Light streaked through the veins of amber in the tree behind her as Faonari left the library behind. She diligently ensured that she didn’t step on any book spirits this time as she made her way out. The city of Demini was tucked inside a valley, and the Bitter Feld was about an hour north. By her estimation, the spring was another thirty minutes beyond that, deep within the bramble.

The adventurer made her way to the edge of the forest, and along the trail to Leptokyra that she had taken in the opposite direction barely a day ago. As she went, she was sure to keep a keen eye out for an abrupt turn to the left. 

The book had shown a divergence into the wilderness at a spot where the trail had crossed under an arch of bent willow trees, and didn’t want to miss it. She picked up pace under the lightness of excitement the moment she saw the willows, leaving the well trodden path behind. 

Not too long after the break from the trail, she spotted a peculiar glow in the distance. It was like the haze of a cosmic aurora, the kind that made her thankful to Electus for her gift. 

Fao delved into the unknown, far off the beaten path, and as she pushed just a bit further the rainbow glowing light grew stronger. Shimmering glittering constellations that bounced off the canopy of leaves leading Faonari deeper and deeper. The branches seemed to twist and curl more and more as she went, less and less like the familiar trees she knew. 

Heading in the same direction as her, a mossy spirit rolled unpredictably through the leaves and petals on the forest floor. Their sound bounced off the trees in a subtle melody, and her excitement grew. 

This was the spot that the book had described as being fragile to the influences of the spiritworld, so long ago, in the days of legend and lore. It was eerie how reminiscent of the enchanted illustrations this place was, untouched by time. 

Finally, when the branches had spiralled upon themselves into a dark thicket wall, that glimmering light was blocked, and it prompted her to pause. She realized she had followed it, a moth to the flame. Far from where her trusted adventuring map could guide.

She didn’t look back.

Fao pushed through that final resistance, and stepped into a glade unlike any other part of the forest.

It was a beautiful oasis. Water flowed out from a levitating clay flask onto a stone waterfall. From there, the fountain sprayed into a spring crystal pool. Now that she was closer she could see that the rainbow light that was coming from somewhere deep below the surface of the water itself. 

Several little spirit creatures, the likes of which she had seen wandering the forest, were resting in the glade. Local animals grazed at the edge of the ethereal pool too, a raccoon washed its hands in the water and an ornate bird picked berries off a bush. Exotic mushrooms and flowers grew all around. The place was positively teeming with life.

But above all else, there was one very pressing detail that consumed Faonari’s attention. Breaching the surface of the pool, there was a woman with brilliantly long textured pink hair that managed to remain completely dry as she emerged. 

Fao swiftly averted her eyes, not quite sure if there were many coverings over the woman’s gay-panic-inducingly plump body.

“Oh gods, I’m sorry, if you’re swimming here I can just come back later. I figured this would be an obscure, um…”

She dared a peek back at her face. The woman was quite large, and she had long pointed ears, elven in the way they lay flush with her head. Her limbs were just a little uncanny in their length, and her skin glittered in prismatic tingles. 

The woman caught sight of Faonari with bright green eyes, and the elf instantly knew that she had found the one she was supposed to meet. The woman laughed voraciously, splashing the water as she emerged. 

“Oh, wonderful, you did it! You found me! Goodness, I knew that you would, of course, you’re ever so clever!”

She was certainly… a little more exposed than Faonari was used to seeing – there was no armour or arcane defenses that were visible to her eyes. The woman, ethereal in her posture, was wearing a slip of fine silky fabric that covered just enough to avoid accusations of immodesty while still leaving little to the imagination.

If Faonari’s mind was a vault, then she was a little worried about how efficiently the defenses were being lockpicked right off the bat. This tall lady was disarmingly attractive, and her instant confident familiarity was bewildering. 

“Sorry, hold on. Let’s get this straight.” Faonari took on an affectatiously skeptical posture, holding the straps for her haversack like they were supports. “The letter wasn’t a scattershot, it was specifically for me? You know me?”

The tall, graceful woman sat on a smooth grey stone near the edge of her pool. She was utterly nonchalant, her toes still submerged in the spring, and she began brushing out her hair with her fingers. 

“Know who you- of course I know who you are, Faonari! I don’t send a letter to just anyone.”

Faonari felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. That was concerning. She hadn’t exactly been quiet, amulets to protect against divination were rare and costly given the elaborate crystals embedded in them. But she never considered herself worthy of attention, and so she hadn’t considered spying to be much of a risk until now.

“Have you been watching me?”

The woman didn’t seem concerned by this accusation, continuing without missing a beat. “Well, strictly speaking, yes, I suppose so. It’s nothing to worry about though, not when compared to the more pressing matters at hand.”

“You’ll have to forgive me for feeling more than a little uncomfortable with that. It’s quite rude.”

“Oh aren’t you sweet, well, you are well and truly forgiven. If you would like, you’re welcome to watch me as much as you want.” 

She winked, and the elf just about died on the spot. She’d never met someone so flagrantly confident and flirtatious, certainly not in a manner and gender configuration that she actively welcomed. This was bad. This was not good. The larger woman didn’t give her a chance to form a response before continuing.

“Goodness, you look awfully exhausted. I suppose that makes sense though, what with everything you’re going through.” She kicked a leg, and a spray of water sent the birds flapping out from the trees.

“Things I’m going through? You keep saying that, but you haven’t elaborated. Could you tell me what in Erathii’s name is going on? Who are you?”

The woman paused, her leg hanging in the air. Her fingers slipped from her wavy hair.

“Yes. Quite right, sweet adventurer, where are my manners! You may call me Aurelia. Charmed to meet me, I’m sure. Come sit down, we’ll be talking for a little while and I know for a fact you must be tired.”

She gave a come hither tap to the stone next to her, and Fao reluctantly joined her. The young elf’s heart picked up a little as she found a comfortable spot, and the sheer size of the woman who had sent her on this strange treasure hunt finally clicked into perspective. 

Aurelia was eight feet tall, and… well proportioned, as Faonari was trying not to notice. The elven girl wasn’t tiny, but compared to the woman she felt completely overshadowed.

“Now, are you comfortable?”

She felt the moss beneath her fingers. It was soft like the paper of the letter, comfortable and squishy on smooth stone. “Yes… Very. The journey was taxing, but nothing I can’t handle.” 

For just a moment she felt a tremor of some abstract ache within her joints and back, but it was like imagining how it would feel if she were someone else.

“Wonderful.” Aurelia’s long slender finger slowly crept down until it just barely reached the hand that Faonari was using to rifle through the moss. In a very casual motion, she idly stroked up the side of the elf’s hand, as if assessing its merit. It ticked from how slight the movement was, and the adventurer almost moved away. But it was so small, such a momentary fragment in her wider being, that she didn’t. And with that minor transgression, Aurelia continued. 

“Now, I believe you asked about who I was? You know what to call me now, and I won’t bore you with the full version. I am a fairie, one who has happily taken up residence in this beautiful spring.” 

Fao looked around at the way the water undulated with light. The permanent enchantment that kept the flask of endless water pouring downwards allowed the terracotta bowl with a smooth curved handle to pour its crystal clear contents out onto the free standing cluster wall of boulders that behaved like a waterfall.

“A fairie… so then, you are a spirit?”

“You’re very curious and observant, Faonari. I am indeed a spirit. Perhaps a little more… autonomous and meticulous than the little protectors you might be used to from the forests and cities.”

Fao’s mind raced. “Gods above. Okay. Okay, wow. Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn’t curse like that. Are you a god?  One of the old dragons in fairie form who found her way back to this side of the veil?”

Aurelia chucked, endeared by the elf’s guesswork. “Not quite, I can’t say that I’ve ever visited Elysium-”

“-or the Hells?” Faonari interjected, with as little panic as she could muster.

“-nor the Hells, though I do find myself traveling to and from another realm on a fairly regular basis! No, those poor gods are stuck beyond their veil, and they’ve all become terribly invested in their domains. And goodness, don’t we love them for it! Things would all go very wrong if Electus decided she no longer wanted to oversee the domain of light. No, I’m not… burdened as they are.” 

The adventurer had met all manner of spirits in her life. But they were mostly of the smaller variety. She knew of the pantheon of dragons, but was never a particularly pious girl. Her magic was predominantly grounded in an innate, instinctual ability she had always had. They called her spirittouched as a child, taught her enough to channel her power and that was it. 

“So are you like me? Sprittouched? Just, more?”

“That is a very, very clever guess.” Aurelia smiled, and it had this way of lifting the energy of the entire spring. “As I said, I’m a spirit. A powerful one if I may say so myself. As a fairie, I can come and go from the Spiritworld as I desire. I choose, sweetling, to live within this forest.”

It made sense. There were minor deities all over Reverie who oversaw areas or concepts of some significance. Fao knew in some abstract sense that those spirits came from and returned to a Spiritworld. It hadn’t occurred to her that they could choose a place to live just as anyone else could, and that they weren’t obliged to be protectors. 

Perhaps this was all reversed, and the powerful creature was looking for protection herself. Someone like the wealthy merchants of influence, looking to lure her in and then offer her a job given her disposability.

“So you live in this forest, and you’re a very tall, very powerful fairie living in a beautiful spring. Is that why you wrote to me? Do you want me to fight off some invader trying to take over your land?”

The faerie giggled and kicked her legs again. The glittering prismatic skin scattered the light of the suns in a beautifully entrancing way. “Oh aren’t you precious, goodness no. I promise you Faonari, I am abundantly capable. Even before magic, I could probably lift you with one arm, if you wanted to see.” 

Another wink. That did something to Faonari, a pooling oozy feeling. But then it turned sour in her belly. She needed to get her head out of the clouds… and gutter. Aurelia’s words were clearly a warning that she shouldn’t ignore just because the one uttering them had said it in a gentle way that made her flutter slightly.

No one expressed this much interest in her without an agenda.

Fao stood up from the mossy stone and began backing slowly towards the edge of the glade.

“Well, it was lovely to meet you, but I better be going.” She made to start turning around before the fairie could fleece her down for the coins in her pouch or whatever it was she had on her that was valuable to fairies. 

Aurelia frowned and pouted, crossing her arms below her very generous chest. “Whatever do you mean? Come on sweetling, you just got here.”

Faonari frowned right back at her. “Look, I don’t have much on me, but what I do have I intend on keeping. If you’re not looking to pay me you’re clearly looking to rob me, so I’m going to leave now.”

Fao made it five or six steps out of the bramble before she heard the voice of the fairie purring from the waterside.

“Sweetling~”

“Thank you for the letter and the fascinating scavenger hunt!”

“Sweeeeeeting. I’m terribly sorry for alarming you! Come back, please~” 

“It was a long day and I’ve been feeling this weird echoey back pain so I must be going.”

“I have no intentions to take anything from you that you do not freely give me, and I shall give to you back in equal kind. The letter, Fao. I have important things to tell you! Don’t you want to know?” 

The adventurer stopped walking and reached into her haversack. She pulled out the envelope once more. It was the very first line that had tugged on her curiosity from the moment she opened it. And with the answers dangerously close, she simply had to ask.

She turned around, and realized that Aurelia was right behind her the entire time. Their bodies touched, and fizzles of nervous energy filled Faonari. The grass was wet now beneath her sandals, a slowly receding layer of water that got beneath her open toes.

“The letter. It said something about my reality?”

“Yes. Let's sit back down, Faonari. This is going to be difficult to hear.”

Aurelia took the elf by the hand, and walked her back to the stone. They sat side by side, looking not at each other but at the ripples of water as it splashed into the spring. 

“Now, I suppose we should start by establishing something very important. I want you to imagine another world.”

Aurelia twitched her long fingers, and an illusory ball of atmospheric gasses and liquids appeared in front of them. They swirled and moved, land masses rising out from the mantle to create an unfamiliar planet.

“In this world, things are miserable and grim, and you have to spend all day toiling away to enrich dark forces who are already blessed with innumerable wealth.”

Fao felt the pain in her joints rise from some abstract concept of another’s suffering into a discomfort she could feel within her own bones. Unfamiliar currency passed hands in the flicker of her imagination, and on the globe that Aurelia had conjured a lightning storm began to rage. Small embers of metallic debris swirled around the translucent conjured planet like tiny moons.

“A horrid place where those in power hate you for your very identity. No protector spirits, only the enrichers of suffering.”

The pain built higher, and memories began to press into her mind. The elf felt the pinching full ache of something on her shoulder. An invisible sheen of sweat that coated her body. Names of people and places she had never been. 

“Aurelia, what is the meaning of this? Why are you talking like this? It’s awful, I don’t want to hear about this.”

The fairie was steadfast and steel toned, ignoring the protests of the frightened elf. Fao looked down and saw a faint shimmer on her skin, a rainbow oilslick of some kind. Magic, maybe?

“This awful world, it’s a land where your friends and allies are scattered to the four winds… A corrupt place where the fight is so much harder, and the returns diminishing under the weight of an oppressor’s entropy. I’m so sorry to ask you this question, Faonari. But I think we both know the answer already. Is this place familiar to you?”

Faonari felt her heart pounding, and then all of a sudden her body was frozen in place from fear. She didn’t move a single muscle, until finally her head turned to look up at the fairie in disbelief.

“I think so… yes. But I don’t understand how. I know that I’m not supposed to know about it. The VRsimilitude is supposed to prevent- I don’t even know how I know what that is. But yes. Yes I do.”

Aurelia sighed, her brows furrowing sympathetically. 

“I’m sorry, little adventurer. I’m so terribly sorry for even mentioning it. This next question is the toughest one of all. And once I ask it, things will become… complicated for a while, until we can set things right again. So before I ask you, I will make you an offer. Leave. Go back to Demini, and forget that you ever found this place. It’s not too late to turn back. If you would prefer to live a short and happy life of only mild discomfort, the kind that buzzes in your skull every once in a while, that would be the option to pick. But if you want to fight for your greatest potential, and in doing so suffer, then I will ask you the question that makes the scope of your predicament clear.”

Faonari swallowed her nerves and sat in the tension for a minute. Then, mustering all of her courage, she spoke.

“Aurelia, I want to know. Ask me the question.”

“What do you call that horrible place?”

Faonari felt the answer burn from the front of her synapses, working its way through all sense. It fought through her senses until it slammed against her skull.

And it was awful.

“I call that place the real world.”