Over a day passed, with the figure still hanging around outside. They seemed to wander over a short radius but never went far. That day turned into two, then three. The stress of having this person camping right outside his home was getting very frustrating, and he began to ponder how to rid himself of the pest.

So that night, he started lobbing stones he generated onto their large, blue leather tent, sharp enough to tear through the fabric but unlikely to cause real harm. This just got them searching in the middle of the night, too, only renewing their determination since it was apparent something was here.

When that didn’t work he decided to go with a classic. Haunting, layered, multi-locational voices, saying things just beyond comprehension. Little movements in the brush. Sounds of bushes and limbs being disturbed. But it seemed they were well educated on standard tricks, because they weren’t off-put in the slightest.

Plenty of devious ideas came to mind, but the main concern was that he had no idea if he was actually skilled enough to pull many of them off. All it would take is one botched scare for anything after that to be even less effective.

When none of the ideas he came up with appealed as particularly effective, he opted instead to just wait again. Maybe they’d believe he left after it didn’t work.

This proved to be false hope two days later, when he felt something hit the house, shaking it a bit. Jarred out of the chair he was using as he worked on his notes concerning enchanting, he flew up into the chimney to determine what happened. He could still see the rock falling back to the ground. The man was staring right at the fake hive.

Shit. He clearly knew right where Tedrick was. He must have determined it when he screwed with him last. Well, that was no good, it likely meant that none of his tricks would actually do anything in this case. Tedrick didn’t know what this man wanted, but he wasn’t too interested in finding out, so he supposed he’d just have to ignore him and hope he didn’t do anything stupid enough it actually required a response.

This hope lasted a whole day before they started yelling. The tree he was connected to, all the trees here really, were quite large, so it was hard for his voice to carry all the way up. Unfortunately, it seemed like that Universal Tongue skill worked automatically when something meant to communicate with him directly, which he’d learned some time ago when he was getting annoyed by some creatures that looked like a strange green anole, with a long horn that split into a Y like a Hercules beetle.

It had six insectoid legs that ended in bulbous toes. It seemed oddly… fleshy, without scales or chitin as he might expect. It screamed at him about invading their territory, and he heard it quite clearly with the mental voice of , despite the fact that he could barely make out the noise that meant to convey the message to begin with.

They were promptly ignored and flung off the tree with a telekinetic force whenever they didn’t take this well. It took significantly more effort than it should, however, which he guessed was connected to moving a living, mobile thing directly.

“HEY! SPRITE!” Shouted the man, who seemed to have finally run out of patience, “I KNOW YOU’RE THERE, IN THE HIVE! WILL YOU PLEASE JUST COME DOWN ALREADY?! I JUST WANT TO TALK!”

In response, Tedrick approached one of his makeshift windows in the chimney, glaring down at the man. He had to give the intruder credit. He was persistent. Perhaps he should reward that persistence.

Outside of the little window he made, Tedrick tossed a bevy of sharp, harmless stones. This was met only with a loud “UGHHHHH!” of frustration.

Some things just brought a smile to the face.

A few more hours passed, and the little bit of light coming from his chimney started to dim. Something seemed a bit off, but a glance out the window gave no hints as to what. It was like… a call, a phantom fury rising from his gut. A sense of injustice that demanded recompense. This wasn’t his feeling, but it was still so very clear… Why? What was this?

Tedrick manipulated a hole into the side of his home from the lowest level to the highest, just in case. Nothing outside indicated something, but there was a tension rising in the air like static in a storm. He donned his armor and grabbed ten of the bombs he’d built and prepared, partially fusing them to his suit.

The sprite was made to wait for three additional hours before he got his answer.

But it came in a form he didn’t expect: the stranger from below, having… moved up the tree to the same level as the hive. “Okay, look. I tried to do this nicely, but this is really important damn it. If you stay here during this, you’re going to die! You’re an Outsider, not a fae! You may not trigger the Dark Forest, but you will be swept up in it! Come with me if you want to live!” The stranger argued.

He was… strange, in a similar way that other creatures in this forest. He looked like a snake person. From the waist down he was all clay red and dark grey scales, with tan belly scales. Above his waist, he had the body shape of a human, but broad shoulders and though they were more covered up, Tedrick could see similarly colored scales covering all of him. Not to mention, of course, the second set of arms below the first... “What the hell are you?” Tedrick asked on reflex, backing close to the wall and out of reach of him through the hole. Wasn’t he human not long ago?

This made the snake man give him an incredulous look. “A… Naga? Look, we don’t have time for this. Sorry,” he said before making a couple of hand gestures with his top two hands. Nothing seemed to happen, but then the Naga reached into his little home. Tedrick naturally jumped to the side, but quickly discovered a problem: he could move to the side all he wanted, but it was only his soul. His body didn’t move an inch. “HEY, WHAT THE FUCK!” yelled the sprite, instantly furious.

The snake man had the wherewithal to squirm a bit, “I promise I’ll explain later. You’ll be back in your body in just a few seconds if you try. But please, follow me.” The disembodied spirit scowled and glared as fiercely as a tiny ghost could, but followed as the Naga jumped down from the tree and landed on the ground. The sprite was briefly stunned into silence. This was at least a forty-foot drop and he just… tanked it without so much as a stumble or moment of hesitation. Didn’t even slow down when he hit the ground. Woah.

Alright, maybe he should cooperate.