They met up with the elementals close to the Midnight Forest. With the exception of Scarlett, everyone who could have been there was there. They moved in and there was a general sense of awe at the way the day was replaced with the starlit night. As John noted, there was no lunar eclipse. Whatever blocked out the moon had moved, creating a sickle not unlike the normal lunar cycle. With the difference that the celestial object looked much closer and the blockade moved visibly.

“So that’s how the passage of time looks here,” he stated as they walked through the trees. They weren’t the only visitors. A few of the people that attended the second day of the festival were also interested in exploring this new landmark. Since yesterday evening, the Fairy Lantern had also been doing its job.

The further in they got, walking towards the lantern on a post, so high it even looked over the trees, the more fairies they found. They came in many shapes, but they had a few things in common in any iteration. First, they were quite small, even the tall ones only reaching up to Sylph when she was in her usual form. Second, they all didn’t know what shyness meant.

Sapient balls of light, tiny fae with six eyes and the abdomen of spiders but the wings of dragonflies, tiny humans with dresses of leaves and grass, to only name a few, circled around John and his girls as they walked around. They didn’t stop with looking. Jokingly, they landed in hair and hid behind ears. Joyfully, they bounced off breasts and climbed into clothes. Mischievously, they tickled and flipped skirts.

It wasn’t all fun and games. The way they laughed was inhuman. That was to say, the sounds were very well in the human range, just the freedom with which they laughed invoked in John a certain unease, as it sounded like someone who had foregone reason entirely. It wasn’t just maddened, like Eliza, it was just strictly different.

And sometimes, when John looked around, he caught some of them turning into different entities. Red eyes and dangerous smiles and words in an unknown language that beckoned children deep into forests. As adorable as they were, like all fantastical creatures John had encountered so far, they were born from humanity’s collective consciousness. Fairies were often depicted as benevolent things, whimsical and helpful. At the root of all stories, however, lay the fact that they were different. They weren’t as morally categorizable as angels or demons were. They were part of nature and the unknown.

“I might have to tear this down,” John mumbled when he saw the shadow of a branch transform into a many-headed snake that slithered up a tree, howled at the moon and then burst into a swarm of butterflies of a toxic green colour. Rave caught one of them on her finger, yelped when it bit her and incinerated it with a quick burst of sunlight.

The entire forest hissed for the duration of the flash.

“Imma say ya might want to consider that,” Rave agreed, thereby warned. Although the fairies had only found their way to this place over the last twelve hours or so, the changes were already apparent. While their true bodies were apparently quite small, fairies had some sort of possessive effect on their surroundings. Many of the trees around the Fairy Lantern were changed, their leaves light blue, with bark of silver. Flows of sap, flowing more fluidly than water, made the unnaturally scattered branches appear like a waterpark, and the fairies danced on the streams.

The fairies and Sylph, who had begun to mingle with them at some point. For quite obvious reasons, she fit in quite nicely. Although her laugh wasn’t inhuman, just carefree, and her attitude had nothing of the odd bloodthirstiness, Sylph was attended to by a bunch of the fairies. They made her a little crown of blades of grass and pieces of bark, put it on her head and bounced over the twigs with her.

Less and less of them, as John noticed. The number of dangerous fairies increased, as they passed the glade where the bed still stood. Under the frame of the bed was a darkness so complete it couldn’t exist. Eyes of silver stared and followed them. Observe came up with no result whatsoever, not even a sassy remark towards the bed. The silver eyes closed, but the darkness remained.

Those fairies were different. They were large and had fleeting forms. They, too, found interest in one John’s elementals. Where Siena walked, the snakes and nebulous hounds that wove their bodies out of shadows and strands of starlight followed, as if her trail was something that could nourish them. The moonshade elemental hissed at them, her bladed tail whipping, when the things came too close one time. From that point onward, none of those dangerous faeries came close to her or anyone of the group again.

“Aclysia, Beatrice,” John stopped for a moment, as they weren’t too far from their destination now, “go and watch over those other people that are wandering around here. I don’t want anyone to be lost.” He also put a few of the Sentry Golems on patrolling duty nearby and gave them warnings to say to people thinking about entering.

For a moment he considered using the Vision of Calamity to get a warning about any potential mishaps. Doing so, however, would have reduced the quality of his sight, warranting another repair, and he wanted to get the Blessing of Binding activated. To do so, he had to actually wear the contacts for three days continuously.

The maids obeyed and walked off in search of those other groups. Monitoring their mental connection closely, John walked deeper into the forest. ‘I thought this would just be a fun vanity thing, let’s hope I can still save it to be just that.

When they arrived at the Fairy Lantern, John saw a few unexpected things at once. The lamppost was situated between two black rock formations. Although all of the Guild Hall was decorated for summer, somehow, the floor between those rocks was covered in golden leaves. They didn’t seem to be actually dead, they were too firm and stable, but the colour was that of autumn. They made for an oddly soft and feathering ground to tread upon.

The trees around had been warped. None were higher than John’s waist, their branches made up a labyrinthine network that stretched around everywhere, melding to create one cyclopean unit of wood. Each branch was thick enough that John could barely wrap his hand around them. Where the trunks should have been, there were rings of impossibly healthy bark. The cores were hollow, and out of those hollow stumps flew golden and purple glowing particles. Occasionally a fairy would come flying out.

Two figures of human size were close to the centre of it all. Sitting on one of the branches, the Horned Rat stretched his feet towards the empty centre around the Fairy Lantern. He acknowledged John’s arrival with a silent nod. The Gamer was too distracted by the other ‘person’ to ask what Richard was doing there.

With the grace of a cat, she stepped along the maze of branches. Her body was clad in long strands of white silk, fluttering after her steps like visible winds. More like a liquid, unaffected by gravity, her silver and gold hair followed her head in the shape of a drop that was getting pulled along by a magical force. Her skin was either pitch black or as white as milk, depending on what one decided was the base and what the lines shifting on top. Aside from the shape of her body, the only thing that seemed remotely human about her were her eyes, simple and green, although the feeling John got when his gaze met hers was like hearing any other fairy laugh. She was merely borrowing the appearance of a human.

“The host of my court has arrived,” the daughter of Titania said, her voice like a knife of glass cutting through snow. She missed no step as she spoke; indeed, it looked like she couldn’t stop even if she wanted to. Her long legs moved like flowing mercury. “I am honoured to have found the light of your light, Earl.”

“I am not an earl,” John stated, wondering how he should approach things. Trying to cross this maze sounded like a headache, but for what he knew climbing on top could have been a grave insult. Before he could make a decision, Sylph was already dancing over the branches. Tiny, at first, then in her big form. Compared to the tall woman that was Methenia, she still looked rather small.

The Bramble Dancer did not take offense to this. Instead, she smiled. Soon her and Sylph’s movements synchronized, their steps and gestures the same, while they danced around the middle. John was reminded of the two electrons of a helium atom, as represented by the Bohr model.

“You’re the Earl of this space,” Methenia explained, while passing him. John quickly came to the conclusion that this was one of the few women he had ever met he wasn’t interested in in the slightest. Her face was oddly rectangular, as was her torso. Although all of her movements were graceful, she was flat both up and downstairs, no tits or ass to speak of. She was less a woman than a slightly feminized piece of nature. “You command the space a court of fae is set on, this makes you the Earl. The Earl of the Bramble Court. Your wish is my command. Let the shadow dance with us.”

Those two statements sounded disconnected by the rules of grammar, her tone, however, made it sound like these things were no different. Looking to Siena, the moonshade elemental was already getting on top of the maze of brambles. “And the rest of us?” John asked, as he resigned to adding Earl to his list of unwanted titles.

“Pass between us,” Methenia said. “As we dance. The gale that grows, the star, and the daughter of Titania.”

John, just wanting this whole thing to start making sense sometime soon, went along with the wish and passed the maze. It was surprisingly easy. Although, looking behind him, he noticed that the other girls soon found themselves on entirely different paths, despite having closely followed him. There was a blur where branches should have been at some points, making his brain hurt. Ultimately, they all made it through though. Except for Lydia, who, no matter how often she tried, always exited where she entered again.

Crossing her arms, the queen tapped her foot a number of times. “I tire of tests like this,” she declared and refused to attempt again. It wasn’t like they couldn’t speak with each other over the labyrinth anyway.

“We’ll wrap this up quickly,” John told her and turned to the Horned Rat to ask the immediate question. “And what are you doing here?”

“Catching up with family, you could say,” the god returned with a giggle. Although John wanted to point out that Richard didn’t exactly strike him as a fairy, he had seen other odd things in the last few minutes. At the very least, the Horned Rat had his arm back. “No, really, I am just spying on you and what this is all about.”

“Yeah, that sounds more accurate,” John mumbled, then turned to Methenia. “You command this court then?”

“No, Earl, you command the court, I am the head of it,” the dancer returned, her, Sylph and Siena now synchronized in, once again, the largest possible distance. “Whatever you desire, I will have had it willed.”

“Right, then, as Earl, make sure none of the fairies ever harm a human - or any other sapient being - that enters here,” he stated, going into further detail, before he could be hit with ‘the insides being outside isn’t harm’ or other odd ideas faeries may have about life. “This means that you won’t lead anyone anywhere from where they couldn’t get away from on their own, you won’t break skin or cause injuries and you won’t charm anyone into doing anything they wouldn’t agree with when they are of a normal, human state of mind. Do you understand?”

“…I obey…” Methenia stated, the branches under her feet cracking and breaking away once she had stepped off them. John guessed this meant she wasn’t particularly happy about such restrictions. To alleviate a potential source of disgruntlement, the Gamer specified a few other things.

“You can disregard these orders if somebody is harming the fairies in this forest. You can play with people, for all I care you can confuse them a little bit, just don’t make them chase a light and suddenly find themselves on another continent.” He didn’t even know if that was possible, but the forest felt a good chunk larger than what he had originally made, and with all of the other twisted things going on, he wasn’t going to take a risk. “Just remember that you set up your court in my human space, so you have to play by my rules. You’re welcome to leave if that bothers you.”

The cracking stopped, now there was just the occasional creaking, as she continued to dance along. The white and black of her face continued to flow symmetrically, until it vanished under the silk wrapped around the rest of her body. “I listen, Earl.”

For once, John had the luxury of knowing he could take care of this problem effectively, should it go south. Deleting the Fairy Lantern was as easy as a few clicks. Defeating Methenia should also be quite easy, as she was less than half his level. He nodded, satisfied, and turned around to leave.

The forest already seemed to readjust itself, as he witnessed through the maids and the Mandala Sphere, with the predatory fairies rising out of the shadows and all relocating north. They didn’t seem to plan to leave, but they would make their own, creepier corner of the Midnight Forest.

“The Bramble Court is at your service, Earl,” Methenia assured. “We cannot distance ourselves too far from here, the light of the lantern keeps us clear, but listen we shall, if you make where we can hear the call.”

‘So, I got myself an otherworldly security force? Lovely,’ John thought, only somewhat sarcastic. He would take all the help he could in case of invasion. “Alright, I’ll leave you to it then,” John declared, glancing at the Horned Rat, then making his way back out of the maze.