NOVEL WEB Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Pixies
We found them.
They were there, those pixies, those poachers who hadn't even given any money for diplomas.
Not that Tony or I had given any money for the diplomas either, but still, one had to admit that we at least had tried to earn our non-poacher ways.
These pixies, well…
"These two look like academy people!"
I knew that those pixies were going to drag us down in the mud with them, provided we even gave them a chance.
But, well, I had other intentions.
"Friends! Us? From the academy? No!"
It was even the truth. We weren't from the academy. We were, after all, already graduated.
We had no more ties with the academy.
No! Now we were in the army, and we were going to stay in the legions, the guild legions, for 15 years.
Or, like some of us, for longer.
"You look like someone who has been in the academy."
But, apparently, that person wasn't giving up. That tiny pixie, who wouldn't even fit in the palm of my hand, so small he was.
He was probably as big as a finger.
One of Tony's fingers, not mine. Mine were long.
"Here to take our bones and teeth!"
It even knew why we were here. Well, it was a dragon graveyard and there was nothing stopping us from taking what we wanted.
The bones and the teeth were just rolling around, but I knew that one of those dragons must have gotten a toothache one day, gone to a dentist, and then gotten a golden tooth!
And gold, of course, is the standard.
"Look here you, I have a flyswatter," I even took it out.
I brandished that flyswatter at them, that pink plastic thing my mother used to discipline me back when I asked her time and time again why she actually used dragon spice to put in the stew and why exactly didn't she just give this dragon spice to the dragon instead of letting the giant reptile torch the place.
Because, well, my entire card collection was in my room.
And once the farm went ablaze, there were revival runes on my parents.
I was far away enough to not get killed, but my card collection, something all my lunch money had gone to for two years straight, had not survived the fire.
Which is why I wanted to hurt those dragons where it really mattered: in their teeth. The one thing they used to eat, the one thing they used to produce fire.
If they weren't eating, they weren't producing fire. And if they weren't producing fire, they were just lizards.
Maybe even tasty lizards? Who knew?
One day, I was going to find out, but for now, I had poachers to deal with.
"We are many," Which was said in a very creepy voice, I had to admit.
For someone who was 10 centimeters tall, that pixie looked fierce.
The fact that something like a black miasma came out of it should have told me that maybe I should start to negotiate.
But I was in debt to my ears. And I needed to impress Tony, who had to carry the teeth back to the village.
And there from the village, which was close to the town of Mirstow, to the goblin Black Market!
A place I knew where it was only because I needed to buy a toothbrush one day and got lost, but such is life.
"You have chosen death!"
That pixie would have won the reward for villain of the year, but I didn't run away. I took a fighting stance, me the person who was in armor, and I just swatted the pixie with a flyswatter.
That pixie broke it in half, then he began to swat me with the flyswatter!
It didn't hurt, but it brought back memories.
I wondered what my mother was doing back then. If she was baking a pie or a cake or simply making my father miserable?
I knew then that life had to change. So I took the pixie and I threw him to the ground. He splattered, blood and guts flying everywhere!
I looked at Tony.
"Okay, is that good enough for a creepypasta?"
Because I saw the potential in those strange horror stories. If we managed to write a lot of them, sell them to the goblins, who in turn published them on the Onion, under a pen name, of course!
Because, well, illegal publishing was also a thing.
The king liked to tax his people a lot and nothing, not even the goblins, were exempt from taxes.
But if we managed to do that, then all those little Tonies, those cute people who apparently liked to hear about people getting killed, dismembered and what have you, were going to pay for that!
"No, that's pretty tame. I mean, that's a pixie. Besides, the pixie did hit you over the head," the shorter boy countered.
Tony wasn't realizing that he was a henchman, but then again, he wasn't meant to be one.
"Hey, what's that?" He picked up a small marble, something I was sure had come out of the pixie's belly.
It glowed; he got a system scream that I could read.
There were two titles there: Hero of Honor Anthony. And, of course, Dragon Teeth Thieving Fairy Mike.
And then I realized it wasn't Tony that was the henchman.
I was the henchman.
But before I could throw a tantrum and probably break up the only party which was going to have me, the pixies attacked!
They made fireballs!
I took off my boot! Began to swat at them!
Tony, bless his cute soul, decided that we were all silly. Because Tony, for all that he liked creepypastas, also had a staff.
And that staff could go boom. The pixies died. The staff stopped going.
I looked at the pixie dust, then at Tony, who was already taking out paper.
"So," Tony began, as he began to put some of the dust into the paper, and then roll it up so, as if it were a cigar, "Would you like one?"
Was I really going to stoop so low as to smoke something that had been alive a couple of minutes ago and actually had been able to talk?
That had looked like a human?
"What is the dust going to do?" I was a practical creature, not a kind one.
"It's going to increase your mana pool by 1% per minute."
I snatched the cigar from him!
He shook his head as the dust fell out of the other end, taking out a filter.
"Smoking is bad," he told me, as he gave me the filter. "But I don't like you."
And then I understood that Tony was no angel.
No.
Tony was a demon. I was a henchman.