"Well, that isn't ideal," Esben muttered to himself, where he sat with his back to one of the pillars that the group had taken shelter behind, having barely slid behind it in time to avoid one of the eidolon's high-pressure blasts. Fitting, in a way, that the ruin of an ancient temple to Leviathan's power should be the only thing giving them a fighting chance against her.
"Alright, you two, time to come out—"He pulled his cloak open a bit, and the two faeries that had been hiding inside shot out instantly.
"UWAAAAAAAAAAH!" Eos screamed, the small green fairy immediately flying upwards. She planted her hands firmly on Esben's cheeks, her head dancing between one eye and the other.
"What did you do? We thought you were nice!""Only following instructions..."Selene flew up higher, casting the other two in her purple glow as she peeked out from behind the pillar.
"She's not normally like this," she observed, pensively fidgeting with her skirt as she pulled back behind cover. As if in response to the brief glint of light, a fresh jet shot right where she had been, eliciting a short yelp.
"She's really trying to kill you all!"Esben glanced up, only to have Eos's head follow his pupils upwards.
"What did you do?!" she demanded again, slamming her tiny fists against his cheekbones. Esben winced; she wasn't as much smaller than him as she seemed to think, and if she kept that up, he was guaranteed to get bruises.
"You said this was just the Trial of the Waters!""So, I take it that this isn't how this is supposed to go...""No!"Eos drooped, landing on his chest and burying her head under his chin in obvious despair. Selene descended back to them and nodded.
"She's right, this isn't how the Trial of the Waters goes. I've never seen her this mad..." She put herself down on his shoulder, laying across the top of his head despondently.
"Sorry, Eos, I think I made a mistake this time..."Esben reached up with both hands, plucking a green fairy off his chest and a purple one off his head.
"You say this isn't normal. When's the last time you remember one of these happening? Any time recently?" The pair looked at each other, before turning back to him and shrugging.
"Don't know? That's still more helpful than you think, you two."He released the pair, their wings instantly buzzing again to make sure they didn't fall the couple of feet to the ground. Eos pitifully wiped tears from her eyes, and Selene tried to straighten her posture. Attempting to look brave, if he had to guess, given how he'd seen their eyes widen when he didn't share in their despondency.
"That still leaves us with quite a few options as to what is going on, but at least we can guess that the Grovemasters haven't done anything in recent memory to make her so angry. So, this may be due to the Blight that has befallen Osprey and is trying to move further south riling her up, or it may be because of some Valheim experiments siphoning her power away. Maybe she can still smell that we've run into them, and had one of them travelling with us for a while."Or, perhaps, Isolde was a better liar than he would've guessed, and purposefully gave them the wrong ritual to use. Maybe the Grovemasters were compromised by a rogue actor, or maybe they were all in agreement; after all, the deliberations took part away from
Neve's ears as well, so there was no relying on her to catch them in any lie. Regardless, even though knowing that there hadn't been any such trial
recently that either of the faeries who lived so near had known of meant that there were
more questions rather than fewer, he was glad that it at least gave him a place to start.
With luck, they could survive long enough to get Leviathan to calm down and hear reason.
"Alright. Eos, stay by me, I might be needing you by the end of this. Selene—" The pair seemed like they were struggling to keep up. He took a breath, slowing down so that they couldn't risk misunderstanding him, motor mouth thinking out loud wouldn't help either of
them. "The others are making moves. Go to Izayoi and see if you can't speed her up like you told me about. No fairy dust on her if you can help it, I don't need her angry with me again."The purple fairy gave a short, crisp salute, before flying out from behind the pillar fast enough that his eyes could barely follow. He drew his sword as she stopped next to Izayoi, her faint glow suffusing the samurai's form as well.
"Okay, Eos, be my extra eyes for now, ja? We're going to be fine, don't worry." Would only that he had Eve around as well, then Leviathan might be a fair bit easier to deal with.
Eos nodded, returning to her place tight in against his chest—just peeking over his shoulder.
"Got it!"
Member
Fish of Oblivion
Palindrome
Snowdrops
op2024
Andre Valias
Nani
TokyoPewPew
stormphrax
AWildSquirtle
vietmyke