Interactive Fiction

  • Halloween 2024 IF,  Interactive Fiction

    Halloween I.F. – “Something Rich and Strange” – Day 25

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    Maybe they could negotiate with her. Knowing that she was tracking them by sound, Star shifted away from the group a little and raised his voice: “Hey! We’ll do everything we can to retrieve your skin if you just let us go. Besides, won’t the Lindwyrm be furious if you hurt an ally?”

    Pain blossomed in his leg, and he yanked the bone peg out before he could even remember that it was sometimes better to leave a dagger in the wound to keep it plugged. Well, whatever, he thought to himself as he staggered a few steps to the side, making himself keep moving so he wouldn’t be as good a target. He had bread. That’d probably fix this, right? 

    “It’s no good,” she called out in answer. “I’m caught between a rock and a hard place, aren’t I? The demon lord can treat me to something worse than death, the Lindwyrm won’t easily forgive that I’ve gone after your group right after he made a deal, and you all might kill me if I surrendered.” She sounded bitter, miserable, but also unyielding.

    An arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him sideways; it was Dandelion, blood dripping down his arm, leaving a silvery smear against Star’s stomach. “What’s going on?” he whispered. “You know where her skin is?”

    Another peg came flying; this one bounced off a shield that Viv threw up, frantically trying to split her attention between the truck and her friends. She’d managed to get Caoimhe out of the truck and had clearly turned just in time. 

    “I was told that a demon has Éabha’s skin,” Star whispered back to Dandelion. “I assume it’s the one who’s after you.”

    “Yes, that one’s after your lord there,” Éabha called from the stacks. “Not that your lord must care about the plight of the host of fairies such as ourselves, hm? I have no choice but to do this, but don’t underestimate me because of it.”

    Dandelion made a face against the accusation, but didn’t respond verbally, jerking his head toward the stacks, a clear, What do you want to do?

    Star let out a careful, quiet breath and leaned up to murmur into Dandelion’s ear, soft as he could. “Can you lead her astray? Trap her? Maybe we can use her tracking by sound to our advantage.”

    A nod at that, almost grim, and Dandelion stood, drawing his sword out of the air like a flower blossoming, unfurling into his hand. He ignored his own trickling blood—what a fortune witches would pay for it, Star thought near-hysterically—and approached the stacks on the balls of his feet, moving cat-silent. 

    His voice called out from the wrong side of the stacks: “We could help you. Get your skin. Free you.”

    A peg flew off after it, marking her position, and Dandelion lunged forward. The thrust of his sword at the stacks was accompanied with a gust of wind; he cut through several supports, and the iron beams of the shelving collapsed to the side with a horrendous crash. Éabha let out a cry, somewhere in the maze.

    It might block their path back—but he had faith in Dandelion not to make that error.

    Star forced himself to tear his gaze away from the compelling, beautiful sight of a bloody Dandelion dancing with his sword, voices and sounds echoing around where they ought not to be with the power of his illusions.

    His abilities were needed elsewhere, so he ran as quietly as he could over to Viv. She was working on the second truck door, sawing at it with a focused magic light that seemed to be some kind of laser. It broke open just as Star arrived, and he watched with bated breath as she hauled the rolling doors up, only to reveal that that truck was empty.

    “One more,” she promised him, soft, and he ran to the third truck before she could even hop off the tail and join him. It stung as he lifted the lock, his fingers blistering and a sense of revulsion washing over him, but he didn’t want to waste any more time to get Adrien out.

    The lock popped open, and Viv was there to help detach it from the door and haul that door up too. This one wasn’t empty—but it wasn’t Adrien back there.

    It took Star a moment to parse what he was seeing: a bunch of people, barely active, knocked out or drained. They made an odd group; it was a couple of imps, a succubus wearing some kind of cocktail dress, a beithir-nimh, and two thin, undead people who stank of the courts and of the abyss both. These last two Star realized must be sluagh: unforgiven dead who had been claimed by the fairies, then offered up to the demons as tithe. 

    But why were they there? They weren’t bound in iron as Caoimhe had been, and they were certainly nobody that would be a reasonable hostage. Plus, almost all of them were demons or tied to demons. His gaze, searching over them, saw a key ring on the belt of one of the imps, and he realized that these must be the remaining warehouse guards.

    “What the fuck,” he whispered, the sound almost fully covered by the crashing of the shelves and another wail from Éabha. He made confused eye contact with Viv, then gestured for her to roll the truck door back down. Without knowing for sure why they were there, he wasn’t willing to let them out.

    There were no more trucks in the bay, and no sign of Adrien. Viv shoved the rolling door down and tossed another shield up as that sound drew a bone pin their way, then hauled Star close to whisper to him. “Maybe in the offices after all? It was Éabha who said there was nobody else there…”

    That didn’t track with using the trucks for the three hostages, but he had no other explanation. They turned to try to sneak past the horrible mess Dandelion was making of the shelves, only to see Miette, of all people to randomly show up, dragging Adrien toward them from the direction of the offices. “A little help here?” Miette called out, then yelped as a bone peg flew their way.

    Confused, Star dashed over, going to scoop Adrien out of the cat-sìth’s arms and yelping as the iron bands around Adrien’s wrists almost touched him. There was another huge crash, and he glanced back to see that Dandelion had collapsed another shelving unit; the fallen ones now formed a huge, near-complete circle; if he led Éabha there successfully, one more would surround her in a circle of iron. 

    Star buried his face in Adrien’s neck for a moment, huffing; his sweat was a familiar smell, but it was twinged with fear and pain, and he hated it, hated feeling it on his friend, his sometimes-lover, his herd-mate. “Fuck,” Star muttered. “Viv, can you use that laser magic on his handcuffs?”

    “I’ll try,” she said, as Star lowered Adrien. 

    He rose again to look at Miette, whose tails were lashing, ears pinned as they watched Dandelion circle the disaster he was making, illusions calling out and taunting from different angles. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Star demanded. “Are you with them?”

    Miette shook themself, looking back at Star with their pupils barely just slits. “No,” they hissed immediately. “I thought it was super suspicious that sketchy Éabha had left the Lindwyrm’s right after your boss and you all showed up for refuge. I followed her, and overheard a plan to go after Dandelion’s underlings. Did not much like that, so I checked out Adrien’s social media—easy to find a band member’s socials, did you know that?—and joined the party he was at. He was dragged off by a succubus, and then she clapped him in iron. Followed them here and got him out of the truck. I’ve been spending a while taking all the guards out and piling them in there.”

    “The guards??” Star asked, glancing back at the truck. Miette had done that?

    Tails lashing, Miette said, “Why do you think there weren’t any here?? But then Éabha showed up with the elverpigen, and I had to hide and stay silent. She’s too fucking good at tracking by sound. Then when I heard all the ruckus out here, I figured it was my chance to get Adrien out of here, get free, and be declared a hero and all that.”

    As if to punctuate her sentence, another shelving unit came crashing down. A moment later,  Éabha let out a wail. It was so loud and so desperate that Star thought for a moment she’d been pinned under the iron, but as he and Miette came closer, he realized it must simply be a reaction to realizing that she’d been trapped. She sat with her harp, now emptied of pins, surrounded by a ring of bent iron shelving, boxes everywhere; she was bruised and bloodied, and dirt and dust streaked her face and clothing. Dandelion, too, was not unharmed; he had several more injuries and his outfit was liberally spotted with silver, a few pools of powerful blood dotting the area in the semi-circle he’d been moving in while cornering the selkie.

    “Just kill me,” Éabha sobbed, voice rough, hugging her harp to herself with a desperate helplessness. “What the demon’ll do to me is worse than death, and it’s not like you’ll win if you take them on.”

    “No bartering for your freedom at all?” Dandelion murmured, standing straight despite his injuries.

    “And what then? Would you speak for me to the Lindwyrm and ask him to continue hiding and protecting me?” Éabha said grimly. “Just kill me.”

    Dandelion glanced aside at Adrien and Caoimhe, laid out on the floor with Viv bent over them, trying to remove their bonds, at Miette with a raised brow, then met Star’s gaze. “Your thoughts?”

    It felt bad to kill a crying captive. And even if they were going to, surely they should have some questions for her first…?

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  • Halloween 2024 IF,  Interactive Fiction

    Halloween I.F. – “Something Rich and Strange” – Day 24

    [ Please read the instructions before commenting! ] 

    “Wait here,” Dandelion said, moving to step out. 

    Grabbing at his sleeve, Star hissed frantically, “What are you doing?” 

    Dandelion blinked at him, eyes swimming in mercury. “Perimeter check,” he murmured. “I’ll see if I can get a sense of the best way in. I’ll stay well out of their reach and keep from being seen. Let go.”

    Star’s fingers uncurled without any input from him. “Be safe,” he murmured instead, pulling himself and Viv more firmly back into the alley as Dandelion ghosted out, flickering out of visibility even to Star. He didn’t love it—not when Dandelion was the one these guys wanted—but Dandelion had decided and, besides, it was true that he’d be the best at it. 

    To pass the agonizing wait, he closed his eyes and did a quick assessment of what their capabilities were as a group.

    Viv’s primary ability was divination, obviously, but she could identify magics okay. She tended to have more access to her powers at night thanks to her bond to Thysania, but that wasn’t going to help them right now. Might as well bring her, Star decided. She knew shielding and light magic well, and Star recalled that last year she’d studied some basic attack spells. Who knew what they were or if she could actually use them? But hell, better something than nothing, and given Viv’s personality, if they went in and didn’t come out, she’d go in after them anyway. Might as well stick together instead.

    Dandelion could do a lot of things, though mostly to humans and other fairies. Technically, he could command lower fae, but given that he was an exile, fairies who weren’t sworn to him had a loophole out of it. Still, he, Adrien, and Caoihme had sworn to him, so if any of them had been brainwashed to turn them against Dandelion, he could likely still command them to act under his orders. He was great at swordplay, and kept his own magical sword on his person, so he would come in handy if stealth failed and they needed to get into combat. He was also amazing with illusions, not just glamour. And he could enchant humans, but he needed music to do that.

    That only left Star himself. He could do buffs and debuffs on himself and others, but not quietly; he, too, needed music to activate it. He could kick. And, if he were in horse form, he could stick someone to his body. Maybe okay for extraction, though he wasn’t sure a horse would be very manoeuvrable inside a warehouse.

    Then, if they got hold of Adrien and Caoimhe and both were well enough to fight—something that he had to admit seemed implausible—they’d have a strong brawler and a master at leading others astray. They couldn’t rely on either of those things right now, though.

    It wasn’t a lot, resource wise. Still. It was a good enough team for infiltration, especially when the enemy had no reason to think you’d already be there, and hopefully it wouldn’t come to a fight. 

    He started as Dandelion suddenly appeared next to them as if he’d been there the whole time, biting back on a curse. Viv actually jumped with a squeak. “None of the doors are guarded visibly from the outside,” Dandelion reported. “The front door has some pretty strong magics on it. I wasn’t willing to test them. Probably wouldn’t blow us up, not if they’re expecting to bring hostages in through there, but I mislike it. The back loading area has a number of trucks already hooked up to the doors to unload, and a few empty ones, but all the doors back there are iron. It wouldn’t serve us well to enter them. Side door’s the one I feel best about. It does have a warding spell on it—I’m confident it’s a simple ward-and-alert if broken spell. We could simply go through and move fast, or we could try to remove it.”

    “You could leave that one to me,” Viv whispered. “I’ve taken a few of those down.”

    Dandelion lifted his brows at her. “What’ve you been breaking into, exactly?”

    “Hey, what Thys and I do on date night is our business.”

    Star snorted a laugh, relaxing a little. If their resident neurotic witch felt okay with joking around, things surely couldn’t be that bad. “What about any other entry points? Air ducts? Sewage?”

    “I just don’t think it’s worth it,” Dandelion said, a slightly prim edge in his voice. “I’m not confident banging around in metal ducts would be subtle, and… I mean… without time to research a sewage map, would we even know how to get in? Plus. Manhole covers.”

    “More iron,” Star agreed. “Side door it is. Let’s try to move fast. The longer we take, the more likely it is they’ll expect me to arrive as a hostage, and get set up to try to ransom us off or whatever they meant to do.”

    Dandelion wrapped glamour around the three of them again, an encouragement to simply pass like leaves in the wind, and slid his arms around them both, leading them quickly around the corner and up the street to the warehouse. There, as Star had previously seen, was a side door at the top of some concrete stairs, with a metal railing next to them that he very carefully kept from touching. 

    Viv ducked forward to examine the door, spitting into her hand and starting to trace patterns around the knob with her fingertips. Star tried to breathe slowly and deeply, straining to hear any sounds.

    After a moment, Viv made a gesture like a kindergarten teacher trying to silence an unruly class, pressing down and on the knob at the same time. The door slowly swung open, casting late afternoon autumn light into the building. 

    It opened into a maze: tall shelving units as far as the eye could see, from the floor to the ceiling a good twenty feet up, and almost entirely filled with boxes. Star tried to think of any other warehouses he’d been in, and realized that was simply not a type of place he spent a lot of time. Instead, he thought of the tabletop RPGs he’d run before, envisioning Shadowrun-style map layouts.

    A bit uncertainly, he whispered, “It should be mostly shelves like this. Warehouses are for storage, after all. Then to the right, based on where the back of the building is, it should be the loading and unloading area. That’ll be wider open, so people can get things off the trucks. Opposite side from the shelving I bet has some enclosed offices.”

    “Offices sounds like a good place to keep hostages,” Dandelion whispered, then abruptly paused, head cocking. “Hear that?”

    Star did; it was just loud enough that he imagined even Viv could with her weaker human ears. Harp music, mournful and longing, slightly muffled. “Do you think the others are with the player?” Star whispered to Dandelion.”

    He grimaced. “I can’t tell. It’s not that precise. I can sense that they’re in the building with us, but not the specifics. It makes sense that they’d be kept all together, though,” he added, still soft, barely speaking above a whisper. “Follow the sound, and let’s hope we find all of them.”

    They passed through some shelving, winding around and trying to follow the music. It wasn’t easy. The shelves were a tangle that surely made sense if you were used to the organizational system, but for new arrivals like Star, they were a confusing maze that couldn’t be seen around and were impassable the straight way due to the shelving being almost entirely iron. Still, they didn’t have a choice but to navigate it, given that the side door had tossed them right into it. The music at least gave them a direction. 

    Finally, they emerged at the edge of the horrible shelving maze. Star looked around, seeing forklifts against one wall and some large open boxes around here and there. To their right, sure enough, Star could see the loading and unloading area. Most of the docks were shuttered in iron, but three of them were hooked up to trucks, the closed truck rear doors visible instead of the shutters. And right across from them were four different rooms built into the back wall, unpleasant plywood and plaster things, with darkened, one-way windows. The offices.

    The harp music was clearly coming from one of the offices, the second in from the left, and the group darted across the open flooring area to it, gathering around the door. Viv touched the door and whispered, “No ward here.” She tried to turn the knob, but no, it was locked.

    If the hostages were otherwise incapacitated, that’d be enough to keep them in. Nothing to do but get through. Star reached into his hair and pulled out some lockpicks.

    Dandelion lifted his brows at Star. “You too?”

    Star shrugged back. “I don’t ask you about your illegal hobbies,” he whispered to him, leaning in and working on the knob.

    The lock clicked after a sweaty ten seconds, and he shook himself, trying to rid himself of his nerves. He closed his hand around the knob and slowly turned it.

    He wasn’t sure what he was imagining—magic circles locking them in, iron manacles, a bunch of thugs with guns ready to fire like this was an action movie—but instead, Éabha, the blind selkie from the Lindwyrm’s, lifted her head. “Is someone there?” she half-whispered, her hands stilling on her bone harp.

    For a second, Star hesitated. It was mostly shock, but given that Dandelion had gone to the Lindwyrm for help in Star’s name, it seemed like maybe they’d captured one of his people to get to Dandelion that way. “Éabha?” he said. “It’s me. The nixie from the Lindwyrm’s earlier. Do you… are you in need of rescue?”

    Her blind eyes passed over the doorway, where, thanks to the glamour, she wouldn’t have been able to spot them even if she were capable of sight. “Yes,” she said at once. “I was—I got in trouble, and I called an old friend for help. They seemed even more eager to grab her than me. She’s called Caoimhe. She’s an elverpigen. Do you know her?”

    “And how,” Star said, head spinning. 

    “Do you know this selkie?” Dandelion murmured to Star uneasily.

    “She was at the Lindwyrm’s,” Star murmured back. He looked around the room; it was a simple office, but to someone blind and lost, it might as well be a cage at the bottom of the ocean. Even if she got through the locked office door, she’d be in the middle of a warehouse that was full of iron booby traps, with the front door warded to hell and back and the side door in the middle of an iron maze. “Do you know where the other hostages are?”

    “I don’t,” she said. “I heard something from our captors, though. Something about locking them in the iron trucks to keep them docile? I think I’m the only one they tossed in the offices. I’m not sure why. I haven’t heard anything around me for a while, though.”

    Shit. That made sense. Three trucks, three of Dandelion’s sworn people to keep in iron. Any additional hostages would be put elsewhere. “Okay, great,” Star said. “We’ll get you out of here. Follow close behind us.”

    “Of course. I can hear your steps.” She re-slung her harp on her back, and fell in with the group, pressing close behind.

    He nodded to the other two, who solemnly nodded back. They’d known there might be other hostages; at least this way, they had a clue to where they could find Adrien and Caoimhe. 

    The trucks, then. They carefully exited the office, with Star pulling the door shut behind himself so that it would at least look like it hadn’t been disturbed. Even knowing the glamour was up, the group hurried across the wide-open receiving area to where the trucks were seen to be hooked up.

    Viv gestured the fairies back; the trucks were iron, after all. She knocked lightly on the first truck and heard a faint groan.

    “In here,” she said, frowning at the lock. “Star, can you pick it if I hold the lock?”

    This close, the iron felt nauseating. Star couldn’t imagine being surrounded by it. He just nodded. “The rear doors are iron. The lock itself is probably steel, but might have enough iron folded in that I can’t touch it. Hold it still and I’ll try my best.”

    Fortunately, it was a ForemanLock, one of the easiest to pick. A few wiggles and it was cracking open. Viv slid it off the latch and hauled the rolling door upward.

    Caoimhe was inside. She was clapped in iron as well as surrounded by it, wrists and ankles bound, her hollow back visible from how she was forced to bend. She groaned again, lifting her head. “…Look out…”

    “We have you,” Viv said reassuringly. “Here, shit, we’ll have to get those off you, but let’s get you out of the truck first…”

    Dandelion was moving forward, half climbing in despite the iron. Star reached for him to pull him back, but before he could, Dandelion’s shoulder blossomed in a spray of silvery blood.

    Somehow, Dandelion only gasped, stumbling, catching himself on the iron step with a sickening sound, then swaying himself back upright to jolt away from the iron, which must have hurt worse than the injury. He reached back to his shoulder, and Star lunged forward to grab whatever had pierced him.

    It was a bone, sharpened at one tip. 

    “Look out,” Caoimhe said again, soft, dazed. “She betrayed me.”

    Star flung himself and Dandelion to the hard cement ground as soon as he heard that, seeing another bone go whistling through the space where they’d just been, skittering along the inside of the truck. Viv let out a loud yelp, throwing herself into the truck for safety. Star pushed himself up just in time to see Éabha stepping into the maze of shelving, vanishing into the darkness.

    “What the fuck,” he gasped, then jolted away again as another bone shiv came flying out of the shelving. This one he got a good look at as it embedded itself into the box next to his face: a tuning peg for the harp.

    She might not be able to see them, but she could hear them, track them by sound. 

    They had to get Caoimhe and Adrien out of here before she could get them, or take her out—which would involve following her into a maze of shelves she clearly actually did know better than they did. Either way, the door they’d come through was in there, so they’d have to deal with her sooner rather than later. 

    How the fuck, Star thought dazedly, were they supposed to do that?

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  • Halloween 2024 IF,  Interactive Fiction

    Halloween I.F. – “Something Rich and Strange” – Day 22

    [ Please read the instructions before commenting! ] 

    Star closed his eyes, drawing deep breaths and trying to think through what the best next steps were. Vayne had said that it had sounded like there were other hostages, so with Caoimhe out of touch, he had to assume that she and her friend who’d needed help had both been captured. 

    At the same time, the only people who would be particularly worthwhile hostages against Dandelion were people who were important to Dandelion himself. There were others who Dandelion associated with, of course, friends and colleagues, and he was a decent person who’d probably try to help others if he could. But given that they’d tried to go for Star directly, he had to assume that they were going for the people in Dandelion’s inner circle: so, the band, the only people Dandelion had regularly associated with over centuries.

    It made sense, especially if you were thinking of it from a crueller perspective. He, Adrien, and Caoimhe were Dandelion’s vassals, sworn to him, and so he was also sworn to them in a way that he wasn’t sworn to any friends or family. Sídhe nobles were dangerous at best, so someone who did not know Dandelion would approach him with the assumption he was heartless behind his affable facade. Appealing to his heartstrings wouldn’t be the smart approach. Appealing to his oath as liege lord to the few people he’d gathered to his side after exile, that was practical.

    Even if the enemy might have known his desire to intervene in the tithe hundreds of years to, that didn’t mean they’d assume he was a pushover. There could be many reasons to do so beyond simply trying to protect human souls: political instability, a desire for war, a desire to recruit those humans behind his own banner, who knows what they’d have thought. They might not have put it down to a soft heart.

    So the people who were for sure at risk were Star himself (as he’d discovered), Caoimhe, and Adrien.

    So. Yeah. Caoimhe’s lack of contact almost certainly meant she’d been captured. Star clenched his fists and released them against the anger he felt building. That was his companion, his fellow vassal, a sometimes-lover and always-friend. Calling her his sister wasn’t right, under the circumstances… but they were both people who were in the same position willingly and happily, so she was some kind of kin regardless. She was his, in a way, the same way he was hers.

    Then, rescuing her had to come before any of his other hopes or plans. Star stepped into a nearby convenience store and drifted into the back corner where he was unlikely to be seen, quickly running through his options as to who to bring in to help save her.

    Dom? Dom did want to help, but Dom could also be a hostage against Star’s compliance, and he didn’t have the advantage of knowing the warehouse as he would the track clubhouse. No, if he were to ask for Dom’s aid, it should be for the assault on their actual HQ.

    Georgio? If what Vayne had said was true, and Star saw no reason to doubt it under the circumstances, Georgio was at least a few hours away from being able to get back here, and Star didn’t think they could afford the time. And it didn’t seem possible Georgio could be used as a hostage against Dandelion, given that the two didn’t even know each other, so there was little point calling him out here where he might get used against Star instead.

    Besides, he wasn’t sure what benefit Georgio would be on a practical level. He was strong, yes, but in a best case scenario they’d be in and out of the warehouse with the hostages and not have to end up fighting anyone. If he brought Georgio it would have to be a fight. Georgio wasn’t exactly quiet. Still, he figured he’d at least call the stables to make sure the Manotaur was actually safe. Hopefully he could get him back for tomorrow, just in case, but he couldn’t wait on his plans to do it now. He put Georgio to the side and went back to running through the other people involved.

    Viv? Viv was a good idea, actually. She wasn’t the strongest witch, and her wife would kill Star if Viv got hurt or worse, which was its own danger. But she could identify spells as well as any witch and that might be clutch by itself. He wanted to know what was up with the halter.

    And of course, that left Dandelion and Adrien. Dandelion would insist on going, and Adrien would too, and Adrien was nearly as good as Georgio in a brawl. They were also Caoimhe’s band, so it had to be them.

    Grimly decided, he texted those three about his suspicions on what had happened to Caoimhe, asking them to meet him down here. The sooner they could sneak into the warehouse, the better.

    Star received immediate positive answers from Dandelion and Viv, but none from Adrien, though that wasn’t uncommon, as he often turned his phone off during hookups. Star didn’t like it, but he wasn’t going to jump to conclusions just yet.

    And then he waited.

    Waiting was the hard part. He called the stables and confirmed Georgio was there, and asked for him to be transferred back tomorrow, which of course the stables said they couldn’t do without permission, and he told them to ask Georgio himself for permission, then hung up. Then, he bought himself some jerky and ate it between two pieces of magic bread like a sandwich, and was relieved when only a half hour later, Vivian and Dandelion showed up—they’d apparently traveled together, which was a relief. Strength in numbers, and all that.

    “Any word from Adrien?” Star asked as they approached him.

    Viv shook her head, and Dandelion frowned, folding his delicate fingers together. “No, but—”

    “But?” That hesitance was something Star was familiar with, a desire to protect his people and shoulder things himself. He was sure a prompt would break through it, and he was right.

    “—Well, you know that I’m able to sense what direction my people are in. A rough, if not precise, idea of their location that gets sharper the closer we get,” Dandelion said, unhappily.

    Star groaned, tossing his head. “He’s the same direction as Caoimhe, isn’t he?”

    “Yes,” Dandelion said, almost an exhalation. 

    Shit. Well. Fuck. That sense of anxiety tightened around Star’s throat, tighter than any lead line could be. “This doesn’t change anything,” he said. He stepped out of the shop, beginning to walk downhill. “Our plans don’t change if it’s two people instead of one. Let’s scope the place out, at least. The warehouse should be just down this way. Is it the same direction as you feel them in?”

    Dandelion closed his eyes. “…Yes.”

    “Great! Cool. Well, I was going to have to check there anyway, right?!” Star muttered, throwing his hands up. “Here, Viv, take this.” He handed her the halter—albeit with a moment’s hesitation, but there was nothing in Viv’s personality to say she’d use it against him and, besides, again, her wife wouldn’t look on it happily if she did. “What’s it do besides the obvious?”

    Viv let out a hiss of breath. “Uh, let’s see.” She mumbled at the rope a bit, frowning, and then glanced back over. “Well, it’s got a love spell.”

    “A WHAT?”

    “Devotion, at least,” Viv said dubiously. “I guess, since it’s a halter, maybe call it domestication or taming… You’d be forced to be enslaved normally by having the halter put on at all, but with something like this on, you wouldn’t look for a way out. You’d want to be his tame horse and delight in serving him.”

    Star swore. “That fucker, Vayne—”

    Dandelion reached out and took the rope halter from Vivian, closing his fist around it. Silvery vines climbed it, burning it away; it crumbled away into dust in his hand. He shook his palm in the air to dislodge the last of the ash and looked back at Star with mercury-shifting eyes that seemed far too placid for the show he’d just made. “Vayne may not have known about it, from what you said,” Dandelion said thoughtfully. “But I will find out, and I won’t overlook it if he did.”

    Viv waved a vaguely placating hand. “You’re getting all murdery awfully early. Honestly, I suspect Enemy Number One had cast it so that the halter could get handed over to them after getting Vayne to bring Star there. Or, if nothing else, with Vayne under their control, they were going to use Vayne as the method of controlling Star. Not that Vayne was horny for him.”

    “Hate that anyway! Don’t like it,” Star ground out. He shook himself, clothes dissolving into fairy matter and shifting them into the place where he kept his other belongings. One source of agitation removed, he stomped down the sidewalk in only a speedo.

    “I, wh, yuh?” Viv said. “Did you have to—why is getting naked a response to this—”

    It makes me feel better,” Star snapped, and forced himself to draw a deep breath. Viv wasn’t responsible for any of this. “I’m glad you could identify the spell. Now we have another concerning thing to worry about them doing to me.”

    “Mm, not just you,” Dandelion said. “As an elverpigen, Caoimhe can be forced into marriage likewise and will love the one she’s wed, and Adrien…”

    With a groan, Star completed the thought. “Adrien’s leadable by his dick, yeah. All three of us have natures that put us under someone’s control, and make us susceptible to a spell meant to function alongside that.”

    “Because you’re all fairies, or…well, a satyr, you’re all weak to things that force you into love and devotion,” Viv said, a bit breathless from their quick pace downhill. Viv would know, of course. She’d been accidentally wed after helping a leannán sídhe, and she hadn’t even realized it until they’d been married, what, a few days? “Though with Star, the ‘enslaving’ element is from an item, the bridle or halter, while with the others, it’s tied to actions. The halter can be transferred, but actions can’t. So it’s likely that the others haven’t had the spell cast on them yet.”

    Star ground his teeth. “I bet their plan was to show it off with me and hold it over the other two as a threat.”

    “I think,” Dandelion said softly, “getting there quickly has become even more urgent.”

    They couldn’t move faster than they were, though, and even so the ground was flowing underfoot in a way that made Star suspect that Dandelion was spending some of his power to make distance go a bit more quickly. Maybe not for the best, not without weakening him, but Star wasn’t going to tell Dandelion what to do. He reached out and took Dandelion’s hand. “Did you recognize the description I sent?” he asked, only half to distract him. “Of the abyssal, I mean.”

    “It sounds like if it’s a demon, he’s either in a human disguise that’s starting to wear off, or he’s possessing someone and their body is giving way,” Dandelion said. “With the cracks and something looking out from the outside. I mean, even in the Valley a powerful demon would stand out and be harder to cast some kind of obfuscation on.”

    Yeah, magic was theoretically easier if it worked with something rather than against it. Star said, “Dandelion, you didn’t actually answer.”

    Dandelion chewed briefly on his lower lip with pearl teeth. “…If it were any of those three, it’d be Ramullin of the Wastes. Cracks and heat are both what I’d think of with the Wastes. But I don’t want to say it’s certainly them. It could be someone else.”

    It could be, though the motive would be lacking. Then again, Ramullin’s own motive didn’t seem the most solid, either—of the three demons who had tormented Dandelion, only Ferthur had missed the chance to torture him at all. Ramullin and Naeri had succeeded at it, if only for one night each. But of course, then, he didn’t know how the tithe getting ruined had looked politically for each of the demons, or if it affected one of them more than others.

    He abruptly began paying attention to where they were again and gestured the other two to a halt. “We’re here. The warehouse should be just over there.

    Dandelion’s glamour slipped over the group before Star could say anything else. It would be most effective against humans, at least if they hadn’t somehow discovered one of the ways to see through glamours, but it wasn’t ineffective against other fairies or abyssals, either, depending on if they were stronger or weaker than Dandelion. It was definitely stronger than Star’s own glamour. 

    Still, Star shuffled into a side street quickly, beckoning the others to do the same. Never hurt to plan for the just-in-case. “Okay, how’s it looking?” he asked, as Dandelion peeked out. 

    “Caoimhe and Adrien are definitely in there somewhere,” Dandelion said grimly. “I can feel them. I can’t speak to anyone else, as none others have offered me their life to do with as I would.”

    The next step would be getting in, finding the other two’s exact locations, freeing them, and getting out—hopefully before they got caught. “What about entrances, though?”

    “I see a front entrance, an entrance on the side facing us, and…” Dandelion hesitated. “There seems to be a parking lot behind it, so probably a back entrance, though I can’t confirm that.”

    Star nodded. So, he should try to figure out what was theoretically the best entrance to go into off almost no information, and also if they should leave Viv out here or take her in too.

    “Also,” Dandelion said, a little quizzical, “I hear harp music? Maybe another captive occupying themselves, or a musically-inclined captor? Or perhaps someone just playing nearby, but…”

    Right, Star reminded himself. There might be more captives than just Caoimhe and Adrien, and there might be more people involved than just the two he knew about. That was also worth considering.

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