through the door to get inside I dropped my staff and grabbed my combat stick. Pyralis pierced the head of the charging ghoul with a dagger throw with such grace and accuracy that only the sidhe can muster. She than drew a second one from one of her boots.


    I lowered down and using whatever winter power I managed to recover in our small rest and channel it through another spell to coat the ground with thin layer of ice. Most of the ghouls slip and fall on as their feet lose traction. But the layer is so thin that most of is soon smashed to fragments by the stomping ghouls and loses it slippery quality. Still we manage to dispatch three of them before they recover.


    After that they were among us. One might think fighting a bunch of smaller opponents who have half of your reach is an easy thing. And I¡¯d usually agree, but add the fact that those opponents don¡¯t feel pain and are only stopped by a killing blow to the head or really heavy damage (limbs missing kind of damage). And you will quickly realize that it¡¯s a big pain in the ass.


    I saw Liz side stepping a ghoul and slashing it as it passes by her, she keeps the momentum from the side step and turn it in to spin dodging the lunge of a second ghoul. Hendrickson smash the first ghoul sideways with his batton. After that I couldn¡¯t keep an eye on them anymore because the ghouls reached me as well.


    The first one tries to tackle my legs as it comes close, I use the chance to swing downwards with my stick and release the kinetic energy enchantment. I missed it¡¯s head, hitting the middle of it¡¯s shoulders blades, the ghoul hit the ground hard, not even sliding as all it¡¯s forward momentums is lost. The noise of it¡¯s spine cracking is reason enough that I don¡¯t think I need to worry about this one anymore.


    Still a second ghoul that was close behind jumps at my extended arm and hugs it as it bites my arm. The enchantments on my leather coat stops it from piercing me with it¡¯s teeth and claws, but it still hurts. It also weights my arm down holding me in a weird hald bent forward position and stopping me from using my combat stick.  Not that I had anymore tricks on my gear. The staff and the stick kinetic charge were spent, the bracer was no more and my necklace enchantments aren''t useful for this situation.


    A third ghoul was about to help itself to the fact I was forced in to a semi-crouched/bent positions by the one hanging on my arm  and dive for my neck. But instead of trying to pull my arm away from the ghoul embrace I use it¡¯s own weight to get momentum in a weird roll forward. Smashing it with my shoulders against the ground. It let¡¯s go of my arm the moment it head hit against the ground. Thanks god, because I think if it was strong enough to hold my arm, I might have broken it with this roll.


    This maneuvers, as weirdly as it was, worked well enough to make the ghoul lunging for my neck hit my legs instead. It fails to hold to them and skips forward for half a meter or so. The one that was stuck to my arm starts getting up the same time I do, but due to the roll it currently has it¡¯s back turned to me. I hug it¡¯s neck with one of my arms, locking my elbow under ghouls small chin and try break its neck by pushing the head with my other hand.


    It trash against me and one of its feet hit me in the gut, making me flinch in pain and an  arms hit my face, allowing for a claw to slash a cut close to my ear, it stings as hell, but I manage to keep the hold.


    I put all my strength in pushing its head sideways when third ghoul tackles me again and force me to roll with it¡¯s momentum. Still, I¡¯m rewarded with a snapping noise as I maintain the hold on the seconds ghoul neck and feel the it going slack as we roll on the ground.


    The third one is now handing on my back, with it¡¯s small arms around my neck and it¡¯s desperately trying to bite my neck off. But only manages to bite my shoulders, again it¡¯s not strong enough to reap through the coat but it still hurts as hell. It¡¯s claws are digging in my chest close to my neck. Fuck this asshole, at least buy me a drink first if you are going to assault me like that from behind.


    I manage to grab it¡¯s arms and am about to throw it over my head in cool judo move when I notice a blur from the door and something hit me like a truck. I flew at least two meters behind and hit one of the tables shattering it with our combined. I feel a sharp pain on my back as the ghouls stops struggling. I roll to the side and notice the ghoul impaled in to a big chunk of debris from the table. My coat stopped it from impaling me as well, but if we survived this it¡¯s going to be bruised for weeks. Fuck it even hurts to breathe.


    I look for whatever train hit me and see a vampire standing in the middle of the room where before I was fighting the ghouls. The Vampire looks like a young girl elvish like features. Gwyn¡¯s daughter probably. It seams being half human was enough for her to be turned. A feral look on her face reveals that it¡¯s about to charge me again. The smell of blood making it lose its mind and any kind of control it had. It rushes with inhuman speed and lungs at me before I can get up. I only have enough time to lift my arm and protect neck as it hits me.


    It¡¯s fang drills in to my arm with enough strength to pierce the leather and scratch my arms. But he fails to find purchase on it. It wails on frustration and start laying punches down on my face as I do my best to cover it with both  my arms.


    It¡¯s stradling me and I can¡¯t find leverage to free myself. After a good half dozen punches to my arms and face, I manage to focus what magic I have left and murmur ¡°sn¨¢thaid¨ª sioc¡± the magic run over my forearms and dozens of small sharp icicles form on it. The vampire impale its hand on it and pull it back on reflex. I use this chance to try and slit its neck with the remaining icicles. But it dodges by throwing itself backwards.


    This frees me enough to manage to throw the vampire off me and roll sideways. As powerful as the curse makes her, its weight didn¡¯t change from when it was just a young girl. I manage to grab a broken piece of the table feet and get up in time to face the vampire before she charges me again. I notice movement in the corner of my eye and see Lis rush the vampire with her dagger.


    The creature notices her and with inhuman speed manage to side step and push strongly against her, basically turning her momentum sideways and making her collide against the wall headfirst. As it turns back to me it has a small moment to realize that I didn¡¯t waste this chance and had closed the distance to pierce it¡¯s heart with a sharp piece of wood from the table. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    It looks confused at me, as it not understanding what happened before the magic that maintained its undeath state fails and she becomes limp on my arms. I slowly put the body on the ground.


    After a few deep breaths I take a few seconds to take my bearing again. Lis is getting up, but seems a little shaken with the head on collision against the wall. Hendrickson is leaning with his back against the wall. One hand holding over his other shoulder where he seems to be bleeding heavily. He is also has a ugly cut on his forehead. But there are three dead ghouls around him.


    The room now looks like a scene from a horror movie, broken furniture, blood everywhere and close to 20 dead bodies inside, and the gnomes ghouls might even pass for children if you don¡¯t look close enough. Creepy as hell.


    I pick up my staff from the ground and move to Pyralis side. West is still out cold on the corner, none of the ghouls reached her. Hendrickson is bleeding, and his wounded arm is limp, but seems to be mobile still. At this moment I heard noise on the doors and turn to see two more vampires standing there. One looks bigger and stronger than all we fight so far. The initial carrier I guess.


    The vampires look at the carnage on the room and look undecided what to do. Their minds stuck between the urge to feed on us and their instinct telling them we are still dangerous.


    This is so fucked up, how many vampires are there still, and ghouls? I¡¯m starting to think we might not be able to get out of here alive. I¡¯m almost too exhausted to care right now, the only thing I can think about is getting it over. So I hold my staff in the best combat stance I can manage and take a step toward the vampires.


    I probably had a really crazy look on my face, because as I start moving forward, instinct wins and the vampires turn and run. I was dumbfounded, not really believing what happened, junkies don¡¯t give up on prey like that. But than the vampires started yelling and hitting the walls making a lot of noise.


    The fuckers are running, but trying to bring in more ghouls. Fuck. Just when I thought things couldn¡¯t get much worse. How many of these little buggers lived on this burrow. This forsaken place can¡¯t be that big.


    And just like that the pieces fell into place in my mind. And something that have been bothering me in the back of my mind since we found this place finally made sense.


    ¡°I need the two of you to buy me time.¡± I tell the two of them and go to the last remaining table and start pushing it away to open up a clean space for me on the ground. Hendrickson snorts at that ¡°Sure, I think we can buy you a second or two in our state.¡±


    ¡°Look, gather the tables and all the wood debris, make a fire on the door, just buy me some time¡±.


    ¡°Sure let¡¯s suffocate instead of being ripped to shreds. I hope those bastard don¡¯t like smoked beef.¡± He complains but start moving to help Lis in blocking the doorway.


    I search in my pockets for my piece of chalk. It is broken in three but I find a piece big enough that I could draw with. I start drawing a circle on the ground and start adding runes and enchantments.


    While that Lis and Hendrickson managed to gather enough debris and push the last table to the doorway, blocking the passage. Lis manages to set it all on fire just as we start hearing the screams returning.


    A regular zombie would have charged the fire, but ghouls and vampires, if not provoked into a frenzy, have enough instinct to avoid doing so. We have a few minutes before we are suffocated by the smoke or the flames run weak enough for them to attack us.


    The room is getting hotter and harder to breath by the time I finish drawing the circle.


    ¡°Ok, now the tricky part.¡± I focus last reserve of magic I have and feed it to the circle and focus on the summoning. I focus on all I knew about my target and all the name and roles he owns. The bastard thought he had the best of me when we made our deal, but I think I will have the last laugh.


    ¡°Gwyn ap Nudd ap Beli Mawr, shepherd of the fallen warriors of britain I call upon you.¡± ¡°Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord and huntmaster of the wild hunt the prey is found and cornered, the killers of your blood gather I call upon you to collect your debt. ¡°Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord of  Tylwyth Teg, on our covenant to not stop until our prey is caught and punishment is dealt I summon thy.¡±


    With the chanting done I release the magic built on the circle, and after a few seconds a gust of wind rushes the room, all lights flicker out including the fire at the door. When the light of the glowing gems comes back, Gwyn ap Nudd stands at the center of the circle fully dressed for war. Mithril armor shining with enchantments, power running through the runes of his longsword, the face painted black and magic emanating from him in powerfull waves. A pair of giant great hounds at each of his side and four more lords of the Tylwyth Teg by his back on full war regalia as well.


    Since we found this place at the end of the tunnel, I was wondering in the back of my mind, how could we have missed it when we patrolled the outside of the walls looking for the vampire entrance. What I realized earlier was that the inside of this burrow had to be bigger than the outside. Magic bending space to accommodate it.


    Now, bending space outside the ways is something very hard to do in our realm, but was somewhat common on the Fae realm, it was how many of the Fae could travel instantly in many places on their realm, and how the most powerful Sidhe could so anywhere in their domains.


    The enclave is a part of that is left of the Fae realm, brought into our realm by the combined power of the Fae, so while a Fae like Pyralis, who while a princess of her clan on the summer court is not a big power can no longer move instantly when summoned, I betted that the really powerful Fae still could in the right situations.


    Now, in our deal Gwyn had got me in that I had put my and the winter court honor in solving the kidnappings, but he also agreed to hunt the creatures together once I found them. The fact that he probably really wants to punish the murderers of his daughter himself was part of it. If we have dealt with the vampire without telling him whe found them, then he wouldn¡¯t be at fault for failing to help us, but the moment I managed to call on him he had to come to keep his word. Even if this teleport might have cost him a lot of power.


    ¡°You called and I came Wizard, to honor our agreement. The prey is found and the time of for the hunt is nigh.¡± He looks around and his face goes becomes still behind the paint, his eyes who were already serius becomes full of a cold fury as I have rarely seen. ¡°I loved her mother, and she was the only thing I had left of her Wizard.¡± He says in a hushed voice but then he raises his voice again. ¡°We shal hunt them down and make them pay a thousand times for this crime against mine.¡± ¡°The Tylwyth Teg hunts!¡± He yells and grabs a silver horn from his belt and blows it.


    A powerful sound emanates from the horn, I can feel my spirit rising up and an overwhelming need to join him consumes me. To feel the fear of my prey as it tries to run and hide, to see it desperation as we corner and strike it down. The thrill of the hunt!


    With Gwyn blowing the horn the two hounds jump on the barricade. It had only embers left after the summoning dosed the flames, and the two beasts knock it aside like if it was made of straws. They jump on the two closest ghouls, it¡¯s jaws big enough to bite their entire head off.


    Gwyn replace the horn on his belt and charged after the hounds with a grace and controlled power and speed. There four sidhe follow him in to battle with warcries of their own. As they purge the halls of the burrow like an unstoppable force.


    Taken by the thrill of the hunt I try to follow them, but Pyralis put a hand on my shoulders and some sense comes back to me. I notice my amulet is burning as it¡¯s enchantments tries to fight against the Sidhe lord powerful magic.


    As I regain my full sense, I noticed that Pyralis also hold Hendrickson wounded arm twisted behind his back to prevent him from following the hunt of the Tylwyth Teg. I fall on my but as the adrenaline leaves my system, pain everywhere on my body.


    I can¡¯t help myself in to think that Wagner¡¯s, The Ride of the Valkyries would be a good theme to be playing right now. I guffaw at the thought but stops as pains flares on my back.


    ¡°Fuck, For sure, this is now hot I thought my day would go.¡±

 Chapter 16 - Aftermath

    Chapter 16 - Aftermath


    It was on a bad mood that I left the commander''s office. It has been three days since the raid on the vampire infested gnome lair, and I¡¯d just got our new marching orders. And the aftermath of the whole thing still left a bad taste on my mouth.


    As I leave the headquarters I see my squad waiting for me. I had asked Erick to gather everyone when I learned we would receiving our next mission. Pyralis is missing, considering she lives on the summer court and not on the Forces base, it¡¯s no surprise Erick couldn¡¯t get to her in time.


    I turn back to the still open doorway and tell the clerks ¡°Once Lady Pyralis shows up, can you inform her that we are meeting at the bar.¡± Not waiting for an answer I turn around again and move outside. Johnson, Lilian and Erick join me as I walk past them.


    ¡°So, what''s the new gig cap?¡± Johnson asks as we cross the plaza. ¡°Not now kid, later at the bar when Lis is with us.¡± I answer him a little harsher than necessary, but hey, I¡¯m on a bad mood and Johnson is one responsible. If he didn¡¯t force me to do a scene on the headquarters when we were reporting our last mission, the commander might have singled out someone else to deal with the Guard request.


    Yeah, right. True is the commander had already decided to give it to me anyways, probably. Just that instead of asking as a favor, she managed to give it to me as a punishment. Still, the kid spent the last 6 days on leave while I spent three days dealing with the whole mess, one recovering and the last two being debriefed and questioned on everything that happened.


    After I managed to summon the Lord of the Tylwyth Teg and his retainers and they hunted every single living, well undead, thing on that burrow. I was all sore from the beating I took from the changeling turned vampire and completely drained of magic, but nothing serious. Hendrickson had a broken arm and had also taken a beating and Pyralis had a few cuts on her arms and a bruised face from when the vampire shoved her against the wall. West had finally started to give signs of recovery. She was still out but, looked more like sleeping now instead of fainted.


    When Gwyn returned he had only this two giant hounds with him. ¡°Thank you Wizard, what a great hunt you have provided.¡± His tone was bright with excitement and he looked as pristine as the moment he first arrived, if it wasn¡¯t for the bloodied longsword he carried on his hand, you wouldn¡¯t say he just came back from hunting down a half dozen vampires and I don¡¯t know how many ghouls. ¡°You should have joined me Wizard.¡±


    ¡°I would have loved to my lord, but as strong as it was my desire to do so, I wasn¡¯t in condition to join the hunt.¡± I answer. ¡°I also didn¡¯t want to steal your revenge my lord, having already claimed a share of our prey.¡± I gesture to all the dead bodies on the room.


    The fae lord then flicks his sword removing all blood from it and sheathe it before getting down and picking up the body of his daughter. ¡°Come with me Wizard, for there is something you must see.¡± Gone was the energetic and thrilled tone he used to talk about the hunt, replaced by a stone cold one. Well shit, I wasn¡¯t going to disagree with the seemeling bipolar Fae Lord, so I got up and started to move.


    Pyralis tries to follow me, but I wave her to take care of the detectives. Gwyn leads me on further on the tunnels and the signs that he and his enforcers passed through the halls are clear. Blood, gore and body pieces are explatered on the corridors. None from the hunters.


    ¡°My lord. What is that I need to see? Have the vampires not been dealt with?¡± I ask him while struggling to keep up the pace with him.


    ¡°The night dwellers are all dead but for the one who killed my daughter.¡± Fuck, did one vampire actually escaped? ¡°How did it managed to escape my lord?¡± I quickly ask, my mind already starting to think on how could we track him before he start spreading the infection again.


    The fae lord laughs at my question. ¡°No wizard, he is not dead because his punishment is just beginning. He will suffer a thousand times and more for the pain he caused me. Even if his mind is long gone the point he can understands why he suffers.¡± Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    That shuts my train of thought on the spot, he had kept a infected vampire alive. Fuck if that thing gets loose somehow it could started all again. I was about to object, but one look at the sidhe lord face was enough for me to decide to pass it up the chain of command and let the higher ups deal with it.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad to hear that our hunt was a success and our pact complete then.¡± I tell him just as we enter what looks to be a big storage room. ¡°I¡¯m afraid the hunt is not over yet Wizard.¡± Gwyn tells me.


    I notice it just as I was trying to make sense of the sidhe lord words. There at the back of the room sat an open coffin. It was made of wood, but engraved with a lot runes, the lid was broken from inside. A quick use of my magic sight tells me that the rune purpose were both concealment and containment. The vampire didn¡¯t manage to slip through the barrier and the outer wall, someone brought it inside.


    ¡°We might have caught the one who killed my child Wizard, but the one responsible is still at large.¡± the lord says. And I realize that my promise to catch the ones responsible for his kid death is still in place.


    That is the main reason why I¡¯m on a bad mood, that and the whole questioned we had to go through after the incident. The guard higher ups were peeved that I went over them and called the Forces, the commander wasn¡¯t very happy that I forced her to mobilize the forces for nothing. But she understands that it was the right call, better safe than sorry.


    A lot of people weren¡¯t happy about Gwyn ap Nudd keeping a junkie on alive inside the city, but nobody wanted to pick a fight with him over that. The chance of it getting a way, being laughable.


    The detectives were fine, West was cleansed from the virus in time and Hendrickson would recover from his wounds.


    A happy ending overall, if not for the fact that nobody knows who brought the vampire inside and for what reason. Did it escaped before it could be smuggled in town? Was the burrow the target? Who has the power to trick the barrier and evade the Fae diviners that keep watch over it? And the worst of all, is that I¡¯m still bound to finding the responsible.


    Fortunately, the sidhe understand time differently, so Gwyn isn¡¯t demanding I solve it right now, but I¡¯m sure he will come to collect one day.


    All of this aside, the good news is that the wild magic storm is finally losing strength and should end any moment now. Well, that is good news for the enclave, but for me it means back to work without even a few days of leave. That is another reason for my bad mood.


    As we reach the cafeteria building, I place my hand on a collector and feel it start draining my magic. Collectors are one of the ways we try to keep our diminishing stock of magic. Basically it¡¯s a gem, like the ones we use on our missions, stuck in a pedestal enchanted to drain the magic of anyone who touches it and store at the gem. Erick and Lilian stop to the same. Any mage who is not on duty or doesn''t have a project that requires magic, is expected to help fill these devices.


    I hold my hand on it until I feel at least two thirds of my own magic being drained and then remove it. Once Erick and Lilian are also done with it, we move to the bar.


    They order a round of beer, but I asked for a shot of whisky. Beer is not really my thing. Whisky, vodka and even wine is more my thing. I tell them an abridged version of my trouble with vampires as we drink and wait for Lis to arrive.


    Lilian sits close to Johnson, and the kid is has an stupid smile on his face. The cynic in me, can¡¯t avoid thinking she only does that so other guys won¡¯t hit on her. I don¡¯t blame the guys, Lillian is beautiful. She is tall, has blonde hair, blue eyes and a nice smile. She is no old world model, or have the sexy appeal like many of the sidhe ladies around the enclave do, but she has nice girl charm and a beautiful smile.


    I need to talk to her about leading Johnson on, I don¡¯t want trouble inside the squad. I mean, in case I¡¯m just jealous and she is really in to him, I don¡¯t mind it. Hell, I¡¯d be happy with it, people should grab what little happiness they can find. But knowing Lilian past, I¡¯m pretty sure she is doing it as a defence mechanism to avoid being hit on.


    Pyralis arrives as I ponder how to approach the subject with Lilian. After greeting everyone she sits very close to me. If she wasn¡¯t sidhe, I¡¯d say she is in to me, but I¡¯d be only tricking myself like the kid is with Lilian. Still everyone on the table stares at her, me included.


    She raises one eyebrow as if asking why everyone keep staring at her. The silence last for a score of seconds until Lilian breaks it.


    ¡°Did something else happened in your little adventure your not telling us? She asks me hinting at the way Lis is sitting very close to me.


    ¡°Lilian, I don¡¯t even understand women most of the time, how do you expect me to understand the Fae ones? If you want to know why she does what she does, it¡¯s not me you have ask.¡± I answer in my best deadpan tone. True is I¡¯m also curious as hell, but I got an image to keep.


    Lilian turn to Lis who tilts her head sideways a little and asks. ¡°Am I doing something wrong, isn¡¯t how two colleagues act on a meeting?¡± She gesture to the way Lilian is also sitting close to Johnson. Her tone is perfectly innocent, but I notice she can¡¯t keep a small smirk from her face.


    Lillian and Johnson face turn red instantly and she immediately adjust herself to sit further from him. At that Erick and I lose it and starts laughing our asses off.


    At that moment, with Johnson and Lillian dying of embarrassment, Lis with a mischievous smirk on her face and me and Erick laughing I realized that I was worrying about things too much. I needed to follow my own advice and enjoy what happiness I could. Sure there were a lot of problems in my life at that moment, I still had to find out who smuggled the vampire inside, we had a new crazy mission and everything out there wants to kill us. Not even mentioning all my problems with the Winter Court. But at least I was alive and had good friends.


    The irony that it took a push from Pyralis for me to realize that was lost at the moment.

 Chapter 17 - Once more unto the breach.

    Chapter 17 - Once more unto the breach.


    The next morning I geared up again for exploration, mainly only ditching the combat coat for my scouting one trading defence for stealth. And a backpack with supplies, my mission journal and a few more gadgets.


    My mood was much lighter after our get together the night before. The team had receive well the news of a new mission, even if a dangerous one. I¡¯m even starting to think that I¡¯m stuck with a bunch of adrenaline junkies. Even Erick didn¡¯t complain about it. I¡¯m starting to think that maybe, the horror, I might be the voice of reason on this team.


    As I do a last check on everything, in hindsight and now sober, I can¡¯t not think that Pyralis behavior was strange last night. One could just think she was just having fun with her teammates, and were she human, I¡¯d agree that it is the most likely explanation, but Lis is fae. So I can¡¯t avoid searching for a reason for her actions, what did she gain with it?


    As I leave the barracks building and go for the Hall of Ways. The Expeditionary Forces headquarters is actually really busy, lot of people crossing the plaza from building to building and there are other teams forming up near the Hall.


    I¡¯ve alredy mentioned that the Hall of Ways is one of the greatest magic feats of the Enclave. But I don¡¯t think I ever explained why. Before the fall, the fae realm was like a shadow to our realm, the one closest to ours both physically and metaphorically, such that there were many connections linking both realms. Reason why, as I explained before there were so many paths that a person could cross on the Fae realm to move from place to place in our world.


    Now, when the end came and the Fae cast their big spell so that part of their realm could  be preserved, most of those pathways were lost. But many pieces of the fae realm survived the crash, and now existed isolated, like small moons orbiting our reality. After the enclave was established, and it became clear that the power of the Fae Courts alone wouldn¡¯t be enough to maintain and protect it, the plan to search and tap wells of magic was created.


    But there wasn¡¯t enough magic close by for the enclave to do more than scratch by, and to range farther and farther from the enclave was too dangerous and costly on lives. To fix that, the courts and the wyld fae lords got together once more, with the help of the strongest mages and other entities that had made their ways to the enclave one way or another to cast another powerful spell.


    The spell located every nearby pathway that survived and transported them to inside the hall. A spell on this scale was only possible due to the affinity that the Fae had to the their old realm.


    The hall then was built around the gathered pathways and serves as an anchor for the spell, reducing the strain of maintaining it and as a defencive measure if anything comes out of those portals. It¡¯s maintained in equal parts by powers fed directly from each court and in a much smaller part by  the net town council.


    As I walk toward the hall, I find the team already gathered there. Ignoring all the magic collectors, since I¡¯m on duty again, I move meet them.


    Everybody is geared up and ready to go. Erick and Lilian are dressed in long coats similar to mine, Johnson is wearing a chain mail of what looks silver, it¡¯s painted in the colors of the Prince of Frost. It was obvious enchanted for silence since it made no sound as he moved. It was also mostly hidden by a heavy cloak he weared. His war hammer hanging on his back. Pyralis is wearing the same leather outfit she used during our troubles with the vampires. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    ¡°Hey everyone.¡± I greet as I reach them. ¡°Ready risk your lives for honor and country once more?¡±


    ¡°Mourning Cap, not sure about risking my life, but I¡¯m ready to kick some ass.¡± Johnson answers back. At least someone is optimistic, I admire the kid for managing to keep being so, considering to whom he is indebted to.


    Actually, after greeting everyone, it seems I¡¯m the only one who is not really looking forward to this mission. Even Erick looks happy to get out town. The cynic in me can¡¯t avoid thinking that he must have had an argument with his girlfriend.


    We enter the hall and after passing by all the security points and the decontamination chamber we finally make to the portals room itself. There we are greeted by both Fae enforcers and Gatekeeper Gustaff. Thankfully Gatekeeper Teresa is busy on the other side of the hall overseeing the departure of another team.


    ¡°Wizard Dagworth, right on time for your departure.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare angering our lords and masters by being late Gatekeeper.¡± Just a tiny amount of sarcasm on my tone.


    Gustaff frowns at my commentary. ¡°Maybe you¡¯ve chosen the wrong benefactors wizard. There are those whose our service is deserved.¡±


    Did old Gustaff just criticize me for serving Winter over Summer? I¡¯m pretty sure the old goat knows enough of my situation to know it wasn¡¯t really a choice at the time. So what is this barb for? We usually have a good enough relation. And plus being a Master Diviner, he should know I won¡¯t just take it.


    ¡°Not everyone is lucky enough to be the mage council representative to the Summer Court when everything went to hell Wizard Gustaff.¡± I don¡¯t use his title on purpose, because I know it would annoy him.


    Everyone around hold their breath at us trading veiled insults. As I mentioned before, it¡¯s not healthy to insult the gatekeepers, as they hold a lot o power on the force and on the enclave itself. Unfortunately for them, I don¡¯t give a damn.


    After a few more seconds of silence the Gatekeeper gesture for us to follow him.


    ¡°This is the portal you will use, it leads to pathway located in part of what used to be the Twilight Forest and the exit will drop you somewhere on what used to be the state of Oregon, from there you need to find ur next portal to your final destination.¡±


    I almost feel like interrupting him, and telling that we were briefed on the mission, considering the stares I was getting on my teammates I decided to keep quiet. I guess they don¡¯t want to enter the gatekeeper shit list by association. Cowards.


    ¡°Thank you Gatekeeper.¡± Erick answer the old man when he stops rambling. ¡°We are ready to depart once the gate is ready.¡±


    ¡°Very well,¡± the gatekeeper answers ¡°We just need only to wait for the priest team departure.¡± He gesture for the team that Gatekeeper Teresa was attending.


    The comment catch my attention and I look again at the other team. Father Declan is an important figure on the enclave. He is the head of the christian community. I don¡¯t interact with him much, but I admire his stances. Basically, he sees all this as a test from God and that everyone needs to help in order for us to recover our land. And most important of all, he preaches for people to leave mages and fae alone. That there must be a reason in God plans that we exist and that it¡¯s not his or the community job to judge us, but God.


    But the biggest reason I respect him is that he lives what he preaches. He leads a Vanguard himself in order to help the enclave. His Vanguard is known as Declan¡¯s Paladins and they use faith magic and artifacts. He¡¯s also one who healed Detective West infection after things calmed down.


    Soon the Father and his team crosses the portal to whatever mission they are on and Gatekeeper Teresa closes it. With that the tactical team of marines that were supervising the Paladin¡¯s departure take positions around us in case something comes out when our portal opens.


    Fortunately, they move faster than the Gatekeeper Teresa and once they are in place Gatekeeper Gustaff starts opening our portal. With the help of the hall enchantments and a lot of experience the gates open and stabilizes much faster than I or even Pyralis could accomplish.


    The other side reveals a pine forest bathed in perpetual twilight. Johnson and Lilian cross first and soon signal for everyone to follow.


    "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more." I murmur to myself as I cross. Hopefully we can avoid filling it with our dead.

 Chapter 18 - A trek into the wilderness

    Chapter 18 - A trek into the wilderness


    The twilight forest was a great forest on the Fae realm, home to many of the fae forest dwellers, like nymphs, sprites, dryads, treants and many others. It¡¯s name came from the fact that it resided in a region of the Fae realm bathed in perpetual twilight.


    It¡¯s a coniferous forest, while dominated mostly by evergreen pine trees also has many broadleaf evergreen trees. My first impression when crossing the portal is of a sanctuary against the chaos of the world, whatever problem infected this shard of the Fae realm, it seemed to be very far from where we crossed.


    My second impression, made me groan, there is no path to be followed. This being a pathway we use rarely the path was never made or the forest has already reclaimed it. That means we would have to cleave our own way through the forest. The portal closes on our back as I think about our next step.


    ¡°The exit seems to the northwest.¡± Erick says after casting a small divination spell. ¡°Just as per our briefing.¡±


    ¡°Ok, we are going to move in a single line. The order is Johnson leading, then me, Lilian Erick and Lis.¡± ¡°We have no idea what Fae may have survived in this forest and what might have crossed into it, so keep alert all times.¡±


    ¡°Damn, why do I always have to do the hard work here?¡± Johnson complains about the fact it will fall to him to clear a way through the vegetation.


    ¡°Come on big guy¡± Lilian teases him ¡°this is exactly reason why we have you. You wouldn¡¯t want little me to do this right?¡±


    Johnson sighs at that. ¡°You are all taking advantage of my good heart.¡± he murmurs while putting away his hammer and drawing a machete from his belt.


    Per our briefing this first part of our mission should take us two hours to reach the portal. Considering that the briefing didn¡¯t say anything about being virgin forest, it will probably take twice as long.


    We are all wary of our surroundings as we start moving through the forest, the beautiful scenery with tall trees and the perpetual twilight light isn¡¯t enough to overcome an ominous feeling it gives me.


    It was Johnson who broke the silence first. ¡°This forest is so creepy, I can¡¯t hear any birds or other wildlife.¡±


    The kid is right, I realized the fact we don¡¯t see any signs of wildlife is what is making me uncomfortable. Fae forests were always weird and dangerous, but there are always signs of life.


    On the path we used in our last mission, we were crossing mostly a dead forest, so the silence wasn¡¯t so unsettling, but here the contrast between a vivid healthy vegetation and a complete lack of wildlife noises, even birds is unsettling.


    Still we continued going west looking for the portal out. After half an hour without any changes my mind started to wander against my will as I focused on the next step of our mission.


    The enclave diviners have found tracers of a place where a major ley line was leaking magic, creating many magic wells in a small area. Something that if we managed to harvest would greatly increase our supplies. They were close to also divine a safe pathway to get there when the last big wild magic storm hit the enclave, disrupting their efforts.


    Now with the storm finally abating, they were able to focus on it again. And the news weren¡¯t very good. They found out that while the leaking is still happening, it was considerably diminished. Not wanting to give up on this new possible magic source, they decided to send us to investigate. Nothing really out of the usual so far, the catch is that the brass decided they couldn¡¯t waste the magic to finish divining a safe passage, so they are sending us on the best they had so far. That is a two parts trip crossing two still unmarked pathways. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    That is the main reason I was so pissed. Having just finished the whole Magic district vampire mess and all the bureaucratic hell that followed, we were being sent in on a high risk mission.


    The commander didn¡¯t want to send us like this, but we were in desperate need of more magic sources. After this prolonged storm where near all the Fae courts magic was needed to shield the enclave, most of our magic reserves were used to keep everything else running.


    With the storm gone, our current sources of magic should replenish our reserves, but that would take a really long time. And in case of another storm like this last one hits it would mean imposing rationing on the enclave.


    The truth is this last storm left a lot of people nervous in the enclave. We never had one that lasted more than a week before, this one lasted over a month. So increasing our magic income and reserves is the hot topic in the enclave at the moment. And so it was decided to save magic by not divining a safer pathway until we could assert if this new source of magic is still viable.


    ¡°Captain¡± Johnson call brings me back to earth, well to the broken piece of the fae realm to be exact but not the point. ¡°There are lights ahead. And they are coming in our direction.¡±


    It take me a few seconds to spot them, there were a score or so of small colored lights coming in our direction. They were fast approaching in our direction.


    I immediately ready my defences and summon my magic. Lilian and Erick do it as well.


    ¡°They are forest sprites, do not harm them.¡¯ Pyralis says in a commanding voice.


    Soon the small lights surround our party and start dancing around us. With them so close I can see what looks like small creatures. They looked like the disney variation of faeries, with humanoid forms and small wings. But their bodies are made fallen twigs and leafs merged together, their wings are small broadleafs.


    Sprites are spiritual creatures. They are usually spirits born off places with a lot of life or magic energies, and they are mostly harmless, unless you harm the place they were born from. Forest sprites are, as the name say, spirits born from the forest. And they guard it.


    While most of the sprites keep flying around us, a few of them are floating right in front of Lis as if communicating with her.


    This goes for a while, and when I¡¯m about to interrupt Lis, she nods to the sprites and they all fly away from us to the south, but they don¡¯t go far. They position themselves in pairs with two meters or so between them. Forming a path deeper into the forest.


    I knew right away I wouldn¡¯t like what Lis had to say.


    ¡°They want my help.¡± She states. Damn, I knew I wouldn¡¯t like it.


    ¡°Sorry Lis, not happening, we have our mission and the longer we stay here the bigger is the chance of something going wrong.¡± I asnwer her.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have a choice wizard¡±. Damnit. Whenever she calls me Wizard means she is full on her Sidhe mode. ¡°They are not asking me, they are asking the Summer Court, whom the sprites are vassals of. As a noble of the court I cannot deny help.


    ¡°I won¡¯t ask for you all to come with me. Continue with the mission and I if I can, I will rejoin you once I¡¯m done here.


    For someone who was showing a big insight on mortals last night, she can sometimes be really naive. Looking around to everyone else I confirmed that there was no way we were going to let her do it alone. It¡¯s good to know that we are of the same mind.


    I mean we aren¡¯t a democracy, so it was my call that mattered in the end. But it would be harder to convince Lis to let us help her if someone was unwilling.


    As Pyralis start moving following the sprites path, we all move to follow her. She immediately stops and stares at us. I decided to play dumb. ¡°Hey Lis you haven¡¯t told us what the sprites need our help with.¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t asked for your help Wizard. This is a Summer court matter, I won¡¯t accept help from a minion of Winter.¡± Exactly what I expected, once the sprites asked her help as a Summer court noble, anything we help her can be seen as helping Summer, creating a small debt. Pyralis couldn¡¯t accept it. Not out of stubbornness, her allegiance to the summer court really stopped her from doing so.


    ¡°Look Lis, personally I would prefer that we ignore the sprites and keep doing our mission. Now since that is not an option for you, then we are going to help you, you are part of the team and our friend.¡± Lilian tells her.


    ¡°Yeah, we leave nobody behind Lis.¡± Johnson complements.


    ¡°Not to mention our chances of surviving this missions greatly increase when you are with us.¡± Erick answer gets him a look from the other two. But it¡¯s also the one which has the biggest impact to convince Lis.


    We got to convince her that we are helping her for our own reasons or obligations, so that it creates no debt for her and Summer. God I hate sidhe politics.


    ¡°Also, if we befriend the sprites of the forest, it might make our passage easier on this and any future missions that use this way. Besides I can¡¯t let you go and get yourself killed, you still owe me. But seriously Lis, our help is freely given with no obligations incurred.¡± I tell her.


    Pyralis stares serious at us for a moment. ¡°They are saying that their friend is on the way of danger and cannot get out of the way. They require us to help her.¡± After saying that she turns and starts walking again. She doesn''t stop again when we start following her.