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Understand that we are currently in a playtest through the end of 2024, meaning you are welcome to play and earn experience, but there might be sweeping changes before the full site launch in 2025.
In the shaded woodlands of aelheim, four pixies took the liberty of passing through their plane and onto Antarok. They were merciless with their boundless trickery. Small creatures they were, their wings shimmered in the moonlight. There was Eirik, Solveig, Halvar, and Yrsa.
The four of them flitted from village to village, unseen but frequently felt, sowing confusion and disorder wherever they fancied. Minor inconveniences started with baby teeth vanishing from beneath pillows, fresh milk curdling overnight, the feeling of unseen fingers tugging at a villager's cloak. Their illusions cast shadows in places where there should only be shadows, whispers came from empty rooms, and wooden doors creaked open on their own.
However, as the months have gone by and their taste for mischief increased and so their pranks became darker. Yrsa wove nightmares into the minds of sleeping children, and they woke screaming, screaming until the dawn. Halvar sculpted visions so vivid that lovers fought with their blades drawn over imagined betrayals. Solveig, was fond of making things invisible. As Eirik was a schemer, he wove these elements together, and created calamities that the humans could never explain.
At least in their eyes, the first true death had been an accident. Driven to madness by unseen terrors a hunter had run himself onto his own spear. Getting away with it only emboldend them. Halvar made a farmer mistake his wife for a demon and set fire to his own home. Incidents became more frequent and the villagers whispered of curses and angry spirits.
The Aelves took notice early on but there was no harm in some pixies doing what pixies tended to do. Tracking them down would take far too much effort if they were harmless. As the quartet's tricks became more deadly, something had to be done.
Kage has been put in charge of finding the pixies and doing something about them.
Kage hated dealing with pixies. Of all the fae, they were the most obnoxious, most annoying, and the most elusive. That was why when he first learned about them he kept his mouth shut and hoped that the pixies would get bored, move somewhere else, or someone else would be asked to deal with them. Unfortunately, he had gotten unlucky on all three counts. The pixies did not seem to be getting bored, they were staying in the country, and Kage had been told to deal with the problem. Great, just great.
The most annoying part was having to dedicate tethers to finding the damned pixies. They could be anywhere and finding them was just like finding a needle in a haystack. Vitae were especially well equipped to search in this metaphorical haystack with their thousands of extra pairs of eyes and hands. Kage had spent weeks slowly but surely killing and converting the bodies of any bird he could get his hand on into treants.
The only thing that made Kage feel better about the assignment was that he was a lich and the saol expended to create the treants was so little that he didn't even have to worry about managing his reserves. And so, with his small army of birds finished, he sent them off to Graentun to the various locations that the pixies were reported to be in. His treants would alert him mentally if they saw anything that seemed illusory.
Math:
1000 novice casts of floramancy to wrap 1000 birds in a wooden shell [Free due to Vitae ascension]
1000 novice casts of raise to raise 1000 fetches [Free due to Vitae ascension]
Old bones ached. The village elder rubbed at his temples as he sat hunched on his wooden stool. He had thought he'd seen all the fae's tricks, but damn pixies had a gift for cruelty with a side of laughter. It had been the worst of it yet, this morning, when he stepped outside to see his neighbor's oxen nw an absurd shade of pink.
He had always thought his eyesight was going in his age, but no, the entire herd pranced around the fields like some kind of mad festival parade. Many refused to even come near them, uttering superstitions and calling it a curse. Others attempted to work them as usual.
One of the oxen was poked by the elder, who had shuffled closer to inspect them. Solid. Real enough. It didn't mean much, though, when dealing with fae. A poor fool had thrown a bucket of water over his ox, hoping to wash away the illusion, but all he had done was soak the animal and made the pink somehow more vibrant.
Kage's treants would see the pink oxen and one of his birds would see the pixies laughing at the chaos from afar. They would not linger long before flying away.
Some of Kage's birds spotted the madness that was happening down below. Pink oxen? There wasn't any harm in that, but it was a good indication that the pixies were nearby. He had his birds fan out around the field and by chance he was able to pick out the pixies laughing at a distance.
"Let's just hope I can follow them," he told himself as he directed all his bird treants to spread out around the pixies. They'd take up positions in the trees for miles around their current position. His goal was to follow them, to see where they were treating as their base of operations. Pixies were so small that basically anywhere could be big enough to accommodate them. They might not even stay in aelheim. For all Kage knew they were travelling between planes which would be another can of worms.
While his birds got into position, Kage took one of the various portals maintained by his workplace that would take him to the nearest city/town. After that he would try to follow after the pixies personally.
Tiny bells of laughter chimed through the air where the pixies flitted through the air. They were still giddy from their latest tricks. Their finest work yet, the pink oxen had been simple, absurd, and utterly baffling to the humans below.
"Did you see their faces? How the old man squinted like he lost his eyes?'
"And the pastries! I would have died then when they took that first bite!"
"Wish we could have stayed for longer, but you understand how these things happen. Can't linger too long."
"Aelves are coming. I can feel it in the wind. Best we go to ground for a while"
The others groaned without argument. They knew when to slip away, but they knew well enough. Fun was one thing, and foolishness was another, and getting caught was the latter.
They went off, past the village and into the forest. Their tiny forms danced between branches, almost impossible to see in the moonlight, before stopping before an ancient tree. There was a small, unassuming hole, near its center, nestled between two thick knots.
The pixies darted inside without hesitation.
They disappeared into the darkness of the hollow, but in moments a faint glow lit up. The tiny chamber was alight with warm firelight inside, where no prying eyes would see. They would use the time here to rest, recover and, most importantly, plot their next bit of fun.
