Meanwhile, an oblivious Georgie's nasal passages were being overstimulated by force. An aggressive variety of flowers hovered the man's airspace and smothered his nose for attention. So many intense aromas. So many that clashed. The lilies were too musky, the vanilla was pungent, the lilacs were green and smelled like ammonia.

  Selly was fluttering nearby, waving her hand conducting the plants. "Real great options, huh? Really take in the possibilities."

  "Ack!" Georgie gagged, sliding his hat over the face. "Stop, stop."

  With a flick of the wrist, he was freed by the cluster. The flowers returned to their stems and Selly took their place in the human's yellow eyes.

  "So," she chirped. "Anything catch your eye?"

  "They all did," Georgie grunted a petal out of his mouth. "They all gave me ideas, but I can't do anything with them without binder root."

  You scrawny bodach, the fairy thought with a twitch of the eye. Would it kill you to go a little adrift! There must be something he can use by itself!

  Her head turned to another patch, leaving a rattled Georgie ignored. Swaying between the technicolored foliage, Selly scanned the area for something. What it was, she didn't know, but it had to be something alluring. Something with more to offer. She needed that honey, her whole domain did. It was obvious Georgie would back out of the deal and walk out with that sweet amethyst nectar.

  Are there any fledge beetles? She panicked inside. No, they lived by Aeon, the river. Oh, Mag Mill, Aeon...

  Selly's wings slowed and her body dangled over the thicket. The collective pitter patter of a badger cete echoed up to her long ears. Roaring thumps reminiscent of a stampede crossing water. She remembered the way her eardrums shook at the ringing of shrieks and yawps of horrified fey. Desperately they ran across Aeon's unbreakable wet surface.

  Selly watched the masses pass by, counting and naming off everyone in sight. Once the last hoof ran off the bank, the fairy screamed, AEON!

  Pulsations ran throughout the stream, awaking the water. The river halted its natural flow. Each molecule stretched in acceptance of their Circle Mother's influence. They rose high, from East to West, the water grew to a dense wet wall. Selly muttered the names of all the creatures in the water, begging them to surrender their home. In no time, every fish sprouted from their 15-foot-tall glassless tank, bewinged and taken to the sky.

  She shook looking through the distorted barrier. The squirming, bramble of white on the other side. The shapes of familiar faces reaching out for a hand. Their mouths wriggling and agape. Between it all, there was a figure becoming clearer through the water. It was spindly, gaunt, walking unsteady, but never stumbling. It slid across the grass, growing closer and closer to the wall.

  Selly panicked, feeling the air to ensure everybody was gone. She had to leave but feared the truth of a sacrifice exchanged for a temporary solution.

  Aeon, she yelped. Ni yrul asorloga.

  The Circle Mother's wings turned to her friend and took flight at the shudder of the creature's twig fingers touching the wall's surface. As Selly followed the fleeing fauna, a surge of crashing waves called out to the fairy. She couldn't stop, even when the noise began to squeal like steam from a kettle.

  "Hey," Georgie called out, returning Selly to her senses. "What are you doing?"

  "Nothing!" She hissed back at the hapless vendor. "I'm just looking for a binder tree. Pu-yo lo-vo, did you forget what you came here for?"

  I could ask you the same thing, Georgie wondered. He looked around with a faint light in his eyes, scanning the grove around him. He could see traces of transmutation magic in the distance, but nothing close to the arcane tower a binder tree produced. We've been here too long. She should already know they're not here. Is this a game?

  Tentatively, Georgie responded to her peevishness. "I don't think any are here. I was just wondering if you had anywhere else in mind?"

  Selly spotted the glow in the human's eyes and nearly bit through her cheek. Immediately she recognized an aura of sensory magic coming from his board lids. Was he detecting magic? Was he a wizard? She couldn't disrupt the track Georgie was on, but she needed to try. He stood below, looking up at Selly with an infuriatingly cocked head.

  It was getting harder to breathe. The fairy was desperately holding onto the memory of the Angry Sugarplum while stalling. She could taste that sweet flower citrus and genever. He reminded her of this simple pleasure and it gave her hope. If he walked away, then what could she do right?

  "There is," Selly said in the plainest tone Georgie had heard from her yet. Inside she was desperate, all she could do was stall. There had to be something to make him rethink his needs, and at that moment all she could think of was water. "I think I remember one by Sonhei, the True-Blue Grotto. I'll take you now."

  A creeped-out Georgie lingered on those words and thought, She thinks?

  Not only did Sonhei's water have a reduced force of gravity, but it was also a therapeutic remedy. It cleansed skin and hair upon touch, boosting endorphins tenfold. It could even settle intestinal trouble. Sonhei was a fraudster's oil pitch, but real. Surely it would give pause! Selly touched a tree near Georgie and asked the two to connect.

  "Alright," was all Georgie could get out. Every second with this disorganized loony moth was a coin flip. He couldn't get a read on her, and it made the brewer think ahead.

  If she's lying, I'm done. If she goes nuts, then triangle.

  The portal opened, and Georgie followed the fickle fairy. A decision the two would both come to regret the second stepping through. Immediately on the other side they came upon a satyr, three dryads, and a squirrel desperately thrashing about in the grotto. Sprays of mist drifted into the air as the frantic fey splashed their faces. Each expressed terror, a kind that would make someone run, but instead these enchanted beings flailed in a floating swaddle of liquid.

  "Alya!" Gasped their fairy. She looked back at Georgie, whose eyebrow was already halfway up his forehead. She needed to recover. "Alya, unalta! Having an abstract personal day or something?"

  "SELLY!" The maple dryad wriggled from her bubble and fell a few feet before scrambling to her perplexed leader. "It spoke again! It knocked through the drolc!"

  Selly froze, it couldn't have happened at a more important time. It was the first in a few whiles since the border leaked. A sporadic occurrence, impossible getting used to. Sometimes an echo and touch came through to their side, but its reach was small. The space between would bend, but nothing had torn yet. It was going to be fine. Selly had to believe that. Once she got that honey, her people would be put at ease.

  "Be calm, Mertui," her Circle Mother hushed gently, guiding them away from their visitor's range. "We are safe. It wanders aimlessly in the deep wood. A brush with the drolc will happen."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Is something wrong?" Georgie asked out suspiciously.

  "No," Selly nervously laughed in front of her distressed familiar. "We're fine, all fine, everything yra! Just wait over there."

  She gave her maple friend, Mertui, a reassuring smile. It was forced, comforting out of necessity. Really Selly was pleading with her not to say anything else. The dryad was in disbelief, looking between her and the human. Why was he there? Why was he still there? Forty years and nine days ago, Selly sailed a greenhorn adventuring party out of the greenwood on a bed of moss the moment she heard a whisper.

  The rest of the fey rained down from Sonhei's mass, approaching the tone-deaf exchange. D'artagnia made eye contact with Georgie, sharing in his confusion. They both thought to wave at the other, but didn't know why and stopped halfway through. They all looked glossy and physically refreshed, but their expressions were shaking down to the timber. Jermaine dragged behind, chittering at the ground.

  "Hey guys!" Selly swooped over to the others with a creak in her pitch, speaking loudly in Unilingua for the human to hear. "That sloth... Dooglas, is still bothering Mertui, huh? Let's have a quick assembly and figure out how to deal with it!"

  "Selly," Sheq asked, bemused. "Didn't you hear her?"

  "Of course I did," she whispered back with bulging eyes. "Ne asorloga all, but please just lend me an ear. I promise we can discuss this soon. Retreat to the junpi berry bridge and I'll explain everything later."

  "And the material boy?" The cedar dryad inquired. "Shouldn't he leave?"

  "He's tasteless," D'artagnia added. "But I don't want him in any danger... that we aren't controlling."

  "It won't be long," Selly tried to reason. She leaned in close, hinting at her gift to them. "He wishes to forage and is willing to trade something good. You must trust me."

  While the merry band of bohemians bumbled, Georgie was massaging a painful tension on the bridge of his nose. He couldn't tell if they thought he was stupid or if they were that stupid. The latter would honestly be more depressing. No, this was desperation blinding rationality. The look on everyone's faces, they were just as lost as he was.

  The potion vendor had seen this before. Opalsunder's, a crystal shop from Georgie's adolescence. Everybody knew it was going out of business, but the boss, Thorgan Opalsunder didn't know they did. It was obvious, what with his fluctuating prices and insistence towards customers. The employees were left in the dark until the “buy one gem, get four free” sale. Everything had to go. What did them in? Thorgan couldn't manage such a big space.

  Georgie let out a sigh, unsure if it was for disappointment or pity. Either way, a good amount of his time was wasted, but had it been completely wasted? With a blink magic detection was activated and the morbidly curious man scrolled the area. To the left was a brush shimmering of irrelevant arcane classes, as well as a shaking Mertui, quickly losing the green in her leaves. The dryad's wooden teeth clacked together in a heated grit. Her wilted bangs grazed her scrunched brow while hunched, beginning to make steps back to the group.

  I'll just leave that be, thought Georgie, averting his gaze to the right. He glanced past the weightless pool the nervous people came from. Who knows what was in that moderately sized alcove behind the waterfall. What immediately caught his attention was woven within the tree line a few yards ahead. Luminous green glimpses of illusion magic connected behind the branches. It looked like it stretched far and completely undisrupted. Looking past his detection, it was only more forest. Casually the alchemist adjusted the strap of his satchel for his hand to comfortably rest in as he debated curiosity and practicality.

  Back at the team meeting, Selly had explained her situation. The parts the others needed to know at least. Naturally the promise of the Angry Sugarplum gave them pause. When was the last time they felt that lax flowery tipper? D'artagnia and Jermaine perked up, the thrill of another sharp tea party. Maybe the poor squirrel would get the confidence to read his poetry. The other two however were stuck on a few other things.

  "Perhaps ask him to come back at a later time?" the dryad of cedar attempted to reason. "It may knock again, and he will be a distraction."

  "Antinne is right," Sheq approached next to her, probably the most uninterested in the honey. "You have rules for this. Are you even going to ask where the space bent?"

  "Of course I'm going to ask you," Selly assured, accidentally cracking her voice above a whisper. "I am going to look at it while he looks around. I promise you all that it will be alright. It has been many moons since we have had something, and we deserve it."

  "You know where we could find honey?" The trembling voice of Mertui rose behind her Circle Mother. Selly looked back at her friend on the verge of a tearful spat. "The home realm!"

  Georgie was correct to ignore what was coming. Selly had no words, Mertui had never looked this way. A Circle Mother had the power to silence the denizens of her domain. Some of the crazier ones could even take their name, along with their purpose. Selly had seen it before, and she could never. It had never gotten this far; they wouldn't be with her if it could have. That was what she truly believed.

  "What are we doing, Selly?" Mertui begged. "It has been nearly a century and a hundred and twenty days. We chose to stay because we believed in you. I want to, but since making the drolc, what has been done?"

  Those words sank into Selly's chest like a hook keeping her tethered to the broken face desperate for a promise. Antinne struggled to step in, but Sheq helped her decide by holding her shoulder in place. He wanted to hear an answer.

  "Please," Mertui winced at the speechless fairy before her, weeping at the silence. "I want to go home."

  "You were born here... " was all Selly could muster in defense. "This is our home."

  "Not for long," the dryad defied. "Especially if you think a gin tipper is what we need. We need to leave!"

  "Don't say that" Selly gasped, heart twisting. "What will happen if we go? We can't take everyone with us!"

  "THEN JUST LET ME GO!" Mertui sobbed, knowing what she was asking for. Her stuttering breaths were aimed at the ground, unable to look at the others. She could feel their stares rolling across the back of her dried head. "Nothing has changed, and I cannot keep pretending to have fun. Ne asorloga, my matriarch... but please let me go!"

  Not again, Selly shuddered inside. I can fix this. I just wanted... What should I do?

  "Alya," D'artagnia spoke up among the turmoil. "The human is gone."

  "WHAT?"

  Georgie was playing with his eyes flicking detection off and on. His perception switched back and forth from the continuation of the greenwood to an arcane wall that stretched to the sky. From his satchel Georgie pulled the most logical tools he could improvise. His metal straw and a rock he had brought from home. With a gentle toss, the rock passed through the veil, rippling like a drop in water. Deeper green wisps trailed off from the entry point, trailing off in fish-like motions. Next, he dipped the straw into the illusion, stirring the dyed air for any tension. Finally, he used a pair of tweezers from his pocket to pluck a strand or two of hair. Into the green it went as well and was pulled back completely intact.

  "Looks safe to peek," Georgie shrugged while storing his tools. He took two steps closer, taking a deep breath on a chance. Led by the brim of his cap, Georgie poked through the curtain.

  His face reached the other side, but the rest of him decided to stay where they were. There were only a few feet of grass in front of him before descending off the edge of an impossibly deep gulch. A shade of darkness below only comparable to oblivion. Just like the wall concealing that place, the gulch ran in a ring. 20 yards across the void was a land mass restricted from any contact with the rest of Bantriaf. A large portion of the wild, mangled, anemic and white. Standing alone in its circle under a sky with no color to shine upon it. A dreary gray with not a single cloud used to make it. Georgie couldn't make out everything, but what he could see were speckles of red trickling about the landscape and connected to deformed constructs eerily still. They looked like haunted scribbles from where Georgie was standing; and he was fine with that.

  "So 'drolc' means 'gulch' or 'canyon,'" he sighed in disappointment. "Guess my time really was completely wasted. Time to go- "

  "DON'T GO IN THERE!" A shriek shot through the trees, startling the young man into a stagger. Selly spiraled to the fool at the speed of a cannon. Her people tried to keep up, running behind her as she desperately tried to stop things from getting even worse.

  Georgie stumbled a step further through the veil, going bug eyed as he got closer to the ledge. He tightened his foot and immediately swung the other around to leave. However, in that exact moment Georgie was met with the surprising force of an 18-inch fairy barreled directly into his stomach. His feet left the grass, and his back started to feel heavier falling. Selly scrambled to collect herself against the human's abdomen. She stood firmly on the man's body and looked in horror at the abyss past Georgie's shoulder.

  As the weight of their bodies pulled Georgie over the edge, the potion vendor locked eyes with the fairy who pushed him to his death. This was going to be his last trip for the next few months. So close to some peace behind his counter. He supposed those were the risks, but in hindsight, Georgie could have just stuck with his usual contact for binder root. That guy was pretty honest with prices and good for tips on temperature effects. Too bad he could never remember his name. Selly was disarmed at the lack of fear in his eyes. He looked more defeated, disappointed even.

  As gravity started its work and they sank to oblivion, Georgie, unblinking and earnest, told his tour guide, "I really don't like you."