Perrywinkle was lucky. While most of her body was broken and fading fast, at least her wings still had some flutter in them. She groaned as her wings lifted her broken body, and screamed in useless agony when she landed next to the shards of her Bastian. Only the stone heard her cries, yet not even the stone would act to save him. She would have to take matters into her own hands.
Her [Fae Ancestry] granted her the ability not only to see an individual's true motivations, but also their true nature. She knew that the man who lay dead on the cavern floor was an immortal. She knew that he was her only chance of saving her Bastian.
She painstakingly gathered the most significant fragments of Bastian. He had ceased his agonised wailing the moment he had struck the floor, his silence scratching at her soul. The physical and emotional agony struck her catatonic for a second as panic threatened to take hold, but she forced it down. She needed to do something for him, after he had done so much for her. This was her chance to protect him as much as he had protected her. This was her chance to show her care for him, as much as he had cared for her.
She painstakingly gathered each large crystal she could grab onto the man’s chest. Then she used the slight wind magic she possessed to collect all the chips and smaller fragments around the larger pieces. Then, with a final burst of her limited mana, she shoved every shard, chip, fragment, and grain of her beloved into the immortal's open chest wound.
The human convulsed as his body's instinctive, extreme revulsion at something attempting a hostile takeover kicked in. Yet, she had no other choice. It was either do this and pray...or let her Bastian die.
“Oh, heavenly father, who bestowed the fires of salvation upon me. Grant me your mercy and spare me his life.
Oh heavenly mother, who nurtured this soul, I ask of you verily, keep his shell whole and hale.
Oh heavenly sister…”
Perrywinkle went through the elder gods, the minor gods, the elemental spirits... She prayed to everyone who had a sliver of good in them. When that didn't work, she decided it was time to call home. Every Fae creature knew to fear them and was taught to obey them at any cost. Their monarchs, their overlords, their gods...
She prayed to the Fae Courts.
-
Danger!
You have absorbed an incompatible core and have contracted one instance of Dantian Constriction. Instances of Dantian Constriction will accumulate over time.
Dantian Constriction will devolve into Meridian Constriction.
Dantian Constriction: The paths of Elemental Core and Qi cultivation are barred to you.
Time until the following instance: 14:25
Gareth floated through a black void bereft of pain or heartache. The waking world and all its troubles had left him in this dreamscape. He was still him, just lacking crucial aspects of the past - the context of his current existence, his sense of the present, his ‘now’. That is, until his ‘now’ was suddenly an enchanting forest through which he was walking. He heard birds calling, beetles singing, and branches rustling in a gentle breeze that cooly caressed his skin.
He took a moment, just enjoying the peace, when a smooth, womanly voice spoke from a spot just a few feet away. “I do not often have access to this plane. Thank you for giving me a call.” A platinum-haired woman said coyly.
To say that she was 'sitting' on a nearby rock would be doing her level of attraction a grave disservice. 'Sitting' implies a rustic quality that would put her in the realm of mortals, which she certainly was not. Instead, she lounged on a rock that seemed to hug her curves, not daring to give her an ounce of discomfort.
Gareth swallowed...tried to swallow with a suddenly dry throat, “Hi.” He said very intelligently.
She chuckled lightly, her laughter carrying the fragility and lightness of glass wind chimes blown by a soft summer breeze, “Hi.”
She tilted her head onto the shoulder of her supporting arm; her long sable hair falling like long waterfalls of ink across her modest chest, “I heard you could use a little help.”
That line, with that delivery, from a woman as enchanting as she was, would have had any other man selling away his soul to make her happy. Luckily, and for the first time in his life, his trauma helped him, as contradictory as that might seem. Her words forced him to recall the sickening stench of sterilised hospitals, the unending hellish beeps of medical monitors, and a pain as he'd never felt before stabbing through his upper back. Mistress Connolly had said those exact words to him the day she had bought off his medical debt. Those words had been the precursor to a life of brutality, desperation, and slavery.
His love-struck expression cleared, replaced by narrow-eyed scepticism, “Nah, I'm good.”
The world Gareth found himself in kept changing. It seamlessly switched from that initial forest to a dark hospital room, then settled on a factory assembly line. A room where he had worked 18-hour shifts, doing everything from mopping blood off the floor to assembling various mechanical parts into instruments that made the world a worse place.
She looked around curiously, unbothered by his refusal, “You do not like this place,” she gestured to a device Gareth was assembling, “but there are aspects of your time here that you enjoyed. Like…crafting?”
Gareth's mind recalled assembling an Automated Thermic Ancillary Cannon, ATAC for short. The parts clicked together so perfectly, so smoothly, that younger Gareth had found himself enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to assemble the complex weaponry, without reading the manuals.
How it worked, why it worked, could it work differently?
Gareth’s fumbling with the equipment had caught the attention of Madam Connolly, who had initially written him off as just another indentured worker. When she recognised his ingenuity, she saw fit to 'promote' him to higher and higher positions. Each position asked him to discard more and more of his humanity until he could barely recognise himself.
Breaking him out of his forced introspection, the stunning lady snapped her delicate, manicured finger in front of his face, then asked him a question, “If your ingenuity had been nurtured, do you think you would have enjoyed being a craftsman?”
Whereas she had been wearing a form-fitting silver gown before, the woman was now suddenly dressed in blue construction overalls. Her blemishless face, now tastefully decorated with flecks of black grease, fell just right as to resemble beauty marks. Her oval eyes slightly squinted from her smile. She looked innocently curious. Intrigued. A wind suddenly ruffled her shiny, flowing hair, and Gareth was instantly reminded of AI thirst-traps. Her beauty was too unrealistic, too perfect.
A person from Volun would have been ensnared by her beauty; they didn't have the same exposure which Gareth had. Terran women had mastered cosmetics, plastic surgery, and chrome. Each woman embodies their ideal form of beauty. Hip-realignments, liposuction, and drugs so that each model resembled 'beauty divine'. The problem was that, if each woman was the most beautiful in the world, then stunning beauty became an everyday thing. It was expected, even. Social media was categorically worse, as enchanting beauty was filtered and primed, edited to enhance every gesture and expression. All this to say that while Gareth found the woman in front of him enchanting beyond another level, he could still keep a cool head.
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His painful reminders of the past and her suspicious beauty wore away the last of his sleep-induced brain fog, and he faded back to lucidity in that moment. The dull sounds of machinery clanking, beeping, and screeching faded into the background until they were both standing on a grassy hill—a full moon overhead, bathing the swaying wild-grass with silver light.
“You're not real,” he whispered.
She smiled softly, dangerously, “Oh, I am quite real. The Dreamscape is a place of wants and fancies. I desired this form to appear beautiful to you, and that made you suspicious for some reason. I am Monokane, Mother of the Moon,” she bowed slightly, while holding a hand over what was now a white kimono decorated with blooming pink blossoms.
Manners, he thought as Ellisandra's eloquence lessons flashed through his mind. Across the hills and mountains echoed a faint, “Manners, manners...manners."
“I am Gareth Elson.” He returned the bow.
They were both quiet for a moment, silently observing each other.
“Why am I here?” Gareth asked and gestured at the miraculous grassy hills. The moon hung in a clear, starry night sky. The wind rustled dew-covered grass that caught the moonlight and sparkled like a million diamonds. An owl hooted somewhere in the distance, a cricket chirped, and the faintest flute could be heard from a valley out of view. Of the two planets he'd been on, Terra had been too urbanised, and Volun too rainy. Gareth had never been here before. Nevermind the fact that a moon hung in the air, and not Ginnungagap.
She smiled softly, her sharp cheekbones giving her heart-shaped face a predatory, fox-like quality. “A fairy has begged me to save her Dungeon. I am here to negotiate the price of her plea.”
Gareth could vaguely recall something about a fairy crying, then a fight, but nothing else. Though if there was one thing Gareth had learned in a corporate society, it was how to manage his funds, i.e. creddypinching.
“How much are you willing to help?” He asked forwardly and to the point. This might give him the upper hand in the negotiation, as she was likely to lowball him.
“I do not give or take in this situation. I will merely act as an adjudicator to facilitate a pact between individuals. Then, as a channel through which the exchange of power will be transported.”
"Why can't you use your mystical powers and include Perrywinkle in the deal? She deserves to survive just as much as Bastian."
"Unfortunately, I cannot. For Bastian to be able to forge a new contract with you, Perrywinkle had to break her bond with him first, voluntarily. As you will learn, Fae Pacts are sacrosanct. To break it is to be punished severely. She is already on the cusp of Death. There is nothing that can save her."
"That's just...hard to accept," Gareth stated grimly. "What's in it for you in this whole...mess?” He asked somewhat accusingly, though his heart wasn't in it.
“I am Fae: I gain power through forging pacts between individuals. I intermingle bloodlines, meridian networks, auras, and the souls of creatures, so that each party is given exactly what they promise. Perrywinkle asks for her dungeon, Bastian, to be saved. You have an excess of Life essence due to your [Blessed by Life] trait. If you agree to this contract, henceforth referred to as 'The Pact', your body will keep him alive. Perrywinkle, as the chief advocate for The Pact, must invest part of her own power, but she is weak due to personal injury, and any cost will be…her life. Bastian, as the chief beneficiary of the bond, will lose most of his accumulated mana, as his level can never be equal to, or higher than, your Body Cultivation level. This is a pact forged in good faith. Any act which deliberately harms the other party will constitute as grounds for breaking The Pact. All three parties swear that they are, and will act with the best interests of the other pact-members in mind.” She jumped into a lot of legalese, speaking fluently and confidently, which meant that Gareth only understood sixty per cent of it. Yet, if there was one thing he'd learned while working under a corps queen, it was to read the fine print.
He was about to ask her a whole slew of questions when she reminded him that they were on a timer.
Time until the following instance: 10:37
Scrambling to think of the most blatant ways that this could fuck him, he came up with the following question: “What if I wanted to break the pact?”
She raised a brow in surprise, “Pacts are soul-deep and permanent. They can be broken, but as I mentioned regarding Perrywinkle, breaking the pact will cause severe soul damage. Unless it is broken deliberately, The Pact will follow you into the next life, and all others after.”
A contract he couldn't get out of, and for whom? A fairy-girl and some guy he didn't even know?
“Can I have a chance to speak with Perrywinkle and Bastian?” He asked.
She was already shaking her head before he could finish the sentence, “It is unfortunate, but they do not have access to the Dreamscape…yet. This conversation is happening at the speed of thought, and to leave would mean Bastian would die. You are at a critical juncture. To refuse the pact would be to allow him and Perrywinkle both to perish.”
“So Perrwynkle dies regardless!?" He asked with a slight alarm, but he totally wasn't emotionally invested yet. In a cutthroat corporate world, you had to trust slowly, or someone would scam you out of your last credit. At least, that was what he told himself as the moon above them turned red, interspersed with sickly splotches of green and yellow.
“Like I said earlier: A Dungeon Fairy cannot survive without her dungeon, especially not if she breaks The Pact. Fae creatures are intrinsically linked to the pacts they form. She will die.”
The scene around them shifted to a bird's-eye view of Perrywinkle praying beside Gareth's corpse. A grotesque hole in his chest. His eyes vacant, staring glossily into space.
Tears streamed down the petite fairy's sharp cheeks, her right eye weeping red from multiple burst blood vessels. A face that should have been joyful with the most beautifully cunning of smiles was marred by a brutal defeat. It shouldn't be shattered by grief.
Gareth knew he was being manipulated. It was an irrefutable fact. This Monokane was obviously showing him this to get him to agree to the pact. Experience and logic told him, screamed at him, that this was some sort of trap.
"Don't trust strangers", "Nice guys finish last", "She's using you", "It's a trap", "they'll take your independence, your freedom", "I don't know enough about the contract to agree", all thoughts that made sense in this context, each one justified with lived experience and cynicism.
Yet, in that cute fairies' fragility, he saw his sister. In his heart, a war was waged as an old, forgotten, suppressed instinct resurfaced. The protective instinct of an older brother. The protective instinct that each man wanted to cultivate because, in their hearts, very few people actually wanted to see the world burn. He was a born optimist, turned into a cynic by a mockingly unforgiving world.
Can I deny the facts in front of me? Can I afford the price my conscience would have to pay for refusing this pact? It would be so easy to distance myself from them, to claim that I tried my best and just let nature take its course. But would that be the right thing? It would be selfish. Am I not striving for a world where good people do the right thing? I've been backstabbed by everyone I've ever met...
But that would be a cowardly lie. Master Guanji, Lord Margave, Mistress Ellismera, Lady Ellisandra, Ser Oliver. A small group of people, yes, but each one had done right by me. They had given me food, a warm bed, a kind pat on the back, and silent support. Confidence. Competence...
In the last few years, the world has been so kind to me. Now it was asking me to give something back.
Congratulations!
The Fey have heard your call and answered.
Do you wish to form a Pact with Monokane, mother of the moon?
Accept/Decline?
If he wanted to live in a world of kindness, he had to inspire kindness. He had to show others that, regardless of personal cost, doing the right thing would always be worth the price. It would cost him something, he was sure of it, but could he look himself in the mirror ever again? Could he ever tell someone not to be selfish and not feel like a hypocrite? He wasn’t doing this because of guilt. He was doing it because he aspired to be a good person, as simple as that. The only way to be a good person was to act like one. To make personal sacrifices for the sake of others who needed help. His father would have mocked his decision as na?ve, as stupid, as irrational because it had no apparent benefit for him. His father, not liking the idea, was proof enough that this was the right path.
“I accept the bond.”
Beware!
A bond has been struck.
The Fae are tricksters by nature, but undyingly loyal to their allies.
You have been granted a detrimental trait: Death's Tithe.
Death’s Tithe: Will slow your Body’s natural regeneration by 15% until Bastian the Dungeon is healed.
In exchange, Monokane, mother of the moon, has formed a pact between you and the Fae.
You have been granted the Fae-specific System function:
[Pact magic 1].
Pact magic 1 grants one Trait and one Ability.
Whispers of the Will: Sense the True Motivations of those at your pact magic level and below.
Bind the tongue: At the cost of accumulated Fae karma (Minimum cost of 500pts Karma), you may enforce verbal contracts. If any party were to break their word, the pact would be broken, and they would take damage equal to triple the amount of karmic energy invested (minimum 500pts of soul damage) when the deal was struck. If both parties remain faithful to this pact, each will be granted double the invested amount of Karmic energy at its conclusion.
