After defeating the super lame, boring mini boss, we sat down for a short snack break, with me using my super sneaky ninja skills to pull out some glow fruits from my inventory, when Raya noticed what I was holding. Glow fruits were, after all, glowing, and rather obvious about it. 

“Whoa! What are those?” Raya asked excitedly, hoping up from her seat next to Callie and wandering over to where I was hovering. 

“Hmm? Oh these?” I asked, waving my hand holding a couple of glow fruits in front of her. 

“Yeah!” She answered as her eyes intently followed my hand, head turning ever so slightly, her tail swaying side to side with her mood. 

I giggled at her intense gaze on me, so much like a cat from Earth. Any second now she might try to pounce. 

I heard Callie sigh from where she sat. “Azalea, please don’t play with Raya like that. It’s considered impolite, unless she has agreed first.”

“Oh… sorry!” I exclaimed apologetically, and immediately stopped waving my hand around.

Raya blushed furiously and looked down at her feet, her whole body screaming embarrassment. I buzzed over to my new friend and hugged the side of her neck and head. Her cat ear twitched in response as my hair briefly touched it. 

“Can you forgive me? I was being silly. Want a glow fruit? They’re the best!”

Raya perked up a bit, and after gently giving me a head pat, we separated. 

I dropped a glow fruit into her hand. “Here you go!”

I hadn’t realised how much smaller the fruit would look in her hand compared to mine. For me, it was the size of my palm, like an apple for a human, in hers however, it was the size of a blueberry. 

I could tell the moment that Raya tasted it, her eyes went wide and sparkly, with a smile of total delight on her face. 

“Nya! That was amazing!” 

I giggled in my own delight at her reaction. “They’re my favourite!” 

“Do you have any more?” The nekokin asked, licking her lips eagerly. Without even sparing it a thought, I made a few more appear in my hands. 

“Do you want to try some too, Callie?” 

Instead of answering, Callie just looked at me with an eyebrow raised, then at the glow fruit I had summoned from my inventory, before looking back at me. I glanced at Raya and she had a surprised look on her face. 

“Oh, umm, tada! Did you like my magic trick? I hid them up my sleeves!”

“You don’t have any sleeves.” Callie deadpanned. 

I tried again. “Fairy Magic?”

“No.”

“Pilates?”

“N- what is pilates?”

“Stretches and exercise and stuff!” I answered, attempting to show some, but nearly flying into a wall instead. 

“Oh, in that case…no.” Callie said. 

“Aww,” I thought I had her for a second. “What about-.”

“No.”

“But-.”

“No. We all know you’ve got an inventory. It’s okay. I understand why you’d try to hide it.”

Even though I knew I’d been caught red handed, or glow fruit handed, it still surprised me a little that Callie just came out and said it. 

“Really? Because I sure don’t!”

“Why were you trying to convince us that you didn’t have an inventory, then?” Callie asked, curiosity written all over her face. 

I shrugged. “Grams and Gramps told me to.”

“Your Grams… your grandparents, you mean?”

“Yep!” I answered, nodding and bobbing up and down in the air excitedly, “They’re the ones who helped me esc- err, leave Fairy.”

Callie opened her mouth and raised her hand, a single finger pointing, before dropping her hand with a sigh, and pinched the bridge of her nose lightly. 

“So, let me get this straight. Your grandparents helped you leave,” Callie stressed ‘leave’ for some reason, “home, knew about your inventory, but didn’t tell you why?”

I shook my head at Callie then looked over at Raya as she gasped in surprise. Looking quizzically at Raya’s response, I almost missed Callie’s confused look as she shook her head. 

“Why would they send you off without telling you?” 

I pouted as I answered her. “The gap in the barrier was closing, and I had to go, otherwise the guardian fairies would’ve been notified that I had left. They might have listened to my mother and not grams and gramps and tried to bring me back anyway.” 

“Great, we’re harbouring a runaway fairy,” Callie muttered to herself. “Why would they listen to your grams and gramps anyway?” 

“Because they’re Titania and Oberon, the oldest of the fairies!” 

Both of my new friends were staring at me, in either awe, or shock. I wasn’t sure which one.

“Your grandparents are the King and Queen of Fairy?” Raya squeaked out. 

Callie spluttered out at the same time, “The legendary fairy adventurer’s who helped bring about the end of the Demon War four thousand years ago? I thought they were a myth, no wonder you’re so freaking powerful.” 

“Does that mean that you’re a real princess then?” Raya asked excitedly. 

It sounded like Callie muttered darkly under her breath, “Princesses aren’t all they’re cracked up to be”. 

“No,” I answered Raya, with a puzzled frown, and the excited look on her face instantly transformed into a pout. “At least, I don’t think so? I was always taught that fairies didn’t have a government, or leaders. We just handled our own affairs, and no one ever called them anything but their names.” 

The other two seemed to be out of questions for the moment, sitting there apparently gazing at nothing, so I decided to try and change the subject. “Have you finished your snack yet? I want to go kill stuff! That mini boss was borrrring! It was just a lame tank and spank, without any decent loot.”

Raya giggled and Callie did a spit take as she was sipping from her water bottle after I spoke. 

“A tank and spank? That’s a new one. I’ll have to remember it.” Callie managed to get out after she had stopped coughing, Raya patting her back. 

I giggled. I’d have to remember to say things at the perfect moment to make Callie spit take some more. 

“At any rate, Raya and I haven’t eaten yet.” Callie pulled out a little leather pouch, opened it, and began eating what looked like nuts and dried fruit from it, while the little cat girl nibbled on some jerky. I say little, only because of the size difference between her and Callie. Of course, they were both huge compared to me. 

I sighed. I was already bored, so I decided to check out the place we were in. The room was carved out of the interior of the large tree that we had entered, a single large table with raised planks for chairs, it was all made from some kind of shiny wood.

I heard Callie sigh as I was running my hands along the tabletop, away from where they sat, and looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. 

“So, we kind of got distracted by other topics earlier, but the reason that most people hide that they have an inventory is, well, it’s normally several reasons actually. The first is that some people will think that you will be hiding your most valuable items, and try to kill you to get them. The second? Guards and other types like it really don’t like people with inventories. It can be a pain to be let in anywhere that restricts weapons, and inventories can be used to circumvent that, or to bring tools to help with thievery, that sort of thing. The third reason is because, and this has been well documented over the ages, people who have inventories have a much higher chance of getting attacked, or getting mixed up in current affairs. People have been known to be taken advantage of by other, less pleasant, people, trying to force events into their favour.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that! Thanks for the explanation.” I smiled at Callie, and she smiled back, with a nod. 

“You’re welcome, all those are good reasons to try and hide that you have it, right?”

“Mmhmm! Anyone tries to use me and I’ll punch ‘em in the nose and blast ‘em with a pulse!”

Callie smiled again, but shook her head as well. “Just, don’t get caught out, that’d make it easier for you, and anyone you’re travelling with.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s true!” 

Raya giggled around her piece of jerky as Callie and I spoke. I realised that it had been over 50 years since I had had meat, so I zoomed over to try and see if I could sneakily wheedle some food off of her. As soon as I got close, Raya tore off a small bit and handed it to me. Mission successfully achieved. 

“Want some Azalea? It’s my favourite! Spicy Rok Jerky.”

“Ooo, yes please! A giant Rok nearly killed me after I first left Fairy, it’s time for some payback! Thanks” I gleefully said, before I popped the piece into my mouth and started chewing, and immediately spat it out. 

“Bargh, what was that? It’s gross!” I complained. It has truly tasted awful. 

“You don’t like it? That’s a shame. Well, I guess it just means more for me, then!” Raya replied. 

“I guess so,” I shrugged, munching on a glow fruit to wash out the gross flavour in my mouth. I turned to Callie, “You said you had some guide thingy right?” 

“Mmhmm,” Callie replied, while eating from her trail mix. “What about it?” 

“What does it say about how much longer the dungeon is?”

Callie paused to think for a moment, “The guide mentioned this tree, and that it was the final section of this particular dungeon, which is a gauntlet by the way, the whole way to the boss.” 

“Sounds like we’ve got a lot of fighting still to go then!”

Having said that, I relaxed and let my wings just have me float around idly, while I experimented some more with [Fairy Magic]. This time, I took a sip of my mana potion and willed the flame to only be super small and cut it off quickly each time. By the time we were ready to go, I was throwing small balls of purple fire to each hand. 

Ding

Congratulations! [Fairy Magic] has increased to Rank 3! 

The mana cost was still horrendous, but the mana potion and using only little flames helped prevent me from passing out again, although I did feel light headed for a little bit afterwards. 

“Alright, let’s go.” Callie said, standing up and packing away everything. Raya jumped up, already ready, apparently. Callie pulled out the [Life Shard Splinter] that I had given her, and passed it back to me. It shrank to my size as I took it, and I giggled again watching that.

“Take it back for now, the extra health and healing will come in handy until I can use it myself.”

Callie gave me an odd look when I gave her an Earth salute, guess they don’t do that here. 

“Yes ma’am!” 

“Okay, as I said earlier, this next part is a gauntlet, meaning that as soon as we start moving up, enemies will constantly spawn until we either fight our way to the bosses room, or we retreat back here again. It’s fairly straightforward, thankfully. We just have to keep moving at a pace that we can handle; we move too fast and we can get overwhelmed, same as if we move too slowly.” 

“Roger, roger!” I say in my best impression of a droid, saluting again. Raya just nodded her agreement with Callie as Callie gave me another funny look. 

“Let’s move out.” Callie ordered, unsheathing her blades and moving up the ramp to the next level. With Raya and I following close behind, we all reached the platform above and immediately prepared ourselves. Raya stood right behind Callie, and as I flew up above their heads, movement could be seen among all the strange plant life that was growing inside of the tree, which seemed a lot bigger on the inside than it appeared before we entered. 

“Tardis tree!” I quietly cackled to myself, although Raya appeared to hear me as her ears twitched and she turned her head slightly to look at me with a confused look, before she turned back and cast something on Callie quickly. It looked like little seeds of green magic floated in random patterns around her for a moment before vanishing. 

It wasn’t a moment too soon, as weird evil plant monkey things burst out of the foliage and rushed us. 

Flora Devil (Rare)

Power Level: 267

Flora Devils are attracted to locations that have been overtaken by parasitic creatures that feed off of the life force of plants and animals, corrupting them, and making them aggressive to everything and everyone. 

Callie immediately jumped into action, swords glowing as she held them up in front of her in a defensive stance as the first devil reached her. The creature lunged at Callie, who crossed her magically enhanced swords and swung them out as they hit the devil, slicing through its body and turning it into blue glitter. 

“Follow me!” Callie ordered, before rushing forwards to meet the incoming enemies. 

“For Frodo!” I cried out and started blasting at the little green devils. Raya followed after us, whacking anything with her staff if it got too close to her, not that Callie and I left much alive. 

“Watch out!” Callie yelled at Raya, as a devil dropped from the ceiling towards her, I managed to catch it with a [Telekinetic Pulse] and it was launched over to the other side of the room, hitting a fellow devil before exploding into light. 

Raya dodged a sneaky attack before bopping it on the noggin with a fire encased tip of her staff, “Thanks!” She shouted to me gratefully, before moving to cover Callie’s back and casting some kind of healing spell on her. 

Seeing how vulnerable Raya was, and her being the healer, made me decide to place my [Kinetic Shield] on her instead of me. 

The room suddenly fell silent as Callie destroyed the last enemy, at least I thought it was the last, until I heard something scrabbling above my head. Looking up, I saw one last devil fall towards me from the ceiling, already too close for comfort. I felt my pulse start to race, my heart pounding in my chest, and everything seemed to slow as the creature’s mouth opened wide, razor sharp fangs protruding menacingly as it prepared to bite me. I lifted my arms, almost too slowly and fired several pulses at point blank range. 

Time sped back up as the flora devil exploded into the expected blue light, with a loud thud, I crashed into the ground after the pulses shockwave slammed into me. 

“Azalea! Are you okay?” Raya asked, as she ran up to me, and casting some kind of spell, shot a green beam of light at me, topping my health back up instantly. 

“Ow,” I replied smartly, “I’m okay now, thanks.” 

“Thank you for the shield, although, you probably needed it more right then!” She giggled. 

I breathlessly giggled as well while I lay there on my back, “So true! So, are we there yet?”

Callie just sighed as Raya giggled harder.