Tablecontents

Tablecontents
Chapter 1 :
Chapter 2 :
Chapter 3 :
Chapter 4 :
Chapter 5 :
Chapter 6 :
Chapter 7 :
Chapter 8 :
Chapter 9 :
Chapter 10 :
Chapter 11 :
Chapter 12 :
Chapter 13 :
Chapter 14 :
Chapter 15 :
Chapter 16 :
Chapter 17 :
Chapter 18 :
Chapter 19 :
Chapter 20 :
Chapter 21 :
Chapter 22 :
Chapter 23 :
Chapter 24 :
Chapter 25 :
Chapter 26 :
Chapter 27 :
Chapter 28 :
Chapter 29 :
Chapter 30 :
Chapter 31 :
Chapter 32 :
Chapter 33 :
Chapter 34 :
Chapter 35 :
Chapter 36 :
Chapter 37 :
Chapter 38 :
Chapter 39 :
Chapter 40 :
Chapter 41 :
Chapter 42 :
Chapter 43 :
Chapter 44 :
Chapter 45 :
Chapter 46 :
Chapter 47 :
Chapter 48 :
Chapter 49 :
Chapter 50 :
Chapter 51 :
Chapter 52 :
Chapter 53 :
Chapter 54 :
Chapter 55 :
Chapter 56 :
Chapter 57 :
Chapter 58 :
Chapter 59 :
Chapter 60 :
Chapter 61 :
Chapter 62 :
Chapter 63 :
Chapter 64 :
Chapter 65 :
Chapter 66 :
Chapter 67 :
Chapter 68 :
Chapter 69 :
Chapter 70 :
Chapter 71 :
Chapter 72 :
Chapter 73 :
Chapter 74 :
Chapter 75 :
Chapter 76 :
Chapter 77 :
Chapter 78 :
Chapter 79 :
Chapter 80 :
Chapter 81 :
Chapter 82 :
Chapter 83 :
Chapter 84 :
Chapter 85 :
Chapter 86 :
Chapter 87 :
Chapter 88 :
Chapter 89 :
Chapter 90 :
Chapter 91 :
Chapter 92 :
Chapter 93 :
Chapter 94 :
Chapter 95 :
Chapter 96 :
Chapter 97 :
Chapter 98 :
Chapter 99 :
Chapter 100 :
Chapter 101 :
Chapter 102 :
Chapter 103 :
Chapter 104 :
Chapter 105 :
Chapter 106 :
Chapter 107 :
Chapter 108 :
Chapter 109 :
Chapter 110 :
Chapter 111 :
Chapter 112 :
Chapter 113 :
Chapter 114 :
Chapter 115 :
Chapter 116 :
Chapter 117 :
Chapter 118 :
Chapter 119 :
Chapter 120 :
Chapter 121 :
Chapter 122 :
Chapter 123 :
Chapter 124 :
Chapter 125 :
Chapter 126 :
Chapter 127 :

Chapter 1 :
“This wind is nuts!” I yelled as I struggled with the
umbrella. Not that it was doing much good. The three
of us were already sodden and miserable, so the
flimsy plastic and metal wasn't even good as moral
support.

We were trying to get to our next class, but the storm

had rolled in over Avonside University out of nowhere,
and we were trapped, huddled behind some
decorative art thing in a vain attempt to get out of the
wind.
Bray looked miserable in his thin T-shirt, huddling up
against the metal sculpture, while his friend, —whose
name I still hadn’t gotten— looked slightly more
comfortable in her similar getup.

“Here let me take it,” she called over the wind, her
hands already reaching for the rebellious umbrella
that was our only defense against the torrent of rain
from above.

I hesitated for a moment, then nodded and carefully

passed it to her. She looked like she could probably lift
me over her head with a little effort. That wasn’t to
say she was all muscle or anything, but there was
enough definition in her arms to let me know I’d get
my ass beat if it came to that. Which it wouldn’t
because conflict was scary.

“You two boys ready to make a run for it?” she yelled
over the wind, her tone teasing and amused.
“No!” Bray grumbled, but his nod said otherwise.

“And you? Lanky dude, whatever your name is?” she

asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

Lanky dude? I mean fair, but ouch. I nodded, taking a

few deep breaths to try and psych myself up for the
sprint. It looked like about forty meters to the door
and into the atrium where we needed to go. Forty
long meters swept by rain that was being driven
almost horizontal by this storm.

“Go!” the girl called, and we ran.

Even considering my earlier appraisal of her, it was

impressive to see her run and hold the umbrella over
all three of us like it was nothing. Damn girl!
Our feet splashed through forming puddles as we
bolted across the concrete tiles of the Patten
Courtyard. My feet squished uncomfortably as rain
filled my shoes up faster than a cup under an
exploding faucet. Everything below my mid thigh was
soaked, the umbrella could only keep the three of us
covered up to a point.

Regardless, we made it into the Atrium, bursting

through the doors in a spray of water and screeching
wind. The door mechanism was failing to shut it
automatically, so Bray’s friend tossed the umbrella
back to me and leaned her shoulder into it until the
latch clicked closed.

“Holy shit,” she laughed, her chest heaving with the

effort. We were all soaked, her most of all. Her
clothing clung to her frame in a very revealing way. I
couldn’t keep my eyes off her abs, how the hell did
those things even get like that? Smooth and toned at
the same time.

“How did you even keep this thing upright, let alone
covering us from the rain?” I asked, wrenching my
eyes back to my umbrella.

I hadn’t been able to get it out before we’d all been

drenched, that’s how fast the storm had rolled in, and
now the thing was smashed and bent beyond hope.
I’d need to get a new one.

“Yeah look at you! You’re like, buff! Are you one of

those chicks that like deadlift or something?” Bray
asked, openly staring at her.

“Uh yeah, I work out I guess. I lift and shit, but not like,
a ton of the time or anything. I’m not interested in
being a huge tanky chick or whatever. I mean don’t
get me wrong, I think they’re hot as hell, but I don’t
want to be one,” she shrugged, looking a little self
conscious over the way her top was clinging. She
wrapped her arms around her chest and stared back
at Bray awkwardly.

“So you’re into buff girls then?” Bray teased, his eyes
taking on a mischievous glint.

“I guess, but I’m into girls. I like short, pretty, petite

girls, I like tall willowy girls, and yeah… I like buff girls
too,” she shrugged, I could see her becoming more
uncomfortable by the second.

Bray had a problem with knowing when to stop, and it

looked like now was one of those times.
“Bray, knock it off,” I said with as much casual good
nature as I could manage. “After all, we wouldn’t want
the topic of conversation to turn on you would we?”

There wasn’t actually anything wrong with the short

blond guy’s tastes, Bray could like who he liked, but I
knew the topic embarrassed him. I could use the
playful teasing of that topic to save the girl from any
more discomfort. Actually, had I gotten her name yet?

She might have told me actually, but I’d probably been

spacing out, so to speak. It was a thing that happened
to me sometimes, my brain just stopped processing
speech as actual information, and suddenly I was
listening to english like it was a foreign language.

Looking at her now, I was impressed with the balance

in her body that she’d achieved between soft and
hard. She was a generally pretty girl all around too,
but then again, this was college. It seemed like every
girl was pretty.

Anyway, other than her abs, there was another thing

about her that I had taken passing note of. Her hair
was short and pale blond, with these fascinating faded
red and blue streaks through it. It wasn’t sun faded or
anything though, it looked like she’d had it dyed by
someone incredibly skilled, and with top notch
product to boot.

While Bray struggled with his blush, I asked her, “Who

did your hair? It looks incredible, despite how soaked
it is now.”

“Oh,” she blinked, surprised by my change of

conversational topic. “Uh, it was me. I’m training to be
a hair stylist.”
“Nice, I really like it,” I said, then ran my hand through
my very wet and very short military style haircut with
a grin. “Think I should dye mine?”

“There isn’t much there to dye,” she chuckled, eyeing

me over. “And plus, you don’t actually seem like the
type of guy who dyes his hair.”

I laughed off her words, because for reasons that

would baffle most people, they hurt like hell. I wished
I had longer hair, but that was only part of it.

Then she squinted at me, like she’d had a sudden

realisation. “You aren’t hitting on me are you? I just
said that I like girls, but I guess to be clear, I’m not into
guys.” Her eyes flicked to Bray and she added,
“Especially ones that stare.”
“He doesn’t hit on anyone, guys or girls,” Bray
grumbled, clearly a little grumpy with both of us for
the teasing and rebukes. “Never even seen him eye up
a girl.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not attracted to them,” I replied, a

little sharply.

In reality, I wasn’t entirely sure who I was attracted to.

I didn’t really like the concept of relationships, casual
or otherwise. At least not while I was like… this. I
didn’t want to be attracted to anyone right now, male
or female.

To avoid meeting the eyes of the other two, I turned

and looked out into the courtyard we’d just come
from. Avonside University was gorgeous, despite the
terrible weather that had rolled just now.
We were standing in what people called the Pyramid.
It had a proper name and designation, but no one
used those. The Pyramid was named like that because
the roof was one big glass pyramid, the atrium itself
being tacked onto one of the two large central tower
blocks on campus. Covered and indoors, it was used as
a student social and study space, with the nearby Oak
cafe always available if you wanted overpriced food or
coffee.

Outside the floor to ceiling glass was the courtyard

we’d just come from, its neatly manicured shrubs and
trees being whipped to within an inch of their lives by
the storm outside. The rain was coming in so hard that
it was almost hard to see through it.

“Sorry. That was rude,” I said, giving them both an

apologetic expression. “I guess I’ve just never really
been one for relationships. Can we change the
subject? They seem like so much work after all. I can
barely look after myself, how would I manage another
person?”

“Sure,” the girl said, then smiled and walked over to

slump into a nearby couch. “What’s your name?”

I couldn’t help a chuckle, following her lead and sitting

down in a chair opposite. Yeah, we had totally skipped
over the whole introduction part. We were
classmates, had been for two years now off and on,
but Avonside was huge, classes and year groups could
get into the high hundreds. Bray, my best friend, was
apparently friends with her, although I’d never spoken
to her before we had all huddled behind that
Sculpture.

“Elias,” I said finally, leaning over to offer her a hand,

which she took, her grip far firmer than mine. I raised
an eyebrow. “You?”
“Grace,” she replied, giving me an even amicable
stare, like she was challenging me to remember it. I
would. My memory was scary good.

“Nice name.”

She gave a shrug, looking slightly uncomfortable. “It’s

a name, like everyone else's.”

“Great, you know each other’s names now,” Bray said,

rolling his eyes before turning them on me. “We still
haven’t figured out how we’re getting back to the
dorm though Eli. This storm is—”

Bray was interrupted when a flash lit the room,

followed quickly by a thundering shockwave. My
vision blurred, pain flashed through my body and the
whole world took on a strange dizzing spin. Dazed, I
tried to make sense of what had just happened. The
chair I had been sitting on was on its back, I had been
thrown clear. Glass was everywhere, the rain and
wind had invaded the safety of the indoors.

“What the fuck,” Grace groaned from a meter away as

she pushed herself up off the ground.

“Eli! Are you okay?” Bray called from somewhere, and

I let out a grunt to let him know I was fine. I wasn’t
sure I could talk at that exact moment.

“Was it a bomb?” Grace asked, her eyes staring out

into the black of the storm. Then they narrowed for a
moment before they flew wide in confusion and awe.
“What the fuck is that?”

My eyes tracked out past the debris and into the black
where she was staring, taking a moment to adjust and
find whatever she was looking for. Of course, when I
saw it, I wondered how the hell I had missed it.

Standing in the center of the courtyard, having

apparently obliterated the fountain that used to be
there, was a massive black monolith. It was so dark
that I couldn’t tell if it was cylinder or rectangular, but
it was definitely there, the top up into the black of the
storm.

Other students who’d been in the Pyramid were

taking notice now too, crowding forward as far as they
dared to get a look. I could see people out there in the
rain, picking themselves up off the ground where they
must have been thrown like we were. Someone
stepped out of the atrium and shone a high powered
flashlight on the thing, a security guard maybe, and all
of a sudden we could see it for what it was.
It was perfectly cylindrical, so smooth in fact that my
eyes had trouble reading it, like the very light
bouncing off it was wrong somehow. I could feel my
vision growing tired and strained just trying to
comprehend it. The rain was having trouble with it
too, sluicing off it like the surface was hydrophobic.

Then another flash lit up the university, but this one

was far gentler and far more strange. A pulse of light
flashed out from the monolith, passing through
everything and everyone like none of us where here.
Two more came out in quick succession and I crawled
forward to take cover behind the upturned couch. The
other two joined me quickly, and we all shared a
nervous glace or two. What was happening?

“This is like something straight out of a movie,” Bray

said with a low audible gulp. “One of those sci-fi
thrillers where the aliens come pouring out of that
thing to eat us.”
“Shut up Bray,” Grace hissed, sending him a scolding
look. “Don’t need your dumb, overactive imagination
right now. We have crazy shit going on right in front of
us.”

“Well it’s better than waiting for whatever horror that

thing is about to set on us,” he almost snarled back.

Clearly my two companions were stressed, and I

waved a placating hand. “Hey, both of you, come on.
No need to get grumpy, we’re all nervous here. Except
the big thing outside, I don’t think he’s nervous.”

Bray didn’t reply rolling his eyes instead, his mouth

pressed into a thin line, but Grace gave me a quick
sidelong glance and a weak smile. Phew. Bray never
appreciated my jokes. But really, whatever was
happening was bad enough without these two going
at each other.
“Everyone please stay calm!” a shrill, anything but
calm voice called out through the large room, and we
all turned to see an elderly woman in a high visibility
vest walking into the Pyramid. “The decision has been
made to evacuate the building. Please move in a calm
and orderly fashion towards your designated
evacuation points.”

Almost immediately I raised my hand with a cough.

“Ma’am, that’s out there with the scary... uh,
monolith thing. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

I almost called it a dildo, but managed to stop myself

just before the word left my mouth. Now was not the
time to be making dumb nervous jokes in front of the
university staff.

“Ah… the alternative evacuation point then,” she said,

sounding less than reassuring. I couldn’t blame her
really, things had gone from normal to strange in a
heartbeat.

We slowly did as the terrified woman asked,

retreating from the smashed window and the
monolith beyond. I couldn’t stop checking on Bray and
Grace as we walked, my thoughts beginning to cycle
worriedly between wondering what was happening
and wanting to keep track of them. Familiar faces
were important in times like this, I felt safer with them
around.

We all flinched as another pulse of light shot out from

the object behind us. Every time the pulse ran through
me it felt like every energy drink I’d ever consumed
was active in the same moment. It was a uniquely
uncomfortable feeling.

I only made it a few more steps before a rapid series

of pulses rushed through us and everyone staggered,
eyes wild as they all sought out the source of their
discomfort. The monolith was lightning up, crackling
with energy, arcs of the stuff smashing into anything
in the courtyard that could conduct electricity. My
gaze met Grace’s, the confusion and fear I felt
mirrored in her grey green eyes.

The weirdness wasn’t done with us yet though, not by

a long shot. A sound rose about us, sounding like a
steel cable being pushed past its limits. Then
everything stretched. My whole body felt like it was
being contorted at a base level, every cell screaming in
fear and pain.

All I knew was the twisting and stretching, my mind

wild and animalistic as it tried to make sense out of
what was happening. At some point it stopped, but I
felt strange, like my mind was spinning in my head,
just constantly spinning. It wanted me to turn left, just
turn left, just turn left. When I tried to satisfy it
though, when I turned my head left, it just wanted
more. More rotation, always rotate, always rotate. I
screamed, or I thought I did. I wasn’t sure, I was
trapped in—

Crack.

I came back jarringly, trying to figure out what was

happening. I had clarity again, although my forehead
stung, and I tentatively opened my eyes and looked
around.

“What the fuck was that?” I heard Bray call, his voice
shrill with pain.

I lay on the floor, as did everyone else. They were all

caught in their own worlds, blinking and confused like
I was. Things were getting wild, and I’d really like to
stop being thrown onto the ground. It was like
someone had taken my core being and shaken it like
they were making a cocktail.

Distantly I heard the high visibility vest woman

speaking urgently into her radio, and we all turned
when she staggered to her feet and cleared her throat
loudly. “Everyone is to move to 4A100 and wait, the
staff will be getting a handle on the situation while
everyone is safe there.”

“Isn’t that the main gym hall?” Grace asked.

I just shrugged, I’d never had any reason to go there,

but Bray nodded. “It is, probably to keep us all safe in
one place.”

“Well, lets follow the safety vest’s orders then,” I

groaned, pushing myself wobbling up onto my feet.
Everyone slowly began to follow the staff member out
the back and towards a hallway, and as I did the same,
I noticed something strange. The rain had just stopped
and with the storm gone, an unfamiliar night sky was
visible through the glass roof of the Pyramid…

Chapter 2 :
I stayed quiet as we made our way into the large gym,
my thoughts churning. Had I imagined the sky being
different? I’d only gotten a glimpse before we were
ushered inside and away from the view. But no, I
knew I’d seen it, an arch of light across much of the
sky.

I stewed on my confusion as I sat down next to Grace

and Bray on the hard wooden floor, feeling like a kid in
middle school again. My school hadn’t had enough
chairs for all the students during whole school
assemblies, so many of us had been made to sit on the
floor. I felt almost at home sitting on the glossy
wooden floor.

I could see other people I knew from class, Melody

was chatting to her best friend Kelsey a few meters
away. Those two were joined at the hip and both fairly
typical college girls on the surface, until you got them
excited about something nerdy. They hid it well, but
they were some of the geekiest people I’d ever met.

They were cool to talk to and I got along with them in

a friendly classmate sort of way. Although that was
the same with most people really, I was never one to
start arguments over little disagreements. I always
found it was easier to just shrug off differences of
opinion rather than start drama about it. I mean,
unless they were like a neo-nazi or something, then I’d
just politely avoid them.
“What is it?” Bray asked, noticing my silence had been
stretching on.

I turned back to the two next to me and opened my

mouth to speak, but then found I didn’t know what to
say. What the hell did I tell them? I saw some crazy
shit in the sky that my brain can’t make sense of, and
now I’m trying to figure out if I’m just seeing things?

“I don’t know yet, but I think the weirdness has just

started,” I replied apologetically.

“Damn. If you don’t know what’s going on, then I sure

won’t,” Bray remarked, making a big show out of the
sigh he let out.

“Yeah you aren’t known for your situational

awareness,” I grinned, earning a mock scowl from my
friend.
“I don’t need to know what’s going on, that’s your job
in this friendship. My job is to look amazing,” he said,
pretending to flex and then cracking a grin before he
could complete the action.

Grace was glancing between us with an amused

expression, and I felt some of the tension I’d been
feeling ease. I liked Grace, she was cool. Bray had
spoken about her only once before, mentioning that
they shared a class this semester and they seemed to
get along.

After a moment she leaned forward, her expression

turning serious again as she asked quietly, “Seriously
though, what do you know. You saw something we
didn’t, I can tell.”
“How? It took me ages to learn how to read Eli, he’s
like a damn enigma or something,” Bray complained,
and giving me a strange look for a moment.

Grace just gave a shrug and stared at me expectantly

motioning for me to spill my thoughts, so I sighed and
lowered my tone as well. “Alright, so just as we were
leaving the pyramid, I looked up and saw this huge… I
don’t know, line across the night sky. From one side to
the other, like an arch.”

“Um, just to point out, but wasn’t it only the

afternoon when the storm came in?” Bray asked
uncertainly.

So much for Bray not being situationally aware, the

comment stopped both Grace and I in our tracks. How
the hell had we missed that? We stared at Bray for
several long seconds, as the implications sunk it. We’d
just stupidly assumed it was night because of how
dark the storm had made it, but I shouldn’t have been
able to see the stars at all during this time of day, and
they had definitely been there.

“That’s… alarming,” Grace said after a moment,

hugging her arms to her chest with wide, worried
eyes.

“So it’s suddenly night time, and there’s a big line

across the sky, what does that mean?” I wondered
aloud, perhaps too loudly, because a dude nearby
turned to stare.

“What did you say?” he asked in a low gruff murmur,

concern written across his expression.

“Uh, nothing,” I said quickly, avoiding meeting the

larger guy’s eyes.
“No you said that it’s night time and there was a line,”
he said urgently. “Because I totally saw that too.”

“You did?!” I asked, suddenly very interested in what

this stranger had to say.

He was in a huddle with Melody and Kelsey, so he

couldn’t be too bad. I decided to trust him and
shuffled around to include him, his other friend and
the two girls.

“Yeah, I totally did. Got a good look at it too,” he

nodded almost excitedly. “I couldn’t figure it out man.
It was fucking weird, I swear I saw like… I don’t know,
islands or something up on that line?”

“Damn, I wished we could go out there and look! I’m

already hating the way they’ve cooped us up in here,”
the guy’s friend said, seeming just as excited as the
first dude.

“It’s for our safety, the university is liable for us

remember, it’s just what they have to do,” Melody
said placatingly.

“I know, I know,” he replied, still looking frustrated

despite what he said.

“I’m Eli by the way,” I said, offering a hand to the guy

who’d first spoken.

“Adam,” he grinned, shaking my hand a little too

forcefully. “My friend is Duncan.”
“Sup,” Duncan said, giving me that funny upwards bro
nod that guys are meant to do when they greet each
other.

I didn’t reply in kind, instead giving a smile. I didn’t like

doing the bro nod, another thing that hurt for reasons
that would get me ridiculed or misunderstood if I tried
to explain it.

This didn’t mean I begrudged others who did it

though. Duncan seemed cool, a tall larger looking guy
wearing a cap over his bald head. He had a face that I
could only describe as strong, strong jaw, strong nose,
strong eyebrows. Everything about him was deeply
masculine in a very traditional sense.

Adam wasn’t much different, but he was without the

cap, and replacing it was a shock of dark and unruly
hair. His face was a little softer too, but he seemed to
make up for it by being even more tanky in the body
than Duncan.

Before any of the group could continue the

conversation, there was the distinctive clicking of a
microphone being turned on, and everyone looked
around to find a man clambering up onto a chair at
the rear of the gym. He looked a little on the older
side, but still healthy and sharp eyed. The type of guy
who’d tell witty and interesting stories at a large
wedding.

“Hello everyone, sorry for all this confusion. I’m happy

to say that the University doesn’t appear to be in
any… immediate danger,” he said with a tone that was
just a little too cheerful. “We all ask that you be
patient while the staff try to get an understanding of
the situation we find ourselves in. What I can tell you
right now is that we are running on backup power
generators situated within the university grounds. We
are not receiving power from the outside world.”
“Yeah and what world is that?” Duncan called loudly
over the heads of the thousands sitting in the gym.

This couldn’t be everyone from the university either, I

was willing to bet that many of the larger spaces on
campus were full of people being given similar news.

Laughing nervously, the older staff member pursed his

lips before speaking. “Aha, I see we have a joker in our
midst. We uh, can confirm that we are not just cut off
from the power grid itself, but rather we do not
appear to have any contact with the outside world at
this time.”

That got a reaction, people started speaking

immediately, checking their phones and getting very
agitated. The noise was overwhelming as people
began to collectively lose their minds.
“Shit, I didn’t even think to check my phone!” Grace
blurted, going for her small handbag.

The Bray and I did the same, while the four we’d just
connected with all shook their heads.

“You won’t get reception,” Kelsey said, wiggling the

phone in her hand. “I tried when this shit first started
up. It’s like I’m connected to something, I can see I
have bars, but I can’t send anything, can’t call. No
internet either.”

I felt my stomach bottom out at her words. What the

hell was happening that the internet was down for
everyone? Was the world really under attack from
aliens as Bray had suggested? Had I not seen the night
sky at all when I looked up through the glass of the
Pyramid, had I actually seen some sort of huge alien
starship like from independence day?
My normally overactive imagination went into
stunningly vivid overdrive as it rushed through
scenario after scenario. In the end though I had one
question in my mind, why were they keeping us
inside. The evacuation points were all outside the
buildings.

When I refocused, I found I had been staring at the

guy with the mic. He appeared to be talking to
someone. A middle aged woman with a clipboard was
speaking furiously, her gestures wide and erratic, then
she handed the clipboard to the man and rushed
away.

The older guy stared at that clipboard for a long time,

still as a statue. His expression was of someone who
had to deliver the news of a death to someone he’d
never met, and I suddenly felt empathy for the man.
He had some shitty news to give us, and he was going
to be the focal point of whatever reaction the room of
thousands had.

“Students, tutors… professors,” he began at last,

drawing the attention of the gym with his solemn
tone. “As the young man earlier pointed out, I am
afraid to say that the world beyond the premises of
this University is... gone. Simply gone. I’ve seen it for
myself, the roads end in forest, the sky holds strange
stars.”

He was interrupted by the room once again erupting

into a cacophony of voices. Everyone calling out to the
man. He braced himself on his chair, like he was
standing in the face of gale force winds.

“Please, everyone,” he called out, shouting over the

top of the noise with the help of the soundsystem.
“We will show you soon, none of us expect you all to
believe such wild claims until you have seen it
yourselves. I implore you though, please remain calm,
it is important to everyone’s survival that we remain
calm in this crisis.”

The large gym full of terrified people didn’t listen.

Pandemonium erupted as people shouted and argued.
Some made for the door, pushing past the ill equipped
security guards stationed there. It was chaos. Even the
staff running the show seemed to be taking the news
badly, rushing over to the man who’d just made the
announcement. The way people were pushing for him,
I’d be surprised if he lived through the night without a
broken bone or two simply from the crush of people.

Everyone was standing now, the crowd moving and

undulating worryingly. I had to clamp down hard on
my rising fear, I didn’t want to be in this place
anymore. There were too many scared, angry people.
The conflict around me was like a physical miasma,
spreading like a disease through the massed people. I
flinched when someone nearby started swearing
loudly, the unmistakable tone of anger in his voice
pooling in my gut as an anxious churning.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Grace yelled

over the noise, indicating the seven of us in our group
and getting a round of emphatic agreement. Oh thank
fuck.

“Our dorm room is on the uni grounds!” Bray said

quickly. “We can get back there and lock ourselves in
for the night! Wait until everything calms down!”

“You’re alright with us coming too?” Melody asked

fearfully as she was jostled from behind.

Both Bray and I nodded, and Grace motioned to one

of the now unmanned doors. “Let’s go!”
Chapter 3 :
The two larger guys took point without a word, just
grim expressions as they made a path through the
terrified crowd. We pushed through the arguing
masses, and I was alarmed, but not surprised, to see
fists beginning to fly as a group of frat guys got
physical with each other. Shit, I really hoped the
university could get this under control or people were
going to get hurt.

A security guard who was bleeding from a broken

nose tried to stumble into our path, but Duncan just
shook his head and gently but firmly moved the
smaller, older man out of the way. I felt a small flicker
of a smile as I saw the move, happy that Duncan
hadn’t hurt the man. He could have done a hell of a
lot of damage, even his hands were huge.

We all breathed a sigh of relief as soon as we made it

out of the gym. Seeing so many people arguing and
fighting like that made me all kinds of uncomfortable.
Bray noticed my reaction to getting out of that place,
giving me a knowing smile and a pat on the arm.

Moving forward past the two big guys, he waved his

hand forward. “This way guys.”

We followed, the way to our dorm taking us down a

few dark corridors before we could exit the building
we were in. It looked like the University was
conserving power by shutting it down everywhere that
didn’t currently need it. Darkness in a place that
should have been well lit just added to the
atmosphere of crisis, that feeling you get when things
have gone strange and normality has been thrown out
the window.

“Didn’t like it back in there huh?” Grace asked, sidling

up next to me.
“No, I didn’t,” I replied, giving her an appraising look,
wondering if she’d laugh at me. I felt like I could trust
her though, so I explained further. “I get really anxious
around people who are fighting. Verbally or physically.
It’s just, I don’t know. I hate it.”

“That’s kinda sweet,” she replied, giving me an odd

look. “Too many people relish conflict for the sake of
conflict these days.”

“Maybe, but it seems like I’m definitely the odd one

out,” I grimaced. “Guys aren’t meant to be… well,
weak like I am, I guess.”

“Yeah well, guys who act like guys are supposed to act
are kinda shit, so no harm done there,” she chuckled,
giving me a playful nudge with her elbow.
I was surprised when my subconscious mind didn’t
flinch away. That’s odd, there weren’t many people
who I could be casually physical with. I had my father
to thank for that, and the dislike of conflict. It’s hard
not to flinch around raised voices when that used to
mean pain or worse.

“Holy shit,” one of the girls said from up ahead, and

both Grace and I glanced up to see we were stepping
outside.

Everyone had stopped to stare up into the sky, so I

had to push around them to get a good look. What I
saw took my breath away. It wasn’t just a line. It took
me a few seconds to even parse what I was looking at,
the view was so utterly strange. High above us was a
strip of land, entire continents visible it was so vast,
oceans and seas glittering around them, the rim on
either side encrusted with brilliantly white ice sheets.
It must have been thousands, or hundreds of
thousands of kilometers away, stars twinkling brightly
on either side. Descending down towards the horizon,
the strip of land curved and began to widen until was
eventually hidden in its own shadow, only barely
visible past the cutoff point as it connected with the
land we stood on now.

“Are we… are we on a fucking ring world?” Melody

asked, her tone breathless and excited.

“This is totally a ring world! We just got schwooped up

onto a damn ring world!” Kelsey answered mirroring
her friend’s excitement, her hand reaching out to
grasp at Melody’s arm.

I wasn’t making the mental leap to acceptance as well

as they were. I was stuck on a pair of words. How and
why. How and why had we been… schwooped onto
this world? The entire university too! What were we
going to do? The chances of us being able to even eat
the plants on this world were slim, and what about
predators, and the people who built this place?

“Why?” I asked finally, my voice dry with worry. “Who

did this, and what are they going to do with us?”

The girl’s excitement dimmed drastically with my

words, and we all exchanged worried looks. Anyone
who just abducted an entire University probably didn’t
have the best intentions for us. Were we lab rats,
were they going to study us, or were they simply
collecting us?

“Definitely time for that dorm room,” Bray muttered,

his eyes downcast like he didn’t want to look up.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Grace agreed, motioning for Bray to

keep leading the way.
We all began moving again towards the dorm room,
but much more slowly as everyone kept glancing up
into the sky. The girl’s excitement was resilient and
began to return almost immediately, and I found
myself enjoying it. It was nice to hear excited voices
rather than worried, scared, and angry voices like back
in the gym hall.

“I don’t see a sun, so this isn’t like, a Niven ring or

whatever. I think it’s more of a halo style one, and
we’re orbiting a normal star,” Melody said
thoughtfully, staring up into the sky and almost
walking into a bollard in the process. Luckily Kelsey
was paying attention and pulled her friend out of the
way of the impact.

“We could figure it out, Avonside has the tools to do it

easy, and the people who know how,” Kelsey said,
giggling at her friend’s clumsiness as she continued to
steer her.
“I like that it’s a ringworld with a sunset! We’re going
to get a sunset! Wait, unless it doesn’t rotate and
we’re stuck on the night side of the world forever,”
Melody said, looking suddenly worried again.

I grimaced as she voiced her thoughts and I took a few

even breaths before tried to smile. “That’s a worrying
thought, I’d better mentally add it to the growing list
of shit titled, ‘Things that will keep me from sleeping
tonight.’ ”

“Oh, I have no hopes of sleeping tonight,” Grace

groaned, her gaze finding that glowing blue and green
arch of land above us again.

“Neither, but my sleeping pattern is fucked from

playing games all night,” Bray said with a self
deprecating grin. Damn, what a bunch of jokers we
were.
The walk continued in silence for everyone except
Melody and Kelsey, who got increasingly wild with
their speculation. I had to raise an eyebrow when they
got into eldritch gods and tuned them out.

Avonside University was massive, one of the largest

tertiary education establishments in the region by
total enrollment, although not one of the most
prestigious. Because of the large number of people
who went here, it also had one of the physically
largest campuses around. Built in what had originally
been a small town, Avonside had enjoyed having a
large amount of land at its disposal, with large
sporting grounds and the city botanical gardens
surrounding it on all sides.

I had a feeling that the cut to take us out and put us

here had been made somewhere in those gardens and
sports fields, where the earth could be cut out without
taking any half buildings or streets with it. Which
raised the alarming idea that yes, the heist of
thousands of people and over half a square mile of
land had been calculated and intentional.

Rounding the corner towards our dorm, which was on

the edge of campus, we again slowed because of what
we saw. Which was nothing. No city lights beyond the
parks and sports fields, no haze of light pollution, and
definitely no city buildings. I’d been right. Barely
visible in the darkness beyond was a dense temperate
looking forest, the trees swaying in a light breeze. It
was odd how calm the scene was, given what it meant
for us.

“They just cut the uni out in a big circle!” Adam said,
giving a slightly manic laugh. “Holy shit they just… cut
a circle out of the Earth and dumped it here.”

Kelsey noticed something else, saying, “Those trees

look like trees from Earth.”
“Wait you’re right! They do...” Melody replied, her
voice slowing down as she began to think furiously.

“Hopefully we can survive here then, at least if the

alien space bats don’t kill us all first,” Grace remarked
from next to me.

“Maybe the alien space bats are nice, you never

know,” I joked, glancing sideways down at her.

“What like, fuzzy fruit bats or something?” she

laughed, and I idly noticed that her smile was almost
always lopsided, one corner of her lips always higher
than the other. It was a nice smile.

“We should call them like, alien space flying puppies

or something if they’re nice,” I nodded, feeling a smile
of my own tugging at my mouth.
“Batronauts,” she offered back.

“Fuzzy Batronauts,” I agreed.

“Come on you two, let’s go inside,” Bray grumbled,

making shooing motions towards the door of the
building.

The building itself was fairly new, having been

constructed only a few years prior in order to meet
the rising demand for student housing. As with most
of the western world, finding a place to rent off
campus was getting harder and harder as housing
prices and rent rose. Originally Bray and I had wanted
to find an apartment off the campus grounds after
having boarded in a dorm during our first year, but we
hadn’t been able to find anywhere we could even
hope to afford.
The dorm itself was nice, although the keycard reader
wasn’t working so we had to punch the code into the
side door with the mechanical lock rather than the
powered one. That was another thing, how were we
going to generate power? The backup generators
could only have so much fuel after all, and they were
clearly already struggling to meet the demand of the
whole uni.

We entered through the side door and walked out

into the main foyer area, then as the lifts were quite
clearly dead, we took the stairs. I was a big fan of the
modern architecture of this place, except for one
important detail. Why in the hell were all the accents
on the place bright orange? It looked hideous!
Nothing was more jarring that stumbling out of your
room at some awful hour of the morning into a
hallway painted orange. Especially for that lecture that
no one was going to remember because it was so
early, but you had to go for the attendance credits.
“We’re on the fourth floor,” Bray said to the group at
large, and we stopped when we got there and spilled
out into the floor’s common room.

Each floor had a common room with a basic kitchen, a

TV that only had shitty channels and a bunch of tables,
chairs and couches. Well, I guess the TV wouldn’t have
the shitty channels anymore, and I couldn’t say I was
too upset about that. Boy was I glad that students
were movie and TV show hoarders, those hard drives
were going to be worth their weight in gold.

“Alright, now no judging us for the mess,” Bray said

with a grin, then pushed open our door.

Chapter 4 :
Our room wasn’t actually all that messy, mainly
because Bray was an unconscious neat freak. He never
openly said anything, and I wasn’t entirely sure he
realised he was doing it half the time, but he would
just idly tidy things. Candy wrapper fallen to the floor?
Bray would be getting excited over something that
happened in a game and just idly pick it up and throw
it in the bin. It was a pretty admirable trait if I was
honest.

Our room, and all the other rooms like it in the

building, was split into three parts, my room, Bray’s
room, and a small living area in the middle. Which
meant that in reality it was actually three rooms, not
one room. It was weird, but I didn’t complain because
I liked my privacy, even from a friend like Bray.

The others spilled into the small living area and looked
around curiously, finding our coffee maker, our
standard issue big couch and our standard issue
armchair. It was all rather nice and comfy, especially
with all my pillows scattered everywhere. Bray had his
game posters, I had my pillows. I liked my pillows.
“Nice place,” Melody commented, immediately
walking over to the couch and dumping herself in it.

I disappeared straight into my room and grabbed two

towels, taking my used one for myself to dry up while I
threw the other clean one to Grace, who had been
starting to shiver a little from the cold.

“Thanks,” she said, giving me a surprised but grateful

smile.

“No problem,” I said, feeling suddenly awkward for

the gesture. I mean, she’d just looked cold from the
rain and stuff, that’s all.

Our group settled into the room with a general feeling

of weariness. It had been a long afternoon, and we
probably all needed time to process what had
happened on both an intellectual and emotional level.

It meant that we were cut off from our families, cut off
from any friends we had outside this place. Cut off
from almost everything we’d ever known. I kept
finding my thoughts turning panicked as I thought
about it. Would we ever find our way home? People in
stories like this almost never did, or if they did it took
a long time.

The others were talking as I spiralled into worry again,

and I had no idea how long I’d been tuning them out
for. I needed to be alone, I needed to see that ring
again, and most importantly I needed to think.

I stood up off the floor and muttered something about

going out to the balcony. Then pushed the dorm room
door open and wandered down the hall until I got into
the common room, then made a beeline for the door
out onto the balcony.

Pushing it open, I took in a deep breath of the night

air, then had yet another realisation. This was
probably alien air. Not from Earth at all. It was
breathable though, and not just breathable, but sweet
and clean in a way I had never experienced in all my
life. I guess they kept the environment happy here, or
at least filtered it well.

“You okay?” A soft voice asked from behind me as the

door creaked.

I turned to find Grace looking at me with an

expression of uncertain concern. She was fidgeting
with her thumb as she said it, one hand nervously
pulling and pushing at it.
I shrugged, unable to figure out what to say, or if I
even wanted to voice my thoughts right now. I had
worries on top of worries about our situation.

She regarded me quietly for a moment before she

joined me at the railing, leaning heavily on the cold
metal. “I’m not. This shit is all sorts of anxiety
inducing.”

“It is,” I agreed, my eyes drifting up to find the arch

that swept across the sky.

“I hope we can get back,” she sighed, her forehead

dropping down onto the back of her hands. “I know
that’s probably a long shot, but like… I have family you
know? Fuck I hope they’re okay.”

“I’m sure they will be,” I smiled, watching the chill

breeze tug playfully at her hair. “Whatever is going to
happen will probably happen to us, not them. If that’s
any consolation.”

“Strangely enough, it actually kind of is,” she said

rolling her head to the side so she could grin at me. “I
can deal with shit being thrown at me, or at least try.
It’s in my control you know? But them being back on
Earth, I can’t help them.”

“You like to be in control of your own destiny huh?” I

asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Something like that,” she said, giving me a now

sheepish, shy smile. “I’m a bit of a control freak.”

“I can understand that,” I nodded. “Succeeding or

failing on your own merits. It’s nice. I’ve had to do a
lot of that in my life.”
“I get that vibe from you,” she replied, standing up
and arching her back in a stretch. Her voice going high
and gasping as she continued. “You know, I hear a lot
about how nice you are, how cool you are to talk to
and stuff, but no one actually knows anything about
you.”

I blinked and stared, her shirt had ridden up and I felt

a little breathless right along with her. That was some
stretch. I quickly looked away and out into the night,
desperately trying to crush my thoughts that
threatened to spiral down into a hollow sadness.

I didn’t want to be attracted to her, but she kept doing

things that drew my eyes or my mind. The way she
was being good conversation now, or the way she’d
looked when she was pushing the door closed just
before all this had happened.
As I stared out into the night, trying to figure out what
I wanted to tell her, my eyes landed on something
that I should have seen earlier. I squinted and frowned
into the darkness, now intent on the portion of the
ring that was dark, hidden in its own shadow.

“There’s no lights!” I blurted, turning to her with wide

eyes. “There’s no lights on the dark side of the ring!”

“Um, what? What does that mean?” Grace replied,

looking confused at my sudden change of subject.

“You’d expect an advanced civilisation who lived on a

ring like this to have cities that were visible when the
ring was dark, right?” I rambled excitedly. “There isn’t
any, and I bet…”

I trailed off as I looked up towards the far side of the

ring, really squinting now. It wasn’t much use because
it was way too far away, but then I had another
thought and moved my gaze to the stars around the
ring now. I waited and watched, trying to see if
anything moved. No dice, no movement.

“Alright so,” I said almost to myself, my mind working

overtime. “There’s no lights that indicate cities on the
dark side, and I can’t really tell from here without a
telescope or something, but I didn’t see cities on the
far side. Then, finally… there’s no lights moving
around the ring either, none of the stars are moving.
That would have indicated that there’s space ships
flying around you know? You’d expect a civilisation
living on this ring to have a bustling port somewhere,
bringing in resources for the billions that lived here.”

“Wait, are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she

asked with a quick intake of breath, clearly
understanding what I was getting at now.
“I mean, this is a ring world right, there’s any number
of explanations for why any of those things might not
correlate to no one living here. It’s speculation,” I said,
backtracking quickly. There was so many explanations
that meant I didn’t feel as confident as I had just a
moment ago.

“No, no, what you’re saying makes sense. I mean,

especially the no spaceships thing, who the hell would
go to the trouble of making their civilian trade ships
invisible or whatever?” she asked, taking what I’d said
and running with it.

“Maybe, I mean they might just be really conscious

about light pollution,” I shrugged, smiling despite
myself. That sounded silly even to me. Who would get
that into reducing light pollution of all things.
The smirk she gave me told me what she thought of
that idea. “Yeah, that makes sense. Batronauts would
hate light after all, being nocturnal.”

I loved that this was turning into a running joke

between us, and it helped lighten my anxious mood
considerably. It was hard to fear what was going to
happen to us when we joked about them being bats
who were scared of light pollution after all.

“Completely makes sense,” I nodded, fully grinning

now. “I guess we should go and survey the ring for
fruit trees to figure out if they are fruit bats or not.”

“And if there’s no fruit trees, but tons of big dumb

herd animals, we’ll know we’re fucked,” she laughed,
then shook her head and gave me a playful tap on the
arm.
Oh, vampire bats! She had a point, maybe we were
food?

“Especially if we find a bunch of husks, drained of all

their blood!” I gasped in mock horror, placing the back
of my hand to my forehead and pretending to swoon.

“Fear not, sweet maiden. I will protect you, your

valiant knight in shining armour,” she replied with an
expression that was probably supposed to be stoic,
but was instead a sort of grimace as she failed to
contain her grin.

“Oh, thank you!” I said in a falsetto, pretending to fan

myself.

There was a part of me that wilted at her unknowing

joke, but I tried to shrug it off, tried not to think about
how much I wanted this little joke to be my reality. I
found my mood wavering, but intact, I was still
smiling, still enjoying our playful banter. Phew.

We grinned at each other in silence for a few

moments, I liked watching the amusement dancing in
her eyes. Again I had to remind myself that I was most
definitely not her type, despite wanting to be that
type. She was just… cool. She was nice, I already felt
like I got along with her. Funny how I kept telling
myself I didn’t know who I was attracted to, and then
someone would come along who made me question if
I was just lying to myself. I’d never really find out
though, which made me feel… well, not good.

“Well at least there’s one good thing to come out of

this shit so far,” she said quietly, interrupting my
thoughts. “I made a friend.”

I smiled, feeling a comfortable weight settle into the

moment. “You did, and I think I did as well.”
“It is generally a two way street, yeah,” she remarked
with good natured sarcasm.

I could do friends. That had some of the fun, some of

the benefits. I could still enjoy her company the way I
was now, I could still make her laugh and smile with
my jokes. Friends was good.

We were still in the process of smiling at each other

when Kelsey stuck her head through the door. “Hey
guys, Bray found food, just junk food stuff but yeah,
wanna eat?”

“Sure,” Grace and I agreed at the same time, earning

an eye roll from the messenger.

“Come on then,” she chuckled, turning and heading

back to the room with the two of us in tow.
Chapter 5 :
The next few days at Avonside University were chaos.
Most people didn’t know what to do, they hid
themselves as we had, or they argued and ranted at
each other, or they turned to violence and worse. One
of the frat houses burned to the ground, thankfully a
standalone building so the rest of the university didn’t
catch fire too. A security guard was killed during the
first night defending the cafes as they were raided for
food.

A group of particularly angry, scared individuals even

pillaged various areas of the university for supplies
and then escaped into the wilderness. They
apparently thought their chances were better out in
the wilderness than with the chaos in the university.

Our group did what we could to survive, getting wind

that one of the dorm cafeterias was giving out food,
we went there and got the meager portions they were
giving out. We stuck together though, the seven of us,
that was the main thing. We all knew we needed each
other, safety in numbers and all that.

One terrifying night however the need for safety was

proven awfully true. A group of drunk guys tried to get
into our room, apparently Melody had been dealing
with a stalker for the past year. He was a guy whose
unwanted advances she’d rebuffed and he hadn’t
taken it well, harassing her ever since.

On that night he decided that the chaos was his

chance, talking his friends into helping with an attack
on our room. Adam, Duncan and Grace stopped them,
putting the awful people down with almost terrifying
levels of brutality. We all knew what they had
intended, and seeing Grace repeatedly stomping on
the ringleader’s gonads had been almost satisfying.
Almost, because of my stupid problems with violence,
it had turned me into a wreck. I hated that I’d been so
powerless to help, but I’d known that if it had been
me who had needed to stop them, I would have failed
miserably on many levels.

We got through it though, and on the morning of the

third day, gunshots rang out across the campus for
several hours. The few campus police and security
were cracking down on the wanton violence with
deadly and efficient force of their own. It wasn’t
pretty, and I was almost certain that during the
fighting people were injured or killed who hadn’t done
anything wrong.

A lot of people had been hurt during these few days,

but then a semblance of order returned when staff
came around towards the end of the morning, slowly
gathering everyone for an announcement. We were
corralled onto one of the sports fields, every single
person in Avonside who wasn’t with the people now
in charge.

A stage had been set up, the security and cops

standing around it looking menacing with their guns. I
felt unease building within me, the way everyone was
wary of each other. We could all see people who’d
done some nasty shit over the past couple of days,
and now we were expected to stand next to each
other and listen to someone speak without trying to
settle grievances on the spot.

** If you are not reading this on SH or Royal Road, it

has been stolen. My author alias is QuietValerie. Come
find me! **

Adam and Duncan were all sorts of puffed up, and I

knew that Grace had slipped one of Bray’s decorative
knives up her sleeve. No one trusted anyone at the
moment, that was for sure.
“Hello everyone, thank you for cooperating in coming
here,” a woman’s voice said from up the front, her
voice was considerably more authoritative than the
old man who’d spoken to us in the gym.

We all turned to see a woman in her fifties standing

on the stage in front of the microphone. She looked
intimidating to say the least, every bit the ball busting
female CEO of a movie, and with a start I realised
that’s who she was, minus the movie part. She was
the woman in charge of this whole place.

“We can all see that our lives have changed,” she said,
pointing into the sky where the sun was about an hour
away from the midday dimming.

As the sun rose on the first day we had discovered

that the ring did indeed spin, both for spin gravity and
on the yaw axis to give us a day and night cycle that
was almost twenty four hours long.

Continuing after a deep, solemn breath, she said,

“Many of you did not take this well, many of you
turned on each other, on the university. Let us be
clear right now, those of you who committed minor
crimes, you will not be punished. We understand that
this has been a trying and stressful time, and that can
lead to mistakes. However, those of you who went
further… you will be punished severely.”

Several people in the crowd tried to make a break for

it, bystanders moving out of their way with fearful
expressions. It was obvious why they were running,
and security guards moved in like hunting dogs.
Scuffles broke out, quickly ended by the threat of
death at the end of a gun. It was shocking, terrifying to
see for someone like me. I’d seen more violence than
most, but never like this. The violence I’d experienced
in my life had been personal, not institutional and
impersonal.

I felt a hand come to rest softly on my back, and I

turned to see Bray looking at me, again with that
knowing, understanding look. I gave him a weak smile,
trying to convey that I was okay, but he didn’t believe
it for a moment. Giving my back a quick pat, he turned
back to the stage as the woman in charge began to
speak again.

“Now that that unpleasantness is dealt with, hello

students, tutors, professors and staff. If you do not
know me, I am Patricia Rogers, CEO of Avonside
University,” her voice was sure as she spoke, until a
pause, her voice gaining a wavering tone. “As you
have all realised by now, through some means we do
not have a hope of understanding, we have been
transported here, to this unknown world.”
She looked saddened as she spoke, and I realised that
just like everyone else she’d lost everyone from her
life. Everyone except the people gathered here. I was
still wary of her, but I felt a degree of empathy for her
and everyone else. This was a whole huge shitty
situation.

Returning to a more lecturing tone, she began to tell

us about the world we found ourselves in. “It is a ring
world, something we thought of as a science fiction
myth until now. While Avonside was embroiled in the
strife over the past few days, the researchers we have
on campus have been at work. We now have both
some information and some hypotheses for you all.
The ring is close to three hundred thousand
kilometers in diameter, this is about twice the
diameter of jupiter, for those needing a frame of
reference.”

Holy shit! That was massive, that was so damn

massive. That was probably bigger than someone
could walk around in their lifetime by a long margin.
Sure, it might not be niven ring size, but it was still
beyond enormous.

“There also appears to be other inhabitants on the

ring, at least on the other side of the ring. These
people however, from what our telescopes are able to
see do not appear to be nearly as advanced as we are.
They live in large rural populations, with cities being
small by our standards.”

So we weren’t alone, but not in a batronauts way, but

in a… what, medieval culture way? Were the
batronauts actually batroknights?

“As for the environment, the plants directly adjacent

to the University grounds appear to be biocompatible
with human life. There appears to be birds and
rodents living in the forest. The air is breathable, the
soil is compatible with our crops. In short, the
environment here is one that is alarmingly familiar.”

“This information, along with more I will not discuss

now, leads us to some double edged conclusions. The
first is that whoever put us here meant for us to
survive on this world, however... they also meant for
us to survive here for a long time. There will be no
going back to Earth, our home, for the foreseeable
future,” she said, ending her monologue with a grave
expression.

The crowd was predictably agitated by this news, and I

saw Grace’s expression collapse into one of worry,
probably for her family back home. Surprisingly,
Duncan began to cry, Adam placing a comforting hand
on the large man’s shoulder. Oh right… Duncan had
mentioned a fiancée during the last few days, his
childhood sweetheart. Fuck. That was rough.
Opposite to Duncan, Melody and Kelsey looked almost
relieved, leaning on each other and smiling, their
hands clasped tightly together as they had a
whispered conversation. Catching me staring, Kesley
looked away with a sheepish expression while her
cheeks reddened in embarrassment. Alright, I could
see why they had been so close all this time then. I
gave her a smile, then looked away to give them some
privacy.

“Well shit,” Bray said with a snort from next to me.

“Guess I don’t have to go home during the break.”

“Yeah me neither,” I said with a smile that quickly

grew to a grin. I didn’t really have a home to go back
to, not for a long time.

We’d all had time to process our situation over the

last few days while all the rioting and shit happened. I
didn’t mind one way or another. Bray was most upset
by the lack of internet and his inability to play the
multiplayer games he loved.

The commotion in the crowd took almost a minute to

die down, and when the CEO again stepped up to the
mic, everyone slowly fell silent.

Her tone was grave as she began to speak once more,

“With this knowledge, Avonside gives each and every
one of you a choice. It’s a harsh one, but it is one you
must make. You can stay here in the university and
work together with us all to survive, doing your part to
make that goal a reality, or... you may leave. If you
choose to leave, you will be given basic supplies to
help you on your way, but nothing more.”

This again caused yet another commotion as people

found issue with what she said, or turned to their
friends and began to discuss their options.
“What do you all want to do?” Grace asked our group,
beginning our own version of that same discussion.

“Stay,” Bray said quickly, Melody and Kelsey both

nodding along with him.

“I’d like to stay too,” Adam agreed gruffly, Duncan

making a sniffling grunt of affirmation along with his
friend. Poor guy.

All eyes turned to me as I quickly thought through the

options. I was worried, the way the CEO and security
had handled this situation stank of authoritarianism,
and that was bad news for everyone. On the other
hand… the wilderness was unknown and would be
incredibly dangerous. Which did I choose?
Making my decision on the basis that I really liked the
people standing with me, I gave them all a smile and
murmured, “Stay.”

They all returned the expression, even Duncan who

looked… well, like he’d lost his wife to be. These were
good people, we could survive whatever power
hungry bullshit the University pulled if we stuck
together. It was almost like we were a new family,
forming due to this crisis. We had each other’s backs.

Chapter 6 :
After the huge assembly we were all asked to stay and
talk to staff members with clipboards who sat at
folding desks nearby. No one could leave before we
had gotten their approval. I was more than weary at
first, thinking this was going to end up being awful for
us in some way, but the reason for it soon became
clear and I relaxed with relief.
They were taking a census. Specifically a census of
who’d been taken along with the university and where
they were currently staying, but more importantly
everyone’s skills. Knowing the capabilities of who
would be staying at Avonside was beyond necessary,
as it would be the make or break for us as a
community.

A point of contention came up quickly, the census

staff member wanting to reassign us all to different
rooms, and we all flat out refused. We demanded to
stay in the same room, but the guy was adamant that
it wasn’t an efficient use of space or some shit like
that. The compromise came when he agreed to put us
in a larger room that would be able to house all seven
of us well, if not comfortably.

It was easy sailing after that, Bray’s metalworking

hobby was of particular note to the census guy.
Grace’s time growing up on a farm would also be
helpful for the coming need to plant crops. Duncan
had been doing a class in plumbing, hoping to get an
apprenticeship at some point. The census guy perked
up considerably when I mentioned I was interested in
environmental sciences, more specifically studying
ecology.

He told me right then and there that I’d be needed to

help study the ecology of the region to find plants and
animals that were safe for humans to eat and would
provide the nutrients we needed. It sounded
interesting, except I had to stress that I wasn’t even
there yet, only in my second year and beginning to
diversify out of general science classes. Shit, I still had
classes with Bray who was keen on diving into the
science of metallurgy or whatever it was called.

Regardless, I was told to report to a classroom

tomorrow along with Grace, Melody, Kelsey and
Adam. We’d all be working together apparently, Grace
and I being in charge of whatever this team was while
the other three would be helping us. Bray and Duncan
would be going off to the workshops to do something
there, I guess helping with constructing power
generators I think, since that required both plumbing
and metalworking.

When we were done, we were given a new room to

move all of our stuff into, as well as a little piece of
paper that we were meant to take to a place that
would give us more beds and other stuff. I was kinda
hopeful about this, we’d been taking turns in the beds
the last few days with the rest of us using the pillows
to make nests in an attempt to get comfortable. It
hadn’t really been the greatest, so the idea of us all
getting mattresses was a welcome one.

“What do you think they’ll be having us do

tomorrow?” Melody asked as we delivered our stuff to
the new room we’d been given. It was basically just a
classroom, but we also had some dividers for a little
bit of privacy.
“I’m not sure, it could be a few things, although my
best guess would be going out to collect samples of
plants and especially things that look edible,” I replied,
thinking for a moment.

“Oh yeah, that makes sense. Food will be a concern

for sure,” she said, dumping the pillows on the floor in
our new room.

With our current load delivered, we turned and began

the trek back through the campus to our old room.
The two rooms were almost half the campus apart,
and even though we’d been going since early
afternoon, it was taking forever to move everything.
The others were all fetching things from places around
the uni that we’d need for our new little home.

Melody and I were moving the last remaining small

items as the sun began to set. It would pass below the
rim of the world soon, plunging our side of the ring
into the dark of night. It was kind of amazing to see
and think about. A damn ring world! We were on a
ring world!

We chatted idly as we walked, and the topic of Kelsey

came up. My curiosity won out and I rather awkwardly
asked, “So uh, you and Kelsey…?”

“Me and Kelsey?” she asked, although I could see a

flush expanding across her features.

“Um, I just noticed you’re... really close,” I said, feeling

my own embarrassment warming my cheeks. I
shouldn’t have asked, it was rude of me.

“Oh uh, we…” she started, then immediately trailed

off. “It’s complicated. We were roommates during
freshman year, but we knew of each other before
then. Uh… I guess we kinda sorta got feelings for each
other? But both our families were super awful and
homophobic, so we agreed to just… not do anything
about it you know?”

“Ah,” I nodded, understanding now why they had

looked happy when we were told we might not ever
be going home. “So now that we’re stuck on this ring
world and cut off from home…”

The smile she gave me when I mentioned that little

piece of information was enormous, genuine and shy.
“Yeah, exactly.”

“That’s cool!” I said, feeling my heart swell a little with

happiness for the two of them. “Well, if anything
happens I’m with you. Got your back or whatever, for
what little that is worth.”
“Thanks,” she grinned, her cheeks rosy with
happiness. “And it’s worth a lot, don’t put yourself
down! You might not be muscles mcstompynuts like
Grace or the other guys, but you’re the brains. You’ve
been figuring out stuff faster than Avonside has been
telling us!”

“I have a feeling it’s in Avonside’s best interest not to

tell us everything they know,” I grimaced, thinking
about what they might have found out that would
make things worse if everyone knew. “But thanks for
the compliment.”

“You’re welcome, now let’s get moving, it would suck

to keep carrying shit in the dark,” Melody replied,
picking up her pace.

The night passed quickly after that as we finished

moving everything over and organised our new room.
Bray stuck his posters up all over the walls and I
created a sort of communal area with an older couch,
some old chairs and all my cushions everywhere.
Someone even found a beanbag from somewhere,
completing the cozy little room.

We’d used the partitions to make separate sleeping

areas for the girls and the guys, which of course drew
attention to the fact that I was one of the guys, not
the girls. My stomach wrapped itself all up in
depressed knots over that, and the others noticed but
no one could figure out how to cheer me up. Not that
they didn’t try, oh how they tried.

We got food from one of many cafeterias that had

been set up around Avonside, everyone flocking to
them at dinner time to finally get a good meal.
Unfortunately, we were told there was already
rationing in place because so much food had been
stolen, eaten or spoiled during the chaos of the first
few days that our supplies were looking grim.
The university didn’t hide this fact either, they openly
said that food would depend on how hard everyone
worked in the coming days and weeks. We’d need to
move fast if we wanted to survive into the monthly
range.

The next morning, we all moved off towards our first

day of working, and it was strange, but I found myself
getting excited. We were essentially colonists now,
just like in all the sci-fi books I had consumed
voraciously since I had learned to read. While I had
issues with conflict, this whole deal was starting to
feel alarmingly like an adventure, and if there was
anything I had it was a love of discovering the
unknown.

I used to run around in the woods out the back of my

house, partially to get away from my constantly
arguing parents, but also because I was playing
explorer. Mapping out new areas of the forest,
building little huts, pretending to farm. All sorts of
dumb little games of make-believe. Except now my
dumb little games were very, viscerally real.

The room we’d been directed towards was a lecture

hall that already had several hundred people in it. At
the front was a professor who I recognised as being
from the biology department. She was messing
around with one of those old projectors, frowning as it
failed to start before she gave up and surveyed the
growing crowd.

The five of us who were going to be working together

all seated ourselves near the middle and waited for
the professor to speak.

About ten minutes later, when the room was full, she
stepped up and cleared her throat, waiting for the
chatter to die down. “Hello everyone, thanks for
coming. I’ll cut the crap, we don’t want to waste
daylight. We need everyone here to go out into the
wilderness directly surrounding Avonside and collect
samples of the vegetation for analysis. Specifically,
we’re looking for plants that might be edible, because
we sure as hell don’t have enough food right now.”

Aha, I’d been right! I felt a little pride for a moment

that I’d guessed correctly.

The room was silent as she paused to sweep her gaze

over the crowd. Satisfied that we were all paying rapt
attention, she kept talking. “You’ll be going out in
groups, if you don’t have a group, you’ll get assigned
to one. We want at least one biology student, tutor or
professor in each group, so please make sure this is
the case before heading out. You’ll be given the
necessary tools for the job, including a field guide that
we think might help. Please make sure not to touch
anything directly too, we don’t know if anything is
poisonous or not.”
She kept talking after that, giving us a quick rundown
on what our duties were and how to collect samples,
all that stuff. Then she directed us to come up in
groups and collect our kits. Once we were equipped,
she gave us a direction to walk in and that was that.
Go forth and find food. The directions we’d been given
had us moving out and up towards a low ridgeline,
one of several in the large valley.

“Of all the places that Avonside had to get plopped

down into, it had to be a fucking mountainrange,”
Melody complained as we stared up into the forested
hill that was our destination.

“Hey, on the plus side, you’ll get some great thighs out
of all this,” Grace laughed, giving Kelsey a wink. “I can
think of someone who’ll enjoy that.”

“Alright no. No teasing,” Kelsey grumbled, shaking a

joking finger back at her.
Grace just raised an eyebrow before turning and
heading off towards the treeline. Time to get to work I
guess. Saving the the people of Avonside University,
one plastic bag of random foliage at a time.

Chapter 7 :
The forest was very instantly strange, although it was
only Grace and I who picked up on it at first. Avonside
had been placed within a wide valley between two
huge mountain ranges, the floor of which was covered
in one massive forest. A temperate forest like this
back on Earth would have had a dominant conifer
population of trees like fir and spruce, while broadleaf
trees might be ash and oak.

I couldn’t see any of those species in this forest, but

what we did see were so similar they might have been
the knock off version. Everything was similar to what
we knew, but not identical, it was unnerving.
“This is like some sort of strange abstract dream,”
Grace said after five minutes of getting weirded out
and confused by the forest around us.

“It is,” I nodded, walking over to a nearby tree. “Look

at this one, it has the diamond pattern on the bark like
a real Ash tree would have, but the leaves are a little
too broad and their colour is off. You can see that the
wood is too dark to be an Ash tree as well if you look
at that recent break there.”

“Yeah. I mean I can’t point to specifics, I’m just a farm

girl, but I can see that they’re all a bit different,” she
agreed, trailing her plastic gloved fingers down the
bark of the tree in question.

“So what you’re saying is that this whole forest is the

same as home, but not?” Adam asked, staring around
at the foliage.
“Uh, yeah,” I nodded.

“So that means we might be able to find stuff that is

similar but not quite the same as something edible
right?” he continued, looking excited.

“Yeah, a lot of nuts like this climate, as do berries.

Apples, pears, cherries and uh… plums? I can’t
remember. I guess I’ll have a look in the field guide
thing they gave us,” I said, unsure if I was getting the
science right. “Yeah, we might also find sorbs
apparently.”

“The fuck is a sorb?” Melody asked with a laugh.

“Uh it’s like, a little fruit. Comes from central europe

and stuff, I think it’s kinda gross personally, but the
jam and juice and alcohol made from it can be nice,” I
explained while I simultaneously racked my brain for
information.

“Well let’s go find a Sorb then, what does it look like?”

she asked, coming over to get a glance of the book.

I showed them all how to identify all the different

trees and plants that might produce something edible
and then we spread out, making sure to stay within
sight of each other. The forest stayed alarmingly
familiar, and I saw what I swear was a full on squirrel
stare at us for several seconds before scampering up a
tree to hide.

Wait a second!

“Hey everyone!” I shouted. “There’s not-squirrels in

the trees with us, keep an eye out for where they are,
there’s probably food around that they’re eating!”
“Oh snap, good point!” Grace called back, giving me
an impressed smile.

While I tried not to bask in the fact that I had

impressed her, I got to work hunting for squirrels.
Pretty soon I was seeing the little critters from time to
time hiding in all sorts of trees, but none of them were
what we wanted.

“Cherries!” Kelsey exclaimed and we all turned to see

her pointing off further into the forest.

Sure enough, there was a smattering of cherry trees in

the middle of fruiting. This was… wildly convenient.
We all hurried over to look at them. They were more
orange than red, but they seemed to be well…
basically just your average cherry otherwise.
We collected a few, marked down an approximate
location of the trees on a map we’d been given and
then continued onwards. We found many more edible
Earth analogue plants on our expedition, from
mushrooms to walnuts. Our biggest find was a grove
of apple trees that didn’t even try and give a pretense
of being different. They were literally just apple trees,
and it took all my powers of persuasion to keep Adam
from just snacking on one. It might be a trap after all,
planted by the bats to poison us.

It was getting late by the time we finally stepped out

of the forest and onto one of the fields that was now
the boundary between Avonside and the wilderness.
It had been surprisingly fun to wander around the
woods with these people, I’d gotten to know all of
them a lot better already than I ever would have if all
this hadn’t happened.

After we turned everything in and walked wearily back

to our room to hang out before dinner, we were met
by a confused Duncan and a Bray who looked…
agitated. Oh no, had our luck run out?

“What is it?” Grace groaned, seeing Bray’s expression.

Bray wiggled from side to side for a second before he

blurted. “So you know how we’ve all been like,
hanging out and protecting each other as a group or
whatever. Like we’re all friends and stuff and… yeah.
Whatever you want to call it right?”

“Yeah?” I asked, trying to prompt him to get to the

point before my anxiety levels rose to astronomical
proportions.

“So I made these, to show that we’re like, a group. I

don’t know what you want to call it, but we’re us…”
he said in a rush, his hand shooting out to show us
what he’d been clutching behind his back.
In his palm sat seven little rings made out of a silvery
metal, they were fairly simple but I could make out
initials that had been scraped into the metal. It looked
like he’d tried to size them a little too.

“You made us rings?” Melody asked, stating the

obvious.

“Yeah, I mean I know it’s kinda lame, but I wanted…

well… yeah,” he said, obviously feeling embarrassed
about it.

Before he could double back on the offer I stepped

forward and picked up the one with my initials on it
and grinned at him. “These are awesome, thanks
Bray!”
There was a round of agreement from everyone, and
they all crowded around Bray to get their
corresponding ring. Bray had made it so that it wasn’t
a full loop and they could be bent to better fit our
fingers and I got mine to fit on my middle finger.

“This is a cute idea,” Grace smiled, looking down at

the ring on her own finger.

“Yeah, we’re like a crew or something,” Melody

nodded, trying and failing to bend her ring smaller.
Adam moved over to help, his big hands making short
work of it.

“A family,” Kelsey said quietly, glancing between us all

nervously. “That’s what we are now right? We have
each other’s backs and stuff. Like, I know we don’t
actually know each other very well as a whole but… I
like you guys. You’re pretty great, and the way we’ve
stuck together makes me feel far safer and happier
than anything my old family ever did… so yeah, if
we’re stuck on this world… then we should all be a
family.”

For reasons I didn't understand, my eyes sought out

Grace. She already had a family she loved, what did
she think of this? Her expression was pensive, maybe
a little sad as she watched the group talking. I hoped
she would be okay with all this, it wouldn't work
without her.

“That’s a commitment,” Adam mused somberly, then

shrugged. “But fuck it, I think you’re all great so yeah.”

“My family back on Earth is pretty average, annoying

to deal with and they don’t really get me. You are all
way better than that already,” Bray grinned, then
looked at me and squinted a little. “Well, except Eli.
he’s just… okay.”
“Rude!” I laughed, then toned my expression down to
a more serious smile as I said, “But yeah, you’re all
pretty damn cool, and I’m already growing attached. I
mean, I’ll be totally honest, I have so much to learn
about you all, but… I think it would be fun. I like this
family idea.”

I was understating how I felt about this pretty

considerably. My real blood family was garbage, my
father was abusive, my sister had taken a fucking
swan dive into far-right lunacy, and calling my mother
“a hands off parent” was being generous. Any new
family at this point would be a godsend, especially one
with these amazing, wonderful people in it.

The others were all behind the idea of being a little

family while still acknowledging that yeah, we didn’t
really know each other that well, but shit we’d liked
each other’s company so far. Even Grace nodded and
smiled her agreement to everything we'd discussed,
although I thought I saw a flash of something else in
her expression.

With our rings all now on, we headed down to dinner,

except of course, Grace. Letting the others know that
She and I would catch up, I sat down on the couch
quietly and watched her. She looked… upset but in a
deeper, less explosive way.

She dropped into one of the armchairs with a sigh,

shifting to sit sideways so she could look at me and
rest her head on the back of the chair at the same
time. Her grey-green eyes were full of emotion, silent
but still sort of communicating regardless.

“You mentioned you had a family back on Earth, one

you loved dearly,” I murmured after a minute or two.
“Yeah,” she whispered, and she didn’t continue for
another minute, but when she did her voice was
heavy. “I kinda feel bad for accepting this,” she said,
holding the ring up that was on her finger. “I feel like
I’m betraying them with all this.”

“I thought you might,” I said with a sad smile.

“I don’t want to replace them in my heart, you know?

I’m worried that this family thing we have here will do
that, rather than being an addition,” she said as she
stared at the ring again.

I peered at the ring along with her, watching as she

spun it around. What the hell did I say to any of this?
What could I tell her that would help?
Giving a small sound of frustration, I murmured, “I
wish I had something profound to say that would
help… but yeah this isn’t my area of expertise.”

“What isn’t? I thought you were good at being an ear

for people’s troubles,” she asked, seeming more
curious that accusatory.

I had no idea how I’d gotten that reputation. I’d been

to a few parties where there were some sad drunks
who spilled their hearts out to me, plus there were a
few classmates I used to speak to a bunch on social
media who’d vent their frustrations with life in direct
messages. It was all just a part of being friends with
someone, or so I thought. Maybe I was wrong.

I shook my head. “Ah no, I mean the family thing.”

“Yours isn’t good?”

I shook my head again. I really didn’t want to go into
details about it. That part of my life was mercifully
over, it had ended when I moved out and went to
college. It would never come back either if we stayed
on this new world.

Grace watched me for several moments, probably

expecting me to elaborate further, and when I didn’t
she sighed, then gave me a little smirk. “Well, if they
were shit… I guess we all have to be a better one,
huh?”

“I’m hoping,” I smiled back, enjoying the genuine

concern in her eyes. She had nice eyes, kind eyes.

“Okay… enough moping I guess. I’ll try and deal with

my shit, but thank you for being a good friend. A really
good friend,” she told me earnestly, pushing herself
up out of the seat. “Dinner?”
“Sure.”

Chapter 8 :
“Found another patch of blueberries,” Grace said as
she jogged over to me. “It’s starting to feel like this
place has just a little too much food you know?”

“Yeah tell me about it,” I replied, looking up at her

from where I was digging in the ground with a trowel.

I was pretty sure this plant would have edible roots,

but I needed to actually get to them first. We’d been
at this survey for a week now, going out every day and
finding an abundance of wild food just ready for the
taking. It was strange and honestly downright creepy.
Whoever had placed us here definitely intended for us
to stay alive in the short term.
Things at Avonside had been surprisingly calm after
the management gave us all purpose. People were
finding a surprising amount of self satisfaction and
happiness just doing their jobs and doing them well.
We all missed things from before though, shit the
psychology students and faculty staff had their work
cut out for them just keeping everyone stable.

There were some suggestions floating around from

their department about improving morale. Things like
holding parties, or getting the codies to hack the cell
towers and turn it into a new network for us. They
were even talking about building the basis for a new,
much smaller internet in the university. Anything to
give us all a semblance of our old normal while we
adjusted to our new normal. One thing was for certain
though, we weren’t going to be starving in the short
term.

Stopping my digging for a moment to have a little rest,

I laid the trowel on the ground and leaned back. “Did
you hear that another team found a field of wild
wheat in a clearing yesterday? We’re going to get
bread again one day.”

“Yeah it was Jillian’s team. She’s been bragging about

it ever since,” Grace chuckled, plopping herself down
next to me and offering a handful of blueberries.
“These got cleared for eating a day or two ago, and oh
my goodness are they good. Nothing like the tasteless
shit they sold us in supermarkets back home.”

“Oh really? Yes please,” I said, taking off my glove and

then cupping my hand for her to pour them in.

I took the other glove off too, then popped one of the
little things in my mouth. It popped when I bit down
and a sweet, but also slightly bitter taste filled my
mouth. It was good, the flavour was about twice as
intense as I was used to from blueberries and my jaw
locked up from the sour portion of the flavour.
“Oh wow, you’re right,” I gasped after a moment,
before popping another one in my mouth. “When
they get that wheat going we’re going to have some
fucking amazing pies. All the fruit tastes good around
here, it’s crazy… even if they look a little weird.”

“Yeah well the shit back home was bred for looks and
size first and flavour second, these are all the more
wild variety,” she replied, a grin on her face as she
watched me eat the berries.

“Yeah exactly,” I agreed, pointing at the little blue and

grey berries in my hand. “I mean I wouldn’t buy these
if they were in a supermarket back home. They’d look
almost diseased next to the beauty pageant winners
that they sold.”

I finished the blueberries by pouring them all into my

mouth, then grinned at Grace and proceeded to try
and talk to her through my mouthful. All that came
out was a set of unintelligible muffled syllables. She
laughed, scrunching up her face and turning away
with a look of amused disgust.

“That’s gross Eli! Oh my god,” she said with a grin,

picking up my gloves and throwing them at me. “Put
these back on and let’s get whatever it is you’re
digging at out, I saw some odd trees up ahead that I
wanted to explore with you.”

I was almost laughing too much to swallow, but I got

them down eventually, followed by my gloves. We
worked together at the plant in the ground, digging up
what eventually turned out to be a whole lot of
nothing, much to my disappointment.

“You can’t win them all,” Grace smiled, pushing

herself to her feet and stuffing the dirty gloves in her
bag before taking out a clean pair.
I followed suit and motioned into the forest. “Let’s see
these weird trees of yours.”

“Alright, follow me,” she nodded, and we moved off.

The forest was so peaceful, apart from the odd

rapport of a rifle going off in the distance as the
hunters carefully stalked their prey. We were being
cautious with the hunting side of things from what I
heard, aware as we were of the effect of apex
predators on a forest.

It was a lesson hard learned back on earth, forests

dying out simply because farmers were killing off
wolves, which led to an explosion of the animals they
had hunted. That explosion led to those prey animals
eating all the slow growing little sprouting trees which
in turn let grasses and other faster growing plants take
over the forest floor, choking out any saplings before
they could get a chance to grow. It was a little
convoluted, but many forests were in the process of
dying out due to this problem.

Because of the huge role that animals played in the

health of a forest as a whole, Avonside was making
sure not to hunt everything at first, relying on frozen
meat from Earth to feed us for now. Portions were
low, but until we had an understanding of the local
ecology, we didn’t want to go shooting every animal in
sight and destroy our hopes of surviving in the long
term. I knew I’d rather eat roasts for several years to
come than a bunch of roasts now and then none later.

“Here, look!” Grace exclaimed, interrupting my

thoughts to point out the tree she’d found.

“Oh, now that is weird,” I breathed, walking closer to

the first out of place tree we’d seen so far.
It wasn’t actually a tree at all, but rather a vine that
had long since killed its host tree, growing a taproot of
its own to continue independently of the original host.
That class of vines had a name, but I forgot it in the
moment, because I had far more important things to
consider, like the fact that its leaves were blue.

They were a lightish grey-blue colour while the bark

was a very light pink. All up the trunk were little
branches that held fruits, although they didn’t look at
all ripe. They resembled kiwifruit in shape and colour,
but were smaller and smooth. The whole thing was
definitely not something from Earth as far as I knew.

“There’s more, look,” Grace whispered, pointing

further into the trees.

She was right, a few more dotted the forest ahead of

us. All the same type of vine too, although I saw one
with fruit that were larger and reddish in colour.
Guessing those fruit were more ripe that the smaller
green ones, I grabbed a sample of the small ones then
rushed over to get some of the bigger ones.

“Do you think these are properly alien?” I asked,

turning the ripe red fruit around in my hand.

“Maybe,” Grace said, glancing around at the trees

with wonder in her eyes. “They don’t look like they
want to kill us yet, which is nice, but better keep
gloves on just in case. I think I’m honestly relieved to
find these things, it was almost weirder to find Earth
species rather than alien species on this ring, even if
it’s helping us to have the familiar stuff.”

“I know what you mean,” I nodded, wholeheartedly

agreeing with her sentiment.
I was going to add something more to our
conversation, but my thoughts stopped dead in their
tracks when I saw something far more incredibly
strange than anything else in my life, even the ring
world.

One of the plants was moving.

Frantically motioning towards the thing, trying to get

Grace to look at it, I watched as the creature moved
slowly through the trees.. It wasn’t like the vine-trees,
but something else entirely, far closer to a normal
plant in colouration. Mostly just brown bark with a
few sprigs of green foliage reaching off it. It was also
humanoid in shape, the limbs almost comically long
compared to its torso.

Glancing over to see if Grace was seeing this and

finding her staring with wide eyes, I turned back to the
thing. We watched it bend down to touch a shrub,
some plant that looked much like any other random
forest floor shrub, except that now that I was looking
at it, I saw that the stems were entirely black.

The plant creature caressed it with almost infinite

care, then waved a hand slowly over the top of it.
Green light fell from its open palm like glittering mist
to wrap around the shrub, appearing to have no
effect.

“What the hell?” I whispered, my mind racing as I

tried to find any sort of reasonable explanation for
what we were watching.

The plant creature moved through the grove of odd

vine trees almost randomly from what I could tell,
bending down every now and then to sprinkle strange
green light over the top of more of those little shrubs.
It looked like it was taking care of them. The plant
creature was gardening!
We kept watching, too afraid to move as it drew
closer. It was definitely gardening, bending down to
pluck weeds out of the ground with gentle ease,
getting the entire root system every time. It was a
pretty damn good gardener, although I didn’t actually
know much about the subject despite my interest in
ecology.

“What’s that?” Grace murmured into my ear, her

breath trailing across my face. Wow that was
distracting.

Following her pointed finger, my eyes widened when I

spotted something glowing orange, mostly hidden
behind foliage. I took a step towards it, then another. I
wasn’t sure what had me moving towards it, but a
part of me needed to go to it, to touch it. I wanted it.
As I slowly stepped over towards whatever was
glowing orange, the plant creature looked up, its
glowing green eyes trailing my path with curious
interest. It didn’t seem to mind that we were here, but
I made sure not to step on any of its plants anyway. It
was just the nice thing to do.

“Eli!” Grace hissed behind me, rushing forward to

catch up with me.

“Don’t stand on any of its plants,” I told her idly, my

brain all fuzzy now with the call of the orange glow.

“What are you doing?” she asked desperately, trying

to pull me back and away from everything, her long
fingers wrapping around my forearms.

I felt a frown crease my forehead and I turned to look

at her. “Please let go of me.”
“Eli!” she pleaded, worry ruling her expression now as
she got a look at me. I don’t know why she was so
worried, it was just an orange glow after all. Nothing
to be afraid of. “What is going on with you, stop
making that weird expression!”

“Please let go,” I sighed, feeling tired more than angry

for her trying to stop me. “It’s very annoying, it makes
it harder to walk.”

It just did though, why was she making it harder to

walk for me? I just wanted to see what the orange
glow was.

Before either of us could say anything more, the plant

creature was suddenly next to us, gently prying
Grace’s hands off me. We both stared at it in shock as
it shook its head at her, then motioned for me to
continue. It didn’t speak, not even in another
language, not even a sound, just the creak of its limbs
and the gentle whisper of its leaves.

I turned to look at my friend, her eyes worried and

pleading, and for a brief moment I considered
stepping back like she wanted. But no… I needed to
see the orange glow, I needed to see what it was.

I carefully moved further, pushing the low plants out

of the way. I heard Grace following, still trying to
convince me to step back, although her words were
beyond me now, my ability to process speech had
disappeared again.

The glow, when I got close, turned out to be a large

fruit, a little larger than a mango, although it shared
the same swollen shape and colour. Except, obviously,
it was glowing. The plant that bore it was small, only
barely large enough to handle the weight of the thing.
Little wisps of orange light floated around it, just like
the plant creature’s energy stuff. It was beautiful,
alluring in a way that made my heart beat wildly with
anticipation.

I couldn’t get my gloves off fast enough, and once they

were off I threw them haphazardly to the sid, reaching
out towards the fruit. My fingertips grazed the soft
skin of the thing, then my whole hand closed around
it. The clearing seemed to freeze as I clasped the fruit,
still attached to the plant that bore it. It like the entire
forest was waiting to see what I did next.

I picked it.

Light exploded out in a rush, every colour of the

rainbow swirling out and around me as an almost
opaque mist, enveloping me in a maelstrom of
clashing colours. I felt a pull, not a mental one like
before, my mind was terrifyingly clear now. No, this
was a physical pull. As though gravity had been
warped and bent to some otherworldly will. I fell in
towards the fruit, sucked in my extreme forces, and
the last thing I saw before my vision went black was
an image of Grace. Her expression was one of terror
and desperation, her arm outstretched as though to
try and save me.

Then the world closed with the sound of branches

breaking under high stress, and everything was dark.

Chapter 9 :
I was warm and safe, that’s what I knew, the only
thought in my head were those two feelings. Warmth,
safety. It was all I cared to know and all I was capable
of knowing, my mind was bare and empty. I have no
idea how long I was like that, but I didn’t care about
the not knowing, I didn’t care about what was before.
I couldn’t remember what was before, not really, not
on a conscious level.
It’s hard to think when I was asleep after all, not even
aware on a base level of even my own name, let alone
my life and memories. They were still there though,
melding and mixing together in that way that dreams
do, picking faces and events almost at random to
construct nonsensical narratives.

Slowly though, my mind gathered itself once more,

flowing together from the gaseous state it had been
in, back to the solid state of full consciousness. My
first fully formed thought was this, why is everything
so dark? There was a vague orange haze on the inside
of my eyelids, but I couldn’t open my eyes, let alone
figure out where I was.

I struggled, pushing against the world around me and

found it to be liquid, I was immersed completely in
some sort of viscous liquid. I panicked, kicking and
squirming, my limbs flailing about with the raw
strength of terror.
My limbs felt odd though, weaker than I was used to,
thinner than I was used to. That counted for my whole
body, it just didn’t seem like my body. I couldn’t feel
any of the usual features, no body hair as my legs
rubbed together inside the liquid, and… oh my god,
there was nothing between my legs. I couldn’t feel it
when I moved!

I stilled in my struggles, trying to figure out what was

wrong with my body. The more I tried to understand
what was different, the more confused I became. I
needed to get out of wherever I was and get a look at
myself, something very strange had happened to me.

I pushed and pushed, finding some sort of soft wall to

my prison, and then I pushed against that too. It was
tough, resisting my efforts at first, but then in a rush it
burst, and I was ejected, the strange liquid pouring
forth around me as I fell to the ground.
Exhausted by my efforts, I gasped for air, realising that
I also hadn’t been breathing inside whatever that had
been. Strangeness upon strangeness though, I hadn’t
felt like I needed to breathe at all in there. Shit I was
tired though, why did it feel like I’d just climbed a cliff
or something?

An older woman’s voice startled my eyes open when

she spoke, her tone curious. “Well that is strange,
what an odd little discrepancy we have here. Maybe
my memory is going after all.”

I couldn’t see her though, my eyes were so clogged

with the gunk I had been swimming in. I wiped at
them, trying to clear them of the sticky stuff that
smelled oddly sweet, but it was to no avail, until I felt
a towel pushed into my hands.

“Here, use that dear,” she said somewhat impatiently.

“Thank you,” I murmured, and was almost
immediately startled by how my voice sounded. It was
much higher than I had ever heard it before, and I felt
a sudden little burst of happiness. I wished it sounded
like that all the time.

As I towelled at my face, the woman continued to

speak. “So please do tell me, because I’m questioning
my memory here, but you went into the fruit as… well,
a man did you not?”

“What?” I asked, suddenly very confused. Feeling that

familiar little spike of sad wrongness, I nodded slowly,
“Uh, yeah I’m a guy.” I paused as soon as I was
finished replying, frowning now. My voice still wasn’t
going back to normal, that was really odd. Could it
stay like that please?

I quickly wiped the last of the gunk from my eyes and

opened them properly to get a look at who I was
talking to. I found a woman standing over me in a
brown robe, the bottom of which was covered in dirt
and grass stains, like she’d just been gardening when
she found me. What was strange was that her hair
was a brilliant, metallic white, and her eyes matched
the colour. It was eerie.

“My name is Elias,” I said quietly, still in awe of the

fact my voice sounded so feminine.

“I imagine that is a male name where you come from,

I suggest you find a new one,” she said curtly, giving
me a once over again, her eyes running up and down
my body.

What was she looking at that was so strange? I mean

— Oh. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. Right in front of
my face were two breasts, attached to my body. They
were small as far as boobs went, but they were
definitely boobs. Beyond the boobs was a small, thin
waist, followed by frankly enormous hips. Then came
the small tuft of… wait, metallic magenta pubic hair?
That was odd. My dick was gone, replaced by the
feminine counterpart and surrounded by soft shapely
legs.

In short, my body was pretty undeniably feminine. In

fact, it looked like it had been wholly replaced. That...
explained the voice thing, I guess. I still had my male
speech patterns from what I could tell, but those
would hopefully fade. I’d always been putting them on
anyway, which had been… well, an effort.

“Right… I can see why you’d be confused,” I said at

last, my tone far calmer than I felt. “This is definitely
not the horse I rode in on.”

“You don’t seem bothered by this,” she remarked with

a frown.
“This is kinda what I’ve wanted my whole life, so yeah,
not a big deal,” I shrugged, feeling a wide grin forming.

Seriously, like holy shit, was this a dream? I hugged my

arms around my naked torso and felt everything
moving so deliciously. My arms were small, no
testosterone fuelled muscle on them, the skin so soft
even through the goop I was covered in. My boobs
were so damn soft as my arms compressed them
against my body and I felt my newly remade heart
flutter as I felt the much larger nipples.

It was so much, too much all at once. I swear my brain

was overloading with the euphoric realisation that
somehow, some crazy way, I had been given the body
I had always dreamed of. I felt tears beginning to roll
down my cheeks as emotion overwhelmed me. I was a
girl, I was a girl, I was a girl… I was a girl!
“Oh, an emotional response,” the woman said, taking
a step back. “I believe you should save any tears for
later, as you are currently still covered in the juices of
the magefruit. While it may taste sweet and provide
many important nutrients, it is also disgusting. Follow
me, I will take you to an area where you may bathe.”

Hold up lady, I was still basking in the wonder that was

getting rid of that old gross body. I went to stand up
anyway, but before I got anywhere I saw something
shining in the orange muck around me. It was my
family ring, the one that Bray had made! I scooped it
up and tried to put it on my finger, but it didn’t have a
hope of fitting onto my slender fingers. Bending it
wasn’t an option either, I definitely didn’t have the
strength.

With the ring clutched in my small hand, I wobbled to

my feet and took a step forward, but curiosity turned
my head back to see what I had actually fallen out of.
Well that made sense, it was a fruit, like the one I had
found with Grace but it was huge, large enough to
hold… me. It had burst open when I pushed my way
out, the flesh of it torn and the inside still half full of
the strange sweet smelling goop. Okay yeah, the crazy
lady had a point, that was super gross.

I wobbled after the older woman, who was watching

me impatiently further down the dirt path. My fruit
had been sitting in the middle of what appeared to be
a tended grove, although I saw no sign of another fruit
like it. Instead the place was bursting with all sorts of
wild and strange species.

Some had huge glowing flowers, others were vines

that appeared to be climbing a pillar of crystal, or a
tree that was entirely translucent. It was a garden of
the imagination, because every single plant was one
that did not belong in reality, or at least not the reality
I was familiar with. The dirt was just dirt though, and I
felt it squishing between my pretty, dainty little toes
as I walked.
Almost involuntarily, my happiness over this seeming
miracle becoming too much to hold within, I gave a
giggle of delight and took a few skipping steps. Of
course, that was a bad idea because I was not at all
used to moving in this body, and stumbled into a tree.
Oops! Oh well, I was happy, I could stumble around a
little.

“Are you coming, or will you continue to skip your way

into the flora?” the older lady grumbled, squinting at
me like I was a wayward puppy who’d gotten all
muddy while I was playing. Maybe I should roll around
in the dirt a little to make that part true?

“Yeah, sorry,” I smiled, her dour attitude doing

nothing to dampen the wild euphoria that was
carousing around within me.
It wasn’t just happiness though, there was a truly
mind boggling number of questions building up. Was
this a dream? Where the hell was I? What the hell
happened to me? That was just to name a few.
Seriously, I’d just been schwooped onto a ring world,
and then I was schwooped into a fruit. It was like a
story from some author in the 1930’s who was getting
way too high on whatever drug was cool at the time.
The type of story that was considered some sort of
strange classic in today’s era and had no fewer than
four movie adaptations already released.

The path merged with a stone one, and then soon

enough we were walking towards a large cottage. It
was surrounded by a well kept lawn, but none of that
was what drew my attention as we left the forest
behind. No, it was the sky.

Gone was the ring world, gone were the stars

themselves. The sky was a bluish purple in colour,
while the sun was a brilliant gold. It was just like the
plants in the forest around Avonside, so close to Earth
normal, and yet so alarmingly strange at the same
time.

“Follow me, you’re not to go inside until you’re clean,

I can’t have you tracking magefruit juice and mud
through my house,” my guide told me in what I was
beginning to suspect was just her usual grumpy tone
of voice.

“Yes ma’am,” I chirped, giving her a little mock salute.

Giving me another squinting frown in return, she
muttered something under her breath and turned
down a side path.

“We’re going to find a bath for you, young woman,”

she grumbled, clearly put out by my joyful mood.
Too bad for her, because I felt wonderful. My only
worry was that this was all some sort of incredibly
vivid dream. Please don’t be an incredibly vivid
dream! Wait… did she say mage fruit? Did that mean
this was all magic? Oh, I really needed to start asking
questions. It was bound to annoy her, but whatever, I
wanted answers.

Chapter 10 :
I was led into another portion of the wondrously
glowing forest for all of about ten meters before she
suddenly stopped, pointing a wrinkled finger down a
small incline. Oh! Hidden in the trees was a rock pool
the size of a large bathtub, carved and smoothed to
provide a place to bathe. Clear hot water poured into
the bath from a small stream that wound in through
the forest. On the opposite side of the rock tub the
water flowed out again, continuing the little stream
off into the forest.
“This is nice,” I said, giving the older woman an
appreciative smile.

“Yes, yes. It’s lovely, now get in,” she grumbled back,
motioning impatiently towards the bath.

I did as she asked, carefully making my way down to

the edge of the pool. It looked kinda hot, so I
tentatively dipped my toe in to test the temperature.

“Ah! Fuck!” I swore, pulling my foot back almost

immediately. “That shit is way too hot!”

“Youth,” the old lady grumbled dismissively.

“My body is like ten minutes old!” I complained,

frowning up at her.
“Fine, fine. No need to pout at me young Elias. Stupid
name by the way. You ought to pick a new one,” she
said with a frustrated roll of her eyes. “Let me adjust
the temperature.”

She raised her arm and closed her eyes, the air
appearing to go strangely still for a moment in
anticipation. There was a stir, a breeze and then
markings like blue glowing vines twined their way up
her exposed forearm. When they reached her hand, a
burst of blue light shot out and raced off into the
forest, following the path of the stream closely.

“Try it now,” she remarked with the first smile I’d seen
on her. It was the smile of someone showing off, but it
was still a smile, so good on her!

I tested the water again with my foot and found it to

be a much nicer temperature. So with an eager sigh, I
slipped in, feeling the grime being almost tugged off
me, like the pool was scrubbing me. Oh my, that felt
strange.

“Uh, this feels weird,” I called up, then smiled yet

again at how cute my voice sounded. There was
actually something I liked about the masculine speech
patterns funnelled through a high voice that was
unmarred by the ravages of testosterone. It gave my
voice a husky quality that was pleasing to the ear. It
reminded me of a feminine accent from somewhere
like New Zealand.

Another roll of her eyes and she nodded. “Yes the

pool is spelled to clean you, stop squirming.”

Before I took her advice, I dunked my head under and

let it get my face and hair for a moment. Then when it
was done, I pushed back above the surface and leaned
gratefully into the rock, letting the water clean me off.
It had been a long time since I just had a nice relaxing
bath.

Closing my eyes, I tried to let myself just sit and

process everything that had happened. Magic existed,
that was fairly obvious. Magic fucking existed! I
wonder if I could try to learn it? I hope this old lady
was willing to teach me, because I would be gutted if
she wasn’t. She seemed so grumpy though, maybe it
would be best to find another teacher?

Unbidden, my last memory of Grace flashed through

my mind’s eye, and I felt my stomach drop into the
bottom of the pool. Fuck. I had just been pulled away
from everyone, all those friends, my new family. My
heart took up a dull ache as I began to worry. Would
they be alright? Would I ever be able to see them
again? I needed to ask questions, but there was so
many, where did I start?
“Am I allowed to ask questions?” I called up to her, my
voice significantly more sombre than it had been
when I was still bouncing around with euphoria.

I heard her grumble in annoyance from up on the

bank for a good five seconds before she finally
muttered, “Fine, go ahead.”

“Where are we?” I asked, opening my eyes to watch

and wait for an answer.

“Excuse me? We are quite clearly in the Nameless

Garden,” she frowned, tilting her head curiously at
me. “Specifically, we are in my Grove.”

“I don’t know what either of those things are sorry, is

the Nameless Garden somewhere on the ring world,
or is it different?” I asked, curious now.
“You are remarkably ignorant for someone who found
my magefruit,” she said, really frowning at me now,
like I was a puzzle to solve now.

I wondered whether I should tell her where I was

from. Pretty clearly I wasn’t a native to this place,
wherever it was, but more than that I came from a
place where magic didn’t exist, as far as I knew. How
would she react if I said I was from Earth, from
another place or world?

Taking a chance, I began to speak about the past week

of my life. “So about a week ago, my University was
taken from the city it was in and placed on the ring
world. They took everyone, the buildings too.”

“Ah! That is exciting! Wonderful! No wonder the fruit

taught you my way of speech. It should work on the
accent though, truly strange. Regardless! It has been
almost a hundred years since the last time a new
people was brought to the ring!” she exclaimed,
suddenly walking down the bank towards me.

Hold up, it taught me her language? Oh holy shit I was

speaking a different language. How the hell did I not
notice that? Fuck, magic was pretty wild.

She stopped at the edge of the pool and dipped her

feet into it. I watched the water gnaw away at the
mud there until it was gone, washed away out into the
stream below. This bath was so damn cool!

“Tell me about the world you came from!” she said,

her demeanour completely changed to one of
excitement now.

“Uh, it was called Earth. It was smaller than the ring

world, but round too, and it had a population of
around seven billion people the last I checked,” I said,
trying to think of what to say. “Despite what the uh,
people used to say, it was a fairly peaceful world, at
least by the standards of our own past. We had a good
life expectancy in much of the world, entertainment
and arts flourished. It was honestly kinda nice now
that I look back.”

“But no magic,” she said with a smile, like she’d

figured out some sort of ancient mystery.

“Yeah, no magic,” I nodded, then gave her a pleading

look. “Can you uh, explain what happened to me
now? Also, I have friends to get back to. I don’t know
what they think just happened to me.”

“Oh, there is no just about what happened I’m afraid

my dear. You’ve been in that fruit for almost forty
days,” she said, showing a little compassion for the
first time. Forty days? What?
Before I could freak out over that little bomb that
she’d dropped on me, she kept speaking. “You found
one of my magefruit. You see, when a mage reaches a
certain level of power, they are able to make a
magefruit. This allows them to gain advantages in the
world of magic, how and why is not important at this
time however. The real point is, that magefruit must
be planted outside the Nameless Garden, which is the
plane of existence we are currently in.”

“Right, we’re in a different plane of existence from the

ring, got it,” I nodded, my mind very much not having
got it, instead exploding like a watermelon that had
just met a fifty calibre bullet.

“I doubt it,” she chuckled, but explained further

anyway. “If someone picks that fruit, it takes them and
transports them to the Grove of the mage who
created it. A Grove, by the way, is a pocket realm
within the Nameless Garden and also the source of
power for a mage. Anyway, they are then cocooned
within the fruit and transformed into a mage. This is
what happened to you.”

“I’m a mage now?” I blurted, excitement once again

bouncing around inside me like a hyperactive bunny.

“Yes. What, you think any old human woman has

bright magenta hair like that?” she scoffed, motioning
to my hair. “Mages are separate from their original
race in many ways, and one of the ways that manifests
in us humans is the colour of our eyes and hair.”

I quickly reached up and grabbed at the hair in

question, bringing it around to look at. Wow! It was
the same colour as my pubes, a kind of dark metallic
magenta colour. That was… amazing. I loved it!
“Can I see myself? Do you have a mirror? The water is
moving too much for me to see my reflection,” I asked
almost desperately.

Wordlessly, the woman flourished her hand into the

air, and this time it was markings like silvery shrubs
that whispered up her arm. They culminated in a burst
of sliver light in her palm, and a mirror appeared out
of nowhere in front of me, spinning into existence out
of an infinitely small spark. The mirror was large
enough to get a proper look at the whole of me, and
what I saw took my breath away.

I was stunning. I was beyond stunning. My face was

gorgeous, with high, angled cheekbones and infinitely
soft skin. My nose was small and perfect in every way,
my lips were full but not too full. My eyes were
incredible, the same metallic magenta as my shoulder
length hair, shining brightly from wide, huge eyes. I
was almost scarily good looking.
My body was also amazing, thin, lean and soft, with
curves arching everywhere they were meant to be.
Funnily enough, like I’d seen before during my first
cursory look at myself, my boobs were actually
relatively small. You’d think that the horny fruit that
made me look this pretty would have given me
balloon titties or something. Not that I was
complaining, I liked the ones I had now.

“I’m pretty,” I breathed, my hands drifting up to my

face in awe.

“You are indeed, it seems my magical essence is

strong,” the old lady remarked sounding impressed
with herself and getting a confused glance from me.
She responded with the shrug of someone who
couldn’t be bothered explaining something.

I kept staring at myself in the mirror, tilting my head,

moving around and watching the beauty do the same.
That was me. That was really me. This was really,
actually real, not a dream. I was a girl, through and
through, my outside finally matching my inside. It was
like I could breathe for the first time in my life, like I’d
been struggling with my head only just above water
level. Any stray ripple or wave would send water
down my throat, choking me and sending me into a
panic.

It was more than that though, far more than that. My

very mind felt unshackled from the constraints of
latent depression and my terrifying future as a man.
I’d always just planned to kill myself at some point,
although something had always come along to stop
me from going through with it.

Something small and dumb most of the time, like a

book series that I wanted to see the conclusion to, or
a movie I was intrigued by on the horizon. Recently it
had been my friendship with Bray, although my new
friends had been adding to that, along with the sheer
excitement of our abduction.

Now though, now… I was whole and free and

unbound from that final awful truth. I was a woman. I
was… a woman who needed a damn name. Grumpy
lady was totally right.

“You were right, I need a name,” I said, turning to look

at her for the first time in minutes.

“I’m sure you’ll think of one,” she said idly, leafing

through the book she was reading. Wait, where’d she
get the book from?

“Uh…” I hesitated, trying to think of something. I

slipped further into the water in thought, frowning at
my reflection in the mirror.
What was my name now? I wanted something fun,
something that fit with my magical appearance. Oh, I
could—

“Rynadria,” the old lady said, her eyes now strangely

piercing, like her gaze was boring into my very
essence.

“That’s a mouthful,” I replied, but even then

something sprung out at me. Feeling another wave of
euphoric rightness, I whispered, “But it can be
shortened. Ryn.”

“Ryn, eh?” she mused, placing a bookmark between

the pages of her book and then regarding me with a
far more normal expression. “I can see it.”
“Thanks… I think I’ll keep it. How did you do that by
the way?” I asked curiously. She’d totally just called
out a name that knocked me flat with how good it felt.

“A minor divination spell, there were a dozen or so

options, I just chose the one I liked the most,” she
chuckled, standing up slowly and stretching out. “I am
functionally your second mother now, whether either
of us wanted it or not.”

“You didn’t want a… a mage daughter?” I asked with

amusement.

“I placed my magefruit out in the middle of the damn

wilderness, of course I didn’t want a damned mage
daughter,” she grumbled to herself. “Nevertheless,
you are here and I must do my duty. Don’t get
comfortable though! I’m kicking you out when I feel
like you won’t immediately die to a random band of
thugs.”
“That’s fine, I have a cooler family to get back to,” I
said with a cheeky smile.

“Yes, yes, whatever. Now get out of the bath, it’s time
to put you to work apprentice,” she huffed, whapping
me on the head with her book.

“Ow! Fine! Damn, no need to get physical on me,” I

grumped. For some reason the light tap hadn’t
reminded me of my past issues with parental figures
and physical violence. It had been more playful than
anything else.

“Onwards,” she said, ignoring my complaints. “I have

so much to teach you before I can throw you out and
get on with my life.”

“Okay, okay! I’m getting out.”

I’m getting out, I’m learning what I need to, and then
I’m finding my way back to my friends. My family.

Chapter 11 :
The first thing she did when we got inside was
rummage around in an old chest, grumbling and
swearing as she did so. The inside of the cottage was
nice and homey, although it was also incredibly
cluttered. There was a kitchen nook off to the side, a
seating area with a few big comfy chairs, and a huge
study in its own little alcove.

Everything was made of a hard, dark wood, the walls

being covered in shelves that held so many random
things I wasn’t sure where to look first. It was like
someone had taken a stereotypical witches hut, and
then a stereotypical wizard’s tower and kinda
smooshed them together.
Now that I was aware that I was speaking a different
language, it was truly strange to hear words that I
shouldn’t understand but could, as though I had
always been speaking it. Standing there in the middle
of her cottage, a thought occurred to me with a flash
of panic. What if I couldn’t speak English anymore?

“I really hope I can speak English again,” I said in

English, and hearing the familiar sounds and
movements of the language immediately eased my
worry.

“Most intriguing, was that your native tongue?” the

grumpy woman asked, standing up and passing me a
few articles of clothing.

I took a moment to sort out what she’d just dumped

in my arms. A pair of underwear, a robe and… oh dear,
a bra. Well, not a bra as I was used to it, but still. It
extended down almost to my belly button and was
tied up at the sides instead of clasping behind me.
How the hell did I put this thing on?

“Uh yeah, I was just making sure I could still speak it,”
I said sheepishly as I stepped into the underwear.

Somehow it seemed weirder to be getting dressed in

front of her than it had been to just stand there naked
in front of her. Still, I did my best to put everything on,
the bra taking a moment as she gave me frustrated
instructions. With her… help, I got it all on reasonably
well, marvelling at how strange it felt to have clothing
on. Had it always felt like this? I wasn’t a fan of the
way the woolen robe scratched at my soft skin, that
was for sure.

“Very interesting,” she mused, staring at me intently.

“But now is not the time to discuss your culture, now
is the time to eat and explain who and what you are
now. Consider this your first lesson, so listen well.”

Whoa, lessons already? I was only just… well, born. I

needed some time to process this, damn it woman.
Also, what the hell was her name?

“Sure but uh, what’s your name?” I asked tentatively.

She gave a puzzled frown, then shrugged. “Did I not

introduce myself? Well then, my name is Esra Rihm,
previously the High Mage for the Duchy of Iverleik.
Now of course, I am an angry hermit who never leaves
her Grove. Just the way I like it personally, the outside
world is far too complicated to deal with.”

“I get that sentiment, sometimes I just want to get

away from it all, grab a family sized bag of doritos and
eat it in bed while binge watching some braindead TV
show,” I sighed, thinking wistfully of the sanctuary
that had been my room back at home. I’d installed a
lock on it when I turned fifteen, and that had been the
best decision I ever made. Wait no, second best. First
was picking the fruit that got me into this situation.

“Yes… well, regardless, onwards with the lesson,” she

said, clearly glossing over the fact that she had no idea
what I was talking about. “The first thing you should
know, or rather that I should reiterate and expand
upon, is that you are no longer human. You’re close to
it, with a few clear differences. First, your hair and
eyes are obviously inhuman, and I will need to teach
you a spell to hide this fact later. You will also gain
markings across your back that will correspond to the
construction of your Grove, when you get to it.”

“And secondly,” she continued, pausing as if for

dramatic effect before her skin turned a vivid, leaf-
green colour. “There is this. You are now able to
photosynthesize to gain energy, should you find the
need to do so.”

“Whoa!” I breathed, staring at her in awe. “How do I

do that?!”

“Go outside while I prepare our lunch. Stare at the

sun, you will feel it then,” she said cryptically, shuffling
off towards her kitchen nook.

“Right,” I muttered, wandering outside and onto the

lawn. “Stare at the sun, just like the orange
wrinkledick did. If he can do it, how hard can it be?”

I did as she’d told me, staring up at the oddly coloured

sun and almost immediately looking away as light
lanced through my eyes. Fuck, bad plan. Was she
playing some kind of weird… magic prank on me?
Oh wait, wow, okay, no she wasn’t. I stared at my
hands, then quickly pulled up the sleeves on my robe
to get a better look at my skin. It was a dark green
colour now, rich and deep, but throughout that green
were thin swirling tendrils of bright violet colouring. I
stood there, mesmerised as I watched the colour grow
more saturated as it suffused my skin.

A smile broke out across my face and I turned to the

sun again, making sure to close my eyes this time. The
warmth was lovely, like that of a hot shower on a cold
morning, and I stood and swayed with the breeze,
basking in that lovely light. My breathing slowed too
and I felt a sense of base contentment that pulsed
lazily through my body.

“I see you have figured it out,” came Esra’s voice from

behind me, and I turned lazily to smile and nod at her.
“Interesting colouration again too, I do wonder why.”
“It feels wonderful,” I murmured, unsure if I could
even get my voice to a higher volume while I felt so
light and peaceful.

“That it does my dear, now come, it is time I begin to

explain everything in greater detail. Over lunch of
course,” she said, blocking my light in an attempt to
get me to concentrate again.

So it was that my training as a mage began in earnest.

No time to stop and rest, no time to come to grips
with the situation. Straight into it, just like that.

She explained that mages were only actually capable

of three things when they were newly made. They
were able to channel their power to manipulate the
world around them on a basic level, functionally it was
just telekinesis with a little extra plant stuff going on.
You had to reach through into the Nameless Garden
with your mind, extending invisible vines out to grasp
and move whatever it was you wished to move
around. Mages could also use all of their senses to
observe magic around them, from mage sight to mage
smell. It all sounded a little weird.

These were by far the lesser of the three abilities

though, the third and most important ability was
being able to travel between the mundane realm and
the Nameless Garden. Esra explained that when a
mage entered the Garden they left a sort of mark.
Invisible to normal human eyes, but visible to other
mages. The mage who had entered the Garden could
only exit to that point, although once they were back
in the mundane realm they could move to a new spot
and enter again, moving their mark.

“Never enter the Garden where others can see you,

for there are many out in the mundane realm who
would love nothing more than to lay in wait on the
other side, ready to pounce when you returned,” she
warned me sternly, her eyes hammering into me the
need to remember this point. “One day, if you survive
long enough, you may become powerful enough to be
of use to me, and I to you. You need to survive that
long however, and this is the fastest way to get
yourself killed as a mage.”

“Right, got it,” I nodded, and then asked a question

that had been bugging me since this whole
conversation began. “Why do they call it the Nameless
Garden?”

“Because the early mages could not agree on a name

for the garden that they had just discovered, so they
instead called it the Nameless Garden,” she explained,
clearly not thinking much of the old mages.

“But… they kinda did give it a name. I mean, Nameless

Garden is still a name right?” I asked, a little confused
about how they could have missed that.
Esra gave an honest to god chuckle when I said that,
her eyes moving skyward for a moment. “No one ever
said the early mages were in the high end of the
intelligence spectrum.”

“Right, the old mages were dumb,” I grinned, loving

how that was a complete reversal from what I had
been expecting.

“Their descendants however, quickly turned that on

its head. It is said that a stupid mage does not live
long, and it is wholly true. We are not so numerous or
powerful that we can fight the common masses when
they get it in their heads to hang us,” she warned, her
tone turning from the previous amusement and into a
sombre warning. “There are those out there who hunt
us, there are those who fear us, and there are those
who wish to capture and exploit us. Be wary, and do
not reveal you are a mage unless you are confident
that you can control the situation.”
“How though? Surely with magic we can fight them
off?” I asked, suddenly worried for my ability to even
get back to my friends at all.

“Ours is not the only path to arcane power, young

Ryn. There are those who seek out magical artifacts
and materials, crafting them into items of power.
There are those who make deals with terrible and
strange beings for a portion of their power, and many
more paths besides,” she explained, her eyes clouding
over with memory. “I was driven from my position
within the duchy by those who claim that their demon
is a god. Be wary of those ones. They are very rarely
good news.”

“Well, that’s just a given usually, regardless of if they

have arcane power or not,” I shrugged, thinking back
to the conflicts of Earth’s past… and unfortunately its
present too.
“Indeed.”

The lesson continued on after that, fast turning into a

verbal conveyor belt of ways for me to die horribly to
the people of the mundane realm. It was honestly a
little terrifying, and I could see why Esra had elected
to stay within her peaceful Grove rather than fight for
her position outside. Shit, if I didn’t have my new
family to get back to I might have considered the
same after hearing all of that.

When the sun began to dip below the horizon, my

new teacher called an end to the lecture, and showed
me to an area that had somehow been added to her
cottage while we’d been outside. It was a small nook
of a room, but it had a comfy little bed in it with a
bedside table to keep it company. It was cute, and
after a small dinner of fruit and bread, we each went
to bed.
It was while I lay awake, trying to convince my mind to
stop spinning thoughts and go to sleep, that I began to
really miss my friends. My mood plummeted and my
gut churned. They probably thought I was dead by
now, eaten by some terrible plant, never to be seen
again. I hoped I could get back to them, I really did.

Chapter 12 :
It was three days of instruction and preparation
before Esra decided I was ready to attempt some of
that basic telekinesis that she’d been talking about.
Three days where the reality of what had happened
began to sink in, really, truly sink in. I had a woman’s
body now, and more than that, I was technically also
no longer human at all. Instead I was part human and
part magical plant or something.

The family ring stayed with me, I couldn’t resize it yet,

but Esra had decided I wasn’t allowed to try until I was
able to do it with my powers. She described it as being
an extra incentive to work hard, like I needed any
more incentive. I was learning magic after all! That
was like every moderately geeky person’s dream!

It was another sunny day in the garden, just a few

clouds scudding across the strange sky, each one
presenting the question, where had it come from?
Esra’s Grove wasn’t that big, certainly not large
enough for clouds to form, so where were they
coming from? A question for when we moved on to
Grove related activities I guessed.

We were sitting on the lawn again, its leaves still cool

from the night’s chill, and I was beginning to get antsy
with all the waiting. I wanted to try now, why was
there so much damn preparation involved in this?
How much damage could I really do with simple
telekinesis?
“Now remember, start small, we don’t know how
strong you are yet, how much baseline power you
possess, so to speak,” she explained yet again as she
placed a stick down between us.

A cloud passed over the strange sun of the Nameless

Garden, and I looked up absently at its backlit milky
depths before focusing my concentration back onto
the innocuous little stick.

“Let us begin,” she told me, her stare hard with

expectation. “Do you feel your power?”

I nodded, my eyes becoming unfocused as I turned my

attention to that strange new sense of magic I had. It
was surprisingly easy to find the power I had within
me. There was no struggle to visualise it or anything
like so many characters in the books I read, it was
painfully hard to miss, a bright beacon of sensation
within me.
“Good, now coax it to grow outward towards your
target, like the plants around us,” she murmured, her
eyes now also glazed over as she focused on her other
sense.

Feeling around my power, I pushed it out, seeking my

target. It was hard at first, I had very little control over
my magic as it just randomly wandered about. Slowly I
was able to take hold though, directing it through the
invisible underside of reality until I very carefully
wrapped it around the stick and tried to lift.

The was a crunching, cracking sound and wood went

spinning off in all directions at high speed. Esra was
fast, placing thin glowing shields of hardened air
between the both of us and the exploding stick. Wow,
alright, now I understood her caution on the subject.
“I think that answers the question of magnitude,” she
said calmly, removing the shields. “You could stand to
work on your subtlety however, my little apprentice.
In all things.”

“Oi, I tried!” I protested, frowning at her petulantly.

“Not my fault you packed that thing full of
explosives!”

“I did no such thing!” she exclaimed dismissively.

“Uh huh, I don’t believe you,” I grumbled, although it

was quite obvious that I actually had just used too
much force. I wanted to wind her up a bit though, cos
I’m a pain in the ass like that.

“Try again, with a different stick,” she sighed, rolling

her eyes.
I gave her a grin. “Well it would be hard to try with the
same stick now wouldn’t it?”

“You think yourself so very witty don’t you,” she

replied dryly. “Enough talking, more lifting. Gently.”

****

A week later and I was able to lift things around using

my mind vines with ease. That’s how I thought of
them at least, really it was just the magic within me,
which was apparently not plant based. It was pure
magic, the same stuff that everyone else used with
their various ways of doing things.
My ring was now fitted to my finger, and often I found
myself wondering how the others were doing. Was
Grace doing okay? Were Kelsey and Melody able to
further their relationship? Was Duncan doing okay
with the loss of his love? Had they managed to keep
Bray from accidentally burning the whole of Avonside
down? So many questions.

When I wasn’t practicing manipulating the magic

within me, I was learning about the more advanced
theory of magic as wielded by mages and our various
counterparts. The other caster magic wielders were
known as Warlocks, the ones who made deals with
patron magical beings in exchange for their power.
Warlocks lacked versatility, if their patron was a fire
spirit of some description, then they could only throw
fire around.

As such, they were sought after in times of war and

were far more capable in battle on the whole. Mages
on the other hand were considered far more
powerful, but also far weaker. A newly created mage
would be weak beyond measure, little more useful
than a standard human, while an ancient and
powerful mage might rule over an entire region
through sheer magical power alone.

I also learned of how the plants of a mage’s Grove

gave them power. It was all based around imagination
and willpower. For example, one day I was explaining
mobile phones and the internet to Esra, and she
almost immediately took me to a particular flowerbed
she had set up.

“This is a mage’s true power, their Grove. More

importantly however, it is the plants within the Grove
that give us our spells and abilities,” she explained,
leaning down to give one of the plants a gentle
examination. “Each species represents a spell, given
form in a way that the Nameless Garden then
converts into a spell for us to use. This species here is
one I developed myself, although I know of several
others that perform a similar function, that of far-
seeing.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” I said, genuinely interested now.

“Why are there so many though? Surely if you have
one plant then you don’t need a bunch of others. Are
they backups?”

“They are backups yes, if one dies while you are out in
the world, you will have more to fall back on. Far more
importantly though it increases the total amount of
magic you may channel into a given spell. Too much
magical energy and too few plants to conduct it, and
you will burn them out,” she explained arching her
back in a joint popping stretch.

We paused for a moment as one of Esra’s Grove

tenders wandered past. It turns out that the plant
creature we’d seen near the magefruit had actually
been one of these things. In order to keep a Grove
functioning while the mage was off in the real world,
they created tenders, creatures of pure will and magic
whose purpose was to take care of the plants. Why
the one who’d stopped Grace had done so, neither of
us could figure out.

“How do you think up the plants?” I asked as the

tender ambled away, content to do what it was
created for.

“That is a complicated and time consuming process

that I will have to begin teaching you. That may as well
be now, so listen well,” she told me curtly, seemingly
frustrated by something again. Oh dear.

****
Creating plants, it turned out, required me to first
create my own Grove, and for that Esra had plans.
Elaborate plans. Plans that required an entire month
of preparation on Esra’s part, during which I got very
antsy. It felt like I was making no progress at all
towards becoming a real mage or getting back to my
friends.

“Imagine the Nameless Garden as an ocean, and our

Groves are merely islands of order floating on those
waters. What we will do now is dive into those waters,
slowly at first, and I mean that this time, I don’t want
to have to fish you out by the scruff of your neck,” she
told me gruffly, although by this point it was mostly
for show. I knew she had a little soft spot for me.
“Right, and we’re going to go really far out into that
ocean using that crazy spell you’ve been working on
for the last month,” I said tiredly, if Esra had a flaw, it
was repeating things over and over until my brain
screamed for respite. I guess it also served to hammer
the information home, but my memory wasn’t one of
those that required this style of teaching.

“Indeed, and why are we doing this again?” she asked,

prompting me to reply with the answer yet again.
After this I was never going back to college.

“We’re going out really far into the unknown regions

of the Nameless Garden because mages can swim to
each other’s islands and break things there,
weakening that mage in the real world. You want to
spare me from all the infighting by hiding me out in
the middle of nowhere. It also gives me space to
expand,” I replied in a bored tone.
I’d been studying the history of inter-mage conflicts
for a week now and my god were they a petty lot. It
was basically gang warfare in the Nameless Garden,
groups of them banding together and then hitting
each other’s Groves in drivebys and shit.

Esra had been involved in a powerful block of mages

who’d been intent on mutual protection, basically
putting up such a strong defence of their Groves that
they didn’t need to worry about attacks, but that had
all come crumbling down when they had been
targeted back in the real world. One by one they had
been assassinated or driven into hiding, until Esra too
had been forced into hiding by their numerous
enemies.

“Good, then are you ready?” Esra prompted, reaching

out with a soft, wrinkled hand for mine.
“Yeah,” I nodded, a smile creeping onto my face. I was
so ready.

Together we felt for the edges of her Grove with our

minds and power, gently prying the seams open to
allow ourselves passage. There was a rush of vertigo
as up and down ceased to be and the the tranquil
garden of her realm was replaced by a far more wild
scene. A strange void spread out in every direction,
unusual magical plants forming, growing and twisting
in every direction like fractals, before they abruptly
withered and died.

It was like an endless zero gravity jungle was

constantly forming and then dying over and over
around us, never content with its shape and structure,
always looking to twist itself into something new and
interesting.
Esra and I floated there in that void, hair drifting
aimlessly with the absence of gravity. She squeezed
my hand to get my attention, and I looked over to see
her nod back behind us.

When I followed her gaze I found myself looking back

into her Grove, the surface translucent and smooth
with swirling colours. It was absolutely beautiful. On
the outside it seemed spherical, even if on the inside it
was not, as though Esra had taken that spherical space
and warped it into the one she needed.

Before I’d had time to properly appreciate her Grove

from the outside we were moving away at speed.
Esra’s spell was one that propelled us at speed
through the Nameless Garden, far faster than any
mage could normally achieve.

When I’d asked why another mage couldn’t just create

the same spell, she’d simply shrugged and said that
they could, but the farther we went, the harder it
would be to find me anyway. Most mages simply
opted to stay within what was known as the Losi
Fertile Zone. An area of the Garden where magical
plants grew significantly better and resources needed
for specific plants were abundant. Sort of like how
everyone liked to hang around an oasis because there
was a lot of water, but you could still survive out in
the desert if you knew how.

Except Esra had a plan here too… because she’d

discovered another oasis, another Fertile Zone. It
wasn’t nearly as large as the Losi one, but what it
lacked in size it made up for in safety. It was so far
away that only someone who knew where it lay or
was extremely lucky would find it. Esra had found it
with that same luck one day, aimlessly exploring at
regular speed for days at a time.

Ever forming plants flashed by as we sped through the

Garden, flickering past at a speed almost too fast for
my eyes to lock onto any single one. I saw a few more
Groves along the way too, shining orbs in the distance.
Some of them were huge, far larger than Esra’s and
that kinda scared me. Who were the mages that those
belonged to?

Eventually they were all left behind, our journey

taking us onwards into the endless expanse of
changing vegetation. Towards the site of my future
Grove!

Chapter 13 :
It felt like hours before Esra began to slow us down,
hours of endless boredom and repetitive fractal
greenery. It was noticeably sparser out here though,
the cycle of growth and death seeming slower, more
sluggish than it was back in the more fertile area. My
eyes were growing almost dumb due to the endless
motion around us, and I had to close my eyes at
regular intervals just to give them a rest.

Feeling Esra squeeze my hand again, I opened my eyes

and looked over to her.

“We’re here,” she told me, her voice bouncing around

with the strangest echo I’d ever heard. “How do you
like it?”

I looked around, finding a place much the same as the

one we’d left a few hours ago, except it was
completely devoid of any Groves. I could see clouds of
barely visible gasses that were probably different
magical energies, resources when converted into the
more structured nature of a Grove. I could see the
plants here were subtly different too in a way that was
hard to pinpoint.
“Choose a place, wherever feels right, then focus your
will, like I taught you,” my teacher murmured from
next to me, and I nodded, letting go of her hand to
float freely on my own.

I wandered for a while, allowing my sense of the

arcane to tell me about the lay of the land. It was
strange, this sense of magic, wholly impossible to
explain to someone who didn’t possess the ability. I
found it though, a place that felt good and calming to
my mind.

“I like this place,” I said, feeling some of that same

warmth I got when I was basking in the sun.

“Then begin,” Esra said simply, waiting patiently

nearby.
I was meant to form an image in my mind, that’s what
she’d said, but what kind of place did I even want? A
mage’s grove could take any form they desired. Esra’s
was a simple woodland with low rolling hills and
burbling streams.

Slowly the idea came to me, a network of plateaus

sitting atop huge stone pillars, their bases lost in fine
white mists. I started with one single pillar, soft loamy
soil in a layer across its top that was ready for any
plants I might want. I created a layer of grass across
this soil, a placeholder for things to come. I visualised
the sky with the blue colour of Earth’s atmosphere, I
gave it the golden sun of sol and the single moon that
I strangely missed. My lips quirked in a small
contented smile. Home.

With that image in my mind, I pushed outwards

around me with my power and my will in equal
measure, curling and beating the fabric of the
Nameless Garden until the strange energies of the
area began to resemble the shape I wanted to give it. I
twisted at the protesting status quo until it was mine,
submitting to my design like the universe’s slipperiest
clay.

There was the moment of creation, when everything

finally gave way and a world rushed out into being
around us, just the flash of movement and then we
were standing in that grass that I had imagined. Magic
and potential given form and function, and it was
mine. My little slice of mage land.

“Well done Ryn,” Esra said from beside me, looking

around at the world I had just willed into being. “The
island is a nice touch, the mists are beautiful.”

“Thanks,” I grinned, feeling a blush of all things

coming on. I didn’t get compliments from Esra often.
“I modelled it after Earth, my home world. This is our
sky, our sun, and our moon. There’s an area like this in
a place called South America. I’ve never been there,
but I’ve seen photos. I always liked how those strange
mountains looked.”

“Intriguing,” she said, looking around with interest for

a moment before she back turned to me.
“Congratulations, you are now truly a mage. A young
one, a pitifully weak one, but a full mage
nevertheless.”

“It feels nice,” I smiled, then a funny little thought

occurred to me. “It’s like I’ve gotten my wand! Now I
have to learn all the spells!”

“Yes, yes, continue with your obscure cultural

references in your own time, we have work to do,”
Esra grumbled, her hands moving with the motions of
a spell.
“You’re just jealous that I got to grow up and live in a
world where you can order food to be delivered
without getting out of bed,” I grinned. She’d all but
interrogated me over the concept of delivery drivers
and pizza, it had been pretty funny.

Muttering under her breath about cheeky youth, she

cast the spell she’d been working on, an area of grass
in front of us suddenly withering and turning to ash. I
blinked and glanced askance at my teacher. Did she
fry the grass for any particular reason?

“This will be where we plant the first two spells I will

teach you to create today. Simple ones, but useful
nevertheless,” she explained, walking over to kneel
next to the patch of bare dirt.

“Oh! Cool!” I exclaimed, suddenly excited and all ears.

Raising an eyebrow at me, she asked, “You remember
the theory for the creation of spell plants do you not?
Begin with the siphoning of the magical energies your
Grove is built upon.”

I nodded and closed my eyes, grasping around for the

formless energy of the Nameless Garden. It was there,
feeling strangely like cotton candy as I played with it
using my mind. I gathered a portion of it, a small
amount, because she’d said this would be a small
spell.

“Good, just like that,” Esra murmured encouragingly.

“You have learned restraint since the debacle
involving that stick.”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” I grumbled, still with my eyes

closed.
Ignoring my complaint, she continued on with her
instructions. “This will be an illusory flower, used to
disguise your true nature from mundane humanity. As
such, we will be manipulating the elemental energy of
light. The flower must be small, with a dicot stem, but
the pith must be made of the purest clear crystal. The
vascular tissue around the outside must be all the
colours of the visible spectrum, this can be achieved
however you like, but I suggest assigning a colour to
each bundle.”

“Okay, got it,” I said, imagining the stalk with a middle

that was made of crystal, while the outer layer was
made of several bundles of plant tissue that were
arranged in a rainbow.

“Good, next, the epidermis must be of crystal again.

Then move on to the roots, which must be as black as
the darkest cave. At the center of the roots, construct
absorption cores with an affinity for light,” she told
me, her words careful and precise.
I made a murmuring noise of affirmation while I did as
she asked, setting the roots up to be black on the
outside and to channel the magical light element on
the inside.

“Well done. We turn our attention to the leaves now,

just a few along the stalk. Construct them as you
would any other plant, they will need some way to
gain sunlight, after all. Once this is complete, it is time
for the flower. I want you to imagine an image, how
you would wish to look when this spell is active.
Channel it through the mind map of the plant you
have so far and see how it unfolds,” she said with an
element of excited expectation. “Keep the changes as
few as possible, I suggest only focusing on altering
colour for your first attempt.”

I quickly made the leaves as she’d said, then tried to

think, what did I want to look like? I’d basically only be
changing the colour of my hair and eyes. Oh, and my
eyebrows and uh… pubes too. Well, I already had
magenta hair, so why not go with ginger? I knew that
I’d get jokes, but hey, gingers were like 20% hotter
because of the hair colour by default. My eyes could
be blue, to match the stereotype.

Taking that image, I pushed it through the plant as

though it already had magic coursing through its
various pathways. It was absorbed by the roots,
swirling and coalescing at the base before rushing up
the stem like it was being funneled out of a hose.
When it hit the bud at the top, it burst forth into a
flower with petals of vivid orange, the stamen of
which were a bright sky blue. I gasped and grinned,
feeling a surge of pride. It had worked!

“Yes!” Esra exclaimed, sounding almost as happy as I

was. “Quick, now plant it in the ground, no wait, plant
two or three for good measure!”
I did as she asked, pushing the image of that fully
constructed plant out into the fabric of my Grove.
Quickly opening my eyes, I watched with a spreading
grin as my creation grew out of the ground like I was
watching a timelapse. It was so pretty! Oh my god!
The way each plant was slightly different, not an exact
replica of the image I’d had in my mind, but still the
same species. They were all their own living things!

“Wow,” I laughed gleefully, then my eyes widened

when they got to work, drawing in the various magical
energies and elements that they needed to function
from the base loam of the Nameless Garden.

“And there we have it,” my teacher nodded, a note of

satisfaction in her tone. “Your first spell. Well done,
my last apprentice botched that one more than once.”
“Thank you!” I smiled, then before my mind could
really think on the matter, I hugged her, wrapping my
arms around her bony frame and squeezing gently.

“O-oh! A hug. How novel,” she coughed awkwardly.

Giggling a little, I let go and stepped back with a wide

smile. “On to the second one?”

The second one was far simpler, but also strange and
when I realised what she wanted me to do, I
practically glowed with excitement. It was another
flower, but this one had a white stem with black spots
and black leaves. I questioned the black leaves at first,
but she explained that the excess heat that would be
left over after the leaves did their thing would be used
as part of the spell. It was all super technical and I was
a little baffled by some of the choices being made.
It was a small flower in the end, barely larger than a
dandelion with little silver petals and a bronze center.
The purpose of this flower was made apparent when
she asked me to place my ring onto the grown flower.
There was the barest spark of energy, and then it was
done. If I concentrated, I’d be able to tell in which
direction each of the other rings made from the same
offcut of pipe were. I could find my family! Well, at
least once I was out in the mundane realm. It didn’t
work in here.

With my plants all set up and working happily, at least

in the short term, I’d need my own tenders and a
proper ecosystem at some point, we left my Grove
and headed back to Esra’s. Her one had the house
after all, and it was getting late in the day.

The trip back was different, because I was watching

the ever changing plants around us with a lot more
interest now. Were they spells in the making, just
ready to be figured out?
My curious inspection of the Nameless Garden was
cut abruptly short when Esra’s Grove came into view
and she slowed us dramatically. She stared at it
intently, her eyes moving quickly, unfocused with the
use of her mage sight.

“I am a fool,” she whispered, her voice echoing with

the strangeness of the void around us. “I am a fool, I
should have realised he would strike if I left. I should
have known.”

Chapter 14 :
“Who is he?” I asked in alarm, still staring at the
smooth, glasslike surface of Esra’s Grove in confusion.
“What’s happening?”
I had no idea what she was seeing, even with my
magical senses there didn’t seem to be anything out
of the ordinary.

“One of my many enemies has come to take

advantage of the situation,” Esra told me, her voice
betraying a note of worry.

Crap, if she was worried then I definitely had to be

worried.

Now anxious and still very confused, I asked, “What is

he doing?”

“Laying waste to my grove,” she sighed, then turned

to look at me with a hard, serious expression. “When
we enter, we will be coming in from the edge, as is
always the case when you arrive at an established
Grove. I will go to meet him and slow him down. You
will go to the cottage, in my room you will find a pack
that has provisions, clothes and tools for survival. Next
to it you will find a sack, that will also contain clothing
and some small amount of protection. Once you have
these items, you must leave the Grove.”

My mouth ran dry, I was meant to leave? “What about

you? And where do I go? Back to my Grove? But it’s so
far away!”

“So many questions, little one,” she smiled sadly, and

reaching up tentatively, she brushed some of my
rebellious floating hair out of the way. “Your mark will
be where mine is, that is the way of mage birth. When
you return to the Nameless Garden, you will find
yourself in your own Grove. This one will most likely
not exist by that time. As for me? I will manage, it will
be some time before we meet again, I will have to
flee, but when the time comes I will move and create
a new Grove near to yours.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” I asked worriedly. I
didn’t want to be thrown into yet another strange
situation. I’d only just gotten used to the rhythm of life
in her Grove and now I was forced to flee!

“I will be fine, I have survived worse attacks and far

greater setbacks, but you are young and new to this
world. I must see you safe, you have been a far
greater joy than my last apprentice, the man who now
waits within my Grove,” she told me affectionately,
and I couldn’t help a small scared little smile as I
realised she really did care about me.

“Okay,” I said sadly, my chest already feeling hollow. I

just wanted a sense of normality and safety in my life,
was that too much to ask for? What did the universe
even fucking have against me?

“Let us go,” Esra said, turning to look into the Grove

again. “Fate has plans for us.”
We moved forward, approaching the barrier between
the chaos of the garden and the order of the Grove.
Esra went through first, the surface rippling with her
passage like liquid glass and I followed quickly, not
wanting to be left behind.

The interior of the Grove was like a nightmarish

version of the place I had spent almost two months
learning in. It burned, fire swirling in terrible vortices
of carnage. Ash and smoke were thick in the air, the
sun just a distant angry red point in the haze above us.
Although, we’d stepped through into an area of
relative calm, the fire not having yet spread to this
area. Before us was a wide trail encircling the border
of the Grove, with more trails leading further into the
magical forest in front of us.

“Come,” my teacher whispered, motioning towards

one of the paths.
The trail was dark as we moved through the trees, the
crunch of gravel under our feet sounding all too much
like the pop and crack of the distant fire that burned
not so far away. I didn’t like this at all, the way this
once tranquil place of magic and safety had been
turned terrifying and hostile. Shadows danced even
here due to the size of the fires.

It took us five minutes of walking before we made it to

Esra’s lawn, and that was where he was waiting. I felt
my stomach drop out further, already feeling the
conflict to come in the back of my mind like a sick
worming thing.

The man stood calmly between us and the cottage,

just waiting with his hands casually clasped behind his
back. He wore an expensive looking suit of what I
would consider ancient design. Ruffles and tight pants,
the whole medieval noble shebang, although a little
more restrained than the pictures I’d seen in the past.
The outfit almost looked reasonable.

His dark red hair was short and done in a perfect

comb over, while his beard was honestly a little
strange. There were little shaved breaks in it halfway
down his jaw that made the whole thing look weird. I
guess they had different styles in ringworldland.

“My, my, Esra Rihm, is that another apprentice I see?”

he asked in a slow, smooth drawl. “And here I am
rather vividly remembering you proclaiming never to
want another one after me. I see that even the
terrible High Mage Rihm can go soft after the years.”

“She’s far more intelligent than you ever were, both

mentally and emotionally,” Esra frowned, her fists
clenching and unclenching like a cowboy ready to
draw at a moment’s notice.
“Hmm, possibly,” the man said, his eyes flitting to
meet mine before they slowly trailed up and down my
body, sending a shiver of revulsion through me. “She
is certainly beautiful, I might have to… take her off
your hands, after this little confrontation is over.”

“You even try to touch her and I’ll cut off your fucking
balls, child,” Esra spat, her words sending my
eyebrows high into my forehead. Wow, alright, she
clearly had strong feelings on the subject, that was
nice. I would rather not get within groping distance of
the asshole either.

“Oh why don’t we let her decide, hmm?” the man

laughed, before meeting my eyes again and sketching
a low bow. “Hello there sweetness, my name is
Gresham Fennimore, or Lord Fennimore to you. Might
I know your name, my lady?”
I shivered as he addressed me, everything about it
coming off as sleazy and disgusting. It was his tone of
voice I think that I hated most, the way it sounded like
he already considered me conquered or something. I
took a step back, looking away in the vain attempt to
get a handle on myself. I was… scared.

I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t really. I had no idea

how to deal with the unwelcome advances of a
sleazeball like this guy. I hadn’t gotten the years of
learning that came with growing up as a girl, where
from an age that was far too young they would have
men like this creeping on them.

“Somehow, I think she probably has standards,” Esra

replied, her tone one of sharp edged amusement.

“Pretty sure I’m not into men at all,” I murmured,

thinking of my attraction to Grace and my lack of
attraction to the many guys at Avonside.
I met Esra’s eyes to find her brows quirked in surprise,
but she shrugged and turned back to Lord Fennimore
with a hard expression. “Time for you to leave now
Lord Fennimore.”

There was a whisper of a breeze, and I heard Esra’s

voice in my ear as though she were right next to me.
“Ryn, dear. When the fighting starts, duck back into
the forest and circle around. Enter the cottage and
gather the items I told you about. Hurry, it will not be
long before I lose this duel, too much of my Grove has
burned already. As it stands I will be hard pressed to
cover your escape and obfuscate your location within
the mundane realm.”

I froze, my heart pounding in my chest as it cried out

in worry and pain, sadness and a yearning to help. But
again, I was too weak to do anything, too scared to
rush forward and join her in the fight that I hated but
knew was inevitable. Finally I nodded and whispered
back, “Thank you Esra, for everything. Please live, I’d
really like to see you again.”

Her only response was to glance a small smile at me,

then like lightning she flashed forward towards
Fennimore, her hands alight with a blistering beam of
energy. The attack was swift and true, but it hit a
shield of shimmering energy around her target with a
sound like electric nails on a chalkboard, causing me
to flinch and rush to cover my ears.

Returning fire came quickly, but Esra was gone again,

her teleporting spell taking her behind Fennimore,
where she hit him again with another beam. After
that, the duel was everywhere, quick and deadly as
they flickered from place to place, attacks coming in
fast and terrible.

My limbs refused to move as my eyes drank in the

spectacle. I’d been expecting it to be one sided, but
Esra seemed to be holding her own with no problems.
It was honestly quite beautiful to see, the way they
danced their deadly dance, and if it had been just a
dance I would have been cheering for the display. But
it wasn’t, each flicker of dark energy was pain, each
blast of power was limbs burned and lost. It was
terrifying.

So only when a bolt of sickly green energy detonated

against the trunk of a nearby tree did I snap out of my
daze, bolting for the cover of the forest. I wove
through the cultivated underbrush, my way lit by
glowing plants and brief flashes of light from the duel.
Several times attacks came sailing my way, only to be
blocked by a shield formed by Esra. She was
protecting me.

Once the duel was out of sight, I veered out of the

trees and ran headlong towards the cottage. It
seemed so strange, ominous in the amber light of the
fires, and I again found myself wondering what kind of
asshole would destroy such a peaceful place. Then I
realised that yeah, I knew exactly which asshole would
do that. Lord Fucking Fennimore.

The door was ajar as I arrived at the cottage, a little

winded from the sprint, and I shouldered it open and
rushed inside. Esra’s bedroom door was still closed,
but when I wove through the living room and tried the
handle, it was unlocked. Pushing it open carefully, I
took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the twilight
before I began my search.

It wasn’t hard to find the pack and bag where they

were leaning against the side of her wardrobe.
Rushing forward, I pulled the pack on, tightening the
straps until they fit my slim frame, then hoisted the
drawstring bag over my shoulder. It was kinda heavy,
and I winced as the weight of it settled in.
Esra had told me to leave as soon as I got these, but I
couldn’t, not without one last look. I moved back into
the living room and found a window that would give
me a view of the duel. They were still going, although I
could see Esra beginning to tire, and she wasn’t using
her big beam of energy anymore. The plants required
for it must have burned in the inferno outside.

I took in the sight of my mage-mother and teacher

one last time as she fought tooth and nail for me after
only knowing me for a little over a month or two. She
was a good person, gruff, stubborn and grumpy, but
also kind and caring under all that. I hoped she’d come
to place her new Grove next to mine someday. I
hoped she lived to get there.

Turning away from the duel, I concentrated, feeling

for the seams of Esra’s Grove and then beyond,
finding the boundary between the Nameless Garden
and the mundane realm. Esra had helped me find it a
few times as practice, but we’d never actually gone
over. Now would be the first time, and I’d supposedly
be coming out where Esra had last left it.

I took a deep breath in preparation, then pushed,

bending and stretching the veil between worlds until it
was thin enough for me to pass through, and with
nothing but a small tremor, that’s exactly what I did.

Chapter 15 :
Reality bubbled back into being like I was surfacing
after dunking my head in a bubble bath. Not the kind
of entrance I was expecting, but whatever. My heart
was too heavy to find any real amusement in that
detail.

I’d come out in a place that was dark, but not the full
dark of night in the Nameless Garden, where there
was no band of ringworld high above to always reflect
light down on us. Wind rustled and moved through
the canopy of the trees around me, letting me know
even before my eyes had adjusted that I was in a
forest. The ground beneath my toes was covered in
wet leaves, squishing gently under my weight. A little
gross, but I’d grown used to that during my time in the
garden.

Just in case, I began to put distance between myself

and my exit point, walking randomly through the
forest. It was a thoroughly normal temperate forest,
which was a little jarring after the beautiful, glowing
forest of Esra’s Grove. It seemed so dull and boring. I
usually loved a nice forest like this one, but beside the
beautiful glowing crystal trees I had spent my time
resting under for the past month… well it wasn’t
spectacular.

I was a little disappointed to see that it wasn’t the

same forest as the one I’d left from, the trees were all
ones that enjoyed a slightly more warm and humid
environment. I was at least in another climate from
the one I’d left. The night air was also warmer than it
had been near Avonside. Damn.

Eventually I figured I had walked far enough and sat

down wearily against the trunk of some random,
thoroughly mundane tree. My feet were starting to
hurt, the soil here wasn’t the perfect almost frothy
loam that it was in the garden, and the small rocks and
half decomposed sticks had been hurting my
unguarded feet.

I pulled open the sack first, wanting to put on the

clothing within so I didn’t have to lug the heavy sack
around with it cutting painfully into my shoulder the
whole time. Plus there were probably shoes inside.
The first thing that came out was a large coat, I
couldn’t make out the colour of it other than it was
dark, possibly a navy blue or black. I placed it to the
side for now and reached in again.
Next was a pair of leather greaves, then some tall,
sturdy boots with an inch of grippy heel on them, the
kind you saw soldiers using in old movies, except they
were high, coming up to almost my knee. They also
came with a pair of big woolen socks perfect for
walking long distances.

There was also a pair of tight pants, a shirt, and scarf

that I could almost tell was blue by the light of the
ring. All in all it seemed like a pretty nice outfit, so I
hurriedly undressed and put it all on... well, after
cleaning my feet with the robe anyway. The pants
were tighter than I thought they would be and I had to
wiggle quite a lot to get them over my thighs and hips.
Damn, this body was great but it came with some
interesting new challenges.

The outfit had a calming effect over me, as though

Esra’s forethought to get an outfit ready for me might
mean that she could handle her own escape too, and
that she hadn’t just sacrificed herself for me. Shit, I
really hoped that wasn’t what she’d just done. I could
see her pretending everything was fine in order to get
me to leave, then throwing herself into the fight with
no hope of winning. Nevermind, scratch that, still not
calm.

What did I do now though? It was dark and I was

hugely tired, the creation of my grove had taken so
much out of me that I was beginning to sway on my
feet. I couldn’t just sleep here in the forest though
could I?

Wait! I had my grove! I could sleep there, I just had to

hope it didn’t rain or anything. Esra had said I would
return to my Grove if I entered the Nameless Garden,
so surely if I just went right back in… I felt around
again for that unique sensation, the one at the edge of
my mind, the seams of reality. I asked them to part,
pushing it thin once more and stepped through.
When I arrived, I found myself shrouded in cold,
howling winds that plucked at my newly acquired
clothing and threatened to send me tumbling towards
the edge. Shit! I hadn’t thought about weather and
stuff! I hunkered down against the biting air and tried
to think, what could I do? Try reshaping things a little?
Could I even do that? I guess I could try.

I called up what remained of my magical might, which

was pitifully small after the day’s exertions, and tried
to think of a solution to my problem. What about just
making a hole in the ground for now? I’d have to hope
it didn’t rain, but at least I’d be out of the wind.

With my magic in mental hand, I pushed downward,

forcing the land to reshape itself to my mental image.
The task was harder than I thought, sapping my
strength almost entirely in the process. It worked
though, I had a small foxhole, only barely big enough
for me to fit in and keep out of the wind.
I fell into the hole in a heap, my brain feeling all kinds
of fuzzy and tired. I was vaguely aware of pulling at
the pack, dragging a blanket out of it and wrapping it
around myself, then I was gone, asleep in an instant.

****

When I woke, it was with a groggy, dull headache and

a lack of fine motor skills. For all intents and purposes
it felt like I was hungover, which I guessed was the
fault of my over use of magic the previous day.

Fumbling my way into my pack, I blearily pulled out

something that looked like dried meat and a
waterskin, and promptly ate and drank the whole lot.
Then I crawled up above and allowed my green skin to
come to the surface and drink in the light of the sun.
Oh my word, that felt good. I threw off my coat and
pulled my sleeves up for even more surface area, then
kicked off my boots and struggled with my socks too.
My shirt, pants, greaves quickly followed.

Laying there almost naked as I basked in the sunlight, I

tried to come to grips with everything that had
happened. I felt so damn off balance right now, my life
felt like a chaotic roller coaster of happiness and
pulled rugs. I just wanted everything to calm down for
two seconds. Laying there for what felt like an hour or
so, I just wallowed in my own misery. Why couldn’t
life just let me be? I wanted my friends back, and Esra
too. Wait… my friends! I had the ring tracking spell!

With new purpose and a refreshed mind and body, I

pulled myself to my feet and put all my clothes back
on… with some effort again. Damn these clothes were
tight in places. Next I went to my pack and really
began to look through it. I found a flint and tinder kit,
a few changes of underclothes, a standalone hood,
and a bunch of dried and preserved foods and several
other items that would be useful in just my situation.
Esra had really prepared well for this eventuality. I
needed to thank her the next time I saw her...

Feeling a little better prepared now, I transitioned

back to the mundane realm, this time to find myself in
a sunlight drenched woodland. It was the same place
I’d left obviously, but it seemed almost serene
compared to the dark and forboding version of itself it
had been at night.

Now to attempt that location spell! I thought back to

my Grove and the plant in question, and sure enough
it surged forward, eager to help. I channeled magic
through it and the spell activated, creating a sort of
mental image in my mind. It was vague, mostly just
directional information, four of the rings being pretty
damn far away, but then… two weren’t. Two were
much, much closer.

Why had my friends split up? Why were two of them

off on their own out here while the others were
probably back at the university? I could tell because
the two on their own seemed to be moving, walking at
quite a pace, while the others were moving only a
little or else entirely stationary.

I had absolutely no idea where I was, what the lay of

the land was like beyond what my eyes could see and I
certainly had no idea about any of the people who
called this region home. Which meant I didn’t really
have any decisions to make other than, ‘Walk in the
direction of my friends and hope for the best.’

So that’s exactly what I did, the pack on my shoulders,

the empty bag safely stuffed inside and my eyes
wandering about me for anything that might be useful
or harmful.

I walked for hours, the sun rising overhead until it

dimmed to mark midday while it passed behind the
other side of the ring. A thought occurred to me as
that happened, something that really should have
been the first thing on my mind after I realised magic
was more than just myth. I was standing on a ring
world, a ring world where magic was at least
moderately widespread and integrated into some sort
of medieval society.

Ring worlds were ostensibly the realm of science

fiction. How the hell did this all work together? How
did it connect and fit, because I was drawing a blank.
Had the builders of the ring world used magic to
create it, rather than old fashioned technology as we
were used to it? Was there a difference? Were we in
an entirely different reality from our home, one where
magic was just part of the laws of the universe? Shit I
just had questions upon questions. None of which
would actively help me right now, but at least it
passed the time and kept me from worrying about
Esra or my friends.

Eventually the woodlands began to thin, and I found

myself emerging into farmland, rolling fields of
cropland in the middle of their growth cycle. Wheat by
the looks of things, although there were also pastures
with baby animals frollicking among their older kin, as
well as orchards in the middle of bloom. It was
springtime in this portion of the ring.

I found a dirt road that led in the direction I wanted

and began to follow it, all but openly staring like a
tourist at the thoroughly mundane medieval life
around me. It was about the time I saw my first
random farm worker stop and gawk at me that I
realised I was walking around without my disguise,
and anyone could see that I was a mage. How could
anyone miss my shining magenta hair? Quickly I
remedied that fact, pulling the normal human disguise
spell over myself.

I didn’t feel any different, but a quick glance in a

puddle confirmed the spell was working. I just hoped
that news didn’t spread all over the place that there
was a beautiful mage walking around. As an extra
precaution I fished inside my pack and put the hood
on, then wrapped my scarf around the lower half of
my face. I didn’t know if I would be more or less
vulnerable as a lone, stunningly gorgeous woman in
medieval land, or a lone, stunningly gorgeous mage. I
wasn’t going to tempt fate, I needed to get to my
friends, needed to see them again.

Chapter 16 :
My feet were more than weary after the second day
of trudging along that road. I saw a castle in the
distance at one point, strange design, but also
familiar. The castles of Earth’s history were smaller,
less grand in scope than this one. The people of this
land had probably been stuck in the medieval era for
much longer than we had back on Earth, which I guess
when combined with magic led to much larger, more
impressive castles and stuff?

I hadn’t been used to walking distances like this

before I got my new body, let alone this newly made
one. It was a little strange that I had any sort of
endurance at all though, with no long distance training
at all I should have been dying after the first hour.
Maybe mage bodies had a bit more endurance on that
front than normal baseline human ones? I should ask
the manufacturer.

As for the progress I’d made, the landscape was ever

so slightly moving uphill, and I was beginning to see
that we were in a sort of large basin. A great many
small rivers and streams were feeding into one huge
one that I could see in the distance even several
kilometers away. Off to my left and right in the far,
hazy distance were a pair of low mountain ranges,
more like large hills than true towering pillars of rock
and earth.

The rattle and clatter of a large horse drawn cart drew

my attention, and I turned to watch it coming up
behind me on the road. Moving to the side to let it
pass, I peered curiously over at it. This wasn’t the first
one to go past me, not by a long shot, but I was still
interested in seeing any group of fellow travellers up
close. It was the four wheeled kind with a cover over
the top and a complete lack of suspension that made
the whole thing bounce around like it was some sort
of theme park ride.

My eyes met those of a man at the front holding the

reins. He was young, perhaps three or so years older
than me and from what I could tell, sort of handsome
in that way that earnest and slightly ignorant guys
were. He had a short mess of brown hair, pale skin
and big dark brown eyes.

“Where are you headed, miss?” he asked, his wide

eyes trying and failing to stay off my body.

I winced and looked away, motioning vaguely forward,

not trusting myself to speak.

“Well, would you like to ride with us? We’re going as

far as Anverkeit for now, then following the river up
into Aberg to Luglastain,” he asked, his expression
hopeful in that way that even I recognised.

He wanted the company of a girl, to flirt with, make

advances on, the usual thing. However, and this was
so awfully stereotypical of me… he did have a ride.
Damn, that was tempting.
“If it sways you one way or another, the kid’s
harmless. He can barely string the words together to
stammer out a flirtatious greeting to a woman
anyway, I watched him try his luck with the barmaid at
the last inn. I was embarrassed by proxy,” an older
voice called from behind, and I turned to see a tall,
athletic woman in her forties or fifties hanging out of
the back of the covered wagon.

“Valda!” the guy whined, his face heating with the

embarrassment that the woman, Valda had
mentioned.

“Alright,” I said, just loud enough for them to hear. I

hadn’t spoken in days, but my voice was clear and
harmonious. Damn, I forgot that my voice was a
match for my looks.

“O-oh! Uh, just… wait, should I stop and… oh, I think

—” the guy stammered out, before Valda cut in over
the top of him. “Here, girl. I’ll pull you up as we go
past.”

I nodded, slowing my pace and raising my arm to meet

the warrior woman’s strong, muscled one. I felt myself
lifted off the ground, and I swung my feet up to push
off the slow turning wheel and give us both some
extra help. Then I was up in the back of the cart with
Valda, nodding my thanks to her.

“Thank you,” I said, again at that low tone. I was

honestly feeling a little shy, between the grizzled and
intimidating older woman with the big ass sword on
her back, to the younger guy who was very obviously
interesting in hitting on me.

“Not a problem,” Valda replied, giving me a casual

appraisal.
I did the same, noting the rough combination of
leather and plate armour she was wearing, form fitting
and well worn. The huge claymore she held on her
back was intimidating to say the least, held in one of
those special holster things for swords like that, too
long to be drawn from a traditional sheath. Her hair
was almost entirely gray now, only a smattering of
pitch blank remaining to show its original colour. My
gaze traced further down over the few scars dotted
what skin I could see, but it was nothing overly
intense, no giant scar across her eye or anything like
that.

“You look awfully soft to be wandering the roads of

Anverleik, even in trader’s season when the roads are
relatively well patrolled,” she stated, clearly coming to
the conclusion that I was one dark night away from
being attacked and murdered by bandits.

“I am, but not everyone gets the choice,” I replied,

then glanced around for somewhere to sit and rest my
legs. The bumping of the cart was already threatening
to rattle my scarf free from its moorings.

“Aye, that is all too true,” Valda replied, her eyes

narrowing slightly in an expression that was either
suspicion or respect. I couldn’t tell which.

Gesturing at the various crates and sacks that were

stacked in the back of the cart, I asked, “Can I sit down
somewhere?”

“Yes, sit on one of the sacks of grain, helps cushion the

ride,” the older woman nodded.

“Thanks,” I said again and eased down onto one with a

weary sigh.
Taking a chance, I pulled my hood down and then
unwrapped my scarf, enjoying the way the cool air
tickled across my skin. Damn, it had been getting
stifling under all of that cloth. The days were cool still,
but also humid from what I was beginning to think
were frequent rains. It was all just that little bit too
hot to be wrapping your face up like that.

As I was enjoying the cool breeze, I was startled when

the cart gave an abrupt jump, followed by the sound
of wheels grinding against dirt.

“Cad! Look where you’re driving this bloody thing

would you?” Valda growled, and I turned to see the
guy dragging his eyes off my face to watch the road
again like a scolded puppy.

Oh dear. I glanced an apology to Valda, who was

giving me a look that said she was trying to judge me
all over again, figure out my story.
“Those are nice clothes you’ve got. Well made, and
those boots could buy me food for a month,” she said
after a moment, her eyes critical as she gave me a
second once over, before they landed on my face.
“But that face of your’s girl. That’s something else.
What in the god’s name are you doing on your own?
Do you have a death wish? Or worse?”

“I had it covered for a reason,” I sighed, my tone

starting out defensive, but I was too weary to put
much effort into it. “Like I said though, I don’t have a
choice.”

“Why is that?” she asked curiously, and I could see

Cad’s ears practically swivelling to listen in as well.

Giving a shrug, my fingers found my family ring,

absently twisting and pulling at it. “Reasons.”
I still felt very guarded, cautious of the world around
me and more than a little scared by it. I had no idea if I
could really trust these people, I had no idea what the
custom was surrounding offering transport to
strangers. Was it common or was I going to be
murdered in my sleep tonight? It was far better to
keep information about myself under wraps.

“Where are you from?” Cad blurted from up front,

trying and failing to stare at me and the road at the
same time. “Your accent is so different! I’ve never
heard anything like it!”

“This isn’t my first language,” I shrugged, deciding that

letting on that I was a foreigner wouldn’t be so bad.
They could already tell from my accent anyway.

“What’s your native tongue?” Valda asked, her eyes

keen as she regarded me. Damn, why was she so
interested in who I was? “I’ve been all over, fought in
a lot of places,” Valda continued, and I realised with a
jolt that maybe she was just genuinely curious in that
grizzled vet sort of way. The way where they were
always suspicious of anything new and strange, always
on the lookout for potential threats.

“You wouldn’t know it. I’m from outer space after all,
a whole different world!” I said in English, then smiled
slightly at the comfort I got simply from speaking it. I
missed home, I missed my friends.

“Alright,” she laughed, nodding amused acquiescence.

“Point taken, you’re from a damn long way away.”

“Why, because you know all the languages around

here?” I asked, back in the Anve language, which was
what they spoke in this region. “That’s pretty
impressive.”
“I can speak some, recognise others,” she shrugged
like it was no big deal.

“She used to be a famous mercenary!” Cad exclaimed,

his eyes meeting my curious ones with excitement. “I
heard she was at the Battle of Atros, when the Abers
sent the Ghraigs back up onto their steppes where
they belong!”

“Easy there Cad,” the veteran sighed, looking like she

suddenly felt the weight of all her years of fighting
resting on her shoulders. “I was fighting for King
Andras, not the Abers themselves. Those Abers are
nasty business, no matter how vital they are to
keeping the Ghraig Empire out of the Anverlands.”

“Yeah, but Andras and the other Tlaxans were on the

Aber’s side right?” he asked, suddenly looking unsure
of himself.
“They were, in the same way the Bithells and the
Bethells are on the same side when there’s wolves
sighted in the forest back at the village,” she explained
patiently.

I raised an eyebrow for an explanation on that one,

because it sounded interesting.

“Two families back in our home village,” Valda smiled

knowingly. “Come from the same stock back in the
day, but somewhere along the line a letter was
changed and they’ve been bickering about it ever
since.”

“I know the type of feud you’re talking about,” I

grinned, thinking back to the homeowner’s
association back where I had grown up. They had been
embroiled in the most ridiculous petty power struggle
I’d ever seen, much to the amusement of everyone
not involved, including my conflict averse ass. It had
been the reason that the HOA had never actually
functioned in my time there. Good times.

“Indeed,” Valda nodded, and we shared the look of

two people who didn’t understand the type of person
who’s raise a fuss over something like that.

I decided I liked Valda, and Cad was okay too, even if

he was obviously developing an infatuation as we
continued on down the road. At some point, night
began to fall and they pulled the cart up to the side of
the road and lit a fire, where we all continued to talk
and even shared some of our food between us.

I discovered that Cad and Valda weren’t actually

related, only from the same village. When the guy had
gotten it into his head that he wanted to be a trader
though, Valda had offered to come with him and keep
him alive. Probably for his family’s sake as much as his
sake. I was smiling as I wrapped myself up in my
blanket on the ground. It was nice to talk to people
again.

Chapter 17 :
Our journey took us to Anverkeit, the seat of power
for the Duke of Anverleik. I was learning that the
people who called this region their homeland were
the Anvers, and every second damn town or city or
even fief had “Anver” somewhere in the name. It was
impossible to remember the names of any single place
because they all sounded identical, like seriously
people, let’s at least try and be creative here!

What intrigued me though, was that this was

apparently Esra’s old haunt. This was where she used
to rule, or at least sit at the council of the Duke in
power. The throne had rather abruptly changed hands
when all the mages loyal to him had either died or
disappeared. It was fairly obvious that this was also
the same event that had forced Esra into hiding the
first time. Power struggles among the political elite
never changed.

The city was massive by medieval standards, three

sets of walls pressed up against the Nostomer River
and ranging out in a semicircle, with the ducal citadel
in the center. The two innermost walls were small,
crumbling things, each marking the previous outer
reaches of the ever expanding city. The third,
outermost wall was very well maintained however,
and pretty damn tall to boot. I could see some of the
buildings over the top of the walls, their construction
hinting at an architectural style that was similar to
that of medieval germans.

I couldn’t stop gawking as we neared the city, staring

and leaning from side to side in an attempt to get a
better view, much to the amusement of Valda. I kept
asking questions about it, about the history of the
place and the country as a whole. I was so intrigued by
having a real life medieval level society to experience
that it was impossible to hide my inner tourist.

Where Valda gave me short, bored answers, it was

Cad who took up the slack. He was more than happy
to tell me all about ancient stories and battles that he
knew of, and I found that he was actually a pretty
decent storyteller. He’d be better if he could stop
staring at me with huge, yearning doe eyes though. He
was so obvious about his interest in me that it was
almost painful, and I frequently found myself wincing
with second hand embarrassment as he said or did
something stupid to get my attention.

He was sweet though, and just a very genuine person

in general, so I tried to be kind when I rebuffed his
advances. I didn’t want to completely shatter the poor
guy’s heart, I’d seen how other people were when
they were treated like shit by their crushes when they
didn’t really deserve it. Of course, there had also been
times where things had gotten creepy, and people had
bitched to me about someone who was going way too
far with their attentions. Cad wasn’t like that though,
so I let him be mostly.

Our stay in the city was brief, a single night in an inn,

followed by a morning of bartering in the main
market, then heading out at noon. They wanted to
make it to the capital of the next nation over as
quickly as possible, which was apparently a trading
hub for the area, although why this city wasn’t I didn’t
know. They were so damn close to each other. The
nations around here were very densely packed in
general, reminding me of a map of Europe back in the
day when France alone had been comprised of like
five kingdoms.

It was informative though, many things about the city

were similar to what I knew and expected from our
media, the smell was bad, poverty was terribly
obvious, corruption was rampant and taken for
granted. Refuse was often emptied into the streets.
What I should have expected, but hadn’t, were the
subtle influences of magic around every major street.
Street lamps shone with artificer’s light, as it was
known. I saw some basic mechanical devices that
were based around utilising magical energy for power.
Some of the officers in the city watch even had these
strange contraptions that were basically primitive,
magically powered handguns.

When the others weren’t paying attention, I quietly

cast the spell to locate my friends again, finding them
closer again than the last time I’d looked. They were
slowly heading towards the same point that we were,
which had me thinking I might find them in the next
city. I really hoped so, because damn I missed them so
badly.

The road out towards our next stop had far less
farmland than previously, and it quickly devolved into
an increasingly wild forest, the road too was a mess.
The forest itself was obviously ancient with, thick,
gnarled trees dominated our surroundings, their
branches and leaves blocking out all but the most
determined rays of sunlight.

The road was a nightmare in bumps and obstacles,

and when we hit yet another branch that had fallen on
the road, I swore loudly, “Fuck! God damn, I should
teach you people about suspension.”

“Suspension?” Cad asked, giving me a worried glance

from where he sat next to me at the front of the
wagon.

“Ah, shit, wasn’t meant to say that out loud,” I

muttered in English, before replying properly in Anve,
“Ah it’s these sort of springs that you put between the
wheel axles and the cart to absorb the energy of
impacts like that one. Good suspension requires the
wheels to move partially independently of each other I
think though, but that wouldn’t be too much of a
problem because this thing is powered by horses.”

Cad blinked at me like I’d explained everything in

English rather than Anve, and for a second I wondered
if I actually had. I wasn’t an expert of engineering by
any means either, and I’m sure a real engineer could
turn around and tell me where I’d gone wrong in half
a dozen places, but still. Suspension. Please. For the
love of my ass.

A sound out in the forest caught my attention like a

thunderclap, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It had
sounded a little like a floorboard creaking.

“Stop,” Valda said sharply, and Cad and I both turned

back to stare at her.
She was on alert, hanging out of the back of the cart,
her eyes roaming the forest around us with sharp
attention. I turned back to where the sound had come
from, anxiety and adrenaline rushing to fill my veins in
equal measure.

Cad dutifully stopped the cart according to Valda’s

instructions, and we sat there in relative silence as the
horses whinnied quietly. I felt the trees around me
now, there was a sort of magic in them, not much, but
it was there. Maybe they had collected it somehow in
their long lives. There was also a strange silence,
nothing moved beyond our cart, no birds, no little not-
squirrels. Nothing.

A whistling sound came then, high and haunting, and I

felt Cad suddenly grasp for my hand. “Oh no. Oh, by
the ring maidens no,” he whispered, and I turned to
him in confusion. His face was bone white with fear.
The whistling grew nearer at a great speed, and then…
something, flew out of the woods. It was twice the
size of our horses and so fast it was barely a blur in my
vision before the cart was on its side. The sounds of
panicking horses erupted into the quiet, their frantic
terror dragging the cart several meters before they
gave up and began to thrash and kick at their
harnesses.

I heard Valda shout from back behind us, then the

rasp of her sword being drawn and a great crashing
sound. I rolled out of the shifting, bucking cart and
dragged Cad with me while I desperately tried to get a
look at what was attacking us.

“Oh, holy shit,” I said in English, my blood running

deathly cold.

The... thing, it was huge and vaguely man shaped,

with powerful legs like a dog’s and a massive barrel
chest like a gorilla’s. The arms were long, grotesquely
so, and tipped with enormous claws that seemed to
have odd holes and divots in them. Oh shit, they were
responsible for the whistling. The claws whistled.

Its head was that of something between a bat and a

dog, with long torn ears and massive wild eyes, dark
with rage. From its hunched back rose four dirty black
wings, along with a row of terrible spikes that trailed
down its spine. The whole thing was covered in filthy
black fur and random sharp thornlike growths for
good measure.

“Ershklin,” Cad whimpered. “We’re all dead.”

Valda tried to keep it at bay with her large sword, but

it was almost twice as tall as her. She swung, wielding
her massive sword almost like it were a quarterstaff,
her plated gloves keeping her from being cut by the
blade. It bit deep into the monsters side after one
skillful swing, but this only pissed the beast off and it
reacted with a brutal, rage filled lunge towards her
chest. Valda threw herself to the side at the last
minute, only barely dodging the whistling talons that
quested for her death.

She came up in a wobble, her sword moving to block

another flash of those terrible claws just before they
tore her in two, but again she was thrown stumbling
off balance. She careened backwards and tripped,
going down with a thump as all the air left her lungs.
The beast was quick to take advantage, showing an
intelligence that was just as terrifying as the
harmonious claws that dove down towards Valda’s
prone form.

She blocked them again with her sword, but only just.
For a moment I thought her blade had sunk into the
flesh of the Ershklin’s hand, but it came back again
with another swipe, and another, and another. Each
time those whistling claws dropped, Valda was slower
to defend herself, unable to regain her feet, let alone
her balance. Then with a grunt, the thing changed the
trajectory of its swing, coming in from the side with a
wide swing. The huge blade was sent flying to land in
the dirt, leaving Valda defenseless as the huge
creature made another, final strike to end her.

Except it didn’t connect, because I finally moved. My

telekinesis held it, invisible vines wrapping around the
bulging limb like it was the trunk of a doomed tree. I
stepped forward, shucking off my disguise in the
process lest I accidentally burn the plants out back in
my grove. I poured power into my vines, more and
more of them finding and wrapping around the
terrible creature until it was held, floating in midair.

I could feel sweat beginning to bead across my body

with the exertion, it was so damn heavy, but with a
shaking will, I wrapped another vine around it’s huge
bull-like neck. Pain exploded through my forehead and
I screamed, twisting and pulling at the thing from all
directions, just wanting it to stop hurting Valda. There
was a cracking sound, but I barely registered it, all of
my focus bent to squeezing, twisting and crushing. Kill
it, kill it, kill the monster, kill the damn monster. Make
the fear go away.

Its body ruptured like a week-old carcass, gore and

viscera spilling out in every direction as the pressure
finally overcame it. My vines vanished with the lack of
resistance, and I stared at what I had done in shock.
New mages were meant to be weak right? We were
meant to be little more powerful than a regular
human, able to throw a stick around with our minds
maybe, but that was meant to be it, right?

Except my stick had exploded, and so had this

creature. Pieces of it littered the road behind our
wagon, myself and a shocked Valda having only just
missed being drenched in the foul smelling stuff. I
turned to her where she stood nearby, having
evidently rushed to get away from the thing while it
was… preoccupied.

She was staring back at me with raw, shuddering fear

in her eyes, almost as if she wasn’t really seeing me,
but rather some memory from long ago, and I could
hear Cad behind me whimpering.

“You’re a mage,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and

choked.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I mumbled as my vision began

to blur, and then I keeled over, the world turning black
as I lost consciousness.

Chapter 18 :
A jolt shook me awake, and I gasped, flailing and
clawing around me as I tried to figure out where I was.
Was Bray playing a prank on me, what was
happening? Why did I feel so strange? What was on
my face?

I threw it off, finding that it was my blue scarf. Wait,

my scarf, given to me by Esra. Oh my god, I was a girl, I
was an outrageously hot girl! I smiled and laughed like
a giddy, slightly crazy person. Relief and happiness
rushing through me in equal measure as my brain
stuttered back to full functionality. Of course, then I
remembered why I had been unconscious in the first
place.

Bolting upright, I looked around in bleary eyed

confusion. Wait, I was in the cart. Valda was staring at
me warily from the back where she sat, her legs
dangling over the edge. Her posture was that of
someone who was ready to strike if I so much as
looked like I was going to cause trouble. Right, they
knew I was a mage… they had seen me take that
enormous creature and crush it like a bug.
“You’re finally awake,” she said coldly, crossing the
border between wariness and downright hostility.

“U-um… Hi?” I asked cautiously, feeling my guts begin

their anxious squirming as I watched her expression.

“She’s scared of you,” Cad said from up the front

where he was driving, as usual. “I mean, I’m scared of
you too, you’re a god’s damned mage after all, but…
you seem nice too. I made her put you in the cart
instead of leaving you behind.”

That honestly made me feel… nice. I think a part of the

reason I was so okay with his attentions was, well…
they were the attentions that a boy normally gave a
girl. It was difficult to explain, but even if I didn’t want
to be with him or anything, it was just nice to be
treated like a girl, a regular ol’ pretty girl.
“Thank you,” I said sincerely, giving him a truly
grateful smile.

Seriously though, the guy had a heart of fucking gold.

Well, either that, or his heart was just a normal guy’s
one and he it was the big ol’ whopping crush on me
that was responsible. Probably both to be honest.

In an attempt to calm them both down a little, I

activated the spell to hide my mage features, the
plants back in my grove feeling almost happy to help.
It would be fun when I got some big trees created,
then I could talk about my happy little trees.

“You killed that thing back there like it was nothing,”

Valda said out of nowhere. “Just lifted it up into the air
and crushed it like a ripe fruit.”
“Yeah…” I breathed awkwardly, avoiding her eyes. “I
didn’t know I could do that, actually.”

“Really?” she asked, looking surprised by my

admission.

“Yeah, it’s true. I’ve only been a mage for like, two
months. I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said
honestly, hoping that with that honesty I could get
back on her good side. I liked Valda, I didn’t want her
to be scared of me, or hate me.

“Two months? I was told that some mages sequester

their newborn apprentices in their Groves for years
before they feel ready to come back out,” the woman
said, frowning like I’d just claimed the sky was red.

"I had to leave, my teacher's grove was attacked,

destroyed. I'm trying to find my old friends, from
before I became like this," I replied, searching her face
for any sign that she was beginning to trust me again.

She was silent for several moments before Cad spoke

up again from the front of the cart. "You know… you
never told us your name. Or where you're from."

I blinked, opening my mouth to deny it, then frowned.

I hadn't given my name, there had never been any
sort of introductions, I'd just overheard their names.

"Oh, um. My name is Ryn, I'm from a… from a town

called Avonside. I don't know where it is in relation to
us though," I told them earnestly, and then a thought
occurred to me. "If you um, ever end up hearing about
Avonside, and I make it back home, I'd vouch for you if
you wanted to trade there."
"What could your Avonside have to trade for that we
would be able to sell?" Cad asked, his eyes suddenly
sparkling with interest.

"Well, suspension for one thing," I grimaced as we hit

another bump in the road.

For some reason that got Valda laughing, and with an

amused shake of her head she said, “Oh, that would
be nice wouldn’t it. A ride that doesn’t break my
withered, bony old ass.”

The instant I saw her laugh, relief flooded through me.

If I could make her laugh, then she didn’t hate me.

“You have no idea,” I grinned, thinking almost wistfully

back to Earth’s various transport systems. I had taken
them for granted so hard. “I remember getting into
this one reasonably expensive… uh, cart, and the ride
was so smooth I thought we weren’t moving. Not a
single vibration through the frame.”

“How is that even possible? Was it spelled or artificed

to be that way?” Cad asked in awe.

I shook my head, “No, just very good… um, artisans. I

have no idea how it worked, but my friend might
know. He studies metallurgy. He’s one of the friends
I’m trying to find actually.”

Sounding saddened, Cad asked quietly, “How long will

it take to find them?”

“Four are um,” I started, then looked down at the ring

and quickly cast the spell, which to a non mage’s eyes
flashed with white light. My arms were briefly
enveloped in a bouquet of black and white flowers
before the display dissipated. “Four are that way,” I
said, pointing towards where Avonside was. “That’s
probably where my… homeland is, but two are much
closer and moving towards the same point we are. I
have no idea why but… yeah.”

“Interesting. You will be leaving us in Rotodunum

then?” Valda mused, giving me a long look that I
couldn’t interpret. The woman was a damn mystery
sometimes. Maybe she was relieved to have the
volatile mage out of her hair.

“Uh, yeah probably. No more mage problems for

you,” I joked half heartedly. It still hurt the way they
had reacted to my being a mage, despite how well we
had all gotten along up until that point. It made me
worried for my eventual reunion with my friends.

“So far you have just made a boring journey far more
interesting, and of course, slain a magical beast that
would have been certain to kill us otherwise,” Valda
shook her head. “Mages are generally bad news for
common people like us, but you seem like that rare,
good sort.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, feeling some of that hurt I had just

mentioned ease. “My mentor was nice enough, but I
get the feeling that she might not have been so nice
before.”

“Aye, most mages come from the nobility and have

very little regard for people below their station. Their
mage fruit are usually paid for years in advance,”
Valda nodded. “Who was your mentor, if I might ask?”

“Um… Esra Rihm,” I said cautiously.

“No way!” Cad blurted, staring at me in shock. “Esra

Rihm was the one who made your fruit? How did you
get it? What happened? Everyone says she died!”
“Uh, well… I actually stumbled on it. She put it in the
middle of a forest because she didn’t want to deal
with another apprentice after her last one,” I replied,
thinking back to Lord Fennimore with a shudder.

“Yeah I can bloody well see why, her last apprentice is

a fucking sadist. The man can be charming, or he tries
to be, the nobility lap it up, but by the gods…” Valda
exclaimed, her face screwed up in disgust. “Apologies,
I have strong feelings about that man. Watched him
kill four hundred prisoners because they were too
expensive to keep around or something. The man has
no honor whatsoever.”

“You fought beside him?” Cad asked, looking a little

appalled.

“Not by any fucking choice of mine,” she spat, shaking

her head. “No, he and the other new Lords of
Anverleik conscripted every mercenary company they
could find. It was either fight for them and get paid, or
die by their magic. We chose life.”

“That is… rough,” I grimaced, shaking my head. “No

matter where you go, it’s the same shit.”

“Aye, that’s damn right. Us common folk just got to

keep our heads down and live the best we can,” Valda
sighed, but her hand went to the hilt of her sword,
tracing the ridges of leather she found there.

A thought occurred to me as I dwelt on the nature of

people in power. What had Esra been like? Was she
just like the rest of the mages? Self centered and
power hungry? Or was she better than that? She’d
seemed… not entirely good, but she’d seemed to have
a good sense of morality and fairness. She’d had a
heart too, the way she’d been beginning to care about
me.
“Was Esra a bad mage?” I asked quietly after a few
minutes had passed.

“She was better than some, worse than others,” Valda

shrugged. “Not all terribly spectacular as a battle
mage, but she made up for it in other ways. I heard
talk that she was one of the best, before... you know
what. Advocated for a sewer system to be built in
Anverkeit, although unfortunately the old lord was
just as bad as the new one and he threw that idea out.
Said it would cost too much or something.”

“That’s a relief, at least she wasn’t evil,” I sighed, my

fears somewhat assuaged. It was nice to know my
mentor hadn’t secretly been a monster.

The city of Rotodunum wasn’t too far away now, the

whole region being packed together the way it was,
like rowdy music fans in a mosh pit. Complete with all
the pushing and shoving that it entailed. What was
different about Rotodunum was that it was ancient.
The island it had been built on and subsequently
expanded out from had been inhabited for as long as
anyone could remember. I had to move up to the
front with Cad so I could get a better view of the
incredible sights.

Not as long as the land and the ring remembered

though, because Rotodunum was built on some even
more ancient ruins. I saw the first signs of them as we
approached from the opposite side of the river from
the main city, a huge bridge that was so utterly at
odds with everything I had seen so far that I had to
just stare at it and let my mind come to grips with the
thing.

The river itself was several hundred yards across, a

deep and ponderous thing. The bridge that spanned it
was a wild mess of ordered geometry, steel beams
and cables held up a vast walkway, almost as wide as
the river was, and all of it was showing signs of
corrosion and age. Across that bridge the people of
Rotodunum had built houses, shops and any other
number of buildings. It was a suburb in and of itself.

“Who built that bridge?” I asked in wonder. I knew the

answer of course, it was the same people who had
built this world, but I wanted to know more.

“No one knows who built all the ruins,” Valda

shrugged. “Same as all the others, it’s a mystery.”

“Some people say it was the gods! That they lived on

the world like us, but that the steel ones drove them
back into the stars!” Cad whispered excitedly, leaning
against me as he told his story. I fought against my
inner desire to cringe away from the contact. Not a
fan of that kind of thing. “The gods lived on the world
back when it was a paradise, no one had any need of
anything, but then the Steel Ones came, and they
fought a war that made the very world begin to
shake!”

Valda’s expression told me all I needed to know about

her opinions on the subject, but I was more
interested. Myths like this one always had a bearing
on reality in some way or another, and that meant I
might be able to get some insight into who the
builders of this ring were.

“Who are the Steel Ones?” I asked, fishing for

information now.

“The Steel Ones!” he exclaimed, like that would tell

me everything. When I gave him a blank look, he
continued, “They’re the Steel Ones, they’re made of
metal and they’re really old. Most of them are dead,
but the ones that aren’t are really scary. I heard that
there was once a kingdom to the north, a big one, but
one day out of nowhere, the biggest Steel One that
anyone had ever seen just attacked them! It was
bigger than a castle, and it killed them! Destroyed
their capital like it was never there!”

“The Steel Ones are no more than magical beasts,”

Valda cut in, “Like that thing we killed back in the
woods. They are wielders of strange magicks though,
throwing spells and the like that no mage has been
able to replicate.”

Interesting. That sounded an awful lot like they were

really just robots romping around with like, guns and
lasers and shit. Future tech that everyone was just
writing off as magic. I’d have to see one for myself to
know for sure though.

As we neared the bridge, I cast the tracking spell

again, and to my surprise I found that it was pointing
towards the city proper. Two of my friends were in the
city! They were moving around a bit, but they were
definitely in there.

Nervous excitement must have been pouring off me in

waves, because Cad was giving me the side eye like
nothing else. We entered the city just fine, no
problems from the guards, other than a few odd
glances at the way I had covered myself back up again.

The trip across the bridge was a blur, I couldn’t focus

on the incredible sights around me because I was
practically crawling up the canvas of the cart from the
sheer excited energy running through me. I wonder
which of my friends it was in front of me? Was it the
two big guys? That would make sense, but it could be
any of them. What were they even doing out here
too?
When we reached the end of the bridge and turned
down a side street to stop in front of an inn, the two I
had been travelling with turned to me expectantly.

“I’m guessing this is as far as you’ll be coming with

us?” Valda smiled, clearly amused by the way I was
almost bouncing around like a rubber ball.

“Yeah,” I nodded gratefully. “Thank you so much, both

of you. I might not have even caught up to them if it
wasn’t for your help.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Cad blushed, giving me a shy

smile.

I almost hugged them, but then thought better of it.

Instead, I said, “Seriously, if either of you need
anything in the future… I’ll help. I mean, you’d have to
find me, but a good place to find me will be
Avonside.”

“We don’t know where that is though!” Cad

protested, looking like he might get upset now.

“Trust me, I think you’ll know where it is before the

year is out, but just in case,” I said, then pointed in the
direction of where I thought it was. “It’s in that
direction. I don’t know how far.”

“Alright, we’ll keep that in mind. Thanks again, by the

way. For saving my life,” Valda said, offering a hand.
“And for saving Cadrick’s too.”

“Cadrick huh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I hate that name,” he grimaced. “Cad’s better.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I smiled. “See you both again
some day.”

“We’ll look forward to it,” Valda nodded, and then I

turned and moved through the city, following the call
of my friends. I really hoped I could find them, I had an
image of where they had been in my mind, but I
couldn’t cast the spell again for fear I’d be seen. I’d
just have to scope them out the old fashioned way.

Chapter 19 :
I wandered through the city streets, trying to hold my
sense of direction true in my mind. It had been this
way right? My spell had pointed towards the center of
the city when I had last cast it, so hopefully I was
heading in the right direction, weaving between the
crowds of people and wagons as they all tried to argue
their way past each other.
I noticed with distracted interest that this city had
some sort of sewer system, drains were present every
now and then, and there weren’t gross puddles all
over the place like in the last one. It was still pretty
gross though with horses shitting everywhere, and I
was thankful for my expensive boots. I wonder how
much they had cost?

I had a few coins in my pack, but I had no idea what

any of them were worth, so I’d mostly just left them
there until it came time to help pay for things during
the trip here with Cad and Valda. They had known
what to do with them. I was on my own now though,
so I’d need to learn what was worth what eventually.
But not now.

The streets became wider, drains became more

frequent and the buildings became larger and built
out of more expensive materials. Where the outskirts
of the city had been wood and thatch that had
gradually transitioned to stone and slate, this area was
both, but at a far higher quality of construction. Signs
had writing on them now too rather than simple
images, and the people who perused those shops
wore nicer clothing.

Before long I found myself in a large market square

that sat beneath a huge citadel, squatting like a
supplicant at the feet of its god. The citadel drew my
eye and my mind as one. It was utterly foreign to my
eyes, not at all medieval in design, at least not
underneath all the additions that had been made
since it was originally abandoned.

It was several hundred meters in height, nothing but

straight lines and angles all the way up. No curves
here, but it nevertheless had an elegance to it, the
way all the lines and angles flowed upwards to the
peak. The great steel tower had been modified heavily
since, the people who now inhabited it trying their
best to add to the structure as space was needed. I
could see a primitive crane operating off to the side
too, pulling goods up to the higher levels.

Dragging my eyes off the very obvious evidence that

whoever had once built this place might not be
around any longer, I surveyed the market itself. It was
a swirling mass of people and stalls, all trying to do
business around each other. I saw people who had to
be foreigners too. The city was living up to its name as
a trading hub, that was for sure.

I began to wander through the crowds, trying to catch

a glimpse of my friends. I cursed my new height as I
did so, I couldn’t see shit over the top of all the men
around me who were now at least half a head taller
than me.

As I tried to figure out a new approach to finding

people in a crowd, I watched as a group of men in
great wraps of cloth argued tooth and nail with a
merchant about some strange looking vegetable thing.
Across the way I could see a gaggle of women who
were obviously high in status, nobles or the wives of
rich merchants maybe, their guards trailing as the
women wandered aimlessly.

I needed somewhere higher, somewhere I could get a

better view of this mess. With that in mind, I tried to
pushed through the crowds around me, but almost
straight away I accidentally bumped into someone in a
full suit of strange armour. It had a base layer of tough
black leather, with plates of black metal across many
vital areas. My eyes drifted up, an apology already on
my lips, but it died when my gaze made contact with
the cold black visor of their helmet.

Where a normal sallet style helmet like the one they

wore would have had some sort of steel visor or slit
for the wearer to see, this one had one of dark tinted
glass. I couldn’t even see their eyes as they regarded
me with an impassive tilt of their head. Caught as I
was by the uneasiness of their appearance, I stood
stone still as they looked me up and down.

Four others in similar armour slowed to a stop and

watched the silent exchange, and I got a good look at
them in return. Each of them wore one of those
magical hand guns at their hip, and across their backs
were black cloaks of rough wool.

Shaking myself out of my nervous reaction, I quickly

raised my hands in an expression of apology and
hurried onwards. I don’t know what it was about
them, but they intimidated me to no end. Maybe it
was the helmets, maybe it was the guns, I don’t know.
With my heart beginning to hammer in my chest, I
tried to put as much distance as I could between
myself and them. There was something about the way
the one I had bumped into looked at me, something
ominous.
When I turned back to check what their reaction had
been, I saw the one I’d bumped into pointing at me
and gesturing with agitation. Then… then they began
to move towards me. Shit, did they know I was a
mage? Were they Fennimore’s men? I picked up my
pace, trying to lose them before a chase could really
begin.

I bumped into a few more people in my rush to

escape, each time apologising profusely and then
rushing off before they could make a scene, but it was
no use. The black armoured men were spreading out,
coordinating to try and cut me off from any exits. I
tried to keep my pace to a brisk walk as my panic
began to take hold of my system, the worst thing I
could do now was get the attention of the regular
guards as well as the terrifying armoured men behind
me.

Sighing with a small sliver of relief, I made it to one of

the many large streets that fed into the marketplace,
and plunged down it. My breathing was already
laboured with fear and adrenaline in equal measure
by now, but surely I could get away now that I was out
of the market. They definitely knew I was a mage,
there was no other reason for five heavily armoured
men to be chasing me down like this.

Turning back again to see if they were following, I saw

them turn into the street at a run, and at that point I
finally gave in to the insistent rambling of my fear. I
barrelled down the street at a sprint and ducked
behind a large wagon as it attempted to navigate the
uncooperative crowds. With their line of sight
temporarily broken, I dodged into an alleyway and
almost immediately slipped on something wet and
gross. Shit! The grip on the bottom of the boots only
just saved me, catching on the cobblestones of the
alleyway and keeping me upright, if only barely.

With my balance regained, I rushed into another nook

and began to follow it, plunging further into a maze of
twisting and turning lanes between high walled
buildings. A junction formed again up ahead, the path
I was following blocked by an ornate wall with hints of
a garden on the other side. I had a choice to make,
two directions to go, each one turning a corner after
several yards. I chose randomly, rushing down the
right hand path.

A few more twists and turns and I was in a small

courtyard with a well that apparently serviced a few of
the buildings nearby. Shit, there were so many paths
to choose from now! Which one did I go for? Had I lost
them? What if I chose the wrong one and ended up
back on the street where they could find me? I
needed to get back to Cad and Valda, they might know
what to do. Finding my friends had to come second to
surviving long enough to be reunited with them in the
first place.

I chose a path at random, a gamble, just bolting

towards an opening between the buildings and hoping
for the best, wanting to get even further out of the
reach of my pursuers. I chose the absolute worst route
to take. One of the black clad men was just turning
into the courtyard, and we collided with a crash.
Stumbling, I watched in horror as he did the same,
although his balance was far better than mine.

I backpedalled further, terror enfusing my bones now,

they were hunting me, they wanted me. Why did they
want me? Why couldn’t they just leave me be? I just
wanted to find my friends! Why was the universe
doing this to me?

My heel hit something as I retreated, I don’t know

what, but I went down on my ass with a heavy thump.
My pack thankfully cushioned my fall, but it didn’t
matter. They were surrounding me now, all of them in
the courtyard, their boots clicking on the rough
cobbles. Each one regarded me from behind their
helmets, impassive and arrogant as my own gaze
flicked wildly between them, wondering which one
would be the first to strike.

“I don’t know why we’re chasing this random chick,

your friend is fucking dead, get over it,” one of them
said with a note of frustration. I cringed at his tone,
and tried not to look up. As I was right now, heated
words sent my mind reeling with fear.

“Shut the fuck up dude,” the biggest of the men said,

turning to loom menacingly over his comrade. Would
they fight each other? Could I get away?

One of them stepped towards me, and my panic

finally hit maximum. I didn’t want to kill them, I didn’t
want the blood of people on my hands, no matter who
they were, but I needed to defend myself. My
telekinesis rushed blindly forward, twining around
each of them and lifting them bodily into the air. Oh
my god, they… they didn’t have protections against
this? But they were hunting a mage!

“What the fuck!” one shouted, while another began to

thrash wildly, yelling at the smallest of their group, the
one at the front, the one who’d moved towards me. “I
told you! I told you! We can’t just fuck with people, no
matter what they wear on their damn finger!”

Wait what? I looked down at the ring on my finger,

then back up at them in confusion. What did they
know about my ring?

“Where’d you get that ring?” the one who’d moved

for me asked with a high, almost cute grunt of pain,
ignoring their comrade.

Wait, a woman? The one I’d bumped into was a

woman… and oh my god, they were... they had all
been speaking English! English, the language that only
my friends would know around here.

“Grace?” I squeaked, staring at the woman in armour

in shock.

They all fell silent as soon as I spoke, glancing between

one another, but I still couldn’t see their expressions
because of the helmets. Was I crazy? That had been
her right? Her voice? Please be her!

“How do you know my name? Who are you?” the

woman asked, her tone low and pained with emotion.
“Where did you get that fucking ring?”

“It’s… mine,” I whispered, still staring at them with

open shock. Not that they would be able to really see
my expression either, I was still wrapped up in hood
and scarf. Quickly, my mind racing, I told them, “I’m
going to let you down, and you have to take your
helmets off. Try moving for those guns and I’ll
immobilize you again.”

“Alright,” the woman I was almost sure was Grace said

with a nod, still sounding confused and emotional.

I did as I’d promised, carefully letting them down and

retracting my telekinesis. As I did so, I levered myself
up off the ground and watched them. Slowly, the
woman first, they unbuckled their helmets and lifted
them off.

I swayed on my feet when Grace’s face came into

view, her hair messy and a little sweaty from the
helmet, but I couldn’t care less, it was my friend! She
was here! I felt tears spring into my eyes, raw emotion
bubbling up and spilling out the only way it could.
“Grace!” I cried, taking a step forward before I
remembered that she had no idea who I was.

“No, who the fuck are you, and how did you get that
ring,” she almost growled, her expression terrible with
wrath and confusion.

I flinched as her words hit me, hearing her speak with

that tone, directed at me… it hurt, it hurt so much.

“It’s mine!” I blurted desperately, unsure how I could

explain anything. “I’m… I’m Eli! Or, I was…”

“What the fuck does that mean?” one of the guys

asked with a snort, and with a jolt of excitement I saw
that it was Adam.
“Adam!” I gasped. My friends were really here! I just
had to convince them of who I was. I needed to… they
wouldn’t hurt me right?

“Guys, she’s speaking English,” one of the other’s said.

I didn’t recognise him, but I could have hugged him for
pointing that out. How were we all forgetting about
that? Emotional turmoil? Whatever.

“Oh shit,” Adam blinked, then he really stared at me,

his eyes narrowed. I stood there and silently begged
for both him and Grace to recognise me somehow.
“No one knows English unless they’re from Avonside.”

“Eli was a man,” she said sharply. “Do you think we’re
idiots?”
I flinched again, my gut shrivelling with the pain of her
words, and quietly I murmured, “Not anymore. I got
changed, Grace, my body… it was...”

“She’s scared Grace, let’s at least listen to her,” Adam

told her, his tone placating and mercifully calm.

She seemed to finally ease as she took in the way I

was very much terrified right now, cringing away from
the five of them as they stood in a semi circle around
me.

Cocking her head, she gave me a proper, long

appraisal. “How? How could you possibly be Eli?”

Here we go, I had to… how did I even do this? Explain

myself? Convince them it was still me under the
hood?
“Magic fruit,” I replied with an awkward smile, my
nervousness speaking for me before I could formulate
a proper response. “It wasn’t… um, it wasn’t the
Batronauts that got me though. It was a witch. Well, a
mage, but...”

She blinked. Once, twice, and then her mouth opened

even as her mind slowly churned. Finally, she barked a
disbelieving laugh. “Batronauts… holy shit.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, hoping she was starting to believe

me, I mean that had been our thing right? No one else
had been in on that joke, just the two of us. “I was just
like, schooped up into that fruit and then yeah. It
turned me into this,” I told her, gesturing down at my
very, undeniably feminine body.

“It’s really you?” she asked, and there was a note of

hope now, and I nodded, my heart racing with hope.
She was starting to believe me!
Wait, but she couldn’t see my face, she couldn’t see
my expressions. None of them could. I quickly pulled
off both my magical and physical disguises, throwing
my hood back and unwrapping my scarf.

“Yeah, sorry, Hi uh…” I said awkwardly, giving her a

shy, goofy smile.

Her eyes went massive as I uncovered my face, and

one of the guys blurted, “Holy shit.”

“Oh, right,” I winced, remembering what they were

seeing. “It’s me though,” I barrelled on urgently, trying
to drive the point home. “I mean, I just used magic on
you all for crying out loud! And Grace, when all this
shit started and we got nabbed from Earth, you were
holding the umbrella because Bray and I were too
weak to hold the damn thing up! Not that it mattered,
because we were all soaked as it was.”
That did it, I watched as her blinking, huge green eyes
finally came around. She believed me. Then she was
coming at me in a rush, her arms going wide to pull
me into a hug against her uncomfortable armour.
Somehow, I didn’t care though, all the anxiety, worry
and fear I had been carrying with me eased with that
simple contact. I relaxed into the hug, letting her
stronger frame carry my weight for a moment. Tears
sprung up all over again. I was finally safe.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” she cried, squeezing me

tighter. “I can’t… I thought you died! And I couldn't
stop you, and...” she started, then pulled back just as
suddenly as she’d hugged me, her hands still on my
shoulders. “How?”

“It was a mage fruit, a um, a kind of magical plant that

mages leave around. If you pick it, it drags you into
their… magical grove and turns you into one of them,”
I replied, doubting that she’d understand even half of
that.

She didn’t reply, just staring, her eyes roaming my

face with open curiosity. Standing there with the rest
of her band shuffling awkwardly, I became hyper
aware of how close she was. How strong her hands
felt on my shoulders, encompassing them in a way
that they couldn’t have if I’d still been in my old body.
She was taller than me now, if only marginally, and
just kinda slightly bigger in every way. Which wasn’t
hard obviously, considering how slim my incredible
new body was.

“You’re… gorgeous,” she whispered after a moment,

too quiet for the others to hear.

“Yeah,” I murmured, glancing aside to avoid the

strange look in her eyes as my cheeks flushed.
She kept staring for several more moments before she
suddenly stepped back, her hands letting go like I’d
just gone up in flames. “Sorry!” she gasped, and now it
was she who was avoiding my eyes.

One of the men, one who hadn’t spoken and I didn’t

recognise stepped forward. He looked older than
everyone else, at least mid thirties, but he was big and
fit, clearly a man who could handle himself in a brawl.
His tone was almost businesslike as he asked, “You’re
really the uh, person known as Elias Belrose? A
student of Avonside University?”

“Um, yup,” I nodded. “I was with you all for only a

week before I got… taken.”

He nodded, thoughts whirring behind his eyes before

calmly, he asked, “Date of birth?”
My eyebrows raised at that. What was this? A phone
call to the tax department? “June, twelfth, year two
thousand.”

“What were you studying?” he shot back almost

immediately, and I frowned. How on Earth would he
know if I was telling the truth? How did he know the
answers?

“Uh, the sciences, I intended to go into Ecology,” I

replied quickly, watching his face, trying to gain
answers as I spoke.

“Alright, I’ll believe you until we can get the full story,”
the man nodded, then offered his hand. “Troy
Wintringham, leader of this band of… explorers.”
“Thank you,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief and
shooting Grace another smile. “What are you all doing
out here?”

“Let’s find somewhere more secure, then we’ll trade

stories,” came his response as he turned and began to
give orders.

Grace sidled up next to me as we started to make our

way out of the alleyways, her helmet under her arm.
She looked good in armour, very good. I couldn’t keep
my eyes off her either, like if I looked away for too
long she’d disappear and I’d be left alone again.
Would it be weird if I like, grabbed hold of her arm?
Just to make sure she stayed real.

“You’re really Eli?” she asked again quietly, her eyes

seeming almost to sparkle with an overflow of
emotion.
“I am, except… I go by Ryn now,” I said shyly. “I um,
yeah. I like that name better. Can’t really walk around
with a name like Elias while I look like this. Well, I
mean I could, but people would look at me weird.
Even the mage woman said it would be weird, and she
didn’t even… nevermind,” I rambled nervously, my
hands trying and failing to find pockets. I was so
nervous still, and like, what do you even do with your
hands when you’re nervous? Hands can be so
awkward sometimes.

“Ryn? Your name’s Ryn now huh?” she smiled, rolling

the name around for a moment. “I like it, it’s cute.”

“Oh,” I blinked, feeling yet another awkward smile tug

at my lips. Okay, what was going on here? Why was I
being a total weirdo right now? I’d found her! Things
were meant to be back to normal, but this felt nothing
like normal! Agh!
Chapter 20 :
All the Avonside people put their helmets back on as
we left the alleyways, and that reminded me to put
my whole disguise back on as well. Couldn’t have this
reunion messed up already when some random
stranger saw my magenta hair could we?

Grace’s helmet cocked to the side when the magical

portion of my disguise reappeared, and she
commented, “Ginger huh?”

“It matches my real hair... kinda,” I said defensively,

reaching up to self consciously worry at it with my
fingers.

“Hey, don’t worry. Not giving you shit over it, it’s just
an interesting choice,” she replied, her voice tinny
through the helmet.
I smiled and continued with reapplying the mundane
elements of the disguise, but internally I was trying to
figure out why they were all wearing that armour.
That guy who was supposedly in charge had called
their group “explorers” but what did that even mean?
What were their objectives, why were they so damn
far from Avonside, and most importantly, why the
scary as fuck armour?

I held my questions though, because leader guy was

right, this place wasn’t safe, especially for a mage like
me.

“Boss, where the hell are we even going to go?

There’s people everywhere, we should just go back to
the courtyard. It’s not like it matters if the hot chick is
who she says she is, we’re just going to ditch her
right?” asked the dude who had so rudely told Grace
to stop believing in me when they first came into the
courtyard back there.
“James,” Boss man Troy replied calmly, turning to look
at him as we walked down the street. At the same
time, his arm shot out to block Grace as she clenched
her fists angrily and made to move on James.

“Yeah boss?” James asked, confused.

“You’re the dumbest guy I’ve ever had under my

command, and back when I was with the military, I
knew some pretty fucking dumb people. I’d rather
leave you behind than a girl who is so clearly an
incredible asset to Avonside, let alone the fact that
she’s one of us. Now please shut the fuck up,” Troy
replied, still in that calm, disinterested tone of voice.

We continued down the bustling street, dodging a

procession of soldiers as we went. I saw several of
them give our group the side eye, and I wondered
what they would do if they knew who we were. Like,
the five armoured Avonsiders were each assets in and
of themselves, possessing passing knowledge of a lot
of Earth’s tech, or at least knowing what was possible.
Then there was me, a… relatively weak newborn
mage.

I blinked, wait… I was a mage. I knew the perfect place

to have an eavesdropper-free chat! My Grove! I
quietly moved up next to Troy, but hesitated for a
second or two, my thoughts turning worried. No, if I
wanted them to trust me, I had to trust them too.

“Hey, uh… Troy, I know where we can talk with a one

hundred percent guarantee of no eavesdroppers,” I
said after those few moments of internal debate.

“Oh?” he asked simply.

“Yeah uh, all mages, except the very new ones, have
like… a pocket dimension,” I murmured, keeping my
voice as low as possible.

“Including you,” he remarked, and I wished I could see

his expression right about then. That utterly calm way
of talking he had was nerve wracking.

“Yup, we just have to find somewhere that no one will

see us enter or exit,” I said quickly. “Plus um, I made
mine look like Earth, so if anyone is feeling
homesick…”

He regarded me for several long seconds, his helmet

impervious to my attempts to read him once again,
and my nervousness took a sharp turn upwards.
“Alright,” he nodded, but he didn’t look away,
continuing to stare through that impenetrable black
visor.

Ugh, I felt so anxious, worried. Like how you might see

cops back on Earth walking down the street, and you
know you’ve done nothing wrong, but you’re still
anxious anyway. Then your nervousness makes you
more nervous, because you think they will take that
nervousness as guilt.

“I was planning to take us out of the city and into the

nearest forest, and we’ll still be doing that. We’ll have
a little preliminary chat there, and then you can show
us this magical pocket realm of yours,” he said, then
turned back to the street like that was that. Wow,
okay. He was taking this all very well in stride for a
random army dude.
Rather than staying next to him and continuing to
wind myself up until I took off into the air like one of
those toy helicopters, I slid back until I was next to
Grace again. Maybe talking to her would calm me
down. Well, except she was wearing one of those
damn helmets too, which meant I couldn’t see her
expressions either.

“Um, Grace, how are you?” I asked lamely, getting a

tilted helmet in return.

“I’ve been better,” she shrugged. “Well actually, now

that I’ve found you… I think I might be okay.”

“Were you really… did you actually care that much?” I

murmured, somewhat embarrassed that someone
thought I was worth that much consideration.
This time, I could tell even through the helmet that
she was giving me a look that said something like, are
you crazy? “Of course!” she exclaimed, a little too
loudly. “You were already like, such a great friend, and
we were in this crazy situation, guarding each other’s
backs. Then you went all zombie mode on me and
walked into a fruit. I thought… shit I don’t know what.
Then there was the whole fucking… inquisition
afterwards.”

“Inquisition?” I asked quickly.

“Yeah, they didn’t believe me at first, not until they

saw the weird fruits, and then suddenly I was being
questioned by everyone and their mother. Some
people said it was my fault, some people still thought I
was crazy even after they saw the wood creature,” she
sighed, shaking her head miserably. “It sucked, they
wouldn’t even let me mourn you, it was just—“
“Not here, Grace,” Troy warned gently from up ahead.
“Save it for when we’re secure.”

“Right, sorry Troy,” Grace murmured with a nod.

The rest of the journey out of the city and into the
forest beyond the farmland was done in relative
silence. I was feeling worried again, I just felt like
something was going to go wrong. The universe had
been so keen to pull the rug out from under me every
time I was happy, I was almost expecting it now.

The forest in this region was a wet one, almost a

temperate rainforest, with oak, ash, birch and many
other types of familiar tree vying for sunlight with
huge ferns. The forest floor was covered in wet,
decaying leaves and vibrantly green undergrowth.
Across everything was a layer of moss and fungus. The
whole place was a riot of vivid greens, browns and
reds. It was incredibly pretty, and I wondered if maybe
I could create a magical version of it in my Grove.

I think I wanted that, to build an ecosystem rather

than a tended garden. Something that was a little
more self sufficient than mages typically built. After
all, judging by the books Esra had kept in her cottage,
they didn’t have much of an idea about the science of
ecology and how every plant and animal was
interconnected and required for the health of the
greater whole.

“Alright, we’ll stop here,” Troy piped up, jolting me

out of my thoughts.

I looked around at where we’d stopped. It was a fairly

nondescript part of the forest, the same as everything
else.
“So um, where do we start?” I asked nervously.

“We’ll start with a more detailed explanation of what

happened to you I think,” he replied, then paused and
turned to everyone else. “Helmets off too, let’s have a
civilised conversation here.”

I took my magical and mundane disguises off along

with them as they did their helmets, smiling at Adam
and Grace in particular when their faces were
revealed again. I’d missed them. I got a big grin and a
subtle wink in return from Adam, which had me giving
him a goofy grin right back. Yeah, I was safe with these
people, so long as my two friends were around.

Taking a deep breath, I frowned and began to speak. I

told them of how it had felt when the fruit was calling
me in, then of my fuzzy time within the fruit. I told
them how I’d hatched from that fruit, naked and
feminine. I told them about Esra, about mages and
about how I had been training. I left out the part
about how I was explicitly more powerful than was
expected of a newly born mage, and definitely didn’t
mention how I absolutely loved being in this body
over the last one.

That led on to an explanation of my encounter with

Lord Fennimore, plus what I had heard from both Esra
and Valda about him. Namely, that he was a right
piece of work. Troy in particular seemed visibly angry
when I mentioned the murder of prisoners because
they cost too much and their people refused ransom
demands. On the flip side, they were extremely
interested to learn that I was now fluent in the native
language of this region, Anve.

“You just, popped out of the fruit and could speak,

what was it? Anve?” Adam asked incredulously. “This
whole magic thing sounds real fucking weird to me.”
I gave a little chuckle and nodded. “Yup, it’s definitely
pretty weird.”

As if sensing that my explanation had run its course,

Troy stepped in. “Well, now that we have a more…
understandable account of what happened, I think it’s
fairly safe to say you are who you say you are.
Especially considering the way both you and Grace
have already begun to bond again. Why don’t we take
a look at this, uh, Grove?”

“Um, sure. Just stand close, I think that’s all,” I said,

closing my eyes and concentrating on my magical
senses.

I could see each of them, their bodies showing as

weird bubbles of magical energy. I frowned, hold on...
Esra hadn’t looked like that to my magical sight, she’d
looked different, like a web of magic with an obvious
but intangible connection to her Grove.
With them though, it was like they had a shield of
magic around them, a barrier that protected them
from further internal inspection with my mage sight.
Tentatively, while they thought I was working up the
power to take us all to my Grove, I sent out the
slightest tendril of power. I went for James, since I
already didn’t like him. It struck that bubble, but
couldn’t go any further inside his body. That was
super strange, would it even be possible to take them
all with me?

I tried anyway, reaching out to grasp each of them

gently with my power. I saw them squirm when they
felt it, but only James muttered a complaint. Then
with everyone tethered to me, I sought out the
Nameless Garden. As I had done a few times now, I
pushed against the fabric of reality, but this time it
was harder. Not too difficult, but enough that I could
feel the extra weight of my companions as I shunted
us through to the reality next door.
When I opened my eyes, we were all standing in my
Grove, which was mercifully calm today, no angry
wind bearing down on us, just a light breeze and some
clouds wandering across the sky. I felt a smile touch
my lips even before I heard the gasp from Grace.

“It does look like home!” she exclaimed happily, her

hand coming to rest unconsciously on my upper arm.

I looked down at that hand, expecting to flinch away

again, but instead I felt my smile go funny and my
stomach did a little hiccup. I blinked, confused, then
looked back up to see her beaming up at the sky in
wonder.

“I didn’t know how much I missed home sky until just

now,” she murmured, leaning close.
“Oh uh, yeah. I did it because I missed Earth too. It’s
like, I don’t know, part of our psyche or something
surely, because wow. Or just homesickness I guess,
but I mean, that would be weird for me, because I
didn’t really like home a whole lot. I missed all of you
more than I missed Earth when I got schwooped that
second time. Yeah, maybe it isn’t the psyche thing. I
don’t know,” I rambled, petering off as I realised what
I was doing. Gosh, why was I making such a tit of
myself in front of her all of a sudden?

“This is nice, Eli” Troy said, smiling at me. Probably the

first smile I’d seen on him. First expression in general
even.

“Oh, her name is Ryn now,” Grace interjected. “Since

you know, she’s… a she.”

“Good, good,” Troy nodded, not seeming at all

perturbed by the correction. “Alright Ryn, let’s get
down to the rest of things shall we? Explanations, if
you’re up for joining us in our little quest?”

“Yeah!” I nodded quickly. “I’ll help. I go where Grace

and Adam go.”

That seemed to impress him, for some reason I

couldn’t figure out, and with a deep breath, he spoke,
“Avonside… was attacked…”

Chapter 21 :
“Attacked? What? By who?” I asked worriedly, then
turned quickly to Grace. “Are the others okay?”

I could feel myself beginning to freak out, I really

hoped Bray was okay. He was my best friend and one
of the only people who’d ever truly gotten me. He had
to be okay, and the girls as well, and Duncan. My gut
churned at the idea of any of their deaths.
“Hey, hey,” Grace said quickly, taking my hand in a
very distracting manner. “They’re all fine. Others
weren’t but… our family is okay.”

Sighing with relief, I nodded and took a deep breath.

“Okay, sorry. I was just… scared. I’ve seen things in
even my short time out in the world that make me
worry.”

“Yeah, so have we,” Troy nodded gravely. “Thankfully,

if such a word can be used to describe the event, we
were attacked by regular humans. A band of them, we
think they were a tribe from the Ghraiga Steppes, at
least now that we’ve explored the world around us
somewhat.”

“I’ve heard of the Ghraiga Empire, but what’s the

Ghraiga Steppes?” I asked, becoming intrigued by the
taste of yet more ring world lore. I mean, it was
terrible that Avonside got attacked… but with my
family safe and stuff, well my mind went down
curiosity lane.

“The Ghraiga Empire, from what our rather rough

attempts at communication have told us, takes up
much of the area around Avonside. We appeared in a
series in uninhabited mountains that they claim as
theirs, but since no one actually lives there, they don’t
bother to enforce their rule over it. Then, off to the
left off spinward, what the locals call north, there is a
vast grassland that the Empire also claims. The
nomadic tribes there are a little… enigmatic on the
issue however,” he told me in a matter of fact way,
like he was giving a briefing.

“Right, and I’m guessing they love raiding each other

and the settled towns to their south?” I asked.
“Exactly, and it just so happens that one of those
groups from Avonside who decided to go out alone
rather than stick around… well they got caught by one
of these tribes. From there we think they followed the
group’s tracks backwards until they found us,
defenceless and oblivious in the mountains,” he
replied bitterly. Clearly the man had some issues
about how badly we’d been defended.

“Oh no,” I whispered, already shaking at the images

my mind was conjuring. Foraging parties ridden down
by terrible, merciless men on horseback. Working
parties butchered as they worked on planting crops or
setting up some important machine or other.

“Indeed,” Troy nodded. “After the attack, I stepped

forward and offered to take a group of volunteers out
into the wilderness, looking for answers about who
else lived out here. Grace was the first to volunteer,
seeking you I assume. Adam too. Then Kit here, and
finally james.”
“Then where’s the armour from then?” I asked,
turning to look at Grace’s outfit more carefully.

“It was Bray, actually,” Adam said with a grin. “As well
as the rest of the folks in the workshop. People
wanted to help, wanted revenge too probably. I think
they might have outdone themselves on the scare
factor, but it’s been surprisingly good at keeping
people from fucking with us.”

Wow! Bray! I always knew you were a nut for swords

and armour and stuff, but these were… wow! That
was so cool. I mean, yeah… a little less imperial
inquisitor would have been nice, but still. Very cool.

“Exactly as the man said,” Troy agreed. “So here we

are, trying to gather as much information as possible.”
Wait, there was still one very hard to explain detail
about their getup. The guns.

“What about the guns though?!” I blurted, staring at

them hard now.

“Just your standard Glock 22,” Troy chuckled. “We

modified them to look like those contraptions the
guards wear around these parts. We were getting…
questions about them.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” I murmured, staring at them

in my mage sight now. They only had basic ambient
magic to them, nothing like the other ones I’d seen.
Duh, I should really be using my magical sight more
often. I could even see the base glock underneath with
it.
“Indeed,” Troy said, the glanced around. “Well, seeing
as we’re here, we may as well have a rest. I don’t
suppose you have any food on you? Our packs are
back in the Inn we rented at.”

“Oh! Yes,” I blurted, pulling my pack off my shoulders

and dumping it on the ground.

From there I passed out some food and everyone

settled into the grass. Before I ate though, I had
something I needed to do. My reserves of energy were
fairly complete right now, so why not use some of it?

First off, I needed to create a type of tree that would

be a good wind break for my Grove. I had no idea how
to make it have magical properties, but like… did it
need to have them? I could change that later when I’d
had a chance to settle down and get to the task of
trying to puzzle out how magecraft worked. Oh,
maybe I could find some books!
“Hey uh, guys…” I started awkwardly. “I’m just going
to make a tree real quick, just testing something.”

“Make a tree?” the formerly silent Kit blurted from

where he’d fallen starfish-like on the grass. Kit was a
funny looking guy, he looked kinda young in the face,
but his body was tall and reasonably well built.

“Uh, yeah,” I nodded, feeling my face heat a little.

“You know, with magic.”

“Right,” he blinked, clearly confused by the whole

idea.

Ignoring him and the even more bemused look I was

getting from James-the-dickhead, I turned inwards to
the task at hand. I needed a tree that could be a good
windbreak, but I vaguely remembered that a proper
one needed multiple trees types of trees planted in
stages. Still, I was feeling ambitious, so I decided to
start with the biggest tree first.

I wanted a really big tree, because I liked big trees, so

my mind immediately went to the redwoods. But no, I
needed something that would also provide some
shelter beneath it. Redwoods weren’t known for their
ground level branches. Wait, what about a Fir tree? I’d
seen some that were almost houses at the bottom,
underneath all the leaves.

Yeah, a Fir tree would work for a first time thing right
in the middle of my Grove. I could even go there to
relax and read when I had a proper house or
something set up. That would be nice.

I pulled an image from my memory of one and went

about the task of creating it. I wanted it to be a little
more bushy than they normally were to keep out
more of that horrible wind, and possibly help with
rain. It might also be nice to have it come out taller
than normal too.

With that in mind, I carefully put it together and

watched to see if it would work in my mental magical
sight thingy. Nope, the taproot wasn’t big enough.
Oops! Once that was fixed, the tree seemed to work
out fine, so I walked over to an area a distance away
from the others.

I noticed as I walked past that my little hole had since

filled with water, so I guess it had rained since I was
last here. Quite a bit by the looks of things. Maybe I
should make a small lake out of it at some point? So
many possibilities! I wish I could just hide away in here
for a few months and really get stuck into making my
Grove. Sadly though, I had friends who I wanted to
help.
Reaching a point that I figured was roughly center on
the huge plateau, I willed the tree into being and
coaxed it into growth, pouring magical energy into it
by the bucketload. It grew and grew, roots tearing up
the ground as they sought out the most advantageous
routes through the soil. When I felt my stores of magic
beginning to reach lower levels, I eased off and let it
consume what was still in its system.

I had a Fir tree! I couldn’t help a little giggle as I

reached out to touch the very real leaves of the thing,
soft against my slim fingers. Damn, it wasn’t a fireball
or anything, but magic was cool!

“This is… wow,” Grace said from beside me, startling

me in the process. When did she get there?! She
turned to give me a funny look that I couldn’t
interpret at all and continued, “You can really use
magic now huh? I’m kinda jealous.”
“It’s pretty amazing,” I nodded, restlessly fiddling with
the leaves of the tree. “I um, have my mentor to thank
for a lot of this. She helped me in so many ways. I
hope she’s still alive.”

“Someone like her doesn’t die easily right? Sounds like

she used to be a big political player, but also like,
good? No one gets in the way of the truly greedy and
power hungry without either dying or being very good
at playing the game of politics,” she said, trying to
reassure me.

I was silent for a moment as I thought on that. I didn’t

really have much to go on with Esra. Just a few little
tidbits of information. I wish I’d asked more questions
about her when I was with Cad and Valda. Still,
anyone who pissed off a cunt like Lord Fennimore
couldn’t be that bad, right?
“I’ll help you turn into a powerful mage, then you can
go and find her, save her maybe!” Grace continued
after a moment, her pretty green eyes intense, like
she was promising to fight for me in a duel or
something crazy.

“I could turn you into a mage too, down the line,” I

told her, rather than acknowledging that intensity. It
made me uncomfortable in a strange way that I wasn’t
used to.

“You could?” she blinked, my slight change of subject

throwing her off.

“Yeah, I’d just need to get powerful enough that I can

create my own mage fruit. Then I can give it to you,” I
said with a small smile. Would she accept the fruit,
when it came to that?
“Being a mage would be so cool… but wouldn’t there
be better people to give that to?” she asked, glancing
away, back towards the group who were staring at the
tree with interest. Except Kit, who was approaching it
like the thing might claw its way out of the ground and
eat him.

“No!” I murmured forcefully, taking both of her hands

before I could think why I shouldn’t do that. “I’d want
it to be you. You’re… I…”

My face flushed as I realised the intimate way we

were standing, hands clasped, hers having curled to
hold mine right back. She was close too, so close, her
big green eyes wide as they searched mine. Oh no.

I had just realised why things felt strange between

Grace and I now… Previously I had been off limits
romantically, both because of my own problems with
my previous gender and body, but also because she
simply hadn’t been attracted to guys. Now though… I
was a girl, she was a girl, and both of us were
seemingly attracted to girls.

The moment I had that realisation, I dropped her

hands and took a step back, mumbling, “Sorry! I just, I
think you’re… I trust you, and you care, and I want to
give it to someone special… wait, I mean, you’re…
smart. And stuff. I think you’d make a good mage, I
guess. I don’t know.”

My cheeks were fire, my mind melted to slag,

someone must have broken the heat sink in my brain.
Shit, would it be possible to magic a hole in the
ground I could sink into? Help, Esra! Save me!

Like an angel descending from heaven, Adam

wandered up next to us. Unlike an angel descending
from heaven, he had a big dumb smirk on his face.
“How are you doing Ryn?” he asked with a slight
singsong that was very obviously a subtle dig at my
current complexion.

Wait! Complexion! Hah! I could beat that! I pushed my

chlorophyll up to my skin, feeling the sun beginning to
refill my sapped stores of magic. Damn, that felt
wonderful. Almost wonderful enough to distract me
from the terrible embarrassment of everything that
had just happened.

“Ryn!” Grace blurted, sounding worried. “Are you

okay? You’ve turned green!”

“Hulk… garden?” I joked awkwardly, then cringed

again as I realised how weird I was being. Before they
could notice they were friends with a complete
moron, I continued, “I’m part plant! Mages are part
plant, so I can photosynthesise for energy and magical
power and stuff! That’s… what I’m doing. Right now.
Because I feel like it.”

“Jesus, Ryn,” Adam guffawed, patting me on the back.

“Take a breath or two would you? You might pass out
otherwise.”

“Part… plant?” Grace asked incredulously.

“I mean, she did hatch out of a fruit,” Adam shrugged

with another of his goofy grins. “Or was it like,
schlorped out of a fruit? You mentioned fruit juice
didn’t you, Ryn?”

I was dead. Done. Ryn was no more, only the raw and
unending essence of embarrassment. An
embarrassment so pure it could be distilled into a fine
liquor for those with a truly bonkers taste in alcohol.
“Her cheeks are purple now,” Kit murmured from
where he’d been poking at the tree in disbelief.

“Come on you lot,” Troy called, “We have work to

do!”

Oh thank god, my real saviour, the no-nonsense army

dude came to the rescue.

Chapter 22 :
“I’ve been thinking, with the addition of Ryn to our
group, we might want to get our hands on some of the
local literature, if we can,” Troy said to the group
gathered under my new tree. “Wait, can you read
Anve as well as speak it?”

It was pleasantly cool in the hollow space under the

branches, just as I’d predicted, so we’d chosen to talk
about our next move here.
“Yeah, I can,” I nodded.

“Good, good,” he nodded, then continued. “Our plan

was to visit this city since we heard it was a major
trading hub for this region, then figure out our plans
from there. Now though, since we’ve been exploring,
we’ve seen a lot of that magic technology stuff
around. I reckon we should get our hands on some, as
well as some books on the subject.”

“My mentor told me a little about that,” I supplied,

trying to remember the broader lessons I’d gotten on
the subject. “They use a few different magically
charged ores to get power. Kinda like uranium and
those other radioactive elements, but this stuff
doesn’t kill you by proximity. It does give off magical
energy though, I can feel it sometimes when I’m near
the stuff.”
“Ah, that’s good to know,” Troy said, going quiet as be
began to think.

While he was thinking, Grace asked, “Well, we came

all this way for a trading capital right? What if there’s
also like, a magical tech capital around somewhere?”

Troy looked up, staring at her for a moment. “Yeah, I

like that. Since we have Ryn around, we might also be
able to get a concrete answer on the subject too.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“He means that none of us speak the language around

here better than a two year old. We’ve had more than
enough issues getting lost and mistaking directions,
shit like that. With you around, our job just became a
hell of a lot easier,” Adam said with an appreciative
smile. “I’m glad we found you Ryn, we’ve all missed
you.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling embarrassment rising all over

again.

It was seriously confusing to me why they cared so

much about me. I mean, we’d only known each other
for like a week. Sure, it was an intense week, but still.

“Well, now that we know what we’re doing, let’s head

back into the city before it gets dark and they close
the gates for the night. Can we use this place
anywhere that we won’t be observed entering it?”
Troy asked me with that ever serious expression of
his.

“I’m… not sure. It leaves a mark out in the real world

that other mages can see. I’m pretty sure they might
be able to sense it even through walls,” I said
cautiously, because in truth I didn’t know. I’d never
met a mage in the outside world before.

“Understood, we’ll use the inn as we’d planned then.

Although, we’ll need an extra room now. We’ll put
you and Grace in a room together, give you girls some
privacy,” Troy decided, already moving to leave the
shelter of the tree.

“But boss, this chick was a guy!” James called after

him, then adding under his breath. “Fuckin’ pussy one
too.”

My arm moved quickly to wrap around Grace’s bicep

in an attempt to keep her from smashing the shit out
of the dude. I had questions though, his words made it
sound like James had known me before… but how? I
certainly didn’t recognise him.
Troy turned back slowly to stare at James, and there
was a light in his eye that chilled me to the bone.
“James,” he said quietly, menacingly. It was just a
name, just a simple word, but the cold, raw anger in
his tone was more than enough to get the point
across. Holy shit, Troy might seem like a calm dude…
but what if he wasn’t? What if he was just good at
hiding it?

With James cowed, we set off, leaving my Grove and

making our way back into town. The sun was still a
ways up in the sky, I figured we had a few more hours
before sunset. Halfway back to the city though, Troy
pulled me back out of range of the others to talk. He
seemed calm again, but I was worried and wary now.
Grace was sending me anxious glances as Troy and I
slowed our paces to get out of range of the others.

“Um, so what did you want to talk about?” I asked, a

slight tremor in my voice.
“When I offered to come out here. I had… ulterior
motives. Motives I didn’t want to disclose to anyone,”
he began quietly, and my gaze snapped to meet his
when I heard his tone. He sounded… worried?

“Um?” I was unable to manage any more than that.

“I worked hard to get to where I am now, to make it

through… the military and all the garbage that entails.
I was lucky to get out before that bastard started shit
too, I might not have gotten my scholarship if I’d
waited a few more years,” he told me, his worry
turning to a hint of anger.

“Who started what shit?” I asked, curious now. Why

was he telling me these things?
“The president,” he spat, like actually spat on the
ground. “Fucker started shit about transgender
service.”

“Wait…” I blurted, really staring at Troy now. “Y-you?”

“Yup,” he nodded, taking a deep breath to calm

himself. “Which is why I’m interested in you.”

It took me a moment to realise what he was talking

about for a second, and then it hit me.

“Wait if you’re here on the ring now… you can’t get

any more meds!” I gasped, the blood draining from
my face.

That was horrifying. I’d known vaguely what the

options were for transition and what it entailed.
Couldn’t go through with anything because of raw
terror and an empty bank account, but I’d been
aware. I was surprised that it was this effective
though, he looked… well, like more of a man than
pretty much every guy I’d ever known.

“Correct again,” he responded. “To make matters

worse, I have had all… useless parts of my body
removed long ago, which means that once I run out of
my supply, I’ll begin to weaken. Health problems will
start to manifest in various ways.”

“Crap, crap, crap,” I frowned, thinking hard. Could I

help him?

“It’s not just me either, there’s others back at

Avonside,” he said, blowing out a weary breath.
“I could try and find something with magic… but I have
no idea what I’m doing. I’m a complete novice… I’d
need like, books and stuff,” I told him, trying to think
about what I knew was possible with my plant magic.

I could follow up on the strange ever changing plants

of the void in the Nameless Garden, that might help.
They had almost looked like spell plants when I was
observing them, but I still needed a little theory to
help me along.

“I figured,” he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do to help

out on the magic front, as well as keep James off your
back. In turn, can you look into my problem for me?”

“Definitely!” I said emphatically. “I um, guess it’s…

obvious about me?”
“You would be a hell of a lot less functional if you
hated what had happened to you,” he shrugged. “It
isn’t hard to connect the dots, for someone who
knows what it’s like.”

“Well… okay,” I sighed, already trying to think of some

way I could twist a plant into being helpful.

Maybe I didn’t need a magical solution, but a scientific

one? I could essentially custom design plants with
incredible speed and ease, so what if I figured out a
way to like, magically engineer a plant to create the
hormones that Troy needed? Shit… I could do that
with other, more mainstream medicines too!

“You look like you’re having ideas,” Troy chuckled,

watching me as I spaced out into the realm of
thought.
“Yeah… I am, but I’d need to be back at Avonside to
make good on any of them,” I said distractedly, my
mind still whirring with possibilities.

“Right. We’d best get our objectives completed

quickly then.”

The rest of the walk back to their inn was quiet. I

handed over some more coins I didn’t know anything
about to help pay, because I don’t know, it just
seemed like the right thing to do. I’d have to ask if
they’d figured out what everything was worth. Troy
got a second room rented for myself and Grace with
the money, and we all hung out in the guy’s room
until it was time for dinner.

It occurred to me at some point during the time where

I was sitting against the wall watching the rest of them
play cards that we could use English to stop anyone
understanding us. When I asked about why we’d
wandered out into the middle of the forest to talk,
other than transfer into my Grove, the answer was
just as simple. They didn’t know how magic worked. I
was pretty sure only the magefruit could give the gift
of language, so tentatively Troy gave the all clear to
talk about matters vaguely, so long as it was in English
of course.

We ate our dinner down in the common room, but it

was a quick affair. I think the others felt
uncomfortable around the ring’s native population.
Probably something to do with the fact that a bunch
of them had attacked Avonside, but… these weren’t
the same ones. The Anves, from what I had seen, were
almost welsh in the way they did things. Their
language was certainly a mess of consonants that
shouldn’t belong anywhere near that close to each
other.
“You ready to go up?” Grace asked quietly from
beside me as I spaced out thinking about languages
and cultures.

“Go up where?” I blinked, trying to play mental catch

up with whatever context she was speaking through.

“To our room,” she said, giving me a playful smile and

a nudge with her shoulder. “What were you thinking
about that had you so spacey?”

“Oh uh, just dumb stuff,” I shrugged sheepishly.

“Typical um, I don’t know... stuff?”

“Oh yeah totally,” she nodded with mock seriousness.

“The fate of the world, alien races. The geopolitical
landscape. That kind of thing?”
Once again, my cheeks were flushing red. “How did
you know?”

“It’s a very, uh… Ryn thing to do,” she chuckled, then

patted my shoulder companionably. “Come on.”

I pushed myself to my feet and followed behind her as

she said goodnight to the rest of the group. We’d
already dumped our bags in the room, so when we
arrived there wasn’t really much to do. It was a small
room, hardly large enough for space to move around,
two single beds somehow crammed into it. There was
barely a foot and a half of room between them.

As soon as we were in and the door was closed, I was

kicking off my boots and throwing off my coat. My
pants followed quickly after, and I was just taking off
my top when I heard a strangled gasp from behind
me. I turned to see Grace staring at me, her face
flushed and her armour very much still on her.
“Uh, Ryn?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah?” I asked right back, trying to figure out what

the hell I had done this time. My shirt was halfway up
me still, held there by frozen, confused hands.

With a tone so low it was almost a whisper, she said,

“You remember I’m a lesbian right?”

“Yeah?” I was still pretty confused by what was going

on. Was she going to like, ask to sleep with me?
Where was this going? Oh gosh, what if she actually
did? What would I do then? Would I say yes? She was
really cute, and pretty, but I was definitely sure she
wouldn’t be interested in me, even if I might be a little
interested in her.
“You’re stripping,” she stated, waving an erratic hand
in my direction. Her eyes were down near my navel as
she spoke.

It was embarrassing how long it took the gears and

wheels in my head to turn. Then when I realised that
yeah, I was getting naked just, casually right in front of
her… I could see where the problem was.

“Um, sorry!” I squeaked, trying and failing to figure

out where to hide my half naked body. I settled for
crouching behind the bed, my head poking up over
the top in wide eyed embarrassment.

“Oh my god,” she said with a nervous, hiccuping

laugh. “Get changed, I’ll turn my back. Just…
remember next time, if you don’t want me seeing you
naked I mean.”
She did as she’d said, turning her back on me to face
the wall.

“Right, sorry,” I mumbled rushing for my back and

taking off my shirt and bra in the same jerky motion.
Well... I tried, but this medieval bra was laced tight,
and in the process I managed to pull all the knots into
an almost locked state.

“Shit!” I muttered, struggling to bend my arms into a

position where I could get proper leverage on them. It
was.. Well, a failure. My fingernails were well trimmed
because of my time spent helping Esra in the garden,
which meant I couldn’t get any sort of purchase on the
knots. “Fuck, damn!”

“What? What’s wrong?” Grace asked quickly, almost

turning around before she remembered not to.
“The knots in this damned bra are too tight! I can’t
get… I can’t get them off!” I whined, staring down at
my almost naked body in frustration.

“Wait, the knots on your bra?” she blurted.

“Yeah the bras I was given… they’re lace up ones, like

shoes or whatever, but I tried to take it off without
untying them and now it’s all… tight,” I said, my voice
strained as I continued to struggle with the knots, only
succeeding in making it worse for myself. “Grace…
please can you help? You’re allowed to look, I guess.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice sounding weirdly

breathy.

“Please!” I begged. “Get this bra off me, it’s starting to

cut into me.”
“Alright, alright,” she agreed, turning around. “I’m
coming.”

Her eyes when she saw my barely covered body

were… I watched her visibly swallow, then move over
on unsteady legs. Lifting my arms up to allow her to
get at the laces, I watched as her hands hesitantly
went for them. Her expression was one of intense
control and concentration as she fumbled with the
laces.

“Fuck, you really pulled these tight,” she gasped after

straining at it for a moment.

Our eyes met as she looked up at me from her

hunched over position, and I just knew my cheeks
were colouring. This was an exceedingly embarrassing
situation, and worse, I could tell that she was making a
heroic effort not to sexualise me… despite, well, a
bombshell body to look at.
As if to avoid looking at me directly, she went back to
worrying at the knot, until she finally gave up with a
groan. “We’re going to have to cut it.”

“What? But… I need my bra! I don’t have many!” I said

mournfully.

“Okay, well… I’ll give it another go, I guess,” she

shrugged helplessly.

Her hands went in again with determination, pushing

and pulling at the knot and by extension, my body. I
was jerked around slightly, her long, strong fingers
pushing and brushing against me as she tried to get
the knot undone. I was beginning to feel strange, the
bra must have been cutting off circulation or
something, because I felt so warm, especially in my
stomach. It was the weirdest feeling, but also very
oddly pleasant.
“I got it!” she exclaimed triumphantly, and then… my
bra fell off my shoulder, exposing a boob in the
process. “Oh fuck!” she exclaimed at the same time
that I squeaked and pulled it back up.

We stared at each other again in mutual, wide eyed

embarrassment. Like, we stared and stared and
stared. I felt like I was going to melt into the ground all
over again, and damn but she was close. I could feel
the warmth coming off her, and my whole body
tingled with the sensation.

“Uh, I’m going to… um, go and get changed… over

there,” she said, pointing to her side of the room,
which was a whole whopping four yards away.

“Right, uh, good luck,” I nodded, my head still spinning

with about every emotion I was capable of
experiencing.
“Thanks, I’ll... yeah,” she nodded, then promptly spun
on her heel and retreated.

I dove for my pack like my life depended on it, fishing

out a fresh shirt to sleep in and throwing my bra off.
With the shirt on, I dove for the covers of my bed and
burrowed underneath them.

I listened, my back turned as Grace went through the

same motions I just had, extremely, excruciatingly
aware of the fact that she was probably half naked
behind me. Far out, how was I going to survive being
repeatedly roomed with her in any inns we stayed in?
This was going to drive me insane.

Chapter 23 :
Waking up and getting dressed with Grace was only
marginally less awkward than getting undressed had
been last night. Only because she wasn’t over with me
taking my damn bra off for me. I really wish I wasn’t
such a… a damn klutz. Gosh I felt my cheeks heating
every time I thought about that, uh, incident.

Thankfully we made it down to the inn’s common

room in time for breakfast, and then we were heading
out the door. Troy decided that we’d be heading out
of the city as soon as we had directions to travel in. All
that needed to happen was for me to approach
random strangers with five armoured people at my
back and get a reasonable response from them.
Nothing wrong with this plan at all.

“Right, this isn’t working,” Troy sighed as the fourth

person gave me odd directions.

It wasn’t that they weren’t giving us the wrong

directions per se, it’s that none of them agreed on
where a good center for magical artificing would be,
and on top of that, none of them seemed particularly
interested in clarifying the matter.

“What’s going wrong?” Adam asked, fiddling with the

strap of his helmet.

I waited for someone to come up with the obvious

answer, but none of them did. I guess they weren’t
aware of the stares we were getting? Or maybe they
were and they just weren’t connecting the dots.

“I think it’s the armour, it’s scaring people,” I sighed,

then took a chance and began to take off my disguise.
“Would you all mind if I went and spoke to some
people without… you know, five heavily armoured
people at my back?”

Troy gave a chuckle and nodded, “Yeah, okay. I should

have figured that out. The locals weren’t exactly keen
to talk to us back in the middle east either. Can’t
entirely blame them either. I guess you can act as the
interpreters did for us.”

“I don’t like the idea of Ryn off on her own,” Grace

said quietly. “I just, you know… she’s kinda hot
property right now. Someone might try and grab her.”

“Emphasis on the hot,” Kit muttered so low I was

almost unsure he’d said it.

“Well, you could always change out of the armour

Grace,” Troy said matter of factly.

“But, where?” she asked, gesturing around us at the

bustling market.
“Just find an alleyway or something, fuck,” James
groaned.

I frowned at James, then tentatively took Grace’s

hand. “Come on, we’ll find somewhere.”

“Meet us back here in two hours, you two,” Troy

called as I led an angry Grace away.

That James guy was asking to have his balls popped

like grapes if he wasn’t careful. Half the shit that came
out of his mouth was infuriating to Grace and
awkward to me.

We wove through the market crowds as fast as we

were able, until we found a side street that we could
duck down. Finding an alleyway wasn’t hard after that,
they were always just so reliably available. The first
stretch was rather disgusting, but we found a quiet
nook where she could change.

“Dunno why it has to be me who gets changed,” Grace

grumbled as she began to take her armour off. I knew
she had basic clothing on underneath now, so I wasn’t
too concerned about her undressing, but I still turned
my back regardless. “Could have been one of the guys
who helped.”

“Because people are more willing to talk to a pretty

face,” I replied absently as I kept lookout. “And you
did kinda volunteer yourself by pointing it out.”

Grace was silent for a moment, the sounds of her

undressing coming to a halt for a moment. “You think
I’m pretty?”
“Huh?” I asked, turning around to look at her. “Yeah,
of course. Anyone can see it.”

“A lot of people don’t,” she said quietly, her

expression… distant.

“Well, they’re wrong,” I frowned. “I thought you were

pretty back when I first met you too. In between
admiring the way you could wrestle an umbrella and a
door at the same time.”

Her expression changed quickly to one of amusement

at my words. “Yeah, I’m not going to lie, that was
tough. The wind was nuts!”

“Yeah,” I smiled, then playfully bopped her on the

shoulder with my wimpy little fist, “Strong girls are
cute too.”
Her smile was happily bashful as she murmured,
“Thanks Ryn.”

“No problem, now let’s go woo some magical

materials merchants,” I said, lowering my voice into
what I thought was probably a sultry tone, all while
fluttering my eyelashes. Was I being girly? This is girly
right?

Grace gave me an amused smile. “Alright there little

lady, careful where you point those eyes.”

“Hey, I’m not little. You’re just bigger than me,” I

grumbled as I turned my back again to let her
continue.

“Yup, sure,” came her sarcastic response.

I didn't reply, instead I stood there and pouted,
waiting for her to finish. Once she had her more
normal clothing on, we left the alleyway and returned
to the market. From there we made our way through
the crowds towards the small section of the market
that sold things that a magical artificer might be
interested in buying. Almost immediately I wondered
why it was a small section. Barely a dozen vendors sat
in the shade of their tents.

Approaching the nearest one with Grace in tow, I

asked, “Hello! How are you?”

The older man behind the desk looked up and

squinted. If he could even see past his huge eyebrows.
“What can I do for you? You don’t look like the type to
be needing anything from my stall.”
“Oh, I um… I’m asking for my friend here!” I said,
motioning to Grace. “She’s interested in learning
about um, this kind of stuff.”

“Can she not speak for herself?” he asked

disinterestedly.

“She doesn’t speak Anve,” I told him, shaking my

head.

Damn, why was this guy so damn grumpy? Should I

just cut my losses and move to the next guy?

“Hmph, alright,” he huffed. “What do you want to

know?”

“We were just wondering if there’s any city that’s well

known for this type of, um, magic,” I said, pointing to
the various ores, metals and powders he had on his
table.

“Depends, do you want a gathering of three

practitioners, or a gathering of hundreds?” he asked.
“I know of Din, far to the east. They have a well known
guild of Constructors. Then there is Huerdan of
Davenken up in Abernesia, who is known to have
hundreds of Constructors under his employ. Finally, if
you are willing to venture into Obrec lands, you have
Millowhall down in Clan Mossbed territory.”

“What is… Obrec lands?” I asked tentatively, knowing

he was going to be angry for the question.

“Oh come now girl! I will not be fooled by such

ridiculous, base questions as this! Go, I will not speak
to you,” he exclaimed angrily, making shooing
motions. “Damn young un’s and their pranks!”
“Fuck, alright,” I frowned, backing off and taking Grace
with me.

Before either of us could try to talk strategy, I heard a

voice call out from a few stalls over. “Hey, miss? Old
Eurig being his typical old helpful self?”

We both turned to see a much younger merchant at a

similar stall, and he was all smiles. Confident, cocky
smiles… ugh, whatever. I had joked about using our
looks to our advantage after all, like he was probably
going to try and do.

“Yeah, uh… I was just asking what Obrec lands are?” I

said, repeating the question to the guy.

“What? You mean you don’t know what an Obrec is?”

he asked, almost moving into a full on laugh before he
realised we were serious. “You really don’t?”
“We’re not from around here,” I said as a way of
explanation.

“Right, well… an Obrec, they ain’t human. Sure, they

looks sort of like us, they got the face and the body
like us. Hands just like us, but their legs, they go
backwards! They got hooves on the end of them too
and fur across they backs and the like. Horns on their
head too and big pointed fluffy ears, sorta like a goat’s
ears.”

“That… wow, okay,” I blinked, trying to figure out if

this guy was messing with me in turn.

Was he really talking about like, an alien race here?

No, they sounded more like a fantasy race than
anything else… this was nuts!
“Yeah,” he nodded. “What about them were you
asking?”

“We were asking about cities known for their um,

Constructing? He mentioned a place called
Millowhall,” I said uncertainly.

“Oh, aye! Millowhall is known for its practical shapers

of the arcane, that’s for sure. Almost the whole city is
dedicated to the craft!” he nodded enthusiastically. “I
trained there, I did! Almost didn’t survive living with
the Obrec though, they’re… a rowdy lot. They love
their drinking, their fighting and… their loving,” he told
us, lowering his tone at the last into what he probably
thought was an attractive baritone.

Sorry dude, these two girls aren’t interested. Of

course, the mere thought of the fact that I now
counted under that “girl” term had my heart doing a
happy little jig.
“Right… uh, how do we get to this place? We’re
looking to travel there and see it!” I asked, feigning
more enthusiasm than I felt.

“Oh, you’ll want to follow the river south as far as

Infigwaun. Then you’ll want to cut south east. The
roads through the Mosteghunoksia plains are a little…
rough, so I’d be careful there if I were you,” he
warned gravely. “After that, you’ll find the Obrec
mountains. Love their mountains they do, but they
aren’t like normal mountains. Bloody great pillars of
rock, thousands of feet tall, with the densest forest
you’ll ever find in the valleys between. Those
mountains are bad news if you stray off the paths.
They ain’t hunted their monsters down into the
ground like we Anves have.”

I hoped the Mosteghunoksia plains weren’t as rough

as their name was to say, because… damn. The Obrec
mountains sounded pretty already too, I was excited
to see them, and their people. Even if he made it
sound super dangerous.

“Right, okay… thank you, that’s actually really

helpful!” I said, genuinely happy that we had a place
to go. Gosh, we’d be seeing an entirely new sentient
species for the first time too!

“No problem ladies, if you see old Brenin

Boughbreaker, say hi for me, and tell him he owes me
a shipment of Tassupine already,” the stall keeper told
us good naturedly.

“I will, thank you!” I nodded, giving him what I hoped

was a winning smile.

“Safe journeys!” he nodded in return as we wandered

off.
Moving back towards where we were meant to meet
the others, I felt Grace’s arm slip through mine. The
contact had my whole body buzzing and loose limbed,
and almost immediately I was forced to lean on her
for fear I'd fall over.

I peeked up at her in surprise, and she shrugged, “You

can’t get lost again if I’m holding on tight. At worst I’ll
end up on some wild fucking adventure along with
you this time.”

My smile was involuntarily and wide in reply, and I

looked down again before she saw my heating cheeks.
Gosh damn, she was really making this whole thing
hard on me.

Rather than waiting almost two hours to find the

others, we tracked them down instead. It wasn’t hard,
they... stood out. Although one of them was missing at
the moment, and I couldn’t tell who, because four
guys in armour looked the same.

“Hey, which one of you is Troy?” I asked, glancing

between them all.

One of the helmets rang with his distinctive, dry

chuckle, and I turned to him, relaying what I’d found
out.

“Wait, there’s really other sentient races on this ring?”

Grace asked, and I realised she wouldn’t have been
able to follow the conversation with the vendor.

“Yup,” I nodded. “Apparently so.”

“Well then, that definitely falls under our mandate.

Let’s get down to this… Millowhall,” Troy said,
butchering the pronunciation. “Right after I figure out
where the fuck James has gotten to...”

Chapter 24 :
As an hour passed, and then an hour more, we began
to grow worried. James was nowhere to be found,
we’d searched the market twice looking for him. Now,
I’ll be one of the first to admit that of all the people to
go mysteriously missing, I’d rather it was James. Still,
he was one of us, and more importantly he knew a lot
of shit that could be damaging if he fell into the wrong
hands.

The sun was beginning its journey towards the rim of

the ring when we decided that something was really,
properly wrong. We checked the inn first, and when
no one had seen him there, we checked back at the
market, asking questions of the vendors to see if they
had seen him. No concrete answers were forthcoming
from the vendors, so in a last ditch effort, we asked
the guards.

The guards had taken notice of our group alright, and

they were quick to puff out their chests and get
standoffish. When I used my big doe eyes and my
fluttering eyelashes at them however, they gave in a
little and mentioned that they had seen him heading
east along one of the many streets that joined with
the market.

“What in the hell was he doing?” Troy asked nobody

in particular as we made our way to the street in
question.

“Who knows what James is doing or why on any given

day?” Adam asked wearily. “The dude’s been a pain in
the ass since day fucking one. Why did you even
accept him into the group?”
“Because he had experience that would be useful.
Camping and hunting experience, for example,” Troy
sighed. “And I was pressed for time, the faculty
council was keen to know what was out there. Shit,
they barely gave us time to get the armour made.”

“Wait, faculty council?” I asked, confused. “Wasn’t

that um… CEO lady in charge?”

“She is, but she’s not the only authority,” someone

said, and I was surprised to hear it was Kit who spoke
up. He continued his explanation in that quiet manner
of his, “The university had checks and balances in
place previously, and those have become far more
important since we were all transported here. More
strained too, the holes are showing and there’s talk of
forming a real, proper form of government.”

“And no one can agree on what that will be,” Adam

said with a derisive roll of his eyes.
Being in the middle of a political crisis during what was
probably our grace period before the world
discovered our existence did not bode well for
Avonside. They needed to be building and fortifying as
fast as possible, not… arguing. They didn’t have time
to argue.

We walked for five minutes in the direction we’d been

sent, only for our questions to turn up nothing when
we asked random bystanders. The group had even all
taken their helmets off in an attempt to appear less
intimidating. It seemed that James had all but
disappeared without a trace.

“This is starting to get a little spooky,” Grace said as

we stood around after our latest failed attempt to get
information.
“Yeah, you don’t just… how do you lose someone like
James? He’s wearing intimidating black armour and
he’s like, huge,” Adam said, miming James’ height
with his hands.

“What do we do Troy?” Grace asked hesitantly.

There was more to that simple question than the

words implied though. Do we leave James behind, do
we keep trying to find him? There was a risk in trying
to find him, a risk to our time and our lives if he didn’t
disappear of his own free will. There was a risk if we
left him too and he was just off being a moron. He
might decide that he wanted to start helping whoever
out here would feed him or give him power or
whatever else he was interested in.

“We keep trying, we’ll find a different inn and stay the
night,” Troy decided. “Although if we see any evidence
that something has gone wrong, I think we’ll probably
have to book it. Our priority is to get Ryn and the
information we’ve gathered back to Avonside.”

“Does Ryn get a choice in that?” Grace asked quietly,

and we all turned to look at her in surprise.

Troy was silent for a second, looking almost blindsided

by the question. He reached up to rub at his stubble
for a moment in thought, his eyes watching me with a
new uncertainty.

“Do you want to go back to Avonside?” he asked, just

the barest hint of worry in his voice.

I thought about it for a moment, and then nodded

slowly, “Yes, but… I’d like to add a condition to that.
Would it be alright to take… I don’t know, some time
to work on my Grove before we get back. I want to be
able to protect myself if they try and take advantage
of me back there.”

“That… is a very good point. I think that is more than

prudent, considering the political landscape back at
the university,” Troy nodded after a moment. “It
would be just like them to try as well.”

“You don’t like them?” I asked in surprise. “The

admins and stuff?”

“Some of them are good, some of them are not.,” he

shrugged. “I don’t trust the ones that aren’t.”

“Okay, that’s reassuring,” I said, giving him a small,

relieved smile. “Well, not the bad admins part. That’s
not so reassuring.”
He nodded, just slightly, and gave me a pat on the
arm. “I’ll have your back Ryn, same as everyone else in
this team, including James, as much of an asshole as
he is. But for now, let’s widen our search a bit. I’d like
to try a few of the side streets around here. James
obviously didn’t make it this far, or people would have
remembered him.”

And so we continued as the afternoon was

approaching evening and we began to run out of side
streets. The town was a warren, twisting alleyways
and old, repurposed buildings from the ring builders
made any sort of attempt at city planning impossible,
so they hadn’t bothered. At all.

We were walking down one such side street when we

began to notice that there was a distinct lack of local
people around. I could see one or two, but other than
that… we were alone in the street. I wasn’t the only
one who noticed it either, as Troy put up his hand to
stop us all.
“This is going to sound cliche,” he said warily. “But it’s
too quiet.”

“I know, where are all the people?” I asked, looking

around at the ominous lack of native residents. You
knew when people suddenly rushed indoors that
something bad was happening.

As if on cue, a group of men rounded the corner at the

end of the street, some forty yards away. They were
soldiers, and wearing pretty fine armour at that,
polished and gleaming in the late afternoon light,
bright blue and yellow plumes coming out of the tops
of their helmets. Tabards with the same colouration
were worn over the top of the armour, which made it
obvious they were the personal guards for the man in
the middle.
His hair was a deep, dark red, the colour of clotted
blood, and although I couldn’t see his eyes at this
distance, I knew they were probably the same. He
wore a long pale yellow coat, with bright blue piping
around all the edges. Under the coat was a superbly
crafted set of leather armour, accented with the same
colours as all the rest of the getup. It was him…
Fennimore.

Almost as soon as he came into view, I had my mage

senses activated, and sure enough, there was the web
of magic within him, the same as Esra had been. His
guards were the same as my party, thick bubbles of
latent magic protecting the inner workings of their
bodies. I guess that explained one thing, mages looked
different under mage sight than normal humans. Now
I just had to figure out what that meant… but later.

“Troy,” I hissed, grabbing his arm. “That’s a mage, that

one I talked about, he’ll be able to—“
“Ah, if it isn’t the merry little band of aliens,” Lord
Fennimore drawled with false joviality. “I have one of
your friends, you know. Bit of advice next time, don’t
let one of your number wander into a bar full of my
guards to ask them questions.”

“Fuck,” I swore under my breath as we began to back

away, translating while I did it. “James walked into a
bar full of his goons and started asking them stuff.”

Troy only nodded, drawing his gun, but keeping it low

against his side. The others did the same, and Lord
Fennimore and his guards came to a halt as the threat
of violence between the two groups became
something almost tangible in the air. It took all my
willpower not to cringe or outwardly react to their
intimidation. I didn’t want to be seen as a scared little
girl to that dickhead.
“You and your kind represent a bit of a problem. You
see, in the past, whenever a new group of sentient
beings is brought to the ring, chaos reins dominant.
They bring new ideas, new ways of thinking… and
sometimes, conquest. I rather like the way things are
now in the world, and I intend to have it stay this
way,” he said his eyes cold with determination. Then
his eyes fell on me. “Ah! The beautiful little apprentice
of Esra, how are you my dear? I see you are on of this
lot, congratulations on being the first for your people I
assume?”

Again I didn’t reply, and Grace stepped quickly

between us, blocking his view of me. She couldn’t
understand him, but she didn’t need to, the intent
was clear in his tone.

“He’s talking about, I don’t know, he’s threatening us

and Avonside. Troy, we can’t win this,” I whispered in
English. “The guy teleports around and throws magic
and shit. Also he has a shield, like an energy shield.”
“Let’s see if it can stop this,” Troy replied calmly,
raising his pistol and taking aim.

Fennimore’s smile was mocking as he watched troy

level the weapon, but it changed to shock when the
sound of a single shot rang through the evening air.
He staggered, his hand going to his chest while his
face expressed confused irritation. His guards moved,
putting themselves between Troy’s gun and their
master.

“Run,” Troy ordered calmly. “They have guns too.”

He was right, each of them had a magical gun at their

hips, right next to their sheathed swords. So as
ordered, we turned and ran as Fennimore’s guards
stood there in shock, none of them yet able to piece
together what had happened. Some began to move
for us, drawing their swords, but we were already
putting distance in the way.

“We’re leaving the city, right now,” Troy said between

breaths. “James is, well… he’s fucked. We’re getting
out of this place.”

“No arguments here dude,” Adam replied, his voice a

little shaken.

I kept looking over my shoulder at where Lord

Fennimore stood, leaning on one of his guards, blood
now clearly visible from a hole in his chest, very close
to where his heart should have been. He was staring
at me, anger dripping from his face like sweat, and
then with a flash of light, he and the guard he’d been
leaning on were gone. In his place I could just barely
make out a shimmering haze. He’d retreated to his
Grove.
“We should have finished him,” Kit said. “The dude
had major creep vibes.”

“I’d rather get us all out alive than take that chance,”
Troy replied. “Now, let’s stop talking and move.”

At about that time, the Fennimore’s men remembered

that they could shoot back, and tiny sizzling bolts of
energy began to burn the air around us. Even as
arcane bullets hailed down around us, I had a question
dominating my thoughts. Why the hell was that
asshole here?

Chapter 25 :
We blasted past the gate guards right as they were
beginning to close things up for the night, and their
startled shouts followed us out into the descending
night. Unfortunately, the closest gate had been the
eastern one, which meant we’d have to make distance
east to get away before we could turn south towards
our goal.

“Shit that was close!” Adam blurted as our feet

pounded on the road.

I was beginning to feel winded, I was not used to all

this physical activity! Maybe I needed to start doing
some fitness training or something, a bit of cardio?
That was what the cool kids said right? I should ask
Grace once my lungs stopped burning.

“He survived a round to the heart,” Troy frowned,

looking at me for an explanation.

I just shrugged helplessly, I had no idea how he’d

survived it. He’d looked wounded, but nothing at all as
badly as he should have been.
“Fuck,” he swore, mostly to himself.

He pulled his gun out and did something with it, the
magazine dropped out and he caught it, staring at it
hard. “I have… five rounds left. One more mag in a
pouch. God damn it, we need an alternative to these
things and fast.”

“An alternative? I mean, you’re low on ammo now,

but when we get back to Avonside we can make more
right?” I asked between wheezing breaths.

“Not entirely. We don’t have sources for any of the

resources needed to make the smokeless powder
used, and the workshops were only stocked with a
small amount of materials when we were transported
here. The local stuff is… let’s just say that we’re
significantly further ahead of them in material’s
sciences. We’ll most likely need to buy the raw ore
and process it ourselves,” Kit replied for Troy. Kit was
quickly proving himself to be insanely smart and quiet,
kind of James’ polar opposite in a way.

Troy chuckled appreciatively as Kit interjected, then

nodded, “What the man said. Without our old
industrial base back home, sure we know how to
make a lot of things, but we also don’t have the time,
manpower or resources to actually do any of it.”

“Alright, guns are going to be off the menu soon,”

Grace grimaced looking down at her own one.

With our defence situation put into perspective, my

thoughts almost instantly turned to potential
solutions. Repeater crossbows maybe? That would
eliminate the need for all the chemicals needed for
fancy gunpowder. Black powder seemed… less than
useful, even given advances in technology and stuff.
Having to clean the barrel of gunk all the time made
building semi automatic weapons with that stuff less
than useful. I could see one jamming and exploding in
someone’s face, which was not a pretty thought.

I’d probably just have to leave the problem in the

hands of people like Bray, because I was probably
wrong. I’d focus on what I could help with, like
becoming powerful enough that no one would fuck
with us lightly. Medicines too, and possibly I could use
Grove tenders to help with mundane tasks?

Our pace slowed as we gained distance, this side of

the city being one that had a lot more farmland than
the side that bordered the forest, so we needed to get
further to break line of sight.

“Ryn, how far away do we have to get before they

won’t be able to find that… mark thing when we get
into your Grove? We need to rest somewhere safe,”
Troy asked after another hour or so.
“The buildings blocked my view of the mark that
Fennimore left, but I could sorta smell it for a block or
two,” I replied.

“Good to know. Alright team, follow me, we’re going

offroad,” he said, turning us off the road and into
someone’s orchard.

We followed him out into the farmland, then made

the jump into my Grove to rest for the night.

****
The next morning saw us recouping. Troy had decided
that rather than trying to outrun mounted search
parties, we’d just hide in the Grove until they’d passed
us by. We were banking on there not being enough
mages to properly search for my mark, or just simply
any devices that could find it anyway. It was a gamble,
but we needed some downtime to get our shit
together, and I needed time to work out how to make
spell plants.

“Hey guys,” I said, standing up from where I had been

sitting on a low branch. “I’m going to go outside for a
bit, I want to look at some magic related things.”

“Wait, outside! By yourself?” Grace asked quickly,

reaching up and grabbing hold of my arm.

I glanced down at her hand, at the way her fingers

almost encircled my forearm. It was so small and
almost delicate compared to what I was used to
having. I was so focused on her hand, with its smooth
skin and soft strength, that I completely forgot to
reply.

When she gave my arm a squeeze, I crashed back into

reality and blurted, “Oh no, I mean, like... not outside
onto the ring, outside into the Nameless Garden.”

“Uh, outside?” she asked, confused. “How do you

go…?”

“Rather than explain, do you want to see?” I grinned,

already knowing I’d enjoy her reaction, whatever it
was.

“Sure…?” she said, squinting at me now. Oh no, was

my grin giving the game away?
“So long as it isn’t dangerous,” Troy said from nearby,
eyeing us with concern.

“Nah, it’s fine,” I reassured him. “I went out there and

it was fine, just kinda… weird looking.”

“Alright, I hope you can achieve what you’re trying to

do,” he replied, going back to sorting through his pack.

Turning to Grace now that we had permission, I pulled

her hand gently off my arm and gripped it instead,
asking, “Ready?”

“Why do you need my hand?” she questioned quietly.

“Because I don’t want you to float away,” I replied as

nonchalantly as possible.
Her eyes grew worried and she glanced down at our
joined hands with concern. “Wait, float awa—“

With a flash of directed willpower, I pulled us out into

the Nameless Garden.

It was just as I remembered, strange plants stuck in a

cycle of growth, maturity and death over and over.
Each one reforming into something new during its
next beginning. It was as mesmerising to watch the
third time as it had been the last two, and I would
have floated there in that sea of chaos without
moving if it hadn’t been for Grace’s… reaction.

She screamed and grabbed at me, pulling me close

and putting us into a wild spin that had me dizzy in
seconds. I giggled as we spiralled through the void, her
reaction being everything I’d hoped for.
“Ryn!” she yelled in annoyance, hearing my giggle
seemed to calm her fear just a little, replacing it with
annoyance. “Make it stop!”

“Okay, okay,” I laughed, focusing my mind on keeping

us still.

We slowed quickly coming to an abrupt halt some

distance from my Grove, our hair floating around us.
Grace looked… grumpy with me, which was
understandable, but still very funny.

“You little…” she began, but I dropped us straight

down at speed, and her words cut off as she clung to
me again. “Ryn!”

I might have been enjoying teasing her just a little too

much, but she was just so damn cute like this.
“Sorry,” I said, trying very hard to keep my expression
neutral. “I’ll stop now.”

“You’re a little shit,” she growled, leaning away from

me to give me an irritated stare.

It was at about that moment that I realised just how

intimately we were holding one another. Her legs
were wrapped loosely around mine, her hands clasped
tightly behind my neck, fingers tickling at my hair. In
turn, my arms were around her torso, fingers splayed
across her warm back for extra support. I gulped and
met her clear green eyes, suddenly unable to breathe.

Her expression softened into one that I didn’t

recognise, and I watched as her gaze roamed my face
with an intensity I hadn’t seen from her before. “Ryn,”
she murmured quietly.
“H-hi,” I whispered at a similar volume. My body felt
like it was both hot and cold at the same time, but
hers was all a sweet warmth.

Wait, was she getting closer? What was happening?

My face felt like it was going to ignite into roaring
flame at any moment now. Her breath was so warm as
it tickled across my cheeks, her eyes shining now like
the outside surface of my Grove.

Then in an instant she blinked and backed off, and I

felt a little tremor go through her body. She bit her lip,
now avoiding my eyes as she looked anywhere but at
me.

“What was it you were going to do out here?” she

asked finally, after several long moments of silence in
which I was rapidly running out of oxygen.
“I wanted to... Uh, watch the plants,” I said, unable to
bring my volume back up to normal levels again. We
were still tangled up together.

When she raised an eyebrow for further explanation, I

tried to order my thoughts enough to explain myself. I
needed her to be like, a little further away. I couldn’t
think. Her thighs were so strong as they held my legs
in place, and then the thought of how her legs were
open wide right now sent a flood of boiling arousal
through me. Oh no, I was turned on by Grace! I was
being super creepy right now! Abort! Bad Ryn!

“I’ll explain, just… um, I need…” I mumbled, my voice a

strained squeaking thing as I looked down at our
intertwined bodies.

“R-right,” she breathed, carefully letting go of me and

untangling our bodies in the process.
I grabbed her hand to keep her stable, and even that
contact was a lot to handle right then. God damn, my
nerves were humming like the strings on an electric
guitar.

Before any more awkwardness could jump out of the

bushes and maul us, I dove into my thought process
surrounding the plants. Anything to escape the
thoughts of how her thighs felt wrapped around me or
how it might feel to run my hands over them with
intention.

My voice was all kinds of shaky as I began to speak. “I

think that I can learn a little about magic if I watch the
plants around us. I think they have magical properties,
like they’re each just a random mess of spell
components all forming and dying over and over.”
“Right… you um, explained before that the plants are
like spells,” she said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, so I don’t know, I guess I just want to watch

them and see if I can learn anything,” I shrugged, now
realising that my idea might sound stupid.

“Okay, so we just float here?” she asked, her hand

squeezing mine.

“Yup,” I nodded.

“That sounds relaxing.”

So we did, floating among the ever shifting and

changing forest of the Nameless Garden. At first I
wasn’t able to concentrate on anything other than the
feel of her hand in mine, but as time passed my eyes
sought out the almost-patterns all around us. I shifted
into mage sight and stared around, watching a nearby
plant as it grew into a broad flower, each petal
humming with imminent energy.

Another plant, gnarled and twisted like the roots of a

great tree, was collecting stray wisps of magic from
around it and funnelling it all into its core. It didn’t do
anything with the energy, and when it died, the magic
floated free once more. It was fascinating, and the
more I watched, the more I realised I had been right.
The ever changing plants in the void were nonsensical
spells, like the whole garden was some sort of random
number generator, spitting out and then destroying
possible combinations.

I tried to memorise each twist of root and curve of

petal that I saw around me, doing my best to figure
out how it worked. I saw one stem that seemed to
channel magical energy into itself and convert it into a
dark elemental form. I saw flower buds that promised
kinetic movement, any energy pumped into them
becoming raw potential motion.

At some point, I began to experiment with the plants

around me, gathering magical energies from around
me and funneling them through the randomly
generated plants to see what happened.

When one of them burst into song, I jumped on it and

did my best to figure out how it worked, all while
Grace held tight to my hand as she tried to figure out
what the hell was happening. I did attempt to explain
what I was doing as I played around, although I knew
she had only the barest idea of what I was talking
about. I wasn’t surprised though, no one would be
able to really grasp what was happening without mage
sight.

We had to end at some point though, and when my

stomach began reminding me that I still needed to eat
to survive, we moved back into my Grove, appearing
on the edge of the plateau. I could see my tree
standing tall in the middle and my smile widened. I
was going to have fun with this whole magic thing.

Chapter 26 :
Lunch was quick, no one wanted to linger over travel
food after all, and once it was over I was free to work
my magic. Literally. First, I needed to get the plateau
properly protected from the elements, which meant
starting to create a wind break all around the edges.

Something I’d learned outside in the void was how to

create trees with bark that was both harder than
normal and more supple than normal. I’d also
watched as the plants outside had funneled and
controlled various elements and resources. One of
those had been simple water.
With both of those things in mind, I started work on
the first layer of trees needed to stop the wind that
was even now threatening to pick up. It had to be a
relatively short tree, something hardy and tenacious. I
didn’t choose any one species, instead forming my
own tree that drew inspiration from many.

Different to the plants I had created thus far, I used

the leaves of the tree to draw in the raw magic of the
garden, which gave them a purplish blue colour that
glowed faintly in the dark. Next came the trunk, the
bark being that sturdy kind that I had discovered. The
core of the trunk would be taking in the energy from
the leaves and converting it into physical matter.
Namely, water. Lastly, the roots would push that
water deep into the ground to create an aquifer
within the plateau.

This would hopefully solve any groundwater problems

I had if there was ever a drought or whatever, and I’d
be able to draw it back up to create the lake I had
wanted. With the lake, I’d then be able to have
streams running out in all directions that would
cascade over the edge in really pretty waterfalls. Was
this mostly all for aesthetics? Yeah, but so what, I
wanted my Grove to be pretty.

I began to plant the trees a few meters from the edge,

but after only three of the things I was drained to the
point of dizziness and had to stop. Throwing most of
my clothing off, I fell into the grass with my
chlorophyll drawing in that sweet sunlight. It was a
strange feeling, being thirsty for sunlight, and soon I
was drifting in the warmth and bliss of the sun’s rays.

I felt my intake grow and grow, which I thought was

odd, but I didn’t dwell on it, my mind fuzzy with calm
warmth as it was. Why did it matter if I was getting
more sunlight than normal? That is, until I felt a
pressure on my stomach. My eyes creaked open like
the wonky door on the shed back at my parent’s
house and I looked up into the worried eyes of Grace.
She was speaking, but I couldn’t really hear her.

I couldn't hear anything at all? That was odd. I tried to

sit up, and it was a terribly slow process, like I was
wading through water or something in ugg boots.
Looking down at myself, my eyebrows shot up when I
saw that my skin had become… extremely plantlike,
overlapping leaves with little magenta flowers
sprouting from random points across me. Moving was
hard, my body refusing to deform with any speed at
all.

It was all rushing back into me now though, the

flowers and leaves growing in reverse, until finally I
was back to normal. Normal and almost naked. My
pale skin was vaguely pink with the sudden chill of the
wind. Crap, I was in my underwear again in front of
Grace.
“Where’s my clothes?” I asked, my voice sounding a
little rough, but otherwise okay.

“Um, here,” my friend replied, passing them all to me

in a bundle, her gaze very studiously glued to my face.
She looked concerned, brows furrowed with worry
again, although her cheeks were blushing up all pretty
again.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I hastily put my clothing

back on. She was rather clearly embarrassed by my
nakedness.

“You were like, full plant just then, it was… I don’t

know. Am I being too overprotective here? I keep
jumping up and trying to… you know, save you from
things and stuff. I don’t want to be annoying,” she
said, her expression tight and her eyes turning
downcast.
“What? No! I like it,” I told her sincerely. “It’s nice to
be cared about by someone.”

“Oh? Really?” she asked, looking back up at me with a

nervous laugh. “I totally thought I was being
annoying.”

“I haven’t really talked about my past… but um, I

haven’t really had the best experiences with family
and friends until recently, so it’s a bit of a novel
concept for me that someone actually gives a shit
about my wellbeing you know?” I said quietly. I hated
talking about my past, it was depressing and it made
other people depressed, so why bother?

“You hinted at it once or twice,” she said with a sad

smile, her hand coming to rest tentatively on my arm.
“I uh, guess I’ll just have to care more than you’ve
missed out on huh? ...Well, I mean like all of us, the
whole group I mean. Not just me, because that would
actually be weird,” she chuckled awkwardly as she
furiously backpedalled.

I found a smile on my face out of nowhere, briefly

wondering how it had gotten there before I just let it
happen and nodded. “We can all care about each
other lots, yeah.”

“Guess you have um, more planting to do and stuff?”

she said quickly, changing the subject.

“Yeah, it’s going to take me forever to get these damn

trees down, they take so much energy,” I grumbled,
frowning at them.

“Can’t they grow themselves?” she asked curiously,

walking over to press her hand to one.
“I don’t actually know? I figure it would take forever
for them to mature and the wind might break them or
something in the meantime,” I mused, but my mind
was already working. She’d given me an idea.

What if I didn’t have to be the one to push the growth

magic into them? What if I could make another plant
to do that for me? It would probably end up still being
slow, but faster than either planting them and waiting
or doing them three trees at a time and then passing
out, turning into a bushy version of myself in the
process.

“Oh Grace,” I said, giving her a grateful smile. “You

just gave me an idea.”

“I did?” she asked in surprise, before she sent a cocky

smile back. “Damn I’m good.”
“You are,” I said, a lot more sincerely than I meant to.

With the idea of funnelling magical energy into plants

to help them grow, I first needed to figure out what
was different when a plant drew in energy from the
base loam of the garden versus when I fed it my own
energy. To test it, I made my way to where the next
tree should go in the line and created the seed.
Instead of feeding it large amounts of raw power
though, I gave it the barest trickle of magic.

I could see it going into the seed too, it started as a

fluffy mist coming off my body, but it rapidly began to
twist into a small wispy tendril of energy. It was like
watching wool being spun into thread. Okay, so my
whole body was responsible for the creation of this
stuff, which meant I couldn’t really copy the function.

What was interesting to me though, when I really

looked at my body, was that it almost looked like I had
two bodies overlaid on top of one another. There was
the recognisable anatomy of a human there, pulsing
with magic and everything. There was also something
else, a less distinct side to my body that almost looked
like, well, the anatomy of a plant. I could see the
treelike structure of my plant veins and many more
pieces that I simply didn’t recognise.

None of that helped me with the task at hand though,

I still couldn’t really see how the growth magic was
being formed. Not that it would stop me, if I couldn’t
see the mechanisms my body used to create the
growth energy, I’d just figure out a different way to do
it.

I stood there and stared at the energy as it slowly

trickled out of my body, just watching it, tasting the
smell of it on my magical senses. It was definitely
magic, but… different. More like the elemental magic
that floated around out in the void than the basic stuff
alongside it. What if I just… could I mix some of those
elements together to create it? No, none of the
elemental magics felt like they would mix into this.

You know what, fuck it, I’ll just make it work on the fly.
I started with the roots as the collectors this time, like
I had with my first plants. From there I built the
framework of a small, hardy little shrub. Proper wood
and bark that was dense and thick enough to survive
any battering it might receive. The hard part came
when I got into the core of that wood. It needed to
convert that energy into that growth magic stuff as it
flowed up through the plant.

Taking a chance, I grabbed some of the energy I was

still feeding into the windbreak tree and pushed it
directly into the wood of the new plant. While it
flowed in, I began to create the building blocks for
that elemental energy converting plant I had seen
earlier. I didn’t go all the way though, suddenly taking
my mental hands off the shrub while simultaneously
pushing more growth energy at the mechanisms.
I watched with tense concentration as the two clashed
and broke over and over, until there was a little spark,
and suddenly it all fit together. I’d done it! The wood
of this plant would now produce growth energy!
Before it could fall apart on me, I very quickly formed
leaves and flowers, the flowers especially would be
releasing that growth energy, directing it at whatever
plant needed it nearby. Then I was throwing it into the
ground and planting a bunch of seeds for the trees I
needed to grow.

Eagerly, I stepped back to watch. The shrub was slow

to start, I could see it coming close to dying as it
struggled with the wacky plant magic contraption I
had saddled it with. It held in the end though and
soon enough the flowers were letting out a slow but
steady stream of growth energy towards my trees.
I gave a whoop of victory and leapt around in the air a
few times from the sheer excitement. Fuck yeah! I was
doing it! Magic!

“Whoa there bunny girl!” Grace laughed. “Enough

with the binkies, you’ll accidentally throw yourself off
the edge!”

“Bunnies?” I asked, yet another idea exploding

through my skull. Oh. My. Goodness. I knew what my
tenders would look like!

“Oh yeah, my family has two of them, they’re so damn

cute,” she replied, unaware of the path she’d just
caused my imagination to take. “When they get
excited that’s what they do, jump in the air all spazzy
like. It’s called binkies.”
She had no idea what she’d just unleashed upon my
unsuspecting Grove… no idea.

Chapter 27 :
We waited in the Grove for three days, and I spent
most of that time setting up the outer ring of trees
around the plateau. A few of the little growth bushes
kept dying off for reasons I couldn’t figure out, but on
the whole the system seemed to be working well, and
by the end of the three days I had the first layer
planted in its entirety. Grace kept me company for
some of it, but Troy began to hold training courses in
hand to hand combat and her time was mostly taken
up by that.

On the fourth day though, disaster loomed on the

horizon. An enormous storm front was threatening my
Grove from outside its bounds. It was strange, the
idea that storms could exist beyond the perimeter and
I wondered how that even worked. Until I took a peek
outside my Grove that is.

The storm was there in the form of a huge boiling

wave of energy, arcs of various elemental magics
flashing within its depths. It looked incredibly
ominous, and as soon as I saw it I was rushing back
inside to tell the others. Our stay in my Grove had
ended, and I just had to hope that all the work I had
done wasn’t wiped out by the time we were able to
return.

Leaving in a hurry as the gigantic dark clouds loomed

ever closer, each member of the group was in a circle
around me, guns drawn and aimed. We had no idea
what we’d find outside, so we just had to be ready to
fight back if our mark was watched.

Thankfully, were lucky this time, no one stood outside

except a few very startled birds. As soon as we’d made
sure no one the coast was clear, we took off south
through the farmland, hopping stone fences as we
went. With no road to follow initially, it was slow
going, but once we made contact with a farmer’s
backroad, we started making better time.

“Are we still going to go to Millowhall?” Grace asked

cautiously as we walked, glancing worriedly at Troy.

That was a concern of mine as well. With James in

Fennimore’s hands it was only a matter of time until
he got through the language barrier and learned of
Avonside’s existence. If he didn’t know already that is,
he’d called us aliens after all. Maybe word was already
spreading amongst those in power?

“Yes,” Troy said confidently, which had me confused

until he explained, “Either he knew about Avonside
already, or he’ll know soon, that much is certain, but
what is also certain is that James doesn’t know the
specific route we took to get here. Shit, I don’t even
know it since we don’t have any maps to go by.”

“Right, but like, they can still find it eventually, and if

we spend another month or two out here…” Adam
interjected, also looking worried for the folk back
home.

“There are two other important things to remember,”

Troy went on. “One, it takes time to assemble and
move an army, and two, there is a hell of a lot of both
distance and other nations between the two. We’re
smack bang in the middle of one of the largest powers
in the region, and from what I’ve managed to piece
together, they aren’t exactly fond of the folk from this
area.”

“Oh yeah!” I blurted, remembering what Cad and

Valda had said. “Some people I travelled with
mentioned that they had recently fought a war against
the Ghraiga. I’m not sure if it was the same war, but
like I said a while back, the man executed a bunch of
prisoners too. Maybe his dickish reputation will stop
him from being able to march through everyone else’s
lands.”

“There is that too,” Troy agreed. “So we get as much

info as we can during this trip, the type that might
help us stand against an attack when it comes.
Avonside wouldn’t survive regardless of if they had
advanced warning right now.”

“So we take our time and gather as much information

as possible, and just hope Avonside is still standing
when we get back?” Kit winced. “That’s pretty bleak
dude.”

“Hey, not just information guys,” I blurted, having a

brainwave of massive proportions.
“Oh? What do you mean?” Troy asked with a slight
smile.

“We have my Grove! We can dump as much crap in

there as we want and it will follow me wherever I go!
We could get our hands on like, a shitload of materials
and take it all back with us. Might take a while to
transport it to and from my Grove since there’s a
magical cost based on how much I’m moving in and
out, but still!” I explained with growing excitement. I
could get Bray all the metal he wanted with this! The
only problem was money…

“That is… a fucking fantastic idea,” Troy blurted, losing

his calm for a second as his eyes widened and his
expression shifted into a grin. “Wow, that will be
amazing, depending on what we can get our hands on.
Ryn, you’re fucking brilliant.”
“She definitely is,” Grace said with a grin that was all
dancing eyes. “Bray is going to worship you for that.
They were all complaining about low stores of
materials even before we left.”

“What can we trade for though? We’re not exactly

rolling in the local currency,” Adam frowned, thinking
hard.

We all went silent as we each worked the problem in

our heads. We had information, that was our biggest
asset, but not here with us, not really. It was all back
at the university, books and professors and stuff with
a sizable chunk of the information of Earth to pick
through.

“Everyone think on it,” Troy said after a moment.

“We’ll table the discussion until we have any ideas.
The very least we could do is walk around collecting
large rocks or something to help with construction.”
With the conversation halted, we continued to move
through the farming backroads for most of the day,
eating lunch as we walked rather than stopping. Every
moment we stayed close to the city was another that
our enemies could find us. Word had probably already
gotten out that Fennimore was looking for a group like
ours.

A few of the locals saw us, but they all kept their
distance, the armour serving its purpose of scaring
everyone away very well. No doubt mention of our
passage would reach the ears of our enemies at some
point. We really needed to ditch the armour in favour
of sets that were a little less conspicuous.

When the day began to close however, we ran into a

problem. Namely, where to sleep. I wasn’t sure if it
was safe to go back to my Grove yet, and I certainly
didn’t know any way to check. Which meant we either
risked me going back inside to take a look, or found
somewhere to camp.

Troy eventually made the decision to keep us out of

the Grove for now and we found a small copse of ash
trees to sleep in. No fire or anything, just blankets on
the ground and a watch set through the night. I
volunteered to stand watch with Grace during the
quiet early morning hours, because I wanted to keep
her company. Also because she was the person I most
wanted to spend watch with anyway.

My sleep was fitful, fraught with strange dreams that

made little to no sense, and I was almost grateful
when I was woken. Getting up quietly as Troy and Kit
went to sleep, Grace and I made our way to a small
bank of soil to watch the dark night around us.

Night time was something that still got to me, the

eerie dark of the night around us. Sure, the sky was
always bright with the day side of the ring, but the
land around us held no light but the distant barely
visible glow of a farmer’s hearth fire. There was no
bright smudge of city lights on the horizon or a line of
highway street lights off in the distance. Just raw
darkness.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts of the night and

what we’d lost, I turned my mind to Grace. There was
something I’d been meaning to ask of her since we
found each other again, but I could never get around
to mentioning it, so I took that chance now.

“Grace…” I began in that tone everyone uses when

they have a heavy question to ask. “How did uh, how
did the rest of our friends, or family take my um…
disappearance?”

She gave a quick glance sideways at me, opened her

mouth to speak, but then paused. She pursed her lips
and picked up a stick from the ground, beginning to
play with it as she formulated her response.

“Adam and Duncan, they took it the best. They were

upset, but of all of us, they were the ones who knew
you the least. Kelsey and Melody cried, they mourned,
but they kept moving too. You know that I was… well,
first they didn’t believe me, the admins. I had to insist
and show them the weird place where you got taken,”
she replied quietly, her voice sombre with memory.

“Then when they did, there were questions, so many

questions. The security dickheads wanted to know
everything, it was… awful,” she sighed, her hands
shaking a little now. “But it wasn’t as bad as Bray.”

“What did he do?” I asked, suddenly anxious. What

had happened?
“He wasn’t… he got angry at me first, for not stopping
you. We argued and it was just… he was torn up.
Really torn up…” she said, then paused and looked up
at me with a question of her own in her eyes. “When
you said you knew his type… what type is that?”

It took me a second to understand what she was

referring to, but when I did, I wasn’t sure if it was my
place to say. I hesitated, but then… I also wanted to
know where she was going with this. “He’s gay,” I
finally replied. “He’s still dealing with a lot of
internalised homophobia, some days he uh, really
hates himself over it. I tried to be there for him during
those times but… it’s hard. He isn’t an easy person to
comfort.”

“I thought so, because… well I think he might have

been in love with you Ryn, or rather, with the guy that
you were,” she said, a stray wisp of her short hair
blowing into her face as she spoke.
I watched that wisp for a moment as I processed what
she was saying. Shit… that was a lot. Bray had lost me,
his friend, but also… the person he’d fallen for, even if
I had never reciprocated. I wasn’t the best person to
understand love, I’d never felt it, or let myself feel it. I
lived in the world though, I knew what happened to
other people when they lost someone they loved.

Groaning, I placed my head in my hands. “Fuck, that

would explain a lot.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, a hesitant hand coming to rest on

my back. I twitched for a second, but then leaned into
the comforting contact. It was completely at odds with
my normal aversion to physical contact, but I really
liked it when she touched me. A frighteningly large
part of me wanted to just lean over and fall into her
arms, her soft, safe arms. She might not take me into
them though, and that fear of rejection is what kept
me in place.
“Did he stay angry with you?” I asked once I’d pushed
down the urge to press close to her.

“No, he came around eventually. We grew closer for it

in the end, but it was a hard few weeks,” she told me
as she idly stripped the bark from the stick she’d been
playing with. “He wanted to come along on this trip
with us you know, but they wouldn’t let him. Too
valuable where he is apparently.”

“Yeah I can imagine,” I smiled, thinking fondly of the

guy who’d been my best friend for a while now. “He’s
such a nut about metals and stuff. Has he gotten onto
you about swords yet?”

“Oh my god, don’t even remind me,” she chuckled,

miming a flourish with the stick. Putting on a terrible
impression of Bray, she continued, “Steel isn’t actually
just one metal you know! There’s so many different
types, and you have to make sure you choose the right
one for the weapon, or you may as well have used
lead!”

I gave a startled giggle as she performed her

impersonation. While the voice was off by a whole lot,
her words were the exact ones I’d gotten when I first
dared to mention that most hallowed of metals in his
presence.

“He’s such a dork,” I grinned, smiling into the night as I

took a trip down memory lane. “Can’t wait to see him
and the others when we get back.”

“Me too,” she sighed. “Almost as much as I want a

nice hot, high pressure shower.”

“Wait, did they get the plumbing sorted?” I asked,

suddenly very excited for the idea.
She raised a hand and shook it side to side. “Sorta,
they were working on it. Materials were low though.
Takes a lot of metal to run a pipe out to one of the
rivers.”

I laughed then as an idea occurred to me. It was a wild

one, a crazy one for later on… but…

“I could make a shower in my Grove,” I murmured as

the idea was still forming.

“Wait, you could?” she asked eagerly. “How?”

“I mean… so long as a plant has like, all the right parts,

it can be pretty much any shape it needs to be right?”
I said, a cocky smile forming on my lips.
“You…” she breathed, excitement glittering in her eyes
so brightly I could see it even in the dark. “Please do
that!”

“I totally plan to!”

Chapter 28 :
The next two days saw us travelling like this, avoiding
main roads and the occasional patrol. The patrols
weren’t Fennimore’s men thankfully, but rather the
local men-at-arms doing their rounds. Still, being seen
by them would be bad, they had surely heard of what
had happened back in Ritodunum.

I wish we knew what the actual local politics were like.

Medieval politics like the ones in this region were
usually very… loose with their allegiances. Lords
within the same kingdom were known to go to war
with each other over lands and resources sometimes.
It was kinda nuts how much was allowed between the
nobility.

For this reason, we might be able to find a

sympathetic lord or two who’d be able to help us in
some way. I’m sure there was someone who’d love to
throw a few coins at us just for wounding the guy.
Especially given the fact that this wasn’t even his
nation we were in right now. Sure, their capital cities
were a day’s trip by river barge away from each other,
but that might not mean much politically.

That day as we plodded wearily along, we began to

grow suspicious of the number of patrols going past
us. They were all riding or marching hard in the same
direction we were going, but the weird part was that
they barely spared a glance in our direction.

It was about the time that a full forty armoured men

on horseback rode past with lances held high that we
realised that this wasn’t about us. The eyes of the
riders were hard, but many also wore expressions of
dread. Which begged the question, what were they
worried about?

“I don’t like this,” Troy said, calling us to a halt.

“There’s shit going down up ahead.”

“Do we try and go around it or what?” I asked, looking

down the road like I might be able to catch a glimpse
of what was happening.

Troy frowned and did the same as me, his expression

deep in thought. Finally, he sighed, “We’ll continue
until we know for certain what’s happening. I have a
feeling we’ll want to know what’s going on rather than
get blindsided when it rides us down. Information is
key to us right now, and anything we can observe here
might be useful.”
With the decision made, we continued, although guns
were loosened in holsters and helmets were put on.
For my part, I had worn my magical disguise, which
also had the added benefit of telling me that at least
those plants were still alive. Now I put on my physical
disguise too, wrapping the scarf tightly around my
face.

Around us, the farms were quiet as the folk who

usually tended them were making for their houses and
closing up. They had realised that bad things were
happening too, it was difficult to ignore the steady
stream of soldiers riding in the direction we were
talking. Even the very air seemed to thrum with the
tension of it all.

Wait.

Was that thrum just tension? It seemed just a little

more physical than simply my imagination. Something
was making a very odd noise up ahead of us, and for a
moment I was trying to listen for whistling, but caught
none.

“Do you hear that?” Grace asked in a hushed whisper.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It almost sounds like… like a swarm

of bees having a fight with a chainsaw.”

“That is an incredibly… accurate description actually,”

she said with a dark laugh.

“Bodies,” Troy interrupted simply, and we all jerked

our gazes forward.

I gulped and quickly looked away almost as soon as I

saw them, but it was too late. The image was burned
into my brain. A pair of farmhands were burned and in
multiple pieces, each cut to their bodies having been
cauterised as it was made. It reminded me of how
lightsabers made wounds but it was more… visceral in
person.

We all looked to Troy, who just nodded us onwards. I

was a little terrified now, what the hell had caused
this? Was it a mage? Who just killed random
farmhands like that though?

As we turned a corner on the road around a line of

trees, a small village came into view, no more than
twenty or thirty buildings in total. Many were on fire
in small ways that threatened to become a blaze to
level the whole place if it wasn’t contained. At least a
hundred or so soldiers stood a ways back from the
entrance to the place, the mounted knights and men-
at-arms we’d seen earlier off to the side, but no one
was making a move into the village.
Soon a group of villagers ran out, ten or so of them,
women with babies in hand, children following. They
rushed towards the gathered men with tear streaked
faces, eyes wild with fear. I saw no men. I held my
breath as they neared the massed soldiers, but they
weren’t cut down like I’d been suspecting. Rather,
they were directed to the back and given water and
first aid by a small gathering of retainers.

We approached quietly but without guile, stopping

some twenty yards from the villagers and retainers. I
could make out their terrified rambling from here, and
what I heard was chilling.

“There’s none left, we’re… they all died, it killed

everyone else!” one woman was wailing, clutching at
her confused and scared looking toddler.
“You’ll stop it right, you’ll stop that thing?” a teenaged
looking kid was asking, his face stained with ash. “It
killed my dad! It killed my dad!”

“We sent for a mage, child. There was one back at the
Angenver inn, but… we don’t know if she will deign to
help us,” one of the retainers said. “We will keep you
safe in the meantime and try to hold it back.”

Before I could relay this back to to my friends… “it”

came crashing through one of the external houses. It
stood at almost two storeys tall, made of a shining
silvery metal that was pitted with age and ancient
battle scars. Four legs extended crablike from a central
chassis, their outside surfaces broad and aesthetically
curved into what looked like steel shields capable of
stopping even armour piercing rounds from a modern
Earth military.
The central chassis was shaped like a wedge to deflect
projectiles, and sprouting from the shoulders of the
thing were two arms of similar construction to the
legs. On their tips however they bore the distinctive
barrels of projectile weapons. The head of the thing
was a small football shaped lump of metal sitting deep
within the shoulders. It bore no sensor equipment as
far as I could see, but it was turning and rotating as if
surveying the massed troops. This had to be a steel
one!

I was running forward before the others even realised

it. I didn’t really care if the soldiers were our enemies
or our allies, but I knew that I didn’t want to see them
slaughtered.

“Ryn!” Grace cried from behind me, her feet pounding

on the dirt of the road in an effort to catch up. “Shit,
Ryn!”
Idly, a small few of the mounted men turned to watch
me as I ran. None of the massed soldiers in the way
made any attempt to move though, every one of them
standing transfixed by the enemy in front of them. I
heard that terrible raw thrum again, rising in pitch,
and I looked across the massed heads to see energy
building in one of the cannons protruding from its
forearms.

A beam of deathly red energy lanced out from the

weapon, running an arc through the massed troops,
cutting every one of them it touched as though they
were sliced by a huge molten blade. I wasn’t in the
path, but two dozen people must have just been cut
down by that beam, and I staggered to a halt just
behind the last of the ranks, staring at the mess of
bodies in awed dread.

People were shouting around me, the knights were

now charging it from the side, crossbows were firing,
their bolts ineffectually bouncing off the metal hull of
the terrible mechanical death machine. Some men
were turning to flee, others charging headlong into
the path of the second beam just as it fired.

Atop the steel one, the chassis opened at the

shoulders to allow two extra twin guns to rise on
smaller arms. They took aim and began a rapid fire
hissing as they hosed the crowd of men down with
buzzing bolts of energy. Half of the men before me
were already dead or dying, their wounded cries for
help crashing into my psyche like the projectiles that
had taken them.

I had my will though, my power of mind. Being a mage

had taught me that, and I focused, pushing the horror
of massed human suffering out of my mind. I was a
damned mage, I’d crush this awful thing into a scrap
of tinfoil and pass out bleeding from my ears if I had
to.
Pulling my disguises from my face, I raised my arms
towards the steel one. I sent my mind-vines rushing
out towards it, lashing them around each of the four
weapons. Gripping tight, I yanked them upwards with
all the strength of will that I could manage and simply
held them there. As soon as I had my vines on it, I’d
realised my mistake. I wasn’t powerful enough to
crush it. This was all I could do, keep the weapons
pointed away from the poor men around us.

The knights saw their enemy mysteriously waylaid and

rushed again, hacking at it with swords that did
nothing but ring uselessly off its steel hide. They
needed to go for the joints, damn it! They might be
able to fuck its joints up, but their current approach
wasn’t going to work.

“Ryn,” Grace gasped from beside me, staring at the

carnage around us in horror.
“They need to go for the joints!” I ground out through
clenched teeth. “Their swords are useless if they keep
hitting the damn armoured plates.”

“We should be leaving!” Troy replied hotly instead,

coming up on my other side. “But… since we’re
committed, we’ll see what we can do. I can see a few
points that our guns might do some damage too, but
I’m not confident. Keep that thing’s weapons pointed
away and we might have this.”

“I’m sorry! I just… these people!” I cried guiltily,

feeling tears running down my cheeks at all the misery
around us even as my head began to pound in
earnest. Shit, had my stupid actions gotten us all
killed?

Troy gave a grunt and nodded, “Hang in there kid. The

rest of you, come on, it looks like we’re playing hero.”
“A little warning would have been nice, but yeah… it’s
the right thing to do,” Grace sighed, her voice tight as
she finally looked up from the bodies. “After you
boss.”

“Sorry,” was all I could manage through the increasing

pain in my skull. “But please hurry. This really hurts.”

They were off, rushing towards the evil death robot

across the carpet of bodies between. I watched
through the narrowed slits of my eyes as Troy raised
his gun and took careful aim, popping off shots at
some small area I couldn’t see. The others joined in,
gunshots ringing loud even over the cries of battle.

It didn’t take long to see that the bullets weren’t

working, nor the swords of the knights, and certainly
not the pathetic crossbow bolts fired by some of the
soldiers. Nothing was doing anything, not even my
vines could crush it. Instead, my powers simply bound
it helpless but impervious. That is… until my grip on
them failed.

With one large spike of pain, my vines fell away into

nothing, and the arms of the ancient machine fell back
into position, weapons humming with promised
death.

Chapter 29 :
Grace moved quickly, her hand plunging into one of
the pouches at her hips. She took something out,
something so jarringly out of place that it took my
brain a second just to figure out what it was, even
though I had seen its like plenty of times before. It was
her phone.

She lobbed it wide with a hasty flick of her arm and it

went sailing off to the side of the huge, menacing
mechanical monster. The reaction from the robot and
its charging weapons was immediate. It swivelled and
shifted its position, each weapon coming to bear on
where the tiny device had landed. There was only a
split second’s hesitation before each weapon tore into
the phone and the ground around it like a battleship
firing off a full broadside.

What the hell? Had Grace known it would do that? As

one, my armoured friends rushed to the side away
from the guns as they poured still more fire into the
ground where the phone had probably long since
ceased to exist. Rather than raise their weapons again,
my party stared at it helplessly. There was no point,
they couldn’t do anything.

Grace didn’t stay still for long however, as she turned

and picked up the sword of a downed soldier. Hefting
it, she moved forward towards the robot and
proceeded to jam the sword into one of the leg joints
where it met the chassis.
“Ryn!” she called urgently. “Can you hammer that in
with your telekinesis?”

Taking mental stock of myself, I realised I still had a

little energy to give, and it was refilling rapidly. Too
rapidly, it didn’t refill this fast even when I went full
shrubbery mode. Was the storm somehow effecting
my energy reserves?

Rather than ponder the reasons for it, I shrugged and

formed my mental vines into one huge knot, then
crashed it with all my might into the pommel of the
sword. There was a grinding sound as it was
hammered into the machine, and the leg went
abruptly limp.

“We got a leg!” Grace exclaimed triumphantly, right as

the Steel One turned its football shaped head around
to stare at her.
Before the guns could come to bear on them, what
was left of the knights came back, their lances ringing
the metal of its chassis like a gong. Except this time,
the machine staggered slightly and the sword that was
wedged inside it ground just a little deeper with the
movement.

“Good job friends!” the man at their front called as he

galloped past with his now broken lance still in hand.
“Damn good job! Let’s see if we can’t do some
damage to this thing before it takes us all eh?”

There was a ragged cheer from what remained of the

ground troops, and they rushed it again, swords
questing for the joints as Grace had done. Damn, they
were brave if nothing else. Kinda like my team and I.
The beams and autocannons fired again, but with so
few people left standing, they weren’t as effective. It
seemed accuracy hadn’t been a priority in this thing’s
design.
I was about to capitalise on a sword placed by Adam,
when I heard a single set of pounding footsteps on the
road behind me. “Oh, by Gosbari’s tits,” a feminine
voice swore behind me in an accent I’d never heard.
“Fuckin’ late and now people are dead all over the
fuckin’ place. I knew that last pint was a bad idea.
Always decline the last pint.”

I turned in surprise at the words, my eyes falling on a

woman next to me. She wasn’t a human woman
however. She was pretty, in an angular sort of way,
with large golden eyes that shone in the sun. Her hair
was just as golden and almost offensively bright, its
metallic sheen leaving after images in my sight.

Sprouting from the sides of her forehead were two

twisting golden horns that arched back over her head.
She wore a well tailored but rumpled black suit with
silver accents, the trousers of which ended in… in
hooves rather than boots. I could see golden fur on
the back of her neck and around her hooves, as well
as the backs of her hands.

“Well, better get to work huh, gorgeous?” she asked

me with a wink, disappearing out of thin air with the
thump of displaced air.

She reappeared above the steel one, somehow having

drawn a cavalry saber in the process, the edge of
which glowed with a dark edge. She swung, the arc of
her blade cutting straight through one of the smaller
autocannon arms like it wasn’t even there.

I clattered to the ground, but she wasn’t done. The

other guns swung up as hard as they could in an
attempt to blast her out of the sky, but she was gone
again, wrapped in dark energies that spirited her away
to safety.
She landed nimbly in the dirt near where the phone
had been, her sword at the ready. The steel one was
just as quick to take aim again, but she simply stood
there with a cocky little smile tipping the edge of her
lips. All three remaining weapons poured fire at her in
a deadly volley of energy, but in that exact same
moment of peril, she thrust forward with her sword
and a magical shield the colour of silver flashed out in
front of her.

Every crackling bolt or beam that hit that shield flew

right back at the steel one in a destructive wave that
tore great glowing rents in its armour. The other
autocannon arm was blasted from its socket, twirling
through the air to land several yards away in the grass.
Somehow each of the reflected attacks had missed all
the gathered people attacking it too, which had me
raising an eyebrow.

Her sword seemed to extend, blue glowing magic

increasing its length by a considerable amount. Not
wasting any time, she dashed forward in a line,
straight under the legs of the machine, twirling in a
circular slash that cut each of the four limbs in half.
She was out the other side as it crashed to the ground
with a groaning sound, stumps flailing as it tried to
twist itself to face her.

Summoning the dark edge to her sword again, she

approached it with a casual stride. Wandered up to it
as it struggled, she tilted her head to the side and
promptly drove her sword dead center into its chassis.
It stopped moving immediately, every limb going limp
as the internal workings that kept it moving ceased to
function.

Silence descended over the battlefield as she yanked

her sword free, the dark edge gone, replaced by the
mundane silver of steel. She inspected her blade with
a frown, brushing her finger over the flat of it. With a
slight nod of approval, she flicked it back into the
sheath at her hip, and turned to survey the carnage
around us.

“Well, that’s a load of shit ain’t it?” she called to no

one in particular as she surveyed the dead. “What in
the hell is this bastard doing in the middle of Aberg
lands anyway? Didn’t you lot get rid of all of them? I
mean granted, he’s a small one, but still!”

“Aye, we were just as surprised as you were, my lady,”

the lead knight called as he trotted up near her.

I slowly began to pick my way through the bodies

towards my friends as they spoke to each other, but
my attention was most definitely focused on this
conversation.
“Lord Dinveria, greetings,” the non-human woman
said, giving him a nod. “Apologies for my late arrival. I
had a rather long night last night.”

“I am well aware of the reputation of Eilian the

Golden,” he chuckled, just a slight note of bitterness in
his voice. “I was planning to have to hold out until the
afternoon.”

Eilian’s response was a snort of amusement, and then

her eyes fell on me with a spark of interest. My party
was making their way over to me as she stared at me,
and soon the Lord was turning to watch me too.

“And who would you be?” she asked with an open

smile.
“Uh,” I squeaked, feeling very self conscious and off
balance both by her self confidence and the death
that was littered around us. “My name is, um… Ryn.”

“Ryn? I’d have heard of someone with such perfect

beauty as you possess. Where do you hail from?” the
lord asked curiously.

“Avonside,” I replied as my party members came to

stand with me.

“Ryn of Avonside eh? And this lot?” Eilian asked,

gesturing to my friends.

Damn, this mage chick was just so damn confident.

Even her posture as she surveyed us was just casually
commanding in a way that drew the eye of everyone
around us. She seemed to be almost… good? At least
not an asshole like Fennimore. She wasn’t going for
my throat or anything, so that was nice.

Turning to the people in question, I gulped and

whispered in english, “They’re asking who you all are.”

“Crap, do we really need to think of a name?” Grace

asked.

“Order of Eleos,” Kit blurted, and we all turned to him

in question.

He gave a sheepish laugh and shrugged. “I’m a history

nerd, there’s an old greek deity called Eleos. She
represented mercy and compassion, which is kinda
what we want to be about right? So… the Order of
Eleos.”
Troy gave a nod, “It’s irrelevant what we call
ourselves, so sure, go ahead. We can come up with
real names if we need them later.”

I kinda liked it though, and it felt like more than just a

name to hand over in the here and now, this moment
felt important to me. Like we’d just unofficially
decided to be something new, a beginning that might
one day turn into something great.

Turning back to the mage and the lord, I told them,

“Uh, the Order of Eleos.”

“Well, I extend my thanks to the Order of Eleos,” Lord

Dinveria smiled. “That was a timely intervention. We’d
have all been slaughtered long before Lady Eilian
turned up if it weren’t for your timely aid in delaying
the beast’s rampage.”
“Uh, cool. Yeah, no problem,” I smiled, still feeling
exceedingly awkward. I mean, I was talking to a
hotshot mage chick, who was also just very attractive,
as well as some old looking lord dude wearing a very
brightly polished set of armour.

“You’re a mage right?” Eilian asked, pointing to my

hair. Uh oh, here we go.

“Yup,” I replied warily, suddenly feeling like maybe

this was a dangerous situation all over again. Possibly
more dangerous than the huge robot.

“That was an impressive use of raw power there, but if

you’d like I think you could do with some… pointers,”
she said wryly, but there was a note of something else
in there, something… almost flirtatious in her
expression.
“Let me ask my friends?” I asked worriedly. What kind
of pointers was she interested in giving me?

Beside me, Grace shifted to stand closer, and I glanced

over into her reflective helmet visor. Damn helmet,
hiding her expression from me. Had she noticed the
weird way the mage was talking to me?

“What’s she saying?” Grace asked quietly.

“She wants to give me… um, magic tips,” I replied,

trying to keep my expression neutral.

“That could be beneficial if she isn’t being

disingenuous,” Troy hummed, tone thoughtful.

“Should I accept?” I asked them with bated breath.

“I’d say so,” Troy nodded. “I doubt we could stop her
if she has any intention to do us harm anyway.”

“True,” I sighed, then turned back to the alien mage.

“Sure, that would be nice. Thank you.”

Chapter 30 :
After I’d accepted Eilian’s offer of some magical
pointers, she’d decided to follow us for a portion of
our journey. She apparently had a ship to catch in
Norishin, the furthest city up the river that ocean
going ships could visit, so she only had a few days with
us.

Lord Dinveria’s lands were some of the last before we

entered the nation that Lord Fennimore called home,
and as such it would be nice to have the added
magical muscle to deal with any of his goons. We’d be
crossing through the nation for only a day or so, this
area being a very thin strip of owned land, so we were
just hoping to dash across without being noticed.

“Sorry for the staring,” I told Eilian as we walked down

the road towards the unguarded border. “We’ve just
never seen an Obrec before.”

“Aye, I know. I’ve heard that about you lot, you’re ah…
new,” she nodded with a cheeky, twinkle eyed smile.
“Heard you wounded that peacock Fennimore too, if
the armour is anything to go by, which is why I’m
offering my assistance. Aren’t that many who’d call
him an enemy these days, so it’s best to make sure
the ones that exist live long enough to cause him
trouble.”

“You don’t like him?” I asked curiously.

“Of course not!” she exclaimed, throwing a hand in
the air for emphasis. “The man killed my mage father
after all, lovely old man who took me in after… well, a
lot of shit went down back home. Anyway, point is,
the man is plain evil and he has very little regard for
the word no, so there’s that too.”

That was good to know. She was at least a potential

ally as far as Fennimore went. It was also good to
know that there were still people around here who
didn’t like him. Made me feel a little less alone in this,
so to speak.

“He attacked my mage mother too, I don’t even know

if she’s still alive,” I sighed, trying not to let thoughts
of Esra’s fate haunt me.

“Oh, who was she?” Eilian asked with a raised

eyebrow. Dang it, did her eyes have to dance like that
all the time? It was distracting the way she seemed to
be coming on to me with a simple question.

“Esra Rihm,” I told her quietly, as if my lower volume

might keep her from having a bad reaction to the
name.

“Oh! Esra!” she exclaimed, watching me with a new

light in her eyes. “You’re her new apprentice? Damn,
that’s some luck! I saw her in someone else’s grove a
few nights back. Wasn’t looking the greatest, but she
was alive, so don’t worry about that.”

My heart leapt at her words and a smile bounced into

place on my face. Esra was alive! She was alive! I
already felt like I could breathe easy again, one of
many worries put at ease.
“Really?” I asked, and continued into a delighted
ramble, “Oh thank you! I was worried. She was nice to
me, even if she was like really grumpy about it. It’s
crazy that someone can be both a huge grump and
also really nice, it seems like they should be mutually
exclusive, but somehow she managed it. So yeah… I’ve
um, been… worrying. Yup.”

“No problem,” she smiled, again with that little

sparkle in her eye. Was it just the golden colour of her
eyes?

“What are you talking about?” Grace asked from my

other side, and I turned to look at her. She’d been a
little off since the fight and I couldn’t figure out why.
She certainly wasn’t saying.

“She just told me that she saw my mentor alive a few

days ago in someone else’s grove,” I replied, giving
Grace a smile that I hoped might cheer her up.
“Oh nice, that’s good news,” she said, her eyes flicking
from my face to Eilian’s and back. “Is she helping with
the magic stuff too?”

“Not yet,” I shook my head, and Grace made a

humming sound that was almost disapproval.

Why was she so agitated right now? Surely she didn’t

distrust Eilian that much. She was acting like she had
to be near me at all times or I’d find myself impaled by
the smiling obrec or something. I know I’d said I
enjoyed her being protective, but this was a little
much.

“Your friend doesn’t seem to like me,” the Obrec

mage remarked dryly.
“She’s just protective of me,” I said placatingly in
Anve. Sure, I might be a little critical of Grace in my
head, but I was definitely going to defend her if
someone else even hinted at badmouthing her. “She
thought I was dead until like five days ago and she’s
worried I might disappear on her again. She was
asking about magic stuff anyway.”

“Ah yes, magic stuff,” she chuckled, a finger straying

to the pommel of her sword. “I guess we should get to
it shouldn’t we? Tell me, what spells do you currently
have?”

“Uh, none that are very useful,” I blushed with

embarrassment. Some mage I was.

“Not even a shield?” she asked, looking genuinely

surprised.
“Ah, no… I have a disguise flower and a flower to track
my friends through our rings,” I murmured.

Gosh, I really should have spent more time on combat

spells. Still, I felt like any attempt to make anything
complex would end up with it being torn from the soil
by the winds of my grove.

“Well that’s not the greatest,” she said with a straight

face. “It would be easiest just to get you to make the
plant in your grove, but I’m assuming that I haven’t
gained enough trust for that yet, so I’ll have to explain
a few basic components for you.”

Well, that confirmed the idea that you weren’t

supposed to just invite any old random into your
grove. Guess I should start screening people or
something.
“Oh we can’t go into my grove anyway,” I smiled.
“There’s a magic storm crashing over it right now,
place is uninhabitable.”

“A… what?” she asked, her eyebrows rising into her

hairline.

“A huge magical storm!” I said, waving my arms

around in an attempt to indicate size. “It looked like a
normal big storm inside my grove, but when I went
outside it was like this huge cloud of boiling magical
energy! It was nuts, we ran away as soon as we saw
it!”

“That is… not something I have heard of before,” she

said, looking slightly baffled now. “But regardless,
here’s a few components you can use to make some
useful combat spells…”
From here on the conversation turned very technical,
and it was strange to see this sweet talking
swashbuckler suddenly get nitty gritty with magical
details. It seemed that even though she liked her
women and her drink, she was still a magic nerd like
the rest of us.

She explained about the different types of shields.

Shields geared towards fending off certain elements
with high efficiency, shields geared towards blocking
magic in general with less efficiency, and shields
geared towards mundane attacks like crossbows and
the like.

“How did our bullets hit Fennimore if he probably had

a mundane shield up then?” I asked with a frown.

“The man is a stickler for energy conservation.

Knowing him, he probably only had a shield strong
enough to stop a heavy crossbow bolt or two. Those
weapons you’re toting look like they pack a
considerably stronger punch than that, if that fight
back there was anything to go by,” she said with a roll
of her eyes directed at the absent asshole.

Further questions revealed that Eilian wasn’t sure how

Fennimore had survived the hole in his chest, but that
the idea that he’d gained some extra protection was
worrying. Mages were apparently supposed to die
pretty easily to that kind of thing, just like normal
humans, and she promised to spread the word that
something was up.

From there the conversation moved on. She began to

explain how the different types shield could be given
form via the plants of a grove. It was interesting, the
different techniques she was describing. I thought I
had seen a few plants like that when Grace and I had
been out observing the wild ones, and now that I
knew what to look for, I might be able to discover
some fun alternatives.
She also explained her own style of combat a little.
Telling me how she liked to imbue her sword with
properties and powers rather than just flinging magic
around like other people tended to do, and I honestly
thought it was pretty cool. Not my style, but still it was
inarguably effective, not to mention impressive to
observe, which I suspected might have been the point
of it all.

I decided, after the quick little combat magic

introduction from Eilian, that it was about time I
started teaching my friends how to speak Anve. They
were rough with it currently, but seemed eager to
learn. Especially Grace, who had been constantly
asking me what Eilian was saying during lulls in the
conversation.

When the day wore on into the evening and we

agreed to stop for the night, it was at an inn rather
than some random copse of trees. We figured with
Eilian around and Fennimore supposedly still
wounded, we’d be able to avoid any problems. Plus,
that lord from back at the battle with the steel one
was not a fan of the magical dickhead, and the lord of
this place swore fealty to him.

The village was a bustling one as far as villages went.

This was because of its status as the last town before
Fennimore’s nation, Anverleik, and it saw a lot of
traders come through. There were even a few slightly
more specialty shops that would cater to traders and
travellers, such as a shoemaker and a saddlemaker. It
was honestly quite a nice little town, with its
protective castle on a hill half a mile or so away.

The inn was similarly bustling, with a large common

room and plenty of happy travellers settling in for a
night of drinking. They even had music, which was
something I hadn’t heard in a long time. We
approached the innkeeper as he was finishing up with
another customer and the man almost immediately
plastered a smile on his face.

“Hello! What can I do for you and your party lady

mages?” he asked with a kindly smile, his eyes on me
and Eilian.

Right, I wasn’t wearing my disguise, and I don’t think

Eilian knew the meaning of the word. It made sense
that he’d assume we were the leaders of the little
party, given the culture around our kind.

“Two rooms, three men in one, two women in other,”

Troy said in his halting Anve, gesturing to our party
and earning a surprised look from the innkeep. Yup,
he definitely hadn’t been expecting one of the
‘guards’ to speak up.

“Ah… yes. Good good,” he said, a little taken aback.

“A single room for me thanks, my good man,” Eilian
said with a pleasant smile. “Make it the nicest you
have available.”

“Yes, of course,” he nodded, turning to look at a

ledger he had behind his bar. He frowned as he stared
at it, then glanced back up.

“We have the room for you, my lady,” he said, looking

at Eilian, but then his eyes shifted to my friends and I.
“However, I am afraid I have no more double rooms
available. Only the triple and a four man room.”

“Ah, problem,” Troy frowned, then turned and

glanced a question at Grace and I.

“Well, I’m sure the three of us cou—“ Eilian began to

say, but Grace cut in over her. “Single room, big bed?”
Wait, was she suggesting that she and I sleep in the
same bed? Oh no, I couldn’t… that would be even
harder to deal with than normal! I could already feel
my cheeks heating at the thought of what might
happen. Or rather, what my wandering mind wanted
to happen, even if I knew it wouldn’t. Wait damn, did I
really want something to happen between Grace and
I? No, I was just… it was the embarrassment. Stupid
attraction, why couldn’t it leave me alone?

The innkeep frowned as he tried to parse what Grace

was talking about, but eventually he checked the
ledger again and nodded, “Yes, we have a… couple’s
room available.”

Couple’s room. My cheeks heated even further and I

had to stare at my feet to avoid seeing anyone notice
how embarrassed I was getting. Eilian would totally
catch on to my reaction. Grace and I… in a couple’s
room. My thoughts jumped to cheesy love hotels with
big heart shaped beds and mood lighting and… oh
gosh. Still, there wasn’t really an alternative was
there, and it’s not like I wouldn’t… enjoy it, just a little
though. She was a good friend, so of course I’d enjoy
being close to her like that. Yup. Definitely.

“We’ll take that one,” I murmured, just loud enough

for him to hear.

“Very good, I’ll see about having them all freshened

up for you,” the innkeep said happily, and I further
melted into the floor as everyone else ordered food.

My excitable mind was already conjuring up thoughts

of accidental touches and soft skin, lips placing
gasping kisses down my neck as I… oh my word. Just
like that I was further exploding into a mind-numb
mess of embarrassment. I was so screwed. Also there
was some evapotranspiration happening in a
particular area due to those thoughts and it was
making things difficult. Someone please send help!

Chapter 31 :
With the rooms sorted, we headed off to find a table
for our group. Grace stuck closer to me than I was
used to, and I was going from flustered to confused
and then to worried about her. Something was
definitely bothering her

The group sat down wearily, tired from all the walking
we’d been doing recently, as well as the battle today. I
made sure I sat down next to Grace, and while
everyone else was getting settled, I leaned over and
placed my mouth close to her ear, whispering, “Are
you okay Grace? You’re acting funny and it has me
worried about you.”
She turned to look at me first with confusion in her
expression, then there was a flicker of something, just
the barest hint of sadness. “What do you mean?” she
asked as she covered up the split second lapse.

Her face was so close, her lips just inches from mine,
but I couldn’t back away. It was as though there were
a magnetism between us in that moment, and it took
all my self control just to keep myself in place. My
heart was pulling me towards her, tugging at my chest
insistently.

“You’ve been upset all day,” I murmured, searching

her deep green eyes for any hint of what might be
bothering her.

Grace looked like she might reply, but then she shook
her head instead. “I don’t want to talk about it here.”
I watched her for a little longer, an intense wave of
affection for her washing over me. Something about
seeing her vulnerable and trying her best to hide that
fact had me feeling caring and protective of her. She
was so important to me, the way she always had my
back, was always on my side no matter what. Even
when I’d fucked up and rushed into that battle earlier,
she’d done nothing more than politely ask that I warn
her beforehand.

Before I could really think on it, my arm was coming

up to wrap around her waist in a quick, awkward
sideways hug. “We can talk in our room later then,” I
told her gently, hoping my smile would cheer her up a
little.

Judging by the shy smile she sent back at me and the

way she leaned into my little hug, I figured I’d made
the right move. “Okay. Thanks Ryn.”
I made to pull my hand back but the way she was still
leaned slightly against me made me hesitate. I opted
to keep my hand lightly resting on the small of her
back while I leaned back into her. Neither of us
mentioned the contact as we turned back to the group
at large, finding only Adam watching us in that
moment.

He glanced between us for a second, and he gave us

the tiniest of nods before he turned back to Eilian,
who was saying something to him. My eyebrows shot
up when I noticed that her hand was resting on his
forearm.

I was quiet as conversation ebbed and flowed around

us in mostly broken Anve. I helped out in translation
where I could, taking those moments to try and teach
my friends in the process. Other than that, I was done
with talking in general. I’d been the face of the group
for a while and it was quickly overwhelming me. The
sooner everyone else could speak Anve, the better.
The food arrived, a fairly standard roast that had little
seasoning. Another thing we’d taken for granted back
on Earth was the abundance of spices available to us.
Only the rich and powerful would have access to them
now. Well, and mages I guessed as an afterthought. I
could probably set up greenhouses and the like in my
grove for— oh my goodness. I knew how to buy
power back in Avonside. I had the perfect plan. Coffee.

My peaceful abstention from the conversation was

brought to a grinding halt by Eilian, who asked, “So
Ryn, please indulge me, but what is it you do with
your time when it is not spent galavanting around the
place getting into hopeless battles?”

Looking up from where I’d been poking at the

remnants of my food, I had to think about her
question for a moment. “Uh, I guess I used to just
watch TV shows a lot, or study for my exams.
Sometimes my friend Bray would get me to play
games with him, although I was always really bad at
the ones he liked to play. I like to collect pillows too.
Oh! And reading! I love reading stories.”

“I did not understand half of that,” she chuckled with

a shake of her head. “What is a tee vee shaw?”

“Oh, um,” I said in surprise, forgetting that she’d have

very little context for half of the things I’d just spoken
about. “It’s like… theatre. A play, but it’s recorded by a
device that lets you see it at any time you want to.
Like on a… crap, it’s really hard to explain. There’s a
lot of things about our culture that are just going to
sound like gibberish to you.”

“I’m starting to gather that,” she murmured, her eyes

taking on that weird sparkle again as she leaned
forward across the table towards me. “Would you be
willing to show me these things? Maybe I should visit
this Avonside of yours, hmm?”
Oh gosh, just when I thought I’d escaped from this
sort of attention from her, she was trying again.

“U-um, we… I don’t have any of that stuff on me,

sorry,” I told her, clumsily tripping over each syllable
that I spoke.

“I throw the last thing for this away to stop metal

thing,” Grace told her haltingly in Anve, and I turned
to see her expression wasn’t the happiest again. I
think it was time to get her out of here.

Adam piped up in his own messy version of the

language, and Eilian was back to listening intently to
the large guy as he tried to explain what a show was.

“Grace, want to go back to our room and get ready for

bed early?” I asked hopefully.
“Oh my god, please,” she breathed, relief pouring off
her in waves. “I want to get out of this armour and
find a damn bath.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said with a little giggle. “Well, except

the armour, because I’m not wearing any.”

“I know what you meant, you goof,” she smiled before

she downed the last of the weak beer they had served
us. To the group she said, “Hey everyone, Ryn and I
are going to go to bed early.”

“Night,” the guys nodded, while Eilian gave us both

the flirtiest smile I’d seen on her yet. “Have fun girls…”
she teased.

That set my cheeks aflame and a quick glance at Grace

revealed embarrassment flaming up across her face
too. She looked so damn pretty when she blushed, it
made me want to reach up and place a kiss on her
reddened cheeks. Obviously I couldn’t for reasons
written all across her face right now. I could see it in
the way she was avoiding my eyes. She didn’t see me
that way, even if I was a girl now.

“Let’s go find the baths,” Grace mumbled, leading the

way without looking back at me.

God damn it, why did Eilian have to say that? Now
Grace was all weirded out and things were going to be
so damn awkward for us when we went to bed. This
was lame.

The baths were all small, cramped single person affairs

that didn’t have the warmest water in the world, nor
was the soap all that great. This led to a rather short
bath that left me cold and tired. Getting dressed in
sleeping clothing inside the bath seemed like a smart
idea while I shared a room with Grace, so I put on my
loose linen shirt and a new pair of underwear.

I trudged up the sturdy wooden stairs towards our

room, having gotten directions from the innkeeper.
Honestly, I just felt shattered in general, the walking,
the constant attention from everyone as I had to be
the bridge between the group and the world due to
the language barrier. Even my feelings for Grace were
exhausting me. It was a pretty foregone conclusion
now that I was interested in her romantically, which
meant that I was going to be diving into unrequited
crush territory whether I liked it or not.

I sighed and pushed open the door to our room,

finding her already laid out on the bed with her eyes
closed. She wore simple clothing now, and it looked
like she’d only have to take off her cloth pants in order
to be ready to sleep.
I could tell by her breathing that she wasn’t asleep,
just resting her eyes, so I murmured a greeting. “Hey
Grace.”

“Hey,” she murmured sleepily, cracking an eye to look

at me for a moment.

I dumped my belongings on the floor next to hers,

closed the door and locked it, then padded across the
room to my side of the bed. Lifting the covers, I
slipped inside and rolled to face her. There was a
single candle burning in the room right now on the
bedside table next to her, and it gave her a ruddy
orange glow that had my eyes drinking in the sight of
her. She was so pretty, so wonderful. My heart began
to ache watching the gentle rise and fall of her
breathing.

“Grace?” I asked quietly. “Why were you upset

today?”
With a sigh, she turned her head to look at me. “Isn’t
it obvious?”

I shook my head, it wasn’t, at least not to me.

“That Eilian chick. She’s been hitting on you all day,

and not subtly either. I just… I don’t trust her, at least
not as far as you go. I don’t want you to be hurt by
someone like her,” she told me, looking away again.
Her eyes stayed glued to the ceiling as she said, “I felt
like she wasn’t really going to leave you alone until
you said yes. I don’t know. I fell for something similar
once, and it wasn’t fun.”

“She did stop in the end though,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, only after she decided to settle for Adam. No

offence to the guy of course, but not even Eilian
herself is as stunningly beautiful as you are,” she
replied with a snort.

“It wasn’t working, you know that right?” I said gently,

and again I was unable to stop myself as I reached out
to tentatively touch her shoulder. “I’m a virgin, and I
know that like, it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. At
least to me. I don’t want a random hookup with
someone I’ve known for less than a day to be my first
time.”

“You are?” she asked, looking at me in surprise. “But

even before you got changed into a girl you were
attractive, in a nerdy sort of way, and that’s coming
from a lesbian. You’re also like, an amazingly good
person.”

I bit my lip and looked down at the pillow next to me

for a moment, judging how much I wanted to tell her.
I closed my eyes with a grimace as I made a decision,
steeled myself, and then opened them again with
resolve.

“I didn’t want to be in a relationship because…

because I hated myself,” I told her truthfully. “I hated
that I was… male. I am almost one hundred percent
sure that my mage fruit turning me into a girl wasn’t
an accident.”

Grace rocked back, her eyes widening as she took a

long, deep breath. “Wow... I should probably have
realised that, in hindsight.”

“I figured, what the hell is the point in even bothering

you know? I wasn’t even sure if I was interested in
girls or guys, not entirely,” I shrugged bitterly. “Plus, I
don’t have the greatest track record with love in all its
other forms too.”
“Oh, Ryn,” she murmured sadly, her hand coming up
to take mine where it had been sitting on her
shoulder. “I’m sorry. That makes a lot of sense, in a
very depressing sort of way.”

“I’m okay now, I think. I’m certainly happy, and I don’t

know… I feel so good just existing now,” I said, forcing
a smile that soon became real as I thought of how
happy I was to be Ryn.

“Thank you for telling me,” she smiled, giving my hand

a squeeze. “You definitely seem happier this way,
even with people trying to kill us.”

“Thanks for not being awful about it,” I said in return,

absolutely loving the way her hand felt over mine.

Gosh though, just the feel of her skin was sending

little sparks of sensation up my arm. We stayed like
that together, just holding hands and watching each
other for a long time. I felt so connected to her in that
moment, and I could almost imagine that we might be
able to go further than friendship one day.

Her expression seemed to be wavering into sadness

though, and I squeezed her hand quickly. She took a
breath that didn’t sound entirely stable and said, “I’d
never be awful about something like that, and
especially not to you. You’re… a large reason I still feel
sane on this ring. Out of everyone on it, you’re the
one who actually, truly seems to care about me.”

“What about the others?” I frowned, confused.

She shook her head. “Yes and no. The girls are too
caught up in each other to pay too much attention to
me. Bray and I are great friends, but there’s a
disconnect between us and he’s always busy. Duncan
was pretty cool, but again, he’s been so damn busy
with the plumbing stuff. Adam has been a great friend,
but I don’t really relate to him on a deeper level than
simple friendship and camaraderie. It's like the whole
dynamic in the group broke a little when we thought
you'd died.”

I knew what she meant. The few good friendships in

my life had been fine, but there was a level beyond
that, and I wasn’t talking about romance. Having that
person in your life who really got you, deep down at a
wordless, emotional level was so important. The type
of friend who felt so solid in your life that you knew
you could always depend on them. Grace not having
that, isolated in the Avonside community regardless of
how many people are around...

“You’ve been lonely,” I blurted in understanding.

Her lips thinned and her brows furrowed as she visibly
fought with her emotions, and I was shuffling over to
comfort her in an instant.

“Please let me hug you?” I asked, beginning to

struggle with sympathetic emotions of my own.

“Yes,” she gasped, rolling over to bury her face in my

shoulder without any more invitation.

My hand went to the back of her head, where I began

to gently stroke her soft blonde hair. My poor friend, I
wished she didn’t think she needed to be strong all
the time. It was okay to let other people hold the line
every now and then. My other arm was trapped
underneath her for a few seconds while I struggled
with my own empathetic emotional response, but I
managed to shift it until I was cradling her torso. She
was silently crying against me, her body making these
little quivering motions that had me pulling her even
tighter to me.

“I miss my family!” she cried, her voice muffled by my

shoulder. “The one back on Earth. I miss my little
brother, I miss my mom. I miss my dad.”

“I know,” I murmured, pressing a careful kiss to the

top of her head. My heart felt like it was being
wrenched from my chest with every silent sob that
shook her body.

“There’s so much pressure, so much shit to deal with,

people to protect. Then I find out that it could all
mean nothing, because the enemies we have out here
are so fucking powerful that we might lose regardless
of what we do!” she said with a tone that was part
despair and part anger.
“We’ll figure it out,” I whispered. Then thought of
something that might have a small chance of helping.
“I don’t know if this helps, and I haven’t told anyone
this Grace, but… I am significantly more powerful than
I should be for a newly born mage.”

“What do you mean?” she asked rolling over to make

tear-filled eye contact.

“The amount of raw power I’ve started with in this

body is like, crazy. I don’t know exactly how much, but
Esra was surprised and a little awed by it,” I said with a
shrug. “I might be able to eclipse that asshole
Fennimore sooner than we think.”

“That’s… good news,” she said, swallowing hard. “Do

you think you can?”
“We’ll see, but I’m hopeful,” I told her with an attempt
at a smile. “I wish we could just ask him to go away.
Diplomacy would be so much easier and save so many
lives.”

“I don’t think he’s interested in talking about anything

but himself. But… you being powerful, that gives me a
little more hope, I think?” she whispered, her eyes
drifting down to my neck in thought. “I guess it’s my
job to help you survive long enough to make it there.”

“No,” I shook my head. “It’s your job to be you, to be

Grace. We’re friends, best friends… family even.
Whatever you want to call it. We’ll help each other. A
team.”

“Okay,” she said with a smile of her own. “I like that,

that’s a nice way of thinking about it.”
I felt my worries over her easing, and I allowed myself
to just lay there and look into her eyes for a moment,
my arms around her. It was odd, being the protector
for the moment. Grace was usually doing that for me,
but I was more than happy to fill this role when she
needed it. I’d do pretty much anything for her, if I was
one hundred percent honest with myself. Somewhere
in this short week together, I’d grown to really, truly
care about her.

Chapter 32 :
My dreams were filled with the smell of death and
burning flesh, and it caused me to shake awake long
before Grace. Violently pushing the memories of the
battle out of my head, I tried to steady my breathing
and my erratic heartbeat. I’d managed to hold the
images of the battle at bay for most of yesterday, so
much had been happening, but it seemed that my
subconscious had decided to hoard them.
After I’d calmed myself down, I opened my eyes to
find Grace sleeping peacefully beside me. I had a
decision to make, get out of bed quietly and begin my
day, or lay in bed and watch her like a total creep. I
chose the total creep option, because I wanted to be
here when she woke up. I had no fully formed reasons
for wanting this, I just did. My heart needed it.

As her breathing was starting to shorten a little,

indicating that she was just coming out of sleep, I
drank in the sight of her sleeping face. She was on her
side, having travelled all the way across her pillow
until she was almost falling off the end towards me.
Her shortish blond hair was a mess, spiked up in all
directions and she had just the tiniest of smiles on her
lips.

Letting out a huge sigh, her eyes fluttering open and

blinked blearily at me. My heart practically exploded
with all the feelings that seeing her wake up induced
in me, but I managed to outwardly keep my cool.
Internally, not so much.

“Hey,” she smiled, her voice deliciously husky with

sleep, and I swear I melted right there in the bed.

These feelings were getting out of hand fast, way too

fast for me! Frantically I searched for the breaks on
the train, but I found none. I was doomed.

“Morning Grace,” I whispered, my emotions robbing

me of any volume above that.

Her arm reached lazily out to smooth my hair down

for a second or two, and I closed my eyes in bliss.

“More walking today,” she reminded me as she took

her hand back. “We should get up.”
“I don’t want to,” I mumbled, still enjoying the after-
image of her hand on my head.

“Come on,” she chuckled, the bed shifting as she got

out on her side.

Damn it, how was she able to move this early in the
morning? She was such a morning person, whereas I
felt like I needed at least a few hours before I could do
anything other than grumble helplessly.

****
Our journey continued onwards after the monumental
task of getting out of bed. We stumbled through
breakfast and said our goodbyes to the innkeep on
our way out. We had a lot of ground to cover and we
wouldn’t be getting much rest as we essentially
passed through what was now enemy territory.

One thing I did notice was that Adam hadn’t actually

emerged with Eilian from her room. Whether this
meant they had slept together or not I couldn’t tell. I
wouldn’t have minded Eilian’s advances so much if I
was at all experienced in the area of casual sex, but as
I had literally no experience, it had been awkward.
That, and I had a full blown crush developing on my
friend right now, which meant to my eyes, every other
woman seemed just that little bit dull compared to
Grace.

Whatever had happened last night, that didn’t stop

the Obrec woman from hitting on me a bunch more as
she told me about a few of the more novice combat
spells she knew. I was a lot more interested in her
mind than anything she could offer me with her body.

Passing into Anverleik was as simple as walking past a

set of border markers, although off in the distance we
could see watchtowers on both sides. It was strange,
going from the rigid nation state structure of Earth to
the mess that was the european style feudal system.
So far as I could tell now, the region was a mix of the
different gaelic cultures, with some french and
german thrown in over the top.

I was starting to think that the gaelic people had been

the first ones “imported” to the area, followed by a
sampling of a few more european cultures as the
years and centuries marched on. It ended in a
language that was predominantly alphabet salad
mixed with some stolen words from the romance
languages and then a few guttural additions from
ancient germanic ones.
We didn’t get to explore the local culture much this
time however as we powered through towards the
border with Noroshin. A relatively neutral country as
far as we could tell. Fennimore and his liege lords
were still in the process of expanding their power in
the region.

The tense walk only got worse as a few patrols passed

us by, and we could tell they recognised us too. They’d
stare anger at us, every inch of them spoiling for a
fight. Except… they didn’t, because they could see that
there were two mages in the party. Our whereabouts
were obviously being tracked though, and anxiety
began to build within me with each step I took.

I walked next to Grace the whole way, almost on top

of her really, because her proximity had a huge
calming influence over me. It also had the added
benefit of keeping Eilian at bay just a little.
“You okay Ryn?” Grace asked me quietly as we
walked.

Glancing up at her I shook my head. “Nervous, really

nervous.”

“Same,” she said with a tight laugh. “The sooner we

get across that border, the better.”

“Yeah, I hate knowing I’m in Fennimore’s stomping

grounds,” I frowned, watching the road pass under
me.

“That, and Eilian is parting with us once we reach the

river crossing over in Noroshin,” she murmured,
earning an eye roll and a smile from me.
Approaching the Border as afternoon fell, we noticed
that we had a tail. A group of men in what looked like
some sort of hunter or ranger’s garb were following us
at a safe distance on horseback. They didn’t seem to
be making any moves right now, but it had my gut
churning with worry. Were they somehow reporting
our progress to an ambush party up ahead?

When the first border watchtower came into view,

even easy going Eilian was fingering the hilt of her
sword nervously, her eyes flicking back and forth
across the fields and pastures around us. Surely they
would try something, right? It would almost be
surprising if they didn’t attack us.

Moving past the tower though, and nothing came, no

troops springing from the crops around us, nor mages
or knights. Each step towards the border marker
bringing nothing but a tension so tight you could
strum it like the strings of a guitar.
The marker stones were now just a few hundred yards
away, then fifty, then ten… and then we were over.
The danger wasn’t gone though, because it was pretty
well known that borders, even marked ones like these,
were at best a suggestion rather than a concrete line.
Our tail did mysteriously disappear when we crossed
the border though, which was nice.

“Do you think they’ll try attack us on this side?” I

asked Eilian, who shrugged helplessly.

“I have no idea, if I’m honest,” she said. “You humans

do things strange, that’s for sure. Even a vagabond like
me has respect for the forests, but you lot seem to
just cut them down wherever you please. ‘Course you
don’t come from the forests like us Obrec do, it ain’t
in your blood.”

“Maybe the ones that have been on the ring for a

while are like that,” I said, shaking my head with a
frown. “But I’d like to think that those of us from
Avonside are a little better about it.”

“Hardly,” Kit snorted. He’d been the fastest to pick up

on the Anve language, and it showed now. “They were
burning the fucking amazon last I heard before we got
portaled over here.”

“Amazon?” Eilian asked, curious now.

“Big-ass jungle back on Earth,” he replied. “Absolutely

massive, biggest on the planet. But obviously that
doesn’t matter to those hungry for wealth.”

“Greed is the way of most races I’ve met,” Eilian

sighed, glancing up at the dark side of the ring.
“Neither of our races is even the worst for it, not by a
long shot.”
“That not frightening at all,” Grace muttered
sarcastically in anve, loud enough for everyone to
hear.

“Aye, exactly,” Eilian nodded, and the two shared a

glance that could almost be called cordial.

The sense of apprehension that we’d felt as we waited

for the an attack that hadn’t come turned to
restlessness as we closed in on the river. A bridge
came into view, along with a crossroads that sat
before it. This was where we’d be saying goodbye to
our Obrec travelling companion.

“Alright, guess I’ll see you all whenever I get around to

visiting that town of yours,” she said with a smile. “It’s
been interesting travelling with you!”
“Yeah, you too. Thanks again for saving us back at that
battle,” I told her, finding that I still kinda liked her,
despite all the flirting and whatnot.

“Not a problem, anything for a pretty girl,” she

winked. “Especially considering you’re Esra’s kid. Us
children of the Scalmeis coven need to stick together
after all, it’s not like there’s many of us left.”

“The Scalmeis coven?” I asked, suddenly confused.

Children? What?

“That group of mages that Esra and my old man were

part of,” she replied as she walked backwards away
from us. “Ask Esra when she tracks you down!”

Then she was gone, trotting off down the road with
her hooves kicking up dust and her horns shining in
the sun. Damn, what a wild woman.
“Time to cross the river,” Troy told us, wasting no
time. “Ryn, I’d like to try for your grove tonight rather
than sleep in an inn. I’m not going to trust the locals
until we’re far, far away from that man.”

Crossing the river here looked like it was just a little

dangerous. The bridge was another one of those old
ring builder ones, but unlike the one I’d seen earlier in
the city, this one had seen far better days. Pockmarks
and blast patterns indicated it had been the site of an
ancient battle, and there were even a couple of husks
that looked to be steel ones scattered about. They
were very obviously ruined, but it was a little terrifying
nevertheless.

Metal creaked and sang in the breeze as we moved

across, but the bridge held. I guess people had been
using it for millennia before us and it hadn’t fallen
down, so it probably wasn’t going to keel over now
either.
Once safely on the other side, we turned off the path
and made for the nearest copse of trees. It was here
that we prepared to enter my grove again. We
hunched down and centered ourselves in case the
wind was strong, then turned to Troy to give the
word.

“Everyone ready?” he asked, glancing between us all.

Nods from all around. “Alright, take us in Ryn.”

I did so, reaching back and sideways towards the

fabric of reality with my mind. I grabbed hold of my
friends and pushed us across. Then the light changed
to the familiar dusk of Earth, and we sighed in relief as
our feet stayed under us. Nothing but a breeze to
greet us.

I smiled and straightened, only for Grace to give a

choked gasp. “Oh my fucking god!”
I turned towards where she was looking and my
breath stopped in my chest. My tree… my happy tree
in the middle of my grove… It had grown! My eyes
followed its new form up… and up… and up…

“That’s no moon...” Kit whispered in awed disbelief.

Chapter 33 :
“Shit! It’s still growing!” I blurted as I switched to
mage sight.

It most definitely was. How though? What was causing

it to shoot into the air like this? I could see large
amounts of growth energy all through the tree, and I
followed the stream of power down into the ground.
When I saw what was happening, I let out a strangled
squeak of a laugh and turned to look out to the edge
of my grove.
Sure enough, because I’d designed those windbreak
trees to be a certain height, they hadn’t grown past
that point. The smaller shrubs hadn’t stopped
pumping them full of storm-fuelled growth energy
though, and with nowhere to go but to follow the
water down, it had all pooled in the aquifer down
below the plateau. Right about where the roots of my
now enormous happy tree was able to get at it.

The store of growth energy below us was truly

staggering to my eyes, and with the tree still sucking it
up and growing at a frankly alarming rate, I knew what
I had to do. It was time to shape this thing into a
house.

“Guys, I need to work, magic stuff. Please don’t

disturb me,” I said quickly, sitting down cross legged
and closing my eyes. Distractions could very well ruin
what I was about to do.
I vaguely heard their alarmed voices around me, but
someone shushed everyone else up and I was able to
concentrate. I needed to change the internal
blueprints of the tree first, so I got to work designing
it. I created a ramp, made out of a root that led up to
the base of the tree. From there I created an entry
hall. The entry hall would have two large rooms
coming off it that I intended to be storage. I didn’t
think we’d want to cart things too far up the tree.

I then created a central imperial staircase, a stair that

ramps up from the middle of the floor until it hits the
back wall, where it splits in two to travel up each side.
The landing wrapped all the way around the second
story of the room. It was then connected to a balcony
outside the tree by several open archways. This was
where I got a little tricky. All across this balcony I
created twisting supports that reached from the outer
edge up in a curve to the trunk again.
Spanning between these supports, I formed windows
made of the same plantlike crystal that I’d used for
some of my first plants, effectively creating an indoor
living room balcony area with plant glass. I wondered
what it would look like at that scale. Would it have
little plant veins running through it?

Opposite the imperial staircase and above the

doorway on the second floor, I began a spiral staircase
that would be the spine of the structure. I carried it
up, creating simple floors with windows as I went.
Each window was different to the broad sheets of
crystal I’d used earlier though. These were several
overlapping leaves of crystal that could be pushed
open to allow air to filter in. It wasn’t perfect, but it
would have to do for now. Leaving out any internal
walls for the floors I had yet to give purpose to, I
turned to the next problem.

Bathrooms, and how to make them work. The easy

part was the baths, which I created three of. They
worked in a similar way to the windbreak trees,
collecting magical energies from the nameless garden
and transforming them into water to be poured into
the tub. From there I mimicked Esra’s bath with the
water constantly flowing rather than using an on-and-
off tap.

From there I realised I had another opportunity.

Separating the baths from the toilets, I created
different rooms and ran that bathwater along
channels into a group of stalls that would serve as
toilets. Enclosing the channels apart from where
someone would sit, creating the toilet seats
themselves, I moved on to how I would deal with the
waste.

Ideally I’d purify it and allow it to join the lake I

wanted to create, but I had no idea how to do that
right now, so instead I ran that channel all the way
down the tree and into the ground, where at least the
waste would feed any plants that needed it. I would
almost certainly be running into problems later, but
for now it would have to do.

Bathrooms and toilets designed, I moved on up the

tree some more. I began to straighten out some of the
branches at a level that would be quite high up,
flattening out their tops and producing broad
walkways. The same as I had down at the second story
balcony, I wrapped those in plant-crystal and the
supports that it needed to stay upright. There, I now
had the start of some greenhouses!

Lastly, I needed kitchens, lights and a way to heat the

whole place. I just had no idea how to do any of those
things right now. Wait… no, I could do the lights. I’d
seen the leaves of the outside ring of trees glowing as
they collected energy, so maybe if I created some
flowers internally that took in energy and… possibly
converted it to heat?
I just had to be careful with how much heat I allowed
them to take in, because too much and it might
overheat and damage the tree. I decided to stay safe
and have them more as dim ambient lights rather than
anything solid right now. Except in the case of the
bath water, where I allowed them to collect more. The
flowers there were fully submerged in the upstream
side and would hopefully keep the water warm. They
would however dissipate their heat into the structure
of the tree and keep the place warm. Ideally though,
the tree itself would regulate temperature using its
own instincts and base processes.

With everything I could think of in that moment

accounted for, I ran through the whole tree to make
sure that the normal base functions could still do their
job, rerouting important parts as needed. Nutrients
still needed to flow up and down the trunk. In the
process of double checking everything, I noticed a
problem that the tree was already having.
There’s a certain height limit to each species of tree
based on how high they can pump water up from
below. My fir tree had run into this problem as it was
forced to grow unnaturally large as magic was
pumped into it. To help with this, I copied the
mechanisms of my windbreak trees again with water,
but ran them in the other direction. It seemed to
work, at least in my mind simulation, and so with a
few final touches like some extra balconies all the way
up, I pushed the new instructions into the real fir tree.

I opened my eyes to watch and saw immediate and

explosive growth. The staircase up into the entry hall
burst out of the side, grinding up the soil as it pushed
through like a bulldozer. Rippling up the tree like a
wave, my alterations took hold. Windows formed, the
second story balcony erupted out in a ring and high
above us the greenhouse branches twisted into being.

“Holy shit!” Grace exclaimed, her neck arching

upwards.
“Did you just turn your tree into a… a fuckin’ house?”
Adam asked incredulously.

“That isn’t even a house!” Kit laughed in excitement.

“That’s a full-on tree wizard’s tower!”

“Oh my god, you’re right!” Grace grinned, turning to

me excitedly. “When can we go in?”

Seeing their reactions had me grinning like an idiot

and my ego prancing around in the grass nearby. After
chasing my ego down and forcing it to sit still, I told
them, “Let’s give it like an hour or so, I’m hoping it will
slow down a little, because otherwise we might all end
up as tiny people in a giant’s house.”
“This is the most ridiculous shit,” Troy said with a
disbelieving shake of his head. “Like fever dream
levels of weird.”

“It’s amazing is what it is!” Grace burbled, taking a few

steps towards the bloody great happy little tree.

“I have to warn you all though, I wasn’t able to get any

sort of kitchen in yet. I didn’t know how to create
enough heat to cook with while keeping the whole
place from burning down,” I said in warning, then I
grinned at Grace. “There are baths though. I made
sure of that!”

Grace gave a wordless cry of happiness and lunged for

me, sweeping me up into a hug that had my legs
dangling uselessly in the air. Startled, my arms went
around her shoulders for support and I held on for
dear life as she carried me around in a quick circle
before placing me back on the ground.
“I can have a good bath! Civilisation at last!” she
yelled up into the sky exuberantly.

I wandered away as Grace celebrated her impending

bath, trying my best to recover from her woman-
handling of me. I’d only felt it a few times now, but
there was a warmth spreading through my lower body
that was pleasant in some very unique ways. Arousal
was… nice, even if I was feeling it because my friend
had just picked me up like I weighed nothing.

Approaching the edge of my plateau, I found much of

my previous hard work destroyed. My water collection
trees were much like Grace’s hair had been this
morning. A mess. A few had been torn out by their
roots and flung over the edge into the mists, while
some were broken and dead. I even found a branch
from my big fir tree that had impacted one section like
a meteorite from space, crushing everything in its
path before it came to a stop teetering on the edge of
the cliff.

My growth energy plants had been whipped to within

an inch of their lives, but they were bouncing back. I
suspected that the massive excess of growth energy
had sustained them and the trees that hadn’t simply
snapped in half or whatever. All in all about sixty-five
percent of my plants were still alive, which was bad,
but also better than I’d feared.

Deciding to be useful, I picked up a few of the dead

branches with my telekinesis and began dragging
them back to the others. We may as well cook our
food over an open fire in the middle the grass fields
until I figured out our kitchen problem.

“Hey, I have firewood,” I called as I got back to them,

dumping the broken remnants of my trees nearby.
“Oh, ouch,” Adam said with a sympathetic laugh.
“Guess the storm wasn’t just the tree version of
viagra.”

“Nope,” I sighed. “A bunch of my work was wiped out,

but I mean… I got that thing out of it, so I can’t really
complain,” I said, gesturing to my enormous wizard’s
tree. It was slowing down now, the energy required to
make my changes using up a lot of the growth energy
that had been stored in the water below.

“I’ll start a fire then,” Troy said, bending down to pick

up a twisted and broken piece of tree. Then he looked
up at me with a smile. “This is amazing Ryn, crazy, wild
and amazing. Good fucking work.”

“Thanks,” I grinned, turning up to look high into my

tree’s branches. I really had done good work. Wait, oh
no, my ego! It was hopping away again!
Chapter 34 :
Dinner was quick, warming up travel food didn’t really
take long and wasn’t much more appetising that way.
I needed to create some food related plants as soon as
possible. Coming back to the grove in the future after
a day of travelling and picking some fruit to eat along
with the hard tack and dried meat would be amazing.

We made sure to put the fire out, then approached

the huge ramp that ran up the top of a root. There
weren’t any railings as such, but the actual smooth
wood of the path was carved about a foot into the
root, giving us clear guides. I realised that I had made
a mistake as we walked up the path towards the open
front door. This was going to become one hell of a
water slide when it rained. I’d need to fix that when
the next storm rolled around though. I certainly didn’t
have enough growth magic within me to fix it
manually and the reserves down in the aquifer were
almost drained.
The big entryway itself would need to have a gate
made for it eventually, but for now it stood open.
Stepping across the threshold, we found ourselves in
the vast entry hall and the initial impression of the
place had a slow self satisfied smile pulling at my lips.
Oh my gosh, it was gorgeous. The floors were the
creamy colour of fir wood, organically smooth as
though it had been polished for decades. The outer
walls where they could be seen were bark, while any
that didn’t edge with the outside were the same light
colour as the floor.

The staircase railings were wrapped and twisted vines,

delicate light giving flowers providing a dull glow from
the supports. The walls were littered with them too
where they sprouted almost at random. The effect
was like a night full of little flower shaped fireflies that
lit the room with a muted orange-yellow glow. It was
like we’d stepped into a fairy tale elven hall or
something.
“This is… wow,” Grace mumbled from beside me.

I turned to her with a grin. “Isn’t it?”

“How far up does it go? How many floors?” Adam

asked in wonder, his voice echoing as he walked into
the middle of the room and looked around.

“So far there’s twenty or so, but until I figure out a lift
or something, I don’t think we’ll be going up too far,” I
smiled, pointing to the spiral staircase that began
above us. “That’s the only way up or down right now.”

“Right, the old sky scraper problem,” Kit nodded

thoughtfully. “We really need to get you some books
in magic. Damn, I’m so jealous about the whole magic
thing.”
“I’ll be able to turn others into mages one day,” I said,
glancing a grin at Grace. “We’ll work on that part.”

“Future mages aside, how did you set everything up?

How many baths, bedrooms etcetera?” Troy asked, a
grin on even his face. I enjoyed getting full, genuine
emotions out of the stoic man.

“Three baths and bathrooms, then all the other floors

are empty. I have some reserve energy that I’ve saved
to use in creating interior walls as needed. I figured
we’d see how much space we had and how much
people needed, then create some bedrooms and
stuff,” I shrugged, then pointed to the staircase.
“Should we go and see?”

“Lead on, lady of the house,” he said with a gesture

forwards.
I did so, taking them up the huge central staircase. It
was magical really, and not in the literal sense. Sure, I
was walking up a staircase I had created in my mind
and willed into existence with wild and barely tamed
powers, but it was also all mine and that made it so
much more magical to me. It was all one hundred
percent mine and no one could try to claim otherwise
without brute force magical attack. I had a home, a
place of safety, and it was beautiful.

We moved up into the large, circular balcony and

living room area and I stopped briefly to explain my
plans for it. I saw people lounging in the warm sun,
reading a book or working on some portable craft.
Hell, even typing on laptops or whatever. I wanted a
sort of calm cafe vibe with it, plenty of tables and
comfy armchairs and sofas, that kind of thing.

Then it was time to go up the stairs. The first floor was

a bathroom and toilet that would service the areas
below as well as two floors above, so we headed in
and I showed them around. The single bathroom stalls
were especially dim, and we didn’t have toilet paper.
I’d forgotten sinks too… damn, I’d have to make a list
or something. We’d have to wash our hands in the
bath canal after it had left the bath itself.

The bathroom itself was… well, mood-lit is the term I

think. The firefly flowers dotted the walls and roof,
and I already had ideas to add a few variations on the
colour when I had time to experiment. Grace didn’t
care about any of that though, because when she
dipped her hand into the warm, clean water of the
bath she gave an audible moan that had the insides of
my thighs tingling.

“I know you promised to make me a real bath Ryn, but

this is amazing,” she told me with a funny looking
expression on her face. It was like her eyes were
drinking me or something, the way she was staring.
“I did hope you’d like it,” I smiled, feeling a little shy all
of a sudden.

“Before you run off to claim one of the upstairs baths

for yourself, let’s sort out bedroom arrangements. I
think that if we have the chance, each of us would like
some privacy. We’ve been in each other’s company
for nearly a month and a half now and after that
skirmish yesterday I think we could do with some
rest,” Troy said, moving us forward. I think he might
have been a little tired and just wanted us to get a
move on.

With a round of nods from everyone, I ushered them

all back into the stairwell and up to where I figured I
wanted the bedrooms. The empty floors were really
just that, a huge space about one hundred feet in
diameter.
“So uh, I guess for now we can use this floor for
bedrooms?” I said, motioning around. “I can make the
interior walls however we need them. We won’t have
doors or anything though, I think we’ll need to get
them made later on.”

“Alright,” Troy nodded, his expression thoughtful.

“Until we have doors then, I think it might be good for
yourself and Grace to have a floor for yourselves? If
that’s alright, this is your domain after all.”

Glancing over at the other girl in the party to see what

she thought, I saw her nodding enthusiastically. “Yes,
definitely a good idea,” she said quickly.

“Alright, uh, I’m thinking maybe a central hang out

area and then have the rooms running off like spokes
on a wheel,” I told them.
They all agreed, and so I took hold of the residual
growth energy around us in the tree and changed the
blueprints to match what I wanted. The floor was
enormous at around ninety feet across, so all the
rooms would be rather large, even giving a huge
amount of space to the central common room. I
created new light giving flowers in each of the rooms
and then since I didn’t actually need to be up there for
it to work, I did the floor above us in the same way for
Grace and I.

“Alright, done!” I said as the walls were finishing their

own construction. I’d designed the walls to be very
insulating and heavily soundproof, in case that was
needed by anyone. It might help keep things private
even with the empty holes where the doors should be.

“Damn, this is… it feels a little like cheating,” Kit

murmured in appreciation. “Not that it actually is, but
if you could replicate this back at Avonside… a lot of
our problems would be solved.”
Troy barked out a surprised laugh and turned to look
at Kit, “Damn, I didn’t even think of that. Why didn’t
that cross my mind? It seems so obvious now. We’d
need more than just Ryn as far as mages go, but it
could solve some future problems we’re bound to run
into.”

“Strategy talk tomorrow, sleep now,” Grace groaned,

already moving back towards the stairwell. “Coming
Ryn?”

“Goodnight girls,” Adam laughed, waving as I followed

my impatient friend.

There was a round of goodnights from the rest of

them as we followed the spiral stair up to our own
floor, which had already finished its transformation.
“So uh, we take separate rooms?” Grace asked,
staring around the expansive space. Damn, it needed
furniture.

“I… guess so,” I said quietly, doing my best to hide my

disappointment. I liked sleeping in the same room as
her now. It made me feel safe.

“Alright, I guess it’s goodnight to you too?” she said

with an odd expression, not quite meeting my eyes.

“Yeah… I guess so,” I smiled awkwardly, but I didn’t

make a move towards any of the rooms.

We stood there for what felt like minutes, but was

probably only seconds. What was going on? Why was
this so awkward?
Abruptly, Grace took a few quick steps towards me,
pulling me into a brief hug. Then she was off towards
one of the rooms, disappearing inside. I was deeply
confused now, my poor heart struggling to beat back
the emotions that threatened it.

I made my way towards the room next to Grace’s and

dumped my pack by the door. Time to try and sleep I
guess.

****

“Hello everyone, sorry for all this confusion. I’m happy

to say that the University doesn’t appear to be in
any… immediate danger,” said the old man from
admin, his cheerful tone raising the hair on the back of
my neck. “We all ask that you be patient while the
staff try to get an understanding of the situation we
find ourselves in. What I can tell you right now is that
we are running on backup power generators situated
within the university grounds. We are not receiving
power from the outside world.”

“Yeah and what world is that?” Duncan yelled over

the heads of the gym that was packed full of university
staff and students.

The old administrator opened his mouth to speak, but

rather than words, a sudden, deadly beam of red
energy lanced out, slicing Duncan in two at the waist. I
stared in horror as the two halves of my friend’s body
slid away from each other, charred innards slopping
out onto the floor. People were screaming now,
struggling to get up and out of the gym, an enormous
steel one bursting impossibly from within the old
administrator.

Bray was cut down next, stray fire from the shoulder
mounted auto cannons tearing him into chunks even
after he’d already died to the first bolts. Watching the
raw meat of his body twitch with the shots sent me
dry heaving as my confused mind tried to process
what was happening.

People were dying everywhere around us in brutal

ways as the walls came tumbling down, more steel
ones climbing over the rubble to claim us all for the
grasping hands of death. It was just like the battle
outside the village, people screaming, crying, dying.
Nowhere was safe this time, there was no cocky mage
to save us, only more particle beams lancing through
the air, motes of dust sparkling along their length as
they were incinerated.
“Hey, Ryn!” Grace said, from next to me, looking
worried but far less worried than she should have
been. “Ryn, it’s okay. It’s okay. I have you, it’s okay.
You’re safe.”

The words of Grace in the Avonside gym became the

words of Grace in my dimly lit room, and I stared at
one of the glowing flowers on the ceiling above me for
a moment, trying to figure out what was going on. I
blinked, sleep grinding in the corners of my eyes.
Where were the steel ones? They’d been killing
everyone!

“It’s okay Ryn, just a nightmare. You’re safe,” Grace

repeated, her voice gentle and soothing.

“Nightmare?” I asked groggily, trying to take stock of

where I was.
Grace was kneeling next to where I’d put my blankets,
leaning awkwardly over me to stroke her fingers
through my hair. My back hurt from the wooden floor
and I’d worked up a cold sweat as I had the…
nightmare. It had just been a nightmare, not real. Bray
and Duncan would still be alive. I let out an unsteady,
desperate breath. They had to be.

“Yeah, you were crying out and whimpering, I could

hear you from my room,” she murmured with another
gentle caress of my hair.

“Need you,” I mumbled, my voice heavy with sleep

and my arm reaching up to clutch at her baggy shirt.
“Safe with Grace. Please stay.”

Grace’s voice was surprised as she said, “Oh, uh… let

me go and get my blankets then?”
“Okay,” I sighed tiredly, letting go of her shirt. Grace
padded quietly out the room and I lay back against the
smooth, hard floor.

I just needed her. She made me feel safe with her

presence, the subtle smell of her on the air when she
was around, the gentle way she was always looking
out for me. The not so gentle ways she was looking
out for me too, ready to get physical with people who
might hurt me. Bray had been a little like that too, but
where Bray had been slightly selfish, Grace was
nothing but wholesome to my eyes.

“Ryn… um, where do you want me?” she asked

hesitantly from the doorway.

I made a flailing motion in the general direction of

right next to me and she nodded, walking over to set
herself up. I was probably crossing a few lines here,
but when she lay down I shuffled up next to her, our
arms and legs touching along their lengths.

“Oh, hello,” she said with a gasp.

“Goodnight,” I whispered, sleep already claiming me

again as the presence of my best friend signaled to my
subconscious mind that everything was okay. I
couldn’t tell for sure, but right before I fell asleep, I
swear Grace put her arm around me.
Chapter 35 :
Sleeping next to Grace, or at least in the same room
proved to be a huge factor in the quality of my sleep I
realised as we all blearily had breakfast down in the
boy’s common area. Turns out that all the events of
the past few months on the ring were taking their toll
on my psyche. Restless sleep and nightmares,
memories that I skipped and dodged around rather
than examining them properly.

Warily, ashamedly, I spoke up to the group, “Guys

uh… I think I need time in my grove. Time to calm
down. A lot has been happening and… yeah.”

“The nightmare?” Grace asked gently from my side.

“Yeah,” I nodded, staring down at my food in order to

avoid meeting everyone else’s eyes.
“That’s a good idea Ryn. Everyone here is just… no
offence, but besides me, you were all just college kids
until three or so months ago. I wish… well, no. There’s
no point in playing what ifs, but if you need someone
to talk to about anything that’s happened, I’m here.
I’ve been through a lot, lived through a lot and
hopefully I can help you all do the same,” Troy said
kindly, his voice taking on hints of regret.

“I might have to take you up on that,” Kit said quietly,

his face schooled carefully neutral. “This shit has been
amazing. Magic is real, we’re on a ring world, alien
cultures around us and stuff, but… the attack on
Avonside, fighting bandits on our way here, the battle
with that robot thing… it’s fucked up man.”

“I can’t get the scene of that battle with the robot out
of my head,” Grace nodded, giving a little shudder.
“Yeah, the team definitely needs a rest,” Troy decided.
“We’ll take some time to chill out here and see if we
can’t spruce this place up a bit. I don’t know about
you lot, but we could really do with some damned
beds.”

There was hearty agreement from the group, which

meant I had a lot of magic stuff to do. I sagged in relief
as the decision was made, but also because in a weird
way, the fact I wasn’t the only person haunted by
what we’d seen made me feel less like a weakling.

“Can we get like, a list of stuff that we’ll need, magic

wise? I can pretty much only do plants and
landscaping, so we’ll have to think within the bounds
of those constraints,” I told them, eager for the
alternative conversation topic.
“Yeah, we can do that,” Troy smiled. “I imagine the
rest of us have some knowledge that could help. We’ll
start brainstorming.”

“Alright,” I nodded, then thought of what I needed to

begin first. “I think I’ll go and work on the outer
protections of my grove first while you do that. Damn,
I wish I had tenders though, extra hands would be
amazing.”

“Oh!” Adam exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. “Eilian

mentioned that! She said something about… asking
her grove to help? I can’t remember much.”

“Asking her grove to help…” I repeated, furrowing my

brows in thought. “Thanks… I’ll see if I can figure out
what that means.”
“Alright, I’m going to go and start dragging all those
knocked down trees into storage, they might be
useful,” Adam said, standing up.

“Good idea,” Troy replied, following Adam up and out

the door.

Guess that was it then, time to get to work.

****

Replacing all the growth shrubs and water trees took

most of the morning, but when I was done I flopped
down into the grass feeling pretty good. It was nice to
just work without care for being stabbed, burned or
shot.

I was currently basking in the sun, as much clothing as

I could reasonably take off had been thrown aside so I
could get as much skin as possible into the light. It was
nice, warm and peaceful. Unfortunately, I was just a
little bored as I waited for my reserves of mana to
replenish. There was only so much laying around in
the sun you could do during the day before your mind
started to wander.

So rather than let it go back into the recent past, I

decided to try and figure out what Eilian had meant
by, ‘asking her grove for help’. My grove itself was
there within me, as well as without of me, bound to
my will, my life and my magic. I began to poke and
prod at it with my magical senses, feeling a frown
come on as nothing really happened.
“How do I get help from you?” I murmured to myself,
my eyes still closed.

I want a big bunny to pop up and help me please.

Although, probably give it opposable thumbs. Wait,
but not weird looking ones, I thought at my grove in a
probably fruitless attempt to get it to cooperate.

Except, there was a small surge of power from my

grove, as though it had heard me after all. I felt
nothing happen though, there was no pull of magic
from my reserves, nor a spike of magic pulled from
the surrounding garden. Odd. Where did it get that
power it had just used? Also, what was the soft thing
poking at my arm?

I opened my eyes slowly, retracting my plant body

back into my human one. As my eyes refocused, my
curious gaze was returned by a very fluffy little face
staring back at me.
“Oh my goodness!” I blurted, sitting straight up in
surprise.

There was a bunny! It was about three feet tall with

soft, luscious golden fur all over its body and little
warm black eyes. Its ears were the floppy kind, and
they looked to be even softer than the rest of it.

“Hey bun,” I said with quiet delight. Until it hopped

into my lap that is. “Oof! Bun, you’re heavy! Oh, now
you’re sniffing at my face. Look at your little nose
twitch!”

My heart was melting, a puddle of squealing girl as the

soft fluffy animal stared at me from my lap. I was
about to try and move it when we were joined by a
second and third bunny, who just popped into
existence next to us.
The second one was black all over except for little
tufts of white fur on the tips of its long floppy ears,
while the third one was entirely white except for a
small patch of gold on its nose. Then a forth one
popped into existence, and a fifth.

“Oh no,” I squeaked as more and more bunnies began

to flop into existence around me.

Did I make a mistake by choosing bunnies as my

tenders? Were they going to multiply until I was
drowning in soft bunny fur? No, they did stop
eventually, but by that time I had around fifteen of the
little critters hopping around me and sniffing at things.
What the hell did I do now?

Carefully shifting the heffalump out of my lap, I stood

up and muttered, “Where the hell are my clothes?”
No sooner had I said it, than a small fluffy paw was
tapping me on the leg. I turned and looked down to
find the first black bun trying to hand me my pants.

“Oh! Thanks little one!” I laughed in surprise, reaching

down to take the pants out of its hands.

As I was putting them on, another bunny I hadn’t

noticed yet hopped up with my shirt in hand, and it
almost looked pleased with itself.

“Well, you’re all rather helpful aren’t you,” I said to

the crowd around me, a huge grin on my face. They
were so damn cute, I felt like I was going to giggle and
cry at the same time.
I was met by silence and many attentive twitching
noses, one or two rubbing at their faces with their big
fluffy paws.

“What do I do with you all now? I guess you can all

just follow me around and play while I set up the next
layer of trees,” I mused, then remembered what the
time was. “No, wait. It’s lunch time. Come on
everyone, let’s go and find the others!”

With that I marched off towards my tree with an army

of buns hopping along behind me. They weren’t the
most disciplined lot, frequently stopping to sniff things
or eat some grass, which had me wondering exactly
what their nature was. Were they more magical or
more physical? How intelligent were they? Clearly
they understood that I’d needed my clothes earlier,
but that might have also been part of the magic of
their creation.
I found Adam first as he was approaching the ramp up
into the tree. He stopped dead in his tracks when he
looked up from something in his hands, then burst out
into laughter.

“Oh my god, Ryn! Are these your tenders? How are

there so many of them, and why are they a bunch of
rabbits?” he asked between gasps of laughter.

“The scientific term is bun, actually. But I asked my

grove for some help and this is what I got, like fifteen
buns. They’re good buns too and they’re very helpful,”
I said with mock chastisement. I meant it though, no
one was allowed to laugh at my buns. They were just
trying their best.

Next to arrive was Grace, who saw the horde from a

mile off and squealed with delight. Rushing over, she
knelt next to one and tentatively reached out to pat its
soft fur. The bunny turned to sniff at her, then
promptly stood up on its hind legs, pushed her over
and then hopped up to lay on her stomach.

“Ryn! What are these? Why are there a bunch of huge

bunnies in your grove?” she asked as she giggled and
played with the bun on her stomach. Something inside
me wished that I was in place of that bun, but I
decided right then and there that I would not be
jealous of my own buns.

“They’re my grove tenders! They will help me with

plant things and maybe more,” I said happily, reaching
down to pat one of them.

“This is so good!” she said with a happy laugh, and I

realised with a spark of insight that the buns might
also be able to help us emotionally too. Like support
animals or something.
Kit and Troy both arrived soon after, and once the
ruckus around my new buns was over with, we sat
down for lunch.

With secretive whispers, I assigned a bun to each of

the team with the express orders to be both helpful
and cuddly in an effort to keep everyone happy. No
one could be too sad when they had a big bun to
cuddle after all.

“Alright so I was talking to Kit, and he had the idea to

—“ Troy started to say, before being interrupted when
his secret support bun flopped down on the grass
against him. He chuckled for a moment and placed a
hand on the bun, beginning to pat it as he continued,
“Anyway, he had some ideas for plant related
materials. Wood is the obvious one, then cotton to
make some sort of bedding, bamboo would be useful
for a variety of reasons too.”
“Gourds!” Grace exclaimed suddenly as she chewed
on her tough travel food. “Dry them out and make
bowls and cups! And like, please can we have some
sort of plant for toilet paper.”

I wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment. Girl

parts were a lot harder to clean that guy parts had
been, that was for sure.

“Hemp for rope,” Adam commented as he stared

down at the bun in front of him. It was currently
cleaning its face with its paws.

“Dyes and stuff too, we could sell those probably,” Kit

murmured as he pressed his face into the soft fur of
his secret support bun. “Damn these bunnies are
soft!”
“Think you can work on those Ryn? After we have
some food sources that is?” Troy asked, and I nodded
in reply while munching on my own food.

After lunch I walked back to the edge and began to

design my second row of trees. They were basically
just apple trees, although again they were
strengthened to withstand the wind. My hope was
that the apples would be a useful source of food for us
later as well as just their wind break duties.

Once that was done, I began to walk around the

perimeter, planting the seeds that would become my
apple trees. The buns reacted almost immediately,
hopping up to the recently planted trees and clearing
away grass from where I had phased the seeds into
existence under the soil. Then they started doing what
I’d seen that tender near the mage fruit do so long
ago. They sprinkled little dustings of growth energy
over the plants.
“Huh, I guess you’ll be very, very useful, as well as
cute,” I mused out loud, and then I realised
something. Was this why I hadn’t seen any of my
growth plants in Esra’s place? Because there was
already a solution to the problem, even if the buns
were putting out far less growth energy? I’d have to
ask her when she finally made it over here.

Musings aside, I had work to do, so that’s what I got to

doing. With the help of my buns I might even be able
to get the whole second row done before nightfall.

Chapter 36 :
That night, Grace and I slept side by side again. At first
it hadn't been a sure thing, but we'd shared a look as
we arrived at our floor that had solidified the
arrangement. Settling down next to her had been… it
was nerve wracking and wonderful. Until a bunny
hopped into the room, lay down on the floor and
promptly flopped to the side. That seemed to break
the ice a little as we shared a chuckle.
We didn’t immediately dive into sleep however.
Instead we talked about things, about how the
journey was going, about the grove and about
Avonside. I got to learn a little more about Grace’s
past too, how her family was tight knit, which I’d
known, but also about how she used to play tennis
back when she was in high school. By the time we
were actually ready to go to sleep, I had a huge smile
on my face and a pleasant glow in my heart.

The next day saw my second row of trees having

grown nicely, and more than once I saw bunnies
hopping around sprinkling little dustings of growth
energy on things. With that taken care of I went ahead
and placed down a few fruit trees near the tower,
apricots were a favourite of mine, as were peaches, so
those were first. Berry bushes of all sorts went down
as well, as did some nut trees. Pretty much anything
that would grow in the climate of my plateau.
After that I started work on the final layer of
windbreak trees and their supporting growth plants as
the day moved into the afternoon. Several fir trees
went into the ground that I made sure to put a limit
on this time. I didn’t want a ring of not-so-little happy
trees after all. Besides the height limiter, I planned to
turn them into some sort of defence when I knew
how, but as it stood I was a massively ignorant novice.
Maybe I should dedicate another day or so to
watching the plants outside.

Our third day spent back in the grove consisted of me

slowly building up patches of the various plants we’d
need as resources later on. It was about when I got to
making the latex that I realised I had an opportunity
once I got back to Avonside. With the help of both
chemists and biologists, I might be able to design a
tree that could give us some truly unique and useful
glues that might relieve some of our reliance on things
like screws and nails.
Once I’d planted a bunch of different resource crops,
trees and the like, I moved on to a task I had been
dreading. The lake. See, unlike with plants, I needed to
use my own raw magical energy to manipulate my
grove into changing itself, moving dirt and rock
around. I wished I’d thought of all this when I’d
created the place. It had been so easy back then.

There was only one way this was going to happen, and
that was by doing it, so I began to slowly move earth
out of where I wanted the lake, beginning what would
be a small hill in the process. As soon as I began, an
army of bunnies swarmed the site and I stopped to
watch in confusion. Then they began to dig.

“Holy shit, what… what are they doing?” Grace asked,

from behind me. Turning around, that first glance at
her had me floored.
She was wearing shorts and a tank top, sports bra
visible beneath. Covered in sweat and grass stains, she
dabbed at her forehead with a little hand towel as she
watched the bunnies dig, completely oblivious to the
stunned girl next to her. I couldn’t help but drink in
the sight of her, and if she hadn’t been amazed by the
feat bungineering happening nearby I might have
been caught in my stare.

“They’re… um, they’re doing… they are digging. My

lake, I mean, they’re helping me dig the hole for the
lake,” I said, stumbling and tripping over my words as I
tried to tear my eyes off her. “What have you been
doing?”

“Troy has us training again,” she replied pointing back

towards the area that he’d claimed for the purpose.
“Is it helping?” I asked, temporarily dropping my gaze
to pet her emotional support bun that had followed
her over.

“Yeah, although keeping up with Adam is a pain in the

ass. The guy is a tank,” she grumbled, watching me pet
her bun. Frowning, she pointed at it. “That little guy
has been following me around for days, helping me
out and shit. Why is that? Is that just what they do?”

“Um, no…” I mumbled, feeling embarrassed about

what I’d done. “I assigned a bunny to each of you as
like, an emotional support animal, because we all
need something cuddly and cute to help relieve all the
tension we’ve been dealing with.”

“Oh, wow… that’s actually incredibly thoughtful Ryn,”

she said with surprise, and I glanced up to see her
smiling at me all funny again. She’d been giving me
these looks and smiles recently that seemed almost
sad, but not sad at the same time. I couldn’t figure out
what they meant.

“Thanks,” I smiled awkwardly, turning back to watch

my bunnies digging. Could they dig me a hole that
would let me hide from my own awkwardness while
they were at it?

They were going at the task with truly impressive

gusto, and I idly began to help out again, moving dirt
with my mind.

Grace noticed, watching as the dirt floated through

the air with her eyebrows raised. “Damn, I wish I could
do that.”

“Soon, don’t worry,” I replied. “We’ll figure something

out.”
“It’s not a big deal, I’m not going to get upset over it,”
she said with a calm shrug of her shoulders. “Plus,”
she went on, tapping me gently on the arm. “One of
my best friends is a mage! Why do I need to be one
too?”

My cheeks were heating as she gave me yet another

funny smile, and I had to take a few deep breaths just
to calm my heart rate. Why did her words of platonic
affection hit me so hard like that?

“I don’t… know,” I finally said, almost gasping it out

around my exploding heart.

“Exactly,” she chuckled, her eyes following the

bunnies as they dug up the landscape.

We stood in silence for a minute or two, me moving

dirt with my mind and her watching it all happen.
Progress was slow with the lake, I could only move so
much and the rabbits were just using their hands.
They were trying their best, but it just wasn’t very
effective.

“We need to get the little critters some tools,” Grace

said, evidently having followed my train of thought
along with me.

“Yeah, maybe I could get Troy to carve them some

wooden ones or something,” I mused, and then a
thought hit me. “Or I could carve them myself…” I
whispered, forming a single mind vine before me.

Esra hadn’t really spoken about the telekinesis much

beyond teaching me how to move shit around with it.
Technically speaking it wasn’t made of vines either,
that was just how I thought of it. The reality was that
it was just a force, and you exerted it on the world
around you using your mind. Could I sharpen that
force? Make it so that I was pushing on something
with so fine a point that it would cut it?

Since I’d been planting bamboo recently, I grew a

shoot of it next to us, the stalk rising out of the earth
with ease. Bamboo almost didn’t need my
encouragement the way it shot out of the ground.

“Um,” Grace began, but I ignored her in that moment

as I focused on contracting the point of my willpower
into as fine an edge as possible.

Once I was certain it would work, I slashed it sideways

through the bamboo. Or, I tried… instead the bamboo
simply shook from the impact, and there was a small
dent in where I’d hit it.

“Damn, that would have been so cool,” I sighed,

glaring at the annoying piece of greenery.
“What would have been cool?” my friend asked,
smiling as she watched me. “Also it’s really cute when
you pout like that.”

That got my attention, and I blinked up at her in

surprise. She thought I was cute when I pouted? I’d
been pouting?

“I mean, like… cute like one of the bunnies… like…

because it’s… um. Yeah, you are… I don’t know,” she
babbled as she realised what she’d said, her cheeks
going red with embarrassment. Stepping forward, she
reached up and ruffled my hair quickly, mumbling,
“Um yeah, good luck with the digging, fluffy cute girl. I
mean that in like, a not weird way. Fuck. I’ll go now.”

Before I could recover from whatever had just

happened, she was off back towards the sparring area.
Seriously, what the hell had just happened? She’d
just… freaked out and started babbling, then run
away. Did I do something wrong? I racked my brain for
any ideas as to what had just caused that and came up
empty. Wait, no… had she somehow figured out that I
was into her? No that couldn’t be it… she’d have had a
larger reaction to that.

Making a decision, I rushed after her. “Grace! Wait!”

She stopped in her tracks, her power walking coming

to an abrupt halt as she turned to look at me in
surprise.

“What… what’s wrong?” she asked nervously.

Stopping in front of her, I stared into her expressive

green eyes intently. I could see that I’d definitely done
something wrong. The way she was standing, the way
she wasn’t meeting my gaze, even her expression was
closed.

“I’m really sorry! Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I didn’t

mean to make you feel weird or whatever,” I told her
quickly, my expression and tone just two steps away
from desperate.

“What? No, it was me being weird!” she said quickly,

taking a step back towards me. “I called you cute, but
in like, a weird way, not a friend way.”

It was my turn to step towards her, and I took both of

her hands in mine. Crap, I’d just started touching her
again without thinking about it. Too late now though,
we were only a foot or so away from each other, and I
was hyper aware of that fact. Her hands were soft on
the tops, but I could feel a few calluses forming where
her armoured gloves didn’t fit perfectly.
“Grace, it’s fine. I like being called cute by you,” I
murmured, suddenly unable to look her in the eyes.

I stared at our clasped hands instead, the way hers

had curled to capture mine back. They were so strong
under her delicate skin, each subtle shift of weight and
balance between us sending shocks of sensation was
shooting up my arm.

“You do?” she breathed with such aching emotion

that I had to look up.

Her eyes were so full, so wide as they pulled me into

their grey-green depths. I was powerless under that
stare, under her touch, and even just in her presence.
Heartbeat thundering in my ears and ordered thought
rapidly retreating from my mind, she was all that I was
aware of. This beautiful girl in front of me was my
world. I wasn’t even trying to go anywhere as I
pressed towards her, just swaying like a sapling under
a forceful gust of wind.

She didn’t step back, didn’t move away. Rather, her

hands gripped mine even tighter, her expression
drinking me in as I leaned over, closer and closer
until… my forehead bumped into her collarbone. I
blinked, wait… what had just happened?

Grace’s arms moved around my shoulders, pulling me

gently against her. “Thanks Ryn. I’ve always had a
problem with being so fucking awkward with female
friends. I just… I always mess it up one way or
another, so it’s really nice to have someone who
doesn’t judge me when my tongue gets all tied.”

“Right,” I murmured, my brain fizzing and popping as I

tried to comprehend what I had thought was
happening versus what had just actually happened.
“You’re a great friend,” I said, my mouth almost in
autopilot.

Letting go of me, she beamed down at me from her

slight height advantage and stepped backwards.
“Thank you Ryn. Anyway, uh, break is over, back to
throwing the boys around! Talk to you tonight!”

“Yeah… see you… good luck,” I said, still a little

stunned.

Then she was off again, trotting happily back to the

sparring area, no idea what she’d just done to me. My
brain was… fried. I’d almost felt the ghost of her lips
on mine for a few moments there, but instead…
“friend”.
I turned back towards my lake project with a new
weight pressing down on me. Life had gotten just that
little bit harder.

Chapter 37 :
Over the next day I nursed my windbreak into full
functionality, then began the rather odd work of
teaching my bunnies how to harvest all the various
crops and resources and then store them. The truly
strange part was when they understood my detailed
instructions, nodding vaguely as they got to work. The
little buns even started using their teeth to slowly cut
down some of the trees I’d planted specifically for
wood. I hadn't chosen weak species either, going for a
couple of hardwoods, teak and indian rosewood.

I was starting to realise that my buns were made of

sturdier stuff than just regular old buns. They also
didn’t seem to put the grass they ate anywhere, so to
speak. It disappeared into them and never came out.
Maybe they were consuming it and turning it back
into magic to use on my plants?

They’d been moving earth for my lake at a slowly

increasing rate too, and I was starting to think they
were multiplying when I wasn’t looking.

Now it was our fifth day back in the grove, and I was
laying on the wooden floor of my big balcony room
staring up into the shadowed heights of the happy
little tree and working on my first combat spell. I was
designing the shields first, because they seemed like
the most important thing. I could learn to hit back
once I could take a hit in the first place.

“Sunbathing without your greenery out huh?” Grace

asked as she sat down next to me, looking just as
incredible as she had yesterday at the lake site.
“Yeah, just trying to think up combat spells,” I sighed,
shelving the magic shield I’d been tinkering with.

I was trying to figure out a way to make it useful

beyond simply blocking spells. There had to be some
sort of common underlying principle that I could use
to block a few different damage sources at once
without resorting to three shields overlaid on top of
one another.

“It’s so crazy, this whole magic thing,” Grace said,

staring out of the window at where the buns were
busy at work.

“Yeah,” I said simply, watching her watch the buns.

“Exciting though too!” she continued, turning back to

me. “Have you thought about what crazy things you
might do with it once everything has calmed down?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Everything’s been
moving so fast, I always have so much to think about
that I haven’t really gotten to that part yet.”

“I think you’ll get up to all sorts of crazy and

wonderful shenanigans,” she grinned.

“Oh?” I asked, wondering why she thought that.

“You just seem like the creative type, I don’t know.

Not creative as in painting or any other art, but like…
creative of thought,” she said, her brows furrowing
cutely as she tried to express her ideas.

Ideas that left me bashful and fighting a blush.

“Thanks.”
We sat in silence for a long while after that, but it
wasn’t a totally awkward silence, but a happy and
companionable one. Grace and I had been spending a
hell of a lot of time in each other’s company recently,
but rather than getting sick of her, I relished each
second of it.

“You know, it’s funny right, considering I was really

keen on my health back on Earth, but I actually miss
fast food. That once a month trip I’d do to a chain,
grab a bunch of yummy food and just enjoy myself,”
she said after a few minutes, her voice wistful.

“I think I miss my computer the most. Just, access to

information, you know? There have been so many
problems I’ve had where I could have just googled it,”
I sighed, thinking of all the plants I could engineer if I
had access to the internet and all the scientific papers
available there.
I missed a lot of things besides google though, from
the presumption of safety and a death at an old age to
the simple convenience of a supermarket. Hell, even
being able to just find a hardware store and buy some
tools would have been amazing right now.

“Yeah that makes sense. Funnily enough, back at

Avonside that was one thing that didn’t take them
very long. Getting our phones and shit hooked up
again, creating a public central database for
entertainment,” she told me, shifting to lay down like I
was. “Of course, my phone is nothing but little
incinerated particles of dust now.”

“That was such quick thinking by the way. I thought

that when I lost my hold on that thing we were all
fucked,” I said gratefully, reaching over to squeeze her
calf with my hand, the only part of her I could reach.
“It was pure instinct,” she chuckled. “Robots like tech,
right? Shiny unidentified tech thing had to be
interesting to the big bastard.”

It made sense in a funny sort of way. Any combat

robot would be equipped with scanners that would be
able to see the power running through a phone. That
plus the fact it was unknown tech, the robot probably
thought it was a threat.

“And you call me smart?” I grinned, although she

wouldn’t be able to see it from this angle.

Grace was definitely smart, despite her claims

otherwise. Like so many people, she viewed ignorance
as something negative, to be mocked and frowned at.
It was wrong, people were allowed to be ignorant so
long as you were willing to learn, or to let others deal
with things if they weren’t. No one could reasonably
blame a builder for not knowing the maths
surrounding the strong nuclear force.

“You are! I’m just like, average,” she complained, her

voice taking on such a cute tone as she grumbled.

I sat up and glared at her with friendly menace,

“Nope. You try and claim that again and I’ll sic my
bunnies on you.”

“Oh no! The horror!” she chuckled, her eyes sparkling

with amusement.

She spoke too soon however, because as if it had read

my mind, her emotional support bun was on her,
hopping up on top of her and making itself
comfortable.
“Oh my god,” she gasped as the air was knocked out
of her lungs. “You weren’t kidding!”

“Good bun!” I giggled, shuffling across the floor and

into patting range.

The bun nuzzled at my hand with its twitching little

nose and for the hundredth time my heart melted at
the sight. They were so damn cute.

“You’ve gone mad with power!” Grace wheezed as

she dumped the bun sideways onto the floor. The bun
decided this was the perfect opportunity to flop
sideways, so that’s what it did.

“Good bun,” I cooed again, scratching behind its big

floppy ears.
“I can’t tell what’s cuter,” Grace smiled, watching me
dote on the bun. “The bunnies, or how much you love
them.” That comment received a frown from me,
which only caused her smile to widen. “Aw, now she
pouts!” my friend continued, her tone playful and
teasing.

“Don’t you have punching practice or something?” I

grumbled, feeling my cheeks heating again. I was just
a regular ol’ blush factory over here now.

“Nope! I’ve been allowed to rest for the afternoon,”

she laughed triumphantly.

“Well… I have work to do!” I grouched, definitely not

pouting.

“That’s fine, I’ll be right here,” she chuckled, and I

couldn’t help it when a smile broke ranks and
bloomed across my face. Damn it, she made me too
happy. Why was this so difficult? I wished I could just
go over there and… well I don’t know. Cuddle her or
something.

It took me several minutes to rein my cuddle obsessed

brain back into line, but once I had my concentration
back, I realised something. I’d need a shield that could
potentially be expanded to protect my friends too. I
also realised that efficiency might not really need to
be a concern of mine. Why bother whittling down
power usage percentages when I apparently had so
much more magic at my disposal than other mages?
Why not abuse that fact and have incredibly strong
shields instead?

So that’s what I did, taking the design that Eilian had

told me about and adapting it somewhat. Unlike my
other spells, the shield spell was a tree which used its
leaves to produce the final end result. I set up the
roots as normal, taking in energy and then funneling it
up into the trunk, which would convert it into the
necessary energies needed to create the shield.

The shield was made up of three parts. There was a

kinetic shield for stopping mundane projectiles
moving at high speed, and an energy shield for
stopping the steel one’s lasers and spells that
produced energy attacks like it. Finally there was a
shield that stopped direct magical attacks and
interference. Each would be produced by the same
spell, although Eilian had warned me that if I had low
energy reserves I should instead separate the three
into their own individual spells.

Since I was putting them all into the same spell, the
tree would have a sort of twisted trunk, three
different colours all mixed up like stirred neapolitan
ice cream. White for kinetic, blue for energy and
purple for magic. The leaves were the same, although
the colours were instead assigned between the stalk,
veins and leaf material instead. The whole thing had
very obviously been designed and refined by
generations of mages and it was quite complex.

There was one final cherry on top however, something

that Eilian had whispered with a rather evil expression
on her face. Her own personal touch to the shield,
something we had seen displayed during the battle.
With the flowers free to still have a use, I was able to
add the reflection capabilities to my spell. It was going
to be one mean spell when I used it, that was for sure.

The next spell I worked through was a basic knockback

spell that would allow me to throw anything and
everything away from me. It was a fairly simple shrub,
roots to take in magic, stem to convert it to kinetic
energy and then flowers to store it for use. It was
kinda pretty though, normal green leaves and gently
glowing white flowers.
After that was another spell that wasn’t particularly
lethal. Initially, Eilian had been giving me all sorts of
deadly and destructive spell ideas, but I’d quickly told
her that it wasn’t really my style. I’d make some like
that and keep them in reserve, but I’d rather not burn
holes in people if I could help it.

Rather than burning or slicing people, this spell fired

orbs of goop that would stick to people like the
strongest adhesive in the world and stay like that until
the internal magic of each blob dissipated. The flower
to create this spell was like an oversized yellow rose
with a very small stem that had it drooping over
towards the ground. I thought it was kinda cute.

Of course, I did still make the burning spell for if I had

to fight some inhuman eldritch horror again. This one
was fairly standard, but with a little twist. It required
both hands held out in front and it produced a huge
amount of boiling flame. The trick was that the closer
my hands were together, the less flamethrower-like it
became and the more laser-like it became. Essentially
it was just a hose of flame with a variable nozzle. I
hoped it would allow me to burn a hole through the
hull of a steel one.

I was almost ready to leave it at that, but the idea of

turning my telekinesis into blades had gotten me
thinking. This was going to be my most complicated
spell yet, but I felt like I needed something like this. I
needed a spell that would allow me to be useful in a
variety of scenarios.

The spell was entirely my own design, using several

elements I’d learned of by observing the plants
outside. The spell needed to be robust, so I used a
tree as the template, then created its roots with the
typical energy absorption. After that it was onto the
trunk, which would be forging the energy the roots
fed it into a variety of different flavours of magic, the
main ones being potential motion and a sort of hard
light.
The leaves would combine these energies into
something that was going to be deadly or defensive,
depending on what I intended to do with it. I had to
predefine the shape that the hard light would take,
but I was going for simple here, nothing complex.
Deciding to add a little flair like Eilian had done with
her spells, I changed the colour of the leaves to be the
same dark magenta as my hair, which in turn would
cause the spell to take that colour when it was used.

Throughout every one of these plants I made sure that

they were capable of producing seeds that might grow
into more of their kind. I wanted my grove to be an
ecosystem after all, not just a curated garden.

Templates held firmly in my mind, I went outside with

Grace trailing behind. I walked about the area,
planting the spells randomly in an attempt to spread
out the power of my spells, rather than keeping them
in neat beds as Esra had done. The idea was that the
whole forest I planned to plant would have to be
destroyed before I lost access to any one spell.

I concentrated most of my growth energy on the

shield trees this time around, growing a few to full
height, as surviving would be a priority. My offensive
spells could wait for the buns and growth plants to
bring them up.

That night as we ate dinner, I mentioned to Troy that

I’d gotten some combat spells completed and planted.
With that in mind he asked everyone how they felt
about continuing our journey and received a positive
response from us all. It was time to continue onwards
to Millowhall.
Chapter 38 :
The next morning we stood in formation, our new
plan for exiting the grove about to be put in motion.
We were waiting for Troy’s signal to make the jump
back to the mundane realm. This time however, I’d be
putting my shield up around us all as soon as we
popped out. Hopefully this would negate any element
of surprise that potential enemies might have camping
outside.

The moment came, we hopped over and my barrier

shimmered into existence. Transparent purple energy
surrounding us in a dome, and I had to smile at the
idea that I could now properly protect my friends with
magic.

No crossbow bolts or blasts of magic came at us

however, and we relaxed when we saw that no one
was waiting for us. It was strange, but I’d almost
expected there to be enemies waiting. We hadn’t
exactly been thorough about hiding my mark after all.
Not that I was going to complain, I was not keen to get
into a fight.

We began our journey south, passing by the city of

Norishin on our way. We couldn’t enter it though, the
city was on the other side of the huge river with no
bridge across. It was a fairly unremarkable city,
compared to the others I’d come across anyway
besides the large harbour it had. We ended the day
inside my grove again, taking extra care to hide my
mark this time.

We spent the next two days following the river south

until we reached the point at which we’d be diverting
off into the plains of Mosteghunoksia. We decided to
stay at an inn in the village we ended up in this time,
mainly because we needed information about the
path ahead. The vendor’s instructions had been, “Go
across the plains,” which wasn’t actually all that
helpful. We’d need real directions if we wanted to get
across.
The village looked like any other we’d passed through,
as was the single inn that serviced travellers running
through it. Stone and rough sawn wood constructions
with thatched roofing seemed to be the go to
arrangement for this region. The inn looked to be a
little low on patrons tonight, so the innkeep was able
to see to us immediately.

“How can I help you all?” he asked amicably, not at all

phased by my friends and their intimidating armour,
although their helmets were off, so that probably
helped.

“Two rooms please, three people in one, two in the

other,” Troy said, showing off some of his newly
acquired skill with the local language. That wasn’t to
say he and the rest were anywhere close to passable,
but they could do this much.
“Of course, I’ll see to it,” the innkeep nodded, pausing
to see if we needed anything else.

“Ah, sorry,” I began hesitantly. “We’re trying to get to

Clan Mossbed lands and we were wondering the best
way across the plains.”

“The Mosteghunoksia plains?” he frowned, and when

I nodded his expression turned grave. “I’d avoid the
area if I were you. It’s good farmland, but no one lives
there. Mighty strange place, some say it’s full of the
undead, others speak of much more deadly beasts.
There ain’t no road across, but if you’re looking for the
Mossbed lands, you want to head directly due south
east. You’ll see the mountains of their lands soon
enough.”

“What about going around them?” I asked curiously.

“That’s even more dangerous, at least with that mage
war going on,” he replied with a grimace. “The south
of Anverkethia is a nightmare right now with the
Terne coven tearing the place apart.”

This sounded like something we should know about.

“What… who are the Terne coven?”

“That lot of mages who’ve been takin’ over around

these parts for the last decade. The Anverkethian
mages are the last holdouts after the Scalmeis went
down,” he shrugged. “We’d all best get comfortable
with the new lot, because it’s lookin’ like they’re here
to stay.”

“That’s unfortunate,” I sighed, then gave him a weary

smile. “Mages are mages though right?”
“Aye, although some’s better than others that’s for
sure,” he nodded seriously.

I was wearing my normal person magical disguise

thankfully, otherwise my comment would have gotten
a strange look. I didn’t actually believe that all mages
were equally awful, obviously. I’d just figured it might
be a good idea to sound him out on the issue.

“Well, thanks for the help,” I said with a grateful nod,

turning to relay the information to the rest of the
group.

Kit looked like he’d understood most of it by the

frown he wore. “These plains don’t sound like such a
good idea,” he said worriedly. “But then, running into
what sounds like Fennimore’s crew if we go around
the plains sounds even worse.”
“I’d definitely rather deal with zombies or whatever
than a coven of angry mages eager to get a shot back
at us,” Grace said, her eyes flicking towards me.

“Agreed,” Troy nodded. “We’ll be going across the

plains as planned.”

That night Grace and I were given a room with two

separate beds, which we pushed together until they
were next to each other. It was kinda perfect, there
was the uncomfortable gap between the straw-stuffed
mattresses as a barrier, but we were close enough
that we could still reach each other.

We set off out towards the plains in the morning, but

it took us an entire day just to get there in the first
place. Humanity had well and truly established itself
on this ring, which begged the question of where they
had all come from. Had this place really been
snatching people since the early medieval years?
The plains themselves were odd. We stepped out onto
swaying grass in the cold light of the morning and
found it to be strangely devoid of sound. Normally on
a huge open area like this, sound would travel far, but
all we got was the gentle sighing of the wind. Maybe
that was normal, maybe it wasn’t, but either way it
was a little unsettling.

Since the plains were higher than the river valley that
we’d just left, we soon lost sight of anything other
than the endless sea of grass. There wasn’t even any
sign of wildlife, no dung laying around and no half
eaten stalks. It was empty, completely empty. No
wonder people avoided this place.

“I don’t like it here,” I said quietly to the others.

“Yeah, me neither,” Kit replied, his eyes alert and

scanning the horizon.
“I feel like there’s something sneaking up on us, even
though we should be able to see it right?” Adam
asked, sounding less than sure of himself.

“Just stay quiet, stay alert,” Troy murmured, shushing

us all.

He was right, we’d be less likely to spot or hear any

attackers if we were talking, but I also needed the
sound of my companion’s voices right about then. The
tension seemed to be rising, my heart was a low
pulsing in my ears and everywhere I looked I saw
shadows moving in the corner of my eye.

“I see something!” Grace hissed, not ten minutes

later. She was pointing out into the grass, her gun
drawn but finger off the trigger.
We all looked out into the direction she’d pointed,
only for nothing to be visible. I tried to find it,
squinting hard out into the mesmerising waves, but I
just couldn’t see what she’d seen.

“What was it?” Troy asked, his tone all soldier mode.

Grace looked less sure of herself now, lowering her

gun and scanning our surroundings with worry. “I
don’t know… it was just movement, I can’t see it
now.”

“Alright,” Troy grunted, still wary even as he replaced

his own weapon in its holster. “Keep an eye out, but I
think this place is messing with us. Ryn, can you see
anything on the magic spectrum?”

I flipped over to mage sight as he asked and glanced

around, seeing a huge expanse of… grass. There was
no magic besides the usual, all the way up to the
horizon. I did see something strange however.

“Troy, there’s no big spells around or anything, but I

did see a weird… I don’t know, there was a big change
in the type of ambient magic floating around over that
way,” I said, pointing in the direction we’d been
moving already.

“Hmm, well I guess we’ll see what’s over there when

we get there,” he mused. “I assume it doesn’t look
dangerous?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s like there’s a change in the

soil or something. Like the difference of magic
between soil and stone.”

With my conclusion that it was probably just a change

in the soil makeup causing the strangeness ahead of
us, we moved onwards. The tension didn’t ease
however, instead it grew. The grass seemed almost
alive with potential movement now, attackers
crouched low behind every tuft of grass. Nothing was
leaping out of the grass at us though, no bandits or
monsters to be seen. Nothing but grass and wind as
the day wore on and afternoon threatened to become
night.

The orange light of sunset lit the vast ocean of

swaying gold around us as Troy finally spoke up.
“Alright everyone, I think this is far enough. We’ll
retreat to the grove for now and—“

I’d been at the front of the party at that moment, and

as he was speaking I took just a single, small step
backwards. I gasped and wobbled as something
strange hit me, my mind reeling from the weirdness I
was experiencing. Taking another step back, I
struggled to come to terms with an alarming fact. The
tension and paranoia that had been our constant
companion on the plains just… evaporated.

“Ryn?” Grace exclaimed urgently, rushing for me, only

to be hit by that same strange wall of calm. She
stumbled too, my arms catching her while her eyes
went glassy with shock. “What the hell?” she asked in
a high, confused tone.

“What’s wrong?” Troy asked sharply, watching us with

eyes that now seemed so deeply paranoid. Had we
looked like that a few moments ago?

“The… weird feelings, the stuff… I don’t know, it’s hard

to describe,” Grace said quickly. “It’s like we just
stepped out of a dream. Step over quickly, I think
something has been messing with us.”
The others were suspicious, they hesitated for a
moment, but then Adam nodded to himself and
walked over to us. He gave a grunt, followed by a low
laugh. “Holy shit, that feels so much better.”

With our friend having taken the lead, Troy and Kit
followed, their eyes widening with surprise as the fog
over their minds was lifted.

“That’s just mildly terrifying,” Kit said sarcastically,

staring back out at the plains behind us that seemed
like just a bunch of tall grass now. No shadows, no
terrifying spectres stalking us right beneath the
depths. Expression changing to a frown, he turned to
the rest of us, continuing, “We stepped over a
threshold here right? The weirdness slowly snuck up
on us before, but when we crossed that line it just
suddenly disappeared.”
“Like a defence mechanism,” I realised, turning to look
forward. “Someone wanted to keep people away
without going to all the trouble of killing them. That’s
why there’s no animals here either, they would have
felt what we were feeling and run away.”

“If that’s the case, then who is in here?” Troy

muttered, joining me in staring forward.

On a whim I activated my mage sight again, curious if I

could get a glimpse of something now that we were
closer. Oh, did I get far more than a simple glimpse.
There was the echoes of something huge underneath
the ground ahead of us, something so massive that it
extended down beyond my vision. Hotspots of magical
energy dotted the thing, pulsing in ways that
reminded me of a heartbeat or a mechanical pump.

“Oh, fuck me!” I blurted, realising what I was staring

at.
Chapter 39 :
“What? What is it?” Grace asked, her eyes flicking
between my face and where I was staring at the
ground.

“There’s a huge structure buried in the ground! It

looks like something made by the ring builders, and
there’s magic inside it,” I said excitedly, already
scanning for an entrance or something.

I couldn’t tell too much about the place, but what I

could see of the place reminded me of the way the
ring builders liked to do things.

“That sounds important,” Adam said, also frowning at

the ground like he could mysteriously peer through it.
“I want to go look.”
“Hold on, let’s go about this cautiously,” Troy said
with authority, reining us all in a little. “I agree that we
need to check this out, but let’s not go rushing off into
danger without checking the corners alright?”

“Aye aye, captain,” Grace nodded, unclipping her

helmet from her belt and putting it on. “Let’s suit up
then.”

The rest of them got their helmets on and we moved

through the long grass towards the underground
facility.

There was absolutely no sign of it as we pressed

forward, nothing but simple grassland for miles ahead
of us, the hazy outline of some mountains appearing
on the horizon. Underneath the ground was another
story.
It was hard to make out individual details about the
place since there was so much earth in the way, and I
could only really see the general shape of magic down
there. It was like being able to see through objects,
while also seeing the objects in their entirety. It took a
lot of guesswork and squinting to figure anything out,
unless there was something bright, like the obviously
magical thingies down there.

“Do you see any way to enter this place?” Troy asked
after a minute or two of walking. “Because I don’t see
shit.”

“Yeah it looks like it arrives at the surface just over

here,” I nodded, pointing towards an innocuous
looking patch of ground fifty yards away.

He turned and started in that direction. “Alright, let’s

go check it out.”
Still nothing appeared to indicate there was anything
below us but dirt and stone, and when we reached the
spot where there had seemed to be an entrance, we
found more grass and nothing else. Still, I could see it
down there, just beneath the surface.

“Stand back,” I told everyone, waiting for them to

move out of the way.

This would be my first time using an offensive spell,

and I was a little eager to show it off. I called the
knockback spell and aimed it at the ground. Tattoos of
white flowers wrapped delicately around my wrists for
a moment, and then there was the whump of the spell
as air was forced violently into the ground. A divot
was blasted into the dirt, sending grass and soil flying
away from us. Crap, it was going to take me a while to
dig down.
Except as I readied my next attempt, something
strange happened. The ground began to shake slightly,
and right before our eyes it opened up, soil pouring
into a hole as a hidden door began to grind open using
ancient mechanisms.

“Alriiiight,” I said with uncertainty, taking a few steps

back. “I didn’t do that.”

“That’s not suspicious at all,” Adam murmured

sarcastically, peering into the dark hole.

As he did so, lights began to flicker on inside, revealing

a stairwell that trailed down for several yards before
leveling out into a hallway.

“I think it wants us to go inside,” Kit said, glancing

between the group and the hole.
Stepping up beside me, Grace put a hand on my
shoulder. “Yeah… but Ryn isn’t going first.”

“Hold on,” Troy cut in, stepping up to the entrance

too. “It opened when Ryn used a spell. It reacted well
to her magic. I’d say she should definitely be the one
to go first. So long as she has that shield of hers up.”

Grace’s posture indicated she wanted to argue with

him for a second, but she seemed to decide against it,
stepping back with a shrug instead.

So putting up my shield as he’d said, I took the first

step down into the strange complex below us. The
architecture was definitely the same as all the other
ring builder stuff we’d seen, and it strangely reminded
me of how advanced human tech was always
portrayed in science fiction. It was all utilitarian
bevelled lines.
The hallway had clearly been build using prefabricated
parts too, sections of steel tunnel bolted together
with precision perfect seams. Along the roof were
strip lights that provided an even, yellow-white glow.

It was all decidedly futuristic looking in a way that was

hugely jarring compared to the life I’d been living
these past months. Going from what was essentially
the medieval era into a science fiction bunker was
beyond strange.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at a foyer-like area,

complete with very old dead plants in little containers.
Couches that seemed just a little too big and slightly
too wide were arranged around too high tables, and
off to the side were a series of what looked like
elevators.

“This is so weirdly familiar,” Kit mumbled, looking

around at it all. “It’s like… it’s so normal.”
“Yeah, and I can’t figure out if I like that or not,” Grace
replied, walking up to run her hand through some of
the dust that had collected on the back of a couch.

“There haven’t been any weapons aimed at us yet,”

Troy said. “Let’s continue, see if the lifts still work like
the lights do.”

I was silent as I approached them, the team spread

out behind me. The lifts, like everything else,
appeared to be simple and functional in nature. There
was a button to call them, although it was a little
higher than I was used to seeing, and a little screen
above displaying some symbol I had no hope of
understanding. Other than that, it was just the
futuristic nature of the place that was different.

I pressed the call button and a chime sounded,

followed by another sound that had me practically
jump out of my skin with fright. An alien language
spoken by an alien mouth was playing from
somewhere, and the whole group of us had been
startled by it.

No gun turrets popped out of the wall though, just the

gentle hiss of the doors sliding open to allow us access
into the lift.

“Huh,” Kit laughed nervously. “I think we just heard

the voice of one of the race that built this world.”

“I think we did too,” I said quietly, moving into the lift

with a rising sense of… not forboding, but a general
intensity. We were going to discover something here, I
just knew it. Or maybe something would discover us?

Once everyone was inside the steel lift with its

complete lack of aesthetics, I peered down at the little
panel before me. It looked like some sort of touch
screen, and when I moved my hand to poke at it, it lit
up. Displayed across the glassy surface were several
buttons labelled in a script I couldn’t hope to
understand.

“I’m just going to pick at random,” I told the group,

pressing one of them.

The doors pinged quietly and then closed, and there

was a faint vibration in the lift. No sense of movement
though, my stomach didn’t feel like it was lurching up
into my throat or anything. Then, just as quickly as the
doors had closed, they opened again on a room that
was still in the process of lighting up itself for us.
Anticipation rising, we moved out a little into the wide
space.

“Alright, this is clearly an open plan laboratory,” Adam

said in a tone that was almost offended. “This place is
straight up weird with the way it isn’t weird,” he
complained, then laughed and pointed at a nearby
desk. “Shit, look at that. There’s a fucking spoon. It’s
straight up just a spoon.”

He was right too. The place was full of incredibly

strange looking equipment, but as far as the desks and
cubicles were concerned, they were alarmingly
familiar. Some ancient person had long ago put their
spoon down next to their bowl and left it there for
thousands of years. There was a pile of dust in the
bowl that must have been the remnants of their meal.

“Let’s spread out everyone, but stay within sight of

each other and don’t touch anything. I mean that,
alright? No one is going to release some deadly
nightmare fuel monster by accidentally pressing a
button,” Troy told us seriously. “I am not good with
horror.”
“You’re not good with horror?” Adam asked
incredulously. “The hardass soldier can’t do horror?”

“No need to tease,” Troy chuckled good naturedly,

taking his helmet off. “I was unfortunate enough to
watch alien when I was small. Scared the shit out of
my tiny young mind.”

“Oh damn,” I said with a cheeky smile. “This place

must be pretty bad for you then.”

“Alright, alright,” he groaned, shooing us out into the

lab. “Go on kids, find some alien horror that you can
unleash on the world.”

We all laughed and did as he said, any tension we

might have been experiencing having evaporated with
the jokes and banter. Everyone else took their helmets
off too as they looked around at the place.
The room was arranged into two halves, four rows of
cubicles near the elevator, followed by a whole bunch
of strange looking alien scientific equipment, then
another four rows of cubicles and so on. The whole
pattern was repeated three times in total.

I wandered over to a desk at random and looked

down at it. There was a slate of black glass at an angle
that implied it had been some sort of computer
workstation. Off to the side against the back wall of
the cubicle was a little statue or figure sitting on the
desk, depicting some sort of strange… thing. I could
vaguely make out a head and two legs, but the rest
was entirely alien to me. It looked like someone had
combined a chicken, a balloon and an anteater into
one strange abomination of a creature.

When I moved in for a closer look, a little card of the

same black glass as the computer flickered to life, and
I let out an audible gasp.
Displayed on the little screen was a set of three…
beings. Aliens, probably ring builders. They were
humanoid, but impossibly thin by human standards,
with tall heads that widened out into a bony frill. It
was reminiscent of a triceratops’ shield, but far more
graceful and delicate looking.

The eyes on the three aliens were large, with

recognisably circular pupils and grey irises, while the
mouths were thin and lipless, omnivorous teeth on
display between them. Their skin seemed to be
leathery in texture, with bony looking scales across
their shoulders. They also wore clothing, simple and
form fitting grey shirts and trousers with square cut
collars.

Most notably though, they were all standing together,

long, thin arms held about each other, the smallest of
the three in front of the other two. It was quite clearly
a picture of a family, probably the family of the
scientist who’d worked at this very desk.

They were like us. They weren’t scary batronauts or

anything like that, although they did have leathery
skin and stuff. Still, they ate with spoons and took
pictures with their families and pinned them up in
their work spaces. They were so much like us that
suddenly I felt a little pang of sadness for them,
because their absence on this vast ring didn’t bode
well. I hoped that some of their species still existed,
because I’d love to meet them.

“Ryn!” Grace’s voice called through the room,

interrupting my inspection of the desk. “Come look at
this!”

Moving away from the desk and the picture, I headed

deeper into the room, to where Grace was waving me
over. She was standing in front of a bulky piece of
equipment that looked like it was meant to contain
something, keep it from getting out. I felt the hair on
the back of my neck prickle to life as I approached,
and the telltale smell of intense magical energies hit
me.

“Look through here,” she whispered excitedly.

Coming up beside her, I peered into the little glass

viewport that she was motioning me towards. What I
saw had my eyes widen and my breath catch in my
throat. Visually, it was a dark orb of rippling
transparent energy, pulsing with a strange life.
Magically speaking, it was wrong.

It wasn’t wrong in an awful, terrifying sense though. It

wasn’t some magical cancer or world eating void of
death and destruction. Instead, it was like looking at a
three year old’s attempt at writing their own name,
with the magic I was used to seeing as the parent’s
flowing handwriting.

“What is it?” Grace asked, her face coming in to crowd

me at the view port, wisps of her hair brushing my
cheek.

“Shitty magic,” I blurted, my mind not at all paying

attention to what I was saying as I felt her so
wonderfully close to me.

“Uh, what?” she asked, turning to frown at me and

bringing her face so breathtakingly close to mine. Her
small, perfectly shaped lips were right there, her
larger bottom lip just begging to be sucked on or
nibbled at. Calm down Ryn, calm down, she’s a friend,
not food.
“It’s shitty magic,” I told her again, trying to rally my
thoughts back into intelligent mode from mess mode.
“Looks like they were experimenting with making
magic or something? It’s very strange, that’s for sure.”

“Alright,” she said, mercifully backing off a little. “So

they were messing around with magic, that’s not what
I expected actually. I figured that all the sci-fi stuff
would be doing its own thing, while all the magic stuff
would be too, if you know what I mean?”

“Me too, which makes me really keen to try and figure

out this place,” I nodded, taking several deep breaths
in an effort to clear my still very addled mind. “Want
to keep looking?”

“Yeah, let’s check out that big pipe looking thing,” she
smiled, her hand reaching out to briefly brush my arm.
Again, just like that, she destroyed my ability to think
about anything other than that simple touch. Grace,
please, oh please… have mercy on me.

Chapter 40 :
The rest of the room contained more of the same,
magical experiments and cubicles with ancient
personal effects littered all over the place. We decided
to take any and all photograph things that we could
find. Understanding the people who’d built this place
would be a huge boon to figuring out a lot of other
stuff about its function and purpose.

As we investigated further and further into the huge

complex, we began to realise that the whole place was
based around studying magic. Just as with that first
experiment though, it was all some degree of strange
and primitive, none of it being properly useful as
magic. Just blobs of arcane energy that had been
twisted into basic knots and shapes.
We also found a warehouse, with furniture, cutlery,
and everything else needed to run a large population
of scientists underground. There were also several of
those black slate computer things, and seeing them
sealed the deal. We began to schwoop the whole lot
into my grove. Desks, chairs, beds… nothing was safe
from our thieving hands.

At first we were dumping it all in the grass, but on our

third trip we found the buns doing their part too. They
were using all of their three feet in height to carry all
the crap we were delivering up into the storage rooms
inside the tree. I had to give all the little munchkins
pats for that, they were such good buns. We were
feeling pretty good about our find, right up until we
found them.

We came down in the lift to yet another floor, and this

one opened out into a room that was different from
any we’d found so far. Wide and spacious, it appeared
to be a huge common room chamber of some kind.
They had even taken a little more care with the
aesthetics of the place, with more very old and very
dead pot plants laying around in the corners, as well
as what appeared to be an abstract sculpture in the
middle of the room.

“This is actually kinda nice,” Grace whispered as we

spread out into the room. “I could see myself living
here if it wasn’t for the whole sunless hole
underground thing.”

“Yeah, same,” I agreed with a note of appreciation.

“I hate to be the one to bring the mood down, but I

think we found the scientists,” Adam said sobrely.

He was right. The whole place was open plan, but

areas had been clearly set aside for different things.
The area Adam had found was what looked to be the
communal eating area, an open expanse of floor with
several square tables set out.

Sitting at those tables were almost a hundred dead

ring builders, slumped down onto their tables
amongst an ancient banquet. Their corpses were old
and withered, but they hadn’t had much of a chance
to decay in the reasonably sterile environment of their
makeshift tomb. They looked almost mummified.

In the center of the dead banquet was a stuttering

hologram showing the ring and the rest of the system.
Running through the hologram at a system-wide scale,
a strange cloud-like mass coloured in red stuttered
back and forth. It was caught in an animation, the vast
red cloud perpetually sweeping over the ring, then
flickering back to the last moments before it did so,
over and over. Above the whole hologram was a single
glowing red symbol, and unlike all the others, it wasn’t
hard to figure out what that symbol meant. Zero.
“Is this what I think it is?” Kit asked, his voice high with
anxiety. “Did they… kill themselves? Like, mass
suicide?”

“Appears so,” Troy murmured, walking towards one of

the corpses. “I wish we had some plastic bags, taking
samples from this lot would be invaluable for the the
brains back home. Even if it is… disrespectful.”

Staring at one of them with something like loss and

pity swirling in my stomach, I asked, “Why though?
What is that hologram showing? I mean, it’s obvious it
was something they feared more than death, and
more than those steel ones that they fought a war
against… so what is it?”

“That’s the million dollar question isn’t it?” Troy

remarked, glancing up at the hologram. “It wasn’t a
localised event either, it hit the whole damned ring.
I’d be willing to bet that scenes like this played out all
across this world when whatever that wave is was
about hit them. Mass suicides across the ring.”

“That’s kinda terrifying,” Grace said, coming to stand

closer to me. I reached out instinctively to clutch at
her arm, and she gave me a grateful smile in return.

“You can say that again,” Troy nodded, and for the
first time I thought I saw genuine worry on their face.
“Let’s do a quick search of the room, then get out of
here. This place is… let’s just move. Taking samples
can be done by another team.”

“Yeah, agreed,” Adam said with a wary look around

us.

We searched the floor at speed, all of us wanting to

get out of there and fast. It felt like we were
encroaching in places we shouldn’t now, like
disturbing the dead in their rest would lead to
something awful happening down the line.
Superstitious, I know… but magic was real now, and
that put the question to everything humanity had
assumed about the supernatural.

We left everything where it was this time, it was more

of the same that we’d found in the warehouse
anyway, and the idea of stealing from the immediate
possessions of the dead gave us all the heebie jeebies.
Especially considering we found more dead scientists
in their bunks and in other nooks, presumably wanting
solitude when they died, rather than companionship.

We all piled back into the lift a few minutes later and
headed further down into the complex, only one or
two more floors left to go. We found more labs with
more random experiments and desks in all but the
very last floor of the place.
When we stepped out into that floor, we were met by
a single, huge experiment. Sitting in a depression in
the middle of the room was a massive glass tank filled
with a swirling white gas that rippled with rainbow
light at the edges. Pipes hung from the ceiling to
connect into the top of this tank, and surrounding the
tank at a distance of about five feet were four strange
looking flat disks. The disks were held in metal cradles
and looked almost like they were made of white
ceramic.

On the raised area surrounding the tank and disks

were a series of workstations and large black glass
screens, some of which were cracked and damaged. It
was almost like they had been smashed on purpose,
and the fact of which caused yet more questions to
rebound through my skull.

“Okay, this looks important,” Troy said, turning to me.

“Ryn?”
I nodded and brought up my mage sight. Again, I
found myself in awe of what I was looking at. This was
not like their other attempts at magic, it was far more
sophisticated, but nor was it the type that I was used
to. The power within the containment tank seethed
and boiled to my eyes, only held in place by the flat
disks, which generated a field of more recognisable
magic around it.

“It’s magic all right, but it’s not shitty magic,” I told the
group, warily stepping forward towards it.

“Alright gang, take a look around while Ryn takes a

look, but I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything
with it,” Troy said, and I had to agree with him. This
thing was far too complex for me to understand.

Grace was quick to follow me, but the others began to

spread out and look at the busted terminals instead.
The room was so bare of anything interesting besides
those terminals and the big ball of volatile energy in
the middle, so I shrugged and went back to staring at
it.

“What does it look like to your magic eyes?” Grace

asked quietly from beside me.

“It’s even more rainbowy,” I told her, shifting my

balance this way and that to get a better look.

It was like someone had taken a huge number of

different types of magic and shaken it all up together
in a bottle. I could feel little flickers of the Nameless
Garden in there, as well as other strange signatures
that I didn’t recognise. Were there other magical
realms besides the Garden? It sure looked like it,
judging from this thing.
“Oh wow,” Grace murmured, drawing my attention
away from the angry bottle of magic.

I turned my mage sight off to see her, finding that she

was staring at me, her eyes fixed on mine with an
inquisitive intensity that had goosebumps running up
my arms.

“What?” I asked, frozen in place by her gaze.

“Your eyes go funny when you’re using your mage

sight,” she told me breathlessly, stepping closer. “They
go all sparkly. Do it again.”

I gulped, and switched my mage sight on again for her,

but I had to take a step back in the process, because
she was way too close again. I... should not have
stepped back.
When I moved backwards, I felt my shield brush
against something, magic washing over and around it
in a discordant stream. I turned to see what it was
with a frown, only to realise with slowly dawning
horror what I’d done. I’d stepped in front of one of the
flat disks, blocking the stream of containment magic
with my shield in the process.

The effect was immediate.

The wild magic smashed through the glass with a

thunderous roar akin to that of a jet engine and hit my
shield square on. It bowed inward with the force of
the impact, like a baseball deforming in slow motion
as it was hit with a bat.

I had a split second to brace myself before I was

thrown violently backwards and into the containment
disk with the crack of breaking bone. Pain lanced
through my shoulder and my vision swayed, but I
didn’t black out, meaning I was able to see the stream
of rainbow energy ricochet off to strike Grace in the
center of her chest.

The moment it made contact with her body, it was

pouring into her like water down a drain. It surged and
bucked even as my friend fell to the ground with a
scream, her body writhing with pain. Within a second
or two it was over, faster than anyone could react,
and Grace’s twitching body glowed with a subtle aura
of rainbow light. She’d absorbed the whole lot.

Making to go to her, I gave a cry of pain when my own

injuries made themselves known, stars dancing before
my eyes.

I watched as Troy tried to go for Grace too, only to

receive a shock when the energy around her lashed
out violently, knocking him backwards. “Shit!” he
swore, grimacing as he took a few breaths. “What the
hell just happened?”

“I think… I think it was my fault,” I said, my voice

quivering with guilt and pain. “I stepped back and
accidentally blocked the containment thingies.”

“Damn,” Troy winced. “Alright, it was an accident,

blame is not helpful or important. We need to leave
though, and get Grace to safety.”

“How? It’s pretty obvious we can’t touch her,” Adam

asked, moving over to me instead. Kneeling down, he
gingerly helped me to my feet, earning a whimper
from me as bone scraped against bone. “Ryn’s hurt,”
he told Troy. “Broke her shoulder I think.”

It sure felt like he was right, my shoulder felt

sickeningly wrong and I could feel it shifting in ways it
was definitely not meant to shift. It had been so long
since I’d had a broken bone that I’d forgotten how
much it hurt. Which is to say, a lot.

“Keep hold of her,” Troy told him. “I’ll figure out how
to get Grace out.”

Before he could go and get himself shocked again, I

cut in, “I can do it.”

“How? Your arm is—“ Troy began, before

understanding dawned on him and he nodded. “Right,
your magic. This makes things a lot easier, thank you
Ryn.”

Without replying I reached out with my mind to

carefully envelop Grace with my telekinesis, then
gingerly picked her up. I didn’t get shocked or
anything, thankfully, and she wasn’t too heavy for me.
Seeing her floating unconscious like that sent a
terrified pang through my heart, and worry gripped
my mind so hard that I thought it would burst. She
needed to be okay, she had to be okay. I couldn’t lose
Grace. I was so damn stupid, I was so, so stupid. Why
had I stepped back?

“Good, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Troy said

decisively.

Chapter 41 :
We rushed into the lift in a hurry, and even the short
time it took to get to the surface was too long for my
fear and pain addled mind. Grace was unconscious for
the whole ride up, and she stayed that way as we
rushed out of the entrance and towards the
mountains in an attempt to put distance behind us.
Her face was pale, and her skin looked clammy with
sweat, but aside from those things and the odd glow
around her, I couldn’t see any injuries. Of course, she
had her pack and armour on, so it was difficult to tell
through that.

Magically speaking, she was almost blinding to look at.

The tank had been almost three yards in diameter, but
now all of that magic was compressed into the much
smaller container that was my friend. It did not look
happy to be there either, small arcs of what looked
like magical plasma were flowing out of her at
random, only to get pulled back in again a moment
later. It almost looked like her skin was the surface of
a star.

It only occurred to me after we’d made the jump to

my grove that bringing her here could cause problems,
but it seemed to have the opposite effect. The roiling
magic within her seemed to noticeably calm as we
arrived in the soft grass before my tree. It was night
now, both outside and inside my grove, so the way up
the ramp was slow as we tried not to lose our footing
and fall off the edge. Yet another thing I needed to
change.

“What do we do with her?” Adam asked, his

expression worried as we all arrived in the entry hall.
“And what do we do about Ryn’s shoulder?”

“I’ll be fine,” I groaned, glancing down at my broken

shoulder.

The moment we’d entered my grove I’d felt myself

beginning to heal, as though the plant half of my body
was pulling the human half back together second by
second.
“How? You broke your arm!” he exclaimed, looking
equal parts exasperated and worried for me.

“My grove is healing me,” I explained with shallow,

pained breaths as things happened within me that
were obviously meant to be good, but my god did
they hurt. I could feel the bones being pulled back into
alignment, while torn and bruised muscle was stitched
back together.

“That’s a huge relief,” Troy sighed, watching Grace

float in midair. “The question remains, what do we do
with her?”

“I’m going to take her back up to our room. I’ll have

the buns bring two of those big couches up to use as a
bed for her,” I told them, and for once I didn’t allow
argument. “Sorry, but I’m going to be the one to look
after her. This is a magic thing. Plus, I’m the one who
did this.”
“Fair. You’re the one who’s most experienced with
magic by a significant margin,” Troy nodded, rolling his
shoulders wearily. “In that case, please keep us
posted, and don’t hesitate to call out if there’s
problems. Grace is a good woman and it would suck if
she… well, you know all that.”

The other two nodded, and Adam came up to place a

huge hand on my small, feminine shoulder, the
uninjured one. “I know the boss man said it, but if you
need anything, any help at all, let me know and I’ll
come running alright?”

“Thanks Adam,” I said, giving him a weak smile

through my pain.

Kit just gave an awkward wave and hurried off up the

stairs towards the baths. Alone, I walked into the
storage with a floating Grace in tow, only to find the
buns already hard at work in there. They were
maneuvering one of the couches back towards the
door, and the sight was amusing enough that it eased
my anxious worry over my friend, if only slightly.

“Can you all get those up the stairs?” I asked the buns
dubiously. “And clean them, then push them
together?”

One of the buns stopped, the cream one that had

been one of my first tenders. The little critter stood up
straight, saluted proudly, flopped an ear, and then got
back to work.

I couldn’t help it, I gave a giggle of relief as a huge

smile briefly flitted across my lips. Point taken little
friend, you’d see it done.They were damned good
buns. I’d have to see about getting some banana trees
and carrots growing for them. A little known fact
about bunnies amongst the wider population was that
they loved bananas and apples, as well as the usual
carrots. I was willing to bet they’d already been eating
the apples I planted.

With the bed situation handled by my amazing buns, I

trudged my way up the stairs with Grace. My
destination was a bath, and I was all kinds of
conflicted about the impending wash. I’d need to
wash her too, but I didn’t want to infringe on her
privacy.

It was going to be difficult. I just had to not think

about her soft, pale skin or her artfully shaped and
moderately sized chest. Shit, my friend was
unconscious and injured by unknown magic and I was
thinking about her boobs. What a great friend I was,
not. Still, she was absolutely covered in sweat and
travel dust now and I needed to get it off her.
I got her into the bathroom, then closed my eyes and
activated my mage sight. I could see enough of her to
begin taking off her armour and clothing while not
being able to properly see her naked. Instead, I saw an
approximation of her, a sort of smoothed out bubble-
like version due to her natural magical defenses
extending slightly out from her skin.

Using my telekinesis for this was like trying to undress

someone in the dark with a pair of big chopsticks, but
eventually I was able to get her undressed. Taking a
lot of care, I placed her gently in the bath, making sure
to hold her upright while she soaked.

I should have expected a reaction, given what I knew

about how water and magic interacted, but I didn’t
really consider it. So when her magic reached out into
the bath and did the magic equivalent of electrifying
it, I was mildly surprised for a moment, then shook my
head at my own short sightedness. My worry for her
was causing me to make mistakes.
I opened my eyes a little to stare at the water that was
alight with subtle flickers of rainbow light, then
proceeded to make a movement that was probably
very stupid, but I needed to know. I touched the
water. Rather than being exploded backwards like
Troy had been though, my magical organs began to
voraciously drink it in. Not only did it drink the stuff in,
but it also felt absolutely incredible, and before I could
help myself I let out a long, low moan of pleasure.
Holy shit.

Yanking my hand back with a squeak, I blurted a

surprised, “Fuck!”

My muscles twitched all over, my breathing was

stuttering and shallow, and my heart was a wild
drumbeat. Most embarrassing of all was the way I was
feeling internally, specifically between my legs. I
twitched and pulsed with my heartbeat down there,
and I could feel myself growing wet with the arousal.
What had that magic just done to me?

I stared down at the stuff as it swirled within me, my

body eating it up like it was plasma directly from the
sun. I could already see it churning the stuff up into
growth magic at a ratio that was terrifyingly efficient.
Well, that solved some of my problems at least, at the
expense of… apparently, turning me on like a damned
light switch.

I decided against hopping into the bath with Grace

though, because regardless of sexual arousal magic, it
would also just be very weird. So I closed my eyes and
used my telekinesis to gently scrub at the areas I was
comfortable scrubbing.

It was strange, the way her magical defenses seemed

to bow inward to the exact point of her skin and no
more, allowing my scrubbing to work. Once my task
was done, I took her out and dried her as best I could
with a floating towel, a furious blush burning my face
the whole damn time.

There wasn’t even anyone watching, but I just felt so

damned weird about the whole thing, especially
considering the… new effect that Grace had on me.
Wait, who was I kidding? She’d already had that effect
on me, it was just amplified now.

I couldn’t get her clothed fast enough for my burning

face, and my eyes were starting to hurt the way I had
them scrunched up tight. Then I was carrying her up to
our room, finding that the buns had done very well
with their duties.

The alien couches had been pushed together in a way

that created a large enclosed space where we could
sleep without rolling out anywhere. I laid Grace down
carefully onto the makeshift bed, covered her with her
blankets and then rushed off to get my own bath
done.

Even when I got back the bath was still charged with
energy, and on a hunch I decided to work on the tree
blueprints quickly. I added sinks to the bathrooms
using separate water supplies, grip to the front ramp,
along with flowers up and down the sides for lighting.

Adding the revised designs to the tree, I slipped into

the bath and watched as my body began to throw the
excess growth energy I was generating at it. The
changes would take a day or so, but it was faster than
throwing my normal reserves at the project.
Meanwhile, I just had to endure this unending lust
that coursed through me.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I lied to myself as warm

pleasure pulsed within me. I wasn’t going to be uh,
going places with it, but damn was it a lot to deal with.
Once my bath was done and I’d calmed down a little, I
walked back up to the room and stared down at Grace
and the bed. Did I have the guts to lay down next to
her, knowing what I did about the energy she was
giving off? A thought occurred to me as I took in my
friend’s sleeping form. What if by siphoning off the
magic she was now obviously generating, I helped her
a little? She’d seemed to still and stop sweating when
we entered the grove...

I decided to test it, laying down carefully next to her,

then placing a hand on her arm. Immediately my body
was gorging itself on the stuff, tingling pleasure
bursting through my veins in a torrent. I shuddered
and pulled my hand back, cutting the flow off. I’d
never be able to sleep if I had to deal with that…
sensation.

I switched to my plant skin instead, bringing the flora

side of my nature to the fore, then tried again. The
pleasure was far lessened now, just a gentle hum of
warmth, and I could see the rate of absorption had
increased astronomically. Growth energy was pouring
off me in waves as my reserves filled and then burst
their tops. Alright, this might work.

Tentatively, apprehensively, I shifted to press myself

against her side, embarrassment and shame coming
writhing to the forefront of my mind. I shouldn’t be
cuddling up to her like this while she couldn’t say no.

Except, as soon as I made wider contact with her, two

things happened. First, the rate I was generating
growth energy rose higher still, and second… she
stirred. It wasn’t much, but her eyes fluttered open for
a second as if half asleep, and she wrapped her arms
around me, pulling me closer. My heart exploded into
wonder in that moment, her strong arms around me
causing a million tiny starbursts of happiness within
me.
“You feel so nice and cold,” she whispered, burying
her face in my hair.

“Grace? You’re okay?” I asked quickly, relief washing

over me too. She was conscious! She might be okay!

Her only reply however, was to let out a long,

chainsaw impression of a snore. Alright, clearly I was
helping then! All I had to do was fall asleep while my
heart thundered in my chest and wild affection ran
rampant through my mind.

She felt so wonderful against me, so soft and warm,

even without the constant flow of magic coming off of
her. I decided not to over analyse what was happening
and just enjoy it, enjoy the feeling of being held in her
arms. I’d never been held so affectionately like this
before, and before long I was crying soft, happy tears.
Chapter 42 :
“Ryn?”

Grace’s voice fluttered pleasantly through my sleeping

mind, causing a smile grow through the those bleary
first moments of almost-consciousness.

As I slipped from sleep to waking, I gently pressed my

face further into her shoulder. “Grace,” I said,
breathing her in. I’d never been happier than right in
that moment, her arms around me, protecting me.

“Ryn!” Grace said a little more urgently, shaking me

slightly.

I groaned and opened my eyes, leaning back from her.

I wanted to stay like that, in the uncomplicated world
right after waking, where memory and worry hadn’t
asserted themselves yet. Unfortunately, complicated
was exactly the look she was giving me right now. It
was a look that was really a whole lot of different
looks. Confusion, worry, and… happiness?

“What… what happened?” she asked, gesturing

around us at the… oh dear.

Apparently when I’d fallen asleep, the growth energy

I’d been producing with Grace’s help had gotten… side
tracked. I had gone full plant, bursting into dark
magenta flower, and a few small green vines were
wrapped around my friend as if to hold on to her all
the better.

“Sorry!” I squeaked, quickly pulling all my personal

vegetation back into me.

Except I wasn’t thinking and went to far, completely

resuming human form. The instant I did, I received the
full force of our body length physical contact. Pleasure
exploded through me, searing every nerve with
dancing sensation and I let out a high, trilling moan.

It was several seconds before I could get myself under

control enough to bring my plant body back to the
surface again, and during that time Grace wrapped me
worriedly in her arms, inadvertently making the the
problem worse. I was now massively aroused too, and
still pressed up against the woman who’d caused that
arousal. Crap, I wanted her so badly.

“What was that?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

“It’s… a long story,” I mumbled into her arm, where

my face had ended up, my body still twitching slightly
with need for her. “What do you remember?”
“The glass thing… it broke and the magic… it got out,”
she said slowly, her voice pained as she tried to
remember.

“Yeah… it bounced off me and into you. It’s all inside

you now,” I told her slowly, pushing back so I could
see her face. “You keep making more and more now, I
don’t know how.”

“I have magic in me? That magic?” she asked, her

voice rising in pitch with every word. “How did we go
from me getting contaminated with unknown magic,
to us cuddling in our room, which is now also a jungle,
on two alien couches, surrounded by a ring of
bunnies?”

“Wait what?” I asked in alarm, sitting up to look

around the bed.
Each of my buns was flopped in a loose circle on the
floor around us, a floor that now had a thick layer of
the most luscious grass I’d ever seen. Plants of all
types were sprouting directly from the wood of the
floor too, ferns, berry bushes, you name it. The walls
had erupted into a jungle of glowing leaves, flowers
and even fruits, each one wild and unique. It was like
the room had gone into a plant riot while we were
asleep.

“Okay, that’s new,” I said slowly, feeling my cheeks

heating as I realised my mistake. It appears I needed
to be awake for my growth energy to remain strictly
on task.

“Ryn, please,” she whispered, almost begging. “What’s

wrong with me? What’s happening?”

“Right, sorry… after you got hit, all the magic was
just… sucked into you, knocking you unconscious.
Since then it’s been, uh… reproducing. Then I noticed
that if I absorbed it from you, you seemed to feel
better… except it’s also very hard to handle that
energy and it makes me feel um, weird. So I swapped
to plant mode and that seemed to help,” I told her
hesitantly, avoiding the whole sexual side of things for
now.

She puffed out her cheeks in a big, weary sigh. “Okay…

that’s a lot. So we’re cuddling because you’re
siphoning energy off me to help me?”

“Um, something like that, yeah, sorry,” I nodded,

blushing furiously now. “You uh, did kinda wake up for
a second last night and pull me in really close though.
You said I was nice and cold.”

“You are nice and cold… and you don’t need to be

sorry,” she told me, her voice edged with strange
emotion. “You’ve helped me, obviously… but it’s not
like I mind cuddling up to you.”

“What?” I asked, breath rapidly escaping my lungs as I

dared to hope for a second. “What do you mean?”

My heart was thundering in my chest now as I

watched her. Was she maybe going to say that she
might be interested in me? Romantically? Surely not…
she hadn’t given much of an indication that she was…
right? Except now she was staring at me with wide,
almost yearning eyes, her own cheeks erupting in a
blush.

“I’m sorry,” she cringed. “That was me being weird

again, I just… you… I… um. Damn, I don’t know.
Cuddles are nice.”
“They are,” I said, my heart so full to bursting now
that my words were too quiet, I had to repeat myself.
“They are… and I liked this one a lot.”

“You did?” she asked, confusion settling into her

expression. “But you were siphoning the magic off me
right? Like, that’s why?”

“Kinda,” I said, dropping eye contact. It was too hard,

looking into those wonderful, expressive green eyes of
hers. If I didn’t look away I might try and kiss her again
or something. “Mostly I just didn’t think about it…”

Her face fell. “Oh… I guess I won’t think about it

either?”

“No, no!” I exclaimed, shuffling closer again into her

arms. “I mean, I wasn’t thinking too hard about why I
was cuddling you. I just liked it, you needed it, so I did
it!”

“Oh…” she breathed, and then we were just staring at

each other again, faces close, bodies closer.

My eyes roamed over her face, enjoying the proximity

where I could just… visually explore her like this. She
was so pretty, and it was like every day she got
prettier in my eyes. She’d been glowing to me even
before she got a magical star trapped inside her body.
Her personality, protective, caring, gentle and
wonderful had drawn me in from the moment I met
her back on Earth.

I couldn’t really deny it anymore, I was falling in love

with her, emphasis on the falling. Like, really hard, as
hard as it would be to fall off my tree. How do you
even resist falling for someone like Grace, with her
bright mind, that amazing body and gorgeous face,
especially since I’d been spending most of my waking
and sleeping moments with her. I didn’t resist it, I
couldn’t, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to.

She was moving before I realised it, her hand drifting

to my waist, her face moving close, her lips parting…
and then she was kissing me.

I shorted out, mind going white with shock even as my

heart burst into a breathless, overwhelming surge of
affection. My body reacted too, shockwaves of
warmth rippling through me that had me moving
almost without thought. My legs tangled urgently with
hers, locking us in place, my hands rushed to hold her,
fingers splayed out across the supple muscles of her
back.

Her lips were so gentle on mine at first, hesitant and

caring, ready to back away in a moment, but when I
pulled us closer together, the kiss deepened. My
world shrank, just the feel of our mouths moving oh
so slowly, oh so tantalisingly together. Each brush of
soft lip on soft lip had my mind spinning off madly into
space, and it was the most incredible thing I’d ever
experienced.

I was being kissed by Grace, by the girl I had literally

just admitted to having fallen for, and what’s more…
she seemed really into it. Her hands had slid up the
back of my shirt now, fingers running a line of hot
sensation up my spine. She felt so good, I never
wanted to stop kissing her.

So obviously, with that thought… that’s what she did,

pulling back from the kiss quickly. “I’m sorry!” she
blurted, eyes going wide with panic.

“Don’t be! I loved it, it was amazing, and with the way
your magic effects me right now, I’m definitely not
complaining,” I said quickly, trying to placate her. Why
was she freaking out? I was obviously kissing her back!

Shit, and she had kissed me! Did that mean she was
like.. into me? Or just like, horny or something?

“What do you mean, the way my magic effects you?”

she asked, each word heavy with worry.

If I hadn’t already been completely red in the face, I

would have blushed some more. “Your magic… it turns
me on, like… a lot. It’s worse when I’m in full human
mode too.”

“What?!” she blurted, almost angrily, pushing back

from me entirely. “Was that what this was just now?”
“No! No way!” I said, raw fear piercing my heart. “No!
That was something… I’ve been wanting.”

“How can you be sure?” she asked, shaking her head.

She looked wild eyed, freaked out by the revelation,
far more freaked out than she should be. “How can
either of us be sure that you were acting without…
you just got a huge dose from me. If you wanted…
that, but it didn’t happen until now, you must have
been holding back for a reason.”

This could not be happening, this could seriously not

be happening. Right when I find out she might be
interested in me, right when we actually end up
kissing, not just kissing, but my first kiss... now she’s
doubting?! It was like a bad dream, a nightmare come
to tease me with what I wanted, only to violently yank
the rug out from under me.
“I was holding back all this time because I didn’t think
you’d want to kiss me back!” I cried with frustration
and misery, already expecting the worst from this
conversation.

“I did!” she said, her tone lamenting. “But now I don’t

know if I’m messing with your head or not when… you
know. Shit! Why… why is this. God fuck damn. We
can’t know if what you’re feeling is genuine while I
have this magic in me!”

“Why are you trying to dictate to me what I am and

am not feeling, Grace?” I asked her, almost angry now.
“I know what I’ve been feeling, what’s been building
within me. I’m falling for you damn it!”

“I can’t do this Ryn, I need to be sure. I can’t… I can’t

put my heart out on the line again, I don’t want to
hurt again,” she said sadly, getting up and shakily
moving out of the bed. “I need to be sure, I need to
know… I need to have that undeniable trust in
anything that might happen, Ryn. I can’t be crushed
again.”

I opened my mouth to protest, to try and convince

her, but… she was sort of right. No matter how sure of
my own feelings I was, I needed her to be sure too.
With that element of uncertainty hanging in her mind,
nothing would work.

Although I wasn't entirely sure what "something"

would look like. She hadn't outright stated that she
was romantically interested… just that she'd enjoyed
the kiss. Well, and the heart on the line thing. Maybe
she was? Love was so much harder than stories made
it out to be.

“Okay…” I said, tears welling in my eyes. “Okay. That

makes sense… I wish I could convince you that I’m
sincere, but until then… you’re right.”
“Thank you,” she sighed, stepping back towards me
and reaching up as if to wipe a tear from my face,
although she seemed to think better of it. Stepping
back again, she swallowed hard. “I’m going to go to
the toilet and find food… I’ll see you down—“

“Wait!” I blurted, remembering something

monumentally important. “Wait! You can’t just go off
on your own, okay? You’re generating huge amounts
of unknown magical energy, so much that it was
hurting you, probably doing damage to your body.”

“Oh, shit,” she said, then shook her head in disbelief.

“So that means you’re going to need to be practically
glued to me doesn’t it?”

“Yes, even… like we were sleeping last night,” I said

awkwardly. “I have no idea how often I’ll need to drain
you, but we’ll definitely need to be sleeping like that,
to make sure you don’t explode or whatever.”

“Explode?!” she asked, alarmed.

“Grace,” I said, a little exasperated. “I don’t think you

fully realise what’s happening inside you. You’re…
you’re like the sun, you’re a perpetual explosion of
wild magic right now. Last night when you were full
up, there were arcs of the stuff exploding off your
body. Troy tried to pick you up, but the moment he
touched you it was like he was hit by lightning!”

“Jesus, really? Okay, okay… so we have to be cuddly,

even if it’s… awkward,” she murmured, conflict
warring across her expression.

“Basically,” I nodded, too worried about her wellbeing

to really pay much mind to the awkward part. “Look,
I’m sorry… I just care way too much about you to let
this hurt you.”

She let out a long, drawn out sigh and sat down on the
arm of the couch. She stayed like that for a few
moments before she bonelessly flopped down next to
me, her arms snaking around me. She pulled me over
to her, then wearily placed her head on my stomach.

“Damn,” she groaned. “This magic shit really doesn’t

live up to the hype.”

Tentatively, I reached my hand out, brushing my

fingers through her blonde hair. It had grown out
since Earth, and the sun had run bright highlights
through it. “We’ll figure it out,” I reassured her. “We’ll
figure it out.”
Chapter 43 :
“Grace!” Adam cried out as we shuffled into the guy’s
common room. “You’re awake!”

“Yeah, thanks to Ryn,” she smiled, glancing sideways

at me and lifting our intertwined fingers.

Holding hands had seemed like the easiest way to

keep the level of her magic low, so here we were…
holding hands. I was struggling with this whole
situation on a deep and heartfelt level. The way we
were holding hands was more than just how we might
do it out of necessity, but we weren’t really talking
about it. I mean really, her thumb kept absently
brushing mine with so much care that it was making
my eyes water.

That brought Adam’s eyebrows up and his eyes down

to our hands. “What do you mean?”
Either the buns or the guys had dragged a table and
some chairs up, so Grace and I sat down with them,
dropping each other’s hands so we could eat. During
breakfast, I went on to explain Grace's problem, and
how I could mitigate it by absorbing the energy via
skin contact. Grace seemed to be perfectly functional
otherwise, which meant that after a morning of rest
we might be able to continue our journey.

Well, we thought she was fine, until ten minutes into

breakfast and she reached for an apple. It was one
that had been grown in my grove, or it was… until her
magic made itself known again. A small spark of
rainbow light, like a miniature coronal mass ejection
whipped out with a crack, blowing the apple into little
chunks. The tiny explosion sprayed everyone at the
table with those chunks of fruit, and we all stopped
for a second to stare at it.

“You sure you feel up to travelling?” Troy asked

cautiously.
“Yeah,” she nodded, somewhat defensively. “I feel…
fine.”

She’d wobbled slightly with that last word, and I took

that as my cue to do some proper draining of her
powers. I reached over without asking, and lifted her
shirt slightly, sliding my hands and bare forearms up
her back and stomach. She twitched and straightened
as I leaned close and placed my cheek to her neck,
head facing away from everyone at the table. I needed
as much skin contact as possible after all.

“Oh,” she whispered breathlessly, leaning into the

intense skin on skin contact between us. “That’s nice.”

I heard Adam clear his throat with a chuckle and say

awkwardly, “I’m sure it is.”
“Shut up,” Grace grumbled. “She’s so nice and cold. It
feels like I have a fever and she’s a lovely cold shower.
She feels amazing.”

On an incredibly naughty impulse, I shifted my lips to

brush at her ear, knowing full well what it would look
like to the others, and whispered, “Now which one of
us is being compelled to enjoy the touches between
us, hmm?”

I felt her answering stutter of breath through my

hands and arms, and placed my head back down on
her shoulder with a grin, my index finger tracing a
slow, soft circle over her spine. She’d been teasing me
and testing my self control for weeks now, and with
the discovery that she felt something for me, be it
sexual or romantic… well I couldn’t resist a little
payback.
Troy made a strange, awkward sound, his voice gruff
as he said, “Right, so long as you two can… keep that
up, do you think we’ll be fine to try and make some
miles?”

Shifting my position to look back at him, I nodded.

“We might leave a trail of flowers or something
behind us though.”

“Uh, what?” Kit blurted, staring between Grace and I

with flushed cheeks.

“I’m absorbing all the energy she’d generating and

then converting it into growth energy, but there’s no
way I could hold the amount she’s making, so instead
I’m just constantly radiating the stuff,” I told them.
“You might have noticed how there’s some weird new
growth around, or the beginnings of some sinks in the
bathrooms.”
“Ah, I did notice that,” Kit nodded, looking
thoughtfully down at his food. “That’s actually rather
useful.”

“It is, I might take my new pet nuke out for a spin soon
to grow some of my plants a bit more,” I giggled,
getting a grumpy sound from Grace.

“Only if your battery says yes, thank you very much,”

she told me, leaning back to glare at me. A glare that
was undercut just slightly by the flicker of a smile that
was threatening to become a grin.

We held each other’s gazes for probably far longer

than necessary, but her eyes were just so entrancing, I
couldn’t look away.

“Well, let’s finish breakfast then,” Troy interrupted,

and I glanced over to see him very pointedly not
looking at us, with Kit doing the same. Adam was
grinning at us like an idiot, his eyes sparkling with
mirth. Then he wiggled his fuckin’ eyebrows at us.
Crap. He was going to add to our suffering with even
more of his teasing, I just knew it. Not that Grace and I
were doing much to stop that suffering right now.

Despite our teasing back and forth, Grace did actually

agree to walk around my grove with me and help give
my plants a boost. My grove was going well, the forest
sections I’d planted were thriving under the care of
my buns, and my resource fields were looking good
too. I could see where the buns had been cutting
down the trees I’d set out as lumber too, which was
great news. I should check out the other storage room
that had all the resources collecting in it.

When I did, I found a whole bunch of hardwood logs

stacked up, aging and drying in there. There were also
several piles of various fruits and vegetables that had
little trails of crumbs leading from them. The bunnies
had been snacking. That was fine, they were good
little buns. Other materials had been collected too,
ready for processing, whenever that could be figured
out. Maybe I could sell a bunch of this stuff for tools,
or maybe doors for the rooms inside the tree.
Preferably before another storm hit us.

When lunch came and went, so did we, walking out

into the plains again to continue our journey. The
mountains were properly visible now, and my word
did they look strange. They reminded me of the
mountains from that one area in china, huge pillars of
rock everywhere, some of them so large and dizzyingly
high that I could have sworn they would fall over at
any moment. How could anyone live in this place with
the fear of those things falling over onto them?

They weren’t all the same height though, or starting

off at the same elevation, because where there
weren’t rock pillars, it was canyons. The walls of which
were so massive that they had definitely earned the
right to be called mountains.

It looked like a nightmare to traverse, and I was

already wondering how the hell we were going to
make our way through. Because on top of the massive
rock spires and sheer canyon walls, the whole thing
was covered in what looked like a dense,
impenetrable temperate rainforest.

We were still a day or so away, but already we were

having discussions about what the hell to do next.
None of us were equipped to get through. We might
have to find our way to a road before we tried to go in
too deep. Privately I was kicking myself for not asking
about a route through the mountains. My ignorant
city-girl nature was really showing itself right about
now.
That night we headed back into the grove and
stumbled our way through our bedtime routines.
Grace and I had to take very quick baths, because
neither of us was comfortable bathing with the other,
but she still had to have her energy siphoned off
constantly.

I sat in our makeshift bed as I waited for her to finish,

staring around at the happily glowing vegetation from
last night. I really hoped that it wouldn’t get too out of
control. Maybe I should get the buns to clear the
room out tomorrow? As pretty as it was, it made the
room rather hard to use.

“Ryn!” Grace’s voice came through from what we

were calling the girl’s common room outside.

“In here!” I replied, leaning my head on the back of

one of the couches, now the side wall of our little bed-
fort.
A few moments later and she was stumbling into the
room, gasping for air. “Please,” she begged, her eyes
unfocused, skin pale and arcing with energy, her
expression drawn.

“Shit,” I swore, shuffling towards the foot of the bed

and helping to pull her into it.

She slept with a sports bra on while she was with me,
so I yanked her top up over her head, then did my
own. I knew that I wasn’t wearing anything under that
top, but she did not look good right now, and that
took priority.

I pulled her on top of me, pressing smooth skin to

smooth skin and settling her head down on my
shoulder while I tried to maximise skin contact across
the rest of her body. I was still in my minimum plant
form, and had been for the entire day almost, so
arousal wasn’t too much a problem. Well, besides the
fact that I was now cradling Grace while topless.

“I’ve got you,” I soothed, pressing a gentle kiss to the

top of her head. “I’ve got you.”

“I feel like I’m on fire,” she whimpered, clinging to me.

“Like I’ve just eaten a really spicy pepper, but my
whole body is feeling it, not just my tongue.”

“Yeah, I can feel how warm you are,” I said gently,

brushing my fingers down the dip of her spine
sympathetically. “I’m draining it though, you’ll feel
better soon.”

“Thank you,” she said, so quiet it was more of a sigh

than real speech.
While I held her, I decided to make a change to my
tree that was purely aesthetic. I added glowing
flowers to the outside branches, the colours ranging
from purple to pink and into blue. If I was going to
constantly be exploding with growth energy while I
slept, may as well put it to some use.

“Can we sleep like this tonight?” she murmured

drowsily into my collarbone. “I’m comfortable and
happy.”

“Yes, of course,” I told her, affection welling up and

overflowing within me, just like my magic. Holy shit, I
cared about her so damned much. How was it even
possible to feel this much raw emotion? “Whatever
will make you happy, that’s what we’ll do,” I
continued, my voice aching with care.

“Blankets,” she grumbled, tightening her hold on me.

“I’m cold no— Ryn… are you topless?“
“Yup,” I laughed quietly. “I didn’t exactly have time to
put a bra on before tending to you.”

“Okay, put a bra on or something, then blankets,” she

said with embarrassment flaming her cheeks, rolling
off me as fast as possible.

I watched her valiantly avoid staring at my boobs for a

whole three seconds before her eyes gave a quick flick
down, then back up again. I just grinned, it was nice
having her get embarrassed about seeing my chest.
My boobs were pretty great, and plus, the way she
was acting was just a very intense and intimate
affirmation of my gender. I was a girl, and not just a
girl, but a hot girl who was being stared at by another
hot girl, and both of us found the other girl hot. If that
makes sense...
Deciding to show a little mercy, I pushed myself out of
bed and went hunting in my pack for my bra and the
blankets, then hopped back into bed. Smiling sleepily,
she waited until I was settled in and then tentatively
shuffled over to me.

“I can still…?” she asked, whispering hopefully.

My answer was to smoothly pull her down on top of

me. “Yes, you can.”

Chapter 44 :
“Well... shit,” Troy sighed, running his hands through
his close cropped hair as he stared at the cliff face in
front of us.

It was a broken, jagged thing that was about thirty

meters of rock and debris. It was pretty clearly the end
of the plains and it ran for about a mile in each
direction. The whole mountain range that now
towered over us was the same mess of rock, as
though some massive god had thrown a tantrum and
hacked at the ground with a pickaxe or something.

“Which way do we go?” Grace asked, glancing either

way. “Left is inland I think, and right is towards the
sea? If I remember correctly?”

Grace wasn’t wearing her armour, just some hardy

travelling clothes. We’d realised that if for some
reason I needed to drain her quickly, I’d need easier
access to her skin than her armour allowed. So normal
clothing it was.

“It is,” I nodded, squeezing her hand. “The rivers were

travelling in that direction anyway.”
“Towards the sea then,” Troy replied, already
beginning to walk that way. “More likely to be
settlements and roads near the sea than inland.”

We trekked through the foothills of the mountains for

a day before we saw anything other than mountains
on one side and grassland on the other. In fact, we
almost stumbled into a wide, shallow and sedate river
that was meandering out from the mountains at an
angle.

When Grace and I approached the water, reaching

down to dip our free hands into it, we found it cool
and clear. The stuff was probably ice melt from higher
in the mountains where it might snow regularly,
although we couldn’t see evidence of that from here.
There wasn’t any snow to be seen on the mountains
from here, only a ton of vegetation.
The river, as much as it blocked our path, also
provided some help. It ran in either direction along
the bank of the river was a path, although it was little
more than a goat track with signs of human passage.
Since the river seemed to be coming from the
mountains, the decision was made to follow the track
into the mountains.

Unlike the Plains of Mosteghunoksia, the mountains

and forest were teeming with sound and life. Actually,
it was almost deafening as the evening began to roll
around, the birds were going absolutely mental in the
trees. Thousands of sparrows all yelling over the top
of each other like enthusiastic vendors in a crowded
market.

At one point we saw a herd of what appeared to be

deer grazing close to the bank on the other side of the
river, a few of which curiously glanced up to watch us.
It was rather amazing to see a place so teeming with
life after that damned grassland.
Although, Grace and I really had been making it a little
more interesting as we walked. We seemed to send
every plant we walked past into excited bloom, the
flowers of which would follow us like they might
follow the sun as it tracked across the sky. If someone
wanted to follow us now, it would not be hard, which
was a little worrying.

When we stopped for the night, we hid ourselves as

best we could in the forest and swapped over into my
grove. The next morning, we continued down the path
and found it connected with a larger cart track.

The cart track led us for another half a day, until we

sighted a settlement in the distance. It was larger than
most villages we’d come across so far, but far smaller
than the cities. A well crafted wooden wall surrounded
the place where it was nestled in a bend of the river,
woodfire smoke drifting up from chimneys that
peeked over the wall. We figured it must be some sort
ot trading post, a place that had sprung up organically
because it was once a convenient place to rest on the
journey to trade with the Obrec.

“We need to go in there, get information,” Troy

stated, then turned to look at Grace and me. “Except
there’s no way we’ll be able to hide you two.”

“We could sell some of the resources from my grove

too, try and trade it for some tools and stuff,” I said
thoughtfully. “But yeah, I think Grace and I will have to
sit this one out.”

“Agreed, will you two be fine on your own, possibly

hide in your grove until a predetermined time of day?”
he asked with his usual calm expression.

I glanced over at Grace to see what she thought and

found her looking back at me. We shared a silent
conversation for a split second before I turned back
and nodded to Troy. “Yeah, that works. How about
sunset?”

“Sunset is easy, sounds good. If for whatever reason

we don’t make it back, try again in the morning,” he
said with a slight smile. “Let’s go find a spot, then we
can take some of your stuff into town to sell.”

“What if you don’t come back at all?” Grace asked

quietly. She seemed subdued for some reason, which
I’d need to ask her about when we got some time
alone. I hoped that her condition wasn’t causing her
to get depressed or anything.

“Meet in Millowhall, or failing that, back at Avonside,

but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he smiled
reassuringly.
Grace didn’t look convinced by his words, but she
didn’t say anything more. Alright, something was
definitely wrong with her. Did she know something?

Regardless, we trekked into the forest for a good ten

minutes before we decided that we were safe enough,
then swapped over. Going straight to the stores, we
had a look around at what we might be able to sell.
The alien stuff was difficult, because it was almost
sure to fetch a good price, but it was also the type of
thing that we’d want to take back to Avonside or even
just use ourselves.

The plants I’d grown were much easier. The guys

loaded up on spices and anything else that might be
easy to carry, and then I transferred them all out for
their little trip into town, which left Grace and I alone
in the grove together.
“What do you want to do?” she asked awkwardly.
Right, I was going to ask her what was wrong, then
comfort her.

“Come with me,” I told her, taking her hand again and
pulling her along behind me.

I dragged her across the large meadow in front of the

tower tree towards where the lake was still being dug.
Thankfully it hadn’t rained yet and the buns were able
to add depth to it without having to swim or anything.
It did have a few trees that I’d already placed
strategically around it though, including a small stand
of willows.

Brushing aside the drooping branches of one willow, I

pulled her inside the enclosed space of the tree and
then indicated that she sit down against the trunk of
the tree. Doing so, she watched me with melancholic
curiosity as she carefully got herself comfortable.
“What’s up?” she asked, searching my face for
answers.

“You seemed down and a little odd about that

conversation we had earlier,” I said, sitting down next
to her.

“It’s nothing…” she murmured, avoiding my eyes now.

“Grace?” I asked, matching her quiet tone.

She didn’t answer immediately, so I laid my head

down on her shoulder and waited. She seemed to like
that, leaning into the contact with a sigh. Then she
was shifting, putting both arms around me and
cuddling close. It felt so lovely to be casually intimate
with her like this, and it almost had me thinking that it
was good she’d been hit by that magic. Almost, except
for the obvious fear that it might hurt her, or worse.
Although… if we could stabilise it and teach her to
control it...

“I just kinda feel useless, you know?” she whispered,

her breath warm as it ran through my hair. “Like, I
don’t know. I have a bad feeling about that town back
there, but I can’t really help or fight if I’m glued to
you. No offence. I… really enjoy this, don’t get me
wrong, and you’re so lovely to be around…”

“It’s okay, I understand,” I said, giving her hand a

reassuring squeeze where it rested on my stomach.
“We’ll figure something out.”

“How can you be sure though?” she asked, sounding

defeated already. “What if I’m stuck like this forever?”
“No,” I frowned, shifting in her arms to face her. “No
thinking like that,” I said, almost glaring at her as I
booped her nose. “If worst comes to worst, I’ll make a
mage fruit and throw you in that. Maybe that will
help.”

She blinked at me in bewilderment, then smiled,

glancing down for a moment. “Alright,” she chuckled,
then looked back up, hitting me with a look so full of
emotion that I wondered for a dumb moment if it was
being powered by her magic. “You’re so wonderful
Ryn. You’re so kind, so thoughtful… so damn smart.”

“O-oh,” I blushed, and it was my turn to look away.

“Thanks.”

“You’re beautiful too. You know my mind completely

blanked out that first time I saw you? It’s like you
were tailor made to be attractive to me. I mean, your
hair is one of my favourite colours for crying out
loud!” she exclaimed, her hand reaching up to
hesitantly brush at it. She gave a little laugh as she
continued, “You’re like a… sad bun that was stuck in a
small cage, but now you’ve been let out to binkie in
the open grass. I guess what I mean is that I still see
the old you in there, except happier, more free.”

“It does feel like that. But… as for you, I’ve been
impressed and kinda attracted to you since before we
arrived on this world,” I confessed, embarrassment
heating my cheeks.

“Wait, really?” she asked, a frown creasing her brows.

I snorted. “Yup. You had confused, closeted Ryn all

flustered with how you were being all strong and sexy
and stuff. Then you were so much fun to talk to and I
was all, crap, she’s too good, but she’s a lesbian and I
look like a dude.”
“Well, that part isn’t a problem anymore,” she
laughed, giving my body a pointed sweep with her
eyes.

“Yeah, but instead there’s… this magic thing,” I sighed,

settling in against her so I wouldn’t have to meet her
gaze.

“Yeah… now there’s that,” she said neutrally.

The conversation died after that, but we sat under the

tree and cuddled, dozing in and out of consciousness
as the day wore on. Despite the fact that we were
meant to be… well, not together, it still felt like we
were in that moment. Both of us just enjoying the feel
of the other, the silent companionship that slowly
settled on us after the awkwardness died down.
Being held was still a wild experience for me, and
something that I deeply cherished. I felt safe in her
arms, safe and warm and insulated from the world. All
feelings that I had been sorely lacking up until now,
and I desperately hoped that something more would
be allowed to blossom between Grace and I. I couldn’t
lose this, I couldn’t lose her.

Chapter 45 :
When it was finally evening and time to swap back to
the mundane world to meet the boys, Grace and I
reluctantly stood up from where we’d sat all day
under the willow tree. We’d talked about this and
that, dozed and cuddled, just generally enjoying our
little half-day break from travel together.

“You ready?” I asked Grace, dropping her hand so she

could wield her pistol properly.
“Yeah,” she smiled, bumping my hip with hers.
“Shields up?”

“Okay, I’m going to take us over in three, two… one,” I

said, shifting us back into the mundane realm and
slamming my shield dome down.

The forest was dark and quiet as we searched the

underbrush around us for sign of our friends, but
there was nothing but the gentle sway of the wind
through leaves around us. Tense moments went by as
we waited, nothing stirring, no dorky guys in scary
helmets and no enemy mages flinging blasts of fire.

“Where are they?” Grace whispered, lowering her

weapon slightly. “And how long can you keep this
barrier up?”
“Indefinitely, if you’re touching me,” I replied,
switching to mage sight and peering into the forest.

Trying to see through the forest was an exercise in

futility as the whole place was absolutely saturated in
magic. I wouldn’t be able to see someone if they were
even ten meters deep into the trees. Something was
obviously strange about this forest, but that wasn’t
our concern right now.

“I can’t see them with mage sight, the forest is too

charged with magic,” I told her quietly.

“Do we wait?” she asked anxiously, shifting to place

her hand on my arm to fuel me with magic.

“Let me see where they are, hold on,” I said,

concentrating on that location spell I’d made way back
at the start of my grove.
Casting it, I was immediately aware of Grace and her
ring standing next to me. After that were the four of
our family still at Avonside. Wait, no… one of the three
was a while off from Avonside, not far, but enough for
it to be significant. Then there was Adam’s ring, off
further into the mountains. Much further, and moving
fast.

“Shit! Adam is that way, about six miles,” I said

quickly, pointing out the direction as worry took hold
of me. “He’s running I think, judging by how fast he’s
moving, but I can’t tell anything else.”

“What? Why? How did you figure that out?” she asked
urgently, raising an eyebrow in question.

“The rings. I have a spell that can track anyone

wearing our family rings, it’s how I found you all in the
first place,” I told her absently, trying to figure out
what was happening with all the magical senses I
could bring to bear.

We were alone, they’d abandoned us for some

reason. Maybe they were running from something
and didn’t want to lead it to us? That had to be it,
maybe they ran into mages while they were in the
town? Crap, but what did we do now?

What if they died? What if all three of them died? I

liked Troy! He was nice, and a kind leader, plus he was
trans, like me… he was my people. He couldn’t die. Kit
was good too, shy and kind, thoughtful and intelligent.
Then there was Adam, cheeky, silly Adam. Family, and
he obviously cared about Grace and I the same way
we cared about him. He was like a big brother, always
stirring shit, but there when we needed someone to
carry us.
“Hey, calm down, it’s okay,” Grace said, holstering her
gun so that she could cup my cheek with her hand.
“We’ll find them, we just have to stay calm and think
things through.”

“Yeah.. you’re right,” I nodded, leaning my cheek into

her hand appreciatively and taking a few calming
breaths. Then something odd occurred to me. “You
never thought to ask how I was right there in that
market?”

“Nope… I was too busy being happy I found you, to be

honest,” she said, squeezing my arm. Then she was
smiling and looking bashfully down at the forest floor.
“Well, I was also struggling to deal with how cute
you’d become.”

“Thanks,” I grinned, feeling the compliment hit me

right in the gender feels as well as quelling my fear,
just a little. “Okay… okay… thinking calm, the guys are
obviously being chased, and they didn’t want to lead
whoever it is back towards us.”

“Yeah, there is that,” she sighed, turning to stare off

into the forest. “How do we catch up to them? How
do we help them?”

“I’m not sure we can, because it’s probably mages,” I

sighed, feeling helpless. “I might have raw power,
especially with you at my side, but that isn’t really
enough. I’d be outclassed on skill no matter how much
power I threw into any single spell. Bullets probably
won’t work either if it’s Fennimore’s crew and word
has gotten out. They will have beefed up their
shields.”

“So we have no options,” Grace grimaced, glancing

around us at the dark forest with its ring-beams
filtering down through the canopy. “What the hell do
we do?”
I was silent as I thought on the question while trying
to keep myself calm. What if we didn’t need to help
them? They were heading towards a border right? Not
one of the laughably porous ones back in Anve land,
but a real, hard border between two entirely different
species, let alone cultures. If they could cross it…

“I think it might be best if we simply followed them at

a safe enough distance,” I said after a moment. “They
probably got directions to Millowhall right? That must
be where they’re going, with whoever is chasing them
in tow. Once they reach the border into Mossbed
lands, their tail might leave them alone and we can
reunite with them.”

“That’s… a plan,” Grace nodded slowly. “I don’t like it,

I don’t like being separated from them, but I think
you’re right.”
“Neither.” I said, and then took a chance and dropped
the barrier. “Do we want to get started? We’ve been
kinda sleeping all day, so we might be able to make
some miles while that energy lasts.”

“Sure, let’s do it.”

We moved through the forest rather than the road,

using Adam’s position to guide us. Keeping off the
road just seemed like a good idea due to the fact that
they were being chased, we didn’t want to run into
the pursuers after all.

The forest was very different at night, quiet in an

almost eerie way that had us watching our backs. It
wasn’t as bad as the plains, thank goodness, but
hearing the call of some creature we didn’t recognise
in the distance was a different kind of paranoia. It
didn’t help that the wind was perpetually playing with
the leaves in the canopy, creating a constant rustle
that had been pleasant during the day, but now that
we were relying on our hearing, it was a problem.

Thankfully, navigating during night time on the ring

was significantly easier than navigating on Earth at
night. There was a muted strip of light arcing across
the sky after all, rather than just the relatively small
point of the moon.

“How close are they?” Grace asked, a few hours after

we’d started moving.

“Let me check,” I replied tiredly, casting the spell to

track the rings.

Except this time, nothing happened. I could only feel

Grace’s ring next to me, while the other rings were
gone completely. Slow, gnawing panic began to set in
and I rushed to cast the spell again. Maybe something
had gone wrong?

With the second casting, I felt all the rings where I had
expected them to be and breathed a sigh of relief.

“What?” Grace asked, searching my face with her

gaze.

“The spell messed up for a second there,” I said,

staring down at my arm where the flower tattoos had
been. “But it worked when I tried again.”

“Oh, I didn’t know spells could fail like that,” she said,
looking thoughtful.

“Neither did I…” I murmured, too quiet for her to

hear.
We kept moving, but my thoughts stayed with the
spell misfire I’d just experienced. I could have sworn
I’d cast it properly… and yet…

“Do you see that?” Grace blurted, not a few moments

later, and I jerked my gaze up to follow her pointed
finger.

I gave a squeak of fright when I laid eyes on it. A pair

of large, golden eyes stared at us from a tree some ten
yards off. They weren’t doing anything, just staring,
and when I squinted I could make out the form of
some crouched bird, like an owl or something. We
froze as it watched us, but it didn’t seem bothered by
the fact we’d seen it. It just… stared.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Grace mumbled

sarcastically, tugging on my arm to keep us moving.
After the bird we didn’t run into anything for another
hour, and we were getting tired, so we decided to stop
for the night and go back to the grove.

“I’m just going to do one last check of Adam’s position

before we go back,” I said to my friend, fighting a
yawn.

“Righto,” she replied as she caught my yawn with one

of her own.

Reaching into my grove, I pulled magic through my

plants and cast the ring locator spell, watching as the
vines and flowers wrapped around my arm and wrist.
The spell completed, and I focused on the information
it gave me…
“Shit!” I swore, spinning around in confusion. “How
the…”

I was staring back the way we’d come, in the direction

that my spell now said that Adam was in. Had we
somehow passed them? But that couldn’t be right,
there was no way they could have made it all the way
past us in the time since my last check… what the hell
was going on?

“What’s wrong?” Grace asked, squeezing my hand

anxiously.

“My spell! It’s… pointing us backwards now. This isn’t

right, they should be in front of us still,” I told her, my
thoughts whirling. “They should be… something isn’t
right. Something is messing with us.”
“Let’s get back into the grove,” she said urgently,
pulling me back to face her. “We’re safe in your grove
right? We’ll figure out what to do in there, where we
have time.”

“Yes… yes, that’s a good idea,” I nodded, closing my

eyes to take us back through.

Pulling at the fabric of reality, I pushed between the

threads towards the Nameless garden. I felt my grove,
familiar and safe as it beckoned to me from within.

Then, with a sudden, head splitting tug, I felt our

transition from mundane to garden space change,
become twisted. I could only observe with dawning
horror as I realised that someone or something had
grabbed us as we’d been halfway through, redirecting
us somewhere else entirely.
The trip was short, but still filled with panic as
questions and worries surged through my mind. Then
we were out, dumped unceremoniously onto lush,
wild grass. I didn’t wait for any attacks to come,
instead I just slammed my barrier shield down as fast
as I could bring the spell up. That, thankfully at least,
worked.

A high, trilling voice rang out in amused song nearby,

“Oh my, isn’t that cute.”

Chapter 46 :
“Who’s there?” Grace demanded, her gun coming up
as she swivelled to look around us.

My first move however was to look up, then sigh in

relief at what I saw. The arch of the ring was still
there, we were still on the ring.
Where the hell were we on the ring though? Glancing
around, I saw that we were in a deep hollow within
the mountains, craggy and broken rock surrounded us
on all sides, familiar verdant forest growing up the
sides. Surrounding us was a meadow of lush grass and
flowers, with a crystal clear pool of water in the
middle.

The strangest thing about our surroundings, apart

from the fact that no one was here, was that the
vegetation was so lush. Flowers were almost too
bright in their colours, even in the dark, the grass was
too green, even the dirt was almost as nice as the stuff
in my grove. It was like the whole place was bursting
with life and growth, far beyond what was normal or
natural.

“They always ask that,” the singsong voice muttered.

“Who’s there?”
“Well, of course we’re going to ask who’s there when
we can’t fucking see you,” Grace growled, rolling her
eyes.

“Oh ho, ho,” the voice said with a chuckle. “She’s a

plain speaking one, intriguing.”

Grace opened her mouth to reply, but she faltered

when the plants around us came alive with
movement. Plants from all across the hollow were
lifting into the air, their roots sliding out of the ground
smoothly and without any dirt trailing behind.

Flowers, ferns, shrubs and everything else twirled and

danced in an ever tightening vortex in the center of
the hollow, until it ruched inwards on itself. Stepping
forth from the maelstrom of leaves and flowers was
an obrec woman made of the same material. A
patchwork of leaves and petals made up her skin, so
closely packed that it made her skin seem entirely
smooth. She stood at what must have been seven feet
tall was well, all of which was very much unclothed.

“Hello there,” she smiled amicably, a twist of mischief

dancing in her eyes.

“Uh, hi?” I asked, my voice rising in pitch as she

sauntered towards us, hips swaying seductively.

Once she was within comfortable conversation

distance, she sat down, a tangle of vines bursting from
the ground to form a chair. Crossing her legs, she
regarded us with mysterious amusement.

“You two have been causing quite a racket around

here,” she chuckled, idly caressing a flower that had
grown out of her chair. “Two little mortals dancing
through my woods, leaving a bloody great trail of
magic in their wake. Quite intriguing if you ask me, so I
just had to get a look at the both of you.”

“Who are you?” Grace asked cautiously. “Hell, what

are you?”

“My, that tongue of yours is rather blunt isn’t it?” the

large, naked plant woman laughed, before she leaned
forward slightly. “My name is Ollinfer, and I am… well
that is complicated, but the natives around these
parts call me a goddess. Well... as far as you can call
anyone on this world a native anyway.”

“Oh…” Grace said, her eyes going wide.

“That explains how you schwooped me away from my

grove,” I said quietly. If anyone could just fuck with my
magic like it was nothing, it would be a goddess.
“Yes indeed,” she nodded, beginning to play with the
flower again. “So if I might ask, now that I have your
attention, pray tell why you are wandering through
my woods spraying growth magics everywhere. I’m
not complaining of course, my realm is the forest after
all, but it is not every day that energies of that
magnitude are thrown so casually about the
countryside.”

Grace and I glanced at each other and I found the

same question mirrored in her eyes. Could we trust
this strange woman who claimed to be worshipped as
a goddess? Did we even have a choice? Would she be
able to tell if we were lying?

Grace gave a tiny shrug and a nod, which I took as a

sign to just tell Ollinfer the truth.

“We uh, found an ancient ring builder lab and Grace

kinda got a big load of rainbow coloured magic poured
into her,” I said slowly, watching our host for
reactions. “I have to keep siphoning it off and ejecting
it as growth energy to keep her from overheating.”

“An ancient ring builder lab,” Ollinfer said, her eyes

growing distant as she stared past us. “I remember
them, the Umare, they called themselves. I pity them,
those poor, noble fools that they were. To think they
doomed the galaxy by winning a war.”

Grace and I shared another, alarmed glance at the

knowledge she’d just casually dumped on us. The
builders were called the Umare, and they had doomed
the whole galaxy?

“Sorry, hold on… doomed the whole galaxy?” I asked

with a squeak.
“Oh, well… parts of it anyway,” she said, waving her
hand dismissively. “Forgive an old woman her
theatrics. The pressing matter appears to be the
uncontrolled multi-spectrum magical fusion going on
within your friend here.”

I mean, she was right, but… doomed galaxy! She

couldn’t just… drop that and then do the
conversational equivalent of wandering off! Wait,
uncontrolled multi-spectrum… what?

I took a shaking breath and concentrated, “Right,

yeah. That’s a bit of an issue, sorry… can you explain
what that means?” Grace gave a snort.

“I will, but well… I suggest you siphon some off her

now, she appears to be wobbling,” Ollinfer said,
raising an eyebrow and motioning to Grace.
Taking the tall naked lady’s advice, I reached down for
Grace’s hand and started draining the magic out of
her, because yeah, she’d been swaying a little. It
seemed to hit her balance first when she was starting
to overheat.

“Oh, my… you’re just spraying it everywhere aren’t

you?” Ollinfer coughed, her breathing suddenly
laboured. “Would you mind pointing it away from me,
it’s hard to think with that mess bouncing around.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop

myself. “Does it make you horny too?”

My cheeks were instantly aflame with embarrassment

as I realised what I’d asked and I looked away,
anywhere but at the goddess sitting on her throne. I
also quickly pointed the spray of energy away from
the her.
“Something like that, yes.” Ollinfer said, her laugh
ringing out through the hollow like a chorus of
songbirds, before she leaned forward to stare
pointedly at Grace, her expression turning serious.
“Now, I have an… offer for you.”

Oh dear, that sounded… ominous. Everyone knows

that making deals with mysterious fae-like beings after
being kidnapped by them was always a recipe for
disaster.

“What is it?” Grace asked cautiously.

“You have an overabundance of magic pouring out of

you, I am always in need of energy,” she replied
slowly, tapping her finger against one of the vines that
made up her chair. “I am a being of great power, one
that many have sought to create a contract with. I
believe the term is warlock, to you mortals. I would
make you into a warlock, but with a twist.”
“Yeah, see… we have a lot of mythology around deals
like that,” Grace shook her head. “It always ends up
being twisted to fuck over the mortal.”

I nodded along with Grace, I’d read too many fantasy

books where deals like this came back to bite
everyone in the ass.

“Aha, she’s prudent too,” Ollinfer smiled, looking

pleased. “I am known for such tricks, especially against
those I dislike. You two however, you have been
traipsing through my woods throwing growth magic
around like an oligarch with an unhappy working class.
I am rather pleased with the both of you, and as such,
I make an offer that will most definitely benefit me,
but it is without guile. It’s a rather novel experience,
really.”
She was just… admitting that she liked to fuck with
people? If we got out of this and made it to
Millowhall, we really needed to do some research on
her..

“You haven’t actually told us what that twist is,” I

pointed out suspiciously.

“Yes, the twist. The twist is that in the process of

turning your… friend into a warlock, I will use the
transformation to create a solution to your problem.
Any time the multi-spectrum energies within her body
reach dangerous levels, they will be siphoned off
through the connection between us,” Ollinfer replied
conversationally. “This is what I will get out of it. A
font of energies that I cannot normally access due to
my nature. I am fundamentally a being of the
Nameless Garden, I cannot create energies from say,
the Red Nightmare.”
That sounded like a good deal on the surface, but
something about it had my hair standing on end. It
must have some hidden meanings, some tricks that
would end in misery for Grace, and I turned to tell her
that.

“I’ll do it,” she blurted, before I could say so much as a

word.

“Grace?!” I exclaimed urgently, my heart beginning to

thunder with fear for her.

“What are the chances you can actually fix this, Ryn?”
she asked gently, cupping my face in both hands. “If I
take this offer, I’m fixed now. If she messes with us,
we can deal with it when that happens. Plus… if I can
control it like she promises…”
Her last words held hidden suggestion, and I
swallowed hard. She was right that the problem would
be dealt with, but what if we were trading one
problem for an even worse one down the line? I was
so scared for her, so scared that she would get hurt by
this. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to her.

“Please, Ryn,” she murmured, stepping closer. “I need

to do this alright? I need to be strong enough to
protect you when you’re down, I want to be your
equal, so that I can stand by your side without feeling
like dead weight.”

“Kiss me,” I told her quietly, stress removing the filter

between my thoughts and my mouth.

“What?” she blinked, surprised.

Closing my eyes for a brief second to collect myself, I
whispered, “I’m falling in love with you Grace, so if
this goes wrong, I want at least one other kiss to
remember. One where you don’t freak out
afterwards.”

When I opened my eyes again, I found her gazing into

mine with a melancholy expression. “No,” she shook
her head. “Maybe once this works, but I’m not going
to be pessimistic about this. It will go well, and then I’ll
come back and we can talk.”

I didn’t say anything at her refusal, just a slight,

defeated nod. My gut was churning with fear for her
safety, for what might happen to her when she was
changed. Would she even be the same person? What
did any of this warlock business entail? We had no
idea, and she was just diving in head first.

“I’ll do it,” Grace said, walking towards Ollinfer.

“That was a very touching scene, but I’m afraid you’re
going to need your lover’s help and permission,” the
verdant goddess said wryly. “She’ll have to take care
of you while my magic does its work after all.”

“Wait, lover?” Grace’s eyebrows went up and she

came to a stuttering stop. “What?”

“I’m a being that was once of the Nameless Garden,

and while other gods, demons and the like have
different ways of achieving this process. You, my dear
girl, will be stuck unconscious inside a flower for the
next week while your body is reconstructed to
properly channel magical energy,” she explained
calmly, seemingly oblivious to Grace’s chagrin.

Oh, she’d just dropped yet more information on us

that I wasn’t going to have time to process. Also she’d
called me Grace’s lover. Also, she’d said she was from
the garden, and the other gods did things differently?
How differently, and… wait, Grace only had to be in
the flower for a week, and it was a flower instead of a
stupid fruit?

“She gets a flower?” I pouted, anxiety allowing my

mouth to get away from me again. “I had to shlorp my
way out of a gross ass fruit!”

My stupid brain, why was it always doing shit like this

in tense situations? Now was not the time for jokes!

The goddess actually gave a snort at that, pursing her

lips as though trying to contain further laughter. “Yes,
well… the creators of that particular method were… in
a hurry.”

Wait, creators? Someone had created the mage-fruit

method of gaining power?
“Just put me in the damned flower then,” Grace
sighed, turning to make doe eyes at me. “Will you look
after my flower?”

Despite my still simmering worry for her, I once again

couldn’t help myself. It was now it was my turn to try
and hold my amusement. “I thought you were already
experienced in that department? I’m the one with her
flower still around.”

“What? No, I mean… oh my god, Ryn!” Grace

exclaimed, her cheeks flushing red. She whirled on
Ollinfer, almost demanding, “Put me in the flower...
please.”

“Wait!” I exclaimed, running up behind Grace and

throwing my arms around her neck as she turned back
to meet me. “Please be safe, I’ll miss you.”
“The safety part is up to you, apparently, but I’ll be
done in a week,” she smiled, squeezing my hip fondly
with a hand. “Plus, it’s a hell of a lot shorter than a
month.”

“True,” I sighed leaning my head on her collarbone for

a moment before letting go and stepping back.

“Are you ready now, Grace?” Ollinfer asked, her tone

sombre.

Here it was, I couldn’t stop it, Grace was her own

person and she could make her own decisions… I just
wished she’d have thought about it a little more
before she jumped into it all.

“Yes,” Grace nodded.

The goddess rose to her feet, the throne descending
back into the ground as though it had never been
there. She stepped towards Grace, each footstep
leaving blooms in her wake. Her hand rose, green
energies swirling all around her in ribbons of dancing
light. Magic wasn’t just coming from her now though,
it was bursting forth from all around us now, sweeping
in to join the intricate dance around Ollinfer.

Then there was a surge, and the light rushed in

towards Grace, swirling around her in a pattern so
dense that I could no longer see my friend. The magic
began to take form, weaving itself into a large, closed
flower that appeared to be on the cusp of blooming.
The flower was actually kinda pretty, the closed petals
were a light yellow, almost the same colour as Grace’s
hair had been. At the edges of the petals was blue and
green, the two colours mixing together in a swirl that
led to all sorts of interesting blending.
“There we are,” Ollinfer said, sounding a little tired.
“You can transfer her to your grove now, take good
care of her. Now I must rest.”

“Wait, where is this place? We need to get to

Millowhall once this is done!” I said urgently.

“Ah… I’ll fix it so that isn’t a problem,” the goddess

said, right as she fell apart back into the flora that
she’d used to construct her form.

“Hey! What do you mean by that?” I called, confused

and a little worried. “Ollinfer? Hello?”

She was just gone, having dumped Grace into a flower

that would chain her to the goddess on some level
and turn her into who knew what. I just had to sit
around, on my own… for a whole week. Sigh.
Chapter 47 :
Transferring Grace and her flower into my grove after
Ollinfer had left went well, I’d been somewhat worried
about it going wrong. Within my grove I had her
floating in midair with me as I ordered the buns to use
some of the now dried out gourds to carry a ton of dirt
up and into one of the greenhouses. I had no idea how
long she could stay out of the ground for, and my
bunnies picked up on that urgency, rushing up and
down the stairs tirelessly.

I wanted to put Grace in the greenhouse rather than

outside because I didn’t want her to get damaged by
any weather that might hit. I had no idea how
frequent those big storms were, or how they would
effect Grace’s flower as she grew and changed within
it.

I was already missing her too, we’d been constant

companions for weeks now, and I was feeling that
hole beside me keenly. I wished that she’d stopped for
two seconds during that whole encounter and just…
talked to me. My subconscious mind hadn’t even
really figured out that she was totally gone yet, that
I’d have to wait a week or more until I could see her
again. There hadn’t been a proper goodbye, just… this.

Still, I couldn’t find it in my heart to be upset with her,

even though I probably had more than enough reason
to be. She’d moved fast to take advantage of an
opportunity, and she’d done it for me… for us. Who
knows how long Ollinfer’s deal would have been on
offer?

It took several hours for the buns to cart all the soil up
while I made a suitably deep hole in the tree for the
flower, and when it was done I made sure to water it
properly too by planting small water creating flowers
around it.
With that task done, I found myself at a loss for what
to do. I could work on my grove, sure… but I was also
feeling sort of depressed, which severely cut into my
motivation to do anything. Perhaps a bath, then bed? I
was dead tired after all, we’d been planning to go to
sleep when we tried to get into my grove the first
time. Deciding on that course of action, I wandered
down to the bath.

Taking my clothes off would never cease to be an

almost divine experience for me. My pants came off
first, revealing my long, elegant legs, the skin perfect
and smooth with a slight shine on my shins. Next was
my top, leaving me standing in just my underwear,
wide hips and thin waist on display. I looked down at
myself and smiled, feeling that familiar little jolt of
rightness. This was how I was meant to be.

My bath was a long one, the warmth lulling me into a

doze that eventually had me stumbling up and into
bed. I wrapped myself up in Grace’s blanket instead of
mine, because it smelled like her and that gave me
comfort. Then I invited the buns up to sleep on the
bed with me, which they happily did, encircling me in
warm fluffy bodies that helped just a little to alleviate
the loneliness that was already settling onto me.

The next day saw me working on the greenhouse that

Grace was in, because it felt good to be in proximity to
her, even if she was inside the flower. I planted
tomatoes, bananas, oranges and various other fruits
and veges that liked the warmth of a greenhouse.

I also decided to work on the house tree some more.

My stint in the bath last night had me realising that if I
moved the water outlet just a meter and a half higher
on the wall, I’d basically have a shower. I just had to
make a few slight adjustments…

Down in the bathroom, I edited the plans of the tree

to move the outlet up, using my own growth energy
to move it, since it was a relatively small task. I went
further though and completely covered the hole with
a layer of wood. With that done, I carefully summoned
one of my spells. It was the one I’d made with my own
colours in mind.

Six small magenta blades of light swirled into being

before me, hovering in midair. They were barely larger
than a throwing knife, but with one important
distinction, I could move them with my mind. So that’s
what I did, testing my control, I swung them this way
and that, twirling them about myself as gracefully as I
could manage.

It was fun watching them dart about the room under

my direction, and pretty soon I was having little
dogfights with the things. They swooped at each
other, dodging and twisting and flickering through the
air at speed. Oh yeah, this spell was going to be
incredible. For now though, they were going to be
used as a tool.
With playtime over, I directed them up to the covered
water outlet and proceeded to spin them. I used the
spinning blades to drill holes in the wood, until I had
water pouring out in a spray, just like a shower. When
I was done, I stood there and grinned, feeling pretty
damn pleased with myself.

I went through and did all the baths this way, finishing
the task with a huge chunk of the day still to go. What
the hell else could I do? Wait, why not try working
with the wood in storage the same way? I’d need
bigger blades than the ones I had now though, which
meant I needed a new spell.

I spent the afternoon working on a spell that would

allow me to cut the logs into usable planks and beams.
It was harder than I thought, because I needed a lot of
heft and weight behind the blades in order to cut
through the logs. Eventually I got something that
might work as the sun dipped below the horizon and I
quickly tested it on one of the logs from storage. It
worked pretty well, although the amount of mental
effort it took to drive the blade all the way down a log
had me panting and covered in sweat. Perfect time to
test the new shower I guess.

The next morning was spent slowly cutting the logs

into usable pieces, although frequent rests in the sun
with my leaves out were required. I didn’t have my
pet nuke right now to help me out, so it was back to
basking in the sun for hours on end. I really needed to
get the buns some tools so that I didn’t have to do this
myself. They would probably be far better at it too, as
I was really messing up some of the cuts I was making.

Deciding that cutting logs up all day would suck, I

swapped to making spells for the rest of the day, in
between snacking on fruit and checking on Grace’s
flower. My boredom and loneliness produced many
spells that day, from one to warm up a cup of liquid,
to creating a little floating light, and I even tried my
hand at making a spell that would play music. That last
one went horribly wrong and had my ears ringing for
like ten minutes afterwards. I shelved the idea for
later.

Day three saw me back with the logs, but this time
with a purpose in mind. I’d decided that I needed a
front door, and that required me to cut some logs up
into big chunks. Yet another thing that boredom had
lent me was time to think on the problem, and I’d
figured out a way to construct the huge door without
needing to resort to the use of metal.

The doorway itself was arched, so first I needed to

create the two halves of the door with solid rectangles
of wood that I would then cut to fit the opening. I
briefly considered just growing a big ass slab of wood
for the task, but that didn’t fit with the aesthetics I
had in mind. I wanted a sort of mix between the
organic growth of my magic and the rustic
woodworking feel of a hobbit-hole. Eventually I’’d like
to use a whole lot of wrought iron around the place to
complete the aesthetic.

First I needed some glue, which I achieved by

collecting some pine sap from a few trees I grew for
the purpose, then I melted it in a bowl we’d yoinked
from the lab and mixed it with some charcoal. I was
really thanking one late night following the youtube
recommended rabbithole for that idea. I even
remembered that you needed fresh sap for it to work,
and you couldn’t allow the sap to boil.

With the glue ready and the six by six inch beams of
wood all cut and ready, I bored holes in them at
regular intervals up their lengths, then pinned them
together with wooden pegs and the glue I had made.

Even with magic to help me, it was slow, messy work

that saw my dainty little girl hands covered in gross
black goop, but in the end I was looking proudly down
at a pair of big ass doors. I was a city girl no longer!
Okay, maybe that proclamation was slightly ambitious,
but still. Now I just had to get my hands clean
somehow… Damn.

I raided Grace’s pack for soap that allowed me to

wash all the gunk off my hands, then went off to check
on her while the doors dried. I wandered about my
greenhouse with a frown. Maybe I could plant some
flowers and stuff up here, pretty things for Grace to
find when she popped out of her flower.

I planted a bunch of different spell flowers, I had quite

a few silly little mundane spells now, including a small
fire starting one that I’d used earlier. Finally having the
time to fuck around with magic had led to me actually
building a nice little repertiore of cantrips. Day three
ended with me back in bed and surrounded by buns.
The next morning I mucked around with spells again
until a full twenty four hours had passed since I’d
worked on the door so the glue had time to set a little.
The whole door would probably need reinforcing or
even replacing with something sturdier later on, but
for now it would work.

Using my telekinesis to float the still rectangular doors

up into position, I then summoned just a single hard
light blade to score them along where I needed to cut.
With the marks done, I carefully carved at my big
doors with the larger blade until they would fit neatly
into their doorframe. Which left one rather important
problem to solve. How in the hell was I going to make
a hinge?

Wait, what if I just mounted two poles on the sides of

the door and then put holes in the floor and doorway
to allow it to rotate? It would be tough as hell to push
open and closed by hand, but I had telekinesis
powerful enough to lift and crush a two story tall
rampaging magical beast. With a shrug, I got to work
pinning, gluing and locking a pole into place on each
half of the door.

I carefully carved the poles and door to slot together

in a way that would keep the door from just breaking
off the hinge, adding supports widthways across the
doors in the process. The whole thing was enormous,
bulky and not altogether what I’d wanted when I set
out to do this, but it had been fun to figure out. Of
course, actually mounting the doors would have to
wait until the next morning when the second round of
glue had dried.

My good mood didn’t last all the way to bed though.

Just four days and I missed Grace so fucking much. I’d
gotten used to having her next to me, ready to talk
and joke with. Now I was aimless and lost without her,
drifting from task to task like a wraith, trying to fill the
hole in my heart with busywork. How had Esra spent
years alone in her grove like that? I’d have gone crazy.
It wasn’t working though, keeping busy was only good
so long as I was busy, and when each day came to an
end and my mind was free to wander, the loneliness
came crashing back in. To make matters worse, her
blanket was already starting to lose her smell, which
had me pining for her that much more. Three days, I
could make it through just three more days… But no,
laying there in that bed with her fading scent and the
buns for company, I began to cry. I missed her so
much. Three days seemed like an eternity.

Chapter 48 :
The terrible howl of gale force winds tore me from
sleep in the early hours of the morning. Whistling air
roared through every open balcony door and window
in the whole structure, whipping the plants in my
room into a frenzy. Even as I groggily clawed my way
to full consciousness the foliage was being shredded,
leaves and flower petals swirling out into the night
through the window.

“Shit!” I swore, scrambling to secure both of the packs

and all the loose items that were laying on the grassy
floor. Some of my clothes had already gone flying out
the window by the looks of things.

I stuffed everything into the packs and secured them

by growing several vines over the top of them. They
weren’t my primary concern however, Grace was, and
before the vines had finished growing I was rushing
out the door, across the common room and up the
stairs. I burst out into the greenhouse completely out
of breath, but that didn’t stop me from stumbling
across to the large yellow flower in the center.

My shaking hands landed on one of the petals with

gentle apprehension, sensing through with my mage
sight. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found that
none of the wild magic outside was making it to
Grace, she was safe.

For now.

I just had to secure the tree first, which meant that

task number one would be putting the huge gate in.
I’d also need to figure out a way to deal with the
windows, as already half of the window leaves had
been torn out all across the tree. I might need to just
grow crystal bark over each opening for the duration
of the storm, but I’d need to wait for growth energy to
start filtering down into the aquifer.

Rushing down the stairs two at a time, I was out of

breath by the time I made it down to the entry hall.
Everyone always talked about how running up stairs
was hard, but they never mentioned that running
down them was just as hard, for different reasons. The
hall was a mess, leaves and flowers and everything
else were strewn all over the place. It looked like the
tops of my windbreak trees had made it into the
foyer.

The new doors were intact however, still safe where

they had been laying on the floor. So using my
telekinesis I began to push them into position,
struggling against the wind the whole time. Rain was
beginning to find its way inside now too, causing the
floor to become slick and dangerous.

As I was about to seal the doorway, a procession of

buns rushed through, each one carrying a gourd full of
water. Water lapping at the edges with every hop.
There were like, twenty of the little friends, all
tottering through in a line on their hind legs. What the
hell were my buns up to now?

Whatever, I needed to get this job done, then I could

figure out whatever harebrained scheme they were up
to. Making sure that there weren’t any buns left
outside in the storm, I pushed the door into place with
my mind.

Using my magic and the first trickle of growth energies

coming up from below, I was able to mold the
entryway to accommodate the door and lock it in
place.

The moment I released my telekinesis they crashed

open again with a boom and I was sent stumbling
backwards as howling wind and driving rain slapped
me in the face. Crap! I hadn’t put a lock bar in place!

Thinking fast, I rushed back to the storage room and

threw several logs into the way, using them to block
the doors closed. It would have to do for now, I
needed to rush up the tree and fix all the windows.
Thankfully the crystal in the downstairs balcony and
upstairs greenhouses seemed to be holding well, so I
altered the plans of my tree further to cover all the
openings with either crystal or plain wood. It was
exhausting work on so little sleep, and I vowed to pay
a carpenter to make me some damned windows once
we made it to Millowhall.

Growth energy was everywhere now outside, gushing

up out of the soil as my plants generated it on a
massive scale. I had more of them this time too,
hidden everywhere that I’d needed them. The water
reserves under my plateau were rapidly becoming
saturated in the stuff, and it was very obviously going
to become a problem.

A problem that I had absolutely no idea how to solve.

Wait, the buns…

What had they been up to?

Shit!

“Hey!” I called, rushing for the stairs. “You’d better

not be doing what I think you’re doing!”

I took the stairs two at a time, fuelled by worry for

Grace. God damn, I really needed to figure out a
solution to the whole stairs thing. Where the hell as
Esra when you needed her?

Rushing back out into the greenhouse, ready to

collapse, I yelled, “Hey! What are you doing?”

The scene before me would have been comical if my

heart hadn’t been pounding with worry.
A swarm of bunnies surrounding Grace’s flower
holding gourds and other containers, most of which
were now empty, save one or two which were full of
growth magic imbued water. They all froze when I
yelled and turned to look at me, little noses twitching
as they stared.

Making eye contact, one cheeky little bun poured out

the last of its water, the trickle of magically charged
liquid slowly pattering into the soil.

“You… you… oh my goodness,” I sighed, leaning

heavily against the wall as the storm continued to rage
and batter at the tree. I could barely see outside with
all the rain running down the windows.

I slid to the floor with a groan, enjoying the vibrations

of the storm shaking the tree as it helped with my
stiff, tired muscles. I’d been running and leaping up
and down stairs all morning and my limbs were now
making their displeasure known. I couldn’t stop the
buns now, they’d already gone and poured the stuff
all over her. I could see the growth magic being
sucked greedily in by the roots of Grace’s flower.

The buns seemed to take my exhaustion as an

invitation to cuddle, hopping over in a swarm. One by
one they flopped down onto their sides next to me, or
in a few cases splooting, their back legs stretching out
behind them. No amount of cute antics was going to
save them from a stern talking to though.

“You lot need to be asking permission before you go

messing around, alright?” I frowned at them, getting
nothing but twitching noses in reply.

With a sigh, I attempted to calm down a little. The

flower seemed to be fine for the moment, but
something told me I’d need a blanket for her sooner
rather than later.

Growth magic accelerated pretty much everything it

touched, and I highly doubted that her transformation
would be an exception here. I just hoped that it
wouldn’t hurt her or mess up the processes as they
were sped up.

With a wince I pushed myself back to my feet and

sliping free of the flop, I stumbled down to the
bedroom to grab a blanket for my friend. She’d
undoubtedly be as naked as I had been when I came
out of my fruit, assuming that’s what was happening
now.

When I arrived in the bedroom it was mercifully free

of wind, although I was going to need to move
everything to a different one because it was
absolutely trashed. The wind had torn all the foliage
apart as it was forced into the tight quarters of the
tree’s interior.

Blanket in hand, I stumbled back up to the

greenhouse, finding that many of the buns had
mysteriously disappeared, while the remaining ones
were loafed on the floor staring at the flower. A
flower that was moving ever so slightly, independently
of the wind that was shaking the whole tree.

Slowing to a stop, I froze as I saw what was happening.

Was she really, actually going to be coming out of her
flower now? It certainly looked like it with the way the
petals were slowly peeling away at the top.

I stood there with bated breath as one by one, the

petals slowly pulled away from the center. It was
almost graceful the way they curled and fell away,
each one coming to rest gently against the ground. A
figure was slowly revealed within, huddled in a fetal
position and unmoving.

“Grace?” I asked, stepping forward tentatively, heart

aching in my chest. Had she flowered too early?

When she shifted slightly, letting out a tiny groan, I felt

the first bloom of relief hit me, and suddenly I was
swallowing back a lump in my throat. “Grace!”

I rushed over to her where she was relaxing out of her

huddle, eyes blinking blearily as she looked around
the place. She was indeed very naked, as I’d suspected
she might be, although I couldn’t see much, as she had
her back to me. She wasn’t covered in any gross gunk
like I had been though, instead she just smelled
overwhelmingly of lilies.

“Ryn?” she croaked, her voice husky with disuse.

That was all my emotional heart needed to overflow,
sending a sob bubbling up my throat and tears
tracking down my face. I rushed the last few steps and
hugged her blanket-first, clinging desperately as
though she might vanish at any moment.

Incoherent noises of relief and heartache came

pouring out of me as I cried and cuddled up to her. I
hadn’t even realised how much I’d missed her, how
much I’d been worried that it would all go wrong until
just now. It was like I’d been compressed under high
pressure without noticing, and now suddenly I was
free of it. Without the bubbles in my blood, obviously.
Deep sea divers had to slowly reacclimate themselves
to lower pressures again after— nevermind.

Her arms were shaky as they came up to hold me in

return, and I realised I was being all theatrical while
she was still figuring her new self out. “Sorry!” I
blurted, pushing away slightly with a wet sniffle. “I
missed you.”

My mind stuttered to a halt when I got a proper look

at her. She still looked like Grace, but she also… didn’t.
It was like someone who was really good at image
manipulation had gone over her and removed any and
all flaws in her face. Her skin was perfect, her
cheekbones were just a little higher, her eyes just a
little bigger and brighter, her lashes just a little longer.

It was everything, including her hair. The outside layer

was the same blonde as before, but her red and blue
dyed highlights were gone. Instead, the inner layers of
her hair were green and blue, so that if she shifted
slightly the colours would peek through. The changes
had me breathless with awe. She’d been amazing
before… but now she was… amazing times two, or
three. Maybe more.
“Oh Ryn, you’re a mess… I’m sorry,” she apologised
tiredly, one of her hands reaching up to brush gently
through my hair in a way that had my heart soaring
with happiness. “I’m back now though,” she
continued, guilt lacing her voice. “I’m sorry I left you
for a week, I… shit, look at you. I didn’t think… I just.
Crap, I don’t have any excuses.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I hiccuped, still staring at her in

amazement. “I don’t care, you’re back now… and it
wasn’t a full week either.”

“Wait, it wasn’t?” she asked, confusion entering her

expression.

I turned my focus very pointedly to the buns that had

come to sit around us. “They watered your flower
with growth magic infused water from the storm. It’s
only been like four days.”
Grace’s confusion shifted to a grin and she reached
over to pat one of the buns between the ears. “Cheers
little dudes. I think you saved Ryn from a lot more of
my mistake.”

“Please, it sucked but I don’t want to let it ruin seeing

you again,” I asked her, hoping she’d put it to rest.

“Alright, sorry,” she murmured, leaning in against me.

“I feel so weak and tired.”

“Do you want to wash up and then head to bed?” I

asked, wrapping her up in my arms again. “It’s the
middle of the night and the tree is all secured against
the storm. I’m pretty damn tired too.”

“Yeah, I think a bath would be good,” she said, her

head rocking on my shoulder as she nodded. This felt
so nice, my heart already felt whole again. Chuckling a
little, she mumbled, “Looks like the flower did its job
though, you aren’t getting all horny.”

“Yeah,” I said, breathing her in with a smile. Then I

perked up when I realised something, something I’d
promised her a while back. “I put showers in! You can
have a shower!”

“Really?” she asked excitedly. “Oh my god, please

show me, I like baths, but the feel of a shower…”

“Come on, they’re in every bath,” I said, wobbling to

my feet, then helping her up too. To the buns I gave
them all a stern look and ordered, “Move the bed to a
different room please and clean it up for us?”

Ear flick salutes all around.

Chapter 49 :
“So what did you do for four days?” Grace asked from
where she was under the shower.

She was loving it, and had actually giggled with delight
when she saw it. The bathroom was actually becoming
really pretty now with the perpetual waterfall of the
shower and all the flowers lighting the place. I couldn’t
see Grace under the shower though, I was sitting with
my back to the wall next to the doorway into the
bathroom. Yet another room that needed a real door.

Thinking for a moment on her question, I went over

everything I’d done and found that I couldn’t honestly
remember much with how damn tired I was right
then. “I made a door,” I blurted, trying to buy myself
time to think. “A really big one.”
“A big door,” she laughed. “Is that for the front?”

“Yes!” I nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. I was

honestly a little addled right now, exhausted both
from too little sleep and too much activity. “I also,
um… I made some, uh… some things. Some thing
things. Fuck, words… uhhhh. The things with the
magic and the plants and stuff!” I said, my brain
shorting out as I forgot the word spells.

“Spells?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes!” I exclaimed again. “That thing. I made lots of

little ones for everyday stuff.”

“Riiiight,” she giggled, then I heard her give a gasp.

“Damn! My legs are hot!”
“I want to seeeee,” I whined, too quietly for her to
hear.

“Wow, my body has changed quite a bit!” she said

with a disbelieving laugh. “This is great, my thighs are
so meaty now!”

My breath caught as my imagination ran wild, briefly

wondering what it would be like to get my hands on
said thighs. Then the idea of getting my face between
them shorted my mind out entirely. I swear there
must have been sparks flying.

“Uh huh?” I asked, because that was all I could

manage to get out.

“Yeah, I think I’ve gained like almost an inch in

diameter on these things,” she told me, oblivious to
my plight. “I’ve always wanted thicker thighs.”
“I like… uh, I mean, that’s great!” I called, desperately
thankful that she couldn’t see my overheating cheeks.

The splashing stopped for a few seconds, leaving me

wondering what was going on. Then Grace’s head
poked around the corner, looking down at me with
concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked, eyes searching mine. “Did

the flower not do its job properly? You look flushed
and stuff.”

I wasn’t sure that my blush could get any worse, but

apparently I was very wrong. I sat there without words
for several seconds as Grace stared down at me with
growing worry. She also appeared to be naked apart
from the towel she had wrapped loosely around
herself, and that wasn’t helping either.
“I’m okay,” I finally managed to squeak, breaking our
awkward eye contact.

“You sure don’t look okay,” she said, her voice

carrying a great big helping of disbelief.

“You’re just hot, okay?” I blurted desperately. “No

magic involved! You were talking about your thighs
and then my imagination kind of took that and ran
with it! I’m just… I’m just… I’m just regular horny,
alright?”

I hid my face in my hands as the weight of raw, heavy

embarrassment crashed down on top of me. Holy
moly this was something else, I had never felt so
embarrassed before in my life. Not even after that
time in my senior year of high school when I’d come
to school with a mud stain on my butt. Everyone had
thought it was something else and the teasing lasted
for weeks.

“My thighs?” she asked, words to fill the silence as she

processed what I’d said. “Oh! Right! That’s… I’m sorry.
I’ll just go finish up real quick then…” she said,
stumbling over her words and then disappearing back
into the bathroom.

We didn’t speak as she finished off her shower, but I

could hear every sound coming out of that room.
What was wrong with me all of a sudden? It was like
all the previous progress we’d made towards…
something, had been wiped clean. I felt so awkward
around her all of a sudden. Was it the fact that there
was nothing between us now? No more excuses, no
more reasons to stay apart. Just us.

“Hey, I’m finished,” Grace murmured, coming out of

the bathroom in her sleeping clothes. Sleeping clothes
that consisted of underwear and a T-shirt, leaving the
aforementioned thighs on full display. Oh my
goodness they were wonderful. I wanted to cuddle
them, I wanted to rub my cheek on them, and… I
kinda wanted to nibble them a little too.

Slowly, my eyes travelled up the length of her as she

stood over me, and I savoured every glorious,
wonderful inch. Golly gosh darn damn wow.

“Well, that wasn’t subtle at all,” she laughed, although

her face had gone bright red. Good, she could be
embarrassed too, take some of the heat off me as it
were.

Taking a deep breath, I stood up, finding that she still

had a few inches on me. She’d gotten taller in the
flower, if only by a little. Time to be brave Ryn. I
looked her directly in those beautiful, expressive
green eyes of hers and said, “It wasn’t really meant to
be subtle.”

“Oh,” she breathed, her mouth hanging open just

slightly.

We held that charged, electrified eye contact for

several long seconds before she finally looked away.
Her eyes travelled down to the floor, then out to the
stairs, then back to me for a second, all while biting
her lip. She was being downright bashful, which was a
little out of character for her. I’d always thought that
she had at least more confidence in this area than me,
but maybe my inexperience was a boon here? Either
that or I was just way too tired to have a filter
anymore.

“Bed?” she finally asked, giving me a hopeful smile.

“Yes please,” I nodded, and promptly swayed where I
stood. Oh yup, it was definitely the exhaustion.

“Come on,” she smiled, more confidently this time

even if her cheeks were still very rosy. “You’ve been
great, it’s time you were able to rest. I’ll look after you
now.”

I gratefully let her take me up to bed, although she

initially made for the wrong room, and we had to
figure out which one the buns had moved everything
to. It turned out to be the one next door, but before
we went in, we saw all the buns dutifully cleaning up
the previous room… by eating all the foliage. That was
one way to do it I guess.

Grace grabbed our blankets from where they had

been plopped on the floor and then gently helped me
into bed. I was growing rapidly more and more
exhausted as the minutes went by, leading to my
leaning on her for support. I don’t think either of us
minded the extra physical contact there.

I hadn’t actually been wearing pants since I was

woken up, so I didn’t really have to do anything except
lay down. Grace fussed around with her pack for a bit
though, then looked up with a frown. “Some of my
stuff is gone.”

I gave a tired lying down nod, “The storm sucked some

of it out the window. We’ll have to go outside and find
whatever we can once it’s over.”

“Ah shit, right,” she said, placing everything back in

her pack.

Once she’d stowed everything away again, she walked

over to the couch-bed and looked down at me where
I’d already burrowed under my blanket. She raised an
amused eyebrow at me and placed a hand on her
perfect hip.

“What?” I grumbled. “It’s cold.”

Her amusement was transferred to her whole

expression as she moved to the bed. “It’s just cute,
that’s all,” she smiled, clambering over the outside
edge to get in with me.

I blinked. “Cute?”

“Uh huh,” she smiled, laying down next to me with a

languid stretch, before pulling her own blanket over
herself. Gosh, what a stretch. Was I dehydrated? Smile
turning to a frown, she looked down at it the blanket,
the one that I’d been using this past four days. “This
smells like you.”
“I missed you,” I mumbled defensively, hiding all but
my eyes behind the blanket.

“Awh,” she cooed, her expression going soft and

thoughtful before she quietly exclaimed, “Fuck it.
Come here.”

She opened her blanket and her arms, and I’ve never
wriggled across a bed fast enough. Not that I’ve ever
like, recorded by bed wiggling, but yeah, it was fast. I
cuddled close into her arms as they closed around me,
head coming to rest on her bicep. The sense of
comfort was almost instantaneous and I all but melted
right there and then. This was where I belonged. Safe
in Grace’s arms.

I was well on my way to sleep in a matter of moments,

but Grace had one final thing to say before I was out.
“I’m falling for you too, by the way. I didn’t reply when
you told me back before I went in the flower,” she
murmured gently, her arms squeezing a little tighter
around me.

My heart gave a stutter step for a second and I froze in

place, sleep receding for the moment. She really was?
I mean, it had been kind of implied, but now she'd
explicitly stated it! She was falling in love with me!
Grace was… oh my goodness. I was crying again, my
exhausted brain once again failing to contain the
upwelling of emotions within me.

I made a sort of bubbly little noise and shifted to kiss

the soft skin of her collarbone. I had no words, no
thoughts, just an overwhelming happiness exploding
out from my heart in every direction. I wasn't falling
for her anymore, I had fallen for her. I loved her, I
loved her so much.
I didn't have the guts to tell her that yet though, so I
just snuggled in against her and cried. It felt nice to
cry, the tears of joy trailing down my cheeks were the
physical manifestation of my affection for her after all.

She returned my kisses to the top of my head with a

breathless giggle, her nose burrowing into my
magenta hair. "I'm guessing this is a good reaction?"

"Yes!" I blurted, pushing back to beam at her, before I

lunged forward.

My lips landed a little off to the side, messy and

insistent before she corrected for me. Then we were
kissing, soft and wild and happy, each gentle brush of
our lips sending fresh waves of love and joy twirling
and dancing through me. Unfortunately, with each
spike of happiness, it became harder and harder to
kiss her because I was grinning so damned much.
I parted from her with a giddy laugh. "I'm sorry! I can't
stop smiling!"

"I don't want you to stop," she said with a grin of her
own, coming in to try and kiss me again, only for our
teeth to bump together because of our goofy
expressions. Now my teeth ached, but I couldn’t care
less, I was in love!

"Ow!" I giggled, placing my cheek to hers instead. It

was like a kiss, but with cheeks! Soft, warm cheeks.
Goodness, the way our skin felt pressed together like
that was heavenly.

"Sorry," she laughed, hugging me tight again. "I'm

actually not super amazing at the whole kissing thing.”

Yeah, that was total bullshit. I still remembered the

first kiss we’d had, fuelled by raw passion and
affection. This time had just been a little funny
because both of us were so silly giddy delighted.

"I liked it," I sighed happily, burrowing into her

shoulder with my face. "I want to smile kiss you all
night."

“In the morning,” she said warmly. “We really need to

sleep now.”

As if to punctuate her words, a yawn burst free from

me, getting a chuckle from… my lover? My girlfriend?

“Okay,” I agreed, because evidently I was really

fucking tired, even if I was also stupidly happy.
Questions of relationship status labels, other than
kissing and cuddle buddies who had feelings for each
other, could wait.
Making a wordless hum of contentment, Grace shifted
us both around until she was comfortable, then
waited as I did the same. Comfortable for both of us
appeared to be her laying on her back while I cuddled
up to her side, our legs intertwined and my head on
her arm. It felt perfect, and without so much as a
goodnight our breathing slowed and settled down into
sleep.

Chapter 50 :
“We really need some meat, as much as I love eating
fruit and veggies all day, I’m practically dreaming of
steaks now,” Grace pouted, as she stared down at the
half eaten apple in her hand.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I sighed, then had a lightbulb

moment. “Oh! We need a freezer!”
“We do, and that storm could probably help you with
that I’m guessing?” she grinned at me, her eyes
brimming with gentle affection. Gosh, my heart…

"Yeah!" I said enthusiastically. "Let me make the

changes really quick. The tree and magic will do the
rest."

As I closed my eyes to concentrate and envisioned

what I needed, I thought I heard her say something
like, “You’re so cute when you get excited about
magic.”

Regardless of the cute girl whispering, I had a job to

do. I needed a staircase down into the ground a wee
ways, followed by a hallway out of the tree itself. I
wanted the freezing temperatures to be away from
the main tree so as to avoid having the perpetual cold
damage it in any way. I created a sort of bubble of
tree under the ground that would be full of flowers
that did the reverse of what the heat and light flowers
did. It was kinda as simple as that, although it would
need a door at some point.

“Alright, done,” I said, opening my eyes again.

“There’s going to be a way down to it from under the
entryway staircase.”

“Nice,” she smiled, finally taking a bite out of her

apple. “I love that you can just change things on the
fly like that.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m cheating and when Esra turns up

she’s going to explode or something,” I laughed,
already imagining the grumpy old woman pottering
around my grove telling me how I’d done everything
wrong.
“I’m not sure if I should be worried or not when she
comes back,” Grace joked. “She sounds pretty scary.”

“Nah, she’s harmless,” I said, thinking back on her.

“She’ll act like she hates you, but when push comes to
shove, she’ll like you.”

The storm still raged outside as we continued to eat

breakfast, and every now and then you’d feel the
whole tree vibrate as a particularly hard gust of wind
rocked the structure. Rain lashed at every window,
but was otherwise muted by the thick living wood
walls. Honestly, now that we’d shored the place up, it
was kind of cozy in here. All we needed was a roaring
fireplace and some good roast… damn it, there’s the
meat problem again.

“What do we do while the storm clears up, can we just

leave?” Grace asked after a while, having finished her
food.
“We could,” I nodded reluctantly. “But if we came
back in, it would put us outside the tree. I don’t really
know if it's safe for us to be out there. Which means, I
guess, that we might not be able to come back into
the grove if we find danger out in the mundane
realm.”

“Ah shit, so we have to wait it out?” she winced,

leaning down heavily on the table with her elbows.
“What the hell are we going to do?”

“I can think of a few things,” I murmured mildly,

pretending to be very interested in the stem of an
apple that was sitting on the table.

Grace gave a laugh. “Uh huh, but other than that.”

“Well, we could explore your powers,” I said
thoughtfully, giving her a good look. “Come to think of
it, if it’s okay with you I’d like to take a good look with
my mage sight.”

“Oh! Do you think I have mage sight now?” she asked

excitedly. “Do I get glowy eyes now too?”

“As if they didn’t already,” I muttered to myself, just

loud enough for her to hear.

“Oh my goodness, come here you flirt,” she grinned,

pulling me over into her lap like I weighed nothing. I
gave a squeal of protest that was brutally snuffed out
when her lips descended onto mine.

We’d shyly made out this morning when we woke up,

but hunger had quickly ended that. It was apparently
hard to get really into kissing when your stomachs
were growling and rumbling louder than the storm
outside.

This time though, Grace was being strangely

dominant, and I found that I loved it. Her hands
slipped up under my shirt to cup the soft curve of my
waist, the brush of her hands there causing a thrill of
lovely sensation all across my body.

The kiss itself was slow and unhurried, sensual

without being urgent. She even shifted me into a more
balanced position in her lap without breaking contact.
Yeah, she definitely wasn’t a novice at this, no matter
what her lack of self confidence told her. I was melting
under her care, breathy half-moans coming up from
within, only to be caught on the tip of her tongue as it
briefly dove inside to flick at mine.

I honestly had no idea where my own hands ended up

until we broke apart again, where I found they had
tugged at Grace’s shirt until I could get at her abs.
Well, I couldn’t say I blamed my wandering fingers,
the transformation had done nothing but wonders for
her soft muscle tone.

“Whoa,” I breathed, feeling a little light headed. Had

we remembered to take breaths?

Burying her face in my neck, lips gently pressed to the

skin there, she murmured, “Whoa, indeed. Kissing you
is amazing.”

“I’m not even doing anything except wiggling my lips,”

I giggled as her breath tickled my neck.

She gave a snort of amusement. “It’s working just

fine.”
“That’s good, I want to be a good kisser for you,” I
smiled, leaning my head to the side so it was resting
on hers.

“Cute,” she chuckled, before she gave a tired sigh.

“We should try and achieve something while we’re
stuck inside though. Work out what I can do. We can
make out too, but like… the real world exists out
there.”

With disappointment I had to agree, we needed to

find the guys and help them, as well as figure out
exactly what the hell happened to Grace with her
transformation.

“Okay, well,” I said, carefully getting up out of her lap.

“First I should look at you with mage sight.”
“Okay,” she nodded, then gave me a hopeful look.
“Then can you try and teach me to use that mage sight
thing?”

“Sure,” I told her, affection warming my heart as she

gave me puppy dog eyes.

I turned my mage sight on and had a look at her, and

what I saw caused my eyebrows to make a slow
migration towards my hairline. She didn’t have a
mage’s web-like aura, but she didn’t have a bubble
like before either. Instead, she had what looked to be
a sort of magnetic field of magic, arcs of it twirling and
twisting about her limbs as she shifted.

Carefully, I pushed my hand towards it, watching it

bow inward without resisting as my magic pushed it
back. On a hunch, I created a little floating yellow
light, one of my many new cantrips, and then pushed
it towards her. The moment it came into contact with
Grace’s... I’d call it a maginetic field for now, it was
sucked into the lines of the field and distributed
around her, almost like a shield.

“Whoa, I’m glowing!” she exclaimed, looking down at

herself.

I clicked my mage sight off quickly and gave a short

bark of a laugh. Oh dear, it looked like my spell had
been hijacked! It swirled around her as though the
magic had been pulled into a line that stretched
through every part of her maginetic field.

“Well, that’s odd,” I frowned, wondering what the hell

was going on.

“Hey, I can feel it!” she exclaimed, standing up out of

the chair abruptly. “I think I can…”
Suddenly she lit up like the surface of the sun, my spell
magnified a thousand fold, the light all but blinding
me.

“Holy shit!” I said, crying out in pain. “Stop! Turn it

off!”

“Sorry!” she said, and the light disappeared, including

the original spell she’d had swirling around her.

“Fucking hell,” I blurted, rubbing at my eyes. “God,

we’re lucky I didn’t use the little fire-starting spell or
my tree would be burning.”

“Sorry,” Grace murmured, looking embarrassed.

I shook my head and cupped her cheek briefly. “Nah,

that was just as much my fault as yours.”
“Okay… but what happened?” she asked, confusion
wrinkling her pretty brow.

“Okay so, around you I can see a sort of magnetic

field, except it’s made of magic. I’m tentatively calling
it a maginetic field. Imagine how the magnetic field
around the sun looks, all weird and warped and a little
fucky. Except it’s all around you. When I touched that
field with my light spell, it got grabbed, and then I’m
pretty sure you just amplified the spell with your own
magic,” I explained, the act of putting it all into words
solidifying my theory about what had just happened.

“No way… so that means I’ll be able to like, take spells

from you and then make them super powerful?” she
asked, understanding dawning in her eyes.

A brief image of Grace flashed through my mind,

standing in her armour while loops of fire circled
threateningly about her, and a grin slowly spread
across my face.

“Yeah, and not just that, but you might be able to

saturate that field with blank magic too! Who knows
what that would do,” I said thoughtfully and just a
little excitedly. “Maybe you could even power some of
those fancy magical artifacts with it? We’ll need to
test it all more, including having you pull it in closer,
because having you accidentally suck my dome shield
up wouldn’t be ideal.”

“Yeah true… okay but…” she began, giving me the

puppy dog eyes again.

“Alright, alright,” I grinned, spontaneously leaning

forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “Let’s see if you
have mage sight.”
“Okay, what do I do?” she asked eagerly.

“It’s sorta like focusing your eyes, but you should be

able to feel another set of insubstantial eyelids.
Magical ones, which you might be able to feel since
you did the whole lamp impression earlier,” I told her,
explaining how it felt to me.

I watched her intently as she frowned, struggling for a

few moments. Then just like that, the insides of her
eyes glowed green, sort of like how a cat’s did in the
dark. It was honestly kinda pretty, like I was looking
into a pair of opal eyes.

“Whoa!” she breathed, a grin spreading across her

face.

“Cool huh?” I smiled, stepping closer to her. We

hadn’t been touching for like, a few minutes now,
which was a few minutes too long. I wasn’t addicted
to her touch, I swear.

“This is awesome,” she told me happily, wrapping an

arm around me as she gazed around in wonder. “All
the magic around us! It’s beautiful!”

“It’s especially intense with the storm outside,” I

nodded, turning my mage sight on again too while I
leaned into her.

“I’m so happy,” she told me quietly. “I’m like you now,

I can stand beside you without feeling like a
weakling.”

“You never needed that to stand next to me,” I told

her sincerely. “I always just wanted you.”
“I know, I know,” she groaned, pressing the side of her
head to mine. “Tell that to my dumbass brain.”

I could empathise with that, definitely. Brains were

dumb and mean and they needed to leave us poor
people alone sometimes. I mean gosh, I don’t need to
think about the fact that spiders have millions of tiny
hairs all over them, but my brain says otherwise all the
time.

“Okay,” I smiled, turning her so we were facing each

other.

I leaned in, cupping both of her cheeks in my hands so

I could tilt her face down to kiss me. Our lips met and
wonder sparked all over again. I really, really liked
kissing her, it was incredible. The emotions and
sensations it sent tumbling through me with each
gentle press or flick of the tongue were heavenly. I
wonder if we could go back to bed and just make out
all day?

Chapter 51 :
Grace and I waited out the full seven days before we
decided to risk going out into the mundane world. The
guys had been fending for themselves for a while now,
but we couldn’t really do anything about it until Grace
was safe and the storm had fucked off.

The storm did eventually fuck off towards the end of

the sixth day since she had gone into her flower, and
we jumped at the chance to go outside and survey the
damage. The ground was saturated, puddles of water
laying deceptively beneath the grass that was now
knee height. I should get the bunnies onto mowing it
or something.
The largest change was the lake, the thing was full to
the brim with magically charged water. In fact it was
so full that the puddles we walked through were
probably due to it overflowing. I needed to create
some pathways for streams when I had the time.

“I found one of your shirts,” Grace commented,

picking up a soaking wet white piece of cloth.

“Huh, is it intact?” I asked, walking over to her.

She untangled it and held it out in front of us. “Uh,

sort of,” she laughed.

The shirt had ripped down the back, then caught at

the lower hem. It was now a very risque backless shirt.
“Should I put it on?” I joked, taking it from her. “Take
the Avonside fashion scene by storm.”

I tried to figure out how I’d even wear the damn thing.
Putting on wet clothing was always a struggle, even
when you weren’t joking around. When I looked up,
Grace was staring down at the shirt, her face just a
little flushed, her eyes wide.

Giving an awkward laugh, I asked, “Wait… do you

want me to put it on?”

“What?” she asked, choking and then coughing as her

face flushed further. “I mean, like… you’d look really
hot in it, but also that’s whatever. I mean, no… I um.”

A slow smile spread across my face as I actually

contemplated putting it on. But no, I didn’t have the
guts to do something like that with Grace, at least…
not yet.

We continued to look around my grove, finding that

for the most part, everything that had been below the
line of my wind break had survived, only taking a slight
beating. Nothing my buns couldn’t fix with a bit of
their magic! The windbreak would heal in time too,
which meant that all in all, my plan had worked! My
plants wouldn’t die to the first big storm that hit my
grove!

We also found a lot of our belongings scattered

around the place, although most of it was kinda
munted. We collected it all up anyway, no point
wasting any of it, since some was made from materials
we wouldn’t have access to again for a while yet.

With the grove surveyed and found to be in

reasonably good shape, I turned to Grace. “So should
we try for Millowhall now? See where the guys have
gotten to? If you’re feeling up to it that is.”

“Yeah, I think I’m goo—” she began, but as she was

speaking the clouds parted for a moment, raining
sunlight down on us. “Oh, that feels so nice,” she
gasped, turning to face the sunlight.

I watched in awe as she transformed, her body turning

from that of a human to that of… something else. She
was the same shape for the most part, except that her
skin was made of rough bark, branches sprouting out
every so often. The branches quickly produced leaves,
and her hair morphed into a tangle of vines and
foliage.

“Oh, wow,” I breathed, staring at her.

“What?” she asked, turning to look at me in confusion.
Her face, although also covered in bark, seemed to
have plates of the stuff that shifted to display
expression.

“You just turned into a tree girl,” I told her motioning

vaguely in her direction. “Not like me either, I’m all
flowers and soft green stem skin, but you’re made of
bark!”

Grace’s eyes turned hurriedly down to her arm as she

held it out. “Holy shit! I’m like an Ent!”

“You are,” I agreed, stepping close to run my fingers

over her hand. She stilled as I did so, and then on a
hunch I transformed into plant mode too.

The moment I took that form, something truly strange

happened between Grace and I. Strange sensations
whirled up from our touch, and we looked up to stare
at each other in amazement. Amazement I could feel
from both myself and her. I could feel, on a dim level
the emotions that she was experiencing.

“Oh,” I blurted, stepping closer almost without

thought. My hands went to her face and just sort of…
explored, and with every brush of skin to skin
between us I could feel the affection she felt for me.
Judging by the way she was looking at me, it was a
two way street as well.

“That’s new,” she laughed giddily, her arms coming up

to settle on my hips. “I… wow. You really feel that for
me?”

“Yes,” I nodded, a purple blush escaping to run

rampant across my cheeks. “You really feel that for
me?”
“Uh huh,” she said, smiling down at me. “Wanna kiss
like this?”

Grace, bashful one moment and incredibly forward

the next. Kinda like me actually? It was like we
swapped back and forth.

“Oh yes,” I said, reaching up to place my hands on her

shoulders and pull her down to my level.

The kiss was odd at first, her lips were both rough and
soft at the same time. The small ridges of the bark
were hard, but the actual texture of the bark itself was
soft. All of that paled in comparison to the feedback
loop of emotion that swelled within us. Feeling her
attraction and affection for me seemed to amplify my
own, and vice versa, until my world was nothing but
love for her.
When we finally parted, it was like we were sticky, the
actual motion of moving away from one another
difficult and unpleasant.

“Wow… Wow, wow, holy fucking, wow,” she giggled,

looking almost drunk. I probably looked like that too.

“Definitely,” I sighed dreamily, still holding onto her to

keep myself upright. Why were my legs made of jelly?
They were meant to be made of plant.

We were both silent for many minutes as we just sorta

stood there and calmed down. It had been a lot, and
my mind was still in the process of rebooting after that
surge of emotion.

“Should we um, go have lunch, then get ready to

leave?” Grace asked after a moment, still looking a
little dizzy.
“Yeah… let’s do that,” I nodded, changing back into
normal human mode.

Lunch consisted of more fruit and vegetables, which

we were both thoroughly sick of now. I was even
considering using my magic to hunt some animals to
throw in the freezer at this point. I was hoping I could
enlarge my grove to the point that I might be able to
sustain some larger animals inside it. It would be so
cool to have deer running around in the woods.

When we finished eating, we went back up to our

room and got properly ready for leaving the grove.
Grace got into her armour, minus the helmet, and I
got fully suited up into my coat, scarf and the rest.

“We look so stereotypically fantasy right now,” she

laughed as she glanced between us. “The cute mage in
her dapper coat and the knight in her armour.”
“You forgot to add hot to your description of the
knight,” I corrected, sending a grin her way.

Grace groaned and rolled her eyes, although it was

betrayed by her bashful smile. “What have I created?”

I left that question hanging and beckoned for her to

come closer. We could leave the grove from anywhere
inside it after all. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, determination replacing her

amusement, her gun at the ready.

We stood back to back, and after a few calming

breaths, I transferred us over.
We did not come out in Ollinfer’s grove, as she’d
promised. Instead we found ourselves in an unfamiliar
patch of forest. It was definitely forest too, not
rainforest like we’d seen when we entered the
mountains. Vaguely coniferous trees clung to craggy
rock all about us, with hardy shrubs scrambling for
what little good soil that the trees weren’t using. Snow
blanketed everything in a thin layer, and it looked
fresh, as though it had only fallen last night.

“Alright, looks like Ollinfer was good on her word,”

Grace remarked, looking around at the scenery.

We weren’t just in a forest though, we were halfway

up the side of a mountain, perched on a large terrace-
like ledge that extended out of our view, blocked by
the trees around us. Curiously, we made our way
towards the edge, and when we arrived we were
assaulted with the most intense vertigo that I had ever
experienced, causing us to stumble backwards.
“I couldn’t see the bottom!” Grace exclaimed, her
eyes wide with shock.

She was right. While some distance opposite us there

was another almost vertical cliff face like the one we
stood on, ledges and terraces running up the side,
there was literally no bottom in sight. Our view down
was blocked by yet more irregularities in the
mountain, but even then we could see that it was
really fucking deep. I’d only ever seen terrain like this
in Minecraft or on Mars, it was insane.

“We are… wow,” I gasped. “Really fucking high up.”

“We really are…” she said in amazement, shaking her

head.
Taking a deep breath, I reined my thoughts in and
focused on what we needed to do next. “I’m going to
cast my spell and check for the guys.”

I raised my ring hand and carefully cast the spell,

watching it closely this time, in case Ollinfer decided
to fuck with us again. Thankfully it went off without a
hitch, and I quickly located where Adam’s ring was.

“Adam is that way,” I said, pointing down the massive

canyon we were standing in. “I don’t think he’s all that
far away either.”

“Really?” Grace asked, her tone disbelieving. “How

close?”

“I can’t say for sure, I can only get a direction mostly,

but he feels close. Maybe a few miles?” I mused,
concentrating on the fading information that my spell
had brought up.

“Should we start like, trying to walk along this huge

cliff?” she asked tentatively, once again staring warily
at the edge.

“I guess so,” I shrugged, staring around us in awe at

the scenery. It was gorgeous, even if it was also
slightly terrifying. We could even see the snow line a
few hundred meters below us on the far side of the
canyon, and wispy clouds below that. My mind was
reeling at the sheer enormity of this place. Had the
Umare built this place specifically like this? They must
have right? They designed the rest of this ring after all.
Would we even be able to continue along this ledge all
the way to our friends? How far did it stretch?
Chapter 52 :
Our journey along the side of the mountain was
terrifying in the extreme. In some places we traversed,
the ledge was so thin that it was impossible to walk
side by side, leading to some moments where one or
both of us might slip, only to be caught by the other.
The rock itself was fairly sturdy, and it didn’t break
often under our feet, but the dirt that had collected
on top of it was another matter.

Then there were the trees and shrubs, none of which

Grace and I could identify. They simply weren’t based
on anything we knew, although it looked like they had
evolved along similar lines to what we were used to.
Clearly this place had been groomed by the Umaru to
host the Obrecs, just as our mountains back at
Avonside had been cultivated to sustain humanity. It
really had me wondering why they had gone through
all this trouble.
“Can you tell how far they are now?” Grace asked, not
sounding at all as tired as I was.

Having cast the spell only a few minutes ago, I just

shook my head. “Closer, but that’s all I can tell right
now. They’re also sort of inside the mountain from
what I can tell, which doesn’t seem right.”

“Maybe they’re on the other side? This place seems

like it has tons of different branching canyons,” Grace
commented, staring around at the wild, alien scenery.
So far it hadn’t really felt like we were on an alien
world… until now. This place was truly strange.

“I didn’t think of that,” I replied, staring through the

wall at where Adam was meant to be. Or at least his
ring. “You’re probably right.”
“Which means, unless there’s a fork in the canyon up
ahead, we need to go up and over, right?” Grace
hypothesised, as she stared up at the wall of rock that
not only yawned impossibly deep below us, but also
dizzyingly high above us until it was lost in misty
clouds that swirled and undulated in mysterious
patterns.

“I doubt we’d be able to get over that without flying,”

I laughed, my voice slightly rough with awe as I
continued to stare up the rocky face.

“Good point,” she chuckled, then with a shrug she

kept walking, picking her way over twisted roots and
loose rocks.

I was starting to wonder if Ollinfer had really put us

down near Millowhall, or if she’d just played a strange
prank on us. Shit, or maybe her definition of “close”
was just ever so slightly different to ours.
We had made a pact with a being that claimed to be a
Goddess after all. That in itself was a whole mess of
red flags. She could have dumped us on a detour so
that would have us fulfilling some unknowable plan or
prophecy while we bumbled our way towards the
guys.

Either way, we kept moving, doing our best not to get

freaked out by the world that had seemingly been
turned on its side. We couldn’t even see the ring
because of the mists and clouds that swirled around
us. It was getting cold too, the chill of the region
beginning to seep into our bones despite our clothing.

Then, to make the cold worse, the wind began to pick

up, howling and groaning it’s way through the huge
passage of rock. Pushing and pulling at us like it
wanted to throw us into the chasm below or bash us
against the rocky wall beside us. It wasn’t enough to
deter us, at least not yet, but it sucked nevertheless.
I was sort of idly daydreaming by that point, letting my
mind wander where it would, until some part of me
jolted the rest back into the present. I was staring at a
huge almost circular slab of rock, some two yards wide
and two feet deep. Why had my subconscious mind
brought this thing to my attention?

Oh! Oh gosh, it was perfect!

“Grace, hold on,” I said, taking her hand to bring her

to a stop. “I want to try and steal that big ass rock for
my grove.”

“What, why?” she asked, not yet having made the

same connection that I had.
“It could be a floor to place an oven on! I would
somewhat protect the tree from burning down!” I
exclaimed excitedly.

“Oh, that would be great! We wouldn’t have to go

outside to cook anything!” she grinned, understanding
my intentions now. “Okay, how do you do it?”

“I don’t know, I guess I’ll just wrap my telekinesis

around it and try to yank it in, just like normal,” I
shrugged, doing so as I explained it. “See you in just a
moment okay?”

Her expression turned worried. “Wait, you’re going

without me?”

“I need to conserve energy, sorry. I’ll only be a

moment, I promise!” I told her, searching her eyes for
any sign she wouldn’t be okay for the few seconds I
was gone.

“Alright, see you in a sec,” she sighed.

Nodding, I made sure my grip on the huge rock was

solid and then went through the mental steps needed
to pull myself into my grove. The strain was pretty
intense compared to just transferring people, but
after a slightly longer transition time than I was used
to, I landed in the center of my grove, the rock
alongside me.

Taking a few deep breaths, I took stock of how much

energy that had taken out of me. A lot, by the feel of
things, not prohibitively so. I could do this transfer
maybe four times in a row before I’d burn out. What
was interesting was how much energy it had taken
compared to moving people in and out. Was it to do
with an object’s mass? I’d have to experiment at some
point.

When I popped back into the mundane realm, Grace

was looking anxious, but otherwise fine.

“Okay, phew,” she breathed, relief all over her

expression. “I was worried you’d accidentally get stuck
in some sort of wild time bubble or other nonsense.
You know how magic and sci-fi goes sometimes, a
quick extra dimensional jaunt and then bam, the little
maneuver costs them fifty one years.”

“Oh my goodness, you dork,” I said, grinning at her

affectionately, cupping her cheek in my hand.
Carefully, I went up on my tiptoes and placed a short,
tender kiss on her lips, backing away with an intense,
adoring stare.
“Oh, yes,” she blurted, her cheeks colouring. “Right,
everything’s fine.”

“It is,” I smiled, then tilted my head in the direction we

needed to go. “Shall we continue?”

“Yup, deffo,” she nodded, still looking a little flustered.

She was so cute.

An hour later and we were still going, with what were

probably clouds closing in around us. I wouldn’t be
surprised if each stretch of the canyons had their own
microbiomes with the way this place was made.

“I’m starting to get pretty cold, Ryn. We should

possibly rest for the night, I think it’s starting to get
dark, but I can’t tell,” Grace mumbled, coming to a
stop and shivering as she turned to look at me. She
looked damned cold that was for sure.
“Yeah, alright,” I agreed, taking her hand. I didn’t
actually need to take her hand for the transfer into my
grove, but I liked holding her hand.

So whatever, sue me.

When we popped into my grove, the relative warmth

washed over us almost immediately. It was still
somewhat cold, but it was a temperate cold, not a
frigid mountain type of cold.

My new big ass rock was still where I’d left it, a crowd
of bunnies surrounding it as they tried in vain to move
the heavy object. “Hey, stop,” I told them quickly.
“You’ll just hurt yourselves, let me do it.”

“Your buns are so good,” Grace laughed. “Trying their

best.”
“Trying their best,” I nodded solemnly, as though it
was a sacred phrase.

“If you’re going to try moving that thing with your

mind, then I’ll head up to the bathroom and have a
wash. I feel gross after all that walking.”

“Sure thing, see you soon,” I smiled at her.

As Grace wandered off, looking over her shoulder as

she did so, I turned my attention to the big ass rock.
Almost like I was straightening my back and lifting
with my knees, just like the safety signs always said, I
wrapped my telekinesis carefully around it. I could feel
its heft even before I tried to move it, and when I did,
my eyes blew wide with the effort. Holy shit, this thing
was heavy! I could do it though, just.
Mind tight with the effort, I floated the thing up the
ramp and into the happy tree, stopping to rest in the
entry hall. It took several stops like that before I had it
up and into the center of an unused floor. I decided
that it was going to be the kitchen, and once the rock
was in I had no intention of moving it. Damn, it was so
heavy.

Staring at it as I caught my breath, I mumbled my

thoughts out loud. “I need a hole in the middle, big
enough to contain the fire that’s going to be inside it.
How the hell will I achieve that?”

As if in answer, I felt a tugging at my pants, looking

down to find the cream coloured bun at my feet. The
little critter pointed to itself, then mimed an action
that I couldn’t fully interpret.

“I don’t get it,” I said, watching the bun get

exasperated with me.
It stopped to think for a moment, then seemed to
have a brainwave as it hopped up onto the huge flat
stone and mimed bashing something in the middle.

“Oh! You want to dig the hole?” I asked.

Cream nodded, then shook the empty air between its

little hands.

“Ah, but you need rocks to do it. Okay, I’ll go get some
rocks real quick,” I grinned, feeling my heart swell
with the cuteness of the little friends. They were so
good.

I popped back out into the mundane world from right

there in the room, then made several trips in and out,
swiping all the loose stones I could get my mental
hands on. I dumped them on the grass outside where
the buns could get them, and on my third trip they
were swarming the area, hustling back and forth
between the spot where I appeared and the tree.
Good buns, getting to work.

With that taken care of, I went and had my own bath,
luxuriating in the wonderfully warm water. I really
liked my tree, and it was only going to get better.
Hopefully I could get some proper furniture, maybe
some decorations to make it more homey and less
echoey. Of course, we had to actually find and get to
Millowhall first.

Chapter 53 :
After an early, sleepy night of kissing we woke up the
next morning and continued our journey. I found a
cloak in my pack, carefully stuffed into the bottom and
forgotten about, and I put that on. Unfortunately,
there wasn’t really anything Grace could wear over
her armour. My cloak certainly wasn’t big enough.

I was however, now that I had seen the region,

starting to get a few ideas for what I could sell. Any
types of wood that were hard to come by in this
massive broken land would probably be very sought
after, especially if what people said about the Obrec
was true. They really didn’t like cutting down the trees
from their forests if they could avoid it.

There were really a whole host of options to make

money if you could custom grow your plants to
people’s exact specifications like I could. Anything
from herbs and spices to medicinal plants to like,
bonsai trees or something. Any resource that had its
origins in plant life could be ready made.

All of this was precluded by us actually finding

Millowhall of course, which was beginning to seem
like a distant dream at this point. We’d been walking
for hours already with no change except that the
canyon was slowly curving away from where the ring
was pointed, which was now behind us. I had a feeling
that this place was a maze.

That is, until Grace realised something. “Ryn, what if

we’re not at the right elevation?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, slowing to a stop as she

nerd sniped me right in the noggin.

“What if we’ve been walking along this shitty fucking

ledge for almost a day and a half, while there’s a
perfectly good road above or below us?” she
explained, walking tentatively over to the cliffside and
peering down.
“Oh my god, that’s… you’re right, we could have so
easily missed a road if we were below it. Hell, we
might have even missed an offshoot of the canyon
that started out at a higher elevation,” I realised,
slapping my forehead. “Damn, Grace… you’re
amazing!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she blushed, shaking her head as

she came back from the ledge.

Taking her face in both hands, I forced her to look at

me, then leaned gently forward and told her, “You.
Are. Amazing,” punctuating each word with a kiss.

She was very flushed now, a beautiful red that lit her
face up like the sunset. “Thanks,” she said, a bashful
little smile shining through her blush. “Where have
you been all my life?”
“Duelling my assigned gender to the death,” I
remarked, giving her a cheeky grin. Then, adding a
wink, I leaned forward and whispered, “I won.”

Her response was to gather me up with a laugh and

nuzzle her face into my hair. I leaned in against her,
enjoying her warmth, although the metal of her
armour was kinda frigid. Still, that wasn’t going to stop
me from snuggling up against my beautiful, strong
Grace. We both smelled faintly of flowers now, her of
lilies and me of… well I wasn’t sure what, but it was
definitely a floral scent. I was a little confused as to
why a tree girl would smell like a flower that floated
on water, but whatever. Who was I to judge a work of
art?

“So which way?” I asked after a few moments, still

within the embrace. “Did you see a road down there?”
“Didn’t see shit but more snow and trees,” she
grumbled. “Which means it’s probably above us. I just
wish we could see up there before we climbed up.”

“Yeah…” I agreed, and then a wild, ridiculous, stupid

and quite possibly incredibly dangerous idea slammed
into my skull. “But I think I have a way to see up
there…”

“How?” she asked, stepping back to get a look at me.

I cringed. “You’re going to hate it.”

“Why…?” she asked suspiciously.

“I have one free-stupid-idea card now, right?” I asked

tentatively. “After the whole, yeeting yourself into a
flower without any critical thought?”
She was frowning at me now in that way that people
do when they know something is about to happen
that they will get very upset about. “Two stupids
doesn’t make a smart, Ryn.”

“Okay, just… let me try?” I pleaded, giving her my best

puppy dog eyes.

“You haven’t told me what it is,” she told me, her

suspicious expression not wavering an inch.

“I’m going to walk on thin air, sort of,” I said quickly,

pointing out into the chasm. “I’ll run out there and
then look up and see if I can see anything.”

“How?” she asked, confusion being added to her

suspicion.
“With a spell I made while you were in the flower,” I
lied. It was one I’d made earlier, but that was details.

“Fine, but if you fall, I’m jumping down after you so

that we die together,” she told me, her tone allowing
no argument.

“Uh, that’s excessive, but okay,” I winced. I had better

not fuck this up then.

Without waiting for her to second guess this, and

because if I thought about it too hard I’d fuck it up, I
rushed the edge. As my foot fell into empty air, I
summoned my hard light blades, one under each foot
as I ran. They weren’t able to hold my weight for very
long, barely a second before they broke, but that was
all I needed. So long as I kept running, I could create
new ones to stand on.
It was incredibly dangerous, and I should definitely
have practiced first, but if there was one thing that I
had going for me, it was my mind. I’d always been
able to think my way out of problems, and this was no
different… I just had to think faster.

Like I was running across a pond at high speed, relying

on surface tension to keep me aloft, I rushed for the
other side with the crack of my blades breaking under
each footfall. When I reached a small outcropping of
rock on the opposite wall, I stepped down onto the
solid ground with relief, my heart pounding in my
chest even as I felt a wild grin spreading across my
face.

“Fuck yeah!” I hollered into the chasm, waving back at

Grace. That had been a rush! She looked to be
clutching a tree for support as she stared over at me
incredulously. Oops, I hope she wasn’t freaking out
too hard.
Anyway, time to look up and see what I could see.
Which was… not a whole lot. No! Wait! There was
something! High above, at least three or four ledges
up, or sixty yards, was a bridge spanning the gap
where an ancient rock slide had taken out a section of
a ledge. It looked to be a reasonably wide one too,
which would be perfect for a road. We had a road!
Civilization!

My trip back was just as intense as my trip over, but I

did make it back in one piece, despite one tiny
moment where I misstepped and almost plummeted
into the abyss. Only through summoning the larger,
single blade was I able to course correct and continue.
That one broke a little slower, which had me thinking
about improvements to the spell.

I stumbled into Grace’s arms as a giddy, adrenaline

fuelled mess, laughing and wild eyed. I felt almost
dizzy with the rush that my stunt had given me.
“You’re right, I fucking hated that,” she said seriously,
giving me a serious glare. “Let’s never do that again.”

“I need a better way of doing that, yeah,” I giggled.

Apparently I was an adrenaline junkie, who knew? “I
did see a road though! It’s like three ledges up.”

“How the hell do we get up there?” she asked with a

groan.

“Good point, maybe.. Oh, duh, I’m dumb!” I

exclaimed, letting my head fall onto her pauldron with
a clonk. “I can just grow some vines up the wall.”

“Oh, that’s… yeah. Give them nice, safe handholds

while you’re at it, please?” she asked, clearly still a
little worried that I’d plummet to my death. I’d have
to kiss her extra tenderly tonight.
“I will,” I nodded, then began to dream up a vine that
would work. It was a fairly standard one that I came
up with, although it had one important distinction. I
made it want to grow branches out away from the
rock face every foot or so, for handholds as she’d said.
Once that was done, I planted the seeds and poured
growth energy into them.

They launched up the craggy face of the cliff with

alarming speed, until suddenly my growth magic ran
out, causing me to sway slightly. I’d only managed to
get them like five yards high, which meant… I needed
to top up.

“Grace?” I asked, holding onto her for support. “Can

you let down the barrier that’s keeping your magic
contained? I need you to refill me.”
“Oh, wait, do you think I can do that?” she asked,
looking surprised. “I figured I’d only be able to use it in
the new way that Ollinfer made for me.”

“Give it a try?”

“Okay, let me just…” she said, closing her eyes. They

snapped open with a laugh when her maginetic field
fell away and her magic was accessible to me once
again. “That was a lot easier than I thought it would
be!” she exclaimed.

An idea came over me then, fuelled in part by the rush

that running on nothing but my magic had given me.
I’d wanted to try transferring magic like this back
when I’d been constantly draining her, but I hadn’t
been able to… except now I could.
So I didn’t reply, instead closing in for a kiss that I
knew, and sort of hoped, was going to cause a…
reaction in me. We were together now after all, I was
allowed to kiss her, and I’m sure she’d enjoy watching
me fall apart.

The instant our lips met, she was pouring into me in a

rush, every drop of which was pure erotic pleasure. I
moaned into the kiss and went boneless and limp in
her arms, shuddering at the cascade of energy that
burned hot and wet within me. I was distantly aware
of Grace holding me up even as she teased me with
her tongue, seeking entry with gentle flicks. Oh crap.

She was definitely enjoying this new power over me,

now that she knew my affection for her was very real.
So much so, in fact, that her hands had slipped past
the waistband of my pants and were now gently
caressing and massaging at my ass. This sent my mind
tumbling end over end with yet more arousal until all
there was in my world was her hands, her lips and her
magic.

I shuddered as my magical reserves hit full, like an old

steam train arriving at its platform, successive waves
of rippling sensation still pulsing lazily through me
until I was squirming jelly in my lover’s arms. A few
more seconds of that and I’d have actually come. It
was quick and dirty and the hottest thing that had
ever happened to me, which wasn’t really saying
much, but like.. Holy moly. Now I wanted the real
thing so badly.

It took several minutes for me to come down off that

wild high, as even though she seemed to have shut off
the source of energy, it was still bouncing around
inside me. Every so often some slight movement
between us would spark little bursts of sensation that
had me shaking all over again.
“Oh-kay,” Grace breathed, after what felt like hours.
“I… that was… wow.”

“Yeah,” I giggled, still soaring and dancing in the

clouds. “That was nice, we should do it in a proper bed
next time.”

“Oh shit! You.. I… that was your…” she squeaked,

beginning to panic.

I clutched at her harder and shook my head

emphatically. “No, it’s okay. I didn’t… you know,
actually come, but I liked it, a lot.”

“Oh, really? Okay…. But I still feel really—“ she began,

but I cut her off with another kiss.
“Please, don’t freak out,” I pleaded, gently running my
fingers through her hair. “You’re amazing Grace, and
shit, if there’s one way to lose it, it’s standing on the
side of a cliff having just walked on air, in the arms of
my… um, you. I didn’t though so even then it’s fine…
although, I want the real thing so much more now too,
wow.”

“Okay… if you say so…” she said dubiously, and it was

obvious she was still internally beating herself up over
it.

“Grace,” I grumbled, squinting at her now. Then I

grinned my cheekiest grin ever, “Stop, it was…
magical.”

“Oh my goodness,” she guffawed, her worried

expression being replaced by a grin.
“Yup,” I laughed, snuggling in against her again.
“You’re the best thing to ever happen to me. Well,
apart from the transformation, but they’re kinda
linked. I’m serious though… we can do it properly
tonight if you want…”

“Tonight…” she mumbled and I could hear her

embarrassment in her voice. Then she nodded, her
tone shifting into nervous happiness, “Okay, yes… um,
we’ll see if, I uh… if you… okay, we’ll… crap. Also I’m
starting to think that you’re also the best thing to
happen to me. You’re like… yeah. I don’t know, I don’t
have words for these emotions.”

She was so cute when she was flustered, it melted my

heart even further.

“Then let’s not use words?” I suggested, pulling my

plant form to the fore and allowing it to take over.
She silently did the same, and with my head nestled
into the crook of her neck, I felt her emotions begin to
wash over me. Oh, this was… yes. We stood together
there on the cliff, swaying in the cold breeze as we
basked in each other’s overwhelming affection. I loved
this girl so much, and I could feel just how much she
reciprocated.

Chapter 54 :
After our interesting little… altercation, I managed to
grow the vines all the way up the side of the cliff. It did
however take frequent make out sessions, I mean…
magical refuellings, to get it there.

Once it was fully grown, we clambered our way up the

makeshift ladder, although the task was a lot harder
than I’d thought it would be. I’d climbed ladders
before in my life, but when they’re this tall… it was an
ordeal. My upper body strength was also not at all
what it used to be, thanks to my transformation, even
if my legs were now on the thicker side thanks to all
the walking we’d been doing.

So, we had to take frequent breaks at each ledge or

outcropping of rock we made it to. The rest stops
were kinda nice though, as it led to exhausted
cuddling, which was fine by me. There was also the
part where I got to stare at Grace’s ass as she climbed
above me. She had a really nice ass. I wanted to squish
it with my hands, and made a mental note to grab it
the next time we were kissing.

When we finally pulled ourselves up and onto the

ledge with the road, we were pretty exhausted, and
opted to just lay on the grass and rest before we
actually got up.
“Let’s never do that again,” Grace wheezed. “I thought
I was fit, but that was gnarly.”

“Agreed,” I said with a chuckle that quickly turned into

a cough. “Exercise is dumb.”

“No, exercise is great,” she chided me. “Climbing

unstable vines over a bottomless ravine is not great.”

I made a sound of disagreement and smiled over at

her, catching her eye. She rolled her her own eyes
back at me and tried in vain to smother the growing
grin on her face.

“You’re a dork,” she accused me affectionately.

“Thank you,” I replied gravely, as though accepting
some prestigious award. “I’d like to thank… well, Bray I
guess.”

“He is probably the one who corrupted you into

dorkdom,” she nodded thoughtfully, playing along for
a second before her grin launched itself back onto her
expression.

Her comment, plus her grin caused me to bubble up in

giddy laughter, which cascaded into her doing the
same. We laughed together for a good minute before
we managed to calm down. I think there must have
been a lack of oxygen up here or something because
honestly our joking around hadn’t been that funny.

As the laughter subsided I sat up and looked about us

at the ledge we found ourselves on. We’d fallen into a
patch of rough mountain grass that bordered most of
the edge of the cliff, the occasional tree or shrub
breaking up the monotony. The highlight of our
surroundings though, was a wide cobblestone road
that wound its way along the center of the ledge, our
grass on one side and a pile of loose debris from the
cliff on the other.

It would have been a fairly pleasant scene if it wasn’t

for the dull, muted grey light that filtered through the
clouds above us. Instead the scene was slightly eerie,
even with the mundane looking wagon train
approaching in the middle distance.

“Well, we found the road,” Grace remarked. “And

some Obrec too. We should ask them for directions.”

“We should,” I agreed, then gave her a sideways look.

“Your Anve has been getting pretty good, you wanna
do it? Assuming they even speak it.”
“Oh, um… sure,” she said, not sounding at all sure. Oh
dear, this is what happened when you tasked two
socially anxious people with approaching strangers.

“I’ll talk to them,” I smiled, reaching over to play with

her hair. It was so soft and thick, I wanted to snuggle
my face into it here and now.

Instead, I struggled my way onto my feet and began to

stretch out all my sore and abused muscles. Maybe we
should ask for directions and then call it a day. I could
really do with a warm, quiet bath right about then.

When it was close enough to make out details, the

caravan train was a little different than I’d been
expecting. We’d spent so long in medieval land down
in the plains that I expected them to be pulled by
horses, but they were definitely not pulled by horses.
They were pulled by a sort of strange hybrid between
an elk and a mountain lion.
The creatures had long, sinuous furry bodies like a
large feline, but their legs ended in hooves rather than
paws. Their heads had the familiar wedge shape of a
feline too, except that their eyes were situated on the
sides of their head to search for predators. In addition,
their teeth were broad and flat, indicating that they
were predominantly herbivores. The final oddities
were the huge antlers they sported that curved back
before flaring out, and the massive fluffy tails that
swung low for balance behind them.

The wagons themselves caused me to bark a laugh

that was quickly stifled. They had suspension. Turns
out people on this ring knew about a comfortable ride
after all, the humans were just predictably lagging
behind. The wheels also had what looked like a
mechanism to extend metal spikes out to hold them in
place on an incline. If I was honest, it looked like the
obrec were quite a lot more advanced than the local
humanity was.
As they approached, I noticed that they came in two
groups, the first being the people who were obviously
the merchants, while the others were guards wearing
ornate armour. My first thought was that the armour
looked heavy. It was full plate, each individual section
of which had been stained a dull bronze colour and
carved with celtic looking whorls and knots. Their
helmets looked sort of like a barbute helm, with a T-
shaped opening at the front, although they had holes
for their antlers to stick out at the top, and a complex
opening mechanism to keep the head enclosed and
protected.

All in all they were pretty damned intimidating, and I

felt my courage waning by the second. I was meant to
just… talk to these people? Oh dear.

The guards saw us pretty quickly and there was a

whole lot of talking between them as the wagons
slowed to a stop. For a moment I was confused, until I
glanced at Grace, who’d stood up beside me, and
noticed her hair and eyes. Right, we were both quite
clearly mages.

Slowly, with their helmets removed, two of them

approached us, one man and one woman. The woman
was tall and almost handsome in a feminine way,
while the man was a little smaller, looking lithe and
quick despite the heavy armour he wore.

Glancing between themselves for a moment, they

stopped, the woman speaking up. “Greetings Mages.
What is your purpose in blocking our path? We wish
to pass in peace.”

“Um, hey,” I said awkwardly, a little intimidated by her

formal speech. “We’re not blocking you, it’s fine… we
just wanted to ask which way it was to Millowhall. We
uh, got lost doing… magic things.”
The two armoured obrec glanced between one
another again, and this time the guy spoke, “You… got
lost? Doing… magic stuff?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sheepish smile. “It’s a long story.

Is it okay to uh, get directions? Please?” I asked
hopefully.

“A mage with manners?” the woman muttered, a

confused frown crossing her face for a moment. “Yes,
directions are… fine. We are heading towards
Millowhall now, there’s a tunnel up ahead that takes
you there. It’s not far.”

A mage with manners huh? Our kind really had made

a name for themselves, and not in a good way.
“Oh cool, thanks,” I smiled, turning and raising an
eyebrow to ask if she caught the conversation. “You
understand that?” I asked in english.

“Yup,” she grinned. “The chick was a little harder to

understand at the start though.”

“Yeah she was using really formal speech. I think she

expected us to be the super uptight noble sort of
mages,” I explained.

“Mages?” she asked, before she realised that yeah,

she at least looked like a normal mage. “Oh right.”

“Where are you from, if you don’t mind us asking? I

don’t even recognise the language,” the guy inquired,
glancing between us like we’d just been dancing
naked.
“Oh, um… Avonside. We’re from the Order of Eleos,” I
told them, feeling a little weird claiming to be from
some organisation that was actually just five people.

“Wait,” the woman blinked. “I’ve heard that name

before!”

“They’re the ones that some of the mages back home

were talking about. Bumped into Eilian the Golden I
heard,” the guy replied, looking at us with interest
now.

“Right!” she exclaimed, a grin forming on her face.

“The ones who wounded Lord Fennelsomething.
Whatever his name is.”

“Oh yeah!” he nodded. “Did you really do that?”

“Yeah, our leader shot him with a uh… ranged
weapon,” I nodded, a smile forming on my face. I liked
having that reputation, it was a fun one. The people
who roughed up the asshole murderer cuntface
dickwad.

“Well done,” the woman nodded happily. “Bastard

has hunted down half our allies in human lands, now
it’s looking like we’re going to have to close borders
and fortify. It’s like your kind has collectively gone
mad, no offence.”

“Not our kind,” I shook my head. “We come from…” I

paused, discreetly casting the ring location spell
before pointing, “That way. Avonside is a whole lot
different.”

“Interesting,” the woman pondered, then shrugged.

“Would you both like to ride with us into the city
then? Sitting on a wagon is much easier than walking.”
“Oh, please,” I said thankfully, my legs crying out in
song at the impending relief. “My legs are killing me!”

“I’m Merwig Thistlescar, but you can call me Mer, and

this is my brother, Otho Thistlescar,” she smiled
happily. “We’re Stonechaser clan. Come on back to
the caravan.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving them both a smile and

shifted to indicate my companion. “This is Grace and
I’m Ryn, nice to meet you!”

The two obrec turned and began to walk back to their

wagons, making enthusiastic gestures as they went.
Grace and I shared a puzzled look but followed their
lead, wandering along cautiously behind them. We’d
been told that the obrec were odd, but so far we’d
just met Eilian, who’d been mostly normal, if a little
flirty and eccentric. The way these two had done a
one eighty into friendship mode the moment they
heard something good about us though… that was
different.

Chapter 55 :
I sat down close next to Grace in the wagon, almost
molding myself to her side like I was made of clay. As I
settled in, she glanced down at me with a look that
had her soft eyes flaring wide. There was a depth to
the shared eye contact between us, long and slow.
Her arm was moving, coming to rest protectively
about my shoulders before she glanced around the
interior of the wagon.

The two obrec were in the process of sharing a glance

of their own before they obviously decided to ignore
the obvious romantic tension between myself and
Grace. We had only just finished coming close to…
well, coming a number of times to make the vine
ladder, and I could almost feel the energy crackling
between us now.

I was also beginning to feel the effects of all the

energy I'd channelled earlier, on top of the the
exhaustion from the climb. It all had my body feeling
floppy and weak, like damp cardboard, and I began to
slump into Grace's arms with the gentle rocking of the
cart as encouragement.

"You okay, Ryn?" Grace asked with concern, tilting my

head up to get a better look at me.

"Tired," I breathed.

"Rest then," she murmured, picking me up and settled

me into her lap. "I'll wake you when something
happens."
"I like strong, protective Grace," I told her, enjoying
the feel of her arms around me, keeping me safe.

Grace didn't get a chance to reply, because Otho, the

obrec man finally spoke, voicing a question that had
probably been bouncing around in his head as he
watched us. "Is your… friend alright?"

"My uh, lover, yeah. She's alright, just tired," Grace

told them, her anve accented but passable.

I wasn’t thinking about her accent though, I was

thinking about the wording she used. The word lover
in anve was a little more complicated, and I wasn’t
sure she realised that. It represented a commitment
that was beyond what the english version might
mean. She’d essentially just called me her girlfriend,
or partner but in a way that implied it in the long
term, like an informal declaration that she hoped to
one day marry me.

This meant that I was having a silent mind explosion

as the conversation continued around me. My heart
was going wild, and I tried to pretend I was dozing off
and not paying attention… why? I don’t know, I wasn’t
exactly thinking rationally, that was for sure.

"I told you," the woman called Mer hissed, and

through drooping eyelids I saw her elbow Otho. To
Grace, she sheepishly explained, "We were not sure if
you were together as lovers or not. We know that
humans are different with how their love works, and
we do not often meet members of your species…"

"Yeah," Grace nodded awkwardly. "She's, um… mine, I

guess."
Hers.

"Ah, you are long lovers then?" Mer asked curiously.

“I’m not sure what that means…” Grace said softly,

and I felt her shift as though she were looking down at
me. “We haven’t been together long… I… I’m sorry can
we change the subject?”

“Humans don’t have the long love like we do Mer,”

Otho said, clearly realising his sister had gone too far
with her questions.

“What do you mean?” Grace asked, sounding a little

offended. Crap, I was so tired, but it sounded like I
might have to intervene.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I did not mean to offend you,” he said
quickly. “Our species… when we find our lifelong
lover, our partner until death, our fur patterning will
change to match each other, becoming a combination
of that which we inherited from our parents. Once this
bond is made, it cannot be unmade. There is no one
else that will ever satisfy either of the pair.”

“Wait, really?” Grace asked, placated and now

sounding interested. “How does that even happen?”

This time it was Mer who answered, “We are not sure.
Ancestral tales from our origin world do not speak of
the long love, and in the time since then, it has been
studied and found to be magical in nature, although
none have figured out how, or by what mechanism.”

“That’s pretty wild,” Grace replied, and I found myself

agreeing.
It was also a little scary, considering the fact that it
meant if you bonded with someone, there was no
getting over them if circumstances stopped you from
being together.

Any further conversation on the topic was interrupted

by the lights going out. Or at least, that’s what my
sleepy mind thought for a moment as the red light
coming through my closed eyelids turned black.

“Oh, we’re in the tunnel now,” Otho commented.

“Not long til Millowhall is in sight.”

I opened my eyes for a moment and peered curiously

out of the front of the caravan. I couldn’t see much, it
was dark save for what looked to be some form of low
level magical lighting. The walls were rough hewn and
almost entirely solid rock. Here and there were aged
iron support beams, holding up the roof where it had
weakened in the past.
Seeing that there wasn’t much else to look at in the
tunnel, I closed my eyes again and snuggled back into
Grace’s embrace. I couldn’t get over how my heart
soared to be in her arms. This was really what I’d been
missing all this time? I mean, I’d heard people talk
about love, the music industry practically didn’t shut
up about it, but… living it, I finally understood. I
belonged here in a way that I didn’t even in my grove.

Leaning down, her lips brushing at my ear, Grace

whispered, “You’re being really cute right now.”

Having her whisper in my ear had all sorts of effects

that I don’t think she’d intended. A shiver ran up my
spine even as goosebumps rushed down my skin and
heat pooled in my stomach.

Oh gosh, I was still buzzing and turned on from earlier.

Tonight couldn’t come soon enough. If she was still
interested that is, otherwise I might find myself doing
some exploration in the bath by myself. Being tired
and horny was the strangest thing, I swear. Like, shit, I
was still new to the very concept of horniness, and yet
here I was cuddled up in Grace’s arms, happy and
turned on in equal measure.

At some point I dozed off, the gentle rocking of the

cart and its suspension as my lullaby. I wasn’t sure
how long I was out, but the light hitting my eyelids
was what woke me. That, or Grace carefully poking my
cheek until I responded.

“We’re out the other side of the tunnel,” she told me

gently, her voice sounding just as tired as I still felt.

Still, the nap had given me at least a little of my

energy back, and I leaned back to smile at her, then
glance out the front. What I saw had my eyes
widening and my breath escaping in a gasp.
We were in another chasm, almost identical to the
one we’d left, with one important difference. A city
sprawled sideways on both sides of the massive
ravine, looking as though it had been carved out of the
very stone of the mountains. Where the obrec hadn’t
just carved their buildings out of the rock, they had
used the stone in blocks to construct the rest. Great
bridges arched across the hundreds of feet between
the chasm walls, some large enough that they sported
small buildings of their own.

Even from this distance I could see that the city was
bustling too, carts and people moving across the lower
bridges like ants. The wide road we’d come out onto
was pretty full too as people moved in towards the
huge gates of the city. I saw a matching one on the
other side of the canyon as well. The place was
massive.
Them my eyes descended, and I realised with surprise
that the floor of this ravine was a lot higher than the
last one, with a tangled forest crowding every
available inch of soil. The only area that wasn’t
covered in thick vegetation down there was the
turbulent river that twisted its way down the center.
The whole thing was beautiful, inspiring in a way that
had me wishing for a moment that I was one of the
species that had built this.

“Oh my goodness,” Grace breathed, and although

she’d spoken in english, the two obrec with us nodded
agreement, proud smiles lighting their expressions.

“It’s something ain’t it?” Mer said, her own eyes

betraying that she was not immune to the grandeur
before us.

“It’s incredible!” I smiled, leaning out a bit to gawk like

a tourist. “Are all obrec cities like this?”
“Some come close, but Millowhall is something
special,” Otho told us. “It might not be the capital of
any one clan, but it’s the site of our arrival on this
world. The very first group of obrec to be dumped on
this world founded Millowhall, and it’s been a center
of ingenuity and learning ever since.”

The gate into the city was fast approaching now, the
looming steel reinforced stone cutting off the
afternoon light as we trundled under the first
portcullis. They seemed to have a multi-layered
defence here, which had me slightly amused. What
kind of nutjob would try and attack this place? Where
the hell would you put your army? You’d never be
able to bring enough soldiers to bear on the place to
do more than get your people killed.

The wagon train came to a stop between the walls,

and guards in armour that was much the same as our
companions approached. “Stonechasers?” one called
as he neared the rear of our wagon.

“Aye,” Mer replied, hopping out to greet them.

“What’re you transporting?” he asked gruffly, before

his eyes fell on Grace and I. “And who the hell are
they?”

“Friends, good people,” Mer said, her voice suddenly

menacing, her posture shifting subtly to give herself
better balance, hand falling on the pommel of her
spiked mace.

“Yeah? They don’t look like Stonechasers to me,” the

guard rumbled, glaring at us suspiciously. “Human
mages more like, your clan willing to foot the bill
when they go feral?”
“They won’t,” Mer said, her voice taking on a venom
that would have made a brown snake envious. “Like I
said, they’re good. Stonechaser vouches for them.”

“As you wish,” the guard shrugged, still giving us both

the side eye. “Your head if they ain’t good.”

“I’m aware,” she replied sarcastically. “You going to

inspect our cargo now so we can go in, or just
continue being a pain in my ass?”

“Stonechasers,” the guard muttered, rolling his eyes.

He hit the ground before I even saw the large woman

move, her gauntleted fist ringing the stupid obrec’s
helmet like a bell. Her boot came down on his chest
next, and she leaned down, a feral smile just visible
past her own helmet.
“You done?” she asked fiercely.

Grace and I shared an alarmed look, and my eyes

quickly sought out the other guards… who appeared
to be, uh… laughing? At their comrade? What the
fuck? Was this normal? Did guards regularly just… wail
on each other like that?

“Yeah, you’re free to go through,” the downed man

grumbled, which seemed to satisfy our new very scary
friend. “No need to inspect your goods this time, I
think.”

“Good,” was all Mer said, removing her foot from his
chest and hauling herself up into the cart. To the two
of us, she smiled amicably, her tone wry as she said,
“Welcome to Millowhall and obrec culture, I can tell
you haven’t seen how we operate before.”
Chapter 56 :
We said goodbye to the Stonechasers on the other
side of the gatehouse, with the promise that we’d
come to them if we needed help. I replied that I’d
have a lot of stuff to sell later, but we had business to
get to first. With the name of the inn that they were
going to be using memorised, we headed out in search
of our friends. They were undoubtedly in the city, at
least according to my tracking spell, so we wandered
off in that direction.

The city was as amazing from the inside as it was from

the outside, bustling with obrec, humans and a few
other races I’d never seen before. Magic was
everywhere too, the gentle smell of it permeating the
air to my mage senses. I was starting to realise that
the Anve kingdoms, duchies and princedoms were
actually a backwater in this region, as evidenced by
the sheer size of this place compared to any of the
other cities we’d been to thus far.

Except, the main difference was the obvious lack of

wood, wherever it was possible to swap it out for
some other material, they had done so. Doors were
still wooden, with steel reinforcements looking to be
quite popular. The stone that most buildings were
carved out of was mostly the same muted grey as the
natural stone from around here, while the tile roofing
appeared to be fired terracotta and clay, with some
shale thrown in every now and then.

The terrace we found ourselves on was as wide as any

normal city street, with vendors hawking their wares
on either side as we made our way further in. They
gave the center of the street a wide berth though, and
there was a pair of obrec guards making sure the
wagon traffic was able to move smoothly. It was all
oddly familiar really, which led me to think that maybe
human and obrec culture had sort of bled together
over the years.

We had to cross the chasm to get to where Adam’s

ring was, and that meant walking across one of the
many huge bridges that spanned it. I’m pretty sure the
engineers back at Avonside would have a field day
with this whole city, but they’d cream themselves over
the bridges.

We found, in the end, that the tracking spell wasn’t

pointing across the chasm at all, but rather to an inn
that was actually in the bridge. The inn, and many
other buildings like it along the length of the huge
span of stone, only had the common room and stables
on the same level as the main thoroughfare. The rest,
I was guessing as we approached it, was underneath,
built into the structure that we walked on.
“Damn, this place is incredible,” Grace remarked as
we approached the inn. “This bridge is bigger than
that one back in that other city. The one made by the
ring builders.”

“Yeah, not as long though,” I agreed, glancing around

before pushing the door open.

A cheeky expression came over her and she gave me a

sly smile, “So… it’s shorter but girthier?”

“Please, no dicks here, I’m not that kind of lesbian,” I

groaned, rolling my eyes.

Suddenly she was all blushes as we stepped inside the

building. “I have a strap back at uni,” she mumbled,
causing my eyebrows to rise and my stomach to do
little flips. Oh my goodness gracious… that sounded…
wow. And she’d use it… on me? I quivered at the
thought.

I shook my head slightly to clear it and glanced around

the room instead. Along the back wall was a massive
window done in a style that would be old on earth,
diamonds of glass set into a lattice of soft metal,
possibly lead. Light filtered through that lattice and
into the common room on sparkling dust-filled
streamers, bathing everything it a dappled yellow
glow.

The tables were all smooth, carved stone, carefully

crafted to be structurally sound while still movable if
the need required it, metal used here too as a way to
strengthen sections that had once been weak. The
chairs were wooden, although they appeared to have
been crafted from wood that had fallen to the forest
floor, rather than cut down. The Obrec used so much
metal in every aspect of construction, I was starting to
think they might have an abundance of the stuff. It
boded well for any shopping I might do for materials.

The hearth was set into the far side of the room to the
side of the large window, a huge stone thing that
appeared to be burning coal or some other material
that wasn’t wood. The lengths these people went to
get around their desire to protect their forests was
incredible.

As for the people in the room, there were all sorts,

although most of the patrons were obrec. One couple
in the back appeared to be some sort of shorter, more
animalistic race. Their bodies were thickly furred, with
massive manes tumbling down their backs. They
looked for all the world like stubby little humanoid
lions with even more fuzz than usual. They were kinda
cute, in a menacing, dwarfy sort of way.
Of course, our eyes weren’t really on most of the
patrons in the room, but rather the group off to the
side, where three guys in black armour sat. Adam was
the first to rise, a huge grin dominating his face. “Ryn!
Grace!” he exclaimed, rushing over.

He swept me up in a big hug with one arm, Grace in

the other. “I fucking knew you’d turn up,” he grinned,
before his eyes focused properly on Grace. “Grace…
you uh…”

He let us go and stepped back, glancing between us

both, but mainly staring at the recently changed girl
beside me.

“Long story,” she said self consciously. “Still me

though.”
I moved to place my hand on her back in order to
steady her, although it was her emotions that were
unsteady, not her body.

“Right,” he nodded, his smile returning. “Come tell us

about it?”

“Of course,” I said, giving Grace a reassuring smile.

She gave a nod of thanks back, visibly shook herself

and moved forward. My girl was strong, despite her
lack of self confidence.

Troy’s grin was warm and relieved as we sat down at

their table, while Kit was giving us a tired smile. He
looked a little beat up, like he’d had a nasty fall.
Probably when they were running away from whoever
had found them. We had a lot of catching up to do.
Before that though, I shifted my chair sideways until it
was flush with Grace's, then cuddled in against her
side a little.

Troy raised his eyebrows. "I see that magic problem

still persists."

"Um, no… we fixed that," I replied, feeling self

conscious about Grace and I, but also unwilling to
extricate myself from her. "It's why she looks different
now. She's sorta like me… it's more complicated than
that though, but it's sensitive information. The kind
we should talk about in my grove, not here."

"Alright," he nodded, still eyeing us both up.

"Do you have your own grove, like Ryn?" Kit asked,
expression keen and interested.
Grace shook her head. "Nah. I sort of amplify Ryn's
spells instead."

"Oh, that's handy," Adam noted, although his eyes

were on the contact between us, a slight smirk on his
lips. "You two will need to get close, learn to work
together? I imagine?"

"Um, yup," Grace nodded, a blush spreading across

her cheeks again.

Adam totally knew there was something between

Grace and I. He’d known since Eilian I think, but the
way we’d been acting since then had probably
solidified it in his mind. He was thankfully not pointing
it out, which was probably more than our budding
little… uh, relationship, could bear.
"How's the situation with your grove?" Troy asked me,
mercifully changing the subject.

"We were stuck inside the tree for days because of

another storm. It was nuts, trashing the interior
before I shored it up," I told them, thinking back on
the howling wind and tearing rain. "The wind break
worked though, most of it survived."

"Damn good to hear, I'm glad things went okay for you
two," he sighed, relieved. "We were worried when we
had to make a run for it."

Ah, here it was. I was very interested to hear what had

happened to them.

"Why was that anyway?" Grace blurted, leaning

forward.
"Some of that wank stain's goons were in town,"
Adam growled, looking pissed. "The fuckers jumped us
and we only just got out."

"Indeed," Troy nodded, taking over the explanation.

"Two enemy mages, plus their escorts hit us as we
were on our way back from selling your goods. Kit got
thrown against a building, that's why he's injured."

"But you're okay?" I asked quickly, running my eyes

over the quiet guy properly now, looking for any bad
injuries.

"Yeah just bruised... like, everywhere," he said with a

smile that was half grimace. "The running afterwards
didn't help either."

He might be saying that, but I still wanted to gently

throw him into one of my baths and maybe try to
concoct a plant to help him. He looked like he was in a
whole bunch of pain

"The running fucking sucked, even for me, and all I got
was blisters," Adam agreed, wincing as he shifted his
feet.

"But you got away…" Grace prompted, glancing

between then for more. “Shit, I was worried…
especially after some… well, stuff.”

I felt kinda bad, I’d had so much else on my mind that

I’d kind of relegated them all to the back of my mind.
I’d been worried, sure… but Grace had been my
priority.

"Yes, evidently we did get away," Troy remarked, a

ghostly wisp of amusement in his tone. "We ran for a
long while, almost two days of alternating between
walking and running. Luckily for us, it turns out that
stuck up nobles don't make good long distance
runners. They tried, with magic too, then they gave up
and sent their goons on ahead after us. We introduced
them to our guns and then they too backed off. Tailed
us all the way to the damned border though."

"Yup, let's hope they think of us as not their problem

anymore," Adam sighed rubbing his face tiredly.

"Doubt it," I said apologetically. "They've almost

finished wiping out every mage that poses a threat to
their coven, and unfortunately… we kinda shot one of
their leaders."

"Ah," he winced. "Shit…"

"That's not something we can deal with now though,"
Troy said, bringing us back on track. "Our next move
us to rest and see what this city can do for us "

"Oh!" Grace grinned, glancing down at me for a

second before she looked back up. “We actually made
some friends already. A bunch of obrec from a clan
called the Stonechasers."

"Oh yeah!" I said, excited now. "They seemed

impressed by our reputation for shooting Fennimore.
Said that if we needed anything, we could ask them
for help."

"That's great," Troy replied, looking relieved. "You're

all not so green around the ears anymore," he noted
with a smile.
“Are you saying that we aren’t just dumb college kids
anymore?” Adam asked with a laugh.

Troy gave a chuckle and a so-so shake of his hand.

“Something like that.”

It almost seemed like he was proud of us, which was

pretty cool. I liked the idea that we’d impressed Troy.
Hell, I’d kinda impressed myself with how far I’d come
since that first day. I was practically a different person
than I had been three or four months ago, complete
with a new body and name even.

Speaking of bodies, this lot looked like they could do

with a rest, a good, hot bath and some nice food.

“Do you all want to go into my Grove for a rest?” I

asked, glancing between each of them. “The bunnies
should be finished with the open fire cooking pit thing
too, so while you three are resting, Grace and I could
see about selling some stuff to buy nicer food.”

“That would be amazing,” Kit groaned, slumping

forward slightly. “I’ve been dreaming of the baths in
your tree, I swear.”

“I added showers to them now,” I said with a

sympathetic smile.

“Oh, please can we go there now?” he begged of Troy.

“Sure, if Ryn think’s that its safe to swap over here,”

Troy replied, raising an eyebrow at me.

I nodded. “Magic is everywhere here, it would just

blend in. We could rent a room here to put my mark
in.”
“It’s a plan then.”

Chapter 57 :
We quickly got the guys into the grove and happily
soaking in the warm baths. Before that though, Troy
gave me a bunch of the money they had gotten from
selling stuff a week ago. It was all in obrec coinage,
which wasn’t coins, as I’d been expecting, at least, not
exactly. They looked like they were bodybuilders or
something, smaller in width but taller overall. I guess
they were still coins… just like, little chode coins. Ew.

“Let’s go buy a shitload of meat,” Grace blurted as

soon as we were back in the room we’d rented in the
inn. “Stuff it down in that freezer you made.”
“Definitely,” I agreed wholeheartedly. I was already
salivating at the possibility of real meat.

Our search for meat led us out and off the bridge,
where we wandered aimlessly until finally asking a
guard where we could find a butcher. The guard,
taken aback that two mages were both talking to him
and doing it in a way that didn’t involve him groveling
for some perceived slight, stammered out a response
and ran away.

So we trundled off, following the directions he’d given

us until we came to a stone building on the market
street near the main gate. They had a painted sign
depicting a trussed up carcass of some creature, so we
assumed it was the right place.

Inside, we found a store keeper who was practically

falling over himself to both sell us all the meat we
wanted and get us the hell out of his store. Damn, this
whole being a mage thing was getting to be a little bit
awkward. Everyone was fucking terrified of us.

We ended up getting enough meat to last us weeks, of

various cuts and stuff. I don’t know, I’m not a butcher
and I have no idea how the unit of measurement they
use around here works. I ended up transferring it into
my grove right there in the shop while Grace guarded
my mark. The buns were tasked with carrying it all
down into the freezing room, with the exception of a
few bits we’d be cooking later.

Back in town, Grace and I had a mission, to make a

god damned fortune. For that, we figured that our
new friends would be more than keen to set us up
with the right contacts, provided they got a share of
the cut. A share that I was more than willing to give, I
had never honestly cared about money other than
what I needed to survive. Making enough money to
give Avonside a good shot at survival though, that was
going to be a new experience for me.

We had to ask for directions again, and this time the

guard didn’t freak out so hard, especially after I made
a massive effort to be polite and kind. It was so much
effort though, basically bundling my words up in
bubble wrap in order to keep them from fainting or
some shit.

That led us on a merry little adventure through the

city’s many streets, ramps and even lifts at one point.
The place was incredible, and little snippets of magical
technology were everywhere. The lifts for example,
were powered by compact little magical engines, and I
inspected them keenly with my sight. I wanted to
know how they worked, and then I’d make Bray build
me some. Hell, I could even buy some of those
motors, use one for my tree and give the rest to him
to take apart.
We found the Stonechasers out the back of the inn
they had told us to go to, dealing with securing all of
their wagons. The inn itself was built into the cliffside,
and the stables were actually more of a large carved
out cave than anything else. The hollow space had
everything you’d normally expect of a stable and
stableyard, complete with teamsters wrestling with
stubborn animals.

“Ryn! Grace,” Mer called, spotting us from where she

and Otho had been watching the mess with growing
amusement. “Welcome to the show!”

“Hiya,” I smiled shyly. Something about the way these

two so cheerfully accepted us for everything that we
were just… it was a lot.

“What’s got you visiting so soon?” Otho asked

curiously, tearing his eyes away from what seemed
like a brewing fist fight.
“We had a… business proposition for you all,” I said
slowly, gesturing to the Stonechasers at large as I
wondered where to start.

“Oh ho!” he grinned. “That sounds like Jerril’s forte,”

he mused, before turning to one of the three obrec
that were about to hit each other. “Jerri! Get over
here!”

“The fuck do you want Otho? I’m busy!” a grumpy old

obrec growled. The man was wearing a well cut tunic,
close fitting breeches and a cloak that was draped
over one shoulder.

“The mages are back! They want to make us stones!”

he called, his cheeky amusement at interrupting their
argument all but glowing through his expression.
“Stones eh? How on earth will they do that?” he
asked, his tempter subsiding as his interest was
piqued.

“Uh, stones?” I asked, a little confused. I wanted to

make them some money, not stones.

“Money, coinage,” Mer explained with a wave of her

hand. “Obrec term for it.”

“Oh, right,” I nodded, glancing over at Grace and

finding her looking just as bewildered as I felt.

Jerril the grumpy old obrec had wandered over as

Grace and I shared our look, and when my eyes fell on
him again, I saw him squinting warily at the both of us.
“Well?” he asked curtly. “Fine young mages you might
be, but you don’t seem like you have the power to
throw around.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, very confused now.

“You mages, you sometimes sell the things you grow

in your groves, yeah? But from what I understand, it
takes a lot of power to be just growing trees and
whatnot willy nilly, and pardon me for saying so, but
you both look to be a little on the younger, greener
side,” he explained, but I could tell he was already
starting to doubt himself on that front. One of his eyes
had gone all squinty.

“We’re not like other mages,” I said cryptically. “I have

a bunch of aging logs I can have ready right now.”
“Really now?” he blinked, then I saw the coins rattle
around behind his eyes… or, well… stones. “How
many?”

“Uh, like twenty five or so for now, but I can grow

more too,” I told him self consciously.

“Very interesting…” he murmured, a slow smile

creeping across his lips.

“Oh, you have him now!” Mer laughed, appearing

beside me to slap me on the back. Sneaky goat lady.

“You can grow what I ask for?” Jerril asked, ignoring

Mer.

“Yup,” I nodded. “So long as I have a good enough

description or an example.”
It was obviously more complicated than that if I was
going to be diving into herbs or medicinal properties,
but lumber was well within my abilities.

“Can you grab one of those logs you were talkin’

about? I’d like to see what I’m dealing with, if you
don’t mind,” he asked after a few moments of
contemplation.

“Uh, sure,” I nodded, turning to Grace. “Guard my

mark?”

“Sure,” she said quietly. My girl, content to watch and

protect while I brokered deals. She was looking really
pretty with the sunlight streaming in from outside to
hit her side on like that, accentuating all the angles
and curves of her face. I was so damned lucky.
With that image still in my mind, I popped into my
grove and walked up the ramp and into my tree. Buns
were everywhere now, lounging around in the main
foyer, their earlier task having been completed. I knelt
down for a second to give one a gentle scratch as I
went past. Very good buns.

I chose one of the indian rosewood logs and wrapped

my mind around it, dragging it with me back into the
mundane realm.

When I arrived, Grace was shuffling awkwardly and

trying to make small talk. The look of relief on her face
when I popped back into existence was enough to
make me want to rush over and hug her.

“This is indian rosewood,” I explained to Jerril the

grump. “It’s a tree from human lands.”
“Oh my,” he murmured, bending down to run his
fingers over the rough end of the log where the
bunnies had cut it down. “It keeps the reddish
colouring when it’s polished? What are its uses?”

“Generally it’s used for furniture,” I said, grasping at

what little I could remember about it. “It can take a bit
of a beating and still look good, so it’s the sort of stuff
you’d want to make tables and chairs out of.”

“Girl, if you can get me more of these logs, I can make

us both a fortune, assuming that my hunch is true and
you’d like us to act as the middle men for you?” he
asked, straightening up even as his eyebrow was
raised higher in question.

“Uh, yeah,” I nodded. “The locals seem to think we’re

going to kill them if they look at us funny…” I agreed
sheepishly.
“They would,” he nodded. “About four years back, a
bunch of human mages smashed their way through
our lands before anyone realised what was happening.
They killed a good number of our people’s magic
users. Warlocks, mages and even artificers, none were
spared. We’re still recovering from the losses, but
none were hit harder than the Mossbeds.”

That sounded an awful lot like Fennimore and friends.

Makes sense too, is a gross sort of way. While they
might all be separated by hundreds to thousands of
miles in the mundane realm, the mages were
connected much more closely within the Nameless
Garden. This meant that a human mage down in Anve
lands might have an alliance or friendship with an
obrec mage. Ao if you wanted to keep an entire
political bloc’s worth of mages from interfering in your
plans for world domination, you’d smash them until
they were too weak to help their friends.
“Aye, and that led to all sorts of political crap that us
Stonechasers thankfully kept ourselves out of,” Mer
said with a wince. “We’re lucky, having our lands
isolated up in the very north of the mountains.”

A very north that was also close to Avonside…

interesting...

“That Eilian that you ran into was part of it,” Otho
remarked, clearly wanting to tell the story. “She was
forced out of the mountains after she went and
bonded with the daughter of the Cherrinbrook clan
head. Almost started a war, and now she’s only
allowed to visit her fellow mages in their groves, a
group that her bonded, I might add, is not a part of.”

Well, that explained how word had gotten over here

about us so quickly. If Eilian had been visiting obrec
mages to gossip about us, then tales of our exploits
were probably halfway around the ring by now.
“Wait, hold on,” Grace blurted, waving her hands.
“You’re saying that Eilian the golden fell in love with
some boss man’s daughter and that almost started a
war? How?”

“That daughter was betrothed to the son of the

Timberwild clan, you see,” Otho explained, clearly
enjoying his role as storyteller. “The Cherrinbrooks
suffered after the human mages attacked same as
everyone, but they saw the weakness of the
Mossbeds, so they figured if they could secure a blood
alliance with the Timberwilds, they’d be able to team
up and take a chunk of Mossbed lands.”

“Oh… and then Eilian stuck a spanner in the works…”

Grace winced, and I had to agree… that situation could
not have been pleasant. Especially if bonding was just
two obrec falling deeply in love with each other. No
one had much choice when it came to that type of
thing.
“Oh that’s not the half of it,” Otho grinned. “This all
took place down in the capital city of the Kingdom of
Keltan, where young nobles like to go for the summer
—“

“Wait… oh my goodness,” Grace groaned, pressing her

eyes closed and pinching the bridge of her nose.
“What’s the Kingdom of Keltan?”

“Obrec kingdom to the south, like I was saying,” Otho

replied, perturbed. “It goes like this, you have a noble
house, like ours, the Thistlescars, and we are one
house within the Stonechaser clan. Sometimes, a clan
or noble house will gain enough power to unify a few
clans into a single kingdom. Mossbed, Cherrinbrook,
Timberwild, Stonechaser and a few others are all
independent clans in the north of obrec lands, each
vying for the ability to subjugate the others and form a
kingdom.”
“Oh my god,” Grace groaned. “I thought we’d escaped
the political bullshit when we left Anve lands.”

Mer gave a snort, “Not by a long shot I’m afraid.”

“That’s a lot of names and none of them mean much

to me, I’m sorry,” I apologised. It was true though,
they’d just thrown a bowl of word salad at us and
seasoned it with political intrigue and a tragic love
story. I couldn’t wait to get back to Avonside, where
I’d at least understand the political bullshit going on.

“So anyway, like I was saying,” Otho cut in, clearly

intent on telling his tale. “They were all down in the
capital of Keltan when this happened, and the whole
thing started a pitched battle in the streets! The king
of Keltan had to kick the whole squabbling lot of them
out and—“
“Enough, boy,” Jerril groaned, rolling his eyes before
very pointedly turning to me. Right, history lessons
later. “Ryn, wasn’t it?” he asked, sounding almost
polite. I guess his default setting really was just,
massive grump. “I’ll put word out, if you’ll let me keep
this log here so I can sound out the local carpenters.
Then I’ll get back to you with a price in oh, a day or so,
how does that sound?”

“Sure… and uh, how much of a cut will you take?” I

asked. I had no idea how to broach that subject, so I
just kinda threw it out there.

“Two parts out of ten,” he stated, his voice going all

funny and serious. Wait, was he expecting me to
haggle?

“Sure,” I shrugged. “Sounds good.”

“Uh,” Mer interjected, staring at me with wide eyes.

I grinned, and if that grin was maybe a little arrogant…

well, apparently I was to be feared around here, so
why not lean into that a little. “The kind of power it
takes to make a tree like that,” I remarked calmly,
waving to the rosewood log. “It’s nothing, a tiny
portion, barely worth mentioning. I could create an
entire forest of these things and still have enough
juice rattling around to blow up this inn.”

That seemed to halt the Stonechasers a little, and a

few of the bystanders from their clan exchanged
worried glances. They didn't need to know that what
I'd said wasn't strictly true. Sure, I could grow that
forest of trees, but only using the absurd amount of
growth energy permeating my grove right now, and of
course, I didn't even have an explosion spell.
“I… see,” Jerril chuckled, taking a deep breath. “In that
case, how about we only do three parts out of
twenty?”

“I guess,” I shrugged again. “Whatever suits you.”

Obrec were damned crazy.

Chapter 58 :
We spent the rest of the day in my grove, hanging out
with the guys and relishing the opportunity to just…
chill. We were safe for now, we had a lot of good
food, a place to cook it inside and buns to cuddle. Also
someone else was out in Millowhall making us money,
that was nice too.
Despite what we’d said way back in ancient history,
otherwise known as that morning, Grace and I did not
get intimate that night. With the tree still lacking any
internal doors, we were scared to try anything, lest
the guys hear us. So we just sort of cuddled our way to
sleep as usual, except with a metric fuckload of sexual
tension hanging between us now, more so than
before. First thing I was doing when I had money was
getting this place kitted out with some doors and
windows.

Obviously the guys had noticed that we were closer

now, but we hadn’t outright done anything that would
signal to them just how close. We also hadn’t
discussed it, just sort of… mutually decided not to
make out in front of them. I had no idea why I
personally felt the need to keep them in the dark, and
I hadn’t asked Grace either. I guess we just wanted it
to be between us for now? I had no idea. We still
hadn’t talked about what to call things between us
either.
The next day, we went back to meet Jerril, Mer and
Otho, this time with Troy as well Grace. Troy and Jerril
seemed to hit it off well, and all six of us took a trip
into my grove so that I could show the Stonechasers
what I had in stock, and what I could grow. Jerril
already had several types of wood that eager
carpenters were keen to get their hands on.
Surprisingly, it was actually local woods they were the
most interested in.

Turns out that obrec only harvested wood that had

fallen naturally, and several species of trees were
more likely to grow into twisted, unusable shapes
than not. Those two facts combined meant that there
was a massive shortage of wood from those trees. My
job would be to replicate those trees, but in a manner
that meant they were usable.

So while Jerril took my stock of wood off to sell, as

well as source some tools for my buns to cut down the
new trees I’d be growing, Mer and Otho took me on a
trip down to the floor of the canyon. The idea was to
have me inspect the trees that they wanted down
there in the forest, so I had a good enough
understanding of them.

The way down was slightly terrifying, even for

someone like me who wasn’t afraid of heights. On one
of the lower, larger bridges was a set of lifts that
would lower people down. The lifts, essentially
massive cages, did nothing to help with the dizzying
heights, and Grace clung to me the whole way down.
The wind causing the lift to sway had even me feeling
queasy about this endeavour.

“This is… something,” Troy remarked as the clanking

mechanisms high above us lowered us down into the
mists. It felt like we were entering a wholly different
world, one of nothing but the cage around us, the
mists, and the gentle creaking of the chains that held
us up.
The mists soon turned out to be clouds, and the vista
that spread out in a line before and behind us was
breathtaking. A forest, ancient beyond measure
stretched out down the broken and smashed canyon
floor.

I was starting to wonder if these mountains had been

intentional or not on the part of the Umare. Surely
terrain like this wasn’t what passed for natural on the
ring?

“Mer, what was the old obrec home world like?” I

asked after a few moments of thought.

“Hmm? Well, from what little records we have left, it

was a mountainous one, but of the more normal kind,
like the ones to the north past the human Empire of
Ghraiga,” she said, face all scrunched up as she tried
to remember what she knew. “Like this place, it had
many forests in the valleys between the mountains.
There was also talk of a huge, uh… moon, I think is the
term in Anve.”

That made sense. A large moon would pull on their

home world, creating a lot of tectonic activity. I was
willing to bet that they lived up in the mountains
because the coasts would be a little rough, with huge
tides and frequent earthquakes sending tsunamis
crashing ashore every couple of years. It left the
question of why they used stone to build though, it
wasn’t the greatest material for earthquake safety.
Maybe that had used wood back then? I was making a
lot of assumptions though, and the least of which was
my poor knowledge of geology.

The cage touched down far more gently than I’d

expected on the specially constructed stone platform
at the bottom. The platform was more of a small fort,
crouched on the forest floor to protect the lifts as they
touched down. Apparently the forests down here
were rather lawless, with forest obrec tribes who
bowed to no one regularly raiding the millowhall
obrec when they ventured below.

“We won’t be going very far in, some of the locals

gave us directions to find the trees we want,” Otho
explained as the door was opened and we stepped
out.

It was a short trip out of the utilitarian stone fort

before we found our way into the forest. Up close, the
forest seemed even more ancient, and it was hard to
tell if any of the trees I was looking at were even alive.
I mean, I guess the tops had leaves on them, but the
trunks were covered in lichen, mushrooms and moss.

The forest floor was much the same, dense with wet
foliage and choked by the thick canopy above. I was
surprised that plant life could even live with so little
light under all those leaves and at the bottom of this
big hole.
Our journey took us between the moss covered trees
and through the misty, damp undergrowth. It was
downright creepy in there with the odd, unfamiliar
animal sounds filtering through from around us. It
didn’t help that the wind was causing a racket above
us, howling and rustling through the trees. If someone
had said, ‘spooky haunted forest’ to me, this was what
I’d have imagined.

So of course, what followed was a nice, peaceful

guided tour of said haunted forest. I got to inspect a
lot of trees and plants with my mage sight, pointing
out little details to Grace as I went. It was nice to have
someone else who could see all this stuff, it had been
getting kind of lonely in the realm of magic.

Grace also had enough of an understanding about

plant life that she was able to follow along. I’d been
surprised at first, it had been so long since that first
week that I’d forgotten she was selected to be the co-
leader of our little foraging party. She actually knew a
thing or two, being a farm girl. With her help I was
able to make sure I remembered all the details that I
needed to know in order to grow my own versions of
these trees.

We saw a few other parties out in the woods, foraging

for various materials. We were also stopped once by a
pair of Mossbed rangers who were simply checking
that we were abiding by the rules. All in all, the trip
was pretty uneventful, no bandit attacks or scary
whistling creatures jumping out of the forest. Just
atmospheric spook.

When we got back up a few hours later, Jerril had

already found eager buyers for the wood I’d given
him, and rather than taking the offered coins, I gave
him a list of things I needed. The list included things
like the doors and windows, which would probably
need measurements and the like, but also furniture,
cutlery, and a whole lot of other things.
I also secretly tasked Mer with finding me a pillow
shop. Because like, who wouldn’t want to get alien
pillows for their pillow collection? I mean, unless they
didn’t collect pillows. Something that had always
limited my collection was storage space and
portability. I had to be able to transport my collection
in the past, but now I had a whole tree I could stuff full
of pillows! Big, soft fluffy ones were no longer wishful
thinking. I briefly wondered if I could get a bed-sized
pillow commissioned, but decided to file that idea
away for later.

The next few days were spent in a similar manner,

growing things to sell, then buying the things I needed
for my grove and my tree. Turns out that completely
furnishing a big tree tower required a whole ton of
stuff, and that wasn’t even mentioning all the little
things that were needed. Soap holders for example, as
well as a proper kitchen setup, the range of random
odds and ends that were required just boggled the
mind.
Especially the minds of our Stonechaser friends, who
were growing more and more awed by the fortune I
was amassing and then spending with their help. They
were getting a small cut out of everything they
brokered too, which was making them a little giddy.

Doorways and windows were measured and specs

were sent off. I asked for them to be made in the
obrec style, since it was pretty close to what I liked.
Wrought iron bound wood was their go-to, and it
would look good beside the rest of the naturally
grown tree. The same was happening for the
furniture, which didn’t have to be hand crafted like
the doors and windows.

By the end of day three in the city we had a bunch of

tables, chairs, sofas and beds all throughout the happy
little tree. Grace and I finally had a real bed, and it was
a monster of a thing. I’d made sure to get a big one for
us, because… well if I could almost literally grow
money, why not?

I just hoped I wasn’t damaging the local economy too

much, although I guess I wouldn’t be keeping too
much hard currency, since it wouldn’t be very useful
once back in Avonside. That meant that at least I
wasn’t taking money out, just… tanking the local wood
market instead. Oops.

We were also doing our best to stock up on anything

and everything that Avonside might need too. The list
was huge, and I had Kit handling most of that, since
the dude was highly intelligent and knew what was in
short supply.

The whole thing had the Stonechasers happier and

happier with us, and the local citizens were starting to
take notice too. My name, Grace’s name and the
name of our order was floating on the lips of many
within the drinking halls, and once or twice Troy had
to play bodyguard as people tried to talk to us.

We had yet to source any magical tech, as well as

books on magecraft and the like, but I figured the
mages of the city would be taking notice of us sooner
rather than later. I was throwing an awful lot of magic
around after all. I just hoped that when they did, it
was a pleasant conversation. I could hope, right?

Chapter 59 :
I decided to redesign the tree slightly using a little of
the growth energy I had laying around, as the
residence floors were a little too roomy and were
proving hard to heat with the enormous central room
being an almost cavernous space. That didn’t even
count the bathroom and toilet floors, which were
using a whole lot of space for not a lot of utility. It was
pretty evident that I was not an architect.
Thus, I’d shrunk the common rooms considerably and
moved the bathing and toilet areas up with them.
Each floor now had two bath and shower combos,
plus four toilet cubicles. All in all it was a much better
use of a seventy foot diameter space. What on earth
had I been thinking originally?

Life was not all interior design though. The local

magical practitioners found me at the end of the fifth
day after another successful day of sourcing materials
for Avonside and my grove, as well as having the
doors installed finally. They approached with a large
number of their hangers on, all of which bore stoic,
slightly anxious expressions.

The street we were on began to empty of random

passers by almost immediately as they saw the
impending confrontation, until it was just us and the
other mages standing there, staring at each other. At
my side I had Grace, while Troy, Kit, Mer and Otho had
all moved out in front of us. Had we really shaken
things up enough to warrant this kind of response?
Surely not, right?

One at the front, an obrec man with wild, metallic

green hair and fur stepped forward. He wore a strange
formal garment that was almost like he was wearing
tails. Except, instead of the big padded shoulders that
most suits had, this one had sort of weird droopy
spikes made of fabric. It looked vaguely like some sort
of wild anime idea of what a suit would look like if it
were combined with a clown outfit. Sure, the colours
were all muted blacks and golds, with green accents to
match his mage colouration… but damn.

“Greetings,” he began in the anve language, a stern

but reverent expression on his face. “I am Carac
Batrmaul, mage and chancellor of the Millowhall
Association for the Practice of the Magical Arts.”
He was looking right at me as he spoke, ignoring
everyone else, so I sort of shyly stepped forward and
gave him an awkward wave. “Hiya, uh… I’m Ryn… of
um, of Avonside.”

“And the woman in charge of everything magical

within the Order of Eleos ,” Troy interjected, once I’d
finished. Oh no, he was talking me up.

“Ah… yes,” the man nodded, looking somewhat taken

aback. “In any case, the Millowhall Association for the
Practice of the Magical Arts would like to humbly
request a meeting with the esteemed Ryn of
Avonside.”

“Uh, sure… I guess,” I said, feeling extremely

uncomfortable with the whole situation. Why was the
dude being so… polite? I thought mages were meant
to be dickheads? I mean sure he sounded like he had a
stick lodged firmly up his ass, but he wasn’t being
mean or anything.

“If it would suit you then, we would like to offer the

Soaring Rest Inn as a neutral venue with which to
conduct this meeting, what time would suit you and
your retinue?” he asked, continuing in that weird tone
he kept using. The one that was both arrogant and
subservient at the same time.

I just shrugged. “So long as it isn’t the middle of the

night or anything, I don’t mind.”

One of his eyes twitched for a moment before he took

in a deep breath to say, “Midday then? Does that suit
you, my lady?”

Oh no… did he have a fedora I couldn’t see? Wait no,

this was a medieval setting and I was sort of like a
noble, so it actually made sense in this context. Still, it
made me cringe pretty hard.

“Yeah, sounds good,” I smiled instead. This was such a

fucking weird conversation. I was just a girl from 21st
century Earth, but it felt like I was talking to
someone’s butler from the 1800’s, making
arrangement for tea with the lady of his house or
something.

“It is done then,” he nodded sombrely. “With your

leave, we will go to retire for the night and make
preparations.”

“Uh, sure,” I waved. “See you tomorrow then.”

As a group they bowed, so I did the same, which

seemed to confuse them further. Then they turned
around and sort of hurried off in a big clump. If they
wanted to appear all impressive and stuff, they might
want to get out onto the parade ground for a week or
so, work on their turns, because like… that was a
shambles.

Grace and I exchanged a look as they left that said

something like, Oh my goodness, that was weird and
awkward and uncomfortable.

Then she blew out a sigh that was all, Damn, I’m glad
that’s over now though, can we get out of here and
back to the grove?

My reply was a weary smile that said, Yeah, no

arguments here.

“Well, there goes our evening,” Troy sighed, rubbing

at his eyes. “I guess dinner will have to be a strategy
meeting now. Otho, Mer, can I interest you in coming
back to help us figure out what to do with that lot
tomorrow?”

“Our pleasure,” Otho smiled, glancing at his sister for

confirmation, who gave a nod.

Decision made, we wandered back down to the inn on

the bridge and all piled into the room we were renting
there. The patrons had gotten used to us by now, and
I saw a few who even gave me hesitant smiles. Was
the local population starting to like me? This whole
semi-public figure thing was so confusing.

When we hopped back over into my grove, we headed

on up to use the baths before dinner. Since I’d freed
up a lot of floors, I’d added in a few more residential
ones. This meant more baths, which I offered to our
two obrec friends, and after they laid eyes on them,
they accepted the offer eagerly.
Once we’d all had our nice luxurious baths, we
convened down in the common room around one of
the new tables with a roast. Adam could cook
apparently, and not just passably either. He was
secretly some sort of food genius. I swear he’d lied
about being a terrible cook at one point too… sneaky
dick. I also briefly wondered if the obrec would like
food prepared in our style, but they seemed to love it.

That raised all sorts of questions about why our two

races were so damned similar. We could eat the same
food, looked almost exactly the same from a cosmic
evolution standpoint or whatever… hell, even abstract
concepts like emotions transferred fairly well between
our cultures. When I had like, literally any free time, I
wanted to pursue that line of questioning. There had
to be something more going on.

“So what are this lot like, the ones we’re meant to be
meeting tomorrow?” I asked as our plates emptied.
“Harmless, mostly,” Mer said after she finished
chewing. Another cultural similarity, not speaking with
a full mouth. “They are a little petty, they like to
pretend they are important, but like you saw today…
well they’re small fry on the regional scale. You’ve
already show yourself to outclass their entire coven of
mages.”

“Wait, really?” Grace blurted, giving me a look.

The obrec siblings shared a look before Otho leaned

forward eagerly. “It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Avonside is a new arrival to the ring. It’s obvious to
anyone native here that Ryn is an incredibly powerful
mage. No one can even question it considering the
amount or raw plant matter she’s been pumping into
the local economy.”

Everyone in our party looked to Troy to answer, who

sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, gently
placing his cutlery down on his plate. “Yes, we are new
here.”

“That explains a whole lot,” Otho said, giving Grace

and me a look. “Anves aren’t known for their
charitable attitude towards love between human
women, for one thing.”

“Wait, what?” Kit asked, staring at us with an open

mouth. Had he really not realised?

“Ah…” the obrec man cringed. “...Sorry.”

I turned to see Grace was bright red, her eyes

downcast and hands clenched tight. Nuh uh, she was
not going to feel self conscious or embarrassed about
this. I wasn’t going to let this solidify that notion in her
silly, pretty head.
Gently taking hold of her chin, I pulled her head up
until her eyes up met mine. The look I sent her was
heavy, projecting as much confidence as I could
scrounge up from every corner of who I was. Then I
kissed her, long and slow, in front of everyone. Her
lips tasted of the dinner we’d just eaten, but rather
than being sorta gross as I’d expected, it was kinda hot
instead.

Sensation was burning up and down my skin in waves,

amplified for some reason by the way everyone was
watching us. Why did the other’s eyes on us have me
feeling… excited? Oh no, had I just discovered
something? Regardless, I was breathless when I pulled
away, breathless and incredibly turned on. That
wasn’t part of the plan! I just wanted to show I wasn’t
ashamed of loving her and she shouldn’t be either.

At least it looked like it had worked, her previous

expression was gone, that was for sure. Instead, she
was gawking at me with a huge, stunned grin on her
face, a full blush lighting her face, reaching all the way
down to the hint of cleavage I could see down her
shirt.

“Sorry everyone,” I said, my voice husky with the

feelings of affection and attraction that were surging
within me. “She uh, looked upset.”

“I’m sure,” Adam drawled, amusement dancing within

his grin. Big, lovable jerk.

“I guess… um… that… okay,” Kit said, his cheeks also

red and his eyes firmly planted on his plate.

Poor Kit. He seemed really innocent. Even more

innocent than I was. Not that I felt particularly
innocent anymore… you could only be edged so many
times before you were uh, changed a little.
“It’s okay, Kit,” Mer said, giving him a wink. “You’ll get
there, don’t you worry. Maybe sooner, rather than
later...”

That had Kit gaping at her openly, which looked kinda

comical. There was that famous obrec flirtatiousness
at work.

“Good to know, for sure,” Troy said, drawing attention

back to Grace and I with a smile and a nod. “You’re
good together.”

Otho was still cringing with worry though, as well as

ignoring his sister. “I’m sorry.”

“No problem,” I said placatingly.

“If you say so,” he sighed, still looking like he was
beating himself up inside. Damn it, why were obrec so
confusing? I’d said no problem!

“No, seriously,” I pushed. “There’s nothing wrong,

everything is okay.”

“Agreed,” Troy nodded, giving us both a reassuring

glance. “Us Avonsiders do not discriminate against any
combination of genders in love. At least, most of us,
there are still idiots within our people too.”

“There always are,” Mer agreed with an expression

that said she wished she could like, suplex every single
one or something.

“Anyway, back to those mages from today,” our

fearless leader said, diverting us back to the main
topic.
Right, we had shit to plan. Too bad my mind and the
warmth in my stomach had my thoughts planted
firmly in a different grove.

Chapter 60 :
The fact that our floor and bedroom now had doors
had my mind fluttering and stuttering with
anticipation. After I’d let the obrec back out into the
city, I practically ran up the stairs towards the room I
shared with Grace. I was still warm and tingly from
what had happened at dinner, and well… goodness
but I wanted her right then.

When I arrived at our floor, I stepped through into the

common room and carefully closed and locked the
door. Then I was rushing over to the door into our
room, where I paused, my heart thudding in my chest.
Was I thinking about this too much? Was I expecting
something that wasn’t going to happen? We hadn’t
talked about anything happening tonight, we hadn’t
really mentioned it since that first night in Millowhall.

Blowing out a huge puff of air, I gently opened the

door and stepped inside, closing it behind me and
leaning back against it to stare at Grace. She was on
the bed, in her sleeping clothes, feet crossed at the
ankles and hands behind her head, looking relaxed.

“Hi!” I blurted, a little too loud.

“Hey,” Grace smiled, eyes finding mine.

We stared at each other for several long moments

before she tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.
“You coming to bed?”
“Um, yup, definitely,” I nodded like a dumbass. Why
was I so nervous? They were just doors! Doors that
gave us complete privacy to do whatever we wanted…

I stripped down with shaking hands until I was in my

underwear and sleeping shirt, then slipped under the
covers next to the absolutely gorgeous girl who had
my full attention.

With me under the covers, she followed suit, then

held out her arms to me. I scooted over and melted
into them, and it was like all my nerves and worries
and fears and just… everything, it all vanished like so
much smoke in the wind. Because in the end, I was
with Grace, and I trusted her down into the deepest
depths of my heart. I loved her.

I could hear her heartbeat from where my head rested

on her chest, and each gentle breath she took felt like
it was pulsing life into me too. Pushing myself up, I
shifted to look at her, drinking in each curve and line
of her recently altered face. I reached up to touch it,
playing my fingers delicately across the smooth skin of
her cheek as she watched me from behind her lashes.

“You’re so beautiful,” we both said at the same time,

which prompted a shared grin.

With that smile still on her face, her fingers snaked

into my hair and pulled me down, kissing me oh so
gently for just a moment. “Thank you for earlier at the
table. I know it was… kinda embarrassing, but… it feels
really good to know you care about me no matter who
is watching.”

I didn’t get a chance to reply, her lips made sure of

that. I didn’t even remember what I was going to say
after a moment anyway, so it probably wasn’t
amazingly important. Instead, my attention was
wholly on her, on each brush of our lips, each amazing
burst of goosebumps as her tongue teased at the
seam of my mouth, asking entry.

The kiss stayed like that, every time I opened up to

her, her tongue backed away with a teasing chuckle.
Until I bit her bottom lip, just gently, and got a gasp,
followed by a growl. I was on my back in a hurry, a
playfully scowling girl above me.

“Cheating,” she stated breathlessly, her eyes alight

and wanting. Wanting me.

“I’m not sorry,” I grinned cheekily back up at her,

earning an eye roll in return.

Then she was diving back down, but for my neck this
time, where she began pressing little kisses just under
my jaw, forcing my head back into the pillow in the
process.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” she whispered into
my ear, her voice low and sexual in a way I hadn’t ever
heard from her. Where was this coming from?

“Please don’t stop,” I blurted, my breathing already

heavy. Wait, I’d just sounded really sexual just then!
Goodness, I wanted this so badly. Not that I knew
what this actually entailed. I mean, I knew the like,
broad basics, but—

Grace’s fingers skimmed the underside of my boob,

and my eyes flew open, rambling thoughts blasted
away. When had her hands gotten under my shirt?

“Ow!” I blurted, one of her fingernails scraping the

skin, causing me to twitch as the slight prick of pain
startled me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her hand vanishing from
beneath my shirt.

“Your fingernail was scratchy,” I mumbled, feeling

embarrassed now.

“Oh crap, sorry… I bite them and… I’ll go fix it, hold
on,” she said, her own face going red.

I grabbed her before she could get away and pulled

her hand close. Summoning one of my small, magenta
blades with a flourish, I carefully nicked the offending
spike of fingernail off. Damn, I was good with these
things now.

“Show off,” Grace laughed as the blade dissipated.

“Impressing a girl,” I shot back, a teasing grin all over
my face.

Then it was her mouth all over my face instead, warm

and smiling, leaving damp kisses from the tip of my
nose, to my cheeks and then to my lips. “You’re such a
dork,” she said, smiling into the kiss.

Instead of speaking, I just sorta shrugged and pulled

her down flush against me. Talking time was over, I
wanted to be ravished.

As the heat and tension built back up between us, her

fingers were tugging at my shirt again, slipping under
and taking up where they had left off. They brushed
from the underside of my breast, around and up until
they met my collarbone. She spent time just tracing
that for a while, and I’d never even considered my
own collarbone to be at all sexual until that moment.
Sure, hers was hot… but mine?
Then her fingers were wandering once more, back
down until… they skimmed my nipple, each finger
gently tapping it one after another. My breath caught
in my throat and my eyes flew open, and she backed
off from the kiss to search my face. I nodded quickly,
but words were way beyond me now, and she smiled
knowingly.

My shirt was already up around my shoulders by that

point, but she decided that was too much, and I
shifted to allow her to take it off me. Topless now, I
watched with nervous excitement as her eyes ran
down the length of me.

“Oh…” she whispered, her smile gone, replaced by a

look of awe. “Oh… Ryn…”

Hands coming down again, she traced this way and

that all over me, over the dip and curve of my waist,
to the gentle rise of my stomach, then back up to my
breasts again. She didn’t stay there though, and I
closed my eyes, relaxing back into the bed as she
explored me. The feeling was… wonderful, and not
just because I had my lover’s hands on me. It was
impossible to ignore the femininity of my own body as
her adoring hands highlighted each soft inch.

My eyes flew open again when the wet flick of a

tongue across one of my nipples sent shocks of
sensation through me. I was pretty sure the image I
captured in that moment would be cherished for the
rest of my life. I was looking down at her, at the girl I
love, with her mouth around my nipple, and my own
boobs sitting right there in my field of vision. Holy shit
I was a girl, I was a girl in love with a girl… making love
to that girl.

She spent long, toe curling minutes there, small

flickers of tongue or the briefest brush of teeth
sending sparks flying through my body. I buzzed with
the sensations, my thighs quivering and my breath
stuttering. My heart though, it was full to bursting
with raw love for her, for my Grace. My hands were
up and into her hair, playing with the short
multicoloured strands. I loved her hair, it was so thick
and soft, but just rough enough to give a tactile feeling
that I relished.

By the time she was moving down my body, eyes

locked with mine between each breath-hitching kiss to
my chest and stomach, I was wet beyond measure. A
wetness she discovered when she pulled my
underwear down and my legs parted almost of their
own accord.

“Wow,” she grinned up at me.

“What?” I blushed, my hands coming up to hide my

face. “You’re hot and you turn me on and you were
just sucking on my nipples.”
“I know, but… goodness,” she said, illustrating her
point by running a slow finger through my sopping
wetness from the bottom up until she brushed a small
part of me that pulsed with heady warmth.

I shuddered, my heart doing backflips, and my eyes

rolling. Fuck, I was so sensitive. She’d gotten me all
worked up since dinner, and now I was made of
nothing but nerve bundles, love and a desperate need.

Except… as much as I wanted her to go down on me at

some point, I wanted her up here more. “Please come
back up? I want to kiss you… while…”

“Sure,” she said, her tone gentle and caring.

That didn’t stop her from giving me a flat-tongued lick
however, which had me gasping in surprise. “Oh my
goodness… Grace!”

“Sorry,” she laughed, not sounding at all sorry. “I

wanted to taste you.”

I grumbled meaningless sounds of annoyance and

pulled her towards me, until she obligingly kissed me. I
loved the way she settled half on top of me, one leg
wrapped around mine, keeping me open to her. I was
able to concentrate on our kiss for all of two seconds
before her fingers found my center again, and then it
was all I could do to even breathe.

I was so hopelessly turned on that I knew I was going

to come any second now, my body tensing as her
fingers weaved pleasure up my spine. My hips were
moving on their own, up and down as I gave in to her,
to the affection with which she was now murmuring
my name between pecks to my cheek. I couldn’t find it
within me to worry about coming so quickly though.
We were both girls after all, and if there was one thing
I knew about all this, it was that we had a long,
wonderful night of this ahead.

Her gentle fingers kept moving, and under their touch

my quiet gasps quickly became breathless moans. I
had no idea what was even happening down there,
just that her fingers were moving over me and it was
the most incredible, back-arching sensation I’d ever
felt. I was slowly coming undone, and the fact it was
Grace here next to me… gosh I loved her. I loved her
so much.

Then she did something else, pressed a fingertip

somewhere different, and I gave a tiny squeak. “Yes!
Grace!” I said, although it was barely a whisper.
She did it again, and I bucked, my hips rising
completely off the bed. Holy shit, holy shit… Were my
eyes closed? I don’t know, but I couldn’t see, because
all I could think, all I could process, was the pulsing
thunder of warmth that was exploding through me.

It wasn’t just the warmth of ecstasy that rushed down

every limb though, my heart joined in, braiding a note
of joyous love in with the pulses that ruled me in that
moment. I shook and shook in her arms, clutching at
her as her hand kept going, even as her other one held
me close.

“Grace,” I heard myself cry, voice husky with exertion.

“I love you!”
Chapter 61 :
I lay there in the messed up sheets as Grace held me,
panting as I slowly came down from the latest of
many, many orgasms she’d given me. What time was
it even? Did time still exist? I felt like I was in some
looney toons skit where the poor talking animal
bounced down some stairs, each thump on their way
down pausing for comedic effect. Except… instead of
comedy, it was pleasure, and instead of being
embarrassed, I felt delighted and loved.

"I love you," I whispered, my voice struggling after

what it had just been put through.

Grace chuckled, sweet and caring. "I heard. I think

your whole grove heard."

"I was enjoying myself," I pouted, although she

couldn't see it with my head tucked up under her chin
as it was.
"I definitely enjoyed you."

Gosh, she was being so… so… assertive right now.

Confident even. I loved it, seeing her like this, any hint
of self consciousness evaporated and replaced with
raw seduction. The way she’d ridden my thigh a few
times as she fingered me to get herself off… holy moly.
I wanted to have a turn making her feel good at some
point… but right then I was made of jelly.

"My thigh muscles won't stop twitching, and I can feel

my um… it's pulsing," I complained, although I
definitely didn't mean it in a negative light. "When you
used your tongue, and your fingers were… deep…
wow. I liked this body before… but now… that was
amazing."

"True, you didn't grow up with that," she mused,

fingers brushing delicately through my hair. "You went
through puberty having to make do with those other
bits as you experimented and stuff. Must be
fascinating to see the difference."

Oh no… here comes embarrassment. “I never

actually… you know, experimented. I couldn’t bear to
touch it much, so yeah… mostly just uncomfortable
wet dreams. That was the first waking sexual
experience I’ve ever had.”

“Wait… you never masturbated?” she blurted,

sounding shocked.

“Well… that’s not entirely true. I tried… once,” I

cringed, remembering the terrible mental pain that
had caused. “I didn’t get very far. It hurt too much, not
physically… but mentally.”
“Oh, my sweet Ryn,” she sighed, her arms pressing
tight around me. “I’m admittedly one of those people
who’ve never really thought about what it must be
like for trans girls like you. I just didn’t have the reason
to think about it… I mean I was always supportive, but
in a vague, It’s the right thing to do, sense. I’m sorry
you had it that hard.”

You and everyone else, Grace. “Most people don’t

think about us, or even try to understand us. They
might hate us, they might support us… But they don’t
ever really make the effort to actually understand us.”

“Doesn’t stop them trying to make laws about you

though does it,” Grace said, her voice edging over into
anger. Now that was a topic that never failed to throw
me into both despair and anger.

“Yeah,” I sighed. I’d never had to deal with the stigma

of being visibly trans, but I’d felt every hateful word
spoken about us. I’d felt the blind, kneejerk disgust
that people had when the news reported on someone
who was trans. That wasn’t even taking into account
what it felt like to grow up being forced into the
“male” box when that had felt so gut-wrenchingly
wrong.

“At least we don’t have to deal with that anymore,”

she murmured, nuzzling into my hair. “We have
enough power between us to make our own laws
now. It’s a slightly scary thought, but we could
basically just bend the entire of Avonside to our will
and there is jack shit they could do about it.”

“That is a really scary thought… I’m not sure I want to

force anyone into anything…” I told her slowly, anxiety
swelling. I really didn’t want to be in charge of
anything, let alone Avonside. Responsibility was scary
and confusing, and I’d probably suck at it.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Although if things are going
badly…”

“We’ll step in, for sure,” I sighed, already knowing that

at some point, I was going to have to throw my weight
around when we got back. Before I’d left it had been
fairly obvious that some people saw themselves as
kings or queens.

“Glad we’re on the same page,” she said, giving me a

little kiss on the forehead. “We should probably sleep
now though.”

Damn, I was in heaven. Wrapped up in Grace’s arms

like this, no immediate worries and a full stomach.
“Fine, we can sleep now.”
****

I was sure we were going to wake up too late for the

meeting with the weird mages association, but
surprisingly we actually managed to wake up at the
usual time. We definitely needed a bath though… and
our sheets needed changing. I was a little grossed out
that we slept in that mess now that the excitement of
it all was over, but oh well. A subtle word to my buns
and the task was as good as done. I swear Cream had
been smirking at me when I asked though.

I felt so damned good that morning, like I’d just had

the best sleep of my life. Although, my muscles
heartily disagreed with that sentiment until I let them
soak in the hot bath. I’d been vaguely aware that sex
was a lot of exercise, but no one had warned me that
it used all sorts of muscles I didn’t know I even
possessed.

After that it was getting dressed in my full outfit, coat,

scarf and all. I needed to wear the nicest clothing I
had, which unfortunately wasn’t much really. It was
worn and travel stained by now, which reminded me
that I needed to go and get myself a new wardrobe.

“Hey guys,” I smiled, trying my best not to full on skip

into the room ahead of Grace. I felt good alright?

“Morning girls,” Troy replied, giving us both a quick

smile before he looked down at his food again.

Kit gave us both a shy smile, then looked down again

too. He seemed to be sort of down right now, which
had me wondering. He always looked sort of subdued,
like life wasn’t wholly engaging to him, but today he
looked downright depressed. Time for a bun to go
cuddle him.

Adam on the other hand, glanced up with a smile that

slowly turned into a look of delight as he stared
between Grace and I. “What?” I asked, feeling a little
self conscious.

“Nothing,” he shrugged, giving a wink to us both. “You

just look happy.”

“I am happy,” I grumbled, sitting down at the table.

What was he trying to insinuate there anyway? When
my eyes fell on the food sitting in the middle, I tilted
my head at him. “You cooked?”

He gave a wry laugh. “Sorta, I had help,” he said,

motioning to the buns.
“Wait, the buns helped you cook?” I asked, eyes going
wide.

“Yup,” he nodded. “Asked the black one with the fluffy

white patch in the middle of its ears if it wanted to
help, just as a joke. Then the little dude fucking
nodded and suddenly I had a bunch of fuzzy little
apprentice chefs around me. If we had pen and paper
I swear they would have been taking notes.”

“I had one of your bunnies watching me do my

morning exercises too,” Troy remarked, pointing to his
emotional support bun. “Then he started copying me.”

“They are smart,” Kit agreed, patting the bun that had
found its way to the side of his chair. “Possibly as
intelligent as kids or something. I’ve noticed that they
are very good learners.”
“Yet another thing I need to look into when I get the
time,” I murmured, patting Cream’s head as she
hopped up to me. “Yeah, that’s right,” I smiled down,
scritching between her ears. “I’m going to teach you
people things.”

With a flick of an ear and a tilt of her head, she started

nudging at me with her forehead repeatedly while
making little tiny sounds. I needed to figure out what
all these behaviours meant, then I might actually be
able to communicate with my little friends.

****
After a small breakfast, we left to find the place where
we were going to meet up with the Stonechaser twins.
Mer, Troy and of course, Grace would be coming with
me to the meeting with the mages while the others
would be hanging out nearby in case we needed the
backup. Once we’d found the twins it was off towards
our meeting with the magic people.

The venue they had picked was nice, the outside of

the freestanding stone structure had been carved into
what looked like friezes that depicted various nature
scenes. The local version of deer prancing in
meadows, predators lurking in the shadows. They’d
been painted too, or maybe stained with dye was a
better word. It was pretty.

The door was made of wood too, without the overuse

of metal to keep it cost-effective. It still boggled my
mind that wood was more expensive than metal
around here. Boy oh boy were they going to love
trading with Avonside if we ever got around to like,
roads and stuff. That, and figuring out our sovereignty,
since technically we were in the Empire of Ghraiga. I
didn’t envy whoever got that diplomatic job.

Troy went first, pushing the large wooden double

doors open and holding them for the group. The
interior of the place was opulent in the obrec style,
more carved stone, iron accents and wooden
furniture. They also had several paintings on the walls,
which showed more nature scenes with a few
religious ones thrown in every now and then.

They didn’t have a front desk like you’d expect at an

Earth restaurant, instead a waiter met us at the door,
politely asking if we were, “Ryn of Avonside’s party.”
When he got a yes, he was leading us off through a
side door and down a wide corridor. Stopping at one
of the many doors down its length, he opened it and
bowed, bidding us to enter.
The sound of chairs scraping on stone heralded our
arrival as the magic society or whatever their name
was stood up to greet us. The room turned out to be a
private dining room, with a window across the far
wall, a heavy wooden dining table in the middle and a
whole bunch of other decoration around the place.
There were even a few curtained nooks that I
suspected held servants or hid side passages or
something.

“Greetings Lady Ryn, Greetings!” the guy whose name

I couldn’t remember said with a deep bow. “Thank
you so much for gracing us with your presence.”

“Nah, Grace is that one,” I mumbled under my breath,

subtly pointing to the girl in question with my chin. At
a volume they could hear, I bowed back and replied,
“Uh yeah. Thanks for having us.”
Next to me, Grace started making funny breathing
sounds, and I glanced over to see her struggling to
hold in a laugh. She flicked a glare in my direction as
payment for my inappropriately timed joke. I gave her
a little smile in return.

“Yes, well… it is not every day we have a mage of your

power and skill visit us, especially one whose
reputation has not ah… reached us before,” he said,
tripping over the last part.

As we all got seated, I thought about what to say to

that. Did I come out with the fact that I was actually a
novice? That seemed like a pretty terrible idea.

“Yeah, a reputation can get you killed these days,” I

said sobrely. “With Fennimore hunting anyone he
thinks is a threat… well it’s best to keep a low profile.
Even the most powerful mage cannot defend his or
her assets against an army of our kind forever.”
“Yes, very true, very true,” he agreed, looking sort of
impressed, although I think he was trying to hide it.

Beside him, an obrec woman who didn’t look to be a

mage, but was wearing a few pieces of small and
obvious magical tech, cleared her throat. “If I may…
my name is Claih, and it’s been noticed amongst us
that you travel with another mage here…”

She’d indicated Grace, and I smiled at the fact they

had noticed her. She was just as important as I was.

“This is Grace. She isn’t a mage as such, but rather a

strange hybrid. The origin of her powers is a secret we
are not willing to discuss, but what I can say is that she
is part warlock and part… something else, something
not seen before,” I told them, unable to keep a small,
satisfied smile from creeping onto my lips. I was
starting to do pretty well at this, if I did say so myself.
“Very interesting,” the leader man murmured, giving
Grace a nod. Claih smiled at her as well, her eyes
lighting up with academic interest.

“I’m the choir to her conductor,” Grace said quietly in

english, giving me a loving look that had my heart
doing little flips. Damn she was gorgeous when she
was giving me those soulful looks.

“Yes, well, shall we order food before we get to

business? The grilled fernbeam is absolutely amazing,
if you are unfamiliar with the menu here,” the leader
guy said amicably. Wait, Carac was his name!

“Sure, food sounds lovely,” I said with another

diplomatic smile. Woo, go me! Ryn of Avonside the
Diplomat! Now if only my heart would stop
hammering in my chest every time it was time for me
to say something...
Chapter 62 :
The food was actually really good, just as that Carac
dude had promised. I had some sort of soup thing that
had what looked like a ton of pulled pork in it, served
with some bread that looked… well, normal. I
wondered if the head chef was willing to teach buns.

We’d spent our time eating and trading smalltalk. Just

generally getting to know each other. Turns out that
this lot had heard about our strife with Fennimore
too. Fucking everyone had at this point, Eilian needed
to calm down with the gossiping, damn.

It also turned out that these people were probably the

ones we’d originally set out for Millowhall in the
hopes of meeting. That woman for example, Claih,
was a well respected local Magitecht, as it was
apparently called. She specialised in infrastructure and
had been the architect of most of the modern magical
tech around the city.

She was very interesting, that was for sure, and I was
also fairly confident we could entice her into visiting
us at some point. I mean, what engineer wouldn’t
want to learn from an advanced university? Sure, we
used electricity and shit, rather than magic… but most
stuff was transferrable.

“You’re right, that was good food,” I told their head

magic person, whatever the title had been, trying my
best to be dainty as I cleaned up what was left of my
meal.

“I find every opportunity to dine at this fine

establishment, it’s a true treat every time,” he nodded
happily. Alarmingly though, his smile fell away as he
leaned forward, studying me intently. “I must ask
though, and please excuse the brusque question.
What are your intentions for this city going forward?”

Rather than answering right away, I leaned back in my

chair to observe him and his party. Mainly it was to
give my stupid brain time to calm down, because my
goodness had things suddenly gotten tense again. Had
my lungs always been this bad at the whole breathing
thing? Fuck me, could my body please calm down for
like two seconds? This was not anxiety time, this was
calm and collected time.

It was Troy who spoke, his gaze cool and his eyes
calculating. “Either you already know, or you will know
soon enough. God knows our biggest enemy knows…
Avonside is a new arrival to the ring. From humanity’s
home world. A world that is significantly more
advanced than this one in every area that isn’t magic,
from what I’ve seen. We were also a university, a
center of higher learning, and all of that knowledge
was brought with us.”

This had Claih’s immediate attention, along with many

of the others. She was leaning forward now, eyes
flicking almost feverishly between Troy and me.
“Engineering?” she asked, with no small amount of
lust in her tone.

“Engineering, materials science, physics, the list goes

on,” I said with a grin. “That last one doesn’t even
have a word for it in anve. It means the study of the
laws of the universe… although I expect they are going
to have to rethink a few things when I start flashing
magic around.”

“Carac, this is big,” Claih breathed eagerly. “You

remember what happened the last time a human
settlement arrived, yes?”
“The one from two hundred years ago, or the one
from four hundred years ago?” he asked with a bitter
snort.

“No one knows anything about the one two hundred

years ago,” Claih said, waving a hand dismissively.
“They disappeared, poof, gone. I’m talking about the
earlier one.”

That caught my attention. Two hundred years wasn’t

that long ago in the grand scheme of things, and Grace
and I exchanged looks. They’d disappeared too?
Where had they gone?

“Yes, I am well aware of those arrogant, awful,

genocidal maniacs far to the north,” Carac said,
looking close to losing his cool entirely. The guy had
been pretty calm until now too. “If you recall, I lost my
mentor to those savages.” To the rest of us, he
explained through gritted teeth, “They call us Demons
up there. Believe us to be the incarnations of evil or
some such superstitious drivel.”

“Ah, apologies,” the magitecht said, seeming subdued,

but only for a moment. “You can’t deny their
successes though, they swept up a thousand warring
clans and states and turned them into the largest
empire on the continent. In just eighty years. Imagine
what we could do if we could get even a taste of the
new knowledge these Avonsider’s possess?”

Oh-kaaaaay. That was a little worrying. It was also

exactly what Lord Fennimore had said he was trying to
stop. He’d literally said that whenever a fresh group
was transported to the ring, the whole region saw
massive upheaval. Would we unwittingly be the
causes of the next massive war? Would we be the
reason that empires and nations crumbled and whole
races were put to the sword?
“I’m not sure that I like the idea of unleashing that
level of carnage again,” I said quietly, sharing a look
with Troy.

“Ah, that is not what I meant, of course,” the woman

said quickly, eyes wide. “I simply meant… well,
everything else. Infrastructure, medicine, quality of
life, they are all things that improved along with the
chaos. Assuming you bend to their ridiculous religion
and aren’t an obrec, with horns and hooves.”

We were all silent for several moments as we watched

each other. I didn’t trust her still… but we also needed
her, and badly.

“I have a question,” Grace murmured into the silence.

“How long has it been since a group of obrec were
transported to the ring?”
“Deliveries from our home world stopped almost a
thousand years ago,” Craih replied, looking confused
by the change of pace.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” my girl replied, brows

furrowed with worry. “How many other races are still
seeing these… deliveries, as you call them? How long
do they typically go for?”

What was Grace up to? Where were these questions

leading? She was clearly onto something here, but I’d
be damned if I could figure out what.

“There is only one such race that we have contact

with,” Carac said, his curiosity piqued now. “And the
deliveries last for roughly six thousand years.”
Grace gulped, like she didn’t even want to hear the
answer to her next question. “When did humans first
arrive on the ring?”

“Roughly six thousand years ago,” came the answer.

“We’re the last,” she mumbled, looking down at her

empty plate. “Why are we the last?”

Wow, okay. My Grace wasn’t just a pretty face. That

was a very important question to be asking, especially
because Grace still had a family back on Earth that she
loved.

Looking troubled, but obviously not ready to dive into

that can of worms just yet, Troy said, “Yes… well,
cosmic revelations aside… which we will definitely be
talking about later... shall we divert back to the initial
reason for this meeting?”
“We’re here to stock up on supplies for Avonside.
Materials that we don’t have the infrastructure get
our hands on anymore,” I told him truthfully. “We’re
also here to learn about that magic tech you have
everywhere. It’s new to us. I’d personally like to find
some literature about mages and spells and stuff, but
that’s not top priority.”

“And after that, we’ll be on our way,” Troy added with

a knowing smile. At least, it was a knowing smile by
his standards, which meant just the tiniest twitch of
facial muscles.

“That is a relief,” Carac said, slumping in his chair. “I

became especially worried for my job when you
mentioned you’d only been on the ring a few months.
Someone like you Ryn, who has had her powers for
barely months, if I’m getting the arrival of Avonside
right… well, you’d be replacing me within a year. As it
stands, I am very, very eager to stay on your good
side.”

“Oh, uh… thanks,” I smiled, unable to handle the look

in his eyes, the one that was almost fear.

The discussion turned to specifics, and pretty soon it

was realised that we each had something the others
wanted. I was rapidly becoming wealthy in the obrec
currency, stones or whatever, which they obviously
needed. Who didn’t need money? We’d be buying any
and all books about magic that they were willing to
sell, which would cover that side of things nicely.

The second thing that we had that they wanted was

our own store of knowledge. Claih would be coming
with us back to Avonside to teach our people about
magitech, while also learning everything she could
that we had to offer in turn. She seemed pretty
damned excited about that, which still had me a little
suspicious.

We had a discussion about it in english and decided in

the end that the information was going to get out into
the wider world at some point anyway, it may as well
be to a nation that seemed to be okay. Shit, they had
my vote just for the complete lack of homophobia in
their culture. It was a breath of fresh air even by the
standards back home.

Negotiations lasted for a long while, but eventually we

were allowed out and back to our grove. We picked up
some strays though. The Stonechasers came for
dinner again, including a whole bunch of the other
merchants. They wanted to talk to us, something
about a proposition they wanted to make.

So by mid to late afternoon we were all back in the

grove and I was quite frankly tired of meetings. Still,
the Stonechasers were cool and worth listening to, so
we all wandered up to the second floor balcony with
all its fancy new furniture and lounged around.

I sat down with Grace on a couch near the two who’d

be doing most of the talking, namely Troy and Jerril,
the leader of their group. We hadn’t really sorted out
the interior decorating in this room yet, so stuff was
sort of just everywhere. Cream, the bun I’d named for
her colouring, hopped over to me and began to beg
for pats, which I obviously gave, because she was a
good bun.

“So, is it alright if we keep this brief then?” Troy asked,

leaning forward with his elbows on the small table he
was sitting at. “That last meeting was a slog at the end
there.”

Jerril gave a snort and nodded, “Surely. I must say

though, having a base of operations like this on hand
at any given moment is quite something. Haven’t
really heard of mages opening their groves up to this
many souls. They’re twitchy about it.”

“Seems like that’s because it's the mage’s center of

power. If you took issue with Ryn, you could do a little
damage to her magical abilities before she popped
you,” Kit said quietly from where he was hugging his
bun. He’d named his emotional support bun Sprinkles
at some point, on account of the sprinkling of white
on her otherwise chocolate brown fur.

I really wish people would stop seeing me as some

sort of incredibly powerful goddess. It was
intimidating. I needed to have a talk with everyone
once things were more settled.

“Popped,” Jerril repeated with a laugh and a sideways

glance at me. “Well, I’ll put it plainly to you then. We’d
like to come along with you to this Avonside of yours,
see what the fuss is about and possibly see if we could
find some way to initiate trade between our peoples.
I’m willing to bet it won’t be long before you are all
rather influential in this region.”

“Coming back with a local trading partner ready to go

would definitely be useful for Avonside, not to
mention the Order,” Troy said thoughtfully, rubbing at
his stubble. His expression became a genuine smile as
he agreed to the proposition. “Alright, yeah. Why not.
You can guide us along the way while you’re at it.”

“And show you our homeland!” Mer said happily,

trying to clap with her big-ass gauntlets and failing
miserably. How could the big scary alien lady be so
scary and so cute all at the same time?

“What’s it like?” Kit asked, tilting his head, eyes intent

on the woman. I smiled as he had to swipe hair out of
his eyes, it was getting kinda long. Hairdressers were
in short supply out here, although Grace had been
doing her best with the skills she’d learned so far in
her course. Then she’d gotten all zappy and the boys
had to do it on their own. Kit had decided not to
bother, saying he didn’t want to look like a shounen
anime protagonist.

Since everything had been handled quickly, I gave a

weary sigh and leaned back into Grace and tuned out
of the conversation. Mer and Otho had launched into
a passionate advertisement for their clan’s patch of
mountains up to the north. It honestly sounded like
the same thing as this place, but smaller… still,
everyone loved their home. I just hoped we’d be
getting back to ours soon.
Chapter 63 :
Our Lady kept giving us funny rocks to pile up in the
big tree burrow. So many rocks. As the matron of the
big burrow, it was my job to oversee the moving of
the rocks to the places she told us to put them. Since
we were running out of room in the big tree burrow,
our Lady had made it go down as well as up. She was
so smart.

Many days had passed since we had been created,

many days of confusion, but as the sun went up and
down and up and down those many days, we began to
understand ourselves. Our Lady went to another place
when she disappeared. Another land of trees and
buns. The revelation had shaken our understanding of
the universe, but in the end it didn’t matter, because
we had food here and things to do. Plus the people
liked to pretend groom us, and it felt good.

We were learning more things too, people things! Our

Lady was a people, and so were all her friends.
Sometimes they weren’t very good at their own
people things though. They didn’t wash themselves
properly, for one. Not a single lick, except when our
Lady’s lady was making her cry out very loudly. Very
confusing. One day I needed to figure out how to
instruct the people on how to clean themselves
properly. They also did not know the proper ways to
express their joy and excitement, they remained
stationary! No full bodied expressions of happiness or
enthusiastic gambolling. They seemed to just get…
louder.

One day after our Lady’s lady made her yell very loud
at night, we began to get so many things to put in the
big tree burrow. So much space was being taken up in
the burrow that we had to prepare for the worst. A
great many carrots and bananas were stockpiled
away, other things too. We felt bad for hiding things
from our Lady, but we wanted to make sure we had
enough treats.
She always forgot about the treats, because she was
funny and burned them before she ate them.
Sometimes she made us burn them before she and
the other people ate them. The big hairy one was
teaching us to burn things in the correct manner for
people to eat it. Very strange.

It was the night before our Lady had said that the
people were going to leave the Millowburrow and go
somewhere else, and it was time for our weekly bun
report. This was when we all flopped around the big
stone and talked about what had happened that
week. I liked this time because it let me learn about all
the things happening in our land of trees and buns.

“Sprinkles, you’ve been having problems with the

quiet person, so let’s hear what has happened,” I said
bundling into a loaf. Loafing was a good position for
report time.
“My quiet person has been getting quieter, it is quite
unsettling,” Sprinkles said, shaking her head with
worry. “I have been asked to cuddling many times
more in the sleeping times than I used to be.”

“That is not good, much cuddling is a warning sign

with the people,” Wrestlebun said, the bun who had
been assigned to the biggest person. “The biggest
person does not cuddle often, he is strong with his
feelings, and his hands. He is teaching me how to
fight!”

“Good,” I said, bobbing my head low in agreement.

“One day you will lead us in defending our Lady’s land.
Please though, Sprinkles… continue.”

“The quiet one has also been crying,” she said sadly,
ears wilting. “He has been saying things like, ‘I wish I
was a braindead male isekai protagonist. Then I
wouldn’t have to deal with emotions. Why can’t I
make myself care? I dreamed about this, but I still
don’t care. It’s just people dying or people trying to kill
us, and I can do nothing. I am so worthless.’ It is very
worrying, because I do not know what some of those
words mean, but I hear the pain.”

Around the room, many buns ground their teeth

together in sympathy and sadness. A sad person was a
failing on our part, we had to do better.

“This is not our fault,” the unnamed black bun said

into the silence. “I heard the people talking,
sometimes there are things they get sad about that
are not things we can ever fix. It is something the
people must do for each other. All we can do is make
life for the quiet one just a little happier, that he does
not despair too deeply.”

“I could learn to burn food better, bring it for him. The

people liked burned food!” Sprinkles said, sitting up.
“My person has said that he wonders about the quiet
one,” Buddy the bun said, personal bun to the wise
strong person. Troy, I think they people called him,
but we did not have mouths that could make that
noise. “Says that the quiet one is very sad, a sad that is
deep.”

I bobbed my head and flicked my ear in agreement,

“Keep an eye on the quiet one please, Sprinkles.”

“I shall,” she replied with a bob and flick of her own.

With the matter of the quiet person settled for the

moment, I turned to the next bun I wanted to call
upon. “Gardeningbun, tell us how the caring for the
plants and trees goes.”
“Well, as usual,” he said simply. He did not spend
much time with the humans, only earning his name
when the Lady had noticed how dedicated he was to
caring for the plants. He closed his eyes sleepily before
he continued. “The Lady was wise when she made the
caring plants. Practically do all the work for me.”

The meeting continued on after this, until our sense of

the land of trees and buns told Sprinkles that the quiet
person was looking for her. Soon everyone was
hopping off to continue their duties and I left to make
sure the Lady was happy.

Chapter 64 :
A week later, after so much buying and selling of
goods that my head was starting to spin, we set out
for the Stonechaser lands and eventually Avonside.
Coming with us was Claih and a few of her magitecht
friends, as well as the entire Stonechaser party. It was
a lot of people, and it made me feel a lot safer.
Sitting in my recently extended storage rooms were
enough raw materials to sink an armada. Literally, like
there was so much ore alone that any fleet of ships
trying to fill itself would sink like the rocks it was
carrying. Then there were the books stacked up in
bookshelves in a floor I had converted into a library. I
already loved that room half to death.

I’d missed reading so damned much. Kit, Mer and I

had been camped out in there every chance we could
get. Mer was there because she had oh so graciously
offered to teach Kit how to read and speak some of
the obrec language. I was picking up on it pretty
damned fast too, which had me more than a little
suspicious about what had been done to my brain
while I was in that fruit.

None of that was even mentioning all the magical

materials and other stuff of that kind that we’d
bought. Everything Claih had said we’d need and
more.

The obrec had been lucky with where they were

placed, although they hadn’t realised it until recently.
The smashed canyons that they lived in were
overflowing with a strange type of magically charged
crystal, and it was so prevalent in the south that there
was said to be entire forests of the stuff. The crystal
seemed to be linked to the impossibly deep canyons in
some way. Kit had mused at one point that the crust
itself had been fractured, and that was why they were
so deep. He thought that the crystals had probably
been formed during the same event.

Interestingly, their wealth in this stuff had only been

discovered recently because Magical technology was a
fresh development on a historical scale. In the time
since, the near monopoly that the obrec had on the
stuff had seen them rise far above their neighbours in
raw wealth.
Speaking of raw wealth, I was a little terrified of how
monetarily powerful I was, if I was honest. I’d come
into a small fortune in gold stones, that I’d be using to
fund the Order of Eleos as it grew. I’d never been even
close to rich in my life, and having even this small
amount had my anxiety running overtime.

The Stonechaser’s wagons were full of smaller, more

lightweight goods that they intended to try and sell in
Avonside. Cloth, spices and other such things. I offered
to let them leave their wagons and stuff in my grove
while we walked, but they laughed and said that there
was no way they were walking the whole way. Which
was good, because oh my lord did I agree. Riding on a
wagon was so much better than walking. It basically
meant I got to cuddle Grace all day.

Leaving the gates of the amazing city of Millowhall

behind, we trundled down the cliffside road again,
Grace had her head in my lap was we lay sprawled
across bundles of cloth. She had her eyes closed as
she relaxed, but she hadn’t fallen asleep quite yet.

“I’m so glad to be out of that city,” she mumbled,

turning to smoosh her face into my thigh. “It was
getting so draining.”

“That’s because I was literally draining you to refill my

magic,” I grinned, stroking her cheek with a finger
affectionately.

“You know what I mean,” she laughed, swatting at my

stomach.

I grinned and ran my hand through her hair. “I do.”

She was right, all that growing trees, selling trees,

negotiating with all the different factions of the city
who wanted a piece of what was going on. Pretending
to be a confident and powerful mage, albeit one who
was much kinder than they were used to. It had been
absolutely draining, so much so that we hadn’t even
managed to make love again, which I was lamenting. It
was hard to work up the motivation to have fun when
you felt dead by the end of the day.

Opening her eyes, Grace glanced up at me with a

more serious expression. “We’re going to be back at
Avonside soonish. How do you uh, how do you feel
about that?”

“I’m scared shitless,” I told her honestly. Like… there

were so many reasons to be worried. Would Bray
accept me for who I was now? Would the university
recognise me as one of theirs, or would I be viewed as
an outsider? Would they try some ridiculous attempt
to control me, or worse, fight me for some reason?
I sighed and scrunched my eyes closed. “There are so
many people who know me as Elias back there, and
each one is going to have to come to terms with who I
am now.”

“Yeah, Bray in particular has been sort of hanging in

my mind,” she said with a sympathetic sigh of her
own. “I’m scared he’s going to flip out or something.
Especially now that we’re like… together. Like, he
might see that as a betrayal, and we’ve pinned a few
of our plans on him, you know?”

“Yeah… I know,” I nodded, feeling ice form in my gut.

Our return to Avonside was something that was
beginning to take up more and more brainspace as we
got closer. I needed Bray to be okay with me, he was
the only friend I had from more than a year ago. I’d
left practically no one behind back on Earth.
We were silent after that, thoughts swirling in our
heads as the wagon bounced gently down the road.
Goddess, but suspension was amazing.

“I wish that I could have found you earlier,” Grace said

a few minutes later, her voice gaining even more
melancholy. “Well, that and have you be born into a
girl body.”

“I’m actually glad my life happened the way it did,” I

whispered, feeling yet more ice coalesce inside me.

“What, why?” she asked, a little too loud for my liking.

This stuff was personal and I didn’t want anyone

knowing. I hated talking about myself, about my past.
Except Grace… I think I could trust Grace.
“Because of my family, because of my father,” I told
her, below the volume of even a whisper. “Imagine
what… well you don’t know him or what he did, but…
just thinking about what he’d do to me if I was a little
girl…”

I shuddered as blocked out and abandoned memories

flickering to life once more within me. The raw
animalistic fear that had gripped me every time he
punched a wall, wondering if I would be the next
target for his bloodied fists. The ugly slap of those fists
on my flesh when I was the target. The aching as my
body was never able to fully heal from one beating
before the next happened.

“What did he do to you?” she asked, sitting up and

placing herself next to me, back against the inside wall
of the wagon.
“Physical abuse,” I told her, scrunching my eyes tight
against the maelstrom of pain. “Psychological abuse.
More. I don’t know what the courts would call it,
because the whole thing never made it to anyone. It’s
hard to properly think back on it, my mind sort of
skips off it like a spaceship coming in at too much of
an angle to the atmosphere.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding a little helpless. Instead, she

put her arms around me and gently guided my head
down to her shoulder. “I can see what you mean then.
I’ll add, Ryn gets to grow up as a girl with a loving
family, to my vague wishes.”

“That would be nice,” I mumbled, latching onto her

like she was one of those funny things a surf life-saver
uses to save you. “We could be next door neighbours,
figure out we’re gay together one night when we’re
having a sleepover and we kiss. Try and hide our cute
little teenage relationship from our families and school
friends.”
“That sounds lovely,” she said, and I could hear the
smile in her voice. “Just so long as one of us doesn’t
fall for the other first. It would suck to pine after you
for years while you bumble around like an idiot not
realising you’re gay for me.”

“Hey!” I grumbled, feeling a smile of my own forming.

“I wouldn’t do that!”

“Uh huh, sure… so you wouldn’t be so wrapped up in

that pretty little head of yours, thinking about all sorts
of wild things instead of facing the feelings inside?”
she chuckled, kissing the top of my head.

“I wouldn’t… I mean… I’m sure I’d realise it,” I pouted,

enjoying her affectionate words and touch even as she
teased me.
“Keep telling yourself that babe,” she laughed,
squeezing me tight for a moment. Then she was
blurting, “Fuck, I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” I sighed happily, melting further into

her comforting arms. Of course, then I had to ruin the
feeling by posing a question that had my heart racing,
even if I was sure of the outcome. “This means that
you’re my girlfriend, right? I can call you that?”

“Of course,” she told me tenderly. “We are

girlfriends.”

“Okay good,” I nodded, content again.

The wagon trundled on into the day as we continued

to talk and cuddle, rocking gently with the uneven
road. At some point the stone gave way to a simple
and well travelled dirt road when we veered off the
highway and down a side canyon. Then night began to
descend and the caravan of wagons all pulled into a
broad section of the wide ledge.

“Would you all like to use my grove to sleep in?” I

asked Jerril as I gave a long, weary stretch. Damn, but
being cramped up in the wagon for hours had made
my muscles very angry with me.

“No, thank you for the offer though Ryn,” he smiled,

bowing slightly. “We’ll do things as we always have.
Need to protect the wagons after all.”

“Uh, I wouldn’t mind a nice bed though,” Mer said,

shuffling her hooves on the ground as she gave me a
hopeful look. “And a bath…”

Jerril just rolled his eyes and wandered off. They had a
lot of other guards I guess.
“Sure, you and Otho can come with,” I giggled,
motioning them both over as our group assembled.

We made the jump over into my grove and

immediately began to make for the Happy Little Tree.
It had been near to pitch black in the obrec mountains
when we left it, only a thin strip of dark blue sky
visible high above, but here in my grove the sunset
streaked through the clouds and lit them afire with
gold. I smiled at the sight, then found my gaze drawn
to Grace to see what her reaction was. I found a smile
on her face too. I liked that smile.

My wistful loving stare was interrupted by a frantic

Cream the bun as she barrelled across the grass
towards us at full speed. She skidded to a halt and
rushed towards me, tugging insistently on my arm,
trying to pull me out towards the rim of the plateau
we were on.
“What’s up Cream?” I asked, frowning down at her.
The little bun gnashed her teeth in frustration and
used her little fuzzy paw-hand-thing to point out in the
direction she’d been trying to pull me.

I glanced up, squinting to get a look through the trees.

Wait… was that a person? Oh shit, they were using
magic! I was sprinting before I could figure out if they
had done any damage yet, my shield slamming down
around me. Looks like it had finally happened,
someone had found my grove.

Chapter 65 :
Wait, they weren’t here to destroy my grove… it was,
it was… oh my goodness, oh my fucking god! She was
here, she was alive! I mean I’d known that part, but
still! She was right there!
My breath hitched as joy swelled within me. Either
that or the sprint over had stolen all the air from my
lungs. “Esra! Esra!”

“Careful, you little shit,” she growled as I hurtled

towards her. I didn’t listen, throwing my arms around
her elderly body with a laugh that was all full of
bubbles.

“Esra! Oh my god, you’re here!” I said happily,

squeezing perhaps a little harder than I should have.

“Let go of me you… you… pest!” she said, swatting

uselessly at my back. “Let go of me this instant, and
tell me what in the god’s name you have done to this
place! What is that preposterous waste of space you
have in the middle, and how did you even… make it?”
Of course she’d get annoyed at my tree. Typical Esra
Rihm, always grumpy. Well, I knew exactly where I fit
into this little dynamic between us.

“Are you saying that I figured something out that you

don’t understand?” I asked with a shit-eating grin.

“I am not saying anything of the sort, young lady,” she

said with a glare. “I’m sure if I got a good look at it, I’d
figure it out in a heartbeat, but I want to hear it from
you!”

I decided not to point out that she’d just admitted to

not understanding what it was currently, and instead I
looked up at the massive tree in question. “It was just
a happy little accident.”

“You… you…” she sputtered, gawking at me like I’d

just grown another head. “That was an accident?
How? How did you create such a gargantuan
monstrosity by accident?!” she exclaimed, throwing
her hands in the air. This was too much fun. I was
assuming that her being more grumpy than I
remembered was just her version of excitement at
finally seeing me again.

“Well, you see that plant there?” I asked her, pointing

to one of the growth energy plants. “I created those
things because I was getting tired using my magic to
grow everything manually. They’re a little finicky and
they keep dying and need constant maintenance, but
anyway, they work great to make growth magic. Then,
I had those trees over there making water, but—”

“Wait,” she groaned, putting a hand up to stall me.

“You made plants to do the growing for you?” she
asked, sounding suddenly very exhausted. “My word, I
really wish that whiny little child of a man had waited
just a week or so more before burning my damned
grove to the ground. It didn’t occur to you to simply
use tenders like a normal bloody mage?”

I laughed. “I have those too, look! Here comes Cream

now!”

Cream hopped up, her head bobbing timidly as she

used the motion to get a proper look at my mage-
mother. Poor prey animals and their sideways facing
eyes. She was so cute, and I could tell she was a little
apprehensive about Esra. She’d never met her after
all, and Esra could be very scary, especially to small,
sweet little buns like her.

“You named it,” Esra said in a deadpan. Then, with a

sigh, she placed both hands to her face and took a
deep breath. “Please continue to explain that accident
over there.”
Oh my goodness, I forgot how much fun it was to
tease her. I had missed her so much, and being
seperated from her like that, right when we’d been
starting to bond? It had sucked big time.

“Right, so I had the trees out there making water and

funnelling it into an aquifer underneath the plateau,
right? But then this big magical storm came, and it
pumped so much raw energy into my grove that
everything was overflowing with it, and my plants
took that and turned it into growth energy. When the
water trees had all grown as high as the limit I set on
them, that energy had nowhere else to go but down
with the water… where my big tree, which was much
smaller at the time, found it,” I told her, enjoying
every moment of the wild tale. I could see her left eye
twitching like mad as she listened, it was great.

“I experienced one of those storms before, yes,” she

murmured, deep in thought. “Never seen the like,
back in that other fertile zone. I warded my grove
against it after not an hour under its ire… but if it
could be harnessed as you say… my, my… my sweet
little apprentice isn’t just a pretty face. A pretty face
created with my incredible pedigree of course, but
still… where was I? Oh yes!”

She was silent for several long moments, glancing

between the ground, the growth plants and my tree.
Her eyes were lit from within, the telltale sign that she
was using mage sight. She began to mumble to herself
again, shuffling up to one of my growth plants to get a
better look.

She gave a gasp and leaned down even closer, nose

practically touching the outer leaves. “Impossible…
Impossible… but could it? No, no, no, but that’s
impossible! But why? Would could govern such an
impossible discrepancy?” she muttered, gently parting
the leaves of the plant to get a better look at it.
Glancing up at me, she wore an expression that was
somewhere between awe and outrage. “You broke
the fundamental principles of magic, as practiced by
those of us within the nameless garden. What you
have done here should be impossible!”

“Yeah well, it was really cool, because I got to turn the

big tree into a house!” I grinned, shrugging off the
whole, breaking magic thing. I kinda knew I’d done
that when I made the things… they had not been keen
to exist, and still weren’t entirely happy with the
situation.

“The big tree… is a house,” she said with another one

of her deadpan stares. Then she tilted her head and
nodded thoughtfully. “Well actually, if you have the
sheer amount of raw power that you seem to have
just laying around, I can’t see why you wouldn’t turn
that freak of nature into a nice little tower.”

“Hey, it’s my happy little tree,” I pouted. “Don’t diss

the happy little tree.”
“I am not dissing the happy little tree,” she told me
with a sniff. “I am simply calling it how it is.”

“You are totally dissing my happy little tree right now,

and it’s making me sad,” I mumbled, making fake
sniffling sounds while I rubbed at my eyes. Was my
fake crying working? Was she taking the bait? I took a
peek to make sure...

“Oh, you have got to be joking,” she sighed, rolling her

eyes. “Stop the theatrics young lady, you’re far more
intelligent than that.” Oh gosh darn it! She saw
through me again.

The gentle shushing of feet on grass heralded the

arrival of the rest of my friends, who were glancing
between Esra and I in total bewilderment. I guess they
probably heard a lot of our bickering. I really, really
hoped that she was nice to them. She needed to like
my friends, and especially Grace.

“And just who are this lot?” Esra demanded, folding

her arms and glaring at them all. “My word, you have
an awful lot of explaining to do, young lady.”

Oh dear… she was not going to be playing the kind old

lady I guess. Time to do damage control!

“Uh, that one is my lover,” I said, pointing to Grace.

“She’s from Avonside, and so are the rest, except the
two obrec of course. They are Stonechaser clan,
they’ve been helping me tank the wood market in
Millowhall so I can suck the whole region dry of gold.”

Okay, so maybe I was spinning the truth a little here,

but it was for a good cause. That good cause mainly
just being Esra’s hilarious reactions to what I’d been
up to in her absence, but still… I couldn’t resist.

“You… they… gold? What?” my mage-mother

sputtered, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. She
seemed to decide that the most pressing issue was
Grace as she turned to glare at my girlfriend. “You,
who are you? What does a warlock want with my...
uh, apprentice? If you harm her…” she hissed, eyes
narrowing as she squinted menacingly at Grace. “I’ll…
I’ll… leave you alone, because being bound to that
brat is punishment enough.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed, trying to sound grumpy even as I

fought the laughter that was bubbling up within me.
“She’s really happy being in a relationship with me,
thank you very much! Right Grace?”

“Um… yes, definitely,” Grace nodded. She looked just

a little overwhelmed, which was understandable. Esra
had bowled into my grove like one of those big storms
and was currently making a big mess.

“Ah, not very bright then,” Esra scowled. “Either that

or blinded by love, considering the little wretch that
she’s gotten herself involved with,” she continued
with a sideways glance at me.

“Awh! I missed you too,” I chirped happily, bringing

her in for another hug and earning an indignant
squawk for my troubles.

It seemed like she might try and protest that for a

minute, before she mellowed and gave me just a slight
little nod. “Alright, I will admit that in my journeys
since we parted ways, I have somehow found myself
missing your pestilential presence by my side.”
“Now you can say sorry to Grace,” I said sternly,
narrowing my eyes at her. “Or I won’t tell you about
how she got her magic. It’s a really good story, trust
me.” Not to mention one that I probably needed to
tell her, since she might actually be able to understand
what had happened.

My mentor gaped at me for several moments, then

swapped to staring at Grace. “Fine, you may court my
apprentice, but I expect you to treat her like the
precious young woman that she is.” Awh! She really
did care! I was precious!

“Oh, definitely,” Grace replied, giving me a loving look.

“I’ll also make sure she actually eats and bathes
between getting lost in magic stuff.”

“Ah, good. I approve…” Esra smiled, happy with my

girlfriend’s answer. Then her smile faded as she
turned her eyes on the rest of them. “I expect that
there is a very interesting tale to tell. You don’t, by
chance, have food in that massive accident of yours do
you Ryn? Food that has not been grown on a plant?”

“We bought so much meat in Millowhall, you have no

idea,” I grinned, wrapping my arm around Esra’s
shoulders and steering her towards the accident. It
was totally time for a celebratory feast… assuming the
buns were up to the task.

Chapter 66 :
“This new lady scares me,” Hopper told me, the
special helper bun for our Lady’s lady. “She says so
many mean things and it’s making me nervous. I can’t
even swing my metal tool for trees! I just want to hide
with Grace.”
Hopper was unique in that he was trying his best to
learn all the people words for things. It was a very
noble effort, especially for a bun to try understanding
such enigmatic beings as people.

“She would protect you… meanwhile our Lady is being

very annoying to the angry new lady. It is like she is
charging her, only to veer off at the last second,” I
said, shaking myself as a preyfear rippled through my
fur.

“I think that the new angry lady is our Lady’s creator,

like how our Lady created us,” Hopper said, tilting his
head to look at me out of one eye. Hopper was fast
becoming a source of great wisdom for us in
understanding the people.

“Your work in understanding the people is so

admirable Hopper,” I told him gratefully, giving a hop
of appreciation.
Before either of us could continue our talk, Black was
rushing up, head bowed low. “Come quick, come
quick! We must burn food for the people, they are
hungry! We can’t make the grumpy lady dislike us so
soon!”

That got us moving, and I sent out a call through the

betweenthoughts to gather the buns we needed for
the task. We raced past the people as they slowly
hopped their way up the tree, causing the grumpy
lady to yell lots. By the time we made it to the burning
room, two paws of buns were there and ready. We
were good buns, the best buns.

Black immediately began giving orders. “We’re going

to do recipe uh… thirteen paws and one finger. The
quiet one was happy when he told the big hairy one
about it, called it recipe sixty six or something.
Anyway, we need to make the fire warmer again, it’s
running low!”
“On it!” Sprinkles squeaked eagerly, getting the metal
poking thing and throwing more chopped tree on the
fire. Sprinkles was slightly alarming sometimes with
how eagerly she groomed the fire when it was her
turn to do so.

“Cream, I need the treats chopped into smaller treats,

quickly!” Black called, and off i went to do my duty. I
gathered many different treats, especially the ones
the people liked a lot. We had learned that people did
not like dry grass very much, so we used the carrots
and the funny bulbous roots with the fire. There were
so many types of treats, it was hard to remember all
the names, only the colours and smells. We called
Carrots orangesweetearth because that just made
more sense.

I used the flat metal claw to chop the treats into

smaller treats, then rushed to get the crushed sneezy
plant and the little white grains, then sprinkled it all
over the small treats. With the small treats properly
ruined I popped them onto a tray and then onto the
big metal thing above the fire. It was a little sad
watching the fire burn the treats, but then I
remembered that the treats were already ruined by
the sneezy plant and the white grains.

Turning to look at the bustle that was happening in

the burning room, I was just in time to see the people
crowd into the room.

“What in the wide ring is going on in here?” the

grumpy lady exclaimed, looking shocked. I think it was
shocked. People feelings were hard to figure out
sometimes.

“Oh… damn,” the big hairy man said, making the really
deep laugh that tickled our ears. “I really did teach
them well, huh? They even put salt and pepper on the
veggies.”
That was me! I put the salt and the pepper on the veg-
ees!

“Dang, you really did,” our lady said with the funny
high pitched laugh that made our fur tingle. “They’re
so cute. You’re all such good buns, thank you!”

That was cause for binkies all around, so I did that,

zooming around the cooking stone once out of
happiness. We were good buns! Oh! I wonder if I
could get some grooms from our lady! I rushed over
and stood up on my hind paws, nudging her hand with
my nose in question.

Our lady laughed and her hand came down to stroke

gently between my ears. It felt so lovely. “I have no
idea how I’m going to give you all the pats you
deserve,” she continued. “Such good buns!”
“I have never seen tenders do this much, nor have I
seen tenders that display this much intelligence,” the
grumpy lady said, not sounding very grumpy. She was
bending down to look at me, which was scary so I
hopped to put our lady between us for protection.

“Stop scaring Cream with your wrinkly old mug, Esra,”

our lady said, doing the verbal charging thing again. I
really wished she’d stop antagonising the grumpy
lady.

“I’ll have you know that this wrinkly old mug has seen
kings bow and scrape before it, in the hopes that they
might take it to bed, thank you very much,” the
grumpy lady said, which prompted a round of choking
sounds from our lady. Was she in trouble? What was
wrong?
“That is so gross, none of us needed to know that,”
our lady said in a high pitched voice. “Come on, let’s
go find a place to eat all this.”

Before she left, our lady snuck in a little grooming for

Black and Sprinkles too. She was very nice to us,
although I think we might need to talk to her at some
point about pats for the buns that didn’t get seen by
her very much.

Chapter 67 :
Explaining all my adventures to Esra since I had left
her grove took all of dinner and then some. The food
was amazing though, the buns really did try their best
with this stuff. The way Cream had gone and bounced
around the kitchen when I praised her had been so
cute.

Esra’s wariness of the buns had lasted until she took a

bite out of the food. Adam had taught them well, at
least with this recipe, and the results were pretty
damned good. She’d asked what else I had them
doing, and I’d described the various tasks they had
been assigned around the place. Which led to how
they were harvesting wood and the Millowhall part of
the story.

“No!” she laughed, her white eyes bright with mirth.

“You had that blowhard Carac bowing and scraping?
By the gods, I wish I could have seen that! You must
have cut into his concerns rather heavily if he stopped
his egotistical strutting enough to negotiate with you!”

“He seemed kinda nice,” I shrugged, smiling

nevertheless at her happiness. Esra didn’t get excited
like that often. “I mean, uptight and stuff… but not a
terrible person.”

“He’s not a terrible person under all of it, no,” she

nodded, a wan smile coming across her face. “I just
dealt with many a mage such as him in my time, and I
find myself running out of patience for their type. You
can only listen to a man tell you all about his own
importance so many times before you begin to fall
asleep.”

Probably why she was such an irritable grump too. It

must have been such a tough thing to try and do good
for people in politics around here. Especially during
Fennimore’s rise to power and all those manipulative
assholes that he liked to hang out with.

“Yeah, I hear you,” Troy nodded with the slightest of

eyerolls. “There were types like that in the military
too. People who let their power get to their head,
running their mouths and acting like they are hot shit.
Then comes time to actually do something real and
they flake off.”
Esra hummed agreement, eyeing Troy as though
seeing him in a new light. “You were in the military of
uh... Earth, was it?”

“For a nation on that world, yeah,” he nodded. “Saw

combat, although the nature of it is very different to
what it’s like here on the ring.”

“Interesting,” Esra murmured, her eyes drifting

between all of us from Avonside.

Interesting was one word for it. I could see that she
knew what that meant for the long term political
landscape of this region. I wonder if she agreed with
Fennimore or not on this issue?

The moment ended when she turned to me with a

serious but distinctly motherly expression on her face.
“Back to more immediate matters… you, my little
apprentice, are going to need to do some serious
magework when you finish this little adventure that
you are on,” she told me sternly. “You have no
defences, for one thing, which is a terrible oversight.
Additionally, I will be showing you how to modify
some of the spells you have created to be more
efficient. Not to mention figuring out what to do with
that… frankly terrifying store of energy you have
beneath our feet.”

“Oh, what about it?” I asked, feeling the hairs on the

back of my neck stand up at attention. Was she going
to tell me that it might explode at any moment?

Contrary to where my fears had been running, her

eyes lit up with the sort of evil expression reserved
only for mad scientists about to press the button and
unleash their doomsday weapon. “My dear, sweet
little child… there is so very much that we could do
with it. You will not hear me say this often… but you
have unwittingly stumbled upon a system that will
forever change the balance of power within mages.
The storms out here, combined with your methods of
collecting the energy… oh my word...”

I felt a proud grin blossom across my face, followed by

a happy blush. “Does that mean I did good?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t let that pretty head of

yours swell, Rynadria Belrose. I worked hard on it after
all, can’t have it becoming grotesque and misshapen.”

Oh no. She used my full name!

****
We did eventually have to go to bed, and to my
surprise, Esra asked to use a room to sleep in for the
time being. Her grove wasn’t very well equipped on
the home and hearth side of things. She’d muttered
something about her magic and spells being a priority
over niceties or whatever. I don’t know, wasn’t paying
attention.

I did pay attention when she offhandedly explained

the reason for creating a magefruit. It was like… saving
your progress in a game. It took time, effort and a not
insignificant amount of energy, but once it was
created, it set a hard lower limit on the raw power a
mage could bring to bear.

You could torch a whole grove to the ground, destroy

it utterly and that mage would still be able to wield
raw magic with the same power and finesse that they
had when their grove was at its peak. Their spells
would still be gone, but if they could escape, then it
allowed them to build a new grove far quicker than
the first time around. Which all explained why she had
made that my mage fruit and then hidden it in the first
place.

It was way too late in the night when we all finally fell
into bed. Waking up the next morning to continue our
journey really really sucked. God I was tired.

The following evening, Esra was there again,

practically dragging me by the scruff of my neck to
begin teaching me magic things. Specifically, she
thought it was some sort of crime against humanity
that I didn’t have a short ranged teleport spell. The
kind that she and Fennimore had been using in their
duel way back then. Apparently it was a staple or
something?
That took most of our limited time that night, largely
because she was never satisfied. I had to keep making
changes until it was absolutely perfect in her eyes.
Something about keeping her apprentice from
teleporting herself into the ground. Then it was off to
collapse into bed, mentally drained from the strain of
working with spell plants as well as the scant night’s
sleep I’d gotten before.

This routine continued as we made our slow way

through the winding paths of the obrec mountains.
They were beautiful too, some chasms wide enough to
be proper valleys, with towns and villages up and
down the walls. The obrec revered their forests to the
point that they would refused to clear them to build
settlements.

Some, like the wild obrec, still followed the old

traditions, living within the ancient depths of the
forests. They were a secretive and elusive lot, and no
one knew much about them. The majority of their
kind though, they lived on the slopes and walls of their
great mountain range. The carved obrec, named for
the way they carved their cities out of stone, were the
ones we’d been interacting with this whole time.

On one particular night during our travels, when Esra

brought up the topic of my transformation, Troy
rather surprisingly educated Esra and everyone else
on what it meant to be transgender.

He didn’t out himself as such, but he explained the

pain of it, the desperate hate for one’s own body and
the toll that it took on the mind. He explained how
much damage it dealt to a persons life without them
even realising it, how people might to withdraw
socially, because socialising as the gender they were
assigned at birth was mentally painful. They might
score poorly at school because some portion of their
mind was always assigned to resisting the existential
horror of having your body change in ways that felt
fundamentally wrong.
So many other things were spoken about, and Esra
seemed genuinely interested and sympathetic, which
was… odd. Old people were generally pretty bad with
this kind of thing. Then again, she hadn’t really cared
when I introduced Grace to her.

The next day, while she was teaching me a proper

spell to use for heating the baths, I asked her, “Esra,
where are you right now? Out on the ring, I mean?”

She paused as she was sketching out some diagrams

on paper and glanced up at me. “Somewhere. It’s best
you don’t know, I’m afraid. Rest assured I’ll be making
it to that town of yours shortly. This ecology business
you talk about has me intrigued.”

I perked up. “Really? I was going to try to get some

books made about that stuff to put in here, so you
might not have to go all the way if you want to learn.”
I said, pointing around us at the mostly empty library.
“I have a whole plan for how to implement a
functioning ecosystem in my grove when I get the
chance.”

“Books are one thing my dear child, but learning from

those who know what they are talking about is far
superior, as you should well know,” she chided me,
giving a pointed look around us.

“Hey!” I grinned with more than a little cheek. “You

said I’d stumbled on something really important by
blindly following my instincts.”

“And you could have just as easily killed yourself, or

much worse, so I’m going to chalk it up to dumb luck
and make sure you don’t break things again,” she
grumbled, still irritated that I kept bringing it up.
“Alright, alright,” I laughed, distractedly playing with a
strand of my dark magenta hair. The way it shone in
the light was kinda mesmerising sometimes. I loved it.

“Put your hair down and pay attention,” she snapped,

tapping the paper with a finger. “This is important,
you get this wrong and it will burn down this whole
damned tree you love so much.”

“It’s a good tree,” I complained. “Why wouldn’t I love

it?”

Her response was a weary sigh, but we got back to the

lesson anyway. God I was getting tired though. Endless
boring rides in a cart during the day followed by
intense lessons in spellcraft during the night were
playing hell with me. I just wanted to sleep in and roll
out of bed at noon, preferably with cute messy bed
hair that would have my girlfriend throwing me back
into bed with no intention of sleeping. Was that really
too much to ask for?

Goodness I was horny, but never when I actually had

her on hand… being perpetually tired was a bit of a
barrier to multiple orgasms.

Apparently it was too much to ask for though, because

two weeks later when we reached Thistlescar, home
and seat of power to our obrec friends with the same
name, I was exhausted.

Thistlescar was far smaller than Millowhall had been,

which made sense considering it was just the hall for a
noble family within the Stonechaser clan rather than a
full capital city or anything. The Stonechasers lived in
the very outskirts of the obrec mountains, and
therefore the canyons and forests were far less
extreme than they had been further in. That didn’t
mean it was any less impressive though.
The castle sat carved out of an enormous promontory
of stone that had sheared off the cliff years ago and
now hung out into the wide, shallow chasm. It
towered over the forest below, looking for all the
world like it would finish toppling down at any
moment, despite having never moved more than an
inch further from where it currently sat.

“That doesn’t look safe,” Kit murmured, staring at the

castle with trepidation. He’d been getting more and
more timid recently. Something about Mer’s attempts
to woo him had him restless and sort of vaguely upset,
even as he also seemed to enjoy her attention. I was
worried about him. I might have to talk to Mer about
maybe taking a step back.

“Oh, it’s perfectly safe, don’t worry,” the obrec

woman in question said soothingly. “In fact, since we
hollowed it out and turned it into a town, we actually
lessened the danger. Not as top-heavy. It’s not going
to fall for thousands of years, if ever.”

“Tell that to one good earthquake,” Kit muttered,

glancing away from both the castle and Mer. “I lived in
LA for a few years, you look at things differently after
you feel your first really big one.”

“Yeah, that’s very true,” Grace agreed from next to

me. “I think we’ll be fine though.”

Despite how close the place looked, it still took most

of the afternoon to actually make it there along the
winding cliffside road, and the way it began to loom
over us certainly put some legitimacy behind our
friends in my minds eye. I mean… it’s one thing to
meet a bunch of people with money and carts, but to
see this massive fortress town… that was something
else. I hoped the rest of their noble house were as
cool as this lot.
Chapter 68 :
Our arrival at Thistlescar held significantly more
fanfare than I had been anticipating. There were obrec
children fucking everywhere for one thing, and when
they saw humans they went mental. I found myself
with a little procession behind me as the caravan
trundled into the huge courtyard at the base of the
fortress town.

Little obrec children yammered away at me in the

local dialect of the obrec language that I had no hope
of understanding. Still, they didn’t seem to mind that
all I did was smile and create little showers of
ephemeral rose petals everywhere. That particular
spell had been made for an entirely different and non-
child friendly activity, but they didn’t need to know.
One thing we learned very quickly was that every
single obrec in this place was part of the Thistlescar
noble house. Which kinda confused the hell out of us
who were used to the human definition of noble.

Turns out that when the humans first met the obrec,
they decided that they were “barbarians” so they
named their most obvious form of social structure as
clan. Then, they got just as confused as we did about
the whole thing and decided that the actual clans
within what should have been a kingdom were called
noble houses. The obrec didn’t seem to care about
any of that shit though, because why does it matter
what the idiots down in the plains thought?

“We do still have all that fancy pantsy noble stuff

though,” Mer was explaining to us as we helped get
the carts secure. “Sorta, we don’t all strut around like
we’re the best thing around like the obrec in the big
cities or the humans down in the plains. See, the Lord
of Thistlescar is Horln, he rules all our lands like you’d
expect. Otho ‘n me are the kids of his younger sister.”

“So you’re like, minor nobles if we convert to silly

human standards?” Kit asked with a shy grin. The guy
was tall but somehow he still managed to make shy
seem cute on that big frame of his.

“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes shining with mirrored

mirth.

“Otho! Mer! Welcome home! Who do we have here?”

a loud bellowing voice called.

We all turned to find a rather old obrec man who was

somewhat on the heavier side both in girth and height
as he made his way over to us.
“Uncle Horln, the man himself,” Mer laughed, opening
her arms just in time to get all but plowed over by the
huge obrec.

Okay so clearly things were a little informal around

here. None of the other obrec seemed particularly
phased by their lord barrelling through to pick Mer up.
There were smiles and laughs, but no bowing or
scraping of any kind.

“How’s my favourite niece?” he asked with a hearty

chuckle, placing her back on the ground. “And my
favourite nephew! Did you make us some of those
stones we’re meant to be chasing?”

“You have no idea,” Otho grinned, looking incredibly

pleased with himself. As well he should, since a simple
act of kindness by him and his sister led to them
making an absolute mountain of money, with the
possibility of more in the future.
Otho and Mer took turns filling in the increasingly
growing crowd of Thistlescars about their adventures.
Apparently they had been set upon by wild beasts
before we found them, which they had handled well.
Then came all the Millowhall stuff, a story that I knew
way too intimately, so I kinda phased out for that.

We moved indoors once the wagons and all that were

safely stowed, where cooks were already working on a
feast to celebrate the caravan’s return. They had this
huge communal room filled with tables, chairs and
roaring magefire hearths.

Those were immediately of interest to me, and I

rushed over to take a look. Claih laughed when she
saw my interest, and with a just as intrigued Kit by my
side she told us all about it. They burned magic,
basically. Specifically they were powered by the
magical crystal that was abundant in the obrec
mountains. They were fairly simple things, converting
raw magical energy into flame at a very efficient rate,
which made for a good source of warmth in a huge
stone fortress like this one.

We stayed a total of three days in Thistlescar, during

which time I actually spent most of my time working
on my grove’s defences with Esra. She had me
weaponise my windbreak, modifying their base plan
to incorporate an energy shield of sorts. That got me
thinking bigger though. I’d been a huge Star Gate nerd
a few years back, and one thing that I had always
loved was the city of atlantis. What if I copied that but
in tree form… oh my goodness, so many ideas.

“Esra, what if I use my big tree in conjunction with

these ones to create a huge shield? I’d probably need
a ton of power to do that right? But I have a ton of
power laying around, and the next storm is going to
overflow my lake even further,” I mused, sort of just
rambling my ideas off.
“You… that’s preposterous, of course you can’t—“
Esra started before trailing off, brows furrowed.
“Hmm, if you used that tree as a reservoir, that would
fix the problem with… and an amplifier, it is an awfully
large tree after all… but how would you tackle the law
of arcane pressure? That much energy would cause a
catastrophic… no… it might be possible if you feed it
back into the structure… Ah, but then there’s that
warlock of yours...”

I couldn’t help a grin as I watched Esra’s sharp mind

fade out of reality and into the problem. Her eyes
were on fire with intellectual lust, the kind that
someone with a love for problem solving got when
they were making headway with a particularly
interesting idea.

It was almost ten minutes of muttering later than Esra

stood up straight from her increasingly hunched
posture to announce, “It is possible, and more than
that, I may have discovered a possible solution for
your storm energy storage problems too. We will need
that girl of yours however.”

“What, Grace?” I asked, confused as to how she could

help.

Esra smiled. “She is instrumental to the success… or

wildly ruinous outcome of this experiment.”

Oh dear. Mage mother dearest was insane.

****
“I am so confused right now,” Grace sighed, rubbing at
her eyes with thumb and forefinger. “You want to
push a spell plan through my um, maginetic field?
While both of us are in plant form, so we can use that
empathic thingy?”

“Yes, indeed!” Esra nodded like a bobblehead in a

hurricane.

“Then… I point it at… the big tree,” Grace continued,

eyeing the older woman dubiously.

“Quite so!” Esra agreed, still nodding, except I think

the van that the bobblehead was in had been thrown
clear and was now tumbling back to earth. “You are
not confused at all, my dear.”
“Alright… if you say so…” my girlfriend sighed, eyes
finding mine. She did not look very confident.

I reached out and cupped her cheek with just a taste

of the infinite tenderness I felt for her. “You can do it. I
believe in you, you’re incredible.”

“I wish,” she said, although her bashful smile said that

at least something in my words had landed home.

“You two can get all mushy and romantic with each
other after this task is complete,” Esra grumbled,
although some of her usual bite was missing from the
words. “Let’s get to work please.”

I nodded and took my hand back and trailed my eyes

over the plans we’d drawn out, using up quite a lot of
rather expensive paper. One thing that sucked about
obrec culture. Wax fucking tablets were the norm for
hashing out ideas like this. I shuddered.

The plan was both simple and complex. We were

taking the spherical shield that I already knew and
tying it into a collective of plants and trees throughout
the grove. By Esra’s own admission this was treading
new ground. Spells like this had been attempted
before, some times successfully, but always at a far
smaller scale. No one had the sort of energy reserves
that we had out here in the wop-wops of the
Nameless Garden.

The shield spell would be anchored using the huge

main tree, while the middle layer of the windbreak
trees would expand its reach out to the very edge of
my grove. An edge which was now technically down at
the bottom of the huge cliff. I hadn’t realised it, but
the place had grown rather substantially.
The part where Grace came in was interesting. After
Esra had learned about the nature of my girlfriend’s
powers, her eyes had almost fallen out of her head. By
using Grace to amplify the spell, we weren’t just
increasing its overall power. We were lacing it with
the power of other magical realms.

We’d tested this before we went ahead with the big

version, and when I funnelled my shield spell through
her, it had become changed, different in a way that
was awkward to the magical eye. Rather than purple,
it had taken on a shimmering white-rainbow colour,
and had increased its efficiency by terrifying factors. It
was like the magical equivalent of advanced
composite materials. By threading the magic of every
realm through the shield, it became far stronger than
each individual part might have been. Nothing, not
even fae creatures like Ollinfer would be able to get
through the large, storm powered version.

In theory. It had to work on a larger scale first.

It took a long time to get the spell structure right in
my mind, holding the tree and all the changes we’d be
making to it together while also working on the
outside ones was intense. So difficult in fact that I lost
it more than once, the whole thing unravelling in my
head, meaning I had to start over.

Two hours later though, I had it done, and with a

desperate gasp I said, “Okay, I’ve got it. Are you ready
Grace? I can’t hold it stable for long!”

“Yes, yes! Go!” she blurted, bright magical plant eyes

wide with worry and excitement.

Here goes nothing! I pushed the mental plans at her,

powering it with as much of my own energy as I could
muster while using our empathic link to guide her as
best I could. Which wasn’t… the best way to
communicate complex thought, if I was honest.
Communicating something like, “a little more to the
left,” with pure emotion was like trying to play
charades while standing a mile apart and using
binoculars.

Working together like that, we very carefully

maneuvered everything into place, and after double
and triple checking via binocular charades, we finally
agreed that it was good. Like a codie hitting compile
on a particularly troublesome piece of code, we
watched and waited to see if anything terrible would
happen.

Something did.

Chapter 69 :
Reality skewed sideways like a cardboard box without
two of its walls, before it twisted and spun like one of
those vomit inducing carnival rides. Except it wasn’t
just a mechanical object doing the spinning, but the
very orientation of whatever stood for the laws of
reality in the Nameless Garden.

I felt like I was a yoyo on the end of a hyperactive

toddler’s finger while they bounced around inside a
barrel that was inside another barrel that was rolling
down a rocky hill. I felt like I was made of rubber and
my body was being twisted around a pencil that was
then snapped in half. I felt like melted mozzarella
being eaten by a hundred year old woman with no
teeth.

In short, the world went fucking upside down for a

few seconds and then suddenly I was rushing for the
bathroom, Esra and Grace not far behind me.

We spent a while in there just vomiting our guts out,

the viciousness of what had just happened to our
minds and bodies so overwhelming that it was hard to
do anything else. Grace was the first to come back to
herself, wobbling over on unsteady legs to hold my
hair out of my face while I shuddered over the toilet
bowl.

Eventually I began to calm down, and after washing

my mouth out with water, I turned to an also
recovered Esra. She had a worried frown all over her
face, mage sight active as she stared up into the
heights of the tree through the walls.

“I don’t know what could have caused such a

reaction,” she said, half to us and half thinking out
loud.

I opened my mouth to speak, to ask her if she had any

idea what had just happened to us, when I noticed
something. Something that really should have
registered to me sooner.
“My grove!” I blurted, rushing for the door. Was I
correct? I felt something vastly different through my
connection with my source of power.

The other two were after me moments later, calling

out with questions and frustration. They’d find out at
the same time I did though. No sense in throwing
words around when we could go and find out.

The afternoon sun hung lazily in the sky as we burst

out of the main doors of the big tree. There had been
some light rain that morning, leaving the ramp slightly
damp, puddles in the corners. It made our headlong
rush down the ramp more than a little dangerous, but
we made it to the bottom just fine.

Then it was out and into my grove, so different from

when I had first created it. The vast expanse of grass
had shrunk drastically, only fifty or so meters in radius
around the tree now. The rest was a forest of spell
plants and trees, sprinkled at random across the
plateau.

Loamy soil few up behind us as I led the other two

through the twisting paths that my buns had picked
out. They meandered between the trunks of my fairy-
like forest in a way that I loved, but I’d heard the
others complaining about how they made no sense. It
made perfect sense if you had an eye for the flow of
things. A straight path through a wild forest like this
one would be a travesty.

“Rynadria! You damned pest, where are you going?”

Esra cried in frustration.

“You’ll see,” I exclaimed, and then as we burst out

through the windbreak trees, we did indeed see what
had happened.
Below us, the ephemeral mists that had swirled and
danced beneath the cliffs of my grove were gone. In
their place was an absolutely stunning view, a broad
shelf of land protruded out from the base of my
plateau, ending in another cliff some five hundred
meters from where we stood. Beyond that were the
mists again, lit with the orange of the afternoon sun.
Like my grove had been in the beginning, that massive
shelf was a vaguely flat sea of verdant green grass that
swayed gently as wind rippled across its surface.

“Oh my,” Esra breathed, reaching out for a tree to

support herself. “I may have forgotten to take
something into account…”

“What did you forget to take into account?” Grace

asked, looking anxious as she played with her thumb,
pushing it around with the other hand nervously. “Did
I break Ryn’s grove?”
“Far from it,” Esra smiled, staring out at the new
expanse of green land. “We simply… expanded it.
Rather abruptly, which is what caused us such
distress. Normally one grows their grove in small
increments, a tree or three here, and patch of flowers
there. It is not often that something as grand and
ambitious as that tree is altered. See, a grove grows
not just with the number of plants, but also with their
complexity. We often forget that our groves are
intelligent, in their own way. They thrive on the
artistry that we create within their bounds.”

“And we just wove together a massive and very

complex spell that spans multiple plants,” I finished
for her, understanding hitting me like a splash of cold
water to the face. “Wow… that is… no wonder my
internal power reserves feel so strange. It’s almost
doubled!”

“We have… a lot of work to do young Ryn, a lot of

work to do,” she replied, shaking her head in
consternation. “But first… I think I am going to need a
tree like yours after all. It is simply too great a tool not
to use. Oh, and I think that growth energy plant of
yours could use some… refinement.”

****

We left the Thistlescar town with high spirits and a lot

of new goods to sell. Crop seeds, textiles and all sorts
that Lord Horln wanted to sell. He was wholeheartedly
behind the idea of forging ties of friendship with
Avonside, provided they were willing to deal in good
faith. Troy commented that we’d make sure of that.
Our journey home continued at the same mind
numbly exhausting pace as before. I began to sleep
during the cart rides rather than at night, which gave
me plenty of time to work on my grove.

I focused on creating the defences for the upper

plateau. The shield worked, thankfully, but I needed
more than that. I created vines that lay within my
forest, each one bearing innocuous blue flowers that
would begin to arc lightning between them if the buns
determined someone was a threat. In fact, I created a
good deal of defenses like that. I had strangling vines
that would attack people, I designed little seedlings
that hid in the fallen leaves that once activated would
spring up to grasp at people, their thorns heated to
white hot intensity.

I also began the rather gruelling task of building a

ramp down to the lower level of the plateau, which I
frankly had no clue what to do with. I was still filling
out the forest up above for crying out loud. I elected
not to plant anything down there yet, instead focusing
on creating the river system that would feed it all,
flowing down from my lake above in massive
waterfalls.

Another week into our journey and Esra had me bring

Grace over to her grove where we could recreate the
shield spell there too. Except hers was a little
different. Rather than one large tree like me, she used
six slightly smaller ones. Her shield would be different
too, it was less robust than mine, but it had a rather
terrifying additional feature.

Mine felt like a solid wall of faintly humming stone

when you touched it. Hers simply vaporised anything
it came into contact with. That’s right, hers was
significantly deadlier than mine. When I asked why
mine wasn’t like that, her response was simply, “You
let so many people into that grove of yours that
someone was bound to wander into it at some point. I
assume that you’d like your guests to stay as a single
coherent physical entity?”

I’d nodded and felt a little silly, because yeah… I could

see someone walking into it at some point. Or
touching it on purpose, just to see what happened.
Not thinking about anyone particular on that last one,
certainly not a long time friend of mine whose name
started with B and ended with dumbass.

Esra’s grove was kinda frightening to be honest. She’d

taken after me with the house tree, since she didn’t
have time to go and get regular building materials. She
had way more finesse and control over her plants than
I did though, which was never more demonstrably
visible than when I saw the house she’d made.

The six trees that were the central pillar for her shield
had been coaxed into weaving their branches together
in artful patters, creating a house in the process. It was
incredibly pretty too, flowers and fruit hung from
excess branches, while small creeping vines added a
layer of thick greenery.

She’d even figured out windows using branches that

would open and close them on demand. I think she
was mentally controlling them or something, but I had
no idea.

Her grove was already huge too, although she had it

laid out in an organised manner, like her old one. No
wild forest ecosystem here. She said that her mind
desired order, and a forest like mine, however good
for its defensive purposes, would be far too difficult
for her to tend and navigate.

I didn’t bring up that my buns did most of that, I think

she was a little grumpy that she had no idea about
ecology yet. One of he few plant related fields that I
had superior knowledge in.
Outside of the Nameless Garden, we finally reached
the northern edge of the obrec mountains halfway
through our second week out of Thistlescar. During
that first night camping in the lowland woods, Esra
appeared in my grove, huffing and puffing for breath.
The downside to my newly expanded grove was that
when people arrived, they arrived way out at the new
edge.

It was early evening and the skies above were

clouding over, producing a false twilight that gave a
sense of peaceful melancholy. I pushed a stray strand
of hair out of my face, the tiniest flash of irritation
running through my mind as I wondered how it had
gotten loose from my ponytail. Long hair was a pain
sometimes.

“Ryn,” she gasped, leaning on a nearby tree. “I have

need of you.”
“Oh? What’s up?” I asked, standing up from where I’d
been playing with the new design that she’d made for
the growth magic plants.

“My grove has grown to the point that I do not feel

comfortable expanding further without first making
sure of my current progress,” she explained, her eyes
searching mine carefully. “So I will put the decision to
you plainly now… which of your companions would be
best suited to the honor of a mage fruit?”

Chapter 70 :
“Well, I’m going to have to find the others first. I won’t
make this decision without discussing it with my
people, I’m not their overlord or whatever,” I told her
in response to her question.
In my mind I was already thinking of candidates
though. It would either be Troy or Kit. I was thinking
Troy mainly because he would then get a body that
aligned wholly with who he was. Unfortunately, I
don’t think he’d be a great fit for getting some actual
magecraft done.

Kit on the other hand would make for an amazing

mage. He was almost overly excited about the whole
idea of magic, to the point of learning as much as he
could even if he couldn’t actually wield it himself.

“Ah yes, I forgot about that. I dreamed of this sort of

cooperation and harmony between my peers and
others in positions of power back in my politicking
days, but to see it actually manifested is rather
jarring,” Esra mused, staring through me for a
moment.
“Me? Position of power?” I asked, bewildered. I mean,
sure… that whole Millowhall thing had happened…
but they were small fry, right?

“Rynadria, in terms of raw magical might, you are

already one of the most prominent mages that reside
on this continent,” she told me seriously. “When you
reach the level of control and elegance that I possess,
you will be a force to rival the so-called gods. Of
course, so will I by that point.”

I squinted at her, wondering if she was messing with

me or something. Surely that wasn’t true?

“Why are you staring at me like that, girl? It is a

factual statement and I am a more than reliable
source on this matter,” she grumbled after several
seconds of eyeballing.
“No reason,” I shrugged pretending to be interested in
my hair again. “Anyway, I should go find the others.
They’re probably in the tree. Cya soon!”

I didn’t quite run away, but it wasn’t quite walking

either. Behind me I heard Esra grumble something
under her breath and follow along behind me. Crap,
she wanted to be there for the conversation.

We found the rest of them playing cards on the

second floor, which we were starting to call the glass
balcony, on account of all the tree glass that allowed
light in. Adam was very animatedly explaining the
rules of some card game that I wasn’t familiar with to
Otho and Mer, but they all stopped when we stepped
up.

“Hey you two, should I deal you in?” Adam asked, a

twinkle of mischief in his eye.
“Actually… we kinda need to talk about something
really important,” I told him apologetically.

Troy put his cards down first, face down before

leaning on the table with his elbows. “What’s up?”

My friends —the Order of Eleos, I guess I should start

thinking of them as, since we were all meant to be
players in regional politics or something now— all put
their cards down too, switching from silly to serious
mode seamlessly.

“I am going to be creating another mage fruit soon,

and since hiding it didn’t work last time,” Esra began,
pausing with a pointed look in my direction. “I think it
would be best if I were to gift it to one of you
Avonsiders, rather than some foppish noble for a bag
of gold.”
There was a collective intake of breath around the
table as everyone realised just what that meant. We
had to choose someone for a life altering change that
would give them massive power. It was a heavy
decision, although there was the option of more in the
future too. I’d probably need to make one at some
point soon.

I started with Troy, bringing up his problem with

meds, something that hadn’t crossed my mind much
with everything that had happened. With a
meaningful look, I stated, “This would solve your
problem, if we gave it to you.”

“I’m aware,” he nodded calmly, then sighed, giving the

grove beyond the windows a wistful look. “But it
would not solve the problem for all those others in the
same boat as me. I am also probably not the best
person when it comes to actual magecraft. No, that
gift would be wasted on me. I believe it would be best
to give it to someone who would utilise it to its fullest
potential, and ultimately help the order and those
with said, uh… problem.”

“You are turning down an offer of power?” Esra asked

curiously.

He shrugged, staring down at his weathered hands for

a moment. “In a team, everyone has a role to play.
Mine is that of advisor and leader in things of
administration and combat. I have never been good
with abstract thought, math and all that. What point
would it serve to give the thing to me? Hell, giving it to
someone I trust and who could wield magic to its
fullest potential would be a far greater addition to any
power I could wield.”

“If only the leaders of this world thought as you do,”

the older woman muttered with a sad shake of her
head.
“Aye,” Otho sighed with a pained roll of his eyes.
“Could certainly use some more level heads in obrec
politics.”

Adam spoke up next, leaning forward with confused

interest. “Sorry if this is an awkward question, but
what is this problem exactly?”

Oh Adam, why yes… that was an incredibly awkward

question. Although that made me wonder how Troy
had managed to hide what was, uh... in his pants, so
to speak. They had all slept in the same room
extremely often. If anyone could be a master of
stealth, I guess it was Troy.

“Not something I’d like to discuss currently, sorry,”

Troy said quickly, although still as calm and assured as
ever.
Made sense, not wanting to come out to everyone.
Something I learned early on in my research of the
subject was just how effective transition using
standard modern Earth methods could be. Which of
course meant something else, the number of trans
people that any one person had met was almost
certainly higher than they thought it was.

Many trans people chose not to disclose themselves

at all. Why bother, after all? Unless you were going to
get sexual with someone or advocate for transgender
rights, there wasn’t much reason to out yourself and
go inviting attack in a world that was not nearly as
accepting as it pretended to be. Too many people
seemed cool and normal until topics of race, sexuality
or gender came up, then they went off the deep end
into the asshole pool. Although, maybe both Troy and
I were just paranoid? I don’t know.

Pulling a chair out for Esra and then myself, I sat down
heavily and pushed a few insistent strands of hair out
of my eyes. “Well, then we should figure out who’d be
best at magic then. Oh and if I remember my lessons
right, warlocks like Grace cannot become mages and
vice versa. Something about conflicting sources of
magical power or whatever.”

Esra nodded as she sat down. “It appears that you

were listening after all. In between sunbathing all
day.”

“The sun feels good on my plant skin,” I grumbled,

poking my tongue out for a split second.

“I am aware,” she replied dryly.

“Kit would be best at magic, absolutely no doubt,”

Adam said, turning to look at the quiet guy in
question. “As much as I’d like to become a cool mage
and fling fireballs around or whatever, I think I’m best
suited to the uh… knight role in this little fantasy thing
we have going on.”

“Kit is very interested in magic, that is certain,” Mer

agreed, smiling at him as he stared red faced down at
the table. I could tell he wanted this really badly, but
also that he was probably unwilling to speak up and
ask for it.

“Kit, do you want to be a mage?” I asked him gently,

trying my best not to smile at his bashfulness.

Pushing the cards around on the table with his index

finger, he asked quietly, “What about Mer and Otho?”

I briefly considered them, Otho might be a good fit but

I wasn’t sure that Mer was. Unfortunately, we hadn’t
known them that long and while I did trust them, my
trust didn’t extend that far.
“I’m afraid they aren’t part of the order,” I told him,
giving an apologetic expression to the two obrec in
question. “Possibly down the line we can give them a
fruit each, but for now… I think it’s best to keep it
between those of us from Avonside. Excluding James,
obviously… wherever the hell he’s ended up.”

“Jesus, is it bad that I haven’t thought about him in

weeks?” Grace blurted with a disbelieving laugh. Her
cheeks blushed a pretty pink when she realised she’d
just interrupted, and she mumbled, “Ah… sorry,
continue…”

I grinned at her, then turned back to Kit. “So, do you

want the fruit? You already know a little about magic
as it is.”

“I mean… I guess… if you want me to,” he shrugged,

giving me a weak smile.
With an exasperated sigh, I leaned forward. “You need
to be sure, Kit. This is a life changing decision. We all
believe in you, we think you can do it… but you need
to believe it too.”

Rather than speak, he bit his lip and played with his
cards some more, sliding them over and under one
another. His eyes were unfocused, drifting listlessly as
he thought. What was he thinking? He was always so
closed, to the point where I had almost no idea about
his past, even after travelling with him for months
now.

He’d mentioned recently that he’d lived in LA, but that

was about it. Had he left family behind? A girlfriend? A
boyfriend? Shit, I didn’t even know his dang sexuality.
He showed interest in Mer, but maybe it was just
platonic?
“Okay,” he nodded, startling me out of my thoughts. “I
don’t like the idea of leaving you all for a month…
missing out on the journey back, all that stuff. At least
I don’t have anyone back at Avonside to explain my
shiny new hair to.”

“You don’t?” I asked, feeling the sudden urge to hug

him.

He shook his head, expression falling slightly. “Part of

why I agreed to come out on this crazy adventure. I
had a few friends from the uni, but they left when
everyone was given the chance. They were big anime
fans, saw themselves living out their isekai fantasies or
whatever. Kinda funny how being a hard sci-fi nerd
saved me from that stupidity.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a little half hearted amused

snort. Standing up out of my seat, I clapped my hands
once, “I guess that genre does lend itself to exploring
this type of situation with a touch more realism.” To
Esra I asked, “How long do we have? I assume it’s
kinda urgent?”

“Indeed,” she said, also rising from her chair. “The

fruit cannot remain in my grove for long, it will
deteriorate.”

“How do we do this then? Just… go over and I grab it,

then take both it and Kit out into the ring?” I asked,
feeling a flutter of anxiety run through my insides.
Goodness, I didn’t like having responsibilities. Bring on
the day when all of this mess was behind us and I
could just hide in my grove for the rest of my life.

“Yes,” was Esra’s response as she motioned for Kit to

follow. “And soon, say your goodbyes now boy, we
must be swift. Enough time has already been wasted
on talk.”
“If we were wasting time, why didn’t you say so?” I
frowned, but shook my head, dismissing my own
question. “Nevermind.” She’d probably just grump out
some silly excuse anyway.

Mer was up at the same time Kit was, pulling him into
an awkward hug. “See you on the other side, friend. I
presume you will be much more attractive than you
already are by then.” Unlike Kit, there was no hiding
Mer’s interest.

He laughed, a small, silly thing that had me hoping for

his future. He’d been getting more and more
melancholy recently and it had been worrying. I
should have spoken to him, should have tried to help
or something… I wish there was more time in the day.
The end of this journey couldn’t come soon enough.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said with a steadying intake of

breath.
Chapter 71 :
“What do you mean you don’t know where Avonside
is?” Jerril exclaimed as we stood outside the first
major human town we’d visited since we left the
mountains.

“Well, we didn’t exactly have any maps to follow

when we left,” Adam told him, matching the elderly
obrec’s volume. “We didn’t even know fuckin’ magic
existed by that point. Or obrec, for that matter.”

“It’s in that direction,” I said, pointing towards where

my tracking spell said the rings were. “Like, literally
exactly that direction.”

“Ah yes, very helpful,” Jerril huffed, closing his eyes

for a moment as he took a few calming breaths.
“The first town we found was called Agoshin,” Troy
said, having wandered over when he heard shouting.
“Once we get there, I can get us to Avonside.”

“Agoshin,” Jerril nodded. “Thank you, finally a name,

something I can work with.”

All but dragging Troy by the arm, the elderly obrec

man took him over to what I called their command
wagon. It was where Jerril rode, along with their gold
and maps. Goodness the man could get grumpy when
things weren’t going efficiently.

Adam sidled up next to me as they walked off and

leaned down to whisper, “He and Esra would make
such a cute couple. They could argue each other
hoarse for our entertainment.”
“I don’t think the ring would survive that,” I grinned,
shaking my head in amusement.

Three days since Kit had gone into the fruit and we
were struggling. The guards in the Empire of Ghraiga
were less than accommodating, and not in the same
way that the obrec ones had been. No, Ghraiga
apparently had a huge bureaucracy problem.

When the others had originally passed through, they’d

just been a band of heavily armed travellers.
Suspicious, sure… but you didn’t make money out of
taxing people like that. A wagon full of obrec goods
however… that was far more tempting. So licenses
were needed, stamps and seals were needed and a lot
of palms had to be greased with coin. The
Stonechasers acted like it was no big deal, but my
mind was blown.
We’d been stuck in this stupid town for days, waiting
for pompous aristocrats to sign a document, and they
couldn’t give a shit about how many mages were in
the party. So, three days after arriving here, we were
finally ready to leave.

The town wasn’t even interesting. Their buildings

were all made of stone and wood, with gross rotting
thatched roofs over any building that was obviously
owned by someone poor. The wealth disparity here
was stark and egregious.

We’d stayed in an inn that catered almost exclusively

to travellers like us, or… well, the obrec had. We
stayed in my grove obviously.

Mer had been mopey as hell since Kit went into the
fruit too, trudging around and sighing a whole lot. It
was cute, seeing the strong, confident warrior woman
pining after my friend. I just hoped it turned out
okay… Kit was a mysterious and sensitive guy and had
a feeling that he needed a lot of finesse to handle in a
romantic sense.

“Hey, whatcha thinking about?” a quiet, caring voice

asked as arms wrapped around me from behind.

I hummed in happy surprise and leaned back against

Grace, taking in her warmth and smell, revelling in the
feelings of safety and love that they evoked within
me.

“Just… stuff,” I shrugged, the willpower to fully explain

my thought process eluding me. “Nothing terribly
interesting.”

Her laugh was tender and quiet in my ear, and we

turned to watch the obrec get themselves ready to
leave. It seemed that Troy and Jerril had figured out a
route to take.

“Holding you like this, it makes it so clear that the fruit

really did give you a form that fits who you are,” Grace
murmured, kissing my ear. “My strong but hesitant
girl, powerful mage with the restraint not to use it on
the innocent. You’re incredible.”

My cheeks heated with her words, while places

further down heated with her kiss. It had been so long
since we’d made love, properly at least. We’d tried a
few times, but exhaustion was my constant
companion these days and after the second time I’d
fallen asleep while we were trying, we’d given up. For
now.

“You two ready to mount up?” Troy asked, oblivious

to where my thoughts had been.
I choked on my tongue and started coughing at the
unintentional pun he’d made while Grace laughed and
nodded. Time for more mind numbing days of wagon
travel followed by magecraft in the evenings. Hurray.
At least my grove was well fortified and I had spells for
all sorts of strange crap.

My tree had spells for airflow now, spells for heating,

actual lights in the form of spherical fruit hanging from
the ceilings. They had to be high enough to be out of
reach of the buns though, because apparently the
little critters thought they were mighty fine snacks.

The landscape of Ghraiga was not the most pleasant

place to travel through. At least in the mountains the
view had been stunning every single day. Instead, we
got vast low rolling hills with grass and low shrubs as
far as the eye could see.
I’d heard great plains like this being described as seas
or oceans before, but I’d never realised how true it
really was. Sure, the weird freaky one from a month or
two ago had been something, but this was… a whole
other level. By week two in the massive empire, the
never-changing vista was beginning to wear on my
sanity.

I was told that the south east of the empire was

actually interesting, Troy saying that it sounded like it
had a climate similar to southern France or something,
but I’d never been to southern France so I had no idea
what that was like.

Even Grace and the others were starting to hate the

monotonous countryside. When they had originally
come through here they had been further to the west,
using the river system to travel much faster through
this barren place.
No wonder the Ghraiga Empire couldn’t control the
nomadic tribes that roamed around these steppes, the
sheer magnitude of the place would make it
impossible. You could send millions to their deaths in
these golden grasslands, withered away by horse
archers without ever wounding one of the enemy. I
wondered if we’d meet some of those tribes. It had
been one such tribe that had attacked Avonside, oh so
many months ago. I hoped any we met were more
peaceful than that one had been.

“Do you think the others are okay back at Avonside?”

Grace asked sleepily as we rode in the wagon on yet
another monotonous day. I was in her lap, slouched
and dozing as she played absently with my hand,
pushing at the squishy bits and moving my fingers
randomly. Like she did with her thumb, but my hand
instead.

“I really hope so,” I replied after a moment of thought.

“They are still alive, at least. I think. Their rings move
around ever so slightly whenever I cast the tracking
spell.”

“Things were stable there when we left, but also…

worrying. I remember we talked about the politics
stuff, but the reality of our situation was really
beginning to sink in to people. I mean, most of us are
students who had whole lives ahead of us back on
Earth you know? We were so used to how the world
worked, and now everything is different,” she said
morosely, sighing and pulling me closer against her. In
a whisper, she added, “I’m coping because I have
you.”

“Oh Grace…” I gulped, my heart in my throat. I

wiggled around until I was facing her so I could give
her a tender little kiss. “I haven’t had time to deal with
that, sadly. I’ve had almost no downtime to really
think about things since this all began… just non-stop
shit happening. Maybe when we get back to Avonside
I’ll start to feel it…”
“It’s more than just an individual thing for me
though,” she said with a shake of her head. “I mean,
people were tense. They would get angry over stupid
shit, there were fights between the more testosterone
fuelled guys, that kind of thing. Plus gossip, oh my god
the gossip.”

“I remember you telling me about how people were

talking about you,” I said, thinking back on our
conversation in that inn so long ago. “How people
blamed you for my death.”

We’d also discussed what we’d do if things had gone

bad at Avonside. We had more power than the
entirety of Avonside. Hell, even more than that now,
with my grove expansion and Esra’s return to teaching
me.
“I am bad with confrontation, with conflict, I said at
last. “I try to find peaceful solutions, even if those…
even if the solution is to give in and let myself get
walked over like a doormat.”

“Not anymore, you’ve grown,” she disagreed, kissing

the tip of my nose. “You still try to be peaceful, but
you know how to use force when you need to as well.
Just remember how you picked us up and hung us in
the air when we chased you.”

I laughed, a smile forming on my face involuntarily.

“Okay, yeah. But still, I—“

“Hey you two, we might need you to be up and on

your guard,” Otho said, poking his head into the back
of the wagon. “Mer thinks she saw someone, not sure
who. Just a shadow…”
My first thought was about ring builder mind fuckery,
but we would have felt it here in the wagon too if that
were the case. Which meant that there really might be
someone out there watching us. I guess it was time for
me to do magey things. Time for Esra’s relentless
training to pay off.

“Let me take a look,” I said, pushing myself up and

exiting the slowly moving wagon.

“Mer’s eyes are pretty good, I don’t know—“ Otho

began, but I smiled and shook my head, cutting him
off, “Not with my eyes dummy, with magic.”

“Oh, right…”

Moving off to the side so I wouldn’t get slowly and

excruciatingly run over by the wagons, I raised my
hand and closed my eyes. The spell was there, ready
for me to call it to my aid, and I did.

I felt the tattoos swirl up my arm for a moment,

building into a bubble of energy that formed within
my fist. Clenched my fist tight, popping it and sending
out a pulse of curious, seeking magic.

It raced across the landscape, surfing the undulating

hills up to two miles out before it doubled back and
returned to me. I took it back into my hand and
inspected it with mage sight, squinting as I tried to
understand what it was telling me. It was confused,
which couldn’t be right. It was telling me nothing was
out there, and then for a split second it would falter,
telling me the opposite, although only in vague terms.

“My spell is… acting up,” I said, opening my eyes to

find Troy and Mer had joined us, along with several of
the caravan guards. “It’s almost like… Esra said this
was a fairly standard spell, hold on. Let me try
something else.”

If my standard and well known mage spell for scouting

an area was acting up, it might mean that there was
also a spell to counter it, and I was getting odd
readings rather than nothing because of how much
power I could bring to bear.

Something I’d noticed about mages from the ring,

both young and old, allies and enemies, was that they
all dismissed the half of them that was plant. They saw
it as a sometimes useful but mostly irrelevant side
effect of being a mage. They didn’t explore it, didn’t
embrace it. They left it to sit in a metaphorical shed to
gather dust.

I transformed then, taking on a moderate amount of

my plant nature. Enough that I could move freely
while still being able to do what I wanted.
Crouching in the grass, I wormed my fingers into the
dry soil and cast another spell, one I’d thought up and
created myself. I spoke to the grass on that base
empathic level, amplifying their sense of being just
long enough to ask them all a question.

What is out there? Do you feel boots crushing your

stalks, kicking up your roots. Do you feel the insects
scatter as vibrations warn them of potential danger?

Yes. We do.
Chapter 72 :
I never thought I’d actually see the real version of the
phrase, circling the wagons, and yet the obrec did just
that. As soon as I confirmed that there were people
out there, they were moving to get ready.

Nervous fear clutched at my stomach as I took my

place behind the front line fighters, all obrec warriors.
They wore heavy armour and carried mostly blunt
weapons, maces and the like. Stuff that was designed
to deal with other obrec also wearing the same type
of armour. It was pretty stuff, heavy plate with
swirling celtic-like knots and embellishments. They
were definitely an imposing lot.

Mer was with them, I think she’d gotten an armour

upgrade because now it was slightly more ornate, with
beautiful silver accents around the edges of the
plates. Her helmet had an extra set of horns in
addition to her real antlers that poked through the
specially designed holes. Obrec helmets were
imposing, the way they almost came apart to allow
those foot long horns of theirs.

By contrast, their back line was decked out in leather

armour, bows at the ready. They had the same
intriguing patterns across them as their plate
armoured brethren and all up they made an
impressive force to behold.

Arrayed around me were Grace, Troy, Adam and Otho.

Otho had the same leather armour as the archers, but
instead of a bow he wielded an elegant megitech rifle.
A gift from Claih who hid with her two understudies in
the wagons with a far more terrifying contraption.

They had brought along some magitech thing that

looked for all the world like an old anti-tank gun. She
told me it was anti-personnel though, so I guess it was
more like an MG emplacement or something. I don’t
know. The thing was half as tall as me and ten times as
heavy, made of ugly black metal and glowing doodads
that meant nothing to me. I might be a mage, but the
art of a magitecht was beyond me.

My three Order of Eleos friends had their pistols at

hand, and shortswords at their hips. It had been
interesting to watch them train, especially Troy who
had skills with knife fighting but not with longer
blades. I wasn’t so sure they would be all that much
help against the mages I was going to be fighting
though.

I had my hand in the dirt again, communing with the

grass, if you could call it that. It took the entire visible
field of plants working together in order to figure out
how to speak simple sentences. I felt a little bad at
first, raising them to the intelligence of dogs for a few
moments, but they seemed almost relieved to slip
back into the fog they were used to. Plants were
strange, far more alien than any of the “aliens” I’d
seen so far on the ring.
“They’ve realised we stopped,” I told the people
around me, standing up and shaking the dirt off my
hand. “Can’t tell how many exactly, but more than us,
that’s for sure.”

“Can you tell how many mages?” Otho asked

worriedly.

I shook my head. “One, maybe two? No sure way to

tell though.”

“We’re going to find out either way, and sooner rather

than later,” Grace said, pointing up the slight slope of
what counted for a hill out here.

I gulped. Shit… I was probably going to have to kill

people here. My stomach squirmed at the idea and
my thoughts were transported instantly back to the
battle with the Steel One outside that nameless
village.

Those poor people had all died, and now I was going
to take on the role of monster. Sure, they were
probably out to kill us, but they were still thinking and
feeling people. The others had dealt with bandits early
on in their journey, as well as defending Avonside
when it had been attacked… but me?

I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together. Our

enemies had started this. They were the aggressors,
they were the ones forcing this situation, where one
side had to win and one side had to die.

Except, maybe if I could take on the mages and kill

them first, maybe that would force their random
henchmen to surrender? I’d have to be quick and
brutal though, I’d have to use my massive reserves of
power and beat their mages into the ground with the
sheer force of it. Fear was my objective. Obliterate the
few, so the many might flee or surrender in terror and
so preserve my friends as well.

The idea of destroying two of what were probably

Fennimore’s mages was slightly more palatable than
mass murder of, well... frankly quite helpless soldiers.
They couldn’t hurt me, never in a million years.

I guess that was the heart of the matter with mages in

general wasn’t it? The average person was completely
powerless against one of my kind. We could do
literally anything we wanted to those around us,
especially at the level of power that I had achieved.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I opened my eyes

just as the first few of those helpless lambs trotted
over the hill. Sure enough, all sixty or so wore
Fennimore’s red. The mage wasn’t hard to pick out.
He carried no weapons and wore no armour. Instead
his arrogance was draped across his shoulders like a
cloak, cocky stride and assured smile. That was in
addition to his real cloak of course, a flashy thing with
gold embroidery and tassels at the bottom.

Behind him was another mage, younger and just as

foppish as his elder. I made a quick guess that I was
facing a master and apprentice combination, and I
winced as I realised who my first target was.

“Don’t try and chase me or anything guys,” I said to

everyone. “I think this is going to get dicey for anyone
who isn’t a mage. Lots of teleporting and stuff. Real
anime shit.”

Grace gave me a worried look, and the rest just

blinked in confusion. Damnit, Kit would have gotten
the joke.
“Are you sure I can’t help? I’m a warlock and stuff
right, so I can… I don’t know,” she sighed, her eyes
begging.

“I’m sorry… probably not,” I shook my head

apologetically. “We haven’t really practiced fighting
together, but I know what I’m meant to do if I’m
operating on my own. Even duelled with Esra a few
times, which sucked. She’s a bit brutal as a teacher.”

“You need to live through this, okay?” she told me

seriously, worry etched in lines across her gorgeous
face.

“I promise.”

Then I was off, teleporting away, out into the field to

the side of the battle lines. I watched as the two
mages instantly freaked out, twisting and turning to
try and figure out where I’d gone. I didn’t wait for
them to find me, lifting my hand up with terrible
purpose.

Flowers of fire twisted in glowing patterns just under

the skin of my arm, snaking up in a flash as they got to
work. The beam of white hot fire was sickeningly
bright as it lanced out, punching straight through the
apprentice’s shield as though it had never existed.
Several soldiers found their clothes lit aflame, the raw
heat of the beam briefly heating the air beyond the
ignition temperature of cloth. Chaos broke out
amongst their ranks as they tried to put out the fires
and figure out what had just happened.

The apprentice was dead instantly, his lifeless and

charred corpse flopping uselessly to the ground. Dead.
Fuck. I couldn’t dwell on it. I teleported again, short
hops that took me up onto the low hill alongside
them. The mage spotted me and cried out in anger,
blinking out of existence as he came for me.
Crackling lightning wreathed his fist for just a moment
before it lashed out, slamming into my shield with
significant force. Not significant enough however,
because my shield held and not by a slim margin. It
had barely felt it, and I could see the other guy realise
how little damage he’d done with widening eyes.

He disappeared from view again, and the next thing I

knew fireballs were peppering me from five different
directions. He was moving fast, never staying on one
place for more than a second and I had a hard time
keeping up. How was he hitting me from so many
places?

Shit, I just wasn’t used to fighting like this, wasn’t used

to using my magical senses at hyper speed to figure
out where he was and what spells he was using. Esra
hadn’t gotten to this part of my training yet!
I lashed out with sparks of magenta lightning
wherever I thought he was, but I only got glimpses
before he was out of my field of vision again. At least
there was nothing to hide behind in this rolling sea of
grass.

Breathing rapidly, I began to panic when I realised he

was whittling my shield down and there was nothing I
could do about it. He was too fast, too smart in the
way he moved, always staying out of my field of
vision. The grass had caught fire now too, fireballs
missing their mark and landing among the dry stalks,
adding to the confusion with filthy smoke that hung in
the air and obscured my vision further.

“Crap! Shit, shit, shit, where the fuck are you?” I

coughed, voice rough as the smoke stung my lungs.

Whirling, I searched in vain for my enemy with futile

twists and turns, only ever able to catch him a
microsecond before he vanished again. My shield was
failing, and I couldn’t see anything. Tears ran down my
cheeks from my stinging eyes and it was all I could do
to keep teleporting blindly through the growing fire.

No, no, no… I was better than this. I was Rynadria of

Avonside, I was supposed to be some sort of big shot
wizard chick. So think, if you're so great. Wait… if I
used the void flower spell I’d been messing around
with… but like, a lot of them. Yes! I had it! I had a plan!

First, I cast my tracking spell to identify where my

friends were, and likely the battlefield. With the
discovery that my adversary and I had travelled quite
a ways from the main fight, I knew I had the space I
needed. Briefly, a scene from the first Iron Man movie
flickered through my thoughts, where Tony Stark is
showing off some of his missiles or something. It was
time to do that.
With my shields falling lower and lower, I began to
sow seeds of destruction about the battlefield. Fist
sized orbs of magenta energy flying from my hands
like an old school aristocrat throwing coin to the
people in an effort to stave off his own beheading.

It didn’t take long before I was forced to run however,

I didn’t want to get caught in my own spell after all. I
rushed to clear the area, flickering through space with
as much speed as I could muster. I needed to be long
gone and back at the battle before my plan went off.
Plus, I needed to intimidate the enemy, and what
better way to do that than pulling off the ol’ cool girls
don’t look at explosions thing.

Left behind in the smoke and fire, Fennimore’s

bootlicker took a second to figure out I’d just legged it,
but it was too late. I landed on the road in time to see
the battle in full swing, red soldiers lying dead across
the road, a few heavily armoured obrec having also
met sad, grisly ends. So many dead already, more
falling every second as mace or bullet met soft flesh.

Then the entire short hill behind me erupted.

Large flowers of my own dark magenta colouring

bloomed, their glow filling the smoke with a terrifying
eerie light before they detonated into swirling ribbons
of magic one after another. Dirt and grass showered
the battlefield, bringing a stop to the whole thing as
they all stared out at the deadly beautiful display of
magic.

Briefly, through all the carnage behind me, my magical

senses alerted me to the mage’s shield as it failed. He
was shredded into tiny chunks of meat less than a
second later, my violent flowers doing their work with
even more cruel efficiency than I had thought
possible. Jesus christ… he had to be spread across half
of that mulched hillside now. I fought the urge to
throw up.

I didn’t have time to stop and dwell on his death

though and certainly not to throw up, I still had a job
to do. I summoned another spell, one to wreath
myself in the same magenta glow as the flowers
behind me. It was a simple illusion spell, but it was
impressive nevertheless. My eyes would be glowing
flat and bright, my hair would be shining like a nebula,
floating about my head as though shucking the grip of
gravity.

I fixed Fennimore’s troops with as evil a stare as I

could muster. “Surrender!” I shouted, my voice
amplified to an almost painful volume. “Or be
destroyed.”
Chapter 73 :
The sun soaked into my leaves, warm and gentle as
Grace’s arms. It had the same effect as her arms too,
soothing my mind of the worry and anxiety that had
plagued my mind recently. Two weeks ago I’d fought
and killed two people, one so quickly it had almost
been an execution.

Troy had sat me down after the battle for a chat, and
every night since. He’d talked a little about his time in
the military, using his experience to help me through
the fact that I now had another person’s blood on my
hands. He said all the things that I’d read about in
books. That it was good that I felt a degree of horror
at what I’d done, but not to let it control me, and
especially not to lose that horror entirely.

We had travelled for a week and a few days to reach

the foothills of the mountains that Avonside lay
within, and another day to reach the town that the
Order had first found when they left so many months
ago.

We were now taking a rest while the obrec made

preparations to take their wagons into the mountains.
Mostly wagon related stuff that I had no idea about. I
was a little skeptical that they could get those things
through the rough terrain ahead of us at all. We
probably should have thought about it a bit more.

I’d only gotten a day of rest before Esra pulled me

over into her grove for a lot of combat training. After
that last battle with Fennimore’s people, she’d
decided that combat was definitely a priority for me.
Both of us had big targets on our backs, and somehow
they had been able to follow us through the mundane
realm, always there waiting to pounce. Esra had
gotten the worst of it. She’d apparently killed six of
Fennimore’s more experienced mages thus far.
I was in Esra’s grove now, practicing in a little arena
that she’d set up for me and eventually Kit. The idea
was to train my magical senses in the ways of magical
combat. There was no real way to tell what exact spell
your enemy was using, but you could get a taste of
what types of energy those spells might make use of.

Fire spells were easy to pick out, the heat of fire

energy was unmistakable. Some, like teleportation,
were a little harder to pick out because they used
many different types to do what they did.

It was pretty clear as I lay there on the ground in my

plant form that I had a long way to go in training.
Magical combat was an entire discipline, with many
areas and sections you could focus on. There was no
brute forcing it with raw power either, at least when it
came to more skilled opponents. It would be years
before I could hold a candle to the real mages that
roamed this continent.
“Ryn!” Esra’s voice knocked me out of my trance and I
blinked, pulling my plant features back into myself. My
eyes took a moment to focus, but when I did I found
Esra standing over me, looking all kinds of agitated.
“Hurry up and get off the ground. Your friend, Kit…
he’s going to be hatching out of his fruit any moment
now. We must hurry.”

** Kit’s POV **

I sort of kinda knew what to expect going into the

mage fruit, Ryn had told me all about it on the way
over to Esra’s grove. Then I’d forgotten it all because
oh my goodness was the Nameless Garden pretty! I
mean, it was also absolutely terrifying, because up and
down ceased to be things that applied in that space…
but still!

Once we’d had the fruit, which was actually a seed at

that point, Ryn had transported us both out onto the
ring, where she’d planted it and we’d watched it grow
in a matter of seconds. Magic was just so cool! I was
so glad the magic system in this place was more than
just fireballs and lightning. That stuff was fine for
games and all that, but this was the real world and we
needed magic floating lights and cute bunny familiars
and stuff. The necessities, obviously.

God I was such a failure at being a guy. What kind of

man was about to get magic and all he could think
about was pretty lights and cute fluffy animals?

Once it was ready, I’d touched the fruit, it had sort of

called to me, I didn’t really get a choice in the matter.
Suddenly it was wham bam slam into the… fruit? That
sounded better before I actually put it into ordered
words.

As I understood it, once the fruit sucked me in I was

transported into Esra’s grove, where I’d been for the
past few weeks. Unconscious too, which was nice
because I’d probably go insane being stuck in a fruit
for a month. Did not sound like a good time to me.
Not that I knew what a good time was. Life had been
very far from a good time so far.

I cringed as my stupid fucking brain began to dwell on

my past, with my absentee parents, always off
working, or my older sister and the way she had
bullied and degraded me. It was so hard to stop the
spiral, so hard to stop my shithead masochist mind
from dredging up every torment I had endured in my
short life.
Shaking my head to try and stop the thoughts, I
realised with a start that I was both awake and
floating in a viscous liquid. Oh my goodness, I was
awake! That meant… that meant I was a mage now,
transformed and able to have my own grove! I just
had to get out of this gunk.

I opened my eyes, a skill I’d learned in swim class, and

blinked around trying to see through the juice. Unlike
the chlorinated pools of my childhood, this didn’t
sting, and I was able to dimly make out where the
outside of the fruit was.

I reached for it, only for my brain to fizzle and spin

when it took longer than I’d expected to find the wall.
Not a really long time, mind you… but it was sort of
like stepping off something when you expected there
to be hard ground under your feet. That was odd…
Regardless, I pushed at the wall with as much strength
as I could muster. Which was apparently, not a whole
lot. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed, but I just
couldn’t get a hole in it. Damn, why was I so weak? My
whole body felt strange actually, but I couldn’t really
tell how because the juice was rendering everything
down to a fog of orange.

With a frown, I lunged for the edge of the fruit and bit
down with my teeth, tearing a hunk out of it. Like a
popped balloon, it exploded, sending me slopping out
to sprawl across the ground. God that was so fucking
gross! That was a whole other level of yuck. Blech.

“Oh, you have got to be joking,” came an amused

chortle, Ryn’s voice if I had to guess. Her voice was an
odd mixture of high and pretty but with soft husky
undertones. I was pretty jealous, if I was honest.
“What in the god’s name?” Esra’s voice asked, and I
blearily wiped the juice out of my eyes to find her
leaning over me, staring into the fruit with a huge
scowl on her face. “This is too much of a coincidence,
this is just… unprecedented madness I tell you! What
could be causing such results from my fruit?”

She wiped a finger over the inside of the now empty

sack that had been my fruit and stared at the sticky
juice on her finger. She sniffed at it and muttered
something about acceptable parameters, but I wasn’t
sure.

Next to me, Ryn knelt down and smiled, a quirky and

amused one that had me narrowing my eyes at her.
“What?” I asked, and practically jumped out of my
skin when a small, feminine voice spoke for me.
She just motioned down at the rest of my body, giving
me a kind, compassionate expression as she readied
to give me a towel to wrap myself in.

My eyes were wide as I followed where she’d pointed.

Oh… oh holy crapsicles. Those were boobs. I think? I’d
never seen any, other than my mother’s when I was
very young. They were small, but definitely developed.
Then below them was a smooth, flat stomach flanked
by a thin waist and wide hips.

Between those hips was a tuft of metallic brown fuzz

and… nothing else that I could see. My hand rushed
down there so fast I swear it should have whizzed off
into the bushes. Instead I found my bush, and then
the uh... new anatomy.

I freaked out, a hyperventilating squeak straining out

of my new high voice. “Ryn! I’m a… I’m a… girl!”
“You have the body of one, that’s for sure,” she
nodded, standing up and offering me a hand to help
me up. “Whether you actually are one is… um… well
we can talk about that. I guess. I uh, I’m here to help?
Is what I’m saying?”

“What does that mean?” I asked, panicked and

quivering. Crap, no one would recognise me, and…
Mer…

“Body and mind are two different things, Kit,” she said
gently, then wiggled her fingers again. “Come on, let’s
go get you bathed while Esra tries to figure out if she
is doing mage fruit wrong.”

I felt tears prick at the edges of my eyes, getting

caught in my now much longer lashes, “Did she do
this? Did she mess it up and turn me into a girl?”
Esra’s response was quick and frustrated. “No! No I
did not! This is… this must be something to do with
you being from that planet, Earth or whatever!”

Ryn rolled her eyes, and laughed, “Esra, all humans

are from Earth.”

“Quiet, you!” the older mage grouched, gesticulating

wildly. “There is clearly something wrong with you
Avonsiders! My last apprentice went in as a healthy
young man and came out of it a healthy young man!”

“Look how well that turned out. Maybe you just rolled
the dice twice and it came up trans,” Ryn shot back
while motioning for me to take her hand. “Come on
Kit, I’ll get you into the bath and we can talk. Without
grumpy old women involved.”
How was she able to just… talk back like that? Esra
was so scary and Ryn just bantered and bickered right
back at her. I wish I had half as much confidence as my
friend.

I had to smile though, I couldn’t help it. Even if I could

never talk back to anyone like that, it was pretty funny
to watch Ryn do it. They were always amusing, always
making me struggle not to laugh. My initial panic was
wearing off thanks to the silly banter between them.

Ryn gave me a pointed look as she stood above me,

making grabby motions with her hand. Right, time to
get up. I took Ryn’s hand and found myself pulled up
and onto my feet. Except… only kinda.

“Oh no,” I groaned, feeling my face flame up in a

blush. I covered my face as Ryn laughed another one
of her giddy laughs and placed the towel around my
shoulders.
I was at least a head shorter than her now. A whole
head shorter! I was a… a damned hobbit now!

“Come on tiny, bath time,” Ryn giggled, pulling me

along by the hand.

This sucked!

Chapter 74 :
Ryn led me through Esra’s garden until we got to her
big tree house. Or should that be trees house, since
there was more than one tree used to make it? Was
there any clear rules on that matter? Damn, I really
missed the internet. Then again, I would have
probably started a big argument between some very
opinionated people on the topic.

It was a nice tree, not as good as Ryn’s though, in my

opinion. Maybe that was just because I considered her
tree to be home nowadays. I even had my own room!
Something I hadn’t had back in Avonside, that’s for
sure. Space in a functional building was kind of a hot
commodity back there. Oh, I wondered how close we
were to Avonside now?

Thump. Pain, all over my face and chest.

I staggered backwards, small arms cartwheeling for

balance before Ryn caught me and pulled me upright
again.

“Careful of the doorway, Tiny,” she said, brushing at

my forehead and looking for a wound. “Damn, I guess
it was too much to hope for that you’d be coordinated
with such a massive change in height.”

I blinked and glanced around, how had I missed the

doorway? It was right there… was it because I was so
short now? My strides were certainly shorter and it
took more time to walk around… maybe it was… I
stared out into Esra’s grove and froze.

“What’s wrong?” Ryn asked her tone that of worry,

and when I didn’t reply, she prompted me again,
“Tiny? You okay?”

“The fruit ruined my eyesight,” I said in a flat, pained

voice.

“Your… eyesight?” she repeated, and I glanced back to

find her inspecting me anxiously.

Looking back out into the grove, I could see it now.

Things were more blurry than before, but not enough
that I’d noticed it immediately. Then there was the
glowing plants, they were doing this weird thing
where they had glowing diagonal lines coming out of
them that faded as they got further away from the
source. Basically lens flare but a little more subtle.

“Yeah, it’s more blurry than I remember… and… I

don’t know,” I shrugged glancing back over at her. She
was in focus at least, being right next to me.

She raised an eyebrow. “How blurry? Because if it’s

enough for you to miss something as obvious as a big
square doorway, we might have a problem.”

I felt another blush coming and glanced over her

shoulder just to make sure. Yup, perfectly visible. My
eyes dove for the ground like a soldier suddenly
coming under fire.

“Not blurry enough to miss the door, then?” she asked

with a little laugh and a friendly pat on the arm.
“Alright then Tiny Daydreamer, let’s go in the door
properly this time yeah? While you’re still paying
attention.”

Gah! This was so embarrassing! I was so useless! What

kind of guy was bashful and weak and pitiful like this?
I’d always been an embarrassment to the ideal male.
I’d been strong and tall before, with a young but
handsome face… but inside I’d been nothing but a
quiet nerdy shitty excuse for a male.

“This way, little uh… brother?” Ryn asked, faltering as

she reached the part of her sentence where she
needed to gender me.

I shrugged. I don’t know. I’d never been a very good

guy, maybe I should just give in to the whole body
change? The fruit seemed to think I’d be better off this
way… and it had done the same to Ryn and she’d
known she was trans… fuck. Dangerous line of
thinking. Let’s just go with girl and not think about the
implications for now. My thoughts were enough of a
mess without that shit. Troy’s explanation of
transgender stuff had been scary enough without it
applying to me.

“Sister,” I finally sighed in defeat, nodding for her to

continue.

“Alrighty then, sister, let’s go get all that gunk off

you,” she said with easily identifiable false cheer. I
could see the worry in her eyes. I’d seen her worrying
about me before too, and everyone else. Even
Sprinkles had been keyed into my depression. I missed
Sprinkles. The cute bunny wouldn’t be able to follow
me into my grove either...

Esra’s tree didn’t have any huge fancy atrium or

anything, just a small room that led into a corridor.
We took a right turn into funny looking plant door
down the hall and walked into the bathroom. The
centerpiece was a large gently steaming rock pool,
although all the stones had been smoothed out so
they wouldn’t be rough on the skin. It was a lot like
Ryn’s setup other than that, with little flowers for
lights and a rack full of more towels off to the side.

“Hop in, I’ll get you a clean towel for when you get
out,” Ryn told me with a gentle pat on the back.

Letting my dirty towel fall, I did as she asked, gingerly

dipping a toe in to test the temperature before sliding
in properly. Oh, that was so nice. For the first time in a
while, I felt myself consciously smile.

A splash next to me wiped it off my face even as my

heart began to thunder in my chest. Deep breaths,
deep breaths… you’re safe in here, you’re safe in
here… God I hated it when there were loud noises I
wasn’t expecting.
Ryn had just hopped into the bath too, although
wearing her underwear, rather than being naked. Still,
another blush rushed onto my cheeks and I quickly
looked away. She was really, really hot, and that bra
and panties didn’t really hide the rest of her. I was
completely naked too, had been all this time and… it
was very strange to be naked around her.

“Oh my goodness,” she sighed, her tone somewhere

between amusement and exasperation. “You can look
at me, it’s fine. You’ve been naked this whole time!
And I know it’s super fucking cliche of me to say, but
we’re both girls here now.”

“Yeah, they always say that in gender bender manga,

don’t they?” I said with a reluctant laugh. Then my
eyes widened and I actually did turn to look at her.
“Oh no! We’re a trope! This is totally the onsen scene
with the older sister! Please don’t try and wash my
back!”
“I won’t be touching you, don’t worry,” she grinned,
leaning back into the bath and closing her eyes.
“Honestly, I’ve been training all day and I need a
break. A bath sounded good.”

“Training? Like, in magic?” I asked, curious now.

Normally she used the word studying when it came to
magic.

“Combat situational magical awareness,” she

grumbled, flicking some water across the large bath
for emphasis. “Mind-bendingly boring and tiring. But
necessary… I need to be better, I need to be able to…
nevermind, don’t matter right now,” she told me,
trailing off into a sad, uncertain tone that had me
wondering if she was okay.

Of course, I didn’t have the confidence to ask if she

was doing okay. “Sounds… fun,” I mumbled instead.
“Not really,” she said, a smile returning to her face.

I didn’t really know what to say. I never knew what to

say.

My gaze drifted down a little and I felt a sigh slip out.

Regardless of her vulnerability just now, she still
looked so unconsciously self assured, with her
beautiful body, long legs and just… everything. Eyes
closed, relaxing, thinking about her day’s training or
whatever. Then, underneath all of that, she wielded
ungodly amounts of power.

Why couldn’t I be like that? Why was I such a nervous

wreck so often? I mean, I knew she wasn’t perfect, I
knew that she had a lot of emotions going on like
anyone else, but still… she was amazing. Me on the
other hand?
There was a time when I’d thought I had a crush on
her, when I first saw her in that back alley courtyard.
I’d never met her at Avonside, but right then I’d
thought she was amazing. Facing off against us and
forcing us to talk.

Then she turned out to be such a bright person, full of

life in a way that lit up any room she was in. It took me
until meeting Mer to realise the distinction between a
crush and just being envious of someone for who they
were. I wanted to be like Ryn so badly, strong and
vulnerable at the same time, cute and scary. She had a
depth of emotion that was awe inspiring to see
sometimes. It was her duality of strength and
weakness that I envied. She was a great person and I
wanted to be that too.

“Wash your hair, Tiny,” she told me without opening

her eyes, breaking my train of thought.
Tiny. Why didn’t I hate that nickname she was using?
I’d lamented being shorter than her just a few minutes
ago, yet now it had me feeling… not good, but
unconcerned, calm even?

“I don’t hear splashing,” she chided me, although

there was a smile on her lips just the same. “Less
brooding, more head dunking, cutie.”

“Fine,” I grumbled, dunking my head under the water

as I’d been told. It totally wasn’t to avoid letting her
see my blush at being called cute. Definitely not.

I shook my hair around for a few moments, feeling the

water magically rinsing it. What an odd feeling. When
I burst back out of the water, Ryn was up and standing
in the pool, giving me the weirdest look.

“What?” I squinted at her, suspicious as all heck.

“Are you ready?” she asked, a mischievous glint in her
magenta eyes.

Oh this was more than suspicious now. “For what?” I

asked, preparing to jump out of the bath if I needed
to.

“This!” she exclaimed, and cast a spell with a flourish

of her hand.

I was halfway out of the pool before I saw what she’d

done, and it froze me in my tracks. Slowly, I let myself
sink back into the water as I stared in awe. She’d
created a mirror out of thin air, and within that
silvered window... was a girl.

She was short, obviously, with huge eyes the colour of

polished rosewood. Her hair was a wild mass of curls
in the same colour, appearing dark brown where the
light wasn’t hitting it, while almost ginger where it
was.

She… no wait, me... I was… I was so pretty. Not like

Ryn, not in that dark and mysterious elfin way that she
was. No… I was pretty in a small, cute sort of way.
Except… there was a slight resemblance between us.
We had the same gentle tilt to our eyes, the same long
eyelashes, the same nose and lips. There might be
more to that sisters thing that I’d thought.

I shifted my head to the side experimentally and

watched with a racing heart as my curls bounced and
bobbed, just barely brushing my tiny sloped shoulders.
My eyes went to those shoulders, tracing the delicate
line of them before I found my collarbone, stark and
defined under soft, pale skin. A breath shuddered out
of me as I felt a minor wave of dizziness.
My small perky breasts bounced ever so slightly with
the breath, and I jerked my gaze back up as my cheeks
flamed bright yet again. Except… the blush looked
incredible on me. Rosy cheeks framing my high
cheekbones and bringing out the reddish umber of my
eyes. Oh my god… I was pretty! Why did that make me
so happy?

Reaching up to poke at my cheek, I glanced over the

top of the mirror to look at Ryn. “I’m… pretty?”

“You definitely are!” she smiled gently, moving around

the mirror to sit next to me on the rock ledge. “Did
you notice the resemblance?”

“I did… we look… sort of similar,” I agreed, meeting

her eyes through the mirror. Except she was still taller
and way more intensely beautiful than I was.
I found my own gaze in the mirror now, and
something strange happened. I’d never really
considered my previous male good looks to be
something worth noting… but looking at myself now, a
girl… I smiled. I smiled because yeah, I might not be a
bombshell like Ryn, but I was cute and pretty in my
own way, and I liked that?

“Like it, huh?” Ryn teased, echoing my thoughts as she

gave me a look that was way too knowing for my
liking.

“No,” I grumbled, and felt a flutter go through my

heart when I saw my own pout in the mirror. Oh god
damn it, I was extremely cute. This was… a lot to
handle.

“Suuuure,” she grinned, easing back into a relaxed

position and closing her eyes again. “Tell me when
you’re done with the mirror then.”
“Not yet! I’m not done yet!” I blurted, then frowned
annoyance at her when I realised that she’d been
baiting me. She was already getting in on the older
sister teasing! This was… well she was definitely an
improvement from my mundane older sister back on
Earth actually. Fuck, another smile! Where were they
coming from?

“Take your time, Tiny,” she said, again with that

gentle, knowing tone of voice. “Take your time.”

Chapter 75 :
After the bath came the problem of clothing. They’d
had clothing ready for me in Esra’s place… except it
was way too big for me now, because they were
expecting Kit the guy to come out of the fruit. We
briefly tried one of my old shirts on, but it was
practically a dress now. Ryn said we could use them to
make cute clothes for me later.
Esra rushed off into the real world where she was near
a town large enough to sell clothing while Ryn and I
sat in the sun and talked. Wrapped in a towel, I
listened to her recount all that had happened while I
was inside the fruit. When she got to the part about
Fennimore’s men attacking I got worried, then
impressed when she told me of her strategy and how
she’d essentially ended the battle early.

She seemed very upset about the fact she’d had to kill
anyone at all, but in a deep, below the surface sort of
way. God I wished we were close enough that I could
help. Then again, she had Grace, who was also
amazing and probably helping Ryn all she could. I
sighed. I just felt so useless again. As always.

“It’s kind of exciting to not be the only mage in the

group,” Ryn said, staring out into Esra’s grove and
playing with a lock of her hair. “I mean, apart from
Esra… but she doesn’t totally count.”
“Oh… yeah,” I nodded, slowly reaching up to pull a
lock of my own hair down. Oh wow, it was like a
spring! I uncoiled and uncoiled it until it was straight
out. My hair was like twice as long as it looked! I
wonder what it would look like if I used a hair
straightener on it?

Ryn was oblivious to my thoughts, which was

expected because she couldn’t read minds. Instead,
she continued talking, turning to me excitedly, “Oh! I
forgot to tell you! I made a joke about mage battles
being super anime at the start of the battle, but no
one got it. We need more geeks in the order, I swear.
You would have totally gotten the joke if you were
there.”

I smiled, the joke wasn’t quite funny enough to laugh

at, given that it was so many days after the fact, but it
was still good. “Yeah… it takes a special type of nerd
to get jokes like that, huh?”
Ryn nodded emphatically, her wavy hair bouncing all
over the place. “Exactly. I mean Grace gets my sci-fi
jokes and references, but she’s cis, so she didn’t really
watch too much anime.”

“Cis girls don’t watch anime?” I asked, frowning as I

thought about it. Surely they did, I mean, all that
shoujo-ai stuff had to be aimed at lesbian girls right?

“I guess they probably do… I don’t know. I’m talking

out of my ass,” she shrugged, sending me a goofy grin.

I smiled back, then looked down at the grass under

me, another train of thought already whisking me
away. Was I a lesbian girl now? I mean… Mer was
cute. I liked her, she was fun and kinda silly
sometimes, but she had this serious side that was a
little intimidating. Like all obrec, she was a bit alien
with her emotions. It was hard to describe, but all of
us humans had picked up on it.

She was tall too, with a warrior woman’s body, gentle

but toned feminine muscle, along with her short, soft
fur and horns and stuff. Goodness, her horns… I don’t
know why but I really liked them, the way they swept
forward slightly, then up and back over her head.

Okay so I had no idea if I was into anyone other than

girls… but I definitely liked girls. Especially Mer. Not
that she would be interested in me anymore. I was a
girl now, and she had been chasing after Kit the man,
not Kit the tiny girl.

I sighed and rubbed at the tears that sprung up again.

Stupid tears, stupid eyes. Stupid face. Some things had
carried over I guess. I still cried at the drop of a hat, I
still blushed instantly and I still hated myself. Yay.
“There you are!” Esra said, coming up behind us.
“Honestly, you had to choose the most obscure patch
of grass to loiter in didn’t you?”

“Keeping you on your toes,” Ryn said with a grin,

getting up and taking the large package from Esra.
“These are her clothes?”

“Indeed. I was not able to find a full wardrobe, not

with my current funds anyway, so this will have to do
until we can find somewhere to get more made,” Esra
agreed, staring down at me with a sort of confused
expression. Then her eyes softened and she directed a
question at me, “How are you holding up, dear?”

“Oh… um, okay… I guess,” I mumbled. I had no idea

how to talk to Esra normally, but especially not when
she was being… nice?
She raised an eyebrow and did that whole, old person
looking over glasses thing. Except she didn’t wear
glasses. “A non-answer, I see. So you are not coping
then? Your eyesight is still compromised?”

Damn it, people who were socially intelligent were the

worst. I couldn’t just mumble and stay silent around
them. “Um… no, I’m doing… well, this body isn’t so
bad. I kinda like it, actually. Apart from the height and
the eyes thing. So yeah, my eyes are still screwy.”

“We’ll have to obtain some spectacles for you at some

point in the future then. Unfortunately, it is a very
expensive and time consuming process, so we may
have to wait—“ Esra said, before Ryn cleared her
throat. “What is it, you pesky young woman?”

“Whoa,” Ryn laughed, fanning herself. “I’ve upgraded

to pesky young woman! It was girl the other day!
Should I go get a frilly skirt and bat my eyes
coquettishly at all the pretty knight women now?”

I snorted, trying not to laugh. God, Ryn was such a

brat, it was hilarious. My cheeks were probably going
red as I tried to hold in my amusement. Laughing
would probably cause Esra to grumble at me too, and I
wanted to stay firmly in the ‘mommy’s little angel’ list.
At least for now.

“Get to the point, Rynadria,” the older woman sighed,

pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Right,” Ryn grinned, then turned to me. “We can find

an optometrist back in Avonside pretty easily I think.
Provided the whole place hasn’t burned to the ground
and gone all Mad Max on us or something.”
Oh shit, that was totally right. I’d get a really good one
too, since a lot of the Avonside people were experts in
their field. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled
appreciation at my new older sister. Where the hell
would I be without her taking care of this stuff? Apart
from semi-blind, that is.

“Mad Max? Optometrist?” Esra asked, rolling her eyes

in annoyance. “Who is Max and why is he mad? What
is an Optometrist? How is any of this relevant?”

“Um, Mad Max is… a story from Earth. About the

breakdown of society… and a whole lot of other stuff,”
I explained quietly, my eyes downcast as I picked at
the grass absently. “An Optometrist is a specialist in
the health of the human eye. They are generally
responsible for measuring the problems in someone’s
eye so they can have glasses made. Spectacles,
rather.”
“Thank you,” she said, giving me a pleased nod. Then
she turned to Ryn and scowled. “There, was that so
hard?”

“Suck up,” Ryn said, poking an accusatory tongue out

at me. I felt my stomach drop, had I upset Ryn? But
no, then she winked and smiled at me. I let out a
breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Offering me her hand again, she said, “Let’s get you

dressed, then we can take you back to my grove and
introduce you to everyone.”

Nevermind, stomach was plummeting again as anxiety

took its rightful place on the throne of my mind.
****

Esra wasn’t going to join us over in Ryn’s grove,

mumbling something about needing to investigate my
fruit. She was probably just as confused as I was about
why I’d come out with a girl’s body.

Which meant that I only had Ryn beside me as we

walked through the lower fields of her grove wearing
the simple linen shirt and breeches that Esra had
found. Goodness her grove was big now. And pretty,
with the waterfalls streaming over the high cliffs, the
afternoon light generating tiny rainbows in the mists
that surrounded them. The stairs up that cliff were
less than pretty however. My tiny new legs were not
keen, not keen at all.
Ryn solved the problem by taking my hand and
teleporting us up, one short hop through the fabric of
space at a time. It still took a while, but at least my
legs weren’t on fire by the end of it.

That led me to a realisation. I wouldn’t have to do any

of Troy’s training anymore! There’s no way he’d make
a girl of my height try and wrestle Adam or whatever. I
couldn’t be a hair over five feet, if that. Adam could
just sit on me and I’d be immobilised.

Then Ryn scared the crap out of me by using her voice

amplifying spell to call everyone to the ramp, and I felt
my anxiety skyrocket to new levels.

“Sorry,” she apologised, giving me a sheepish look.

“This will be easier if we tell everyone at once.”
“Okay,” I nodded, my heart still pounding at a million
miles and hour. God I hated being so anxious all the
time.

It took us a few minutes to get through the forest, the

winding paths adding to the time it took. Ryn’s forest
paths were almost fae, the way they twisted and
messed with your sense of direction. She loved them
though, so I guess it was okay.

When we exited the forest, we could see everyone

standing around at the bottom of the ramp as Ryn’s
megaphone announcement had asked. My eyes went
straight for Mer, who was casually laughing at
something Adam had said. I stepped behind Ryn
almost subconsciously as a mix of jealousy and anxiety
spiked through my heart. Had she already moved on?

We continued like that across the field of grass, until

finally joining them at the base of the ramp. I couldn’t
really see them from behind Ryn, I was just that small,
but I heard them turn to greet her.

“Hey all! Kit came out of the fruit, finally!” Ryn said
happily, motioning to where I had been next to her
before I’d hidden.

“Great… uh, but where is he?” Adam asked, confused.

“Huh?” Ryn turned quickly and found me. Her

expression turned sympathetic, and she moved to
stand next to me, an arm going around my shoulder.
“This is her. Meet the new and improved Kit,
everyone.”

Improved? Maybe...
“No fucking way,” Grace blurted, her eyes almost
falling out of her head. In fact, everyone was staring at
me like that. Oh god.

I looked to Mer as fast as I could, finding her staring at

me with the same shock. Hugging myself, I wrenched
my eyes away, finding solace in the grass at my feet.
Anywhere to avoid the awful expressions on
everyone’s faces.

Ryn gave me a comforting squeeze as she told them,

“Before you ask, no this isn’t a joke. Esra and I were
just as surprised as you all, trust me. Still, this is what’s
happened… please be kind to her.”

“She’s cute as heck,” Grace said, speaking first again,

her shocked expression switching to a huge grin. “Do
you have another name you want to use, Kit?”
“Um… no, Kit is fine for now,” I said, but my voice was
so quiet that even Ryn didn’t hear me. I had to clear
my throat and try again, shaking my head, “No… Kit is
fine for now, thanks.”

“Seconding the cute thing,” Adam said, squatting

down to get into my field of view, he was so much
taller than me now. “How you doing in there, friend?”

I shrugged. “I’m okay.”

Adam’s response was a wordless sound of doubt. Ugh,

even Adam was seeing through me. Mer’s expression
had felt like a lance to the heart, and it was all I could
do not to cry.

I was about to lose that battle when someone

unexpected hopped up to me and I found a fluffy
snout up in my face, sniffing away. My heart melted as
Sprinkles nudged at me affectionately, a happy little
growl coming out of the bunny that was now only a
foot and a half shorter than me.

“Hey Sprinkles!” I giggled, kneeling down to cuddle

her. Then all of a sudden I was crying, burying my face
in the bun’s fur as I clung to the rabbit who so clearly
still recognised me. I was so confused about
everything, so scared about Mer’s new perception of
me, but Sprinkles was still here, still cared about me.

A squeak of fright burst out of me when I felt a pair of

strong arms go around both myself and Sprinkles, and
when I looked up I found myself looking directly into
Mer’s big brown eyes. She smiled, her gaze roaming
all over my face as though devouring every photon of
light that bounced off it.

"When I said you would turn out to be even more

good looking than you already were, I didn't think it
would be in the opposite direction," she told me
quietly, gentle wonder written all over her expression.

"What do you mean?" I gulped, unable to believe that

she might still think of me that way.

"You are gorgeous, so full of delicate beauty, like the

snow flowers that bloom on the highest peaks of my
home," she told me in a whisper, her hand rising for
the briefest of moments to brush at a lock of my curly
hair. I felt a blush flame up across my cheeks and I
dropped my gaze back to Sprinkles as something
fluttered wildly within me. I think it was my heart. My
heated cheeks brought a laugh out of her and in the
same quiet, gentle tone she said, "And you have the
colour of those flowers too, vibrant and pure… and
pink."

A grin blossomed across my new face and relief

slammed into me like a thing that’s going fast, even as
embarrassment drove my face into the bunny’s fur
again. She was being very poetic and mushy… and she
still liked me! Now I just had to work up the courage
to accept her advances...

Chapter 76 :
Kit was beyond adorable, and I was almost entirely
convinced she was trans. I mean, if she wasn’t she’d
be freaking out about her body a hell of a lot more
than she was. Beyond that though, it was as though
everything fit when you looked at her now. Her
personality just matched her new body so utterly
perfectly that it was impossible to argue that she
didn’t belong in the new one.

Seeing her come out of that fruit had embarrassingly

been a surprise. It shouldn’t have in hindsight, the
signs of Kit’s egginess were there. Then she almost
immediately decided she’d go with the whole girl
thing.

Poor girl had a confidence problem though, and her

new form had definitely shaken what little confidence
she did have. I’d have to help with that, teach her
some cool spells and help her out with any problems
she might have. Shit… I had no idea what I was doing.
It was still early days though, not even a full day.

We’d finished dinner in the tree and were preparing

to sleep, which had led to a conundrum.

“I think it is probably best if you come up to the girl’s

dorm with us, Kit,” Grace said gently, smiling at the
tiny girl as we stood in the guy’s common room.
“Are you sure?” Kit asked, glancing worriedly between
Grace, Mer and me. “I don’t think I really belong up
there…”

I gave a sigh, I felt that one. The ol’ gender imposter

syndrome. “Alright… Kit. Are you a girl?”

“I mean… um… maybe?” she said, swallowing hard as

her eyes fell to the floor and her hands started
tangling themselves in her shirt. “I guess I am. I
mean… I am.”

“Then as a girl, you are welcome to sleep on the girl’s

floor,” I said walking over to stand next to her.
“Alright?”

“Um… yeah, okay,” she nodded, looking up at me with

her big brown soulful eyes. “If you’re all okay with it, I
mean.”
The other two voiced their wholehearted agreement,
so I motioned to her old room. “Should we move your
stuff then, Tiny?”

“Oh no, not the nickname again,” she groaned quietly.

I laughed and put my arm around her for a quick side

hug. “Yes, the nickname. Come on, let’s get your
stuff.”

The four of us helped move Kit’s few belongings up to

the girl’s floor, where she proceeded to get indecisive
about which room she wanted to choose. We all just
decided to put her in the one next to Mer, who’d been
staying in the tree off and on since the journey began.
Mer, of course, did not mind this one bit.
Watching her handle Kit’s transformation had
increased my already high standing of her to new
heights. I hadn’t heard what was whispered between
them over the top of Sprinkles, but Kit had seemed
happy, so it must have been nice.

The next day saw Esra arriving in my tree to help with

something I hadn’t even thought about yet. We were
all getting ready to leave the grove and return to the
ring so that we could begin our journey into the
mountains.

“Esra! What are you doing here in the morning?” I

asked, walking over to give her a hug. A hug she
accepted grudgingly, but enjoyed nevertheless.

“I am not in a position to be babysitting a newly made

mage as I make my way to your Avonside,” she told
me plainly, without any sign of her usual grump.
“Where you have been attacked a handful of times,
myself and the few of my allies that still live have
borne the brunt of it. If I were to bring Kit out through
my mark, she would be in grave danger.”

“I thought that there wasn’t a choice?” I asked

curiously, turning to look at the new mage in question
as she stood near Mer. She wasn’t going to come out
with us, given that we didn’t know what would
happen if I took her out of the grove, considering she
was a mage now.

“There isn’t a choice, no. Her mark is where mine is,”

she nodded, which had me tilting my head in
confusion. “When a mage leaves the Nameless
Garden, no matter by what process, they will
invariably arrive in the mundane realm on their mage
mark. If I were to take you out of here now, you would
arrive at your own mark.”
“There’s got to be a but in there somewhere,” I
mused, watching her with a growing smile. She
wanted to impress us with her magical prowess and
intelligence right now.

“Indeed,” she said with a smile that reached all the

way up to crinkle her crow’s feet. “I have been
researching mage marks and long distance
teleportation for quite some time. It was a bit of an…
obsession, during my time avoiding the mundane
realm. Your appearance in my grove and the problems
we faced with you appearing in the middle of hostile
territory had me approaching the problem from a new
angle.”

I gasped as I understood what she was saying. “It

might not be possible to move an established mage
mark, but maybe a new mage’s mark is more open to
change?”
“Exactly, my dear girl!” she exclaimed happily. “Well
done! I believe that I can bind her mark to yours
instead! At least until she leaves and it becomes
sealed by her leaving the Garden for the first time.”

Yes! Mage mum was happy with me! Long ranged

teleportation would be a game changer if she figured
it out too. I’d have to hit her up about that later,
maybe my propensity to break magic might help her.

Turning to Kit, I raised an eyebrow. “How’s that

sound? Want to come ride in a cart again?”

She nodded quickly, her curly hair bouncing wildly.

“Definitely. I want to stay with you all, especially if
going with Esra is as dangerous as she says.”
“You would be dead the moment the next attack
against me were to occur,” Esra said, rather
unhelpfully.

“Right...” Kit nodded, giving our mage mother the side

eye before she turned to me with wide eyes.

“Yeah, don’t worry… we’ll get you back over with us,” I
agreed.

The solution turned out to be remarkably simple, at

least from our perspective. Esra simply cast a spell and
the job was done, I could take Kit out with us into the
mundane realm. I assumed that the spell itself was
incredibly complex, judging by the way Esra wobbled
slightly as her reserves of energy were drained.

With Kit racing up the tree to grab travel stuff, I

helped Esra up into one of the big armchairs in the
glass balcony so she could chill while she recovered.
Woman was trying to hide it, but she was getting a bit
long in the tooth.

When Kit was ready, I took her hand and asked, “On
three?”

“Yeah, okay,” she smiled hesitantly.

“One, two, three.“ I pulled us all over onto the ring,

earning a squeal of fear from Kit who was doing her
tiny best to crush my hand. “Hey, hey… ow… Tiny,
please,” I complained, prying myself from her grip. Girl
still had some of her grip strength at least.

“Sorry,” she breathed sheepishly. “I was worried it

would go wrong.”
Mer approached before I could speak, the tall obrec
woman coming to stand next to Kit.

“But it didn’t,” Mer smiled, then motioned towards

the waiting wagon train. “Want to go find a wagon to
sit in for the journey?”

Kit nodded, a blush forming on her cheeks as she

looked up at Mer. Their height difference was pretty
intense. Kit was on the shorter end of what was the
normal range for a woman, and Mer was very much at
the other end of that.

With those two off, Grace grabbed me and we all

went to hop into our own wagons. The journey into
the mountains would involve us all having to get out
and push apparently, so we were going to be doing
things this time instead of just slowly dying of
boredom. The scenery was lovely too, mountains were
always so beautiful.
They were the type of behemoth mountains that you
only really saw in a few places back on Earth. Slow to
build at first, it almost seemed like you might not be
going upwards at all, until all of a sudden you found
yourself in a valley with titans on either side of you.

The vegetation was familiar at least, the same stuff

that Grace and I had found all the way back in the first
week we arrived. Back when I’d been Eli. Thank fuck
that was behind me.

I was so happy when we found a raspberry patch that

I made the whole wagon train stop so we could pick
them all. I took some back to my grove and grew
them. My buns would love them, buns loved
raspberries.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only time the wagon

train had to stop. They’d get stuck on the terrain fairly
regularly and would need to be pushed out. A few
times they became so bogged down that I would have
to lift them out with my telekinesis, aided by a much
weaker Kit. It wasn’t all bad though, because the same
spikes that the obrec usually used to stop their
wagons from rolling down hill could be used to give
their wheels some impressive traction.

I was the busiest of those of us from the Order,

because in addition to my towtruck duties, I was also
the only person who could point us towards Avonside
with any degree of reliability. Troy would often
remember the paths they had taken to get out of the
mountains once I had found the direction we needed
to go, which helped us find routes we could take the
wagons through.

More often than not though, we’d just have to stop

and wait while scouts were sent out into the area so
they could find us a path.
Then one of them went missing.

At first we thought the woman might have gotten lost,

she was an experienced obrec ranger for the
Thistlescar clan, but this was harsh and unfamiliar
terrain. Then her body was found a day later, mangled
by animals but with the unmistakable wounds caused
by arrows.

Someone else was out there in the mountains with us,

and they were not friendly.

Chapter 77 :
The obrec got serious after they found their scout
dead, and I don’t mean they weren’t serious before.
This was just… seriously serious. Their rangers
changed tack, covered themselves with local
vegetation and any with bright fur colours covered up
or dulled their fur with mud. While the rest of us
stayed put, wary and at the ready, they hunted.

I asked to help, but I was told to stay with the wagons.

I was too valuable, too irreplaceable. I argued that I
was strong, my shield was impenetrable. Claih decided
to prove me wrong.

She asked me to summon a shield around a fallen log

with as much power as I could pump into it. Then she
took out a magitech rifle and fiddled with it, squinting
at my shield through a strange lens every so often as
she did so. When she was satisfied that her gun was
calibrated properly or whatever, she knelt down, her
hooves digging furrows in the dirt.

“You want to see why mages don’t rule the ring with
an iron fist like they did hundreds of years ago? Why
your kind is seen as powerful tools to the rulers of this
land, but still expendable? Here is why,” she told me,
finally raising the rifle to her shoulder.

The shot rang out with the sound of a thousand pieces

of paper being torn in unison, a terrible red bolt of
magic flying with unerring accuracy into the log. It
didn’t do much damage, but the hole was almost
geometrically clean, a perfect circle drilled straight
through the log.

She replaced the rifle in its holster on her back with

casual ease, giving me a look. “Now, I know you mages
are tough, that shot would see you running back to
that grove of yours. You’d come back out angrier than
a kalka defending her little ones, but ask yourself… are
you willing to chance that?”

“No,” I shook my head, understanding now. “Is that

how Esra’s coven was killed?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, giving me an apologetic
shrug. “Human affairs, we don’t pay as much attention
as we should, even after they taught our mages a
lesson. It was a combination, you see, that got the
obrec mages. When those human ones came crawling
down the ravines, they took magitechts too, like me.
They worked together in a way that we hadn’t seen
before.”

I nodded understanding, glancing back at the log with

a host of thoughts whirling in my mind. I would have
been dead if there had been someone with a rifle like
Claih’s on the enemy mage’s side back at that battle.
Defending myself without a hole or two in me had
been hard enough. Retreating to my grove to heal
would have given the mages the opportunity to wreak
havoc on my allies.

“Why wasn’t there a magitecht at the attack down on

the plains?” I asked finally, turning back to her.
She grinned, running a finger briefly along one of her
horns, her eyes alight with a cocky amusement. “Why,
my guild of course. Can’t go shooting anyone with any
magic rifles if you don’t have anything to power it.
Stupid fool human mages didn’t think about that
when they hit us, but we got our revenge through
subtler means. We obrec don’t agree on much, but
one thing we do agree on is regulating how much
crystal we sell to the bastards down in that valley.”

I returned her grin with no small degree of

satisfaction. Good, fuck the valley humans, or at least
those who ruled them. Scheming bastards.

“Good,” Grace said from behind me, where she’d

been sitting on a different log. She pointed to Claih’s
rifle and inquired, “What were you doing when you
fiddled with that thing? You were looking through a
little lens too.”’
“Aha, good question!” Claih exclaimed happily, pulling
the rifle down from its perch again. She flicked some
levers and unhooked a part of the casing. Inside were
a series of what looked like crystal spikes, all in a row
in a chamber underneath the main barrel. They looked
like they could be flicked up one by one as needed.

“These,” she continued, pointing to them. “These are

attunement crystals. I’m sure you’re aware of the
different elemental aspects that magic can take on, as
well as the many multitude of raw magical energies.
As a mage, you only have access to raw energy from
the Nameless Garden, but my rifle here can fire any
that I can get my hands on. Then I just use those
attunement spikes to give it an elemental affinity, like
say, fire. Breaking that shield was just about finding
the right combination of energies to pierce it.”

“Wait, so you can shoot like, magic from the Red

Nightmare out of that?” Grace asked, staring at the
gun with equal parts fear and fascination.
“Gods, no!” the obrec woman said quickly, shaking her
head. “No one can wield that terrible power, and
honestly, I’d never wish to. Terrible stuff. Couldn’t get
my hands on a power crystal of that type anyway,
never heard of one existing. You see, in order to
change what base magic we want to use, we need to
first get someone who wields that magic to fill one of
our crystals with it. Otherwise we’re just shooting
white magic, the weak, base power that is frankly not
good for much besides powering a hearth or a street
light. As for Red Nightmare, there’s no mages and no
warlocks who can wield it. As far as I know, no gods
can use it either. Only one that isn’t represented in
the pantheons.”

“Give me an empty crystal,” Grace said, stretching her

hand out.

“Grace?” I asked, giving her a pointed, worried look.

“I need to be useful, Ryn,” she said with a melancholy
smile. “I was useless back at that battle, but… this…”

I blew out a breath and glanced at Claih. Could we

trust her? Too late, the obrec magitecht had handed a
crystal to my girlfriend, eyes full of wary curiosity.

Grace took the finger length rod of clear crystal in her

hand and rolled it around for a moment, staring at it
with a frown. Her lips parted, tongue flicking out to
wet her lips before she took a deep breath and closed
her eyes.

Dark red spread down her arm, converting it to

terrible, decayed and twisted wood, horrifying jagged
thorns sprouting to point in every random direction.
The power coiled down into her hand, then poured
into the crystal like molten tar. Distantly, almost at the
edge of hearing, was the sound of a thousand
screaming voices, a full orchestra and choir that sang
but a single note. Torment.

Then it was over, the deathly aura around her

receded, the thorns shrank back into her skin as
though they had never existed, and her skin returned
to its unblemished state. The crystal though, it was
now filled with an inky dark red the colour of tainted
blood, faint wisps of the energy briefly escaping like
ink in water, only to be pulled back in.

I turned to Claih, finding her speechless with awe and

dread, her eyes fixed on the terrible crystal. It took her
many moments before she shook herself and glanced
up at Grace with wary respect. “By Jarrig’s sweat slick
balls, girl… that… that shouldn’t be possible.”

“Now you can shoot our enemies with Red

Nightmare,” she replied, offering the crystal back to
Claih.
“Gods no, I said I wouldn’t wish to wield that stuff for
a reason,” she shook her head. With a sigh though,
she reached for her pack and pulled something out of
it. The object looked like a thermos or something with
a glass window all the way around the middle. She
unscrewed the top and held it out to Grace, keeping
her fingers well away from the opening. “Put it in
here.”

With delicate movements, my girlfriend did so,

dropping it in with a clunk. Claih was quick to screw
the cap on, then appeared to almost sag with relief,
like she’d been holding her breath. “Let’s not do that
again, at least until we understand what we’re doing,
or are doing it from a very healthy distance, aye?”

“Understood,” Grace smiled, shaking her hand out a

little like it was numb or something.
I found myself breathing out a sigh of relief too, that
Red Nightmare stuff set my teeth to humming in a
way that was distinctly uncomfortable. I had a lot to
think about. When I’d first started as a mage, Esra had
explained to me the differences between warlocks
and mages, and between mages and ordinary people.

Warlocks came into their power far earlier in their

journey than us mages, or at least the normal ones, I
wasn’t the best example. They would also hit a power
ceiling at some point, as well as walls constricting their
utility. A warlock with a patron who was a fire
elemental or whatever could only fling fire around. He
couldn’t repair a broken tool or make it rain to water
the crops. He could only burn.

A mage, I’d been told, had almost limitless potential

utility, but took far longer to come into their power.
That warlock might be able to summon a tornado of
fire in a few short years after acquiring their power,
but a mage might take a decade or more of training
and power accumulation to reach that level.

I was, of course, an exception to that rule. I’d broken it

so thoroughly that nobody really knew what to do
with me. Well, except Grace, but that was different
and oh so very fun.

My thoughts were interrupted when one of the

rangers returned, and Troy beckoned us all over. The
obrec ranger was filthy, but I think that was just
camouflage. His hair was matted down with mud and
his cloak had small sprigs of the nearby foliage
threaded through small metal hoops that were woven
into it.

“Near as we can tell,” he was saying, directing his

attention to Jerril and Mer, “We don’t have any of
Valley Folk out here with us. They aren’t incredible
scouts either, tracks are easy enough to follow.”
“Not Valley Folk eh? Any ideas to narrow that down a
little,” Jerril asked, scratching lightly at the fur on the
back of his neck.

“A few. They pulled the arrows out of Keica, but the

wounds looked like the ones Ghraiga use. Three
pronged broadheads,” he explained, drawing the
shape out in the air with a finger.

Ah shit. Just what we needed, another group getting

antagonistic. What the hell were they doing in the
mountains anyway? I mean sure, technically the
Ghraiga laid claim to these mountains, but that was
just words in court and lines on a map as far as I had
been told. None of their people lived in here, there
were no roads or outposts. Nothing to actually
enforce that claim, so why were they here now? Apart
from the obvious reason…
“Was there any sign that the arrows were poisoned?”
Troy asked, a frown furrowing his brows.

The ranger shook his head. “None that we could see.

Just regular old arrows took her down.”

“Not the steppe tribe that attacked Avonside then.

They all used poison in their arrows,” he said, his
expression twitching into the slightest, briefest sneer.
“They had little notches in their arrowheads for the
stuff to sit while it was in flight.”

“Doesn’t really narrow it down, sadly,” the ranger told

him apologetically. “Upper steppe tribes use the
poison because it comes from a snake that lives up
there. Lower steppe tribes don’t have the snake, so
they don’t use it. Could be anyone out here, so long as
they’re Ghraiga born or trained.”
“Bugger,” Troy swore, pinching his upper lip between
his fingers.

“Boys… boys, boys, boys,” a voice laughed from the

edge of the huddle, and we turned to find Claih
smiling at us. “You have a warlock, a mage and a
magitecht at your disposal. Use us, lay a trap for these
Ghraiga.” Then she held up the canister with the
crystal that Grace had given her, expression turning
terrible, deadly. “Let’s give them something to fear,
shall we? We’ll call it… experiment number one.”

Chapter 78 :
The plan, or experiment, was kind of simple really.
Claih took what was essentially a remote detonator
and attached it to her little Red Nightmare container,
and that in turn was placed inside an old backpack.
With that ready, we set off into the mountains in
search of a place to set up. I had to keep casting my
detection spell to make sure we weren’t accidentally
seen by our prey before the trap was set.

We chose an innocuous clearing at the bottom of a

small and well forested valley. Lots of places for us to
hide and watch. The pack, along with a few more
random camping items, were placed down there, but
that wouldn’t be enough to entice our adversaries
down to look. Any self respecting ranger or scout
would be wary of something like this, so we needed to
make it look interesting enough to investigate anyway.

The ranger’s plan to do this was a little… gruesome.

They had hunted and killed a few deer that day with
the intention that they would feed us, but now they
mangled them and threw the pieces all across the
clearing. Blood, guts and pieces of deer everywhere in
a convincing display of savagery that, quite frankly,
made me feel a little ill.

It wasn’t just the carnage though, because deer and

obrec had a few passing similarities that when the
subject was in multiple pieces, might lead someone to
confuse one for the other, so long as no intact heads
were around. Basically, from a distance it looked like a
group of obrec rangers had been torn apart by some
magical beast.

All that had to happen now was an accidental fire to

be lit, and for a bunch of obrec to scream in supposed
fear for their lives. Which is what they did next.

They were convincing with their screams, I’ll give

them that. Even seeing that the people making those
sounds were okay wasn’t enough to stop my stomach
from icing over. My hand found Grace’s next to mine
as we crouched and latched on tightly. I don’t know
why I reacted like this, I had always struggled with
realistic depictions of pain in others, however fake
they might be.

We were crouched beside a bush and a tree, which

combined to shield us from the view of any overly
watchful eyes. Everyone else was hidden nearby,
watching as the rangers scattered to their own hiding
spots.

The wait that followed was excruciating, the only thing

of interest to look at being the fire down in the
pretend camp that was trying its best to consume the
damp foliage of the clearing. At least it was creating a
hell of a lot of smoke as it slowly dried the grass out,
then burned it.

“I’m so bored,” I whined quietly after what felt like

hours, cuddling up closer to Grace. “Why are they
taking so long?”
“I don’t know, should we ask them? I’d text them to
ask why they’re late but my phone was vaporised by a
giant robot,” she laughed, reaching around to run her
hand through my hair.

“The ring be like that though,” I smiled, almost purring

as she scratched at my scalp. “Oh, that… that… that’s
good, keep doing that.”

“Whatever keeps the magical princess happy,” she

said wryly, continuing to scratch at me as I’d asked.

Goodness, I knew that she was shutting me up with

the scratches but I didn’t much care. It felt nice. It did
actually kinda suck about her phone though. There
wasn’t going to be any more phones, at least for a
very long time. I wonder if we’d even live long enough
to see that. Come to think of it, what was the lifespan
of a mage?
I’d like to live for a long time, but only if there was a
way to slow the maturing process of my mind. I
wanted to live a longer than natural life only if I could
stay as me, as the Ryn I was now, rather than some
properly grown up and wizened old woman. It just
looked like the older people got, the slower they
moved through the world, and I didn’t mean
physically. I wanted to keep my energy, my
excitement for the world and my urge to explore it.

“Ryn,” Grace whispered urgently, her fingers leaving

my hair to grab my head and point it down at the fake
camp below.

They were there, five men in dark cloaks creeping out

of the woods with bows in hand. Except one, which
held a magitech rifle at the ready. Guess this trap was
a good idea then, and Claih’s lesson had been
delivered at a very opportune time.
Squinting, I couldn’t get a clear picture of the men
beyond their cloaks and their weapons, which had me
frustrated. Hoping they had no way to detect the use
of my magic, I carefully raised my hand and cast
another of those spells that made me more than just a
battle mage. The air in front of me bent and warped,
becoming a lens for me to look through.

They weren’t Fennimore’s men, that much was certain

as soon as I got a good look at them. Their chests held
a symbol I had seen more than a dozen times recently,
a blue-gray field with an orange sun at its center.
Ghraiga military.

They edged closer into the clearing, the lead one

stopping to inspect a dismembered hoof. I sat there
with Grace at my side, tense as we waited. He had to
realise it wasn’t an obrec foot right? I’d heard about
the Ghraiga and obrec having skirmishes from the
Stonechasers, they had to have some knowledge of
the other race, right?

The man sprang up with a cry of alarm, placing an

arrow into the nock on his bow in the same motion he
took to get up. Crap, they weren’t to the pack yet!
They’d be out of range!

A sharp crack sounded from the clearing below,

confusing me for a second before I realised it was the
detonator going off inside the pack. At first, nothing
happened and even the Ghraiga scouts paused in
confusion. They had probably expected to die with the
sound of that small magical explosive going off. I could
feel it though, feel the magic down there almost like it
was intelligent, like it was confused as to where its
cage had gone.

Slowly, tendrils of inky dark red energy snaked out of

the pack, like a blind cephalopod getting its bearings.
It twitched and spasmed as it did so, tentacles
flickering like malfunctioning holograms, never quite
occupying any single space for long.

“What the hell…” Grace mumbled from beside me,

tense as the drawn bow strings of the men below. “I
could feel and sort of control it before, but now it’s
like it doesn’t recognise me at all.”

I was about to reply, thoughts spinning like thread into

words that would be delivered to my mouth so that
sound might be crafted, but all of that died when they
struck. The tentacles of what looked like congealed
blood lunged like vipers, one for each scout, spearing
them each through the chest.

The scouts began to scream and claw at the spikes of

energy in their chests, only for their hands to come
away sticky with the magic of the nightmare. It began
to spread under their skin like an infection, making its
way for their head. The lead man began to thrash,
crying and wailing as he desperately pulled his sleeve
back to watch the inky red energy spread.

We stared in horror as it reached his neck and then

grew upwards. That’s when his screaming became
truly terrifying, animalistic and raw. His fingers turned
to terrible hooks and he brought them up, wailing as
he began to claw at his own face with manic despair.

One by one however, each of the poor doomed men

below us went limp, their bodies hanging on the ends
of those disgusting, awful spikes. They stayed like that
for what felt like centuries, but was actually only a few
seconds. Then the twitching began, their bodies
thrashing violently once more even as the energy of
the red nightmare flowed completely out of the pack.

Using its own form as a conduit, it funneled the rest of

its form through the bodies of the scouts and up. Each
of the five tentacles joined back up into a mass of dark
red liquid above the clearing, then spread out into a
flat disk.

Grace and I were shaking as we watched, unable to

look away from the awful scene below. My brows
furrowed in confusion as the disk of magic wobbled,
then rent apart, leaving a vibrant red space where it
had been.

It took me a second to realise what I was looking at, or

rather, into… it was the Red Nightmare itself. The
magical realm where this energy had originated. It had
just torn a hole in the fabric of space and tunneled
back to its home.

There was a tearing sound, wet flesh ripping and my

gaze dropped back down to the bodies of the scouts,
where the nightmare energy was busy pulling
something violently out of each body. The things were
vaguely human in shape, made of white magic, their
edges indistinct. What wasn’t hard to see was the
terror with which the humanoid shapes writhed,
desperate to free themselves from the clutches of the
energy.

It only lasted a second, two at most, then they were

gone, the red magic, the portal and all. Just the bodies
remained, drained of all the magic that had infected
them just moments before. They fell to the ground
with distant thumps, and the clearing was quiet once
more.

The quiet lasted a long time, minutes passing as every

single person who had been watching sat stunned by
what they had just seen. I could feel Grace’s hand in
mine, tense and clammy with sweat.

I gulped, turning to her. “Never use that energy

again.”
“Yeah…” she agreed, her eyes wide with horror and
even tears. I saw her swallow, once… twice. “That
was… did it… did it rip their souls out?”

“It looked like that…” I breathed, turning to glance

back at the bodies. “If souls are real. It also… it took
them into the red nightmare.”

“Yeah…” she nodded, looking dazed and lost. “I know

they killed that ranger… but I don’t think… they didn’t
deserve whatever that was.”

Wordlessly, I nodded, placing my arm around her

shoulders. I could only think of one person I knew who
might deserve a fate like that, and even then… I
wasn’t sure.
Chapter 79 :
“How are you able to summon the Red Nightmare?”
Claih demanded as soon as we were back with the
wagons. The fear in her eyes was potent, an almost
physical force emanating from within her. Or maybe it
was the way she clutched at her still holstered
magitech sidearm.

“It’s not just the Red Nightmare,” I said, moving to

stand between the obrec magitecht and my girlfriend.

“Not just the Red Nightmare?” the woman asked in a

choked voice, staring at me with confused awe. “What
else can she summon?”

“All of them,” Grace said quietly as she stepped up

beside me, a hand coming to rest on my shoulder. To
me she said, “They may as well know the truth.”
Around us were arrayed all the persons of note within
the caravan. Mer and Kit stood next to each other,
Otho leaning on his rifle nearby. Jerril and a few other
obrec in leadership positions stood to the side while
Adam and Troy stood with Grace and I.

“I agree, after that… I think it’s time to talk about what

happened,” Troy said gently, stepping up onto Grace’s
other side. “Who knows, maybe they will have some
insight.”

“Okay…” she breathed, biting her lip for a moment

before looking sideways at me.

“I’ll tell the story,” I smiled, bumping her with my

shoulder affectionately.

I took a moment to order my thoughts, dredging up

the memories so that I might tell them properly.
“Alright… so about two months ago, we found a ruin,”
I began, looking up at the small crowd. “It was a ring
builder ruin, specifically a research center. They
appeared to have been studying magic, trying to
understand it or something. At the lowest level we
found a strange mass of energy contained within a
large glass tank. It appeared to be a combination of
every type of magic there is.”

As I spoke, Claih’s expression quickly went from

fearful and hostile to curious, her grip on her
holstered sidearm lessening as she listened.

“There was an… accident…” I said slowly, wincing as I

remembered my fuck up. “My fault… I unwittingly
blocked a containment pylon and allowed the magic
to break free. It bounced off my shield and right into
Grace… she just absorbed the whole lot, like water
down a drain.”
“This power is finite then?” Claih asked, eyes finding
Grace as her mind whirred.

“No… she began to generate it on her own, we don’t

know why…” I shook my head, again pausing to figure
out what to say next. “She was volatile afterwards,
anyone trying to touch her would be violently thrown
away by the energy discharge. Except me, I was able
to absorb her power through skin contact and turn it
into growth energy. I could drain her so she didn’t
uh… fill up and explode.”

“By the gods…” Otho whispered, eyes wide as he

stepped forward. “Can you imagine what would have
happened if that stuff got out of her? If she had
detonated?”

“Nothing good, and certainly on a larger scale than

what we just witnessed,” Claih agreed, her expression
having changed again, to one that looked almost like
respect.

“We didn’t really know what to do, until someone

interfered,” I sighed, taking Grace’s hand in my own. I
made eye contact with as many of the obrec as I could
before I spoke her name. “Ollinfer, one of your obrec
gods. She redirected us as we tried to enter my grove
and gave us an offer. She would make an altered
warlock bond with Grace, allowing her to siphon off
the excess magic that was produced and use it for
herself. It also appears that there were some other
side effects, a few abilities that allow Grace to
manipulate her magic in unique ways.”

“Ollinfer,” Jerrig breathed, a smile slowly contorting

his grumpy old face. “Grace is a warlock of Ollinfer!”

“Well, now I am considerably less worried,” Claih

smiled, then laughed and shook her head. “Ollinfer
might be a conniving hag, but at least she’s a
conniving hag in the general direction of good.”

Grace burst out laughing, then ran her free hand

through her hair with a sigh of relief. “That was my
take on her too. One of those rare, ruthless and
ambitious individuals who is actually on your side.”

“We’ll have to watch out for her, but on the whole I

think we’re safe,” Jerril mused, thumb and forefinger
stroking his chin. He let out a small grunt and gave
Grace and then the attending crowd a hard, pointed
look. “You should keep that little talent of yours a
secret. That goes for everyone here! Any obrec who
speaks a word of this, I will see you clanless within a
day, do you hear me? Take this to your graves.”

Agreement came forth from everyone in a burst of

chatter, and Jerril seemed satisfied. He was right too,
if it became common knowledge that Grace had the
power to wield the Red Nightmare, there would be
hell to pay, in many different and terrible forms.

The conversation continued into a more lighthearted

direction after that, and it was clear the danger had
passed. Our allies were once again friendly.

We also found out a lot more about Ollinfer and her

past exploits, including falling in love with the head of
an obrec clan at one point. That story ended in
heartbreak for her when the guy rebuffed her, saying
that having a relationship with a goddess probably
wouldn’t work.

Then there was the time that she apparently got

pissed off at a river for diverting down a path that
starved an area of forest from the water it needed.
She exploded the river. There was also a story about
her getting drunk off the growth magic of a human
mage she’d uh… fornicated with, then wandered into
an obrec town and picked a fight with the gatehouse.
Not the people within it, the actual gatehouse building
itself.

She replaced it later when she woke up the next

morning though, so that was good. Now the town had
a gatehouse made out of impenetrable wood that
they were actually quite proud of apparently. All of
that was to say that she was startlingly similar to many
polythiestic religions. She wouldn’t be out of place in
the greek pantheon, that was for sure.

Claih approached us after we’d gotten back on the

road, hopping up into our wagon with a tentative
smile. I was nestled into Grace’s arms again, my
default position when we were travelling, and Claih
sat down opposite us.

“Hello, I came to discuss some things, but first I must

apologise for my antagonistic attitude before,” she
said with a gentle expression. “I should have behaved
better.”

Grace answered before I could, “No, it’s honestly

understandable considering what we just saw.”

I had to agree with her there. What had happened to

those scouts would haunt my dreams for the rest of
my life. It had been beyond horrifying. Anyone would
be rightfully shaken by what they had witnessed.

“Thanks,” she smiled, but shook her head anyway.

“On to my main point for being here though… Grace,
can you really wield magic from every realm?”

“Near as I can tell, yeah,” she nodded. “Or… create it

anyway. I can’t actually do anything with it once I’ve
made it.”
“Can you take it back into yourself?” the magitecht
asked curiously. “If so, could you create a small
amount of combined energy for me? It should be
safe.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked, eyeing her

skeptically. This hadn’t exactly worked out well last
time. I was really not keen for a repeat of last time.

She chuckled, her long furry pointed ears twitching for

a moment. “Yes, I’m sure. Each realm of magic has an
opposite that will uh, keep it in line, so to speak. I’m
interested to finally look at all of them together,
existing in harmony.”

Huh… I wonder what the opposite realm to the Red

Nightmare was? Could it be the Nameless Garden? Or
was it some other realm that was like, blue or
something? Well, then again, energy from any realm
could take on any colour so I guess that was a moot
point. Except for the base colour… wait, concentrate!

“Alright,” Grace shrugged, raising her hand. Crap, I’d

gotten too distracted to voice any more concerns!
Nerd sniped by magical theory! I instinctively cringed
away, and she let me out of her lap before she did her
thing.

The magic swirled down her arm, which only took on

her default plantlike appearance. The white rainbow
energy flickered into existence in her palm, just a tiny
mote of the stuff that spun and twirled lazily. Oh, that
wasn’t so bad. It was kinda cute… it just needed
googly eyes.

“Eternal chasm, that is beautiful,” the obrec woman

murmured, leaning forward. A thoughtful expression
came over her face, followed by a sheepish look.
“Alright, now I know I don’t have the best track record
with you, but hear me out…”

“Oh no,” Grace said with a roll of her eyes, closing her
hand and taking the energy back inside herself. “Here
we go again.”

“Grace… you would be an incredibly powerful

magitecht, if you wanted. You’d be able to charge
your own devices with whatever energy they needed
on the spot. I know of mages that have taken up the
craft as well, and warlocks… but you would be above
them all,” she said, excitement drawing her forward
again. “Then, like the pure snow at the top of a
mountain, you could fire all of them at once. I could
help you, teach you… or just make the weapons for
you.”

Oh, now that was an idea. Images of Grace wielding a

rifle that she could calibrate to perfectly pierce our
enemies’ shields came to mind. She could give others
crystals charged so that they could do the same!

“I wouldn’t be the best at like… developing stuff,” my

girlfriend sighed, but she quickly shook it off in favour
of being cautiously excited. “But if you designed some
guns and made them, or taught me how to make
them and maintain them… I could do that.”

I didn’t mention it out lout, but if Bray didn’t hate us

over everything, he could build and design new and
interesting devices for Grace to use as well.

“Yes!” Claih exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air and

accidentally punching her own antler. “Ah, ow!
Damn!” she grumbled, shaking her fist out. “What I
mean to say is that, I am very excited to try. I’ve never
had the opportunity to experiment with every energy
at once like that. It would be a great help to my own
research, so it isn’t exactly complete altruism on my
part.”

“That’s fair,” Grace agreed, a wistful smile on her face.

She turned to me for a moment, and I felt my heart do
little flips when she hit me with that expression. “I’ll
be useful to you! We can be a team, mage and
magitecht!”

“Yeah,” I said, a smile of my own tugging at my lips.

She needed this. Since almost day one of knowing her,
she’d been grasping and reaching for some way to
gain control of herself and her destiny on this world.
Here was her chance.
Chapter 80 :
Claih and Troy were a surprisingly effective duo,
working together to figure out how best to equip
Grace. Troy was more than keen to get Grace kitted
out in shiny magitech stuff. Unfortunately, we had no
way to actually make the things she’d need, but they
decided to at least figure out what setup my girlfriend
was best with.

She had a go with Claih’s really big rifle, Otho’s smaller

one and then some pistols of various sizes too. She
seemed to enjoy the big pistols the most. The type
that was so big they’d give your heart an extra beat if
they had fired regular bullets. Instead they used magic
as ammunition, which instead had your hair standing
on end and a saw-toothed vibration rushing through
your body.

That wasn’t to say she was terrible with the other

guns. The big rifle that Claih had also had Grace
smiling as she blasted away at trees. She wasn’t
amazing, but she could hit things okay considering
how little training she had. I guess I’d be setting up a
shooting range in my grove at some point soon.

Meanwhile, our journey into the mountains was

mercifully uninterrupted after the run in with the
Ghraiga scouts. I really hoped we’d gotten all of them,
because if we hadn’t, it might bring a whole lot of
unwanted attention down on Avonside. I know that
my scans hadn’t found anything nearby, and neither
had the efforts of the obrec rangers, but my stomach
still twisted anxiously regardless.

The terrain itself was our biggest problem in moving

forward. Entire days were spent trying to find a path
forward, sitting in the wagons and talking aimlessly
while the rangers did their thing. I wished I had a spell
to help them, some way to point them in the right
direction. I had ideas of scanning the area and then
creating a holographic map. That was way above my
skills though.
It was yet another day and we were sitting around
bored out of our minds as the scouts ranged ahead.
The forest had gotten increasingly harder to get the
wagons through and tall mountains slowly rose up on
either side of us. I felt like we were getting close
though. I swear I recognised some of the tallest peaks.
That is, when I could see them, the canopy was pretty
thick.

The living parts of the forest weren’t the only

problem, because it was part tree but also part
boulder, huge hunks of the stone lay everywhere,
covered in plantlife and moss. There were a ton of
rocks hidden throughout the underbrush too, just
waiting for a wagon wheel to run into it.

I was sitting against one of those wheels, Grace

splayed out across the ground, head in my lap and her
arm over her eyes as she tried to sleep. I loved her, I
loved my girlfriend so much. We’d spent so much time
in each other’s company during the past month that it
felt like we’d been together for a year, not a few
months.

She was so pretty, her almost shoulder length blond

hair going everywhere, the internal colour on full
display. Green and blue strands splayed out in all their
glossy glory.

Gently, I used a finger to trace her hairline, marvelling

at both her soft skin and her soft hair. Until she
giggled and gave a little squirm, lifting her arm to glare
at me, “Ryn! That tickles!”

“Sorry,” I grinned, placing my hand fully over her head

and smoothing her hair out over my thigh. So damned
soft.
“Hey,” a small voice said, causing both myself and
Grace to look over in its direction.

Kit stood a few meters away, awkwardly holding her

hands in front of her as she gave us a tentative smile.

“What’s up?” I asked, beckoning her over. “Pull up a

wheel or a patch of ground and sit with us.”

Her smile went from hesitant to amused and genuine

in the space of a moment. “Funny,” she replied with a
little roll of her eyes as she sat down next to me.

“Where’s Mer?” I asked, glancing around quickly to

see if she was hiding somewhere. Nope, Merwig
wasn’t in sight.
“Oh… um… she had to do guard stuff,” Kit shrugged,
already playing with a twig that she’d picked up off
the ground. “Otho got grumpy with her for spending
so much time with me instead of doing her guard
work.”

Kit and Mer had been almost inseparable since we’d

gotten the shorter girl back from her fruit. I say almost
because they hadn’t actually gotten closer than a few
feet to each other since their hug in my grove. Kit
seemed all over the place mentally, and I think Mer
had picked up on that, backing off on pushing any
potential relationship in favour of being a friend to the
skittish girl.

Rather than ask further about Mer, I changed the

topic, “How are you doing? Has Esra taken you to
make a grove yet?”
She shook her head. Esra had tasked me with different
things to study and train in while she focused on
foundational learning for Kit. Our mage mother had
helped me set up my own training area on the lower
level of the plateau, somewhere I could practice
magical combat without “causing a racket while I’m
trying to teach young Kit”, whatever that meant. Kit
and I were the same age anyway, or nearabouts.

“Still the boring basics then?” I grinned, leaning back

to glance over at some rangers who’d just arrived back
at the caravan.

“Kinda… is it weird that I actually enjoy it? I mean it’s

easy, but it’s all just so… so cool!” Kit said, getting
excited next to me. “The way magic interacts with the
structures inside spell plants is just so strange, you
know? I’ve seen a neural network laid out in a sort of
graphic right, back when computers were a thing in
our lives, and it almost looks the same.”
“Huh… I didn’t actually think of it like that, but you’re
right. It’s somewhere between those fancy graphics of
neurons firing and a crystal lattice or whatever,” I
hummed, then perked up as Troy turned and waved at
us, motioning for the three of us to go over there.
“Guess they need us. Let’s go.”

We all hauled ourselves up off the damp forest floor

and made our way over to the gathering crowd of
people. They stood near the lead wagon, which had
stopped because the ground was getting pretty bad in
front of us.

One of the higher ranking scouts was nodding as she

spoke to Troy, “Yeah, they didn’t see us. It was a good
effort, for a group that obviously hasn’t done much
bushcraft.”

“So they weren’t very good then?” he smiled, rolling

his eyes. “Figures.”
“Well, I was trying to be diplomatic about it,” she
laughed, her ears twitching in that way that obrec ears
did when they laughed. “They’re your people after
all.”

“I didn’t train them,” Troy said with mock

defensiveness, holding his hands up.

“Wait, we found some of our people?” I blurted,

suddenly very excited and very anxious. This was it.
This was the homecoming I had been working towards
for months, ever since I got out of that fruit.

“Aye, we did,” the scout smiled, turning to me. “Looks

like they have hidden sentries set up, even made little
towers. It’s adorable, really… but we might have to
teach them a thing or two once we get there and
explain ourselves. Provided we’re paid, of course.”
My mind was whirling in a dozen different directions,
each of them only tangentially related to one another.
How were Kelsey and Melody doing? How much had
the campus changed while we were gone? Then there
was Bray, my only friend from before all this started.
How was he doing?

“We’ll get to that,” Troy agreed absently, running the

pad of his thumb over his stubble. “For now though, I
think it’s important that we make contact at least.
We’ve been gone for months, I wouldn’t be surprised
if they’ve written us off as dead by now.”

“So we rock up to that sentry post and just… say

hello?” Grace asked, sharing a quick nervous glance
with me.
It sounded so anticlimactic. Coming all this way just to
knock on the proverbial door and say hello. Then
again, what else were we going to do?

“Yeah, pretty much,” Troy nodded with a deadpan

expression. “We’ll approach without stealth, just to
make sure they know we’re friendly. Black armour on
and waving hello, all that jazz, so get ready… and
where the hell is Adam?”

****

The sentry post was hidden in a rocky outcropping a

few miles from where the caravan had stopped.
Honestly, I still couldn’t see it, no matter how many
times the obrec rangers pointed it out. I was just
taking their word on it. I could sense them however,
my scan spell picking them up easily.

As we approached, Adam and Troy were at the front

while the three of us girls walked behind them. The
two guys were the only ones out of the group that
hadn’t changed in some drastic way, so this was going
to take some explaining. In hindsight, it was a damned
good thing that Troy hadn’t gone into the fruit. I could
only imagine the hassle we’d encounter with him
looking different. We had one ranger with us and
several more shadowing our movements within the
trees.

“Oh, I can see them now! With my mage sight,” I said,

tilting my head to look up. We were close enough
now, just a couple of hundred yards, and I could dimly
see their magical auras.
“Lucky for some,” Kit grumbled from beside me,
squinting to try and eke out just a little more focus
from her busted eyes. Poor girl. It really was odd that
the fruit had done that.

“Let’s stop here,” Troy said, holding his hand up in a

fist like any of us actually knew his funny army signals.
I think that one meant stop?

We came to a halt anyway, fanning out to relax a bit

from the trek over. My legs hadn’t gotten that much
exercise in a while, and although they weren’t
protesting, they felt a little warm.

“Adam, please use that loud voice of yours to call

them down,” Troy said, turning to Adam with the
slightest of smiles.
“Wow, rude,” Adam grinned turning anyway and
cupping his hands around his mouth. “Yo! Avonsiders!
We’re here to talk! It’s Troy and company! Minus
some and plus a whole lot more!”

“Real formal,” Grace commented with a quiet chuckle.

“Professional and well delivered.”

“Thanks,” he replied with a grin. “I’m just talented at

this sort of thing, you know? Maybe I should write
Ryn’s speeches for her when she’s empress of the
ring.”

“Oh god, no thanks,” I grimaced, the thought of that

much responsibility sending a shudder down my
spine. The number of meetings that would entail…

We bantered away for what felt like an hour before

we finally saw some people coming down from the
sentry post. Three figures picking their way carefully
down the face of the rocky outcropping. From this
distance I could only make out two men and a woman,
but I had a spell for that.

I cast the lensing spell, but grunted in disappointment

when I didn’t recognise any of them. They looked like
students at least, which was hopeful. I’d been a little
afraid of running into the power tripping security
forces that had ruled Avonside during the week I was
there.

They wore padded body armour similar to the Order,

although it was unpainted and a little light on metal
plates. Most of it was undyed leather.

Approaching cautiously, they stopped a dozen yards

away and eyed us up. I could see the worry in their
eyes, like they were expecting to be jumped and
killed.
“Hey friends,” Troy said in english, giving them a slight
wave. “We’re uh, finally back. Don’t know if you’d
even remember faculty sending us out. We’re scouting
team one. At least, that’s what they called us when we
left.”

“Wait, you’re that guy… the one who was yelling

about needing intel on the outside world like five
months ago!” one of the guys blurted, his eyes going
wide. “Troy, right? No shit, I actually remember
watching you leave. Man, those security guys were so
mad you showed them up.”

“There’s only three of you in the armour,” the woman

said, expression suspicious as she glanced at Kit and I.
Then her eyes went as big as dinner plates when she
saw the obrec ranger who was with us. “What is
that?”
“Who, and they’re an obrec,” I supplied helpfully.
“Alien, from a big mountain range a few months south
of here.”

The woman’s eyes stayed on the obrec, but the two

guys turned to look at me, and I inwardly cringed as
they both gave me a once over. Right, forgot about
that. I was pretty now.

They were silent for a long time as they processed

their thoughts, before the woman shook herself and
squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I can’t believe
I was getting drunk and trying to get through a BA only
half a year ago,” she groaned, turning her eyes up.
“This fucking ring, dude.”

“You think you have it bad,” I laughed, unable to help

myself. “I was a dude six months ago, then I got
swallowed by a magic fruit. Dunno if you remember
the first week. I’m told there was a real shitstorm after
I uh, disappeared.”

“For real?” one of the guys blurted, his eyes bugging

out. “You’re that Eli dude? The one that went missing?
Damn right there was a shitstorm, they had to make
an announcement about you. You’re uh, looking
good… by the way… How did that even happen?
That’s some next level sci-fi shit right there.”

“You’ve heard of me then,” I smiled wryly, then

sighed, “And the story is… a lot to explain.”

I’d explain the whole magical transformation, trans

thing and new name thing later. It would only confuse
the situation, and my old nickname was just feminine
enough that it didn’t hurt too much. Especially since
I’d spent a while in my dream body, allowing me to be
confident in who I really was. I wasn’t going to let
some shitty old name hurt me anymore. Well, maybe
a little… I’d just endure it.

“We’ll see,” the woman said, clearly not as convinced

as her male compatriots. “So what else? I have a radio
that I can call back with, but I need to actually know
what I should tell them.”

“Uh,” Troy said, turning to look at us. I felt for him.

Where the hell did you even start with the magnitude
of shit we had to report. “Well, tell them Troy’s
scouting mission is back. Tell them we also found the
student formerly known as Elias Belrose, who went
missing during our first week on the ring. Also tell
them that we have a trade mission from a potential
ally. A group of non-humans called obrec, from a
nation called the Stonechasers.”

“Righto,” she nodded, opening a pouch at her hip and

taking out a big chunky walkie talkie.
I cleared my throat and almost put up my hand before
saying, “Tell them we have literal tons of metal and
metal ore for them.”

“That is something they will be happy to hear,” she

said, a genuine smile taking over her face. “We need
metal like nothing else. Let me make the call.”

Chapter 81 :
The call came back fairly quickly, the people in charge
back at Avonside wanted to talk to us. Of the sentries,
the woman appeared to be their leader, and she sent
one of the guys back up into the outpost while the
other stayed with her. They bristled a little when our
obrec called one of his rangers out of the surrounding
forest so he could relay what was happening back to
the caravan.
“What the fuck? Where did he come from?” the dude
sentry blurted in alarm, hand going to his pistol.

Troy spoke with a nonchalant shrug, “There’s a bunch

of them around us. Security. They are expert rangers
from the Stonechaser nation, or clan. Whatever you
want to call it. They’re here to guard the merchant
caravan that’s a few klicks back.”

“Right,” the woman nodded, her eyes following the

new ranger warily as he moved off, having received
his orders. “Well, follow me I guess. Let’s head back. It
might take an hour to walk there.”

“We’ve been walking for months, what’s one hour

more?” Grace smiled, pushing her wavy hair out of her
face. Her soft, distracting hair. My eyes followed its
every subtle wave for a moment, drinking it in.
The woman only snorted in reply, whether it was in
amusement, I couldn’t tell.

I spoke first, my anxiety over the unknown

overpowering my anxiety of talking to the standoffish
woman. “I’m Ryn now, by the way. Felt kinda silly to
use the old name since it was a dude name and all.”

She gave me a sideways look, followed by a big sigh.

“Jenna, and I’ll be honest, I find it hard to believe that
you just… turned into a woman. That doesn’t just…”

“Well, the change wasn’t by accident,” I said with a

frown. “I didn’t just have my body changed either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, glaring

at me suspiciously.
Behind us, the obrec ranger laughed, low and amused.
We both turned to look at him as he shook his head in
amusement.

“What?” I asked, curious if he understood us.

When he spoke, it seemed that our english lessons

with the twins had spread. “She pokes dragon with
her tiny stick. Does not know power you hold. Very
stupid.”

My eyes quickly found Jenna’s again as she turned to

stare at me, her eyes roamed for just a second before
they blew wide, “Wait, your eyes are pink! Your hair
isn’t dyed… It’s actually pink too!”

“Correct,” I grinned, not saying a word more.

She moved ahead after that, obviously not
comfortable being around me after her observations
and the words of our obrec friend. I made sure to
glance back at him and wiggle my eyebrows. He gave
me a silent laugh. It had been pretty funny. I just
couldn’t find it in myself to care that someone was
scared of me because I was different. There was also
the part where she couldn’t do shit to hurt me.

We walked in silence for about ten minutes, the trees

staying the same and the rocks getting craggier. I was
starting to wonder how this was meant to mellow
back out so soon into Avonside’s fairly chill valley. Had
the Umare plonked us down in a hidden valley within
the mountains?

Troy eventually broke the silence, asking, “How have

things changed since we left? Faculty and the CEO still
battling it out?”
“They most definitely are,” Jenna said with a scowl.
She gave him and the rest of us a long, hard look
before she sagged a little, expression softening. “Look,
I shouldn’t be telling you this until people with way
more authority than me have cleared you… but things
are tense. Resources have been stretched thin, people
are sick of eating the same unseasoned crap. The
faculty won’t stop bitching at each other and at the
CEO about things… and security is still doing their
thing.”

“By their thing, do you mean throwing their weight

around like they own the campus?” Grace asked, with
an expression that showed just what she thought of
the security people.

“Kinda,” she said, then motioned to her and her

companion. “They’ve had a little less room to throw
their weight around since the militia was formed by
the faculty, but they are still very much the CEO’s
attack dogs.”

“Militia,” Troy sighed, shaking his head. “Man, you

kids should be getting drunk and studying, like you
said. Not… not guarding a town from attack and sitting
out in the cold.” His eyes found me and he gave
another sigh. “At least we might be able to help.”

Jenna went on to describe how on more than one

occasion the ACS, or Avonside Campus Security, had
been assholes. Some were actual cops who had been
stationed there, and they had a lovely little arsenal of
over the top weapons at their disposal. The only
upside had been that the fabrication department
wasn’t willing to make shit for them.

The fabrication department was apparently a

conglomeration of all the skilled construction people,
a merger of many different areas of Avonside that had
allowed them to streamline the manufacturing
pipeline.

They apparently had a lot of power, which had been

solidified when the ACS tried to force them to use the
dwindling supplies of metal to make armour for them.
The fabrication dept had refused, stating that if
anyone tried to force them to do anything, they would
sabotage the work they were forced to do. They had
gotten roughed up, but then the militia backed them
and… well a lot had happened.

Something I’d been curious about was how they were

still unaware that magic was a thing. I mean, there
probably wasn’t a whole lot of it out here, but all of
Esra’s plants had still been there. She’d set them up to
keep the fruit alive, and part of that had been the lone
tender she left.
“Jenna… how much did they tell everyone about my
disappearance?” I asked, glancing at Grace as I did so.
I still remembered her telling me what those bastards
had put her through.

“Uh… what do you mean?” she asked, tilting her head

in confusion. “We know that you were transported in
a similar manner to the way we were brought to the
ring in the first place. They didn’t say much more than
that. There were rumours about a plantlike alien and a
fruit and stuff, like my friend here said… but nothing
else really. It was pretty hush hush.”

“Huh,” I grunted softly, a smile forming. Would be

interesting to see people’s reactions when we broke
the news about magic.

I got another suspicious look from her, but she didn’t

say anything else and I didn’t give her any more
information. I wanted to wait, do my big reveal when
someone was trying to flex on us. I could see her
starting to believe me too. Simply asserting my
identity through casual dialogue seemed to be
working.

When Avonside finally came into view, felt a smile

come to my lips unbidden, and weight seemed to ease
off me. It had changed, but it was still recognisably
Earth. I missed my home planet. I missed ordering
pizza and going down to the local second hand
bookstore to find a new book to read. I really hoped
there was a fiction industry on this world, because if
there wasn’t I was going to run out of books to read.

The biggest difference I could see was the defenses.

They had dug a trench around the campus and
compacted the dirt into a berm, then begun building a
wooden wall on top of that. It was almost complete
now, with a gate and towers at regular intervals.
The wall was actually far larger than the area that had
originally been schwooped, but there didn’t seem to
be a massive number of new buildings. Rather, the
wall encompassed a large number of fields, as well as
a section of river nearby which had a dam built at one
end. I could see a few windmills too. I guess that was
how they had solved the energy situation.

“The dam generates energy too, right?” I asked,

pointing to it. From what little I knew about power
grids, you needed a stable and adjustable source of
power to keep it working. Windmills were too volatile
to provide the backbone of a grid.

“Yeah, as far as I know,” the male sentry said with a

shrug. “It’s not enough though, unfortunately. We
have to ration power still.”

“I wonder if there’s a way to convert…” Kit began

quietly in anve, making pointed eye contact with me.
“You know… magic, into electricity. We could
definitely do something about that power problem.”

“It wouldn’t be hard,” I agreed, ideas already forming

in my mind. “I mean… we’re already doing it with my
baths… just increase the heat and put a turbine on top
of it.”

“Oh… true, that’s actually really simple,” she said with

a quiet laugh. “Duh. I was way overthinking it,
dreaming up lightning plants and shit.”

The sentries gave us both looks. “What language was

that?” Jenna asked, looking very suspicious.

“Anve, it’s the language of a region back that way,” I

said, motioning vaguely behind us. “Don’t worry. She
was just asking about power generation. We had an
idea that would help, but right now it involves
something that we’re not going to talk about until we
can tell the people in charge, or I guess, if someone
forces it out of us.”

“You seem to have all the answers for us, don’t you?”
she replied sceptically.

I shrugged. “What do you think made us take like four

months to get back? We were running around trying
to find solutions to Avonside’s problems.”

“Good point,” she nodded, conceding. “If you’re

genuine, I’ll be more than happy. Until the bosses give
you the tick though, I’m going to be suspicious. This
world isn’t friendly and if we let our guard down,
more will die.”
I had to agree with her on that one. I had a sneaking
suspicion that she might have lost someone in the
attack that had happened so many months ago.

The gate was manned by a pair of militia who looked

bored right up until they saw us. They stood up
straight and called, “Jenna! What’s going on?”

“People to see the faculty,” she said, then pulled an

apologetic expression. “Sorry, can’t say more. You’ll
probably find out soon enough though.”

The gate was also made of wood, and the two militia
who’d been guarding it nodded, signalling to those
inside that we should be let through. They might be
amateurish, but at least they were trying. Made me a
little hopeful that we could win them over once we’d
shown ourselves to be genuine.
Sadly, we didn’t make it more than ten yards through
the gate before something bad happened. A group of
ten ACS guys rolled up with their blue uniforms and
riot gear on, trying their best to look intimidating.

“Militiawoman Jenna, we’ll handle them from here,

CEO wants to talk to them,” the lead one said gruffy,
giving us all a once over.

“I was told to take them to see the faculty council,”

Jenna replied, glancing worriedly back at us.

The ACS guy shook his head. “Change of plans. CEO

wants them.”

“Um… let me just call and ask,” Jenna said, turning her
back and pulling out a phone. I could see her
expression was worried.
The guy at the lead frowned, his hand going to the
pistol holstered at his hip. Oh hell no. Fuck this.

“Here, let me fix this situation,” I said, moving forward

and patting Jenna on the shoulder as I went. To the
dicks in their dumb blue uniforms I gave a glare. “You
all heard her. She has orders, and she hasn’t heard
differently from her chain of command.”

“Ryn…” Troy said quietly from behind me, and I turned

to look at him, raising an eyebrow. Was this a bad
idea? His expression was neutral, and speaking in
anve, he said, “Quick and brutal. Beat their faces into
the fucking ground. Like you did in the battle, don’t
leave any doubt about who has more power.”

My eyebrows rose. Alright, if Troy condoned a little

use of force, then I was going to use a little force. As a
treat.
“Alright, I’m going to give you all a few seconds to
think, and then I want you to turn your asses around
and go back to whatever it is you do in that security
room of yours,” I told the assembled ACS.

“And who the fuck are you?” the lead guy asked with
an amused sneer. “You’re coming with us girl, or we’ll
make you come with us.”

I gave him a look of disappointment. That was the only

warning he and his buddies got.

With a flourish, I whipped my hand forward as spell

flower tattoos snaked up my wrist, a blast of
concussive force throwing them all sharply backwards.
They tumbled like forgotten luggage behind a jet
engine, their gear going everywhere, limbs flailing. I
couldn’t help a laugh at how comical it looked.
Helmets, shields, guns, batons and grown men all
flying into the air to scatter across the trampled
earthen area behind the gate.

Before any could recover, I wrapped tendrils of

telekinetic power around them all, lifting them into
the air. Orienting them all so they were prone, I
twisted them so they were facing the ground that was
a few feet below them. With a sharp, dismissive wave
of my hand, I brought them all down hard, following
Troy’s orders to the letter.

My finishing touch was to sow the seeds of vines

throughout their ranks, urging them to grow up and
lock around the necks of each one, pinning them
there. I made sure they wouldn’t suffocate, I wasn’t
cruel after all. Maybe someone would take pity on
them later, cut them off the ground. I don’t know, and
I didn’t really care.
“Should have listened,” I said with a poison smile, and
turning to my group as casually as I possibly could, I
asked, “Should we continue?”

All the militia people were staring at me in shock, and

I took a little satisfaction from seeing Jenna’s eyes so
wide they looked like they might fall out. The dragon
was revealed.

Everyone was silent for long moments, before the

male sentry who’d been escorting us let out a nervous
laugh, “Well then, that was satisfying to watch… why
don’t we all just uh… go see our friends in the faculty,
eh? I mean, I’m sure dirt is really nutritious if you’re
desperate, but I’m not very keen to watch the pigs
wallow. It’s kinda gross.”

“Yes…” Jenna nodded, still staring at me. “Good idea.

Let’s move.”
Chapter 82 :
The room that the faculty met us in was an aging
lecture hall, the type that a new class in some obscure
subject might be given to use. Five rows of threadbare
fold down seats and worn wooden desktops led to a
raised stage, where a plastic and steel school table
had been set up.

Five people sat at the table, three women and two

men, all of them with varying degrees of grey in their
hair. They wore tired looking formal clothing, suits for
four of them, while one of the women wore a simple
black dress. They looked very much the part of
university administrators, albeit ones that hadn’t been
able to get their clothing repaired in six months.
“Jenna, thank you for bringing them here. We were
worried that the ACS might have gotten to you,” the
central woman said, leaning forward intently.

“Ah… they did,” Jenna said with an awkward cough.

“The newcomers… dealt with them. I highly suggest
you don’t piss the one with pink hair off… ma’am.”

“Is that so,” the woman replied slowly, her eyes

coming down on me like someone was using their
watch face to reflect the sun into my eyes. She had
one intense stare, dayum. Then her gaze drifted past
me to fall on the obrec, eyes going wide, a gasp
escaping her thin lips.

“Ah, right…” Troy chuckled, turning to the obrec. “This

is an obrec, an alien to be exact, although we’re all
technically aliens on this ring.”
There was a lot of staring by the five people at the
table, and a long silence to go along with it. Not that I
blamed them, meeting another thinking, feeling being
that wasn’t human was a pretty big deal.

“Hello, I am pleased to be meeting you,” the ranger

said in his awkward version of english, smiling ruefully.
“It is long time since I meet others who have not seen
obrec.”

“Ah…” the woman with the stare said, her eyes

bugging out. “I imagine we will get to an explanation…
at some point. Nice to meet you, uh… Mr Obrec.”

“We met his kind during our adventures,” Troy said,

saving us from another awkward silence. “Which,
speaking of… Scouting team one, here to report in. At
long last.”
“My god!” one of the men blurted, tearing his eyes off
the obrec ranger and interrupting any further talk
about him. He leaned forward and pushed his large
glasses up his face, staring in open astonishment. “It
really is you, Troy! My goodness boy, we honestly
thought you were dead! I couldn’t believe it when we
got word you’d just wandered up to a sentry post!”

Troy’s face broke out into a full-faced genuine smile,

eyes crinkling at the sides. “Ayup, that’s me. Sorry it
took so long Doctor Richards, we got a little…
sidetracked, but I think it was worth it.”

Doctor Richards gave a laugh, one of those full bellied

ones that you might expect from a mall Santa. I bet
this guy used to be a mall Santa. You know, back when
there were malls. Getting a hold of himself, Mall Santa
smiled again, saying, “Well, hopefully this little
debriefing goes well! I’m most interested in hearing of
your adventures!”
“Speaking of that debriefing,” the central woman said
with a pointed look in Santa’s direction. She was a
little younger than the rest, although that still put her
in her fifties or more. She was one of those older
women who looked simultaneously in-shape and a
little gaunt, the whip-smart english professor vibe.

“Ah, yes… my apologies, please continue,” the older

man said, motioning with his hand to her.

Turning to us, the severe woman smiled, or at least

attempted to… maybe she was Troy’s mum? “Hello,
we are here to represent the faculty council. I am Dr
Wilcott, head of the college of law. Dr Richards here is
the head of the college of natural sciences.” She then
pointed to the other man, a small but spritely old guy
with a keen eye, before continuing her introductions
down the line. “This is Dr Ruthven, then Dr Ross and
Dr Leslie, heads of economics, political science, and
arts, respectively.”
Troy made eye contact with each as they were
introduced, waiting until we were all seated in the
front row before sitting down himself. “Good to see
you all again. Glad it’s only the five of you and not…
well, the rest.”

What did that mean? Was he talking about the CEO

and her stooges or the other faculty heads?

“Likewise, Troy,” Dr Wilcott said with a slight smile. “I

honestly did not expect to see you again when we
sent you out. What little we knew of the outside world
at the time was foreboding, and what we have learned
since is downright worrisome.”

“It is that, yeah,” he said evenly, leaning back into his

chair.
There was a rustle and I heard boots ascending back
up the stairs of the lecture hall. Dr Wilcott’s stare
turned up to skewer our militia escort. “Jenna,
William, please sit as well, if you would,” she said as
the two sentries froze where they were. “I’d like you
here, thank you.”

“Uh… sure, ma’am,” Jenna replied, sitting uneasily

down in a chair beside the male sentry whose name
was apparently William.

“Well, I guess we’ll get straight to it then, you must be

impatient to get to a good bath and some food?” she
asked, her tone rising into a question as she raised an
eyebrow.

“Actually ma’am, I expect we’ve had access to nicer

facilities than are here at Avonside,” Troy said, giving
me a grateful smile.
Dr Wilcott’s eyebrows rose at that, and she leaned
forward. “Interesting. I notice that two members of
your party are missing… and you have gained two
more. Please, give us an overview of your travels. I’d
like a full written report later, but lets not waste time
on excessive spoken word, the details of which will
likely be forgotten.”

“Agreed,” Dr Richards said with an emphatic nod. “I

expect if we asked for the whole story, by the time
you were done, our faculties would need to find
replacement heads!” he finished with another one of
his Santa laughs that had me smiling almost
involuntarily. Damn infectious laughter.

Dr Leslie, the woman in the dress on the end rolled

her eyes and placed a hand to her forehead in
exasperation, even as she fought a smile. “I can’t
believe I married you. At least I kept my last name.”
“You love it dear,” he grinned in reply, sending a wink
down the table at her.

I don’t know what I expected when we finally got to

this point, but old person banter and flirting was not
it. The silly talk was putting me at ease though. Maybe
this would be easier than I’d feared?

“This is why I separated the both of you to opposite

ends of the desk,” Dr Wilcott groaned, covering her
face with both hands for a moment. Moving before
anyone could reply, she slapped them down on the
table and gave Troy a look. “Please, a brief version of
your travels, if you would, Troy.”

“Well, uh… alright. Here goes. It took us a few weeks

to get out of the mountains to start off with, and I had
us moving cautiously in case we ran into danger. We
didn’t find anything but a bear, which ran off when it
saw us. Leaving the mountains had us stumbling into a
small town. Avonside is apparently situated within a
section of mountain range that is claimed by a nation
called the Empire of Ghraiga,” he explained slowly, his
eyes moving randomly across the floor as he gathered
his thoughts.

“Empire?” Dr Richards asked, his joviality replaced

with concern, which was mirrored by a nod from the
head of political science.

“Yeah,” Troy agreed. “They have a strange mix of

medieval level technology and ah… magical
technology.”

“Say that again?” Richards blinked, leaning forward as

far as his large stomach would allow.

“We’ll get to that part later, trust me,” the younger

man smiled, already looking weary. There was so
much to explain, so much that these five people
needed to know.

“Let him speak,” Dr Wilcott said quietly.

Troy continued with his explanation after exhaling a

long breath, “Okay so, we sold some of the goods we
brought from Avonside to get local coin, then bought
passage on a barge down a large river. We travelled
this way for many weeks, stopping off in various
towns in a few different nations and staying to look
around for a few days. We had limited success in
learning the dominant local language, anve.”

Turning to me, he gave me an almost parental smile,

“Then we found Ryn, or rather, we found each other.
We were in a city like many others we had visited
when Grace spotted someone with a ring she
recognised. She and her group of friends apparently
all share a ring like this, and she urged us to follow this
person and investigate.”

Grace, Adam and I all helpfully raised our hands to

show off the rings in question, and the faculty
representatives looked on curiously. We were
incredibly lucky that Bray had made these things. I
shuddered to think of what might have happened
without them.

“The woman we followed turned out to be Ryn here,

formerly known as the student who disappeared, Elias
Belrose,” Troy said, gesturing to me again.

“And just how exactly is that possible?” Dr Wilcott

asked, and her skeptical look was shared by her
colleagues. Their reaction should have sent my
stomach plunging and my heart racing, but it didn’t.
Instead, I got excited.
“Magic,” I said, trying not to grin like an idiot. I was
going to have so much fun revealing the existence of
magic to everyone. “You all know how I disappeared,
right? Sucked into a weird fruit in the middle of a
bunch of alien looking plants, with a humanoid plant-
like alien among them?”

I got a round of hesitant nods from the faculty heads,

so I continued. “The fruit was… well, essentially, a
reproductive device…”

I went on to give a brief explanation of magic and how

it worked, what a mage was and all that stuff. As I
spoke, each set of eyebrows opposite me rose and
rose, until I thought they were all going to fly off like
moths or something.

“This is… quite the tale. I mean, really… part human,

part plant?” Dr Richards said finally, clearly not
believing me. Of course the sciences guy wouldn’t
take me at my word. “It’s preposterous. We already
determined that—“

“Do I have your permission for a demonstration?” I

asked ignoring him and turning to the woman in
charge, excitement rolling through me like thunder.

“Go ahead,” Wilcott said simply, clearly interested

now. It was kinda weird how the head of the law
college was the most interested in my magic.

With her go ahead, I allowed my plant half to come to

the fore. My pale skin turned green and purple, soft
and leafy, my hair had vines threaded through it, each
one bearing flowers of bright magenta. A few green
vines sprouted out of my arms, then wrapped around
them, forcing me to take my big coat off in order to let
them free. Wish I had control over that.
“Well, here’s the plant part,” I said simply, and with a
twist of my wrist I summoned my dark magenta
blades. “And here’s magic. These are blades made of
solid energy, controlled by my mind. Here…”

I drifted one to each of the faculty heads, allowing

them to drop to the table. “Careful, they’re sharp, but
you can pick them up.”

They did so, tenderly of course. Dr Richards had a

deep frown on his face, while his wife was smiling, her
expression close to joy.

“They’re beautiful,” the head of the arts said, turning

the blade over with delicate fingers. “You say this
magic is versatile?”

“Very,” I agreed with a smile to match hers. “Here,

look.”
With another gesture that I didn’t actually need to do,
I used the flower petal spell. Tiny specks of bright
energy flickered into existence above them, spinning
quickly into delicate blue rose petals that rained down
upon the five representatives of the faculty like
winter’s first snow.

“Oh my word!” Dr Richards said, a smile breaking

through his frown. He wasn’t smiling for the petals
though, I could see him staring intently at the
formation process, where my spell turned energy into
matter, however temporary. What a nerd.

“Ma’am, if I may?” Jenna said, speaking up for the first

time since she’d sat down. When she got a nod from
her superior, the sentry continued, “She is more than
just pretty spells… When we came through the gates,
a group of ACS intercepted us with the intention of
diverting the scouting team to the CEO. They became
belligerent very quickly, but Ryn ah… lifted them into
the air with magic and then slammed them into the
ground. With them there, she secured them to the
ground with what appeared to be vines that she
magically grew for the purpose.”

“Yeah…” I nodded awkwardly, feeling my stomach

clench up a little with anxiety. Here’s the part that
would make them a little less happy about me. “I am
essentially a one woman army… it’s honestly a little
scary how much power I wield,” I told them truthfully.

“A one woman army with a shield of magic that is near

unbreakable,” Troy added pointedly, giving the faculty
a long stare.

“I see,” Wilcott, murmured, eyes boring into me with

an unreadable expression. “Let us then take a
moment to speak about your identity then. Why,
exactly, are you a woman now, and how can we be
sure that you are Elias Belrose?”
I winced, and I felt Grace’s fingers weave through
mine. We shared a look, her eyes full of love and
encouragement. Alright, I could do this. I could explain
it.

Bolstered, I turned back to the five greying heads that

awaited my answer. “I’m a woman because I am
transgender. I should never have been a ‘man’” I told
them, using air quotes when I said the word that had
haunted me for most of my life.

“My mentor suspects that the fruit uh, optimised me,

so to speak. When I was being converted into a mage,
it must have realised my nature somehow and
reconstructed my body to better suit my mind, soul or
whatever. As for my identity… I don’t really know how
to prove that absolutely. I have the ring, I know all my
details that are probably in the system… all that stuff,”
I shrugged, sort of helplessly. “I proved it to Grace by
using an inside joke that we’d had… and just being
me.”

“It’s true,” my girlfriend said from beside me, still

holding my hand. “I only knew her for a short time
before she was taken, but we were close. She isn’t
exactly the same though, she’s happier and more
confident now. A lot has happened, but I’ll vouch for
her until the end of time and back.”

We waited for long moments after her speech, and my

stomach did its best to bury itself in the floor. They
had to believe us, they had to!

Finally, and unexpectedly, Dr Wilcott gave us a wry

smile, steepling her fingers and leaning back, “That
won’t be necessary. I am still being showered in blue
flower petals after all. Magic is rather obviously, if
confoundingly, real. I expect Dr Richards and his
college will have a lot of work ahead of them.”
“Indeed,” Science Santa chuckled, giving me a mock
scowl. “You’ve given me quite the headache already.”

“You… believe me?” I blinked, more than a little

surprised.

“We do, and I’m sure you’ll continue to prove

yourself,” Dr Wilcott said kindly. Her expression
changed to one of wry amusement as though a
thought had just occurred to her. “From what we have
seen and heard of you, the fact that you did not march
in and assert control over the whole campus through
overwhelming force speaks volumes as to your
character, at the very least.”

“Ah… yeah,” I said sheepishly. I felt so strange about

having the power of a minor goddess, at least
compared to the mere mortals in front of me, people
that had once held so much power over me. I didn’t
need them at all now. I could leave Avonside and live
my life however I wanted, then die of old age in the
distant future. I was here because I wanted to help,
and because I had friends here.

“Thank you Ryn. We’ll shelve the discussion of you

and magic for now, in favour of getting to the end of
this report some time before the end of the day,” she
said, concluding my role in things and turning to Troy
with a gesture that he keep going.

He nodded thanks and began where he left off, which

was Fennimore capturing James and the following
interaction we’d had with him. Recounting what the
awful man had said about his future aspirations and
intentions had grey heads huddling and whispering
furiously.

There were a lot of questions after that, and both Troy

and myself gave them as many details as we could
about Fennimore and his cohort of evil. We went over
his rise to power, his vicious strike on the obrec and
his extermination of rival mage covens. They were
particularly horrified when I mentioned his war
crimes.

Eventually we moved on from Fennimore, and Troy

told them about how we’d decided to travel to
Millowhall, which prompted a brief explanation of
magitech and then warlocks. When we got to the
confrontation with the steel one, Dr Richards grew
excited, asking a lot of questions about how it had
moved, behaved and looked, before the leader lady
cut him off.

Santa’s silence lasted until Troy told them of the ring

builder ruin, the old man practically jumping out of his
seat with excitement when we mentioned the Umare
tech we’d brought with us. He of course went pale
and quiet when we described the fate of the Umare,
how they had committed mass suicide rather than
face some terrible catastrophe. I tried not to react
when Troy failed to mention the red nightmare and
just how horrifying that catastrophe must have been.

He did talk about what had happened to Grace

though, and the problems that had arisen because of
that as well as the eventual solution we found with
Ollinfer. He also told of the escape from Fennimore’s
goons and then our reunion at the inn in Millowhall.

The whole Millowhall saga had them excited, and in

the economic’s guy’s case, quiet amusement when I
described the chaos I’d caused in the wood market
there. Dr Wilcott was the one to interrupt and move
things forward again. “You have metals? How much?”

“So much, ma’am,” I grinned. Seeing these old people

getting excited at my hard work was a fulfilling thing.
Each of us in the order had gone through so much to
deliver this news, these sorely needed materials.
Seeing it appreciated had me so happy. “Want me to
go and get some?”

“Ah… that won’t be—“ I didn’t wait for her to finish,

popping into my grove in a flash and rushing for the
happy tree. I quickly grabbed a few ingots of various
metals with my telekinesis, then teleported back into
the lecture hall. “Here!” I said breathlessly, dumping
the heavy lumps of metal onto their table with a series
of loud thumps.

“Well, isn’t that handy,” Dr Leslie laughed, picking one

of them up and promptly dropping it again with a
surprised groan when she realised how heavy it was.

Troy had an actual list of what we had, as well as a list

of what I could grow, which he produced for them.
Watching their eyes widen and widen as they realised
just how much we could do for Avonside had me
grinning unashamedly. Like, we could give them
everything from metal and other raw materials, to
coffee and chocolate. Even Jenna was looking excited
when I mentioned the coffee thing. It was also about
now that I realised how much work I was going to be
doing in the near future.

After the excitement died down, Troy continued his

report with the Stonechasers and their merchant
caravan, camped out in the woods and waiting for
word that they could continue. The prospect of allies
had the faculty heads breathing easy, and the
prospect of an outside trade partner had them
excited. Especially the economics guy, who was a little
disappointed when we couldn’t immediately start
talking numbers and other businessy merchant shit
with him. I told him not to worry, Jerril would happily
go on and on about it in detail.

We also went into more detail about the obrec, their

culture and some of the other races we’d seen during
our visit to Millowhall. I was fond of the small fuzzy
people, personally… but that was probably just me.
They were cute, okay?

Dr Wilcott finally called an end to things when it

became clear this was not going to be a one-meeting
kinda deal.

“It appears that your mission was a resounding

success Troy, well done,” she told him happily. “Is
there anything else we should know before we end?
We have matters of your safety within the campus to
consider, obviously. The ACS will be trying their
thuggery again soon, I imagine.”

“There is the matter of Kit, one of the members of the

original team,” Troy said, motioning to the small girl.
“She was also transformed into a mage, and similarly
to Ryn, is transgender, hence the radically different
new look. She is new to magic and will be studying
with their mentor for a long while, but I don’t expect it
will be long before she is a competent mage in her
own right.”

“Understood,” the older woman smiled, and turning

her attention to Kit, she said, “Congratulations on
your… transition, that’s the right word isn’t it?”
pausing she glanced over at me as well, “Both of you,
actually.”

“Oh, um… thank you,” Kit mumbled, smiling down at

Dr Wilcott’s feet. Goodness, the girl was so adorable.
Really needed to work on that confidence with her
though. “Yes it is. The right word, I mean…
transition...”

“Good, good, and just so we’re clear, the university’s

policies on LGBT students and staff still apply, you are
welcome and protected here. The punishments for
those that infringe on your rights might have changed
a little, but rest assured that if you find yourselves the
target of discrimination, please take it up with student
services,” she said, glancing between both Kit and I,
then hesitantly to Grace.

Ah, she’d picked up in us had she? Guess the hand

holding had been a giveaway. Hadn’t caught on to the
master of stealth himself though. “Thank you,” I told
her gratefully, speaking for all of us.

“There is one other… matter,” Troy said hesitantly,

taking a deep breath.

“Oh?” the steel eyed law professor asked, raising an

eyebrow.

“While we were out there, we named ourselves the

Order of Eleos and did our best to spread good words
about ourselves and Avonside,” Troy began, making
eye contact with each faculty head. “Going forward, I
intend to grow this order with people from Avonside,
as well as others. My goal is to create a strong
independent military, diplomatic and humanitarian aid
force that would help further the interests of
Avonside, as well as general compassion on the ring.
There is a lot of hardship out there, and I’d like to try
and do something to help with that.”

“Interesting,” Dr Wilcott mused, stroking her chin

thoughtfully as she gazed at us. “You’d continue as
you have, I assume? But with more teams, better gear
and training? Where would you be based? I’m not
personally opposed to the idea, I can see how you
would act as a check against the ACS, especially with
magic at your side.”

“Exactly,” he said, and for once I could see a little

nervousness from him. “We would of course use our
own funds to maintain the order, I have no desire to
take much needed resources from Avonside. As for
the ACS… I feel as though they might be a little…
outdated, if you take my meaning.”

“That, is the understatement of the century,” Jenna

grumbled from her seat, earning muttered agreement
from the other faculty heads. I couldn’t help a smile.
These five were a hell of a lot cooler than I’d been
expecting, if I was honest. Something told me that the
rest of their colleagues wouldn’t be so cool.

Wilcott acknowledged Jenna’s words with a slight

smile before speaking again, “I won’t lie to you Troy,
you’ll have to fight for recognition from the full
council, if you even plan to wait for approval. The five
of us here are those I could gather on short notice and
that I thought would be the most receptive to you and
your group. I am playing political games here, holding
this meeting before they can get word of your return.
The council as a whole is as fractured and
argumentative as ever, barely any more use than the
CEO. Which, of course, there’s a very good chance you
may have to physically fight the ACS if the CEO takes
issue with you.”

“We’re well aware of that,” Troy chuckled darkly.

“Thank you ma’am, you’ve been far more receptive
than I had dared hope. To everything, really.”

“Like I said, others won’t be,” she warned. “The

university is divided in many different ways. I’m
hoping that you will shake up the tense status quo,
preferably in our favour,” she told us, gesturing to her
four colleagues. “I know an opportunity for progress
and change when I see one Troy, and you and your
proposed order are it.”

Chapter 83 :
Even as the meeting ended, Troy was dragged off to
sort out a bunch of different things. The obrec ranger
would be returning to his caravan, along with Jenna,
William and a number of militia. The two sentries
apparently knew a route that the caravan could take
to get to Avonside, and along with the militia would
be their escort into Avonside.

Grace and I were both given phones that would work

on the university network, so that we could be
contacted when the obrec arrived. Which meant that
for several hours we had nothing to do.

We stood outside the room, Grace, Adam, Kit and I,

just staring at each other. We were finally home. Now
what?

“I guess… we should go and find the others…” Grace

sighed at last, her expression mirroring the unease I
felt in my gut.
“The others… you mean um, the ones who have rings
like you?” Kit asked hesitantly. “Should I go…?”

“No, you’re welcome with us Kit,” I said reassuringly,

putting an arm around her shoulder.

“I hope they’re okay,” Adam murmured, his usually

characteristic cheer replaced with apprehension. Shit,
if even he was worried…

“Do we even know where they are?” I asked, glancing

up and down the now deserted hallway we were in. “I
feel like randomly wandering around the campus
could cause some trouble.”

“I could just text them and ask,” Adam offered, getting

his phone out of his pocket. Damn, it had been so long
since I’d been in a place with tech that I’d forgotten
about phones.
He did so, asking Duncan where everyone was at
these days. When he got a reply, we were surprised to
learn that they all still had the small classroom that
we’d been given at the start. I wonder what they’d
done with the place since I left.

Just the thought of seeing them all again had me

feeling like I’d just chugged a gallon of ice-cold brine.
It was one thing to convince a bunch of old people
who wanted things from me, and it was another thing
to convince my old friends, people who’d known me
as Eli the wimpy dude who liked pillows and helping
people.

I had a trick up my sleeve, but it would be painful. So

painful in fact, that I hadn’t used it in the faculty
meeting. Not even Grace had seen it, although she
knew I’d worked on the spell. I shuddered, turning my
awareness outwards again as we began to walk
towards our old room. Grace’s hand found mine as we
walked, and I honestly couldn’t tell who was hanging
on tighter.

Signs of change were everywhere within the

university. Jerry-rigged fixes to things that the
maintenance people could no longer get parts for.
Rooms that used to be classrooms had their windows
covered with paint or cardboard to give those who
now lived within some privacy. The doors to those
rooms were often decorated with art or other signs of
customisation, an attempt to liven up the unfortunate
living conditions. A few had signs of damage that had
since been repaired.

Garden areas within the campus now grew fruit,

vegetables and herbs, while weeds grew between
newly formed cracks in the pavement. Administration
posters were everywhere, older ones displaying water
rationing rules, while newer ones were recruiting for
various new organisations. I saw a vandalised and torn
poster asking for volunteers to join the militia, a
ragged blue line painted across it.

Signs of strife and division were everywhere, now that

I was looking. Broken windows that had been replaced
with wood boards, the shattered glass left to sit below
its old home. I saw a few bullet holes in walls, now
filled with caulk.

There were people out and about though, and we

passed an old student common room that had people
chilling inside it, watching a movie on a projector. One
of the campus cafes was giving out food for some
form of currency I didn’t recognise, people sitting at
tables and chatting.

“Grace! Oh my god, Grace!” someone called, and we

all stopped to see a girl getting up from one of the
tables. She looked like your average pretty college girl,
dark eyes, middling height and brown hair, except
with the addition of a toolbelt at her hip. She rushed
up and threw her arms around Grace in a quick hug,
before stepping back to stare in awe. “We thought
you’d died out there!”

“Sandy!” Grace exclaimed. “We almost did, I lost

count of the number of times sketchy shit happened.
What are you doing now? You have a toolbelt!”

“Yeah, I had to put down the clippers and pick up a

wrench unfortunately,” Sandy said, with a wry laugh.
“A nice haircut isn’t exactly top priority these days.
Speaking of which… your hair has changed, in fact…
you’re taller!”

“Long story,” my girlfriend said, glancing at me.

That drew her friend’s gaze to me, then to our joined
hands. “Who’s this?” she asked with a smile for me,
seeming genuine.

“This is Ryn. She was uh… it’s a long story…” Grace

sighed, scratching at the back of her neck as she
glanced at me.

“I’m the guy who went missing during the first week,”
I told her calmly. It was going to get out anyway, may
as well start it off with my own spin on the story. “I’ve
obviously changed… there’s a lot out there. It’s a long
story.”

“Well… nice to meet you, Ryn,” Sandy said slowly, a

slight smile on her lips. “Will I hear the story at some
point, because if I remember correctly, descriptions of
you were a little different to how you look now. Must
be a wild story.”
“It involves magic, an alternate plane of existence and
ancient aliens,” I said with as close to a poker face as I
could manage.

She rolled her eyes. “Ha ha, real funny.”

I just grinned. Yes, I was a brat, no I wasn’t going to

tell her that it was the truth, at least… not in so many
words.

The conversation turned back to life at Avonside,

Sandy explaining that she’d joined up with the
maintenance corps. They were the group responsible
for… well, fixing shit, but also getting things working
again, hooking everything up to the new power and
internet grids, that sort of thing.

She apparently loved it, something she never would

have discovered about herself had she continued to
go through the same hairdresser course that Grace
had been in. They were teaching those like her on the
go, usually in an apprenticeship-like scenario, with
classes thrown in every now and then. It was kinda
cool actually.

“We do need to get going though, Sandy,” Grace said

after a few minutes, gesturing to the waiting Adam
and Kit. “Gotta go find some of our people.”

“Right, sorry! Don’t let me keep you, but hit me up

with a text later!” the energetic mechanic said
happily.

“Oh, speaking of…” Grace blurted, holding a hand up

to stall her friend. “They gave me a new phone, my
old one got shot by a robot. Let me give you my new
number, one second.”
“Uh, what?” Sandy blinked.

“She isn’t joking,” Adam laughed, miming the action of

the robot when it had shot at the phone, making laser
gun sounds. “She used it as a distraction. Dunno why
the robot hated her phone that much, but it drilled
that thing good. Then a magical goat chick with a
sword sliced it up like some movie character.”

“You’re fucking with me,” the girl said, squinting at

him suspiciously.

“Nope,” Grace said casually, then read out her

number to Sandy, who scrambled to get it down.
Numbers exchanged, we bid her goodbye and moved
to leave.
Aha! My time to shine! I pretended to drop my own
phone right as I stepped away, but before it could hit
the ground, I caught it with my telekinesis.

“Oops!” I laughed, pulling the phone back up to my

eyes without actually putting a finger on it. I turned it
around, pretending to inspect it for damage. “Nope,
it’s still good. Magic is so useful like that!”

Sandy’s eyes were as big as dinnerplates as she stared

at me, and I tugged on Grace’s hand to get us moving.
“See ya Sandy, good luck with the wrench thing!”

We continued on, all four of us trying not to laugh.

The look on that girl’s face… oh my goodness.

“She’s going to tell people about it, you know that

right?” Grace asked with a grin, shaking her head at
me.
“Yup, but that’s kinda the point,” I winked.

She frowned, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Rumours,” Kit murmured, little brows furrowed as

thoughts whirled behind her big brown eyes. “If
people know she has magic, combined with what
happened at the gate… people will realise she’s
dangerous and they can’t just mess with her. Defense
by intimidation.”

“Yup,” I agreed, happy that someone had realised my

plan.

“You’re sneaky as shit, Ryn!” Adam exclaimed, giving

me a look of respect. “Nicely done.”
“Or they’ll start a witch hunt,” Grace frowned, looking
troubled.

I shrugged. “Then I’ll just stand in the middle of them

with my shield up and wait for them to get bored.
They don’t have magic or magitech rifles, they can’t
do shit. We both know my shield is strong enough to
stop bullets and way more.”

“True enough…” Kit agreed, and a wistful expression

flitted briefly across her adorable face for a moment.
“Can’t wait to be like that… but back to Sandy, I’m
surprised she believed you when you said who you
used to be.”

“She probably didn’t,” Adam chuckled, shoving his

hands into his pockets as a blast of cold mountain
wind rolled over us. “At least until she dropped her
phone and pulled that magic stunt. No one who’s
good at talking to people is going to call you a liar to
your face like that.”

“Yup,” Grace said, glancing back at the cafe before we

turned a corner and it was lost from sight. “Sandy is
always about being happy and avoiding mentioning
the bad stuff at all costs. Means that she’s a fun
person to hang with, but she isn’t really there when
times are hard.”

“Not the worst character flaw in the world,” I

murmured, thinking back to my friends from high
school. They had done nothing but bitch and moan
about everything, as though they were incapable of
happiness. I’d take a Sandy over them, any day.

Slowly, we got through the campus, walking down half

remembered pathways that had changed in the time
we were gone. It was like seeing an old friend who’d
changed drastically since elementary school. You
could see the ravages of life in their wrinkles and
scars, in the way they carried themselves or the styles
they wore. Avonside was different now, hardened
against a world that was far less hospitable than the
last. I just hoped its core hadn’t become rotten.

Chapter 84 :
The door to our old room had been decorated since
we’d left, the names of everyone painted onto it with
different colours to create a rainbow. My name was
there too, along with the words “Rest in peace, we
miss you Eli.” I felt my heart clench at the sight, and
suddenly tears were collecting at the corners of my
eyes.

“Fuck,” I squeaked, coming to a halt as I stared at it,

trying desperately to control myself.
“That’s… new,” Grace murmured, pulling me against
her side.

I felt Adam’s hand come down on my shoulder and

give it a squeeze, “Yeah. Wasn’t there when we left.
We got your back though Ryn, it’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” I sniffled, playing with the lapels of my coat

as I took some deep breaths in an attempt to steady
myself. I don’t know why that had hit me as hard as it
did. Maybe it was the way they had obviously cared
about me, despite thinking I was gone.

“We ready to go in?” Grace asked, giving me a gentle,

loving look. Her eyes were so green, a vibrant grass
green with flecks of brown and blue within. I loved her
eyes.
Grabbing her by the back of the head, I pulled her
down to my level and kissed her. It was a hard kiss,
fierce and passionate as I attempted to drown out my
roiling, anxiety filled gut.

Parting from her with a gasp, I gave her a grin I

definitely didn’t feel and nodded, “Yeah.”

With that, Adam went first, opening the door and

stepping through to hold it for us. Kit hovered behind
us, the only one here who wasn’t part of our original
group. She was going to get included whether she
liked it or not though.

“Hello?” Adam called. “Anyone home?”

“Adam!” A flying bundle of dark emerald hair flew at

the tall dude, wrapping shorter arms around him with
a giddy laugh. Melody grinned up at him, her chin
probably painfully sticking into his chest. She looked
the same as ever, plus a few inches of brown at the
roots of her hair. I guess dark green hair dye was in
short supply now.

“I can’t believe you’re here, that you’re even alive!”

she exclaimed, then growled. “And what the hell took
you all so long, you were meant to be out for like, a
few months, not half a year! We were so worried, I
swear—” she blinked, her eyes finally landing on Kit
and me. I guess we were the two shortest members of
the group. She smiled and let Adam go, a blush filling
out her cheeks. “New people, hey… I swear I’m
normal.”

I laughed, the happiness at seeing her alive and happy

outweighing my anxiety for a moment. “Hey Melody,”
I said with a tentative smile.
“Wow… I mean, hello, nice to meet you…” she said
her eyes roaming all over my face, then they dove
bashfully to the floor before moving on to Kit. “You
too. Nice to meet both of you.”

Grace and I exchanged a look, but didn’t otherwise

comment. We could get to my identity later. For now,
we moved into the room and found the other three.
Kelsey sat on a worn couch, legs crossed and long
blonde hair up in a bun on the top of her head. She
gave Grace and Adam a huge smile, waving to both of
them and offering greetings.

Duncan went to straight to Adam and pulled him into

a bro hug that looked almost painful it was so intense.
I did not miss that type of thing at all.

Then there was Bray. Short, stocky bray with his curly
brown hair and big stupid grin. I felt a pang of
heartache shoot through my chest. God I’d missed
him. He’d just stood up from where he’d been sitting
in a pile of my pillows, beaming happily at Grace and
Adam. “You really are back! I was ready to uh… add
your names to the door.”

“Morbid,” Adam said with an awkward smile, very

obviously trying not to look at me.

Bray just shrugged, then his eyes narrowed. “Grace,

did something happen? You look different?”

“Ah… yeah,” she nodded, her hand trailing awkwardly

down her other arm. “Magic… literally.”

“No… I think it’s just the different coloured hair,”

Kelsey said as all eyes turned to my girlfriend. “The
red is gone, there’s green in there now.”
“Oh my god, did you find hair dye out there? Please
tell me you got some green for me!” Melody chirped,
flopping back down on the couch with her girlfriend,
who immediately put an arm around her.

“Ah… no,” Grace shook her head again. “I’m not

joking, it really was magic… look.”

Her skin went rigid and rough, shifting and changing as

it became the bark of her plant form. I smiled as I saw
the little cracks between the plates of bark, where she
glowed gently from within, swirling green and blue
light changing places from one moment to the next.

“Holy shit!” Duncan blurted, stepping quickly

backwards, only for his foot to catch on a pillow,
sending his huge frame crashing down to the floor.
“Wow!” Melody blurted at the same time that Kelsey
choked and began to sputter, smacking herself on the
chest with a fist as she began to cough.

Bray froze, staring at her with utter shock, face going

white. “You said that a tree person killed Eli… now you
are one?”

“Uh, actually no… it was the fruit,” I said into the quiet
that followed. Slowly, I raised my hand to show them
the ring. “And… it didn’t kill me.”

The silence before I spoke morphed into something

that was truly the absence of sound. It was like
everyone had stopped breathing. Nobody moved,
nobody spoke. All of them staring at either me, or the
ring on my finger.
“No way,” Melody breathed, breaking the tense
silence, eyes wide and staring. “Really?”

“Yes… I—“ I started, but I was interrupted, Bray

hissing with rage. “What the fuck is this? Is this
someone’s idea of a joke?”

No no no, Bray had to believe me. Gulping to keep

rising bile down, I shook my head emphatically, “No!
The fruit was a… a teleportation device. It was magic
though, and it teleported me to somewhere and then
it changed me… into this. Into a woman.”

“No!” he shouted, taking a step towards me, tears

filling his eyes. “No! You’re not Eli! You’re not my
friend! You’re all… you’re all…”

I could feel it slipping, the moment. He was sliding into

anger, fear and disbelief. He needed to believe me! I
felt tears of my own threaten, my breathing
quickening with dismay. His fists were clenched so
tight, white at the knuckles and shaking. Was he
really… was he really going to try and hit me? Would
revealing my illusion of my old self even work here, or
would it solidify the supposed trickery in his mind?

“You’re gay!” I yelled, blurted really, as my

desperation addled mind clutched at straws. “You’re
gay and your favourite type of porn is watching a
short twink guy get spit roasted by two huge muscled
dudes! You like it even more if they have tattoos and
stuff!”

I was breathing heavily as I finished, my expression

morphing into one of horror at the embarrassing
secret I’d just blurted to everyone in the room. I
watched my best friend go bone white, jaw dropping
open as he stared at me. Really, properly stared. Wait,
I think he was starting to believe me.
Before I could help myself, I said one more thing,
something silly and completely irrelevant. “You have a
big problem with farting when you’re running.”

“He does,” a feminine voice mumbled into the room,

and I turned to see Kelsey nodding. “I try to stay
upwind when we’re on our morning run, but I can still
hear it sometimes.”

“It’s when he’s had beans the night before,” I said,

feeling my face heating rapidly. Oh god what was
happening? What the fuck was I saying?

I turned back to look at Bray, willing him to believe

me. Please for the love of big throbbing cocks or
whatever you’re into Bray, believe me. I watched him
blink, once, twice, then he closed his eyes and let out
a long, sharp whistling exhale.
“Dude…” Bray said in the gentlest of whispers. “You
said you’d never tell anyone…”

“Yeah well, that’s what happens when you act like a

fuckwit,” I pouted, struggling with a wave of hope that
crashed into me like a bun that wasn’t watching
where it was binkying.

“How?” he demanded, hitting me with an intense

stare like he was trying to delve into my eyes to find
my soul within.

“I’m trans…” I said gently, anxiously pulling at my hair

for comfort. “I knew I was trans since forever, but I
was too scared to do anything about it. I probably
would have never done anything. Then the fruit
happened. It pulled me into… another place, where it
held me, changed me into something else, but also
giving me the body I needed at the same time.”
“It’s true,” Grace said, stepping up beside me again
like the absolutely fucking angelic girlfriend that she
was. “When we found her, she cracked a joke at me
that had only been between us. She’s proven who she
was over and over again as we travelled the ring
outside these mountains.”

Bray lunged for me, almost without warning. His arms

went around me, tight even as I felt his body shaking
with emotion. "I can't believe it," he said in a choked
voice. "I mean, I can… but I can't. Oh god."

We were the same height now, but when I brought

my arms up to desperately return the hug, I found him
so much bigger anyway. He was stronger now, a lot
stronger, I could feel it in the muscles of his back and
arms.

Still, this was undeniably him, my friend Bray. We

might both be a little different now, but I still felt that
connection to him. The bond of a friendship that could
be picked right back up as though nothing had
happened.

We both had tears in our eyes when we parted, and

holding me for a second at arm's length, he gave me a
watery smile. "You were hotter before. Sorry."

"No… pretty sure this is an improvement," Grace

chuckled from behind me.

“You look like a magical girl with that hair,” Melody

offered, eyeing it up with an odd kind of hunger.

“Yeah, my eyes are magenta too, if you didn’t notice,”

I said with a little smile in her direction.
She snorted. “Oh I noticed. You’re as hot as one too.”
Kelsey pinched her, earning a squeal and teeth sinking
into her shoulder. They glared at each other for a few
moments before Kelsey cracked a grin, saying in a
stage whisper, “Isn’t she though? Holy fuck! Do you
think we can get her name?”

“Her name is Ryn,” Grace frowned, stepping up to put

a protective arm around me. “Back off you two…”

“Foursome?” Melody asked innocently.

“Oh my god,” a tiny voice coughed from behind us all,

and we turned to see Kit staring at the lot of us like we
were a few terrifying giggles away from being thrown
in an asylum.

“Sorry, sorry,” Melody laughed, a huge grin taking

over her face. “Sorry… just kinda giddy. High on
happiness. That’s really you in there uh… deadname?”
she asked, actually saying the word deadname.

I nodded, returning her smile. “New and improved. I

can even do magic now.”

“Real?” Kelsey asked, excitement exploding out of her.

“You gotta show us!”

“Stand up then,” I told them both with an overly

casual wave of my hand.

The two girls squinted at me suspiciously, but

otherwise did as I’d asked. Bray was busy staring
between Grace and I, his expression unreadable. I
hoped that I could distract him from my relationship
with her by wowing him with magic instead. Best to
tackle that issue later. Plus the buns, I had a feeling
that he’d love the buns.
Carefully, I twisted my magic around everyone in the
room, and with a burst of magical might, took us over
into my grove. There was another pause, silence
whispering through the eight of us like my telekinesis
had just done, before Melody screamed, “Coooooool!
Oh my god, this is so fucking cool!”

She knelt on the ground with a wide smile, raising her

hands to the happy little tree like she was praising
god. “That… is so cool,” she said finally, regaining a
tiny mote of her composure. Not that she really had
any to begin with. If she were a car, her pedal would
be welded to the floor, and if she ever slowed down it
would be as loud and fiery as a movie car crash.

The other three had much different reactions, from

profuse swearing on Bray's part to a sort of strangled
squeak-groan from Duncan. Kelsey stood frozen, eyes
blown wide as they tracked slowly across the scene.
"What is this place?" she finally asked, turning to me
somewhat fearfully.

"This is my grove, my sort of… pocket dimension and

seat of power. Many of the plants around us are
actually the instructions for spells I can cast. That tree
over there, with the crazy twisted trunk, that one and
all the others like it let me summon a shield of
energy," I explained, trying to be as calm and gentle as
possible.

"And the big fuck-off tree?" Bray asked, staring up into

its canopy with awe.

"That's our home," I grinned. "It's like my wizard's

tower or whatever."
“It has baths, and showers,” Grace offered helpfully.
"And private rooms for everyone with big comfy
beds."

“Wait, really?” Bray asked, a slight smile touching his

lips. “Oh man, I— what is that? Is that a giant bunny?”

I followed his gaze, finding Cream and a bun I didn't

recognize. They watched us curiously, standing up on
their hind legs and their little noses twitching.
Goodness, they were cute.

“Uh, yeah… they’re kinda like my familiars,” I smiled,

feeling my soul relax as everyone finally seemed to
properly believe me. Well, Duncan hadn’t said
anything, but he only had eyes for his bromantic
partner in crime.
“Let’s go have a bath,” Grace suggested, making
shooing motions towards the tree. “And a tour, but I
really need a wash after all that walking and
debriefing.”

"I'd like to de-brief you," I muttered, just loud enough

for only her to hear. Her blush was adorable.

There was round of agreement on the bath thing, and

then we were moving, the four newcomers to my
grove openly gawking around at the beauty that I had
created with magic, a whole lot of study and a boat
load of hard work.

“Oh by the way,” I said casually, sidling up to Bray.

“We brought you like, literal tons of metal.”

“Why the hell didn’t you lead with that?” he

exclaimed in mock outrage. “If there’s anything more
Eli-like than forgetting about the importance of
beautiful, shiny metal, then I haven’t seen it.”

“It’s Ryn now, actually,” I said with a grin. “Rynadria

Belrose.”

“Oh, sorry… Ryn-like,” he said, giving me a hesitant,

apologetic smile.

“I got some alien pillows too.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Chapter 85 :
“So um, yeah,” I said with a silly grin on my face,
gesturing with a limp hand at the piles of crap in the
storage room. “That’s all the stuff I have.”

“You say that like you somehow don’t have enough or

something,” Bray squeaked, eyes blown wide like a
little boy confronted with a room full of lego sets. “Do
you have any tools?”

“Uh, yeah… in that crate over there,” I nodded,

pointing to the box in question. Dang, I really hadn’t
realised how much stuff I was buying until just now.
Giving Bray a tour of all the materials we had on hand
had really driven home the magnitude of what we’d
acquired.

He wandered over and lifted the lid, peering inside.

“Damn, you just… piled all that in there, huh?”
“We tried to keep it all safe but… it’s hard when you
have a lot of stuff and not much space to put it,” I said
sheepishly, feeling bad for all the little tools. They
hadn’t even gotten padding, but I guess they were
flying economy so they just had to deal with it.

He gave a grunt as he leaned into the crate, picking up

a hammer and big chunky chisel. Tools in hand, he
wandered back over to the stack of iron ingots and
placed the chisel down point first on the corner of
one. “Can I?” he asked, turning to me with puppy dog
eyes.

“I’m not entirely sure what you’re doing, but go

ahead, I guess,” I shrugged. The stuff was for him
anyway, I didn’t really mind what happened to it once
I gave it to him and his metalworker friends.

“Chipping off a piece so I can get a look at it,” he told

me in a mumble as he readied the hammer. Now that
I was looking, I noticed he’d gained a bunch of muscle.
Guess he needed it for working metal without
adequate power for the fancier tools. Maybe we could
get Claih to make some magically powered versions,
or even convert the ones we had already. I filed the
thought away for later.

The hammer came down with a ringing crack, and a

piece of metal pinged off to bounce across the
ground. Bray followed it, picking it up and examining it
with intense interest. Then he was muttering about
carbon content and crystalline structure and I was
completely lost.

“Will you be okay down here?” I asked as he went

back to the tool crate to rummage again. “I’m going to
head up and see how the others are doing.”

“Yeah, yeah…” he said absently, frowning as he picked

up a tool I didn’t recognise.
“If you need help with something, just ask one of the
buns,” I said, waving and walking backwards in the
direction of the stairs.

“Wait, ask a… a bun?” he blinked in surprise, halting in

his ransacking of the tool box.

“Yeah uh, oh, here’s one now,” I said as a charcoal

grey bun hopped down the stairs to stand next to me.
“Hey there,” I cooed, reaching down to gently pat it.
“You’re Smoke, right?”

The bun nodded, then turned to Bray and waved.

Dang, the things were displaying more and more
intelligence by the day.

To Bray, I said, “Bray, meet Smoke, your new

assistant! Ask… um, them? Whatever you need.”
“Right… uh, hello Smoke, nice to meet you,” Bray said
with a bemused smile. To both of our surprise, the
little bun gave my friend the “sup” nod.

“You’re already best buds! See you both later!” I

laughed, rushing back up the stairs before Bray could
wrangle me into explaining the buns.

We’d gone down to the lowest basement level that I

had created a while back for storage, with the others
going up to use the baths. I’d run up and have a quick
shower, then join everyone. Was I nervous about
what everyone thought? No, of course not. Definitely
not.

Geez, I wasn’t even convincing in my thoughts. Truth

was, I was scared that my mundane friends would
start to think of me differently now that I had
powerful magic or whatever. Like seriously, I’d be
terrified of me if I were Bray or Melody or whatever.

On my way up the tree, a quick glance revealed Adam

and Duncan catching up in the guy’s dorm, and I gave
them a quick wave before I continued.

I found Grace, Kit, Melody and Kelsey all hanging out

in the girl’s common room. They were all sprawled out
in one of the couch nooks we’d set up. A little square
of couches with a coffee table in the middle. Moving
on autopilot, I wandered over to Grace and flopped
into her lap like a lazy bun. So much for showering I
guess. I’d do that in a second, I needed my girlfriend
time. Recharging my cuddle batteries.

“We need lifts,” I grumbled as I laid my head down on

her shoulder, cuddling in close and closing my eyes for
a moment. She felt so strong and safe. I always knew I
could go to her and she would hold me while I felt
small.

“Uh, Ryn,” Grace murmured, her tone that of a

warning. At the same time on the couch opposite,
Melody gave an excited gasp while Kelsey exclaimed,
“Whoa, hold on!”

Oh. Darn.

I opened my eyes and lifted my head, first looking at

the two other girls, then back up at my girlfriend. I
opened and closed my mouth a few times, unable to
figure out what to say, and seeing that, Grace gave a
groan.

With a sheepish shrug at Melody and Kelsey, she

fought to hide a happy little grin. “Yeah… we um, got
together.”
“That’s so cute,” Melody whispered, like she was
trying not to startle a tiny bird.

Kelsey turned and kissed her girlfriend on the cheek.

“You’re cute too,” she smiled, then turned back to us,
expression turning inquisitive. “Is it okay if we ask how
long, how did it happen?”

“Don’t know about Grace, but it started for me the

night we got dragged to this ring,” I replied with a
tinge of embarrassment. “I thought she was so damn
cool, and we were building a really great friendship.
Obviously I uh… wasn’t to her tastes at that point, so…
yeah. I just kinda resigned myself to quietly crushing
on her.”

“Wait, really,” Grace asked, wrapping her arms around

me. I glanced up at her and nodded, feeling silly and a
little small. “That’s so precious,” she sighed happily,
leaning in to give me a little kiss. “I remember thinking
you were pretty great. I didn’t really consider you an
option though, like you said.”

My embarrassment was replaced with a grin that

might have been accused of being cocky. “Fast
forward a few months and I took off my scarf and you
saw my new face.”

“Ah… yeah,” she laughed, her cheeks gaining a dusting

of pink. “Jeez, I’ve grown a little used to it by now, but
damn… you really are beautiful Ryn.”

“Thank you,” I preened, wiggling happily in her lap for

emphasis.

“Oh no, her ego grows,” my girlfriend said with

another laugh. “You’re also a massive fucking brat, so
don’t get too excited.”
“This just gets better and better,” Melody beamed,
cuddling up closer to Kelsey. “I bet they have amazing
sex.”

That had Grace choking and sputtering, and me feeling

like my cheeks could cook an egg. Off on the side
couch, silent until now, Kit murmured, “If the volume
is anything to go by, I’d say yes.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed as my cheeks became flame

elementals. “I fixed the wall’s sound problem alright!
No one can hear anything now!”

“Very interesting,” Melody smiled, giving Kelsey a

pointed look, which had the more mellow girl glancing
up at the ceiling for a moment as she joined the
blushing squad.
“I mean, you’re both welcome to stay here,” I said
tentatively. “My plan is to let any of our friends stay in
here. It’s safe, no one can hurt you and it’s got
everything you’d ever need.”

“Except internet,” Melody commented with a wry

grin.

I opened my mouth to agree, when something

occurred to me. There had to be a way to send some
sort of magical signal out. If I could have a converter
hidden in Avonside that temporarily converted
electrical signals into magical ones, I could send it to
my grove and convert it back.

“Hey Kit, have you seen anything in the books about

sending magical signals between realms?” I asked,
turning to the small girl curled up on the third couch.
She’d gotten a blanket from somewhere since the
conversation had started and was now firmly wrapped
in it, her little head poking out the top.

“Yeah, actually,” Kit said after a moment’s thought.

“Some guy like fifty years ago did some research on it.
It was part of what Esra has been working on. They
got simple signals through, but since they were
looking at trying to teleport from a grove to a specific
point on the ring, they only regarded it as a first step.”

“We’d need to find an electrical engineer to help us,

but I’m sure we could hook something up,” I said with
growing excitement. That was where my interests
really lay, with my magic and my plants.
Unfortunately, I had to deal with keeping the real
world from falling apart.

“I’ll start researching and asking Esra for help!” Kit

exclaimed, a smile lighting her little face. “I can design
a spell plant for us!”
Melody slowly put up a hand, having watched the
back and forth with growing confusion and
excitement. “Are you… saying what I think you’re
saying?”

“That we might be able to get a connection to the

Avonside internet, such as it is?” Kit asked, face split
by a grin. “Because yeah, I think we can do it.”

“This place is heaven,” the excitable Melody sighed

happily, leaning back into the couch. “I can live out all
my wildest cottagecore fantasies.”

“You’re never going to get her to leave,” Kelsey

laughed, giving me a look. “I hope you realise what
you’ve done.”
I shrugged. “This place needs a little more living in,
you know? Sometimes it’s just the buns here and they
get lonely.”

“Oh no, you want me to pet and cuddle your big fluffy
bunnies too, that sounds like real work!” Melody
giggled, sort of jumping on Kelsey and wrapping her
arms around her girlfriend’s neck.

“Babe, in all seriousness… I think it is actually a good

idea for you to hang out in here,” Kelsey said
cautiously, trying to read her girlfriend’s face as she
spoke.

“How come, did that bastard come back?” Grace

asked, her tone matching my own. I was a force to be
reckoned with now, I wouldn’t hesitate to literally rip
Melody’s stalker limb from limb.
Kelsey shook her head and grimaced. “We found out
that when him and his mates fled Avonside, they
didn’t actually end up dying. One of the more
reluctant members came back, he said they had been
found by some crazy religious group on the other side
of the mountains. Now they’re all playing at holy
crusader.”

“Jesus,” I groaned. “I know the ones you’re talking

about. Man, this world is so fucked.”

“That’s why the order exists though, right?” Grace

asked, pulling me tighter against her. “We’re going to
fuck everyone up and force it to be a good place
whether they like it or not.”

“Step one, dumpster some cops,” Kit murmured,

which prompted the room to lose all of it’s serious air
as we laughed. Kit was funny when she surprised us
with her little quips.
She was right though. In a few hours we’d have to go
back out and help deal with whatever situation the
obrec caravan had gotten itself into, as well as figure
out housing for them and… shit there was a lot to do.

Announcement

Hiyaaaa all! Long time no see! I've been getting sucked

down the rabbithole of another new story. It's called
The Walls of Anamoor, and tbh it's a bit of an
indulgent story for me. I've always wanted to write a
story with all the anime isekai tropes. A vehicle is
involved, the MC is a massive nerd etc etc. The new
world has a big ol dungeon that really doesn't make
sense to exist, but it needs to cos adventuring! You
know the drill, except obviously I seem incapable of
writing in that anime style. I've designed the MC to be
a little self inserty, in the sense that it's what I wish I
was, rather than as I am now :P. Basically, I'm writing
purely for myself on this one, but my patrons seem to
love it.

I'll be working on that story behind my patreon wall

until I get it to chapter 30, then begin posting it here.
You might see one or two chapters for public stories,
but yeah... I needed a break from all my big stories
and stuff. Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter, and
I'll see you when I see you.

Chapter 86 :
Adam, Duncan, Grace and I all phased back into the
real world inside the old room again, and I would be
lying if I said I hadn’t slammed my entry shield down. I
did not feel at all safe in Avonside right now, and I was
starting to think I never would while the CEO and her
goons were running around.

No one was in the room, luckily. They’d have been

splattered if they were. My resolve to protect my
friends and the people of Avonside from falling into
some sort of dystopia was growing by the minute.
These people deserved to live happily.

“My phone is blowing up,” Adam announced, pulling

his phone from his pocket. He took a moment to read
it, then swore loudly, “Fuck. Ryn, we gotta move, like
right now. The CEO has her goons out there fucking
with the obrec. They’ve fired warning shots.”

“Right. Up, we need to go up,” I ordered curtly,

making for the door without waiting for the others to
agree.

“Shouldn’t we go down?” I heard Duncan ask, but

Adam shushed him. “Nah, just do what she says. She
knows what she’s doing, even if she don’t have time
to explain shit to us in the moment.”
Good boys.

Now I just had to take everyone to go and deal with

the bad ones. I’d never been a fan of cops, it always
seemed like so many of them, too many of them
really, were in it for entirely the wrong reasons.
Campus cops like these ones were especially bad,
because as far as copping went, they were the lowest
of the low. These guys were living their wildest power
fantasies right now.

We made our way up the building and out onto the

rooftop. We all turned to look out across the campus,
where we could see the obrec stopped on the other
side of the cleared land that surrounded Avonside. We
couldn’t see the cops from here, but we could hear
the occasional pop of a gun going off.
“Put your hands on my shoulders or arms,” I told them
all, gathering my power for one of many new spells I
was probably going to have to use.

They did so, and I gathered my energy for what was an

extremely showy little spell I’d come up with. I needed
to look the part, after all. Delicate filigree vines of a
silver crystal wrapped their way about my arms, then
out over the rest of my body, covering it in a dress
that appeared to be both jewelry, fabric and plant all
at once.

Grace caught my eye with a look of surprise. I winked,

“I’ll wear it for you later, don’t worry.”

Next, I did something infinitely less delicate and far

more expensive in raw magic. I tore space into little
pieces, stomped on it, and then spat on it for good
measure. Which is to say, I teleported myself and
everyone touching me across the distance between
the rooftop and the confrontation happening outside
the campus.

We appeared out of sight of the campus security,

rematerializing behind a pickup that appeared to have
been converted for use in the fields.

Quietly, to my friends I told them, “Look menacing.”

Then I stepped out, head held high and back straight. I
needed to project the air of someone who was a
badass bitch, someone who owned everything around
her by default. I needed to become the feminine
embodiment of authority.

The obrec stood behind the cover of their wagons,

with a bunch of militia alongside them. Troy was there
too, along with Mer, Otho, Claih and the others. Wait,
shit… one of the obrec rangers looked wounded. I
gave a small nod to them, then turned to the line of
blue opposite.
Wow, I think they had brought out every single one of
their number. They had definitely been recruiting,
because there hadn’t been even half that many before
we were schwooped to the ring. Bunch of idiots made
the wrong choice.

Some had makeshift uniforms and weapons, but all of

them looked ready to fight. In their center behind a
small honour guard was the CEO herself, looking the
part of a stereotypical older white person who thinks
the world belongs to them. She also had a
megaphone.

“Who are you?” she asked over the intervening space.

“I am Rynadria of the Order of Eleos,” I told her

simply, using my voice amplification spell, then threw
a question of my own at her. “Why are you arrayed
against those who have been invited into Avonside?”
I heard a derisive snort come through the megaphone.
“I gave no authorisation for them to enter, and I am
the ultimate authority within the campus. Stand aside
and let me handle this situation, then we will speak.”

My eyes rolled so hard I thought I might pull one of

the muscles in there. “Speak about what? I’m not
going to agree to work with you. You don’t seem to be
entirely reasonable, at least from what I can see given
your response to the obrec here.”

“I am in charge! I am the one who says who may enter

and who may not!” she exclaimed angrily, stepping
out from behind her guards. Okay, apparently I hit a
sore spot there. She seemed to sort of collect herself,
her expression turning from anger to beseeching. “I
am trying to lead this university through troubled
times. Once we have our feet under us, then we can
open a dialogue with whatever natives may be on this
world, teach them.”
That did not sound good. “Teach them what, exactly?”
I asked suspiciously.

“Well, how a polite society functions for one thing,

frequent bathing for another. If they can be trusted,
we will also teach them a few of the simple luxuries
that technology brings,” she said, like it should be
obvious to me.

“That sounds suspiciously like imperialist, colonialist

nastiness,” I told her, feeling slightly disgusted.
Because that had worked out so well back on earth.
Actually… technically it had, just not for any of the
native peoples who got in the way by existing on the
land already.

“They are savages out there!” she exclaimed,

sweeping her hand towards the obrec caravan. “They
attacked us, killed good people! We fought them off,
of course, once the element of surprise wore off. Guns
have a way of deciding that type of thing.”

“You are in for such a nasty surprise,” I laughed,

shaking my head ruefully. Guns were nothing
compared to the power I wielded.

“You are beginning to try my patience girl,” she said,

irritation pouring out of her like sweat. “Get out of my
way.”

“No,” I told her simply. “You get the fuck back into
your office and stay out of my way.”

“Do you not see my security?” she asked with a

disbelieving shake of her head, gesturing to the cops
around her.
I grinned, rocking my hips to the side and placing a
hand down on them. “You can bring your army, yeah…
but your army can’t bring me down.”

“Shoot her,” she told the cop directly to her left. The
man didn’t even hesitate, raising his rifle to his
shoulder.

Right, negotiations were over I guess.

I floated a few feet into the air, for the sake of

dramatics, my arm rising to point right back at the guy
with the gun. He fired, the ringing rapport of his
weapon coinciding with the dull thump of the round
hitting my shield.

They stared at me, dumbfounded. Well, some of

them. I noticed at least ten who looked ready to bolt.
Guess they remembered what had happened a few
hours ago.

Short of my battle to the death with the mages, I

hadn’t killed anyone yet. I didn’t intend to start now,
but I was not about to be merciful here. Magic gave
me a lot of options, and many were less than pleasant.
This next spell was one of them.

Still pointing at the man who’d just shot at me, I

flicked a dark projectile at him, the bolt of energy
flashing across the intervening space from one
heartbeat to the next. The moment before it hit, the
projectile shattered like crystal, each shard targeting a
certain piece of his body.

Blood exploded out of him, splattering the fields

behind as he flew backwards. Every bone in his body
that one might consider not immediately important
had shattered under the impact of the shards, his skin
rupturing in a spiderweb pattern alongside it. His
scream as he hit the ground was chilling even to me,
and I watched with a queasy stomach as his body
writhed, twitching and spasming in the dirt.

Push the emotions down Ryn, focus on the job. Do not

falter.

More projectiles followed, flickering out from above

my shoulders like I had shoulder mounted missile
banks. Cops all down the line were hit at random, the
crack of bone and the spatter of blood like some sort
of hellish anthem against authoritarianism.

The spell was designed to shock, to terrify with the

damage it did and the screams of pain. It was a spell
designed to rout an enemy facing a foe whose power
was beyond their comprehension. It was designed to
deal with them.
What they didn’t realise as their comrades dropped
like popped balloons full of gore and blood, was that
the same spell was also working on stabilising its
victims. This was probably my most complicated spell,
and I’d designed it with more than a lot of Esra’s help.
This was another example where I was sort of
breaking magic a little, but to get around the body’s
natural shield against raw magic, I was injecting
growth energy into the shards.

Sort of like a trojan horse, the growth energy rode the

shards into their bodies. When the shards evaporated,
the growth energy spread through them, healing and
repairing enough damage to keep them from dying.
Yet another avenue of magic that we needed to look
into further.

Guns began to fall to the ground all down the line,

shouted pleas for mercy drifting out across the
trampled field. I let up on my barrage, pausing to see
what the CEO would do.
She was staring in horror at the carnage all about her.
Slowly her eyes drifted back to meet mine, something
like hate kindling within them. She said something,
but the megaphone was in her hand, hanging limp at
her side. She brought it to her lips slowly. “You’re a
monster.”

“I am reality,” I shrugged. “Avonside does not have

time to deal with your petty attempt to play dictator.
None of your people will die, if it even matters to
you.”

She stood silent for several seconds, megaphone

drifting down slightly before she yanked it back up to
her mouth. “What do you want of me then?”

“The same offer you gave all those who didn’t want to
stay in Avonside under your rule,” I said, hoping that
the faculty and everyone would be okay with me
giving orders. “You and your goons may heal and
prepare, then you must leave.”

“Leave?” she squeaked, eyes widening in fear. “Go out

there into god knows what filth?”

“You had your chance to act like a decent leader and

human,” I shrugged, pretending nonchalance while
internally I desperately hoped she’d take the offer.
Seeing that spell in action had me slightly nauseous
and I really wasn’t in a hurry to deploy it again.

It took her a long time to respond, turning to

deliberate with one of her lieutenants. At least, I
assumed that was what the big silly blue hat was
about. Finally, she turned back and lifted the
megaphone once more. “I accept your terms.”
Chapter 87 :
Not long after the confrontation with the CEO and her
Security, a young looking guy in a militia uniform
tentatively approached me. The faculty council
wanted to talk. Understandable really, considering
what I’d just done. I just wish I hadn’t had to do it.

“I’m coming with you,” Grace told both myself and the
apprehensive security guy.

“Thank you,” I smiled gratefully, enjoying her

protectiveness over me.

“Oh, okay,” the security guy said, glancing between

the two of us. “They’re at the gate, by the way.”
Grace and I followed him across the field, past the
wounded blue guys on the ground. We got a lot of
different looks from their number as we went past.
Fear and anger were there, followed by hopelessness
and even confusion. Sucks to be them I guess, but I
couldn’t find it within me to feel an ounce of pity.

The fields outside Avonside had been trampled by the

security people, crops that had just begun to show
green shoots above the soil were now snapped and
broken. Fucking morons, they were lucky I had
arrived, because now Avonside would be relying on
my grove to make up the deficit in food.

“Hey dude,” I asked, calling to our escort. “How much

did they just trample?”

Faltering in his step for a moment, he turned back to

look at me nervously. “Uh, dunno…”
“Well, thanks anyway,” I said absently, looking around
at the carnage. The inklings of an idea were forming. A
way to make sure everyone knew I wasn’t just a
butcher of shitty people.

There were a few more of the council at the gate than

there had been at the meeting, and the ones that
were new looked mighty pissed off. Dr Richards the
mall santa looked worried, while his wife Dr Leslie had
a carefully hidden sparkle in her eye. Dr Ross the
political science guy was definitely the most
apprehensive of the five we’d met, while Dr Ruthven
the economics dude was staring at the trampled fields
in dismay.

Dr Wilcott was pensive as she obviously ignored a

short frumpy looking woman who was trying to get all
angry and in her face. Unfortunately for her, the stern
woman of law had a pretty intense height advantage
and it was not working.
“Hey there Dr Wilcott,” I called as we approached,
giving her a slight smile and a friendly wave.

“Ryn, I see you are getting into—“ she began, only to

get interrupted as the shorter woman barged forward
towards me.

Her tirade began instantly and in full force. “You! Who

gave you the right to dictate demands like that?
You’re a newcomer, a… a… ringworl—“ Her barrage of
angry words stopped rather abruptly when she met
my shield with her nose, the dull thump of the soft
appendage like a punchline at the end of a joke.

“Sorry, you cut off for a second, what were you

saying?” Grace asked in a cocky, amused drawl.

For my part, I just stared cooly into her anger filled

eyes, projecting an ice I didn’t feel but very much
needed to right now. I needed to be calm and
collected, but most of all, I needed to be both strong
and non-threatening.

“You… you…” she stammered, tears gathering in the

corners of her eyes as she glared at us. “You just barge
in here and… attack people, making proclamations…”

“Fixing your problems?” I offered with both eyebrows

raised.

“Fixing what problems? All I see is more mess, the

defenses of the campus halved and our crops
trampled!” she exclaimed, gesticulating wildly.

Aha, perfect. Raising both hands with a flourish, I

reached out to the mangled, broken and dying plants
across the field and pulsed growth energy into as
many as I could manage. The energy drain was an
order of magnitude more immense than what this
would have taken in the grove, but I was able to cover
a fair number of the plants.

Reacting with gentle speed, they began to repair

themselves and worm their way up out of the ground.
Draining almost all my power reserves, I took them
beyond the stage of growth they had been at before,
urging them up until they were bursting with life.

With a field now ripe for harvest behind me, I placed a

hand still sparking with green growth energy on my
hip. “That’s one down. You gotta give me some time
lady, I’ve only been here for a few hours and most of
that time has been dealing with that sorry group of
thugs.”

From behind the irate woman, Dr Wilcott gave an

amused snort. “Dr Lewis, I suggest you cease
antagonising the highly powerful woman with
unknown powers.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Grace said from beside me,

snaking an arm around my waist. “Seriously, she’s
been holding back. I hope you realise that.”

“Yeah…” I grimaced, glancing awkwardly back at the

mutilated security forces. When I turned back to the
gathered faculty council members, I gave them my
best innocent look. “Okay… I’m just a student alright?
I was another one of those kids you used to teach. I
have no aspirations of power or whatever, I just want
to make out with my girlfriend while not having to
worry about everyone dying or getting hurt or abused
or whatever.”

“And yet here you are hurting and abusing people,” Dr

Lewis growled, spreading a hand to encompass the
battlefield behind us.
“I’m not going to get into a stupid ethics debate with
you,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose in
frustration. “They were shit people doing shit things,
and since I have the power to stop them, I did so.
Look, I’m here to help people with my magic, but I’m
not going to help people who I think don’t deserve it.
You can deal with that however you want. Have a
good day with your petty power struggles or
whatever, I’m going to go and do actual work by
getting your visitors settled down.”

With that, I turned and left them standing there,

suddenly deeply tired and uninterested in playing
their bullshit games. If I allowed myself to fall into my
own ego for a second, I knew that I was on a whole
other level from them. I had the power to single
handedly crush a small army with my mind, and they
had… what, employment contracts from another
world and a few hundred barely trained college kids?
Argument broke out behind us as we left the council
behind, making for the obrec where they were
figuring themselves out. Whatever, they could fight it
out I guess.

Everyone from the obrec caravan, as well as Jenna

from the militia were ready and waiting when we
arrived, but I spoke first, “Is your ranger okay?”

“Claih had some sort of potion to help her, she’ll be

fine in a week. It was close though, those weapons are
not to be underestimated,” Mer replied gravely, giving
the now retreating security people a glare.

Ah crap, I’d have to sort out supplies for them.

Sending them out there with nothing but their guns
was just as much of a death sentence as killing them.
They’d never find enough food to feed the whole
group when the area had already been picked clean by
Avonside foragers.
“Alright… that’s good,” I sighed with relief. “Now we
just need to figure out where to house you all.”

“For now, that council has told us to make camp

around the side of the campus, over towards the river.
They don’t have room to spare at the moment inside…
unfortunately,” Troy explained with a grimace. “The
obrec brought tents, thank the gods, but the weather
around here can get pretty chilly, not to mention
windy.”

I almost said something about being sorry that I’d

dragged them all the way here to live in tents, when I
realised I had experience in building structures. I’d
have to do something far more simple than my tree…

“I think I have an idea, let’s go see the area,” I told him

after a few moments of thought.
“I figured you would,” he grinned, then turned to the
obrec. “Alright, looks like we might be able to get you
all some accommodation after all! Let’s get moving!”

“Hold on, Troy, can you show me where… nevermind.”

He’d already wandered off to shout orders at people
he wasn’t even in command of.

“I can show you where it is,” Jenna supplied with a

sympathetic smile.

Gesturing with a wave of my hand, I asked, “Please? I

think I have an idea for getting them properly housed,
but I’d like to start things before they get all
underfoot.”

The area they had designated for the obrec to camp

out was on the long downward slope to the nearby
river. A path had already been trodden into the grass,
leading down to where a dam was in construction.

Well, I guess I could just shove the building I was

planning to make on that dirt track they had made? It
would probably end up being a road anyway.

“The council won’t be too mad if I grow an inn here,

right?” I asked Jenna casually, glancing past her for a
moment to grin at Grace. She knew what was up.

“Grow a… what?” the militiawoman asked, staring at

me with wide eyes.

I couldn’t help myself, I gave her a wink and stepped

past her to grab Grace by the shoulders. “I’m going to
top up, is that okay?”
“Oh geez, alright,” she laughed nervously. “Jenna…
buckle up, I guess.”

“Love you,” I murmured, right before I planted my lips

on hers.

Grace’s reaction was quick, her power opening to me

like a blooming flower. The strength of the torrent
surprised us both, and I heard one or both of us gasp
as the pleasure rocked through our connection.

Unbidden, vines grew out from the both of us,

intertwining until we were not just in a human
embrace, but one of plant and flower. The process
was quicker this time, and far more potent. I’d grown
as a mage since the last time we did this, and it
showed in the depth of power that I could take in.
The kiss was wonderful too, slow and caring, easing
away the stress and anxiety of the last day. Goodness,
I loved my Grace. I was safe in her arms, safe from the
challenges of the world for a few moments while we
shared our affection for each other with twisting
tendril and questing tongues.

When we parted, it was with a burst of magenta

flower petals that swirled around me in a whirlwind
dance. Only, they weren’t simple petals, but an excess
manifestation of the power I’d just been given by my
lover.

“That was real fuckin’ gay,” Jenna commented with

wide eyes. “I don’t mean that in a bad way! It was
just… you know… us straights make out and you get a
hard dick rubbing against your leg. None of this flower
petal stuff.”
“Magical gay kisses,” Grace hummed happily, eyes
sparkling with mirth as they found mine. “I love it.”

“I might need another top up before this is done,

seems like there’s an exponential price to pay on
growing shit out here in the mundane realm,” I told
her with a warning that was only slightly ruined by the
giddy grin I felt twitching at my lips.

“I’ll be here,” she laughed, and motioned for me to

get to work.

So I did, summoning a multitude of different places for

the work. I didn’t go in with any designs in mind this
time, I wasn’t tailoring plants for specific purposes, I
just needed them to grow the way I wanted them to.

My plan was simple, a log common hall, but where the

logs were living trees and the floor was intertwined
and flattened roots. I began with the walls, each tree
starting out as a small green shoot before it quickly
sprang up until they were all three storeys tall. With
that done, I curved them all gently inwards until they
touched, allowing them to tangle at the apex so as to
keep the rain out.

From there, I did the same thing inside and on the

horizontal plane, branches reaching out to form floors
and stairs. I created rooms of various sides on the
second and third floors, with a central hallway on each
to connect it all.

My final touch was to grow roots out across the

ground, forming a flattened carpet of the things to
keep the obrec’s hooves out of the dirt. I did leave a
central area without a floor to allow a fire pit to be
dug if they wanted one. They’d have to make doors
and windows themselves, but I’m sure they could
manage. It was a roof at least.
When I came back down from my magical thought
process, I found I had gained an audience. The obrec
had arrived, and along with many avonsiders, they
were all staring at me, wonder or apprehension in
their eyes. I winced at the fear on their faces, but then
I found resolve kindle in my heart. I’d turn that fear
into happiness, they’d see. Avonside would be
paradise by the time I was done with it.

Chapter 88 :
The obrec were pretty happy with their new
accommodations, but less happy about the crowd of
staring university people. I wasn’t able to stick around
and smooth things over unfortunately, because I was
dead tired by that point, the day had been way too
long.

Once everything was sorted in the mundane world, I

took Mer, Otho, Grace, Adam, and Duncan all back
into my grove for the night. We could start doing work
stuff in the morning.
“What a nightmare of a situation,” Adam grumbled as
we made our way up into my tree.

Mer blew out a long breath, then shrugged and gave

us all a wry smile. “Not the worst reception we’ve
gotten trying to trade with other cultures.”

“I’d hate to see what a worse reception looked like,”

Duncan said with a dark chuckle. Poor dude was still in
the staring at the horns phase of meeting an obrec. At
least he was being chill about things.

“Usually involves a lot more death,” Otho replied with

grim amusement. “They were lucky that Ryn was
there.”

“Leaving them alive was a bit of a surprise, for sure,”

Mer agreed, giving me a look.
“The stain on my conscience would have been there
for the rest of my life,” I said soberly, and then a
thought occurred to me. “And… I honestly have no
idea how long that is going to be.”

“Mages are long lived, but not overly so,” Otho told
us, brows furrowed in thought. “But there have been
many who lived for a very, very long time. Longevity
through the nameless garden does exist, but not many
know its secret.”

“I have a feeling you might want to get on that Ryn,”

Grace said quietly, her hand finding mine. “Being
linked to a goddess of youthfulness and spring as I
am… I think I might be living a long time.”

“Yikes,” Adam muttered, giving us both a sympathetic

look. “Being immortal scares the piss out of me.”
“Me too,” his friend agreed.

From there, we went up into the tree and found

everyone else, making quick introductions where
needed before we all rushed for bed. It wasn’t even
the end of day freaking one back at Avonside and so
much had happened. I really hoped things went a little
more smoothly from here on out.

The entire next day proved that to be a false hope as I

helped figure out the logistics of getting the CEO and
her supporters out of Avonside. I was a little wary that
she’d agreed to leave so readily, so I turned to Kit to
research a way for us to keep an eye on them after
they had left. Well, more than just recreating the ring
thingy and throwing one in her pocket or something.

I didn’t even get to see my friends that much, but

apparently they were doing pretty well. Kit was able to
ferry people into the nameless garden too, so we had
two different ways in and out. This meant that we
were able to begin unloading all the materials and
supplies I’d brought.

Another day later and the CEO and her goons were
gone, along with way too much of the university’s
dwindling stores of food. They set off to the north,
opposite to where we’d come from. Kit didn’t manage
to find a more elegant method of tracking them in
time, so we ended up repeating the ring idea with an
innocuous buckle in one of the food packs. They’d
never suspect anything and we’d know if they were
doubling back to attack us again.

As for the food situation, I had an excruciatingly long

meeting with a few members of the horticultural
department, where I had to list in detail what I
thought I could provide. Explaining that I could
basically summon food from thin air with the power of
thought didn’t go over particularly well at first. Their
tune changed when I also explained that with their
help I could make all sorts of crazy new plants… well
they got very excited.

That was the reason the meeting went on so long. I

had to explain how I could create new plants and what
I’d need to know in order to do so. The idea of
designing food crops had the head of the department
bouncing excitedly around the room, which was rather
comical when you considered that she was a
diminutive indian woman.

Day three saw Troy gathering a great many people

into my tree to discuss things, and I would be lying if I
said I wasn’t extremely curious.

Around a large table on the balcony sat sat Troy, Esra,

Kit, Mer, Otho, Duncan, Adam, Claih, Kelsey, Melody,
Bray, Grace and myself. Pretty much everyone I
considered to be trustworthy, minus Claih who I still
wasn’t sure about.

“Thanks for coming, everyone,” Troy began once the

last of us was seated. “I wanted to discuss something
rather important. Now that we’ve had a few days to
settle into life back at Avonside, I think it’s time we get
serious about the Order of Eleos.”

“How so?” Grace asked, then shook her head and

clarified, “I mean, what do we do first? How do you
even like… start something like this?”

“First, we need an objective, a purpose,” Troy replied,

giving my girlfriend a nod. “I’d like to put forward a
bunch. First, a more abstract one, but it’s in our name.
Compassion. We want to go out into the world and
help people with their problems. I don’t just mean the
kind that you can swing a sword at either. Next,
equality. Specifically, equality among thinking beings,
regardless of any number of circumstances they find
themselves in. Things like sexuality, race, gender and
species.”

“Species, huh? Is that being added because of the

recently departed security forces?” Claih asked dryly.

Troy gave a gentle snort of amusement. “Exactly, but

it’s important to be reasonably specific here.
Oppressors often try to claim they are the oppressed
in order to muddy the waters.”

“What about religion, culture and all that?” Kelsey

asked carefully, gaze focused on Troy with vivid
intensity.

“Religion and culture is… more difficult. Not every

religion is equal, and the same for culture. I’ve run
into too many cultures that glorify violence and too
many religions that codify the abuse of others,” our
leader sighed, eyes haunted. “We will fight those
while protecting the ones we like, to put it frankly.”

Her expression easing, she smiled and leaned back in

her chair. “Good.”

Troy opened his mouth to continue when Melody

spoke up, “Sorry to butt in… but what are people like
me doing here? I’m no good at anything that you will
be doing.”

“On the contrary, that’s what I wanted to talk about

next,” he smiled.

“An organisation like this will need a support

structure. People to craft the things we need to do our
work, people to manage our food, people to train new
recruits… the list goes on. Administrators will be
invaluable to our success,” he explained, sketching
randomly on the table with his finger.

“I was thinking about that,” I said, leaning forward.

“What if we used the second tier of my grove for the
knights? Out in the real world it’s a lot harder to
create things with my magic, but here... I am close to a
goddess in power. The knights would never lack for
anything that can be created with my magic. We’d
never have food problems, all that jazz. Could even
make pastures for grazing animals.”

Troy perked up. “Indeed, I was hoping you’d make

that offer. We’ll still need chapter houses out in the
real world though. Using your grove is also contingent
on us both finding a way to come and go as we please
without your help, while also protecting your grove
from any who might potentially do you harm.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said with a long sigh.
“Unfortunately, I have no idea about leaving the
grove, but I know I can defend it. I have the shield…” I
trailed off as a thought hit me. Oh, this could be good.
“But, I also just had an idea.”

Esra, silent and watching until now, bolted upright in

her chair and threw me an acidic glare. “Oh no you
don’t!” she blurted urgently. “No, young lady, if you
go recklessly breaking the rules of magic again…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked her sweetly, batting my

eyelashes at her. The effect was probably diminished
slightly by the way I couldn’t keep a cheeky grin off my
face.

Her answer was a suspicious scowl, but she turned to

Troy instead. “I have a solution for your problem with
access to Rynadria’s grove. I have been researching
teleportation for too many decades to count, and
while I have not had much success there, I have
learned many things. It is possible to create an artifact
that will allow a bonded user to shift to a specific point
in the garden and back.”

“What would that require?” Kit asked, excitement

overriding her shy nature. “How does it work?”

Esra gave the smaller mage a gentle smile. “We would

create a central node of magically resonant crystal.
Pieces of this node would be bound to the intended
user through a ritual, requiring contact with their
blood while inside their natural aura.”

“English Esra, for the non mages,” I sighed, indicating

the confused expressions around the table.

Another dirty look shot in my direction and she turned

to the audience at large. “Imagine, if you will, a pillar
of crystal set within a central square. Any who have a
bonded fragment of that crystal structure would be
able to shift between that waypoint and mundane
reality, much like a mage does, complete with their
own mage mark. That fragment would be bonded to
them by allowing it to come into contact with the
intended recipient’s blood while within their body. I
suggest a small cut to the tongue or lip, followed by
placing it in their mouth. That fragment could then be
set into a ring.”

“Well, holy shit…” Troy grinned, leaning back slightly,

eyes on the older woman with a look of gratitude. “I
could kiss you right now, that is absolutely perfect.”

“I will have to turn you down on that offer,” she

replied, although her eyes sparkled slightly as she
spoke. “However, I believe I can be of much use to
your fledgeling order, and I look forward to helping
where I can. It is a noble endeavor, and just perhaps…
you may be able to succeed where myself and my
coven failed. You have my roguish daughters on your
side, after all.”

That had my eyebrows rising. Was this what hetero

looked like? It had been a while since I saw it, so it was
hard to remember. Wait… also… did she just mean
me, when she said daughter?

“We can restart the coven,” Kit murmured, looking

hopefully at Esra. “I want to be part of a coven. Not
for any like… proper reason, but it just sounds cool.”

“Covens are not to be joined or started just because

they sound cool, young lady,” Esra snapped, tone
failing to give any real edge to her words.

“Scalmeis coven does sound pretty cool,” I said,

agreeing with Kit. “How about it mum? Want us in
your magic gang?”
“It is not a… a magic gang!” she exclaimed, throwing
her hands in the air in frustration. “You two… by the
gods…”

Kit’s eyes flicked to meet mine, and there was a spark

of understanding, or more specifically… a spark of
sibling mischief. In a surprisingly gruff voice, she said,
“Ain’t nobody messin’ with the Scalmeis gang. We
own this ring, don’t let anybody go forgettin’ it.”

It took Troy way too long to get the meeting back

under control again after Kit’s little improv session,
but it was totally worth it to see the look of confused
frustration on Esra’s face.
Chapter 89 :
As the meeting wore on, we got into the details about
how and what to do. Before that though, we needed
to know who would be joining. Obviously the five of us
who’d been adventuring around the place were in, but
that still left the rest.

Duncan signed up without a second thought, while

Melody and Kelsey were hesitant because they had no
idea how they would help. Troy explained that they
could pick any non-combat job they wanted once we
figured out what the order would need, and that won
them over.

Bray had a rather amusing stipulation for his

membership. He wanted his own workshop in my
grove, as well as a blank check for making cool shit.
Troy and I both readily agreed. Claih piped up then,
asking for the same thing, and we also agreed, so long
as she helped teach bray and vice versa.
Then came the two obrec, who were enthusiastic, but
also didn’t want to just up and abandon their clan. We
said we’d give them time to talk things over with their
folks, and that was that, we had our first new
members.

Troy wanted to get started on planning out our new

compound, but I had other ideas. Big ideas… crazy
ideas, wild ideas. I was excited, so very excited,
because I’d had a little hunch about something for a
while now, but hadn’t really had a reason or
opportunity to test it.

That required me to remove everyone from the grove

though… and my friends were not happy about it.

“Don’t break anything,” Troy told me warily as I

dropped them all off in the mundane world.
“When can we come back in?” Melody asked in a
whine.

“I’ll let you all back in soon, I promise. No more than

an hour or two,” I told them, then disappeared back
into my grove before they could complain further.

Of course, that still left me with one grumpy old

woman to deal with.

“Just what are you planning?” Esra asked, her face

inches from mine as I reappeared.

“Jesus fuck,” I swore, stumbling backwards. “Personal

space, damn it.”

“Well?” she demanded, stepping back into my face.

“I’m going to talk to my grove for a bit,” I explained,
wondering if she’d understand what I meant.

Judging by the frown she gave me, I don’t think so.

“When I said that your grove had a mind of its own, I
meant in the way that a common beast does, not
another person.”

I shrugged. “Let me try?”

She rolled her eyes, but after a moment, she nodded.

“If you wish. Talking to your bunnies can’t be that
bad.”

I grinned, biting my tongue as best I could. Those were

some famous last words mummy dearest.
She disappeared in a swirl of autumn leaves with
nothing but one last suspicious look, and then I was
alone in my grove. Well, not entirely alone.

Cream bounded up to me, having sensed that I

needed her. Sitting down there in the grass, I opened
my arms for her and gave an adoring smile to my
smallest friend. “Hey there little bun, we’re going to
have a chat, you and I.”

She tilted her head at me for a moment, but obliged

and hopped into my lap.

“So, we’re going to be having a lot of people visiting

soon, and I was thinking that we need to remodel a
little bit,” I explained to her twitching little nose.

Her earnest bun eyes blinked back up at me, one of

her lopped ears trying to perk up a little. She was
clearly listening to me, I just had no idea how much of
this she was understanding.

“Now, I know we’re told that we can only shape our

grove on that scale once, but they also told me that
you weren’t very smart, and that’s a lie, isn’t it?” I
asked her, giving the bun a loose hug.

To my surprise she nodded, then tilted her head and

made a grumbling, growling sound.

I gave a laugh, I couldn’t help it. She was so damned

cute with her big fluffy cheeks and her floppy ears.
“Alright, unfortunately, I’m not as smart as you are. I
can’t understand bun language, so we’re going to
have to go at this slowly.”

Another nod. Goodness, she was so cute.

“So can we like, merge again and make some
modifications?” I asked hopefully, all my
concentration centered on reading her fuzzy little
face.

This time I was met with a thoughtful tilt of her head

and a paw scratching at her chin. She sat like that for
several moments before giving me a shrug. Almost
flooring me in surprise, a word came out of her little
mouth. “Try?”

“Wait, you can talk?” I blurted, excitement flooding

me like warmth after a shot of whiskey.

“Try,” she said again, and I swear I heard amusement

in her little bun voice.

“Alright, yeah it’s probably pretty difficult to speak

english when your mouth wasn’t designed for that,” I
winced, giving her an apologetic look. “Sorry about
that.”

“Good as be, no change,” she told me, little fuzzy

hands coming up to hold my cheeks. “No change.”

“Alright, you like how you are then,” I laughed, tears

in my eyes over how awesome this was. My buns
were talking! At least, cream was. I wrapped her in a
spontaneous hug. “I love all of you buns,” I told her
gently, scratching between her ears. “You’re all so
good to me.”

I got a quiet little squeaking chirp in response from my

fluffy cuddle buddy, and I let go with a happy sigh.
“Okay, so what do we do? Same as when I created the
grove?”
A nod, followed by another bun smile. Bun smiles
were a little different to human ones, the eyes didn’t
change much, and unlike dogs they hadn’t had enough
time to evolve eyebrow muscles. Her ears perked up
and her mouth tilted upwards though, and that
definitely counted as a smile in my book.

Closing my eyes, I leaned down and placed my

forehead to her fluffy one, reaching out as best I
could. As I had done when I created my grove, and
again when I created the buns, I extended my magical
sense of self beyond my body, seeking out the mind of
the grove.

I touched against it almost immediately, then flinched

when I felt a voice speak directly with my mind. “Hello
Ryn.” The voice wasn’t angry or anything, despite my
reaction. It was more… gentle, actually.
“Hi,” I sent back, wondering at the odd sensation that
this contact brought on me. My grove’s consciousness
had grown since I last communed with it.

“You wish to change us?” it asked, mental tone full of

curiosity.

“Yeah, like this,” I said, showing the mind that was my

grove an image, an idea for what it could be.

“Intriguing, why?” it asked, again curious. The weird

thing about its mental voice was that I could hear a
multitude of… well, ears, listening. Were my buns
listening in on the conversation?

Composing myself for a moment, I sent, “Many more

people will be visiting, some making this place their
home. I wish to physically isolate the area they will
visit from your heart.”
“More minds wish to visit? Interesting,” it mused, and
I received the mental image of a bunny tapping its
chin with a little fluffy finger in thought. “New minds
help me grow. Did you know that? I know not how or
why, I know not if other groves react the same way…
but I do. Yes, I will reshape myself for you. Please
continue to treat my smaller selves with care, they are
happy, and therefore I am happy.”

“I’m glad,” I said, wishing I could hug this

personification of my grove. “You’ve been amazing for
me, so wonderful in so many different ways.”

“I have seen, this makes us bright of heart… no,

happy. It makes us happy,” the voice of my grove said
warmly.

Then, just like that, the conversation was over and I

felt reality shift around me. It was quick, a mere
heartbeat, then it was done. One moment my grove
looked as it had since the beginning, the next it had
entirely changed.

Under the hood though, it wasn’t as simple, not by a

long shot. A vast quantity of energy had just been
consumed, so much so that I could feel a void
surrounding my grove within the garden. Magic was
already rushing in to fill that vacuum, and I knew
exactly what would happen when it reached me. I’d
just created a storm of magic. Still… it had worked, it
had most definitely worked.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, gazing out over the new

terrain from my new position atop my tree.

Gone was the simple plateau, the tiered cake of rock

and earth. I couldn’t even say it had been replaced
though, because that would be a disservice to what
had just transpired.
What had been my original grove was now the top of
a dead volcano, with the lake now at its center. My
windbreak of trees lined the top of the gentle slope,
spell plants arrayed in familiar patterns across the
caldera. The topography was more broken now, small
hillocks of varying sizes breaking up what had once
been a flat plane of grass.

My tree stood proud in the middle, and from there I

was able to look out at a new and awe inspiring little
world. A few terraces made their way down the steep
slopes of the volcano, extra space for me to work on
spells, before it hit the same mist that had been there
before. Anyone entering that mist would find
themselves rather abruptly floating in the nameless
garden.

This was critical for any potential defence of my new

volcano, because out from one of its sides sprang a
narrow ridgeline of craggy rock. This bridge over the
mists arrived at another ancient volcano, although this
one was styled a little differently.

Where the main one had been made to look like it

slowly fizzled out over millennia, the second one had
been styled to look like it had exploded, violently.
Now it resembled a wide craterlike valley with a rocky
ridgeline surrounding it.

The true reason for the massive power draw lay in the
size of this new area. At almost fifty miles in diameter,
it was fit for a medium sized city to nestle within, all
while leaving plenty of room for farmland. It was
gargantuan, and I was truly amazed that it had even
worked. Somehow, my grove had managed to make
itself physically larger on the inside, while still
maintaining its present size and power limitations
within the nameless garden.
It was perfect, and I felt my heart swell with pride for
my buns, including my biggest bun of all, the grove
itself.

“I think the grove did pretty good, don’t you,” I asked

finally, turning to look down at Cream, who stood at
my hip.

“Burrow. Try,” she agreed earnestly, staring out over

the vista with a twitching nose and big, alert brown
eyes.

“Yeah,” I sighed happily. “Burrow really did try, and

boy did it succeed.”
Chapter 90 :
I brought all of everyone back in again after Cream
and I were done gawking. Well, except Esra, she’d
have to find her own way in from the far end of the
grove.

“Wow, what did you do to the place?” Adam asked as

we all appeared in the center of the bowl, below the
big tree. “Looks like you turned it into a wrinkly old
sheet.”

“Follow me,” I grinned mischievously, turning for the

tree. “We have a lot of stairs to climb.”

Leading them all up the stairs had me feeling like a

mother duck, and the urge to quack proved almost
too great to bear. Thankfully, we made it to the top
before my resolve shattered. A quackless journey.
I hadn’t been to the very top of the tree often, since
walking up all those steps was not the most enjoyable
experience ever. The view had been stunning even
before I’d asked the grove to change, but now it was
magnificent.

Wordless sounds of surprise and awe rippled through

the gathered members of the order as they saw the
extent of the changes.

“Ryn…” Kit whispered reverently, stepping up to the

railing. “How did you do this?”

“I treated my grove well and then asked nicely,” I told

her truthfully. That was really the extent of what had
happened. It had been the grove that did all the work,
not me.
“Ryn… I’ve heard you referred to as a goddess a few
times in the past, but this genuinely seals the deal,”
Troy remarked, staring out across the view before us.
“This isn’t a grove anymore, this is a small world.”

“My plan is to set up a little river to run through it,

then a lake in the middle,” I explained, tracing the
desired path with a finger. “We can have our
compound near the lake, then have a forest around
the outside. I’ll transplant some animals into it so we
have a source of meat. Livestock pastures too, all that
stuff.”

“You really need a better way of getting around this

place,” Melody commented, eyes wide as she stared
down at the valley.

“I was kind of hoping Claih would help with that,

actually,” I said, giving the woman in question a
hopeful look.
Her response was wry, knowing look. “Aye, I’ll figure
something out for your tree and the land beyond,
provided I can take a look through the books in that
university of yours.”

I grinned. “They might get their feathers a little

ruffled, but I’ll make sure of it.”

“Wait, what’s that?” Grace asked, taking my hand to

get my attention. Her other one was pointing down at
the ridgeline that separated my own personal area
from the valley.

It took me a moment to realise what the flashing light

was, and then I grinned. “That would be Esra, she’s
teleporting over from the edge of the grove.”
“She’s going to be so mad at you,” Kit commented,
just the hint of a smile on her lips.

Giggling gleefully, I nodded in agreement, “I know, I’m

excited to see her reaction.”

“You’re such a god damn brat,” Grace laughed,

squeezing my hand affectionately.

For just a moment, I allowed myself to fall sideways

against her, leaning my head on her shoulder. I don’t
know why that little exchange had sent a shot of love
straight to my heart, but I relished it nevertheless.

My spike of happiness was dampened slightly when I

caught Bray staring at us, causing him to quickly jerk
his gaze away and back out into the distance. Ugh,
guess it was too much to hope for that he’d be
completely chill about Grace and I. The looming heart
to heart with him had me feeling all kinds of anxiety.

In a way, it was reassuring to feel worried. It grounded

me, and reminded me that despite what everyone
kept saying, I was not a deity. I was just a girl with a
whole shitload of power. Power that I had a
responsibility to use wisely.

“How long will it take you to get that river working?”

Troy asked, either oblivious to the moment or
bulldozing through it to get us moving again.

“A few days,” I replied after a moment’s thought. “I’ll

need time to myself to get things moving, my land
increased in size but not my power, so I—“

“Just how many of these damned rabbits do you need

Rynadria?” a disgruntled Esra called as she found her
way up onto the platform. Turning to look, I was
almost immediately skewered by angry white eyes.
“More importantly, what in the name of the gods
have you done here?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but apparently she

wasn’t done. “Do you realise the disturbance you’ve
caused outside this grove, young lady? There is a
titanic… no, a gargantuan wave of garden energy
headed straight for your precious little tree and there
is nothing that will stand in its way. I hope you have
another harebrained plan up your sleeve, because
quite frankly I am not inclined to pull you out of yet
another mess that you have created for yourself!”

“How much?” I asked excitedly, ignoring her whole

‘dire warning’ speech.

“H-how much?” she asked incredulously, eyes wide

and nostrils flared. “How much? Why does it matter
how much there is? You’re doomed if you don’t get
everyone out of this place, and you can say goodbye
to those damned rabbits of yours.”

“They’re buns, not rabbits. For someone so

knowledgeable, you should know the scientific name
for them,” I told her absently as a wild, delighted grin
slowly dawned across my face like the rising of a blood
moon.

“Oh no,” Adam remarked casually. “She has that grin

on her face again.”

“How long until it hits?” I asked Esra, already walking

to the center of the platform.

“You have but moments to act,” she told me with a

deep, resigned sigh.
Rolling my shoulders in their sockets, I closed my eyes.
“Awesome.”

My fix for the problem was almost disgustingly simple,

and I could have done it from where I’d been standing
earlier, but whatever… I couldn’t help but put on a
little bit of a show.

Crouching down, I placed my hands on the smooth,

warm wood of my beloved tree and altered it, just
slightly. The addition was nothing when compared to
the tree as a whole, and even to the shield spell I’d
just modified it was barely complex at all. I just really,
really hoped that I didn’t kill the thing with this little
stunt.

Esra had managed to somewhat stabilise the growth

magic plant earlier, and I now applied an altered
version of it to the weaving that controlled the shield.
The scariest part of the plan was if the tree would
finish growing the new elements before the wave hit.

Thankfully it did, right as the wave became visible as a

rapidly moving stormfront on the horizon.

There are moments in life where nature reminds you

that it is boss, that it is powerful and enigmatic and it
will fuck you up if you don’t watch out. This was one
of those times.

The sheer violence of the storm was such that it

seemed to tear the very air to ribbons with bright
green lightning that rippled and flashed like a tesla coil
on steroids. With the tree being at the center of the
grove, it meant that we saw the storm roll over the
valley first, bathing it in inky darkness.
I felt more than saw the newly born grass of the valley
become shredded by the razor sharp wind as it
passed. Oops… guess I’d be making grass for a bit. I
wonder what cute little spells I could weave into it?
Had anyone bothered making spells out of grass yet?

I didn’t have time to ponder grass spells though,

because the storm surged along the ridgeline and then
promptly slammed head first into the shield. The very
mountain beneath us shuddered under the impact
and leaves began to rain gently down around us,
knocked loose from their moorings in the canopy
above.

Everyone waited, breath bated while the storm

hammered and raged against the intangible wall of
energy that separated us from instant death at its
hands. I felt ice creep up my spine as I watched, a
feeling of dreadful hope suffusing me. Please don’t let
my cockiness get us all killed.
Off to the side, Esra stared up at the maelstrom with
rapt attention, magesight-lit eyes darting back and
forth. There was no fear there on her face, and it
prompted me to copy her.

Activating my magesight revealed a blinding series of

magical tornados, growth energy quite literally being
sucked down the sink. It appeared to be rushing into
every spare branch, through the veins of the tree and
into the mountain below us.

My fear of the storm began to dissipate, replaced by

an even greater worry that the very mountain below
us was about to detonate under the magical load.
How in the hell was it meant to survive through the
amount of energy that was being pummelled into it?

Then, all of a sudden, the storm eased, receding back

towards the boundary between my grove and the
nameless garden. The torrent of energy ebbed with it,
sparing us from a catastrophic eruption of magical
death from below.

“It will be back,” Esra commented, relief plain in her

voice. “Not so violent as that, however.”

“Why will it be back?” Kit squeaked, clearly still a little

terrified by what had just happened.

“As a pebble creates rebounding ripples when

dropped in a pond, so too will this phenomena
continue,” she told us, turning to peer back down at
the mountain below. “Like waves in a tub, if I were to
explain it in a more relatable manner.”

While she’d been speaking, I’d also turned my eyes

downward again, and now my brows creased in
confusion. “What on earth is going on down there?”
“To be quite honest my dear… I don’t have a fucking
clue,” Esra replied, still staring down.

“I do,” came a voice, and glancing up revealed Claih,

kneeling with a large monocle over one eye. “I’ve
never seen it happen, it was nothing more than theory
before this point.”

“Explain,” my mage mother demanded, and I had a

sneaking suspicion that she might be irritated that she
wasn’t the one who had the answer.

“It’s forming crystals, merging with the mountain,” the

obrec woman explained in rapt awe. “It’s always been
obvious to us magitechts that the crystal wasn’t here
during the forming of this world. Now, I have
definitive proof for the theory.”
Esra’s reply was a groan, hand rising to pinch at the
bridge of her nose. “Rynadria Belrose, I swear…”

“You swear what?” I asked as innocently as possible.

That shit eating grin though, it was persistent.

“I don’t even know,” she sighed, dropping her hand

and gazing skyward. “I don’t even know.”

Chapter 91 :
Something that my grove hadn’t mentioned to me
when I’d spoken to it was a certain consequence of
expanding. When Esra had been complaining about
how many buns I had, she wasn’t joking. The bun
population of Rynland had grown by… well, a whole
lot.

For the next two days I spent my time working as hard

as possible to get everyone sorted, all while meeting
each new bun. I needed to spend time with my little
friends, they were precious to me and to the
functioning of this wonderful home I’d been given by
Esra and her fruit.

Two days later and the university people, my friends,

the obrec, and everyone else had all been dealt with.
I’d focused so hard on that, because I needed a solid
week to myself in order to prepare the huge valley for
my fellow knights of Eleos.

I began by creating a cave up near the ridge that led to

my personal area of the grove. Originally I began to
dig with my magic, but pretty soon an army of buns
appeared to help me, and the job got done in record
time.

Unlike last time, I’d purposefully chosen the

composition of the soil and ground below. There was
plenty of rich soil on the uppermost layer, but below
that you’d begin to run into large hunks of rock until
you eventually reached bedrock. I had the buns dig all
the way to this layer in a network of branching paths,
many too small for me to get into.

Within the tunnels I created a type of moss that would

draw in magical energy and convert it into water, thus
providing the main source of water for my river-to-be.

My buns helped spread the newly created moss once

there was enough of it, and before long I had to
evacuate them from the tunnels for fear of them
drowning. There was quite a lot of water being
produced… perhaps more than I needed… ah well. The
river would just flow faster I guess?

With the valley sloping gently down towards the end

opposite the cave, the water began to find its own
way through the terrain, sloshing and surging all the
way.
It was fascinating to watch really, wondering which
way the water would take as it raced for the ready
made depression in the ground where the lake would
be.

Grace came and found me as Cream and I watched the

show from up on the top of the crater’s rim.

With a weary groan and a long sigh, she settled down

next to me. “I’ve been talking to Claih.”

“What about?” I asked, shifting sideways so I could

lean my head on her shoulder.

Arm shifting to hold me against her side, I heard the

smile in her voice as she explained, “Talking about
getting some magitech stuff going for me. She wants
to start with the hand cannons that I tried out earlier.
Insists that I help her build them, with Bray as well
obviously. I just… I’m no good with making things, you
know? I don’t want her efforts to be in vain.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” I told her with

a little laugh, kneading at her arm with my fingers idly.
“You know exactly how to get a hairstyle out of
someone’s messy mop, and you’ve got that sort of
insightful intelligence that picks out problems before
they arise. You should give it a real shot.”

“There’s also Bray… I don’t want to steal his thunder

or anything,” she hesitated, sounding very unsure of
herself. “I mean… he’s already kinda pissed at me for
dating you.”

“He is?” I asked, sitting up to look at her properly.

Within her pretty green eyes I found a lot of self doubt
and more than a little worry. At her nod of
confirmation, I frowned, “Well he’s a bloody moron
then. I’m a girl, he’s not into girls… I’m also a lesbian,
so that’s like double the roadblocks. Plus, I just don’t
think he’d make a good partner for me anyway.”

“Why not?” she asked, curiosity replacing the anxiety

across her face.

“He wouldn’t give me what I need in a relationship,” I

smiled, leaning forward to kiss her on the nose. “You
do though, you give me the soft, gentle love that I
need after the fucked up life I’ve lived. You care for
me when I forget to do basic shit like eating, you listen
to me when I’m frustrated about things but don’t
want to let anyone else know. You’re strong too,
strong enough for me to lean on when I need it, but
also vulnerable, you let me take care of you in turn. I
mean, I could go on and on about what I need in a
relationship, but… all I really have to do is point to
you. You are what I need.”
As I spoke, her bottom lips pursed and her eyes turned
watery, until I finished and she was dragging me into a
tight hug. “Oh Ryn, I love you so much. Thank you,
thank you… thank you for… for being…”

“Hey, whoa… it’s okay,” I murmured gently, wrapping

her up tight in return. “I love you too, I love you.”

Before she could reply, a fluffy nose inserted itself into

the hug, and I felt little paws wrap around the both of
us. Cream had joined the hug.

Laughing, I gave her a scratch behind her ears.

“Thanks Cream.”

Grace let out a little laugh along with me, pulling back
again to grin while smearing tears across her face in a
failed attempt to clean herself with a sleeve. “It’s
just… I mean you give me purpose in this new world,
you know? I’m so scared of losing you.”

“I’m not leaving you, silly,” I said with a roll of my eyes

for emphasis. “I mean… I like the guy as a friend, but
look at him, he’s not a fit for me at all. That’s not even
the most compelling reason though, because the truth
is I have you. You’re perfect as anyone can hope for in
a girlfriend.”

“Yeah but… I’m just me, you know? But you, you’re so
kind, intelligent, beautiful, and so good at what you
do… I mean look at that,” she told me earnestly,
gesturing to the lake that was now filling. “You’re a
goddess, how do I match up to that?”

“I don’t want or need you to match up to me and my

dumb lake,” I told her seriously, taking her head in
both hands so she had to meet my eyes. “I’m all of
those things, I guess… but there’s also a lot of things
that I am not. Like, for example, I am not a functional
adult. That, to me, is far harder than creating
miniature worlds and silly moss that makes water. We
haven’t really talked about it, but I’ve noticed how you
do my laundry.”

“You have more important things to do than your

laundry,” she mumbled bashfully, trying to turn away.

“Hey,” I said, pulling her back. “Thank you. Thank you

for being my girlfriend, for being there for me. You’re
absolutely the only person for me, and plus… you’re a
bit of a goddess yourself now, or at least attached to
one.”

“I know… but it’s not like I can do anything with it,

other than banishing our enemies to some sort of
eternal nightmare,” she sighed dejectedly, pouting a
little.
“And that is why your topic change isn’t going to
work,” I said with a knowing smirk. “You’re going to
give this magitecht thing a real try, okay? I think you’ll
be good at it, and since your own judgement of
yourself is hot garbage, we’ll go with mine instead.”

That had her smiling, her arms coming up to encircle

my neck. “I am going to kiss you.”

Shifting a hand to her chest to stall her, I glared at her

suspiciously. “Not until you agree that you’ll give it a
real try.”

“Fine,” she laughed, rolling her eyes. “I will be a good

student and try my best to learn how to make deadly
magic guns.”

“Good girl,” I smiled. removing my hand and allowing

myself to be pulled closer.
“Me. Cloth. Wash,” Cream said suddenly, breaking the
moment as Grace looked down sharply at the bunny.
“Lady Lady groom Lady.”

“Did… she just talk?” Grace asked in wide eyed

surprise.

“Try,” the small bun shrugged. “Mouth bad.”

As they interacted, I was grinning widely at the whole

thing. Cream was one of my favourite beings in the
universe, and here she was blowing my poor Grace’s
mind with her newfound powers of speech.

“She’s been talking a little since the grove expanded,”

I explained to my girlfriend. “It seems like the more
people that visit my grove, the smarter it and the buns
become.”
“That is fucking awesome,” Grace exclaimed, letting
me go to give the bun dual ear scritches.

Cream’s little face scrunched up into a frown. “Yes

but… groom now. Me later.”

“Uh, I didn’t understand that,” Grace admitted

sheepishly, turning to me for explanation. For my part,
I began to laugh, ruffling Cream’s little fuzzy side
affectionately.

“She means that she interrupted us as we were about

to make out, and that we should get back to that
before we talk about her,” I explained as I tried to get
control of myself. The way that Cream kept referring
to kissing as grooming was too funny.
“Well, if the little bun says so,” Grace chuckled, gently
cupping my cheek so I’d turn to face her.

Goodness, her eyes were always so entrancing when

she got all romantic like this, as though their depth
increased sevenfold while their clarity was that of
polished diamond. With a thumb grazing the skin just
beneath my eye, she pulled me slowly in towards her
soft lips.

In the distance, the telltale boom of an explosion

shook the air, causing the dust around us to jump
slightly in place. Both of us groaned at the same time,
our foreheads connecting with a slight bump as we
broke off the kiss before it had even started.

“What was that?” I asked with a long, weary sigh.

“I’m pretty sure that whatever experiment Claih was
running just detonated on her,” my girlfriend replied.

I let out another groan. “Lovely.”

Chapter 92 :
Work on my grove went well, the lake filled up and
then spilled further down the gentle slope of the
valley towards the far side, where it spilled over the
edge and down into the mists.

As for regrowing the grass that the storm had wiped

out, I took inspiration from my previous communion
with grasskind. It was fairly easy to create a low level
spell that would essentially do the same thing but
without forcing the poor plants into unwelcome
sentience. I’d be able to track the whereabouts and
basic information of anyone standing on my massive
lawn with it. Pretty cool, if I did say so myself.

The Order’s village was also well on its way to

becoming a real thing. Unlike with my inner sanctum,
we were going with stone and wood for the
construction, so the place was going to look like a
proper medieval village. Well, apart from all the magic
shit that would be everywhere.

Mining the stone was actually kinda hilarious in a

multitude of different ways. First off, went out into
the mundane world and wandered around until I
found a nice exposed cliff face. Then I began to slice it
up with magic blades.

This produced a small crowd of gawking Avonsiders,

who watched from what they probably thought was a
safe distance. That is, until one brave dude made his
way over to me with some of his friends in tow.
“Why are you, um… cutting the cliff up?” he asked
tentatively.

“Hmm?” I turned, pausing in my vivisection of the

mountain to see who had interrupted me. “I’m cutting
up stone for the new Order of Eleos base.”

He blinked, and behind him his friends passed looks

amongst themselves. “Can’t you like, grow buildings
and shit out of thin air?”

“Yeah, but as much as I like it, I don’t think living

inside a giant tree is for everyone,” I explained calmly,
feeling like I had a chance to be nice here, get on their
good side. “Well, the Order decided it anyway, so here
I am.”
“Where’s the uh… the base going to be?” he asked
curiously, seeming to settle into the conversation.

“Inside my grove,” I smiled, then went on to explain

further. “Magic users on this big ring world come in a
bunch of different shapes and forms. I’m a mage,
which is a little bit of a misnomer as we understand it,
but that’s besides the point. Every mage has their own
little… pocket dimension, you could say, which is
called a grove. We’re building the village in there so
it’s safe from all the bullshit in the outside world.”

“That’s so cool,” one of the girls in the group blurted,

staring at me with open wonder.

“Must be nice,” another grumbled, clearly not sharing

her friend’s assessment of me. “You get to boss
everyone around and you have your own safe place to
hang out in if things get too rough.”
“I mean… I guess,” I shrugged, unsure what to make of
her tone. “There is the fact that there’s a power
hungry creeper who wants me dead out in the wider
world. Wants all of us dead, actually.”

That threw her off guard. “What, why?”

“A whole bunch of reasons, but it really just boils

down to the fact that he likes being in power and
we’re a threat to him,” I shrugged, turning back to my
work.

“Well then stop being a threat to him,” she hissed,

taking a step towards my back. “You just chased off a
whole shit ton of our guards, now you’re saying some
guy wants us dead? Who even is this guy? Does the
faculty know?”
“Yo, Rhea, what the heck is your problem right now?”
the friendly girl demanded, stepping between the two
of us.

Well, guess I wasn’t getting any more stone cutting

done until they stopped being annoying.

“I’d like to know that too, actually,” I stated, crossing

my arms and levelling a glare at her. Funny how this
sort of thing would have terrified me before. Almost a
year later though and I had power beyond anything
this lot could hope to get their hands on, and it gave
me a certain degree of confidence.

“Why the hell did you get magic anyway?” the angry
girl named Rhea asked, almost sneering past her
friend at me.
“Pure accident,” I smiled, then tilted my head in
thought. “Wait no, there was some stupidity involved
too actually, on my part.”

Her answer was a simple stare of confused disbelief, a

whole host of emotions trampling across her face as
she obviously tried to think of what she’d be angry
about next. Evidently she didn’t come up with
anything, because she turned on her heel and
stomped off in a huff.

“Damn, what was that about?” I asked, motioning to

the enraged girl with a hand.

“Honestly, I have no damned idea,” the guy who’d

originally approached me said, scratching at the back
of his neck in confusion. “She’s normally pretty chill.
Unless it’s about men being dumb or something, then
she gets sorta… obnoxiously feminist.”
“He’s right,” the girl agreed with a wince. “Like, I’m all
for girl power and shit, but she goes about it so
weird…”

My eyebrow twitched with sudden suspicion, but I

didn’t say anything outright. Instead, I began with
something simple I needed to establish first. “So, did
you know I used to be a student here?” I asked,
pretending to change the subject.

“Yeah, I heard you were a guy too?” the girl asked, her
words setting me on edge until her curious expression
registered.

“Something like that, yeah,” I smiled awkwardly.

Explaining that inside my head I’d never been a man
was… frustrating, when it came to cis people. Sex and
gender were so closely intertwined in most people’s
heads that it just wasn’t worth my individual effort to
untangle them.
“What’s that like?” the guy asked curiously. “I always
said if I got turned into a girl for a day, I’d just—“

One of the other guys, silent until now, laughed and

punched his friend in the shoulder. “Come on dude!
Not in the company of the ladies!”

“What, like we don’t all know what he was going to

say?” the girl asked, hands now very firmly planted on
hips. “I’ll have you know I fuck myself with a dildo
bigger than your dick on the reg, thank you very
much.”

“She’d know man,” yet another guy piped up with a

guffaw. “She’s your ex after all!”

“Wow, okay,” the small dicked dude laughed good

naturedly, putting his hands up in defeat.
“I don’t,” I said, shyly joining in. “I uh… have a
girlfriend for that.”

“Nice!” original dude grinned, offering me a high five

before wimping out when he realised who he was
offering it too. Guess I was still a little intimidating.

Guess I should end things here for now, before it got

weird. Too many guys who mean good but are just a
little too on the pervy side for my taste.

“Well, I’ve got to get back to cutting this cliff up, but if
you stick around you’ll see something pretty great,” I
told them all with what I hoped was a mysterious
wink.
The surprise greatness turned out to be my buns. I
transported a whole cohort of them out into the
mundane world to help with stacking the newly
carved stone. I had them sort each segment by how
intact it was, since stonecutting was an artform all on
its own, and I had no idea what I was doing. I’d get the
buildy people to come out and sort through it all later.

Rhea the grump came back with another girl, both of

which stood off to the side and glared at me,
occasionally exchanging a whisper or two. I had
suspicions about what her problem with me was, and
if I was correct… well, it would be incredibly fucking
draining.

On the bright side, I was ambushed by a certain newly

acquired sister as I delivered the stone to a stockpile
within the grove.
“Ryn! Ryn!” she exclaimed, bounding down the slope
towards me. “There you are, I had a breakthrough!”

Goodness, Kit was so adorable, with her huge shirt,

short shorts and bare feet spinning dirt in all
directions.

“On which of your projects?” I asked with an intrigued

smile. Kit had been off doing her own thing with Esra
for a while now, basically research and development
into a bunch of different spells we’d need.

“Well, two actually, but they’re linked,” she said,

bopping up and down on the spot for a moment
before going still to explain. “So, we got power
working obviously, creating energy is actually infinitely
easier than we’d thought. You can convert magic to
electricity using a pretty simple spell structure. Wires
are easy too, same as usual except they are grown by
plants.”
“And the wireless network?” I asked hopefully,
suddenly finding myself very excited indeed. If there
was one thing I still missed from my old life, it was a
connection to the internet. We might not have
anything as vast as we used to, but the university
network was better than nothing. I bet they already
had some sort of new social media app. I was so keen
to get my eyes on the gossip that people were
spinning there.

“Harder… for now we’re going to have to pilfer a

router from somewhere on campus,” she winced,
giving me an apologetic look. “We have figured out
how to transfer information from the mundane world
to the Nameless Garden though! A little plant we
designed can do it. It’s so cute actually, it’s basically a
flower where the stalk ends in an ethernet plug.”
“Wait, really?” I asked as my eyebrows rose with
surprised interest. “How on earth does it get the
information between realms?”

“I honestly don’t understand it yet,” Kit told me

sheepishly, one hand scrunching itself in the too-big T-
shirt she wore. “Esra’s been researching this stuff for
years and it’s all way beyond me. I mainly helped with
the magic to tech interfacing.”

“Still, that’s helpful,” I commended her with a gentle

pat on the shoulder. “When can we have it up and
running?”

Cheeky little brown eyes widened with impending

mischief. “As soon as we can steal a router and find a
sneaky place to plug our flower in.”
Oh dear. Since when had quiet, shy little Kit gotten so
subtly naughty? Was I a bad influence on her?

“Well… we could go snooping right now…” I

suggested, giving her a sly look.

“That’s what I was thinking!” she nodded, but her

vigor fell away into uncertainty as she murmured, “I
did want to ask you though…”

“Ask me what?”

The stare I got was full of anxiety and hope, and she
mumbled her next words out in a rush. “What do you
think of… of the name Catherine?”
Chapter 93 :
“Catherine, huh?” I asked slowly, rolling the name
around on my tongue as I stared down at the smaller
girl. “Yeah, I reckon it fits you pretty damned well
actually. Pretty too, but with some interesting
connotations. Catherine sounds like a pretty girl who
is startlingly intelligent, but unassuming on the
surface. Seems like, well… you, actually.”

The smile that broke out across Catherine’s face was

radiant, tears springing up spontaneously in the
corners of her eyes. “T-thanks Ryn,” she squeaked,
voice full to the brim with emotion.

“Hey, come here,” I murmured soothingly, opening my

arms. “Come here, Catherine.”

She accepted the hug with a breathless, joyful giggle,

and it was all I could do to stop tears of my own. What
she was feeling right now, it would be a
transformative experience, as if physical healing was
occuring within her brain.

It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t

experienced it, that feeling, where it seems like your
shattered and muddled identity has just formed whole
for the first time. Imagine a mirror being broken, but
run in reverse, the separate, jagged pieces all spinning
impossibly through the air until they slot themselves
into their rightful places. Sure, you can never fix the
cracks that the stress of dysphoria has wrought on
your soul, but if you look past those cracks, you can
see a bright and vibrant person in that miraculously
rebuilt mirror.

“It feels so… so crazy to hear you call me that,” she

laughed, leaning back to peer shyly up at me. “Was it
like this for you?”
“Hearing your name for the first time?” I mused,
thinking back on that day in the bathtub, when Esra
had just thrown the name at me like a towel. “It felt
incredible… although I didn’t really get to experience it
all in one hit like you. I’d only just seen myself in a
mirror at that point, plus I was learning that magic
existed and like… everything.”

“Oh geez, yeah… and Esra is a lot sometimes,” she

laughed, smiling a pure, happy smile up at me. “I’m
glad you were there to help me, gosh.”

“Does this mean you’re admitting that you’re trans

and like things as they are now, by the way? I don’t
believe we’ve talked about things…” I asked, raising an
eyebrow at her.

“U-uh… no?” she stammered, cheeks going red in the

process. “Maybe? I… oh shit, I think I just did… I mean,
people have basically just been saying I am, without
me even… but like, I didn’t… well…”

It would have been impossible to smother the look of

amusement I gave her if I’d tried. Her bumbling was
just adorable, and hilariously funny. It was the typical
thing that trans people did while they were still
unaware, spouting nonsense like, “Yeah, I wish I was a
girl, but that doesn’t make me trans!” and, “I just
think I’d be better as a girl, it doesn’t mean anything.”
All you can do is roll your eyes in that kind of situation.

“Okay, well it doesn’t really matter anyway,” I told her

instead, giving a shrug. “Kind of a useless label, given
that you’re wandering around in a body that makes
you happy, and now with a name that also makes you
happy.”

“Thanks,” she grinned, gaze turning bashfully to the

ground before bouncing back up to meet mine again.
“It’s all so confusing, but at least I have time… and I’m
safe from nasty people.”

“About that…” I winced, remembering the altercation

I’d found myself in while cutting stone. “I met a pretty
aggressive student earlier and got some pretty messy
transphobic vibes from her. Be careful okay?”

She agreed with a nod, exasperation plain on her face.

“Geez, really? We kinda have bigger problems to
worry about.”

“I know,” I sighed, placing a hand on the top of her

head for a moment. Lips quirking into a smile, I
continued “Things like getting network access! Ready
to go undercover?”

Two big brown eyes lit up with excitement. “Hell yes! I

made a spell like yours that masks my mage looks, we
can pretend to be normal students and sneak
around!”

“Awesome,” I laughed, then feigned a passing

thought. “Just… pinch me if I start humming the
mission impossible theme song.”

“Oh my god, please don’t,” she groaned, rolling her

eyes at me.

I winked. “No promises.”

****
Walking around the campus as just two regular girls
was an interesting experience. We were both still
achingly beautiful, there was no way around that
without getting into more intense illusions, and
neither of us really wanted to cover it up anyway.
Being pretty was nice.

That is, apart from the stares we got from people, but
at least it was nothing too far out of the ordinary. Just
two good looking girls going about their business.

Avonside campus on the other hand, was a bit of a

mess. It had started off as a fairly small university,
without much funding and not a whole lot of
attention. As the years had gone on though, it had
expanded, buying up land around itself and putting it
to use.
This haphazard expansion had led to some very odd
little twists and turns, with buildings wedged between
each other or at odd angles. I loved it personally, but I
was one of those weirdos who just hated straight lines
and squares in architecture. So boring.

It was especially helpful now, as there were many

hidden and aging buildings that had been relegated to
storage duty. All we had to do was find one that had a
usable ethernet plug and we would be good to go.

One just like that… actually. Thinking I’d found what

we were looking for, I motioned for Catherine to
follow me, but a small hand whipped out to stop me in
my tracks.

“What was that?” she blurted, tone hushed and brows

crinkled into a frown. “Oh… it’s gone… Ryn, I think we
need to go and take a look.”
“Why? What did you see?” I asked in confusion, but
she didn’t wait to answer my question, instead taking
my hand and dragging me into an alleyway.

“Follow, stay quiet,” she hissed, expressive brown

eyes now deadly serious as she snuck along on quiet
tread.

Giving a mental shrug, I did as she asked, keeping

behind her while we made our way down the alley.
Afternoon creeping in as it was, the light in the
cramped space wasn’t incredible, but it was more
than enough to make out the silhouette of a man at
the other end, disappearing down a side passage.

Okay, Catherine had seen someone we apparently

needed to follow… interesting.
Twists made way for turns in our chase as we followed
the mysterious guy through the hidden paths of the
campus. I was beginning to wonder if he’d seen us and
was now trying to lose his tail in the maze.

Eventually however, my smaller sister put a hand out

once more, halting me before I barrelled around the
next corver. Finger to lips, she motioned towards it,
and we both edged our way up as silently as we could
manage.

“What took you so long?” a masculine voice asked

gruffly.

The next voice pinged my memory, but I couldn’t

figure out why. Definitely male though. “I got lost
dude, give me a break. You’re the one who needs my
help anyway.”
“Your boss promised a lot, but that bitch arrived
anyway and where was the help?” the first voice
hissed, anger raw in his voice.

“We didn’t get enough time, she moved far faster

than we expected. Plus, we told you not to mess with
her, but you didn’t believe us,” the second guy
grouched. “She’s stronger than we thought too, my
boss needs… backup.”

“Too late, because she kicked my boss out of Avonside

and now we’re off headed north,” the other man
hissed in frustration.

Taking a chance, I leaned over the top of Catherine

and took a peek at them. Dark as it was, I didn’t really
see much, other than two guys talking outside an
open door into a forgotten building.
“That’s… north is towards the Donians though, my
boss said they’re kinda crazy dude,” the second one
warned, clearly taken aback.

“Crazy is a relative term, to us they sound like the only

sane people on this ring,” the first guy shot back,
clearly done with the whole conversation. “What have
you got to offer that will make my boss want to turn
around?”

“I… well, safety for one thing,” came the hesitant

reply.

“Safety?” the guy who was clearly one of the cops

guffawed. “My boss ain’t after safety dude, she’s after
revenge. We all are.”

That seemed to finally harden the unknown dude into

annoyance. “Typical. Fuckin’ cops always looking at
the little picture, huh? I’m pretty dumb, but even I
know that going for the quick emotional win is a dumb
idea.”

“There it is, knew we couldn’t trust you,” the cop said

defiantly, and with that he turned for the door.

The second guy was faster though, hand flicking out,

wreathed in orange vines. The spell was effective, a
quick, quiet blast of fiery energy and the cop fell
forward with a thump, burning hole burned through
his chest.

“Dumbass, still think you have power with your dinky

little guns, huh?” the second guy scoffed at the body,
kicking it for good measure. “Even after what Ryn did
to you and your mates… stupid fuck.”
A tugging on my sleeve brought me back around the
corner and out of sight. Catherine and I shared a look
of wide eyed worry and confusion. Clearly those two
were not our friends, but apparently from different
factions?

Nodding frantically back down the path, Catherine

silently indicated that we should get the fuck out of
there, and I couldn’t agree more. We had no idea how
powerful that mage was, and the fact that he spoke
english with an american accent was rather worrying.
Just who the hell was he?

Our rush to get away was aimless, silence making way

to a headlong spring through the campus until we
were figured we were safe. Thank fuck for this whack
ass campus planning, or lack thereof. As we’d just
experienced, it was pretty hard to follow someone
through the twists and turns of this place.
“Holy shit,” Catherine puffed, little cheeks pink with
the exertion of our escape. “Holy shit…”

“Well, the cop is dead—“ I began, but she interrupted

me.

“That was James!” she blurted between gasps for air.

“That was James, that boss of his he was talking about
must be Fennimore!”

I was floored, because she was absolutely right.

“Wow… how do I keep forgetting that James exists?
And that was him? He’s a fucking mage now? We
need to find Troy, the wifi can wait.”

“Isn’t Troy with the obrec right now?” she asked, eyes
wide with just a hint of excited worry.
“Yeah, pretty sure… let’s go,” I nodded, and this time
it was my turn to lead her by the hand. James being
here was bad, really really bad. Apparently he’d
gotten here before us too? My gut twisted with worry.
What kind of shit had he already done while he was
here?

Chapter 94 :
We found Troy acting as a translator for the obrec as
they haggled with some of the university staff over
prices. It sounded like a difficult time, to be honest,
because each side valued things at vastly different
levels. The obrec had no use for a flat screen TV after
all.
“Troy, we need to talk, like right now,” I called as we
came within range. “Big problem!”

He reacted quickly, speaking first to the obrec, then

the uni people. To me, he asked, “Here, or in the
grove?”

“Grove,” I told him, and snatched all three of us in

without any more discussion on the matter.

“What happened?” he asked, not at all fazed by the

sudden transition. Guess he’d done it before.

“We saw James,” Catherine began, jumping in to

explain. “He was meeting someone who seemed to be
from the CEO’s group, looks like they left some people
behind.”
“Shit, we’ll have to weed them out,” Troy grumbled,
rubbing at his stubble for a moment in thought.

“No, James killed the cop dude, with magic…” I told

him with a shake of my head. “He seems to be a mage
now, and from what we caught of the conversation,
he’s working for Fennimore.”

“He’s also apparently been here since long before we

got back,” Catherine said, finishing where I left off.

That had Troy stopping to stare at us both, before he

winced and swore, “Fuck, that is really not good. If
he’s a mage, then he has a grove, and if he has a
grove, it means he can just… steal whatever the hell
tech or information he wants and pass it to Fennimore
instantly. There’s no way that slimy bastard would
need a man on the inside for any other reason.”
“Not to infiltrate us to make attacking easier?”
Catherine asked, wide eyed with worry.

“Why would he need that? Avonside was all but

defenceless against someone like him,” Troy replied
with a bitter laugh. “He probably has more bodies he
could have thrown at us than we had bullets. In fact I
guarantee it.”

“Wait…” I murmured slowly, thinking back on what

Fennimore had said. “He said he knew that another
age of war was coming, spurred on by the tech we
brought in. He said he wanted to stop it… but what if
he was lying? He knows he could be the next
conqueror instead, all he needs to do is get his hands
on the theory behind all things gun related and he’s
off…”
“Oh,” Catherine squeaked, eyes going wide. “He
probably also knows that if he attacks now, we’ll just
burn everything… so he can’t get it by force.”

Troy nodded, deep in thought. “If anything, he needs

Avonside to be left alone and without any idea of
what’s going on.”

“He picked the wrong guy to be subtle then,” my little

sister snorted, a wry smile flitting across her lips.
“James is dumb as a brick.”

“Don’t be mean to bricks Cat, it’s not nice,” I laughed,

nudging her in the side with an elbow.

“Cat?” Troy asked, tilting his head and glancing

between us.
“She chose the name Catherine,” I explained, taking
that arm and snaking it around her shoulders now.

In a rare display of proper happiness, Troy grinned,

“Congratulations Catherine, it’s a pretty name.”

“T-thanks,” she smiled shyly, biting her lip and staring

down at the ground.

“Back to the task at hand though, we’re going to need

to track down James and incapacitate him,” our leader
said, smile fading as fast as it had appeared.

“I’m super busy with everything already, so is Cat

here…” I said slowly, wondering how we could track
people.
“Hold on, as much as I hate to say it, going after James
probably isn’t the best course of action,” the girl in
question said quickly. “If James has been here for a
while and he’s probably stealing information for
Fennimore, he’s already achieved what he wanted.
There’s no point in jumping him.”

Troy stared at her for several long seconds as thoughts

whirred through everyone’s minds. Finally, he nodded,
turning to gaze down at the Order’s valley. “Alright,
new plan, because you’re right. If we take James out,
Fennimore will know he’s been had, might even step
up the timeframe of his plans. That would just leave
us with even less time to prepare.”

“That’s… as far as my ideas go, I don’t have any idea

what to do instead,” Cat said sheepishly, scrunching
up the front of her shirt into a ball.
“That’s fine,” Troy replied. With a raised finger, he
pointed down into the valley, “Instead, we need to
move faster. We need to get as much as possible
moving within the Order, recruiting included. We’ll
also need to warn our people to be careful, just
because we think James’ primary goal is stealing
information, doesn’t mean he won’t kill one of us if
he’s given the chance.”

“We could even prepare things for Avonside’s defence

without them knowing, store it all in our groves until
it’s time to move everything in place,” I said
thoughtfully. “They can’t see anything we do in here,
so that’s a plus.”

“Indeed, although I think I’ll still task some of the

others with tracking James’ movements so we know
what he’s stealing,” he said with a weary sigh. “See if
we can’t intercept some of it and feed bad science
back to Fennimore.”
“I was really hoping that life would chill the fuck out
for a little while,” I groaned, scuffing at the dirt with a
shoe.

“Me too,” Cat grumbled, copying my movements.

****

I constructed a storehouse within the Order

compound first, with the ground floor and upper floor
for non-perishables, along with a basement that was
cooled to below freezing. These buildings were done
with the help of an engineering student that we
offered to pay, since I had no fucking idea what I was
doing as far as non-plant-based buildings went.

His name was Rueben, a scrawny looking dude with

glasses and a perpetually worried expression on his
face. He wasn’t actually worried though, he actually
seemed to be ever so slightly awestruck by me and
the grove.

“H-how much stronger can you make the wood?” he

asked as we were contemplating the support beams.

“Very,” I smiled, pulling out my new phone. “Let me

look up exactly how though.”

Catherine and I had gone and finished our wifi task

after the meeting with Troy, and after a little tweaking
we’d managed to get a plant to work as an amplifier
for the signal. Having perfect signal anywhere in the
grove was pretty fucking cool.

After reading through a few studies on the reasons

behind the strength and toughness of various wood
types, I went ahead and designed my own for the task.

The next building was a lot harder and required a

whole lot more thought. A workshop for potentially
explosive projects from our magitechts would need to
be robust, so we went for double thickness on the
stone walls this time. I had to consult with Claih and
Bray on several occasions to get it right, including
designing a bunch of random shit like a forge and all
that. Honestly, I just did what they told me and hoped
that it was correct.

We also laid out a central circular plaza, where the big

ass pillar of crystal would end up. Next came a
barracks, but that ended up causing some friction
between myself and Troy.

“No, they need to be bunking together, it builds

camaraderie,” he told me sternly, which elicited a
groan from me.

“We’re not turning this into a dumb bootcamp,” I

grumbled, hand on hip. “Look, this isn’t going to be an
army. We don’t want to produce a bunch of
footsoldiers, we want heroes. You don’t make heroes
with a sausage factory machine thing.”

Visibly reining himself in from just dismissing my idea

outright, he took a deep breath and asked, “Explain?”

“Soldiers have their place in a brutal world like this

one, sure… but that’s not what we’re doing here is it?”
I queried, gesturing to the plaza that was swarming
with cobblestone-laying buns. “We want heroes,
individuals… people with hearts and brains to make
decisions that will help people. You don’t get that
from shoving everyone down into a standardised basic
training.”

“You’re talking about more than just sleeping

arrangements in the barracks here Ryn,” he pointed
out, but he seemed to be listening.

“There’s always a theme when it comes to this kind of

thing in media, a big one. Individuality, freedom, and
specialisation. I think, instead of trying to throw
everyone into a basic training that might weed out
important skills, we focus on finding good people and
then help them be the best they can be in the fields
they excel in,” I explained as calmly as possible.
“And for that to work properly, people need their own
rooms, a personal space,” he murmured, turning to
stare at the area we’d marked out for the barracks.

I nodded. “Our Order hinges on our members being

good people first and foremost. We can sort out the
rest of it once we have those good people. We want
to find a bunch of gems in the rough, then cut and
polish them according to their natural structure, not
grind them down into mass produced bricks.”

“Cute metaphor, but they will all still need a certain

standard of skill with arms, as well as survival skills
within field operatives,” he warned me, almost as if he
was asking for me to fix that problem too.

“Okay so, theoretically, say you find someone who is

exceedingly good with a magitech gun, but bad at
taking care of themselves in the wild,” I said, thinking
out loud. “You pair them with someone who is a
survivalist expert, maybe someone who is also good
with a sword or something. We build teams, use them
to cover each other’s weaknesses, all that stuff. I don’t
know how to figure all the problems out, but if you go
about this the way an army does, you’ll just get an
army.”

“Fuck, you’re right…” he groaned, rubbing at his eyes

with thumb and forefinger. “I’m going to have to
rethink some stuff around how we train operatives,
but you’re right.”

“Another thing...” I grinned wryly. “We’re not calling

them operatives, that’s lame. We’re in fantasy land, so
we’re calling them knights.”

He gave me a big eye roll and a snort for good

measure. “Yes, Ryn.”
“Good, now let me get back to building you a village
with my mind,” I laughed, shooting him a smug look.

“Your girlfriend is right,” he chuckled goodnaturedly,

giving me a mimed cuff up the side of the head.
“You’re a brat.”

“And I’m proud of it.”

Chapter 95 :
I dropped the wilted leaf with a frustrated sigh and
pulled the newly sprouted shoot up by the roots.
Another failure. I didn’t need to let it fruit to tell me
that. The photosynthesis reaction wasn’t creating the
appropriate molecules.
With another, now defeated sigh, I sat down heavily in
the grass and stared about at my grove. Less than one
twentieth the size of Ryn’s behemoth, it was
nevertheless kinda cozy. I even had a little house now,
with a bubbling brook to provide some cute
aesthetics.

My grove was a vaguely teardrop shaped island sitting

within a vast and misty ocean. The small area around
my little house was sort of tended to, but the rest of it
was an ugly nightmare of random experiments and
stuff. I hadn’t gone for anything close to aesthetics like
Ryn had, because I liked hanging out in her place
more. It was nicer and everyone else was there too.

I had been worried about there being too many

people running around over there when we’d first
started thinking about putting the order’s
headquarters in her grove. Luckily, that hadn’t been
an issue. Ryn, for all her newfound extroversion, was
still a shy girl at heart.
Also, Ryn’s grove had internet.

Anyway, it was a week since the whole James thing

and I had been tasked with figuring out how to make
bioidentical hormones for those transgender people
who weren’t as lucky as Ryn and myself.

So here I was, trying to figure out a way to get some of

the chemical reaction within a plant’s green bits to
like, do what I wanted. Maybe I needed to go at this in
an entirely different way. Throw out the normal plant
stuff and make a plant out of more arcane materials.

Time to go and get Esra’s help again… okay maybe

not. I think I’d rather go and ask Ryn, maybe consult
her little library of magical texts. I loved the library in
that tree, it was so good. We had one of the new
recruits working on getting some of the university
biology books copied for us too. She was a nice girl,
but it had become apparent very quickly that while
she had a good heart… she wasn’t up to the task of
slaying evildoers. So she was now the order’s librarian.

I left my latest failed experiment to rot on the ground

and pushed myself to my feet. Closing my eyes, I
summoned the necessary mental command to push
myself out into the Nameless Garden.

Rather than immediately push off towards the

massive orb that was Ryn’s grove, I hung there in zero
gravity. The fractal and ever changing plants of the
Garden were so fascinating. I loved watching them,
the way they seemed to be trying to perfect
themselves through pure trial and error.

Before I got too distracted, I shook myself and made

for the edge of Ryn’s grove. It was so massive now,
dwarfing my grove like the sun does the earth.
Pushing through the outer membrane placed me in
the edge of her inner grove, the area surrounding her
tree. That had been my biggest worry when she
expanded the grove to accommodate for the Order,
having to walk for an hour or two just to get home
each day.

Thankfully, with a little bit of experimentation, we’d

found a way to create a sort of personal guide. I had a
little effigy, a strand of my hair wrapped around a bar
of iron. I could feel it when I pushed against the
membrane of the grove, personal to me.

A small hedge now circled Ryn’s tree, and within that

was a sprawling decorative garden. Each of the plants
used within this little garden did have a purpose, but
she’d made them with aesthetics in mind too. It
looked sort of like those hedge and rose gardens that
rich people had around their houses back on earth,
except with magical plants.
On the lawn at the base of the ramp up to the tree, I
found Ryn face down on the ground. For a
microsecond my heart stopped, but then I saw she
was breathing and stopped panicking so hard.

“Are you okay?” I asked timidly, sitting down next to

her with my legs crossed.

A wordless groan came from her and I saw chlorophyll

green and purple suffuse her skin. Flowers sprung up
out of her hair while young roots dove into the
ground.

“I uh, didn’t get that sorry,” I murmured, reaching out

to tentatively pat her shoulder.

Shifting her head to face me, she grumbled, “So tired.

So many things to do.”
“Oh, okay.” Made sense why she was all plant mode
right now. Easier to recoup energy when you could
take it directly from the sun.

I stayed there with her for a while, enjoying the peace

and serenity of her garden beneath the shade of the
big house tree.

She caught me cleaning my new glasses when she

finally sat up. “Those look good on you,” she said with
an affectionate grin. Her hand reached out to fluff my
already messy bronze hair. “Make you look like the
cutest little nerd.”

“I used to be a tall badass nerd who could throw

punches,” I grumbled, but my feigned irritation quickly
dissolved into a grin to match hers. Yeah, I just… as
empowering as that had been, the current iteration of
the person who had been Kit was much better.
“So did you need anything, or are you just hanging
out?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I failed to make estrogen again,” I blurted, my smile

toppling off my face.

Ryn’s face dipped into disappointment, but she quickly

shrugged it off and shuffled around to sit beside me.
Bringing me into a sideways hug, she told me, “That’s
fine, you’ll get it soon enough.”

“I think I need to turn to non-organics for the project.

Normal plant stuffs just isn’t cutting it,” I said with a
sad sigh. “I mean, it should, but I’m just not good
enough.”

“What plant are you using as a base?” she asked

thoughtfully. “Because I hate to suggest it, given the
memes and shit… but you could modify a um…
glycene max plant.”

“A what?” I blinked, confused.

“Soybeans,” she coughed, giving me a big grin.

It took me a moment, I guess because I used to avoid

the types of guys that would make those jokes, but
then it hit me. “Is that actually a thing?”

“Well, the actual use of phytoestrogens seems to be

reducing fertility in female mammals, it’s very similar
but also different enough that it fucks with things,”
she explained. “It binds to the receptors instead of
estradiol. I don’t understand it much more than that,
but the end result is less babies in sheep or whatever.
If you could mess with the creation of the
phytoestrogens to make the process actually create
the real thing, you’d be golden.”

“I’m going to look up what other plants do this too,” I

grumbled, fishing my phone out of my pocket. “It’s a
great idea, but I am absolutely not doing something
that on the nose.”

“Trans girls are memers, Cate, trust me, they’ll see the
humour in it,” she laughed, rocking us both from side
to side with her arm.

I ignored my shit-stirring sister and stared at the

article I’d found. There was a lot of stuff that produced
the chemical, but it was all weird herbs and sh—
“Wait, oranges?” I’d blurted the question, but I
showed her the screen afterwards.
“Yo… okay, the soybean thing would have been kinda
funny, but that’s actually good…” she said, looking
down with an excited expression. “I say go for it! Hell,
make it in a few different flavours while you’re at it!”

“That would be hilarious… but we’re also uh… we’re

forgetting something,” I said as Troy approached.
“Testosterone”

It was kinda crazy how T worked. Troy being trans had

been a massive surprise to me, especially because
back when I’d been Kit, we’d shared a room and stuff.
Goes to show how much hrt really does I guess.

“Oh fudge,” she pouted, pulling out her own phone to

do a search. “Wait… no. Ginseng.”
Troy arrived, and she grinned up at him. “How do you
feel about drinking ginseng tea for the rest of your
life?”

Looking as though he’d been running around training

a bunch of kids how to swing steel, Troy just stood
there processing Ryn’s question for several moments.
“What?”

“Ginseng apparently makes something close to

testosterone, so we’re going to try and modify it to
produce bio-identical human testosterone instead,” I
told him, filling in the blanks for him.

“If it works,” he said with a big, happy grin. Wait…

Troy was grinning! Big Troy Grin! “Thanks girls. Glad
you have a plan. I’m out of hormones now and it’s
doing a number on my muscle density. Not to mention
my mood…”
“Alright, the sooner the better then,” Ryn said,
dropping her joking tone in favour of a more
businesslike one. “I’ll take some time off the building
to get that sorted. Our leader can’t be dealing with
that type of shit.”

His smile was hopeful and open. “Thanks so much

girls. Seriously.”

“Not a problem,” Ryn said, giving me a squeeze with

the arm she still had around my tiny shoulders.

My tiny shoulders reminded me yet again of my

recent transformation and a little bubble of happiness
formed in my chest. It was so beautiful, the emotions
that my new form brought up. I loved how big, full,
and fluffy my hair was. I gave it a little swish, just for
the joy of it, and had to duck and hide a happy blush
when Ryn threw me a knowing look.
“I guess we have some work to do, huh sis?” she
asked, dropping her head down onto my shoulder for
a moment. “So much work. It never ends.”

Chapter 96 :
Ryn was in my grove for once! We were both sitting
cross legged on the grass of my island as the ocean
breeze tugged gently at our hair and leaves. Yeah,
since we were alone and there were no pesky humans
to stare at us, we’d gone plant mode.

My mage-sister’s magenta flowers shone like jewels in

the sunlight, distracting me with their colour.
Meanwhile, I was all dark bronze vines that wove
around my limbs and through my hair. My leaves were
a lighter shade of the same colour, while my flowers
were a vibrant orange, the colour of a campfire at
night.
I was a little jealous of Ryn’s colouration, to be honest.
She was so beautiful, both in form and in the way her
smile lit up whatever room she was in. Funny thing
was that she didn’t realise it, she just kept on going
like she was a normal person. Meanwhile, everyone
else treated her like a particularly down to earth and
personable goddess.

By contrast, I just looked like a nerd that had been

shoved under a buffing wheel for an hour. Shiny, but
my glasses were still massive circles on my face and I
was still shy and hesitant. I didn’t radiate power and
beauty like her.

Well, either that or I just really looked up to her. I

mean, nobody had outright said that stuff, so maybe I
was just alone in my thoughts.

“You need to change this part, I think?” Ryn said

uncertainly, drawing me back out of my head and into
the conversation. A while back, Ryn had designed a
spell that gave us a visual aid to create spells. A sort of
holographic workspace like Tony Stark had in the iron
man movies.

Concentrating on the task at hand, I focused my

attention on where she was pointing. Something was
wrong with the roots?

We were working on the T producing ginseng plant,

and so far we’d managed to do some fairly basic stuff,
like making it grow faster because ginseng took
literally years to grow. Sadly, when it came to the
biochemistry stuff, we were stumped.

Ryn gave a long groan and began to spin the

holographic display with an idle finger. “It’s crazy how
complicated it is to do things at this micro scale. I had
an easier time creating gravity defying energy daggers,
for crying out loud.”
“I guess this is why the ring mages don’t really do this
stuff often,” I mused. “We have basic scientific
knowledge from high school and we’re still stumped. I
can’t even imagine a mage native to the ring trying to
do this shit. I guess we need to go and ask for help
from the Avonsiders.”

"Probably," she agreed, and followed up with a wry

smile. "Hopefully they’re willing to help. I think we
intimidate them."

“Just a little,” I said, surprising myself with a giggle.

Goodness, it was very strange when I did something
incredibly feminine like that. I couldn’t tell if it was my
new body causing it or just that I was allowing myself
to express my previously hidden femininity.

A hand came down on top of my head, Ryn smiling

behind it. “Cutie,” she accused, fluffing my hair again.
She liked doing that. I think it was to assert her
tallness.

“Let’s go find that one lady who was really excited

about plant magic,” I grumbled, standing up and
turning before she could see my heating cheeks.

“After you,” she laughed.

****

Professor Rivas was the head of the horticultural

department, and she was somewhat terrifying,
despite her size. She was one of those people who you
could tell was immensely intelligent without her even
opening her mouth.
We found her in a small laboratory garden behind her
department, on her hands and knees, hands covered
in soil. She was frowning down at a sapling that had
only barely pushed through the earth. A quick magical
inspection revealed the plant to be a modified apricot
tree, but it wasn’t doing so well.

“Professor,” Ryn greeted her, coming to a stop with an

amicable smile. “What’s the problem here?”

“Rynadria,” the woman said, standing and wiping her

hands on her work trousers. “What a pleasant
surprise. This is an apricot, specifically one from earth.
It was previously a snack eaten by someone in our
office, but now it is a conundrum.”

“Yeah, little buddy isn’t doing so well, huh?” Ryn

observed, crouching down to touch the floppy little
wannabe tree. To Rivas, she asked, “What’s the
problem?”
“We don’t know,” the older woman shrugged
helplessly. “Originally, we could grow plants that
originate from earth. Everything was fine, but in the
last month or so they’ve all been dying off and we
can’t figure out why. No detectable pathogens, the
soil appears to be good. Nothing should be wrong, and
yet… this sapling is dying.”

“How about a trade then?” Ryn asked with her

characteristic cheeky grin. “We help you with this, and
you help us with our problem.”

The small indian woman narrowed her eyes at us,

considering. “And just what problem is it that you are
having?”

“This,” my sister said with a flourish of her hand,

producing the holographic spellworking tool thingy.
We really needed a name for it. Ryn was good with
pageantry though, she’d probably think one up soon
enough.

The Professor hid her surprise quickly, but you could

see the keen interest within her dark eyes. “This is…?”

“It’s a spell,” Ryn said with a grin. “Or rather, a

blueprint for a plant that under normal circumstances
would become a spell. In this case though, it is just a
modified ginseng plant.”

Rivas nodded and stepped closer, turning her head

this way and that to get a look at the hologram. “This
is remarkable. What are you intending to use this
for?”

“Testosterone,” I said quietly. “There are people here

who can’t produce it themselves, but need it. We’re
planning to do the same with estrogen and oranges.”
“I see, and you need my help with that?” she asked,
although her tone implied it was more of a statement.

“Yup,” Ryn said with a nod.

“Well, that is definitely within my realm of knowledge.

Follow me, I’ll need the help of some references but
I’m sure we can manage something,” Professor Rivas
replied with a happy smile. “Hell, I might even throw
in some designs for other commonly needed
compounds, if we can have a few to grow. I’ve been
waiting for a chance to work with the both of you.”

****

The professor was true to her word. Together, the

three of us sketched out what we needed, then went
through the various methods that we as mages could
use to modify the plant. With the goals set and the
tools laid out on the metaphorical table, we got to
work.

It was complicated, intense, and tiring… and I loved it.

It was so interesting the way plants did things at a
cellular level. I mean, us humans and stuff did things
the same way, but we were talking about plants here.
Protein folding made my head hurt, but that was
probably more because my brain had turned into a
vacuum cleaner for all the knowledge that Rivas was
dropping. Damn she was smart!

The ginseng was relatively simple in the end, once we

had Rivas’ help. A little bit of messing around with the
process and we had what we wanted. She even
showed us how to get the plant to store it all in the
roots so people could make tea and other things with
it.
The estrogen producing orange tree proved much
more difficult, but we got through that one too in the
end. We also moved on to creating more complex
trees for stuff like ibuprofen.

Once the two hormone plant plans were finished, Ryn

split off to work on the earth-original plants and their
weird dying problem. I had no idea how that turned
out, I left while she was still grumbling and frowning
over the small sapling.

I was off to find Troy and have him test out the new
ginseng!

The journey into the Garden and then into Ryn’s grove
took a little while, and when I arrived at what we were
calling Eleos town, I stopped to gawk. They had really
been busy!
Radiating out from a circular central plaza were four
cobblestone roads, one leading to the lake, the other
towards the entrance to the grove and another up
towards Ryn’s inner plateau. The fourth one led
towards a growing forest that would one day be the
home of wild deer. So far there were only a few
buildings finished.

One was the barracks, although it felt a bit weird to

call it that now since Ryn had convinced Troy to give
each recruit their own room. The next was the
workshop, a large building where Bray ruled supreme.
Last I’d seen him was like three whole days ago, which
was coincidentally the same time that the forge was
finished. I guess he was having fun, considering what I
knew of him. We hadn’t really spoken properly yet,
so… yeah.

The third building that had been finished was the

storehouse, which was packed to the rafters with
materials for building and food. Kind of crazy how
much they had managed to do. Ryn’s buns were
industrious, that’s for sure.

I found Troy in the dusty area that had been cleared of

grass and that Troy had dubbed, the training area. He
was creative like that.

Ginseng in hand, I was about to approach when my

brain processed what my eyes were rather frantically
reporting. Troy… he had the buns lined up. Oh my god,
he was training a contingent of buns! There must have
been like fifty twitching noses, each one watching with
unnerving concentration as Troy went through some
basic polearm moves.

When he was done miming out a blocking action, the

buns all picked up their little spears and began to copy
what he’d done. It was the most terrifying and
adorable thing I’d ever seen.
“Where are the uh… human recruits?” I asked when I
stepped up next to Troy.

Glancing sideways at me, I saw the corner of his

mouth quirk in amusement. “They are running.”

“Oh, okay,” I replied dumbly, still marvelling at the

bunnies with their little wooden training spears. “You
know, I really don’t miss this.”

“Should I get you running too?” he teased, looking

down at me.

“Not if you want a regular supply of this,” I pouted,

holding up the bag of ginseng for him to see inside it.
“We got it done. Now all you have to do is learn how
to make tea with it.”
Relief flooded his expression in a wave, and he
reached down to gently take the bag from me. “Thank
you, Cate. Thank you so much. Seriously.”

I gave him a big grin. “Anytime, Troy. I’ll make sure to

keep you stocked. Ryn says your dose should be a
chunk about the size of the end segment of your pinky
finger.”

“Life saver,” he sighed, breaking off a small chunk and

popping it in his mouth. “Literally.”

Chapter 97 :
I wandered into the women’s common room within
Ryn’s tree at some time near midnight, having spent
all afternoon planting various hormone producing
vegetation. Not only that, but we also had a few test
samples for the basic painkillers that Professor Rivas
had designed.
It was kind of funny really, but in an odd turn of
events it seemed that herbal medicine would be a
legit thing. Not that it hadn’t been in the past, but
there was a difference between a tea that could help
with headaches and ibuprofen. One would soothe it,
the other would nuke that malevolent fuckstain back
into the hole that it came from. I had opinions on
headaches.

The nice and neat arrangement of furniture had long

since been abandoned. Now there were sofas,
armchairs, coffee tables, desks, and all sorts all strewn
randomly across the room. It was kind of nice really, it
gave the place a lived-in feeling.

Ryn was already there, asleep on top of Grace on one

of the couches off to the side. Grace was idly browsing
through her phone, the harsh light of the screen
illuminating the otherwise dark corner they had set up
camp in.
Kelsey and Melody were nowhere to be seen, and
since their door was closed I assumed they had
already gone to bed.

Grace looked up when I came in and gave me a little

wave before going back to her phone. Choosing not to
disturb them, I grabbed the book I’d been reading
over the past few days and shuffled off into another
nook on the other side of the large room. I liked my
privacy when I was reading, and it felt like it would be
a massive invasion of theirs if I were to go sit with
them.

The book I was reading was an older one about some

assassin dude who reunited with his prince best friend
after years. It was one of those stories that had that
wow moment where the previously mediocre main
character reveals their true power. Cliche, I know, but
I was a sucker for the trope.
The dude was just learning how to use his special
shadow powers when the sofa shifted underneath me.
I glanced up to find Mer had dumped herself into the
opposite corner.

Almost instantly, my eyes basked in the sight of her.

She wore loose fitting slacks and a crop top, and that
was it. Her abs were on full display and it was hard not
to gawk.

Then I noticed her inhuman features. Soft, short and

silky fur lined her sides and what I could see of her
back. Intellectually I knew that the fur covered most of
her body, leaving only her stomach, breasts, groin,
and inner thighs exposed.

Right then though, I wasn't thinking with all that much

intelligence. Instead, my crotch had gained a
heartbeat. Oh god, she was so impressively gorgeous.
Especially with her large horns that sprang from her
forehead and curved upward before dipping down to
almost meet behind her head.

"Long time no see," she winked. "That's the phrase,

right?"

She was speaking in english, albeit with an accent. All

the obrec were getting reasonably fluent, their alien
minds uniquely suited to learning languages. The
accent just made my problems worse, because it was
a really hot accent.

"That's the phrase, yes," I said quietly, trying to keep

my eyes on hers. That proved to be a problem too,
since they were seriously deep and intriguing ones.

Her smile made me feel like she'd just trailed a feather

up the inside of one of my thighs. “What are you
reading?” she asked, motioning down to the book that
had fallen unceremoniously into my lap when she’d
arrived.

“Oh, just a fantasy novel,” I shrugged, placing my

bookmark carefully back between its aging paper
pages.

Her curiosity wasn’t dampened by my shrug, and she

shuffled softly across the sofa and reached for the
book. Before her hand touched it though, she stopped
and looked up at me. “May I?”

“Um, yeah,” I nodded, feeling far too muddled and

tongue tied to say no, even if I’d wanted to. She
always had this effect on me. The moment she came
near, it was like my powers of speech up and went on
vacation.
She stared at the stylised silhouette of a hooded
assassin on the cover with raised eyebrows, then
flipped it over to look at the blurb. A moment later
and the book was carefully deposited back in my lap
and she was giving me a wry smile. “I should learn
how to read english properly. I cannot read more than
a few words on the back of that. What does it say?”

I felt a smile pull at my lips and I ducked my head

slightly out of shyness. “It’s… yes. I mean, uh… that
writing on the back describes the general plot of the
book. It’s called a blurb and it’s meant to sell the
book. I mean, because back on earth we had um…
yeah. It’s a story, a made up one… um, fiction. People
write them and then sell them as entertainment and…
yeah.”

She gave an amused chuckle, reaching out with a hand

to touch my shoulder. “I am familiar with the concept,
Catherine. No need to worry.”
Hearing her say my new name sent spikes of red hot
euphoria up my spine that in turn disturbed several
butterflies within my stomach. I had to carefully
school my features to keep her from seeing just how
much the name and her touch had affected me.

I must have said something, because she gave a nod

and withdrew the hand. “Yes, it is a thriving industry
within the Empire of Ghraiga. I’m afraid that what you
have seen thus far of the ring is… well, a barbaric
backwater by many standards. Even the great halls of
my people pale in comparison to what lies to the
east.”

“Really?” I asked, forgetting my shyness for a moment

as the chance for more ringworld lore caught my
attention. “How so? So far everything has been fairly
impressive.”
“Well, you know of the bigots to the north, along with
the valley and its squabbling, petty kingdoms. To the
east though, that is where the true cultures and
empires of the region reside,” she explained as I
leaned in.

“I want to see it all, it seems so amazing,” I sighed,

flopping sideways so my face was partly smooshed
against the couch. Getting even more comfy, I pulled
my legs up and tucked them under myself, giving her a
sheepish smile in the process. “Sorry if that’s like…
weird or whatever. It’s just that our world was so
boring and mundane compared to the ring. That book
I just put down? It would be considered less
fantastical and outlandish than the ring actually is. I’m
living in a storybook and it’s a constant source of
amazement.”

She gave a little chuckle and copied my position,

leaving only a foot and a half of space between our
faces. My eyes flicked to her hooves and the way she
curled them like I would my toes. It was really cute.

“I would say the same if I were in your world,” she

said with a smile. “What little I have seen of Avonside,
plus what you have told me… now that seems
fantastical.”

My heart fluttered as I watched her huge brown eyes

looking into mine, and for a moment I forgot what
she’d said. “Y-yeah,” I said, eyes turning downcast. “It
was a utopia compared to most of the ring. It had so
many problems… but they pale in comparison to the
wars and disease that ravage this land on a daily
basis.”

“You did get something rather amazing out of this

savage world of ours though,” she said, reaching out
towards me.
Her hand hovered next to my cheek for a few
moments, as though she were trying to decide if she
should touch me or not. I think my heart had stopped,
or was it my breathing? Probably both.

She apparently decided against touching my cheek,

but her smile didn’t waver. She must have seen a
question in my eyes though, because she clarified,
“You had not given permission. We may be immersed
in your culture, but in mine… well it wouldn’t be
appropriate.”

“I swear you’ve touched me before,” I frowned,

confused now and maybe a little disappointed. “You
touched my shoulder!”

“That’s different,” she laughed. “I’m not going to

attempt to explain why. It would get awkward, and I
am quite enjoying myself in this moment.”
“Oh…” I mumbled, feeling myself blush again. Quick!
Change the subject… uh, what had we been talking
about? Oh right! “Ah… um, I… yes. This new body,
magic… it’s more than I could have hoped for. I like it.”

“I can tell,” she said gently, shifting slightly so that her

long fluffy ear wasn’t crushed against the back of the
sofa. “Tell me something. Tell me about a random
event or interesting fact from your world. Something I
won’t have heard.”

I blinked, surprised by her request. Why did she care?

I mean I guess it was interesting but, that’s about it.

“U-um,” I mumbled, diving into my mental bin of

useless knowledge. “Oh! I know! Back on earth,
scientists built a huge circular tunnel under the earth.
Can you guess why?”
Her eyebrows rose, but she humoured me, “To hit
themselves in the back of the head with an echo?”

A giggle bubbled up and out of me and I shook my

head. “Nope, but that’s a pretty funny thought. No,
they did it so they could smash tiny particles of matter
together at massive speeds. Just to see what happens.
Well, and to write it down and think about it a bit.”

Mer let out another one of her funny little chuckles

and rolled her eyes in amusement. With a teasing
tone dancing through her voice, she commented,
“This is what happens when you give people too much
safety, eh? They go looking for dramatic explosions.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, trying and failing to keep a straight

face. “Defin—“ I didn’t get to finish the word because
a massive, eye watering yawn rushed out of me.
“Time to go to sleep, eh?” she said, before stifling a
yawn of her own. “Yup, definitely time to sleep. I have
a hard day of running and training humans to use
swords.”

“You’re helping Troy?” I asked in surprise.

She winced and raised her hand to wiggle it in a so-so

gesture. “Attempting to, my dear Cat, attempting to.
Unfortunately, I am much more proficient with
heavier and less… artful methods of combat.”

“You do like maces,” I agreed, not moving an inch

despite the recent agreement about bedtime.

“I really like maces,” she said with a crinkle-eyed

smile. “But we can talk about that tomorrow. For now,
let us retire before we both fall asleep where we sit.”
Chapter 98 :
I hopped back out of my grove and into the mundane
realm to find it threatening to rain. The clouds above
Avonside were dark and billowing, whipped up by the
wind as it twisted its way through the mountains. It
was going to make gathering stone a pain in my pretty
little ass. My buns hated the cold.

The dark weather wasn’t doing anything for my poor

tired brain either. So many things to make sure of. I
wasn’t good at keeping tasks ordered in my mind at
the best of times, but lately I felt like I was drowning.

Today I had to cut stone for construction, touch base

with Professor Rivas on an insulin producing plant
design, check on the obrec to see if they needed
anything, and… shit, what was the last thing? Crap.
Hopefully I remembered it by the time I needed to do
it.

Walking through the campus was still a surreal

experience, considering that like, a year ago, I was
doing the same thing on a different planet and in a
different body. The students going about their day
were gone now, or at least they weren’t really
students anymore.

A group of foragers, baskets on their backs, trudged

along the same path as me, heading the other way. I
wonder what they had all been studying before this.
Before they were torn from their old lives and thrust
into this dangerous new world. One of them had a
thermos full of what smelled like coffee, and deep
inside my brain, a remnant of my past self awoke. It
seemed my coffee plants had been put to good use.
“Hey, excuse me,” I blurted, swerving slightly so they
knew I was talking to them.

The group looked up as one, eyes widening as they

realised who was talking to them. They slowed and
exchanged looks, as though silently drawing straws to
determine who would be unlucky enough to talk to
me.

“Yeah?” A thin, awkward looking dude asked

cautiously.

“Where’d you get those coffees, if it’s okay to ask,” I

said, feeling a little nervous as I gestured to their
beverages. The way they were all looking at me made
my stomach squirm a little. Like I might vaporise them
with an angry look.
“The Fogg building,” he said, politely but curtly. “Cafe
at the bottom.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, trying my best to appear

unconcerned by the strange attitude of the group.
Was I really that scary? Did I have resting murder face
when I was tired?

They moved on while I puzzled over their strange

behaviour, but in the end all I could do was shrug and
wander off in search of the cafe. It had been so long
since I had proper coffee, and the smell just now had
caused a craving.

The Fogg building wasn’t too far away, being near the
center of campus. If I remembered correctly, it mainly
housed student services and the cafe at the bottom. I
think there might have been a few classrooms at the
top too? I wasn’t sure. Either way, it was a small,
colourful modern building shoved between two cold
war era tower blocks that made it stick out like a sore
thumb.

When I got there, a small line had formed that

appeared to be growing by the moment. Yawning, I
joined the queue and waited patiently.

It was a pretty cute little cafe, to be honest, and it

seemed to have survived its time on the ring mostly
unscathed. The decorative pot plants looked like they
could use some watering, and the paint on the outside
sign was slightly faded, but the windows were still
there and they even had some tables and chairs laying
around. Of course, they no longer accepted money.
Instead, they had what were called Work Certificates,
which were definitely not money. Nope, not at all.

Unfortunately, the people in the line were less than

chill about me just rolling up like a normal person.
Everyone was staring at me now, with a broad range
of expressions and emotions, some more hidden than
others.

Oops, guess I should work on a proper disguise.

Something that was more physical than a simple
illusion. Could help with research towards changing
trans people’s bodies too. Not really a priority in the
grand scheme of things, but important to me
personally.

The stares were a lot to handle though, and I

nervously checked my skin-tight magical shield. Was it
still in place? Yeah? Okay, good.

I made my way up through the line, only for my gut to

drop out when I saw who was serving the coffee.
Rhea, the girl who’d been weirdly confrontational with
me the other day when I was mining stone.
Shit, well… that might explain why the people with the
coffee were giving me funny looks earlier. Maybe she
was talking shit about me?

She hadn’t seen me yet, and I debated just leaving,

but… I really wanted that coffee. She also wasn’t the
one actually preparing the coffee either, just taking
the orders. Worst case she wrote down the wrong
order on purpose or something. That was fine, all
coffee had its place, and I wasn’t feeling all that picky.

I immediately wished that I had just left when she

actually laid eyes on me. Her expression soured in an
instant as I stepped up to the counter, and I could tell
she was calculating if she could get away with telling
me to leave.

She obviously couldn't, since it was my coffee beans

she was handing out, and I think she must have
realised that because she plastered a smile on her
face and asked, “Why hello, Ryn. What can I get you?”

“Um…” I began, unsure how to process her behaviour.

“Just whatever is easiest, thanks.”

I placed a Work Cert onto the counter and waited for

her reaction. If I didn’t let on what coffee I liked, she
couldn’t purposefully give me the wrong coffee. Now
you’re thinking with portals, Ryn!

One of her eyes twitched in irritation, but she nodded

and picked up a crude paper cup, scribbling something
on it and placing it to the side. “It’ll be ready soon,
they’ll call your name.”

I nodded my wary thanks and stepped to the side,

wondering what she’d put on the cup. A cup that
looked like it had been made after Avonside arrived
on the ring, funnily enough. I wonder how they had
managed that so quickly. Was it even hard to make
disposable paper cups?

Some random dude from behind the counter plucked

my cup off the waiting tray and began to make my
coffee without so much as a glance in my direction. He
looked exhausted, and I didn’t blame him. Making
coffee for hundreds of people in the space of an hour
or two could be tough work. Any service job was.

I wonder if there was some way I could make a coffee

spell. Oh, or teach my buns to make coffee! Would
they tolerate that?

“Elias?” the called name lanced ice into my heart, and

my lungs failed to take in the next breath.
I looked up to see the dude who’d made my coffee
looking around. Looking around at all the guys, not at
all realising what Rhea had done. To his side, she
stood, a look of cruel victory on her face.

Hurting as I was by the sudden intrusion of that

months-dead name, I did the only thing I could. I
walked up to the guy as calmly as I could, took the cup
from his confused grip, and rushed out of the cafe.

Oh god. Why did it hurt so much? It was just a name.

I’d heard it a few times since I’d become Ryn, but
never… never in a way that was so vindictive, so nasty.
She had used that name to send me a message, to tell
me that I wasn’t a woman in her eyes, that I was still
him. Then there was the name on the cup, written
with obvious care onto the paper in permanent
marker.
Using a sharpened telekinetic tentacle, I carefully
sliced off the name, like a surgeon performing a life-
saving operation. The flake of paper never reached
the ground, because that same tentacle eviscerated it
with a wild savagery that was in stark contrast to the
care I had just used. The cup was a little less
structurally sound, but that didn’t really matter to me.
I could hold the cup together with my mind, after all.

Timidly, I took a sip from the coffee, then breathed a

sigh of relief as I found it to be just the way I liked it.
Strong enough to princess carry me. At least I had won
out there. Silly bitch thought I wouldn’t like it darker
than her heart.

Well, time to get to cutting stone, I guess.

Nobody was really around at the quarry when I

arrived, which was more than fine by me right then. I
wanted to take out some of my stress on some
inanimate objects without anyone seeing the tears
that came with it.

What the hell was Rhea’s problem anyway? I hadn’t

done shit to her, and now she had some sort of petty
vendetta out for me? Ugh, whatever. I’d leave extra
stone here for the university to use, more than we’d
agreed when they let us use the stone. At least that
way I was channeling my pain into something useful.
Plus, I figured the easiest way to combat her evil
whispers was to do even more good than before. The
rest of Avonside couldn’t hate me if I was responsible
for the roof over their head, right?

Doubted it, to be honest. Humans sucked, and they’d

hate people, things, and ideologies for whatever
damned reason they wanted, regardless of logic. Still,
it made me feel better, so I guess that was something.
A few hours later and I was just polishing off the last
load of cut stone when an obrec ranger jogged up to
me, waving as she did so.

“Rynadria, greetings,” she said in the obrec tongue.

“Otho requests your presence at our lodge. There is a
human boy from the Anver states here, he claims to
know you.”

“A… huh?” I blinked, trying to imagine who on the ring

it could be. The Anvers were… all the humans who
lived down in the clusterfuck of principalities to the
south. Yeah, that was them… and… but I didn’t know
anyone from there, did I? I had passed through with
the other members of the order and we hadn’t really
made any friends. Confusing. I guess there was only
one way to find out.

“Alright, let’s go then.”

Chapter 99 :
The obrec lodge had been altered by its inhabitants
since I had built it. They had added all sorts of little
things, like a balcony over the entrance. The biggest
addition was the large slate roofed patio on one side,
which they used to store their wagons out of the rain
and work on any crafting that couldn’t be done inside.

Obrec rangers were posted out the front of the patio

and main lodge entrance, but with my magic, I could
sense several more lurking in the windows where
humans couldn’t see them. Guess they trusted the
general Avonsider population as much as I did right
now.
Underneath the patio was a wagon that didn’t look
like it belonged to the obrec, and it was pretty busted
up to boot. Functional, but dented and slashed like it
had been assaulted by an angry bear. There was even
some charring along the back. Just what had
happened to this thing, and to the person who owned
it?

My guide ushered me in towards the entrance into the

lodge, and I followed, marveling at how well the obrec
had settled in. The Stonechasers were certainly an
industrious lot, that’s for sure.

At a table off to the side were Otho, Jerril, and a

human third I didn’t recognise. Otho had an arm
around the third guy’s shoulders while Jerril spoke to
him. All of them looked serious, but the third guy—
hold on, that was…
“Cad?” I asked in surprise. It was the dude who had let
me ride on his wagon! Him and his old mercenary
protector. What was her name? Va— Valda, that’s
right. Except… she wasn’t here.

Cad looked worn and tired compared to when I’d first

met him. Worry lines had manifested on his forehead,
harbouring dirt from the road. His characteristic
easygoing and open expression was missing too, and
his brown hair looked like it had only had the most
hasty of washes in many many days. His clothes were
worn and dirty too, the trousers in particular had a
large rent in their fabric on the leg, where something
or someone had slashed at him.

“Ryn!” the exhausted merchant exclaimed, standing

up out of his seat with a faintly noticeable wobble.

He rushed around the table like a kid seeing their

parents for the first time in months, only to slow and
redden. “A-ah, hello. I’m sorry, I’m presuming. I um,
I… Valda told me to come find you after she… after
she…”

“Oh,” I said, my stomach dropping as I realised what

he was saying. “How did she… are you okay?”

“It was that guy, Lord Fennimore,” he said, looking sad

but not like he was about to fall apart entirely. “He
found out we helped you somehow, hunted us. We
realised we needed to come to this… this Avonside
place, if we wanted to be safe. If we could find you,
you could protect us. Valda said… she said you owed
us, after all.”

“I did, and I do,” I replied forlornly. God, Fennimore

was a fucking piece of work.
His expression wobbled its way into a smile of relief
for a moment, before dropping down into one of
haunted memory. “They caught us just before we
crossed into empire lands. Ambushed us. Valda… she
um, she… she jumped off the wagon, smacked the
horses and told me to go. Then she just kept fighting
until they… until she couldn’t anymore. I saw it from a
distance. I escaped, obviously. At least she went out
fighting. She always said she hated growing old.”

I swallowed and braced as guilt washed over me. God,

Valda had died protecting Cad from my enemy. It was
—

“Don’t pull blame onto yourself which is rightfully that

of someone else,” Otho said quietly in the obrec
tongue, interrupting my train of thought.

Turning, I met his eyes with surprise. All he did was

shrug and smile.
Blowing out a long breath, I nodded and turned my
gaze back to Cad. Otho could tell me that it wasn’t my
fault all he wanted, but that didn’t change much. I was
still responsible, even if the blame for the actual act
was squarely on Fennimore’s shoulders.

I’d liked Valda too, although I hadn’t known her for

long. She’d been kind to me, even when she found out
I was a mage. Yeah, I’d forgotten about her in the
mess of shit that had happened since, but god… it
sucked that she was dead.

At least I could take care of Cad for her. Help the guy
get back on his feet, or even just join the order. We
could definitely use a guy like him, that was for sure,
and he’d be more than safe ensconced in my grove.

Cad’s big brown eyes were glancing between me and

Otho in obvious confusion, and with a start I realised
that I hadn’t spoken in a few moments. I gave him a
smile to let him know everything was chill, then
turned and closed my eyes. Running a hand through
my long, magenta hair, I tried to pull enough thought
juice together to function.

“Fucking Fennimore,” I said at last, bitter and

frustrated. If it weren’t for him, I’d be on a much more
chill and relaxed timeline than I was. If it weren’t for
him, a good woman wouldn’t be dead. Well, and like a
whole ton of other shit that the bastard had done.

“A-ah, yeah,” Cad agreed awkwardly, sounding a little

intimidated. I guess there had been more venom in
my tone than I realised.

“Let’s sit down,” I said , taking care with my tone this

time. “Tell me everything.”
Placing my weary butt down on the rough wooden
bench beside Jerril and opposite the two younger
men, I settled in to listen.

"Well, we kept going after you left us," he began.

"Buying goods in one town then shipping them to
another. We never mentioned you to anyone, Valda
made sure. She knew that association with a mage
tends to draw the wrong kind of attention."

I found myself nodding at that. I could only imagine

what people would do for a chance at getting the ear
of a powerful mage.

“About a month ago, we were a few days' ride from

Theorden to sell some Kildierian wool at the market
there,” he said, tracing a knot on the wooden table
with a finger. “Valda noticed some suspicious riders
behind us as we gained the top of a rise and told me
to get ready to run if we needed to. Said her bones
were telling her something was wrong.”

“Sounds like her,” I said, trying for an amused

expression and failing. Gah, I’d actually quite liked the
gruff mercenary woman.

Surprisingly, Cad actually smiled at my remark. “Yeah.

I’ve known her for a few years now, she’s always been
so grumpy but also really nice.” His face fell as he
realised the tense he’d used, and he murmured, “Ah…
was. She was… yeah.”

Silently, I reached over the table to give his hand an

awkward pat. Maybe it was stupid and rude of me,
but I was a little wary about touching him, considering
how he’d been last time. I just didn’t want to give him
the wrong idea.
“Anyway, um… so they gained on us, obviously. Hard
to outrun riders using a fully burdened wagon,” he
continued bitterly. “It was pretty clear they were after
us when they increased their pace to catch us, so
Valda threw all the merchandise out the back to
clutter the road and free up weight. It only helped for
a little while, though, and that’s when she… when she
told me to keep going and jumped off the back. Since
then I’ve just been on my own, fleeing… yeah. I got a
good look at them when they got closer and it was
definitely Fennimore’s guys.”

“And you never mentioned me after we parted ways?”

I asked, frowning as I tried to figure out how in the
ring they found him and Valda.

He shook his head. “We did not.”

“I never mentioned you two either,” I said, confused.

“I mean, besides… oh, that slimy fucking cunt!”
The last part had been said in english, but it was clear
Cad understood the tone of outrage. “W-what?”

“One of the Avonsiders who I found,” I said, seething

with frustrated, impotent anger. “He got captured by
Fennimore and swapped sides. I mentioned you two
when I was telling them my story.”

“Oh, that would do it, I guess,” he sighed.

It made me want to throw my mage senses wide and

hunt him down, regardless of the migraine it would
give me with so many people around. What the hell
did Fennimore even want with Cad and Valda? They
weren’t exactly important in the grand scheme of
things. Fuck, first things first though, help the poor,
road-weary guy on the other side of the table.
Slapping a smile on my face like that one guy in the
meme about stopping a leak in a tank of water, I met
his sorrowful gaze. “Well, shit. I’m really sorry about
Valda. I’m sorry you got dragged into my problems. I
guess, the least I can do is offer to help you do
whatever it is you’d like to do from here on out.
Assuming you want my help, that is.”

“I don’t even know what I want to do,” he said

forlornly. “I can’t go back to trading in Anve lands, the
lord will just come after me again. I don’t speak obrec,
I don’t speak… um, engleese, and I don’t speak Aber,
so I can’t move. I can’t go back to my village because
that will put all of them in danger. I... I have nowhere
to go.”

“Well… I have a proposition for you then…” I said,

hoping he’d be happy with the idea of joining the
Order.
Chapter 100 :
“You have… how many people in your grove?” Cad
asked with wide eyed excitement. “And you want me
to come too? You want me to join your knights?”

I’d just finished explaining what the Order of Eleos

was to him, and it had been an experience to
remember. It was my defining memory of him, after
all, his sense of innocent adventure. He was a
romantic at heart, be it pretty girls or tales of
adventure, he loved it all. So naturally, as I explained
the idea behind an order of knights dedicated to doing
good in the world… well, some of the pain in his eyes
had transformed into excitement and wonder.

“Well, they’re not my knights,” I said, smiling

indulgently. “We operate as a sort of council for big
decisions, and then we have a commander for combat
operations and stuff. The hierarchy is a little
ambiguous right now, and I’m just an advisor.
Obviously I have a lot of power because the base is in
my grove, but… I try to just mind my own business.”

“Still…” he said, fidgeting with a clay cup on the table.

“Gods, what would I even do? I can’t fight. I’m useless
when it comes to that kind of thing.”

“There’s much more to running this kind of operation

than your ability to stab someone with a sword,” I told
him wryly. “My old best friend is training to become
our smith and magitecht for example.”

Another ounce of hope lit behind his eyes, and he

asked, “I don’t suppose you need a merchant?”

“Probably,” I told him. “Truthfully, I have no idea what

kind of personnel we need, but I can get you to the
guy who does.”
“Ah, I can answer that,” Otho interjected, his fluffy
ears perking up. “We do indeed need a merchant. I
could use someone to help me, as I am currently
acting as one of very few quartermasters. You will of
course need to learn some languages, but that can be
arranged. There are already Anve, Aber, and Obrec
language classes being taught in the grove.”

“I…” Cad began, bottom lip wobbling dramatically.

“Thank you. This is…”

“How about we get you into my grove, then you can

clean up, relax, eat, and think, yeah?” I asked
patiently. Poor dude was about to have a meltdown in
front of everyone inside the lodge.

He just nodded, clearly overwhelmed by the offer

we’d just given him. I knew how that felt, too, when
everything in life was just so fucking hard, and then
someone swoops in to make it all work. The relief you
feel is a physical thing, like stepping into a bath that is
almost too hot to bear.

“Anything you need from out here?” I asked,

motioning around us. “Or can I just drag you in now?”

“I have nothing left,” he said with a defeated shrug of

his shoulders. “Except my cart, and a change of
clothes.”

“Well, how do you feel about a warm bath and some

hot food?” I asked brightly, reaching over to grasp his
hand with telekinesis. I made sure to give the rope-like
tentacles a subtle magenta hue so he knew what was
happening and what they were, but even then his
eyes widened with fright.
“A-ah… so long as I’m not the food,” he laughed
nervously, eyes flicking between the tentacles and my
face.

I laughed and gave him a cheeky wink. “Nah, you’re

not the type of food I like, don’t worry.”

It took him a second to understand my little

insinuation, but when he did, he went bright red. “O-
oh, no! I wasn’t… I mean I don’t… I… would like a bath,
yes. Food, too.”

“Want to come into the grove too?” I asked, looking at

Otho.

He shrugged. “Sure, I can help translate.”

“Good, let’s all stand up first though. Don’t want to
fall on our asses when we arrive,” I replied, following
through on the motion as I spoke.

Once everyone had followed my lead, I slipped us all

over the interdimensional threshold and into my
grove. Since I was beginning to gain some moderate
amount of control over where I appeared within my
grove now, I was able to take us a little closer to the
base of my tree within the new garden I had made. I
still felt sort of bad for making anything as orderly and
well manicured as the garden that surrounded the
tree, but too many people disagreed with me, so…
yeah.

“Wh-woah,” Cad gasped, dinner plate eyes flitting

around from one fantastical detail to the next. “Oh
my… by the…”
He spun in a circle and wondered at my grove like a
little boy in a dinosaur museum. It was incredibly cute
to watch, if I was honest, and gratifying to see. I’d put
a lot of work into this place, and seeing that work
appreciated with unadulterated enthusiasm was
amazing and deeply fulfilling.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathed, grinning from ear to ear.

“It’s my baby. I put a lot of time and effort into this

place,” I said, watching curiously as a bun I didn't
recognize hopped towards us across the grass. Unlike
most of my buns so far, this one didn’t have big
lopped ears, but rather small perky ones that stuck up
and back out of its head like a pair of indignant radar
dishes.

“I-is that a giant bunny?” Cad asked when he noticed

the bun arrive.
I nodded and crouched down to scratch at the bun’s
forehead in greeting. “Yeah. They’re my helpful little
tenders. What’s your name, little one?”

Her little fluffy shoulders shrugged, indicating that she

didn’t have one, then she stood up on her hind legs
and placed her hands together in a begging gesture. It
took me a second, but then I grinned and asked, “Oh,
you want me to give you one?”

I got an enthusiastic nod in reply, and a gentle bonk to

my knee from a paw.

“Okay… well… how about… Lua?” I asked, watching for

her reaction.

Enthusiastic nodding from her cute little silver furred

head, and I knew I had guessed right. I always felt like I
was discovering their names, rather than thinking
them up. “You like Lua?”

More nodding. “Well, that’s good then. What can I do

for you, little friend?”

Lua twitched her short ears and looked up at Cad, who

was staring in wide eyed fascination. The three foot
tall bun hugged herself, then pointed to Cad and
mimed the same motion.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, surprised that my grove had

already picked up on the need for Cad to have a guide
and support bun. “You’re here to be Cad’s helper
bun?”

Lua’s excited nodding had me laughing, and I stood

back up and launched into an explanation. Cad
listened with confusion and more than a few
questions. He wanted to know how my buns were so
smart, what Lua would be doing, all of that. I couldn’t
blame him, my buns were very incredible.

From there we went inside the tree, where I gave him

a tour the whole way up to the guy’s common room.
Nowadays the tree tower was a bustling hive of
activity, with several of my friends lounging in the
balcony room, buns behind the bar serving drinks
when needed.

We saw Catherine in the library, scribbling away on an

expanding array of paper, open books scattered
around her. She was working on synthesising more
medicines using our magically engineered plants.
Getting quite good at it too, which was exciting.
Hopefully she’d be able to carry that skill forward into
more arcane works.
I made sure to introduce him to everyone too, so that
he at least knew who everyone was. He still couldn’t
speak to them, but it’d hopefully help.

Unfortunately, I did have to leave him once I showed

him to the bathroom. I still had a lot of work to do,
and Lua was there now to make sure he didn’t get into
too much trouble.

****

Later that day, after I was finished dealing with all of

the day's tasks, I dropped back into my grove, tired
and hungry. I was about to head back into the tree to
check on Cad, when I noticed a small huddle of people
over at the newly created upper plateau workshop.

Made out of stone brick and a heat resistant wood I

had developed, the workshop was nestled amongst
the roots of the great tree. I'd made it so that Claih
and Bray could tinker with private projects and ideas
without too many people getting underfoot.

It seemed, however, that they had managed to gather

a crowd nevertheless. Grace, Troy, Kelsey, Bray, Cad,
and Claih all stood outside, with my girlfriend at their
center.

As I approached, I began to see why. Grace had a

bandolier across her chest, and a crazy looking cannon
of a pistol in her hand. It looked pretty jank, if I was
honest. Obviously a prototype, but it had a rugged
appeal to it as well.
Its two barrels were almost as long as her forearm,
while the rest had no casing to protect the inner
workings of the gun. It had a revolver-like cylinder
area, but instead of housing bullets, it had a slot for
little vials of magical energy.

Grace sensed me approaching first and looked up with

a smile. “Hey Ryn! Look what Claih made for me!”

“Hey, I helped!” Bray grumbled loudly. “It was me who

figured out how to make the bore to add the rifling.”

“Does rifling even help with firing magic?” I asked,

accepting a sideways hug from my girlfriend.

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” she grinned,

leaning down to give me a short, sweet little kiss. “We
were just arguing over the best place to test it out.”
Smiling, I gazed up into her beautiful, expressive green
eyes and asked, “Do I need to whip up a quick firing
range for you?”

If you’d asked me five minutes ago if I had it in me to

create anything out of magic, I’d have told you to fuck
off. I was exhausted, but having my girlfriend’s arm
around my shoulders and her smile leaving an
afterimage in my minds’ eye, it had given me a second
wind.

“If you have the energy,” she said with a hopeful

puppy dog expression.

Oh goodness, my girlfriend was so cute when she

wanted something. “Depends,” I said slyly. “Will you
kiss it into me?”
Chapter 101 :
Grace was indeed up to kissing some energy into me,
but we kept it fairly PG to avoid making everyone else
uncomfortable. With me full of power, we walked off
to a remote corner of my upper plateau. Using the
magic that she’d just given me, I grew several trees at
the edge of a cliff and flattened out one side. That
way, the shots would go out into the void, and they’d
have a place to pin actual targets if they wanted them.

“So how does it work?” I asked, standing a yard back

and to the side of her. Everyone else was arrayed on
some hastily grown vine chairs, like we were all a
bunch of Victorian ladies and Grace was a gentleman
showing off her new toy.

Claih was the one to pipe up and explain it, using the
opportunity to walk Grace through the process one
last time. “I’ve already told you this, but it never hurts
to triple check. Fold the barrel forward to expose the
core chamber, then slide in a filled canister.”
Grace did as she was told, opening the gun like a very
very careful cowboy. She pulled a small stubby
cylinder of glass from her bandolier, one mercifully
filled with good old fashioned lime flavoured magic.
The verdant magic was then slotted into the waiting
cylinder of the gun, which she snapped shut with an
audible clack.

“Unlike a more traditional projectile weapon, or even

a mass produced magitech gun, this one will
understand your intentions,” Claih continued once
Grace was ready. “You may discharge the entire
canister in one devastating blast, or portion it up into
as many as eight deadly bolts. Sixteen if you wish to
leave your enemy injured, but alive. Try firing a non-
lethal bolt first.”

Once the obrec woman was safely behind her, Grace

raised the gun and aimed at one of the trees as best
she could without iron sights. Those of us gathered
around to watch the test collectively held our breath,
waiting for the shot.

It was sudden, when she pulled the trigger. A flash of

light and a small bolt of green energy tore across the
intervening distance between the gun and the tree,
almost too fast for the eye to track. A small splash of
green light could be seen against the bark of the tree. I
gave a laugh of surprised amusement when, rather
than there being a burn or whatever, a small green
branch grew where the bolt had impacted. Of course,
why would raw life giving growth energy put a hole in
anything?

Grace, smiling with eager triumph, aimed again and

fired, but this time the projectile of magical energy
was larger. It looked for all the world like a blurred
arrow as it flew and struck the target. This time a
larger branch all but exploded out of the tree,
spontaneously flowering as it did so. The force of the
growth was so intense that the petals of the newly
budded flowers immediately exploded out in a
confetti stream.

“Holy moly,” Bray exclaimed from beside me. “That

was something!”

“Really cool,” I nodded, surprised to see him there. I

hadn’t noticed him take the spot next to me. “Think
you can make more?”

Turning his grin in my direction, he said, “I hope so.

This magitech stuff is so much more intuitive than our
tech.”

I nodded, my thoughts almost immediately going off

on a tangent, and I mused, “Yeah. Could be because
magic is sort of controlled and manipulated directly
with the mind in a lot of cases. It has an inherent sort
of base intelligence to it.”
“More like wisdom,” he said, picking up the train of
thought. “Our tech is intelligence or knowledge, right?
It can follow a convoluted set of instructions to the
absolute letter, taking input to make decisions along
the way. Magic seems like it’s got wisdom, though. It
doesn’t need every decision branch spelled out for it.”

“Huh…” He had a point. A really interesting point. “So

you could mix and match them both based on the task
you need done. A calculator using normal tech, and
magic for something that’s less about exact numbers,
like—”

My words were cut off when the tree exploded into

flaming splinters of wood. I ducked and flinched
automatically, but the carnage had shotgunned out off
the cliff in a cone instead. Holy hell… what had just
happened?
Grace, bright red with embarrassment, turned
sheepishly to look at her audience. “Okay… so firing an
entire canister of fire magic makes a big explosion.
Good to know…”

"Oh my goodness," I laughed walking over to her.

Taking the gun out of her hands, I held it out to Claih.
"Well, it works. I assume it's going to need a chassis,
though?"

Claih took the weapon with a smile of good natured

amusement. "Indeed. I suspect we will need to test
each of her magicks to see how the gun uses them.
Explosive surprises are… generally frowned upon in
my line of work."

"Almost all," Grace said with a pointed glance down at

a deceptively benign red canister. "I think I'll leave
that one alone until I have much more experience
with the gun."
"Ah… yes, agreed," Claih nodded, staring at the
canister like it might try to eat everyone then and
there.

****

The moment I had spotted Grace across the grass

earlier, a yearning had been steadily building in my
chest. As we wrapped up the little testing session, it
grew to become an almost painful lump. I was tired, a
little emotionally raw from the coffee shop, and very
much ready to get my girlfriend alone.
So, when we finally got into our room to change into
more comfortable clothes for the evening, I turned to
Grace and said, "Hey… can you hug me please?"

Careful not to trip over her discarded jacket on the

floor, she took the two steps needed to reach me,
folding me into her safe embrace. My hands found
their way to her back, and I let out a shuddering sigh
of relief.

Gods, I had needed this hug. I had needed it so fucking

badly.

"What's wrong?" she asked, burying her face in my

hair.

"The day was too long," I murmured, soaking myself in

her presence. "Too long, and it didn't have enough of
you in it."
"You can say that again," she sighed, pulling me even
closer.

Gosh, I loved her. I loved her so much. The way her

body just barely enveloped mine, not too much taller,
it was perfect. Her fingers too, how they dug gently
into my waist, accentuating her desire to hold me and
my feminine figure all at once.

There were so many little things, sensations and

movements, all of them adding up to her. Another
person who felt the same mind-searing affection that I
held for her. It would never get old, and never was a
long time for us.

“Mmmmm,” I hummed, snuggling my face into her

neck. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, pressing a kiss into my hair.

That reminded me that Grace had lips, so I leaned my

head back and captured them with my own. Her lips
were warm and faintly rough from a long day of
training under the sun, but that changed when I ran
my tongue over their length. Soft with moisture now,
they parted to let me in, and I eagerly took the
invitation.

I loved doing this, lapping at her tongue with mine.

Nothing like kisses in movies and anime though,
where it looks like two slugs having a duel. No, just a
flicker of movement. Sensation from the contact
caused sparks to zip down my tongue, where they
hitched a ride on my spine in all directions. Even
better was the effect it had on her. The way her
breath hitched every time I did it, and goosebumps
rippled up her forearms.
She’d taken her top off as we got inside, so I had
access to a lot of delicious skin. Access that I took full
advantage of, running my hands up her waist and then
down to the band of her sports bra.

I got a shudder out of her as I traced the skin just

below it. A fingertip slipped just barely under the
fabric, and I ran my finger along the imprint her bra
had left on her otherwise smooth skin. I massaged all
along that line, pushing the band up a little to let her
poor flesh recover from the cursed implement of
torture.

“Oh, that feels nice,” she whispered, parting from our

kiss just long enough to say the words before she dove
back in.

A nip of affection at my bottom lip had me smiling and

lapping at hers using that same flickering tongue
motion that she loved. She let out a giggle and pulled
me closer, gently crushing me and my roving fingers to
her chest.

Towing me backwards, she flopped us both down onto

the bed, me on top of her. Having my weight land on
her didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest, and it was
so damned awesome. It was just one of those things
that made me feel so good about being a girl. It
emphasised how light I was, and yeah… it just made
me feel great. She knew it too, which was probably
why she’d done it. Gods, I loved her so freaking much.

Reigniting our kiss took a moment of positioning, but

then we lost ourselves in each other. It wasn’t really a
sexual thing though, we were just enjoying each
other. The warmth of our bodies, the softness of skin
on skin, and the small sounds of happiness. It all
merged together into an hour of heaven.
Sadly, it needed to end. Cad was probably extremely
lost and confused by now, and he’d need guidance on
what to do with himself. I just hoped that Lua was
treating him well.

“Ugh,” I grumbled, pushing myself up onto an elbow.

“I don’t want to stop but… we need to get changed
and be social.”

“I know…” Grace grumbled, staring up at me with her

hair all disheveled and gorgeous. I reached out and
ran a hand through it, marveling at the play of light
through the different colours. So damned pretty.

“Maybe we should start taking weekends off,” I

mused, running a thumb over her hairline. “Or at least
one day a week. We can’t keep going on like this after
all.”
I nodded with whole hearted agreement. “I’m starting
to miss you so much throughout the day that it hurts.”

Her answering smile was so full of love that I couldn’t

help but lean down to kiss her again. Maybe Cad
would be fine after all… we could stay a little longer,
right?

Chapter 102 :
It took Grace and I another thirty minutes to extricate
ourselves from the kiss and get dressed. We really did
need to take that break, because my god were we
hungry for each other. Most nights we simply
collapsed in bed or on a couch and cuddled, too tired
for anything more. Not that I hated doing that or
anything, but I was in love with a human, not a
plushie.
Leaving my room, we entered the girls’ floor common
room. It was getting pretty messy these days, with one
corner occupied by Catherine’s growing mountain of
books. Grace had a little mechanic’s corner too where
she was practicing maintenance with little gadgets in
preparation for her guns. Claih was a firm believer in
having a comprehensive understanding of whatever
weapon a person might use.

Taking a few more steps into the room, we discovered

two more messes on the floor. Looks like we weren’t
the only ones who’d been getting their gay on.

Melody had pressed Kelsey prone to the floor and was

just beginning to explore with a hand up her shirt,
while their mouths were firmly welded together.

Grace gasped and giggled, “Hey girls! What are you up

to?”
Melody gave a surprised squeak and fell sideways,
leaving Kelsey laughing on the floor and grinning like…
well, like a girl who’d just been getting pressed to the
floor. Melody’s face was bright red as she looked over
at us, and she had a small, mischievous smile on her
face nevertheless.

“Sorry you had to walk in on that,” she laughed,

reaching out to run her fingers through Kelsey’s loose
blonde hair. The fact that her hair wasn’t tied up
showed how much fun they’d been having. She loved
tying it up in all sorts of intricate patterns.

“Why would you be sorry?” I asked, feeling my own

cheeks heating up.

Beside me, Grace chuckled and wrapped an arm

around my waist. “Yeah, what do you think we were
just doing in there, after all? We are lesbians after all.”
Kelsey blushed, smiled, and gave us a wry look. “Some
people get uncomfortable around intense PDA, that's
all. I guess my sweet girl was being thoughtful.”

Making a noise of understanding, I stepped over to

one of the sofas so I could rest my butt on the back of
it. “True. Not me though, nor Grace.”

Grace joined me and gave a nod of affirmation,

replacing her hand where it had just been at my waist.
I loved how much she wanted to touch me. It made
me feel so wanted, so beautiful. Moreso even than
staring in the mirror at my face in all its achingly
perfect symmetry.

“Not me, especially when it’s other girls,” Kelsey said,

and we all turned to her girlfriend for her answer.
Melody bit her lip and flushed further. “A-ah… um…
well… see…”

Slowly, Kelsey’s eyebrows rose, as though she

suspected the impending answer and that it would be
fun. Grace too looked intrigued, clearly thinking along
similar lines. What was I missing?

“What is it, cutie,” Kelsey teased, leaning over to kiss

her lover’s neck. “Got something to share with the
class?”

“It’s hot!” Melody exclaimed, throwing her hands in

the air. “When people watch me, I think it’s really hot,
okay? Geez.”

“Aha,” her girlfriend grinned, taking her hand. “So

that’s why you’re suddenly all bashful?”
“Not bashful,” Melody corrected her. “Horny. The idea
of fucking or getting fucked by my girlfriend while
other people watch is just…” she raised a hand to her
head and motioned an explosion. “Monkey brain go
boom.”

“That… could be fun,” Kelsey mused, glancing

pointedly at Grace and me.

Beside me, my lover choked and looked to me as

though for help. I just smiled and shrugged. To be
honest, I didn’t entirely hate the idea. I think a part of
me wished that I could have gone through college as a
girl, experienced dating a few girls and just generally
had fun. Explored my sexuality without the burden of
my previous body weighing me down and muddying
the waters.

It was too late now, though. I had fallen into a

glorious, incredible, beautiful, and loving relationship
with the girl of my dreams. It was a relationship I
never wanted to jeopardize, no matter the what-ifs
that were bouncing around in my head.

“I think that I’ll place the whole topic delicately on a

shelf for later, and go down to see how the new guy is
handling things,” I told them diplomatically. Grace
clearly wasn’t entirely keen with anything right now,
even if I was open to the idea.

Melody sighed theatrically and gave a pout. “Dang,

still no foursome then. That’s okay…”

“We’ll think about it,” Grace said placatingly.

“O-oh! No!” the other girl blurted, waving her hands

around with sudden concern. “No, I’m just joking. It’s
okay. I’d never actually pressure my friends into
something like that.”
“You mean, if we said yes, you’d have backed out?” I
asked, faking a saddened expression.

With evil intent, I sat up and moved towards where

they were on the ground and knelt before them.
Reaching up, I cupped one of Melody’s cheeks with
my left hand, and Kelsey’s with my right.

“I was looking forward to it, though,” I said,

emphasising the husky, deep tones of my voice.
“Eventually, of course… when Grace feels comfortable
with it...”

When I stood up, all three girls were staring at me in

flustered surprise. Making girls blush was so much fun,
especially my girlfriend, and to a lesser extent
obviously, my friends.
"Just teasing," I said, winking at the two on the floor
who were gaping up at me. To Grace, I asked,
"Downstairs?"

"U-um… yeah, sure," she nodded, smiling at me with

quiet amusement.

Once we were in the stairwell, she gave me a side eye

and asked, “Were you serious? I mean, obviously you
said it was a joke, but…”

Now that it was just us, I felt myself blush. Damn,

sometimes my brain just jumped at the chance to be a
cheeky little shit without thinking of the
consequences.

“Sort of?” I said, trailing off as though it were a

question. “I mean, obviously I love them as friends.
I’ve known them for a while too, before all of this, and
I enjoyed their company then too. Which, I guess what
I’m saying is, I’d be comfortable with the idea of uh…
platonic sex? I have no idea what it’s called or
anything.”

Hearing my own words forced me to place my back to

the wall of the stairwell and hide my face in my hands.
God, I was such a fucking weirdo sometimes. “Gods,
that sounds so strange when I say it out loud. Is it
weird that… I mean when she was joking around
about it, I suddenly thought, oh, that might actually be
fun. Does that make you uncomfortable? I’m sorry, I
hope you know I love you to the end of the ring and
back. The long way around, not to the outer edge—”

Grace kissed me. She pressed me against the wall,

pushed my hands out of the way and enveloped me in
a cocoon of warmth, all while delicately cradling my
head in her hands. It was a different kiss than before.
Soft, sweet, and loving.
When she pulled away, she was smiling with so much
adoration in her large green eyes that it caused my
heart to skip like an old walkman. “Ryn, it’s okay. I
understand. It was a bit of harmless teasing fuelled by
what-ifs. Yes, the idea of a foursome with them is hot,
but… I’m not sure that I’m okay with sharing you, at
least for now.”

Crap, please tell me I hadn’t made her worried with

my stupid flirting. I mean, yes, I liked the idea of it
but… girls were just really pretty. I looked at a lot of
other girls and wondered sometimes. Especially obrec
women… like, I wonder how that might be different?

Except, I didn’t have any intentions of actually

following through on those thoughts. Grace was my
life, my world. If I did something to hurt her, I’d throw
myself into the red nightmare willingly. It would be
less of a nightmare than seeing her heart broken.
Fuck, I loved her so damned much. Plus, we’d spent so
long pining after each other, what kind of moron
would I be if I threw all of that hard work away? Then
there was the fact that… wait, I needed to reply.

“I didn’t… I mean I don’t want to…” I stammered,

unsure of how to collect all my jumbled thoughts into
the message I wanted to send her. “I wouldn’t actually
do it. No way in hell. You mean so freaking much to
me. I can’t even imagine my future without you in it.”

“I know,” she smiled, kissing me again. When she

pulled back, she had a sly, suggestive expression
dancing on her lips. “Although… what if I did say yes,
hmmm?”

My eyes widened and my brain threw sparks. “A-ah… I

would… um…”
Laughing at my reaction, she took my hand and pulled
me further down the stairs. “Come on, silly. Your
friend is waiting for mama Ryn to help fix everything.”

Oh my god. I was so confused now. Confused and

aroused. Did that mean she might be open to the idea
later on? Like, if we got really deep with our
relationship, built a big fuck off mountain of trust… it
might be a possibility? Also, frankly, we needed to
strengthen our friendship with Mel and Kels too. We
had the bond of surviving that first week on the ring
together, but Grace and I had changed so much since
then.

Oh, but wait… Grace and I had a cheat code! We could

create an empathic link between us! A smile pulled at
the corners of my lips, and I found myself rather
abruptly excited and aroused. The next time we made
love, I knew just what we were going to do...
Chapter 103 :
Since more people had taken up residence in my tree
tower, we had instituted a more strict common room
protocol. Boys weren’t allowed in the girl’s room and
girls weren’t allowed in the boys room. That way the
boys could have their dumb macho games and
tomfoolery, and us girls could have our girl time. It
allowed everyone to chill out without the whole
gender tension thing.

It also meant that everyone had started hanging out

down on the balcony level during the day, so that’s
where we were headed. Well, assuming we arrived
there before everyone had decided to go to bed.
Goodness gracious, we needed an elevator. Well, that
and a non-binary floor if we had any enbies join.
Stepping out onto the enclosed balcony of my tree,
Grace and I came to a stop, surprised by what we
found. Cad, Otho, Troy, and Bray all playing cards and
joking around like they’d known each other for years.
It looked like Otho and Troy were translating between
Cad and Bray, who appeared to not give much of a
damn about their language barrier.

“Well, looks like I was worrying over nothing,” I said in

Anve, giving Cad a smile as we approached. “They
treating you well?”

Cad glanced up at me and smiled happily. He’d taken a

bath since we last saw him, and there was a little bowl
of nuts and dried fruit next to him that he was
snacking on.

“They’re teaching me cards!” he said, motioning to

the in progress game of Scum, I think. I could never be
sure, card games weren’t really my thing. Also he
pronounced the word cards with such a funny accent
that I had to smile.

“Well, that’s good,” I replied, pulling a seat up from a

nearby table. Grace placed her chair next to mine,
close enough that I could lean sideways into her
slightly. “Troy, did you talk to Cad about a potential
job as a quartermaster and merchant for the order? I
figured he’d be a good fit to get us some local
knowledge.”

"Plus," Grace said, once I was done. "Otho will need

some help."

Otho, a wry smile quirking his lips, nodded, "I may be

Stonechaser, but I'm not too familiar with Anve or
Aber lands, so he would fill in a lot of my knowledge
gaps."
A round of nodding rolled around the table, except in
Bray's case. "What are you all talking about?" He
asked, bewildered.

"Cad will be joining us as a merchant and

quartermaster of sorts," Troy explained in english.

My eyebrows rose when Bray’s reaction was a big

smile and a fist pump. “Hell yeah! We need more boys
around here.”

Beside me, Grace growled, and I had to place a hand

on her arm to still her.

“I-I mean, because I’m… well, look, gender equality

goes both ways okay…” he stammered, eyes wide as
my girlfriend glared at him. “I'm just saying… stop
looking at me like that, you know what I mean!”
Finally, her glare collapsed into laughter. “I’m just
messing with you dude, I get it.”

Grace’s eyes were dancing with cheeky amusement as

she turned and met my gaze. We’d both turned to
each other at the same time, and seeing her like that
made my heart do a happy little binky.

I leaned in and kissed her lightly, and pulled back with

hopeful ideas about tonight. Which made me
remember…

“Hey Troy,” I blurted, pointing my biggest, hardest

hitting puppy dog look at him. “I’m going to take the
day off tomorrow with Grace, unless there’s anything
urgent…”

From behind me, a voice I hadn’t heard in a few days

gave a wry chuckle. “Ryn, my dear, until your friends
have their translocation rings, you will be getting no
breaks.”

“Esra!” I squealed, bolting up out of my chair so fast it

began to tip over. Shifting it out of the way with my
telekinesis so I could get to her was an instinctual
afterthought, and with it gone I jumped at her.

My mage-mother gave a surprised grunt as my arms

wrapped around her, and after a few moments, I had
to take a step back and stare at her. Something was
different.

Trailing an inquisitive gaze over her, I first noticed her

sly, curious smile, which proved that there was
something different. Then, I kept going, but it was
either too subtle for me to pick out, or I was missing
something blindingly obvious. Was it her hair? No,
that was the same as ever, silver-blue and elegantly
controlled by a tight bun. Maybe it was—
“Oh my god!” I blurted, realising what had changed.
“Your skin is… it’s… well you don’t look quite so raisiny
now!”

She cringed as if I’d just said her favourite perfume

smelled like shit and gently cuffed me with a hand.
“Rynadria!” she exclaimed. “I’ll have you know that I
have been delving into the secrets of microbiology
and genetics, thank you very much. The knowledge of
your Avonside University is… astounding. My softer,
more youthful skin is the result of this research.”

Hold on, what? I stared at her, really stared at her,

flabbergasted as I realised what she was saying. “You…
you figured out how to stop and reverse aging?”

“Not quite,” she sighed, rubbing at one of her eyes

with a tired smile. “I have discovered how to leverage
my hafornsu in such a way as to reverse much of the
damage that aging has done. It is, unfortunately, not
perfect, and is by no means a true fountain of youth.
However, I am rather proud of what I have
accomplished in such a short time.”

“Deservedly so,” Troy said from the table, nodding in

respect. “You look good.”

Esra froze just as she was about to continue her

explanation and stared over my shoulder at him. I
turned to watch the exchange and squashed a smile.
Troy was just sitting there, cards still in hand,
innocently staring over at the older woman he had so
effectively derailed.

“Yes, well,” she finally muttered, waving her hand

dismissively. “The… intention was to stop this damned
body from falling apart around me. Any newly
regained youthful beauty is just a side effect.”
“What’s a hafornsu?” Cad asked curiously, seeing as
we were speaking in Anve. Next to him, Bray muttered
something about needing to get started on learning,
“Alien gibberish.”

“A mage has two bodies,” I said, allowing my greenery

to show with a gesture at myself. The usual vines and
magenta flowers sprouted up in my hair, while my skin
turned green and purple. “A human one and a plant-
based one. The fancy-shmancy name for the plant one
is hafornsu.”

“Fancy-shmancy… what does this word mean?” Esra

asked, giving me a suspicious look.

Fighting a shit-guzzling grin, I replied without pause,

“It’s another word for a scientific name.”
Annoyingly, Troy came to her rescue with a gentle
laugh and a shake of his head. “It is a sort of slang or
light hearted insult that can be directed at anything
intelligent.”

Damn it Troy! It would have been hilarious if she’d

used it in conversation later on.

My mage-mother gave me a sidelong look of

annoyance but otherwise continued, “I see… well,
regardless, Catherine and I have been using the
knowledge of your people to refine and develop many
treatments involving drastic restructuring of the
human body. So far, we are in preliminary stages, but
we have hope. That is also not what I came here to
discuss with you all. Rynadria, if we could take a
seat?”

The last was said with a gesture to my forgotten chair,

and for once I did as I was told, sitting down in the
seat like a good girl. My obedience was mostly due to
the fact that pointing out the chair had reminded me
that Grace was there and ready to snuggle up to.

Taking her hand, I flashed her a little smile and laid my

head down on her shoulder. It was funny, people
often said that you “grew out of” the whole touchy
feely lovey dovey phase, but we definitely hadn’t. If
anything, I just wanted to touch her more. Like, how
was I meant to just keep my hands to myself when she
was so fucking beautiful? Maybe I was just an overly
emotional and touch-oriented person? I should ask
Grace about it later.

Once Esra was seated, suspiciously close to Troy, I

might add, she placed a shoebox sized wooden
container on the table. She’d had the thing casually
hovering out of sight, using just her mind the whole
time. My grumpy mage-mother had a penchant for
the dramatic sometimes.
“These,” she said, gesturing to the rough oaken box.
“Are the translocation rings you wanted. I have
already passed through your new plaza and planted
the beacon crystal in place. You have forty to begin
with, and I’ll leave the instructions and materials
needed to make more with you, Ryn. It’s a tricky spell,
so follow the procedure to the letter, please.”

“Oh, nice!” I said, reaching forward to open the box

like the impatient gremlin that I was. “Guess I can
have that break after all, huh?”

“Indeed,” she replied, rolling her eyes and swatting at

my hands. “Did you hear what I said, young lady?”

“A-ah…” I blinked, withdrawing out of range. “Yes…

follow the instructions to make more rings, don’t not
follow the instructions.”
She gave me another stern look, but nodded,
“Precisely. Do make sure you remember that, please?”

Damn, I had a reputation, huh?

“How do we use them?” Troy asked, getting to the

point rather than let me keep baiting Esra.

“If you are outside the grove, simply think of the

beacon and pull yourself to it within your mind’s eye,”
Esra explained. “If you are within, push yourself away.
You will feel it when you try. They are designed to be
intuitive, I’m sure after a little experimentation you
will all grasp the technique.”

“Sounds like what we do,” I noted absently, already

wondering what else we could do with the rings. If all
fully vetted members of the order were going to have
them, it might be good to build more functionality into
them.

“Well, thank you very much Esra,” Troy said with a

sincere smile. “This will accelerate our schedule
considerably. Access to and from the grove has been
by far our most frustrating bottleneck.”

“Ah,” my mage-mother began, blinking rapidly. Gosh,

was this really happening? Was Esra the all powerful
and ancient mage, getting all blushy from Troy’s quiet
appreciation? “It’s what I do,” she replied simply, after
taking a moment to steady herself. “And, although my
own drive to better this gods forsaken ring has sadly
decayed, your cause is one I find more than worthy.”

Eyes lighting up with an idea, Troy asked, “Speaking

of, if it’s okay with you, could we grab dinner
sometime in the next few days? I’d love to pick your
brain for details on the political situation nearby, who
the major players are, that kind of thing.”

“I… I am sure I will be available,” she replied, still

struggling with her rapidly reddening complexion.

“Excellent,” our glorious leader said with what passed

for a dashing smile on his face. “Thank you. Oh, and
you two,” he continued, directing his gaze at Grace
and myself. “You’re free to take a few days off
whenever you want. I’m not your boss, after all.”

“Pretty sure you are,” Grace replied with a chuckle.

“But thanks, we really needed it.”

“Does that mean we can get back to our card game?”

Bray asked, looking a little grumpy. “I mean, assuming
the tone you're using is like, oh we’re finishing with
business now. Is Anve one of those crazy languages
that does tone stuff? God I need to learn like, three…
fuck my life.”

“Mood.” Grace agreed with a sigh. “Fucking mood.”

Okay… maybe Catherine and I should figure out how

to deal with that problem too. Or something. After our
weekend, obviously. That was reserved for cuddling
and making love. Oh, and kissing, how could I forget
kissing? Gods, I was so excited. Excited and hungry,
actually. I wonder what my buns were up to...

Chapter 104 :
I had been given a very important mission by our lady
of the burrow. She had placed the special hoop of
coldwood in my hand, a ring, I think she called it. This
ring would let me do something no bun had ever done
before… leave the burrow unsupervised.
With the help of Wrestlebun and Binkliebun, I would
be delivering the dried sourbeans to the outside
humans. We were still confused as to why the humans
liked their yucky beans, but humans did a lot of odd
things, so what was one more?

The three of us gathered the sacks of beans together

in the lower store… uh, room. Store room. Yes, that
was the words. They were heavy bags too, human
sized instead of bun-sized, but we were strong.
Especially Wrestlebun, who had even thrown one of
the humans over his shoulder the other day during
practice.

“The lady has such trust in us,” Binkliebun said with a

twitch of her ears. “To make the great hop out into
the other world without her. I have heard that other
lords and ladies like her don’t even treat their buns as
people.”
“They aren’t people,” Wrestlebun stated, hefting the
bag onto his shoulder. “Our lady made us to be
people. It is not the common way for the powerful
humans. Our lady is a warm dawn in the winter, when
placed beside the others.”

“I have heard this,” I nodded, frowning slightly.

Frowning was new for us, but something had changed,
our faces could now move as like the humans. It was a
small change, but one that made communicating with
them much easier. The big bun once again providing
so that our duties would be easier.

“They have a reason for this way,” I continued, turning

the ring over in my fluffy hands. “Burrow keepers will
not want for anything but their work, if they are not
truly people. Giving us minds with which to want,
gives us desires other than that of our purpose. It is a
problem that plagues our lady.”
“She will learn a path forward,” Binkliebun whispered,
her nose twitching with trust.

Binkliebun was a young bun, by our standards even,

and very very shy. Early in her life, our lady had
discovered her in the storeroom, trying to find some
greens for the kitchen. Our lady had stopped what she
was doing and had helped Binkliebun with her duties,
then taken her up to the room of women for pats. It
had instilled a particular devotion in the young bun
that had not flopped in the slightest.

“She will,” Wrestlebun agreed with a definitive little

thump of one foot. “I can feel it in her when her mind
touches ours.”

A rumble of sudden happiness bubbled up from within

me. It was true, our lady’s love for us was a second
sun of the mind. “She will,” I nodded, then held the
ring up for the others to see. “Place your hands on me,
we must deliver the sourbeans.”

Binkliebun did not stay herself but an instant, but

Wrestlebun checked his heel and elbow teeth. Spurs,
the short strong one had called them. Buns were not
suited to the weapons of the humans, so Wrestlebun
was asked to test new means of defence.

Satisfied the coldwood blades were properly put on,

he reached up and put his hand on my shoulder. Now
was the part where I had to use the ring-gift. My eyes
closed, and thought of the big shiny rock far below in
the lower burrow, then pushed against it with my
mind-touch.

A funny sound happened, and then the smells of the

world changed. Gone was the warmth and the love of
the burrow, replaced instead with a bone-deep
indifference. It was always an unsettling feeling, how
the lands outside the burrow were so… mind-lifeless.
We buns did not like it, not one bit. Still, it was
bearable for short times.

We had run this route before with the book lady, so

we knew where to go with the sacks. The place that
we emerged at was a big wide open place made of
funny past-liquid stone. Our lady had explained once
that it was actually poured like water. Humans were
remarkable with their making of things.

From there, it was a short hop around to the back of

the big building where the sacks were meant to go.
The book lady had taught us that we needed to tap
the door with our paws, so I reached up and did so.

The door opened so abruptly that Wrestlebun

thumped with surprise behind me. The human woman
spoke before she saw us, “Typical fuckin’ man, huh?
Always late—“
She glanced down and frowned when she saw us
standing at the door with our sacks in hand. “Huh.
Guess he lost some of his guts when he lost his balls
and height too. Well, drop the coffee then.”

She pointed to the ground, and after a few discreet

glances between us, we did so. This woman wasn’t
very smart, she kept thinking that book lady was a
man. So strange. Book lady was obviously a lady. She
said she was, after all.

Beside me, Wrestlebun was frowning at the coffee,

thinking with a depth of irritation. Then, in his small,
soft voice, he said, “Stupid woman. Think C—“ he
stumbled over the name, but pushed forward
regardless. “Think Cathereen is man. Wrong. You stop
saying wrong. Thank you.”
He punctuated his words with a big thump, which
caused his spurs to strike the ground with a jarring,
nasty sound. Ah, was this… a meanness? An attack?
The calling of Catharleen as a man rather than the
woman she was.

“You stop with your attacks,” I nodded, looking up at

the human woman who was double my height. “It is
nasty.”

With that, I pulled the other two away from the door.
We had made our delivery, and now it was time to
leave. Silly humans of the outer world didn’t deserve
the sourbeans, in my opinion. Our lady would do well
to leave them to their fate.

“Wow, how did that bitch ruin bunnies?” another

voice asked, a man’s voice. We were away now, but
humans always forgot that their ears were puny and
ours were large. Bun eyesight may be bad, but seeing
was only one of the ways that living things take stock
of their surroundings.

“Don’t call him a bitch,” the nasty girl said with a

sharp voice. “He doesn’t deserve to be called that. It’s
a feminine insult, used by men like him to belittle
women. Don’t use it at all, actually.”

“Right… yeah,” the nasty man agreed. “It’s just hard to

talk about him as a man when he looks…”

“Looks are irrelevant, he’s still a man,” she snapped,

and the door slammed before we could hear anything
more.

The three of us buns all shared a long look. That had

been… enlightening. It appeared that humans were far
nastier than we thought. How could we help though?
We buns had been instilled with our lady’s drive to
help people, for we were part of her in a way. There
must be a way…

“We should tell the horned bun-cousin,” Binkliebun

said, ears going suddenly upright with the idea. “Mer.
That is her name, we should tell Mer.”

“Why is that?” Wrestlebun asked, bobbing his head in

question.

“She protects the book lady,” I explained, nodding

along with the idea. “Very good idea, Binkliebun, very
good idea. Let us go to her now.”

Us buns were going to help. That’s what we were

going to do now, and always.
Chapter 105 :
I followed Grace into our room and kicked the door
closed behind us. As if we were connected on some
subliminal level, she turned and enfolded me with her
soft, strong arms. Her cheek came to rest on the top
of my head, and my hands immediately snuck under
her shirt to get better contact with her warm skin.

I swear the weeks or so that we'd spent needing to

siphon energy out of her with skin contact had
conditioned me to seek it from her even afterwards.
Her skin was always so soft and warm, like living
velvet. I couldn't get enough.

"Oh, Ryn…" she whispered, her arms closing tighter

around me. "Oh, Ryn."
Humming in quiet, tired agreement, I nuzzled my face
into the soft spot between her shoulder and chest. I
needed this so bad. Her touch was… everything.
Nothing else in my life came close to it in importance.

No, that was a lie. There was something far more

important than even that. Her happiness. Her smile.
That was the absolute most important thing in this
universe to me.

She made my heart spark and pop like I'd just

swallowed a mouth full of pop rocks. It was hard to
function at times like this, when the emotions were so
overwhelming that they consumed my thoughts
entirely.

"Grace?" I asked, almost drowsy with love for her.

She shifted against me, one hand stroking up and
down my spine. "Yeah?"

"Your happiness is everything to me," I whispered.

"Everything."

Her arms pulled tighter around me, and she asked,

“Can we get in bed? I want to cuddle you.”

“Yes.” Cuddles sounded fucking amazing.

We had by now developed a favourite cuddling

position, and we snuggled up together like that under
the covers. Grace lay on her back, while I was on my
side, front pressed up against her and my head on her
bicep.
It was so comfortable that we often slept like this, legs
all tangled together, whispering increasingly tired and
nonsensical thoughts to each other.

Tonight though, I wanted to really drink in the

intimacy between us. I didn't want to fall asleep
immediately and miss out on some premium bliss.

"God, what a day," she groaned, using her long fingers

to play with my hair.

"Yeah, you can say that again,"

“We say that every night,” I replied, suddenly too

exhausted to put any emotion into my voice.

She snorted. “Because it’s true every night.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was painfully true.
I had to say though… all her training was paying off.
Her arms were artfully muscled now, even more so
than before. Except it seemed no matter what she did,
she still looked like the picture of stereotypical
feminine beauty. Was Ollinfer a goddess of war and
love, as well as verdant growth? That was the only
explanation I could find for the way her muscles were
developing.

Then, obviously, there was everything about her that

was the same. Her vibrant green eyes watching me
with so much lazy affection. Her face, perfected from
her time in the flower.

“Falling in love with you was kinda fun,” I said, almost

blurting it before my brain could really figure out how
it had arrived at that conclusion.
Grace gave me a look, her hand stilling in my hair.
“How so?”

“So much yearning,” I smiled, kissing the underside of

her chin. “Oh and the part where we had to keep
touching or you’d explode. That was really fun too.”

“Fun is one way to put it,” she groaned, placing an

arm over her eyes even as her lips tweaked into a
smile.

“You have to admit it was exciting,” I teased,

mimicking one of my moves from during that time. I
slid my hand under her shirt and trailed my fingertips
across her delicious abs. God, they were so good. I’d
seen her taking a dip in the lake a few days ago after
training and… yum.
Her breath caught as I tickled the underside of her
breasts, and she pulled her arm away to meet my
eyes. “You’re fucking cheeky, you know that? I think
the part I enjoyed the most was when we were able to
connect emotionally… just… feeling your affection for
me. It healed me, healed my broken, scarred heart,
you know?”

“Like this, you mean?” I asked, allowing just the

slightest of my plant form out.

I’d gained a lot of control over it recently, so it was

only my hair and vines that sprouted. They twirled and
crawled around and over my arm to cup her waist.
This was a two way street, though, and she smiled,
letting a little of her own dryad form to manifest.

Her shoulder length hair became threaded with grass

and leaves, while her shoulders received a scattering
of bark like soft, raised freckles. It was a super pretty
look, but it also wasn’t what I was focused on at that
moment.

She was there in my mind, a warm glow made of

eager, cautious emotion. There were no words, this
wasn’t anything like telepathy. Instead, it was
empathy. A gentle embrace of the mind, stripped bare
of any erratic, noisy internal monologue.

“M-mmmm,” Grace sighed, low and happy, her arms

encircling me and pulling me closer. “Exactly like
that.”

Her hands trailed up and down my back, then

suddenly she made a noise of frustration and pulled
back. “Can you take your shirt off?”

I laughed, but did as she requested, temporarily

severing the emotional communion in order to pull my
comfortable T-shirt over my head. I didn’t sleep with a
bra on, like ever, so I was topless now.

Watching her drink in my feminine body was… it was a

shock of gender euphoria straight to my brain. I felt a
blush coming on, but I couldn’t stop gazing into her
roving eyes, watching her pupils widen and widen as
they thirsted for the light that bounced off my body.

She stopped when she noticed something down near

my waist. Leaning sideways, she asked, “Wow, is that
your tattoos? How have I not noticed them? They’re
huge now.”

“Wait, they are?” I blinked, twisting to try and see.

That was obviously a fruitless endeavor, but I had
magic for a reason. That reason being primarily to
admire my own back, obviously.
Summoning a little mirror viewing spell thingy, I gave a
gasp when I saw it. Grace’s sharp intake of breath told
me she was seeing the same thing.

Simple, abstract floral patterns started down near my

butt, like roots framing the gentle curves there. They
narrowed as they climbed, following my spine up and
up, tendrils knotting together into a tree trunk that
then burst into bloom as they reached my ribcage.
From then on, it was a riot of black, twirling lines and
shining magenta flowers, with the top of it spreading
slightly to cradle the base of my neck.

“God damn,” Grace whispered reverently, her fingers

trailing over the patterns. I watched her do it in the
mirror while a million different half-formed thoughts
crashed together like bumper cars in my mind.

Tattoos had never really been a thing I thought about,

but seeing mine… it did things for me. They were
elegant, feminine, and so pretty. I could see how it
vaguely represented how my grove was laid out too,
which was cute.

“Wow, that’s… I need to find some backless dresses,

huh?” I asked, feeling a little giddy. There was no
other way to describe seeing your own absolutely
fucking gorgeous back tattoos. I was giddy with
happiness and… well, a lot of other emotions besides.

“Hell yes,” she said, leaning forward to put her head

on my shoulder. It blocked my view of the recently
discovered artwork, so I swapped the spell to a normal
mirror so I could see my girlfriend in it.

She smiled at me when it flicked into place, then

circled her arms around me and cuddled closer so her
chest was snug against my back. “We’ve gone a long
way from batronaught jokes, huh?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, leaning back into her strong, soft
frame. My vines wrapped up and around to return the
embrace, binding our emotions together again.

The love she was feeling for me blew me away. It was

so strong, so open and trusting. As she tasted mine in
turn, it flared like a stoked forge, burning bright in my
mind’s eye.

“Feeling how much you love me…” she whispered,

voice choked with emotion. “I can’t even… it’s…”

“It’s okay,” I murmured soothingly, reaching down to

thread our fingers together. “You don’t need to talk
about it.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head slightly against mine.

“I want to tell you.”
I waited patiently, watching her in the mirror as she
visibly ordered her thoughts. Internally, she was a
mess of stagnant pain and stale heartache.

"I started dating when I was about fourteen," she told

me quietly. "I dated two boys before I realised at age
fifteen that I just wasn't interested. Heteronormativity
is a bitch. Anyway uh… it took until I was like
seventeen before I found myself with another girl."

Confusion and pain without closure bubbled up from

her heart, and I used a budding flower from my hair to
tentatively caress her cheek in sympathy.

"We danced around each other for months, never

official but obviously more than friends," she said,
closing her eyes and leaning slightly into my touch.
"One day we finally took the leap. We agreed to date.
Three days later, she ghosted me without warning or
explanation. Just gone, poof. None of our mutual
friends would tell me anything."

Well, that explained the pain-sans-closure I'd felt from

her. "Silly girl," I replied mildly. "Her loss is my gain."

Her answering smile was just as radiant as the love in

her heart. "Thanks. After her, I met another girl really
quickly. We hit it off as friends, then almost
immediately things went further. Except, turns out she
was just a little curious, and one day she suddenly
announced on Facebook that she was dating one of
our mutual guy friends."

"It went on like that," she continued, scrunching her

eyes shut against the memories. "The best of them
being a cute bi girl who I still remember somewhat
fondly. By that time, though, my heart was a mess. My
insecurities and trust issues poisoned the relationship.
We're still friends… I think. She's back on Earth. I guess
it doesn't matter anymore, I'll probably never see her
again."

Turning my head, I pressed a kiss to her neck and tried

to throw as much love and affection at her as I
possibly could. No wonder she's been so hesitant with
me.

"I can see why this emotional communion is so

important to you," I murmured, nuzzling at her neck
with my lips. "I hope you can feel how much you mean
to me."

"I can," she smiled, leaning into the attention I was

giving her. "Thank you so much."

"I love you," I told her, as though she couldn't feel it.
She whispered her reply into my ear, too
overwhelmed to add more volume, "I love you, too."

Shifting, I turned around until I was facing her, and

gazed directly into her wonderful green eyes. I'd
intended to kiss her, but the eye contact became
heavy, spurred on by the exchange of emotion
between us.

We stayed like that for a long time, stuck in a blissful

trace. I had never felt anything like this. The
awareness that another whole, glorious mind was
right there, it robbed me of my thoughts. The fact that
Grace loved me… it was never more apparent, more
tangible than right then.

"We're going to be together forever," she croaked,

voice thick with emotion.
"Beyond the heat death of the universe," I agreed,
although the words were barely a breeze from my lips.
It was hard to make any real sound with my heart so
full of love.

One thing was for sure, though. I wasn't tired

anymore.

Grace must have felt the little spark of lust that

sprouted within me, because she smiled and said,
"Not tired after that, huh?"

"I've gained a bit of a second wind," I agreed, and

leaned in to press our lips together.
Chapter 106 :
Grace held me with such tender love that I was almost
incapable of moving my body. Her lips were on my
neck, pressing wet warmth to the soft skin there, and
it was heaven.

Gods, being tired and horny was such an issue. I

wanted to drown my girl in tender love, but it was all I
could do to slowly trail my fingers up and down her
abs.

"I'm so tired," I mumbled, even as my brain buzzed

with another of her kisses.

She made a throaty, thoughtful sound and paused her

exploration of my collarbone. "We can stop, if you
like."
I shook my head as an idea came to me. "No… my
body is much more tired than my head. Which uh…
you can say no if you want, but can I use my um… my
other appendages?"

My cheeks flamed up with embarrassment after I'd

finished speaking, because it was… I mean it was so
pornographic, what I wanted to do. It was the type of
thing that people way more kinky than me were into,
and yet, I could actually do it. I tested my idea with an
experimental flexing of my will.

One of my hair vines thickened and became smooth,

along with taking on my magenta colouring. I hovered
it experimentally into the air so Grace could see and
watched carefully for her reaction.

She took in a sharp breath, eyes wide, and glanced

between the vine and me. "You… you want to use that
on me?"
My little nod of affirmation was shy, but hopeful. The
idea was gaining traction in my mind, making other
parts of my body react with eager anticipation.

Grace blinked several times, staring at it with an

almost intense level of consideration. The expression
was somewhat undercut by the rising blush on her
cheeks, though, and it was the blush that won out.
"Yes… that… okay. It's not something I ever thought I'd
be into or have the opportunity to try, but… yes."

I opened my mouth to tell her that she could tell me

to stop at any time, but she captured my lips in an
urgent, messy kiss. I forgot all about my vine for
several moments as I rose to match her. Each hot little
brush of lip and tongue did more damage to my
concentration, until I was wrapping my legs around
one of hers so I could cling to her. I needed as much
contact with her incredible body as possible. I needed
to feel her, to claim her, and to allow myself to be
claimed by her.

My vine, freed from my imperfect conscious control of

its length, became just another limb to me, and it
dove down to my lover’s eagerly parted legs. She was
still wearing underwear, but that was easily pulled
aside with a few thinner vines.

Her heartbeat went triple time as I did so, while her

breathing grew slow and erratic. “Oh god, why is this
so hot?” she asked into our kiss with a nervous,
excited laugh. “I always uh… thought this kind of thing
was sort of gross.”

“Maybe it’s because it’s almost never depicted with

consent in mind,” I murmured, knowing exactly what
she was talking about.
“Probably,” she said, leaning back to give me a warm,
trusting, adoring smile. “But you, though. You Ryn, are
so fucking wonderful. I love you so much. So uh…
please…?”

“Grace,” I whispered, lost for words. That look, oh my

god, that look.

I was so hesitant with my new vine, just carefully

caressing her at the junction of her thighs. I didn’t
want to mess this up and hurt her, but more than
that, I wanted this to be good. I wanted it to feel
amazing.

One thing I had learned very very quickly about sex,

was that you didn’t just shove things straight into a
girl. Arousal and the general build towards climax
were entirely different when your brain ran on
estrogen. It needed a careful build up, almost like you
were stimulating their mind as much as their sensitive
nerve endings.

Another vine tentacle grew down out of my hair and

wrapped around our intertwined legs, connecting us,
gently restraining us. Our kiss broke off when my
hands began to roam, Grace letting out an adorable
little gasp when I tweaked her nipple. Everything I was
doing was slow, soft, and sensual, while my senses
were trained on her, watching to see if she liked what
I was doing.

Fingertips danced over tense muscles, easing the

stress of the day, all while they raised goosebumps
and small noises from her. Then, I opened my
emotions back up to her, letting her feel just how
much I cared for her.

“I love you,” I whispered into her ear. “I love you,

Grace, can you feel it?”
“Y-yes,” she nodded breathlessly, and opened herself
up in turn.

Her arousal hit me like a physical thing, washing out

from my mind and down my spine, setting my skin to
prickling with anticipatory pleasure. Goodness, I was
really doing that to her? I had to throttle the incoming
stream of emotion and sensation before I lost myself,
it was so powerful.

She cuddled closer in against me, pressing her face up

into my neck. There was a smile on her lips as she
haphazardly kissed me there, but she quickly lost
focus on that when I positioned my vine at her
entrance. I held it there, waiting for permission to
enter, seeking confirmation that this was what she
wanted.
Her hand, which had slipped inside my shirt, found my
nipple and pinched it. “Give.”

I squeaked, then laughed, then thrust the vine

tentacle inside her. “I thought you said you weren’t
interested in receiving a strap?”

“This-” her breath hitched as I pulled it out, then

gently dove it further inside. “-is nothing like a-” she
let out a stuttering gasp and gently bit the soft skin of
my neck. “-nothing like a strap.”

The warm heat that had pooled low in my stomach

threatened to ignite then and there. I had apparently
discovered a fetish, because seeing her like that… it
did things for me. She’d placed herself at my mercy,
trusting that I would take good care of her, but she
was still Grace, still as defiant and proud as ever. It
was like petting a wild tiger, knowing full well that it
had the power and will to turn the tables on you in an
instant, and the only thing keeping you from being
mauled was the pleasure you were giving it.

“You still haven’t used it on me, by the way,” I told

her, placing a kiss into her soft hair.

“Used what?” she asked, distracted for obvious

reasons.

Breathing the smell of her hair in, I closed my eyes and

said, “That strap on. You said you had one.”

“Don’t-” she began, before being interrupted by a

quiet moan that bubbled up out of her throat. “-Don’t
know where it is. Please go- go harder… and stop
distracting me.”
“Or what?” I asked, powerless to stop a cheeky grin
from spreading over my face.

The grin vanished as quickly as it had arrived, my

mouth opening into a wide O of surprise. She’d just…
oh fuck, she’d just slipped two of her fingers inside
me. “Oh,” I gasped, the muscles down the inside of my
thighs quivering as she slowly, gently began to work
me towards my own orgasm.

“I asked you to go harder,” she chuckled, licking at my

neck. “Please.”

So I did, all while she used her strong, lithe fingers on

me. It didn’t take long for us to fly off the edge
together, down into the realm of lightning-struck
nerves and wordless, heartfelt cries of passion.

****
Four hours later, and my body was in open revolt.
Spurred on by muscles that sang with my girlfriend’s
touch, I’d mustered the energy for the most intense,
messy, and sexual experience of my life.

Now I was paying the price for that borrowed energy,

as my tired body ached and complained, all while my
thoughts floated in a sea of love and bliss. Grace’s
hand was in my hair, gently teasing out the mess she’d
made of it. It felt so fucking wonderful, especially with
how hyper sensitive my skin was.

“I never expected you to be so… kinky,” Grace

murmured, squeezing me for a brief moment.

I hummed agreement, too tired to show my

amusement externally. I just flashed it briefly through
our empathic link instead. “Me neither. That was fun,
though.”
“It really was,” she said, nuzzling the top of my head.
“Best sex I’ve ever had.”

“Same, although my sample size is limited,” I giggled. I

loved the cuddling part after sex as much as the event
itself. I mean, how could I not love snuggling up to my
absolutely fucking beautiful lover like this?

“It’s good to know I’m improving, though,” she

chuckled. “It also helps that I have such a wonderful
partner in crime. Are you sure you’ve never done
anything like this before?”

I knew she was joking, but I answered her truthfully

anyway. “Nope. My brain was so muddled back then
that I wasn’t even sure if my attraction to girls was
envy or not. Then there was the whole thing with
guys.”
“Wait, what’s this?” she asked, intrigued.

“Ah, it was… confusing,” I shrugged, trying to sort

through old memories. “There was a guy in my junior
year who took a liking to me, just friendship though,
he was straight. He did protect me from a few bullies
who were sniffing out a potential new target, though.
The way he kept me safe was… I thought I was
crushing on him.”

“But you weren’t?” she prompted.

I let out a long sigh and allowed myself to bask in her

warmth for a moment before replying, “I wasn’t. One
of our mutual friends joked one time that I should
have been a girl so I could date him. Once I had pulled
myself back together from that little comment, I had
an epiphany. I wasn’t crushing on him, I just really
liked the feeling of being protected, of being placed in
a traditionally feminine role. Not very feminist of me, I
know, but… it felt good, nevertheless.”

She laughed and patted my head affectionately. “Ryn,

nobody who is even close to a good person will blame
you for getting what little gender feels you could, back
then. So, don’t be silly, it’s a non-issue.”

“Is it though?” I asked, realising that this was actually

something that had been stuck in the back of my mind
like a burr.

"Yes," she said firmly. "You're a woman, and whatever

and however that manifests itself is your business
alone. Wanting to be small, loving, nurturing, and in
need of protection is just as valid as me wanting to
look hot and shoot baddies with magic guns. That's
feminism, in my opinion. The freedom to choose
whatever place in society makes us the most
comfortable."
"Oh," I mumbled, her speech almost too much for my
tired, blissed out brain. "I like that… I hope I
remember it in the morning."

"I'll remind you of it, but tomorrow," she yawned, and

that was apparently the call to go to sleep. A call I
gladly and rather instantly answered.

Chapter 107 :
I sat in the rear of the cafe and watched the barista
work with my mage-sight. The good thing about my
bronze coloured hair was that it wasn’t immediately
apparent that I was a mage, which made it much
easier to blend in.
The awful girl behind the counter had spotted me, but
since I was so far away she couldn’t do anything. I
wasn’t here to get coffee anyway, no matter how
much I wanted it. Interacting with that evil girl wasn’t
worth it. Not even for coffee.

My concentration wavered as I watched Rhea smile,

watched her serve an Avonsider girl with the good
natured laugh I remembered. To think she’d been a
vindictive, awful monster the whole time I’d known
her. Shows how good I was at judging someone’s
character, I guess.

I shook my head to clear it of thoughts from the past

and turned back to the barista. It was the pretty
blonde girl this morning. She was quick and efficient
with her movements, evidently practiced at her craft.
The machine was only part of the process, I was
discovering.
Scratching out some more notes into my notebook, I
sighed and wondered how on earth I’d get this to
work. Maybe it would be better to ask Claih to make a
magitech machine, rather than trying to figure out a
spell-plant to do it for me. Surely, though, it couldn’t
be that hard to make good coffee with magic? Maybe
we could teach the buns how to make it? I should ask
the blonde girl one day… assuming she hadn’t already
bought into Rhea’s lies.

That was the biggest problem, unfortunately. This was

all because Rhea hated Ryn and me. If she wasn’t so
nasty to us, I could have just quietly lined up with
everyone and gotten a coffee no problem. Instead, I
was sitting here like a creepy stalker, using my x-ray
vision to understand how yummy coffee was made. All
so I could avoid talking to Rhea and her brainwashed
friends.

God, it was scary how many people she’d turned. Like

a zombie infecting a healthy population, she was
spreading her transphobic views to as many people as
she could. She and her friends had been talking about
finding their own magic, of throwing Ryn, me, and the
rest of the order out. All so they could be free of,
what… a few girls who at one point looked like boys? I
wonder what she’d think if she knew about Troy?

She probably didn’t even think about it. When we’d

been friends, all she ever talked about was how guys
were too gross to date. Each time had been like a little
knife to my heart, but for some fucking stupid reason
my crush on her hadn’t died. Not until I volunteered
for the scouting expedition.

Turns out she hadn’t been a real friend. A real friend

would have sought me out when I returned,
regardless of what I looked like. A real friend would
have picked up the friendship where we left off.
Instead, she’d given me the cold shoulder. Ignoring
me for a while, before she’d started her little
campaign of hate.
It was odd, though, because I didn’t really mind. I’d
found real friends out in the chaos of the ringworld
beyond the mountains. Hell, even a family, of sorts. A
family… and Mer.

A blush crept up my face at the thought of her, how

we’d spent yesterday evening on the shores of the
larger lake in Ryn’s grove. Nothing overtly romantic
had happened, obviously, but it had been nice
nevertheless. Mer had hit on me a ton when I was Kit,
but she had cooled down somewhat now that I was
Catherine.

I didn’t know what to think about her anymore. When

I was Kit, I’d been reluctant to start anything. After
we’d found Ryn on that trip, self reflection had begun
to eat away at me, even as I failed to understand the
reasons. Seeing her like that, so obviously happy with
her beautiful feminine body, it’d messed with my
head. Mer coming after me with all cylinders firing had
made it so much worse.

Still, she was so good to me, and I was grateful for her
attention. It was her kindness and patience since I’d
come out of the fruit that had steadied me through
everything that had happened since. I only hoped it
wasn’t just me who—

“You’re being a fucking stalker, Kit.” Rhea’s harsh,

hate-filled voice caused me to jump and stare up at
her where she now towered over me.

I pushed my glasses up my nose and tried to figure out

what to say. Was I being a stalker? Oh, she meant
stalking her.

“The only thing I’m stalking is that coffee machine,” I

told her, quietly but with a hint of amusement.
Everyone had always assumed that because I was
quiet, I was a pushover when it came to conflict. Now
that I was a small, unassuming looking nerd of a girl,
that had been amplified tenfold. It appeared that
Rhea had fallen into the same trap.

She gaped at me for a second, only barely concealing a

sneer. “Are you calling me a thing?”

“No, I’m not,” I sighed, wishing she’d just go away.

God, conflict was exhausting.

“I can’t believe you let yourself become corrupted

by… by that witch,” she said, evidently unable to think
of a way to twist my clipped response. “Look at you
now, Kit. A parody of femininity.”

Frowning up at her, I tilted my head in curious

bewilderment. I didn’t really hate my old name. It was
gender neutral enough to not bother me at all. Hell, it
was part of my new nickname, Kitkat. I loved that
nickname so much. I guess she was trying to hurt me
by using it, though?

She opened her mouth to speak again, no doubt

another nasty comment, when a wailing siren began
to go off. It was so loud I flinched. “What was that?” I
asked.

“It’s an attack,” someone nearby answered, a guy who

wore the green and blue armband of the militia. “The
three chirps at the end, they mean an attack. Two for
natural hazards. One is for internal.”

“Shit,” I swore, and leapt to my feet. “Bye, Rhea.”

She didn’t reply, instead spinning on her heel and

rushing off. The look she’d given me was no more
friendly for the new common danger we were in. How
in the hell was she still fixated on me, rather than the
ongoing blare of the siren? That was a lot of hate to
be carrying around.

Whatever. I rushed out of the cafe like the tiny, fearful

child that she thought I was, and headed for the obrec
lodge. They’d know what was happening, I hoped.
Mer might be there too, and I wanted to be beside her
for whatever was coming.

****

The obrec lodge was a hub of frantic activity as they

geared themselves up to fight. Evidently someone had
decided that they were going to side with Avonside in
whatever impending conflict was on the horizon.
I dashed through the cloud of busy people until I
found Otho directing a bunch of rangers to get their
gear ready. I noticed something strange as I came up
to them. They were unpacking crates of intricate
looking crossbows, while their normal bows sat
abandoned in a pile against the wall.

“Otho, what’s happening?” I asked urgently, still

breathing heavily from my run over here.

He glanced over to me and nodded a greeting,

although it was a grim one. “Steel Ones. The outer
perimeter just sent word. We have about half an hour
before they arrive.”

“How many?” I asked, stunned. What the hell were

Steel Ones doing all the way out here? Had Grace’s
hypothesis about technology drawing them in been
correct?
“At least six dozen basic units, called Crawlers, then
fifteen Armourclasts, which I believe you have
encountered before. Finally… There are two
Kingbanes. These are massive, about the size of a
small fortress,” he explained, even as he scooped up a
large canvas sack from a pile and tied it to his belt.
“The last time a force of this size gathered, the Empire
of Anve was toppled.”

I felt all the blood drain from my face. Fifteen of the

things we’d fought all those months ago? How were
we meant to win this? Ryn had improved a ton as a
combat mage, but she was only one girl. As for me? All
my spells were based on utility and stuff. I only had a
few basic combat spells and a shield spell.

“O-okay,” I said, taking a long, calming breath. “Where

do I go? Where is everyone meeting?”
“Out by the gate, I think the idea is to go and meet
them in the valley rather than let them take aim at the
town,” he said, pulling a small orb out of the sack at
his waist to inspect it. It was made of glass and
wrapped in twisting wire. One side had a little
protrusion that I realised was meant to be fitted into
an arrow or bolt.

Pointing to the orb, I asked, “What is that?”

“It’s a fairly simple magitech arrowhead,” he

explained, pulling a bolt from the quiver at his waist.
“You replace the normal head with the orb, and it will
explode when the glass breaks. Metal tipped bolts do
nothing against the Steel Ones, so we use these
instead. They’re expensive, but we keep a supply on
hand during every expedition.”

I nodded, interested in the orb but not enough to

keep me there asking questions. I was so lost in my
anxiety over the coming battle that I forgot to say
goodbye. Instead, I just hummed thoughtfully and
turned away to rush out towards the gate. How were
we meant to fight the incoming death robots when
they were so overwhelmingly powerful? Would I even
live through the day?

Chapter 108 :
I arrived at the gate to find a growing crowd of
Avonside militia and Eleos knights. In the middle of
the knights, Ryn, Grace, Adam, and Troy all stood,
having an intense discussion with a guy in the militia
uniform.

“Hey,” I called as I trotted up to them. “Steel Ones?”

Troy cleared his throat and nodded affirmatively. “Yes,

They’re about two hours away from arriving here. We
plan to meet them out in the valleys, keep them from
destroying anything important.”

“Okay,” I nodded, glancing anxiously from face to face.

“What do I do?”

“Did you ever finish that big shield spell you were
working on?” Ryn asked hopefully. “If you can take
care of shielding our people, it’ll free me up to fight
properly.”

“I did, yes,” I said, relief flowering in my stomach.

Thank god, I didn’t have to teleport around throwing
explosions and shit. That was definitely Ryn’s
wheelhouse, despite how bad she was with conflict.
Since these were just dumb robots, I was actually
rather excited to see her unleash her full potential.
“Awesome!” she grinned, turning to everyone else.
“We have a plan, then?”

“I don’t know why you’re smiling,” Otho called as he

arrived with the obrec rangers. “We’re all about to
die.”

“Very optimistic!” Ryn snorted sarcastically. “I have

faith in everyone here. Plus, all of our combat-ready
knights have prototype magitech rifles equipped with
canisters from the uh… what was it called again?”

She asked the last of Claih, who stood with her finely
crafted rifle on her shoulder. “Faerah Conflagration.
They explode in fire and molten iron shrapnel.”

“Yeah, those things,” the magenta mage smiled, and

with a flourish, she formed a blade of darkened
energy. “Plus… I don’t have any quandaries about
unleashing everything I can possibly throw at mere
robots. I am… excited, honestly.”

“Let’s rein that enthusiasm in just a little,” the older

looking dude in charge of the militia said seriously.
“This is a battle for life and death, not a game.”

“For you, maybe,” Ryn muttered under her breath. I

think I was the only one who heard her, and I found
myself nodding slightly. The way she and I had been
working our butts off for all of these people, and then
the reception some of that help had received… it
made me want to disappear into my grove for a few
months. Let them see how long they lived without us.

Carefully, I stepped over to my mage sister and took

her hand, then leaned in against her arm. Ryn was just
a normal trans girl underneath all the power, same as
me, but she was under so much more pressure.
Everyone looked to her for this and that, for medicine,
for safety, hell, even for mundane shit like coffee.

“It’s time to get moving everyone,” Troy called to the

massed crowd, taking the reins. Everyone seemed to
be looking to him as our leader, even the obrec and
avonsiders. “We’re going to make our way down
through the southwestern valley for fifteen minutes.
Once there, you’ll get your orders regarding the
ambush.”

His little speech done, he turned and began to walk,

confident that the rest of us would follow.

Ryn turned to me as we walked and gave a grateful

smile. “Thanks, Cat.”
“We’ll teach them,” I whispered. “We’ll teach them to
treat us with kindness or to fear us. They get to
choose which.”

“Oh, trust me,” Ryn muttered cynically. “After this, it’ll

be the second one.”

Ten minutes later, when we were almost to the site

that Troy and the militia guy had chosen for the
ambush, both Ryn and I twitched. We shared a glance,
and I saw her eyes cloud with mage sight. Something
ahead of us had used magic.

The valley was like many in these mountains. A fast-

moving river twisted its way across the bottom,
carrying snowmelt from the high peaks to either side
of it. From that river, the ground rose, the picture of
an exponential curve, until the rock and earth could
no longer sustain the ascent against gravity. Hardy
pine trees clung to the river, while the slopes housed
tough scrub that sheltered within any available
depression. Then there was the wind, which scoured
the upper faces clear of anything taller than a foot.

“Troy,” Ryn called, drawing his attention from the

militia dude. “Magic ahead, powerful.”

“Friend or foe?” he asked, striding across the

windswept mountain grasses towards us.

I shook my head and glanced up at Ryn. "We can't tell.

It was a single spell."

"Felt like teleportation, though," she told us, opening

her mouth slightly as if she could taste the scent of it
on the wind. “Short range, obviously. Possibly a
combat blink.”
A tiny drop of cold water hit my cheek, and I glanced
up at the overcast sky. Was it going to rain? That
would definitely make things difficult. Well, for
everyone else anyway. My skin had just absorbed the
droplet.

Troy didn’t waste time with a reaction to the news.

“How far?”

“A kilometer, maybe more, maybe less,” she replied,

and I found myself again amazed by how strong her
magesight was. I hadn’t gotten more than a direction
from the short burst of energy.

“Fuck,” Troy swore, and turned back to the militia

leader. “Less time than we thought. We need to get
everyone up onto the slopes. Now.”
The slopes were littered with rocky debris from the
high basalt mountains, many of which were perfect
for use as cover. That’s where the massed defenders
of avonside hid now, waiting for our mechanical
enemies to arrive. Everyone except Ryn, who stood
down in the center of the valley, her green and silver
robes flying in the wind.

Time to do my job. It was a simple one, really, but

crucial. Closing my eyes, I felt out with the thinnest
tendrils of my power, touching on each and every
boulder that was being used as cover. As I gained
mental contact with them, I cast a spell, imbuing them
with unnatural strength and resistance to heat. It
would keep them from exploding under the assault of
Steel One lasers, and any impacts they took would be
similarly shrugged off.

Ryn saw me working, and when I cracked my eyes

back open, I saw her nod in approval. There was no
way I could have created actual shields of energy, but
this? This I could do. I had to maintain contact though,
and each hit would drain energy from my reserves.
Eventually, the protections would fail. The rest of the
battle was up to everyone else.

I could feel a tremor in the plant life around us now,

they could feel something coming. Brushing a hand
through the coarse grass at my feet, I asked it what it
saw, like Ryn had taught me. I received flashing
images of steel feet crashing down, crushing the
vegetation indiscriminately, trees falling, life-giving
sod flying.

Withdrawing my hand, I glanced down in the direction

of the approaching enemy. Several hundred meters
down the valley was a gentle curve and a dip that
blocked our line of sight even up on the slope. Not
that it mattered.
The kingbanes slowly came into sight, first with the
shine of steel above the trees of the river. Ice filled my
veins as the scale of the colossal robots really dawned
on me for the first time. They had to be at least five
storeys tall. Four legs supported their massive bulk in
a square formation, connected by a small pelvis
section that rose into a squat, bulky torso. The top of
the mech, which I hesitantly labelled as the shoulders,
was a massive slab of pitted steel. It was bevelled to
deflect projectiles and housed a sensor array in its
center.

Two short arms protruded from the sides of the upper

portion, each one ending in an array of terrifying
looking cannons. All over its metal body were even
more weapons, smaller ones that would probably
defend it against any attackers that tried to scale it. It
really was a walking fortress, and there were two of
them.
Not just that, though. All around its feet were several
of the class of robots that we had seen and fought
previously. They looked sort of like miniature versions
of the bigger ones, but rather than flat angles, they
sported curved hulls. I shuddered as I remembered
just what a single one of them had done to a village
full of people and the soldiers sent to protect them.

The smallest ones, which Otho had called crawlers,

were the most surprising, however. They were squat,
quadruped things like their larger cousins, but where
they differed were the obvious heads on their
shoulders. They were flat things, with what I assumed
were eyes on the side of their heads, but it was hard
to tell from this distance.

It raised so many questions, and I almost lost my

concentration as a rush of thoughts came to an
obvious conclusion. Somewhere, in the vast reaches of
space, a race of sentient, probably biological beings
had created the steel ones. They weren’t just an
evolution of some machine intelligence, long gone
rogue from its original creators. No, these things still
bore the hallmarks of their creators.

When humans create robots, a great deal of the time,

they try to make them humanoid. Sure, there are
others, ones that look like tanks or dogs or whatever,
but… these things. I could think of a few much more
optimal designs and shapes right off the bat. Surely a
machine intelligence wouldn’t make something in an
image that had so obviously… evolved. I mean shit,
they looked like crab-centaurs!

My observations would have to wait for later, though.

I had shields to maintain, and I knew right away that
I’d need all of my concentration and strength to
withstand what was about to happen. God, so many
people were going to die.
Chapter 109 :
My hand rose slowly into the air, everything about my
movements carefully controlled for dramatic effect. I
was going to do this with as much style as I possibly
could, because it wasn’t just about saving the
university from the robots. It was about sending a
message to my enemies within Avonside. This was me,
Ryn of Eleos, with the gloves off.

Power began to pour out of me in barely visible lines

of flickering force. It rose into the sky, twisting the air
into knots, contorting it like a trusting lover tied up in
artful shibari. Clouds swirled into being, their depths
lit with a magenta sunset.

The hairs on the arms of everyone with a pulse rose in

reaction to the power I was pouring into the sky. The
clouds did not move according to idle whim, however,
and they began to form into a tall pillar-like construct.
It was a technique I had kept close to my chest, not
even telling Catherine or Esra. With my mind and
magical body so much more in sync than the average
mage, I had discovered new ways to construct a spell.
Much as a large satellite might unfurl after reaching
orbit, this spell was opening like a flower, unpacking
itself high above us.

Technically, it was actually a multitude of spells, but

on their own they were useless. When they
functioned together, though?

Within my grove, my store of storm-gathered magical

energy began to drain. That energy gathered in the
clouds above, a torrent of power that all but blinded
my magical senses. In the corner of my eye, I saw
Kitcat make a vain attempt to shield her eyes from the
maelstrom as it developed.
It was time to thin the herd, to make this a situation
that could end in our favour.

White heat began to build at the apex of the pillar. A

second sun forming in the sky, it condensed and grew
in brightness, until it reached a dizzying apex.

It happened in an instant, a moment of power that

shook me to the core of both bodies. The second sun
broke and cut down in a single, impossibly straight line
of white-hot fire to impale one of the kingbanes. The
metal of its chassis where the beam struck was
instantly vaporised, releasing a massive concussive
blast as it expanded.

Staggering under the unexpectedly powerful blast, I

was just able to get a shield up before shrapnel had
the chance to turn me into so much minced meat.
Secondary explosions did further damage to my ears,
and I clamped my hands over them with a cry of pain.
Something inside the kingbane was going up like a
warehouse full of fireworks.

It collapsed like a dying titan, spraying dirt in all

directions, along with one of the armourclasts that
had been too close underfoot. The moment hung in
the balance, until the second hand ticked onwards and
every one of the robots focused its attention on me.

Oh fuck. Time to start the battle.

A call to the plants of my grove and space warped

around me, placing me out of the path of the barrage
of weapons fire that scoured where I had just stood.
Distantly, I heard Troy shouting orders.

Nearby, a crawler took a hit from one of the obrec

crossbows, the minor explosion causing it to stagger. I
summoned my magenta blades and sent one out to
hack a leg off the thing before I engaged my true next
target, another of the armourclasts. I had a score to
settle, considering the last time I’d encountered one
of these things.

It tried to swivel and train one of its huge cannons on

me, but I summoned a cascade of razor sharp energy
that tore into the limb and knocked it off course. A
stream of dark purple flame smashed into it a moment
later, warping the limb further and rendering it
useless.

Out of nowhere, a blast of bright orange energy

slapped into the armourclast’s sensor cluster,
smashing it into pieces. I whirled to see Grace waving
at me from behind a rock and grinned. My girl had my
back! Yes!

Another shot from her hit the robot square in the

center of its chassis, weakening the armour there, and
I took my chance. A pulse of concentrated magic
unleashed from my outstretched hand burned a hole
through its compromised hull. The blow didn’t finish
it, though, these things were way too tough for that,
but the cloud of swarming razor blades I threw
through the hole did. Advanced alien machinery and
computational systems were sliced and diced like it
had all been thrown into a blender.

Two down, fourteen still to go. God, we had a big day

ahead of us.

I shouldn’t have taken the moment to breathe,

because I was unprepared to stop the screaming hail
of missiles that spewed forth from the remaining
kingbane. Thinking as fast as my poor planty brain
could handle, I flicked blast after blast of my magenta
magic up at the missiles. Several detonated in midair,
while still more were taken out by Catherine. It wasn’t
enough.
The missiles slammed into several of the boulders our
people were using as cover, and although they held
firm, they didn’t protect from the shockwaves of the
explosions. People and body parts were thrown
through the air in grisly clouds of confetti.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I had nothing to take out the big
one with any speed, and in the meantime, more
would get hit. Still, I needed to try.

First, I needed to grab its attention. I did this by

slapping it right in the center of its massive body with
a powerful bolt of lightning. The attack caused it to
freeze and hunker down slightly as it tried to pinpoint
where the strike had come from.

I aimed my next volley of darkened magenta flame at

the missile bay hatches, trying to weld them shut. It
was a desperate ploy, but it looked to have paid off
when there was a grinding, screeching sound from the
massive robot. Then, one by one, they popped open
again.

“Fuck!” I swore, and slammed down an immobile

shield bubble around myself.

The area around me lit with the full fury of the

enraged kingbane as every single missile crashed
down towards me. Dirt and debris flew in all directions
except at me, protected as I was by my rapidly failing
magical barrier. At least it was shooting at me and not
the other defenders.

At first, I was confident I could withstand the assault,

but my blood slowly began to freeze in my veins when
I saw cracks forming in my shield. Oh fudge, this
wasn’t good.
I did the only thing I could, I dropped through reality
and into my grove, collapsing on the grass at the
default entry point outside my tree. My head pulsed,
pain spiking through me as my magical body made its
displeasure known. Holy hell, the speed that my
reserves had been draining was terrifying. No wonder
empires had fallen to those things.

Staying in the grove just long enough for the headache

to fade somewhat and my reserves to top up a little, I
pressed my eyes closed and fought the incoming
mental exhaustion. God, I needed to think. The big
robot had armour that was resisting my heat-based
attacks. What else was there, though? Did I have
anything that would work?

Fuck, I didn’t have time to think of something and

then create a spell for it. I just needed to get back and
re-engage the kingbane before it could turn its guns
back on the defenders.
When I dropped back into normal space, I felt a stray
bullet almost immediately strike my personal shield.
With an urgent flexing of my will, I blinked and
appeared next to Grace where she sheltered behind a
large boulder.

“Grace,” I rasped, leaning heavily on the rock. “I need

a top up.”

Her eyes flicked to me for a moment as she aimed

down the sights of her hand cannon. A blast of brown
and gold energy tore free from the barrel and into a
crawler that had been making its way towards her
position. The machine cartwheeled backwards and hit
another of its kind, creating a little miniature
avalanche.

Eyes still on the battle, she leaned down and kissed

my neck with an open mouth, like she was a vampire
draining me of my blood. It was the reverse, though.
Power flooded into me so fast I felt almost dizzy from
the surge. I had to steady myself against her with a
hand, alarmed by how fast she was pumping magic
into me. Jesus, that was a rush.

“Thanks, babe,” I gasped, once the transfer was

complete.

Her smile was tight, but loving. “No problem. Go take

care of the big bastard before he kills us all.”

I nodded, but didn’t immediately teleport. Instead, I

just sort of gazed at my girlfriend, letting pride and
love fill my heart. It was Grace. She was the reason I
was fighting so hard, in the end. I couldn’t really line
the logic up, but I just knew that it was true. I guess I
just wanted to build a life together with her, and part
of that was to keep Avonside and the culture of our
homeworld alive here on the ring. After all, how could
we giggle and roll around in bed looking at memes if
there weren’t people around to make the memes?

Recharged, I dove back into the fight, this time

summoning six full swords of my magical energy to
fight with. I didn’t use my hands to hold them,
however. No, I used a combination of gestures and my
mind to send them spinning and dancing around me.
They weren’t full lightsabers or anything, but they
were sharper than any mundane material. I used them
to hack at the swarm of metal bodies like an old
explorer forging a path through the jungle. A dancey
one, though, with pretty translucent magenta
machetes that floated around all gracefully and shit.
Almost as graceful as I was grace-full.

I couldn’t get distracted by all that, though. I needed

to get up onto the kingbane where I could start cutting
into its hull. Those missile launchers needed to go,
like… shit.
The missile nacelles were opening again, and I had
about two seconds to do something. I acted,
teleporting up right to the missiles as they launched,
and swept my blades through them. Light flashed, the
volatile armaments detonating in a series of frenzied
explosions.

My shield shattered, and I was thrown violently away.

Smoke filled my lungs, pain wracked my body, and my
ears rang like an entire forest of trees were screaming.
I spun through the air, dizzy and in pain while my
stomach told me that I was approaching the ground,
fast. This was going to hurt.

Suddenly, soft, strong arms grasped me, one under my

legs, the other under my back. H-huh?

A smooth, teasing, and oh so warm voice spoke as we

landed gently on the valley floor. “My, my, we’re
making a habit of this, aren’t we?”
My gaze snapped up to meet that of my savior, and I
found myself staring into a pair of gorgeous, huge,
golden eyes. Short, shining golden hair whipped in the
wind, framing an angular face that was lit with a wide,
twinkling smile.

“Hello, Rynadria,” Eilian chuckled, her tongue peeking

out to wet her bottom lip. “You are as beautiful as I
remember.”

Chapter 110 :
Eilian set me down gently, her hand shifting to my
waist to steady me. “You took quite the hit there. Are
you hurt?”
“Yes,” I croaked, and shifted my form slightly towards
my hafornsu. With my plant body taking the fore, my
human one could begin to mend.

She saw my body grow green and nodded. “Better

reform your shield. We have a great many more steel
ones to kill before the day is out.”

“Destroy,” I muttered, wincing as a field of protective

energy flickered back into place around me.

“Hmm?” she asked, tilting her golden-horned head in

question.

“Destroy, not kill,” I told her absently, glancing

around. She’d teleported us to the top of a ridgeline
nearby. “They aren’t alive. Complex machines, nothing
more.”
“I see,” she chuckled, and she… she ruffled my hair.

I frowned up at her. Why did she have to be taller

than me too? Her smirk was… so much.

“Please don’t do that,” I grumbled. “It’s distracting.”

Her cocky grin grew wider. “I’m sure it is.”

I watched her as her eyes danced with mirth. God, she

was gorgeous. Like all mages, I guess, but she was
especially gorgeous from my perspective as one who
did not ascribe to the neutering mantra of toxic
masculinity. Her strength was an aura around her, in
the way she carried herself, in the way she wore her
suit, and in the way she now drew her sword.
It crackled to life with the signature golden energy of
her magic, and she arched one perfect eyebrow at me.
“Are you ready? I figure we can discuss my arrival and
all it entails after this is done, yes?”

“Agreed,” I nodded, but reached up to grasp her hand

below the hilt of her sword. “But give me a moment.”

She looked askance at me, but held her position,

waiting for an explanation.

“The missiles, did my strike destroy the nacelles?” I

asked, already using my eyes to find the answer. “One
of them, okay. We need to get those things out of
commission before they can kill more of our people.
Can your sword cut them off?”

“I don’t know what any of those words are,” she

chuckled, gesturing forward with her sword. “I assume
you mean the big explosive arrows that killed a lot of
your people already?”

I nodded. “Yes, those.”

“Okay, I’ll get it done,” she said. “Can you take care of
as many armourclasts as you can while I do so? Then
we’ll coordinate to destroy the kingbane.”

“Good plan,” I said, and summoned my blades back,

allowing them to fan out lazily behind me.

“I like those,” she said, reaching out to tap one with

her sword. It produced a cascade of sparks and a
harsh tearing sound.

I snorted and threw her a look, one which was

returned with a thoughtful consideration. She was
probably trying to reconcile the differences between
the Ryn she had met almost a year ago, and the mage
who stood beside her now. I’d changed a lot.

“See you down there,” I grinned, and blinked back into

the battle.

My blades swept up over my shoulder and down to

strike at the vulnerable joint of an armourclast. One
after another, they crashed into it, until it was
sundered from the main body in a spray of sparks and
screaming metal.

With the metallic monster listing drunkenly to the

side, I brought one of my blades back around and
slammed it into the stump of the severed limb. Rather
than pull it out, I allowed it to dissipate and then
crashed more of my blades into the weak point. It was
surprisingly effective, using my blades to repeatedly
hammer at the same place over and over. Eventually,
one of them broke through and smashed something
important. The armourclast went limp.

Looking up, I saw one of the missile pods tumbling

free from its home, trailing molten metal in its wake. I
really needed to ask Eilian how she was doing the
whole lightsaber thing. If I could incorporate it into my
blades…

A flash of emotional urgency struck me low in the

belly, but it wasn’t the fun kind, and it also didn’t feel
like mine. I acted on instinct, teleporting blindly out of
harm’s way just as a beam of charged particles lanced
through the place I’d been standing.

Another shot rang out, loud and angry, then another

and another. These were black as night, and they
slapped into the offending armourclast in rapid
succession. Grace had just unloaded on the metal
beast with a magical energy I didn’t recognise.
The metal armour of the enemy began to rapidly
oxidize and decay, until the arm cannon that had shot
me was hanging useless at its side. Unfortunately, it
didn’t go on to consume the rest of the bot, but I was
there a moment later with my blades, jackhammering
them into a weak point.

I made eye contact with my girlfriend as the huge

machine collapsed to the ground. Her alarm for my
safety had jumped across the intervening gap,
regardless of the lack of physical contact. It spoke to
just how much she cared for me. Gosh, I was lucky.

“Ryn!” Eilian’s call brought my thoughts back into the

fight, and I looked up to see her standing atop the
kingbane. “Time to fell the beast!”

Rather than yell out to her, I just teleported up beside

her. “How do we kill it?”
“I have no idea,” she laughed, and stabbed downward
into the armour of the big mech. “I figured we’d just
start hacking away at it until it stopped moving.”

“I guess that works, but my swords don’t cut as well as

yours does,” I said skeptically.

“How about I cut you a hole and you can start slicing
up all those soft innards?” she asked, and jammed her
sword into the shell. From there, she cut a hole in the
armour big enough to fit through, and offered it with a
pointed glance.

Eyeing the hole dubiously, I said, “I’d rather not

actually go in there.”

That didn’t stop me from summoning a small blob of

magenta energy and dropping it in. She watched
curiously as it rattled around inside the machine’s
innards. Then, it detonated, creating a blast of energy
that warped and twisted everything it touched. One of
the legs of the great machine twitched and curled
inward like that of a dying spider. Okay… so what if
more grenades?

Before I could drop another one or five down there,

one of its huge gun-encrusted arms shifted to aim at
us. Eilian wasn’t having any of that, though, and she
slashed her sword with impossible speed, sending out
a wave of crackling energy. It gouged a deep rent in
the arm’s wrist, causing it to list slightly off to the side
as the kingbane disgorged its weapons. The
mountainside behind us took a beating.

You know what, fuck the grenades. “Eilian, better get

off this thing.”
I didn’t wait for her confirmation, instead launching
myself up into the air with an impulse spell. She
teleported out of the way just as I reached down with
an infinite swarm of telekinetic tentacles. It felt fitting
to do it like this, considering how my first fight with a
steel one had gone.

As I gripped the internal workings of the massive

robotic mech, I allowed myself to feel the deaths of all
those scattered across the battlefield below me. My
empathy for those lost to gunfire and explosions
contracted around my heart. So many thinking,
feeling, loving humans, and they were all gone. The
empathy turned to rage, and I shoved all that emotion
into the furnace of my magic.

With a scream of exertion, I tore the internal

mechanisms of the kingbane apart with my mind. The
world filled with the sound of tortured metal, so much
so that many of the remaining steel ones turned to
watch. I hoped they understood on some level what
was happening. I hoped they understood the
hopelessness of their battle. That they were soon to
meet the same fate.

All the pieces of the kingbane gathered around me like

debris orbiting a celestial body as I hung almost sixty
feet in the air. For some reason, my tentacles were
visible as dark magenta light, shifting and moving as
they emanated from my head. I was holding myself up
in the air with them too, several reaching all the way
to the ground to act as legs.

I began to throw chunks of the kingbane at the smaller

steel ones, crushing a great many crawlers under
heavy heat sinks and other random chunks of
advanced computing. It was chaos, with dirt, stone,
and steel all crashing about. Below me, the useless
husk of the kingbane collapsed with a deafening crash.
Blowing out a puff of exhausted breath, I blinked
down to the ground beside my girlfriend and slumped
against the rock she was using as cover. “The rest are
yours, my love.”

“Damn, Ryn,” she laughed nervously. “Tell me how

you really feel…”

“Tired,” I grumbled. “Tired, and sick of being shot with

missiles.”

Her smile lost the awe and gained a large dollop of

love. “Okay, babe. We can handle what’s left.”

Sliding down to sit with my back against the rock, I

gave her a grateful look and watched as she went back
to shooting. She was amazing to watch, her elegant
hands working the various components of her weapon
like they were a musical instrument, as well as one of
destruction.

Of course, then my eyes slipped up her arm, because I

was mentally exhausted and unable to control where
my gaze traveled. Yes, I was on a battlefield, and yes,
there were dead people all over the place, but also…
Grace was hot. I mean, who could blame my
wandering stare? She was such a perfect combination
of feminine beauty and physical strength.

I closed my eyes finally when I’d let them drink their

fill of her. God, what a fucking mess. If we’d had more
time we might have realised that we needed to target
those missile pods first. Instead, we’d been forced to
rush in blind as a force of advanced robots barrelled
towards the town.

Was Avonside a town now? I was still thinking of it

internally as a university, but that didn’t really seem
right anymore. Maybe we should be considering it a
town now, or even a country. How crazy was that?

A sudden silence snapped me out of my daze, and I

stumbled to my feet to peer over the rock. “Is it
over?”

“Yeah…” Grace said with a long, relieved sigh. “Yeah.

We won.”

I couldn’t bring myself to feel good about it, though. It

was hard to think of this as anything other than a bad
thing that could have been so much worse. Instead of
everyone dying, only a moderate number of people
had been killed. This had meant to be our damned
weekend. Fucking robot bastards.

Ah, but now I had to go and ask what the hell Eilian
was doing here. No rest for the wicked, I guess.
Chapter 111 :
Wearily, I threw myself back up into the air and sailed
over the robot carnage of the battlefield. Here and
there, damaged bots still tried their evil best to do
bodily harm to my people. Grace and Claih were
already moving out between the scrap, putting
magical bullets through processing cores.

Eilian was standing atop the corpse of the huge

kingbane, her sword still drawn and ready. Her eyes
were scanning the forest back the way the robots had
come. Her stance was still guarded. What did she
know?

“Hey,” I greeted her, firing a quick impulse below me

to slow my fall.
She gave me a quick smile, but her attention quickly
returned to our surroundings. “Hey there red. I’d
spend some time trying to get into your pants but we
aren’t safe yet. Your mother is out there stalling the
mages. She’ll be here soon.”

Alarmed, I sent out tendrils of power and touched

down to the grass at the valley floor. There was
definitely someone coming, but the plants were
confused about who and what. “What? Mages? And
my mother?”

“The robots aren’t here by coincidence Ryn, they’re

here because that absolute bastard Fennimore lured
them here,” she said, long canines flashing as she
sneered at the horizon. “They planned to hit you while
you were recuperating from fighting the steel ones.
Esra and I arrived to ruin their plans.”
“Mom’s here?” I asked excitedly, forgetting the part
about Fennimore for a second.

“Leading Fennimore here where it’s an even fight,

yeah,” Eilian said.

My stomach froze over, hardening into a single solid

block of ice. “Here? What about my people?”

The obrec mage stilled in her observations of the scree

covered slopes, slowly turning to look at the massed
Avonside militia. “Oh, cock,” she muttered, then with
a sudden burst of urgency, looked at me. “Get them
moving, now. We need them as far away as possible
when the enemy gets here. They’ll be nothing but
fodder.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. With a burst of

adrenaline, I took hold of spacetime with a spell and
my mental fist, and crushed it. The world folded like
I’d just swapped my eyes for 360 degree cameras,
then snapped back to normal with a crack.

Troy and the Militia general dude both choked and

shouted at my sudden and violent arrival, almost
knocking over the field table they were using to look
at their maps. Around them, officers and various other
people all swore and scattered away from the sound
of my arrival.

“Troy,” I said with a no-nonsense, almost icy tone.

“Get everyone to fall back. Now. We have enemy
mages incoming.”

“Why would we fall back?” the militia general asked,

frowning slightly. His tone was more confused than
confrontational though, so I didn’t bite back.
“Because Eilian, Grace, and I can handle them,” I
explained quickly, wishing they’d just get moving. Ugh,
but if I were them, I wouldn’t just rush off blindly.
People generally like to know why they are required
to do something. Human nature and all that. With a
sigh, I relaxed my stance and gave both him and Troy a
look. “You will all just be collateral damage.
Fennimore and his cohort are the ones who lured the
robots here, and they plan to slaughter everyone who
isn’t scientifically useful so they can control the tech
here. You need to get everyone away from the
battlefield before we no longer have a militia. Please?”

The militia guy seemed skeptical, but Troy gave a

sharp nod and turned to the officers. “Sound the
retreat, right now. We need to be out of sight.”

With Troy ready to do what I needed, I teleported to

Grace and gently took hold of her forearm, stopping
her as she moved towards the next fatally damaged
steel one. “Grace, can you and Claih go and hide
somewhere with good sightlines of this area?
Fennimore and a bunch of his cronies are coming. I
think we’ll need you both sniping and moving to help
us win this.”

“Yeah, on it,” she said, giving my hand a quick squeeze

of affection. Then she was calling out to Claih, relaying
my request.

Finally, I teleported back to Eilian. “They’re getting

ready. Grace and Claih, the obrec with the magic guns,
are going to hide themselves up high so they can
attempt to snipe a mage or two.”

“Good idea,” she said, throwing me a smile. “You have

a beautiful mind to go with that pretty face.”

Back when we’d first met Eilian, I’d felt shy and
uncomfortable about her attention. Now though, it
was easy to laugh and roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. How
many mages did they bring?”

“Five, I believe. Fennimore, his new apprentice, and

three of his more independent and experienced
mages,” she told me, eyes sparkling with mirth despite
being on alert for the enemy. “Everyone that he can
trust not to betray him, kill him, and steal all the
secrets of your home for themselves.”

“Ah,” I grinned, flexing my fingers in preparation. “An

awful person’s plan ruined by a lack of trust in his
people. Classic.”

Eilian nodded once and seemed to lean forward,

staring into the distance. “Yes, and I believe that our
cue is coming shortly.”
Along one ridge, a bright star began to flicker along,
blinking into existence in one place, then vanishing to
appear closer to us.

I took a deep breath. “Is that—”

“Esra?” Eilian murmured, gripping her sword tighter.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to go now. They’re close enough,” I said

decisively, already scooping up power into my splayed
fingers like my magic was some sort of viscous liquid.

“Your valley, your people, your mother,” she

shrugged. “I’ll make sure Fennimore’s people don’t
hurt yours.”
I shook my head as energy began to flood into it. “My
sister is back there. She has more than enough skill
with defensive spells to keep them safe.”

My plant form came to the fore while I worked on

casting my spell. Dimly I heard her grunt and turn to
look back, but I was already caught up in the
momentous effort of pulling this much power from my
grove. More stars had joined the first on the ridge,
flinging spells that melted stone and burned foliage in
passing.

Esra was firing back even as her brightly glowing

shields took hit after hit. She was even stronger than
when she’d first become my magemother. Living out
in the wild reaches of the nameless garden had
increased her power.

God, I was tired. My grove didn’t have a whole lot left

to give, at least, it didn’t have much of the storm stuff
to give me anymore. I guess I’d be fighting with just
my usual. Which meant…

I clenched my fist into a ball and pulled the finished

spell into my now fully manifested plant body. I
gasped and swayed on my feet. Oh, mercy… that felt
good. It was a simple enhancement spell, but I needed
it. Because like, I figured that spells were going to be
flying hot and heavy soon, so it was probably a good
idea to just dodge most of them. Faster reflexes and
muscles would do the job where shields might falter.

Now to make a dramatic entrance.

I grinned, glanced down at my singed and battered

silver outfit, then summoned my floating energy
blades into a flower pattern behind me. Then, I
jumped off the massive Kingbane.
Space warped, then reformed with a thump,
depositing me right in front of one of the brightly
glowing mages that were battling along the ridge. She
was an older woman, or at least she looked it. Her
silver-red hair was up in a tight bun on the back of her
head, and she wore a ball gown altered for more
strenuous activities than a waltz.

My blades moved with terrifying speed, coming

around to my front to form a sort of umbrella. I came
out of my teleport with a substantial amount of speed
from my jump and that all came crashing against the
woman’s magical shielding. Sparks exploded out in all
directions as the opposing energies clashed.

With a shove of her hand, she sent out a wave of force

that disengaged her from my blades. My feet touched
down against warm stone, and I stepped forward,
throwing blade after blade at her in a vicious series of
attacks that gave her no room to make her own.
I was high off the triumph of destroying the steel ones,
and I’d be damned if some random backwards-ass
noble would take that away from me.

A flick of my wrist sent three blades around behind,

pinning her between the points. Her red eyes went
wide with fear when I began to squeeze. Working with
frenzied hand movements, she cast something, then
raised her eyes to the sky beseechingly.

I threw myself to the side on pure instinct. Lightning

smashed down, smelling of ozone and molten rock,
and I was forced to pull my blades back in order to
land on them. Flat side up, of course.

They acted like a set of stairs, shifting in coordinated,

scintillating patterns to keep me aloft. My foe didn’t
wait for me to touch down again, with me on the back
foot. Thump, thump, thump. She threw three fireballs
at me in rapid succession, each of which I blocked with
a blade of energy. Goddess, how uninspiring was that?
Boring old fireballs. She needed to apply a little
imagination to her spells.

Something like, say, this.

It was another one of those spells that would only

work once, and it probably would have been better to
use it directly on Fennimore. Still, I had no idea if it
would work, so… may as well test it, right?

It was such a simple spell. Basically a glorified pump. A

pump that formed a thin separating membrane of
near invisible energy around the target, then began to
suck all the oxygen out of the bubble.

The mage woman saw the spell form around her and
threw her energy into reinforcing her shields,
expecting some sort of attack. When nothing
happened, she frowned in wary suspicion and threw
another fireball out, aimed at me and the bubble
alike. It passed harmlessly through.

She blinked, and then seeming to put the bubble out

of her mind, unleashed a torrent of fire, ice, and
lightning. I dodged what I could, then blocked what I
could not with my blades. I pretended to tire, getting
sluggish in my movements, and even let a fireball
through my blades to splash over a reactive shield.

Seeing the fireball make contact with my passive

defenses, she began to throw even more, and my
goodness it was hard to hold back my feral grin. I had
an idea. I let her think I had some sort of weakness,
blocking the ice spikes and lightning strikes with
seeming ease, but not the fireballs.

Another mage teleported into our duel like a rude slap

to the face, and I jumped backwards to avoid a lance
of sunlight that tore through the air with deadly
purpose.

“Long time no see,” James said venomously. “I figured

you’d be stronger than Maud. Guess we were all
worried for nothing, huh?”

His words were followed by another lance, that I

deflected with a well-placed blade of magenta energy.
“You should have just left us alone,” I replied, with a
cold, seething rage. “It would have been the smart
thing to do. Instead, you’re about to see just how
much I’ve changed…”

Chapter 112 :
James opened his mouth to hit back, but Maud, his
ally, began to pant like an overheated dog. He gave
her a confused look, and I used that lapse of
concentration to smash a blast of magical energy into
his shields.
I expected him to take the hit, brush it off with maybe
a bit of effort, and then hit back. I didn’t expect him to
stumble and for his shield to falter ever so slightly.
Almost experimentally, I hit him with another one of
those attacks. He staggered, eyes going wide with
surprise and… fear?

Maud was still gasping for air, and she lashed out with
a flurry of arcane bolts that were only barely aimed in
my direction. I just threw up my normal shields with a
dismissive flick of my fingers, then turned my
attention back to James, who was glancing around at
the battle looking for help.

Eilian was off fighting some huge dude who was

swinging a big war axe around, and distantly, I could
see Esra hammering away at Fennimore with a deadly
barrage of spells. That left one of their number
missing, I think?
Well, my shields were up so I guess that was all I could
do about the missing mage. I had two in my grip, after
all. Which, speaking of grip…

Vines of power twisted up my arm as I cast a spell that

I’d previously been using to help drive large
foundation posts into the ground. Lines of magic
twisted up into a cylindrical shape above James’ head,
and I ripped my hand down right when a huge chunk
of metal appeared above him.

Swearing, he teleported away, and my massive weight

smashed into the ground, powdering stone. As if only
just realising that it was an option, Maud followed
suit, warping away with a sucking sound.

Both reappeared about thirty yards back down the

ridgeline, and so before my several ton weight of steel
disappeared, I lifted it up with a casual flexing of my
will and threw it at them. James was fast enough to
leap out of the way, but Maud, who still had my
suffocation spell attached to her shields, wasn’t so
lucky. The wrecking ball ploughed into her shields and
then through them like they were made of paper.

Blood sprayed in all directions, and I wasn’t sure if I

should have been worried about my complete apathy
on the subject. I was just so angry. These absolute
monsters had lured a robot army into my people,
getting many of them killed in the process. I had no
sympathy.

The weight tore a massive gouge in the ridgetop, then

dissipated as the spell died. To my surprise, she was
still alive. Most of her bones had to be powder, but
still breath wheezed and bubbled in and out of her
half collapsed lungs.
Terrified, James scrambled backwards, trying to put
more distance between us as I stepped forward to
close the distance at an unhurried walk. More lances
of light flew from his hands, but I flicked them out of
the way with a dismissive wave of elegant fingers. He
didn’t have the power to lock me out of using
telekinesis on his spells. I didn’t even need to use any
of my spells.

“You are weaker than I expected,” I laughed, perhaps

a little manically.

He threw a rock at me with his own telekinesis and

shouted, “Fuck you! Crazy fucking bitch!”

The rock paused at the apex of its flight, and I caught

it with a raised palm. I kept walking towards him,
sending the stone back where it had came from at
triple the speed. Like a toddler trying to balance
during its first few steps, he barely dodged it, and it
went on to rip a chunk out of the mountain. Scree
sprayed out into the valley below.

A gurgle came from down near my feet, and I pulled

my attention off James to see Maud coming back to
consciousness.

“Do you feel remorse for what you’ve done?” I asked

her idly, keeping some of my attention on the boy
who was still throwing stones at me. “For killing my
people. For killing all those before, in Fennimore’s
wars?”

“R—” she began, coughing up blood in the process. It

sounded almost like a chuckle, and then I realised with
surprise that it had been one. “Remorse is— is for the
weak. The artless— filthy—”
Calling my blades back to me, I looked up to meet
James’ eyes once more and cut Maud’s head from her
body with a single vicious cut. Fear radiated from his
expression when he finally, finally realised that I was
no longer the sweet, conflict averse girl he had met all
those months ago. He ran. The flickering flashes of
light from his teleportation spell rippling down the
ridgeline.

I smiled in exhausted, slightly nauseous victory, then

turned my attention back to the rest of the battle.
Where was that last mage?

My question was answered when I saw a second flash

of light down where James had run to. They stopped
and seemed to converse for several long moments.
During that time, another flicker of light caught my
attention.
Down the slope a little ways, behind a rock, Grace was
using a mirror to signal me. Tilting my head, I tried to
get a read on what she was saying. Then I saw her rest
her long pistol on the rock and take aim. Aha!

Time to try and help Ezra and lure the two runners
back.

My mage mother seemed to be an equal match for

Fennimore, something that probably irked him to no
end. I watched their teleporting back-and-forth for a
second or two, then pulled and twisted space-time
with my own teleport spell.

I came out behind Fennimore and immediately put a

suffocation bubble around him, then followed up with
a bolt of magenta lightning. He disappeared in a flash,
teleporting several metres away so he could get both
me and Ezra in his line of sight.
“Ah, the beautiful and deadly flower makes herself
known,” he said with a syrupy sweet smile. “My
goodness, how I have ached to view your face again.”

“That is so creepy,” I said, wrinkling my nose like he’d

just shat his pants. To Ezra, I asked, “Why in the hell
did you accept him as an apprentice again? You should
have just killed him.”

Gresham Fennimore just laughed. “Such venom! I

hope you keep that spirit when I—”

I didn’t allow him to finish. I rammed all of my magical

blades into his shield one after another. Through the
exertion of the spell, I growled, “When you, nothing.
The moment I’m done here, I’m rigging my brain to
explode if anyone successfully messes with it.”
“Oh,” he blinked, looking genuinely taken aback. “Oh,
no, my dear! I would never stoop so low as to create
mental manipulation spells. No, that’s the realm of
our mutual master. I was merely hoping to gain your
affections the old fashioned way.”

His words pulled me up short. Emotions rampaged

through me, and I glanced at Ezra. What was he
talking about? Would she really…?

“Oh, for the love of the Garden,” Ezra groaned, rolling

her eyes and summoning a spell that blasted a laser of
superheated sap at the man. “A crowd soothing spell
is perfectly normal. Especially when it's your own
apprentice attempting to rile them up!”

“That was my moment, and you stole it from me!” he

shouted, his calm and collected demeanour vanishing
as his face flushed with rage.
Oh. A crowd soothing spell. That was… probably okay.
I’d still be talking to her later, though, because that
shit was terrifying. I knew that magic couldn’t be used
to directly mess with people’s heads, or even their
bodies, but just like I used my magic to slice and heal
at the same time, there was probably a way… I shook
my head. No, I refused to even touch that realm of
thinking.

Ezra’s spell was deflected with some sort of lensing

shield from Fennimore, and he followed up with a
blast of raw magical force that threw her backwards.
Even before his spell was finished pushing her, she
had herself under control, and was back to blasting
with the sap. Both glared daggers at the other, their
combined magicks meeting in the middle, causing a
maelstrom of burning carnage.

Fennimore began to lose their little shoving match

right out of the gate, and he frowned. Then his eyes lit
with sudden understanding, and he threw me a look
that was almost… admiring? Holding up under Ezra’s
onslaught, he slowly shifted his form into plant mode,
and I groaned out loud. Damn it. His smarmy, proud
grin of triumph made me want to mash his face into a
blender.

The intense moment was shattered when James and

another man teleported in and unleashed a collection
of their own spells. The unknown mage went for Ezra,
trying to tip the balance, while James slammed me
with yet more bolts of radiant fire.

“Talk about a one trick pony,” I laughed, not even

bothering to raise a hand in my defence. It just
bounced off my reactive shielding anyway.

His prince charming face went as red as his mage-

father’s, and he threw two more at me. Both were
deflected as the first was, and I raised a hand to ruin
him, when I saw movement in my peripheral vision.
Grace was lining up her shot. Unfortunately, my
hesitation told him something was up, and he turned,
looking down in the direction my gaze had travelled.

With a cry of alarm, he threw himself down, just as

Grace fired.

A sound like tinnitus, the screams of the damned, and

nails on a chalkboard all mixed together assaulted my
ears, and a bolt of red and black energy leapt up the
slope. It just barely missed James and carried on past
him, right into the unnamed mage he’d arrived with.

The projectile of red nightmare splashed across the

man’s shields like hot acid, and then began to eat
away at it. A few splashes peppered through to hit
him, and he dropped like a stone, convulsing amongst
the dense scrub and slate of the ridgeline. A high
pitched whine of terror and pain emanated from him,
like it was being torn out of his throat with embalming
instruments.

Everyone went still, watching in horror as the man

seemed to shrivel with age in real time. Except, it was
worse than that. His bones began to shatter inside him
like exploding popcorn kernels, without the force to
break all the way through his muscle and flesh to the
skin at the edge. Finally, some sort of dark red sludge
began to seep out of every orifice. An odd, and frankly
disturbing part of my brain thought a tech-bro CEO
would probably pay good money to drink that stuff.
He’d say it was an anti-aging smoothie. The foul offal
smell just added to the potency.

“By the Ring,” Fennimore swore, staring at the

shrivelled and juiced flesh-raisin with a look of abject
horror.
“There’s more where that came from,” I told him,
calling on my magic and turning it as red as the magic
that he’d just witnessed. Hopefully he wouldn’t be
able to tell the difference in the moment. “I suggest
you leave.”

“Oh, he isn’t leaving,” Ezra hissed, sounding way too

much like a cat for me not to tease her about it later.
“Hit him with it next. I want to see if the magic can
find enough colour within him to make anything other
than black.”

The ruling man of the largest and most well armed

mage coven in this whole slice of the ring just stared
at us in horror. “You… you’re monsters. You’re vile.
This is… this is too far, even for you, Ezra.”

“Not monsters,” I shook my head, and pulled my hand

back like I was going to strike. “Just really motivated to
stay alive and free. Now fuck off.”
Grace fired again, aiming right for Fennimore this
time. To my surprise, and probably to the surprise of
him and his master, James jumped forward and
wrapped his arms around the older man. For a second,
I hoped he was sacrificing himself for Fennimore, but
then they both disappeared with a thump-crack of
displaced air.

A very quiet croak pulled my attention down to the

ground, and I almost vomited when I realised the
unnamed mage was still alive.

Chapter 113 :
“We agreed that you wouldn’t use the Red
Nightmare!” Claih yelled with anger as she stomped
up the slope towards us.
Grace, Eilian, Ezra, and I were all standing around the
writhing body of the unnamed mage, staring at it. Ezra
looked concerned, but not really put off by the whole
thing. Eilian looked like she might throw up, and her
gaze kept darting away from the living corpse.

For someone who looked like a total badass in her

tight fitting black and gold trim leather armour, Eilian
sure wasn’t looking too calm and in control right then.
Even her shimmering golden hair was under control,
all gently and artfully braided to keep it out of her face
while she fought.

It was a stark contrast to Esra’s brown, mudstained

robes and messy silver hair which floated freely in the
wind. She didn’t seem to notice when it got in her
eyes or tickled her nose.

“We did,” I said, meeting Grace’s eyes. “This is…

horrific, Grace.”
“I know…” she winced, looking back down at the body.

“Why are you just standing there,” Claih demanded,

coming to a stop beside my girlfriend. “Put him out of
his misery, please.”

As though startled from a trance, Grace twitched and

froze. “H-how?”

“Faerah Conflagration would be best,” the obrec

woman said, nudging him with a hoof. “If you want to
kill a mage from the garden, it’s best to use magic
from the realm of fire and steel.”

“An excellent idea,” Ezra commented. “It appears that

the Red Nightmare tried to take him, but only
consumed his human body, while his hafornsu is still
intact. I would further posit that the hafornsu is dying
slowly as it attempts in vain to heal the human body. It
must be exceedingly painful.”

Haltingly, Grace drew her knife from her boot and

knelt to look at the poor guy. The blade lit with sizzling
flame, and she stared at it for a moment in grim
contemplation. I had to admit, having her finish him
off in such an intimate and visceral way would
probably teach her a little restraint when it came to
those cursed bullets. Still, it was difficult to see the
one I loved have to do something hard. She came to a
decision on where to put her knife, and with a sharp
punch in and out of his withered skull, killed him.

Red gunk covered her hands, and I ushered her

towards me when she stood up. “Let me get the mess
for you, babe,” I murmured.

When she neared me, I carefully aimed a force spell at

them. I made sure to release the magic from my
mental hold as soon as the spell was cast. I saw what
happened when that shit touched the shield of that
guy. It was not pretty.

Like I was using a spray can or something, I pushed all

the gunk off her hands, until they were visually clean.
Then, I gave them a quick scorching blast of fire to
burn off the stuff I couldn’t see.

“Should be clean,” I said, and gingerly touched her

hands. Nothing happened, not even an infinitesimal
tingling, so I decided we were fine and pulled her in
for a long hug.

“So… that was what I thought it was then?” Eilian

asked after a long silence. “Grace is some sort of… red
mage?”
Partially letting go of my girlfriend, I looked over at the
golden obrec and shook my head. “Nah, she somehow
has every type of magic within her, and can access it
with some rudimentary ability to shape it. We came
up with the guns so she could imbue whatever energy
type she wanted into the cartridges.”

“Alright,” Eilian said, processing what I’d told her.

“Scary, but okay.”

“Speaking of scary…” I said, looking pointedly at Esra.

“Can you please tell me what Fennimore meant
about… you know…?”

My mage mother frowned at my question and folded

her arms defensively. “Oh, so we’re just going to go an
believe the words of a power hungry mass murderer,
torturer, and misogynist now are we?”
“I’m serious, Esra,” I said. “I will personally hunt down
and kill anyone who annihilates the inner will of
others.”

Her eyebrows rose when I finished speaking, and she

tilted her head at me like she was considering my face
from a new angle she hadn’t seen before. “I see. Well,
I have used a few spells in the past that utilise…
certain herbs. Aerosolized haash plant for example. It
wasn’t without some consequence, a sweet cabbage
stew merchant had his stand raided by the mob and
many wound up asleep in the street, but it saved the
rioters from a ‘heroic’ and bloody intervention by my
former student. Even so, I’m sure the ethics of such a
method are still very grey, but so is shooting someone
with nightmare torture bullets, or suffocating
someone with magic.”

“Haash? Oh… Weed. Fair,” I sighed, deflating slightly

with relief. Getting everyone high to calm them down
was fine I guess. “So, can we go tell the others that
things are safe, for now? I’m incredibly tired, and I
think Troy will want to do a full debrief and all that.”

“I imagine so,” Esra said, her expression softening just

slightly.

That was about the point that it really sank in that

Esra had finally arrived in Avonside. I gasped, and a
grin spread across my lips. “Also, you’re finally here!
There’s so many things I can’t wait to show you! When
you get a look at the library… this is going to be
great!”

My sudden excitement forced a smile onto her

irascible old face too, and she nodded. “Indeed. How
about you show us the way to your little army, and
we’ll go from there, yes?”

****
Even before we got back to Avonside, we could tell
something was wrong.

Smoke filled the air and the sky. It stuck to the back of
my throat like a persistent itch that I couldn’t scratch.
My plant body hated it even more, recoiling like it was
the thing being burnt.

A slight sense of relief blossomed within me when I

saw that the buildings still stood. When we got within
sight of the fields, though, I groaned in frustration. It
was the crops that were the source of the smoke.
Avonsiders rushed around with buckets of water,
trying to put them out, but it was like trying to stop a
herd of rampaging bulls with a fence made of straw.
“Fuck,” Troy swore, grimacing at the sight. “That’s not
good.”

The militia captain shook his head, sighed, then turned

to the militia and barked, “Get some people on those
fires! We need to save as much of—”

“Don’t bother,” Esra told him sharply, and raised her

hand up to the sky. Power blazed up out of her palm
to seed the sky. Swirling wisps danced together to
form robust ropes of mist, that congealed further into
dark grey clouds that sagged under the weight of the
moisture contained within. Moments later, rain began
to pour down onto the fields in a light but relentless
torrent.

She turned to look at the leader of the militia. “I

suggest you create a perimeter around the
settlement. The immediate danger appears to have
passed, otherwise the fields would be burning
unattended while the civilians fled. We do not know if
the perpetrators of this attack are still in the woods
around this place, however.”

The tall, stoic man blinked in surprise as the woman

who looked like she was in her mid fifties gave him
solid and functional advice. “Right. Good idea.”

I’d expected him to be, like, angry that she jumped in

and told him to change his plans, but instead he just
looked… melancholy?

Troy, always in touch with the morale of those around

him, placed a hand on the man’s shoulders and
murmured something in his ear. The captain gave him
a look, then nodded. “Thanks. I’ll take you up on that
offer later.”
“Mages, after me, please,” Esra continued, ignoring
the two men. “I suspect the crops are the least of our
worries.”

I moved to follow her, when Catherine’s tiny voice

spoke up. “Even me?”

Esra turned and gazed down at the small girl with her
glasses that perpetually slipped down her nose. “Yes.
Even you. You are, after all, a mage, are you not?”

“R-right,” Catherine mumbled, pulling her leather

armoured hoodie closer around herself.

Eilian, who’d been watching, gave the girl a curious

look that I knew all too well. Oh dear. Kitcat hadn’t
been interested back when we first met the obrec
woman, but would she be interested now, I
wondered?
We made it onto the old boundary of the university
within short order, and when I was recognised among
our group, people pointed us in the direction of the
library. My gut sank, and we picked up the pace.
What’d happened there? Why the library?

Rushing through the now manually operated

automatic doors, we came to a halt and looked
around in confusion. Everything looked… okay? Oh.
No, it didn’t.

The library of Avonside university was one of those

places that looked like some architecture student had
finished their doctorate with an assignment to
redesign the place like ten years ago. It was all glass
and stainless steel, with thin patterned carpet across
every floor. A central shaft of open air went all the
way up to the ceiling, and then around it, multiple
floors of packed together bookshelves were able to
look down at the ground floor.
The bodies were new, however. The librarians had
dragged them all into the open area at the front
desks. There were four in total, each with an article of
clothing covering their faces while the five women and
two men stood and cried, consoling each other. Their
sobs put my heart in a vice, and I was moving toward
them before I even realised it.

“What happened?” I asked, when I was close enough

to speak using a level of volume that befitted the
situation and the library.

Eyes turned towards us, and then back to each other.

After a few seconds of silent communication between
the librarians, one stepped forward. She was an older
woman, maybe sixty or so. Her white dress shirt was
damp with drying blood.
“Two… two men, with m-magic like you, they came in
and started stealing books. Vince, David, and
Samantha went to confront them…” she said, throat
hoarse from crying. Raising a listless hand, she
motioned to the bodies. “They…”

I put my hand up to stall her. “It’s okay. I think I

understand.”

“This is bad,” Grace muttered, when I turned back to

our group. “Like, really fucking bad.”

Eilian looked confused. “Uh, why?”

Catherine was the one to answer, and her obvious

revelation poured leaden ice down my throat and into
my stomach. “Because this library held all the
scientific books Fennimore will need to begin teching
up. All the super secret special weapons, methods,
and stuff, he has it now. If James did his job right, I
mean.”

My palm hit my forehead so hard I saw stars for a

moment. “Ah, shit. That’s what he was doing! Of
course! God. He was here to scope out the library,
probably marking the best books to take for his
friends.”

Grace was nodding along with my sister and I, and she

added, “This whole attack was probably a distraction
to get you away from Avonside so they could pull off
the heist. Fennimore had to have known a normal
attack might have failed with your power in his way,
so he tired you out with the steel ones.”

“If that is the case, then I would wager the only reason
he engaged us at the end was to stall for more time so
his lackeys could finish here,” Esra mused. “It was
bothering me how defensive he was playing during
our duel. I attributed it to uncertainty and fear,
considering how far the potency of my spells has leapt
recently. This makes far more sense, assuming the list
of stolen books matches what a power hungry dictator
like him would find valuable.”

Oh. Right. We lacked any sort of evidence for all this

conjecture. I guess it would be a good idea to ask the
librarians. Assuming they were in any sort of mental
state to help.

“It would appear that our work for the day is not yet
over,” Esra continued wearily. “This is not the
triumphant arrival I was hoping for.”

Eilian snorted and arched an eyebrow at the older

mage. “Really? We came charging into a huge battle
between mages, advanced alien warriors, and an army
of steel ones. Despite this book thing, we won that
fight too. That’s pretty triumphant.”
Esra scowled at the cocky obrec. “In a way, yes. In
another way, we just lost a major advantage.” Eilian
opened her mouth to speak again, but Esra spoke over
the top of her. “Eilian, why don’t you go and see about
finding us some food, or perhaps you could go and
tend to the recently scorched fields outside? We still
have much work to do, and my old bones are already
beginning to ache!”

“I’ll reseed the fields,” Catherine blurted, and after a

moment of hesitation where she glanced between
everyone else, turned abruptly on her heel and
headed for the door.

Despite everything, I couldn’t stifle a teeny tiny smile

of amusement. Catherine was adorable and highly
intelligent, but she also had a very odd way of
thinking.
We watched her leave for a few moments. Then Esra
turned to me and nodded her head in the direction of
the still quietly grieving librarians. “You and Grace
speak to the scribes, I will search for traces of magic.”

Oh, great. The emotionally draining task was being

foisted off onto me. Lovely. Just awesome.
Meanwhile, Eilian had disappeared the moment Esra’s
back was turned. Smart woman.

Chapter 114 :
Catherine’s POV

CW: Two mentions of self unaliving.

“What are you doing here?” a hissing, grating voice
asked, causing me to instinctively wilt inwards. It was
only the large cardboard box I was carrying that kept
me from trying to cringe myself into a shape like a
scrunched up paper towel.

Turning around slowly, I greeted the withering and

hateful bitch known as Rhea. Of course, I didn’t call
her that out loud. That would’ve been very scary.

Glancing back and forth between the LGBTQIA+

Clubhouse and her, I opened my mouth to speak, then
closed it again. Anything I said would just end with her
telling me that I didn’t belong.

It was a week since the robots and Fennimore had

attacked, and things were starting to get back to
whatever normal was these days. Ryn’s grove bustled
with activity as the newly minted Knights of Eleos
trained under drill sergeant Troy. He’d even roped Ryn
and me into doing some basic training stuff, using the
excuse that if we were ever without our magic, we
could still function out in the wild.

Anyway, the reason I was heading into the clubhouse

of what everyone was now calling the Circle of
Queers… I had a whole bunch of hormones to deliver
to the various trans people in there.

“Making a delivery,” I said, not bothering to hide my

impatience. “Did you need something, Rhea?”

God, what was that sneer she had on her face? It

looked like she was chomping down on lemons while
she spoke. “Yes, Kit, I don’t think they need your—”

“Your thoughts don’t matter,” I said, interrupting her

self righteous nattering. “You aren’t one of their
members, and you aren’t in any position of power.
You, your thoughts, and your opinions, are all
irrelevant. Have a good day.”

With that, I turned and pressed in through the door to

find a large bearded man with olive skin running for
the door. “Sorry Cat, sorry. I was just taking a bio
break from guarding the door and she snuck up
again.”

He didn’t stop to hear my response, instead barrelling

outside with a growl already rumbling up out of his
chest. “Fuck off, Rhea. We don’t want you here!”

I grinned and watched him chase her off through the

door. Ayyan was a good dude. Born in Algeria, his
parents had moved to the USA when he was very
young, fleeing ethnic violence. It was a good thing
they had, too, because their son had turned out to be
very, very gay. Not that any of that really mattered
anymore. We weren’t even on Earth anymore, let
alone Kansas.

Following the hallway past the reception desk, I idly

counted the diamonds on the fading carpet until I
came to the door with the transgender flag on it, then
pushed it open with a slight exerting of my will.

“Cat!” someone blurted, bolting up out of her seat in a

blur of long, messy brown hair to run and grab the box
from me. Of course, since she was a nerdy trans
woman who barely exercised, she almost dropped it.
“Fuck, what did you put in this thing? Bricks?”

Her name was Lily, because every third trans girl is

called Lily, and she was one of the people who’d been
most desperate to get back on hormones. Although,
this was the first time she’d been present for a
delivery.
“Yes,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face.

She gave me a quizzical look. “What?”

“Yes, there are bricks in there,” I giggled, patting the

box that wobbled precariously in her arms.

“Lily, come put it down on the table before you drop

it,” Aiden said, shooing her towards the bruised and
stained coffee table in the middle of the room. “Don’t
want you dropping my T.”

“Is it tea again?” Cris asked, the other of the two trans
men who always haunted the building like some sort
of pale british bodybuilding ghost. “So fucking glad we
don’t have to shove needles into ourselves now.”
I nodded and moved over to pull the box open,
revealing the bricks of compressed tea leaves. “It is
tea again, yes.”

“Wait, they’re actually bricks?” Lily asked, picking one

of them up and staring at it like it was some alien
artefact.

Cris laughed and pulled the brick out of her hands.

“Yes, and that one is T, so it’s best if you don’t touch
it.”

Man did have a point too, it was highly concentrated

stuff. I doubted she’d be able to absorb it through her
skin, but better safe than sorry.

“How come I didn’t know about that?” she asked,

frowning with one hand on her hip. Despite being
around 6 feet tall, she was less than intimidating with
her beanpole figure. Cris was like her opposite. A little
on the short side, but thick as a tree trunk and just as
sturdy.

Cris rolled his eyes while he began to stack the bricks

in a cupboard. “Because I make the tea for you, rather
than let you ruin it.”

“Har har,” Lily chuckled, pushing past me to head for

the door. “Can you make us some tea, though? I’ll go
get Amara.”

I turned to watch her leave, then smiled back at the

guys. “Uh… well, I guess I’ll head out then? If you need
anything else, let us know.”

Aiden gave me a look and walked over to take my

hand. “Come on, Catherine. You can stay and hang
out. You’re one of us, after all.”
I stared down at his hand for a second, confused.
Realising he’d just kinda grabbed me, he dropped it
again. “Ah… sorry. You should stay, though. You’re
one of us, after all!”

Looking around the cosy, vaguely run-down room with

its threadbare sofas and hastily patched holes in the
wall, I considered the idea. I knew all of these people
on a more impersonal level, but what if I like… actually
hung out with them?

Making my decision, I tiptoed over to the nearest sofa

and sat down. Oh, gosh. It was really soft.

I must have let out a sigh of contentment, because

Aiden chuckled, “I know right? It’s why we still keep
these ratty old sofas around. So comfy.”
Wiggling my way into the squishy sofa goodness
further, I silently nodded in agreement. I deserved a
rest with how much I've been working recently.

The door shoved open a moment later, and the tall

tawny and chaotic Lily was followed by the tall, dark
and brooding Amara. She was someone I’d spoken to
in passing a few times, but other than that I had no
idea what she was like. As usual, my introverted
nature had kept me all nice and safe within my friend
group, where the people didn’t drain my social battery
quite as badly.

Her outward physical expression was much more in

line with what many girls from the Circle looked like.
Naturally dark hair flowed down her back for a year’s
worth of growth, before fading purple dye took over.
Her right ear held at least four piercings one of which
was a bar through the top part. I think it was referred
to as an industrial. Anyway, she was honestly quite
pretty, in a very stabby way.
“Oh, hello Catherine,” she said, her words welcoming,
even as I saw something behind her eyes that was far
less so.

I smiled self consciously up at her, unsure what to do

with my hands. “Hey. I was just delivering the tea.”

“Thanks,” she said curtly, crossing the room to where

Cris was making the tea in question. She slotted in to
help him without a word.

Was she mad at me? Had I done something wrong?

Why were people so fucking difficult? I wanted to
escape back into my grove right then and there, even
if all Amara had done was flash me a frosty shoulder.
Was I being too sensitive?
Aiden, oblivious to the internal beatdown I was getting
from my insecurities, leaned back with a sigh and shot
me a grin. “I gotta say it again, but I’m so fucking glad
you and Ryn got back here. I was going to throw
myself off a cliff if I had to keep going without
hormones. I was starting to get… shit happening that I
didn’t enjoy.”

At that, Amara turned around and pointed a knife at

the boy. “Pay up, bitch. You know the rules. No
suicidal ideation talk outside of therapy thursdays.”

Wait, where did she get a knife? Knives weren’t for

making tea. What the hell was a therapy thursday?

Groaning, he heaved himself up out of the sofa and

thumped over to the corner of the room where there
was a jar half full of copper Avonside credits. He
dropped one into it, where it clinked and rattled
around like some sort of wordless recrimination.
“Aiden is right, though,” Cris said, continuing where
his friend had left off. “You really saved our asses.”

I just shrugged. “It’s the least we could do.”

Amara let out a bitter snort of amusement, but didn’t

turn around. Staring at the back of her head, I tried to
will some answers out of it to feed into my confusion.
Why was she so grumpy with me?

Unfortunately, I got my wish, because she turned

around and fixed me with a complex and hostile
expression. “It sucks, though. Why did you two get
chosen for that?”

“For… being mages?” I asked, feeling myself shrink

inwards again.
“Yeah.”

“Ryn stumbled on the first mage fruit…” I said, looking

down at my hands, where one set of fingers was busy
strangling the other. “As for me… the Order picked me
to be the second Avonsider mage.”

“Just like that?” Her voice felt like a thorny vine

constricting around my neck. Everyone else was
sitting, silent and shocked, uncertain what to do with
the situation.

I nodded. “Just like that.”

“Fucking sucks,” she repeated, dropping her knife into

the sink, where it clanged loudly against the metal
bottom.
Finally, Lily broke the silence, walking over to where
her friend stood. I missed the actual movement, but
there was a loud snap and a gasp from Amara.

I looked up to see the tawny haired girl staring at her

friend with shock and outrage. Amara had her hand
on her cheek, where it was flaming red. Tears
threatened to spill from where they hung on her
lashes. Oh.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Mara?” Lily

demanded, although her anger was already subsiding
into sadness. “Cat has been working non stop to help
us however she can, and you sit there getting pissy at
her? It’s not her fault!”

“I— I was just—” Amara coughed, her voice raw.

“It’s okay,” I said softly, smiling over at the two of
them. “I totally understand. I mean, I got to watch Ryn
having fun with her powers and body and stuff for
months before the same happened to me.”

Everyone turned to look at me, and I blushed under

the combined assault of their attention. It wasn’t a
happy blush, though. I think.

Hurriedly, I continued onwards, doing my best to

maintain eye contact with the hurting dark haired
trans woman. “Try not to take out your um… your…
pain on me, though. We’re doing our best. If it was
just a matter of like, giving everyone their dream
body, we’d be handing them out as fast as our
cooldown allows. Unfortunately we need to take into
account stuff like hostile forces and city food
management and stuff.”
Amara began to speak again, but I quickly interrupted
her with a raised hand. “But! But… we’re working on
the problem. There has to be a way to create a spell or
ritual or plant or whatever that will give everyone the
option to hit character creation again, but without the
godlike powers and the long wait time. So uh… yeah,
that’s… that’s what I’ve been trying to work on.
Melody, Kelsey, and me.”

“Wait, they got some of those magic fruits?” Lily

asked, frown lines creasing her brow.

I shook my head. “No, but they’re learning the theory

anyway and helping me do research. I promise. We’re
doing our best. Please… please be patient.”

“Always,” Aiden said, breaking his silence to smile at

me with his big, warm, scraggly beard shifting along
with his mouth. “It’s not like wait times for GRS are
foreign to us anyway,” he joked. “Amara is just
stressed, since she’s the one in charge of us all.”

“Yeah… yeah,” the girl in question said, grimacing at

herself. “Sorry about that. It wasn’t very cool. This
new world is just… fuck it sucks, man. Killer robots,
power tripping pigs, and homicidal magical dictators.
Feels like every week I’m wondering if the latest crisis
will be the one that kills me, or if the dysphoria will
finally get me first.”

“Oi!” Aiden said, sitting up straight on the sofa. He

scrambled around himself for like, a full four seconds
before finding a single orphaned chopstick, and
pointed it at her. “You know the rules, bitch! Pay the
jar!”

Amara groaned and slapped her forehead with the

palm of her hand. “God damn it.”
Chapter 115 :
Ryn's POV

Grace was in the girl's common area when I got back

from the last day of our second week building since
Fennimore's attack. She was in the middle of talking to
Kelsey, but I didn't pay much attention to what they
were saying. I just shot the shorter girl an apologetic
look, grabbed my girlfriend's hand, and dragged her
towards our bedroom.

"You okay there, Ryn?" She asked, once the door was
shut.
"Battery low," I mumbled, and pushed her backwards
onto the bed. She wasn't wearing any armour today,
thankfully. Just soft cotton and leather.

Grace's arms came up to catch me as I flopped down

on top of her. A wave of relief and safety washed over
me with such a depth and intensity that tears instantly
sprang up. Letting out a noise that was somewhere
between bliss and pain, I smushed my face into her
neck and finally relaxed.

"I hate all this building," I mumbled into her neck,

using my words to literally kiss the soft skin there
while I spoke.

Her fingers worked their way into my hair, and she

stayed silent for a few moments, gently massaging my
scalp. "I know, babe, I know. Until there's more mages
around, you're being pulled in a million different
directions."
"Maybe I should make another mage," I mumbled.
"It's about time I consolidated my power."

"It is," she said, kissing the top of my head. "Who will
you choose?"

Making an unintelligible grumbling sound, I tried to

snuggle closer against her. She felt so warm and good.
Like happiness and safety and comfort. It was wild to
remember where we had started—drenched and
shivering behind a statue. I'd been a year since then, I
think. Something like that. Longest year of my life. It
felt like a decade had passed.

"Sometimes, I look back on who I was and I don't even

recognize myself," I said, relaxing the embrace slightly
so I could look up at her. "The name Elias doesn't even
hurt anymore. I've changed so much."
"Grown," she told me pointedly. "You've grown. I can
still see a lot of your past self in you now, but without
a lot of the fear and self doubt that you used to carry.
You've changing the subject, though. Who will you
choose?"

"I don't think I will," I replied. “I’ll let the order

decide.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked,

frowning now. “For the first one, I mean?”

I shrugged, and before she could push further, leaned

in to kiss her. Kissing was the perfect distraction.
The next day, I made my way out to the banks of the
upper lake of my grove and sat down at the edge to
think. The whole idea of creating a mage fruit was
weird to me, and I wasn’t really interested in
everything that came with it. Being somebody’s mage
mother? No thanks. I was not ready for that
commitment.

I must’ve been sitting at the lakeside for a long while,

because eventually, Esra wandered her way over to
me.

“My old bones are not cut out to be chasing moping

children around a grove,” she grumbled first thing as
she arrived.

“I didn’t exactly invite you over here,” I said, but my

heart wasn’t really in the banter today.
She stood staring at me for a few seconds, then
grunted and shuffled to sit next to me. “What are you
cooking up in that wild brain of yours?”

I considered deflecting, but she was the perfect

person to get advice from on the matter. “I’m thinking
about making a mage fruit, but I’m not ready to teach
someone how to be a mage and all that,” I said, and
after a moment, I gave a wry laugh and added, “I’m
not ready to be a mother.”

Esra shared my amusement with a chuckle, but she

quieted down after a second or two to give me a
considering look. “Rynadria, it has just occurred to me
that you have not grown into your own as a mage
while being immersed in our culture. This conundrum
has already been confronted and overcome by mages
long since passed.”

I perked up. “Oh?”

“When a younger mage wishes to create a mage fruit,
but does not wish to take on the responsibility of
teaching another the arcane arts of the Nameless
Garden, they have two primary options,” she
explained. “You can either hide the mage fruit, as I
did, or you can have another mage take up the
responsibilities of teaching the newly minted magic
user how to harness their powers. In this case, the
new mage would be considered the apprentice or
mage-child of the teacher.”

I almost flopped backwards in relief when she finished

explaining. I was only young! I had so much to do
before I started a family! However… I wasn’t entirely
convinced that the arrangement she described would
work for us in the long term. We’d need a school for
mages, probably tied to the Order somehow. For the
time being, however, the traditional way of doing
things would work fine.
“Okay, in that case,” I said, reaching over to poke her
arm. “You can teach the person who gets my mage
fruit!”

“I expected to be saddled with your child at some

point,” she nodded sagely, just the barest hint of a
cheeky smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“Hey, they won’t be my child, they’ll just be… uh…” I

grimaced. God, this was so weird!

“I jest, little one,” She smiled. “The point is very much

to put the burden of mage-parenthood onto someone
responsible and with a preeminent knowledge of
magic.”

“I’m sure the arrogance helps you teach them too?” I

asked innocently.
“Brat,” she shot back, and with that one little
exchange of banter, I felt like everything was okay in
the world.

My grove helped me too. Something about the

massive tree overhead and the gently swaying forest
arrayed around it gave me comfort. I should spend a
day or two working on it soon, just to clear my head of
the endless construction we were doing. Maybe I’d
have a little extra time once we had another mage?

“How do I make the fruit?” I asked Esra after a minute

had passed.

“It’s instinctual,” she said softly, without her

characteristic snark. “Feel the heart of your grove
within you and… well, pollinate it.”
“Oh, that is so dirty,” I muttered. It was basically
selfcest.

“Young lady, it is not dirty,” my mage mother replied

indignantly. “It is a sacred and deeply personal part of
being a mage.”

“I mean, can’t it be both?” I teased her, but I stopped

when I saw the genuine frown she wore. Okay, so this
was a legit topic I couldn’t be an idiot about. “Okay,
okay, I won’t make any more jokes. I guess I’ll go and
do it?”

“You do that,” she agreed with a nod. “Don’t forget to

take it out of the grove quickly, or you’ll lose it.”

“Yes, mom,” I replied, already walking away. I guess

I’d go tell everyone to meet me out in the mundane
world? Gosh, it was nice that everyone had their own
transportation in and out of the grove now.

I made my way back towards the tree and spotted

Kelsey, who was carrying a cup of coffee as she made
her way towards the descent to the outer grove.
Waving her down, I hurried over to speak with her.

“Hey Kels, can you ask the order’s council to drop

what they’re doing and meet me out near where the
river is closest to Avonside?” I asked, speaking quickly.

She arched an eyebrow when I finished speaking and

shifted her grip on a sheaf of papers that’d been
hidden on her other side as I approached. “Sounds
more urgent than these reports I’m going to work
through. What’s up?”
“I’m going to make a magefruit, and obviously I need
the council’s help to figure out what to do with it once
it’s grown,” I explained, feeling almost wiggly with
anticipation now. This was the moment that I’d
forever solidify my place as one of the most powerful
mages in this corner of the ring. Even if someone
burned my entire grove to the ground, I’d still have
the raw power I’d amassed.

“Oh, shit, that’s the thing that makes more mages,

right?” she asked, startled. “Yeah, I’ll go gather Troy
and the others right away.”

I was moving before she’d even agreed to my request.

“See you there!”

Hurrying up the tower, I had to force myself not to

climb the stairs on all fours like some kind of rabid
animal. It was a habit I’d had for most of my childhood
and early teenagehood, and only after being mocked
at school for it had I finally quit it. Didn’t stop me from
resorting to it in private, though. I guess I was and still
am slightly feral? Ryn of Avonside, Feral Mage. It had a
certain ring to it.

I reached the girl’s common room and found it empty

except for the debris of Kelsey’s recent coffee making
and Cream, who was cleaning it up. I came to a rest
next to the little bun, who looked up at me with so
much intelligence and love in her eyes.

“Hey, Cream,” I said, giving her a smile. “Did Kels leave

that mess everywhere? You know you don’t have to
clean that kind of thing up for us in this room, right?”

“Yes,” she nodded, her floppy ears waving back and

forth with the movement. “I do—” her face scrunched
up in concentration for a moment, then she found the
word she was looking for. “—Regardless. Help tall
buns, make happy.”
Goddess, but her broken speech was so fucking
precious. She was learning and trying, and it was
amazing to see. These buns were all real people, there
was just a language barrier between us.

“Why does it make you happy to help us anyway?” I

asked, musing to myself more than her. I didn’t expect
her to have given the question much thought.

To my surprise, she gently thumped one foot in the

bunny equivalent of a frown. “Outside groveburrow is
too headache. Mean others, hurt each other, hurt us,
take treats away, even burn burrows. Is not happy.
Tall buns deal with, small buns do easy thing instead.
Cream clean sour bean juice, Keelsay do funny paper
thing.”

“Huh,” I grunted. Damn, she’d actually thought about

it. Sounded like more than just her opinion too. The
way she was speaking made me think it was a
consensus amongst the buns about their role in
everything. I could understand it, too. If I had the
choice between doing what I did or just cuddling
people who needed cuddling and cleaning things that
needed cleaning, I’d have to really think about it too.

“What La— what Ryn do?” Cream asked, tilting her

head and looking around the room. “Now?”

“I’m about to make a mage fruit so my power will be

protected if anything happens to the grove,” I
explained, leaning down to briefly scratch behind her
ear.

She lowered her head and accepted the scritches, but

her eyes were apprehensive. “Save small buns too?”
“This won’t,” I said, shaking my head apologetically.
“Not directly. We need defenders for that, like the
buns training with the weapons. Ugh, if I had time, I’d
work on a spell to preserve you buns if the grove was
destroyed, but there’s so many things to do.”

“Stop others burning burrow more important than

what happen if it do burn,” she nodded thoughtfully.
“Cream help make fruit?”

Giggling at her earnestness, I nodded. “Sure. I’m going

to do it in the bedroom, then we’ll go out of the grove
to plant it.”

“Cream help tend fruit,” she said happily, putting

down the coffee debris as she followed me towards
the bedroom.
Chapter 116 :
Cream’s POV

Our lady—I mean, Ryn—placed her hand on the top of

my head and we went over to the… what was it
called? The ring? Why was it called a ring? A circle
world made no sense. Worlds were bubbles, not rings.

I made sure to have a tight hold on the little seed in

my paws, which glowed with so much of Ryn’s
beautiful light. Just before we left the grove, she’d
stood in one place for long minutes, eyes closed, until
all of a sudden she turned into her plant form and
arched her back. Out of her chest grew a long, snaking
branch, and then on the very end of that, a flower
grew. Very quickly, it turned into a tiny berry, then fell
off and hit the ground, where the skin and flesh of the
berry vanished as dust. Only the little seed I was
carrying remained, and it was precious.
We arrived in the place the humans called Avonside,
right next to a big stone person who was holding a
book. Ryn called it a plaza. It was a place where
people could do verbal fluffles, which was like when
us buns huddled and spoke mind-to-mind, except the
humans didn’t touch, and they used sound-words.

Ryn led me out of the main stone-tree forest-burrow

place and out onto the grass and treats fields. The
humans from the ring grew plants in a very strange
way—all in rows and only one type in each big square.
I couldn’t see any of the careful forest-weaving that us
buns did. No plants to gather and store the bad smells,
no mushrooms to turn the dead wood back to soil,
and no mixing of crops to balance the smells of the
dirt. Ah, but… there were many more humans on the
ring than there were buns and humans in the grove.
The way they grew treats didn’t use too much space,
and the soil still smelled… okay. Not great, but okay.
Then we came to a big empty square, and I
understood how the ring-humans were doing their
treats growing. This square was empty of plants, but
the human tenders were spreading healthy-smelling
soil out to replenish what the lines of plants had taken
out previously. It was smart, if you wanted as much
treats as possible out of a patch of soil.

Near to the river, many of Ryn’s friends had already

gathered, and they turned like startled kits to watch
us approach. Grace smiled the whole time, and when
we got there, she hugged Ryn up in a big squeeze.

“Hey gorgeous, where’s the fruit?” she asked.

Ryn pointed down at me, and I proudly raised my

paws up so they could sniff the seed with their eyes. I
mean, look at the seed. Buns didn’t have nearly as
many ways to say things as humans did.
Troy crouched slightly to get closer and asked,
“That’s… a seed?”

“It is, we have to plant it and let it grow,” Ryn nodded,

and with a kindly glance down at me, asked, “Cream,
care to plant it down here? We’ll discuss who to give it
to while you do so.”

“Of course!” I said cheerfully, and hopped a short

distance away to dig a hole for the seed.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the fact that she can
talk,” one of the humans commented, and I looked
over my shoulder to see who. I couldn’t tell, but it
sounded like one of the men. I thumped softly. I was
right here! Even me, a bun, knew that talking about
someone like they weren’t there was rude.
“She can hear you, you know, Adam?” Ryn grumbled.
“Anyway, Troy, I was hoping we could let the Order’s
council decide who gets the fruit?”

Troy, always so calm and smart, paused for thought.

Meanwhile, I placed the seed off to the side and
began to dig a hole in the wet soil of the ground. My
claws were very good for digging, and I used the
proper digging form while I did the digging, so the
digging was quick. Honestly, I very much enjoyed
digging. It was a calming thing to do. Exercise to keep
the body busy while the mind binkied down whatever
burrows it so pleased.

“We’ll nominate people, but not ourselves,” Troy

decided after he was done doing mind binkies of his
own. “I personally think Kelsey would be a good fit for
a mage.”
“What about Bray?” Adam asked. “Adding magic to his
smithing would be pretty sick.”

“I think Mer would be good,” Catherine said, speaking

up as loud as her quiet voice could go.

Mer was quick to shake her head and take a step away
from the circle of tall bu—humans. “No, not me.
Definitely not me.”

“Why not?” Catherine asked, frowning up at the

woman she was so obviously in heat for.

“I’m not ready for… that,” Mer said, wincing and

scuffing a hoof on the ground. “Gimme a year or two
and I might reconsider, but… I’ve made one big life
decision recently. I’ll let others blaze a path through
the jungle.”
While they all continued to argue, I took the seed
from where I’d placed it and carefully lowered it into
the hole. Then, when it was seated nicely, I carefully
brushed the dirt back over the top. It filled the hole
nicely, and I thumped it down a bit for good measure.

While I was pressing the dirt down, another

commotion drew my attention. Multiple humans from
the Avonside burrow were coming our way as fast as
their awkward legs could take them. They carried
themselves like a dominant bun might, and I realised
that they were probably people in charge of this place.
The humans that didn’t answer to Ryn and Troy, I
mean.

“What is going on here?” A blustering voice asked, and

I laid my floppy ears closer against my head in an
attempt to protect myself from the noise.
“Dr Richards,” Troy greeted them. “We’re just
deciding some internal Order business. What can we
do for you?”

Before the strange man with the loud voice and the
big fluffy dewlap responded, the magic seed all but
exploded out of the ground right beside me. I
squeaked in surprise and hopped backwards,
instinctively thumping my feet in displeasure when I
landed. Bad plant!

The actual plant part of the new growth was just a

stem and a few leaves, but on the end of that stem, a
beautiful magenta flower bloomed. In the space of a
few moments, it went from that flower into a fruit,
with the petals falling to the ground. It was wonderful
to see, and I stood mesmerised by the gently bobbing
treat—I mean, fruit.
“This is one of those mage fruits you described, is it
not?” Dr Richards asked loudly. “Why were we not
informed that one was being grown on our land?”

Ryn snorted in open amusement. “It wasn’t going to

last long enough for it to matter to you. It’s mine, and
nobody else's. We were just discussing which of us
would get to become a mage.”

“Are none of us in the running for this honour?” the

annoying man asked, gesturing to his friends while his
face got redder. What a strange thing. Why did
humans get red faces?

“No, actually,” Ryn replied curtly. “Again, it’s mine. I

am giving it to someone on the Order’s council, not to
you or any of the sciences faculty.”
The man opened his mouth to start hurting my ears
again, but Troy interrupted him. “Dr Richards, please.
There may be a few fruits we donate to the university
at a later date, but is it really worth souring our
relationship to take this one now?”

“As if you intend to share in this wealth of possibility!”

the man yelled, and I had to make sure my feet stayed
on the ground before I started a drum beat with the
soil. He was very annoying.

While I was trying to suppress the noise of the man, I

heard another sound. It was like beautiful running
water and the quiet happy grinding of bun teeth, all
squished together. The fruit was… singing?

It swayed there in the wind, making a pretty sound

while its soft magenta skin glistened with dew. Where
did the dew come from? It was not overly humid, and
yet… I wonder if it was cold? I reached out to touch it,
but instead of finding a cool surface, it was pleasant
and warm.

The humans were still arguing, and when I looked

back after a particularly loud word was spoken, I saw
hands on sharp things, even if they weren’t pointed
anywhere. So much anger over the pretty singing fruit.
It was silly. Emotions were everywhere, anger on the
face of the Richard man, and fear in the expressions of
his friends. Everyone had to know that Ryn would just
stop them if they tried to take the pretty fruit, right?
But even then, things would become very
complicated. So much of that thing the humans called
polite ticks for power, but none of them would even
appreciate the fruit itself, or the magic within.

Maybe… maybe I could fix this? The point of the fruit

had already been fulfilled. It was grown outside the
grove, so the grove’s essence was saved…
Gosh, and the song was so pretty… so, so pretty…

Circling it, I reached out. I traced the curve of the fruit

with a claw, gently, but longingly… Was I meant to
want this yummy fruit so badly? I was a grove tender,
and yet myself and all the other buns were so much
more than the tenders described by the old one and
her forbidden-to-chew magic tomes. I went to the old
one’s grove one time and saw one of her tenders, and
they were nothing like us buns. We were people, just
like humans.

I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward and brushed

my chin over it once, claiming it as mine before I
chomped down. Oh, the juices of the yummy treat! So
sweet and lovely! Like the best and most fresh fruits
picked from my lady’s grove.

The noises from the humans changed, and I turned to

see looks of shock, anger, and in Ryn’s case, surprised
delight. I tried to smile at my lady, because I fixed the
problem and I stole some treats, but the world blurred
into a mess of magenta and sleepies.

Chapter 117 :
Cream

I became aware of my body first, because it felt weird.

Then I realised my brain felt weird, because wow, it
was like I was thinking faster and larger than I ever
had before. I wiggled in place, feeling for my brothers
and sisters, but they weren’t there. Why was I so
warm, then?
A tiny little while later, and I realised why, and more
importantly, where I was. I was inside a fruit! A really
big treat! I laughed at my own silly treat-based joke,
except I was surrounded by fruit juices so I inhaled it
instead.

Panicked for a moment, I flailed around trying to claw

and kick my way out of the gunk, only to realise after a
second that I could breathe the juice. Then I started
eating it. It tasted SO good!

Eventually, I came to the skin of the fruit, and when I

bit down on it, suddenly I was flopped out onto the
ground like a spilled sack of melons. Except I wasn’t a
melon, of course, I was a bun. Or… I used to be a bun?

Blinking the sticky liquid out of my eyes, I sat up and

looked around with a squint of confusion. I was in
Ryn’s forest, and… something fluffy flopped down on
top of me, and I looked up. It was my lady! Ryn had
put… a towel on me?

“Welcome back, Cream! The disorientation should

pass momentarily, and… Wow,” she said, slowing to a
whisper, looking me up and down. “I’m making a rule
right now, Cream. You are not allowed near the IT
department or the ICT faculty.”

“Why?” I asked wiping my eyes some more with my

wrists— which were different?

Alarmed, I held my paws out, only to see that they

were… hands?!

Frantic now, I wiggled around and looked down at

myself. I was all funny looking! My body was all…
human shaped! Except I still had fur, and even though
I was a girl, I didn’t have the funny double dewlap
things like Ryn. Also, to my never ending relief, my
legs were still bun legs! They were just attached to my
torso like a human. I guess I was… shudder, bipedal
now.

“You look like a Pokemon,” Ryn muttered, and I tilted

my head at her.

“What is a poking mons?”

Ryn let out a choking, coughing sound and laughed.

“Uh… no, it’s one word.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, already distracted by the two paws I

still had left. They were so much bigger than I
remembered. The claws were huge!

Wait. What about my face?

Quickly, my new hands flew to my face, where I
touched and prodded trying to figure out what it was
like now. My mouth was the same, and I still had big
floppy ears. Actually, they were even bigger now,
drooping down to my very slim shoulders.

“Ah, here…” Ryn said, and with a flick of her wrist and
a sparkle of magic, summoned a vertical puddle for
me to look into.

I gazed at myself in shock. I was like if a bunny was

given the same part-sizes as a human! My legs were
bun legs, but they connected to a torso like human
ones, and because of that, I had big… hips? Yes, they
were called hips. My tummy, waist, and chest were all
very thin compared to Ryn, and then my arms were
also small. Same length as Ryn’s compared to the rest
of me, but like… uh, what was the word? Wiry, I think.
I had muscles, but they were tight and thin and small.
My face was thankfully still recognisable as mine, but
my eyes were bigger and more towards the front of
my face. Oh, and my fur! My fur was… it was all pink
and shiny! So pretty! I matched Ryn now, but with my
old cream thrown in!

I grinned up at my lady. “My fur is so pretty!”

“We’re going to have to change your name to, like,

Rose or something, considering your fur is rose-gold
now,” she said, a teasing smile binking in her eyes.

I frowned and shook my head, bopping her with the

palm of my hand. “No! I like my name! You can… you
can shorten it, though. If you want.”

“You want a nickname?” she asked.

I nodded, and my ears flopped around brushing my
shoulders. “Yes! Like how you are Rynadria but
everyone says Ryn!”

“Okay… what about…” she said, stalling while she

thought. “Cee. You can be Cee.”

“Cee…” I said softly, sounding it out. My new mouth

was very good at making words, and my new head
was much better at putting them together. I think I
was still normal bun smart, though. Just different parts
of my smart were getting more power now.

“How are you feeling, anyway?” Ryn asked,

interrupting my thoughts. “You’ve had some pretty big
changes. Do you need help trying to stand?”
“I have only two legs now,” I lamented, holding up my
new hands to show her.

Ryn’s funny hairless hands came down to hold mine,

and I looked up to meet her gaze. “It’s okay, little bun.
We’ll help you get used to it, and who knows, maybe
we can find a way to allow you to transform between
a normal bun and this half human one.”

“I can do that?” I asked hopefully.

Laughing, she shrugged and replied, “Cee, you’re a

grove-tender mage. Anything is possible at this point.”

Oh. Of course. Ryn was a master at breaking the rules

to get what she wanted. It was why us buns followed
her. She was amazing.
“I didn’t cause you any trouble when I ate the fruit,
did I? Those people seemed very angry about it.”

“Not more trouble than they were already causing,”

said Ryn, standing up and offering me a hand. “Come
on, let’s go see the others and… get you some
clothes.”

I frowned. “I don’t want clothes!”

“Unfortunately it’s going to be necessary,” she sighed,

and I took her hand. Carefully, she helped me wobble
to my feet, until surprisingly I could stand on my own.

“Why?” I asked her while testing out my balance.

“Oh god…” she groaned, pinching the bridge of her

nose. “Okay, I guess I’m going to have to start easing
you out of your innocence sometime. Basically, back
on the world that Avonside originally came from,
there was a certain subculture that obsessed over
made up creatures that looked like you. Or, well…
some of them did. Anyway, it was all fine and stuff,
except that now here you are, the fictional object of
their… sexual desires, but made real.”

“Sexual…” I repeated, before trailing off and looking

up at her again. She was still far taller than me. “You
mean that porn thing that the boys talk about?”

Ryn froze, and I could hear her teeth grinding with

anger. Did I do something wrong? Was I not meant to
know about that?

“Yeah, that,” she said finally. “Shit, I guess you buns

do sort of get ignored by a lot of the folks that
frequent my grove. Anyway, I don’t want you getting
creeped on by pervs, so you’re going to have to wear
clothes and learn about human taboos and shit. It’s
going to be strange and confusing, but if you want to
interact with humans outside the Order’s council, it’s
necessary.”

My ears perked up, and to my surprise they swung all

the way upright. Whoa! My floppy ears could go up! “I
get to learn about human things? I like learning about
human things. It’s very fun, and interesting, and it
helps me be a better tender-bun.”

My response seemed to surprise Ryn, because she

stood there staring and thinking for more long
seconds. Then she giggled and put a hand on my
shoulder. “That’s good. Honestly, I’m glad it was you,
Cee. It makes things so much less stressful. In the
future, we’ve decided to choose new mages in
absolute secrecy. If even naturally jovial people like Dr
Richards can get greedy like that, I think it’s safe to say
we need to be much more cautious.”
“Yes, and plus… I think a fruit directly from you is
something that is special,” I agreed, my thoughts
zooming and binking over ideas and concepts before
they could fully form. “What if you give all of your
mage-treats to the buns, and then we make fruits for
others? Then we can protect you while there aren't
many mages, and then when there are more mages,
you’ll have lots of loyal buns to do battle in case
anyone gets shouty like the Dr Richards man.”

“That’s… a damn good idea, Cee,” she said, surprised

and happy. I got ear scritches while she did her own
thought-binkies. I was so glad I still got pats and hugs
and scritches, now that my body was something weird
to humans.

When the scritches were over, she took my hand and

helped me take a few experimental steps while she
kept speaking. “Honestly, the more I have to interact
as a mage with the Avonsiders, the more I realise how
and why the ring mages got into the isolationist
position they’re in now. Mage fruit are a direct path to
unimaginable power and wealth. It makes sense that
literally everyone would want one.”

Walking was much harder than just standing up,

because I couldn’t walk with my full foot on the
ground. I had to press up onto my toes and try to walk
like a human. Except, my legs had one more joint than
them, so I realised pretty quickly that I needed to
change my stride a bit. After some careful and silent
moments, I was confident enough to let go of Ryn’s
hand and keep walking beside her.

It was so amazing! I was walking beside her, like a

human! Oh my goodness, just wait until the other
buns see me!

“Humans are like plants,” I said, when we were

starting to make real progress back towards the big
tree-burrow. “They grow as fast and as big as they
possibly can, even if it means choking out the other
plants from the sunlight or the soil. It’s only when
there’s something hard in the way that they stop.
Then they get mad at the hard thing and try to wrap it
up in roots and crush it. Some learn to stop before
they choke their neighbours out and go on to live in
harmony with them, but usually it takes some tending
to get that started.”

“When we’re in larger groups we can be like that,

yeah,” Ryn sighed. “But a lot of the time we start out
living harmoniously, and it’s only a storm or a fire that
makes us act badly. Stress is a destroyer of peace, Cee,
and I think sooner rather than later, you’ll be learning
that.”

“Like when loud noises hurt my ears and make me

thump,” I wondered aloud, even as my ears wilted. It
wasn’t just a human thing. Ryn was just… she
protected us from the stress that would break our
peace.
That’s it. She wouldn’t have to protect the grove from
stress alone! Not anymore! Cee and the bun mages
would be the guardians of this place! We’d make sure
the world knew not to mess with us or our magical
thumps and kicks would destroy them!

“You have proper facial muscles now!” Ryn exclaimed,

and my serious face melted back into a grin.

I nodded enthusiastically. “I can tell people I’m

grumpy without thumping!”

“You are definitely still going to thump, Cee,” Ryn

teased me, and I just about fell over with happiness.
She caught me and asked with concern, “Are you sure
wouldn’t rather take a seat?”

“I’ll be fine,” I told her confidently.

“Crossing my fingers for you, then,” she said,
wrapping an arm around my shoulders protectively.

Being a mage-bun was going to strengthen my

friendship with so many of the humans! This was
going to be so great.

Chapter 118 :
Ryn

Everyone was waiting for us in the balcony cafe of the

tree, including Esra, who was still scowling from when
she found out who she was going to be teaching. That
was like, a week ago. She could really hold a scowl.
“Hey everyone!” I called, making sure that Cee was
still walking okay. “Cream’s out! She’s going to go by
Cee now.”

“Oh wow,” Bray commented quickly. “I can see that

she’s changed a lot. How are you feeling little dude?”

“I am not a dude?” Cee asked, genuinely confused.

Bray coughed and nodded, cheeks reddening slightly.

“Right, sorry. Habit, I guess.”

“How are you doing though, Cee?” Grace asked. My

girlfriend had been more than a little worried about
the small bun. I wasn’t the only person who cared
deeply about my grove’s little helpers. “It has to be
very strange to wake up with human proportions.”
“It is very funny,” the bun agreed, clutching at the
towel she was wearing to keep it from slipping. “I still
can hop, though!”

She showed her feet off with a smile, and god it was
so cute. Her mouth wasn’t really made for human
smiles, so even with the corners tipped up she still
looked very solemn. Her eyes crinkled in amusement
and happiness just fine, though.

“Oh, and my brain does words better!” she exclaimed

suddenly. “Before the fruit it was very hard to make
my brain put words together into sentences because
us buns are used to just sending ideas without words
with our brains. See! That was a very long sentence!”

Standing there looking so extremely proud of herself, I

couldn’t keep from putting an arm over her little
shoulders. “You’re never going to stop talking, are
you?” I teased.
“Why would I stop?” she grinned. “I can tell everyone
all about everything I am thinking about! It’s very
exciting.”

“You’ll need to stop and listen, too,” Esra said,

speaking up for the first time. Her frown had eased
considerably. “I’ll be teaching you about how to be a
mage, and apparently, how to interact with society
too. I hope you’re harder working than your mother.”

I just about choked on my own tongue when Esra just

casually referred to me as Cee’s mother. Several
amused looks turned my way, and now it was me
scowling. I was definitely not her mother. She was a…
a… shit. I kinda was.

“Ryn works very hard!” Cee said, hands moving to her

hips. “I will work very hard too, because I am a bun!”
“Oh, I’m sure she does,” Esra remarked sarcastically.

Cee nodded guilelessly. “Yes, she is very good at

working!”

Oh dear. I wonder how long it would take for the buns

to realise I wasn't perfect. Honestly, I hoped it was
soon. Being treated like I was some sort of
omnipotent goddess made me uncomfortable.

"So now that we have another mage… what's the

plan?" Asked Catherine.

"Keep building, keep training," Troy replied, eliciting

groans from everyone else.
Well, everyone except Esra, who nodded along with
Troy. "I will be taking Cee right away to begin training
her."

"We need to get her some clothes, first," I interjected,

tightening my grip on the bun girl.

"Nonsense," Esra scoffed. "She has fur. That is

enough."

I let go of Cee and crossed my arms. "Tell that to the

creeps who'll sexualise her."

The haughty derision in my mage-mother's expression

faded, replaced by a grimace. "Ah. You may have a
valid point there, Rynadria. We shall see about
creating a wardrobe that is comfortable for her after
her grove is created."
I nodded and looked down at Cee. "Is that okay? Shall
we get on with it?"

"Yes!" She smiled. "I am excited! My own grove! I

wonder what it will look like!"

To my surprise, Esra chuckled and stepped forward to

offer a hand to the tiny bunny girl. "That's entirely up
to you, my dear. I am very interested in how you
shape your sanctum."

"I make it myself?" Cee gasped. "Ryn, did you make

the home burrow? Did you choose it?"

Oh my god, she was so cute!

"Yeah, I did," I said, cheeks aching from how hard I

was smiling. Her enthusiasm was so good and pure.
Cee's little grin grew even bigger, and spontaneously,
she leapt into the air and did a backflip. Unfortunately,
the flip wasn't the most coordinated manoeuvre in the
universe, and she came back down on her side. If it
wasn't for the fact I reacted by reaching out to catch
her with my telekinesis, she'd have hit the ground
rather hard.

"Whoa there," I said, righting her again while bending

to pick up the towel that'd gone flying. "Let's contain
the binkies until you're more coordinated on those
feet of yours."

"I almost bonked," she said sorrowfully, big eyes

turned up towards me in a quest for sympathy.
"Binking is so much harder like this."

"There there," I cooed, patting her head. "Soon you'll

be able to do big magic binkies."
That seemed to strike a chord with her, and she
brightened up again like nothing bad had happened.
Oh dear. Despite my best efforts, it seemed I had a
kid, of sorts. Or maybe a tiny sister? We'd see once
she matured and grew into her own as a mage.

Catherine and I were up in the library theorycrafting

some new spells while we waited for Cee and Esra to
get back, when the whole grove shuddered. It was like
an earthquake and an explosive shockwave in one,
and instinctively I dove under the table.

"What the fuck was that?!" Cat asked. "And why are
you under the table?"
Grumbling about earthquake drills, I clambered back
up and glanced around the library. None of the books
had fallen off the shelves.

On the table, the inkwell was still upright and our

written blueprints were fine.

We were in the process of designing a spell that would

allow us to bond two separate objects made of the
same material together. Bray had asked for it after the
Cee welcome party, saying it'd help him with a
project.

Unfortunately, it was giving us a lot of trouble. The

flower had a semi-hollow stalk like a dandelion, but it
was filled with a complex metallic lattice. The lattice
was what carried the frustratingly complex
instructions for creating the various forces that held a
solid together. The further we went down the
rabbithole, the more complicated it became.
“I think we should probably go and see what just
happened,” I said, starting for the door.

Cat reached out and grabbed my hand. “It’s probably

out in the Nameless Garden. We should drop in
there.”

“Good point.”

We phased out and into the garden with a thought,

and found ourselves floating nearby to Esra and Cee,
who were staring back past us in shock.

The Nameless Garden itself seemed like it’s usual

trippy self, with fractal plants twisting and morphing
their forms on a whim, while currents of magic swirled
through it all. There were more groves here now, with
Esra’s off in the middle distance and Cat’s close by.
Further out, I could see another grove that for some
reason, reminded me of Eilian. I guess that was her
new one?

“I am afraid, my dear Rynadria, that we might have

reached the limits of your ability to break the laws of
magic in our favour,” Esra said, floating over to us with
Cee in tow.

Speaking as I turned to see what they’d been looking

at, I asked, “What do you mean? There was a bit of an
earthquake in the grove, but it’s still— oh. That’s
weird.”

Attached to the large bubble of my grove was a

second, smaller one. It looked like a couple of soap
bubbles bonded together by surface tension. Was that
Cee’s grove? How was it stuck to mine like that?
“Indeed,” Esra remarked. “I am glad to hear that your
grove has not suffered any obvious damage. I am,
however, concerned. In the past, when groves were
allowed to touch in this manner, there would be a
large explosion and a lot of magical debris to clean
up.”

“Except it isn’t…” I said, stating the obvious.

“I think it’s just snuggling because it knows I came

from that grove,” Cee said defensively. “Maybe bun
groves are different. I think they’re different.”

“Yes, but you are about one year old, Cee,” Esra
retorted, although her tone was gentle.

Cee’s back legs flicked in annoyance, but she didn’t

say anything in reply. Instead she just asked, “Can we
go inside? I want to go inside.”
“I guess we can,” my mentor said with a long-suffering
sigh. “No other way to find out what’s going on, since
we’re clearly not going to get any more information
from out here.”

“Yay!” the newly minted bun mage said gleefully,

trying to run towards her new home. It didn’t work,
and she began to spin wildly in the zero gravity of the
garden.

Esra sighed again. I just grinned. It was honestly so

funny to see her biting her tongue and suffering in
silence so she didn’t upset the naive bun. Typical Esra,
grumbling and moaning while secretly doing
everything she could to help others.
Chapter 119 :
Ryn

Cee’s grove was underground. No, not just

underground. It was underground in my grove. There
was even a little bun-sized tunnel that led to my lower
grove, where the order’s base was set up. Outside in
the garden, it appeared as we’d found it earlier—like a
bubble stuck to the side of my grove.

The inside was a blank slate, like any new grove,

except that hers was a cavern with a big glowing orb
in the middle to serve as a sun. It reminded me of that
one place in Skyrim that Bray had shown me when he
was doing a play-through.

Well, except this one had nice lighting, even if it was

dimmer than a real sun. There was grass too—nice
and lush and ready for nomming by buns.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t stick around to watch as Cee
began to create her first spells. The damn Avonside
council wanted to speak to me after a week of radio
silence. I hope they had something important to say,
because after the stunt they pulled with my mage fruit
I was ready to do something everyone would regret. I
mean, shit, they were interrupting precious time with
my new bun-mage daughter!

The news came when Catherine, who’d left back to my

grove, appeared once more to deliver it. Since Esra
seemed fine teaching Cee, I bid them goodbye and
shifted out and onto the ring.

Avonside was on high alert due to the altercation

between the council and the Order. Then, when
people noticed me materialise, they all but bolted to
get away. I didn’t blame them, the scowl I wore was
probably more than a little scary.
I did my best not to stomp my way over to the council
hall, which was still the old lecture theatre. Walking in,
I was greeted with the full complement of faculty
heads, along with a few retainers I didn’t recognise.

“Ryn, thank you for coming,” Dr Wilcott said, standing

to wave me in.

Descending the stairs, I fought to quell the sudden

burst of anxiety. I'd known this confrontation would
be happening for a week now, and in that time I'd
done way too much thinking about it. Nothing quite
like fighting a battle one hundred times in your own
head before you did it for real.

Feigning the same anger I was feeling when I arrived, I

leaned back against a desk and crossed my arms. Stay
calm, Ryn. We have a plan. Let’s see if our judgement
of Dr Wilcott is accurate.
My gaze found Dr Richards immediately, and I drilled
him with a glare that I hoped would convey just how
annoying I found him now. Unlike with him, who I
initially judged as being a kind, grandfatherly type.

Wilcott clearly wasn't comfortable with my obstinate

silence, because she coughed and dove into what was
obviously a rehearsed speech. "Now, I want to
apologise for the actions of Dr Richards a week ago. It
was rude of him to charge in and make demands."

She turned to look at the man in question, who

grunted and said, "Ah… yes, I apologise for my
outburst that day."

Satisfied, the head of their little council turned back

and gave me a thin smile. "I hope you will forgive us
for the blunder… but we would like to discuss some
related matters with you—"
"There it is," I snorted. "What do you want?"

My anger was beginning to return, washing away my

anxiety once more. If they started ask-manding shit
from me right after that apology I was going to
summon some buns to break their kneecaps like a
mobster. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but
I'd be pissed for sure.

"Now, Ryn…" Dr Wilcott winced. "I'm not sure that

tone is warranted or appropriate—"

"Stop," I said, calmly but perhaps a little abruptly. "Dr

Wilcott, you and the rest of Avonside have done
nothing but cause petty problems for me and my
people, while taking everything we do for granted. I
know I said this previously, but just to reiterate, you
need me a hell of a lot more than I need you."
She tried to say something when I paused for breath,
but I rode right over her. "In fact, if I were to hang up
my morals, I could simply take what I needed from
Avonside and leave. None of you have the power to
stop me."

"That is why we wished to discuss just how much

power you hold in your hands," Wilcott said before Mr
Santa-Karen could say the same thing in a much less
eloquent way. "We are afraid of you, Ryn, and we
know that it is only by those morals that you
mentioned that we have anything. That is why we
wished to gain access to some of that power, and to
distribute it out among upstanding and responsible
people."

I pursed my lips and nodded for her to continue. I'd

considered their perspective on more than one
occasion, and I agreed with the principles behind it. I
did, however, have counterpoints ready.
"I understand that, but that doesn't mean I can trust
you to be upstanding and responsible," I replied.
"Everyone knows this place will be extremely powerful
if it stabilises and survives. The problem is, Avonside
was and very much still is a hive of petty politics and
bickering. It's full of people who are more than willing
to throw others under the bus for a bigger slice of the
pie. Adding literal magic to that already volatile mix
will almost undoubtedly lead to some very unpleasant
things. So until the order has grown enough to act as a
check to the politics here, I'm not giving any of you a
mage fruit."

The five of them sat there absorbing what I'd said for a
long while, until finally the faculty head of political
science asked, "You raise many good points, Ryn, but I
must ask—Why are you more appropriate, capable,
and trustworthy than any other Avonsider? Why is it
okay for you to hold such power, while we must trust
in your good nature to keep you from establishing
yourself as the ruler of our town?"
"That's entirely irrelevant," I shrugged.

The pol-sci man frowned. "Care to explain?"

"Because regardless of whatever answer that little

thought experiment gives you, it doesn't change the
reality of the situation. I am the one with the magic,
and you aren't. The situation is simple. Continue to act
like belligerent fools and lose the support of myself
and the order, or stop and keep it," I said. "Choice is
yours."

Silence reigned for even longer this time, and I sat

through its entire length with the best poker face I
could muster.

Finally, Dr Wilcott nodded to herself and said, "I see.

Still, I must ask, when will you deem the order
powerful enough to stop any rogue mages?
“I’m not sure,” I shrugged, giving them a smile of
acquiescence. “How about this, I’ll have copies of our
magical tomes made for you, and when we have ten
of our own mages, we’ll give you two—” I pointed to
Dr Wilcott and Dr Ross, the pol-sci guy. “—A fruit
each. Who you choose as your magical progeny is up
to you, after that.”

“Why us?” Dr Wilcott asked, curious but not unhappy.

A slow, devious smile spread over my lips, and I

looked each of the five faculty heads in the eye before
I said, “Because you two were the ones who were
brave enough to confront me about the ethics of my
power, but not demand it for yourselves personally. I
still don’t trust any of you, but a head start for the
order is more than enough security to bridge the
balance of that missing trust. Is that okay with you
all?”
Curiously, I looked over to see Dr Richard’s reaction to
my words. To my surprise, he looked chagrined and a
little defeated. Huh. I guess I had his motivations
wrong?

“That is agreeable, given the circumstances,” Dr

Wilcott sighed, leaning back in her chair.

“Good,” I said, nodding once and pushing off the desk.

“I’ll be seeing you, then.”

“Ah, one moment, Ryn,” the head of the council

interrupted quickly. “If that discussion went well, we
wanted to continue into an adjacent topic.”

I raised an eyebrow in question and let myself fall

back against the desk.
“We wanted to discuss… commissioning your Order,”
she said, relaxing further. This was clearly a less
intense topic, so I followed suit, rolling my shoulders
to release the tension in them.

“Okay, what did you need, and what are you

offering?” I asked.

“Much of what you and Troy have said has resonated

with us. Avonside needs allies and information,” she
said, steepling her fingers before her. “While we
restructure the university and its politics from that of
a university to a town, we would like you to escort one
of our people out to act as a negotiator. As for what
we’re offering, well… land within the city, free of taxes
and interference. We will be establishing a foreign
district that outsiders can buy land within, and that is
where we’ll give you the land.”
I liked the idea personally, and getting out of Avonside
for a bit would be nice, but in the end it wasn’t my
decision. “I’ll relay the offer to Troy. I think we were
planning another information gathering mission
anyway, so I’d say it’s a tentative yes?”

“Good, thank you,” she said, and gave a nod. “And

thank you for meeting with us. We will be in touch.”

Chapter 120 :
Ryn

The Order decided pretty quickly that we liked the

offer from the Avonside folks. That meant we needed
to put together a team for the first official mission of
the Order. The concerning part of all this was that
Troy had put me in charge of the whole operation. I
wasn’t a leader! I was barely functional on my own!

Feeling overwhelmed already, I dragged Grace to the

balcony cafe and grabbed myself a coffee from Crash,
the bunrista who was on duty today. She handed it to
me in one of the grove-grown disposable cups we
were using now, complete with a little smiley face
drawn on the lid. Once Grace had her own cup, we
settled down into a nook to talk.

“So who do you want to bring?” she asked me, taking

a sip from her drink. Her eyes rolled closed while she
savoured the coffee, and I did the same. Not before
admiring the expression on her pretty face, though.

“I’m not sure, I guess we’ll see who wants to—” I

began, only to be interrupted by Cream, who came
bounding into the cafe on all fours.
“Ryn, Ryn!” she exclaimed, rushing over. To my
surprise, she had Eilian in tow. “Look, I made a
friend!”

I glanced up at the obrec mage suspiciously and made

a humming sound of question while raising an
eyebrow.

Eilian raised her hands defensively. “Hey, don’t look at

me like that! She’s a kid!”

“Okay…” I said, still wondering what was going on

here.

“I found her down in the village!” Cream explained,

oblivious to the undertones of the conversation. “She
was asking how to get up here, so I let her through the
upper grove’s barrier! Wait… is that okay? She’s really
nice and she doesn’t smell evil.”
“No it's fine,” I said, giving her head a quick pat while
she hopped up onto the sofa beside me. “Eilian is a
friend, so— hold on, she didn’t smell evil?”

“Yes?” the small humanoid bunny asked, tilting her

head in confusion. “She smells like a good person,
although she might need an emotional support bun
because she’s also very sad.”

I stared at my little bun for several long moments in

consternation, then turned my gaze on the obrec.
Who, it turned out, was blushing in embarrassment,
but not the cute kind. Evidently the comment about
her mood wasn’t entirely off-base.

“Good to hear she’s not evil,” Grace said with a smile,

saving everyone from the awkward moment. “What
can we do for you, Eilian?”
“I was actually coming up to ask about formally joining
the Order of Eleos,” she said, flopping down into one
of the new cosy armchairs we’d had made. It engulfed
her lithe frame, until she hooked one leg over an arm
rest and lazed backward like a bored queen. “I’ve
been thinking, and running around like an unruly
vagabond is getting boring… plus, I need something to
do to take my mind off… things.”

When I frowned and opened my mouth, she raised a

hand to stall me. “Please don’t ask. I— well, it’s
painful. Let’s just say the idea of going around trying
to actually do good on this gods forsaken ring has,
well, a nice ring to it.”

Grace snorted at the pun, but I was thinking back to

the story Otho told us about her. Eilian had lost her
life-partner to an arranged marriage, which for obrec
meant that she’d never again find deep love. Their
species bonded once and forever. Sure, they might
have other lovers—they weren’t exactly a prudish
species—but that’s all they’d be, a side lover.

“Yeah, that’s cool,” I replied. “You’ll have to do a bit of

training with Troy, though. He’ll want to teach you the
ins and outs of our operation and stuff.”

Eilian’s face scrunched up into a grimace, but she

nodded, “Makes sense.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll learn a thing or two,” Grace

said. “You’re extremely skilled with magic and your
sword, but us Earthborn folks have a lot of knowledge
about combat that you might not have. Ask someone
about our world’s history sometime.”

“I’ve heard rumours,” Eilian said with another

grimace.
Grace grinned. “Exactly. It’ll help.”

“I agree,” Eilian said with a wary sigh, staring at the

floor. Then she lifted her gaze and grinned. “I’m not
reluctant because I think it won’t help. I’m reluctant
because taking orders from others is very much not
my style.”

The three of us laughed, and then I realised that there

were supposed to be four of us. Where on earth had
Cee gone?

“Where did Cee run off to?” I asked, glancing around.

The other two were just as surprised as me to find

that the small bunny girl had vanished into thin air.
Grace sat upright with a start and pointed out the
window, and when we looked outside, there she was
just trotting off into the forest with a small gaggle of
normal buns behind her.

Oh no. Nothing good ever came of Cee rushing off

with a group of her fellows to do something without a
word. Okay, that was a lie. Many good things had
come of Cee and the rest of the buns getting up to
shenanigans.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll find out what she’s up to soon

enough,” Grace laughed, and we shared a look. You
know, one of those looks where something is funny
and you look at someone you care about and share
the amusement between you.

“Yeah…” I said slowly, watching the spot where the

buns had disappeared into the forest. “Anyway, Eilian.
Go find Troy and let him know you’re interested in
signing up. Something you should know, however…
The Order isn’t just an organisation that makes
demands of its members. We’ll help you with anything
you want to try and get done, okay?”

Eilian brushed a lock of pure golden hair out of her

face and smiled across the coffee table at me. “There’s
not much I want to do, these days. Other than fuck
beautiful people and drink.”

The last was said with a pointed examination of my

body from head to toe, and I rolled my eyes. “Okay,
calm down there. Taking the horny thing a little too
figuratively, aren’t we?”

She laughed. “Very funny.”

Catherine
Picking up the sheet of paper on the library desk, I
held it up to the afternoon sunlight that shone
through the high windows of the room and considered
my work.

“Your spell still giving you trouble?” Mer asked,

looking up from the lesbian romance novel she’d
found somewhere. It was so cute how she was diving
into Earth culture the way she was. The other night I
found her in her room laughing over a bollywood
action movie.

"Yeah." I nodded, letting the paper fall back onto the

table. "I can do simple materials like metal easily
enough. A lab assistant called Hue helped me figure
out vacuum welding. That spell is already installed in a
flower in Bray's workshop. It's things like stone and
wood with more complex structures that are giving
me the most trouble."
"Sounds to me like you're running into limitations with
Garden magic," Mer said.

I blinked at her, trying to understand what other types

of magic she could mean. As far as I was aware,
Garden mages were the only ones with powers this
versatile.

"Do mages from other realms exist?" I asked

sceptically.

"I've heard stories." She watched me with open

amusement and paused for several seconds. "You're
very cute when you get excited over something."

Pouting, I waved for her to please continue talking.

"I've just heard of mages from way further spinward
that carve gemstones to create their spells," she
shrugged apologetically. "I don't know what realm
they're from. Unfortunately the further anti-spinward
you go, the more people hate magic. There were
vague mentions of a catastrophe that made everyone
start killing mages regardless of how many died
trying."

My whole body shivered at the implication. What kind

of event could cause a reaction like that? "That's
terrifying."

Before Mer could keep up with the scary rumours

from faraway lands, the door to the library opened
and Ryn strolled through.

“Hey Cat, Mer, do either of you want to come along

for the next scouting expedition?”
I didn’t even have to think about my decision. “No,
thanks. I have too much work to do here.”

Ryn nodded in understanding and turned her

attention to Mer, who looked more than a little
conflicted. “I’d like to…” she began, but glanced briefly
in my direction before shaking her head. “But no, I
think I’ll stay. Maybe the next one?”

“Fine by me,” Ryn smiled, turning for the door. “So far
we have Adam, Duncan, Eilian, me, and Grace.”

Twisting to crack my stiff back, I asked, “That sounds

like enough, right? Five people?” Mer’s eyes traced
my movements, and I stifled a smile. At least I knew
for sure she found me attractive.

“It is, yeah,” Ryn agreed.

She made to leave the room, only to twist out of the
way as a small bunny girl with lavender-pink fur
trotted purposefully into the room. We all watched
Cee while she tottered over to a bookshelf and began
to run a fluffy, chubby little finger over the spines of
the books. Her mouth moved as she silently sounded
out the words, until finally she came to a stop next to
one of the beginner tomes. Delicately, she pried the
book off the shelf and flipped open the cover to scan
the contents page. She appeared to have found what
she was looking for, because she nodded decisively
and turned back for the door.

It was about then that she noticed we were all staring

at her with bemused expressions. “Oh! Hello! I am
going to take this book. Esra said I should use it to,
uh… kill two birds with one arrow? I’m not sure why
I’d want to kill birds, because they are very important
to the ecosystem, and the book only has words about
arrows. I am going to try and understand the words of
the teacher with this book I hope.”
I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from laughing.
Ryn was having almost as much trouble with her own
amusement when she responded, “That is a figure of
speech, Cee. To kill two birds with one arrow, means
to achieve two goals with one action. I think what Esra
meant was that you could strengthen your reading
ability and also learn about magic.”

Cee’s little bunny mouth opened in silent

understanding, revealing her frankly terrifying teeth.
God they were big.

“Oh! That makes big more sense!” she smiled. “Thank

you Ryn! You are so wise.”

With that, she was off again out the door, probably to
commit more bunny mischief.
“You are so wise, Ryn!” I teased, grinning teasingly at
my friend and her reddening cheeks.

Shaking her head, Ryn sighed, “I hope she starts to

realise I’m not the goddess she believes me to be. It’s
exhausting and kinda… strange.”

Mer and I shared a look of barely contained laughter.

That whole encounter had been too funny. Cee was
such an earnest little bun, but she could be very literal
sometimes. All the buns struggled with subtext and
metaphor like that. It just made them even cuter,
though.

“I guess I’ll go… uh, let the others know we need to

start planning our trip,” Ryn mumbled, finally exiting
the room.
Once the door was safely shut, Mer and I devolved
into fits of giggling.

Chapter 121 :
Ryn

The Order’s town in the lower section of my grove

actually resembled a settlement now. Barracks were
set up near the main town square, which housed the
transportation obelisk and three small fountains
spaced out around the perimeter. Buns trotted about
helping people or relaxing in huddles that I would call
claustrophobic, but that they would call cosy.
My destination was the workshop, a large building
that was a hive of activity for the construction crews.
Anything and everything more complex than simple
cutting of stone and wood was done there. In the
back, however, was Bray's private smithy and
workshop. Currently he shared it with Claih, which
despite their constant bickering, had led to some
extremely interesting breakthroughs.

Using Bray's encyclopaedic knowledge of all things

metal, Claih had been able to refine some of her
inventions. You could do a lot with a machine when
the metal used in its construction was lighter,
stronger, and more resistant to corrosion.

Rather than get in the way of the buns and humans

hard at work in the main workshop, I opted to slink
around the side. I had to dodge a bun whose hauling
backpack was full of shingles destined to be installed
in private homes, but I made it to the side door and
slipped inside.

Grace was the first to notice my entrance from the

firearms table, and with her attention preoccupied,
she promptly missed loading a test cartridge into her
gun. It dropped onto the table, rolled for half a second
and then took a dive off the table. Catching it before it
hit the ground, she smiled sheepishly and left her
work to welcome me.

We met halfway across the shop floor, where she

hugged me close. Her lips travelled the inch or so of
height difference between us and pressed against
mine in a kiss. For a split second, my head was
emptied of all thoughts, but she pulled away quickly.
We had company. Claih and Bray were busy looking
every which way but at us, so I pulled out of my
girlfriend's embrace and made for where the new
armour stood on racks.
"I love you," Grace whispered in my ear, and I forgot
which leg was meant to go next. In a room full of
magical power tools, tripping over your own muddled
feet was not the best idea, and if it weren't for Grace
standing ready to clean up the mess she made of my
coordination, my natural healing would've been quite
busy.

"Having the two of you in the workshop at the same

time should be a codified OSHA violation," Bray
remarked with a grin, putting his own work down.

“Ha ha, very funny,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Let’s have

a look at the new and improved armour, then.”

Grace gasped in excitement beside me. “Yes! Finally!

Your damn secrecy about these things has been killing
me!”
He laughed and put his hammer down on the table.
“So, I’m calling it Expeditionary Armour until someone
thinks of a better name for it.”

With a flourish, he pulled a sheet away and revealed

five sets of armour. Two were obviously built to be
tankier and to the boy’s sizes, while another two were
lighter and more flexible. The final one deviated the
furthest from what looked like the standard pattern.

The basic colour pattern had clearly taken inspiration

from my current outfit—matte green-grey metal
plates with silver and green highlights, and small red
Camelia symbols on their shoulders. We’d been
through several logo ideas for the order, but when
someone had suggested the flower known for passion,
desire, perfection, and healing, it’d stuck. Problem
was, it’d been suggested because it reminded
everyone of me. I needed to like, make some harmless
but massive fuck-up, just so everyone would give up
on this crap.
Anyway, the armour was almost like a mix between
mediaeval plate and hardcore tactical gear, except
unlike the very first iteration, it was much more
complex and had mechanical components. Actually,
there were all sorts of actuators and stuff hidden
behind plates and inside joints. It looked almost like—

“Yup, power armour,” Bray said proudly. “Crazy

magical power armour, but still power armour!”

“That is so fucking cool,” I said, awe hushing my voice.

Stepping closer to the mage-robed set, I ran my finger

down the fabric of the coat. It was thick and soft, but
with a toughness to it that hinted at something more
robust hidden inside.

“What’s the fabric?”

Clearly proud of the work, he lifted a corner of the
coat and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger.
“Imagine denim, but with metallic thread woven
throughout it. I figured that your magic would be the
brunt of your protection and anything I cooked up
would be way inadequate against enemy magic, so I
went with this. It’s tough as hell, all but impervious to
slashing, resistant to penetrative attacks, and the
fabric is easily enchantable. You should also find
empty—uh… I guess the right word is tunnels—
through it.”

Frowning, I bent down to inspect it up close.

“Tunnels?”

“Yeah, holes or tunnels or whatever,” he said, shifting

the collar to show me a tiny hole that fed into and
between the layers of the fabric. “It was just an idea,
but you could try growing one of your magic plants
inside it. Like a crazy botanist enchantment or
something.”

“Weaving fabricated items and spell-plants together,”

I said, with a full fission-reactor’s worth of light bulbs
going off in my head. Like a coiled viper, I leapt out to
wrap him in a sideways hug. “That’s an awesome idea!
Wow!”

Bray patted my back affectionately. “I thought you’d

like that.”

“What else can the armour do?” asked Grace, walking

over to the set that was her size.

“So,” Bray began, following her to the suit. “Going into

this project, I knew that my friends would be counting
on this stuff. It’s not just a product being pushed to a
market, it’s something that will bring you all back into
the grove safe and sound after a mission.”

Bending over slightly, he pointed out one of the

actuators in a knee. “First off is the power part of the
armour. I have what we call an empathic capacitor up
in the neck that will read your intended movements
and transmit it to all the various moving parts of the
armour. It’ll make you faster and stronger. Nothing
like a superhero, mind you, but let’s just say you’d
beat any human in an arm wrestling contest.”

Next, my friend straightened and tapped one of the

armour plates. “The rigid portions of the armour are
the same as the cloth I talked about earlier, except
tougher. Conventional steel weapons will bounce right
off it.”
“Taking the paint job with it, I assume,” Grace joked,
trying and failing to pick at the metal with one of her
stubby fingernails.

“Wrong!” Bray replied triumphantly. “There’s no paint

on this baby. I mixed some crazy binary pigment into
the outermost layer of the composite plates. Not only
is it impervious to egging, but with a button press
from the arm control panel, the whole suit will go into
blackout mode.”

He demonstrated his claim by lifting an armour plate

on the left forearm to reveal a fairly slick looking set of
buttons. Pressing one, he stood back and basked in
the shocked reactions from my girlfriend and I.

In the space of a second, the whole armour went a

sort of darkened space grey. The kind of colour that
made you blend in with the night better than any full
black ever would.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, impressed. Sure, I could do
much more insane shit with my magic, but this was all
just… mechanical. Magic was still in there, of course,
but it was stable and fixed into a physical object—no
mages needed.

“That is the least interesting thing about the suits,”

Bray said, practically preening now. I couldn’t fault
him for the bravado either. These things were
awesome!

“I can’t show you without it being worn by someone,”

he continued, stepping back, “But they have a
deployable vacuum seal for if you somehow find
yourself needing some privacy from the outside air. By
that, I mean it’ll keep your whole body safe from toxic
gas or even the vacuum of space for a short time. I
wouldn’t go testing that functionality just yet, though.
It’s not like I’ve had access to someplace to make sure
it works.”
“Does that mean there’s temperature controls too?”
Grace questioned, walking around the armour to poke
and prod at various pieces.

“Yup, heating and cooling are built into the thighs,

upper arms, and torso,” he nodded. “The helmets
have flashlights too.”

“Actually… I was meaning to ask about that,” I

interrupted, pointing at the remarkably familiar
contraption on the forehead of the helmet. It looked
like a set of extremely stubby night vision goggles.

“The visor,” he said, introducing it like a VIP. “It’s not

even close to complete yet, unfortunately. I wanted to
build a lot more into it, but right now you can just flip
it down and operate the little focusing ring to zoom in
and out. Night vision that isn’t just a green mess will
have to wait, unfortunately.”
Claih chuckled from over at her workstation.
“Whenever I finally figure out how to make it work.”

Her desk was littered with what I now realised were

more visors in various states of disassembly. Little
crystals and wires and funny glowing metal rods were
everywhere, and held suspended in a jar of faintly
glowing liquid, was a lens.

“Damn treatment process is being a—” she frowned,

struggling with her English for a moment. “A hoofless
goat.”

We all stared at her for a few seconds, trying to parse

what she’d just said. Finally, Bray switched to Anve
and asked, “Was that like, a translated obrec curse
word?”
“Yes,” she grumbled, clearly put out. “Your language
lacks good curses.”

“Speaking of language,” I said with a sly smile at Bray.

“You’ve been learning. Any particular reason?”

Rolling his eyes, he picked up a bolt and threw it at

me. I caught it with my mind and set it back down on
the table, much to his consternation.

“Yes, I’ve had some motivation in that department,”

he said, a little defensively. “I have to work with Cad a
lot, since he’s the one getting the materials we need.”

I grinned. “Nobody mentioned Cad.”

“You did,” he shot back. “Not with words, but I could

hear it in your voice, you damn… pestilential weed.”
“Hey!” I gasped in mock outrage. “I am not a weed!
I’m a delicate and fragrant flower.”

“What’s fragrant is the mess you leave—” he started,

only to yelp when the bolt from earlier very
mysteriously pinged off his head. “Ow! Ungrateful
little…”

Our little meeting very quickly dissolved into good

natured bickering from then on, and unknown to me
at the time, a little troupe of bunnies used the
distraction to make off with several tools and a crate
of nails.
Chapter 122 :
Ryn

It took a month of planning and preparations, but our

new expedition was ready to go. Our group was
comprised of Adam, Duncan, Grace, Eilian, and me,
with Dr Ross the head of political sciences and two
others tagging along. Jenna from the militia was there
as personal security for Dr Ross, while Tom was the
assistant.

Before we made our way out of the Avonside

mountains, I had to help the three newbies move into
their temporary rooms down in the guest quarters in
my grove. I met them out in the main quad of the
campus with a smile. “Dr Ross, Jenna, nice to see you
both again!”
The professor stepped forward as I offered my hand,
and we shook. “Yes, yes you too Ms Belrose,” he said.
“And this is my assistant, Tom.”

Tom was your typical dude by all visual metrics. He

was around six feet tall, with brown hair that would
have a grandmother talking incessantly about
haircuts, and the type of smile that was like catnip to
girls who like nerdy boys.

I gave him a nod, then turned my attention back to the

professor and gestured to their small packed bags.
“You know you can take way more than that, right?
We’ll be gone for months, I’d suggest bringing pretty
much anything and everything you want.”

“Are you sure?” Dr Ross asked, confused. “How do we

carry it all?”
“We don’t,” I grinned. “We bring it into my grove
where I’ve had my people build the three of you a
small apartment offshoot from my tree. Each day we
travel, but then instead of camping at night, we
transfer into my grove where we have all the
amenities of a proper home.”

“This grove of yours sounds like a cheat code to life,”

Tom said, speaking for the first time.

Dr Ross made a noise of agreement and said, “I am

very interested in how this all works. Would you mind
if we saw the accommodations before deciding what
to bring?”

“Absolutely,” I smiled. “Shall we go now?”

“I don’t see any reason not to. Where do we go?”

“Nowhere,” I laughed, and touched each of them with
a tendril of telekinesis.

Green leaves and magenta flower petals swirled up

around us in a rush, and for a brief microsecond, we
hung between realms. It was the sort of stutter in your
perception of time that made you wonder if you’d just
blinked or the lights really had gone out for a moment.
Then we were in my grove, standing in the shade of
my enormous Christmas tree home.

“Welcome to—” I began to say, when I had a light-

bulb moment. “—To Stormpine, my home.”

My inner grove had developed significantly in the time

we’d been at Avonside. The area directly surrounding
the tree was now covered in small gently rolling hills,
with pathways and streams snaking through them.
The forest beyond was a temperate jungle of exotic
plants, trees, and all the small fauna that kept a
woodland healthy. Regular cottontail rabbits had even
been caught and introduced by the buns, although
only after their breeding rate was nixed significantly.

My spells felt… stronger, when the plants were in part

maintained and grown in a more natural way. Of
course, we still grew normal food crops in a more
organised fashion among the hills under the tree.

I could even see— hold on, was that a hobbit hole?

Frowning, I levitated upwards a metre or so and cast a

magnifying spell.

Sure enough, over near the tunnel to Cee's grove was

a small village under construction. The aesthetic
wasn't entirely hobbit-inspired, with a style that was
more rustic, and little square towers with pointy
triangular roofs poking up out of the hills from each
house.

It took a moment longer for me to notice the much

more alarming change. Of the fifty or so buns I could
see working to finish the village, about half of them
were bipedal like Cee.

“Those little shits!” I exclaimed.

“W-wha?” Jenna sputtered, turning her attention

away from gawking in wonder up at Stormpine.

All three of them had been staring around in open

wonder at my grove, but now we were all watching
the buns in bemusement.
“Fascinating,” Dr Ross murmured, his intelligent eyes
tracing the fluffy miscreants as they went about their
unsanctioned work. “They’re more intelligent than I
thought they were.”

“We all underestimated them at first,” I agreed. “The

upright ones are actually mages. That’s the form the
fruit gives them when they transform. From speaking
to the first of them, I’ve been able to gather that the
language centres of their brains aren’t as well
developed as a human’s, but empathic sections are
greatly heightened. They’re able to smell emotions on
people to a certain extent, and they’re very clued into
body language.”

“Absolutely fascinating,” he repeated again. “And they

have an organisational structure? Politics?”

Snorting with private amusement, I replied, “Only

vaguely. They’re very communal creatures, so most of
what they do is done in broad and chaotic telepathic
discussions. One is a leader among them, though,
who’ll generally have the final say in a matter. Then
they all listen to me… most of the time."

"Telepathic group decision making…" he mumbled,

still watching my buns. "How incredible. I look forward
to meeting and speaking with them."

"They'll probably love that," I chuckled. "They seem to

enjoy telling us humans that we're overcomplicating
everything."

We continued to discuss the buns and my grove while

I led them towards the newly named Stormpine. As
we walked, I noticed more and more bun-meddling.
There were crude little sign posts and shrines along
the road. Wild berries had been planted in neat little
hedges too, and there appeared to be the beginnings
of pastures enclosed by stone fences. It felt like I'd
stepped into an old English children's book universe.

The apartment I had built for the three guests was the
first addition to the tree that hadn't been grown. It
looked like a cute little cottage tacked onto the side of
the tree at the third floor, and that's pretty much what
it was.

It was pretty funny seeing them begin to realise just

how much nicer things were inside the grove. When
they saw the balcony cafe, there were more than a
few exclamations of envy. The bunrista even had
coffee ready for them when we arrived.

From there, we inspected the cottage itself, and it was

about then that the reality of things set in. They could
bring anything and everything they owned on the trip,
they'd sleep in the same bed each night after a hot
shower, and there was even power and a network
connection.

The interior consisted of a tree-standard bathroom

setup, complete with hot tub, a large sitting room with
a small kitchen and study nook, plus the three
bedrooms. There were also two storage closets in case
they decided to bring a lot of stuff.

"I don't know what to say, Ms Belrose," said Dr Ross,

slumping back into an armchair. "This is nicer than my
rooms in Avonside, and the view…"

"This is only the inner grove," I said with a gesture out

the large windows of the sitting room. "Beyond the
edge of the plateau is the Order's plateau which is
orders of magnitude bigger than what you can
currently see."
“Are we allowed to visit it?” Jenna asked eagerly. “I
have some friends who joined. They were really cagey
about things in here and it should be fun to catch up
with them now that my clearance has been raised.”

I gave it a moment’s thought, but couldn’t think of any

reasons to say no. “Yeah, whenever you have time.”

“Sweet!” she said, pumping a fist. “Have you got a pub

yet?”

“It’ll be finished by the time we leave, I think,” I

replied.

Truth was, we didn’t have any pub planned, but as of

right now I knew we needed at least one of them. It
needed to be a proper fantasy tavern too, with
multiple floors all piled one atop the other, barrels of
mead everywhere… oh, and a bun minstrel! It was
going to be awesome, and I knew just the construction
crew for it…

Chapter 123 :
Ryn

It was finally time to leave the safety of Avonside and

its mountain shield. I glanced up at the sun and
groaned. The sun was beginning to blur slightly as the
morning moved over into midday, and still we weren’t
ready to leave.

Idly, I wondered what caused the blurring, rather than

there just being a momentary eclipse when the sun
went behind the other side of the ring. There were a
lot of things about the ring that I didn’t expect or
understand, actually. Like for example, the ring barely
spun at all, and I’d heard of obrec mines that were
hundreds of metres deep. It wasn’t just a few feet of
soil and then scrith. Hell, people here knew what
earthquakes were, which implied some truly strange
things about this world.

“I apologise for the late showing,” Dr Ross puffed,

looking like he’d just run a marathon as he arrived at
the gathering of people coming to see us off. “My
faculty decided that the day of my departure was the
perfect time to bring urgent matters to my attention.”

I waved off his apology. “No problem. Are any of these

urgent matters something I should worry about?”

“Oh, no. They’re urgent by the standards of our work

creating a proper constitution and laws, nothing life or
death.”
“Ah, right…” I said slowly, then turned my attention to
the group at large. “Okay, folks. It’s time we got going.
I doubt we’ll get far with only half a day left, but any
progress is better than none. Is everyone ready?”

One by one, Grace, Adam, Duncan, Eilian, Dr Ross,

Jenna, and Tom all signalled they were ready to go,
and we bid goodbye to those of our friends who were
staying in Avonside. Of course, most of the Order folks
would see us in the evenings, but the rest wouldn’t
see us for months.

Before we could make our escape, Dr Wilcott cleared

her throat. “I’d like to say a few words, if that’s
alright.”

I stifled a groan of impatience and Grace had to cover

a chuckle with a cough. We shared a little glance, and I
was once again reminded of why I loved her.
“With this expedition, Avonside will be making its first
diplomatic overtures out into this new world, and in
doing so, hopefully solidify its sovereignty as a nation
—”

I tuned out. Flowery speeches were never something I

was interested in listening to, and especially not from
a group I was still sorta grumpy with. She wasn’t
wrong, though. It was definitely an important
milestone for the fledgling city-state.

“—and so, Dr Ross, I’m entrusting much of our future

to you. Please help ensure we have one.”

“I’ll do my best,” said the man in question, chuckling

at his own joke. At least, I think it was meant to be a
joke.
It took us another minute or so to get moving,
because the act of leaving itself felt so anticlimactic.
Like, we were heading out on a grand journey and all
we did was start walking? Weird. For those of us in the
Order, it was made even stranger by the fact that
we’d still see everyone each night.

The mountains that sheltered Avonside were

beautiful. The town sat on what had once been the
elbow of the new Avonside river, as time had moved
on through the years, it’d twisted and turned, leaving
the relatively flat area we knew. The rest of the
mountain range was not so gentle.

Sharp peaks rose up into the clouds, buttressed by the

many ridges that had formed below them. Between
those ridges and peaks, dense forest ruled, and I
wondered again if that forest could be turned to my
advantage. I had so many ideas and so little time to
implement them.

As of right now, however, I had one job. Since this

mission was a contact mission, it was no longer
required that Avonside keep a low profile. So as we
walked, I was burning a path through the forest with
magic. Hopefully it would allow someone else to come
through and build a proper road later on.

"I'm happy to be back on the road," Grace commented

quietly from beside me.

I glanced over at her. "Why? I'm kinda anxious to be

honest."

"Because… I don't know," she shrugged. "Why are you

anxious?"
"This is a pretty important mission, and I'm in charge
of making sure it goes smoothly," I said.

Reaching out, she took my hand in hers and gave me a

reassuring smile. "You'll do great, my love. Plus, if you
need help, Troy and co are just a little planar hop
away."

"Hop?" I asked, feigning overenthusiastic excitement.

"Like a bunny?"

Laughing, Grace rolled her eyes. "Sure, goofball. Like a

bun."

I joined her laughter, and together we kept walking

through the forest while it withered under the assault
of my magic.
One day later, and we were still slogging down out of
the mountains when Eilian suddenly stopped and
hissed in warning. “There’s something out there.”

“Something?” Jenna asked, the blood draining from

her face.

Eilian nodded and opened her mouth. She pulled this

weird expression and began to breathe deeply
through her mouth. “I can smell something foul, like…
aged rotten meat.”

“Oh, that’s just delightful,” Duncan grimaced.

“It has the warmth of movement, though,” she

continued, and pointed out into the underbrush. “It
also appears to be getting closer. We should prepare
to defend ourselves.”
“Okay everyone,” I said, taking charge of the situation.
“Avonsiders get behind, everyone else form a loose
line facing the thing. Whatever it is.”

While they got ready to receive whatever creature

was coming, I spun up into the air to get a better view
of things and whispered, “Sorry, friends.”

Then, I unleashed a wave of force that tore through

the forest like a tsunami. Small trees and shrubs were
flattened under the spell, clearing our line of sight into
the forest. After the last time I’d been attacked by one
of the more horrifying creatures that lived on the ring,
I’d learnt my lesson.

As if in response to my magic, a howl erupted from

the forest. It was quickly joined by many more, until it
seemed like the trees themselves were ready to
uproot themselves and go on the hunt.
“Wolves?” Dr Ross asked anxiously. “That sounded
like wolves…”

“No,” Eilian replied, drawing one of her many swords.

“I am afraid these are much worse than wolves.”

The dull thud of massive paws filtered out from the

surviving underbrush, and I brushed a lock of my hair
out of my face. Were my people ready? I checked
each over with a glance to be sure. Adam and Duncan
had their heavy armour on in blackout mode. In their
hands they both held heater shields and short swords,
both of which were enchanted to improve their
functionality. The shields could shrug off magical
attacks up to a certain point, while the swords
wouldn’t lose their edge even when hammered
against solid steel. Our magitechts had further ideas,
but they weren’t ready yet. For now, it was just the
basics.
Eilian had her blades and magic, obviously, while her
armour was of the Order’s medium variety. Beside
her, Grace wore the same, except in her hands was
the mother of all pistols. The hand cannon was almost
as big as her forearm, but she hefted it like it was far
smaller. While I watched, she flipped a cartridge out of
her bandolier and breathed some sort of red-hot
magic into the ammunition.

Within the forest, a tree exploded into splinters, and a

massive monster flew through the debris of its
entrance. My gut filled instantly with icy water, and I
had to fight an animal urge to run.

Eilian wasn’t kidding. Standing on all fours at six feet

tall to the shoulder, I thought it was some sort of
emaciated bear at first. Its head was all wrong,
though. It was canine in shape, except for the huge
mandibles of bone, perfectly shaped for ploughing
snow. Shaking its head from side to side, it thrashed
the mandibles up and down the armoured carapace
on its forelimbs, creating an awful grinding sound that
sent shivers up my spine.

“It has friends!” Grace cried, raising her gun. “Less

staring, more killing!”

Sure enough, more of the diseased warg things leapt

to join their kin, who broke into a charge. Grace’s gun
snapped with power, and her shot flew out to hit the
lead monster. Almost faster than the eye could follow,
it shifted its head, bringing a mandible up to block the
shot. The projectile simply bounced off the flat surface
of the bone armour and up into the sky.

“Oh fuck,” Grace swore, and ducked behind Duncan.

The boy grunted, and pistons in his armour hissed.

There was a thunk, and hefty pins shot out of his
boots and into the ground, bracing him. Then the
monster hit him with the full force of a rampaging
bull.

Sparks flew up from his shield, but he held. Just as

Troy had trained him, he thrust his sword up under
the chin of the beast while it stood confused by the
fact that he wasn’t a mangled lump of meat.

“The carapace is resistant to magic,” Eilian called, all

while throwing a blade of raw energy out to knock the
wind out of another warg as it charged. “Go for the
soft squishy bits!”

Right. Time to fight. Another one of the monsters was

trying to circle our formation, so I dove down and
summoned my magenta blades. Hoping that I was
wrong about needing them, I raised a hand and
unleashed a beam of radiant green energy at it. Just
like the other one, it suddenly gained a tremendous
amount of speed and brought the armour on its back
to bear.

To the surprise of both of us, my beam wasn’t

deflected. Sure, it didn’t core the bastard out through
the middle, but it was driven face first into the ground
by the force of my attack. When I cut the beam off, I
could see that the carapace had melted where I hit it.

Taking advantage of the stun, I flicked my other hand

forward in an order to my blades, and they scythed
through the air towards the monster’s throat. Dark
blood hissed out of the wound, spraying my feet and
then my legs when it thrashed and howled in pain. I
jumped backwards and tried to shove it away with my
mind. It moved slightly, but that was it. Damn things
were tanky as all hell when it came to magic.

“Ryn, watch out!”

My head snapped up just in time to see another of the
monsters slam into my shields at full speed. Like shot
from a cannon, I flew backward into a tree, which
snapped explosively under the impact. Groaning, I
looked up. Oh crud. Gravity was about to remind me
of its presence via half a ton of wood. Unfortunately
for gravity, I was a bit of a troublemaker when it came
to laws of the universe. I wonder if the carapace
wolves were resistant to high velocity tree trunks?

Chapter 124 :
Grasping the falling tree with my mind, I braced
myself and heaved with all my mental might. I
would’ve found the look on the carapace wolf’s face
funny, except that it was so ugly. The splintered base
of the tree slammed into its grotesque features and
pinwheeled up into the air. The monster was driven
face first into the ground from the impact, breaking
bone and carapace like they were made of nothing
more than green wood.
Moaning with pain, it tried to push itself to its feet,
but by that time, blood loss was beginning to take its
toll on the creature. God-damn, just how tough were
these things? Still, at least my blades worked.

With that in mind, I jumped into action. Magenta

blades of magical energy flew through the air and
strafed the flank of the beast engaging Duncan in a
duel of strength. Blood oozed from multiple wounds
on its thick hide, but I was far from finished. Gesturing
upwards, I guided flying swords through a graceful arc
that ended with them lined up in a semi-circle around
the base of its skull. Then, flipping my hand palm-up, I
closed my fist. As one, the impossibly sharp blades
struck. Nerves instantly severed, it suddenly collapsed
and Duncan was thrown stumbling forward into the
now paralyzed creature.

A loud crack caused me to flinch, and I jerked my head

towards the noise. Grace stood to the side of one of
the bears with her gun pointed at its head. Right
where I guessed the temple would be there was a
bullet hole. A proper bullet hole, not something that'd
been created with magic. Illustrating the point, a thin
trail of smoke reached up out of the barrel of the
weapon.

She moved again, turning the gun on yet another of

the monsters and fired. There was no doubt now, she
was using normal bullets, although they appeared to
be very large. Around the chamber of the gun, runes
glowed red hot for a few moments. I think they were
ejecting waste heat from some internal process.

While I loved watching my girlfriend kick ass, I had to

do the same, so I pulled my blades back and got ready
to fight once more.

Five minutes later and the wolf-bear things were

dead. After throwing them as far as I could back into
the forest so they didn’t stink up the path I was
marking out, we moved onwards, although now with a
novel new conversation topic!

“What the hell were those things?” I asked Eilian.

“Why were they resistant to magic?”

“Most magical creatures are,” explained the obrec

woman, placing her hooves carefully to avoid the
entrance to a burrow of some kind. “As for what they
were, well… I believe they were wolves once, from
your homeworld. At some point or another, they must
have wandered into one of the magical realms and
gotten trapped. Generations later, those things came
out. The realms tend to twist and corrupt any life that
makes its way into their depths.”

“Wait…” I said slowly, glancing at the many people in

our party who were both human and had been in my
grove multiple times.
Eilian saw my concern and chuckled, “No, it wouldn’t
happen to them, at least not in a relatively safe realm
like the Garden. If you were to leave them out in the
arboreal void beyond a grove for a few years, they
might start to run into problems, but otherwise they
would be fine.”

“So… what, we’d grow planty bits like you lot?” Adam
asked, gesturing between myself, Eilian, and Grace.

“Yes, handsome,” the obrec replied wryly. “You would

grow… planty bits.”

“Cool,” he grinned, already daydreaming about the

prospect. “What other realms are there? Oh, is there
like… a water realm? Oh! Or a holy realm! I could grow
cool angel wings.”
“I do not believe there is a holy realm, par say… per
see…” she replied, faltering as she stumbled over the
niche words.

“Per se,” I supplied.

She shot me a look of thanks. “Thank you. Uh… yeah, I

think there’s more than one realm centred around
water. Angel wings, on the other hand… these are
similar to the angels the Donians worship?”

“Yes,” I said, replying for Adam. I doubted he knew

who the Donians were, but I did. They were the crazy
religious theocracy to our north that was founded by
medieval hardline christians.

“In that case, yes, there is a realm that’d give you

pretty white wings. The Donians have a few warlocks
from there that they mistakenly believe are saints or
some-such lunacy,” Eilian explained.

“Cool,” the boy grinned. “Maybe there’s a type of

magic out there for me too. Other than the angel stuff
of course.”

“You’re already magic, sweetie,” Eilian winked, making

a very obvious glance downwards. Oh. Right, They’d…
done stuff. To my surprise, Adam blushed. Eilian
giggled at the look on his face and said, “It’s a pity I’m
bonded. You’d be fun.”

“Maybe,” Adam replied, sobering. “I think I’d be best

with someone a little more…”

“Normal?” she asked wryly.

I have to admit, I was feeling a little awkward just
standing here listening to a fairly intimate
conversation.

“Something like that, yeah,” Adam agreed with a

shrug. “I feel like I wouldn’t be entertaining enough
for you queer folks.

“Dude, no,” Grace said, sounding surprisingly

passionate. “You’re not boring or anything like that. I
know many girls, straight or bi, who would love to
take a crack at you. The alphabet mafia might like to
talk shit about straights sometimes, but it’s just
venting. Being able to openly voice our frustrations is
part of the healing process, even if it’s… yeah.”

“If you say so,” he mumbled, but there was a smile on

his face as he said it.
Two days later, we exited the mountains and began to
make our approach towards the moderately sized
mining town of Neub. It was the closest settlement to
Avonside of any note, so that was Dr Ross’ first stop.
Neub would end up being the last stop a trade
caravan would make before heading into the
mountains, so we didn’t really have a choice.

The last time the scouting team had been through

here, they hadn’t spoken a word of the local language.
Now, things were different, and they had two
powerful mages with them, not to mention a wholly
unique warlock in Grace.

I just hoped the fact that they were marginally under

the jurisdiction of the Graigarian Empire wouldn’t
complicate things.
The town itself was situated along an icy mountain
river as it pushed down into the foothills. Farmland
extended a ways out from the old, crumbling walls,
but eventually it lost the fight to a patchwork of
woodland and tough scrubland. Out beyond the town,
you could just make out where the foothills came to
an end and the massive grassland that was the
northern Graigarian Empire rolled into the
atmospheric haze.

When we got close enough to see the architecture, I

was fascinated. There wasn't a single straight edge on
any building. All of them were circular or composed of
multiple circles, as though Mongolian tents had
evolved into stone and wood equivalents. Internally, I
was already referring to it as the polka dot town.

Once we were on a road, we could start subtly looking

at the people who made this place home. There were
two obvious groups. The main one, and by far the
more numerous group, were the people who’d
obviously built this town. If I had to guess, I’d say they
were probably originally lifted from Mongolia or
central Russia.

The second group were obviously the Graigarians.

They were all over the place ethnically, but their style
was distinctly post-alexander—or hellenistic—persian.
Something told me that if it weren’t for the cold
mountain air, they’d have significantly more skin
exposed. They were also much more obviously
wealthy. It was clear in which direction the wealth of
the empire flowed.

Getting closer to the town, I noticed the walls weren’t

as sturdy as they appeared from a distance. Still tall
enough to stop a human from just walking through,
many sections were crumbling, but others had gone
lower and were now patched with log palisades. The
walls were probably only there to make things difficult
for monsters, with human attackers being a rare thing
out here. The only vaguely military force that could
threaten them out here were the tribes from further
north, and so long as the gates were shut, the town
would be safe from them.

“We’re about to change this place forever,” Dr Ross

said quietly.

“Because it’s about to become aware of its alien

neighbours?” Duncan asked, head on a swivel. This
was the furthest he’d been on the ring, and he was
making the most of the sights now. Back in the
mountains, you could forget that you were on a ring if
you didn’t look up. However, it was impossible to
ignore the haze-horizon that’d replaced the line we
were so used to back on Earth.

The older man hummed in agreement. “Yes, but

additionally, Avonside will undoubtedly become an
important town, and Neub here is the gateway to our
home. The number of travellers coming through this
place will increase by many orders of magnitude.”

“Here’s hoping they welcome the traffic,” Eilian

mused, gaze tracking a local farmer as they realised
some very unusual people were walking past. His eyes
almost fell out of his head when he clocked first Eilian
and then me as mages. Poor man looked like he was
about to fall over from shock. Somehow, I didn’t think
the impending attention would be to the benefit of
folks like him. Unless we did something to safeguard
them. It was what the order was founded to do, after
all.

Chapter 125 :
Entering the town was not a difficult affair, although it
was very… awkward. No, that wasn't the right word. I
had no idea what word or phrase I'd use to describe
how it felt to scare the piss out of a squad of gate
guards by your very presence.

As far as we knew, there wasn't a single mage living

within a couple day's ride of Neub. I had a feeling that
they might see one or two mages pass through per
year, and now there were two of us arriving in a single
party.

One large, burly man with a spear, chainmail, and a

conical helmet asked us in stuttering anve if we could
please wait in the courtyard beside the guard barracks
while they fetched the local lord, who had the title of
Jagdar. A little reading between the lines told us the
title was roughly equivalent to a baron or count,
depending on when and where you're lifting your
understanding of European nobility.

As soon as we were left to wait while a couple of

errand-boys dashed off, Dr. Ross turned to eye me
with a considering expression. "They're terrified of
you."

I blew out a sigh and nodded. "Yup. Mages have a bit

of a reputation, especially around these parts."

"Are you really that dangerous?" He asked, clearly not

buying into the 'hype'.

Eilian was the one who answered the question. "A

normal mage could kill everyone in this —ah, town,
and level it to the ground with a week of readying. Ryn
is not a normal mage. She so much higher above the
common mage that she may have the being to blow
the town up right as we stand."

Her stilted and halting english, combined with the full

double canines on display as she smiled, gave the
impression that she'd find it amusing if I did as she
suggested. I think she was probably playing up how
unhinged she could be just to drive the point home.

"I don't have any spells that would be able do that," I

said, with a much more diplomatic smile at the
sheltered academic.

Tom, the quiet assistant, was the one who saw the
loophole I carefully left unstated. "But you have the
raw power, right?"

"I… yes, I do," I said, uncomfortable with even

admitting that. Like, yeah, I could go back to my grove,
design a simple explosion spell and seed the plants
over a large area. A little growth magic and I'd have a
spell with sufficient bandwidth to do what they were
suggesting.
"I see," Dr. Ross replied, a frown creasing his brow. He
seemed to digest this for a long few moments, and as
he did so, the frown deepened. "That raises some very
difficult political and legal questions, from an
academic viewpoint and a practical one. For example,
any individual with these capabilities is functionally
above the legal and political structures that we've
developed on Earth. You could brute force them into
compliance, of course, but that would almost certainly
require the assistance of a different level of similar
power."

"Hence why pretty much everyone we know of on the

ring has some sort of magical hegemony," I agreed.
"Feudalism but instead of that divine right bs, it's
magic."

We continued to discuss mages’ role in the society of

the lands around us until three men on horseback
thundered into the courtyard and dismounted. Each
one of them appeared to be extremely skilled riders,
which wasn’t a surprise.

Two of the riders wore the same armour as the gate

guards, except that their helmets had platemail neck
skirts and the top had horse hair tassels. The other
rider wore very finely crafted, iron-reinforced leather
armour, while his ornate helmet sat on the pommel of
his saddle.

Striding across the dusty cobbles, he eyed our group

with a wary, meticulous gaze. “Greetings, travellers. I
am Jagdar Marat. You will tell me why a group of
strangely dressed individuals, with two mages no less,
is stopping in my small town.”

He glared at us for half a second, then realised he was

currently making demands of two people who were
very dangerous, and added, “Ah, forgive my brusque
manners, we do not often make time for pleasantries
out here on the frontier steppe. When what amounts
to a small army’s worth of magical talent enters my
lands, my first thought must be the safety of my
people.”

“We take no offence,” I said politely, and it was true.

He was kinda curt with us, but it wasn’t like, rude or
anything. “The five of us in the green and silver
armour are members of a new knightly order, called
the Order of Eleos. We are here to accompany the
other three, who are a delegation from a town that
has sprung up within the mountains. I am in command
of those of us within the Order, but Dr. Ross here is
the diplomat. The other two are his bodyguard and
assistant.”

Marat’s expression had been calm and impassive for

the entire interaction so far, but his lips twitched
briefly into a smile of approval now. “You speak
plainly, this is good. I would like to invite you to my
hold, such as it is. We may discuss more by the
warmth of my hearthfire.”

“Lead the way, Jagdar,” I said with a gesture and a

sideways glance at Dr. Ross to see if he was still on
board with everything.

He didn’t raise any objections, so the Jagdar turned on

the heel of his riding boots and strode back towards
his horse, throwing rapidfire orders at his guards in
the grieger language.

“Good work,” Dr. Ross whispered as we began to

follow behind the local lord. “He’s obviously a martial
man with very little patience for the dance of
diplomacy. Having the head of our military contingent
open dialogue in a manner that matches his tastes is a
very good first start.”
Stifling a snort, I said, “He reminds me of my old
highschool friend’s dad. He did several tours with the
army in the middle east before he got wounded and
had to come back and be a drill sergeant.”

“I am familiar with the type,” Ross chuckled. “No

tolerance for bullshit, but if you earn their respect,
they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re happy
and thriving.”

“Kinda like Troy,” Grace said, who was well within

earshot after having stuck to my side ever since we
stepped through the gates. Couldn’t say I disagreed
with her, but at the same time, Troy had a certain soft
emotional intelligence to him that made him even
better at protecting and caring for others.

The interior of the town of Neub was such a

fascinating example of a culture still grappling with
unwanted change. Everything looked as though it
were a permanent version of things that were
originally designed for use by nomads. The buildings
resembled yurts or tents, but built from some sort of
refined mud bricks, wood, and stone. There were
horses everywhere and pretty much every house had
a small stable. Unfortunately, the number of people
and animals in this small of a space and without any
sort of sewer system meant that it smelled… ripe.

The people themselves watched us pass with curious

and fearful eyes, but they all gave the Jagdar little
bows and smiles. I saw more than a few looks of relief
too, when they saw the shining mages were already
being handled by their leader. Honestly, I was just glad
that the people here thought of their Jagdar fondly. It
meant they were treated pretty well. I’m not sure I
could stomach any sort of deal made with a malicious
despot.

When we arrived, I was amused to see my

observations of the nomadic aftershocks in their
culture extended to the Jagdar's hold, It reminded me
of a series of wagons circled around a cluster of yurts,
except both had unfolded and expanded into a
permanent fort. What I was thinking of as the wagons
were thick identical stone buildings with flat tops that
had been placed in a circle. The gaps were filled with
chunky stone walls that lacked any walkway or
rampart.

Inside the circular area, several circular wooden

buildings with stone foundations sat clustered
together around a similar larger building. It was to
that building that the Jagdar and his men led us.

The open interior was richly appointed with thick

carpets and tapestries that hung in a way that created
niches and rooms, despite the building not actually
having any. In the centre, a huge stone firepit roared
with life while a wizened older gentleman tended to it.
Actually, it looked like a huge portion of the simple
chores were being done by the older generations.
Interestingly, the servile nature of their tasks didn't
attach the associated lower level of respect that other
cultures gave their servants. Even as we approached
the central fire, the Jagdar bowed his head in respect
to the older man keeping the hearth stocked with
wood.

I think Dr. Ross also noticed this, because he gave the

elderly man a small but deliberate nod. The Jagdar
appeared to see right through the political scientist's
carefully calculated move, but judging by his
expression, he approved regardless.

"Yan-Kedji here was a noble and experienced warrior

in his prime," the leader of the settlement explained.
"When he could no longer keep up with the rigours of
his profession, he became a Yan, and turned to a life
of simple tasks and wise reflection. The Yan serve as
honoured advisors and housekeepers to the younger
generations."

"What happens if they get too old to do proper

work?" Duncan asked, eyeing the heavy log that Kedji
was busy arranging in the hearth with a long metal
poker.

The old man himself answered the question with a

light, rasping chuckle. "Young man, I am not some
sedentary senator from the inner empire, grown fat
and useless on my own arrogance. My heart will give
out long before my muscles begin to struggle with
these here logs."

"Point taken," Duncan grinned.

"Our Yan are always encouraged to speak their

minds," Jagdar Marat said in amusement. "Now… tell
me of your home and why it appears to have sprung
up out of nowhere within the mountainous wilds…
and what could you possibly want with my tiny
backwater town?"

Chapter 126 :
“If I may, Jagdar Marat?” Dr Ross asked, stepping
forward from our group. “I am the diplomat amongst
our group.”

The leader of Neub eyed him carefully for a moment,

but seemed to decide that Dr Ross was worth listening
to and nodded for him to continue.

“I represent Avonside, a newly arrived town on the

ring,” Dr Ross began, pausing when the Jagdar opened
his mouth to speak.
“Newly arrived? How?”

“Via an obelisk of unknown construction and origin,”

Dr Ross said gravely.

Suddenly, the Jagdar looked a lot less sure of himself

and a lot more apprehensive. Clearly, he knew that
even in the presence of two mages, the changes that
Avonside represented were the most dangerous thing
to his town’s existence. “I see.”

“We have no imperial ambitions by ourselves, and we

intend to remain a small city state within the
mountains, but since your town is the closest
settlement to ours we decided it would be
irresponsible of us not to warn you of our existence.
Furthermore, we will need many goods that we
ourselves cannot at this time produce, and thus, trade
will be required.” Dr Ross explained. “Our towns have
the opportunity to become very prosperous, if we can
both play our cards right.”

“Or we could both be wiped out in a calamity that

would probably engulf the entire known ring,” Marat
replied.

“That depends entirely on our people and our skills as

leaders,” Dr Ross said with a smile that held just a hint
of challenge.

Impassively, Marat locked eyes with the intelligent

university professor, and for almost ten seconds they
were both silent. Then, surprising me at least, Marat
laughed. “You have resolve. This is good. Let us
discuss our situations more casually over a meal. Then
once we understand one another, we can place an
arrow into the details of the matter.”
“Of course,” Dr Ross said with a slight bow of his head.

****

Turns out, Neub cuisine was basically just meat, wild

grain bread, and root vegetables… but they could do a
lot with them. The meat was cured using salt and
herbs from the hills nearby, then marinated for a few
days before it was seared and served. Meanwhile, the
root veggies like parsnips, carrots, and onions were
fried with goat butter and more salt. The bread was
interesting. Because it was made mostly with wild
grains, they served it as small baps or buns and you
were expected to dip it in the juices from the rest of
the meal. All of this was eaten without utensils, or at
best, a knife. It all seemed relatively simple, but holy
moly was it delicious.
During the meal, we learned a lot about the Jagdar
and his people. At first we’d assumed that the entire
massive steppe that bordered the western flank of our
mountains was populated by one culture. That could
not have been further from the truth.

Neub was considered a Reti town, who were once a

nomadic people, but they’d put down semi-
permanent roots several hundred years ago when the
Ghraigan Empire conquered them.

Their cousins, the Bahyti had kept their nomadic

nature but had since become more aggressive and
warlike, taking to raiding the towns of their once-
brothers and the empire they were forced to serve.
They were the ones who’d attacked Avonside all those
months ago. Huh, was it actually a year ago? Time was
beginning to fuzz together for me.
About the Reti’s needs and wants, we discovered that
despite the fact that they lived close to the mountains,
their primary export was not ores, but salt and horses.
If this’d been a normal world, I’d say the mountains
used to be a dried out sea. But it was a ring world, and
although it was thick enough to have its designed
plate tectonics, it simply wasn’t old enough to form
that kind of thing. The Umare must have designed the
mountains to have salt, somehow.

“Yes, we’re expecting a trade caravan from the inner

empire at some point in the next few weeks,” the
Jagdar was saying when I tuned back into the
conversation.

“Okay, and would you be willing to allow us to

construct a road to Neub from Avonside?” Dr Ross
asked. “Then we may be able to convince some of
these trade caravans to take a detour into the
mountains to visit once they arrive.”
“Of course, although…” the leader of Neub said slyly.
“We may need some help. If we’re to become a trade
stop then we’ll need to make certain… considerations
and changes to our settlement.”

There it was! The sneaky little quid pro quo.

Dr Ross kept an impressively blank and vaguely

interested expression on his face. “Oh, like what?”

“We will need food to feed the travellers, but we do

not have the tools, time, and manpower to raise that
food. That is not counting the food that will be
required to feed any new people we bring in from the
plains to guard the route,” Marat said.

I wasn't surprised when Dr Ross glanced in my

direction. Resting my elbows on the table, I leaned
forward and asked, "What's your biggest obstacle to
growing the food you need?"

"The soil," he said instantly. "We may have vast

amounts of empty land, but the past has shown us
that attempting wide scale farming will sap what little
nutrients are in it."

"A'ight," I nodded, leaning back to think.

My first thought was a plant that used magic to grow,

which would then die and decompose to fertilise the
soil. Unfortunately, if I planted something like that on
the ring it would consume all the neutral ambient
magic and leave this whole steppe as a magical desert.
I could only imagine the carnage that would cause.

No, the solution would need to be a lot more elegant

than that. Huh… what if I just exploded magical
fertiliser over the region? It would work, and maybe I
could just come back every so often to do it again.

This would be so much better if I could manipulate

bacteria. Then I could create something more
permanent to do heavy duty nitrogen fixing.

Oh! Oh shit!

Flexing my magical might, I popped out of existence

with a flash of flower petals. Returning to my grove, I
used my telekinetic tendrils to climb the outside of my
tree like a magenta-haired Dr Octavius. I swept into
the library in a rush of air and ideas.

Catherine squealed and fell backwards when I landed,

the books she'd been carrying to her usual work table
flying all over the place. I caught both her and the
books with my mind and gently resettled them at the
desk.

"Kitcat!" I exclaimed, giving her a hug. "I have an idea

you might find interesting!"

She put her hand out to steady herself when I let her
go, only to find the books were there. Adjusting, she
blinked owlishly at me from behind her glasses. "O—
oh? Um… uh… what, why?"

"So the people in Neub need a way to consistently

fertilise their soil because it's shit quality. Obviously
we don't have a fertiliser factory, so we can just yeet
that all over the place. I considered doing it with
magic, but like… that's not a permanent solution."

"Um— okay, I…" she said, frowning. Oh… I might have

overwhelmed her. Oops. Okay, chill Ryn, chill. Let's
give the poor girl time to compute. She hummed as
the gears in her adorable little bronze-haired head
began to whir. “You can’t use plants that use magic as
fuel because they’ll be out in the mundane where
there isn’t consistent ambient magic generation. It’ll
drain the whole area of power and leave it feeling all
itchy. Might work in the short term, though.”

“Yup!” I nodded eagerly. “However you look at it, you

need an input to get an output. Most of the time we
make our plants use ambient magic because it’s either
in the garden or just a few plants so it won’t bother
the mundane realm.”

“Yeah, so we need a fuel source other than magic, and

obviously we can’t use the soil because that’s what
we’re trying to improve…” she said, following along
easily. She looked up into my eyes and I grinned,
waiting for her to realise what I had a few moments
earlier. Gasping, she grabbed my hand in both of hers,
“We go further down!”
“Exactly!” I laughed, picking her up in a sudden full
embrace. When I dropped her, she hung in the air for
a second before gently settling on the ground. Oh, girl
had been practising!

She was grinning widely when she outlined the same

idea I’d gotten. “You make something to dig down
really far and pull material up from deeper than most
crops grow. You then burn that fuel in the plant to
make— oh my god, Ryn!”

Now it was my turn to wait with bated breath. This

was exactly why I rushed over to talk to her.

“Rynadria!” she said, clapping excitedly. “If we get the

mechanisms right, these plants could be used in the
mountains to dig up whatever element we need! Just
set them to burn whatever stuff we don’t want and
gather what we do want in a fruit or a root or
something. Oh, oh, and we could design the fertilising
plant to be edible once it was done with its job too…
oh except we’d need to make it have an obvious
ripening and uh… you know.”

“Right, right,” I nodded enthusiastically. “Collecting

and burning anything and everything down below
would make the fruit toxic as fuck until it was done
processing everything. I think a root vegetable would
suit the Reti. We make the leaves grow with all the
good soil stuff, and then concentrate a bunch of
sugars and starches down in the root.”

“What will we do with the stuff we can’t turn into

useful food or fertiliser? The trace heavy metals and
stuff?” she asked thoughtfully. Then she smacked her
forehead. “Right, we burn them for fuel. Oh my god
are we going to fuel these with trace radioactive
material? That would be kinda hilarious.”
“Well, there won’t be nearly enough in the soil for
that, but sure… god, the more I think about this
though, the more complicated it gets in my head.
We’ll need to account for pretty much everything that
might be under the topsoil,” I said, beginning to groan
as I realised what I was getting myself into. “Fuck, and
what if the mass amounts of rich bio waste we’re
using to fertilise things becomes a breeding ground for
the wrong type of bacteria? Man… things are so much
more simple when you have tenders and functionally
unlimited amounts of magic.”

“So true,” Catherine giggled, patting one of her books

idly. “Okay… how about we work on this later tonight?
You can tell the… you said they were called the Reti?
You can tell them we might be able to do something.”

Pulling a dramatic pose, I gave her a big thumbs up

and popped back into the mundane world, still
flashing the thumbs up at Jagdar Marat, who
appeared to have almost fallen out of his chair with
the surprise of my arrival.

“I think we have an idea, Jagdar!”

Beside me, Grace slowly and deliberately pressed her

palm to her forehead.

Chapter 127 :
After recovering from my… exuberant entrance back
into the mundane realm, the Jagdar loved the crop
idea I returned with. With something as valuable as
the… oh gosh, I was basically designing the perfect
carrot. Nobody tell my buns. Anyway, with something
as valuable as the perfect carrot on the table, Marat
was more than happy to give us a preliminary
agreement.
Dr Ross wanted to hang around Neub for a wee while
to get to know everyone and establish proper
diplomatic ties, so we were all off duty for a little
while. Both Eilian and I decided that removing the big
scary mages from the equation was a good idea, so we
took off into our groves. Grace came with me, but the
boys and Dr Ross’ people stayed in town.

When I got back to the library, Catherine was already

elbow deep in the problem.

“We’ll need a kill switch,” she said when we entered

the room.

“Why?” I asked, although I could see half a dozen

reasons why that would be a good idea.
She shrugged and looked up to greet me with a smile.
“Because if shit goes wrong we want to be able to kill
it instantly.”

"Judging by what Ryn was telling me on the way up

here, I think you're going about this wrong," Grace
said, taking me around the waist with a hand.

Cat and I both stared at her, and her cheeks gained an

adorable hint of pink. "Look, I'm not a mage or
whatever, but you're asking random mundane farmers
to dig up carrots so long that they reach down below
the topsoil? That… doesn't sound feasible."

"Oh," we chimed in unison. She was right, it would be

kinda difficult for them to dig up a carrot that was
designed to reach deep into tough bedrock.
"So what if…" Grace continued, running her free hand
through her beautiful blonde hair… ah, crap what did
she say? Just as I was beginning to pay proper
attention she paused and saw the look on my face.
"Okay. Starting from the top because some people are
too gay to listen… what if you go for a symbiotic
design, where the other partner is intelligent life?"

"Okay… yeah, yeah…" Cat agreed, brows furrowed in

thought.

"I was thinking, right, structure is easy for you gals to

create with your magic plants, so what if you design a
tree that uses all those metals and stuff in its trunk,
makes its leaves and flower petals all nutritious for the
soil, and make its fruits delicious for humans… but the
seed is encased in a really tough shell that it can't get
out of. That way, someone needs to come along and
break the seed open before it can grow into a tree. On
top of that, the wood from the tree will be tough as all
fuck, so if they figure out how to work it then they
have a beast of a product to sell to traders."

Holy moly! That was perfect! That was so perfect! The

seed thing would ensure they could keep it from
taking over the plains, and the wood… goddess, I
could imagine whole suits of armour made from the
stuff.

"I bet you they'll immediately figure out how to make

alcohol out of the fruit," said Cat, giggling to herself.
"I'm gonna make sure it's super sweet and floral
tasting so the alcohol is nice and yummy."

“You like the idea?” Grace asked, sounding a tad

surprised.

I turned and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s a really

damn good idea, my love.”
“Nice,” she said with a grin, and we all sat down to get
to work.

Over the course of that night, we figured out how

we’d design the tree. Its roots would grow deep, and
thus it would be able to support a pretty large tree.
We decided that we’d incorporate a magically
enhanced xylem to allow it to grow higher like the
home tree—what was its name again—had developed
naturally. I wasn’t sure what the maximum height
would be, but it probably wouldn’t be too much
bigger than a large pine or whatever.

As for the various resources to be gained from the

tree, there were the obvious ones like the fruit and
the leaves, which would be edible and fertilise the
ground, respectively. In my opinion it was the wood
and the roots where the real magic happened. Down
in the roots, all the various materials dug up would be
sorted, with the more stable and useful metals
transported further up, while the toxic ones would be
burned for magical fuel. The metals like iron, copper,
aluminium and such would be infused into the wood
as it grew, creating an extremely durable wood. All the
fertiliser-related materials would be pushed to the
leaves, and so on. It was perfect… hopefully.

The next day, we returned to Neub with one of two

prototype seeds. The other one was going into
Catherine’s grove, where she could continue to tinker
with the concept. We were essentially magically
charging a process that happened automatically in
nature, and she had ideas to streamline the process
and increase efficiency.

Jagdar Marat’s compound was in a state of post-party

chaos when we zoned back in, and I was a little
disappointed we hadn’t gotten to attend. He greeted
us with the sort of stoic squint-eyed look that was
reserved only for those who’d drunken too much the
night before.
“Good morning, Jagdar,” I said cheerfully.

He grimaced and nodded to me. “Yes… I may have

partaken of the sweetmilk last night. Your Dr Ross can
hold his drink quite well for a man of his slight
stature.”

Oh, huh. That was… unexpected.

“I see… where is he anyway?”

“Getting some?” Eilian offered with an amused smirk.

Marat snorted. “No, but there were offers. He has a

will of iron, that much is certain. I believe he is getting
dressed now— ah, there he is!”
Sure enough, Dr Ross and his aides were approaching
from one of the side buildings—I still thought of them
as wagons.

He gave me a smile by way of greeting and asked, “So,

how did the night of magical research go? Do we have
a crop for the Reti?”

I shook my head, and held out the little acorn in my

hand. “Not a crop, but a tree.”

“A tree? That is… not our usual fare,” Marat said,

staring down at it.

“Give it a chance, Jagdar,” I said confidently. “This tree

will produce wood that is stronger than most others,
perhaps even a match for bronze in toughness, but
with the workability of hardwood. The leaves will fall
each autumn, creating a blanket over the ground that
will decay into a potent fertiliser. Lastly, and most
importantly right now, the fruit will be large and rich,
with a seed that must be cracked open by human
hands so it will not grow out of control.”

“It sounds like a true marvel, but I am not sure we will

have the time to wait for a tree to grow to maturity,”
he frowned, plucking the acorn from my hand to look
at it.

I grinned and with a flick of my wrist, pulled the acorn

back to me with magic. “That is where we come in,” I
replied, gesturing to Eilian and myself. “We will use
our magic to force this seed to grow into a mature
tree. Then we will harvest its fruit and with the aid of
your farmers, we will go around and help to plant
several of these and grow them to maturity. Once that
is done, we will sow the fields with regular magical
fertiliser to simulate a leaf-fall and kick start your food
production.”
Everyone stood there in semi-stunned silence for
almost ten seconds before the Jagdar said, “That is…
you are capable of this? Any mage could have done
this for us?”

It was Eilian who answered that question. “The more

powerful ones could do it at the same speed as us.
The average mage is not as powerful as Rynadria here.
It would take them a week, maybe a month to achieve
the same results that we will get today.”

“You are doing this in one day?” he asked, eyes almost

falling out of his head.

“You may want to send riders out to tell the farmers

to expect us,” I nodded. “I’m afraid we will be moving
too fast for you to accompany us to each farm
individually.”
“Ah, yes. Of course.”

“Oh, and where do you want the first one? In here?”

“The first one?”

Giving him an enthusiastic wave around his

compound, I said, “The first tree. It needs to go
somewhere, and I figure the mother of all the other
trees should have pride of place, you know?”

I think I might’ve been going a little too fast for him.

He was still dealing with the effects of his hangover
and all he could do was nod very, very slowly at my
proposition. Sweet! Time to plant a tree!

End