Hunter Winroux's Terrible Guide to Falling into Realms

Chapter One

"Can you stop getting stuck? For one damned second?" I groaned, pulling on my hair, which was currently caught on an overgrown tree root.
Up until ten minutes ago, my hair was no longer than my shoulders. Now it's seventy feet long.
It all started with those crystals.
I hadn't meant to eavesdrop on the guards, but they were standing right outside my bedroom, so it was pretty hard not to. As soon as they mentioned a new formation of crystals that had randomly sprouted up near the kingdom, I was up for an adventure.
I had planned on staying in for the night, maybe work on a painting or two, but the sheer idea of an adventure had me quickly out the castle doors, riding towards the spot they had mentioned.
As soon as I arrived at the spot, I was overtaken by their beauty. These crystals were nothing like I'd ever seen.
They were tall and pointy, with the sunlight bouncing off of them, they looked like opals with their pale colors.
I was captivated, these were nothing but normal crystals, and I just had a feeling that these were meant to cross my path.
Reaching out, I slowly raised my finger to touch them.
They were smooth, but somehow rocky and grainy at the same time.
But before I had a chance to properly examine them, a bright light began to pour out of the crystals, sending my whole entire body flying backwards.
As soon as the light had come to existence, it disappeared from sight, leaving me alone on the ground with Calico, my chameleon, shuddering beneath my cloak.
Still regaining eyesight, I began to stand up, a hand to my face covering my eyes, which were nearly blinded from the light.
As my eyesight began to recover, I noticed a new warm light. This time coming from myself, my hair in particular.
I hadn't seen my hair glow like this in almost 200 years, the last time it had been seventy feet long.
I stumbled backwards, as I watched portions of my hair starting to glow as well, starting to grow.
My feet began to fall over an edge, looking backwards, I saw the swirling colors of a realm portal just beneath the edge of my feet.
Trying to regain balance, my feet tripped over each other, sending me falling into the rainbow colors of the realm portal.
Before I knew it, I was lying on cool grass, beneath the shadows of trees in a forest.
Sitting up, I looked around my surroundings.
"Dear Gods" I whisper-gasped to myself, as I caught a good look at what my hair had become, sprawled out all around me, was a good seventy feet worth of it.
I was in shock to say the least, but the hair was the least of my problems at the current moment. I was stuck in another realm, without any realm scissors on hand to get me out of this situation.
Stupid move, I know. Usually I'd bring them with me, but I wasn't planning on going far when packing for the trip, and it's not like I was expecting to fall into a realm portal anyways.
Taking a deep breath, I began to stand up. If I was going to find any way out of here, sitting on the ground was not going to be helpful.
I looked back behind me, my hair still sprawled across the ground. Closing my eyes, I took one last breath before walking off into the forest.
The forest didn't seem too big, in the distance I could see the lights of a town, meaning that civilization wasn't far away. In the center of it all, a tall glowing light beamed into the sky, some sorts of a rainbow beacon.
Coming around to a small cliff front, I took notice of a winding path of gravel headed in the direction of the lights.
"There we go!" I exclaimed out loud "We found a path! That's one step closer to getting out of here!" I looked at Calico, who nodded in agreement while clinging on to my shoulder.
As I started to follow the path, a loud hissing noise came from the cliff above.
"What was that?" I looked up, reaching for the dagger attached to my belt.
Just above me, sitting on the cliff side was what was the biggest spider I'd ever seen in my life, its several beady eyes looking down on me.
I took a step back, I may not be a child of Athena, but ever since I could remember, which surprisingly wasn't a lot for someone over 200 years old, spiders had been one of my worst fears.
I took another step back, my shaking hand just above the bronze dagger against my waist, as the large arachnid jumped down from above at me.
"OH DEAR GODS" I shouted out loud, closing my eyes immediately as I stood completely still with fear.
Seconds went by, and nothing happened. I opened my eyes, confused as to why I wasn't currently being bitten by a spider the size of a large dog.
The spider, now on its back on the ground, was dead. Standing over it, was a girl with medium length ginger hair, a sword in her hand.
A cold breeze blew through the air, pushing leaves off of the trees surrounding the area. I shivered, which isn't normal for a goddess of the cold.
"Are you going to continue sitting there?"
I made eye contact with the girl standing before me, her eyes staring into mine.
"Um- no" I replied, standing up from the ground.
The girl looked forwards to the path, and then looked back to me for a second, shifting her hand in a motion towards the path.
"Follow me" she said, starting to walk off in that direction.
I looked down at Calico, who was staring at me with large eyes, years of being with him let me translate this facial expression easily: "Is this a good idea? Is she trustable?"
I shrugged. If she turned out to be a Greek monster from the depths of Tartarus, which I doubt she was, I'm sure I could handle it.
"Hey! Wait up for me!" I yelled in her direction, running after her.