"Ok," I said as I looked around at my colleagues. "Everybody hold on tight. It's my first time doing this, and I have no idea what it's going to be like."

Siobhan responded quietly, "No offence m'lady but that does not fill me with confidence."

I grimaced, "Yeah, sorry. I'm sure it'll be fine. Probably."

We were in the meadow in the south forest, and the sun was just starting to come up behind the trees. Merryweather was on my left shoulder again, both their hands had a good grip on my hair to keep themselves steady. My other five companions were standing hand in hand with me, so we were all in a tight circle. We were all weighed down with gear, including myself.

Siobhan and Padraig had the heaviest packs, they were each carrying a tent as well as a load of food and drinks. Padraig also had the pole with my banner tucked through his pack so the flag was sticking up above us. The twins were similarly encumbered, with packs full of more food and drink. Even Laoise and I had full packs, though hers wasn't as heavy as the others. And mine was probably lightest of all, though I could handle heavy loads for a little while.

We all had our own packs and weapons too of course, in addition to the camping gear and the food. If there was trouble when we arrived, it would take us a few moments to drop everything so we could fight. I'd be ready with shield spells of course so I wasn't too worried about that.

As soon as I felt the veil weaken I told my friends, "Hold tight, here we go." Then I cast the spell and pulled all seven of us through.

The first part of this trip was the same as always. I used magic to pull us out between worlds through the weak spot in the veil. The meadow, garrison, and the woods around us sort of distorted, the colours shifted, and reality melted away into dazzling light and swirling colours. As I liked to describe it, it was like going into hyperspace without a ship.

Normally I'd direct us to another point where the veil was thin and we'd be sort of ejected back out into reality again. It was hard to describe how I actually did that though. It wasn't like navigating in the real world, it wasn't like following a map or looking for familiar landmarks. It was more about feelings or emotions in a way. It was almost more about intuition than anything else.

This time I was not only going somewhere completely new, I was aiming for a place where the veil wasn't thin at all. I wasn't looking for a natural weakness, we were going someplace where the veil was actually quite strong and naturally impenetrable. I was looking for a door. And when I found it, I opened it.

Reality snapped back into place around us. My companions all looked a little uneasy, but Kelly and Keira looked surprised.

"Babe that was..." Kelly's voice trailed off.

Keira let go of my right hand as she looked around. She finished what her sister started to say, "That was different, and we're not dizzy or disoriented."

The seven of us were atop one of the Duma Dé. At first glance it could have passed for the one we were already familiar with. We were on top of a flattened circular hill, rising alone in the middle of a flat plain. The terrain was rocky, the vegetation was sparse tufts of grass and weeds.

We were in the centre of the Duma, and as I looked around the differences quickly became apparent. This one was larger than the one we knew. The top was at least fifty meters across, and it felt like this Duma was taller than the other. The other difference of course was there weren't any bodies on top of this Duma. It actually looked like nobody had visited here in ages.

Just like our two visits to the other Duma, the sky here was a thick dull grey overcast. I couldn't remember if that was part of the legend or whatever, if Siobhan had mentioned anything about it on our first trip to confront Eileen. I was starting to think it had to be a permanent thing about the Duma. It might explain the sparse vegetation, if the weather was always overcast.

"Let's get moving," Siobhan stated. She indicated "We should set up camp at the base of the Duma, on the west side I think. The king's group will be approaching from the east, that will keep us out of sight from them."

"Agreed," I nodded and we started heading towards the west edge. "Merryweather, are you ok to approach the local troop of pixies on your own? Or would you rather have me with you?"

They rose up off my shoulder and announced, "I will do my ambassador job, Lady Tegan. I'll come and speak with you after I've made contact with the local troop."

"Thank you," I smiled as they dissolved into a little spark of light and flew off to the north.

We got another indication of the size difference when we reached the edge. This Duma was probably twice as high as the other. I estimated it was a good thirty meters tall. The sides had the same slope to them so it wasn't any more challenging than a steep staircase, but it also meant the Duma overall was that much bigger. Probably two hundred meters across at the base.

By the time we all got to the bottom both my legs were sore, though the right one was complaining loudest. We all dumped our gear and took a few moments to stretch and flex and move around. Then it was right back to work getting our camp set up.

Like before, me and the twins would be in one tent while Siobhan, Laoise and Padraig shared the other.

After the tents and bedrolls were ready, Padraig set up my banner so it was standing upright between the two tents, to sort of declare our little campsite as temporary Vale territory.

Finally, I went through the packs and got our offering ready for the local pixies. I had two bottles of hard lemonade and the bottle of maple syrup for them, but first I'd offer them two wineskins full of mead and a pound of dried candied fruit I got from the castle Brádaigh kitchens.

With the work all done, Siobhan commented "I suppose now there's nothing much to do but wait? We'll want to post a watch, probably at the southern end of the Duma Dé, to keep an eye out to the east so we'll know when the King's party is approaching."

I replied, "We're not quite done yet. We still need to make friends with the local pixies, so let's not get too relaxed until Merryweather reports back. And I'm hoping we can rely on them to let us know when the king arrives, so we don't need to have someone standing around looking east all day long."

Padraig and Siobhan were both still uncomfortable about getting friendly with pixies. They'd gotten used to Merryweather, more or less. I had a feeling though they weren't keen on the idea of a bunch of pixies all hanging around us.

Laoise seemed more relaxed about it. She was definitely more adventurous than her older sister, and she seemed ready to explore. She looked to me and asked, "Now that the work's done, can we climb back up and have a look around the Duma?"

"Not yet," I replied. "Like I said, I want to meet the local pixie troop first. Once we're on good terms with them, then we can do some exploring or sight-seeing. Assuming they say it's ok."

"Why did you want to come here so early?" Padraig asked. "I'm not complaining, just curious. It's another three days to go before you wanted the king to be here. That's three days of doing nothing, assuming he's on time."

I replied, "Like I keep saying, I want to meet the local pixies and make friends with them. Beyond that, I wanted some time to get a feel for the place, get the lay of the land. And I wanted to make sure we were established and comfortable here when the king arrived. I didn't want to appear here and find ourselves suddenly in the middle of things without any time to prepare."

Siobhan seemed to approve of that, she nodded "And coming early meant we're here first, even if by some miracle the king's on time. As you said, it gives us time to get established and become familiar with the territory. Even though the Duma Dé are neutral ground, getting here first gives us a small advantage."

"Right," I smiled.

In truth I had another reason for being here early. Taralynn told me what the Duma Dé really were, but I didn't have time to do anything with that information before we had to leave. I wanted a few days here so I could study the place and understand it better. I was positive I could use it to my advantage, I just needed to figure out how.

Keira gestured towards the Duma and commented, "Looks like it's diplomacy time."

There were about a dozen little points of light sort of dancing down the side of the Duma towards our little camp. I hoped their relaxed movements indicated this was indeed a friendly group, rather than a small team sent to attack us. I switched my sight on just to be sure. I wasn't really worried, but I knew it was possible the dozen visible pixies were a diversion and a thousand invisible ones could be storming down the side of the hill to wipe us out.

Happily the coast was clear, there were no legions of invisible pixies surrounding us. The dozen or so dancing lights reached the base of the Duma and approached our camp. One of them broke off from the rest and approached me while the others held back for now.

The point of light resolved into Merryweather, as they flitted up to hover in front of me. There was a wide smile on their small face as they announced, "I have met with the leaders of the local troop, and we are all friends."

"That's excellent work Merryweather," I smiled back. "Would you like to introduce us?"

They nodded, and turned towards the group of lights still hovering at the edge of our camp. They waved and gestured for the other pixies to approach.

The lights moved forward, as they did so they all resolved into small winged figures. I counted ten of them. Rather than buzzing around my head, they came to rest atop one of the tents, so we could all sort of face each other at eye-level.

The group consisted of both males and females. Their ages were a mix of young and old, I'd guess the youngest were in their teens, the oldest in middle-age. I had no idea what pixie lifespans were like, but in human terms I figured the ages of this group spanned from about fourteen to mid-forties.

The other interesting thing was they all had colourful hair. Where all the fae I'd met - other than my family - had 'normal' human hair colours, pixie hair seemed to come in every colour of the rainbow. They all had colourful eyes too, from what I could see.

Finally I noticed their wings. Merryweather's wings were a dark translucent red colour, but most of the local pixies' wings were dark translucent blue. There was one here with dark red wings like Merryweather's, and another with dark orange wings.

The locals were all dressed like our small friend, in colourful tunics made of what looked like fine silk. And all were armed too. Their weapons varied, some had small swords, some had little daggers, one had a miniature axe. The tiny swords were different from Merryweather's too. They looked like the other fae swords I'd seen, sort of traditional 'knightly' swords with a straight double-edged blade.

Merryweather flew over to join the group of locals and to do the introductions.

They smiled to the other pixies as they gestured back towards me and announced, "My friends, this is Lady Tegan Vale of Clann Brádaigh. She is the great-granddaughter of Taralynn Brádaigh."

All at once the local pixies bowed towards me.

As they straightened up again, Merryweather looked to me. They were still smiling as they gestured towards the older male pixie next to them, and announced "Tegan, this is Hawthorn Greenleaf. He is chief of the local pixie troop, and..."

Their smile grew wider as they finished, "King of all pixies in Otherworld."

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