Vikas, their guide, stood near the bridge across a small stream. He wore a robe with the AFHA logo printed on it. He held a cup of coffee, and a waft of steam came up from it.

  “Good morning.” He smiled.

  Teresa was the first to shake the man’s hand.

  “Queen Sorulen has not been expecting you as I have. Regardless, she is prepared to address your arrival… Be it even days late.”

  “Apologies again.” Teresa took a bow. Out of the corner of his eye, Hadwyn saw Marco elbow Benson, who followed suit, grumbling. Meanwhile, Hadwyn stood like a dimwit, with his hand still out. Perhaps he was still groggy from his sleep schedule. Or perhaps it finally hit him that while it was noon back east, it was morning in Zyenur.

  “I will at once make the Queen aware of your arrival. Until then, make yourselves comfortable. I will tell the maids to prepare your rooms.”

  “Oh, there’s no need, really! We have much to attend back to the mainland.” Teresa gave Hadwyn a look. He turned away upon seeing it.

  How will I explain the dead ends? He thought.

  Vikas nodded. “Yes, I understand your urgency. But nonetheless, I will have your rooms prepared, should you change your mind.”

  “Thank you very much.” Added Kela.

  “My pleasure. But I really must be going now.” He motioned behind them to the streets behind them. “Like I said, please make yourselves comfortable.” He turned to leave. “Oh, and one last thing before I forget…”

  The group waited expectantly.

  Vikas seemed to be deep in thought for a moment. “Well,” He said, chuckling. “Looks like I forgot. Take care then.”

  After Vikas departed across the short bridge, stolling between the camouflaged guards who uncrossed their spears, and disappeared behind the stone wall of the courtyard, they noticed Benson was missing. Hadwyn was tasked with finding him. While the rest of them looked for somewhere to eat.

  “Ben?” Hadwyn called out. Teresa, Kela, and Marco were already headed down the street. If Benson were there, they would have spotted him already. So Hadywn took it to himself to pry through the bushes that laid across the stream. The guards eyed him suspiciously, but took no action of any kind.

  Hadywn was sure they would cut down any person, hero or not, should they lack the clearance to enter. He silently discarded the possibility that Benson had wandered beyond the stream anyways.

  Speaking of wandering, what the hell was Benson up to anyways? Did he get sick again?

  Just as Hadwyn was about to turn around to join the rest of the team, he heard a gurgling sound somewhere nearby. He searched. There.

  Benson was on his knees throwing up behind a bush. He hurled out chunks of a mysterious substance.

  He grumbled upon seeing Hadwyn. “There goes my breakfast. Dammit.”

  “Come on, Teresa and the others are searching for a good eat.The Queen is occupied anyways.”

  Ben clutched his stomach. “I think it’s getting better now. God, I hate Reach-jumps.” He looked at Hadwyn.

  “So, have you told him yet?”

  Hadwyn was caught off guard by the question. He knew what Ben was referring to, but it had come completely out of nowhere.

  “No.” He answered simply.

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “Do you plan on telling him at all?”

  Hadwyn fidgeted with his hands. “Maybe when the time is right. You’re not going to tell him are you?”

  Ben shrugged. “I don't see why I should. Let's go meet the others, but I don’t think I will eat anything.”

  It was a Planacoquus restaurant. Obviously, Marco had chosen it.

  Marco grinned like a child at cakery. The chef must have been part Aldarian, because his flow techniques were precise with the tricks he executed.

  Marco watched the chef juggle knives and slice meat still in the air before letting it fall to the flatstove. Benson’s face was scrunched up like an old man forced to watch a puppet show with children. Teresa seemed to be preoccupied with some document she had brought, so she wasn’t really paying attention.

  The show ended with the beef becoming ground beef. And being mixed with various vegetables.

  “That was amazing.” Kela said.

  Marco grinned at her. “He’s obviously got blademaster skills. Sure, it was mostly Flow, but he got it!”

  After they ate, another chef came and revealed that it was only the appetizer. The next chef managed to impress everyone. He did so by sticking what appeared to be his bare hands into scalding vegetable oil, grabbing potatoes with his bare hands. They were cut in strips.

  The chef pulled out and dunked the potato strips into the oil multiple times, before serving them with salt.

  The stips of potatoes were brittle and a golden brown color. Hadywn recognized the food. It was a somewhat popular item farther east. They were called fried wedges.

  Kela was the first to try it. “Wow, This is really good! You guys should try it!”

  “Looks gross.” Ben mumbled.

  Hadwyn ignored his comment and took a handful for himself. He tried them, and sure enough, they were as good as people claimed.

  Teresa also had a handful, which she popped into her mouth. “You’re missing out, Ben.” She said between bites.

  “Are you kidding? I just vomited my entire breakfast. Like you said, we’re probably going back soon, I don’t want to go through that again.”

  After they were done eating, aside from a cranky Ben, they returned to the bridge to find Vikas waiting there like he promised.

  “Oh, there you are. Follow me.”

  He led them across the bridge, and into the courtyard, which was covered with sculptures and other decorative things.

  Vikas motioned to a stone arc they passed underneath. “This was the original gate to Zyenur. Of course, the city has expanded much since, but this is one of the few pieces left of the original wall. Some claim it may still harbor protective magic.” He grinned. “Whether or not that is true, I cannot disclose.”

  Hadywn nodded, Kela looked around with interest, Marco seemed to be not paying attention, Benson looked bored, and Teresa remained fixated on her documents. Perhaps she was reviewing them one last time, getting everything straight.

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  The group finally arrived at the doors, which were opened by some guards, revealing another courtyard, but with buildings surrounding most of the yard. A large chamber sat in the middle.

  Vikas opened the chamber. Then he said: “I cannot follow you in further because my Queen has requested the conversation be private. Still, I wish you the best of luck, whatever be your intentions.”

  “Thank you.” Teresa looked up from her papers.

  Vikas closed the door shut, which echoed throughout the chamber.

  Hadwyn observed the noise bouncing off the walls. Probably enchanted Nickel… Maybe some lead too…

  “Greetings.” A voice from the other side of the room called out. Everyone turned to the Queen.

  Queen Sorulen sat on a throne.

  “Hello Heroes Teresa, Benson, Hadywn, Marco, and Kela.” She smiled at them. “I have sent you many letters, yet you have responded to none. I am still glad to see you all here. Better late than not at all.”

  There was no hostility in her voice. Hadwyn winced. Still, It was embarrassing for her to have mentioned that.

  “We were dealing with a more demanding issue…”

  Ben turned to Hadwyn and raised an eyebrow.

  Sorulen waved her hand. “Yes, yes. I understand that you can be occupied at any moment, but perhaps responding to one of my letters would have explained your situation, so we could then coordinate more effectively, not to mention that you arrived here without warning me. I have had to deal with issues as well, but I can, at the very least, address the lesser of them in order to create a mutual understanding… but, I digress.”

  Hadywn bit his bottom lip, and Benson exhaled audibly.

  Dude. She got you. Marco mouthed to a sheepish Hadwyn.

  Sorulen cocked her head. We have to address the issue of crop fatigue in Ywvn, yes?

  Hadwyn gave a gallic shrug. “Things might have changed… since the fall of castle Keywark?”

  Sorulen rested her head on her palm expectantly.

  Hadywn made a gesture to Teresa, who pulled up her papers.

  She rang a bell next to her seat, one Hadwyn had apparently missed, or so he initially thought.

  A beam of light pierced the dim chambers as a servant entered through a side door. He took the papers from Teresa and exited through the same door without a word.

  Upon prolonged observation of the bell, missing the servants minimal interaction with Teresa, Hadwyn saw the bell shimmer, making him realize that it was enchanted with some sort of camouflage. The passive camouflage could hide said enchanted object from an untrained eye, or someone not looking for anything. The spell is reduced in effectiveness depending on how aware of the existence of the object, how concentrated you are on it, and how much ambient light there was.

  “I understand your concern, Hadywn, but I am fully aware of the situation in Keywark.” Sorulen replied sharply.

  She means. ‘Don’t lecture me, Otherworlder.’ Hadwyn thought.

  “I assume that you remember our assigned heroes, courtesy of the Iron Legion, are dead, further complicating things.”

  “Actually, that is what we were doing at HQ.” Kela spoke up.

  Sorulen became more attentive. “What would you mean by that?”

  “Well…” Kela stuttered. “We- well mostly Hadwyn- But, me and him both are investigating their deaths.”

  “Really?” The Queen asked. She turned to Hadwyn. “I was unaware you had opened an investigation of your own.”

  Hadwyn didn’t know what to say. Before he could come up with something however, loud noises rang out from behind the doors. The sound of unintelligible shouting and thumping.

  Everyone turned to look. Hadwyn was slower, glancing at the queen to see her expression. She looked confused and unsettled. He then turned his attention to the commotion that laid behind metal and wood doors.

  They suddenly burst open and a man marched through. As the doors swung, Hadwyn caught a glimpse of multiple guards on the floor. They quickly disappeared however, as the doors slammed shut. The man had war paint and wore armor, with a long blade on his waist.

  He also had burn marks all over this face.

  He glanced back at Sorulen, her face was that of frustration, a small amount of fear, and expectancy. He still marched towards her. When he came to the group he said:

  “Move out of my way, my quarrel is not with you!” He glared at Hadwyn, then at Teresa.

  Hadwyn saw the others preparing to fight. The man had one of his hands with fingers spread out. He was preparing his flow, perhaps. Or maybe he would go for his sword.

  “Let him pass.” The Queen said with anger rising.

  Hadywn obliged. As did the rest of the group.

  That tone she took… Does she know him?

  The man glared at each of them as he walked by. First Marco, who actually looked disappointed that he didn’t get to fight, Kela, Ben, Teresa, then finally, Hadwyn.

  When he was close enough to the queen, He took out two of what appeared to be knives, but upon closer observation, seemed to be trimmed swords.

  “Two,” he said, with sorrow and anger in his voice. “Two of my best prodigies… proteges… Slaughtered at the hands of your foolish and naive subjects, hands of which are puppeted by your own!” He spat on ‘puppeted.’

  He took a glance at the rest of Hadwyn's party, perhaps to get an idea of their reactions. He then faced Sorulen again.

  “As you know, I cannot have any children, for it is my curse I am forced to live. But these… These students were like my own children! I fed them, I housed them, I taught them, I raised them! And you cut them down in less than a second!”

  His face was shaking now.

  “Imagine if father had seen you now… This makes me glad he is dead!”

  There was silence in the room. Silence on their part, for they were on edge to hear what the man would say next, while queen Sorulen pursed her lips. She had a pitied look on her face, which only seemed to make the man angrier.

  “Look at you! Not an ounce of sympathy! You slaughtered them, as well as my other students! Their mothers weep!

  Finally, Sorulen broke silence, seeming to have found something to be said to this strange, angry man.

  “I hope you told them It was your doing, because it may as well have been! Yes, I killed them, yes, they were only children, no older than thirteen. But It was you, Durquon who put them in that position. It was you who trained them into fierce warriors, that I must admit, they certainly were. I had no other choice. Who knows what sort of poisons you injected into their minds? I stopped recognizing you, years ago, Durquon. Thus, I fear every aspect of your…. movement.”

  Hadwyn and the others instinctively turned back to the man to see how he would respond.

  “Long…” He shook as he spoke, “Long have I waited for the day you finally recognized us for who we are. but… not like this. If this had happened any other way…. I would be grinning ear to ear, but… you… you… destroyed what I held most dear…”

  He thumped his fist on his heart, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. One tear that only Sorulen could see, for any other angle, it would have been impossible.

  “If it gives you any closure… They were killed quickly, and as humanely as possible-”

  Hadwyn saw the man tense, perhaps other seniors heroes like Marco, Ben, and Teresa did too.

  But Hadwyn was the closest. Sure enough, as Durquon made his move, Hadywn had already put himself between Durquon and Sorulen.

  Durqoun’s left hand gripped the hilt of his sword, while his other, was open-palmed and pointed at Sorulen, and Hadwyn too.

  “Remove yourself, Alakuma.” Durquon snarled. “I’ve told you once, this is not your business. I will not warn again. Now, step aside.”

  “I will do no such thing.” Hadwyn stated, motioning to the rest of the party, who had gotten their weapons back out, and they didn’t intend to sheath them this time. “Not until you stand down.”

  Durquon surveyed his surroundings, then he turned back to Hadwyn, who had his flow fully prepared at this point. A subtle facial twitch, suggesting that perhaps he realized he was outnumbered. Still, he inches closer to Hadwyn, until he was inches away.

  “You Alakuma understand nothing of our politics, of our lives, our world… You only create and destroy. Gods amongst playthings… But, make no mistake here, otherworlder, one thing you will never have… Is a family. For that is something I can never quite hold you fully responsible for.”

  And with that, the man stormed out of the chamber.

  It was only after many moments of silence following his departure, was silence broken again.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Marco asked.

  Hadwyn faced Sorulen.

  “Who was he?”