Bursts of light like fireworks exploded around Robin’s head as a swarm of pixies zipped out from behind the nearby leaves. Red and green and gold and blue, they zipped through the air. A notification flickered in and out of his vision as he quickly minimised it to focus on the imminent attack.

Ora-Jean yodelled a battle-cry and whipped her spear through the air wildly. Lantha was shouting at the pixies in a language that was liquid, musical, and completely ineffectual. Robin stored it away nonetheless. It might come in handy in the future.

Grathilde sparked with warding magic, and Fiamah was reaching out and shouting for peace and understanding. Robin, for his part, used [Visual Phantasm] to wrap the illusion of a tree around himself.

Hey, if it wasn’t broke, don’t fix it!

There were dozens of the little dancing lights. Ora-Jean wound up her spear like a baseball bat, squinted, and swung. This time, she connected with her target. A streak of roseate light blazed like a meteor and vanished into the underbrush.

Robin had never before heard a hostile ringing of a bell, but he heard it now. Tiny voices chanted, and the grasses around Ora-Jean suddenly grew and twisted into life, tentacles of greenery wrapping around the raging woman and binding her tightly enough that she could no longer swing her spear.

‘Angering that woman is not a bright move,’ Robin called out, picking a turquoise mote of light to target with [Cutting Words]. ‘How dim are you?’

The turquoise mote of light staggered in mid-air. His words clearly hit! But it didn’t fall from the air, stunned or otherwise.

Robin’s blood went cold. These little things couldn’t be that much more resilient than goblins or kobolds, could they? Yes, his gaming experience whispered to him, yes they very well could. It made sense that some magical creatures might be somewhat resistant to magic. And here he was without an ion of cold iron.

Grathilde was also struggling with tentacular greenery. Fiamah was still shouting out about peace, but at least she had drawn the war hammer she had scavenged from the crypt.

Lantha, oddly, was the only one not trying to attack the pixies. Robin could hear her calling out about treaties and agreements, trying to invoke various pacts and agreements So far, she did not seem to be having much luck.

The conflict had shifted away from his illusory tree. Chaos wasn’t much for stationary engagements. Robin eyed the distance between himself and the rest of the party. Should he try to get closer? Would that even make a difference with his limited spell selection?

Or was he better off staying put? If things got too much further away, though, he’d lose sight of what was happening. Hard to target what you couldn’t see.

Unfortunately, before he could decide, the choice was made for him.

‘Ah, there you are!’ A small, soft voice whispered in his ear.

‘Wha—’ Before he could get more than that single syllable out, he was hit with a full face of glittering chartreuse dust.

Robin sneezed. Then yawned. A vast, gawping yawn. Why was he so tired? Oh, wait. Frell. Pixies meant—

Robin’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and sleep claimed him.

***

Something rough was pressing into Robin’s cheek. He groaned, opening his eyes. He was in a dim and shaded hollow of some sort.

Bark. It was bark. His face had been pressed up against a tree. The scent of earth filled his nostrils…possibly because his nose was literally stuffed with dirt.

His mouth felt gritty. Robin grimaced and spat out loam and decaying leaves. He twisted around and froze.

He was in a cage. If a cage could be made out of the twisted roots of a massive oak. Which it clearly could, because he was in it. One. Whatever.

The pixies. The battle. He must have been hit with a [Sleep] spell of some sort. No wonder they called spells like that Save or Suck. He’d gone out like a light. And it felt like he’d been dragged here with his face taking the brunt of the forest floor all the way.

‘You alright?’ someone asked him.

Robin jerked back into the tree with a start, scratching his face in the process. He hadn’t noticed anyone else in the cage, and after a moment of wildly looking about, the reason became clear.

The other person in here with him was so filthy they blended almost entirely into the background. Robin squinted. He could just about make out the upswept curve of an ear amidst that thatch-like tangle of hair.

‘Are you alright?’ the figure asked again.

‘I, ah, I’m possibly as well as can be expected, considering I’ve been ambushed and enchanted by pixies, apparently dragged across several kilometres of forest on my face, and tossed in a cage made of living oak, yeah.’ Robin cleared his throat. ‘Hi. You can call me—’ He paused, suddenly very conscious of everything he had ever heard about the fey and giving out one’s name to strange figures in the forest. ‘—Red. Call me Red.’

Robin dusted off his hands and then ruffled his hair, as if shaking the dust out. As he did so, he used the power of his [Mask of Disguise] to turn himself ginger.

‘Eli, Priest of Vané, though I know I don’t look it right now.’ The man smiled wryly. ‘I’ve been here quite a while now.’

‘Where is here, exactly?’ Robin shifted, trying to get a better view through the roots.

He could see grass and flowers and trees (though the latter were a fair bit off). Possibly a forest clearing of some sort? With the oak in the centre?

‘Cherry’s Glade,’ Eli said morosely. ‘A dryad living in the oak tree above that keeps us trapped here. I can’t even say how many weeks she’s held me prisoner.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s a vision. I’d say don’t look, but eventually you will.’

‘Why, what, er, what is she keeping us for?’ Robin was really hoping his guess was wrong.

‘Sport. I’d say bedsport, but there’s no bed.’ Eli scratched at his arm. ‘The loam is pretty soft, but it’s got nothing on a nice bed.’

Robin was not wrong. Frakking frell. Wait, was that why he was the only one who’d been taken? He frowned. Something about that didn’t feel quite right, but it did make sense.

New Quest! [Freedom, Freedom, Freedom!]

If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had a thing for bondage! You spend so much time tied up and in cages. Secure your freedom, little bird, secure it thrice over. Escape the cage of roots that binds you; escape the snares laid to entrap your heart and will; escape the enchantment that traps you within Wyndham Wood.

Reward: A three-fold task earns three-fold experience. This multiplier stacks with all other relevant experience multipliers. Additionally, success in the first segment of your quest will Unlock a Random Proficiency. Success in the second segment of your quest will Increase a Random Social Property. Success in the third and final segment of your quest will Unlock the Lumberjack, Clothier, and Spellbreaker Professions.

In his experience so far, this world had a bit of a problem with consent issues. It was an interesting spread of rewards, but Robin didn’t relish how complicated the quest itself was. That implied escaping this forest would not be easy.

‘It’ll be alright,’ Eli was saying. ‘I know it’s a bit overwhelming, but I’m still alive, and where there’s life, there’s hope.’ He grimaced. ‘Though I’m starting to doubt I’ll regain Vané’s favour at this point. The Font and Highest Paramount of Beauty doesn’t look kindly on those faithful that don’t manage to keep up appearances.’

Robin filed that tidbit of information away. Vané was most likely an elvish deity of Beauty. He wondered if Navarre, the elvish God of Mischief, was part of the same pantheon or not. A thought to explore later.

‘You’d give just about anything for a bath, I’m guessing.’ Robin tried to look sympathetic. ‘And I suppose you don’t have [Cleanse] or some form of [Hearth’s Blessing]?’

‘Not at the moment, no.’ Eli looked around guiltily. ‘Vané is perhaps a bit upset with me at present for attempting to refuse the charms of so lovely a creature as Cherry.’

‘That must be difficult,’ Robin said, deliberately sidestepping the more blasphemous words that suggested themselves.

There were already enough divine beings interested in him as it was.

‘It’s not easy.’ Eli sighed. ‘I’ve been here so long, I’m practically on a first-name basis with out erstwhile gaoler.’ He tapped the trunk. ‘This is called Neher’s Oak. It’s quite the story, actually—’

However, Eli would not get the chance to tell it. At that moment, the atmosphere in the clearing changed. The priest froze, falling silent.

A gentle breeze caressed the clearing, coaxing the grasses and flowers into a whispering hymn of praise. The light around took on a soft, almost fuzzy quality. Robin pressed himself back against the trunk of the oak, his cage suddenly a comfort around him.

False comfort, no doubt, but he would take it.

‘Just look and get it over with,’ Eli advised in a whisper. ‘I tried to keep my eyes closed. She had the tree pry them open.’

The hair on the back of Robin’s neck prickled to attention. Before he could say anything in response, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Reflexively he looked, and beheld her.

Cherry, dryad of Neher’s Oak, approached with a rolling gait. Her skin—her flesh—was the rich red-brown of antique furniture made from the wood that bore her name. The natural grain of the wood showed on her skin like beauty marks.

She wore nothing but the fall of her hair, if it could be called that. Her head was crowned, flame-like, with a cascade of autumn leaves, yellow, orange, and red-pink bright. They rustled as she approached.

Robin found his gaze drawn to her fingers. They were long and supple as new branches. So very long. At least thrice as long as they should be, by human proportions anyway.

When she drew close, it became very clear she was thrice his height as well. Hers was the beauty of nature more than the beauty of mortality, and yet she stirred very mortal reactions in those who beheld her.

Robin fidgeted, adjusting how he sat. He almost started out of his skin when Eli shifted around and put his hand on his neck. The feel of the other man’s fingers sent shivers down Robin’s spine. It was electric and comforting, all at once.

It certainly gave him something else to focus on. Robin took a deep breath and leaned into the sensation. The relentless attack of Cherry’s presence seemed to ease, a little.

‘Who have we here?’ Cherry’s voice was the rustle of leaves on the wind, as sweet as the full flowering of Spring. ‘Eli, introduce me to your new friend.’

‘This is Red,’ Eli answered promptly.

‘Yes, yes he is,’ Cherry observed with a breathy giggle as Robin flushed as crimson as his pseudonym. ‘Not so pretty as you were, Eli, when first I found you, but he looks more robust.’ She leaned in close, her face nearly pressing through the roots that caged the two men. ‘I do like his leaves, however. They are pleasingly autumn-coloured. And he smells very well-fed.’

‘A side benefit of freedom,’ Robin managed, drawing a spark of courage from the warmth of Eli’s fingers on his neck. ‘You should let both of us go before we start to stink of incarceration.’

‘I think not, little man.’ Cherry’s eyes, petal-pale at the rim and fruit-dark in the centre, flashed with amusement. ‘You’re mine now, to serve me as I see fit.’

‘I don’t belong to anyone at present, save myself,’ Robin snapped back. ‘Least of all a jumped-up weed with delusions of grandeur.’

He couldn’t resist letting fly with some [Cutting Words], no matter how foolish. His captor’s eyes flashed fully red-black for a moment and the leaves of her hair shivered, three of them falling gently from her head, cut free by his words. It wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t as much as he’d hoped. Robin’s stomach sank. He really needed some more powerful spells.

‘Oh I think I’m going to have fun with you.’ Cherry smiled, revealing teeth of jagged bark that would do a shark proud.