Aliandra

  The diminutive Fae y on the cold stone floor of the once-grand library – now a millennia-old mausoleum for decayed books, ruione shelves, and fotten knowledge – her form unmoving except for the occasional shallow breath. The deathly silend yawning darkness of the atrium were intruded upon only by the softly glowing golden pahat hung suspended in the air and a few graers scattered about taining glowing blue grass and the occasional tiny golden mushroom. Discarded on the dusty stone beside her outstretched hand y a sprig of jasmiorn from the vihat entwihe railing guarding the spiral staircase desding into the atrium. The tiny crushed white flowers filled the air with their beautiful perfume. A steel-aher bound book y open where it had tumbled from her hand, glowing silver runes embossed upon the spine and cover, speaking to the potency of the knowledge and magic it tained.

  Hours passed, drifting by unnoticed by the Fae in her insensible stupor. Hours that might have been days. The crypt-like library remained quiet and subdued, entirely ued by the frenzied activity outside, a pregnant atmosphere of waiting, tempered by the eternal patience of a, ruione.

  She waited, too. Waited and waited, cradled within the cold embrace of the crumbling ruins of her one; her only pany the yawniiness within and the silence all around. But nobody came for her. Nobody came to end it.

  The stasis in the library stretched on, persisting, isoted from the march of time outside, but eventually, something ged within her. A tiny shiver ran through her limp body – a twitch – as if her body – in the absence of scious volition – sought to remind the library that she was still alive. Perhaps it was in respoo an underlying urge, or a deep unsemory, or perhaps it was simply the nature of life to ge.

  Slowly she rose, swaying unsteadily, her tiny bare feet shuffling on the cold stoill they remembered how to support her weight. Her gssy gaze flickered briefly to the sprig of crushed jasmine on the floor, but it returned – downcast – to the cold dusty fgstones without ever seeming tister what she saw. Her head bowed and her shoulders rounded forward as if an unbearably heavy weight bore down on the nape of her neck. Tiny stunted golden wings hung limp and forlorn on her back.

  Some impulse drove her forward and she began to walk, stumbling at first, and seemingly aimless, but after a time she drew closer and closer to the darkness of the atrium and the spiral staircase that led downward. Oblivious to the danger of the yawning abyss, she took the a bone-encrusted stairs with shuffling steps and began the long dest into the darkness below.

  She passed by the darker and more ruined levels of the library at a snail’s pace, without ever raising her eyes, without ever aowledging her surroundings. Her forrogress ainfully slow as she stumbled on the crumbling stairs, opping nor falling. Her mind remained hidden away in the dark pce to which it had fled, surrounded by a numb, unfeeling void to which she g like a frightened child clutg their mother’s skirt.

  Her long, slow dest came eventually to an end and as she reached the final step, her Grimoire appeared beside her, unbidden, the gold and green of its bright magic illuminating the bone and debris strewn about across the floor. As her toes touched the ground, a small ciross bloomed beh them, growing quickly wider, like a ripple spreading across the surface of a still pond. Her mana flowed automatically, without scious thought, for she was as much a creature of mana and magic as she was flesh and blood.

  Aep kissed the ground, and again the moss grew, this time with a small glowing golden mushroom eagerly sprouting almost betweeoes of her left foot, all the while, her mana pulsed, and her Grimlowed as it floated softly along beside her. The two still-growing patches touched and merged as she pced another with an unthinking step. Across the bone-encrusted stone floor, the trail of moss and glowing mushrooms grew, meandering slightly as her path was not steady, but always heading toward the two enormous stone doors that stood ajar, leaking humid air and thick roiling mana into the otherwise quiet and tranquil ruined library.

  The enormous Forest Guardian that waited beside the doors raised its head and gazed expetly at her approach, but she did not and it, nor did her awareness eveer its presence. Perhaps reizing her vulnerable state, it simply followed her, h protectively nearby.

  She stepped through the doors and out onto the damp turf beyond, bringing her growing trail of moss and mushrooms along with her, and the burgeoning threads of structured mana that formed her domain.

  She stopped, not b to look at the dense jungle, just a tiny Fae standing all alone in a wild-mana zone filled with elementals and monsters, and zones of liquid mana so dehey could fy skin and burn flesh. But she was just as oblivious to all that as she was to the heavy steps of the gigantic Forest Guardian that followed her through the doors.

  Her Grimoire fred with light and magic as her mana surged through her. It tickled at the edges of her awareness but didn’t intrude. A few mier, an enormous bck oak snapped ien the ter of an rown game trail up ahead, sending turbulent ripples through the chaotic ambient mana as it tore aside the tangled brush. It sucked at the hreads of her domain, drawing them into itself and up through its grunk till it uhe mana out through the upper branches and into the space beyond. Gradually, inexorably, it began imposing order upon the chaos as the domain mana grew.

  She didn’t pause or stop to observe, she simply walked a little further and began to create once more. This time a tall ifer with bzingly bright yellow needles appeared. This time the mana appeared to flict with the growing domain, suppressing it, but she gave it just as little attention as the oak. Her act created a rge stand of giant bamboo as she pushed deeper into the juhreading her moss and mushrooms as she went. The bamboo burst into a pilr of viridian green mana, substantially boosting her domain – a sight that would have beeacur to see, had she cared to look.

  She tinued onward, creating pnts and trees seemingly at random, all the while eg everything with her trail of moss and the little golden mushrooms that seemed to spawn wherever she stepped. Every now and then, she paused her creation to destroy a tree or rock, turning it into a bright explosion of motes of mana. After more than an hour of slowly pushing her way into the juhe pages of her Grimoire flipped faster than the eye could follow, and she created something new. When her magic spell pleted, a sed giant Forest Guardian stood before her, its low rumble vibrating through her body. But she simply created another, not notig her attentive summoned elemental awaiting her will.

  She paused her aimless creation finally, staring out into the jungle. For a moment, her dazed eyes hardened as her face torted in an expression of unbearable anguish. She took a deep breath and screamed, her tiny voice ag with despair and loneliness, cast back at her by the ung trees until her voice gave out. She screamed again, her voice turning to anger and frustration. This time, her three Guardians added their voices, a thrumming powerful bass apahat underscored her emotions, lending them power and reach. The deep roar of the Guardians crashed out into the forest hitting notes so low they were felt through the ground rather than heard. Branches shook, birds screeched, and is fled in a chaotic explosion of fear and flight. In the distahe screams and roars of monsters answered her challenge.

  But Aliandra ighe noise and slumped over, seemingly worn out by the expression of her heart. A bright shimmer of light and afterimages tore through the nearby trees and a Radiant Brawler appeared beside her. Her Guardians roared once again, unleashing the enormous momentum of their Rush skill, charging the intruder with fury and power. The Radiant Brawler tumbled head over feet, rolling almost fifteeers before it was smashed into a tree by the charge of her sed Guardian. Roots and vied from the ground reag, twining, and twisting.

  She picked her way among the giant monsters and their earth-shaking battle as if they were of no sequeopping briefly to summon a Toxic Slime. She followed up with a bck-scaled Kobue, but she moved on to creating a tree, unaware that she had ed to provide her minion with armor or a dagger. Both new minions joihe fray, ign the fact that they were a poor match for the radiant elemental. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to her bor, just endless creation as her domain expanded into the jungle.

  What should I feel?

  Every minion paused and g her.

  It was the first coherent thought she had had since she colpsed in the library. She stopped for a moment, looking puzzled, as if she couldn’t reize what it was, choosiually to ig and focus on her Grimain while the crash of battle resumed with more and more monsters emerging from the juo challenge her.

  Why are you attag me?

  Why me?

  Why don’t I belong here? Where do I belong? Nowhere…

  The strahoughts intruded upon her calm once more. The face of a blond, blue-eyed mage loomed rge in her mind, taunting her with obvious relish at her anguish. An Ice Lance appeared.

  She felt something then. Something that burst the void ainess with which she shielded her heart. Rage surged up within her and she screamed at the monsters. Several razor-sharp barrier shards and spikes appeared, cirg in the air about her head and shot forward impaling the attag monsters. She left them there, supported by the growing magic of her domain, and summoned more. With a tinuous stream of barrier shards shing out in a storm of cutting, stabbing, and impaling, she returned once more trimoire, destrug the now-dead Radiant Brawler and creating a ree in its pce.

  But something had ged. No longer was she indifferent, now creating things with fervent energy, like her rage had cracked the dam and all the emotio up behind the walls were leaking out through the cracks.

  She bsted through her imprints, creating furiously as if to hide her unravelial state with busyness. A sword, several pieces of armor, a shield, a Hobgoblin, a mushroom – it didn’t matter what it was, she created everything, anything. A desperate cry for sanity and meaning in a sea of pain and rage, an act of defiance, even… hope.

  Abruptly, she stopped paging, the sense of something familiar inscribed there catg her attention. Her mana surged, and she created a red-scaled Kobold Fire Mage. Perhaps because she had created so many, the familiarity was strong enough to impinge on her clouded awareness. She created another, and then another.

  Her rage reasserted itself, perhaps to protect her mind; a furo burn away her febrile state. Her Kobolds reacted by adding their fire to the battle. But the detonations of their Fireballs and the acrid stench of sulfur a seemed somehow soothing to her. As monsters poured out of the juo her invading domain, her awareness slipped in and out of the perceptions of her minions, taking note, but still irely sciously. Occasionally, she switched pces with her minions, but not seeming to do so out of any need of self-preservation – rather, as if she had simply remembered she had the ability to do so.

  She shed out with aorm of barrier magic, leaving many of them wherever they nded, impaling monsters, trees or even just stu the ground. She created a Poison Wyvern, and then a Scalding Slime.

  Friend? The slime’s appearariggered a memory of a smaller, blue slime. She wondered who the slime was, and why she was familiar. Several other familiar faces appeared in her mind’s eye. A dark-skinned girl, looking at her with kindness iriking light blue eyes. A shy blond half-elf, asking her for her advice. A bear, handing her a delicious bowl of food. A boy pnting flowers for her. A girl ughing with her over a book and tea.

  I don’t deserve friends. I don’t have friends.

  Angrily, she swept the images away in a rush of despair and loneliness.

  I’m all alone. Everybody hates me. I am a monster.

  A monster.

  Even the monsters here know me…

  The thoughts burst into her like a torrent of water exploding forth from a stri dam. She her heard nor saw the wild Forest Guardian charging at her from the jurees shattered and the ground shook as it bore down on her, but her mind was filled with shame and fear as the thoughts crashed down on her, relentlessly stabbing at her heart.

  The enormous bulk of her first Forest Guardian tore across the field, smming into the side of the other, knog both of them rolling. Several tons of sprawling, r fury smashed inte tree, snapping it like kindling. Ali turned away from the fight, f her mind back to stabbing with her barriers, and cirg through the sight of her minions. Her vision flickered as it jumped from creature to creature. She became the Forest Guardian, r and crashing. She became the Scalding Slime, feeling the vibrations and tremors of the battle with uny precision. She was the Wyverhing poison, she was the Hobgoblin wielding a sword.

  She teleported again and resumed her magic.

  She summoned a Floral Menace which immediately began growing flowers. Then she created a Piercer Scorpion. The enormous bulk of the bone elemental colpsed right where she created it. Not paying it any heed, she created more and more – moss creepers, oozes, mushrooms, and grass – her mind blissfully distracted from feelings by the chaos of battle, her minions, and the meical task of eling her mana into things, into a frenzied glut of creation, all the while keeping enough focus to maintaiorm of barrier shards.

  As the battle raged, her domain strengthened, and so did her army. Her barriers were denser and stronger, her pnts grew, and her minions fought without pause or rest. She pressed on, ing everything in her path, anything that attacked was destroyed by her monsters and destructed to fuel her growth. Hundreds of monsters died. Hundreds of her creatures died. But many survived, tinuing the fight while her loyal Forest Guardians regeed them all.

  But her emotions had escaped their box and refused to go ba. Within her raged a war far more intehan the ohout; a csh between her identity, emotions, and the terrifying truth of what she had learned.

  I am a dungeon.

  She was the most horrifid of monster – the kind that made people gleeful about hunting her down, t her, and gloating about how they would kill her. The kind of mohat would instantly turn her friends against her. The kind of mohat ed everything in its path, spewing out dungeon-breaks and decimating cities.

  It was no surprise that Roderik had e for her. She deserved it. She had even signed up to bee an adventurer herself, joining the guild and learning how to fight and defend against dungeons. Whehought of Malika and the story of her pain, Ali knew she would be the first person to try and put her down.

  Perhaps I should let her kill me.

  She fought for what felt like days, the battle in the jungle raging on unabated, mirrored by the one in her heart. Relentlessly, she threw herself into the fight with pure focus, seekie in the blissful void and yielding to her instincts, but every time she returned with a jolt of pain and anguish, uo shed the truth.

  Eventually, her body rebelled against the uing iy with which she fought. She stumbled, falling on her fa the dirt. Getting up in a daze, she turned, and without much awareness of where she was going, she returo the great stone doors of the distant library. She barely noticed the great distance her aggressive expansion into the jungle had taken her, falling bato her mental void, walking, stumbling, aually crawling her halting way back to the retive safety of the a library.

  She dragged herself across the threshold and into a er, colpsing unscious oone floor with the sounds of battle still raging in the distanot even aware that her inal Forest Guardian had followed her and now stood guard over her insensible body.

  For the first time in days, she khe blissful peace of unsciousness, freed from the crushing despair and lonelihat cwed at her heart.

  timewalk