After the solemn reminiscing and introduction of Pheo's new and legendary armor, not much else had happened. It was simple idle chatter and thoughtless gazing into the dense and dangerous forest which was paired with the endless blue sky.
Now and then a hungry beast attempted to foil their adventure, but this was a fairly used trail, hence any relatively strong monsters had been pushed far away. So every monster, wolf, bear, and wild boar alike, was easily dispatched by Liz's incredible magical prowess without a need to stop.
Eventually, after many days gone by, Liz patted Eli's shoulder, signaling for him to stop the horse. He did so as everyone left the carriage and stood staring forward. Eli and Liz seemed to understand what was going on, but Pheo was still left in the dark. Pheo tried to walk forward, but Liz grabbed his arm and shook her head. Realizing Pheo's confusion, she explained:
"Anywhere else, for a mage of my level, it would be easy to put a cloaking spell over a carriage and pass through a barrier. However, there's a magical barrier over the domain of the fairies by the queen herself, whose magic prowess surpass mine. Now barriers like this are incredibly large of course, and don't take much to get by. It's due to the sheer difference in power, that I can only get us through if I focus cloak spells on us specifically."
Pheo nodded in understanding as he took in all of that information: "Wow, can't believe the Queen is that strong!"
Eli popped into the conversation: "Queens and kings are usually incredibly strong. It's somewhat of an equalizer, everyone has an ace, even if one is stronger than the other, the weaker one can still permanently wound the stronger one and doom their kingdom."
Pheo sat like an obedient student, listening. Concerned, he turned toward the carriage, "Well, what do we do with this then?"
Liz turned to it as she and her staff began to glow, "This." She muttered as she continued to glow brighter and brighter a magic circle appeared under the carriage and horse, a blue transparent magical box arose around it, before both the box and carriage with horse disappeared out of existence.
Both Pheo and Eli stared in surprise, while Liz scoffed and commented: "Pocket dimension, sacred level magic."
She turned her attention back to the path, "Even though we'll be on foot, we still can't just teleport there, otherwise the magic will be detected. Sorry, we'll have to walk a little, I know the directions to the capital that contains the castle and the Queen." With that, she had cast a quick spell that put a transparent blue cloak of magic upon them.
Pheo shivered in reaction while Liz and Eli walked forward, as they passed through an invisible barrier, Pheo swiftly followed, Once Pheo passed through the barrier, the very air itself felt strange, as if the very presence of air was inherently full of life and energy. Every single breath was magical; Pheo hadn't even realized that he had been standing still, as he had slow breaths and moved his hands through the air.
Though before continuing on Pheo couldn't help but question, "Wait, I get why we can't teleport now, but why not earlier?"
Liz shrugged, "Its kind of complicated, but we need the carriage for supplies, well the fairy kingdom is the one place we don't, but otherwise we do. Also, teleporting it wouldn't be safe, teleportation takes high levels of precision, I'd have to know the exact position of everything in the carriage, including each individual item in the boxes, otherwise if I accidentally teleport two things inside each other I'll cause an atomic anomaly that screws with the thermodynami-"
Liz looked around and realizes no one understands what she just said, she sighed and rolled her eyes, "Two things become one, matter breaks, big boom."
Suddenly the two nodded in understanding. Pheo shivered again, "While on the topic of magic, what is up with this air?"
Liz giggled before she pet his shoulder, "The fairies are incredibly magical beings: the barrier causes all the magic to circulate around with no escape until it dies, making the air dense with magic. Fairies don't mind that, though it can end up disorienting for anyone not familiar with it."
She began to hold Pheo's hand for support as they walked down a path through large plains:
"Fairy cities are like sectioned off forests, there's many around us, but they are cloaked, don't worry about it though, we only have to walk a little farther."
Liz swerved off the path and seemed to be avoiding places that Pheo and Eli couldn't see, they trusted her guidance and continued to walk. Pheo turned to Eli, "Have you ever battled fairies?"
Eli just shrugged, "Usually not, but a few times, yeah."
Pheo nodded and leaned in with interest, "How big are they? Like tiny or…"
Eli laughed and pet Pheo's head, "You really don't know anything, do ya? Fairies are typically 2-3 feet (60-90 cm), but when fighting they usually use magic to make them 3-4 feet (90-120 cm). Royals however are naturally 5 feet (150 cm), and I've seen some higher tier fighters being 4 feet (120 cm) naturally as well. Even then, they typically float at face level with their opponents."
Pheo stared blankly as he took in all this information and whispered to himself:
"This world is so cool…" — He looked around, – "Though something feels off,… There's no way we can get by so easy, we must have been seen already."
Liz shrugged, "I won't deny our cloaking isn't perfect, but it shouldn't have been noticed already, and if someone did have ill intentions on us, I'd know."
Pheo shivered, unsteady, "I trust you, but still…"
Eli just laughed and pet Pheo's back, "Takes some balls to be nervous around two generals who assured your safety."
Pheo sighed and rolled his eyes with a small hint of a smile.
Eventually, they came to a stop. Liz raised her staff and chanted, "Reality warp and space bend, reveal to me those that hide in the fabrics of existence." Suddenly, in front of Pheo, Eli, and Liz, a giant forest with many types of 'buildings' carved into the trees made itself clear.
While Pheo stared upon the magnificent 'city', he was hit with reality. He is really here, right here and now, this is no dream. This is reality, and now he has a responsibility to do the impossible.
He smiled a smile mixed with excitement and nervousness, he started to mutter the plan to himself:
"I need to walk in there and meet the Queen. No matter what it takes, I have to prove myself worthy. Though this realistically seems impossible,"
He looked at the ground and hesitated, before raising his head and staring straight into the sun. He reached out to the sun and tried to 'grab' it, then took a long and deep breath before looking forward once again.
"It's not like I got any other choice."
Liz smiled and put a hand on his shoulder, "Hey, we're here for you too."
Eli nodded and smirked, "Don't worry, your big brother is invincible." As he said that, he took a step forward.
Pheo was comforted and had smiled at first, but as Eli began to walk forward, Pheo remembered his feeling, "Yeah, way too good".
Pheo took out his sword and threw it in front of them, as it hit the ground, the ground exploded.
"A trap! But no way they left a trap unattended,"
Pheo quickly turned around, blocking with his shield. In the very same instant a fairy with a spear came charging at supersonic speeds, if Pheo had attempted to wait until he saw the attack he wouldn't have stood a chance.
As the fairy collided with the shield, the hit made an ear shattering bang!
The fairy was going so fast, he could not immediately stop his momentum. So using the shield, Pheo redirected the fairy to the right, where his sword was, and slashed him. The fairy used his wings to barely dodge back just in time.
Suddenly, a rain of magic beams descended from the heavens upon them. However, Liz was no longer off guard as she glowed brightly, and the beams stopped in place and shot around with more and more fairies darting at them.
Eli looked down and felt the ground: "Pheo! The ground!"
Pheo took a second, but quickly understood. He suddenly backflipped as a fairy came from under him. Pheo used the grab spell to attach himself to the back of the fairy and created reins.
The fairy flew around rapidly and struggled, but Pheo refused to give up. He stood on the fairy's back and tried to slam his shield down onto him. However, in last second fairy managed to cut the magic rope and spun slashing at Pheo. Pheo was forced to block and got sent flying. However, he once again used grab on the fairy and slammed him into the ground before landing on top.
Eli flash-stepped to Pheo and grabbed him while multiple fairies were chasing him. He dodged them with a quick flash-step, over and over, while Pheo used grab to temporarily stop them. Eli then dashed with Pheo to Liz.
Pheo was left in shock as he realized that every movement Eli made caused an individual sonic boom that rippled across the land by his sheer speed alone. "They truly are on another level…"
Eli arrived next to Liz who put up a protective magic barrier. As he struggled to catch a breath, Eli looked at Liz with worry:
"Is this my bad? Well, it doesn't matter. What do we do now?"
Liz began to think: "Well, the entire point is to NOT continue the war, and we can't fight them forever. Eli! I'll provide a cover blast, grab all of us and go as fast as you can and find somewhere to hide."
Eli nodded as Liz began to glow brightly and the barrier went down. As soon as it did, they were immediately swarmed by large groups of fairies. But before they could reach them, Liz's eyes glowed a bright blue as she began to float, followed immediately by a giant magical beam descending from the sky and blowing every one of them away.
Eli grabbed everyone on time and began to run into the capital at speeds that surpassed hypersonic. He gasped for breath repeatedly yet carried on running and running around the forest: he drew zigzags, circles, everything he could to make distance and disorient.
Finally, he had run around for multiple minutes and stopped to rest behind a tree, both he and Liz collapsed, having exhausted all their energy. Even Pheo was tired and weak. Yet he stood in front of them with his arms extended as if he was a mother cat protecting their children.
Pheo was able to catch his breath first, though his muscles still screamed in pain to him: "I… I guess I was right, at least… Still, I never knew it'd be this serious." he groaned and slowly collapsed next to Eli and Liz, but then sat himself up and looked around.
"With how fast we went, it's impossible to fi-"
Before he could finish his sentence, a sword landed on the tree right next to his head, causing his mind to fill with fear and his eyes to dart from the sword's handle to in front of him.
Before him stood a 4-foot fairy that had floated down with a furious glare, her wings were translucent and graceful red and her outfit was a magical one-piece suit with armored boots and gauntlets. Her hair was crimson red but her eyes a crystal blue, however, this blue inspired no great beauty in Pheo: rather than a beautiful sea, Pheo viewed it more like an unstoppable tsunami of imminent death.
The fairy slowly descended to the ground and walked forward as she stared daggers at Pheo. He tried keep a stand and protect his allies, but a small magical dagger was shot into his leg, causing him to fall to the ground and wail in pain. Though he tried to muffle it, the pain was too great in his vulnerable state, it seemed as if the sword had phased through the armor itself somehow and was directly embedded into Pheo's leg.
The fairy spoke with an overbearing authority as she sneered. "Stay down, that's enough, you're wounded. I commend you on your care for your allies," she pulled out her sword and put its edge to Pheo's neck:
"However, I cannot respect an attack on the fairy kingdom."
Pheo sneered up at the fairy woman through teary eyes, though his expression was of anger and hatred, he had feigned it. In fact, he was truly too terrified and hurt to even consider the option of attack, its fight or flight, and his brain had already chosen flight. He couldn't muster even a glimmer of his usual confidence, as he lay there, tired, beat up, hurt, and overall…
Defeated…
But he regretted nothing. For even if he were to die now, he believed his small journey was already worth it.
So through his pain and terror, he glared at the warrior: "Take my life if you'd like, but in doing so you'll sentence yourself to ignorance."
The fairy remained unchanging in expression, "Huh, you really are pathetic."
Though it seemed like an insult, it sounded more akin to a genuine observation: "I find it hard to believe someone would invade enemy territory, without knowing the enemy. But allow me to enlighten you, fairies are very closely connected to magic and realm of emotions.
High ranking fairies like me can sense people's emotions to an extent. You've feigned confidence is hiding your terror, yet, you don't feel regret either. It's odd, you don't carry even a hint of malcontent, what is up with you?"
Her previous expression of hatred turned to a disgusted confusion, Pheo stood his ground. However, as he had begun to see hope for peaceful discussion, "Listen, I never intended any harm, none of us did, we want peace."
The fairy sighed as her glare remained unwavering: "I sense an odd truthfulness and kindness from you. Still, I cannot so easily believe you. I'll have to take you to the royal court," – She stopped for a second and looked into Pheo's fierce and defensive eyes, while she also felt his fragile soul, in terror and despair, – "I'm sorry…"
Within magical mystery
A somber symphony
Born from a hidden epiphany
Is snuffed out short
Cruelness and villainy
I feel it corrupting me
Can nobody hear me?
A faux war.