Planeside

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

And as the siblings turn to walk away, the cait sith's ears droop as it mutters to itself. "It isn't worth it... you'll be better off without it... hehe... I didn't believe the advice either. Hehehe..."

A giggle, a chuckle, an ethereal chorus of subdued, broken laughter. Brighter and brighter the feline's grin grows brighter as its body fades away until the pearly white crescent likewise vanishes.

The siblings, with their attention turned toward crossing, may or may not notice that the insubstantial cait sith may or may not be following them.

If there's one thing a cat is good at, it's suddenly vanishing as soon as you take your eyes off them.

Crossing...

The river is wide and swift where they stand, the dark water churning dangerously. A kelpie could cross without much trouble, but it would likely be wiser to find a calmer area to cross. As they walk along the river's edge, strange and furtive things watch from the trees and hedges, from crevices in stones and from behind unfurling clumps of ferns. Every now and again a particularly intrepid pixie will zip in and try plucking one of Gwen's hairs.

Ouch!

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee continues to walk, looking for a good spot. His sticky glamour can keep Gwen from falling off, but if the current is too strong he won't be able to fight back in case something in the water tries to grab him.

He hisses and bares his teeth at the various pixies diving at his sister's hair.

[Ionbound]

[The Fairy]

Gwen sighs and as they walk along, she eventually asks Grant, "Um...Grant...Are you really happier as a faerie? Beca-Ow! What was that?" She notes the pixies buzzing around and starts swiping at any that come too close.

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

It's a pixie!

A tiny naked winged humanoid thing!

"Oi! Lemee have someadat hair, bigguns!" the pixie yells when she gets swatted. "You gots alls of it and you should share!"

The creature looks like a tiny human, though with rather notable dragon-fly wings and three little simple eyes on her forehead.

Or maybe those are three little gemstones arranged in a triangle?

Or possibly both.

Will Gwen share her hair with the tiny grabby fae?

Stay tuned to find out!

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee snorts.
"Don't be dumb. If I liked all this I'd have told you to stop bothering with it months ago." he says condescendingly, as only a 13-year-old can.

[Ionbound]

[The Fairy]

Gwen hugs Grant's horsey neck and says, "Thanks." She purposely ignores the pixie, just continuing to bat it away as she clings to her kelpie-brothers back as he looks for a crossing.

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

"Hey, stop ignoring me you dumb glob!" the pixie yells in her tiny little voice before diving at Gwen again.

It would appear the annoying little fae isn't going to allow the siblings to have a touching moment with each other.

Typical, really.

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee hisses, rearing himself up as he glamours himself into a humanoid shape. He has no real skill in getting anything other than his own body changed, but for Gwen's sanity his long-haired, satyr-like body keeps its modesty with a small loincloth that appears from nowhere. Purple, of course. He swings his hands open to catch the annoying pixie with his tough fairy hands.

"I'll only let you out if you promise to leave both of us alone!" he declares if successful

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

"Lemme go ya big dumb smelly horse!" the pixie hollers from inside Lee's hands as she begins punching and kicking and biting to be set free. She's a feisty little thing! From the rest of the pixies rises a battle cry as a good two dozen of the annoying little insect-winged humanoids descend upon Lee and Gwen alike! Several of the tiny fae are wielding little thorns whilst others begin launching elfshot at them from afar! The little glowing projectiles won't cause any physical damage, but they can cause those afflicted to feel feverish and disoriented.

Pixies sure are terrible, aren't they?

And annoying.

And really grabby!

Not giving a pixie what they want is a great way to provoking the ire of all the other pixies nearby, because there are few things a pixie likes more than an excuse to quarrel and fight.

[Ionbound]

[The Fairy]

Gwen raises her sword and shouts, "Back off!" If they don't, she starts swinging, mostly aiming to scare the little buggers off, but not averse to cutting a couple if they get too close.

[Lost_Deep]

Spoiler: Dungeon?

Show

Dungeon?

Zebes settles onto the ground and offers Kate a pecha berry.
"Might have been something nasty in those things he was throwing. Try this." he says, holding it out.

[Dungeon?]

For good measure, Fortuna aims to lift the lizard into the air a bit and then thwack him into the floor.

BAP!

Why?

Nothing like bludgeoning someone into unconsciousness to take the fight out of them.

"I thought the Kecleon brothers were our friends..." Khannie mutters as she watches the chameleon pokemon get floor-beat. "Why would they do this to us?"

Also?

Now that the last pillar is destroyed, the barrier around the Spirit Stone lifts away!

Kate eats the thing, and sighs. "Thank you."

The Kekleon is paralyzed and bopped a bit. He isn't going to be speaking (whether out of spite or the paralysis or what have you) and will likely just be carted around at this point.

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee isn't bothered by the pixie's bites. His hide is tougher than his human appearance lets on.
He looks as menacing as possible, and yells,
"STOP! I call parlay for the return of your friend."

Everyone knows you're supposed to listen when someone calls parlay. It's pirate code. Marauding pixies are like pirates, right?

Lee doesn't really think it'll work. He's just always wanted to say that. If they don't relent, as he expects, he'll toss the pixie away and grab his sister, reversing his change as they dive into the water. The water should protect them from the tiny missiles, and they were doing that anyway. Gwen should find herself on Lee's back. Somehow.

Dungeon?

Zebes waddles over to the stone to pick it up, the boss fight cleared. He also stores Kecleon's bag in his bag. Paradox!
"Great job, Khannie." Jace says proudly.
"Fortuna, take care of our friend." he says with a smirk.

[Ionbound]

The Fairy

Assuming she gets carried off by Grant, Gwen curses as she suddenly moves, "Aaah! What the hell Grant!?" but she clutches him tightly as he starts swimming across.

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

"Who cares, we're gunna get you!" one pixie with wings like a bee yells back as it darts around Gwen's sword and tries to kick her right in the ear lobe.
"No, we have to stop!" another with little moth wings hollers
"What? How come?"
"Cuz the kelpie called parley!"
"What's that?"

"Isn't that when you play golf good?"
"No, that's par, stupid!"
"I'm not stupid, you're stupid!"
"Nuh uh!" and those two pixies crash into each other hitting and biting, spinning around in a tight corkscrew until the hit the forest floor and begin tussling about.

"No, it's a pirate thing where pirates negotiate!"
"But he's a kelpie."
"Kelpies live in water, so that makes them pirates."

After a few moments of heated debate, the pixies come to a consensus that kelpies are, in fact, pirates. At some point one of them may have snuck a tiny pixie-sized pirate hat onto Lee's head to make her point.

"Alright, kelpie! What will you give us to make us take our snot-headed friend back?"

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee blinks, but recovers quickly.
"What? Make you? I'm negotiating for not making you take her back. Thought I might toss her a ways across, if you gave me a nice reason to help you out with that." he says with a grin.

[Ionbound]

[The Fairy]

Gwen shuts up and lets Grant negotiate with the pixies.

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

"What? We have to pay you or you'll give her back? That's dumb!" the moth-wing pixies retorts.

"You guys are a bunch of sods!" yells the pixie in Lee's hands.

"I'll give you an acorn to toss that doof in the river!" the wasp-winged pixie offers.
"An acorn AND a goblin fruit to tie her to a rock and throw her in the river!" another dragon-fly winged critter adds.
"An acorn, a goblin fruit, AND dis here ivory comb if you tie her to a rock and stick it inside dis here stick and THEN throw her in the river!"

A cheer rises from the swarm of pixies, apparently they like that last one.

The captive pixie is voicing her displeasure over this turn of events rather loudly.

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee shrugs his shoulders.
"I don't have any string to tie her, sadly. But if you promise to stop grabbing at my sister's hair and hurting us otherwise, and tell me the best place to get across this river is, I'll toss her in the water, so to speak." he tells them.

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

The little mob of pixies huddle up and begin discussing their options.

"Okay! The best place to cross is anywhere!" one of them declares. "You just fly across like this!"

And then?

She does so.

Just goes buzzing right across to the other side, no trouble at all.

"Why were we attacking them?"
"Cuz we liked that human's hair."
"Oh yeah! Can we have a lock of her hair? It's super pretty!"

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

"I meant for people that can't fly. You know, a good place where nothing will try to grab you if you jump or swim across.
And no, you can't have her hair. That's what you're promising not to take." he says, surprisingly calm.

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

"You already promised!" one of the pixies yells. "Verbal agreements are binding! We won't bug you, either, so toss that loute in the river!"

"Ri-ver! Ri-ver! Ri-ver!" the rest of the pixies begin chanting.

Welp.

Guess it's time for Lee to do his thing.

[Dungeon?]

...where did Fortuna get that rope from?

Well, either way she'll begin binding that lizard and now they're all back at the entrance of the Cave Dungeon for some reason?

Weird.

Khannie blinks and glances around. "So we won, right? That means we just need one more stone?"

And then!

Umm...

Things will happen?

Probably end boss things.

Or something.

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee shrugs.
"Thought so." he says.

And then he crouches low to the ground and tosses the pixie into the water. Not very far into it, mind you. And he does make sure it's low enough that she can't just fly away. That would put him in the pixie's debt for not being able to fulfill his end of the bargain. But he's not going to toss her so far into the river that she can't conceivably swim back to sure with a little effort.

[Ionbound]

[The Fairy]

Gwen sighs and says, "So? Any more brilliant ideas like trying to negotiate with idiots, Grant?"

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

And thus, Lee tosses the grumpy pixie into the river. As soon as she touches the water, several nixies who were hidden under several slimy, algae-crusted rocks grab her and drag her under!

"They grabbed that doof!" one of the others yells. "Those sodden nixies! Dis means war!"

"WAR!" the rest of the wee folk thunder as they descend upon the waters edge and a great battle of shouting, kicking, splashing, biting, and hair-pulling erupts. It would probably be hilarious if they weren't trying their darnedest to murder each other.

It would seem Gwen's comment has fallen on deaf ears now that the pixies have something else to vent their enthusiasm on.

Well.

Except for that ONE pixie.

That one hovering next to Gwen and watching the fight. "Haha! Look at those doofs! Isn't that great? Hey, you're pretty cool, y'know? Mind givin me yer name?"

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee rolls his eyes.
"Oh come on, even a five year old's too smart to fall for that one. Come on, sis. Let's cross while the nixies are distracted." he suggests.

[Ionbound]

[The Fairy]

Gwen tries to grab at the annoying pixie and throw it too into the river as she says to Grant, "Yeah, let's go."

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

The tiny insect-like fae proclaims virulent curses upon Gwen, her family, her home, and her cow as it hits the water with a satisfying little splash.

It's probably a good thing that Gwen didn't give her name away.

While the spooky eldritch thing she's in cahoots with might be sure that nothing can do awful things to her, stuff in the Fairy isn't exactly known to play by any rules other than the ones that happen to have been made up on the fly.

Regardless!

The siblings leave the pitched battle between nixies and pixies behind them, walking further down the river's bank. Mossy stones and strange monuments abound, wee folk watching the siblings from the tiny crags. The echo of a human is busy washing his car in the waking world, but here in the Fairy is appears as nothing more than a vague ghostly figure endlessly scraping moss from a huge boulder near the river's edge. Every time the moss and lichen are scowered off, more simply grows in its place.

Uncannie things look on from the massive trees, furtive shapes flitting in the shadows. Inhuman eyes peering out of the dark. That strange sensation of being followed...

But before long, our heroes will find themselves at a calm stretch of the river where the water is shallow and the current calm. One could wade across without getting one's knees wet. Nearby a huge willow tree leans over the placid pool, draping branches twirling about in the gentle dance of the water.

[Deathkeeper]

The Fairy

Lee takes his more "natural" shape, continuing in the direction the cat pointed out.
"Well, my nose isn't making me want to gag yet, so I don't think we're getting close yet. Maybe we should pick up the pace?" he suggests as they walk.

[Ionbound]

[The Fairy]

Gwen shrugs and says, "If you say so. You know what the signs of her presence are better than I do. The issue with that water dragon proved that well enough. So...Yeah. Let's keep going then."

[Rebonack]

[The Fairy]

So across the river they go.

Lee won't notice anything weird about the water, aside from the occasional nixie swimming to the nearby nixie/pixie melee. The water is clear and pleasantly cool. The gravely bottom is easy to walk in. And most importantly there aren't any malicious fae setting up camp here waiting to devour them.

Gwen, however...

After wading through the shallow water a few feet, she may suddenly find herself overcome by a powerful urge to stoop down and drink some.

It's so clear and crisp and cold...

What could possibly go wrong?

How could one little drink from an enchanted river in the Fairy hurt?