>>5795311The three of you—for Terzo, understandably, remaining with his carriage and his horses—chased the wispy flame over rolling hills, dodging scattered boulders that seemed to lay here and there as if thrown by some ancient troll or ogre long-gone. At times you thought to skulk or sneak, but you saw no signs of goblins or any other denizen of the wastes, and anyway there was nothing to hide against. The sun, not yet fully set, made you visible… But after dark, beneath only the light of a half-moon and scattered stars, you would be just as visible to the darkvision of a goblinoid.
You would just have to trust in your Feycraft to guide you safe and sound.
>20Your trust was not misplaced, and your training in the ancient elven arts was not wasted. The <Fairie Fire> led you well. You knew it the moment you smelled spices on the air. You slowed, gesturing to the others, and you all followed the flickering, dimming flame you had summoned down a gradual decline and towards the mostly-buried remnants of an ancient road, now made into a desire-path by frequent footfall…
“Little feet,” you father noted, crouching low and squinting at the dirt with well-trained gaze. “Goblin-sized, no doubt about it.”
Pearce swore quietly, summoning up his <Mage Armour>. You gave him a warning look, and reminded him that FIGHTING the goblins was not your objective here.
“Yeah, I know,” you said, “but what about THEIR intentions, huh?”
Muffins growled low, as if in agreement, and pawed the ground with ram’s head lowered.
“Outnumbered two to one,” you muttered.
“Two to two!” your father cheered you. “Rudolfo, of course, will back your play.”
“Well, four to two, really,” Pearce pointed out blithely, pointing to each of your chimera companion’s heads.
“Good thing it’s not up to a vote, then,” you snapped. “Now shut up, all of you! This spell isn’t leading us to goblins—it’s leading us to a FAIRY.”
You continued to follow the light which, finally and fatally, sputtered and stopped atop a rocky outcropping. There, even to your mundane senses, it was evident that there was a humanoid figure lurking, their back to you. You all exchanged a look, and you squinted your eyes and peered at the stranger with your second sight. Thereby, you identified that it was no humanoid, nor a humanoid or demihuman, but indeed fey creature like…
Well, like you. Or perhaps, more accurately, like your mother, or some sort of beastman. A child of the Bonum Choaticum. Not immaterial like your friends n Old Maple Hill, but flesh and bone and blood… But still magical. And MORE magical than you, in fact—the figure GLOWED in your second sight, a beacon that defied all attempts at stealth now that you knew where and how to look.
