Much better. Now I had the Queen’s map overlaid on Cornutopia in what, despite not being able to see too much from here, I was convinced had to be the right way. Here I was just in front of the long arch thing, and all around me were towering figures caked in shadow, buildings and rides between trees and overgrowth.

Once again, night vision at a distance could only do so much. But just knowing that the “vacation spot” the Queen had mentioned was a corn-based theme park was helping a lot. For instance, what had once appeared to be the very top of an enormous football was most likely gonna prove to be another giggling food product, once I got past the trees that obscured it from this angle.

Willows with clawed hands, most of them young and hardy, had sprung up in what had once been furrowed fields. They helped give a new, creepy texture to what had once been an amusement park.

Amusement parks! I’d never been. My old home hadn’t had one, so in my mind, this kind of place only lived in my mental encyclopedia. But once I took a few deep breaths in the shadows behind the ticket booth, got past some initial creepiness, I made some connections with playgrounds. Those I knew.

Once I’d snuck into a fast-food playplace. I scared everyone and—thinking back to it and using my noggin to translate what little I remembered…I seemed to recall convincing many parents that their children had air-transmitted rabies. Exciting times! Anyway, if moving deeper into this park revealed some playplace-like, roughly cat-sized, slightly cat-appropriate bunches of tubes and slides, I might actually have a great time here! Plus, I could change forms now!

Finally I could use those wibbly-wobbly animal-faced things on springs that children rocked back and forth on! Did those even have names? According to the knowledge Sierra had seen fit to bestow upon me, no. But I would call them “steeds,” and I would be eagerly searching for them.

Sadly, everything I’d seen to date was a little structure or a big ride. The Queen’s help was so vague that it didn’t help in this regard.

The way I saw it, I could either start exploring by moving along the ground or start by using one of the skyscraper-like rides as a lookout point. The second option seemed smarter than the first—I could use a strong foundation.

Right behind the ticket booth was a pavilion edged with patches of furrowed soil, now viney, and guideposts, now rotten. A tiny baby ride lay to my left, one where babies once sat in half-acorn cups and whirled around in a gentle figure eight.

It took no focus whatsoever to hear the chorus of snores and snuffles from within those acorn cups.

I’d need to move a little further to find any towers. I figured any path would do…until I saw a red light from the corner of my right eye.

It was just daring me to come closer, wasn’t it?

EXP: 99% (3420/3450)

A combination of being very very close to the next Level and unnatural hatred for these elusive bright lights meant I wasn’t afraid to be all-in aggressive. I stayed shrouded in shadow but was by no means unseen as I sprinted for the thing, red shining off my eyes.

The light swung around a corner like a bauble on a spring, like a cartoon antenna.

Around that corner were the wrecked tracks of a mini-railroad. Even though its sign was fairly readable, and that was rare, I paid it little attention.

Gliding along the tracks was a peaceful procession of the same beings I’d seen with Possy just earlier. Standing still and watching them drift, I saw clearly what they were.

When the girls at the cabin talked about spirits “always” passing through the Vencian Wood, some part of me had never believed it. Yes, there was a chapel-y thing at one end and a mystical golden dragon near another and a pond with a pretty cool fish in it in between, and sure, a town on Earth with even one of those things would be considered excessively supernatural. But in a world defined by magic? “Hotbed of spiritual activity”? Where?!

It was oddly relieving to see these fairies. Satisfying to have a little more “proof.”

I hadn’t even noticed before that the creatures themselves glowed. It was a moonlight glow, far paler than the irritating red at the ends of their irritating sticks. From here, about a meter away, I knew that red came from things like fluffy dandelions, each twice the size of its bearer’s head. The fairies, for all the elegance in their dresses and bearings and flickering wings, held the flowers like battle mallets. They glowed like the red Skills of Strength.

Then a cry rang out closer to the back of the line. The chitter didn’t seem quite right for a fairy, but maybe that just meant it didn’t fit the typical Earthling’s image of them. It was a batlike squeal for sure.

All the fairies stood at attention. So did I, wondering if maybe they were about to retaliate against me. Sure, I was “hidden,” but I wasn’t in Stealth and the one fairy had pointedly fled from me.

Then they took off again, all chittering. What I’d thought were bigger wingbeats in the bog had to have been bodies rushing against leaves, because their dragonfly wings made much less noise when the woods were a little less thick.

Human laughter bubbled up again. This got me to withdraw further, standing against a tall willow…only to watch as yet another being paid me no mind.

The dragon was humanoid, and the human was draconic! The revelation made me want to smack my forehead for not having seen it until now. The winged, scaled human fell from high-speed flight into a jog, arms spread like those of a child hurrying ducks off the shallows of a pond.

Now I had them totally in my sights! Except I didn’t, because even when I looked straight at them, a mist seemed to cloud them. No, seemed to cloud my mind. It had to be a Spell on me, right? Nothing else looked this way, especially not the fairies, which had been clear as day.

What should have been piercing eyes looked instead like hazy disks of orange. I thought I was seeing a cap of peach-colored hair, but it appeared as a blur. And as the face turned to me, it gasped, and the figure moved to take flight.

“Meaow!” I cried, stepping out of the shadows. Hastily I Morphed, wishing I hadn’t startled them, hoping to make a connection.

Unfortunately, I acted too fast. No sooner had the poof of transformation sprung up than the dragon-human flew off again, toward the fairies they had just been shooing and herding.

My reaching hand fell in defeat. That was a couple of mysteries partially solved…but now that I knew there was a stranger behind it—who seemed friendly, or at least like they had an average mortal core—I felt newly unfulfilled.

Ah…Possy had set my hopes too high. Maybe the dragon person didn’t want to make friends with people who jumped onto their tail without asking.

With my thoughts racing, I had hardly even noticed that a few fairies were still drifting around in the space above the railroad tracks. Now my eyes settled on them the way they might on lava lamps. They looked so peaceful revolving in a slow circle. Peaceful enough that I could ignore the frustrated chatter between them.

Eventually they turned to me and looked me over.

I blinked. Wow, how’d it take you so long?

Whoops. I’d forgotten to un-Morph, but…given that it had been costing less SP lately and I was this close to a Level-Up, maybe I’d stay like this for a bit. I didn’t mind it as much as I used to, especially not in a slow moment.

The fairies—about seven of them—bobbed closer. They looked cautious, grips tightening around their weapons. Vicious, though? No, not at all. I took a seat on the stump and just watched them come closer, looking them over the same way they scrutinized me.

I brought out my claws. Might as well be prepa—ow!

A flower-mallet had just whacked my knee! It didn’t hurt so much as make me feet indignant. Especially because I swatted at it on instinct—and swatting did nothing but hurt my hand!

Ow!

Stop laughing!

But they only grinned and tittered more. And raised their tiny weapons exuberantly above their heads.

OW! NO! Arms lifted across my head didn’t do nearly as much to protect me as the Guard I used at the same time, but somehow it felt right. The giggling of all the fairies ganging up on me hurt my pride, and that might as well have been hurting my soul.

Whipping my arms out, I tried to brush off as many as I could in one fell swoop. I got four, who went tumbling into the bushes. The three others gasped theatrically, hands over their mouths. And for my part, the force of my own aggravated motion sent me back-first onto the ground, heels sticking up over the stump.

Darnit. Even if I was the strongest, I still came out looking the worst.

Where’s my EXP, darnit?! I asked Fate itself (or herself) as I crawled upright. But the laughter of fairies both near and far was my answer.

I had beaten none of them. And if I went on refusing to play by their rules, I would not win.

For all that I kinda-sorta pitied them, since they’d been chased willy-nilly by that dragon person and that had to be annoying…I also had just gotten annoyed by them. Maybe it’s okay for a human to shoo off ducks if those ducks pecked and tore at their shirt first.

When the four fairies closest to me cried out in unison and zipped off into the trees, their infamous lights bobbing behind, I knew I’d been challenged.

Don’t take the bait, Taipha, I said to myself. Please. There’s no way it’ll be worth it. Just set your pride aside and remember your goals.

I had to physically nod to myself. That’s how important they were. And how hard it was to push my emotions away.

But…well…if a fairy or two just happens to be in the way as I move towards that big tower, I thought, looking up at the thing like a lighthouse, I won’t argue.