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Artemis nodded and followed Puk, she was actually quite thankful that the entrance to the caves was above water, she wasn't a very good swimmer. Of course she was too stubborn to admit this to anyone.

Puk stopped in front of her abruptly and she nearly tripped over him. "Oof!" she grunted as she collided with the kelpie. Frowning darkly she growled, "Watch where you're going...." she trailed off as she followed Puk's gaze. "Otters?!" she raised her eyebrows in disbelief, then frowned suddenly and quickly brought out her bow. "Those aren't simple otters, they're Alven. But what are they doing here?"

[Simplified version of the wizard and the Things: the wizard found a book promising immortality if he gets the magic of one of each kind of faerie. He bargains with the Things to let them have the Otherworld in peace if the Things drain magic and give it to him. Things hate other faeries so agree. That's the gist of it, without the double-crossing.

It's okay to make up a few things about faeries and twist the facts, as long as it works for this role play.]

'A selkie,' the wizard breathed, unable to believe his eyes. The human eyes belonging to this otter were enough to convince him, though, and the eyes were currently full of loathing. He'd heard of selkies and they were easier to capture than other faeries, if one knew how, but he'd never seen one. Their beauty was remarkable and they apparently were very obedient once you had stolen their sealskin, preventing them from returning to the ocean.

He'd always wanted one and his allies obviously knew it. 'How did you get her?' he wanted to know.

'We were told a seal-girl was to go on land last night,' the faerie said. 'We got the sea-nymph too.'

Senya went cold all over. Nerina, the naiad, caught by these monsters? That couldn't be. That wouldn't be. Nerina was always so gentle and so kind to her. Something as horrible as this would not have happened to Nerina. Why, the naiad didn't deserve this. The world wouldn't be that cruel, would it?

'We drain her,' the monster went on relentlessly, ignoring the selkie. 'Lots of magic but too weak. Dead now.'

As the spell holding her frozen began to wear off, her vision also began to return. The selkie slowly turned to face the monster - the monster who had killed Nerina. Nerina had only been going up to look after Senya's sealskin, she was sure, but then these wicked creatures had taken her, drained her and - she didn't want to think anymore.

What she saw frightened her. Most of the what the wizard had said about these monsters had passed over her head, but now she began to understand a little. She was looking at a maddec, an unseelie creature she had only heard of in bedtime stories before. But it was undoubtedly a maddec.

It was a large, gruesome looking creature of an ancient vomit colour. It appeared to be made of mud and sewage and all things disgusting, with slime and black oil slowly sliding off its body and creating a pool of dirt around its body. Four dark hollows for eyes were staring at both the wizard and the selkie, a tiny red gleam in the very depths of each eye. It looked formless, lacking clean outlines to its shape, and tiny tendrils appeared now and then. These were probably the hands and arms for the Maddec, appearing when needed to do something more nimble. The selkie felt she might be sick, looking at this creature any longer.

Senya went through her old selkies' tales, trying to remember what the ancient selkies had said about maddecs. They were the most unseelie of all unseelie faeries, she remembered. And the maddecs had been used to put children to sleep, claiming that maddecs would suck all magic and life energy from any bad selkie children. These were also one of the terrible monsters used to discourage children from swimming too far away from home.

Few children had actually believed this tale, but now Senya realised how much truth was in it. Here was a maddec right in front of her -- a maddec that had drained the magic from her naiad friend and had left her for dead. Could they drain life energy from a faerie as well? she wondered, and prayed that this part of the tale was fiction.

Maddecs must be the reason why some selkies disappeared and never returned, she thought. Occasional stories of how some sea-faerie had disappeared were not rare, although uncommon, and never twice in the same place did faeries disappear. Sometimes they had gone on travels and turned up many moons later. Other times they had simply never appeared. Perhaps a few of these had been taken by maddecs... Senya couldn't remember if maddecs could use other faeries' magic but decided against it. A faerie generally couldn't absorb more energy than was their birthright.

So these monsters -- and now she looked away back at the wizard, unable to bear the sight of a maddec any longer -- were giving faerie magic to this wizard. How many disappearances were there lately? The wizard and the maddecs must have been targeting faeries that would not be missed for a long time, like Senya. They would drain her magic and kill her after that, she thought. If not now.

I must pretend to be mute, she thought suddenly. She didn't realise what was so important about this point until later.

[I made up maddecs as I couldn't find anything to suit my purpose.]

Without much of a ceremony, Puk leaned over, his head close to the ground. Then he released the man, who tumbled over the grey-white kelpie's neck. A thud sounded through cave, accompagnied by a gasp, from the man. Puk saw the dark haired man recovered himself, looking around dazed, while laying in the pit.

With a sigh, he shrunk back to his smaller form. His attention was turned onto the otters.

It had been a while, a long while since there had been any Alven in the lake. For a good reason probably, kelpies and Alven didn't understood one another too well. Alven didn't like kelpies preying on 'their' humans.. whatever that meant. And kelpies weren't too found of Alven given them away.

"What do you want," Puk nearly called, remembering the hunters, and silencing the last part of his sentence down. Besides, he was getting irritated.

Celeste glanced at Ilmena for a fraction of a second. She had not even been fazed by the explosion. For the pages that followed the initial rhyme were even more alarming than the first.

"This page," she said, "it says that anyone who can collect the magic of each type of fairy shall receive immortality and perhaps even invincibility!" It was true that the rhyme wasn't particularly clear.

"That's alarming, right? And I didn't even know how you would 'collect' magic from a fairy," she added, involuntarily shuddering, "until I read farther in this blasted notebook."

Celeste turned a few pages farther with her teeth. It appeared that each spread in the book contained a detailed animated and illustrated instruction manual explaining how to extract, store, and utilize the magic of a particular race of fairy. They happened to land on the page describing the process for selkies.

It was abominably horrendous, and Celeste's eyes widened and watered at the graphic illustrations. "How could anyone do this...?"

"Well, what do you want me to do to her?" the wizard asked calmly, composing himself again. "You should have drained her by now. I thought you said that selkies are hard to catch?"

"Yes," the maddec replies, quite seriously. "Sea fae hard to get. They keep far from us. Use spells to fight us. We need find their homes. Seal-girl knows all secrets of sea fae homes. You take her sealskin, she do all you say. She tell you where, we find them." A pile of nymph clothes leapt out of the ocean, sullied by a maddec's slime.

"Why," the wizard said, his eyes aglow just as Senya's eyes were aghast with horror, "that is an excellent idea. Now I just need to get her sealskin." He looked doubtfully at the selkie who was in no mood to obey them. Give them her sealskin? Why, she wouldn't turn herself into a slave that easily!

"Come now," the wizard coaxed. "You can change into those clothes behind that rock and we'll wait for you." Senya realised he was talking about the rock where she had only changed into a human the previous night. It seemed terribly cruel somehow that this was the rock where only last night Nerina had promised to collect the sealskin, as usual. Only it hadn't been a usual night. Rage filled Senya's heart as she thought about it.

"If you don't, we'll drain you slowly," the wizard threatened.

"We?" the maddec muttered, but the wizard ignored him. "What will you do?"

The selkie was furious. She would rather die now than give away the secret homes of all the sea faeries of the ocean. They would kill her later anyway. As if reading her thoughts, the wizard added, "We won't kill you afterwards if you do. I'll take care of you." Then he smirked. His idea of looking after a faerie was turn them into a servant, but prison was better than death, he thought.

Senya would have refused at this point again if she had not had a brainwave: What if she escaped while they thought she was changing into a human? She would hold her sealskin and run away. She would warn other faeries of this terrible conspiracy. Staring at the maddec and the wizard a moment longer, she shuddered and then bit the pile of clothes, dragging them away towards the rock, the slime on her teeth. The wizard smiled triumphantly.

Behind the rock, Senya shed her sealskin and rinsed the blue-green garments clean of mud and grime that Nerina had given her. Nerina ... I swear I will avenge you, Nerina, she thought fiercely. Holding her sealskin to her heart, she gulped. Time to make a run for it.

But she had not calculated for how powerful the wizard would be. Senya had not run many yards before two tentacle-like whips made of sand wrapped themselves around her legs and pulled her to the ground. She fell, the sealskin tumbling out of her hands. The treacherous footsteps sounded nearer and nearer, muffled by the soft sand. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw gnarled fingers pick up her sealskin -- her ticket to freedom and home.

"Trying to run away now, are we?" the wizard smiled, his eyes glinting and unsmiling. "Thought you might try that." A flame appeared out of his finger, flickering at the tip. "Now won't you be a good girl and tell us where everyone is? Otherwise your sealskin will suffer. I might even consider giving you your life even though you tried to betray me just now."

Senya gulped several times, unable to find her voice. That wicked human was holding part of herself and she could not find the words to voice her thoughts. Like all selkies, she wanted her sealskin back more than anything else. A fierce, desparate urge to get it back filled her. Her hands reached out involuntarily for it but the wizard held it tantalizingly out of her reach. "What will it be?" he asked in a mocking tone at her predicament.

The selkie was just about ready to give in to what he wanted, anything he wanted, as long as she could get her sealskin back when she remembered her vow to Nerina. She would have been ready to break it if she thought it would do any good, but the reminder of the vow paused her wild desire and she began to think. If she betrayed the sea faeries, would the man really give the sealskin back? Somehow she could not feel that he was a man of his word. And humans, she remembered, never gave sealskins back. He would burn it all the same.

The wizard was displeased by the pause. He brought his finger closer to the skin. Senya cried out a mute, despairing cry, wanting to change her mind again. "Mute then, are we?" the wizard exclaimed, annoyed. "Say something if you want to save your skin." But something was controlling the selkie's voice and she could not find it, even though she wanted to.

"Useless to us," the wizard muttered, disgusted. He shook his head. A mute selkie was no good to him. Who knew if a mute selkie lacked some magic powers he might want? "We need another selkie," he called to the maddec. "This one's mute."

"What of her?" the maddec wanted to know.

The wizard shrugged. "She can't betray us," he said. "It would be too cruel to kill something so beautiful as well," he added to himself under his breath.

Senya could not believe her ears. Here was a piece of luck! Thank goodness for beauty. She might be dead without it. But she had counted her chickens too soon.

The wizard was about to drop the sealskin on the selkie when a sudden anger took hold of him. Smiling maliciously, he brought the flame back to the skin and set it aflame. Senya gaped in stupefied horror at her burning skin. She tried to save it but sand tendrils whipped out and pinned her arms down. Tears rolled uselessly down her pale cheeks. Watching the skin burn, it felt like watching herself burn at a stake. Pain seared through her body.

She would never be able to go back to the sea. She was not a selkie without her skin. She had lost the place she had been born, the place she had grown up, the place that was by birthright her home.

As the last of the skin smouldered away and the ashes fell to the sand, she let out a terrible, silent scream no human could hear but every faerie within a few miles would hear. It was the most agonising scream a faerie could make, the one on level to a death-cry.

The scream echoed loudly through the caves and around the lake. The otters transformed into their human forms, and one by one, charged through the caves. They prayed in their own tongue that they would be on time.

<---~--->

The wizard heard the sound of breathing behind him. He turned and saw a familiar-looking Alven standing there. It looked like the Alven he had recieved from a Jabberwocky years ago. The Alven drew a bottle from his otterskin outfit and threw it onto the floor. Once again, he was weilding the water blade. "I thought the Selkie and Alven weren't on good terms..." the wizard mused aloud. "Even an Alven wouldn't burn a Selkie's skin, you monster," the Alven nonchalantly replied. "What good is it, throwing yourself into death just because a selkie lost her skin? An Alven has never done that before, and I foresee that you will keep to that reliable history and retreat to forget all, like the elusive Alven always do," the wizard continued. His voice was mersmerizing. For a moment, Otterbrand was tempted. But he suddenly grinned. From his father, he learned to fight the natural fae.

"We have spoken enough. Now you must pay the price for this dishonor, and must be stopped." the Alven finished. The wizard asked, "Stopped from what?" A crowd of maddecs emerged from a nearby cave. The four brave Alven emerged, weilding varying water weapons. They began to fight a battle they did not fear dying in. Each of them looked a little like Otterbrand. They were right on time, but would fail if left to fight alone. Otterbrand pulled out a horn and blew on it. The sound was deafening to human ears, and the wizard, caught off guard, held his own ears. Now humans and fae were both summoned by sound. Otterbrand dropped his horn and shielded the wizard's sand attacks with bubbles. He fought hard to keep up with them, his great bubbles bursting with loud bangs against the sand and scattering it each time. At one point, Otterbrand charged through, but missed with his water sword as the wizard expertly dodged. The wizard then touched the Alven's cheek on passing. The Alven fell, contorted with pain.

"Pity. You will be the first Alven to die for a Selkie. I wonder what you would have done with her after you killed me," the wizard amusedly remarked. "I would have taken her into my family like any good being should!" Otterbrand roared as he fought the paralyzing pain, struggling to stand up. The wizard idly looked at the four other Alven. Two male, two female. One female was a sister, and a male a brother. The other two were spouses. It was two young couples, fighting for their brother and perhaps to the death. "A noble notion, but it doesn't hold well with me," the wizard grinned. He summoned the most loyal maddec, one that would end this nonsense while the other maddec fought. The wizard murmured to the loyal maddec, "Place this Alven beside the selkie. Drain them both and syphon the girl's magic to me when I tell you to. We might as well let her take her into the family before the family is destroyed. You will recieve your reward for betraying your own kind." The wizard grinned again. His plan had only gotten better when the Alven arrived. Now he could take the Selkie's magic and become invincible, and not hold up his bargain with the maddec.

The maddec loyal to the wizard placed the struggling Alven beside the selkie quite roughly. Otterbrand settled down. He had done his best. Now it was up to the other faeries and the humans to come quickly, and save the world from this wizard's wrath. He remembered his dying sister telling him of this place years ago. He remembered his own closure as she died, and thought of how happy Celeste would be in life now that she had her sister, and how this wizard would ruin that, too. He begged for some one to come in his mind, and end this before it was too late. As he cried, his body still twitched, under the wizard's influence to throb with hindering pain. The wizard turned to the four other Alven, adding to the chances of killing them by casting sand onto them. He struck one with lightning. The other three rallied to defend the fallen Alven girl, their weapons a blur as they fought desperately. The wizard seemed rather distracted... It was as if he had forgotten the angry selkie behind him was a threat. Standing between her and him was one maddec. The Alven reached with his hand, offering the selkie his sword. The tide could turn, they needed more help.

<---~--->

As the horn blew, Adelaine ran, panicked, avoiding the clash of steel as humans fought each other. The wizard had no regard for the fact that the humans he had hired were less skilled than the mercenaries fighting them. It was as if he expected them to fail. Adelaine stopped when she saw two girls sitting under a tree she ran to them, a key in her hand, and quickly unlocked their chains. She did not look at their faces but tugged at their hands to lead them into the now ungaurded cave entrance. "Come on!" She breathed deeply as she ran, trying to save her breath to sing as she led the two dazed girls on, not even seeing that one of them was holding a book in her hand, or that she was her older sister.

Celeste yelped with surprise as a strange girl grabbed her hand after unlocking the chains, and pulled her toward the drained lake. The girl's long hair blocked her face from view as they dashed towards the cave entrance. As they neared the sounds of battle grated on Celeste's ears.

"Who are you? Where are you taking me?!" Celeste cried, "What's going on?"

The girl turned to face Celeste and both girls gasped in surprise and joy.

"Celeste!"

"Adelaide!"

They kept running, but their eyes were wide with wonder. "I thought I might never see you again," Celeste said hoarsely, biting back tears, her eyes full of questions.

Adelaide's eyes were just as full. "I'll explain later," she said between deep breaths, "save your breath. You're going to need it."

They skidded to an abrupt halt just through the initial corridor of the cave, faced with the battle raging between the Alven and the wizard and his maddec minions. On the far side of the room there was a girl who had a fairy-like aura about her and a fallen young man - Nobody!

Celeste cried out in alarm seeing him injured and helpless. A horrible creature was lurking about the two and another one equally as ugly was fighting against the other Alven. Celeste tried not to look at them, and, before she bothered to think about the situation, dashed about the fringes of the battle toward Nobody's crumpled form, covering her head with her arms. The wizard was briefly aware of the girls' arrival, and reached out one hand to roughly push Celeste against the wall, preparing to pummel her. However the Alven took advantage of this distraction to attack even more fiercely, for the first time in minutes scoring painful and damaging, though not mortal, hits on the wizard with their weapons.

Celeste cried out in pain, blood trickling slowly out of a wide scrape on her right cheek, but once free she continued to run and knelt at Nobody's side. He was twitching, and Celeste could only imagine it was with pain. "Nobody!" she half-cried half-whispered, knowing better than to say 'are you okay?' but also wanting to say something. She looked back at her sister, who was barely visible around the rock opening to this room of the cave. "Thank you for finding my sister," she said to Nobody, quietly.

Adelaide was just peering into the cave, at a loss as to what she could do. It seemed so hopeless, she and her sister had no weapons, nothing that could help in this situation it seemed. She was breathing too hard to be able to sing a decent phrase, much less a song. But how could she just stand back and watch this? She took several deep breaths, concentrating on calming her racing heartbeat.

Celeste cradled Nobody's head and shoulders in her arms, glaring fiercely at the approaching maddec, her eyes sparkling with anger and fear. She desperately searched for a way to fight back in her peripheral vision.

"Let him be," she said, her voice strong but betraying her fear and trembling slightly. Glancing back at Nobody, tears glistening at the edges of her eyes, she said desperately, "Isn't there anything I can do?"

At this moment Adelaide whipped out from around the side of the doorway and yelled across the room through the fray of the battle, "CELESTE, SING WITH ME!"

The words barely reached Celeste's ears. "SING!" she heard her sister yell.

Adelaide's voice pierced through the evil-sounding battle noise and, Celeste wasn't sure how, but she understood. She didn't know the words, but she joined in, her voice harmonizing with her sister's, a clear, vibrant song.

Artemis was shocked when the otters ran, transforming into Alven as they went. She frowned in disbelief for a few moments until she heard the battle horn.

Before she could even blink her body took off, galloping at breakneck speeds to the battle. A rage soon erupted from within her, it had been spurred on by the sight of the maddecs and humans. Drawing out her two daggers the giant centaur reared up into the air. Roaring out a war cry which reverterbrated around the cavern, Artemis used her powerful magic to change the blades she held. They grew extremely large and long, both as tall as a human and covered in powerful runes.

Artemis galloped towards the maddec nearest to Nobody and Senya and quickly swung both her blades in a wide arc. Disgusting pieces of maddec flesh flew everywhere as the magical swords sliced into the creature repeatedly.

The arrival of many strangers occurred too rapidly for the selkie to follow coherently in her state of shock. She was still too stunned from watching part of herself burn to react to what was happening around her. She could dimly recall a family of faeries coming to her rescue and fighting the wizard. A vague awareness that they were all going to die came upon her but she could not feel she could care.

It was when a strange faerie song began to resonate through the air that she began to return to earth. The song itself was not strange because of melody or words, but because they were sung by humans. Humans could not normally sing faerie song yet this one had an ethereal quality to it the selkie had never known before.

She noticed that the same centuar she had only fought with the night before was hacking away at a maddec the wizard had summoned. The chief maddec had disappeared back into the ocean, most likely to get reserves, Senya thought vaguely. Then she shook herself and gathered her wits again.

An Alven was holding out a sword to her. She reached out for it and held it. It was both lighter and heavier than she had realised. For a sword like this, it was lighter than other similar ones, but having never wielded one before, its weight still came as a slight surprise to the girl. She nodded her thanks to the Alven who looked ready to die, and stood up shakily. The others were distracting the wizard and the centuar was fighting the maddec. It was a golden opportunity.

She might no longer be a real selkie but Senya still had a vow to uphold. She charged clumsily and pierced the wizard's left shoulder hard before she was thrown back by a magical shield and landed with a thud.

"Get reserves!" she yelled as loud as she could to no one in particular -- or perhaps anyone who was not currently occupied by something important. The wizard turned on her, his eyes bloodshot with fury. "You!" he snarled. "You can speak!" He lifted a finger to pronounce a curse on her.

Behind him, the faces of the Alvens changed as the song the human girls were singing rang out across the bloodstained beach.

Lavinia emerged from the shade of the forest, out of breath and muscles aching with exhaustion. She couldn't remember moving so quickly in her entire life for any reason, and hoped she wouldn't need to do so again any time soon if she could help it. She glanced back behind her to make sure no one had been following as she landed clumsily on a bush, even though she was fairly sure no one had seen her leave the deva village, and anyone who wasn't in the deva village probably wouldn't have any reason to follow her anyway.

As she gathered her composure, she observed her surroundings. Where am I? she wondered. It occured to her that she hadn't made any effort to make note of which way she was going when she left the village, and she hadn't followed a straight path. It was going to be a heck of a time getting back home again... whenever that would be. She lifted off of the bush and into the air a little ways, craning her neck and looking around for some sign of where she had landed. It was then that she spotted the lake.

There was much bare sand around it, and it was quite obvious that it was no longer as deep or as large as it had been at one point. The ground around it sloped down gracefully toward the center, where there was very little water left. A cave appeared to be near the middle, and it had probably been underwater at one point, Lavinia decided. So this was what the soldiers were talking about. But why could they have thought that the devas were responsible for it? And what importance was it to them? They quite obviously didn't live in the area, and wouldn't be affected if the creatures living in the forest and other places nearby had their water supply completely dried up.

Suddenly there was a scream. Lavinia jumped, startled by it. She stared at the cave. It had surely come from there. Flying a little closer to the lake, she watched the entrance and listened intently, as if expecting to hear more screams and for someone to come running out. She saw nothing, but gradually she began to hear shouts. And then, suddenly... singing? It was the oddest thing that Lavinia had ever heard, unlike any song she knew.

And then, suddenly compelled to go and find out just what on earth was going on down in that cave, Lavinia took off at full speed toward it. When she reached the entrance, she hovered around the outside for a moment and shouts and the singing continued to echo from within, listening. "Get reserves!" someone had shouted. Lavinia didn't understand what it meant. She bolted inside and down the tunnel, following the sounds of chaos. Turning a corner, she found the source.

Numerous different creatures, ones that did not appear to have any relation to each other at all, were in the midst of some sort of battle. Lavinia immediately recognized one to be a centaur. Weiling two large blades, it was quicly slaughtering some other sort of creature that Lavinia hadn't seen before. Two girls nearby appeared to be the source of the strange song, and another girl was on the ground holding a bloodstained sword. A man was staggering, threatening to fall on the rocky ground, his shoulder bleeding fiercely. Several other creatures had joined the battle as well, but Lavinia recognized none of them. She gazed, transfixed, at the bloody mess, not understanding any of it. I shouldn't be here...

[Ugh. Terrible. I hope I didn't screw anything up (aside from my own writing.)]

"Stay back Kimil," Puk said, they were standing on a ledge, that stuck out of the forest. Only slightly, still some distance away from the beach, where a gruesome battle took place. Yet, it gave Puk a good overview.

His powers had weakened, because he had used them to grew larger. His attention was on searching his clanmates. Soon he realized he would have to enter the battlefield himself, the chaos was too complete and he couldn't distinguish much from here.

His ears moved forward, he had heard the horn. But, as a descendant of an unseelie race, Puk did not feel inclined to rush in. His feelings were mixed, however.

He did a step forward and finally burst into a slow gallop. Circling around battling parties, in the search for his captured family members, he met his first maddec. His ears turned to his back. Yes.. he remembered something about these creatures.

A sudden fear grasped his heart, a lump in his throat. Not because he feared these creatures, not because he even feared for his life, but because he knew his sisters were no more.

"Where are they?! Where?!" His voice had grown to a unnatural volume, sounding above the shrieks and sounds of battle.

In panic he ran around, circling the maddec, who tried to grasp him, but failed miserably. Somehow, the kelpie seemed to have become quicker and the maddecs grasp didn't get a hold.

It became clear to Puk why they had been the only faeries around for so long. The maddecs had first concentrated on the good faeries, though the Whitepools weren't truely unseelie anymore.

The haze of madness wore of a little, his heart thumping in his chest. The maddec grasped him around his neck, Puk shrieked, very un-horselike.

"Revenge! Revenge!"

He stopped for a moment, biting the maddec in his arm. With a cry, the creature released.

Puk sprang forward. The words he said, were in unseelie or forbidden language, few would understand.

"You will pay for what you have done. Eye for eye, life for a life. No unseelie takes the life of another.

I call upon the Each-Uisge for justice."

And then he grew silent, in distance, silent clattering of hoofs was heard.

It was a small fairy, but it zoomed past by, before Espoir had the chance to look closely at what or who it really was. Snapping her head to the left, she saw that it headed towards a cave, that would have been submerged underwater if it wasn't for the dried up lake. Espoir would never have noticed the existence of the cave if the lake hadn't dried up.

'Come on, let's check it out,' she said, glancing at the wind bird. Together, the both of them headed to the cave. What they saw was chaos.

Otterbrand rose. He felt the pain leaving him as the wizard lost control. He focused on the two girls singing. Celeste's alto voice seemed to take on a new light as he appeared to recover. He pulled the crossbow from his back and threw his otterskin coat and hat on the ground, revealing a rich robe made of the same material, covered in thin quivers filled with crossbow bolts.

The fourth member of his little family sprang up, her strength restored. The four alven tore through a mob of maddec, only to have another appear to be reaped. They were coming from the center of the lakebed in armies, now. "Do not let your voices tire, sing from your lungs and hearts," Otterbrand said before jumping into action, strapping the crossbow to his shoulder. He removed the winder and adjusted the crossbow for pump winding before sliding in front of two girls, his motions hastened inhumanly as he notched, winded, and shot off bolts at the maddec that ran with the intent to kill the singers. Ilmena seemed to be glowing. She chimed in with a faerie vocalization, enhancing the harmony. Just as she did so, a swarm of arrows poured onto the armies of the maddec. There were the sounds of orders being barked as humans from the town nearby the Alven settlement became visible, joining the fight. Amongst them were gypsies from the caravan. They revealed their true forms and began hurling fire and lightning down onto the maddec armies with righteous fury.

Otterbrand saw a group of maddec venture too close and began swinging his crossbow, cracking skulls with its handle he then kicked away a more hard-headed enemy before firing twelve whole bolts at the wizard in a break. Most of them rebounded from an energy field, but one of them pierced the wizard's thigh. The wizard would now have to fight or die, and began summoning all of the powers drained from faeries. He would not be invincible, but he would be nearly so. Otterbrand worried about defending the human girls. "Close your eyes, think of what makes you happy!" he shouted as he engaged the next mob rallying to kill the singers. If the song was all they had on their side, it had to be stronger. Every maddec in the ocean would pour into this lake before the enemy surrendered.

Otterbrand grinned as he fought, as he saw several faeries of forms not usually friendly to each other pass by, fighting together like family.

"Who calls? Who calls the Each-Uisge ?"

"I do!" Now calling the notorious prince of kelpies was no small thing and nothing a kelpie would do for a unimportant matters, even not for very important matters. But this was a most important matter. So Puk stood without fear and knowing he was talking the truth.

A enormous black horse, muscled and eyes deep black as the depths of the ocean, craned his neck towards Puk. The maddecs around him had withdrawn, looking at the black beast with hesitation.

Puk didn't wait, since the situation was dire, "these bandit faeries have killed my sisters, and fellow kelpies."

The other remained silent.

Puk continued, "I.. I want revenge."

"Though this crime is dire and against our laws, you know there will be a price to pay for my help."

The little kelpie looked at the ground and then looked back up, "yes and I will pay it! Now, help me, help us."

With a jerk, the black horse jumped up, galloping forward at the group of maddecs in front of the singers.

Artemis held her swords out horizontally like metal wings. She then charged through the swarms of Maddecs, her blades slicing through them like butter. Many others had joined the fighting, gypsies, kelpies, even humans. All battled the hideous unseelie Maddecs and as more and more seelie creatures joined the fighting they soon began to overwhelm the Maddecs. Artemis joined the singing, her voice was deep and filled with anger at the unseelie creatures.

((Ugh, what a horrible post.... Sorry, I'm having a little writer's block... Bleh XP ))