The first thing Mabel noticed was that she was smaller. "What happened?" she asked. "What happened to my extra millimeter? My dozens of other inches?"
Jeff stared back at her. "What, did you expect to remain a giant or something?"
"Well, I," Mabel said, then looked down at her finger. There was the same wedding ring from the beginning of summer, the small crystals sparkling in the sunlight. Yes, these were the ones that got her and her brother in a load of trouble with Lil' Gideon.
How easily can I get out of this? Mabel asked herself. Quickly, she began to pull on the ring to remove its power from her. It wouldn't budge one single inch.
"Honey," Jeff said. "We aren't stupid. Believe me, we wouldn't want you pulling that off and getting away."
Mabel marked that off of her mental ways of getting out checklist.
"It won't be so bad." Jeff said.
Like I'd believe you, thought Mabel, hiding her anger.
"Anyway, now that you are the gnome queen, we kind of need you to do something." Jeff waved his hand in the air. "Really, it won't be much."
"What do you need?" Mabel asked, hoping she could find a way out.
"We need you to perform an ancient magical ritual to restore us to our former glory so that we can remain immortal."
"Yep, you're really not asking for much."
"Glad to know you're on board!" Jeff didn't catch her sarcasm. "Now follow me!"
Gnomes are powerful creatures, and with little magic can do many things. Back in the olden days, back when humans believed in such things, they were hunted down so their power could be used. The ancient gnomes at first didn't see this as much of a problem, as humans usually grabbed the weakest or laziest gnomes, the ones who couldn't run away. However, soon their numbers began to dwindle, almost causing the gnomes to go extinct. With their all male members, they had no way to reproduce. Many began to think their population would remain eternally small.
Soon the gnomes discovered the forest's shrinking and growing crystals. The new sizes they made with them couldn't help them, but they did find other magic forms.
First, the gnomes tried to make copies of themselves, but it didn't work. Next, they tried to bring the dead gnomes back to life, which ended up killing even more gnomes. For a period of time, many gnomes began to believe that there was no they could ever get back to their former glory.
However, one gnome believed otherwise. At the time, he was one of the least noticed gnomes. His name was Jeff.
"That's me!" Jeff said, pointing at the scroll.
"They didn't get your nose right." Mabel said.
Jeff glared at her. "Don't mention that! Other than the mistake on my nose I look just as handsome as I do now."
Mabel rolled her eyes.
Jeff thought if the humans could find amazing things from the gnomes, then the gnomes could find amazing things from the humans. With the help of a few other gnomes, he kidnapped a local human girl and forced her to marry the gnomes; the girl was shrunk using one of the crystals. Experimenting with magic, he found a spell only she could do, restoring the gnome population to a thousand. However, she found a way to escape, and she was never seen again.
At first her being gone wasn't seen as a big deal. The gnomes were back to their regular population and just as healthy as always. However, over the years they slowly became less and less healthy. As slow as it was, they eventually had to face the fact that they were getting weaker.
"And that's where you come in," Jeff said. "To make sure we don't die, you just need to perform a super hard spell. Don't worry, it'll make you immortal, too. Besides, you'll only have to do it every thousand or so years."
"Uh," Mabel said.
"Oh, and don't think of trying not to. By now our magic crystal, which we enhanced with gnome magic to give you some of our DNA, should be working quite well. Basically, if you don't help us, you will slowly weaken and die with us."
Author's Note: Not very long, but I've been busy. I can't guarantee when the next chapter will come.