Izzy Chapter 8: Fairies Are Way More Trouble Than They’re Worth (Patreon)

Izzy jerked awake. But… no. She wasn't awake at all. She wasn't sure how she could tell, but she knew that she was still asleep. In fact, she could see herself, or at least a female goblin in a hide dress curled up inside a tree, beneath herself. The goblin was sleeping peacefully, and was slowly getting further away as Izzy drifted upwards.

She could see well despite the darkness of night, but for a moment everything was completely black as she passed through the tree. Moving through the foliage was very disorienting, but soon she was rising above the treetops, looking down on the forest, the quick river that cut through it, and the fields of the settled lands just beyond the trees. It all felt very familiar, and she enjoyed it very much. She just wasn't sure why it was happening.

“There you are!”

A voice like a winter storm and distant thunder rumbled across the world. The sound was all consuming, so loud it rattled her bones and made her ghostly insides move around in strange ways. But Izzy wasn't afraid. She was overjoyed, the way she knew that she always was when she heard this voice.

The voice wasn't angry; it was relieved.

“Father!” she called out happily, slowly turning in place until she faced the wind.

The voice of Rozgar, Father of Winds, the Herald of Storms, rolled across the forest. It made Izzy's hair wave and dance all around her. “I am so glad I found you in that tree. Little Mistral, your sisters have been so worried! You disappeared! Have you been bound?”

“A little, maybe?” Izzy said, embarrassed. Speaking to her father, she suddenly remembered all the warnings her older sisters had given her about allowing mortals to bind her. “My Summary says that I’m Unbound, though?”

“Oh?” There was a feeling like Izzy’s soul was being tickled, and she laughed and wriggled, spinning every which way where she hung high in the night sky. “Oh, very good!” The god of air and thunder laughed like the world’s ending. “Half-bound in a mortal, with level gain and everything! What a lucky girl you are, despite your clumsiness in getting caught like this!”

“Am I? Lucky, I mean. I am not clumsy!”

“Oh, yes! Take good care of this shell, my daughter. Take care who you tell that you are no mere goblin, and don't let yourself be killed too soon. There’s a storm coming from the mountains, and things will be hard for mortals soon. Try not to get caught up in it. It is a rare spirit who has the opportunity to enjoy a mortal life without being bound to another’s will. Listen to your aged father, and make the most of it!”

“I will!”

“Oh, what a relief this was. I’ll tell your sisters, so they know not to worry. Hah! Improperly bound, and in a goblin, no less. Here! Now! I’ve always liked goblins, you know? Good worshippers, goblins. I hope you enjoy it fully!”

Izzy sank back towards the trees. She was returning to her borrowed body, falling fast, when there was another crack of thunder from her father.

“One more thing, little wind. Be kind to your passenger. There is much to be gained if you work together.”

Izzy didn't have time to answer. All she had time for, before she dropped back into the tree and her sleep, was a single thought.

My what?

  *

Izzy was not at all surprised to wake up this time. She felt safe, rested, and comfortable. She knew that she'd had a very pleasant dream, too. She’d been flying. The details eluded her, but she was sure that the dream had been both nice and important.

Her mood did shift a little as it was time to leave her nest. When she’d gone to sleep, Izzy had been very proud of her brambles. She’d felt very clever and resourceful, using the tools available to her to secure her sleeping spot. She hadn't been too worried, but it felt smartest to be safe.

She spent quite a while that morning swearing loudly and scratching the ever-loving heck out of herself getting out, wriggling among the bramble’s thick, tough vines and doing further damage to her much abused dress. Then, once she was out and had eaten several handfuls of sweet, yellow, knobbly berries, she cast Healing Roots on herself right next to it, more out of spite than any real need for healing. All she had were scratches, from the previous day, too, and the spell didn't even drain all that much of her mana. But the bramble wilted to a very satisfying degree, and Izzy felt like she'd given as good as she got.

Before Healing Roots, her mana gourd had been topped up. After, it was still more than four fifths full, and it was definitely bigger since she got another level, so she decided to create herself some company. Both because she wanted someone to talk to, and because she needed to know how much of her mana the vineling spell used, and how much it took to keep it going. She’d been very annoyed that she couldn’t do it yesterday morning, and even more so when her minion fell apart unexpectedly.

Her “puppet” lay where she’d left it. Looking at it now, it just wouldn’t do. A single long stick for the back? Arms and legs coming right out of the middle? What had she been thinking? No, this wouldn’t do at all!

Ten minutes later, and the spine had been replaced with one large inverted triangle for the chest, and a smaller one for the hips. The arms and legs came out of the top and bottom corners. Izzy nodded with great satisfaction. Much better!

She took a last look at her gourd, marking how full it was. To her surprise, a small mark actually appeared there. How useful! Then she got her staff, aimed it at her puppet, and cast Create Vineling, crying, “Rise, minion! Rise and serve me!”

She wasn’t sure if that did anything — probably not — but it amused her, which was really the most important thing on a lovely morning like this.

Immediately, vines of all thicknesses grew out of the soil, wrapping around the wooden frame she’d prepared. Once they’d latched on the vines pulled up their own roots, but they kept growing, wrapping around the wood to create volume and joining each adjacent stick together into an actual head, torso, and limbs. It was over in seconds, and the vineling rose. It was pretty wobbly at first, but soon found its balance. Then it just stood there, its flat, vinewrapped face staring at her impassively.

The gourd was now only two fifths full. Enough for one Bramble Growth, and maybe some no-spells magic. But the mana was only dripping out very, very slowly, and Izzy had a good feeling about the whole situation.

“All right, minion!” Izzy said. “Hold this, and follow me!”

She handed her minion the broken arrow, and set off up the brook.

  *

Having a minion was great! She could tell it, “Gather those mushrooms!” and it would go to whatever she’d pointed at, and tiny vines like fingers would wriggle out of the ends of its arms and pick only the mushrooms. “Gather those berries!” was the same thing, and she didn’t have to worry about any thorns!

“Pick that fruit!” almost ended in tragedy, after the vineling climbed a tree to pick the small, red fruits Izzy had pointed at and promptly ended up hanging upside down, one hand holding the arrow and the other holding a single fruit. It hadn’t had any hands left to keep it upright. Luckily, its viny feet had wrapped around the branch it stood on, leaving it dangling instead of crashing to the ground. Getting it safely down took some careful ordering, but Izzy managed it, and it just reinforced the lesson she’d learned the previous day: she had to be careful what she ordered her minions to do. They were less than clever.

Once she found the place where she and Caj had gone their separate ways, Izzy sat back against a tree, relaxing in a sunbeam. She was well fed, had a nice, cool drink from the brook, and was ready for a nice nap. “Guard me!” she ordered her minion, and it took a protective stance in front of her, slowly turning this way and that as it watched the forest for threats.

“You’re a good minion,” Izzy said, and drifted off.

She woke, somewhat surprised, to the sounds of fluttering wings and chiming laughter. A whole bunch of fairies were zipping and zooming all around her minion, laughing and swooping at it, pulling on its vines and trying to take the arrow from it as it gently tried to shoo them away.

“Snnnrrk, huh? What?” Izzy said, looking around. “Hey. Hey! Leave Viny alone! He’s a good boy!”

“Viny!” the mass of fairies cheered. Izzy tried to see how many of them there were, but the way they flitted about it was impossible to say. For all their cheering, they didn’t relent in the slightest. One dove in from behind and kicked Viny in the back of the head, and that was where Izzy drew the line. With a wave of her hand, a gust of wind sent the fairy tumbling.

“Woo-ee!” the fairy squealed happily, and the others turned their attention to Izzy.

Her attack had the desired effect. Sort of. The fairies left Viny alone. Now, though they all circled Izzy, shouting “That looks fun!” or “Me next!” or other things to the effect of demanding that she send them tumbling arse over teakettle as well. And since her gourd was actually a little fuller than it had been when she went to sleep, and using the intrinsic effect of a magic skill used almost no mana, she saw no reason not to oblige.

Izzy had been quite happily sending fairies into the trees and bushes for a fair while when there was a loud, high-pitched throat clearing behind her.

“Are you done throwing my grandkids into the greenery? My thieving good-for-nothing of a grandson Caj says you can help us get our oak back.”

Izzy turned. Behind her, dressed in a gown of leaves and wearing a torc made of some kind of tiny shell, hovered someone who could only be Caj’s Gram. She was short, even compared to the other fairies, comfortably round, and had long, graying brown hair. The other fairies quieted down and kept a healthy distance, possibly out of respect, possibly out of fear of the long, knobbly staff she carried — long for a fairy, anyway.

“Well? He says that you’re not really a goblin, and that you helped him. Is that true, or has the boy wasted both of our time?”

Izzy felt suddenly very unkempt. She straightened her dress, pushed her hair out of her face, and stood up straight, gripping her staff. “Ah, yes! I’m Izzy, and I have a Quest to get rid of the spider and, ah, ‘reclaim Mother Oak?’ And I get experience and stuff if I finish it!”

“Well, Izzy, I’m Sefina. I’m different levels of great-grandma to most of this bunch, and that oak has been my home for as long as I’ve lived. I was going to go and make a deal with the elves, but a goblin who ain't a goblin will do just as well if I don't have to deal with those prissy shites. Question is, can you actually do anything, and what do you want for it?”

“What I want? Well… huh.” She thought about it. What did she want? What was important?

“I could use some help looking for the rest of my tribe, if any survived. And if I can do it? Alone, probably not,” she admitted. It was a big damn spider. “But together with you all, sure!”

Gram — Sefins was a perfectly fine name, but Izzy thought she’d rather think of her as Gram. There was just something cozy about that name — looked doubtfully at her flock of descendants. They were… fairy sized. Clothing seemed to be entirely decorative to the point of being optional, and none of them looked muscular, exactly. Caj had said that they weren’t fighters. But there were enough of them that Izzy couldn't count them, and that had to count for something.

“Listen,” she said confidently. “I’ve got an idea.”

  *

Izzy’s idea was pretty good, if she said so herself. She just hadn't taken into consideration the innate cowardice and laziness of the average fairy. And could she be blamed for thinking better of them? No!

Gram seemed inclined to agree, cursing and swatting angrily with her staff at her swarm of grandkids.

“Okay, right, so. Let’s… woo!” Izzy panted, leaning against a pine that seemed to stretch up and up into infinity. She’d spent at least a finger of time running from that damn spider before it got bored and stopped chasing her. “Let’s try again. Tomorrow. No mana now. And next time. When I tangle it. You drop the rocks. Don't just. Scream and fly away.”

  *

The next day Izzy met the fairies again. She had a new Viny, and plenty of mana.

A few fingers later she sat by the brook, rubbing her head. “Why!?” she groaned. “Why would you do that?”

“Thought it'd be funny…” one of Gram’s granddaughters muttered. She’d decided to drop one of the rocks they’d prepared up a tree on Izzy's head, before the spider even showed itself. The rock had only clipped Izzy, but Gram had chased the malevolent little bitch up and down the forest with her staff.

Those gossamer wings were sturdier than they looked, but she was not going to be sitting or lying on her back for a good while, that was for sure.

“Tomorrow,” Izzy growled at the fairies. “I’ll need the rest of my mana today to heal myself. We’ll try again tomorrow.”