Gacha Leveling

It felt surreal. Casually sitting around a table drinking tea with a being of godlike powers that behaved like a cute child. The tea was great and the sweets tasted divine. But Sarah felt dislocated. As if something wasn’t right.

What even made it weirder for her was how Matthew was behaving. Like Matil was just a little girl, almost as if she was his younger sister.

"Did you come to visit me?" Matil asked, looking up at Matthew.

"No. We didn’t know you were in the dungeon." Matthew replied. "I thought you were at the Fae."

"I was. But Titania asked me to stay in the dungeon for a while." Matil explained while moving happily on his lap. "She said: ’Give nice presents for those who find you!’" The nixie made a deep voice that sounded nothing like Titania’s.

Ffyr laughed.

"Are you having fun here?" Matthew asked her.

"I am! Much better than the previous dungeon." She smiled. "And I can go back whenever I want!"

"Back to the Fae?" Ffyr asked.

"Yes!" Matil said while stuffing her mouth with a huge cookie.

"We actually came to speak with my mother." Ffyr explained. "Do you go back through a gate?" She asked.

"Yup. There’s one not far from my pond!" Matil said.

"Can you show us the way?" Matthew asked.

"Sure! We can play with the Mafagafos!" Matil clapped her hands and jumped up.

"Mafagafos?" Sebastian asked.

"They’re great!" Ffyr smiled widely. "They’re big and fly around and they’re blue and they have these long beaks and 7 wings! And sometimes they’re orange or pink..." The fairy said rapidly, almost speaking over herself.

"Guess we’ll have to see them when we see them." Matthew smiled, getting up and dusting the crumbles of biscuits Matil left on his lap.

"Let’s go then!" Ffyr said hovered around in the room.

Sebastian and Sarah got up slowly, a bit reluctantly.

Matil opened the door of the cottage for them, but, instead of going outside, when they stepped through, they saw themselves back in the dungeon by her pond.

Matil held Ffyr’s hand and skipped ahead pulling the fairy behind her.

Matthew and the others walked not far behind.

"Aren’t you scared?" Sarah asked Matthew in a low tone so the nixie wouldn’t hear them.

"Of what? The Fae?" Matthew didn’t understand her concern.

"Of the little girl." Sarah explained and Sebastian nodded agreeing with her.

"Matil?" Matthew laughed. "Matil can’t hurt a fly. When I met her at the dungeon two years ago she was already powerful enough to leave on her own. Do you know why she didn’t?" He asked rhetorically and Sarah and Sebastian shook their heads no. "She said it wasn’t polite with the dungeon. She willingly stayed years imprisoned inside there just to not be rude. Do you think someone like that would harm you?"

"I don’t know." Sarah shivered looking at the nixie’s back. "It just... Doesn’t feel right."

Matthew hugged her with one arm and pressed her against his body while still walking.

"You’re just scared about her power. But trust me. You can trust her. She’s not hiding anything. She truly is just a child under all her power." Matthew comforted his sister.

"Ok." Sarah nodded, still not fully convinced.

Their path was remarkably safe. The monsters of the dungeon simply moved away upon seeing the nixie guiding the group. None dared to attack them.

Hidden behind a wall of palm trees that grew alongside bamboo shoots, they found a small glade. It was covered with pink lavenders and deep purple carnations. Sunlight seemed to make a curtain while trespassing the thin foliage that covered the glade. In the middle of it, there was a gate that glowed in rainbow colors.

"It’s beautiful." Sarah exclaimed, getting close and leaving away any reticence she had as if enthralled by the beauty of that place.

"I’ve never seen a rainbow gate before." Sebastian commented.

"Maybe, it’s just like the gates to the hells are red. The ones to the Fae are rainbow?" Matthew pondered.

"Titania said this place is out of limits for humans." Matil explained. "But I don’t see any harm in showing it to you!" She smiled.

Matil and Ffyr went inside the gate without pause.

"If you’re scared, you can use the dungeon system to go back." Matthew said to Sarah and Sebastian.

Sarah took a deep breath and shook her head.

"No. It’s my chance to see the Chaos Realm with my own eyes. I want to go."

"I’ll go too." Sebastian was succinct.

The three of them trespassed the portal together.

Their eyes were invaded by a bright yellow light. When their eyes got used to the brightness, they saw themselves in a forest much similar to the one in the dungeon. But the colors were completely off.

The leaves were green, orange, blue... The tree trunks were dark black one moment and the other they shone bright like a star.

The critters were impossibly large or minuscule. Lions the size of fleas with bright green fur and purple squirrels the size of skyscrapers roamed around.

The sky was blue, but you could see thousands of bright stars shining in multiple colors.

Gravity seemed to be a suggestion rather than a law as huge chunks of earth floated on the sky spinning like satellites in the sky.

A gray rabbit with 3 ears and blue eyes tried to eat a tiny pink flower, but the flower uprooted itself and ran away at an incredible speed.

A river ended on a cliff, but, instead of falling into a waterfall, it kept running straight in the air and then up where it formed a waterfall onto one of the floating islands making an upside down lake on it.

Everything was so colorful and ever changing. Nothing made sense.

Ffyr flew fast in the air from side to side laughing with a huge smile on her face. She was home after so long. After spending so much time in hell.

Tears flooded her eyes as she landed near Matthew and hugged him.

"Thank you for bringing me back." She said uncharacteristically somber.

Matil took Sarah’s hand and pulled her to follow. Sarah tried to protest, but the girl was fast. Before she knew Matill jumped in the air and started to fly bringing Sarah with her.

At first, Sarah was scared and held Matil’s hand with force, which made the nixie laugh. But then Sarah felt an indescribable feeling of freedom. She was weightless and yet she could move herself around.

Slowly she let go of the lesser god’s hand and noticed that she could fly. With a whim she could go up or down, left or right, forward or backwards.

A huge smile covered her face. She started to laugh and fly erratically in the air. She cried as she laughed. The feeling was overwhelming. She never felt anything like that.

Matil laughed with her and flew close by. She pointed to the things all around them, showing them closely to Sarah that now looked at the nixie neither with awe or woe. She looked at her with the same eyes she looked at Katia. A gentle and loving look.

"Sebas!" She called Sebastian using a nickname she never did before. "Come! This is incredible! You got to fly as well!"

Sebastian stood unquiet on the floor shifting his weight from foot to foot. He wanted to go, but how? How does one fly? He never did anything like that.

Lost in these thoughts he didn’t notice Ffyr creeping in behind him. She grabbed his arm with both hands and spun him around like a slingshot, making him scream in surprise and a bit of fear.

Then she flung him into the sky as if he were weightless.

Sebastian was overwhelmed by the same feelings Sarah was. He laughed loudly as he learned to control his movement in the air.

"I’m glad you all came." Ffyr said to Matthew as he approached her. "I wanted to show you all this for so long."

"Well. Now that we know the way, we can come here whenever you want." Matthew said. "Next time we can bring Tylith, Lynn, Ness and the others."

"I’d like that." Ffyr smiled at him with tears in her eyes. "Come!" She said, flying slowly and extending her hand for him to fly with her.

Matthew gave a little hop and soon was floating in the sky with the others. He grabbed her hand and she pulled him and flew around showing all the confusing and impossible things the chaos realm had for them.

Night fell in a blink of an eye, just to last a couple of minutes and the sun decided to stop in the sky at dusk.

"Look!" Matil pointed out while they flew in a single direction. "Those are Mafagafos!"

A flock of birds flew by them in the sky. Some were as big as houses, others smaller than flies. They had blue feathers covering their bodies, but that shone like metal reflecting sunlight in all the colors of the rainbow with orange and pink being more prominent. They had long beaks like toucans, but talons like eagles. Their eyes were silver like mirrors and they had 7 wings, 3 on each side and a 7th on their back like a shark fin that flapped to both sides.

"They’re beautiful!" Sarah smiled, holding Matil’s hand with a tender touch.