Chapter 58: Dryad

Chapter 58: Dryad

I stood in front of the newly-opened gate leading into the Faerie village, facing the diverse crowd of citizens within, staring at me. None of them attacked – at least not immediately – but they didn’t do much else, either. I wasn’t even sure if they could understand the language I was speaking. At the very least, they seemed intimidated enough by our show of power that we were safe for now.

“I’m going to speak to your Queene,” I said, and pointed to the palace. “In there.”

The Faeries all looked sideways at each other without responding. Of course, some of them couldn’t speak at all, but even the ones with mouths kept them shut. I took that as permission, and marched forward, flanked by Erani, who was helping me walk on my broken leg, and the Nymph, who had its whip out in preparation for another fight.

“We mean none of you any harm,” Erani said as we moved through the crowd which parted before us. “We just want to talk.”

I suspected the words rang empty to the crowd that was looking at the corpse behind us. But they obviously respected and feared us more than they hated us, and they allowed us through. That was part of the plan; Aankin could come back, and the Faeries knew that. In their eyes, we hadn’t actually killed anyone – just proven we could beat their Champion in a fight.

But who knew if the Queene would be as forgiving.

We passed through the village, walking the all-too-familiar route from the gate to the palace, as I saw the same reactions from my companions. Erani looked in wonder at the magical lights, the Nymph flinched at the sight of a Slime, and so on.

Despite the fact that I was doing my best to mitigate the discomfort in my leg by basically hopping along on one foot, leaning hard on Erani, my forehead still ended up covered in sweat from the pain radiating throughout my shin by the time we got to the huge palace doors. I took a breath, preparing myself to enter.

Then, I realized that the doors were closed. And I looked over next to them, at the manual hand-crank that Aankin normally operated to open them. We usually would’ve proven our strength at the entrance to the village, and he’d escort us here and open these doors himself. But now, we had to open them. And it would be just as hard as it’d been in the past to open the palisade doors. And my leg was broken.

“You said she was in here, right?” Erani asked. “How are we getting through?”

“Gods dammit,” I sighed. “I completely forgot about this.”

“You forgot?” She turned to look at me, taking care to continue supporting me so I wouldn’t fall to the ground. “How could you forget about two gigantic doors blocking our way into literally the one building here that we actually need to enter?”

“Aankin normally opened it,” I said. “Didn’t cross my mind that we’d have to do it this time.”

Erani pursed her lips. “You said they want us to prove our power, right?”

“Yeah. Got an idea?”

“Maybe. Step back with me.”

Erani guided me backwards, pulling the Nymph along with her, away from the doors that were at least twice as tall as I was. The small crowd that had gathered around us backed up too, obviously cautious of what we were planning.

Then, Erani held out her hand, and shot off a barrage of Firebolts.

Deafening explosions filled the silent air, the ground shook with each blast, and, most importantly, the fiery detonations completely destroyed the gate, splintering the wood and metal into thousands of pieces. I was showered in shrapnel, as was everyone else nearby.Ñøv€l-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

And then, once the smoke cleared, I looked up and saw no more doors. Through the walls was a self-made passage into the palace, and through the passage was the familiar face of the Faerie Queene. She looked remarkably unsurprised at the sudden explosions; the only sign in her face that she had just seen something unusual was a pair of quizzically raised eyebrows and a slight smirk.

We walked in, careful not to burn ourselves on any of the smoldering rubble as we stepped through the hole.

Venom is coursing through your veins. 1 damage.

Your Health is 3.

I tried to control my breathing. If we messed up and I’d misunderstood their culture, that was it for me. No more retries.

“Well, you’ve certainly made an entrance for yourselves,” the Queene said in her booming voice as we approached.

“We wanted to get your attention,” I forced a confident smile once again through my pain and worry. “I hope we haven’t insulted you.”

“Not at all. You’ve proven yourself quite worthy of an audience, at the very least. What you want from us is another matter, though, so enlighten me.”

“We want a Tribute. From you to our Nymph.”

I tried not to show a facial reaction to the sight of her Level as I stepped back from her. She looked over to the Nymph, who was still standing with Erani, eyeing the different Faeries in the room warily, and spoke something in the Nymph’s language. It looked at the Queene, obviously surprised that someone had finally spoken words that it could understand.

The Nymph walked forward and placed its hand on the Queene’s gigantic head. I hadn’t personally seen a Tribute happen before, but I’d read up on monsters in the library enough that I knew this was generally how it went.

The Queene’s head lit up in a soft glow that transferred to the Nymph, quickly enveloping it in the white light that seemed to get absorbed into its eyes. And then it suddenly got a pained expression on its face as its body began to morph.

At first, it was only slight changes; its hair grew longer, going from the messy ear-length mop it had at first to a much cleaner set of locks that passed beneath its shoulders, and its skin shifted to a much smoother, tamer green than the deep-forest color it had before. Its whip changed, the thorns growing longer and sharper, and the whip itself growing in length as well, in addition to decreasing in thickness so as to create a razor-thin wire that would be dangerous to touch even without the needles covering it.

But then, larger changes began cropping up. It grimaced and collapsed to the floor and I noticed it get taller – only a bit at first, enough to bring its head up to my shoulders, but then it grew even faster, its spine and legs cracking and expanding until it was at least as tall as me, maybe even taller. Its body’s shape shifted, too, becoming more distinctly feminine than the more genderless form of a Nymph.

After a few seconds, it perfectly resembled the drawings I’d seen of Dryads in the monster manuals I’d read in the past, with the long brown hair, light green skin, and body resembling a Human woman. In fact, most of the manuals explicitly said that Dryads were female monsters, counterparts to the more masculine Naiads, which were guardians of the lakes and seas.

The newly-formed Dryad stood from the floor and looked at me with a shocked expression on her face. I could tell that she was just then starting to piece together that Erani and I were trying to get this Tribute for her ever since we got to the village. Up until then, she must’ve had no idea why we were here.

She also seemed to piece together the reason for us working so hard to turn her into a Dryad, and walked over to me, guiding me to lie down on the floor and placing her hand on the original stab wound where the Banestinger had pierced my leg when it poisoned me. The hole was a mix of skin tinted an unnatural purple and green, red insides, and a yellowish pus that seeped out whenever the Dryad touched it.

Despite the mess of the wound that even I didn’t like looking at for too long, the Dryad fearlessly put her hands over it, pressing gently, and closed her eyes, focusing in what I could tell was a similar way I always had to focus in order to cast a Spell I’d just learned.

After a moment, her hands glowed a brilliant green and I could feel my body repairing itself. Not just the venom, either. While my veins seemed to clear up, pain I didn’t even know I was still feeling left my body. All sorts of injuries closed across – and under – my skin. The fractured bone in my leg painlessly shifted and reconnected with itself, the various minor cuts and scrapes covering my skin closed up, and I could even feel the ribs that I’d fractured all those days ago – and that I thought had healed by now – finish repairing themselves into perfection, as though they’d never been touched.

You have been touched by the grace of nature. All Status Afflictions have been removed. 50 Health restored.

Your ribs are no longer fractured. You are no longer envenomed. Your leg is no longer broken.

Your Health is 51.

Everything felt better. It was as if hundreds of thousands of nails, needles, and other nasties I’d been living with inside of me for weeks had been simultaneously and instantly removed, leaving nothing but a better body.

I was finally cured. I would’ve collapsed to the floor in relief had I not already been lying down. Trying to calm myself, I took a breath. I was safe.

“...So, rematch. Are you ready for it now, or–”

“Gonna have to wait a bit on that one,” I interrupted Aankin.

“Actually, I had another favor in mind that you could do for us in payment,” the Faerie Queene said with a smile.

“Oh? Why didn’t you mention it before?” I got to my feet reluctantly, wishing I could’ve stayed lying down like that for a good couple weeks.

“You never said I needed to tell you what I’d want you to do,” she shrugged, the movement shaking the entire building.

“Well, what is it? We’ll help out if we can.”

“There are some Human soldiers coming our way – a couple dozen of them. Take care of them for me, and you’re free of your debt. Oh, and feel free to be extra brutal with them. I believe they’re from that nearby city that disrespected us, and those Humans could learn a lesson or two in humility.”

“Wait, soldiers? Coming this way?”

“Yes, yes. I’m not sure why they’re coming for us after so long of nothing, but they’re obviously geared for war. Must‘ve decided they couldn’t live without our goods, after all.”

I met Erani’s eyes. Humans coming over here now? The timing was too perfect. They weren’t coming after the Faeries, they were coming after us. They must’ve tracked us somehow from the massacre the Nymph did in the woods while we were on our way here.

If they knew the previous troop they’d sent out had been killed that badly, they’d almost certainly send out a much stronger battalion for us. And by the sounds of it, they did; the Queene had said there were dozens of soldiers coming our way.

But we now had something they didn’t know about. Dryads weren’t just good for healing, after all. Anything with a Tribute from something as strong as a Faerie Queene was bound to be much, much more powerful than a normal Nymph.

And I was interested in testing out that power.