Encounter

Alex carefully stalked the enemy before him, carefully eliminating any sound of his passage through the tall grass. The kobold before him seemed to be less 'civilized' than the ones he had encountered earlier. It was alone and smaller than any member of the group before; it also wasn't carrying a weapon. 

All these things were good for him because Alex wasn't in the mood to fight multiple of these things again. That didn't mean it wasn't dangerous to fight by himself. All the monsters Alex had fought in this world so far possessed beyond human physical abilities. That just meant he needed to be careful.

He watched as its tongue flicked through the air like a snake and realized that the creature could probably smell him coming. Which just meant he needed to strike fast and carefully. 

Displacing the sound of his rustling through the grass to the other side of the kobold was easy. While the thing was looking the other way, Alex charged out of the surrounding grass and stabbed the creature from behind, taking care to dampen its dying cries.

As the thing died, Alex focused on not breaking the seal on his Spirit. Combat seemed to weaken the already weak seal he placed on his heart, and right now, he needed that energy to not pass out. Especially when his escape partner was already taking her nap. 

"It would be nice if I knew when you were going to wake up." Alex idly commented as he backtracked to where he set down Mai's unconscious body. As far as he could tell, with his minimal medical knowledge, she would probably live. Even if he was pretty sure humans weren't supposed to have a body temperature that high. 

"Ugh," he hefted her up. It wasn't his first time carrying an unconscious body, and it was just as annoying as he remembered. It had only been a few hours since their escape from the group of kobolds, and Alex's body was ready to collapse. 

Unfortunately, they needed to get as far away from where they had teleported as possible. Both to get out of kobold territory and to avoid the Inquisitors tracking them. 

For the second time today, he reached out and amplified a snap as far as he could while facing south toward the border. This time, he got lucky; at the end of his range, he could feel the beginnings of a forest, which would be a welcome change compared to these grasslands. 

By the time he actually walked into the forest, it was already turning dusk, and he would have to find a spot to camp soon. It might be challenging to find in this specific forest, though, because the entire place seemed to be coated in a light mist. It didn't really get in the way of Alex walking, but it did make seeing farther more difficult.

The mist felt odd on the skin of his arms, and he once again mourned the loss of his hoodie. It had been sacrificed to make a makeshift belt so he could store his sword while carrying Mai. 

He continued slowly and with plenty of breaks, though he wanted to get further before sundown. Alex started to reconsider when the fog slowly started to get thicker. Stopping, he decided to turn around and find somewhere to camp where he could see.

Unfortunately, that didn't work; even as he retreated, the mist grew denser. Soon, it was so bad that he couldn't see five feet in front of him and was forced to stop. 

Setting Mai down, Alex examined the area with sound. He couldn't feel anything threatening, though; there was definitely something wrong… Alex looked down at his arms and waved them through the air quickly. Everything checked out visibly, but he didn't feel the mist on his skin like earlier. 

*Crack*

A stick snapped? No, it was something different.

Alex had been sensing the nearby sound waves, and the ones that made the stick snapping sound were different. They didn't affect the air like a normal soundwave; their touch was lighter and unlike anything Alex had encountered before. 

Taking all this into account. "An illusion." He stated aloud and drew his sword from its makeshift sheathe. "Whoever is doing this might want to reconsider," Alex warned and concentrated on his power. 

Hahahahaha! Ethereal laughter echoed through the fake mist. The sound was similar to the stick snapping in that it had no actual start and endpoint. But… Reaching out, Alex tried to absorb it.

As he drew in the fake sound, Alex felt something tingle in his chest. He would need to experiment with that later; right now, he decided to close his eyes. The enemy seemed to specialize in visual illusions, so sight would be another avenue to fool him.

Sending a pulse of normal sound out to scan the immediate area, he found what he thought was the culprit. 

Initially, Alex had overlooked the faint buzzing of wings he sensed for some sort of insect. But now that he was scanning the area, he found the insect was actually some sort of small humanoid with wings. If he had to guess from his limited knowledge of fantasy monsters, this would be some sort of pixie.

Lifting his arm, he pointed his hand at the little irritant. "Stop this right now, or I'll blast you out of the air." He threatened and directed his voice into the ears of his target. He wasn't exactly sure if these monsters were capable of understanding him, but Alex didn't want to waste the little stored sound he had.

"eeek," The little pixie squeaked out and dashed away. Alex debated running after it but decided not to. Right now, he needed to get oriented because that fog had completely disrupted his sense of direction. At least most of it was gone now. 

Looking around, Alex realized he would probably have to settle down here for the night. It was already pretty dark. He doubted his ability to make it through this forest in the dark while carrying someone.

"EEEEK!" He heard an even louder but more distant exclamation from where the pixie flew off to.

"Ugh, I thought that thing was going to go away." He complained and looked back at Mai's unconscious body. He really should go investigate the disturbance because it was dangerously close to where they were going to camp. But Alex also didn't want to just leave her here alone. 

"Whatever, I'll be quick," He pulsed out another wave of sound to make sure the area was clear before running off. The pixie had covered a surprising amount of ground for something so small, but Alex was able to follow its little. Were they screams? As he made his way through the misty woods. 

For the first time, Alex saw the pixie with his eyes. It was around six inches tall with glowing blue insect wings that made it look a bit larger. Definitely humanoid but more insect than little human. It had green-tinged skin with lines of blue going vertical across the body. 

And it was stuck in a massive spider web, desperately trying to pull itself out. 

Immediately, Alex sent out a pulse of sound, and what he found freaked him out. A spider the size of a small dog was skittering out of a hole in the nearby tree. The pulse of sound seemed to anger the spider as it hissed and darted towards Alex, identifying him as the source. 

"Get the fuck, Away!" He instinctively poured the rest of his stored-up sound into his voice. The wave crashed against the spider and deflected its lunge into the ground. "Hah!" Alex pinned the beast to the ground with his sword to ensure it was dead. He hated spiders. 

Slowly extracting his sword from the spider's remains, Alex wondered if he could ever sleep in this forest, knowing another one of these might be crawling around. 

Helphelphelphelp, he heard the illusionary voice behind him.

Alex turned around and saw the pixie was still trying to extract itself from the spider's web. Raising his eyebrow, he wondered if these things were sentient because they might have understood his speech earlier, and now…

"Why should I? You tried to attack me earlier." Alex walked up to the struggling creature while still keeping an ear out for any more spiders. 

Prankprankprankprank, the voice insisted. 

"You don't need to repeat the word so many times. I can understand you." Alex pointed out. "And it's your fault I got lost. I don't see how that's a funny prank." He got up to leave. Maybe he would release them in the morning if he felt generous, but he didn't want them to mess with him anymore tonight. 

Exchange?

He stopped leaving and asked. "For what?"

Humanhuman There was a pause. Path

"You mean a road?" Alex mainly questioned to himself but saw the pixie start nodding its head. So they really could understand him. For a second, Alex wondered if the same applied to goblins and kobolds before shaking his head. Those things had tried to kill him immediately. He wouldn't feel bad for them. 

Dismissing those thoughts, Alex considered the pixie's offer. They probably knew not to mess with him, so letting them go shouldn't hurt him much. There was the chance they took off immediately after being freed and led some friends back here to take revenge, but he deemed that unlikely after saving their life.

"Fine, but don't run off immediately. I expect you to uphold your end of the deal." Alex began cutting away at the web with his sword. "So you'll lead us to a path used by humans?" He could hopefully determine where he should go from there. 

Darkdarkdark

Alex sighed at the echoing voice and tried interpreting what they were saying. "Oh." He looked around and realized it was dark now, he could get by with sound but the pixie wouldn't. "We can wait till morning and then head for the path; how about that?" 

Finally, he cut the final web holding the pixie, which buzzed around Alex's head in celebration. 

Thankthankthank, They said excitedly. 

Alex rolled his eyes and returned to where Mai was lying down; he didn't want to leave her for too long, especially in this forest. Everything was thankfully just as he left it. 

"Now, how do you set up camp here?" He wondered, especially when he was navigating primarily by sound. Though the pixie was providing a bit of light for themself. "I don't suppose you have a place around here?" He said jokingly. 

Safesafesafe They bobbed up and down before grabbing the edge of Alex's hoodie belt and trying to drag him in some direction. Treetreetree

Ah, a tree, that made sense. If the pixie lived there then it was probably a bit safer than in the middle of a random clearing. "Give me a sec," Alex hefted Mai into his arms again. "Guess we're staying next to a tree tonight." He followed the glowing little bug-person into the distance.