The world exploded in a crimson light and the ground began to shake with a violent fury that threatened to toss people to the ground. Tristan stood firm, unwavering, as he watched bloody light surge from the seal and permeate the entire crevasse. The walls of the Daylight Dell began to push further away from each other, and rocky outcroppings became sharper; near razor points that would cut someone who made a single misstep.

Before Tristan, at the boundary of the Fey Realm, a crack appeared. A fissure. Not a new incursion, he knew instinctively. But something that had been there for a long time. That fissure grew, and increased in size until the entire area before him was naught but a ravine leading to a dark, murky forest. Not a healthy, vibrant one like those in the Fey Realm, but one that looked sinister and sick; with thick, almost bloated trees that oozed red sap, and had sharp, prickly leaves.

Tristan raised his voice and yelled out. "Form up! Krik, siege mode to block the ravine!" He glanced back and saw Krik place his heavy, wooden-gauntlet hand on two other spriggan, and they began to grow in size. Bigger and bigger, until their bulk completely blocked access to the Fey Realm on the ground. Only flight would allow someone to come and go. The second spriggan stepped out of the ravine and formed his body in an arch, preventing people from exiting by flight.

"Done, forest father!" Krik's voice rumbled back. "Orders?"

"Zeltana. Advice?" Tristan whispered.

Her voice did not come to him.

Tristan's blood ran cold. He was both-direction spinning his crucible but did not feel the ambient essence of the Fey Realm. "Matriarch!" Tristan shouted.

Her voice echoed from above. "Yes, Lord Tristan?"

Tristan looked up. "Why are you up there?"

The Matriarch's voice was firm, and filled with a grim resolve tinged with sorrow. "The Daylight Dell . . . another realm grafted it onto theirs. When the sections of the Fey Realm were sealed away, they qualified as lost realms for the purpose of grafting. I could excise the entire ravine. Right now, technically, we are in this other realm. I cannot be down there."

Tristan heard shrieks and manic laughs from the dark woods ahead. "Tell me what this realm is."

The Matriarch reached her claw down from the heights of the chasm and the tips touched an invisible film that bounced, casting a prismatic light across its surface. "You're in The Witchwood."

"What do you advise?" Tristan shouted back as all of his forces finished forming up as best they could given the terrain.

"Either conquer, or retreat and excise."

Tristan was torn. His innate desire to not be a conqueror was pushing him to retreat, pull back, and do what The Matriarch said they could do. But a deeper, more violent desire rose in his chest. That greed he had felt on many occasions. This Witchwood, this other realm, had invaded and grafted his rightful domain. The influence of the dragon essence crucibles, dormant for some time, came surging back in full force as desire took hold. Tristan stood at a precipice. Seek vengeance and conquer to reclaim or cut his losses and keep his moral high ground.

"Felicity," Tristan muttered as the shrieks and cackling laughs became louder. "What do you advise?"

"Follow your heart. It's not steered you wrong before."

Those words struck a chord in Tristan's mind. A peal that echoed through his thoughts and pushed back the driving greed from consumption of crucibles. "Fall back!" Tristan shouted. "Everyone, out of the ravine! Matriarch! When we're out, seal it off!"

Everyone manifested wings and began to lift off, flying to the giant spriggan above, who moved his hand to allow for an opening to leave. Tristan willed his wings to emerge and joined them, flying up and past it. He felt the essence of the realm connect with him once more. He could see the tear in the fabric of reality from where he was hovering and saw the bloody gash in the side of the "wall" of the Fey Realm. A crimson gap that flickered with black sigils, butting up against the prismatic barrier of the realm's exterior. "Krik, block that! Matriarch, seal it now!"

Krik moved with two other Spriggan, and he touched them. They grew to titanic stature and locked arms, covering the bloody gash in the wall of the realm. The Matriarch's voice bellowed out from below. "I cannot! They are trying to graft our whole realm! Lord Tristan, their realm protector must stop for me to seal it!"

Zeltana's voice came back to him. I watched your memories. The only way to stop this and protect the Fey Realm is to conquer theirs. I know you did not want to be a conqueror, but this must be done, or else all is lost.

Tristan swallowed the knot in his throat. "Okay," he whispered. I'm sorry, Mother. I cannot live up to the morals you taught me. I can't just be someone who fights threats to protect others and only kills when absolutely necessary . . . forgive me. He raised his voice and shouted. "We fight to save our realm!" He flew back down, through the gap the spriggan left open, past The Matriarch who was tucked up next to the top of the ravine, and down to the ground. He landed and let the wings dissipate.

Figures began emerging from the darkened forest. Tall, lanky figures with pitch-black skin, deep, red hair, huge canid teeth that extended past their lower and upper lips, and wooden piercings inscribed with words in an unfamiliar language all across their exposed skin. They were outfitted in light, leather armor with wooden plates grafted to protect vital areas. They all held bows, aimed right at Tristan, and loosed.

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He grabbed the hem of his cloak and brought it around to cover him. The entire barrage slammed into the scales and pinged off, either shattering or being flung aside. He swung the cloak away with a flourish, and pointed his sword at them. "For the Fey Realm!" His forces began to charge, and Onyx slowed slightly next to Tristan, allowing him to grab a handful of his braided mane and pull himself atop the mighty destrier. Onyx lowered his head, and his horn glowed with a shimmering, white light that bloomed into a barrier before them. The other unicorns and their riders got ahead of the fairy dragons in their medley of forms, and the spriggan who began to shift and grow to varying sizes.

Krik got up next to Tristan and his low voice rumbled out. "We get in, clear out some space, establish a foothold." He looked at a nearby fairy dragon. "You! Go tell The Matriarch to set up forward camp in that ravine." The fairy dragon took off, speeding back toward the Fey Realm.

More bowstrings twanged, and the arrows broke against the barricade of essence-fueled barriers that the unicorns' charge. Shouting, screams of frustration, and mad cackles reached Tristan's ears as they approached the tree line.

The trees surrounding them began to move. The bloated bodies uprooting themselves as branches spun and became scything blades that spun like tops; spinning toward the charge.

Krik let out a roar and his body surged with deep, green light. A bolt of green shot forward, slammed into one of the spinning trees, and immediately the wood calcified. The remaining momentum caused the thing to fling toward one of its allies, and both went down with one permanently out of commission.

The unicorn charge met the line of blades, and the barriers held; stopping the scything blades in their tracks. Tristan was in the second wave, and sliced deep into the wood. A deep, crimson sap spilled out that was instantly frozen. The electricity from the Elemental Imbuement seemed to do nothing, and with a thought and a little spin of essence, Tristan swapped the imbuement to fire.

He was then thrown into the air, tumbling to his left as his armor took the blow. Onyx rolled over on top of him, and Tristan's armor protected him, but he still felt the weight of a fully grown destrier squish down on him. Standing up, his heart sank, and he let out a pained shout. "No!"

The entire unicorn line of charge at the center had been sent flying by the enormous explosion, only to then be peppered by arrows from deeper into The Witchwood proper. He heard the pained screams, some of which were silenced, and knew he had just been the cause of his own troops' deaths.

Felicity! He instinctively reached up to his head but didn't feel her. She must've been thrown free. "Felicity!" he screamed out, fearing the worst.

"I'm up here!" she cried out. He glanced up and to his relief saw her flying far above. "I'm going to go scout. Maybe drop some fire deep in their realm." She turned invisible and flew off. Tristan felt relief wash over him. She was going to be out of immediate danger.

Onyx got to his hooves, glowing a deep umbral black as his bones snapped into place. "Lord Tristan!"

Tristan grabbed a fistful of Onyx's mane before pulling himself atop the mighty steed once more. "Go, Onyx!" The mighty mount surged forward, joining the ground troops that had begun to engage with the spinning, scything trees. The unicorns in their initial charge had reached the deeper part of the forest, driving off the archers, and circled back to help with the bladed woods. Tristan let Elemental Imbuement fade from his weapon, and made deep, chopping cuts as he went by a tree engaged with a spriggan. His cut sliced clean through the center of the mass, and the tree collapsed in two halves.

Glancing across the battlefield, he saw that the encounter was going in their direction. Injuries were being healed by the unicorns that stood as protective wards over the fallen; their protection spells able to repel the few arrows fired by the retreating archers with ease. Bertram was hacking apart trees from unicorn-back with ease, lopping strikes, laughing with pleasure at the violence. Krik was back toward the ravine, and seemed to be working with spriggan to use wood elementalism to raise up fortifications to fall back to if necessary.

This area will need to be cleared out. That way we can see approach whenever it may come. Tristan flicked his blade out once more, his titanic strength and the elongated length of the sword in his grip making quick work of yet another blade tree. He let out a war cry as he carved through the next one, and spurred Onyx onward with his knees.

Without archer support, the Fey Realm force made quick work of the remaining blade trees. Tristan shouted orders out, using the familiar visualization of emulating dragon behavior to shape his decision making. "Recover the fallen. Then, clear out to our redoubt!" If a dragon found a cave that was occupied, they would slowly probe the occupant until a climactic confrontation. If the occupant did not leave the cave, then the dragon would go in – but not recklessly.

And, Tristan had a plan. He pushed some essence from his still-spinning crucible into his bangle. "Felicity, retreat. I don't want you to maybe be caught up in what I'm about to do."

"Right! On my way back! This whole place is a big, creepy forest. Lots of those bulbous trees, but they have their own type of Queen's Wood. A bigger one with black bark and tons of red symbols. Looks like the home base for these residents."

Tristan rode back to Krik's emerging fortifications. "Warleader, once our dead are reclaimed, and the injured are back on their feet, pull everyone back behind these walls."

Krik looked up at him with confusion. "Forest Father? Are you sure about that course of action? Giving back ground?"

Tristan nodded. "I have a plan. Onyx, we stay outside of the gates." He turned with the steed and watched as his troops returned from the battlefield. Tristan made sure to encourage, exhort the deeds of, and provide words of thanks to those who fought under his command. The simple gesture, he felt, was what a ruler should do when a battle concluded. Felicity returned and plopped on top of Onyx's head.

"Scouting done! They're massing up an army."

"Good," Tristan replied.

"What is the plan?" Onyx asked.

"I'd like to know that too," Bertram said as he came to the fortification, one of the last. "What caused that explosion earlier?"

"Fire elementalism," Tristan said. "Bertram, remember how dragons get a new cave?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"Same principal. This realm is a new cave."

Bertram's smile broadened and he let out a barking laugh. "That's genius."

"What is?" Felicity and Onyx asked in tandem.

Tristan waited until everyone was behind the gates and then pointed his hand out at the battlefield. A battlefield covered in crimson sap. He pushed essence into his gauntlet, and let loose a tiny Fireball. The bead of silver light shot out.

CRACK! KABOOM! FWSSH!

The entire battlefield erupted in a cataclysmic inferno that charred the wooden fortifications, singed Onyx's mane, Tristan's hair, Felicity's fur, and Bertram's beard. The entire world before them surged with heat that Tristan found comfortable, but set all save Bertram to panting. "That is what I was thinking of," Tristan said.

"Smoking them out," Bertram said as murky smoke spiraled upward. "We just need to burn enough of their Witchwood to smoke them out."

"Felicity, you said this whole realm was covered in those trees?"

"Oh, yeah."

Tristan grinned. "Then we can avoid bloodshed."

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