"Come on, old man," I exclaimed as I threw the blankets and pillows on him.
"What?" the dwarf asked, surprised.
"Don't sleep that way," I said and pointed at him. "Feet to feet. That's how we do it. I don't want you breathing on my toes."
"Ye're tons of weird sometimes, half-Celt," he said as he shifted from one end of the couch to the other. "There. Happy?"
"I'd be happy if you didn't snore," I said, knowing full well what was waiting for me.
The dwarf laughed loudly. "A dwarf who doesn't snore? Show me one and I'll show ye me second arse."
I smiled at his jest, but didn't say anything else. Instead, I pushed Louie further into the couch and lay down next to him, covering both of us with a soft blanket.
It wasn't long before Louie's little paws started twitching involuntarily, probably because of some dream he was experiencing, and Rory's snoring engine picked up steam. No matter how annoying the dwarf could be, especially when he was asleep, I couldn't keep myself from smiling. This felt... nice.
With this thought in my mind, and under the seismic rhythm of the dwarf's breathing, I fell asleep.
As Rory suggested, once we were all awake, I ordered a lavish breakfast for seven people. Louie was perfectly happy with just the bacon and sausages which then left Leo, Rory--who I counted as five people--and me. In the end it turned out my calculations were a bit off and the dwarf was apparently still "a pinch hungry" even after devouring almost a whole day's worth of the supplier's baking.
Leo on the other hand didn't eat anywhere near as much as he used to whenever we had breakfast together at work. He always used to say that you should eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a count, and dinner like a peasant. What little he did eat, was mostly meat and eggs, with no greens at all.
Perhaps his tastes had changed, but I wasn't going to bring it up now. Especially since he seemed to be in a better mood than he had been the night before. By ten o'clock, we'd finished eating and were all equipped and ready to start our journey.
"That's a fine key," Rory said when I removed it from its box. "Reminds me of the staff one of our clerics had when I was growing up. The rod was made out of pure mythril and the head was crystalline, crafted in the shape of a lion's head. At that age, I had no idea what a lion was, ye see there are no lions under the mountains of Domhain, but--"
I moved the hand holding my key toward my pocket and Rory followed it with his eyes. It was only after I pocketed it that he understood what was happening.
"Weird, right?" I asked.
"Oh, that's some beautiful enchantment there," he said. "It felt like..."
"Like you were remembering things you'd postponed in your mind." I finished his sentence.
"Damn right. Okay, let's do it, half-Celt."
"Okay," I agreed and took out the key, immediately pressing it into the north wall of my apartment.
The key flashed as it had done when we did the first quest for Louie, though this time the key disappeared as the outline of a large gate strobed with blue light. The last flash lingered, waiting for us to cross the magical threshold. It was so bright that we had to cover our eyes.
I moved forward and through the gate. Mid-inhale, I felt the warm dry oxygen of my living room in New York be replaced by a humid morning breeze, filled with the aromas of flowers and berries. Louie was already standing next to me, his tongue lolling out with anticipation, and Rory and Leo came in right after us. Looking forward, I was faced with the most beautiful landscape I had ever laid eyes upon.
A seemingly endless vale, decorated with red and pink maple trees, many times the size of any trees I had encountered in the Cosmos. Their heavy branches threw long shadows on the impossibly green grass, powered by two suns that were rising, or setting, just above a series of dark-colored mountains. And between the two suns, as grand and imposing as anything I had ever seen, was the palace of the Faery Queen. There was no prompt or sign to notify me that this was where she lived. Just by looking at it, I knew.
"That's where we need to go," I said, pointing at the awe-inspiring, triple-towered shining red building between the two suns.
My raising my hand and pointing was followed by an otherwordly scream and within the duration of a breath, we were surrounded by humanoids roughly half my size but with translucent wings on their backs, similar to those of Alieria, the messenger we'd met in the faery realm last time.
"In the name of the Queen," the smallest of them said, pointing a long spear at me, "I command you to state your purpose."
Name: Irulathun Huli
Race: Faery
Class: Royal Scout
Level: 55
4
The one we shall follow
"Half-Celt, what the hells is this?" Rory asked. For the first time since I'd met him, he sounded uncomfortable, which was understandable since we were now surrounded by enemies stronger than him.
"We're here for the quest," I said, trying to be as honest and on point as possible. "We received an invitation from Alieria, the messenger of the Faery Queen."
"This is the realm of the Queen," the same scout said, but he pulled his spear back. "Alieria's domain is far from here, and what you say will need to be verified."
Following his example, the rest of the scouts relaxed their stances and only at that point did I notice a host of other faeries appear from behind bushes, rocks, and trees. Their levels ranged from 50 to 58, with some of
