Fel's eyes narrowed, 'What do you mean by business? I have nothing to offer'
'That matters not. My request is simple.'
'Ok ...' Although her words confused Fel, it wouldn't hurt to hear her out.
'I want you to leave this forest'
'What?'
'There's no need to worry, we'll provide you with all you need for your journey'
'That's not the problem. I know nothing of this place. It's not like I can just use telepathy to talk to everyone, they'll sense that something's fishy in no time!'
'We can fix that easily'
'I've no supplies'
'We can give you enough food to last for a decade'
'I'm guessing that credits can't buy things here?'
'We can give you enough money to buy a town'
'I need weapons'
'We've enough weapons spare to equip a small army'
'I don't even know where I am, how do you expect me to find my way?'
'We can give you a map of the entire first layer of the underground'
'I need the parts of my armour back, I didn't see them in my room'
'Sure, they're useless to us'
'Where am I even going to store all this anyway?'
'A ... spacial ring,' the red-robed dryad's tone betrayed her unwillingness to part with the item.
'One final problem'
'Fire away'
'It's dangerous travelling alone.' During Fel's time in the military, he had learnt to value teamwork. He wouldn't, no, couldn't travel alone. Who would stay on guard during the night? Who would have his back in an ambush and who would be there to support him when he was down?
'We can give you a companion.' The wording was odd, but as long as the person didn't backstab him he should be fine. Besides, it seemed that the dryads really didn't want him around. He felt that if he insisted on staying they wouldn't be so nice.
'Fine then, when do I leave?'
'By the end of the week'
After an unceremonious dismissal, they dumped Fel back into his room along with a sack of scrap metal from his power armour, a book and a strange, hypnotic orb. Fel tossed his sack of scrap to the side and disassembled his makeshift, pouring all of its contents to a large pile in the corner, save for a few tools.
When he had completed his tasks, Fel picked up the orb and held it to his forehead. Before the dryads kicked him out of the leader's house, they gave him the orb and told him he could use it to learn every language in the underground. The guide who passed him the orb gave him a withering look. It was definitely a precious treasure, but Fel still couldn't figure out why they would give him so much despite obviously hating it.
Manipulating his internal energy, Fel connected his mind to the orb and absorbed the information within. Waves of information poured into his brain, almost overloading it. Tel'Quessir, Celestial, Draconic, Common, Orcish, Elvish, all sorts of languages bore into his mind. If he were an ordinary human, he would of have long since died from the overload of information.
An hour later, Fel, now covered in sweat, dropped the orb which crumbled into dust on the floor. Although he now knew every language in the underground, his head felt inflated, about to explode at any moment. However, Fel didn't doubt for a second that the pain wasn't worth it. It would've taken ages to learn all the languages without the orb, but for now, Fel had to rest, his lovely pile of metal scraps would have to wait for a little while.
Fel woke up the next day. Surprisingly, there was a day and night cycle here. At daytime, the crystals above would light up, albeit dimly compared to the sun, and at night time they would lose their lustre, becoming inert at midnight. For a surface dweller like Fel, it was like an eternal night, but for the inhabitants of the underground, it was normal, natural even.
More importantly, Fel had much to do. As he had learnt the languages of the underground, he could now read his books. He set out the three identical looking books before him and read their long titles, written in worn, golden Celestial letters.
A Complete Encyclopedia of the Creatures of Planet Tasarr.
A Manual on Devata Cultivation and Techniques.
Being a Magus and of the Usage of Parivartana Lines.
As Fel looked at the covers of the books, he noticed that something was out of place. A faint golden ring was drawn on each of the covers, just under the titles. They weren't there before. Fel guessed that it had something to do with him being able to see the energy points in the air. Out of curiosity, Fel reached out to touch one of the circles. Fel still hadn't learnt his lesson from last time.
The three books flowed into Fel's finger, transforming into a stream of information that viciously crashed into his brain to fuse with it. His brain turned to boiling lava and streams of blood oozed from his seven orifices. Fel's last thought was that he was a certified idiot. Curiosity had indeed killed the cat, running it over before coming back to stomp all over its limp body.
At midnight, Fel's bloodshot eyes snapped open. He raised a shivering hand to his face to wipe off the blood, letting it fall to his side afterwards. For the next hour, he lay there, staring at the ceiling. Curse those books, curse everything that belonged to that six armed being!
'Connection established, how should I address the host?'
Fel facepalmed, of all things he could've gotten it had to be another annoying A.I
'Fel Evenstar,' he had learnt from his past experiences with A.I. You have to do everything by the letter otherwise, they won’t let you hear the end of it.
'Welcome to the Devata Library, I am your friendly book spirit Aerl! You have three books in your collection, would you like to read any of them?'
Fel sighed in relief. It wasn't another A.I, he would've stabbed himself in the gut if it was, 'Sure, I'll read the Complete Encyclopedia of the Creatures of Planet Tasarr.'
'What would you like to know about?'
'Um, dryads?'
'There are 1209 search results, would you like to add a few more terms to narrow the results?'
'Then, grey looking dryads'
'Opening file on Monochrome Dryads,'
---
Monochrome Dryad
Affinities: Darkness (7), Nature (8)
Life Expectancy: 2000 years
Innate Abilities:
1. Absorption
Monochrome Dryads can absorb energy points from the earth and weaker life-forms with their main bodies.
2. Avatar
By separating a part of themselves from their main body, Monochrome Dryads can create a humanoid avatar[1] that they can manipulate at will and use to combat or communicate with other sentient beings. The one weakness is that the avatar weakens the further it gets from its main body.
Additional Information:
Monochrome Dryads are native to the first and second underground layers of planet Tasarr[2]. They have powerful main bodies and can recover from even grave wounds. Although they aren't great at casting spells[3], they can cast basic dark energy spells and infuse their weapons with dark energy[4].
Occasionally, red-eyed Monochrome Dryads will grow. These are the Royal Ash Dryads who possess superior abilities to their peers[5]. They can cast advanced spells, have a longer lifespan and complete immunity to fire[6]. Monochrome Dryads are also xenophobic and only tolerate small to medium-sized animals.
---
Accompanying the file was an image of a grey male and female dryad who looked like the dryads in the village. However, were hyperlinks everywhere. Was this Wikipedia or something? Also, the sources were weird. When he clicked the one on 'immunity to fire' it said, 'Tried to turn on into charcoal, didn't work.' Who on earth wrote that?
Getting back on track, it seemed that the red-robed dryad was a Royal Ash Dryad, it was a good thing he didn't try to mess with her. While Fel was at it, he thought he may as well look at the other books, but, before he could, the sound of a door opening interrupted his thoughts.
A burly dryad stood at the doorway, clutching an armoured, steel statue by his side.
'We've retrieved your companion.' He threw the armoured statue to the floor and slammed the door shut.
The statue was steel grey with silver veins that spanned across its surface, depicting a young woman of about 20 years old. Magnificent, metal wings sprouted from her shoulders, twitching in the air.
The statue lifted herself up from the ground, her silver, crystalline eyes, dodging Fel's gaze. Breathtaking was the only way to describe her. Long, luscious, silver hair flowed down her shoulders and over her heavy armour. The armour itself was a work of art, with subtle embossing on its surface and fine, yet thick, chain-mail that covered her exposed joints. She didn't wear a helmet, but Fel was willing to let that pass.
The metal statue shifted, bowing to Fel before introducing herself, 'I am Siyla Coldwing... p-pleased to make your acquaintance.' Her stammer almost made Fel chuckle a little.
'My name's Fel, Fel Evenstar'
They continued to stand there, facing each other. There wasn't a common conversation point between them. To discover more about the other party, Fel asked for some assistance from the book spirit.
'Hey, Aerl, what is she?'
Comments (0)
See all