DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Dawn of Revolution
The Guest
Six years before the coalition war...
Kraelsorth the Betrayer soared high on the dry, bitter winds above the Ayalakh Khanate's eastern plains, his leathery wings spread wide, his long tail serving as a rudder through the currents, his two-pronged pitchfork held casually in his right hand. Tricking that small trade town into destroying itself was a riot! One of Kraelsorth's best devil bargains yet. But it was starting to feel old-hat. Time for something exciting next.
Such as bullying fairies. What an inspired idea!
Kraelsorth spent all afternoon soaring at top speed to the east, gradually angling himself north as well to approach the vast, untamed Ciorwyth Woods that lay on the Khanate-Queendom border. How long had it been since Kraelsorth visited this desolate region of the continent? What fresh victims awaited? What bargains would they strike with their horned devil guest?
Kraelsorth gripped his pitchfork even tighter and grinned widely.
The sun was setting on the endless prairie by the time Kraelsorth felt the air getting cooler and a little damper, and the grasslands below became hillier, with trees popping up like toothpicks in little clumps. Now he was in Talwydd territory! The fools here would never see him coming.
Kraelsorth swooped lower and skimmed along about twenty feet above the ground, with a pair of wandering firbolgs pointing up at him and babbling in wonder, and various elk, foxes, and hawks fled Kraelsorth's foul presence. Ha ha! Nature always reacted in funny ways when devils showed up. And as for his real victims...!
This was it. Kraelsorth beat his wings to slow down, and landed lightly on his clawed feet at the edge of the mighty Ciorwyth Woods. It was quite a sight, a forest with densely-packed, imposing trees and a faint, colorful aura of ambient fairy magic. Oh, so this is what people meant by "enchanted fairy forests." It was like the Northern Lights had settled on the ground, enticing guests with vivid displays, complete with twinkling specks of gold light here and there.
He went in.
There was no room to fly, so Kraelsorth folded up his sore wings and trotted through the oh-so-enchanted forest, noting the larger motes of glowing gold light that drifted around, and the ambient chatter and squawking of every animal species there ever was. What a racket! So much color! Things were simpler in the Khanate, where it was just the open air and endless grasslands where Kraelsorth could pick a victim and swoop down for the kill. Better not spend too long in here, or Kraelsorth might even get lost. What a bother.
"Found you!" Kraelsorth muttered with glee. He stepped into a small clearing, where dozens of small, wooden homes clung to the tree trunks, lights glowing in their round windows, with smoke pouring from their chimneys. A fairy town, full of victims! Already, a handful of curious fairies were circling Kraelsorth just out of reach, their wings buzzing, their high-pitched voices chattering away.
"I am Kraelsorth, lord of the skies!" Kraelsorth introduced himself, spreading his arms wide, his tail twitching with excitement. "I have come from the lands beyond to offer an infernal deal to the people of this town. Unlimited power can be yours... if you can satisfy me in a bargain."
No one could resist his tempting words! This had worked a thousand times before. And already, the fairies were buzzing in closer, hovering in front of his face.
"What's that thing?" a fairy lady asked, pointing.
"It's a devil. Lots of 'em in the Khanate," a fairy fellow with short blond hair told her. "This one must've flown in from the eastern grasslands to pay us a visit."
"Exactly right, little ones," Kraelsorth said, offering a hand. "I hear the forests of the Queendom are fraught with peril, and even the fairies, the masters of this land, may suffer at the hand of their enemies. Now is the time to fight back! Embrace my infernal power, and know victory!"
The fairy lady did a backward roll, laughing. "He's funny!"
"Funny! Funny!" the other fairies repeated.
"This is no jest. Bargain with me, and behold the wonders I can offer!" Kraelsorth urged them. Violet magic smoked on his palm. "Who shall be first? Speak!"
"You're a long way from home, pal," another fairy said, a punkish fellow with slicked-back dark hair. He folded his tiny arms. "Why don't you pester someone else where you came from?"
"Now, there's no need for -" Kraelsorth started.
"He's funny! And ugly!" the female fairy added, cackling. "Ug-ly! Ug-ly! Ug-ly! And smelly!"
"UG-LY! UG-LY! SMELL-Y! SMELL-Y!" the fairies chanted gleefully, rapidly circling their devil guest.
"You pests dare to mock me?" Kraelsorth roared. He flared out his wings, baring his sharp teeth. "I am a guest here!"
"We don't want anything from you, ugly!" the punk fairy taunted him, pointing.
"UG-LY! UG-LY! UG-LY! UG-LY!" the fairies kept chanting.
"That does it!" Kraelsorth was already moving before he knew it, his infernal temper seizing his mind with molten rage. He conjured a fireball in his free left hand and hurled it at the nearest clump of fairy houses, which exploded upon contact. Screaming fairies scattered from the inferno, two of them already on fire. Just seconds later, dozens more fairies emerged and surrounded their devil guest in rapid aerial dances. But this time, something was different.
"What is the meaning of this!" Kraelsorth barked. He swung his pitchfork through the air, but it was no use. The fairies were impossible to catch, and now, glimmers of green and gold magic filled the air. Suddenly, Kraelsorth felt very light and numb as the fairies somehow grew larger and larger -
His pitchfork fell to the forest floor, his tail gone, his head oddly light without his magnificent horns. What the...?
Kraelsorth seized his head and felt two small horns on his forehead, and a mess of thick, soft hair. Hair?!
"What have you done?!" Kraelsorth cried, and to his alarm, his voice sounded... like a fairy's! High-pitched and song-like and puny. He clapped his hands over his mouth, and felt no claws on his fingers.
"Look! Look at you! Look!" the fairies cheered. Four of them stretched out their arms in front of Kraelsorth, forming a shimmering magic mirror in thin air. A male fairy hovered in the reflection, with olive-colored skin and messy red hair and two short, almost juvenile black horns on his forehead.
It was him!
"It's a trick! This has to be a trick!" Kraelsorth raged.
"Didn't you know?" the laughing fairy lady from earlier got right in his face, hands on her hips, hovering in place. "Tricks are what fairies are known for. Welcome to Talwydd, Kraelsorth the puny!"
"PU-NY! PU-NY! PU-NY! PU-NY!" the others chanted, laughing as they went.
"Change me back! Right now!" Kraelsorth demanded, waving his fists. "Not until you learn your lesson," the punk fairy with slicked-back hair declared, pointing right at him. "You just came swaggering into our forest and blew up our houses! You think you're so big and tough? Try living our lives and see what you were about to ruin."
Kraelsorth laughed harshly. "Even if I look like one of you now, I'm still a devil, you wretch! My kind has no empathy! I'd kill a thousand of you to make a point!"
"And now we're gonna make ours."
"You can't make me do anything."
"Oh yeah? You wanna go back home lookin' like that? What will the other devils think? You're small enough to get inhaled up their noses!"
"NO-SES! NO-SES! NO-SESES! SNORT HIM UP THEIR NOSES!" the other fairies sang.
Kraelsorth balled his hands into fists and grit his teeth (they felt so flat). Curses! What had these foppish fairies done? What had he done? He couldn't go home like this! And he was too small to even lift his pitchfork! He even threw out his hand in desperation. No flames.
"So you gonna learn your lesson or what?" the punk fairy demanded as the others kept laughing and singing.
Kraelsorth muttered something in Infernal locked his molten gaze on the punk's own. "What would you have me do?"
Fixing the damage came first.
"Have you never repaired or mended anything in your life, Kraelsorth?" the punk fairy, who had introduced himself as Pixloyd Forbrooks, demanded as the fairies got to work on the fire-wrecked homes.
Kraelsorth grunted with effort, cursing his weak fairy arms as he heaved burned timbers away and tried to hammer new ones into place. "No. And how dare you have such a conversational tone with me!"
"You're just a fairy, like me," Pixloyd taunted him. "That's how it works, buddy."
Kraelsorth scowled darkly and wished he had a fairy-sized pitchfork so he could skewer Pixloyd and all his stupid fairy friends with it. And this was not easy work, either, rebuilding a home. As a devil, Kraelsorth had no concept of creation or healing, as the fairies realized for themselves, but they wouldn't let him go until the work was done. Kraelsorth felt his tiny muscles burning, his ridiculous, butterfly-like wings beating hard to keep him aloft as he worked himself to the bone.
The giggling female fairy from earlier, Oleana Scatterbright, slapped a hand onto the rebuilt home and declared, "It'll hold for now. It can at least resist an owlbear chewing on it."
"I hope an owlbear chews on you next," Kraelsorth muttered, arms folded as he looked away.
Oleana cupped a hand to her ear. "What was that, sweetie?"
"Nothing!"
Next, Pixloyd and Oleana "invited" Kraelsorth on a guided patrol of the Ciorwyth Woods, with an entire fairy patrol pack gliding along the enchanted auroras' colorful paths that twisted all throughout the forest. According to Oleana's excited chattering, these auroras were not just random colorful lights to make the forest look pretty, though they did that too. These auroras were highways that guided the fairies through the safest, most elegant routes in the Ciorwyth Woods, and along the enchanted highway's route, Kraelsorth could comfortably monitor the entire forest before sunset. Other Talwyddian forests had similar enchanted highways, some even bigger than this.
"Yes, I can see the animals. They're made of meat. Same as always," Kraelsorth said dismissively as his fairy pack checked up on the forest's local fauna. "They're born, they eat, they copulate, and they die. My kind has no interest in such trifling affairs."
"Do tell," Pixloyd said with a cunning smirk on his face. He looked over his shoulder at Kraelsorth as he spoke, his hair and clothes ruffling as the fairies zoomed along the aurora highway. "All these animals in the forest: the owlbears, the giant apes, the dragons, the giant spiders. Suppose they all died, Kraelsorth. What then?"
"More food for the maggots."
"Sure. And what if all other animals died, too? Livestock, squirrels, birds, all of them?"
"Even more slaughter? I love it."
"You fool," Pixloyd scorned him. "The people would starve and die! Everything is interconnected. If all is death, who will you torture then? Who will you strike your infernal bargains with? Or would you just pout in the Abyss forever?"
"I care nothing for living things!"
"Without them, existence has no meaning. We'll teach you to believe that."
"Go ahead and try! You have nothing to teach me. I don't fear this world!"
They kept going, and it was hours before the fairies finally returned to their town. In the meantime, the other fairies had finished fixing the place up and had even decorated it! They strung up strings of little lanterns, hung colorful banners from their homes, and invited local birds to flitter around, singing their songs.
"What is this?" Kraelsorth demanded, panting and out of breath. He wiped his brow, disgusted at the brand-new concept of sweat.
Oleana spun around in place, arms outstretched as she laughed happily. "Now it's time for the evening tea party! We do this every day to celebrate another peaceful day well-spent."
Kraelsorth stared at her. "Tea... party?"
A tea party.
"Here. Herbal spice. Blue leaf," an elderly fairy lady offered once Kraelsorth reluctantly settled in for a round of tea in the town's biggest building. She sprinkled some blue-green leaf bits into Kraelsorth's teacup, and Kraelsorth sniffed it. "What's that?"
"For flavor," the fairy elder said with a wink. "Go on, try it! It gives tea such a kick."
"Very well." Kraelsorth lifted the teacup to drink (he felt so foolish), but Pixloyd stopped him.
"Essence of orange blossom. For some extra zest," Pixloyd said, reaching across the table to sprinkle in a pinch of... something. "Try it now, Kraelsorth."
"Very well -"
"Toadcap oil! Don't forget! Adds a cinnamon twist!" Oleana cheered, adding a silver teaspoon of something into Kraelsorth's drink.
"And this!"
"And that!"
"Don't forget this!"
The fairies added one thing after another until Kraelsorth finally got a chance to sip the concoction, and the revolting flavor was like a blast of pain in his mouth. He spat it all out, wings flapping in agony. "You're trying to kill me!"
The fairies rolled around with laughter, most of all Oleana. "Just a taste of home, old buddy old pal!" Pixloyd hooted. "Oh, and try this."
He offered a glazed bread roll, and stuffed it right into Kraelsorth's unwitting mouth. Gah, that was so sweet and sticky! And the messy glaze was getting everywhere! Then Oleana offered a bread slice with raspberry and strawberry jam, and another fairy presented an apple and plum tart, and on and on, with food getting everywhere, until Kraelsorth had had enough.
"I'M LEAVING!" Kraelsorth roared. He flared out his fairy wing and zoomed right out of the dining hall, leaving behind the teacups and dessert platters and lacy tablecloths and all those stupid trappings of fairy life -
He got stuck.
"The food...!" Kraelsorth bared his teeth and strained against the stretched-out cheeses, fruit jams, and sticky glazes that bound his body to the dining hall, almost like spider threads. The cackling fairies gathered around the strands and tugged on them, dragging a wailing Kraelsorth back to fairy society and its horrific ways. Kraelsorth would rather arm-wrestle Yeenoghu himself than put up with another moment of this! This was surely the Abyss' newest layer, right here on the Material Plane! Was the Fae Queendom of Talwydd always so sinister?
And that still wasn't all. The fairies showed Kraelsorth what the nightlife around here was like, from evening songs and dances to exchanging crude riddles to pranking local animals and foragers under the moonlight. Did these creatures never rest?!
"I've done everything you asked!" Kraelsorth finally exploded around midnight, throwing up his hands. "I violated my tongue with sick, sugary treats! I watched owlbears and wolves gamboling in the underbrush. I told riddles. I drank your tea. I fixed the houses I blew up! Have I not yet earned your leniency, guardians of the forest?"
"Hmmmm. Good question," Pixloyd said, folding his arms and looking at his fellow fairies. "What do you lot think? Has our friend learned his lesson?"
"Make him try our blackberry tart with mulberry sauce next!" another fairy suggested.
"I'd like to tell him another riddle!" someone else added.
"He should help me weed my garden!"
"No! NO!" Kraelsorth wailed, clutching his head as the suggestions kept coming. "I've had enough! I learned my lesson! You win!" Then he winced, realizing what he had just said. He was Kraelsorth the Betrayer, scourge of the Khanante plains! And he just submitted to these foolish fairies?
"I think our poor guest is ready to go home," Oleana declared with an obnoxious giggle. She twirled around. "Should we send him on his way?"
"GO! GO! GO! GO!" the assembled fairies chanted, swirling around in playful formations.
Pixloyd gently shoved Kraelsorth's shoulder. "You hear that, pal? You're goin' home! Get outta our forest!"
"Only if you change me back!" Kraelsorth demanded. "I cannot wear this form any longer!"
"Relax, bud. We're on it." Pixloyd joined Oleana and the others, swirling around their hapless guest faster and faster, glowing gold energy flaring to life -
In a flash, Kraelsorth felt himself fall a few inches onto solid ground, his pitchfork held in his right hand. Why did he feel so heavy all of a sudden? Wait...
"I'm back! This is me!" Kraelsorth roared into the empty air, springing to his feet, relishing his restored devil body. He looked over his arms and ran his free hand along his curled horns, his long tail whipping through the air. To make sure, he conjured a flame in his left hand and hurled it, setting a patch of grass alight. Ah, he knew the scent of burning prairie grass, all right. This was the Ayalakh Khanate! He was home!
Kraelsorth stretched his magnificent wings wide and kicked off, soaring through the nighttime sky as the warm, dry air rushed past him. He tried to lose himself in the refreshing solitude and freedom of the infinite Khanate sky, but a horrible nugget of truth still emerged in his mind, taking root as it pleased. He had been humbled by tiny fairies who giggle and dance all day long. He thought he could torment the weak... and they taught him a lesson.
No! It can't end like this! Not with such humiliation! Kraelsorth bared his teeth and clapped a clawed hand to his forehead, willing himself to forget what had just happened today, but it was no good. His confidence was rattled, his self-assured cruelty loose and weak like rotting flesh falling off the bone. He could fly all across the Khanate and across the continent, but he'd never outrace this.
Up here, though, everything was simple and made sense, where no one could reach him. Kraelsorth took comfort in that, his embarrassing lesson left far behind... but not forgotten. Devils never forgot anything, even when they wanted to. And Kraelsorth so wanted to.