CHAPTER 70: THE ECHO OF MISCHIEF (1)

The fairies vanished like water down a drain, leaving nothing but disquiet in their wake. Apollo stood in the center of the mushroom clearing, the gold in his veins still humming with recognition of the concentrated aether that permeated this strange forest.

The sudden departure of their mischievous visitors left an absence that felt almost physical, as if the air itself had thickened in their wake.

"Everyone still in one piece?" Lyra called, her voice cutting through the unnatural stillness.

She sheathed her knife with a deliberate motion, though her eyes continued scanning the spaces between the towering mushroom stalks.

Nik lifted his once-elegant scarf, now a hopeless tangle of knots and loops that resembled a bird’s nest more than a garment. "Physically, yes. Emotionally, I’m devastated." He tugged at one particularly complex knot before sighing dramatically. "This was Calishite silk. Do you have any idea how many nobles I had to charm to acquire this?"

Thorin retrieved his axe from where the red fairies had finally abandoned it. The dwarf’s thick fingers traced the edge of the blade, his brow furrowing. "Something’s wrong with it," he muttered, tilting the weapon to catch what remained of the daylight.

A faint luminescence clung to the metal, pulsing in rhythm with the ambient aether of the mushroom field. "It’s... glowing."

Apollo moved closer, drawn by the familiar resonance. The axe’s edge shimmered with a subtle blue light, barely visible except where shadows fell across the blade. "May I?" he asked, extending his hand.

Thorin hesitated, then grudgingly offered the weapon. "Just don’t... do anything to it."

The moment Apollo’s fingers touched the metal, the gold in his veins responded, warming beneath his skin. The axe’s glow intensified slightly at the contact, as if greeting him.

"They’ve infused it with aether," he said, feeling the energy signature as clearly as a fingerprint. "Not damaging it, exactly. More like... marking it."

"I don’t want fairy magic on my axe," Thorin grumbled, reclaiming the weapon with a scowl that didn’t quite mask his fascination with the new phenomenon. "Dwarven steel is perfect as forged."

Renna had finished reorganizing her pack, her methodical nature asserting itself in crisis. She held up a small pouch, its contents now radically changed. "My dried apricots are gone," she said, tipping luminescent mushroom caps into her palm.

They were miniature versions of the giants surrounding them, glowing with the same purple light as the fairies who had ransacked her belongings. "They left these instead."

"It’s not random," Lyra said, her voice thoughtful as she surveyed the alterations to their possessions. "My water skin is untouched, but the map I was carrying is gone. In its place—" she held up what appeared to be a large leaf, its surface etched with glowing lines that vaguely resembled the regional topography, "—this."

Apollo considered these exchanges, remembering the blue fairy’s whispered warning. The field remembers what walks upon it. Not random mischief, but deliberate alterations. Gifts? Warnings? Perhaps both.

"I’m going to try one," Nik announced suddenly, plucking a glowing mushroom cap from Renna’s palm before she could close her fingers.

"Are you insane?" Renna lunged for him, nearly knocking him over in her haste to reclaim the fungus. "That could be poisonous! Those little demons could be trying to kill us!"

Nik danced backward, the mushroom cap already at his lips. "If they wanted us dead, they had plenty of opportunity while we were surrounded." Before anyone could stop him, he took a deliberate bite, his expression immediately shifting from defiant to surprised. "It’s... sweet," he said, chewing thoughtfully. "Like honey, but with something else. Something I can’t quite place."

"Spit it out right now," Renna demanded, her hand moving toward her belt knife with clear intent. "I swear I will cut it out of your throat if I have to."

Nik swallowed pointedly, grinning at her outrage. "Too late! And I feel perfectly fine. Better than fine, actually. Everything seems a bit... brighter? More vivid?" He examined his hands as if seeing them for the first time. "Fascinating."

"You fool," Thorin rumbled, though Apollo caught the dwarf eyeing the remaining mushroom caps with poorly concealed curiosity. "Never eat gifts from tricksters. First rule of dealing with the fair folk in the mountain tales."

"Well, it’s done now," Lyra sighed, already gathering fallen branches for a fire. "Night’s coming fast. We should make camp here, we’ve lost too much daylight to press on, and I don’t fancy navigating between these stalks in the dark."

They established camp in a relatively clear space between four massive mushrooms, their caps forming a natural canopy overhead.

Apollo built a fire at the center, grateful for the simple, physical task that kept his hands busy while his mind worked through the implications of the fairy encounter. The blue fairy’s warning echoed in his thoughts, a riddle he couldn’t quite unravel.

Darkness fell with surprising swiftness in the mushroom forest, the last rays of sunlight vanishing as if swallowed rather than simply fading. The fire cast jumping shadows across the fungal trunks, transforming the already strange landscape into something from a fevered dream.

The mushroom caps Renna had reluctantly set aside began to glow more intensely as night deepened, casting an eerie purple light that mingled with the orange flames.

For the first time since leaving the village, a profound silence settled over the group. No idle chatter, no complaints about the day’s journey, no gentle ribbing between companions who had grown comfortable with each other’s quirks.

The air in the mushroom field felt heavier at night, charged with something that wasn’t quite sound but wasn’t quite silence either, a vibration at the edge of hearing, like laughter carried on a wind too gentle to feel.

Apollo poked at the fire, adding another branch to the flames. The gold in his veins hummed in response to the strange atmosphere, not with alarm but with recognition. This place was saturated with aether, wild and unrefined but potent.

’The field remembers what walks upon it.’ The fairy’s words pressed against his consciousness, demanding attention he wasn’t ready to give.