7) Transformation Sequence

  I had the Stone Spider climb up to the top of the desk with the key ring held between its mandibles,

  while the Undine, who could actually use the keys, made its way up by means of a chair that was half pulled away from underneath another nearby table, from which it then walked over to take the ring of keys from the Spider’s mouth bits.

  The fairy had let out a cheer as the spider’s long legs had first crept over the edge of the desk her cage sat on and held her hand out to take the key ring from the Undine before I could set it to freeing her, only to snatch her hand back with a yelp before she could hand it from its hands. “Hey! What the Pit? Did this guy get everything made out of iron? It’s not even a good metal for most things. It rusts, and… attracts lighting.”

  I thought that over and concluded that fairies must be known to steal things, or iron had some quality to affect other beings than just fairy kind. “Just wait, I will let you out in a moment.”

  It took the Undine a lot of step by step instructions to try out each key in the lock, even starting out with the ones that were near the right size. The process wasn’t helped by Viola ‘helpful’ hints and complaints.

  “No, why are you trying to turn it clockwise? Wiggle it around a bit. Don’t poke me!”

  For some reason a lot of her comments made me want to announce that was what in fact she had said. I had no idea why. That was in fact what she had said. Why recount that out loud?

  Finally, the scaled Summons turned another dark iron key in the lock with a ‘click’ sound and I began to tell it how to open the door. “Now turn the key a little bit the other way, then pull it out. Now pull on the bars of the door just above the lock. Oh never mind.”

  Despite the pain involved in even touching iron, Viola pushed the door of her cage open even before the Undine had fully stepped out of her way, brushing it aside as she emerged from her cage while trying to avoid any more contact with the metal, even as she was twisting around trying to escape her confinement as quickly as possible.

  Limping away from the cage, the flower petals that made up her outfit began to brighten in color and fill out. No longer hanging limp and creased but nearly floating around her as if freshly plucked and barely clinging to her skin.

  As she stretched her hands up above her head and groaned in a full body stretch, her skin took on a healthier glow, and her hair untangled as it settled into place after she shook her head wildly with a broad grin on her face.

  She looked nice. Healthy, functional, and happy. I was glad to have been able to help her.

  Walking along the table top to its edge on the tips of her feet, a faintly viable set of butterfly like wings in every shade of purple from a near pink to an almost black fluttered into view as she moved with a nearly weightless grace.

  “Thanks Fell! Now watch the glory as I grow into a Rank 3 Garden… Fairy.” Her face scrunched up in confusion. “What the Pit is a Dungeon Fairy?”

  I could see a glimmer of prismatic light in her eyes, as the reflection of the words meant only for her to see flashed in front of her eyes. The expression on her face changed from confusion to outrage. Then a look of consideration slowly emerged as she slowly began to nod her head.

  As the lights finally faded away from her eyes, she settled down gracefully on the edge of the table, settling the hem of her dress underneath her as she sat with one leg tucked below the other that she began kicking back and forth over the edge of the table.

  “Well old boy, or rather young boy.” She covered her mouth for a moment as she giggled. “It looks like we may be working together for a while.”

  Then she frowned and began to point at me with her finger, twitching it up and down with each word.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  “And. It’s. All. Your. Fault.”

  Then she crossed her arms, turned her head, and fought back another grin.

  Hrmmmm. Fairies. “Explain.”

  With her wings once again visible, she flustered them as she dropped down to the floor beside me. I found that with her standing right next to me, her head and shoulder stood just above the top of my core. As she drew close, she hesitated, then laid her rather warm hands flat on top of me.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t really have a temperature. I mean, you’re warmer than the room.” She lifted one of her bare lavender colored feet and looked at it. “And very much warmer than the stone floor.” With a grunt, she lay both of her hands on top of me and jumped up with a twist to end up sitting on top of me with her legs crossed and the hem of her dress tucked underneath herself.

  I held back my protests, suspecting it would only encourage her.

  From Caesar’s eyes, I could see her tapping her fingertip against her chin. “So… the Mother of All sends us fairies to places where they are living things, but not people, for us to gather up Chaos. But there are places Chaos collects that doesn't have any living things, and in those places, Chaos builds up until it spills out into the surrounding areas.”

  She leaned forward to look down at me. “But, now we got you. A living thing that can live without soil to grow in, smaller animals to eat, or rotting stuff to grow on. Perfect to go where nothing else lives, and then live off Chaos alone.”

  Reaching down, she patted my Core just in front of herself. “Only you have a natural predator in the form of people who would see you as something they can absorb and level up with. So I’m getting the offer to help you form a line of defense all around you, like the inner dungeon of a keep.”

  Pressing her half closed hands under her chin, she pouted. “I would be something new…” Her eyes lit up and she jumped to her feet, clasping her hands together as she leaned forward to look down at me once again. “Just like you kiddo. I’ll do it.”

  Kiddo? No, just no. But before I could protest, she threw up one hand above her, with the other was on her hip, and then she began spinning around. All the while still standing on top of me, with only her fluttering transparent wings keeping her from tumbling off. “Transformation. Rank 3 Dungeon Fairy go!”

  For a moment she was surrounded in a swirling whirlwind of all the colors. Each band of the circling light contained a ring of Writing like I had seen before. But with all of the rings overlapping each other and seeming to be continuously written as they spun and stacked on top of themselves.

  As the last of the lights banished after a last bright flash that filled the room, I found her standing on top of me, now dressed in a set of gleaming honey colored thick soled sandals below lower leg guards, with matching arm guards and a leather body cover with straps that hung down all around her waist and hanging down low enough to cover the bottom of her near white dress.

  A long tapering blade that glimmered with the colored lights of the informative burning Words was held in her upraised hand, and a half helmet with a face guard that matched the materials of the rest of her armor was tucked under her other arm.

  Her broad grin showed off every last pearl white tooth in her mouth as she panted for breath between her excited, almost hysteric, giggles.

  All told she was perhaps a third again taller than she had been before. The transformation had also left her off balance as her booted feet began to slip, her wings fluttered wildly in the air, and she plopped down butt first on top of me before sliding off of me backward with a yelp.

  “I meant to do that! No one ask me why!”

  ...Fairies.

  And now I’m stuck with her.