The hand grabbed David with a power he couldn't expect by such a thin and frail-looking appendage and yanked him forward through the barrier's blurred veil.

David stumbled out of the barrier, falling forward; and the cold was the first thing that welcomed him; it was colder than a few hours earlier, much colder.

The figure standing in front of him and of whom he could gauge only the legs covered in a dark leathery suit bent forward and picked him up from the arm, forcefully getting him to stand straight.

"Erin!" Shouted David as he saw her! "My goodness, you're finally here! People are crazy down there; you got to bel—"

The Fay smiled but quickly changed attitude, "Put this on—quick!" She offered him a tight leather suit that looked exactly like the one she was wearing; then she gripped him from the back of the head and pulled on the plastic mask that had been so comfortable that Dave had forgotten it.

Pulling it away, the mask consumed itself, disappearing in minuscule particles that fluttered down to the ground. "Goodbye, good friend," said David, but then he stared at the burgundy leather suit Erin was offering to him.

He looked at her up from head to toe, "I know it's up in your alley, but although I don't judge, I'm not really that much into bondage. However, I guess it's better than being naked."

"Fast Davi, we haven't really got much time," she whispered.

Thankfully for him, the suit did not really dress as tightly as he thought.

"I know, we should go back in there; I've still only got twelve points of Resilience, so—hey this is really warm."

As he finished wearing the suit, Erin took him by the hand and started running.

"Wait! Where are you taking me? The waters!" David asked as they ran.

"We don't need the water anymore; we are heading to the City," said Erin.

"What? Why now already, what's with the hurry?"

"The Fiend's police, it's here. They are looking for you," she simply stated.

A few seconds of silence unfolded. "Can we…get there a little faster then?"

"We will," she answered.

***

Their trip through the thick jungle was short. The lush greenery covered every square meter of it, and the deeper they went, the thicker the mist hanging in the air. As they delved, it became much harder for David to see through. At some point, he let Erin lead the way, for all he could see was white.

David tried speaking, but he couldn't even hear his own voice. He couldn't hear anything. Even the sound of the nearby nature was muffled. The only contact he had with the world were his feet on the ground, covered in the weird leather obviously, and Erin's hand. If she had heard him speak, or if she had answered, he couldn't say.

Finally, after five minutes of oblivion, the mist started receding, and his senses returned.

"Erin, that was really scary," he said.

She smiled, "It was meant to be as such."

They started slowing down, and at some point, they stopped running.

The jungle started giving in to a field more barren than the vibrant green of the jungle. David would have called it "woodlands."

In front of them—seemingly waiting for them—stood an animal that looked like a majestic stag. It was big, bigger than any possible forest creature Dave had ever seen up close.

Varia'ati

Level: 43

The massive stag had three sets of eyes, a tail that looked like a long fin, and big silvery antlers. Its short fur was green and cobalt blue, and it shone every few seconds. For the rest, it looked like a stag.

"That is…it's beautiful," said David.

"It is. The Varia'ati are the rulers of these jungles, this one is but a youth, but it will be able to get us through the rest of the trip to the City."

"Wait, we have to ride that?" Dave frowned.

"Yeah, if you are not comfortable, just hold tight to me," Erin answered.

"No, no, no. I'm going to stay on the front. May I?" Dave was actually giddy.

Erin was taken aback, "I—I did not expect that, but I don’t think you’ve got the stats for it—so you really can't. Besides, he already knows me," yet her look turned to one of a pleasant surprise. "I hadn't taken you for someone so audacious," she chuckled with the beautiful sound she made, "come, maybe I'll teach you how to ride it one day, just not this time; this time we must go in haste."

"Audacious, eh? You know that before I came here, I was a…" Dave was about to say something, but then he shook his head, "Nothing, let's go."

The giant Varia'ati shuffled, turning toward them, his six eyes were almond-shaped, but they communicated a tender—somehow benevolent, thought Dave—stare that petrified David for a second. His heart felt like it was about to melt at the sight of those sweet yet knowing eyes.

Maybe taken into the eye-lock, the stag turned toward him, regarding him in full.

The majestic beast was likely three meters at the withers.

It inclined his head, reaching David's, then placing his muzzle at David's eyes' height. He had no idea how to answer that.

Erin tittered, "Place your hand under its muzzle, or on the side of his mouth; he's showing curiosity toward you; he has never seen one of your kind."

David slowly raised his open palm toward the creature's muzzle; for a moment, the Varia'ati seemed to be scornful, jiggety, but then it remained steady.

Dave felt a slight, peaceful current as he placed his hand on the creature's cheek. It was something he had never felt before; calmness pervaded him. He let himself be drawn into it, closing his eyes; he felt descending into a peaceful place where nothing at all could shake him. He was falling, deeper and deeper. It was almost too pleasant an experience to wake from.

Deeper and deeper, he descended into a world of emptiness, he felt that he could keep falling in it forever, letting go of his inner desires, abandoning his life to the peaceful emptiness of that connection, but then something changed.

He felt the heavy presence of something that had lived longer, much longer than he could properly conceive.

Years upon years of uninterrupted existence where time became a meaningless and overvalued concept seemed to be conveyed into his mind as the gigantic existence that started slowly appearing in Dave's mind gained awareness of his approach, and it smiled at him. David had no idea why he could interpret that feeling as a smile, but that was what he felt.

The very next moment, Erin shook him awake. "Come on; we must go; the Ancient is waiting for us."

The Varia'ati lowered his body, and Erin climbed on it, then helped Dave do the same, "Hold tight," she said.

David was a bit out of the loop, "Erin, what did I see?" he asked. She did not answer right away, for she caressed the creature, and the beast began galloping at a speed that David believed to be insane.

The creature jumped from one tree to the other, evading it without any real problem, as if they were not an obstacle, even for his huge body.

"What did you see, Dave?" Erin asked as David held for dear life to her waist.

"I have no idea!" He screamed.

She chuckled, "then how can I answer your question?"

"I've seen—a huge face. Maybe…maybe a Fay, but it was just way too big, and too—old."

"Oh, I see," she answered, "you must have been noticed from the creature's tamer. The Ancient waiting for us. You must have attracted her attention."

"That was one of your Ancients?" Dave asked.

"Yes, indeed."

"But it felt so old!"

Erin laughed with her beautiful voice, "that is what it means to be Ancient, young-David."

"Hey, I'm twenty-nine."

She continued, amused, "Maybe of your planet's years, here you are indeed but a child, even less than that, David."

"What does it mean? Your youths are less than twenty-five years old!"

"Yes, but given that our days are twenty-three hours long, how long does your year last?" Eri asked.

"What? Well, our days last twenty-four hours, but our years last three hundred sixty-five days," David answered.

"Then I was right, for our year lasts five times that," Erin answered, caressing his hand.

"No—wait, five times that? But then, that would make you… 335 years old..." David shouted.

Erin chucked once more, "For you? It might be, but for Arthan I'm sixty-seven, I'm just an old-Fay; Ancients must reach at least a hundred years of age to be called that."

David was mute; he had no idea how to answer, for she was talking about beings whose Earthly years amounted to at least five hundred years. "Oh, my giddy, giddy aunt…"

She chuckled again, "Your expressions are very funny, Davi. The Ancient is going to like you very much. Above all that she is, she's very bored."

"Well, I'm glad I can be of entertainment." Slightly more comfortable with the gallop, David detached from Erin; he stared at his suit, "As long as there's no bondage planned, I'm up to deliver a bit of fun."

Erin shook her head, "I still don't understand what you intend as bondage, but I ensure you that we don't need bandages to treat wounds, for the Ancient and her house are much more adept at Biomancy as I. So, what is this bondage you speak about?"

"Oh, about that, it’s like, when a male and a female…"

***

A slightly disgusted Erin had at first chuckled then "eeewed" at David's description of the practices, but they seemed to have almost reached the City, so she addressed him again.

"We are very open, but that is…" she shook her head, "Anyway," she added as the stag sensibly slowed down, "welcome to the shared city of Varya. Built by Fiends and inhabited by us both."

In front of David's eyes, the massive city that before he had been able to stare only from a distance rose in all its splendor.

No walls were delimiting its insertion into the wildness at David and Erin's back; the City simply intermingled with it.

It was shaped in a multi-layered fashion in which three different levels of constructions and heights had been added to it. They clearly delimited something or were symbols of some form of societal standards.

The first layer was the one directly intermingling with the wildness; buildings big like the ones he had previously found intertwined with the big to massive trees of the woodlands; patches of these outskirts seemed to be entirely covered in lush vegetation that gripped and entwined around the buildings. Short houses and entire districts merged with the greenery and the occasional tall building as if they had been built in such a manner from the very beginning and were not a sub-product of later installments.

To David's eyes, the constructions and the chaotic—yet pleasant on the eyes—mess couldn't have been more distant from his knowledge and understanding of the concept of sky-lines and districts. For on Earth, homogeneity was the key. Here it was entirely the opposite.

Yet the second, taller level, closer to the heart of the City, was something else entirely. Tall buildings vaguely reminding him about bird-houses surrounded the City's center as a ring. The structures were tall, soaring up from the ground like pillars that then bloomed into square-shaped figures—they seemed to allow a lot of housing space.

Finally, different from the previous two levels' multi-chromatic structures, soared tall the City's heart.

At the center of the ring, buildings that seemed to pierce through the clouds were surrounded by an intricate highway that weaved the City's heart and its skyscrapers, making it look like a one and only organ.

The skyscrapers were pointy, reminding him about fingers of women with shapely nails, jutting into the sky, uncaring as if scratching it for pleasure.

The contrast among the three levels was staggering, yet once again, everything blended into the following level so perfectly that as much as at first impact hurt the eyes of the beholder, with time, the sight became more and more acceptable, then almost hypnotizing.

"What in the glorious, bloody hell am I looking at?" Dave let his hands fall to the side.

"Varya; you are looking at Varya, Capital of Arthan," Erin shook her head, "We did not have a Capital before the Fiend's coming. But, I guess this one is…fitting."

David turned toward her, surprised, "You don't despise it? I thought you were…not okay with their coming."

Erin looked surprised, "No, David, I never said I was; I mean, look at me. I'm wearing their clothes." She shook her head, "No one among us rejects them, or, at least, not among the Fey that still have their principles straight. There are…rebels, and I…" she grew silent, then dropped down from the stag and offered her hand to David to help him down, "There's been a time in my life in which I was young, stupid. I'm not anymore."

David was surprised about her statement, "But I thought you lived in that dilapidated building because you hated it there," he said, pointing at the City.

Erin's eyes turned to the side, "It's not that easy, I do move about, but I do so because we are explorers; we don't live our lives contained into one huge block of metal and concrete; many have forgotten our ways, but alas, as much as I have—quieted down over my youth years, I cannot abandon my origins. I'll keep being an explorer for the rest of my life if Arthan allows me to." She hit him with the most terrifically beautiful smile that she had given him up to that point.

Indeed Erin was beautiful by Fey standards, and it fascinated even David, but only up to a certain point, for getting used to alien's morphology is not something that can happen from one moment to the next. Hard rules governed his psyche, and David could not really escape them as if in fiction. Still, he was drawn to smile back, "Well then, I guess I have yet to understand you all, I've been quite taken with trying to pump up my...chances of survival. About that, I think the rate at which Source Poisons me is slowing down."

Erin nodded, "Of course, you must have been increasing your Resilience; however, know that the City's three levels have a drastic Resilience Threshold shift."

"Really? Like what?"

"The lower level, the Forest, needs up to thirty-five points Resilience, the industrial zone—the Ring if you prefer—needs up to eighty, while the Core, well…I can walk through that place easily, but if I were to try and climb up to the fingers’ level, even at my age, I would suffer from backlash.”

"Blimey!"

She chuckled, "Yeah, blai-may!"

“No, no, listen, it’s: b-l-i-m-e-y.”

Erin tried again, "Bi-lai-mi-ay!" Giggling.

"No, no, no, repeat after me—" he said, raising a finger. She grabbed his finger, still chuckling, "This can wait, Davi; we have to enter the City first, and to do that, I need to do something to you, alright?"

"You have to do something to me? Alright…" he shrugged, before adding something else, "but we said no bondage, right?"

She growled, "Disgusting."

"Nice, then let's see, what are you going to do to me?"

"I'm going to make you grow your hair, a lot. Really a lot and—change you up a little."

David's eyes opened wide, he had heard only the first part, "Wait! Like Kravitz!? Please make them like Lenny! Please!"

The corner of Erin's mouth rose up, "I have no idea what a Kh-rya-vich should be, but you will have all the time you want to fix them up or cut them all away later, now we must hurry; you must blend with us, so…I might have to add something more to your…setup."

"I don't like the sound of that…but if we are going for the Kravitz…I think I'm up to a little weirdness."

Erin smiled, then got something out from a purse that David hadn't even seen; it was a metal notebook of some kind, with proper paper or pages that looked like it.

"What is th—"

Erin did not allow him to continue, "This is my Grimoire; we can talk about it later, now close your eyes and get ready for a little bit of pain."

"I hate pain."

"We all do. But don't worry, I'm very good at Biomancy; I've learned from the Ancient."

David felt the tingling sensation pervading his body, "Here it goes…"

The Source

External forces are modifying your body.

Not defending from it might temporarily or permanently modify your physical Attributes.

"Well, try to bear it, Davi," said Erin, taking him by the hand.

He squeezed it.