OH! My Lady |FAIRVERSE Book - 2|

Chapter • 42

LABYRINTH OF ARCADIA. (PART - II)

When Gilbert saw it, he knew why knight Ronald had lost his consciousness.

This magical flower’s magic coercion was too potent for non-magic personals to bare. Even for people who could use and abuse magic, its magical aura was too overwhelming, as if it could become a poisonous overload if people approached it carelessly. 

Just now, the knight was just a bit closer to it, so no wonder he fainted and nothing too drastic happened to him. Gilbert eyed the blood red flower with caution as he soon discovered that this place was not like the other safe places of fire seelies. There was an unnatural aura surrounding it, no monsters invaded nor there were any other seelies found in this place. Normally, fire seelie safe shelters would consist of at least a dozen or so seelies, for there were not many such clearings in this gloomy cold labyrinth. However here, they only found this one seelie who stayed in the seelie hollow with the strange magical flower most of the time.   

What was even weirder was that, plant monsters still lingered in the periphery of this clearing, and they would howl and look at the few people in the clearing as if they wanted to tear them apart and digest them into their stomachs from time to time, but the plant monsters would not dare to step into this particular clearing, as if they were afraid of something, as if something was oppressing them, and impeding their steps into this place.

Now, one must know that, gloom loving plants like those monster plants does not enjoy these sunny clearings of the fire seelies. But it was not impossible for them to enter these clearings. Though they looked irritated and very resistant of these clearings, if someone provoked them enough or if they saw a very delicious prey, they would not hesitate to step into these clearings. That is why, whenever Gilbert and his men were chased by these plant monsters and found a seelie safe heaven, they would normally prefer to hide from the eyes of these monsters until they retire, preferably they hid in one of the old hollows of the seelies, or climbed a tree if need be.   

But now, from what they could see, they did not need to run and hide in this specific clearing, for these swamp plant monsters did not dare to enter here. And unfortunately so, Gilbert and his men soon found out why that was so.

The few people noticed that the more time they spent in this strange clearing, the more of their strength was sipping away from their bodies. As if some invisible force was imbibing out their vitality and strength. 

Before long, three of their members had fainted in a deep unconscious coma and they could do absolutely nothing about it; for they could not leave this place at all. 

Not to mention that there were monster plants laying low in ambush for them just outside, but even if they tried to go out, it was as if an invisible force of attraction was forcefully keeping them in this place, creating an impenetrable barrier around them, deterring them from leaving here forcefully.

Very belatedly so, Gilbert realized they were trapped in some kind of treacherous trap, unable to resist nor able to defend.   

“Captain, what do we do now?” One of his men asked, a bit anxious.   

A little helplessness veiled Gilbert’s otherwise determined vision as he thought of a drastic measure. 

The cunning ol’ right hand man of King Reuben, Lord Gilbert could probably guess why his knights were falling one after the other. It most definitely had to do with the strange blood red lily-like flower that lay blooming in front of them. 

As he continued observing, he also noticed a few odd miens of the fire seelie that was guarding the blood red flower.

It looked a bit bigger than the other seelies, and it burned a lot brighter, as if to say he was the boss. Gilbert could very well guess that this seelie, who was inhibiting this strange clearing all alone was the king of the fire seelies here. So, he didn’t take this otherwise harmless creature lightly. 

Gilbert, already experienced with the eroding effects of magic, understood their current plight better than anyone. There was only one move left for him now, and he wisely decided to use it at this time.

“Move back, all of you.” Gilbert warned and took out something which looked like a hand mirror, but not quite. The surface of the mirror did not reflect any reflection, rather, it looked distal and dreary. And it couldn’t help raise the curiosity of knights around, as they stared at the mirror-like object in Gilbert’s hands while scratching their heads. But they obeyed their commander nevertheless and sensibly took a step back. 

When Gilbert was sure that they were at a safe distance away from his target of attack, he looked down at the object in his hand with some complicated scrutiny and with a swing of his hand, faced it towards the seelie hollow that contained the blood red flower and activated a hidden mechanism at the handle of the hand mirror. 

TO BE CONTINUED............