The Sprite & the Fairyhunter:  Quality Time

 

Room 4

 

 “It’s not even locked,” Neena said. “How weird…”

Adrian had by now fully learned his lesson about coming too near the doors. A part of him winced at knowing he was counting on his wife to stand in danger, but a bigger part understood that Neena had a lot more experience with such things and could move faster than he if danger were to arise. Besides, he thought logically, if she gets hurt or somehow falls in a pit, I need to NOT be in trouble to help her out.

She opened the door slightly, then made herself sprite sized to peer through the crack. “Whada we got, babe?” he whispered.

She turned to look at him with concern on her face, then grew back and put a hand on him. “I want you to use your cloak and hide in the corner of the last room,” she said seriously. “I’m gonna get invisible and attack this thing from behind.”

“How is that an answer to, “Whada we got?”” he demanded, scanning her face for clues. Whatever was in there had certainly gotten her worried.

“You’ll see it when it’s dead, but if you don’t hide, you might not be around for that.” She began to steer him toward the previous door and he walked around her.

“Knock it off…it’s not like you telling me to hide is gonna make me actually DO it!” he scoffed. He walked over to the door and peered in.

In the corner of the room, he saw a pair of glowing red eyes that were much farther above the floor than even his own eyes. And if I’m 6 foot…

“What the hell is that?” Adrian whispered, backing away a little. “If it’s half as wide as it is tall…!”

“You don’t wanna know. Look, I’m just gonna attack it from behind and you are gonna keep away.”

Adrian swallowed hard, but frowned determinedly. “I’m not about to let you fight that thing alone. Even if you’re invisible, it’s gonna know something’s behind it stabbing it. If it tries to swipe at you and hits you, you’re going down.” Before she could protest, he rushed on. “Look, all you gotta do is keep stabbing it and I’ll snipe at it from over there with my bow. We’ve got like a football field of rooms to go through for me to stay out of reach and when I get to the room we started in, I can just duck around it if you haven’t already killed it. So…” Before she (or he) could tell him to stop, he took two steps of courage forward and threw the door open. “Hey, over here!”

“Adrian!!!” she hissed, but went invisible immediately. Adrian watched the eyes move closer to him until the body they were attached became visible.

“Oh, damn,” he breathed, then took off running, unshouldering his longbow as he ran. When he reached the edge of the room, he turned to shoot the beast twice, then backpedaled to the edge of the second room. He saw the creature stagger and roar angrily, but it continued its advance, the semirusted greataxe in its grasp still gleaming evilly. Adrian fired twice more, then ran full out as the creature once again bellowed and staggered before continuing its relentless approach. Two more arrows flew from Adrian’s bow before he turned and found himself back in the room he and Neena had started in…a dead end. Behind him, the monster lurched ever closer and as Adrian made his last backward mad dash, he was suddenly acutely aware of how little space the greataxe’s reach and the creature’s size was going to allow him in dodging around. He was going to have run right through the path of the blade and hope for the best…once he caught his breath.

“H-Honey! Could use a…l-little help here!” he gasped, leaning against the wall to nock another arrow and take some desperate gulps of air. He saw the monster stagger again and winced. Oh, please, please, PLEASE be more dead than you already are when you get to me!, he thought.

The beast entered the room, one great horn knocking loose as it lumbered through the door toward him. “Neena…!” he yelled, gearing up for the dicey dodge around the axe. If it swung from the side, he might be able to jump OVER it…

With a lunge, the creature came at him…but only succeeded in falling straight forward to the ground. Adrian paused, then watched his wife reappear on the creature’s back with a smirk.

“You rang?” she asked.

“Neena,” he gasped in relief. “Umm…I don’t want to play “run from the bad cow “anymore. Let’s play a new game. Let’s play “sit and rest here forever and not look in any more rooms”, ‘kay?”

She laughed and stepped off the back of the now truly dead beast. “Next door?” she asked smugly.

“N-Next door,” he agreed, letting his wobbly legs finally give out beneath him, “AFTER I rest.”

 

 

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