by Iliev, Neven
He would not see which way to go,
In the night when light is low.
Though I know not how you taste,
I will steal you with all haste.
But I must learn how to fly,
And then reach you in the sky.
Will you fit me like a ring?
You’ll be mine, you shiny thing!
So until I reach that far,
Twinkle, twinkle, shiny star.
The tune was far slower and creepier than when Keira sang it, but it still did the job, as the last syllable of each line had been punctuated by a terrible *SHUNK* sound. When the dryads opened their eyes, they saw that hundreds, maybe even a thousand termites were thoroughly ‘popped.’ The stupid bugs kept crawling over the evenly-spaced out holes in the timber, so the spring-loaded retractable needles were able to reap heavy casualties without the need to relocate them.
“Alright!” the plant ladies cheered together.
“A shame we can’t move the needles through the timber like we did through the soil,” one of them noted.
“Yeah, this will still take forever.”
“Why don’t we just make some grooves in the timber?” Pinea suggested.
“That’s it!” the others shouted with great enthusiasm.
Making those things was really hard since they had a bunch of thin, delicate parts. Especially the firing mechanism. That sort of precise work was really difficult for the dryads, almost like trying to thread a needle from the other end of the room. If it was just about making passages to move the already constructed Ironbark contraptions around, they could do that without even breaking a sweat.
Pinea’s idea worked splendidly, and the five dryads gained total dominance over those infuriating termites. Over the next few days they thoroughly worked together to clean Castelia, Torenia and Lilly of their respective termite infestations. The thousands of bug carcasses were flushed out of their bodies and deposited somewhere deep into the ground where they would become food for them later. In high spirits, they then went to investigate why Pinea’s roots felt so numb.
However, what they found was, in some ways, worse than the termites.
Unbeknownst to them, an underground crime ring had taken up residence in the city’s sewers. Although the elves had learned from their ancestor’s mistakes and made sure to build them well out of the way of Pinea’s roots, those people had purposefully dug them out. The purpose was quite clear, given the countless steel taps lined up along the unearthed limb’s length, each actively draining the hylt tree’s sap.
“That’s not yours!” the quintuplets yelled as they revealed themselves.
“Aahhh!”
The lone man that had been keeping an eye on things let out a panicked scream.
“What’s going on here?”
The dark, dank chamber lit up as a group of six people rushed in through a door with lit mining helmets on their heads.
“Th-th-these girls just appeared! Out of nowhere!”
The thugs and the dryads exchanged glances.
“Holy shit,” one of them exclaimed. “Are those the dryad sisters? Like, the ones from the history books?”
“Since when can you read, dumbass?”
“… My pop-pop read to me when I was little, okay?”
“This sap is not yours!” the plant ladies screamed. “Return all that you have taken at once!”
“What do we do, Larry?” one of the men asked.
“Why you askin’ me, boss?”
“You’re the one who knows what those things are, right?”
“Kinda. I mean, sort of… I mean, uh…”
“For fuck’s sake, you’re completely useless!”
“Ah! I remember now! It’s okay, boss! Those dryads won’t harm us elves, so we can just ignore their wailing!”
The leader’s eyes caught the intense rage within those weird women’s eyes. It was far more convincing than his bumbling goon of a subordinate.
“You… sure about that, Larry?”
“Yep, positive! Though they’re a bit different from what pop-pop told me…”
“Different how?”
“Well, they’re supposed to be completely green, but their hair is kinda… red?”
*SHUNK*
Without hesitation, without warning, without holding back, and without even batting an eye, all of those insolent elves were pierced clean through. Only the guy who was originally there to keep an eye on the sap-tapping was spared. The five green faces in the room turned towards him, making him fall over and crawl away backwards while evacuating his bladder.
“Return the sap!” they demanded.
“I-I-I CAN’T!” he shouted. “I don’t have it! I d-d-don’t know where it is! I don’t even know what they do with it or, or, or, or, who they sell it to! Those buck- buckets in the corner is all I have! I swear!”
Pinea’s sharp glare deviated from that of her sisters, as she beheld the row of silver-plated buckets in question. She extended a tentacle-like vine from the side of her root, which shot forward and eagerly slurped up what was rightfully hers. However, it was far too little, and she was still losing sap from those metal taps lining her root. Well, now that she knew the cause, she could at least eliminate it. She furrowed her brows, squinted her eyes and puffed up her cheeks as she strained.
A few seconds later, the dozens of metal spouts stuck in her body were forcefully ejected, and the ‘wounds’ they left behind healed up in an instant. She then slammed the vine into the cowering man, burying his mangled body into the dirt wall of the man-made cavern.
“Argh! Those vermin! I’ll make them pay for this!”
Some feeling returned to that particular root because of her intervention, but several others were still numb, most likely because they were receiving the same treatment. While that was bad in and of itself, it wasn’t the actual reason she was ticked off. It was because those people deliberately attacked her. Termites couldn’t help themselves, they were just following their instincts, so she could never truly bring herself to hate them. But those elves had gone out of their way to bleed her of her precious sap. To say it was an unforgivable act was an understatement.
“Uhm, Pinea?” Birchis muttered.
“What is it?” she answered after calming herself down a bit.
“That- Those ones weren’t blue, right?”
“No, they were black and brown. Why?”
“So how come so much juice came out?”
What was arguably the smartest of the quintuplets turned her attention to the pools of blood flowing out of those criminals’ bodies. Pinea’s eyes shone, and she moved the vine she used to reclaim her sap to eagerly slurp up that red fluid.
“Haaaah,” she sighed with a relieved face, her thunderous rage seemingly quenched. “Just as tasty as I remember it…”
“R-really?” asked the others.
“Yeah! Actually, it might even be better!”
“No fair! You drank it all!”
“Yeah, I wanted a taste, too!”
“Sorry… Oh, I have an idea!”
The city of Morgana was a historic settlement, named after a war hero of old and built under the shade of the only five red-leafed hylt trees in existence. A bustling population of over eighteen thousand souls had gathered under the uniquely beautiful and strangely mesmerizing plants. The city itself was along an important trade route, as well as a popular tourist destination, making it one of the most prosperous settlements on the continent.
Yet, when the sun rose over it on one fateful day, it shone down on a gigantic field of rubble with nary a living person in sight. The only structure left intact and standing was an ancient monument of a female cat-eared beastkin covered in lush crimson flowers.
Afterword
Well, this was quite a trip, wasn’t it? I do hope you enjoyed the first chapter’s twist. If you haven’t already, I recommend you try to reread the Moonlighting arc with the knowledge that Keira is Boxxy. It’s supposedly an entirely new experie
nce. I wouldn’t know, of course, but that’s what others tell me. I will also say this right now—Keira and Rowana will stick around for a long, long time, though their relationship will never be the focus of the story. I don’t want to virtue signal or make any political statements. The only reason I made them a lesbian couple was because I personally think that’s hot.
That aside, I do personally like Keira’s character. Even if I knew what’s underneath, it was kind of refreshing to write about someone who at least acts like a traditional good guy. And no, I have not forgotten about Fizzy. I know she only appeared briefly in this volume, but that was because the focus was on setting up Boxxy’s alter egos. Please rest assured she will be back in full force in the next installment, and shinier than ever. And yes, even Drea/Claws was somewhat relegated to the background, though that is simply the nature of her character.
As for the whole war storyline, it was my first time attempting to convey such a large-scale conflict, and how Skills and magic would influence traditional siege warfare. This was quite necessary, since ‘traditional siege warfare’ is extremely boring. Believe it or not, it was extremely rare to have someone try and actively conquer a castle or fort during the middle ages. Stone walls were really strong, after all. Not to mention that even if it was conquered, the victors would need to foot the repair bill anyway. So, what ended up happening most of the time was the invading force would encircle the fortified position to cut off supply lines and then starve the defenders out. They might try to poison the water supply from the outside to speed things along, but that was it. Not quite the epic fantasy sieges we all want to see, huh?
Enough trivia for now, though. The Empire-Republic war continues to rage on and will reach its explosive climax in the next volume. Boxxy will, of course, be right there in the middle of it all, cackling madly at the destruction it leaves in its wake while lining its disturbingly deep pockets with as many shinies as chestily possible.
Until then, toodles!
