by Max Jager
Mendelen shook his head. "We faced our own skeletons when we first got here, so I know how it feels, it wasn't your fault." He could tell by the look on Kaden's face that kadin disagreed, but he decided not to comment this time. "So we need a plan for rounding up all the newer players. Do we have any ideas?"
"I spoke to Pex already and she is going to go ask the local carpenters for assistance." Estellese started. "There is not enough room in this city, or the elven city for that many humans. But Pex said she may be able to convince the local carpenters to help us start our own settlement, and we can pay them back later."
"Can she just leave her job like that?" Zanath asked.
"No. But the guy running the library knows me, I've helped out here from time to time. Pex explained what is going on to him and he is allowing me to fill in for her until she gets back, just because it's an emergency. The other fairies working here have it covered for now, but if they need help I'll need to step away to assist them." Estellese replied.
"Alright, so if that works out we can make our own town? Won't that take a long time?" Mendelen asked.
"No, just a few weeks." Estellese answered. "Remember, magic exists. If we get some wood, earth, and metal mages the bulk of the work can be done pretty quickly with just magic. That's what these carpenters specialize in. The question is, where do we put the new town?"
"In the mountains." Kaden replied. "The strongest natural shelter we will get."
"But the mountains will make it difficult to traverse the area, and stronger monsters live up there. People won't want to live there." Mendelen pointed out.
"Exactly. They won't stay longer then they need to." Kaden replied.
"No, we want them to stay Kaden." Mendelen insisted. "I think a good and defensible position would be the valley. That little area in between the snowy mountains and the regular mountains."
"The big, open grassy area on the other side of the emory forest?" Estellese asked.
"Yeah." Mendelen said. "Mountains to the north and south, lake to the east with more mountains on the other side of the lake, and the forest to the west. We'd be covered to some degree on all sides."
"But isn't the emory forest where we nearly got mauled by werewolves?" Zanath pointed out.
"Yeah but we can handle them. Just put a wall up and it'll keep them out. When they are feral they don't have the intelligence to get around a wall." Mendelen replied. "The problem is gathering everyone to our new city."
"Why not use magic to make a giant beacon of light, and shout through some sort of magic megaphone to tell everyone to go towards the light." Kaden suggested.
"But that would draw all sorts of monsters to us, not just the players. We don't want to lure both the betas and monsters to the same location. They'd die." Mendelen stated.
"But I thought you said we could protect them." Kaden sarcastically remarked as he leaned back in his chair.
"Kaden, now is not the time to be taking jabs." Mendelen stated.
"Made my point, I'm done." Kaden replied. "There's a few important things to do, I'll go send everyone I can find your way." He stated as he got up, opened a portal beside himself, and walked through it.
"Kaden! Where are you going?" Estellese called out. But he did not answer and shut the portal behind himself.
"His portals would have been useful, but at this point I don't think he would have helped much anyways." Mendelen stated.
Jess was just awkwardly sitting there, she didn't really have anything to contribute and felt like she was sitting at the table with a friend's dysfunctional family. She didn't want to offend them, but she felt uncomfortable here.
"I wouldn't say that" Zanath replied. "He's never not helped us before, he just has his own way of doing it. Which is probably where he went."
"Yeah but it's his way of doing it that I'm afraid of." Mendelen answered. "The best we can do for now is to get the fairies to start working on the city, then split up and find as many as we can by searching for them on foot." He explained. "The ones who are strong and armed enough to handle themselves, tell them how to find our city and point them in the right direction and also let them know which places are dangerous. The ones who can't protect themselves, escort back to the city."
"I have a lot of crystals, so I'm going to buy as many signet rings as I can." Estellese added. "Pass them out to as many travelers as you can find. It's a significant power boost if they get one, and they are pretty cheap. Best use of money for equipment if you ask me."
"That's a good idea, we should all do the same" Mendelen replied
"I have no money to spare, I'm using what I have for experiments to try and figure out how to get out of here." Zanath stated.
"But these signet rings could save a few lives." Estellese insisted.
"And getting everyone back to our own world will save a lot more than just a few lives." Zanath argued.
"But that can wait, these people need to be saved now." Estellese suggested.
"The ones I find will be safe with me. They do not need the rings." Zanath answered.
"Just let it go Estellese, not everyone is as humble as we are." Mendelen stated. When he got a glare from Zanath he quickly corrected himself. "You misunderstand, that isn't a bad thing. I'm saying you're more like a normal person and we are abnormally humble. That makes us weird and different from the average person."
"But, that still implies you think you're better than the average person." Zanath pointed out.
"Well, it isn't a bad thing to be extra humble." Mendelen stated.
Estellese shook her head. "I don't see myself that way. I admit, I do see myself as more humble than the average person, but that's because I'm just emotional and can't stand to see others hurt. And I can admit to that, my emotions get the better of me more then they should. That doesn't make me a better person, we are all helping in our own ways. Just going to search for them, despite the dangers of this world, is pretty damn humble so there's really no need to argue over these minor details guys. Our group is fighting enough as is."
"Since when are you the voice of reason?" Zanath bitterly snapped back, but as soon as the words left his mouth he cringed. "I'm sorry, I should not have said that. That was wrong. All this conflict within our own group has just gotten me agitated, I'm going to step out and cool off."
Estellese's temper flared as soon as the words left his mouth, she sat up straighter, her hands came up onto the table and she shot him a glare. She had been about to speak when he apologized, and she instead took a deep breath to calm herself down. "It's okay, it isn't like I haven't said things I shouldn't have out of anger before." She said as she watched him leave.
"Well," Mendelen started. "Our plan is set then, once Pex returns we should go speak with the carpenters, then we need to inform the fairy queen and Alicia about what's going on and ask them to help us round up the betas. Right? Anything else to add?"
Estellese shook her head, "No, now we just wait for Pex. She should be back any moment now."
It was just a few minutes later that Pex returned with the information from the carpenters. Once she was back and able to resume her job, Estellese, Jess, and Mendelen went out to buy the signet rings and speak to the carpenters about what specifically they needed. Once they were finished, and the carpenter fairies were heading out to meet them at the building site, they met up with Zanath, then they went to meet with Sybil. Jess did not climb the rope to the castle, and instead chose to just wait for them on the ground.
"So why are we going to the castle?" Zanath asked.
"We're just going to ask the fairies and elves to assist us in our search for the beta testers. With more people searching we can save more of the players." Mendelen answered,
They were granted entrance by the guards and walked into the castle, where they were surprised to find Sybil in the hallways talking to a familiar voice.
"But can we believe him?" Sybil asked. "Have your scouts reported finding anyone?"
"It is not a ma
tter of believing him or not, my scouts found other humans before he even came to say anything." Alicia answered. "It is a matter of figuring out what the right thing to do is. Do we take his advice? Adamus thinks we should, and as much as I dislike Kaden, I am inclined to agree with him and Adamus on this one."
"It is a difficult call to make. My immediate reaction is to send out the search and rescue parties to save as many humans as I can. They did help us greatly. But we do not have space for these humans, and if what Kaden said is true... Maybe we should take his advice. I just, feel like it is an immoral thing to do."
"Um." Mendelen started as he turned into the hallway and approached them. With Estellese and Zanath following a few feet behind him. "I am sorry for interrupting, and overhearing this, but what is going on?"
"We both just spoke with Kaden. Did you not send him?" Alicia asked.
"No, he is acting on his own. As usual. What did he talk to you for?" Mendelen asked.
"Kaden came to us to inform us that a few thousand humans have been transported to this world." Sybil started. "He informed us that they, like you guys, will not know this is a real world and will not know we are real living creatures."
Alicia's spirit nodded as Sybil spoke, then filled in the details she left out. "Basically, he told us that this is a human problem and we should not get involved. That we should close off our cities and borders, not allow any humans in, and stay away from the new humans. He said they were dangerous and should be treated as if they are hostile until the rest of you humans can get things under control."
Mendelen shook his head and Estellese looked pissed. "No, I'm the leader and he does not speak for us. We need both of you to help us round up the humans. They are not equipped to survive out there, it was pure luck that we survived as long as we did. We are setting up a city of our own, I will give you the coordinates. We need you to help us search for the humans, and protect them until we can get things under control ourselves."
"Is it not true that these humans do not believe this world, or those of us in it, are real?" Alicia stated.
"Yes, unfortunately it is." Mendelen admitted. "If they were sent here the same way we were. But we still need help finding and protecting them until we get our own city."
"Then, and I can't believe I am saying this, but I am going to have to agree with Kaden." Alicia stated. "I can not speak for Sybil, but if these humans really do not know this world is real I will not have them anywhere near my village. If they don't believe we elves are real, they will have no qualms with killing us, hurting us, or stealing from us. I do not even want to think of what else they might do if they don't think we are real and we let them near our civilians. And I am not saying all humans are bad, I have seen that some humans can be good, but when you do not believe someone is real you have no inhibitions and are prone to doing anything you want to them. Even a good person can be driven to do terrible things to someone if they believe that person isn't real, nevermind the bad people. I have a duty to protect my people, so I'm sorry but you do not have our assistance in this."
Alicia paused for a moment. "My city will be closed off to the humans. But I will tell the elves who are able to fight about the humans. I will let them know that humans can be dangerous and might be hostile, and I will explain why. After that, any elves who still want to help, may go help, but they will be doing so voluntarily and I do not expect there to be many who are willing. I will have my soldiers patrolling the Ancient Woods around our village, they will direct any non-hostile humans towards your new city. And I personally will spend some time in spirit form finding and directing other humans to your city as well. But I will not be going in person so I can't do anything more then point them in the right direction. I will not allow humans in the village beyond the few who are already here and behaving, they may stay but nobody else may enter the village. We already had two instances this morning of humans entering people's houses unannounced and just breaking things, mainly people's pottery and boxes for no reason. We had to throw them out with a military escort."
Mendelen tensed and took a deep breath, that was not what he wanted to hear. "Understood." He replied, then he turned to Sybil.
"I am going to have to agree with Alicia." Sybil said. "And I am sorry, but I can't have anyone threatening my people either. Since we are on a collection of islands, I will send a few soldiers out to scout the islands and bring humans back here. But they can't stay here. They will be permitted to stay on the ground beneath our city, where they will be safe, but all access to the city will be cut off. I will be pulling up the ropes connecting the ground to the floating buildings, and telling the low floating buildings to raise up higher until this is resolved. We won't be searching the mainland, just our islands."
"Thank you." Mendelen replied, a little begrudgingly.
"Thank you for everything you can do." Estellese genuinely replied. "We appreciate any help we can get and will set the rest of the humans straight as quickly as possible."
"It is the best we can do Mendelen." Sybil stated sharply. "Thank you for understanding Estell."
"If Kaden will stop being an asshole, we will probably have him teleport all the humans you find to the mainland as soon as we can. Otherwise, we will need a boat later." Estellese replied. "But thank you."
With the conversation over, Alicia's spirit disappeared and Sybil resumed walking down the hallways towards the main room where the council was.
"So how do we get back to the mainland?" Mendelen asked as the group started walking out of the castle. "Do we have any boats? Or do we need to buy one?"
"I already messaged Kaden and asked for a portal to be opened in ten minutes outside the city." Zanath replied.
"After what he just did, do you really think he's going to give us a portal to the mainland?" Mendelen pointed out. "Without the help of the fairies and elves, a lot of people are going to die. And they are not helping us because of what he said. He just killed a lot of people."
"I am not here to argue over what the proper way to do things is. But I do know the portal will be there. Kaden has never turned his back on us before." Zanath answered simply.
"He just did. Did you miss that?" Mendelen retorted.
"You and I do not see things eye to eye either Mendelen." Zanath stated. "I just don't say much about it. While I do not agree with what Kaden did either, I am at least capable of seeing that he just saved our alliances. What will kill more people? Lying to our allies and jeopardizing our alliances, or leaving all those beta testers without help? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care which is worse. I give credit where credit is due, and I do whatever I personally think is best. We all know you get credit for trying to save people, but you're overlooking the fact that Kaden is saving people in the long run by protecting our portal will be there."
"I would never lie to our allies." Mendelen argued.
"But you weren't going to tell them the humans don't think this world is real. Nor were you going to tell them the humans might be dangerous." Zanath replied. "And don't say you were going to tell them, because if you planned on it, it wouldn't bother you that Kaden told them first. It would seem he also knew you weren't going to tell them."
"That's not the type of person I am." Mendelen stated. "Let's forget this and just go see if he opens the portal. No harm in at least checking even if I know he won't."
Jess rejoined the group once they were back on the ground again. They walked out of the city and went to where Zanath said the portal was going to open. Ten minutes passed, and the portal opened just as Zanath said it would.
"I'm not going with you guys for this one. This portal leads to where you're trying to build the city, I asked Kaden to open me a second one leading to the desert so I can begin searching for the betas. I'm not really needed to build the city or speak to the carpenters so I might as well start searching. And anyone in the desert needs to be rescued quickly." Zanath explained.
"Thank you Zanath, good luck." Estellese said as she step
ped through the portal. Jess followed right behind her.
"Good luck. If you need us you know how to reach us." Mendelen said as he too walked through the portal.
Shortly after they went through, that portal closed and a new one opened. Zanath stepped through the new one.
- Next Chapter: Search and Rescue -
(There is a second story, separate from this one that follows a group of Beta testers. I will be writing this story alongside this one (The events in that story are starting right now in this story's timeline, just in a different location with a different group). So, I leave it up to the readers if you all want me to post that story as I write it, or wait until this one ends before posting the second one. Let me know what you all prefer)
Chapter 21: Search and Rescue