Close Encounters of the Fey Kind

JP with Rosmary

Shade the Betrayed was twirling the crystal in his hand that he had acquired from Ponce when he heard voices in a nearby tavern that sounded all too familiar. Looking through the window of the Golden Oak, he spotted Orla, Reise, and Severos sitting at a table. Orla looked as fresh faced and youthful as she did the day she healed Draken in her garden over a century ago. Severos however looked haggard, strung out from the corrupting influence of the Mortith.

"Oh yes, let us find a shadow that can be anywhere by now!" the young mage snapped in anger.

Shade smiled. So the three were after him, for the stolen book? He watched as the bigoted merchant was taken away by the guards. He had other things to do, Kalena to find, but that didn't mean he couldn't give Severos and his friends a hint. Drop them a clue.

As the man was taken away for punishment, Shade stalked behind the guards, and with a swift movement knocked them out. He just as easily snatched the man who cried out in a panic, "W-what do you want? Wait, did the accursed mage send you to kill me!?"

Shade gripped the fool by the neck, "No, I want you to deliver a message to that mage back there. I want you to tell him Draken resides in the Dalen ruins."

The merchant trembled and Shade twisted his hand and palmed it on the man's forehead, branding it with the mark of the Betrayed, his personal signature. He shoved the man down to the ground, who wept with pain and terror. "Go, now. Tell them what I said."

The man quickly ran off to deliver the message, and Shade hoped he wasn't sending them all to their deaths. Dalen had never been a pleasant place but it was highly unsafe now with the civil strife and low-bred demons that were little more than beasts really. And there was Gelt too.

Shade helped the guards up by waking them “You alright? Seems that man had friends."

The guards thanked him for his help and asked where the man went. Shade simply pointed to where the merchant ran off, "Oh, and the man's friend looked like this." He showed them an image of Ponce just for the hell of it, and they thanked him again and quickly alerted the rest of Osilon's city watch. Shade slunk back to the shadows and rested for a time, finding himself thinking back to his earliest past, when he was mortal, and when he first met Orla. When he had been Jace.

323 YBTR, the Skeldergate Forest

Jace had worked his way through the leafy foliage of trees and shrubbery until he emerged into a grassy opening in the forest which the sun filled with its golden afternoon rays. In this secluded glade were a group of slight elven figures clad in colourful garments of gauze-like silk. They danced aerialbatically in time to the enchanting sound of harps, flutes, and reeds—the slender bodies weaving together and separating like a kaleidoscope as their iridescent, ethereal wings beat the air. Those not playing musical instruments gracefully lounged on logs and rocks, sipping from wooden cups of honey mead.

The young thief gawked, knowing he was seeing an extremely rare sight indeed. Faerie folk were said to inhabit and rule the Skeldergate forest, but they were such elusive and near-mythical creatures that only a few had ever glimpsed them up close. Their soft hair swirled and shone in rich, magical hues like he had never seen before, and their eyes were vibrant and full of uncanny energy. They each looked as delicately beautiful as they were deadly, for of those unfortunate souls who ever actually saw fae elves almost none had ever returned to tell the tale.

Jace started to cautiously crawl back into the undergrowth and slip away from the dangerous beings when one of them spinning on fluttering wings suddenly cried out in alarm, “Hark! I sense we're being spied upon!”

Jace sucked in his breath and carefully hid in the shadows, silently praying that he wouldn't be caught. Legends could only tell of what happened to those captured by the fey. He didn't want his fate to be this way. He trembled in fear, hoping that the creatures would go back to their leisurely play and forget him. He would rather face the city guard than the dreaded fae elves, and so the young thief kept silent and waited.

“A mortal intruding upon our sacred rites? Fie! However did he get this far into the Deepwood?” one cried fretfully.

Another fae elf with a long, angular face, whose grey eyes twinkled with intelligence, hovered only a few metres away and Jace could see him shaking his head in amusement at the intrusion. “The interloper must be unusually stealthy or lucky or both to get past the Dryad Guardians.”

A fae maid looking about sixteen, in a short silk dress and with her small face framed by blonde bobbed hair, flew up beside him. “You seem awfully insouciant about this, Maelwin.”

“'Tis the unexpected events that make life so interesting, cousin,” the somewhat older male replied in worldly tones. “Besides, what threat can a mere human lad pose to us, after all?”

“How do you know the intruder is human?” she enquired, curious at his certainty on the matter.

Maelwin Keyes casually turned and gestured down at the shadows of the bushes beneath them. “Take a look for yourself, Orla. He's hiding right down there. Can you not hear his heart beating like a scared rabbit?”

Spotted, Jace jumped up and ran like he never had run before, stumbling in a panic through the tangled undergrowth that lay treacherously around him. Thorns tore at his clothes and scratched his face as he frantically fought his way through the thick vegetation that was slowing him down. To his further despair was the relentless beat of the wings and the conversational voices of the two fey creatures who circled him overhead, easily keeping pace.

“We affright him so,” Orla said, distressed at feeling the intense fear radiating off him with her empathic sense.

“He should be afraid,” Maelwin remarked with ominous casualness. “Very afraid.”

“What mean you by that?”

“He must be questioned and his fate determined in accordance with our ancient customs. Now, Mistress Avara tells me your magical studies are proceeding well. So if you would kindly stop him ere he does himself a damage....”

Heeding the request reluctantly, Orla gestured with her hands, weaving a spell like one she had not quite worked before. The surrounding plant life beneath Jace's feet reached out and snared his ankles, catching the thief fast. But before he could topple over, the vines wound their way up his legs in rapid fashion until they had completely bound him head to foot where he stood, holding him immobile.

Maelwin smiled and nodded in commendation. It was a simple spell, but sometimes that was all that was needed. The other fae elves, mostly youngsters, swarmed around Jace menacingly, sticking out their tongues and making faces at him as they cheered on his capture.

“Orla caught him! Orla caught him!” they chanted laughingly pleased at this.

“Ease up, cousin, or you'll crush him to death,” Maelwin chuckled in high good humour, noticing the animated vines were constricting the lad so tightly that they were close to doing just that.

Orla gasped at her error and immediately spurred the vines to slacken their viselike grip. She found it distastefully unpleasant to use the plants in such a cruel manner and resolved not to ever do so again. Force was anathema to her soft and sweet nature. As her dainty slipper-shod feet touched down on the ground she gave Jace an apologetic look.

Maelwin landed next and stepped up to the thief with a serious expression. “Understand that you are in the gravest peril, my lad, and that your life hangs by the thinnest thread. These woods are forbidden to all but the children of Fernoia. Now who are you and whence do you come? If you lie, I will know...”

Jace groaned, today was not supposed to go this way. He watched as his bag of loot fell and spilled out all the money he had stolen, among other trinkets. Jace slowly became red with embarrassment, "Just a kid trying to get by…..through stealing." He would have lied, but there was no point, plus he had no other option at the moment. "I just ran from the guards in the town nearby. My plan was to sneak through the forest and find another town where I could spend all the gold I stole without worrying about being thrown into prison or worse. I never planned on running into the fair folk. Whoever your guards are, they suck. Come on, I just ran in. I wasn't even trying to be sneaky." Jace smirked at his own comment, but when you are being squeezed by vines in front of a crowd of sinister fae elves, you don't have much choice. "So, there. That's all, and I'm not telling you my name, I know what happens, you get my name I have to worry about returning here to be food for wild boars while you watch in glee. Can I leave now, I'll rather spend this money free of fae elves." Jace was tired of this and his mouth would run on auto due to this.

Some of the fae elves could not help but to smile at the rambling story whilst others considered Jace's manner impertinent and offensive in the highest degree. A few moved to curiously pick up and examine the fallen coins and his other ill-gotten spoils. Maelwin ignored it all and patted Jace's cheek. “I like your spunk and your honesty, lad, but your attitude leaves much to be desired. Do you truly presume yourself to be the first wayward fugitive to flee into the Skeldergate forest? The first offending human to try to throw themselves on our mercy? E'en if you did not intend to intrude so deep into our sacred wood, it does not matter. You are cooked all the same. You see, if we forgave every human like you, ‘twould only encourage e'en more trespassers. But seldom are your kind so foolish. The Skeldergate has such an aspect that few dare to wander hither, and those that do always have cause to regret it.”

“What is to be done with him then?” Orla asked, her voice fraught with concern.

“Perhaps we should fulfil his expectations and turn him into a tree or a stone?” Maelwin mused. “Or a squirrel mayhap so he can continue a life of thievery stealing nuts from his fellow rodents? An existence not much different from the one the lad knows, save for skittering up trees on all fours. My transfiguration spells could use the practice.” Chuckling, he wiggled his fingers in Jace's face theatrically.

“Put a curse on him, Maelwin!” one of the others suggested enthusiastically.

“Nay,” Orla said. “'Tis not nice to scare him like this. He means us no harm. Can we not simply make him forget and send him home with no memories, like was done with those lost soldiers?”

“Soldiers? Oh right, them,” Maelwin replied. “That was the Avatar's decision and a different situation entirely. This delinquent before us now is a brazen thief who has trespassed into our holy place. He must be made an example for any other humans who would dare invade our domain. But ere we do anything hasty, I am curious as to just how he managed to get past Kurnuous and the others, and, as he claims, without hardly trying. That speaks to higher forces, mystical threads that are hidden, even from our vaunted faerie sight. I know a few more tricks than most, however. Let us see what I can glean of what truly led him here to his doom...”

The eccentric fae elf reached down and grasped Jace's hand that protruded from between the vines. After a moment, Maelwin's eyes opened wide and he stumbled back. “By the goddess!” he uttered, astonished.

Orla took in his reaction with awed speculation. “What... what did you learn?”

“The lad has a destiny, what may be a rather dark one. Truly I am uncertain what it all means,” Maelwin admitted, shivering though the day was warm. “The thing I am most certain of is 'twill involve a great betrayal...”

Jace raised a brow, "A betrayal, what does that mean? I don't trust anyone, and to hell with it if it means I'll be betrayed, let me go already, I really don't need this." He couldn't remember what he saw, but whatever it was, it was different. He didn't like how things were going, and by his guess, he was about to go a dark path.

“It means whatever is to befall you will be a lot worse than anything which we could possibly do to you,” Maelwin said, fascination mixed with pity showing in his face.

At that moment a cloud rolled over the sun. The sound of thunder and the beginning of a storm could be heard. Blue lighting flickering in the sky. Cold gusts fired through the forest, the trees began swinging to the great power. Jace turned his direction in amazement of the approaching storm, "By the gods, what is that?"

“That's rather a good question,” Maelwin said, frowning as his hair whipped in the wind.

“'Tis very powerful magic,” Orla observed. She was holding down her dress with one hand and bracing herself against a tree with the other.

The air was cold, yet somehow comforting, the clouds darkened the sky as eerie blue lights flickered. It appeared as if the sky would pour down rain but not a single drop fell, only the winds howled at the presence. The storm made his arrival known far before he came into view. Walking through the path was a tall being, with giant horns on top his crown of horns, blue armor shimmering with great power, and long hair billowing in the wind, the mighty demon lord had arrived, Soularous.