There were a great many things different in NFNty-laND^4 from powers 1, 2, and 3, besides the fact you now had to mind-in, making NL4 a physical experience, instead of just playing it on a console with a controller. Because of the differences, if you skipped the tutorial, of which a lot of players tended to do, confusion was the least of your worries and/or troubles. This was before NL4 became real, after, those who skipped it literally helped shape and were continuing to shape the world, but most just died.

Fast traveling, however, was not one of those differences. Powers 1, 2, and 3 also made players actually traverse the lands of Ever and beyond, meaning you couldn’t just bounce around the map. It didn’t matter if a player discovered a new area or had previously been there before, you traveled back, the same way you traveled to it. If it took six months to get somewhere then it took six months to get back unless of course through questing players found a faster way to travel. Therefore, Questing needed to be well thought out, and well mapped out, leaving an area to travel to another, often meant being gone for good or for a long period of time. Fitzgerald Jane and the mysterious creator, however, thought that it would be hard for an entity, like the Telic order, to protect such a vast land if it took months or even years to get around and so, the entities deemed important enough to the overall story and flow of the world, were given access to fast travel technology; at least that’s how it was explained to all the players of NFNty-laND, there was actually much more to it than that. Secretly hidden platforms, that only activated with a special item, were placed all around the planet and simply just connected one point to another. Even if a player somehow obtained that special item and located a platform, fast traveling from one spot to the next, without a map or familiarity of the area meant being lost. There was no line or pointing to the next objective unless a player mapped it out first and only after obtaining enough information to do so. Otherwise, there was North, South, East, and West. Players could figure it out or find a guide. Initially players complained but eventually, they realized how real it made the game seem. It drew you more into the world and the many stories it was telling. NL4 took it to an entirely new level of realism and immersion, and then it actually became real!

In the latest monster hunting rankings, located on a board within the Player’s-Hub in Dis(2), Kaia and Vinn were number three, and Rob was number two. It remained that way pretty much the entire year all the players had been trapped. The number one ranking for that year had also been held by a player only known as Tha-Seedlander. Rob was considered a solo player but even he’d join a party every once in awhile. The Seedlander however, never did. During the entire year he or she only turned in energy orbs to the proxy five times, but every time the hull and the levels were impressive enough for everyone to believe that the Seedlander was most likely a tier 3 or 4 players. The Player-Hub was busy enough, that no one ever noticed the Seedlander had strolled right into the midst of the structured chaos and strolled right back out. When the ranking board and stats were updated, loud gasps of disbelief would echo so loudly throughout the central area of the hub, that players would come running to see, not just what the number one had done, but numbers two and three as well. The Seedlander, despite Rob’s, Kaia’s, and Vinn’s incredible strength, experience, and battle skills, was on a different level. He or she did more than all the guilds in the top ten, combined, and those guilds held the four through ten spots in the rankings. There were thousands of guilds in the Player’s-Hub, and every single one of them wanted Rob and the Battle-Twins, but they really wanted the Seedlander. Rightfully so, the Seedlander was the strongest player in the game but was also the only player of a certain type and the perfect representation of infinity.

Deep within Dis(5), chillin in a tree, humming the symphony like rhythm to a dubstep-like beat, playing from the player’s user interface that was laying on the ground beneath her. A caramel melanated elven female kicks her legs playfully while bouncing to the beat of both the music’s bass drops and the grounds thundering rumble, caused by the incoming 51 low-level wayward shadows swiftly stampeding towards an unknown location. Moments before they’d watched another smaller group of shadows swing through the trees and launch themselves over the clearing, and to the trees on the other side. One had even stopped after noticing them and was hanging from the tree, most likely contemplating attacking or not. The female talked the creature out of the mistake by mocking it with a couple dance moves, letting it know it wanted none of what she had to offer, let alone the player on the ground not even acknowledging its presence at all. As they waited for the small horde to reach them, a hover-ship boomed past overhead, and the female notes the strong spiritual pressure coming from the ship.

“Wow! There are some strong ones on that ship.”

“I felt it too.” The brown chocolate melanated elven male, briefly glanced at the ship as it whizzed by, quickly returning back to scrolling through his item inventory.

The female looked down at her holder, laying there, leg folded and resting on the other, comfortably relaxed, interacting with his user interface as the music played.

“ I don’t like your name.” The female says as she looks back off into the distance, monitoring the clearing amidst the Ever-Jungle of Dis(5).

“Not this again.” The male replied.

“Well, I don’t like it!”

“And what should it have been, Tha-Deceptionist?”

“That’s better than, Tha-Seedlander!”

“Mirage, you’re a hater! I don’t know what your problem is with Queen Ambellis. I’m I missing something?”

“I’m a Queen too you know, and I just don’t like her.”

“Yes you’ve made that part very clear but I still have never heard a reason for why you two don’t get along. I suppose that’s a back story I never got to.”

“You just wait, I’ll prove I’m better than her!”

The rumbling started getting closer and as the ground shook harder, it reminded them of recent events.

“Hey, what do you think caused the land quake yesterday?” Mirage questioned.

“Your guess is as good as mine. There are still so many unknowns in this game and in this world.”

“What if it was a creature so big that every time it took a step, it shook the planet!”

“That would be terrifying.” He said calmly.

“Geez, what are you doing anyway? You’ve been playing with that thing for days now.”

“I’m looking through all the cards and reading the stats. They’re different in here, remember.”

“Again? Did you go through all your checker and chess pieces again too? We’ve been playing for over a year now, how many times are you going to do that?”

“As many times as it takes?”

“Takes to do what?”

“Memorize them all! And no, I haven’t gone through all my pieces again yet, that’s next!”

Mirage rolled her eyes, as she jumped down from the tree branch right into a few stretches, preparing for the incoming fight.

“You got this right?” He questioned sarcastically.

“You making fun of me holder?”

“I’m just saying, fifty-one is a lot. I’m making sure you can handle it on your own. And why do you keep calling me that?”

“So you are making fun of me then? I bet you wouldn’t doubt her, and you know why I’m calling you that!”

Mirage crossed her arms, while she rolled her eyes at him again, pouting in disappointment.

“Well show me something then, and just call me Seed, if it bothers you that much.

“I will and I’m not calling you that either!”

“Man, you are such a disrespectful piece.”

Seed said nonchalantly, in a sarcastic tone with a smirk.

“Excuse me, what did you say? You’re such a disrespectful holder! I’m a lady and a Queen, and I should be treated as such.”

“There is no way I could handle more than one Queen at a time, so that strategy is most likely out, or maybe it’s just you.”

“What! Are you planning on bringing her out too?”

Mirage put her hands on her hips, staring angrily at Seed in disbelief. As she eyed him down, waiting for an answer, ten of the fifty-one rushed pass. Seed laughed as he watched and continued to push Mirages buttons.

“Ha, ha! She wouldn’t have let that happen, you should pay more attention.”

Mirage turned and caught the tail end of those ten, as they sprinted across the clearing and back into the jungles thick foliage, breaking and snapping tree branches and tousling bushes along their path.

“Battle Art 0: NFNTE-Step!”

With NFNTE-Step, Mirage moved so fast that she could create as many versions of herself that she needed because of the after images. In this case, she only needed forty-one. Put with NFNTE-Presences, meant she could make her after images physical beings and the last art, SPLIT-Existence, made them all conscious beings and divided her battle stats up equally between every iteration of herself.

“Battle Art 10: NFNTE-Presences!

Battle Art 11: SPLIT-Existence!”

One Mirage instantly became forty-one of them, with her stats high enough to make each one level 500. This wasn’t the first time Seed had seen the ability, but it was the first time he’d seen it used to this magnitude. He viewed the ability in awe.

“Damn! The Queen of Deception, I can’t believe this is the lowest ability of my weakest Queen piece!”

That lowest ability was appropriately named, NFNTE-Mirages. Seed and her trained constantly trying to combine the three battle arts into one ability, in an effort to make the casting cost less mana and execution of the arts quicker but hadn’t quite succeeded yet. Whenever Mirage spoke the cast into NFNTE-Mirages, her after images fizzled out in just a few seconds. Despite the failures, Mirage may have started as Seeds weakest Queen piece but over the course of the year they’d been trapped and all that training, she was the only one he used. The only one he put all the experience points they earned into and it showed with an overall level of over twenty-thousand, there wasn’t a situation Mirage hadn’t been able to handle.

Seed was a King/Queen maker since he had no desire or designs to rule himself, holding items, Relics and weapons powerful enough to annihilate not just nations or kingdoms, but entire lands, perhaps even the entire planet. Had it not been for Dr. Aken and her unique quests/missions, Seed would have grown bored with NFNty-Land. Players who get bored with RPG style games, typically try to break them(Find flaws to exploit). She gave him purpose, a purpose that gave him the power to write his own story, while entertainingly watching the other player’s stories take shape in the world. Despite that purpose, Seed still had no idea what he’d gotten himself into. What NL4 actually was, from his perspective all he’d really learned so far was that it was a game within a game. Fitzgerald Jane was a game developing higher being, a genius, that created worlds, and stories, that gripped the mind, heart, body and soul. It’s most certainly had his attention, but Seed wondered what the connection was between NL4 and B3(Battle-Checkers/Battle-Chess Masters/Battle-Cards Masters). When he’d walked into the mind-clinic, in the land of a thousand cities, he thought to be able to play NL4 in B3 was simply a promotional tool but that wasn’t turning out to be the case at all.

Mirages battle brought him back from within his thoughts. Normally she’d rain down a hail, fire and lightening storm of arrows on her enemies but during the year of training with Seed, along with numerous battles, she’d learned that quality was better than quantity. Her ability didn’t just make copies of herself but also the weapon she had equipped. That weapon was an enchanted bow and enchanted arrows. It cost less mana to shoot a well-placed arrow of ice, fire or lightning than to rapidly fire multiple enchanted arrows until the job was done. There was less clean up too, collecting arrows after a battle was a chore.

All forty-one versions of herself took aim simultaneously, after flashing in front of the tiger-like creatures to stop them in their tracks. Before they released their arrows, they bolstered the attack power.

“Weapon Art 15: FORCEFUL-Penetration!”

The arrows fired off like missiles, creating enough back blast force to take a weaker wielder with them. Well-placed arrows meant aiming for vital spots. Forceful penetration meant piercing in, through, and out of that vital spot. Today’s target location was the head, which meant into the eye, through the brain and out the back of the skull, and if the force of the arrow didn’t do the job, the enchantment left nothing to chance. If it was ice, everything froze, fire, everything burned, and if was lightning the electrical shocks fried it all. There would be no meal today or any day for that matter, all forty-one creatures dropped in their spots instantly.

All forty-one versions of Mirage walked back towards seed calmly, who was still laying in the same position, scrolling through his inventory. As she got closer she began to merge back into herself, until there was one.

“Do you need an item drop?” Seed questioned.

“What?” She snapped back.

“I can’t stand you so times!”

Mirage was standing angrily again, with her arms folded across her chest, slowly tapping her foot on the ground.

“What the heck did I do?” Seed wondered.

“Do I look like I need an item drop?”

“Well, then why are you walking back over here?”

Seed casually pointed in the direction the other 10 creatures went.

“I’m not chasing them!” Mirage exclaims as she hops back on the branch.

“Turn the music up, I could barely hear it while I was………

Seed finished her sentence.

“Busy letting ten of them escape?”

“Whatever! Just turn the music up!”

Mirage laid down on the branch.

“What are you doing?” Seed asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You, not going to collect the orbs, though?”

“Your so annoying Seed, you collect the damn orbs, I did all the hard work!”

“And you said I’m the difficult one? Just remember the cooldown is six months.” Seed mumbled under his breath but said it loud enough for Mirage to hear. She popped back up and eyed Seed down.

“Don’t threaten me Seed!”

“I’m just saying.”

“Whatever, Seed!”

“You know what, I am going to do that item drop.”

“Oh yeah, and what item is that? And if you say her name, I’m going to drop this tree on you!”

“Nall, I’m going to item drop you some act right, I’m sure she doesn’t want to deal with you either.”

Mirage plopped back down hard enough to make the leaves shake loose all over Seed.

“All that fighting made me hungry and thirsty.”

Mirage popped up once more and eyed Seed down in disbelief, before jumping down and walking off irritated.

“You know what, on second thought, I will go chase that other ten!”

“That’s the spirit, I love your new found dedication.”

If Mirage knew what flipping someone the bird was, she would have done it ten times over, instead, the snap of her neck and her evil eye did the job.

“Man you are super sensitive today. Lesson learned, if you can’t handle it then don’t dish it out. Now, about that item drop.”

Players carried what they could based on strength, stamina, and movement. The rest was handled by the item drop system, which started every player with a mobile inventory bank that could hold 50 items. The inventory banks space could be upgraded up as well, extra space requiring the investment of experience points(EXP) and specific character levels. When a player wanted an item from the bank, they selected on their user interfaces and a proxy delivered the item via drone. The drawbacks, however, were that the farther a player was from the Player’s-Hub, the longer the delivery of the drop would take, all drops could be picked up by anyone and after the game became real, whenever a player died, the proxy would launch the entire inventory of their item bank to that location and drop all the items. Scavenging was just as lucrative as stealing from or robbing other players. The Jackers stole and robbed a lot but scavenged even more, specifically after the game became reality, killing a player meant getting the loot they carried and all the items in their inventory bank. Some thought the Jackers were more dangerous than the monsters before the sudden increase of the creatures.

Mirage didn’t have to flash step very far. In the next clearing over, about two to three miles away, she watched from the treeline as an ice wall nearly missed destroying a hover-ship that was part of a rather large fleet of them. From the markings on the ships, Mirage could tell who and what they were before only one of them landed. As the Jackers scurried out of the ship and collected the energy orbs hovering about, including those 10, Mirage assumed, she contemplated engaging the Jackers and taking them back, but realized the low levels of the orbs weren’t worth the trouble anyway.

“Great! I’ll never hear the end of this one.”

Mirage rolled her eyes at the entire situation and then slowly made her way back to Seed.

A few moments earlier, across that clearing, Rob watched as Incantation 5: Incinerate set Vinn’s blade ablaze. Vinn drew a line of fire, with a backward slash, across the remaining three monsters, slicing them in half while the intense heat from the flames incinerated them to ash, and hovering energy orbs waiting to be collected.

“Blazing fucking shit, I knew it!”

Rob witnessed a level of power he’d never seen before but the noobs, as Vinn previously thought, were too terrified to even notice, or care. They were just glad it was all over, but it wasn’t.

That cluster was here, but as Vinn prepared to protect the noobs once more, Rob threw his arm out in front.

“I got this! You get the noobs on that ship.”

“You sure?” Vinn asked, with a look in his eyes that made Rob giddy about his decision to team up with them and go on the expedition.

Rob Gave Vinn a sinister smirk back and then tossed his sword like a boomerang. The sheer weight of the blade made it tumble and spin so fast, that it continuously broke the sound barrier, causing the cluster of monsters to become disoriented, but before the bladerang could make it to them, they all froze in place, encased in ice. Rob’s blade broke them all into chunks of shards and tiny pieces and then returned to his hand. He slowed the momentum of the blade by twirling it around in his hands before resheathing it on his back. Vinn yelled at him, his hands still covering his ears.

“How in the F did you catch that thing?”

“Lots of fucking practice! Broke my arm, my wrist, and dislocated my shoulder quite a lot actually.”

Vinn was shaking his head and thinking how terrifying Rob was. It had also just occurred to him that Rob was the one who’d took care of that level 50, and he’d done that by himself, too.

“Did you freeze them like that too?”

“I thought you fucking did that!”

Vinn was still yelling, his ears having not yet readjusted.

“Nope, wasn’t me!”

Vinn looked back towards the downed hover-ship and at Kaia, who was standing in the bay door. She stared back at Vinn while shaking her head, confirming that it wasn’t her either.

Rob then noticed that a shrouded figure, most certainly a woman, was pacing towards them from a nearby tree-line. Her hands hung by her side still at the ready in case there was another attack. Rob could tell even from a distance that the energy gathered around her hands was the cause of the ice casting.

“What are the fucking chances? Three castors!”

Rob was starting to wonder what was going on, one caster of any level was rare but three of them, this high a level was unprecedented, at least for him anyway.

In NFNty-laND, “magic” users or those who manipulated the energy within and around themselves, were called Castors. Casting was powerful and being one or having one in your party was an incredible advantage. There was, however, a great number of problems associated with it. Casting was beyond hard, and beyond dangerous; for the castor themselves and everyone around them. Entire parties would perish in the wake of a castor not in control of his or her casts or uneducated about the range and area effect of any one specific spell. In the beginning, it was simply an annoyance to be killed by your own casting or castor within the party, and so one of the strongest Castors started a Guild that doubled as an academy for learning the skill. It offered a safe place for players to learn and grow, without the penalties of dying. Once the game became real, though, players slowly gravitated away from Casting, as the margin for error became zero.

Mistakes, even within the Player’s-Hub, without the ability to resurrect or respawn, meant learning to cast was just as, if not more dangerous than monster hunting. The Guild and its academy became exclusive and any player who survived long enough and graduated would be amongst the strongest in the game. Would be because in the little over a year since the game had become real, only two players had managed to complete the course and the guild only had a total of ten members, only five of them being actual castors. Though a rumor was traveling around, that the current class was promising.

It took a considerable amount of training and studying scrolls and books, just to learn the basic of casting in general, and even more time and extensive training to learn to control a single spell. Furthermore, not every being was strong enough or had life spans long enough to master it. The Fae’s, Elves, and Humans were the only beings born with the ability to cast. With the Faes being the strongest, Elves right behind them but only because of the weakened state of the humans. Casting was as much mental, as it was physical, and believing you were a weak race, meant behaving like one. The more advanced of the De-mon clans used mental and physical abuse, as well as, hiding and manipulating history and knowledge to keep humans in the place they thought they should be and wanted them to remain. It worked, humans acted accordingly and were slaves to the ignorance of themselves, their history and the planet they lived on.

Lifespan played an important role since the highest and most powerful forms of casting took hundreds, if not thousands, of years to learn and master. Faes and Elves aged differently than humans, slightly because of that weakened state, but more so because of what Faes are thought to be, and how old and much stronger the race of Elves are. One Elven/Fae year is roughly equal to about ten to thirty human ones, having such a wide range because even within the two races, not all Elves and Faes aged the same. A seventeen-year-old Elf or Fae on the low end of that range would actually be one hundred-seventy. Both races generally lived for hundred of thousands of years and the humans, if not for their weakened state, could live for tens of thousands. The Elven and Fae calendar year adhered to the planets travel time around its star, much like the humans of the planet, but the scale/scope of time was viewed differently and the months were different in name. Capricorn started the year followed by Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and finally Sagittarius. A month in Elven and Fae perspectives of time, was more like a day, and a year was like a month.

The Elves and Faes long life spans made their races ideal for casting, but the Faes embraced it, while the Elves viewed it as such a dangerous practice and power, that even amongst them castors were rare, the majority of them being found within the Telic order, where it could be closely monitored and strict laws/rules concerning it followed and enforced.

Before the mysterious figure could make it to them, Mez cried out in panic.

“Help! Help him please! We need to get him to……..”

The male hadn’t just been knocked unconscious, he’d also been gravely injured from the monsters swipe. It was an injury that a portion couldn’t heal, and he wasn’t going to make it back to Dis(2) in time. Vinn had no choice, either let him die or heal him, further revealing more than he wanted to this early in the plan. Vinn stuck his sword in the ground and rushed over.

“Hold him still! What’s his name?” Vinn asked Mez.

“I don’t know!”

Oh for fuck’s sake! You came out her to fight these bloody things, and you don’t even know each other’s names?”

Rob couldn’t understand some of the logic, reason, and decision making the noobs were displaying. It was why so many of them kept losing. Rob felt like they were all seeking out, the “You died! Game over!” screen.

“Game over fucking party, huh?”

“What?” Mez didn’t understand.

“The party was so big, we didn’t get a chance to meet everyone, and not everyone is so friendly here, because of what’s happened. We just want to go home! We want this to end, but we have to survive somehow.”

Despite the circumstances, Rob was blunt as usual.

“What the fuck does being friends have to do with survival? I need to know a fuckers name, so they’re where I need them to be when I yell at them to be there, so I don’t fucking get killed! I don’t need a damn friend!”

Mez didn’t have a response, and instead watched nervously, as the guy that saved her life bleed out, and she didn’t know his name.

“You have to save him, please!” She cried out, pleading with Vinn.

“Alright, no name guy, I don’t know if you can hear me, but this is going to hurt, a lot.”

Vinn placed his hands over the wound, closed his eyes, and started to whisper words that echoed into the air, and seemingly caught the attention of all of nature. Simultaneously, a voice so calming, yet so powerful, rang out over the small breeze that started to pick up across the clearing and throughout the Jungles trees. It was Kaia, singing a song so beautiful, the shrouded and mysterious figure stopped, removed her hood and was standing peacefully still, eyes closed, moved by the perfect and familiar notes that touched her inner soul. Rob hadn’t yet noticed who it was.

“What the? Now it’s a fucking musical? I hope ain’t any of you fuckers expecting me to break out in song and dance, cause I’ll let you know right now, that shit ain’t never…………”

He finally looked the mysterious woman’s way again, as he made his feelings about the current situation known. He finished the rest of it in his head, after realizing who it was he was looking at, and what was behind her. She’d broken her trance as the song came to a close, and finally erased the distance between the treeline and the person she wanted to protect.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me!”

“Well, it’s nice to see you too Robbie! “

Carla didn’t notice that it wasn’t her Rob was looking at.

“Not you pretty lady, that.”

Rob unsheathed his sword and pointed at the fleet of Jackers blanketing the sky behind her.

“Just what we fucking need right now.”

“Put your blade away! We already know what they want, let them have it.”

Vinn was staring at Carla, but talking to Rob.

“You are more than half way unhinged if you think they don’t want our gear and items too. With that fleet, they’re going to most certainly try.”

Vinn yelled back to Kaia, who now had a perplexed Deck, still trying to process what he’d just saw, heard, and was now looking at in the sky, standing behind her.

“Kaia, give them a warning!”

Without hesitation, and with very little effort, she lifted her hands out in front of her, directed towards the pieces of ice laying all over the ground. She spoke a few words, that only Deck could hear, and then rose her arms violently up towards the sky, pulling all the pieces into each other and then upwards into a thick, gigantic wall, which nicked the lead ship hard enough to let them know who they were dealing with. The ship landed and out of it, a few Jackers scurried like scavengers to collect the energy orbs. In the back of them holding a scanner pointed in Rob’s direction, was presumably the leader. Rob knew what she was scanning for and could tell, from her eyes, that she really wanted, perhaps his blade, but definitely the level fifty energy orb he had.

“Not today, you treacherous vixen!”

The Jackers retreated back into the ship, as Rob and the leader stared each other down. The woman turned, violently irritated, back towards the ship and boarded. Her black cape and tight black leather gear from head to toe, made her clammy and frigidly cold skin appear paler than it was. Her angry dark blue and green eyes burned into Rob’s memory and her entire aura gave off the presence of death. The fleet flew off like locusts and disappeared over the trees.

Carla gave Rob the eye. She wasn’t entirely convinced it was the blade on Rob’s back, that little minx wanted.

“What? Rob Questioned.

“You know that little minx?”

“Oh for fucks sakes, really? It doesn’t matter where with women huh?”

“I saw they way she looked at you.”

“Well what a fucking coincidence, I saw it too.”

“Don’t get smart with me Robbie. That’s okay, I’ll handle this shit later!”

“I’ve never met the woman before! It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her! Is what I want to say but we both know that’s not the truth.”

“What the does that mean.”

“Well, you see it’s like this sweetheart, I’m a highly sought after man……”

“Oh, are you now?”

“That’s not what I meant, let me fucking finish before you go jumping to conclusions. I’m a highly sought after man because I carry around some of the best items in the game. She happens to be one the most ruthless Sky-jackers there is, so yes we’ve had more than a few run-ins that I might add, she didn’t like the outcome of.”

“Well, I’ll make sure you don’t remember her then!”

“What the fuck is that suppose to mean?”

Rob shook his head, and Carla rolled her eyes as both their attention landed back on Vinn, whose hands were glowing a solid green hue, as he finished up healing the noob.

“Your heal casting is really good, how is that possible? Even for us, you seem much too young for your healing abilities to be this advanced.” Carla first praised and then questioned Vinn.

Of all the casting abilities, healing was the hardest to learn, master and required the most mana usage. Healers were the most sought after castors in all of NL4 but also the rarest, considering it took hundreds, if not thousands of years to learn, and that was just for the basic of the healing spells. Most just relied on healing wands and potions. Rob was looking like he had questions, Vinn had or Carla had answers.

“Someone please tell me whats going on! Three castors and of this level, how is this possible?

Kaia would have made four if the shrouded one hadn’t turned out to be Carla. Vinn was still staring at Carla and she was now staring back, until she nodded, giving him the go ahead. Rob noticed the looks.

“You two know each other, do you?”

Vinn hesitated calmly, preparing himself to reveal what only Carla, he and Kaia knew.

“More like I know what she is.”

“A bloody castor and a fucking strong one at that. I got that part, it’s not exactly some great secret.”

It actually was, but Rob’s awareness, deduction, and observation skills were much higher than most. Carla had done a great job, with help, hiding her powers and identity, from everyone else around her, and at one point also thought Vinn was a threat. She was more than halfway packed and ready to keep it moving once more before Tookey assured her that he wasn’t.

“She isn’t just a castor…..” Vinn responded back.

“Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt or sound ungrateful, you all saved our lives, but shouldn’t we finish this somewhere else?” Mez questioned, considering how dangerous the area had just recently been.

Rob was slightly shocked the girl had managed to use a little bit of logic, considering the current situation she’d put herself in. Mez wasn’t wrong, Vinn and Rob already knew it wasn’t the ideal place to carry on a conversation, but Mez didn’t quite fully understand how heal casting worked.

“You’re right, but he can’t be moved yet.”

Vinn replied, very calmly, putting Mez’s worries at ease. Vinn and Rob continued the conversation.

“She’s a Fae.”

“A what? What in the fuck is Fae, and how do you know what she is?”

“Fae’s are a powerful race that resides in Fae-land.”

“Fae-land? Where in the Ever fucks is Fae-land?”

Kaia could tell Rob was confused, but most people were, Fae wasn’t the world used outside of Fae-land.

“Fairy!” Kaia jumped in.

“ A what?”

“She’s a fairy.” Kaia repeated.

“Those things actually fucking exist?

“I’m not a thing Robbie!” Carla exclaimed.

“Right, sorry, poor choice of words.” Rob, after apologizing to Carla, turned his attention back to Vinn.

“How exactly is it you know about this fairy or Fae business then.

Vinn replied to Rob’s question, still calm, now looking off into the distance.

“Because I’m one too.”