Monster Party Book Six: Only mortal trust of faerie dust….
Chapter Four: I could be mean, I could be ruthless, don't you know I could be just like you?
Now that the dancing men had been dealt with the group turned their attention to grabbing a few more precious hours of sleep. Though catnaps were far from a perfect solution, time was of the essence and before noon they struck out.
The adventurers headed into the Wytchwood, determined to locate some trace of either Arla McCollin or the White Lady she had gone looking for.
At first they tramped along in relative peace and quiet with only the various sounds of a thriving forest for company. Still, with every passing moment the forest seemed to tightening its embrace upon them.
The boughs of towering trees blocked out most of the sunlight, and gnarled roots jutting out of the soil made footing treacherous. The air grew thick with the smell of pine and loam as it became still and heavy. Even the scratching of the crickets and buzzing of flies now seemed to be muted by the sweet miasma of the forest.
Then without warning the stillness of the moment was shattered by a hail of half a dozen stinging darts fired at them by some hidden ambushers. One of them punched cleanly through Cal's brown overcoat and into his right shoulder.
He reached up with his other hand pulled it out, gazing down in revolution at the blood and other liquids which coated the tiny missile.
"Oh this is not good." He muttered before dropping it and crouching low to the ground to make himself a smaller target for any further attacks.
"Deadly poison? Florence!" Alexander barked, counting on his dryad companion to neutralize such venoms before it was too late for the Lamordian.
Alexander had been leading the group and thus born the brunt of the attack, being struck by no less than four of the tiny darts. Florence Bastien had been hit by the other, but neither she nor Alexander seemed noticeably affected at the moment.
"No, don't need her help yet Boss. This stuff is only a paralytic, slowish acting… got an antidote somewhere..." The dirty blond haired man warned as he searched the collection of bottles and containers he wore strapped to his belt.
With each passing second the movements of his his right hand became more stilted and awkward forcing him to use his left instead. When he finally located the right mixture he unscrewed the top and drained half of its contents down his throat in one long gulp. With a sigh of relief he quickly tossed the container over to Devi Skye who drank down whatever remained.
While he did so James Firecat made sure to push Kian McCollin firmly to the ground and position his own body between the young man and the direction the darts had come from.
"Gaia, who dares hide among your daughters…?" Called out Florence as she waved her hands adding a few more words in a more mystical trees.
Before the spell could be completed however the next wave of attacks arrived.
A full half score of foes dropped on the party out of the overhanging tree branches.
They were strange twisted creatures, almost human looking; except their bodies were scrunched, their eyes too big for the heads, and had wicked needle like teeth which gleamed in preparation for battle.
Each and every single one of them clenched a shinning dagger in one hand.
Thankfully, one died almost instantly, blasted into a smoking corpse by a bolt of lightning from the ring Devi Skye wore on the middle finger of her right hand.
The remaining nine happily began to engage the group in a wild close quarters melee. Cal's personal firearm Phoenix rang out striking down another of the strange assassins, but having done that he was then forced to wield it as nothing more than a club.
Clearly eager for a chance to spread pain to the most helpless a trio of the monster men closed in on James and Kian. The werecat rolled over (so that his back rather than his chest held the young boy down) and drew a pair of daggers. He fought against them with an awkward series of slashes, stabs, blocks, and twists absorbing blows rather than letting them strike Kian.
Devi's flail rapidly lashed out striking here and there breaking bones each time it landed, while its owner was pressed back to back with Florence. The dryad in turn had been forced to abandon her spell work in favor using her staff in a more martial manner.
Mirri Catwarrior was having the time of her unlife.
Though the blades of these attackers glimmered ominously with a coating of some fowl liquid she had yet to meet the poison that could harm those already dead. She swept through the attackers like a whirlwind, reaping a terrible vengeance against them.
Her arms seized her smaller foes by the throat and throttled them, or tossed their bodies against the trees with enough force to smash their skulls.
The battle was as brief as it was fierce, the strange creatures' poisoned weapons were unable to work properly against any of the adventures and soon their own reckless and bloodthirsty nature became their undoing.
As the last of their bodies fell another volley of the poisoned darts short out from a slightly different portion of the forest; James, Mirri, and Devi were all struck by one of the projectiles. Fortified by Cal's potion Devi resisted the venom, James' lycanthropic constitution managed to shake off its effects and Mirri was immune as ever.
Florence Bastien was hit by another three but didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest. At least she wasn't bothered by the physical darts.
"You find pleasure in this?" She called out in Sylvan.
"No fun now, evil sunkisser! Broke all our toys! Need to get more of them!" A voice replied back in the same language (though in a higher pitch and more rushed tone, like the buzzing of an insect's wings) from within the forest.
"Evil? You hide among my sisters' branches and use their shade to hide your crimes. I will grant you illumination and show you true meaning of evil!" She promised and began casting again.
No second wave of the dagger wielding creatures appeared to to interrupt her this time and she was able to properly channel the mystical powers.
Instantly tree branches began to bend, snap, and break! That was only a test though, soon even the thick tree trunks began to do the same!
One by one like an invisible scythe reaping through the once tall and powerful trees they turned upon themselves and broke apart into splinters.
As the trees toppled the curtain of shade they had created vanished and bright sunlight streamed down.
Almost instantly there was a hissing sound like sizzling bacon, and an acrid burning smell began to fill the air.
"Sunkisser won't fight fair! Fights with magic!" A voice cried out enraged Sylvan.
With their arboreal shelter ripped away from them it was no possible to see the creatures who had been shooting darts at the group.
They were each no larger than a man's fist, and like their larger cousins they seemed to have eyes too large for their heads along with mouths full of sharp teeth. They wore simple belts from which more of the poisoned darts dangled. Each also had on a small crimson tunic which had holes cut in them to let out a pair of wasp like wings along with an equally scarlet hood.
Said wings were beating furiously now as they sought to fly away from Florence and the patch of the forest that she had cleared.
"Shadowfuckers don't fight fair, send others to die for them!" Florence taunted back as she dropped her staff and raised her hands.
Still more magical words sprang from her lips and her fingers began to transform.
They grew out and became as green as any of the leaves that surrounded them. They split apart and became a mass of thickly tangled seaweed that snagged the flying creatures, crushing their wings and dragging them back down the ground.
"Now Shadowfuckers learn what it means to die! Now they burn!" Florence cackled as indeed that was exactly what was happening to the creatures.
The wisps of smoke that had been coming from them intensified and with a series of soft popping sounds like festival fireworks each one of them burst into flames.
No coherent words escaped them as the flames feasted upon their bodies, burning them from top to bottom until there was not a single trace of their existence left.
Her spell's purpose the strange kelp like strands retracted and returned to being nothing more than Florence Bastien's fingers.
"What was that?" Kian asked as he struggled his way free from under James now that the danger had passed.
While red haired lycanthrope had managed to protect his body from harm, his eyes had still ended up being exposed to sight of Florence using her magic.
"The White Lady isn't the only friendly forest spirit. You can think of me as the Green Lady." Florence responded with a benign smile.
"So what were these things anyway? Always like to know what I kill..." Mirri pondered as she picked up one of their fallen ambushers.
Unlike their smaller cousins they had left distinct corpses behind that could be easily interacted with.
"I've got a theory." Alexander admitted.
He picked up one of the dead monsters and tossed it into the section of the forest that Florence had cleared of trees. It didn't burst into flames or vanish, but it did reveal something interesting, the creature had no shadow.
"Changelings." Alexander growled.
"They don't look anything like those bastards back in Paridon." Cal immediately cut in.
"Not doppelgangers, changelings. It is what the evil fey do to those they steal the shadow of.
They carry it off and preform eldritch rituals upon it, and the shadow itself transforms into a changeling bound do the will of the one who created it. Hopefully we didn't just destroy the shadows of anyone from Briggdarrow." Alexander ruminated.
"You mean that might have been part of me mah or pah?" Kian asked with a shudder, clinging tightly to James for support.
"Evil Fey make changeling out of those who skills match the dark purpose they desire. Redcaps look for those who excel in the arts of skulking, poison, and murder. I think it's safe enough to assume that if your parents lived mundane lives they were probably put to mundane use..." Alexander strove to comfort the young boy.
"It wasn't just adults though… there were other kids like me and Arla… Why, why did they do this us?" Kian practically sobbed at the unfairness of it all.
"There is no depths to evil of those who refuse to recognize the lives of others. Excuse me..." Florence pointed out before suddenly stepping away from the group.
She walked out into the section of the forest that she had cleared and fell into a kneeling crouch before one of the broken trees.
Words flowed from her mouth in the sylvan tongue that none of her companions (not even Alexander) spoke.
"I am sorry sister. I am for this terrible slaughter I have wrought among you.
I am sorry for the sap I have spilled. You did not die in vain, in your sacrifice you have slain a great evil though I still wish I could have thought of some other way.
I am sorry that all I can do is promise that my magic will nurture your saplings, so that they will grow strong, so that your legacy will not end here.
I am sorry that for how hollow these words sound even as I speak them.
I am sorry that I am no longer the tender gardener I was born to be.
This world needs gardeners... but even more it needs a righteous conflagration to scorches away the evil that so pervades this land and seeks to choke the life from others before they even have a chance to bloom.
The man I love convinced me that I had the power to be that blaze…" She repented as her fingers dug a small hole in ground where the tall trees had blocked out the sunlight to the point that not even green had grown.
"Please do not hate the forest fire because it burns so fiercely, if you can, rejoice in the new opportunities that arise from its devastation.
Most of all, I am sorry that I have let myself be corrupted." She pleaded.
In response to her words and magic a small tree shoot suddenly poked its head above the soil.
Florence took heart from the sight, though she hoped it would not be the only one to answer her prayers.
End Chapter.
AN: First of all I'm sorry for no update last week, was on vacation.
Also sorry for short update this week, what can I say, it's time for another rising action.
The spell that Florence is using here to break up the trees is a third level warp wood, the one she's using to keep the redcaps from escaping is second level Kelpstrand. The one she uses afterwords is probably third level Plant Growth.