The Innkeeper

1058 Cruising through the lands

It almost felt like from the moment he had arrived at the Midnight realm, Lex was being inundated by information. It was not the worst fate to suffer in the world. But it did keep him humble. After all, with his recent level up into the Nascent realm, he felt like his mind had grown tremendously.

He harbored no excessive pride about it. After all, to him it was just a fact. So then being continuously put in situations where his new level up, which was beyond anything he had ever experienced before, was repeatedly proven to be insufficient was a nice way of reminding him that there were stronger beings than him in the universe.

He honestly preferred such humbling methods to being chased across the forest by wolves, or running into random beings so powerful he did not even understand the scale of their power.

He also learned that, when such a situation occurred, a part of his mind automatically shielded itself just enough to keep his fairy clone operating normally. Otherwise, it too would have been dropped into a stunned state.

Since he did not know what to expect, he had his clone park the Jolly Rancher, but now it seemed unnecessary. So, while baby Lex was suffering from a massive information dump, fairy Lex flapped his wings and brought his ship back into the air.

He hadn't absorbed the entire tree into his ship, but the Jolly Rancher was strong enough as it was, and he felt bored. Instead of sitting around, which his other half was doing, he wanted to explore, so that's exactly what he did.

The Jolly Rancher was only two feet (60 cm) in length, so in the Midnight realm, it was absolutely tiny, and unnoticeable as it flew through the skies.

For the first day, Lex just enjoyed flying through the wilderness, watching nature and the natural order from his ship up in the air, but on the second day, he decided to get closer.

He had reached a grassland now, with grass that rose at nearly five feet (1.5 meters) high, so he brought the ship to just above the grass, giving the illusion that it was sailing through the field of green.

A natural consequence of coming down was that he attracted the attention of the local wildlife. A leopard which had been using the grass as cover leaped out of it with speed that should have been beyond his level, and tried to take the ship down.

Naturally, it failed. Although fairy Lex was not physically strong, its control over spiritual energy had grown tremendously. Moreover, he did not need techniques. He just had to think about how he wanted to use the energy for.

So, he just conjured large hands in the air, scooped the leopard, and then flung it far across the grasslands. Hopefully, it would learn its lesson.

A few other animals attacked the ship, but for the most part, Lex took on the role of an observer. He felt like he was in an African safari as he watched the various animals interacting with each other, whether it was hunting one another or cooperating to resolve certain issues.

He also came across a tribe of garden gnomes. It felt strange coming from a fairy, but their small stature made them seem incredibly cute, which when paired with the fact that their voices were either exceptionally deep or incredibly high pitched, made for quite the sight.

They were fierce warriors, despite all appearances, and were in the midst of a war with their age-old nemesis, the sentient strawberries.

The battlefield was brutal and covered in red, blood indistinguishable from strawberry juice, which Lex supposed was also just blood in this context.

He stopped for a time in their village, discovering that they were quite hospitable to anything that wasn't a berry. They were just as intrigued by him as he was by them, which is why he decided to spend a day with them.

It had been a really long time since Lex just sat around and chilled with a group of friends, which is exactly what it felt like as he quickly gained the friendship of the gnomes.

They shared drinks, and as Lex chugged a mint margarita from a glass as big as his body, they exchanged stories of the various fights and desperate situations they had been in.

For some reason, watching the sparkle and wonder in their eyes, Lex almost felt like it was worth constantly suffering from exploding volcanoes just for the stories.

The gnomes, too, shared epic tales of surviving the fiercest gauntlet in the lands, the fruit salad. Despite its oddly appealing name, it was anything but fresh and refreshing. It was a naturally formed prison, which happened to also be where the strawberry tribes were. Apparently, there were other, more ferocious champions there as well.

But while it obviously screamed of danger, it was also the location of the Pink Loch, which was a lake formed of some liquid which had incredible properties, and helped with gnomish cultivation.

After spending a day with the gnomes, even though Lex felt a slight urge to stay longer, he decided to move on. There was still much to see.

He moved on from the grasslands, and arrived at a biome that he felt was unique. There was a river snaking the land, but then suddenly started flowing upwards into the air, without dispersing. Strange trees grew under the river that flowed through the air, and Lex noticed that the gently flowing waters actually contained submarines!

They were not made of metal, or technology. Instead, it seemed like a combination of dirt and bark mixed together to form long vessels which flowed in the water, following its randomly veering path.

A quick scan revealed that inside the submarines were actually termites, who were lying dormant as they traveled.

It was strange that they were ignoring the trees down below, and instead traveling through the river that constantly changed its path as it wished, so Lex actually brought his ship down from the river to investigate.

A chill went through his body as he neared the trees, and he suddenly realized that the trees were not actually there. Instead, they were just images, or illusions of trees. It was like a memory of what once existed here.

Lex investigated the images some more with his spirit sense and then discovered something interesting. These weren't strictly images, they were ghosts!

He was not sure if each individual tree was a ghost, or this was just one massive ghost of a forest that once existed, but he could tell that the trees here had suffered a tremendous slaughter, and left behind such a resentment, that even the flowing waters refused to flow through the lands.

Lex wondered if it was the termites that did the slaughtering, or something else. But there was no answer for him there. No matter how he searched, he could learn nothing more, so eventually, he was forced to move on.

That's when he first encountered a region of total darkness. It wasn't that there weren't any burning orbs in the sky, there were, but the light from them could not enter the region. It was as if there was a blanket around it that blocked out specifically just the light from those orbs and nothing else.

Naturally, Lex had to investigate. The Jolly Rancher flew directly into the darkness, unimpeded as it went. The dark region was not devoid of life, and instead, featured a rich ecosystem with a completely diverse set of creatures.

There were insects, birds, animals and other things that all thrived in the darkness. Among them all, surprisingly, Lex found a human settlement! It was illuminated by torches, and gave off a cozy vibe, rather than the dreary one Lex would have expected.

It was strange for them to choose to live in the darkness, though. Naturally, his ever present curiosity meant that Lex wanted to investigate, but this time he would have to be more discrete. He parked the Jolly Rancher in a natural cave that he discovered, then walked out. One problem with being a fairy was that it wasn't discrete. His fairy dust glowed very visibly in the dark, so if he were to fly he would be spotted immediately. Yet if he walked, he wouldn't get far. It also wasn't conducive to staying hidden.

So Lex naturally concluded that the first order of business was to get a mount, and he had spotted a particular creature on the way that would be perfect for the job. Carefully, and quietly, Lex snuck through the darkness until he reached a forest.

Lex didn't question how the trees grew without light. Instead, he just searched the branches for the mount he had selected, and then quickly found one.

There, nestled on one of the branches, stood a baby owl, its wide eyes searching the forest for prey. It was the perfect size to serve as fairy Lex's mount, so he began to climb the tree, doing his best not to get spotted as he approached.