Six returned to her gingerbread cabin as the sun began its descent toward the horizon, painting the Black Forest in shades of amber and crimson. The journey from the trading post had been uneventful, her mind occupied with planning and calculations.
Three days to the Ironspine Mountains. Three days away from her prize.
She pushed open the cabin door and was immediately greeted by a chorus of excited squeals.
"Mistress is back! Mistress is back!"
"Did you bring us anything?"
"We were so good while you were gone!"
Six smiled despite herself, reaching out to pat the riding crop as it floated over to nuzzle against her hand like an affectionate pet. "I'm sure you were, darlings. How is our guest?"
"Still sleeping!" the pearl necklace reported from its velvet box. "She woke up once and cried a little, but then she went back to sleep."
Six moved to the golden cage, peering inside. Lemmy had shifted position—she now lay on her side, her knees drawn up to her chest in a fetal curl. Her wings twitched occasionally, and her antennae drooped limply against her golden hair. The glow from her core had stabilized into a steady, rhythmic pulse.
"Good," Six murmured. "She needs rest. Her body is processing the first seal break."
She straightened and surveyed her cabin, making mental notes of what she would need for the journey ahead. The Ironspine Mountains were notoriously treacherous—jagged peaks, unpredictable weather, and a host of dangerous creatures that called the rocky terrain home. She would need to pack carefully.
"I'll be leaving tomorrow morning," Six announced to her toys. "A three-day journey, possibly longer. I need you all to watch over the cabin and Lemmy while I'm gone.
A ripple of concern passed through the enchanted implements.
"Three days?" the riding crop whimpered. "That's so long, Mistress!"
"Who will play with us?" one of the nipple clamps asked plaintively.
Six held up a hand, silencing them. "This is important. I'm acquiring an ingredient for a very special potion—one that will allow me to have more intimate playtime with our little guest."
The toys perked up immediately, their googly eyes widening with interest.
"More playtime?"
"Intimate how?"
"Tell us, tell us!"
"All in good time," Six said, echoing her earlier words to Lemmy. "For now, I need you to guard her. Keep the barriers strong. If she wakes, you may... entertain her. Gently. I don't want her damaged while I'm away."
"Yes, Mistress!" the toys chorused.
Six spent the next hour preparing for her journey. She packed a leather satchel with essentials: dried rations, a waterskin, a bedroll, fire-starting materials, and a small pouch of zenny for emergencies. She added several vials of healing potion, a paralysis draught, and a smoke bomb—standard precautions for traveling through dangerous territory.
She also packed away the ingredients she already acquired: the three vials of moonpetal essence, and a jar of Heartwood sap she had harvested from the Black Forest before returning home, beside a small collection of other reagents that might prove useful.
The only items still missing were the giant's toenail shavings, the pixie dust ( that had to be willingly given), and the tears of submission. The latter two, she suspected, would come from Lemmy herself—but that was a problem for after she returned.
As night fell, Six ate a simple meal of bread and cheese, reviewed Pythia's map one final time, and retired to her bed. The golden cage sat on her nightstand, close enough that she could hear Lemmy's soft breathing as she slept.
"Soon, little fairy," Six whispered into the darkness. "Soon we'll be able to play in ways you can't even imagine."
She closed her eyes and let sleep claim her.
Dawn broke grey and cold, a thin mist hanging over the Black Forest like a burial shroud. Six rose with the sun, dressed in her practical traveling clothes, and performed a final check of her preparations.
The cabin's wards were reinforced. The barrier around Lemmy's cage was tripled. The enchanted toys had their instructions. Everything was in order.
"Be good," Six told her darlings as she shouldered her satchel. "I'll return as quickly as I can."
"We'll miss you, Mistress!"
"Hurry back!"
"Bring us a souvenir!"
Six smiled and stepped out into the misty morning.
The journey northeast took her through the Black Forest first, following familiar paths until the ancient trees began to thin and give way to rolling hills. By midday, she had left the forest behind entirely, emerging onto the grasslands that stretched toward the distant mountains.
The Ironspine range dominated the northeastern horizon—a jagged line of peaks that resembled nothing so much as the spine of some colossal, long-dead beast. Snow capped the highest summits even now, in late summer, and dark clouds perpetually shrouded the upper reaches. It was said that the mountains were home to dragons, wyverns, and other winged terrors, though Six suspected most of those stories were exaggerated.
Giants, however, were not exaggerated. They were very, very real.
Six had encountered a giant once before, many years ago when she was still an apprentice. Her mentor had taken her to observe a trading negotiation between a merchant caravan and a mountain giant clan. The giants had been... impressive. They ranged in sizes from seven feet to ten, and up. Some reaching heights of up to thirty feet, muscles like boulders, hands that could crush a horse like an overripe fruit. They had also been surprisingly intelligent—far more so than the stories suggested.
That memory gave her hope. If Gorath was willing to negotiate, as Pythia had implied, then perhaps she could acquire what she needed without violence.
Violence against a giant was generally inadvisable in any condition, after all.
She walked until sunset, then made camp in a shallow depression between two hills. A small fire kept the chill at bay, and her bedroll provided adequate comfort. She ate her rations mechanically, her mind focused on the days ahead.
The second day brought rougher terrain. The grasslands gave way to rocky foothills, and the path—such as it was—became increasingly treacherous. Six picked her way between boulders, climbed over ridges, and forded icy streams that tumbled down from the mountains above. Her boots were soaked through by midday, and her legs ached by evening.
But she pressed on.
That night, she camped in the lee of a massive boulder, sheltered from the wind that howled down from the peaks. The temperature had dropped significantly, and she was grateful for the warming enchantment woven into her cloak. Without it, she might have frozen.
The third day was the hardest.
The foothills had become true mountains now, and Six found herself climbing more often than walking. Pythia's map guided her through a narrow pass, around a frozen lake, and up a series of switchbacks that left her gasping for breath. The air was thinner here, and each step required more effort than the last.
But finally, as the sun began to set on the third day, she saw it.
A cave mouth, massive and dark, yawning in the side of the mountain like the entrance to another world. It was easily fifty feet across and thirty feet high—sized for a giant.
Six paused at the base of the slope leading up to the cave, catching her breath and composing herself. Pythia had said Gorath might be willing to negotiate. Might be receptive to ''company.'' But "might" was not "would," and Six had not survived fifteen years as a witch by being careless.
She approached slowly, making no effort to conceal her presence. If Gorath was home, he would know she was coming. Better to seem open and non-threatening than to be caught trying to sneak.
The cave mouth loomed larger as she climbed, and she became aware of a smell—not unpleasant, exactly, but distinctly... earthy. Like stone and moss and something animal. The smell of a giant.
She stopped at the threshold, peering into the darkness beyond. Her eyes, enhanced by a minor night-vision spell, could make out the rough contours of a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain.
"Hello?" she called, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "Is anyone home? I come seeking an audience with Gorath the Giant. I mean no harm—I wish only to trade."
Silence.
Then, from deep within the cave, a sound. A rumbling, grinding sound, like boulders being dragged across stone.
Footsteps.
Six held her ground as the sound grew louder, closer. The ground beneath her feet began to tremble with each impact. And then, emerging from the darkness like a mountain given form, came Gorath.
He was enormous—even larger than the giants Six remembered from her youth. Forty feet tall at least, his shoulders nearly scraping the ceiling of the tunnel. His skin was the grey-brown of weathered granite, and his features were craggy and worn, like a cliff face eroded by centuries of wind and rain. A wild beard of grey-white hair cascaded down his chest, and his eyes—small for his face but still larger than Six's head—were a deep, tired blue.
He wore simple clothing: a tunic of stitched animal hides and trousers that might have been made from an entire herd of cattle. His feet were bare, and Six's eyes immediately went to his toes—massive, gnarled things with nails like shields of yellowed ivory.
Perfect.
Gorath stopped at the cave mouth, looking down at Six with an expression of weary surprise. When he spoke, his voice was like an avalanche—deep, rumbling, and powerful enough to vibrate in her chest.
"A human," he said slowly, as if tasting the word. "A human has come to my mountain."
Six inclined her head respectfully. "Gorath the Giant. I am Six, a witch of the Black Forest. I have traveled three days to seek an audience with you."
Gorath's massive brow furrowed. "A witch." He said the word without hostility, but also without warmth. "I have not spoken to a witch in... many years. Many, many years." His blue eyes studied her with surprising keenness. "Why have you come, Six the Witch? What do you want from old Gorath?"
Six met his gaze as he oogled her without flinching. "I require an ingredient for a potion I am brewing. An ingredient that only a giant can provide."
"And what ingredient is that?"
"Toenail shavings," Six said simply. "One cup's worth."
Gorath stared at her for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed—a booming sound that echoed off the mountains and sent small rocks tumbling down the slopes.
"Toenail shavings!" he roared, slapping his knee with a hand the size of a wagon. "The witch travels three days through the mountains to ask for my toenail shavings!" He laughed again, shaking his head. "You are either very brave or very foolish, little witch."
"Perhaps both," Six admitted.
Gorath's laughter subsided, but a smile remained on his craggy face—the first genuine expression of amusement Six had seen from him. "I like you, Six the Witch. You have spirit." He scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Toenail shavings are nothing to me. I would give them freely, except..."
"Except?" Six prompted.
Gorath's smile faded, replaced by something older and sadder. "Except I am lonely, Six the Witch. So very lonely. My clan is gone—dead or scattered to the far corners of the world. I have lived alone in this mountain for fifty-three years, with no one to talk to, no one to share my fire with." He sighed, a sound like wind through a canyon. "If you want my toenails, you must give me something in return."
"Name your price," Six said.
Gorath settled down onto a boulder near the cave mouth, bringing himself closer to Six's level—though he still towered over her by a considerable margin. "Stay with me," he said. "One night. Share my fire, share my food, share my company. Tell me stories of the world below.
He paused a moment before he spoke, "And you must dance for me."
That is my price."
Six blinked. Of all the things she had expected the giant to demand—gold, magical artifacts, impossible quests—simple companionship had not been among them.
"One night?" she repeated.
"One night," Gorath confirmed. "Is that too high a price for a cup of toenail shavings?"
Six thought of Lemmy, alone in her cage back at the cabin. She thought of the Big and Small potions waiting to be brewed. She thought of the power that awaited her, the cultivation gains, the possibilities.
One night was nothing.
"Agreed," she said. "I will stay with you tonight, Gorath. I will share your fire and your company, and I will tell you stories of the world below. She paused, then spoke; "And I will dance for you."
Gorath's weathered face broke into a smile—genuine, warm, and almost heartbreakingly grateful. "Then come, Six the Witch. Come into my home. Let me show you giant hospitality."
He rose and turned, lumbering back into the cave. Six followed, stepping from the fading daylight into the darkness of the mountain.