"Your help is no longer needed," Noxaura said, snapping her hand out to grab the seemingly sweet old man by his neck, cutting off his laughter and hauling him off his feet to slam him against a nearby tree trunk. The old mans eyes bulged as he thrashed in her grip with much energy for someone so frail looking. His weathered and knobbly fingers clawing at her arm, wheezing.<br/><br/>Suddenly the old man hissed as he choked and gurgled, inhuman noises coming from him. His pale pink human flesh fell away to reveal the ugly green skin and beady yellow eyes of a hobgoblin, baring its grey bug infested teeth. But she soon snuffed his life out by crushing his neck, before dropping him in the floor. She licked the black-red blood off one of her nails where she had dug them into his neck. "Not even good enough to eat..." promptly spitting out the foul tasting stuff onto the grass.<br/><br/>Pulling her own dagger that the little trickster of a hobgoblin had stolen off her from the side of her abdomen, licking the blade of her own blood so not to waste it, already feeling her wound closing, she turned to face herself. Or a pale copy of herself. Literally. The doppelgänger that stood before her was a black and white copy of Noxaura, hair black, skin white, eyes black, clothes a pale grey. It looked lifeless, dead.<br/><br/>She had originally struck a bargain with some humans in a nearby village, shelter in return for finding and getting rid of whatever monster kept destroying their shop and stealing their goods. She had indeed found the monster. But the hobgoblin had placed a glamour over itself to disguise itself as a frail, friendly, mute old man, pretending to live in the village. She played along and asked if he knew where the Shadow or Sleeping Forest was. He had nodded and pointed to her shiny dagger. A trade. The location for the dagger. She had agreed, but knew the little creature had been eyeing her massive bag, full to the brim with weapons taken from the Northern Valley blacksmith as a form of payment. The greed was clear in the old mans black eyes.<br/><br/>Certain fae creatures could not lie, go back on their word or bargains. A hobgoblin was one of them, but they delighted in the game of tricking unsuspecting victims and giving them worse than what they asked for. Hence why the creature had lead her to the edge of the Shadow Forest and right into the path of a doppelgänger. They obviously worked together. The hobgoblin lead its victims to the doppelgänger, the doppelgänger got to take the forms of their victims and devour their souls after to gain everything about the person, voice, magic, life. Adding to their collection. Whilst the hobgoblin took all the material items off the victim that it could get its greedy hands on.<br/><br/>The doppelgänger let out an ear piercing screech, which undoubtedly incapacitated most of its victims, but Noxaura had had worse things make her ears bleed. The black and white copy opened its mouth like that of a snake, its jaw falling down to its stomach revealing pitch black hole that was its gullet. It raced forward intending to devour.<br/><br/>Using the blood on her dagger, three droplets rose from the gleaming blade, twisting into very sharp needles. With a flick of her wrist the blood needles shot towards the doppelgänger. One sliced through her skull, another through her heart, the last one in her navel. The creature collapsed but it was not enough to kill it. Marching over to the writhing creature she knelt beside it, dropping the bag by her side. The creature flinched away from it. Opening up the bag Nox sifted through her collection of blades, scenting each one until she found what she was after. An iron sword. Lesser fae were known to hate iron because it burned them and could kill them. Pulling the sword from her bag the creature hissed and attempted to crawl away despite the blood loss.<br/><br/>Getting to her feet Noxaura stabbed the creature in the shoulder, nearly severing arm from body. Howling it thrashed about. "You are going to tell me everything I need to know about the forest of the Unseelie fae. Sometimes called the Sleeping or Shadow Forest by different people, and I will not release the trapped souls you have and kill you outright." It tried to get away, but after a twist of the sword it decided to agree to her deal. Problem was Noxaura was not bound by anything. So once the fae had finished telling truths, half truths, and lies, she killed the doppelgänger as well, watching the trapped souls float up into the sky.<br/><br/>After that she finally stepped into the Shadow Forest, known to send people to madness, to their death or trap them for eternity just for entertainment. It had taken her a week and a bit to get here due to conflicting information, but she was going to get what she came for even if it tried to kill her.<br/><br/>Sunlight could barely penitrate the forest if at all, throwing her into darkness. Not that she had any problem seeing in the dark, in fact sometimes she much preferred it. The trees were as thick as boulders and almost as tall as a mountain, twisting endlessly up to the sky. Roots were as big and thick as a normal tree, dropping down from the trunks or breaking up through the leaf and moss covered dirt making for huge obsticles. Everything was dark, barely any colour resided in the mist coated forest, unless you liked the pink glow of the poisonous red mushrooms, the violet light of the deadly nightshade plants, or the burning light of what looked like fire flies, but were actually fingertip sized fire sprites that liked to burn your flesh and eat it or set fire to plants for fun until they got eaten by a bigger plant.<br/><br/>The further she walked the more treacherous the terrain, having to hop from root to root to avoid the moats and lakes that sometimes had carnivorous fish fae or a Lady of the Mirror who'd pull you into the water and drown you. She avoided the Fodden that tried to grab her from the ground and pull her down into the dirt into the underworld, dodging and killing Ialtog's or demon bats that tried to attack her. Running from or bashing red eyed hounds of the dead or rongeur shadow dogs that tried to attack her. All until she came to a clearing.<br/><br/>The centre of the forest suddenly came to a shear cliff drop, with a number of eligantly twisted roots bridging the forest to the centre of a huge but gorgeous seemingly floating island. In the centre of the island was a huge tree that had blood red leaves and ghostly white bark, clearly housing the court and royalty of the unseelie fae with the way it was grown and carved into the shape of sharply defined castle. Surrounding the island the cliff broke off into a number or ledges with spikes along the edges, clearly housing some lesser unseelie fae, little bridges going from the ledges to the stone base of the island underneath the tree. Surrounding the red tree were black, dark green and grey trees, expertly carved and grown into the shape of homes and buildings no doubt housing nobles and other such sought after and useful fae. The hierarchy was clear. And every fae wanted to curry favour to be as close to royalty as possible. But she was not here for royalty. She was here for supplies from a specialist craftman.<br/><br/>But a troll stopped her from crossing the bridge to where she needed to go. After correctly answering the three riddles designed to trick and trap her, she was allowed to pass without killing the beast. The problem was trying to track down the fae that could create what she needed, seeing as she didn't dare ask anything of the fae here without backlash. So instead she used her knowledge of fae language and went on the tedious search for the blacksmith and leathercraftsman instead. When she finally found it after the number of stares and hisses she received she was almost relieved, needing nourishment and a rest soon. Question was, as she entered the blacksmiths what was it going to cost her to get the enchanted weapons and clothes she needed. She hadn't felt Astarot around so it meant he hadn't arrived yet, either that or he had shifted to his human form and was expertly hiding his presence, but given their bond it was near impossible. Plus she was sure there would be more drama, killing and screaming if he had arrived. He wasn't a being you could exactly miss, especially with the destruction he wrought with his very being.