Lukas had woken up with a start, understandable considering the situation he had just been in. All that lovely, calming effect that the man… woman… thing… had, was gone in an instant.

Even startled as he was, he couldn’t help but be surprised by the room he was in. It seemed like she had finished bringing him to get something to eat while he slept, and it was much nicer than the classroom was. The room was, like the classroom, made of wood. It seemed as though it was made of living wood, however, as the walls and every other furniture fixture in the room was made of a single piece of wood, no normal signs of construction in sight. Not to mention the bark that was still on it would be nearly impossible to retain during construction.

Even the lighting seemed to be natural, comprised of short branches ending in hoops. In these hoops were balls of soft green or blue light, slowly fading from one to another. Out of the corner of his eyes, though, it seemed like it was changing shape.

The strangest feature, however, were the many sets of three holes, in the shape of faces scattered around the walls with one of them being significantly larger than the other two at random. He couldn’t see anything inside of them, no matter how close to the lights they were, but at times he could catch a hint of movement inside. People would walk up to these holes and speak to them, then would usually walk away, though occasionally they’d seem to space out briefly before coming back to focus. Then they’d speak again as if they were conversing. The residents of these holes had telepathy perhaps?

Multiple wooden trays and plates of varying sizes were floating around the room, high in the air above the average height of people in the room. There didn’t seem to be anyone holding them… but with a moment of focus and study, figures popped into existence. They were… strange. They looked like elven women, if Lady Sar was anything to go by, and were completely undressed. They had green skin, and hair, eyes, and lips of varying colors and shapes, all of them fairly unique, as well as an aura of beauty strong enough that even he was attracted to them. Something completely unnatural for both a gay man and a literal infant of his species.

Or… he assumed that was how they looked based upon the ones floating in and out of the walls as though they were some kind of bead curtain. One of them floated through like the rest, but looked very different from the rest. Its skin was a grey wood, with a mostly smooth face and just holes where ears and nose ought to be, as well as lacking the hair that the rest of them sported. Their eyes had a soft green glow like the lights, and their form was far from feminine like the rest. Their breasts and genitals were gone, with a mostly plank flat torso, though it was appropriately rounded and moved smoothly. They had but three fingers, and their legs terminated in pointy-looking spikes.

A few of the floating figures, dryads he guessed with a better look at one, giggled at the strange-looking wooden creature, a soft, distracting sound that brought to mind pleasant, relaxed times. The bare wooden dryad jumped as they looked down at themselves, responding as if they had walked into an unexpectedly occupied room naked and bolting back into the wall. As they went, he could see what looked like a green moss coming from the eyes across the head at a swift pace, taking the general green, beautiful facial features of her kin.

Poor Lady Sar, who had him safely held to her chest, got all of his needle-like kitten claws clinging to her skin and cloak as soon as these figures appeared.

She jerked a little, looking down at him in surprise. He had drawn just a tiny hint of blood, to which his ears flattened when he snapped out of his dryad-induced stupor. Lady Sar didn’t miss a beat, “It’s fine! You’re fine. What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”

The elven woman was so motherly sometimes. He calmed quickly, huffing out almost like a laugh, “Y-yeah. I think so. There was… a man. A woman man. A… I don’t know the word. He was strange and odd. Powerful. Scary. I’m sorry. I don’t have the words, the vocabulary to really describe them well.”

“Did they give a name?”

He shook his head, “They didn’t give anything.”

“Try to calm down a bit. You’re safe. Slow down, just try your best to describe how they looked. Don’t worry too much about your words. Just explain in simple phrases.”

Lukas took a long breath and held it in for a few seconds before releasing it, “Ok. They changed all the time. Their face, eyes, body, anything. I think they wanted to look more attractive to me. They kept changing, though. They were very strong and scary. They showed a tree… it was, ah… bigger than big. Bigger than giant. It went all the way into the clouds… and it had this platform on it that I got teleported to, I guess.”

Lady Sar slowly set him down on a thick wooden table with edges that were covered in bark, sighing with as much contained annoyance as the noblewoman could. She pinched her brow with her now free hand, “Right… That tree is known as Aura. And that person is the local Fae Lord. One of the more powerful ones on Yuen. They’re… generally not a bad person, so try not to panic too much. They are just not… so… normal as to call them anything but well and truly fae.”

He shook himself out without so much as realizing he had done so, his four little legs splayed, tail curled around to his left, “What is that? What is a Fae Lord?”

The purple-clad high elf sat opposite him and began playing with the tip of her hair, trying to think of how to explain. After a moment, she started. “Well… to put it overly simplistically, they’re the highest level of the Fae “hierarchy” we know, if they can be said to properly have one at all in a way we understand. They’re the most authoritative members of the race and usually have pretty strong control over those in their territory, though they’re not always the strongest members of their race. Often, they’re the most clever and skilled with their Deals ability. However, they also have unique skills that grant them an aura that gives them such control over other Fae. We have no idea how those skills are obtained, or if it’s even possible for non-Fae at all.”

After a moment more of thought, she continued. “We have working arrangements with this Fae Lord. They help ensure the large local Fae population don’t cause too much trouble and enforces our policy that Fae must wear an indicator of their species, such that no one unwittingly makes a binding deal with them, as well as assisting with maintenance of our more complex Living Wood structures like this hall,” she explained as she brushed her fingertips along the top of the table. “This building itself is the most complex work of life magic presently in existence that isn’t entirely fae controlled, and is itself a massive power conduit and multiplier. If we needed to defend ourselves, key appointments can cast their spells through this building itself to massively amplify it to the kinds of scales normally only possible for major national mage councils of two hundred plus high-level members.”

Her chest puffed a bit as she explained, smiling brightly. It was very clear at that moment how incredibly beautiful she truly was, to an almost supernatural extent. Lukas couldn’t help but admire. “In turn we help support their position both by providing one of few large settlements that limit the powers of divine orders in the region, as well as providing havens for fae and their followers in the other nations in the form of our branch colleges. These, much like this building, are primarily large-scale housing, knowledge and quest congregation, and experimentation centers for magic users, though we also have high ki and psychic user presence as well. Those two groups tend to prefer learning off on their own given the more subjective nature of their powers, unfortunately. It does make it a bit more difficult to teach in a scripted and systemic manner after all. This provides the Fae Lords with the fringe benefit of having access to magic users, which are more often aligned with the divine, given the close ties between magic and the gods. As well, we are one of the organizations best fit to managing outbreaks of Firelight, being one of the few non-political mass gatherings of mages on Yuen.”

Lukas followed along as best he could, but by the end of her explanation he was pretty lost. He really needed more practice with the damned language. He huffed a sigh and sat, head tilted a little, “So… they’re a dangerous sort of person?”

“Somewhat. They’re not as chaotic as many Fae, but they are unbelievably strong,” she nodded, “We’ll have to send the Lord a letter… again. It’s formality, requesting that they please follow the rules, but I know full well they’ll ignore it. Or worse, they’ll respond in kind and THEN ignore it.”

“You don’t like them?”

“They’re not the sort of person you either like or dislike. They’re a pain, but they’re undeniably endearing and alluring. Most people of their power class are that way,” she continued to explain, looking off to the side, “What would you like to eat? I’m ordering for us.”