8] Rolling into action

  After Viola had fluttered back up to her feet, sheathed her sword at her side, and had begun to rub at her backside with both hands, I finally asked her. “So now that you are a Dungeon Fairy, what does that mean?”

  Her face lit up, and she raised one finger into the air… and then shrugged. “I have no idea, but it has to be something like what a Garden Fairy can do.” She began counting off on her other hand, touching each of the fingertips one by one. “Or a Glade Fairy, or a Pasture Fairy, or a Pond fairy.”

  Pressing her counting finger up against her dark purple lips, she nodded to herself. “We can all make ourselves harder to notice, as long as we don’t do anything to attract any attention, and we have a pretty good idea of what is happening in our demesne, which could be a garden, a pasture, or a pond. But...”

  She looked down at my Core. “But that’s all defined by natural features. You’re a rock, in a dank cellar filled up with a twisted wizard’s stuff. What constitutes my demesne?”

  Whatever defined it, it still had to constitute some sort of area. “What can you sense is happening in my Dungeon.”

  Walking around me slowly in a circle she pressed the fingertips of both of her hands against either side of her forehead as she twisted her face in connection before straightening up with a gasp.

  “I sense someone… who is in desperate need of respecting what I have to contribute.” Turning to me she leaned forward with her hands on both of her hips. “OUR Dungeon.”

  Well, I mean… I guess. Fine. “Alright. 'Our' Dungeon. Now please answer ‘our’ question.”

  She stood up straight with a grin, then a sideways glance of suspicion, before touching the side of her head again. “There are more Dread Roaches out there, several of them. And, a lot of open spaces, some as big or bigger than this room, others are small, even smaller than you. Tunnels really.”

  “And…” She blinked and glanced at me. “It’s all around us, three hundred or so feet all around us in every direction... except up, and down, which both only go about the same as the range of how far you can take back the magic from your summons. Up, and all around us but mostly up, are places that aren’t ours. Those must be places that others have a claim on so I can’t see inside of them. But as for how much is ours...”

  The Fairy tapped my core on the top. “It’s you Fell. You and whatever is immediately around you is what constitutes our Dungeon.”

  Oh. “Hey!” Leaning in towards me, Viola had began rolling me along the floor away from the Nictob’s dead body, and towards the door the Dread Roaches had come in by.

  All of my summons took on postures ready to rush or leap at her, which Viola either ignored or just didn’t notice.

  “Viola what are you doing? The roaches are that way!”

  She froze in place, then seemed to abruptly notice the creatures all around her, standing ready to pile onto her. The Fairy took a step back from me with a nervous grin, both of her hands thrust behind her back as she cleared her throat. “Ah, just seeing if what constituted our Dungeon would move around if we moved you.”

  Wavering her hands in front of her she tried to make it clear that, “I didn’t mean any harm. Honest, I just got excited about being a whole new kind of Fairy, and I wanted to find out what I could do, please don’t hurt me!”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Cringing, she collapsed to the ground. Her knees to her chest and both arms over her head as she shook.

  Much like the position she had been forced into while she was locked in a cage.

  Moving Caesar along past her, I had him whip out the end of his tail to flick her on her backside before he began pushing my Core along with his snout, even as I ordered most of the other summons to guard the door.

  Viola yelped, jumped to her feet, and let out a nervous laugh as she twisted her hands together. “So… Am I forgiven?”

  Hrmp. “Only if you promise not to… try to handle me again without telling me your intentions, and getting my permission.” She sagged in relief. “Has anything changed?”

  The Fairy looked confused, then opened her mouth just as Caesar rolled me over the edge of the chalk circle still drawn out on the floor from Nictob’s ritual gone wrong, at which point she came to a sudden stop, and looked almost panicked. Throwing out one hand she yelled. “Stop! I just lost, like, everything outside of a spot right in the middle of this room. What happened?”

  After a moment of watching Viola twitching about in distress, and me thinking things over, I had Caesar roll my core back into the ritual circle. The Fairy brightened up. “It’s back!” And then began doing a little dance.

  The Salamander rolled my core back out of the circle. The Fairy began to panic once more. “It’s gone again!”

  Roll. “It’s back, yay!”

  Roll. “Oh no!”

  Roll. “Wait, are you doing something?”

  Hmmmm. Viola interrupted my thoughts as began poking my Core again. “Stop messing with me Fell!”

  Despite half of the chalk drawing on the floor being washed away by the Vile Arcanist’s blood, or broken by summoned manifestations and rolling orbs going through the lines, I was somehow connected to the space in which the ritual which had helped create me had once stood.

  With that in mind, I could even sort of feel where the circle was, at least as long as I was in it.

  Good thing I had a Dungeon Fairy to help me. “Viola, I’m somehow bound to where the circle was that Nictob made. My demesne seems to only be there while I’m in the circle, and vanishes once I am out of it. What does this mean?”

  The Fairly looked up from looking at her reflection in the side of a green Rank two orb as she made faces at it. “Huh?”

  I repeated myself. She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe stay in the circle?”

  Very helpful.

  “I’m going to spend my merit points to level up now.”

  She began jumping about and clapping. “Yay!”

  What would I do without her?

  “Blinky. Spend enough Merit points to take me to Rank one, Level two.”

  This time my surrounding went beyond just going dim, and my thoughts did not so much slow down for a time, but ground down to a stop.

  And I found myself sitting alone on the dark sand of an endless desert. Awakening before the doors of an immense gray stone tower that rose up in front of me until it vanished into the star filled night’s sky above.

  ...well, at least this is new.