Level 1 Fallen

While the colorful swarm of pixies gradually repaired the black pit, as if redrawing the map, the pixie within the car with us smiled brightly. “Great! Now the sneaky place has been destroyed, and it will take them at least another week to build a new one!”

“A week…?” Ella asked in surprise. “You mean that you have to deploy these battleships every week to fight back against their invasions?”

“What? No, of course not, that would be silly!” the pixie shook its head rapidly. “Naturally, someone else will get the next one! It depends on whose territory it ends up in! G’Riol’s territory is pretty small, so it’s usually not us, nope.”

“Anyways!” the pixie turned to face us, its body shining. “The Great Pixie King Gerfectenalt Riolegese the Third wishes to have an audience with those who helped avert the catastrophe!”

 It turned towards the front of the car, extending a tiny hand forward. Grey runes flew from its hand, passing through the windshield and forming a large circle before us. “Beyond this land and sea and sky, to the place where old souls lie. Through the mists where spirits wait, I open up this fairy gate!” 

The runes in the air fizzled and dissolved, but nothing seemed to happen. The pixie froze, staring awkwardly, before clearing its throat. “Right, right… that was the old methodology. I forgot that the runic spells mutated recently. That’s fine, I’ve got this! I can do this!”

The pixie then extended both hands forward, its brow furrowing. More and more densely packed runes flooded out from its hands, forming four layers of concentric circles. White mist formed within the circles, turning into a floating cloud. “Open!”

The cloud in front of us shook, black pillars rising on either side of it. Between the pillars, a grey portal began to take shape. Diane watched with interest, her eyes wide. “I see… so the old method was akin to giving the runes vague instructions, while the new one is a strict command without room for interpretation.”

Seeing that the pixie was already having a difficult time maintaining the portal, I flew the car through it. The neon hues of land and sky were immediately bleached away, everything becoming shades of grey. The atmosphere shifted from cheer to gloom, and I could immediately tell why many fairies preferred to live on the ‘other side’.

In the distance, I could see a towering castle and countless spires. Flying vehicles flitted between the spires or off into the horizon. The pixie that had come with us, its light now dim and grey, turned to face us with a weary smile. “Let’s get going. Pixie King Gerfectenalt Riolegese the Third wishes to speak with you.”

The pixie pointed towards the great castle in the distance, and so I flew the car onwards. Given that we were already within the spirit realm, my stealth skill was completely useless, even if I did want to hide our approach. Thankfully, there was no need to do so this time, and the pixie guided us towards what looked like an elevated garage, telling us to dock there.

The inside of the garage was made of sleek metal and glowing lines of lights, the nearby door a large circle. Diane watched the surroundings curiously. “So, the most technologically advanced race is actually the pixies? That is… not what I expected.”

No longer within the colorful world, the pixie escorting us seemed downcast, floating along and beckoning us to follow. “This way, yup. Pixie King Gerfectenalt Riolegese the Third is waiting.”

As we walked, my eyes scanning the surroundings, a peculiar expression came over my face. I could tell that Diane and the others hadn’t noticed it yet, so I didn’t immediately say anything, and waited for the pixie to bring us to the throne room.

Once we were there, I saw the king, the brightest-shining pixie we had seen thus far, and my brow twitched. The king looked like a tiny, palm-sized human with four butterfly wings and sharp features. Exactly like the pixie that had escorted us, and exactly like every other pixie that we had seen thus far. Whether it was their face, their hair, the patterns on their wings, they were completely identical copies of one another.

The only thing that seemed even remotely different about this king was the fact that its glow was brighter. But, given what we had seen thus far, that could have very easily just been tied to its mood. I used True Sight to try to find any distinguishing characteristics among the pixies, but even that level of perception was unable to find the slightest distinction.

“Greetings, greetings!” the king chimed happily, with even its voice the same as the pixie that had brought us here. “I am Pixie King Gerfectenalt Riolegese the Third! It’s so nice to meet properly intelligent tall people. So many of you are brutish and try to capture us in jars, yes.”

“In… jars?” Bella asked hesitantly, looking at Ella and Diane for an explanation, but both of them chimed in unison.

“You don’t want to know.”

“O-Oh, okay.” Getting the hint, Bella immediately dropped the subject, though I was still morbidly curious. Still, given their adamant refusal of the topic, I felt it best not to press my luck.

“Thank you for meeting us, Pixie King,” I bowed, not even trying to pronounce that name. “I was honestly quite surprised when I found that there was such an advanced civilization here. I am Drake Advent, King of Fallcry.”

“Oh, you’re a king as well?!” the pixie leaned forward, eyes wide. “I must admit, I have never heard of this Fallcry that you speak of. That said, I believe you have come from beyond the Realm Rift, so this is no surprise. Still, still, you have helped us with a rather troubling task!”

“As of late, the ugly ones have begun to hide their bases, preventing us from being able to halt their advances. Whenever they have a base with seven portals, they always begin a concentrated assault. Seeing as this base had already opened five, we were mere days from a serious problem!”

“For this reason, I must ask you! How did you find their sneaky place?” the king asked, and I suppressed a groan, realizing that their similarities went beyond simply their physical appearance.

“It was the Sneaky Finder!” the other pixie announced, sticking its chest out. “It went beep beep when the sneaky place was near!”

I brought a hand up, massaging the bridge of my nose. “It’s called a Dungeon Detector, Your Majesty. Its purpose is to find dungeons, which people like myself can use as a training ground to become stronger. These dungeons are often filled with monsters, which we fight against, honing our skills.”

“As for the base that we located before, that was purely by chance. The portals used at the base were likely another type of dungeon portal, or something similar that could be detected by our device.”

“I see, I see!” the king rapidly nodded its head. “Would you be willing to trade these Sneaky Finders to us? Currently, the biggest threat to the people of Feycross is the inability to find their sneaky bases.”

My brow twitched, and I just stopped trying to correct him on the name of the device. “It should be possible for us to get some more of those devices to trade with you. However, I do not know what your people have to trade in return.”

“Oh, yes yes, you might not use the standard gold currency. Or maybe these Sneaky Finders are worth more than gold… Hmm, I already promised you a runic cannon as payment for showing us to the sneaky place. You also don’t live in the Grey Beyond, so you have no need for a fairy gate.”

“I know! What about a Door to Nowhere?” the king asked in a hopeful tone, eyes blazing.

“What is a Door to Nowhere?” I questioned, unable to really tell anything just by its name.

The king, however, simply shrugged. “It used to be the Door to Everywhere, but the mutated runes altered how it works. Now, we don’t know where it goes! Hence, Door to Know Where!”

It took me far too long to grasp the wordplay there, before I coughed to clear my throat. “Apologies, but that doesn’t seem particularly useful for us either.”

The king let out a small huff, before tapping his chin and thinking aloud. “Fine, fine, you drive a hard bargain, tall king. Well, let’s see. There’s the crown of thunder thorns, or the ring of many things. We’ve got a cloak of iron grasp, and bracers of bee stings. There’s the map that sees it all, and the one the land forgot. Or the rifle of true sight, which has never missed a shot?”

“Is he rhyming on purpose, or is that just how they do lists here?” Ella asked quietly, and I had no idea how to answer.

Deciding it was best to stop the king before he continued any further, I spoke up. “Could you tell me a bit more about those maps, and that rifle?”

“Hmm? Those things? Well, I don’t see how they’re all that valuable, but I suppose I can share some information,” the king agreed absentmindedly. “First, the Map That Sees All. This is a map that shows a vast area around yourself, as if looking down from the heavens. It is how we used to find the bases of the monsters, before they learned to hide.”

“Next, there is the Map the Land Forgot. This is a failed product when we were trying to modify the first map to show hidden bases. We can’t tell where the wording of the runes went wrong, but instead of revealing hidden secrets, it only shows things nobody knows about. Which you think would mean that the bases were included, but those monsters apparently count as ‘somebody’, much to our chagrin.”

“Last, the Rifle of True Sight. This is a runic rifle that we created with two primary enchantments. First, the scope has a True Sight enchantment to see through all deception. Secondly, there is a switch to lock onto the target shown in the scope. Until that lock is undone, all bullets fired from the rifle will invariably track the target.”

“Just checking,” Bella began, “but has that rifle actually been tested? It’s not just that it hasn’t missed a shot because nobody’s used it yet, right?”

“Of course it’s been tested!” the king spoke as if it were obvious. “We always test our newest creations extensively.”

While they spoke, I was thinking about the three items. The first map would be good for exploring new areas, or it could be used to monitor the movement of enemy troops or large monsters. The second map would be useful for someone like Marron, pointing out undiscovered ruins or dungeons.

As for the third item, it would be more immediately useful to Bella, though I already had great faith in her accuracy. Still, that scope would let her fire at hidden enemies, which was a nice boon. However, I had one other concern with that rifle. “Is that rifle able to adjust its size?” I asked, looking at the size difference between the king and Bella. If it couldn’t, there was no way Bella could fire the rifle, even if she tried to do so with toothpicks.

“Why on earth would it need to do that?” the king asked, stunned before he looked at Bella. “Ohh, you wanted to give it to your tall person friend. Yes, that would make it rather tricky to use, I suppose.”

“Well, that just means it would be hard to give you any of our personal-use weapons or armors. Oh! Thelesephell Juriat said that your vehicle isn’t actually a runic construct. If your nation isn’t yet a master of runes, we could give you a copy of our Big Book of Runes. It’s a big book, perfect for big people like you, that’s all about runes! We even just finished updating it last week to include the new methods of use.’

“Why did you have to make it such a ‘big book’?” Ella asked in confusion, earning a matching look from the king.

“Because a small book doesn’t sound very impressive at all, does it? And we needed more space for all of the tutorials!”

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